S2S Sisters: "Never Alone: My Testimony" by Manya Hozen

Lesson Transcript

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. So, good afternoon and welcome to Strength to Strength Sisters. We're very happy to have you all here, to see all your faces, those of us who are you who are letting us. So, my name is Linda Amant, and I'll be moderating today for Monya Hosen, and we're excited to welcome her to speak on this platform.

This platform is all about connecting kingdom-minded sisters, those needing mentored and walked with across the globe. And there has been—God has blessed it greatly. And so we give Him all the glory for this, and we are excited to hear from Monya today. She has an encouraging testimony of faith to share with us. So, we're really looking forward to hearing from her.

And for Monya, things that are important to her, that she values—and this is not necessarily in order of importance—is deep relationships, walking with Jesus, walking like Jesus, a good belly laugh, beauty as expressed in art, a good hard workout, cooking food for lots of people, giving gifts, mentoring younger women, going on dates with her hubby, nurturing good relationships with her children, which she has eight. Prayer answered. Sorry? Nine. Nine? Sorry. Learning more about the love of God and overcoming fear.

I have been greatly blessed to get to know Monya in the last, I guess it's just been about six months or so. So, yeah, we are—we've been very blessed to know the Hosen family and very encouraged by their walk with Christ. And definitely looking forward to hear some more details about her life today. So, I'm going to go ahead and pray with you, Monya, before we get you started. So, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to You this afternoon, and we thank You for this opportunity to be here.

I want to lift up Monya to You today. I know that she's Your child, she's Your daughter, Your princess. And, O God, I just ask that You be near her and give her grace, give her Your great peace in her heart and in her soul, and give her clarity, Lord, as she shares what You have done in her life. And we just praise You and bless You for what You have done in her life and her faithfulness, for her testimony, for her—when You call her, that she came and her obedience, Lord.

Just give her a special blessing today, walk with her. And I also ask that Your Spirit would work in each one of our hearts. We know that He does this in myriad ways and can touch each one of us, and that we know also that You are able to do abundantly more than we ask or think and could ever imagine. Lord, we praise You for this. We praise You for this beautiful day, for this opportunity to connect across the globe. And all this we pray in Your Son's name. Amen. So, I'll turn it over to you, Monya.

Oh, I forgot to say that after Monya's done speaking, we'll open it up for a time of questions or just inspirations you have or anything you'd like to share. We'd love if you turn on your screen, if possible, so we can see your face when you share. But, yeah, we do love to hear from whoever has something to say, whether you have a question for Monya or whatever you want to share. So, we'll do that afterward. So, go ahead, Monya. Okay. Thank you.

First of all, I just want to say I'm super thankful for this opportunity to share my testimony. And when I was asked, I thought, "Yeah, you know, that's a great opportunity." But then I thought, "Well, how do you tell a story that's not finished?" You know, I don't want to come across in this that the things that the Lord has been working in me that I have attained to these things because I haven't. I'm still a work in progress. But I guess what I'll testify is to the work that has begun.

And I was trying to figure out where to start, so I'm just going to start at my birth and work my way down. And I wrote down a bunch of bullet points I don't forget because I forget things in space out. So, just be patient with me as I keep looking down at my notes and stuff. But, yeah, I was born in Pomona, California, let's see, 41 years ago to the day. And the reason I'm bringing up my birth is it was slightly a notable one. When I was two weeks late and I had breathed in a meconium.

It's called meconium aspiration. And so when I was born, I was born not breathing for like 8 or 10 minutes. So, a significant amount of time where brain damage could set in. And when the doctors were resuscitating me, they broke my rib and punctured my lung. And so it was quite a—not that I remember it—it was quite a violent entrance into the world.

So, and the reason I wanted to start with that is because of what I titled my testimony, "Never Alone." And from the first moment, the Lord was with me, even before I could do right or wrong or anything. That was where He chose to meet me was there. And I feel like probably one of the biggest things in my life, if I were to be frankly, like all my sin and all that kind of stuff, can all be boiled down to the lie of alienation and loneliness.

And so I wanted to title this testimony, "Never Alone," as a reminder to myself of the truth, regardless of my feelings. And so I just wanted to start off with that. I proceeded to grow up in a mostly happy home. My mom actually homeschooled us back—what would that have been? The '80s or early '90s when no one else was homeschooling, or so we thought. And she did that because of her rough experience at school. She was beat up and, you know, things like kids would rip out her hair.

This was in Australia because she was an American and they hated Yankees. So, they would abuse her significantly. And she never wanted that for us. So, she homeschooled us, and I'm thankful that she did that. I think it really saved me from some heartaches. And she also grew up in a pretty strict home, and so she made things available to me and my sister and my brother that weren't available to her. And she would take us to, like, swimming lessons.

She took me to martial arts class where I earned my first degree black belt. She took me to so many swimming lessons. I ended up teaching swimming lessons. She would always encourage me to be very athletic. And I'm still grateful for that. It instilled a sense of well-being and confidence, I think, in me. And my dad was also pretty involved with me. I joke that he raised me to be a really good son because I was the oldest, and then my next sibling was a sister.

And so he would take me along with all his yard work and to work, and he would take me to hockey games, and he would—I was the goalie for him, and he would play hockey, and she would fuck at me. And so we had a really fun upbringing like that. And I grew up also very close to my extended family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents. We kept in close contact with them, and they were a regular part of my life. Not everything was a picnic.

We did have and have difficulties in our home, and I will choose to leave that out of the public message in honor of those who meant well. I'm going to move on and explain a little bit about our church life growing up because it was very significant to my story. And kind of give you a background of where I have come from, so that way maybe my conversion will make a little bit more sense to you guys. So, I grew up in a Russian sectarian group called the Molokhons.

I think most people probably would not have heard of it due to the fact that they don't evangelize. They believe they are the one true faith, basically the only ones with the Holy Spirit. That's what I was—that's what I was instructed that, yeah, everybody else are Christians, but they haven't been given the Holy Spirit like us. And we came from Russia about 120 years ago, and we immigrated due to trying to escape military. We wanted military exemption, and we were also trying to escape persecution as well.

And when the group was in Russia, it was actually pretty solid. They would be kind of two kingdoms, actually, non-resistance and, yeah, a lot of the same values maybe we would hold still in the Anabaptist community. They didn't believe in water baptism, so that would make them a little bit different, and they were very, very charismatic. So, that did put a little bit of a spin on things, and there was a lot of liturgy and stuff like that. So, I tell people it was kind of more like a Catholic Pentecostal vibe.

I don't really know how to explain it. So, but when they came over to America, they stopped evangelizing and kind of got a little bit more ingrown. And there was another teaching from actually a man who happened to be my great-great-grandfather, Muksim Havrilych, and he was imprisoned for his faith. And he would write a lot of letters back to the village, and these letters were compiled and put into a book called The Spirit and Life.

