221 - Stories Of Healing: Harry Flanagan

You're listening to the Pure Desire Podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues. Hello. Hello. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 221 of the Pure Desire podcast here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

So good, so good.

Crickets from over here.

You know, if you could pull that reference, I would have, like walked across the room to give you a high five. Because I may not even be quoting it correctly, but have you watched the story of Alex Hanold climbing free solo?

Oh, no, I haven't yet.

Oh, my goodness, that movie. It's a documentary about his climb on Disney plus, right? Yeah. What's El Capitan? I think is the cliff face. It's like the largest single rock climbing face. And he did it with no ropes. No. And spoiler alert, he doesn't die. Which I actually, I had to pause the movie halfway through because it is so intense and like, and I am. I'm afraid of heights. And so there were scenes that were just like, I'm like covering my eyes. Like it's a horror film and it's just this guy hanging off cliffs. But I was like, I need to know if he dies or not, because this is.

Did you fast forward to the end?

Yeah, well, I just googled. I'm like, okay, he survives. But when he successfully solo climbs that face at the top, and he's a really interesting guy, his reaction is like that. He just goes so good. You're like, man, if it was me, I'm like jumping up and down.

Seriously.

Actually, the movie talks about that's part of why he was able to do it, is because his kind of adrenaline receptors are just set different than you and I. And so the way he responds is really classic. Anyway, long story short, say that's where I got today's intro.

There you go. That's a good one. A unique one, kind of eclectic one. Nicely done. Today we had on Harry Flanagan, who's one of our clinicians and was, I believe, the first full time employee at Pure Desire, starting back in 2007. And we really, I mean, we hear Harry's story in the seven pillars of Freedom, some of it in Pillar two, I believe. But we've never actually just sat down with him and had him share his story. So today we get to hear his story of healing.

Yeah, yeah. And Harry shares some of his story in the book Pure Desire. And that's why I use today's intro, because I just kept as I hear Harry talk, just kept saying, so. This is so good. This is so good.

It.

Yes, it. Honestly, for me, Trevor felt a little bit like sitting in some sacred space of like, you know, people like Harry and Ted, they're in their retirement year, like, they're not going to be around forever. And I, you know, Lord willing, we'll still have decades with them, but it's like their stories of healing at the beginning of Pure Desire are still what kind of form, the root foundation of this ministry. And so it just felt like we were getting to hear, you know, from an anchor, from. From a. An. Not an ancestor. What am I trying to think? A father in our midst. And it was really a special time. I think he has so many insights that whether you're in year one of your journey or year 20, there's things he says that are just going to resonate. And I'm really, really excited for people to hear this. This episode.

Yeah, it really was excellent. A few things before we get into it. Subscribe to the podcast. We're on all platforms. Follow us on social media. Pur DesirePDMI. And we'll also have these episodes up on YouTube, these full episodes. And then, Nick, we just want to circle back every once in a while and remind people of something called Team 58.

Team 58. Yes. Don't you want to be a part of the team, Trevor? We'll give you a hat, give you a shirt.

Spoiler alert. I'm already part of the team.

Team 58 is the name we gave to those who have chosen to be a part of the mission by being a regular monthly donor to Pure Desire. And it comes out of Isaiah 58, where the prophet says that your salvation will come quickly, like the dawn. And when it does, he says, at the end, you will be those who rebuild the broken cities and restore the fallen walls. And that's what we look at to say when we've experienced healing, that our healing is a kind of salvation, that when it comes, we can turn and be a part of helping others rebuild their broken lives, restore their families. And what a joy it is to see God multiply our healing. And so becoming a monthly donor is so much more than just the money itself. It's a way of saying, I'm paying forward my healing, and I am a part of that Team 58 that is continuing to make a difference in this world. And so we are just so excited to see, even over the last few months, as we've started to talk about it on the podcast, people are jumping on board. And it's making a difference because it's multiplying the resources that we have available to us to together keep telling that story to people that need to know there's hope and that freedom is possible.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's so many relationships, families, and communities that we get to be a part of rebuilding. So if you want to join team 58, go to PureDesire.org give, give and join the team today. All right, here's our time with Harry, AKA his actual nickname is Father Flanagan. And here he is. Here is his story of healing. Harry Flanagan, welcome back to the podcast.

Glad to be here.

It's been a while.

It has been several months. Yes.

