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0:53

Welcome back to the would as good podcast.

0:55

Have you Wednesday, everybody y'all I'm so stowed for today.

0:59

We have an amazing guest on her name is Kelsey grim and she has just written a super great book called over it.

1:06

Y'all if you're watching on YouTube, look at how cool this book cover is.

1:10

I told her before we started, I said, why have I never done a hot pink book?

1:15

Why? I don't know what Kelsey, you are setting the tone in the book world, certainly.

1:19

And for so many things in the mom world, all of it.

1:23

And I'm so excited that you're on the podcast today.

1:26

Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be here.

1:29

I appreciate it so much. Yes, I am stoked.

1:31

So I was kind of telling you this before, but this book really is like asking your big sister, all the questions that you want, somebody so bad to tell you, but you don't have anybody to go to, to talk about it.

1:42

Like you go there. And so I can't wait to dive into it and start talking about some of that stuff later.

1:47

But first I have to ask you the question.

1:49

I ask everyone on this podcast, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given?

1:55

Yeah. I love that you do that by the way.

1:57

It's so cool. And as I've listened to your podcast, I, I glean so much from hearing what other people are gleaning from other people so that you do.

2:06

So that means that I think probably the most helpful piece of advice I've ever been given.

2:13

It's more of a quote than a piece of advice, but the quote is life becomes more meaningful when you realize that you never get to live the same moment twice.

2:24

So what I love about that is it's just a reminder to live present in the moment.

2:32

You will never get this exact moment again.

2:35

We'll never come around to get it and won't get a redo.

2:37

So make the most of it.

2:40

Like that's just it's. So I feel like it's just a good, it's a good overall reminder to live.

2:46

So I

2:48

love that because I think that I wrote about this in a book actually wrote called live.

2:52

And I wrote about how, because life kind of just like happened to us, you know?

2:57

And it happened for us. Sometimes the temptation is like, you almost look at it and you take advantage of the gift that it was.

3:04

You're like, oh yeah, well I just, I just get to live today.

3:07

I just have life. But when you actually think about like, life is a gift and every moment is precious.

3:12

And especially when you lose someone, that's when you realize like, wow, like every moment matters.

3:16

Every moment counts. It really does help you live your life more.

3:19

It helps you live it. I always say like a verb, like the action is supposed to be lived in, you know, you start to not complain so much about the little moments with your, with your kids.

3:27

You're not complaining about the moments in traffic and be like, okay, look, I have life, a breath.

3:32

Like I can do this. And so I love that quote.

3:35

I love that advice. So a lot of people have probably seen you with your husband, Caleb singing on, you know, some social media platform.

3:43

I actually, before here, I like looked up like Kelsey and Caleb, and there's just so many videos with just millions of views.

3:51

And so whenever y'all got together, did John know like we're going to sing together or did that just kind of happened?

3:57

Cause y'all both just have voices of angels.

4:00

Oh, well that's a stretch, but that's very sweet.

4:02

I appreciate it. We kind of fell into it to be honest.

4:06

Like it was just this organic thing.

4:08

Like when we met each other, I knew he was in a boy band and at the time I was in a girl band.

4:12

And so, you know, we sang together just for fun, you know, to start.

4:17

And then it kind of got real for us after we got married and we started seeing more.

4:23

And then we're kind of just praying about what the next step in our career was at that point.

4:29

And we hadn't really taken our duo seriously again, like up until that point.

4:34

And then that's when we kind of went, we pushed the ball further down the court with the worship stuff, because we were like, this makes sense for who we are and the way we've grown up.

4:46

And this means something to us.

4:48

And so when we started putting out the worship mashups, it just kind of, I mean, people really connected with it and then History.

4:56

They're beautiful. I love it so much.

4:59

You talked about actually in your book, there was this moment where you were always been musical, you know, and people kind of saw that in your life and had said that that was a gift, but there was a moment whenever a teacher of yours looked at you and was like, no, like this is what you were made to do.

5:14

And then you go on to say that like one person's belief for you can kind of change the trajectory of your life.

5:20

So talk about that a little bit.

5:22

And because I thought that was such a powerful story.

5:25

Yeah. I think it's a good reminder that our words carry weight and power.

5:28

You know, we have the ability to speak life over people and to encourage people.

5:33

And sometimes one conversation, like I don't even know that my teacher would remember that conversation.

5:40

Wow. If I brought it up to him, maybe he would, but maybe you wouldn't.

5:43

And that just goes to show that you never know the difference a conversation can have on a person's life.

5:49

You know, I'll never forget where I was standing and what he said, that the power and the empowerment that it gave me to hear him say that, you know, because like you said, I did, I grew up in a musical family.

6:01

You know, my parents were both musical and my brothers are, are, were in music are no longer, but it's just kind of been this thing that people knew us by for a long time.

6:14

And so it was always something I was passionate about and loves doing.

6:18

Like, I don't, I, I could never imagine my life without singing, but I don't think I ever thought of myself as having what it takes, you know, to do it for a career.

6:28

I never saw myself in that way. And so that conversation, you know, I was like, maybe this could be something for me.

6:35

Maybe I could actually sing and you know, what I have to offer and what I can bring to the table is enough.

6:42

You know, that's maybe I could find a place here.

6:46

And so it, it just kind of gave me the extra little push that I needed to start to believe in me to, you know, So

6:52

cool. That is such an encouragement to people listening.

6:54

Like, you know, you could be on the receiving end and somebody believes in you and that's like your go.

6:59

Or you could be the person that's giving the word, like, Hey, like I see this in you.

7:03

That's funny that you mentioned that about that person.

7:05

Not remembering, maybe because I was with one of my best friends other day, and I was hearing her have a conversation with someone else about her leading worship.

7:14

Cause she's a worship leader and the girl was like, oh, you do that.

7:18

And she was like, yeah, actually she was like, it wasn't until Sandy told me, she said, one day she was like, Lynnie, you were made to worship that.

7:25

I realized like this is what I want to do in my life.

7:28

And to be honest, I don't really remember saying that.

7:31

Like, I mean, I'm sure I did because I do believe she's made to worship and I do speak things like that over her, but I don't necessarily remember that moment, but it was so pivotal for her.

7:39

And so that is such a reminder of what the word says, that like our words carry the power of life and death and we can speak something, a word of life that literally grows into someone's, you know, destiny.

7:51

So that's so cool.

7:53

You mentioned a little bit about how you grew up, like in music and everything like that, but something in the book you talk about as the way you grew up and the perspective you kind of had of Jesus.

8:03

So kinda talk, tell everyone like what your relationship with God was like growing up or kind of how you viewed Christianity as a whole.

8:12

Yeah, for sure. So I grew up in a very small conservative, evangelical Christian culture.

8:17

I was the daughter of a pastor.

8:20

And so if you, if you're listening to this and you grew up a pastor's kid, then I don't really have to explain this kind of fishbowl effect, you know, that everybody's watching you and from every angle and every little thing you do and say, you know, is being observed kind of, you know, from a distance, but people, I kind of felt that pressure from a really young age.

8:45

And I think I understood then as a very little girl, okay, people need me to be this, then fortunately, this for meant perfect.

8:55

Or at the very least, it meant to appear perfect.

8:58

Like even if there was stuff going on inside of me to suppress those things and to put on a tough exterior that I'm okay and you know, I, I can, I can do this.

9:10

I can be who people need me to be.

9:12

And while that pressure was never verbally placed on me, I think it was just kind of this unspoken understood thing that, you know, she's a pastor's kid and people have very real expectations of pastor's kids.

9:27

And I feel like that's why pastors kids oftentimes the stories that you hear, they do one of two things.

9:32

They either blame the other way.

9:35

And they, you know, they go down a crazy dark destructive path or, you know, they go on to become pastors themselves or they're, you know, they become spiritual leaders and very little in between.

9:44

I feel like at least in my experience, in my talks with other kids who grew up similarly to the way that I did.

9:49

And so the way that, that kind of manifested the older that I got is that I understood people are always going to need me to be something and I can be whatever that is.

10:06

And it doesn't matter what is going on on the inside.

10:10

I can rise to the expectations that I know people have of me.

10:15

And it was this constant inward battle of who I, I felt like I was inside and who I felt like people needed me.

10:21

And so I maintained this for as long as I could, you know, I mean through middle school and high school, I was always the good girl, you know, the girl and everybody knew it.

10:33

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11:46

And I want to, I want to take a second here to just kind of delineate a couple of things.

11:51

There is nothing wrong with being good.

11:53

Obviously we all want to be good intrinsically, but I think when being good becomes the one single most important thing, it becomes your entire identity rather than, you know, actually checking in with yourself and going, am I actually like, am I actually, am I okay?

12:13

You know, do I know who I am as a person, as an individual?

12:17

You know, that's when it becomes a really slippery slope.

12:20

And so for me, that slippery slope met me face to face when I got to college and it was kind of this first step out of the bubble I was raised in where I thought I would get a chance to kind of step into myself and find out what, like, who is Kelsey, who is, I've been told who she is my whole life and what she thinks and what she believes and who she, you know, believes herself to be, but who do I actually think I am?

12:47

Yeah. And unfortunately I took the freedom that I found for the first time in college.

12:54

And I looked in all the wrong places for love and my identity and acceptance and confidence.

13:02

And I found it in all the wrong places.

13:05

You know, I ultimately, because I went into college and having no earthly idea of who I was and where my identity truly came from in Christ.

13:14

I subjected myself to even more rising to the expectations of what everyone around me and that played out in a situation with a boy, you know, and it ended up being a very abusive relationship and just a continuation of me bending to his will.

