Nothing is Wasted: Davey and Kristi Blackburn

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So, guys, go to familylifetoday.com. And get a Weekend Remember gift card. They come and tell me that she has three gunshot wounds. All of our family comes to the, you know, to the hospital. I put on Pandora radio station.

The first song that came up was the song Nothing is Wasted. Pandora is randomized. You don't get to choose what song, right? And we felt like heaven touched earth in that moment. We felt like we heard God say, This is not going to turn out the way you want it to, but I'm not going to waste this.

All right, so we got Davey Blackburn. Who, you know, I've sort of known you for years, and Christy Blackburn with you. Uh, just met Christy today for lunch, but I don't know how we first met. I don't know how we first met at all, but it had to have been through our mutual friend, Clint Dupin, of course. Yeah, and I'm sure Clint's listening right now.

Clint's a family license day, I bet there's nothing he misses. I doubt if Clint, I doubt if you listen, but if you do, buddy, I can still see your jump shot with your legs kicking me in the groin as you shoot threes and laughing and missing the shot. Anyway, we played a lot of pickup basketball in my driveway. Clint is such a bad thing. I can only imagine him playing pickup basketball.

But it's pretty unique that you guys, this is a second marriage for you guys. And you're both pretty young.

So we really want to capture your stories because. Man, they're powerful and tearful. And I bet some people will be able to relate to that. Yeah. Yeah.

So, where do we start?

Well, you're right, and because I'll go and travel and speak at churches, and I'm like, hey, so I've been married to my wife for eight years, and we have a 12-year-old and 11-year-old. And you always see the like, did you let this guy in the past? Oh, wait a minute. There's got to be a story here. He's not allowed to speak at this church.

I know. And if you were to summarize our story and really the ministry that we do now, it would be, hey, the story that you didn't expect. Yeah. Right? Did your life go unexpectedly?

Which, by the way, is all of us. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble.

Well, even the title of your book, Nothing is Wasted. Right. Yeah. A true story of hope, forgiveness, and finding purpose in pain.

So if you're a listener, lock in because all of us have walked through this. And by the way, what's the cover art here?

Okay.

Well, so let me share this. I'll share the cover art. You can look at it on YouTube. If you're not watching us, you better start watching us because you know we're so good looking. You want to see us.

You want to. This cover art is representative of my late wife, Amanda. It's actually in that, that is her sister, Amber, that is posing for that photo right there. But back in 2015, Amanda and I, we had one son, Weston, and we were pregnant with our second. We were church planters in Indianapolis.

And I left to go to the gym early on a Tuesday morning. But while I was away at the gym, there were three men who were on a random crime spree through Indianapolis. And they broke into the home three doors down from me, saw me leave for the gym that morning. They saw you leave. They had pulled a stolen car into the garage through their crime spree.

They stole a car and they pulled it into this garage because nobody was home at the home that they were breaking into. Three doors down. Three doors down, loading up stolen goods and happened to see me drive by.

Well, their biggest motto, like because we saw them at the trial, and their biggest motto was just no one in the house. If no one's in the house, we're just thieves. That's all we do. We just steal from people. It's not a big deal, right?

So that was their goal: finding homes that were no, no one was home. Doors locked? The door was not locked. And I wrestle with that quite a bit in the book: the guilt on top of that grief. Because we were living in a safe neighborhood, we hardly ever locked our doors.

We'd go for runs and we'd fly our garage doors open and we're like, hey, this is, you know, so I left and. When I came home, I found my wife on our living room floor face down, and everything in the living room was completely disheveled. Lamp had fallen down, a decorative ladder had fallen over, and she was breathing very laboriously, but she was unconscious. And when I came in, I thought.

Something's gone wrong with the pregnancy. And you thought the ladder, because there was a ladder that fell down. He thought the ladder hit her head and that she passed out. That's the explanation for the blood. It didn't make any sense to me, like for me, like how he thought of the scene.

Because for me, I'm like, oh, you would immediately think someone came in the home because there was like swisher sweets, like there was like the little cigar thingies. Her wallet was splayed out. But he, he's just so like, ignorance is bliss, like, so naive about life, like, so pure-hearted. And such a safe neighborhood. Such a safe neighborhood that he literally thought she passed out, something with the pregnancy, something hit her head.

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Okay, back to the conversation. How far along was the pregnancy? 13 weeks.

So, so early on.

So, before we started recording, we were talking about.

So, it makes a little bit more sense, right?

So, let me kind of catch you up on that. You know, the Ford of the book is written by Levi Lusko after all this happened.

So, I'm going to jump around a little bit, but after all this happened, Levi reached out to me. And that was really significant for me because Two or three weeks before Amanda passed away, I had heard a message from Levi Lesko. And I was so enamored by this message. He lost his daughter. He was sharing just from the place of the hope of Jesus from this.

I'm going, How could somebody walk through something like this? And she had an asthma attack, right? And died in his arms. And I'm going, How could somebody have sealed this kind of faith and hope in the midst of this? And then the way he was communicating it and stirring people up with faith and hope.

I'm like, so I went home to Amanda. I said, You've got to listen to this message. I'm trying to regale her on the message, right? And I'm totally butchering the whole thing. I'm like, just listen to it.

So we. Take a getaway to Chicago. A couple of weeks before all of this happened, and we're listening to this message together, and we're just in tears. And obviously, all we can think about is our kids as we're hearing this message. And she turns to me, she says, Davey, I feel like that God is preparing us for a season of pain.

And I said, What are you talking about? She said, You know, we've lived a really charmed life up to this point. But I feel like he's preparing us for a season of pain so we can minister to others in our church who are going through pain. Because we can't relate right now, we don't know what that looks like. She goes, I don't want to, but.

But I'm just preparing my heart for that. And I'm terrified about this, but I feel like we're going to lose the baby. Hmm. And I'm like.

Okay, so I put on reserve in the library like that moment, Levi Lusko's book.

Well, it doesn't come available until three days after Amanda passes away. Katie, wait, I have to just wait for a second. Like, when she said, like, if Dave would say that to me. There would be terror in my heart. Did you feel that?

Absolutely. But also, Blended with that was this. I was probably in denial about it because I had this belief that as long as we were following after God and in the middle of his will. That our family would be protected from tragedy. I'm like, we're on the front lines of the kingdom.

We're doing something really hard for you, God. You have specifically, you can read about in the book. There was a very clear calling story that we prayed against for like eight months, but God kept making it clear, kept making it clear that we were supposed to move to Indianapolis to plant this church.

So, in my mind, linearly, it only makes sense that, like, well, God's called us here, He's not going to like. Allow anything bad to happen to us while we're here. Maybe we'll go through hard, but we'll be shielded and protected. And I feel like that's where a lot of people are because you know, that's just the Western American mentality of comfort, convenience, safety, and security gets conflated with our theology.

So then, when something bad does happen, it confuses and disorients people. And they go, I don't even know if I believe in you anymore, God, because it doesn't line up with what I always believed about you.

So then you take this moment where I've walked into the room. And I'm seeing this, and I'm going.

Okay.

Theology, that doesn't line up with it. There's a moment, you know, it's traumatic, so you're like, all of your faculties just get. You just hone in on what's most important, and I'm going. This is what she said. Mm.

When did you recover? She said we're going to lose the baby.

So maybe something went wrong with the pregnancy, but if we go to the hospital, she's going to be okay.

Okay.

Everything's going to be okay.

So you just saw blood on her head. Right. Would you know at that point she had been shot? No, no. I had no idea.

When did you find out?

