There’s a Way Out: Podcast S1 E1

This is my personal experience of how the thing that I thought made me free, was actually the thing holding me captive. And unfortunately, this thing is very normalized in today’s culture.

***I would like to disclose that if you are: 1. Triggered by talking about substance use ; 2. Are under the age of 18, please consult with your parent/guardian first before reading this or listening to the podcast below. ***

Deep down I knew I wanted to change, but I was in this vicious cycle and couldn’t see an end in sight. I’m talking about smoking weed. I preferred to be numb than having to deal with the reality of life. Even if I tried to step away, I’d always tell myself “Oh I’ll just smoke once today and that will be enough to get me through”. It was never enough for me.

I couldn’t step away from it with just my own power. I got to the lowest point mentally in my life before I figured out that my crystals and manifesting wasn’t actually working, clearly. As a conspiracy theorist also, I kept digging for the truth since apparently new age stuff was not working for me.

The truth I found at the end of all my rabbit holes was Jesus. I didn’t have anything to lose at this point. And if you choose to do the same, you’ll soon find out that you are going to gain everything when you lose “this world”.

You are welcome to read the blog itself, or listen to the podcast I have linked below with the same information. I may add some extra commentary in this blog.

If you don’t have Spotify you can listen on YouTube instead below

Welcome to my podcast ‘Reflecting The Son’. My name is Charlee, and I am an ex-new ager, born again, Jesus lover. My goal with this podcast is to reflect The Light that The Lord has shined on me, so that maybe I can help ignite something in you too.

Now, I don’t know if you know me in real life and are reading this, but just keep an open mind and remember that The Lord helped me change, and not to judge me on my past. Every part of our life has it’s purpose and I do not regret my past because I am now able to use it to bring glory to Him.

If you’re thinking, oh this is a Christian podcast? This really isn’t for me. Well just wait a minute because I actually think I want to talk to you more than my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Before I get into this, I just want to say that I was not always a Jesus follower. That’s kind of why I’m on here. It’s to testify how He has changed me without me even having to do anything. And maybe you’re thinking, “oh, well He’s gonna change me? Well I don’t want any part of that.” Let me tell you, He is going to bring out the absolute best in you, that you didn’t know even existed. And maybe you’re thinking, “oh, well I just have some bad habits”. Well I’m gonna tell you that those bad habits are the thing that are dragging you down. Those are the things that are gonna keep you from being your best self.

Similarly to how The Lord gave us free will (because He doesn’t want to force you to love Him), I can’t force you to change, or want to change to be a better person. But I’m gonna tell you right now that if you do choose to follow Him, you life’s about to get a whole lot better.

I have struggled with anxiety for literally as far as I can remember. I couldn’t do anything. I had to have my mom do the most basic things for me because I was too scared to interact with other people. And scared of what they thought about me. But The Lord took that from me . Like He literally lifted it right off my shoulders. I feel like I just woke up one day and I was good.

It’s the confidence in Christ. You’re no longer doing things not being confident within yourself anymore, it’s more so being confident because you have Jesus. Your confidence source changes from just you to you’re confident because you have Him. And I think that makes the entire difference.

Instead of doing everything on your own behalf, you are kinda backing things up with living on His behalf. So let’s say The Lord told me to go give someone $20. Well I’m gonna have an easier time doing it if The Lord insisted I do it. I suppose I would simply walk up and tell them The Lord told me to give you this, here you go. Not only were you able to do this because the confidence of Jesus being the one that told you to do it, but also because you gave glory to Him. It’s no longer about you. You’re putting the focus on Him. Which is what we want to do anyway so we can bring more people to Him.

Anyone who has anxiety or depression knows that you literally can’t help yourself. That’s literally where The Lord steps in. You just need to ask Him to take that, bring it to His feet, and ask him. Lord, take this anxiety and depression off of me because you are the one that offered to carry my burden. He WANTS to do it for you.

Okay let’s take this scenario. Let’s say that you were at a restaraunt. Tell me which situation would be easier. Asking for more ketchup if you needed it for yourself, or if your grandma needed ketchup and she needed you to ask for it. Well I’m gonna place my bets on it’s probably easier getting ketchup for your grandma, and I know that because I have lived this life of anxiety.

Okay well Charlee, I don’t really care about that stuff but I am just so anxious all the time about how I look. Well my answer to that would be you’re soon going to start to care a lot less about what man thinks, and a lot more about what God thinks. And boy, I am feeling The Holy Spirit right now, so I know I am getting somewhere. I really hope that I am speaking to somebody right now.

