Conquer Livestream

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well well well hello to our very first live stream welcome to internet land i have never ever done this before and i am going to go for a marathon we're going to spend three hours together we have never done it but we got this new technology we thought you know what let's not do another webinar let's just invite all kinds of people in that you can meet them let's talk about everything you want to talk about we're going to spend from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock together or whatever time zone you're on we've got three hours together so i am just thrilled that you are going to spend some or all of that time with me here in this live stream let me tell you what we're going to be covering because i think it's going to be really important to many of you first i'm going to be talking about what is a godly woman what is a good marriage i'm just going to just define those really quickly for you because i don't think we've really explained that very well in the church i think the church has had a lot of teaching about the roles of a wife or the roles of a mom or the roles of a woman or the roles of a husband but they don't talk about the relationship and guess what you can do your role really well and still have a rotten relationship and so we have to talk about the relationship matters the things that break trust the things that hurt people and harm people even if you are functioning in your role you're still not happy in your marriage in your relationship and so what does a good wife do how does a godly woman deal with that because that's what we talk about here in our ministry in conquer and the rest of my ministry so we're going to be talking about that then i'm going to invite one of my coaches to be a part of us and she's going to be talking about our conquer journey we started conquer as a membership group about six years ago because so many women were asking to coach with me after i wrote my book the emotionally destructive marriage they were desperate for help desperate i mean there wasn't anything out there secular much or christian at all on destructive marriages and i just couldn't handle all of it it was just way too much and so i decided to and frankly a lot of women couldn't afford to work with me um and so i decided to start this membership group called conquer very low cost 27 a month they could join and then they could help each other and i could help the group of them because they were all struggling with the same issues how do i speak up for myself how do i set boundaries am i over functioning or am i being a godly wife i can't tell the difference am i enabling or am i supporting i can't tell the difference is he lying to me is he telling me the truth is he changing isn't that and they were all struggling with these same issues and so i thought you know what i can help a whole lot more women for a whole lot less cost to them and give them excellent help without having them to spend the cost it would take to work with me on one i can't read that oh one on one someone's reminding me that i've got to do something here hold on there we go hold on there we go how welcome to the live stream you know me i'm not good at talking and tech at the same time so they're giving me some um information that i need to add to the screen welcome to our live stream but thank you for being here but so anyway i started conquer and it grew so fast that we had to shut the doors because i couldn't handle it so how we were roll now as we open it twice a year we invite you in and today's another invitation today is the last invitation so we are going to show you what conquer is like so liam one of our coaches is going to come in and she's going to share the conquer journey so that's we're going to talk about first if you want to kind of know the schedule and then we're going to invite a number of different sisters who are in conquer who have been in conquer who have done their work and i want you to listen to their story i want you to listen to how they grew how they healed how they found themselves again and their marriages some of them made it and are better and some of them didn't make it and they're not but they're better they're better they're not in a heap of despair like nobody loves me anymore they have become strong godly women with or without their marriage and this is really important because one of the things that i want to talk to you about right here right now is my teaching about letting go of the outcome letting go of the outcome you see we get scared when our relationships get wobbly we get scared when our marriage is struggling because we don't want to be divorced no christian woman ever wants to be divorced probably no woman ever wants to be divorced no one gets married thinking well i hope this lasts a couple years and i'll get divorced and find someone else i mean we just don't think that way we don't roll that way as women we're all about connection we want family we want to be married we want to be moms and we might want more than that we might also want to have careers and all those kind of things but we want those close family relationships we want that with all of our heart for most of us and yet when it's not working out we can begin to get a little anxious and and by anxious we start to over function and over functioning is a term that i use in conquer to say to a woman you're taking responsibility for something that's not yours to take so i'll give you a couple examples as a mom if you were still wiping your kid's butt when they were 10 you would be over functioning you're doing something for them that they should be doing for themselves at this age right at some point you did it but at this age they should be doing it for themselves if you're still doing your child's homework with them while they're in junior high in high school then you're over functioning you're taking responsibility for reminding them for making them disciplined in ways that by now they should be taking that responsibility for themselves but in our desire to be a good mom sometimes we're over functioning we're doing more for our child which actually cripples them and keeps them immature and selfish and dependent on us we think we're doing right we think we're doing good but we're actually causing more harm unintentionally we didn't realize that all we wanted to do was help him be a good mom but we do that in our marriage too our husband fails our husband isn't responsible he's not picking up his end of the work and we're over functioning so the whole family doesn't crumble i get it i get it it's very tempting because we can we can most of us are very capable strong women and yet when we do that we keep an illusion alive that someone's more capable than they're not or someone is doing something that they're not or someone is something that they're not they're a good husband when they're not and part of my ministry to you is helping you to be a a right decision person so let me get a drink of water i'm getting a little clogged up here learning to make the right decision learning to make the next right choice without knowing the outcome you see we want to we want to make sure our kid gets in the great college we want that outcome so we're gonna you know make everything right for their homework and make sure they do it all and do it for them if we have to just to make sure that they get it right right or we're gonna over function for our husband so that he doesn't you know scream at our kids or he doesn't do something stupid with money or we're going to over function and because we want a certain outcome we want him to get better so we nag him and say why don't you work on this why don't you go to counseling why don't you stop drinking why don't you do and we're trying to fix their life in ways that we think would be good but they're resisting because that's not our job to fix someone else's life it's their job to fix their life so here is the question if they don't see their life as a problem if they're happy with the person they are whether they're lazy or they're watching porn or they're having affairs or they're lying to you or they're cheating on their taxes or they're not responsible as a person as a father as a husband and that's okay with them there is nothing you're going to do to change that and if it's not okay with them why aren't they taking responsibility to change it you can't change someone for them even if they wanted you to if someone says to you i'm 100 pounds overweight lose weight for me you can't you can teach them how to eat you can cook the right food but you can't control what they put in their mouth or whether or not they exercise you can't do it for them and i can't do it for you i'm going to show you the way i'm going to show you the route and our conquer coach is going to come in and show you our concord journey we have specific steps that you will take when you get into the membership so that you're getting the foundation laid clear and strong for you to grow into a godly strong woman but doing the next right thing i'm going to give you a couple of biblical examples the first one is moses's mother moses mother terrified the pharaoh has said all jewish baby boys have to be killed he tells the midwives you've got to kill the babies that are that are boys because i don't want them to keep populating the jewish population well first the midwives were brave girls and they did the next right thing they didn't do it they didn't kill the hebrew babies they they actually lied they said they just come too fast and we're not there in time we can't kill them so so they did the next right thing they didn't know what was going to happen to them but they did the next right thing they couldn't control the outcome the outcome is in god's hands the process is in yours then moses mother here she has this baby boy he's getting bigger she puts him in this basket and she puts him in the water and she sets miriam to watch over him not knowing what the pharaoh's daughter is going to do this is a scary time she's doing the next right thing and then we think about ruth here's ruth an orphan and not an orphan but a widow and her mother-in-law is a widow and women in that culture had absolutely no status they always needed a male whether it was a male father or male husband to take care of them and so they're in terrible straits they have no money no resources they're widows and naomi says to ruth and or brother the other girl go back to your own families because they can take care of you your fathers will have to take care of you because i can't take care of you i gotta go find a man to take care of me and oprah did but naomi said or worth said i'm going to go with you naomi i'm going to go to israel bethlehem with you now that was ruth's first right choice now how do you know if it's right choice or not you don't sometimes you don't she just did the next thing she thought was right at the time and then when they got to bethlehem they're hungry their bellies are really hungry they have no money to buy food what does ruth do the next right thing she goes out to a field and she says i'm gonna go pick some wheat it just so happened that it was boaz's field but she didn't know that but god knew that and as ruth took those steps of faith god continues to orchestrate the bigger story ruth can't orchestrate that story all she can do is do the next right thing and then you think about esther here's esther as a young woman captured and put into the king's harem as a sex slave that's what they were the harem was people who had girls who had to get all beautified and be available to the king whenever you wanted them it's what we do today but it was okay in those days for the king to have sex slaves so here she is captured and going through all these regimes to make her more beautiful and appealing to the king i think her heart could become bitter and cold i think her heart could be really angry how dare this happen to me this isn't fair why me and she might have had some of those feelings but esther not only became beautiful on the outside she became beautiful on the inside and the king's right-hand man kind of liked esther as a person and showed her favor and when she ended up with the king the king decided to marry her she became the queen this wasn't expected and then her people are in trouble the king signs a stupid rule that all the jews are going to get killed and esther doesn't know what to do she can't change the outcome she doesn't know what to do all she can do is the next right thing which is go to the king she's terrified she doesn't know even in that moment whether she's going to lose her life or not because women and wives were not allowed to approach the king even if you were the queen unless he summoned you so here she's taking a bold step outside of her cultural norm and doing something brave feeling terrified and talking to the king whether i perish i perish she says right and then she had to go on if you know the story but all she did was the next right thing mary the mother of god okay i'm pregnant i guess i'll accept this assignment god that's my yes but i have no idea what the outcome is going to be is joseph's going to still marry me or my parents going to kick me out of the house i mean think about it and so i want you to know girlfriend that you have a good company before you in the bible of good godly strong women who didn't know the outcome they didn't know whether they would have a blessed life or a hard life they didn't know that all they knew was that they were going to trust god and take the next right step that's our goal and conquer is to teach you how to do that because so many of us become hurt and bruised and discouraged and despondent in a difficult destructive marriage and that two things happen to the women that i work with i see women who get crushed and they get hollowed out like there's no more of them left inside of themselves they're just like robotic hollowed out bodies their soul has been crushed the bible talks about a crushed spirit who can bear it and that is not god's will for you just to stay married that is not god's will for you to be hollowed out and crushed just to stay in a relationship with someone you can't have a relationship with someone like that you can stay in a room with someone like that it's called a prison camp or a concentration camp but you don't have a relationship with someone who hollows you out and flattens you down you can't you can't and the churches aren't talking about those realities for some of you women and i know there might be a few men lurking here too who are in the same place i get it but my ministry is to women conquerors for women so i'm going to talk to to the women here today but you can learn something if you listen so i see those kind of women and then i see the other kind of women who begin to say enough already enough i have had it i'm not putting up with this you know what anymore and they start to give it back they start repaying evil with evil of their own they start becoming deformed in a different way the first woman becomes deformed as a flattened out hollowed-out shell of a person and the other person gets a fire in her belly but it's not a good fire she gets a fire for revenge and vengeance and she's going to spew out some venom of her own and she becomes deformed not at all to be the godly woman that god made her to be she becomes just as vile or as wicked or as sinful as the abusive person is to her and that's not god's will for you and so what is the path when you are in a relationship technically married legally married but you have no relationship that's mutual or reciprocal or loving or honest or kind or safe how do you do that you can't take the pressure off yourself you can't do that god has not wired our bodies to be in a loving close relationship like marriage with someone you're scared of it just doesn't work that way your body is danger danger danger if someone's gonna harm you and you're not gonna have a close loving relationship even your own child if they were an adult child who was a crack addict who was coming to your house for drug money it's not like you're gonna have a loving conversation you're gonna be afraid you're gonna be afraid that they might harm you in their craziness right and so it's very important for you to not put that guilt trip and not allow your church to put that guilt trip on your back that somehow you have to want to kiss this man and want to have to make love or have sex with him and you're terrified of him and can't stand him but somehow if you were godly you'd be able to do this god didn't wire us that way i have completely different answers for you in conquer and so i hope that you hang with us and you want to be a part of this group and as you listen to the women in conquer stories about what they went through and how they grew and came so flattened out so hollowed out so empty they thought they were going to die they felt so [Music] naked with no strength inside so weak and others who came in pretty rip-roar and mad and they learned also just by what we teach and conquer is how to respond versus react because when we react out of our emotions sometimes we can do a lot of damage it's like pouring gasoline on a fire it just makes it worse right and the person that makes it worse for the most are your kids and i know as women you don't want that to happen and yet when kids see you reacting negatively to your husband's foolishness or his stupidity or his wickedness oftentimes they cause you to feel like the bad guy because dad's always been dad but now mom you're turning into someone scary and ugly and it's your fault why aren't you doing what you always did put up with it or make peace or do what you do and so now mom starts getting all the blame and dad can sometimes fuel that fire and so now not only do you have a destructive relationship in your marriage now your whole family's falling apart this is called parental alienation and we want to teach you about how to prevent that if possible in your conqueror site so i'm going to invite coach land to come on with us and she is a coach on my team she's been working with me for a couple years now and she's gonna walk us through the conquer journey so when you join conquer you start with a six step journey the first step is awakening and then there's five more steps like awakening oh my gosh this is my life and it feels pretty scary and then we take you through six steps and there's videos to watch in the membership site about these six steps and then there is leanne will come on to the facebook page which is our private conquer facebook page nobody can get on there if you're not a concert member and she will begin to help you implement those stages for you so i'm going to invite leanne and i am going to invite her in hey liam hey good morning hi hi good to see you good to see you too so i am so happy that you're on my team and you've added a huge um blessing to our ministry here and just help our conquer ladies understand what the concord journey is and why it's so important to start there you know i love that question leslie and you know when you were sharing just a minute ago um you were talking about that fire in our belly the fire in our belly and what is motivating us to even be here on this live today right and fear oftentimes is the fire in our belly it can be and i have two acronyms so if you'll give me a little bit of permission this is going to lead us right into the journey so when we have this fire in our belly that is called fear it can be this it can be we can forget everything and run the other way and get super scared or we can face everything and we can rise and that's what we do here in conquer and that's what this journey is all about and you've provided this incredible safe space for women who are impacted by destructive difficult really challenging relationships to come in and be heard and seen and that first step like you said is all about that awakening oh my goodness the the lenses are coming a little bit clear and we're starting to see what in the world we're dealing with and that can be scary yeah fear fear very it can be confusing and here in conquer we're here to help take some of that confusion away and we do that as community conquer is a family and when you come into this space and you step into the conquer journey there is this whole opportunity for you to learn to walk this out with grace and strength and dignity because we're going to be making some changes and the changes can be frightening the changes can be a little bit alarming for the people around us but the one thing that we know leslie beyond a shadow of a doubt is that god does not want us to stay in a relationship that is damaging to our self when it comes to getting safe we talk about this super clear in conquer about the need to be safe and there are some women watching this right now and we're just going to say this because it doesn't get talked about enough that are in dangerous situations and so part of this awakening is is really realizing that that is where we are and you know when we're when we're in this space we can have respect for each other no matter what situation that you're in when you are awakened you are welcome you are welcome here in this space yeah and you said this danger and i think that's really important because every day we read in the news about a woman being murdered by her husband and um you know it's it's horrifying and thankfully never in conquer in my entire ministry of working with women in destructive marriages we've never had that because we do start with safety however not all women are that much in danger that way but they might be in danger in other ways like maybe their husband is spending their money and she's a hundred thousand dollars in debt and she doesn't even know it and there's danger that way or maybe there's spiritual oppression and there's danger that way because you're losing your bearing spiritually about who god is because now god has become the bully because god's word says you must submit you're a jezebel spirit if you don't um and