S3 E2: Kasey Van Norman - Nothing Wasted

Y'all, this is Casey Van Norman, and if you don't know who she is, you should totally know who she is for a long list of reasons. One is it is, uh, rare for me to find and connect with people who out of the gate are authentic to themselves but also interested in the authentic you too. The few times that we had to connect before she came and hung out with me at the Sister Circle Retreat, it was like— and it wasn't just me, because I watched her do it with other people. She's one of those— it doesn't matter what you're saying, she's looking deep into your eyes because she's trying to see the depths of your soul.

Yeah, that's so annoying, right?

Very intense.

Look away.

But also very intentional. And, and you know how people can talk to you and they're talking to you, but they're not really listening? She is actually really listening. That's also because she is wired that way, but also trained that way. You're a licensed counselor. Yes. And what is your— like, do you have a focus? Like, what is your— do you have a specialty or area where you prefer or enjoy?

I really enjoy addiction recovery. As far as enjoy, I, I I get it. I think I get the addict brain. I connect with that because I was an addict. And so the things that they're saying, I'm connecting to, oh, I have felt that, I have experienced that. Maybe not to the degree that you are, but when you've been in such an extreme state of hopelessness and despair, when you— what I love is watching someone get the tools that they need to see things differently, that there's another way. And then on the other side, because addiction is so dark and your behavior and your thoughts are so extreme, but they're also that way on the good side. So when you really come out of addiction spiral— and I don't just mean drugs, I don't just mean alcohol, I mean a pornography addiction, or I've even worked with addiction to shopping, or just all forms of encompassing thought patterns that have become what we need, what we have to have to feel normal, anything like that. Mine was prescription drugs and went to rehab and the whole nine yards. And that, when you really get it and when you really are done with that thing, The way that you're living on the other side of that, you cannot be 100% yourself in every moment with every person because you've had this thing happen to you that's brought you to death. I mean, it's brought everything that you wanted, the facade that you wanted to be true, and every lie you've attempted and every Band-Aid, you've done it. I mean, you really have been to Well, for me, almost the end of my life, you know, attempted to take my life with prescription pills. And so I did an OD, and I did live, and now that life, I just love to watch that process. So, yes, I do, I have a specialty in addiction recovery, chemical dependency, yes. And that's the work I do right now.

Your story actually is pretty captivating, and the more we talk and the more I have an opportunity to get to know you, I get to find out another layer of your story. But you've had, you know, you mentioned addiction and you mentioned, you've mentioned to me, you know, just the upbringing and some stuff that was hard there. But all of that kind of culminated for you, kind of added up for you to struggle that you had with infidelity. But you're a church girl.

In my marriage, yes. Oh yes.

I mean, so it's a whole situation. And you wrote a whole book about it. I mean, if y'all have not heard of Casey or this book, Nothing Wasted, and you're wondering, can God actually take all the stuff, the traumatic stuff, the messed up stuff, the jacked up stuff, and do something with it? You would say yes?

I would say yes.

Unequivocally?

I have to say yes. I stand in it.

So why? What was the deal?

Yeah, so here's the deal. So this is about 5 years ago, and I want to write this book, and I've already written 2 books, and I've kind of— but the 2 books, they were watered down. So told parts of my story, they were safe. I mean, there's a lot of Christian publishing world that kind of reins you in anyways, and makes everything apply back to the Bible or whatever. So I had— I just didn't have— I shouldn't have written it then. But here's what happened. I was getting very disgruntled, especially as a therapist, because I know that physiologically we cannot separate from our story. We cannot separate from our past. Our memories are hardwired into us, and they very much are shaping what we believe. Everything that's happened to us is shaping what really— but I'm starting to hear these messages. And then the rise of social media and the rise of Pinterest and all the pretty watercolor things. And I even have it in my office. I have a picture that a girl painted me when I was teaching at a retreat, and it had these flowers around it, this watercolor. And it says, you are not your past. You are not your past, so don't look back, just keep moving forward. And I would stare at that. I hung it in my office and I would stare at it as I'm like working through my stuff, thinking about this. I want to say these things out loud. I want to put these things on paper. And that bothers me. It sounds pretty. It makes sense. And I know what it's saying ultimately is— there's truth to that. I get what we're all saying, that ultimately God in his His opinion, His affirmation, who we are in Him is all that matters. That's what we're saying, and I get that, I believe that. But I just don't know if it's the most helpful thing to say because, especially in the world we're living in now where messaging is so fast and people are telling us what we need to believe, what we should believe, and not to look back, to believe that we are separated from our past. And it was extremely unhelpful for me because I'd lived so much past. I mean, I had so much backlog of trauma and victimization and abuse, and then my own horrific offender. I mean, I became the woman I said I would never become. I did the things I said I would never do. How did that happen? And if I don't stop for a minute and take a full accounting and inventory of my whole life. And then not just that, not just look back and have a good therapy session and a good journaling session, but actually say, could God have used this? Could he have allowed this? Could he have— I know I'm asking really deep theological— I get that. And I'm— this book is not asking anyone to adopt my theology or adopt where I've landed with God. But I am asking people to start to ask this question and start to ask hard questions. And if God could have stopped something but he didn't, what does that mean? And the main culmination of this is where— what you would bring up as an adult in my marriage. But this was— parents are dealing with their stuff and really dysfunctional ways, alcoholism being the main thing. My mom was a manic depressive. My dad, alcoholic. And I— but we live— I live in Texas, the Bible Belt of the world, and so it's so easy to be a Christian, and that was my drug of choice too. I mean, going to church, that's where all the pretty people were, and if I could just keep going to church, maybe I would turn out like that. And when I was 15, I had a really traumatic experience that I talk about for the first time really in detail in the book. And I was sexually molested and raped by an older man. Now, the reason that this is so impactful in my life and would carry such long-term consequences— yes, all the reasons you would think— but also because I'm at a moment of my life, I'm 15 years old, my parents are not going to church, I'm going to church, I'm there serving, I am in it, and I go to a True Love Waits conference and I walk down front with all the Justin Biebers, the boy band. It's very ironic, you know, there's the boy band, don't have sex with them. And I mean it, I mean, I really do mean it. I signed the thing, I put the ring on my finger, I mean I'm gonna stay pure until I'm married. I'm not gonna have sex until I'm married, and I intend to keep my promise. And 3 months after that, I'm brutally raped by an older man. And the episode is not even what would carry such long-lasting traumatic effects in my life, but the truth— what I now believed in my heart was, "God, I kept my promise." "I kept my end of the deal, but you did not keep yours." Now that's, so that's now the big manifestation of the wound. It wasn't so much that I was wounded by my dad, I was. It wasn't so much the bitterness and resentment I had toward my mom, I did. It wasn't so much the injustice I'd suffered from this man. I was really ticked off at God.