So, called the paramedics, they attend to her. You still don't know. I still don't know when the paramedics came. I still have no idea. And where's your son?

My son's in his crib the whole time.

So while I'm with her, Just on my knee, I hear my son cooing.

So again, it reinforces this idea that, like, well, no, like, it's something he's fine. This is just her.

So they go, Hey, is anybody in the house? Yep, and grab my son, and we follow them to the hospital. I'm sitting in a waiting room with Weston, fully expecting everything's going to be fine. We got her attended to. At worst, you've lost the baby.

But then they come and tell me that she has three gunshot wounds. And the last one was in the back of her head. That there was a bullet lodged behind her eye and if The swelling in her brain went down that they would try to operate. But basically, we were in a waiting game for the next 24 hours to see if she was going to pull through. How old were you?

I was thirty years old.

So, take us back to that point as you're in the emergency room, just waiting. Are you so shocked? Yeah. Well, completely shocked. completely disoriented.

And all of our family comes to the, you know, to the hospital. And at the same time, so I come from a very rich heritage of faith, just missionaries, pastors. And so you're talking about a bunch of people who like the faith in that room is just, I mean, multiple, right?

So at one point.

Somebody goes, I think we need to worship right now. I think we just need to.

So we even have like video. Of, like, this whole room just lifting up worship. In fact, which is crazy because actually, I had a friend that worked there as a PA in the cardiothoracic surgery. And you guys hadn't met yet? Never met, but my friends were friends with them and actually reached out before it even went on the news, before it all went live.

Like, they were like, pray for this pastor and his wife. She's in the hospital.

So we started praying. One of the girls was a PA, went down to that hallway and said, It feels like revival is happening in this hospital because we just hear worship around this room and just that heritage of faith. It was like a covering, she felt like. Yeah. So, back to this picture.

I'm sitting in the hospital room at some point with. Amber, her sister, like kind of everything, you know, people come and go, dissipate. And I knew that if Amanda could hear anything, she'd want to listen to. Worship music because that's what she would run to all the time. We actually joke about that.

I'm like, how does someone run to worship music? I can't. I personally need something like fast pace. And so we always joke about, like, she just, again, just always, always, a woman of faith. Yeah, you just, you know, everyone says this about a man.

You've never met anybody who has such a pure heart and love for the Lord as her, you know, and. Which is why you ask all these questions like, well, How could the good die young, right? Like, how in the world you were so close to God that why did he allow this to happen? To you.

Well, then you go read scripture and you go, well, the people who follow Jesus the closest, they died horrible deaths. You look at Hebrews 11, you know, so. That was all part of my process of having to. Reconstruct my theology of understanding. The the Temporary nature of this world and the eternal nature of heaven.

So, then that worship.

So, that worship, right?

So, I put on Pandora radio station a particular band that she enjoyed listening to. And the first song that came up was the song Nothing is Wasted. Pandora is randomized. You don't get to choose what song. Right.

That's right.

So, Nothing is Wasted was a song that came up. And I looked at Amber and she looked at me, and we felt like heaven touched earth in that moment. We felt like the veil was just so thin. And we felt like we heard God's. speak to us and say This is not going to turn out the way you want it to.

But I'm not going to waste this. Mm-hmm.

So We find out test results that she has passed away, that There's no brain activity. And So now I'm Where I'm devastated overnight, I've just lost my best friend, my soulmate, my ministry partner, and my unborn baby. That week we're planning her funeral celebration of life service. And what comes to mind is the fact that Amanda had spent all this time and built a reputation in Indianapolis refurbishing furniture. She would ask me again, church planter budget.

So she's trying to make the best that she can and trying to like supplement income for her family, right? But she would ask me to stop by someone thrown off a thrown a dresser on the side of the road, right? In one of the rich areas of Indianapolis. She's like, go pick that up and bring it home. The first time I brought it back, I'm like, what are you going to do with this?

And she looks at me. She goes, Davey, trust me. Give me a little time, and I'm going to turn this into something beautiful. And she would restore this furniture, she'd bring value back into it. She'd go sell it at these.

The first time she did it, she got something for free, sold it for $450. And my entrepreneurial brain's like, Yeah, how do we scale this thing? This is awesome, right? She wants me to drive and pick up a thing. Exactly, right?

But she just kept doing it over and over. And she had this little Facebook business she was doing it on called The Weathered Willow.

Well, that week, as we're planning her funeral, that came to mind. And I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying, Davy, trust me, give me a little time. And I'll turn this into something beautiful. What the world has thrown out as this is senseless. This is so tragic.

Nothing good can come from this. And how could you still follow a God that would do that? Exactly. Nothing is wasted. Exactly.

So that theme became kind of this pervasive for our family. It was like the mantra that our family held on to, going, Can we believe this? We just don't see it right now. Here, Davey. We would play it if we could.

But I just want you to read it. For copyright reasons, we can't play it. And they won't even let me sing it. Can we read some of these words to it, you guys? Sure.

Okay.

So it says, you know my every need. You see my poverty. You are enough for me, Jesus. You gave the blind man sight, you raised the dead to life. You've done the same for me, Jesus.

You are loving. You are wise. There is nothing in my life you cannot revive. I mean, think about that getting played over your wife who is struggling for her life right now. I'm thinking of it.

Like just covering you and what you were thinking, you know? Exactly. There's nothing you can't revive. You are loving, you are wise, there is nothing too hard for our God. It goes on to say, Your word inside of me, my strength, my everything, my hope will always be Jesus.

Your breath inside my lungs. I remember hearing that and like seeing her. A machine basically breathing for her. And just the juxtaposition of that was just like so stark. Said, You're worthy of my trust.

You will forever be Jesus. Nothing is wasted. You work all things for good. Nothing is wasted. Your promise remains.

Forever, you reign.

So that just That bolstered your soul, gave you hope. Yeah. Well, again, it carried us, right?

So the next weeks and months to follow, I would feel everything but. Hope. Yeah. I just anguish and despair, and just, I don't even want to live anymore. But God showing up right there in that moment in such a real and palpable way, I couldn't.

I couldn't not forget that. And sometimes that's where we have to go back to over and over and over: is how God showed up for us personally. He is near to the brokenhearted. that he is an ever-present help in time of trouble. And when we don't feel that.

It helps to remember those moments that he showed up for us. You're reminding your soul. Yeah. I mean, was there a time you went through lament or even what you said before? Like, come on.

Yeah. You know, anger, resentment, I mean, all that, all of that, yeah, or even, yeah, we'll have to get into like because they caught the guys, right? Yeah, so in the month to follow, so two weeks later, they caught the guys. That's the first time that I experienced anger and rage, which I can honestly vouch for that. As his wife, we, you know, you fight, you have like knockout fights, right?

He has never raised his voice at me, and he has never really shown me like aggressive anger. And that's a very hard thing for you to say, you know, like most couples, I've shown him anger towards him, I've yelled at him, right? But he has never had that towards me. And so when he used to tell me it's the first time I had rage, I'm like, there's just you can't even imagine it. No, I can't, I couldn't at that time.

Now I'm like, oh, I feel for him because that's not a normal feeling for him. Yeah. His anger and rage. And your son, how old was he? He was 15 months.

And here you've got this 15-month-old too that you're like, I'm going to be raising him by myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. That was, in fact, when we were on, when I was on Good Morning America, you know, there was a media firestorm.

So that was a complexity here. It was like, deal with all that. Fortunately, our sending church from South Carolina, they sent a team up and they dealt with all that for me. But we all knew Amanda's heart and we knew that she would want her life to be cloaked in the story of Jesus, not in the cloaked of trap, in the story of tragedy. That's so good.