13:33

So what his desires were of me, because I, I didn't know who I was going into that relationship.

13:39

And, you know, it was incredibly damaging and what I believed about God at that time, because what I had been taught about people around me and being watched and under this microscope is that everyone needed something from me or needed me to be something.

13:57

So that was what my understanding of God was as well.

14:00

God also, God loves me.

14:02

I was taught that, but God also surely needs me.

14:06

Like I can't just come as I am.

14:08

First of all, what does that even mean?

14:10

Do I even know who I am yet? Secondly, surely I'm not just already good enough for God.

14:16

He needs me to be something too.

14:18

And so that was the entire understanding that I had of him up to that point.

14:23

And I looking back, I'm sad for that girl who looked in the mirror and had no idea who was staring back at her and the way that you'd need, then if I could have only had the eyes to see, I think my life would have been very different.

14:40

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, I feel like so many of us have been where you're at as well, and you can look back and you can say if only I had the eyes to see so many things would have played out, but thank God, you know, we do now.

14:53

And hopefully as we, as we do, we can help other people kind of wake up and their own scenario where they're at, because they're, I know there are people listening right now that are like, wait, I thought the say I'm actually currently thinking the same thing that I have to be something for God, or I'm not good enough yet for God.

15:10

And so that's so good that you brought that up.

15:13

Like I said, you, you touched on so many things that people are scared to touch on.

15:17

And I think that because people are scared to touch on them because the church doesn't talk about it.

15:22

People just stay in it because they feel like they just have to, or this is what it is and they're alone, they're, they're hidden in it.

15:28

And so you talk a lot about the damaging relationship that you were in and it was damaging for so many reasons.

15:35

You know, when you look back at that, did you know in the moment it was bad or were you kind of blind to it even then?

15:44

It's such a good question. And actually one, I get asked a lot, like, how did that happen?

15:49

How did it get to that point?

15:51

And sometimes looking back, I asked myself to this day, the same question, I think ultimately it was a slow fade.

15:58

I think I made the first decision, you know what I mean?

16:01

And the first that it was allowing myself to enter into a relationship with a man who had dark spots that I think even I saw early on like things that weren't right.

16:14

But I was living in the tension of wanting to maintain my goodness that I had always had as a child and as a girl.

16:26

And then as a teenager and also simultaneously wanting so badly to explore what maybe not mean good looks like.

16:34

And I think his spirit in me, you know, that rear its ugly head.

16:40

And so when I entered into that relationship, I did see red flags.

16:45

But ultimately what happened was it was a very slow fade.

16:48

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it was of course making small concessions here, small concessions there.

16:54

And then before I knew it, you know, all this time had passed and I realized, oh my goodness, I'm not, I, I don't even, I don't know who I am anymore.

17:05

I I'm, I am a product of this man's desires and standards and the things that he needs me to be, that is the sum of distance, you know?

17:16

And I think it all really dates back to what I learned about myself as a child.

17:23

And even though those messages were never spoken to me and I am truly the people who influenced me were good people doing the best of what I heard, you know, and what I absorbed about just life in that space was that I could be loved by God, but I had to be these certain things.

17:46

And the reality is for those of you to this, that didn't grow up that way.

17:50

You know, didn't grow up with this incredible pressure being placed on you early as a child where even though you didn't grow up that way, we're scrolling through these expectations everyday as adults in the culture that we live in.

18:05

Like no one is exempt from this.

18:08

No one's exempt from the pressures.

18:11

You know, we're faced with them from every angle every single day.

18:16

And I would like to go out on a limb here and say that it's turned up a notch for women.

18:21

You know, women are expected to be everything to everyone and to look amazing doing it.

18:32

And it varies this absurd pressure that we are having to fight falling into every single day.

18:39

You know? And so there's, I feel like this message is relatable on any level, you know, and whether or not you grew up in a similar, you know, in a similar way that I did, like the reality is we're all being faced with it now, you know, It's

18:56

so true. It is overwhelming.

18:57

You talk a lot about that, like false expectations that we have on ourselves or that people have placed on us or that we've, you know, maybe placed on ourself.

19:05

And I love how you talk about, like, you kind of gave like some, I guess, signs in your life that you could see now of like how hard you were trying, like how hard you're trying to prove yourself, how hard you're trying to be a certain way.

19:18

What would you say to people out there who have those thoughts as petitions?

19:21

Like these are some of the signs that maybe you're trying too hard, you know, maybe you're trying to force something that isn't there.

19:29

Right? That's such a good question too. I think my best piece of advice would be if you are in a relationship and whether it's a dating relationship or maybe a relationship with a family member or a friendship, just any kind of relationship where someone is telling you who you are, or that you have to change certain aspects of yourself to be accepted in that environment.

19:49

That's a red flag.

19:51

Get out. You know, that's not a relationship that is that's healthy.

19:58

You know, you are having to make concessions and adaptations to your self it's there.

20:07

It's not because something's wrong with you.

20:09

It's because something's wrong with that other person.

20:11

And we have things that they need to deal with on their own.

20:14

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21:52

Our identity isn't found in all of these things and all of these hats that we wear as women.

21:59

And, you know, we're, we're Ys, we're mothers, we're speakers, authors, artists, friends, daughters, like, and it's all pieces of the puzzle that make up who we are.

22:10

But ultimately our identity is found in who your creator made you to be, which if you start taking things about you and changing that you aren't changing who God actually intrinsically designed it to be.

22:25

You know, and I just, my encouragement would be you into relationships and friendships that speak into that.

22:32

You know, that version of you, that you are honing that identity that you are in Christ, like find people who will lift you up there and support you and hold you up, you know, stand behind you and hold you up when you, when you can't do it.

22:48

And I think, you know, those are the relationships that we need to be looking for because life is really hard.

22:53

You know, life is really hard and we were never meant to do it alone.

22:58

Like we were built for community.

23:00

We need community. We need help.

23:03

That's right. I love that. I love you.

23:05

You had a great revelation in the book where you kind of realize that you kind of placed this guy as God, in a sense.

23:12

And honestly, I've been in a relationship that was the same way.

23:15

And I think sometimes like, that's where that, like, lack of understanding who we are comes from is because like, when we look at God, like God, our creator, and then we think about who we are, then we know we're loved, then we know we're good.

23:29

Then we know we're worthy. We know we're enough.

23:31

We know all this needs because that's who God is.

23:34

But then when we look at someone else as our God, and that's our, you know, that's, who's telling us who our identity is, then all of a sudden we're not enough and we're unlovable and you know, we're not worthy and we're not beautiful.

23:46

And all those things, because we can't live up to this expectation or even the comparison that maybe that person has put on us.

23:54

Who's not God, who's not our creator.

23:57

You know? And so I do think you have to be very careful on who you put on the throne of your life, you know, and I noticed that you had talked about that and I had been in the same position as you at one point, one thing that you talked about was, and I thought this was so good because this is something that so many fall into and I've been here too, is y'all kind of started to dabble on across the line a little bit, whenever it came to like your sexual purity and stuff, and y'all were very interested and going further and all of these things, and you started asking yourself these questions of like, wait, is this sucks.

24:33

Is this right? Is this wrong? Is what I'm doing?

24:36

And I love how you said, like there was a lot bigger questions and just is this sex.

24:40

And I'm like, I have done that.

24:43

And I feel like people in the church do that is because like, you think like, oh, I'm not supposed to have sex.

24:47

And so then you're just asking yourself like, wait, is this, but in doing that, you're actually missing the heart of why God said that in the first place.

24:56

And so can you share a little bit about your experience in that and what you know now versus what you knew then?

25:03

Yeah. And I mean, this is, this is the really hard part of the story.

25:06

You know, this is the part that for a decade of my life, I didn't talk about because there's so much shame around sex and sex is really complicated.

25:20

It wasn't ever meant to be complicated, right?

25:23

Like God designed it as this gift to us and we have complicated it, you know, humanity, it's, it's messy.

25:33

Sex is messy. And ultimately the more of myself that I gave away to that man while I was in college and I'm not even talking sexually, I'm just talking like I, you know, pushed friends out of my life because he wanted me to, you know, adapt and adapt to his friends.

25:52

And so I did and, you know, right.

25:56

He kind of systematically pulled all of the people in the voices and influences out of my life slow enough that I didn't recognize it happening in real time.

26:05

You know, it was, I was far too deep in the relationship before I recognized what was happening, you know, and it was all part of an ultimate plan to gain full and under control of me.

26:15

And he ultimately, he got that, you know, and it's reflected that same mentality that he had over me in every other area of my life.

26:26

Just kind of bled into our sexual life too.

26:30

You know, like what happened? The reality was the only time I felt seen by him was behind closed doors when we were alone.

26:37

And, you know, I had told myself these lies that if I gave him what he wanted and what he was pushing me for in the bedroom, that he would eventually, he would love me.

26:51

Right. Th that is this lie that I had into he'll come around, you know, he'll start showing you more affection and care in public.

27:00

If I give him what he wants and private and, you know, I mean, can say it was always 20, 20.

27:07

I obviously know, looking back at that poor broken girl, I hate that she believes those lies.

27:14

Yeah. But I did, I did at that time.

27:16

And so, like I said, I had not really been down any sexual roads with any other guys, much.

27:22

I had very little experience before this relationship.

27:25

We'll just put it that way. And he pushed me.

27:32

I mean, a little further every time.