You're a lot taller than the last time.

I think the last time we had Harry on, you were on pregnancy leave or baby leave.

Because I had just had a baby.

Yeah.

Personally. Yes.

But I interviewed Harry over Zoom.

That's right.

And tried to be the host, but Harry did a great job. I don't know how I did as the host, but it was good to.

We haven't heard any negative feedback. I think you did great.

It was over a year ago.

Did we hear any feedback? That's what I want to know.

I don't know.

Yes.

If you have comments, please send them to Harry. His email is. Okay.

I'm just kidding.

Okay. So we've had you on a couple times. You're obviously one of the staple, like og, as I've said before, people here at Pure Desire, and you do a lot of counseling, but I think because men who've gone through seven pillars get pieces of your story. But then there are a lot of people who maybe haven't been through those, you know, the second pillar in a while. And maybe people who haven't been through.

Pillars or they're female.

Totally. Right. That want to know your story.

Beyond.

You have a powerful story and a powerful ministry now. So we wanted to just share that story with our listeners.

So the origins of Pure Desire were in July of 1993. Only then it was called for men Only and for Women only. And I came in October as a fallen pastor. I was the very first guinea pig for Pure Desire from a denomination point of view of restoring a pastor. And we had none of the tools that we have today. None. It was interesting, but at the very core of all that, in a conversation with Ted, there was a few things that he said to me that were significant to help me move forward. And one was my past doesn't determine my future. And he was adamant about that. And secondly, he said, he dresses as a pastor, but he's still a Marine. Right, right. And he made it very, very clear that if I tried to minimize any sin, he was going to have me pinned against the wall. But he also said the same thing to me about minimizing me. And he presented a balance that I had never experienced before. And then he said, God has not taken his hand off of me, but that I am to be his hands extended to a hurting world, which was a theme for him at East Hill Church. But it was personal to me that I believe that that was my calling, although I had no idea what that was going to evolve into because we went through so many different versions of trying to figure out what would make four men only, four women only successful. One of the things we learned is you don't put betrayed women in the same group with women who were the betrayers.

Sure. You know, good luck.

That was a hard lesson to learn, for sure.

For sure. So a little bit your backstory, you were a pastor, and then can you kind of talk about that, how. How you had that moral failing and then was introduced to pure desire? Can you give our listeners a little bit of backstory there?

Yeah. I was pastoring on the Oregon coast. I had a church in Astoria, and I had been there for 13 years. And I had. I had a history going clear back to age 9 with pornography. And I had discovered my father's stash, and it was never addressed in my family. And I had learned at a very early age to have a secret life. In fact, behind all addictions is trauma and pain. And for me, my parents literally told me, we need you to be the compliant child because we're having so much problems with your little sister. Wow. And my father told me, I know it must be wrong, but I don't know what else to do. But what it did is it drove me into the secret life because I wasn't to have problems. And I even sought help outside of the family. I went to the school counselor, and after visiting with me, he said, harry, I can't meet with you again because I need to work with people who have real problems.

Oh, wow.

So my hope was in the addiction.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then, as addictions go, eventually I married, had three beautiful boys, but I felt like my family didn't need me. And I ended up in three long term affairs with women in the church. And I was the classic case of the hypocrite. And I was so afraid of seeking help because I feared that I would be rejected by Everybody. And in fact, that's what happened when my sin was exposed. My oldest son overheard a conversation and he revealed it to his mother. And that began the process of. I stayed for a month helping to get the house ready to sell, but the family was going to move back to Eugene and they were putting an interim pastor into the church. And my wife was so angry, she. I slept either on a rug in the basement, on the cement floor, and if we had company, I slept outside, including if it rained. So I was sleeping underneath a picnic table. And it was reinforcing the shame that I felt about myself. Matter of fact, a year into my healing, I was writing in a journal and I said, harry, you are damaged goods. Who would ever love you, you know? And there's a couple of things that I learned. It's not about stopping behaviors. It's a lifestyle change that has to happen. Yeah. Learning how to live in a community and finding a church where it's safe to be real with your strengths and your weaknesses. You know, one of the gifts that Ted Roberts brought, both pure desire and to East Hill Church when he was pastoring East Hill was there was no forbidden topics from the pulpit. Yeah, yeah, none.

And that's powerful in a church that changes the culture for sure.

