Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone. This is Chris. I'm Ryan From the Uncommon Path podcast. The scripture, revelation 12 11 says and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Our hope is that as you listen, you will be encouraged in the Lord. This podcast was created as an avenue to share people's raw and unfiltered journeys with him. We hope this brings breakthrough and intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing through their lives. Filtered journeys with him. We hope this brings breakthrough and intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing through their lives.

Speaker 1: 0:29

We have an explicit filter on the podcast and that's not really needed for all episodes, but this is one of the episodes where it is important. There's going to be some sexual content and some explicit stuff. So if you're I have kids in the room or you're a young listener, just use use your discretion on this one. It's going to get pretty raw and pretty heavy, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:06

We are here today, joined by Randy Randy, thank you so much for being here. You've heard the podcast. You've heard all of the podcasts actually, which is quite incredible. We might have the biggest fan here yeah, Uncommon Path super fan.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Yeah, super fan, yeah, super fan. Uh, as you know, we're we're loosely just trying to get you know, kind of what your path with the lord is and and how it started, where the lord was in the midst of that, what kind of things happened in your journey with him, and how you have gotten from you know to today, or from your past to today, and then what the Lord has on the horizon for you. We'll kind of go in that type of structure. But you know, if you feel like the Lord wants you to camp out on something specific, feel free to do that. Uh, chris and I will kind of guide the conversation a little bit. We might ask you to kind of go back and maybe ask a clarifying question or maybe a deeper question on something that we feel like the Lord highlights. Um, but yeah, without further ado, can you introduce yourself and and share what you do?

Speaker 3: 2:27

Yes, my name's Randy. I've been retired for about three years from Duke Energy. I worked there for 20 years and generally in the general business doing a lot of billing stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Well, thanks for being here. Go ahead and tell us kind of what kind of Christian background you have, and were you raised in a Christian family and what did that look like?

Speaker 3: 3:04

I have a very large family. I have four brothers and four sisters and my dad was raised. Cath happened and my dad decided he had enough of the Catholic Church and so they started going to a Methodist Church. So the church was close. We lived in a very small town, about 1,500 people, and there were two churches in town, a Baptist church and a Methodist church. So my parents took us to the Methodist church and we, as kids, we went every Sunday. As kids, we went every Sunday. After about maybe three or four months my parents decided that the kids could go by themselves because we could walk. It was only like five blocks and they'd stay home and have fellowship time. That's why I have such a large family. That's why I have such a large family. That's hilarious. But I had a Sunday school teacher that took a lot of interest in me and he poured in year after year, kind of like discipled you, yeah, year after year.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Hmm, and um Kind of like discipled you, yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:48

Hmm, and because I was five or six when I started there and I went there until I graduated high school, oh wow, and I had perfect attendance and I have all the pins to show my attendance record.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Was the Sunday school teacher, just somebody in the church?

Speaker 3: 5:17

Just a layman.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Just had a heart for kids.

Speaker 3: 5:22

Yep had a heart for the young kids and he led the junior high youth group and so that's how I got kind of involved. And then one summer our church took a trip, the youth group took a trip to Chicago to do some outreach and help with Mission Gardens at Moody, and so that was a really good trip for me because I met Neil and Neil was a senior in high school that year and I was a freshman, I think, and Neil shared with me the gospel. And on our trip, after we came back to our home that fall, his parents did a hayride for the youth group and I went out and went on the hayride and Neil and I talked the youth group. And I went out and went on the hayride and Neil and I talked the entire time. He had a girlfriend and she was kind of. I think she was okay that he was talking to me, but it was.

Speaker 3: 6:37

We got back to the campfire and Neil was supposed to go out in the field and play taps and so I asked if I could go with him. He said sure, and so we talked as we were walking out there he asked me if I had ever accepted Christ in my life and I said I had. He said well, you want to do that now? And I said, yeah, I do. And we stopped and prayed and we were busy praying and having time with the Lord and somebody came out and tapped Neil on the shoulder and said, hey, you missed the cue for taps. So Neil went to play taps and I just bawled my eyes out as I gave my heart over to the Lord. At that time I was 16.

Speaker 2: 7:33

And that was that was the first time that the relationship with Jesus became real right. Yes, and before before, that was what was kind of. What was your thought of who God was before that? Was he more of like an entity that you need to obey or that you're trying to stay good in front of? What was your view of God before that?

Speaker 3: 8:00

moment. Yeah, it was all about that um being obedient. Yeah, you know, god was that person up on that pedestal and everybody bowed down to god, kind of thing. Um, and he knew exactly what you were doing all the time, even when you were doing the bad things. And so that was really kind of hard, come to think about it, because I had grown up with this yeah, just an image of God, just you know, jesus in the pictures that you see all the time in the Bibles and the Catholic Church, because my dad still went to the Catholic Church from time to time, so I still had some of that that I was getting caught up on, and but it was, yeah, just like you do the right thing and you'll get rewards, but when you don't do the right thing, you won't get rewards. So, because of things that were going on in my life, I didn't think I was ever going to get any rewards because I was doing the wrong thing. Because I was doing the wrong thing Because when I was 12, I was being abused by my neighbor and it all happened just kind of very subtly in the beginning and that because both my parents worked, I became kind of.

