Casey Moore Part 2

Casey Moore Part 2

Disclaimer

THE LIE THAT SHE WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH 

KELLY

On the last episode of Qavah, Casey Moore had believed a lie that she was not good enough.

This lie had grown into a monster. All Casey had wanted to do was lose some weight and be a more attractive wife. Then she would be happy, right? Instead, this lie took her down a path that destroyed her marriage, her career, her family, and nearly her own body.

Welcome back to Qavah the Podcast

KA So were you super thin

CM So I had lost a bunch of weight but yeah by that point I hadn’t really I can I gained some weight back I mean there’s a point in time where it doesn’t do it for you like it like it used to in the beginning it worked great but moving through that I started putting some weight back on I got arrested for I stole a bracelet at JCPenney but the sad thing about that is this bracelet had the serenity prayer on it which was crazy

KA Oh wow you needed that 

CM I needed it and I remember my sweet mom she I was arrested and taken to jail and I was taken to jail because I had warrants for bounced checks and all kinds of crazy stuff like that that’s probably why they actually took me to the jail but I remember Carson was working at Texas roadhouse and they I had them call him I don’t know why he came over there to the mall I was at the mall and like please just let me please let me take her home and of course they wouldn’t and so I remember looking at the door in him there and I just thought man this is so sad this was in October until I finally got clean in January and so do you think that would’ve been that would’ve been rock-bottom that was it there’s a little more to go so you know I found myself just in the beginning of my drug addiction I would get my drugs from this girl who lived in a high-rise in turtle Creek and it was this fancy place and all that by the end of it I was over near fair park and just some terrible places I remember being in one place and seem like a little child like a baby in a diaper and they were making it in the back I mean it was just some horrible horrible things I mean it just took me to the depths but I had just been so sick I mean so incredible yell and my mom I remember her saying like you know what is happening and I I had pneumonia so bad I smoked math was what I did so I couldn’t do it so it’s like for two weeks I was so incredibly sick and I couldn’t do it and it’s like all the sudden I started adding app like wait a minute I’ve gone to weeks without doing it 

KELLY

Strangely enough, this rock bottom moment - of being too sick to smoke meth - was Casey’s opportunity for salvation.

OK you know what do I need to do now like two weeks when I thought couldn’t go One day and now I’m two weeks in and granted I have slept two weeks that entire weeks because I was so incredibly ill and I don’t know just that day I just said I need help I told my mom I need help I was living in apartment and it was just a disaster I mean they moved us out we basically laughed there’s no telling what they charged us because we left just heaps of trash in but they moved us out of that apartment and moved me into their home and gave me some ultimatums and said you know we’re going to drug test you whenever we want you if you test positive one time you’re gone we’re keeping your child you know we will we will keep your child and I remember Carson saying no you know I’m going I will go with her or you know I’m going with her you know he was very protective of me even as at this point I mean I was eight years into this at this point so he was let’s say that means he was like 16 I guess 15, 16 so he was protective until he realized that I was OK and then I was gonna live and I was trying to get my life back and then he got really angry very very very rightfully so

So that was a pretty big challenge for us out

KA And a 1516-year-old boy is angry anyway and

CM And then all of that on top of it and so I think for Carson you know he was just so hurt you know just so hurt and he has really bad memories of our home life and people in an out and people just showing up at all hours of the night and thinks he saw and her that I thought we were in a keeping him from you know that just didn’t happen and so he was angry he was really mad at me because then at that point I’m trying to be a mom also and he’s like them now you know and I remember laying in the bed upstairs at my parents house and really sick in and he was just like standing over me just yelling and saying all kinds of horrible things and he was I would die and you have just all the stuff and I remember my dad coming up there and saying Carson you can be angry and you have every right to be angry but I cannot hear this anymore I mean we need help you know and so we worked through that it was a very long and very drawn out years and years of getting through some of that stuff and I think there’s still some of it I still hold tons of guilt I mean I’ve got 13 almost 13 years clean now and I still have incredible guilt for Carson I mean he just missed out on so much as a child and I don’t mean missed out on fun things I mean just the normal life that a child should have the one that I had you know he didn’t have that and then he suffered his suffered since then and I feel like that my hand who I should’ve been his the one that is his protector so that’s been a real difficult thing 

KELLY

Casey’s parents saw how much pain she was in, and how much Carson was suffering, and it broke their hearts. They had compassion on their daughter and were eager to help. They just didn’t know how . . . until a stranger came along and offered a real solution, instead of a magic pill.