so there's this there's a spiritual danger that comes over a woman's spirit and so there's not just a physical danger which we talk about but after awakening why is it important for women to go to safety because sometimes they think uh that's not my problem i'm not unsafe and i want to skip to the other stuff why is it important for women and why do we start with safety oh my goodness well safety is so important to god for one thing and you know the safety like you said lastly it's not just physical it's emotional it's spiritual it's financial and ladies unless we know where we are and we take an inventory of every area of our life we are not even gonna know for safe you know that's the one thing i love about the conquer journey is the awareness that it allows us to open ourselves up to and we get to take a little bit of an inventory and look socially am i safe do i have safe relationships around me that are going to help me navigate because sometimes we can just be real here and say we don't feel safe in our churches or in our relationships to share what's really going on in our lives maybe we don't feel safe economically that financial peace and so we walk you through there's eight videos can i just say that out loud right now to ladies who are wondering what in the world could this even look like there's eight videos just on safety alone that are going to help open up your eyes to know what is going on here you know when we know that god is always with us we know that those are five very powerful words and he wants us to understand exactly what it is that we're dealing with us in our relationships and we might not be safe sexually either and we just some people are afraid to say that leslie and so we help walk you through and take that inventory we help you see are you in danger in these areas of your life and then what is a safety plan and a safety plan isn't just about leaving and going to a domestic violence shelter there is much much more to that and if this is piquing your interest we're glad we're glad that you're wondering what could a safety plan even look like so we're going to walk you through that i'm going to be here with you you don't have to figure this out alone and that is one thing i love about conquer and i might just be leaving the conversation it might just be leaving the conversation so it doesn't continue to escalate because already you've learned the warning signs of the abuse cycle what you learn in the conquer journey so that you know if you keep this conversation going it's not going to end well so end the conversation while it's still endable indeed and sometimes a safety plan is putting in headphones sometimes the safety plan is going to take a shower or take a walk and so ladies this is we i think by the primary thing leslie that i adore about conquer and you know this will be i've been going through this multiple times with the ladies girlfriends you have choices on how you show up and how you engage with your relationship and i think that's one of the big aha moments that i hear for so many of us leslie that enter into this space is we have choices on how we engage we don't want default to being reactive back at people we can do things a different way and we learn that here and conquer and that's also part of our safety and then we move into that clary piece we get very very clear on what it is that we're dealing with what are the different kinds of abuse what are the different kinds of violence you know sometimes um people get freaked out when i use the words emotional violence they're like well i never thought about that that way what does a bible say about that because i think christians sometimes think oh the bible doesn't talk about it bible talks all about this it does talk all about this and i think when we can peel back those layers and take a look at it and recognize even how we're showing up in it we can do that we can do that and we do it for each other and then we get our sea legs on together we get our sea legs on together in stability we learn you know how to stand in core strength and you talk a lot about that in your videos right and you put all of this information out there for free the cool thing about punker is there is deep rich work in the conquer journey and it's a step-by-step process and that's why we ask you to walk this journey with us together because these are the foundations that are going to allow you to be the woman god created you to be from the inside out from the inside out you know when we wake up and we embrace where we truly are and we have people other women who understand exactly where we are leslie it's strength building because so oftentimes in our churches or in our communities we have been raising our hands saying i am in a destructive damaging and very dangerous relationship and sometimes people aren't ready to hear that and in conquer you're safe here to have those conversations and to get the support that you so desperately deserve and so i'm going to pause here just for a second because i think when we realize that we want to become stronger when we realize that we want to journey and take the steps necessary not to get stuck i often talk about this we don't want to get stuck in the middle of doing our own personal work and the conquered journey helps you not to get stuck in the middle because you've got thousands of women doing it with you now i think it's so the thing that you said at the beginning that i want to just emphasize one more time is when you're in an oppressive relationship whether it's physically oppressive or just covert abuse which one of our other coaches is going to be talking about it's much more covert and subtle and you've lost your ability to have a voice a choice you're you don't have choices anymore you don't feel like you have choices you're not making good choices anymore um one of the very first good choices is to join conquer of saying i need to work on me it's so tempting to say well he needs to work on him of course he needs to work on him but you have no power over him working on him but you do have some power and the only power you can exercise right now is for you to work on you so that he doesn't continue to have that power over you anymore so that you can begin to work on writing the balance of relationship and invite him to have some changes too if he wants to and if he doesn't you're much more clear on that right and that's where that clarity piece comes in you know that's i love watching those aha moments we talk about this a lot and conquer about these light bulbs the light bulb moments that can happen for us when we do this work and you know in community here in concord we help each other turn on the light switches sometimes because we don't see the light switches on our own and so as we get stronger as we grow our core strength in the stability module we're going to learn all about conquering shame leslie that can be a huge thing for us as women is we can experience shame because we don't want to admit you know some of our women in conquer some have been married two years some have been married 52 years 40 and we're dealing with these situations on an ongoing basis and finally we find the help that we need right here in conquer and so that next right thing is hitting the yes i'm going to sign up the next right thing after that is i'm going to commit to do the conquer journey with sisters i'm going to learn what it means to geek clear to get safe to be stable to know how to walk on my own two feet because ladies let me just be honest we spend so much time on our knees praying that we don't do the work to get healthy ourselves and that's what we're going to help you to do here in conquer and then the cool thing is when we get stable when we get clear when we're safe then we can work on building up our strength right we've got our guns we can build the muscles that it's going to take to walk out this life with strength and dignity we're going to understand that we can make decisions we can make conscious decisions that instead of default decisions leslie because we can default back and that whole acronym for fear our deep fault can be to forget or deny or pretend that things really aren't as bad as they are and that's not what we want to do here in concord we want to help you to face it and we want to start to walk in strength that path of peace that god promises us in luke one of my favorite passages from the conquer journey is luke 1 78 and 79 and it's all about it encompasses the conquered journey it says this can i share that passage i love it all right it says this it says because of the tender mercies of our god by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadows of death to guide our feet into the path of peace and that's what this strength is we need strength and we need each other in order to walk that journey into the path of peace and when we're walking that journey into the path of peace that gives us confidence to claim our identity in christ to know ourselves there's a lot of women here in conquer i know for me every time i go through this journey i learn more about julianne is i i've joked with you leslie saying i often keep running into myself i go deeper and deeper with the lord to claim my core identity and who he created me to be and i love that about the journey because i can move forward and i think one of the things christians have been again spiritually mistaught is this whole dying to self kind of thing and you know i've talked about this before in webinars but dying to self biblically and i think if you're a christian woman and you want godly counsel you won't find any better counsel than hearing conquer about this stuff but dying to self isn't about becoming a nothing that's not you know it's not becoming flattened out and hollow that's not what god's desire for you is or he wouldn't have created you with all kinds of wonderful stuff inside and it's not your husband's decision or his right to decide who you should become that's god's decision and you're to be what god called you to be um and not in marriage it's only supposed to enhance that not squash that and so it's so important that you understand that dying to self is illustrated in nature yesterday i was on facebook live and i pulled out my hydrangea here if i can do it again this hydrangea didn't start out this way this hydrangea it's a fake one but if it was a real one it didn't start out it started as a seed god knew though inside that seed was the dna for this beautiful plant to grow and so when a baby is born they have inside of them everything god has created for them to be and paul tells young timothy fan into flames the gifts that god has given you and when we get married god's not asking you to stop all that and just be an object to use a role to fulfill he's saying you've got purpose and value girlfriend and your husband is supposed to nourish that in order for you to become all that god called you to be as you're to do that for him that's the goal of marriage stronger together not one gets strong and one gets flattened out that's right and you know i love that word flourish i love that word flourish and you know that's the beautiful thing too about the conquer journey for me leslie is it's almost like you know we talk a lot about the caterpillar and the butterfly so when you enter into the conquer journey it's like gobble gobble gobble just like that the job of the caterpillar is to gobble gobble gobble and eat and eat and eat and eat and that's what the conquer journey is it is so rich with different teachings from you a conquer workbook right you got your conquer workbook that you can download and it's going to show you everything in there it's going to have worksheets all of that that you get to participate in but you're going to gobble up the information and it's sometimes it's going to feel like you're drinking from a fire hose but that's why we walk it with you we help you take that next right step one at a time and then the beautiful thing that happens is you get all of this information you get all of this clarity all of the strength all the stability and competence and then then you kind of you go into your beautiful little cliff chrysalis and you start practicing this you start living it out you start walking what it is you've been learning in this journey and then all of a sudden you start breaking free from the fear that has held you back you start breaking free from not being able to make choices for your own precious life and you start stewarding your life in such a way that brings glory to god without enabling your relationships for that abuse the neglect that whatever it is to continue and there's something really powerful and you know the other thing that i love this isn't about husband bashing can i just say that for a minute because i think that that's important to talk about that's not what conquer is conquer is all about helping women become strong in the lord we're not here to bash men we're not here to bash husbands we're here to grow strong as women i'm just i felt like i just i'm glad you did that because we're here to refute a lie that has been in conservative christian circles that strong women emasculate men strong women do not emasculate men there's the bible's full of strong women god wants you to be strong the woman of proverbs is clothed with strength and dignity it pleases him to make you strong and so you're growing strong may threaten your husband especially if he's the oppressor if he's the oppressor and he's using bully strength to control you that is not god's will for you and it's not god's will for him so if you live in fear and you cooperate with that process of marriage you're not only deforming yourself you're deforming you're allowing your husband to stay deformed and your children will be deformed and that is not god's will for you so we're teaching you to get your eyes off of trying to change him because you've done that already and it hasn't worked all right so some of you have tried 50 years it hasn't worked so now we're going to help you get strong not to overpower your husband but just to get out from under his oppression stand on your own two feet be a godly woman in front of him and in front of your children and do the next right thing we don't know the outcome in some marriages the outcome is a husband says wow you're really different and i want some of that and they start doing their work and in some marriages it's if you're not going to go back to the way you were and do what i want i'm going to find someone else because all you are to him is an object to use i have i have my lipstick here i put my lipstick on because my lips get really dry and this is an object it's not a i don't care about my lipstick other than how it serves me and if it doesn't serve me anymore if it starts getting harder you know changes color or whatever i'm going to throw it away and get a different one and that's not what god's design is for you to be to your husband and object so as you become more person person-centered god-centered woman instead of marriage-centered woman guess what your husband's going to either respond positively or negatively but that will give you more information on what your next right step is indeed and you know let's see it's super powerful and the neat thing about conquer is we practice all of this so we do live implementations where we can practice and dialogue with one another and then within the context of our private secure facebook group we can practice these skills that we're learning to be stronger to have the conversations that bring glory to god without dishonoring ourselves or another human being because so many of us ladies who have learned to react instead of respond in our relationships we don't even know how to formulate our words so that's another beautiful thing that we do here in conquer is we help us practice and we do it as family and we do it in a place of safety because it is so important and so ladies if you want to become healthy in your relationships your relationship first of all with yourself with your god and then with others you want to surround yourself with a group of people who are doing the very same thing and that's what conquer is all about and that's what i so appreciate leslie about partnering with you in this for the women because we need each other we are stronger together and when we walk shoulder to shoulder with each other it's amazing the transformation that comes and it's not just temporary transformation we're making sustainable changes in our lives so we can be fully who god created us to be not a shadow of ourselves exactly exactly and i think this is so important for all of you to hear is that that the only person you can work on just like we talked about being over functioning for other people and taking responsibility for other people's work to do your husband has work to do even your children have work to do but you can't make them do their work even homework you can't make your children do their homework you can provide the environment you can sit them down you can restrict other activities like you can't have a cell phone or you can't watch tv until you do your homework but you can't make them do it you can't make them take it in and so part of our job is to know what's our responsibility and your job is to be the person god called you to be in every sphere and then interact with those relationships and the way he calls you to and it doesn't he doesn't call us to lie and pretend that things are fine when it's not and so how do we speak the truth in love because love rejoices in the truth and how do we say things in the right way and all these things that you will learn and conquer and one of the things i love the most we have women who've been in concord the whole time like the whole six years that we've been in in business and i think it's because they're still growing and they're still realizing the value of this community support and we get new videos every month that i teach on different things and they help other conquer women and i love my favorite thing about conquer for me is to go into the facebook page that used to be so small and everybody was so scared and now someone says oh my gosh i messed up and i did this and my kids told me i was this and they you know just are having a horrible day and 30 conquer women come in and say it's okay that happened to me too and this is what i did or this is what i tried or and they get all this help and support and prayer and encouragement that if it was just me i couldn't cover all that and so you get this amazing community of women not perfect we have our issues too but amazing community of women who want to grow healthy in all of their relationships including their female friends and including their female relationships and learning how to speak the truth in love and learning how to be supportive learning how to have boundaries even with their facebook sisters sometimes we need boundaries of you know what no i can't pm you and no i don't want to be your facebook friend because i don't want your name on my page because i don't want my husband to find that i'm here and those are good boundaries to have and it's okay for you to practice those within the conquer facebook group because that will help you in other relationships out there well it does it's everything you know it's the core it's we're working on the core of who women are and it's not just your relationship with your husband it's not this is all about the way you show up in the world it's all about how you interact with people at work you're kiddos and the stronger you are the healthier you are girlfriend the more impact you're going to have in this world the more love you're going to be able to share with the people that you care the most about and the relationships that mean the most to you and i think that that is such a beautiful space and you know when we it's scary and i get it some of you are watching this going oh my word you're saying words here that i have been praying about a community i've been praying about some help and i don't even know where to go check us out because we've got an opportunity for you here and it ends today yeah maybe some of you are just waking up to the mess maybe you've been watching these videos for a while and you're wondering how in the world did i get here you're wondering how in the world did i get here what does god really want to teach me and we're going to walk yeah thanks so much leanne i'm going to let you go because we've got another guest coming on so thanks so much i appreciate you and we are going to have another conquer sister kelly's been with us i think pretty much from the beginning of conquer and she is now on my staff as well um but she's going to share in just a minute but i just want to invite you if you're thinking about joining conquer the way to join conquerors on the bottom of the screen sign up leslie bernick.com forward conquer sign up and it does close today and let me just give you some details it's 27 a month you can quit anytime so it's not like you have to sign your life away um this is the price that we've always had conquer when we started with 40 people um we've always kept the price the same i've increased what we do in conquer we have a bigger staff and i'm going to raise the price in september when we open again so this is our last offer at 27 a month and i promise you i'll never rate once you join conquer you stay in at that price as long as you're an active conquer member if you quit and want to rejoin then you'll have the higher price but for for those of you who are thinking about it or you've been thinking about it for a couple of seasons now and you still haven't done it now is your time because this is a cheaper price it is going to go up in september when we open our doors again but we are closing our doors to conquer at midnight tonight we're going to have a big celebration party next wednesday on our private conquer facebook page just to have fun and get to know everybody and we do a lot of fun stuff as well as some hard stuff in conquer we want you to feel connected and a sense of love and community we had a conquer