Out of Your Greatest Mess Comes Your Greatest Ministry" | Danny Spano

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The strongest manual ever moved. Welcome to the Does Without Dad, the show that trains men how to become the dad they never had. Danny, welcome to the Dudes Without Dads podcast. I'm super happy that you're here.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Thanks for having me, Joshua. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Well, before we get into some of the meat of our conversations, let's just start with where do you call home?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Gallatin, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

For someone that's never been to Gallatin, would you mind describing it for to our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, it's about uh 30, 35 minutes northeast of Nashville.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, well, describe it to me. Is it on the ocean?

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Uh is it, you know, what what what's the what's the middle of the Bible hub, uh in middle Tennessee, not far from the Kentucky line. Um just really a rural country. Um, you know, good little hometown. Um, I don't know the population. Um it's exploded in the last few years. Feels like Atlanta North, uh, as far as driving all around the Nashville area. Um, but uh my wife was born and raised in the little town. I moved to Galton when I was uh 14, 1976, so it's it's home. I've grown up there.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And how old are you today?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

I'm 63.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

63. I was hoping you wouldn't say 67. I knew all the kids and all the other listeners would be like, he just said six, seven. And so you said you're married, how long and to who?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, uh March 18th will be 43 years uh to an amazing woman who uh I always say that there's a Nobel Peace Prize out there with her name on it for putting up with me all these years.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

And did you guys ever have any kids or anything? If so, how old? How many?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah, we've been blessed with two sons. Our oldest is 37 now, and our youngest is uh 32, five years apart.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, fortunate enough to have any grandkids.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Actually, have one on the way with my youngest. Uh, so um super excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

What's the date on that?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Don't know yet. Don't know. Um, but God has answered two years of uh lots of prayer, and we're super excited.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, praise the Lord. I don't know if I shared this with you, but I think we'll both become grandfathers about the same time. Uh Sydney Maltest daughter is due in July. So we'll both enter into that grant. Do you know what name you want to be called?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Whatever they say, I don't I'll answer anything, you know. Um, I'm excited about though the opportunity to teach a child his ways. When I grew up, I my I had uh grandmother on my dad's side. I had very little time around before she passed, and then uh my grandmother and stepgrandfather was um they lived in Seattle and only saw them a very few times before they passed.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

So I pray that you have some years where you can experience some time with your grandkids. And what I want to do now is kind of transition a little bit into your story. And so whenever the subject of your dad comes up, would you mind kind of sharing uh a little bit about your dad with our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yeah, I'd be glad. You know, my dad was uh full-blooded Italian. Um, his mother was born in Italy. She came over on a boat as a baby, and they settled into the Rhode Island, New York area. Um my dad's real father was a full-blooded, um, full-blown alcoholic. And when my dad was seven, he saw his real father in a drunken rage take a straight-edged razor and lay his mother's face open from her ear to her chin. And she grabbed him and his younger sister up, leading like a stuckhog, ran out, and uh, so then he became the man of the house. Um, years later, she married another guy who was a really good man, his stepdad, but my dad had to be, you know, man of the house. And uh, my dad never drank alcohol his entire life because he was so afraid he knew the temper that he had. And he was afraid if he drank that he would be capable of doing what his uh what his real father did. And uh this is a man who was the first wave of Marines to hit the beach at Okinawa and Peleliu and Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. First wave. And you talk, you know, they put the uh made the movie about Iwo Jima and the Marines putting