Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Lee & Amy Wellard
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00081A
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00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery,
00:12 I'm Cheri your host. 00:13 Have you ever wondered if God actually has a plan for 00:15 your life? The Bible says He orders our steps. 00:18 He knows the beginning from the end and all that stuff. 00:21 I'm beginning to actually buy that, come and join us. 00:24 See what I mean! 00:52 Welcome back! We are going to talk today about how 00:56 incredible God is, and my favorite text 01:00 is Jeremiah 29:11, and onward. 01:02 In Jeremiah talks about God saying to us that He has 01:06 a plan for our life, a future and a hope. 01:08 It really matters to Him where we are and that we get 01:12 that, but it goes on to say that you will find Me when you 01:15 seek for Me with all your heart. 01:17 I thought that meant like desperate holding onto 01:21 something in this search, and somehow I have to get it 01:25 or understand it and now I'm beginning to realize all 01:28 my heart means that I fall in love with Him. 01:30 That I really realize who God is and my heart opens up 01:34 to Him, and the heart of God opens up to me. 01:36 It is not this desperate search and it's not that I know 01:38 exactly what the Bible says, even though that is cool. 01:42 It is the word of God, but it's not that I had to 01:44 memorize these things, or figure out all this, 01:45 it is were I all of a sudden see the face of God. 01:48 I can't help but saying to Him, I know that You are 01:52 for me and not against me, that I can rest in Your love, 01:56 and rest in Your heart and in that, as my heart breaks 01:59 open, as all that fear that I have walked around with 02:02 all my whole life, start to surrender that the God 02:07 and I realized that His whole goal in my life is for 02:11 me to get it and to heal. 02:13 And that is what His goal is for you. 02:14 I'm going to introduce you to some friends of mine that 02:17 I met at Wildwood. 02:18 Lee and Amy I just want to say thank you for 02:20 being here on the program. 02:21 Thank you! - when I say that about seeking after God's 02:24 heart, what do you hear Amy? 02:27 Amen, that just thrills me that's exactly what I'm 02:30 understanding now. It's been 17 years since I've 02:32 found Christ, and I found Him again, last year, 02:35 after the birth of our first child. 02:36 Through many traumatic experiences after the birth. 02:41 - go on with that because I think in a lot of times 02:44 people think that seeking after Him means behaviorally 02:46 I get it right, and I change my behavior and I strive to 02:50 be good enough, and God said who told you that? 02:53 Jesus has done it all, that's what He showed me. 02:56 He showed me that He is broken over us, and that is real 02:59 to me, He showed me that His pain has been caused by my 03:03 sin and that's what turned me around and caused me to 03:05 fall in love with Him again. 03:07 - how did that happen to your son? 03:08 Well it's a long story. 03:11 - well we love long stories here. 03:14 Well he was born last Christmas of 2008 and he is just 03:17 15 months old and it was a long labor 54 hours. 03:21 - 54 hours? Oh man! 03:24 I was wanting to do a home birth, all my life I wanted 03:26 to do a home birth if I ever had a child. 03:28 The Lord granted me that, He gave me a promise 03:31 actually, Cheri, in Isaiah 46:6. 03:34 It says I have born, I will carry, and I will deliver 03:38 you, just before the birth He showed me He was going 03:40 to deliver the baby. 03:41 It was okay not to go to the hospital but to 03:43 have a home birth and try to do it without 03:45 medication by His grace. 03:47 So we went ahead and my midwife agreed we could go ahead. 03:50 Anyway 54 hours later he was born and I basically went 03:55 into shock, it was quite a traumatic - 54 hours, 03:59 I can't imagine, I had three hours, you can hit me. 04:04 Through it all I know Jesus knew what He was doing. 