Speaker 1:
0:00
Well, welcome back to the Killer Bee Studios podcast replay, and today we have a special guest.
Speaker 2:
0:06
His name is Todd Stack, so he's very well known in the Christian radio industry where Killer Bee and I work, and he has an amazing story.
Speaker 1:
0:21
So not only does he have an amazing story, but he's got a pretty amazing beard going on. It's like, I think it's like down to his ankles, almost right.
Speaker 2:
0:29
Yeah, he steps, he trips over it often.
Speaker 1:
0:33
Trips over it often, no, but this is an amazing story I mean you talk about. You know you run into situations in life where it's hard to forgive someone. This is a story. If you've ever struggled with forgiving someone, this is a story that probably even ups the game on that forgiveness side. So with that, I think we should just go ahead and dive on Olivia tonight. Our guest is a dear friend of yours, right?
Speaker 2:
0:56
Yeah, yeah it is. Well, I guess we'll have to ask him if he's a dear friend or not.
Speaker 1:
1:03
But yeah, I know, I've known him for a long time. I already like him because he's already trying to scare you outside. So I'm like this guy and I tell you what I look. Now, if you guys, when you guys see his avatar, if you're like I wonder if his beard is really. He's got a pretty, he's got a style of beard.
Speaker 2:
1:18
You did do a good job for once with an avatar. Yeah, that does look like him.
Speaker 1:
1:23
Our guest Todd is. He's going to be coming out and he's going to be sharing his story. It's just a shocking story of forgiveness and we're going to bring him out in here a little bit. But first, before we do, olivia, I want to ask you some stuff. I want to ask you. You know we're going to be talking about forgiveness tonight, and when you hear the word forgive, I would like to know how does that make you feel? Ugh, it doesn't make me feel great.
Speaker 2:
1:50
Oh, I agree.
Speaker 1:
1:52
I mean, I can see what you're saying there. I was wondering like I could actually even feel it in the tone of your voice, how you felt.
Speaker 2:
2:00
Yeah, I like to hold a grudge. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1:
2:05
How many of you feel the same way. When you think of the word forgive, like yeah, huh, yeah, I mean you got to forgive somebody it doesn't feel great. Or then, when you want someone to forgive you, how does it make you feel? When you want someone to forgive you, does it change?
Speaker 2:
2:18
Oh yeah, it makes me feel a little more like helpless, because I'm like please, I want them to forgive me, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, whatever I did. Blah, blah, blah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:
2:29
Okay, so let me ask you this before I'm going to go to a question here for all the audience members that I would love to get some input from. But before we go there, olivia, let me ask you this what we're talking about, the word forgiveness, what does forgiveness mean to you?
Speaker 2:
2:45
Oh, I mean, it really just means looking at the situation and realizing we're all human in extending grace that we would like to be given. So, yeah, it's just treating, almost treating others the way you want to be treated. Giving them that grace, so yeah.
Speaker 1:
3:04
Gotcha Okay. So here's a question I got for everybody in the audience what are some things that might prevent you, or have prevented you, from forgiving someone before? I would love to hear some people's thoughts Like what are some of those barriers?
Speaker 4:
3:19
A lot of times, it's the memories that it's harder to let go of, and those memories will haunt you, and you know what. And then you say, you know what, I can't forgive that person, because I still have it on my mind, it's still affecting my life. A lot of times, though, it's not the forgiving part, but it's the forgetting that stops us.
Speaker 3:
3:40
My biggest pet peeve are repeat offenders, like when they ask for forgiveness and they ask for forgiveness, and they ask for forgiveness the same thing over and, over and over again. I have a hard time forgiving that person for those things that they did.
Speaker 2:
3:55
I forgive a lot of people. I'll even it's when they continue to do it, when they continue to not care that they're hurting you or whatever they're doing.
Speaker 1:
4:05
So you guys just let you guys know our guest. We're going to bring him out and his name is Todd. We think he's a friend of Mad Olivia. Todd Stack, we think he's a friend of Olivia. We'll find out, you guys will get to ask him. But you know he's new. This is his first time experiencing it. So if you guys, please, let's rain him off a confet, let's give him a great welcome here to to horizons and, todd Stack, come on out and join us out here at the Killer Bee Studios. Hey, thanks for joining us. There we go, yeah there we go.
