Real Stories And A Big Question

Announcer 0:01

It's time now to get the out of your life, a weekly broadcast with real people, real struggles, and authoring real thoughts. Now let's join our host, Ron Myers, the provider.

Ron Meyers 0:22

Hello there, my friends. I'm Ron Myers. And before I get started, let me ask you my favorite question. Have you had your conversations with Jesus this past week? Because sometimes those conversations happen when life is going great. And sometimes they happen when life looks nothing like we thought it would. Today I'm going to introduce you to Brandy. One thing life has taught me is that you can look at somebody from the outside and absolutely have no idea what they have walked through. We see where they are today, but we don't see the battles, the disappointments, the wrong turns are those moments when God was quietly working behind the scenes. That's why I love to chase real stories. Not perfect stories, not polished up church stories, but real stories. Because somewhere in another person's story, we often recognize a little bit of our own. And maybe today you're wondering, can God take the pieces of your life, the good, the bad, and even the things you wish had never happened, and somehow use them for something greater? I believe he can. And Brandy's story is a reminder that your past doesn't get the final word on your future. So wherever you are right now, listen closely. You may discover that something Brandy says is exactly what you needed to hear today. Here's Brandy's story.

Divorce Trauma And Seeds Of Rejection

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Okay, Brandy Melbourne. Again, I live in Texas. I am a full-time working single mom and run a nonprofit in my free time. My story is at a really young age, my parents divorced. I was 10. So that's really the first time I ever really experienced a trauma. And coming into something like that happening and you're thinking it's just a dream and your world kind of falling apart, I didn't grow up with the Lord. So we didn't, I didn't know to pray. I didn't have a relationship with the Lord. And and that's really when the enemy began just planting seeds of rejection and abandonment and not really understanding what love is and what that looks like because to me it looks really disposable. My mother moved about three hours away, my dad and my older brother. So at that point, I finally became an only child living with a single mom. I wasn't promiscuous growing up at all. Actually, it was the opposite. I didn't trust men, I didn't like men. So I really didn't date when I did. I dated in high school, and all of those walls came crashing down with this this one. And then he broke my heart. And at that point, I decided I was gonna say who, I was gonna say when, I was gonna say how. And really this rebelliousness rose up in me. About two days after I turned 18, I moved out of my mother's house, and that began my downward spiral. Um, I didn't know how to make a good choice. I didn't know how to process decision making at all. Landed myself in a severely abusive relationship. About a year, year and a half into that relationship, I I got pregnant and and I chose abortion. By the grace of God, I I came out of that relationship, but with no self-esteem, no self-worth. At this point, I was completely isolated away from my family. I had no relationship with my dad, siblings really, and I was living this crazy lifestyle. I began working in the strip club industry. That became my lifestyle. I literally put a price on my value and my work. I mean, that wow, like I said, that was my lifestyle.

Ron Meyers 4:10

Before the divorce, what was life like for little brandy? Were you the typical girl that, you know, played with the little Barbie dolls and went to pageants or did the little things that little girls do in the neighborhood?

SPEAKER_03 4:24

No, we we actually lived in the country. So we had we had farm animals, we had chickens and pigs and horses and dogs and cats. I was usually outside, running through a pasture, playing hide-and-go seek in the woods with my brother.

Ron Meyers 4:39

We had just a very outdoorsy before the divorce, how was your relationship with your parents? Could you go to them and talk to them about anything?

SPEAKER_03 4:48

No, we were all kind of really emotionally detached. Now looking back, I can see that. I think at that time being the little girl and ten years old, what you have you think is normal. You don't think you just don't think that what you have is outside of the box or it's not normal. So it was completely normal for me. Now looking back, um, there wasn't a lot of emotional relationships. There wasn't a whole lot of nurturing. And we did things, but like I said, there was just no there was no emotional relationships.

Ron Meyers 5:21

After the divorce, what was your life like during that time?

SPEAKER_03 5:26

I lived in the country and so I was I was totally used to that kind of an atmosphere. And when my mother moved, we moved to Irving, Texas. So it was culture shock for me. And then she was a working single mom, so we lived in an apartment complex. So then my life goes to being in a town where I mean a big city that I didn't I didn't know anybody. And so I was having to and I'm introverted, so introverts just don't go out and meet people. So I was very secluded, very isolated. And then the few friends that I did find in the apartment complex, they just weren't real great examples. So I mean, that was it. Like it was just a complete culture shock for me.

Abuse Abortion And Collapsing Self-Worth

Ron Meyers 6:10

Listeners, I'm visiting with Brandy Milburn of Texas. Brandy's story is an incredible story. A young girl that experienced loneliness when her parents divorced when she was only 10 years old. But Brandy, I've got to ask you, you're in an abusive relationship with a man. Why did you stay with him when he was being abusive?

