Are you struggling to forgive? // S07E02

How do you receive forgiveness from God? From others? From yourself? This week we welcome Ilonka Deaton onto the show to share how she escaped the dark reality of sex trafficking to find Christ, forgiveness, and her ultimate purpose.

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VERSES USED:

Luke 23:34, Jeremiah 17:14, Romans 13, Hebrews 4:16, Isaiah 55:7

QUESTIONS TOUCHED ON:

• Why does God ask us to forgive others?
• How can I forgive someone that’s wronged me?
• What does the Bible say about forgiveness?

QUOTES FROM FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW:

I did therapy. I, you know, I did take medicine. I went to counseling sessions and group sessions, and none of it worked because I was missing the spiritual component of Jesus.

Ilonka Deaton, The Pantry Podcast – S07E02: For They Do Not Know with Ilonka Deaton

When we try to be the judge or one of the attorneys or the plaintiff or the defendant, no matter what, that’s not the place he’s made us to sit. He’s freed us from all of that. Those all have things that will exhaust us because we’re not meant to play that role. And there’s an undue burden there. But when we step into the witness stand to be a witness of what He’s done…the rest we’re allowed to walk away from. The witness is allowed to step down and leave.

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast – S07E02: For They Do Not Know with Ilonka Deaton

It’s not my testimony. It’s what God has done in my life and He’s using what’s happened to carry it further.

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast – S07E02: For They Do Not Know with Ilonka Deaton

ANOTATED TRANSCRIPT:

EPISODE INTRO:

Michelle: Do you struggle with forgiveness? It can be hard to release offense and allow the healing process to progress, but our God tells us that it’s crucial in our walk with Him. This week, we talk with human trafficking survivor Ilonka Deaton to hear how she forgave those who betrayed her and where Christ has led her since.

SEASON INTRO:

Shea: Hey, I’m Shea.

Michelle: And I’m Michelle.

Shea: Are you equipped for the real battle? In the spiritual it’s not just about your weaponry. It’s about what you consume and who’s calling the shots in your life. You’re listening to The Pantry Podcast, Season 7: God Intentions, where we look at the way we live and ask, “Is this from God, or do I just think this is good?”

Michelle: Help us fuel 59 countries with spiritual nutrition. Donate on Patreon or ThePantryPodcast.com.

Shea: And now let’s dig into the meal.

FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW with ILONKA DEATON:

Michelle: Hey!

Shea: I’m excited. You know this, I think that’s my catch phrase. What does that they call that? What do you call that? A catch phrase.

Michelle: Like a tagline.

Shea: I’m excited, but I am excited because the guest that we have now is going to bring a lot of fruit. It’s going to bring a lot of good things. We’re talking about forgiveness to heal, you know, like what does it take to really get to that point in our lives? When something’s happened? You know, we go through bad things. We experienced things. We go through life and sometimes we go through things that can’t be controlled. We can’t control them, but we have to come to this conclusion and we have to come to this idea of forgiveness, because if we’re going to move forward, we need to find that forgiveness of the person, maybe forgiveness of ourselves. But in order for us to walk in peace, we got to get there. And the first that came to my mind was thinking about this episode was Jeremiah 17:14, “Heal me, O, Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved. For you are my praise.” We need that forgiveness so that we can start to praise.

Michelle: Yes, that’s so true. And we brought someone on today. That is the epitome of a story of forgiveness. When it’s tough, when the world would say, “there’s no reason…you don’t have to,” she did anyway. And what she’s done since is incredibly powerful and it’s all rooted in Christ. So! Ilonka Deaton is an author, singer, and speaker, but more importantly, she is a healthy, full of life, complete woman in Jesus Christ. After winning a singing competition in South Africa at the age of 12, Ilonka was held in sexual slavery for five years at the threat of her and her family’s lives. Now, she sings worship to the Lord and speaks to audiences across the U.S. to encourage them through the love of Jesus Christ and to remind them that their stories matter. She’s been quite busy, having recorded 11 studio albums, the latest being “To Be Loved”, authored two books, “Keeping Secrets” and “Secret Freedom”, and currently collaborating on a third with her brother, Jaco Booyens about Human Trafficking. Additionally, she has worked with organizations such as Share, World Vision, Women At Risk, Int. (WAR), Crisis Aid International, Bethany Christian Services, and TheHopeLine as an artist and speaker. It’s so great to have you, Ilonka, welcome to The Pantry.

Ilonka Deaton: You’re welcome! Thank you so much for having me on, I feel blessed to be here and honored.

