Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor

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• Amy Watson: Trauma Survivor, Hope Carrier, Precious Daughter Of The Most High God

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This episode centers on Amy Watson's journey through post-traumatic stress disorder, emphasizing the universal nature of trauma and the hope for healing through community and faith. As Amy recounts her personal experiences and insights, she encourages listeners to understand the challenges of PTSD while highlighting the significance of support systems and trustworthy connections in the recovery process.

• Exploring personal stories of trauma and healing 
• Discussing the impact of PTSD on emotional and mental well-being 
• Unpacking the importance of church, community, and counseling 
• Sharing practical examples of trauma responses 
• Drawing connections between biblical stories and personal experiences 
• Emphasizing the significance of connection and support during difficult times 

We always want to hear from you, so please reach out to us on social media or send us an email with your thoughts and experiences related to this topic.

"I Still Believe" by Bethal Music, used by permission musicbed.com

You ARE:
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Speaker 1:

I choose to sing when I can hardly breathe out a breath. I choose to stand when all I want to do is give up. I choose to trust when my whole world is falling apart. I choose you, jesus, because I still believe Through it all. I still believe you are wonderful. You've never given up on me. You've never given up on me. You've never given up on me.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. It is February of 2025. We are, for the next couple days or, excuse me, next couple drops going to visit the early episodes of the podcast. So many people recommend this podcast.

Speaker 2:

For the first four episodes, after we re-release those episodes, I'm going to share with you a talk, if you will, or a lesson or an opportunity that I got to teach on the passage where Jesus asked the paralytic man if he wants to get well.

Speaker 2:

So I thought that I would give you guys some context as we dive into these next several weeks and so enjoy this very. Actually, this is the second podcast episode that we ever published and these next several weeks you'll hear a little bit about my story and the cool thing is is you're going to hear about it from an Amy almost five years ago, and then we're going to release the episode where I had the opportunity to teach at my church about the question that Jesus asked do you want to get well? So let's drop into this episode. It's going to be just as much of a treat to me as it is to you. The audio is horrible. Amy is not as healed, but this is the beginning of the Wednesdays with Watson podcast and what set me on this journey that I'm on right now, and so enjoy this episode called PTSD Jesus and Me Lost with Directions.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, you are listening to Wednesdays with Watson. I'm your host, amy Watson, and thank you for joining me today. On today's podcast, I am going to begin to tell you some of my story, and we will also delve into some of the practical implications of post-traumatic stress disorder, as those of you who are listening to the podcast have come either to seek information for yourself or somebody that you love, and so, as we move through this season that we have called PTSD Jesus and Me, it is my desire to make sure that I help you via storytelling and also having the opportunity to teach you some very real issues that many, many people don't know about post-traumatic stress disorder, just by way of a little bit of housekeeping. Today's episode will feature some sensitive information as it pertains to substance abuse and just some very real issues that come along with post-traumatic stress disorder. So just a little bit of a warning there nothing real scary for younger listeners, but obviously as a bit of a trigger warning too. We will be talking about trauma, and so just kind of be mindful of that. So sit back and relax and thank you for joining and let's let the healing continue.

Speaker 2:

Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. I am your host, amy Watson, and guys, I am extraordinarily grateful that you have decided to invest a little bit of your time with me today. To say that I am overwhelmed by the response of the inaugural podcast is a bit of an understatement. I am so, so grateful to those of you who are coming along behind this adventure in support of what we are trying to do. We have named this season PTSD Jesus and Me, and really I named it that, guys, because I can't tell you my story without telling you the star of my story. Remember my story. The reason why I'm doing this is to tell you about my journey to diagnosis with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and I simply would not be here today without that star of my story. So of course, I had to put his name in the title of the podcast. He, along with what I have dubbed as the three C's and I think that's the writer in me who just loves alliteration the three C's of my church and my community, as well as trauma-informed counseling, those things are the only reason why I'm even alive to share my story with you today, and so we will visit those three C's often.

