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The word holiness can feel like a verdict, especially if you’ve been burned by “standards” that sounded more like a measuring stick than good news. Kathy sits down with her pastor to untangle the knot: holiness as a life turned toward God, standards as practices that may flow from that love, and the harm that happens when we reverse the order. The conversation is tender, candid, and practical—rooted in real stories of backsliders who returned against all odds and found that God had been working the whole time.

We get honest about what keeps people away: the belief that you must fix everything before God will receive you, the sting of conference moments that celebrate strictness while fragile hearts shut down, and the old habit of wearing an image like armor. Kathy shares her own journey—fashion, jewelry, hair, and the gym culture that once defined her—and how God slowly reshaped identity from the inside out. The pastor offers a clear path: start with presence, not performance. Let love make surrender light. Fruit will follow the root.

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Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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A teenage romance. A gang neighborhood. A near-fatal drive-by and an overdose scare on the job. Then a quiet, stubborn decision by a young mom to move across town, climb on a church van with two babies, and keep walking to the altar for more than a decade. That’s the spine of this episode: the slow, steady courage that makes room for miracles.

We sit with Luis and Eileen Pena as they unpack the real story behind a 32-year marriage that almost didn’t make it. Eileen’s early encounter with God at 13 becomes a compass she returns to after parties, pain, and a divorce that upends her family. Lewis shares how belonging to a well-known gang brought status and danger—bullets flying, friends wounded, and a moment when a round missed his head by inches. He also talks about the day cocaine spiked his heart and he begged God not to let his kids attend his funeral. Through it all, one soundtrack repeats: a mother-in-law’s intercession and a wife’s refusal to stop showing up.

Tune in to hear the rest of their love story and how God showed up for them both.

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Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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A mother’s psychosis, a father’s kindness, and a daughter learning to trust God more than outcomes—this conversation traces how early wounds shape our faith and why secure love can tether a drifting heart. I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist and educator Danielle Cisneros to unpack trauma in a Pentecostal home, the silence that followed crises, and the loneliness that teaches kids to read rooms instead of resting in them. Danielle explains psychosis in clear, compassionate language, then shows how adaptive healing happens when safe people meet us where we are. Scripture became her refuge, but what truly rewired trust was a father who chose relationship over punishment and mentors who “mothered” her into wholeness.

We map how childhood survival strategies—control, people-pleasing, avoidance—break down in adult relationships and ministry. Healing doesn’t mean erasing the past; it means accepting reality, grieving what wasn’t, and practicing new responses until peace holds. We redefine ministry as meeting needs, not chasing titles—smiles, rides, protection, and presence where souls ache. And for anyone afraid to come back, we lay out simple first steps: watch a service online, fast from noise, read one psalm, write three sentences. Grace meets motion, and home starts with a single step.

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Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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A five-year-old meets God in a prayer meeting. A teenager discovers he doesn’t fit. A young preacher catches fire, then loses his footing in a storm of loneliness, loss, and regret. Years later, a desperate father bargains for his unborn child’s life on a Yosemite worksite—and God answers. This conversation with Michael Torres is the unvarnished arc of calling tested by catastrophe: from pulpit to prison to purpose.

We walk through the tender memories that formed him—Bible quizzes after school, old hymns on a white piano, the exact spot where he first felt called to preach. We name the ache of isolation and the pressure to fit that so many sensitive kids carry. We sit with the painful honesty of a marriage that should not have been, and a crisis of faith that followed. Michael explains how control became a counterfeit refuge that led to four bank robberies he planned in meticulous detail. Then the dragnet, the arrest, and the heat of a cell where he chose gratitude over bitterness and asked for a Bible.

It's not everyday, a preacher becomes a bank robber. Tune in a listen how God has redeemed his life and is rewriting his future!

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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Some stories grip you because they name the ache you’ve been carrying. Luis grew up in church, but grief took him someplace colder—anger he couldn’t shake, music that deepened the mood, and pornography he couldn’t confess. He didn’t storm out on God; hope just thinned until silence felt easier. When conviction finally met courage, he chose the terrifying route: tell the truth, trust a pastor, and let his wife see the parts he hid. What happened next reframed everything he believed about obedience, provision, and what strength looks like in a man.

We walk through the layered fallout of loss and secrecy, from the way our inputs shape our inner life to the subtle ways shame starves intimacy. Luis explains how fasting and prayer did different work—prayer softened him, fasting broke the bitterness. In the hardest year—jobless, living with his parents, expecting a new baby—doors opened he didn’t knock on: a surprise interview, early pay advanced for required tests, and a rental home against the odds. Those moments didn’t reward his goodness; they revealed God’s goodness and taught him to recognize the weight of God’s presence as glory, not guilt.

Listen in for the rest of his testimony.