Michelle: Well, we feel the same. We feel the same for sure. So before we really get started, the title of this episode is for, they do not know. And we kind of told you a little bit about the inspiration behind we start before we started the episode. Um, so what do you think of when you think of that phrase in line with what’s happened in your life?

Ilonka Deaton: He knows. I think about the phrase where they do not know what they’ve done or they do not know what they’re doing. Um, I would say that I think about people’s stories. Every, every one of us has a backstory of where we grew up, what we’ve gone through in life, how it shaped us, uh, everybody from, you know, someone that’s been a predator like a Ted Bundy, all the way to someone like Joyce Meyers who inspires, you know, um, thousands of women, all of us across the gambit have have a story to tell and all of us are shaped by something that has happened in our past. If you are blessed to have been someone to grow up without any trauma in your life, God bless you for that. I want that kind of story for my kids. That’s not how I grew up. And that’s maybe not how the two of you go out, right?

Ilonka Deaton: So we all come into this with different stories. And I think that unfortunately, especially in sexuality problems, you have perpetuating cycles of abuse that happens to children and they go force and they become predators themselves. And in my situation, that is what happened to me, although the person who, who perpetrated me and who did what he did, of course in my opinion, was very evil in his approach and what he had done, that person still was created by God. And that person is still came into this world with a story and was still shaped by whatever had happened to him in his life. And unfortunately he made very bad decisions and it led to a lot of heartache and disaster for not only me, but for many other girls, but he still came into this with a story.

Ilonka Deaton: So when we talk about forgiveness and we talk about like, Lord, please forgive them for that. You don’t know what they’re doing. It, it really is that it’s how someone’s mind has been shaped, whether they have a mental illness or not how their mind has been shaped and formed because of the circumstances that they make the decisions to give healing and freedom from that and redemption. And if they did not, there’s usually fall out and broken. I said, fall follows darkness. And that is what hurts people. And that is where people get drawn into horrible situations. But you can’t, you can’t look at the topic of Lord, forgive them for, they do not know what they’ve done. You can look at that without seeing the person behind the crime. And that is a hard, it’s a hard concept for, for anybody to take in who might be on the front end of healing.

Ilonka Deaton: Um, I’m 13 years into trauma recovery. And so once you’ve walked through the step of forgiveness and realize that forgiveness does not equal reconciliation, and you can really wrap your head around that and understand what forgiveness means for you as an individual, you can bridge the gap going from seeing a godly creative person who might horrible decisions to where you are. And that’s, I mean, that’s only happened by the power of that, at least for it. There’s just, I mean, the same peace being Jesus. I mean, they’re just using there just isn’t any bridge that’s going to be built if you don’t have those two foundational aspects in your life to even understand that verse or understand forgiveness, period.

Shea: I like, I like how you tie that in. I mean, the apostle Paul, I use this a lot, but the apostle Paul says anything outside of Christ or outside of God is pretty much dung. And I don’t like to put that down on somebody who might be hearing this, but I’m telling you I’m coming from an abusive background as well. It took God. It takes God to bring us to a point of this, of, of learning this forgiveness. Now there’s something else that you do as well. And I want people to know this as well. You also counsel, right?

Ilonka Deaton: Yeah, I do. I have a biblical counseling degree from, uh, Latin university. And so we ran a free counseling center for five years for women in our area. In addition, I’m also on the board of the national human trafficking coalition, and I’m starting in the fall to run classes for them as well. Um, ICI meetings and, and healing classes for survivors, um, and people who want to volunteer in trafficking, who might not realize how much their story has been impacted by wanting to volunteer and their stories come up and, you know, and they find themselves in places where they need to forgive. Um, maybe not something as, you know, like trafficking, but they might have a parent or a spouse that they’ve hold bitterness against and they need to walk through some reconciliation. And so, um, God’s story always meets our story, right?

Ilonka Deaton: You can’t look at your story if you don’t look at God’s story. And that’s the beauty of the gospel transformation is what happens in sanctification and what happens in justification when, when our stories meets God’s story or God’s stories meets our stories. And that’s where, where beauty happens, but going through 13 years of trauma therapy, I can tell you, even before I surrendered my life to Jesus, that I draw, I was in therapy. I did therapy. I, you know, I did take medicine. I went to counseling sessions and group sessions, and none of it worked because I was missing the spiritual component of Jesus. And I didn’t understand that that is the seed that you need for Amy of, of healing work is you really have to have the center of what God intended Jesus to do in your life when He died for you on the cross.

