Speaker, Author, and Podcast Host of the “Connection Show,” Jill Reynolds, shares 4 parts of her story with us in today’s Podcast. From a traumatic upbringing, which led her into a tumultuous lifestyle of drugs and alcohol, God never let her go. He brought her into the saving arms of Jesus. Through resilience and not letting go or giving up on living, God is now using her life for His glory. ******* Kimberly Hobbs Welcome to empowering lives with purpose. And I’m your host, Kimberly Hobbs. I’m the founder of Women world leaders. And we are so happy that you decided to join in with us today. And I would like to welcome our guest, Jill Reynolds. Jill, thank you for coming on with us today.
Jill Reynolds Oh, it’s my privilege. I’m so grateful to be here with you, Kimberly.
Kimberly Hobbs Jill is an awesome woman of God. And I had the privilege of being interviewed on her show. And so we are so happy to have you. And what you’re gonna share with us today are our word is resilience, ladies. So God says in His Word that every believer has received grace gifts, so use them to serve one another as faithful stewards of the many color tapestries of God’s grace. First Peter 410. And one of the things we like to do here at empowering lives with purpose is use the gifts that God has given us. And we all have different gifts and different ways to share and encourage one another. And Jill is going to share with one to share with the stories in her life that have allowed her to have victory in Jesus and hoping that this will inspire you as well, if you can relate to some of the things in her story that that have helped her overcome. Jill, I want to share a little bit about our guest, Jill Reynolds is the host of the connection show, where she is known for inspiring hope, health and healing and moving guest stories from victim to victory. Jill also uses her background in meeting and event planning to create amazing conferences, weaving authentic up close stories. She’s a number one best selling author, and fiercely faithful, where she shares her story called The essence of humility. And at 28 Joe’s life was a train wreck. She was addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol. And she was down to 97 pounds. She knew her life was hopeless. Her health was a disaster. Everything felt impossible to her. And she prayed and asked God to give her the resiliency to recover. Believing doing the hard work and connecting the dots is what helped her get through her traumatic childhood. And it brought her hope, health and healing her hard work had paid off. Never give up ladies, connect the dots in your story that will move you from being a victim to having victory in your life through Jesus. And that’s one of the things that Joe would like to share with you today. She’s from Branson, Missouri. She is a survivor with multiple spiritual awakenings. And today she has decided to share four of those with you in hopes that it is going to encourage you and inspire you as well. So some of those four stories that she’s going to share. One of them is called her wanted story. And I just want to share a Scripture before we start out. And that says for you created my inmost Being You knit me together in my mother’s womb, Psalm 139 13. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Jill, can you share your wanted story with us today?
Jill Reynolds I’d be grateful to do that. Thank you so much for the introduction. And so I want to begin because I really truly believe that when God created us, He created us in His image. And so my story begins I have to share first on my mom. My mother was raised in a really sad environment. Her parents divorced when she was little. And she went to visit her mom at the home she lived at that had an elevator building. And as my mom was there she was in the elevator kicking her foot at the elevator and her toes got caught in the gate and got cut off. So she was in a wheelchair at only seven years old. And my grandfather owned a restaurant so they hurt my mom lived in a boarding home with my uncle. And the man in the boarding home picked her up out of the wheelchair. And he raped her at seven and told her never to tell anyone. So my mom grew up with very much disassociation, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. And so she went off and married my dad had my sister right away, and within six months was pregnant with me. It was just too much for her to bear and so from the moment of conception, my mother did not want me she did not want this baby. And so from the moment I was born, I have memories of her never picking me up, even holding the bottle out on the bed just to feed me, and being in the crib for hours crying that ever been held, or picked up or loved or unwanted. And so as I continued to grow up, my mom and I ended, it caused me Kimberly to be nonverbal. And I was really shy and quiet. And my mom would yell at me and say, Would you talk and I look at her petrified. And she would just say, There’s nothing good about you who would ever want you, you’re so ugly. The only thing good about you is you ever cute nose. And that’s all she would say. And so I grew up with this horrific feeling that I just should never ever have been born. And so that permeated through most of my childhood, all of my childhood and into my adult life. And so after becoming a Christian, and I would go to get some body work, occasionally I was getting a massage. And I’d always pray that the hands of the massage therapist would be the hands of guide. So as she she was working on me in this room that just was It was dark, who was candles in the room, she was not a Christian, she even had a Buddha in the room. As she worked on me, all of a sudden my body turned to the left. And I got into a fetal position and started to suck my thumb. And all of a sudden, in my mind’s eye, Kimberly, I could see the sperm and the egg going to meet. And at that moment, the entire room turned bright white is white as you can imagine. And then the corner of the room I could see the essence of God. And he put his hands out. And as he put his hands out, he picked up the sperm, he picked up the egg, and he began forming it. And he said I am the great I Am I am forming you in your mother’s womb. And I’m breathing life into you because you are wanted and all of a sudden he just went