SPEAKER_03 6:30

By the time, I will say the enemy had already started mentally beating me up. And like I said, planting those seeds and just confirming them. So when I would, you know, look for those things, he would confirm the negative about me. So by the time someone actually throws the first punch, you absolutely believe that this is what you deserve. And that's where I was, is I I didn't feel like I deserved anything better than that.

Ron Meyers 6:57

What would make you think, and you can I didn't mean to interrupt, what would make you think though you deserve to be abused?

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Just when you have no self-esteem or no self-worth. And like I said, the just the distance between, you know, my dad and my brother, and my dad living his life three hours away, there wasn't really any connection. The visitation was hit or miss. There was no emotional. So I had already picked up I'm I'm not worthy and I'm not loved. And I didn't know what pursuit looked like from a father. And so I just had no self-worth, no value that I didn't feel like I deserved anything better. It was just, it was a mental. And then when I started making the decisions that I made, like having an abortion, I mean, I didn't tell anybody about that. I was carrying that solely all by myself.

Buying Affirmation With A Body

Ron Meyers 7:48

After you had that abortion, because eventually you broke up with this gentleman that kind of forced you to have an abortion. So he goes away, and all of a sudden, Brandy, you're all alone. So during that time after the abortion and alone, you had to be in a very vulnerable state.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

And I escaped that with a strip club. So as sick as it sounds, you could go to a strip club and men would give you money because they thought you were pretty. And so at that point, I was literally putting a price on my value and my worth.

Ron Meyers 8:24

The more money they give you and the more gentlemen that want you, the more it just reinforces I am pretty. I am wanted. Look at these men are giving me money because I'm beautiful. Is that what goes through your mind?

SPEAKER_03 8:41

It's what went through mine. This was affirmation that I didn't get anywhere else that I got there.

Ron Meyers 8:47

That's amazing. That's amazing. Listeners, as I said, what courage for this young lady, Brandy, to share her story. But this story is for somebody out there listening because there's nothing worse in life when you don't think you're worth anything. So before there was a transformation in your life, Brandy, you really had no self-esteem, no self-worth. I bet you had a hard time even looking at yourself in the mirror.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Oh yeah, for sure. And I escaped with drugs and also uh I really didn't have to be alone with me for very long.

Ron Meyers 9:28

Well, Brandy, as you tell that story, my heart just breaks for what you are going through. And listeners, I just have to believe, Brandy, that something was beginning to stir inside of you that was seeking a change. Anything like that starting to happen in your life at this point of your story?

SPEAKER_03 9:50

I don't

A Knock At The Door

SPEAKER_03 9:51

know that I was necessarily seeking the change, but I had a roommate at the time. And, you know, when I didn't have dinner or whatever, her parents would cook for me and I would go to their house. And so I had a relationship with her dad and stepmom. And um, one day I was headed out to go work at the club, and he showed up at my front door and told me that the Lord told him to turn around to come share his testimony with me. And he did. He came in and told me how he himself had devalued women and and started speaking to me about my worth and my value and invited me to go to church. Um, they were doing a revival for the next three weeks. And he left and I went to the club and I sat in the parking lot. And the longer I sat there, the the more I just had this ugh in my stomach, like you can't go in, you can't go in. And and I didn't. I went to that revival that night and I sat in a church and and I remember sitting there and there was a presence there that I had never felt before. And I wanted I didn't know what was going on. It was pretty radical. And I just sat and I just watched and I observed that that presence there was so strong that night that I never went back to the strip club again. Um I went to that revival every single night for three weeks.

Ron Meyers 11:04

Oh, that's amazing. But you said something there I just want to touch on just for a minute, because it is so important for people to hear this. You had a roommate. Now, was she a stripper? No. Oh, she was a stripper. So, but her dad must have known you were a stripper because he wanted to share his testimony, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:27

He did. I think he did. We never really had the conversation, but I'm sure he realized it's a lot of people.

Ron Meyers 11:32

Well, the point I'm making, and I need somebody to share this, that this man who felt led by God and knew your most likely your occupation, invited you to his house, didn't judge you, had dinner, because he saw something in you, your potential, something that you hadn't seen yet, and then at the right time, he let God lead him to you. And I say that that sometimes Christians, we need to make sure that we don't start looking at people and judging them. Why not begin a relationship and start having a conversation with people? Because I think sometimes Christians can kind of get on that judgment seat if you know what I mean. And and then you can go back to the strip club. So so I guess you're gonna tell us now that then life started changing because you had met God?