04:07 He knows what I needed to go through to really experience 04:10 Him again, and during that 54 hours I went through a very 04:14 dark valley where I felt like someone was lying to me. 04:16 Why is it taking so long? 04:18 They're telling me I'm doing great, but I can't be, 04:20 why isn't he here yet, why isn't the baby here? 04:22 So that took me to a near-death feeling, I felt like 04:25 I'm going to die or the baby is going to die. 04:27 This fear came over me, this tremendous fear. 04:29 You were just talking about in your introduction, the Lord 04:32 took your fear away when seeking Him. 04:35 He took me places with love, and I have lost that love 04:39 in my soul for Jesus Christ and I didn't even know that 04:43 at the time of the birth. 04:44 So the Lord had to take me through three months of some 04:48 anxiety and depression, some terrible psychological 04:52 symptoms after the birth, for three months. 04:54 I finally collapsed on my bedroom floor one day, after 04:58 coming home from church on Sabbath. 04:59 My husband said Honey let me pray with you. 05:01 I said Honey this is between me and Jesus. 05:04 - this is not for anybody else, this is a private, 05:08 intimate thing that Jesus and I need to work through. 05:12 I didn't plan to tell you any of this. 05:14 To me I'm so glad that you are, because it is interesting 05:20 that God's goal is to go after our heart. 05:23 Sometimes we get so carried away with our behavioral 05:26 things, Ministry and do the right thing, and we don't 05:29 even realize our heart is just totally closed up again 05:31 and God says I'm not going to lose you, I love you. 05:34 Right, and I didn't realize that it happened to me, 05:36 Cheri I have been in the church for 17 years and 05:38 I thought everything was doing okay, I was doing better 05:41 I used to have food disorder and the Lord delivered me from 05:45 that so I felt like I must be okay now. 05:47 But the Lord is always seeking the depths of our heart, that 05:50 citadel of the throne of the heart, so after 05:53 the 3 months I cried out, I said, Lord I have to have You. 05:57 I wrestled, I laid on the floor and said I'm not getting 06:00 up until I have you Jesus. 06:02 You know what happened? I didn't hear a voice, 06:05 but I knew what He was telling me. 06:08 He said Amy I love you, but you have lost your love for 06:11 Me, and it broke me. 06:14 God sits there and says, I love you and you know that 06:19 everything else means nothing to Him. 06:21 - right, but I saw what I had done, I saw that the closing my 06:26 heart, had broken His heart. 06:28 Right then He converted my soul again. 06:30 And now when I speak of Him I become like this. 06:35 - Amen, I just have to say, - I fell in love with Him. 06:37 I know what you mean, exactly in the fact that we always 06:41 think that our journey with God, it cracks me up, 06:45 our journey with God is a behavioral journey. 06:48 Somehow soon as I get it that I have to be right and 06:52 to do right and think right and all that is good. 06:54 God wants us free from all our junk, but He says, 06:57 I want your heart, I want you to love Me. 07:00 - that is what He is seeking. 07:01 So now, we're going to get to you later! 07:05 because Amy, I want to know because you talked about 07:09 prior to the eating disorder and all that stuff, 07:12 I want you to lead us from where you came from. 07:17 It is really interesting that I know a little bit about 07:21 you, and I know that you came from an upper-middle-class 07:27 family, talk about that and jump into how 07:31 God lead you through the years. 07:32 Okay well, I was raised in the UK, and my father is a 07:36 medical Doctor and we always had everything we needed 07:39 financially and materially. 07:41 I have three siblings and we went to a Catholic school, 07:43 a Catholic education and there was always division in my 07:46 home, my father is Catholic but my mother was not. 07:49 So there was always questions about religion. 07:51 Always felt my mother was probably right, 07:53 she opposed to a lot of the teachings that my 07:56 father wanted us to believe. 07:57 And I went to a university for literature and philosophy. 08:02 I was really seeking the Lord but didn't know I was 08:05 seeking, at the same time I was becoming more and more 08:07 empty and filling my life with parties, with alcohol, 08:10 with cigarettes, with boyfriends at all the things you 08:13 do when you're desperately looking for Jesus, right? 08:15 Trying to feel that hole that nothing can fill but Him. 08:18 At the same time I developed a food disorder from the 08:20 time I was about 14 years old. 08:22 I was a compulsive eater. 