like this. And the biggest breath of air permeate permeated the massage room. And I could just feel him forming the in my mother’s womb in this divine light coming in. Well, the amazing part of the story is again, the massage therapist was not a Christian. And at that moment, she turned on the light saying that the therapy session was over. And she looked at me and said, What just happened in here. I’ve never seen anything like this. And then the guy that worked in her building, he was getting on the elevator. And he looked at me and said, Jill, you must have had the best session ever. You look divine. And it was amazing. It was just so amazing. And so from that moment on, I could really feel in my heart that I was wanted. And another piece of the story that I never knew is that when a baby is born, the moment it comes out of the womb, the doctors have to cut the umbilical cord. Because if they don’t, a baby living on the outside of the womb with the umbilical cord will die because it needs to take its first breath of life. So if you envision cutting an umbilical cord away from your mother, it’s because at that moment, you need your own breath of life.
Kimberly Hobbs Wow. And so God gave you in that massage room, a breath of life. And maybe in your life you had heard that Scripture somewhere for you created me and my inmost being and you knit me together in my mother’s womb. God was allowing you to get a vision in that room that he was your daddy, he was your father. He wanted you and he loved you. And he totally breathed that life into you that new life that breath of fresh air that he was your dad and he was never going to leave you.
Jill Reynolds And for the audience to if you’ve ever experienced a feeling of napping wanted you know sit quietly and envision Jesus or God breathing life into you, informing you and telling you how much you’re loved and wanted because everyone that’s listening could do this exercise themselves and just envision guide breathing life into you.
Kimberly Hobbs Amen. And I know that there’s a lot of people that struggle with issues of feeling unwanted and and all triggers from childhood when they feel you know that they have been left alone. They weren’t a One two child. There’s all different kinds of stories of why we feel that. But remember, please remember that our Father in Heaven loves you, and He will never leave you or forsake you and he will, he will get to you some way or another. And we’d like to know it’s through the power of His word, just like he reached you that day in that massage room with that message, that you are fearfully and wonderfully, wonderfully made, and he knit you together, you will always be wanted in his eyes. And ladies, when you feel that God has left you alone, there’s another scripture those who know your name trust in you for you, oh, Lord, do not abandon those who search for you. That’s Psalm 910. Which brings us into our next story that you’re going to share part of your life. Gel is your train Wilson’s story can you share about that? And how the Scripture might come into the play there?
Jill Reynolds Yes, the train whistle story is a story that permeate it just fills my heart to this day. And so as I said, you know, my mother did not want me and so by the time my mom got pregnant, the third time with my brother, who’s three years younger than me, she began having marital affairs. And she fell in love with a man who was married. And one day when my my lovely father, who was just the love of my life, who took me to church every Sunday, and he gave me hugs and tucked me in bed and read to me. One day, while my poor dad was at work, she packed up our stuff. And she abandoned my father and deserted him and moved us to in a little apartment, close to this man, she was having the affair with. Well, the apartment was next to the metro train. And so as I went to bed every night, as a little five year old, I’d lay in bed and she was crying because my dad’s the one who typed me in bed and prayed with me, and I missed him so much. And at night, I hear that train go by and the whistle would blow and I’d be so mad, I’d say, I just want to go home to my daddy, I just want to go home to my daddy. And so you know, we eventually the funny part of the story, that funny part, but weird how the Lord works. The man she was cheating with my dad, he died of a heart attack five weeks later. And so the court ordered us to move back home, but my parents divorced. So I got to see my dad just on Sunday. And as I said, early, I was nonverbal. And the only day I would talk would be on Sundays when I’d be with my dad. So he had a big impact in my life. So fast forward the story. And what then developed is years later, I had to go into treatment for codependency. And I was at a codependent treatment center at a little Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma. And every day, I’d go to the prayer chapel and do my prayer and meditation before the day began. So this one day, I was in the prayer chapel praying. And at that moment, a train goes by and I hear a whistle. And I got really angry. And I, I put my hands up to the heavens, and I just said, God, I am so sick of feeling deserted and abandon, and I just can’t handle those train whistles.