Yeah. Everyone had permission to say, well, if Ted's able to acknowledge that, or if this testimony person is able to acknowledge what they're doing. And what I didn't know was after three years, Ted asked me to give my first testimony at East Hill. And back then they had four services. Two on Saturday night and two on Sunday mornings. And I was coming on Sunday mornings, I mean, Saturday nights, because I would take my elderly father to his Methodist church on Sunday mornings.

And.

And what I didn't know is that there were eight people from my congregation in Astoria who were now attending the church and they had no idea I was there.

Wow, that's an exciting weekend. Stand up to tell your story. There they are. There you are.

Exactly. And some of them were excited to hear my story. And there was especially one person who was really angry because her brother had been my right hand guy that I trusted as far as my trust would allow me to trust him. And actually had people accusing him of being in on my addiction, which wasn't the case. And he left the church and she blamed me. He stopped attending church for 13 years.

So often the case when we share our story, just what you said, some are excited about the change and others, it touches on pain or parts of their story that are hard to accept. And so, Harry, go back to, you know, these years. You talk about having three long term affairs. I can only assume that along the way you're trying to fix this problem on your own. You're trying to self correct. So what were attempts you made on your own to change things? And were there moments you realized like, I'm not capable of changing this alone?

I felt all along that I was incapable of changing, but I was trying. In my isolation, I was reading books. But it was the relationships that were going on and the protecting of secrets. And the truth was, not only was I slowly losing the congregation, I was slowly losing my wife and kids. And I was working so hard to keep my head above water, I'm actually surprised I didn't have a nervous breakdown. And I was just so fearful of being exposed. But I kept promising myself for the thousands of times that I was going to quit, this is going to be the last one. But it didn't happen. It didn't happen because I was involved significantly with image management. I tried to portray myself, putting out the best pieces of me and holding back the shameful pieces of me, hoping that no one would ever catch on. But I didn't know how to get out of the situation. You know, I tried. I tried anger, I tried conversations with women, trying to end everything. But the truth was I was functioning as the classic hypocrite. You know, the, the word in the Greek literally means for Hypocrite, means an actor who wears a mask. And I thought, that's who I am.

Sounds about right.

Yeah, that's who I am. And in fact, when I first came to East Hill, I knew several members of the staff and I had a distant relationship with Ted. And I wanted to hear Ted because he was offering me hope. And I obviously wanted to hear God. And I would come to church crying, wanting to repent, but I would sit on the fringe of the church and I would purposely come in late, find that secure place to sit for sure.

Slide in the back.

Yeah, that's right.

And the first seven services by the time I ended, someone was sitting within 10ft of me that I had pastored.

Oh, wow.

Wow. So I learned that people I pastored came to church late, but they said, pastor Harry, what are you doing here? Where's the family? I would confess my sin and repent. And it was just like clockwork. They would all say to me, this is a great place to get healed.

Wow.

And finally, the pastor, over pure desire for men only at that time was a guy named Scott Oya. And Scott says, harry, I think you're ready for a group, but you can't tell them you're a pastor because pastors have betrayed, humiliated, shamed them. They don't trust pastors. So let them get to know you as a person first, then you can tell your story. I come in 15 minutes late on cue, and I'm looking through this window into the room and the only person I recognize is Scott. And so finally I get the courage to go in and for 20 minutes I'm just listening and I'm blown away by the honesty of these men sharing their stories. And then this guy comes in. At 6 foot 3, he looks like a linebacker because he was an all state linebacker from Astoria.

Oh my goodness.

Walks into the room apologizing for being late and stops in the middle of the room, looks at me and says, pastor Harry, what are you doing here? And that's when I realized, okay, no more hiding. That was a significant turning point. His name was Dave. And Dave doing that said, okay, I'm trying to hide and God's not allowing me to hide.

Absolutely.

So that was the point where I realized that the change in my journey is not just me getting fixed, but that I needed to be open about what I was experiencing. And the only person I had been open with, two people I'd been open with, was Ted and with Scott in the one on one with him. But it was just mostly about the outpouring of my shame.

Well, like let's, let's dive into that a little bit. When you join this group, you start your healing journey. A lot of us run into hurdles, things that kind of get in our way. We think healing is going to be one way and then we start to experience it. It's like, this is not what I expected. So for you, what were some of those hurdles on that road to healing and freedom that really tripped you up or you ran into that you had to deal with?

