How do you lay down at night on your pillow
after you've just preached a six-part sermon series
on why tasting alcohol will send you straight to hell,
but yet then you come home, you molest your daughter,
and now you can go to sleep?
I don't understand how somebody gets to that point.
All right, everybody, welcome back to the Preacher Boys podcast.
Wendy, thank you so much for joining me on today's show.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to finally be here.
Yeah, the key word is finally be here.
We've been trying to set this up for a long time,
and I'm so glad we're finally sitting across from each other.
And I want to know a little bit about your introduction
to the church world.
What was your first memories of being part of a church?
Well, when I was born, my dad was already a Baptist preacher.
So I don't know if they had me in the Baptistry.
So the real question is, can you remember a time before that?
No, no.
I literally think I was probably at church
before I turned one week old.
That was just a thing.
You'd never missed a service.
So I was most likely on the front row
before I was even a week old.
So I don't ever remember a time in my life
where church wasn't part of it.
Right.
Were your early memories positive?
Did you have a positive experience
growing up within the church?
And being a staff kid has its own challenges and things
like that.
Was it fairly positive memories, though, overall?
It absolutely was.
When I was born, we lived in Illinois.
And my dad had a church there.
But when I was two, we moved to the Atlanta, Georgia area.
And he took over a church.
And so those are really where my memories are.
I don't remember much of Kankakee.
I can't hardly remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
But I have very good memories of the time in Atlanta,
which was from two years old up until about the time I was 14.
And most of those memories were very good.
When I say the church, I actually
mean he had not just a church, but we started a school.
And so I called it the compound.
And I know that's probably got a negative connotation because
of the David crushes of the world or whatever.
But it was, for me, it was the most fun place to be.
Everyone in my world either went to our church and or our school.
So all of everything I did was on that campus right there.
And so if we weren't at church or at school,
we were at home.
So it was just one of those places all the time.
And I loved being a PK.
I absolutely loved it.
I mean, my dad was like the head honcho.
And he was the founder of the school,
the pastor of the church.
And I was so confident in how I related to my father.
I was daddy's little girl.
I was the first born at the time.
There were four of us.
And I was so confident in my relationship with him
that I used to tell my teachers as I was growing up,
don't make me mad or I'll tell my dad and he'll fire you.
And I truly believed that.
My dad was everything to me.
And of course, growing up in the IFB, looking back,
they were taught to elevate themselves
so that other people put them on a pedestal
and worship them instead of God.
And that's the exact environment I grew up in.
And at the time, it didn't bother me because, of course,
I didn't know anything else.
Pulots were what we all wore.
So I didn't know that was weird.
I had no idea.
My cheerleading uniform came down below my knees.
Well, we all had that kind of cheerleading uniform.
So I was never exposed to anything
outside of the walls of our church and our school.
So for me, it was all positive.
And when your dad runs the place
and you feel like your dad's little girl,
then there was no downside for me.
It didn't feel like...
Well, you kind of run the place in a way.
Yeah.
In my head, I did.
Yeah, absolutely.
I remember we had the whole service
and at the end of the service,
my dad, after he was done preaching,
always, whoever was leading the, you know, the prayer that would, you know, you would pray right
before the service dismissed. During that prayer is when my dad would walk from the stage, from the
platform, down the aisle to the back in the, whatever you call that, the vestibule, and he
would stand and he would shake hands with everybody as they left. And I literally, from the front row,
the second he would get down to the floor, I would grab his hand, walk down the aisle with him,
and stand there with him while everybody said, oh, that's a great sermon, brother Tom, or way to go,
you know? And I mean, it was just like, I love him so much. I'm never going to not be with him.
When he would go visit people in the hospital, I would go with him. The bus route, I would go with
him. I mean, I wanted to be with my dad at all times. He literally was my hero, period, end of
story. Yeah. I relate so much to your story thus far, because I grew up a staff kid. My dad was the,
still is, associate pastor and, you know, administrator of the Christian school. And
I grew up, like you said, when you're growing up on the staff side, you've got other staff kids
you're hanging out with, you're riding bikes around the compound, the property. I had the
same thing, the school and the church on one area. So when I go by there, you know, now there's mixed
emotions, you know, but, you know, I also have so many positive memories, like learning much of
what I've learned, you know, learning how to ride a bike, learning how to, you know, make videos with
a camera, you know, was there, you know, playing with friends was there. Some, it, you know, I,
I met my wife in high school there, you know, we were that, we were that Christian, you know,
we met in high school. So, so it's, you know, it's still together. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's,
it's, so there's so much positivity there and it is what makes some of the negative things that
have happened hurt worse because it is a place where it was a sanctuary. It literally, and
emotionally it was, it was a sanctuary. So I'm kind of curious, excuse me. I'm kind of curious
for you, you know, coming into a place where it is this positive place, you're, you're, you're at
the top, you know, in a lot of ways, what was the first thing that happened where you said,
okay, this doesn't feel right. You know, everything up to that point feels great. Life is
good. This is how it should be. When's the first time you noticed like something's not quite right
in the way this is all happening? Well, for me, it was done at my house. There was nothing that I
ever questioned, like no, no rule, no assignment. No, you got to memorize this many verses in a
wanna. I mean, I prided myself in being a rule follower. I'm a type A by personality. So that
wasn't hard for me. And I, I didn't have any problems with anything other than these things
that I wasn't allowed to do. So say for instance, you know, I couldn't wear shirts with writing on
them because then that made boys look in places they shouldn't look right. And I could swim with
boys. We call that mixed swimming, you know, couldn't go to the movie theater to watch a movie,
you know, even if it was Bambi, right. Okay. So those were all things that I did not know at the
time. I thought they were like sin, like actual sin that we would go to hell. And, um, none of
that seemed odd to me, but what made me start questioning everything was when I was 11, um, my
mom and dad, of course, you know, in, in our denomination, divorce is just not an option.
It's just like, it's one of the top bad word. It's very, very bad word. And you can't pastor anymore
when you've been divorced. I mean, that's, that's, that's the rule. So, um, when I was 11 years old,
my mom, whose parents at the time lived in Florida, she started going more often to Florida.
She'd go down there, you know, before, cause it wasn't a very, very long drive. And, um, so it
wasn't like she had never gone, but the trips became a little bit more often. Well on these
trips, um, the four of us kids would always take turns sleeping with dad in the big bed. We called
that the big bed because I had a big, huge King size bed and we all had these little beds, you
know, that we slept in. And so it was no different than we had done for years. And on one of these
particular trips when I was 11, and it was my turn to sleep in the big bed is when my dad started
doing things to me that, first of all, I couldn't have explained it to you. Had you asked me what
was happening? Because being that he controlled everything that I learned, that was never
something we were taught in school. Like sex education was not a thing. Um, we never,
ever, even, I didn't know the word sex.
I didn't know anything about it, but I knew that something was happening
that was new and that felt very, very wrong, but it was hard in my brain to
put the word wrong and my dad together because I, I so thought of him as so
close to God and so perfect.
In fact, I had asked him many times.
Cause I, I got spanked all the time, you know, as you know, as the preacher's
kid, like everything you do, I mean, you live in a glass house, so yes.
So the people who are on his payroll got brownie points, if any of us kids did
anything wrong and they caught us and then they told dad, you know, Hey, I
saw Wendy doing this or whatever.
I mean, I would get the crap beat out of me, literally.
And so, you know, I, I personally looked up to him.
Like he was like next to God because I never saw him get a spanking and I
would say, dad, you, you must be perfect because you never get spankings.
And he would laugh and say, well, you know, God is the one that punishes me.
And I'm like, well, I'd way rather get a punishment from God.
That can't hurt me as bad, you know?
And he'd be like, no, no, no, you don't.
But that's in my, you know, little 11 year old brain, that's how I felt.
So the word wrong was never, um, like it's, it's just not something I
would have ever used to describe him.