Ilonka Deaton: And it’s just a, it’s a key component, and that’s not, it’s not something that you or I can, um, can force down somebody’s throat, right? Because God says that he is the one that he draws you and he calls you. And then through his holy spirit, Jesus comes and he saves you. But he is the one that draws individuals and the beauty and healing, um, of this magnitude is when you get to be present at that intersection, when you get to see somebody who was willing to give the Lord a chance, right, with this tremendous brokenness hand in their heart moment, and he meets them, and then you see rapid healing happen to them, that is holy ground. It’s remarkable. It’s one of my favorite things. And that’s why, uh, I wanted to start counseling, um, to begin with, is to, is to, to witness the power of the holy spirit and other people’s stories. Not only my own.

Shea: Yeah. That’s why I brought it up because I think it’s really important that the grounding in the FA in the foundation of where this healing begins. And I knew that you would say it perfectly, I knew that you would bring this out late, just cause you’re there, you’re in the trenches, you’re at war, um, in this, in this battle for people who have been really shattered, who’ve been taken advantage of and who have been used. And, and so it’s really cool how, how, when we’re used in the world, God brings us to a kingdom and restores us. And once we’re inside of that kingdom, it’s like, wow, it’s just amazing. Yeah.

Michelle: I’m interested in—I don’t think I can remember what I thought forgiveness was. I think it was kind of like if I forgave, it meant the person got a free pass, right? To let it happen again. And then I came to Christ and my whole idea of forgiveness got flipped upside down, but both for you and for the people that you counsel, what are those common things about what they think forgiveness means before they come to Christ?

Ilonka Deaton: Yeah, well, yeah, a big misconception is just that forgiveness equals reconciliation. Um, and, and let’s, let’s focus on just, uh, sexual abuse or predators or trafficking for moment, right? Sex trafficking. Um, if a, if an individual like myself decides to forgive her perpetrator, does that mean that I enter back into a relationship with him? Does that mean that I automatically have to say what you did to me is okay. No, it doesn’t mean any of that. It doesn’t take the verocity or the weight of a crime away at all. It doesn’t meet at all that. I have to be reconciled into any form of relationship. And even though this person wasn’t a family member list, let’s say for instance, as a child who was, who was abused by a parent, does that equal that child having to be in relationship with that parent? Absolutely not.

Ilonka Deaton: Um, an author that lays is very well out, in my opinion. There’s Dr. Dan Allinder. He has a book called the word at heart. That’s pretty well known in adult children, survivors of sexual abuse. And he has a chapter in his book. Um, and it’s, it’s biblical, uh, Christian books. It is, um, a chapter that’s dedicated specifically to reconciliation. Like what does that look like? Even if you wanted to do it, how do you forgive? How do you move from forgiveness to reconciliate reconciliation? If it’s been a parent, how do you walk away from, from, from allowing yourself the freedom to say, no, I do not need to step back into a relationship with whoever did this to me, you know? And it could be a battery situation with, with spouses or with children attached to that. I mean, most of the situations that we’re talking about are a bloody mess.

Ilonka Deaton: Right, right. It’s Macy. It’s, it’s not pretty, it’s not something that any one person can figure out a one day it’s like taking a, a 500, uh, puzzle piece box and shaking it out on the floor and saying, we’re going to have to start building this thing together. And we’re going to have to start looking at the different pieces and what’s needed and what we need to take out and where we need to go with it. So it takes, it takes a lot of time, but that is the key thing is just to help someone see, and maybe through my own story, someone else’s story of forgiveness, that it does not equal reconciliation. You can forgive somebody and completely walk away free without ever being in a relationship with them or feeling the need to have to stay back into that. Because that’s not what forgiveness means.

Shea: Right. Oh, wow. I mean, it just powerful right there. It’s so true though. Why are we staying in this? You need that separation because I’ve run across that a few times and some people that I’ve met and they’re like, I just got to stay in there and find the joint. I’m just like, and I don’t know if I’m right. You can tell me if I’m right or wrong in this, but I’m like, maybe there’s a time that needs to be some separation. Maybe there has to be some separation just so that things, or, you know, worst case you call the authorities. I mean, you do the Romans 13, but it’s like, you do what you gotta do. But I like what you’re saying about this reconciliation, because you know, there’s two forms of this. And I think that we’re speaking on one side of this, sometimes we have to reconcile or, you know, the reconciliation with someone who’s done it to us, but sometimes we have to figure out that forgiveness for ourselves. And I know that there are some people out there that blame themselves that felt shame. Like there might not even be a reflection to the person who did it. It’s all been reflected into them. How do we go about reconciling to ourselves? Because that’s important coming back to ourselves and saying, you know, we’re okay.

