Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor
Welcome to "Wednesdays With Watson," a compassionate and insightful podcast dedicated to exploring the complex journey of healing from PTSD, the role of faith in recovery, and the profound impact of trauma on our lives. Hosted by Amy Watson, a passionate advocate for mental health and a trauma survivor, this podcast aims to provide a safe and empathetic space for listeners to learn, share, and find hope.In each episode, we delve deep into the multifaceted aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its far-reaching effects. We bring you riveting personal stories of resilience, recovery, and transformation and expert interviews with psychologists, therapists, faith leaders, and individuals who have walked the path of healing.Our mission is to break mental health stigma and encourage open dialogue about PTSD and trauma. We explore the profound connection between faith, spirituality, and mental well-being, offering insights into how one's faith can be a powerful source of strength and healing.Whether PTSD, faith, or trauma has touched you or someone you know, "Wednesdays With Watson" is here to inspire, educate, and provide practical tools for navigating the healing journey. Join us on this empowering quest towards reclaiming peace, resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose.Today, subscribe to our community of survivors, advocates, and compassionate listeners. Together, we can heal our hearts and find the path to recovery, one episode at a time.
Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor
Breaking Free from the Past: Understanding and Healing Intergenerational Trauma
The episode about dysregulated nervous system with Lauren Starnes
Internal Family Systems Episode
Unlock the secrets of your past and discover how the trauma of your ancestors might be affecting your life today. Join us as we explore the intriguing world of intergenerational trauma, where the echoes of wars, slavery, and familial struggles ripple through time, impacting beliefs, behaviors, and even health. Learn how these deep-rooted experiences get etched into our DNA and what science has to say about the mysterious link between trauma and gene expression.
In this enlightening episode, we tackle the concept of trauma inheritance, focusing on how epigenetics plays a pivotal role in transmitting trauma from one generation to the next. With gripping narratives from Holocaust survivors and the descendants of enslaved people, we unravel how these inherited fears manifest as hypervigilance and emotional unavailability. But fear not, for we also shed light on the paths to healing, offering insights into how therapy and self-awareness can dismantle these cycles, ensuring a brighter future for generations to come.
Our journey doesn't stop with science and psychology; we delve into the realm of spirituality to explore the transformative power of embracing one’s identity. Through the metaphor of the sea parting to pave a path to freedom, we celebrate the journey from fear to freedom. Join us as we affirm the liberating realization of being a cherished "child of God," grounding ourselves in love and acceptance, and paving the way for a fear-free future. This episode promises not just understanding but also hope and healing.
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I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. I am so excited to be here and I thank you for your time. As I've said many times on this podcast, time is something that we're not getting more of, and so thank you for spending some of yours here with me today. Speaking of today, we start our series on intergenerational trauma. It's a big word, but basically it is. Why do we do some of the things we do? Why do we act some of the ways we act? Why do we have some of the medical issues that we have, when seemingly there is no reason for it? Intergenerational trauma is a phenomena that is real, it is biblical, it is scientific, and so today we are going to step into that realm, helping us understand how the trauma of those that came before us can affect us and what to do about it. The Bible says that God keeps his loving kindness for thousands. He forgives iniquities, transgressions and sins, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. We know that trauma will affect throughout the generation, and so I'd love to drop into this episode and talk to you today about intergenerational trauma, and we will provide a whole series on this with representatives from everybody, from the silent generation to maybe generation alpha if I can find one old enough to come on. But we're going to talk about this, we're going to understand how trauma through the generations affects us and what we can do about it. So let's step in to this episode on intergenerational trauma.
Speaker 2:So what exactly is generational trauma? This is also known, as you heard me say, as intergenerational trauma. This is the passing down of trauma responses from one generation to another. It's not just about an experience. It's about the way that the experiences of the previous generations, especially traumatic ones, become imprinted on subsequent generations and because of that it shapes our beliefs, our behaviors and even our physical health. So generational trauma can stem from a range of experience that we think about and we'll find out a lot about this when we interview mom McGowan especially from the silent generation and maybe even the baby boomers, because they had some major historical events in their lives. Both of those generations had war. We think back to slavery and talk to people that belong to the black and brown community. Slavery generations back are affecting those people today. The Holocaust is another one, even systematic oppression within a country. So these are big things, right. These aren't familial traumas that happen. But the same thing happens when there's familial trauma, when there is just something just being completely replicated from generation to generation. These kinds of things that affect us from an intergenerational standpoint are not isolated incidents. They're events that leave a deep imprint not only on the people who directly experience it, but their descendants too, just like that verse in Exodus told us.