Speaker 2:
4:31
He gave you a high five. Yeah, what's up, man yeah.
Speaker 1:
4:34
Oh, he's smacked me in the face, I'll take it, man, I'll take it. You know what? Oh, he's dancing he is, he's got the moves. And I just want to just let you know, todd, that I know you smacked me in the face and I forgive you, right.
Speaker 2:
4:49
Hey thank you for forgiving me.
Speaker 5:
4:51
You're welcome Let me ask for forgiveness before the show ends again.
Speaker 1:
4:57
That's great. That's great. Welcome to the metaverse. I know this is a first time experience for you and you know you see all the confetti, so right now you won't be able to hear anybody talking, but we will bring them up and afterwards. You guys won't bring everybody up here to take a selfie afterwards as well. But, todd, I would like to first go ahead and start off and just give you 30 seconds to tell us a little bit about Todd Stack, who is Todd Stack 30 seconds Wow 30 seconds.
Speaker 5:
5:24
Okay, so I am married to my wonderful wife Hillary. We've been married. I think it'll be 28 years this year. Wow, 28 and three children. Yeah, that's awesome. Oldest is a boy, 25 years old. The boy's in Orlando.
Speaker 5:
5:45
Oh really Our daughter's in Montana Weird right. And then our son our youngest is 14. He's still with us, so it's like we have three only children, and so it's kind of awesome but kind of weird at the same time. So I've worked in radio most of my life as a career. That's where Metta Olivia and I met and it was a wonderful experience. We worked together and then I have a relationship with Jesus and I believe that he called our family to Nashville for another job and it was very, very difficult to leave the team where Metta Olivia was.
Speaker 5:
6:25
But yeah, so we currently live in Nashville and the job, ironically, that I came to do lasted about three and a half years and then I was let go and kind of rocked my world and at the same time I got COVID then and then I started my own business. Wow, and it's crazy, I literally work right here from my house and I get to encourage and champion radio DJs and consult radio stations, and I wish I would have done this like 20 years ago. It's amazing. Oh, that's yeah. So I don't know if I'll ever go back to like a workplace ever again in my life. I don't know. We'll see.
Speaker 1:
7:08
That's awesome. That was a good 30 second rundown too, and I know there's so much more behind your story. You want to let everybody know how they can connect with you on social media, because I know I think you're on Instagram a lot, right. You do a lot of stuff on Instagram. I'm on Instagram.
Speaker 5:
7:22
My company's name is beyond 615. And so 615 is the area code for the Nashville area. So my goal is to help artists, music and radio stations, wherever their area code is, take the music that's made in Nashville and take it beyond 615 to make an impact in their local community. So beyond dot 615 is my Instagram. I also have done a few videos with some people. You may know if you're into contemporary Christian music, and I've got a YouTube channel that I've not updated, probably in over a year, but there's, I don't know, 17 or so interviews up there at beyond 615 on YouTube.
Speaker 1:
8:25
Awesome, awesome, yeah, and you do really good on your Instagram too. Now I understand that. Beyond 615, I was. I was like I just got to be something like I know he doesn't just stay just within the area code of 615. I should have just put the word beyond. I mean should look at the definition. Right, yeah, beyond 615. But I love how you're doing that hey.
Speaker 5:
8:45
I forgive you, thank you.
Speaker 1:
8:46
Thank you, thank you, thank you guys. We're just throwing forgiveness everywhere.
Speaker 1:
8:54
Alright. So, todd, you know I caught word. You know Metal Olivia told me a little bit about your story, but I haven't heard it directly from you. Now, from what I've heard, you have a pretty incredible Forgiveness story. So I love for you to take some time and we're gonna bring up the audience here in a little bit, but for now, I don't know, I'm just gonna give you some, maybe some just a basic, basic direction. If you could kind of give us how did how did it all begin? Like your story? What happened? When did you realize you needed to forgive and why was forgiveness important?