And a lot of teachings of him being the second coming of Christ, the intercessor between us and God would be Muksim. And, yeah, so I grew up with this knowledge of we had a new Messiah. And so in our songs, we would sing praises to him and to Jesus and to God. And so it was just kind of like this mix of things. And there were a lot of other strange teachings, but for the sake of time, I'll keep moving here. So, like I said, they're very charismatic.

So, we regularly enjoyed and eagerly sought after those things: prophecy and healing. It was very charismatic in the church functions as well. So, like, if the Spirit came, you would start jumping and raising your hands, and it was just a sign of God's blessing. So, if the Holy Spirit came, then that means God was there. And it was what I thought was the truth. And some of the church functions were kind of interesting.

So, we had Sunday morning church meetings, and you would stand all in a circle, and so everybody's facing each other. And the Holy Kiss was practiced as a part of the liturgy. So, everybody would, in astonishing order—I can't even really explain it—but we would all get to greet each other with the Holy Kiss all the while singing. And it was beautiful. It really was. And in our group, men and women would also greet each other with the Holy Kiss. So, it wasn't just women and women and men and men.

And that was normal. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't anything. It was just part of our culture. And it's a joke now. Most people I tell, they laugh and tell me not to get any weird ideas. I'm like, "No, it's not. Culture is culture. I understand." So, yeah. So, when a baby was born, they were given what's called an eksteni. And it's basically a baptism without water because they don't believe in water baptism.

And you bring your baby to the church, and the pastor prays over the baby, and the congregation circles around the baby and the couple, and they pray and they sing and they wait till someone starts jumping, which is a sign of the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, that now signifies that God has accepted them into Mount Zion, basically into the kingdom of God. And so they come around, and the whole congregation lays hands on the couple and the child.

And then the pastor blows three times on the child and says, "Receive in Russian because everything's in Russian, receive the Holy Spirit." And so then afterwards, they sing a special song, and it just talks about how this child is now a part of Mount Zion. And that is now the child is able to partake in the Holy Kiss and all that child. And I say child, but it's infant. So, you are born chosen. You are born saved. There's no questioning your salvation. It's just a done deal. It's simply because of birth.

And no need to be born again or walk right or anything like that. That was just not a part of our normal teaching. We would dress differently for church meetings. So, if you were married, you were required to wear a skirt and a top, a blouse, and it covered from your wrist to your neck, and it had like an extra layer over your chest. And it was actually pretty modest and very flamboyant. We're Eastern, so beautiful embroidery and lace and stuff like that. And so it was quite fun.

And it was such an honor to get married and wear this special uniform. And we'd have a long lace head covering that wrapped around. And yeah, it was so much to look forward to. But as a teenager and a little girl, you would just go to church and you wear a skirt or a dress or something, usually very modest, very short, high heels, plunging necklines. It's just the way it was. I don't know why we did that, but we did.

And then when we weren't in church, we looked just like everybody else: pants, shorts, tank tops, bikinis. I mean, you name it. It's just you wouldn't know the difference. So, it was just strictly for church meetings. And so when you're growing up as a teenager, there would be a Sunday evening function that you can go to called Young Church. And it was where all the teenagers would conduct the church service. So, basically kind of like preparing and teaching the kids how to have church.

And then some elders would come and stand in the background and watch and make sure we were conducting the services and the liturgies all right and stuff like that. And so that was something we as a youth looked forward to. And there were also what we called spevkas, which is a singing class, basically like a sing, I guess, probably what you guys would call a sing. And you get together and you learn the Molokhon songs. And the singing was beautiful. It was rhythmatic, chant-like, mostly unison, very boisterous.

Yeah, it was no instruments, but it was definitely rhythmatic, lots of rhythm. So, we would learn how to sing, and then some of us would learn how to translate the songs because we were all Americans and we all were English speakers, but everything was sung in Russian and was spoken in Russian, and we prayed in Russian. Everything was in Russian. So, most of the stuff we were just memorizing and not actually knowing what we were saying. Some of us would know some keywords or whatever.

My husband and I did spend time learning the Russian language because we wanted to know what we were singing. So, that was helpful. But again, we weren't completely fluent. But also, we did have a big problem with drinking. Alcohol is a big part of the youth and parties. It was okay to party as long as you guys were together and you weren't partying with what we called ninosh. So, anybody outside of the Molokhons was ninosh, which means not ours.

And so, if you go party with your friends that are in Molokhon, it's okay. We also did destructive things. We would not respect anybody outside of the Molokhons. We're also racist. So, we didn't need to treat anybody right. We would go around ruining and smashing people's properties and, yeah, take advantage of other people, have parties at their house and just trash it. And it got really bad. There were some drugs too, immorality. And yeah, we hung at the beach, went to concerts, movies, just the whole thing.

But in some sense, we kept very separate. So, it was kind of weird. We knew who we were even though we were partaking in the world. So, segregation doesn't necessarily mean, from my point of view, that you are holy and set apart from the world. So, those things I did delight myself in. I loved the world and everything in it. I was very much influenced by Hollywood. We lived there in LA. So, Hollywood was just a hop, skip, and a jump away, and we were very much influenced by that.

By the time I was 13 or 14, I was sexually abused for a couple of years by a friend. And through that, they had introduced pornography into my life. Thankfully, that wasn't something that I ever got addicted to. And I'm thankful because what I know now, it's hard to escape that addiction. So, and I will not get into the details of that because children and things and all that kind of stuff. But that was a part of my life that has shaped and formed me and how I see things. Around 14 or 15, I got really sick.

I was bedridden, and I had hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, and mono altogether. So, it just laid me up flat for a while. And then even when I was up and around out of bed, it was a very long years of healing from that. And part of that stuff never goes away. So, I still deal with the repercussions of those viruses. Or virus, yeah. So, I had a major problem as a teenager and into my adult life with anxiety and depression. And so, I did go on antidepressants and antipsychotics.

And those for me, I'm not prescribing it to anybody, but for me, it never helped. And I just had to keep increasing the doses and increasing the doses. And it just, oh, I would increase it and then it would get a little bit better. But then I would find myself writhing on the bathroom floor crying and just wishing I could escape my mind and my body and just the torment. Again, I think it was that lie of the enemy of just loneliness, you're not understood and all those things.

I would have such terrible obsessive thoughts. And really, it was like a living hell. I ended up drinking a lot and partying with my friends. And that didn't help either. So, it just made things worse when you woke up with a hangover and life was still terrible and there was still a dark cloud over you. Suffered poorly from or greatly from a poor body image. I was very skinny, but I had this mentality that I was fat and that no matter how little I got, it was like this lust that could not be satiated.

No matter what the number was on the scale, I had to go down. I had to go down. I had to go down. And I think that just kind of ran me into the ground because I ended up living at the gym. And yeah, abusing my body like that. I think now back is probably just trying to numb the pain. What do I use? Do I use pills? Do I use alcohol? Do I use hours and hours of exercise? What is it? How can I get happy? So, that was a big hang-up in my life. I did enjoy things like snowboarding, bodyboarding, surfing.

