#89- Mick Wienholt

To be yourself King, to be yourself. The really the greatest thing that you could be is to be yourself. What's up? This is the Iconspirations podcast. And if you're seeking a job close to the God, this is the podcast for you. And today I have an extraordinary guest named Mick. Mick has many stories that were very interesting. And I'm looking to dive into that. That can only be done by the God's grace. So I'm so excited to have him on. I know he's an excellent communicator and I'm just excited to have him on. So thank you for coming, Mick. Yeah, I'm glad to be here, man. Truly really like the show for sure. And the other guests you've had, you do a great job of bringing all kinds of wonderful folks to the table and really appreciate the opportunity to be included in that group. Awesome. So let's dive into it. Mick, so what is by you to draw closer to God? Man, we're getting to it right out of the gates, man. Well, let me give a tiny bit of backstory in order to give the right context to answer that question. Like, yeah. So my wife and I, we got married in our mid 20s. We very purposefully decided we're going to be married without kids. That was our plan. And then after a handful of years, we decided, okay, now it's time for us to start a family. And I'm choosing my language here very specifically because it was our plan, right, to be married, not have kids. And it was our plan to now start a family because it was our time, all right. And we knew lots of friends who over the course of life, we had challenges getting pregnant and other friends that had no issues getting pregnant. So we didn't really know how that was going to go for us, but we ended up getting pregnant pretty much right out of the gates and being pregnant for the first time. I went to the obstetrician appointments at the beginning of the pregnancy, not so much in the middle because everything kind of seemed to be progressing pretty normal. And then I went to a handful of them towards the end. And I get this point, my wife is in her early 30s. I'm in my early 30s. I'm 31 and I am fueled by Red Bull and ego. So I want all of the listeners to know that I am trying to climb the corporate ladder. And I'm doing a relatively decent job of doing that, you know, I'm the primary breadwinner for our family and chasing things from a career perspective and being quote unquote successful at least from the perspective of the world. And as we roll into this final obstetrician appointment, I remember being there towards the end. And I said to the OB, I'm like, you know, sort of seems like everything's kind of good to go, but I mean, you're the expert. I'm not like, what should we be thinking about? What should we be aware of at this point? And like she says to me, she goes, you guys are in good shape. Like all good, your wife should be on the cover of fit pregnancy magazine. And the reason that I remember that is because that was a humongous stroke to my ego because one, it's implying that, you know, your, your wife is fit and, you know, good enough looking to be on the cover of a magazine. You know what I mean? And the fact that presumably like she was kind of explaining babies and good health and all that kind of stuff. And as mentioned, right, this is more or less the last OB appointment that we're going to have before any minute now, it's go time to deliver the baby. And I think probably within two weeks, maybe even less than that, we are encountering a really challenging situation. So we lived in a townhouse, like, and that meant we had no space for our dogs. I took our dogs for a walk in the morning. This is now early January of 2012. And I came back into the house and my wife is standing in the kitchen crying. And I said to her, I'm like, honey, what's up? And her response was, I haven't felt him move since last night. So we went to the hospital. We go to labor and delivery as we were instructed to. And there were three different ultrasound texts, three different ultrasound machines. And then finally the MD, who's using the ultrasound machine ultimately tells us what at that point we all pretty much knew, which is, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your baby no longer has a heartbeat. And so I started all of this out with our plan was no kids. Our plan was to start a family. And we now come to the devastating experience of hearing the baby that was presumed totally healthy is now dead. So our son's name is Luke. He was 39 weeks. He was exactly one week from his due date. When he died and that was January, the night of January 3rd, sometime early morning of January 4th, 2012. And so in the later morning hours of 2000, of January 4th, 2012 was when we found out that he was dead. And then we were, my wife was induced and she delivered Luke the following day on January 5th. But it was January 4th in those moments right after we were told your baby no longer has a heartbeat. That we cried out, man. It cried out. And so let me explain how that went because it was really, really raw. So we're immediately overwhelmed with grief as you can imagine. And crying both of us were there in this really tiny room. And my wife says, I got to go to the bathroom. So I said, okay, I'll go with you. And I got to walk with her down the hall a little bit. She goes into one of those, you know, hospital bathrooms, which has like that enormous door on it. And it's just got one toilet, but it's large enough that you can like park a dump truck in it. You know, like this huge room, right? She closes the door and I just completely break down. I'm on the other side of that door in the hallway in the hospital on my knees. My face is six inches off of the floor. And I cried out to God. And I asked for him to help. And the reason I did that was up to this point in my life. I'm really capable. I'm a fully kind of, um, handy man in that I saw problems in the workplace. I was good with my hands that I could do stuff around the house. And I had really never encountered a challenger and issue that I ultimately, couldn't fix with a little bit of tenacity and, and, you know, education and know how and we'll just kind of like figure this out. And it was 1,000% apparent that I could not fix this. It was, it was completely beyond me. And so knowing that I was in a way like at the end of myself, I gave up and I cried out. In desperation and I asked for God to come and help. And I think it's important for everybody to know that up to this point in life, right? I was kind of describing this like we had our plans. But what I haven't set up to this point also is the fact that we didn't have any relationship with God. We didn't have any relationship with Jesus. We didn't have any relationship with the Holy Spirit. And so to answer your question, it is that moment that we then began. The relationship with God. Interesting man. Well, that was a really interesting story, man. And very, very, very heartfelt. I'm scared. So when you're done pass and and loop pass and your wife, Peugeot, that you was no longer alive. I'm just curious about the initial reaction that you started to see God because I feel like some people would look at that and be like, "Oh, this is what the hell like. I want nothing to do with God. How is this God doing?" So I'm curious. Why did you feel compelled to seek him to seek God instead of just and if anything, I feel like that's a reason to bash him in kind of like just kind of not, you know, not move forward or seek him. So