Speaker 5:
9:27
Sure, so so, about ten years ago or so, I decided to go on a health journey and I realized that, basically, one calorie equaled 3,000. One pound equaled 3,000 calories. Right, so if you can limit your food or eat better food and Also exercise, you could lose a half a pound a week, or a pound a week, or whatever it might be. And then I stumbled on. I started walking one mile a day, and Then I decided to run one mile and someone at work said you know, well, why don't you do a 5k? And that's 3.1 miles. So I did a 5k, and then I started buying running shoes, and then someone said you need to do a half marathon. And so I found myself training for races Every single week of the year, basically up to a marathon as the years went on, and so what happened at one point was I guess I didn't realize this that I had Hurnious right down below my belly button, and so they began to hurt a little bit and they began to bother me, and so I went to the doctor and they're like yeah, we need to. You know, get, sew these up and get you back into you know where. There's no pain, and so it's funny. The whole time I had a very Uneasy feeling about this whole process because I know I'd have to go under anesthesia and do that and I've never I've never done that, never really broken a bone significantly in my life or been in the hospital. You know, I was age 45 At the time or so this is back in 2016. So we planned the surgery around Christmas time and that was like in the middle of resting from races. And then, you know, I wanted to get back and start training right away and it was about a six-week period most operations have. You know, you're six weeks off or whatever. You take it easy. And so, driving down to the hospital, my wife was driving me and I was just Quiet and she was trying to make me laugh and feel comfortable and she just leaned over when she was driving. She was like you don't want to be made to laugh, do you? I was like no, not really. I'm like kind of nervous and I don't know. So she was like this is Routine outpatient surgery. Like you'll be fine, like yeah, I know, I know you're right, You're right. So I get to the hospital and go through all the stuff, say goodbye, I'm on the operating table. You know it's a Lane down and there's it's a white room with like silver instruments and things like that, and I, I kind of remember dozing off. And my next memory was Almost like choking, and I heard voices saying he's waking up, he's waking up, get the tube out of him. And so then my next memory was my wife Just kind of appeared. Right, I must have been sitting up in a room. Well, leader, I found out that it was ICU, and so she said honey, there's been an accident, you're Gonna be okay, the next few days are Gonna be telling. And you still have two hernias. And I remember at that moment, I mean I was drugged up, right. I just remember crying like I went into this stupid surgery to get these hernias repaired. At least you know what. When the world happened, I don't know. Yeah Well, what happened was Is they laparoscopic?
Speaker 5:
13:13
That's where they stick, like they're called trocars. They stick a Steel thing in there. It's got instruments on the end of it, right where they do the instrument. They have one who has a light and one that has a camera, or two that have instruments in one light, one camera, there's three. It's laparoscopic. They don't in, you know, cut you open. Besides, you know a small incision, and so when he put the first one in, there was bleeding coming out, and he had never had that before. Well, mind you, I had lost 40 pounds. I was skinny, many I was skinny, wasn't I?
Speaker 2:
13:49
Oh yeah, you are really skinny, I was too skinny.
Speaker 5:
13:52
I mean, money makes you so, thin matter of fact, when I went to Starbucks and got my drink, they would say here's your Kamala Machiata for two skinny Todd.
Speaker 2:
14:00
Yeah, what are?
Speaker 5:
14:01
you eating for lunch ice cubes.
Speaker 2:
14:06
Yeah, I was chips.
Speaker 5:
14:07
Yeah, yeah and so the doctor couldn't figure out what happened. He sliced me open just a little bit down near my belly button, couldn't figure it out, and bleeding profusely, I guess. And so pretty much they did a stat thing that, like anybody in the operating rooms in this floor and this hospital, come to this room. And so another Surgeon came in and slipped me up nine inches and they opened me up and realized the doctor with the trocar had sliced my aorta where it goes off into your leg. Oh my god. So that was bleeding out and so I had two blood transfusions and I have cow in me. That's how they, I guess, fix arteries with other Cow parts Wow.
Speaker 5:
14:59
You know, cleaned up my aorta where it splits off into my leg, right there with with cow Artary. So that's move, that's good. I'm sorry, sometimes I do that so. That was bad. Am I gonna get like the bad?
Speaker 2:
15:17
Guess, thank you.