Speaker 2:

As I tell you my story, I'm going to vacillate in and out of how those people and those things were really instrumental. And what mostly today is going to be about is my journey to the diagnosis and then after that, you know my church and my community, and then, more importantly, trauma-informed counseling is just so vital in the healing, and healing can come, and that is the reason I'm doing this, because I want you to find hope that healing can come. So I won't be able, by any stretch of the imagination, to share all of my story with you guys, but I will always have a destination and we may or may not get there on any given podcast. I am a writer who likes to leave things on cliffhangers sometimes, and just remember that if you don't like the cliffhanger, you can always reach out to me and I'd be happy to have some virtual coffee with you and tell you the rest of the story. But just know that you may not always know where I'm headed on any given podcast, except for my whole motivation and direction is to tell you the story of my diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.

Speaker 2:

I do not think that I understood the responsibility of tackling a subject like this, though. The other night, in the middle of the night literally, I woke up and the gravity of this whole thing hit me. It is an important topic, as we know. That being said, as nervous as I am, and the fact that it is Thursday or the week before this is to publish and I have literally been working on it all week, that tells you how important I know that this is, but it also fills me with inexplicable joy. I love, love, love, love helping people, and so this is really my sweet spot. You will hear me vacillate so many times between teacher and storyteller, because I am both. I love telling stories.

Speaker 2:

I am an eight on the Enneagram and for those of you who know that, you know that Enneagram eight typically love them, some them and so I love talking about my story, not only because it's a cool story, but because you know most people may not admit that they love talking about them, and so so I do love telling stories, and I certainly love telling this story, but I'm also a teacher, and a teacher by trade, or at least for some part of my career. I love teaching, and so you will see me vacillate back and forth between being a storyteller and then also sharing with you information that I have learned either by way of personal experience or because I researched it, because, when we're on a subject like this, it is important to understand who our sparring partner is. I so often think of my battle with PTSD as a boxing match, even though I've never boxed a day in my life, nor do I watch it, but my sparring partner is PTSD, and it is a sparring partner that can be the knockout punch if we let it. And so, as I begin to speak to you about my story and some of the science of PTSD, we will talk about, throughout the course of the podcast, cutting edge therapies that have helped me along the way, and, as I've mentioned to you, my counselor will do a session with us, and so, that being said, we will continue on today with my life's goal, which is Philippians 1.12, where Paul says, I want you to understand that the things that have happened to me have really happened.

Speaker 2:

Out of the furtherance of the gospel, and as we get into some of the science of PTSD, I want to tell you guys a current story that just recently happened to me, because this story really is so much of a picture of PTSD and how it exhibits itself and the way we were created to protect ourselves from danger. And so I live in Florida and I actually can't believe that this is the first time this happened to me, because I've lived here my entire life and I am terrified, like my body, my DNA I'm a first-generation Floridian, no DNA in me that is accepting of snakes and alligators and anything in the reptile family, terrified of all of them, and so the fact that this is the first time this happened to me in my life is actually quite remarkable. But the other day I was walking I had my iPad in my hand and it was the iPad Pro, so it's a big iPad, and so I opened the door to go to my back porch and I and so I opened the door to go to my my back porch and, as I opened the interior door to go out to the screened in porch. I looked down and I literally sat there and froze. And because when I looked down I saw a snake Now, it was a black snake, and I don't need anyone commenting in the show notes that black snakes are good. There are no good snakes I certainly didn't have time to stand there and decide whether it was a good snake or not. And I, at first I froze, and then I literally flew across the porch and jumped up on a chair and texted my neighbor and asked her to come help me, and she didn't, by the way. But that is a snapshot of a PTSD brain.

Speaker 2:

Oftentimes, when we talk about PTSD, you'll hear professionals talk about it in a couple different, really cool ways. That helps us understand it. And so there is this, this phenomenon of fight, flight and freeze, and I kind of did two of those things, or actually did all. Well, I didn't fight the snake, but that day when I, when my body said, my brain said, hey, that's dangerous, I froze first and then I, I literally ran across the room and and then, you know, had there been a battle to fight, like I had a shovel or something, I could have also fought in that. And so that day when I saw that snake is a bit of a picture of what danger does to us.

