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Content Warning. This episode includes discussion of suicide, addiction to drugs and alcohol, and trauma. We share this story as one of hope and recovery. If you are struggling, please reach out for help. In the US, dial or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For international listeners, please seek resources in your area.

Brenton: Hello, and welcome to the Brenton Peck Podcast. Today, I’m joined by Gigi Christ. Gigi’s story is one of brokenness turned to restoration. After years caught in addiction, she’s been walking in freedom for over 36 years. Now she serves as the assistant director of the Regeneration Ministry at Rock Harbor Church, where she helps others find the same hope and healing she’s experienced. Gigi’s journey from chaos to redemption has given her a unique voice, one that speaks with honesty, humility, and strength. I’m honored to have her here to share her story. Thanks for joining.

Gigi: Thanks so much for having me.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: I’m honored to be here.

Brenton: Honored to have you. So let’s start all the way back. Why don’t we go back to childhood?

Gigi: Okay, so I was pretty much raised in dysfunction and insanity. I unfortunately have had two parents who both suffered from alcoholism. They divorced when I was about five years old and went to different coasts. So I was raised in New Jersey and my mom moved to California and I would basically split between the two. But originally the plan was for myself and my sister to live with my mom in California. Unfortunately, I had a stepbrother that did some pretty awful things to me and being pretty young and not understanding what was going on. My sister said, “Hey, let’s move back with dad.” So we moved back to New Jersey. So I was primarily raised by my dad, but unfortunately he, in addition to struggling with his alcoholism, struggled in his singleness and just kind of wasn’t very present. So kind of was insane in the early years.

Brenton: That can leave a lot of challenge for a young kid.

Gigi: Yeah. Yeah, and it really, as a kid, I mean just really struggled a lot with my identity and where I fit into anything. And I was kind of a shy kid, which a lot of people laugh at these days because I’m not very shy, to say the least. But I was a pretty shy kid to begin with and just really just wrestled with from a very early age, trying to fit into a particular mold. And unfortunately my dad, when he was drinking, would get belligerent and verbally abusive and that didn’t help anything because I just never, I never had a good image of myself and always felt like I needed to be a certain way to make everything okay.

Brenton: Yeah. I grew up a military kid, so I moved around a lot. But in some ways I would think that’s easier than bouncing back and forth between two places because I knew how to establish new friendships, but you’re trying to maintain two separate groups of friends. You go away, then you come back and it’s hard to pick up, I would imagine.

Gigi: Hey, I remember you. Yeah, it was. And we, so both of my parents didn’t really stay in the same place, even though they were in New Jersey and California, didn’t really stay in the same place for long, long periods of time. I mean, I think it’s crazy that currently I have lived in the same place for, let’s see, I was at 2025, so I have been there for 20 years now. And it’s like, that was not how I was raised. No. You’ll live a couple of years here, and live a couple of years there. So yeah, it just, never really had a sense of security growing up in anything.

Brenton: I think the longest I ever lived somewhere, I mean, we moved in and out of houses with the military, even if we were stationed at one base. But I think the longest I ever lived in one state has been as an adult. I’ve now been in Idaho, I think over 10 years, but before that it was like six years had been the longest. And I think I’ve moved over 30 or 40 times now. And my wife, I mean, she had lived in the same two houses her entire life before we got married, so complete different worlds.

Gigi: I used to pride myself in being fairly nomadic. I just thought that’s what you did. Because that’s what we did, so.

Brenton: I had in the space of exactly one year to the day, like I had two moves cross country, lived in five different houses. That was my first year as an adult.

Gigi: Yeah, I’m growing up. So when I left New Jersey, it’s like I lived in Vermont and then I lived in Puerto Rico, and then I lived in Kentucky, and then we moved out to Idaho and everybody’s just like, oh, are you in the military? It’s like, no, what? Actually, no, I just moved around a lot. Yeah. I think moving’s fun, but. At some point, it just becomes like, I just want roots.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: I just want to be someplace, so yeah.

Brenton: I’ve come to that same conclusion. In the military, I think it was a little easier because you have some of that military camaraderie. You so much easier connect because you have to build that community moving around. But it’s like, we need that community and support in our lives, and that’s hard to establish moving around. So going back to your childhood, how did you handle all that when you didn’t have that kind of community as you’re moving back and forth and around?

Gigi: Not well. I think looking back, I think part of that was, I had a couple of friends here and there, but again, I was a shy kid to begin with, so it was really hard for me to make friends. Really, the person who became my best friend, if you have it, would be my sister, my older sister. She was, for most of my childhood, my rock. I idolized her. She was cool and she hung out with cool people. She always had boyfriends. When you’re little, you look up to things like that and you idolize things like that. I wanted to be that.

She also, she drank and she smoked pot. I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world, and smoked cigarettes. I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world. Like I said, I idolized her. It was absolutely crushing to me when I lost her.

Gigi: I don’t know if you’re ready for me to talk about that or not. So when I was 14, like I said, I had a couple of friends. Because I felt so alone, like the friends that I did have, I pretty much cloned to. She was my best friend. Died from a very rare condition. I want to say it was shortly after I started my freshman year of high school. And I mean, she just basically showed up for basketball practice and dropped dead. And so that was a crushing blow in itself. But what made things 100 times worse and 100 times harder was not even two weeks after that my sister committed suicide.

Nobody saw that coming. And like I said, I idolized her. And so I mean, you take a kid who’s already pretty lost and I was so lost and so broken by it because here was this person that I just was my everything to me. And my dad, God bless him, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help me. He didn’t know how to help himself. So he just tried his best, but struggling with his own alcoholism, he had no tools, nothing to help me. And so just kind of was left to just kind of figure it out. And unfortunately, my solution was alcohol and drugs. And there’s a lot of people that have said to me in the past, like, well, if I had your life, I probably would have been an alcoholic or a drug addict too. And it was just, it’s like, there’s a lot of people that have struggles and still grow up to be normal-ish people. Yes. They’re wounded by their struggles, but don’t necessarily turn to alcohol and drugs.

I just happened to look to that as my answer for my problems because I didn’t know. I had no tools for processing my grief or my anger or my abuse or any of it. And the easiest thing was just to numb it out and side note to that was that I found out very quickly that I could be whoever I needed to be when I was numb and pursued that all through high school and up until after high school, I didn’t get sober till I was 21, but it was one of those things that I would have done and I would have kids that I went to school with that would just be like, well, you’re an alcoholic. And I’d just be like, no, this is normal. This is what you do, isn’t it? Because I didn’t know what normal looked like. I didn’t know how normal people coped with things like depression or anxiety or grief or anger or anything. I mean, it was just like, this is, isn’t this what everybody does?

So I did and I think the biggest turning point for me was when I started having thoughts, my own suicidal thoughts and just feeling like, and what it was was basically I got to the point in my life where I couldn’t drink enough alcohol or take enough drugs to make me feel okay about being me. And I couldn’t silence all of the awful things that went on in my head. And all I could think of was that it just needs to go away and I just need to go away and that will solve everything. But I was torn because I had seen what my sister’s suicide did to everybody around us. And I saw how it affected everybody. And so it was one of those things that like I would fantasize about, but at the same time, I would think about what would this do to my family after losing my sister. And my mom had also lost her husband, my stepfather to suicide too, which was a couple of months after my sister. And so honestly what kept me around long enough to get sober was just realizing that what it could potentially do to my family. And it’s crazy how things happen because I had a sister-in-law who my brother had separated from who started with alcoholism.

And I was on the phone with her one day and she just said, as I said, a lot of people would say, “Well, you’re an alcoholic, you need to do something.” And I would just immediately just either brush them off or whatever, you don’t know what you’re talking about. But she didn’t do that. She got sober and we were on the phone and she just, she said to me, “Do you think you have a problem?” And I just said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I know something’s gotta change.” And she said, “Well, I don’t know.” She said, “I didn’t think I had a problem either but everything led back to the fact that I was stuck in that same vicious cycle and I had to do something different. And if you wanna do something different, this is what you do.”

And I had not ever considered, okay, I think I’ll join AA. So, you know, I’m 21, why not? I thought, when people would talk about things like AA, I could just picture your typical gutter drunk who, they need AA or I had two brothers who struggled with addiction too. And both of them had gotten in trouble with the law and things like that. And I never got in trouble. Not to the point of being arrested, let’s put it that way. And I, you know, obviously I wasn’t married, I didn’t have kids, so I didn’t, you know, and I didn’t lose much. But what I had lost was myself. And so it was hard for me to wrap my head around like what the next steps were. And she just, she said, “Help is out there.” And this was back in the day when we used phone books. She said, “It’s under AA.”

Gigi: And so for a couple of weeks, I just, I would flip open the phone book and I would look and then I’d go, “Nope, can’t do AA, can’t do that.” That’s just, that’s not where I’m, I’m too young for that. I don’t belong there. But, and this is, I believe, divine intervention. What stood out to me one day was an ad for a treatment facility that I drove by every single day to work.

Brenton: So top of mind.

Gigi: And I looked at it and I went, “Oh, I know that place, I know where that is.” I can go there. So I scheduled an intake and they said, “So what we recommend is that you do 28 days inpatient.” And I went, “Oh no, no, I can’t do that. “I’m needed at work.” And the funny thing about that was, so I was working in my dad’s business and my day of work basically consisted of, and my dad had passed at this point, so it was actually, I was doing the business with my cousin and my mom, but my day would consist of me showing up at about 11 a.m. putting my head down on the desk for an hour, just trying to regroup, and then proceeding with a couple of hours of actual work, and then meeting up with some of our customers and going out drinking.

So needless to say, I was not really needed at work, but I was scared. I was scared. I was scared of what would that look like to everybody. I just said, “Nope, can’t do that.” I said, “Well, how about outpatient, “intensive outpatient treatment? “We can work the schedule around your work.” And I said, “Yeah, I can do that.” And then the counselor said something to me that absolutely made me cringe. He said, “Okay, well, if you’re not gonna be inpatient, “then I want you to start attending AA meetings.” And I went, “That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid.” And he said, “Here’s the thing.” He said, “We can teach you all about the disease of alcoholism and addiction, but AA’s gonna teach you how to live sober.” And I didn’t know how to live at that point, so I was like, “Okay, take your word for it.”

And again, the crazy thing was in all of this was that people had been placed in my life who had basically walked the path ahead of me. Like I said, two brothers that got sober before me. I had a neighbor who was a good friend that I worked with who was sober, and so I knew that there were people around me that I could reach out to. And I actually reached out to my friend who was my neighbor and just said, “Hey, what can you tell me about this AA thing?”

And that was the beginning. And he sat me down and he told me all about what it looked like. And he mentioned as he’s telling me about it, he said, “Oh, by the way, they might talk about God a little bit, but don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.” But that stuck with me because with everything that had happened in my life, I would tell you that I was an atheist or an agnostic and that I didn’t believe in God, but the reality was that I was very angry. And I had felt like if there was a God out there, then he must hate me because of everything that I had been through in my life. And I just, I couldn’t fathom that because I, I was looking for somebody to blame and God was an easy target at the time.