08:24 For a lot of people, we even get letters about people 08:29 with food disorders and eating disorders, 08:31 so will you talk about what that did for you? 08:34 Was there even a time at that age that you knew this 08:37 was not okay, that I'm overdoing this? 08:40 Oh yeah, I realize there were something missing, 08:43 something wrong with me and I would talk to my parents 08:46 about it, but they just felt maybe you do better later. 08:49 You'll have bad habits and that kind of thing. 08:52 I was seeking answers but there was no spiritual help 08:55 for me, I went to see a psychologist, it didn't work. 08:57 I even went to hypnotherapy, and I thought oh this 09:00 is the answer, this is great and this going to work. 09:02 It didn't, it didn't last of course. 09:04 While I was in that condition I would often go to weight 09:08 watchers and try different Slim fast 1000 calories, 09:12 and all those things. 09:13 My weight was always fluctuating. 09:14 - what did the food do for you? Because it does something. 09:17 Like a drug or anything? 09:19 Well physiologically it boosts your serotonin levels makes 09:23 you feel temporarily better, like a drug. 09:25 - it's like drug, I don't feel empty because you are 09:28 literally are full, and my serotonin are built up so I 09:32 feel somehow peaceful, that anxiety is less. 09:37 Right, you are sedated, exactly. 09:40 I wish people would understand that about eating 09:42 disorders, that we don't do anything unless it works 09:45 in some way, and so it worked for you for a long time. 09:48 Your weight was going up and down, your self-esteem 09:51 even at that early age. 09:52 I realized it was a temporary fix, because I still felt 09:55 bad underneath, because I felt guilty as well because 09:58 gluttony is a sin, and we call it eating disorder, 10:02 but it is a sin and by God's grace He wants to remove it 10:05 from us and give us peace and freedom. 10:07 I like when you say gluttony, people with eating 10:10 disorders are like what, what did you call it? 10:13 Because eating was ruining my health. 10:15 So know that somebody that even to see our addictions 10:22 as sin is really tough, because we really don't see that. 10:26 We are in denial about all that. 10:27 So you're saying your weight went way up? - right! 10:32 I went up to 220 pounds, I'm 5 foot eight but that is 10:36 still too much for someone of my height. 10:38 So yeah, by the time I was 22 I was that large and I went 10:43 traveling around the world trying to find answers. 10:46 - any answer. - anything, I thought it would be better 10:49 over there and I realized when I got over there that I'm 10:51 still there, still me, I have to live with me. 10:55 So I thought this is a real problem and 10:57 I can't escape me. 10:59 What is the real issue here? 11:00 Even though I had been raised with so-called education, 11:03 I never understood about the spiritual realities that 11:05 were so, so missing. 11:07 You know in England it is about 95% professed atheist, 11:11 is that right? - very secular. - very high! 11:13 So anyway should I continue? - yeah! 11:18 So in Australia and here I am with my sister traveling 11:21 around backpacking, looking into Shirley McLain's 11:23 teachings about the New Age movement. 11:26 - dancing with wolves. - dancing in the light. 11:30 All these books so she became my guru. 11:32 - what is really interesting even about that, 11:35 I love the fact that you brought that up because it is 11:37 very seductive, and if you are feeling like I don't know 11:40 who I am, or where I fit in and all of a sudden you fit 11:44 in not only here with the spirits of generations. 11:47 There is a lot of past life things and it is so much 11:54 greater than you, if you are not feeling you is enough, 11:57 all that is seductive. - right! 11:59 You sort of find an identity in it, right. 12:02 I was looking at all her materials thinking this is the 12:05 way to find peace, like I would witnessed everybody 12:08 about this piece I found through her books. 12:10 I would go to different meetings about palm reading and 12:13 shock waves, meditating through shock waves, levitation, 12:17 and I thank the Lord that He protected me from these deep 12:20 experiences and really getting involved with spiritualism 12:22 which is what it is really. 12:24 So while I was studying those things, 12:27 to bring you to the point where my Jesus really picked 12:31 me up, and He delivered me. 12:32 I went to some meetings that were advertised as being 12:35 New Age meetings, it said come and hear about the new world 12:39 movement, the New World order. 