Speaker 1:
0:00
Alright, episode number three. We're already to number three, meta Olivia. And who's our guest today?
Speaker 2:
0:05
Today, our guest is Kelly Brandon. She is the one of the co-hosts of the Girl Talk podcast from a radio station in North Carolina called the Light FM. And Brian, she's pretty fabulous.
Speaker 1:
0:22
Yeah, she's got some amazing thoughts to share and her heart is just so much for helping people, and Kelly is going to share today with us that. There's moments that she looks back with regret, and I think any of our listeners here can probably relate in some way. I mean, have you had moments like that yourself? Olivia?
Speaker 2:
0:42
Absolutely. Yeah, I have regrets even from today.
Speaker 1:
0:46
I had a regrets too. I probably shouldn't have drank that big soda. But it could be several different things. I mean, maybe you said something that was hurtful, or maybe it was something you didn't say, something you didn't say that you regret. Let's go ahead and just go ahead and get started on the episode and let Kelly share her story. Well, kelly, real quick, if you can, about 30 seconds, just kind of give people a little bit of information of who you are and then we'll start talking about your topic.
Speaker 3:
1:13
Yeah, sure, I am first and foremost a child of God. Secondly, I am a mama and wife and have a 14-year-old son, and I work for a radio ministry in Asheville, north Carolina, called the Light FM, and do a couple of things. One is I lead all of our donor ministry work of the radio ministry, and then I also am on a podcast where we get together once a week and talk about the intersection of our faith and all the real stuff that happens in the world around us and in our own lives.
Speaker 1:
1:59
When I talked to Kelly, I was like, hey, I actually asked the Meta Libby.
Speaker 1:
2:02
I was like Meta Libby, you want to reach out to Kelly and see if she'd like to join us and just talk about? I said reach out to Kelly and say, hey, is there anything that you would like to talk about that you've dealt with in the past or you're dealing with right now? Because I look at it at the studio, we like to talk about life challenges and struggles because I feel like we can all tend to go through life and for myself, I've went through life a lot on my just feeling alone and feeling like it was only me dealing with stuff. And then when I started realizing that I could open up to other men and I find out, or other business entrepreneurs and stuff that I that I connect with now and I learned like, wow, they go through some of the same struggles I'm going through right now or the same thoughts that they're hearing. So when, when Meta Libby reached out to you, you said that one of the things that you'd like to talk about is is the guilt of looking back.
Speaker 3:
2:51
In fact, the day that Meta Libya reached out, I had just that day, or in the last couple of days, reconnected with the guy I dated in high school and found out I've actually got together again with him because he was a listener to the radio station and became a donor to the radio station and great ending to the story. But I asked him, I said what's you know, tell me about your life, tell me what's going on in your life for the last few years. And he said it's been awful. He said I went down the road of pretty hard drugs and alcoholism and I was homeless for many years and I lost custody of my child and I'm divorced and I've been the lowest of my possible lows. He said I struggle with schizophrenia now and I struggle with I have disabilities and I can't live on my own and all of these things because of his hard past and just it wrecked me, totally wrecked me, because I mean now he's in a really great place. You know he listens to the radio ministry. He said without the light FM I don't know if I'd have made it through my time of homelessness. Wow.
Speaker 3:
4:13
But he went for so many years, so many years without a relationship with Christ and without hope was totally hopeless and looking for hope in all the wrong places. And I had the answer. I mean, we were best friends in high school, we dated for almost two years and I never told him about Jesus. So you know not that I can take responsibility at all, for you know his path and his story. That's his path and his story. But at the same time I carry a lot of guilt, because I knew the answer. I knew that, I knew where hope comes from and I never told him about it. But yet I back then claimed to be a believer and claim to know Jesus and claim to have the hope that I actually do have now. So that's kind of where all that came from.
Speaker 3:
5:16
That processing of what could I have done better and looking back on my life and looking back on where have I been and what about the lost years. And I heard you, Meta Olivia, say that you had too much fun in college, and you know that's part of my story too. It really hurt my ability to be able to share hope with others because I was so caught up in my own fun. And you know now, as a mom of a 14 year old son, I want to help him not make the same mistakes I made. I want him to make better choices than I made.
Speaker 1:
5:59
I think that, well, I'll ask, is anybody here ever can look back and realize like there's some things that you regret? Maybe you should have said about you know anything that's going on, like to help somebody, and you just felt ashamed or like, yeah, I see hands up all over, yeah, and I think that's the. It's good for us to talk about these things, because I don't think any of us are alone in this. I mean, I feel the same way, Like I was scared.
Speaker 1:
6:21
I guess just to share some of those things I got made fun of is like my freshman year and I wasn't like an unpopular person, it was just they, the seniors, found out that I had a, I was raised and I was a Christian. So then it was just like they just kept, like you know, hammering me with that and making jokes. And then I was like at a moment where I decided, okay, you can either Keep going on this path, or you're a freshman, or you can do this and fit in. I'm like, I'm doing this, I'm fitting in, Like, and I just like totally went away from everything in my Christian walk and to fit in with the crowd. And I did. I fit in with the crowd, you know, but but then you know.
