The Sacred Place Podcast

Continuing our conversation with author, speaker, and minister Christopher D. Ransom.In Part 1, we began his testimony with Never Forgotten. In Part 2, we open his newest book, Seven Things They Can't Take From You: security, self-respect, self-love, self-esteem, stamina, strength, and self-care. We trace how each one was forged in his own life.Chris shares the road that made the book: publishing his first book at 25, receiving his minister's license at 24, and stepping into his first speaking engagement at 26. He takes us back to the jail cell at 18 that woke him up, the pastor who took him under his wing through community service hours, and the day he met his biological father and heard the Holy Spirit say, "I've always been your father."He opens up about living with Blount's disease: a rare bone disease, 6 surgeries, 16 scars, arthritis since age 16, and how learning to love the body God gave him became the foundation of his message. And with deep honesty, he talks about his brother Javari "Bari" Ransom: the athlete, the scholar, the brother who believed in him most, and the sudden loss that shook his prayer life to its core. "When you ask God to heal your brother and he decides to take him, that's different."If you're walking through grief, wrestling with identity, or learning to love yourself again, this conversation is for you.Chapters:0:00 Welcome back to the Sacred Place1:03 Publishing Never Forgotten at 256:17 The jail chapter10:15 Pastor B and the road to ministry12:46 Meeting his biological father15:15 Blount's disease and self-love17:16 Self-love before self-respect19:28 Remembering Javari22:26 October 17th: the call23:37 "Bro, can you pray for me?"26:01 Faith shaken, never in question27:14 The seven things that carry you28:53 A word for young men31:31 Where to find ChristopherFind Christopher:Instagram / Facebook / TikTok / YouTube: Christopher D. RansomChristopherDRansom.comNever Forgotten and Seven Things They Can't Take From You, available nowFollow the Sacred Place Podcast:Instagram / TikTok: @thesacredplace2025YouTube: @TheSacredPlacePodcastthesacredplacepodcast.comIf this encouraged you, share it with someone you love. Subscribe to the Sacred Place Podcast on YouTube, or follow us on Spotify.Hosted by Ashley Doxey. Until next time, may you keep growing in the knowledge that you are seen, known, and loved by God.

At 14 years old, Christopher D. Ransom learned the man he called Dad wasn't his biological father.

In this episode of The Sacred Place, author, speaker, and minister Christopher D. Ransom shares his testimony: from a childhood marked by a bone disease and six surgeries, years of feeling misunderstood in school, and a crisis of identity, to discovering who he was in God.

Christopher opens up about the conversation with his mother that changed everything, learning he'd scored 129 on an IQ test after years of being told he wasn't smart enough, and the painful breakup at 21 that brought him to the lowest point of his life - and to real faith.

He also shares how those experiences shaped his calling today: mentoring young men in San Diego and helping them believe in themselves the way someone once believed in him.

This is part 1 of a 2-part conversation.

In part 2, Christopher unpacks his newest book, Seven Things They Can't Take From You, and how grief, disappointment, and purpose shaped its message.

If this episode encouraged you, share it with someone who needs to hear it today.

Stay in touch with Chris:

Website: www.christopherdransom.com

Instagram: @christopherdransom

Facebook: Christopher D. Ransom

TikTok: @christopherdransom

YouTube: @christopherdransom

Keep up with The Sacred Place Podcast:

Website: thesacredplacepodcast.com

Instagram: @thesacredplace2025

YouTube: @TheSacredPlacePodcast

TikTok: @thesacredplace2025

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Chapters:
00:00 — Welcome to The Sacred Place
01:47 — Meet Christopher D. Ransom and his 2 books
02:22 — The conversation at 14 that changed everything
05:38 — Finding Jesus at his lowest point
08:13 — The boy behind the diagnosis
09:52 — Scoring 129 on the IQ test
11:56 — Labeled in kindergarten: the IEP story
14:23 — The teacher who believed in him
17:11 — Mentoring the next generation
20:10 — What's in a last name: identity and adoption
25:34 — Brothers, childhood memories, and grief
29:18 — What birthed "Never Forgotten"
32:28 — Closing and what's coming in part 2

Julie Alejandra Lee was living her dream: homeschooling six children, cloth diapering, married to a man who said "divorce is not an option" and meant it. Travian was her provider, her partner, her everything. They had a song - "You and I" by Stevie Wonder. They had vows. They had a plan to grow old together in their church.Then he collapsed.What follows is a medical nightmare: organ failure with no diagnosis, hospital bureaucracy that doesn't care about your trauma, discharge pressure that could have killed him faster, and a diagnosis of non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis, acute heart failure, and pulmonary embolisms - none of which explained why a 40-year-old athlete with a strong heart was dying.But what really unfolds is a spiritual reality check.Titus, Julie's son, saw his father's grave before it existed. Julie had a vision 13 years prior - on a curb, crying, knowing exactly how this would end. And in the ICU, while machines beeped and nurses cried and doctors prepared for the worst, Julie worshiped. She sang their song. She gave permission for the man she loved to go home.This is not an episode about why God let this happen. It's about what it means to trust God anyway. It's about a mother of six figuring out finances alone. It's about grief that doesn't look like weakness. And it's about how sometimes, the miracle isn't healing... it's peace.If you've ever wondered if faith is real when everything falls apart, listen to Julie.

