Transcript
WEBVTT
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hello, hello.
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Welcome back god's diamonds in the rough amen.
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We are so glad to be back with you one more time.
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If you don't know who we are, my name is katherine and hey, hey, I am michael and we are just always so excited to be before you every time God allows us the opportunity to be able to come and just chat with you for a little bit.
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Honey, you doing okay?
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I'm doing wonderful, Got my coffee talking about God.
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Hey, that's a good combination.
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I know that's right.
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Me too as well.
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So glad, so glad to be back one more time.
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Y'all, we got a treat for y'all today.
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But first y'all know we got to do, we got to pray, got to pray.
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Let us pray.
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Dear Heavenly Father, our Lord and our Savior, jesus Christ, we just come to you right now saying thank you.
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We thank you for your grace and your mercy.
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We thank you for just waking us up so we know that you are our alarm clock.
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You make us get up when we need to get up.
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You make us sit down when we need to sit down.
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We pray in the name of Jesus that you will just have your way.
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Let your divine power work through us and in us.
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We pray in the name of Jesus that you just have your way.
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We counsel any assignment of the enemy that would be sent back into the picture head where it came from, for it has no power, no authority and no dominion.
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But we do.
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We pray in the name of Jesus for the one that has no desire to know who you are.
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We pray in the name of Jesus for the ones that want to know you but don't know how.
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We even pray for the ones that knows you but fell astray.
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We pray for everybody, all your people.
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We pray in the name of Jesus again, that you would just have your way.
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In Jesus Christ's holy and maximum name, we do pray, we say thank you.
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We say amen and amen.
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Amen, amen.
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So how to handle what is coming at you when it comes.
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And we have a young man.
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His name is Jeffrey Wilson and he is.
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I have a young man, his name is Jeffrey Wilson and he is a military man, veteran and all of that A man.
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Michael had a desire to be in the military once upon a time.
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That desire has gone and passed since then, but're going to ask um jeffrey to say hello hello, it's so great to be with you guys.
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What I?
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I love it when I'm with a prayer warrior.
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That was awesome.
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I feel I feel totally connected and on fire, ready to to talk Absolutely.
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Yes, we can't go forth without prayer.
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Nothing that we do, we can't do it without prayer.
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First, and you know.
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It's so true, because you know His Word tells us, you know if we want things, we got to ask for it.
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His Word simply says you have not because you ask not.
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And how better way to ask God, but do prayer.
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Right, I love that.
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I love that.
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You know we have men in the military ministry who are reticent to pray and true in any ministry, especially newer believers that feel uncomfortable and I try to explain to them.
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You know that it's not really for God, it's for them.
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God knows your heart, god knows what you want, he knows what you need, which is more important than what you want.
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But the relationship comes from the asking, doesn't it?
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If you're not willing to open yourself up and talk to him, then you can't expect to be in relationship, and everything that comes in our lives through Christ is because of that relationship that we're allowed to have now, because of that relationship that we're allowed to have now because of the cross.
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So I love it.
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I love what you guys are doing.
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Amen.
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Thank you so much.
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We appreciate that we really do so.
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Today we're going to be really focusing in on a topic we haven't touched on.
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We've never touched on it.
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Actually, it's post-traumatic stress disorder and, being that this young man has been in the military and I'm now a veteran, can you speak a little bit more freely in regard to this PTSD?
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Yeah, I'd be happy to A little bit about me.
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To give it context.
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I'm a Navy veteran.
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I appreciate you calling me young man.
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That's not the case whatsoever, it's okay, yeah, we all young in Christ yeah, there you go, but I've been in and out of service my whole life.
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I was a firefighter paramedic as a young man and entered the military initially to become a pilot, was in an accident and went and did other things, did some spooky things in the federal government, with another agency and then eventually the violence of that was difficult for me, not because of my faith, but just because of the emotional impact of it.
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And so I sought a life of peace and went to medical school and became a surgeon and was working towards finishing my vascular fellowship when the 9-11 attacks happened and immediately went back on active duty.