SPEAKER_06 12:29

No.

Miscarriage Betrayal And Crying Out

Ron Meyers 12:31

No. You mean there's more to the story?

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Yes. I got a job that paid regular hours, and the owner there was she knew where I was coming from. She knew my lifestyle. I would like to say I flipped the switch and I was doing everything I should have been doing. I wasn't. I still partied on Saturday night, went to work during the week. I would go to church on Sunday morning. But I was still very much living just this crazy lifestyle. I landed myself in another really unhealthy relationship. It was with a heroin addict. I got pregnant. This time I got put on bed rest because I was having symptoms of losing the baby. And it's the first time in three weeks that I I think I picked up a Bible and but I was on bed rest for three weeks. And so I didn't know anything else to do other than lay in bed. And I read Job. I read all the way through Job. After that three-week time frame of being on bed rest, I went to the doctor and they told me I had lost the baby. And at that point, I I felt like God was punishing me because I had had an abortion. I I quit going to church for a few weeks after that just because I was really distraught. I was really angry. The relationship with the heroin addict, it it ended. He had really relapsed. And there was one morning I had woke up about two in the morning, and I now I know it was the Lord, but I just had this popcorn thought of check the bathroom trash can. And I went to the bathroom, checked the trash can, and took the bottom, and there were needles syringes. Realizing he wasn't there, I went to look for my car. My car was gone. My ATM card was gone. So he had not only still in my car, he had taken my card and overdrew my account by a thousand of dollars. And about a week after that, I found out that I was pregnant again. And it was it was at that point that I looked around. I didn't have rent money. I wasn't gonna go back to the club. And I made a, I mean, I just fell on my face and and I just cried out to God. I said, I don't know if you're really real, but if you are, I will know you and I will make sure that this baby knows you. If I didn't if you just let me keep this baby, I didn't want to go through any more loss. I still hadn't grieved having an abortion and I was having to feel every bit of you know, being pregnant and losing that out of my control. And and so being pregnant with this baby, I that was my turnaround. I just wanted to be able to have that baby and I I begged. I bargained with God, but I didn't stop chasing after him from that day forward.

Ron Meyers 15:07

How old were you at this time?

SPEAKER_03 15:09

I was 22.

Ron Meyers 15:11

So 22. The hell that you've gone through, you really compacted a lot of hell in your life up to the age 22, up to the point to where you fell on your face. You just said, I can't do this anymore. There's something in that transparency. You became transparent and God showed up in your life. And from what I read in your story, he's never left. Is that true?

SPEAKER_03 15:37

That's

Healing Grief And A New Mission

SPEAKER_03 15:38

true. I found a place, you know, several years into my walk and and inner healing, I went through a a really intense inner healing process. When my little girl was firstborn, I went to some ministry leaders and just told them that I was sick and tired of me, that I wanted to be different. And that's really when I started walking through the inner healing and and getting free for the abortion and forgiveness and grieving and and all of the abuse and all of that. And and several years into that, I just found myself in this place of contentment. I was a mom, I was married, I was I was doing all of these things, but it was just content. And in 2012, my little brother was killed in a car accident. And it was in his passing. I mean, I really kind of spiraled in that too. I just couldn't understand how somebody so good had to leave us. And but it was in losing him that the Lord, I began praying. I changed my prayers and and began calling out to God, going, I don't want to leave this place without walking out my purpose. And the Lord began showing me that everybody that's here is literally him breathing life into their lungs. And we all have a purpose. And I didn't want to leave here without mine. So he began opening up doors after that to ministry for single mom.

Ron Meyers 16:58

What what an incredible, incredible story. Listeners, Brandy. Brandy, somebody out there listening right now is saying, Oh my God, that young lady is speaking my language. They have no self-worth. They're in an abusive relationship. They've had things that they've done in their life that they've never told anyone, and they most likely think that God just hates them, so they don't even look at God. You've got the microphone. You can talk to that person, that lady, that man right now. What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_03 17:31

I'll tell you, just like God has spoken to me over and over again, that there is nobody that will pursue you, my God. There's nobody that wants to spend time with you, like God. There's nobody that thinks you're more beautiful than God. And He is real and genuine, and you don't have to show up and look a certain way. You don't have to perform. Grace is really real. If you just surrender and invite him into all of those things, he will show up. He will not ever quit pursuing you.

Ron Meyers 18:03

Brandy, let me just first say that your story of what you went through and that it just broke my heart. Nobody should have to go through that kind of hell. But the good news, there is good news. The good news is that God is now showing you your purpose and you have a mission now. You want to help other women who might feel like you used to feel and you want to help them with a life of purpose. What is the name of your nonprofit and how can people find out more information about you and your nonprofit?

