Janna Van Gelderen: Hello there, I’m Janna, and welcome to episode 21 of Faith Talks. And yes, I’m flying solo again. I am interviewing a pastor’s wife out in Kenosha, so I was just able to make the trip today. So, I can’t believe it’s already February. I don’t know about you guys, but the months have just flown by. I mean, it’s only been two, but still. I was going into the office the other day, the school office, and I heard a little boy ask me, “what is the month of the year that you get the least sleep?” So I’m over here analyzing, okay, what months am I the most busy that I would get the least sleep? And you’re really thinking it through. And he looks at me and he’s like, “uh, duh, February has the least amount of days.” And I’m like, “oh yeah, I totally didn’t think of that.” So hopefully you get enough sleep in the month of February. 

Well, anyway, I am very excited today to be able to interview and talk to Mrs. DeLeon. We’re really excited to have her here on this podcast. So why don’t we just start out? Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? 

Cassandra DeLeon: Well I’m Cassandra DeLeon and my husband is the pastor at Southport Baptist Church in Kenosha. We’ve been here a little bit over a year, and we were in Ohio for 20 years. So, this is our 22nd year of ministry as pastoral ministry. So my husband’s a pastor. We have 10 children and they age and they range and age from 8 to 27. So it keeps me busy. And we homeschool. So right now we homeschool five and then there’s five in college and in grad school. So it keeps me busy. I love being a mom. On the side, I also am a consultant for homeschool families, so people will call me and say, how do I do this? I’ll encourage them in it, get to pray with them. So it’s just kind of an added thing I like to do on the side and it’s kind of fun. 

Janna: That is really neat. Now we have been taking the year to focus on relationships. That’s kind of our focus with the different podcast. So do you mind just starting us, just starting out by telling us when your relationship with the Lord started? 

Mrs. DeLeon: Well I grew up in a Christian home. And my dad was the assistant pastor of our church, and he was the administrator of our Christian school, and the first time that I recognized that I was a sinner I was probably at the age of five, and I actually recall talking to my mom after church in her bedroom and she explained the gospel to me, but the rest of that is a little fuzzy. As a seventh grader, after an evening service, I think there was a special group there that night, and they preached on how scared the death out of me. And I prayed that night with my mom, and I trusted Christ as my Savior after an evening service. But throughout my teen years, I struggled with my assurance of salvation. I was very insecure, but I would console myself and say, well, I’m a good kid. I go to church. I taught Sunday school, I was in youth group, I went to the Christian school, and I had this desire to serve the Lord. So that was kind of how I thought, well, you know, I’ve got to be truly, maybe I am saved because I do all these things. My parents lived a life of faith, and I had watched them serve the Lord and do things by faith and how God has just done miraculous things for our family growing up. So on the outside, I looked like a pretty good kid. But on the inside, I always struggled with my sin. As a young teen, something happened in my life, and in that incident probably defined me, probably now for the rest of my life, and it made me more inward focus and I began to crave affirmation from people, and one of the ways I did that was by not telling truth — by lying — and they were what people would call little lies, maybe; in God’s eyes they’re not, and I became more inward focused. And this was all hidden in my own heart. I don’t think anybody on the outside would really know how I felt. And I had a really hard time opening up to my parents as well. I had an amazing mom and amazing dad and I really wanted to talk to mom, but something always held me back and probably… what had happened as a young person, but I did want to serve the Lord. 

So I went off to Bible college and I met my husband. And as a college girl, I got involved at Falls Baptist Church. So I would drive an hour to church as a teenager — I was 19. And then throughout those college years, I just struggled with having peace in my heart and mostly because of my salvation. But it was during my freshman year that I, you know when you’re tempted to do something, and you know it’s wrong, but the reason I look back in my adult life and I can counsel myself and say, why did you do that? I can probably counsel why I did that. But in the time, this is what I did. I lied to my fiance, I lied to my parents, and even my pastor. I’m not gonna specifically go into what I lied about. I don’t think that’s important in this podcast, but I was craving affirmation so bad that I wanted somebody to feel sorry for me and give me that attention, and this lie did that. 

