 I am going to share what God has done in my life recently. Mine is a story of God's relentless pursuit of me. And it can be beautifully summarized in an excerpt from a really popular worship song right now. When I was his foe, still his love fought for me. When I felt no worth, he paid it all for me. His love chased me down, fought until I was found. He left the 99 for me. There's no shadow, he didn't light up. Mountain, he didn't climb up, coming after me. There was no wall, he didn't kick down. Lie, he didn't tear down, coming after me. I bought a lot of lies. And since he grabbed hold of my heart, I cry over everything so I'm sorry. But you know, he wants to kick down those same walls and tear down those same lies in your life just like he did for me. So one of my biggest concerns about sharing my story is for someone to walk away with the impression that I ran from God, I had my fun, I partied, I indulged my flesh, and everything turned out fine for me. Yes, by the grace of God, I'm experiencing his blessings in my life today. But just like Sonia just shared, the damage that I caused in my recklessness is still felt to the very core of my being. Especially when I look at my kids. Based on my disobedience and my selfishness, there are so many deeply lodged shards left for God to heal. So please resist the urge. Despite the demonstration of God's beautiful grace, and overwhelming forgiveness in my life, to hear my story as a free pass to rebel. The consequences are real. They are long lasting and the regret that I carry will be for the rest of this life here on earth. We have a savior who wants to shield us from this hurt. If we would only let him by rejoicing and staying in that protective net of his mercy. And I was there. I was brought up there. I was brought up in a very loving, godly home. My dad has been a pastor for 30 years. He's a pastor over at Cowbridge Upper Upland, Randy Walsh. I was not lacking in love. I was not lacking in truth. I had a firm foundation. I was brought up in the word. And I served in ministry at a young age. My parents poured into us. We had that foundation. I married very young. I was 22 when I got married, started a family. I was thriving as a wife and a mom. Proudly poured myself into that role. I loved it. My husband and I were very involved in church. We were very active in ministry. We were pretty solid. We were good. We had a great relationship. We communicated, again, very involved in church. At some point, I began going through the motions, got a little burned out, developed a complaining heart, stopped nurturing my own relationship with Christ. My husband and I stepped away from ministry. And then he began traveling out of state for about 18 months. And every Monday through Wednesday for a whole week, he would be out of state and this lasted for 18 months, which took a toll on our already weekend marriage because we had stepped out of ministry. We stopped fellowshiping. We didn't have that accountability. And now he's leaving Monday through Friday. And I'm pretty much a single mom at home during the week. And we didn't have a foundation for that type of strain on a marriage. We eventually stopped going to church altogether. And he had shared with me in a roundabout way that he really resented my parents' role in my life because I just depended on them too much. If I had a parenting question, I'd pick up the phone and call mom or dad. If I had a Bible question, I'd pick up the phone or call mom and dad. I mean, he was gone Monday through Friday, but he didn't like that. So because he didn't like my relationship with my parents, I went into reactionary mode and I pulled away from them. I wanted to save my marriage. So OK, well, mom and dad are the problem. Obviously, it's not me. So let's just not let them in our life. Side note, my parents loved me through every step of my journey. I never once questioned where they stood on how I was living my life. They were clear with the truth, like Sonia shared with her son about her son. They poured their love into me. They were such a blessing. My parents prayed and prayed and prayed for their prodigal. They had men and women that were prayer warriors with them that stood beside them and never stopped praying. So if you have that prodigal out there today, don't give up. They are not out of God's reach. And I mean, I know that many men and women came aside, mom and dad, to help to just lift me in prayer, to lift them in prayer. It's a heart-wrenching situation. I feel bad to be such a tool of the enemy in their life, but I just, God is powerful. God is really powerful. So we pulled out a church. Now I'm pulled away from my parents. And now we moved to Arizona. We had been living here. We moved to Arizona in July of 2004 to begin a business, a real estate business. We began to compromise. We didn't really get roots down in church or anything. We did find a church to attend occasionally, because we knew we should for the kids. And you know, if grandma or granddad happened to call, they would have to say, yeah, we're going to church. So just damage control. We never got plugged in. We never had really any intention. We were hiding from accountability. We began drinking a lot socially with neighbors, with sports parents, with whoever would drink with us. The kids suffered a lot. They saw the hypocrisy. Because now we're going to church. When they were smaller, it