So just naturally, because I was wrong a lot and got in trouble a lot, I
thought something is wrong with me.
This is my fault.
Something is majorly like, what am I doing?
That's creating this weird problem I'm having, you know?
And so it just kept getting, you know, more and more frequent and more frequent.
And it went on for years.
And of course, um, you know, I knew for a fact that nobody in my world that I
knew no, no adult, not even my peers would have believed me if I would have
tried to explain to them what was happening.
And so I never said a word, but, but my dad also told me and was very adamant
that if I did say anything to anyone that my mom would leave, it would break
up our family and that would be the end of it.
So that being my entire world was all I needed to hear to, you know,
control and keep me very, very quiet.
So that was the first thing that, you know, raised a red flag with me.
And it was nothing to do with church or school.
It was everything to do with what was happening at home.
Right.
With someone who's a literal paternal figure, but also spiritual leader, you
know, and that's a, that's a, that's a lot to come down at once, you know, it's
a lot to, to, you know, have to deal with at once.
And I'm curious before, can I continue with your story?
You know, you mentioned 11 years old, not knowing what even to call what was
happening, you know, not being able to identify what was going on.
And I'm kind of curious, like now in retrospect, you know, looking at
Christian education, how sheltered children are within the, you know,
Christian service.
I think there's a benefit to that.
You know, I think there's two, some go to the other extreme and I think over
educate their kids on things they don't need to know yet.
But then there's the other side, it's hard to find parents who are in that
middle ground where it's like, I'm going to protect you.
And then as we get to different levels of life, remove that protection a little
bit and say, here's what's going on.
Here's what you need to keep an eye out for.
Do you, do you think that, how do you think, I guess the church could do
better or schools could do better in equipping kids to be ready to identify
potentially harmful situations and, you know, prepare them for the realities of
life as opposed to putting them in a bubble that can be, you know, very
quickly popped, you know, by anyone.
Right.
I think the first thing is that the church has to be willing to believe
a child that comes forward for, for a child to come forward and make an
accusation against someone.
And especially someone in a leadership position in a church situation or a
parent, that is such a level of courage that a lot of kids cannot even fathom.
However, if the church had a record of supporting that, I think first and
foremost, it would be much.
easier for children, but also then they would want to provide the resources for parents
and teachers to be able to then educate them on this is how you do this.
So for instance, like right now we have a ministry that we have a curriculum that teaches
children from little bitty, I'm talking three, four years old, all the way through college
age and it's all age appropriate.
Nothing is, you know, like what you're seeing nowadays with the pornographic cartoon things.
It's nothing like that.
But it opens up the dialogue for questions for children to be able to ask in a very safe
environment.
It has color sheets for, you know, them being little and sometimes the things that they
color or they draw are very eye opening.
And so there are ways that you can very innocently and age appropriately share information with
them that then would be a quick red flag for a grown adult to know, Hey, there's, we need
to look into this a little bit more, but then that teacher would have to then have, you
know, the latitude to be able to go somewhere and say, Hey, I think we need to question
little Johnny over here, you know, because our house is, would have been the safest house.
Any member of our church would have, without even thinking, let their child spend the night
at our house, any member of our church.
And so, you know, you say now as, as parents, how do you not, you know, like I wanted, when
I found out I was pregnant the first time I wanted to, like, as soon as he came out,
you know, fit him for some kind of, you know, protection device, chain him to his bed, never
let him out of the house.
Right.
I mean, that's obviously not the answer, but when you have conversations with them that
are age appropriate, then when they get to certain ages, then they're not, they're not
afraid to talk to you about that because kind of opened that door and you then put
boundaries in place that protect them.
So for us, it doesn't matter who they are.
They, our kids do not spend the night with anybody.
Now their friends can come here all day long.
If their parents are good with that, they can come spend the night here.
We can have the entire class of, you know, their school to come over and spend the
night.
They are going nowhere.
Our kids go nowhere.
Period.
End of story.
Now that changed as they got, you know, like even, I think, I think my oldest son spent
the night out when he was 17 for the first time.
Now my, my next oldest child was more like 15 or 16, but you know, we learned, you know,
I told my first child, you are the experiment child.
So understand we started a college fund for you and a counseling fund all at the same
time.
So hopefully we will not screw you up as bad.
In fact, I said, maybe our grandchildren will be normal, right?
You know, like we, we are not even hoping that our kids are normal, you know, because
we know there's so much that we are trying to overcome and just find that balance.
Like what you're talking about, because it is very easy as a parent to want to protect
them.
And that's all really, really, that's, that's good intentions, right?
But you can also really damage them by keeping them in a bubble and never, ever letting
them experience.
Cause at some point they're going to leave the house.
I mean, it's just the way nature is.
They're going to leave the house.
And even though I homeschooled my kids for eight years and that I have to say, um, if
I can do any kind of plug for homeschooling, I think if you've ever considered
homeschooling right now in 2021, this is the time to homeschool.
There is so much weirdness going on in our public school systems and even our Christian
schools.
You know, I sent my kids to a Christian school, um, because they were both baseball
players and they aged out of little league here.
And so, um, of course I wouldn't even think of sending them to a public school, but even
the Christian school I sent them to, I mean, there's all kinds of issues going on, tons
of issues.
And my son actually wrote a paper saying how when he went to this Christian school, his
relationship with the Lord went the opposite direction.
He had, he's now working his way back to the way it was when we homeschooled.
And the sad part of that is, you know, every kid, no matter how much you protect
them, there's going to be a time where they, they have to figure things out for
themselves.
They're going to, like, you know, we call that rebelling or whatever.
I don't think it's rebelling at all.
I think it is the process of life.
And as a mom, I want them to know their faith is theirs because they're not, they're
not going to heaven because I'm saved.
They're going to heaven because they have a personal relationship with the Lord.
So they, they had to figure that out for themselves.
Well, when you're.
in a peer pressure situation in a school,
that is a lot harder place to be.
So if they don't have a safe place at home
to come home and say, hey mom, hey dad,
so-and-so was smoking vapes in the bathroom
or so-and-so and just announced that they had sex
in the car in between classes.
It's like, if you freak out
and they're not gonna come talk to you.
So you have to be able to have those hard conversations
and talk to them.
And if you don't, they're gonna talk to someone else.
Well, you set the precedent as a parent
and that's something that my wife and I talk about a lot
and we're, we have a four-year-old,
so it's like, we're looking down the barrel
at all these things.
But even now, when we first,
when she first started walking and knocking things over,
we would have conversations, not us and the four-year-old,
us, me and my wife would have conversations about,
we don't want her to be scared to tell us
she broke something.
We don't want her to be scared to tell us
that she knocked her plate off the table
because the thing is like, it starts that early.
Like if you set a precedent where,
oh, you spilled ketchup on the couch,
which I may or may not be referencing a direct thing
that may have happened.
You know, if she sees, oh, daddy yelled at me over that
and, you know, freaked out and flipped the house upside down
you know, is my daughter at 13 or 14
when something serious happens gonna come to me?
Because if I responded like that to the ketchup
or to the spilled milk or to,
how am I gonna respond to, you know, so-and-so did this
or this happened or I made this mistake.
And I think it's so important, especially like you said,
bubble wrapping your kids does a disservice
because the minute any adversity of any kind happens,
even if it's not their fault, you know,
that level of shame and fear they feel
is gonna stop them from coming to you, which is scary.
That scares me that my daughter might not come to me
and tell me something, you know, I wanna know first.
Right, absolutely, yes.
And I think also as parents,
it's so important for us to set an example
of admitting that we are wrong.
So when we make a mistake,
so let's say, let's use your ketchup example.
If you do freak out, right, which I did multiple times,
but I had to go right back and say, you know what?
Mommy was wrong.
I should never have acted like that.
I overreacted.
This is not a big deal.
It is a thing.
We can replace that thing.
Even if, you know, she burnt a hole in the couch,
you know, you can replace the couch.
What you can't do very easily is repair their spirit.