And so when he said, “Oh, they might talk about God,” I was like, “I don’t know how I feel about that, but okay, I’ll take your word for it.” And he said, “Hey, there’s a meeting tonight. You wanna go?” And my friend Tony, who took me to my first meetings and we lost him last year and he was just such a good, good guy. And I miss, even though we were separated by distance, I miss having those little Facebook conversations, but he was a very animated person. And so as he’s inviting me, he’s doing the head nod today. And I’m like, “Okay.” And so I walked into my first AA meeting and I had the, gosh, late summer of 1989, sober a couple of months, but just barely hanging on. And I walk into this meeting and it was in the chapel of the snows on Stratton Mountain in Vermont. And I came down and, because back in those days, most AA meetings were held in the basements of churches, walked down the stairs and I looked around and I saw a whole bunch of people that were like a lot older than me. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?”

Brenton: Don’t wanna be the youngest one there.

Gigi: It was like, “I don’t belong here. This, you know, now you’ve really done it.” Geez. And I sat down and I looked up and right across from me were these pull down signs that had the 12 steps and the 12 traditions on them. And I saw a God all over them and I went, “Oh, this is where I’m at, huh?” And I was scared because once again, here I am, no alcohol, no drugs, trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in.And I will say that the greatest thing that happened that night was there was a woman in that room who I’d never met before in my life who shared my story. And by saying that, I mean like she shared exactly what I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I had done. And, but then she also talked about how, where her recovery had taken her and how she was able to be a mom and a wife and a servant. And I didn’t have any of those things. And I didn’t see, I knew my life, the way it was, I would never have those things. And if I did, they would be taken from me because it was a mess. And I never saw that woman again after that night, but it kept me coming back because for the first time I felt like somebody understood me and how I felt.

Brenton: And so if one can, maybe more can.

Gigi: Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, okay, I don’t like this, but I’m seeing where something is possible here. And I don’t know where I’m going with this. And they talked a lot about God and they talked a lot about having faith and finding faith. And I was still very angry. And I will never forget one of those great AA old timers who I was just going on and on about how I don’t believe God. And then talking about how angry or talking about how God done me wrong. And he said, “You can’t hate a God you don’t believe in.”

I was like, fine. So, I would just start talking to God and just like, okay, if you’re out there, then this. I am so grateful that God meets us where we’re at because it wasn’t that I didn’t have a relationship with God, it was that I had a bad relationship with God. And I had formed all of these ideas and all these views based on what other people believed in.

And I’ll back up for a second. One of the, so I, because I was born and raised in New Jersey, I was raised among several friends that were Catholic. My mom was Episcopalian and my dad was Muslim. So, I had all of everybody else’s ideas about God and none of my own. And so, it was easy to be confused. It was easy to have a bad relationship with God when you’re basically being told several different things from several different people. And so, I just started just saying, okay, God, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you are. But I’m obviously here for a reason. So, let’s do this.

And I love reading the Bible and reading, I find so much comfort in both the, Jesus is apostles, but also in the great people of faith before Jesus’ time, because like, they were some messed up people. Yes.

Brenton: They all were.

Gigi: It’s like, oh, thank you, Noah. You know, I don’t feel like I have to reach this certain level of being to be loved by God. And that was where I was so confused and so lost. And it also, like, I also came to understand that the things that happened in my life, God was with me through them, He didn’t do them to me. Yes.

Gigi: And that was something that actually came out as I was working through the steps, through the AA steps. And as I was looking at how, step four is searching in fearless moral inventory and it hones in very much on resentment and fear and past behavior. And specifically, my biggest resentment was God. And as I was looking through that, really understanding that God didn’t do these things to me, other people did these things to me.

And they were sinful people. But at the same time, I had a choice of whether or not I could stay victim to those things or I could move forward. And I love the literal definition of the word resentment because if you look at its roots, the word, the definition is basically to refill. And so I was reprocessing and refilling all of these hurts, all of this trauma throughout my whole life. And the key was just like, okay, you don’t have to keep doing this. God has taken you to this place for a reason. And He doesn’t like what happened to you any more than you did, but you don’t have to live there anymore. And realizing that was, just the first key to getting free was knowing that I had a choice in the matter.

Brenton: That’s a huge thing.

Gigi: Yeah.

Brenton: That makes you feel like you have an identity again. Because if you don’t have a choice, that’s just everything else is on you. But you have that choice, it’s like, wait, no, I can be my own person.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah. And it’s funny, like I said, growing up, I was always the shy kid and alcohol and drugs made me less shy for a lot of years, but then took that away and I became that shy kid again. Only at that point, like I wasn’t gonna let you know that I was shy or that I was afraid. Because if you knew that, then I could be vulnerable. I didn’t wanna be vulnerable. So I turned it the other way around and I would just look mean. I would just try and scare people away. So my early days of recovery were kind of scary. I had a good friend who used to say, we wanted so much to hug you, but we were so afraid of you.

Brenton: I can see that.

Gigi: But yeah, like you said, finding that key, opening that door to who I was and who God had designed me to be. And it was rough in the beginning because I still was just kind of trying to figure it all out. And I didn’t know how to just be. And I always, you know, I still had the world pulling at me in different directions about who I should be and what I should be and where I should be and everything. And I kind of started feeling that gnawing at my soul when I was about four years sober of just like not really knowing who I was in this newfound identity. And okay, I’m sober now, now what? And I had a good friend who was also my AA sponsor who was a very good friend. Also my AA sponsor who dragged me to an Amway convention of all places.

Gigi: And at a Sunday morning service at this convention, I heard a pastor talk about Jesus. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard anything about Jesus before, but it was kind of like he was just this mythical being and you know, so far out of my reach. And I, with my past thought, there is no way I can ever fit into anything like Christianity. I thought that, you know, I was too bad, I was too dirty. I was too messed up, I was too lost. And I don’t remember exactly what he said that day but it was something to the effect of if you’re feeling like you’re too broken, well guess what, you’re exactly the people he came for.

And like before I knew it, I mean, it was like almost kind of surreal that like I was accepting. It was just, it was like, okay, I’m ready. I’m ready for something different. And I would love to sit here and tell you that from then on I was full on and I was all in. But I still had a lot of fight in me. And I mean, I’m a stubborn kid still. I’m still 57 years old, I’m still a stubborn kid. But I was even more stubborn then. And I was accepting Christ, but I wasn’t surrendering. And so there were still a lot of years that I was still, I was gonna do things my way.

Gigi: And despite my better judgment, shortly after that time, I met a man in recovery and I just thought he was just everything and we were gonna get together and everything was gonna be awesome. And we did, we got together and very quickly and then we ended up moving in together. And then I found myself pregnant and out of marriage.

And so the next most logical thing to do was to get married and found out very quickly that he was still very much struggling with his addictions. And we, he would, gets over, do great and then not. And we did this for about seven years. And during that time, we had two kids and our second child was born with a very rare condition. And the short answer to what my son’s condition is is he’s on the autism spectrum and he’s very low functioning. And which, in a marriage that’s already strained, just--

Brenton: That’s very difficult.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah. And during that time, we moved around a lot while my first husband tried to find himself and everywhere we went, he found himself in the bottle of alcohol. So we landed here in Idaho in 2001, just before 911 as a matter of fact, which was heartbreaking for me having grown up back East. But he, my first husband was getting increasingly worse and having mental health issues. And here, I’m trying to hold it all together as be a wife, be a mother, be supportive in to him. But there’s this part of me that was just like, okay, I got sober, why can’t you? Can’t you just figure it out? And I’m like, I’m not gonna do it. Can’t you just figure it out?

Brenton: Were there ever points that tempted you the other way where it’s like, I wish sometimes I could just do what he’s doing or was it more almost just that frustration, irritation, like, come on, I need you to step up and walk with me?

Gigi: I think it would have been really easy to go that way, but at the same time, I felt this immense responsibility to my kids. And the other thing that I will say that is one of my struggles that has come out time and time again in a step work that I’ve done recently is my sense of pride. And part of that was like, nobody should ever see me drunk or high again. And so that’s where my pride has turned me well. Doesn’t usually, but I’m grateful for that.

But what really I also struggled with was nobody should see me struggling in an alcoholic relationship either. And so I would put this face on of who I thought everybody thought I should be and try and pretend like everything was okay. And there’s this great analogy in the A-A big book that talks about how an alcoholic is like a tornado and it’s ripping and rubbing its ways for people’s lives. And I have since realized that being on the other side of that and having struggle in both places that, the codependent or the Elinon, whatever you want to call it, the person on the other side is the person that is standing on the front porch, seeing the tornado coming and is either like going, it’s not gonna hurt me, it’s not gonna hurt me, it’s not gonna hurt me.

I’ll just pretend that it’s not coming and everything will be okay. And either way it’s a bad outcome. And either way the storm’s gonna come and it did. And I think we weren’t even in Idaho six months and one day he just got in the car and left and I didn’t know where he was or where he went and found out later on that he had actually met somebody online and went to meet this person. And this was after getting the phone call and I was like, “Oh, I’m gonna get it.” This was after getting yet another DUI in another place. And so basically I was left alone with these two kids and like I said, one of them with special needs and I will say my other son was very much, my older son is very much the opposite end of the spectrum.

He has always been a very smart, very independent, strong-willed child. So I’m trying to figure out how to parent two very different children. And still take care of myself because at that point it’s like I couldn’t hide from the truth anymore. It’s like I had been trying to pretend that everything would be okay if I just was supportive enough. If I was just this, if I was just that. And I didn’t, once again it was like, “Okay, I don’t know who I am in this anymore.”

He briefly came back, but came back long enough to get arrested again and I finally put my foot down and I will say part of this was, was again, God really looking out for me because as my first husband got progressively worse in his addiction and his alcoholism, he had mental health issues to begin with, but he would mix medications and alcohol and he was just becoming progressively more abusive, more--

Brenton: Just unstable.

Gigi: Yeah, and to the point where he was hearing, he was hearing people through his computer tell him to do bad things and I was scared. And so the last time he got arrested was like God’s intervention saying, “Okay, I’m doing for you what you can’t do for yourself.” And it was easy when he was in jail for me to just say, “Okay, I’m done. “I don’t wanna do this anymore.” And was able to get some help to make sure that he wasn’t able to come back home after if he got released from jail. And I had no idea what I was going to do because I wasn’t working at the time. He was our primary income, but I just, I said, “Okay, God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. He’s gonna take care of us. I just need to trust.”

Gigi: And there’s a lot of years, honestly, that I have no idea how he made it. It was pretty crazy, but we did. And that was, I mean, I just said, “Okay, I’m gonna trust him with my life.” And financially, things just always seem to work out. And I know, I mean, there are just so many people that have been a godsend to me and my boy’s lives throughout the years. But it just amazes me how things would just always come together for us. And raising a child with special needs, especially in Alex’s situation because he had such a rare condition that nobody had ever seen. There was no like, “Hey, your son’s gonna grow up “and he’s gonna do this.” It was, I will never forget, and we were living in Kentucky and he had been evaluated by some head of, I wanna say, he might’ve been a neurological, or I don’t remember, but he said to me, he said, “So we just kind of looked over everything.” And he said, “You know, I’ve got good news “and I’ve got bad news for you.” He said, “The bad news is, “your son has such a rare condition “that we’ve never seen before “that we can’t tell you what he’s gonna be like “or what to expect.” The good news is, is we’ve never seen this how many lives we’ve seen before. So we can’t put any limitations on it and tell you he’ll never do it. It was just like, “Okay, so we just don’t know.”

Brenton: Scary but hopeful.