Speaker 3: 9:55

I was next to the oldest. So I took on a lot of responsibilities at our house and I did a lot of the house cleaning and the dishes and the laundry and just taking care of the younger kids as they came along, and just doing all of that. And my neighbor saw that and he had two older brothers and he was the youngest and he was 16. And I had left my house, I was going over to see another neighbor and walking down the road and he yelled out at me from his house and asked me if I wanted to come and help him with his chores and he'd give me a dollar. And that's about 1966. And so you know, a boy of 12, a dollar was a lot of money back then. So I thought, yeah, I want a dollar. So I went to see what he wanted and he said, well, come in, and you know, you can do the dishes and run the vacuum and make up the beds and stuff like that I did. And as I was doing that he was watching TV and I didn't think anything of it. And as I was doing that, he was watching TV and I didn't think anything of it. And then I was all done and I wasn't sure where he was and he said well, come to my room and I his pants down and he asked me to fondle him and I wanted that dollar. And I knew that he wasn't going to give me that dollar unless I did what he asked. So I did. A couple days later, when I was walking down down the road, he yelled at me again and asked me to come in and help with the chores and said, yeah, sure I can do that and he's going to give me another dollar. And so I did all the chores. And then I thought about it and he wasn't in the living room when I got done. So I knew he was in the bedroom. So I went to the bedroom and this time he was naked, nothing on at all, and he asked me to give him a blowjob. And I wasn't really sure what that was. He just asked me to suck on his dick. So I did because I wanted that dollar.

Speaker 3: 12:38

And this went on throughout that summer several times, throughout that summer, several times. And then one night all the neighbors and I, all my brothers and sisters, we were in the field, because they had an open field next to their house and we were playing hide-and-go-seek, and so we were all just running around and hiding, and as it got darker, then Roger asked me to hide with him and I said okay, so I went with him and we hid in the garage. And then, while we were in the garage, he asked me to provide service to him, and so I did, and my brother, my oldest brother, was the person the seeker, and so he saw Roger and I in the garage and then he went out and just, I guess, called everybody together and they all went home, and when Roger and I came out of the garage there was nobody around. We didn't know what had happened, and so I went home. And when I walked in the house, my parents asked me to come to their room and so I went to their room and they asked me if Roger and I were doing things in the garage and scared me to death, and I couldn't lie. So I told them yes, and I thought, for sure I was going to be getting a real whipping. And they said, okay, go and get ready for bed. And they left. And I didn't know where they went. And and they said, okay, go and get ready for bed. And they left.

Speaker 3: 14:49

I didn't know where they went and a little while later they came home and they told me that I was not to see Roger at all, I could not walk to school with him or his brothers, and that was going to be the end of what was going on over there. So I agreed, and our school is only three blocks away. So it's kind of hard when somebody lives right across the street and you're not walking to school with them and it's only three blocks. So we had to just alternate times that we went to school and stuff like that. But I found out later that Roger's dad had really beat the crap out of him. Roger's dad had really beat the crap out of him and I didn't. I felt kind of bad about it because, you know, I don't know why I just did. But I was having a lot of conflict too, because I was still going to church every Sunday trying to do the right thing, and this was still popping up, you know. And I didn't talk to anybody about it, because who do you talk to?

Speaker 1: 16:19

Yeah, did your parents ever ask about the details of it?

Speaker 3: 16:24

They never did. No, they asked me that one time and that was it. It was never mentioned again. Later that year, in December, we moved out to the farm, which was a property about two miles out of town out to the farm which was a property about two miles out of town and I never thought about it much at the time. But as I have gotten older I thought maybe my parents moved because of what was going on with Roger and I. I don't know, because they never talked to us. My parents were doing good to talk to one another, let alone talk to us.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Was that episode with Roger? The first one. Was that the first kind of sexualization of your childhood that you can recall?

Speaker 3: 17:27

Yes, that was the first time. I was 12, he was 16. But later that summer probably it wasn't more than three weeks later another neighbor who was a young lady that was 16, and she was part of our play group in the neighborhood and she we would go in and out of each other's homes all the time, but she lived there with her aunt because she had moved from the big city out to our little town because she was too much trouble for her parents. But I didn't know what that meant, I just knew she lived with her aunt and her aunt was a nurse and they seemed to get along well. And one day she called me over to her house and I went in and she was wearing a bathrobe and she dropped her bathrobe and asked me to get undressed. So I did.

