Soul Food
Soul Food
The Naked Truth: Chaos
What happens when the people proclaiming faith on Sunday mornings become monsters behind closed doors? Kimberly's raw testimony exposes the devastating impact of religious hypocrisy and generational abuse that nearly destroyed her life. But this isn't just a story of trauma—it's a powerful testimony of transformation. Kimberly reveals how authentic faith helped her become "the center of the hurricane," finding calm amid life's storms.
Have you been living with family dysfunction that feels impossible to overcome? Remember Jeremiah's powerful words: "There is nothing too hard for you, Lord." Your impossible family situation can become the setting for God's transformative power.
Now streaming on all major podcast platforms, edifying your mind, body and soul. We welcome you to listen now to Soul Food with your main host, bishop Joshua. Here we are always ready to share a word of faith. Unpack powerful testimonies and divinely inspired music to enhance your faith. Walk, feed your faith wherever you go, quench your spiritual hunger. Give the food that lasts forever.
Speaker 3:Here on the Soul Food Podcast Once again, together with the Naked Truth, the segment of our program where we uncover the truth. We show the way it is with facts, evidences and stories that are real. Not stories that are made up, but stories that are real, because we are human beings like you. Yes, we are. We feel what we feel. We have the same problems you have. We overcame these problems and now we are here to show to you what to do and how to do it to overcome.
Speaker 3:I have this Bible verse that says I'm reading here Jeremiah 32, 17. Jeremiah said Our Lord God, our Lord God, behold, you have made the heavens and the earth, the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you. That was his statement. He said there is nothing too hard for you. You are the one who created heavens and earth. There is nothing too hard for you. What has been too hard for you? What has been so impossible for you? What is your impossible case? You have something in life that has been impossible. What has been impossible for you? Is there anything too hard for God? No, there is nothing that is too hard for God. He is the one that can make your impossibilities become possible in your life.
Speaker 3:Together with me, I have Kimberly all the way from Louisiana. She's our guest today and she's going to reveal the truth. She's going to tell you how her life, the dark side of her life. Now, of course, she has a different light. The light of God has shined upon her and the dark side of her life was expelled by different light. The light of God has shined upon her and the dark side of her life was expelled by the light. Where the light comes, darkness has to vanish. Hello Kim, how are you? Thank you for joining me here in the Naked Truth.
Speaker 3:Hi how are you?
Speaker 4:I'm very well, how are?
Speaker 3:you Good, good. Thank you for joining us, and I want you to start by saying talking about the dark side of your life. How dark was it?
Speaker 4:It was as if I were living in another world compared to the one I'm living in now. It was absolute misery. It was full of hate and anger. Actually, anger is a small word compared to how I felt it was full of rage, it was. I was just so full of rage. It was the only emotion really left inside me.
Speaker 3:Right, tell me now. Rage, it was the only emotion really left inside me, right? Uh? Tell me now what was the problem. How did your suffering begin?
Speaker 4:it began, really began. The root was in my family, a long time before it actually affected me personally. Um, my great-grandfather was a hardcore alcoholic that used to beat my great-grandmother, really beat her, and then my grandmother was beaten and ironically she became abusive to her own children, which was my mother. So my mother was abused, physically abused terribly, and that made my mother really weak. Actually, my mom was scared of people, scared to stand up for herself, and that started the root in my own life. Because my mom was afraid to stand up for herself, afraid to stand up for her own rights as a human being, and so when she was faced with difficulties, she folded. She wasn't strong enough to stand up for her kids and my father, when I was a little girl, abandoned our family. She got remarried to someone who was a Christian on the outside but was not a Christian on the inside. Hold on for a second.
Speaker 3:Hold on for a second. I want you to explain that to me A Christian outside, but not a Christian inside.
Speaker 4:He was a deacon in the church. My mom was at one point the choir director. She was a Sunday school teacher. They did all kinds of volunteer work in the church, but at home it was a totally different story. It was constant fighting, screaming, throwing things, hitting, beatings. And when I say constantly, I lived in fear constantly, every single day. Honestly, I lived in fear. I was afraid constantly. And my stepfather used to yell so loudly that the neighbors later told me that they could hear him. With our front door shut, across the street, with their front door shut, they could hear him inside their house.
Speaker 3:That's how loud he would yell. So we have seen that in your case. There you came from problems to problems. So, grandmother, mother, you abandoned by your, your father. She remarried and now it seems that she had everything to work, the relationship to rebuild the family, but then you found yourself having a stepfather that was having this kind of double life In the church was one, in the home was another person. Let us watch now what people say Behind closed doors, outside one person, but behind closed doors Somebody else.
Speaker 5:Sunday morning you wake the kids, your husband, you prepare breakfast and you're off to another great Sunday morning service, going to church as a happy family. Apparently, there is no problems. But what happens as soon as you go home? Fights, division, lack of communication, addiction, unfaithfulness, misery. You put on a smile every Sunday, but your life is falling apart. Is it worth it?
