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Alive! with Pastor Patina Ripkey
Life Changing Testimonies with Pastor Patina Ripkey and special guests.
Alive! with Pastor Patina Ripkey
Heather Vescio (From the Frontlines of Crime to the Footsteps of Faith)
In this episode, we sit down with a former FBI Forensic Examiner who was working on the front lines of the FBI, battling the darkest corners of child exploitation and terrorism. Her work was intense, heartbreaking, and deeply personal.
Fighting evil took a toll on her soul, but she eventually found restoration and faith in Christ. This is a raw, redemptive conversation about trauma, triumph, and trust in a God who is good.
For more information about Heather and her business, feel free to reach out to her at: www.cruxintel.com
Well, hello everybody. I want to welcome you to Alive. I have a very special guest today. Her name is Heather and she is a wife, a mother, she is an entrepreneur, so she has her own business. She's very intelligent and fun and a lovely person and we're really going to get into some interesting things today. I will say ahead of time that there are going to be probably some subjects that will be difficult if there are children around, so you probably want to not be listening to this in the car if you have kids in the car or something like that when we get to those subjects. So just so you know ahead of time, but excited to have Heather Vessio on the show today, so welcome, thank you. Are you excited? Are you nervous? No, I'm not nervous at all.
Speaker 2:Okay good, I don't know, I don't have that in me, I should sometimes.
Speaker 1:No, I'm glad you don't, Because some people get really nervous, but you don't seem like that type who's going to. You know we're going to be talking about a lot of cool stuff, so I thought we could start by well, so you go to the same church where I am. That's how I met you, but you ended up attending here because of my daughter. Right, that is correct. So how did you?
Speaker 2:meet Shauna. Shauna does my hair.
Speaker 1:So everybody who's watching, right yeah.
Speaker 2:So you met Shauna and you guys. You were friends for how long before you ended up. We were friendly with each other during our appointments and we just got into deeper conversations about our families and our backgrounds and parents and siblings and I knew her before she had any kids at all. I knew her when she said she didn't want to have any yes at all. I knew her when she said she didn't want to have any yes, yeah. I knew her when she was pregnant with Shep and she was talking about names for the baby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the kids now are Shepard's three. So you and you said you told me that you came here, ended up, she invited you a few times, you ended up coming because she needed somebody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she texted me and said hey, I don't want to put the baby in the nursery. There's a bunch of sick kids in there. Can you come and hold the baby during the service? And that's all I needed to hear, because I just wanted to hold the baby. So that got me to church every Sunday.
Speaker 1:Everybody would say who is that holding the baby?
Speaker 2:So that got me to church every Sunday, everybody would say who is that holding the baby? Like literally everybody was. I'm like it's Shauna's friend, and then people would ask me hold the baby.
Speaker 1:No, no, shauna says no. Well, and not to mention the fact that you and your husband are both very tall.
Speaker 2:Yes, so wherever you are out, yes, yeah, we can't hide, we can't blend in very well.
Speaker 1:So you said something to me, not even when we were talking yesterday, but I think one of the first times I talked to you. You said that you were really excited about church, but you had never been that way your entire life. So you grew up in church, but you hadn't been to church in years and years and years before you came here. That's correct. And now you like church.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it, I look forward to it, and when I'm traveling and I can't attend, we watch online. But I miss it, I miss the community, I miss the kids, I miss being there in the building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting thing We'll get into that a little bit about how you had such a big change in your life. So let's go back to a little bit about your early life. I mean you said that you had a good childhood.
Speaker 2:Yes, I had a wonderful childhood, wonderful parents. I'm brought up in church. I was probably in church the first few weeks I was born and there two or three times a week my entire childhood.
Speaker 1:So you were in church your whole life. You told me a story yesterday about having a conversation with a pastor, that kind of. After that, that was it. You were kind of never the same. How old were you and what was going on 15 or 16.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, I had my first boyfriend. My parents didn't like it. I was completely just acting out rebellious 16-year-old. My curfew would be at 9. I'd come home at 9.30. This was long before GPS and Life 360. They didn't know where I was and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I just didn't want to go home at 9 o'clock when I was 16. And anyway, my mom had the pastor of the church come over and he took me to the back porch and I was alone with him and he said very inappropriate things to me, made accusations that weren't true, and I told my parents and my mom didn't believe me and my dad was angry but didn't really interfere with it and from that point on I just lost all trust in the church.
Speaker 1:And he didn't do anything that was like of a sexual nature.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. He was basically saying you have demons in you because you're acting this way and you are using drugs and you're prostituting yourself in order to pay for the drugs, which, to this day, I've never used a drug in my life. I was, you know, 16, never been kissed Like. It was completely unbelievable. It was unbelievable, and so at that point I just had no trust with the church at all, and specifically with him, and I didn't want to go back. I had to until I was 18. And then, at that point, I never went back until I was in my 40s.
Speaker 1:So I mean that shows you how important it is to care like as a pastor you know, to care for the flock, to care for the children, because I was telling you, I was listening to a podcast a couple of days ago that was somebody was saying something very similar, very similar age, where a pastor went and prayed and prayed for demons to come out of someone and they're like they weren't even doing anything.
Speaker 1:And so they didn't even know and they left Same thing. They didn't come back, was completely turned off by the church until they were very much into adulthood, so it's very sad yeah.
Speaker 2:There's nothing worse really than being accused of doing something that is so far from the truth. And then when you go to explain, that's actually not true, I know you're lying, yeah, okay, and then at that point, if you're going to accuse me of it, then I'll do whatever I want to do. I'll stop behaving altogether. I'll stop behaving altogether. I'll stop following all rules. I'm not coming home at nine. I'm going to come home at midnight. Did?