Janna: And did you feel like when you lied, I know my mom’s mentioned this in counseling sometimes, you can get into such a pattern of lying that you lie about stuff you don’t even need to lie about just because you’re so used to lying. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Oh, and I was good at it. said to me, “did you do this and such?” I would say, “oh yeah,” but I didn’t. So I would go do it, and rationalize it in my mind. And so it became easier and easier to lie. You know, who I was on the outside wasn’t who Cassandra was on the inside. And I knew that. And you know, here I am about ready to get married, and who I really was, my husband didn’t really know, and I couldn’t really talk about this past thing. So I made up a lie so that I could talk about something. It kind of gets confusing, but I think in a teenager’s mind, this is how I rationalized it. And so anyway, because of that, I had a lack of peace, and the guilt just grew. And the more you lie, the deeper you get into lies, and it’s very hard to get out. But I still would assure myself that I had this desire to serve God, so I had to be okay. My husband and I got married in 1994 — I was really young, I was 21 years old, and that fall, we were attending our church’s revival services, and Faith Talks comes from Falls Baptist Church under Thee Generation, and so we were a member of Falls Baptist Church, and they had revival services that week, and I was so deeply convicted of my sin that night, and not only my hidden sin, but all the doubts of my salvation that I went forward, and I remember weeping, and I was shaking and I really honestly at that point didn’t care who was watching me go down this aisle. My husband actually had just come on staff. 

So, here’s this girl who’s supposed to have it together and Karen Fuller, she used to be on staff there, she talked to me and I remember, like your dad would say, I unloaded the truck, as your dad would say. I realized that all my doubts and all my hidden sin was hindering me from having a relationship with God. And I really at that moment in time truly surrendered to God accepting His gift of salvation. Was I saved as a young person? You know Janna, I don’t really know, but I do know that at that moment when I gave all of my hidden sin to the Lord, I surrendered everything to God and I said, “God if you truly are the one who has saved and has taken that punishment of my sin, I want to trust you with my whole life and I just give it all, I don’t care who knows what’s going on in my life anymore.” And I came to that point. I didn’t care who knew about my sin, and so then I just felt completely free It’s kind of hard to explain, but I went home that night to my husband, and I was a new person. I was confident in my salvation and I was full of joy. One of my favorite verses up to a certain point in time in my life was Psalm 16:11. And that’s the verse that says, “thou wilt show me the path of life, which salvation, free from sin, and in thy presence is fullness of joy. And at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” And in my heart, I was as close to God that I’d ever been. So He changed me. I was shy; I was insecure, and I became a whole different person, a confidence. I think if you were to talk to me now, you’d be like, were you ever that way? Because I had a new relationship with God and that I had never had before. And that was the moment that relationship became, for the first time, truly a personal relationship with Christ. 

Janna: And when you were just talking earlier, I couldn’t help but think of what the Bible calls joy unspeakable. You can’t even describe, it but when you get humble before God and He moves in, and that relationship is restored, is truly something you can’t even speak it’s just so incredible. It’s liberating. 

Mrs. DeLeon: It was so liberating that when I got home, I shared with my husband. You know that’s kind of hard to do, and I said “this is everything.” And he put his arm around me says “well, the honeymoon’s over,” and he wasn’t being mean, he was like, I love you, and this is reality. And I did, I had to get right with him, I had to get right with my pastor, and that was really scary, and my parents. But when you do that, God just fills you up with joy, because it doesn’t matter anymore. Who knows or who cares, because God has forgiven you. 

Janna: Now as you had this newfound relationship with the Lord, what are some things that you did to grow it, and to just continue to build that? 

Mrs. DeLeon:earning to spend time with Jesus. And I will have to say that it came slowly. I think once you get saved — I had a ton of knowledge — but when it came to application, I really did not spend that much time in the word of God. It was really hit or miss. I think the most significant things that have grown my relationship with the Lord the most has come through those personal times with God when I have been alone with God and completely broken, and I have been on my face weeping because the hardship was so bad, and that is when God has spoken into my heart. It’s really when I hit the hard times the most, and I think that maybe God has put horribly hard things in my life because he knows that that is the best way that I hear Him. I would prefer not but… You know, the Bible makes it very clear that God can be trusted and that God keeps his promises and He keeps his word. And if He says something, that is exactly what He means. And it’s precisely that will come to pass. 

I think of a passage in Habakkuk, and in Habakkuk, the context is that the whole world is falling apart. And he hears — he’s a preacher — and he’s hearing that Babylon’s coming and everything is going to fall apart. And at the very end, he says, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, the field shall yield no meat, the flax shall be cut off from the fold, and there’ll be no herd in the stalls.” I think in our vernacular, he’s saying that, you know, your garden is failing, you have no food in the house, everything is falling apart, your car broke down, somebody is sick. Then Habakkuk says, yet even all these things are falling apart. I will and he makes these I will statements He says “I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation The Lord God is my strength and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make me to walk upon high places.” So that he this guy is making a choice He’s like, I know all these things are happening, but this is what I’m going to do — I’m going to rejoice in the Lord. I think that’s what suffering does more effectively is to move me to love Him better. 

