This is the Truth Network. How could God have let something like this happen to someone who spent her life serving Him? I can understand others going through this bad people, wicked people. But, Amanda? She had a calling on her life.
She loved Jesus. Her life meant so much to so many people. She breathed life into everyone she interacted with, and How could he let this happen? These questions and more swirled in my head as I exited her hospital room into the embrace of family members waiting outside. What do you do when you feel you're promised something, called to something?
but the outcome leaves you empty. disappointed. hurt. confused. What do you do when the calling turns out differently than expected?
when God's promises don't line up with your present reality. And what do I do with God?
now that it seems his calling actually led us into this tragedy. If He were God, couldn't He have prevented this? And if he were good, why wouldn't he have? Today's episode speaks on the topic of murder and may not be appropriate for all ages. Listener discretion is advised.
Yeah. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. My guest today started his journey as a pastor.
He authored a book that he never wanted to write. And now he leads a ministry where he reminds hurting people every day that nothing is wasted. Davey, welcome to Hope in the Morning. Thanks, Emily. It's an honor to be here.
It's an honor to have you, honestly. And I was telling you before we came on that your ministry of nothing is wasted is the closest thing I have ever come across that is similar to hope in the morning. And we're younger than you are, our ministry is. But the heart behind the ministries is the same. you know, different ways of arriving at our ministries.
You know, you had started out, as I mentioned, as a pastor in Indianapolis. Can you kind of start us there in your journey of what led you to Indianapolis? and kind of take your journey from there. Yeah, Indianapolis was my birthplace.
So there was some roots there, but I don't think that that was necessarily the main thread of what led us there. At the time, I was married to Amanda, my late wife. And We were in South Carolina, thought we'd be in South Carolina for the rest of our lives, honestly. We were part of a very large, fast-growing church. It was like the dream job coming out of college to be a part of that church.
And, but man, the Lord just began to, there was an unsettling in our heart. It began to knock on the doors of our heart in terms of calling us to something that felt just so much bigger than us. And typically, that's the way the Lord does that. It always seems to be way bigger than what you can. Fathom, or that you think you have the capacity for, and we prayed against it for eight months, which often is what we do when God begins to call us to intimidating dreams.
But over time, we realized that God was calling us to plant a church. And Indianapolis just felt like it was just felt right.
Now, we had some very, over the next several months, some very, Poignant moments where God made it very, very, very clear. I spell some of that stuff out in the book. Um It was a kindness of God to make our calling story that clear because. Looking back on what happened. You could almost say that we were on a, you know, we kind of put ourselves in the path of then what would take place with the home invasion, the break-in into my home.
And if we hadn't had that kind of a clear calling story. I think I would have lived with a lot of regret. I know I interact with a lot of pastors and church planters, and there's a lot that I, when I assess. Kind of their calling. It doesn't seem like it's actually from the Lord.
It feels like it's more of a personal ambition or an. you know, they're not wanting to serve underneath their Particular senior leader, and God wants to keep them at that place to teach them what it looks like to honor authority. And so, but they're trying to, they're fighting against it.
So they're like, well, the, the, The solutions go plan a church. And I'm just glad that wasn't our. Sentiment that wasn't where we were at, that God just made it very clear. Because I would be feeling a lot of sense of guilt. that we had kind of manipulated.
this track that we were on. But as it as the Lord would have it, Um We just felt it was extremely clear God planted us in Indianapolis. In fact, put us in the place that the part of Indianapolis that we were supposed to be at, and the house that we were supposed to be at. And it's very, very providential in a lot of respects. How long did you live there when the home invasion happened?
We moved there November 11th, 2011. And What's interesting about that too, and I'm sure in your own story and listeners who are listening to this, if they attune themselves to it, they can see some different things like this. I've heard a lot of people tell me, man, dates are very significant in my story. It seems to be these like imprints. Kind of thumbprints that God uses to show us that he's in the details.
November 11, 2011 is when we packed a moving van up to move to Indianapolis to plant this church. November 10th was when our home was broken into. November 11th, 2015. is the date that's on Amanda's tombstone.
So four years to the day. that we had packed a moving van up. to follow this call. Wow. And so, I mean, you mentioned that you both felt this calling strongly.
And that's important, too. I mean, for pastors and their wives. to equally feel called because when a pastor is called the ministry. It's not just him. You know, he's preaching on Sundays, but a lot, a lot is sacrificed, a lot is.
Going on behind the scenes as far as what their wife is doing. And you guys, when did you guys have your little boy?
So we had him in 2014, July 28th, 2014.
So he was 15 months old. at the time that our life got turned upside down. And I would say, I want to underscore what you're saying. It's very important. I would say it's not just.
It probably isn't just as important that the spouse is called, but maybe even more important because there's a massive sacrifice that. That your family undergoes across the board when they step into a call to ministry. And it can be very easy to begrudge that. You know, I grew up a pastor's kid, so I understand, like growing up, what it's like to have a different way of life because you're serving the church, you're serving a ministry.
Now, we're always very cognizant to make sure that we're not sacrificing. They were putting measures in place to not sacrifice our family on the altar of ministry, which is often what we hear happens, but. At the same time, there is A level of sacrifice. Jesus, in the calling that he gave his disciples, he said, You know, foxes and birds have no place to lay their head, neither does the Son of Man.
So, if you're going to take up your cross and follow this movement of the kingdom of God in such a way that you're going to give your life to ministry. There's going to be a cost to it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for you, it ended up being a huge cost. And, you know, you talk, you talk about.
That morning that changed everything. Can you walk us through that day that kind of turned your world upside down? Yeah, it was a Tuesday morning, which is, you know. I know that's an old adage, like it was just a Tuesday, but that became very much like it was a normal morning, or it was supposed to be a normal morning. And I went to the gym early in the morning, just like I did every Tuesday morning, had a phone conversation with my best friend who's a pastor in Delaware.
just like I did every Tuesday morning. And after I hung up the phone with him and got back to my house, I walked into my greatest nightmare. And, um, you know, for the sake of time and for us to be able to talk about some other things. There were what had happened is there were three men who were on a random crime spree through Indianapolis. They started on the east side of town.
Wound up in our neighborhood. We didn't find out the exact details of that until the trial that took place seven years later, Emily. And so But we found out the details of how they wound up in our neighborhood, and then that they broke into the home three doors down from us, saw me leave for the gym that morning. And decided to take that opportunity to break into our home.
So, incidentally, they didn't know that anybody was in the house when they broke in. Um And yet there was one of the the man who is charged for the murder um and a sentence for for her murder he What has he's just uh Very deranged, and he had it out that morning to kill somebody. And Amanda was caught up in that. We were pregnant with our second, we're 13 weeks along. And um And so I lost.
Amanda and baby Evie that morning.