And so if we can tell them and set an example
of this is what you do when you're wrong,
you go back and you make it right,
and you admit where you were wrong,
and then you tell them, this is what I should have done.
This is how I handle it.
And will you forgive me?
And then you repair that relationship.
Number one, they're getting a model of, okay,
well, when I do something wrong,
I need to go back and tell my dad, you know what?
I totally messed this up.
I'm so sorry.
Now, it doesn't mean there's no consequence
for what they did.
I mean, you know, burned a hole in the couch.
Okay, yeah, we have to repair the couch.
Now, when she's four, you know,
you're probably not gonna take it out of her allowance,
you know, but there comes a time
where when they make dumb choices or whatever,
you're like, okay, well, you know,
we'll just give you extra projects.
You can work that off or, you know, whatever.
You wanna teach them, you know, how to admit they're wrong,
but also how to take responsibility for their actions
because that is the real world.
And so you wanna prepare them for that
while they're here, you know?
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's so important.
And before we move on,
what was the name of the resource that you mentioned?
Where can people find that?
Oh, on our website, it's endabuse.com, endabuse.
Yeah. Perfect, perfect.
Yeah, and I wanna throw out one more material
that's been really helpful.
There's a book called God Made All of Me by Justin Holcomb.
I don't know if you've ever read it,
but it's a really great book for kids.
Our daughter's not quite old enough yet,
I think maybe five.
I would say like when they're ready for K-5,
I think it's a good book to dive into,
but it does a really good job explaining, you know,
one of my favorite things in the book,
it talks about the difference between secrets and surprises,
and like it goes into grooming a little bit
without obviously using scary terminology
that's gonna terrify your five-year-old.
Again, giving them what they need to know,
but it's a really helpful book as well.
But I'll link to all this stuff in the show notes
for people listening so they can check it out.
But.
But going, going back to your story, I mean, like I said, this is a lot to confront, you know, this is a lot to your, your spiritual, your physical, your family, um, you know, how long did this go on?
And, and what was the effect it had on you as you're developing, you know, you're, you're growing, you're trying to figure out where you stand in the world.
You're trying to figure out what you believe, what was the effect over those years as this continued?
Well, it finally ended because my parents sat us down on December 30th of 1983. It was a couple of months before I turned 14. And what we were told was that we were moving to Texas to start another church. So, um, that's what we thought initially.
It wasn't very long after that on our way out to Texas, that the truth came out and being the oldest, um, I'm the one who kind of figured it out, of course, because of the abuse that I have been going through for the last several years, I'm matured way faster than I probably should have.
So I was more attuned to even looking for things because I was now starting to question things on my own. And so, um, my, my dad and my mom who, you know, had been married my whole life, there was also another couple in our church that had been married for however long, and they had been in our church a couple of years.
But, um, and, you know, she was an elementary teacher in our school, and he was my volleyball and softball coach and eighth grade homeroom teacher, history teacher, all that.
They were married and they got divorced at the same time my parents got divorced. And I was very close to these people and my parents would travel, I would stay with them.
And, um, so I was devastated, you know, that we were moving and I just wanted to live with them and stay with my friends. And of course, that was not an option.
But what I found out quickly on the way to Texas was that they had all been swapping partners. And so my dad and mom got divorced and he married the woman and my mom married her husband.
So my stepmom and my stepdad were married to each other. And so it was like, okay, hold on.
Wait, what? Okay, I can't wear shirts with writing on them or swim with boys, but I have the stuff going on at my house that nobody knows about. And I'm keeping the secret that no one knows about.
And now you're getting divorced. Okay, that's a big D word. And wait, and now who are you marrying? And what what is going on? I mean, it was just so like, overwhelming. And of course, I never was allowed to question anything, but you know, it was always because I said so was the answer to any, any kind of question that was uncomfortable.
And so it was very, very difficult for me, because I could tell that these were not going to be easy conversations. So basically, I just said to my dad, I really don't think that mom is going to be happy with how nice you're being to her referring to this other woman.
And that's when he said to me, well, your mom is not going to care because she ran off with, you know, Mr. So and so. And I immediately knew that she must have found out about what was happening with my dad, because that's what he told me would happen if she found out. So now my biggest fear has come to light.
And he allowed me to believe that he really allowed me to feel like this was my fault. And so my mom left with her with him. And he's now the victim, too. And so this woman who he's now bringing in, is coming in to save the day, because now we don't none of us have a mom. And so she's coming in to save the day.
And at 14, I didn't need anybody saving my day, I just needed some stability. And I just wanted to be with my dad. And if I lost my mom, I was set to deal with that. But getting a new stepmom was just not, I just was not ready for all this change. And it literally happened this quickly.
We left Atlanta, January 3 of 84. My parents divorce was final in February. My mom married him in March. And my dad announced to me that he was marrying her in April. Well, that's when I found out that he was having an affair with my mom.
At that time, she was already living with us in Texas and we were having to tell people that she was our maid.
She's our live-in maid.
Because your dad was still pastoring.
No, no, no, no.
He was not pastoring.
In fact, now we were at my uncle's church in Richardson, who is back in the news nowadays because he was on some kind of show like Inside Edition or one of those, A Current Affair or whatever it was, years ago for stealing condoms when he was a pastor.
Ended up, he had an affair.
Everybody that came out of that gene pool, all three of the brothers.
What I haven't mentioned is they all grew up in Jack Kyle's church.
Jack Kyle's daughter is married to my dad's brother.
We grew up swimming in Jack Kyle's pool.
My grandmother, my dad's mother, ran the preacher boy school that he ran out of First Baptist Hammond.
All three of the Smith boys were trained by Jack Kyle's to never admit you're wrong because then you're a weak leader and nobody will follow you.
Deny, deny, deny.
It's just ridiculous.
Everywhere I went, that was my, that was what I was surrounded by.
On the day that my soon to be stepmother told my dad that he had to pick between her and I, because this wasn't working, that's when I really believed that, okay, finally, he's going to tell her to go.
Because in my brain, there was not any, that was not a hard choice.
I was his first born daughter.
He had known her a couple years.
And like, if you're going to give him an ultimatum, I mean, thank you.
You know, good, good rhythms.
And that's not how it happened.
The next day, I was, I had made cheerleading at my uncle's school there in Richardson.
And my dad came to the school and was walking down the hallway.
And when I saw him, I ran up to him because I was so happy to see him.
I knew he was coming to tell me that she was leaving.
And when I went to hug him, that wasn't what was happening.
He literally pushed me off of him.
And that moment right there is what changed my life forever.
Because that rejection by my own father and the man that taught me about God and the man that introduced me to God,
when he rejected me and opened up his coat and told me I was going to live with my mom and I was leaving that night and gave me my plane ticket,
that rejection is something that I still struggle with at almost 52 years old.
Because the sexual abuse, that is a, one person on the planet has to deal with my triggers and my flashbacks from the sexual abuse.
And that's my husband.
Everybody, everybody has to deal with the rejection issues.
Because, you know, had I not been more mature in my walk with the Lord, all the back and forth that you and I were doing,
you know, like, okay, I'm going to, now I'm having to reschedule you and I'm here, you know, and not returning the call or, you know, wait, no, I didn't get that email or whatever.
Normally I'd be like, oh, well, he's mad at me.
Or, oh, he saw something I posted on Facebook and he's, you know, he doesn't want me on the show anymore or whatever.
You know, there's so many, there's so many mental gymnastics that I have to go through to say, this has nothing to do with me.
He's, he's busy.
He's got a schedule, you know?
And it's so hard for people who have been rejected by the people who should love them and protect them more than anybody.
So those are the really, really deep scars and harder things to get over.
Because it's something I live with hourly.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, I know exactly what you mean.
I'm always terrified of people, you know, did I offend somebody?
Did I hurt somebody?
And, you know, it's funny because on the flip side of trying to get this scheduled, I'm going there like, are they upset?