Janna: I love how the tense of it is He will not even like He is you know. Right. And it’s a lot of times easy to live by our feelings of what we’re feeling in the moment, but here, Habakkuk is saying no like this is what I know about God and I’m choosing to believe that, so therefore God will do this. Just that faith perspective is challenging. 

Mrs. DeLeon: My mom used you know you either gonna choose your feelings or you’re gonna choose fact. What she means is the word of God. God says I will and He always keeps his promises, then you know He will do this. I’m going to do this because He’s doing this. That challenges me to have a right biblical view of God, you know, God’s not a genie where I’m gonna say oh, I need this God and He just gives it to me, or an ogre on the other side of it is like you know you need to learn something…bam! you know I’m gonna hit you on the head. That’s not how God works. One of the things that hard times, or you could say use the word suffering; it exposes for me those areas where He is looking to move me to a deeper yielding of my will to His will. These are usually ways, these are usually ways I have not yet realized the yielding can go deeper, but it’s necessary for my growth and maturity. When hard things happen to me, I can recognize the fact that as I yield my will to his will, that He comes in and He fills me up with what I need, right when I need it, which then moves me to praising Him. 

And I think, and we’ll get into more specifics later, but when you’re praising the Lord in the middle of this, I remember recently we’re sitting together as a family and all of us were home, so all the 10 children were home and we’re sitting together around the couch and we were praying together, and all the specific prayer requests, and some of us were crying because we were saying, God, we don’t know what you’re doing, but we know that you’re good and we know that you love us and we’re claiming all these promises. And then in the end we can say, and we’re thankful that you love us and you’re kind and you’re merciful and you’re faithful. And when you do that in front of your children, or even, teenagers, when you’re doing that in front of your younger siblings, what that does is that gives testimony to others, that I have a hope in Christ. In other words, 1 Peter 3:15 says, “but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope, that confident expectation that is within you with meekness and new fear.” And I can model that with my family, with those underneath me because I have seen that God can do this. And even as I’m crying out to the Lord, that modeling of humility and humbleness and lamenting, but at the same time praising God in the middle of trials, I think that makes a big difference. 

Janna: I think that’s really powerful because it’s easy for us to praise God in the easy times or when things are going well. It’s easy to praise God in front of people, but then to be caught in that paradox of, “I don’t know what to do right now and seemingly it doesn’t look like God is good, but yet I’m gonna have that faith perspective, and praise Him that He is,” it’s just I think that’s really powerful. Now, you’ve kind of mentioned this but has going through these trials deepened your relationship with the Lord?

Mrs. DeLeon: It has. God has used a lot of deep trials to teach me my, really, my greatest need is Him. Sometimes I think we can float through life and everything seems fairly good. And so we don’t really think maybe about God as much except that life is doing well then a hardship comes along, and it can highlight our lack of whatever God is trying to teach us. I’ll give you an example. 

I went to a ladies you treat in 2012, and the speaker was sharing how she studied the Bible. She had all these books lined up, she talked about spending hours studying, and she had notebooks organized that she kept for years. Like, everything was color-coded by promise and truths of God it’s like, pretty amazing, you know. 

Janna: Wow

Mrs. DeLeon: And I’m sitting there, I know. 

Janna: I always look at people like that and I’m like someday…

Mrs. DeLeon: Yeah, and so I’m sitting there and I walk out into the woods and I just start crying and I think, God, if I have to do that, I’m such a failure. I wanted a relationship with Him like she seemed to have and honestly, looking back, she was in a different season of life, but still, it highlighted in my heart that… I think I’m missing something. And at that time I had nine children, you know, six months to 17 years old and I was homeschooling eight of them and I kind of walked away defeated. 

Janna: You’re probably thinking, you know, I’m on a good day if I can color code their clothes, let alone all the promises in the Bible! 

Mrs. DeLeon: Yes, it’s kind of how I felt. But you know, to be honest, Janna, I wasn’t, I was in the Word hit-and-miss, but I did not have an intimate relationship with Jesus like I knew she did and yeah, she spent more time, but you don’t have to have a lot of time to spend time with Jesus. And so here I was I was a pastor’s wife, and I should be like the one spending time with Jesus and you can tell it’s just overflows in somebody’s life, and so, I kind of highlight that moment because I think that sometimes when I talk to ladies — I share the story, and I’ll talk to teenagers and I’ll say the same thing, young people. I think college students is the ones I probably talk to the most, and they’ll look at me and go, “Yes, What do I do?” I had a Bible study last Monday, and I said, ladies, just to be honest, how many of you struggle with spending time with Jesus? Just, come on, just tell me. And there’s just like, everybody, you know? Because I think that’s where we live. 