I Worked the Program

but once I told my mom I needed help you know we they pretty much sat counsel on how to do this and how to help me and basically I there was a guy that came to fix our computer at my parents computer and I don’t know how it happened but somehow they start talking about AA and NA in recovery and semi parent sent me down and said hair we’ve talk to this guy he was like this angel in their mind that came by and said this is what you’re gonna do and you’re gonna start going in and out I was it I was actually more offended they told someone my problems I was like you don’t even know him and you tell me my problems you know and all that kind of stuff and tell me missing that the blessing that it happened that day but what that did it did get me into a program I got me into an AA and my mom went with me in the first gosh months she went with me every time because never when they didn’t trust me to drive myself and so she would go if it was open meeting she and my dad would go in if it was a cloud of meeting they would wait outside but they did that for months and so January 22 of 2008 was the last time I use drugs 

and it was a long road a very painful road of going through the steps I firmly believe in NA and AA I think if you can Fully give yourself to that program you will be successful for me and my relationship with Christ was huge my family support I mean I had a lot of things that other people don’t have and that I did have support my parents got some advice saying that I shouldn’t they shouldn’t my job should be recovery meetings that they shouldn’t make me work for a little while and they didn’t in my job was meetings I went to many sometimes many a day I mean I went to a lot of meetings I went to I could go to church and I could go to meetings and that’s it I could have people over that they need to their home and then they started letting me have my NA group over which was awesome. And so they would come over my mom would cook and they would my mom and dad will sit at the table and I remember them saying like I remember one time them saying everybody just looks so confused but they were like you know what an honor it is for us to sit with a bunch of survivors here at this table you know and thank you for coming and I remember them just like wow that’s crazy you know my parents you know we’re seemingly they live in a beautiful home in and they just welcomed those that were you know maybe not welcome in other places they were welcome there

And they were pretty amazing and said they provided a lot of support to even my group my NA group and so I just worked the program.  Work the program and I went to counseling and Carson went to counseling and we pushed and push through a lot Carson continue to struggle so much and it was hard just never could find us a place in the world and it was hard it’s difficult very difficult thing I divorced my husband Way divorced and you know I started going back to church I joined a Sunday school class of women they were all older than me so it was really kind of neat you know I felt really loved and they didn’t really know about what was going on and I remember when I was finally ready to tell them I had them come over and I was going to that class even when I was using that same class I was still going because I was trying to kind of put up a front and so when I had them over and just shared everything you know they were just kind of blown away but at the same time super supportive and ready to step in and love and support and it was a God had me with those women older than me for a reason you know they were able to really just wrap their arms around me and they refused to give up you know

KA So much grace

CM Lots lots lots of grace

KA All over you

LOTS OF GRACE 

KELLY

Once Casey finally began making progress toward freedom, with the help of her parents, her recovery groups, and her dear friends, she realized how much this lie had stolen from her. She resolved to call this lie out and walk in truth instead.

CM Lots of grace and I think I didn’t really appreciate it back then looking back I really appreciate I remember being thankful but I just don’t remember I just don’t remember really realizing that it was Grace may be like I didn’t really realize it was Grace and because I had lied to them you know there was an ad there was an a person in my life that had been truthful with about anything

KA Not even your self

CM Not even myself because I believed everything I was telling everybody else you know and so I believed that Grace was there for me and I knew that but it was difficult road try to get to the point where I was willing to except the grace that was already offered already given especially for from Jesus like He just was waiting for me to say I need you you know and I accept you know waiting for me to ask for forgiveness and have that grace port over me and me except the grace and I think that’s where I struggle so long it was just it’s still that very that nagging you’re not worth the grace you’re not worth praying to Jesus he doesn’t wanna hear you you betrayed him you’ve hurt him you’ve you know all the things you know that was just Satan filling my head in so that but going through this 12 steps was pretty liberating you know if you can truly go through them and so that that allowed me to just put away some of that and go through there the ninth step you know of going and asking for making amends was kind of crazy but it was healing very very healing it was tough