Speaker 2:

It is not wildly understood and we'll talk about this a little bit more later but it is not wildly understood why the same person can have the same trauma and one person be adversely affected by it and the other person not be adversely affected by it. What I do want to say is whether or not somebody be adversely affected by it and the other person not be adversely affected by it. What I do want to say is whether or not somebody is adversely affected by any given trauma if it's the exact same. Trauma has nothing to do with how strong they are emotionally or psychologically or any of those things. We will talk about the science of trauma and that it actually does physical damage to the brain and just like any other disease. We don't understand why some people exhibit symptoms and some people don't, and so it's really, really important to continue to remember that thing that I keep mentioning about not comparing our pain and not comparing our trauma, and that would be true about not comparing your level of being affected by trauma as well.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you will hear counselors and professionals talk to you about PTSD and a very practical something that we also see in nature by way of a cheetah. A cheetah is a giant, big cat that we see in the wild. It is also the fastest animal in the world. A cheetah can run 65 to 70 miles an hour, and a cheetah runs first and asks questions later, and so when we are faced with trauma, our response is often similar to that cheetah because we immediately go in flight mode. We will run like that cheetah and we will run fast and we will run hard. The problem, as you're going to see with part of my story today, with that kind of speed, is that it cannot be sustained, and so oftentimes the exhaustion of running from that trauma, we get stuck in the fight of our lives, severely impacted by the hits and punches that come with PTSD. And so that is just a little bit, and you're going to hear me talk about particularly the cheetah example, as well as the fight-flight-freeze component of PTSD today. But those are just some practical things to understand about trauma as you try to deal with trauma or as you're working with people in your family that you love or friend, for whatever reason you're here.

Speaker 2:

Listening to this podcast is to remember that trauma is universal and trauma is not new. As we read in Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, there's absolutely nothing new under the sun. We can see the earliest recording of trauma way back in Genesis, when Cain killed Abel. We don't know whether Eve found Abel dead, murdered by the hands of her son Cain. Somebody had to tell her and I think it's fair to say that that was probably a pretty traumatic event for Eve to be experiencing in her newly broken world. It's safe to assume that Noah dealt with some trauma as he faced insurmountable loss in his path to obedience. Job absolutely did, experienced trauma and lost, none of which was his fault.

Speaker 2:

David wrote what was probably the most accurate depiction of ptsd found anywhere, in my opinion, much less anywhere in the bible. In psalm 91, verses 5 and 6 are pretty much a journal of the day in the life of a ptsd patient. I call it ptsd promise because psalm 91 and 6, snapshot of the day, of a bad day of a PTSD patient. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks the darkness, nor the plague that destroys midday. That is exactly. Every minute of every day has the potential to be very, very difficult for somebody suffering with PTSD, and so David clearly had some trauma going on, as did many of the people that wrote the Psalms obviously were going through some difficult things.

Speaker 2:

Finally, jesus, being fully God and fully man, suffered trauma more than any of us can ever imagine experiencing. In Hebrews 4, 15 and 16, I'm going to read from the message Love this scripture. Now we know that we have Jesus, this great high priest, with ready access to God, the Father. We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He has been through our weakness and testing. He has experienced it all. So let us approach his throne boldly, with confidence and with humility, because we do not love a king who does not understand our trauma. And so so oftentimes, when people go through trauma, we convince ourselves that it's not that bad or that that it's not important, because somebody else's trauma is worse than our trauma. But trauma is new is not new, excuse me and trauma needs for you to pay attention to it, because if you don't, it will pay attention to you.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that I think comes so often with PTSD as we are, you know, convincing ourselves that maybe we're too hard on ourselves, that we shouldn't be experiencing the trauma like we are. It's so not understood and is often covered with cliche answers from well-meaning people, and that brings shame and confusion. So many people have this philosophy of you've got a problem, I have a Bible verse, and while, yes, every problem there probably is a Bible verse, there are times when we can bring those things in and we need to be wise about that, for lack of a better way to explain that to you, because trauma is so not understood and is not going to ever be the answer by giving people cliche answers. We need to walk alongside people and, as you will hear, some people did that for me and that one of those C's that I keep talking about in my community. It's important to remember that everybody has trauma. If you are listening to this podcast and you have not experienced trauma, let me tell you something that is as sure as gravity you will, because the Bible tells us that we will have suffering in this world and that no one gets through this lifetime without trauma. And again, we're not comparing trauma. Remember, we all have it. We're not comparing it.

