I Never Knew... But God Did | Phyllis Robertson Thomas

What happens when God reveals a chapter of your story you never saw coming?

In this episode of The Conviction Exchange, we sit down with Phyllis Robertson Thomas, author of I Never Knew, for a conversation about identity, faith, grace, and God's providence.

Phyllis shares her journey of discovering a deeper part of her story, what it was like to navigate that experience through faith, and how God's hand remained evident through every step of the process. We also discuss the importance of generational faith, the power of testimony, and why our identity must ultimately be rooted in Christ rather than our circumstances.

This conversation is a reminder that while life may bring unexpected twists, God's character never changes. His grace is sufficient, His timing is perfect, and His purpose for our lives remains secure.

If you've ever wrestled with questions of identity, purpose, or where God is leading you next, this episode will encourage you to trust Him more deeply and walk confidently in who He created you to be.

Thanks for listening to The Conviction Exchange.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, well, welcome everybody to the Conviction Exchange episode two. We're super excited to have Phyllis Robertson Thomas. Look at this. Come on, somebody. We're super excited about having her. But before we do anything else, as always, we're going to pray. Jesus, thank you for how amazing you are. It's such an honor and a privilege to be here together today. We just ask that you bless our time. We ask that people get exactly what it is that they need to get. Use us, Lord God. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. We love you and thank you for everything. It's in your heavenly name we pray, and everybody said. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I like um how serious you are when you pray. Me? Yeah. I enjoy that. Yeah. What does that even mean? I looked over there and you were like, you were like.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

He's doing theological equations.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Oh, in his head. He's ready to go. Praise the Lord. So Phyllis is the author of a book that's coming out called I Never Knew. And I think about that whole journey like we were talking about earlier, and I think about generational faith. And I think it's the coolest thing in the world to know because what I read, a little at least a little bit of it. Yes, the answer is yeah. Oh, the answer is yes. I got a little sneak peek, praise the Lord, and I was super excited about it. Um, but when I was reading the foreword, it's super cool to know that your dad, Phil Robertson, gave his life to Christ in the same year that you were born, but nobody had any idea anybody was alive. So let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I remember Jay saying, like the year that Phyllis was born, Phil was reborn. So yeah, I was born in October, and he gave his life to the Lord in that summer of 75.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah. That's cool. That's a really, really, really cool story because I I just really do think of generational faith, and I think of my own story too. And it's like how the Lord continues to cover um, even when things aren't going the way that you planned. Because you think about, and obviously you know a little bit more than everybody else, but the first, let's just call it, yeah, the 28 years of Phil's life were nuts. And for me, it was the first 28 years of my life, and I'm sure you dealt with that as well, where you're just you have no idea which way you're going, and then you get to this point where you give your life to Jesus, and it's like, all right, but what about all these people I hurt back here? Let's unpack that a little bit. Because to me, how do you like what's your brain think about when you think about your past?

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Um I just give myself grace, knowing that was before Christ. Yeah, it's even a little the stuff even after I said the sinner's prayer um when I was 13, I still was a hellion for a lot of years. I just um I gotta forgive myself because God's forgiven me. I can't just dwell in it and steep in it. How am I gonna help somebody? So there just comes a point of um kind of reconciling that with yourself, knowing you're saved by the blood of Christ, but then trying to help others, you know, not make those mistakes. But you know, even more so when they do, it's easy. It's easy to not judge harshly because I've been there. Like, like, why would you do that? I used to break in cars for no reason. I used to use blur ass knuckles and bust out, God, God forbid your car breaks down on our road. We would break it and steal stuff for no reason. We didn't sell it, we didn't do anything with it. It was just like uh, and I think, how did my mind think that way? Why was I wired to think that was okay? I look back now and go, but if somebody breaks in my car now, I'm gonna be like, dang, man, wonder what's wrong with that person. What if I could talk to them and say, you know, there's a better way to think, but but I I think it does help you be more graceful when you when you I'm not saying it's a good thing to have lived a sinful life, but it does make you want to be a little more understanding of people. You just don't want it to make a way of life. There's got to be a turnaround point at some at some point. That's really, really good. What about you, Phyllis? What happened when you were breaking in cars? How'd that go?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Well, one, I'd never thought about using brass knuckles to bust in a bust out a car window.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