the flag up, but you join the Marines, what I understand, they talk about the infamous Peleliu, the worst battle in the Pacific, and he was the first wave Marines to hit it. So you can imagine what kind of trauma he experienced and never drank through that. He boxed all through the Marines when he got out of World War II. He went to Miami, University of Miami, uh, studied to be an engineer, and uh boxed through college and then professional for a while. He was a bad little five foot ten guy. Um he nearly broke my jaw when he was in his 60s with a hook. Um, pretty tough guy. But um growing up, like my earliest memories of my dad was hearing him screaming and cussing before he got out of the car from work. And when he got out of the car, it got louder. And me and I had a 12-year-old half-sister that he adopted, and we'd scatter. We'd go lock ourselves in a room, and he'd be kicking and cussing and screaming about anything. And um the first words I learned were cuss words, and um, you know, that ain't cute or funny. Um I remember them telling a story and laughing about it, about me being on a tricycle riding down the street, and and this couple, my parents were in the back seat, and the and the guy pulled up and rolled a window down and said, Hey, young man, do you do you know who Andy Spano is? And on a tricycle, I didn't say, Yeah, that's my dad. I said, Yeah, he's the one who cusses a lot. They thought that was funny. That's just sad. And um that those were my earliest memories. I I didn't ever feel close to him. Um, you know, he just uh he he he was just so full of rage. And you know, growing up as a baby, we were living in Florida. He was an engineer for NASA. Uh one he was in the closest building to the Apollo 11 takeoff. Um, and he was working 12, 14-hour days. But, you know, he'd come home and just go ballistic. And we, I mean, we lock ourselves in the bedroom out of fear of him and fear for our lives sometimes. We didn't know we was capable of. And then uh by the time my sister was uh 16, four years later, she had to leave because of the abuse. I mean, and and I'll never forget when uh she told um mama told my dad that that star was gonna go to Chattanooga and finish high school, blah, blah, blah. He lost his mind and he took off chasing her out the front door, and she was running around the house. He's chasing her, mama's chasing him, and I was just running around the house. You know, and there was the whole entire Spano family running around the house. They ended up calling the police, and everybody in the neighborhood said, Wow, those people are nuts. And um, so then I was like an only child. And uh, you know, my daddy didn't discipline, he didn't know how to discipline me. I mean, you know, he'd snatch me. I remember him picking me up by the head of the hair and drop kicking me all the way to the bedroom, snatched me up in headlock and punch me in the head. Um, I suffered with bronchitis, chronic bronchitis as a kid, and I remember hiding my face in the pillow coffin and him just hearing it and just getting up in a rage and dragging me in the kitchen, making me drink honey and lemon, and just you know, being terrified of him. And um, you know, that never changed. Like I never slept more than two hours at any one time to my earliest memory without waking up. And, you know, um, it didn't really get any better. My mama was a loving mama. Um, after 1969, they put the men on the moon, they gave my daddy a thank you letter and a layoff slip. Him and about 3,000 engineers were all laid off because the project was over, and so all my mama's kin is from Chattanooga, and she had a cousin high up in TVA, and she got my dad on with TVA, but we had to move to, of all places, 15 miles outside of Philadelphia, to Westchester, and then we lived in media, Pennsylvania. And that's not the city of brotherly love, I'll tell you that. But um, you know, and he would travel, so it was a blessing in one way. He would leave on a Monday and wouldn't get back till Friday. He'd travel all up the New England coastline, inspecting power plants, doing um non-destructive testing and you know, that kind of stuff. And so he'd leave on a Monday, he wouldn't get back to Friday. It was great during the week. And then when he'd get home, me and mom would be just like, oh Lord, he's coming, you know, that walking on eggshells, what's he gonna find to go off about? And and then uh when I was nine, we were attending a little undenominational church, and uh I gave my life to Jesus. I was baptized. It was my very real experience. I felt his presence. Um the next year, my mother started becoming mentally ill, and um, you know, instead of getting her help, my dad had jump on her and beat her. And he did that until I got old enough to jump in and take the beatings about two, two years later, three years later. Um, and uh I saw some horrible stuff. And um, you know, by the time he'd get through with me, he'd be too tired to go back to her. But uh then he would leave. He didn't get her help, he would leave, and I would go literally. There were weeks and months that I'd go to