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Nonprofit is Lighthouse Acres Ministries LLC, and you'll find it just like that on Facebook. Our website is lighthouseacres.com. Our mission is to provide a home for women who are experiencing unplanned pregnancies. I was gracious enough to have a mama who let me come home, but not everybody has that. And so, but right now we're doing ministry within the community with singles. And so yeah.

Ron Meyers 19:03

Well, you are a blessing, Brandy. And and Brandy, what made you want to share your story with literally thousands, maybe millions of people around the world?

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Number one, I I know where real change came from, and that was the heart transformation when I invited Jesus into it. And um when you look at the world today and all the the crazy and um just the dark, if I can be a light for just one person, for that one person to say, hey, there is a God and He is real, and and that one life be changed, then my life's not wasted, and that's my legacy. That's what I want my legacy to be. I don't want to leave here and not have used everything that you gave me.

God Does Not Waste Your Story

Ron Meyers 19:49

Thank you, Brandy, for sharing your story. Do you know what stood out to me? God doesn't waste our stories. The chapters we would rather tear out of the book can become the very chapters God uses to give somebody else hope. And friend, maybe Brandy's story hit close to home for you today. Maybe you're in a chapter right now that doesn't make sense. Don't prejudge the ending because of what you are experiencing today. Because your story isn't finished. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I return, I want to talk directly to you about what Brandy's story can teach us and one simple step you can take this week to start moving toward the life that God created you to live. Stay with me. I'll be right back.

Announcer 20:35

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of Your Life with your host, Ron Myers. Real stories, real struggles, and real hope.

SPEAKER_11 22:00

Need him.

SPEAKER_07 22:03

Hi, I'm Dr. Andrew Farley, host of the Grace Message. Got a Bible question? Struggling with a personal issue? Wondering about a tricky verse? At BibleQuestions.com, you'll get clear, grace-based answers in 10 seconds or less. No fluff, no confusion, just practical biblical truth. Ask anything, anytime, and experience the power of God's love. Visit BibleQuestions.com. That's BibleQuestions.com. Your go-to for biblical clarity.

Announcer 22:40

How do you get the hell out of your life? Get on your knees and cry out to the Lord. He hears you right where you are. How to get the hell out of your life? Well, yeah, replace it with Jesus. We got to be born again, born of the Spirit, and that's by trusting Jesus Christ, turning from our sins and trusting Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 22:55

You find out about this man by the name of Jesus who went to the cross and gave his life so that we will have a life more abundantly. And if you can receive that love, he will love that hell out of you. You trust in him and you let him love the hell right out of you.

Ron Meyers 23:13

How do you get the hell out of your life? Oh gosh. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Turn to Jesus.

Ten Quiet Minutes With Jesus

Ron Meyers 23:20

Welcome back, my friends. Before the break, I said something I want you to remember. Your current chapter is not your final chapter. Brandy's story reminded me of something life has taught me over and over again. Don't prejudge what God is doing by what your circumstances look like today. I've had chapters in my own life where I couldn't see how anything good could possibly come from what I was going through. But looking back, I can see Jesus was there. Not always changing my circumstances immediately, but changing me in the middle of them. And maybe that's where you are today. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you've made some mistakes. Maybe somebody hurt you. Maybe life, well, it just sucks right now. But please hear me. Don't quit in the middle of your story. You don't know what God is preparing on the next page. Here's my challenge for you this week. For ten quiet minutes, put the phone down, turn off the noise, and have an honest conversation with Jesus. Not a fancy prayer, just talk to him. Something like, Jesus, here's where I am, here's what hurts, here's what I'm afraid of, and here's the part of my life I don't understand. Show me what you want me to see. And then sit still and listen. I've learned that some of the most important conversations of life have simply been conversations with Jesus. That's why I ask you every week when I open up the show have you had your conversations with Jesus? Make them part of every morning. I will be back next week with another grace-filled episode of Get the Hell Out of Your Life, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, this is Ron Myers reminding you that Jesus' work on the cross is complete. In Christ, you are fully forgiven, made new, and secure in God's love. So rest in what he has done and let his life shine through you. Now go live like you believe it. I'll see you next time.

Announcer 25:40

Today's

Support The Ministry And Next Week

Announcer 25:41

show was produced by Ron Myers Ministries, a listener-supported ministry. For a copy of today's broadcast, please visit our website, thepromoter.org. And would you prayerfully consider making a tax-deductible donation so that we may continue to share stories of God's amazing grace with the world? And join us next week for another broadcast of Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope.

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