Ilonka Deaton: You know? Um, uh, first of all, it’s really just see what forgiveness means. And I think too, that the misconception could be that if we look at forgiveness for someone that’s wrong, do you think it’s between you and that person? It has nothing to do with the other person. Forgiveness has zero to do with the other person it’s only has to do with you and God, the father, because he is the only one that can give you forgiveness to give you can’t even give yourself forgiveness. It’s not a gift that we have. We have to go to the father and ask for it. There is no way if we give somebody, unless you surrender your, your heart in a posture to say one, I’m willing to be willing to forgive this person. So father, please help me through your spirit. Give me the portion of forgiveness so that I can extend it forward to someone else.

Ilonka Deaton: So forgiveness starts 100% between your relationship with the father. And so that’s why it’s so difficult for someone. If they do not have that foundation and the Lord, where are they going to get their forgiveness from? Where’s their power coming from where’s their source, right? And if you don’t have that, you can forgive because we don’t naturally possess the power. We are a broken fallen group of people that are merely pushing back the effects of the fall of what happened with Adam and Eve. And without God’s help, there’s just no way that we can do it. We daily need saviors from ourselves, right? Let alone have the power to give ourselves forgiveness from another person. So recognizing that it starts with your relationship with the Lord and just I heart posture to say, I’m willing, I’m just willing to forgive. I’ll never forgive that. I never forget the day that I, um, made the decision to forgive my perpetrator.

Ilonka Deaton: I, and I, I talk about this really in my book, I went on a jog and I found myself at a traffic light. And I felt like I was just running to get away from my past is running to get away from the anger and the bitterness and the hurt and the shame and the guilt that I was feeling, because God was still laying out who I was, who I am and whose I am and my identity. And I didn’t quite get that yet. And this was after I gave my life to Jesus. I mean, it’s just quite a long time after I gave my life to Jesus before I ever would have considered forgiving this man who did this to me, because when someone has wronged you, you feel this innate like right to where you can hold them hostage, where you can, you can trap them.

Ilonka Deaton: And you’re going to put them in that jail. And buddy, they not going to get out. You know, you’ve got to punish them for the rest of their lives, but here’s the trick to that. You’re not punishing them at all. You doing that to yourself, you’re holding yourself off suit. You’re holding yourself in prison. It doesn’t poison them. He might never think about me again, but yet I wake up every single day. Think about him at that point. I did. So when I made the decision to surrender, it was my heart being willing to say, God, I I’ve I’ve I’ve run. As far as I can go. I’ve pushed this as far as I can go. And I am literally physically, emotionally exhausted. And I need you to take this weight for me. I can’t do this. Please gave me whatever portion of forgiveness that you have.

Ilonka Deaton: And you can give me as a gift that I can extend to this man. I want, I want out, I want free from this. I don’t want to think about this anymore. I don’t want to go to sleep thinking about this. I want, I want free from this. And that’s how my, my journey of forgiveness started. And it wasn’t instant. It was a, it was a process. And how the Lord started giving me portions of forgiveness for him. And then one day I could literally have a conversation with a friend and just say, wow, I actually have no hate in my heart for this man anymore. How did that happen? What had happened? Because I asked God and he gave it to me and he rolled it out for me slowly. I have to remember, God is so gentle. Nose. Pruitt is such a gentle gentleman that he’s never going to force something on us that we’re not ready to receive from him.

Ilonka Deaton: And he’s going to do a gentle because he loves us. He has a father, right? He’s not an abuser. He’s not an alcoholic. Um, he is not someone that drags you around by your hair. He is not someone that strangles you. And he is definitely not someone that points his finger in your face to say, look what you’ve done. You know, you did something to do this. He does not bring shame or guilt. He always brings forgiveness and gentleness and mercy and grace and love. And that’s how he operates. And in my walk with him, that’s how I have found in my healing journey. How he’s always approached me through spirit. It’s just to be gentle. So if I asked him for something, it might be a very big thing. Like, Hey, I really need forgiveness for this man who trapped me for five years, who wanted to kill me and my family, which will bake things to forgive someone for, but yet God, through his mercy and his grace very slowly sort of giving me those abortions so that I could have that and extend that. Eventually

Michelle: I, as you say, all that, I just imagined a courtroom. And in the world, we the right that we have to hold them hostage. It made me think of when we try to be any role other than the witness that we’ve been called to be by Christ. When we try to be the judge or one of the attorneys or the plaintiff or the defendant, no matter what, that’s not the place he’s made us to sit. He’s freed us from all of that. Those all have things that will exhaust us because we’re not meant to play that role. And there’s an undue burden there. But when we step into the witness stand, of course, there’s a, there’s a risk to being a witness sometimes, you know, if depending on what you know, but he doesn’t call us to just be a witness to anything, but to be a witness of what he’s done. And there’s a risk with that, you know, um, being persecuted for, for sharing Christ. But aside from that, when we focus on being a witness for Christ, the rest we’re allowed to walk away from it, the witness is allowed to step down and leave. Whereas someone else is sitting with the, with a sentence, you know, to be