Now, when I came home, I found her But she was still um breathing. She was unconscious. She was Um She was unresponsive, but she was still breathing just very laborously. And so You know, there's It's hard to explain unless you've been in a really traumatic moment just how much you're not It feels very out of body when you walk into something like that. And There was, I know it sounds strange.
I've had this conversation with many, many, many people. And it's hard for some people to wrap their heads around the fact that I did not understand. There was no context for me that somebody had broken in, although the house was very disheveled. That wasn't the first place my mind went to. I actually think that was a grace of God to protect me in that moment.
I think I would have metabolized that moment from a trauma standpoint a lot differently. Had I known someone had broken in, had I known that she was shot. I thought something had just gone horrifically wrong with the pregnancy. And so I called the paramedics. They got there, started attending to her, had me follow them to the hospital.
And I'm sitting in the waiting room. expecting everything to be okay. Yeah. Like, that was one of those, like, wow, that was a really close call. Or, man, this is going to be a miracle story coming out of it.
She's going to have this great recovery. We're going to have a testimony to tell people. This is. all wrapped up in the you know the ministry of hurting people that we're going to have At worst. Maybe we lost the baby.
You know, I share in the book a little bit about.
somewhat of like a Premonition or a sense of discernment that Amanda had leading up to that, that she thought she was going to lose the baby? And that God was preparing us for a season of pain. And so that came into my mind that was like.
Okay, maybe this is what God was preparing her for. We'll lose the baby, everything's gonna be fine. That's going to be the worst that we go through. We can. walk through that together.
We can heal through that together. We can minister other people, but Not my wildest imaginations would I have expected. my life to take that kind of a turn the way it did. Absolutely. I mean, I don't think anybody.
Expects that, you know, here you were there for ministry, and your son Weston was home too. And I mean, Honestly, as horrific as it is what you walked into. I mean, as I was reading your story, I was thinking, I can't believe that the Lord protected Weston. Yeah. Um You know, we're going to talk about how God...
God did give you a platform to minister to hurting people. And here, you and Amanda thought it was going to be different. You thought you were going to be able to do that together. That was your heart's desire. And yet, like I mentioned in the intro, you authored a book that you never wanted to write.
And it's not because you never wanted to write a book. It's because this is not the book that you wanted to write. And when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about. What this book did in your healing process and how it kind of changed the trajectory of your ministry, like only the Lord can, and He does bring purpose from our pain.
So, join us again in a moment on Hope in the Morning. Yeah. As a grief counselor with years of experience, I can testify that Hope in the Morning is one of the best resources out there. Out of all the grief books I've purchased and that others gave me, this is the book that has helped me the most. These stories don't showcase the individuals as heroes who battled and conquered the worst.
The stories of Hope in the Morning provide a marvelous perspective, allowing the listener to focus on Christ rather than self. These stories remind me of who my Savior is and that there is truly hope in the morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. If you have a desire to encourage the hurting with the hope of Jesus, we invite you to join our ministry by giving a donation at hopeinthemorning.org. Episodes like the one you're listening to are only made possible by your donations.
Now, if you've lost a loved one, you can donate in their honor. Simply put their name in the memo portion of your donation. And we'll read these names on future episodes of Hope in the Morning. And may you be reminded of the goodness and faithfulness of God as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. John thirteen, thirty five says.
By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Do you know how to best love and serve your hurting brother or sister in Christ? Listen to Hope in the Morning and be equipped to offer the hope of Jesus to every hurting heart. To learn more or to partner with our ministry, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. Yeah.
Welcome back to Hope in the Morning. I am joined today with Davey Blackburn and As I stated before, he was a pastor and he and his wife, Amanda, felt the calling to go to Indianapolis and minister to the people there. They both felt it was very clear. They spent a lot of time praying about it. That was not.
That was not initially your guys' focus. Like to go and plant a church was not initially, you wanted to serve. in a church and and you had a church that you were that you were serving in and you were being effective and you felt like this is where the Lord has us. And then there was a shift, and that took you to Indianapolis. And you were both excited about that.
You did. Plant a church there, and yet your lives were. upended in in a way that you could have never imagined and You know, one of the things that you talk about, you actually talk about this toward the end of your story, but I think it's so important is that. There can be this pressure, you equate it during your run, but this pressure to push through the pain. And we talk about this so much.
It's one of the reasons why hope in the morning exists, is because. We want believers in the universal church to understand that pain is not less because you're a believer, it's not less because you were a pastor. It didn't hurt less for you to lose your wife. You know, I mean, the person that you thought I can get through anything with Amanda by my side. How do we as a church help people actually Heal.
And not push them into this season of either feeling like, okay, it's been three months, now it's time to put you on a platform and have you share what the Lord is doing. Yeah. How do we properly tend to these hurting hearts and love people deeply so that they? They can heal. From these things, what did that process look like for you?
Like, especially looking back now, what do you think was helpful? And what do you look back now and you say, you know? Maybe those things weren't beneficial. For me in that season.
Well, you're touching on something that's very systemic, I think, for the church. And I'm grateful that the collective conversation is beginning to be shaped around this idea of allowing space for people to process. And to lament and to grieve, and not trying to microwave or short-circuit people's healing process. But historically, the church has been, and really in a lot of sectors of society, have been really. Poor, they've done a poor job of allowing space, and I think it's because we just feel very uncomfortable with pain and grief.
Western American Mindset says everything in your life should be built around comfort, convenience, safety, and security. Yeah. And if your life doesn't look like comfortable, convenient, and safe, and secure, then you must be doing something wrong because the American dream is to hedge your life with those things. And that gets really conflated with our theology.
So we begin to think that our spirituality, like Our journey with Jesus is supposed to look the same way. And so A plus B equals C. If I'm doing the right thing, following after Jesus, checking the boxes, then everything's going to be up into the right. And that's just not the case. Scripture actually gives us a very different picture.
And you were you said it earlier, that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, right? There are bad things that happen to good people and good things that happen to bad people. And how all of that gets sorted out is not necessarily for our determination. And so it's difficult for us to metabolize that, to begin to reconcile. Hold on.
How is God punishing me because I've done something wrong? And so we start to. We start to distort our view of God and what that looks like. And all of that is wrapped into our healing journey. And so, you know, you asked me the question.
What did the next several weeks, months look like in terms of that journey for me? What was helpful for me is that the people around me gave me space and permission. And even though I was a pastor and I knew all the right things to say, I mean, Emily, I had 12, 13 months before this, preached a message on forgiveness. That when I preached it, I was like, that's a really good message. Like, I thought that was awesome.
But every single one of us are going to experience these moments in our life that will, as James, the brother of Jesus said, Test the genuineness of our faith. And he tells us to count it joy that we're going to experience these kinds of trials, right? Because they're producing something. But these trials do test the genuineness of our faith. I felt like As I was wrestling with the Lord, as I was given permission to wrestle with the Lord and to be honest with him in that wrestling, which is the act of lament.