Or do I need to do this?
And like, how do I make this work?
And so both sides are going like, okay, I hope this is good.
But the minute we get on the phone, it's like, oh, we're both like, let's make it happen.
And, you know, I'm more excited than ever to be sitting down and doing this and, you know, but it's, I've seen.
that to varying degrees, you know, doing this show, you know, I have people that
reach out to me and I just really can't get to everything every day.
I mean, with Facebook and Instagram and email and Tik TOK and like all these
places and I get a lot of, a lot of times, uh, even one of my, my really closest
friends that I've made from the show, he'll text me and then like the next
day I'll be like, you good?
And I'm like, yeah, I just totally, I read it.
I received it.
It was great.
Thank you so much.
But I just, in my mind, I dealt with it and it was done and I just, it never
happened.
And so I had people, I've had, you know, I've had one or two that get so mad and
they're like, do you, you don't care about my story?
I'm like, it's not that, but I also have to remember on my side, you know, they're
telling themselves a version of the story that is, I don't care or that I, you
know, I'm another person that's discounting them or that's not the case,
you know, and I, so I'm partly saying that if anybody's listening, who has
reached out, hit me up again, let's do it again.
But, yeah, so I want to ask you this before we move on, like your, your dad
was the person that introduced you to God, spiritual leader, like you didn't
see any of these issues, you know, looking back retrospect, like I always
do, like I look at a Jack Hiles, I look at stories like yours and I see these
guys who build these platforms on the Bible, you know, or on this Christian
worldview who live in complete contradiction to that, do you think it's
a situation where that's just an easy path to become successful and to
leverage it for what they want?
Or do you think it's something where they go in well-intentioned, they do
believe it, and that belief just fades out to the background as they start
getting more and more power.
I think it is, um, closer to your second scenario and let me, let me kind of
explain, you know, I have racked my brain with what made my dad cross this line
with me and how, how do you lay down at night on your pillow after you've just
preached a six part sermon series on why tasting alcohol will send you straight to
hell, but yet then you come home, you molest your daughter and now you can go
to sleep.
I don't understand how like somebody gets to that point, right?
I mean, that is like not something you just wake up and do, right?
You just like, it's a fade over time.
I think what happens is that I really believe, and I'm, I'm not speaking for
everyone, but I think for the most part, I do believe people who surrender to
ministry, I think they do have, for the most part, good intentions.
I think a couple things happen in the case with my dad.
I believe that the stuff that he was taught to preach and that he grew up
believing himself, you know, like, I mean, there's nowhere in scripture that says a
woman cannot, um, you know, wear a shirt with writing.
Now you can interpret that from, you know, modest things, you know, scripture
about modest, but that's an interpretation that is certainly not up to any man to
tell a woman, unless maybe they are the husband and something is uncomfortable
and then they can have that conversation privately, but in no way, it gives anyone
the right to stand in a pulpit and demand it, or make someone feel guilty.
That's, that's the job of the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is the only one who can convict a heart and
make them want to do something.
Right?
So I think what happens is because they have all these guidelines and all these
rules, and they are telling people, they, they are also having to look
that way in front of those people.
And I think that is so unattainable that it is, they literally come and swing all
the way over here and have this double life so that somehow they feel somewhat
normal because this isn't normal.
And this certainly isn't normal, but, but maybe a combination of the two kind
of gives them a balance somehow.
They're fulfilling what they want, also fulfilling what they
think other people expected.
Right, right.
But also like just having a, having, you know, I don't know, just some kind of
outlet for not being perfect because none of us are and where, where they are
really, really missing the boat is in grace, because even though we sang
amazing grace, I did not understand grace until many, many, many years later.
I knew what grace was, but I had never received it because I lived in
condemnation.
Well, that's not scriptural either. That's so completely against the Bible and I'll give you a for instance
When okay, so let me I do need to tell you this because this is relevant
After the flip-flop, right
The switching of partners and after my dad told me I was going back to live with my mom who in my brain didn't want
Me at all because she had found out about what happened
I'm now back in Atlanta living with my mom and my new stepdad and
some things came up where I
I had heard another rumor about my dad and was so mad that I was hearing something else that I went in and
Confronted my mom and my stepdad about it and it had to do with him, you know
Having an affair
Before and my mom said why would you even think something like that about your dad?
And I'm like, well mommy, you know why I would think that thinking she already knew and that's why she had left
About what happened with us and she's looking at me and she's like, no, I don't understand
Why would you think something like that about your dad and after a couple minutes going back and forth?
I realized she did not know and so now I'm I'm having to tell her
What my dad did to me which was devastating to me
So I ended up being so distraught that I was the one that had to tell her
I ended up like totally depressed with doing anorexia bulimia
I mean I was trying to get some kind of control back in my life and about the time that I did
My stepdad started molesting me. So now I've got a whole nother father figure this new
man in my mom's life that is now doing the same thing and
So I say that to tell you that by the time I was 18 years old
My moral compass was so
messed up
Because I had also before we left Georgia had a Sunday school teacher
That molested me had an eighth grade homeroom teacher that molested me
there were other people because I feel like
Once you are a victim like there's some kind of radar that perverts have they can just sense
That you are an easy target and and because you're so young when it happens and you don't speak up for yourself
That's another thing that we teach kids what you know
How to speak up for themselves and find a trusted adult inside the house and one outside the house
I mean, there's a lot to it, but I didn't have any of that
So I just was I felt like a piece of meat right like I just this must be why I'm here
so when I was 18 years old, I
Ended up in a topless bar as a stripper now get this looking back on this
This is one of the craziest things for me. I'm
18 I danced for almost two years
Never did I taste alcohol?
Did I puff on a cigarette or do any drugs now how how I did that?
I have no idea
because I do know it was God's grace in my life because I would be dead right now had I had I done that because
I have a very addictive personality and that environment and
Yes, absolutely would have just sucked me in
but what's interesting is
That was a place for me that I actually felt safe because in these clubs
We had bouncers and those bouncers were very protective of us
So if they saw any I mean we had signals we could give them but they were also very observed
Very observant and if they saw anybody giving us a hard time
I mean it it was about 0.28 seconds and they were dragging somebody out of the club
Well, nobody was doing that for me at home. Like I was I was an easy target everywhere. I went so I
I
was safe on that stage and so for me
That's what kept me there for almost two years and it was that feeling of okay. I can at least
get the control back of my
Sexuality and
You know just not being taken from because everything was always taken from me without my permission
You know, and so I I felt like for me that was the safest place to be well
The Lord obviously had a plan for all of that because years later years later
We end up opening up a home for unwed pregnant sex traffic teenage girls
And now this is you know decades later
So these girls are so broken and so hurting but they have been so abused that
that they don't trust anyone, literally, they trust no one.
So what was always interesting was watching them
change how they reacted to me after they heard my story.
When they knew what I had gone through,
that I had also done something that I'm ashamed of,
although my shame is totally gone now
because that's all been covered by the blood,
but that gave me an authority with them
to then speak into their lives
because no longer was I just the church lady
that they got stuck at this home that she was running.
I was now somebody that literally
had walked in their shoes with them.
And so it was so much more effective
than just being someone who read a good book
and said, oh, well, page 210 says
this is how you should be feeling right now.
I mean, they heard my story in the news.
So it was, for me, I'm so thankful.
I'm so thankful that God gave me all of that pain.
Now, I wouldn't choose it again.
I mean, I'm not a masochist.
I wouldn't be like, okay, yeah,
but I can either be bitter
or I can allow it to make me better.
That sounds cheesy,
but those are your two options, right?
I can be bitter and that is not something
that I wanted to pass along to my children.
I don't want them to see a bitter mom.
I want them to see a victorious mom.
And so I decided to take what happened to me
and to get victory over that
and then be an advocate for people
that had also been through it
so that their parents don't find them hanging in the closet
because they don't think anybody will help them
or believe them.
