Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E38: Leaving the Homosexual Lifestyle and Finding Love That Frees w/ Kim Zember

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E38: Leaving the Homosexual Lifestyle and Finding Love That Frees w/ Kim Zember · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  To me, I see the LGBT community as a group of people just like
• 0:04
  myself, longing to belong, longing to be loved.
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  And when we don't get that, we sometimes act like screaming
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  children. Love me, love me, accept me,
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  accept me. And to me, it's been a cry for
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  help. It's been a cry to be seen and
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  known and loved. Until I encountered radical
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  love. That is what began to transform
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  my heart. Hello everybody.
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  Welcome back to the Lila Rose podcast.
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  Today we have someone really special somebody, somebody that
• 0:32
  I admire and who has an incredible story and really a
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  lot to teach us. And this is my dear friend, Kim
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  Zember, who is an author. I know she's going to after
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  this, just like I don't like to call myself an author, but she's
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  an author of an amazing book, Restless Heart.
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  Speaker I would just say an amazing witness to so many
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  people. And so we're going to have her
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  on the podcast in a moment. The topic here today is going to
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  get. I'm just going to preface this
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  already. If you have kids listening, I'm
• 1:00
  going to try to do this better with my episodes because I know
• 1:02
  we talked about some heavy stuff and I don't usually preface it
• 1:04
  carefully for folks. So if you're in the car with
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  kiddos, we may get into some serious topics, topics about
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  sexuality. This is still, it's June.
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  It's called Pride Month by many people.
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  Kim has a powerful story to talk about about that.
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  So if you're listening with kids, this might be a time to
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  turn it off or save it for another time.
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  And with no further ado, I'm going to welcome Kim to the
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  podcast. Kim, thank you so much for
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  coming on today. Oh my gosh, such an honor.
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  I'm excited. So I read your book, I think two
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  years ago now, and I first heard about you.
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  Maybe it was before that was, I think maybe near the beginning
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  of the pandemic. And I think I read it in one
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  day. I was just captivated by your
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  story. It was so well written and it
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  was so powerful. So for people who aren't
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  familiar with you or your ministry yet, tell us a little
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  bit about Kim. Yeah.
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  Well, First off, I think it's so interesting that anytime I now
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  do like podcasts or interviews, there's usually a parental
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  advisory. So I'm like, is this what my
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  life? It's it.
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  But it's it's good. I mean, it really shows the
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  glory of God, like how he transforms us.
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  So I love it. But yeah, so for me, you know, I
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  was, I grew up Catholic, have two older brothers and, and I'll
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  just kind of give like a broad overview that so that maybe
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  listeners have a direction of where we're going.
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  But for me, I always like, I always knew about God.
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  I went to private Catholic school, 3rd grade through 8th
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  grade and parents would be labeled as charismatic Catholic.
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  I remember them praying in the spirit.
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  I remember them praying over people and so very engaged in
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  their own faith and, and I could see that they had a relationship
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  with the Lord, but God doesn't have grandchildren, he has
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  children. And so for me, I kind of like
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  try to get their relationship through osmosis.
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  But I would say like looking back hindsight, I really saw God
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  more as like a cop or a, or a judge than a father.
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  And so when I came to know about God is really what it was I came
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  to know about him. I knew about his rules, what is
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  wrong, what is right. And that was really the
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  emphasis, which there's nothing wrong with that, but but that's
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  separated from relationship caused a lot of angst within me.
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  And it really created me just really striving a lot all the
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  way through since I can remember, you know, growing up
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  to please God, to earn his love, to keep his love.
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  And then when I got like, yeah, I would say it was about 9th
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  grade is when I started to realize like, whoa, I'm a little
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  bit different than the rest of the girls.
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  Like, I don't have these attractions that my best friends
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  have. Like, I'm not attracted to men
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  in the way that they are. And I didn't really think much
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  about that because I was like, well, I just don't really need
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  to date. But into my later high school
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  years is when it got real because for me, I was like, OK,
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  well, I can just not date. But then now I'm facing the
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  reality of being lonely, right? And so that wasn't a place to
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  sit with either. I saw so many of my friends
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  around me getting drunk. A few of, you know, one of them
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  got pregnant and so there was just a lot going on around me.
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  So I'm like, OK, what's the big deal?
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  If I'm like attracted to women, is that really that harmful?
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  Like, I'm not gonna go bake myself or force myself on
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  someone, but if like it's mutual, what is so wrong about
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  that? You know?
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  And, and so I just started to slowly question that.
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  Like it can't be that bad because I was kind of comparing
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  it to what was happening around me.
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  And so I one of the worst things I think that I honestly did was
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  I figured things out in isolation.
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  I thought that if I went to my family, they would just be like,
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  Kim homosexuality, you know, acting on it is a sin because I
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  already knew that. And so like to just hear that
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  repeated or echoed back to me was not really what I was
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  looking for. And I didn't feel safe.
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  And I'm starting to get some language for some of my feelings
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  and what not back then. And it was more that I didn't
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  feel safe to share with anyone what was going on.
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  Like this internal struggle. I felt like I'd be instantly met
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  with correction, redirection, you know, not that I would get,
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  you know, pushed away from the family or anything, but just not
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  really a safe place to just openly share and like someone
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  sit in that with me, you know, not necessarily celebrate it,
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  but like just say, you know. And, and so would you say just
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  to kind of take that for a moment, because I think already
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  people listening, you know, many of us know people or some of us
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  are, you know, same sex attracted or have, you know, our
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  own different stories. And so people listening already,
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  like, I think one of the things you're you're saying is a good
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  take away is that you're, you were looking for accompaniment
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  and understanding instead of that immediate knee jerk.
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  Oh, it's wrong. I mean, you knew you were raised
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  that way. You knew like, oh, this is
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  wrong. You know, Christianity, the
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  church teaches that homosexual acts are wrong.
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  You know, not attraction. You can't help attraction, but
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  you can't help what you do. But so but you are looking for
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  someone who could just kind of hold space with you and then
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  accept you for what you are struggling through and working
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  through. 100% So it actually reminds me of the scripture
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  where it says to bear with one another their burdens.
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  It doesn't say fix one another's burdens.
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  This is to bear them with one another.
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  And, and, and I know like even from my own family, like I knew
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  that if I brought it to them, it would have been from a place of
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  love that they were trying, they would try to help me.
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  So it wasn't like from this hatred place or this, you know,
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  bigotry or anything of that. It was just more I didn't want
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  to be fixed. I wanted to be loved.
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  And and that's really the desire of every human heart.
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  And we'll probably unpack that more.
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  But so it was just a very isolating place.
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  And I'm not saying that that people isolated me.
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  I chose to remain isolated because I felt as if that just
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  because I felt that as if I couldn't share with people
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  didn't mean that I couldn't. But that was an internal
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  feeling. And so for me, I was just like,
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  I'll figure this out And then, right, like kind of discerning
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  in a bubble. I just kind of was chipping away
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  or actually Satan was starting to chip away.
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  Like, is it really that bad? Is it really that wrong?
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  Now, I, I can say that I always knew that it was a sin and I
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  believed it. But just because you know
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  something's a sin and you believe it to be true doesn't
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  mean you still don't desire it, right?
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  And if everybody's like, oh, well, that's not me.
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  I'm like, OK, we'll check out a brownie and then let's have a
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  conversation. Now, of course, that's much
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  different. Mine was a desire to have
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  partnership. See, I wasn't driven just by
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  physical, you know, intimacy or sexual intimacy.
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  I long to have a partner in life like I think everybody does.
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  I mean, God himself said it's not good that man be alone.
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  And so if you don't have the desire to the to the opposite
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  sex, what does that then look like?
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  And for me, growing up Catholic, I'm like, that looks like Mother
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  Teresa. And I'm like, that to me was
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  scary. Like God bless her, thank God
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  for her. But to me as a high school
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  student, I'm like, no, thank you.
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  Like I'm having a hard enough time in life, let alone thinking
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  that now I have to give my life to God.
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  See, I always knew that there was this like desire.
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  So meaning you're, so you're facing you're you're
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  experiencing same sex attraction.
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  You're not attracted to men, you're attracted to women as you
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  know. When did you first, by the way,
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  feel this way? Was it in high school, junior
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  high? When did you first?
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  I can't remember honestly, like I wouldn't ever have said, Oh my
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  gosh, I knew I was same sex attracted when I was a kid
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  because I grew up with two brothers.
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  So I never never a challenge for me was never a question of my
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  like identity as a female. But I did grow up with brothers.
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  And so I like to do what my brothers did.
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  And I just realized that I didn't have the attraction when
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  my friends started to have attractions to men.
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  I could recognize beauty, but I could also recognize beauty in a
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  German Shepherd, you know what I mean?
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  So, like, I wasn't blind from beauty, but I wasn't attracted
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  to it personally. And so I would say it was since
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  I was young. I mean, my mom even remembers,
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  you know, kind of questioning. Like, I wonder if this is
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  something Kim struggles with, you know, Or is this just, you
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  know, maybe what happens when you have two older brothers and
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  you're the only girl and you're the youngest, you know?
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  But I had friends who had brothers only and had
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  attractions to men. So I just always saw guys as
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  like brothers and friends. And it couldn't like manufacture
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  those feelings that I saw my friends starting to have.
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  But that was from a young age, I would say back to 3rd grade.
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  I can remember and, and even when I was in preschool, I
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  remember like very clearly having a desire to be seen and
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  known by my female teacher. Like I just wanted to, I wanted
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  her to see me and I wanted her to like celebrate me.
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  Do we call that same sex attraction?
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  I'm not sure. I just that is one thing I
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  remember like I want you to see me.
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  I want you to know me. I want to, I want to be
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  highlighted to you. What that might be, I don't
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  know. But I know there was always a
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  desire to be seen by women and, and we could get into a lot of
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  that as well, but. And and, but not a desire saying
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  to be seen by men. It was always women.
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  Yeah, I, I never really felt that as much.
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  I, and I don't mean this arrogant in any way, but I
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  didn't feel like it was hard to be seen by men, you know, and,
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  and also there was also fear because when I was young, and
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  this came up later when I was young, I was told by my father
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  that men want one thing from you and that men are kind of like
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  dogs. And I know now that he said that
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  to like, protect his little girl and like keep me away from boys.
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  But man, those words we speak to our children and, and to each
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  other. I mean, Satan's a freaking liar.
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  Work sticks and stones and they break your bones.