So the news is going to, they're going to focus on tragedy, tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. And we were like, hey, we've got to get ahead of this to make sure Amanda is remembered by who she was. Not by fear and terror. Exactly. And so they did a great job of kind of helping navigate that.

But I remember that one of the questions, Good Morning America asked, like, how do you, how do you feel about Weston growing up without a mom? And it was like, I mean, you can see it visibly on the, it just hit me where I'm like. And it was like almost in that moment, all of this flood of like, I never even considered that in the shock of all of this, I hadn't even thought of this being one of the volumes and it's. And it's just unimaginable to think about that.

So, the next several months, like I said, were full of a lot of despair. And that's when Pastor Levi reached out to me. Why it was so pivotal because as I was sharing with it, I felt like it was the first time someone could understand me. I was physically sick. My body was holding the trauma and the grief.

I was on a couch, couch surfing, because our house is a crime scene, so we can't go back to our house.

So we're staying at some family in our church, and we're just trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together and all of this. And he reaches out, and I just start to share with him everything I'm feeling. Which is pretty remarkable that this pastor, who you've had his book on hold in the library, he reaches out to you. And so then he reminds me of something in his book about running toward the roar. I'll never forget when I first read that.

You've preached this. It is. Everybody's preached it. I know, right?

Well, even he says it wasn't his material first. It was like from Brian Houston and then from somebody else. It's just kind of been passed down. But. But it is so imperative.

It became the catalyst for my healing journey. Because the idea of not letting things that trigger you cause you to suppress or numb from or try to form some weird coping mechanisms around your grief, but instead diving headlong into lament. headlong into your grief. Not seeing your triggers as like a villain in your story that you got to run away from, but actually seeing it as an invitation from God into deeper healing. Explain the running to the roar.

Well, lions they hunt in gender roles.

So it's not the male lion that does the hunting, it's the female lion, right? The males more bark than bite, not unlike the human species. But the males have a role. The female's role is to set up an ambush. The male goes and gets up on his haunches.

You've seen it on National Geographic. Will a beast or a zebra at the watering hole. He gets up on his haunches, flares out his mane, and lets out this huge roar. To scare the prey into this ambush.

So, what the prey needs to do is what's counterintuitive: they need to run toward the roar, not away from the roar. And it's interesting that 1 Peter 5 says the enemy is prowling like a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour.

Well, in Christ, he can't devour us. We know that, right? That's the truth of this. But what he can do is he can scare us away from the things that are going to lead to our healing and wholeness. The enemy is a thief, he's come to steal, kill, and destroy.

If he can't rob from you salvation, he's going to rob from you effectiveness, joy. He's going to try to neutralize you for the kingdom. And so now. With trauma and pain, most people let that get lodged into their life that gets them stuck and they can't walk into the fullness of who God has created them to be. That's the enemy's tactic.

And the one reason why they get stuck is that the triggers in their life that remind them of that trauma are too scary to approach and expose themselves to. And ironically, The reason they stay stuck is they won't dive into that. They think that's what's going to get them stuck. But if they dive into it and expose themselves to it, then the Holy Spirit meets them there and ministers to them in that. And I saw it over and over and over in my life.

Basically, this whole book. Is me coming to that realization of going. If I expose myself to these triggers instead, here's how God's gonna meet me, here's how He's gonna minister to me. And then here's how he's going to carry me through the valley. And that was the story of my healing journey.

And that's what we tell people all the time now. It's like, you have to. List out your triggers. What are the things that are terrifying you? What are the things you're trying to numb from?

And let God minister to you in those. Davey, what did it look like for you to run toward the roar? Like practically speaking?

Well, there was a couple of things. One, the first time when he told me this, I said, Okay, I know one of my triggers. I was getting into my car, my phone would connect to my Bluetooth automatically, and a song that was at the top of my playlist would start playing. It was a song that was played at our wedding.

So talking about triggering.

So I would get so mad and I would bang the dashboard and it's like. It almost felt like the enemy or God or the universe or something was coming at me and that I was just so disoriented by it. And when passed-up, yeah, it was exactly. And when Pastor Levi said that, run toward the roar, I knew immediately. That I needed to get in my car, listen to that song on repeat, and let whatever happened happen.

Wow.

So I did, and I listened to it on repeat for about 45 minutes, and I just wept and I wept. It was just like an ugly cry. But the strangest thing happened.

So, up to that point, I was so sick, sick as a dog, like just knots on my stomach. I'd never been that sick before. It was grief being stored in my body. As I'm letting all this out and crying and crying, all of that began to subside. And then I felt the only way I can describe it is waves of grief come over me, and then waves of grace.

And it's like the Lord met me in that moment and just ministered to me. And all of that.

So now that I wasn't healed. But I I I had now agency. Where I didn't feel like I had agency up to this point. See, grief can take you off guard, and you feel like you're taking it on your heels all the time. And with that principle, it was like.

The Lord was going, Hey, partner with me, and we can get back in the driver's seat with this thing. Instead of hiding and run away, just hiding and run away and just like letting grief hit you whenever it's right. Yeah, but that's so hard to do for sure. I mean, I want to run, you know. It's like I know it's over there, but if I stay away from it, never think about it, talk about it, it'll go away, and it never does.

But it's so hard to do. You're saying, run to the roar, it's God's invitation. Like, I'm inviting you into some healing. Exactly. Yeah.

And I think the other thing that's on the other side of it is remember, it's empowering. Yeah. Now, all of a sudden, you're not just this, you're not just this victim of the enemy that's kind of just being tossed to and fro. Yeah, it gives you a sense of strength and power again to go, oh, no, I'm more than a conqueror in Christ. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me.

So, even though I am a victim in this situation, I don't have to have a victim mentality.

So, God, what are you inviting me into? Let's go do this together.

Now, is there sometimes you have to do that with somebody? Absolutely. Like even your coaches helping somebody because they're like, I can't do it alone. I'm scared. Counselors.

Sometimes you have to have a skilled surgeon, right? To help to facilitate that kind of surgery. But I think the biggest thing in that is it goes back to the whole take my yoke upon me because my yoke is light and easy. And I think you think about oxen and really truly, like, what is a yoke? It's for oxen, right?

And they go in pairs, but they always pair the immature oxen with the mature oxen. And so you think about, he's like, I'm going to, you're going to learn from me. He says, learn from me, right?

So you get to learn from, well, God being the oxen, right? Jesus being the oxen, the more mature one, and us being immature. And we get to, the coach gets to help guide us in that. But eventually we do that with Jesus, just us and Jesus. But some of us have a hard time doing that.

And so you really can partner with God. You need a guide or a voice helping you. Yes, to help you with that. Yeah. With that, it does make the load lighter.

And I remember in Levi's book, and we had him on Family Life Today years ago, but I remember him saying that he and his wife had to open the. hospital box and go through her clothes. What was yours like? Because I think, didn't you go back to the house? I was going back into your house with her parents?

Back into the house? Back into the house. Yeah, we went to go pack everything up. And that was another one of those moments. And each one of these are, they feel larger and more daunting, right?

But you're gaining the strength and the fortitude with the Lord to be able to hit to like hit those head on. Yeah. It's interesting, too. I think what we do as people that love one another is we try to shield and guard. Yeah.

Like I can imagine, like if my son was going through that, like I don't want him to hurt. Yeah. And yet God's like, no, I want him to walk through this in order to heal. Yeah. Yeah.

