Unconditional Love With Fernando Gonzalez

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Fernando, Fernando Gonzalez. Looking forward to our conversation today, my friend. Very much so, very much so excited. Cool. So Fernando is a dad through adoption. He's also a leader of a non-profit, Hope for Kids in Miami, right? Which is Miami, yeah? Correct.

[00:00:27] Correct. And so, what, so that, and he's got a day job as well, right? So how do you fit it all in? How do you fit it all in Fernando? Crazy days, but when you have passion and you have God's backing, everything is possible. Yeah, indeed, indeed. But when you love what you do, there's a saying that says when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, so here we are.

[00:00:53] Yeah, here we are. So fortunate to do that. So fortunate to do that. So what does thriving mean to you, Fernando? Well, thriving to me means to overcome, to progress. Thriving means that you're able to conquer mountains, you're able to jump over hurdles, and you're able to progress overall in life. Yeah.

[00:01:21] That's basically, in a nutshell, what thriving means to me. Yeah. And if I put the word adoptees after the word thriving, to give you the name of the podcast, what does that, what does that context add to your, the way you see thriving?

[00:01:40] Well, Simon, we're all broken people. All of us, whether we're adopted or not. All of us face certain situations in our lives, and if we've had parents, then we're broken. Because no parent is perfect. There's good parents, there's not so good parents, but our parents are broken, and that brokenness passes on to us.

[00:02:00] So we all have challenges in life. The difference with adoptees is they have the challenge of the situation that they've endured, but the reality is it can't be overcome. They can't heal from trauma. So thriving adoptees to us means that they're able to overcome the traumas that they've endured through having to go into the system and bounce from foster home to foster home,

[00:02:26] and either be reunited or actually be adopted with a new family. So thriving adoptees is a challenge, but it can be achieved. We see it time and time. Yeah. It's an interesting one. I was talking to a transracial adoptees, adoptee yesterday, somebody that I've interviewed in the past for the show.

[00:02:52] And I got the distinct impression that I have, as a white guy that was adopted by white folks, I had totally underestimated, not totally, I had underestimated the impact of transracial adoption in terms of the extra layer of complexity that that brings to the challenge, to use your word.

[00:03:23] And I asked this lady a question, which is, you know, given this extra layer of complexity, is thriving possible?

[00:03:40] And if so, what is it? What is the difference that makes the difference? What's the difference between surviving and thriving? And then we got to the end of our hour that we had for the Zoom call, right? Just for a catch-up call. And so we're going to have another conversation on the back of that.

[00:04:06] But if I may ask the same question of you, so what do you see is the difference that makes the difference? Bearing in mind, I clearly don't mean just one thing. It's got to be a multi-part answer, really. I think I would be being oversimplistic if I said that there's one thing that makes the difference, generally speaking, of whether we survive or thrive.

[00:04:35] But what's the difference you see? It's a very complex question and a very complex answer. And I'll answer it like this. What came first, the chicken or the egg? There's a group of folks that say it's a missing link. And there's complexities involved. To us, the chicken came first because the Bible says that God created all animals. Why do I use this example? Because this is very simple. There are complexities involved. There are traumas involved. There are racial differences involved.

[00:05:04] But the reality is when you have the key element of love, specifically being the love of God, anything and everything is possible. Everything changes. Everything transforms. And I'll give you an example. One of our board members, a white couple, she has blonde hair, blue eyes. They adopted five black children. The oldest child graduated high school from finishing the first two years of college. She graduated her bachelor's by the age of 20.

[00:05:33] She's doing her master's. And now she's going into becoming an administrator in a public school. She graduated under a Cambridge program in her school. Top tier graduate. Amazing grades. She's a very responsible young lady. She is a beautiful young woman at heart. And she has a heart to serve. Now, I'm not going to get into depth of her case. But they came from a very, very difficult situation when they were young. Very, very difficult.

[00:06:04] Typically, society says, oh, they're destined to fail. Well, she didn't. But the reality is her parents, they're hard core, strong believers in faith. They're strong Christians. And they educated her with the love of God, which is very different than society's love. Society's love is, I'm going to love you if you're good to me. I'm going to love you if you respect me. I'm going to love you if you're nice or if I want to.