Mhm.

Really, really felt betrayed by him.

Were you rebellious before that, or was your rebellion— well, birthed— I mean, birthed out of that in terms of, you know, that working itself out in your life?

Yes, I was, um, I wanted I wanted men to suffer for his failure.

Were you conscious of that then? Or is that you saying that looking back?

Like, do you remember thinking— Oh, was I conscious? No, probably not. 16, 17, 18. It started to come online when I got married. I got— Justin and I were married when I was young, 20 years old. And I started dating him from the motive of— I really was intrigued by him because he was different. And he asked really good questions, and he had a presence unlike any man I'd ever been with, and I'd been with a lot of men. And he— and why I stayed with Justin is he would not have sex with me. He would— he refused to compromise, and it ticked me off that he— there was nothing I could do. And all my manipulation I learned— every other man caved. I could figure it out, you know, I could It wasn't that difficult, but anyway, just that was all. Every woman's life.

It could have been a whole nother video series.

That would be— let's do that.

Figuring Out Me 101.

Oh, I got it. I got it in here.

You got it?

Oh, I got all kinds of things. Justin was so secure in who he was in Christ that he was not responding to me from a place of deficiency. I was always relating to every human in my life and to God from a place of need, and Justin doesn't need like that. He wants me just because he wants me.

Not because he needs anything from you. Right.

And I've never experienced that kind of love. But I'm so— I've kept my story in. I've never told it. I mean, I kept the rape. I never told anyone about the rape for 10 years. And I get married really with the premise of Justin's goodness might deflect my stuff, you know. Maybe his purity, because he was pure, he'd never— he was a virgin. He'd done all the right things, and he came from this family that was together and intact and healthy and went to church, and they were, they were the family that I longed for and wanted. And that— and, and I loved him. I, as much as I knew of love, I mean, I knew we all only love to the extent that we believe we are loved. And that's the extent that I loved him. And in this situation, you know, we're young, we're all young, we're newly married, we don't have a clue, and we're all doing all the firsts together, and so it's really bonding in a way.

And you're all friends.

It's legitimate.

It's a square crisscross kind of situation.

You are in church together, you are leading together, you're in Sunday school together. Together. And it starts that way, innocent. There's nothing going on, you know, that shouldn't be. And it's all— you're just so captivated and caught up in the fact that you have friends, you're so excited you have friends to do life with that are married also and that get you. And so the doors were, okay, I'm this— I use fixing and helping people to deflect from my own stuff that I don't I have not dealt with. And but then another one was I had horrible abandonment issues and didn't know this at the time, but really wanted a man, specifically a male fixture, to attach to me, to want me. And what also you don't know when you're first married, you're going to go through that bliss where the man wants you, and then They still want you, but it's not the same. They don't have as many words. Their words have run out, you know, and so it's not the same. And you have babies and things change and you're evolving people. And so Justin and I really truly, at 5 years, we just went through a really dark, dry, lonely, dry time in our marriage and we didn't talk. And he was a great father, he was a great husband, he provided, he went to work and he did thing, and he took care of our kids. And it wasn't that— I mean, all the things were, you know, happening, but, but there was no intimacy between us. We were not friends. We were not talking about what was going on. But I was really close to my best friend, and I was helping her with her marriage and some of the problems they were having. And, um, and you're a counselor? I'm a counselor. So she's calling me a lot. Well, then she's calling with him on the phone to say, "Can you talk to us together? We're walking through some of this stuff together." And then just him, he's calling me. So you see, it's very subtle.

And it's sanctioned. She sanctioned him calling. Justifying. Because you're friends and also that you're a professional.

Yes, and we built trust.

And it's safe.

It is safe. We trust each other. We have been through some things together. We've had our babies together. Together at the same time. We sincerely are best friends.

So you're craving intimacy. Here's the place where you're supposed to get it. You're not getting it. And where a lot of people would just sit there and be frustrated and angry, you had an option. You had an option.