Fast forward three more years, and I had added a 10th baby into our home. And I was at the lowest point I was physically and spiritually and I had, I had, was facing a silent battle that I didn’t really share with anyone because I didn’t want to look like I was less spiritual. I was the pastor’s wife. But you know, sometimes after you have babies, you can have a little bit of the baby blues, but in this particular case — it was probably more than that, but I didn’t realize that, but I didn’t leave my room; I really struggled. My older teenage girls at the time, I had three of them, and they’re in grad school now, but at that time they were home, and they would take care of the baby and the rest of the kids, and I felt so alone. I felt so defeated. I didn’t know who to turn to, and I didn’t even want to go to church. My excuse was is that I just had a baby. My husband came in the room one time and he says, “honey you just need to trust the Lord.” And I looked at him and I was like, “I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what that means.” 

And I think, now looking back, the physical in our body was really affecting me spiritually. It wasn’t a spiritual problem. It was a physical problem. But when I realized that and I look back, I think that, when I hit that rock bottom, which is where I think… talking to young people and teenagers, there’s a lot that goes on in their lives. They got parents who are divorced. Probably have some listeners like that. They had parents who maybe have their last appearance. Maybe they have friends who are addicted to pornography, drugs, alcohol. I mean, there’s some really hard things in people’s lives. And maybe even the Christian school kids, you know, who… there are more young teenagers who are struggling with depression and anxiety than, I think, I think maybe you have seen it Janna a lot more, than we even know. But anyway, I hit that place and I realized that, when I was in that place that I was not really anchored deeply into God’s Word, and that lack of stability because of it, and I could not continue just to live my life in my own power anymore by going off my knowledge of Scriptures. In other words, just reading my Bible and that’s it. What does that do for me? 

One of the things my sister shared with me is that — she is in Indonesia as a missionary — and so some of the things that they do, was just very simple. She said,” Cassandra, why don’t you just take one verse, rewrite it in your own words and come up with an I will statement?” And I thought, “oh, I can do that.” And that’s what I did — every day I would go to the word verse by verse, sentence by sentence. And my daughter’s eight now, so it’s been eight years, every single day, and I haven’t missed. I have slowly read, when I first started, I slowly read through 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1 John, Ephesians, and then I added more and more and more books and when it first started it was just one verse a day. Now I read chapters, but I always ask the Lord for the one thing. And what that has done for me is given me a relationship with Jesus by spending time with Him that I didn’t have before. I was hit or miss, but there’s something about being in the Word, and spending time with God, and then walking away with an application of what He wants me to do. And, you know, over time He healed my body, He healed my heart, but my enthusiasm for Jesus and his Word and then my utter failure in spending a close relationship with Jesus is kind of what my message is to people and especially my children.

When I go on to other college campuses and I share, I’ll say “Are you in the Word? Are you spending time with Jesus?” I think there’s a difference between reading our Bible and spending time with Jesus. We can read our Bible, but then not have any time with Jesus at all. We’re not meeting with Him; we’re not hearing from His Word; we’re not applying it. It makes a big difference. Every day from now on, I read one verse, one sentence, one paragraph, chapters, and I say, okay, Lord, I just need one verse, one truth, one application, nothing more. And that has radically changed my relationship with the Lord because, you know, I have salvation, right? He radically changed me. But how do I live my life every day? It really is spending time with the Lord in prayer and in the Word of God. 

In Psalms 27, David has this conversation with the Lord and he makes this comment. He says, “the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?” And I think when we go through hard times, we get afraid. And he says, I don’t need to be afraid because he’s my salvation. And that’s, I kind of gave my testimony at the very beginning, there’s something about that fact that God has given me true life in Christ. He’s forgiven me. I am now in Christ; that I don’t have to be afraid. And then he says that the Lord is his strength. So why should he be afraid? And then if you go down to the next verse, he describes how that his enemies and his foes and their surrounding him, in fact he gives the word picture of them being eaten up by his flesh, and how that they’re encamped around him. And one of the things at the very end, he’s got all these stresses, he has all these pressures, all this stuff is going on in his life. When you think of teenagers and your audience, and you know, there you have school, you have homework, you have some people struggling with their boyfriends, you know just all these things that are pressing down on teenagers’ lives, and if you look in verse four he says David says “one thing have I asked of the Lord” and if you think about all the things that David could have asked for He could have said, can you take my enemies away? They’re surrounding me, they’re trying to kill me, but he doesn’t say that. God doesn’t always take the bad things out of our life. But what he says, David does say, is the one thing have I asked of the Lord. And the one thing that he asked is that if you go on down the verse it says, “that I may dwell on the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

You know, when I think about that, I think, what’s my passion? What’s the one thing that I desire from God above all else? And it really needs to be my relationship with Him. I have to make a priority of cultivating intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. And I said this earlier, and I’ll probably keep harping on it, but by spending time in His presence, in His Word. God gives us a really good example of that. Remember the story in Luke chapter 10 about Mary and Martha? I don’t know, Janna, what you would be. Maybe you’re a Martha. I think I would be a Martha. 