school on Monday, I'd come home that afternoon, my mama's still on the couch. Eyes this big round ain't slept a wing, peed on herself. She started her insides were falling out. She, I mean, now I'd begging, like, please, we gotta get her to the hospital. And um, she ended up, she had 16 electric shock treatments between 74 and 75. And they told me when I was 13 that your mother may not ever get any better than she is, and that was as good as telling a 13-year-old she was dead because she was a zombie. And visiting her in the Philadelphia Psychiatric Center was worse than any horror movie. Um it was bad. And so, you know, she there we had no family around, and he would leave on a Monday and he would buy enough groceries for 10 kids, you know, and and leave me a little cash, and you know, um, I'd get up and go to school by myself, and I'd come home to an empty house. I learned, you know, the good part. I learned how to fend for myself, how to cook, you know, wash some clothes if I need them. And, you know, I did that all through, you know, uh fifth and sixth grade. You were in summer fourth, I stayed by myself. Um, but then the summer after sixth grade, uh, my sister, uh, again, she was 12 years older, so she's about 23, and uh I was 11. And uh she knew what I was living in. She asked my dad, could I come live with her for the summer in Chattanooga? And he actually agreed. And so I moved down there to Chattanooga for that summer with her, and she thought it'd be a good idea to turn me on to smoking marijuana. I don't know what she was thinking, other than maybe I wouldn't tell on her, but there I was 11 years old, smoking weed, and all her friends going, Well, dude, how old are you? And I'd be like, you know, I'm 11, you know, what's it to you? And um, that set the stage. I started drinking alcohol soon after that, and that sets the stage for 31 years of drug and alcohol abuse and all the wreckage that goes with that. In the times that my mom would come home from the hospital, she didn't drink. Um, but when she'd start getting manic, getting sick, she would drink and she'd allow me to drink. And uh basically I had pretty much a party house four or five days a week while he was out of town. And um, you know, it just it really set the stage of um unhealthy way to live. My dad didn't show me or model to me how to be a man, how to treat women. Uh, the only thing that he taught me good was to work hard, work ethic, be on time, you know, and and to this day, I'm 63 years old. If I think I'm gonna be late for a meeting, I start getting nervous inside because I I thought he was gonna kill us if we were gonna be late, you know, and I start getting nervous. And um, you know, that those things they don't define you. I I'm not a product of my environment, but it definitely affected me. And it's just like today, Christmas music. I hate Christmas music. My God, Joshua, I'm a pastor, I love Jesus, you know, the greatest gift ever given. But when I hear, just nuts Roseman, I don't know, oh, it just I I'm not looking for it, I'm not dwelling on the past, but when I hear Christmas music, I get this sick, just it it's hard to explain, and it bothers me. But um, you know, so I didn't have a good role model. I knew he loved me, he did, and you know, the fact is, somebody's got all that trauma and they've never worked through that, processed that, then you can't keep stuffing it down. It's eventually gonna come out on everybody that you love, anybody that's around you. And um, you know, so I don't hold that against him. I was able to truly forgive him for all that harm. Um, you know, and then 1976, they were gonna build the world's largest nuclear plant in Hartsville, Tennessee. And he got a transfer, and that's when we moved to Gallatin. And so by then I was 14, I was big into drugs and alcohol. And uh, you know, by that time I'd grown up, and those beatings uh they turned around. I didn't take that stuff no more. And um sad to say, one time I come home pretty drunk and he was, you know, getting in my face, you know, you're you're messed up, you're messed up, you're drunk, ain't you? And the man literally pushed me on the bed and punched me right in the groin. And I jumped up and I picked him up and body slammed him, and I proceeded to beat him, and I couldn't stop until I heard mother screaming, you're killing him. And I about beat his eye out of his head. He he almost lost his eye. It damaged his tear deduct a little bit, but it he did lose his eye. Um, you know, and that's things that I have to, you know, I have to remember and take responsibility for. I was an angry, angry young guy. What I learned was how to process every emotion and every feeling through anger. And I know some of you guys out there can relate to this that if you hurt my feelings, I got mad. If I didn't get what I want, I got mad. If I felt lonely, I got mad. If I felt abandoned, I got mad. Whatever emotion, when I got mad, mad was like a drug because when I was truly mad, you couldn't hurt my feelings. I didn't feel like I needed anybody. I, you know, it was a sense of security, I you know, kind of F the world mentality. And when you develop that, uh it affects every area of your life.