Celebrating Life in Recovery

Club to Church

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Aaron Bekkela

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Series Code: CLR

Program Code: CLR000130A


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues
00:03 related to addictive behaviour.
00:05 Parents are cautioned that some material
00:06 may be too candid for younger children.
00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery.
00:12 I'm Cheri, your host.
00:14 You know what surprises me about God,
00:16 is the miracles He performs
00:18 and sometimes I think a changed life
00:20 is a bigger deal than raising the dead.
00:22 Today, I'd like to introduce you
00:23 to friend of mine,
00:25 on the bunch of strip clubs and I think only God can bring
00:28 something good out of a strip club.
00:30 Come join us on the set.
00:58 When I talk about,
00:59 "Does anything good come out from a strip club,"
01:01 I mean that.
01:02 When I went, a few years ago,
01:03 I'm doing this program Celebrating Life in Recovery,
01:05 you got a bunch of guests coming in,
01:07 I love doing this.
01:09 You know, and I know that you know that
01:10 and you can see that
01:12 and you get to meet some incredible folks.
01:14 I get to meet some incredible folks
01:15 but one time I come in
01:17 and there's a guy here I'm supposed to interview
01:20 and I don't know a lot about him.
01:22 So I said, you know, "Who is he, what is he doing?"
01:24 They said, "His family owns a number of strip clubs."
01:29 And I'm thinking what?
01:30 And I didn't even know what was in me
01:33 but I felt weight.
01:35 I felt, all of the sudden, I couldn't even hardly breathe.
01:38 I don't wanna walk in the room,
01:39 I don't wanna introduce myself to this guy,
01:41 I don't wanna talk to him.
01:42 And I realized, my sister is in the hospital
01:45 hooked up on life support, she's trying to kill herself,
01:48 she's a stripper turning 50, she's got three DUIs,
01:52 she's got the IRS after her and when she dies,
01:55 the person that owns the strip club
01:56 is just gonna put another girl in there
01:57 and not even remember her name.
01:59 And I am so angry.
02:01 I'm thinking, you know what? I can't.
02:03 Not today, I can't do this
02:05 and people are looking at me like...
02:08 You know, 'cause usually I'm nice.
02:11 You know, I'm not even serious,
02:12 usually I'm nice and I love God
02:14 and anybody can heal in.
02:16 All of that kind of stuff
02:17 and I believe that with everything in me
02:19 but that moment I thought, you know,
02:21 well, I just wanna shoot them.
02:23 I wanna walk-in and shoot him in the face, right?
02:26 So excuse me.
02:28 For people that haven't seen this program before,
02:29 it was just that intense for me and so I walk-in
02:32 and I'm trying to be nice, "Hi, my name is Cheri."
02:35 And everything in me just thought, "I'm dying."
02:39 And I walkout and Jay Dew, one of the pastors here,
02:44 whom I love, you know, I feel like he is my pastor.
02:47 But I walkout and he's like, "Do you wanna pray?"
02:50 You know, 'cause, I mean, he's looking at me like what's up,
02:53 you know, something's obviously up.
02:55 And I said, "I can't do this."
02:56 You know, and so he says, "Let's pray,"
02:58 and then he comes up with an idea that's ridiculous.
03:01 He said, "Why don't you ask this guy Michel,
03:04 if you could process your rage, why are you doing this show?"
03:11 And I'm thinking, "How funny is that."
03:13 So I walk in and I just said,
03:15 "You know, you know that I don't like you.
03:20 You know that, you know,
03:21 all of this kind of stuff that I'm raging,
03:23 you know, all that kind of stuff.
03:25 Can we just process that during the show."
03:27 And, you know, this is a big guy
03:29 but his knees were shaking.
03:30 He was like, "okay."
03:32 You know, and so we get on the show
03:34 and I open the program up,
03:35 if you've ever seen it with, you know what?
03:37 When I first met this guy spiritually speaking,
03:40 I had both of my hands around his neck.
03:44 Did you feel that, Michael?
03:46 And he's like, "I did. Can we talk about that?"
03:49 And within a short period of time,
03:51 he literally turns around at and starts telling his story.
03:57 And when he told his story, my heart broke.
04:00 My heart broke, I thought, "What?
04:02 Did I think I was the only victim here?
04:04 Do I think I'm the only one in need of grace?
04:06 Do I think that God himself doesn't look at all of us?"
04:11 And say, Amen.
04:13 I love you and draws us to Himself.
04:16 So we're talking about this whole season
04:17 and about grace and about forgiveness
04:20 and I didn't even realize that I had so much anger
04:23 and I had so much bitterness and I had so much to talk
04:26 but I realized at that moment,
04:29 when I'm listening to this man talk about his background,
04:32 is that I have to really say,
04:34 "Please forgive me."
04:36 And at one point in the show, I just started...
04:37 Of program, I just started crying.
04:40 And Michel looked at me and he said,
04:42 "I don't know if anybody has ever asked you this
04:45 but would you forgive me, as a club owner."
04:49 And I just couldn't hardly stand it and I said,
04:52 "Would you forgive me?
04:54 In my arrogance, that I thought forgiveness wasn't for you too.
04:57 And we both looked at each other
04:59 and realized that God had done a miracle.
05:03 I needed to forgive him, he needed to forgive me,
05:06 we needed to step into the arms of God
05:08 and let him heal us.
05:09 And so today we're gonna talk with one of his brothers.
05:12 I no longer feel rage, I'm no longer that arrogant
05:15 and I no longer have all of that bitterness.
05:17 So I want you to stay with us
05:19 and man, I hope by the end of this program,
05:22 you are just proud of God.
05:25 So stay with us, we'll be right back.


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Revised 2016-10-10