And so it’s so at that moment, right in the middle of the chapel, I could feel God’s saying, you know, Jill, I know you invited me into your heart. But you, it’s hard for you to turn your will over to me because you just don’t trust that I’ll stay with you. And so I kept struggling. And he said, By the way, I have never left you, I never will leave you and your dad never left you in he never will. He just couldn’t be there because your mother left him. And so at that moment, right in the middle of the chapel, I put up my hands and said, I surrender all I’m turning my will over to you because I had invited in my heart. But I still wanted. I wanted the control. I needed the control. And so at that moment, I surrendered my will. And so from that point of my life, all the way to today, every step along the way when I’ve had to deal with trauma, or connecting the dots of my story in Christian therapy, a train has gone by so the first one was a treatment center from eating disorders in Arizona was in the desert, right in the middle of trauma therapy. The train would go by and here it’s I’m in the desert in the middle of nowhere we’re with this train come from and Then another treatment center I went to for an eating disorder was on 500 acres in the castle wood. Forest of St. Louis, right in the middle of trauma therapy, a train went by with the whistle. Then coming home from treatment, I went to a see a therapist I pulled up to her office is right on the corner of the metro train. Every time we press this trauma, the train would go by. And so then my husband and I needed to retire and we went and looked for homes in different cities couldn’t find anything. So we decided to look for lots. We came to Branson, and we stepped onto this one lap, and the minute we stepped down to it and be at a sin like it’s in a subdivision with 600, homes, condos, villas, lakes pools, we stepped foot and the minute we did a train whistle went by. And so we built our home here. And now, between one and 3am every day, the train goes by, and I smile. Now instead of getting angry, I says, I know you’re trying to tell me something that you’re here, what message do you want me to know? And believe it or not, that’s the by when God gave me the vision, to tag by podcast show hope, health and healing. So he tells me prophetic things. That night when the train whistle goes by,
Kimberly Hobbs I love that. I will say to me, those are confirmations. You know, God speaks to all of us in different ways. And you took that as something that God was telling you to trust in Him, and that he was never going to leave you he was not going to abandon you. You searched for him and he was there. And that verse that scripture, Psalm 910, comes alive. And I think some women out there can relate to this when you know we have things in our life that we know are not a coincidence, that show up over and over. And God’s trying to get our attention. He’s speaking to us in different ways.
Jill Reynolds And if you and I want to share it for anyone out there who’s ever felt abandoned by God, to remember that he’s never abandon us, or left us we may have shifted and moved away from him. And sometimes if you can just connect the dots, many people don’t realize that any issues around their dad, generally that are dealing with feeling abandoned, then permeate where you think that Gods abandon you too, because they’re so closely aligned. And and I’m going to just help you out. Kimberly got this horrible cold. So I’m talking more than her even though she’s the host, because this tickle keeps happening in her throat. So I don’t want to cause you to Yeah, go ahead.
Kimberly Hobbs Thank you. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. And I’m so sorry. And we did try to start the podcast and stopped it one time because I had a coughing fit. So this is very unusual. So I do appreciate that. And I don’t want to I don’t want to stop. I just want to keep going and I feel like we just pushed through it. But I want you to take us into your your next part of your story, which is the lost innocence story. And when you have been harmed and I think a lot of women will be able to relate to this too. So you’ve been harmed at different times in our life, right? And God’s Word says that we’re hunted down but never abandoned by God. We’re knocked down but we are not destroyed. And you’re going to see this in that second Corinthians four nine and you’re gonna see that in Jill’s lost innocence part of her story.