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I want to thank you for taking time to listen to this story. And if there's something inside of here that is adding value to you, I want you to stop and hit subscribe. I am on mission to help men become the dads they never had. Many of us struggle with father wounds, addictions, identity issues. Uh-oh. And really, what we need is we need a model. We need to see people that have broken the patterns and come alongside of them. I want to simply invite you to join me on the journey. Every Thursday, we're going to release a new episode. Each episode is going to help you and others become the dads they never had. Hit subscribe and share with a friend. Now let's get back to the story.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

And um, you know, for years, I mean, uh, you know, one thing I did, I I always worked through my addiction. I never lost jobs or was fired. I'd get up and go work hung over, you know. Um, and so, you know, I I I do thank him for that. I know he loved me. Um, but you know, you you can't you can't give what you ain't had. And he didn't he didn't really have that growing up. Um, you know, as an Italian, in in that day and time, they were treated as bad as any racial group. I mean, and maybe even worse, you know. And um, you know, it's just sad that that he never learned to process that, and I thank God that I did. I had the opportunity um after years of 31 years of drug and alcohol addiction, um, my oldest son had been going to church at Long Hollow and involved in the student ministry, and um we didn't go to church, but he was going. And then 2005, my wife had a double ruptured brain aneurysm. And uh I could have lost her, but God saved her with no side effects. And while she was at Vanderbilt, we saw the church in action. I saw pastors and parents and people I didn't know loving on my boys, praying with them in the waiting room. I'm going out in the parking lot, eating pills, drinking beer, and smoking dope. And I and I look back now and think, what if I'd went to jail while my wife was having brain surgeries and my kid, like what an idiot. But it was all about me. You know, I had to take care of me. My earliest childhood memory was if if if if Danny's gonna have something, Danny's gotta make it happen. I had to take care of me, and it was me first, period. And you know, and then I walk in that waiting room, and I know all those people could smell that crap, you know, so they were probably praying a lot for me. And uh when my wife came through the surgery, the doctor said his name was Dr. Miracle with an E. And he said, Um, I do 80 plus D surgeries a year, and I've never seen anybody survive a double rupture. He said, I'm convinced it ruptured and clotted twice. And I said, Yeah, we know it was a week apart. And he said, I'm not used to speaking to people with a ruptured brain aneurysm visum, uh brain aneurysm, they usually come to me on life support in a coma. And so he said, Uh, I think she's gonna be okay. I've never seen anybody survive that, but I think she's gonna be okay. He said, She might have double vision for a few months. I said, a few, you know, two or three or six or eight. He said, she had none. And she had 25 staples, and they peeled her skin back and took a three by three plug out of her skull, fixed aneurysms, put it back. And when I saw her eye, I was out to hear, and she said, Danny, when I get better, I want to start going to Corey's church and I want to get baptized. And I said, Okay, you got it, you know. And Joshua, I thank God that I knew that Jesus said, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I needed rest. And so I thank God that I realized you don't have to change to come to Christ. You come to Christ to change, right? I came just as I was. I get up in the morning, eat a handful of pills, drink a beer, smoke a joint, we'd go to church. And I tell people that today, and they're like, oh, if I thought I had to sober up and look right and act right before I came to church, I never would have made it. And I showed up at church and I can remember sitting there tearing up, thanking God that my son brought me to this church. I didn't know church could be so cool and that you could leave feeling so good. And, you know, my mother was an avid reader. She'd read 18, 20 books a year, and she left me a huge library of Charles Stanley and uh Chuck Swindah and Neil Anderson books. And so I'd read three books in my entire life until I was 42 years old. And I started reading her Bible. I started reading those other books. I started listening to another Brother David's teaching, and God was working on me. And then me, Lisa and our youngest son, got baptized on a Saturday night, and I thought I was rededicating my life to Jesus. And Joshua, when I come up out of that water, I was under attack. The devil was bombarding my mind. It was it was insane. Just crazy thoughts, like go get eight ball coats, go to strip clubs, just just uh just thought after