Speaker 2:Trauma is not just an emotional response to an event. It can and does we talked about many times on this podcast create lasting changes in how our brains work and how our bodies respond to stress, and even how our genes and our DNA are expressed, and so we'll talk about this in a few minutes. But trauma turns on and off certain genes, and that, in an essence, causes issues, and I had a great example of that in that I have celiac disease, and it wasn't until I was in my mid-30s that that was diagnosed or that I even began to have problems with it. And celiac disease is a gene that I inherited. It was there but it was not turned on, and so I was not responding like people with celiac disease does. But about my mid-30s, that gene got turned on. It's a perfect example of how trauma is passed down from generation to generation and how our genes and basically our genes are what tells our body what to do grow blonde hair, grow red hair, be tall, be short those kinds of things can be affected and especially immune responses can be affected. So it's not just an emotional response to an event. It can and does create lasting changes to both our brains and our bodies. Let's talk about how that.
Speaker 2:Before we get into how trauma is passed down, I want to take a minute to just review what happens when an individual experiences trauma. And remember we define trauma on this podcast as anything that pushes somebody outside of their window of tolerance, their ability to cope, their capacity. There's a bunch of scientific words we can put here, but trauma is when something pushes somebody outside their ability to deal with a normal situation or with a traumatic situation. When a person undergoes these traumatic experiences, we know that the body gets flooded with those stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline and short term, puts us in that fight or flight mode, that cheetah mode that we talk about so often on this podcast, where the cheetah is the fastest animal in the world. They will run until they can't, because, when threatened, they get these dumps of especially adrenaline and can run fast in short distances, and so it does catch up with us.
Speaker 2:But for those of experience prolonged and repeated trauma, the body and the brain get wired to stay in a heightened state of vigilance, and this is what happened to me when I ended up in the hospital in 2008. My body was wired to constantly be on guard. My body was wired to constantly be on guard, my brain was wired to constantly be on guard and that was exhibiting itself in nightmares and flashbacks and and isolating behavior and self-medicating behavior, because the brain just was on alert all the time. If you could imagine those of us that live in Florida and were just recently hit by Hurricane Milton that state of vigilance all the time. And so, because I was there, I ended up with a complete nervous breakdown in the hospital because my brain had learned, because of the trauma that I had been through the 34 years previously, to stay in that fight or flight because it always thought that my body was going to die. This definitely leaves a mark and in my case it turned on that gene for celiac disease and many other things, but it also can affect sleep patterns. Immunity that's where autoimmune diseases come in.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, when there's trauma, severely impacts the nervous system, making it more difficult to regulate emotions and manage stress. This should sound familiar to you guys. We spend a lot of time talking about regulating nervous systems. On this podcast. There is an episode just a couple back with my friend Lauren Stearns. We talk about when the body talks and how to understand when your nervous system is dysregulated. And again, that nervous system causes these health problems that we talked about. That dysregulated nervous system causes those health issues, causes an abundance of things. And, don't forget, your brain is fundamentally changing.
Speaker 2:I want to stop here just to remind you about your brain Without getting too scientific-y. Remember, if you hold your hand up and put your thumb in the middle and put your four fingers down, when those four fingers are down, that is your prefrontal cortex, that is what helps us makeal cortex, that is what helps us make good decisions, that's what helps us stay appropriate, that's what helps us live a quote normal life. When trauma happens, dr Dan Siegel says we flip our lid. So now, if you have your hand like that, flip your four fingers up and now it's like your thumb is in the middle of your palm, and your thumb then represents your hippocampus and your amygdala. Remember now, you're being ruled by these two anatomical parts of your brain and you're in the prefrontal cortex. The part of your brain that helps you make sense of things is not online, and so long-term trauma can actually change the structure of both the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, and so you're not remembering those things properly, or you might not even remember how to get to the bank when you're in trauma brain. It may also shrink due to this chronic stress. When you have generational trauma and your brain is on overload, the amygdala, the one that is responsible for fear responses might become overreactive, leading to being afraid of everything and all kinds of situations that aren't threatening.