Gigi: Yeah, and so it was just, it was one of those things. And I will say that that has been a huge part of my faith journey is because it was just, for somebody like me who also wrestles with control, it’s like, “You have no control over this situation.” You’re just along for the ride. It was like, “Okay.” And that’s how it’s always been. And my son, my younger son, Alex, is now 28 years old and he still functions on the level of a three-year-old, essentially. And so he will, he’ll never live by himself. Always need care. And so it’s one of those things that, I mean, I have always just kind of been like, “Okay, well, we’ll see. “We’ll see what happens.”

But just really, during that time though, being a single parent, it was just, it was a whole lot of faith and a whole lot of just like, “Okay, once again, I’ve gotta do this “because nobody’s gonna do it for me.” And it would be really easy to lose my mind or go back to my coping mechanisms, but that doesn’t work for anybody. These kids need me. And again, having another child who was very much the opposite and needed a lot of rainings. It’s like, I had to be on my A-game. Always.

Gigi: So we had a lot of crazy years and, you know, the, it wasn’t until my older son was in middle school that I felt like, “Hey, I need to get back to Jesus.” Like, I mean, he was always there and my faith was always strong, but I didn’t have a faith community around me. And I really felt when, I think God was definitely using my son to prompt this, but I felt like I was being, like I needed to be in community. And I had a friend in recovery who I knew, he and his family were very involved in a church. And I was like, “Hey, you know, “what can you tell me about your church?” And they invited us and we started going to church. It wasn’t where we stayed, but it was where we needed to be at the time because during that time, or shortly after we started going to church and getting into community, my first husband committed suicide.

And he was just somebody who just could not see away out of his addictions or the insanity that had become his life. And we had not been together for several years at that point, but it was still devastating. And it was even harder to try and explain that to my son who was, my older son, who’s I think 12 at that point. And just because it had been such a difficult relationship to begin with that he wasn’t coming back.

And like I said, I don’t think there’s any coincidence that we were drawn into this community prior to that event, just a couple of months prior to that event because that was where the church did what the church does. And they came alongside us and helped us as best they could through that. And we wound up not staying with that church because there were some things that I kind of didn’t agree with at the time, but it’s okay, we all find our place and had just kind of drifted away.

But a few years, well, actually it wasn’t few years later because I actually, so I started hanging out with this guy that I knew from recovery, who’s a good friend of mine. And we started getting closer and started dating and did everything the wrong way. Moving in together. But he was going to church and he was serving at his church and he just said, “Hey, no pressure, but if you wanna come to church with us, come and check it out. And my daughter and I go and it’s pretty cool, they have cool music.” And it’s like, okay, why not? Once again, I found that missing piece in my life. Like I just, I knew where I needed to be. I knew that God was drawing me in again and drawing me closer. And the hard part about that was as God was drawing me closer to him and the more I was getting involved, I started recognizing what wasn’t working in my life and that living with my boyfriend was probably not a good idea.

So there was just kind of this tension and this pull and it was just like, I really loved this guy and I really, I thought we had a future together. And, but at the same time, I felt like God was saying, hey, what you’re doing isn’t working. And about two and a half years into our relationship, he felt a pull in the other direction. And one day just said, I can’t do this. And we wound up splitting up and he, I won’t share too much of his story, but he wound up going back to his addictions and we would every once in a while try and get back together again and try and talk through. But I was on a different path and the thing that happened, so shortly after we broke up, I was in our pastor’s office and I was crying about our breakup and how much I loved my now husband, but at the time loved my boyfriend and how could this happen to us?

And we talked through a lot of things and at the end of our conversation, I just said, oh, by the way, now that he’s not in the house anymore and like I’m kind of financially struggling, do you know anybody that, you know, basically would be willing to work with me with my situation with my son because my son required care all the time. He would be in school during the day and I had a caregiver sometimes, but ultimately I couldn’t work a normal schedule because of his needs and so it made working a full-time job very challenging, to say the least. So, but he said, well, actually he said, do you know how to do bookkeeping? And I was like, well, I kind of did some bookkeeping for my dad when I was younger, but and he just, he said, can you learn QuickBooks? And I just kind of went, sure. Why not, why?

He said, because I mean, we need an office administrator and you know, the cool thing about that is, we can give you some flexibility with Alex, you can bring him with you if you need to, you know, as long as you do what needs to be done. And I just kind of was like, okay, sure. Why not go to work for the church? No, where was this on my radar?

Gigi: No, but here is the crazy thing. I mean, there’s a lot of crazy things that happened leading up to this. Shortly before this meeting with this pastor, I had been, I just, I was, was out walking my dogs and praying and my time with God, I know a lot of people feel that their best time with God is first thing in the morning. And I think that’s great. I am not a morning person.

Brenton: Me either, not at the slightest.

Gigi: I don’t have a coherent thought till like 11 a.m. after a lot of coffee. Yes. So my time with God is usually at night when everything is quiet. And I happen to be outside walking my dogs and just crying and just really struggling with breakup and everything. And I just like out loud in the dead of night, I was just like, “God, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand what you want from me.” And there’s some people who will think I’m crazy for saying this. There’s other people like, “Yeah, I get it.” But I heard God tell me, “I want you to love me better.”

And my first inclination was, “Of course I love you. Don’t you see all the things I do for you?” I serve in recovery. I serve at church. I do this. I do that. And above all that chatter, I heard God say, “You don’t love me. Love what I’ve given you.” And that just sucked all the wind right out of me because I didn’t know how to love God. I just thought if I did all these things that I was a good Christian. And so I just, I said, “Okay, I’m yours. Whatever you want, I’m in.”

So I’m sitting here with this pastor and he’s like, “Okay, so I want you to pray about this because here’s the thing. If you come to work for the church, you now represent the church, which means you cannot be living the way you’re living. You can’t be living with guys. You can’t have sex out of marriage. You represent the church.” And I was just like, “Okay.” There’s a lot of people who would be like, “Oh, I need to think about that.” But for me, it was like, “I don’t need to think about this because this leads back to the conversation I just had with God.”

Brenton: It’s a sign, it’s the next step in my journey.

Gigi: I was like, “Okay.” And he’s like, “No, really, I want you to go home and pray for it.” Or pray about it. I’m like, “Oh no. No, you don’t understand. This is where God’s calling me.” So I started working for our church. My technical title was office administrator, but because I had so many relationships with people there, it gave me the opportunity to really start pouring into women that I had known through recovery and that God had put in my past. And it was just such an amazing, beautiful time to just really explore my own faith, but also help other women explore theirs. Because I’ve been working with women in recovery for years at this point, but it had just been kind of the AA, God of your own understanding type of thing with no real definition. And I knew God was calling me into something much deeper.

And that just a generic, God was not enough for me. I needed to go deeper in my faith. And I was like, “Okay, who’s in for the ride?” And so really just, it gave me the opportunity to just really be surrounded by my faith community, but also draw people in. And it’s funny because there were a lot of people who were just looking at me like, “What happened?” And it was just like, I surrendered. That’s what happened. It’s finally beaten into a place of submission where it’s like, “Okay.” And it’s funny because I tell people all the time right now, it’s just like, I am so not a rule follower. And every fiber of my being walks in rebellion. But at this point, I don’t want the consequences that are attached to it.

It’s just like, really the easier way is to just go, “Okay, your way is better.” Mine always leads to some kind of pain. And so I did, I mean, it was hard because I still very, very much loved this man. But I knew that I had to let go of him and any ideas of us being together because I couldn’t worship God and worship him at the same time. I had to pick one.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And that was one of the things that I very quickly started to understand about my life and why I had struggled so much is that I had all this misplaced worship and that God was just always in the background of everything going, “Hey, remember me? Still here.” I was like, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get back to you.” And now I was finally at the place where it was just like, I had no nothing left. It was just like, “Okay, I need God. I need him to be number one in my life.” And everything else can...

Brenton: Take a hike.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly. I’ll never forget because I had a friend who just, she’s talking to her about my choice to choose God over everything. And she’s, “Well, do you think any guy is going to accept that?” And I said, “I don’t need any guy. I need one.” And I was like, “Who said that?” And like I said, we... Doug and I had these feeble attempts at trying to get back together, but it always came back to the same thing as like, “God’s gotta be number one in my life. You can’t be it.” And he was not ready to accept that. And we wound up having this one catastrophic end-all, be-all breakup.

And, you know, the, “Never wanna see you again. Never wanna talk to you again,” type things. And I was so sad, but it wasn’t that I was... I was sad that we weren’t gonna be together, but I was more sad about where he was at in his life because I knew he was struggling, and I knew he wasn’t doing well, and I knew he was so far from God. And I just started praying for him and just saying, “You know, God, I know that, you know, you have a plan for me, and if that plan doesn’t include him, I’m okay. I’m good with that. I trust you, but he needs you.”

Gigi: And I just started praying for him, and I will never forget praying for him one night. And I just, I said, “God, you know, just get his attention in a way that he cannot deny you.” And then I realized what that usually means for me when God gets my attention is that usually requires some pain. I said, “Please just don’t hurt him too bad.” I found out, this was probably about a month later, we had been communicating, and he said, “Well, ever since the accident, I’ve had a lot to think about.” And I was like, “What accident?”

And what had happened was he, was very impaired one day and got on a dirt bike and flipped the dirt bike over and had all kinds of damage, had concussion, broken ribs, crushed foot, but long in the short of it wound up in the hospital for 10 days. And he said, “Yeah, I’ve had some time to think about things.” And I was just like, “Oh.” And I said, “Well, I was kind of praying for you, but I, you know, I guess I look what I had in mind, but I guess God will use anything to get somebody’s attention.”

And we just, we started talking again and had no idea where it was going. And I just, you know, I remembered one of the things that I loved about our relationship was that we weren’t just a couple, we were friends. And I enjoyed being friends again and had no idea where it was leading. But the long and the short of it was we wound up getting back together in this time under the agreement that God’s gonna be number one. And that if we had any chance of having any kind of relationship that God had to come first and that we needed to be obedient to that. And we did. And obviously because we, because I said to him, “Now my husband, he wound up getting married.” On a Friday, we’ve been married 10 years, which is truly God-ordained.

Brenton: Early congrats.

Gigi: Thank you. We, so we started serving in ministry together, which was amazing. And this was where actually I got introduced to my next step in my journey in ministry as we were, the church we were at was involved with Love Inc. of Boise, which Love in the Name of Christ, and got to know Canberra, who was the former director through, because she would come to the church from time to time and wound up talking. And I was looking for, because at that point I was not working full-time and I was looking for something more. And honestly, as much as I loved the connections that I’d made at that church was looking for something that was more suited towards me and where God was taking me.

Gigi: And she and I happened to be talking one day and she said, “Hey, we’ve got this position open as a program coordinator for our abundant living program.” And I said, “Yeah, I think I wanna apply for that.” And I wound up getting hired on and that’s how we met. Yep. I got to meet you and Teri and so many other amazing families. And just having the opportunity to see how, has I felt this gnaw the entire time before I started working for Love Inc. I just felt like God was just saying, “Hey, I’ve given you these gifts and you’re not using them. I really need you someplace else to use these.”