It's the lost art of lament. I mean, there is so much of our scriptures that are encased around this idea of lament, and that we get so uncomfortable with this in the church world. Yeah, we don't have collective lamenting, we don't have personal spaces for lamenting. Most of our worship songs are not built around what many of the psalms were built around, and that's lament, it's grieving. This situation that says This is irreconcilable.
I don't know what to do about this. I'm really frustrated and angry with you, God, and I don't know how. And so, what happens is that because the church hasn't historically been a safe space for that, We end up taking these inevitable questions that we have. Everyone's got those questions. We tuck them in our back pocket and we walk away from God.
What was most helpful to me is the people that surrounded me. Let me ask those questions. They invited me and they did not try to short circuit my process. I was trying to short-circuit the process. I was like.
But I'm a leader. I've got to get up. I've got to be strong for my son. I've got to be strong for my congregation. I've got to like.
I had a sense of, and fortunately, The threat of truth in this. was that as I began to Find meaning and purpose in my pain that it would help to. push me through or kind of pull me through my valley. Mm-hmm. I'm also an Enneagram three that begins to go, well, let me find purpose in this.
And that can also short-circuit it. And God, very quickly, as I spelled out in the book, Pulled me back and said, no, no, no, no, you've got to spend some time here really untangling. Not just the loss of Amanda. That's. Massive in and of itself.
But all of the cascading effects of that and the things that it's revealing. to you about your character. It's almost like the Lord was going, Hey, you're on the operating table right now. And while we're here, we're going to take out some more. Cancerous cells that are going to Wind up.
destroying you later too.
So we're going to take some time here. And I think we have such a discomfort with how the time that it takes that we don't create spaces. We just want to rush people through it. For the purposes of getting him getting him back on mission, getting him to volunteer to Give to certain whatever it is, right? And what's ironic about that, Emily, is the...
We're terrified that if we let people go to lament, they'll never come out of it. They'll just wallow. By not creating spaces where people can lament, we're actually ensuring that they wallow. Mm. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it actually brings to light to what you talked about in your book a little bit, which really made me think about the fact that when we don't give people that time to heal or when we don't take that time ourselves, it's like an actual physical wound. It's like when we don't give the time and attention to a physical wound to heal, especially a bad one, it actually can lead to things like infection. It can lead to things like sepsis, things that can actually take your life. If due process is allowed to be had, whether that's giving permission to yourselves or permission being given within the church, sometimes it has to almost be.
I don't want to say forced, but kind of, you know, within the church, like you have to kind of say, listen. Take a season off. This is not a season to be preaching right now, or this is not a season to be in children's ministry. Take a couple months off and really just do some healing work on your own heart and mind. Because that, when we can give that attention to the healing process, it allows our wounds to become scars.
And it's this toughening. A scar is a tough spot, you know, where we can say, Look, I have a story that's behind this scar. And but when we, when we don't give any attention to healing it, sometimes it never heals. Yeah. And how, I mean, how can we?
How can we have this platform to preach the goodness of the Lord and the faithfulness of the Lord? if we haven't allowed him to really come into our wounds and had that time To heal. It's continual too, Emily. I love that you use this metaphor, the scar, that's a metaphor that I use in the book. But since writing the book, I've also learned that physiologically, scars.
even though they may not hurt anymore, sometimes scars do have a residual pain that bear with them, but. Scars have to be massaged regularly, or else there will be tissue that is built up that impedes the flow of lymph. And lymph is the way that your body detoxifies. Your lymphatic system is how your body gets toxins out of your body and scars will clog that up.
So think about that and the implications of emotional spiritual. And mental healing as well. If we're talking about the metaphor of a scar, If we don't Continually come back and make sure that that scar is like, hey, are we processing this well? Or like, think new things emerge, or anybody who's gone through grief, they know like it goes in cycles. you'll get hit with something years later and it's like, whoa, hold on.
And you have to take the tools that you've learned and apply it to that new layer.
So, if you don't go back and remassage that scar, your soul, your spirit, your emotions will get clogged and they won't be allowed to detoxify and to properly heal so that you can walk in wholeness. That's interesting. I never knew that. I think that that's a really interesting point to make connection to make because. We don't tend to give that time.
We want to rush. Through things. And I think a big part of that is the American church. I don't think that the universal church is all like that. Even though we all, we all hurt.
You know, we've all been through hard seasons as a universal church. You know, just how we enter into each other's suffering, too, I think is so important. And I saw that woven in throughout your book as well, that people really did. Take time off and enter into your suffering. And they came alongside you and Weston and That's what we want to do as a church.
We want to know, you know, what should we not say? What's actually hurtful? Which sometimes the Christian platitudes are maybe well intended, but they're hurtful. It's not timely, it's not even. It's not empathetic because you're not truly thinking, what would I feel like if my spouse was just murdered in the city that I know the Lord called me to?
In ministry. And, you know, I mean, you talk a little bit, and we only have about a minute left here on this portion, but you talk a little bit about. Just some of the feelings that you had as soon as Amanda died, just feeling like, Lord, why would you call us here and then have us walk through? Through this, I mean, this horrific trial. This is not at all what I thought you were calling us into.
Those are important things. That is what lament looks like when you look in scripture, when you look in the Psalms. That's what David did. You know, I mean, David was very honest and transparent before the Lord. And that.
That's how God wants his children to be. You know, I have four children. You now have three children. Do you have three children, or do you have more than that? You have three.
You want your children to come to you with all of their emotions. And God is no different, God's a perfect father. And it's important that we can take those emotions to the Lord. And when we come back from the radio portion, when we come to the podcast portion, we're going to talk about what forgiveness looked like. You talked about how you had spoken a sermon not long before Amanda's murder on forgiveness, and yet.
It's a whole different thing. You have to actually put that into practice in such, such a big way. And you actually, you head up a ministry now by the same name. Correct. And It's a very powerful ministry where God literally changed the trajectory of what you thought you were going to be doing with.
With what God put on your heart to serve him and to serve. I mean, you and Amanda had this burden for like the inner city people. Yeah. And you had no idea how God was going to Switch things there. I'd like to talk a little bit about, you know, you discuss in the book how you really struggled after, and understandably so, after Amanda was murdered with.
Do I even want to serve this people group? Like, is this feelings of anger and even having some feelings of, You know, temporary racism because of what what had transpired. And I think it's important to talk about those things because. You're human. you know even even as a pastor even as a christian you're human And to be able to talk about what what trauma.
looks like. And the real thoughts and emotions that you have. I think can be very powerful and very healing. The people that are listening, are you willing to talk to us a little bit about kind of even those like those weeks and those months? What were your struggles?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, You know, you you hit the nail on the head in terms of The emotions that come sometimes in all of our journeys are unexpected emotions. And so, you know, they can throw us off. Kilter because we just maybe we haven't dealt with that particular emotion. For me, the idea of that level of anger, rage, even racial prejudice.