I did love activity and stuff like that. And that did help, I think, encourage me momentarily. I ended up becoming a yoga instructor by the age of 17. I was certified in that. I tried finding a company who was not too religious or whatever with their yoga. But looking back, I know now that you can't really separate yoga from the religion. It is a religion. And so, I did dabble in those things.

And I had a lot of spiritual experiences in yoga, which I do believe kind of rolled over into my church life too because church life was very much about the charismatic gifts, right? And so, I wanted to love God so much. I really did. I honestly always loved God. I know it doesn't sound like it because you're hearing what I did, but somewhere in the recesses of my heart, I did. And I would periodically read my Bible, and I would pray to him when I was losing my mind. And he was there. He would answer.

And I don't know why he did because I wasn't living for him. But yeah, I just realized now that we're never alone. God is always with us. And so, in church, there were times where people would manifest the Spirit, and they would come out. And remember, I said everybody was facing each other like in a circle. And so, someone would come jumping out into the center, and they would prophesy and speak words of revelation or foretelling the future or whatever, or rebuking the church or whatever.

And so, I would partake in that because I loved God. And so, I'd have these moments where the Spirit would come upon me, and I would black out. And I would be in the middle of the ring and dancing and jumping and prophesying and mistaking that for the Holy Spirit. And it wasn't. It was dark. I also had, in my own sense, my own lack of morality. I was definitely loose, a loose woman. And I am not proud of that, nor of anything that I'm saying that I did in my exalting.

My main prayer through this talk is that God is magnified. These are just the things that happened to me. So, and I did. I did get married very young, which helped me greatly. I was 19. And so, at 18, I had many, many boyfriends. Let's back up a little bit. I had many, many boyfriends. And Micah was always there. I've known him since. I've been two years old. So, I don't remember life without my husband because you have to marry into that group. You can't marry out.

So, you kind of know where you're going to be pulling from. The circle's only so big, like probably 5,000 people total. So, we never got along. We always fought. We always argued. Whenever our paths crossed in social groups, I always thought he was so bossy. And I would sass him, and I would try to ruin his plans. I was really nasty to him. And he was mean. So, we just didn't get along.

But anyways, after I had broken up with one of his friends, he all of a sudden thought like, "Wait, why is everybody dating her and not me? What am I missing here?" So, he called me up and said, "Hey, let's go out for coffee, but just as friends." I was like, "Yeah, whatever. Okay. We don't even like each other. I don't know how this is going to work out." So, we went and had coffee. And then he just kept pursuing just his friend stuff.

And that was kind of funny because it was turning into something more than just friends. And I started to change my opinion of him. And I think he changed his opinion of me. And we ended up dating officially, and I became his girlfriend. But we never stopped fighting. We just always see life differently. We still see life differently. We don't fight anymore. It's funny to us now.

But back then, when you're living for yourself and you're selfish and you really think that your opinion really is the only thing, then you start a lot of arguments. We argued over everything. We argued over our music. We argued over our dress styles, everything. But one thing that was a common thread in us is that we both did love God. We were both very much sinners. We were not living for him at all. And we wanted to start a family. We wanted what was right. And I think that's what drew our hearts together.

We ended up getting married in 2003 in LA in June. And that was off to a very explosive start. Our honeymoon was terrible. But it was so good too because the things that I was addicted to, he would not stand for alcohol. He was a teetotaler. So, there was no alcohol in his life, and that was good. Cleaned up my life. He did not like me on medication. So, I got off all the medication that I was on. And again, I'm not saying whether that was good or bad. I'm just saying that's what we did.

And I took an anxiety course, which was very helpful for the time being my mom had bought me one. And I had tapes and bookwork and all back in the day when there were tape cassettes. Bookwork, and that was helpful. So, things kind of evened out, and we started getting along better, and that was good. And we lived in LA for about a year longer. And then we moved to Oregon about a year and a half after we got married. And we just kind of wanted to get out of the city. We knew we wanted to sometime raise a family.

And that seemed like it would be better done in the country. So, we moved to Oregon. Our life looked like having lots of people over. We were passionate about keeping our young—not our children, but the young people around us—out of the parties, out of the alcohol, out of the drugs. So, we would have a lot of functions at our house, many big functions, lots of bonfires. We'd do all kinds of fun things for the youth. This was even before we had children. And that was a huge part of our life.

At some point, we decided we wanted to have children. So, I got off of birth control and tried to have children and did not work. And I remember close to a year later, one evening, I was just crying out to God and just like, "Lord, please, please give us children." And everybody around us was having all their first kids. And I just felt like a loser. Like, "What are we doing?" And I remember just being on the floor, just crying and weeping. And I opened up the Bible.

A huge part of the Malachi life was what we called a kresha, which means an opening. So, if you wanted an answer from the Lord, you went to your Bible and you opened it up, and there was a message to you from God. I'm not saying what I really think about all that, but that's what we did. And those happened many times in my life. And this was just one of them. And the Bible opening was a promise that I took for myself that I was going to have children.

I'm not going to reference to the Bible verse, but it was very clear that the Lord was going to give me children. And sure enough, very shortly after that, I got pregnant. And now I proceed to have nine children. So, that was definitely a promise from the Lord. He met me where I was at. I'm not saying I recommend doing that. I'm just saying that the Lord is so merciful and so humble. And we had three children in less than three years. And things started to get really rocky again.

My husband had addictions in his own life that were ruining our marriage. I'm not going to get into his story. That is also on Strength to Strength. If you want to go listen to that, you can. I was at the verge. And in the Malachis, divorce is very, very frowned on, which is good. But it's not frowned on in a way of respect and honor to God and we're going to help people get through things.

It's just kind of like, "You're a loser if you get divorced, and we're not going to let you partake in the church services." So, there was really no help for people who are in trouble. And I was in trouble. And I thought, "I think I'm just going to leave them." And it got that bad. And I thought, "Where am I going to go? I have three children. I have nowhere to go. I can't go to my parents. I can't go to any of my friends. If they find out, it's just going to be humiliation and gossip and slander.

And I'm not going to..." So, I just stayed. He did end up getting saved shortly after that. And his life changed radically. And he's no longer partaking in any of those things. He's definitely a redeemed man. So, his conversion, though, is pivotal to mine because when he started to doubt his own salvation, I remember he told me one time, he's like, "Moni, I don't think I'm saved." And I was like, "What are you talking about? We are born saved.

We are the only ones that are saved." And he was—and I didn't realize this—but he was secretly listening to outside teachings at work. So, he would put on, which was very frowned on. You don't listen to outside teachings. He would put on sermon index stuff. And he started listening to Michael Pearl and Paul Washer and Elon Paisley and all these different kind of stick-it-to-you type of preachers.

And Paul Washer's message that he said in there, he said, "Examine yourself." He read the scripture, "Examine yourself whether you stand in the faith." And Mike was like, "Okay." So, he did. And he looked at his life, and he was like, "Man, it's full of sin, no chastisement," all that kind of stuff. So, he comes and tells me this, and it's a completely foreign thought. I don't even know what he's talking about because I'm not being filled with this teaching.