Speaker 5:
15:21
And so you know, I was in the ICU for three days. I was in the hospital for seven days and just laying in the bed I had plenty of visitors, had plenty of people that cared for me and checked in on me. It was wonderful. But I remember sitting there being so mad and upset and then I thought about people that have been in accidents not of their own fault, people that have had things that happen to their own Life not of their own doing right, whether it's abuse or you know hard topics that we can, you know, just can't imagine going through. And it's tough and I just remember thinking I've been around so many people in my life who have not forgiven, who have lived a long time with a lot of anger and frustration, and that anger and frustration ends up affecting the closest people to them and they're not fun to be around. You probably can think of someone in your life that you know off the top of your head who's just a victim, right, and I'm not saying victimization is not pretend world or whatever. Yes, there are victims in this world.
Speaker 5:
16:38
Forgiveness is a choice, and then I'll answer your question that he asked you earlier. Forgiveness is not about the other person, forgiveness is about you, your heart. If you want your heart to be forgiven and live a full life, you have to forgive, even if the person doesn't deserve it. So the doctor. I decided to forgive him audibly I'll get to that in a second Because I don't want to live the rest of my life as a victim of something that happened to me that shouldn't have happened, and thank God, I'm alive right Now. I had to slow down running. I only ran a 5k and a half marathon. I'm half marathon after that and I still miss running. I still have two hernias that I canceled an appointment to get those fixed a couple of years ago in Nashville, but it's okay. They're not bothering me like they were, and I don't lift heavy boxes. It's a great way to get out of helping people move honestly.
Speaker 2:
17:36
Do I get an?
Speaker 5:
17:36
applause for that.
Speaker 1:
17:37
Yeah, there we go. Okay, that's a good bet for that.
Speaker 5:
17:42
I remember the doctor. I didn't know. I thought that's why they put the cow on you.
Speaker 1:
17:47
They put the cow on you just so you could help move people right.
Speaker 4:
17:50
Yes.
Speaker 1:
17:52
You're not using the superpower you have inside of you, right? Now Todd.
Speaker 5:
17:58
I remember the doctor coming in and he was at the time probably my age, if not younger, and he, I said I want to let you know something. I forgive you. I know that you didn't mean to do this. He goes how can you forgive me? You are sitting here in the hospital. You were in ICU. I literally almost killed you. How can you forgive me? I said I forgive you, it's a mistake. I make mistakes at my job.
Speaker 5:
18:31
Now, I didn't tell him this. I don't almost kill someone at my work. I'm in radio, but you know there's apples and oranges there. But tears filled up in his eyes and we just had a moment and he said thank you. And so the nurses who worked for him my nurses on that floor would come in and just say you know, I don't think they were like plotting or anything, but they would talk. And then the nurses would come in to me and go doctor hasn't slept well at all and he missed like two nights of sleep after what he did. Wow, and this is his first major accident in his career and it's really shaking him up. I think I heard that actually before.
Speaker 5:
19:20
I forgave him, I think that might have been one of the things to make me forgive him. So, december 15th 2016. Yeah, my life changed. Wow, it wasn't over. God wasn't done with me yet. I hate that I had to go through that, but I was able to experience the power of forgiveness. And, by the way, I had to forgive him because I have had to be forgiven so many times in my life with relationships and mistakes that I've made. I had to forgive him, yeah, and so I don't carry around the woes me. Oh, that happened to me. I'm a victim. I've had, I've. It's a choice. Forgiveness is a choice and that's the choice that I made.
Speaker 1:
20:04
Yeah, that's good. Thank you for sharing that, todd. Yeah, I couldn't even I couldn't even imagine being in that situation. But I love that you're to have that opportunity to forgive the doctor in person, like that's one thing. To forgive him, like, okay, I forgive him inside, you know personally, but to vocalize that to him, to hear how it affected him and the things that he was actually struggling with we, it's easy, I think, sometimes when somebody hurts us, not to actually put ourselves on their shoes and realize that maybe there's something going on there too or we don't know how they're handling it. I do want to share.