Speaker 3: 18:37

I was being obedient. I was very good about being obedient about things. You asked me and I did it. So I got undressed and then she asked me to lay on top of her and I thought, well, what the heck is she talking about? And so she directed things and that happened about three times and the third time I had my first ejaculation. I had never had one before and I didn't know what it was and it scared me and I was afraid to pull out because I thought I had urinated.

Speaker 2: 19:16

And how old were you again? Twelve.

Speaker 3: 19:18

Wow. So it's the same summer that I had the encounter with Roger. So later on that summer when we went back to school, my friend, she didn't come to school and I didn't know why or what was going on. And I talked to one of my older neighbors that I visited all the time and um, she said, oh yeah, she's pregnant. That's, she's living somewhere in a home where unwed mothers go. And that scared me half to death because I thought because I had learned from my first encounter with her until she left town about what was really going on and that what we were doing was having sex and that she could become pregnant that way. I didn't really know that at that point, pregnant that way, I didn't really know that at that point. But I guess that year in school had been my sixth grade or so, where they talk about sex. So when I found out that she was pregnant and she was gone, I thought I might be the father. I was scared to death. I'm only 12. How am I going to take care of a kid?

Speaker 1: 20:44

Oh my gosh Whoa.

Speaker 3: 20:46

And so later that year she did come back and her mother kept the child in the big city and she came back to live with her aunt and to finish out school with us. And I had a chance to talk to her and I said am I the father of the baby? Oh no, you're not the father. Good day. She said. I had all these other guys. I'm like, wow. So now I understood why she had come to live with her aunt, because when she was in the big city she was doing this all the time with all kinds of people. So oh well anyway well, what was?

Speaker 2: 21:33

wow, that's heavy to have to have the pressure at 12 years old to think that you could be a dad. Oh man my, my aunt is a midwife and she she remembers delivering a baby from a 12 year old yeah, I have a 12 year old son.

Speaker 1: 22:00

I'm like that's, that would be an incredible weight, like the gap between you realizing in health class I could be a dad and then having that conversation with her was probably a lot of heaviness there.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Yeah, so at that time, what was the journey from like age 12 to when you got saved? What was? I would think there was quite a bit of just internal struggle there with just trying to please the Lord, wanting to, you know, to do the right thing, to do the right thing. But what was so kind of give us a glimpse in how your life was, kind of internally or spiritually, until you got saved, when you said you were 16.

Speaker 3: 22:56

A bunch of turmoil and a lot of junk, because I couldn't talk to anybody. I was, you know. I couldn't talk to my friend at church because you know he's gonna think I'm really a dog, if you know, this is what I'm doing and um, and I couldn't talk to my parents because they were not. They, I don't know, they were just too busy, too many kids and you know, didn't have time. And I think after the incident with Roger, my dad kind of closed me out of his life Because when he would go out to work on the cars he always invited the other boys to come with him to help, and when he went hunting they were all invited to go hunting but I was not.

Speaker 3: 24:09

And so things changed and so I felt a real distance from my dad. Sorry and so.

Speaker 2: 24:29

I just struggled with.

Speaker 3: 24:30

You know I got. I had a hard time with school. I had dyslexia, so that didn't help me at all. But I had a teacher that took some time to help my oldest brother and I because we both had it. He had it worse than I did and she helped us and I managed to get through school. But it was hard. But I was determined that I was going to do the very best I could and I felt like I had really disappointed God but I didn't know how to make it up or how to make it right with him.

Speaker 2: 25:25

Did it feel like there was pressure that came off of your shoulders when you finally gave your life to Christ?

Speaker 3: 25:34

Oh yeah, a whole lot Just learning about saving grace and the fact that no matter what you've done or where you've been, he still loves you, he doesn't give up. I always remember the story about the hound of heaven, and how God is that hound just coming after you, going to try and get you. He wants you, he's not going to let go, he's going to continue to fight for you and I thank the Lord that he's done that. He's fought for me tooth and nail and boy. It's been a lot of teeth, but after we moved out of the farm it seemed like things were a lot better, because then I didn't see.

Speaker 3: 26:52

I would see Roger at school, but I didn't see. I would see Roger at school, but I didn't see him socially at all. And and I didn't see the girl at all anymore either. So I think that helped and it allowed me to get a little more involved with the church, because I started working on helping out with Sunday school, just being there, and I'd spend the whole day at church doing stuff. And after we moved out to the farm it, you know, two miles out from town. So I would either walk to church every day, every Sunday, or I'd ride my bike and sometimes my parents might take me, but I was bound and determined. I was going to be there because something needed to change there, because something needed to change, and I knew that it wasn't going to change without god. I didn't know how to what else to do, but I knew that I needed to be at that church, for whatever reason.

Speaker 1: 28:15

What was your sibling like the dynamic there Were you like? It sounds like your other brothers kind of had a maybe tighter bond with your dad. But what was it like with your sisters and kind of the rest of them?