Speaker 1:you feel at that point in your life that you had an actual relationship with Jesus? Had you made a commitment? Yes, okay, so you had done that, and so what happened then is you just said the church isn't where I want to be because of this happening. That occurred.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know, other things happened throughout teenage years at the church, where I would be compared to other kids, other girls that I went to school with, and we were all in the same church and they would have this facade of being perfect church girls and I don't have the capacity to have a facade ever, and so they would pretend to be perfect and I didn't hide anything and therefore my parents and the pastor clearly perceived me as being a bad Christian. I guess Not an honest one. Yeah, not an honest Christian, but a bad Christian.
Speaker 1:So you left. You graduated high school. Go to college. You said you went to Ohio Westland or Ohio University University oh sorry. High school, go to college. You said you went to Ohio Westland or Ohio University University oh sorry. You went to Ohio University, finished your degree, which was math, science, technology kind of stuff, okay, and not in church at all. And then how in the world did you land at the FBI?
Speaker 2:land at the FBI. Necessity because I was newly divorced, with two young babies just going to school. I was a stay-at-home mom when they were really little and I had to go to work. So I was a single mom of two kids my oldest, two who are now adults and it just kind of fell into my lap and it was offered to me right away and went through the six-month process and I had no roadblocks. It was just very clearly where I was supposed to be at the time.
Speaker 1:So six months process like training and doing background checks?
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's background checks polygraphs I mean, they went back to my third-grade teacher.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the irony of what that pastor accused me of doing. If any of that were ever true, I would have never gotten my security clearance. We had a top secret security clearance at the FBI. I would never have gotten that. It's just like I don't know. I think about that sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how wrong he was. So you get on at the FBI and I'm sure that everything we see in the movies is exactly the way it is working at the FBI. No, no. So what kind of training? Did you have training specific to what you were doing?
Speaker 2:Yes, years of training, and the training is equivalent to several master's degrees. Wow, thousands of hours. Yeah, no-transcript. And so for my first two years it was just continuous training, off-site. We would go all over the country for training, okay, yeah, so what did you do at the FBI?
Speaker 2:I handled all cases that involved digital evidence and 90% of all agents about digital evidence and rules of evidence and expert testimony, how to talk to a jury, how to find artifacts just real technical items that they need to know when they're beginning their career at the FBI.
Speaker 1:So for, let's say, somebody has no idea what you're talking about. You're talking about things that happen when people are online or when they're using their phones, or what? How big is this digital?
Speaker 2:world. Almost every case has it so child pornography cases, terrorism cases, white collar crime, healthcare fraud, everything so records, text messages, geolocations, decrypting data, cryptography all of that comes into play when the law enforcement agencies are building their case, then you have to provide them with the evidence to kind of backfill the allegation.
Speaker 1:So you were in some pretty awful, probably, situations, because if you're in child porn, I can't even like we kind of mean it's. It's very troubling. You know, and I, as you know, I do a little bit of work with human trafficking and I had those cases as well. Oh, my goodness. So you, you know, right before you talked about working at the FBI, you were talking about, you know, children and how much you love them and you have your own children, yes, and now you're working at the FBI and they did. You know that that's what you were being hired to do. I did not.
Speaker 2:And if they told people, nobody would take the job. Now my friend and I were able to have discussions with leadership at the FBI and to my knowledge they have since reformed that a bit to where they give people a little taste of what they could be doing. But I don't think just saying you're going to be working child sex crimes gives you child sex crimes, gives you proper insight into exactly what it is. You're going to be watching it. You have to lay eyes on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Every single image, every single video, so you have to lay eyes on it, because you're looking for evidence or images of a human being, or all of the. Where is it? Yeah, images of a human being or all of the where is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how it works is we would have to identify whether a child is perceived to be over 12 or under 12. There's just different rules on that and put it all together and send it to NCMEC, which is National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and then they would let us know if any of the hash values matched. A hash value would mean that they have a known victim. So I have this picture of baby boy and it's the same exact fingerprint hash value that is identified and attached to an actual person. This person's name is this and they live here, and so you can figure out how to identify all these different elements of their victimization. And then also, it's proof that the picture that they have is a real person, because a lot of people would have a defense of well, that's AI generated or it's not real. Well, it is real because I know that his name is this and I know that the fingerprints match. Wow, yeah, and that's why you have to look at every single.
Speaker 1:It's a very interesting thing and I don't want to get us off topic. But the whole AI, I know that's a whole thing and I don't know a lot about that when it comes to pornography and child porn, but that's a whole thing. I know it doesn't affect the children. Okay, you could say, well, that's good, it's not affecting. You know they're not doing anything about it, but it's still doing something to the brain and to the desire of these people and these predators.
Speaker 2:It is and it will incite nefarious actions if they have access to a child as opposed to, that might not be in their mind otherwise. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like there's something planted in there that they never had before the seed is planted, yeah, yeah. So you worked on cases of people who were watching and people who were creating. Yes, okay, and people who were creating.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, so it would be production cases, distribution cases. So take a picture, take a video and then just sell them. And then I mean predators trade child porn like little kids trade Pokemon cards. I mean it is, and it's by 10 terabytes at a time. It's not a picture here, a picture there. It's like I'll trade you this 10 terabytes for your 10 terabytes, and then they're very protective of their collections, so they're going to save it in five different places and hide the thumb drive up inside of a safe and it's very, very hard to get those images off the internet once they're there. It's practically impossible, do?
Speaker 1:you? Are you online very much yourself? Do you like just stay? I'm not saying I mean, do you? So? I just am sitting there thinking about all the people who are online all the time and it just makes me want to just like stay off of everything, like I don't even want. I mean, I know we're on facebook and do you have any? Just like social media? Or are you like, no, I'm not, I'm not on anything no, I'm on the internet all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm a tech person.