was all about the Lord. And we had a really good, solid focus. And now we've grown up. They're grown up a little. We're still going to church, kind of trying to keep our foot in there so that it's not all bad. But now we are introducing this very compromising lifestyle to them and causing complete confusion on their part. Not to mention a doubt of God's power in our lives, period, in the world. So again, we began drinking. And I started to kind of, like we do in sin, I started justifying my behavior. And I kind of made up this history in my mind that wasn't real just to justify my sin. Well, I was raised really legalistic. And when I was little, I thought if somebody had a beer, they would go to hell. So I'm protecting my children from that. And just these little silly lies that you tell yourself to justify where you're at. So that's where we were at. 2007, this real estate business that we took our family to Arizona to start, failed. The real estate industry crashed. And we lost everything. So now we're not going to church. We have a pretty empty marriage. The only thing we really do with our time is drink. And our kids are, we're all just kind of existing. My husband and I were not getting along at all. There was no emotional or spiritual intimacy whatsoever. And because we lost the business, I had to go to work full time. So we were having some financial issues. I had been a stay-at-home mom before that. Well, I went to work full time and lo and behold, there's a man there who thinks I'm pretty and he thinks I'm funny. And he thinks I have a lot to offer and I'm smart and everything that my husband thought that I wasn't, this man thought that I was. And I was prime. I was prey because I was weakened. I was not in the word and I was neglected at home. That is not an excuse. It is not a justification, but it was the enemy's time to pounce and he did. So I just, I gave way too much of my heart to this man. He was in a struggling marriage too. And, you know, we thought we were doing okay because we would set boundaries, but my heart was just poured into this man. And in my pursuit of what I felt I deserved, I sacrificed everything. I deserved to be loved, I deserved to be appreciated. I deserved to be cherished. I deserved to be happy. Sound familiar? What a lie from the pit of hell. And it bombards us at every corner. What I deserve, what you deserve is the wrath of our holy God because we're sinners. Nothing more. So Greg found out about this man at work. I shattered his trust. I broke his heart and I begged for forgiveness. So we went to about two years trying to get back to normal, but we didn't really do anything to try to repair the damage. We just kind of swept everything under the rug, hoped things would get back to normal and kind of kept plugging along. I did start praying. I was on my knees all the time. God save this marriage. I don't know what to do. Please help us. I know you hate divorce. Everything I knew to do except seek the face of God. I was just seeking his hand. I wanted his hand to work in my life, but I was not seeking his face to know him and to know that transforming power that he could have in my heart. I just wanted him to fix things because things were really messed up. So that's where we were. Greg eventually said he wanted a divorce and I became desperate. I know we cannot divorce. I convinced him instead of divorce, let's just separate for six months. So we did that. We separated in July of 2011. We'd been married for 17 years at this point. The kids are about 15, 14 and 11. Did the six months. We moved back in together in January 2012. So we're gonna try to make it work. Greg did make it very clear that it was primarily for the kids and that there was really nothing in me worth loving, but he would try. But I was willing to do that because I would rather be in a miserable marriage than have a failed one. In my heart and mind, divorce was just not an option and we'll get through this. This is a valley. We'll see it through. So we moved back in. Shortly after we moved back in together in January, I think it was March-ish, my grandma who also lives in Arizona, her health began to fail. And so since our whole family was in California and I was in Arizona with her, a lot of my time went toward caring toward her. So I was going back and forth from my place to her place, which was about an hour's drive. And I had Greg's full support in doing that. But at the same time, I'm trying to get this, our marriage back on track. So I'm not putting any time into the marriage. I'm spending a lot of time with Nana, which was a precious, cherished time that I'm so happy that I had with her, but it left me no time to work on the marriage that we needed to clearly work on. We were in a nicey-nice phase, being cordial and cautious and optimistic, but there was still just nothing there. There was no spiritual or emotional connection. It was a dead, neglected marriage. So Nana died in May of 2012. A month later, Greg dropped a bombshell on me and said, oh, I found someone else too. It's not going on anymore. It was a girl from work, but you know, it happened and that's where I'm at. So at first I was devastated. And then I was kind of relieved, like, okay, we're even. So can we, you know, move on? Let's leave it behind us, move forward, restore, heal, forgive, let's do this. We can do this, right? No, nope, nope, nope, nope. So what happened was I did the whole, all right, well, give me all your passwords. I need to start spying on you. And well, spying is really exhausting. It is so exhausting. So I did that for a couple months. I don't know, it didn't last very long. This was around, like I said, 2012. And then late 2013, there was some kind of just weird stuff that he was doing and I got a little suspicious. So I brought up all those passwords and found some things that really broke my heart. So I gave him an ultimatum. I said, hey, this is what I found on your computer. What the heck is going on? Either you're in this marriage or you're not. What's happening? Are you with me or are you leaving? He completely called my bluff and said, all right, I'm out of here. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're, we gotta talk about this. Nope, I'm gone. So now this is all God's fault because I've been praying. What is wrong with you, God? Why didn't you fix this? I cannot, you hate divorce. I was pleading with you. How dare you do this to me? I questioned everything. Like I said, this was December 2013. My husband decided my daughter's 15th birthday three days before Christmas was a good time to move out physically. It was a very devastating, dark time in our life. So I used this shattered faith and questioning God as an excuse to find answers. I need to seek my own truth. I need to search, is Jesus even real? I mean, that's what everybody's doing anyway, right? You need to search your own truth. So the drinking that I had started before, I was just, when I was just a little miserable, when I was very miserable and hopeless, the drinking became out of, completely out of control. Drinking, partying, very reckless behavior, completely absent from my kids. I was so focused on numbing my own pain and my own turmoil, I was totally unemotional or emotionally unavailable to my kids. I completely failed them. Not only did their dad bail on them, but their mom checked out emotionally 100%. They were left to deal with this all on their own. It got so bad that I got a DUI. I was thrown in jail for a week. I had my kids lying to my parents when they called that everything's fine. It was a really dark, lonely time. Through this valley of despair, I did have a partner in crime and he was fun. He was always having a good time at the bar, always laughing and just a very fun personality and I wanted to be a part of it. So I met this man and we had fun together. In reality, looking back, he was just as miserable as I was. We were all just masking our pain with pretending to be happy and drinking and social and everything else. But he made me feel special again. I was so desperate for love and affection, which I could have found in the arms of my savior, but I chose to search elsewhere. But he freely and generously gave me the love and affection that I so desperately longed for. And like I said, drinking was a huge part of our life and we would drink into wee hours of the night and have really long, meaningful, philosophical conversations on his back patio. And any of you who have had those conversations know how long they last and how deep they are. So, and he was a very metaphysical minded type of guy. The universe controlled a lot of things and energy and all that stuff, which the way I was brought up that is ridiculous and I would just, yeah. So, but we would have these conversations and he would talk about energy, right? And I'd be like, you know, I don't know what the energy does, but you know, I know the Holy Spirit does this and I would tell him things I know of the Bible and I would make it clear. Well, I'm not a Christian. I'm not Christian right now. I don't know what I believe, but this is what the Bible says about that because I know that part. So, so I would share with him what I knew. This treasure that was hidden in my heart since I was teeny tiny started welling up and I was recalling scripture and I knew scripture and since I was a child, this is all I knew. Ultimately, these discussions, they kept bringing me back to the foundations of my faith. What was I really questioning? I had the truth the whole time. Why am I fighting this? Why am I running from God? Well, because I still had some self to serve, right? That's why I was running from God at that point. Once that hit me and I knew, I know the truth. I knew that I was lying about seeking the truth because I knew the truth the whole time. But nonetheless, God was using this treasure in my heart not only to draw me back to himself, but to also minister to this man, Ian, who I was growing deeper and deeper in love with. Yet, now I have this personal awareness of my need to get right with God, but I'm in love with this man who thinks the universe controls the earth. Where am I gonna, hmm, how do I do this? So ultimate quandary, right? In April, 2016, we went on this beautifully romantic trip to Napa, of course, you know, the wine train trip. So wine, more philosophical discussions. And one of those discussions included marriage. And now I'm starting to panic. And I said, no, I can't marry you. Him and my kids had had a falling out a couple years before they didn't like each other. So I kind of used that as an excuse to stall. Like, oh, I can't marry anyone that doesn't get along with my kids, so you fix your relationship with my kids and we'll be good. And I knew that he wasn't gonna do that, so I was like, I don't know what to do. I have to eventually break up with this man, but I don't know how much longer I can put up this facade, right? So I just, I really quietly struggled with this dilemma over the next several months. And I didn't wanna share it with anybody because then I'd be accountable to take action and I wasn't ready to do that, so that's where I was. During this time, I lost, we lost, our family lost, our very precious uncle Gary. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. It was very sudden. He was a very precious part of our life. Anyway, it was really hard to deal with. And I'm in Arizona, the whole family's in California and I'm not even there with everyone. After he had died, he died in April. And in August, we had gone to Maui to spread his ashes. And it was the whole family, all 22 of us go to Maui to spread his ashes and it was beautiful. And it plays such a deeper longing for Christ in my heart because of all this grief that my family was experiencing and the bond that they had in Christ and the pain that I saw that wasn't there because of Christ's power and peace. And I was an outsider, but I still didn't wanna lose Ian. So I need you to understand and listen carefully to this timeline because God is ridiculously amazingly gracious to me. This is the end of August. I believe it's the last week of August, 2016. I fly home, go on with my worldly life with Ian because that's what we do. And then out of nowhere, on September 5th, not even a week later from returning from Hawaii, Ian has this radical conversion in his living room by himself. He's on his knees crying out to Jesus Christ to come and save him because of the things I told him when we were drunk on his porch. So, matter of fact, he was in his living room and I was sleeping in his bedroom. Yeah, we were in sin, sorry. And he comes to wake me up and he's like, I just gave my heart to Jesus. And I'm like, what? Go to bed. You know, it was so far from reality in my mind that it was, okay. So anyway, I did wake up and we didn't have a conversation, but it was so far out of what I ever thought would happen. I was initially reluctant. Okay, am I ready to stop partying? Is this real? What do I do? But eventually, it took me a whole two days. That's how dense I am. It took me a whole two days to see this whole structure of what God has planned for my life and I'm still resisting it, even though it's right there in front of me. This miracle is happening right there in front of me and I'm still going, well, I might not, I, me, me, me, I want this, I want that. I don't know, I don't know. Anyway, two days later, I gave my heart to the Lord. That was September 7th, September 9th. We got married, so yes. And it was really cool because that just so happened, it was so sweet the way everything worked out, but he asked me to marry him after I gave my heart to the Lord. He goes, well, I need to meet your parents and I need to go ask for your dad's hand in marriage because that's the right thing to do. I'm like, okay, so we drove out to California. I'm on the phone with my parents. We're rejoicing. It's just such a beautiful reunion time. So we get out there and my mom goes, well, why don't you just go to the courthouse now? We're like, oh, okay. We didn't plan to get married that day, but we did. So the fifth, he gave his heart to the Lord. The seventh, I did. The ninth, we got married. The ninth, 10th, and 11th, we spent at, in separate places, him at a men's retreat with my dad, me at a women's retreat with my mom. And we are just basking in who God is and how much he loves us and the spirit is just pouring into us individually. It was so just poetically beautiful. The 11th, we get home from the retreats. My dad baptizes Ian in his backyard and my precious husband has grown, leaps in bounds and is now leading me in Christ. Amazing, amazing story. God is amazing. And all of this just gives me that realization of his tenacious pursuit of me. He met me where I needed to be met. What have I learned through this journey? Three years after he's grabbed hold of my heart. Looking back now, I know that in the beginning, I had initially pursued God with a sincere heart. I know that I was there. I know that was where I was. But at some point, I had developed a really transactional relationship with him. Well, if I do this, then he'll grant me that. If I behave this way, I'll reap these rewards. I had tried to do all these things in my own strength. I knew what was expected of me as a Christian and I completely removed the power of the Holy Spirit from the equation because I could do it myself. These are all very self-reliant factors. So when I was faced with that catastrophic event of divorce, I did not know what to do with myself. I wasn't used to depending on God, I was gonna fix it myself. I didn't know how to respond. And I had conditioned myself to be so self-reliant that I questioned, is God even there? Can I trust him? In my flesh, I used these questions as an opportunity, like I mentioned before, to seek my own truth because I was used to leaning on my own understanding so now I'm gonna find my own truth. I was primed, I was easy prey to buy into that pop culture mantra, you do you. You do you boo. What I approached as a struggle to survive after the divorce was nothing more than intense spiritual warfare. I can see now the spiritual battle for my soul in every bad decision, in