I just go to church and listen to people ramble on in Russian and sing all the right songs and jump when I'm supposed to jump and start the right song when I'm supposed to start the right song and prophesy when I'm supposed to prophesy. So, I just got scared. I was like, "What are you talking about?" And then when I seen him actually get converted and his life has changed, I started looking at myself, and I'm just trembling. I'm like, "What do you mean? God doesn't love me? He's not with me?

What about those times that he answered me in prayer? And what about those times when he comforted me when I was losing my marbles?" And I just started like, "This is not making any sense." And Mike had started talking about Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and all these things. I'm looking. I'm like, "But Maxim is the new Messiah. What do you mean?" I mean, we were very not for Jesus because Jesus was for the Christians who—I mean, we would say we're Christians, but we didn't like talking about him.

I remember there was this one group who was more Jesus-y in the Malachis, and I remember spitting on the church floor, like, "This isn't true Malachiism." And I just break my heart that I would do something like that. But I was so ignorant, so ignorant. And so, remember, mental health isn't something that is a big quality of mine. So, I spun out and started trying to figure this out. And I was panicking. I called my parents. I'm like, "I don't even think I know God.

What's going on?" I was like in the middle of the night. And Malachi's don't say you don't know God. It's like sacrilegious. But they were hopeful. They were like, "Oh, honey, just keep things simple." I was like, "Well, what do you do with Maxim?" And they're like, "Just it's the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Don't ask questions. It's fine." Okay. So, it kind of calmed me down for a while, but there's something still in the back of my head feeling like there's something wrong. And I don't know what it is.

And my husband's saved, and he knows he's going to heaven. And now I don't know if I'm going to heaven. And if I die, I might go to hell. And so, I was really scared. But if Mike is making all this up and I'm really not needing to turn a different direction, then that probably means I'm going to turn my back on God because I'm taught that this is where God is, and I don't want to turn my back on God. And so, I was all over the place.

And finally, one evening, Mike and I knelt down on the front room floor next to our family altar table. And the Malachi family altar table is interesting in that there's a Bible, a Russian Bible that's open. And then there is the Spirit in Life book that's open with all his teachings. And then there is a prayer book that's open. And so, we had that there. And that's just kind of where you always go to pray. So, that's what we did. We went there to go pray. That was our sanctuary.

And so, we knelt down, and I'm just calling out to God, like, "Am I saved? What's going on? What do I do? Blah, blah, blah." Meanwhile, I have no knowledge of sin. My knowledge is nothing. I didn't even know I was a sinner, but I'm still on turmoil. And the Spirit was just calling me to truth, even though I didn't understand anything. And I'm trying to reconcile Maxim and his teachings and the Bible. And I'm like, "They're just crossing each other. Nothing's making sense. One has to be right. One has to be wrong.

If I throw away this other book, my whole life's ruined. I'm going to be cut off from my family. The cost is high." So, he gets up from his knees, and he goes over to the table, and he takes the Spirit in Life book off, and he throws it across the floor. And I remember hitting the wall and bouncing back and tumbling around. And I'm just like, "This is so irreverent. What are you doing?" But also, I just felt like a clarity start to break through. Like, "Okay. Yeah.

This has to be maybe a false thing, but I'm not sure." So, we're still praying, and we never put it back on our altar table again. But the confusion started to clear in my life. And so, I don't know how long it was. It seems like I remember it being pretty near that time of praying. I was reading in my Bible in Matthew, and it says, "See that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead you astray." And I was like, "Oh. Well, that's interesting.

Jesus has one up on him because he foretold of him wanting to be the new Messiah." I'm like, "Okay." And then 1 Peter was another clincher for me. And after I read this 1 Peter verse, I thought, "That's it. This whole thing is false. I know it." It says, "Know that you were redeemed from the futile ways that was inherited by your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ." And so, for me, that was my turning point.

I'm like, "It's about Jesus and his blood. It's not about my vain traditions, my forefathers. All these things have been pounded into my life." But I knew that there was a lot of grief ahead. Should I accept that? But there's also a sense of peace and calm knowing that it was going to be okay. The Lord had my back. And as we walked through these things and started being more outspoken with our faith and about Jesus, we started to lose a lot of our friends.

It was hardest with our best friends because we were closest to them, but they started to not let our children play with each other. I would go to church functions, and I remember this one instance. We were sitting down to eat. Russians eat a lot at their church functions, like three to four-course meals. It's awesome. But I sat down, and no one sat within six feet of me.

It was kind of like I had leprosy all of a sudden because we're talking about Jesus, and we're talking about not singing songs to Maxim and not—my family prayed to him in his name. And yeah, we just shifted and creeped everybody out. Then came to a point where we realized, "Well, we need to get baptized." Water baptism was preached against in our church. You do not get water baptized. That's what the rest of the Christians do. We are baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So, if you got water baptized, you might be erasing the baptism you got with your Holy Spirit. So, we didn't know what to do. So, we kind of ignored that for a while. We had no Christian friends. We didn't know where to go. We were heavily influenced by Michael Pearl at the time. And so, they had an open invitation one summer, and they said, "Come out to our church and meet us. Meet No Greater Joy Ministries," all this kind of stuff.

And we're like, "Just get away." So, we flew out to Tennessee, and they happened to be holding a baptism at that church service that Sunday. And Michael Pearl baptized both of us. And we came back and didn't tell anybody. We were really hoping there were no pictures taken and put on the No Greater Joy magazines because if anybody found out we got baptized, it would be like—it would be bad, really bad. So, we kind of lived this secret Christian life.

And all the while, not being secret, we would talk about it and stuff, but we wouldn't tell people we got baptized. And we wouldn't tell someone that we went to a non-Malachi church. It was just like we knew what we could say. And I'm sure all of you guys have been in different groups where there's unspoken rules that you know to obey. And so, we need to obey those and not talk about it. But as time increased, it was about two years before we realized we need to leave. Our family can't grow.

By then, we had another child. And we started more and more going to different churches and meeting different Christians. And at the time, we were very much—I can't remember what the doctrine was, but it's like where you don't believe the teachings of Jesus are for you. I can't remember what that's called for some reason right now. Yeah. But anyways, we were not Anabaptist at all, but we started meeting Anabaptist people and learning about their teachings.

I remember being so angry at their view of divorce and remarriage. So, we did have Jesus, but we also were very—we're still very much in our ignorance. But the Lord was just patient. He was just still with us the whole time and gently leading us along. And he would push us a little bit out of our comfort zones, but he knew how much to push us. And so, about two years into this, we were like, "Okay, we got to leave." So, we told our parents, and we told our preacher.

And that's when things got really, really difficult. It was the hardest with our family members because they're our loved ones, and they took it the worst. A lot of tears, a lot of broken hearts. It wasn't easy for anybody. It was, and it remains a very messy, messy, difficult situation. During that time, the Lord gave me a Bible verse that I didn't even know existed.

And I'm pretty sure a lot of you already know it, but it's in Psalms, and it says, "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord shall take me up." So, that was a great comfort to me.