So when we shield the people we love, maybe that's counterintuitive in terms of, you know, maybe it's exactly what you needed.

So take us, you walk through the doors. On that day when I went back to the house. Yeah. And what I so I put worship music in. I mean, was it the last time you were there when you found her?

Yeah. Yeah. Hadn't been back. Hadn't been back. It was three months.

Three months. Three months. It took me that long. Yeah. So fortunately, my family did a whole lot to kind of reset the house.

You know, there were things that needed to be cleaned. They had to replace all the floors and kind of clean everything. Everything was. It was really bad and So they wanted me to be able to go back into this and remember the house as it was. This house was a house of ministry.

It's where we started our church. The first people that gave their lives to Jesus gave their lives to Jesus right there in that same living room. Yeah, it's sacred.

So it's a sacred thing. And I was waking up with cold sweats, with nightmares, with because this house was haunting me. And I didn't want to go back in.

Well, that's an indicator. If anything's haunting you, it's a trigger. It's a trigger, right? It's for freedom that Christ has said is free. Not triggering by run.

Yeah. I'm running from that trigger. You're so easy. Run towards the break. The reason that I was waking up with it was stored, psychologically, it was stored in my brain and I couldn't let it go because it wasn't filed away properly.

So God in his kindness is going, I want to file this away with you. Like, we're going to retake this house and the meaning of this house over.

So I put worship music in my ears. Incidentally, first song on that playlist was the song Nothing is Wasted. Come on.

Well, that was intentional. That was an accidental. You're like, this is the song I was in. I'm going in, listening to this song right here. And I had a few different songs.

I was like, this is my armor, my battle, right? To go in. And I went and just laid down in the spot that I found her. And I just, I just wept and wept and wept and wept and wept. The same thing happened though.

After about 45 minutes or so, it's like. That weeping turned into worship. It turned into Like prayer, and it was just God met me in that moment. Yeah. Whatever that cloak, that stronghold that was over my heart with the house, it just lifted.

For the rest of the day, our family were able to walk through the house and we were able to go through her things and we were able to. Whereas before it was terrifying, I wouldn't have been able to step through the house. I'm being ministered to right now through my tears and listening. But I think the thing God's saying to me is, even with the people that I love, I don't want him to hurt. And so I like I'm thinking of our kids and our grandkids like and because of our personalities, we want them to be happy.

Yes, exactly. And I don't want them to feel pain. And so, I mean, my picture of you laying on the floor where you found your wife. It's just like that was a really healthy. Thing to do.

Yeah. And courageous. Courage. That takes real courage to do that. Way to go.

Thank you. I'm not sure I could do that. That's But I need to let my kids lament and be sad when they need to be and to mourn. Instead of thinking that that's a bad thing. That's a really I agree.

She's always rescuing them. I'm like Figure it out, dude. I'll give you a picture. My dad's the one that drove me to the house. Ah.

And he said, Do you want me to go in with you, buddy? And I was like, I got to do this by myself. On one hand, I'm conscientious of how everybody's perceiving what I do all the time.

So, on one hand, I needed to walk through that by myself. I did not need to worry about what everybody else is doing or how what's going on. I needed to be literally laid bare before the Lord and say, You know everything about my heart, you know, everything about what's going on in my heart right now, and I'm just displaying it out in front of you. And so, to your point, my dad, I mean, think about the. Self-control that he had to exhibit right there to just go, right?

I'm gonna sit out here in the driveway while you guys. I bet he was praying his guts. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure.

Now, do you end up living back in that house? No, yeah, when we sold it, and it just. Part of grief, too, is you got to decide what you're going to hang on to, what you're going to live in, and what you're going to move on from, you know, and it's kind of moving forward. They're new chapters of life and new seasons of life. And, That's all part of the grief process is trying to sort through that.

God always has a story for us, but when you hear someone's story and what they go through, you're like, please just never do I have to experience that or have my kids experience that. And I feel the same way. I feel like if my kids had experienced what he had to go through, but you know, we're on the other side. And there's not sides. Like he's still in it.

Yeah. He's not healed, period. He's still healing, but being in different, a different season and a new chapter and different things happening in his life, it's a beautiful story. And you have your own journey. Yeah.

Take us back there. Yeah, I mean, were you, were you aware of this story? Yeah. So I actually, I didn't meet them. They were church planners.

I actually helped some friends plant a church at the same time. And those friends that I was really close with were close with them. Really?

So they were the ones who texted me when it actually happened, the morning it happened. And then part of that group, again, another friend was the one, the PA that went and saw them in the hospital. I bet you guys were all praying for them. Praying like crazy. And I don't watch the news because I just, I'm like, happy-go-lucky.

News is just always like, everyone's dying. Everyone's hurting, and I'm like, I don't want to see that. That's too much pain in the world. I'm with you, yes. But I happened to be at school, like, I was taking a break from college.

I went to my parents' house, and they always play the news. I passed Good Morning America, of course, they do. And I'm Good Morning America. And I actually see that interview that he was talking about. You saw him.

I saw the interview. Are you on Good Morning America like pretty soon after? Pretty soon. Wow.

Pretty soon. And I heard like the way the interview was trying to go. The guy was trying to get him to get some kind of emotion. And it made me so mad to hear him say that question about. You know, your son's going to have to grow up without a mom.

Like, I felt like he was just pushing it because he just kept on sharing the gospel of Jesus. And this guy was just trying to get something else out of him. And your fierce side flared up? I was angry. I was like, don't you dare do that to this man.

He is grieving. Don't try to get some kind of rise out of him.

So I just felt this injustice for him. And then as time went on, my stepdad was talking about. Have you shared this already? No, but go ahead and share it.

Okay, I was about to say: so my stepdad is a chaplain in the Marion County Jail.

So he goes and he shares with, again, People who do the worst things imaginable. And we are one stupid step away from being just like all of them that are in jail. And I think sometimes we need to level the playing field, right? And so he sees the people who've been on trial for murder, for rape, for all the things that we can think of, right? And he goes evangelizes to them and shares the gospel with them because he believes in restoration for every person, right?

And so he was actually going and visiting the three men that were involved in the murder. Did he know it was those three? He did. And he came back to me and he said, Christy, I would really love for you to reach out to him, to Davey, and to let him know that I'm having conversations with him. And I said, I can't.

Don't, please don't have me get involved that way. I cannot let like they're like, you have contacts that can get a hold of him. I'm like, yes, but please don't make me do that.

So I waited and I didn't. And, you know, so again, going back to Steven, like rewind, the part of my story, I was a pastor's kid and I felt like I lived in this like, you know, fish, I call it a fishbowl where everyone had an opinion on your life. Everyone saw your life, but they didn't really know you. And then I also called it the hell bubble in a way because we lived in the parsonage in the middle of a town of 600 people. And we would go out and in public, we would just look like this picture-perfect family, but we would go back in the house, and there was just a lot of abuse that went on.

And so, being in that abuse and experience that abuse, it was just so difficult to like differentiate who's God and who's my dad and what's a good father versus like I knew the wrath of God, right? You know, I could experience the wrath of God, but to actually like. Respect God and understand him as a loving, gentle father. That was never on the picture for me. And so, you know, fast forward, I'm in my 20s, I'm in college, and I'm hiding for my life in fear that my life is going to be taken by some family member.

And, you know, fast forward a little bit, I get assaulted, you know, with a group of guys just walking down for my purse. And fast forward a little bit more, you know, I'm in a house fire in the middle of the night. Fast forward more. I'm, you know, and getting robbed in the middle of the night. Like every single year, it felt like trauma.