I want one small thing was it wasn't small.

Is there such a thing as a small?

It was that I wanted to distance myself from this. And so there was another pastor who showed up a couple months after me and he was just minimizing his whole story. You know, it wasn't him, it was the woman. It was going through it. And I was full of indignant self righteousness, you know, and amazingly, he didn't come back the next day, week, I don't know why. So it was self righteousness. And I found myself struggling a lot with codependency with my ex wife and with my three boys. And it was complicated because not only had I betrayed them as their father, but I had betrayed them as their pastor. And I had taught them to not trust authority figures in church. And in fact, if they had to choose, they would go through. They are all loving to me. It took three years for all three of them to eventually say they love me. But they didn't know how to relate to my Christianity at all. And I found myself wanting to be codependent and pleasing to them. And that didn't work either. I had to release them to go through their own journey of healing with this and be available for them to, to. To talk. But the other one was I had to search for what am I going to do with myself? What does a pastor do when he's not pastoring?

Yeah, it's like all I know how to do. Yeah. Yeah.

I. I was a night watchman for. I think it was watching that made computer chips. So. So I got to. To be in a place where I was by myself from 11 to 7 every night. Yeah. This little.

And they didn't have podcasts and audiobooks back then. No, no.

It was all night radio. That was all I had access to. So doing that, I tried selling cars. I was a horrible car salesman because I always sold cars for the least amount possible. You know, they weren't happy with me. And I finally. I was always looking for what was going to being the biggest payoff so that I could give my family more to meet their needs. I was living next door to my parents in a house that they had inherited, and I was caring for them because they were actually in the dying process. But finally I decided that instead of me doing things that weren't me, I needed to do something that was me. And so I ended up working for a company that oversaw young adults who had disabilities. So I oversaw three group homes with them and just did that and volunteered at Pure Desire. And what I didn't know is after I gave my testimony, and I was shocked that when I gave my testimony those four times, I was shocked that I was getting a standing ovation for telling a story about sin. That was shocking. And I was vulnerable. When I started dating my wife, one of the staff people said to her, be careful, I don't trust him. You know, and it took, you know, so there were always going to be people, because of their own hurts and wounds, that saw me only in the light of my addiction. They could only define me out of my addiction.

Well, and that boy, that process of re. Establishing trust Especially with people who may not be necessarily in the story or in the journey with us, they're only kind of on the periphery of how they know us. For them to get to a place of trust, you know, it may not ever happen. And I think what you're expressing is how we have to keep moving forward in our journey and doing the things God leads us to, even if people on the outside of the story still see us as that old addicted self. And boy, I also really appreciate just what you said about your self righteousness and owning that, because I've seen it happen in my own life and in so many groups where it's amazing how when we get even just a little bit of healing, suddenly we move back into that posture of like, well, I kind of got this figured out. And now I see the new guy like, man, what's wrong with you? You know, the truth is I'm only three months down the road in my own story and, and that need for us as we're overcoming addiction and starting to walk in freedom, to just stay in that place of humility, not in a shameful, you know, I'm a horrible person, you know, I'm putting myself down, but in just having that honest self assessment of, I once was very broken and lost too. And if someone else comes in and I see their brokenness, to not move into that critic role of putting them down, like staying humble and welcoming them into their journey. So, Harry, I imagine as you're starting to move into this, you know, with all your background and ministry and as a pastor, you know, there's strategies of healing you maybe had in mind that were perhaps different from what Ted was teaching and pure desire. What were some of those strategies? Even in your healing journey early on, things that you were maybe trying to do that you found were not helpful?

Well, it was when I was preoccupied with stopping behavior.

Yeah, exactly.

That is a form of trying to manage the addiction.

Sure.

And it doesn't work.

Yeah.