KA OK so what are the 12 steps For people who don’t know

CM so the 12 steps of recovery so it’s a program through AA and NA and it is literally 12 steps it’s about it goes through a gamut of things but it’s basically the first as admitting you have a problem it starts with that if you if you can’t get to the point where you met you have a problem in your life is in manageable than then you can’t do anything else so it goes from that it goes from doing at moral inventory of yourself like looking back and seeing where your defects of character like you know what has happened because alcohol and drug abuse in any abuse or any any addiction is usually not the root problem there’s usually something under there that’s the surface problem but the root problem there’s something that got you to that point very rarely is it just like hey I was just trying to have a good time and then all The sudden I’m addicted usually there’s some thing that you’re either escaping running from blocking out numbing out there’s some thing that drives it especially further into your addiction because when you say things falling apart a normal person would say I am stop OK that’s it but if you have an addiction you’ve got things are a feeling that addiction is very difficult to stop my husband now has no experience with addiction and he’s like he’s a pastor and he’s like people come to me with addiction and I’m like it’s killing you quit doing it

KA Right

CM Like just don’t do it again and I’m like babe if it were only that easy we’re going through this 12 steps doing the moral inventory finding out where those defects of character are going back making a list of people you’ve harmed I mean

KA That’s humbling

CM That is then going to them making amends and then putting in practice carrying the message in 

Staying Clean 

KELLY

It was a lot of hard work to make sure that truth was dominating Casey’s life, and not the lie that had led to her addiction. But she had seen the damage with clear eyes now, and she was never going back.

She began to build a new life. It wasn’t easy, but it was beautiful in its own unexpected way.

so that’s kind of what to me has kept me over the years still clean is that I’ve been in after all that to sponsor other people so you know that your accountable to people and their their sobriety or their reminding clean is somewhat during the steps is dependent on you remaining clean and so I began to sponsor people almost immediately not immediately but almost immediately once finishing the steps and getting some time under my belt and that was probably I think a sponsor my first person may be a year and a half into being clean and you know that’s just something that it was a way of life for me and even now you know all these years later I pop in to meetings I go to meetings from time to time I don’t sponsor anybody right now but I’m a pastor‘s wife and so I have a lot of accountability in my life now so that’s I’ll tell that story as well you know it’s just kind of like I just I don’t know it’s hard for me to see how people make it without some kind of structured program whether it be rehab for me it Hass to be Christ centered AA and NA our Christ centered they talk about a higher power well the higher power is God to me and so without something like that I don’t I have a hard time seeing how people can do it without that I’m not saying that it can’t be done but in my experience and for me you know my addiction was meth but you know once I became clean from meth since that January of 08 I don’t I never drink I don’t drink I anything. And the reason for that for me is because I have been in those rooms for so many years and I’ve seen people who alcohol was never their issue so they think while I can have an occasional drink and nine times out of 10 they go right back to what they really want and that’s how I have to tell myself like Casey if you drink you’ll go back to using and do I think that I mean I can still do think that I mean part of me thinks when you’re so far down it’s probably not a big deal but do you want to risk it and that answer is a hard no I do not want to risk it and I won’t and there has been times in my I’ve been challenged in my clean living life that I have wished very much that I could numb things out that I could escape I’ve had some difficult things happen in my life since then. 

KELLY

Casey had to choose to live differently, without any escape routes. But this meant that she could share the same kind of unconditional love that she had received from others for so many years. You can’t fully love someone unless you allow yourself to hurt with them. That’s what Casey’s parents had learned, and now Casey was about to learn that with her own son.

That that was really tough for me back in 2014 I believe 15,14 or 15 Carson told me that he was gay and I it was devastating at first I mean very very devastated I mean I just felt responsible like I caused it because of not having a father in his life I mean you know those kinds of things like I i.e. you know even though my dad was very involved and he and Carson were very close I was like man I miss you know all the things I wasn’t paying attention to him and he I mean I was fine with him at 14 years old just letting me know where you are because that would let me be in there use drugs and not be interrupted and not have to feel guilty for what he’s doing if he’s out having fun doing whatever I didn’t even ask Jack didn’t have the parents didn’t know the kids I mean I just let him do whatever and so I blame myself a lot for that and as a Christian it was just it was hard for me to reconcile that in my head and you know how to really tough time with it but God just we just had some serious conversations and he just told me I mean I remember