That's never occurred to me. It makes sense though, doesn't it? It does now.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Like it the safety feature of that, I like it.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

It's not smart. It's not smart.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

You know, I love it. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I was really young when I gave my heart to the Lord and mostly stayed on track. Um it's really interesting because what people who have, you know, when they they have a testimony of things that they did that were really what they call really bad or whatever. And and then sometimes people who were maybe they grew up in church and then never really strayed, they, you know, they give their heart to the Lord and they serve the Lord the whole time, they kind of feel like they don't have much of a testimony. But I've heard people talk about that. I don't have a lot to say about that other than I don't know. I I do know this that my dad said there's something about the 27, 28-year-old. He, in his experience of sharing the gospel, he feels like a lot of people can't come to the Lord about that age.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

You know what's funny about that? That's really weird that you just said that because I'm not sure. I think my wife got it from a verified, you know, source, the internet, but praise the Lord. But men actually uh mature later in life than women do, and they say that the age is 27.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Here comes her brain speed.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Okay, so I'll try not to be too nerdy, but no, our frontal lobes are not fully developed in young adulthood, but but uh girls, their frontal lobe, you know, is pretty well developed by their early to mid-20s, but guys, it takes a little bit longer. Yeah. And insurance companies know that. That's why y'all's insurance stays higher longer because they know your frontal lobe is still not quite there. But I'm sure that does have something to do with that. I never connected the dots on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

But yeah, the thing about like what did you do, you know, before you gave your heart to the Lord, or maybe you, you know, you said the sinner's prayer and still got off track. Um even I have stuff when I look back that I'm not proud of. Yeah, you know, so it doesn't matter. I mean, part of a person's testimony can be what they didn't do and um and how God's used them. So I think there's something for everybody with that.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yep. We it's it, there is a lot of things that uh, you know, you can be thankful for all the things that God didn't do because it's now gotten you gotten you got you to the place um, maybe where you are now, because there's a lot of people who have prayed prayers that didn't get answered, maybe, but it was actually being answered by not being answered. Does that make sense? Garth Brooks said it. Oh, come on, Garth. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers. He probably didn't write it. Who I was gonna say it's in the Bible. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

I've got to see who wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Oh, I do want to I do want to know that. No. So um, but so the Bible says, well, just to root this in scripture, 145.4, let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts, let them proclaim your power. And so you touched a base earlier on you um, you said you gave your life to Jesus at what age?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Nine.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

So with that being, but let's talk, like let's unpack, because let each generation tell it tell its children of your mighty acts. I just think it's so cool that you know Phil gave his life to Jesus, but in in the midst of that, you were being covered. So you were a generation under him being covered, and but yeah, you were you were saved at such a young age. So let's unpack what that was like growing up because we talked a little bit about it before we came up here. Let's unpack what that was like um being maybe just feeling different in a setting that you knew something was up. Like what what you let's unpack that.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

I was like weird in my family. I didn't match everybody. Yeah. Um, and one of the things that was really important to me was to go to church. And so I had several different places that I could go when we went back and forth from Louisiana to Missouri all my life. And so in Missouri, I had a couple aunts. One was a like an apostolic assembly of God.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

So she never wore pants. And I would go to church with her. That was wild, you know, um, Pentecostals. And then my other aunt was Nazarene. So I would go to church with her. I remember my first like church.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