12:40 What happens after death? 12:42 I thought oh great, this is could be so amazing. 12:45 We were laid-back people and I was wearing my tie-dyed 12:47 outfits and hippie style, this is Australia so it is very 12:51 hot and everybody is just hanging out. 12:54 I actually lost a job which made me open to go into 12:59 anything else, into some new adventures and things. 13:02 I went to these meetings, and do you know what really 13:05 hooked me? They had free vegetarian food! 13:08 I thought wow this is great. 13:10 - a lot of hippies are health nuts. 13:12 Right, I was to accept I still drank and smoked. 13:17 - did you smoke weed or any of that stuff? - I did! 13:18 - because I was going to say they are health nuts, 13:22 and they are smoking weed and drinking all that stuff and 13:25 saying you know what, I really want to eat healthy. 13:28 Right, right, that was me deep down but I'd have the 13:31 apple pie and couldn't quit the ice coffee and so forth. 13:36 So I went to these meetings and the food was fantastic, 13:39 but before the meal you know what? 13:41 There was an evangelistic series - no way how funny. 13:44 Right in the bush in Australia, a little Bush town 13:47 with the Aboriginals people, native Austrian people, 13:49 right around the area. 13:51 A minister from the south of Australia had been impressed 13:55 to hold an evangelistic series right there for one week 13:57 during his vacation time. 13:59 I was just passing through with my sister, we used to 14:02 hitch rides on the big trucks that went through Australia. 14:05 We had just hitched to that town and saw the advertisement. 14:08 So we go along, and that night the Minister lifted up Jesus. 14:14 - just saying this is who God is, this is who Jesus is. 14:17 Right, and here I was totally broken. 14:20 All these things I had been searching for all this emotional 14:24 void in my life, this is what I needed. 14:26 - Don't you wish, even on this program I wish that 14:30 somehow people could get to that point, because that 14:34 really is the answer. 14:36 Every 12 step group says that you have to understand and 14:39 recognize there is a God, but we resist that so much. 14:43 We want to recognize everything else. 14:44 God says, everything else is going to leave you as empty, 14:48 if not more empty than you were before. 14:51 - right the void is even greater, and I think Jesus knew 14:54 that I'm so hardheaded that He had to take me to the 14:57 bottom to make me realize this is what you really need 14:59 and are really seeking. 15:01 - it's amazing, so in those meetings did your sister 15:04 know that you changed, that something radically just 15:08 happened? - yes she did. 15:10 That first night of the meeting I realized I need Jesus 15:14 and I realized He loved me and that love started to heal me. 15:18 Talk about healing, I started to weep, and weep, and weep. 15:22 I quietly committed myself to Jesus that first night. 15:26 I was too shy and quiet to make a public commitment. 15:30 I was the only one there, myself and my sister, 15:33 who were not already Christians. 15:35 So we knew it was just for us, my sister also 15:38 committed herself to Jesus. 15:41 So what did look like from that point on, I want to even 15:45 know when you walked out the door, because when I first 15:48 became saved I looked around and everybody was acting 15:51 like it was just a normal thing. 15:53 I am like wanting to Yahoo, can we stand on the table? 15:57 I wanted to grab somebody. 15:59 And at point I even said to God, I can't wait until I get 16:02 to heaven, I want to have lunch with Mary Magdalena and 16:05 the demoniac, and say we're here, how cool is that? 16:09 You do want to celebrate, so as you guys were walking out 16:13 what did you say to each other, do you remember? 16:16 I do, you know, this was 17 years ago. 16:18 My sister said, you know this is true, she said to me. 16:21 Amy, because she studied history at the University and 16:23 she knew, he was talking about Daniel chapter 2, 16:26 and she knew all these kingdoms had risen and fallen just 16:29 as he described from the 16:30 All the time she was telling me this is true intellectually. 16:33 I'm thinking this is true in my heart I know Jesus. 16:36 It was like the light came on, suddenly, everything, I could 16:41 see good and evil, I could see light and darkness. 