Speaker 3:So behind closed doors you are somebody else. In church everybody prays, worships God, but behind closed doors you are somebody else. You can call us 1-888-332-4141. Call this number or else you can send us a text. The text number is there 1-888-312-4141. This is my text number. You can send a text asking for help, spiritual help, for counseling, and I will be able to assist you. Let me speak again to Kim Kimberly from Louisiana. So you were facing many problems in your childhood. How did it affect you? Your sister, your mother? Because now you had a man that was the stepdaddy in the church, who was a Christian. Inside of home was somebody else.
Speaker 4:Well, you know I was here. It was interesting because the pastor of our church, I believe, really had the Holy Spirit. He would preach about Jesus and about salvation and he would give examples of from the things that Jesus did, the way that he lived, the way that he treated people, and I took that inside me. I really, I really took that in and I realized that was the right way to live and that was the way life was supposed to be if you were close to God. But I was seeing the exact opposite at my house and it made me have this really bad attitude towards church, towards religion. I really hated hypocrisy. I didn't respect my parents at all because I looked at them as the world's biggest hypocrites. I hated them. It really created a hatred for my parents inside me and it cut me off about church In this way.
Speaker 3:Many people do not want to go to church, especially the teenagers. We have seen nowadays the teens that they hate going to church because they see what you saw the parents in the church, beautiful smile like a happy family, but going home fights problems, disagreements.
Speaker 4:Exactly. And the other thing that really got to me was that there were people who knew how bad it was for me at home. Other adults knew it was very hard to hide, but there were other adults who knew who did nothing about it, which just made me angrier, you know. There were other family members who knew. There were teachers who knew, the school principal who knew. There were Sunday school teachers who knew. There were people in the church who knew about it. There were many people who knew how bad it was for us at home and did nothing to help the kids. Nothing, you know, and the kids we're stuck in it. There's no way out for us. Nothing, you know, and the kids we're stuck in it.
Speaker 3:There's no way out for us.
Speaker 7:Right.
Speaker 3:Talking about yourself, your life, growing up, a teenager, an adult, a woman. How much did you suffer?
Speaker 4:It turned me into honestly. It turned me into a terrible human being. It made me. It enraged me to the point where I was cold hearted. It made me miserable. It made me hate life. It made me hate myself. It made me just to the point where, you know, I was listening to a news report about a man who killed his children and his wife because he just wanted.
Speaker 4:He just couldn't take the sound of the screaming and arguing anymore and it made me remember the kind of pressure that that kind of life puts you under. It's like a terrible pressure. It's like a pressure cooker of rage and hate and you just can't, you just feel like you can't take it anymore. You just want it to end and at some point you really don't even care how it ends, you just want it finished because, and at some point you really don't even care how it ends, you just want it finished because you can't take it anymore. So I think when it gets to an extreme level, you either become homicidal or you become suicidal. It's bad. People who have never been in it cannot imagine the pressure.
Speaker 3:That's why you say that you became a terrible human being. If you are watching us listen to her story and you say I relate to it, I am facing the same problems Kimberly had in life. Actually, you do not have a family. You don't. You do not have a family. What you have is a lot of people under the same roof, but you do not have a family at all. If your family is stark or falling apart, or it already is destroyed, so then this Sunday we are going to cry out and pray to rebuild your family.
Speaker 8:Don't stop listening. Soul Food has more to feed you. You are listening to Soul Food with Bishop Joshua. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2:Went to the grave expecting to anoint a dead body. They saw the angel sitting there and they said said, where is Jesus? The angel said he is not here, he is risen. I submit to you tonight that that's the greatest news the world has ever heard. He is not here, he has conquered the grave, he's alive you breathe in stars and paint the sky.
Speaker 7:Yet hear me every time I cry. The king of heaven knows my name and still you love me just the same. The storms obey your sovereign call, yet you still catch me when I fall. Your mercy wakes me every day. You lead my feet and light my way. No choir could sing what you deserve, but still I offer heart and word. From ash to gold. You lift and raise. So here I stand with all my praise From nothing you have made me whole. With every breath I bless my soul. All my praise I lift to you For all you've done and still will do. You took my pain, replaced it whole. To you, my God, I give all praise.
Speaker 6:Used to chase dreams that left me empty. Now I'm running with the God who defends me. Didn't earn a thing, but he gave me breath, pulled me up out of sin, even near to death. Man, I was broken. He go loud like thunder. Now I drop to my knees full of holy wonder. He turned my guilt into grace, fear into power. Now I walk in the truth every second, every hour. No stage, no fame, no check could replace what I feel when I'm caught in the arms of his grace.