Speaker 2:

Now here's what I'd like to slip into teacher mode just for a second, because trauma and remember trauma, by definition, is basically something that threatens or causes physical like we're not safe, we don't feel safe or we're literally not safe. So trauma PTSD can either be caused by you perceive that you're not safe, even though you may be safe, or you're literally not safe and something happens to you. And when that happens, trauma causes physical damage to the brain, and we will talk about this at great length with Dr Pettit when he comes on. But suffice it to say that there are practical repercussions to untreated trauma and for me, that served as a discouragement to me. I will often, sometimes be heard referring to my brain as broken and as I was getting ready for this podcast and writing my notes, I wrote you are not broken. And even as I wrote that, I had to check myself at the door and see if I actually believed that I am not broken. Because even though trauma causes physical damage to the brain, it doesn't mean we're broken. And even if we are broken again, we do not love a king who is unfamiliar with that kind of brokenness. It is not new. We see his faithfulness all through the Bible, restoring brokenness. And so, as I said in the inaugural podcast, I'm going to evolve, the podcast is going to evolve. And so that was a moment for me this week, as I was getting ready for this and wrote those words I am not broken. I literally just kind of stepped back and thought to myself do you really believe that? And so that was a moment for me.

Speaker 2:

But there are some. So, for example I'll give you guys some examples I struggle with spatial issues. One of the things that I can't do that all of the world is doing right now, because we're all stuck in our houses, is I can't put together a puzzle. I just can't do it Like. I can't see it, I can't envision it, even the edges I have a hard time with. This is embarrassing to me, especially back in the day when I was at the children's home. I grew up in a children's home and we would the kids would sit down around a table and put together a puzzle, and I couldn't. I could never understand it and I still, to this day, cannot put together a puzzle, and this is because of physical damages to my brain from trauma. When I was younger, I struggled with my right and left, and teachers often dubbed me with dyslexia and other disorders, even though I never, ever, struggled as a student. Some of these misunderstood consequences of trauma confused me and I thought that there was something wrong with me or that I just wasn't as smart as other people. So things like not being able to put together a puzzle was super, super embarrassing to me, and I don't doubt that other PTSD patients don't understand why some of that practical stuff that they can't do, why they can't do it, especially when everybody else seemingly can. But we will talk about that more at length, about how it causes physical damage to the brain.

Speaker 2:

I have called this episode Lost with Directions, because perhaps the most frustrating place that I struggle with this physical damage to my healing brain, is a complete lack of a sense of direction. It's probably true that I was not born with the best keen of sense of direction, but I know that trauma caused this, because I get lost now far fewer times than I did early in my diagnosis. But still, if we're out and about just a heads up to those of you in my daily life if you tell me to turn north and there isn't an ocean around, I'm going to be really confused, unless it's sunrise or sunset. You may as well give me a quantum physics problem, because I really struggle with sense of direction problem, because I really struggle with sense of direction. And so, as I thought about the beginning of telling you my story, I understand that the place that makes the most sense to tell you my story is the beginning.