Yeah, I did. And I'm justifying that for the sake of— I'm justifying talking to him for the sake of their marriage, for the sake of helping, for the for the sake of ministry. I mean, I'm using all those words, which is right where Satan wants us. And the enemy, the enemy's watching. I mean, it's not like there's no demonic activity here. I mean, he's been studying me for a very long time. He knows what my weaknesses are, my patterns. And I'm weak with men. I want men to validate me. I want men to value me.

Was there ever a time this parallel experience before the infidelity actually started? I mean, you know, in the physical sense.

Yeah.

Where you were aware that Justin was aware enough to be concerned. Was he ever concerned? No. Is that because he trusts you, or is that because he really wasn't looking and didn't want to know?

He was not looking and didn't want to know, and he will be the first to say that. I'm not telling on him. He really says that because he really— his role in this, in our story, in our marriage, is vital to the undoing of me and to me finally receiving grace for myself. So that's the best part of my story, is how he responded to all of this. But he is so quick to stop me in conversations so often. And go, I am not the hero here. Like, I'm telling the story and he will be, you know, in the middle of a group of women and go, whoa, whoa, I'm not the hero.

He's not the hero because he's saying that because he just wants people—

like, he had a role. I mean, he shut down and he— his default, you know, his coping is, well, a lot of men, you know, look away, look away. Yeah, just, it's fine, it's fine. And he will tell you now he totally saw things that didn't feel right. She saw things all the time.

And she didn't say anything?

She did.

Before? Yeah. What did she say? I mean, in terms of—

She—

I mean, she—

oh, yes.

Just as a friend. Did she call you out or was kind of timid around the edge? I don't want to offend you by, like, you assuming that I don't trust you.

There was some of that. And then she So she did it just really graciously. I mean, she would call me out really gracious. She would go, "Y'all, you have a bond with him that I just don't feel like I have. Y'all talk about things that he's never talked to me about." And we were doing these things in front of her, so there was a lot of that.

But women know, and she could feel it.

Oh, she knew.

People can feel it.

She's super discerning, super discerning, and women, of course, I think we're very connected to the energies in the room and the emotions of others and what they need. And, um, so, yeah, but I, but then she, but you know what's, what happens at that beginning is in, in like an affair, especially because there's that thrill at first, and anything that we're, we're suddenly getting that need in us met, we're happy. So for the first, the first of it, everybody's really happy. Like marriages are really good. I mean, I'm making dinner, I am putting makeup on for the first time, and you know, Justin's like, "Who's this woman? I like her," because there's a need in me that's being met by this other man. And I think she even experienced some of that, like I was a great friend to her in that time as far as on the outside.

You need to watch out for your husband's really good friends. Yeah, oh God. Who are friends to you too. But anyway, Yes, we do. But here's my question, because I really, I think just in terms of identification and whatever the addiction is, whatever the struggle is, whatever the sin is, for the woman to see herself, even if this issue is not her issue in this story. The first time, whether it was physical or emotional, 'cause it could have been either, that the first time you totally flipped on, the light switch flipped on, and you said, "I'm that woman." You get off the phone after that long conversation, or you get out of the bed, whichever it is. When you wake up to the that, the disbelief of your actions and who you think you are and what you are doing or have done. What happened in here? What happened in here?

For me personally, my situation was I, well, I was Christian enough to go, okay, that wasn't right. I mean, I knew the Lord enough to go, okay, I cannot do that again. I cannot go. And it was emo— it was just a conversation at first. It was actually a conversation. It moved from phone conversation to in-person conversations. And the very first time I knew that it had crossed the line and compromise was made and that I was falling in love with him and this situation more than God, is I was standing there and I mean, I just felt completely thrilled at this feeling. I was thrilled by this man was seeing me there was attraction, and that had never happened before. I mean, I'd been in a friendship with them for years and years, and I've never been physically attracted, but all of a sudden I'm being seen and known, and things in me are being noticed that Justin's never noticed before and called out. And it is thrilling. It is thrilling to feel that wound and that gaping hole inside of you for one thing. Be, for one moment, be filled.

So you realize you're feeling the thrill. Wait a minute, I care about him because we're best friends and I really do want to help, but hold on a minute, I'm actually meeting this man in person, and when I see him, my physical body, I'm attracted to his physical body.

Yes, yes.

And the light goes on.

Yes.

And then you go home.

So I go home and Okay, so it's not hard for me, unfortunately, to not tell him because there's a laundry list of things I haven't told Justin. So, so that I had made so many compromises with men and manipulated the situation. I was really comfortable in the secrecy and the storyline, and, and, and he—

what he didn't know, I was gonna say, so 3 years Up and down, all around. Yeah. What was the breaking point?

I was dying. And I don't mean a good analogy, like it was a rough time. No, I was dying.

The duplicitousness was killing me.

Sin was killing me. Literally, physically, my hair was falling out, my teeth were turning yellow, my skin, I was so broken up. How do your teeth turn yellow?

What is that? What is teeth?

I'm saying, tell me. Physically, I'm having—

But you're saying it's connected.

Yes, it's all connected. My immune system, now this is a whole other side thing that I write about, and you know this because you're my friend, but I have a tumor growing in my abdomen. That I'd find out later. Not now. Yeah, I don't know anything about cancer, but then even at this time, right, where I'm in the middle of an affair and I'm hiding this, I mean, all of my energy and resources and immune system is going to cover this thing, and it is killing me off from the inside. Mm-hmm. It is all connected, girl.