Speaker 3: 28:32

Well, because all of the girls are younger, because there are four boys and then there's a girl, the first girl and the four girls and then the last one is a boy. So because all the girls are younger, I did a lot of the raising of them and, you know, whenever we went to church I always made sure they had the right clothes on. I would do their hair the night before, put in rollers and stuff like that. I did all that domestic stuff. That shouldn't have been on me so much, but it was, it was, and so my relationship with my sisters is a lot stronger than my relationships with my brothers. My oldest brother and I we used to be quite close when we were in high school. When we were in school and then one summer we were working for one of our teachers picking asparagus, and it was a great job because we would leave from school and she would drive us to her house and drop us off at the top of the hill and she lived on a lake and then she'd drive down the driveway about another mile to their house and my brother and I would pick asparagus until it was all done, and I think it was three acres that we were doing. So it took us a little while, took us a little while and one day my brother asked the teacher if we could bring a friend with us to help pick asparagus so we could get done earlier. And she said, yeah, that would be fine. But she said, make sure you understand that the money will be divided between three and not two. Okay, tom said, it'll be okay.

Speaker 3: 30:41

I was not so okay with that.

Speaker 3: 30:45

So he went with us to the asparagus field and this is probably a couple of years after the incident with Roger, and when we were picking we started at the top and went down the hill and came back up and then went down the hill again and we started back up the second time and Tom was telling his friend about what had happened with Roger and I and his friend said something and Tom said, yeah, randy, help Stan out over here.

Speaker 3: 31:49

So I was reluctant to do it, but because I love my brother and because I wanted his respect and his friendship, I did what he asked and that was the last time Stan came to pick asparagus. But after that my relationship with my brother changed with my brother changed and I have tried to reconcile with my brother for several years and he doesn't want to have anything to do with it. He doesn't want me, he doesn't want to talk about anything that's happened in the past. I was just up there a couple years ago and I had called him to set up a time to come together and just sit down and talk because I wanted to make things right with him and he always had an excuse he couldn't get together with me. So I've had to just give that over to the Lord and just let him take care of it, because there's nothing else I can do.

Speaker 2: 33:15

Was there any other type of fallout with any of your other siblings that you could just you could, feel or know, or was that really the only one that you?

Speaker 3: 33:26

could. No, that was the only one. He's the only one that I've had any fallouts with. The rest of them. It's just.

Speaker 3: 33:40

I was very independent and when I graduated high school I went in the Army, waited high school, I went in the army and um so the other siblings all were still very young when I left, and um so my oldest brother and my next youngest brother and I the three of us hung out a lot and did things, but um, when I left for the army, it's like I didn't know anything else. That happened at my mom and dad's house, and so I was gone for four years and when I came back I got a job and I moved to the big city and started working in a program to become a radiologist and I did that and loved it. So I didn't see what was really going on at my mom and dad's house from that point on after high school. But when I left their house, I was working for Welch's, because Welch's is the big company in the hometown and everybody works there. All of my family has worked there one time or another, I think, and so I was working there, almost an hour south of them, and when I moved out then I felt like I had my independence and I could do whatever I chose to do. And I was still.

Speaker 3: 35:54

I had been quite involved with the church. I had started leading the youth group and stuff. And then the church fell apart and that didn't go too well. So the pastor left, there was all kinds of things that happened and so it kind of shook my faith a little bit quite a lot actually. And a friend of mine said well, why don't you come to church with me? And he went to a Baptist church. At that time I had hair to my shoulders and I dressed nice all the time. But I went to his church and that pastor about slammed me to the floor with all kinds of accusations and things. You know my long hair. And oh, you aren't a real man because you've got long hair. Oh my gosh, I just felt degraded. I said, well, I'll never go back there again. That's my take on the Baptist church. But how?

Speaker 2: 37:13

when did you meet your wife? Um when I was 29 oh wow, and that when there's a lot that happens in between there in between.

Speaker 3: 37:27

There, when I um, after I moved out of my parents, I started my senior year, my brother was dating a young lady and she was very nice. I liked her and he invited me to go with them to a movie one night and I said, sure, I'd like to go. I didn't know anything about where they were going or what they were going to even see. I just was riding along at the porn shop. They had a big screen and it was just like a movie theater. I didn't know until the thing started playing and I was just devastated. I didn't know what to do. He drove. I couldn't just get up and leave, so I told him I didn't really care to go back again after that. I told them I didn't really care to go back again after that. But that was my first encounter with a porn shop and so when I left Moves for my parents' house, I would start going up to the porn shop in the big city from time to time. I was still going to church, I was leading the youth group and doing all kinds of things in the church, but I had this secret identity and this struggle with pornography and I didn't know how to get over that and I didn't know who to talk to about it. And I had a great pastor where I had moved to and I talked with him a bit but we never really got into the details and that was because I was too ashamed to talk about it. But I knew that before I went in the Army that I had to be baptized. Because I had not been baptized yet, I'd been sprinkled as a child in the Catholic Church. But that didn't go anywhere. So I talked to my pastor and he came over to my house. I lived on a lake and he baptized me there on my lake, and that was really special. And that was before I turned 21,. Because I knew when I turned 21,. I don't know what I knew, I just knew that I had to be baptized before I turned 21. And so he came and he did that. That was great.

