The Radical Truth About Being Light in a Dark Space & Why It Matters Now

Control Alt Redeem is for anyone called to ministry in the digital frontier. Gamers, streamers, and everyday believers navigating life online. Each episode equips you to live on mission and the real stories of lives being changed. Reset your expectations, reframe your mission, and redeem the space you're already in. This is where digital ministry gets practical, creative, grounded, and hopeful. One episode at a time.

and welcome in everyone to control alt redeem we are resetting the culture and redeeming the space and we're talking about what it is to be salt and light in a space that sometimes can be very very dark and so today uh as a guest we have elaine light talking about being light in a dark space welcome in elaine hi hi everyone i hope everyone's having a blessed wednesday so far I hope so too. I mean, it's been a busy day for me so far. I haven't had much of a break. I was on several meetings today, which sometimes meetings can be really fun. And I try to make them fun by putting emojis and putting in all kinds of gifts in the sidebar to distract from whatever's happening. So I try to have fun no matter what's going on.

Welcome in Freight Train.

How are you doing Freight Train? So what have you been up to today?

I woke up. I went to the laundromat because we go to the laundromat right now to do laundry while they're working on getting codes on all of our doors in our apartment complex. And then I went to a little cafe right next door because I was really hungry. I didn't eat breakfast before I left and had some very yummy, like Mexican style crunch toast. It was super good. And then I came home. I found my missing mail key. I prayed about it last night. So we... Black Dirt Shirt, we lost our middle key. We couldn't find it. I prayed last night for God to have like an angel put it somewhere where we could find it. And then we found it this morning after laundry, which was super cool. And then I worked on some Discord stuff. I set up some Throne and like Twitch stuff, which was super cool. So, you know, productive day.

Yeah, it sounds like it. Although, although I like, I like you keep like, this is one of those things my brain does at times. Like it's stuck on one thing that somebody mentions. Okay, wait, wait. Mexican French toast. I have no idea what that is. Like what is, what makes it Mexican French? Did you put salsa on it? I'm assuming no. Nope.

I don't know how they cooked it, but it wasn't like American-flavored French toast. It had a different flavor profile. So, like, however they cooked it was very different than any French toast I've ever had. But it was super delicious.

I am intrigued. It sounds good. I can say one of the... Well, there was a couple of people that had a recipe for baked French toast. So if you're going to serve a lot of people, you take and you put all of the stuff on a tray and then you bake it. And, oh, my goodness, the caramelization that you get on that, that layer of crust underneath. Oh, that is so good.

So how I cook my French toast actually is I put a little bit of avocado oil in the pan and I put a little butter in the pan and then you let the butter melt and like almost get a little brown, but not too brown. And then you stick the French toast in it because it caramelizes the outside of the French toast. But the inside of the French toast stays super fluffy. Change the French toast game for me because then the syrup isn't like making the bread soggy. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, some people put too much syrup. I think that's how they get soggy bread.

That is true. I dip mine. I put, I've learned to put my syrup on the side and dip it because I'm wasting less and I have more control of how much syrup is actually going onto my bread.

Absolutely. That is, that is the game changer. You dip instead of, you know, soak it in it. It's yep.

Yep.

Yep. Oh, well, I like I love that. Like, I have never I never have any idea of where we're going to go in a conversation. We have funny little things that we'll end up talking about. That was fun talking about French toast. Yeah. In fact, I was just doing some edits on Anika's Cakery and going to be putting some shorts and reels out. So I was already thinking about food. And then we come on and we're talking about food. So what a good time.

I'm a foodie and a baker. I love baking.

yeah i yeah i we could just go in that direction we won't we'll come back we'll come back maybe maybe we'll come back to to food later on but we'll we'll put we'll put a pin in that one for for a minute uh so yes I have had a couple of people who are VTubers, and we've got your – which, by the way, AI does not like when I go to edit. It thinks there's only one person talking. It can't see your mouth. It can't see you move, and it has an edit problem. But it is fascinating to me to have people who are doing something creative and doing something different and being able to connect in that way. So how did you come to being a Twitch streamer? Did you start out watching Twitch and then you decided to do that? Did you decide you were going to be a VTuber to begin with or PNG? What was that journey for you of coming to... stream on Twitch and be a creator.

So I actually wasn't super, super engaged with Twitch before I became a content creator. My twin, for y'all that don't know, I have a twin. Her name's Elliora or Katie Bug. She goes by both depending on what she's doing.

I got alerts coming in. They're a little bit loud over the top. We just hit follower number 450. So...

Amazing.

Yeah. Let's see. Who was it? Karma Komodo. Thank you for the follow, friend.

And so I had been moving a lot. I was super depressed. And I was like, originally, I actually started out as a FaceCam streamer, and I was going to do cosplay. But then I realized that was way too much work after working every day. Because the wig prep, the hair prep, the makeup, the getting into costume when you're out of costume. So I switched to be doing, which is where originally for y'all that didn't know. I used to go by Corky bug came from and she was my OC. I've had Corky bug is my personal nickname. Corky bug is not an OC. It's a real name. It's my real nickname. It's what people call me in real life. But I took my online character that had several names and turned her into a virtual avatar for VTubing. And that's kind of where I started. And now I'm a 2D doll on the internet waiting for my model to be ringed. But I was really depressed when I got into it. I had moved. I was on my fourth move and I think two and a half years or fifth move in like two and a half years or something. It was a lot of moving. And I was like, I need something to do to give me joy outside of life. So let's get involved in the internet.

You know, it's an interesting thing that you bring that up, and I don't think everybody fully grasps and understands that. I know for my kids, they moved a lot growing up, and I usually just pick on my middle child in regards to this. So he was five years old when we moved from one state to another state, and then he was 10 years old when we moved to another state. So he's 13, and he says, so where are we moving in two years?

And... I feel that.

Right, but that's moving state. So within that time, before he's five years old, he's already lived in two dwellings, maybe even three, probably three if I'm... It might only be two. He might have been there two years and two in the other. And then we moved to Texas. We were there the entire time in one place. But while we were when he was 13, we'd already moved in the city we were at. So he'd already moved multiple times and we ended up moving when he was 14 to a new town. where he got to live there for four years in high school and then moved to another state again. So in his lifetime, he was five when he moved from one state, 10 when he moved to the next state, 14 when he moved to the next state, 18 when he moved to the next state. And then he was on to back to the original state by the time he was 20.

So. Yeah, I can relate. I am 30. I don't mind sharing my age and I have moved 23 times in my life.

Yeah. So I understand. Yeah, well, before the last two places I've lived, which currently I've never lived longer in my life, which is nine years. Before that was in the parsonage at the church I was serving in Iowa for six years. Before that, my average was two and a half years my entire life.

Oh, like stacks, because same. It was two to two and a half years for me too.

Yeah. So I get that with my kids moving, it was like, you're always starting over with friends. My daughter talked about when we were in South Dakota that the person that I think is my best friend, I will never be their best friend because they've had their best friend since kindergarten. And I'm just a second class friend to them. So not that it was like and that was just the way the culture was, is your parents grew up and went to kindergarten together. You grew up and you went to kindergarten together. Your parents have been friends. Your families have been friends. You already have those set by the time you're in kindergarten. And the only way to really get good friends is there's somebody else in the same situation that moves in from out of out of state, out of town to do that. And I think that. I am starting to run into more people who are intentionally finding online community because it can remain consistent regardless of where you live.

Yep. One of my all-time best friends that's now, like, a brother to me. He's amazing. I've known him since I was 13. I met him on the internet. We've met up in person several times. We've come out now. Like, he is definitely a brother to me, but he's been consistent because no matter where I move, the internet moves with me so I can stay in contact with people. So, like, I'm all for advocating for, like... in-person friendships you know in-person fellowship however like when you're constantly moving it even in churches it makes it hard to connect with people because like people don't understand like the tedious process of starting all over again reintroducing yourself sharing your story sharing your testimony and online you can share it and then copy and paste it tweak a few things to fit the person that you're talking to and it's not it's it's great because it's just there

Yeah. I hadn't thought about that aspect of it. But also, if you're an extrovert, there's a level at which you get to do all of that and it's fun. If you're an introvert and you're constantly moving, it's like you need a set amount of time to get to trust people before you even begin to share. And they're wanting you to share instantly because you're the new person and they expect you to be able to just share and talk about all of those things. It It can be really detrimental on you as a person, depending on where you come across. Yeah. What if you're an ambivert?

I'm actually an ambivert, to be perfectly frank. I am part introvert, part extrovert. i am perfectly in the middle but sometimes it swings more than one way than the other so it honestly is circumstantial like there's some people i meet and i just connect with and there's other people i'm more reserved with on uh even online and in person well i'm like okay i have to take my time to open up to this person because i'm getting like i don't know what their intentions are i don't know them very well and then there's some people i'm going to shout out aki fam and natalie uh jeremy and natalie i just connected with instantly they have heard my like life story uh webby pumpkin his wife mermaid have also heard my life story because i just really jive with them so like being an entrepreneur you really swing back and forth depending on like the energy people put out Um, but like, I'm also naturally, no one believes me. I'm naturally shy. So like when I do reach cough and stuff, I'm just in complete extrovert mode. Cause I don't want to be that awkward turtle that doesn't talk to anybody, but then I come home and I'm just exhausted.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, what, what, what was really strange for me, just talking about how you relate, like I was always extroverted and, and, and way, you know, like i'll be the last one who's there i'm talking as soon as i show up i'm talking to people what really became strange was the longer i was in a church preaching the more introverted i became so like i never needed to withdraw from people to recharge until i started preaching every sunday And then by the time I got to 1 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, I don't want to see anybody for the next 36 hours. I don't want to talk to a person. I don't want to shake hands with a person. I don't even want to hug from a person. Like, I just need to vacate any place where there are people, which was the strangest feeling to me. Like, I'd never felt that before. uh in that you know in that realm it's like no i there's somebody that's still around i need to go talk to them and i was like nope i'm spent i'm done i'm empty and i would have to withdraw from people where normally i would be around people to get filled so that's been changing since i've been doing uh streaming i'm back to what it used to be i think of i just want to be around people there's there's the fear of missing out if i don't hang out and and stay in the conversation yeah uh the fear of missing out is real in the streaming space oh yeah i i i would hear my kids talk about fomo and i'm like what are you talking about i don't get that uh now i do now now i really do because there is there is so much and If you're not there, you don't always know what's going on. You miss part of the conversation. But there's also digitally the ability to have asynchronous community and asynchronous things. So you don't actually have to miss out on all of those things.

Correct. You don't, which is kind of nice.

Yeah, Zacchaeus, I love catching these interviews. Everyone's story is so unique and interesting. I agree, too. I love digging into the stories, and I don't know where it's going to go and what God needs someone to hear when you're here. I just want to encourage, want to support, want to lift up my friends, and then also encourage others to do the same. Hey. So you got started. So you didn't say you spent a lot of time watching Twitch or being engaged before you decided, hey, this is something I'm going to do for myself and to develop community so that I can keep that as I continue to move. Was it a plan to intentionally start as a VTuber? Was it a plan to say, I'm going to be Christian in the space? Or was it just, I'm just going to be a streamer? How did the getting started all work for you?

So I just hit go live with a webcam and very basic overlays. And then I was like, I'm too lazy to present myself. The Christian space was back and forth for me. I had a few people, but I didn't start out as a Christian streamer. I still don't really view myself as a Christian streamer. And the reason why is because typically if you labor yourself as something Christian first, why I love the Lord with all my heart, it can turn people off because of hurt. from different religions, different denominations, church hurt, there's a lot of things. So I'm a streamer that happens to be Christian, that shares my love of the Lord and my testimony with people, because I want to encourage people, if you have church hurt, if you have past sins, if you have mistakes, those things don't define you and you can overcome them. And so I was like, let's just do this. And then I still am actually... when i started growing um i ended up having to take a hiatus because family stuff which kind of sucked because i hit affiliate had to take a two-month break which killed my growth and then i came back as like a vtuber and i was like we're gonna do this and i set up a debut and then i was like friends with some people and we were really close i got a got a raid coming in

Deverea coming in with the raid. Welcome in. Luce is bringing the buzz buzz bee raid. Welcome in. Luce is good to see you. Deverea, welcome in. Glad to have you here.

Hello, Raiders. Welcome in. I hope stream was well. What did you guys do? Tell me something that you guys enjoyed about stream. We're happy to have you.

Absolutely. Love you coming in here. So those that do not know, I am Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. And here we are in the middle of a podcast interview called Control Alt Redeem, where we are helping to reset the culture and redeem the space so that it is a safe environment for people to be able to hang out in digital space. And Elaine Light is here on the show.

show today if you want to just share a little bit about yourself elena's we're going to welcome in all of those brand new people joining us hi i'm elaine light i am a streamer that loves jesus and playing games and doing just chatting streams sharing my testimony and encouraging people i am a twin my twin's name is eliora or katie bug vt depending on what she's doing online and i'm so happy you guys came in

Yeah, that's fun. I get raids, and I'm always surprised by them. Like, oh, there's a raid happening. It just catches me by surprise. Didn't expect it. Never expect them. They're always a blessing. So thank you, Deverea, for coming in and blessing us with that. It is a joy to have you here. And Lucis, I'm sure, had something to do with that. If Lucis is over there suggesting, I don't know. I'm going to suspect that. But thank you for coming in. Didn't know you had this channel. Glad to find you. Yes, it was Lucid's suggestion. Yep, I figured that. Everyone's doing great. You played some Star Rapture. Ooh, it was fun, but not for a potato like me. Well, you know, that's generally part of it as well, is to not always be fun for the streamer, but be fun for the community. So there we go.

Yep.

All right. Well, welcome. So we were just talking about how Elaine had gotten started with being a VTuber, being a streamer. She made affiliate and then immediately took time off and then came back and decided to do VTubing. So what? So you talked a little bit about having to go through all of the work and energy to do cosplay. I love that idea, by the way, of cosplay. I thought really hard about going and doing that for the stream today. And I ran out of time. And I was like, oh, I could just throw the wig on. And I was like, if it's just the wig, it's going to be weird. It's got to be the whole thing. So I didn't do it.

