Child of Sexual Assault Shares Why He's Thankful that His Mother Chose Life
Episode Stats
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166.24022
Summary
In this episode of the John Leonard Weston Show, we are joined by pro-life activist Rebecca Kiesling to talk about rape and incest and the impact it can have on a family. We also have a special guest, Stephen Thorne Holland, who shares the story of how he was adopted at seven days old.
Transcript
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My conception, how I was brought into the world, even though horrific and terrible and evil,
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like, you don't know the plans God has for that life.
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Shout out to all young people in the pro-life movement, or not in the pro-life movement,
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but thought to defend life, thought to speak about abortion to your friends at college.
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It's a really tough thing because even if you get to move the needle a little bit,
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often people will come back with the very question that you will hear over and over and over again,
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At LifeSite News, we are very pleased to know Rebecca Kiesling.
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She is a great pro-life activist, has been for a long time,
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but when everybody got to know her first, it was actually over this very issue of rape.
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But she's also a very beautiful, very successful lawyer.
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And that has so shattered the image of what people think of when they think of rape and incest
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and what happens to the mother who experiences rape or incest.
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which talks not only about women who have been raped, but also the other side.
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Women who have gone ahead and kept their baby, who were in a situation of rape,
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and those who have killed their babies through abortion and the suffering and torment that comes with that.
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She has brought us to so many heroes sharing their testimonies of keeping life after rape and incest,
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And we're pleased to bring you one of those stories today.
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You've probably seen him on a live-action video, which went crazily viral.
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Stay tuned for this episode of the John Leonard Weston Show.
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Stephen Thin, thank you so much for joining us.
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It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me.
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Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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Stephen Thin, if you can, just tell us, first of all, your story, just a summarized version of your story.
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Yeah. Well, when I was eight years old, I had some friends of mine at school come to me and say,
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And I'm like, that's not very nice. What are you talking about?
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And I look at my hand as an eight-year-old little boy, and I'm like, you know what?
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I've never thought about this, but I am a different color.
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I wouldn't say the wrong color. That's not very nice.
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But I looked at my hand. I said, well, I look different than the rest of my family.
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So needless to say, I had some questions, right?
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So this little eight-year-old boy comes home, and I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my mom that night.
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And I really didn't want to talk about it because I was hurt by what they said.
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But I had a mom that was kind of nosy and in my business, you know?
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And so before I laid my head down on the pillow, I've told her exactly what happened that day.
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And so then we have this conversation of I found out at eight years old that I was actually adopted.
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So she told me that at seven days old, they brought me into the family as a seven-day-old child.
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And as a matter of fact, I was on the same bottle of formula I left the hospital with.
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They told me that they actually told the family that I probably wouldn't survive, that I just needed a safe place to come.
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And what I didn't know is two years prior to them bringing me into the home, they had actually had a miscarriage, and they had lost a 22-week-old little boy.
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So God used that pain of their loss to start foster parenting.
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The four biological children, two boys, two girls, was Ricky, Rod, Renee, and Robin.
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You would have thought if I didn't recognize the color was different, maybe, you know, like I'd never thought about my name being different.
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But what I like to say is, you know, people ask me, how did it take eight years for you to realize your skin color was different and all these things?
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So the reason I didn't know those things is because I was showered with love.
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So very loving family, but if I'm being honest, that's the first time in my life I ever remember feeling broken.
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It's the first time in my life I ever remember asking God why.
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You know, obviously, why do I have to be the wrong color?
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But what really hit deep was why would a mother not want her son?
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I felt like I was thrown away, that I wasn't worth enough to be kept.
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So that little eight-year-old boy, right, is struggling with that.
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And, you know, you fast forward middle school and high school.
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I didn't want to be weird and different anymore.
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So I've been 200 and none of your business pounds since seventh grade, okay?
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So I was a fullback and middle linebacker, baseball player.
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Sports became the way that I could find identity and worth.
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Like, I'm going to hit you really hard if you want to talk, you know, tell me I'm weird and different.
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But so, you know, my junior year of high school, I actually had a back surgery, ended my football career.
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God, I thought, you know, I was going to be playing in college somewhere.
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I went to a little small school in Bristol, Tennessee, about four hours from my hometown.
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And long story short, I played baseball, earned a scholarship.
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But really, I think God had me there for one reason, that's to meet my wife.
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She's 5'11", and I know I'm sitting down, but, you know, I'm not that tall.
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But she was from Tampa, Florida, a volleyball player.
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We met and we started talking about what would a family look like, you know, if we get married.
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But we get married in June of 2006 in Tampa, Florida, her hometown.
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And very early on, I was a minister working with youth.
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And my wife was pregnant with our first pregnancy.
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And eight weeks into our pregnancy, she had a miscarriage at home alone while I was at church working with our students.
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I come back home and find her in the floor, doubled over in pain.
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And, you know, here we are both asking God, what, why?
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We have a successful pregnancy, who's our 16-year-old daughter today.
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Our third pregnancy, 10 weeks in, we have another miscarriage.
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This time she had to have a DNC, so she had to have a surgically removed, lifeless baby in the womb.