Speaker 1:I have okay, yeah, okay, yeah. I just get uh, so, um, so, as far as like that side of things, because, first of all, pornography in general, I have a lot of issues with it, not even child porn. I don't know how you feel about pornography in general, I just think it's completely evil.
Speaker 2:I really do. It destroys relationships, it destroys families, it destroys people's minds and the internet was really propagated and funded by pornography back when it first became popular. That's why it became popular. Look it up sometime, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I will look that up, that's very interesting and they really do want to keep it all going all the time. What do you think about OnlyFans and all of that stuff?
Speaker 2:Once it's up there, you're never getting it down again. It's very much appealing for young people because they think that maybe they can make quick money. But it's very much appealing for young people because they think that maybe they can make quick money but it's going to destroy your life. Yeah, you know, someday you're going to be 50 and think I probably should not have posted that topless picture of myself when I was 19. It's out there now forever though. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Have you worked on any really high-profile cases?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, high-profile terrorism cases I would know of that would have been on the news. Yes. And as far as child porn cases, many multinational child porn rings and the one that is released publicly now, operation Pacifier, operation Playpen, it was just a national and international complete takedown. Several search warrants at the same time, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of terabytes of data to go through. And at that exact moment, my coworkers that I was working with in my lab, I had three or four other people. They all left for different reasons and valid reasons, and it was just me.
Speaker 1:It was just me. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:And I just wanted out. So bad, so bad. And I was just crying every day in the bathroom and I said I can't do these cases anymore. I can't do it. And I was told, if something happens to you, you'll just be the blonde girl who used to work on the fourth floor. Wow, so I was at that point. I realized I'm not valued at all here. Wow, I need, I need to get out of here. And at that point I started really looking for a way out and a different job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Well, I'm going to get to that too, because I want to talk to you about, mentally and spiritually, what it's like in that environment, because in my mind that's a very demonic kind of environment where you're looking at these materials all the time. It's not life-giving at all.
Speaker 2:No, and you're looking at it and very often it's father-child and it's like the stolen innocence. That's the ultimate betrayal. You have people that you trust, you have a child that trusts their parents and their parents are destroying them. And so often and this ties back to my childhood in church and the betrayal there so often my subjects were I had their computers, computers and they would have their child porn in a folder right next to Sunday service prep notes. Why? Because they're a youth pastor? Why Because they're putting themselves in a position where they're around children? Why Because they're attracted to children. So it's like they go to church, they're involved in church, they're preaching, they're upstanding citizens. They are the ones with the facade that I spoke about earlier. They have the facade, they're pretending and all along they have the secret life. So again, it's like just completely untrustworthy. I get to the point where, probably eight years into my career, if I found out somebody was going to church every Sunday, or I go to Sunday school or I teach Sunday school, I'm like, oh, you're probably a pedophile.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean, I can see, why you would say that, yeah, and it was all to hide behind it.
Speaker 2:I'm an upstanding citizen. Well, I have two PhDs. And they want people to say, well, they're a dentist. They can't do this. They go to church every Sunday. They donate so much money to certain charities. Yeah, they're building their facade to make it more believable. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:What would you say to parents, then, about protecting their children, rather than because we know that we protect our kids, but we're not going to be 100% there with?
Speaker 2:them all the time. But what advice do you have for parents? You can't be absent. You can't send your kid to bed with an iPad because you don't want to tell them no, you're not their friend, you're their parent. You can be their friend because you don't want them to be mad about something or sad about something, but then they're going to end up taking naked pictures of themselves and sending it through the Xbox or on their phone and getting hurt. You have to tell your kids no, you have to be involved in what they're doing. Look at their phones. Don't take their word for it. Look at what they're doing and look deeper, because there are so many free apps that will covertly hide the ones they're doing. It might look like a calculator, but it's not. It's a chat app and they're doing it. Might look like a calculator, right, but it's not. It's a chat app and they're chatting with some 60-year-old man saying that he's a 14-year-old girl.
Speaker 1:Is there a place you can send parents to go where they can say that will tell them which apps to look for on their kids' phones?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a company that I created, veritas Crux, truth of the Cross, and I can do that for people and look at their phones.
Speaker 1:Okay, what we're going to do in the notes, in the description box, we'll put your information in there. Yeah, so if people want to reach out to you, they can. Yeah, yeah, sure, because I think you know, as a grandparent now it was bad enough, you know, when my kids were younger, but now it's completely different. Is this just me? Or, like on my phone, it looked like there was this place that said because I got a new phone, it said hidden apps, there's nothing in it because I don't have anything in there. Is that where a lot of people look?
Speaker 2:at yeah, you can, but there's clandestine apps that look innocuous and you can hide whatever you want in there. But yeah, on a consent-based parent bringing their kid's phone to me, I have software that will decrypt kick app or WhatsApp conversations and I mean it will find everything in there and it'll give it. I can have a readable report Like this is what's on your kid's phone, this is what your kid's doing.
Speaker 1:Whoa, yeah, I think in this day and age, like you said, you know, I look at it like this these phones and it's all addicted, everybody's addicted to it.
Speaker 2:You know these kids are addicted Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and they get all these ideas of maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that, and then yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then when you take it from them and I've seen this happen with parents and the kids lose their minds.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Screaming, crying, and the kids lose their minds, screaming, crying. Well, they're addicted to it.
Speaker 2:Exactly I was going to say Then just get over it, go read a book, I don't know, I mean, and I think it's like because this is a subject that really frustrates me.