conference a virtual conference last year we'll probably try to do a live one and not this year but next year uh we've always done live ones before and covet hit and we switched to virtual and a lot of people liked it because we had people from all over the world uh in our concord conference over 800 women showed up at our conquered virtual conference and so this ministry is growing it's having huge impact it's having impact on churches um pastors are now reaching out to me for advice and they're listening to us and chris and i have had the opportunity to do some mentoring of pastors and we're grateful for that and so i believe this is the time for you also to get strong so that you can begin to encourage other women behind you your daughters to be healthy and strong and not think that a destructive marriage is ever okay with god it's not god hates what's happening to you god's hates what's what's happening to your husband this is not at all his plan for your life or your children's life but only you can make that decision to make a change in you but you know what when one part of the system changes the rest of the system changes too in some way you don't know that's the let go of the outcome when when you change your dance steps you keep you keep dancing with your husband you keep saying to your husband please change your dance steps i don't like this dance please change your dance i don't like the stance he's saying i'm not changing i like it this way he's stepping all over your toes and your toes are all black and blue and broken but he likes this dance and you're saying please change your dance steps my toes are hurting and i'm saying to you guess what you change your dance steps because once you change your dance steps he can't dance the same way anymore amazing thought so we we don't want to bash your husband but we want to say hey girlfriend you can't keep dancing this way or your toes are going to be ruined so you can change your dance steps and once you change your dance steps the dance is different and i'm not saying the dance is better that's where you have to let go of the outcome because he has choices to make too as you change your dance steps and you can't control his choices but often when you change your dance steps a whole new world opens up to you and i'm gonna invite kelly to share her story as we bring her on so kelly i'm gonna bring you on hey kelly hi i'm so glad to see you thank you for showing up for our live stream and yes yeah and kelly you have had quite a journey uh with conquer and and just share a little bit of your story with the women who are you know sitting on the fence deciding should i join congress should i join conquer you know i don't know if i can do all this it's too hard sure i get that and you know i joined conquer when i was at that fork of trying to decide whether i needed to leave well or stay well um and i was at the point where the fear of both kind of leveled out and i didn't care which way i went i just wanted to know god's will i just wanted to do that well i wanted to know god's will so you know for me knowing god's will was hard for all of us it's hard because either choice there's both good and bad so trying to make that perfect decision only kept me stuck yeah so conquer for me um just really helped untangle the lies of what i thought were god's will all i heard in the church to suffer and you know suffer for jesus um stick it out don't give up before the miracle so i had to untangle all that and so how did you untangle that wrong theology because yeah you know you don't when we believe lies most of the time we don't know their lies we believe it so that's for sure right we believe it yes i was believing it i was even teaching it and i'm sad to you know i've actually gone back to people and apologized that that i was yeah a part of that but that's how much i believed it and so you know realizing that that didn't line up with wisdom you know with abuse it seems like the world almost gets it a little bit better than the church does and one thing that kept echoing in my mind was james 3 17 says that god's wisdom is reasonable or open to reason and conquer brought me that voice of reason true biblical wisdom for my destructive marriage allowing sin to continue and then covering that up and pretending that things were good when they weren't that wasn't wise or honest and it was only hurting those in our family enabling sin to continue harm and diminishing who god created me to be and giving our children such a hypocritical picture of the church and christians and christ himself it was all so destructive so learning what it really means um several truths you know had been twisted one was to cover a multitude of sins and learning how that doesn't mean we can cover all sin so damaging you know sinful patterns and this is what conker woke me up to was noticing those sinful patterns and they needed to be confronted so you helped me see that peter was talking about repentant sins and right before he says that in 1st peter 4 8 he discussed not living in sin and not joining in with others who do and also you opened my eyes to see where paul was saying you know to have nothing to do with the fruitful deeds of darkness but to expose them not cover them up and you know that didn't mean shouting it from a mountaintop but it meant i didn't have to suffer and hide anymore that was that wasn't virtuous as a godly woman that was actually craziness yeah yeah yeah so and and also the mercy card you know that was another thing that was twisted and i needed to have untwisted um but digging into the theology behind mercy was that god shows mercy to repentant sinners not the ongoing sinner and that was another thing i love the the biblical wisdom that um you have given us and conquered that we learn um because you know not only was the church asking me to be god and cover sin but they were asking me to do something that even god doesn't do he doesn't give mercy to the one that's not owning their sinful patterns so once i knew that it wasn't god asking me to sacrifice and hold my marriage together i could finally embrace his love for me and this was a long time struggle it was and and and i think part of your fear was also like you were stay-at-home mom and you know so that year of like well if i start speaking up and start rocking the boat or if i start saying you know i'm not going to put up with this i can't you know work what am i going to do and so um how did you so leanne before talked about facing the fears instead of letting the fears dominate us and one of the things god's word says is that you know perfect love god's love casts out fear and that we walk by faith not by sight and we don't have a spirit of fear inside of us god has given us a spirit of love and strength and a sound mind so how did you work with that fear of i don't know what the outcome is going to be right well i think a lot of it had to do with building back up who i was um you know trusting my gut um and that was the main thing conquer helped build back up my personhood um and and so facing those fears yeah that having that confidence knowing that god loved me no matter what um help me face those fears and you know they were very valid um but you know seeing the other women in conquer hearing their testimonies as they took those big steps um you know in hearing weight different ways that they supported themselves that was very helpful and then also there was this gentle reassurance that i kept getting from the lord that this was the right thing i needed to do and he was going to take care of me and he did i mean i can now i can share all those great testimonies that the other conker sisters had shared with me because he did he did miraculous things yeah and it's always neat to look behind and say wow you know but when you're walking it like ruth she didn't know she was going to marry boaz you know she just kept doing the next right thing um you know queen esther didn't know what was going to happen or abigail didn't know what was going to happen when she did the next right thing but um but trusting god has your back and that he's got a plan and that even when you're in the valley of the shadow of death you're walking through hard times because good things and whether you stay or leave you're going to have some of those moments um to trust god that he will continue to strengthen you and walk you through that it's part of our faith walk journey um and so i think that that's you know wonderful that you're at the other side of it but for those of the beginning of it who are watching this and saying i'm just like her i'm a bible teacher i've taught all these things too and i'm beginning to realize i was wrong and it's so embarrassing that my own marriage is a mess and my own life is a mess and i you know believe these things but now i'm not sure i believe them anymore and this is going to uproot my whole life what would you say to that kind of woman who's sitting there watching this right now well i i would say and this sounds like uh you know cliche but god really is greater than your fear we tend to build up so much more fear than what is really needed and you know there are hurdles but i would say you know take them one by one and god will help you remove them one by one and the conqueror support is amazing you know there are a lot of us have tried to share what's going on in our church bible studies or leaders and they just they don't get it so the support here has been amazing the resources that i've gotten in conquer um have been very amazing just the even the legal stuff you know different conquer sisters you could throw out a question and say i i you know how do i find a lawyer what do i ask him or you know i mean they're posting youtube videos of different little nuggets of knowledge that helped walk you through that so you know that that really helped me i i went to um you know the dv shelter for resources too uh there's free law libraries um so there there's a lot of great resources out there that i had no idea when i was stuck in that fear i had no idea all the resources that there are but um but just trusting god for one hurdle at a time was really how i got through that kelly how do you see yourself now i mean from from before you know how did you how would you have seen your self-image or your self-esteem or your identity i mean you hear you are a bible teacher so you know all the words and one of the things i heard in my counseling practice a lot was well i know it in my head but i just don't know it in my heart you know and there's this disconnect between our theology and our practical life um and so so here you are this bible teacher teaching these things and yet um your spirit was very crushed and wounded and you weren't feeling very strong as a woman or maybe you were because you were suffering in such a godly way but how has that shifted how have you how do you see yourself what was it like when you saw yourself then and what is it how you see yourself now yeah i i love that you asked that question you know there was such a disconnect before and i wasn't living the life i wanted to be living that i you know believed god for but it just wasn't a reality in my life and so there was a disconnect but um but now that i've i've done my work i've gotten stronger i've found my voice um you know i i am just such a strong advocate now and i am 100 behind what i really believe in my heart and um it's just a huge difference i mean i i used to have a lot of depression i my life is so full of god's purpose right now there is no room for depression i you know there's just it's just a hundred percent different it's been a huge difference you went back to school yeah what was that like for you um very scary again um but you know again had i not done my work that wouldn't have even been a reality but yeah going back to school um that and i i went to study counseling um psychology so i learned a lot about what i had been through too so there was healing in that also um so there was growth through that but also um and then after school i amazing i mean i had three wonderful job opportunities and i mean they were just like all the perfect job and i you know i wouldn't have been ready for any of those had i not done my work i was really had low self-esteem very low confidence and that's something that i'm still working on but um i i was so thankful when i had those opportunities i knew that there's no way i could have walked through those doors had i not faced some of that insecurity in my own self so yeah yeah so our last step of the conquer journey so as leon was talking our first step is safety and then we moved to or the awakening that's the zero step and then one is safety and two is clarity what does the bible really have to say about all this and then the next is stability how do i stop reacting and start getting stable inside myself inside my outside might be unstable but how do i start getting my inside more stable and then strengthening how do i strengthen myself so i'm feeling stronger and not living out of fear so much and then the last step is confidence and you're still working on that step kelly and i and i love that because i think that in our conquer journey you're just kind of getting a taste of the foundation that you have to build this new person up from and the bible tells you that that's your responsibility to grow and mature and to live a holy life and god is going to equip you and do it with you but not for you and so you have to take those steps and you're here right here you you've left well you're stronger than ever you went back to school you graduated you got a job and you're still working on your confidence and and your sense of you know well-being and that's a lifelong journey yes yeah yeah there's still a lot of you know limiting beliefs that i need to work through um there's still some twisted theology that i really want to untangle i'm i just bought a bunch of books i'm going to study some of paul's writings because i'm you know really want to understand clearly what um the bible is saying for women so yeah yeah yeah and i think that's so such a good illustration for all women who are listening to this that your growth journey is never meant to be done at 20 or 21 when you get married like in in so many men think that you know i'm 18 i'm done growing i'm done with school i'm gonna just get married and what vegetate i mean if you're the same person at 45 that you were at 21 you don't you kind of look immature you look immature right and if you're the same person at 85 as you were at 35 you're immature you know that there's different growth cycles and different wisdom and knowledge that comes as you do your work and move through the growth cycle and learn and grow and become more and more of the person that god called you to be and so i love that you're saying hey i'm you know my marriage isn't an issue anymore i'm still a parent i'm going to school i'm working and i still work i still have lies that i believe and i'm still working through them and i want to be a woman of strength and dignity who walks in the truth and not in lies and and i just want everyone to know that that's a lifelong journey for all of us and so there's no shame that you know if you didn't know what you didn't know now it's time to learn it it's never too late yeah yeah that's good yeah what was your favorite part of the concord journey well of course when i started it was safety um learning that i had a choice that god cares more about my safety than the marriage i don't think i'd ever really understood or even heard the verse that you brought up um proverbs 27 12 that the prudent see danger and take refuge but the simple keep going and pay the penalty so you know of course that was huge awakening and and just really helped um build what i needed that foundation to move forward but now i think it's probably the strength module i'm you know i like i said i still have um some twisted theologies that i've been taught um so i want to have true biblical wisdom i want to know the heart of god in in his word um healthy boundaries and self-care the strength model really teaches healthy boundaries and good self-care and i think those are still some things that um i need to work on yeah i do too because the lies that i believed was that if you're not constantly doing something for someone else or for god you know you're not you're going to be a goat not a sheep yeah that was always my fears i was going to get to heaven sorry you're a goat um and so self-care just felt like absolutely selfish to indulge in self-care and i'm not talking about manicures and all that even sleeping eight hours felt like oh but i could get more done if i stayed up late and wrote and did this and did that and um i've come to realize that god asks me invites me and also tells me to be a good steward of me and when he says guard your heart above all else for this well spring of life no one else can do that but me or take care of my body or you know renew my mind with the truth the only person who can do that is me and if i'm not taking care of me i'm not be able to help anybody else for sure yeah yeah i love that and you know one of the things that i learned in college was research shows that people who do take time for themselves and self-reflect they're actually the most generous giving people because they have time to reflect on their core values and so that was really meaningful to me but yeah i i nurtured and over functioned for way too long in in just you know the wrong ways and so i'm learning new ways to nurture and do ministry that i don't feel used but i'm really using the gifts and and the talents that god gives me that blesses everyone including me and then learning to be okay when i have to say no so that i can stay that god-centered woman that i want to be oh that is so good kelly because i think that for so many of us a godly woman is really a people-centered woman a people-pleaser i do everything for everybody anytime anywhere anyway and we have no boundaries and what happens with that is we get depleted and we get exhausted and we get resentful which isn't at all who god wants us to be and so to be able to be kind and giving and generous for sure and but we need boundaries because we have to be able to put our oxygen mask on first so that we can help someone else and if we're all depleted and resentful because we're out of air but we're still expecting ourselves to somehow keep giving and giving and giving or the others in our world are expecting us to give and give and give then we're not going to be healthy and we're modeling um poor behaviors to others and one of the things i want to get your feedback on before we close is you know one of the things i talk a lot about is our parent-child relationship and i know you're a foster mom and you've got some kids and you teach bible study i think that for the role of mom sometimes as a good christian mom we've so over functioned in that role that we've let our kids believe that we're just a mom like we're just an object the mom and mom of course you're supposed to do this you're my mom you're supposed to take care of my laundry are you supposed to pay my bills you're my mom or you're supposed to co-sign on this loan you're my mom and and if you were in it now when your children are adults and you say well no i actually thought i would go back to college now and i would do something for me and i have got my own dreams it's like you you're not allowed to have dreams you're just supposed to be the mom and i think that is very destructive not just to us but to them yeah mm-hmm yeah that i had exactly what you were talking about that scenario um you know i had a daughter i remember she had a job in town and we lived about 15 miles out of town and she just thought it was my job as mom to take her to work and give her rides wherever she wanted to go and there were you know when i started learning boundaries i made her take an uber or we didn't have an uber we live in a small town but i made her take a taxi and um and you know so that was good because i did see that entitlement creeping in even though you know they had their chores they they you know took care of you know they they raised animals and worked hard and learned how to be responsible but still when they saw me as only a mom that entitlement release seeped in so when they could see me as and now i'm it's funny because i have four adult children and now i'm kind of parenting again i have foster children one that i've adopted so little ones again at home and it's a lot different and i'm glad because they are seeing me as a friend to other people you know i have friends i have ministries i have likes and dislikes and it's okay to say um you know i want the purple one i don't like that kind of cake i don't want that for my birthday even if you like it you know so so they're that you're communicating to your family that i'm a person i'm not someone who bends into everybody else's wants and desires and i think that's so so important but that's kind of our lie is well that's selfish it's not selfish it's it's stewardship and it's wisdom so thank you so much kelly is there anything else you want to share with us before we go and move on to the next person ah just i'm so glad you guys are here um i just you know proverbs 2 talks about how wisdom can be life-saving and i would just have to say that conquer has been that life-saving wisdom for me so thank you so much thanks for allowing me to share a little bit oh thank you kelly we're so glad to have you as a part of our team now too so thank you so i'm gonna let you go and i'm gonna answer a couple questions before we bring out our next guest which is alicia she has got an amazing story you do not want to miss it it's like out of a made for tv movie story so you definitely want to hear her she's going to be up in a couple minutes but there's a couple questions that i just want to answer quickly for those of you who've written in and have them um so one is i know conquer closest today i want to join but i'm not sure how to explain it to my husband without setting him off what do you suggest i don't know your situation