Best Of: Choosing Victory with Cynthia Garrett

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Truth Talk Weekend. What a treat to have in the studio a mighty woman of God, and she loves the game of basketball. I just got to get that right out here, but she has a powerful story from being in prison and being in Italy and being an international TV host and an author, but there's this common thread of Jesus Christ and his powerful, life-changing, dignifying, just adopting work in your life. Cynthia, it's so good to have you with me here today. Thank you, Stu. It's good to be here with you. I appreciate you taking the time, and yes, Jesus Christ is the thread that has gotten me through my entire life, but it's funny. Through everything, there was one point where I thought I would write a book called Fame, Cancer, and Prison.

I'm not sure which one was worse, because I have had all of these life experiences that have taught me that without Christ at the head, no experience, whether it's a difficult one or a successful one, is a great experience, not as great as God wants for it to be. Wow, and that was what was cool. You know, you're in a room with, you know, 500,000 people, and this is, I'm holding up for our grand fam. Folks are watching on your live grand feed, my live grand feed. This is where we were this morning. The Come Alive and Pastor Kevin and so many other godly men and women, the YMCA folks, a lot of business people were there, and thank God for YMCA.

I mean, if we did what we did this morning in some countries, we would be doing a jail interview, right, and there would be microphones, there would be social media, but they invite us all in, and this is the program, some powerful prayers. There's your whole awesome little bio of you right there, and then a little schedule inside here, but people came together over a meal on a, you know, Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Which is very impressive, because it wasn't people came together. There were a lot of people.

You looked out there over a sea of faces. I was surprised. I did not expect to see that many people. There were a lot of people, which says to me that what you guys are doing here is not just God blessed and God ordained, it's God powerful. These people's lives are being really touched, and in the world that we live in today, I think that people are hungry for a touch from the Lord, a real touch, a real experience with a risen Savior, a living God. Isn't that something? And so it's funny how you came into a room not knowing a soul, and then you left that room with like a massive family, like a lady who put her hand on you and prayed, and you described that, what you felt, that moment, this lady that you'd never seen in your life before.

Wow, no. One of the things that I really believe is that prayer is palpable, and so when your prayer life is really rich and real, other people can feel it. I mean, that's what filling up with the Lord is about, and this woman named Christy prayed for me last night, and from the second she came to me and she touched me, I started crying, because I could feel such power on her, and I looked at her, and I actually said, are you an intercessor? And she said, yes, I am, you know, for many years now, and I could just feel it.

She didn't even have to pray. It was just so strong and powerful. I could feel it.

I could feel it, and she said to me last night that she would stay up and intercede for me through the night, because she asked me if there was a specific prayer I had, and I said, yeah, I just really want, I would like for you to pray that God would order my thoughts for tomorrow morning so that what he wants to say would come out in a way where it could be clearly understood, because sometimes I get lost in my own testimony. There's so much, you know, there's so much. Try to try to narrow everything down. You got a lot of group of people. You got a great meal, and everyone, you know, everyone has expectations. Right, and I have a lot I want to say. Of all the people in the world, they picked me to speak to this group. Right.

But, you know, it's interesting. You fast forward to the end, and to everyone talking, and I've already had people calling and texting me saying, man, that was unbelievable. That was the most powerful speaker I've ever heard. But then you see why, because that prayer, because there's a sweet lady up at two in the morning praying for you.

Yeah. There's people praying. I walked in late before you spoke, like before that prayer part, before they had the little group prayer, which was cool. I walked in just before that, but as I'm walking from my car with a man of God that's in NCS with his new Canaan, we prayed for you. Oh, thank you.

And we prayed for the people there. Thank you. You see, I'm thinking, okay, who am I going to meet? Who am I going to press?

Who am I going to talk to? I'm going to pass some cards up. No, wait a second. There are, this is warfare. There are people in that room that are bound toward a Christless eternity, and they're going to hear about the light of Jesus Christ through this vessel here. Right. And so, Lord, work in their hearts and prepare their hearts to hear that. That's what it's about. This is life and death, heaven and hell, and we wrestle not against flesh and blood. So there's a power. And you talked about prayer so much. It was awesome, and the power of prayer. It's the thing that's gotten me through all the things in my life.