27:33

And ultimately what I came to know later, and I'm talking like a year and a half after I got out of this relationship after I moved to Nashville from I'm originally from Illinois after I moved to Nashville to do music here, I had gotten an opportunity to audition for a girl group here.

27:52

I didn't have anything else going on in my life at that time.

27:55

So when I moved here or when I came to audition, I made the group and moved to your six weeks later.

28:00

And I was hoping that I could hit the restart button, like just reset this whole thing.

28:07

Nobody knew about that relationship.

28:09

When I moved here, nobody knew my past.

28:11

Nobody knew what I had been through. And so I was hoping to just kind of be able to turn the page when I moved to national and start over.

28:17

But the reality is, and we all know this, that what you don't deal with in the past catches up with you in the present, right?

28:25

Like if you have trauma and dealt with trauma that happened in the past, it will come back.

28:32

It will research it and you will be forced to fix it at some point.

28:38

And that's exactly what happened after I moved to Nashville.

28:40

Like the reality was what had happened with us sexually in the bedroom, in that relationship haunted me for a year and a half after I got an out of the relationship, because I had never shared it with anyone because I felt so much shame and guilt around it.

28:56

And I felt like it was my fault. And why did, why couldn't I write out?

29:00

Why didn't I just say no?

29:02

Like why didn't I write physically push him away from me?

29:06

Like I asked myself these questions and blamed myself for not having done them in that relationship and the way that it all came to be, once I moved to Nashville is that I was such a broken person.

29:18

So desperate to be loved and to figure out who I was.

29:22

I was a shell of a person.

29:26

So I fell, I fell into the wrong crowd.

29:29

I found alcohol for the first time.

29:32

And I found that when I drank everything hurt, less, everything felt numb, you know, and I wasn't dealing with anything.

29:40

I moving everything. I was medicating this giant root of a problem in my heart that I could not face at that time.

29:48

You know? And so I started making these awful decisions after I'd moved to Nashville and I was staying out all night and I was bouncing around from party to party.

30:00

And I was with a guy who treated me really poorly here, even because when I moved to Nashville, I was like, you know, I don't, I'm never going to enter into a serious relationship again, because I can't subject myself to love.

30:12

Like I'm not worried. So I'll just go mess around with guys who I know won't want me because I'm not worthy to, at this point, anyone actually knew what I've been through.

30:23

No one would love me anyway.

30:25

You know, that was what I believed about myself.

30:27

And so one night things got really bad and my manager called me and he was like, Kelsey, we can't keep you here.

30:37

If you are going to keep staying out all night, like this, this is not going to work for you.

30:44

You will have to go home. If some things don't change time quick.

30:46

And I was like, okay, okay.

30:49

I'll, I'll do better. I can do better. I know I can.

30:51

And I did. I did.

30:54

And one night I was out driving super late at night.

30:59

It was pouring down rain and national.

31:01

I mean like pouring.

31:03

And I was avoiding going home because the girls, I lived with the girls in my band at the time.

31:09

And they all hated me because I was crazy.

31:12

I mean, I was wild and I was living this destructive lifestyle and they were afraid that I was making all of us look bad.

31:19

And I was, you know, so they, they made it very clear.

31:22

You are not welcome here. And we don't want you in the group.

31:26

They were pushing to have me removed from the group.

31:28

And so in this weird in-between period, I was just trying to stay away from the house till I knew everyone would be in bed.

31:37

And I could just kind of sneak in and go to bed and not face it.

31:40

I was constantly in avoidance mode and I get this call from my dad.

31:45

Well, it was torrential downpour that I'm driving at night by myself on these back roads of Nashville.

31:52

And my dad became one of the ones on the other side.

31:58

He was yelling and I know women back then, especially now as a parent, he was so desperate for me to turn my life around that he, he finally, he reached just like one, two, and he was like, Kelsey, this is not who we raised her to be.

32:18

I don't even recognize you anymore. You, you are throwing your life away.

32:21

You're just throwing your life away. What are you?

32:24

Oh my gosh, what are you doing please?

32:26

And I mean, he's screaming at me and I'm sobbing.

32:28

And I can't tell him this thing in my life that I had been through and that relationship, because I just, I couldn't even say the words out loud.

32:38

And he hung up on me that night.

32:41

And I was like, I had this moment and I still have such a hard time when you do as part of the story, because it's like, as a parent, like my dad's desperation for me, I imagine that being Collins, my daughter, you know, and how devastating it would be.

33:03

And I threw my phone to the passenger seat.

33:06

And I don't know that I consciously made a decision in that moment to do what happened next, but I didn't stop it.

33:15

I had this moment where I was like, Hmm, I can't do this anymore.

33:20

I can't be here anymore.

33:25

I can't be in this place where no one knows no one knows what I've been through.

33:33

No one knows what I've been dealing with.

33:36

No one knows this big dark secret that I have carried around for a year and a half.

33:41

And no one loves me enough to ask me.

33:45

And I felt I had this smile.

33:49

And again, all of these things happened in fractions of a second.

33:54

You know, I saw this pair of headlights coming down the road toward me, but they were a long way off.

33:59

And I was coming up to this, this bridge and there were guardrails on either side.

34:03

And I just felt my car slowly going over that center line and I didn't stop it.

34:13

And I was like, this could be quick.

34:16

This could be easy.

34:17

And then it could be, and I'm veering over this line.

34:23

I can't see I'm crying so hard and some, oh, my word, this phone call, but it was divine timing.

34:29

I hear my phone buzz again.

34:32

And I look over and it wasn't my dad.

34:34

It could not have been more than like 30 to 60 seconds from the end of the other call.

34:39

He called me back. And I almost, I almost didn't want to because I couldn't be screened at again.

34:49

And for whatever reason, I reached over and I grabbed my phone and the person that I had ended the call with a minute before compared to the person that had called me right back, or two different people, something divine happened in him to 62nd window of time.

35:07

And when I picked it up, he was sobbing and baby, baby, I'm so sorry.

35:13

I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry, Kelsey.

35:17

Please like pull over. I know I, where are you?

35:20

Are you okay? And I jerked the wheel back into my lane and about that same time, that car that I would seen way down the road passed me and I pulled over and my dad was like, Kelsey, help me help you.

35:36

I am yours. I want, I want to sit in the space with you, but you have to let me move.

35:44

You have to let me win. And that was kind of, that was one of those moments that I call a moving moment, because it's a moment frozen in time, like a snapshot in my brain of a moment that changed and altered the entire trajectory of where my life was growing, you know?

36:02

And so that, that very next morning, I agreed to show up at a counselor's office.

36:09

Like my dad had contacted my manager and my manager called someone in the middle of the night.

36:13

Like, he's not okay.

36:15

We need someone to see her tomorrow, like first thing in the morning.

36:18

So he made space for me.

36:21

And I went and that, that meeting was the beginning of a very long, hard, painful road to healing.

36:32

But if that was the start, like that was, that night was rock bottom.

36:36

And then the very next morning was like the sun poked his head through just for a moment.

36:42

I was like, maybe there's hope for me, maybe what I can have on the other side, this is a chance that living true to who I am and knowing Krisha,

36:59

and I have been loving your helix sleep mattress.

37:01

Like I mentioned earlier, it's amazing.

37:02

It's so comfortable because it fits our bodies perfectly.

37:05

It's exactly what we ordered.

37:07

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37:10

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37:19

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37:23

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37:34

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37:40

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37:56

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37:57

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38:00

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38:03

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38:09

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38:15

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38:17

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38:27

Helix sleep is offering up to $200 off on mattresses and two free pillows for our [email protected] slash Sadie that's helix sleep.com/sadie for up to $200 off and two free pillows.

38:43

Yeah, so I think for me this first time sitting in counseling, you know, being able to be heard and known and given a safe space to just kind of like start to take these steps toward healing.

38:57

It was for me the first time that I was starting to figure out who I was.

39:01

I mean, for the first time in my life, I was like 23 or 24 years old.

39:06

I'm getting the chance to look inside myself and really ask, who are you?

39:14

Who did God could do to be Kelsey?

39:17

And I mean, it gets better from this point.

39:21

This story actually does finally get better in several weeks in to counseling.

39:25

We did go back in time and my counselor told me next week, you're going to come into this room and you're going to sit here.

39:35

We've established a trust relationship.

39:38

You know that I'm for you.

39:40

And we're going to talk about what happens with your relationship in college.

39:46

I was like, no, no, we're not.

39:50

No, thank you. You have to flip over that part because I cannot do it.

39:53

And he was like, wow, you can, and you will.

39:56

And you will be okay, we'll be okay.

39:59

And I was like, no.

40:01

So I went home that day and I promised myself that I would not go back the next week.

40:07

And I would not tell him what I had been through.

40:09

And of course, God was preparing me that whole week.

40:13

Even if I drug my feet in the sand, it was like, I'm not doing this.

40:16

I'm not doing this. I can't live there again.

40:18

I can not revisit the past. I can not go there.

40:22

I walked into his office that day and I sat down and he was like, Kelsey, I need you to start at the beginning.

40:29

And I felt, I felt this tangible peace come over me.

40:38

And I found a spot on the floor.

40:41

My eyes never left that spot for the entire hour that I sat there.

40:47

And it was like, once I started telling him the story, it just was like falling out.

40:55

It was like all that I'd held so tightly for that year and a half of my life, all of these secrets, all of this pain, the minute I opened the door to let it come out, it was like flooding out of me and I couldn't stop it.

41:08

And I'll never forget.

41:12

I'll never forget what happened that day because I, my eyes never left that spot in the board.

41:18

I know now, again, looking back, it was because of shame.