Janna: It depends on what’s going on. I definitely think I’ve been both. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Yeah. Well, I would be the Martha. I’d be running around telling all the kids to clean up. There’s somebody coming over, super special. And did you clean the bathroom? Did you clean that house? And then if somebody’s just sitting there, I would be the one upset, like come on, you gotta help me, so, that is what Mary’s doing. Mary’s sitting at Jesus feet and Martha’s upset, and Jesus says to Martha listen one thing is absolutely necessary, and what was the one thing? Well, it was sitting at Jesus feet and Jesus actually says Mary has chosen the good portion, that one needful thing, which will we not be taken away from her, and that one thing was sitting at Jesus feet and hearing his word. And I have found, and I’m sure as you have too, that if I just try to fit God in my day, He’s just gonna get crowded out, you know? You get up late, you hit the ground running, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later, and at the end of the day it doesn’t happen because you’re exhausted and you go to bed. 

What I need to do first in my life is Jesus, then let everything else fill its way in. I wish that I had learned this as a teenager. Even as a college student, and then when I had those little babies, and when I had all the little babies, I think if I had cultivated it then, maybe it would have been, I would have had a deeper understanding of who my God was. I had a lot of knowledge. I was a pastor’s wife, you know? But there’s a difference between having an auto knowledge and spending time with our Heavenly Father.

Janna: and I think the more you do that the more you realize you need it, and that you can’t survive without it, and I know for me since really developing that relationship with the Lord, then, say maybe a day goes by and you miss it; You’re, like you feel so weird in that like oh, I didn’t meet with God yet today like, something’s wrong. Just that urgency because you have it’s just interesting how you realize you really do need that touch from the Lord. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Well, and you know one of the things that one of the things that Jesus also says, I think it’s in Matthew, and you know in Matthew chapter 5, when He does the whole sermon on the mount, and at the very end of His sermon, He gives an application, a story. And He says, those who hear the word of God and do with them are like a wise man who builds his house upon a rock. What He’s saying is all the words that He had just spoken, when He had just preached to the crowd, and we have the whole word of God, those of us who hear the word of God, which when you’re spending time with Jesus, you’re reading his word, you’re hearing it, But hHe says if you just hear the word of God and you don’t do it, then you’re like the foolish man who builds his house upon the sand. And so then when all the hard times come, your whole life falls apart. And I don’t want to be like that person, so it’s not just hearing God’s word, it’s actually doing it as well.

So when I started reading God’s word and really spending time with Jesus, one of the keys was, is not just getting my verse, but saying, God, what do you want me to do? How do I apply that? Which is where my, I think you guys do this, you probably do this too, where I come up with an I will statement. 

Janna: I will statement, yeah. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Great. Okay, I hear the word of now God what we do today. That is what transformed my relationship with the Lord because, I got to the point like you just said that I don’t have my will statement today. One of the things that brought me out of one of those dark places that I was in the so many years ago was having something that I know that God wanted me to do that day whether it was just what does it say about God, or what does it say about man but I held on to that and like you said when you do it every single day, and then you don’t do it one day, you miss something. You miss having that talk with your Heavenly Father. We were talking about being busy. If you think about Jesus, if you read the book of Mark, the very first chapter, there’s this first chapter, verse 21, and then the beginning of chapter 2, and there’s this one single day of Jesus’ life. And I’m not going to go into it, but He did all of these things. And then it says, the very next day, He got up early in the morning to spend time with His Father. You know, he’s Jesus, and He needed to spend time with His Heavenly Father. 

Because, you know, school keeps people busy. You have classes, sports, papers, church, ministry, and probably speaking of your life too now. You know if you’re in any kind of leadership, if you’re a college student, maybe you’re an RA, you can be a dorm sup, you could be a music teacher, you’re really busy. You’re trying to get all your studies done and you’re trying to seek the Lord and you’re trying to do a ministry. You’re trying to do everything you’re supposed to do. And then for me as a mom, I’m adding all these other responsibilities to my life. I’m homeschooling. I am a pastor’s wife and I got little kids and they knock on your door at all hours of the day, and then your teenagers wanna talk to you in the middle of the night and so you get tired. And then you don’t take the time to spend with the Lord. So really, you’ve got to not fit Him in your life. You need to actually, that’s the first thing you do. 