So cosplay, my particular branch of cosplay is very extravagant. I wear the very frilly dresses, the very detailed stuff. So it takes a lot of time to get into. I have to put in contacts each time I cosplay. It's braiding my hair, pinning my hair up, putting it into wig caps, securing the wig. There's also the whole... dynamics of like, how do I navigate my headphones with some of my very extravagant wigs? Because I have some, headphones are not fitting over all of my wigs.

Yeah, that was my thought too. Like I put a wig on and then I got to put this on, or I could have went the other direction and had horns. And it's like, how do I put horns? That was like, how do I put horns? and headphones on i can't do both so um so emaru i know she's um

She is a Twitch streamer. Y'all might know the name because she had some stuff happen at TwitchCon. She does very flat wigs. Her wigs are very, like, they just look like natural hair. And it's really cool to see how she cosplays and Twitch streams. I don't follow her super well, but I know of her because I knew her as a cosplayer. I did not know she was a Twitch streamer. Let's be real. Cosplay is real for me. Outside of the Christian Twitch sphere, I don't know a lot of people. So when I found out she was a Twitch streamer, I started checking out her stuff. And I was like, oh, so, you know, flat wigs all the way to go. I don't do flat wigs. I do very extravagant styled wigs. So cosplay and Twitch streaming probably wouldn't have worked out because there would have been like the audio feedback from my headphones having to be around my neck, being picked up by my microphone.

It just hurts. Yeah, I processed through some of those things that just went... All right. At some point, and I've already committed to this on one level because I put it out there to enough people that they're going to hold me accountable to this. So when we were at Reach Conference, and we can talk about that a little bit later, when I was at Reach Conference, I did cosplay as Geralt of Rivia from the game The Witcher. And so I'm like, I had so much fun doing it. I'm like, I never thought about being a person who, when the brand new game comes out, getting on board with the game and streaming the game brand new. And I'm like, I think I'm going to do that when the next one comes out. They've been talking about Witcher 4 for a long time. Maybe it'll finally come out. And then I was like, oh, I could cosplay as well. While playing the game when it first comes out. So it's like, that's the plan. I just don't know when it's going to happen. I'm going to have to schedule a whole bunch. I'm going to like, maybe that'll be my first 24 hour stream. I've never thought of doing one. It probably won't be because if I fall asleep, it's over. I'm not streaming sleeping. I do too many weird things in my sleep, like talk, and I used to walk in my sleep. I used to sleepwalk. I talk. I growl and howl, my family tells me. It's like, I don't want that on stream.

Maybe not on stream. Not on stream, no.

So no sleeping on stream. It's not going to work. No, I will not be doing a sleeping stream, Lucis. I cannot be talked into that one. There will be no amount of channel points that you can redeem for that or sub goals either. I'm going to say no.

Understandable.

Yeah. So anyway, we got sidetracked there on the cosplay. You're okay. But... If you're not going to do that, then you're spending the time and energy in spending time with people. So how does that engagement level work? And I like the distinction that some people make is I'm a streamer who happens to be Christian, so I don't put Christian in my tag. I want to be welcoming. I don't want to chase those people away. But there's also those streamers who are Christian. who will not confess that they're Christian. They will hide that they are. They're not open about their faith when asked about it. So that's why I kind of make the distinction for myself is those who aren't being intentional in their faith versus those who are hiding it. So that's kind of where I draw it.

Yeah. So, for me, I do use a Christian tag and here's why I don't want anyone ever to be Amber's coming into my stream and hear me talking about God and not having a Christian tag. I think there is a level of transparency as Christians regardless of our life that we represent on the Internet. I think that if we love Jesus, like, God says, deny me in front of your friends. I don't know you in front of my father that, like, if we can't be open about our face, or we're ashamed of our face, or we think our face is going to scare people off. Why are we doing what we're doing? I want everyone, regardless of their religion, faith, background, ethnicity, anything to feel welcomed in my streams. I'm a cosplayer. I run with all sex of people. But I don't also want people to think being Christian is something to be shameful of. And it leads to having the conversations that some people don't want to have. Like how being a Christian cosplayer works. Or how like being a YouTuber. I am known for being too open on the internet. My mom tells it to me. My sister sometimes tells it to me. Some of my fans have told it to me. It has sometimes... I don't use the term parasocial very lightly, but it has sometimes created some parasocial relationships where people have gotten to know me way more than I've gotten to know them. And they're just like, you're friends with me. And I was like, I can't really say I'm your friend when I don't know you and you don't engage with me the same way. Because friendship is a two-way street. But it gives people a place to be like, hey, she's real. She's more than just a character online. Because I don't want anyone to ever forget I'm human behind the screen. I might have pretty bottles. I might do extravagant things with my models. But behind the model, I'm a human sitting behind it, puppeting it. So if me being too open with my story helps change the culture of the internet and talking about things, so be it.

Well, I think on some level, there's a lot of people that grew up in churches where, and this would be, for example, my wife would describe it this way, is the culture of the church that she grew up in. Everything had to be perfect on Sunday. You had to present yourself as a perfect person with a perfect life. Because if you did not, you were going to be talked about. You were going to be judged. You were going to be put down. So there's no wonder that there's lots of people out there that that's their understanding and expectation of what Christians are and what they do. They attack and criticize everybody that's not perfect, which is everybody. except they view themselves to be perfect because they hide everything that shows that they're not. And so she would talk about living the double life, that what was happening on Friday and Saturday night had to be hidden from going to church on Sunday morning.

Yep. and um we live in an age where lukewarm christianity and double standards are taught very highly and i hope to my hope with at least anything i do on mine is to break the lukewarm double standard christianity we're not perfect we're all falling short we all live in sin all of us have a story all of us have a past none of us are perfect Yet God loves us all the same. I don't expect anyone in my stream to be perfect. I don't expect anyone in my life to ever be perfect. Heck, I am the furthest thing from a perfect human being ever. Yet I, as someone that grew up feeling unloved, grew up with a ton of church hurt. like if god can love me and i can learn to love myself like god loves me i in turn want to love other people that same way because people need the father's love and people just need people to love them and like we have so many people loving out of empty cups that ends up not being as sincere as they're hoping well if someone's not getting filled up how can they then pour out

Oh, very true. And you were talking about two of the the sometimes one sided relationship, because as a streamer, you are constantly putting information out there. I actually had a really weird one that was interesting. So I watch a YouTuber that that does cruises. And I've been watching him for like six years, but I've never made a comment in the YouTube channels because basically because I watch it on my TV. So I don't have it to type. You know, I'm not watching it on my phone or my computer. I watch it on my TV. And I happened to in November be on the cruise and I did not know it. And he was on the same ship. And I was sitting there having breakfast with my wife and I saw that I thought it was him over there. So I went over to say hello, which he was also sitting with another YouTuber that I know who was sitting there. And I said, hi, I love your show. I think it's great. But I felt so awkward to engage him because I had never did anything in the chat. I already knew. I know about you. You have no idea who I am. Like, you're the one that is known. You don't know me. So I shortly engaged him. My wife was getting her food. She saw me standing there talking next to him. And then she's like, oh, it got excited and said hi. And then she immediately went and sat down. She's like, I'm not talking to him. I'm going to go sit down. So there is that level. Like, I didn't know how to engage fully because I knew I wasn't known. And I also didn't want to take his time up and impose myself in that relationship, which was only one-sided because I had just consumed content. I'd never engaged in the chat. I'd never done anything else. It was just like, I went for you as entertainment and education, informational. kind of thing. And it was amazing to meet him, which I never thought I would. I've since tried to start chatting once in a while, but I totally get that it's hard when someone comes up and they know so much about you and you don't know anything about them. So I'm assuming you had that before Reach happened in different places. They would know you. You'd go to cosplay events and maybe be known when you showed up. Have you had that experience?

So I don't frequent cons as much as I used to. So occasionally I'll run into people that have known me in the con circuit, which is super funny. And they're just like, hey, have you gone to this convention before? I swear I've seen you around. And I'm just like, yeah. I was like, but it's been five years.

I wasn't expecting anyone to remember me.

I used to frequent cons a lot, and then I got into a really bad relationship, and then COVID happened, and it was trying to figure out life and healing and hobbies and things I enjoyed again. But I have been recognized at conventions before, typically on a lesser scale than when I went to Rage, way more people knew me, which is super funny. But I did try to make sure people could find me. Me outreach, typically when I go to conventions, I'm not trying to make sure people can find me and know where I am. Because typically I'm circling conventions close to my home. And I don't want people knowing where I live. True.

True. There is. And everyone's decisions on how they present themselves and do their online things have a manner of being safe. Yeah. There's ways to do that to mask VPNs and do things so that your browser identity is not out there. Yeah. There's people that are trying to keep themselves safe by not presenting their face on there or in addition to location, not using actual names so they can't be tracked down. I have those friends who work in government and need to hide and have anonymity in their online social media. So there's all reasons why. I, on the other hand, I've been a pastor at a local church for years and been posting sermons before YouTube would even allow you to have long form content. So, I mean, my stuff is going back, you know, 20 plus years. Like there's no way for me to suddenly hide myself from having an internet presence. Like you could not scrub me from the internet. There's too much out there.

yeah um my so i don't do a ton of stuff to like x y and z my like stay super safe on the internet my position has changed a little bit okay we're gonna do a story story time i used to post photos way more in a row photos of myself online um from cosplay to like my lolita dresses to my old fashion Until one day someone in my sister's Discord decided to take said photo, run it through an AI generator, try to blackmail me for real-life nudes.

Yep.

I had to message my uncle, who's a detective, and ask about the loss for this. And... It definitely changed my perspective on posting real life photos. Mind you, I look significantly younger than a lot of people think I am. A lot of people think I'm still early teens, early 20s. I am not. And I knew what this person was doing. So I'm glad it happened to me and not somebody else. uh because i could handle it only downside is this was happening during my real life work job i was at work dealing with this they posted it on twitter they were threatening to like post it on reddit and facebook like so i had to have people mass report their account It was a very traumatic experience, to say the least. So if I post photos of me now, it's to my Instagram, where I know the people following me, and if I think someone's following me that I don't know, I can remove them. Otherwise, if it's on Twitter, I don't post any photos of me in my Discord anymore, because that's where it happens. But then again, when Grok dropped and allowed AI editing, I went and removed all my in-real-life photos where you could see my face.

because i was not living through that again yeah um that's that's definitely a thing that's going to become more prominent or prevalent in in some ways but yeah the the whole blackmail thing is also a thing that happens out there which I'm trying to remember who it was. There was one not too long ago where the individual who was younger than you are at the time, they were much younger. They were so terrified by this. They took their own life because they couldn't pay the ransom for not exposing it. And they were so fearful of the exposure. of it they got tricked into sending their own photos to to the person then they got blackmailed over it they took their life so totally get the the realm of that is a thing that you want to keep yourself safe you want to keep other people safe and and so even people that think oh well i'm in a relationship with this person that's great if the relationship is good now you don't know the relationship is always going to be good and if you do anything that's compromising They may use it against you. Yours was going in a different direction. They were taking something innocent and compromising it themselves.

But just adding that to the conversation here.

Because we're talking in a really area of safety. So be wise about what you do. Don't always worry about, is it right? Is it wrong? Is it legal? Is it illegal? That's not always the best guide. Is it a wise thing to do? Could this be used by somebody else for nefarious reasons? Is there a reason you need to do this? If you can't answer the right way to every single question you can do, then you probably shouldn't do that. You shouldn't share that. You shouldn't expose yourself to potential harm down the road. So just to back up timeline wise, because you go for it. I just like I want to weave a few things together and I don't know if they're related. So that's that's why I want to ask this. So you had talked about when you were starting to get into streaming, you were dealing with some depression. How long later was this other event where you were being attacked? And did that have a toll on your mental health as well? And how had you been dealing with mental health?

Um, so I, I, I don't struggle as much anymore, but I've actually been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Um, I have more anxiety though than depression. So my anxiety actually triggers my depression. Um, so like moving is actually really stressful for me because I own a lot of fragile stuff. So, um, I was streaming. So. The hack was actually not that long into my streaming career. It's had to be like six, seven months into my streaming of this person doing this. Uh, because, Hey, thank you so much for the follow. Welcome to the lighthouse. Happy to have you. Um, yeah, cause it, I learned about a year. like half a year later and i've only been streaming for two years so i learned about actually about 10 months later so yeah it was about six months into streaming and i still wasn't in the best place but my mental health was significantly improved by the time it happened i was making online fellowship i was connecting with people like i I thought I had a friend group. Unfortunately, we're no longer friends, but I still pray for them. There's just things that happen. And you know, sometimes people don't click. And y'all know, please know, if you are not meshing with people, please do not try to force a friendship. If you feel something's off in your gut, listen to your gut instinct. I chose to ignore all the signs because trauma, that's just what I did in life. But I am better. I'm working on it. We all start somewhere and we grow and we learn. Um, so then the attack happened and then I was like depressed. I was like, okay, who can I trust? Who can I trust? Because I didn't know who this person was because they were using bot accounts until like a half a year, 10 months later. Um, so like we mass, I had to mass purge my discord. We had to mass purge my twins discord. We had to lock them down. We locked anyone from joining for 24 or 48 hours. And then we had to go through and we kicked anybody we didn't know, any names we weren't familiar with, anyone that hadn't been being active. So it was a very mentally tolling thing where I was trying to build relationship with people. Mind you, I'm more open now than I was then. And I wasn't really telling people what happened. I didn't actually tell people about it because who wants to go around being like, hey, Just so you know, I had this dude edit AI nudes of myself. Like, that's just something you don't want to talk about.

You don't want to tell people that they are out there. And you also don't want people judging you and saying, oh, I bet they weren't actually AI. She's just saying that.