Ilonka Deaton: Yes. And what does, and what does that mean though, too? It doesn’t mean that if you gained us, forgive us equal reconciliation, it doesn’t mean that when you forgive someone, you know, in logistical life, that you don’t file charges against your perpetrator. No, you can self hush. You can still forgive someone to file charges. There’s still a law of the land that needs to be abided by even God talks about that. We are laws, right? Um, some of our laws are inadequate to deal with this. I’m a fierce advocate of advocacy and fighter. I gained some of the laws that we have and trying to implement, having some new laws on the book to make trafficking of a child. The class I feel on me so that someone could get alive. Same conditionally, that this does this mean that forgiveness it’s not extended by victim.

Ilonka Deaton: No, but it still means that it’s against a lot of use of child. It’s still against the law to sex traffic job. So they are going to be repercussions for years. Um, I went in, in 2012 and file charges against the man that did this to me with a forgiving heart. The only difference is standing. And I police precinct in South Africa with my husband, filling out my entire story and giving him my statement. I did not do it with hate in my heart. I did not do it with any veterans. I did it because I knew it was the right thing to do because there were so other girls in the same situation I was in. Right. So not only speaking up for myself, but speaking up for them so that it could end, right. Again, forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. I’m not in relationship with that man at all. Never want to see in my life ever again. But did I do the right thing by going back and find charges? Yes, because it not only protects me because I’m standing up for myself because now I can’t protect myself as a woman. It also gives me the opportunity to say this is against the law and I’m not going to be silent if you’re doing this to another child, I can’t, it’s my burden and responsibility to protect.

Shea: That’s amazing that like, okay, so we just broke it down to two worlds. We did it in our natural, and then we did it in the supernatural, you know, as we’re sitting there talking about the court in the supernatural, isn’t it amazing that God Jesus and the holy spirit, the Trinity represent the whole courtroom. Yes. You’ve got your, your, you know, you’ve got the holy spirit who comes in, you know, as the advocate, right. You’ve got, and you’ve got Jesus. That’s sitting there and in a position of two roles with God, you know, but God is the judge and Jesus is sitting there on your side saying, no, I’ve got him covered. You know, it’s like, he’s like your lawyer, you know, it’s like, it’s, it’s so cool. It’s just so cool. And then on the other side of that, what we represent is what we need to do, right?

Shea: I mean, it is what we need to do because there are things there are other children out there, there are other people out there that are going through these things that are experiencing these things. And they need us that have been, you know, wrong to speak up. Cause I guarantee you, if I knew the guy, if I knew the guy, like I actually knew his name. And I knew where he was, I w with all love in the world would speak up the same. And so if we have these testimonies that God has given us, give the testimony for those who are broken so that they can see the awesomeness of the spiritual, but also give the testimony to the courts or to the police station so that they can do what they need to do to protect others. I love it. Protection on both sides, protection for the heart on both sides. Yeah.

Ilonka Deaton: And that is, I mean, that is what biblically, that’s what God calls us to do with our stories. I mean, second Corinthians one, four goddess correctly. Are you saying I comfort you so that you can go forward and comfort others with what you’ve been through. That means whatever you’ve been through in your life, whatever your story is, good or bad up or down sideways waste north city doesn’t matter. Whatever it is. There’s something in your story that is supposed to be used to glorify God, to show others the way to speak into others’ lives. It could be a big thing. It could be a small thing, but every single one of us has that story and has been commanded to go. I comfort you so that you can go forth and comfort others with the same comfort I gave you. Right. And that is our testimonies.

Ilonka Deaton: And might not be your full testimony. It could be sharing with a new moron, you know, from long tomorrow, like, what is it like having a first child? What is it like breastfeeding? What is it like staying up late at night? How do you learn to become a mother? It could be something as simple as that. It could be something as big as someone who had an abortion. It could be the topic of abuse and sexual abuse and traffic and all that being small. It doesn’t matter. We all have, um, been comforted by God. So the we, and we can, we can, we can project that forward to show others how they can be comforted as well. And we really inspire people when we do that. And we give them permission to speak up about what they’ve gone through in their own lives.

