Samantha Jackel was raised in an Australian country town, the fourth child to alcoholic parents. Instead of finding love at home she encountered manipulation and abuse. She suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, but even in the midst of the trauma, there were moments that held out a hope for the future. Her autobiography, My Purple Pants, tells about her road to transformation. In 2014, she was named as Mother of the Year in her home state of...
Samantha Jackel was raised in an Australian country town, the fourth child to alcoholic parents. Instead of finding love at home she encountered manipulation and abuse. She suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, but even in the midst of the trauma, there were moments that held out a hope for the future. Her autobiography, My Purple Pants, tells about her road to transformation. In 2014, she was named as Mother of the Year in her home state of Victoria.
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(This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)
Emily Olsen
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.
Rodney Olsen
Thanks for listening. You can follow Bleeding Daylight and connect to our social media channels by following the links at bleedingdaylight.net Please share Bleeding Daylight episodes and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Today’s guest was raised in a country town, the fourth child to alcoholic parents. Instead of finding love at home she encountered manipulation and abuse. Today we’ll hear her story of finding hope and healing.
Samantha Jackel suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, but even in the midst of the trauma, there were moments that held out a hope for the future. Her autobiography, My Purple Pants, tells about her road to transformation. In 2014, she was named as Mother of the Year in her home state of Victoria in Australia. It's a real honor to have her join me on Bleeding Daylight. Samantha, thank you so much for your time.
Samantha Jackel
It's a pleasure, Rodney, thanks for having me.
Rodney Olsen
Let's go back to your earliest memories. Tell me about your very early family life.
Samantha Jackel
Look, my earliest memories would be of my mother and father arguing constantly and hiding in a bedroom with my hands over my head trying to drown out the noise and escape to another place and I would have been around four when I think that's around that age, when I had those experiences of just wanting to escape my screaming mom and dad, my father was an alcoholic. So he would often come home in a very aggressive, abusive state. And because I was the youngest of my siblings, I was home with my mom. And I would watch them interact. And even though I was so little, I still felt this incredible fear as my father would enter the house. So they would be my very first memories of my childhood.
Rodney Olsen
And who made up your family at that stage.
Samantha Jackel
Yeah, so I have a brother and two other sisters, and there was quite a large gap. So my brother is 10 years older than me. And then my two sisters are eight and six years older than me. And I was kind of conceived because my mother believed that if she had another child, and if it was a boy, that that little boy would save the marriage that was falling apart. And I think from the day I was born, mum rejected me. She really wanted a boy and she made that known to me, right throughout my life, that if I was a boy, I was I would have saved the marriage that her life would have been different.
Rodney Olsen
That's a really hard burden to carry for a young child. And what was the other siblings? Like at this stage? How would they coping with the things that were going on in the family,
Samantha Jackel
My brother moved out very young, and my other two sisters, they hung around for as long as they had to, and then they moved out as well. I mean, it was an uncomfortable setting. My mum did leave my father when I was quite young. So when I was around six, she moved us from a country town on one side of Victoria to the other side of Victoria to another country town, and just kind of moved straight in with another guy and my oldest siblings found that very difficult because it was mashing two families together. And it certainly wasn't The Brady Bunch or what you imagine, you know, from, from television that coming together, they the two families did not mesh together very well. So my siblings moved out of home as soon as they could.
Rodney Olsen
And your stepfather? What was he like?
Samantha Jackel
Yeah, he was a lovely man, a gentlemen, not really prepared for what he was going to be taking on with, you know, with my family. But I have amazing memories of him fond memories of my stepfather. He was always incredibly kind to me very loving, and very accepting of me. Unfortunately, my mother as, as they spent more and more time together, my mother turned to alcohol because she had this void in her life. So my father, my stepfather, really tried to avoid her sorry, he would go to bed very early before she started ranting and would be out of the house very early in the mornings. And I guess at that point, the rants were left to me to handle.
Rodney Olsen
And at this stage, you're seeing that relationships between adults are always fractured, which is not a great base to build from, is it?
Samantha Jackel
No. And absolutely, you know, I did have a friend that I used to go to her house all the time, a Christian friend from school, and I would notice her parents not arguing or yelling, it was kind of a really weird space to be in to see her parents interacting differently. And it felt good. So when I would go home, and what my norm was, you know, I started as a kid wondering, you know, Why are my parents like this? And why is her parents like that? and wanting more and more in my own heart, my parents to be more like her parents.