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Like so many people, just felt the need to serve.
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And so in that capacity, I deployed with the Marines and then ran into some folks from my spooky past when I was downrange and they recruited me to join the Joint Special Operations Command SEAL team to serve with them as a combat surgeon.
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And so in that capacity, I got to see a lot of things, good and bad.
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I got to experience and do things that impacted me in both good and bad ways.
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Suff, see a lot of things, good and bad.
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I got to experience and do things that impacted me in both good and bad ways, suffered a lot of loss.
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I've lost an enormous number of teammates, sadly, and saw things that were hard.
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But I think you know PTS.
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Before we get into the scriptural and biblical side of the cure for PTS, to understand what PTS is is just what it says post-traumatic stress.
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When you've suffered a trauma, you have a psychological and emotional impact of that, and I would argue that if you are a combat veteran, you have PTS Like that's my, that's my take on it.
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It's not some few that are broken or less strong that suffer PTS If you have seen and done the things that happen in war.
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That's an unnatural state for the man that God created.
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He didn't intend for us to experience those things, and so it has an effect more on some than others, of course, but all of us have it.
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Unless you're a sociopath, you have some degree of PTS if you suffered those things, and so you know coming to terms with that is important because it doesn't just impact the veteran.
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We know that there's more than 20 veteran suicides a day in our country right now, all related to PTSD, and so it's a crucial for the veterans, but it's crucial for the next generation too, because this is a disorder that not even this.
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I shouldn't even want to call it a disorder.
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We've actually changed it.
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It's now no longer called PTSD, it's just PTS, because disorder implies it's abnormal.
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It's normal to have PTS after these experiences, but the point I'm making is that it affects the next generation too, because when dad is not well, when dad is not right, he's not being a godly father, a godly husband, not because he doesn't want to be, but because he's just not emotionally available.
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That affects his wife, that affects his children, that affects an entire generation beyond him.
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And so this is a problem that I think we tend to make about the veteran, but it's really about an entire generation and the next generation that are impacted by this, because we were at war for over 20 years.
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We're talking about millions of people and all of their offspring, tens of millions of people affected by this, outside of just the horrible statistic of suicide.
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And so I have a real passion for this, because I am someone who suffers from PTS and I've had to figure out my way with the help of the VA, but also, more importantly, with the help of my church and pastors that I've worked with Because I believe that the cure for PTS or maybe not cure, but the treatment for how to manage it in your life comes through God and through the gospels and the scriptures that he shared with us, and there's not enough emphasis on that.
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So that's sort of my, that's sort of my overview of PTS and where it is in my life, um, and, and what we try to to do.
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I lead, uh, I'm a full-time writer, a novelist, as you know, but my, my side gig right now that I'm passionate about for the last seven years is I lead a men's military ministry at a very large church, grace Family Church in Tampa, and there we deal with this issue weekly on all our campuses that have this group, and we see that its impact is no less now than it was 10 years ago, and so making that available, making the spiritual side available, I believe, is really key.
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Right.
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So I definitely, you know, I hear everything that you're saying and what I just kind of had.
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A moment here where I realized that you know, post-traumatic stress doesn't just affect military, it affects everyday people, because things happen that they didn't expect and they just keep on happening.
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And keep on happening and, if I'm—y'all correct me if I'm wrong, but you know you, it's like almost like your mind shift back to where you was Correct when you have that.
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And you know, imagine how many addicts that kind of shift back to those traumatic experiences or abusive people, men and women.
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That's an abusive relationship.
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So their mind can just kind of switch back to that, that that moment, and then they have to come back from that.
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And you know, I said all of that to say that I believe it's truly possible.
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You don't necessarily have to be in the military to have this type of, I guess, reaction to life.
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What y'all think.
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Oh, you're 100% correct.
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That's well known.
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We think of the military when we think of PTSD, because it's such a big problem in the veteran community.