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  But words will never hurt. Words hurt and they, they hold
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  power actually. So there's a lot of different
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  things in there. And I'm not blaming my father,
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  but I can see how he used fear to to kind of keep me safe.
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  And then I realized actually that I stayed on that path.
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  Like fear kept me with God, fear of hell, fear of punishment, you
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  know, and and that can be a start, right?
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  First, John 418 from perfect love casts out fear.
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  The man who still fears is not yet perfected in love.
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  And so, but it's not the end game.
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  Like by life, you were to stay in your relationship with your
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  husband out of fear. My gosh, like let's, let's start
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  having some conversations that get into the heart.
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  And so I I kind of describe my relationship with God as a fear
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  based relationship for sure. Growing up, well, it's
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  interesting because I, I was, I've been researching this a lot
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  actually in different psychoanalysis of why people,
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  you know, develop same sex attraction and, you know,
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  different kind of sexual attractions that are disordered.
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  Where do these come from? And then, you know, obviously
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  people that are hypersexual, where does that come from?
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  Because, you know, sexual disorder doesn't just exist in
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  same sex attraction. It absolutely can exist in
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  heterosexual attraction and you know, lust is lust, whether it's
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  for someone that you're not married to or someone that is,
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  you know, period someone you're not married to, sexual
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  attraction that's is disordered, right, when you're acting on it.
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  And so, but, you know, it's interesting this the
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  psychoanalysis that I've looked at and some of this is done from
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  the vantage point, I think of natural law and, and not, you
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  know, some of the Freudian type of psychoanalysis.
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  And Freud was this, you know, you know, father of sexology in
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  the 20th century who thought everybody is just a sexual
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  animal and, you know, everything is repressed sexual desire.
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  So he had his take on it. But this other this other one,
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  and maybe we'll do an episode more on this in the future, but
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  basically said, you know, the mysterious and the masculine and
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  the feminine. Sometimes same sex attraction
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  can come from something is made. We reject something that seems
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  we don't want to be part of it. You know, if men are all just
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  going to take advantage of us, why would I want to be
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  interested in the masculine, you know, as a feminine?
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  And then it was a feminine. If we kind of, you know, maybe
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  we're more like the tomboy or something, we can maybe find
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  ourselves drawn to the the hyper feminine or the very feminine
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  and that can turn into down the line same sex attraction.
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  So I don't know if you have a have thoughts on all of that.
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  I'm sure you've sort of done your own studies on that.
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  But it's one of the things that I find is an interesting theory
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  for how these things develop and how some of their roots can come
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  from how we were parented or things that we're missing or
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  maybe over, you know, there there is more, more of it than
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  for other kids in our childhood. Yeah, I mean, the Lord is
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  actually walking me through that now I'm in counseling and this
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  is counseling that I chose. It wasn't for, you know, make me
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  straight. God.
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  It's it's not this thing that so much of the world is saying.
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  This is actually like, Lord, what's really going on?
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  Because so much of our life like, or I'll speak for myself,
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  so much of my life shows fruit. And, and for me, I was so used
• 13:44
  to picking fruit off a tree. And I feel like God's like, wait
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  a minute, will you let me get to the root?
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  Will you let me show, show you what's really going on?
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  And will you do you trust me to come into that place?
• 13:56
  Right. And so for me, I mean, just two
• 13:58
  of the things you mentioned, I, I can see that even for me
• 14:01
  growing up, I, they would, you know, I would categorize myself
• 14:04
  as a tomboy. I don't really know what that
• 14:05
  means. Like every boy I met has been
• 14:07
  Tom. So I don't know why that's a
• 14:09
  term for womb. But anyways, yeah, I mean, I
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  like I said, I grew up with two brothers, so I can see a lot of
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  different things. For me personally, there was
• 14:18
  never sexual abuse or any physical abuse.
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  So I, you know, growing up I'm like, why do I have these
• 14:24
  desires? Like, yeah, and I but I knew
• 14:27
  people who did have abuse in their life and then it led to
• 14:31
  different things, whether it be a hypersexuality or same sex
• 14:34
  attraction or different things, but I knew that I didn't have
• 14:36
  that. So I'm like, I was sitting with
• 14:38
  God in high school. Like why me?
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  Like what happened to me? You know, why am I messed up is
• 14:44
  really what I was thinking. And and I would pray Lila, I was
• 14:47
  like, you know, God take this away from me, take this away
• 14:49
  from me. See, I didn't know that love,
• 14:52
  see, because the world says love is give and take, but the
• 14:54
  reality is love is giving and receiving.
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  There's no taking in love. Like if Ioffer something up to
• 15:01
  God, he'll receive it, but he's not going to take it.
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  You know, there's like a difference.
• 15:05
  And so even in that, but I'm seeing so much.
• 15:09
  I'm seeing so much. I'm seeing the relationship
• 15:10
  between my mom and I, which I love her dearly.
• 15:13
  We're very close, but I can see the ways that she wasn't even
• 15:16
  able to be there for me. Emotionally she was always
• 15:19
  present, but emotionally she didn't.
• 15:22
  She didn't have a lot of grid for how to be there for me.
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  Not just regarding same sex attraction, just me being a
• 15:28
  little girl because her own mother wasn't there, you know.
• 15:31
  And so I can see how I was going out seeking this female right
• 15:37
  type thing. And then it goes to a whole
• 15:39
  another thing. It started off, I will say this,
• 15:42
  it started off as just seeking companionship and then that
• 15:46
  began to grow. It was not like, Oh my gosh, I
• 15:49
  just want to kiss this girl, you know?
• 15:51
  Right, well, I think that's one of the things in our culture and
• 15:54
  I hear these stories all the time.
• 15:56
  I mean, people close to me that we are longing for something,
• 16:00
  right? We're all longing, like you said
• 16:01
  earlier, so beautifully for connection, for companionship.
• 16:04
  And especially in our childhood, if we're missing sort of that,
• 16:08
  that feminine or, or the masculine is represented to us
• 16:11
  in a, in a, in a broken way, quite frankly, you know, no
• 16:14
  parent is perfect. All of our parents and we as
• 16:16
  parents, you know, for those that are going to make our
• 16:18
  mistakes. So the goal is always to
• 16:19
  improve, right, and to learn and grow self-awareness.
• 16:22
  But when a child or an adolescent is, you know, maybe
• 16:26
  craving the feminine and they are feminine, but they're, they
• 16:29
  don't understand the feminine. They don't feel like they're
• 16:31
  understood and they're feminine and they don't, you know, that
• 16:33
  maybe have the masculine looks like a negative thing to them,
• 16:37
  Then it can become eroticized. And this is some of the
• 16:41
  psychoanalysis stuff that I'm reading and the psychiatrist and
• 16:44
  that that eroticization process can look different for each
• 16:47
  person. Sometimes it can be rooted in
• 16:49
  sexual abuse and, and the trauma from that sometimes can be
• 16:52
  rooted in lacking, you know, that close feminine contact of a
• 16:55
  mother or, you know, having a negative experience with the
• 16:58
  masculine. If I'm talking about from the
• 16:59
  woman's position, right, The the man's position is different if
• 17:02
  it's a young boy, but but it's also interesting, right, Because
• 17:05
  I think today there's such a, there's such a crisis of
• 17:10
  identity and connection and people are starving for those
• 17:14
  things. And so they're trying to so
• 17:17
  we're given labels, right? And the LGBT label is such a
• 17:20
  powerful and alluring label for so many people because they're
• 17:24
  like, finally somebody gets me is how I think many people feel.
• 17:28
  And then they feel, well, now I'm a part of a community that
• 17:30
  accepts me and will, you know, accompany me.
• 17:34
  What are what are your thoughts on that?
• 17:36
  Yeah. I mean, we were created.
• 17:38
  If we look back, we were created to be loved.
• 17:40
  We were created to be pursued. I mean, God pursues us.
• 17:44
  And if you don't know and you don't see, if you don't know,
• 17:48
  and I'm talking about experiential knowledge, if you
• 17:50
  don't have experiential knowledge that God loves you,
• 17:55
  that he pursues you, that he sees you, that he desires you,
• 17:58
  that you are going, I'll speak for myself.
• 18:01
  I went to any and every other source to be loved, seen,
• 18:06
  accepted, known, pursued, because it's a human desire that
• 18:10
  was given by God to be filled by God.
• 18:14
  I never want to apologize. God forgive me that I want to be
• 18:17
  loved. God forgive me for the ways or
• 18:20
  where or who I went to to be loved.
• 18:23
  Not to you first. We're supposed to be an echo of
• 18:26
  God's love to one another. But I'm telling you, even if a
• 18:29
  mom, So like I take for example, my mom, who maybe couldn't love
• 18:33
  me perfectly. Of course not.
• 18:35
  She's a human being. But I didn't know that God had
• 18:38
  this radical love that I'd been looking for.
• 18:41
  And so OK, didn't wasn't going to get it from God, right?
• 18:44
  Because I'm more afraid of him than anything.
• 18:46
  And I'm thinking I have to earn his love and then I have to do
• 18:49
  everything I can to hang on to it, to not lose it.
• 18:52
  And then my mom couldn't give it to me.
• 18:54
  My dad was, you know, present, but I wasn't longing for it.
• 18:58
  There was this motherly love. And so I'm going to look
• 19:01
  elsewhere. And I found it.
• 19:02
  I found it. But here's the thing, it wasn't
• 19:05
  what my heart was truly longing for.
• 19:07
  That's why the LGBT community and, and dating women for me,
• 19:11
  'cause I dated women for years openly out as a Christian.
• 19:15
  I, I was not a Christian saying this is the will of God.
• 19:19
  I was the Christian saying, I don't, I don't believe this is
• 19:22
  what God has for me. But I'm freaking hungry.
• 19:25
  So I'm going to consume because I feel like I'm going to die,
• 19:29
  right? Like I felt like I was starving
• 19:30
  and I just, I, everybody wants to be loved.
• 19:33
  And so for sure that I mean, we could learn and this this might
• 19:36
  just people might just freak out and fall out of their seats for
• 19:39
  this, but we actually could learn as Christians a lot from
• 19:42
  the LGBT community. Like my goodness, wait.
• 19:45
  So they feel like people feel like they found a home.
• 19:48
  They feel like they can be real and authentic that they they
• 19:52
  don't have to hide that they're safe.
• 19:55
  My question is, are as church, are we back?