And I didn’t know what that looked like at the time because I had thought like, “Okay, do I go back to school? Where am I going with this? Am I supposed to be a counselor?” And unfortunately, there is a lot of great Christian counseling out there, but there’s also a lot of really, there’s a lot of secular counseling. And what I was drawn to specifically was because of my background with alcohol and drugs was like, “Okay, am I supposed to become an alcohol and drug counselor?” And as I looked more into it, I just, I saw where it wasn’t part of my faith journey. And I needed my recovery and my faith journey to be moving in the same direction, not apart from each other. And so I was like, “Yeah, that’s just not working, that’s taking me.” And so I didn’t know much about the position at Love Inc. But she was just like, basically we help families who are either in financial needs, spiritual need. And I was just like, the spiritual need is, that caught my ear. And it was just, because honestly, and this is something I see more and more where I’m at now, is that whatever your struggle is, whether it’s finances, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s drugs, pornography, whatever, there’s something behind that. There’s something that’s driving that struggle.

And so that’s where I was just, I was drawn to that. It was like, “Okay, this is, I really feel like God’s pulling me into this.” And wound up taking that position and working for Love Inc. for just shy of seven years. And unfortunately during that seven years was when COVID hit and shook everything up. Oh yeah. And gave us another dynamic of crazy and just really started me on a path of like, okay, is this where God has me?

And during that time or just after that time, actually just after that time, I really started seeing how coming out of that time, how broken, I mean, we’re all broken to some extent to begin with, but how much that season just heightened the brokenness of the world. Marriages were in chaos, people’s finances were in chaos because there was so much uncertainty. There was just, I mean, it was just, you took people like me who were just kind of like, “Hey, let me go out and I’m just a human Labrador retriever. Just, here, let me make friends with everybody.”

And now it’s just like, you have to social distance. You can’t be around people. And for a lot of people, I turned in that time, I clung to my faith because I knew God had a plan. I knew we would get through this, but I saw a lot of people and a lot of people who had good faith who just, I mean, the depression and anxiety that came out of it was just, it was so heartbreaking. And so coming on the other side of that, as things started to kind of level out and we started meeting again and things like that, I really started seeing how, we’re like, the program we had was primarily about teaching people how to budget their money, but people were coming to us, coming out of broken marriages, abusive marriages, cheating situations, just depression, anxiety, things like that, they were coming to us and we’re sitting there saying, “Hey, let’s teach you how to write a budget.” And they’re going, “I don’t even know how to live right now. “And you’re telling me to write a budget.” And it really just got me thinking like, “Okay, we need to take a step back.”

Brenton: The budgeting was oftentimes, from what I saw, more of a symptom. There’s so much more coming on in the budgets, the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. It’s like, even if you solve the budget, there’s still so much more going on underneath.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly. And so I started talking to our leadership about like, hey, we gotta do something different. Like, I love what we’re doing. But if we’re really gonna meet people where we’re at, we need to take a step back. And I happened to be on a call with a couple of other loving affiliates across the country. And one of my counterparts in another state was talking about life coaching. And I was like, we need to get them on track in their lives so that they can focus on these other things.

And so I just kind of set me on a path of like, okay, how do we do this? And so the next natural step for me was, well, I’m gonna get certified as a life coach. So I did. I went through an online program and said, okay, I’m gonna get certified. And wasn’t sure. I thought, well, if it ever came down to it and we’re locked up again, I can do life coaching. Virtually. Another tool in my pocket. But it just really, I just wanted to know how I could help people. And we started really looking at like, okay, there are people who are always, they’re here to get their finances on track. That’s great. We’re set up for that. But there’s people who just like, I just need to know how to prioritize my life so that I can focus on my finances. And so we developed a life coaching program.

Brenton: Was that after we were there? Yeah. Because I remember one of the quotes that stuck with me the longest time came from you and Kimbra. And that’s the power of your stories, not in the story itself, but in sharing it. And I remember the number of people that came through. It’s like, okay, budgeting’s the tip, but I need help elsewhere. And it’s very similar if in different paths to your story where it’s all like, there’s no hope. I don’t see how to get through this. Wait, you went through the same thing I did? And you’ve come out this other side, like seeing, building that community. One of my previous guests, Rachel’s a therapist, and she talks about shame.

And shame brings about like concealing, trying to hide. And the antidote to that is community, to open up your story. So I see story as telling your story is the power to overcome it. It’s also the ability to help other people overcome their struggles. It’s like, it’s one of the reasons I started the podcast in itself is the power of story, like sharing that, helping people walk through, overcoming your own anxiety or shame or whatever it is, just the power of that story. And I remember we did some of that in “Loving,” but I always wished it was a little bit more.

Gigi: Right, as Kimbra would say, I took that thread and I pulled on it. And I just started looking at like, okay, let’s take some basics. Let’s look at, if we’re gonna look at the things that should be priorities in our lives, like, okay, let’s look at the faith dynamic. Let’s look at time management. I mean, how, talking about budgeting, finances, how are we doing with our time? I mean, just basic things for living. And like, okay, let’s build on a stronger foundation. And it’s funny, because I actually use that as part of the analogy, is it’s just, I married a man in construction, so specifically concrete construction. So I took a page out of his life and I said, if we’re going to have a strong life structure, we have to build on a strong foundation.

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: But before we can even do that, maybe there’s this foundation that needs to come down first. And because unfortunately, one of these things that happens with us, whether it’s nature or nurture, we have these limiting beliefs.

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: We have these things that are installed on us from a very early age. And some people come from a background like mine, where it’s just, I mean, whether it’s dysfunction in the family or if it’s just life in general, but we have these ideas that limit us from our potential. And I said, so let’s start by demolishing the existing structure. Let’s level the surface so that we can put a solid foundation down. And it was so cool to see people just open their eyes, some of them for the first time to the possibility. And some of them because they hadn’t, they may have had glimpses in the past, but just to see how like, hey, this is possible.

And get some stability in their lives. And I will never forget prior to this, what really, really inspired me to move forward with this was having a conversation with somebody who had just come out of a horrible marriage that was just mentally bordering on physically, but mentally abusive situation. And she just, she was, I mean, we’re sitting there talking about finances and talking about, because one of the things that we talked about in “Love, Inc.” was like, who do you wanna be? What’s, you know, who are you becoming? And she was like, you’re asking me who I’m becoming, and I don’t even know who I am.

And that was, it was just, and she’s just like, I can’t focus on finances. I don’t even, I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing from one day to the next. I’m just existing right now. And it was just realizing how many people were just stuck in this position of, they were just trying to survive as best they could.

Brenton: Just pure day-to-day survival mode.

Gigi: Yeah. And it was like, okay, well, let’s, you know, let’s see if we can teach you how to thrive. And that was just like, just so, so God-ordained. I mean, it was just like, I would love to sit here and tell you like, I have this brilliant idea, let’s do this. But it was just all the pieces just fit together and everything just came together. And it was just, it was all in his timing. And I just, I was so grateful that we were able to start something. And it’s funny how things just kind of work because during this time, the church that Doug and I were attending, Rock Harbor, so back up for a second, for years, I had looked at a lot of biblical 12-step studies and thought, yeah, that’s good, but.

Gigi: And I thought, you know, and I was like, okay, you know, can I write something? Can I, you know, can I put something together? And we were loving where we were at Rock Harbor Church and seeing the growth there and seeing things happen. And I was just like, I was like, yeah, we need something for recovery there. And lo and behold, one Sunday, they were like, okay, let’s do this. And lo and behold, one Sunday, they announced this program that they were launching called Regeneration. And it was developed through Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas. And they said, you know, hey, if you’re interested in serving, come to, you know, come check out the information meeting. And I did. And reluctantly, my husband came with me. He was just kind of like, okay. One more thing, she’s dragging me in too. I’m always like super excited about these things. And he’s just kind of like, okay.

But I, we sat down and we heard about the program and there we were like, hey, you know, if you’re interested in serving, the way you serve is by going through it first. We’re gonna go through it as a team and, you know, then we’ll officially launch next year. And this was October of 2021. And as we were going through it, just loved the curriculum and where it was taking. And just gave me the opportunity to see how, as much as like I tried to like, once again, try and pretend like everything was good. And I was, you know, I was the strong one during 2020, whenever the world lost its mind, you know? And it just was like, okay, I’m not as awesome as I think I am. And what’s behind all of that is this idea of, you know, I am this many years sober. Nobody should see me struggling with anything. I should be walking on water by now.

So if I pretend like everything’s okay, then everything’s okay. You know, but it was just, it was that facade of like, you know, I’m Gigi, the, you know, woman with this many years of sobriety, the sponsor of this, I’m Gigi, the, you know, program coordinator for Loving Boise, you know, my identity was wrapped around these things that I thought I was supposed to be showing to the world. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t a Christ follower, I was very much in my relationship with Christ, but I was still wrapped up in this identity of who I thought people saw me to be. And so as I’m going through these steps, I just, once again, just felt God pulling me saying, hey, there’s, but wait, there’s more. And then I was just like, okay, what does this look like? Where are we, where are we going now?

So we launched this program, this regeneration program in April of 2022 and started leading women and just immediately from the moment we launched, really saw how much people were struggling. I mean, it was just like, I will never forget sitting around the first group that we had and hearing these ladies talk about what they were struggling with and just realizing how overdue we were in this need because people were just, I mean, they were messed up like 22, 2022 or 2020 messed up a lot of people. And my heart was just broken for them. I was just like, but it was, you know, it was broken in a good way too, because it was like, I just, I felt that that pull like, okay, you need to be on the front lines. Like, yes, you’re serving, you’re volunteering, that’s great, but you need to be on the front lines. And I’ll never forget the director of the program was like, he’s like, yeah, I really need an assistant. I really need help. And like, my ears just kind of perked up and I was just kind of like, like, am I supposed to? And I just like, I was like, okay, well, maybe, and I just kind of toyed around with it and thought about, and finally I just, I asked him like, so how are you doing with finding an assistant? He said, well, you know, we’re interviewing people and we might’ve found somebody and he’s like, why? And I’m like, well, I was kind of thinking about interviewing, he’s like, yeah, just interview for it. And he’s like, we may have somebody, but just go ahead and interview for it. And I’m like, okay. So I did thinking there’s not a chance I’m going to get this position.

And I just, I just threw it out there and just went, okay. You know, if I’m supposed to be here, I’ll be here. And if I’m not, I’m not. And I was actually going on vacation the day after I interviewed, oh, no, sorry. We actually went on vacation before I interviewed her. So I came back, interviewed for the position and didn’t hear anything. So I just thought, oh well, you know, no harm, no foul. I wasn’t too attached to it. And, you know, and then got an email saying, hey, did you get the other email?

Brenton: What email?

Gigi: We want to offer you the job. Oh. So, so I wound up getting the job and it was just, it was like, it was, it was just the natural, next natural step for me in my journey because it was taking everything from my recovery and before my recovery, the insanity before my recovery and everything that I had learned through my journey with the seven years with Love, Inc. in working with people there and putting it all together and saying, okay, now let’s put all the pieces together. Yes. This is where you’re supposed to be. And I will say, you know, a lot of times when people hear about the 12 steps and recovery and things like that, you know, people’s first inclination is to think alcohol, drugs, you know, other sense variables like that. But the cool thing about what we’re doing with regeneration is that it’s about discipleship. It’s not about the struggle itself because we all have something. Yes. And this is a program that is designed for anybody.