thought after it was overwhelming. I called a friend at church, I said, What's going on? This doesn't feel like it does what it did when I was nine. And you know, Pastor Roger said, uh, you're under spiritual attack. And he led me through Ephesians, putting on armor of God, and uh, and then I did something, I did the first step before I knew it was the first step, and I admit it. I said, Well, you know, Roger, there's something else going on. I've been chemically dependent to something most of my life. And being the wise man he was, he said, That's something I don't know anything about, but let me introduce you to my friend who does. And so I met a guy on Saturday morning at Waffle House, and he told me about the beginning of Celebrate Recovery. It's Christ-centered recovery. You know, those 12 steps all came from the Bible. And um I remember, you know, asking him, I said, When you wake up in the morning, do you feel good? He said, Yeah. I said, give it a try. If you ain't happy, you can have your misery back after nine days. I said, So I went home, drank a beer, smoked joint, ate some pills. I worked night shift that night, Saturday night. I got off at 7 o'clock in the morning, Sunday morning, March 10th, 2005, and I knew if I waited for everybody to get up and go to church, I wouldn't make it. So I went to the early service by myself and I sat in the front row and I heard Brother David say, you know, God loves us like we love our children. And if our children are disobedient, why we may not cast them right into a lake of fire, but there will be consequences in their life. And Joshua, my jaw hit my chest, and I thought, consequences? I got a whole plate full of those. I lost my mother, crushed me. Less than six months later, I almost lose my wife. And I'd worked 113 days for a company taking the 90-day Crowbra challenge, and they denied me insurance. My 90th day was January 1st, so they weren't gonna start my insurance to February 1st. If if my 90th day had been December 31st, it would start January 1st. She had an aneurysm on January 13th. And you imagine what brain surgery bills at Vanderbilt look like? And so, like consequences. I went home, I went out of my shop, and I said, okay, Jesus, I'm gonna quit drugging and drinking. I don't know how this is gonna be possible. Uh I don't know even what that looks like. Um uh, but I'm yours. Uh, if if my family's supposed to be bankrupt, comfort them, I'm yours. And I won't tell you, Joshua, I got up off that floor and in two minutes there was a knock at the door, and it was a friend. And uh I walked over my refrigerator and I got all my paraphernalia, weed, scales. I said, Here, I'm done. And he said, You're done. I said, I'm done. And 30 seconds later, my cell phone rings, and it was my real estate agent who'd just got a contract on my mother's paid-for house. That was the money to bargain with Vanderbilt. I had a meeting with Vanderbilt the next Monday, and I I go to Vanderbilt, and you know what they do when you don't have insurance? They kindly triple your bill. That's what they told me. I said, That's like kicking a man in the head when he's down. They said, Well, I'm just telling you what we do. I said, No, I get it. So I file chapter 13 bankruptcy and pay back 20%, they break even. She said, just telling you what they do. Well, I didn't tell them I had a paid-for house, but I said, You save my wife, what can we do? She said, Well, this is$103,000 hospital bill, you pay$10,000 a day. Why?$68,000 surgery bill, you pay$6,800 a day. Went down to$30,000,$40,000, was$200 something thousand. And I walked out of there, and that Wednesday I went to the beginning of Celebrate Recovery, and I felt love and acceptance and no judgment, no pointed fingers. And I I didn't hear an audible voice, but I heard God say, This is where I want you to be. And 21 years later, I'm still showing up, and you know, I get a front row seat to life change. And uh I got into uh into an actual step study where you get with a group of men and you've got a sponsor, which is a disciple maker or mentor in your life, and I walked through those steps and really did a deep inventory of my wrongs and the hurt that happened in my life, and I was able to not just like do my bad list, but to look at really what happened. Like my father abused me, but what really happened? I mean, he was traumatized as a kid, he never dealt with it, you know. Um, it was not my fault. I should not have taken that, but what was my fault was I chose to hang on to the unforgiveness and resentment that is like an emotional cancer. And and then I like I said, I processed everything through anger, and then so being able to look at that from a 50,000-foot biblical view of what really happened and all surrounding effects, you know, the cause, the damage, the the long-term damage. Um, I may I was able to see that that like anger is a trigger in my life. Like if I let anger start taking over, you know, it's like I I'm aware, like, ooh, you know, road rage. All right, all right, Lord, thank you. Thank you. I've got I got time, you know, I'm not in that big a