• 19:59
  And that's it mean like I'm not taking it to the level of we
• 20:02
  need to celebrate everything everybody does, but like.
• 20:05
  Could we learn? I mean, I, I'll even go to the
• 20:07
  extent of gangs. Why are people in gangs?
• 20:10
  They're longing for belonging because we're meant to belong.
• 20:14
  And when we don't fit inside a certain mold and we feel
• 20:19
  rejected, we're going to go find what mold we fit in.
• 20:22
  And so to me, I see the LGBT community as a group of people
• 20:26
  just like myself, longing to belong, longing to be loved.
• 20:29
  And when we don't get that, we sometimes act like screaming
• 20:32
  children. Love me, love me, accept me,
• 20:34
  accept me. And to me it's a for, for my own
• 20:37
  self. It, it's been a cry for help.
• 20:39
  It's been a cry to be seen and known and loved.
• 20:42
  And, and so in that I, I, I, it did.
• 20:45
  But the LGBT community and even me dating women, it didn't fill
• 20:50
  the void. It did not fill the void.
• 20:52
  I was monogamous. I was in a committed
• 20:54
  relationship with a woman and still my heart was longing.
• 20:59
  Hence why I called the book Restless Heart, because for me,
• 21:02
  my heart, St. Agustin, he said it best, his
• 21:05
  heart, our hearts are restless until they rest in the O Lord.
• 21:08
  But The thing is, if you don't know that the Lord loves you and
• 21:12
  that he's not just going to bring you in to, to criticize
• 21:16
  you and change you, but he's going to love you into
• 21:18
  wholeness, then my heart's going to be restless and it's going to
• 21:21
  keep seeking. And so for me, I'm thankful that
• 21:24
  it was grace. I mean, that's why I, my life is
• 21:27
  fueled by grace. It really is because the Lord
• 21:31
  didn't let me be satisfied in anything that wouldn't last for
• 21:34
  eternity. So.
• 21:37
  I've talked to it's so powerful what you're saying.
• 21:39
  I've talked to a number of people who were, you know, lived
• 21:44
  LGBT lifestyle and different categories, different, you know,
• 21:47
  identities and ended up stopping, you know, saying
• 21:51
  rejecting that doing a lot of work to figure out what, you
• 21:54
  know, what was going on in their hearts, what's going on in their
• 21:56
  in their minds. And then ultimately helping they
• 22:00
  want they work to help to set other people free is the way
• 22:03
  that they see it to free from an identity that well, it's based
• 22:06
  in real experience and real attractions and real wounds and
• 22:11
  real struggles. It doesn't bring peace and
• 22:15
  freedom because it's not a real like to say I am a what?
• 22:18
  What's your take on this, Kim? And there's a debate even in
• 22:20
  some parts of the Christian conservative world.
• 22:23
  Is it fair, do you think to say I am a lesbian or I am a gay?
• 22:26
  Do you think that's a an identity, a true identity?
• 22:30
  Well, I'll, I'll rewind a little bit to that.
• 22:33
  And, and it actually goes pre record on this podcast.
• 22:37
  And and that's why I don't identify as an author.
• 22:39
  I've written a book. I technically write, I'm an
• 22:43
  author. I speak internationally, I'm
• 22:45
  technically a speaker, but I don't receive even those titles
• 22:50
  because those things can change if I am rooted in the fact that
• 22:54
  I wrote a book and that's who I am.
• 22:56
  I'm an author. My gosh, what if the book falls
• 23:00
  off the shelves, everybody decides to burn it and it just
• 23:03
  stops existing or just everybody hates it.
• 23:05
  Who am I now? I have a mission in Ethiopia
• 23:08
  helping 500 kids and and 70 something single moms.
• 23:13
  I'm not a missionary. People used to call me, People
• 23:16
  used to call me a missionary Lila.
• 23:17
  And I'm like, no, I'm not a missionary.
• 23:18
  And they're like, but you go to Ethiopia, you live there.
• 23:20
  I'm like, yes. And like then you're a
• 23:22
  missionary. I'm like, no, it's what I do.
• 23:25
  It's not who I am. See, and here's something that
• 23:29
  that I didn't know and I couldn't answer then.
• 23:31
  And I'm the Lord is beginning to give me some clarity on this is
• 23:35
  just because you know who you're not doesn't mean you know who
• 23:38
  you are. And so for me, when somebody
• 23:40
  tried to put a label on me, whether one that the world
• 23:43
  celebrated or one that the world didn't celebrate, it didn't
• 23:46
  settle in my heart because ultimately, by grace, I knew I
• 23:51
  was given an eternal identity that I have not yet found.
• 23:55
  And so for me, the only thing that I will actually say that I
• 23:58
  am is a beloved daughter of God the Father, but not by my own
• 24:03
  merit, not by my genes in the way because of what Jesus did
• 24:08
  for me and the love that was poured out on Calvary Hill that
• 24:12
  brought me into my identity. That identity cannot be taken by
• 24:16
  you. It can't be taken by the church.
• 24:19
  It can't be taken by the people who hate me.
• 24:21
  And it can't be given to me by people who quote, UN quote, love
• 24:24
  me. It is given by God who created
• 24:27
  me and it was paid for and it's finished.
• 24:30
  And so as so long as I choose choose to receive that identity,
• 24:35
  I can reject it or I can receive it, so long as I choose daily to
• 24:38
  receive my true God-given God paid for identity, then no one
• 24:43
  can take it from me, but I can give it away.
• 24:46
  And so for me, even when I was in the lifestyle, Lila, I didn't
• 24:49
  I, I remember this one time I introduced my girlfriend to one
• 24:52
  of my best friends and she goes, Oh my gosh, Kim, I am so glad
• 24:55
  you finally came out as gay. And I'm like, Oh, I'm not gay.
• 24:59
  And my girlfriend's like, what the heck is?
• 25:01
  What do you mean? And I'm like, oh, no, we're
• 25:03
  dating. Like I'm, I'm not denying that,
• 25:05
  but I'm not gay. And she's like Kim, we're dating
• 25:08
  and like, what do you mean? And I said, I can't explain it.
• 25:13
  It's a real desire. I'm acting on it, but it's not
• 25:17
  who I am. And I couldn't even understand
• 25:19
  that. I just knew there was something
• 25:20
  greater out there. I hadn't yet found it, but I was
• 25:23
  seeking right? Like I'm like, OK, what is it?
• 25:25
  What is it this no? Is it this?
• 25:27
  No. Is it this?
• 25:28
  No. Until I encountered radical
• 25:31
  love. That is what began to transform
• 25:34
  my heart. I didn't go through conversion
• 25:36
  therapy. I didn't try to be just become
• 25:39
  heterosexual. I didn't.
• 25:40
  My goal was not to get married to a man and and have children
• 25:45
  and now be free and OK. My goal was, Lord, why did you
• 25:49
  put me on this earth? Why do I exist?
• 25:51
  And I'm just beginning to understand.
• 25:53
  I exist for him because He loves me and that love is to be
• 25:57
  received and then poured out until the last day that He gives
• 26:01
  me on this earth. And so I've been through it all,
• 26:03
  girl, I read, I wrote a book, I've had the title of
• 26:06
  missionary, author, real estate agent.
• 26:10
  And to me, the only one that is that is resonated and gives
• 26:14
  peace to my soul is that I have been bought because I am loved,
• 26:18
  I am pursued, I am known and I am seen by God.
• 26:21
  And he showed me that through Jesus Christ coming and giving
• 26:24
  everything to the fullest extent so that I could live in that
• 26:27
  identity. So, and that's pretty eternity.
• 26:30
  That's not like just here on Earth.
• 26:34
  That's so beautiful. And I hope everyone listening
• 26:37
  knows that what you're speaking, that you discovered for
• 26:40
  yourself, thanks be to God, is for every single person
• 26:44
  listening, no matter their background, their choices, their
• 26:48
  traumas, their goals, anything that the like you said earlier,
• 26:52
  the deepest longings of our heart are only going to be met.
• 26:55
  And a God who's big enough for them and who created us for him.
• 26:59
  Yeah, for him, for love, for eternal love.
• 27:03
  It's so beautiful and it's so needed.
• 27:06
  And I've heard people say that in addition to what you're
• 27:10
  saying, but I've heard people say that who aren't even
• 27:11
  necessarily sold out yet on their faith.
• 27:13
  Or maybe they are but they don't see it yet the way that you see
• 27:17
  it Kim and and experience it yet.
• 27:19
  But I've heard them say I don't like the label of LGBT or LGB.
• 27:24
  I guess it would be because my sexual attractions don't define
• 27:29
  who I am and I'm not fated to make choices based on my sexual
• 27:35
  attraction. And another example of this is
• 27:37
  like if you know heterosexual marriage, right, you're married
• 27:39
  and you know, one of the other two of the spouses can have
• 27:43
  sexual attraction for someone that they're not married to, but
• 27:46
  they're not fated to commit adultery.
• 27:47
  They're not fated to cheat. Or if you're trying to save sex
• 27:51
  for marriage, you know which I highly recommended this podcast.
• 27:53
  People hear me talk about that, but for multiple reasons, of
• 27:56
  course, for morality. But you're just because you're
• 27:59
  attracted to someone sexually before marriage doesn't mean
• 28:01
  you're fated to sleep with them, right?
• 28:03
  So similarly, someone who has, you know, there's bisexual, I
• 28:06
  have attraction for men and women, or they say I'm, you
• 28:08
  know, lesbian or I have attraction for women or
• 28:10
  whatever. You know, your sexual
• 28:12
  attractions don't define who you are.
• 28:14
  They are something you experience, but your experiences
• 28:17
  don't change who you are. Who you are is like you said, at
• 28:21
  the deepest core. I believe you're you're called
• 28:24
  to be and God created you to be a son or a daughter like him.
• 28:27
  Well, it it sounds so silly, but like and Jesus would use
• 28:30
  parables so I I don't mean to minimize and we have to remember
• 28:33
  I still struggle with same extraction.
• 28:35
  There are times I don't have a desire right now to marry a man.
• 28:39
  My desire is to actually know God more and receive his love
• 28:44
  and then be loved and then be that out in the world.
• 28:47
  But but one quick thing on one quick thing on that, because
• 28:51
  that I remember myself as a teen for a period of time, I wasn't
• 28:55
  sure if I even desired to marry man.
• 28:57
  Not that I wanted to marry a woman, but it was just that I
• 28:59
  wasn't. And I've met a lot of girls and
• 29:00
  guys who, you know, it's complex, right?