It's all connected.

Our stress. I mean, do you know the loads of stress, how my immune system is just shutting down in order to— I can't even— that's a whole nother video too. But yeah, I am— so I come to this 3 years— there's about 3 years that this is going on, and it's this roller coaster because we We are in the church, we are leaders in the church, we're actually leading worship all together, teaching Sunday school.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, ma'am. I know you said you know, and y'all were, but, but even Sunday school, it's important, but leading worship, like, that's in front of everybody, and it's a very intimate experience with God.

So many things, so many things. I don't know if that's the right word to say here.

Yeah, it is. To be—

Yeah, it's fake.

Butt naked.

Fake.

In front of God because it's worship.

Yeah.

And have all that going on. The sad thing is that if you're broken and in the church, whether it's internally driven or externally perceived, that you cannot be in a position of believing and struggle, or at least we can admit to the struggle in general terms, but not our struggle.

We've got to change this, Chrystal. We've got to be better. The church has got to start saying the messages that are dealing with real life and then opportunities for people to say those things out loud to one another. And no one walk away.

Hey, listen, I hope you are enjoying my conversation with Casey Van Norman and enjoying our conversation about a story that she has put all of in her book Nothing Wasted. You wrote this so that people would find what?

That God is using you not in spite of your story, but through it, through everything that's happened to you.

If you want to read her book, find out more about her, and out more about how God can use your story, join us for the book club. All you have to do is go to chrystalhurtz.com/bookclub. We'll be reading through Casey's book together. I'll be there, Casey will be there, and a lot of other girls will be there too. And we can grow together in finding out how God can use our story. What did it look like for him after 3 years? He's aware, however that happened.

I start the book there. It picks up right in that conversation when it's over. Ring. It's there. The secret's exposed. She knows. And I've been begging God for a long time. And I've been I hope this encourages somebody who's listening because I think as a believer and you've got people around you, there's accountability, you're in church, you're serving, all of that stuff. You know what you're supposed to be doing. Mm-hmm. But there's a level of brokenness that is so terrifying because you are so broke. I mean, you really— your resources have run out. You are no— you cannot— you're not dependent on anything but the Lord. He's got to save you or you are dead one way or another. Yeah, physically, socially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So could it be one of those three things? Yes. Can it be a collaborative? Yes. For me, it was absolute fallout of all of it. At one time because I was really— I was so good at manipulating the situation.

Well, actually, I asked you that question, what did he say or what was the initial response, but really what brought it to a head? Was it just your decision?

No, oh, I— no, I wish. Okay. I begged the Lord for the courage to make the decision to confess and I never—

And the situation just helped you out.

I was weak, weak, weak. Yeah, weak. Justifying, so prideful. No, the phone records, she found it. She found it. It's her discernment, her spirit.

She was like, "This is not right." Oh, she knew.

And she— we were great at hiding it for a really long time, and we figured out a lot of tricks and stuff along the way, but she— her spirit brought her around those things, and I praise the Lord. That she found it.

From the get-go, was he hurt, devastated, but I'm here? Or was it hurt, devastated, and you didn't know? Justin?

Mm-hmm. Justin's response was absolute shock, and then the awareness that he was shocked like hitting him. Like, what? How have I missed this? How am I such an idiot that I've not seen this happening right underneath, you know? And in my own friendship, I mean, this is not just a loss of his, his wife and what he thought, the world he thought he was living in, but this is his friend too. This is a male friendship that he has trust with and he's invested in.

Yeah, it's all buddy.

Yeah, it's really nutty. And so he just, I'm telling you, his whole life had prepared him for this moment. His whole life had prepared Justin to hear these words. It's crazy. It's crazy. It doesn't make sense, but it's also why I've read this book because I want people to see your whole life has been preparing you He's preparing you for this, this, I can't even give it enough word, not aha, not light bulb, you know, but that, that point in time, that catalyst in your life where everything shifts and changes. And if you've lived it, you know it's true. There's got to come a time when you finally decide God's got to be who he's always said that he is.

Or I'm out.

And his response, his response was Jesus. His response was out of the gate, out of the gate, everything that you want to believe. Yeah, all the things, man.

But I'm saying, was it a Jesus response at the end of the long conversation, or was it a Jesus response after the end of 6 months?

It was Jesus' response the next day.

The next day.

Silence for 24 hours.

Deathly dead silence. I'm packing my bags, thinking I need to hug my kids because if this goes all the way south, there's no way they're gonna be with me. Mm-hmm.

And you know what's so messed up about that moment? Is that you're like telling yourself that this is best.

You know, you're so— Because I'm so jacked.

You're so messed up.

Me being in the home, me being with him, me being a mother fully to these kids is not what any of them need. Me being gone is best for all of them.

It's, oh man, it gives you incredible empathy for anyone at the end of themselves. But yeah, and this is after, and I write kind of this timeline, so after I got the phone call, I tried to OD. After I got the phone call from the guy, ending it, I—

'Cause he was like, my wife knows. Yeah, yeah.

And I was glad, I mean, I like—

Yeah, it's a release.

It was like this huge release.

I don't have to hide it.

And then hours passed and then, oh my gosh.

And then, oh my gosh, I gotta—

Uh-huh, yep. And I had a lot of pills left over from years of addiction and I popped them all. Which you did not do. The crazy thing is, you didn't pass out, you didn't—

I did, I did, I went dark. You went dark.