hurry. And so that process has really um been um it just brought a faith together with practical um actions, um introspective actions to help me to examine my life and see how it lines up with God's word or it doesn't. And um, you know, I'm I'm grateful for the word, it changes lives. And, you know, I just started saying yes, right? You know, I didn't sign up to be a pastor. Um, you know, I just want to get free from addiction. Then about a year into my recovery, someone asked me if I would take Silver Recovery to the CCA prison in Nashville, and I remember thinking, no, I prayed about it and God said yeah, and I said, Okay, yeah. So I went every Tuesday to a pot of about 90 men and we teach lessons, and I'm sure that was pretty brutal for them. But uh, you know, I I just said yes, and then had an opportunity to go on a mission trip to Haiti, and and that that changed me forever. Uh we presented Silvert Recovery to pastors, and then I went on leading mission trips to where we trained 2,200 pastors in four years. We did 1,500 in a week in Haiti. Um I've been to uh Dominican Republic twice, training church leaders and pastors, uh, been to Ireland, um, Guatemala, Costa Rica. I'm leading another trip with your daughter here in about four weeks uh to train pastors in a prison and local pastors in a city, um, and and three other churches. So um, you know, again, I I didn't sign up to be a pastor, I just started saying yes, Lord. He said, you know, put on my heart, go, would you do this? Yes. Would you go? Would you lead this mission trip? Yes. And then um in 2016, I was on a mission trip, and all the you know, locals were calling me pastor, and I said, Hey, you know, I'm not a pastor, and this girl on the trip stopped me, and she said, You will be one day. And I probably rolled my eyes, but when I look back now, it was like a year, almost a year later, I was riding around, making more money I ever had. Everything was good, and I just heard God clear as day and said, Son, I want you in full-time ministry. And I stopped my truck and I'm like, you know, like a preaching pastor, and all I heard was prepare. And I knew that long haul was starting seminary classes, and so I enrolled, started taking seminary, and at the end of two years, pretty close to my certificate, the jail administrator, which I'd been at the local county jail for the last 18 years weekly. She asked me if I would be chaplain. And I said, Yeah. And she said, Well, it'd be good if you were ordained. And so she sent an email to Wong Hollow, and a couple pastors got with me and affirmed my call, and they ordained me September 8th, 2019. And then she called and said, Well, chaplain's not leaving, so we don't need you. I said, Okay, I started praying, okay, God, I'll go wherever you want me to go. Just um I sure would hate to leave my church. That's a selfish part of the prayer. And Joshua, it was five weeks later. I get a call from the church that says, Hey, you know, come see me. I said, You know, Bill's retiring. You being newly ordained, your name keeps coming up. Is that something you'd be interested in? I'm like, Are you kidding? Well, I want you to pray by. I said, I have been, you know, so now it's my seventh year on staff, and uh God has been way better to me than I deserve, but um my goal is to live longer for him than I did for myself, and you know, which means I'm gonna have to serve him till I'm uh about 80, uh about 84, and uh gotta make it to 76, I think, to be one year longer sober than I was high. So, you know, the journey continues. Um, you know, I I just my I guess my message for dudes out there without dads, um it's it's it's the same, you know, you to not have a dad at all or to have one in some ways to have one like I experienced was was you know just as bad and and maybe worse in other ways because I didn't I I got the wrong example. Um, you know, and dudes without dads growing up without dad in the house, they look to their peers around to see um how to treat women and how to live life, and and we we get the wrong answer. This this right here is your only answer. This this is the guide for our life, and and I'm so grateful for it because you know if when I read it and I don't really look at it, if I follow what God has designed, it always works out for good. And so um for all you thinking that that you're just stuck and um a product of your environment and there's there's no way out, there that you have a heavenly father, and he loves you more than you could ever imagine, and he desires that you love him back, you know, and and and the last thing I'll say is that how can you love somebody you don't know? You can't. How do you know somebody by spending time with them? And brothers, I'll tell you, if you'll spend time with God's word and just clear your mind and say, here I am, Lord, show me your ways, teach me your ways, he will answer. His word tells us over and over again that he'll answer. You called me, I'll answer, and I'll teach you unsearchable things, things you did not know. And so it doesn't matter where you're at, there's hope. And there and there are godly