41:22

I couldn't look high because I had so much shame and it ruled my life.

41:27

And at the end I had remembered all the details.

41:31

Like they came back to me and just like things he said to me and things he did to me and I remembered them all in great detail.

41:39

And I just, I couldn't believe I was hearing myself say it out loud.

41:44

Well, when I finished talking about it, I can remember there being this very long pause.

41:51

I mean, silence. And it was uncomfortable.

41:55

You know, I had just unloaded my deepest Sargus most awful pain.

42:01

And it was met with silence, you know, but I could not, I could not look up on that spot on the floor.

42:08

And finally, when it got, the silence got too long, I was just like, as he stepped, did he fall asleep?

42:14

Like what happened? And I peeled my eyes off the floor.

42:17

And when I looked up at him, he just was sobbing.

42:21

And I have had this, like this moment where I was like, oh gosh, I'm are you like, are you okay?

42:28

Just give me. Wow.

42:33

And I sat back and he said, I mean, with tears rolling down his cheeks, then I'm crying.

42:40

Cause I don't know why he's crying.

42:42

And I'm feeling, wow. I feel like I'm the one that's supposed to be crying.

42:47

Yeah. And he looked at me and he said, Kelsey, I need you to hear someone say this.

42:52

I am so sorry.

42:55

Wow. To you. Because he probably never said that.

43:00

And he probably never will. And you need to say that they are so sorry.

43:06

Wow. And he was like in the second thing that I'm going to say, you're not going to like what I'm hearing.

43:13

And he said, there's a term that we use in the counseling therapy world to describe the trauma that you experienced with that, man, it's called rape and Kelsey, he raped you for nine months of your life.

43:30

And you endured actual health where the man who claim to love you.

43:37

And I was like, wow, you don't understand.

43:40

Like he, and he interrupted me.

43:42

You don't understand.

43:45

And I will spend the next six weeks, six months, six years of my life, Kelsey, however long it takes to walk you through, like, this is textbook sexual assault, victim verbiage.

44:01

Like you, you all think it's your fault.

44:03

You could've stopped it. You, you know, wow.

44:07

You could have controlled the situation differently.

44:10

Now reality is that that point in your life, you could not have escape.

44:16

If you wanted to you, he had full, complete control of your life.

44:20

You had given him every piece that there was left to give up to that point.

44:25

And I mean, he wouldn't let me argue.

44:30

So I just, I listened and I walked out of his office that day and I survived.

44:38

You know, I survived telling the thing I swore I would never tell.

44:41

And you know, we worked through all of that from us to come.

44:45

And eventually I was able to sit down with my parents and tell them for the first time what had happened and what I've been through.

44:51

And I mean, it was awful, but it was also so healing to be known.

44:57

Wow. First time in so long. Like, and every time I noticed that every time I told the story and the more often I told it, the less power it had over me, you know, the less shame I lived in surrounding it, you know, I, it was just very freeing.

45:16

So let that piece of me go and to know that I was loved, even there, I was loved by my parents when I was known, you know, I, wow.

45:30

I let them in.

45:32

And they still loved, wow.

45:34

I couldn't believe it. You know? And of course, you know, as a parent now, I think why did I think that my parents would love me differently or see me differently, but you know, people leave these lives when you've been through something awful and dramatic like that.

45:46

And I guess looking back, I can see, you know, it was a pattern in my life and that relationship happened because I bent to the will and the expectations of everybody around me from the time that I was a little girl.

46:00

And so my coming to a place where I felt like I was ready to tell the story, you know, like the most public of ways, you know, and a promise that I will hang on years ago.

46:12

I will never tell the story.

46:14

I will, you know, outside of my very close, right.

46:19

Your circle. Yes. I will never tell the story because it's still, it's still did have, I still did have shame and guilt at that time, but I have moved past that.

46:28

You know, the thing about trauma is it's always there.

46:31

You can work through it, find healing, but sometimes it resurfaces in weird ways.

46:36

And then you just know I've worked through this before and I can revisit it again, you know, and, and then I can move forward again.

46:44

You know, that's that's and again, my hope and prayer for this book is for the women reading it.

46:49

I want to take, I want to like take a dynamite blaster to the state of the world.

46:56

The things that we don't talk about, the things that we hide in shame over, because we think that people will see us differently, or people will think differently than us, or we'll lose clouds or we'll lose.

47:06

Right. All of these things like those are lies.

47:09

The more that we confess, what we've been through, and this is biblical, like there is power in confession.

47:16

Why? Because all of a sudden we're known and still loved in that space, you know, and it loses power over us.

47:23

And so that's, that's what I want for this book.

47:25

I want people to read it and feel like they're having a conversation with me.

47:28

And I've told them all of my deepest, darkest secrets to empower them, to feel the freedom, to do the same.

47:36

You know, I want to take a step in bold faith and say, I'm not ashamed of my past anymore.

47:44

I was for a long time.

47:46

And I thought that I would always be attached to it and that it would always be a label on me, you know, but the reality is that part of my life is in part, what made me, who I am today.

47:59

And as a mom, my daughter, I need her to know, I need her to know what happened.

48:05

And I need her to know that you are never too far gone.

48:09

You are never far from God to be good back in, you know, to be up, to, to find your identity in him.

48:17

Like that is a thing that I was missing in my life the whole time, you know?

48:22

Yeah. That's so cool. Like your story is so real and so relatable to so many, unfortunately, that, that is so many people's story that, you know, it starts out with these false expectations and trying to be someone that we're not, and then we get into relationships.

48:39

We shouldn't be in and then, you know, we're hurt.

48:41

And so we turned to drinking returned to whatever other numbing mechanism it is.

48:45

And it's like the, the story of, you know, kind of giving yourself away of losing yourself.

48:51

But I love how you talked about there that moment.

48:53

And I know that was so hard to, to bring up, but I thank you for bringing it out where you wanted to just drive off the road, because that would have been easy.

49:00

And I've honestly had that same moment in my life.

49:03

I was coming out of a really bad relationship as well, and very similar to you.

49:08

And I remember driving and thinking, I could just do this right now and it would be easy and I wouldn't have to think about it and, you know, just wanted to, to make that decision.

49:19

But I didn't. And I feel like in that moment guide just kind of really brought my perspective way bigger than just my little circumstance that I was in, in that moment and showed me a bigger picture of my life.

49:30

And I feel like for you, like your father was able to do that.

49:33

He was able to say like, I can help you.

49:35

Like, there is hope here. Like you're not too far, whatever, whatever has happened, like I'm in it with you.

49:41

And when you felt that, like you made a decision and that decision was hard and you had to go to counseling and it was hard.

49:47

And you'd talk about things you didn't wanna talk about, but now you're married and you have three kids and you're doing what you love to do.

49:54

And you've written a book and you're helping people out of it.

49:56

And it's just this beautiful testimony.

49:58

And so I'm so glad you shared that because there's someone today listening who wanted to take that, you know, steering wheel off, you know, today, yesterday, last night.

50:09

And they're like, wow, there might be hope for me.

50:13

You know, here's two women who have said that and felt that, and believe that we were too far gone, but yet God's still doing something with our story and God can still do something with your story, wherever you're at in your life.

50:24

I love there was a quote that you said in the book, and instead of 100% of me wanted to pursue God.

50:29

And 100% of me wanted to hide from God.

50:32

And I think maybe that might've had to do with your past, like, well, I'm not good.

50:37

You know, I don't feel good.

50:39

I don't feel worthy. I don't feel anything.

50:40

So I can't possibly resonate with God.

50:42

But then the other part of you is like, but I do know that God's good.

50:46

And I do know that God's loving. And if I can only have that, and now here you are like with the Lord.

50:50

And so what would you say, just kind of a last piece of advice, like directly to the person who's like, they've messed up, they've gone too far.

50:58

They're living in shame. And then 100% of them wants to believe that God is for them.

51:04

But 100% of them also wants to actually hide from who God is because they have, they're just feel like they've blown it.

51:12

I think what I would say to the girl, listening to this, or, or the guy, whoever whoever's listening, you're not alone.

51:19

You're not alone.

51:21

The world wants you to think you are not alone.

51:25

And you like, like the thing that I wish I had known, I mean, from the jump of my life, right, is that I was all ready by yeah, period, period.

51:42

I was already good enough because I was a child of God.

51:47

Like the thing about it. And now, you know, you're a mom, you know, like the thing that changed inside of me and the thing that really started to shift my perspective of God is when I became a mother, because what happened was I opened up this whole new world of love that I'd never, I didn't know existed before I had that.

52:07

You know? And I look at my children, each one and I mean, Sandy, I know you know this because you are a mom.

52:15

There is nothing.

52:16

There is absolutely nothing that your baby girl could do in her life.

52:22

Nope. Nothing that would change the way that you love her.

52:26

You know, nothing. There is nothing that she could, she could walk away from you.

52:31

She could curse your name. She could say, I want nothing to do with you mom for the rest of my life and your love for her remain.

52:40

We are only capable of a human love.

52:45

So how much more does God heal that kind of love for you?

52:50

For me? It's that person listening to this.

52:53

It is, it's a love, we can't even wrap our minds around.

52:57

So if you are intrinsically, you are already loved that way because you belong to God.

53:03

Suddenly there's a shift that happens in you.

53:06

You're like I'm already loved.

53:07

And all of my mess today, the way that I'm showing up, I don't have to show up as any version of myself.

53:13

But the one that feels true to who I am and I'm already in that space, it changes your entire perspective of God.