Rodney Olsen
You mentioned that right from the time that you were born because you weren't a boy. There was this resentment towards you. How did that play out in the subsequent years?
Samantha Jackel
I think it started off at a very young age. My mom was a very manipulative lady, and she had manipulated the situation. So I learned much later on in life that she called me Samantha because my father couldn't pronounce the word. He would say 'Samanfa', he couldn't get the 'th' and so he actually shortened my name to Sarman, s a m a n, because he couldn't get that 'th' out. But I was told that it was because he was in denial that I was a girl. And he couldn't bring himself to acknowledging that I was a girl. So he would call me Saman. And so from a very young age, you know, my mom used the fact that I was a girl to manipulate me to emotionally blackmail me, you know, she would say, you know, if you're a boy, your father would have loved us more, and you want to save the marriage. And I just grew up with that. So I actually found that it was much later in life, like in my 20s, that I realized that it wasn't my fault that that marriage broke down. My brother who was a I grew up believing that I destroyed the marriage because I wasn't a boy. And because she had so many webs of manipulation and deception in our family. They all believed her too. So it wasn't until we were in our 20s, when we sat down and talk that we realize that what had been said and how stupid it was, you know, our eyes were kind of open, hang on, you know, a child's not going to destroy the marriage. Now, just because you were a girl, that it was already destroyed. There was already problems that wasn't you that caused the problems.
Rodney Olsen
And again, we see this pattern so often in in all sorts of abuse, whether it be emotional abuse, or physical abuse, or whatever, that the victim is often blamed. And we see there's blame for something that the victim has no control over, you had no control over. Whether you would be born as a boy or a girl. And yet you're being blamed for that. This seems to be the way of manipulation of so many abusers.
Samantha Jackel
That's right. And then what happens is, you become an incredibly guilty, so then you you are constantly working out of this place of guilt. So I became an incredible people pleaser, I would do anything my mother asked and protect her because I felt so guilty that I had destroyed her life, my mom and then would take it to a new level. And so I you know, I would do anything at all to protect her to look after her lie, I would tell her stories. That emotional abuse then with my mother turned into a sexual abuse, which we don't often hear about, but it is actually way more common than we know. And then outworked in that. And again, I would protect my mom, you know that she was a good mom that she loved me that she showed me love. Even though I ruined her marriage, she still loved me. And she still was taking care of me. And I didn't deserve that, that he she was giving me everything she had, even though I was the worst child in the world. And I'm talking about an eight year old, you know, a seven year old processing this and thinking through it and really truly believing that my place in my life was to make my mum feel better.
Rodney Olsen
At what age did this sexual abuse from your mother begin?
Samantha Jackel
I'm not really sure when it began, and I'm not really sure the exact time it finished, I can just remember, it didn't happen anymore. And that would have been probably around the age of early teens where I suddenly realized our mum isn't asking me to come into her bedroom at night, or I'm not getting undressed in front of her. But I actually can't pinpoint exactly when I just know it kind of disappeared, because you got to understand, in some ways that was my normal. The only time I thought it was abnormal is when I would go to my friend's house and her parents, I would say to her, do you sleep with your mom? And she would be like, no, there would be times I think I'll wonder why she doesn't. But again, my mother would lay it on really heavy on me the fact that, you know, I owed her my life because I destroyed her marriage and I had destroyed her life by being a female. So, you know, I needed to look after her and she would manipulate me you know, she would keep me up late at night and say, you'll be the one that wheels me off the cliff. When I get old. You'll be the one that destroys my life. You're the one that's gonna throw me in the home and, and throw away the key and as a little kid, you know, I'd be there begging her No, mom, I'd never do that for you. I love you. I know that I hurt you. You know, when I was born, I hurt you and I am not a boy. But I tried to be a boy and and I was you know as quite a tomboy or tried to be to place her.
Rodney Olsen
I mentioned in the introduction that even during this traumatic childhood, there were moments that held hope out to you. Maybe you can tell me about one or two of those instances where you start to see a glimmer of hope and obviously one of them was visiting your friend and noticing that. Uh huh. There is something that's different, but I know that there were a couple of others.