It’s, you know, if you want a closer walk with the Lord, this is your, you know, this is an opportunity to have daily time with God through their curriculum to work on that. If you are struggling with something like an addiction, this is, again, it’s the discipleship model. Or if you have a past trauma, things like that, it really, it is really for any, or current trauma. It’s really for anybody. And the reason why is because what is behind all of these things is that we all have this misplaced worship.

And that’s why I identified with it so well is because as I was going through, I saw where I had in the past put my worship in other things like my identity, like people, like positions. And I had, in those times, lost myself. And it was easy to get distracted from my relationship with God. And now it was just, it’s like, okay, now, you know, let’s refocus here because God is the main thing. And with that, everything is possible. And so really seeing through the step process in regeneration about how I had, I had a relationship how I had still, even several years into recovery, had these idols in these strongholds. And it was like, okay, let’s demolish those. And let’s really get to the heart of all of this. And I have since been through the regeneration steps a couple of times now. And it’s funny because God just continues to refine the process with me and refine me in this. And I have also seen how, like, one of the things that also has come out is that I kind of have a serious conflict aversion.

Which makes sense because one of my idols is comfort. Like, I mean, you know, I, from as far back as I can remember, it’s like anything that made me feel okay about me and me, I sought it out, whether it was alcohol, drugs, food, men, you know, whatever, power, you know, anything that made me feel better about being me and made me feel comfortable, I would just dive right into it. And so, but what I saw, you know, like I said, on the other side of that was that conflict was just like that, I always equated like conflict as being bad. So I need to seek something else to me, okay?

And I just, you know, I would make excuses for avoiding conflict. And I think God’s really funny because he put me in a position with people who are very conflicted. And I have to navigate a lot of conflict resolution. So what I, you know, what I found was that I could be okay no matter what in conflict, that it’s like, I could be uncomfortable and still be okay. And this is something that I get to share now with the women that God has put in my life. It’s just like, okay, this is a gross place for you. This is, you know, growth is born through conflict.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: I mean, when you look at like any kind of growth, whether, I mean, it’s, I’m a gardener. So I, a lot of my analogies are gardening. You look at the tremendous effort that it takes for a seed to break through the soil, that’s conflict. But once that seed breaks through, it has the opportunity if it can weather through, if it can weather through Idaho, Idaho summer, it can turn into something beautiful that produces fruit. And so I get to share these things with these women today that God has put in my life. And, you know, but the thing is, is I wouldn’t be able to do any of this had it not been for my own struggles.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And that is what is so beautiful and what brings it all full circle, is that he has given me all of these growth moments all these opportunities, all these challenges, so that I can be available to somebody else. I mean, it’s just, I look at the situation with my kids and the challenges that we had as me as a single mom, raising them and I’m able to speak into the lives of moms who have special needs kiddos. I’m able to help people who have been through difficult seasons in marriage. I’m able to help, my husband and I are able to help other couples who are struggling with the things that we’ve struggled with. It is just, it is so amazing to see how God does redeem these broken things.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: And I’m just weird, perpetually overwhelmed with gratitude for the journey. And it’s, if you would have asked me 30, you know, 35, well, yeah, 35 years ago, like, okay, would this, you know, would you be grateful? It’s like, no. Why would I be grateful of any of this? But, you know, I, but the whole time, all of these things that God was taking me through and walking with me through, he never left me.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: He was always right there. I walked away several times because I wasn’t getting my way. It wasn’t happening the way I thought it should be. So I walked away, but he’s so faithful that when I got my tail kicked and came running back, it was like, okay. And he never just said, well, you know, this is the last time. It was like, okay, are you ready to do things my way? And, you know, like I said today, it’s like I don’t walk in the rebellion that I did. I won’t say ever because I still, like I said, still have that inclination.

But I just, I have the perspective now and I can look at it and go, yay, you still have choice about this. This isn’t happening to you, this is happening for you. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. It is amazing to look back and see how God has just kind of paved this path leading me, leading us to where we are right now. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, ministry was never on my radar. When I was in high school, my greatest aspiration was to be a ski bum, basically. After I got sober, my greatest aspiration was I was gonna be a chef and I worked in great, you know, some really cool restaurants with some great people and learned some great things through home, some of my experience there, but that wasn’t where he wanted me. That wasn’t the path that he had me in. It was for a little while, but then it was just like, okay, no, that’s not where you’re going.

Brenton: I think a lot of things are stepping stones. I think everything is, I mean, he said, you can sum everything up and love God and love others. And the more I know about relationships and interaction, it’s like, that is the solution to almost everything. It’s your relationship with God and relationship to others. You’re struggling with addiction and shame, stop hiding. Get out and get that community, like antidote to everything. And so looking back to COVID, what’s the one thing we do? Let’s shut everybody down, shut down community and see the effects ripple.

Gigi: Yeah, it was heartbreaking.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Just seeing and seeing, I mean, now, one of the things we are also seeing a lot within ministry is how many kids are, particularly teens, teenagers are struggling on the other side of that. Teenagers slash young adults, who have just really struggled with all of this, which they have enough to struggle with out there today, because I mean, the things that the world is drawing them to these days is just, it’s awful.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: And then add a dynamic of COVID to all of that, it just really-

Brenton: Really messes things up. Yeah, so- My intuition says we haven’t seen the worst of it either, because it’s, there’s someone I follow, Jordan Peterson, psychologist. So most of what I know of psychology has come through interacting with him or resources that he references that then I go look up. But it’s like the pivotal age to learn how to socialize and interact with other people is zero to four. If you have not learned how to interact with other people by the age of four, it’s something like 95% of them cannot learn it because they get left behind. And kids, other kids, teens, other adults, don’t make room for you to come up and learn in that space. And so I think there’s gonna be a huge need for reaching out to the kids that were in that age range during COVID that all of a sudden were locked down, they couldn’t learn to socialize in that pivotal age. I think we’re seeing a lot of bad effects with everybody else that’s come through that, the teenagers, the adults, but I’m honestly scared for those kids that were-

Gigi: Yeah, I am too. I mean, it’s, well, and it’s so hard. Because we had never seen anything like that in our generation and nobody knew what to do. Everybody had a really, a lot of ideas about what we should be doing. And it’s just, it’s like nobody knew what do we do? What is the right thing to do? Everybody had ideas about what the right thing was, whether you’re on one side or the other, they were right. They were gonna tell you why they were right. But none of it was useful.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: And so it was like, okay, now that it has happened, what do we do about it? And so really just picking up the pieces and moving forward, like, okay, well, what can we learn from it? Hopefully we don’t ever have to deal with something like that again, but who knows?

Brenton: Yeah. What can we learn? What can we do better? But also how do we recover from this?

Gigi: Yeah, and how do we help our most vulnerable people through this? And I mean, I will never forget going to my granddaughter’s graduation at their house because they couldn’t graduate in person.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And I get it. I get the fear, but it was just, it was like she felt so cheated as did all the kids that graduated in 2020. They just, they felt like, you know, we totally missed out on it. And it was just, you know, I don’t have all the answers. I, you know, like I said, I don’t think--

Brenton: I don’t think any of us do.

Gigi: There’s a lot of people that think they do, but. You know, but it’s, you know, I think the bottom line is, is, you know, we don’t need to be more divided over it. No. We need to be more about like, okay, you know, it is what it is. How do we help each other?

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: And that’s why I love what we’re doing right now because it is, it’s about like, okay, doesn’t matter what your past looks like. Doesn’t matter who you were or what you were doing or even what you’re currently doing. It’s like, okay, how do we help you move forward to who God created you to be?

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: And that’s, I mean, that’s, that is the blessing of being involved in this and every time. So when a group finishes the 12 steps, we have something called commencement because we don’t call it graduation because you never graduate from growth. No. And if you do, there might be something wrong there. Yes. But, but during commencement, we get to hear the stories about what God did through this process with them. And it never gets old with me. It is just, it is such an amazing celebration seeing how God moves in our lives and how you can take 10 ladies or 10 gentlemen who are from completely different backgrounds and put them together and find that we’re not that different No. At all. We have different backgrounds. We have different social structures. We have different financial, tax brackets, different betbrings, but we’re all the same.

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: And just seeing how this common thread of navigating through things like your belief system, you’re navigating through these things like things that have shaped your past, things that you can do to shape your future through God, things like that. Seeing how you can come together and seeing how you can find forgiveness for people in your past, seeing how you can reconcile with people you’ve created harm to and come together on this same journey and be free. And it is, it’s just, it’s incredible.

Brenton: It’s powerful and inspiring.

Gigi: So much.

Brenton: I think being careful, because I don’t want to say like, I have the answer. I have the solution. Like we were just saying, I don’t think anyone has the answer solution. I think a part of it from what I’ve seen is in relationships, in the we need to draw back into community with each other, in relationship to each other, supporting each other, loving each other. I don’t think that’s the entire solution, but I think that’s a key piece that I’ve seen highlight itself. If we can share our stories and then people can realize they’re not alone, like that opens so many doors. If then they’re not feeling alone and willing to walk beside someone, okay, then there’s opportunity for recovery that wasn’t, or for hope or for change. It’s we need to love each other.

Gigi: Yeah. And I will say one of the most heartbreaking things to see is somebody who chooses to continue to close himself off from it. Yes. Because unfortunately we see that too. We see people who are just not there yet and who were just like, nope, I can’t share any of this with anybody.

Brenton: Yeah. I think there’s been so much stigma and shame heaped on anything. Oh, you’re an addict. Oh, you’re some mental illness. Oh, you’re X, Y, or Z. Like the reality that I’ve seen though is 99 out of 100 people aren’t thinking that. It’s just you. Like we’re too absorbed with ourselves to know or care what anybody else’s stuff is.

Gigi: Yeah, that is. I mean, we think, you know, and this goes back to one of my own struggles with pride, nobody should see me this way. I have this idea of how people see me and nobody should see me as struggling with addiction. Nobody should see me as a victim of abuse. Nobody should see me as the spouse of an alcoholic or a drug addict. Nobody should see me not have all the answers. You know, I mean, it’s just like, one of the most freeing things that I learned in recovery was to say, I don’t know.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Because I always thought I was supposed to have all the answers to everything. And if I didn’t, I was dumb.

Brenton: I felt that a lot.

Gigi: And so just being able to, and it’s funny because with some of the women I work with, sometimes I’ll just look at them and go, I don’t know, let’s find out together.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And they’ll just kind of look at me like, you don’t know either? And I’m like, no. No. And that’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.

Brenton: That can be one of the most connecting things. Like continuing that line of, nobody should see me like this, like everybody should see me with all the answers. It’s like, you tweak and flip that, only God’s perfect. Nobody should see me as completely perfect because I’m not God. It’s good for people to see that I’m not perfect. Not that I need to act not perfect, but I shouldn’t present my image as completely perfect. I should be authentic, genuine who I am.

Gigi: I still fall down some days.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: It’s not like it used to be, praise God for that. But there are still days, I will never forget. I don’t know if you ever just have one of those days where you just wake up and you just go, just not feeling it today. I am just, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m doing it. And I had one of those days, like several months ago where I just woke up and it was just, and it’s like, as I woke up, like the more I woke up, the more like the little chattering in my head said, what do you think you’re doing in ministry? Who are you to be talking to these people? And I was just like, what is wrong with me?