53:21

Suddenly. You're like, I am worthy of love and I'm of being treated well.

53:26

And I'm worthy of good things coming to me.

53:29

You know, like I I'm, I'm worthy of all of these things that I didn't believe I was worthy of until I understood for the first time.

53:39

God's love for me. Like it changed.

53:41

It shifted, it was this cataclysmic like explosion in my brain.

53:47

And in my heart, when I became a mom, I was like, oh my gosh.

53:50

If I can love my kids this way, how much more can God love me?

53:54

Right. You know? And so that would be my that's that message right there.

53:59

Like if you hear nothing else that I said today, would you all, would, you know, this, that you are already fully recklessly and utterly loved by God.

54:08

If you do nothing different in your life, if you don't become what the world tells you that you have to become, but you just, you just are loved because you exist.

54:18

That is my prayer for this book.

54:21

And for the message behind it, you are already loved by the one who created Amen.

54:28

I go everything.

54:30

She said that you're not alone and that you're already wildly loved.

54:34

I love that you can't even comprehend.

54:36

You're that loved.

54:38

And so Kelsey, thank you so much for saying the things that are hard.

54:41

Thank you for sharing your story.

54:43

Whenever it was probably really hard to write down on paper and relive again, but it's waking people up to where they're at and know, and reminding people that there is hope, and there is life beyond the hardest day that you have.

54:55

And there is life beyond the biggest mistake that you've made.

54:57

God is still for you. He still loves you.

55:00

He's so with you and I'm excited.

55:02

So people, if you haven't read it yet, go get over it.

55:06

That Kelsey grim, it's so great.

55:08

So real, so relatable.

55:10

And you can come as you are whenever you read it and feel so seen and so known.

55:15

And so Kelsey, thank you for being on the podcast.

55:17

Such good advice. And thank you for sharing your story with us.