Jesus said love

Jesus said love. That’s your child that’s my child you laugh love that child and we had a talk in the beginning about what I thought what he thought biblically born with that choice we’ve been the whole gamut of all those talks and then that’s it we don’t talk about that anymore I left him I show him grace and love and how Christ loves him and if I were to turn my back on him since I am he is probably strongest connection to Christ mastering me I didn’t know Carson was Christian he became a Christian at nine years old but I am or I am his Christian figure in his life so I turn my back on him I mean that’s just not gonna happen do I wish for a different life for him sometimes I do did live the life that he lives is a difficult one there’s it’s a it can be a painful life I mean there’s still a lot of a lot of prejudice there’s still a lot of things that go in that direction I worry for a safety a lot of times but but I love him and my love is not changed nor has anyone else is left for him changed you know my parents my mom you know Carson told my mom before she died and I think that was good for him you know she knew about a year or so before she died that he was gay and I think it would’ve been harder for him has she passed in him never have told her because they were very very close and so you know that was a time there was a time you know I wish I could have some of this out but it wasn’t an option for me and Carson needed me to be be his mom and love him unconditionally like I have been loved unconditionally and you know as Christians and not really as Christians as religious put people people like to say well the sin is this Or so that sin as worse you know if you do this then we’re gonna we’re leaving the church of that we are if you as a pastor’s wife support that we’re out into that I say bye I mean because I guess the way I look at that is why we all have sin a real lives in yes as a human people on earth we do have would you look at murder different than lying but in God’s eyes it’s on the same and so why am I gonna look at what people consider him asked to be like well that is unforgivable I mean that’s why that’s why so many in that community have got their walls up against anything church because they’ve been judge cast out talked about you know I mean so much of that and so and it goes for all it goes for all sin you know we are we’re supposed to be a church that loves the person you know and we we just can’t sit in judgment I mean I’ll look at my life the things that I don’t even speak about that idea did to get my hands on drugs is nothing worse than anybody else around here and they’re saying there’s some send that’s very public there’s some sent that’s extremely private but it’s all sin and you know and so I just I have felt a real you know like you know just an affinity toward that community that they know that Christ loves them and that they the man and maybe organize church has kicked them out that that’s not Christ and I just I’m just going not going to ever except that that’s the way some churches have done is right in anyway you know we went my dad and a bunch of friends we went to the pride parade two or three years ago and did the free mom hugs free dad hugs we did that and it was absolutely beautiful it was it was very sad in a lot of ways because there’s so many people there that had never even hadn’t been having their dad in 10 years of that in 10 years because they found out they were gay and they’re like you’re out of our family

Free Mom Hugs

Or they kicked out of church I couldn’t believe that we would pray with them and would pray over them because they people they knew would’ve never had anything to do with them like that that we were that day we were the hands and feet of Christ that day and I remember just down from us there was a guy on a bull horn saying how God hates you and you know I I was thinking shut up like you are ruining it for us you are a Pharisee and a religious person we are Christian and we are shining Christ’s love we are very different. we we did that for on a hot August day on concrete down in Oaklawn we gave sweaty hugs all day long you know and I miss that we can’t even hug anymore I miss that but but that meant so much to Carson to I mean they’re my dad was his free dad hugs and his cowboy hat and you know down there as a 75-year-old man I’m like yes and so many of Carson‘s friends were like man like I can’t believe you did this like my family would never do this and it wasn’t that were down there saying that we’re celebrating you’re saying like yes this is this is right or wrong we were making statements like that it wasn’t like about going down there with any kind of agenda if we had an agenda it was love and it was letting people know that they are loved and then they are worth it and though they feel cast out they are not and especially not by us or Christ so it’s pretty special a pretty special time if my mom would’ve been alive she would’ve been all over that yeah

KA Oh that’s super sweet

KELLY

Over the course of time, Casey’s mom passed away. But not before Casey had a chance to reconcile and spend several years giving back that unconditional love.

CM She would’ve been all over that you know she she was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and she it was a slow growing cancer it was a new a Nuro endocrine carcinoma it was slow growing it started in her small bowels but spread to her lymph nodes by the time they found it was in a liver in her lymph nodes it was pretty much everywhere but one positive thing was that it didn’t respond to chemo so she never took chemo which in one sense of scared because chemo so hard on the other since there is no cure so she lives six years 6 1/2 years and it was some of the best best years she I was two years clean when she was diagnosed with cancer and I was so grateful to God for that because I could I wasn’t running out was present I was with her I could be with her through anything and everything I was able to be strength for her and had zapped her strength for so many years you know I just taken everything from her and she still chat with me you know I was able to do that and I was so grateful like God you knew you knew that your timing was perfect and that I would be in for her that I could be OK and that she wasn’t going to die wondering where I was you know and it was it was very special was a very special time and she was diagnosed in 2010 I met Greg and we were married and 11 and so that was really that was special to have him in that journey with me and I think God gave him to me tonight have that journey alone you know with my mom was very very close yeah she was wonderful woman