Shea: I think it’s cool. When we transitioned from calling it my testimony to saying this is God’s testimony because He was there the whole time. And that’s what I tell people. I’m like, yeah, that’s it. It’s not my testimony. It’s what God has done in my life through, you know, and he’s using, what’s happened to, to carry it further. So then let’s, let’s lighten up a little bit. Cause I mean, we we’ve been, man. I love it though, but like, okay, so I’m gonna hit you with, with your, uh, video, the one where you actually sit there, you’re, you know, you’re driving people, you gotta go watch this and then you I’ll let you explain it. Just explain your video, tell us the story behind it, because it’s so cool.

Michelle: We’re going to link it in the show notes, by the way.

Ilonka Deaton: Um, so the story, but the story behind the videos, I used my own story of being, um, of being trafficked and how I had to find forgiveness through God for the man who perpetrated me for so long and to say, Hey, I, I forgave you. But the backstory to it is actually that, um, I’m finishing up a communications degree and I decided to phone class and for my final exam, I had to make a short film. And so I asked my husband, if I could use his, uh, he’s an avid fly fisherman. And I asked if I could use his truck and a Houston’s truck and we just filmed it. And one straight shot actually at the church where I work. And, um, and it’s because it was supposed to be a private link, but it became a public link. And so I, uh, just, uh, it’s just out there, I’ve gotten so many requests from people, you know, to, to have podcasts and interviews with me because of that video. So goddess mightily used it. And then my,

Shea: I just like at the end, how you put it to rest, it’s like, it’s like you, you put it down and then you walk away into that forgiveness, you know, so you can move on. And I just love it. I loved it. Yeah.

Michelle: I, uh, I think that the whole thing about forgiveness, when you say it’s not about them, but about you, it allows you to be freed up, to use that portion to go help others shine light on what is still in the dark in their lives, because he calls us to shine light into the darkness as part of healing. It’s kind of like in my heart, I know this is like a raw place, but I’ll bring it up. If th if I sense that person is struggling, I’ll be like, I struggle with it too. You know, because I know that’s the power of testimony. And if we are so caught up in the understandable, but still very volatile feelings of wrath or, or the agony or, or all of these feelings, it makes it very hard to be willing to share it. And then seeing someone else blessed by your testimony can help you as well. It’s, it’s this very beautiful symbiotic relationship God has put in front of us when we’re dealing with one another, um, where he can redeem our pain and our struggles by helping deliver others. What was that pivotal thing that was like, I’m going to be active in, in this arena?

Ilonka Deaton: Actually, I didn’t, um, I never wanted to share my story publicly. Um, I never wanted to, you know, be an activist. Uh, what happened was that church where I gave my heart to the Lord Christ community church in Franklin, I heard Scotty Smith, uh, preach on the grace of Jesus that no matter, no matter where you are in life, that he is the unveiled hope. So you just bring your brokenness, your scars, the mess that you’re in, you just bring it to him. And he makes something gorgeously beautiful out of it. And that you are enough. And I gave my, I surrendered my life to Jesus after hearing him preach. And it was really the first time that I heard grace explained, I grew up Dutch reform was very legalistic and grace wasn’t, uh, something that was used frequently in sermons. And so when I heard scarring Smith breach on the grace of Jesus, it really captured my heart and this, I wanted what this man was telling me, although I didn’t know how to get it.

Ilonka Deaton: And again, the holy spirit had to come in and draw me, but I, I wanted that. So once I surrendered my life to Jesus and I started going to the church on a regular basis, um, I was invited to take a part in a, in a study called gospel transformation in which you get to, you get to share your story, uh, with a small group of other women. And I walked through weeks, 16 weeks study, and eventually got to share my story, um, in an hour uninterrupted and have these beautiful women speaking to my life. Well, Scotty Smith, the pastor approached me and said, look, we’re doing a series in the church where we are, um, asking individuals in the church to come up and share their testimony. Would you mind if, if I interviewed you with like three questions on a Sunday morning, and I said, no, but I’m going to have to go to my trauma counselor and give me the questions I’m going to have to prepare myself.

Ilonka Deaton: Because the last thing I want to do is, uh, retraumatize myself, um, in any kind of a setting. And at that point, I had no idea how to, to share my story publicly, what to say, what not to say, what was appropriate, works, inappropriate. What do people want to hear? How do I say things that Doug tweet or people listening, all of those things. And so I took the questions too much, all the therapists, and we took some weeks and we worked through that and I agreed to do it. And he interviewed me, asked me three questions on a Sunday morning. And, um, it just happened that during the interview, the booking agent for, um, world vision for their artist division was sitting in the audience and they were looking for a female, uh, worship leader, which I started seeing the charge and, uh, who could, who could share a testimony for a girl’s night out to her for world vision.