• 29:03
  Some people there's maybe sexual attractions for both men and
• 29:06
  women. Some people there's no sexual
• 29:07
  attraction and they're like, they're just not attracted to
• 29:09
  anyone. Other people, you know, it's
• 29:11
  same sex attraction and other people, maybe they do have
• 29:14
  sexual attraction for the opposite sex, but they don't
• 29:16
  want to get married for other reasons.
• 29:17
  So there's a whole lot of different experiences that
• 29:21
  people have. But just because you don't want
• 29:23
  to marry like you as a woman, you don't want to marry a man,
• 29:25
  that doesn't mean, Oh, you're a lesbian, right?
• 29:27
  I mean, you're, you're, that's your identity.
• 29:29
  And and also I, you mentioned Mother Teresa earlier, who we
• 29:32
  both love. I know, but you know, there's a
• 29:34
  a lot of ways to live celibacy and it doesn't have to look like
• 29:38
  Mother Teresa. And by the way, whether you're
• 29:41
  attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex or whatever you're
• 29:44
  attracted to, that doesn't mean you are or are not called to
• 29:48
  marriage, right? I think that's another important
• 29:51
  distinction where people who have different kinds of sexual
• 29:54
  attractions, that doesn't mean, oh, because I'm not attracted to
• 29:57
  the opposite sex, then, you know, that's, that's the reason
• 30:00
  I'm, you know, I should say it the other way.
• 30:02
  Just because you're attracted to the opposite sex, right, doesn't
• 30:05
  mean you're called to marriage first, right?
• 30:07
  Talk about priests as an example.
• 30:08
  So anyways, my point is, I think we, because of the LGBT kind of
• 30:13
  ideology that's sort of become mainstream, we're thinking about
• 30:18
  this the wrong way. Yeah.
• 30:20
  And that leading a lot of people to confusion.
• 30:22
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:23
  Rewind for me. Yeah, like.
• 30:25
  No, I'm saying like even as the world, I think we just need to
• 30:27
  rewind and be like, OK, hold on, what is this about, right?
• 30:30
  Like, why do I exist? What is going on?
• 30:33
  You know, and, and I think as a world and, and I'll speak to
• 30:37
  even as Christians, we sometimes idolize marriage, right?
• 30:42
  And so we tend to idolize marriage.
• 30:44
  I mean, Jesus himself said you will have no wife, no husband in
• 30:48
  heaven. We have one eternal.
• 30:50
  And he wasn't married exactly. The Lord God, you know, our our
• 30:54
  Lord Jesus Christ, he chose the celibate life like he was
• 30:57
  celibate and he was. He's the model for all, all
• 31:00
  humanity of the perfect, perfect man, perfect person.
• 31:03
  Now here here's what I will say outside of Jesus Christ, I don't
• 31:08
  know a lot of single people that aren't.
• 31:11
  It's all speaks particularly to us as Catholics that are single
• 31:17
  consecrated to the Lord, but not in a religious order, right.
• 31:22
  And so for me, feeling like, OK, I don't think I'm called to
• 31:25
  marriage. I might be called to the single
• 31:27
  life. I thought the only option was to
• 31:30
  become a, a nun, a sister. And, and to be honest, that's
• 31:35
  where now we've like pigeonholed God into this box.
• 31:39
  Now I love, I love my religious sisters.
• 31:41
  I'm so thankful. But just because I feel possibly
• 31:44
  called to a life of singleness does not mean now I'm supposed
• 31:49
  to be a nun or a sister. And so I think as a as a
• 31:52
  Catholic Church, sometimes we haven't highlighted, right, Like
• 31:55
  maybe we haven't highlighted the other call, the call within the
• 31:59
  call, the 3rd order, another way of where you are living.
• 32:02
  I mean, because here's the reality, whether same sex
• 32:04
  attracted, opposite sex attracted in a relationship, not
• 32:08
  in a relationship, Married, not married.
• 32:10
  We are invited into chastity like there's supposed to be
• 32:15
  chasteness within marriage. Like, why would I not practice
• 32:18
  that and ask for grace to live that out and grace for joy
• 32:23
  within it from God in a single life?
• 32:26
  And so to me, it's almost like, my gosh, I actually didn't grow
• 32:29
  up seeing anyone that was like, Hey, I'm actually, I believe I'm
• 32:33
  called to be single, right? And, and of course, this is
• 32:36
  always holding things loosely. Like I want to hold it before
• 32:38
  the Lord of maybe there's some wounding within me, Lord that
• 32:42
  that's blocking me from the desire and I want to be open to
• 32:45
  that. But ultimately my goal and God's
• 32:47
  goal for me is not marriage unto another person.
• 32:50
  It's marriage unto him, Song of Solomon, all of this like it is
• 32:55
  so clear we have a bridegroom and it is Jesus Christ.
• 32:58
  The key came to marry us, not only as a whole church,
• 33:02
  individually, each one of us. So if there's no husband or wife
• 33:06
  in heaven, why am I longing for that and trying to fulfill that
• 33:10
  so strongly here? Probably because I haven't
• 33:13
  experienced the radical love of God one-on-one with him that can
• 33:17
  then be expressed in marriage, but is not the answer to the
• 33:21
  deeper. Well, I think what we forget is
• 33:25
  that marriage is meant to be, you know, it, it's meant to be a
• 33:30
  living out, not in the fullness of it because it can't be right,
• 33:35
  but a living out of the, the union, union of the Trinity,
• 33:38
  right? But it's, it's an example of it.
• 33:40
  It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a path for some people on this
• 33:44
  earth. But we are all called to the
• 33:46
  deepest unity, which marriage is just a, a mirror of, right?
• 33:50
  And so the end game isn't marriage as we know it on this
• 33:54
  earth. The end game is something far
• 33:56
  more perfect, far more beautiful, far more true.
• 34:00
  And that's eternal love with God and communion.
• 34:02
  And it, you know, it's mind blowing, right?
• 34:04
  It's so big and beyond our minds to comprehend it.
• 34:08
  But that's why we have the image of marriage as an example of it,
• 34:10
  right? But it's it's bigger than
• 34:13
  marriage. Like you said, our Lord himself
• 34:15
  said in marriage in heaven, you're not going to be given in
• 34:17
  marriage like you're not going to be married as the way as you
• 34:20
  are on earth because heaven is perfect union with every other
• 34:24
  person. So that union you had on your
• 34:26
  had with your spouse on earth in heaven, it's going to be even
• 34:28
  more perfected and more, you know, more close.
• 34:32
  But you're going to have that with all the holy souls and with
• 34:35
  God himself, you know. And So what does that look like?
• 34:38
  It's hard for us to comprehend because we're, you know, we're
• 34:41
  finite human beings here, here on earth, waiting for the death
• 34:44
  and the resurrection. Right.
• 34:46
  Well, I think what it does do though, is it points back to
• 34:48
  that longing that we all have, right.
• 34:50
  And so now, just for a moment, take some people within the LGBT
• 34:54
  community that have this longing, right?
• 34:57
  They have this longing that has not yet been met.
• 35:00
  And they see every most everyone around them fulfilling what they
• 35:04
  feel is the fulfillment of that longing through marriage.
• 35:08
  So why wouldn't they fight to be married, right?
• 35:11
  Why wouldn't they fight? Well, they're getting their
• 35:13
  longing met. But ultimately, see, we don't
• 35:15
  hear enough Christian married people saying actually, my
• 35:20
  deepest longing is not met by my husband, right?
• 35:24
  Or maybe it is. And that's where maybe we have
• 35:27
  some idolatry within our marriage because marriage is
• 35:29
  beautiful and I'm a huge proponent of it and and so is
• 35:32
  God because he created it. But I think very quickly we can
• 35:34
  get our Christian things idolized, right?
• 35:38
  Like they can become. So true, they can.
• 35:40
  Become #1 and that's the first commandment.
• 35:42
  Have no God before me. Whether the God be my sexuality,
• 35:46
  whether the God be my husband, whether the God be my ministry.
• 35:50
  If it isn't God in the purity of himself, His divine nature, His
• 35:55
  relationship, His love for us and our love in return to Him,
• 35:59
  then we're off. And so I think that's why we get
• 36:02
  some frustration, a lot of frustration and anger from
• 36:06
  people within the LGBT community too, because we don't a lot talk
• 36:09
  about outside of the LGBT community where we maybe have
• 36:13
  some idolatry, right? Of like, OK, I'm kind of
• 36:17
  idolizing my XY or Z, you know, And it's so easy to point that
• 36:21
  out in others, but it's, it's really hard.
• 36:24
  I mean, when I just go back to Genesis when God was with Adam,
• 36:29
  he was walking with Adam and he said it's not good that man be
• 36:33
  alone. So right there like God had
• 36:36
  perfect union it before the fall with Adam and he said it's not
• 36:40
  good that you be alone. So he wanted him to have a
• 36:43
  helpmate. So for us to have same sex
• 36:45
  attraction. What does that helpmate look
• 36:47
  like? Right.
• 36:48
  So like I always say to. People, I think, no, go ahead.
• 36:53
  No, no, go ahead, go ahead. OK.
• 36:55
  We'll go go ahead back and forth so.
• 36:57
  In that so many thoughts triggering so keep going.
• 36:59
  It's so good, I think. Where it starts to open up a
• 37:03
  place of compassion hopefully in our hearts is like, imagine
• 37:07
  Lila, if you met your husband and someone was like, Hey, so
• 37:11
  God's design is actually that you would fall in love and spend
• 37:15
  the rest of your life with his sister.
• 37:17
  You'd be like, but I love him and I want to, I want to spend
• 37:22
  my life with him and I want him to be my help mate and I want to
• 37:24
  be his. And, you know, and so that to me
• 37:27
  is I think something we're missing is like just listening
• 37:30
  to the longings of people's hearts.
• 37:32
  And sometimes that's hard because there's so much yelling
• 37:35
  going on, right? And there's so many loud signs
• 37:38
  and, and blow horns and all the, or whatever the heck they are,
• 37:40
  you know, megaphones that we don't have time to actually sit
• 37:44
  and say, like, can you share the deepest longing of your heart
• 37:48
  with me? Like, am I even safe for you to
• 37:50
  share that with? Right.
• 37:52
  Like, and then we can start having some real conversations.