And another one was, "You who have forsaken brothers and sisters, mothers, and lands and houses for my sake shall receive a hundredfold in this life and in a life to come, eternal life." And so, we have found that to be true, that all the things that we have given up—our best friends and our cousins and our aunts and our uncles and our siblings and our parents and church life, everything—the Lord has magnified that in our life through other people as long as our hearts were open to receive from where he was

bringing that to us.

And so, we started hanging out a little bit more and more with Anabaptist. Mike was always attracted to women dressing—not attracted to women dressing modestly. He liked the idea of women dressing modestly. That was the furthest thing from my mind. Like I said, looking hot was my thing. I had to look hot, whatever that is. And I never thought I did, but it was like this never-ending lust of how to be the most beautiful woman in the room, right?

And so, he's asking me to put on a skirt and dresses and head coverings. And I'm just like, "Okay." And that happened a little bit earlier in our marriage. And so, we fought a lot, fought a lot about that. And eventually, after he got saved, he just said, "It's up to you. If you want to put on a head covering, you do it." So, I did have space to go ahead and seek God for my own on that. And I was thankful for the opportunity. So, we're kind of making these moves out of the Malachis. We left the Malachis.

We're moving around to different churches, trying to figure this out. And then people started asking me, "Oh, can you tell me your testimony?" And I started to notice that that was a theme in these Christians' lives. And I'm like, "Why are they asking me that question? What is that? What is a testimony?" And I think it's ironic that you asked me to tell my testimony because this is something that I've asked the Lord for. I started praying. I said, "Lord, these people are asking me what my testimony is.

I don't know what they're talking about. Give me a testimony." And I didn't know I had one. And so, he did. He started opening up my mind as to what that was and what that looked like and what my testimony was. And that was awesome. And then they started talking about sin a lot. I'm like, "Sin? I'm not a sinner. I've never killed anybody." Or I started thinking of all the sins I didn't do. I never thought about the things I did do.

It's like, "Huh, interesting." So, I was like, "Well, Lord, you say we're supposed to be repentant, and we're supposed to confess our sins. I've never confessed my sins. I don't know any of that. Lord, show me my sin." And he was gracious again. He started showing me my sin. He showed me I was a sinner. That kind of scared me because I'm like, "Oh, whoa." So, I had to get real used to the fact that I was a sinner, but also I'm redeemed and loved and saved. And so, I had to go through all of that.

And so, it was good. I was just on a learning journey. Fast forward a few years, we had joined a non-Malachi church, and we had moved down to a place a few hours south of where we were currently living. And we wanted to be discipled by the pastor in that church. So, we moved down there. And that pastor ended up dying nine months after we'd moved there. So, Mike, by default, ended up pastoring. So, we were brand new Christians. We were still coming out of cult. And now we're pastoring a Christian church.

I just felt like looking back was kind of dangerous. But anyways, after my sixth child, I was told to not have any more children due to the last three births being very traumatic and losing lots of blood. I was transported at that last birth because they could not stop the bleeding. And the midwife's like, "Yeah, you shouldn't have any more children." So, that was kind of a shocking thing to us because at that time, we were being influenced by just have as many children as you can.

And again, I'm not condoning or not condoning. I'm just saying where we were at. And so, we were like, "Wow. Does that mean I got to just die because this is what God wants me to do?" So, we started to pray and fast. And a couple of the ladies at the church fasted with me. And we're just, "Lord, should we have more children? Should we not? What do we do?" And then a friend from Papua New Guinea, who's serving some missionaries there, called me during that time. And she said, "Moni, I had this dream or revelation.

I can't remember what it was." And she said, "I felt like the Lord telling me that there was something hindering your healing. And I'm like, 'You need to pray about this.'" And I'm just like, "Why are you giving me this death sentence?" I don't know. I was just really angry. And as you can tell now, I had an anger issue that I was unaware of. I got really mad at her. I didn't know what to do. And so, I was like, "Oh, is it hindering? What would hinder it? I'm a Christian now.

Things don't—everything's fine." And so, we started to pray about it, though. And we were praying, and we looked, and we realized that we still had all those Spirit and Life books on our bookshelf in our children's playroom where our children played. Lots of graphic. There are a lot of pictures drawn in there that are disturbing.

And we're like, "Why do we still have this and all those awful teachings?" And Moni's like, "I don't want you to get rid of these." And I'm like, "Yeah." So, we just started going through our house and getting all the books that were from those teachings, and we got rid of them. We went in the backyard quietly. We told nobody. We didn't tell even our church members. We didn't tell family members. We told nobody. And I realized now this is very public, and everybody's going to know. But we burned them.

And within a couple of days, we started to get an anonymous phone call from a man who only spoke Russian. And he said, "Oh, a couple of days ago in church." He's all speaking this in Russian. And we could tell he was actually not a native Russian speaker because his conjugation, his accent, everything was terrible. And a prophet came out in church and said that we need to call Mike a closing back to the faith. And I thought, "Well, that's odd timing." Something definitely got roused in the spiritual realm.

How did they know? And we proceeded to get these anonymous, very creepy phone calls. They would play Russian Malachi singing and hold it up as a recording to it and let us listen to it. And they would tell us all kinds of terrible things and just everything for two years. This happened for two years. We still don't know who it was. It was still anonymous. And they were very fervent on trying to persuade us back into the Malachis. And right after that time, two things got really rough with family members.

Very, very, very tough. And again, we told nobody what was going on. But at the same time, after praying about whether or not to have more children and stuff like that, we felt like through just different medical advice we were getting and different people were talking, and we got peace to maybe go ahead and have another baby. I still wasn't convinced my husband was. So, we ended up getting pregnant. And that was probably—it was one of the most darkest times in my life.

And I actually got so low because I knew this baby was going to kill me. And I remember just wishing I would miscarry. I was so sinful in my desires to live that I was wishing death upon my baby. It was so awful. And halfway through my pregnancy, I started bleeding. And I quickly repented. I realized that's not what I wanted. I did not want to lose this baby and that I did love this baby. And I poured out my heart and repented to the Lord. And it ended up being nothing serious. And I kept the baby.

But lots of turmoil. And I was calling around to midwives, asking them to help me. "Would you deliver this baby at home or whatever?" Because we liked home births. And they're like, "Oh, what's your name? Blah, blah, blah." And they're like, "Oh, I heard about you at a midwife conference. Are you the one that—" and they explained what had happened. And I was like, "Yeah." They're like, "Yeah, no, we're not going to take you. That's too dangerous." And so, I'm like, "Oh, no, I knew it.

I'm going to die." And so, I just remember just bawling and crying. And I called up an old midwife friend, and she just really encouraged me. And she's like, "I'll deliver your baby." And she actually hooked me up with another Russian lady in Salem who had the same problem as I did. And this Russian woman was about 10 years older than me. And she discipled me through my pregnancy. And she helped switch my mind around and helped me trust in God. And she was a godsend.