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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Some stories arrive like a storm and leave the air clearer than before. Kathy sits down with April Martinez, who grew up loving church, survived years of hidden abuse, and then endured the whiplash of public blame and church hurt that pushed her out at sixteen. What follows is a fiercely honest journey through survival mode—protecting younger siblings, running from violence, two suicide attempts, foster care, and the aching desire to feel nothing at all—only to discover that numbness never heals what truth and mercy can.

The turning point comes through her son, Anthony. Diagnosed with a brain tumor at eleven, he finds faith with remarkable clarity: receiving the Holy Ghost, asking for baptism, and urging the family back toward God. One month after his baptism, Anthony passes at fourteen. April remembers the ride to the hospital as he prayed in tongues, his tenderness checking on her between waves of pain, and the unmistakable peace that settled in the room as he slipped away. The grief was crushing, but it did not have the final word. Breath by breath, April returned to the God she met as a child—the One who was safety before everything broke.

Across this conversation we unpack how trauma hides in plain sight, how shame keeps victims quiet, and how healthy boundaries are not bitterness but wisdom. We talk about reconciling with faith after church hurt, why a prayer closet can do what a platform cannot, and how a grandmother’s intercession can outlive a generation.

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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A label can feel like a sentence—until it becomes a testimony. Kathy sits down with Kayleen Mendez for a candid, unflinching conversation about growing up tender-hearted in church, slipping into control and secrecy, and the abusive marriage that shattered safety and trust. When drinking in her thirties opened the door to meth and homelessness, life narrowed to survival—hotel lobbies, gang threats, a brutal assault, and the numbing calculus of where to lay a head at night. Then came a stark inner warning: leave now or die. Kayleen walked nine miles to her parents while high, praying with every step for a door to open.

What follows is a blueprint for restoration that doesn’t pretend the road is easy. Teen Challenge slowed her down long enough to name the core wound—unhealed trauma and a lifelong hunger to be accepted. Released early with nowhere to go, she chose faith on empty: a train station floor, a welfare office, and the audacity to pray out loud for strangers. Enter the Abbotts, mentors who mixed backbone with tenderness, moving her from shelter to safety and from shame to steady steps. We talk about boundaries, gossip in the church world, and why direct questions—Are you sleeping together?—can save a life when paired with real support.

Listen in, for the rest of the story.

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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What if the people meant to protect you became the source of your deepest wounds—and yet grace still found a way to bring you home? Alicia’s testimony is a gripping, compassionate look at church hurt, childhood abuse, and the long road back from the occult, fear, and despair to a sound mind and real freedom. We walk through the moments that shaped her story: early prayer as a little girl, predatory adults hiding in plain sight, rebellion born from secrecy and shame, and a desperate search for identity that led to tarot cards, night terrors, and a suicide attempt interrupted by a voice that said, “Tell your mom.”

We don’t gloss over the hard parts. Together, we untangle the difference between holiness and outward standards, how legalism can become a stumbling block, and why true transformation lasts only when it grows from relationship with God. Alicia explains how deliverance met her in a simple prayer, how sleep paralysis fled at the name of Jesus, and how daily prayer and Scripture began to rewire a trauma-shaped brain. We talk about the “hedge of protection,” not as a threat from a punitive God, but as mercy from a Father who sees the trap ahead and calls us back before it snaps shut.

This is just part of Alicia's testimony. Listen for the rest of the story.

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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What happens when the daughter of respected Pentecostal leaders finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage and eventually walks away from church altogether? Stephanie Haney Montez shares her raw, unfiltered story of growing up in a "glass house" as the daughter of Joy and Kenneth Haney, and how that experience shaped her expectations, struggles, and eventual journey away from and back to faith.

This powerful conversation pulls no punches as Stephanie reveals the warning signs she missed in her abusive marriage, the isolation and fear that kept her silent, and the difficult process of escaping both physically and emotionally. Her candid sharing about miscarriage, depression, and questioning God creates space for anyone who has wrestled with similar experiences.

You can follow Stephen on her Facebook, Instagram or YouTube pages under @ACupofReal

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California

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When spiritual leaders become sources of harm rather than healing, the damage can reach to the very core of a person's identity and faith. Dr. Peridot Gilbert-Reed joins host Kathy Chastain to unpack the complex reality of spiritual abuse—a topic both personal and professional for this psychologist specializing in religious trauma.

Dr. Gilbert-Reed offers a powerful framework for understanding this often-misidentified form of harm, explaining how spiritual abuse occurs when authority figures use manipulation, coercion, and scripture-twisting to control others. She shares her own journey through both overt and covert religious abuse, and how these painful experiences ultimately shaped her professional work helping others heal from similar wounds.

The conversation distinguishes between religion (organized, communal) and spirituality (personal, individualized)—a crucial distinction for those who've been hurt by religious institutions but still desire a relationship with God. This explains why many become what researchers call "dones"—done with organized religion but not done with their faith journey.

For more information from Dr. Reed, visit her website at www.peridotreed.com

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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:

Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:

God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California