Hello, Melissa here,

All through January we have talked about Faith and Prayer and the experiences that Lawrence and I have had with both of them. I believe everyone struggles with faith and prayer sometime in their lives. I can’t see how a person wouldn’t.

For me personally, the journey I have had with faith was hard. It took me a lot of time and digging into the Word to find the kind of faith I always wanted. Prayer on the other hand, was something that felt natural. I just believed that prayers for myself were not answered, only those for others. I had to see God really show up for me for those thoughts to change. God knew that though. There had to be a change in me mentally when it came to all the grief, sadness and anger I carried and there has been. As of today, I can proudly say that the mental change is still happening. I am still growing and healing. Growing my faith has changed my life. It has brought a peace and hope that I have never experienced before and because of that, my prayer life is better too.

Lawrence had a different walk than I did. He had faith until he felt like he had no way out with his PTSD. It was hard for him to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel he was in. That caused him to lose faith. He also told you that his prayer life is not where he wants it to be. It is something he is working on. The more he grows his prayer life, the stronger his faith is becoming again.

One of the best quotes I have seen about faith and prayer is this, “Faith and Prayer are both invisible but they make impossible things possible.” That is the truth. Both of these are the things that will change your life if you let it. Another great quote is “Prayer is the key to Heaven but Faith unlocks the Door”. These two things can carry you though any situation. They bring hope even in the darkest places.

What do you have to lose?? If you are at rock bottom, try praying and having a little bit of faith to get you through!

Thank you for joining us today. Next week we will start our month of LOVE!! Please Like and Share out blog. Also come find us on Instagram and Facebook!

Love you Warriors,

Melissa (Relentless)

We Fight This Together!

Hey there Warriors, Watch Dog here.

As Melissa and I continue on with the topic of Faith and Prayer, it is my turn again to discuss how faith has affected me in dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

As I mentioned in my last post, Faith was a big part of my life when I was younger. I didn’t realize it was faith, because I wasn’t a Christian. I was just always able to see the bright side of things and I always just felt like things would be okay. I didn’t worry about, well anything really.

Then as a firefighter I was on some pretty bad calls, that I didn’t process through. I didn’t talk about the bad calls after either. I just put them away in the back of my mind and tried to forget. One call in particular was a 4-month-old male, non-responsive and not breathing. We were not able to save this child’s life, despite our best efforts. That is when I started to live in some darkness. I was hurting, angry, and scared. I mean Melissa and I had started trying to start a family, and what if we lose our child. I just saw how fragile life is. I tried to not show it and act like everything was normal, but it wasn’t.

Fast forward a few years and we started going to church, and I got saved. I found God and I started becoming a more positive person again. I started to understand that those feelings that things would be okay, was faith. Wow, I liked that, and wanted it again. I found faith again, but I lost it again. As I responded to more and more bad calls, I continued to put those memories in that little box in the back of my brain. I would put them in there and move on to the next one.

That worked for a while, until it didn’t. That box in the back of my brain got full, but I kept putting more and more in there. Until eventually that box busted open. That is when all those memories decided they had laid dormant for too long.

I hadn’t delt with any of the bad calls in all my years in the fire service. These memories melded together and over time they turned evil. That is when they took over and they started to consume me. I don’t really know how to explain it. It was little by little until I had just become a numb, negative and an awful person. I was mean, I drank a lot, I was selfish and just an all-around jerk. I thought I had to deal with all of this myself, because as a man I couldn’t ask for help. A real man doesn’t ask for help. (Wrong!) Even if I wanted to ask for help, I didn’t know what to ask or even who to ask.

After 15 years of dealing with PTSD, I had tried 10-12 different treatment plans and half a dozen different meds, none of which worked. Some made things worse. I was done! I had nightmares so bad that I was only getting around 2 hours of sleep a night for nearly 10 years. Now keep in mind, I’m just hair under 6 feet tall, 215-245 pounds, Military, Firefighter, Biker and I was afraid to go to sleep! Big tough guy right, scared to go to sleep. I would drink 6-8 shots before bed so I could have the courage to face my demons that I knew were coming to attack me when I closed my eyes.

After trying all the treatments the VA threw at me, I lost hope and had thoughts of leaving my family and briefly thought about suicide. Thankfully, I heard about a Biblically based PTSD treatment that is designed for Military and Emergency Responders through an organization called “Might Oaks Legacy Programs”. I decided to give it a shot. I applied and got accepted. That was one of the greatest decisions I have made in my life! They taught me so much there, including how to hold on to a sliver of faith. It doesn’t matter how dark, stormy, or scary life gets, or how hard those demons attack. I am able to weather their storms because once I realize it’s happening, I can take a breath, and rely on that sliver of faith I keep with me. That is when I and breath and start looking to see where that little light is at the end of the tunnel. Then I can start moving toward it. Sometimes I’m able to run towards it, while other times all I can do crawl. Still there are other times I can’t move, but because of my faith, I can depend on God. I can pray for God to help guide me. That is when He reminds me that I am not alone. He has placed people in my life to help me when I am at my weakest. Some of these people have been in my life for as long as I can remember, some have been here for a few years. Yet there are some who were only part of my life for a season, or just long enough to get me through that storm. Either way, I have faith and I trust God to be there for me when I can’t do it on my own.