Someone asked me what I was wearing. They're just like, what were you wearing when he edited it? And I'm just like, it doesn't matter what I wear.

Right.

It doesn't matter. Exactly. I won. It was a very cute dress. It was a full coverage dress. Like you couldn't see anything. I had my neck to my toes covered because I was in tights. I was, but like, regardless, it doesn't, what I was wearing didn't matter. So then when I found out who it was, I then. afraid about it and had to make the decision to start informing streamers that I knew he was in the community of, especially the lady streamers in my life. I was like, because when I learned about it, he also confessed he was going to do it to others. And I was like, I don't know where you're at healing wise. I don't know if you're still doing this. I don't know what your plan is. I know you say you're not, but like, he also seems like a young kid. However, being a young kid does not negate the consequences of your actions. So I had to start DMing. massive amounts of my friends about this experience and i still had all the screenshots i had like the document i do not have the images themselves that were edited i have just like the screenshots of the profile that did it like the screenshots in my discord like obviously i didn't keep the photos like i reported it who i needed to report it to to the authorities and then moved on but like i kept all the documentation in case i ever needed anything um and so just just it had a massive effect yeah just just a thought here that not totally relevant but could be did did this person claim to be a christian or not um not to my knowledge they weren't to my knowledge no they hung out with a lot of christian streamers i think they were curious about the faith i think they wanted to get to know jesus but they weren't actually a follower okay okay

Like I said, not totally relevant, but somewhat.

Okay.

Somewhat relevant. Yeah. There's just a level of like, I hate to hear these stories. I am glad for a more positive outcome than it could have been. But the fact that you had to go through that, that anybody would put someone else through that. If someone tells you this is the first time they've done something and they got caught the first time, probably not. probably not the first time this is probably not the first time this person did it if they give any clue that they're going to do it again if they were willing to do it one time they're probably going to do it again you know the the person that gets caught stealing doesn't get caught stealing the first time they've done it they've usually they've usually become more brazen and that's when they get caught yep

And, like, he just chose to do it to the wrong person. No, mind you, I, why it was very, I wasn't in a great place. So, for context, my grandma died, like, four and a half years ago now. But, like, we had been moving since her death. I had been unstable. I, like, so, train of events. I spilled with my... Beyonce I was engaged so we can go into that if you want in like 2019 I think or 20 late 2018 I think it was in like May of 2018 or so and then I was getting back into finding hobbies and things I loved and then and I was so I was I started ballroom dance I started getting back into cosplay because when I was with my ex I did not actually cosplay over to cons and then in 2020 the world shut down in 2021 my grandma died and then it was just constantly moving and trying to find footing so like there's a whole spiral of events and then this happened and then i ended up moving halfway across the state to washington which ended up only lasting six months and then i ended up moving to texas which only lasted six months and now i'm where i'm at now and this one's lasting longer i'm renting my own apartment

Well, six months in one state and then six months in another place in the country, not even the adjacent state. Like, wow, that's moving.

Yeah, they were the biggest moves I've probably ever made in my life by myself. I've moved from Alabama to Minnesota. I've lived in Missouri. I've lived in Kansas. I've lived in Tennessee. I lived in one of the Virginias, I was told, but I'm too young to remember it. I've lived in Louisiana. I've lived in Washington. The only part of the state I haven't lived in is the East Coast. I'm not moving to the East Coast unless my future husband lives out there.

Well, you know what? Yeah, I love moving, but I also love exploring more than moving. So you can go explore all those areas and not have to live there.

That's my goal, is to start going to visit places in the U.S. and not moving there. It's cheaper, too, to go explore than move. My mental health, because you were asking about it. It's better now. It was really rough for a while. Because I was dealing with a lot of loneliness. That's why I got into Twitch streaming. Because I was lonely. I wanted community. I wanted fellowship. And God just connected me with some really cool people. And then you enter Reach. Reach was an answer to prayer.

Yeah, I know a little bit about it. Let's just put a pin in reach for a minute. We'll come back to it because we won't avoid that. So on that journey, you had mentioned you had a fiancé, and then where we had started with Twitch was dealing with moving and depression and all of those. Was the fiancé a thing that led into the depression or not related at all?

yeah actually um so i was with my fiance for five years uh we got together when i was in high school uh we met working at wally world uh because that's where we met and it didn't start out as a bad relationship but he turned into kind of all the guys i watched growing up in my mom's life my mom i love her very much but kept pretty toxic men around um and you never wanted like i always said like i'm not gonna end up in a relationship like that like i know more but like i didn't have value in myself i didn't know jesus at this time um like so i ended up dating a very mentally and emotionally abusive person um I finally, so I was in church at this time, but I wasn't an active believer. I think you can go to church and not actually be believing in the Lord. So I was going through all the motions of proclaiming I was a Christian, but not actually having my heart and loving the Lord. And so finally, I went to begging God to make my auntie break up with me. And he's just like, that's not how this works. I can't make anyone do anything. and so then i went to begging god to uh you know have someone object at my wedding and he's just like is that really fair for someone else to clean up your mess and i was like you're not wrong i can't i can't refute that because i got myself into this mess and then god gave me an opening to um break up with him and I normally don't advocate for breaking up via emails or letters or like text messages but sometimes there are appropriate instances to do that and this was one of them just because of his both volatile like personality and he was getting way more controlling and way more like possessive and like needing to keep track of me like he would quit jobs to make sure I was going to do what I said I was doing or like keep an eye on me, but like, if he knew where I was, he would then cancel plans because then he knew I would get depressed and not do anything to go hang out with his friends. So it just, it wasn't a good relationship. And so I broke up with him and my letter was nothing but kind of compassionate, obviously as compassionate as breaking up with your fiance can be. And then he sent a very, very nasty letter back, nailing every insecurity and head like problem I had in the coffin lid. And so it just sent me on a massive spiral of depression. I got into dance for a little bit. And dance was helping. And I actually started pursuing my relationship with Jesus hardcore at the time. But I still had addictions to things I was trying to work out. I was still very... like emotionally numb i wasn't really processing anything and if you don't process things things just kind of come out sideways so i was like just swirling down the toilet bowl and then covet happened and i love my mom but i was stuck at home with my mom and she's She has a very negative mindset and she's a very inward person. So a lot of things are about her. It makes it very hard when you break up with your fiance and then you're stuck at your house with your mom and the world's set down and you can't do anything. And then my grandma got sick and then I was really close to my grandma. We actually worked really hard on forming a good relationship after I split with my ex. So from like 2009... 18 to like 2021 i had a very solid relationship with my grandma and like she loved the lord she prayed for me so much like i am blessed that she was my grandma but she's with jesus now and i will get to see her one day and uh then she got sick and died and then my grandpa left uh he just up and moved and then it was just moving after moving i've moved eight times in like four years um so like loneliness hit hard because most of my moving has been confined to one state all over the state but i could still like travel to see people like i didn't care if i had to drive two hours to go visit people or three hours to visit people because i would do that because they were at least in safe state as me when you're moving massive states away and it's suddenly a 14 hour drive to go visit somebody you're literally alone like i didn't have people which led to I was just like, I need community. I need fellowship. I see what my sister's building online. I see the people she's connecting with. I was just like, if she can do it, I can do it too. And it's her Twitch and we're still here like two years later.

So we've definitely – this is one of the things that I do like to bring up is what obstacles have you faced? We've been hitting on that in real life and also in stream, the things that are happening as you're living life in person and moving and all of that. And then – I want to shift a minute because we it's kind of been on some level like, man, this just sounds awful. But you were talking about you're trying to find something good and positive. And you're talking about having good relationship with your grandmother, starting to get closer to to to God, to Jesus. And that would have been some blessings that you've experienced that you don't think you would have if you weren't streaming on Twitch.

Um, definitely fellowship and community. Um, I've made so many wonderful friends, like genuine friendships by getting involved with Twitch. Um, sharing my testimony, even though it's sometimes hard and I share my testimony and it does sound, a lot of it sounds depressing. However, I get to share it with people and I watch the hope it gets to inspire with people being like, she was this way and like, look what God's done through her life. Like the things I've been set free of. like the things i've learned um sharing my testimony and helping others has been insanely amazing to watch how god uses it to reach people like my biggest takeaway from twitch is just reaching people in a way only god can by putting me in positions to like do things that like only i can do to help people because there's only one of us right like there's only one flat cap there's only one Elaine, there's only one freight train, Farcon, like, the one and only creepy pro. Like, there's only one of all of us, right? So, like, it's cool watching how God orchestrates us to, like, connect with people in ways that, like, he can even do on a digital space. um and using it to bless others and help others and encourage others and make others feel less alone because a lot of us feel like we're the only ones with our story and it's not that like we can completely understand everyone's feelings but our stories are a lot less unique when we start sharing them and people realize like oh i've been through something super similar like i'm not alone and this is someone i can talk to about this which has been super cool um friends man having friends has been the biggest blessing outside of that on twitch um watching god like put people in my life and uh him showing me that hey you really are lovable and you're not alone in this and you can like bear with other people and people will bear with you and not everyone's gonna leave has been a huge game changer

Well, absolutely. I think those are – like you've said this repeatedly and we started out why did you get on was to build relationships. It's like most people don't think, oh, I'm going to go to Twitch to build relationships. I'm going to go to Twitch to watch people play video games. I'm going to go watch Twitch so I can get better at a video game and learn how to do it. Or I'm going to go watch exciting people who can really do video games that I'll never be able to do. Like like the building relationships is not usually where the conversation starts, but it's where I always keep coming back to. It's like it's why I don't want to leave this space. It's why I'm engaged here. I mean, Mr. Pete came in just a minute ago and Zacchaeus is here. I mean, there are people that I recognize and that's life. Welcome in. Good to see you, too, buddy. It's like. i know these people and i'm getting to know them better and like you and i we were we were in the the reach discord together and maybe we had been once or twice in each other's stream but not much and then we just hung out in discord community together and and are continuing we had so much fun hanging out at reach conference and chatting we did that was that was so much fun and and the cosplay like like i i i don't know if i if i've said this or not fully but like i was only kind of like on the border of hey they're gonna do cosplay maybe that would be fun let me try it out but then just hanging out in the server of of just the way that you were encouraging and excited about everybody that shared anything about maybe i'll try this here's here's a piece of of costume that i just got and the excitement level is like man i don't want to miss out on this i definitely need to go and end up and end up participating in this this is going to be fun this is this it reminded me a lot of of uh when i was back in college and doing drama ministry just i'm not drama ministry doing drama i did drama ministry after college but doing drama just being in that sphere of portraying a character playing in a role that you were doing it's like man this this could be really fun to be able to to get that piece that I haven't had for years with anybody. So I started taking advantage of that idea and starting to figure out where I could go cosplay in person to practice before Reach happened.

I love that.

Yeah, yeah. Zacchaeus is like, he showed up in a full kilt. I did. He did. It was great. It was fantastic. I love it.

I also very much enjoyed it.

Yeah, yeah. And then Roman's making sure, you know, you've got something on underneath. Yes, yes, I do. I have shorts underneath. No problem there.

I'm not OG.

I'm not walking around with nothing underneath. No, no, that's not going to happen.

Well, that's good. I'm glad you did it because that might be a little concerning. Some people might.

There could be a venue where I would choose to do that. Maybe. I don't think there is. But at a church, it's not going to be it. That's for sure.

No. There are conventions where you could probably get away with it. Not in a bad way. There just are conventions where they respect what kilts actually mean and what kilts are. But a church is... It's a church.

Church is not it. No, that's not the venue for nothing under the kilt. That definitely, no.

Nope, definitely not.

So where and how did you get connected to Reach?

Okay, so this is a fun, okay, y'all get ready for a funny story. So I actually knew about Reach year one. Funny enough though, I read something online. Mind you, I was in a very toxic headspace. I wasn't living with the most positive people. So I was filtering things to a very, like, this is what these people say versus, like, I should read this and process for myself. So I saw Reach in year one, and I read something. I was like, oh, this sounds like a Mormon conference. I'm not Mormon, but I wish them all the best. And hands off, I was like, I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, so year two of World's Run, I had just left Washington and moved to Texas. And Happy, if y'all don't know Happy, Happy's amazing. Happy's everywhere. Happy reached out to me. He's like, hey, I think you should check out Reach Conference. And mind you, I'm in a, again, very depressive state. I'm moving again. Me and my friend group had a massive falling out. Like, I'm not friends with these people anymore. and these are like in our real friends and they're also streamer friends but like you know things just happen sometimes we don't mess with people like we think so i'm moving to texas to stay with my uncle and he reached out to me about reach so i start looking on their website and i see they have a thing for cosplay no information about cosplay so i messaged roman a wall of questions i just hit him with it was like world questions And so he hit back, like, are you a famous cosplayer? I was like, no, I'm just a Jesus-loving nerd who dresses up in cosplay. That's literally what I say to this man. And one thing leads to another, and I end up being the cosplay leader, which ended up working out great. And I will never live down that I thought Reach was Mormon, because I did. Nothing against my Mormon friends.

I'm trying to figure out what could have led people to perceive it that way. Like, I just don't know. It's so hilarious.