Speaker 3: 40:26

And then I went to the army and then when I was in the army I got involved with Christian Servicemen's Center, which is a Christian outreach ministry sponsored by the Church of God of Cleveland, tennessee, and they owned a house, a three-story house, and we would go there on the weekend and have church. The main floor was the church and on the bottom was bunks where the guys would spend the weekend and then we'd cook together and have fellowship and go out and do street ministry and stuff, and the pastor and his wife they lived on the third floor. So that was my introduction to Christian theology and I learned a lot. Every weekend we had teachings on different ministries, different things that you needed to know as a Christian how to be, how to fight demonology. That was the big thing I went through there, because Germany is the home of witchcraft so there's a lot of that around. So we learned about witchcraft and how we needed to fight as spiritual warriors and how to be a warrior for the Lord.

Speaker 1: 42:04

Is that where you were stationed, Germany?

Speaker 3: 42:06

Yeah, so for three years I went through all of this and I went specifically to classes on demonology and learned about that and how to fight, because I knew I was fighting a lot of stuff but I didn't know how to fight and I learned how to fight over there, how to fight, and I learned how to fight over there and I made some really good friends. When you spend that much time together with a group of guys, you get to know them quite well and we are still stay in touch. They're all over the place now.

Speaker 2: 42:50

Wow, so you're still in touch with those guys, yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:59

Wow, but that's been real good. So anyway, from there I came back to the States. I went to school in the big city at the big hospital, learning how to be an x-ray tech, and it was a two-year program. At the end of my first year I could hardly walk. I was walking with a cane all the time and my director came to me and said I think there's something wrong. I want you to see a specialist. And so I saw a specialist. He couldn't. He couldn't figure out anything. And so my director said I'm going to send you to the Mayo Clinic because we have to figure out what's going on here.

Speaker 3: 43:44

So I went to the Mayo Clinic and they determined that I have something called Reiter's Syndrome. It's an arthritis that moves throughout the body at its own will. And they told me well, you have two choices. You can either go back to school and finish up and probably be not able to move in two years, or you can give up the schooling because the radiation even though I wasn't being exposed directly, the radiation was having an effect on the writers and it was causing some major breakdowns in my body.

Speaker 3: 44:33

So it was a hard choice because I loved the school that I was going to. But I gave it up and I was involved in a really good-sized church in the big city. I really liked it. It was an Assemblies of God church. But I was still where I lived was just a few blocks around the corner from the porn shop. So while I was going to radiation, going to radiation radiation, going to that school, I was still going to church all the time and very actively involved, and yet going to the porn shop whenever I decided I wanted to, and that was not a good thing.

Speaker 1: 45:40

So help me understand, because you went with your brother and his girlfriend.

Speaker 3: 45:45

Yep.

Speaker 1: 45:47

But your sentiment after that was I don't want to go back.

Speaker 3: 45:51

Yes.

Speaker 1: 45:53

But then you find yourself going back Yep, again and again, and again. So what was that drawing you back? Because you had a sense that you didn't like it. You had a distaste, right yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:12

I did, but that didn't stop the sexual drive that I had and I felt like it was meeting that need to be sexually exposed to things but not really doing anything. So that was a good thing. Doing anything, so that was a good thing. I was just going to watch the porn, because they have these little stations you can go into and watch as many reels of porn as you want, as long as you have quarters to stick in the gizmo and make it work. Then you can watch the gizmo and make it work, then you can watch.

Speaker 2: 46:59

So in your mind it was almost kind of like this thing of, well, this isn't, this isn't affecting anybody else, right? It it's just something that, uh, no one gets in trouble with, it just stays with me and I can manage kind of my my own myself. That was that was kind of the mentality, yeah, yeah, and it was meeting my need.

Speaker 3: 47:23

I was, it made me, it gave me that adrenaline high and I would masturbate and I'd be done and gone, so and I was okay with that Until I wasn't. Then I learned after a while that the other people that were there were there for the same reason you were there. The other people that were there were there for the same reason you were there, but sometimes they were looking for someone else to hook up with, and I didn't quite understand that at first, but it didn't take long to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 48:14

And then that became my draw for going. So it went from a this is just sexual fulfillment without a partner to oh, it is nice to have a partner.

Speaker 3: 48:31

Yes, but going there there was nothing long-term tying you to somebody else. But little did I know that those encounters have a real impact on you down the road. Because you are, you make I can't quite remember what it is. There's a term in the study of demonology where, like a soul tie or something like that, that's what it is. Soul tie, yeah, that you're making with these people, even though it's a quick.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Yeah, in and out thing.