16:44 Before everything was vague and gray, no absolutes, 16:47 no moral clarity. - you are God! - right! 16:51 That's what I thought, but I couldn't believe that 16:54 was nonsense I knew deep down. 16:56 As we walked away and walked past a bar and that night 16:59 we had actually arranged to meet with some young men 17:02 in a bar, right next to where the evangelist series was 17:06 being held. - I think God is funny in that way. 17:08 Isn't that amazing? We walked past the bar and both 17:10 looked at each other and said, no that's last time. 17:13 We haven't had a drink since then, praise God. 17:15 He did, He really delivered me and I am so thankful. 17:19 Amen, what is amazing is that with that delivery, 17:23 and what people think a lot of times is that with that 17:27 delivery, with that under standing that you will never 17:30 have another thing, but that is not the case. 17:32 With your pregnancy and going through that, we tend to 17:35 walk away from God or close back up, and 17:39 God is so faithful in saying I can't let you close back up 17:42 because you asked Me to save you from that place. 17:47 So I will save you from that place over and over and over 17:50 again if I have to, that is amazing. 17:53 So I would like to jump in and find out, you guys didn't 17:59 know each other during this time hey. - no! 18:01 So your background is so similar to that? 18:04 Actually we were born at the same place in England, 18:07 in the same county, about the same time. 18:10 - not knowing each other? - no! 18:12 I grew up in England for 10 years then I went to 18:16 Australia and about the same time Amy was being 18:20 converted, I was also being converted. 18:22 At another evangelistic series in the same part of 18:27 Australia, near West Australia. 18:31 Was there a point where you guys talk about that 18:33 and just laughed? Oh yes. - oh yeah. 18:36 It was amazing because she was baptized in my church. 18:40 A little country church in West Australia just a few 18:44 months after I left to go to Queensland. 18:46 - that is so crazy, so I'm going to finish up with yours 18:50 and then we will break and come back and found out Lee 18:54 how you guys met and that kind of thing. 18:56 From the time you got it, I may not know all the 19:00 particulars, but I know I felt the heart of God. 19:04 I'm standing up and walking out with your sister, what 19:08 did your life do, and what did your parents even say? 19:11 Because it sounds like your parents were okay with what 19:14 you where doing before then? 19:15 Um Hum, yet they were okay, but I think when we changed 19:19 they really didn't see the depths of sin that I had 19:22 gotten into, so they didn't see the contrast as greatly 19:26 because I was on the other side of the world. 19:28 They were in England and I was in Australia and they did 19:29 not know what I was up to. 19:30 When mom and dad calls, how are you doing? Oh I'm fine. 19:34 I found Jesus, well they were a little bit shocked, 19:37 but when we came home things were hard for quite a long 19:40 time because we was living in a different world 19:41 altogether and we were still living with her family when 19:44 we came back, but obviously our hearts and minds for 19:47 somewhere else altogether and was very hard for them. 19:50 What did your change look like? Because you were exploring and 19:55 looking for truth at all that stuff and now I got a sense 19:59 of who God is, what did you were change look like? 20:02 You mean how did I change physically? 20:04 Well how did you, because you stop drinking that was one. 20:08 Did you then open up the word and start to try to figure 20:11 out who God was, who you were outside. 20:14 Oh absolutely, every day learning to pray, this was 20:17 a totally new thing for me. 20:19 Praying in public I was so nervous the first time 20:21 that I burst out laughing, it was embarrassing, 20:24 it was terrible. 20:25 I gradually got used to it and the people with me 20:27 were so kind, mentoring me, teaching me. 20:29 We are in this segment, this season, we are talking 20:35 about developing that prayer life. 20:37 There is a book that we are giving out called, 20:38 'Pressing Into His Presence'. 