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And so she went into the doctor's office with a baby in the womb, but came back to me with an empty womb.
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And for this dad's heart, it just ripped me apart.
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But in the middle of that pain and that brokenness, we're on our fourth pregnancy.
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So we lost our eight-week-old, had Isabella, who's our 16-year-old, lost our 10-week-old, third pregnancy.
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And then we're pregnant with Eliana, who's our 13-year-old.
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And I'll go ahead and tell you we have another daughter.
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It's just me alone, three daughters and my wife.
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But with the fourth pregnancy, in the middle of that pain and depression, just the spirit of God said, it's time.
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So from eight years old to 27 is where I find myself in 2009.
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When I was eight years old, having that conversation with my mom, there was a moment where she gave me a folder.
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So I had my birth certificate and I had seven pages of family information.
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And I took that paperwork and started searching on Google.
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And three days into the search, I found a man named Steve Holt.
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He's a magician and ventriloquist from Spartanburg, South Carolina.
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Now, what's significant about that is my birth mom's name was Glenda Sue Holt.
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But I don't know if, I know you all don't know me.
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I don't like Chucky, It, you know what I'm saying?
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I didn't want to be on this man's site, you know?
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So I look on his bio and every single name on my paperwork from 1982, I was born March 31st, 1982, matched what his online information said.
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And one specific name was Glenda Sue Holt, who is a baby sister.
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And sure enough, at 27 years old, I met my birth uncle.
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I flew from Tampa to South Carolina to meet with him about a month later.
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And he actually told me how I came to be, which I did not know.
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Their parents died at an early age, and they were all thrown into orphanages.
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All of them, except for him, are mentally handicapped, including my mom.
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So my mom only functioned as an 11-year-old mental capacity.
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So when she aged out of the system, she actually became a ward of the state of Georgia and was placed into a mental facility.
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And while she was there, she was actually raped by five men.
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She's 18 outwardly, but she's only 11 mentally.
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So does she even know what happened to her, the trauma from that?
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So it was some time had went by before the facility realized that she was pregnant.
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But when they found out, this is a state-ran facility.
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They were pressuring her every day to abort her baby, right, because, you know, again, statistically, she didn't have the resources.
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But this woman that I call my hero, she valued life enough, even with only an 11-year-old mental capacity, to fight for me.
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So those questions, you know, for years that I had, like, you know, why, why?
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You know, did she really love me or care for me?
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She fought for me, and she carried me homeless, ran away from this facility literally on her own, and fought for her baby.
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So for the duration of the pregnancy, she's on the streets, and by the end, she's nine months pregnant, living in a cardboard box behind an old grocery store in this little country town.
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The Holland family that had four kids, Ricky, Rod, Renee, and Robin, and they were longing for one more baby boy.
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And God placed her in that town behind that store in that box.
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And this 16-year-old boy was skipping school one day, up to no good.
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Here's this my mom, pregnant with me, nine months pregnant.
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And he loads her up, like walks her home to his family.
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So this is a 16-year-old boy, 18-year-old, nine-month pregnant girl, walks in the front door and says, hey, Mom and Dad, look what I found.
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So can you imagine, you know, like your 16-year-old son walking in with an 18-year-old pregnant woman?
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But they said yes, and they cared for us for two weeks until she gave birth to me in the hospital.
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And everybody wants to know, like, Stephen Thin, like, where does that name come from?
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She said, I want to name him Stephen Thin William.
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So William is my middle name, and whoever heard audibly her speak the first name, they put Stephen Thin together.
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So I find all this out at 27 in my uncle's living room, but the story's not over yet.
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Then he looks at me, and it kind of gets awkward and silent, and he says, I want to tell you something.
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He's like, your mom's alive, and she's five hours south of where we sit right now.
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And what the spirit of God had spoken to me was, a couple months before that, it's time.
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I wanted to go right then and there, but it was at night.
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And we drove five hours down to this mental facility that she was living in, kind of like a nursing home situation,
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We had this plan of interacting and meeting, like, in her room, but God just kind of took over,
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My uncle did a magic show for the residents to kind of lighten, which was really hilarious
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because you had schizophrenics, and they were nonverbal, and he's putting bottles through people's bodies.
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And there was a moment where my mom started singing a song.
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And so I'm a worship leader, singer, songwriter.
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And she gets done singing, and it didn't really make sense.
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You know, in her 11-year-old mind, she's 46, but she's still 11 mentally.
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And I started singing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved.
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And I lost it, started crying, because this woman that I'm looking at literally saved my life.
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And then she finishes the verse, like every word perfect, on point, on key.
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And then my uncle has the honor of actually introducing us right there in that moment
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So there's actually a video on YouTube of me meeting my hero, Mama Glenda, for the first time.
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The family that you gave him to take care of, their last name was Holland.
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And you've been the best mama you could be, too.
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Tell us now, after that incredibly moving meeting, what was the answer in your heart from God?
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I was at peace just to have the opportunity to look my mom in the eyes and tell her that I loved her
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But God, I think, gave me so much more, that I was loved, that I did matter.
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You know, in that video we just watched, she looked at me and said, I love you, son.
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I would have never given you up if I could have kept you.