Speaker 3: 49:16

Transactional there's here. So no, it's like it's yeah In the grand scheme. Yeah, transactional there's here.

Speaker 2: 49:20

So no, it's like, yeah, in the grand scheme of things, in a spiritual sense, it's like anything you give of yourself, no matter how small it is, you're still giving yourself away. And when you give yourself away, you're also inviting something in Right, yeah, yeah, something in right, yeah, what was? So? We're 45 minutes in, we, I love your story because redemption so amazing, what. Let's fast forward or you can include, you know, maybe a detail or so, if, if, it's really, really something important, but let's fast forward to like meeting your wife and and then kind of circle back to after meeting your wife, where the struggle is still there. How did that happen?

Speaker 3: 50:18

Yeah, Well, I uh still there. How did that happen? Well, I, after being removed from the radiology school, I went and became involved with a mission program and I was involved with a program called Teen Missions where we took teenagers or young youth to different countries and helped with different mission projects. And I did that for three years and when I came back I got involved with the church leading the singles ministry, and our church was about 1800 at that time and I had built the singles ministry over about three years up to about 100 young people every friday we'd get together and play volleyball and have snacks, and during the week we had small bible study, and my wife was a part of that, but I didn't know that.

Speaker 3: 51:24

And so my secretary and I were working one Saturday and doing the agenda for the next 12 months and she said well, I'm going to go to a hockey game with Diana later. You want to go? I said no, I don't think so. And so then we were wrapping up and Diana came and my secretary said you sure you don't want to go? I said, well, maybe I will, why not? I don't have anything else to do.

Speaker 3: 52:01

So I went to the hockey game and the Lord told me while we were at the game that this is the woman you're going to marry. And I said, okay, lord Sounds good to me. And I said, okay, lord sounds good to me. So I went home, I was living at my parents' at that time, and I told them that I had met the woman I was going to marry, and then it went from there. I would sit with her all the time at church. I would sit with her all the time at church, and this was. We went to the hockey game in January, so I sat with her in church and we'd do things with the singles ministry and everything. But I never went on a date with her and the end of March she told the Lord that if I didn't ask her out on a date she was going to dump me. I didn't know that and that same week I asked her to go on a date and go to a movie and go to dinner.

Speaker 3: 53:17

So then we got married in September and we did a lot of premarital counseling with our small group leaders and we did a lot of stuff because they knew my past and so how detailed did they know your past?

Speaker 2: 53:40

They knew it all okay so was this, was this someone? Because, uh, you said earlier you couldn't tell anyone anything, yeah where, but you had, you had developed a relationship with these people right okay, and we had become very close friends and they led the single Bible study group that I went to.

Speaker 3: 54:02

We've become very close. So, I told them about my past, and so they knew about Diana before Diana knew about any of this and so they were preparing and they did our premarital counseling for four months.

Speaker 3: 54:23

Wow that is a lot and so we got married and things were going along pretty well.

Speaker 3: 54:33

Diana was real engaged with the ministry because I had started working with a ministry that dealt with homosexuality and lesbianism and she was on board.

Speaker 3: 54:54

We went to New York to a conference and met a lot of really good people and then we came back and she was, we were doing the wedding planning stuff and I was from that conference I went to California for supposed to be for three weeks for some training and I got a call from Diana and the people at the church were giving her grief because we were having an outdoor reception and they had never done that before, so they didn't think they could. So I flew back home a week early and got things straightened out and then we worked with that ministry for probably another three years or so and Diana wanted me to go back to school and so I did. I got my degree in education, I started teaching and then I took a job in another city a lot further north and we moved and that was good, because then the porn shops were no longer available. There's nothing I was familiar with up there and that helped.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Were the porn shops an issue in engagement and marriage? Was that happening during that time?

Speaker 3: 56:27

They were Not a lot, but occasionally it came up. And so one night Diana was waiting for me to come home from work, because I went to school during the day and worked from I don't know 8 to midnight or something like that, to get from where I was working to home. And I wasn't home yet. She called my employer and asked if I was still there and they said no, I had left a while ago and I came home and what had happened is, when my relief came in, I had left and I went to the porn shop that night and then I went home from there. So when I got home Diana was up waiting for me and wanted to know where I had been, and that was the first time I had to tell her the truth about still struggling and going to the porn shop. So we had a talk and I slept on the couch for a few nights, but we got through it and was that porn shop?

Speaker 1: 58:04

like going and watching, or going and meeting people.

Speaker 3: 58:07

It was going to watch. If I happened to meet somebody, that would be good, but if I didn't, I was okay with that. I was just watching.

Speaker 2: 58:15

When did you move out of town after that, after I graduated?