Speaker 2:And so you understand how trauma even not your trauma if it's affected someone in your family, it is likely to affect you. It's something very interesting to think about as we talk about how trauma has passed from generation to generation. Think about a mom, a soon-to-be mom, who is pregnant with a girl. But mom, back when she was 10, 12, 13 years old, experienced significant trauma. 12, 13 years old experience significant trauma. It has been proven that that trauma that she experiences earlier in life not only affects her brain, but it changes her reproductive structure, and so her, her eggs are actually affected by the trauma. And so then that means the baby is affected by the trauma, and if that baby is a girl, her eggs are affected by the trauma. So you can see how, scientifically, when the mom has experienced trauma, her reproductive eggs are affected by the trauma and it's going to change some of the ways that the DNA acts in her children. And then, if she has girls, their eggs too are affected. As of right now, there's no scientific studies on the sperm and whether or not trauma affects the way those genes are expressed, but for sure we know that reproductive eggs are affected and females with trauma when it's passed down from generation to generation, especially from female to female.
Speaker 2:And so these brain changes that happen as a result of trauma have a lasting impact and, like I said, can be passed down through what's called epigenetics, which is what I just explained to you. This refers to the way the genes express themselves. Like I said, genes say hey, be tall, be short, have blonde hair, have red hair, don't have this disease, don't have this disease, that kind of thing. And so trauma will change the way the body acts. It doesn't involve changes to your actual DNA sequence, so that's always the same, but it does affect the way those genes behave and all of the realms that I talked about, but particularly immunity. Basically, it's how the environment influences the genes that we're born with. Trauma can lead to epigenetic markers that essentially turn certain genes on or off, like what happened to me, and those markers can be passed down to our children, meaning they will inherit the predisposition for a heightened stress response or mental health issues without directly experiencing the trauma.
Speaker 2:Now I know what some of you are thinking like. Oh man, I had trauma as a kid and I've had kids. What have I done to my own children? And so I want to provide hope for you, because the same hope that we always provide on this podcast is true here too. It just means that I hope that this podcast episode helps you do two things. First of all, address your trauma. Secondly, address how your trauma has affected your children, and particularly if your children are overly anxious, overly afraid separation, anxiety look and see if some of that could be possibly some of your trauma being passed down to them. And certainly there's help and hope and all the things. That's why we do this podcast that this is not meant to make you feel badly if you already have children and you experience trauma as a child. But they do get this predisposition for heightened stress response and or mental health issues without directly experiencing the trauma. And there's also I want to just kind of plug in here vicarious trauma. A lot of times, children, even knowing that we experience trauma, by us talking about it around them in an improper way, is also something that could be vicariously affecting them.
Speaker 2:Now you might wonder how exactly generational trauma shows up. If someone didn't experience the trauma that their grandparents went through, why would they still feel its effects? So, without getting too scientific, one of the ways that that generational trauma manifests is through parenting styles and family dynamics. Right, and so if a parent experienced trauma, they might have a higher tendency towards behaviors like hypervigilance, emotional unavailability and overprotection. This is what happened to me, I believe.
Speaker 2:I don't know my mom's whole story, but she was all of those things she was anxious, she was hypervigilant, she was emotionally unavailable, she was not overprotective, but she was all of those other things. And this leads me to believe as I walk through my early childhood and many people ask me how I can forgive her or how I can even be okay. It's that age-old question that somebody penned so long ago. Instead of what's wrong with you is what happened to you, and I don't know what happened to my mom that pushed her trauma onto me, and I never will this side of heaven. But I think those of you that might be out there that are listening to me under the sound of my voice, that are hypervigilant, that do struggle with anxiety, emotional unavailability, codependence, many of those things you might need to look and see if something has been unintentionally passed down, especially as it pertains to fears and anxieties.
