Healing Emotinal Pain with Jesus

Dynamic speaking with rhetorical questions to keep people engaged. I also use analogies to make my points clearer. You will hear things that Americanized Christianity doesn't talk about. You will hear that Jesus cares about your heart and what's on the inside. Jesus cares about having a personal, transparent, real relationship with you. Instead of a religious performance while being fake. People will find the steps that one takes with Jesus and the Bible to find real and lasting emotional healing.
Presentations run about 30 minutes. My goal is to leave your group feeling encouraged, renewed, and deeply loved and valued by Jesus.

I struggled with depression and had no self-esteem in high-school. During my sophomore year in high-school I went to a Christian comedian concert with some new friends. After the concert the comedian asked everyone to bow their heads and let the Holy Spirit move and if anyone wants to accept Jesus into their life, to come forward. I rose and made my way to the center aisle with my head down low. Then as I began to walk up front my head began to rise and feeling of worthlessness rolled off my back. And upfront I accepted Jesus, my love into my heart and life.
I wrote two poems that I put in my book while in high-school. Poetry helped me get my feelings and thoughts into the open and on paper. From the start I decided that I wanted to be real with myself, with Jesus and with others. I didn't want to play church or Christianity. I learned early that you can't heal what you don't acknowledge. I think this is a huge problem in the American traditional Church today. Today when we acknowledge our pain we are told we lack faith or if we are struggling it's because there is sin in our lives, or we are speaking negativity over us. And if we struggle with a mental illness, like I do, we are told we have a demon or something demonic is in our life. What this does is it causes people to shut down and suppress our emotions, our pain and our hurts. All in the name of faith. Now we have Christians walking around with a plastered smile, always answering I'm fine, everything is good when asked how they are doing.
There is a quote I heard awhile back that hurting people hurt people. This is so true. When we don't deal with our emotions, our pain, our grief, our struggles, our mental illness honestly with Jesus, then we stay hurt and end up hurting others. There is another thing I kept hearing that Christians always look sad and that's a bad witness. But the answers I hear is to pray more, get happy, do more. But I never hear get with Jesus and talk with Him. Tell Him exactly why you are sad, the thoughts you are having and why are you struggling. Because again Jesus can't heal what you don't acknowledge. Throughout the Gospels Jesus never went up to someone and healed them, He came into the same vicinity but never walked up to someone and healed them on the spot. Instead Jesus waited till someone came to Him and still didn't do anything untill they asked Him to heal them. Why? I believe because Jesus, God desires us to be real with Him to come to Him and tell Him why we are hurting and struggling. When we do that then Jesus starts to comfort us, encourage us and heals us. In the Old Testament God often got angry with his people. It wasn't because they weren't doing religious things, matter of fact they were doing many religious things. God got angry with them because their hearts were from far from Him. They stopped having a personal relationship with God. They stopped being real with God with their struggles and pain. Part of having an intimate relationship with someone is being vulnerable to the other person, instead of being fake.
After high-school I went to Taylor University and studied pastoral ministries. At college I learned alot. I learned Greek and Hebrew. I learned alot of theology. I learned "how to" preach. But I didn't learn how to maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus. I didn't learn how to pray and listen for the Holy Spirit. Instead of the Bible being living and active and the primarily way for Jesus to speak to me. It turned into a textbook to be studied for sermon prep. I graduated in 1993 with a professor telling me that I wouldn't be a good communicator and writer.
After college I volunteered at a church as a co-youth leader with the agreement I would get paid the following year, very little but something. I busted my tail and did alot and one time I came home and my neighbor commented that I looked tired, like an old man. Doing ministry even tough I was enjoying it, was draining the life out of me. The next year I sat down with the pastor and to my shock he said he wasn't going to pay me because I didn't work hard enough. This was the first of many times I would experience rejection from pastors and churches. And be told indirectly that I wasn't good enough and slowly I began to believe this.
In 2000 I decided that I did not want to be the kind of person that lived only in one place all of my life. So I moved to Maryland, got involved in a 7 member church and got married. No this was not a cult. They believed and followed the Bible and the pastor spoke the truth. I also learned more about the Holy Spirit, who He is, what He does, how to listen for Him and how to allow Him to flow through me. From this experience I learned to pray and everytime I would study to preach or study personally I would pray Holy Spirit make your Word (Bible) come alive to me and speak to me personally and change me. Change my mind, my thoughts, my thinking, my beliefs, my attitudes, my heart and my actions.