I mean, before I even really knew what prayer was or that it was powerful, like I, like I said in the beginning, you know, this morning, prayer to me started as a little girl. And, and it's just been this constant dialogue since I was young, because when I was young, I just would, I was sexually abused as a child, you know, so, okay. So the nutshell of my testimony, sexually abused as a child, raped as a teenager, you know, went through high school and college with zero self-esteem, looking for love in all the wrong places, finally found the wrongest place, ran off and married a guy after I'd known him about one month in person, two months on a phone. By month three, were married, living in Paris. By day 10 of that marriage, I was being mentally abused, verbally abused, physically abused, and then ended up in a prison cell with him in Italy because I found out he was trafficking cocaine in our car, had a total assumed identity.

I mean, the whole thing was a nightmare. I get out of that, I come home with a baby, a child that saved my life. How that baby was conceived is a miracle. You talked total miracle because I wasn't supposed to be able to have children without a lot of medical intervention.

So here I am in a prison cell in a foreign country in a state of complete shock, being medicated to stay calm. And I give birth to this healthy baby boy who is an incredible on fire young 25-year-old man of God who impacted his university at the University of Kansas. And he plays basketball.

Incredible ways. Yes, he played basketball for KU, Rock Chalk Jayhawk. There we go.

I had to get that plug in. And then he played overseas in Italy for a couple of years, Italy and Greece. And then this year he said, Mom, I don't want to go back. I'm ready to start my real career life. And God has just been blessing him and favoring him as he transitions. But it's all because I surrendered. That's really it.

It's all those things. You just gave us like many, many years. But Christian Abraham is his name. What a name. My child of faith.

There's some significance there because of the faith. And so I want you to tell everyone about this vision. Let me ask Kim. Kim, how long are we into this segment? Are we about eight minutes in? We're 10 minutes in. We're going to take a break and come back. And I just like was throttled this morning when you shared about this vision that you had, that dream, whatever you call it.

We're not going to delve into how and where, but just what happened was life changing. When we come back, you got to hear this Hang On War Truth Talk weekend coming up with our awesome special guest, Cynthia Garrett. And this will be available on podcasts as well. And on Instagram, you'll see the live broadcast and on her Instagram. And what's your Instagram address? Just your name, right? Cynthia Garrett. Cynthia Garrett Ministries. She's got a big grand fam.

It might even be bigger than mine. I'm also on Facebook Live, and I think I'm there. I hear some people say, bring them on camera. Are we not on camera?

Can you not see us? Maybe we can figure out how to do Facebook Live from this. That's a great idea. So let's do that.

When we come back, we'll hear about the vision. Hang on, we're coming up right here. Don't touch that dial. That's what you're supposed to say. Don't touch that dial. Yes, awesome.

Okay. You're listening to The Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. There she was in a prison in a foreign country and recently married a prodigal. Oh, yeah, definitely a prodigal. I ran off in my 20s and got married really dumb. I hate to call it a marriage because it was more me trying to numb the pain that I was in because I really didn't know how to deal with the sexual abuse that I'd experienced as a young girl. And, you know, I had tried to fill the void with sex, drugs, guys, you name it. And so I got my heart broken by my first love and I met a guy who was a real rebound romance. And that's what landed me in this prison cell. You're on your honeymoon.

There's something about cocaine. And I mean, you talked about it this morning, so I guess we can share. Oh, yeah, you can share my story. Well, I wrote the book because I wrote the book because in all honesty, Stu, I realized that my testimony had so many layers to it.

And I can only do God so much justice in a short form medium. Get the book. The book is called... Prodigal Daughter, A Journey Home to Identity.

Please get that book. It's at your website, which is yourname.com or.org? It's CynthiaGarrett.org.

Or you can go to amazon.com, but everything's sort of available through my website at CynthiaGarrett.org. Okay. And I'm going to go there, too, and folks can hear things and maybe we'll shoot you the podcast of this so that people can download it and listen there, too, okay? Okay.

But watch your TV program, which I'm going to start watching, get the book, because the book tells all these more granular details of all this. But there you are. You're on your honeymoon and you find out that your new husband is doing drug deals on the dashboard. I mean... Well, no, he was trafficking over a kilo of cocaine in the dashboard of our car. And when I found it, I took off and threw it out in broad daylight and he was being watched by armed military police. And to make a very long story short, we ended up being arrested and it was sort of, you know, arrest them both and sort the whole thing out.

So I ended up two years in Italy, pretty much testifying against him. But it was the three months in prison where I found my faith. You're at rock bottom and you go to sleep and tell us about this vision. This really captured people today. This was really moving.