So, I ended up finding a midwife because of an amazing story. So, as we were praying about healing and we had burned all those books—follow me here—I had a dream. And in the dream, I was having the baby. And the Lord was showing me step by step what would happen during the birth and how to keep me from hemorrhaging. And so, I was like, "Well, this is not going to work because no one even wants to take my birth.

I don't even know what to do." And then I got to—I don't remember if I was talking to a different midwife. They called me or I called them or whatever talking. And she says, "I changed my mind, the one who said it wasn't going to take my birth. I'm going to take your birth because the Lord told me that it's going to be okay." And she proceeded to tell me what the Lord told her. And it was my dream, exactly. So, I was like, "Okay, Lord, we're getting a breakthrough. This is great." And so, I did have the baby.

I didn't hemorrhage. I was healed. That hindrance was removed. I believe it was getting rid of the last yuckies of demonic stronghold out of my house. I cannot say that for sure because I have no proof. But this is my testimony, and this is what I believe it to be. I proceeded to have three more children and never hemorrhaged again. So, that was a beautiful healing journey. And I'm looking down here at my notes.

So, basically, what do I make of all this, all these different tumultuous times and feeling like God has left me? Where is He at? How am I going to survive? But I love that footprints in the sand. The times that we thought—the times that I thought He left me was actually just the times that He was carrying me and He was patient with me and that He would chasten me and bring me back to alignment with His will. And He actually never left me. He was always there.

And it says in the scriptures, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." And I was an ungodly woman. And He had died for me. And why should it be surprising that, yeah, He did answer a prayer when I called out to Him? Because He was good. And He's always good. He's always merciful. And He wants to bring us to repentance and truth in Him and to the only way to Him, which is through Jesus Christ. My story isn't finished. And I hope to actually have more stories of redemption as I age.

And I'm going to tell one more story of redemption before I close here. And that was one recently that I had. We recently went through a pretty significant betrayal in the church. And that was really hard on me because I think I never expected that to happen with Christian brothers and sisters. I expected that to happen in my old group. And we know that because all the scriptures that say about the worldly people and the godly people. But when it happened in the church, I felt like I lost my moorings again.

I'm like, "What is going on?" I'm not going to go into the details of it because it doesn't really matter. What matters is, though, the bitterness that took place in my heart and took root in my heart. What matters is the unforgiveness that I was harboring, the anger. And I could justify it. And I could say, "Well, they did this and they said this and this happened. And we did this and we did that and blah, blah, blah." And just make myself look so good.

And then I'm so bad because that's what I'm really good at doing is taking care of myself. And I didn't realize I was walking in unforgiveness and bitterness. But the Lord showed me that after my health turned for the worse greatly. I had stopped sleeping. I was having heart complication symptoms. I was losing my hair. I had gained 30 pounds within a matter of a couple of months. I was losing my function, my ability to make decisions in life. I couldn't even go to the grocery store and buy stuff.

It was like those decisions were so big. Raising children. I just wasn't an existent mother. I was just a shell of a human being. And I was trying to figure out what was going on. I thought I had health issues. And I thought I had this. And I thought I had that. So I started going to all kinds of doctors and blood tests and all kinds of work. And everything comes back that I'm just the healthy person. And nothing was making sense. The doctors were all stumped.

Found a few things here and there that were real minor, but nothing that would explain what was going on with me. And every now and then, I would think, "Well, am I walking in forgiveness?" And I would think about it and be like, "Yeah, I forgive them. I forgive them." But the Lord would just keep bringing it to my mind. And He'd be so gently bringing the Bible verse again, "If you don't forgive others, I'm not going to forgive you." All these Bible verses. Okay, Lord, I'm not going to go back through it again.

I'd forgive everybody. But meanwhile, I'm just still miserable. And it's still coming back to me. And I'm still not having any answers to my health. Okay. So this is two years into this now. And I was like, "I cannot function anymore." So I started to go to counseling. I found a biblical counselor here nearby. He's a Christian man. And he was recommended by a friend. So I went to him.

And we were very leery of counseling because we hear of terrible things happening through counseling, especially those who are taking advice from the world and not from a biblical worldview. But this man ended up being a blessing. And he definitely helped get me back to the Bible and what the Bible says and obeying it. And he recommended a book to me. And it was called Unoffendable by Brent Hanson. There's a cover here. Let's try backwards for you guys. But I read it.

And it just felt like something clicked and the floodgates were just pouring in. And I had realized that I was indeed harboring bitterness, much unforgiveness. I wanted them to know the pain that they caused us. And it was like an unsatiable lust of like, "What would it take for me to be satisfied that they knew how much they hurt me and they hurt my family?" And I really thought it was wickedness. That's unforgiveness. That is not God. And the way this man brought it about in the book, it just made sense to me.

And it resonated. And through that tool, the Lord completely has freed me from all the bitterness, all unforgiveness. And I'm really glad none of you guys asked me to share my testimony last year. And maybe I'll be saying that again in a couple of years. I don't know. The Lord keeps revealing things as I go on. But I told this to my husband last night or the night before.

And he's like, "Well, I didn't know this." I said, "This was the biggest aside from my conversion to Christ, this was the biggest U-turn in my life. This has radically changed my life. That peacemaking lifestyle is not just not going to war. It's forgiving those in the church. It's forgiving those in your home. It's forgiving daily, all the time, not because of some religious piety, but because you know and love God and you understand the forgiveness that has been extended to you, to me.

And I have been forgiven so much. And what I've done to the Lord had not even compared to what these people did to me. I did way worse to the Lord than what these people did. So if I have a one-horse hobby in life right now, it's forgiveness. I love forgiveness. I love talking about forgiveness. Am I perfect in it? No. What I like to say is I practice forgiveness. This is something I practice. And I fail sometimes. But it's like riding a bike. You get back on and you just pedal again. And you keep pedaling.

And maybe you'll fall, lose your balance a little bit, but you quickly get back on. It's still considered riding a bike. It's still considered forgiveness. You're still practicing forgiveness. So I love that. I love that I'm forgiven. And I love that I can extend that forgiveness. I can extend that grace in other people's lives. So looking back into my health, I think what I did is I just had a nervous breakdown. And it affected me physically. In some senses, I'm still weaker than I was before.

But in other senses, I believe I'm stronger. And I feel that the areas that the Lord has strengthened, I trade out gladly for the areas that I'm weaker in. It's just a reminder, someone in the flesh, to stay humble before the Lord. And so I'm going to close up here and just say I want to say the title of my testimony is not unique to me. The title of my testimony is for everybody. Every one of you guys, every anybody else who ever listened to this message, none of you, none of us have ever been alone. Ever.

And I have a Bible verse to back that up. It's something that I found recently. And I love this verse. And so I'm going to end with it. And it's from Acts 17. "Since He himself, God, gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him.

Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being." So it's not far from each and every one of us. And that's what I would like to close it with. Thank you so much for that, Melania. That was very encouraging. And I like how you started out that this is not over. You're still young, and there's so many years ahead. And I find it so exciting to see and to think of all the ways that God will continue to lead you. And I find that so beautiful.