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But whatever your trauma, whatever and one of the mistakes people make is they try to compare their trauma right, they're like well, I don't want to talk about my problem because you know I have this problem, which seems so minor compared to this other guy or girl that I know, and that's a very unhealthy way.
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Your trauma is your trauma and it is definitely definitely not unique to the military, a hundred percent.
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I would definitely say so.
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That's so true because you know and there's a word that I've heard in my past it's like a flashback moment.
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It's like you know, you go through certain things in life and it takes one small trigger to bring that thought back up, no matter how many times you try to forget about it.
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That thought back up, no matter how many times you try to forget about it.
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Say like with me, you know being shot.
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You know, at at one point in time uh, during the holidays, like fourth of july, all I gotta do is hear a firecracker and it go off.
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Or I can hear somebody at a shooting range on the far distance, you know they firing their guns, and it takes me to that state of putting me back into that, into that time frame.
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Why was that?
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And you know to go through stuff like that, to have those flashbacks.
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It's a very scary place to be, because you know the things that you went through in life and you know how you had to endure certain things and certain things that you might not have been proud about doing.
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You did.
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And the moment you get into that, those moments of that flashback, it's like I don't want to have to do that again type of feeling, and I'm gonna tell you it is a very, very, very scary place you want to remind the audience of what you're talking about and tell Jeff what you're talking about.
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Well, you know, when I was growing up, I was involved in the gang and I wound up being shot three times in my side and once in the back of my head.
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And you know that was a point in my life where, you know, I thought that I can get the enjoyment from the streets, get the love from the streets, get the love from the streets and you know, when you result back to, you know, getting your love from the world, as we say it, you know it will lead you down to a path very quickly and it's hard to get out of that lifestyle, but you gotta continue to.
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Once you get out of that thing and you get into the love that you really get from the people of God and God himself.
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It's almost like playing tug of war.
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You know you both had the ultimate goal of getting to the next as the winner's circle.
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But pulling something to have a resistance against it, does that make sense?
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It does make sense, and that's the impact of what you described obviously is classic PTS in terms of going back to that moment.
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And I think that the mistake that people make on the I want to talk about the spiritual side, but on the emotional side and psychological side, the mistake people make is that they're looking for a cure and I sort of corrected myself when I used that term earlier because there isn't a cure.
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You're looking for a way to make it go away, and that's not the right approach and most therapists will tell you that's not the right approach.
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You can't make it go away because you're asking yourself to forget an impact in your life.
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You can't forget that, any more than you can forget the birth of your child, nor would you want to.
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So it's really more about coming to terms with how to deal with the emotions, deal with that trauma, rather than trying to find a way to avoid triggers and find a way to make the memory go away.
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If you can deal with it emotionally and psychologically, then you can make it so that it's less of a struggle to deal with.
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But I think that the key is to find the spiritual component of that and that's where we as a culture are lacking right, because the VA doesn't focus on that, the our secular world doesn't focus on that.
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And yet it is the most important piece, because I think that and I'll speak from experience I don't want to generalize about other people, but what the traumas that I experienced affected me psychologically, but they very, very seriously impacted me spiritually, and what I mean by that is I was a believer when I went on my first deployment and I was a believer when I got back.
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But the nature of my faith changed dramatically.
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I never stopped believing.
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I had what I like to call a crisis in faith.
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It wasn't a crisis of faith.
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It wasn't a doubt that there is a God.
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I know some people struggle with that, but much more common is people questioning what they believe about God.
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Because when you see things and do things that are so horrific, when you see here's a good example If somebody gets drunk and drives their car and crashes their car and they're injured, that's horrible and you feel bad for them, but you're like well, that's a consequence of what you did, right, like I feel bad for you and I pray for you that you'll be well.
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But you know there's not an, there's not an unfairness to it.
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But if that same man runs over a four-year-old in a driveway now, you can't deal with that trauma because now there's a fairness component, that is, that child did nothing wrong and suffered under this consequence.
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And when you go to war, that's what you see.
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You're like what did these children who were killed in the killing pools in Afghanistan or Iraq, what did they do wrong?