You were getting all of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

I was like, I feel like I'm just like I was a Christian much. But I remember my first like Christian or church play or program. I was I think I was Raggedy Ann or something in a church play. Okay. I don't know the point of it, but I was really little. And then in Hodge, Louisiana, where I pretty much grew up, my grandma lived next door to an assembly of God church. I could just walk. And then the Baptist church is always had a church bus. So in Louisiana, I would often just, when we moved to a new place, I would call the the Baptist church bus. And that I actually learned from my brother and sister, my Missouri brother and my sister. Um they were going to Hodge Baptist for a while. They actually did go and invite me once, or probably they didn't invite me. I probably was just like upset that I couldn't tag along. So it was a youth group for them because they're nine and ten years older than me. So that's I remember being a question, yeah. I remember being in the like the church bus and they were having like a bubble gum blowing contest or something, and I thought it was the greatest fun. And that's probably early on where I kind of got that idea that for me, church was fun. And it was a place, and a lot of church bus kids are like that. They get to go somewhere where they feel safe, you know, where it's fun and games. There's probably no games at their house. Yeah, there were no games. My papa would play checkers with me, but there were no board games and books and art supplies and coloring books and all of that stuff. That stuff was at friends' houses and church. Yeah. So I found myself at friends' houses and church.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah. Did you when you went to these churches, various churches, uh, did you go like this the Sunday school for the kids, or did you go to the main sanctuary? Do you recall?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I remember with my apostolic aunt, I was in like a main service. I know at Hodge Baptist I went to Sunday school stuff. I went to a lot of Wednesday night stuff, because that's often when they do run buses and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

So it's crazy. So you saw a whole gamut of things. I did. It's funny because we, you know, we've known each other for a few years now. And and one thing that I found real interesting in talking to you, because I can look back in my life and I can tell you like when I think of an event, I can kind of pinpoint it within a year or two. Because I know where I was living. Because I was one place until third grade, then another place from fourth, fifth, and sixth, another place in seventh, then like from eighth through twelfth, another place. But I can tell when something happened based on where I was at. I remember asking you about this, uh, like, where'd you go to second grade? And you're like, I don't know. Because you, you and that to me, that just blew my mind to think a kid, you don't know when anything happened because you moved literally hundreds of times.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

We move so often and trauma. So our brains protect us. And so one of the the like one of the big symptoms of having gone through trauma is that you forget, you just don't know what happened. Yeah. You ask a lot of people who've experienced trauma, they're like, I don't know. I don't know that they can't, their memories are not there for holidays, birthdays. I don't know. I remember part, I remember my 10th birthday. But like as a child, I don't remember a birthday party. There's a picture of me at a birthday party once, and I was over the cake. So I know my mom made me cakes and things. I know that happened, but I have one memory. My earliest birthday that I can remember, I was 10.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah. Do you think your brain, this is like I'm just uh asking an open-ended question. Do you think that your brain, like early on in life, depending on what you diagnose as trauma as a child, your brain just is like, nope, we gotta forget that. Nope, we gotta forget that. You know what I mean? Because I think there's a lot of things that are trauma to people that others would say it wasn't trauma. Like there are, you know what I mean? Because just maybe it's based on the way you're raised, maybe it doesn't make sense. Normal though, like Phyllis was saying earlier. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah. Um, trauma. Um, so what were you saying about the trauma thing? I think we got I got sidetracked.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

No, you're good. I like I'm just asking, it's do you think that um somebody, their delete button maybe starts to hit when they real when they recognize what trauma is? Because in all in all reality, like, because my next question for you is at what moment did you realize this is no longer a story that I can keep to myself? I have to tell this story once you found your dad, but also the beginning of it as well, because there's so many things that I can't imagine that you walked through as a child in your brain. And even though you kind of feel like you know the baseline of it, um, but you almost have to like how did what was your process to unpack all that if you feel like there's a lot of things that you blocked out?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Um, what's interesting is like for a while I just thought I had cool stories. Like, oh, I remember that time when I was 10 year old, 10 years old, and my there was a family member, I won't say who, but my family member got me drunk. You know, there was that time, 12 years old, we were at the lake, and this is what happened. Um, I used to have just what I thought were kind of interesting and cool stories because I didn't have anybody else around me that was telling those kinds of stories, and I thought, well, that's kind of unique. And then as I got older and became a mom, that will change your perspective. I'm like, wait a minute. Some of that was not okay. And then I went to nursing school and I learned more about the human body, about the brain. Oh, that's what some of that was. And even in grad school, when even after graduating, and I'm my clients or children, yeah, there's there there have been a couple of times that I'm like that happened, and I didn't even, and I I I talked to my supervisor, my licensure supervisor, and stuff that I thought was like, I need to hotline that.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