It was honestly, there's probably honestly nothing I can think about. I think it was something, Jay had shared something, Jay Live, the Fox, had shared something. And I was still very new to like that story. fear of people online and I didn't know him. And I read it and I was like, this sounds like something a Mormon would write. But I was filtering through a very bad lens. I wasn't filtering through like a common sense lens. I was filtering through like several toxic voices in my head lens. And so I was listening to what their voice would have said about it. And retrospect, it probably was honestly nothing Mormon. It was probably just a very normal post about reach. you from a very bad perspective of me reading it on the internet and god had plans for me to miss reach year one um i'm honestly glad because i wasn't in a good headspace was reach year one i would have gone and been miserable i wouldn't have been happy i would have been super critical like of myself it also would have been a massive travel that would have been from washington into florida but god really connected me in year two he knew what he was doing his timing is much better than our timing right even we like so i'm just like i i'm glad god waited until year two for me to figure out what reach was because i was in a much healthier place to do reach

It's funny what people think something is or is not. And it's very easy to not understand something and get a wrong perception around what it is. And I think if you're in a certain sphere of influence, you trust that sphere of influence, even if they end up with getting it wrong. So that becomes your default settings of how you judge things. So I have people who will be upset at me for wearing a hat or wearing a hat when we were in the church building. Or, you know, like everybody's got their different, like, is it okay? Can you wear a hat when you pray? Can you wear a hat when it's the sanctuary, but it's not worship? I mean, like there's all these distinctions and some are just hard and fast. You can't wear a hat. Peter says a man is disrespectful and no man would do this. And a woman has to absolutely have her head covered in those things. And some people are really black and white on things. And so when you have a partial information, it's easy to cast all kinds of perceptions that have nothing to do with reality when you're coming and talking about things.

Yep. We either influence the people around us or they influence us. You are always being influenced. So do you want to be the one influencing people and growing with people? Or are you letting them influence you and change you and your beliefs? If we don't have healthy boundaries to be like, oh, this is a good thing, let it in. Or this is a bad thing, it stays out the gate. Like... And if you let it in, it becomes a part of you, right? So, like, I can look back and be like, oh, this was me perceiving it because I let this into my boundary line and into who I was and then it influenced what I was thinking. And we do that about people, right? Like, we can meet someone and we can just judge them based on appearance, right? But, like, should we really just be judging based on someone's look or should we get to know their heart posture? Because looks are not everything they seem. As someone that has been judged solely on looks, like get to know a person before you just judge them because someone has a story behind them.

Well, not only that, but most people didn't choose their looks. I didn't choose mine. I didn't choose mine.

What, you didn't?

No, no, I didn't. However, I do joke around about my height and saying, yep, I chose this height because I never wanted to hit my head on a doorpost. So I made sure I was well below that standard of hitting my head on a doorpost ever in my life. So I'm good on that. I just should have maybe picked a half an inch taller so I could actually touch the net. if i were to jump at a basketball hoop but uh you know that's i was close very close you almost made it almost made it um but no like i i didn't i didn't choose where i was born i didn't choose my parents i didn't choose my ethnicity i didn't choose my gender i i like there are so many things you don't choose So why pass judgment on someone else for things they don't choose? And then we can go even further beyond that, too, of the clothes they wear may not always be their choice. It may not be their choice because of accessibility. It might not be their choice because of income. It might not be their choice for multiple reasons. So even clothing isn't always exclusively the choice of the individual, nor is always the, you know. anything about their appearance isn't necessarily so if we boil it down to that it's like why do i let that be the thing that i'm going to first well of course but you know scripture tells us man judges by the outward appearance so you know it's yep we kind of do that we do

we do and i strive very hard every day to actually get to know the person behind the appearance because some of these people have amazing stories and like the stories that i can change your perspective for example i have this amazing uncle his name's todd if i i want todd to come play worship outreach because y'all want a worship that takes you into the throne of heaven throne rooms of like the high holies my uncle todd's worship does that he's a he's an anointed worship leader but a lot of people judge him he's a native american he's like 62 or 63 he's covered in tattoos but like and he looks scary to a lot of people when they meet him I didn't think he was scary when I first meet him. I'm just a shy, awkward turtle at the point I meet him, so I didn't really interact with him. He's an uncle by choice. Like, he calls me his niece. I call him my uncle. We're found family, as we call it, because I think you can find family. Not all family that's blood-related is family, and not all non-blood relations don't equal family.

Well, that's even biblical from a standpoint of not Abraham's seed is Abraham's children. So, you know, if we are God's children, we're not talking biology here about being in the kingdom of God. So I think that totally makes sense.

Oh, I have a book. Okay, I'm going to plug a book to where I find most difficult. There's a book called Boundaries, One to Say Yes, How to Say No, Take Control of Your Life. Highly recommend looking into it. I'm reading it, and it's written from like a – it has Christian biblical stuff in it about how boundaries are biblical and where you can find boundaries in the Bible. amazing game changer for helping with boundaries and helping like how to talk to people how to have boundaries for yourself how to enforce boundaries for others like how to do them in a god-honoring way tend to i'm reading it right now i'm only in like the beginning part of the book because it's such a like heavy good read that you actually have to process what they're saying But they even talk about childhood development and where we get our boundaries from and how soon we're supposed to have them. It's like, it's a game changer. I'm going to grab a link. It's 1010.

Absolutely. Well, we were talking about influences in our life and we're either influencing someone else or we're being influenced. And it goes both ways, actually. But there's an old saying I remember. I mean, this is, you know, 40 years ago, maybe of tell me the books you're reading and the people you're hanging out with. I'll tell you who you're going to be in five years.

Yes.

Now that's an old saying, so it needs to be modified a little bit. Tell me the reels and the, and the, you know, tell me the social media you're consuming and the people you're hanging out with. And I'll tell you who you're going to be in six months might be a more accurate thing of nowadays, you know, cause you're, you can consume so much and there are very, or I should say not very few people that read. There are fewer people that read full books anymore than used to. We are in a very, I want everything microwaved. I want it faster. I want it now. And I'm just as guilty of that as other people. I mean, when I go listen to podcasts, if I was listening to this one on the replay, it'd be double and triple speed because I can consume more that way. I can enjoy more of that and get more in the same amount of time. So I also want it faster. I also want more. So I get that idea, but there's still a level of which, You have to, on some level, engage your mind in all different avenues of things. So reading is still a very important one. And books are totally different than videos are or other medium. And even the way your brain interacts with things in a print are going to be different.

That's cool.

Appreciate the book reference there.

Yes. I've been carrying this book around since like 2017 and I haven't read it.

I just noticed you gave the audio book.

Not even on purpose. I literally just Googled it. Clicked on the first link on Google.

That's funny. The audio book version came out. I'm like, hey, maybe I will get that.

It's a really good read. I'm kind of glad I waited to read it until I have my own apartment now because I really think if I would have read it when I was still living with... My family has a lot of toxic traits. If I still would have lived it reading with my toxic family where boundaries didn't exist and living with my roommates who didn't have boundaries and all these people, I think I would have struggled to actually process it. I'm in an environment where... i control things now like me and my twin work really hard on boundaries and this book is really helping so i actually paused reading it because she my someone in my church recommended this book i was like oh hey i have this let me read it but they're actually gonna let katie uh borrow the copy of it and we're gonna read it together so i paused reading it to get any further uh so we can actually do a study of it together so we can talk about these things together So, you know, if anyone wants to get the book and join the study, I'll make a group for it and we can all read it together.

You know, that is not a bad idea. If you put that together and I would just say, and you post a promo for it, I will share that over on the church digital. And I would think there might be some people in reach discord that would also be interested in doing that.

Ooh, I didn't even think about it. Yeah, I should do that. Yeah, I'll put something together. I like hosting events where we can all grow and learn together. I think it's really cool, and it helps a body of believers move together. God is not limited to just physical space. Do I think in-person church and in-person fellowship is very important? Yes. However, it's really cool to watch God move on the internet because he's not bound by the limits of what man tries to place on him.

Well, absolutely. If we limited it to in-person, you and I would never connect. It just would not happen. We don't live in the same community. We're far away from each other. Oh, maybe if I went to a cosplay event near you, I'd run into you, but that would be it. There would be limited... ability for us to engage one another and i i just loved uh the time hanging out with you and uh katie bug at reach conference it was a blast uh love doing that um you know it's like it was one of those things too like you're meeting a bunch of people you want to make sure you connect with all of these people that you've been spending time in discord with and you want to get to know them and you don't want to miss anybody but it's like I can't monopolize people's time either. You know, that's one of those interesting things, too, of how do you get to everybody when you have such a short window? That's probably why I stayed up till three in the morning almost every night at reach.

So, 1 of my prayers that was specifically about reach was getting it up to stay up and chat late with people. Right? Because I kept hearing about reach year 1. how everyone was in the hotels, hanging out with people talking, but this year was drastically different because it was so much bigger and it was more like. airbnbs and stuff uh one night i think it was night two it had to be night two no it was saturday night yeah because neko spy was we were all up too late and he missed his flight he overslept and it was really hard getting him home he didn't get home his parents helped him get home which was awesome um and um We were all up to like 2 a.m. Sitting around a not bonfire. There could have been a bonfire. And then this guy drove by. Wait, what night was worship at Reach? Was worship Friday or Saturday?

I don't remember.

I don't either. Okay, so it might have not been Saturday. It was the night they did worship at Reach. We were all up. We missed worship because we were having such good fellowship. And Saturday. Okay, so it was Saturday. Cool. Thank you, Savage. And someone's like, you should come join. I was like... i love worshiping my god do not get me wrong however i don't get fellowship like this back home i just i don't and we were talking about like different things about catholic faith versus protestant faith and then i brought up the nephilim but we didn't get to go into it and we're just having really i look i could go into biblical theologies that make me sound a little crazy but i promise i'm not crazy um But it was so sweet and so beautiful for us to just sit and dialogue and to ask each other questions and talk about different views and faiths and the things you don't get to do on a regular basis that you get to do in a community where people are coming from all backgrounds. Not everyone that goes to REACH is a believer because REACH is run by Christians, but it's for everyone. Or the Catholics versus the Protestants versus there's different sectors of the Protestant. There's so many Protestant churches, but there's also different sectors of the Catholic Church. So it was so beautiful that I actually got to sit up and chat super late with people and just have this amazing experience that I didn't think I would get to have. Because I'm not optimism. I do not have a very optimistic view on... life just because of how things were raised but i choose to be as optimistic as i can and not let my peptimism win because peptimism doesn't get you very far having a negative outlife on life sucks

Yeah, it's not – well, I'll put it a different way. I am usually very – like I can find – like I don't want to say optimistic. That's not the right word. I usually find something good out of everything. And I look for it. I see it. I expect it because that's what I'm anticipating. So no matter how tragic something is, I usually find something that's good in it. And I don't always share those things, but that's just like the lens that I look through things. So it's really hard on me as a person when I'm feeling depressed, because I don't like that feeling. And so for a long time, I wouldn't allow myself to feel depressed. I had to learn how to deal with that side of things. of instead of denying those feelings and trying to hide those feelings and saying no those are those aren't valid feelings i don't want them and instead try to try to just go in a different direction and and avoid them it's it's so it's been a real growing thing on the other side what you're saying is like you don't always have the uh the the writer the freedom to view things always from the same perspective because some things require a different perspective and to deny it is actually being dishonest about yourself

I am very honest about my pessimistic tendencies. I am a very pessimistic person. Don't get no one ever believes it because I choose to be as positive as I can because it's a choice I'm intentionally making. I acknowledge these flaws in myself. I was raised in a very hard childhood, not growing up. Me and my twin are nurture versus nature. And that's how we explain how we like grew up. And so like I have a lot of I view the world if I. allow myself to a glass half empty and a broken lens um and i strive not to ignore that part of myself i acknowledge it i work through it i process it but i strive to view the world how jesus would view it which is not through a broken lens because like we can be broken people However, we have a God that makes us whole and restores us. So I want to view the world how he views the world, which is with grace, compassion, love, kindness, like hope, longevity, all of these amazing things. And some days I do have my really bad depressive episodes. Some days I have my days where I just don't like myself. Some days I'm just like, the world's just out to get me. Just don't make camp there. Like acknowledge those days, feel those days, have those days. Just don't make camp there because the longer you sit in them, depression is a thing because I've been to therapy a lot in my life that can fundamentally rewire your brain. It also does like long-term depression, anxiety, like negative effects have an actual effect on our physical body. Like cause mind, soul, body, it's all one thing. And so I strive not to let depression control my life anymore because it's very easy for me to just spiral and not catch it. So if I am struggling now, I have friends I can reach out for. I have people that can pray for me. I can be like, I'm having a rough day.

I will always, which is a thing people struggle with, be sincere on the internet.

And it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's my cup of tea. because it helps me and it helps others.

Absolutely. I think that's, well, so my local area for mental health, we have our mental health foundation regionally has come up with a thing called Be Nice, which is notice, invite, challenge, and empower. So the first thing you do is you notice what's good and right about someone. So when it changes, you notice that it's changed. And then you invite yourself into a conversation. How do I do that? Hey, I noticed you're always upbeat, but today you seem really down. Is something going on? And then I can challenge them to go get help. And I can empower them by giving them resources or pointing them or going with them to help them get the resources.

That's so cool.

I just love that mentality because part of what it is, is breaking the stigma. If I can have a conversation about you and where you are at, if it was like, oh, no, man, the reason I'm down today is this. I'm just tired. I was up too late. I just don't have energy. Great. I noticed and no big deal. But if it's, you know what, my dog ran away and my mom just messaged me, said the neighbor found a dog that was run over. And I don't know if it's our dog or not. And I can't stop thinking about it's my fault. I left it on. Like, I can now engage you where you are. But. you may not share that because you may you may feel like you're going to get judged you may feel like you're going to get uh cast aside or if you're just straight up i'm dealing with mental health issues there's not always a safe place to talk about that and honestly the church has not been a safe place for a lot of people to talk about that we we have often uh and i say we because i talk about the church as a whole and i'm part of it we have often taken and said if there's something mental health with you maybe it's satan attacking you or maybe you're not strong enough maybe you need like we we take and judge the person where i i like to bring up if a person has a broken arm we don't tell them to get over it why would we tell someone who is feeling depressed to just get over it? Like you can't, they don't have the capacity to do it or they would already be doing it. So it may, it may require medication. It may require counseling. It may require something else. It may require a combination. I don't know. I'm not the expert in that, but what I do know is that I am supposed to love you as myself. And I'm going to reach out to you and come alongside of you and pray for you and help you get whatever help I can get you to. Cause I, I don't know how to do it any better than that.