Speaker 2:And a good example of that is children in the Holocaust survivors, which would be gosh that could. That could range from the silent generation maybe into a little bit of the baby boomers, but those people, those survivors, have been found to carry unique anxieties and fears linked to scarcity and survival. The same goes for their descendants of those experience who experienced forced slavery, like African American community for sure, and so survivors of the Holocaust and survivors of many wars and all of those things are going to have effects from it. There is a phrase coined after the Holocaust, where many survivors really struggled and counselors were telling them the war is over. Remember, the war is over and we have to help our people that have been affected by generational trauma understand that not only is the war over, but the war was never theirs and that we need to address what has affected them, just by nature of being a descendant of somebody who saw some of those things.
Speaker 2:Generational trauma also can appear in patterns of behavior like self-sabotage, low self-esteem and fear of just about anything. These behaviors arise as coping mechanisms for stress, and when these mechanisms or lack of mechanisms, coping mechanisms are ingrained in the family culture, they're passed down, sometimes without explanation, and so we do have to kind of examine ourselves if we have children, and examine whether we are creating a culture inside our home of anxiety and fear and emotional unavailability and other trauma responses that we are passing down to them just because it's in our home and as a double--dutch issue there, because they also have the gene expression change that trauma does that we talked about. There are some specific forms of generational trauma and it does manifest differently Obviously racial trauma. So for individuals from marginalized racial or ethnic backgrounds, this generational trauma is often tied to systemic discrimination or forced migration. You think of our Native Americans, the kind of trauma that they passed down from generation to generation. In many cases, this trauma is linked to both historical oppression, like I just talked about, and ongoing racism, like is often true with our African American friends.
Speaker 2:There is war trauma. Descendants of those who lived through wars this is particularly going to be true of the baby boomers, such as the Vietnam War, world War II. You may express heightened anxiety even if there weren't directly impacted events. I'm going to talk to Mama Gallen, who is part of the silent generation and she was alive during both World War II and Korea and Vietnam for that matter, but I definitely want to talk to her about her experiences. She also lived through the Great Depression, and so how did that affect how she lived her life and did she see some of those changes in her children? And so that's going to be a really interesting conversation. And then the baby boomers will talk to you about Vietnam War and then Gen X.
Speaker 2:Significant events in our generation are many, including the shooting at Columbine, which at the time was just unfathomable to anybody that was alive during that time. We just had never known such a thing. And then particularly, and then, especially September the 11th, everybody remembers where they were, and those are just a couple out of Gen X that I can think of. We will talk to the millennials. That's going to be interesting because I think we're going to see a shift in how these things are experienced between Generation X and the millennials. After the millennials we will talk to Gen Z and then after Gen Z, we will talk to the oldest of Generation Alpha, and it's going to be really interesting as we watch how each generation walked through these things that happened in their lifetime, like racial trauma, like war trauma.
Speaker 2:There's also obviously family trauma that happens like abusive dynamics inside the home. That's probably persisted over generation after generation after generation, and guys, it's just time to stop the madness. There's also immigrant trauma. For immigrants and their descendants, that's going to become more of a thing, especially in the United States. Trauma may come from sacrifices and hardships. You think of people who migrated into the United States. Regardless of how you feel about that, if they landed in this country, they are going to have experienced trauma both above them epigenetics and in them, and then obviously passing it on to their children because of just what they have to do to emigrate to another country, and this would be true of immigrants from all over the world, really. And then environmental trauma people who come from regions that have been affected by natural disasters or an environmental destruction can produce generational trauma.
Speaker 2:I want to stop here because, gosh, the eastern seaboard has been hit hard in the last couple of months by natural disasters, and so if you have children, it is important for you guys to address what we just all went through, and even if that means getting them professional help. We know that one of the C's on this podcast is counseling, but definitely have to address it. We want to recognize that the faster we address these things and counseling and even just knowing about it listening to this podcast huge in recognizing generational trauma. So you might wonder do I have generational trauma? And this is a challenging question because sometimes these things are deeply ingrained in who we are. That feels normal Like. Sometimes you might go to somebody else's house and go oh, y'all don't do it that way, this is the way we do it, and so it is hard, but there's some questions to ask yourself. So it is hard, but there's some questions to ask yourself Are there patterns in your family that seem harmful or limiting?