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But she just didn't have the mental capacity to care for me.
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But she did have the love, right, to give birth to her son.
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Even though the world was telling her that it wasn't worth it and she shouldn't have to go through that,
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even with an 11-year-old mental capacity, she knew the value of life and the strength of a mother.
00:17:01.660
This normally is the poster child for abortion.
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These are the cases that Planned Parenthood goes, International Planned Parenthood goes from country to country
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and all the countries where abortion is illegal and brings out these cases.
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These young woman, young girl who's raped, should she be forced to carry that child?
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What's your message to young people who are plagued with that mentality?
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Because that's what they get all day, every day.
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I have three beautiful daughters that are here because she chose life for their dad.
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My wife has a husband that she loves and supports because of choosing life.
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A lot of people, on the front end of that, you didn't know what my life would look like.
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You didn't know the story I would have that I matter.
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My conception, how I was brought into the world, even though horrific and terrible and evil,
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you don't know the plans God has for that life.
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Hopefully, I can be an example of that with my story and be bold enough to share.
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I tell people I have to touch my pain a lot of times.
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But I know somebody watching this is maybe going to find healing.
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And that's part of the purpose that I have on this planet that I was given, right?
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Because somebody saw value enough to choose life for me, even though the circumstances were not great.
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Tell us what you know of your mom's sentiments, feelings, even though they're of a minor, you might say.
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What are those and how does she feel God has touched her life amidst what would have been, what is an unspeakable crime and horror?
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Well, I actually lost my mom on Thanksgiving of 2020.
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Every time that I would walk into this facility, I would drive seven hours to visit her.
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And every time I walked in, you know, I'm her son.
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And she loved me and she hugged me and we had this beautiful moment, you know, moments that we got to share over that 11 years.
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So I think, and again, with her granddaughters, she, you know, she died at 57 years old.
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But for 11 years, they got to color with her, got to play with baby dolls.
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I mean, because she was an 11-year-old child, right?
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But she literally got to play with her grandkids.
00:20:00.780
Her life had worth and value, even though a lot of society would say, well, you know, she only functions as an 11-year-old.
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She's mentally, you know, handicapped and challenged.
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But she's somebody's mom and she's somebody's grandmother.
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People say, God can write straight with crooked lines.
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I would say my crap has become my fertilizer, you know?
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So maybe that's, I'm thinking, so let me answer it like that, okay?
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We want it to be straight, but sometimes that fertilizes the soil so the roots can grow deep.
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And then there's a tree and then there's fruit, right?
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But I think of that, I mean, that's just what came to mind.
00:21:02.660
The brokenness that I carry have become the beauty of the object.
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As Christians, we believe that all of life is about eternal life.
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The world, our lives here are testing ground to get to heaven.
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In that blink of an eye, you decide which direction you're going to take for all eternity.
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What people think is immense suffering here is all about getting there.
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Not take up a good drink, come in the shade with me, and we'll just have a great time.
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Your testimony is very powerful because it brings to the brink of what people think.
00:22:04.220
Why do you call your organization Broken Not Dead?
00:22:17.980
2 Corinthians 4, 8 and 9 is the verse where we see, I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, but, you know, I'm not abandoned.
00:22:25.920
You know, I'm struck down, but I'm not destroyed.
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So, to me, that's a battle cry for anybody listening.
00:22:37.200
And I think the best way and image to, I use a lot, is kintsugi.
00:22:43.560
It's a Japanese art form of mending broken pottery.
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So, maybe you've seen, like, where it has the gold and the cracks.
00:23:00.560
It takes a master potter to mend the brokenness.
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So, we have to take that brokenness and surrender it to the master potter to do the healing.
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But once you've been restored, right, the beauty, the cracks become the beauty of the object.
00:23:14.100
So, you actually do have purpose, even though you've been through the brokenness, right?
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That object's worth more now than it was in its original state.
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But my favorite part is what happens when you shine a light on that object that wouldn't have happened before it had been broken and restored.
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So, I feel like for the image people out there in the world, that's what this means.
00:23:53.960
So, I still have breath in my lungs and a heartbeat in my chest.
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We talked about to push towards and bring as many people as I can with me.
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I'm going to end off with a very challenging question for you, Stevenson.
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What are you doing to bring your own kids to the ultimate in life?
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I think I'm trying to be the greatest example as a father and a man of God, you know, as an example to my kids to, you know, to bring them along with me, right?
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That's my first ministry is my family, my wife and my children.
00:24:31.620
So, it's a beautiful, I mean, you know how to get me crying.
00:24:35.220
Like, to see my girls lead worship with me, to sing with dad, right?
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They're singing because of their love, you know, and their faith and their love for Jesus, right?
00:24:45.180
And to see them serve in the church and, you know, they'll be the first to tell you, even pro-life.
00:24:52.520
They're passionate about pro-life and they're passionate about their faith.
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And, you know, that's a testament to hopefully the work that I've done and my wife have done as parents.
00:25:17.320
May I ask you, I don't know if you know it, but just a verse of Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.
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Through this man, we were able to turn our eyes upon Jesus and, for a little while, look full into his wonderful face.