KA Can absolutely have great parents so looking back but would you tell your young self

CM I think I love it stems from you know you’re your creation of Christ what’s not to love you know what is not to love and I I didn’t grow up in a family that made me feel bad about myself or was putting pressure on me for anything I grew up in a great family so where I where I let that come in I’m not really sure I didn’t have an experience growing up I mean I was always a little bit may be a little heavier but I was also an athlete you know I play softball all the time so I mean looking back I look back at pictures of myself in high school what was that I was so so worried about how it looked I was fine you know and so I don’t really know where all that came in but you know maybe just more of believing in what God is created you to be and not being so hard on yourself and I see now this world is even harder on kids and I think man how are they making it through you know I had the best set up and I still blew it and I still blew it and I had such a good role models and strong believers and you know my mom was just a warrior for Christ in us she just she just was you know she the last I guess three weeks of her life I just stayed up there in Dallas in Mesquite and I just stayed there and just helped and watched her she just was just beautiful till her last breath and you know people were coming in brown just one after another wanted to see her and you know she would be asking them how she could pray for them and you know I mean I’m talking like it’s unheard of it just is in her memorial service we had like 1100 people there and it was just so it was so humbling as her daughter to hear what people say were saying about her I knew those things but I was like it wasn’t just me it was like everybody and someone posted on Facebook like the next day they said they were at Judy Rawl‘s memorial with 1100 of her best friends that’s really what it was. She was wonderful they were married 53 almost 53 years and 52 1/2 years and just a great great time and even my dad a memorial service said that the last three weeks of her life were the sweetest of their entire marriage because it was when it was coming and she was so ready to go and everything was raw and real and nothing left and sad I mean absolutely nothing left and said and people that is such a gift that doesn’t happen a lot I mean people are either taking tragically quickly or they don’t get that time and we just we just wallered in it I mean we really did and it was really special it was very special 

KA Well I love your story it’s beautiful it’s absolutely beautiful

CM It’s funny now I look back and I’m like wow like I need to write a book I mean meth attic to preachers wife like how did you get in there like something about a God sense of humor or something like that it’s marrying Greg and being a pastor swipe in Eden and he’s a pastor of a cowboy church so not only not a cowgirl but I’m also a meth attic and now my pastor‘s wife and it’s just it works perfect I don’t know it just it just works

KA. Wow that’s just awesome well thank you so much is there anything else you wanna add

CM Trying to think if there’s anything else I don’t think so I think I’ve pretty much covered it all I guess I guess one thing I will end this is something that’s important to me all the way back when I was when I was pregnant with Carson my mom said this one thing to me she said don’t let your suffering go to waste she said don’t let what you’re going through right now what you will go through just fall on deaf ears you use that to give people hope that even in the deepest and darkest suffering that there is hope in Christ and I’ve never forgotten that and that’s been several in several periods of my life I repeated that to myself and I even now I’m talking to people. You’re going through a really difficult times if you can see that that there is hope that what they’re going through right now doesn’t have to be defined them it doesn’t have to be the end and that you know I think that I think that’s what we need in our world today is home for something better and for me with all the craziness going on in the world and the unrest in division I’m like but my hope isn’t in this world my hopes in Christ and how blessed am I that my hope is in Christ and I can put this world aside and just

KA Your mom smart smart

CM She’s a smart smart lady

KA. Wow that’s awesome that’s a very good word I love that

KELLY

Believing a lie is so much easier than believing the truth, isn’t it? Casey looks back on her life and sees how a tiny seed of deception was planted in her heart in high school, and how hard she had to work to cut it back once it had grown out of control. She wouldn’t have been able to do it without the unconditional love shown to her by her parents, her recovery group, her friends, and Jesus Christ. Her story is beautiful, and it’s nothing short of supernatural. God’s timing truly is perfect.

Thank you for joining us today on Qavah the Podcast. We pray that this story has given you hope, because that’s why we do what we do. Be sure to join us next time for (next episode)