You know, either. Either you're going to eradicate the addiction or it's going to take you out. You know, a Catholic service on the east coast said there was four levels to an addiction. There is restoration there, and this next one down is having a lapse. Why am I here? I act out once, whatever that acting out is, and then I say, why am I here? And I go back to restoration. And then three is periodic episodal relapses where most of the people we work with, that's where they're at when they show up at our door. Binge purge, and high levels of sexual anorexia. They feel so much shame about their addiction that they can act out with people over here, they can act out with their pornography, but they don't know how to be intimate with their wives because they feel such guilt and shame. And I think that that's huge. For me, the turning point was that we had a video series by Jeff Van Vonderen, a counselor from. From Minneapolis, from his church. And he did a course called Wounded by Shame, Healed by Grace. And it was a seven week series. And I sat through the first one, and I was asked to start teaching it the next time. And Debbie, eventually Debbie joined me. And we would actually have 100 people three times a year. And we had a waiting list to get into the class because it was such a powerful healing class. And it finally gave me tools to begin to work with shame. Because in my counseling, I have learned if you don't find some resilience to the shame, then everything else becomes kind of busy work. And the resilience comes from telling your story instead of hiding your story.

Yeah. So, I mean, we all get to the point in recovery where things start to click. We start to make sense of what is motivating the behaviors. You've already talked about it. The family of origin you grew up in. Yeah, the shame, but also the wounds that you experienced. When, like, when was that moment for you where things started to just, like, get really, really clear on the things that really your addiction was founded on?

Well, it was. It was the shame. And I started to write. I wrote out a letter to my parents, who by this time were in their late 70s. And I looked at them and I looked at my letter and I thought, well, it's an honest letter, but the only thing they're going to be able to respond to this with is regret. And they can't do anything about it. So I'm going to end up wounding them so I can feel better. So instead, I read my story to my group. You know, if my parents were 10 years younger and had the faculties to do it, I would have done it with them. But I think that it was a turning point for me to actually find real hope in the community I was in. And in fact, I tell all my clients now that I have a group of men I meet with every Monday morning in my house. I have two other men that I meet with on a regular basis. And Debbie would tell you they're my most important meetings because it's where I process my life. And for me, it's a dangerous place for me to be in isolation. And one of the learning tools is separating isolation from solitude. Solitude we need, but solitude is me facing my life. Often it's my encounters with Christ. Sometimes it's me is trying to process my ABCs of life, whatever my next step is. But isolation is when I'm escaping. When I'm escaping into movies or I'm escaping if guys are struggling going back into the their addiction or they are substituting. You know, a guy said, well, I haven't looked at porn in six months. And I said, and how many pounds have you gained? Because he was turned to food.

Totally switching there.

Yeah, yeah. And so it's in that process of renewing the mind and learning how to, you know, I think the brain that God gave us is amazing. And the five senses we have is taking in raw data 24, 7. But by the time it reaches our conscious brain, it's been turned into a narrative. And the narrative isn't about the truth. The narrative is about survival. So when I used to believe that survival required me to keep a secret, that's the story I'd be telling myself. And if you don't learn to challenge the story that you tell yourself, you're going to find yourself heading down more dead end alleys along the way. So it's the power of community and what I call transparent vulnerability. There's a part of vulnerability where people can say, I can share this part of my vulnerability. But eight years ago I was picking up a guest speaker at our church who happens to be now the senior pastor of our church. But we were driving from Beaverton over to here to Gresham, which is about a 4, 40 minute drive these days. And I started just. He said, tell me about yourself. And I started talking about vulnerable transparency. And he stopped me and Keith stopped me and said, I've never heard this before. And then he said, you know, nobody's practicing this, don't you? And I said, but they need to. And that began a relationship that has turned into one of my best friends. And the gift is that he's still my. He's now my senior pastor in that process. But again, it's a community where people know who I am with my weaknesses and my strengths. Yep. Yeah, yeah, that's so good.

What I hear you saying in there is just that power of telling our whole story.

Yep.

In an environment with people that can receive it, you know. So for you it was your group. I think for many people that's part of why disclosure can be so powerful with their spouse because like they finally get to a point of like, there's no more mask, there's no more layers of what they don't know. And it might be a very, very painful, difficult process, but it's why we've seen it. Pure Desire. So many couples walk through that really messy process and emerge so much stronger and even look back on it and say, we wouldn't trade it for the world because that place, it moves them to of what you're saying, that vulnerable transparency of it's out there, it's known, and there's nothing now to hide. I can now move into healing in a way that I think otherwise we can't. And so that power of you telling your story, that narrative, I think the power of narrative in our life, that's just so important.