Speaker 3: 58:20

Okay, later that year I graduated and then I took the job up north and then we prayed about it and said you know, our friends that had done our premarital counseling were down here in North Carolina and he worked for IBM and they closed the office in the big city where we lived and so we were coming down on spring break and summer break and every break we had to spend down here in North Carolina and loved it. So we decided we'd pray and ask the Lord if you know there's an, we would move to North Carolina and that fall or that in the spring they have in Michigan they have something called the millage, which is taxes, basically that people vote on to decide whether or not they want to continue to fund the school at the same rate or more. They were asking for more and it didn't pass. So my job I lost my job because of millage not passing. So that was fine, because we decided that was our opportunity to move to North Carolina. Because we decided that was our opportunity to move to North Carolina. So we moved down here and got settled out in Zebulon.

Speaker 3: 59:52

I was teaching at North Durham, a middle school in North Durham, and things were going fine. But I was taking Highway 70 back and forth to school and there just happened to be a porn shop. I didn't see it the first, probably a few months that I was driving back and forth, but then one day I saw it and that became a stumbling block. And my friend, when we had gotten together one time, he said you know, things seem to be a little different. What's wrong, what's going on? And I told him the truth that I was struggling with going back to the porn shop, and he said well, we're going to have to, you have to tell your wife and you have to tell her right now. And so we left where we were and we went to his house and the women were all there having a shower for one of the other girls.

Speaker 2: 1:01:05

So this was to give overall context. So the guys were meeting somewhere while the ladies were having a shower. Okay, gotcha. So we got to his house and this was your friend.

Speaker 3: 1:01:24

This was the friend that did the premarital counseling for us Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:01:28

Yep, and so we went in and he said you're going to tell her when we get to the house. I said, okay, being that obedient little boy. Again I said okay, being that obedient little boy again. And I told her that I had in front of the entire group that I had been going to a porn shop and stopping there coming back from school some days. And she was just crushed and I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. And our friends that led our small group said we don't want you to come back to the group again, said Katie and Diana, my daughter and wife can come back, but we don't want you to come back again. And we left.

Speaker 3: 1:02:44

And a few days later we got a phone call from the church to come to a meeting. So I came to my wife and I came to the meeting and when we were called in it was the entire board with our friends at the head of the table and they asked me if I had been unfaithful to my wife and was I doing things outside of our marriage, having sexual activity outside of the marriage or something. I said I was. And they said well, we're going to ask you to lead the church and I said okay. And they said to my wife you and your daughter can still come, but we don't want Randy back at the church, and my wife said if he can't come, I'm not coming, and we walked out.

Speaker 1: 1:03:49

Do you think that was a supportive view? Was she mad at the?

Speaker 3: 1:03:54

church, oh no, it was well probably both, but more being in support of me.

Speaker 1: 1:04:09

What is your take of your wife in these years? Do you feel like she was faithful and optimistic of change in you? Did she maintain a hope?

Speaker 3: 1:04:26

I think she did for a long time, because we got involved in another church and it was a good church and we, the first, after the first time there, we decided we wanted to go there. We went and met with the pastor and told him everything and he couldn't believe what had happened. But that's part of life, but anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:04:55

I Like as in he couldn't believe the other church did that.

Speaker 3: 1:04:59

Oh yeah, yeah, that's, and it's a well-known church here in the area. But anyway, I Like, as in, he couldn't believe the other church did that. Oh yeah, and it's a well-known church here in the area, unreal. But my wife has always been very supportive. But then I think she felt like she had just had enough. Three, let's see seven, nine, nine years ago she decided that she'd had enough and just didn't think she could handle living with me any longer and so she left and I was crushed. But I understood why. I mean, I wasn't doing anything. I hadn't been doing anything for a number of years, but she was just fed up with it and just felt like she was done and so she walked out.

Speaker 1: 1:06:08

But not because of any acts you were doing at that time, not because of anything I was doing, because I wasn't doing anything.

Speaker 3: 1:06:16

But in her mind, I think, she still thought that things were going on and so she just couldn't handle it Because our communication had broken talk a lot. So she got very involved with the kids and the kids became the center of her life and I was no longer the center of her life. So it was okay to walk away Gotcha of her life. So it was okay to walk away.

Speaker 2: 1:07:00

so what so? With with all of this painful and hard back story and history, knowing now that y'all are married now and still together, take this full circle for us of how the Lord kind of brought you guys back together, kind of knitted your relationship back together, and and what has he done in the last two years within you and in your relationship with your wife?

Speaker 3: 1:07:43

Well, my wife had a stroke about two and a half years ago and she was living in Cary and I was still living in Garner, and when she had the stroke she needed 24-7 care for a while.

Speaker 1: 1:08:13

And to me she's still my wife. You were divorced at the time of the stroke.