Janna: Now what would you say were some things that have happened in your life that have tested that relationship with the Lord? 

Mrs. DeLeon: I think hard things. When you go into your life as a young person and you get married, you have all these ideas and you don’t think that these things, bad things are going to happen to you. You hear about them happening to other people, but not yourself. And honestly, from the time I was first married until I would say about eight years, you know, we just had the typical, you trust the Lord for food, or for gas or the Lord gives you lots of cars. I mean those are all big things, but in light of the things that happened later, those are minor. 

My husband became a pastor in 2001 for the first time. I was 27 years old and we had four children. And I was pregnant with number five and we moved down to Ohio. And so my oldest daughter was going into kindergarten. And it was the year 2002, and she had, just had this really bad belly pain and so I would say, oh you know, whenever you have belly pain with a little kid, maybe they’re constipated, just go to the bathroom, you know. And she got to the point where she was just bleeding constantly in her stool and so you know she’s just severe pain and she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. I think as a mother, when you see your daughter going through something that you can’t do anything to fix. It’s in those times that, what are you going to do? You know, you to ask God what’s my next step? You know, recently I read a scripture passage in Psalms 119 and it’s the passage that says the Lord, “thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light into my path.” I say that right? Well, how much light, Janna, does a lamp give? 

Janna: Not a whole lot? 

Mrs. DeLeon: No. actually there’s only enough light in the lamp to tell you the next step. It wasn’t like God made this big floodgate, and so He says okay this is the plan for the rest of her life that we have to deal with. He just gives enough light for the next step. That’s why we walk by faith and we say uh trust in Lord with all your heart and lay not your own understanding and all the way acknowledge him and he shall direct your step. It’s not a leap. So those are the so one particular time you know that was a really hard time and in fact she ended up in 2006 which is about three years later getting her entire colon removed, and she was only nine. I think as a mom when you’re sitting there and you know she’s suffering, and you know there’s nothing you can do; you don’t have any choices except to go on your knees before the Lord and say, God she’s yours. And you surrender to that I would go before the Lord, and I would pray, and I, and then five minutes later I’d open my eyes and say, now what do I do? And so it’s a constantly, you worry and you give it to the Lord and you give it back. I think if we’re honest, we do that all the time. We really should just leave it out of streak and just let it go. 

Later on in 2008, not too long after that, we had a car accident with our eight children. We were in a 15 passenger van and I veered off the road for whatever reason, and the car was crushed and it flipped on top of, again, the same daughter. She was 13 and it just took her right, part of her right hand, just completely off. God protected us and the fact that nobody else was really injured, the 15 passenger van looked like it was a minivan. Again, you know, the verse that came to mind that day was Isaiah 41:10, and I’m going to try to quote it, but the one that says, “fear not, for I am with you.” It’s the promise of the presence of God in my life that is like, okay, this is another thing, but I know that you’re with me. And then later on in that verse, it says that He holds our right hand and you know, that actually was the hand that Autumn lost. And it was interesting because I had another pastor’s wife call me that day, actually it was Beverly van Gelderen, and she says, oh, I was just reading this verse and you know, the one that in Isaiah 41, and she quoted the very same verse, and it was a confirmation to me, Lord, like, you know what, you’re right with me, you’re right here with me, and that’s what He does with us. 

In 2010, I delivered a 19 week old baby at home, and I held him, and he died in my arms, and I watched his last heartbeat after only five months of gestation. Again. Deep hard things. I remember, and this is not the avenue to go through it, but you know, that next day was Saturday and the next day was Sunday, and I was in my bedroom and I was lamenting, you know, very loudly to my husband, not in anger against God, but like, I don’t know what to do. This is a hard, hard thing. 

In 2014, I had a baby and I just really had a hard time emotionally. In 2016 and 2017, we had lice go through our church. I don’t know if you’ve ever had seven girls have lice all at once. It was a nightmare. It was horrible. We got over that, and a week later, my husband visited somebody, and we found bed bugs in our home because of that visit. And a week after that, I was cleaning, because of that I went to the laundromat so many times from the lice and the bed bugs that somehow I came home with scabies. And again, by that time, I probably lost my sanity. I really did lose my sanity. And at one particular point I was so desperate that I was laying on the floor in my bedroom sobbing to the Lord, Lord please take this away, I can’t handle this anymore, it’s too much. I was the only one that got it because I was the only one that held the child that had this scabies. And I remember picturing Jesus standing right in front of me and me holding on; I mean that’s how desperate I was holding on to His ankles and saying, Lord you touched and healed all those people in the New Testament. Will you heal me too? And I often think about that’s the kind of desperation that we really need to have all the time for Jesus. And you know He met me there. And I don’t want to ever go back to all those hard times. I don’t want to ever go back there. But all of the times where I remember where I was every time when I was on my knees and he met with me. 