I've never experienced those kinds of emotions.
So they were very disorienting to experience. I mean, the first time that I saw. The three men that killed my wife was on the news. I was. sitting at a breakfast diner with two counselors in South Carolina.
This team from the church that had been our sending church, they basically surrounded me for two weeks. Helped all of our family navigate the media firestorm, which I was so grateful for that because we would have had no idea how to navigate all that without their help. They put on Amanda's funeral. I mean, everything was, it was such a. Incredible level of support.
Well, then they brought me back to South Carolina just to spend some time like. In respite, just try to like shelter me and put two counselors by my side that just didn't leave my side.
So we're sitting at this breakfast diner and all of a sudden the On the news, I see these three men, and there was the Emily, the feelings of rage and Anger like up to that point it was a faceless Crime. I was more dealing with the shock, the agony. the pain, the grief of the loss. But at that moment it started to turn. And what began to happen then is I began to start ruminating on that.
And I began to fantasize kind of in the dart. Places where I couldn't fall asleep at night and stuff. What I would do. If someone if the prosecutor is the investigators would let me into a room with those three men. And there was something that it was confusing to me because I was like, I've never felt this before.
And then I mentioned, I talk about this in the book that. Even that racial prejudice that I would see. You know, um I would see someone that would look or remind me of these men, and immediately I would begin to profile that person. And it just didn't. I was like, what is happening here?
And so I'm grateful that I had. Good counsel around me that I could be honest about those things. I didn't have to try to. Hide or reserve my emotions, but they could help me untangle that, help me to see that, hey, this is normal. I don't want you to feel like you're debased because of this.
I think sometimes when we, because again, something can be uncomfortable to talk about, we begin to kind of like categorize it in a space where it makes someone feel shame around those things or makes them feel. And so it then just reinforces. That Um That cycle for them. They never actually find healing or get out of that cycle. And that, I think, if there's a point to this entire conversation, I think that's the point.
The only way to really truly find healing is to lean toward or run into, as we talk about in the book, run toward the roar. Of these emotions, explore these things, get curious about them, get compassionately curious about them. As if Jesus is in the room going. Hey, talk to me about this. And how would Jesus approach helping us to unravel?
Some of these really difficult emotions. Yeah. And so what I began to realize. In the next several weeks, is that ruminating on this stuff was actually, it was hollowing out my soul. That you know bitterness really only rots the hand that holds it And so I was feeling this kind of oozing out of me of this disdain and contempt toward even the people that I love.
There was like this bitter. orientation of my heart. And I did not like that. And so I remember, and I share this in the book about how I got saved when I was eight years old and the story of this that the Lord brought me back to that, that really the gospel presentation was such that The pastor said, Jesus was murdered for my sin and for your sin. Which, I mean, what a providential thing that at eight years old.
God would intercept me with the gospel in that way as a pastor's kid who knew the stories, who knew the, like, I think that on some level, There had to be a little bit of that just alternative way to share the gospel that got my attention. Like, wait a minute, I didn't realize because I had heard it ad nauseum. Mm-hmm. But then the fact that that same eight-year-old at 30 years old, his wife and unborn baby would be murdered. And here I am experiencing radical forgiveness from Jesus.
At eight years old. Recognizing the gravity and the weight of my sin. And what it had done to Jesus, and now. having been perpetrated against. Chewin'.
To a gravity.
Now I I will say that what, I mean, I think in my own journey, what I've realized is that. compared to What Jesus endured on the cross, the suffering that he willingly went through for us. All of our pain, no matter who it is, no matter what level it is. It pales in comparison to that, which is great because we have an empathetic high priest who. who understands what we've gone through.
Yeah. And he he walked this road of suffering. Volitionally, so that we could, so there could be empathy involved, and there could be that compassionate curiosity. that he can invite us into to go, hey, what's going on? Let's.
Let's talk, let's wrestle through this, right? And so For me, that's what I began to start wrestling through and going.
Okay, hold on a second. And what ultimately where the Lord brought me was this idea of There is a justice gene wired inside of each one of us. The whole idea of that's not right, somebody's got to do something about it. It's not lost on me, Emily, that Our favorite movie, Amanda and I's favorite movie was Braveheart. Yeah.
and the plot line of that movie. Is Here's this main character whose wife is murdered. And now he is, his mission is to seek revenge or retribution on the perpetrators.
So there's something hardwired inside of us.
Well, who was that given to us? Like, who gave us that? The the ultimate perfect judge. Right, Jesus, God is a God of justice and mercy. And so he's 100% both.
So what does that mean?
Well, he's given us that, but ultimately, he's asked us then to trust him as the perfect judge. And really, what I began to discover is that forgiveness is the simple act of trusting God with this perpetration and that he is going to make it right. Yeah. And I don't have to take it into my own hands because scripture says, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. And that his Ultimate justice is going to be restorative justice.
It's not going to be retributive justice. It's not eye for an eye. He's going to restore all things.
Now, how he does that, that's way beyond me. I have no idea. He's not going to do it my time. Yeah. If I can walk in that.
Kind of a A heart posture that says, Okay, God, I'm trusting you with this. I'm. Clearing this off of my ledger of accounts of the offenses done to me. It's not on mine anymore. I'm.
Absolving my perpetrator of that personally. Trusting you with it. That is what begins to effectively undo the work of the real enemy of all of our stories. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important also to note that, you know, you said that you struggled with some of that just racial tension that you had there because of the trauma that you had been through.
And it just made me think as you were saying that, that I think that happens in a lot of stories, whether it is you have an abusive father or an abusive husband. And so women become fearful of men. In general, or maybe you've been in a horrific car accident.
Well, now every car ride for a certain length of time is very scary. Um things that are closely related to the trauma that we experience. It's going to affect the way that we view our world for a time, which I think is a really neat thing that you have as part of your ministry with Nothing is Wasted is you have the different branches that really meet the needs of different suffering, and some of which are traumatic events. I mean, like I mentioned to you, we've had, we had Brooke Talley on here, whose husband took his own life. And now she's a coach with your ministry because that's a very unique kind of sorrow.
And I mean, you mentioned about how if you had not felt If you had not felt so strongly and clearly called with Amanda to Indianapolis, that you would have felt some guilt. But you mentioned also in your book that you did still struggle with some guilt because of little nuances in your story. And that's true when people lose a spouse or a child to suicide, too. There's this aspect of guilt that has to also be addressed. But unless you've been through something like that, it's hard to know.
what what other people need what people in the church need and They need layers of care. It's not just one thing. We're not just one-dimensional as human beings, nor as Christians. And so, as you mentioned before, we're mind, body, soul. All of those things have to be tended to in the wake of tragedy and trauma.
And you guys have some really neat ways that you do care for people through Nothing is Wasted. Can you tell us a little bit about, first of all, kind of what led you to start Nothing is Wasted? And And then, what exactly does Nothing is Wasted do?