Speaker 1:
20:37
I actually put this out on Facebook earlier and I asked the question do you find it easy or a challenge to forgive people? And there was a lot of comments on here. One of them I wanted to read and just kind of talk about too. One person said it was actually textbap. If you guys know textbap in here, he actually wrote. I find it pretty easy, pretty easy to forgive overall, but to trust again is sometimes a little harder. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Speaker 5:
21:07
That's pretty deep and with my specific situation that doctor for the next two years in his office I had $80,000 in medical bills that insurance didn't cover because it was a surgery accident. They wanted the doctor to pay for it, right or the hospital. So my insurance just bailed on me. But I tell you the nurse and the doctor, he went to that board of that hospital and went to all the anesthesiologists, the this, the, that, the room. He got it all written off. He got it all written off.
Speaker 5:
21:41
I paid my premium. You know my up to my what is not a premium, what I owed deductible, deductible. Yeah, yeah, paid my deductible and he said to me he goes, when you want to do this, we'll do incision, not laparoscopy. I probably shouldn't have done it. You were too skinny. I kind of thought about that but didn't trust my instincts. But I will. I will do this for free and correct him. Then we moved right, but trust I would go back to him and have him do the surgery, because he was forgiven and I think he got more confidence through the forgiveness and I would trust him to do that.
Speaker 5:
22:20
And so yeah, trust with your emotions, trust with your heart, trust with your body, whatever it might be You're putting yourself out there. But I think I think a lot of times trusting, taking the risk you'll never know. And if you get burnt, again or again. Well then you know.
Speaker 1:
22:43
Yeah, then you know then you know that's good, that's good. There is a. I'll read one more to you and see your thoughts on this. There's a guy from his name's Mack Mack, and he said, depending on the person, depending on if the person asked or not, it's harder to forgive someone that doesn't ask. Now, you actually came through this because you forgave someone that wasn't asking. Was that the first time you've like you've forgiven someone that didn't ask, or what do you see the benefits are for actually even saying you know, I'm gonna forgive this person even though they haven't asked?
Speaker 5:
23:13
Again, I think it's about your own heart. I don't think it's about the other person, I mean baseline, it's just about you and I think so many times we do make it about others, like others have to win our forgiveness, and then, yes, I'll forgive you when I see actions change or when I see a humbleness or a humility inside of you. And you know, maybe that's the case, I'm not, I'm not blanking statement, saying you know my way is the right way and everybody else's way is wrong, not saying that. But I think I've come to learn that forgiveness is for your own heart, and especially if you call yourself a Christian, with your relationship with Jesus. I mean, jesus hung on a cross, he was brutally beaten and he forgave those who did that to him. I mean, what an example, right, yeah, that's good, yeah, yes, thank you, todd.
Speaker 1:
24:08
Thank you, let me see if we got some. Let me bring on the mic. I know we got some people on the list here. Oh, this is a special guest here I get to bring up. Let's bring up Mrs Killer B If you wanna come up here to the stage and ah nice hat.
Speaker 6:
24:24
My question is did your wife struggle with forgiving the doctor?
Speaker 2:
24:30
Great question.
Speaker 5:
24:38
I don't think she did.
Speaker 6:
24:39
Really, she just like kind of took it and stride like this is where we are now and we just have to move on, that kind of thing.
Speaker 5:
24:46
Listen, when my wife has stuff happen in life, whether it's with kids, family or whatever she just goes into, she just knows what to do. It's not like it's not thinking, feeling, it's just doing. Oh, how interesting.
Speaker 5:
25:04
Yeah, and I think she respected the whole thing. I don't respect Mamby isn't the right word, but I think she gave me space to handle and deal with it. You know we didn't. I don't remember any conversation of her upset at the doctor. Mad at the doctor, I mean, we were mad at the insurance company and it was really hell on earth. For two years I had creditors calling. I had late statements coming. I'm like I'm not paying this.
Speaker 2:
25:31
What don't you?
Speaker 5:
25:32
understand about this. So she was angry at those things and actually she's pretty much takes care of the checkbook and paying bills and stuff like that. But she had to turn that over to me. She was just exhausted and I well, yeah, I mean I'll take care of that. So she did a lot of heavy lifting early on, but no, I don't think I don't remember any conversation that we had that she was upset.
Speaker 6:
25:57
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. But thank you so much.
Speaker 5:
26:00
Yeah, thank you, great question, Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1:
26:04
All right, let's see, we got. We have MetaVoices. Let's bring MetaVoices up. Come on up MetaVoices.