Because I know when I have spoken at women's conferences
and youth conferences,
every single time I speak,
somebody comes forward and says,
I've never shared this with anybody,
but I feel like I can tell you.
And it's because that vulnerability and that transparency
that draws people to you so that they feel safe as well.
So that's, I wouldn't have that
had I not gone through everything that was painful.
And like I said, I wouldn't vote for it again,
but I think it's the same kind of thing like,
and I certainly don't compare myself to Paul,
but the Bible tells us that Paul was set aside
in his mother's womb for service to the Lord.
Well, why in the world then wouldn't God
have met him on the road to Damascus like at eight
before he could have done all the damage
he did to the church, right?
But never one time did he ever run into anyone
after Saul became Paul where they could say,
well, you don't know what I've done.
I mean, Paul like called himself chief of sinners.
You know what I mean?
He had persecuted Christians and everything that,
you know, anybody, I mean,
nobody had any one up on him, right?
So it made him pretty effective in his ministry.
And I just feel like so many of us that will, you know,
take our broken pieces and sweep them up to the cross
and let the Lord make beauty from ashes,
just let that happen.
It's painful, don't get me wrong.
It is painful, but it is worth it.
And I feel like I'm the hope on the other side of the cross
for so many of those girls that God brings into my path
that I wouldn't be able to even relate to them
and they wouldn't care what I had to say
had I not been there and done that.
Right, well, I mean, yeah, nobody would choose it.
I mean, it's one of those things like to get to a point
where you feel safer in a strip club than in a church
or in your own home.
When that becomes more of a sanctuary,
something has gone wrong.
You know, there's something, you know, there's something,
there's something bad there.
And I think, you know,
I think it's so important to see this.
And it's unfortunate because, you know,
we do say pithy things like, you know,
are you gonna be better or better?
Are you gonna be this?
And unfortunately, so many have weaponized those statements
or they've weaponized forgiveness.
They've weaponized, you know, healing in a way
to say get over it or don't think about it
or it wasn't that big a deal.
Whereas I like what you're saying, which is this happened,
this was bad, this should never have happened.
I definitely wouldn't ever want it to happen again.
Don't want it to happen to my kids or to anybody else,
but it did happen.
And so, you know, is this gonna be the thing?
It's the survivor mentality.
It's how do I take what did happen
and prevent it from happening to anybody else?
How do I take this and make something from it?
You know, with the horrible tools that were handed to you,
how do I do something with it?
And I think that's a powerful thing for people to hear.
And I think it's important to hear it from survivors
because I think when it said,
you know, uh, that phrase specifically, it's funny. My, my wife hates when people say be
better or be better because she remembers pastors who didn't go through serious traumas saying that,
you know, pithily from a stage, it sounds good, but you know, they haven't been through the
things that would make you feel legitimately angry and hurt and frustrated. Um, and so I think it
means so much coming from someone like you, who's now able to work with someone who feels like
there's no coming back from this. There's no, this is, this is the end. This is the nail in
the coffin on my life. And it doesn't have to be. And you know, I, what, what I love is I now have
stories of times where the Lord's opened the door for me to go into a topless bar, you know, and
which at the time I couldn't even believe they would let us in. Like I was really kind of even
surprised. And then I found out the owner of one of the bars right here in where I lived is a
Baptist preacher's daughter. So she and I just immediately bought it. You know, she has a story
very similar to mine and, but she let me go in and go to the dressing room where these girls are
literally walking around naked. Well, I had been there and done that. So I'm not like, oh my
goodness, what, you know, I literally just walked in looking right in their eyes. And actually I
looked at their shoes too, because the shoes have gotten much higher since I was. And so I started
with that. I'm like, girl, how do you walk in those shoes? You know, I'm not judging them. I'm,
I'm engaging in a conversation with them. I'm treating them like a human. And when I start
talking to them, they, and I, and I'm with the church ladies, you know, I'm with the ministry
that's there to, you know, save all of them from the pit of hell. Right. But I don't treat them
that way. I wouldn't have responded to that. I walked right in and I asked if I could try
their shoes on, you know, because seriously wanted to see if I could stand them, you know,
but just in my interaction with them, when I started telling them my story, they immediately,
the very first question, how did you get out? So it's so frustrating to me to hear people
put people down, you know, put down the strippers or like, you know, like I remember something
with, when Trump was, I don't know, whatever happened to, he's had so many issues, but
one of the people that was like suing him was stormy Daniels. And like, she was a stripper
and all this stuff. And they like totally wanted to discredit her on that one thing.
Remove the humanity of that person based on that. Yeah. Yeah. She has to be guilty because look what
she did, you know? And it's just like, okay, first and foremost, you have no idea. Nobody
wakes up and says, oh, I think I'm going to be a topless dancer today. No, it's nobody just does
that. It's stuff that like, just like with the perpetrators, they don't just wake up and decide
they're going to molest. I'm sure there are like serial killer, like really mentally deranged
people that will do that. But, you know, pastors who know the Bible, they don't, they don't just
cross the line. It's a slow walk. They, they try to, they try to keep, you know, pushing the
envelope and, you know, they flirt and then they get away with it and that empowers them. And then
they, you know, kiss somebody that's not their wife and get away with it. And that empowers them.
And then they have a full blown affair and that empowers them. And then that's not enough anymore.
Then they go to strippers or prostitutes, and then that's not enough. And then now it's a child,
you know, and sometimes their own child, that is a long process, you know, and it's the same thing
with these girls. They have been through so much to get them to walk in the doors of a place like
that. So to continue to just devalue them, it's just perpetrating the problem. But when you can
meet somebody head on as a human being, we are all created by the creator and we are all made
in his image. Okay. We each have our own stories and we each have our own traumas that happened to
us. Some very early, some not till later, but every one of us are struggling with something.
And so if we can just remember that as we're engaging with people, instead of putting them
in a box, okay, well, you're a stripper. So you go in this category or you're a Republican. So you
go in this category or you're in, and I'm talking to myself too, because I have a real hard time
with preacher, right? I'm like, I've told, you know, one of the preachers on my board, I'm like,
the homeless person that I might have to go around to get into your church is way higher up on my
totem pole than any pastor that I'm listening to from a pulpit, because my initial, you know,
wonderment is, okay, who's he molesting? What's he hiding? What's he not telling me? You know,
because it's just like, as you know, better than anybody every day.
Hey, there's a new one.
There's a new one.
What I believe is happening is nobody is highlighting the really awesome pastors.
Nobody is highlighting the really awesome doctors or the, the girl that came out of
the stripping and now look what she's doing or whatever it's everybody.
And I think human nature is we are drawn to the train wreck.
You know, you don't want to look, but you can't not look right.
And so I think because that's our human nature.
And again, we're in a fallen world, you know, that is something that we just
have to fight again and we have to bring attention to what is positive.
I mean, the Bible warns us, you know, whatever is good, whatever is lovely,
whatever is pure, think on those things.
And as humans, we just don't want to do that.
It's just not exciting for some reason.
And I think it's something that we all struggle with, you know, just
the 24, seven new cycles.
And, you know, it's just, it's something that I think we all need to learn from,
you know, me included, because it can really, I mean, it can wear your spirit
out, you know, yeah, it definitely can.
And it is important.
You know, I was, I was talking with someone the other day and I, and I, you
know, I've, I've got close friends who are pastors, you know, and I, I, um, some
are dealing directly with, you know, fallout from scandals and things.
And it's, it's heartbreaking talking to people who are well-intentioned
and are trying their best in our.
And, you know, and they're saying, they're going like, I'm not doing this, but I'm
picking up all of the flack and I'm picking up all the pieces for it.
And same across the board.
I mean, any profession, any, any time, uh, you know, anytime an athletic
news story breaks of abuse, you know, there's good people affected in,
in deep ways.
And I just think it's, it is, it's something where there does need to be
more attention called to the good people.
And that's why I try to have a lot of mixed people on my show, you know, like,
I think it's, you know, I think it's important to bring on pastors who are.