And, but I called Justin right before, told him what I'd done, panicked, didn't wanna die. No one wants to die, really. We just really fully believe that people would be better off. We're desperate for somebody to tell us they need us and want us. And so I called Justin immediately and told him not about the affair, but about what I'd just done. And he was home and purging me immediately.

Such a sweet word, purging me.

Wow, yeah, profound in every way and saved my life, literally, you know. I don't really know if it was enough. It was enough to black out. I blacked out. I came to. When I came to, I tell him everything. And he's in this really, this is a delicate situation, and he's forced into this. He has been wronged and betrayed, and he's got to deal with this situation, but now he's got this really vulnerable wife that's just come out of this physical attack that he's aware of. And so I think in his kindness and goodness, he just waited. He will tell you, as I'm saying the words, he's— what he will tell you is, as I'm telling him about the affair, he's having an aha moment. He's having an aha moment, but he's not going down without a fight. He's telling himself, even as he's hearing this, I'm not leaving her. This isn't the end. But he's very aware, and he— and the time passes, and I see him physically.

You can see him.

Turmoil, absolute turmoil of all of this situation. So 24 hours passes and then smile. This is the turning point of a whole life.

One day later, he says, "It's Jesus." He gives you his Jesus response. Yes. That response took one day. We're never fully healed. And when people talk about being healed, I don't believe— I could be wrong, but I don't believe that from our deep, deep, deep, deep wounds that we're fully healed because we're human and because if somebody cuts you, it leaves something. Agree. There's something there. However, I do think there's a point of where you're healed enough. It's like, you know, if you're in a situation where you got to go get scans every 3 months, at a certain point those scans, they go out to every year, you know, there's a point of maintenance. How long did it take y'all to get to y'all's homeostasis point? Jesus' response took a day. But y'all, we're in a good place.

Great way of saying it. Yeah, we're in a good place. Um, I love that too. I'm in such agreeance about healing. I just think we're on a journey, and I think there's triggers all throughout our life that are going to bring these and uproot these things in our life.

You'll think you're healed until the trigger comes up.

Yep, yep. And you'll go, I don't believe in triggers, until a trigger happens, right? And it was really, really bad for probably 2, 3 years. Not with him and I, but in the fallout of what all the consequences are.

Yeah, all the other stuff.

Our friends walk, our church asks us to leave.

Yep, all that.

We are very intricately threaded with this other family. Our kids go to the same preschool. I mean, there's a lot of layers here. There's a lot of layers. And we began to petition the Lord. I mean, he's already on the other side of it, but we just had to— we had to start speaking out the possibilities here. Like, we just had to start speaking out things that, Lord, we want your will, we want healing, we want restoration, Lord, we want all of these things, but Lord, we need it. We we need a do-over here. Like, we need to move. We need some physical logistical space.

But you're talking about the external things. Yeah. What about y'all? Because we just— you just saying y'all are praying in agreeance, but yeah, we need something together. That sounds like not all the way there, but it sounds like y'all are at least able to do that.

I feel like— okay, so let me just tell you a little setup of your question.

Yeah.

That could go awry with listeners, and I don't want it to, is it is just so different.

It is different.

So what I— what— because what I get on the road with women mostly is— I'm gonna tell you, girl, I have had hundreds.

Oh yes, honey, because nobody can— nobody can— first of all, if I go to church, I can't tell you. If I'm a woman, I can't tell you. It's a lot— not easier, but more expected for a man to say, "I stepped out of my marriage," than it is for a woman to say that. And where do you go? All the men's ministries are like, "Tell us if you're struggling with porn. Tell us if you're struggling with infidelity." What women's ministry has the woman-to-woman mentoring for that? Why do we think that this is not happening with women?

That porn addiction is not happening with women? That adult— yeah, yeah. So I get hundreds of confessions in a line. I mean, I'm talking like every other woman.

Once you open the door, they want to tell.

Saying not just, I've had an affair, I'm a pastor's wife and I'm in an affair and I don't know what to do. And you're the first woman that has publicly said, me too, me too. And so this is the power of it. But I also want to be cautious with— yes, I want to be cautious with that to go what my healing looked like restoration look like in my marriage may not be what it looks like for you.

Totally.

People are gonna leave and walk, and things are not gonna be storybook endings. And mine hasn't been a storybook ending. It's been a fight every step of the way, and it's hard. And I don't do marriage well. I'm not good at it.

I don't know what that means.

I'm not good at intimacy. I'm not good at choosing him. I still want to go, could there be— like, I have to fight that. I have to fight that every day.

Which is pretty awesome that you can say that, which also means you said that to him. Yeah, oh yeah. And that y'all are in a place where, that's actually pretty powerful, I think. To be actually fully known.

That's the healing. If we're gonna talk about healing this side of glory, like the healing that's available to us, the fullness, the freedom, the knowing, the intimacy, it's just being aware enough to say those things. It's not fixing. It's not me being fixed for you. It's not me being in a place where I've got my act together that I can be your friend or close to you. You may walk away. People are all in a different spot. But it's me being so presently aware of what I know and able to tell you that and let you into that and go, "I'm okay if you walk away." And me and Justin, that was our That was our restoration. That was our story. And so I'm going to tell you timeline for us. And we were intimate with one another about 6 months. I hope I can say this on the air.

That's great.