She's like, no, no, you don't have to hotline that. And I'm like, okay. And then there was something that came up and she's like, oh, we need to hotline that. And I'm like, we do.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

What's hotline mean?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Hotline is like when you um when you are aware of child abuse or neglect. That's why I assume so yeah, so you you you hotline, and and it can be elder or developmentally disabled person, but in this instance, it's happened a couple times where she's like so you're obligated by law. Yes, I'm obligated by law. Um, there's a lot of positions that are you probably were they talked about that. So, like a teacher, a nurse, a therapist, anybody that's in that's in charge of children, so like daycare workers, all of that. So they have they're required by law. And then anybody can, like you could hotline somebody, but we're called mandated reporters. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So it's like literally against the law.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

But I was not the things that I thought were hotlinable were not. And then there was stuff that happened that it did not dawn on me that that could have been the end because I was like, oh, she's like, that's not okay, Phyllis. That's not normal. And I'm like, oh, I didn't. And this has been in the last couple of years, so it's still happening. Our brains are wired to protect us. Yeah. So when something is not safe, our brain does what it does. And one of them is to like just block stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

From a biblical standpoint, though, I would have such a hard time, like, I'm gonna try to unpack my thought here because my brain's running wild with all this. Um, from a biblical standpoint, though, it would be so hard to forgive somebody that let those things happen to you. But when you go through it and then you are now on the other side of it, and especially with your education, you recognize, okay, this is something that they didn't address, right? They didn't address maybe even spiritually, whatever you want to call it, but they didn't recognize this was a problem. And maybe they thought it was normal, which I'm not saying it's an excuse to do something wrong. I'm just saying it wasn't as big of a deal to them as it was, as it is to all of us, or whatever it is. Like that would be impossible for me to not only forgive somebody that um I have a grievance against or forgive somebody that did something to me. Um, because I know that I know I have a lot of friends who have walked through some different scenarios to not only forgive somebody, but also to lay them at the altar and pray for them. Because I think that's part of our responsibility as Christians. I think it's part of our responsibility to once we recognize something and we realize um that somebody's just not getting it or that they have done somebody wrong, it's our responsibility to lay them at the altar and to intercede for them.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah. And and we were talking about this before that dysfunction in families, oftentimes people don't even realize that it's dysfunction. It's just normal. And so that's part of what I dealt with. The other thing, circling back to the testimony part of it. So I didn't go off the rails a lot, but look at the things that I've needed to recover from the trauma, the healing, the forgiveness. Yeah, that's part of my testimony. So it may not have looked like drug abuse or whatever, you know. We all whatever we came from that God delivered us out of. Yeah, it's all part of your testimony.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

That's good. That's a good thought that, like, because they defeated him by the blood of the lamb and the power of their testimony. How many people though think that they don't have one? Oh gosh. How many church kids, even just church kids, pastors, kids, or whatever? They're like, Well, I've never been through anything. And you know what? I think that people probably tell a lot of people too, you've never been through that, so I'm not gonna listen to you. But they're they don't realize that the battle is in their mind because they all of a sudden go home and they're having an identity crisis. They're like, wait a second, am I do I need to get into the world more? Do I need to do these? Do I need to make these mistakes intentionally?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

No, oftentimes it's even harder. And that's I think when I heard that person teaching on that about the testimony thing, it can be harder for a kid who grew up in church to serve God than it is for someone who was quote unquote off the rails and doing all kinds of things that we know are wrong, like drugs, sex, fill in the blank. They know they need a savior. A kid who grew up in church.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Shoot that down. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah. They it's almost like you inherit Christianity. Well, you're not saved off your parents' salvation. You have to get you have to be born again yourself and come to the Lord. And it can be really hard for someone who thinks they know all the answers and they're just living that culture life.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

You've been walking the line the whole time. Right. So it makes me think of there's an old story. I think it's Clara Barton. Is that the Red Cross lady? Claire Barton. Anyhow, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