She's just like after trauma, after trauma.

So I was used to, you don't get good things, and God's really not that good.

So, like, life, what you have to do is you have to be perfect so you can go to heaven, be the perfect girl, be the perfect Christian.

So, I just learned, like, I'm going to put this massive armor up, I'm going to protect myself at all costs from every single person. And I just have to just do the right thing, right?

Well, God just totally just like smashed that and broke that to pieces. He just, he really wanted a strong relationship with me, and I was at arm's length with him. And so, So it's just beautiful to note what Jesus really did on the cross.

So for me, I was like, I can't keep up the facade. You know, so I just started every sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever you can think of. I was like, I can't do it. It was rap for you then. I don't know.

It was rap, not rock and roll. It's even worse. She's too young for rock and roll. Yes, yes. But anything that could, that I could cope or numb with, right?

Like my life sucked. If we're just going to put a word to it, it was. It was a hard life growing up like that. And, you know, as life went on, I just, some of my little yeses became big yeses. And I ended up getting pregnant out of wedlock.

And so, you know, one of our stories is that how we met is I was a single mom walking into this church. When I was going to Davey's church, I actually just went to the back, like the far corner possible to serve and kids where no one could see me. And I could just be serving for his kingdom and his glory. I would just sit in the back row. I would sit in the back row.

I would, and again, I would try to avoid him like the plague. But well, let me ask you this.

So. Evidently, your mom remarried because your stepdad was a chaplain in this prison.

So you never contacted Davy. About these guys. No, no. So I had no, I didn't have a clue about this until. One day in a CrossFit gym that I'm working out at, she walks into the CrossFit gym.

And I didn't know her. She didn't, well, she knew me. She knew of me, but we had never met. And it was the moment that my heart woke up. This is a few years.

How long ago? This would have been over, well, right about a year after Amanda passed away.

Okay.

I was. I didn't think that my heart could love again. Yeah. And uh Just stop. You know, like you got one love story.

That's it. Like there's no way I could love anybody like I loved Amanda. But I was praying, God, if you were to ever bring me another wife. I was 30, so I figured I'd probably get married again.

So, can I make some requests? Could she love you more than she loves me? Could she love. Me too. That'd be great.

Oh, for singles, this is a good one. Love her, love. Love Jesus more than she loves you. Yeah. Which that was the marking character trait of Amanda.

Yeah. She's just, and so that's. Should be for everybody if we're getting married. Yeah. And then Love Me, Love Weston as if he were her own, and love Amanda.

Because I knew that my ministry assignment had shifted. My purpose in life had shifted. I knew I was going to be carrying Amanda's story with me and ministering to other people out of that. This person would need to sit on the front row, hear me preach on that, and champion it, not just tolerate it. And hear Amanda's story over and over.

Exactly. And have the confidence, her own inner confidence, and who she was in Christ that she didn't feel like she was trying to fill someone else's shoes. No. People can't do that.

So it felt impossible. Honestly, I felt very helpless and hopeless about it. Here she walks into the gym. My heart wakes up. I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what I don't know this girl, but for some reason, something happened.

No, no, he felt that. What I felt was, I know him. This is actually the man that I've been praying for, right? You know, and shoot, he's a pastor. She started attending the church.

I was pastoring. There she was, single mom, walking into the church, started serving. I caught my attention. I'm like, here's like, I could see her fervency for the Lord. I was like, oh my gosh, she really loves the Lord.

And, but I would try to like get in her way in the atrium after I was done preaching. Single girls were doing that. And I was like, oh, this is, I don't get this. I didn't understand the, like, yeah, I, I, they're all going after him, which made you be like, oh, yeah, no, that was the funny thing about it. It's like, there were a lot of single women that came and single moms started coming to the church.

They all have an agenda. The one that doesn't want to have anything to do with me, I'm like, I want to talk to you. That's what I want to talk about. Yes. So it was one night in the CrossFit gym.

Actually, as I was finishing up the Manuscript to the book, you know, I finished this manuscript in 2017. Oh, you did, but it got delayed because the trial got delayed for so long, and they wouldn't let us release it till after the trial.

Well, then, by the time it Finally, the trial happened. There had been so much that had happened. They asked me to write a couple more chapters. But I'm finishing up the manuscript of the book, going, God, what is the redemption story? Like, I know you've healed my heart so much, but.

How do I convey to a reader as if I have to defend God that like you're restoring my story? And I walk in and she's walking out. And I'm like, this is my moment. I gotta, I gotta talk to her. No words have been spoken yet.

Not a few words, but not really. I mean, I would put a hat on. I would just look down. I'm like, no one talked to me in the gym. I just hung out with my girlfriends.

So yeah, it was, it was a nothing really. Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of conversation. She was, she was avoiding. This is like months. It was months.

And so I'm finally, I'm like, I, so I always say I cornered her very pastorally. And I'm like, what's your story? You've been coming to my church for three, four months. I don't know anything about you, right? Our church was small enough that I knew everybody.

I knew their stories. And she starts to tell me everything, trying to scare me away. Like, you don't want me to. Did you think it would scare him away? 100%.

What pastor would want a girl who was so messed up, right? You know, I'm like, don't, I'm, I'm, I'm, like, I'm baggage. You don't, you don't want baggage. Like, and so I always tell my girlfriends, they're like, they were 20, one of them was 24. And she's like, I'm just, I have so much in life.

No one's going to want me. I was like, girl, I was 31. I had a child. I had a lot of sin and baggage. You're like Mary McCollene and the woman in the west.

That's what they combine. And here's this pastor who's interested in me. I'm like, I promise you there's a gap there for you.

So she tells me all this. All I keen in on is the fact that she's on missions work after college. And I'm like, focus on the wrong thing. Focus on the wrong thing. Telling me there's a chance.

So then, you know, she was serving our inner city ministry. I'm like, oh, is that why you're serving? She said, well, my parents live in that neighborhood, my stepdad and my mom. I'm like, that's a really dangerous neighborhood. They like by choice.

Yeah, that's part of their ministry there. I said, well, the reason we started it is because of Amanda and how she died. And she goes, Davey, I know more about your story than what you're comfortable with. One of the greatest passions of my life is growing spiritually stronger. Going deeper, learning more, and connecting to Jesus more.

And maybe you feel the same. Or maybe you want to explore what it looks like to follow Jesus. You can go to familylife.com/slash strongerfaith. And we've got resources there that can help you grow in your faith. And I really hope that you'll check it out because I'm confident that you'll find something there that will make an impact in your life.

Go visit familylife.com/slash strongerfaith. She goes, Davey, I know more about your story than what you're comfortable with. And that's when she drops on me. My stepdad. is the chaplain that ministers to these three men.

And I'm like, what? You should have seen his eyes. They were so glossed over. And, like, now, knowing him, I'm like, this makes sense. He just will process and he sat there and he goes, You wanna go get dinner?

I'm thinking, no, I gotta do it. I was like, on one hand, I gotta get to the bottom of this. I can't. Reconcile how this woman, first of all, how you made me feel. Right.

When I thought I could never feel anything again for anybody. And then now you're that close to my story. And I'm already working through all of this stuff with like forgiveness. And, like, you know, I was impacted by Jim and Elizabeth Elliott's story early on. Who wasn't?

And I was 18 years old when I read Elizabeth Elliott's journals to Jim about whether they were going to, it was, you know, passion and pure or passion and purity. But she was talking about just being content with the Lord. That was my journey going into being called into ministry. It's like, all right, Lord, if it's just me and you for the rest of my life doing ministry, I want to be that content.