Speaker 2:

But remember, we're talking about 35 years of trauma and the rumor has it that I'm writing a book, and so I can't tell you everything. But I wanted to start at the day where I I will draw a line forever, at the day where I started on the journey and that's what today is about is the journey of the diagnosis of PTSD, because I was living my life with some of the things that I just explained to you, like putting together a puzzle and get lost. I was living my life under this incredible self-pressure that I just needed to get over it. You know, I would throw Bible verses at myself, put my hand to the plow and, looking back, not fit for the kingdom of God, all of those things and I did not understand that PTSD even existed. And so perhaps the most frustrating place that I struggle with it back then and even now, is that I always get lost. I can't read a map. If you hand me a map on a phone, I'm going to hand it back to you and we're all going to hope that we get to wherever it is we're going, but I get lost.

Speaker 2:

And so, as I was thinking about where to tell you the story, I was thinking of a time when I was so terrified that I was gonna get lost, because it was a day that would have invoked tears for most people, because it was a bad day for me. But regardless of all that emotional pain, I could not shed a tear, and I think about that often. Or why I couldn't cry in those days and that's also a hallmark symptom of PTSD is just not being able to cry. And here's why you can't cry, because cheetahs can't run and cry at the same time, and I was running for my life. That cheetah life was was one that that I was living, but none of it was without consequence. So the day that I sat at the light at the intersection of McMullen, booth and Drew, I noticed this big giant building on the corner of that intersection. I could tell it was a church and I wanted nothing to do with it. I actually diverted my eyes. I had no interest in God or church. I didn't want to be responsible for knowing that that church was there, because I knew that I could find help there. And at that moment I didn't want help. I had been living that cheetah life and I have still to this day some pretty strong running lungs, as I did then. But running taught me nothing, teaches us nothing about coping and resting, and so I couldn't do either one of those things.

Speaker 2:

Running in those days served a bit of an analgesic to me. So we sat at that light and I glanced down at my gear shift and grabbed the 16-ounce bottle of narcotic pain medicine that I had secured before leaving St Augustine. I took a swig of that, what I later would dub as liquid gold. I neither had a cough I didn't have a cold, but my pain was inexplicable, and that liquid gold made it all more tolerable. I was only just a couple blocks from my new apartment, so I wasn't worried about getting there. I let that medicine just kind of coat my throat and really, like it, literally just hit me, and so some of that emotional pain just kind of got dulled.

Speaker 2:

And I glanced down as I was turning that corner, at the printed MapQuest directions on the passenger seat of my car and I found very, very little comfort in those step-by-step directions, didn't trust them, even though they were right there, and those of you that remember the old MapQuest directions before GPS was constantly telling us where to go. That's how we found things, but I didn't trust those directions, even though they were sitting right next to me. Instead, I focused on the U-Haul that was in front of me, and that U-Haul represented everything I owned. It was a snapshot of 35 years of my life. My brother-in-law was driving that U-Haul. He and my sister had just helped me move down my marital home. That home had been filled with violence for 12 years, for reasons that I can't explain. I really can't. Somehow, I found the courage to finally leave that environment, and, even though I was fairly confident that I was meant to live this life in constant pain, I knew that I needed to get out of that. That's the thing, see, when you're living this PTSD cheetah life, one day it catches up with you, and leaving that marriage was just one of the examples of that. I wouldn't have survived it much longer. As I followed closely behind that U-Haul, I got a glimpse, though, of that big building on the corner, even though I didn't want to, and it said Calvary Baptist Church for Life's Journey.

Speaker 2:

About that time, though, the medicine was kicking in. I seriously don't remember much about moving myself into that 750-foot square-foot apartment that I would later dub as the ghetto. It was a far cry from the house that I left. That was just three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. At some point I must have taken some more swigs from that bottle, because I don't remember my sister and brother-in-law leaving that day, and I slept for 14 hours. I woke up in the apartment the next day to double-digit text messages from my friends and my family as I tried to get settled into that apartment.

Speaker 2:

Over the days and weeks that would follow, the monsters of post-traumatic stress disorder manifested themselves in epic proportions. I continued to self-medicate myself to sleep, basically, and that is something very another hallmark of PTSD is self-medication, isolation, those kinds of things. And I was doing all of that. I didn't know a soul, even though I went to college in Clearwater. All my friends had moved.