Speaker 4:
26:11
Hey, metavoices, you're a little faster. I almost tripped on that step, though you almost heard from my lawyer.
Speaker 1:
26:17
Sorry, I need to put some sign of the audit of the truck.
Speaker 5:
26:19
You need a ramp there.
Speaker 4:
26:21
You're just crying. You're crying you don't know. Well, my question basically and it was well, at first it was gonna be how long did it actually take you to forgive them? After saying you forgive them? That was my first question, because it's easy to say, it's harder to do at times.
Speaker 5:
26:39
I wrestled with that. I was out of ICU because I remember the different room when I did it. It was done. You were just over with okay Now do I have sadness sometime?
Speaker 5:
26:52
Do I have not regrets? But yeah, I mean, it comes up every once in a while because I have a scar and when they sewed me up they kind of tightened up everything and it helped my hernias a little bit. But also when they tightened me up I don't know for any women that have had a C-section I know it's different, like my scars this way, but when they sewed me up, I have like this they like sewed my stomach ending higher and so I feel like I've always got this little pooch that I'm dealing with that. I see that every day right In the shower when a T-shirt lays differently and I don't like that. But, like again, I'm alive, life is more than my physical appearance and so I don't ever go back and deal with that. When I forgave, I forgave.
Speaker 4:
27:45
Wonderful, my second. If I can do a second question. Oh yeah, go ahead, go ahead, yeah, go ahead. My second question is because you went through this and you went through this with that doctor as well, trying to get all these bills taking care of whatnot? Did you see the doctor in the end be able to forgive themselves? Oh, good question.
Speaker 5:
28:07
I had follow-up appointments with him. He was great. We had conversations and one of those was I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this go away financially for you and when you're ready, please come back and I'll do the surgery for free, absolute free. So those were part of those conversations outside of the hospital room. So 36 staples nine inches. So that was fun. I counted the staples as they took them out with pliers.
Speaker 1:
28:39
Oh geez, I was sweating on the table.
Speaker 5:
28:42
It didn't hurt. I have tattoos. It didn't hurt at all. But my mind was thinking these staples coming out.
Speaker 4:
28:50
I'm going to go cringe over in my seat.
Speaker 2:
28:53
I appreciate you answering that.
Speaker 4:
28:56
Anyone have met a?
Speaker 5:
28:56
surgery Todd.
Speaker 1:
28:58
I think you met a voice surgery room.
Speaker 2:
29:00
We can do a met a surgery room. That's how a lot of doctors train. Now they're started doing that kind of stuff in here.
Speaker 5:
29:08
You know what Good point. I'm glad you brought that up. I was going to go to a small town hospital where I was living we lived outside of Columbus and I just was like, hmm, small town hospital, what are the chances of some accident happening? Right, I found this guy. He was in our insurance and he had this like new high-fingered, robotic thing where he actually goes and sits over there In the surgeries over here and he's just doing all these things with his fingers, making all these instruments move. I'm like, oh yeah, this is cake. We're going with this guy.
Speaker 1:
29:45
I've got a follow-up question for you and then I'm going to pull the contest lever because we need to give away some points. Someone needs to chuck and whack this bee, right? Someone needs to whack the bee and get 50 points. I'm not always like me, me, me, oh man, it might happen, yeah. So one of the things that I we've kind of touched on a little bit, but I would like to just talk about a little bit, one of the things that for myself and I've heard others say it too it's easy to sometimes.
Speaker 1:
30:08
It's easier to, it's easy to forgive sometimes, but it's really hard to forget. Like I mean, I know things that still surface back up in me that I've forgiven, but then those moments come and I can feel it coming on, like I can feel like maybe it's the way someone has hurt me before and I forgave them, but then somebody else, it seems like it might be going down that same path and it starts bringing it back up and I start putting up walls all around to protect me. I don't know if you ever really can forget, but how, any suggestions on how to remember to not put up walls around people, that they weren't the ones that hurt you, because you could, like, I've learned that I've actually blocked people and kept them away from my life until finally realized, like you have got this wall up and you've got to let it be torn down because I'm trying to bless you but because of this, you're putting up this wall which is stopping me, preventing me from doing something for you that I want to do because of that unforgiveness.