There's a story of uh of her. I was gonna just sit here. Did you see like he said it, and I was just like, I your brain's not fully developed.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Is it possible 34 after all? 30 more a couple more years.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

She'd be clicking into place by now, Taylor.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

We're speaking back on the yellow, you know, for those of you who know my past, it's probably not ever going to fully develop, but that's okay. Continue with the Red Cross story.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Claire Barton had a I think it was her in the end. Um she she was at an event where they were distributing food or clothing to people after a disaster. And and there was a guy that came up to get things that uh had actually really harmed her as a young girl uh in a bad way. And her friend who was with her after he walked away looked at Claire and said, Don't you remember what he did to you? How you know, and doesn't that bother you? And she goes, No, I distinctly remember forgetting that. So I mean, there is a point of of of of life that kind of goes back to our accountability thing of uh you know, you gotta deal with it. And that's I think where Phyllis's book is. And and I and I think where we're going with today is we're we're trying not to just do the same old stuff when Phyllis comes on. What was it like meeting Phil? Did you go hunting? Uh yeah, you know, you it's all you've you've told that, and it's been amazing. But I think, and and you talked about people don't think they have a testimony. I I would say I almost yelled Phyllis because I've heard her say that um, why would anybody want to read my story? Yeah, like do I don't even have it's amazing, folks. I mean, and uh thank you on where my camera's at. You gotta read it because take take the last six years out of it. You got a story um that can help people, that can teach people how to heal and how to overcome things, and you can either waller in it or or not understand how to get through it and just continue that dysfunction, or you can um you can find Christ, find answers, find, find pathways to get through it. Um, but it puts me in mind of, and I'll I'll go go to this real quick, because I think about you and Tony, I know your husband pretty well too. You guys both came up, whoo. I mean, how in the world, I've met both your sons, how in the heck did you guys were you guys such good parents? And how do you have such good kids? Uh, I want to show the picture. Well, I'll I'll we're also gonna put this up. Um, they showed me this a while back whenever Phyllis was and we shared in some DNA with her husband and I both had to uh to figure DNA puzzles out. And as they were still getting pretty close, they found this picture. Explain who this is, Phyllis. So this is Joel on the right.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

I got ice in my mouth. Okay, that's Joel on the left. And when we were, I think it was even before we came down on our way down to Louisiana, Kendall found this picture of young Phil. So on the left is young Phil Robertson. On the right is his grandson that he didn't know about.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Joel Thomas. And so here's the thing we my sister asked me a hundred times, like, who does Joel look like? And I'm like, I don't know. Must be, you know, back a couple generations because yeah, he had his own look about him. And then when we saw that, we were like, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

You can't you cannot deny that.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

That really is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

And the other interesting thing is, um, it turns out Grant's his oldest grandson. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Really?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah. I mean, I started young, but Grant's his old, but I think it's Grant and Reed and maybe John Luke, all of them were born in the same year. Yeah. Like they're we were all pregnant at the same time. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Let's unpack. So once you see that picture, okay, let's go back to that moment. When you see that picture. Okay. So what like where was um, and I asked this intentionally, where was uh like did everybody know who Phil Robertson was at that moment? Like what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

So, like my family and everything, everybody, I don't know if you could be alive in the United States or in the South or Midwest and not know about Duck Dynasty.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Um, and we were even missionaries for the pretty much all of that show running, and even we knew about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

You want to know a story? We I was invited to a women's conference and And uh I went and I was super excited. They were like, we're gonna do trivia, and I'm stoked. I'm like, yes, I love trivia, and I am down. And then they had a big, you know, projector or whatever up there, and they put up Duck Dynasty characters. We're gonna do Duck Dynasty trivia. And I was all of this, like, seriously, I don't know anything about these people. I didn't know anything. I couldn't even play the trivia game at the women's conference because I did not know anything about Duck Dynasty. And when I did finally start having conversations, and there's a lot of them, you know, there's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Um, I would be on the phone with my sister, and I'm like, Well, so-and-so called, and I'm like, okay, it was this person with like, I think they they look like this, and and she's like, Oh, you're talking about and she would name them off because she watched the show. Yeah. She knew their names before I did. Okay. So all of us knew about the show, but to my knowledge, none of us had really watched it. I don't think my boys watched it.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