but one of the ways that some women join conquer is they go to the target and they buy a visa gift card and they get it for 270 and they just join conquer for the year so they don't have to worry about the recurring charge um and you can do that if you have resources to have 270 you can join concord for the whole year and you get two months free that way so it's 10 months for 270 instead of 27 a month for the year and that would be one way to just kind of do that quickly another way is just to say you know this is something i need for me it's an educational support group for women for christian women to learn to be stronger and have more confidence and grow in their you know wisdom and i need that right now i'm feeling kind of depleted so i don't think you have to say it's geared for women in destructive marriages that's who i'm ministering to because you are the most depleted group of women that i have ever ever worked with in my life when i was writing my book on depression this is where it woke me up that all the women that i was counseling at the time and working with who were severely depressed were also in emotionally destructive marriages and i'm like oh this goes together and is the christian solution just get continued counseling for yourself and medication for the rest of your life so that you can stay married or is there another answer here and so that's what really began my quest to help women to thrive and to grow and so you can just say that that i've been feeling kind of depleted i have i need some community i'm going to do this internet course and i'm going to be on it for at least a year so kind of say it even joined for the year so that you're not getting this monthly why are you still here why are you still here um maybe more safe for you just to have over with and done and this is what i did and um you know but you can quit any time if you give us 30 days notice um so i would just encourage you to not live in fear but put your brave on and we'll we talk about this and conquer a lot put your brave on because brave isn't an emotion brave is not an emotion remember you heard kelly talk about i finally was living in alignment with who i was i was finally living in alignment with my core values right when we live in alignment with our core values then we're much happier and we're much more stable than when we're just living emotionally so we live by fear we can't be productive and happy and healthy we can't even if we live by lust or live by gluttony whatever we live emotionally by we cannot thrive because god didn't wire us to live by our emotions we have emotions but we don't want to let them have us and so the bible tells us that we are to walk in our in our identity who god calls us to be and he gives us those values and his wisdom and we adopt certain values we don't all have the exact same values but when we walk in alignment with our core values so for example if you wanted to be a wise woman then you're going to walk in alignment with your core values and learn to be wise even though you're scared right now to tell your husband right so you're not going to let scared or fear make that decision you're gonna be brave put your brave on which is a value a bravery courage are not emotions those are values i want to be a brave person even when i feel scared right because you're only brave when you're feeling scared because now you're overruling scared and you're acting brave which is what we see in esther what we see in abigail what we see in others you don't think they were scared when they had to go do some things or when they chose to do things they were scared but they put their brave on because that's who they were they wanted to act in alignment with their core values if your child was being kidnapped you know by someone at target grabbed and pulled away from you i bet if your core value is i want to be a good mother you would feel scared and you would act brave right you would do whatever you had to do and if you didn't act in alignment with your core values of being a good mom how would you feel about yourself horrible horrible right so i would just say put your brave on and do what you know is the right thing for you to do can a single never be married join conquer group if your desire is to have healthy relationships and be a healthy person yes but you'll you might feel a little bit overwhelmed with some of the discussion about the hardship they're going through because you're not going to relate to that so there might be another group that's also offering that because i do target women because i feel so called to that ministry of women who have been utterly depleted in their relationships i want to stay in my marriage but i am accepting that will never be the marriage that i dream of how can i stay in a healthy way um we will talk about that in concord we have kind of a group of women who choose to stay well and they have they have to give up their idea of what their marriage is going to look like for sure and that takes work grieving and all that but some women can stay well we're gonna have someone in our discussion today who's doing that uh leanne is also doing that as one of our coaches so i think that there is you know women who choose to do that and we teach how to do that if you want to do that and that's what you feel called to do and then there's other women who can't do that because there is no safety for them there's no peace and you can't stay well when there's no safety and peace right so you have to leave well and so or leave quickly and then get well so those are those are kind of the options but that is something that you can do and you can learn to do that in conquer and you will get the support there are many women in conqueror who are attempting to stay well and sometimes it's for a season until your kids are grown and sometimes the marriage turns around as you start to stay well and start to stop over functioning and your husband begins to see oh she's a pretty amazing woman i better get my act together and some things change and you'll hear from a woman like that all right i'm hearing a lot about conquer journey is that the entire conquer membership what happens after i finish the conquer journey really good question no the conqueror journey is just the first like you know whenever you like start something you get overwhelmed like oh my gosh where do i start so in order to help that feeling because we have hundreds of videos for you to watch right so when we didn't have the conquer journey the more we had all these videos when we started conquer six years ago we only had one video a month and i was doing them and so we just did one and then dude number two and everything but now after all these years we've got hundreds of videos and so now it's like if you join conquer it's like well where do i go it's like walking in the library like what book do i pull out first right so we designed this conquer journey for you to know where to start first and so you start with the conquer journey first because this is the foundation all the other videos in the library usually have something to do with one of those steps but but they're more advanced and so we want to help you start with the basics and even the confidence and stability sections are a little bit more advanced because you've gotten through the safety and all that but but when you get to confidence and stability and strengthening you know you're going to re-watch those videos again and again and you're going to watch new ones in the library that have to go deeper and deeper and deeper even kelly's saying i still have work to do we all still have work to do and i'm still doing videos every month putting them in the library and so you have work to do and so but you won't get access to all those videos until you finish the basics because we want you to get the foundational elements down first okay but there's tons of stuff to do in concord tons of stuff um what benefit is the program if you've already been out of the marriage for a year and a half well i think here's where you have to do some soul-searching so what was unhealthy about me in the marriage i'm not saying that you were destructive but you might have been unhealthy maybe you were too passive maybe you didn't know how to speak up for yourself maybe you had no boundaries maybe you were a people pleaser if you don't work on you there you're gonna repeat the same behaviors with other relationships it just is how we do relationships we have patterns of how we do relationships with patterns of how we do life patterns of how we eat and if you don't consciously recognize those patterns in you you're going to attract the same kind of people and we have people in concord who've been married two or three times sometimes four times because they realized it's not all him it's me i'm attracting the same person i'm doing the same things i need to change and so conquer can help you recognize the unhealthy patterns that you've had in relationships so that you don't repeat those patterns okay um i think we're going to move to alicia um and then i'll go back to questions when we have other breaks okay so i'm going to bring alicia on i'm very excited i'm going to put my glasses on because i'm having a hard time seeing um some of the stuff i need to see so we're going to add alicia here and alicia i am so happy to welcome you to our um live stream thank you so much for willing to share your story oh i'm excited to be here thank you for asking me yeah yeah you have quite a story i think it's like a made-for-tv movie you can write a book it's dramatic that's for sure it's very traumatic so tell tell our listeners a little bit about your journey from the good christian girl who just wanted to do everything right to where you are now yeah so i was raised my dad was a pastor so i was raised in a christian home and in the ministry and i had a desire to follow jesus from a young age i was not a perfect kid i was very mouthy and got in trouble and stuff like that but overall i you know i i really didn't have a desire to go get into trouble and be rebellious and things like that so went on to bible college met my husband um at the church we attended and he was faithful to church and and fell in love with him and and we got married um a couple years after we were married he felt called into the ministry and so um we were married 22 years and probably 14 or 15 of those were ministry years where he was a pastor so yes i definitely just uh that's that's my heart that's my life to minister and serve the lord and uh i love serving jesus and also became sort of the achilles heel in my relationship with my husband hmm how did getting sick during your pregnancy you had six pregnancies but during your last one the sixth baby there was something that happened to you that was life-changing what happened yeah yeah so when i was pregnant with my last little boy i was 20 weeks along and i had pink eye and a couple days later i was in an extreme amount of pain and went to lay down and take a nap and when i woke up i was completely paralyzed 24 hours later i woke up completely paralyzed from my chest down and my arms were somewhat functioning uh not normal and that was very life-changing for us and it was during that time that i discovered my husband's porn addiction the first time and he told me that it started his porn addiction started then and it had been a horrific year no doubt um besides having a new brand new spinal cord injury and trying to learn all that i also had a baby uh four months into my spinal cord injury and had to have a c-section and a lot of complications from that and so there was wound care and home healthcare nurses and so i'm just saying in that one year when that was found and to hear him say that that's when he was had started then there was a lot of empathy from me that i didn't like it and it hurt my feelings but i guess i could understand if ever a man was a struggle it was a it was a rough year so um i gave him a lot of compassion through that and we definitely got through that so i don't know how much you want me to say when so you just guide how this conversation goes but will that or where you want to start and stop yeah so so what what woke you up to it wasn't just my poor pastor husband is missing me and you know i am depriving him of something that he used to get and well yeah okay so um i remember one of the first times we were going to be back together sexually and he said how's this supposed to work and i said i don't know we'll figure it out you know i just felt like my body was very broken but his wasn't and i just felt like if there's a way we can figure this out and and there are there are resources for that for us and and i was gung-ho you know i just felt like i wanted to make him happy this was all pre-porn um knowledge for me and so my heart was to just continue to try to be the best fulfilling wife that i could be in that way and it was when the when it came out and then i was very forgiving and then it came out again and then it came out again and all these different times and then i lost my empathy and i got very angry and it was a wake-up call to me that um he had a problem he had a problem and we need to fix it and there were there were time gaps in there you know like from the first time to the second time could be six months and then there might be another year and so what happened to me during that time was um i didn't know how to fix it i'm a pastor's wife i didn't have a pastor to go to when i would try to talk to him about it if i referenced anything i would know by the way he would treat me there were um i don't know how detailed you want to go but there were things that would happen to me that he would do to me um because i lack sensation and feeling and i would wake up with him doing a lot of horrible things to me um and taking advantage of of my disability and i felt very very violated by that um so that's why i learned there was another side to him i had never seen and those were huge wake up calls and that's when i first found your first books because i started finding your blog i was desperate for help i've been pretty much threatened if i tried to tell anybody i would never be allowed to see my family again um i would ruin the ministry the cause of christ he would quote me bible verses how not to defraud him just a lot of spiritual manipulation and abuse that went along with all that and because it's sexual it's very hush-hush and so um as a disabled woman with it i felt like the people almost look at him like he's an angel right up there with jesus because he hadn't left me because i became disabled and i'm in a wheelchair and so it was almost like how dare you would even complain about anything i'm doing to you that's horrible because i'm still with you and that is a silencer in and of itself because it almost feels like i need to be thankful like am i supposed to be thankful i i i feel sorry for that girl yeah it messes with your head doesn't it really it does and the traditional christian teaching of oh i need to be grateful that this man hasn't left me because i can't perform sexually like i used to or i can't do the roles that i used to in the way i used to now i'm worthless now i'm not worth anything and so i have to just be a beggar grateful that he's willing to stay with me and take whatever crumbs he gives me right and the fact that he told me it all started when i became disabled was a whole nother emotional and psychological level for me because i felt like i mean there are days i deal with a lot of chronic nerve pain and um there are days i would just be i would lay there while we're having sex crying because i'm in so much pain but i wouldn't dare say this is not a good night for me because i would throw if i use my disability that's the very thing that got him to be a porn addict according to him um i have since learned that is not true he got involved when he was a kid so it's always been there but the fact that he even told me that is also abusive that he let that be um a silencer for me and a chain to me like you know you sure wouldn't you'd hate to he never said those words you should hate throw me back into porn but it was definitely felt um if i ever tried to have an opinion about anything uh the guilt and manipulation and i think this is very typical of a church response if a man has porn that somehow you're his stephen arder bernard said in his book every man's battle you need to be his methadone like somehow you're his fix of porn is craziness like somehow we're responsible to fix their porn problem by giving them more sex um and in whatever way they want so they don't watch porn but they still watch porn and so it becomes a debilitating crazy making statement in our head that we don't so true yeah it's a vicious cycle that you're somehow i mean really you become no different than the mother that continually gives her drug addict son money because he's gonna have a meltdown he's gonna kick and scream and break stuff in her house and she doesn't want that so it's easier to hand him a hundred dollar bill to keep him quiet than to say no more and deal with the wrath of a god on your life and so it's exactly right and if you feel responsible to throw him in that cycle you become their fix which you totally have lost who you are as a woman um to be this outlet for his addiction it's it's really horrible yeah so how did conger help you move past this feeling and this blame of somehow i'm responsible for his addiction and somehow i have to fix his addiction by being a body to use yeah i think for you personally your use of scripture you know you just have so much bible and i know the word of god i love i love my relationship with the lord and actually that's been my only comfort in both my paralysis and my marriage many times is falling into the arms of jesus right in that relationship with the lord but because of that i want to be in his will and i want to do the right thing and so when you feel like you're trying to stand up for yourself as a person sexually emotionally physically yet you're being told spiritually to do that you're a liberal you're a feminist you're all these names and you're just like no i'm not um but then bible gets thrown at you and twisted because he knows the bible too it just kept me in such a horrible loop and and i don't have any um i have limitations on people's opinions i'm very opinionated so if it's my opinion versus your opinion i'm probably going to choose me right like that's nature but when it comes to god's opinion i vow the knee like there's no argument here and that is what i loved about you and your teachings is you load it with scripture which takes it away from leslie vernick really and moves it to the word of god which is where the emphasis should be and when you started using the power of teaching with god's word backing it was like my mind was i've never seen this i was never taught this i was never showed this it is right here and it's funny when you have the filters of this ultra um patriarchy almost movement um as your glasses in god's word when those are when you're brave enough to take those off and just say i'm willing to look through it in a different lens it's amazing it's amazing um my husband thinks you're a heretic ex-husband thanks for your hair tech which cracks me up but um but you're not you can't be when you're loaded with scripture in god's word and so that really using scripture at least opened my mind to anything else you had to say at that point and it was through that that then i joined the conquer journey and and realized some of the teaching about breaking free from when you used the proverbs 31 woman and talked about how every day she put on strength and dignity first uh i have to get dressed every day and let me tell you it is a chore i am worn out by the time it's done but putting on strength and dignity is that much of a work too and learning to use that that really spoke to my heart like that's the first thing i need to put on today and that just moves right into staying in core and how i respond to him is not me being respectful to him it's me being respectful to me i don't have to degrade myself to these levels i can stay dignified and it took me away from aggression to being assertive um it took away me having to be involved in arguments that i didn't want to be i don't have to be i can respect me and just so many things it's hard to pick out one thing out of your teaching because uh they're all so grounded and so true and spot on it's just the implementing of them that gets challenging i think and i'm glad you brought that up alicia because you know we all um get stuck in you know having this big ol fat head full of knowledge me too and then you know short on application so one of the shifts that we've made in concord over the last couple years is really having these implementation coaching sessions like our proverbs 31 challenge their proverbs challenge this last month and we've really worked at helping the women implement put into practice what's the next right step what's the next right step take take one day and do something the next right step every day so you build that strength how has that helped you move it more into the deeper implementation um because i think what you're saying is just taking the next right step i prayed early on and i told the lord i'm terrified uh the thought of living alone the thought of uh not having somebody for many medical things i really don't like that and that's terrifying and how can i make it i can't just go get a job at walmart like everybody else i'm very limited and can i keep a roof over my kids heads can i make it something i mean i was told by him constantly you'll never make it right but at the end of the day um god did not die and uh scripture in ii corinthians 4 talks about the outer man perishing but the inner man is renewed daily day by day and i think to me doing the next right thing is i prayed and told the lord listen i'm a simple girl and i over analyzed so here's the deal you make it so plain to me and i promise you if you make it plain i'll obey no matter how terrified i am and he has he has kept his word