Recently, just a couple of years ago, I became really, really ill and I was chronic. I had chronic pain for three months. They were in the months of November and December, and it’s the kind of excruciating pain that would not stop. Day after day, and I cried and I said, Lord, take it away. That’s how I prayed. I said, take it away, Lord, I can’t handle this, I’m just too much. I was in the ER four times in the month of December, and I was just super, super sick. I couldn’t clean, I couldn’t go to church, I pretty much was helpless, and I thought this is going to be the rest of my life. And how do people do this? And I emailed Claudia, Barba? Barber? Barba?

Janna: I think its Barba. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Thanks, Barba, Yeah. Anyway, and she had gone through a similar experience, the same illness that I was going through. And she sent me to another friend who I did not know, who emailed me, and this particular lady sent me a package and I had a little laminated card on it, and this card said this little prayer, it said “thank you Father for what is happening now For I know God has brought me here. He will sustain me here; He will teach me here, and He will bring me out in His time and in His way.” And I read that card and I started to cry and I went to my bedroom. We had a little teeny tiny bedroom in Ohio and there was enough space for a little black chair, and that’s my prayer chair. So, I got on my face before the Lord and I said, “Lord, I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve been asking you to take everything away, when really I just need to say, thank you that you know what’s happening to me. I know that you brought me here. I know that you’re gonna sustain me. And I know you’re gonna teach me and that you will bring me out in your time and in your way.” And there was this sense of peace that flooded me. My pain didn’t go away, and I wasn’t healed that day, but I began to pray that prayer day after day, night after night, and God began to change my heart. 

There’s something difference between complete desperation, dependence, and surrender. And that I think, if you were to look at Psalms 50 and do a little study on it, it has this idea of being, having a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. That’s what that looks like. And you’re so broken that you don’t even know what to do, except that God says that one of the sacrifices is to say, Thank you that I know that you’re in charge, because He knows my pain, that He brought me there, that He was going to sustain me, and that He was going to teach me as I surrender to Him. And I think sometimes it seems impossible to give thanks. We’ve had other deep trials in our lives. And it seems very hard to say to God, thank you. But when you do that, it becomes a sacrifice and God, He wants that, I think at the end of Psalms 51, it talks about having a contrite heart. Elizabeth Elliot talks about how that’s a sacrifice to give your broken heart to the Lord. That’s truly what she’s talking about. 

Janna: I think of so many times in Psalms where it just talks about that a sacrifice of praise, and honestly, sometimes praise is a sacrifice when you don’t feel it, but you’re praising the Lord by faith, and it’s just interesting hearing you talk. It’s not like the trials you’d look at them at all and think they were a good thing, but they did deepen that relationship that you had with the Lord. Now, would you mind just sharing, what do you what do you feel like are different things that could hinder or destroy your relationship with the Lord? We might think of that maybe as trials, but a lot of times the trials actually strengthen it. So what are some things you’ve found that can hinder that relationship? 

Mrs. DeLeon: Anger, bitterness, maybe asking the wrong questions. Why? what if? why me? God take it away, I don’t want this anymore. It truly becomes a choice. And I’m not saying that I did it all right, because I remember, and it wasn’t that long ago, just a couple years ago, laying in bed one night and I remember it like it was yesterday. and in my mind going through all the scenarios that I felt was wronged against me. And the more, I mean, I didn’t sleep because I mean, just more and more thoughts, like that’s not fair, this shouldn’t have happened. You know, this isn’t right. And I got to about four o’clock in the morning and I rolled over and my bed is here and about two feet is my little black chair, because that’s really as big as that bedroom was. And I got on my knees before the Lord and I said, “Lord, I choose you, please take all of those thoughts away because you’re the one that brought all these things into our lives. So I have to trust you.” And if I don’t choose God and I choose bitterness, I lose everything. And so there is a point of surrender. And if you choose bitterness… you will… you’re guaranteed if you’re married and have children, you’re gonna guarantee to lose your children to the devil. I’ve seen it over and over again. And sin that leads to bitterness, sexual sin. Your dad preaches on that Hebrews passage. It does, it leads absolutely to sexual sin. Those who are under you, younger than you, who you’re trying to mentor and lead, they’re gonna watch you and how you are reacting to this trial. And if you don’t react right, they’ll be like, psh, well, if they’re not doing it, there’s a sense that they can jump ship, leave the ministry. I’ve seen that happen. So, over and over I have learned to run to Christ. but I’ve only learned that through the experience of very, very deep trials and pain. 

Janna: I think a lot of times it’s kind of not as preached on as much is the bitterness you could have towards God, because I think a lot of times we’re easy to, we can spot, okay, I’m bitter at this person for doing this, but then there’s that, especially when trials come, you really only have two options to either trust God or to doubt him, which is that bitterness towards Him, why those questions you were asking of like why did you let this happen God and then that not only destroys that relationship but then your relationships with others as well. 

Mrs. DeLeon: Yeah, absolutely and you know you think the biblical story of Joseph, right and you read later on and it says God intended it for all for good. But you look at Joseph, he didn’t know that. He went through years of pain and suffering and alone in jail and being accused falsely. All of that evil, God says, it was all for good. And that’s a different perspective than bitterness. What that perspective is that we can trust His plan that He’s writing for us. And sometimes, yes, sinful people hurt us, okay? It’s happened to me, so their sin has affected me —could God have stopped that? Okay, maybe? But He didn’t, because for whatever reason, I don’t know, that’s not the question I need to ask. The question is, okay, this has happened — how do I deal with it? And I can deal with it because I can trust that God is bigger than all that, and He love me, and I think one of the things I love the most in the scripture are all the verses that say that He loves me. 

Janna: Well thank you so much for coming today and just sharing part of your story and just really your journey of your walk with God. Just for our listeners out there, would you mind just giving a couple of practical steps? I know you kind of have. You’ve harped on that spending time with God, which I love that. But just any other practical steps that you would say they could take in that relationship with God? 

Mrs. DeLeon: Well the first one is really truly having a true, personal relationship with Jesus. I gave my testimony. Sometimes we can act like we have this. Those of us maybe who grew up in a Christian home can have this idea that everything is fine, but we really make sure that you have truly trusted Christ as your Savior. 

The second thing is really getting rid of any kind of hidden sin. You cannot have a relationship with God if there is sin in your life that is known and you’re trying to hide it. You really need to just get rid of it. The next thing is really try to be a follower of Jesus. Once you know Jesus as our Savior and you’re confident in your salvation, and once you’ve gotten rid of all that hidden sin there’s, I can’t explain it to you, and maybe those of you I’ve talked to… there’s a joy, that, you just, but you then you need to learn to spend time with Jesus in His Word and in prayer, and like I said before, it’s not hard. You come up with a plan, and even if it’s simple, is just say, okay, I’m just going to read the one verse today, and I’m just going to put it in my own words, and I’m going to make an application statement. I’m going to obey it; I’m going to make an I will statement. And then when hard things happen to us, that’s when you claim the promises of God’s word, and not the lies of the world around you. The lies of the world around you are going to say things like, God doesn’t love you. God doesn’t care. God is doing these things against you. But the truth is, is that He loves me with an everlasting love. Underneath Him is the everlasting arms, He promises that I can trust Him and He promises to be my Heavenly Father. 

And then the last thing really, is to be honest with God — it’s okay to cry. Jesus wept when his best friend died. It’s okay to lament. It’s okay to pray and say, Lord, I don’t understand this. I’m really having a hard time, and wait before the Lord and say this is really hard for me. I didn’t talk about this, but Jesus before He went to the cross, He was in so much agony in mind, that He had great drops of blood coming from Him, His skin, because He was in agony. He’s the perfect Savior. He knew what was going to come. But what He did when He lamented and He prayed is He was trusting and surrendering in God’s will for His life. 

Janna: I was thinking of that as you were talking when you would sit on the black chair and you would just surrender instead of saying, God, take away these trials. But no, I surrendered. Not, like Jesus said, not my will, but thine be done. Just the exact same surrender.

Mrs. DeLeon: Right. And that’s where you’re weeping and you’re lamenting and you’re directing to God a spirit of surrender and faith. And you know, there are days that all I could do is cry and call out to God in faith, but those deep, hard times are what brought me closer in my relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Janna: Well thank you for coming today, and I was just struck over and over as you were talking that really, that relationship is such a matter of faith. Faith to, first of all, just place your dependence in Jesus, but then just throughout your life as He puts those trials in your life to just trust him that He has the best plan and that He knows what he’s doing. So just remember, listeners out there, this week as you get your verses and your I will statements that faith doesn’t just talk, faith walks.