Gigi: But I couldn’t shake it off. And I’m like, I’m going into a meeting with my boss and I’m a mess. And I’m just like, he’s gonna tell me I’m worthless. He’s gonna tell me what a failure I am. No talk like negative self talk. No. And I was just like, okay, stop. And I just, I was like, okay, you have the tools. You can reframe this day. Between you and God, you can do this. And so, it’s just like, okay. And I did, I mean, I took some time before and I just, I sat with God and I prayed. And I was just like, oh, I do have these tools. I have these 12 step tools. And it’s just kind of like, okay, what are you afraid of right now? What’s, which is part of our inventory process is looking at fears and it’s just, and it’s like somewhere along the lines, this idea of being perfect and not being perfect had crept in. And it was just like, well, that’s dumb. Of course you’re not perfect.

That’s an unrealistic expectation of yourself. And so it was just really like saying, okay, you know, it’s like, I can get stuck in this trajectory or I can change paths. You know, it’s, and I love Craig Richelle, Craig Richelle, who’s a pastor of Life Church, big Life Church, he’s written several books and he talks about the war that goes in our mind but we have these neural pathways that we tread on but we’re not stuck there. We can create new paths. And so it’s like, I can be on this trajectory or I can create a new one.

Brenton: And it takes work, but you can do it.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s really just being intentional about it and just, you know, not, because there’s a challenge also of something called spiritual bypass that I see with a lot of people who are just like, well, you know, I know my life, I know that my life is a train wreck now but God is good and just trying to convince themselves. So it’s not just like trying, you know, it’s owning like, yeah, my life is a train wreck right now but this is what I’m doing about it. Not just trying to bypass and go, everything’s gonna be fine, which was what I did for years in my struggles with my first marriage, which was, you know, in my struggles at my job, you know, was just like, everything’s gonna be okay, everything’s gonna be fine, you know, and it’s just like, okay, well, let’s call it for what it is. It’s a mess right now. But this is what we can do about it.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: We don’t have to be caught in this trap. I don’t have to pretend everything is okay. Yes, I, you know, I can say I’m struggling. I mean, like, David in the Bible is such a comfort to me because like, he is like one minute, like God is amazing, God is awesome, God is, you know, and then next, I’m like, why have you forsaken me? You are my guy. Because I have felt that. Yes. So it’s, you know, it is comforting to know that yes, God is control. There is, you know, things will work out, but it doesn’t mean that I have to pretend that I’m not okay to get there.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Like, I can just say that, you know, and I have tools to work through the process. And so, yeah.

Brenton: I think it’s been interesting to watch people walk kind of between two paths. I view it kind of as a pendulum. It’s all the way over here where it’s like, everything needs to be perfect. I need to present an image. And if things are failing, then it’s, I’m not doing something right. Then they swing over maybe to some other point over here where it’s like, God’s in complete control, so I don’t need to put any effort. God will just work through me. It’s like, no, you, like we swing from extreme to extreme to another extreme. It’s like, let’s bring it into the middle a little bit.

Gigi: Yes, God will do that. But he still called you to take ownership of me. Yes. Yes. There’s still some responsibility. And that’s, I mean, one of the things I loved about working with Canberra was, you know, I mean, she would constantly be impressing on all of us at Loving, but also our volunteers. And she would just say, we don’t fix and we don’t rescue, we don’t push and we don’t pull. And, you know, we will walk alongside people, but, you know, we’re never gonna do anything for anybody. And that’s the thing, because God is, you know, he is gonna do a lot for us and he is going to advocate for us, but he’s also gonna give us the license to go out and do these things and steward these things well. And he’s also gonna give us room to fail.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Because that’s how we learn. And that’s, I mean, I can’t even begin to tell you, like, how much my failures have taught me and brought me to the place where I am now. It’s just like, you know, I don’t have to do those things anymore because I know they don’t work. And it’s really funny because we get people in our ministry who, you know, have really good ideas, but they’re not necessarily God ideas. And it’s like, I know that sounds like a really good idea, but there’s some of us who’ve tried things on it, you know. I mean, I will tell you though, the first year that we launched the ministry, like we had to learn a lot of things the hard way, which is part of any growth process. But now it’s like, okay, well, this is why we do the things that we do, is because we’ve learned things the hard way. And it’s, you know, such as anything in life, but I always get tickled when people just come to us with their great ideas. And it’s like, I don’t want to tell you that’s not gonna work, but it’s not gonna work. Let’s bring it in a little bit.

Brenton: I think sometimes people have to make their own mistakes and to experience it. I wish people were better at learning from failure. I mean, from the time we’re born, that’s how we’re learning. If we didn’t learn from failure, none of us would be walking because how many of us just decide, we’re gonna walk today, stood up and walked. No, we fell over and over and over. And our parents told us, no, you’re doing great. Keep trying, get back up. And sometimes it switches, you’re failing at that. Why do you keep trying? Like whether it’s self-talk or people around us, it’s like, what happened to the encouraging? Failing is the most information rich thing that can happen to you. You learn more in failure. Everyone who’s made it super successful had massive failures, because that’s where they learned. That’s where they learned what didn’t work. We wouldn’t have, what is it, the light bulb without Edison failing, how many times?

Gigi: Yeah, yeah, no, and that’s, it’s funny, like I said, my older son has always been very strong willed and very independent and there was part of me that was terrified for him, but there was also part of me that was really excited for him because it was just like, I knew, like my best chance at parenting with him was just to kind of stare him in the right direction.

Brenton: Go forth and try as safely as I can let you.

Gigi: Oh, that one’s gonna hurt. Hopefully you’ll learn. And it’s funny because now he’s a parent and he sees this like, okay, now I get it. Like you tried to steer me away from these things, but you also gave me enough rope that I could hang myself on it and experience my own pain and my own struggles so that I didn’t have to keep doing these things. And I was like, oh, I knew I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in it. I knew that you, from the time you were young, you pretty much had your mindset on who you were gonna be. And what you were gonna do.

So, and with my own struggle growing up and like I said, having, and I don’t want anybody to hear me saying that I’m bashing on my father because my father is as broken as he was. As broken as he was, I know he came from brokenness. And so he wasn’t, he didn’t have much of a model to raise me on. And it was truly by God’s grace that I was able to break that mold and find recovery and be able to raise my kids differently. But I know that, I mean, I don’t think my father set out to make me feel a certain way and give me these limiting beliefs that I talked about, about not feeling like I was smart enough or good enough or anything. But unfortunately he did. That was just, but he wrestled, I’m sure, with the same things because I think that’s how he was raised too. And it’s just, it’s one of those things that like, again, we have that choice that we can continue down that path or we can change direction.

Brenton: Yep.

Gigi: And that’s one of the coolest things to witness is seeing how when God rescues us from that path, how you know that’s not just changing them, that’s changing generations.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: And the potential that that has behind it. That is one of those things that is just like, I love about that. There is no better high out there than to realize that when God changes a life, he’s not just changing one life. He’s changing the generations behind that life. He’s changing, and it’s the whole, the ripple effect of throwing the pebble in the water and watching the ripples go out. Well, that is the power of what God can do in a life because I look at how many people have impacted my life and now how many lives I get to impact through what I’m doing. And it’s just like--

Brenton: Mind-boggling. Yeah.

Gigi: That’s like, wow. And that life that can go on and change somebody else’s life.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: It’s so powerful.

Brenton: I remember talking with Teri. We were trying to, in love, Inc., one of the things you guys had us do was write out your vision. And it’s like, don’t really care about money, don’t really care about fame, don’t really care about all these things. I want a legacy, and it’s, the thing I came to a long time ago is the biggest impact I can have on the world is not actually anything I personally can do. It’s in my kids. My kids can have a bigger impact than I can have no matter what I do or how much I put into it. Same thing with those around, those you’re able to help and teach. It’s like, my goal isn’t for me to have an impact. My goal is to enable everyone else to have an impact.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah. Well said.

Brenton: So I am curious. We’ve talked kind of a little bit about Rock Harbor’s regeneration program, but not into a lot of specifics. What is that if someone was curious about that or what that entails, how they could find it?

Gigi: Yeah, so there’s, and this is one of the other things that’s been really cool to watch happen through the program. So if somebody’s local to Meridian Boise area, Meridian Boise area, Meridian Boise, Napa area, Treasure Valley. Unfortunately, we are currently the only church who is hosting regeneration in this area. There’s another church way up north in Post Falls that is hosting it, but we’re the only church in the valley that’s doing it currently. And we meet on Thursday nights at 6.30 p.m. at Rock Harbor. And if somebody is interested in just checking it out, they can just show up any Thursday night at 6.30. We have worship and a message first, and then we have a first time group that meets afterwards, and anybody can just sit in and hear about it, and hear about what the program entails, how it works, how they can be involved, and make a decision from there. And if it’s something that they wanna do, they can jump right in, they can get the curriculum that night and get started. And it’s all about having a daily time with God. So the curriculum that we have just really focuses on having that 15, 20 minutes with God in his word.

There’s journaling, there’s questions, things like that that they would go through, and that would be a daily thing. And then, again, if it’s something that they wanna do, then we put them in a group that’s called Groundwork, which is just basically helping them understand the structure of how it works, and getting them used to the program and what they’re going to be doing. And then once they’ve attended Groundwork for about four to six weeks, usually consecutively, then we move them into a step group as soon as it becomes available. And that’s where the real mean potatoes.

That’s where you’re really diving in, and really, like I said, getting to the heart of these things that we worship above God, or things that get between us in our relationship with God. And it’s kinda cool, because this morning, message at church was, he thought out, asked, “What’s standing between you “and your relationship with God right now?” And we really dive into that, and the steps really start to look at those things. And like I said, it is for anybody, anybody who is wanting to, if there’s a specific struggle, or if there’s just a, “Hey, I want a closer relationship “with the Lord,” and so anybody can do it. And I will say, if somebody’s hearing this, and they’re saying, “Well, I’m not in the Treasure Valley, “and I’m not in Post Falls.”

So regeneration was born through Watermark Church in Dallas, Texas. And it is at several other churches throughout the country. So you are able to, depending on your area, you’re able to look online and see how to, how you can connect with a church that might be closer to you. If there isn’t a church that’s close by, they also have an online program. Nice. It’s done, I think, through Zoom. So, but I don’t know if you have a way to throw my email out there, but-- Yeah. If you wanna throw my email out there, anybody is welcome to email me for more information. I’d be happy to help.

Brenton: Cool.

Gigi: Yeah. I absolutely love connecting people, so. Yes. Yeah.

Brenton: I know you’re no longer in the position, but I was also curious, did loving continue on? Did that kind of fall apart with COVID?

Gigi: It is still, so it’s a funny thing that happened. So as I came on staff with Rock Harbor, there is a gal who was on staff with Rock Harbor in another position who left Rock Harbor and came on staff in my former position at Loving.

Brenton: Just did a swap.

Gigi: Yeah, which is not a swap, so. And I’ve heard that they’re doing great, which is, I keep meaning to come and visit them one of these days. It’s just kinda swamped there. Yes.

Brenton: I’ve wanted to put that program out in front of people a little more, too, because I think one thing Love, Inc. did really well was partner with all the churches. I think too many churches are, we’re a single denomination, it’s just us. Love, Inc. worked with everyone, and it’s like, we’re all the body of Christ. We’re all Christians.