But there's layers to this. And the layers are as I grow older, my hair color has changed. I probably have less hair than I did when I first started at Pure desire back in 2007. But when we went from the local church to the non profit, I was the first employee because Ted had a plan. I was going to be start part time and then six months later they were going to make me full time. And that lasted two weeks. And so I was the first one to actually leave East Hill staff to work at Pure Desire. But in life, we are going to all experiences in whatever's happening in our life, unwanted limitations. They are going to happen. And I found myself going through exactly the same pattern when three years ago I was diagnosed with something called sporadic body inclusion myositis, which is such a rare disease that the CDC in Atlanta calls it an orphan disease. There is no cure for it. So I'm losing strength in my legs. I have to, as you guys see here today, I have to use a walker to get around which also conveniently.

Becomes the tallest chair at any table, which is amen.

Yes. But I found myself wanting to hide the disease. I found myself doing the. I thought these patterns sound very familiar in my head. And it was me owning the disease and being able to say here's what I'm facing and working through it and now including that. In fact, I would tell you that going through this disease is more powerful than the addiction was because there's not a step I take that I have to be aware of what I'm doing. And so my telling my story to the significant people of my life is important. And when we have our clients, and most of our clients now are zoom in the counseling department when we're with them. We're expecting them to be vulnerable and transparent. But if we, on our end become the talking heads, we've made the counseling room an unsafe place. It's not that we do our therapy with them, but we need to be able to appropriately be vulnerable with them about where we are. So I have to tell people at some point in time in the counseling, I'm going to get up, and when I get up, you're going to see me turn to a walker.

Yeah.

So that they. So they know, and they're experiencing me being vulnerable at an area different than their addiction.

But it doesn't become just a place where you're performing. And that's what I like what you're saying, that it's not just about overcoming the one addiction and then retreating back into a life of performance or putting on the mask. It's like learning to stay in that place in our relationships. And so, Harry, you know, as you look back at your story and now, having worked with thousands of men, what would you say you've identified as kind of the key elements for both you walking out of your addiction and as you work with men, like, if you were to boil it down into a couple, like, key elements, what would you say to listeners about what those are in the journey?

Well, first of all, being, at the very least, being in a group. And as a matter of fact, this is for your update, that I was in the room when we were trying to figure out the criteria for accountability phone calls. And my friend Scott said, why don't we make it three? There was no logic, no reason. It was just him picking a number out of the air. And with my clients, one of my favorite stories is, as a matter of fact, this man and his wife are now pastoring a church in a Southern state. But he was so embattled in his addiction, he was making up to nine phone calls to group members a day. Wow.

Now, that's communication. Yeah.

That is commitment.

That's breaking isolation.

And so it's really being sold out to. This is not just about me fixing myself. It's that concept of a band of brothers, that we're really there for each other. And I think that that's number one. Number two, this is hard to say, but there are a lot of churches in the United States that aren't safe. You can't talk about it. And in fact, we've kind of trained our culture that if you are a pastor, it's not okay for you to not be okay. But that's the Human condition. And so I think it's important for us to really put a priority on creating safe environments in our church community where it's okay for people to have a problem in the present tense and creating a culture. I love Henry Cloud and John Townsend's work. I would love for them sometime to be. To be a guest if we hook it up.

Harry. Yeah, no problem.

Henry Cloud, if you're listening.

Yes, exactly.

That would be amazing. Just to begin with, to find out he was listening to our podcast.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, but. But, you know, it's. It's understanding that the broader spectrum of this is a lifestyle where. Where. Because. And it's in. And it's counter to our culture because our. Our culture glorifies the individual. And we think success is being celebrity status and. Or money. And we've lost our sense of how to function in community because it's all about me. And I think that a part of poor Ted, I think, used to wear a bandage for the first 10 years on his forehead because he kept banging up against the church system. That would deny a metaphorical. We don't have a problem. Yeah, exactly. Not us. Not us. And the truth is there are very few people as isolated as senior pastors in the church, and that is danger to them as well as to their flock because we put on the armor we're taught to put on, and that's what happens in a congregation. So I think that's part of it, but it's also daily. I think that it's coming into learning to be attuned to our emotions and that emotions are there not to. We used emotions wrongly by using them to make decisions. I feel like we need to let emotions inform us about the condition of our soul. But we should be making decisions based out of our values and what our Christian faith has taught us. That's great, and I think that is key, but learning how to sit with the emotions. I don't know about you guys, but for me, two minutes of quiet feels like about 17 years. My mind is already shooting all over the place. My learning to calm down and giving myself permission to feel an emotion, let them inform me what's going on in my soul is really a key part of the healing process that maintains my relationship with Christ because he's my greatest confidant. And just as David did in the Psalms, I'm letting him know exactly what I'm feeling.