Okay. Okay. I got to talk about something. Okay. Because you brought up one of my favorite things to address. We are to love people as ourselves, right? Right. The Bible, 1 Corinthians 13 is an amazing book. But the two greatest commandments is love your God with all your mind, heart, and soul, and then love your neighbor as yourself. We so often... forget about as ourselves. We live in a world where like, I'm not talking about the egotistical, prideful, I'm going to boost myself up, chauvinistic kind of love. I'm talking about like your father in heaven loves you. He died for you. He saved, he saves you from your sins. So care about yourself, take care of yourself. Like, you know, make sure you're eating well and exercising where you can, or, you know, doing the things that God made you to do. Like he gave us hobbies. He gave us our personalities, like all of these things. So love yourself as God loves you. And then in terms of other people, we have so many people that are just like, well, I'm going to like sacrifice and like, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, but they're not doing it out of an actual genuine place of sacrifice. They're resentful when they're doing it. They don't actually like. care for these things and then all these people get into church and they get into places of leadership and they don't know how to love themselves so in turn they can't love other people so they're just like well you're possessed or you have you know a demon issue or it's just satan whispering in your ear or you know you just need to work out harder or you need to eat better or you just need to manage your resources better and your finances better those are not always the answers they're just not we need to get back to like, what does God say love is? There's a whole passage in the Bible about it. First Corinthians 13. It's my go-to chapter. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love keeps no record of right and wrong. Love is not boastful. Love is not envious. It does not seek to self-satisfy. Like all of these things, right? Sorry, sorry.

I'm just going to interrupt because I, I, I, what I was going to say, because we were talking WWE earlier. So when I was in seminary, I worked with the same group of people. We would do class projects, and I don't know who came up with it, but we would put infomercials in the middle of our class projects we were presenting. We always had an ad, a commercial, and the running gag that we would continually do as a reference to the WWE Bible.

Oh, that's funny.

And so I had it memorized at one point. I have since forgotten it. But we had 1 Corinthians 13 in the WWE Bible. Love does not lay the smack down. Love does not kick ass and take names. It was just like it was so fun. I figured you would appreciate that.

I do.

I do. But there's a whole aspect of it. It's like... people go and treat that somewhat still as a checklist. This is not a checklist. If I want to show love, I can go do these things. No, it is the essence. So love equals this. It is equivalent to, it is the culmination, the expression of, it's not a checklist to go do it. So if you're trying to make a checklist out of doing that, it's not coming from a place of love.

No. Well, and also, it's not just for other people. 1 Corinthians 13 is how we are to love ourselves. We shouldn't be keeping a record of our wrongdoings. Because if we repent for a sin and lay it down for the feet of Jesus, God has forgiven us. So why are we letting condemnation, which is not conviction, they're two very different things, rule our life? Why are we using Satan as a foothold? Or even our own stinking thinking, because we have our own thoughts. It's not always Satan. Rule over our life and keep making us feel bad for something. Like, why are we like. 1 Corinthians 13 is a love letter from God on how we should love ourselves to and then turn love others. But, like, we're not loving ourselves that way. We're our own worst critic. And I hate that saying, but it's become so true. Instead of valuing ourselves, like how God teaches to in 1 Corinthians 13, we view ourselves as unforgivable. We view ourselves as unredeemable. We view ourselves as sinners that will always be addicted to things. But we're not. God sets us free. So how are we working to break the sins and addictions we worked in? Turn to the Bible. Turn to your friends. Find a support group. Find people to help you. You're not alone in this journey. And doing those things actually is loving yourself. And sometimes you can't love other people as well. Sometimes you have to take a back seat and be like, I just can't meet you where you're at right now. And that's okay. Because sometimes you do have to prioritize yourself over others to get to that sacrificial place of I can do this for people without being begrudging or being resentful or being mad about it or doing it out of an unwilling spirit. Because none of those are things God wants us to do. If we are too sacrificially laid on our life for people, we need to do it willingly. If someone asks us to help them wash the dishes, if we're doing it out of an unwilling heart, don't do it. Some of that comes back to boundaries.

If it's your parents telling you to do it, maybe you still do. Yes!

If your parents are asking you to do it.

Right, right, right. Just say, we're not saying disobey parents if they're, you know, but.

Don't disobey your parents. But like, or if your spouse asks you to do something and you're struggling with it, talk to them about it. Like, don't just leave your spouse hanging. Like have conversations about like where your unwillingness is coming from. get to the root of it like like sometimes it's trauma sometimes it's things that come out of childhood sometimes you're just having a bad day and need a moment like communication is key to recognizing how to overcome these things because we overcome by the word of our mouth like if we keep things inside that's how Satan works right he works by getting us to stay quiet he works by getting us to keep things in he works by getting us to like stay afraid and ashamed And then it starts these cycles. And part of loving yourself is to break that by talking to people and opening up like to your spouse, to your parents, to a trusted friend, to a pastor. If you're sure that they're trustworthy, no offense. I've had some not wise pastors in my life. Correct. So like, you know, yeah, don't tell her I told you that. um it's sometimes like and sometimes it's learning why you do these things like sometimes we're not taught to be sacrificial so we have an unwilling heart to be sacrificial and it's like teaching people what being sacrificial actual means and what it looks like so they don't have an unwilling spirit. Because sometimes if you're just taught, well, you just do this because the Bible teaches that, okay, well, that's not a good reason to tell someone to do something. It's just not. Like, you just listen to people when they vet because, you know, the Bible tells you to be an ear to people. Like, there's wide stewardship in, like, guarding your ears and your eyes and your heart and your posture. So, yeah, sorry, I would not hold hands about 1 Corinthians 13 because that is my...

love language all all good on my part i mean if we're to go down that way i could i could hang here and talk about that for for a long time but there's me too there's a whole aspect of it like we could even get into the greek here of its agape love which is self-sacrificial love it is the love that does it for the sake of the other person um and there's there's deep levels of of love that happens within there but i was just going to go in a different direction of go for it If, well, I'll just use this example. I do the dishes, my wife does the laundry. Why do we have that division of labor? Because I don't like the way she loads the dishwasher and puts stuff away. Why does she do the laundry? Because she doesn't like the way I fold and sort clothes. So we've divided it up that way because of that. But there's other things that if one person does, they could annoy you. You know, like if somebody... always misses the laundry basket when they're throwing their clothes there. You could be upset about it. You could choose to yell at them all the time, or you can just realize. they just don't care as much about this as I do. So, you know what I get to do? I get to care about it by putting it in the laundry basket when they miss. Now I'm not saying this is a, you know, you're being disrespectful and you're doing it arrogantly and you're disrespecting your spouse for doing it. It's like, it just is not a care. And you try, you're, you're trying to work on it, but you just are, it's never going to be at the level the other person expects. You then choose and you can choose to say, this is not important to them. It's important to me. Out of love for them, I will no longer bring it up and I will take care of it. And I'm talking about miss the basket, not leave clothes hanging around all over the house and not wet towels on the floor or throwing a wet towel on the bed that causes more work. I'm just talking about the, yeah, I threw it. I was almost in. I just didn't walk across to make it, you know, to make sure it was there. Yeah. uh just that little bit of i don't care as much not disrespect of a person and not disregard of haha you have to do it uh that's not a relationship either uh that is the person keeping you safe or loving you back so yeah no and that's a really valid point um

We don't. We sometimes just even care about other things and different things like that, for example, like or how you and your wife divided the laundry versus dishwasher because you guys do things very differently. And that's OK. Like sometimes you choose to like sometimes your level of attention to something isn't going to be someone else's. And it's not always realistic if it's not being done in a disrespectful manner to hold them to that standard, right? So like you choosing to pick it up, like you're the one choosing to do it. And if you start getting a heart posture issue about it, don't go to your spouse about it at that point if you guys have talked about it or like me and sister i'm going to use my twin as an example because i'm sure not everyone in here is married i have a twin we do things very differently and sometimes my attention to detail is different than hers so there's some things i sacrifice like planning conventions and planning our travel because that attention to detail is important to me versus where it isn't as important to her um so like i willingly plan our trips because that's what matters to me um so like don't get mad at someone or if you're having a heart posture issue take it back to god or like and don't do not please people do not lovingly vent to people in a negative context about what someone doesn't do that is an icky heart posture thing that we're taught to do that would love to challenge everybody on If you're struggling with someone, with something that you've already addressed with the person, don't go to someone else about it. You do not need to make it a trio and A, B, and C conversation. Just make it an A and B to God conversation because you can subconsciously convert people to thinking differently about people with how you present things. Now, if you genuinely need advice on something, leave names out of it. Leave, like, key details that can give who they are away. Like, I'm not saying don't ask for advice, but, like, do things to protect the person you need advice about. So that way, like, if they are a friend of the person you're talking to, that friend doesn't subconsciously start to view them differently. But I love that you and your wife have figured that stuff out. That's super cool, Flack.

Well, you know, some of it's probably by trial and error, and some of it might be in a few places. We were just smart enough to figure it out. And it's not that those have been constant over the years. At different times, things changed. When we had kids at home and she was going to work and had an hour-plus commute and back and forth, the schedule of laundry and that was not on her table that she could take care of. So I did laundry, you know. It was more of a, I get this kid, I wash them. It goes back in the basket. And then like, I'll just share this. My thought of laundry is you get the laundry to the room. You then fold it when you put it away. She wants to fold it when it comes out of the washer and dryer and put it in the basket folded and then go to the room and put it away. So it's not like we're like, it's like order of operations that we differ on.

Yeah.

And it's like, so like, I'm fine with the laundry sitting in a basket for a week before you put it away. I don't have a problem with it. But her mind is laundry is done. It's not done until it's put away. I have to accomplish the task. Laundry was the task for today. Why is it not put away? And I'm like, yeah, we're close enough. It's almost there.

Yeah. That's like me and Katie. Your wife sounds like my sister and I sound more like you. Yeah.

But, you know, there's those things that some of it we just decided if you care more about it, then it could be your responsibility. So does she do the dishes from time to time? And she'll often offer, hey, do you want me to put, she'll see the sink is full. Oh, like her thought process when we first got married was I got a spoon dirty. The spoon needs to go into the dishwasher. And I'm like, well, then I never know it needs to be run because I never see stuff. Like, no, you gradually fill it up. It stinks. You leave it in the sink. It won't stink. You know, then you fill it up and you load it and you run it. So like. And some stuff we're like, we both, here's a fun one that we both thought. My mom did the checkbook. Her mom did the checkbook. We got married. We expected her to do the checkbook. We were both in agreement about it. She did it for about six months and she couldn't do it. She couldn't handle it. We didn't like, this is where you have income coming in that has one zero behind it, two zeros behind it. And you have expenses that have three zeros behind it.

And she's, how do we do this?

I can't do this. The math doesn't math. And I'm like, yeah, it's all good. I'll take it. So I took over doing the checkbook when we both expected her to do it because she did not have the mentality, because all she could think about is. We don't have enough money. And I'm like, it'll take care of itself. It'll be fine. Nobody's going to cut. This is also really bad advice. So don't say this to someone. It's not comforting, even though it sounds comforting in my head. Nobody's going to come to the door and throw us in jail or kill us. Okay. Like if we can't pay our bills, they're not going to come to the door and arrest us or kill us.

And I was like, no, they might just turn off your water. Right. And she's like, I never even thought of that. That's even worse than I was thinking. Oh, no, that could happen.

No, it can't happen. It can't happen. So, yeah, we, you know, you learn some things from trial and error and you learn other things by, you know, having good wisdom along the way. But, but it's always, it's always trying to. actually come from how do we love one another and what would be beneficial for the other person and then also because i don't think you've fully got this but you were talking about caring for yourself and believing you're worthy of love and when you're talking about the book on boundaries sometimes knowing you're worthy of love is setting the boundaries and is telling the other person here's what i need This is what I need from you to have a self or a full relationship with you. I need to be protecting of myself in the circumstance and situation.

For example, what I do with my mom is I don't talk to her much. I love my mom very much. However, she still projects a lot onto me. So a boundary that I've set is I don't engage with her as much. I haven't gotten no contact because I don't feel called to from the Lord. However, sometimes you do have to distance yourself from relationships, including your parents. Or sometimes you didn't have a relationship with your parent and then suddenly you're very close to them. People change and grow, right? However, I acknowledge where my mom at if she needs... tons of professional help I cannot be the one to give that to her I cannot be the one to lead her to the Lord however I do pray for her regularly because I want my mom to be set free I want her to have a healthy relationship I want her to know that she's worth love and valuable and like she deserves the good things God has in store for her I just can't be the one to guide her to the water because that's just too combative for us. Because I have a lot of my mom's personality. So we just butt heads a lot. And that's okay for me to acknowledge. We're still saying I love my mom and care for her very much. But for both of our sakes and both of our well-beings, I've gone on contact and set that boundary to protect us both. Because she's not capable of currently protecting herself.

Yeah. And and there's also if you if you have other people in the family, you know, you're not married and you don't have kids. So you don't have all of that aspect. But but there is a level at times. Right. But there is a level at which there's other people that are also involved in that relationship. So I know a guy that he was in the US, but he grew up in the UK. So his dad was in the UK. So his dad would just, you know, or maybe it's the other way around. I think it's the other way around. Anyway, his dad would call at night. And he'd be on the phone for hours talking to his dad when it's evening and he's home with his spouse. And his wife was like, this has got to stop. You should spend hours and hours. Well, he's alone and he's lonely, so I need to talk to dad and all of that. So finally it came to agreement. It was like, hey, dad, you call me on my lunch break. You have a full hour of my attention every day. And so he had to have the boundary of dad calls. It's outside. Dad, you know what we're doing. You can call me at lunch. I'll call you tomorrow at lunch. It'll be at this time, your time. It's my lunch hour. Here's when we're going to talk. And sometimes if you haven't had the boundary, you have to be firm and just restate the boundary. It's not about, hey. Maybe you forgot this is what we've agreed to. Maybe you're struggling today, but this is what we've agreed to do. And so what I need is to uphold what we've agreed to or what I need to have agreed to. There's those level of things that, and it really, I'll say this, it's really especially, I think, beneficial in parent and child relationships when they're young. And it also is important when you're an adult with your parents as well to have those boundary levels of this is the relationship. This is how we're going to do it. And this is what we need or I need or my family needs for us to be the healthiest we can be.