So I'm going to open it up for a question-and-answer time. If someone has questions or inspirations you want to share, we would love to hear from you. Just remember to turn your screen on if at all possible. You can ask a question without your video on just so we can at least hear you. But we'd love to see your face as well. So yeah, let's hear from the rest of you. Melania, thank you for your testimony. I think it's very brave of you to share all of that.

And I think a lot of people have gone through what you have as well. And that brings a lot of comfort to them to hear you say that. So thank you. I have a question for when you said that you were in the church and you felt alone and you were also physically alone when no one would have fellowship meal with you. These talks are really special because they're broadcast on the internet. And people who feel alone, the first place they go to is the internet.

I think these talks are especially special for those people who feel alone and may actually be physically alone. So what can you say to that person who is alone in their church at this time? And how can you bring them comfort and give them some steps that they can take? That's a really good question. I would say that our feelings aren't always true. They aren't always true to reality. And to remember that the enemy of our souls will use our emotions.

And if we go to the scriptures, he talks and says that we are not alone. And so what I would say is go to the Bible, get your concordance out, and get all the scriptures where he talks about us not being alone and that he is with us. And that one Bible verse that comforts me often, it says, "Knowing this, the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren throughout the world." And so not only are we not spiritually and soul alone, we're not actually even physically alone. A lot of people feel alienated.

A lot of people feel marginalized. And that there are people who are actually going through very similar things as you are. And if you pray and ask the Lord to open your eyes to those, you'd be surprised what you could actually minister to others through your own hurts and pains, grace to others. So yeah, look for spaces to serve. Thank you for that. So I have a question that came in.

This sister's asking, "How do you know when you have or haven't forgiven?" So that was a that was the question I grappled with for the two years that I wasn't forgiving. It wasn't like I wanted to like I didn't want to forgive. It was because I didn't know what forgiveness was. And there's, I feel like, a few different levels. I feel like if you want revenge in any way, if you want them to know and understand your pain, I would question whether or not you've forgiven.

And also, another thing is, how well do you know that you've been forgiven? How well are you acquainted with God's forgiveness in your own life? That'll help put things in perspective. It did for me. And again, I highly recommend that book to help clear up even more cloudy, muddled feelings. I'm not sure if that answered that question. Well, I think it did. I feel too like even in your own experience, God is so faithful in showing things when you ask, isn't he? Even sometimes when you don't ask, I must add.

That was one thing that stuck out to me so much in your testimony. And I feel like God has shown me in my own life how amazingly he walks with us even when we're so ignorant and know we never arrive or attain or know everything, of course. But looking back, it's just amazing that God is so gracious with us even when we still have so much to learn. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that in itself has given me a lot of compassion for others, even though I think I could still grow in that.

But it's given me so much compassion for the woman on the street and for just because I know and I have to believe that God is working in their lives and that just because things don't look perfect doesn't mean that you're not growing and that he's not working in you. And that's what I just love about our God. He's so good. Yeah. Is there anyone else? Oh, go ahead. Jelissa, were you going to say something? Okay. There's a question here in the chat box. There's a lot of things in this little chat box here, Melania.

I can copy it and get it sent to you. There are just things of you encourage a lot of people, and they like to bless you for your time here today. But there's a question that I'm going to read. So she says, "Thank you so much for sharing your testimony. As a new believer, I'm still doubting in moments in my life if God is speaking to me or if I'm imagining things that I want or that the devil is taunting me.

When you told about growing up and thinking that the Holy Spirit being with you, but now seeing that it was something bad, how do you now see what was the true Holy Spirit or God instead of something bad in you or outside of you? What would you advise me in this with your experiences?" And thank you so much for the inspiring words that God sent through you. Yeah. That's a really good question. That kind of goes back to one of those things I had prayed.

I noticed in the scripture it says that there was a gift of the discernment of spirits. And so I had asked for that because that was a huge part of my life of being deceived, of thinking that it was the Holy Spirit talking, but it wasn't. And so after I prayed that, I feel like the Lord had given me some Bible verses to help combat the confusion. And we can go and we can look at what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit. We can look at what it says in the epistles about the Holy Spirit.

And it talks about the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces. And that fruit is unique to itself. And Satan does not produce nor cannot produce that fruit. He can produce maybe little actions or even revelations or supernatural things, but he cannot produce the fruit. And so are you having fruit in your life of peace, love, joy, kindness? Go through that list. I mean, there's a whole list in there of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

And if that's what's being produced, when that feeling or when that's being spoken to you or whatever, if that's what's produced in your life, then yeah, it's probably good. Take it to your church community. Don't leave alone. Go be a part of a church community and check with the godly people, the godly women in your life and say, "Hey, this is going on. This is what I'm experiencing. This is the fruit of what's going on. Could you speak into my life?" There's a comment here in the chat box that I'd like to read.

It says, "Your words about not being alone brought to mind a sermon by an elder at my church about the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. In the midst of persecution and suffering, the Lord was with him. Stephen was not alone." With a moment of death, huh? Nothing can separate us from the love. That comment reminds me of something that, well, I can't think what her name is now, but oh, Deborah Brissell. Was she one of the first ones that spoke on Strength to Strength?

And she spoke about the early Christian women, a lot of inspiring women. Tanya Taylor. What was that, Tanya? Well, I was thinking there was something maybe Deborah said. Was it about she shared about how women died for their faith and for them to be able to do that? Yeah, I think it was Deborah that was talking about that. But for them to do that, they had to they couldn't just die for their faith one day without having they walked with Christ, and he was with them through their lives.

And that's just how they died. I just thought that was such a beautiful thing that I've never forgotten that God is with you in life. He will be with you in death. That doesn't change. And that's how people die with joy and peace and faith. And I just love that. I love testimonies of dying saints. You get more encouraged than that. I think a question or comment. Yeah. Hello? Yes, I can hear you. Oh, yes. I live amongst I live sort of in a small city, and I live amongst kind of the world.

And I try to do my best to live by my convictions and beliefs about being modest and such. But being where I live, I really stand out. I'm the only one doing this. Even in my church, I stand out as being modest. And sometimes I lose courage standing out and being alone in my walk of being conservative and following my faith. But it can be very challenging at times. I sometimes want to give up. I get intimidated. I get afraid. So it takes a lot of courage doing what I'm doing alone.

I have tried to go to a Mennonite church that is probably a little less than an hour from where I live. But because I was not born and raised into that culture, I stick out there. So I just don't really fit in anywhere. And sometimes I just feel like I just want to give up. You give up in your faith with Christ or? No, just give up and I guess like, well, maybe I should just look like everybody else where I live. And maybe drawing more attention to myself, being more conservative is not the Lord's will.

Maybe he wants me blending in and not standing out amongst the world. I just sometimes just don't know what to do. Yeah. Yeah. I really resonate with what you're saying a lot. I'm not from an Anabaptist background either. So there is a journey in learning all that kind of stuff. I don't know your scenario. I don't know if you're single or married or your church. I know nothing about where you're coming from.