I'm just curious about that. Yeah, man, it's a super valid question because that's really the exact fork in the road that we were at. We absolutely could have shaken our fists at him and said, "Why did you do this? Why did you do this?" And frankly, man, the best thing that I can can explain it with is the fact that it was just truly his grace. There really isn't a specific reason other than what I was describing, meaning that I knew I needed him because it was beyond us. It was beyond me. But before that, man, we wanted nothing to do with him. I mean, there were occasional times when my wife suggested that we go to church. And I told her, flat out, I'm like, we're good. Not only are we good, but you're good. I'm good. We're good, meaning we do not need God in our life. And that's coming from me growing up in a, quote, unquote, Christian household and going to Christian based education from first grade to 12th grade. So I knew all about God and I perceived him to be this distant disciplinarian, which is in large part the way my father was because I didn't have a great relationship with my dad. Had a reasonable relationship with my dad, but I mean like he did the best he could. I'm not knocking him, but the second that I could rebel against my folks, I did. And by extension, that was God too. So dude, transparently, man, God gets all the glory for this because without question, we stood at that fork in the road and could have shaken our fist at him. Yeah. And instead, man, I'm just like, this is, this is beyond me. This is beyond us. We need God. And we thought man that we had a Luke shaped toll in our heart. And Ike showed us over the course of many months and loving us through our grieving process that we actually had a God shaped toll and he filled it. And he's loved us through all of that, man. And it's literally changed the trajectory of our lives forever. Yeah. And so interesting how God works in mysterious ways because you can look at that experience as like a lesson or a lesson and he seemed to look at it as a blessing because it's changed your outlook on life, which is which is incredible. And I think with your story, I think one of the aspects that I hear is like this, like a lack of control, like you literally could have done nothing to say here, baby. And I feel like when I think about how little control I have in life and I have how much control I use to think that's what draw the cause of God. And I think that control like that we have to talk about is drawn by ego. And I think a lot of men we suffer from that. The huge ego thinking that we can control everything and everything we get is because of me, you know, and I've had the fair share of that ego trap and I've been working on reducing that ego as much as possible. So it's interesting to hear your story in that regard. You know, yeah. You know, like it's interesting that you talked about lesson or blessing and we very clearly define it as blessing. We talk about it regularly with folks that the death of our son Luke, we see as the single biggest, most tangible blessing that we have had to date. And because very simply, dude, it literally brought us into eternity. Okay, because we then made the adult decision to accept Jesus as our savior in response to all of this. And as a result of that, the 13 years that that it's been, we've been on a trajectory that is completely different than what it would have been before. And so our family tree is different as a result of that, meaning our three living children, they grow up in a household and with parents that are in a relationship that starts and ends with King Jesus, not one that's like, how can we grind out a better middle class life in America? Yeah. So yeah, like it's, um, we absolutely wish it didn't go the way that it did. But we submit to the fact that God is beyond us and that that was the way he wanted it to go. So all glory be to God. We wouldn't have chosen it. In fact, I've regularly prayed to him and thanked him for the, the fact that I could have never, I believe I could have never chosen for us. What he chose for us. And yet it's done far beyond what we believe we can ever imagine in terms of blessing for us and then subsequent blessing through us and throughout children. Yeah. Yeah. And so it sounds like the plans God had for you was I can measure really greater than than what you can ever imagine and that that's so beautiful man. And I'm always, I'm always I shocked. What drives people closer to God, but it always seems to be for most people, some type of low point, you know, and for me, my low point was when I broke up with my ex and, you know, with my first girlfriend. And I'm, I'm sobbing. I'm, I'm, I'm trying and I'm really going to understand really going like what's going, what's right wrong? Because I'm not used to feeling as you know, it's like I, I mean, I put my mind into something. I'm going to work in like, you know, and that's exactly what he go. That's my ego really like kind of coming out of nowhere. I can control it. I can control it. And then I finally lost something that meant a lot to me. And like, this doesn't make sense. And I kind of broke my whole belief system about I'm really in control. And I started to realize that in so many different aspects of life. Yeah, 100% man. I literally can relate to you at all of the aspects of that, you know. And that's why and it was to just such a degree or such a magnitude. Where it's like our son who the, the worldly perspective, okay, coming from the doctor has just told us good to go. Done. Done. Over. Literally dead in utero. I mean, it was, it was catastrophic in terms of the loss. And as I said, man, that this, it put us on our knees. And from our perspective at that point, because of God's mercy and his grace, we were just like, this is beyond us. We have to go to him. So it absolutely was that point of desperation that you talked about. Yeah, sir, make it a lot of point. No, no, after that, you were blessed with three, three kids, man, which is, which is great. And it's funny how God works. I'm sure, like after the death of your first experience, the dad not scare you or like, what, how did that work? And what does your three kids tell you about like your relationship? How does that affect your relationship with God and how you see him? After being blessed with three kids, you're from Madagascar. Madagascar, you know? Yeah, that's so wonderful that you're asking that. So here's how all of that flows to answer that question. Yeah. Right after Luke's death, as soon as we were able to be intimate again, we got pregnant. And I was pumped about that because I was trying to replace Luke and we miscarried. And I was really early on. So frankly, that grief wasn't that big of a deal to us and recognize it for many families. Miscarriages are huge, but we were, I mean, we're weeks, weeks into the grieving process for Luke's death. So that just kind of got melded right into it. So my wife was wise and she's like, Hey, man, we have to put the brakes on trying to get pregnant. She's like, we have to heal. And so we did, and again, credit to her for the wisdom there. We went about nine months or so before trying to get pregnant and then God blessed us with another pregnancy. And our first living child, our daughter, she was born in July of the following year. So basically 18 months. after Luke's death and delivery, our daughter was born. And she was largely healthy, but she actually had to be induced at 