But you knew about it because like we knew about it. What did that happen? Like, what happened in your when you see that picture and you see those two side by side and you're like, oh, this could really like how did that even work? Of like, well, I this is undeniable. Because Ross, throw that picture up there one more time.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

We already knew, and I think we were on our trip undeniable to Louisiana after we had already learned the news. So this came after knowing for sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I'm pretty sure. We'd have to ask Kendall.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Maybe it was before.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

But I'm just saying, like, what when you like, when the feeling of okay, Phil Robertson could really be my dad, like, and people obviously everyone knowing who he is, I'm sure that you to be honest, like you know how it goes. You people are like, oh, that's my dad. But if he's famous, it's like I'm just trying to like say that he's my dad. Like, what does all that look like? Because I'm sure you probably went through a little crisis there too. It's like, do I even say anything? Right, you know?

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Well, at first, at first it was some fear. I was like, if this gets out, like he's a Christian, a Christian family, like, is there gonna be, are there gonna be reporters who are gonna want to talk to me? And so I was really careful about that. Um, when we found out for sure and knew, I told my immediate family, I'm like, do not, if somebody calls you, don't take calls. Like, don't answer questions. And they did. There were people that called, there were reporters or news outlets or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

I said TMZ called like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

They they did. I remember sitting beside Jeff and TMZ showed up on his caller ID on his phone when we were sitting there. So yeah, people had tried to reach out to Grant. People tried to reach out to Dereesa and they wanted answers and they had to be like, I don't know anything about that. I think Grant said, Um, I don't know who that is or something. Like, I don't know who you're talking about. Yeah, but I mean, not that he's trying to be a liar, but what do you do on the spot like that? He just It's a tough game. And I told everybody, like, shut this down because I didn't want to embarrass them.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

And even before I knew for sure, I was like, we've have to be careful with this because they are a Christian family, and I wouldn't want anything to be done or said that would reflect poorly on them and people not understand. So we definitely wanted to protect them to some degree, but then it was a little awkward for me to say who that was because I'm not a name dropper. I, you know, yeah, didn't want it to be like that either. Right. But um what my first impression of him was when we went down to Louisiana when we pretty much knew and we took letters down. So we hadn't approached them yet. We were about to. And we we had looked online and saw that he was gonna be preaching at Whites Ferry Road Church. And so we went and sat in that service and it was the New Year's service, and there was people in camo, you know, everywhere. And I was like, this is just so strange. And it took a lot for me to get out of the car and go in. And then when I was in there, um, it was like it was gonna take a lot for me to pass a letter along. But when I got there and we sat down, he came out and he's sharing the gospel.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

And I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's my dad. Pretty sure. And he's sharing the gospel. Like, that's my dad up there. That's what I was proud of. That's that's what I thought was cool, and that's when things were just making sense. I'm like, goodness, like this man prayed for his family when he was born again. He's like, Lord, be with my children, keep them safe. Well, he didn't know, but and I didn't know, but God knew and heard that prayer. So it was every time he was praying over his children, he was praying over me and didn't even know it. And I think that's a lot of the reason why I had such a drive to stay in school, to make good grades, to go to church.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

And ended up living it when that, as far as that goes, like my own choices, I made overall pretty good choices. I'm not saying I was perfect, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

It seems like you're saying you were perfect.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Not at all.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

So not at all. So along those lines though, and and I've and again, I I'm trying to be different in what we ask you, but in all seriousness, the way the way that your dad handled this, once the letter was written, once there was questions, once there was a final test to verify, could he have handled it? And that's what you were worried about messing up the family and because you care. You could have been a crazy you could have been Chandler, that would have been horrible. But uh could he have handled it any better? Honestly.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I cannot imagine, especially somebody in their 70s. Yeah, you know, imagine that you're that old. Like you've got stuff settled in your heart and mind by that time, usually. But he could not have handled it better. He handled it better than anyone even thought he would.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