It was the best sex of our life because fully known. We're fully known. I'm not— my whole sex life with him in a marriage I'd been hiding all of me. You know, that's the nakedness of Adam and Eve. I mean, the symbolism of that is our honesty. They were so fully honest and known with one another, and that is what God wants. And that's why he tells us, don't have sex with people that aren't your marriage— that you're not in a marriage with, because I want you to experience this fullness in a covenantal relationship because it's so much better. I don't want you broken and divided and pieced out over the course of your life trying to spend your marriage mending this thing. I want you to have this whole wonderful, awesome, intense, amazing sexual experience with your partner. And, you know, that, that was the first time we've had that in our marriage.

So because I know your story. And y'all, listen, I mean, not only is there this story, the bigger story is what, what God can do when you decide to believe that all of the stuff, the good stuff, the bad stuff, the ugly stuff, that he can actually do something with all of it and use all of it. And how he does that, did that for Casey, not just with her marriage, but with y'all's friendship, with the friends, your friends. And then there are realities, you know.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

You're probably not meeting him for coffee. Right, exactly. No, we live in the same town. But the reality that there can be healing, but I don't want to have this discussion and not give a word to people whose stories do not end like that.

Right.

Or where the healing process isn't instantaneous and where it wasn't 3 weeks or 3 months or 6 months, but it was 2 years that they were separated, that they're— I mean, you know, what do you say to the woman who's watching this and thinking she's one of those women in line? Or she's a woman in line because her husband has cheated on her.

Mm-hmm, yes.

And it's still messy and may never actually be—

and the marriage may never be intact again.

What encouragement do you have for her, and how can she, with this same message, have hope?

Well, this is the main theme of the book, is that every single experience, even the ones that end disastrously, even the ones that we feel never have the resolution, the reconciliation, that every single thing in our life is unifying us to Jesus. It is purposeful, it is meaningful, and he has— he's before it. He's gone before it, and, and there's not an expectation from him. There's not this thing that we need to be or thing that we need to fix. It's— oh, it's eternal, even the worst of the worst. And maybe my hope would be, it— although it may not make sense now, there's two And there's two pieces I've got to say. One, we see in a mirror dimly, and we may never see the finality of this thing, and it will make sense eternally. It will make sense.

How he used it.

Yes.

Not necessarily what we did or what we experienced, but how he used it.

That's right, how he got glory. How he got glory from it, because everything is for his glory. And so how that happened will make sense to us eternally. But then, secondly, And I end the book on this, and we're not gonna give it away yet because this is the story. What happened? You know, this is the question I get on there. What happened? What happened to your friends? Whatever happened to her and him and what? I talk about that. And I do believe in this life there is more reconciliation and more restoration of the impossible things than we've ever thought. Available to us. And so if the physical relationship did not end well, I still believe that there is work there. I still think God wants to take us further with even the most— yes, there's still redemption, there is still reconciliation, and it might— it may not look like you're in a marriage together, or it may not look like you're in a friendship together, but I do think that he can do some really impossible things, and he can bring healing internally, and fullness and wholeness internally, peace between you, between another, and radical forgiveness, like—

Which you've experienced.

Yes.

The good thing is, is that even even when that radical forgiveness doesn't come, maybe, from the person who wronged you, it always is available from God.

There comes a time, and we're all different, we're all in degrees of glory, and we're all working this thing out, and God knows what all this means eternally, and He sees before this thing, and so our timeline and His timeline so different. He knew where I've come to with the Lord. He was, he was grieving with me. He was, he was not expecting me to be something or deal a different way with me. There was so much grace in the constancy of his presence. And it is, that's true for all of us. And I just love that about the Lord. And the Lord just knew I would need Justin. I would need this man, but I would also need the time for absolute fallout to happen in my life because this lie had so ingrained itself in me, I was gonna choose it pretty much every time.

And the lie was?

At the end I would be rejected.

No matter what.

No matter what. If you knew the most honest version of me, if I was fully myself with you, 100%, it would not— you would leave.

You wouldn't stay.

You would walk away. You wouldn't stay. And that was across the board. That wasn't just men. I believe that in friendships. I believe that in any small group I was ever in, the church corporately, the church small, discipleship groups. So I just learned to craft, you know, these scenarios around people and experiences.

So I have a question. That is a part of who you were and your experience, your expectation, and all these things in your life. Gets set into motion because of that core belief. And, you know, all hell breaks loose. But even though there has been healing, and even though there has been redemption, and even though your perspective has been widened and opened because of what you've experienced as a result of living your life, is it still there?

Yes.

Yeah. So what do you do since there's, since you're 40? Yep.

Would you say it again?

Eh, 40!

Mm-hmm.

I'm 40. And there's a totally different level of awareness. Yep. When you realize Okay, I'm defaulting.

Hey, yeah, good word.

I'm defaulting to my habit or my routine or what's easy for me, which is to think this way. They're not going to stay. To think I need to control the rejection. To think that I need to set things up so that when it hurts, it doesn't hurt that bad. When you realize I'm starting to you say, do, think, feel in those ways, but you're aware because you're 40. What do you do?

This is going to sound super cliché. I have to pull out the word of God. And that sounds— I mean, I literally— when— so when I'm saying that, I'm not saying, oh, I go read the Bible. No. So I have to have a physical— and we— and this is a therapeutic thing too. You have to have a behavioral— a behavior thing that takes the place. So if you're looking at your sin and you're looking at behaviors you have in play or thought processes you depend on or default to that are not trusting God, sometimes it is not enough to just think differently. I mean, I want to do that, and there's maturity and there's growth, but if I'm an alcoholic or if I'm an addict and I don't need to go pull a pill because, see, I know I've got a I have a pretty high tolerance. I could go be high right now and you probably wouldn't know it.