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Where was God?
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And you start asking these questions about the nature of God.
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Why would God let this happen?
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Where is God in this situation?
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And those are the wrong questions to ask, but they're natural, right, like we grow up in high school we're picturing that the Jesus of the oil painting with the perm petting the lamb, right Like that loving Jesus.
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Where is he that he would allow this to happen?
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And it takes some time to figure that out and some people aren't willing to put in that time.
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I have answers to those questions in my life now, but the questions themselves are normal and healthy.
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And then you feel guilty that you're mad at God.
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And I will just tell you, if you're out there listening you're mad at God because you're asking these questions.
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God can take it.
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You're not bothered.
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You're not bothering that your, your anger doesn't bother God, he's, he's cool, he's, he can take your anger.
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So let yourself work, work through those things and find answers to those questions.
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But if we don't address the spiritual side of it, I just don't think you can get all the way to emotional and psychological healing without bringing God into the equation.
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Jeremiah 17, 14, right.
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Heal me, o Lord, and I will be healed.
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Save me and I will be saved, for you are my praise.
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These are not just bumper stickers.
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These are scriptures designed to apply to our life when we're struggling, and I think that there's just not enough emphasis on that.
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Right.
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And you know, at the end of the analysis is trauma is trauma.
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Whether you're in the military or not, trauma is trauma.
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And you would, I believe that you would hurt yourself more than help yourself to deny it, to deny what you've been through, to deny the pain, to deny the suffering, and you know, and everything that's attached to that trauma, everything that's attached to that trauma.
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But you gotta get in a position where you can own that the trauma is there and really walk through and see, and y'all know I say it all the time what is God saying to me in this?
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What's going on in my life right now?
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Why am I being feel like I'm being haunted by the past?
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Why do I feel like, why do I keep having these flashbacks?
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Why is this and why is that?
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And just simply talking to the creator, to the master, to the one, and, like you said, he understands our feelings, he understands we get mad, he understands a whole lot of what we feel like he wouldn't.
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But the reality is is that he, he knows the plan.
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He, he knew what he desired you to be from the beginning.
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He knew the end before the beginning ever happened.
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You know what I mean, so you know, this is why we got to.
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We have to lean not onto our own understanding, to trust in the Lord and lean not onto your own understanding.
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Trust in Him with all of your heart.
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Amen, Amen.
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I tell my men all the time that I work with in the church that not only is God okay with you asking hard questions because we hesitate to ask them right, Like, why would you let this happen?
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Terrible question, but we ask it.
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I tell my men not only is he okay with you asking the hard questions, but the good news is he actually has answers for that.
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If you'll look, if you want to just be angry and push God out of your life, you have that choice.
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He loves you enough to let you choose him or choose not to be with him.
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But what a horrible life you've chosen to live.
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Rather than asking the hard questions and then digging in, be in community with fellow believers, get into the scriptures and find the answers, because they're there.
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You know something you just said, Jeff, that I got to add to because when you said it my spirit lined up with it.
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You know, with the bumper stickers.
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And I'm going to add a little bit to that, because what do you normally do with a bumper sticker?
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When do you normally put it on your vehicle?
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It's to cover up something that's an imperfection of the car, like a rust spot, or you put a Band-aid on a wound.
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But we have to realize that the band-aid and the bumper sticker are temporary fixes, but God is everlasting fix.
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But sometimes we treat God as a temporary fix instead of letting the band-aid be a temporary fix.
00:21:57.619 --> 00:21:59.203
Amen, that's right, absolutely.
00:21:59.203 --> 00:22:24.234
So, you know, with everything that we have said, and you are an author, but, anyway, so you're a writer and with the topic at hand and, of course, god, um, have you written a book that speaks to this particular subject on, you know, going through it and coming, coming through it.
00:22:25.438 --> 00:22:26.441
Yes, absolutely so.
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We.
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You know, I write with another Navy veteran, brian Andrews, as Andrews and Wilson that's our brand and all.