[00:06:32] The love of God is, I'm going to love you just because. It's unconditional. And when you show these children that have been through these years of trauma, whether they're black or white in a transracial family or not, when you show them that kind of love, the barriers fall. See, many of these children, they don't want to be loved because they've been so hurt that they don't want to be disappointed again.

[00:06:56] But that love, that you love them just because you love them, and they don't have to behave for you to love them. They don't have to make their bed for you to love them or get good grades for you to love them. You love them just because? That barrier just starts coming down. And we've seen it in not one family, not two families. We've seen it in so many families, transracial families. Here in South Florida, that's not uncommon.

[00:07:21] And I'm going to tell you, even though there's culture differences, and I'll get into the details. For example, some of the African-American children, their hair care products are different than white folks. And not all white folks know how to attend to their hair. And these are little children that don't know how to do their hair. So there's a learning curve. They have to learn, they have to adapt on certain racial differences, certain foods. But the reality is love covers a multitude of sin.

[00:07:50] And when that love is injected into the equation, everything changes. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. Yeah. So I don't know if I've talked about this recently on the podcast. Apologies, listeners, if you're a regular listener, and I have, but I don't recall this quite top of my mind. At 59 now, my brain's somewhat addled.

[00:08:15] There's this phrase used a lot, and it's love isn't enough. And I think, well, perhaps, but why on earth would we put down something that is so vital to us? What do you make of that, Fernando? Well, because we don't understand.

[00:08:46] See, the common love is, I love you, but if you're not good to me, I don't want nothing to do with you. And there's a key element that enters in here, which is forgiveness. See, all these foster children that enter the system, that become adoptees, they need to forgive. They need to be able to forgive what they've been through. They need to be able to forgive their biological parents' situation. They need to be able to forgive themselves. Then they can be free.

[00:09:15] But when there's no forgiveness, love is stipulated with conditions. And as long as there's conditions to love, it's not real love. The Word of God says that the Lord came to restore what was lost. What was lost was a relationship between father and son, father and daughter. The Word of God says that he gave his only begotten son so that none of us would have to perish.

[00:09:45] Whosoever believes would not perish. He gave the ultimate sacrifice, which was his life. He didn't give a condition and say, well, I'm only going to die for the people I like or for the people that behave. I'm going to die for everybody. And as long as you believe, we're good. So it wasn't conditional love. It was, I'm going to die for you, period. Yeah.

[00:10:11] And when we're able to extend that love, which is not societal love, it's not the love of, well, you know what, we're going to go into a marriage. And if I don't like you anymore, we could part ways and everything's good. It is an enduring love. Once that enters into the equation, which is God's love, love is enough. It is more than enough. So as you say, it's a misunderstanding of the nature of love.

[00:10:40] People, societal love, according to your frame here and to your philosophy and your religion, God's love is enough. Societal love isn't enough. That's the distinction that you're drawing. There's three types of love in scripture. Eros, fileos, and agape. One is the love between husband and wife.

[00:11:09] One is the love of God. The one that's the love of God is agape. That's what passes all. Sorry, it broke up slightly that did the Zoom. Could you just say that again, just in case people didn't get it? There's three loves. Eros, files, and agape, according to the word of God. One is a friendship love. One is love between husband and wife in intimate sexual love. And then the other one is God's love, agape. Agape.

[00:11:39] Answer passes all off. Yeah, okay. So thank you for clearing that up. It's helped me greatly understand that. You correct the misunderstanding, right? So this unconditional love that you're talking about here, God's unconditional love, this is grace for everything.

[00:12:05] This is an allowance for what's going on for these kids. It's an allowance for their behavior. What does it look like? What does God's unconditional love for adoptive kids, and any kids, I guess, look like? Well, in the word of God, the apostle Paul was speaking, and they were talking to him, and he was talking about grace, and he kept repeating grace, and they asked him, so should we continue sin that grace should abound?

[00:12:33] And he said, no, God forbid, but know this. When a sin abounds, grace abounds. The first word abound in the Greek in the original context is pelatio. The second time abound is used is huperpelatio. So we put into the original context of Greek, it says, no, do not continue sin. God forbid, but know this. When sin increases, the first abound pelatio, grace super increases, the second abound huperpelatio.

[00:13:02] We need to understand that we cannot out-sin grace. Now, that doesn't mean we have a license to do whatever we want, but that means that we have a favor that's not deserved or merited. And that's where the love of God comes in. Because when we go into Scripture, the word is very clear. It says, he sees our heart. Man looks at the outer appearance, but God looks at the heart. So he knows the heart of all of us.