Then after about 5 years my wife and I moved to Indiana. While in Indiana I found out that the pastor and the people actually wanted me gone because they were afraid I was trying to take over the church. Second time now that a pastor and a church didn't want me. Slowly I started to accept the lie that maybe the Kingdom of God didn't want me either.
In 2009 my wife filed for divorce because I couldn't give her kids physically, she did know that before she married me. Then I moved back to my hometown.
Since graduating college I have always wanted to be a traveling preacher. I would put it on hold and tried two businesses and they each failed. Then I started trading stocks and ended up loosing money. I wanted to become rich and famous because I was learning that what Americanized Christianity was all about. Power, pride, fame, money and greed. And I started to learn that if you had those things, plus be married you were in. However, if you didn't have those things then you were rejected, looked down upon, dismissed and I would soon learn if you have a mental illness then you were treated as a demonic outcast.
Then I started attending another church where my long time, good friend was the pastor. As I was attending I started to get depressed and even suicidal. And I started getting manic episodes to. Instead of being ashamed, I was open with my struggles to a few people, my good friend was one of them. At the request of another woman who was a psych nurse for atleast 15 years, suggested that I might have bipolar and to get redianogosed for bipolar. Then another woman since I knew from high-school came into my life. She said she loved me like a brother. In reality she was a scammer and she would use my mental illness to scam me for money. Eventually she took over $12,000 from me. I also talk about this in my book. During this painful time I started writing poetry again. And the words flowed like a waterfall from my heart, mind and spirit. And I began to see Jesus more clearer like never before.
Then I started to write my book Expressions of the Heart Poems and Devotionals because I had 14 poems. Before each poem I wrote a devotional about why I wrote the poem and something from the Bible that went along with the poem. I choose to combine poetry with devotionals because I believe we need both. We need the written Word of God which is the Bible and we need poetry which is the human heart. Before I began to write my book, I determined to do one thing. I was going to be real and honest with my readers and show what Jesus does and how He treats us when we are real with Him. My poems are not beautiful, religious poems. I don't use flowery language. Instead my poems are filled with real words that convey raw emotions. Some who read my poems say, I felt what you felt. This is what I believe is the highest form of worship we can give Jesus. Our unpolished and unfiltered selves. And I believe this is the type of worship that the God of the Universe earnestly wants from His children.
I left the church after going for about 5 years. A couple of years later I had a conversation with one of the elders. I asked why they never let me preach. He said the reason was because I have bipolar. Number 3 a church telling me I wasn't good enough, I didn't belong, and now I was defective. This broke me.
I spent the next ten years barely talking to Jesus and reading the Bible. And I stopped going to church. Because throughout my life the Church had made it abundantly clear it doesn't want me, that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't worthy and since I have a mental illness, I was defective.
Then I finished writing my book and published it in December 2025. After publishing it I ran a Facebook ad for a week. After a week I didn't sell one copy. Everything in me just broke, including my spirit. I made a video because I wanted to be honest with my viewers. In the video I said I have come to the conclusion that either God is against me or He doesn't exist. Then I shut the camera off and that's when everything seemed to go dark.
A few weeks later I started thinking about Jesus again. I started thinking about two claims that Jesus made in the Gospel of John. One claim was when Jesus said He is the way, the truth, the life and no one can get to the Father (God) except through me. Another claim Jesus made was when He said before Abraham was born, I AM. In otherwords Jesus wasn't claiming to be any god. He was claiming to be thee God, the creator of the Universe. Then I started reading the Gospels, starting with Matthew. While I was reading, I was talking to Jesus. And it was like the blinders came flying off. Because from reading the Gospels I realized that Americanized Christianity was pursuing the wrong things and the American traditional Church is wrong about me. According to Jesus I am good enough, I am wanted, I am valuable, I am loved, my voice matters and most importantly Jesus claims me as His. I was reminded again, just as I wrote in my book, that Jesus wants all of me. He wants my mess, my pain, my negative and anxious thoughts, my doubts, my anger, and my fears. Jesus wants all of me, even the parts that Americanized Christianity wants me to hide or even throw away.
Now I have made it my mission to help people develop a personal, real, unfiltered, and conversational with Jesus. To teach people that real faith isn't being fake while quoting Scripture verses. Real faith is when you are brave enough to be honest with yourself and are honest with Jesus. Telling Him everything, not holding anything back. As He holds you, listens to and begins to heal you from the inside out.