• 37:55
  You'd be floored. I have had conversations with
• 37:58
  people who absolutely 100% would say that they disagree with my
• 38:04
  beliefs. But we've had conversations and
• 38:07
  I have been able, by God's grace to listen to the longing of
• 38:11
  their heart. And they do the same with mine.
• 38:14
  And we're able to start having some conversations instead of
• 38:17
  just these forceful things that sometimes happen because
• 38:20
  everything's so loud and, and intense, which is real.
• 38:25
  And I'm not saying that's possible to have with every
• 38:27
  single person, but those who are willing, my goodness, can we
• 38:30
  start to grow? And there's a humility that's
• 38:33
  needed. I know there's a humility that I
• 38:35
  need. And I pray for daily to be able
• 38:37
  to really be safe for people to share what they're longing, what
• 38:41
  they want, you know? Well, one other thing earlier
• 38:46
  you you said that I think it's so important is, you know,
• 38:50
  making an idol of marriage, making an idol of anything
• 38:52
  before God. I think that's a very important
• 38:55
  point. But also I think there is
• 38:58
  reverse pride that can happen. So, you know, this is Pride
• 39:01
  month that, you know, the LGBT world is called.
• 39:03
  And I do want to talk to you in a moment about the difference
• 39:06
  between people who have struggles in the LGBT realm,
• 39:11
  right? Same sex attraction or gender
• 39:14
  dysphoria or bisexual attraction or whatever, versus the, the
• 39:19
  lobby, the ideological lobby that has is doing some really
• 39:23
  horrible things really. But separate from that, you
• 39:26
  know, I do think there is an issue when there's maybe we'll
• 39:31
  call it heterosexual pride where people are like, well, I'm, you
• 39:34
  know, I'm attracted to the opposite sex and you know, I'm
• 39:37
  better than you because you're not, you know, and it's just
• 39:39
  like, that's so messed up because we shouldn't be proud in
• 39:43
  it. If anything, it should be more,
• 39:46
  bring more humility in that we don't have that same struggle.
• 39:50
  And we should be more empathetic and understanding of those who
• 39:54
  don't share, who don't, who you know, who we don't have that
• 39:57
  struggle, who do have that struggle.
• 39:58
  And then in addition, you know, lust is lust, sin is sin,
• 40:03
  sleeping with someone before marriage.
• 40:05
  Is wrong it's a sin it's a mortal sin under the Catholic
• 40:08
  Church's teaching if it's done with full knowledge and full
• 40:10
  consent, you know willfulness someone's had sex before
• 40:12
  marriage, they are in mortal sin similar if they had sex or I did
• 40:16
  sexual things with somebody of the same sex it's also mortal
• 40:18
  sin both are mortal sins you know it's not like it's.
• 40:21
  Less of a sin. Contraception, abortion, it's
• 40:24
  not. So I think that's also a very
• 40:26
  important point that it is dangerous if some Christians
• 40:30
  were to say, well, I'm don't have that attraction, so I'm
• 40:32
  somehow better. I don't have that attraction and
• 40:34
  so they're for when I commit sin with someone of the opposite sex
• 40:38
  is somehow not as bad. No, it it's still sin.
• 40:42
  Now, when it comes to disordered sexual attraction, that's where,
• 40:47
  you know, when it comes to kind of a clinical perspective or
• 40:49
  looking at someone's history and what's going on with their
• 40:52
  wounds or their traumas or their upbringing.
• 40:54
  I think there's so much that isn't being explored today,
• 40:57
  quite frankly, because that's taboo, right?
• 41:00
  I mean, the LGBT kind of Katy Perry song Born This Way, how
• 41:03
  dare you. This is who I am.
• 41:05
  I was it's exactly Born This Way and there's no wounds here.
• 41:08
  There's no abuses here, there's no issues here.
• 41:11
  And so you should just give me the thumbs up on, you know,
• 41:14
  lesbianism or gay, you know, homosexual lifestyle, whatever.
• 41:17
  And that's what I think people are on everything, anything,
• 41:20
  right, any choice goes as long as it's consent consented by to
• 41:23
  by adults. And I think that's what I want
• 41:25
  to talk about next and get your thoughts on because many
• 41:28
  Christians today and just conservatives and just people in
• 41:31
  general, honestly any side of the political spectrum,
• 41:33
  religious or non religious, are concerned about what they see is
• 41:38
  a radicalized gender ideology. It's sometimes called where
• 41:42
  people are saying, you know, it comes to like, you know, drag
• 41:45
  queen story hour or today, the Feast of the Sacred Heart for
• 41:48
  Catholics who celebrate that today, you know, the Dodgers in
• 41:54
  Los Angeles sports team is hosting Pride Night and they're
• 41:58
  honoring what is called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
• 42:02
  It's not a group of nuns. It's a group of men who are
• 42:05
  crossdressers as women drag Queens, as they call themselves,
• 42:08
  who are doing satanic rituals, quite frankly, you know, sexual
• 42:12
  acts on the cross and mocking God directly and saying that
• 42:16
  they're doing it for good reasons.
• 42:18
  I mean, they have their own, you know, spiel for why they do it,
• 42:21
  blasphemous things that are just highly offensive.
• 42:24
  And so everyday people are seeing this and they're like,
• 42:27
  whoa, whoa, whoa. This is no longer my friend is
• 42:29
  struggling with same sex distraction.
• 42:31
  This is something this is a different thing that's
• 42:33
  happening. And I think that's where so much
• 42:37
  there's an agenda and that's where people and, you know,
• 42:40
  teaching masturbation and same, you know, teaching kids about,
• 42:44
  you know, a lot of inappropriate sexual things as as children.
• 42:48
  I mean, there's so much stuff there.
• 42:49
  So what's your take on that And how do you see that as different
• 42:53
  for people listening who are people of faith for how we
• 42:55
  interact with an individual who we want to be there to share and
• 42:59
  hear and accompany them? Who may be experiencing same sex
• 43:02
  attraction versus versus having a strong stance in the court of
• 43:06
  public opinion and public policy and education about protecting
• 43:10
  children and really just protecting morality in general
• 43:14
  as a society? That was a big a long winded
• 43:18
  question, but you you, I think you get where I'm going.
• 43:20
  I think most of it, yeah. So the the main thing that stood
• 43:23
  out even as you're sharing, Lila, is I am very aware of my
• 43:28
  need for a savior. I am seeing a world that does
• 43:33
  not think they need a savior because they have nothing to be
• 43:35
  saved from. So if we are going along with
• 43:38
  Katy Perry and this, this poor girl is probably going to call
• 43:41
  me one day. I talk about her song I heard
• 43:43
  coming out of high school. I kissed a girl and I liked it.
• 43:46
  I was like, well, I did that too.
• 43:47
  And you didn't tell me what would happen, right?
• 43:49
  Like the book Unlace unpacks all that and then now this new song,
• 43:53
  right? Relatively new Born This Way.
• 43:56
  Well to me, yeah, I since I can remember I believe I've had same
• 44:01
  sex attraction. I also know my brother since he
• 44:03
  was young was pretty pissed off like he just was kind of an
• 44:07
  angry guy. Does that now just give him the
• 44:10
  right to be angry. Well, if he wants to or there's
• 44:13
  the opportunity to see there's always two sides.
• 44:15
  So if you recognize something, there's an opportunity to open
• 44:19
  that up to, to pure radical love, which which is Jesus
• 44:23
  Christ. If you've experienced him, not
• 44:25
  just you've heard about him or you've maybe been displayed,
• 44:27
  he's been displayed wrong to you, but radical love that will
• 44:30
  transform you see, that's I think the difference too is I do
• 44:36
  know I need a savior, not just regarding homosexuality with
• 44:39
  everything, pride, lust, things that I'm selfish, right, all
• 44:44
  these things. And so I don't wake up in the
• 44:46
  morning and be like, Hey, I'm going to just celebrate this
• 44:49
  because that's how I feel. I'm like, whoa, this actually
• 44:53
  feels off in my own heart. And Jesus, I trust that you want
• 44:57
  to transform me. Why would Jesus say we are to be
• 45:00
  born again, but we were to be born again and remember like the
• 45:04
  Pharisees were like, so I got to crawl up into my mother's womb
• 45:07
  again. No, we are born again.
• 45:09
  We die to what is. We got to remember.
• 45:12
  See, this is where we're losing the bigger picture.
• 45:14
  We got to remember, the ruler of this world is not God.
• 45:18
  He's the creator of this world, but the ruler of this world is
• 45:23
  Satan. And we see that very clear right
• 45:26
  now. And so to me, when we see these
• 45:29
  things. Explain that more for people
• 45:30
  listening, because I think there's even some Christians
• 45:32
  listening here like whoa, isn't God the rule?
• 45:34
  God's sovereign? God's omnipotent, He's all
• 45:37
  powerful. So wait, isn't he the ruler of
• 45:39
  the world? So break that down for us a
• 45:41
  little more. What you mean by Satan is
• 45:42
  actually given to be. God has given him reign for this
• 45:46
  time. To.
• 45:46
  Have some power and to lead souls astray.
• 45:49
  So tell us a little more about that.
• 45:51
  So clearly I'm not a theologian, so let's just make that very
• 45:54
  clear. So don't take my words like I
• 45:55
  encourage you to now study this out, go to the theologians, you
• 45:59
  know, and and listen and read and study and remember that the
• 46:02
  Lord says in his word, my people perish for a lack of knowledge.
• 46:06
  Knowledge is important, but he also says taste and see that I'm
• 46:09
  good. So we don't want to just throw
• 46:10
  one out and just get a bunch of knowledge.
• 46:12
  We need to experience him as well.
• 46:14
  So it's holding both. But in that, yeah, I mean, this
• 46:16
  goes back to Scripture and I'm not going to get fully into it,
• 46:19
  but God is sovereign. Satan doesn't take away anything
• 46:23
  from God. He can't.
• 46:24
  Satan is a creation. He's not a creator.
• 46:27
  He's a twister and a perverter because he's not a creator.
• 46:29
  We have one creator, and anybody who can create is because we're
• 46:33
  made in his likeness and image. But in that, ultimately, the
• 46:36
  only creator is God. He is sovereign over all and he
• 46:40
  sent his Son right to take on sin and death forever to conquer
• 46:45
  the grave. Satan has an amount of time and
• 46:48
  he knows it. When we read through the Book of
• 46:50
  Revelation, which some people like, oh, that's too scary.
• 46:52
  I'm like, you best know what is what is not only coming, but
• 46:55
  what is happening. It's happening right now and so
• 46:59
  we as it's. Convicting.