[00:13:29] But there's a very special, special place in the heart of God for children. There was a custom with the rabbis when the children would see a rabbi, they'd come running, and the rabbi would bless them. Well, Jesus was walking with his disciples, and the children came running to him because they recognized him as a rabbi. And the disciples rebuked the children. And Jesus rebuked the disciples in turn and said,

[00:13:56] Verily I say unto you, whosoever does not see the kingdom through the eyes of one of these little ones shall not inherit the kingdom of God. There's a very special place. He makes mention of it in James 1.27. Pure and true religion is this to take care of the widow and the orphan in their distress. So there's a continual mention of children throughout the Bible. But the reality goes back to his love. See, children, and I'm going to get into some reported stats here in the U.S. very quickly.

[00:14:25] When a child enters the foster care system and they go into non-faith homes, they go to an average of 8.4 homes during the system. Some more, some less. The average is 8.4 homes. It is scientifically proven every time a child is moved from a home, there's a new layer of trauma building up. When children are placed in Christian homes, statistics report that they only go through an average of 1.8 homes.

[00:14:50] So just by being in Christian homes, there's less moving from home to home, less trauma. That's one. The other thing is, there's scientific evidence that when faith is involved, children heal quicker. Trauma is, people are able to heal from trauma quicker. Now, we all know scientifically, many years ago, science said that when a child is not loved, oxytocin is not released in the brain.

[00:15:17] Oxytocin is needed so that a child can develop social skills, problem-solving skills. That gives them the ability to love and be loved. They said when a child doesn't receive love, they'll never have it. Well, science retracted that some years ago and said that although a child at their early years did not receive love, once they begin to receive love, it doesn't matter the age, they begin to develop oxytocin,

[00:15:43] or oxytocin is released in the brain, and they're able to begin developing life-coping skills, social skills. Now, why is that important? Because when they studied it with faith, they saw that the healing process was much quicker. So even though science can tangibly prove that love is not enough,

[00:16:08] it also tangibly proves that when faith is involved, the process of healing is expedited. Now, why is healing so important? It's very simple. Again, we're all broken. We all have issues. We all confront certain situations. We all have insecurities. All of us. All of us.

[00:16:29] But the reality is these children go through it at an expedited pace, at a more severe pace. So now you have a person that hasn't been adopted, grown up in a family, and they have their trauma and they have their situations, and then you have a child that's been moved seven or eight times, and you have all those layers. It's like an onion peeing away at it. You have to get to the core. But the more layers, the longer it takes to get to the core. But again, the Word of God says,

[00:17:00] the love of God covers a multitude of sin. It covers our forefathers' sins, our parents' sins. And we're able to get to that core much quicker. Yeah. So some adoptees listening would kind of call me out on criticisms that have been levelled at churches in the adoption space.

[00:17:27] They would say that, you know, maybe I was giving you a soft ride if I didn't ask you about that stuff, right? So what would you say to those people that are concerned about the church's role in adoption? Well, let's not forget that church is run by man. Church is a gathering of saints, but there's still mistakes in churches.

[00:17:57] That doesn't mean that they don't honour God or they want to serve God, but the Word of God, and again, Simon, we can take everything back to Scripture. The Word of God says, my people perish for lack of knowledge, for lack of understanding. Sometimes churches are so involved with the immediate that they're not trained properly to understand situations with foster and adoption. That's one of the things we do. We only work through churches. So we recruit churches. We help them build a foster and adoption ministry. We plug them into the foster and adoption community.

[00:18:27] And when we go in and we sit down, we speak to the pastors, and we explain the reality of the community, they're able to understand. But what happens is we can blame churches for them not knowing, but not enough people are educating them for them to know to begin with. Now, I want to give you an example about our daughter. We adopted our daughter, 13 years old. She is a straight-A student. But since day one, we have prayed over our daughter.

[00:18:56] We have taken our daughter to church, to youth group. We've involved her in Hope for Kids. We involve her in giving back. We pray as a family. And we instill in her the importance of faith. My daughter had a conversation with me the other day. Right after Thanksgiving, she said, Dad, I want to do something for Thanksgiving. I said, yeah, baby, what would you like to do? She goes, I want everyone to say something they're thankful for. Now, I'm not going to get into the detail of what she said, because I don't want to break down crying,

[00:19:26] because it was so hard for me. But then later she said, you know, Dad, I thank God that I can be proud of who I am. I said, well, baby, you're an amazing child. You're an amazing individual. She said, no, Dad, of being adopted. Now, to me, that's a huge victory. Why? Because she broke through the trauma. And she did not have it easy. She broke through the trauma.