Jill Reynolds Yeah, so again, I so again, when my mom divorced my dad, she ended up remarrying again, twice. The first stepfather She remarried, ended up being a bisexual, bigamous married to several different women, and then alcoholic. And so there was a lot of physical emotional sexual abuse going on in our home. And then they of course, and then I witness him trying to actually murder my mom. So he went to jail. And when she married the third time, this man turned out to be a passive aggressive alcoholic, and I got a pop up, I’ll turn it off there and, and alcoholic, and he he would have rage fits. So anyway, our house was pretty insane. And so again, as I had mentioned earlier, as a result of my feelings of not being unwanted, and being nonverbal and being so quiet If I was the one who never got invited to prams or homecomings where my sister was homecoming queen, and she was really popular, and so I just didn’t have boyfriends. So I had met a boy at a at a dance club, and he was 17. And I was 14. And they invited me one Saturday to his home, I was really excited. I don’t remember how I got there. But I remember walking in and he had hardwood floors and a floor of floral couch that was under a window, we sat down, and we began to talk. And I was really excited. And as we began to talk, the next thing I knew, is he kind of pushed me down and started to kiss me. And it was like one of my first kisses from a boy. And as he did, and I laid there, and he laid on top of me, and he was pretty muscular. And I was only like, very little, like 97, 98 pounds, I didn’t weigh much at all.
He pulled my pants down, and he penetrated me and he raped me. And as he did this, afterwards, he pulled his pants up. And he said, I broke your cherry, I made you a woman, you can now leave. And I remember getting up completely and just totally traumatized. But I remember walking back home five miles on the side of the road, crying and bleeding. And it seems like it took forever to get home. And as I as I continue taking those steps, I remember turning on that last block to my home and the moment I got home running into my house, taking a shower and hiding. And I remembered after that sometimes I would sit on the couch with my legs up, and my mother would pull them down and say sit like a lady. And I remember just being so freaked out Kimberly because I needed to protect myself. But I never told a soul because I felt my mom would tell me if it was your fault. And I thought my dad would kill him. So I kept it a secret until I got into my 40s. So that was my lost innocence. And it really affected me and i i would say within within a month or so of that I started to take white and feta means so that I wouldn’t eat. And I kept taking those by the handful. So I would starve because I thought the more I starved, I wouldn’t form my body. And so I started to wear flannel shirts, blue jeans and chick kicker boots. And I tried to look as on feminine as I possibly could. And after that I kind of lost my body. I didn’t even know it was part of me anymore. I felt like I was outside of it. And at 18 I had an opportunity to get an interview at the Chicago Playboy Club, I put on the bunny outfit get hired, took it home. And two days later, I returned it. Because I wasn’t ready to be that feminine. I could wear the outfit, it was weird. But what I couldn’t do is wear fake eyelashes or nails or stiletto heels, because it made me feel too much like a woman. And so I kept trying to mask my femininity. And later on in life when I was in treatment for my eating disorder. I asked the therapist I said I don’t understand why all these girls have all these body image issues, what’s with their body image issues. And the therapist looked at me and said, I said I have a problem with body image, I could put a bathing suit on and go swimming, and I’m overweight and it doesn’t bother me at all. And the therapist goes, chill, that’s because you don’t even know you have a body. It’s so severe. And I was like, really. And so that’s where I started my healing of my body image issues. If any of you out there struggle from it, I was able to start doing work and healing from that lost image and the loss of my body.
Kimberly Hobbs So let’s talk about that for a moment because there are women that are identifying with you that have been through similar situations. So in order to heal from that place of severe image issues. How did God come into the picture at that time? What was he doing that allowed you to know that he was trying to move you on a certain path?