and if i don't have peace about something i just wait and then it's like the lord is like now's the time and i'm like i don't want to do this now well we made a deal then i just do the next right thing and god has honored that and god has met every need miraculously i i just i've kept nope so i called my rocks of remembrance because crazy things like literally i was praying for christmas money ask god in a joking way that morning i need you to sell a cow you own the cattle on a thousand hills my brother that afternoon brings me he said can i stop by after work i said yes he brings me 300 and a bag of hamburger meat from people that had a cow and had it killed i'm not joking that day and i just bust out laughing like lord you have such a sense of humor and thank you i needed that you know not just the money but just to know you here and you're you are present and and you love me and just taking that step and it's terrifying i've helped mentor some women since then and i tell you the number one thing that stops them is fear for whatever reasons it truly is fear and i think you just have to say is my god big enough and if he is i'm gonna have to trust him and obey him you know and i think sometimes we get scared of the big picture like oh you know if i get divorced and i have to work and i live alone and in the big picture does scare us um i use an application when i walked camel or camelback mountain last year i mean it's a scary scary hike if i had known ahead of time how big and scary it would have been i wouldn't have done it but i could just take the next right step i could just go the next time and step by step step by step i got up and i got down and i didn't injure myself but i think that that's where we're talking about the conquer journey when you look at the big picture and say oh my gosh i could never do that well you probably can't right now but if you take the next right step god will confirm and confirm and confirm and show you and as you're doing it you're strengthening yourself so that you can take the rest of the steps he is a gentle shepherd and that's the that's the thing that was on my heart so much in 2020 is he is lovingly leading me he leads us to lay down in the green pastures then he leads us beside the still waters then he leads us through the valley of the shadow of death right and he he led us to every one of those things lovingly in his time and that's what i feel when i look back over how god has slowly gently led every step of of the process and even down to when i filed for divorce was you know i really wanted to just ask my husband for some child support can we just figure this out over separated and he pretty much said it'll take a judge or a court to make me do that and i just thought there's my answer and i filed the next week it was just little things like that that the lord made it very clear and i didn't have to second-guess myself and there's a lot of peace in that too to know that you've just waited on the lord and you've obeyed the lord when it was hard and here's here's this you know where you took the next right step and said this is what i want to do and he said you'll have to someone will have to force me to be a good parent to my children financially right that shows you his character that shows you that has nothing to do with paralysis it has nothing to do it shows you his character that i don't i don't have it in me to be a good parent unless someone forces me to and how sad but that clarifies things for you that that's me i did it led me to the next decision i needed to make to be safe and to take care of my children and he needed to be responsible and help with that so i get me mad at me but you you're a dad so you're gonna have to be a part you want the benefits but you've got to have the responsibilities too and so yeah i was able to make that next step i just like that was the thing the lord said it's time you know for me and and i've never regretted it i've never doubted it have your kids handled all of it you have six kids have they handled this divorce you know my oldest daughter had more of the years with him and her her she's in south carolina so she's separate from us he's in tennessee i'm in georgia and um she's she kind of i love you both i'll talk to you be both but it upsets her to be a part of this so that's fine like she doesn't need to be we just i focus on loving her where she's at encouraging her and supporting her and i give her as much intel as she desires and i let her lead the conversation in that the rest of the children i still have home with me they're 11 to 19 and um they're very supportive they're classic i have a house full of teenagers and i'm very outnumbered and um so we have great communication though and sometimes that communication is we're going to talk it out we're all very mad and other times we're out there all in my room as teenagers laying all over my bed with me so um they're good they they're supportive they they knew it had to happen they never wanted us to get back together um they they do not like that um i just try to encourage that they love him as a father and and we're working with them now um he's never not gonna be manipulative and he's never not gonna stop dumping on them with his responsibilities we had something this week and i had to set the girls down like i'm either going to deal with this with him or you're going to have to learn how to say no to manipulation because they said we feel very manipulated by this i'm like you know there's a fine line they're 13 and 15. does mom come in and take care of it with the ex or do they need to learn and i think that's a balance but one of the things i think they do need to learn he's not going to be the first manipulative man they ever run into so they're going to have to learn and i said i will stay out of it but you need to have the strength to be truthful you can be respectful but you've got to be truthful and you can say no dad i don't want to do that so they're they're doing well they say i overlay analyze them and i worry way more about them than than i should so i'm like that's because i'm your mom so that's probably gonna happen yeah they're they're phenomenal kids they're doing great good good and how did the church handle it um our church in south carolina where my husband pastored um they have been so supportive and still people to this day from they are very supportive of the kids and i still check in and i moved to georgia to be near my brother i feel like i need to be in your family um but yeah they were phenomenal i started attending another church here and i could not attend there um i was very triggered by many things uh and just felt like we couldn't grow there and the kids agreed so we found another church that we love absolutely love it's been very healing for the kids and i it's exciting to hear your family on saturday night say yay tomorrow's church and getting very involved and people love them and have already been very interested the youth pastor had a dad that left when he was young and he was raised by a single godly mom and he's just always like literally you're going to be fine they're going to be fine so just a lot of support and encouragement so that's been a blessing yeah and i love that you are confident enough at the place you are right now that you can say this church won't be good for us this church would be toxic for us i'm getting triggered or unhealthy for us and we need to move on i don't have to be here i have choices and i can act what's in the best interest of me and the kids right now and i think that's so powerful for a woman who's been choiceless and you know submissive and told to do whatever her husband says to begin to say i have choices and i need to make wise ones for what's good for us yes and that's empowering the more you realize you can do that it's a little addictive so you have to be careful not to you know go too far but um yeah it's that is strengthening in and of itself is to realize i can say this i can do this just the divorce itself was liberating for me in a way because i had to be so careful all of 2020 with every interaction that i was afraid he would use against me in court right and so just knowing that there was a finality to that has just been a weight off that i didn't even realize there and honestly that's for the children too because there were if there were threats of about custody and visitation based on how much money he had i mean there was all this going on all the time and i've seen a difference in the children too they how they've watched me handle it just them relax that i think maybe that was unseen by all of us or we couldn't have labeled it but it's been it's been freeing and so yeah having those choices and knowing i'm not going to get in trouble all the time yeah yeah well thank you so much unless you're welcome jury is phenomenal and your testimony is strong and we're just so um thrilled to see the progress that you've made over your conquer time together and that you're you know so willing to share your story because i think you know we're not always so willing to share these ugly parts of our life and our family and so i just appreciate your openness and thank you thank you for having me and thank you for everything you've done for all of us in these situations you've been definitely the lord has used you as a light we appreciate it thanks so much yeah all right take care all right all right so i'm gonna pull the next person off hold on all right are you loving this are you loving hearing stories of real women just like you and one of the things alicia said that i think is really important is that what we do in concord is very god-centered and very biblically centered but it might be different than you've been taught and different than you've heard in the past because we've had a very um conservative view of of the bible and it's been somewhat male oriented and even when i first started coming out with the teaching about david and bathsheba i mean i was labeled a heretic because i said no bathsheba david didn't have an affair they didn't have an affair she was raped and even now when i talk about that i still get looks from pastors like what is she talking about and the bible never says they had an affair and yet because it was interpreted and translated in the way the abuse of power just was totally missed when nathan confronted david he didn't confront him about adultery he didn't confront bathsheba at all because she was a victim he confronted david and said david you abused your power you took power over something that wasn't yours to take and so god hates the abuse of power he hated it when david did it and he doesn't want his leaders to do it when he taught his disciples headship he said guys i don't want you to rule over others like a bully like the gentiles do that's not so with you if you want to be the leader you serve first be the leader in servanthood and so when we get this interpretation of headship meaning i get to tell you what to do and i get to shut off all your choices because i'm the leader of this home and therefore you can't say no is an incorrect misapplication of biblical headship and leadership it's nowhere in the scriptures defined that way and so i think it's so important for us to understand the heart of god the character of god and the counsel of god in the totality of scripture not just taking one verse and trying to make a whole point out of that verse and so that's what we try to do in conquer so if that's important to you you will find fresh water here fresh water that that will help you stay true to your faith and stay close to god but see him in a new way god is always never ever in the old testament or new is god on the side of the bully he is never on the side of the bully the oppressor the bible calls it so if you just google oppressor how many times do you read about oppressor in psalms god is against the oppressor and he's always for the oppressed the one who's under the thumb of the bully he's for you he's not against you he wants to help you now i'm going to invite my coach diana to come forth she is um a friend and a coach on our team and she is going to talk about the more hidden forms of abuse called covert abuse many of you come to conquer and it's so hard for you to even own that you're in an abusive relationship because the abuse is so much more hidden and subtle and kind of under the radar that it's really hard to put your finger on exactly what it is that he's doing that's so harmful and yet you feel it in your body you feel it in your spirit and it's hard to talk about it though and so i'm going to invite diana up hold on hi diana hello i'm so glad you're here and diana's going to take some time and just talk about covert abuse and i'm gonna give her the full screen and i'm gonna remove myself so she can just talk directly to you and i'll be back in a couple minutes all right diana thanks i'm good hello everyone i'm so glad to be here with you today and first i just want to introduce myself my name is diana bala i'm in ohio and um i'm on leslie's coaching team and i've had the pleasure of working with leslie for over maybe the past five years now and my background is in clinical counseling and now i have developed also a specialty in coaching and specifically working in destructive relationships and so much of the work that i do is to that end and also maybe in the area of trauma as well and you know i started down this path because i really wanted to um experience the power of the holy spirit in transforming uh lives and i felt like god had changed my life long story short a friend introduced me to leslie's book so that i could learn some strategies and really understand what she was going through and apply some of that to my own life and through that i began mentoring with leslie and really women's empowerment is a passion of mine and i just love this community and through doing the work for the past 25 years of working with individuals i see the power of community and i love what i see that is planned and prepared here for us through leslie she's been a student of the word of god and i have not seen the scriptures applied in such an accurate and truthful way in the role of women and how they are played out to be played out in our lives and as she had just got done speaking about um just the manipulation of scripture and how confused we can become when we're being taught misled and taught inappropriately what our roles are and that leads us to succumb to abuse um i just kind of want to share with you that she's the real deal um i've watched leslie and empower women in her life she's a champion of women giving of her time and attention but i also want to encourage you for those of you that are that are considering the journey and that are on the journey with us um you will learn to put your brave on because she will ask you to take those gentle nudges and dip into the material and learn and apply it to your lives in a way that can empower you and transform you and as alicia said sometimes there's a lot of fear involved but stepping into it in community with women around you and for you and the wonderful staff and team that we have here you won't be alone in this journey you will feel supported and validated and many of you i believe this is true have felt so alone because maybe the people in your community your family or friends just don't see it and as soon as leslie gets back i'll dip into my talking about covert abuse and um many of you who are experiencing this form of use feel very alone in it because it's very hidden and you are the only one that really sees what's going on glad to have you back leslie thanks thanks yeah and i'm so glad you're talking about this topic because i think probably you know over 50 percent of our women are are experiencing more of the cohort kind of abuse and so they don't even know how to describe it to their pastor or their counselor so you know i did look up some scriptures um but you had just said just manipulate or just um just google and i so i googled manipulation and i pulled up some scriptures and to be truthful i think at the heart of abuse maybe all abuse is pride but especially with covert abuse because when there's a spirit of pride we feel like we're good and we don't see our bad which is the opposite of the gospel and so there's a deception there there's a deception of ourselves and a deception toward others and that leads us uh leads covert abusers to destroy others in an attempt to satisfy their own needs for whatever their needs are maybe for for power for control or maybe sometimes it's just to win um so would you like me to go ahead and describe it yeah so covert abuse is usually concealed it's disguised and it's very secretive behavior it's very hard to identify in the person that's performing the behavior it can be happening to you right in front of a group of the people and you're the only one experiencing it and you know something's off something's not okay you may have a feeling that you're not safe because they hide behind a mask and a social facade hiding their true self from everyone around them they are image bearers not christ image bearers but they have an image that they want to bear that they want other people to believe and buy into so you in a relationship with someone who's a covert abuser can feel very crazy like what am i experiencing that they're not seeing so there's no validation and you may feel very alone in that and if they're really good at it they're not going to even do it in front of the children they're just going to do it when they're alone with you and the goal is really to avoid detection because they don't want to be responsible or accountable for any of their behavior so for example they may use intimidation and bullying as a form of posturing and gestures as opposed to physical abuse so you'll see the look in the eye you'll feel the seeding anger and it's meant to control you there may have been maybe some overt um behavior in the beginning maybe a gesture as i'm going to hit you or something just to get you in line but that kind of stuff kind of you feel it but you can't call them out on it because what ends up happening is they use minimization lying denial they'll rationalize they'll divert they'll evade and they'll get trip you often you end up bearing the shame thinking what's wrong with me if i could just get in line what could i do differently how can i make this work so you take on the role of really trying to please this person and often what happens in that is you're becoming someone that you're really not meant to be the the goal is for them is for you to bend and to submit to their way and their will um they will win at all costs and what that means is that you will be a loser so this isn't a mutual or a reciprocal relationship this is a relationship in which someone is saying to you i will win and i will win by subjecting you subjugation blame whatever tactic i need to use to get my way and also i will make it appear as if i'm the good guy so um and this is where i think um parental alienation may come in line because if the kids aren't witnessing this and you're experiencing this from somebody he will often play to that to make you feel like you're the crazy one you're the difficult one and so you may end up having that experience and that's why i have to say that's why i love the ability to be in community like this because so many of our women are experiencing this and you're all alone in it and you need to be told what it is first so that you can see it and so that you can hear what it looks like and i think the experience is oh my goodness i'm not crazy i'm not alone in this this is what this is now it has a label it has a name and now we know that you know we have tools that we can can gain to identify and understand the behaviors that are being used against us yeah and i think one of the things that i think is so important is all of us might be capable of some of these behaviors like blame shifting or minimizing or um you know mislabeling like oh you're too sensitive it's not i didn't do anything wrong you're just taking it wrong those kind of things we might do those kind of behaviors but when someone calls us on it and says you know i think you're trying to manipulate me or don't give me that guilt trip when we confront that and a relatively healthy person we might reflect and say you know you're right it's not my job to make you do what i want you to do you know so we would reflect on that so so when a covert abuser is using these tactics and you start to protest they'll twist it so that even the very tactics are minimized and denied so that you're feeling like well i thought you just said this no i didn't say this and so then you start to feel even more insecure and crazy instead of having them own what they did and so we might all be capable of doing some of these things once in a while but we don't do them as a pattern and when someone calls us out on them we recognize them as unhealthy and don't do them right um and that's why that's why i suggest also when it's happening to you is to journal journal what you're noticing journal what you're experiencing so that um because you as you said what we're looking for is a repeated consistent pattern of behavior while we all engage in these tactics these tactics occur all the time and they're aimed at really diminishing who you are and getting you to second guess what you think what you know and what you feel so then you buy into their reality instead of the reality of what you're experiencing and that's how controlled say that again this is so important i just want you to be able to write it down um because i think this is exactly what happens to you so say it again diana so the goal of of a manipulator in this way is to get you to um to to deflect so that you um do not um you don't understand what was i saying i can't remember what they were saying you said something about you know they do this so that you begin to question yeah your question when you get what you feel what you know you experience and even who you are like for example like you think you're a good mom or you think you're a generous