But one thing I do think of is to count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations because it is actually an honor to partake in the sufferings of Christ. It's not anything to be discouraged about. It's not anything to give up over. It is something to rejoice in and to be exceedingly glad for great as your reward in heaven. And to take your thought process there and knowing that you're not alone. There are people very much in the same situation as you are.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of ladies here on this chat who would love to help you connect maybe with different functions that go on that maybe you can travel to, like conferences or anything like that that can help encourage you and give you those vitamin B shots throughout the year as you go about your daily life burying about the reproach of Christ. Yeah. Thank you because at times the world can just get you down, especially if you're the only one doing this. Yeah. Yeah.

You're not alone, but it feels like it. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. Hi, Melania. Hey, Dana. Hey. You did great. And I didn't know so much about your story. It was so interesting, jaw-dropping interesting. So yeah, it was really wonderful hearing more about you. And I guess one question I have is about forgiveness. Do you have any advice for how do you go about sharing about what's going on in your life, about things you might be having to forgive in the moment?

How do you go about sharing but then not keeping scorn upon the situation? Do you just not talk about things? That doesn't seem like the best thing. Or do you have any tips on how you go about that and being open with other people while also trying to be forgiving and loving? Yeah. A few thoughts I have is how we go about those things matters greatly. How are we talking about what had happened to us?

One thing for me was if in some way, as I'm communicating what had happened to me, I'm actually satiating that lust for retribution. It's probably best I just keep quiet. But there have been cases where I've actually the best place to talk about those crops of hurt feelings or whatever is the offender. So if you go and you have a talk I actually just recently had a talk with someone who I was struggling to forgive.

And I said, "I just need to actually talk to this person." Jesus says, "If your brother offends you, go tell him so you gain a brother." And so I just told the person how I was feeling, how I perceived all that, and then forgave and everything like that. But I felt like I had to tell somebody, and that was the best person to tell. But in counseling, I do do a lot of mentorship and stuff like that. And there are instances where you draw from your own experiences and you tell someone, right?

And so I keep things anonymous. Don't need to throw the nitty-gritty details that maybe would be terrible or whatever, but to use discretion and wisdom. And I wouldn't just go around just telling everybody everything. It would have to have a very deep, meaningful purpose. I would look at that as pearls, and you don't want to cast those before swine. You want to be careful with who you do talk about that kind of stuff with, yeah, and how you talk about it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

I kind of just want to go back to the woman that was speaking before that was on the phone. I know that there's many, many people in God's kingdom that feel alone, even though they're surrounded by people. But to be on a journey, and you do feel alone. And yes, God is with you, and Christ is there to strengthen you, but you still feel alone when you don't have maybe someone to share life with, or maybe it's just you and your husband or something like that. You still feel very alone.

One thing I know from my journey, because it's difficult for me to address modestly, even still today, it's something I still struggle with because I come from the world. I don't have an Anabaptist background either. And one thing that comforts me is the Old Testament is riddled with God and his people. These are his people, and they're set apart, and that's so important to him. And that didn't change after Jesus Christ came. That's still the same.

God's story is still the same, and he still wants people that are set apart. And so one way that I can be set apart from the world is by Jesus's teachings, but also looking that way as well. So there's been times where that causes me great comfort just to know that I am God's and that I'm bringing him glory by covering my body in a modest way. And so maybe that would help you as well. And I would really like to pray for you right now.

I don't know your name, and I don't see your face here, but I would just like to take a moment to pray for you. Thank you. For sure. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for the sister here on this call this afternoon, Father. I pray that you would just touch her in a really special way today, help her to feel your presence. I pray that you would feel her heart with unexpectable joy and help her to feel not alone.

I pray, Father, that you would do something in her life, on her journey, that would help her to connect with people that share the same vision as her. I pray for the people that she goes to church with, Father, give them conviction to maybe be more modest or just to live more following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Again, I don't know the situation, Father, but you do, and you know her heart. And I just pray for her today. I lift her up to you. May you bless her and encourage her today.

And this I pray in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that, Christina. Is there anyone else? I had a question, Melania, about in relation to your mental health. You talked about that being a thing. And I don't know when you would say that you felt like that started. But I was kind of curious to know whether—and maybe this is private, personal. I don't know how you feel about this—but whether that's an area that you continually have to guard against.

And you feel like you talked about a weakness. Is that kind of how that is for you? That's an area that you have to feel like you have to be more careful with and just guard against? Yeah. If I were to be completely honest, I think I could look back to my young childhood as being it starting with being very obsessive, like going and fixing something on the countertop, this angle, and then moving it to this angle, and then this angle.

Like, "Okay, if you don't do that, then God's going to be mad at you." And put it this way, like, "Oh, if you don't do it that way, God's going to kill someone." And like, "Oh, I was doing things like that." And it just, as you get older, it doesn't get better. It just gets worse. And so what I look at it now is the Lord has different things I've been finding out through counseling, whatever. I am neurodivergent. And that's a stewardship. And it is also a weakness and something that I protect. I protect my eye.

My eye is not bad. It does good things, but it's super sensitive. And so, yeah, it is an ongoing thing that I do need to be on top of. And I just do the things I found rhythms to help me in that journey, which is a lot of just spiritual disciplines of what I call spiritual disciplines.

Maybe someone wouldn't, but going to bed and waking up at good times and exercising enough and eating good food and reading the Bible and making sure I'm having time to pray and continually checking my schedule, making sure I'm not adding too much to my schedule. These things that kind of just wear on me at a faster rate than maybe my peers, I think. That's very interesting. Thank you, Melania, so much for sharing. I really appreciate it.

The more that you talked, the more excited I got to hear what was coming next. And just your walk with the Lord has been really encouraging to me, and I appreciate your sharing. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else before we close this down today? If not, we are going to go ahead and announce the next talk. That's for April 5th. Strength to Strength will welcome Jennifer Miller to discuss how singleness can be a blessing.

Sometimes we get the message that a woman most truly fulfills her purpose as a woman when she is in the role of wife and mother. A more robust understanding of God's purpose for marriage, however, reveals that both singleness and marriage are intended to showcase God's plan for his relationship with his people. Rather than being a second-rate position or a plan B that I just need to make the best of, singleness allows believers to fill a vital role in the kingdom of God.

This talk will aim to empower both single and married women to embrace the role they are currently in and to encourage each other to do the same. So we'll be really looking forward to that. So that's all we have for today. Then we are going to close off, and we're going to ask you to pray, Melania, before we close. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to gather up with these ladies in virtual reality, Father. And hopefully, Father, magnify you.

I just want everybody to zoom in on you, Lord, and see your grace, your mercy, and your kindness and your love and your comfort, and that you have not left any of us without witness in our life, Lord. And I pray for anybody who may be believing the lies of the enemy, that they're alone and that they are not worth anything. Father, I pray that you would clear the air in that and that they would realize that they have a purpose and a calling in this generation to be faithful. Amen. Amen. All right.

With that, we're going to close this down, and we hope that you all have a wonderful day and are blessed and look forward to seeing you next time. Walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work.