Well, what led us to start Nothing is Wasted is kind of the same. The same thing that, you know, when All of this story, you kind of experience this as you read the book, that none of this was my idea. Right. Whereas prior to the loss of Amanda, Many of the things of my life were my idea. It was like, this is the strategy, or this is the path, this is what I want to do, this is where I'm going.
And after losing Amanda, I realized that. What God was inviting me into is: hey, let me take your story and unfold it. You just follow me in it. And you're not going to be able to force redemption. I will lead you in the path of redemption.
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. And that really has been the journey since losing Amanda: going, God, I have no idea. There's no manual for this. I don't know how to heal myself.
I don't know how to. Repurpose this. I don't know how to. I know that you promise in your word that you desire that for my life.
So that you work all things together for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to your purposes. But. What does that look like? And so the Lord, it's just been one step at a time, his invitation into this. And so, what we do as a ministry back in 2017, while I was still pastoring.
I was meeting a lot of really incredible people along the journey. And felt like, because I was also keeping a blog, I felt like the world was looking in, those who were reading the blog, who were following the story, and they were. They were almost seeing me as a hero, like, wow. Look at this guy. I can't believe he's still standing.
Look how impressive he is. And I'm going, you have no idea. Like, this is not me. These are all the people that God has surrounded me with. I'm borrowing faith from them.
So I had this idea. I'm like, why don't we, you know, pastors would put their, we would put our sermons up on podcasts. I'm like, why don't I just interview all these people I'm meeting? And let them share their story.
So, very much like what you guys are doing with Hope in the Morning. Yeah. And it just really took off. And that's what became the Nothing is Wasted podcast. We still do the Nothing is Wasted podcast, but that became a bit of the conception of the ministry.
So I kept pastoring for a couple of years, got remarried in 2017. We kept pastoring. Until the end of 2018, the Lord started to shift us. And we were white-knuckling. We're like, no, we're going to keep this because.
This was a church that That my late wife and I had started. And one of the things she expressed to me was: hey, if. And just a strange conversation that we had when we were putting together a whole bunch of stuff when Weston was born. She said, if anything were ever happened to me, I want you to pastor this church for the rest of your life, reach the city. And so, when I started feeling that God was calling us away from the church, that was a real difficult wrestling.
Because I'm going, I feel like I'm torn between this ministry that is being birthed, this podcast, whatever it is, right? This voice that we have with the big C church to help the big C church. That was birthed out of my wife's Death. and this church that was birthed in her life.
So it just felt extremely conflicting.
Well, fortunately, the Lord just kept leading and guiding. And so, for in a very similar way that he called us to Indianapolis. He very clearly Called us away from the church. And at the time, I had no idea what that meant. I'm like, I have a podcast.
Like. There were no YouTubers that were teaching you how to like monetize it. It was like, what am I? I can't do it. But I knew I could travel and speak, that that would help to pay the bills.
Christy is a PA. She was like, hey, if worst comes to worst, I can go to work. But we felt she felt called to stay at home, homeschool our kids, really galvanize our family.
So we just kind of were like, all right, Lord, we're trusting you with this.
So I started traveling and speaking and Emily, what happened is I began to become keenly aware. of the need In churches. for supporting people in trauma. grief, tragedy, loss. Every time I'd speak, there would be this long receiving line that would come up, and it would be, I thought initially people coming up to, hey, we're so sorry, we've been following your story, we're praying for you, but it wasn't.
It was people one at a time coming up and sharing their own story of pain with me. As if it was the first time someone had ever given them permission. Wow. And so it began to open our eyes to go: wait a minute, someone needs to. We need to develop resources and pathways for people to be able to heal.
So to your point, what you were saying earlier. The way that we heal is experiential. Right. Because what trauma begins to Um try to it tries to um galvanize A false Uh reality. In you.
It tries to just exactly what you said. Hey, this happened to you by this person. And so, therefore, superimpose that onto everybody or everything that looks like that. And so you are not safe around any.
So you go into fight-flight freeze mode. with anything that reminds you of that. And that is the enemy's way to prevent you from healing. Yeah. Anything that triggers you, this is the whole problem with this idea of Triggers, you know, the whole, the whole part of society that's saying, like, oh, that's triggering, I feel unsafe.
And so, because of that, they withdraw or remove themselves from the situation. And really, the triggers are actually an invitation from God into deeper healing. Because what will happen is, as you get triggered by something that looks like what you experience, smells like what you experience. Seems like what you experience. God wants to use that experience for you to get curious, and then for you to then.
Wrestle with him in that, and he will overwrite and rewrite neural pathways with a different experience.
So that's the running toward the roar, right? What you talk about?
Okay, what does that look like for you?
Well, that's what the church is called to be. The church is called to be a community of people that can help to overwrite neural pathways in people's brains. Because people have to experience what safety looks like in community. to overwrite what unsafety looked like. in their prior experiences.
To me, what that looked like is When Pastor Levi, who wrote the fourth of my book, Pastor Levi Lesko. When he told me run toward the roar I was like Okay, I know exactly what's triggering me. I know the things I'm terrified to confront.
So instead of running away from that. Or developing some kind of a maladaptive coping mechanism to numb myself from experiencing that. Actually, have to walk into the excruciating experience of confronting it. And so, you know, for me, it looked like that. Jumping in my car and listening to that song that continually defaulted to the top of my playlist when my Bluetooth would connect to my car.
And instead of turning it off and being really angry, I instead had to go and listen to it intentionally. And when I did that, and I just listened, it was a song that was played at our wedding, so that's why it was very triggering to me. When I listen to that, then what happened is I just allowed my body to experience. That That the pain and the agony of that. And so I'm just weeping and weeping.
But it was one of the first times I had to. allowed myself to go there. And when I finally did allow myself to go there. Yeah, it was excruciating. Waves of grief came over me.
But immediately following that were waves of grace. And God met me in that. And he will meet us in these moments, these emotionally latent moments. to comfort us, to undergird us. And to heal us, if we'll let us, on the other side of those triggers, on the other side of those painful conversations, on the other side of that stuff is where healing exists.
So I felt this like I was physically sick, Emily. I read about this in the book. I was physically sick. And that physical sickness began to, in those 45 minutes of listening to that song, just began to unknot in my stomach. And now, was I healed?
No, but what happened was, I regained a sense of agency. Which is extremely important in healing with trauma because trauma robs from you a sense of agency. You're out of control of a particular situation. And so, again, you superimpose that into the rest of your life, and you think you're out of control of everything. But we have, as believers, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead living inside of us.
If that's not agency, I don't know what is. If we have the spirit. That empowered Jesus to step up out of death and walk out of the grave. We have a spirit that empowers us to virtually walk through anything. Mm-hmm.
And that's agent.
So now, if we can tap into that God-given sense of agency. We can begin to approach these things and confront these things with God in a Christ-centered way. That will bring healing and resolve to our hearts.