person and then they get you know well you think you're a generous person well you didn't do this you didn't and you're like oh maybe i'm not a generous person you know and you start start questioning your very personhood of who you thought you were that you thought you were smart you thought you were capable you were thought you were a good mom you thought all these kind of things and his you know you thought you could make good decisions and then his snickers and his rolling his eyes and are you sure you want to do that and that doesn't look too smart to me and it's like he undermines all of that so that you begin to doubt who you are and what you feel and what you think exactly it's so insidious too and the terms that are used it's it's it can be verbal it can be gestures it's very very hard to detect so that your sense of self and your identity is robbed you do begin to question who you are what you know and even what you're experiencing well i think what i said earlier was you buy into their reality they want you to buy into their reality so that so that you will succumb to whatever their wishes or their will is because again i think one two key things to remember is they want to win they will always win and they want to be in control and whatever it takes to get that they will use against you and um you know i did uh i did a uh a little seminar on this for our last conquer uh conference and talked specifically about all of the tactics that they use and that's one of the ways that we arm ourselves in really understanding what's happening to us and as leslie said sometimes we do engage in some of these tactics but they do them routinely and um in a way that you almost can't call it out you just feel crazy in it and so you start to you start to doubt yourself you lose yourself and i think what ends up happening in that experience is you shut down because it's very confusing it's very painful so you just kind of begin to survive and the losing of yourself is not a small thing and that's another reason why i love a part of what we do and conquer is helping you to identify your sense of self and understand who you are and develop a strength because you've often lost that in a very destructive relationship and recovering that is a journey and it is a task and that needs to be engaged it's not easy but it but it is able to be done and it is well worth it and i think you know when when you've been in a relationship that's you've been covertly abused for a long period of time you're almost conditioned so that you don't even hear it you don't even see it so awareness which is one of the first stages in the conquer journey is developing awareness becoming awake and seeing what's happening to you can begin to show you really uh with with validity and clarity what's happening to you so that you can then learn to develop the skills and the tools to set boundaries what's okay what's not okay and to say no to what's happening to you and let me give an example so that we can kind of put teeth to this so that those of you who are listening can maybe see how this might happen let's say that your husband's chronically late and you're getting mad and so you say to him hey if you're not going to be here on time this is my bond if you're not going to be here on time and not call me i'm not going to hold dinner for you you know i'm i'm just going to feed the kissing okay i'll call you i promise i'll call you so then it happens again and he doesn't call you and so you call him on it as any normal marriage would hey you said you would call i didn't say i would call you're just trying to control me you're so controlling and now it's like am i controlling i didn't think i was controlling i thought we made a disagreement and that's why diana says to write things down because if you could go back to your journal and say yes we did i wrote this down with a disagreement when he starts crazy making you and saying i never said that i never agreed to that you're the one who's controlling you know you you have to have everything your way and it's like no i don't have to have everything and then you start arguing and defending and then they spin that out of control and you start to feel nuts inside you start to feel that's inside and so it's so important that you understand what's happening so that you extricate yourself out of that crazy dance yeah and i think one of the things along with that that we fail to recognize is that this is very aggressive we don't think of it as aggressive because it's not physical abuse but when someone is doing this to you then the very nature of it is very aggressive and again as we said that hides the true nature the covert hides the true nature of the aggressive peace that's happening to you and again it they want to make you doubt yourself and your experience so they can continue in this if if you have a physical bruise it's pretty obvious you know that there needs to be consequences but if someone can remain on the sly then they can continue and maintain this control while keeping you know eroding your sense of self and their world is great meanwhile um you know i think you had asked me when we were talking about what we're going to mention today what happens to you when you're experiencing this you know and you're you're in a an environment where you're continually having to protect yourself or you're continually confused about what's really happening and so that requires you your whole immune system your whole body to be on the alert all the time and often what we find with covert strategies this anger is one of the ones that are used the most and that anger won't be overt anger as in physical hitting but it will again be posturing gestures physical size um you know and so you'll get to the place where you'll learn that um i'm i just need to do this or do that to avoid the confrontation or to avoid the anger and so what many women will say is i'm egg-shelling it i'm walking on eggshells and you become um very anxious very nervous your whole body tenses you know and you might have the experience of i you know i'm feeling fine until i hear the car pull in the driveway and then i know what's going to happen so besides taking some time to journal out what happened so that you don't get muddled on the reinterpretation of reality what else can a woman do if she can recognize herself in this kind of situation well i i would say um the first thing that i would do is really understand all the different tactics that they use against you and so that i actually have a handout that i use when i'm working with women so that they can read it and when it's happening they can call it for what it is so they know they're not crazy oh this is what that is so they can see it time and time again so that's awareness and telling yourself the truth because for so long we've shut down you know and we've we've just tried to get along we've made it okay or we've accommodated but now we're saying no this isn't okay this is what this is and now we have a name for it so that's that's that's our first step in the conquer journey is awareness so stepping into those modules learning with awareness what's happening to you what abuse is and what safety looks like and so then we develop ways to be safe and one of those ways we learn to be safe are by using our words wisely by stepping up speaking out for ourselves and calling it out for what it is in some ways you can do this where you're safe in other ways you may not be safe and so along the journey we teach you ways in which to do that and how to know when you're safe to do that and what do i do if or then right and i think those are such important nuances because there is no script that works for everybody and no script but but that awareness so so for example if you're aware that your husband or someone is manipulating you might be your mother oh you're such a bad daughter because you won't you know let me come live with you whatever it is if you're aware someone's going to manipulate you or they are manipulating you you can't necessarily stop them from doing that this is where it's so important in concord to understand your power but you can stop them from getting away with manipulating you by not falling for the manipulation i see what they're doing they're trying to manipulate me they're trying to give me a guilt trip i'm not taking those suitcases and that's all you as long as you say that inside you may not be able to say i'm aware you're manipulating me that may not make a difference to this person they may just change tactics but as long as you know oh they're trying to manipulate me into saying yes when i already said no they're trying to guilt me trip me into controlling my answer i'm not falling for it now you've got your power back i think yeah that's true you've got your power back but i think even prior to that one of the things we talk about and we work on quite a lot with our women is um wait a minute who am i and what do i want what do i want and what do i not want because you've lost that remember you're trying to please the covert abuser you're trying to stop it from happening so you're just doing you're doing everything to go along just to get along so then now that you know what's happening to you um you can honestly start to use your voice and say no as leslie said that's not what i want to do any longer and you begin to take back the life that god had intended for you because god didn't call us to follow our husbands he called us to follow him and we're supposed to be god directed in our hearts and minds and when we've given over this power to them we've allowed someone else to dictate what our life will look like in christ i think that's the most empowering piece that i love about all of this is um we don't recognize along the way where we've lost focus and in an attempt to stay safe and to please it in essence we've kind of we've kind of idealized our spouses and we've done whatever it is to please them maybe at the expense of what god is calling us to do and who he's calling us to be so well said you know and i've talked about being a husband-centered woman instead of a god-centered woman and that's exactly the picture that you're just painting that god is asking you to be a husband-centered woman he's asking to be a god-centered woman and and out of that then do the right thing whatever that is and your job is to to have your husband's welfare in mind but it's not in his welfare to allow him to stay a covert abuser no versus it's not your welfare either but it's not even in his welfare no god has not called us to a relationship of intimidation fear and control he's called us to freedom in christ and that is not the depiction i mean so many of us and christians in the church have really looked at leadership in the wrong way and isn't leadership as you had said earlier is is love and i have a i have a note here um that i often repeat to women we're called to be cherished loved celebrated protected provided for and we get to be authentic right and leadership as i see leadership you know and and so i'm a leader in conquer and i see leadership not as you do what i say because i'm the leader and i'm the boss and so you you have no voice and you have no power that's not leadership that's bullying leadership is lifting people up so that they can become all that god called them to be that's what leaders do that's what good leaders do that's what biblical leaders do and so when someone misuses scripture and defines that as biblical leadership to squash and oppress and get their own way the bible defines that as selfishness not leadership and so i think we really need to be clear on those terms so that we don't allow ourselves to get muddled and confused absolutely and that's um again you know like we are called to be the best version of ourselves and so as you um begin to understand and learn ways in which the relationships are in your life are not serving you and are distracting you um we can join with other people who are helping us on that journey to be the best version of ourselves yeah well diane thank you so much for giving your time and helping us to understand covert abuse it's not uh it's aggression but it's not overt it's not obvious and so no one's gonna see it it's hidden it's like pinching you under the table and no one sees and you're like you can't even say ouch because nobody saw versus punching you on the top of the table and so it's hidden so that they still look great on the top side of the table and underneath they're kicking your shins like crazy or pinching you and you're like what do i do how do i react you know and it's so hard and so um we talk a lot about this and conquer to help you to get strong and be able to um see if it's safe enough for you to speak out and if not then what else can you do to stay sane and safe so thanks so much for your time all right take care bye-bye all right i'm gonna let diana go and we have one more hour and we've got a couple more guests and we have right now another conqueror sister her name is jenny and she has um an amazing story of a long time bad marriage that began to turn around and so we really want to hear her story because she is staying well you've heard from two women who've left um and now jenny's staying and her marriage is starting to become all that god wants it to be or at least some of what god wants it to be a whole lot different than it used to be and so we want to hear her story and so i'm going to invite her in now hi jenny hi thank you how are you being part of our our uh live stream today we're just so delighted to have you and hear your story and you've been married 37 years to the same person some of it been really rough and others parts of it have been a whole lot better yes yes that's the truth leslie tell us some more about how you know it was bad for 25 years he was an alcoholic i take it and then something happened in you and and you began to join conquer but then what happened in him well god did a work in him and it certainly you know i am powerless to um change my husband and um i had to release the outcome and you know and and there was a lot of starts and stops i will say that but today he has been sober for 17 years and in 2019 we actually led a couple of um marriage classes at our church and i will tell you that i never thought that that would happen and the statistics say that only one to three percent of abusive men will ever change um and but what you say leslie is that if we don't do our work there's really no hope for change and i don't take credit i do not take credit for his um for this transformation but i do know i had to get out of god's way in order for it to happen and i had to do i had a lot of work to do so tell us about your journey um what what brought you to conquer well um surprisingly i you know i came to conquer because i want to be a people helper all right and i want to support a ministry that um i didn't have back in the day and um so i absolutely love what you do i wish leslie that i had a ministry like this um and and i talked about in my time i was going around pecking around like a chicken trying to get a little help here a little help there here a little help and and even the help that i would find i was alone and in conquer there is a community and a support system and the educational videos but um so you know but i will tell you that i have had a lot of bad theology and i am still trying to heal from that and i am trying to absorb and take on the truth of what god says about marriage and that he does not expect um you know he came to save sinners uh and at the center is above the institution so i'm trying to wrap my head around that and get soaked totally in that truth because that's the only thing that's going to help people yeah i loved that you said that that you know that you know you were able to find the information you needed back before conquer on some of the the problem of what it was but you didn't have any community or support to help you implement and walk through it so you were solo in all of that and it was really hard because without that community and support it's much harder to make the changes that you want to make that's right and i you know i was in a 12-step program for a lot of years but you know i couldn't talk about jesus and um the biblical grounds you know you can get support here and there but you can't get the biblical truth like you do here in conquer and that's just that's meant the world to me so what changes did you start to make in yourself as you began to open your eyes and say i'm living with a man who's not going to change i don't have any power to change him he's an alcoholic and i'm experiencing what and what did you need to work on for you okay well um so one of the questions that um that i was kind of prepared for was about not reacting and learning how to respond and i was counseled that my reactions were sinful but i couldn't see it and i didn't agree with it and i thought that god not only understood my reactions but that he sided with me because my husband's behavior seemed so much worse than mine but one night there was a typical pattern he did x i did y and we did the crazy cycle and i went in my bedroom and i was crying and praying oh god change him and then i said lord change me and and show me what to do god show me what to do and i will do it so i flipped open my bible to second corinthians two seven through nine and there was a section about forgiveness for the center and again it was just a flippant pick but it was kind of the words were um to forgive him so that he won't be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow but here was the kicker the reason i wrote you was to see if you would be obedient in everything in order that satan might not outwit us and leslie i knew in that moment that god was telling me to own my part because i was i had a mouth on me and a temper and so i knew god was telling me to ask my husband to forgive me for the things that i had said and i had never done that and i was terrified and the enemy showed up and started telling me you know that if i did that that i was going to lose and he was going to win and get away with it but the word of god says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and when we start to own our part you can believe there's going to be fear and trembling because i had never done that okay and um and so and it didn't feel natural and and some sisters need to learn how to speak up but i was a sister who needed to learn how to shut up so and i thought i was going to die the first time i had some choice words for him and i thought i was going to die when i had to choke those back but i went out in the living room and i said i was you know i'm sorry i was wrong for xyz will you forgive me and he grunted something and and under his breath and i ran back to the bedroom and the minute i went into my room i knew and i closed that door i knew i had obeyed god for the very first time by owning my sin and he visited me in a in a way that um i had never felt before and his presence was so strong i became addicted to obedience and what i know today is that obedience is god's love language and when i laid down my right to to be bitter i got better and i lived under the reciprocity of god's love for me like a waterfall and that's how i stayed well leslie i did have to learn how to set boundaries and how to detach and i didn't snuggle up to abuse but it was really a god walk and i and i had to stop blaming my husband for my ungodly and i took those logs out of my eyes and the lord helped me build a new life with them that's that's an amazing story and i'm so glad you shared because i think it is so tempting when we've been so wronged to be justified in retaliating um and you know satan does get a foothold and satan wins nobody wins but satan evil whist and and the lord tells us do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good but one distinction i just want to help the women make it was not your fault that he acted that way and it wasn't his fault that you acted that way that's why you said i have to own my own stuff i don't have to act this way i just reacted because i felt justified i feel justified in hurting you when you hurt me and abusers use the same excuses and i don't give them that pass either and so we certainly don't let victims have a pass at being ugly back just because he was ugly to you and so i think this is really important part of as you do your work and you take the next right step that one step of obedience i'm gonna go in and apologize as hard as it was like gravel in my teeth i'm gonna go do it lord and and he blessed that he yeah yeah yeah i love what you said say it again the last sentence that you said about um i'm addicted to i'm addicted to obedience yeah because the lord met me leslie and i will tell you that when you know you get the joy of the lord became my strength and getting your peace and your joy and your core strength building yourself up so that you're not reacting to those tactics that is some holy revenge girl that is some holy revenge you know there is more than one way to skin a cat and and and when we start to rise up oh daughter of god rise up and he can do that but we can't do that on our own you know we need these tools we need community we need biblical teaching we need we need deprogramming from from the garbage the garbage theology that we've that we've learned but there is help and there is hope so as you begin to take your side of the street instead of focusing on his side of the street his side of the street was wicked but your side of the street was reactive and and becoming wicked too so when you started to own yourself hey i'm not gonna i don't want to be that kind of person that's not the woman i want to be in this situation this isn't how i want to show up what began to change in your relationship well um what began to change was that i was not reacting to um you know the dance step changed and so then he had to deal with it instead of me having to deal with his shenanigans he had to figure out how am i going to learn to deal with this godly strong joyful peaceful woman that he couldn't believe yeah