every effort to comfort myself with self-gratification, in every attempt to numb my pain with alcohol and indulgences of sin. I shared earlier when I met this man at work, I bought into the lie that I deserved. I deserve to be loved, I deserve to be cherished. This entitlement brought me nothing but self-service. So now I'm entitled and I'm gonna serve self and I'm gonna go get what I deserve. The Bible warns against serving yourself because self is sinful. Jeremiah 17, nine tells us the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? But the enemy tells us be yourself. The world has eaten it up. Who cares if you're glutton? Be yourself, who cares if you're a stripper? Just be yourself. If you wanna sleep around, indulge, be yourself. It's okay. It's to the point where if you question someone else's morality, now you're the villain for questioning them and having the audacity to question how they're living. It's just, it is a very genius lie from the pit of hell. Because of this lie that I devoured as truth, which is from the pit of hell, I decided to indulge in self. Why not be yourself? Well, Romans eight, five and six says, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. Mark seven, 20 through 23 goes on to say, then he said, what comes out of a person that defiles him. For from within out of the people's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, sorry, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person. This comes from within us. This is us. Can you see this as spiritual warfare? Do you see in this you do you philosophy that this is your adversary's scheme to prowl around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? I didn't see it as a spiritual battle. I saw it in the delightfully little package it was presented to me. Freedom, freedom from answering to anyone, freedom from accountability for my actions as I sought to fulfill every desire of my flesh, freedom to be myself. In reality, it was the greatest bondage I had ever succumbed to in my life. I didn't know what it meant to really draw all my strength from the Almighty. So much of my life was caught up in my self needs, self awareness, self reliance. I forgot that God, the creator of the heavens and earth pours his power and grace upon us in our weakness. I didn't understand his powerful grace and how it's made perfect in my weakness. And I didn't appreciate the reality of spiritual warfare. Once I have this right perspective, I am made aware of all the forces at work in my life. Our verse four today, second Corinthians 10, four through five, the weapons of warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. The spiritual battle is real, but he arms us with the sword, the word of God, to stand against the enemy's lies. He equips us with strength, wisdom and discernment through his own spirit to stay strong in the spiritual battle. And he invites us to spend time in his presence through prayer and worship, pressing in to know him more. As I grow to know God's truth and what is real, I also know more of what is false. So I'm stronger to stand against the lies of the enemy in the powerful name of Jesus. He never leaves me to fend for myself in this dark world, but he reminds me that he is constantly with me, fighting for me, even when I cannot see. I need to be reminded every minute of the battle of my soul. He was fighting for me even when I was running from him. I need to be reminded of his mercy and grace, reminded of his purpose in my life. So I'd like to ask you, are you in danger of being yourself, doing you? The enemy will deceive you by appealing to your sinful nature. He knows your weaknesses and he tempts you into giving into each and every one of them. Think about your weaknesses for a minute. When you give into them, where are you with God at that moment? Do you see yourself as deserving a little bit of fun? In that moment, do you consider how you're breaking God's heart? You have the free will to make your own decision and eventually you will deal with the consequences or the blessings depending on the choices that you make and there are consequences, ladies. With God's grace, he's working in me to slowly pick up these pieces with my kids. My behavior and bad decisions cause some pretty appalling hurt to their precious hearts. Lot of damage. The enemy reminds me every day of the damage that I caused and how my decisions have caused such lasting spiritual destruction to them and that they're lost forever all because of me, but God. I know there is nothing hopeless because of his grace and love. I know that the bad decisions that I made are not more powerful than God's grace. I refuse to let the enemy's lies keep me discouraged because I know the truth. I know him. I know his immeasurable forgiveness and restoration that has the power to transform lives. So for those of you who think that you're too far out of God's reach, you are not. For those of you on your knees praying for your prodigals, keep praying. I pray that you would know that you are not beyond his grasp. You're not beyond his abounding love. You're not beyond his unending mercy. You're not beyond his kind forgiveness or his beautiful grace. Ephesians 3, 16 through 21 has been my steadfast prayer since coming back to the Lord and it remains the desire of my heart as I grow deeper with him. That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen. Amen. Thank you.