37 weeks and everything was ultimately fine. But at that point, Ike, we're like, okay, we got what they call a fetal demise, meaning Luke's death, right? Still birth. And then our daughter has to be induced because of low amniotic fluid. And we're like, all right, let's just be super grateful that God has blessed us with a living child. And so we were four years, 70 to 90 percent never having any more kids, man. And our daughter is about four and a half or so. And we're like, we individually, this was an interesting thing, we individually began to get like these little nudges, these little props. Like maybe we're supposed to try to have another kid. Can you talk about the nudges and the prompts? I'm curious about that. Yeah. I don't remember exactly what they were for me, but I definitely remember feeling some nudges. And I think most of it probably came like from like thinking about that more and more where it was like truly man, like at a site, at a mine, like almost all the time. And then when I talked about it with my wife, the phrase that she used is, yeah, I feel like there's an empty seat at our table. And we talked about that more more to make sure that we weren't thinking it was we need to fill Luke's seat. But it was just the sense that like there's an empty seat at the table. Okay. Yeah. So she's getting that and I'm getting the the the the the less kind of discrete nudge, but sort of like this general nudge. And so we're like, okay, look, we're we're grownups at this point. Like we're well beyond 35. We're in relationship with Jesus for years. He is matured us. Let's go be wise about this. Let's develop a relationship with a high risk obstetrician and form a relationship before we just kind of like Willie Nilego and like just get pregnant basically. Yeah. And God blessed us with a relationship with a high risk obstetrician that we got referred to like right out of the gates. And we felt very comfortable in that relationship. Prayed about it and then continued to kind of bathe the whole idea of do you want us to try and get pregnant in prayer? And we both felt as if the Holy Spirit was pushing us towards yes. Okay. Okay. Now here's the funny thing dude. This is so good. My wife says to me she's like, look, we've had success getting pregnant before anytime we try to get pregnant. So if that happens, I want to avoid this is her speaking. I want to avoid January as a due date for our baby. And I'm like, no problem. I'm not the brightest bulb, but I can do the math on that and make sure that we play prevent defense long enough so that if we happen to get pregnant right away, we'll be in February or beyond. Okay. So that's exactly what we did. And after we stopped playing prevent defense, we got pregnant right away, which we knew was a potential, right? But like we're now like many years later, we're almost 40 for both of us. And we still end up getting pregnant right away. So the 40 week due date, which is full gestational period, right, put us into February for a due date at that point. We go in together now for the first doctor appointment. And the ultrasound technician is just, you know, making shit chat with my wife. She's doing her work up on my wife and all this stuff with my wife being on the, the examination table basically. And she says, my wife, she's like, how have you been feeling, you know, just sort of like, like we would talk about, what's the weather like in your neighborhood? It was just yeah, total just like shit chat banter. And my wife says, well, you know, it's been years since I've been pregnant, but I kind of remember not being as sick as I am now. I feel like I'm sicker than I was before. And the ultrasound tech goes, well, there's good reason for that. And I'm in the room. And I said, or I was like, you're going to tell us where having twins. And she goes from like, bubbly and all this like really serious. And she looks at me and she goes, how did you know? I got a really good poker face. And I was like, I just knew. So then they, she then turns on the flat screen, the giant flat screen TV that's up on the wall so that we can see what she's seeing on her screen. Okay. And sure enough, man, there are literally two little embryonic nuggets in there doing their little flapping around thing. And I'm over the moon. Okay. And my wife is under the moon. She's the total opposite because she's looking at this going, wow, now I have twice the risk, you know, because she's got to carry these. And where this all ends up, man, is our obstetrician says, you guys no longer have a February due date. Your high risk and high risk with multiples means that they're going to come out at 36 weeks, which chops a full month off of it and puts us into January. Now I, my wife, she fought this. Okay. Like professionally, like they didn't like go at it hard, but they like went at it consistently over multiple appointments. And so we're praying about it. I'm praying about it. And man, dude, this is what is so good about God. His goodness, the Holy Spirit eventually said to me, he goes, Hey, you tried to control this. I'm in control. You're not in control. I am giving you two live children. They will be born alive. And they're going to be born in January because you will celebrate live births, living birthdays, not just Luke's death in the month of January, because I am redeeming Luke's death. And then, and like, this was what was even cooler about all of it. Okay. Because what he just told me, meaning through the Holy Spirit is wonderful and amazing because it gave us confidence, right? He's like, you're going to have the kids born alive. Okay. And here's when this is going to happen. And you thought you were in control, but you're not. But then he ends it with, and you will tell people this story. So that is exactly what happened. Like our sons were born at the end of January. My wife delivers them vaginally. They're eight minutes apart. They're identical twin boys. And we thought we were in control. And God showed us that he was in control. Amen. We thought, and we thought, dude, that we had an empty seat at the table. That is like, here's two. So I'll close this particular part with the fact that they were born alive. My sons, that is, our sons were born alive seven years to the month after Luke dies and is delivered. 2012 to 2019. As no convincing us, God's timing is incredible. God's timing is incredible. I'm always, always so fascinated by the way God works. It's just, it's mind blowing. And your story is such a beautiful story of redemption. When I hear it, I mean, I feel like God is redeeming you and blessing you for having a relationship with him. You know, and I feel like before when Luke died, you didn't have that relationship and you were filled with ego. And I felt like, you know, and God had to humble you through that death. And then afterwards, as soon as you started to mature your relationship in Christ, a lot of blessings started to happen. Thank you for sharing those stories because they always helped increase my faith personally. And then listen to people who are listening. Like, you know, the time is incredible. I'm sure you're still like, wow, man, like, absolutely no way this could have been done. So with the day of the, of the birth, the same, that was at the month tour, the same month, not the same day. All of us say, yeah, that's the same month. But that's that's still insane. So, yeah, that's still that's still crazy. So anyway, so, So, another interesting story that I've read, was your story was the avalanche. And I was like, wow, like, I don't wanna like, explore it for others, but you had an avalanche and you somehow came out of that. Can you expand on that too? 