Jill Reynolds Well, it took a while before that came in because I still I still and so I wouldn’t say from the time I got raped, but when I started to go into treatment by that time when I got into treatment, I had already invited Jesus into my life so he was doing so work in me. So I would say the healing he started to do in me was to put me into the finest treatment centers in the country. And some of the exercises that we did in treatment was we’d say, we would sit in front of a mirror. And we’d look into and stare at ourselves and say, I love your eyes, because they help you to see, you know, and I could say, help me to see God’s glory. They helped me to see God’s beauty. They helped me to see others. I love my arms, because God’s given me these amazing arms, so that I can touch things and hug others. And I love my legs, because God’s given me these amazing legs, the legs that helped me to get from place to place, and I love my torso, because it holds my vital organs that keep me alive and give me the breath of life, my lungs and all these things. So he started to show me how I can manifest and see my body in a different light.
Kimberly Hobbs That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful, back to that verse at the beginning that you created me and my inmost beings and You knit me together in my mother’s wombs with excellence, God created you in a beautiful way, and you had a thankful heart, to, to give back to him. And you said, how you loved all these different parts that God created. That was giving him that acknowledgement of how he created you and seeing you for his beautiful creation. God’s Word says that, you know, we are our masterpiece, he created a masterpiece and all of us. And we are created in the new in Christ Jesus to do the very good things he planned for us long ago. And so that was part of your healing was to acknowledge,
Jill Reynolds One verse is He who began a good work and you will be faithful to completed until the return of Christ. And so he began this great work in me. And then, you know, I guess we’ll lead it to my last story, because that kind of brings it home, which was in my book, fiercely faithful that I wrote, and that was the essence of humility. And so the spiritual awakening then that took place as I, as I progressed into heaven, from the time I got raped, and then left home at 18, I ended up becoming a crack cocaine addict and alcoholic, I became a sex addict sleeping with everyone that gave me cocaine. I, my eating disorder got crazy, I would just live on one bowl of cereal for seven years, I should have been dead. And so God took ahold of me in 1980, where I found him in San Diego, and invited him into my heart and I hit a spiritual awakening where he completely delivered me if my crack cocaine and alcoholism told me to move back to Chicago, I began going to a large church in Chicago. And I was involved in the single’s ministry, and the desire to use drugs completely left me. The desire to sleep around completely left me I became celibate. And I was very active in my church, and then one day, but right before that I had had met a one guy slept with him one time. And one day, seven months later, he called me and said, Joe, I have some good coke. Can I come over? And I says, Well, Joey, I don’t do drugs anymore. And I’m not sleeping around. He said, why? And I said, Because I found God. And so he said, Well, can I come over so you can tell me about God? So I let him come over that snowing it was Satan coming over. And within five minutes, he pulled out a violent Coke, and I got high. And my background was when people turned to me and I thought I had to give them sex. And so I said, Well, I can’t have sex because I’m not on birth control. He said, Oh, don’t worry, I’ve had a vasectomy. So I slept with them. And four weeks later was pregnant. And before I became a Christian, Kimberly, while I was very active in my addictions, I got pregnant with my boyfriend twice and had two abortions. So I tried to reason with God and said, God, there’s only one sin that none of us can hide behind. And that’s the sin of fornicating and getting pregnant outside of marriage, and then, and then the pregnancy the whole world knows because you’re pregnant. And so I felt very embarrassed and very humiliated and ashamed that all my Christian friends would know. And I couldn’t hide behind my sin. So I said to Catholic well help me just have one more abortion, just one more. And so I planned to have the abortion and three days before I felt God was telling me to take a hot bath. I always took showers so I I went into the bathroom, turned off the lights, put on some candles and I cried out to God, God, please forgive me. I gotta have this abortion. And as I did, I could see Jesus walking down the path here. During the cross, and as he was falling to the ground as he was being beaten, mocked, spat out and ridiculed. He looked at me and he said, looked up and said, Jill, why do you care what BAM thinks of you, when I suffered more embarrassment, humiliation and shame than any anyone in the world will ever face. And for that moment, he shared that with me, Kimberly, this feeling came over me that I shouldn’t care what my friends at church thought about me, or with anyone ever thought about me there, that moment forward, and I cancelled my abortion. And my son, Jeremy is 39. And I have three grandkids and and that became my essence of humility. And so for the listeners, if any of you have ever felt embarrassed, humiliated, or shamed and felt like you couldn’t face another day of what people would think of you, just close your eyes and see Jesus falling to the ground on the cross bleeding and suffering for you.