• 47:00
  It's convicting it should stir us.
• 47:03
  It should spur us on to seek out the Lord and to yeah, be filled
• 47:07
  with him and and spread him in this world because we
• 47:09
  desperately need him. But Satan is taking ground and
• 47:13
  and that's not a surprise to God.
• 47:14
  But I don't know exactly where it is in Scripture, Lila, but it
• 47:17
  does say that the ruler of this world says the ruler of this
• 47:21
  world and it talks about that being Satan.
• 47:24
  It also says that you he was he was Jesus was talking to the
• 47:27
  Pharisees. He says you are not of the
• 47:29
  Father, you are of your Father, which is the father of lies,
• 47:33
  Satan. OK, so this distorted, twisted,
• 47:35
  so we know and we see things happening.
• 47:37
  If God was sovereign over all and we were living in that the
• 47:41
  sovereignty fullness of God without any evil, our world
• 47:45
  would not look like it does. It would look like heaven will.
• 47:49
  And so we are in a spiritual battle.
• 47:51
  Paul says that this is not a battle of flesh and blood, but
• 47:54
  of spirit and principality. And so we need to remember that,
• 47:58
  Lila, as we are walking into this world, as we are living in
• 48:00
  this world, as there are arrows flying at us daily and maybe
• 48:04
  even some arrows flying from us because we want to make sure
• 48:07
  that we recognize we're not perfect.
• 48:09
  And so, Lord, humble my heart, show me where I am firing arrows
• 48:14
  as well. And so in that, what it reminds
• 48:17
  me of it, what I was saying though, with Paul, that we have
• 48:19
  to remember when we see this going on.
• 48:21
  Take for example, like you had mentioned the Dodgers and what's
• 48:24
  going on with this group of men that are dressing up as women
• 48:28
  and not only just dressing up as women, but now they're doing it
• 48:31
  under the veil of something that is beautiful and holy, see.
• 48:34
  So we need to remember when we see something beautiful, we're
• 48:37
  going to see the counterpart of that, the twisted, distorted
• 48:41
  version of that. And so when I see that I am not
• 48:43
  calling that person twisted and distorted, that's where we have
• 48:47
  to be careful. We have to remember Paul's
• 48:49
  words. You are not battling flesh and
• 48:52
  blood. You are battling spirit and
• 48:55
  principality. We need to remember that that
• 48:58
  person that was created by God, no one is created by Satan.
• 49:02
  No one is created by Satan. There is one creator.
• 49:04
  So that person within this quote UN quote order, right?
• 49:09
  That's not a real Christian order, but the mockery of that
• 49:14
  is a person that is listening to or possibly possessed by, right?
• 49:21
  That's not for me to determine a spirit.
• 49:24
  And we have to be able to recognize that.
• 49:26
  And we have to pray against that spirit, not against that person.
• 49:30
  We, we have one enemy. The enemy is not the LGBT
• 49:34
  community. The enemy is not this perverted
• 49:39
  women of whatever they're calling themselves.
• 49:42
  The enemy is Satan and he has spirits out in this world that
• 49:47
  are working in OverDrive right now because his time is short.
• 49:52
  Death has been conquered, sin has been conquered, but Jesus
• 49:55
  has not come back yet. There is a second coming.
• 49:58
  He is coming back and he will reign for eternity and Satan
• 50:02
  will be forever done. So he has a short time.
• 50:05
  We are living in what I believe is end times.
• 50:09
  I don't know the day or hour. Scripture says that we don't,
• 50:12
  but we can see the signs that were living in.
• 50:15
  But I think it is so important as we see these these end time
• 50:19
  signs. That is so clear.
• 50:21
  If you really look at Revelation, we need to remember
• 50:24
  it is not that person I am against.
• 50:27
  Evil is what God is against. He is against the works of the
• 50:31
  enemy which many people are partnering with.
• 50:33
  But we have to still fight for that soul.
• 50:37
  And we have to pray that they would be released, that God
• 50:40
  would reveal himself, that Jesus would come and reveal himself to
• 50:44
  that person to be set free from that demonic spirit or the
• 50:50
  influence of that demonic spirit.
• 50:52
  And it is so real. But so often I think because it
• 50:55
  is we are flesh and blood, right?
• 50:57
  But we, they're also spirit. And so in that we as Christians,
• 51:01
  we ask Holy Spirit, take me over, right over take me.
• 51:06
  And so that we can operate in the love of Christ and the truth
• 51:08
  of Christ. Those are never separated from
• 51:10
  each other. They are one.
• 51:11
  The truth and love of Christ is always one.
• 51:14
  And we try to walk in just truth or we try to just walk in
• 51:17
  compassion. It is not what Jesus is.
• 51:20
  He is truth and love. He is the fullness of all of
• 51:23
  that. And it is not to be separated.
• 51:25
  I can keep going, but I I think you've got more.
• 51:27
  No, it's so, it's so good. I think what many people are
• 51:31
  concerned about, Look at the Dodgers as an example.
• 51:33
  It's a public act that they are publicly celebrating with these,
• 51:38
  you know, the cross dressing men dressing up as nuns and
• 51:41
  committing blasphemous sexual acts at like an event that
• 51:44
  families can go to. So it's one thing for like, OK,
• 51:47
  we're going to be as adults go do this perverse thing over
• 51:49
  here. But this is being celebrated by
• 51:52
  a beloved sports team and it's being celebrated publicly and
• 51:57
  they're being given the Community Heroes award.
• 51:59
  And so it's, I think people today are like, OK, children.
• 52:03
  The children are at risk here because we are brainwashing
• 52:06
  them. And they're, they're all these
• 52:07
  videos right now running around the Internet, but, you know,
• 52:09
  really disturbing videos of men twerking and, you know, doing
• 52:14
  striptease routines and, you know, wearing dog collars and
• 52:18
  walking around and doing, you know, pretend sexual acts
• 52:21
  against each other during pride parades.
• 52:24
  So they're kind of acting out sexually, publicly half naked or
• 52:27
  naked on during pride variates with children in the shot.
• 52:30
  Like you literally see a 5 year old and the parents waving the
• 52:33
  rainbow flag and people are like, whoa, whoa, this isn't no
• 52:36
  longer, you know, oh, let's have compassion for people struggling
• 52:38
  with this. This is now good is called evil,
• 52:41
  evil is called good and children are being, you know, are
• 52:46
  basically in the crosshairs. And it's like this the the the,
• 52:49
  the kind of pride world is like we want the we want the not just
• 52:54
  tolerance of children, but it's like we're almost acting out
• 52:58
  before children. And that's why people are saying
• 53:01
  you're grooming. This is groomers, this is sexual
• 53:03
  abuse. We got to stop it.
• 53:04
  So what's your take on that playing out and what what should
• 53:09
  we be doing about that? What is the role I think of, you
• 53:12
  know, concern people, not just parents, but anyone who's.
• 53:16
  Society, yeah, for sure. So and I and I hope it's clear
• 53:19
  I'm not just like, Oh yeah, peace and love, bro, like
• 53:21
  everything's going to be good. Just make sure their feelings
• 53:23
  are all in check. I think it's important to see
• 53:25
  the people. But there is an agenda and and
• 53:28
  if we pretend there's not and and vice versa, right, those
• 53:31
  people in that group are like, there's an agenda and they're
• 53:33
  saying it's a Christian agenda, right.
• 53:35
  So they're opposing agendas right now.
• 53:38
  How do we now live that out here?
• 53:40
  I'm just reminded of this. I'm just going to share it
• 53:42
  briefly. My nephew, if I tried to shield
• 53:46
  him from all the evils, and this was 10 years ago, OK, if I tried
• 53:51
  to shield him from all the evils, I'd have to keep him in
• 53:53
  the house. And then I'm like, wait a
• 53:54
  minute, I'm not even perfect and I'm not purified.
• 53:56
  So, OK, what do we do? So this is an opportunity,
• 54:00
  y'all, to raise up your children in what is true.
• 54:05
  I'm reminded of two things. One, the gentleman who used to
• 54:08
  check US currency, right? And, and someone once
• 54:11
  interviewed him. They're like, wait a minute,
• 54:13
  there are thousands of false bills.
• 54:17
  How do you keep up? Like every day there's a new one
• 54:19
  or two new ones or five new ones.
• 54:21
  How are you keeping up? It is your job to say what is
• 54:24
  true? How do you keep up with all
• 54:26
  that's not? And he said, oh, I don't study
• 54:29
  all the things that are false. I study backwards, forwards, up
• 54:33
  and down, left and right, the truth so that the moment
• 54:36
  something is false, I know it not because I know all the
• 54:39
  falsities. It's because I know the truth so
• 54:42
  well that boom in my spirit, I know this does not align with
• 54:46
  what is true. And so now we take that into the
• 54:48
  world. Are we raising up our families?
• 54:50
  Are we counting on the world to do it?
• 54:52
  Because that's what's happening right now.
• 54:54
  So here is small example of this.
• 54:57
  I would talk to my nephews about spiritual warfare when they were
• 55:00
  kids, like they're only I think 13 and 9 now, but when they were
• 55:05
  little, like 5 years old, I would talk to him about Harry
• 55:07
  Potter. I would talk about Pokémon quote
• 55:09
  UN quote, pocket demons, like all of the stuff that they got.
• 55:12
  And I would, I would really share with them, not so that
• 55:14
  they walk out in fear, but that they're aware and they are
• 55:18
  rooted and grounded in truth and in love so that when they go
• 55:21
  into the world, I was in Hawaii with my nephew.
• 55:24
  He was I think 6 years old at the time.
• 55:26
  We walk into a shop that was just like a souvenir shop and in
• 55:30
  the middle of the shop he points out out loud.
• 55:33
  I did not give him any of this. He points out loud or he points
• 55:37
  and says out loud, false God, false God.
• 55:40
  And he's pointing at Buddha and I'm like, Oh my goodness, hold
• 55:44
  on. I just grabbed him.
• 55:45
  I was like, you are very correct.
• 55:47
  See, I didn't teach. He never knew.
• 55:49
  I never taught him about Buddha. He knew what is true and he saw
• 55:53
  this thing that had so much around it that was being
• 55:55
  worshipped and he called it out. And so this is the thing what I
• 55:59
  want from my nephews for for those that I love and for our
• 56:02
  world is to be so rooted and grounded in truth that they
• 56:05
  recognize falsity and they don't even have to fight it.