'Cause I think that's another incredible story that I was, that teached my interest. Yeah, well listen man, all glory be to God with what we just talked about with the children, all four of them. And all glory be to God with what I'm about to share with you and the listeners as it relates to the avalanche. It was funny that you're like, you had an avalanche, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - You know, most people don't have one of those. So, so for this one, man, we just have to rewind. We gotta go back not to, you know, the early teens of 2012, 2013, like we were talking about with kids, we gotta go all the way back to 2000. And in this case, I'm 19 years old. I am fueled by ego and mountain dew back then. Later it was ego and red bull. When I could afford the red bull, 'cause mountain dew was less expensive when I was a broke college kid. And I lived in Colorado at the time. And there are two 14,000 foot peaks that are really close to the greater Denver area. They're called Graze Peak and Torrey's Peak. And it's totally normal for people to hike both of them in a day. And so there's like literally thousands or hundreds of people on any given Saturday in the summer that'll go up and hike these. And I did exactly that. But being driven by ego and being an athletic kind of guy with a fair bit of experience in the outdoors, I wanted to do something cooler because I had also climbed other 14,000 foot peaks throughout the state and did other things like ice climbing and backcountry skiing and all of that type of stuff. And so I got this idea that what I would do was I would go climb Graze Peak and Torrey's Peak. But I wouldn't do them by the standard trail like I had done before. I would do them by actually climbing as opposed to hiking them. So I decided what I'm going to do is I'm going to climb lost rat cool-ar on Graze Peak. And then I'm going to get to the top of Graze Peak and I'm going to go over and I'm going to get to the top of Torrey's Peak. And then I'm going to come back and I'll basically be home for dinner. Now lost rat cool-arge so that everybody could picture this is kind of like a double black diamond shoot that people might ski. And it's like at the top of a ski resort type of thing where it's a narrow shoot and it's filled with snow. That's what I was going to be climbing up. And then once I got to the top of that, I'd be on the ridge and as mentioned, I'd go up to the summit from there and hike over to the other one and kind of come home. Well, if you're going to climb a snow gully, right, or a cool-arge, it's got to be snow on the ground. And I didn't want to wait for the proper conditions. I'm like, it's winter-ish in November. And I was off from work because I worked retail. And so I had Monday and Tuesdays off. And it's now specifically, man, November 7th of 2000. And some of your listeners will remember that that is the day of the hanging chat that was election day with George W. Bush and Al Gore. And so I voted, drove up to those peaks, got to the trailhead and at the trailhead, which was about an hour and a half or so from my house. It was in the parking lot that I realized, I don't know my climbing helmet. And I was like, man, I always climb with my helmet. I bicycle to lots. I always rode my bike with my helmet. But I was like, and I remember saying this to myself, you're just climbing snow, it'll be fine. Okay? So I start up the trail, hourish or so later, hour 15, hour 30, I don't know, I get to the bottom of the climb itself, take a little snack and water break. And then I start up the actual climb, okay? And I'm probably around 12,800 feet on this actual climb. And now we're not just hiking, okay? So I'm using all fours to ascend this. But remember, this is something that somebody would ski down. So we're not talking like climbing like it's vertical, but climbing like it's steep, okay? And I get about 200 or so feet up the route. And I hear this distinct, whoop sound. And I know exactly what that was, because again, I was, you know, some degree of experience in the backcountry and I'd read many, many, many accounts of what, you know, avalanches sound like. And so I knew that was avalanche. Instantaneously knew it was avalanche. I looked up and I saw the fracture line. And the reason I have to look up is because when you're climbing on all fours, you're actually face in to the mountain. You're not really face up, you're face in, right? So I hear it, I look up, I see the fracture line and I can see the snow settling and immediately starting to come towards me. And I immediately attempted to turn and for lack of a better way to describe it, run perpendicular to the sliding snow that's going down the mountain. And I got one step, okay? In that perpendicular direction, and I was swept off my feet. And as I was swept off my feet, like, I remember saying to myself, this is gonna suck for my family, especially my mom. And then the lights went out. So I lost consciousness at that point, like boom, just 100% lights out. I regain consciousness at the bottom. I have no idea how long I'm unconscious at the bottom. And I'm not buried. And the reason I'm not buried is because November in Colorado is officially not even winter, right? It's still fall. And it looks like a winter wonderland because everything is blanketed in snow, but there's really not enough snow for like significant amounts of snowpack to be sliding in an avalanche. And moreover, because of that, that's exactly the reason why you should never be there. Because you actually need a lot more snow for the snow in general to become more stable. So I was really climbing what amounted to be at a suicidal kind of time because you should really never be climbing snow when there's just simply not enough of it. Of course, I didn't know that. And that's not a statement of ignorance should let me off the hook. It was even if I did, man, I wouldn't have cared about that. My ego was like, go do this. Go do it better than everybody else. So I regain consciousness like, I have this clear sense that like, I gotta go. I gotta get out of here that clearly like everything's kind of a systems check like everything was kind of good enough. You know what I'm saying? Like, but I'm like, I gotta go. So my focus became singularly on get back to the trail head, get into my pickup truck, drive myself to the hospital. And so that's what I set out to do. So my best estimation is that it took me probably around an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes from the base of the route to get back to the trail head, okay? And part of that was off trail and part of that was on trail. And when I got back to the trail itself, okay? Where travel was a lot easier, I was then able to take a little bit of assessment of what was happening. And I had blood dripping into my right eye and I was spitting blood. But on the whole, everything else kind of seemed fine. All right? And every time I would wipe the blood that kept dripping into my right eye, it would get worse. So I had to decide, don't touch it just let it bleed. And that's what I did. So I get all the way back to the parking lot. And like as I mentioned, man, this is a Tuesday. It's election day. Well, the Grazentory Trailhead parking lot is absolutely