Yeah. You know, sometimes I forget to share, actually, you know, an angel of the Lord brought me the word of God. And I know that sounds really crazy, but on day three of being locked in isolation now in this prison cell, I go to sleep and I'm, as you can imagine, in a real state of panic because I don't know if my family knows where I am. I mean, I left them. They left me in Paris with a crazy man.

They kind of knew I'd maybe made a big mistake in marrying who I married, but I wanted to try to make it work because I didn't want to fail because that was a whole other level of stuff that I was dealing with. And so I went to sleep day three, night three. And I had I call it a dream. It was kind of like a vision.

And it was as real as I'm sitting here today. And there was this angel and she sort of came down on a cloud and she was dressed all in white. And I remember looking at her thinking she looked exactly like my grandmother and she had piercing blue eyes like Pastor Kevin and my husband sitting over there that you guys can't see them, but she did.

And my grandmother was Italian and she had brown hair and these beautiful blue eyes. And this angel was standing in front of me on this cloud in this vision. And she had something in her hands and it was a book.

And she said, do you know what this is? This is God's word. And he's going to send it to you. And if you read it, he'll save you and it'll change your life. And I looked at the book and on the book said the words good news.

Now, I this was plain as day. So I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning because I get a knock on my prison cell door. And the woman who ran the woman's side of the prison was a woman named Signora Maria Ucha. And she came to my door. And with the help of the girl in the cell next door and an English Italian dictionary, she explained to me that there was someone who was coming to see me. Now, I did not know until later that the person coming to see me is the nun over the prisons in this part of Italy.

I was on the island of Sardinia. So I looked down to my left and walking down the hall is this little nun. She's dressed in white from head to toe. She's got striking blue eyes. She looks exactly like my grandmother, exactly like the angel from my dream. And actually, I forgot to mention this morning that her name is what Angela, which means Sister Angela, which translates angel in Italian.

Tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. And in her hand, she's holding a book. And it says, do you know, she says, do you know what this is? This is God's word.

If you read it, he's going to save you and change your life. And on it are written the words, the Good News Bible. And I fainted. And that's all. That's all. Yeah. So you're like this.

You have this dream. Then she shows up with this Bible. Yeah. And then you started reading the Bible.

You started reading the best selling book, the most stolen book, the book that's illegal in 57 countries right now. Wow. That's the current toll. Wow. That we have it. We have, we actually, I don't know how we got it in here, but we were able to get one into the studio today. Yeah.

We can still get one in the studio. It's unbelievable. I actually had this this morning. Don't tell anyone. I had this this morning at the prayer breakfast. I was, I was, when you were, you know, Psalm 139.8, you know, when you referenced scripture verses, I would look them up.

Yes. So I tried to do it discreetly because, you know, I mean, you know, you see someone with a badge or something, you could run, you know. Psalm 139.8 is powerful because, you know, if I go up to heaven, he will be there. If I make my bed in hell, he will be there. Yeah, and so many folks have that make my bed in hell, they're in that trauma right now, and you talk about that. You talk about the the folks that are victimized, the folks that are stuck on on opioids. You tell, their lady came up after you in tears talking about her daughter passing away of that, you know, just, you know, she's talking to us about starting to march, starting to ministry to people that, you talked about, you know, folks that are in poverty.

You talk a lot about victims, how we've, I mean, look, I look at your life, and I'm thinking, you could have started a lot of marches, and you could have started a lot or started a lot of revolts and carried that victim flag. Yeah. I mean, you could have written that thing forever, but God didn't take you.

I mean, God did something so miraculous in you. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I mean, my father taught me how never to play the victim, and that's a big statement because my dad, as I shared this morning, was a black man from the state of Texas, and in the very early 60s when blacks couldn't even ride on the same buses, use the same bathrooms, or drink out of the same water fountains, my father and his business partner would disguise themselves as a chauffeur and a janitor to get into their own board meetings, board meetings for the seven white banks and savings and loans that he bought. So they owned the banks. They owned the banks.

They had to put this disguise on just to show up. Yeah, and their friends who were white businessmen who started the first banks of San Francisco would pretend to be the owners, and racism eventually took my father's business down that first time. So that's why this lesson is even more important because at the end of my dad's life in the year 2000, when I was given my first big show on NBC called Later with Cynthia Garrett at the time, I looked at my dad and I asked him about race in America and what I should stand for as a black woman, and he said, listen, baby girl. He said, I'm going to tell you something. The first minute that someone does you a harm, cry and get it out of your system.