So that's what, I mean, there, and then once that happened, once that clicked inside of me, it was like, oh my gosh.
Now let me look, let me find all of the things that are triggering me. Let me actually go on the offensive. And I literally developed a list. I was like, I'm going to, here's the next thing I've got to do. Here's the next thing I've got to do.
And sometimes I had to do that by myself. And sometimes I had to do that with the help of other people, counselor or family member, or something like that. But at least I wasn't going to be. Um I had resolved at that moment, I'm not going to be enslaved. By anything.
And because it's for freedom that Christ has set us free.
So, if there's a part of my healing that is keeping me in bondage, that's the part that I have to go after. And the only way for me to break free from that is to confront it, to run toward the roar. and to allow the Lord to do what he does to break those chains of bondage. Yeah. You talk also a little bit about the fact that As far as vengeance being the Lord's, I mean, that goes hand in hand with forgiveness and understanding, like ultimately, there's one ultimate enemy.
And it's it's not It's not Other people, it's Satan that's behind these horrendous acts and Satan that is crouching to steal and devour. And he wants, whether that's stealing our joy, devouring our comfort and our calling, he wants that. He wants to see a situation like Amanda's murder say, I'm done with this. Why would a good one? Yes, yes.
And that's what happens when someone perpetrates against us. There's one on his Scoreboard, there's one point on his side. And he wants to win twice. And we get the opportunity to choose: okay, am I going to let him win twice or am I going to step into an upside-down kingdom? With weapons of righteousness, fight this thing in the spiritual.
And therefore, undo what the enemy has set in motion in my life. That is the only way to undo it. Yeah. Well, and it makes everything completely opposite from what the world would do and what the world says. I mean, the world would say exactly what you initially said, what our initial reactions are, which is, you know, I wish I could just get alone in a room with those men.
And we all have those initial thoughts because in our heart is that that seat of justice. We want that justice served. But in the end, we're able to trust God and say, and you did that. I mean, you said that it took seven years for a conviction to be brought down on these men. And yet you did something pretty powerful with each one of these men.
Can you tell us real quick what? What that courtroom experience was like for each of those men with you.
Well, here's a great example of the idea of being haunted by something or something having bondage over you. You know, write about it in the book, especially my first engagement with Deanna, or not with Deanna, with Jalen. in a hearing And it felt like it was a 30-minute hearing, and I felt like I'd run a marathon because I was just on pens. And I was like, so tense the entire time being in the same room with one of them for the first time. But I couldn't look him in the eye.
It was like. He had this like dominion over me because of what had happened. And I don't want it to sound like it was some kind of like power struggle or anything, but at the end of the day, I was in bondage. Like, I couldn't. I didn't have this like spiritual authority to step into that room and, with a sober-mindedness, be able to walk in what was happening right there.
I felt like. For lack of a better term. I was completely dysregulated. But the Lord began to like walk me through that. And the way that that snapped out of me was at his sentencing.
For each one of these that they're sentencing, the victims are given the opportunity to have a victim impact letter to read one. And the idea is to try to Communicate to the judge, to the. defend the, you know, the This is the impact that your actions have made, and we want the judge to take this into consideration in terms of their sentencing. And other victims were there, it wasn't just us because you know they've been broken to multiple homes. And the other victims, man, they were talking about just what monsters they were, they were trying to really heap on.
all of this stuff that they had done to try to like elevate the level of what the judge was perceiving this to be. And I chose a very different route because of just this upside-down kingdom. Yeah, I wanted him to understand the gravity. of what he had all of them had taken from us. I'm speaking now specifically to the first instance with with Jalen though.
I wanted him to understand this. But I also wanted him to understand that he didn't have to continue this way, and that the gospel could do something to intercept. the quote unquote monster inside of him. Yeah. and could change him.
And that that would be what Amanda would want. That would be what all of us would wish. And so when I told him, I said, hey, Jalen, I've chosen to forgive you. You could have, I mean. There was a snap in the entire room.
Everyone felt it. It was like this sense of this spiritual, like. I can't even describe it, but. I couldn't look him in the eye until I read those words. And then immediately there was a sense of empowerment.
And I looked at Jalen. I said, Jalen, look me in the eye. I said, I have chosen to forgive you. And he grabbed his orange jumpsuit, pulled it over his eyes, and just started weeping. Wow.
And it was just a very powerful moment. Like, what breaks in the kingdom? It's like, you know, when Jesus told his disciples, Hey, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
This is the spiritual authority that God has given us in the middle of all the horrible things that we experience. And if we remember that, that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us. we do not have to be overcome by evil but we can overcome evil with good Yeah. Davey, it reminds me of The spiritual realm. Of the courthouse that we are in before a holy and just God.
And here you have Satan, the accuser. Who is heaping everything? We're monsters. I mean, man, I mean, when you think about our hearts and what God says, as far as if you look after a woman, you lust for her, you've committed adultery in your heart, if you have hatred towards your brother, you've committed murder. If you, if you, you know, James tells us if you break one law, you're guilty of it all.
And for a holy God, we are. And yet, here is Satan, who is just this accuser throwing all of these things. And here comes Jesus saying, I forgive you. You know, in I've made the sacrifice to forgive you. And you talk about in your book a little bit about the fact that here.
As believers, like the only way that we can truly forgive is because we've been truly forgiven and we understand what that feels like. And The bondage that that breaks you free from. I mean, Romans talks about that: that we were once slaves to unrighteousness, but because of Christ, we are now slaves to righteousness. We have a different name, we have a different calling, and therefore we have different reactions to things. With the last couple of minutes that we have, I wanted to shift gears just a little bit and just say how, you know, the Lord, the Lord equips us for the different ministries that he calls us to.
And here, you know, the Lord had equipped you with Amanda and her calling for planting this church that you had planted initially and the ministry that you guys had. And you guys did have a beautiful, powerful ministry. I mean, you can hear through the pages of your book. You can hear, it comes through so clearly how much. Amanda loved people and she just had this genuine passion and care for people and selflessness.
And which is that's what godliness is, you know? And yet here the Lord took Amanda. allowed allowed her to be taken and Shift your ministry ultimately. And put Christie. In your life, and how have you found that the Lord has uniquely equipped you and Christy?
For the purpose that he has now called you to? What a great question. I mean, it is, there's significant ways that he has. I think, you know, so one of the things that we are constantly as a ministry doing is trying to intersect the clinical and the ecclesiastical.
So helping. Both the The spaces and sectors of society that are talking about mental emotional healing. And helping to build a bridge from that to the church. And so, I think one of the things, many, many, many, many ways that Christy is. Custom designed for me in this season, and I for her as well.
Um In fact, episode 100 of our podcast, Christy shares her story, and it's just an incredible story to hear and then to see. The different ways that God reasons God brought us together, we can look back and go, man, this is.