Born without a voice. Told she'd never speak, never sing, never be normal. God had a different plan. Julie Alejandra Lee grew up to become a classically trained opera singer - a living miracle of surrender and faith.But this episode isn't about that miracle. It's about what happens when you've given everything to God and He asks you to give more.In just one week before sitting with us, Julie made the most devastating decision a mother, wife, and believer could face. But before we walk through that year - the hospital rooms, the impossible choices, the faith that doesn't break but bends - we need to understand who she is at her core.Julie doesn't live like she has options. She lives like she has one choice: surrender. We trace that journey from a girl the doctors wrote off to a woman married to a man she loved as fiercely as she loves God. 15 years together. Children. A love story that looked like what faith is supposed to look like.Then September 2025 changed everything.Part 1 is the foundation. It's the before. It's the answer to the question: How do you find strength you didn't know you had?Come back next week for Part 2.

TRIGGER WARNING: Today's conversation covers physical and sexual abuse, including some specific details of guest's experience. If that's not something you can hear right now, it's okay to sit this one out or come back to it later. If you stay, know that this conversation exists because someone was brave enough to speak, and that in itself can be part of healing.If anything in this episode affects you personally, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233, and RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-656-4673. You can also go to thehotline.org-Recorded live at B Well Con, Ashlie Doxey sits down with Twyla Green: the San Diego Hair Doctor, trichologist, and founder of the transformative B Well Con wellness event."Grace is what brought me my peace. Grace is what brought me my balance." In part 2 of this powerful conversation, The Sacred Place Podcast sits down with Twyla Green - the San Diego Hair Doctor - to explore the journey from trauma to transformation. Twyla doesn't sugarcoat her story. She talks openly about childhood molestation and how it shaped her path to motherhood. At 26, she gave birth to her son Kendall, with a man she met in prison. She was so stressed during her pregnancy that she delivered 3 months early. Kendall spent 2 months in the incubator. But he made it. Today, he's a straight-A student at North Carolina A&T studying medical science, he's got a partnership with Walt Disney World, and he's an incredible dancer. He's her greatest inspiration. But Twyla's story doesn't start with Kendall. It starts with her. With hair loss in her crown. With a desire to stop teaching women to hide their problems and start helping them heal. That calling led her back to school for trichology certification through the United States Trichology Institute and the American Medical Certification Association. From there came B Well Con - an event that grew from 25 women in her hair clinic to 125 women at the Ronald Reagan Center. And now, Twyla is launching her San Diego Hair Doctor product line, including Aloe RX and Golden Almond RX. In this episode, Ashlie and Twyla dig into balance, obedience, and what it means to find your grace in the middle of your mess. This is a conversation for anyone navigating trauma, motherhood, business, and faith all at once. Follow Twyla: @HairDocSD on Instagram, Twyla Green on Facebook.Products and mentorship info available.#TwylaGreen #BeWellCon #SanDiegoHairDoctor #SacredPlacePodcast #TraumaToTriumph #FaithHealing #Testimony #WholesomeWellnessKEYWORDS:San Diego Hair Doctor, Be Well Con, Twyla Green, foster care trauma, abuse survivor, trauma recovery, spiritual healing, testimony, overcoming adversity, faith, purpose

TRIGGER WARNING: Today's conversation covers physical and sexual abuse, including some specific details of guest's experience. If that's not something you can hear right now, it's okay to sit this one out or come back to it later. If you stay, know that this conversation exists because someone was brave enough to speak, and that in itself can be part of healing.If anything in this episode affects you personally, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233, and RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-656-4673. You can also go to thehotline.org-Recorded live at Be Well Con, Ashlie Doxey sits down with Twyla Green: the San Diego Hair Doctor, trichologist, and founder of the transformative B Well Con wellness event.Twyla opens up about surviving molestation and intense physical abuse between ages six and eleven in the foster care system. She walks through her breaking point at 11 (a cast iron skillet moment), and the intelligence and faith that got her out. But the harder conversation comes next: how she carried rage and violence as armor through high school gang affiliations in Southeast San Diego, the abandonment she felt when her mother needed her to mother 6 siblings instead, and the slow, painful work of God chiseling away the hardness to reveal who she was actually called to be.This is part 1 of a 2-part conversation. Part 2 drops next week. Follow The Sacred Place Podcast to be notified.#TwylaGreen #BeWellCon #SanDiegoHairDoctor #SacredPlacePodcast #TraumaToTriumph #FaithHealing #Testimony #WholesomeWellnessKEYWORDS:San Diego Hair Doctor, Be Well Con, Twyla Green, foster care trauma, abuse survivor, trauma recovery, spiritual healing, testimony, overcoming adversity, faith, purpose