filled with people in the summer. On a Saturday, but not on a Tuesday in not exactly winter conditions, right? My point is nobody's there except for one guy named Steve. And as it turns out, Steve pulled into that parking lot 30 seconds before I walked into it. And he and I have had numerous conversations. I've actually had him on my podcast. And he has been transparent about the fact that he had no business being there. there. He had a reason to drive three miles up the snow covered dirt road to get from interstate 70 to that trailhead. And yet 30 seconds before I walked into that parking lot, he was there. The 30 seconds number comes from him, by the way. So he asks me, what happened to you? And I said, very matter of factly, I was in an avalanche. And he, I walked right past him because as I mentioned to you, my focus was get to the parking lot, get in my truck, drive to the hospital. So I go walking past him. He follows behind me. I get over to my truck and he continues to ask me questions. What happened? Were you with anybody? And he's frankly getting a little annoying because I singular focuses, get to my truck, get in my truck, drive to the hospital. Well, things get a little complicated because my standard practice, Ike was that I always locked my keys in my car. Now the reason I did that was because in the unlikely scenario that you carry your keys in your backpack and something crazy happens in the backcountry and you lose your backpack, but that you can make it back to your wheels. You could then just get in your wheels. Like, meaning your keys are at your car. So I always locked them in my car because underneath of the pickup truck bed, I kept a spare key bolted to the truck frame. And here I am standing in front of my truck. And I recognize that I don't have the strength to get down on the ground. Shimee underneath of the truck, unbolt the key, shimee back out and stand back up to unlock my car. Okay. So I ask him to do all of that. He gets the key. We open up the truck. And now I'm going to take off my, my think of it as like a rain jacket or a rain shell is my Gore-Tex shell jacket that I'm wearing. Okay. Because what was in my truck was my really warm down jacket. And it's really cold. The whole parking lot now is shadowed. Like we're probably on a four o'clock, four thirty, something like that. But gets cold. And I want the warm jacket. So he gets us into the vehicle. And then I go to unzip my shell jacket and I literally can't get the zipper down. And I can't unzip my jacket for two reasons. One is there is so much frozen and coagulated blood on the front of my jacket that the zipper is stuck in it. And two, the strapping young 19 year old punk that was super athletic at the beginning of this conversation now literally doesn't have enough strength to unzip the jacket. That's an indication of how bad of a condition I was in. So here I have to say to this complete stranger, can you help me take my jacket off? Turns out we had to break the zipper in order to get the jacket off. And we got it off. I put on the warm jacket this whole time Steve has been trying to convince me to let him take me to the hospital. And when we couldn't, excuse me, let me be very clear when I couldn't get the zipper down, that's when I knew it was bad. And then I needed his help. And I relented. So he takes me to the hospital, takes me to summit medical center in Breckenridge, Colorado, because it was the closest place, not even a major hospital man. This is like, is he described it in one of our conversations? He's like, it's like a big dentist. Stop this is sort of his perspective on it, meaning it just isn't a trauma center. And so they were going to flight for life me helicopter me down to Denver. Apparently, as I was told, the weather ended up not being suitable for that. So they rushed me to a major trauma center in Denver, St. Anthony Central was the hospital that they took me to. And I was in the hospital like for six days, three of those were in ICU. While I was there, I had emergency brain surgery because my skull had been broken in three places. My jaw was broken on both sides, which explained why I was spitting blood. And my scalp had been split open from the top of my right eyebrow, all the way to the back of my head. And that's where all the blood, which was dripping into my right eye and beyond was coming from. So six days in the hospital, essentially all the Kingsmen put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But the reality man is that if Steve is not in that parking lot, I am dying in the parking lot or if for some wild, wild scenario that I muster up enough strength to get the key from underneath the truck and get in the vehicle and drive. I die somewhere in my truck on the fire road, having back down to interstate 70. So without question, I may dead man if Steve is not there and Steve miraculously was there. So God saved my physical life band when I was 19. And then with the death of our son when I'm 31, he saved my soul forever when we moved into relationship with him when I confessed my sin, when I professed him as my savior. And then after all of that began to live for him and was baptized in water as an adult. So all glory be to God, man. He literally kept me alive, dude. So safe to say Steve saved your life. And if it wasn't for him, you probably would not be here today. 1000% correct. I'm curious when you went through that tragic the ledge and miraculously survived that. Did you at the time did not have a relationship with the higher power of God? So you probably didn't even attribute anything to it. But as you've gotten older and I'm assuming after your baptism and then you started to reflect upon all the stuff that God has done for you. Yeah, it gets a great way to describe it, man. So as mentioned, you know, I had a very clear intellectual understanding of God in terms of growing up in a quote unquote Christian household. But at the time of the avalanche and the recovery from it, I have no maturity to understand the depth of what had really occurred. So I absolutely called it a miracle and fully believe that it was, okay, and certainly still do. But what I meant as a miracle when I'm 19 or 20 or 21 kind of describing this story was like very much this intellectual understanding of a miracle. And yes, I wasn't attributing it to God. But you know, it's it's almost like talking about like your great, great, great, great grandparents, you know, you're like, you could attribute certain things to them. But the way you speak about them is totally different than the way you might speak about your parents or an aunt or an uncle because you just simply don't have a relationship with your great, great, great, great whatever. You don't I mean? And so there's there's a distance there. And over the last 13 years of being in relationship with King Jesus, man, he showed me all kinds of stuff and helped me to realize like, dude, I kept you alive on purpose for all these other things. Like when we consider everything that happened and the reason I have this perspective now is because he's shown it to me when I consider my life through the lens of Ephesians 210, which talks about how we are created, right? As God's handy work and that we're created to do good works that he's prepared in advance for us to do. Like in that case, man, then it's like, I kept you alive for you to do these things in your 40s. 19, 20, 21, 31, I didn't have that perspective. And part of that