[00:19:54] But she broke through the trauma because her faith has become so strong that it has enabled her to do it. Now, for her to say, because we'd ask her, sweetheart, we're not going to tell anyone you're adopted that you don't want us to tell. And there was a period of time in which she'd say, no, no, please don't tell anybody. It makes me uncomfortable. Now, she shares her testimony. Now at school, she's part of a club called First Priority, which is a Christian club.

[00:20:24] And she spoke to one of the heads of the programs and said, I want to open up a Bible club here with my friends. Now, she's sharing with her friends her testimony about being adopted and what God's done in her life. That wouldn't have happened if she was not able to surpass trauma. But again, prayer and faith. Without that, Simon, and I'm not going to say people can't heal. Because they can't.

[00:20:54] It's not the same. It's not the same. So you've used three words there. You've used heal. You've used surpass and breakthrough. So what do you mean by this, by those three words, Fernando? Surpass is when you're able to go beyond something.

[00:21:24] That doesn't mean it's done with. It may still be in your past, but you're able to cope having that situation. Breakthrough is when you break through something that's holding you back, something that's hindering you. I was at a workshop once, and the speaker said, it perverts your present and paralyzes your future.

[00:21:56] See, when we have all these insecurities, fear sets in. And fear is a lack of trust. And not trusting is a lack of being vulnerable. So now you have children that, being children, they're all vulnerable. They've been hurt. So now it's hard for them to trust. When you don't trust, you fear. It's all a cycle, Simon.

[00:22:25] It's all a cycle. And fear holds you back. The Word of God says 365 times, do not fear. One for every day of the year. And for leap year, I'm sure there's a lot of what's going in there. He speaks about not fearing. He speaks about not fearing. He says, do I walk through the valley of shadow, death, I shall fear no evil. He speaks about it over and over and over again, because it perverts our present, paralyzes our future. Now, what does God call us to do?

[00:22:55] Calls us to trust in Him. How do we trust in Him? You become vulnerable. You cannot trust someone unless you're vulnerable. I'll give you an example. Husband and wife. If you cannot share your insecurities, if you cannot share your fear with your wife, your partner, your ideal hub, the woman that God is giving you, you don't trust her. And that is very common.

[00:23:24] We believe in God. We love God. We pray to God. But we want to be in control because we think our way is better. And what happens is our way hinders our progression. Our way hinders us being able to break through those situations. Why? It's very simple. Because we have limitations. As people, we all have limitations. Nobody's perfect. Nobody knows how to do everything. But the Word of God says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

[00:23:54] We are more than overcomers. But the reality is, you have to be able to trust. And to trust, you have to be vulnerable. And that's something that very, very few times are we willing to do. Me as a man, and I'll give you an example. I remember, I've always been grab the bull by the horns, bury him into the ground type of guy, and not let go until the job is done. He's a big guy, Fernando. He's got some big ideas, and he's a big guy, right?

[00:24:23] 6'3", 260 pounds. So I'm very hands-on. Now, one thing that happened to me was, as I grew and prayed and grew my faith, the Lord would press upon my heart, and I read in Scripture that I have to let go. Psalm 4610 says, Be still and know that I am God. Means that I have to do what corresponds to me, but I cannot usurp God's role. I need to let God do what He has to do as God,

[00:24:53] not me. And I need to do what He has called me to do. Well, this is the analogy. I have my hands on the steering wheel. I'm not letting go. I'm in control. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. That was me. That was. So,

[00:25:23] you're listening to this, right? So, what Fernando was doing was letting go one finger at a time. He's got 10 fingers. He's got two hands wrapped around the steering wheel, and he's letting go one finger at a time, right? Now, the word of God says, For he who has begun in us a good workshop, perfect it to the day of Jesus Christ. Nice. We're a work in progress. We are a work in progress. Now, what is the situation here? I'm driving my car one day. New car. Beautiful car.