I might be high right now.

Dun dun dun.

This is how rumors get started. I know, I know.

Did you know Chrystal Hurst and Papa Bill? Did you see that girl she's got on there today? I mean, I'm just saying there's got to be a behavior that I do and to not do something else. And sometimes I go, I get very dark in here and I can't just think the right thing and I can't just go tell a friend and call a friend up and say, "Hey, will you talk to me about this?" And what's an example for you of a replacement behavior? Well, that's what I'm telling you, the Bible. Okay, so there is something that's become, I literally go get the Bible and I put it on my chest like this.

Because y'all thought she meant go read a verse.

Yeah, that's what I want to clarify, that I'm not giving the Christianese answer. Sometimes I don't even open it. The behavior of making my hands pick up the only truth bigger than me— it's the only thing alive, it's the only thing that's going to pull me out. Now, I may not even have the discernment and maturity to open and read But I'm gonna go every single time, even if I am feeling or sensing that I'm like, I'm kind of mad, I'm kind of frustrated. God, I'm just really ticked off at you. I don't want to read what you have to say. I know what I'm supposed to do right now. I know what you're gonna say. So I like force my hands to grab the Word of God, and I put it on my chest, and I breathe. I breathe through to God. Because what we'll do is we will get— we'll get stuck in these patterns and we'll stop, and we'll actually tell ourselves the thing that we know, like we'll tell ourselves a verse or truth, or we'll get on a conversation with somebody safe that we trust and talk it through, but it doesn't really get us to the end of it. It just stops the full course of emotions that are supposed to happen sometimes. We have permission to be sad or angry or fearful or doubtful. And I don't think there's anywhere in the scripture where God is not saying, be all those things, do all those things. What he's saying is, just do it with me. Do it all the way to me. Like, let yourself get to me before you stop short. And Sometimes I'm angry and I just hold it and I just breathe through until I can breathe. And that breath turns into a prayer, you know, and maybe the prayer is like, "I don't know, I don't know, why am I feeling this way, God?" I mean, sometimes it's just like that. Sometimes it ends up me opening and walking around and talking and just meditating on one verse. So I don't want it to sound cliché, but I also want that to be just one little practical thing that people can do. You've got to like pick up— don't pick up the phone, don't pick up, you know, a drink or food or the credit card. Pick up the literal Word of God and just hold it close to you and take take some deep breaths and think about what you're thinking about. Think about what you are thinking about. Has this worked before? Like, what's the worst-case scenario right now? What is the worst that could happen here? Where's the qualifiers you're putting up? You know, and I want— and then that's— so that's a large part of this book. This book is short and abbreviated in that this is just kind of the beginning where I want women to work on starting to even identify their story, because we're talking about, Chrystal, you know, I mean, we're not talking to each other about real stuff.

Mm-mm, we do not. Why?

Why? I'm always like, why?

Because of what you just said. Because we all have, to varying degrees, a fear of rejection. And if we can keep the parts of our story story away from you, the ones that are likely to put me in the position of being rejected by you. Why would I give that to you? I think that the problem is, and this is why we are living, you know, in a time where we're not known, is because the deepest thing that we crave, we sabotage by holding back the very thing that makes it possible.

That's good.

If you offer your story and if you offer the truth of who you are, the problem is, yes, the person can reject you, but they can also accept you. And if you don't put it out there, you'll never know. You'll never know. That's right. I do, I do think that we learn though. And unfortunately, a lot of the ways that we learn, we learn when we're teenagers. When we're children, when we're young adults, and then that becomes the baseline for how we perceive everything after that, right? That's right. Yes. But I guess I want you to tell me this though, okay, 'cause you love Jesus, you're a counselor, you know, God's word is supposed to set us free, we're supposed to renew our minds, you know, who is free in the Son is free indeed, all this kind of stuff. So there's somebody who's watching and they're saying, okay, but if you have truly been redeemed, delivered, set free, then the fact that you continue to struggle with that, that means you probably really never were free. There's, there's still, there's something you haven't done because the Jesus I know, you wouldn't still be doing that if you had really dealt with it. So what would you say to them? Because I'm thinking about that person. Yeah. But I'm also thinking about the person who needs to understand what freedom looks like when there's still the ongoing wrestle, and that those two can coexist.

Yeah, I think so. Good. Yeah. So let's talk about what free— what that really means. Okay, why do we want to do this work? Why do we want to open up about our life and our story? Why do we want to read the Bible and obey God? We talk about freedom, we talk about fullness, but what does that look like? And really, the Hebrews got it right when they were writing the Old Testament because every time you see the word life, it is a triple meaning. To live in the fullness of life, to have to guard your heart above all else, for it is the overflow of your life. It means, it means one in three things. It's a social, psychological, and physiological sense of integration. So that's what God means. About life. When he wants you to live in the fullness of life, the finished work of what Jesus has done, the free— the freedom. It's a sense of integration, it's a sense of wholeness, it's a sense that— that's why I can be, you know, 40 years old and yes, I've grown, and yes, I've matured and see things differently, but I'm also still working things out, and I'm also still tempted, and I'm also still very aware of my shortcomings And so really, the fullness for me is that I'm aware. It's not that I've arrived. The fullness of life is that I'm having an experience of God that is real. It's not subjective. It's not a concept. It's not something that someone told me that sounds nice, and it's certainly not something I need to do to get somewhere. I'm having a full moment where my social— like, I am open to you right now on this couch. I am open to a relationship. I have zero guards up. I have zero defenses up. You can ask me anything and I'm going to answer honestly. And even if you walk away, I feel completely, fully accepted. Okay, I have a social experience that's in check with the Spirit of God. I have a physiological experience that's in check. My body is resonating with the energy in this room, with you. I'm adopting and adapting to who you are. I'm being aware of the way that you're sitting, the way that some things I'm saying to you—

you just switched.