Well, then, of course, circle back.

Well, now my wife's been murdered, and now Elizabeth Elliot really took on a whole new meaning to me. But the fact that she didn't just like, okay, I'm just going to not think about that and maybe grant mercy, right? But the fact that she went right back in and ministered. To the same tribe that took her husband's life, and they were so impacted by that, they gave their lives to Christ. Like, that was the story I felt like God was calling me to.

That was the action. I was feeling the stirring, going, So it was all part of my like dealing with the rage and bitterness, and realizing the upside-down kingdom of God is that there's forgiveness. And then there's There's mercy and there's grace. Yeah. There's like, I'm not going to hold over you and hold you accountable personally in my chart of accounts, what you've done to me.

And that's part of my freedom. Yeah. That's part of my healing. But then on top of that, now I'm going to love my enemy. Pray for those who persecute, right?

What's so beautiful about him saying that is that these three men went on a crime spree for like two weeks before all that happened? They were two of them were out on parole. I mean, so again, like these men were just consistently, I mean, they were boys at the time, just doing just crime everywhere. And so, when we went into the hearing for sentencing, all the victims get to share like what they, what they express, what they wish for these men. You know, give them the worst sentencing, right?

Give them the most judgment. Were there any other murders or assaults to people? There were other assaults. Yeah. There was another murder by the shooter that was not brought into this trial because it was a separate case.

It was a separate day.

So he had murdered before. He had murdered another about eight days before. Yeah. But, you know, there's like, again, theft. There's, you know, again, assault.

There's people are all saying. Murder. You know, so you get all the way up to murder, which is Davey's story, which is, it was, you know, the worst crime according to the court, you know, that happened. And everyone's wanting the. Give them the worst, give them the worst sentencing, give them the worst sentencing.

And to see, again, as someone who needs to forgive their dad, needs to give, you know, forgive so many different people who have harmed them. Were you there, Christy? Yeah, I was at the trial because it happened seven years after. I mean, we were married. We were in 2022 is when the trial happened.

That's sweet that you had each other for that. Oh, it was. Yeah, and I even write about in the book that like as the verdict's being read, On my right hand was my best friend who has walked with me through just about everything. He's actually the guy I hung up the phone with. on my weekly call with him on Tuesdays before I walked in the house to find Amantha.

So he's there at my right hand, and my left is Christy. And it was just this like picture of just the faithfulness of God as they're about to read this verdict. Yeah. Yeah. But go ahead and finish what you're saying.

No, but it was neat because then Davey gets to do his like testimony and like what he wants for those people. And it was beautiful because he said, well, I forgive you. That was the first thing that came out of his mouth to these men. I forgive you. And judge, do what you see fit.

Like, but more for again, restoration, not for retribution. How did you get there? That's a journey right there. Jeez, can we just cry the whole time? You get me not.

Well, I mean, there's also this part, you talk about running to the roar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Walking in there and looking at these men.

I mean, that's running. There's another part of me is like, I'm good to let him.

Well, I'll never see him talk to him again. It's really interesting because one of the guys is one of the accomplices. We were in a hearing for him, and the first hearing we walked into, I was terrified. Like, I could not, he was craning his neck to try to look at our family. I think he was trying to express something when you can't talk to each other right there in the hearing.

He's trying to express like remorse or something, right? But he just kept. And I don't have problems looking at somebody in the eye. I couldn't look him in the eye. It's like there was some kind of power being held over me.

Wow.

And until we get to his sentencing hearing. And I had prepared a statement where I wrote out all of these things saying like Hey, I'm choosing to forgive you. Did you stand up and read it? I did.

So I stand up in front of him and I'm like shaking. I'm so terrified to read this out loud. I'm speak for a living. I know how to project my voice. I have a podcast.

I'm not afraid to speak in front of people. But something about this was so, it was, it was the shackles of bitterness that was, it had a grip on me until I actually said out loud. Jalen? I have chosen to forgive you. And the only way I can describe it is it snapped all of a sudden.

And this rush of empowerment came through me, the Holy Spirit. And I actually looked at him and I said, Jalen, look me in the eye right there. Come on.

Yeah. And I can't take credit for that. That's what I want people to understand. It's like. When you begin to step into the upside-down kingdom of God.

There is an empowerment of the Holy Spirit that is other than you. It is otherworldly, it is supernatural. The upside-down kingdom doesn't make sense. It's where we don't fight fire with fire. We fight.

We fight it with weapons of righteousness. Bitterness is not thought with bitterness, that just perpetuates it. Yeah, it sees, it makes you see the stronghold of the enemy. But you know what you got to see there? Like, it was a beautiful thing because Jalen does it, receives what Davey says, and puts his jumpsuit over his face and starts weeping.

Soon as soon as Davey says this, yes, yeah, it was like the whole room there was something that snapped in the whole room that was just like, What just happened here? Like, you could feel a spiritual presence just amazing, grace, yeah. Yeah. And so the journey for me was just realizing that if I keep holding on to bitterness, in fact, Christy gave me this phrase when we first got married. She said, bitterness rots the hand that holds it.

Uh And if I hang on to this, it's just going to kill me.

So, forgiveness is really an exercise of me trusting God that He's the greater arbiter and judge in my story, and He's the greater Avenger. That any effort on my part to try to get into all of that avenging or like all that, I'm just going to foil it. I'm going to mess it up. Yeah. God may not do it in our timing, but he's going to do it perfectly.

Well, you said that. I mean, really, with my dad, I had so much anger. And I, the reason why I got that quote is because someone's speaking life into me. And they said, Christy, you can stay bitter and resentful your whole entire life, or you can put a stake in the ground today and you can say, I forgive my dad. And I said, well, what happens in a week when I remember all the like the stuff that happened?

And they said, the stake's in the ground. You remember the stake. You go back to the stake. It says, bitterness rots the hand who holds it. And so that's my mantra of like, man, I don't want that to loom over me.

I don't want that to have power over me and ruin me. Right. Because a perpetrator usually don't really care. Honestly, it kind of just, they did it. They don't realize maybe they even harmed you to the level that they harmed you, right?

And they don't want to face it. They don't want to face it. Right. Yes. So you're actually rotting from the harm that was done.

You're, the wound is open and just oozing and pussing and all this stuff. But what a beautiful thing if you put a stake in the ground and say, I'm going to forgive them. I'm going to always forgive them. I'm going to remember when I forgave them. People think it's passive to forgive if you don't understand the kingdom.

It's actually the most warrior-like thing that you can do. Here's why: because the enemy has won, essentially, a battle in your life.

Someone has partnered with the enemy to encroach on your life. That's what's happened when you have been a victim of something. The enemy wants to win twice now. He wants to cause you now to be undone by all of this. That's his ploy in his play.

So the warrior spirit says, okay, you know what? If I trust God with this, what I'm doing is I'm taking the battle into the supernatural, into the spiritual, where it belongs. And I'm fighting with different weapons, weapons of righteousness, grace, mercy, forgiveness. And by doing this, I'm actually effectively partnering with God to undo the work of the enemy. Yeah.

Think about this practically. When I go and preach now and I share a message of forgiveness. People give their lives to Christ because I share the gospel.

So, people are going crossing from death to life. I feel like I'm redirecting traffic now, right?

Well, who's ticked off by that? The enemy. The real enemy of my story.

So now he has done something in my life to catalyze. Life and renewal for so many people. What he intended to paralyze you. What he intended for evil, God meant for good. And this is why Timothy Keller says God gives evil enough space in our lives that it ultimately terminates itself.