In Part 2, Randy gets specific about something most churches don't talk about: how they treat divorced men.He was playing at a church in Sacramento when an usher asked about his wife. The moment he mentioned divorce, she said: "That's not biblical."He wasn't offended. But it opened his eyes to a problem: the church judges without knowing the full story. And divorced men (and anyone who's failed) feel that judgment.But Randy's not bitter. He's become something different: a mentor. For the past five years, he's been helping young men navigate the exact temptations that broke his marriage. Musicians heading on tour. Men in high-temptation industries. Young guys trying to stay pure and keep their minds right.He talks about what temptation actually looks like. Not just the act, but the thoughts. The drink. The woman in the third row. He talks about accountability partners who text and check in. He talks about the war that's happening inside, and how most men are fighting it alone.And then he shifts into something deeper: worship in spirit and in truth. This is what God is actually looking for. Not perfection. Not the appearance of holiness. But radical honesty.That honesty is what saved Randy. And it's what he wants to save other men from what almost destroyed him.But the moment that's going to change how you think about God: Randy standing in front of a mirror during communion. God whispers through the Holy Spirit: "Look at the blood. That's what I see. I don't see you. I see the blood."That's grace. That's what God is saying to every person carrying shame, every man the church has written off, every person who thinks they're too far gone.

In honor of Father's Day, Ashlie sits down with Randolph Ellis III : a real estate agent, saxophonist, pastor's kid, and man navigating faith after divorce. Randy shares the raw truth: how his father mandated he play saxophone as a child (he hated it), how he met Ashlie through mutual friends, and most importantly, the night his father came to him in a dream after Randy's infidelity in his marriage. "I need you to clean that up," his father said. God wasn't pleased. This is a story about spiritual warfare, rock bottom, and what it means to be held accountable by the men who shaped you. But that dream spoke to him. Hear how Randy walked into complete honesty with God, found redemption through Christ's power, and is now learning what it means to be a man of faith when the church doesn't always leave room for divorced men. This is the beginning of a conversation that goes deeper in Part 2.#christianpodcast #christianwomen #christianmen #thesacredplacepodcast

What are you leaning on? (PART 2) That's the core question of Psalm 33 and it's never been more relevant than it is right now. In ancient times, nations put their hope in military might. Horses and armies determined survival. Today, we've just changed what we worship: money, credentials, influence, reputation, our ability to figure it all out. The psalmist says all of it is vain hope. But then he shifts: "The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him. On those whose hope is in His unfailing love." This episode breaks down:• Why joy isn't what you think it is (it's not a feeling, it's a fruit)• The difference between proximity to God and participation with Him• How God delivers you IN famine, not after• What "fear of the Lord" actually means (reverence, not terror)• Why fruit takes time to grow (sometimes underground)• The marriage covenant metaphor: God walks with you through storms, not just sunny days• How you carry what David could only visit (the indwelling Holy Spirit) Ashlie also shares a transparent moment about joy in transition: when equipment fails, plans fall apart, and you still choose to rejoice. If you're waiting on God and wondering if He's forgotten you, or if you've been leaning on something other than Him for your peace, this teaching lands hard. Join us LIVE on June 27th at the B.Well Convention : https://www.bwellconvention.com/

When was the last time you were genuinely joyful? Not happy, joyful. That deep, settled thing underneath everything else that doesn't shift when circumstances do.In Part 1 of Episode 16, Ashlie opens Psalm 33 and walks through what it actually means to sing to the Lord in the middle of a valley, not from a mountaintop. She unpacks the real David: a man who had every reason to be bitter, broken, and done, and yet kept praising.She digs into the Hebrew roots of worship, "chesed", "ranan", "yatab", and what it means that the God whose breath made the stars is intimately aware of everything you're walking through right now.This episode covers:Why joy isn't a feeling and what happens when you contain it too longWhat "chesed" (covenant love) actually means and why it's bigger than any English word can holdThe discipline of worship David built into an entire nation and what we've lostWhy no plan formed against God's purpose in your life can standIf you've been in a hard season, wrestling with endurance, or just struggling to feel the joy you know should be there, this one is for you.Part 2 drops next. Don't go anywhere.