Speaker 1:But it's like starting, don't wait until, don't give your kids a phone or something like that when they're so young so young, yeah, because you know what like that when they're so young, and they're young because you know what. You saw a little, uh, elise, where she's like already she know how, does she know how to do that, she's watching, she's watching us watching it, yeah, so she knows, and I'm like, oh my goodness, so yeah yeah, I mean, it's where our parents will take away.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm taking your phone away, okay, and then they give them an iPad, right, okay, well, it's the same thing. You literally did nothing, yeah.
Speaker 1:And also, parents need to know that when they're playing Xbox, they're also communicating, there's also chatting, they can also send images, and so, yes, that's one thing that, see, I didn't know that until I've been talking to people for the past five years, I didn't know it was a possibility, or that your kids can be in there playing a game and you think it's all innocent. But it's not. And it's not that they're doing something bad, it's that there are other people who are around who can jump in the conversation or get online. These predators are out there waiting and watching.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of parents think what makes them good parents is if they say yes to everything their kid wants. I think you're right and it makes you a really bad parent. Overindulgence is a form of child abuse. Yeah, you're creating these entitled kids that are going to grow up to have no ability to follow any rules or God forbid, they're told no.
Speaker 1:It's a problem. They become adults who have temper tantrums and act out. It seems to be happening more and more. I remember when I was a kid it was not, I mean, my dad was the best, he was amazing.
Speaker 1:But I remember this is a great story he said to me one day I wanted to go to Kings Island from Ohio. I wanted to go to Kings Island because my friend was going, my neighbor, and I was little, I mean 10, 11 years old and my dad said no, and I said but why? And it was like on a Saturday. But we always got up on Sunday and went to church. I'm sure that had something to do with it, but he didn't give me a reason. Like, but why? And he's like because I said no, I don't want you to go. And I remember laying on the couch for like five hours, being super dramatic, crying, and then my dad would just be like he'd just walk by and he'd go and get a glass of tea, come back. And there I was, and then finally I went I'm wasting my entire day, you know and then I got up.
Speaker 1:But sometimes the kids are going to act out and they're going to be poor me and I'm a martyr and this and that. But I say, for me, you got to start when they're as young as I mean, start setting boundaries when they're young and teaching them that no means no. And this is just what children need. They need these guardrails so that when they get older they're going to push back and that's okay. But you're the parent, you're the parent and you don't want them getting into those dangers.
Speaker 2:The years between, say, 12 and 15, I think a lot of parents think well, they're old enough they can do their own thing. Oh, enough, they can do their own thing. Oh, they're going to do their own thing, all right. Yeah, it's not going to be what you want them to be doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's funny you say that, because I don't know how I learned this, but I always felt like that age was almost more important I'm not saying the most important, but it seemed like it because when everybody else was saying that my kids are fine, they're staying home, I was like a crazy person with like monitoring and being present.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, I reduced my hours. That's when I was working at Battelle. I reduced my hours so that I could be home more and be home because I was working, but then Shauna would be there for, you know, and I was trying to. There was a period of time where she was there for a couple hours without me, but then I started being there more because I'm like there's stuff that's going on I'm sure that I don't know about. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm, because of my background, just very much super like, hyper protective, and I would like to not be that way. But I mean my rule with my kids. You know, when my son was turning 18 and he was wanting to be launched on his own, I'll continue paying your cell phone bill, but you need to have your location turned on. Well, I'm not doing that. Okay, then you're paying your own what You're not going to. Well, I'm not doing that. Okay, then you're paying your own what You're not going to. No, I'm not. Yeah, and give me the phone. And I haven't paid a cell phone bill since he turned 18. Because I'm not doing that. I'm an adult now. Okay, adult, go pay for your own phone Now, chloe, she's 21. I'm trying to say your name, but she doesn't care, she's 21. She's in college. She has her location on, yeah, and she checks my location more than I check her location.
Speaker 1:It's like when I used to say to the kids when they would, you know, I want you home by midnight or whatever, and then they would be really mad at me, you know, when they're like still living at home and 18. And I said it's not about me. Yes, I want to know you're safe, but it's like also like respect, that I'm in bed and I'm just going to lay here awake until you get home anyway.
Speaker 2:Right and I think that's what my 20-year-old 21-year-old now knows is that I just worry. She's so far away and plus she is 4.0 biochemistry student. She's studying 13 hours a day or crocheting. She's not getting into any trouble.
Speaker 1:She's good.
Speaker 2:My only concern was she's going to get kidnapped, and then I have to know where she is.
Speaker 1:It's a lot, isn't?
Speaker 2:it.
Speaker 1:Kids. You're always once a mom. You're always a mom. Yeah, yeah. So I want to talk to you about so you said you were in the FBI for 10 years. Yes, and then how you were talking about how that you had to just like get out, like you couldn't take it anymore. Did it damage you working there mentally? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So the sleep was non-existent, because the second I would fall asleep. I would have nightmares. I couldn't go anywhere in public where there were children because a baby crying at a certain pitch would make me remember very specific videos of the baby crying in a certain pitch, and then I would remember the pajamas the baby was wearing. I remember I could see the whole thing and I remember being in Costco one time and that happened and the whole building just started to spin and everything was just like red and I thought I was. I literally thought I was dying because I yeah.
Speaker 1:Was it like? Is that PTSD? It's PTSD, yeah yeah, wow. So I've got a lot of questions in my mind right now. I'm thinking about, like, what it would be like to go through that, because once you have an image in your mind, it's like there, you know, like that's why I think it can be so damaging to watch certain things, you know, because, like, our minds are really powerful. So you're dealing with this PTSD. You have all these things going on. Did well, where was God in your life at this point?
Speaker 2:Very much abstract, didn't really think of it. I felt really confused about how God could allow these horrific things to happen to these innocent children. And there can't be a God if these things are happening, because how could God let these things happen to these babies?