Well, that's what's so cool about that, is that when a pastor or a leader or anyone with any level of influence, allows themselves to sit in that emotion and then begins to share that with people around them that then gives other people permission to do the same thing. That's how culture changes.

Yeah.

So, I mean, one of the things that also changes culture is. And I love. I both feel for you and love that Ted had you get up and share four times and share your story. But, like, that is. I mean, from what I know from the history of East Hill, we're not talking about a small church. Like, we're talking about a lot of people that you're standing up for services, telling the same story to the city.

The church was about 5,000 people.

Yeah. Just a small number. No big deal. Just mega church status. But what gave you the courage? Because I imagine you had not shared your story with 5,000 people before that moment. What gave you the courage to stand up and do that four times over a weekend?

Two things. Number one, my group was very encouraging. They said, we'll sit in the front row.

Nice.

They didn't tell me what service. But more importantly, I had this experience, and my life was a mess. My family's life was a mess. My parents had begun the dying process. So there's all kinds of things going on. And I kept having men coming up to me asking for input. And I kept telling them, hey, I'm just trying to figure this out myself. But it was my coming to the slow realization that even in my brokenness, I didn't have to heal completely for God to use me. And that he. I had given my testimony to FMO guys. Not just my small group, but the larger FMO guys. And I had gotten good responses. And so I had felt like when Ted finally said, this is it. It's time for you to do this, I felt like God had been preparing me for this experience.

That and the honorarium they probably gave you. Right.

No honorarium. We're talking about Dr. Ted here.

Yeah.

No, no, no, no, no.

Just making sure.

Making sure we're clear.

You know, it makes me think of the story where Jesus heals the blind man and he gets called in front of the religious leaders, and they're like, well, who is this man? Why did he heal you and how you. And they're trying to ask all these theology question questions. And as I imagine, he's kind of like, look, I don't know any of these things you're asking me. What I know is I once was blind and now I see, and I've got an experience.

That's right.

That I can share. And I Think that's what I hear you saying. And for so many people listening, I think they can relate of. I don't know how it all works. I don't have my journey perfected. I'm not saying that I'm now sin free and will never sin again, but I know I'm not the person I was. And I have experienced some healing that a lot of people haven't. And I can testify to that, even if I testify imperfectly. It's like the blind man, Hey, I was lost and now I'm found. I was blind and now I see. And I think there's incredible power in sharing that.

And we've talked about that too on the podcast before, that it's not just the polished, like, you know, the bow is tied on the top type stories. It's okay to have people who are in process also sharing their story because that, in all honesty, is more relatable to me. Sitting in the congregation like, you go, man. Like, I'm with you. I'm still dealing with these things. I'm still processing through these areas and these struggles. And I think that we usually. That's just. It's an interesting perspective, but I think we often just think, oh, well, I need someone who's like years past this thing in order to share for it to be powerful. I don't think that that's always the case.

I think that, in fact, that washes out the testimony. You know, if we talk about vulnerability being things that happened five years ago, 10 years ago, it's what happened yesterday, what's going on, and having somebody with an incomplete testimony and the pastor coming behind them, supporting them, encouraging them verbally from the pulpit and saying, this may apply to you. You may be in the same place as Bob and, and Fred here. So now here's what we have available for you. I said that Ted actually had no boundaries on what happened. They had a fellow give his testimony when he was 17. His father was an alcoholic and his dad was in a drunken rage and decided he needed to kill his wife. Wow. And he went out to the car, got his gun off the rack. He lived here in Troutdale. And the kid who was 17 years old, how can I protect my mom? And so he begged his father not to do it, begged his father not to do it. And finally ran into the house and there was another gun and he killed his father. Well, he's now he had to go through a mental institution. He's still grieving that he has no ability in this life to reconcile with his dad. But it was in telling his story that he was allowed to experience empathy from a congregation.

Wow.

You know, and being able to take people in that place of brokenness and honor the brokenness instead of honoring just the fix. Yeah. You know, we all have a tendency to go that direction. Yeah. But it's in the brokenness that we need to find acceptance. Right. It's not in the fix. Learning how to be, you know, the difference between sympathy feeling for someone or empathy feeling with them, which, you know, Hebrews 4:15. Jesus was tempted in every way like you and I, so he had the empathy to know what we are experiencing. He walks with us through the pain of our lives.