is I didn't have any maturity and the bigger part of it is I was in a relationship for him to reveal that to me. And so now I'm like, man, it's an over the moon kind of miracle. Like thank you, God, thank you, Jesus. I am alive. What do you want me to do for you today? - And it's interesting for me, again, I'm hearing God's timing and how, it's interesting, this happened to you 19 years when you were at 19, but you started to get clarity on this, you know, in your 40s. And it reminds me of this Bible verse that I would like to share from Peter that talks about God's seed's time. And this one will pull up real quick. Yeah, and it says, but forget not this one thing. And this is two Peter chapter three verses eight. It says, but forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. And a thousand years is that's one day. So obviously for you, it was like two decades since that past, but I feel like with God, the way he looks at time, like, you know, it was all, it was all in his working. And even probably didn't feel as long to him as a did to you. And it's just, I mean, my art, you know, and perhaps, if I'm being honest, the hardest part of my faith journey is the concept of logic versus faith. But the cause of the way God has made me, I'm extremely logical. He probably can relate. I, you sound like you have a part of that. My pharmacist, I love playing chess. I'm a real student investor. These are all very practical, like, like, you know, and before I had a relationship with Christ, I would just constantly keep questioning, like, like, with your story with that evidence, I would just try to make some logical explanation. Like, you know, it's just coincidence or maybe with your daughter, like, I mean, with your kids, I would have tried to find some logical explanation for it. But there's only so much understanding and control we can have in that regard, you know? And I think in seeking those answers, it causes a lot of anxiety. And it doesn't really do me any good, you know? So I'm curious, did you ever, do you ever struggle with that? Where you hear stories of faith and you're like, does that sound real? Like, or ever have some times of doubt, you know? Yeah, times of doubt, man. Does the day, you know, pick a day that ends in why? I mean, yeah, absolutely, man. But here's, I've been really blessed, okay? Through the legitimate community of the churches that God has put us into. And let me just define this a little bit more for all of us, right? For the listeners. I have become friends, okay? And like, so meaning like you start to do life with someone, you have enough experience with someone to see that their words and their behaviors align, okay? And there have been folks that I've become friends with or that we, you know, my wife and I have become friends with, that I legitimately perceived to be at another level of faith than what I was at. So I, like I started praying, Lord, grow my faith. And what I meant was, or what I'd hoped for, man, what I hoped for was that God would just like, sprinkle some magic faith dust on me, okay? And that I would magically have more faith. Because in this line of thinking that kind of like, drove my prayer for this, I am literally dude thinking more faith will mean that life is easier. Okay? And God in his infinite wisdom has been answering that prayer with more challenge. So he has literally, man, put us, my wife and I, my family's put us into situations that are actively answering that prayer, meaning they are growing our faith. And in the midst of that dude, there's doubt after doubt, after doubt, after doubt, right? And the prayer then in the midst of all of this, even when you can see it, dude, even when you can see it, like you know what is happening with the broad brush strokes of like, okay, we are going through this trial, we're going through this challenge. This is absolutely him answering prayer. This is him growing our faith. Not the way we wanted it to go, we wanted the magic faith dust. But even in the midst of all of that, when you can see that he is working, right, they're still doubt because we can't see what's going to happen tomorrow. And so the prayers at that point, dude, are, okay, Lord, I believe help my unbelief, okay? Just like what is talked about in Mark. I don't remember exactly what chapter it is. And then this submission of when I look at all of the evidence that I have in my life, you, Lord, have never let me down. In fact, you've done so much more for me than I could ever imagine, like keeping me alive, for example, right, when I certainly didn't deserve that, that just have to go, okay, I have enough to believe and this has been a really interesting lesson for me, man. And that is that for a long time, I felt as if believed, I should say, I kind of believed, I kind of thought that faith was sort of like an on/off switch. Like you either had it or you didn't, okay? And what the Holy Spirit has shown me is that it's actually more like being on a scale, like one to 10 or one to 100, whatever you want to call it, right? Because what I've experienced, man, is days when I am full of faith, like we'll call it like a 10 out of 10. Some days it's even like feels like it's an 11 out of 10, right? And then there's other days when I'm like, man, I don't know. What's going to happen, right? Like there's lots of doubt. And so I feel like I'm a two, okay? Or a one or a three or whatever the number is. But what's helped me with all of that is hearing Jesus talk about faith the size of a mustard seed. And he's very clear that faith the size of a mustard seed can literally move mountains. And that through the Holy Spirit and providing this insight has given me the confidence to say, okay, I am not full of faith right now, Jesus. But I got a mustard seed. I know I've got that much. So twofold, one, help my unbelief. And then two, let me rest in the truth that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to do X, Y, or Z, right? To get me through the next moment or whatever it may be. And that's been really wonderful, man, because it's like, yeah, I'm not perfect. I don't know faith all the time. Or I don't have, I don't have full faith all the time. And like the king right out of his own mouth is like faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. And I'm like, man, I can, I can declare that over my life in those moments, like I may not have the 10 out of 10 faith right now, but I got the mustard seed and the king said that's enough. So Lord, help my unbelief. But praise God. Thank you that I've got what I've got today. Man, man, thank you for sharing that, but there's power in community. And it sounds like the development of your faith is started from being around people who were also rooted in their faith. Absolutely. I think we laid to that. And I started to learn that the next leap and increasing your faith. And I love that you said that faith isn't necessary. A binary thing is to what degree do you have faith? I think that's very important. I think that next development happened for me personally when I started joining the church community. And I feel very blessed to be part of one. I do realize there's a lot of people who are church heart and are church trauma and are not rooted in communities so they don't have that. They don't have that ledger of being able to develop their relationship with God in community for whatever reason. And so I'm glad that you shared that in. It's great when you were talking, I