Speaker 1:And then we didn't even and I don't want to go into too much detail here but we didn't even talk about. So you're going through all of this. While working at the FBI, you have all these emotional scars or open wounds because you're watching all this material, but then also in your personal life it's like a disaster.
Speaker 2:It is. I was remarried, was remarried, very abusive, had a baby during that time my youngest son while working these cases at the FBI and I'm having trouble hearing my own baby crying. I had no respite there and my ex-husband at the time prohibited me from discussing anything that was bothering me at work, shamed me for even attempting to doing so because how dare I poison his mind. So I had nobody to talk to. I had nobody that I could commiserate with about what was happening At work. I had my best friend, who's still there and trudging through. I had her and I still do, and it was just horrible. I mean, there were times that I would go in the bathroom at home because everything I just felt so numb that I would put like sewing pins in my hand until, like, am I still alive? Like, is this really happening to me? Like one of those things where you're just almost like an out of body, like this can't really be my life is that why, p, as I wonder if that's why people cut.
Speaker 1:You know probably something, yeah I've never, I've never sliced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I guess I didn't think of it that way. I just wanted to feel something, yeah, something were you.
Speaker 1:I I've heard that when, sometimes, when people get really depressed, that they, that they, if they get to the point where they don't literally don't feel that, a lot of times they will. I don't want to get too graphic here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's. I don't know. Were you depressed, do you think?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was just stuck. I was in this abusive marriage where I was afraid I didn't know how to get out of it. I had nobody to talk to. It was just a very dark time in my life, in my life. And you know, I think back and had I not lost that relationship with God, then it would not have been so um I don't even know the word just um, you were just void, void yeah, just like there was like nothingness there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like several years of my life were just a complete blur.
Speaker 1:You know what's that condition DID dissociative identity disorder where, like children, if they're being abused, they can go to another place, you know, and it's like a coping mechanism. But you really didn't have a coping mechanism because you're an adult and you maybe just like, did you compartmentalize a little bit just to get through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we saw psychologists at the FBI and it was a little bit of assessment to make sure we're still fit for duty, that basically the material didn't mess us up too bad. And even though you know we're honest and we tell them, they're like, oh, you're fine to go a little bit more. And I remember they said that my coping mechanism is humor and during the time when I had, you know, my best friend, megan, with me and then there were a couple other guys in the room and we all had really wonderful camaraderie and just brotherhood, sisterhood, and we had so much fun for a very short period of time Maybe it lasted, maybe a year and then people just left, because people leave and they go to different jobs and leaving that one is very understandable yeah.
Speaker 1:So what happened? There's so many questions I want to ask you, but I want to get to your rescue. How did you get to where you are now with God? It had to start somewhere, like what happened to you, where you finally, like, took a turn.
Speaker 2:Well, April 23rd 2013, I was at FBI training in the middle of Oklahoma and I met this dorky prosecutor who was very poorly flirting with me and we trauma bonded. Essentially, he had the same background that I had worked the same kind of cases and he's nurturing and kind and we were able to discuss all of these things. You couldn't talk about it with anybody else. I mean, I'm glad that most people don't know what that is, because I don't want people to have the mental affliction of remembering things or thinking about things. Even just stories you hear is going to put something in your head. I don't want that. I don't want that for people. But with Ryan, who's now my husband, he didn't have anybody to talk to about it either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he didn't have anybody to talk to about it either. And so we met and it was just immediate, just talking. We talked that first night till three in the morning in the middle of an FBI training center cafeteria.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, like sitting out there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like sitting out there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I bet that had to feel so healing to start that process of being able to talk to someone about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I felt uncomfortable at first because it's like oh, what am I allowed to say? Is this going to be offensive to him? Yeah, but he has a unique ability to give other people permission to be themselves and to talk, and I think I have that as well, and so we just were just symbiotic with us. So it's been that way ever since.
Speaker 1:So you talked about seeing a sign at a church, in a church parking lot or something. Can you tell us about that story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was about, say, 2015 or so, really just deep into the numbness and the anger and not understanding how these things can happen to children and feeling just a lot of despair. And earlier, when I said I couldn't think of a word, despair is the word and that's how I felt. That's how I felt. So I was driving in a blizzard in northern Ohio talking to my now husband who wasn't my husband then on the phone, and I had to pull over because it was just a whiteout condition. So I pulled over into a church parking lot and looked up and saw a sign and the scripture on the sign was surely the goodness of God will follow me all the days of my life. And I thought, wait a second.
Speaker 2:I have this wonderful friend and Ryan and I have beautiful, healthy children. No matter what I've done wrong, I'm still blessed immeasurably. I'm still alive, because that could have easily been different with all the situations I've been in and I was. I just had a moment of okay, maybe there's something to that and I remember telling Ryan and when you interview Ryan, which you should, he'll remember it too and I told him because he was very touched by it and he started crying. I said you make me feel like I can believe in God again. Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, which leads me to a question how do you reconcile in your mind? Now you know, because that's an amazing thing to say to somebody but how can you believe in God, or how can you think God is good when, like, why are there situations that happen in your mind to children and bad things? I mean, we kind of touched on it earlier, but we really didn't get into the why.
Speaker 2:Just as God is real, satan is real. We live in an evil world really, and if you're not for God, then you are for Satan. There's no neutrality with that, and so the bad things happen because satan's real. Satan's here and is very much here in disguise as good things, many times to trick people. You know he's here to what kill, destroy, still kill, kill and destroy still kill, steal, kill and destroy, so um but jesus.