55:20

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Welcome back to the would as good podcast. Have you Wednesday, everybody y'all I'm so stowed for today. We have an amazing guest on her name is Kelsey grim and she has just written a super great book called over it. Y'all if you're watching on YouTube, look at how cool this book cover is. I told her before we started, I said, why have I never done a hot pink book? Why? I don't know what Kelsey, you are setting the tone in the book world, certainly. And for so many things in the mom world, all of it. And I'm so excited that you're on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be here. I appreciate it so much. Yes, I am stoked. So I was kind of telling you this before, but this book really is like asking your big sister, all the questions that you want, somebody so bad to tell you, but you don't have anybody to go to, to talk about it. Like you go there. And so I can't wait to dive into it and start talking about some of that stuff later. But first I have to ask you the question. I ask everyone on this podcast, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Yeah. I love that you do that by the way. It's so cool. And as I've listened to your podcast, I, I glean so much from hearing what other people are gleaning from other people so that you do. So that means that I think probably the most helpful piece of advice I've ever been given. It's more of a quote than a piece of advice, but the quote is life becomes more meaningful when you realize that you never get to live the same moment twice. So what I love about that is it's just a reminder to live present in the moment. You will never get this exact moment again. We'll never come around to get it and won't get a redo. So make the most of it. Like that's just it's. So I feel like it's just a good, it's a good overall reminder to live. So I love that because I think that I wrote about this in a book actually wrote called live. And I wrote about how, because life kind of just like happened to us, you know? And it happened for us. Sometimes the temptation is like, you almost look at it and you take advantage of the gift that it was. You're like, oh yeah, well I just, I just get to live today. I just have life. But when you actually think about like, life is a gift and every moment is precious. And especially when you lose someone, that's when you realize like, wow, like every moment matters. Every moment counts. It really does help you live your life more. It helps you live it. I always say like a verb, like the action is supposed to be lived in, you know, you start to not complain so much about the little moments with your, with your kids. You're not complaining about the moments in traffic and be like, okay, look, I have life, a breath. Like I can do this. And so I love that quote. I love that advice. So a lot of people have probably seen you with your husband, Caleb singing on, you know, some social media platform. I actually, before here, I like looked up like Kelsey and Caleb, and there's just so many videos with just millions of views. And so whenever y'all got together, did John know like we're going to sing together or did that just kind of happened? Cause y'all both just have voices of angels. Oh, well that's a stretch, but that's very sweet. I appreciate it. We kind of fell into it to be honest. Like it was just this organic thing. Like when we met each other, I knew he was in a boy band and at the time I was in a girl band. And so, you know, we sang together just for fun, you know, to start. And then it kind of got real for us after we got married and we started seeing more. And then we're kind of just praying about what the next step in our career was at that point. And we hadn't really taken our duo seriously again, like up until that point. And then that's when we kind of went, we pushed the ball further down the court with the worship stuff, because we were like, this makes sense for who we are and the way we've grown up. And this means something to us. And so when we started putting out the worship mashups, it just kind of, I mean, people really connected with it and then History. They're beautiful. I love it so much. You talked about actually in your book, there was this moment where you were always been musical, you know, and people kind of saw that in your life and had said that that was a gift, but there was a moment whenever a teacher of yours looked at you and was like, no, like this is what you were made to do. And then you go on to say that like one person's belief for you can kind of change the trajectory of your life. So talk about that a little bit. And because I thought that was such a powerful story. Yeah. I think it's a good reminder that our words carry weight and power. You know, we have the ability to speak life over people and to encourage people. And sometimes one conversation, like I don't even know that my teacher would remember that conversation. Wow. If I brought it up to him, maybe he would, but maybe you wouldn't. And that just goes to show that you never know the difference a conversation can have on a person's life. You know, I'll never forget where I was standing and what he said, that the power and the empowerment that it gave me to hear him say that, you know, because like you said, I did, I grew up in a musical family. You know, my parents were both musical and my brothers are, are, were in music are no longer, but it's just kind of been this thing that people knew us by for a long time. And so it was always something I was passionate about and loves doing. Like, I don't, I, I could never imagine my life without singing, but I don't think I ever thought of myself as having what it takes, you know, to do it for a career. I never saw myself in that way. And so that conversation, you know, I was like, maybe this could be something for me. Maybe I could actually sing and you know, what I have to offer and what I can bring to the table is enough. You know, that's maybe I could find a place here. And so it, it just kind of gave me the extra little push that I needed to start to believe in me to, you know, So cool. That is such an encouragement to people listening. Like, you know, you could be on the receiving end and somebody believes in you and that's like your go. Or you could be the person that's giving the word, like, Hey, like I see this in you. That's funny that you mentioned that about that person. Not remembering, maybe because I was with one of my best friends other day, and I was hearing her have a conversation with someone else about her leading worship. Cause she's a worship leader and the girl was like, oh, you do that. And she was like, yeah, actually she was like, it wasn't until Sandy told me, she said, one day she was like, Lynnie, you were made to worship that. I realized like this is what I want to do in my life. And to be honest, I don't really remember saying that. Like, I mean, I'm sure I did because I do believe she's made to worship and I do speak things like that over her, but I don't necessarily remember that moment, but it was so pivotal for her. And so that is such a reminder of what the word says, that like our words carry the power of life and death and we can speak something, a word of life that literally grows into someone's, you know, destiny. So that's so cool. You mentioned a little bit about how you grew up, like in music and everything like that, but something in the book you talk about as the way you grew up and the perspective you kind of had of Jesus. So kinda talk, tell everyone like what your relationship with God was like growing up or kind of how you viewed Christianity as a whole. Yeah, for sure. So I grew up in a very small conservative, evangelical Christian culture. I was the daughter of a pastor. And so if you, if you're listening to this and you grew up a pastor's kid, then I don't really have to explain this kind of fishbowl effect, you know, that everybody's watching you and from every angle and every little thing you do and say, you know, is being observed kind of, you know, from a distance, but people, I kind of felt that pressure from a really young age. And I think I understood then as a very little girl, okay, people need me to be this, then fortunately, this for meant perfect. Or at the very least, it meant to appear perfect. Like even if there was stuff going on inside of me to suppress those things and to put on a tough exterior that I'm okay and you know, I, I can, I can do this. I can be who people need me to be. And while that pressure was never verbally placed on me, I think it was just kind of this unspoken understood thing that, you know, she's a pastor's kid and people have very real expectations of pastor's kids. And I feel like that's why pastors kids oftentimes the stories that you hear, they do one of two things. They either blame the other way. And they, you know, they go down a crazy dark destructive path or, you know, they go on to become pastors themselves or they're, you know, they become spiritual leaders and very little in between. I feel like at least in my experience, in my talks with other kids who grew up similarly to the way that I did. And so the way that, that kind of manifested the older that I got is that I understood people are always going to need me to be something and I can be whatever that is. And it doesn't matter what is going on on the inside. I can rise to the expectations that I know people have of me. And it was this constant inward battle of who I, I felt like I was inside and who I felt like people needed me. And so I maintained this for as long as I could, you know, I mean through middle school and high school, I was always the good girl, you know, the girl and everybody knew it. And I never strayed from, you know, what that looks like. You know, that feeling you have, whenever you stumble upon an outfit or a shirt or somebody in a store that you're like, this is so me, it's, it's a great feeling, right? When you find something that's just totally you and you get it, you can't wait to wear it. Well, that's how it is all the time with StitchFix Citrix freestyle. It's amazing. It is a shot built just for you. Pretty much. 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Obviously we all want to be good intrinsically, but I think when being good becomes the one single most important thing, it becomes your entire identity rather than, you know, actually checking in with yourself and going, am I actually like, am I actually, am I okay? You know, do I know who I am as a person, as an individual? You know, that's when it becomes a really slippery slope. And so for me, that slippery slope met me face to face when I got to college and it was kind of this first step out of the bubble I was raised in where I thought I would get a chance to kind of step into myself and find out what, like, who is Kelsey, who is, I've been told who she is my whole life and what she thinks and what she believes and who she, you know, believes herself to be, but who do I actually think I am? Yeah. And unfortunately I took the freedom that I found for the first time in college. And I looked in all the wrong places for love and my identity and acceptance and confidence. And I found it in all the wrong places. You know, I ultimately, because I went into college and having no earthly idea of who I was and where my identity truly came from in Christ. I subjected myself to even more rising to the expectations of what everyone around me and that played out in a situation with a boy, you know, and it ended up being a very abusive relationship and just a continuation of me bending to his will. So what his desires were of me, because I, I didn't know who I was going into that relationship. And, you know, it was incredibly damaging and what I believed about God at that time, because what I had been taught about people around me and being watched and under this microscope is that everyone needed something from me or needed me to be something. So that was what my understanding of God was as well. God also, God loves me. I was taught that, but God also surely needs me. Like I can't just come as I am. First of all, what does that even mean? Do I even know who I am yet? Secondly, surely I'm not just already good enough for God. He needs me to be something too. And so that was the entire understanding that I had of him up to that point. And I looking back, I'm sad for that girl who looked in the mirror and had no idea who was staring back at her and the way that you'd need, then if I could have only had the eyes to see, I think my life would have been very different. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, I feel like so many of us have been where you're at as well, and you can look back and you can say if only I had the eyes to see so many things would have played out, but thank God, you know, we do now. And hopefully as we, as we do, we can help other people kind of wake up and their own scenario where they're at, because they're, I know there are people listening right now that are like, wait, I thought the say I'm actually currently thinking the same thing that I have to be something for God, or I'm not good enough yet for God. And so that's so good that you brought that up. Like I said, you, you touched on so many things that people are scared to touch on. And I think that because people are scared to touch on them because the church doesn't talk about it. People just stay in it because they feel like they just have to, or this is what it is and they're alone, they're, they're hidden in it. And so you talk a lot about the damaging relationship that you were in and it was damaging for so many reasons. You know, when you look back at that, did you know in the moment it was bad or were you kind of blind to it even then? It's such a good question. And actually one, I get asked a lot, like, how did that happen? How did it get to that point? And sometimes looking back, I asked myself to this day, the same question, I think ultimately it was a slow fade. I think I made the first decision, you know what I mean? And the first that it was allowing myself to enter into a relationship with a man who had dark spots that I think even I saw early on like things that weren't right. But I was living in the tension of wanting to maintain my goodness that I had always had as a child and as a girl. And then as a teenager and also simultaneously wanting so badly to explore what maybe not mean good looks like. And I think his spirit in me, you know, that rear its ugly head. And so when I entered into that relationship, I did see red flags. But ultimately what happened was it was a very slow fade. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it was of course making small concessions here, small concessions there. And then before I knew it, you know, all this time had passed and I realized, oh my goodness, I'm not, I, I don't even, I don't know who I am anymore. I I'm, I am a product of this man's desires and standards and the things that he needs me to be, that is the sum of distance, you know? And I think it all really dates back to what I learned about myself as a child. And even though those messages were never spoken to me and I am truly the people who influenced me were good people doing the best of what I heard, you know, and what I absorbed about just life in that space was that I could be loved by God, but I had to be these certain things. And the reality is for those of you to this, that didn't grow up that way. You know, didn't grow up with this incredible pressure being placed on you early as a child where even though you didn't grow up that way, we're scrolling through these expectations everyday as adults in the culture that we live in. Like no one is exempt from this. No one's exempt from the pressures. You know, we're faced with them from every angle every single day. And I would like to go out on a limb here and say that it's turned up a notch for women. You know, women are expected to be everything to everyone and to look amazing doing it. And it varies this absurd pressure that we are having to fight falling into every single day. You know? And so there's, I feel like this message is relatable on any level, you know, and whether or not you grew up in a similar, you know, in a similar way that I did, like the reality is we're all being faced with it now, you know, It's so true. It is overwhelming. You talk a lot about that, like false expectations that we have on ourselves or that people have placed on us or that we've, you know, maybe placed on ourself. And I love how you talk about, like, you kind of gave like some, I guess, signs in your life that you could see now of like how hard you were trying, like how hard you're trying to prove yourself, how hard you're trying to be a certain way. What would you say to people out there who have those thoughts as petitions? Like these are some of the signs that maybe you're trying too hard, you know, maybe you're trying to force something that isn't there. Right? That's such a good question too. I think my best piece of advice would be if you are in a relationship and whether it's a dating relationship or maybe a relationship with a family member or a friendship, just any kind of relationship where someone is telling you who you are, or that you have to change certain aspects of yourself to be accepted in that environment. That's a red flag. Get out. You know, that's not a relationship that is that's healthy. You know, you are having to make concessions and adaptations to your self it's there. It's not because something's wrong with you. It's because something's wrong with that other person. And we have things that they need to deal with on their own. Having nothing to do with you Sometimes in life. It is hard not to worry about the what ifs. What if I don't make it on time or worse? What if I feel like I'm in danger? Well, if you don't want to worry, when it comes to your safety, then you need a birdie. Y'all I have an own birdie and it is awesome. And I want you to have it too. It's so great. Bernie is a personal safety alarm. That's so easy to carry and simple to use. When you activate your birdie, you quickly pull the alarm and it's going to a sound, a very loud, 130 decibels siren and flashing strobe lights to help get an attacker away, unlike pepper spray, or other things you use, you know, and these scary moments, it actually is no danger to you, which is great because sometimes, you know, you start to worry like, well, what if this gets use against me? What if I don't know how to use it properly? The birdie is like the most simple thing. It can't be used to hurt you. You pull the alarm, it goes off flashes of light and helps. Keep you say, birdie goes wherever with you. The alarm comes in multiple colors as well. And so you can get a cute one, match, your bag, keys, whatever you like. And people won't even know that that isn't really what's protecting you. There's been over 300,000 birdie alarms that have been sold and they have thousands of five star reviews. So join the flock today for a safer tomorrow. Right now she's birdie is offering whether it's good listeners, 15% off your first purchase. When you go to she's bernie.com/whoa, go to she's birdie, spelled S H E S B I R D I e.com/whoa, for 15% off your first purchase that she's birdie.com/whoa. Our identity isn't found in all of these things and all of these hats that we wear as women. And, you know, we're, we're Ys, we're mothers, we're speakers, authors, artists, friends, daughters, like, and it's all pieces of the puzzle that make up who we are. But ultimately our identity is found in who your creator made you to be, which if you start taking things about you and changing that you aren't changing who God actually intrinsically designed it to be. You know, and I just, my encouragement would be you into relationships and friendships that speak into that. You know, that version of you, that you are honing that identity that you are in Christ, like find people who will lift you up there and support you and hold you up, you know, stand behind you and hold you up when you, when you can't do it. And I think, you know, those are the relationships that we need to be looking for because life is really hard. You know, life is really hard and we were never meant to do it alone. Like we were built for community. We need community. We need help. That's right. I love that. I love you. You had a great revelation in the book where you kind of realize that you kind of placed this guy as God, in a sense. And honestly, I've been in a relationship that was the same way. And I think sometimes like, that's where that, like, lack of understanding who we are comes from is because like, when we look at God, like God, our creator, and then we think about who we are, then we know we're loved, then we know we're good. Then we know we're worthy. We know we're enough. We know all this needs because that's who God is. But then when we look at someone else as our God, and that's our, you know, that's, who's telling us who our identity is, then all of a sudden we're not enough and we're unlovable and you know, we're not worthy and we're not beautiful. And all those things, because we can't live up to this expectation or even the comparison that maybe that person has put on us. Who's not God, who's not our creator. You know? And so I do think you have to be very careful on who you put on the throne of your life, you know, and I noticed that you had talked about that and I had been in the same position as you at one point, one thing that you talked about was, and I thought this was so good because this is something that so many fall into and I've been here too, is y'all kind of started to dabble on across the line a little bit, whenever it came to like your sexual purity and stuff, and y'all were very interested and going further and all of these things, and you started asking yourself these questions of like, wait, is this sucks. Is this right? Is this wrong? Is what I'm doing? And I love how you said, like there was a lot bigger questions and just is this sex. And I'm like, I have done that. And I feel like people in the church do that is because like, you think like, oh, I'm not supposed to have sex. And so then you're just asking yourself like, wait, is this, but in doing that, you're actually missing the heart of why God said that in the first place. And so can you share a little bit about your experience in that and what you know now versus what you knew then? Yeah. And I mean, this is, this is the really hard part of the story. You know, this is the part that for a decade of my life, I didn't talk about because there's so much shame around sex and sex is really complicated. It wasn't ever meant to be complicated, right? Like God designed it as this gift to us and we have complicated it, you know, humanity, it's, it's messy. Sex is messy. And ultimately the more of myself that I gave away to that man while I was in college and I'm not even talking sexually, I'm just talking like I, you know, pushed friends out of my life because he wanted me to, you know, adapt and adapt to his friends. And so I did and, you know, right. He kind of systematically pulled all of the people in the voices and influences out of my life slow enough that I didn't recognize it happening in real time. You know, it was, I was far too deep in the relationship before I recognized what was happening, you know, and it was all part of an ultimate plan to gain full and under control of me. And he ultimately, he got that, you know, and it's reflected that same mentality that he had over me in every other area of my life. Just kind of bled into our sexual life too. You know, like what happened? The reality was the only time I felt seen by him was behind closed doors when we were alone. And, you know, I had told myself these lies that if I gave him what he wanted and what he was pushing me for in the bedroom, that he would eventually, he would love me. Right. Th that is this lie that I had into he'll come around, you know, he'll start showing you more affection and care in public. If I give him what he wants and private and, you know, I mean, can say it was always 20, 20. I obviously know, looking back at that poor broken girl, I hate that she believes those lies. Yeah. But I did, I did at that time. And so, like I said, I had not really been down any sexual roads with any other guys, much. I had very little experience before this relationship. We'll just put it that way. And he pushed me. I mean, a little further every time. And ultimately what I came to know later, and I'm talking like a year and a half after I got out of this relationship after I moved to Nashville from I'm originally from Illinois after I moved to Nashville to do music here, I had gotten an opportunity to audition for a girl group here. I didn't have anything else going on in my life at that time. So when I moved here or when I came to audition, I made the group and moved to your six weeks later. And I was hoping that I could hit the restart button, like just reset this whole thing. Nobody knew about that relationship. When I moved here, nobody knew my past. Nobody knew what I had been through. And so I was hoping to just kind of be able to turn the page when I moved to national and start over. But the reality is, and we all know this, that what you don't deal with in the past catches up with you in the present, right? Like if you have trauma and dealt with trauma that happened in the past, it will come back. It will research it and you will be forced to fix it at some point. And that's exactly what happened after I moved to Nashville. Like the reality was what had happened with us sexually in the bedroom, in that relationship haunted me for a year and a half after I got an out of the relationship, because I had never shared it with anyone because I felt so much shame and guilt around it. And I felt like it was my fault. And why did, why couldn't I write out? Why didn't I just say no? Like why didn't I write physically push him away from me? Like I asked myself these questions and blamed myself for not having done them in that relationship and the way that it all came to be, once I moved to Nashville is that I was such a broken person. So desperate to be loved and to figure out who I was. I was a shell of a person. So I fell, I fell into the wrong crowd. I found alcohol for the first time. And I found that when I drank everything hurt, less, everything felt numb, you know, and I wasn't dealing with anything. I moving everything. I was medicating this giant root of a problem in my heart that I could not face at that time. You know? And so I started making these awful decisions after I'd moved to Nashville and I was staying out all night and I was bouncing around from party to party. And I was with a guy who treated me really poorly here, even because when I moved to Nashville, I was like, you know, I don't, I'm never going to enter into a serious relationship again, because I can't subject myself to love. Like I'm not worried. So I'll just go mess around with guys who I know won't want me because I'm not worthy to, at this point, anyone actually knew what I've been through. No one would love me anyway. You know, that was what I believed about myself. And so one night things got really bad and my manager called me and he was like, Kelsey, we can't keep you here. If you are going to keep staying out all night, like this, this is not going to work for you. You will have to go home. If some things don't change time quick. And I was like, okay, okay. I'll, I'll do better. I can do better. I know I can. And I did. I did. And one night I was out driving super late at night. It was pouring down rain and national. I mean like pouring. And I was avoiding going home because the girls, I lived with the girls in my band at the time. And they all hated me because I was crazy. I mean, I was wild and I was living this destructive lifestyle and they were afraid that I was making all of us look bad. And I was, you know, so they, they made it very clear. You are not welcome here. And we don't want you in the group. They were pushing to have me removed from the group. And so in this weird in-between period, I was just trying to stay away from the house till I knew everyone would be in bed. And I could just kind of sneak in and go to bed and not face it. I was constantly in avoidance mode and I get this call from my dad. Well, it was torrential downpour that I'm driving at night by myself on these back roads of Nashville. And my dad became one of the ones on the other side. He was yelling and I know women back then, especially now as a parent, he was so desperate for me to turn my life around that he, he finally, he reached just like one, two, and he was like, Kelsey, this is not who we raised her to be. I don't even recognize you anymore. You, you are throwing your life away. You're just throwing your life away. What are you? Oh my gosh, what are you doing please? And I mean, he's screaming at me and I'm sobbing. And I can't tell him this thing in my life that I had been through and that relationship, because I just, I couldn't even say the words out loud. And he hung up on me that night. And I was like, I had this moment and I still have such a hard time when you do as part of the story, because it's like, as a parent, like my dad's desperation for me, I imagine that being Collins, my daughter, you know, and how devastating it would be. And I threw my phone to the passenger seat. And I don't know that I consciously made a decision in that moment to do what happened next, but I didn't stop it. I had this moment where I was like, Hmm, I can't do this anymore. I can't be here anymore. I can't be in this place where no one knows no one knows what I've been through. No one knows what I've been dealing with. No one knows this big dark secret that I have carried around for a year and a half. And no one loves me enough to ask me. And I felt I had this smile. And again, all of these things happened in fractions of a second. You know, I saw this pair of headlights coming down the road toward me, but they were a long way off. And I was coming up to this, this bridge and there were guardrails on either side. And I just felt my car slowly going over that center line and I didn't stop it. And I was like, this could be quick. This could be easy. And then it could be, and I'm veering over this line. I can't see I'm crying so hard and some, oh, my word, this phone call, but it was divine timing. I hear my phone buzz again. And I look over and it wasn't my dad. It could not have been more than like 30 to 60 seconds from the end of the other call. He called me back. And I almost, I almost didn't want to because I couldn't be screened at again. And for whatever reason, I reached over and I grabbed my phone and the person that I had ended the call with a minute before compared to the person that had called me right back, or two different people, something divine happened in him to 62nd window of time. And when I picked it up, he was sobbing and baby, baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry, Kelsey. Please like pull over. I know I, where are you? Are you okay? And I jerked the wheel back into my lane and about that same time, that car that I would seen way down the road passed me and I pulled over and my dad was like, Kelsey, help me help you. I am yours. I want, I want to sit in the space with you, but you have to let me move. You have to let me win. And that was kind of, that was one of those moments that I call a moving moment, because it's a moment frozen in time, like a snapshot in my brain of a moment that changed and altered the entire trajectory of where my life was growing, you know? And so that, that very next morning, I agreed to show up at a counselor's office. Like my dad had contacted my manager and my manager called someone in the middle of the night. Like, he's not okay. We need someone to see her tomorrow, like first thing in the morning. So he made space for me. And I went and that, that meeting was the beginning of a very long, hard, painful road to healing. But if that was the start, like that was, that night was rock bottom. And then the very next morning was like the sun poked his head through just for a moment. I was like, maybe there's hope for me, maybe what I can have on the other side, this is a chance that living true to who I am and knowing Krisha, and I have been loving your helix sleep mattress. Like I mentioned earlier, it's amazing. It's so comfortable because it fits our bodies perfectly. It's exactly what we ordered. It's exactly what we signed up for. And so we're loving it. I encourage you to go do it too. He sleep has a quiz