20:40 For a lot of people that is like okay should I just 20:44 start now, it is an odd thing to know that an omnipresent 20:50 God, a God that is with you, you can't see Him, you can't 20:55 feel Him, you get a sense of Him sometimes, but now 20:58 you're going to speak directly to Him. 20:59 So talk about how you learned, we tend to jump over that 21:03 not realizing for most people we have no idea 21:07 what you just said. - right, right! 21:09 I was raised Catholic prayers, our father, 21:12 the Hail Mary, and before we prayed for our meal we would 21:14 just say, thank you for our food, in Jesus name, Amen. 21:17 It was always the same prayer so the idea of a personal prayer 21:20 was totally foreign to me and I started with something 21:23 very, very simple, but something the Lord taught me right 21:27 early on, was to pray out loud. 21:29 So I always prayed out loud, and I always have done 21:31 it and it has helped me tremendously to be able 21:33 to focus my mind. 21:34 Because when He first found me I could 21:37 hardly concentrate for more than a couple of minutes. 21:39 I think my brain was shot from everything I had been 21:42 doing, and had a go through Daniel 2 about 4 times 21:44 before I grasped the concept of the succession of the 21:47 kingdoms and the Lord really rebuilt my brain. 21:50 With eating disorders, with drugs, with all that stuff, 21:54 I do think we jump into health, we jump into recovery, 21:58 and we think, I get it, and our brain is saying no, well. 22:05 So the restoration of the brain, He did that even 22:07 through your learning to pray? - right! - it's amazing. 22:11 So when you started to pray, like I had an addict friend 22:15 of mine in AA group, he was like okay, all right 22:20 I'll pray and he folded his hands. 22:24 He put his head down and said, God bestow on me. 22:27 I thought bestow, he doesn't even know what that 22:30 means, and so it is like for some of us when we jump 22:32 into prayers we will just say what may be we heard as 22:35 a child or in some church. 22:37 Maybe we saw it on an evangelistic series or whatever. 22:40 We are not, we don't know how to say it, am I allowed 22:44 to just say, God how cool are you? 22:47 Do you know what I mean? So when you first started to 22:50 speak to God, did you get a sense that I could speak 22:53 to Him as a friend? In this intimate way? 22:58 I can speak out loud and I can. 23:01 I think it took me time because of my Catholic background 23:05 God is over there and I'm here. 23:07 But to bring Him near, I knew He was right inside my 23:10 heart because He had broken me and yet I still had this 23:13 concept that probably He is far way. 23:15 So it took me a while to develop intimate prayers 23:18 with Him, I think. 23:19 Isn't that amazing - yes - it's amazing. 23:22 So you ended up coming into a relationship with God, 23:26 did you change your direction as far as in school? 23:30 Vocation or any of that stuff at that point? 23:33 Well to be honest I didn't really have any direction. 23:36 I like that, no I didn't have any. 23:38 I didn't, and I never, never was ambitious for anything, 23:41 I always played the violin in school and would have loved 23:43 to probably a professional musician but it never worked 23:46 out, it's highly competitive as you know. 23:49 But I have heard you play, you are fabulous. 23:51 Gifted. - For Jesus. 23:55 That was the only ambition I had was to play, I never 23:58 really wanted to do much else, I had to I find the answer 24:01 to my searching, I had to sort out my problems first. 24:04 The drive was in me for that. 24:06 So we are going to go ahead and take a break and we are 24:08 going to come back and find out who Lee is, how you 24:10 met, and the Ministry that God just walked you into. 24:13 I think it is amazing that our recovery is never just 24:17 about walking away from something, our recovery is never 24:20 about getting it and stopping this frantic search for 24:23 something to fill us up, our recovery is God wants 24:26 to stand is up and say, now let Me show you 24:28 what you are passionate about. 24:30 The Bible talks about I will give you 24:32 the desires of your heart. 24:33 What does that mean? I don't even know if I have desires. 24:36 Just like what Amy was saying, I don't even know if I had 24:39 direction and that is what I think is amazing about God 24:42 and fully stepping into recovery is because He says, 24:45 man I know exactly what is going to put a smile on your 24:48 face and wake that passion up. 24:50 So stay with us, we will be right back! |
Revised 2014-12-17