Speaker 1:He said he came to give us life to the full or abundant life. That's in that same verse. So like you can see the opposite right there in that verse on what Jesus was saying, that there is a battle that's taking place. Yeah, I mean, when I think about, like, when you were in those situations kind of back to that for a second did you feel the dark world? Oh for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I've been on search warrants where I feel, I felt just heaviness, yeah, spiritual oppression and darkness.
Speaker 2:You know, there's the scripture. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against principalities of darkness. Yeah, that is 100% true. Of course, I believe the whole Bible is true, but there are certain scriptures that I know. I've seen it. Yeah, and you know, my best friend and I have really great conversations sometimes and she asked me how can you believe in God when you've seen the things that we've seen? And I explained to her the same way. But I've also seen the glory of God and the goodness of God in my own life.
Speaker 1:Yes, which I think that's a very interesting thing. You've seen both sides of it, but you've seen the glory and the goodness of God in your own life and I was talking to you yesterday about how, as Methodists, we believe that we call it provenient grace and it's the grace that hunts you down, it's the grace that goes before you, the grace that draws you and woos you in. So I think about, like the sign that you saw, you know, but you knew, like when you read it, you're like it did something inside you?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think because my parents, my mom, specifically planted that seed as a child. So once the seed is planted, eventually it's going to be harvested at some point. It just took me a really long time. It was a very slow growing process. It stayed under the dirt for like three decades.
Speaker 1:You know what, though? The prayers of parents, they really go a long way. Yes, I'm sure Is your mother still alive? She is yeah, okay, yeah, so she'd probably go. Yeah, I was praying for that girl. Yeah, so she'd probably go. Yeah, I was praying for that girl, yeah Well she does every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, she still does. She still calls me and she'll start crying and she's wonderful. I have a wonderful mother. My dad passed a while ago, but I have a wonderful mother. Yeah, that's phenomenal.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your healing then, because you talked about how you've had things happen and you see the glory of God. When did you first start experiencing that? I know you. Maybe we should back up a little bit, because you were going through the divorce. Do you want to talk anything about how your son ended up? We don't have to go into the details, but your son you lost custody, or is that, yeah, you lost or no, you were waiting.
Speaker 2:Well, essentially you're correct. So I had to get out of the FBI and I was just look. For years I was looking and people think people think incorrectly that if you work at the FBI you're going to have this golden ticket and you can go anywhere you want. Not true? I think a lot of people are intimidated. You know, people don't want to hire someone that's smarter than them, right?
Speaker 1:You're like and I am and I am. No, I am, I know so.
Speaker 2:I mean, again, I don't have a filter, so I am, I'm smarter than most people, it's fine. And finally, I found a different position, similar to what I was doing at the FBI, in a private sector company, and I happen to be here in Florida, and the man who hired me is one of the few people who's smarter than I am, and he is Ryan's the other one, but yeah, so at that point I had to move to Florida. I'm still working at the FBI and I file a modification so that I can move to Florida and bring my son with me. And at that time this was December 2017, I was told it's probably six to eight weeks and then you can take him to Florida. Okay, fine, so I thought, all right, I can do anything for six to eight weeks. It's been seven years Just drawn out and drawn out and drawn out.
Speaker 1:So your son was up there most of the time Like how did you navigate that?
Speaker 2:I went back and forth to Ohio several times a month. There were times I didn't even know what state I was in because I was just going back and forth, so much. I maintained a second residence in Ohio for years. We just sold that a couple of years ago. The injustice that happened with the first trial was a lot for me to understand, because the court didn't care about previous abuse. The court didn't care about anything. They just didn't like me and some people don't, but, you know, think about what's best for the child. Well, that's the thing, right, yeah, so it's taken seven years and we finally were able to go back to court and I won full custody of my son. It's a huge thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, so during that seven years, do you feel that it's an interesting thing? You could have blamed God for that. I did. Okay, yeah, I did, I did. So when did that shift?
Speaker 2:I think when I started realizing that there could be a purpose. There could be a purpose of why I'm here, because I had doubts that I shouldn't have moved to Florida. I shouldn't have moved to Florida. I shouldn't have moved to Florida. I should have stayed at the FBI. I should have stayed in Ohio, I shouldn't have moved to Florida. Now I'm having all this chaos and my son's having to go back and forth just horrible, all the guilt and the shame of it. Horrible decision. This was really dumb. I should not have done this. I should have thought through this more, not have done this. I should have thought through this more.
Speaker 2:And then something happened with my cousin, who I reconnected with because I was living in Florida and he was in North Carolina and he was coming to Florida to visit me in April of 21. I hadn't seen him in 20 years and we just reconnected Fast forward. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma and we're three months apart in age. So we grew up together as siblings, super close, as children, and he was nearing the end of his life. And I thought and I was like a bold Christian just three years ago, especially with somebody who is a nonbeliever yeah, right, right, but I was faced with this decision of he's going in for brain surgery. He's ending his nearing the end of his life, because nobody survives glioblastoma. It's 100% you die from it in short term. So I thought you know what? I got to talk to him before he goes in for the surgery, because if he dies in the surgery, I don't want Satan taking my cousin, right, I don't want Satan taking my cousin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I reached out to him and I gave him like a salvation plan before and I said look, I know this might seem awkward for you, this is really important to me. Can you please pray before your surgery? And I need you to believe this. And he said I absolutely will. So then I thought, and then he passed away two months later. Had I not moved to Florida, that would have happened, right, what an awesome point. Yeah, met that I've been able to share with them about Christ and Jesus, and you know really hard conversations of. I know you don't believe this. However, what if you're wrong? Yeah, you know, my youngest son also came to know Jesus through this time and my oldest son. I was able to lead both of my sons.