Speaker 5:
31:11
I've seen people in my life who I've hurt badly forget like really, wow, I heard someone badly on a holiday and when that holiday comes around, for many years I put walls up for my own hurt caused, which is opposite of you, right, yeah. But there came a point years and years and years down the road, that the person and I never talked about the significance of what that date was. And we just live our lives now so you can slowly, I think you know what is the same time heals everything or whatever. I'm not sure if that's true. I think just date you know, if you're a follower of Jesus, it's daily dying to your selfishness and literally giving God control of your life in every decision that you make. I know that's like.
Speaker 5:
32:14
Well, that's the greatest Christian thing I've ever heard. You know that's not easy. It's hard, mm-hmm. Well, life is hard, your memories are hard, your heart hurts that get triggered are very hard, and I would just say that you just have to continually search your soul for a piece, and for me it's Jesus that is that piece, and that means praying, that means reading the Bible, that means trying to be in communication with him, and I am not perfect at that at all. I'm not a super Christian. I am not. I fail every day miserably. I yell at my son. I don't serve my wife as I should. I'm, you know, I'm a mess, but I think that you can move past once. Your focus is on Jesus, because what he did for everyone in this room is paid the price to wipe away everyone's sins, and so I don't know, that's good, I know, that sounds good.
Speaker 5:
33:22
I think it's just like a church answer or whatever. I don't mean it for the sound.
Speaker 1:
33:28
No, I think that's good. I think it's really good. And even what you're touching on there too, I think it's even for maybe it's not even there might be somebody in the audience here that's not just forgiving somebody else, but there's also that self-forgiveness too. Oh gosh.
Speaker 5:
33:42
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
33:43
I mean that's a whole other thing, right, it's not always just about forgiving somebody else, but forgiving yourself too. And you can move beyond, because I mean I'm probably my worst critic. Yeah, same, I mean I really am. I mean I have talked about that several times while she's coined out.
Speaker 2:
33:57
She's coined out, she's coined out.
Speaker 1:
33:58
She's coined out. She's not even here. She's there again, Okay, so let me tell you guys what she's really like. No, I'm just joking, but I will tell you.
Speaker 1:
34:08
There was a time like even for myself. There was a time in my life, Todd, that, like you said, being around people that don't forgive, they can become very hateful, angry, yeah, and they're very toxic. And I was just talking to my son about this, not even a week ago, and I said you know you want to be careful, because when you're, if you're, hanging around people that are toxic, like that, all the time, you will become like that. I was like, I've seen it. I was like I have worked places, man, that I love my job, and then the people I was with was toxic and guess what? It wouldn't take too long. I hated my job. I was complaining it just rubs off on you, and I was like and you want to distance yourself from those? I had that in my own family, to the point where we actually had family members which, yes, there she is, there she is. Hey, Mrs Clareby, you're back. So, but there was a time when we were going through this transition in life that God was revealing things different to me and life than the way I was raised. Things I saw when I was told, and one of those things actually had to deal with somebody in our family.
Speaker 1:
35:08
This family lived in Kentucky. We were in Ohio and I just knew it was like it was his 50th birthday party. They invited us and usually my family members wouldn't go to that most of them. I really felt like we wanted to go, but I felt like the purpose for me to go was to ask him for forgiveness. Wow, and I took him aside and I asked him.
Speaker 1:
35:30
I was like, hey, I just wanted to let you know, like I wanted to say I'm sorry and ask you to forgive me for thinking this way of you, but I never thought you thought that way of me. I never thought that I was like I know you didn't, but I did and I felt like God wanted me to come here to ask you to forgive me. So much freedom came over me from that and we are great friends. We always look forward to seeing him at a Christmas time. But that was also part. I had an action that I had to take to forgive myself, but that was an action that God showed me you need to go and actually ask him, even though he had no clue, but it set me free for doing that.
Speaker 5:
36:09
So, God, God, your story just triggered a story for me where I was toxic, um, for about a year and a half, for two years recently really, and actually he you bring me on here to talk about what is the? What's the title? What was the title of this?
Speaker 1:
36:27
for giving, forgiving the unforgivable.
Speaker 5:
36:31
Yeah yeah, that's forgiving. I have someone in my life who I've not forgiven Really right now, who I feel Is she wearing this?