Kimberly Hobbs Amen, amen. We need to be aware that God is always moving. He’s always moving in our life and moving us along the path. And I know, Jill, that you talked about resiliency when we talked about your life, in our conversation prior to this. And resiliency is important in recovering in the challenges that life throws our way. So another word for resilience in the Bible could be perseverance. And we need to develop that core of beliefs that nothing can shake us. It’s so very important, the Bible says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove that which is good and acceptable in the perfect will of God. That’s Romans 12 to two and know that God has a plan for your life. Ladies, he has a plan, he had a plan for Jill’s life. It’s amazing how he brought her through all of these traumatic experiences in her life. And she was able to overcome and he was with her every step of the way. Can you leave a final word with the women that may be identifying with the four stories of you know, just what is your your word of encouragement when it comes to the word resiliency? Because you told me that was an important word for you?
Jill Reynolds Yeah, well, one of my life verses is no condemnation has seized you except with his common demand. And God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will provide a way out. And so that life first has to do with perseverance and resiliency, because temptation, and he says, In this world, there will be trouble. And so those people listening today in your life, there’s going to be trouble, there’s going to be temptation, and there’s going to be testing. And so I pray that she’ll turn to God, and have him hold you up, and give you the strength to persevere, and to have resiliency in your life. So that you can see the glory of God and what he’s got for you ahead. When you just turned to him, instead of feeling like it’s hopeless and that there’s nothing and that life’s not worth living. He’s got a plan for you.
Kimberly Hobbs He does have a plan for each and every one of us that says, Call me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory. Psalm 50, verse five, and I know that is true of your life, Jill, and that God rescued you from each of those situations in your life. And now you are giving him glory and what you are doing with your life. And I am just so grateful to call you a sister in Christ. I’m grateful for what you’re doing, sharing the stories and connecting the god dots with other women so that they can relate. Romans 828 says God causes everything to work together for good. So ladies, God gives us these stories. And, and he does work everything together for good.
Jill Reynolds I want to I want to leave this audience to if I could, if you don’t mind, with two songs, two songs. The one song is by the Christian artist, Dara McLean, MC L E A N and she’s got a song called wanted. Listen to that. It’s amazing. The other one was Tommy Walker. He had a song years ago called he’s turned my morning, M O U RN into dancing. And when I finally met my husband we dated seven years got married 21 years ago, that was the song I played as they pronounced as husband and wife, and we danced down the aisle, he’s turned my mourning into dancing again. And it’s like, you know, you can go through all this trauma. But he turns that morning into joy and dancing. So I’m the, the low note of all my pain and struggles, I had to end with a high note of turning your mourning into dancing. And I also wanted to end with letting the ladies know that we’re going to be doing an Esther’s rising conference in Branson, October 27, to 29. And for all of you to come and hear amazing stories of Esther’s rising.
Kimberly Hobbs Oh, thank you for that invitation. So he, Jill and you can listen to Jill and her podcasts. How can they find you, Jill?
Jill Reynolds Well, the best way to find me is to go to my website, which is braveheartworkshops.com. And I’m there you can click on all my icons that have my links to my YouTube channel, my rumble channel, my tic tac, my Facebook, and it also has the event page. So you can register for the Esther’s rising conference in Branson, and come be with us in Branson.
Kimberly Hobbs Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for that invitation again. And thank you for carrying some of the weight because my voice has gone and I didn’t want to start coughing again. But I do appreciate you, Jill, and that you took some time to come on with us. And ladies, thank you for the time that you gave to share with us today. And I pray that God blesses each and every one of you through the stories that are shared, and that you can find something to take to heart that God would have just for you. So remember, ladies hat. We have so many things available women, world leaders. If you are looking to get involved in ministry or serve God where He has called you, we have a place for you here where you can use your gifts and talents for him. Or maybe you want to share your story so that others can be inspired with hope and healing and identify with what you’ve gone through. So just remember, we are here for you every Monday, Wednesday and Fridays with these podcasts. From his heart to yours. We are women world leaders. Thank you to our guests Joel Reynolds for joining us today. And remember all content is copyrighted and cannot be used without expressed written consent. God bless each and every one of you and have a wonderful day.