men. He will put godly men in your life that that will that will help disciple and mentor you, but you gotta allow them in. You got to choose. You got to choose to put the unhealthy men in your life aside and and and and come up under the wing of those healthy, godly men that he's gonna put in your life. And if you do that, your life will dramatically change. Um, because there's no way I'd be where I'm at in any aspect of my life. Marriage, family, job, if you call it a job, it's calling. Uh there's no way, you know, it's it's virtually impossible by man, but with God, all things are possible. And um I'm grateful. I live my life out of the gratitude that I don't have to be that angry guy. You know, I used to be the guy that just as soon hit you as to argue with you. That was, you know, and when I grew up, there was no um there was no disgrace in getting you butt whipped. You know, you didn't back down. You took your lick and you got and walked away. Well, they don't they don't play like that anymore. They just shoot you in the back or something, but um I don't have to live like that. You know, I I I I've learned to love people. Uh my mother loved people. She just loved people. She talked to anybody. And you know, I love people, and um, and it's because I know I'm loved. And and when I close my eyes on my pill at night, um I sleep better. You know, I I had screaming, screaming, kicking, punching, horrible nightmares till I was 36 years old. You know, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and I believe that's real. I don't take medication for it. Um, but I, you know, sleep with insomnia has always been a thing. And, you know, God healed me of those those dreams, and and I don't have them like that anymore. But, you know, the sad thing is, it's it was probably only about two months ago. Yeah, three or four months ago, we were on vacation somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Do you have an incredible story of overcoming the home that you were raised in? Or maybe the father wombs that were placed inside your life? If so, I want to share it with other dudes without doubt. Simply go to doeswithout dadspodcast.com and apply to be a guest on the show. The reason it's important to share your story is because when you share what God has done for you, it helps other men believe that God can do it for them. And you can't share your story. Head over to Dudes Without Dads Podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

And my wife told me, she said, I heard you screaming. Like you was having one of those dreams, and it's like I didn't remember it. So, you know, praise God. But um, you know, those wounds, they don't those scars are still there. It's like the scars on my head from battle wounds, but you know, the scars are there, but the scars don't define you. And those scars, when people see them, could open the doors to sharing the gospel that a squeaky clean guy wouldn't have the opportunity because they'd think, oh, this dude's squeaky clean, he can't relate to me and my junk. Um but people will open up to me. That's why jail prison ministry is just it's been a calling, and and and they can relate and they understand that I I've been there and done that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Danny, I want to thank you for giving such a wonderful testimony. When you use the word wonderful, or I use the word wonderful, you don't look back and say everything that took place was wonderful, because there's generational cycles that were passed down, and so your story opens up with talking about your grandfather slashing your grandmother's face, your father stepping in, seeing all that, and then becoming a very violent or continuing the cycle, and then you continuing the cycle. And I want you to to close talking to the dude without a dad or with a dad that ended up being a destructive father like yours. And I and and there is no there's no for me, there's no condemnation in saying, hey, that's what he was, it's that's what you experience. I mean, I've got a picture right now that I'm looking at of my son, and it's like everything within me loves him. I could not imagine punching something you love inside, you know, the you know, privates or even on the face, you said your dad at 60 something gave you a hook to the to the jaw, which means you're probably 40.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Well, he was 41 when I was born, so I was, you know, probably in my late 20s.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Okay.

unknown 40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

And so when you process the relationship of a father, I want you to think about what role forgiveness has played in your own ability to forgive the wrongs and not pass on what was passed on to you. When you look through your story, man, you're showing up faithful, you're going to church high on drugs, smoking weed, and you're still showing up. When you look back at your story, what role would you say forgiveness played? And what would the outcome look like if you just chose to never forgive your father?