• 56:08
  They just build up what is true and what is what is false falls
• 56:13
  down. So in that, I mean, great
• 56:15
  example, if I find out that the Dodgers, a team that I grew up,
• 56:19
  I mean, I'm from San Diego, a team that I grew up knowing and
• 56:23
  and enjoying is doing this, guess what?
• 56:26
  I'm not participating whatsoever with the Dodgers at all.
• 56:30
  And I'm actually, here's the other thing.
• 56:32
  Not only am I going to not participate, I'm going to share
• 56:35
  about it. I'm going to not just slam them.
• 56:38
  I'm just going to bring out truth about that, right?
• 56:41
  And here's my question for all of us, myself included.
• 56:45
  Are we praying more than we're talking?
• 56:48
  Are we praying more than we're fighting?
• 56:51
  Are we praying more than we're protesting?
• 56:53
  Because ultimately, we need God. And yes, He gives us the voice.
• 56:58
  Yes, He gives us a plan. But did we really get with Him
• 57:02
  enough? Have we been on our face weeping
• 57:05
  for the world right now? Are we crying out for mercy when
• 57:10
  we do not deserve it? Not only us individually, but
• 57:13
  the world. And so this is a place that this
• 57:16
  could bring us to radical prayer, radical dependence on
• 57:20
  God to show up in a way that even if I show up, if I don't
• 57:24
  show up with God, I've got nothing because it is not me
• 57:27
  against them. It is a about the Spirit of God
• 57:30
  against the spirit of evil. And we know that evil will lose.
• 57:34
  It's already lost, but God will prevail.
• 57:37
  Are we praying? Are we fasting?
• 57:39
  Are we really interceding for all the evil we're seeing and
• 57:43
  then being LED from a place of prayer?
• 57:46
  When God downloads these heavenly blueprints to us from a
• 57:50
  place of, of of prayer and trust in Him, are we now going to have
• 57:55
  the strength and now pray for perseverance and grace to walk
• 57:58
  it out? Amen.
• 58:01
  I mean, that's why Archbishop Gomez here in Los Angeles
• 58:03
  Diocese said today, this feast of the Sacred Heart, when the
• 58:06
  Dodgers are holding this blasphemous night, he's saying
• 58:10
  pray and fast. And he's asking for people to
• 58:12
  pray and feast of the Sacred Heart, you know, spend, spend a
• 58:15
  holy hour. That means for Catholics to
• 58:17
  listening to know what this says.
• 58:18
  You go and pray before the Blessed Sacrament for an hour or
• 58:20
  an adoration or go to Mass. But prayer is the is the top
• 58:25
  weapon that we have. And it's so often the least
• 58:28
  utilized because, you know, we use human means and we get all
• 58:31
  activistic or we get all worried or we get all concerned with,
• 58:36
  with our lives and we forget that.
• 58:38
  I think about when you were talking earlier about the law,
• 58:41
  about the, the truth. And I use the word law now
• 58:45
  because I think about the psalmist, King David.
• 58:49
  And in the Psalms, he has these beautiful prayers.
• 58:51
  It's his prayer. And you know, David was a very
• 58:53
  flawed man, but he ultimately would repent and seek after the
• 58:57
  Lord's heart. And so the Lord ultimately gave
• 59:00
  him wonderful responsibilities because he loved God so much.
• 59:04
  And anyways, one of the things that the, that he constantly
• 59:07
  says in the Psalm says, Lord, I love your law.
• 59:10
  You know, Lord, your law refreshes my soul, my heart.
• 59:13
  You know, I, I, your law is my, is basically the, the source of
• 59:18
  his, his life. He, he understands his life in
• 59:20
  the context of God's law. And obviously God's law is love,
• 59:23
  but God's law is the moral law. And that's why you know, the
• 59:26
  moral law, like the moral law about sex, right?
• 59:29
  Sex is only in a, in a marriage and it's a, sex is open to life,
• 59:34
  right? Sex is not just heterosexual
• 59:36
  sex. Like that's not like, oh, that's
• 59:38
  God's law. No, God's law is a man and a
• 59:41
  woman can only marry. So yes, that's true.
• 59:43
  And they were married for life and they're married exclusively.
• 59:46
  And sex is within marriage. And like you said, there's
• 59:48
  chastity within marriage. You don't get to just sexually
• 59:50
  objectify your spouse, right? Sex is about complete self
• 59:54
  giving and receiving of the other.
• 59:56
  It's open to life. So there's all of this beautiful
• 59:58
  teaching on what sex is for, right?
• 1:00:01
  And similarly, you know, the, the commandments that God gives
• 1:00:04
  us, you know, do not kill as an example.
• 1:00:06
  But what's the opposite of this? Is love sacrificially for
• 1:00:09
  another right? Jesus Christ shows us the law of
• 1:00:12
  love, which is not just don't kill somebody, but it's go out
• 1:00:16
  and be willing to die for somebody, which is what he's
• 1:00:19
  done for us. And so I think meditating on
• 1:00:22
  what is the law of God and recognizing that we are given
• 1:00:26
  freedom not to waste ourselves and others by sinning, but we
• 1:00:31
  are given freedom so that we have the power to choose the
• 1:00:35
  good and to love, and that's what really sets us free as
• 1:00:40
  human beings. Yeah, I want to speak into this
• 1:00:42
  like I love that you brought up King David.
• 1:00:45
  And so yes, he would. You read through the Psalms and
• 1:00:47
  he is about the law of the Lord. Let's remember what the Lord
• 1:00:50
  said about him. The Lord said He is a man after
• 1:00:54
  my own heart, see, it doesn't say he's a man after my own law.
• 1:00:59
  He's a man after my own heart. See God, God loved David, David
• 1:01:04
  loved God and in turn loved the laws of God.
• 1:01:08
  See, and I think what we sometimes get twisted is we're
• 1:01:10
  so about the love of the law of God, which is important, but it
• 1:01:14
  should it should be fruit or a byproduct of the radical love of
• 1:01:19
  God, right? So, and I think that's where
• 1:01:22
  sometimes we're getting this off and myself included, is like, I
• 1:01:26
  want to be seeking to love God with all my heart.
• 1:01:29
  And from that, that's what Jesus says right in, in the New
• 1:01:32
  Testament. He says, if you love me, you
• 1:01:34
  will do what I say, you will follow my commands, right?
• 1:01:38
  And so to just, and it says, if you just say you love me, but
• 1:01:41
  your life doesn't show it. So to me, what I think in, in my
• 1:01:45
  personal opinion, which thank God is not the scripture itself,
• 1:01:48
  right? But in my personal experience
• 1:01:50
  and opinion is that we don't know the love of God.
• 1:01:55
  We may know his laws and, and, and for these people who are
• 1:01:58
  doing this demonstration today, in my opinion, if they really
• 1:02:02
  encounter the radical love of God, they would not be doing
• 1:02:05
  what they're doing. If we really encounter the
• 1:02:09
  radical love of God, we will love his law.
• 1:02:11
  See Lila, I'm not not dating women because it's the law of
• 1:02:15
  God. I'm not dating women because I
• 1:02:20
  love God and his love is better and it is actually spurring me
• 1:02:24
  to love his ways. But if you love his ways without
• 1:02:27
  knowing and loving him. I'm a little concerned and so
• 1:02:32
  really what I'm what I feel like an ache in my own heart is like
• 1:02:37
  Catholic Church to we really love God and from that births
• 1:02:42
  forth a love for his ways because it's scary when you just
• 1:02:46
  love his ways. But maybe don't.
• 1:02:48
  I really love him because it reminds me of another scripture
• 1:02:52
  and then I promise I'll be done where the scripture says that
• 1:02:55
  God wishes for none to perish. He wishes for none to perish.
• 1:03:02
  OK, hold on none. That means those people who are
• 1:03:06
  quote UN quote dressing up as nuns.
• 1:03:08
  He wishes for none of them to perish.
• 1:03:11
  Now he's not going to force it, but do we wish for none of them
• 1:03:15
  to perish? To does our heartbreak for what
• 1:03:18
  is currently breaking God's heart?
• 1:03:21
  Now I'm not saying breaking God's heart in the sense of he
• 1:03:23
  can be broken. I'm saying it hurts.
• 1:03:27
  He loves each person he created and when we don't choose him, it
• 1:03:31
  hurts him. He feels he is a God.
• 1:03:35
  That is emotion. He feels it.
• 1:03:37
  Do we feel it too? Can our prayer start with God?
• 1:03:41
  Give me your heart for the broken, the hurting, even those
• 1:03:46
  who are living in evil, but they themselves are not evil.
• 1:03:48
  There is evil working within them.
• 1:03:50
  Give me your heart so that they will not perish.
• 1:03:54
  And and so that doesn't, that doesn't mean we just now
• 1:03:57
  celebrate everything everybody does.
• 1:03:58
  That's where I think the world tries to take.
• 1:04:00
  Well, then just celebrate me. No, no, no, no.
• 1:04:02
  We want to celebrate the good in you and and Lila, I would pray
• 1:04:05
  the same for you and me in our friendship that you would
• 1:04:07
  celebrate and spur on the good in me and pray for that which
• 1:04:11
  you see is still out of line with God's heart.
• 1:04:14
  You know and and speak that as a Lord.
• 1:04:16
  Same. I need, I need the same prayer.
• 1:04:18
  Amen. We all choose it's, but it's so
• 1:04:20
  it's, that's the mystery of free will, right?
• 1:04:22
  It's that we somehow, like Saint Paul says, I still choose the
• 1:04:26
  bad even when I know it's bad. And I, I, I'm, I'm torn, you
• 1:04:30
  know, in our broken state, we're torn.
• 1:04:31
  But you know, at the end of the day, it's love that saves and
• 1:04:35
  only love that heals. And God's love, which is the
• 1:04:38
  greatest of all loves. He is love and, and I think
• 1:04:42
  that's the, that's maybe the reason for some of our sins,
• 1:04:45
  like my, I know my sin. It's a lack of trust.
• 1:04:48
  It's a lack of trust that obeying him is loving him and
• 1:04:53
  that that will be the ultimate path to what I most deeply
• 1:04:56
  desire. And it's my own weaknesses, you
• 1:04:59
  know, my own stubbornness or my own, you know, willfulness,
• 1:05:03
  whatever. But it comes at the heart of it
• 1:05:05
  a lack of, of trust in the Master and and the woundedness
• 1:05:08
  of my own, of my own condition. And I think if we prayed more, I
• 1:05:13
  think our prayer life shows our level of trust.