2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” I have learned over the years, that I can do just that. I can walk through my life and know God is with me, even though I can’t see him. Just like it reads in James 1:3 “Knowing the testing of your faith produces patience”. God spoke to me, and He told me “I have allowed you to go through this for the past 15 years, because if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have tried everything you’ve tried. You wouldn’t be here where you are right now. And you wouldn’t have the courage to get up and do what I am going to command you to do next.”

Relentless Warriors Legacy is what was next, and I thank God that He gave this to me. He gave me a new mission in life, and that is to use what I have been through, to reach others who are lost in the darkness that I lived in for so many years.

Thank you for taking the time to read our words. Melissa and I love you all.

WE FIGHT THIS TOGETHER!

Watch Dog out. Please leave any comments or questions and we will answer or respond as soon as we can.

Hey Warriors, It’s Meliss here.

We are still carrying on with the topic of Faith and Prayer. I hope you have enjoyed this series so far. I know it has really made me think long and hard about these two topics and what role they play in my life. Prayer is easy for me. I have always prayed but Faith, now that is a whole other story. It is a hard story with a lot of hurt along the way. I can say though, that there is joy at the end of that long hard story and that’s what matters. Let me tell you my story of faith and how prayer is just a small part of it.

I grew up in Catholic school and had parents that always went to mass, mainly on Saturday evenings. They tithed and walked through the motions. They both believed in God and that Jesus died for us. From there it got muddy. My mom always struggled to have faith and she did not believe in big things like miracles. To be fair, my mother and father went through a lot and that is why their faith was the way it was. We did not talk about prayer or faith much in our house and at school it was all just a ritual. Motions and words that were tradition and it never showed me a true relationship with God.

Fastforward to around 2005. Lawrence convinced me to go to a Pentecostal church. I was honestly mortified. It was just new and very different from a Catholic mass. Lawrence was very comfortable from the get-go. I was not. The head pastor there was Brother Gene. An amazing, wonderful man and loving pastor. This poor man answered ALL my question about God and the Bible. He gave me the time I needed. With him and the other wonderful people in that church, I took Jesus into my heart. I started to learn and grow my faith. We stayed at that church until Lawrence was sent to Korea and I moved to Ohio to be with family while Lawrence was gone for a year.

My next church taught me how to worship and love God. I still really struggled to have unwavering faith though. Now through all of this I prayed and prayed hard. In the blink of any eye, it did not seem to matter. One of my friends had cancer and at a young age, lost his life. I thought him and his wife would be together forever. Now he was gone and left behind a wife and two young kids. I started questioning everything. Did God exist, was he real? Did God just hate me? Did I do something wrong? I thought because things were wrong in my life and because my friend passed away, that God did not hear or just did not want to answer my prayers for myself.

From there I was lost. I wanted nothing to do with church or God for that matter. Some of the things that rocked my faith was church leadership, my mom passing away, my dad passing away, and losing our twins. My marriage was a mess, and I was so far down in depression that I could not see a way out. Prayers were hard. I was so broken. Finally, we moved to Kentucky and that is where God was, for me at least.

Lawrence and I were still in a really bad place. I was ready for divorce. Completely ready. Lawence started counseling. Now you might ask, “What does your husband’s counseling have to do with Faith and Prayer.” Well, his counselor was a Christian Counselor and wanted to work on repairing our marriage. So, after a switch in churches and going with Lawrence to counseling, I could finally see God and feel him moving. It was in counseling I found out I was dealing with PTSD too, not just Lawrence.

I was a “seeing is believing” kind of person. I could not wrap my mind around having blind, childlike faith. God knew he needed to think outside of the box to reach me. He gave me things like amazing women who taught me and guided me though the Word of God. They let me ask questions, cry, scream, get angry, and grieve. God was also healing my marriage. I would go up to the alter and pray for myself and others. Step by step, my faith was growing.

Our counselor told me to read the book ” The Shake” because of how I struggled with my faith and grief. This book changed my life, faith and relationship with God forever. In this book, God tells the lead character that when all we can see is our pain, that’s when we lose sight of God. That is what I had done. I lost sight of God, because of all my pain and grief. It is because of that, that I lost all my faith in God and what he was doing around me. I thought I was good to go but God knew otherwise.

Sunday May 29, 2021, while at church, God flipped my life upside down. This time for the better. At the altar, God put me on the floor and then took all the anger out of me. It was like nothing I had ever experience. I now know what it is like to love God with all my heart. He meets me where I am at all times and in the way I need it. God has blessed me over and over again. I am finally at the point where believing is seeing. I pray all the time. It is what gives me my hope. I have also found other ways to pray and praise, both have brought me closer to my Father.

Even now I still struggle with PTSD, and depression. My life with God is not perfect. Every time I feel my faith slip, I start praying for God to show up for me. To give me something I can hold onto. It can come in the form of a book, a person, or by being still and listening for God’s voice. I have seen God take away my anger and really help Lawrence with his PTSD. God is now part of my story and I have faith for days. I have been told that I am a prayer warrior and I try to pray about everything in my life.

I hope that reading a bit about my faith journey, it can help yours. Ask yourself a few questions. How is your faith? Do you wish you had more of it? Have you prayed for it? If you are not happy with your answers, then what is your plan to fix it? God is always there. He leaves the 99 for the 1. I could not get through my PTSD and depression without God and his amazing love!!

If you like this post, please LIKE it and subscribe to it. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Join Lawrence next week for more talk on Faith and Prayer.

Thank you so much for joining me,

Melissa (Relentless)

We Fight This Together