So providential that for my healing and for her healing, God put us together so that then we could also be agents of reconciliation for. for this you know other people and But She is a PA by trade, by schooling, and so she has just this incredible aptitude for the clinical side of things. And she has gone through a lot of little T trauma, if you will.
So, abusive father growing up and. Just a lot of things that she had to live in for almost 30 years in that fight, flight, freeze fawn mode. And you know it was only once once we got married that she began to find herself in a sense of safety. To where she could begin to untangle some of this.
So here you do, you have two people: one who has a very charm, I had a very charmed childhood growing up, pastor's kid, it was great. didn't have any kind of like early childhood trauma. Big T tragedy. She had all this early childhood trauma. Yeah.
And so now. Together, we are ministering to people on both fronts. Yeah, for whatever reason, God's seen it fit that nothing is wasted, is as you said, a cons it's ministering to a consortium of different pain points, it's not just like. Widowers, or you know what I mean? Right, it is a lot.
I mean, people with childhood trauma, abuse, divorce, all these people are coming to nothing is wasted. And we're able to now minister to people on all those fronts because we have a level of understanding and empathy there for both little T trauma and big T trauma. And then, As we're learning more and as we're becoming more psychoeducated, we're helping the church then. to become more educated on what does it look like to interface and minister with people who are experiencing trauma. And how do we become more Adept at that as the body of Christ, so that we can lead people into healing spaces.
Yeah, I mean, that's one of many reasons why And but I mean it's just an incredible it is Powerful to see when you do let God take the reins on your story. It doesn't make sense. It's almost like a Joseph thing: like God puts this dream inside of you, and then it's years later that you go, oh, this is the fulfillment of that dream. But I didn't like any of the detours that God led me on. And I do feel like that on some level we're experiencing.
Some of that right now. And I can see that over the next five, 10, 15 years, if the Lord would will it, that we're going to continue to see some of this dream that was placed early on. Deep in my heart. you know at 18 years old that now it's beginning to to you know come to fruition Yeah. And though I wouldn't have liked any of the detour, I don't.
Those were all very important components to prepare me and to prepare us as a family to be able to do what we're doing right now. Yeah. Well, Genesis 50, 20 talks about that, right? That it says, it says that you intended it to harm me. And it's talking about the story of Joseph, where his brothers sold him into slavery, and he was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife.
And he was thrown into prison for years. And yet, all of those things, none of which Joseph would have chosen. Led God used it for good.
So here, the enemy was trying to attack in all of these different ways. And God actually used Joseph to help. You know, redeem, redeem a starving nation because he had sent him over. And Yeah. You know, you talk also in your book, which I love this analogy because you see it now with nothing is wasted.
Is that you talk about in scripture where it talks about when a I'm gonna let you say it, but when the single seed versus when that seed dies. Can you tell us that analogy? Yeah, it was just a really, you know, you have these deep, profound moments where you're like, That ministered to me. I don't know if it makes sense to anybody else, but that was one of those moments where the Lord was like, hey, Um A tree has always been a very profound metaphor for I mean, ever since when Amanda and I started the church, and God kept just bringing us back to this idea of a tree, a tree, a tree. And Jesus said, unless a single Seed falls to the ground and dies.
It remains a single seed. But if it dies. Then it will It will ultimately grow into, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, it will produce this harvest of righteousness. And the idea is this seed grows into a tree. And the Lord just kind of hit me with that in one moment where I'm going.
Oh my gosh. And and part of what you read about in the book is The heart posture of a man that was such that, um, If someone were to come, if God were to come to her and say, Hey, here's what's going to happen. And here's what's going to happen out of it. Mm-hmm. She would, I believe, wholeheartedly, just knowing who she was, she would say.
I'm willing to walk through that. Hmm. I'm willing to be on some level that single seed that falls to the ground. I mean, her desire, you know What she wanted to do. We were actually going through ACBC biblical counseling tracks together.
She was going to be a certified biblical counselor. She just, she wanted to counsel people. She wanted to help them heal. And now I look at what we're able to do as a ministry. And I told her this.
I think it's a Included it in one of the journal entries that she wrote about in the journal. But I told her, I said, hey, you're going to have a much more. prolific ministry than I ever will. I just have this sense. And she could not wrap her head around that.
She's like, she's like, I just feel like I'm a supporting role. Like, you're the big dynamic speaker and all this kind of stuff. And I'm the one that's just kind of serving people. I'm like, I don't know. I just feel like you're going to have a much more.
Robust ministry than I am. And I'm watching that. Play out with the legacy of her life and her story and her faithfulness and her steadfast trust in the Lord. is inspired Tens of thousands, could be millions of people. And I don't think we'll ever know until we get to eternity one day.
I do. I just um You know, I do believe she would say, Hey, I'll walk through that gladly. I'll be that single seed.
So that ultimately there can be a harvest for other people. That was the kind of person she was. She was so self-sacrificing. I think that's such a beautiful testimony to who she was as a person and who she was in Christ. You know, for people that maybe aren't familiar with your story, to just know that your story made national headlines for a long time, partly because the trial did not conclude for seven years.
And so people were very vested in your story. But again, The the The facts of who Amanda was in her character. Coupled with the reaction that you were ultimately able to have of forgiveness towards these three men, it's something that the world is unfamiliar with. And that's why we share our testimonies, whether it's here on Hope in the Morning or on Nothing is Wasted. We share these testimonies partly for the edification of the church, because you want believers.
To hear these testimonies and say, okay, that God's going to be faithful to me too. If God could see Davy, Through the murder of his wife, God can see me through this job change. God can see me through the loss of my child, through the loss of my health. God will be faithful. I can see that He will be.
But also, it's a huge, it's a huge testimony to the world because. You know, we talk here on Hope in the Morning about the fact, like we mentioned before, that our pain is not different because we're believers, but our response to it is. And it's everything. I mean, and part of why, like in the Hope in the Morning book, you know, we talked with the writers. We said, please don't feel the need to like over-spiritualize your pain or write in Christianese, as we say, because I just told them, I said, if people can feel the authenticity of your pain, then they'll feel the authenticity of your hope.
And that is so important for us as believers to be able to say, I really struggled with these things. And this is what I did. This is how I carried my burden to the Lord. This is what it looked like. Instead of pretending like we don't.
Struggle with those things. Like, we don't struggle with anger. We don't struggle with wondering, why, God? Why would you do this? But instead, what does it look like for men and women of God to take our sorrows to the cross and say, Lord, this is a broken world?
And this hurts more than anything I've ever experienced. I don't know how to carry this on my own, but I trust that you do. And so I'm going to bring it to you. And just like scripture talks about that, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. And that's what he wants to exchange for us.
He doesn't want to leave us in the heaviness. And he can use us, he uses nothing is wasted to help lift that burden, to help show other believers.