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Yeah, um, that's that's strong. And and what I've learned, gosh, was there's levels of forgiveness. Um, my parents finally divorced um when I was in my 30s, and I didn't probably talk to my dad for two years, and then he called me one time, about to die, having a heart attack, and I got him in the emergency room, and I saw a shell of the man that used to terrorize us. And I was able to forgive him at a level, and there was a lot of weight off my shoulders. But until I walked through that press and uh that that deep process in self-burrecovery, was I able to truly forgive him for all the harm that he did to me and my mother, and for me to forgive the harm that I did to him and others like my wife. And so one thing I'll say too is that you know, I never ever hit a woman. I promised myself I'd never hit a woman because I saw my mother beaten bloody, and I swore I'd never do that to anybody, and I hadn't. That's a cop out. My daddy beat my mama, beat my wife. That's a cop out. I never did it, even though I wanted to. There were some times I wanted to, I could not do that to her. But the other thing that I learned through that process, Joshua, is that my anger and resentment, I verbally abused my wife emotionally and verbally. And when I understood that, it wrecked me because I knew how bad it felt to see my mother beaten bloody, and I swore I'd never do that, and I didn't, but I also knew exactly how bad it felt to be abused verbally and emotionally. And when I realized that's what I did to my awesome wife, I wanted to give up and quit. That's why I needed a sponsor, a mentor, to encourage me to keep pushing forward, not go back to what had been the normal, just to keep pushing forward. And through that, I was able to forgive myself and him and guys that that don't have a dad, look for good, godly people. Get go to church. If you feel like they're looking down at you and what kind of shoes you're wearing, then pick up a rock and throw it in any direction, you'll find another church and go. But there's a church that's gonna love you where you're at, and they're gonna they're gonna show you the love of Christ. And without that, my friends, you're you're gonna stay stuck in bitterness. And I'm telling you, unforgiveness and resentment is an emotional cancer that will destroy your life. It will physically take years off your life, but it will ruin your life to where you. Are just existing, you're not truly living, and so forgiveness is for you. It doesn't make what they did right, it doesn't let them off the hook because I believe, and the Bible tells us that God is just, and every man will have to give an account, right? So he's not off the hook, all it does is free you up, and so friends, I I hurt because I get it. Um it's no fun growing up like that. Um, but you don't have to repeat the cycle. There is hope, and hope has a name, and it's Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah, Danny, and thank you. And for those that are listening, if you don't break it, your kids are gonna have to deal with it. And your kids may already have to deal with it. But the the issues we're talking about is your legacy. And so if you got this, if someone loved you enough to send you this episode, I want to encourage you to go visit a CR. If you've never been to a CR, it's not for just people that that are addicted to drugs or you know have certain types of addictions. It's for anybody that feels broken, that feels lost, or needs a little bit of hope. The beauty about celebrate recovery, it is the most beautiful service, church service, accepting group of people you'll ever be to go to. When you go, you see all of these people that don't pretend to be perfect. They pretend to be normal, everyday people that are desperately in need of a God who loves them. And then there are people that are intentionally using their lives to mentor, to sponsor, and to disciple. And so just want to give a shout out. There is probably a CR near you. You can download an app, you can go on their website, but it is a phenomenal Christ-centered ministry that can help you break cycles, generational cycles of unforgiveness, of hurt, of anger. So if you need anything, it can be given to you by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Danny, any final words that you want to share?

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Yeah, just that celebrate recovery app, and then you go in there and find a group, and then you put your zip code in, and it'll pull up every church with a ministry leader name and contact number, and uh you can find some godly support there because bottom line is we need people, and God wants to use you. He don't need us, but he wants to use us. And you know, as you were saying again, I heard it said, I think Rick Warren said it, out of your greatest mess will come your greatest ministry. You know, out of your greatest pain will come your greatest ministry, and and there's no message without a mess, and there's no testimony without a test. Um, if you're walking through it, then you can help others walk through it, and there's no greater feeling than to be able to give back. And I've been given so much. Um, you know, I realize how much grace has been given me. How much how dare I not forgive you or judge you when I know what I've done? I'm like Paul, the chief of all sinners, you know. Um, but his grace to me was not without effect. So um, Joshua, I appreciate you having me on the show. And um and I hope I hope somebody out there feels lifted up, feels like there's hope.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah, if this thing, if this testimony meant anything to you or somebody that that you know needs to hear it, do yourself, do them a favor and share it with them. God is still in the business of changing family legacies and trees and bringing people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And so be uh a kingdom peace maker and share the episode. Danny, you're one of my heroes when I'm around, and I mean that. When I'm around you, I sense a person that is humble and loves Jesus, but could be the exact opposite if it wasn't for what Christ has done in your life. You are a living epistle, and I appreciate you saying yes to the kingdom of God. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Awesome. Thank you, Joshua. Thanks for having me. Forgiveness is more for you than them. I had everything for the first time in my life. It's just me. Just Jesus.