• 1:05:15
  And I don't mean that to be. Condemned to any of.
• 1:05:18
  US, but yeah. That's kind of I need to hear
• 1:05:21
  that every day because it's like it's so easy for prayer to
• 1:05:24
  become last. It's so and I'm a mom, so that's
• 1:05:26
  my little excuse, but it's like, no, it's like my the measure of
• 1:05:29
  your love is how much do you let kind of the world be suspended
• 1:05:33
  for a moment to let God be God and trust it.
• 1:05:36
  This prayer that you're this time you're making with him is
• 1:05:39
  because he's worth it. I need, but even if I don't see
• 1:05:42
  the immediate results, like, OK, my life's better now because I
• 1:05:44
  stopped, you know, because I prayed today.
• 1:05:45
  It's like he, he's owed that as my Creator.
• 1:05:48
  And he, he longs for that as my Creator.
• 1:05:51
  And I need that as his creation, as his daughter.
• 1:05:54
  Mother Teresa once said her sisters came in and they were in
• 1:05:57
  adoration and I think they had finished adoration.
• 1:06:00
  And they said, they said, you know, Mother, we need or
• 1:06:02
  whatever they called her, you know, we need to cut back some
• 1:06:07
  prayer time because there are hundreds more that we have
• 1:06:11
  haven't yet reached. And she said, my goodness, are
• 1:06:13
  there really that many that we haven't reached that we need to
• 1:06:16
  take from prayer? And they said, yes, like
• 1:06:19
  hundreds out in the streets. And she says, OK.
• 1:06:22
  And then they go to scurry off. And this might have a little,
• 1:06:25
  little Kim added to it, but the the point is the same.
• 1:06:28
  And she says, hold on, come back.
• 1:06:30
  They came back and they said, she said, if there's that many
• 1:06:33
  that are that much in need of Jesus, then we're going to add
• 1:06:38
  an hour of prayer every day. So the very thing they asked for
• 1:06:42
  was reduce this, not not to go be mean to anyone, to go help
• 1:06:45
  people. But she knew the heart of the
• 1:06:48
  Father. She trusted him.
• 1:06:49
  She trusted the radical, the radical love of Christ.
• 1:06:54
  And the more that we soak in the radical love of Christ, the more
• 1:06:57
  we can be that out in the world. And that is what is going to
• 1:07:00
  transform. The world doesn't need more of
• 1:07:02
  Kim Zimber. The world needs more of Jesus
• 1:07:05
  Christ. Now am I going to allow Jesus
• 1:07:07
  Christ to come into such a radical level that when I walk
• 1:07:10
  out my door, the world around me is in is encountering radical
• 1:07:15
  right? But it's from what we receive.
• 1:07:17
  Christ says it is not. You can only give from what we
• 1:07:20
  receive, right? And so we can only love because
• 1:07:23
  he first loved us. Lord Jesus, fill me before I
• 1:07:26
  leave my house. Lila, I am face down saying,
• 1:07:29
  Jesus, I need you to love me. I know you do.
• 1:07:33
  But I need to tangibly experience it because I'm, I'm
• 1:07:36
  hungry, but I'm going out into a world that needs you, not me.
• 1:07:40
  Fill me with everything you are so that when I step out the
• 1:07:43
  door, people can be filled not with what I've got, but with who
• 1:07:46
  I've got and they can experience you and then they can be faced
• 1:07:50
  down praying that same thing. And so in that, I think
• 1:07:54
  remembering David was a man after God's own heart, and I
• 1:07:58
  know that I am not solely and fully a woman after God's own
• 1:08:02
  heart, but I know that the more that I am and the more I
• 1:08:05
  experience His goodness, the more I'm after His heart, and
• 1:08:08
  then the more I honor and respect and love His ways.
• 1:08:15
  So beautiful. Thank you, Kim.
• 1:08:17
  I needed to hear that. And I bet I'm going to guess
• 1:08:19
  people listening, some folks listening.
• 1:08:21
  That was what they needed to hear in this moment too.
• 1:08:24
  All right, we got to have you out to California.
• 1:08:26
  You are a California girl, a San Diego girl.
• 1:08:28
  So got to come out here. We got it.
• 1:08:29
  There's so much more to talk about.
• 1:08:31
  I mean your ministry and there's we didn't even get into your
• 1:08:33
  full story because we kind of stopped and then went off on
• 1:08:36
  some beautiful there. I know that's it's an amazing
• 1:08:38
  book. I highly recommend.
• 1:08:39
  We'll link it in the in the bio. But for anybody just to close
• 1:08:42
  this out here, because I know we're running out of time for
• 1:08:44
  people listening who want, you know, either they themselves are
• 1:08:49
  experiencing same sex attraction or they're, you know, figuring
• 1:08:53
  things out. Maybe they're feel that they're
• 1:08:55
  bisexual, whatever it might be, or they have friends or family
• 1:08:58
  who are or someone close to them.
• 1:09:00
  What advice would you give? Like a resource?
• 1:09:03
  I mean, I'm going to just say read Kim's book.
• 1:09:04
  That's a great, great resource. But what would be a resource for
• 1:09:08
  them to navigate that? Yeah, I mean, the book is
• 1:09:13
  helpful. First off, the book is helpful
• 1:09:16
  only because I think when you read it, you realize you're not
• 1:09:18
  alone. It is not the answer to
• 1:09:20
  everything your heart is longing for, but just the vulnerability
• 1:09:24
  the Lord asked me to have publicly in a book.
• 1:09:27
  I feel like many people because I get emails and messages all
• 1:09:31
  over the world that they were able to relate.
• 1:09:34
  And so it's so important to know that you're not alone.
• 1:09:37
  And so that might be one thing that can help you.
• 1:09:39
  It's not about selling books. All the seeds go to my nonprofit
• 1:09:42
  in Ethiopia. But in that we also, there's
• 1:09:46
  another ministry I'm a part of, it's called Rainbow Revival and
• 1:09:49
  people can kind of seek that out more.
• 1:09:51
  And it's the same thing like let's come together, let's share
• 1:09:54
  testimony. I got to remember Scripture says
• 1:09:56
  that testimony is prophecy into someone else's life.
• 1:10:00
  When I share the testimony of Jesus Christ, it is prophecy
• 1:10:04
  into someone's life. They are able to relate and we
• 1:10:07
  remember we are overcome, but my ministry is called overcome.
• 1:10:10
  But we are overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our
• 1:10:14
  testimony. So it is so important to hear
• 1:10:16
  testimonies. It's not everything.
• 1:10:18
  It's the blood of the lamb and the word of testimony that
• 1:10:21
  becomes your word and you share out.
• 1:10:23
  And so it's really important to connect, connect with groups.
• 1:10:25
  There's also, if you're Catholic, even if you're not
• 1:10:27
  Catholic, it's a great ministry. Courage is is awesome.
• 1:10:31
  I was not a part of it, but I've been LinkedIn with them.
• 1:10:34
  So they're really about connecting people to be there
• 1:10:38
  for one another, to walk in the love and truth of Christ and be
• 1:10:42
  safe for each other. Another group is Eden
• 1:10:45
  Invitation. They're an awesome up and coming
• 1:10:47
  group that I just, I have never met the 2 girls that run it, but
• 1:10:50
  they're phenomenal. We've talked many times and so
• 1:10:53
  there's a lot of people that are sharing their experiences.
• 1:10:57
  Join into those. You're not alone.
• 1:10:59
  You're not alone. I know that is one thing Satan
• 1:11:01
  loves to do. He loves to isolate.
• 1:11:03
  He wants you to think that you're alone.
• 1:11:05
  You're the only one. And and just to go into a place
• 1:11:08
  where it's just fully celebrated.
• 1:11:10
  I just ask that you would hold it before, hold your desires
• 1:11:13
  before a God that loves you, that he's for you.
• 1:11:15
  He's not against you. It's his kindness that leads you
• 1:11:18
  to repentance. It's not the rod iron.
• 1:11:21
  It's his kindness that leads is what the scripture says.
• 1:11:24
  And so get connected, whether it be through rainbow revival
• 1:11:27
  through you can reach out to me on overcome or different social
• 1:11:31
  media things, but get connected with people who are seeking
• 1:11:35
  Jesus and seeking the fullness that he has for each one of us
• 1:11:38
  because it is we're not meant to do it alone.
• 1:11:40
  I go back, Wow, full circle. God said it's not good that man
• 1:11:43
  be alone. So please don't do this alone.
• 1:11:46
  And I also encourage you or spur you on, don't do it without God,
• 1:11:51
  but do it with people who are seeking God as well.
• 1:11:55
  So good. Thank you so much, Kim.
• 1:11:57
  You are the best and excited to have you do this in person
• 1:12:01
  hopefully, hopefully soon, Right.
• 1:12:03
  Yes, thank you so much. It's amazing.
• 1:12:05
  God bless you. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:12:09
  this latest episode with Kim Zember.
• 1:12:11
  I hope it was encouraging and even clarifying for folks
• 1:12:14
  listening. And feel free to check out the
• 1:12:17
  resources that Kim mentioned. I'm going to list some of those
• 1:12:20
  in the description of the YouTube video and in the podcast
• 1:12:23
  episode. I want to thank you guys so
• 1:12:25
  much. Again, for those that are
• 1:12:25
  subscribing to the YouTube channel, subscribing to the
• 1:12:28
  podcast, leave a review. If you're on Apple Podcasts,
• 1:12:30
  wherever you get your podcasts, those reviews help the podcast
• 1:12:33
  reach more people. Give it five stars, leave a
• 1:12:35
  comment. I love reading them.
• 1:12:36
  And then for those that are in the position to do this, I would
• 1:12:40
  love for your support on Patreon.
• 1:12:42
  We've launched A Patreon. We've got our first patrons and
• 1:12:45
  it's awesome. It really is wonderful to know
• 1:12:47
  that I can pay certain bills with the podcast and that we can
• 1:12:50
  plan some really exciting, really big things for the
• 1:12:52
  future. So check out the Patreon if you
• 1:12:54
  feel LED, a gift of even $10.00 or $25 or if you can do more a
• 1:12:59
  month is so helpful and very excited for the great things to
• 1:13:03
  come and the things to share with you for the podcast and
• 1:13:05
  other creative endeavors. So thank you all So and we'll
• 1:13:08
  see you next week.