Yeah. That's so powerful, the way that we can enter into people in their brokenness and not just in their fix. I really appreciate that. So, Harry, tell us a little bit more about the ministry that God has given you now. I mean, you've been on the Pure Desire counseling staff since 2007. So 14 years. You know, you've worked with hundreds, if not thousands of men. You know, I want to know what brings you joy now as you can continue to do ministry in this area after all these years.

Well, I have a picture right here that happened two weeks ago. And two weeks ago, a group of men showed up at my house on a Sunday afternoon. It was supposed to be a short visit that turned into three and a half hours. And it was a group that met for. Had been meeting for six years, and I had started it. And after two years, I passed the baton to one of the other men in the group. And these men were from across the country, and most of them had never met each other live. And after six years, they had a reunion.

Cool.

And they knew I had physical limitations in being able to go to the place where they were going to have a barbecue. So they all came over to see me, and we were talking about not only how the guys were doing, One of them had become a major in the space force. I had fun giving him a bad time about that. But we had a guy who's a senior detective in California. Just a wide variety of guys, but we all knew each other's families. We were talking about connecting. It was very much like a family reunion. And so I think people come to Pure Desire to get healed, but I think what keeps them in Pure Desire is the relationships. So when people knew I had gone through a medical issue a while back or last year when we had the fires here in the Northwest, I had people I had counseled seven years ago. Who I hadn't seen in seven years, calling me up to check on me. So it was the building of relationships that allows me to thrive. It's those relationships. It's not just me being a counseling, talking head on one time on one side of a zoom call. Yeah, right. The sad part of all that is that my wife, who has her own testimony with addiction, has to listen to my same stories over and over again. She's going to say, I've heard these stories before. I was looking for something new, Harry.

So, I mean, our stories are so encouraging. And as you've already talked about when you got up and you shared your story, sharing it in group, guys coming up to you saying, thank you for sharing, I resonate with that. And I can only imagine the amount of people that talk to you after sharing that one weekend to East Hill just now, as people are listening to your story, what encouragements would you give them? I mean, there could be people who are just starting to dip their toe into recovery. Maybe they're in their first year of recovery, or maybe they're. Maybe they're five, six, seven, maybe even 10 years into recovery. What encouragements would you just give to people today?

Well, it goes back to the end of Romans chapter 8, where the apostle Paul says that nothing seen or unseen can separate you from the love of God. And that includes seen sin and unseen sin. I keep looking for a third category, but I can't find it. It's either seen or unseen. Yeah. And I want to give you hope. No matter how desperate your situation is, no matter the judgments you have against yourself, even the hatred you might have against yourself, and the anger of your spouse or family members or congregation, that there is a path forward. And we don't know the exact nature of that path, but the Holy Spirit is faithful to guide and lead us into that path, to lead us into all truth. And it's your discovering that there is a community waiting for you. And it might just begin with joining either our online groups or a local group that's meeting in your community out there. And whether you are a man, a woman, a teenager, an old man. My favorite guy who called me up was calling for help, and he was 87 in Montreal.

Wow.

And by 90, he was running groups in his church.

That's amazing.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And I mean, it's just each story of healing is so different. There's so many different aspects to it, but there are these themes that just remain true. That community is so important. Being able to share our story as you talked about that transparent vulnerability and then allowing our stories to be a part of changing the culture, inviting people into sharing their stories and, and processing through their brokenness. And really what we hope is that the more we share our stories, the safer our communities become and the more people get invited in and our powers and like there is power in our story, period. And I think one thing that I just feel encouraged by today, just from listening from the conversation and you sharing, Harry, is that wherever you're at, your story is powerful. Even if you're not completely healed all the way where you want to be, your story is still powerful. So you're amazing. We love having you. Thank you for coming back and sitting in your tall chair and being with us. Seriously, we appreciate you and what you do and you just sharing with us today.

Thank you very much and I will look forward to be invited back maybe next year.

And wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help create a roadmap for your healing. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual brokenness, go to PureDesire.org and let's start the healing journey today. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Each week we put out new content to help you on the road to freedom from the effects of sexual brokenness and betrayal, trauma. And lastly, never stop being healthy.