he couldn't hook and reel me anymore so then it became his problem he had something to deal with exactly and that's so beautiful that he couldn't hook and reel me anymore so now he's got to decide how he wants to dance that's right that's right and and you know and i had to allow consequences um you know and and just let god you know do a work in him but but i'll tell you something else that was really important to me um you know there was um a question about how did i grow how did i grow in the dark times and i got to tell you growing was my saving grace because the because growing is the opposite of dying and trying to change my husband was an exercise in dying and the more i tried to control fix and manipulate him the more i lost myself and when i stopped trying to manage him i had to take a look at my life to figure out what i liked what i needed what self-care looked like and i became a student of what it meant you know to to become whole in an area that i needed work was soul healing and you talk about the fact that addiction is not a marriage problem and i couldn't agree more but another thing that's not a marriage problem is self-loathing and i married a broken man because i was a broken woman and i was hoping that my husband could love away the parts of me that i hated about myself and but that's not his job even in a healthy marriage you know i need to find my worth in christ and so looking at my soul wounds was critical and the lord helped me to go back and look at my family of origin and identify the messages that i believed as a little girl that were false because my dad was he left when i was 10 years old for another woman and the enemy told me that i was worth less than her okay so i took on a self-image of being worthless and in those dark times the lord helped me follow the bread crumbs back to those lies that the enemy had told me and i exchanged them for the truth of who god says i am and and i began to rise up in that and i learned that i was worthy and valuable and precious so when critical words came flying across the room i didn't identify with those anymore and they lost their power they lost their power to crush me and i would put up that shield of faith and they would break against it because i no longer was identifying with a distorted view that a sick man had of me jenny that is so good and so healing and so so spot on when i tell you all in conquer hey focus on doing your own work focus on doing your own work because as as she did her own work her marriage wasn't better yet it wasn't better for a long time but she was just focused on hey i'm not going to help him and i'm not going to save my marriage i'm just going to work on me i'm going to heal these soul wounds i'm going to learn how to stop reacting i'm going to set some good boundaries i'm going to detach from my need with a big old capital n-e-e-d for my husband to validate me and love me in order for me to feel like a worthy person i don't need that anymore god is going to do that for me and as she began to get healthier and healthier and stronger and more godly he lost complete power over her to wreck her life or make her feel unhappy or miserable she didn't have a great marriage at all but she was a whole happy person yes that is right that is right and you know um there was another question about you know how did i keep hope in my marriage and you know i couldn't afford to put hope in my marriage i had to put it in god i had to put my hope in god and my focus was just to be the woman god wanted me to be and so i had to stop measuring the changes that my that my husband was or wasn't making and i had to start measuring my own and every step i took toward god and growth were keys to freedom and rather than seeking my husband's approval i sought god's approval and he proved faithful and and he was responsive to me and while i prayed for a marriage and a and uh and i prayed for my husband my hope was in whatever god had for me but that didn't mean that i snuggled up to abuse or enabled it but in order to stay well i had to take my eyes off of my husband and let go of the outcome yeah and i i'm so glad you mentioned that because i think we can get a little manipulative and think okay i'll do my work god so you fix him right or i'll do my work and then my marriage is gonna be restored no you're doing your work so that you have a life yes you have a purpose that you have value you're doing your work regardless of what happens to your marriage and as you let go of that and you say okay god i'm i'm not in charge of him and his work i'm just in charge of me and my work and my relationship with you and as you walk forward you know some of you are going to have an opportunity to see your husband come around and do some big changes and others he's just not interested he's not interested in doing his work and you have to make peace with that that's right that's right and i tell you um you know there was also you know like uh some mention of the steps the modules and i i just have to say that my favorite i don't want to say my favorite because that those modules are like a first aid kit for the soul okay they really are they are like a first aid kit for the soul and when i went through them the safety module really brought me to tears because for all the years we went through counseling there was never any advice to have some clothes in the trunk of a car or a little cash in hand in case i needed to leave and nor was it ever suggested to me that leaving might even be a good idea in fact i was told that you can't work on a marriage if you're separated which i know is not true but um and there's all kind of scriptures that you teach about how jesus you know withdrew and he fled from dangerous situations and as i listened to the wisdom and that safety module leslie i thought back to how helpful that council would have been at that time in my life instead of the drama that i experienced running around through the house trying to grab clothes and diapers and toiletries and and um you know that step presented a thoughtful proactive way to step away uh out of your home if needed without adding additional stress to yourself or your children and you know so and i just want to tell women you know that that may be coming in you know they may not know if they're going to stay well or leave well but they don't have to know that today what they need to know is that god wants us to get well god wants us to get well and that can only happen at the foot of the cross and with good biblical teaching and in community like conquer offers and um you know i i just had to get out of god's way i had to um you know work out my salvation and let my husband work out his and release the outcome but i really wish that i had the biblical teaching the specialized education because you can go here and get a podcast and read a book and do this and do that but this is a program specializing in help for destructive and difficult marriages and it's an invaluable self-care self-care resource that i just i can't recommend enough and i love you leslie well i love you too jenny and i just i'm like preach it sister go go and i thank you so much for your vulnerability in owning your own stuff i think it's hard sometimes when we live with a wicked person to say and and our part of this is that either we're way too passive or we're starting to become a little wicked ourselves because we're so mad and we feel justified oh i was i was justified all right but um but now i'm sanctified well thank you so much i so appreciate you sharing your story with us and i'm sure the women have gotten a ton out of listening to you and i hope that if you are saying wow i'd love to be a part of this community that you look at the tape down at the bottom and you say okay i'm going to join concord this is your last day and then we're going to be closed again until september so we would love to welcome you into our midst and our community so that we can help you heal and grow and be all the woman that god calls you to be too so thanks a lot danny for your time thank you leslie bye-bye everyone thank you she was powerful wasn't she thank you so much lord for all that you're teaching us and helping us to grow and i wish there was you know some so many of you ask if there's something like this for our husbands i wish i wish there was and my colleague chris moles does something similar for abusive men but they're not as open to healing and learning because they're in a mindset of i'm right and i get to do this and so we have to be broken a little bit and if you're in that place that you feel a little broken right now and you need help and you're watching this and you're still here i would just highly encourage you to give conquer a six month try it's 27 a month i mean you could pay for one therapy session and not get as much as you got out of these three hours right and this is loaded stuff and if you put it into practice you will get way more than you're paying uh for value um so conquers 270 for a whole year that's two therapy sessions for a whole year of this community support and teaching and prayer support and all the rest and um it's it's a bargain really it really is and i would just invite you to invest in yourself invest in yourself right now you need to work on you if you want anything to be different it's not about changing him it's not about begging him it's not about you know getting him to do something different about you changing your downsteps just like jenny said so we're going to bring another conqueror sister on uh davoria and i can't wait to see your beautiful face again daboria so i'm going to put you up here with me hi girlfriend how are you good hello yes i'm good i'm good it's been good i'm getting a little dry mouth but i'm so grateful to be here and i'm thankful that you're here to share your story so tell us a little bit about what called you to join conquer well um i was up praying one night late at night like god i don't know how i got into this situation but it is crazy it was just abusive verbally and emotionally and like i said i was up late at night just praying and i was like you have to help me now god and then i don't know what i'm thinking but i jumped on youtube and i ran into an interview with you and focused on the family and they were um interviewing you over your book emotional leadership relationship and so from there i found out about conquer of course i had to wait and wait list and all that stuff but once i got in i was like god this is the answer i mean everything that you were talking about just continually gave me strength and more strength and there was a community and of course i felt like wow my my situation is my new compared to everything everybody else is going through but um just that it just laid the work for where i needed to go i mean so do i share how you were yeah how you were you stuck in you know having to forgive yourself like because i did i made this mistake i married this person and i should have known better whatever was going on in your head yeah online and then you know people always talk about oh you know that's crazy you met somebody online and then of course a year later we got married at first i thought that i was looking at all the right things and and of course as soon as we got married it just blew up he turned into a whole completely different guy and became emotionally and verbally abusive we were just arguing all the time and then i became emotionally and verbally abusive in some ways and so of course with all that i'm constantly asking god like god you know what do i need to do um uh do i need to walk away do i need to stay i need to work on my mirror but um ultimately he ended up divorcing me so then i it kind of left me with an issue of now i'm seriously angry at him because um he left me with this bag hold which was really just a pride thing and i realized that not only did i have to forgive him but i had to forgive myself um i had to forgive myself for life said not knowing what i didn't know and so i didn't know that maybe you know i should have looked at some different things i should have you know listened to people when they told me maybe i should have waited and all that stuff but then there were just things that i didn't know and i i can't go back and redo it so i had to lawn and that was process and you know i think it's okay to kind of come to terms with i didn't know but now i know so once i know now i'm responsible for making a good decision if i don't know then part of the bad decision is learning that it was a bad decision right and adjusting that to make it a better decision [Music] what was the apology you were waiting for it was kind of hanging out well i was waiting for an apology for things that he had said to me you know him to come back and admit that he was wrong and i was right you know i didn't deserve to be treated that way and like jenny said i was up praying that god please make him come back and give me an apology but then you know just like i think god made me look at like devoria but he never comes back and give an apology and that confirmation came through conquer he said the same thing can you be okay if he never gives you an apology and at first i'm like no i can't i want my apology he just i deserve to get an apology he did me wrong and he left me holding the bag by divorcing me and so it was a process once again i mean i had to you know on a daily basis remind myself that you know he's a person just like me he makes mistakes and that you know his mistakes is between him and god you know and that's his work to do and let me just remind myself that you know i'm gonna say that i forgive him even though in this moment i don't want to i don't feel like i want to um but i would just say i forgive him i forgive him for things that he said i forgive him for the way that he treated me and little by little my heart started to go in that direction too yeah because i think this is where you know you you you're saying this is the kind of person i want to be do i feel it right now no but this is the actions i want to take because this is the person i want to be so identity starts to drive your actions versus emotions that's right and that was really a critical part of your healing but i also think you know um when we are needing another person to do something especially that person who hurt us if we're needing them to do something for our healing we're in big trouble because likely we're not going to get it if we need them to apologize we need them to change and we need them to be sorry um in order for us to be healed and and grow we might be waiting our whole life and never get that sure never get that apology never get that i'm so sorry will you forgive me we never get that and so you're right to say i can't i can't put my well-being on his shoulders that's right yeah yeah so tell us how you are um you're one of our conquer mentors and i so appreciate your contribution so when newbies come into the conquer site you're going to see deborah giving you some encouragement and some prayer support but um how has it benefited you to just give back to the community well just being a positive person because a lot of times when people come into the community they're just hurting so much and they're going through so much and one of the gifts that i believe that god gave me is a gift of encouragement just not to just say minimize their situation but just to encourage them saying hey you know we've all come from a hard place and it's going to take some time of course but you'll get there if you continue on and conquer i mean we're here for you 24 hours a day there's somebody that will be willing to read what you have to say to listen to listen to you vent and to give you encouragement how are you using some of the things that you've learned and conquer as a parent you mentioned that you're doing some of the core strain stuff with your with your son and so i think other women would find that it's not just for you it's helping you be a better mom and helping him hopefully be more mature right and i mean first of all it's so hard to just see some of those destructive you know behavior show up in in your own child but um just to not jade you know justify argue and i always get the d1 messed up was it defend or um yeah um and so um just to not get caught up in in that place of of doing all that and just to state hey this is where i'm coming from this is what i need you to do and don't make it personal um to just uh be loving still to my son and and that that was a hard one after everything that has happened to basically step out and still figure out how do you still love this person and but at the same time you have to create boundaries and there's going to be consequences but you don't completely just close yourself off as a parent and that is was just so difficult i'm still working on it but i think i'm getting better and i love that you're honest with that so so here's davoria she's a conquer mentor and she doesn't have everything together all the time every place yet and i am the leader and i don't either so i think it's freeing to be able to say we're all still learning we're still growing we're still processing we're still figuring it out and that's part of the beauty of our community is no one has to be perfect you're just learning and and becoming aware of where you have a weak spot or where you fell down and you pull yourself back up and your conquer sisters help you and you keep going you don't beat yourself up you don't get into a hole and stay there you just keep moving through and yes and then once i'm on the conquer side and i let people know hey this is what i'm dealing with just you know they come with all the encouragement to me the same encouragement that i give to them and it's just so heartwarming and healing and i'm just so thankful for that because i still realize i still need that i mean even though i have left well from you know my marriage and but you know i still need conquer in that way to help me get through you know being a parent and the issues that i'm dealing with that absolutely and i think and i love i love our community that way and again we're not perfect some people feel that they don't always get hurt and and we're not perfect in responding so that's part of what we have to learn and we're honest hey i feel this or i feel that um but to be able to be honest with oh i just blew it with my kid and i said this or i called him a name just pray for me please and we can be honest and nobody is saying oh why did you do that you bad person um and so i just think it's so important to have that space where we can be our authentic self good and bad and be encouraged to continue to grow that's right and so as i walk through those steps still and conquer to i mean still have to create a city plan you know and um because at first i was like well what am i gonna do i thought that i was you know in a whole new arena because it was my kid and not my husband but after a while it started to you know become obvious to me to where you have the tools and you have the tools available to you um to help strengthen you and to walk through this process of uh parenting a kid that may be destructive and so i started the steps once again and just you know realizing that hey i have to create first of all awakening to what was going on all over again and not you know being so angry about that and forgiving and then realizing that i have some work to do i'm not a perfect parent even though as a parent you know i thought that hey you know i have a lot together but then realizing areas that i needed to strengthen and that um that i need to work on myself and that helped me stop focusing on the issue because it's your marriage and for me but it's a whole nother thing when it's your child i mean it just it's like you know and um like you always say when someone you know you get hit with a poisonous arrow to how to apply that antidote oh that i had to continually do that over and over like you know my big circle i'm a good parent you know i i don't react i respond you know and all that stuff i had to continue doing those different things over and over again and i have gotten better and i'm proud of myself yeah good for you and i think deborah the thing that you're saying that i would just want to reinforce is you are doing the best job you know how to do to be a good parent you have to leave the outcome up to god you don't know how your son's going to respond whether he's going to value this whether he's going to learn from it this year or next year or not till he's 25 and remember back hey my mom tried to teach me this when i was you know a teenager and i wasn't willing to listen so god is going to be glorified in all of this and your job is to do the right thing with your son and be the parent that god calls you to be but you can't make him and so here's where we often get discouraged like we do the right thing because we think okay now he'll get it now he'll change now he'll do it now he'll love me now and he doesn't and then we think well then this didn't work we got it and we don't want to do it that way we want to say oh this is my job this is my work to be the best parent i know how to be here to take the next right step and i can't control what they're going to do but i'm not going to get discouraged by what they do or what they don't do i'm going to keep on my parent to grow yeah thanks so much yeah oh yeah that's where i started that kind of running myself ragged thinking that you know all the talking on the lecturing that that was going to get him to change and like he said leaving that outcome to god and just being able to walk away saying that i've done the best job that i know how and if i had to stand in front of god you know i think he'd agree yes yes well thank you so much for sharing your story and i appreciate you showing up today and uh helping the conquer uh current conquer members watching and those who are considering being a conqueror member to understand what a loving and um helpful community we are so thanks so much for you bye-bye all right thank you so i am going to add one more conquer sister to share and then we're