Speaker 6:People think strength is a flex or a throne, but real strength found when you trust him alone. This ain't just a song, this is war cry. Praise for the king who broke every one of my chains. So I don't need y'all, don't need the applause, just hands to the sky and a heart for god. Praise ain't weak. It's the hardest dance to lift your voice when you missed your chance to sing, when the pain still stings inside, to dance when the tears still haven't dried. But I'll praise him still, with the lion's tone, for the battles he fought that I never known, from lost to found. I raised his name, my life, my pen, his holy flame.
Speaker 7:No choir could sing what you deserve. But still I offer Heart and word. From ash to gold. You lifted. From ash to gold. You lifted raise. So here I stand with all my praise From nothing. You have made me whole. With every breath I bless my soul. All my praise I lift to you For all you've done and still will do. You took my pain, replaced it whole. To you, my God, I give all praise.
Speaker 6:Let the beat drop like Jericho's walls, cause when he shows up, every stronghold falls. Didn't need a pulpit, didn't need a crown, just a cross and the blood that holds me down. I was blind to the truth. Now I see real clear. Was a slave to my past. Now I got no fear you could cancel me, mock, block, unfollow. I still praise the one who drank my sorrow. This world don't get why I lift this sound, but I know what it's like to be pulled from the ground. This late religion. It's a rescue call, a savior who stood so I wouldn't fall. So when I rise or when I break, I give them glory for every age, not for show, not for fame no choir I could sing what you deserve, but still I offer heart and word From ash to gold.
Speaker 7:You lifted rays. So here I stand with all my praise, from nothing you have made me whole. With every breath I bless my soul. All my praise I lift to you For all you've done and still will do. You took my pain, replaced it whole. To you, my God, and give all thanks.
Speaker 3:Well, kimberly, your house, your home, was broken. What did you expect for the future back then?
Speaker 4:You know what? I didn't even see a future for myself. I lived literally day to day, day to day. I wanted out of there. So bad I was willing to do anything to get out. I didn't care, I just wanted gone.
Speaker 4:I left when I was 17, at 2 30 in the morning, with a little tiny suitcase and 34 dollars in my pocket. I was out of there. I didn't care if I had to sleep on the street, I didn't care, I was just, I was done. I was absolutely done because I knew, honestly, I had gotten so homicidal. I knew that if I'd stayed I was going to end up killing my stepfather. So I got out because it was. It was a matter of survival to get out. It was that bad. So of course that just set up another decade or two of disaster because I wasn't prepared to get out of my own. But I was so desperate to get out of the situation that I just went from one. I was like a pinball machine. I went from one disaster to another after that. But I didn't care, I just wanted to get out.
Speaker 3:I can't imagine so. By coming to this ministry, what did you learn? What did you do? How is your life now?
Speaker 4:I learned. You know it's interesting, I learned.
Speaker 4:I think I just want to say one small thing, if you're living in a house right now where people break things or your doors are broken, from people kicking them open or slamming them open. You have holes in the wall from the doorknobs. That's a sign that your family desperately needs help. So I want you to think about that for a minute. If you're listening right now and you can look around your house and think about things that have been broken from people being angry or doors that have been opened so hard or kicked open and they're broken, that's a really strong sign that your family is in desperate need of help.
Speaker 3:So you are talking about the things that you used to see inside of your house.
Speaker 4:Yes, for sure, lots of things smashed broken doors, broken holes in the wall, things like that. If you start, if you can think about your house right now or where you live and think about those things happening. Your family desperately needs help, or if you're the one doing them, you desperately need help because those things are not normal. So don't accept those in yourself and don't accept those around and the people around you right, what?
Speaker 3:what is the second thing you want to share with us?
Speaker 4:the second thing is you have to become the center of the hurricane. You have to become the calm in the middle of the hurricane around you. You have to have the holy spirit. You have to have jesus in your life. You have to change first, before anybody else around you will change.
Speaker 3:I was saying today that God always chooses someone. He chose Noah in the days of Noah, the flood. He chose Job in the Bible. He always chooses someone. So, and this person watching us right now, listening to us, you are the one, as she's saying that you have to be, uh, in the midst of this hurricane to calm things down and to overcome. Now, kim, tell us how is your life now?
Speaker 4:my life is like a flower that opened up. It's really, really beautiful, it's peaceful. It's even when things are crazy around me. It's calm in the middle. I'm calm in the middle. Even when things are messed up, I'm calm. I know God is with me. He helps me be strong, even when I have problems and I'm facing something that's difficult. You might be in the craziest of situations that would make a normal person react in a really bad way, but you don't. It's like you're in the craziest of situations that would make a normal person react in a really bad way, but you don't. It's like you're in the middle of this protective bubble and even when things are coming at you they sort of bounce off.