Ilonka Deaton: And I was called, um, a couple of days after that interview and that booking agent actually recorded on his phone, the interview and contacted, you know, his higher ups and said, I think I found the person who needs to be in this tour. And they contacted me. And I was when I got the call of course, artists, right? So I was excited to get the call and at any fan of a possibility, but I walked into the meeting thinking, okay, I’m going to have to pitch myself for this, right. Because you know, if you’ve been in the music industry, you know, you put yourself for anything, you know, like you always have to pitch yourself. This is why I’m good for this. This is what I can ride. This is what we get it. And so we, um, make with, um, the lady who was running the program and before she even gave me a chance to pitch why I might be a good worship leader, you know, I just, I was just going to pitch myself as a worship leader for it.

Ilonka Deaton: She rolled out her calendar and she said, well, we have 30 nights for you to share your testimony on, in these places throughout the U S. And we would like for you to do it in this much time. And we have a rider that can work with you to write your story. And it’ll be the same every single night. And, and I was so overwhelmed with, um, just the offer and, um, being happy about it, but also being scared to death, because now everybody’s gonna, it’s like, you’re found out now everybody’s gonna know my story. You know, how am I gonna, how am I going to share this? How am I going to do this, this, this, this is terrifying. It’s still terrifying. You know, to just stand up, even though I’ve gotten better at it, but it still is. And because who wants to share about the abuse that went through the child, that’s just not a fun.

Ilonka Deaton: It’s like, Hey, let’s have coffee and chat. No, this is not something you really want to talk about. So I got to learn through that process and, and very diligently working through my, my trauma therapist and a writer on how to share, how to share how not to retraumatize myself. And then I had moments where I did retraumatize myself, and I would have to go learn again. And then God wrote that verse. I quoted earlier to you and God to say to me, you won’t go, this is the verse of your life. Like, I, I comforted you through this. Now I need you to go forth and share it because there’s many other people that need comforting. And so it’s across that are there. But it’s one that when I, when I have opportunities to share that I, I step into it, you know, with God holding up my hands to do it, uh, because I couldn’t do this in my own strength, uh, because it’s not light, you know, it’s, it’s taxing to do it, but I do it because I want other people to know my Jesus.

Ilonka Deaton: I that’s, he, he is everything in my life. That’s it? I mean, Jesus rescued me. He saved me from myself. He does it on a daily basis. He showed up in the darkest place of my life and told me that I was enough and I owned my lifetime. And so for that mere fact, if I can just glorify, if I can glorify, no matter what platform I’m on unapologetically, I want to do it. I mean, even when I was on the Steve Harvey show with my testimony, I told Steve, I was like, look, I know that this isn’t national public radio television show, but I’m just going to unapologetically tell you that the only reason I’m here is Jesus. You know, there, there, there is no, there is no healing that doesn’t have him in it. If you’re looking for answers on how to, how to fight traffic, he had to stop it.

Ilonka Deaton: Jesus, there’s the same trapezius is logistics that go with it and all of it. But it’s, that is the center point. So I feel like I’m a missionary in the us. Um, and even in the world with things that I do, but my focus is really in the U S and why I was brought to this amazing country, why I’m so blessed to be an American, you know, why I have beautiful, beautiful children. I got a space for him. It’s like a really wonderful marriage and a wonderful husband. And I get to do what I do only because I want other people to see that the unveiled hope is Jesus and that he can restore them. But I did not put myself in a position to do any of this stuff. Most of the interviews and all and stuff that I get, I get requests for.

Ilonka Deaton: Um, I’m a, I’m a mom, you know, let alone have time to manage my kids. You know, Culver’s running around the house then to seek out opportunities to, you know, be interviewed and, and all of that. So it’s mainly, I know that if I know that if God has someone that needs to hear what I’ve been through, he’ll bring them and he’ll bring the interviews and he’ll bring the people and he’ll bring the publishers, all the songwriters, all the songs, and he’ll just do it. And I don’t have to, I don’t have to worry about it. It’s up to him.