[00:25:53] And I leave a parking lot. I turn the wheel. My wheel is like this, and my car's going straight. I take the car to the shop. They fix it. The next week, I leave another parking lot. My wheel is like this, and my car's going straight. And it was like a slap across the face. And I felt like God was telling me. I'm not saying God spoke to me and I heard his voice. No.

[00:26:22] I felt like he was pressing in me saying, And you think you're in control? You're in control of nothing. Of nothing. Think about it, Simon. We could walk outside, and a plane flying over, could have an engine come off, and it's happened, and fall on your head. But, when we're vulnerable, when we are still, and recognize and acknowledge that God is sovereign, and he has our best interest,

[00:26:52] and we let go, that is what he is able to do in our lives, what he wants. Now, I know right now we're having this conversation. I know what happened yesterday. I don't know what's happening this afternoon, or tomorrow, or next year. He does. Romans 8, 28, All things work for good for those that love the Lord, and are called according to his purpose. He calls us, and he develops this master plan to benefit us, including the mistakes we've made, the disobediences we've had,

[00:27:22] the situations we've endured, fostering, adoption. And he gets all that, and he creates something beautiful for us. But for that to happen, we need to be vulnerable. Have you ever seen some corporate retreats, where someone stands on a platform, and all the colleagues are on the floor, and he crosses his arms, and he falls back, and they catch him? Yeah, yeah, the trustful. He did, he trusts his colleagues. Yes, now, he was vulnerable enough,

[00:27:51] for his colleagues to be able to do that. What happens if he would not have been vulnerable? He wouldn't have trusted. He wouldn't have known. He wouldn't know for sure that they could be trusted. Exactly. So, breakthrough comes in when you're vulnerable enough to trust God. Now, we lie to ourselves saying we trust God if we're not vulnerable. We lie to ourselves, because it cannot happen. It's like,

[00:28:20] the light switches off, but we're saying the light is on. The light is not on because the switch is off. And that's just the way it works. We have to flip the switch of vulnerability to be able to trust. Yeah. And when these adoptees begin to receive love, and they begin to become vulnerable, and grow in faith, the healing, it just comes. It just comes. By synergy, it just happens. And breakthroughs happen. Now,

[00:28:49] if we look at a lot of adopted folks, and there's a lot. Bill Clinton was adopted. Eleanor Roosevelt was adopted. The rapper I see was adopted. Jeff Bezos with Amazon, the founder, he was adopted. Steve Jobs with Apple was adopted. Why do I say this? Because there are high success rates amongst adoptees. Just because a person is adopted

[00:29:19] doesn't mean they have a hindrance to life to have success. That is not true. As a matter of fact, those that are adopted have overcome so much that if they're able to get past the trauma, they're able to overcome more than the average person because they've already been through a lot. But the reality is, it goes back to the love of God. I've seen people heal. I know adults are adopted, children are adopted. And whenever the element of God is involved,

[00:29:49] the difference is night to day. Night to day. And I just do that. So, what does that healing look like for you? If you had a metaphor for this, is it a healing curve? What does it look like? What are the steps along the way? We know it's a God-powered thing, right? It's a God-powered thing. It's about

[00:30:19] vulnerability. It's about trust. But what does the process look like? What are the steps on the process? Well, the first thing is it's a decision because it's got to be worked on. But I can tell you this. As soon as it begins, they begin to savor freedom. See, it is possible to be imprisoned

[00:30:49] and free. It is possible. So, what happens is we walk around with this bondage. This bondage of the trauma we've had. Of not being able to trust people. Of getting into a relationship but the relationship not working because I can't trust him enough or trust her enough. Or I want to marry her but you know what? What if she does this to me? What if she does that? And I'll give you an example. I had a gentleman that worked for me and he walked up to me and goes, hey boss, can I talk to you? I said, absolutely. Come on in.

[00:31:19] Came into my office and he said, should I get married? And I leaned back. I said, okay, you're kind of blowing me away right now. You're asking me a question and I don't understand the context. Do you love her? Yes. Does she love you? Yes. Do you see her as being next to you for the rest of your life? Yes. Do you see yourself having children with her? Yes. So why the doubt? Well, you know, because I own quite a few properties

[00:31:48] and if it doesn't work out then I'm going to lose half of it. I said, okay, do me a favor. Don't get married. Stay still for the rest of your life. He said, why would you tell me that? I said, because you're going into a marriage where you're supposed to give it all with fear. You're not being vulnerable and you're going in with pretense. You will fail and you will get divorced. So he stayed quiet, didn't say anything, decided to get married but he went in with the pretense. Well,

[00:32:18] had a couple kids, got divorced. We sometimes, we say, the enemy of our soul, the devil, does this, does this, but sometimes it's not him, it's us to ourselves. Sometimes we're the one that create barriers. We're the ones that enter into the bondage. We're the ones that don't let ourselves thrive. And I'm not saying it's easy to overcome. It is not. But it is overcomable. It can be overcome.