Speaker 1:It's huge, it's not for it. Yeah, because you started seeing the purpose and you see sometimes that in the wilderness, in the waiting that our faith is changed and God uses us, I mean it's our perspectives. It's our perspectives that need to be changed. I know when I always talk about when there was a period of time when Jim and I, after we moved to Florida and then we had a year, jim worked and then I was looking for a job and could never find one and then he couldn't stand where he was working. We came here because of his job and then I said just quit, you're miserable. So he did. But that whole year I could have looked at it and thought this is the worst thing we've ever gone through. But instead God completely transformed my faith because I started believing God, I started walking in the Spirit. I was so happy every day to get up.
Speaker 1:I had no idea where our money was coming from. Literally I didn't know how we were paying bills. I remember writing checks and I said to him I feel like our money is like when Jesus is breaking bread and it keeps going on and on and on in the fish. It doesn't make sense. But my faith changed and the people I interacted with. And when I moved here, the same thing happened with my uncle. I moved here and I hadn't seen my uncle, my father's brother, in years After my dad died he died in 1990, I lost contact with his entire family.
Speaker 1:I didn't know. My uncle lived here and my mom told me he was down here. I called him. He wasn't a believer. He said to me one day, the first time we talked, he said are you one of those Jesus freaks like the rest of the family? And I said I laughed, I said you might say that. So then he started talking about what he believed. And then I don't know if he was, it was some kind of crazy stuff. And he talks about all of it and then he goes. You know, I think we have a lot in common. And I said what do you mean? He goes? We're both very religious. And I said what do you mean? He goes? We're both very religious. And I said well, I'm not religious, I'm passionate about my relationship with Jesus. And then he said why does everybody talk about Jesus all the time? I said you brought it up, but for two years I was able to minister to him and he came to Christ and it was like maybe two months before he died, and that happened with multiple people, same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when people have that reaction when you're talking about Jesus, it's almost like they treat believers like we are crazy or like there's something wrong with us Right, but they don't know what. They don't know, right, and if they did know they wouldn't be acting like that. So you know, I thought the other day. You know, we can't be surprised when spiritually dead people act like they're spiritually dead.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a great thing to say.
Speaker 2:That's right Of course they're going to mock and persecute and laugh at you and think you're crazy. Okay, I love when that happens, because I know that I'm going to be blessed beyond measure for enduring that. Yeah, so you know, in my custody trial this last time, the other side was coming at me. You think God's on your side, don't you? Yep, you think you are chosen? Yes, I do. You think you're anointed, don't you? Yes, smirking, laughing, laughing, and I thought this is wonderful because now you're picking a fight with a whole different yeah, army here. That's it.
Speaker 1:Bring it on keep fine, yeah, but you said something, didn't you? Did you say something to them like, but it's for you too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said it's a free gift. Everyone here can have it. It's for you too, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the. I mean I love that, I love that and I love that. You know, look how you. Maybe you probably wouldn't have said that, maybe I'm wrong, but you probably wouldn't have said that a few years before that.
Speaker 2:No, no, I am. The boldness that I have for Christ is something I've never known before. It's a fire in me that is new in the last year or so.
Speaker 1:You know, in Acts, in the book of Acts, Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came, he came and gave them power to witness boldness. And when you do like a study of the book of Acts, it's brilliant, it's amazing, you see them acting out. It of the book of Acts, it's brilliant, it's amazing, you see them acting out. It's the power of the Holy Spirit on you. And the power of the Holy Spirit comes, you know, when we allow the Holy Spirit, when we surrender, allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and it's not us anymore, we're in there. But I mean, then the Holy Spirit is controlling us and that's what he wants us to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I do that often. And in a different hearing I hadn't said any words at all and I was just praying to myself. Holy Spirit, come and out of the blue, I just started speaking with my ex-husband and I explained that I had chosen to forgive him and it wasn't a decision or nothing between me and you. It's just between me and God and I don't want to harbor the anger anymore. And I asked that you forgive me as well. And nobody had anything to say, it was just speechless.
Speaker 2:And then fast forward a couple months to trial. I was accused of being manipulative and insincere and posturing. But since two years ago, three years ago, I might have thought, oh my goodness, I thought I was sincere, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe they're right, doubt, but not in this instance, because I know I wasn't saying those words. Because how can I say those words to a man who hurt me and my children so much? That's right If you told me even six months ago you know, six months before that occurred I was going to do that. No way, I'll never forgive that.
Speaker 1:Forgive that, but I have, yeah, and it's obvious. I mean I see it, forgive that, forgive that. But I have, yeah, and it's obvious, I mean I see it in you. So. But I want to get to something because you know we haven't really honed in on what happened. So you're at the FBI, you're in the middle of turmoil, your marriage is falling apart, you don't have custody of your child, you move down here, la la la. It's like you're seeing God pursue you. You know that. What did you start doing that really changed you, so that you began hearing from God and began walking out what God was asking you to do and being able to forgive what really changed in your life?
Speaker 2:I had a phone conversation with my youngest son's teacher or therapist at the time, and she encouraged me you need to write these things down, you need to write a book because this is going to help somebody. And I thought no. So I had a journal and so I just started writing things down, and then I started writing scripture down, and then I started Were you reading the Bible Reading.
Speaker 2:no, my phone Just my phone Okay okay, I mean no, I was reading an actual Bible, but no, I was reading an actual Bible, but I mean you were reading.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I downloaded the Bible app. I'm writing scripture. I'm trying to find scripture that applies to my life, that could help me, and I'm just writing it down. And then I was listening to a book by Priscilla Shire out on a walk during this is COVID, like early COVID, Maybe? Yeah, like 2021 COVID. Covid, like early COVID, maybe? Yeah, like 2021 COVID. And I said the book was Discerning the Voice of God and the advice in it was surround yourself with godly women. Here I am in Florida. I have no friends. I have nobody. I have one girlfriend. She is still in Ohio. I don't have anybody here.