that will just take you two minutes to complete, and it matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. So why would you go to a mattress store and try to, you know, fiddle around with all the mattresses? Whenever you can take a quiz and find one exactly for you, you can take it with your husband, with your spouse and make sure that it's actually the best fit for both of you as well, because they can adjust to each side. They have so many different preferences. They have soft medium for mattresses, mattresses that are great for cooling down. If you get hot, when you sleep mattresses that are great for spinal alignment, which is also really great. If some of you have back trouble, you can type that in. And the quiz we took our quiz and I was matched with the helix midnight mattress because I wanted something not too fair, but not too soft. I kinda like something right in the middle. And they did a great one for us. You can also kind of tell them if you like to sleep on your back or your stomach or your side. So they really get a full, you know, idea of what kind of sleep you're looking for and what kind of sleep you like. Helix sleep is so awesome. They've been awarded number one best overall mattress pick and several big name magazines. And they're just really, really great. So I highly encourage you to go to helix sleep.com/sadie, take their two minute quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. Helix sleep is offering up to $200 off on mattresses and two free pillows for our [email protected] slash Sadie that's helix sleep.com/sadie for up to $200 off and two free pillows. Yeah, so I think for me this first time sitting in counseling, you know, being able to be heard and known and given a safe space to just kind of like start to take these steps toward healing. It was for me the first time that I was starting to figure out who I was. I mean, for the first time in my life, I was like 23 or 24 years old. I'm getting the chance to look inside myself and really ask, who are you? Who did God could do to be Kelsey? And I mean, it gets better from this point. This story actually does finally get better in several weeks in to counseling. We did go back in time and my counselor told me next week, you're going to come into this room and you're going to sit here. We've established a trust relationship. You know that I'm for you. And we're going to talk about what happens with your relationship in college. I was like, no, no, we're not. No, thank you. You have to flip over that part because I cannot do it. And he was like, wow, you can, and you will. And you will be okay, we'll be okay. And I was like, no. So I went home that day and I promised myself that I would not go back the next week. And I would not tell him what I had been through. And of course, God was preparing me that whole week. Even if I drug my feet in the sand, it was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I can't live there again. I can not revisit the past. I can not go there. I walked into his office that day and I sat down and he was like, Kelsey, I need you to start at the beginning. And I felt, I felt this tangible peace come over me. And I found a spot on the floor. My eyes never left that spot for the entire hour that I sat there. And it was like, once I started telling him the story, it just was like falling out. It was like all that I'd held so tightly for that year and a half of my life, all of these secrets, all of this pain, the minute I opened the door to let it come out, it was like flooding out of me and I couldn't stop it. And I'll never forget. I'll never forget what happened that day because I, my eyes never left that spot in the board. I know now, again, looking back, it was because of shame. I couldn't look high because I had so much shame and it ruled my life. And at the end I had remembered all the details. Like they came back to me and just like things he said to me and things he did to me and I remembered them all in great detail. And I just, I couldn't believe I was hearing myself say it out loud. Well, when I finished talking about it, I can remember there being this very long pause. I mean, silence. And it was uncomfortable. You know, I had just unloaded my deepest Sargus most awful pain. And it was met with silence, you know, but I could not, I could not look up on that spot on the floor. And finally, when it got, the silence got too long, I was just like, as he stepped, did he fall asleep? Like what happened? And I peeled my eyes off the floor. And when I looked up at him, he just was sobbing. And I have had this, like this moment where I was like, oh gosh, I'm are you like, are you okay? Just give me. Wow. And I sat back and he said, I mean, with tears rolling down his cheeks, then I'm crying. Cause I don't know why he's crying. And I'm feeling, wow. I feel like I'm the one that's supposed to be crying. Yeah. And he looked at me and he said, Kelsey, I need you to hear someone say this. I am so sorry. Wow. To you. Because he probably never said that. And he probably never will. And you need to say that they are so sorry. Wow. And he was like in the second thing that I'm going to say, you're not going to like what I'm hearing. And he said, there's a term that we use in the counseling therapy world to describe the trauma that you experienced with that, man, it's called rape and Kelsey, he raped you for nine months of your life. And you endured actual health where the man who claim to love you. And I was like, wow, you don't understand. Like he, and he interrupted me. You don't understand. And I will spend the next six weeks, six months, six years of my life, Kelsey, however long it takes to walk you through, like, this is textbook sexual assault, victim verbiage. Like you, you all think it's your fault. You could've stopped it. You, you know, wow. You could have controlled the situation differently. Now reality is that that point in your life, you could not have escape. If you wanted to you, he had full, complete control of your life. You had given him every piece that there was left to give up to that point. And I mean, he wouldn't let me argue. So I just, I listened and I walked out of his office that day and I survived. You know, I survived telling the thing I swore I would never tell. And you know, we worked through all of that from us to come. And eventually I was able to sit down with my parents and tell them for the first time what had happened and what I've been through. And I mean, it was awful, but it was also so healing to be known. Wow. First time in so long. Like, and every time I noticed that every time I told the story and the more often I told it, the less power it had over me, you know, the less shame I lived in surrounding it, you know, I, it was just very freeing. So let that piece of me go and to know that I was loved, even there, I was loved by my parents when I was known, you know, I, wow. I let them in. And they still loved, wow. I couldn't believe it. You know? And of course, you know, as a parent now, I think why did I think that my parents would love me differently or see me differently, but you know, people leave these lives when you've been through something awful and dramatic like that. And I guess looking back, I can see, you know, it was a pattern in my life and that relationship happened because I bent to the will and the expectations of everybody around me from the time that I was a little girl. And so my coming to a place where I felt like I was ready to tell the story, you know, like the most public of ways, you know, and a promise that I will hang on years ago. I will never tell the story. I will, you know, outside of my very close, right. Your circle. Yes. I will never tell the story because it's still, it's still did have, I still did have shame and guilt at that time, but I have moved past that. You know, the thing about trauma is it's always there. You can work through it, find healing, but sometimes it resurfaces in weird ways. And then you just know I've worked through this before and I can revisit it again, you know, and, and then I can move forward again. You know, that's that's and again, my hope and prayer for this book is for the women reading it. I want to take, I want to like take a dynamite blaster to the state of the world. The things that we don't talk about, the things that we hide in shame over, because we think that people will see us differently, or people will think differently than us, or we'll lose clouds or we'll lose. Right. All of these things like those are lies. The more that we confess, what we've been through, and this is biblical, like there is power in confession. Why? Because all of a sudden we're known and still loved in that space, you know, and it loses power over us. And so that's, that's what I want for this book. I want people to read it and feel like they're having a conversation with me. And I've told them all of my deepest, darkest secrets to empower them, to feel the freedom, to do the same. You know, I want to take a step in bold faith and say, I'm not ashamed of my past anymore. I was for a long time. And I thought that I would always be attached to it and that it would always be a label on me, you know, but the reality is that part of my life is in part, what made me, who I am today. And as a mom, my daughter, I need her to know, I need her to know what happened. And I need her to know that you are never too far gone. You are never far from God to be good back in, you know, to be up, to, to find your identity in him. Like that is a thing that I was missing in my life the whole time, you know? Yeah. That's so cool. Like your story is so real and so relatable to so many, unfortunately, that, that is so many people's story that, you know, it starts out with these false expectations and trying to be someone that we're not, and then we get into relationships. We shouldn't be in and then, you know, we're hurt. And so we turned to drinking returned to whatever other numbing mechanism it is. And it's like the, the story of, you know, kind of giving yourself away of losing yourself. But I love how you talked about there that moment. And I know that was so hard to, to bring up, but I thank you for bringing it out where you wanted to just drive off the road, because that would have been easy. And I've honestly had that same moment in my life. I was coming out of a really bad relationship as well, and very similar to you. And I remember driving and thinking, I could just do this right now and it would be easy and I wouldn't have to think about it and, you know, just wanted to, to make that decision. But I didn't. And I feel like in that moment guide just kind of really brought my perspective way bigger than just my little circumstance that I was in, in that moment and showed me a bigger picture of my life. And I feel like for you, like your father was able to do that. He was able to say like, I can help you. Like, there is hope here. Like you're not too far, whatever, whatever has happened, like I'm in it with you. And when you felt that, like you made a decision and that decision was hard and you had to go to counseling and it was hard. And you'd talk about things you didn't wanna talk about, but now you're married and you have three kids and you're doing what you love to do. And you've written a book and you're helping people out of it. And it's just this beautiful testimony. And so I'm so glad you shared that because there's someone today listening who wanted to take that, you know, steering wheel off, you know, today, yesterday, last night. And they're like, wow, there might be hope for me. You know, here's two women who have said that and felt that, and believe that we were too far gone, but yet God's still doing something with our story and God can still do something with your story, wherever you're at in your life. I love there was a quote that you said in the book, and instead of 100% of me wanted to pursue God. And 100% of me wanted to hide from God. And I think maybe that might've had to do with your past, like, well, I'm not good. You know, I don't feel good. I don't feel worthy. I don't feel anything. So I can't possibly resonate with God. But then the other part of you is like, but I do know that God's good. And I do know that God's loving. And if I can only have that, and now here you are like with the Lord. And so what would you say, just kind of a last piece of advice, like directly to the person who's like, they've messed up, they've gone too far. They're living in shame. And then 100% of them wants to believe that God is for them. But 100% of them also wants to actually hide from who God is because they have, they're just feel like they've blown it. I think what I would say to the girl, listening to this, or, or the guy, whoever whoever's listening, you're not alone. You're not alone. The world wants you to think you are not alone. And you like, like the thing that I wish I had known, I mean, from the jump of my life, right, is that I was all ready by yeah, period, period. I was already good enough because I was a child of God. Like the thing about it. And now, you know, you're a mom, you know, like the thing that changed inside of me and the thing that really started to shift my perspective of God is when I became a mother, because what happened was I opened up this whole new world of love that I'd never, I didn't know existed before I had that. You know? And I look at my children, each one and I mean, Sandy, I know you know this because you are a mom. There is nothing. There is absolutely nothing that your baby girl could do in her life. Nope. Nothing that would change the way that you love her. You know, nothing. There is nothing that she could, she could walk away from you. She could curse your name. She could say, I want nothing to do with you mom for the rest of my life and your love for her remain. We are only capable of a human love. So how much more does God heal that kind of love for you? For me? It's that person listening to this. It is, it's a love, we can't even wrap our minds around. So if you are intrinsically, you are already loved that way because you belong to God. Suddenly there's a shift that happens in you. You're like I'm already loved. And all of my mess today, the way that I'm showing up, I don't have to show up as any version of myself. But the one that feels true to who I am and I'm already in that space, it changes your entire perspective of God. Suddenly. You're like, I am worthy of love and I'm of being treated well. And I'm worthy of good things coming to me. You know, like I I'm, I'm worthy of all of these things that I didn't believe I was worthy of until I understood for the first time. God's love for me. Like it changed. It shifted, it was this cataclysmic like explosion in my brain. And in my heart, when I became a mom, I was like, oh my gosh. If I can love my kids this way, how much more can God love me? Right. You know? And so that would be my that's that message right there. Like if you hear nothing else that I said today, would you all, would, you know, this, that you are already fully recklessly and utterly loved by God. If you do nothing different in your life, if you don't become what the world tells you that you have to become, but you just, you just are loved because you exist. That is my prayer for this book. And for the message behind it, you are already loved by the one who created Amen. I go everything. She said that you're not alone and that you're already wildly loved. I love that you can't even comprehend. You're that loved. And so Kelsey, thank you so much for saying the things that are hard. Thank you for sharing your story. Whenever it was probably really hard to write down on paper and relive again, but it's waking people up to where they're at and know, and reminding people that there is hope, and there is life beyond the hardest day that you have. And there is life beyond the biggest mistake that you've made. God is still for you. He still loves you. He's so with you and I'm excited. So people, if you haven't read it yet, go get over it. That Kelsey grim, it's so great. So real, so relatable. And you can come as you are whenever you read it and feel so seen and so known. And so Kelsey, thank you for being on the podcast. Such good advice. And thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you so much for having me say anything.