He said, but please, after 20 minutes, you're a darn fool. Never choose to play the victim. You got to take the hand that life has given you and you have to play it as best you can.

And so from someone who could have been a victim who chose not to be a victim, I have a lot to say about that. Okay, now in a culture where the Black Lives Matters, the Me Too, there's a lot of division, a lot of challenges, a lot of hate, a lot of anger, a lot of upset, a lot of brutality to go around on all sides. What does Cynthia Garrett say to that?

That's a good cliffhanger, Kim, because we're going to come right back after this break and ask you that question. Of course, our online audience and our live social media on Instagram and on your wonderful Instagram page are still watching it on a Facebook live as well. And I'll link that over to my Facebook. The podcast will be available soon. Stay tuned.

I want to get into that. I want to speak about shame. I want to speak about purity. One of some of those other points that God gave you this morning that really spoke to people. It's just neat. I mean, I looked around and I was looking at the big giant screen over here, but a lot of folks were just looking straight at you, even farther back. They just wanted to see the live person. Of course, I was sitting in a way that I could see you better on that screen, but more coming up.

Hang on. Truth Talk is coming right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. And we're back on Truth Talk weekend.

A high-level guest, unbelievable, powerful testimony. Please, if you just joined us, many folks just dialed in somewhere on the Truth Network. Maybe it's 91.7 FM in Jacksonville. Maybe it's Christian Talk 660 AM in Greenville-Spartanburg. Maybe it's Charlotte 105.7 FM or Raleigh-Durham Chapel Hill. Wherever you're listening, Des Moines, Iowa, Salt Lake City, our awesome Truth Network affiliates, our awesome affiliates of Truth Talk weekend, please go back and get the podcast of this whole interview because Cynthia Garrett's story is transformational.

Unbelievable. And her book, which I'm pumped to read. I feel like I've known... I want to get more because there's so many details in there. And her website, synthiagarrett.org. So here's the notes. I'm holding them up to the Facebook Live group to show.

Those are the notes I took. This is a cool prayer of commitment, just a prayer for someone to receive Christ. And our Truth Warrior intern, Mentor, and I, we walked around and we grabbed all the extra ones of these off of the tables. And we've already shared it with a bunch of folks. Hey, this is a cool prayer just to thank you and bless you. And I wrote on the back of the Christian radio stations.

They could listen to 97.7 or whatever station, whatever market they're in. But it's really cool how you invited people to receive Christ this morning. A lot of people. And our special guest was the keynote speaker of this huge prayer breakfast. And it really, it wasn't a book tour and it wasn't a PR shtick and it wasn't like a hall of fame inaugural dinner with awards being passed out. It was a come to Jesus meeting.

And I say that in the most absolute strict way. And, you know, folks encountered the Lord Jesus through a woman of God who, God has changed your life. And parents prayed for you. And your dad, even to the point of his passing, was shelling out this amazing wisdom.

Don't be a victim. It's hard, you know, and it's hard. Look, I mean, the reality is that difficult stuff happens. You know, people today live with more challenge and more brokenness and more hurt and more pain and more abuse than, you know, than I've seen in my lifetime. And I always try to extend an invitation to know Jesus if I can, because that's what's given me strength and it's what's given me hope. And it's what gives me the ability to get up and love not just myself, but other people. And so it's kind of like, it's cheesy today in some ways to talk about being a Christian.

But I happen to think it's kind of cool. And I've always talked about being a Christian and I, because I want people to have better lives. That's it. I just want them to have great lives. And it really starts by coming out in that forgiveness theme you talked about.

Boy, that's huge. And you really, you kind of went, I loved how you addressed, you tapped the political just enough to kind of get us to get our attention. You talked about the Black Lives Matters, the Me Too, all these movements that are so many are driven by folks' anger, inequality, I've been mistreated. But you took that to a whole other level in what your dad said to you about victims and about the power of Christ's forgiveness. Speak to that real quick, this idea of forgiveness and how that supersedes everything. Well, look, in reality, you know, I've dealt with sexual harassment and sexual abuse my entire life.

And I spoke quite freely about that. I've dealt with a lot of stuff, you know, that has caused me to struggle with feeling overlooked or feeling, you know, anger and resentments and all of those things. But the reality is that we can choose to live with our victimization, which gives it power. We can choose to hold those who've hurt us in unforgiveness, which gives it power. Or we can choose to live with our victimization, which gives it power. We can choose to live with our victimization, which gives it power.