Speaker 1:
6:58
Later on, through the years, I learned what I did was wrong, and I'm like man. There's more to this world than that, and what I also realized is that there were other people that were going through similar things and I wanted to help them. But I knew I I felt so ashamed about what I had done and that you, since you shared that you felt ashamed. Have you? Have you moved past that now, or do you still look back with regret?
Speaker 3:
7:23
Yeah, I mean I, I still, I still look back back with regret. Um, I am really grateful for where I am right now and and I know that God is good, and I know that that we're all on paths and I've forgiven for all of the stuff I've done, every bit of it. God doesn't remember any of it, that it's all forgiven. But there's so many lost opportunities, so many opportunities that I never got to take advantage of, because I never, because I just wasn't passionate about it and I didn't understand the importance of it. And so there's so many lost opportunities that I just wish I could, I could take back, you know, conversations that were never had with people I'll probably never see again. So, while there's still that low level of guilt, it also spurs me on to have greater conversations.
Speaker 3:
8:16
Now there's nothing I can do about the past except make sure that it doesn't repeat itself in the future. There's a new day and there's all kinds of great things that we can do, and so that's part of why I'm really excited about what Girl Talk podcast is all about, Because that's that's what we try to do. The three, you know, Carol, Trisha and I we get together weekly, we sit down, we have authentic conversations. We just happen to have microphones in our faces, but we have real conversations about real things we're dealing with and we want to create that safe place. We also want to model that safe place for others to have those kinds of conversations and encourage other people to say hey, I have questions and I struggle and I do not have it all together and this is an okay, safe place to talk about that when I was sharing that about you know my past looking back and feeling that guilt and ashamed.
Speaker 1:
9:14
Once I started moving back into the relationship with Jesus and and living my life out, I started realizing that my life, that I lived, was telling the story. It wasn't just what I would tell people, it was the life I lived was telling the story. But what story was it telling? And that that sort of opened my eyes. But I started looking back and being ashamed. I'm like, oh God can't, god can't, use me Like I've did this. I did some really crazy things.
Speaker 1:
9:40
But there's a scripture that I that I really open my eyes, and it was in Galatians, chapter three, verse 27. It says it says and all who have been united with Christ and baptism have put on Christ like putting on new clothes. Now I thought of this verse Okay, so here's the thing. I don't buy clothes a lot. I usually just wear T-shirts. I usually dress like Mark Zuckerberg, but I am not Mark Zuckerberg. I was usually just a T-shirt, blue jeans, that's it.
Speaker 1:
10:05
But here's what I thought of. I thought of this verse because when it says that when you've that, when you've been united of Christ and baptism, you've put, you've put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. You put on those new clothes when you go into the dress room. You don't sit there and put on new clothes and then look at the old clothes that you threw on the ground.
Speaker 1:
10:22
You're looking at the new clothes and you you know if, if we spent all the time and got all dressed up and then kept staring at the stuff that was pot on the floor, we would never see what, how the new clothes were looked. And that was reminding me like that's the way God wants us to be with him, like put him on and see him and we'll see all of our mistakes and mess ups. And I did like God started to give me challenges and saying, hey, I want you to talk to this person and I'd have to step through, and sometimes I wouldn't still, but at times I felt like he was pat me on the shoulder, like you're, you're doing okay, you're learning.
Speaker 2:
10:57
So, kelly, I think it's really cool that you had the opportunity to talk to your old boyfriend, that you had, you know, some regret. So, like now, how do you approach the conversation with him differently? And, like, what advice would you give for others who are experiencing the same thing, where we might not have shared something we wanted to, but now we have the opportunity?
Speaker 3:
11:23
Oh yeah, Great question. So when this, when this guy's first, when his name first popped up and I found his phone number to give him a call, he didn't call me back. And that was scary. And so then when he, when he finally called me, he said I was really afraid to call you because I didn't want, I didn't want to have to admit all of my, all of my baggage.
Speaker 2:
11:49
Wow.
Speaker 3:
11:50
And so I told him. I said I was really scared to call you because I didn't want to have to admit all of my baggage over the years either. And so in the course of the conversation that we had, we talked about forgiveness, we talked about how God has redeemed his story, and it it was a conversation and that's the best part, I mean it ended with us praying together, Me praying for him. I've never, I never, ever, ever prayed for him when we were dating in high school and and for a little context, that was over 20 years ago, and we got that opportunity to do that and for, I mean, I think the best thing you can do is just have an open conversation with people where you say, hey, I've made some mistakes in my life. I'm sure you have too. I'd love to you know, talk about all of the things that you've walked through. And then, in very natural ways, I was able to insert God into the conversation.
Speaker 1:
12:54
Is there anything? If there was one takeaway you'd want us to take away from today, what would it be?
Speaker 3:
12:59
Don't waste the opportunity. Yeah, and to tell your story and point to Christ when you do. And the second thing is that God uses our messes whatever our messes whatever our testimony is God's. God knows, he's been in it the whole time and he wants us to use that for his glory.
Speaker 1:
13:20
So don't, don't be afraid.
Speaker 3:
13:23
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:
13:24
I love that. It reminds me of Ephesians two, 10. That's my favorite verse in the whole Bible. It says we are God's masterpiece. God takes our messes and makes them a masterpiece. That's a beautiful thing. So don't look back and we'll regret. Look forward to what God is doing now and just stay close.