Killing it, you know, they're doing a great job, you know, they're, I think
it's important to bring on people who, you know, maybe Christians would turn
their nose up at and say, you know, oh, it's, you know, but they're killing it
in there and they're helping in ways.
And again, I think those conversations with empathy at the root of them, you
know, is such a positive thing.
It's going to help make progress in all of these different areas.
If we can sit down with someone who's not like us and start with empathy and
just have a conversation and listen,
right.
And listen, it's exactly right.
And it goes back to respect, like what you were saying, you know, you
have to have that respect.
So tell me a little bit about now, because I know you mentioned a little
bit about like some of the ministries you're involved in, obviously, you know,
with the website, like stop abuse, stop abuse, end abuse, end abuse.com.
So with a URL like that, you have a very specific mission.
Tell me a little bit about that.
What has been some of the opportunities you've had to end abuse?
What are, what's, what's the process there and the goal moving forward?
And this, this is going to get you in trouble and probably me in trouble too.
And that's okay.
Let me, let me start by saying this is never something that I would have
surrendered to, submitted to in regards to the Lord, you know, asking me to do
something, which is how I know for a fact it came from the Lord.
This is not something I would have drummed up, but I will reference back
quickly to kind of tell you how I got started.
Well, right before the hospital incident, which I'll tell you about, but I had,
I had thought I finished my book.
Okay.
I have written a book that they told me would take about six months, 18 months
later, I'm finishing it up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I never want to ever do that
again.
So I was so thankful I was done.
I had sent it to the editor and I'm not, I don't feel like I'm a good writer, but
it was like, I had a ghost writer who would interview me, ask me questions, and
then she would make it sound legible.
Right.
And, um, and I told her I wanted it to be for a 10 year old to read, like I said,
make it very plain and simple.
Cause you know, my audience, I really want it to, you know, touch young girls or
boys that are in this situation or could be in this situation right now.
So, um, we had gone through this whole 18 month process.
I was so happy it was over and I was on a little prayer walk in my subdivision and
just very clearly, I heard the Lord tell me this book is not complete.
And I'm like, oh no, no, no.
It is complete.
We're done 18 months.
I am done.
And, um, and he said, no, there's something missing.
And I'm like, what could possibly be missing?
I have never cried so much in my life.
You know, this, this interview for 18 months just took it out of me.
So I couldn't imagine what it was.
And he said, there's nothing in there for the perpetrator.
And I'm like, well, of course there's not.
I am helping the victim.
I mean, you know me, I am a victim's advocate, you know, and he said, I understand that.
He said, but I need you to be willing to help the victim, the perpetrator.
And I said, that's not who I'm after.
He said, I know that, but that's who I'm after.
And man, that was humbling because I didn't want to hear that from him at all.
And I had a whole plan because I know better than to argue with what the Lord's telling
me to do.
So I knew I was going to come back and tell my ghostwriter who thought the project was
over and she'd been paid and that she was going to refuse to do it.
And then I would be like, well, I tried, you know, but she said no.
And when I called her, she said, I knew there was something missing.
And it's just like, you know, okay, Lord, now you're just making me mad.
You know, I, I was, I had this whole plan, but he had already worked on her heart before
he told me he was just waiting on my obedience.
Well, we talked a little bit about what it was.
I think she put like a page and a half from the interview we had about it.
And my biggest fear, my very biggest fear was offending the means of the world, the
people that were going to read that book and looking for some hope and then read that part
and be like, what is she thinking?
Right.
So I just, you know, she did it.
It went to publish, we're done.
So check mark.
Okay.
We're done with that.
About six months later, my stepdad, who I told you had also molested me, um, had a stroke
on New Year's Eve.
And you know, of course we took him to the hospital, the ambulance took him to the hospital
and he never came out.
Several, um, he was there for a couple of weeks.
So, so I had made several trips to the hospital already.
And, um, with my father, my actual father, forgiveness came very easily.
And what I, what I struggled with with my dad were the abandonment and rejection issues.
With my stepdad, forgiveness did not come easy.
Forgiveness was a grueling process that the Lord walked me through over decades.
And I had already come to the place of forgiveness for him.
But on this particular trip to the hospital, I heard the Lord say, I need you to forgive
him.
And I said, Lord, I have forgiven him.
How do you know that?
And he said, no, I need you to tell him that.
Well, he was on life support, you know, they had drilled a hole in his brain.
I mean, he, I knew he couldn't even hear me.
So I'm questioning Lord, I'm like, why would I do like, he can't even hear me.
And he said, I need you to tell him.
And the other times I was there, I never spoke this out loud because my mom was there, but
I never spoke it out loud, but in the back of my head, I was kind of quoting that scripture
to myself about vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, you know, like, uh-huh, see what
happens when you're, you know, don't do what you're supposed to do and all that.
And I wasn't like excited about what he was going through, but I thought, okay, this is
what happens at the end of a life, like you've led, right?
And when I walked in that day, when the Lord told me that I needed to tell him that I forgave
him, something happened.
It was the most bizarre feeling for me because any other time that I was ever around him,
I could not get near him.
I could barely look at him just because he disgusted me.
I can't explain it other than if you've been the victim of somebody that you don't have
a natural bond with, it's just, you just don't want to ever be around him.
It's just a disgusting feeling.
And that's what I struggled with, with him.
When I walked into the hospital room that particular time, the only way I can describe
it is that I saw him through God's eyes.
It wasn't Wendy looking at him, it was through God's eyes.
And I saw him in such a way that the compassion overwhelmed me.
And I immediately asked the Lord, if this is the vengeance thing that you promise us
in your word, I want you to stop doing this right now.
Like, I don't want you to punish him because of me.
I'm okay.
You know?
And that's when the Lord said, now is the time, you know?
So I asked my mom if she minded if I talked to him for a minute and how I know that just
the Holy Spirit was leading is because never in a million years would I have ever touched
him ever.
Like, he disgusted me before, right?
But I was able to walk over to him, put my hand on his arm and literally say to him,
Hey, I just, I don't know if you can hear me, but I just, I want you to know that I
totally forgive you.
You know, we, we are good.
And if you need to hear that, to be able to let go and know that I'm going to take care
of mom and everything's going to be okay and you can rest in peace.
I just want you to know that I totally forgive you.
And then I walked to the other side of the bed.
And I did not know this, but his eyes followed me
to the other side of the bed
and he was like welling up with tears.
And I put my hand on his other arm
and I just said, it's okay.
And my mom said she had never seen him
follow anybody in the room the whole time he had been there.
And he certainly never welled up with tears.
So she's convinced that he heard what I said
and it was a couple of days later that he passed.
So again, I felt like, okay, I was obedient,
check mark, I'm moving on.
I'm not on any kind of mission.
I did what the Lord asked me to, check mark.
So back in just doing normal everyday ministry stuff,
the Lord started really giving me a heart
for if I want to abolish child abuse across the board.
And I know from research that most perpetrators
have a hundred victims, some more before they're ever caught
because no one wants to turn them in.
What's the best way?
And that's not an exaggeration too.
No, it's not.
It literally is a hundred plus is an average,
like you can Google that stat.
Because I think we say that on a podcast
and I think people hear that and go, yeah, hundreds.
But it really, that's the number.
It is.
And it's hard to even wrap your mind around that
because that's almost the size of the Christian school
that I went to.
You know, that's a lot of kids.
Exactly, exactly.
But if I want to be impactful in ending abuse, right?
Endabuse.com.
If I can help one perpetrator,
how many victims am I saving, right?
But it would take me helping a hundred victims
to save a hundred victims.
Well, I didn't even know like how to go about that.
Like I don't have a friend group of pedophiles, right?
I mean, I don't even know where to find them.
That's good.
Yeah, I've spent my life avoiding them
and keeping them away from my children.
And I have the little app
that when one moves into the subdivision,
you know, I get a notice.