Gigi: That is, yeah, that is one of the things that I love about Love, Inc. is that they are about the Big C church. Yes. And that’s also one of the things that I love about Rock Harbor and our lead pastor, Keith, is Keith is very much about the Big C church. So it’s just, it’s not about, like, this is our church, our program. It’s, you know, they have been very intentional about, hey, we know we’re the only church in the Valley offering this, we wanna make it available to anybody. We’re not trying to pull anybody away from their church. We just wanna make this a resource for you to help you grow in your relationship with the Lord because at the end of the day, it’s not about this church or that church or this denomination or that denomination. It’s about, like I said, the Big C church. We’re all part of it. So, you know, how can we come together to glorify God in all of this?

Brenton: I personally love diving into theology and debate and stuff, but my dad didn’t. And yet he said one of the, I felt like one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard. And that was when I was a young adult. I mean, I had grown up in the Nazarene church my whole life. So, I mean, you stay where you have roots. So, but I wasn’t clicking with the church at the location we were at. And what he told me was, it’s never about the denomination. It’s you go try it out and you find where you have that community and growth with God. It’s not you need to be a Nazarene or you need to be a Baptist or X, Y, or Z. It’s what matters is the community and growth with God.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly. Is this encouraging you to flourish in your relationship with the Lord? And that’s, I mean, that is, because I see so many people who just get stuck in this way. You know, you have to do this. And it almost becomes like a bad relationship sometimes where it’s just like, well, are you growing there? Well, no, but this is what my family’s always done. It’s like, what a moment. It kind of sounds like idolatry.

Brenton: Idolatry or stuck in a rut or both.

Gigi: Because you’re not worshiping the guy. You’re worshiping your families. This is what we’ve always done. So we’re, you know, I feel like I have to do it. And it’s just becomes more baggage. And it’s just like, okay, you don’t have to do that. And there are so many great churches out there. Yes. You know, and that’s why, I mean, I love it. We’re not looking to recruit anybody away from that. We just wanna offer a resource to help them in their journey.

Brenton: I was curious, is Rock Harbor looking, like, is that a program they can partner with other churches to start bringing it into other churches in the area?

Gigi: Yeah, actually, we, last year, we did kind of an open house that was sponsored by Watermark at Rock Harbor. The guy that kind of spearheaded the whole thing when they created Regeneration came out and presented on it and spoke on it and had several churches attend. But unfortunately, nobody wanted to do it because they were just kind of like, well, if you guys are doing it, we’ll just send people to you. Like, okay, but there’s just a lot of opportunity. Because we’re only on Thursday nights. So we’re currently have plans of planting another campus somewhere in Canyon County. We’re looking at different opportunities in Nampa and praying through that. But our hope is eventually, if we have another building, because we’re still not really sure what that’s gonna look like yet, but if we’re really hoping that maybe down the road, being able to offer it at another campus on another evening so that it does get people another, because unfortunately, Thursday nights aren’t open for everybody.

Brenton: Not everybody has the same schedule.

Gigi: Yeah, so I would love to see more churches in the Valley pick it up, but they’re just not there yet. And I mean, that’s okay. But yeah, I mean, I know, and I get it. I mean, another thing is this, that we don’t want churches that feel like they have to do everything. Because there’s a lot of that going out there. There’s a basketball ministry, and there’s a recovery ministry, and there’s a divorced individuals ministry, and there’s a singles ministry, and it’s just, they get all these different ministries, and so many things happening, and none of them running well.

So, if the church is, they’ve got a handful of ministries, and they are operating well, and feel that that’s their capacity, that’s great. We’re happy to take that stress off of them, and offer people a place to go for recovery, and discipleship. And again, we’re not looking to pull anybody away, we’re just looking to give people the opportunity to grow in their relationship with the Lord. So, I mean, it’s really cool to see how many people are coming to us from different places right now. I mean, different churches, but also, I mean, people who aren’t church at all. I mean, they’re just, they’re walking in the door, and they’re just saying, “Hey, I know this person that went through this, and she’s not who she used to be, and I want that. So, I’m here.” Yeah, it’s powerful. It’s awesome. We’re so glad.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And that gives us the opportunity to get them connected, and then potentially connect back to the church, because whether it’s ours or somebody else’s, I mean, Rock Harbor’s a big church, and there are some people who are not comfortable with that. So, it’s like, “Okay, well, can we recommend this church? Can we recommend this church?” We would love to have you here, but if that doesn’t work for you, hey, we know a lot of other great pastors in the community, we would love to connect you.

Brenton: Yeah, wherever we can.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Brenton: It brings an interesting topic to my mind, though. Like, a lot of people don’t know the history of the Nazarene church, but the Nazarene church was actually originally founded as a ministry reach out to recovering addicts. No kidding. Yes. I did not know that either. So, in the manual, you’re not allowed to drink alcohol as a member, stuff like that, and that was not because they view it as a sin, it was because of the, “We don’t wanna put any stumbling blocks.” The Nazarene church’s entire outreach was for recovering addicts when it started. But what becomes interesting to me is, how people stray from their original mission, like, that rule of no drinking, no, like, they also know gambling for the same thing, just addiction in every facet. So, that straight into, “Okay, now it’s legalism to be a good Christian, I have to do this stuff.” It’s like, how do you walk that original ministry without letting it deviate off to the side that it so often does?

Gigi: I think, and I say this from my own experience, that it is a heart change, because, you know, if you would have just, here’s a bunch of rules, follow them and you’d be a good Christian, my heart has, you know, there’s no love there. I mean, and it’s, I think probably the best example that I heard of it is, is like, if in my marriage, if I just, you know, if I did all these things for my husband, you know, because I made some vows, so, you know, I guess I better do all these things for my husband, you know, there’s no love there.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: But if I’m doing these things as an outpouring of my love for, in my marriage, for my husband, you know, like, the little things that we do, like, you know, like changing the toilet paper rolling. Silly little things, taking out the trash, whatever it is, you know, because I love him. That’s, you know, my relationship with God, it’s like, I don’t walk in obedience because I feel like he’s gonna strike me down or because I feel like, you know, I have to do this to be a good Christian. I do it because I love my father, my heavenly father, I love him, and the things that I do are an outpouring of my love for him. And it’s funny because I was trying to explain that to somebody a long time ago because she was really wrestling with a lot of the same things I’ve wrestled with. And she was just like, “Well, I just, I don’t ever think that I can be a Christian like you.” And I was just like, “What do you mean?” And she was just like, “Why, I, you know, I mean, you serve, you do these, you do that.” And I was just like, “Hang on.” I never thought I could be a Christian like me either. That was never what I set out for.

It was going back to that question that, you know, or that, you know, that thing that God said to me about, “You don’t love me.” Like, I wanna love him better. And this is how I love him better, is by letting him seek my heart and by following. When he leads, I go, “Okay, I don’t fight it.” And that’s how I know him better. Like, one of the things that when I was on that faith journey, when I started on that faith journey was like, he made it very clear to me that I was kind of judgmental of people. And I, you know, like, I felt like I had a right to decide who was entitled and who wasn’t, you know? And so, like, I started to learn a lot about grace and giving people grace and loving people where they were at, even if they were not doing my will.

And I am not perfect at that by any means, but I am so much more forgiving and understanding with people than I ever was, because he was with me. Yeah. And so, when I hear, you know, when I hear people talk about, “Well, I have to do this and this and this and this,” to be part of my church, it’s like, but do you love him? Because if you’re just doing these things because you’re just trying to be part of it, there’s no love there.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: If you’re doing them because it’s an overflow of love in your heart, well, it’s a different story. And it’s going to have a more profound impact and lasting impact on you. And I mean, unfortunately, I think that’s one of the reasons we see a lot of people who stray from their faith is because it’s not about love, it’s about rules.

Brenton: It’s supposed to be the fruits of the spirit, not the check boxes of the spirit.

Gigi: Exactly. If you’re just going to church because you’re checking a box off, well, get a hobby.

Brenton: Or find a church that’s better engaging community fit for you.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly. And feeling like it’s a joy to serve, it’s a joy to be involved, it’s a joy to be a part of community.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Yeah.

Brenton: Sometimes you have to be a little intentional and check those boxes. Like, one of the quotes my wife says a lot is it’s not face it till, or fake it till you make it, it’s face it till you make it. So sometimes it’s like, okay, I’m going to go and I’m going to check this box, I’m going to force myself to go because I can’t even check to get engaged unless I go.

Gigi: Oh yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, it’s the best time, whether it’s going to church or going to regeneration on Thursday, that’s the best time to go is when you don’t want to go. But if you’re just going so that you can say you went, that’s, that doesn’t help you.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: If you are saying, hey, you don’t want to do this, but I know God has a word for me today. And so I’m going to do it, I’m going to be uncomfortable, I’m going to show up with my bed head. Whatever.

Brenton: With my half an hour of sleep after crying, babies all night.

Gigi: Exactly, exactly. You know, I’m going to do it. And it’s, so I’m four weeks out of a knee replacement surgery and couldn’t attend in person because I was supposed to be off my feet for a couple of weeks and was enjoying the magic of technology in church online. But I was able to go today and be among my people today. And it just, it is just so comforting to be just in the spirit, worshiping with everybody and seeing people, I am such a people, like I said, I’m like a human Labrador retriever. So when you tell me, no, you can’t go out, it’s like, that’s punishment.

Brenton: I’m on the opposite end of that spectrum where I’m very, I present as extroverted, like I’m very good at interacting with people and it comes across that I enjoy it, but it drains my battery like nothing else. I need that alone time, like put me in a dark room, silence, a book. And so it’s a struggle I have to force myself to go out sometimes. There’s times where I thoroughly enjoy it too, but that tends to be more one on one, especially the larger the group, the more the close way I can describe it sometimes is almost claustrophobic with people.

Gigi: My husband is very much the same, he’s more reserved for his whole, the look at me. Have you met anybody who isn’t your next best friend? Thursday nights are kind of crazy for us and because of what I do, there’s usually a billion people with questions at the end of the night and hence they’ll come to him and they’ll say, hey, have you seen Gigi? And he’ll go, I don’t know, but she’s somewhere talking to someone. That’s accurate. Not much has changed from Tuesday nights to Thursday nights by the way. Just a bigger crowd. But I love it because I just, like I said, I get to see right on the front lines God just moving and working in people’s lives, even through the difficult things that the challenges that we face in ministry, it just, it is just so cool to see how God redeems broken things. Yes. All the time, all the time. Just such a blessing to be on the side of it.

Brenton: Well, we already talked about what regeneration is. You said it’s at Rock Harbor Church in Meridian, so they can look that up and I’ll put links to everything. I can put your email. Is there anywhere else people can find you or anything that you want to direct people to?

Gigi: That is probably the easiest place to find me because that is one of the most involved. I have a couple of other little sideline things that I do, but those are the things that I do on the side because I can. And if you follow me on Facebook, you’ll see what I’m talking about. But I’m not about self-promotions. I’m more about making those connections where they’re meant to happen. And like I said, I have my hands in a lot of different places, a lot of different things, just because I don’t know if you’ve realized this about me, but I’m not one to sit with nothing to do with my hands. And so I always have something going on. I always have an iron in the fire somewhere. That’s just, that’s who I am. God blessed me with an abundance of interests and energy. Some people call it ADHD. So I just, I just like, okay, as long as I keep the main thing front and center, that’s good and everything else is just a bonus.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: It’s like I get to do these other things. I get to connect with other people through other avenues and sometimes we’ll lead them to other places, which is super cool.