You want to know why? Like I'm sitting here and I'm not telling you why. No, tell me why humility. Like the the willingness to just say, Yep. Yeah, I did that. I mean, yeah, but seriously though, like as a man, that is what gets me in one thing that I struggled with for a long time. Yeah, absolutely. I made that mistake. But it's not a mistake, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

It's like, hey, this is the questions that I had. I asked some like two or three close Christian brothers, um, like brothers in the Lord. I'm like, would you want to know if you fathered a child and now you're a believer? Would you would you want to know? And my other question is, do I have a right, you know, to approach this person and bring this up at this stage of life?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

You know, and then this person has a wife.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

And that's the one of the first things I told Zach Dasher on the phone call when he called me. I'm like, what about Miss Kay? I said, if this is gonna be upsetting to her or cause any problems, we can stop this right now and I I will be okay. He was like, Oh no, Miss, you know, and then people have heard that story. Miss Kay always wanted a daughter. So, you know, so she was she she was like, Oh, I knew it. And she was kind of proud of herself actually, because she called it. Yeah, she just said she thought that the person would walk up with a beard, but she called it a long time ago, and she was just like, of course you have another child. Man, welcome her in.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

But that's so cool to be able to like that that speaks to their marriage too. Like to be like the health of, hey, this is what happened. And I think a lot of people actually struggle with that, is they don't want to talk about what they were like before they got together. And so therefore they don't understand why it is that they react, why they react the way they do to different scenarios. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

We talked about that at that marriage conference, how one dysfunction marries another dysfunction, and you are reacting to the other person. Yes, that's exactly what it is. That's why marriages struggle because they don't understand that you're dealing with their wounds and they're dealing with your wounds, and you don't even realize it. A lot of people are just not silver hair. No.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Oh, no, unfortunately not. Well, that would be well then I've been doing it wrong the entire time. Yeah, no, but you're a hundred percent correct. Of um, there's a lot of people who do not talk about that stuff before they get into um, and it's because they feel it's an identity thing, they feel ashamed, they feel like and they've made this decision to um change their life and turn it over to God. But I think that's once again, you go back to the humility thing. It's like that's who I was. Like, that's the point. Just so everybody, let me just look in the camera, like that's the point of giving your life to Jesus. Humility, just saying, hey, I messed up, like, but uh let me tell you who saved my life, let me tell you who changed everything, let me tell you why I am not that same person anymore.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Um that's what keeps people from coming to the Lord. Sometimes they're like, like, I'm the worst of the worst. How could God ever love me?

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yeah, yeah. Lightning will strike, the roof will fall down.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

He's the one that is chasing you down. He's the one that wants you. Like, yeah, yeah. That's but but we beat ourselves up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

You know how many times when you say lightning strikes? Like, as a pastor, I have heard it's so cliche, but I have heard so many times you're like, hey, you should come to church someday, and people are like, lightning will strike me as soon as I walk in the door, or the building will light on fire, or whatever it is. And I know that it's a people are joking, but they people actually feel that way. People feel like there's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Lightning can land outside the church. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

People could, but here's the best part. Yeah, it could, and he could do that, but he but that's the like people are hurting that bad that they actually there's a little piece of them that actually believes that if they were to walk into the church.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

No, it's the people in church that are supposed to be doing things that God strikes down, like Ananias and Sapphira. They're the ones that are showing up in church trying to play a role that that they don't need to try to be in. Those are the ones that God strikes down, the religious people that are liars and thieves, not the ones who need to come to Jesus and they just feel like they're not worthy.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

For episode two of the conviction exchange, we enjoyed so much what Phyllis had to say, and all the information was so good that we decided to go ahead and make two episodes out of it. Hopefully, you enjoyed everything that you heard, got some notes out of it, and hopefully you maybe caught some things that maybe will change your life and change your perspective on some different mental health issues. I know it did for us. Um, thank you so much once again for joining us for episode two. We will see you next week.