Okay, friend, let me come alongside you. Let me show you where to take this heartache, where to take this burden. And let me show you that I can unequivocally claim that God is still good, even when life feels miserable. in the moment. You know, as we finish up this episode, I wanted to kind of leave people also with the thought in Isaiah 66, 9, where it says, I will not allow pain without allowing something new to be born.
And I just, I kept thinking about that as I was reading to you, reading your book. And as I mentioned to you, you know, I mean, your book is not a tiny book. And I've now read it, I think, two or three times and listened to it on Audible. You know, it's the kind of book that It reminds you who God is. And that's ultimately.
That's ultimately what our purpose is here on earth, is to point to the goodness of God. Wow, that means a lot, by the way, Emily. That means a lot to me because that was the goal for the book. I, you know, I wrote about that in the introduction. I don't want people to go, wow, look at Davey.
Look at that, it's amazing. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps. My intention was the reason I wrote it the way that I wrote it. Was so that people would see how God kept intercepting me. Because that's all of our stories.
That's what he wants to do for all of us. If we'll open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to see what God's doing in our stories. I appreciated how honest you were in the book. And I know that's not an easy thing when you know that this is going to end up into who knows whose hands. You know, I felt a little bit risky, I'll be honest with you, especially with the racial prejudice stuff.
And that's a very, very much, I mean, When we released it, it was very much the collective conversation, but I felt like it was important. For People for someone to lead the way with honesty and go, hey, let's normalize this on all sides of every kind of segregation, right? Whether it's race, gender, whether it's political party, whatever it is. Yeah. We all tend to have these kinds of feelings based on our experiences.
But if we can get underneath that and have conversations and get curious and recognize that. Just because we had an experience with somebody with that happens to fit a particular profile, it does not mean that everybody. That fits that particular profile is the same, and that we're going to have that same experience. And so to our point earlier. We're going to, if we, if we get curious about that, will it have some incredible.
Alternative experiences. That opens our hearts and our minds up to the kingdom of God, every tribe, every nation, and what it really is reflecting.
Well, I love the fact that you were able to not only be honest about that aspect, that, like you said, must have been a little scary to be honest about. But you see in the continuation of your story that You did love those people to the point where you turned it to start thinking, okay, I care about the youth in the inner city. I want to do X, Y, and Z to try and help them so that those young boys. Do not grow up to feel like these are the only options they have. That having a life of violence is the only options they have.
And you noticed also the fact that a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times, Those tend to be households without fathers. They tend to be households where they don't have this masculine example. And, you know, I remember learning probably in college, you know, I had a very bad relationship in college and learned from that that it's not enough to just have an example of what you don't want to be. You have to have men or women. in your life that are are constant and steady examples of who you do want to be.
And I love that the Lord turned your heart. I mean, your heart was already for those people initially. And as you said, it took you by surprise that this is how you were feeling. But then the Lord turned it around and actually gave you an even deeper love for these people and said, I really want to minister to these young men and give them that example. And you, I mean, you showed it in the forgiveness that you showed to those men.
I wanted to ask you, real quick, too, before we leave, this is getting too long episode, which is great. But I wanted to ask you, real quick, you mentioned in your book that Diano? Diano. Diano. Diano.
You said that you felt the Lord kind of prompting your heart that you should visit him in prison. Have you ever done that? We haven't yet. No, we've put in requests for it. It's actually a lot more complicated than what you would think to visit somebody in prison after a murder case.
Good hearing. But we're trying to cut through the red tape that we need to in order to be able to do that. Yeah. The Part of it is and you have to get a You have to get reciprocity from The They have to invite you essentially. The actual perpetrator has to the defendant, or however you want to.
So, Diana would have to say, hey, yes, I do want him to come and visit me. And so there's a whole lot of like. Multiple steps of communication that have to happen in order for something like that to happen. In the meantime, what we do now, and this is kind of dovetailing with some of the things you were asking earlier about our ministry, but. It's cool to see.
So now I spend some time in other. Penitentiaries. ministering to men and women alike. who are in incarcerated and really helping them we have a course called pain to purpose it's kind of main thread of what our ministry does. We launch it in churches.
And now we're partnering with A Hamilton County Jail, which is a jail here in Hamilton County where I live. as well as some other penitentiaries in Michigan and some different places that are basically piloting that course. to be able to help. Incarcerated individuals. Get honest and start to untangle some of their own points of trauma and pain, and how that's led them to decisions that they've made.
and get curious about their own stories so that then they can heal from that. And then move forward with a sense of purpose.
So when they do get out, they're able to have a different story. And so that's been really meaningful to do that. And then we're also in process with partnering with a really large organization to Build a A contextualized version. of paying to purpose for inner city youth. Which is really exciting.
So it's cool to see it all kind of come to a Head, this what I was alluding to earlier: just these seeds of these visions and these dreams that God's like.
now allowing it to play out so Davey, where can people learn more about your ministry or get involved with your ministry? Yeah, everything's nothing is wasted. Nothingiswasted.com is the best way to connect with us. Again, we have coaches, you know. Emily alluded to that earlier.
We've got coaches that, and what's unique about our coaching is that we match you pain point for pain point.
So, for instance, Brooke Talley would be matched with.
Someone who lost a woman who lost their husband. And so we. If someone lost a child, we match them with a child loss coach.
So that's their experience. That's a prerequisite. They've experienced what you're going through, what you've gone through, and then they've been certified through pain to purpose and trauma certified. to be able to walk with you in that.
So, and then we, like I said, I spend most of my time traveling and speaking at different churches, launching Pain to Purpose there as a curriculum. We really help churches to embed that in their spiritual formation pathways, their discipleship pathways, and And then we have an online community that we've just kind of relaunched. But I don't know when this is coming out, but August will be our like big relaunch of that. But that's an effort for us to connect people all over the biggest lie the enemy wants you to believe is you're the only one going through what you're going through. And from the seat that I sit in, I meet so many people that I'm going, oh, you need to connect with this person because you're thinking you're isolated in this.
And I just had a conversation with someone who knows exactly what you're going through.
So we decided to take the power of technology. And the promise that we have in First Peter 5 that says, Let us not forget there are saints all over the world suffering in the same way that we are. Put those two things together and do an online community where there's a lot of content up there. Our coaches are interacting on that online community, providing counsel and advice for people who are there. And then you get to meet other people who are going through the same thing that you are.
I think that's great. I mean, you have a very powerful and inspiring ministry. And, you know, I know your book was one of the very first books actually that I read right when we were starting to do Hope in the Morning. This program, the book had been out for a while. But, you know, as I learned more about your ministry, I was so excited about your ministry because I was like, oh, it's similar to what we hope to do.
And You know, I just, I so appreciate you being willing to come on today and share your story and the hope that Christ has given you and the redemption that he's given you.
So thank you so much for being willing to come on today, baby. This has been an honor. Thank you so much. It was an honor to have you. Bye.
Join us next week on Hope in the Morning. Hope in the Morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting. equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting.