Samantha Jackel
My friend Heidi, she was incredible and her family and they really didn't know what was going on in my home. But they introduced me to church and to God and to a whole different world. So on Sunday, they would drive down, we lived in a housing complex, it was full of a lot of domestic violence. And so it was kind of brave for them to come down sometimes into our area that would come down or pick me up and take me off to church or Sunday school, and then they would take me off to youth group when I got older. And so I knew there was a god. And I knew there was a love out there that came from God. And I had accepted Jesus, you know, God showed up in some incredible ways for me, even though it didn't take away from the abuse. And I think the time that stands out, in my mind the most words when I was 13, and, and life was really, really bad at this point, when mom was keeping me up to midnight, shouting at me and making me choose between her and my stepfather. And if I didn't choose the right one, she was going to commit suicide and, and so one day, I was just desperate. And I had saved up some money. And I had ridden my bike down the street and try it on these beautiful pair of pants, and they were purple. And I thought to myself, I'm going to buy them which normally I'd give it any money I had to my mother. So I felt very guilty that I was going to spend it on myself. And I tried these pants on and they were way more than my $6. So I lay by them thinking that maybe I'd be able to get the money or perhaps mum would do something and buy them for me and I rode my bike home. And our street, like I said, was full of domestic violence. So there was always yelling or cars burning off, there's always noise in our street. And this day, I was out the back of our yard swinging on a swing and the door was banged on. And my mom screamed at me, you know, to get the door. So I ran through the house to the front door, and no one was there. And the street was dead quiet. There was not a car inside, there was no kids playing there was no parents yelling, it was just dead quiet. I looked down. And right there was this paper bag, and on it had my name and I opened it up. And there was the pair of purple pants I had tried on in the morning. And I just remember feeling this incredible, like love is something I can't describe or articulate. I've jumped on my bike and I ride straight back down to the store. And I asked the woman you know, can you tell me? I came in I lay by these? Can you tell me who picked them up? And she looked at me and she said you did you came back in and pick them up? And I said No, I didn't. And she said, Yes, she did. And I walked out of there, not understanding what had happened. But understanding that there must be a God that loved me so so much that he would give me a pair of purple pants. And then many years later, I went back and I visited all those church friends. And I asked them, did you ever buy me these pants or not one of them did, I still to this day have no idea who paid for those pads. So if it was an angel that was like, look like me, that I know at that specific time that just showed me this incredible love of a father for a daughter of this God that was so big, and it didn't take away from the abuse, and the abuse didn't just disappear, but it gave me this sense that someone loved me so deeply. Something loved me so deeply. Why more deeply than my mother did. And my stepfather. At that stage.
Rodney Olsen
You mentioned that your siblings moved away from home as soon as they could. When did that start to happen for you? When did you start to look towards leaving that home?
Samantha Jackel
I was the opposite. I didn't want to leave the home because I thought that if I left the home, what right? Would I have to leave home? What right? Would I have to leave my mother? I owed her my life. So why would I leave her? You know, that would be incredibly selfish. And it wasn't until I was 18. And I had gone off to a three month Bible course. And through that time mom would constantly write me letters and tell me what a dreadful child I was because I had left her and how dare I do this. And I had been supported by a pastor to go out and do that three month course, because he knew something wasn't right at home. And I got back from that course and moved back in with my mom and it got really chaotic. And that pastor and his wife saw that how chaotic it was and often needed move in with them. And I said yes. And then I'd say no. And then I'd say yes and would plan a date and I would tell my mom, and then she would tell me you know that she was going to kill herself. She was going to I now have a half sister. She was going to kill my half sister. She was going to kill my stepfather if I moved out. So I'd ring the pastor and say I can't move in I'd make up all kinds of excuses. And then one day, it got to a point where I ran around to their home, my pastor and his wife in tears, banged on their door and told them that I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live with her. And they basically gave me an ultimatum and said, you know, if you don't move in on Monday, the offer's off the table, we're not going to offer our home to you. So you either have to move in, or you're not. And that was probably the hardest thing I've ever heard the toughest love I've ever been shine. But it put me in a position where I had to make that decision. And I did on that Monday, I packed up my room or my what I had, I only had a few clothes. And I moved in with my pastor and his wife. It was amazing. You know, it was hard. My mother actually then would ring him with a pastor and abuse him. And he took a lot that family took out a lot taking me in. But it was a step to freedom. It was a step getting out of her shadow, it was a step from getting out of her control,
Rodney Olsen
You've moved from this abusive situation into a much more loving situation and we'd like to think that everything just goes in the right direction but it's not always the way. What happened at that point.