Speaker 1:
36:41
you weren't a she wearing a pink.
Speaker 4:
36:43
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:
36:46
We'll talk later. Okay, all right, go ahead.
Speaker 5:
36:50
No, but you know what if, if he were in here in real life, my first inclination would not to be forgiven, to forgive. I feel like this person was very purposeful, hurtful and Really did a lot of people around him wrong, mm-hmm.
Speaker 5:
37:09
Um so here I am talking about forgiving the surgeon and I'm not forgiven this person that I Became toxic around I, you know, I I can't blame this person for my toxicity. I'm responsible for me. But yeah, I haven't even thought about that. But yeah, when I think of this person, I get really angry, like right now I could pick this couch up and throw it. I think.
Speaker 1:
37:35
No, you can't. Our coder did a really good job. You can kick it with your invisible legs. Maybe you'll do something. I don't know.
Speaker 1:
37:44
But well, I mean, I think that's a good challenge for us all. Like, I mean it's easy. I mean it's easy for me to look at people and say, you know that I look at the way they've treated me. But it's, it's so important to look at yourself to and say, well, how is it affecting me, or who are the people I'm not forgiven, you know yeah. Um to help us move forward so well. Well, thanks for sharing that, Todd.
Speaker 5:
38:06
Yeah, that's hard because I, literally, if I someone might ask, do you know what are your feelings towards this person? And I would probably, unfortunately, say I kind of tend to hate him, so and I hate that, that I hate that I have those feelings and that I just was like this, so encouraging, like Preachy kind of person, like yeah, man, you just got to forgive the surgeon that almost killed you, and then here's a guy that Forgiven and and have hate in my heart for and so again, I've not arrived. I'm not perfect. This. The certain circumstance about the surgery accident was monumental, a pivot point in my life. Yet I Still can't forgive this person. But I still have some deep hurt and I'm in my life right now. Now he what I'm doing for my career, which is a huge blessing. Actually, this person Caused me to start in a roundabout way, caused me to start my own business. Isn't that interesting how that can work out.
Speaker 1:
39:06
I mean blessing.
Speaker 5:
39:07
Yeah, I'm here today because of that person. I shouldn't have bad feelings for them because, no, I'm the happiest I'm in my life. Maybe, someday I can forgive this person.
Speaker 1:
39:20
Yeah, that's good man. Thank you for sharing that. That's that is. It's like we've talked about that. Me and my wife have talked about that. Mrs Killer, be like you know. There was a time that I'm going why don't I have to go through this? Why am I here, why I'm tired of this? And then, all of a sudden, it's like I can look back now and go, oh Wow, it was because of that that got me to where I am now. Well, you don't see that. Yeah, you don't see that at that time. And and it's learning that, that forgiveness, that not being unforgiving Actually still holds you back from moving forward even more. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Todd, I like to always give the give our guests an opportunity to, to close us out with a thought, a thought that you have so out of all our conversations day, what would you hope your one takeaway would be for somebody here tonight?
Speaker 5:
40:09
If you want to answer this, please answer. If you don't, that's okay too, because I know this room is filled with different people from different backgrounds and different faith, or Maybe not even you know, maybe there's atheists in here too. So I don't want to put it be on the spot. But if, if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a Christian, if you know, raise your hand. I'm raising my hand, if, okay, a couple people in here. So this is for you, those who aren't.
Speaker 5:
40:37
I think there's something in this as well and I'll help you with that. So I would say Don't let the work of God around you Kill the work of God within you. You can be busy at church, you can be busy doing all the right things, but not in relationship with the God of the universe. And if you don't believe in God, if you're another faith, don't let the work at work around you kill your home life. Don't let your your health, healthy addiction of Exercising or eating right kill the relationships around you. You know, fill in the blank, everything taken to the extreme is probably not bad, and I try my best because I go to extremes. I'm high, high or low, low, and over the years, if I got an older and gone through these experiences, I try to be more in the center of Moderation, of for everything, and I still, I still struggle with that because it's my personality, but that would be my final thought.
Speaker 1:
41:40
Well, hey, thanks for tuning in to today's podcast episode.
Speaker 2:
41:43
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