I am living proof this works. I never took any medication to “fix” my anxiety or depression. When I started learning about The Lord, and growing my relationship with Him, this stuff just started disappearing. It’s like I didn’t even know what it was anymore, and that leads me to my next point.

A very common coping mechanism this day in age happens to be smoking pot. If you are not aware of this, it’s likely they are very good at hiding it, I know I was! Most of my family would be SHOCKED at this information. I don’t care about that though, because The Lord is using this information of my past to further His Kingdom.

I could not go anywhere or do anything, or talk to people without smoking. I was high a lot of the time. I don’t and you don’t realize how heavy the chain of needing to smoke weed to be able to function is. A lot of people like to throw out the argument that “well following The Lord isn’t having freedom. He says i can’t do this or that”. But my question to you is, do you really feel free having to depend on smoking weed to do the littlest things every single day?

If you’re starting to feel an anger or a resistance to what I’m saying, it’s probably conviction. My goal is not to condemn you, just to get you thinking about what smoking weed actually is for you. And you might feel like I’m judging you, but i literally lived this life for over 5 years, every single day. And the thing is, maybe you’re turned off from Christianity because you feel like you were judged right off the bat. That’s not what I am trying to do here.

I disagree when older Christians, or mature Christians decide that somebody is not changing soon enough. When someone starts to find The Lord, some people change quickly, others it takes more time. It’s not up to us to decide the timing on that because that is not trusting The Lord’s timing. We are here to plant seeds. Not plant, water, AND harvest!

If you are the girl that I used to be, I just want to encourage you that the more you crack open your bible, maybe you don’t have a bible yet or have ever opened one. I’ve opened a bible in my childhood, but I never really decided to do it for myself because I wanted to. No one is saying you’re going to change overnight, but the minute you open a bible, The Lord is gonna start working in you as you read more and get to know Him.

I literally woke up one day and He took the desire to smoke weed right out of me. He literally took it out and it has been the most freeing thing for me. My mind has never been so clear. Like I said I am not here to judge you, I am here to encourage you, because if I can do it, the girl who was literally bound up, (imagine me being chained up) that’s literally what it felt like inside my brain.

If The Lord was able to break those chains off of me, He can do it for you too but you do have to ask. Because The Lord doesn’t force His healing , miracles, love upon you. You have to want to seek Him in order to receive what He wants to give you. That’s why He gave us free will. he doesn’t want somebody to feel forced to spend time with Him. It needs to be your derision. That’s how much The Lord loves us. He wants to give us that choice even though your choice could be leading you away from Him for the rest of eternity.

The Lord says in Matthew 7  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. And Matthew 17 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

You guys just need to have some faith. That’s also the other thing. You can’t be asking for something and not believing that He’s actually gonna do it. Like you need to have full faith that He can and will. I know and you know that you are capable of so much more. And it’s gonna take some effort I’m not gonna lie, but it will pay off. I promise The Lord wants to do most of the work.

I kinda wanna end by saying this. you do not need to be perfect to come to The Lord. If you are still stuggling, that is more of a reason to come to Him and ask for His help. He does not need you to be perfect, and you know , maybe you’ve had a relationship with a parent where you just never felt like you were perfect enough for them. That is not how Jesus works. He will take you as you are, and He will help change you and shape you into the best version of yourself. I am still working on myself, but I can attest to that wholeheartedly. I never thought that I would be where I am right now.

Eventually, you’re gonna get to a certain point in your relationship with Jesus that even just thinking about the sins that you do, you’re not gonna be tempted by them anymore. You know that it’s gonna hurt The Lord and because of how much He cares for you, you don’t want to let Him down. He forgives true repentance, but we should not be sinning with the mindset that the bad things we do are okay because “He’ll forgive you”. That is not true repentance.

It’s going to become a true reality and keep you from doing those things that drag you down. He really does care and love each and every one of us. Even if you think it’s impossible with how many people are on earth, he has shown me so many times how much He personally loves me. How intimately he’s shown things that were not mean’t for anybody else except for me. Things that no one has known what a certain thing that He’s done for me meant, and that’s the thing about our God. He is very intimate and will show you things that were not meant for anyone to see except for you. It’ll open your eyes so much to how much He deeply cares about each and every one of us.