You see how I just switched to turn into you?

You're a mirrorer. A mirrorer.

I am.

Yeah.

Yeah, I am. That's good. You're good.

I don't know about that.

You're like, you're really socially on right now.

I'm in tune with you.

You are. But you know, there's energies in the room, there's dynamics when people, when they're sad, when they're hurting, you don't want to just, that's a physical awareness of somebody is in pain and my job right now is not to fix them. My job right now is not to walk in and say, It's gonna be okay, because maybe it's not gonna be okay. Maybe nothing is okay. My job is not to say I'm gonna pray for you, you know. So things like that, I'm aware of that. And then psychologically, I am aware of what's going on in my mind. I am aware of my weaknesses, my issues, the things that have been, the lies I've believed. The lies I still— and so I'm not going to put myself in those situations. I'm going to make choices to not get it. I'm just going to err on the side that I would probably choose that again and do, do the thing that's brought health and wellness and wholeness and freedom to my whole being. And so I— so back to your question, so that's what we want. We want that fullness, that three-part harmony where we are, we are in eternity now.

You're not free of the hard stuff, but you're free to fully experience life, and all of life includes the good stuff and the hard stuff.

Yes, and I'm free to struggle.

And you're free to struggle, but not free to— freedom means that you're free to experience the struggle, but that you don't get stuck there, because that's not fully living.

Right, that's right. Freedom, when you're really free, here's how you know: you want to obey. It switches because you know— so the physical manifestation, the internal manifestation of freedom and fullness of life that I'm living in, there is such a desire in me to obey Christ. I'm not, you know, when I'm stuck, when I'm— and it's me, I'm the God, and I'm back into that shame loop, or I'm listening to that old lie, and it's starting to rehearse itself.

Good word, shame loop. That's exactly what it is.

Yeah, when I'm trying to fix somebody else, or I'm wanting to save somebody else, or I start to have expectation or need for them, you know, to feel something to me, the check for me is Okay, what, where am I, what am I doing all the Christian things from? Why am I going to church? Why am I reading my Bible? Why do I feel like sacrificing anything? And, and the only reason is because I am so fully loved in Christ. I am so fully— I belong to him totally. It's done. There is nothing that I have done. This That's why I want people to look at their past. Because until you believe that over your past, that there's nothing you have done, there's nothing you will do, nothing you're doing right now that's going to compromise the way that He sees you. And we can go our entire Christian life and not get that. Mm-hmm. We can be Christians in the church, in leadership, writing Bible studies, leading worship, all the things, and be in absolute bondage. And that's what I want to change for us. That's what I want. But when you start to look at your life and go, oh my, oh my goodness, if this is how I've always been loved, if this has always been true of me, and my faith, my obedience, and my faithfulness is not creating something, it is apprehending what is true of me, what has always been true of me. And if I can believe that over every encounter and every relationship, that it's eternal. I have meaning. My existence matters. And he's always pointing us back to that. He wants to be the one that satisfies us, and he doesn't want all these people to be—

and who we're willing to be, who we can be fully known by no matter what, right?

Fully accepted in him. And when we We believe that, wow, the weight is lifted. And now I don't run off to, you know, when Justin's not seeing me, when I don't feel known in a friendship, I don't look to humans to get that need met anymore. He is all things simultaneously. He's my sustainer, He's my healer, He's my redeemer, He's my friend, my Father, my lover. He is all those things at once. Because he is satisfying me. I'm not just, you know, shifting around the external things anymore. I'm internally—

you don't have to control who gives you those things because there's one person who can give you all things.

Yeah, it's so awesome. It's so awesome. Now I can love like he loves. It's the only way I can love like he loves without needing anything.

It's because your tank is full. Yes.

And no person did that for me. I didn't do it for me. I didn't control or manipulate a situation. I didn't compromise somewhere. I just believed who He said, He says I am. I believed Him. And that is such a joyful, liberating place to live.

Well, because you believe him and because you're willing to share a lot of the hard stuff, it makes it easy to believe you. And I really believe that the message that you carry, which is God can use all the stuff, your willingness to be honest, to be open, when people are able to believe you, that leads them to be able to believe God.

That means so much to me. It really does. This moment means so much to me. From a girl who's gone a long time without really good friends to be in a— on a couch with a friend that I admire so much. And learn so much from, but also just feel very seen by and not judged by. You're not judgy at all, you know. No, but I'm in a sister circle, literally. I mean, that is the proof of the good love of God. It really is.

Well, when you know how much you've been needed that kind of love, it makes it really easy for you to extend it to others and not judge others. Really easy. Because we're all only one step away from needing, needing to be filled.

Oh yeah. Only one step away. Well, thank you for loving me, friend. Thank you.

Love you.

Love y'all.

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