Speaker 2:

As I unpacked my stuff, I unpacked four or five Bibles and at least that many Bible studies that I had taught over the years. Yet I was still just as lost, just like I was that day. In the car, those directions were sitting right next to me. I could trust them, they came from a trusted source but I could not get my direction from them. I was so lost and that day, in my apartment, I was so lost, even though I had direction by way of four or five Bibles and, like I said, at least that many Bible studies that I had taught I was just lost with, even though I had direction. I knew that I needed direction that breathed there by way of human beings, because we were not designed, as I think many of us are finding now, in this time when I'm recording this, in this epidemic where we're all at home. We're not built to stay at home. We're not built to do life without people. And I knew that I needed to do life with some people. I needed to follow somebody, just like I did, george in that U-Haul that day, that I could see and that I could touch. Printed directions were not helping me.

Speaker 2:

So one day I just Googled the name of that church and found that they were actually having a Bible study that night. It was, ironically a Wednesday night, so I showed up to that Bible study. I did not know a single soul. Here's where decisions, guys, make a difference in everything. That night changed everything for me. I met two of the principal players in my healing that night at that Bible study and my friends Chrissy and my friend Cheryl had their very first Wednesdays with Watson. Good things really began happening to me as a result of some of the connections I made there, one of which is I got a job, a teaching job at that school, and that was just a lifeline for me. In a couple of years that were to follow the community that came with that, one decision to attend that Bible study was literally a lifelong for me. Some of those people just provided shade and shelter for me because I was still living that cheetah life. As a result of that Bible study I just got people and, as you know, one of the C's is my community.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes directions come to us differently and even those with a propensity to get lost can follow some simple directions, because these people that were in my life refused to give up on me, even though none of them had any clue that I was living that cheetah life. I am so grateful to them to this day because at that point everything I knew in my life by way of directions and that those Bibles were in jeopardy. I found myself having plenty of moments, like John the Baptist had, where I most audibly asked God if he was real or if I should be looking for somebody else. Fortunately, these people I keep talking about were living their lives in abandonment of the cause of Jesus Christ and because of that I had the direction that I so desperately sought, because they reflected Jesus in their interactions with me. Little things like my friend Cheryl, who also taught at that school, every single day brought me cheese and crackers like a third grader, because I wouldn't bring food for myself, and so she bought it from the grocery store and brought it to me every day for me to eat. So I was continuing to live my cheetah life, complete with adrenaline dumps and night terrors and sheer exhaustion from the run, and I could not sleep. I still was not opening Bibles, still wasn't looking at those printed directions that had proven to me to be faithful and true. Oftentimes I couldn't even tell you where one of my Bibles were. I was still so lost. But those people were definitely helping me. I had my eyes on them and, right, wrong or indifferent, they are the reason why I'm still breathing air, but the repercussions of that cheetah life was bound to catch up for me. Catch up to me, excuse me, and catch up to me it did.

Speaker 2:

My first class of the morning that I taught was a chemistry class at 745. To say that I am not a morning person is a bit of an understatement, but that was especially true because my nights were filled with terror and trauma flashbacks. And if you have PTSD, even if you've never been diagnosed, if you've had a flashback, you know exactly what I'm talking about. During the day I was operating off of adrenaline dumps and caffeine, but one night I was just so of adrenaline dumps and caffeine, but one night I was just so frustrated with not being able to sleep. I watched as every hour clicked by and I played that same game that we all played. If I go to sleep now, I'll get X amount of sleep. And as that X number began dwindling down, I was determined to fall asleep and so I started taking a Klonopin, which is like a Xanax or a Valium, for every time I saw that clock hit another hour. I had been prescribed Klonopin for anxiety, but I was only supposed to take one of them, but every time I saw that clock hit an hour, I took a Klonopin and by the time I got up to take a shower to go to work the next day, I had taken nine Klonopin and slept zero hours.