So that's actually one of the things the book talks about, boundaries, someone to say yes, someone to say no. So they talk about like how when babies are first born, they don't really know that they're different from their mom. So the first like six months, zero to like a year of their life is being attached to mom. And then between six months and a year, depending on each child, they start to realize they are individual. um and so then they start to enter like that one year stage where they're like starting to walk and like kind of talk and you enter like the rebellious or like terrible like in like um toddler stages, and I don't like the term terrible twos. I just don't. I don't like speaking that over children. I don't think children are terrible. A lot of kids are how they are byproducts of their parents, but it talks about how kids at that age realize they are individuals, so they're trying to figure out how to be an individual, and a lot of it comes from acting out, but then it's like... helping your kid how to learn how to have bodily autonomy but also be respectful and know what boundaries are where a lot of parents go wrong is they don't keep their firm boundaries so when they say no to something and they back out the kids like oh so if i do x y and z i can do this like my parents will do this so then By about three, three and a half, they realize, oh, the world's big and scary, and they want to come back to their mom, just not with as much, like, they're their own person. So it's like teaching your kid between, like, one and three what boundaries are, like staying firm on no's, teaching them, like, bodily autonomy, for example. uh katie had a friend once that had a kid and the kid had their toy stolen from them and so the parent went back over and took the kid from the story the person that stole it and was like hey they said no to you playing with this it's not right for you to steal and gave it back to their son and she told the son she's like hey i understand this is your toy you want it like play with it for now maybe in the next time he asks you can share it because sharing is kind so it's like teaching your kids that like hey you do have autonomy over yourself but also sharing with people is also kind of like working with that. But like also if your kid's having a tantrum in the store, don't reward them by giving them something. Like, no offense, I work at Walmart, y'all. Like I watch so many parents backpedals on their nose to make their kids pacify. And that's teaching kids to walk over you.

Like, be a parent. I'm not saying the way I grew up was better where I would get my drawers dropped and I'd get a SWAT in the parking lot. It's not better, better. But there's some place in between.

But my best example of it is it's like I've seen parents with their kids sewing tantrums. They remove them from the store or like and take them outside to work through their feelings. Because let's be honest, toddlers are big people, like feeling wise and little people bodies. They don't know how to regulate. Right. Yeah. And so like or I've seen parents like pop their kids hands very lightly for touching things they shouldn't. I think spanking is reserved for very specific circumstances because you better have a good reason for spanking your kid to have that equate to a lesson to your child. I don't think spanking is bad, but like I also it was an abuse thing with one of my mom's exes. So I have very strict rules on it that I will discuss with my future husband.

Well, and I think it's situational based on the child.

Yeah, that's true.

One of the things that was really hard for one of my children, I won't name which one, who was all about equity and fairness, was the same punishment didn't happen to every kid. It was like, no, I treat you all as an individual, and I am going to punish you based on what is going to be most beneficial for you in the long run of you learning the lesson. Maybe I learned this the hard way. One of the punishments that, like, I can't tell you how many times I got spanking. It didn't correct my behavior. It didn't make me change. It just made me way, all right, I'm going to get a spanking. I'll go do this. No big deal. I'll just get the spanking. At some point, my mom figured out, because I always had my money in a jar, I owed money if I did something. Oh, wait a minute. That's a real consequence. That's taking something from me. That was something that, like, that didn't work with my brothers and sisters. It only worked with me. Like, that was a real consequence. I had to pay $1 or $5 for doing it. No, that'll stop my behavior now. Or I'll just be better at not getting caught. But one of the two is going to happen, you know. But that was one of the things also on the other side of it is like you're talking about in the store and kids throwing tantrums and all of that. My wife and I were pretty good at not setting standards or behavior that we weren't going to reinforce. So, for instance, I live in Michigan, and it is daylight at 10 o'clock in the middle of the summer. Most people I know, their kid's bedtime is 7 or 8 o'clock at night. It doesn't matter the age of the kid. I'm sorry. It's daylight. I'm not fighting that battle with the kid. I'm not going to force you to bed and then spend the next hour arguing with you, getting you to go to bed and all of that. No summertime. There's no bedtime. Like it's dark. Go to bed now. You know, it's like, yeah, like I was not going to get in the mode of I'll punish you because your brain doesn't understand time. All they understand is it's daylight. So I should be awake. Yep. So it was like we were not going to put the here's the standard and then not reinforce it. It was like, you want to enforce that? Then it's your enforcement. I won't do it. You're not going to enforce it either? Then it's not a rule, you know? Yep. So.

Yeah, that's right. Yep. I had inconsistent. The one boundary that was consistent is we were to be home by the time when the streetlights came on, we had to get home and start getting ready for bed. That was the one consistency.

I'm just reading the Mr. Krabs comment.

Not me money. Yes, not me money.

That's exactly it. Oh, that's it. Yep. Sorry, I interrupted you for a comment. You're good.

No, you're good. That was my only thought. My one consistent with both my parents, because my parents are divorced, when I went to visit my dad in the summer or my mom, the one consistency they agreed on was we had to be home when the streetlights came on so we could get ready for bed.

Yeah, there you go. That was good enough, unless it was school. Yeah, that's the one thing. Unless it was school and you needed to be up in the morning to go to school, then you had a rationale reason for going to bed early. But if all you're doing is getting up and playing tomorrow, what difference does it make what time you go to bed or get up? Now, it wasn't unreasonable. Kids weren't up until 2 and 3 in the morning as 5- and 6-year-olds. They were tired out, and actually our middle child would announce to everybody, I am tired. I'm going to bed. And we just, like, announce it. Like, everybody, I'm leaving the party. And older brother and younger or, say, older sister and younger brother of the family were always on the level of FOMO, FOMO.

The best stuff happens when I go to bed.

I can't go to bed. Good stuff will happen. You're just waiting for us to go to bed, and then you're going to have a good conversation and have funny jokes.

Oh, that's funny.

Dope. So yeah, it's interesting on that level, but I think that all comes back to what we're talking about in stream too, and what we're talking about in community. Maybe we didn't fully address it this way, but I set standards in my community that I can uphold. And then if I can uphold them, then I don't need that standard. So, you know, we both talk about having a really opening and welcoming community. And that's the way I want it to be. I want everybody to feel like they can join. Now, you can ask me all kinds of questions. You can look like you're trolling me when you come in because I don't know you and the community doesn't know you. So it can look like you're trolling when you're not. But I'm going to be patient and I'm going to ask questions. But if you go attack somebody in my stream, we're done.

We're done.

Yep. That's my safety. No, this is a community that's developed. You will not be abusive. You will not, you know, attack. That's a standard that, you know, I have to uphold or I'm going to lose all of the trust and faith that I've gained from everybody that's there.

One of my standards is we're not a debate channel. While I am a dreamer that is Christian, I will not debate on faith. I'm not an expert in a lot of things. I'm not a debate. I'm not a theologian, pretty much. I'm just not. I love Jesus. I love talking about Jesus. There's a lot of things I know. There's a ton more I don't know. So, like, if you want to debate with me, I'm not the channel for you. like we're not gonna sit here and argue uh this is a safe space for like everyone to ask questions to like find like fellowship community friends we're not here to argue and you can take that elsewhere there are plenty of christian streamers uh that are actual christian streamers and i mean they are christian before they are a streamer that uh will sit and debate the bible with you or like pastor deuston on tuesdays he does like uh where people can ask questions kind of thing because pastor deuston is a pastor that knows far more than I as a layman in the body about the Bible. So like find a streamer that you can ask questions with or like, you know, challenge your perspective on. Not every streamer that has the Christian tag on it is somewhere you can go in and start throwing theological questions at and be like, well, you should know this. Well, have you seen how big the Bible is? Do you know how many words are in Greek and Hebrew that have different meanings that we don't have in America? So we have to look into like strong concordance. if y'all don't have a strong concordance highly recommend a strong concordance it's your best friend um strong's is a good a good starting place there's better concordances than that really what tell me i need to know

Hmm.

Well, there's tell me I need to know.

Well, there's other, the thing is, is you start spending money. So I, I do agree. Yeah. So I, I like what I do on my stream. I try to make it so that anybody else can duplicate it and get it for free. So I do use blueletterbible.org, which has Strong's Concordance in it. I can look up the Hebrew and the Greek. It's all free. That's why I use it. Not because it's the best, but it's a good place to start. Mine is not the let's go deep. We might have deep conversations, but I'm not here trying to go do systematic theology and go deep in those kinds of ways. Thanks, Lucis, for putting there. The other one I go to is netbible.org. Thank you.

I'm stealing that.

um so it's a new english translation and it has footnotes that will explain some of the stuff that's going on it'll explain grammar and it'll explain different things that we have one text that says this in hebrew or in greek and we have another one that says this what's the difference what explains why one got uh changed and one uh might have been just a mistake you know what are the the things about that So those are the ones that I use repeatedly. But if you want to spend money, Logos software is great stuff. And you could go there. Okay. Yeah, like I don't use – there are other pastors who are online. I don't know if Pastor Deuston uses Logos on stream or not, but I believe he has it. Pastor Tanner uses it. Epi Timmy uses it. They're out there. Hey, Corey, you're talking about eSword? Yeah, eSword is another one out there. Yep. I haven't used eSword in about 20 years, so I can't, I don't usually recommend it because I haven't used it in 20 years, but eSword is another one that's out there. So I don't know what they're currently looks like or how that one operates, but yeah, there are free sources. Use free sources because if you don't know anything, you'll use a free source.

Yep. I have free sources actually on my Twitch page. So I have the blue of the Bible, but I don't have net Bible. So I'm stealing it to put on my Twitch page.

Yeah, so there, yeah, eSword was free. Yeah, it was free. I just haven't used it. So that's why I could go back and look at it. But it's more along the lines of that. Logos took you a bit to learn. It was using the app and kind of just let it go to use Blue Letter Bible. Yeah, well, my problem with Logos is, so I bought it in seminary and I got the scholars edition. I got the discount, all that for being a seminary student. And then I put it on my computer and then I had a new computer. So I had to reinstall it on the new computer. I had to contact them because the code had already been used. And I'm like, hey, I'm just transferring it to a new computer. And then I did it a third or a fourth time. And I just got tired of doing that. Now they're more subscription based where you just have it and you access it, you know. But I got it so long ago, I just got tired of re-upping it and trying to tell them I bought it and I need access. So it became a burden. And as soon as there's a burden in your way, it becomes easier to not go that route. So, but yeah, Strong's is reasonable. It's a good starting place, but it doesn't have all the nuance of, so basically Strong's is older than what we have learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls. So since we have the Dead Sea Scrolls that has helped us learn more Hebrew, we have more nuance of what word meaning could be and grammatical use of things to help us understand Hebrew. So at times I will have more knowledge than Strong's does because I can remember. No, no, no, this is included. But they didn't put that in here when we're looking at things.

That's really cool. Yeah, so like I said, I- Speaking of, go ahead.

I just, that's what I said. I love doing stuff that's duplicatable by other people. I learned that really early on in ministry. If what I'm doing can't be duplicated by people, they won't do it.

Yeah, that's true. There's a podcast I listen to called Trouble the Shoulder. It kind of makes me think about Petone and- What We Pumpkin Do, but it's a Jewish rabbi and a Protestant pastor, and they talk about it. And I actually got to hear this Jewish rabbi speak in person. Really cool dude. He was talking about the Mark of Cain and how the Mark of Cain's always been the best thing. Now, you shouldn't want the Mark of Cain, however. He talks about how the Mark of Cain, when he says, like, my sin is too great for me to bear, it wouldn't actually have been the word sin there. And he, I don't remember the exact word he said, but it pretty much equates to burden because he was talking about how, like, Cain in that moment realized what he did was to, one, it was horrific what he did to his brother, and two, that he couldn't bear it. Like, it was not something he could handle alone. And God saw his heart posture change about doing what he did. So God had mercy on Cain and gave him the mark to spare his life because Cain actually did feel remorse for what he did. So it wasn't just talking about like his sin being too great. It was like, oh, I greatly messed up here. i did something i shouldn't have and i can't carry this burden on like this is not something i can fix and that's why like god had mercy on him and so it was really cool to listen to him talk about like because that that word in it was either greek or hebrew i don't remember which one how it has, yeah, he's saying Hebrew, it can be two words. And so even as he studies and dives into the Bible, he actually has to really study what the word is, what the context is, what they actually wrote there, what it would actually mean. And so it was really cool to listen to a Jewish rabbi speak about it, because one, I think Jewish roots are super important. The Bible is a Jewish book with Gentiles included. We cannot have the Bible without Judaism. Being a Jew is different than being Judaism because Jew is by blood, Judaism is a faith. That gets lost sometimes in distinction. However, it was written by Jewish people who ended up believing in Jesus the Messiah. It's a very beautiful book, but we need to understand Jewish traditions because there are so many Jewish traditions in the Bible that get lost. like the Passover. I didn't understand what the Passover was for years until I actually made Messianic Jewish friends that taught me what the Passover was and like why it was important and how to celebrate it and they've taught me like why like I thought I now follow this Orthodox Jew that she doesn't believe in the New Testament but I follow her on TikTok and she shares what being what being like a Jewish Orthodox Jew is. So she practices Judaism. That's her religion is Judaism. And what that looks like with being an actual Jew and how they keep the traditions alive. And I just, I think there's this beautiful symbolic, like, yes, the Jews were chosen and they were God's chosen people, but we were grafted in. Like we are adopted by God, which is a beautiful picture to paint. And we need both parties to completely picture the Bible. and work in harmony with each other. The Bible is a big, beautiful book meant for everyone, and you need both Jewish and Gentile perspectives. You need both Judaism perspectives from the Jewish faith and our perspective from the Gentile faith to help understand this big, beautiful book. By random thought, because you brought up the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is totally random. I worked in a hotel once, and they were bringing scrolls that had been excavated from Israel to colleges in the US. So these were actual scrolls back in my Jesus's day. and i i got to talking to the lady and she let me come up and see them i don't read greek or hebrew but let me tell you it was the coolest experience ever to see actual scrolls written by like the prophets and you know the believers like 2 000 years ago And still preserved, being given to us, well, the colleges, but still to us in the United States, to study and learn and grow from. Like, neatest thing ever. I can't even lie. Like, it's one of the coolest experiences to get to walk in a room just filled with biblical scrolls and just be like, this is Jesus's word. Like, how they did it. Like, you had to do it perfectly. If you didn't do it perfectly, you had to burn it or bury it, depending on the process. These were all scrolls that were like actually certified and deemed true and like done correctly and documented correctly. And I got to see them. It was just so neat.