Speaker 4:Well, I have my own business, um, so my financial life is stable. Um, my family is one by one getting better, so I've been fighting for my family and they're getting better. My dad was saved and he passed away last year, but I was at peace with that because I knew he was saved. My mom came into our church, she was delivered, she was baptized, and she's getting stronger every single day, and now I'm working next, I'm working on my sister.
Speaker 4:So, one by one, the dominoes are falling, so my family's getting better. I see progress in my family.
Speaker 6:And I want to talk about my husband.
Speaker 4:I have a really strong man of God in my life. He's a good Christian man. He serves God every single day. We serve God together. So that's the you know. To me that's the second most important thing. So, job, family, my husband, but the most important thing is my spiritual life, and my spiritual life is strong. You know there are families that would scream at each other. You know the husband and wife are beating on each other and it can go both ways.
Speaker 6:It can be the wife beating on the husband or the husband beating on the wife or the kids are coming in and they're saying can you know?
Speaker 4:I'm in the CBC as a Sunday school teacher and the kids are saying my parents need help.
Speaker 3:Now you can help others.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now I want to help other people.
Speaker 3:What's the address of our church over there?
Speaker 4:It's 138 North Broad Street. It's at the intersection of Canal and Broad, basically here in New Orleans. So we're open seven days a week and I love the fact that this church is open seven days a week. When they say it's a non-stop ministry, they're not kidding. We are here, and I say we because I'm part of it we are here for you. Come in, we're here for you.
Speaker 3:Kimberly. Thank you very much. All the best for you and for the family. Bye, bye thank you bye, bye. You see, my friend. What else shall I add to her story? Nothing. You heard the before and after, so you can be the next. This Sunday, at Every Universal Church, a prayer will be made for your family. A family that prays together stays together.
Speaker 9:When a woman gives birth, the sweetest sound to her ears is her newborn baby's cry. She can never forget the first time she hears his voice. Everyone in that delivery room celebrates the beautiful sound. Beautiful because it's a sign of life. But as a child grows, its cry signifies hunger, pain or an unmet need. A cry is like an alarm, demanding a mother's urgent help.
Speaker 9:It is time for you to act, o Lord, for they have regarded your law as void. When she hears her child's cry, a mother instinctively knows it's time to act. And when God, our Father, hears his people crying out with an active faith, he also knows that it's time to act. Evil forces have been lying to God's people, treating God's word as worthless and void. How can we stand by and allow these lies to take hold of us? It's time for God to act, and he is ready to remove the lies and pain from our lives. Yet we need to act our faith first. By standing upon this promise and determining that it will come true for us, our cry of pain to God can transform into a shout of joy for the many blessings we receive. It becomes a sign of new life. Do whatever it takes to show the world that God is alive, that his words are true and that the lies and shame are gone. God is ready to act, are you?
Speaker 3:Even if you do not believe, what God did in the life of Kimberly, he's going to do in yours as well. Let us pray, let us talk to God. This is now the moment of the prayer.
Speaker 5:It's now the moment of prayer. Let us talk to god. Here I am in this moment of prayer.
Speaker 9:So despised without love. Need to talk with my Lord.
Speaker 3:Oh, my Lord, oh my Lord and my Father, god of the Bible, kimberly's family was restored, her life was restored, but there is this person on the other side that is broken. The family is falling apart. Actually, it has already fallen. There is nothing good to tell about this family. Oh Lord, is there anything too hard for you? There is nothing too hard for you. You are the creator of heavens and earth. You can create a new life for this person. Enter this body, lord. Remove this pain. Take away this pain that is consuming this body day by day.
Speaker 3:Lord, jesus Christ, I ask you that you may change, transform the life of this person that just lost someone, a family member. There is this person that lost the place to stay. She's going crazy day by day. Oh Lord, come to heal this broken heart, come to heal the soul that is bitter. Lord Jesus, this person cannot sleep. Is there anything impossible for you? No, lord, there is nothing, absolutely nothing impossible for you. So I pray for the transformation, for the change of this person's life. You can do that, my Lord. Oh, yes, you can do that. So transform this. Oh, yes, you can do that. So transform this person's life. Let your peace, yes, your peace shine upon this person's life. Wipe away their tears. My God, remove their sadness. Let this person that is sick be healed. Those who are on addictions crack, cocaine, marijuana deliver this person once and for all, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When this person drinks of this water, will you drink thy power In Jesus' name, amen, amen.
Speaker 7:This water is blessed. This is the power of God. With where to turn, don't know where to turn and all the dreams you're dreaming seem to lose their meaning.
Speaker 3:The Lord. God heard our prayers and our voice. If you need spiritual help, do what Kimberly did. She came to us. Her life was transformed. 7075 Southwest Freeway. The church is just between Baleia and Hillcroft. Open every single day, seven days a week. All right, I finish right now the program. May the God of the Bible bless all of you. I'll be here for you.
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