Speaker 2:No-transcript. Are there patterns in your family that seem harmful or limiting, even if you don't know why they exist? Do you have fears or anxieties that don't make any sense to you, like they seem disappropriate to any experience that you've ever had? Do they rule you? I'm not talking about being afraid of height. I'm talking about everyday fears and anxieties that are like you can't explain, because there's no reason in your explanation for you to have these fears and anxieties. Remember brain changes, pfc offline. Be enrolled by your fear center. Are there family stories of trauma that seem to affect family members in subtle and unexplained ways? And I would say to those of you listening, this would be true for your spouse too, especially if you have children. This might help you understand some things and I'm not trying to start a fight, but it might be an opportunity, an open door for you guys to get some help If you both are being affected by intergenerational trauma or just one of you are either way.
Speaker 2:Awareness, curiosity. If I added another C to this podcast, it would be that Counseling, community, church and curiosity. Get curious, journal, think, write down things, get to counseling. But awareness is that huge first step and the way to be aware is to be curious. Once we recognize that our struggles might be tied to generational trauma, you have no idea how free you will feel. Be aware is to be curious. Once we recognize that our struggles might be tied to generational trauma, you have no idea how free you will feel. I remember learning this concept and thinking like. I'll give you guys a great example. It was in our home.
Speaker 2:There was a great culture of fear of everything before I was taken away from my mom when I was 12 years old, and that still affects me today, particularly like when I drive. My mom never drove a day in her life because she was always too anxious to drive and that got passed down to me Because when I drive, if I'm in traffic or something like that, I sometimes will have a full on panic attack when I'm driving. And I never understood that before because I didn't have any reason to be so anxious when I drove and but when I understood that her fear and her anxiety and the fact that I watched that, so not only was my gene expressions changed and so I was probably born somebody not fearful and or not without a proclivity for anxiety, but because she had great anxiety, that got passed on to me and the driving as just one example of that. But here's the hope. But, jesus, because we can heal from generational trauma. Healing from it can be incredibly powerful, not only for ourselves but for those generations to come. We can stop it right. We can stop our children from reproducing our fears, our anxieties or any other way that trauma is showing up in our lives.
Speaker 2:There are many, many ways to heal from generational trauma, and we talked about many of these, but you do need to get into some counseling. There's one trauma modality that we've not talked about a lot on this podcast there's an old, old episode about internal family systems. That is a phenomenal one for generational trauma, because what internal family systems does is helps you identify which part of you is showing up and the behavior that you don't like, and why and how to address it. Emdr, which is we've talked about a lot, is growing more and more in popularity. It is the modality that I chose and it was an amazing, as it continues to be experienced, for the identification and the treatment of behaviors that I don't want in my life. There is somatic experiencing, which is paying attention to your body and and addressing the trauma that way.
Speaker 2:There's also something called cognitive behavior therapy, which helps you change the way you think about things. So you may think I am so anxious, I suck, I'm never going to be able to do anything. Cognitive behavior therapy takes that thought and turns it around to what is true is that you don't suck, that you're a valuable child of the Most High God and that this stuff can be worked through. You just got to change the way you think about it. And I think of Philippians 4.8 when I think about cognitive behavior therapy. Is it good, is it true? Is it excellent? Is it praiseworthy? Is it good report? Think on these things.
Speaker 2:Philippians 4.8 says Working with a therapist or counselor can help individuals identify and process emotions that don't even feel like yours. And that's the thing about generational trauma. Trauma is very confusing. Family therapies can be a valuable tool as it allows all the family members to heal together, breaking down patterns and addressing shared trauma. And let me tell you that Satan would like nothing less than for you to go to family therapy and for the entire family to come together as one and address the way that trauma before them has affected the entire family dynamic. Family therapy a valuable tool when we're talking about generational trauma or behaviors that are happening inside the home and nobody knows why. Family therapy. It can be invaluable to help everybody understand.
Speaker 2:If I added another C to this podcast, it would be compassion for yourself and forgiveness of others. These play a role in healing generational trauma. Compassion for yourself so many times when we don't understand why we behave, why we behave, we are the critics of ourselves and get mad at ourselves for acting a certain way or doing a certain thing, when in fact, what we need is some compassion and curiosity for why we act the way we do. Is it because it was passed down to me and this has nothing to do with anything that's happened to me? We also have to add in forgiveness. We have a whole series on forgiving trauma makers.