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I will tell you that all of our books, both our faith-based and our secular books, deal with this in some way.
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We try, even in our Tier 1 series and Sons of Valor series, our thriller series, to show a realist portrayal of the sacrifices made by our workers and their families, and in that we can share the message a bit.
00:22:53.215 --> 00:22:58.218
But separate from that on the spiritual side, we've written two things.
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One I personally, by myself, have written a book called Wartorn.
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That is not an action thriller, it is fiction, but it's very much based on reality and it's a book that we have used in the ministry to help minister to the men's finds his way to downrange while on deployment and then that faith is stolen from him when a suicide bomber kills his best friend, who is the one that brought him to Christ, and so he gets angry, spiritually he goes through.
00:23:28.040 --> 00:23:36.585
This is a book designed to teach about that and to show the effect of the wife and all that she dealt with, which we haven't talked about much.
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And so there's that book, wartorn.
00:23:39.643 --> 00:23:44.467
And then we also have a thriller series, you know, because that's what we're known for.
00:23:44.467 --> 00:23:48.586
We saw an opportunity here to share some of this in an action.
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People out here that aren't going to go read a self-help book and they're not going to go read you know what I mean but they'll read a good action thriller.
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And so we have a series Shepherds that help from 10 bigger Christian publishers.
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As you know, the first book, dark Intercept, came out a couple years ago.
00:24:06.750 --> 00:24:26.101
There's three books out in the series, a fourth one coming next year, but this is a series about a Navy SEAL who is broken physically, mentally and spiritually, is being forced out of the Navy, medically retired after an injury, and he is dealing with a crisis in faith, and so one of the themes of this entire series is the idea of crisis in faith.
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We address it through an exciting action thriller series.
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His childhood friend, his daughter, has been kidnapped and he asked Jed to help him find her.
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The other aspect of the book that I am very passionate about that is not separate from PTS, but in addition and that's the idea of spiritual warfare we dig very deep, using biblical principles, into the idea of good versus evil and that spiritual warfare that rages all around us, and so we've created a universe in this series of books where the shepherds is an organization designed to use their faith in combat to fight the evil in the world, the idea being that every war, every conflict, whether it's Nazi Germany or Osama bin Laden or whoever you want to talk about, that, that's Satan, that is the devil using man to tempt him into horrible things so that they can, so he can advance his agenda.
00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:25.123
And what is Satan's agenda?
00:25:25.123 --> 00:25:27.516
To keep as many people from God as possible.
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Right To sow doubt, to sow anger, to sow fear, and so that's sort of the theme of this book, or all the books in the series shepherd series.
00:25:36.547 --> 00:25:45.900
We dig really deep into that idea, but we set it in an entertaining action thriller series that's actually now been optioned for television by sony affirm.
00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:54.843
So we're hoping that tv series will come out once these strikes are all over um, so that we can reach even more people with that message sounds good, wow.
00:25:55.064 --> 00:25:59.029
So how can I see you've been on TV?
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And yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, I mean you, you've had a very productive life thus far, and that's that's an awesome thing.
00:26:10.320 --> 00:26:13.749
It just lets you know that there is, there is purpose.
00:26:13.749 --> 00:26:18.946
You know what I mean, and we don't have to stick with the same thing all the time.
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God's plan ain't ours.
00:26:20.401 --> 00:26:27.963
And it's awesome Because you were saying you've been in the Navy SEALs and you went to see a surgeon and it's just like wow, you've been busy.
00:26:29.136 --> 00:26:30.442
I like the way you say it better.
00:26:30.442 --> 00:26:32.201
My mom says I just can't keep a job.
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But I like your take on it way better.
00:26:37.339 --> 00:26:39.862
So how can we get these books, how can we find these?
00:26:39.902 --> 00:26:41.443
books.
00:26:41.443 --> 00:26:44.707
They literally our books are available absolutely anywhere you buy your books.
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We usually encourage people to try to find your independent bookseller because they're struggling right now.