I mean, I'm a victim's advocate and I'm a mama bear.
So I didn't even know where to start.
Well, someone suggested that, you know,
there's hopefully many of them in prison.
So we reached out to someone we knew
that did a prison ministry.
And in sitting down to talk to him
and sharing what the Lord had put on my heart,
he was like, wow, okay.
He said, I, you know, I hear what you're saying.
He's like, but here's going to be the problem.
Nobody that's there for that particular offense or crime,
no one admits that.
They all make something else up.
They, you know, like a man for murder or, you know, whatever.
They don't admit that because they're like
on the lowest end of the totem pole
and they usually get killed in prison.
So he said, you know, let me, he's like,
let me just think about it and pray about it.
And, you know, let me just think through the logistics of it.
He was worried about logistics.
And so I'm like, okay.
And so again, you know, check mark, I've been obedient.
And so about 10 days later, he calls me.
He's like, Wendy, after my meeting today,
he does a service with them every week.
He said, I just mentioned your story
and what you're wanting to do to these guys.
And you could have heard a pin drop.
He said, in a million years,
I never thought anybody would ever even approach me
afterwards because they didn't want to be identified.
And he said, but one of them did.
And they came up and talked to me
and he told me what he said and everything.
He said, I'd like to bring you in to tell your story.
Are you willing to come in?
You know, and of course these are maximum security prisons.
So we had to get my husband on board with that.
And, you know, there's a few things that I had to learn
and to know and, you know, I had to go and get searched
and, you know, all of that.
But I knew that it was something the Lord was doing
because it was not anything I would have ever thought of
on my own or wanted to do by any stretch.
When we got there, the amount of peace
that I had was overwhelming.
I thought I was going to be nervous and scared to death,
but I was overwhelmed with peace.
And they warned me, now, once you're done talking,
we're going to do like an altar call or whatever,
but don't get offended if no one responds
because that would then, you know,
pinpoint them as a perpetrator.
So I was like, okay.
So I tell my whole story, you know, about all of it.
And then at the very end, my friend got up
and, you know, kind of gave a little summary.
And then when he did the prayer, he said, you know,
Wendy's going to be up here.
If anybody wants to talk to her afterwards,
you know, we'll just be up here.
When we raised our head from that prayer,
the line of the men waiting to talk to me was to the door.
It was so overwhelming and I wasn't sure what, what was going to happen because that was what I was told was not going to happen.
Each one of them came up and with tears streaming down their face, told me their story of what they did to their, some to their daughter, some to their niece, some to, you know, just different.
And most of them were so repentant and broken. Some of them literally on their knees, repentant and broken because they heard from a victim when I said to them, if this is something that you're in here for today, then you have not crossed a line that is too far for the arms of Jesus and his grace to reach you.
But it starts with repentance and getting on your knees and asking first and foremost, God to forgive you, but then also restoring with your, with your victim.
Now, of course, they're locked up for 30, 40, 50 years, so there's no restoring of the victim.
But every one of them, other than one, there was one like really very weird experience I have, but all of them, except for this one guy, were so repentant and asking me to reach out to their victims for them.
Like, can you get her your book? Can you do something to help her?
It was, it was an unbelievable response so much so that we didn't even have time to finish the number of people that were in the line.
Like they had to, you know, use the room for something else.
And so I, I did that like in three different prisons right before COVID hit and then they, you know, shut everything down.
So I don't know what the Lord is going to do with that, but here's, here's why I'm telling you that.
I would never in a million years have dreamed that that would even be something that I would ever get to the place that I would even be okay with, even in obedience to the Lord.
I'd be like, that's just going to have to be something that, you know, it's on the list of things I've got to apologize for when I get to heaven, you know, just add it to the list.
But when you see the Lord use your crazy life that was rejected and abandoned by your own father, and he discounts you like the trash.
But then you see God, our father use that to potentially change the lives of countless number of victims because one man heard your story and saw the damage firsthand and what he actually did by his actions and that he never was going to do that again.
I don't know.
That is very motivating for me because it then again, one of those crazy little sayings, but it gives a purpose for all that pain I went through.
Right.
And I can say that with authority because my pain was very real, but my purpose is so much more real than my pain and my purpose is going to last until the Lord takes me home.
My pain was for a period of time.
I could have chosen to live in that pain.
I could still be living in that pain and nobody would blame me for that.
I have a perfect reason and a perfect excuse to live in that pain.
Nobody would feel bad for me.
I would probably still be on your podcast, right?
And you'd be like, man, I can't believe that.
And nobody would be upset with that.
But when you can turn that pain into something that is really going to make a difference and my difference making is going to be even more effective.
If I can say a hundred victims at a time by reaching one perpetrator.
Right.
So God had to get me to that place.
And it only came with being willing to be obedient to whatever it was.
He said, even something as little as I need you to add a page and a half to your book.
I'm like, okay.
You know?
Okay.
Check.
I'm done.
Not wanting to do it again, but not wanting to not be obedient.
Right.
And then when I was obedient in that, he then had me do it face to face with a perpetrator that hurt me.
And then it was like, okay, check.
Now, what could he do with that same obedience?
If I was willing to put myself out there and be the arms of grace to those perpetrators who everyone else has discounted.
How many victims, how many of the people watching the show right now, their children may not be perpetrated upon because whoever was going to get to their child.
Heard my story.
Right.
And said, man, okay.
I'm not.
There is hope for me.
You know?
And so that's the reason that I never want to say I'm not going to do something.
If God tells me to do something, I want to be available to him to do whatever it is he's asking me to do and just be a vessel.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, and to be honest, yeah, it's a, it's a challenging thing.
Cause like I, I struggled to wrap my mind around it because I think there's so
much of, you know, I'm curious.
So I, again, it's hard because all these words get used in a weaponized way.
So like when we talk forgiveness, restoration, so I'm curious from your
perspective, cause I think a lot of what my, I want to say pushback, but my, my
thought when I hear people talk about restoration ministries, is it putting
somebody who has committed an offense because recidivism is also very high
statistically, you know, what's the, what's the difference in your mind there
when you're talking restoration or you're talking you know, repentance or,
or things like that.
You know, I had Jimmy Hinton on who, who, you know, we were talking about
restoration at length and he was talking about one of the things that predators
and perpetrators do is they're very compliant.
They're very say what they need to say, you know, to appease people that before
abusing their grooming four or five different groups of people to make this
happen.
So, you know, when you talk about restoration, is that purely referring to
their personal relationship with God?
Or is it saying, you know, Oh, can they change in a way where they could be
reinstated into a place of authority or leadership?
You know, cause that's
no, no, no, no, no, no.
This has to do with their soul and their eternal, um, their, their eternity.
Um, so many of them have such disdain for themselves that they don't even
believe God wants them, you know?
And so that's, that's what I'm after.
No, absolutely not.
None of them, zero of them, no matter how compliant, repentant, sad, sobbing,
you know, they, they could go on a world tour telling their story.
That's great.
You will never be in a room alone with my child, period, end of story.
No, that's called consequences for your sin, which is also biblical.
There is absolutely no way that I would ever advocate for a perpetrator to ever
be put back in any position of authority or to have any contact with children
that wasn't highly supervised.
Like in other words, like they could never be a Sunday school teacher.
They can never teach in a school anywhere, anywhere, like
never be a teacher of any kind.
They could teach other men in prison.
They could go in and tell their story in a prison and maybe give
that same hope to other men.
But as far as children, absolutely not.
It's, it's no different than the consequences of anyone's sin.
Right.
You know, if you steal, you're not going to work in a bank, you know?
Yeah, probably not.
Yes, exactly.
And, and if you, if you get pregnant before you get married and you don't
have an abortion, that is a lifelong remembrance of, you know, there's
probably God put that in an order for a reason, you know, so now a single mom
might have a lot more struggle than she would had she waited, gotten married,
you know, and then had a baby, you know, because then she'd have
someone to help her, whatever it is.