Speaker 2:Forgiveness plays a huge role in stopping generational trauma. We have to acknowledge the pain right and acknowledge that our ancestors, and in my case, my mom, did the best they could with the knowledge and resources they had. Again, it's asking that question about those that came before you not why did you do what you do, but what happened to you. Why did you do what you do, but what happened to you. What happened to you and that compassion of others will lead you into a heart of forgiveness when you look at those that came before you, whether they harmed you directly or not, but you certainly are being affected by their trauma. Instead of saying what's wrong with you, what happened to you, when we choose this compassion, we can release resentment and heal parts of ourselves that have felt burdened all of your life and you don't know why.
Speaker 2:Really, though, after that, after you're okay, it's time to break the cycle of generational trauma. What do you want to pass down to your children? Is it anxiety? Is it fear? Is it being ruled with your PFC offline? Is it codependency? Is it abuse? And when I say abuse, I mean food, people, drugs, alcohol. What are they seeing in your home? What do you want to pass down? Do you need to get to a counselor so that you can stop the trauma from affecting your children? These are sober questions for you to ask if you have children in your home.
Speaker 2:It's never too late to break the cycle of generational trauma, because the fact of the matter is is each step we take to process and heal from trauma is a step towards a different future for ourselves, our children and even our communities. Think about that, like you are raising future members of our community. We want them to be the best members of that community that we can and we become more aware of our triggers and patterns. Then we choose to address them and commit to a new way of thinking and responding. You are not only healing yourself, but you're creating a healthier foundation for everybody that comes after you with your DNA. This is the work of a lifetime.
Speaker 2:It is not easy, but when we understand and address generational trauma, we take the power out of it. Say that again when we understand generational trauma, we take the power out of it. We choose not to be defined by it, but we get our sword and we go fight. We fight in a counselor's office, we fight on our knees, we fight in our community, and then we get defined by our resilience. We get defined by our capacity for love and we move into a growth period that we may never see coming, because, guys, you see, we are no longer slaves to those things that are meant to destroy us. We just aren't, because Jesus came so that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. Have it more abundantly, and because of that we have the opportunity to heal.
Speaker 2:We don't have to continually be defined by those things that happen before us. We are no longer slaves. Think about that. Think about that Because he unravels us with a melody. He surrounds us with a song. That song is of deliverance from our enemies, satan, who wants us to be ruled by this generational trauma. But God surrounds us with a song of deliverance until all our fears are gone, because we are no longer a slave to fear. We are children of God. We know that from our mother's womb, he has chosen us and love has called our name. We are born again into a perfect family and his blood flows through our veins. So we are no longer a slave to fear. We are a child of God. No longer slaves to fear, guys. We are liberated from our bondage. We're sons and daughters. Let us sing in the freedom. We are children and daughters. Let us sing in the freedom. We are children of God. Guys, be no longer slaves to generational trauma. Take Jesus' words as they are, as truth is that he has come to give us life and give us a life that is abundant and free. To give us life and give us a life that is abundant and free.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, thank you so much for listening. We will be back in two weeks and all fingers and toes and all the things are crossed that we will have an episode with Mama Gowron that represents the silent generation. I hope you guys learned something today. I hope that you have an actionable item and if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer them. You can just send me a text message right there in the show notes. I am the only one that sees that. I imagine this episode will promote a lot of questions and I'm here for it, and so shoot me a text message through the podcast and I will be happy to answer the questions in the best way I can. We will see you back here in two weeks and until then, you know what I'm going to say. You are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and you are so, so valued.
Speaker 1:We're the sons and the daughters. Let us sing our freedom. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You split the sea so I could walk right through it. My fears are drowned in perfect love. You rescued me and I will stand and sing. I am a child of God. You split the sea so I could walk right through it. You drowned my fears in perfect love. You rescued me and I will stand and say I am a child of God.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am, I am a child of God. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. Yes, I am. I am a child of God, full of faith. Yes, I am a child of God. I am a child of God. I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.