reminded about my often prey to be aligned with the right people so that I can do my purpose in accordance to God as well. And your story of talking about being rooted in community and then praying for faith and really understanding what that looks like. I think that's awesome, man. I really, I'm great. And I think there's a lot of wisdom to be gained from. I'm just stirring and I'm thankful for that. Perhaps one of the biggest things for me, so I'm continuing my walk with Christ and getting real serious about it is, I'm very focused on the transformation that's taken place for me as a man. And I think often times, a lot of times Christianity or just people, we don't really focus on who we're becoming when we're walking on this. And so I want to highlight that and ask you, ask you this, make, before you started your relationship with God, what were you like? And now that you have a relationship with God, what were you like? What are you like? But I think that transformation, that transformation aspect is super important, man. And I think if we want to get people closer to God, I'm a firm believer we don't do it if they enter the true, like, oh, like we, this one, it's pretty, it'd be too preachy. I think this man, this guy is so awesome. There's something up on my, I just want to be around him. Almost like Jesus would, but the more we can add people like that, that's how we truly get people closer to God. I'm a firm believer that if guys joyful, this guy is patient, he is loving. I want to be more like that. We know, I'm not a fan of the whole, like, oh, you start to do these intellectual debates. Like, I don't think it's just rude. To me, that's just another form of ego, in my opinion. You know, so I'm just curious to learn more about your transformative aspect. And how have you changed, you know, since maturing in your faith? - Yeah, man, thanks for the opportunity to answer that question, dude. - Yeah. - So there's a phrase that says, rules without relationship equals rebellion. Okay? And that is exactly what my life was like as a young person. I didn't have a great relationship with my folks. They certainly tried their best. They had a lot of rules. They were heavy on discipline. And I rebelled as hard as I could. And I took all of that and also projected that rebellion or that rules without relationship scenario onto God the Father. You got these 10 commandments. Those are rules. Those rules are cramping my style. I want nothing to do with that. Okay? So I understand you intellectually, but I know about you and I know enough to be like, you stay up there, right? I'll be down here. Let me do my thing. So my thing, let me do my thing, right? So it's all ego, it's all pride. And it's eventually cascading into the devastation of Luke's death. So we then begin relationship with Jesus and everything changes. And then there's all of this incremental change. So I go from to answer your question. I go from a little kid in a six foot body. Okay. Who's fully interested in only what pleases him? So selfishness, pride and ego. And zero interest in obeying or pleasing God. Only interested in rebelling against God. To now having a legitimate desire to honor God and be obedient to him, because his rules with relationship have given me that desire to honor him. So I'm far from perfect, but my motives now are first and foremost, his will being done in my life. And that is dramatically, dramatically different. And then really man by God's grace, I've actually done that. Like I've taken things that he's directed me to do and done them out of obedience, even when I didn't want to. And my life is completely different. It's completely different. My wife's life as a result of that is positively impacted. Our children grow up in a home where Jesus is legitimately present and where most of the time, like significantly most of the time, the behavior of mom and dad aligns with the things that mom and dad talk about about being a Christian, which is different from the home that I grew up in, or we talked about God, talked about Jesus, talked about love. And then my parents fondly catch dogs in front of all of us. And do any of that, you know? So I was a little boy in a six foot body field by ego and having zero interest in obedience. And now I physically spend time on my knees every single day saying, "Your will be done." And I believe the fullest reasonable extent without pride I can say I'm actually a man. But that has occurred, the more that growth has occurred, the more I have submitted to God's direction, both generally, like meaning what to see, describe we are to do in Scripture, and then specifically, like, "Hey, this is what I need you to do today." You know what I mean? This is the work I want you to do, whatever it might be. - So basically, you felt like the biggest transformation is you've transformed into a man that's your product. I was like, like a man that you can look at yourself in the mirror and be like, "I'm proud of me." But he seems like before your relationship with God, probably couldn't keep that same energy. - You know, honestly, dude, I think it was actually the reverse of that. Like the man that I would have looked at in the mirror before I had a relationship with King Jesus. - I don't know, like, I'm proud of this guy. Turns out I do the total punk. And now I can look at myself in the mirror with a much more sober view and say, "You are nothing without Christ." So what does he want you to do? And then I get on my knees, I get on my face, and I ask him that. And I confess things like, Lord, I'm sorry that I'm not full of faith today. Or I'm sorry for my sins, you know? Let your will be done through my life, through my wife's life, through our children's lives to whatever extent you want that to be. And then today, Lord, what is it? What do you have ordained for me to walk in today to glorify you? - That's awesome, man. That's awesome. I'm so glad that you keep mentioning that your will be done. When I pray now, I'm starting to have developed a habit of every time I end my prayers, I like to end it with, let your will be done in your own way and your own time. Because me personally, I'm really struggled with the timing of wanting things. I'm always like, it got to happen on my time. And if it doesn't, I kind of get like real digitally, you know? So I love to hear your, your that aspect of you. It's a real beautiful thing. With in regards to that development and that maturity, you know, you mentioned obedience. I feel like obedience is a key aspect to where that strength and relationship with God. But I think the hardest aspect of obedience is understanding what God wants from you. And then when you do understand what God wants from you, actually doing it, you know? And so I'm curious, how do you know what God wants from you? And how do you, and what does that, and what does data and that strength look like to do it? Because sometimes we are, it may not be the thing we actually want to do, you know? - Yeah, man, I think actually that's kind of the main answer. - Yeah. - I've, you know, I've got my own podcast, I interview people regularly, I've had wonderful conversations with them. And in my own life and what I hear from them as well is a theme that basically goes like this, felt like the Holy Spirit was prompting me to do something, fill in the blank on whatever that something is, okay? And their reaction, mine as well is, no way, that ain't what I want to do. That is not what I want