[00:32:48] So once you begin to open yourself up a little bit, and I'm going to be honest with you, therapy is great. Therapy is not the go-to, all-to. It helps. But you need to inject faith. You need to be vulnerable and trust in the Lord. And you will begin to save your freedom. And once you save your freedom and you compare and contrast with how you felt being in bondage, having the fears, having insecurities,

[00:33:18] and feeling the freedom, you will not go back. You will not go back. You talked about decision, making a decision. Last week, I interviewed a mom. She is a mom through adoption and she also fosters kids. And some of the kids that she fosters are older. You adopted your daughter at 13. So she has foster kids that are a little bit,

[00:33:47] maybe a little bit older than that. But she lays it right out on the table for these kids in the middle teens, right? She says to them, there's no doubt you've been through trauma, but now you have a decision. And the decision is, are you going to succumb to it or are you going to rise above it?

[00:34:18] And I thought, that's brilliant. And I thought, that's brilliant because it gives people a choice. It gives people a choice. they can have, and when they've got a choice, they can make a decision. They can choose between the two options on offer. And nobody's saying it's going to be easy. But most of the time, most people aren't

[00:34:49] that radically honest to make people aware of the options, right? They don't have that black and white clarity on a decision between two courses of action. The guy that came to you, he had clarity. Yes, he's asking his boss. It's a funny question to ask

[00:35:19] a boss really, but there was a yes or no, right? So what do you make of all that and this seeing of options? Well, you brought something very important. There's a decision to be made, okay? But there's fear that holds us back. Everybody is concerned with the unknown. Should I take this job? Should I not? Should I open a business? Should I not?

[00:35:48] Should I go here? Should I not? Should I enter into this relationship? Should I not? Second guessing. Everybody has second thoughts. Everybody has concern about the unknown. Why? Because we are creatures that want to know everything. Why did Adam fall? He gave him the fruit. He was tempted. Oh, if you eat from this tree, you will know. We all want to know everything. We would like to know the lottery numbers. What happens tomorrow?

[00:36:18] We want to know where to go, where not to go, who to talk to, who not to talk to, how to have perfect success, how to have perfect peace. But if we knew everything, faith wouldn't exist. Because faith is stepping into the unknown. So there is a decision to be made. The first step is being aware that there's a decision. Because some people are in bondage, they think that there's nothing else for them. And that's where help comes in. That's where the community believer comes in.

[00:36:57] able to understand that they do have a decision and that there are options. Now again, everything we're talking about sounds easy. It's not easy. But I'm going to give you an example. There was this gentleman, he repaired rail car refrigeration systems. And there was a rail car that was reported that wasn't working. So he went in the rail car, and as he's working in the rail car, someone shut the door. The radio didn't work because it was an

[00:37:27] insulated box. His phone didn't work because it was an insulated box. The unit was on. Train leaves the station. He can't get a hold of anybody. He starts entering into hypothermia. He wrote on his little notepad everything he was feeling. The numbness, he started feeling that he was sleepy, and it ended there. When the rail car got to the other site, that they opened the rail car, they found the man dead.

[00:37:56] He froze to death. But the interesting thing was, even though the refrigeration unit was blowing, the compressor was not working. He created that in his mind. Is that not what a panic attack is? Is that not what claustrophobia is? You enter into a place, it's small, and you begin to feel like you're going to die. And the person begins to have

[00:38:26] issues breathing, and the heart races, and they can actually have a heart attack from a panic attack of something that is not real. We make those things in our mind. So now, a person that has the ability to make a decision sees no way out, and they're in bondage. It's the same thing as having claustrophobia. It's the same thing as having fear of heights. It's the same thing that happened to that gentleman. He had a panic

[00:38:56] attack, and he died. That's what we confront. Our mind is a powerful tool. And as we've been through trauma, our mind betrays us. Now, the mind is the central nervous system. The body controls everything. It controls your organs. It controls receptors. It controls everything. There was a study with a pastor and a Chinese neurologist. And a Chinese