That's really cool. Yeah, and so there's all of those aspects of things, and we're talking about how do we treat our community and treat others that don't see and understand everything the same way. There's a good example there of, yeah, people who are Catholic versus Protestant, those who are going to be Jewish who come in. I've got Altus Rabbi who comes into my stream regularly. I'm usually doing Torah Tuesday, so he's coming in on Tuesdays because he knows I'm talking Torah on Tuesday. So there's those things that you can have and develop relationships with people and you can grow your influence over them and your faith over them while you're learning theirs as well. And those are some amazing things that, yeah, I'm loving them as I love myself because I would want to be loved where I am right now too. And so that's a wonderful thing to... to express and to bring in. And it's funny, it's like, yeah, you're a streamer who is Christian, but it's like, well, I could see how easy it would be to get you going on a topic if people show up. So putting the Christian tag there to let people know, yeah, that makes sense. And everyone makes those decisions for themselves. You know, I put pastor in my name to start with. I knew I was going to do that because I didn't want people to feel bait and switch. You know, they're going to show up, I'm doing something. All of a sudden they find out I'm a pastor and they're like, oh, I don't. I don't I don't think I can trust you anymore. You've probably been lying to me. You've been trying to hide all of this stuff. So I and I'm not saying everyone makes the same decision. You don't have to. That was a decision that I felt was important. And then, you know, flat cap dapper is just somewhat kind of like, oh, I'm telling you something about myself. And I don't really take myself that seriously. So you don't you don't have to either. You know, I am not the authority on anything. Yeah. Maybe flat caps, but maybe not, you know.

Yeah.

So just kind of looking at we've been all over the place just to kind of bring this back to streaming for a minute. What are you planning or looking forward to doing in streaming over the next six months?

Oh, okay. Well, I am launching a new channel in, like, four. Technically, it's not new. It's already up and running. But I am rebranding the Turk channel I'm streaming on and my twin channel. We are doing a whole debut stream, and I'm super excited. We are writing lore for our characters. We are tying, like, Christian lore into it, like Jesus lore, but also, like, real-world lore about, like, wars and stuff. And then, like, we're also tying in, like, what's kind of like being a twin into our lore and that kind of stuff. So, like, writing the, like, stories of our characters to keep them true to us and like real life things but to build a story about like the gospel in a way that's different to help reach people has been a lot of fun that's my most exciting thing my wallet does not thank me but that's okay this is probably the most expensive endeavor i've taken um but definitely that uh playing resident evil requiem i'm not gonna lie i'm not playing it the twins playing it i get to watch and commentate and laugh at her and then help her if she gets too scared because sometimes she'll play scary games and then she can't do the thing because she's too scared to do it so she'll be like twin come help me Um, I already recommend something I'm looking forward to, but as a whole, it's honestly, it's all a sense of mind to rebranding, launching the twin channel, getting all the parts to it. I submitted the last thing I need, uh, to the artist, which is overlays to get a quote for how much that is. Uh, if y'all know, I'm super excited. He's making us an intro video. Uh, and he's blessed soul. He's not charging us for it. He's like, I want practice and I want to get good at this. So he's like, you can be some test dummies for me. Um, but definitely, um, sharing, being able to share all of the twin stuff with people in like four months, uh, I am much hyped for because keeping it a secret is so hard. I just want to share it. I am not a good secret keeper. Unless it's, like, something seriously important. Like, if people tell me something and I can't tell anybody, like, I won't. But, like, with this kind of stuff, because I'm so excited. I'm like, I just want to share it with you guys. I can't share it with you guys because it would start ruining things. Or you guys would have questions. And then I would not answer your questions. But I can't answer your questions because the questions have to do with the lore of the character, which I haven't dropped yet.

How long of a lore are you going to write?

So it's pretty much the intro to our characters, like the starting of life, like how they were made. And then up to a certain event that happens. And then we'll slowly build upon it as we go. And chat can redeem, like, share a lore bit. We'll have channel points for it. And they can get to ask questions about it. And eventually, the twin's going to write comics. She's going to turn us into a comic book character when her art gets good enough. So we'll actually write comic books of our characters and their story and all of that.

and so yeah it's it's a heavy like it's going to be a long endeavor or anything but we're super excited so you're just in the beginning of of writing the lore making sure that that is and then you're gonna continuously flush i love the idea of comic books uh yeah Just going to suggest, by the way, doing the drawing of the comic books on stream as well. There's a couple of people who have done that over the years. I don't know anyone currently doing that. Artsy Bible Nerd has done that. I don't think he's currently drawing. Honor Studio has done that. Don't think he's currently drawing. Romans and I met a couple of people last year at Realm Makers Conference. We were encouraging them. to go and uh get a twitch account and to draw but i don't know if they're doing it so it's like i've seen people do it i don't know if anyone i don't know if anyone is currently do it but you get your camera set up up above with a downward facing thing on there if you're doing it you know old school by hand or if you're if you're doing it electronically you're just taking and sharing that screen as you're doing the drawing

yeah so i like i can i can point in directions of a couple of people that might be able to help out with setup and all of that stuff if whoa so i will tell katie to reach out to you because she she's the artist of the two of us she like does all the artwork um i want to get back into drawing um it's something actually uh but she would do the digital art and if i honestly got back into drawing it would be like the old school way because i just do better with pen and paper uh now mad respect to the people that can do digital

uh i suck at digital drawing they're they're both a skill that you have to practice to get good at yeah there's there's no doubt about it uh yeah i i don't have that because i didn't practice enough uh i yeah i have a level at which it's it's better than elementary school and that's about all i can say for it so yeah i understand that my art is not that great i used to be a good artist but i i stopped Well, yeah, if you don't if you don't keep it up all the time, like the people that I know that are really good artists are like if you're if you're if they were sitting here listening to this podcast, they would be drawing something while they're doing this. if they're at church they're taking the bulletin and they're drawing on the bulletin while they're in church like their brain is always and their and their hands are always drawing something it's constant you know they're at dinner they're taking the napkin and doodling on the napkin you know their their brains are always always working and operating that way and their hands are getting better and better as they do more and more stuff so There's that, which I think is cool. So I would love to encourage and promote more people to do art on stream. I think it's a missed category that not enough people are in.

It is. We have a friend, her name's Art Simon MJ. She's Catholic, love her soul. She's so sweet. But she does a lot of her arts on stream. She's a comic book, she's a webtoon artist. And then she does all of her character stuff when she has commissions or like... If she has permission to stream the commission or she does like, she has fundraising goals for chat to fund things. So they vote on what they want her to draw and then they fund it. And she does all of those on stream. And it's so amazing to just watch her draw. Like I could sit and watch people draw for hours. It's very therapeutic.

like two it's like it's so chill like it's relaxing they throw on some chill music they just chat with you while they draw it's a very good way to get to know people yeah i think now that i mentioned i was mostly thinking of the people that are comic book style there are a few others that are out there that that draw other styles as well that are artists out there or painters and actually i'll promo this i don't know if you can quite see it um in the background there is uh hell divers uh from reach so i did the hell yeah 90-day chance. Yeah, on my stream you can. It's just slightly off camera. Anyway, 3D printed model was the trophy for participating in that 90 days. And next month, so if you're listening to this podcast on the VOD, you probably missed it. But those who are here live, next month for Affiliateiversary, I will be painting that on stream. And so it won't be black anymore. And I think what I'm going to let you do is pick a color for me to paint. And if we get enough subs, bits, tips, donos, whatever, I haven't figured it fully out. But next month I'll be painting on stream. So I paint once a year on stream for Affiliate Anniversary. That's kind of it.

That's cool, though.

That's when I'll paint on stream. And I don't know if you can see back here. That is a butterfly that I painted for. Actually, that was for mental health awareness. I guess I have painted. But it's usually only about once a year that I choose to paint. So we took ribbons and put a ribbon on the canvas for mental health awareness. And every sub got a ribbon on there. And then we took and I should say I took. I took and painted a butterfly. I didn't know what I was going to paint. And then I pulled all the ribbons off. And it's pretty cool, actually, I think.

That is really cool.

So that's my level of skill. I wish it looked better. I wish I had more fine motor skills to paint it a better butterfly. But it's a big, vibrant color, and that's all that mattered.

I love it. Yeah, I think one other thing I'm looking forward to with stream is there's this new game. I don't know if you've ever heard the name Jacksepticeye before.

I think I've heard people talking about it recently, but I don't know anything about it.

So, no, Jacksepticeye is a streamer. Oh, okay. Not a streamer. He is not a streamer. He's a YouTuber, which there is a class difference from. He occasionally does go live on Twitch, but very rarely. He's a YouTube content creator. He's like back in O2 YouTube days, like MatPat, Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, PewDiePie. Oh, MatPat, yeah. Yeah, I miss Matt Pat so bad and who I derail. But Jacksepticeye played this game called The Letters of Bernard or The Letters from Bernard or something like that. I didn't watch and play all of it, but I watched enough to know this game had me crying. And it's kind of like a scary-esque game, but it deals with a really good topic. because you were talking about mental health, it deals with PTSD and emotional trauma and having traumatic things happen to you and how it changes the brain. And so I was like, I want to play this game. Twin's like, I will watch you play that game all you like. I ain't playing it, but I will be your cheerleader in chat. I was like, cool, we got a game to play. um because i think like it's a huge thing to talk about like how trauma and like ptsd and like mental health are real and like even online like online churches or online spheres don't want to quite touch it but like we're not broken because we have bad mental health some of its genetics some of it's because our brain like our uh hormone levels or brain chemistry are on balance and we need help with it um some of it's just because we've been through a lot and we need to process it like We're not broken because we have things wrong or like we're depressed or not thinking like others. We're just not. Like we're humans that go through real life human things and it affects us. And it's okay to admit that you need mental health help. Like heck, I've been to therapy several times. Like I've written several poems about my mental health. For y'all that don't know, I write poetry. i don't share it publicly but if you ever want to read it let me know i'll share it with people in dms i'm my own worst critic when it comes to my poetry but also a lot of it's very like personal-esque stuff so like a lot of people are just like did this really happen to you and i was like yes i i haven't it did i haven't written poetry since college i think that was the last time i wrote poetry but most of my poetry was romantic poetry so you don't need to go read any did okay okay speaking of romance random thing this is guy on tick tock sharing the love letters between his grandfather and now his grandmother they had only met for an hour and it was during world war ii and they only met for an hour but they exchanged letters and i'm like can we bring that era back of talking to each other well because it's so like it it's what it's really it's a good skill to have to be able to write to people but also like they wrote so many love letters to each other like so many and it's so sweet how they talk to each other and how they wrote to each other and i'm just like I'm a hopeless romantic that lives vicariously through other things right now because I'm a single pretty girl. Actually, I live vicariously through Jesus because Jesus is the best bridegroom we could ever have. And I am waiting for him to allow me to get married. However, I am thankful, grateful, blessed, which I know sounds weird that he hasn't allowed marriage yet. Because there's so many things I had to work out before I think I would actually... It would have been bad for me to bring some of this stuff into marriage. We never go perfectly to any relationship. but the things god has given me grace for to work out before i get married 10 10 so y'all don't rush marriage uh like just don't rush it god has plans for you and if he's placed desires of marriage on your heart he will fulfill it but don't rush it well also you don't need marriage to complete you No, I am a complete human being by myself.

You are a complete person who you are. You are complete in Christ. There are blessings and benefits that you might have because of it, but you aren't incomplete and incomplete until you find that person.

Technically, I'm half complete because I'm a twin and we split in two.

I'm not going to tackle that.

It's a joke. It's a joke. We're two complete separate individuals.

But yeah, we'll just skip that. There's all kinds of weird stuff when you get down there. Actually, you know what's interesting? So in my high school class, we had four sets of twins.

Whoa.

yep four sets of twins in my class um two were boy girl um and the other journal yeah and the other two were um trying to remember the fourth one i can't remember who the fourth one was and one was two girls i want to say the other one might have been two girls as well I might be wrong on that. It's been so long ago, I don't remember. But, yeah, I remember we had four sets of twins in my grade. Well, here's a weird thing. Nobody has had twins in my family since my uncle that I know of. My dad is supposed to be a twin whose sibling died at birth or shortly thereafter, so he grew up not knowing he was a twin. Whoa. My grandmother's sister. No. I don't know, great grand, anyway, a relative a ways back when you used to have 10 kids. So anyway, great something or other, great aunt, I don't know, great, great aunt, argued with her sister about they both had 10 kids. One was pregnant three times. The other one was pregnant 10 times. So she had three sets of triplets. this was not fertility drugs she had three sets of triplets so it's kind of weird that is wild oh my goodness yeah yeah so you know like that was a 150 years ago or something so wow yeah Yeah, like my family tree is weird. I don't talk about it much, but we're talking about twin stuff, and that just kind of felt like, ah, I could throw that out there. That's weird. That's weird information. Put that on your bingo card for Reach next year.