Speaker 2:

That next day I taught my long stretch of those six classes in a row and again, for reasons that I can't explain to you, during my break period I went down, started talking to my assistant principal, who is a man that I really respected and had a lot of just admiration for and just loved his job and loved us, and so I told him what happened and he just looked at me gently and asked me if I could teach my next class. And when I told him that I could, he said come back and see me after you get done with the class. And so I didn't think much about that and I went back up and taught my seventh class and roamed back in his office and when I did, my friend Cheryl was there and she looked upset and I can't be sure Maybe she can answer this for you one day but I was pretty sure she had been crying. But we were going for a ride. Apparently Aaron and Cheryl had investigated where they could take me to get help and a few hours later I found myself in the emergency room with Cheryl where I would admit myself to the psych ward and finally stop running. I could not cry. I wasn't scared. I was somewhat grateful that someone else had taken the responsibility to take care of me as all the paperwork got ready. I continued to communicate with my friends on text message Still was fine, still wasn't scared as they got me ready to admit me.

Speaker 2:

And as soon as I realized that the door was going to lock when they did, I started to get a little bit scared. But then the last thing they did was take my phone and my cheetah life was officially over. At least for that moment it was over. I sobbed because they took my phone. They took away the only direction that I had been living the last two years on. That door closed behind Cheryl and it locked. As it slammed shut, and that locked door alone caused childhood flashbacks. But in short order they had me medicated and I fell asleep in the clothes that I wore to work that day. That night the cheetah in me just stopped and it's still still, to this day, one of the best nights of sleep I've ever had. The days that were come were some of the hardest of my life, and it landed me at the feet of Jesus, who I understood was not unfamiliar with my sufferings. And because there was nothing else to distract me, I found a Bible in the psych ward. It was the first day of the rest of my life. The cheetah retired that day and I can't wait to tell you the rest of the story. Thank you for so, guys.

Speaker 2:

This is the beginning of the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. You just heard the first episode, and so in the next couple episodes I continue to tell you my story. Ironically, that church on the corner is exactly where I found myself just last week teaching a lesson on the question that Jesus asked do you want to get? Well? As I listen back to this episode, it is somewhat cringy to me, because I have watched the Lord bring me so far. I've watched him bring peace and healing that I never thought could happen, even on that day after I bought a microphone off of Amazon at the beginning of the pandemic to start this little passion project. Because, you know, even then I still believed in Jesus, I still believed in his goodness and somewhere deep inside of me I knew that one day that he would bring healing.

Speaker 2:

It was at this time that I attached myself to Joel 2.25, where the Bible tells us that God will restore all the things that the locusts have stolen.

Speaker 2:

These days, I hear that same slamming door shut, and it always reminds me of that time in 2008.

Speaker 2:

And it always reminds me of that time in 2008. As you see, because the Lord does what the Lord does. Once that cheetah retired and let him do what he does, he has brought me to a place where now I work, in that very environment where I found myself after taking those nine Klonopin, and this is why I still believe that, through it all, that he is amazing, wonderful and my only hope, my ever-present help in trouble. So I hope that you if you're new here that you enjoyed this throwback episode. The next couple will continue to tell my story and then I will share with you the lesson that I taught at that very same church, calvary Church, on the questions that Jesus asked Do you want to get well? Until then, I hope that you still believe and that you still know that he never, ever gives up on us and that he will, in fact, redeem all the years that the locusts have stolen. We'll see you guys back here in two weeks.

Speaker 1:

The world may say where is your God? We will say he's right here with us. The world may say where is your God? We will say he's right here with us. The world may say where is your God? But we will say he's right here with us. The world may say where is your God? We will say he's right here with us. His name is Jesus, oh Jesus. His name is Jesus, jesus, cause I still believe, through it all, I still believe you are wonderful. You've never given up on me, cause I still believe you are powerful. I still believe you do miracles. You've never given up on me. You've never given up on me. You've never given up on me.

People on this episode

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Amy Watson

Host