The enemy just overplays his hand and it's going to lead to his own demise. And that's what we, as kingdom people, have to remember: this is how I partner with God. to take back my story and not let the enemy win twice. I mean, how long did it take for you to get there? You know, you talk about rage.

Every day. Every day. It's every day. I mean, it really is. It's like you have to make the decision.

That's part of faith, right? Is you go, all right. I know what the truth is. But my feelings aren't lining up with that right now.

So how do I step in the truth? Even when even when I don't feel like that.

Well, the gap between those things, that's faith. Faith says, I can't see it, I can't feel it, but I know this to be true, so I'm going to walk in this. And then God begins to fill in those gaps with you with His grace.

So you encounter these things all along the way where you go. Oh, and it's like a reinforcement of like, yep, that's okay, that's right. That's the kingdom. That's the kingdom. So it's a daily decision.

But all along the way, God brings things to where you actually own it, right? Like you begin to feel it, and it begins to become who you are, and you're like, Yeah, now I know that I know that I know that this is the way to operate in the kingdom.

So it took months. I'm gonna say, because seven years later, like during the trial, like right before the trial, we're like getting emotionally, you know, ramped up. Like, okay, we gotta, we gotta get into this trial, right? And you even mentioned him, you're like, I don't even know like today if I feel like forgive like forgiveness today, right? And it was such a neat thing because now you're hearing the story more in its entirety, like things that you details you never heard before or understood before.

So now he's having to like relive the trauma again, worse in a way, because like he's hearing things about that, yeah. Yes. And so he had to choose in that moment to forgive. And me seeing the second and you know, experiencing the secondary trauma, the secondary grief, I became angry and rage-filled. Oh, yeah.

I actually had to go to counseling after the trial because I hated them so much. And it'd be easy for you as a wife to stir the pot and to be like, I couldn't, I wouldn't forgive them. Yeah. The power that we have, but instead you went to seek help. Yeah.

What happened to the guy? You're triggering all your old wounds too. Yeah. Yeah. What did happen?

So the, you know, there's one shooter, right? And then there were two accomplices. The two accomplices struck a plea agreement with the prosecution. to testify against the shooter. And so their sentences got lessened.

They each received 29 years. And then the shooter received 84 years on our case, and then another. I think 30 on the other case, or something like that. And then, so he'll be in prison for the rest of his life. In Indiana, you have to serve 75% of your sentencing without parole.

Did you publicly? Read. And talk about your forgiveness to each of them. To each one. Yeah.

You did. Yeah. What about the guy that murdered her, that shot her? The the other two we saw actual Physical responses from that. You did both of them.

Both of them, yeah.

So the one covered his face and cried. Yeah. And the other one is the one I wrote about in the book. And it's just, he, it was amazing because he. He had the opportunity to talk to the judge to try to make a case for why his sentencing should be less, to talk to his family that was represented there.

And to talk to the victims, he bypassed the other and just looked at me and he said, I cannot believe you just told me that you forgive me. He said, I know I could have stopped all of this. He was the oldest one. He said, I could have stopped at all. And I didn't.

And I don't know how I'm going to be able to live with myself. The fact that you just said you forgive me, I just I can't I don't ur I don't understand it. Yeah. He just had tears in his eyes. He couldn't even compose himself to say this.

And then, um. Afterwards, we got to minister to his family as we're all coming out of the courtroom, and his family's coming out. And I'll never forget it. It was his grandmother. Yeah.

His grandmother comes out and she goes, I had lost hope in humanity. She said, Until I've seen how your family has walked through this. And it's restored my hope in humanity. Like they're a church-going family. I think that the hardest thing when you see these families and you see their story.

So, again, like every person has a story. That's why I mentioned my dad's past, my mom's past, right? Every person has a story.

Well, At the hearing and at, like, again, the trials for all three different people, for all the different sentencings. Only one of them had a full row of people, and it was all women. It was that guy who said that I could have stopped this. He had a full row of women supporting him, and then his brother. Everyone else had maybe one other person.

So, who do they have on their team supporting them? They had a rough. Rough upbringing. Yeah. The story of the The guy who shot Amanda.

Um He was, when he was 12 years old, he was dropped off at his aunt's doorstep. Essentially, his dad was in prison. His mom was strung out on drugs. And so he was abandoned. I learned this from a local pastor in Indianapolis that were friends with this family that basically fostered him from 12 to 18.

that they tried everything they could. He was already caught up in a lot of drugs and gang stuff, and they tried everything they could to sober him up each time, you know, they would start to mainstream him. He'd go to school and then he'd be gone for weeks at a time and they'd come back completely you know, um, high and and totally strung out. And it was just that cycle over and over until one day he didn't come back. And then cops show up at their house and they learn that he's the one that's involved in all this.

So his story I think that's the other part of forgiveness is you begin to learn other people's stories and the humanity of it all. And you go. Hurt people hurt people. Yeah, we're all broken. And I had the choice: am I going to let this thing that's happened in my life become just a perpetuation of pain?

Because it's going to ooze out of me if I don't deal with this. Yeah. And they never dealt with it. They didn't have the tools to deal with it, or they just decided not to. They decided to go a different route.

And I don't want to be. continuation of that. But with him, though. But with him, he's the only one who didn't show any signs of remorse, anything. He actually showed signs of aggression a lot of times in the trial.

It was helpful afterwards. We were turned on to a book by Timothy Jennings called The God-Shaped Brain. Yeah. Right. And he talked about it.

It's beautiful. It's Christian. It's a Christian neuroscientist. And he talked about how our brain gets formed with the message of the kingdom. And he says that every one of us comes into critical junctures every day where we have the choice to choose: do we choose my kingdom or God's kingdom?

My ways or God's ways. My ways are always ways of self-preservation. God's ways are self-sacrifice. And when you choose enough, my way, my way, my way, my way, what happens in your brain from a neuroscience standpoint is it actually. Constantly flips you over to your limbic system, your fight, flight, or freeze, instead of making decisions with the prefrontal cortex.

And you start to lose sensitivity with that. And so your conscience. Literally becomes seared.

So he says, We can now scan brains to see a seared conscience. An inmate.

So they scan inmates and they'll see this. Probably makes sense. Because they've made so many decisions. They've just walked the way of life of fight, flight, or freeze and not chosen the way of love and self-sacrifice. Yeah.

It reminds me of the scripture: God has given them over to an irreparable.

So that's what we witnessed with him. It gave us some explanation to go, How could you sit and hear me talk and read this? How could you sit and listen to Amber? Amber wrote the most beautiful letter. Really?

Yeah. To the shooter. It was just, I mean, we're all in tears. How can you sit and listen to that? And have.

Just smug face, no response.

Well, it's because. Potentially, there's some like demon oppression and possession there or whatever, right? But it's like he is so, his conscience is so seared. The conscience is so seared. And so.

I think that's one of the hard things is because, as an idealist, I want to be able to go, hey, we're going to win the world. And that means also the people that killed my wife. But to sit in the reality of humanity in the world and go, I don't know with him. I don't know. I've got hope for the other two, but I don't know with him.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've seen the Lewis Smead's. Quote, and who knows if Lewis is the one who first said this because I've heard it several different places, but it impacted my life when I had to choose to forgive my dad walking out when I was seven. Long story. But he says, you know, when you forgive someone, you set a prisoner free, only to discover you're the prisoner.

Yeah. Which I remember reading that thinking I'm locking my dad up, but realizing I'm locking myself up. Do you feel free? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Both of you. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We always say it's the upside-down kingdom.