Speaker 3: 1:08:22

Yes, we had been divorced for seven years at that time and she had the stroke and I felt obligated, because she's still my wife as far as I was concerned. That piece of paper didn't mean squat to me. So I went and I stayed at the hospital with her for several weeks while they did a lot of tests and did different things. And then she was moved to the rehab center and I was there and they said she could go home but she needed 24-7 care. And I said, well, that would be okay, I would move to her house and I would take care of her. And I did, and I was still working at the time, but I was working at home. So I thought I could do both. But after a month or so of doing that I decided that it was too much and I needed to retire and I had been with the company long enough I could retire. So I retired and just took care of my wife and she's much better today.

Speaker 3: 1:09:45

Things have started to come back. There's still she has some memory issues and time is a real hard thing for her to understand. If I'm gone for 15 or 20 minutes, she thinks I might have been gone for an hour. So being gone for any long period of time is real difficult, and so there are a lot of things I would like to be doing, but because of that very thing I don't. And when she had the stroke she also broke her hip, so that required some more time of recovery, which has been difficult, and she's still not fully recovered from that and so she is not able to travel any long distance or anything like that. So that's been difficult too.

Speaker 3: 1:10:55

But the Lord has been good and faithful in it all. But the Lord has been good and faithful in it all. He has never let me down. He has been bringing me right along and teaching me and growing me. I've gotten involved in Celebrate Recovery. Shortly after our divorce A friend introduced me. To celebrate recovery is a way to kind of help me overcome some of the stuff I was going through then, and through celebrate recovery I have um really grown and learned and learned to trust the Lord a lot more in a lot of things. I don't, you know, I just put it in his hands. I know he's going to see me through and see my wife through and it's going to come to pass according to his will.

Speaker 1: 1:11:59

And you guys got remarried.

Speaker 3: 1:12:02

We got remarried. Her hip surgery was in April, and so I was doing everything you know and we were enjoying one another's fellowship a lot, and we decided one day that maybe we'd like to go a little further. And I said we can't do that unless we get married. And so she thought about it for a little bit and decided, yeah, maybe she would like to get married again. So we were married, remarried.

Speaker 1: 1:12:38

Just like being young all over again.

Speaker 3: 1:12:41

Kind of, except we're a little too old to do all those things.

Speaker 1: 1:12:49

So what does being obedient like from this point forward to the Lord? What does that look like for you?

Speaker 3: 1:12:58

point forward to the Lord, what does that look like for you? It means being quiet, being willing to do the right thing even when it's hard, and it's moving forward, not letting Satan distract you in any way or drag you down or pull you back into that pit. And for me, it's ministering to others. Right now I'm mentoring several different men that struggle not only with pornography but with other things that are coming up in their lives. Alcoholism and drugs and gambling has become a really big thing here lately. And you know my wife says well, why are you helping these guys out? That's not something you deal with. No, it's not something I deal with, but it's still an addiction and I know what it is to be addicted and what it means to let the Lord cleanse you of that addiction.

Speaker 2: 1:14:33

That's so powerful.

Speaker 1: 1:14:37

In your time of freedom? In what phase of this? You've told us a lot of pieces of your story. In what phase did you really feel like you got that freedom? Was it in the marriage the first time around, or after the divorce?

Speaker 3: 1:14:57

now the freedom came. It has come over time. I guess in the first phase of our marriage, as it was kind of dwindling, I was finding freedom, but I wasn't sharing that freedom with my wife so she didn't know what was happening. So you know, I think that's where the struggle is with our marriage is I have not been able to share with her the full freedom that has come, and it was definitely with Celebrate Recovery.

Speaker 1: 1:16:06

I know God released all of this junk and took it away inspiring to see you helping others get untangled from not necessarily the same exact things that got you. Sometimes it is, I guess, but sometimes we're very similar but the snares that can ensnare us and I love that you have a heart to make sure that you keep people from stepping in the same traps that got you yeah, and a lot of that comes through accountability.

Speaker 3: 1:16:55

I've learned that that has been the most important thing is being accountable. You know, when I have something come up in my life, I have guys I can call and say hey look, this is what's happening. Can you pray with me or talk with me? Let's go get coffee. You know, and that's made a difference in my life and my wife and I were talking about it today and I said you know, it's just different having another guy that you can talk to I said I can talk to you until I'm blue in the face, but you don't always understand all the struggles and all the things that are going on.

Speaker 2: 1:17:50

Has sharing your story also brought a new level of freedom as well.

Speaker 3: 1:17:56

Oh, yeah, a whole lot, and I've had to do that through cr and that's been good because I've been able to do that twice and, um, I've been asked to come to a couple of different crs and share with them. So I'm excited to do that. But, yeah, getting it out there, getting you know, it's like you have this trash that's kind of stuck at the bottom of the trash can that is not coming out and this is helping getting getting rid of it yeah well, and I'm thankful you came on here to share, because there's there's freedom that will come through others, just because of your vulnerability and your willingness and to just share, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:18:50

So we really appreciate that.

Speaker 3: 1:18:52

I'm a desk. Thank you,