Hey everybody, welcome back to the Covenant Eyes podcast, Karen here at NRB, Rob Stoddard joining me. How are you? I'm good. Hi, Karen, it's a busy week here in our. It's fun though. It is fun and it's loud. It is good to turn my hearing it off today. Oh my goodness. Well, we have a great interview. We met a new friend here at NB, and I love to introduce you. Pastor Jen, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Pastor Jenn Defoe-Turner, and, you know, you would never know it by looking at me today, but I used to be a slave to addiction. I lived my life as a victim, and I thought everyone and everything was out to get me. And then I met Jesus, and he was the missing piece in my life. And he, is the reason why I get up every day now. And I am so privileged to be able to share his gospel around the world through speaking and writing. That's awesome. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, Jen, we would love to talk with you. You've got a new book coming out. I do, yeah. Let me get the title right. It's fear, faith and freedom. Breaking through life's battles with God's help. So tell us a little bit about that and why you wrote that. Well, the book is about my life. It's about truths that God has revealed to me. I'm a first generation Christian, and so I am a cycle breaker. I'm a chain breaker and I am seeing generational curses break off our family. And so what inspired me to write this story was actually my story. Yeah, that God wanted me to share with the world. And as I tried to write it in a memoir style type of form, I really struggled with that whole show. Don't tell. Right. I didn't want to show the ickiness of what my life was like, but what I did want to show was the truth that God revealed to me. And so I was able to take different moments of my life and where God spoke his words and his truth into me and produced that into a book. And so it's all about overcoming, overcoming addiction, overcoming same sex attraction, overcoming, relationship issues, overcoming financial issues. Everything. God has helped me to be who I am today and live a victorious life in him, no longer being, a victim, but a thriver. I love that, I love that, and, you know, a lot of our listeners here at Covenant Eyes in the podcast certainly are struggling with addictions, and they're struggling with the same kind of shame that we carry when we we don't want to talk openly about our past sins. Even though God has transformed our lives and moved us into a new space, sometimes to go back in time, it feels icky and messy. But why is it so important that we share our testimonies and what God has done in our lives? Oh, that's such a great question. So I really believe that each of us has a story, a story that God is writing, and he has been writing since before our time began. You know, we're told in Joshua, before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. And I go to that scripture often because the things that I've had to endure in my life, God has showed me that he specifically designed me to overcome these issues, to overcome these obstacles, to be that generational, chain breaker, to be that generational curse breaker. So, yeah. Oh, that's important. So important. And like Karen said, to speak out. So many people are just sitting in shame and in quietness. Have you had a chance to, speak out and talk to many groups about these issues? Do you get people to come forward and share their stories? Yes. Yeah. I think the power of story, when we share our stories, it gives other people permission to share theirs. And so whenever I share my story, always somebody comes up and says, thank you for sharing that, because now I can share mine and I can go on and I can experience freedom and I can live free from that shame. You know, shame is a life sentence. Guilt is the this thing that tells us, you know, something's wrong. But shame is the life sentence to guilt. And a lot of times we're holding shame for things that we didn't do, things that were done to us, and we're holding that shame, and we really need to release that to the Lord and let him take that shame and replace it with joy and and just his goodness. Absolutely. You know, and we see that so much when we're at conference is to, you know, we'll talk to a group of people about the issue of pornography. We'll have people share their testimony, and afterwards they come over and they're so grateful that while you're talking about this, I thought I was the only one. It is so important that our churches make a safe space for people to share these stories, because really, it allows other people to feel safe and comfortable coming forward and sharing their own. So I just love that. Do you offer any advice or wisdom to churches on how they can do a better job with making churches a better place for this kind of sharing and testimonies? I do. The big thing is, to be honest, you know, we have put pastors on this scope, this plane that says they are above reproach when it comes to these types of sins. If the pastor is vulnerable and saying, okay, you know what, these are areas I've overcome because let's be honest, we've all overcome something, right? And it doesn't matter what it is we're overcoming, the steps are all the same to overcome. So let's have honest spaces where where it's coming actually from the pulpit down, taking the Word of God, what it says at its face value and preaching right from the word, preaching sin is can be forgiven. Repentance is able to happen. You know, people can turn away and live a different way. Yeah. That is so important for pastors to talk about these things. But yet most of our pastors still don't do that. What do you think the barriers are for pastors, and why aren't they speaking out more about these issues? I think because there is such, a stigma. You know, pastors, if you are leading a church thing, you should be able to to lead your own life. Well, you know, and we don't understand that those, those sins that that we expect our pastors to be above instead of helping them through, you know, our pastors are people. They're men and women who are damaged. And they I mean, no parent gets up and decides, today's the day I'm going to damage my children. But let's be honest, parents do it even when we don't mean to. We do it right. And so giving our pastors the opportunity to stand up and say, you know what? I've been carrying this for years and I need help. I need to overcome this. There's a beauty in that. There's a vulnerability in that. I've been reading through, Leviticus. I know a silly book today. It's a great book. Yeah, but one of the things that I'm reminded of in my reading in Leviticus is the priests, when they sinned, they made an atonement to the Lord. Even in Scripture, there is, opportunity for the priest to make the atonement to the Lord. And it doesn't say if it says when, right? And we miss those words, it's the when, it's not if it's the when. So how do we allow our past to stand before us on on a Sunday morning and proclaim the Word of God, but yet still be vulnerable enough to stand before us and proclaim the Word of God truthfully, as it relates to their life. We need to be better in the church and in the in the, in the pews, giving our pastors permission to be human. That's really good advice, I love that. Well, back to your book. I know it comes out this fall, so when can our listeners expect to see this and how do they get their hands on this book? Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. So the book comes out Remembrance Day, November 11th, 2025. And if you go to, Abundance books.com, you will be able to get the book there. Okay, good. Well that's awesome. So all of our listeners need to check this book out. I think the stories that you share in there are going to be very profound. They'll be able to relate to those. And when they read the book, what is the takeaway that they should expect from that. Takeaway they should expect is that, they will know God is with them, and it doesn't matter what it is that they're bringing to that to the table. God is with them and he loves them and he cares for them. And and it doesn't matter whether you've been in the pew for 50 years or five minutes, God's salvation and grace is the same. And it's for everybody. Excellent, excellent. Well, yeah. Well thank you. We're looking forward to that book. And I will definitely get the, information in the show notes with this and get that out. But, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your story, your openness to share, and, look forward to to reading your book when it comes out. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us and thanks, listeners for tuning in to this episode of the Covenant Eyes podcast. We'll be back with you soon. Take care. God bless.