Brenton: Yeah. I like making all the different connections. I used to tell people at different jobs I would be at over the years, like I’m the person not that necessarily knows how to do something, but I guarantee you very few people know as well as I do who would know. I can connect you to whoever needs to be connected.

Gigi: And that’s funny because people are just, with what I do now, I introduce a lot of people to it because I’m a conversation person and there is just something that God has done whereas just people feel comfortable opening up to me, which I’m so grateful for that. I’m grateful that God has created me that way. But because of that, it gives me the opportunity to introduce them to either regeneration or to Rock Harbor Church or both. And so people will just say, how do you know all these people?

Brenton: I just do. I just do.

Gigi: And it’s funny, so at Rock Harbor as staff, we do a thing, I mean, there’s a lot of different personality type profile things out there like Myers Briggs and Instagram and all that kind of stuff. And we started doing a couple of years ago, this thing called Working Genius. And it’s not just about finding what you’re good at or what you’re inclined to, but what brings energy to you. And so there may be things that I’m good at, but drain me.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: And then there’s other things that give me energy. And so the two things that came up on my Working Genius are galvanizing, which is like rallying the troops. The other one is called enabling, which I was like, hold on, am I trying to get away from that? But basically enabling is helping people and help make the connections and things like that. And so those are the two things that came out as my strengths in my Working Genius. And I’m like, go figure, do what I do.

Brenton: I love personality tests. I’m curious about it now. I’ve done a number over the years from Myers Briggs there’s one that went around for a while, I think living your strengths. And I used to come out very high in competitiveness and then different variations of intelligence related ones, but not like you normally think of intelligence. Like one of the ones that comes to mind is I’m an idea collector. I don’t collect objects. I don’t collect other things, but I love ideas. I collect ideas. So I latch onto that. So I want to read books. I want to see this. I want to see this. I want to see how I can link everything together.

Gigi: Sounds like we would call that wonder. Which I can come up with ideas, but it drains me. Like I can come up with some great ideas and I can throw them out there, but it’s just, that’s not what gives me energy. So I’ll send you a link on it. It’s pretty interesting.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: To dive into because it really, it makes a lot of sense to like why you’re drawn to certain things more than others. And like, that’s, it’s funny because my current boss, he’ll just say, man, you just draw people in. And I’m like, that’s the sum of God. I am all about recruiting people for the team.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: And it’s not in the like, here, let me sell you something you don’t need. It’s more of a like, oh, hey, I hear a need there. Let me.

Brenton: Yeah, I know how I can help fill it.

Gigi: Yes, I can, come to this. It’s awesome.

Brenton: I love the personality stuff because it, to me again, that’s ideas. It’s all the different facts and figures. I’m very analytical. How can I play with this? One thing I’ve learned that maybe it’s in some of the personality stuff, maybe not. I mean, I’m an INTJ for Myers-Briggs. So there’s that kind of strategic mastermind archetype that falls in that, but I tend to struggle in two areas. I need a big picture so that I know everything feeding into it, how do I align something? So I can take a whole big picture further than a lot of people can. I can see where every piece is lining out into it to accomplish towards the one thing. But I’m not super great always on executing on the small things, but I am hyper detailed focus. So I can still execute those things quite often better than others, but that I find incredibly draining. The big vision, placing all the pieces together, seeing how it connects, building up this, for lack of a better word, web of interconnectedness, love it.

Gigi: Yeah, and I have tremendous amount of respect for people like that. I’m just kind of like, okay, just the facts, what I need right now, let’s go.

Brenton: And I’ve, going back to like my highest thing being competitiveness, living your strengths highlighted where your likely challenges are gonna be with that. And so people with the competitiveness, if they don’t think they can win, they’re not even gonna bother starting. It’s not worth their time. So I find that quite often, it’s like, I need to be more prepared in some ways than a lot of people do because I need to ensure victory at whatever it is I’m gonna be doing. So I’ve had to learn to temper that and I need to just get started, get pen to paper, just start, I can’t plan out every single detail.

Gigi: Yeah, no, and that’s what I’m, I know. And that’s, I mean, it’s funny because like, I’m like, I’ve had like so many people that are just like, “I’ve heard you share your story, why don’t you write your, you know?” And it’s just, it’s like, cause I just like the follow through part of it and this is where I struggle. And I mean, one of my favorite authors is Bob Goff and he’s another one that inspires me because all of his books are just little thoughts that he has written down somewhere along the lines. He like emails himself like a hundred times a day, just these little ideas. And eventually when he’s got enough of him, he puts him in a book, I’m like, “I could probably do that.”

Brenton: Have you heard of Substack? So Substack is kind of almost like a blog. There’s a lot of writers that use Substack and there’s a former writing, my guest David that came on writes on Substack, he’s an author, but they’ll write like what’s called serials, which for book writing is very similar to like a TV show instead of a movie. So you separate it out into shorter episodes, maybe write a couple of your thoughts, jot something down and publish it. Okay, I’m gonna have to check that out. So that might be as an idea comes in, hit your Substack really quick, put it down and publish and move on to the next one.

Gigi: I like that, that’s perfect for someone like me who is just like constantly chasing squirrels.

Brenton: Yeah. I always struggled with writing back to the perfectionism thing. I never could journal because I would write something down, I would make a mistake, tear it out, I gotta restart. And so I spent all my time copying because everything had to be perfect because this is a permanent book, this is a permanent record. Like I made a mistake, let me start over. So I always, I have to fight that.

Gigi: That’s funny because I used to struggle a lot with that and what I found was like, it’s okay to just bullet point sometimes. It’s just okay to just get the ideas down and get them on paper. And when I gave myself that permission that it didn’t have to look a certain way, it was just like the pressure just came off of me. So I share that with some of the women that I’m working with in region because they have these curriculums and there’s pages where you journal and there’s pages where you answer questions and things like that. It’s just like if you’re not a wordy person, that’s okay. I’m giving you permission to not feel like you have to write everything down. Just get your thoughts down. Like what did that question trigger in you? What did that scripture trigger in you? And it’s just, you might develop it more later or it is what it is, but that’s okay as long as you put something down. That’s a start. God’s developing that in you. Don’t feel like you have to fit into this particular mold. That’s what we’re trying to break free of right now.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: This is something new.

Brenton: I found one of the ways to overcome that for myself a little bit is not put anything in a formal journal book, use note cards. I can jot that down, then put it in. Then I can formalize and write down exactly what I want. So it has the finished product, but I get my thoughts and then I can organize them and move them.

Gigi: I use my notepad on my phone. Like, we have a thought.

Brenton: There’s a tool, my writing buddy, David introduced to me called Obsidian. Oh. Obsidian is an app that allows hyperlinking. So it acts kind of like a wiki, like Wikipedia or something. You can pull out a note. If you surround it in double brackets, that creates a link to whatever that is. Then you can create that. And so then you can see a graph interconnected web of your thoughts. So I can jot something down, then create a different note, jot something. Then I can connect and go back and trace.

Gigi: Interesting.

Brenton: So. And you can put it in the cloud so I can access it on my phone, on my tablet, on my computer, whatever. So I do that kind of as a mind map for myself. We’re all jot down and interconnect different things to see how they all play. But maybe that comes from the mastermind mentality. I wanna see the big web.

Gigi: When it’s, you know, I mean, because I look at right now and I’m constantly thinking about like, how can I help our leaders in region, specifically our ladies leaders, because that’s who I spend more time with, but the overall leaders and our coaches in region. And how can I help them be better at what they’re doing? And so we kind of like toss around ideas for training and like, I’ll jot down little notes and that would be something that would be perfect for me because I can link it all together into a training session. So that’s an awesome idea. Because like when I sit down to write just a whole, whole piece of curriculum, it’s like, I have so many ideas and it’s just, it’s like, well, does that belong here or does that not belong here? Or is that something for somewhere else?

Brenton: And that’s the beauty of the hyperlinking. You can put it, let’s say you write out a 500 word essay and you want to link things. Well, maybe I want to link this topic to an idea. So you can go put on any word, any phrase, whatever, just go put the double brackets around it. Now that’s a topic. You can link back and you can link around or maybe you notice as you’re reading two notes that you’ve written previously that you want connected and you can throw, create your own hashtags or keywords that brackets just out as metadata on the bottom. And then if you decide, no, they’re not really related, you just delete the brackets and the links gone. Nice. That’s cool. That’s super cool. It’s good for, I found it helpful for researching and planning.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah, no, I like that. Cause I also, I mean, like as I’m listening to different authors, I spent a lot more time listening to books than actually reading books. But I, there are so many things that I’ve done that I hear that’s just like, oh, that’s really good. I need to incorporate that. So I need that piece in there. And so it’s a good way to just throw all those ideas and link them together for it.

Brenton: Yeah. And you do them into different, I believe they call them workspaces. So you can create one workspace maybe for your work, create a separate workspace maybe for writing a book or my podcast or in whatever. So you don’t have to link them, but then if you ever want to, it’s all just text files underneath. So you could always just go into your browser, copy those files over and place them in the other workspace. So you can keep things separate or interconnect them. It’s great. That’s cool.

Gigi: I like that idea. But. Technology is incredible these days. Yes.

Brenton: Yes. I have a love hate relationship with it. I have found as a software dev, a lot of stuff is fixing bugs, not always new features. But you walk into a store, sorry, our credit card machine’s going slow. It’s like, I sympathize. I’m sorry. I am not gonna be one of your angry customers.

Gigi: Not a personal attack. It’s just technology. Yes.

Brenton: Technology is beautiful and it sucks because it doesn’t perform as beautifully as our high hopes want it to at all times. Yes.

Gigi: I have a tool that was given to me for my physical therapy that is having some software challenges right now. And I’m resisting all urges to tell them that perhaps they should look at a different platform.

Brenton: Yup.

Gigi: Okay, I won’t tell you how to do your job, but.

Brenton: It’s, software’s amazing, but it has many limitations that the average person does not understand. And it’s fun to play with.

Gigi: Oh yeah.

Brenton: But. Good stuff. Yeah. Well, I think we’ve gone on for longer than we thought.

Gigi: Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. My husband’s gonna start wondering if I’m coming home for dinner.

Brenton: My wife’s gonna start wondering if she can come home for dinner. But, well thanks for coming on.

Gigi: Thank you. I appreciate it. I love being able to share the journey that God’s had me on, but especially where we’re at right now and how it’s accessible to anybody.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: I mean, like I said, anybody can do this and you don’t have to be a member of any church.

Brenton: No.

Gigi: Or a carver. You just have to want something different. Yes. And willing to try something different.

Brenton: Yes.

Gigi: So, yeah.

Brenton: Well, hopefully more and more people will. I think there’s a huge need for it.

Gigi: Yeah. Yeah.

Brenton: And a growing need.

Gigi: Yeah, well, and side note to all of this, we are also potentially looking at launching a program for high schoolers too. Nice. That Watermark has also developed, so we’ll talk more about that when that actually happens. Or whoever winds up spearheading it, we’ll leave them to you.

Brenton: That’ll be great.

Gigi: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. I love seeing how the opportunity is out there to help even more.

Brenton: Yeah. Well, it’s been an honor having you on.

Gigi: An honor here too. I appreciate it.

Brenton: Yeah.

Gigi: Good to see you again too.

Brenton: It’s good to see you too. And thanks for watching the Brenton Peck Podcast.