My so twins are generational on my grandma side, but, like, so, like, my grandma was pregnant with twins. Unfortunately, 1 of them didn't make it. My great grandma was a triplet. Um. My great great grandma had twins, but I think what happened to one of them and they passed away after birth, like they were alive for a little while, but they caught a like illness or something and ended up not making it. And so my sister's like, I want twins. I was like, you can have them. I would like to raise one at a time. But the funny thing is, like, the older women get, it's not that they're less infertile, they typically drop more eggs. So, like, if you're older and you get married, the likelihood of you having doubles or triples is actually higher. And I'm just like, God, please have mercy on your daughter because I only want one kid at a time.

Well, unless you're doing, you know, infertility treatments, it's still not that prominent for people to have multiples. It's still a rare thing to happen.

Yeah. Speaking of having twins, she used a joke about us marrying twins and having twins. I was like, look, you can marry a twin if you want. Now, if God had a sense of humor, we would marry twins. That'd be something. But, you know, I don't know the plans.

I've heard of twins that married twins. That's an interesting thing.

If you're identical twins and you marry identical twins and you have kids, your kids are actually siblings because their DNA are so close that, like, it wouldn't matter.

Oh. That's weird.

Yeah, because, like, our DNA, like, on surface level is identical, and their DNA would be surface level identical. So, like, they would just be like siblings because the parents practically have the same DNA.

Well, just make sure that when they go over to play, you have your outfits that they're dressed in, and they don't switch, and you end up taking the wrong kid home.

Oh, that would be something.

On another thing, I actually saw a study recently that said that actually within twins, it's about a 50% chance that you were actually your sibling and somewhere along the way, your parents mixed you up when you were infants and you were actually your twin by birth, even though they switched the names at some point as they were, you know, like.

We've joked about that. Yeah. Me and we've joked about that. And they're just like, well, what if it's true? And I was like, well, at this point, it would be too late to do anything anyway.

It's a fun little trivia, but it doesn't matter. You are that person now, even if you started out named the other person.

Yeah. I'm me and she's she, and we wouldn't want to be each other. So you know what? We would just stick with the names we have.

There you go.

We have baby bracelets to help tell support.

Yeah. If the kids don't at some point swap them or they fall off, you know.

Yeah. At some point, my uncle realized we had different noses. So, how they told us apart were by our noses. So, like, if something happened to the baby bracelets, they would just phone my uncle and be like, hey, I need you to come tell us which one's which because we can't tell the bracelet something happened. And he's like, you seriously still can't tell? They live with you. He's like, I'll come over. And then we just look at our noses. Like, that one's Courtney and that one's Caitlin.

That is funny.

Yep.

Well, anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to talk about as far as being a streamer or just about your life or just about your faith?

Lifewise, y'all can overcome anything and everything. I've had a pretty emotionally and mentally traumatic life. Don't let the bounds that other people set on you defy you. You are not defined by what man says. You're defined by what God says. And learn who God made you to be. Because it is very freeing to walk in the freedom of who God ordained you to be and not the expectations of man. If y'all need a community to belong in, you know, there's an amazing place called Reach where there's amazing people like Flat Cap and I that would be more than willing to, like, welcome you and connect you with people. If, like, you need prayer, you can ask for prayer. There are people that will encourage you in Reach and help you find the things they're good at and, like, help you excel at those things and help you get connected with those people to help you grow in those things. You're not alone in this walk. you're not no matter how much satan or people try to tell you you are never alone even if you sometimes feel like it and when you feel like it don't let the significant process your feelings but just know it's not true uh whether it's online or in person there are people that care about you and love you and i might not know you but i still love you because you matter uh so you know If you ever need a listening ear, coming out in Reach, we're there. I'm always lurking. I'm waiting for them to update the Discord so we have new cosplay stuff. Oh, if you ever need help with cosplay things, hit me up. Literally, I have resources upon resources upon resources for cosplay things. Because I might not make stuff, but I sure do know how to find it.

There you go. Well, I kind of did a combo on my stuff of a little bit of make and a little bit of buy. And that's cool. And if I could figure out how to make it, I tried. And then a few things I was like, it's so much cheaper to buy this than the amount of time it's worth to make it. You know, it just depends on what you're looking for.

That's cool.

But some of it might get better and get upgrades just like you do with stream. Like this is good for now. Then I will upgrade to it to a better quality.

Yeah. My biggest advice to people, if you want to do something and you feel like you're not capable, start doing it somewhere. We all have a starting point. And if you never try, you can never grow. Failure isn't bad. Failure means you tried something and it might not work out. Try it a different way. Don't look at failure as something to be like, oh, this is awful. I failed. Like, I should never achieve these things.

No, failure, you should be proud of failure.

And I sincerely mean that. It means you tried something. Even if it didn't work, you tried it, which is amazing that you took the attempt to do it. And whether that's all, failure also teaches you something. You will learn from your mistakes and your fail. That blends really hard for me. I'm saying it too much. You will learn from it. So don't be afraid to shoot your shot and take your chances. If I wouldn't have dropped my shot with reaching out to Roman about Reach, I never would have gotten involved. I would have never been cosplayed. I'm still cosplaying. I'm still hoping a ton. And we're growing to make it better. It was the first year. We learned a lot from it. We realized what we did wrong, where we need to improve. Waivers for everybody because WWE fans go a little too hard. Oh, my goodness.

Yep, that was a little bit. Although, you know, if people don't know WWE enough, I have a kilt now, so I could be Rowdy Rowdy Piper unless it's the wrong color. It's the wrong color. I mean, I know better, but I just need the hot.

Just get the hot. Yeah, I know.

I just get the hot rod t-shirt and I'm ready to go.

Yeah, exactly. For y'all that want to read context, we had cosplay contests every day. It was really fun. Day two, a lot of the lightsabers came out. So there was some people that did a lightsaber duel and then it turned into the WWE people acting on stage. And mind you, I can't say much. I dove in and was a referee.

That was so amazing when you dove in to slap the mat. That was... It was spontaneous and amazing. That's for sure.

And then the other day was Undertaker at 8BK. It was a little concerning. I was just like, oh, God, please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die. Because from the back, I couldn't see anything. Someone got tombstone and chokes in on stage. That was wild. Oh, man, that was an experience. But, yeah, reach is for everyone. We just want to help people. And, guys, we live, we learn, we grow, we do better. All of us have a starting point. Don't focus on the destination. Just enjoy the journey. Because if you focus on the destination, you'll lose a lot of stuff along the way. Those are my things.

Awesome. That was wonderful.

Thanks.

I'll probably have to clip that and share that for sure. So the people don't miss it that didn't stick to the end. But I always find like there's something that's always like you get around that like, oh, we've been two hours. Are we going to have anything good to finish this? It's always good stuff. It's always good stuff. Always worth staying to the end, I think.

Yeah, that's actually my philosophy in life. We live, we learn, we grow, we do better. And we can't learn if we're never trying. Learning comes from failure and shooting your shot, whatever that shot looks like. Yeah.

We don't often learn from being successful.

No.

Like if you're successful, you don't know what you did necessarily to make yourself successful at what you did. You just happened to do it right. And then you do it again. And maybe you did it right the second or third time. Then suddenly it stops working and you don't know what you did and what you changed. So you don't know why it works. It is not always, success is not always the thing that helps teach us.

Nope. Our biggest, the things that actually helped teach us in life are our biggest failures. Look at David from the Bible, a man after God owns heart, and look at his shortcomings. Like, he messed up a lot. It also taught him a lot. Elijah, I love the story of Elijah, but his shortcomings when... I could get into this. So there's a sermon I listen to called The Battle at the Gates, and it's about the physical gate of Elijah not managing to actually go in and slay Jezebel, but also the spiritual battle of how his ear gates and eye gates were overtaken by what Jezebel was sending to him in the spiritual realm via thoughts and images, which led him to be depressed. But his failure, like, he never got a do over, but it did teach him that, like, hey, sometimes we mess up and sometimes that's okay. And then he had to train his predecessors and then he was captured up sometimes. Our failures, and then in turn lead us to bless them, but still think that others. So, like, it's okay if we can't do something. God's still going to use it. God's still going to use us. He just might use us in a way to equip someone that can do it in a way that we fall short. And that's okay to admit. There's many things I have fallen short on that I've had to then, like, just patch the torch onto other people with. And you know what? It takes humility to actually be like, well i done goofed this up i'm not getting another shot but that's okay because god's gonna use somebody to do it and whether he brings me alongside them to teach them or he helped pivot me to a different direction because he still has a purpose in my life elijah did his thing and he was caught up and it's really cool But Decibel is one of my favorite things. Not Decibel, Elijah and the story of Elijah and Decibel and his predecessors and all of that. Really cool story. Like, I'm just saying.

And it totally, like, you're talking about spiritual warfare there. I tend to view it from a standpoint of he is struggling mental health throughout that. And it's not that there's not spiritual going on. There definitely is spiritual warfare that's happening. But not to diagnose, because I don't know how we could, because he's not alive. We just have a written record. But there's a level at which either depression or PTSD is part of what he's struggling with.

Yeah, I definitely would think it's more PTSD, and here's why. He slayed all of those people. He was running at a supernatural speed. Like, he was passing chariots. Like, there's no way this man was not running without God's supernatural provision over him. And he got there. He probably had the weight of what he did on him. And he was probably also physically exhausted. Because imagine maintaining that speed on your body. And it just caught up to him in a moment, which allowed Jezebel to send the spiritual attack, which amplified his mental health stuff in that moment. And then God told him to take a nap and eat some food.

Well, there's also pieces, like, this is where it's like, I don't care what a diagnosis needs to be. I can clearly see there are symptoms that could relate to any of those. And then one is he isolates himself. He sends his servant away. And then he crawls up under a tree. He's basically fetal position here. And then saying, I wish I were dead. Like, those are all symptoms of a mental health crisis on some level.

Yes.

And they could be symptoms of something else. But I'm saying, you know, to me, that's what it points to. That's what I see happening there. And so I preached on that passage many times to bring up the topic of mental health and if you're struggling with things and you can't do it alone. And here God had to intervene and come to his aid. So if you watch someone struggle through it, you may not be able to intervene. You may not be able to change it, but you can still try to be present with them in the middle of it. Job would be another one that may be struggling with some stuff. I don't usually always go fully that direction with Job. From Job's perspective, I usually say when your life is falling apart and you don't know what to do, go read Job because Job will say everything you wish you could say to your friends who are idiots.

Yeah. You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

Job has all the right things to say about all the people who are around you telling you it's your fault that your life is falling apart. I'm going to say nope, and I'm going to go read Job.

Yeah, sometimes our life just fall apart and there's no reason for it, right? Or no rhyme for it. Sometimes bad things just happen. We live in a fallen world. Like there's not a reason for everything. There's not an explanation for everything. Sometimes bad things just happen and it sucks. And sometimes those bad things can send us into depression. or mental health crises and that's okay it's okay to be like i can't handle everything falling apart like it's okay like and sometimes just sit with people or like look power of prayer there is power in prayer like if you don't know how to help someone pray for them because god can do things he hears the intercessors of the saints like he hears our prayers so like If you don't know how to relate to them, you don't know how to be there for them, you can still pray for them. Even a text message saying, hey, I'm thinking of you, like when someone's struggling with something, goes a long way, like such a long way to know that they're not for God, even when they're isolating themselves. Because when you get depressed or you're having anxiety or like there's a long list of things that make people isolate themselves, their friends is texting them, hey, I'm thinking of you, makes them realize that they're not alone.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you never know. This is what I just encourage. If you are prompted to, hey, maybe I should reach out to someone, do it. Do it. If you don't know what to say, don't say anything other than, hey, just thinking about you, wanted to know you were loved and cared. Just make it simple, things that would be your language, just to say, I was thinking about you, and I wanted you to know. that. Or I was prompted by the spirit to pray for you. Whatever it is, just short, simple. Don't make a book out of it. Only send a message, DM them, text message, whatever way you communicate. And just say that in as short a way as you can, because you don't know where they're at and what's going on. And they may need that at that very moment that you send it.

Yep.

Wow, a lot of good nuggets we talked about. We could keep going, I'm sure. We could talk more about a whole bunch of other topics. But I appreciate you being on here. One of the things I try to do at the end is to let's go bless somebody with a raid or a double raid if we're both streaming. So if you want to find somebody that we can go and raid out and bless them with a double raid.

Let me see who's streaming that I know. Oops, wrong button. I swear I know how to do this. I swear I'm a professional. Ooh, Father Evans is live.

How long has he been live, though?

Oh, Father Evans hasn't been live that long. Let's go bless Father Evans with a raid. He's playing Minecraft, but he's a really cool dude.

Okay, I do not know if I know him. Let me see if I can find him.

He was at Reach. I'm putting his name in chat for you. There you go.

Okay. Oh, okay. Then I did talk to him.

Yeah, he's super cool. I'm just going to copy your message.

Oh, there you go. There you go. The simple one.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Cool, cool, cool. We'll go raid him. That'll be fun. So I usually try to count it down so we get the raid together. So if you want to say any final last words to everybody before we take off, I'll do the same, and then we'll start the raid.

Chat, you are deeply cared for and loved. I am blessed that everyone's here. Remember, we live, we learn, we grow, we do better, and I could not do what I do without you guys.

That's so awesome. Thank you so much, Elaine, for being here. It's been a joy getting to know you and know you better. Had a fun time at REACH. Can't wait to see what happens in the next year. And everybody that is here, I know not everyone's going to get to go to REACH, but get in the community. Get over in the Church Digitals community. If you need a place where people are going to pray for you and care for you, there's a lot of them that are out there. And if you're listening to the VOD and you're going, I don't know any of what you're talking about, then reach out, get connected. We'll help you get connected. And if you're thinking, maybe this is something God's calling me to do, let us know. We'd love to help you do that.

Yes.