Michelle: Amen. Yeah. As a side note, as we’re recording this, we have been listened to and downloaded in 56 countries. And this is such a, um, a common thread around the world. Um, a lot of, most of our topics are relatable, but this is one where, um, someone hearing might just happen to hear this playing in the background. And they know this in, in a very personal way. So I’m excited to see which lives are touched because you’ve just brought so much depth to it. So, so

Ilonka Deaton: Thank you for saying that might all be to his glory, you know,

Shea: Did I hear a rumor? You might have another one on the way

Ilonka Deaton: I am. You can see me. I look like a, I actually, I am, I am almost 33 weeks expecting out third when bill and I have been married for 12 years and we have a four and a half year old, a three year old, and then we have another little boy on the way. So we are, uh, you know, our children are the only thing that we get to take to heaven with us. And it’s, that is the biggest success of my life. Um, no song I’ve written notebook, you know, interview, nothing can compare to the Lord saying yes to us having a family. And that’s just, I live for, for my family, if my kids is just,

Shea: It’s wonderful. That is so awesome. That’s so awesome. But we’re thankful that you, you came on that you’ve blessed us with your time. Cause I mean, you are just a fountain of knowledge and information and honestly, Jesus at the center point of everything and y’all, y’all got to go out and check out her song as well. It’s on YouTube. I listened to it as well, like a hundred times. I was like, I like to sing too. So it’s like, ah, so I was like, I went out and there’s a couple of videos where you’re seeing it as well, because that’s just a very impactful song for people who go through things.

Ilonka Deaton: Gosh, that is, and that was like, uh, it’s from my church. Yeah. While we’re Chablis. And I was like in the middle of COVID, um, and everything was upside down, you know? And, uh, and yes, it is right. It as well. It, myself, it is always well with my soul. No matter what my emotions, my telling me on any given day is always well with my soul and with your soul.

Shea: So today we’ve heard about grace. We’ve heard about Jesus because Jesus is grace. We’ve heard about his love. We’ve heard about his mercy. And you know, one of my go-to verses we all have those go-to verses because of what we go through in life. And it’s like, let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace. And why is that though, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need Hebrews four 16. That is what we need to do. And I think what we’re hearing today, and I think everybody’s sitting here that is talking right now would agree that we need Jesus. And if you’re out there, we, we are not running. You know, we, we understand the trauma that you’re going through in ways of the spiritual nature and where healing really starts. And that’s in Jesus. And we just want to thank you for being here today.

Ilonka Deaton: Thank you. And I’m honored and please continue doing what you’re doing and speaking the hope of God, our father, and the holy spirit in Jesus and to many lives. I appreciate what y’all do.

Michelle: We can say the same for you before we go, let everyone know how they can reach you on what you have going on right now.

Ilonka Deaton: Yeah, sure. Uh, Ivanka deacon.com website. Um, I have most of the music that I’ve done, you can stream on YouTube and most of the interviews that I’ve done until you can see on YouTube, um, I’m on Instagram, Facebook, you know, hit me up. I’ll be glad to answer any questions if you have any, uh, what I have coming up is I guess I’m working on a, on a third book, specifically looking at, um, the, the tragedy of, uh, of what sex and human trafficking is, what the problem in the United States is, how we combat that problem. Um, I’m currently working on, on a bill that we’ve actually been working on this past here with Senator Mike Bell and representative Cursio that we’ve passed through the Senate judiciary committee. And the house is just, you can be in Tennessee making sex trafficking of a child, a class, a felony, which, um, in my opinion, it would deter a lot of criminal activity for our state.

Ilonka Deaton: If the punishment was that harsh for someone not to do it because it’s, it’s not so much the guys who are at the top end of the perimeter with trafficking, you know, the ones that doing the grunt work, it’s the, it’s the guys who are recruited at the lower levels. And if we can deter some of that equivalent activity, we can make a real danger in, in what it looks like. So I’m an activist. Um, if you live in Tennessee, for instance, we would love your support on the bill, um, to move that forward as we, as we go along and just for people to reach out, if they have questions about where they can get training or what they can do to protect their own children, um, and signs to look for, have tons of those resources. So I have a resource page on my website. Just go look it up. And if you can’t find it, email us and I’ll gladly

Michelle: Awesome. We’ll make sure to include all that stuff in the show notes as well. So this week’s question to help inspire one another. We want to know what was the final straw that pushed you to forgive someone from a tough time in your life? What was that thing that really was like, okay, I’m ready to go to God with this. Um, sharing those stories really inspire others. You can go to our website, the pantry podcast.com and record a soundbite, or you can just send it to us in the DMS or the emails or the Instagrams wherever you want to send it. And we always follow the people on Instagram that we have on the show so that we can like share their good news and our stories and stuff. So we’ll make sure to do that as well. So thank you again for being here. It’s been amazing. So all right, everyone until next time.

Shea: Bye!

Ilonka Deaton: Bye!

KEYWORDS: For they do not know what they do, God calls us to forgive, forgive as you have been forgiven, how to forgive, human trafficking, forgiveness, forgiving your oppressor, how to let go of a grudge, how to let go of anger, sex slavery testimony.