gonna close up boy it's gone fast hasn't it i didn't think of how am i gonna talk for three hours thankfully i haven't had to talk the whole time but we're gonna invite mary beth roberts hi mary beth how are you hi how are you it's so happy to meet you and well kind of in person person in internet land world but so i was just so thrilled to watch your story that julie did and how you have just come through this dark place and now you're thriving and flourishing and so just tell us a little bit about you know how you joined conquer you were trying to get some support for what you were going through from your family which is great they were trying to be supportive but it wasn't enough yeah well um yes uh eight counselors um you know going through the process of like i don't understand you know i'm in a confusing marriage hopeless despair and after the counselors basically um was it wasn't helpful number eight counselors number seven was me going myself uh and i started to wake up a little bit but then they really weren't that helpful and that's when i started to take my situation out of the counseling uh room and i started to tell my family and one of the the people that i told was my one of my sisters and she was a tremendous help to me i called her my triage nurse it was like that emergency care and i was so so blessed to have so many people believe my story but one of the things that i recognize is that in the counseling office or with pastors i that there was always this setup of of of it's it's a disappointing and a difficult marriage but then when i went online and started to do research of my own i found you and there was a webinar that was that spoke about the emotionally destructive marriage and that was an eye-opener to me because up until this point i only saw myself in the category of being in a disappointing and destructive marriage not destructive disappointing and difficult marriage even my sister although she helped me so much i also saw that i was also in that category with her at some level and i realized that he couldn't really take me the rest of the way and i needed specialized care i needed like an expert i needed long-term care and so you know after listening to your your webinar on the emotionally destructive marriage i just you two do endlessly i think i listen to every single youtube you put all my different hairstyles right oh and i love your i'm a hairdresser so i always like oh leslie's hair looks really good i think she just had it done today and but then i found conker and i totally jumped in and so i've been a concert member for two over two and a half years and i am not the same person i was back then i have clarity uh i understand what happened i learned the difference between covert abuse and and overt abuse i i learned that uh stonewalling and the silent treatment which was part of my 16-year marriage was a control tactic um cruel cruel uh and so i did end up separating and i am still separated i am not divorced uh i i made a pact with god not a pack with god but i i you know learned through conquer what it meant to lay your husband down on the altar some of the terms that i learned in conquer were things that i had never even heard of before so i laid him down on the altar and one of the things that i did is i took my wedding ring off of my left hand and i put it on my right hand and i said god i lay him down on the altar he belongs to you and this now is between me and you and and the word is still out on that uh but i'm not seeking divorce but i have no um hope that there will be any change or any kind of reconciliation but uh but what i've learned through conquer is i have learned now to steward my own life and i would say one of the biggest takeaways for me as what you always say is to do your own work and i take that with me uh you know i back in january i i decided that i needed to say farewell to conquer and um i said you know i think i don't need it anymore i think i've done my own work uh core and jade those those are two things for you who are listening that you will learn about that's part of my dna now it's like i live life with that in my mind it guides me and god has used that tremendously so i you know it's really interesting so i said i think i need to say farewell because i need to live again and and and i know that i am and that even though i hit that button that said you know i'm i'm saying goodbye it was a little scary moment but i knew it was the right thing to do but i leave like i said uh with the idea of do your own work i'm doing my own work and i'm going to continue to do my own work and i am not the same person i used to be i don't take responsibility anymore for other people's lives i don't rescue uh i don't regulate anybody else's life anymore for them or their emotions um i'm i still have maintained my empathy and my compassion but i now do it in a healthier way can you describe that like what's what's different about the way that you can still be empathetic and compassionate but you're not enabling you're not uh doing it in a dysfunctional kind of way okay so uh one of the things that occurred through after the separation actually before the separation is my mother who is uh uh lives with me now we moved her up from florida because she has mild dementia so one of the things that i noticed about my mom is that if she saw me ready to go out she would start to pout she and i started to realize wow you know i think that this is some of the things that she did to me even all through my life and it would work on me you know probably you know some of the things that my husband used on me worked right so i um i began to notice that and one day i finally said to her i said mom i said you know i want to just say that it must be really hard that you moved there from florida and that everything is new and it must be really hard i really sympathize with you i really do it it must be it's not an easy place to be but i need to go out and i need it to be okay and i need you to not be mad at me for it and you know what she got it and i it was a moment and i had another story of a very good girlfriend of mine for like 40 years it was a little incident that we had and instead of running away i entered in with love and compassion and we were able to get through it so i noticed that even even though i came through a destructive marriage i actually it's changed all my relationships because i i think i had to grow i i definitely you know and um yeah i needed to grow and i have and now i take those things with me and i recognize it's like don't do it don't arrest you that's their responsibility it's not yours and i'm so much happier yeah i see that and that's so important and i love that you said this with your mother and your girlfriend because all relationships have these bumps where you have to say to someone hey i'm not okay with this you know i'm not okay that you're pouting and making trying to make me feel bad so i don't go i understand your life is hard all those kind of things and the fact that your mother was able to hear you and say you know yeah you're right i shouldn't do this you know that's what helps restore and repair relationship breaches if you had been able to say that to your husband i'm sure you tried i don't like this though don't walling in silent treatment and he's saying i don't give a rip i'm going to do it anyway maybe he didn't say that verbally but that's his actions that's where it shows you that you you can't repair this relationship when jesus says go to someone who sins against you you talk to them and they you know repent you you've actually made this relationship safer and better because now we can talk about these things but when you go to someone and they just you know give you the silent treatment or stonewall you or tell you you're nuts or won't talk about you won't talk about it with you it won't repent you don't you can't fix this breach in the relationship exactly it was it before i left my husband didn't talk to me for three months and i literally five days before i went to him because i knew i was leaving and i had a safety plan you know it was you know 16 years of marriage it's way too long to tell and all those stories along for sure but uh five days before i left i literally went into him and i said with kindness i learned like to be clothed with kindness you know and i went with a kind gentle heart really wanting to speak to him and i said listen you know we haven't had a conversation in three months and i would love to have a conversation with you but i can't make you talk to me but i would love to have a conversation with you but then i asked him a question i said and i didn't mean to be snarky it might he took it that way and i said but i i just have a question i said is is this the man that you want to be is it's really the man that you want to be and i might have been i might as well have been wallpaper on the wall but you know what i did notice when i went in i did ask him i said you know can i talk to you for a moment and he didn't answer me if that was me today i would have left the room yeah i wouldn't have tried to pursue him and go please to me and talk to me i would have left the room because he wouldn't have answered me and i was like okay yeah i wouldn't have continued so i've learned so much but then five days later i did leave and i had the opportunity to say something to him then all of a sudden he said you know can we talk and i said we can i said i just tried to talk to you five days ago and you slam the door on me and he goes i shut the door and i was like you did you shut the door on me you were unwilling to enter into this relationship i said you might have thought that going using the silent treatment going silent was a position of power is that i say it's a position of weakness you didn't show up you didn't show up with your voice and i left and i'm hoping he's doing his own work uh i don't see any evidence of it but i lay him on walter and god is big enough and i'm stewarding my own life and i i am living again i have peace i'm no longer physically sick that was one of the reasons i had to leave i was i was falling apart physically i was getting ill and meanwhile i'm like i've been a marathon runner and i've been very fit i was i said if i don't leave i think i'm going to get sick and die it does take its toll on our physical health to be the bible tells that that you know living with a angry person whether they're giving you the silent treatment or they're berating you all the time it takes its toll on you yeah there's a lot of content so i i did you know there was a lot of spiritual abuse and i really had a hard time i thought that god if i left that god would leave me and it's that's not what happened and you really really i'm sorry i'm gonna cry because he really helped me with that the most important thing to me is my relationship with god and i was so terrified that he would turn from me and that is not what happened in fact i have a much closer relationship with god and i feel like god also taught me this stop letting other people make the decisions for you like i had to say to a pastor when he wouldn't give me help me with a therapeutic separation i had to say okay in good conscience you can't help me then i'm just going to inform you right now that i'm leaving i'm separated that was a turning point for me i was like you know god has taught me to trust him and to not give over my power and decisions that uh for other people to make in my life yeah it's doesn't work like that yeah it doesn't if you needed chemotherapy you wouldn't give your pastor that decision right and yet we we give them a lot of power over our lives and i'm not saying the multitude of counselors or his wisdom get a second opinion from your doctor even but but but you must and i think this is really important i'm glad you brought this up marilyn because sometimes i mean mary beth because sometimes people say to me oh leslie am i doing the right thing can you tell me you know what to do and that's not my job my job is to empower you to think for yourself my job is for you to know yourself so well and to know god's word so well that you know what the right next step is i don't have to tell you that and so to move from a dependent needy tell me what to do position which is more of a childlike position to a healthy strong adult woman who knows what to do um and if you don't know what to do to trust god we'll show you what to do um it's an amazing piece of freedom and health and wellness that you can't buy anywhere you want that and you've got that now yes and i love that you even said that because that was one of the things i thought about is that yeah not giving your even you even conquer the two and a half years i was in conquer nobody told me what to do it's just i was i i got educated i got clarity god used it to grow me but all the decisions over the last two and a half years for me were made by me prayerfully and like i love what you say that to be clothed with strength and dignity i'm like i am so close with strength and dignity and i make decisions that proverbs you know 31 women she was going out and buying property and she was doing all kinds of things that she was making decisions for herself that benefited other people but her husband liked it yeah great of course but she was living and stewing stewarding her own life so powerful yeah yeah well thank you so much for sharing your story with us and and i just loved to see how you went from feeling completely empty and depleted and despondent to you know strong and stable and unafraid and mature and that is what we want for women who are in this place because this kind of marriage we just went through proverbs and it depletes you it empties you out and god isn't asking you to stay in a depleted state just to enable this dysfunction to continue so i appreciate your courage and taking those steps we pray that your husband begins to wake up for himself and say no i don't want to be that kind of man and i need to do some work in order to know how to handle my emotions without shutting down right so he just kind of shuts himself completely down for three months which isn't healthy either but you can't fix him only he can fix them so thanks for sharing i appreciate it thank you all right bye-bye all right wow we are almost at our three-hour mark we have five minutes left so what do i want to share with you in the next five minutes that will be meaningful to you that you haven't already heard a million times and the biggest thing i want to share with you is that god has a plan for your life you've heard that but do you believe that and it's not to be somebody's whipping block it's not to be someone's object to use you are a person a cherished beautiful person and that god cares about you he always cared about women that's why he protected them with the divorce laws in the old testament because it was a very patriarchal culture that's why he protected slaves in the ways that slaves were treated he didn't say oh we can't have slavery that wasn't it wasn't appropriate for that culture yet but he did say hey we don't treat our slaves this way he was always concerned for the oppressed and the underdog and he's always concerned for the lowest of the low and if you're in another country where you don't have the same legal rights that we might have in the u.s you still need to get strong and you still need to know that god loves you and cares for you and you are not alone conquer has begun an international reach we have people in england we have quite a bit from australia new zealand i saw some people join from germany and africa and it's shocking to me what god is doing in this community but i believe it's going to be bigger than just our own support within one another i believe he's equipping women to go into their local churches and help other women and we can do this week we can't just depend on the pastor anymore in fact the pastors need to be educated on how to do this because they're not taught about this in seminary and they're taught to value the sanctity of marriage more than the safety and sanity of the people in it they wouldn't quite say it that way but that's how they behave and so we're having the opportunities pastors are more open than they ever have been to learning some new things more books are coming out on this from pastors and and i would just i'm encouraged and grateful for that but we have a lot of work to do so if you are feeling broken and alone and confused and scared and you need some girlfriends who know what your life is like who will really rally around you not make your decisions for you but help you to get stronger give you intensive care um all for the fraction of a price of eight counselors that you might go to over the years or 25 counselors some of you have gone to you've spent tons of money thousands of dollars on marital intensives that don't work because this kind of problem is not a marriage problem it causes marriage problems but it's not the root cause and so let's start with you and we invite you if you're a christian woman in an emotionally destructive marriage or getting out of one or have been out of one but still recognize that there's behaviors in yourself that may lead you to being a victimized person again or with your children your adult children and you need to learn these tools we would highly encourage you to join conquer now we close our doors at midnight tonight you won't be able to come in you go on a waitlist like devoria said she was on a waitlist for white you wanna wait list for another five months we'll open up again in september but it will be a higher price um because we're offering so much more services than we did six years ago when we started at 27 dollars a month it's not a big cost 270 dollars for a whole year of this kind of support is most of you could get that together pretty fast and if you can't we do offer conquer scholarships and so if you are you know highly motivated and you want to do your work and you absolutely have no funds at all write us a note and let us know what's going what's your story and why it would be helpful for you to be in conquer and we do have support money and scholarship money from former people in concord who want to support other women and i often give lots of scholarships and so we don't want you not to be a part because of cost but the cost is pretty low for most of you and if you're buying starbucks and you're going to the movies and you're having other things i'm sure you can pull up 27 a month for your own self-care some of you spend that on a manicure every month so if your heart is being crushed if you're feeling like you need some oxygen spiritually you need some fresh air that god cares for you as a woman he doesn't just care about your marriage he doesn't just care about your husband he cares about you then i would highly encourage you to check us out you can quit anytime so it really is no risk i mean how many of you spend 27 on something you try and maybe you don't like it it's okay it's not a big risk for most of you and so if you come into the membership and you're there for a couple months or and it's not for you you just tell us and you're done but don't miss this opportunity because you're scared scared isn't a good place to make a decision from put your brave on and i want to close with you doing this one thing we're going to make the next right decision and i don't know what's right for you i don't know if it's right for you to join conquer but i want you to put your hand right on your belly put both of your hands on your belly and then take your right hand and put it on your heart and just say god what is the next right choice for me is it to join conquer or not what do you hear because some of you might be saying no i'm too scared that's not where you make your decision from put your hand on your belly put your hand on your heart and ask yourself what's the next right decision even if i'm scared what's the next right decision and you usually know you usually know pretty clearly and remember jenny said obedience is her new addiction do what god is calling you to do next whatever that is and it might be call your pastor your counselor join conquer i don't know what it is but if it's to join conquer then do it click that link leslie bernick.com forward slash conquer sign up now because if you forget and then you get busy and tomorrow rolls around oh my gosh i was gonna go join concord you can't you can't we don't let you in even if you call us and say oh i meant to join yesterday we don't i'm not lying here we don't and so if that decision for you is to join conquer now then join conquer now all right do it right now it's not going to take a long time and we would love to welcome you into our community we have a secret facebook page that you're going to join as a newbie with all the other newbies so that you get to know your newbie sisters right away and we're going to go through the conquer journey together in this new conquer journey facebook page and then we'll put you in the regular conquer facebook page once we're done with that because otherwise it just gets too crowded and too big and too noisy so we want to keep the two groups a little bit separate for now and the newbies get a little bit more attention from some of our coaches at the beginning so you can get your questions answered we're going to start with our celebration wednesday so you want to be a part of that and get on the facebook page by then but you will get all the instructions you need as soon as you click that join conquer now so if you want to be a part of our group today's our last day thank you so much for being with us these three hours it has gone fast and i think it's been really fun and i hope you enjoyed it and been blessed all right take care god bless see you in the conquer journey bye-bye i don't know how to stop this my text where's that i don't see any in broadcast there it is bye guys

Channel: Leslie Vernick

Views: 6,015

Rating: 4.927711 out of 5

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Id: mcHhp8ivRjY

Length: 187min 37sec (11257 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021