to do, that is not for me. So if people like God told me to write a book, they're like, I don't want to write a book, I'm not a writer. I don't do this, I'm like an accountant or what I'm like, I don't do that, you know what I'm saying? And that has absolutely been true for me as well. So just to make it more personal and meaning speak exclusively from my own experience, You know, I have had a professional career in sales and operations mostly in the financial services and kind of staffing and insurance worlds for two decades. Okay. The been in the professional workforce for three decades, like literally from being a teenager all the way into, you know, my mid 40s. And at the beginning of 2025, God's like, I want you to host a podcast about testimonies. And, and I'm like, I'm a sales guy, a podcast guy. And he's like, no, this is what you're supposed to do. So over the course of a 13 year relationship, as we talked about, right, you grow in your desire to honor him. And a key thing for that that really helped to catapult that for me was probably three years ago at this point. Okay. I'm listening to a sermon and during the sermon, the pastor is talking about how we are created beings and therefore, you know, like we're not, we're not really central to anything. Okay. Well, as he's saying that, I hear from the Holy Spirit because you are a created being, you are subject to not central in your own life. So it was a slightly different version from what the pastor was saying, but like I'm not kidding you, dude, it wasn't as if I heard it. It was I heard it from the Holy Spirit and it was imprinted in me because you are a created being. You are subject to not central in your own life. And dude, I had to seriously grapple with that because even as a Christian, while my motives and behaviors may have definitely been better than they were when I was not in relationship with King Jesus. Okay. I still did a lot of life without knowing it in a self-serving way. Like for example, right, you think on the wholesome aspects of like growing your career and having more money, yes, that allows me to tie more and take quote unquote better care of my family, but there's also this self-serving aspect to it, right? Holy Spirit goes because you are a created being, you are subject to not central in your own life. And so as a result of that being, the prayers were markedly different. It began to be a change to where it was no longer this like laundry list of Lord, could we do this, could we have this? Like what do you think about that? And it basically went to year will be done. So like what would have been a five minute, ten minute prayer? Like it's like two minutes because like forget about all these other things year will be done. And when I started in on that and that this is important, I think for everybody to hear, I would also say in those prayers, Lord, this is really scary for me to pray because I didn't really want that. That's what was being exposed. I didn't really want his will to be done because I was scared. It would be something that I didn't want. A few years later, he's like, I don't want you in the workforce, the traditional workforce. I want you hosting a podcast and my response was, here will be done. Has it been the easiest thing, man? Has it been the easiest thing because we're like, where's the income going to come from? And you know what his response was, dude? Trust me. I will provide. That's what he says. It's just like, dude, this giant brushstroke, that's like hyper clear. Trust me. I'll provide. But I'm like, Lord, I don't want the six, the six inch brushstroke, right? I want the like the little tiny watercolor brush. That's like really specific. Like how are you going to provide and when are you going to provide? Now, what is it going to be? And what's it going to look like? And he's like, trust me. I will provide. So it comes back to your question earlier, man, about like some doubt, trust, all that stuff. And it's like, okay, one moment at a time, one day at a time. You're what we've done. The assignment and obedience to God is understanding what he had for you, what he had in mind for you later. So pretty much like, I feel like, oftentimes, we don't really understand why I got direct in us towards something towards years, maybe even decades later, is that, oh, that makes sense. But when you're in the weeds of it, it absolutely makes, it usually doesn't make any sense. And that's where a lot of patients is required. And I can understand your personal transformation because for those who are watching this podcast and might need to channel, people may start to have realized that I've been leaning a lot more towards God. And just like you have received conviction to talk about God, I've been hearing from God to use my podcast to minister more. Yeah, praise God, man. And get people who are more faith-based and share their testimonies and extract the wisdom that they have gained to honor God. And so even this for me has kind of been weird. You know, this is not something I'm used to, honestly. I'm always thinking about God. I'm talking about God. I'm talking to a girl. And we can't talk about God. I don't want anything to do with it. But this is the new me and I'm embracing it. But it's kind of scary because part of that is dying to your old self so you can become the man that God has created you to be. And I think you are good with that transformation. I'm dealing with it. And even though it's scary, there's some excitement for us too. Like, you know, it's always good because the deeper I get, I suppose that I get to God, the more I get to see the God and other people. And I see your stories. I see your story in me. And this is so many interesting similarities. So. Yeah, I get that. I'm thankful for your story, and for sharing your story. This has been a great podcast. I'm so blessed to have heard your story and all this good stuff God has been working. I'm sure this is going to drop people closer to God, which is great. And if people are interested in connecting with you, Blake, can people do that? Is anything you would like to pursue and promote? Yeah. And the opportunity, man, to just have this conversation with you, dude, and to testify about God's goodness and to do it with, you know, such a warm, uh, and gracious style that you have. Some really do that, man. Great to be here. Um, for those folks that are interested in hearing wild, wild stories that are absolutely going to encourage you, when you look show is the podcast that I host. On YouTube, we're kind of video first or YouTube first spotify spotify with video and then all of the other platforms. When you look calm is where you can get to all of that stuff, but it's the when you look show and it's where ordinary people like they come on, they share their firsthand accounts like something they actually experienced. And then the listener gets to decide, man, that was wild. Was that coincidence? Or was that God? Because we believe very firmly that faith is a decision. So we serve up really amazing stories and then people have to decide was that coincidence? Or God? So you want some encouragement? Check it out when you look show when you look calm. Awesome. Well, y'all are harder for make if you want to hear, I mean, you already heard two incredible stories. If you want to hear more stories, you know where to go. And thank you all for watching this video and remember if God is for us who can be against us. All right. Amen.