But that sin is sin.
Like sin has consequences.
Some consequences are much higher.
You know, uh, some, but somebody says, you know, like a little white
lie is not as big of a sin.
Well, the more someone gets away with something, I think I would rather have
the consequence up front because then it reminds me, don't be doing that again.
The reason I'm sitting here today is because my dad's sin was never caught up
with, he never, ever got busted for all of the sexual moves forward that he took
to where it empowered him in such a way that he thought he could get away
with it, doing something to me.
And so it, it totally changed my whole life.
Right.
So I would rather, you know, get a hold of the consequence of the sin immediately
than to think I got away with it.
Right.
Cause you learn faster.
So sin is going to catch up with everyone.
Some sin in our human world is, has a lot higher consequences, right?
You murder somebody, chances are you may not be around much longer
if you get the death penalty.
Right, right.
So there are levels of sin humanly, but to God, we all fall short of his glory.
So I can't say that my sin is any less, um, you know, qualifying than a
perpetrator's sin in my not being qualified for heaven, right?
I still have to have the same blood that Jesus shed for me and for him, that blood.
And if we as Christians think that that blood that covers our sin is not strong
enough to cover their sin, we're in trouble.
And so that's what I'm, that's, that's what I'm talking about is giving them the
hope that we are all in that same category.
of sinners and falling short of God's glory,
of God's righteousness.
And he has not discarded you
if you're willing to be repentant.
That's what I'm saying.
But most of them believe that God,
you know, nobody else wants them.
So God must not either.
And see, that was, I struggled with that.
When my own father, and I gotta tell you this story,
this is something God's done recently,
which just blew my mind
because I had been thinking about this wrong for so long.
And God finally got me to a place
where he could tell me and set me straight.
It was beautiful.
But when my dad rejected me,
well, and my pastor rejected me,
I was convinced, well, God doesn't want me either, right?
Because that's just a natural thing to believe.
Okay.
So I finally got to the place where I said,
okay, I'm actually now thankful that my dad,
my earthly dad, did not love me,
wanted him to, and give me the approval
that I wanted him to,
because that rejection drove me
to then fill that void with another dad,
which is then what led me to my relationship
with my heavenly father.
And so now, because of my dad's own abandonment
and rejection towards me,
now I have a relationship with God
I would never have had,
had my dad given me what I wanted
because I would have settled for that, right?
And so that was a good place to be
for many, many, many years for me.
It was recently, actually I was in my car
driving to Atlanta,
and the Lord showed me so clearly.
And I just, I was so excited.
I literally had, because I was driving on the highway,
so I had to just turn my phone on and record myself.
So I would never forget this.
But he said, sweetheart, you've had it backwards.
You have never been rejected by your dad, ever.
He said, I've always been your true father.
What I did was I gave this man
that I put on the earth an opportunity
to be a representation of me to you.
And he failed miserably,
but you've never been rejected by your father
because I've always been your true father.
And I thought all those feelings
of being the black sheep and the abandonment,
it just was gone.
It was so unbelievable.
I'm like, okay, I don't know why it took me so long
to get to this place where then now
you can share this with me,
but I'm so grateful because this person
who was involved in my birth,
he just totally missed the mark
in showing me what a dad is.
And that has nothing to do
with how God feels about me at all, nothing.
So I am so thankful that I was finally able
to receive that from the Lord
because that changed everything.
The abandonment and the rejection,
that is just, I mean, when the creator of the universe
who created everything you see
and stuff we don't even know yet,
I mean, the Hubble telescope
is only so many light years away, right?
They still haven't discovered everything.
But he loves me and never rejected or abandoned me.
And I mean, that's pretty overwhelming.
It's hard to wrap my blonde hair around, right?
It's just very, very difficult to really fathom that.
But that's my dad.
That is not this man who did all this horrible stuff to me.
He's the one that God gave a chance
to show me who God was,
but he just missed the mark tremendously.
There's a lot to chew on in these last 30 minutes.
And I'm curious for anybody who wants to,
keep up with your story, follow up with you,
be able to see the things that you're doing
and hear more from your journey now,
what's the best place for them to do that,
to connect with you?
We have a podcast that is called Truth Talk with Wendy.
Yeah.
Somewhere back there.
Yeah, I know.
We're trying to do,
I'm gonna run this on my podcast as well, hopefully.
But yeah, Truth Talk with Wendy.
The basic premise of it is we talk about faith,
family and freedom through the lens of scripture
with an emphasis on how a victim of childhood sexual abuse,
how we see those things in the world.
Because like we've talked about,
it affects how you trust people.
It affects how you parent.
It affects a lot of things in your life.
So we go through just different issues that come up.
Some are about faith, some are about family stuff.
I just dropped my second son off at college.
It was like devastating and why it's so much harder
than some of my friends are counting down
until their kids are up.
of the house, you know, but like for me, it's just, it's, you know, so we just talk about
different things. And then all the political craziness is going on. We talk about different
things. I just interviewed the woman that is just announced her candidacy to run up against Dan
Patrick, who was the Texas lieutenant governor, and he's not been doing everything he's supposed
to do. And so she's running up against him. And she's big involved in sex trafficking and has
been before we ever even knew what sex trafficking was. I mean, she's an amazing godly Christian
woman. And so, you know, we'll have, you know, different people on to talk about different
issues, but all through the lens of people who are recovering from, because I don't ever think
that we are totally healed. My husband calls this the gift that keeps on giving. It is, there's
always in something that we're having, you know, and it's a new struggle that we didn't even know
that was affecting us that way. But I think it's part of just our journey with the Lord and how we
walk with him. And like I said, you know, just a couple months ago, he revealed something totally
new to me. And it was revolutionary for my thinking. You know what I mean? How do you,
how do you change an almost 52 year old's mind about something? You know, it's, it's a process,
it's a journey. And I wouldn't have received that not, you know, four or five years ago,
would not have been in a position to even hear him say that. So I just think there's, there's so
many of us, unfortunately, that have been through something like this. Not all of them have been in
the church. Unfortunately, many have. And we have a tendency to want to blame God. Well, God did not
molest me. God did not abandon me. God did not reject me. That was something man did. And no
matter where we go, or what environment we're in, whether it's a university, whether it's the
grocery store, someone is going to treat us in a way we should not be treated. So we have to
decide for ourselves, you know, how are we going to respond to that? And for me, the only thing
that's kept me going is my faith in the Lord. And I think even that is a gift from him. I don't
believe, I don't take my faith for granted. Every day when I wake up and I still believe in him,
I'm thankful because I have every reason to not. And I'm thankful that he still gives me
my faith every day and then I exercise it. You know, it's not something I take for granted
because at any point in time, I think I could easily talk myself out of it. And I don't want
to. The alternative for me, it's not an alternative. So I'm thankful that he keeps revealing himself to
me over and over and over. If you're listening, be sure to check out all the links that I have below
the book, the website, and connect there and the podcast as well. We'll make sure we link out to
that as well. But thank you so much for making this happen. I know it's been a journey of its
own making this all line up, but I'm so glad it did. And thanks for talking to me for so long.
It's been awesome and a lot to think about, a lot of challenging thoughts. And I like
conversations like this that, you know, make people think through these things. What do they
believe? What do they think? What do they understand about these situations? So
thanks again for sharing. Well, I appreciate you having me on and I'm so excited about what you're
doing and even watching your own personal journey. You know, I don't think the Lord's done with you
either. I think that he's, you know, using you in such a mighty way and bringing light to things
that have been hidden for so long. And now I think people are finding that they can, you know,
speak up and not be, you know, pushed aside and people are believing their story. And, you know,
I think that because the church didn't do what they were supposed to do, God used things like
the Me Too movement and all the stuff going on in Hollywood. He's like, no, no, no. These are
my children. We're not going to be doing this to them. So if the church isn't going to say
something first, you know, then this is how I'm going to expose it. And then I just think,
you know, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing.