Ryan Swanson: Hello and welcome back to the Satisfied Podcast. This is Ryan and I’m thankful that you’re here with us again today. I’m here with my wife again who will be reading a testimony from a young lady who we will call Allison today. And this is a testimony that was shared a couple months ago actually, but we haven’t had a chance to share that yet. And so we’ll look forward to hearing that in just a couple of minutes. To let you know what’s been going on in our lives, we’ve been up at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin for a couple of weeks, and we’re there for the victory conference as well as for the training, the initial training for the Renew series. Some of you know what that is, but I’m very excited about it now, having seen a portion of it and seeing how the Lord will use this. The Renew series is a 14-week video series that is due to be released officially this coming August, if all goes well. But this has been a massive undertaking by Falls Baptist Church and my father-in-law, Dr. Jim Van Gelderen, as well as others that are involved in that project. And it is geared towards helping men and women in local churches experience victory through a small group atmosphere of discipleship together. We will actually be partnering with Renew by offering the cord app to those that are involved in that series in different churches. And so we look forward to seeing what the Lord will do through that partnership coming up here in August. 

Speaking of our ministry in Satisfied, we are officially taking Satisfied on the road. So if you or your pastor is interested in a purity seminar or revival meetings with a purity focus, our goal is just to be a help in any way we can to churches and pastors who are seeking to lead their people in the direction of purity. Practical theology for pure living is what we’re trying to bring to our local churches through the country here. So if a purity-focused meeting or seminar is something that you could picture being help in your church, then feel free to mention it to your pastor. You can give him satisfied.org. That’s our website. And you can find a little bit more info on there as well as how to reach us.

Now for our testimony for this podcast, we have a story from a young lady who we’ll call Allison. I believe in her 20s if I remember correctly. So I’ll let my wife read this. This might be the final testimony we do for a while because we’re going to take a little bit of a tangent and start a little, kind of a mini-series over the next few months. But keep the testimonies coming. We may come back to it or intersperse them throughout the year. So if you’d like to share your testimony or even just a principle of something God is teaching you as you work through your purity journey, please do reach out to me at ryan@satisfied.org. And men or women, we would love to hear from you.

Alright, so Steph, why don’t you read this testimony from Allison. 

Testimony from Allison: “I was saved at the age of five, and now I’m 20. But for about 14 years, my home situation left me feeling empty inside, forgotten and unloved. Instead of running to my Savior, I found myself in sin. And before I was even out of my teens, I was struggling with self-gratification and an addiction to pornography.

I had stepped out of the will of God and it was painful, and Satan attacked where doors were left open. I wanted to be free, and I knew that God had not deserted me, but I had to take steps towards Him as I was the one who had taken steps out of His arms of protection, love, guidance, and wisdom. By my ninth-grade year, I was struggling with many strongholds, going through depression, suicidal thoughts, and I was just not spiritually healthy or physically healthy. I knew I needed help, but the sin seemed endless, and I couldn’t understand why I would slip back into things after God would pull me out of them.

Again, God began to do work in my life as I ended up at a teen summit alone. All distractions were gone and I couldn’t use my family members as a crutch. God dealt with me not only on the strongholds that were in my life, but also just making me realize that it’s not me, it’s not about me, it’s about Him. When I try to fix things on my own terms, nothing is going to happen because I’m relying on myself. I think that year the big focus was Total Surrender, Total Dependence on God.

And I’m so thankful for the powerful message of Dr. Jim, as he spoke on topics of bitterness, purity, relationships. And honestly, I felt uncomfortable because light was being spread on something I kept in darkness. I can remember the brokenness I felt and the desire to get help, but I struggled to get things completely right with God. By my senior year, I had totally surrendered my life to the Lord. I got back into a good church and began listening and reading to scripture in my spare time.

I also stayed honest with the Lord and stopped only placing some of my keys in God’s hands. In December of 2022, during a peaceful hour of prayer, the presence of the Lord was so strong and I just felt immersed in His love and grace. I felt completely satisfied and at peace. I was no longer looking for love in other areas or other people. Love from my Heavenly Father was all I knew I needed. By the New Year, as we were going into 2023, everything I ever had on the computers or phones was changed. I got rid of everything, including secular music, as everything was a distraction and a hindrance in my relationship with God. Now up to this time, I had still only gotten right and told God about the issues of sin, but of course, He already knew all of those things. For so long, the Lord had been asking me to tell my parents, and I was done making excuses for why I hadn’t done it yet. When I finally told my mom around October of 2023, it was a moment of just pure love and understanding from her. For so long, I was scared.” Sometimes, I wondered what my parents might think when I told them. My mother is now one of the people that is a mentor and someone that I can go to for accountability, which is a blessing because we didn’t always have that kind of relationship. 

The Lord has not only fixed things that were broken in my own life, but is doing the same for other people in my family. God has been very good to me. His mercy and grace He has given in abundance. I have learned the hard way that stepping out of His plan separates us from everything He wants to freely give. As His daughter, I am able to live a life that glorifies Him, willing to bear my cross for His namesake, willing to die to the flesh and live in the Spirit, willing to do as He leads, not as I feel things should be done. I’m just so thankful for everything He’s done. He’s changed my life. It was a blessing to look back on this past year and see that it has been God doing the fixing, not me. He has made me whole. 

Ryan Swanson: Well, what a thrilling thing that is to be able to look back on what God has done. And that is very exciting. That’s a real work. Because God is doing it.

There’s something that stuck out to me there and again as I say this I think every testimony but there’s so many different angles we could focus on many of it much of it will just speak for itself I know it’s already been a blessing to you I just want to pull out that point she made about her mom and how she put off for so long until she just couldn’t stand making more excuses and and decided to go ahead and confess or tell her mom what had been going on in her life. She expected there to be maybe some anger, and for sure that her mom wouldn’t understand it all, but she was shocked by how much her mom really came alongside her, did everything she could to help, and really became a mentor in her life. 

Many times we are actually holding back, we’re keeping ourselves from having the parents that we’ve always wanted by not being willing to open up and give them the opportunity to parent us, to mother us, to father us. As I’ve said before I think on the podcast many times your dad will be the dad that you make him by what opportunity you give him to be a mentor to you and your mom will be the mom that you make her based on the opportunity that you give her to mentor you and this is a beautiful picture of that.

Stephanie: I do love how much she brought out the fact of how telling her parents really Was a huge step in the process and how much the devil was telling her that they would respond in a hard way but really God worked so much through her step of obedience in telling her parents. And sometimes you might not know how your parents are gonna respond, but doing it because it’s right and giving them the opportunity to fulfill their God-given responsibilities as a parent. It’s so easy to go to friends and just talk to them about different things, and friends can help out and they can be accountability partners. That is one of the best things too, but they don’t replace the role that God has given to your parents or a godly mentor. 

Ryan: Yeah, very true. I appreciate you joining us today and this has been a great principle to learn from Allison’s testimony. Again, if you have your own testimony to send in, you can email at ryan@satisfied.org. We look forward to hearing from you. So this month, focus on taking some steps towards your parents and see what God will do as we strive to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.