Have you ever wondered if God really can turn your pain into purpose?

Our guest today shares the peace he felt when he found Jesus after a lifetime of violence and how he uses it now to help others get free.

Hector "Lefty" Perez is a mental health and sobriety advocate. He works installing HVAC systems and helps as many people as he can know the love of Christ. Today, Lefty shares what it was like growing up in East Los Angeles among violence, gangs, and drugs. He tells how he got sucked into the life, the moment he decided to get out, and turning his life over to Christ once and for all.

Left also shares the difficult times he's experienced including relapse at times and how it led him to a life where he encourages others to give up drugs and live for Christ.

Lefty's story reminds us that God loves us no matter what we have done.

Listen to Lefty's story wherever you get your podcasts!

Stories Lefty shared:

• Moving states to Colorado
• Being diagnosed with ADHD at seven and how it’s helped him with a career in trades
• Growing up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles in an immigrant family
• His family’s Roman Catholic background
• Feeling angry as a child at God and his parents
• The violence he experienced in the neighborhood
• The neighbor who groomed him to become a criminal
• Beginning to get involved in crime
• Working as a bodyguard and making more money than he’d seen before
• Achieving everything he wanted and feeling anxious about it
• Attempting suicide and surviving
• Being given a choice about his future
• Getting married and struggling with drug addiction
• Meeting a pastor who shared the Gospel with him
• Reading John and feeling God’s presence
• Leading his father to Christ
• His mother’s disappointing reaction to his new faith
• Struggling with drug addiction
• Breakthrough with vulnerability

Every word I read was like painkiller for my soul and I wanted more.

I was searching for peace and I only found it when I allowed Christ in my heart.

I prayed, "I've done worse things for a nobody, let me do something good for you, a somebody."

• Lefty's Instagram (DM him)

• Christina Dent and Compassion for Others
• Randy Mortensen and Removing the Stigma of Addiction
• Mike Bolton and the Power of Yes

You grew up in church but suddenly, you can't tell if God cares about you. What do you do?

Our guest today shares the moment when she didn't recognize herself, didn't feel God's presence, and what she did next.

Ciara Laine Myers is an award-winning business owner, blogger, and author of Glasses Off: Seeing God When Your Vision Is Gone. Today, Ciara shares with us her reaction to trauma, the moment her secrets became known, and the practices that brought her back to health. Plus, we talk about calling and why it may not mean what you think.

Ciara's story reminds us that no matter how far we feel from God, it's only one step back.

Listen to Ciara's story wherever you get your podcasts now!

• Struggling with calling and asking God for fresh insight
• Growing up on a little ranch in Texas in a Christian family
• Getting saved when she was five
• Being abused sexually by a friend at seven
• Processing her experience in college
• Deciding to be “bad Ciara” and where that led her
• Realizing that she didn’t feel God anymore and how that felt
• Going to the hospital with severe pain being forced to confess her drug use to her grandma
• Getting back with a previous boyfriend and getting pregnant
• Deciding to have a date with God for 60 days
• Getting “serious” about finding her calling
• Why humility is so important in an influencer culture
• The vision of her purpose from the Lord
• The urgency test and the action you need to take

If good Ciara is being abused, I’m going to be bad Ciara.

There was one moment that I looked in the mirror and thought "I don't really feel God anymore, and it was cold."

Calling is not a career. It’s a space on Earth to live out your purpose.

• Ciara’s website

• Glasses Off: Seeing God When Your Vision Is Gone by Ciara Laine Myers

• Mary DeMuth and Her Avenue for Healing
• Chuck DeGroat and The Invitation to Obscurity
• Dan Rudman and Ripples of the Gospel

What was the experience for you that changed your faith dramatically?

Our guest today shares the moment that moved his faith from his head to his heart and how it changed how he sees everything.

Jeff Haanen is a writer and entrepreneur. He’s the founder of Denver Institute for Faith & Work, an educational organization that creates content and experiences around topics related to faith, work, the economy, and modern culture.

Today, Jeff shares how he found faith while recovering from an injury, his funny response to praying aloud for the first time, and how he started thinking about faith and work. Plus, Jeff shares his process as he learned humility.

Jeff's story reminds us the Gospel is best infused into every aspect of our lives.

Listen to Jeff's story anywhere you get your podcasts!

• Growing up in a Minnesota without a strong faith experience

• Getting hurt before his senior year and reading the Bible and other books

• Praying in a group for the first time

• Joining a missions organization and going to Ecuador

• Learning how to pay attention to people

• Deciding to go to seminary with an insatiable curiosity

• Starting the Denver Institute for Faith and Work

• Noticing “cracks” in his armor

• Realizing that he was looking for his identity in his work

• Going on a self-awareness journey

• Deconstruction how he lived his Christian life

• Leaving Denver Institute for Faith & Work

• How serving is crucial for work

My brain was way ahead of my heart and that's been a lot of my own faith journey.

We need to go on a journey of seeking deep spiritual health.

A critical element of that self awareness journey is simply opening ourselves to what is and noticing what's there and not trying to fix it.

• Jeff's website
• Working from the Inside Out by Jeff Haanen
• Francis Schaeffer's work
• The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich
• The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society by Leslie Newbigin
• Bernard of Clairvaux
• Wellspring Church, Englewood
• With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God by Skye Jethani

• Skye Jethani and Eternity Breaks In

• Laura Flanders and The Mentored Life

• Matt Fagioli and Beyond Check Box Faith