Like, to me, a litmus test is: do I love my enemy? You know, you think about Jesus, he's dying on the cross, and he loves the people murdering him. And again, here's two thieves mock, one mocking him, the other one, and he's like, Oh, yeah, you'll be with me in the kingdom. But the other one, he still wanted them to be forgiven as well while he's. Unjustly getting murdered.

And so for me, I think about just that litmus test: do I love my enemies well? Can I forgive people well? Can I step into kingdom? I think that's the kingdom right there. Yeah.

And so we definitely feel free, but every day I wake up, I'm like, your kingdom, not mine. Your kingdom, not mine. It's that battle every day. Yeah, it is. It really is.

So now we lead a ministry called Nothing is Wasted Ministries, name of the book. And the whole idea is that we meet people in their pain and provide them a pathway through. And so we're trying to intersect them at the place where they feel stuck and going, hey, there is a pathway to this. And it functions in a lot of different ways. The primary way is we have a course called Pain to Purpose that we launch in churches.

People can take it as individuals, they can take it in a local church. We launch that in discipleship. you know formation um Constructs within a church, right? It's a small group or a class. And they also can take it with one of our coaches.

So we have about three dozen coaches that coach people one-on-one. through their pain path. And the differentiator about our coaching is that if someone comes to us and they have recently lost a child or something and they need some help with that, we match them with our child loss coach. That coach has walked through that story.

So they've had a personal experience with it, healed from it. And now they've gone through our training and equipping and certification to be able to train people through that. There's something different to sit across the table with someone to go, I know exactly where you've been. I know exactly where you've been. And I know the pathway through this.

And so, all of our coaches are biblically centered, spirit-filled, and trauma-informed. Those three are so important to us. And that's how we help people navigate their valleys. What do you guys, as we close, like, what do you want our listeners? Like, how would you encourage them, or what do you want them to know or to get?

Yeah. You know, this is one thing I said on social media. You know, God calls our like afflictions and our troubles light and momentary. I remember reading them in scripture and being like, I wish I didn't even want to live. Like the taste of death was sweeter than living.

So I don't get how God, like, how is that light and momentary? Right. But if you keep on reading in that scripture, he says, compared to the eternal glory. And I'm, and I, in my mind, I'm like, this life has been very difficult. This life has come with trauma after trauma after trauma.

And if you're telling me the eternal glory, that heaven and everything in it is going to be like way more amazing. And this is light and momentary. Then I sign me up, please. And so it has, I think for the listeners, There's gonna be so many people who are going through everything. I mean, we have our hidden things.

We all do, right? We don't share the broken pieces a lot of times, but I would encourage them. It is going to be light and momentary compared to heaven, right? Compared to the eternal glory that's going to await us. And at the same time, share your story with people.

Our stories are so powerful and it will empower you to take back your story and begin to heal you. That's right.

I mean, there's a reason in Revelation that says that it's we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Yeah, there are times that we need to borrow faith from others when we don't have faith of our own.

So once we do feel that bolstering again and we can attest to how God has shown up in our lives as we share that, it helps other people that don't have the faith in that moment. I think. Probably the thing that I would want to share with people is that, um, as the pain they're going through is right now Um I think a lot of people feel like they Nobody understands what they're going through. They feel alone and isolated in it. And I would say, one, that's a ploy of the enemy.

He wants to isolate you. He wants you to feel like you're the only one going through what you're going through.

Well, 1 Peter 5 tells us, let us not forget there are saints all over the world who are suffering in the same way that we are. And so there are other people. And you can hear their stories and you can get some encouragement from their stories. But most importantly, we serve a high priest, Hebrews tells us. Who understands, can empathize with our pain.

Why? Because he has walked through. Every trial, every temptation that we walk through. And I remember putting Jesus to the test in my own healing journey. I'm going, yeah, I hear that verse.

I mean, I was a pastor, I was preaching these things, right? Which, by the way, you always come to a place where. You're going to be confronted with: Do you really believe what you say you believe?

So I'm putting all these things to a test now, where I'm going, you say you can understand. I gotcha, because you can't. Jesus, you were never married. Yes. You were never, you have no idea what it's like to lose a wife.

You have no idea. Right. And I'm like, just. Just like fuming, venomous, like Jesus, like, you are a liar, you know? And then I remember just like, I feel like in this moment, Jesus was like a big brother to me, where he just put his arm around me and he goes.

I know what it I know exactly what it feels like to lose a bride. Whew Okay. I lost my bride. Thousands of years ago, when Adam and Eve swapped the truth of God's word for a lie, and this world became the dominion of darkness. And he said, Davey, what did I do about that?

I went to the cross on a rescue mission. To bring my bride back. And now I'm inviting you. into that same rescue mission. And it was just like this.

Wow.

Like you really do understand. And I think that's the beautiful thing about the person of Jesus, that God in. Like God did not. just linger in the luxuries of heaven. He he chose.

To subject himself to the human experience and to suffer with us. Compassion, that's what compassion to suffer with us. And he walked the greatest road of suffering, endured the greatest injustice of all time.

So that one He could put his spirit inside of us to be empowered to do that, and he could guide us and direct us the entire way. Isaiah 30 says, Though he give you the bread of adversity, the water of affliction, the teacher will hide himself no more. He'll be like a voice whispering to you, This is the way, walk in it.

So I want people to understand. He sees you. He understands. And he knows the way through. Just follow him.

That's beautiful. Christy, would you mind praying just for the listeners that are just, man, they've heard this story? I've cried like 50 times listening to it for both of you. But I'm just wondering if you could pray for those that are just maybe have been where you guys have been. Oh, Father, I'm just so thankful for you, one, because you are just so good.

And you want to meet us right exactly where we're at, and because of your goodness, Lord. And so I pray specifically for every single heart and mind, every ear that's been hearing this podcast on the radio, on YouTube, wherever they're seeing this right now, Lord, I pray. specifically for them, that Lord, that you just meet them, they feel your presence, they feel cherished and loved by you, that Lord, that they feel heard, that their story has a purpose to it, that they can be comforted. Lord, you are near to the brokenhearted, and I pray that they just feel that.

So, we thank you so much in advance for all the things that you are going to do for every single person that is here that is going to be blessed by the Holy Spirit by speaking through us, Lord. I pray that they receive all of this in Jesus' powerful name. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. And let me just say, if you would like to get the book, nothing is wasted. Buy one for yourself and about 50 other people. And last question is: how can people find you guys? Oh yeah, nothingiswasted.com is where all of our ministry stuff is.

And then I'm on Instagram, Davey Blackburn, D-A-V-E-Y-B-L A-C-K-B-U-R-N. Yeah, and Christy Blackburn. Yeah. And Christy has also an incredible thing that she does is she helps people heal holistically too, l called Linen and Roots.

So you can follow kind of her wellness side of things. She coaches people with her PA background and wellness through Linen and Roots.

So I'm so glad that you're so good. This is the longest podcast we've ever had. Oh, are you serious? Yes. You guys are serious.

It's so good. But I'm so glad you're so real and honest because people could look at you and think, oh, they've got these three kids. They're beautiful people. They're amazing. They love Jesus.

And then you just totally open up yourselves. Through the ringer. I'm really glad that you do that. Hey, thanks for watching. And if you like this episode, you better like it.

Just hit that like button. Yeah, and we'd like you to subscribe.

So, all you gotta do is go down and hit the subscribe. I can't say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don't think I can say this word. Like and subscribe.

Look at that, you say it so easy. Subscribe. There he goes. Hmm.