Speaker 2:And that night, the wife of one of my husband's co-workers at his law firm at the time sent me a Facebook message and said hey, we're starting a new Bible study group. Do you want to join us? We have room for one more person. And earlier in the day I loved the Priscilla Shire book, so I went and found another one and added it to my Amazon cart, and it was Isaiah. So it was in my Amazon cart, although I didn't buy it. And then here it is, five hours later. My friend Jessica says can you want to join this Bible study group? And I said what book is it? She said we're doing Isaiah by Priscilla Shire. And I was just blown away because I had put that in my Amazon cart five hours earlier. That's no coincidence.
Speaker 2:And so it was such a short period of time where I had this passing thought and I wouldn't even have considered it a prayer, because growing up it's like super formal, you know, it's like you pray and you have to do sit a certain way, and that's not true at all. I have a running conversation with God all day. Ryan's like who are you talking to? It's like Jesus. Running conversation with God all day. Ryan's like who are you talking to? I was like Jesus.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, when I was walking in my neighborhood, I just said you know, God, lead me to a group of godly women. And it happened within hours and that, I think, was a pivotal moment. That really was the catalyst to get me to where I am today, Because the growth and the learning of all these women has been so impactful, and the friendships. And then I meet Shauna and then I end up coming here and it's just, it's really a wonderful story. But had I not moved to Florida, I wouldn't know any of these things. So the doubt of I shouldn't have moved to Florida is gone completely for me now, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1:And now you have, you receive the Newsy of full custody of your son. So, like it's, all kind of come full circle.
Speaker 2:It's all come full circle. There's a lot of chaos that's still happening from the other side because of course, there's objections and appeals and all that kind of thing, but God did not bring me this far to say, oh, I'm just kidding, absolutely. So it's a lot of work on Ryan's part because he is my attorney for free and it's just a lot of unnecessary chaos. Yeah, but you know, they can spend their wheels and spend money and a man's not going to overturn what God did. No, it's just not going to happen. So is there?
Speaker 1:anything else. I mean, we have so much to talk about, but I think your story is compelling. I think there's a lot of hope because I don't know anybody else who's gone through what you've gone through emotionally, and you didn't even touch the tip of the iceberg with all the stuff that's going on, that happened to your personal life. But you went through so much there and then your work life was total chaos and pain and difficulty and I look at you now and like no one would ever know. But you have your own business and you're working on that and you have your family, and is there anything you want to say to anybody, anything else that you want to say about your life or to encourage anybody who's watching?
Speaker 2:A lot of my confusion always surfaced with my inability to trust my own judgment. What if I do the wrong thing? What if I? Because it's like, oh, I'm gonna make a wrong decision and this and this happens, and then, if this happens, and all these what ifs? And I learned that not every decision is a right or wrong decision. Some decisions are right or left decisions, yeah, and you just have to pick. And then you have to trust that, no matter if it's right or left decision, that God will lead you to where you need to be anyway, because even if you're meant to be here and you take the right, you're still going to end up here. Right, if you're yielding and you have a. That's right.
Speaker 2:If you have a relationship with God. An actual relationship with God you can believe in God is different than actually following and having a relationship, because if you don't have the relationship with God, then you won't know what you're supposed to do because you're not hearing it. So, for me, one transformative thing that I implemented in the last year is fasting, fasting and prayer several days my husband does it as well and really hard things. So I fasted before I got my custody decision and it was like God was in my living room and said Heather, look at the journal entry from this time last year. And I did. And it was the day that we filed our motion to modify and it was Good Friday and my husband and I prayed over it before we filed it and God said you're done fasting today, go eat something. This is going to be done by Good Friday this year. And I was just like, ok, I'm going to go make a burger, like I was. It was just done.
Speaker 2:And then I was challenged by a friend that said what if you prayed forever with the same fervor that you did? My name is it the name? What if you prayed for your ex-husband with the same amount of fervor and focus that you did for the end of the custody case and I did, although I did not want to be hungry for my ex-husband. It's like that's a really hard thing to do, god.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I did, and I made sure I fasted a couple more hours to make sure I didn't skimp on it. I made sure I fasted a couple more hours to make sure I didn't skimp on it. And I was just praying Ezekiel 36, 26, that God will turn his heart of stone to a heart of flesh and that he will know the sovereignty of God, and I pray blessings for him. Yeah, and it gives me a lot of peace because I know it ultimately is his decision. But I've done everything I can do on my end. That's right, and I want my son to have a wonderful father Of course you do.
Speaker 2:How great would that be if he were to change and just be this wonderful dad to my son. So I want that for him and I don't want anybody being on Satan's team, even my worst enemy. I don't want them going to hell. That's it. That's right.
Speaker 1:So no, those are excellent words, excellent words of advice. Well, I really am grateful that you came on and I'm looking forward to more conversations with you, maybe you and Ryan together, yeah, Ryan and I together, or my friend who is still at the Bureau yeah, ryan and I together.
Speaker 2:Or my friend who is still at the Bureau. She and I would be really good to have on too, because we have really great conversations back and forth and we do not believe the same things at all, but we love each other just the same.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, I love that. Well, we'll have to make that happen. You get her down here, we'll do it. Yeah, she won't come down.
Speaker 2:Oh, she won down. She'll go on Zoom. She hates traveling Zoom.
Speaker 1:I've done Zoom too, well, awesome. Well, thanks for coming today and look forward to a future interview. Yes, and if anybody, I'll put the notes in about your company and all that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you, and I'll see you Sunday, yeah.
Speaker 1:See you then. Bye.