[00:39:25] neurologist told the pastor that they have discovered that the brain has a receptor that hears what is said, what is out there, and processes it and tells it to the body. Another study was done that people are always saying, oh, I feel sick. I feel sick. This hurts and that hurts. Oh, man, I'm getting old. And they just keep talking all this stuff. scientifically proven, that receptor starts telling the organs, hey, wait a minute,

[00:39:55] you can't work good because you're old. You have to start toning it down. And you hurt. And you're not working right. And you're not working right. And it starts relaying these messages to the organs. And that's exactly what happens. The Word of God says, faith comes by hearing, by hearing, by hearing, and hearing the Word of God. The Word of God also says, the power of life and death is in the tongue. Now, some people say, confess good things. Well,

[00:40:25] the reason why you're supposed to confess good things is not just to talk good things. It's that your own brain receives them and transmits them. So, you get an individual that's surrounded in a negative environment. And everybody has problems and everything's a problem. Before you know it, that person's engulfed in problems. Now, you have speakers that say positive, motivational speaking. That's biblical. Now, we're not to depend on that.

[00:40:56] But the reason why that's in Scripture is because God foreknew He created us. He knew He made that receptor. Now, you're having a bad day and you start saying, everything's going wrong. I can't believe this. Oh my goodness. I shouldn't have gotten out of bed. That day never gets any better. But you're having a bad day and you're saying, you know what? There's too much to be grateful for. I'm going to tackle this. Tomorrow's a new day. That day flies by. And tomorrow just happens

[00:41:26] to be a lot better. What a coincidence. Right? Same thing happens with foster and adoptees. They engulf themselves with the trauma and they begin to believe. Because we lie to ourselves and begin to believe the lies that we are less dead. We're never going to be capable. We're never going to have success. We're always going to have this hindrance over our head. Society's not going to accept us. I can't be loved. If my biological parents

[00:41:56] couldn't love me, I cannot be loved. They may think they love me, but they don't love me. And you begin to engulf yourself in these thoughts and you begin to say to yourself these things and you believe it. But when you break through that and you understand unconditional love, you're able to know that even though you're alone, you're never alone. And that makes all the difference, timing.

[00:42:26] See, it's very complex. It's very complex, but it's very simple. What came first, the chicken or the egg? You have the answer. Now, is it easy? No, it's not. But we've seen it happen. Not once, not twice, not 10, not 20, not 30, not 40 times. There is a case, and I'm not going to mention any names. This child was so badly beaten, they had 18 broken and fractured ribs, and bruised testicle.

[00:42:57] Okay? That child died three times. They intubated the child 11 times. You should see how that child is thriving. But the parents love God and love that child. That's the difference. That's the difference. Now, does that mean the child doesn't have to do anything? No, it does. We all do. We all do. Now, I'm going to go

[00:43:27] back into adoption. Adoption is biblical. Jesus Christ was adopted by his father. Moses was adopted. Why does the Bible make mention of that if there's not importance to that? Now, what did Moses do? Moses freed the Israelites from captivity. Moses was the stepbrother of the Pharaoh. Moses had no need to endure any of that

[00:43:57] hardship. But he heard the voice of God, he obeyed the voice of God, and got Jewsdom to deliver the chosen people of God out of Egypt to the promised land. You see, I am of a belief. When a person struggles so much or goes through so much, it's not a coincidence. There's challenges because there's something that person has to do on earth. There's a specific task. Now, I don't know

[00:44:27] what it is. I have no clue. Everybody's different. But you know what? If you bless one child, you've accomplished much. So, for all those that are listening, you've been adopted, you're having your challenges, it can get a lot better for you. I promise. Because there's one thing that the word is not. It's not false. false. And the

[00:44:56] reality is love covers a multitude of sin. Even when you think you cannot be loved, even when you think that you're going to be betrayed, and you may be. I've been betrayed, and I wasn't adopted. I've been betrayed by people that I love. But now I have a question. Did we not betray Christ, the one that came to die for us, the one that shed his blood

[00:45:26] for us, we betrayed him, and we betray him every time we sin, yet he still loves us. Fantastic. That feels like a great place to bring it in, Fernando. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks, Leslie. We'll speak to you again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.