Samantha Jackel
Look, I think I moved to Melbourne, I moved out of that country town and as far away as I could from my mother, I moved in with another family up here I attended a church in the inner city of Prahran. Got involved in church met a guy in church, fell in love. Now I had promised myself as a young child that anyone I kissed I was going to marry because I felt like that was the only sacred part of my body was my lips. That's the problem is I still haven't dealt with anything from my past, I've just now changed, I basically taken on a whole new personality. No one knew where I came from, never talked about my past, I was just a country girl probably lied a little bit about where I came from a rich family in the country or something like that, to different people. And I was never, I never lied to hurt them, but to cover up my past. So I was just so devastated and embarrassed. I didn't want anyone to know what it looked like. Eventually, that guy that I was dating, asked me to marry him. And I said yes. And he did Kiss me. And then as our engagement progressed, he started seeing cracks in my personality. And he wanted to meet my folks. And I was, I did not want him to meet my family. He was a bit confused about that. And while he did meet my mom, and it was a horrendous kind of introduction. She wasn't on her best behavior at all. And I remember traveling from the country back to Melbourne with him in silence, not knowing what to say to him. And from that point, our relationship started to deteriorate. And he didn't know why. And he tried everything he could. So he called off the engagement and said, Sam, you know, I don't think we can get married, you know, I don't think I can marry you. And he was from a broken family. So he did not want to enter into another, you know, into a marriage that could possibly break. He wanted it to be forever. So we kind of broke off her engagement stayed friends, and eventually, our friendship turned into a sexual relationship just once. And we told our leadership, and after that I actually told him that I was pregnant, he decided he would marry me. And then three weeks before our wedding day, I told him I miscarried our baby. And he still felt that he needed to honor his promise to marry me. And so we got married three months after I told him I was pregnant,
Rodney Olsen
You've learned from your mom that you need to carry some sort of facade so that people will like you and you carry this now into a marriage relationship. This must be an incredible burden that you're continuing to carry.
Samantha Jackel
Yeah. And I had learned from my mom the very art of manipulating and lying, I solely believe she didn't necessarily want to hurt anyone. But she didn't know how to do life herself. And I had learned the same art how to manipulate, not to hurt anyone else. But to save myself to put up a good front for myself. And so to carry that into a marriage, that was how, you know, I would sit up to early hours of the morning screaming at Peter telling him all kinds of things running out of the house at you know, midnight 2am and not coming back to early hours and then apologizing and then would go through it the next night. He didn't know what was going on. You know, he had no idea how to handle me at times he thought he was going to have to get me assessed because he just didn't know what to do with me and and then I realized that perhaps if I could tell him the truth of our marriage, that would make things better. So, I was about nine months in and I rang our leadership of the church and said, I needed to talk to them and then rang Peter and said, Would you meet with me to talk with the leadership of our church, and he didn't know why. And he thought it was another game I was playing. And so we met with our leadership, I met with our leadership of our church first, and I said to them, I actually was never pregnant. And I would never miscarried a baby, it was a lie. And they were stunned, as you could imagine. And then Peter came in. And I then told him the same Peter, I was never pregnant. I never miscarried your baby, I just wanted you to marry me, he literally just got up in that meeting, and stormed straight out the door. And I really didn't see him and for another nine months, and the church didn't know what to do with me, you know, it was 1988, that he they have a young girl like 21 year old now, that had lied not only to her husband, but to the whole entire church, you know, that she lied, that she was pregnant, and then that she had miscarried, they didn't know what to do with me. So they suggested that I go and visit another church, and maybe get another group of friends and leave Peter at the church to heal. And so that's basically what happened. And I found myself very alone in our apartment, not knowing what to do with nobody.
Rodney Olsen
And at the same time, that being able to tell the truth was the right thing to do. You've grown up not telling the truth, and you've been able to protect yourself. And suddenly, when you tell the truth, the world starts to collapse around you, you must have started to have doubts about this truth telling thing.
Samantha Jackel
It was so confusing, I didn't understand. And I didn't understand what the big deal was, you know, I really had no concept, that Peter was hurt, like, why are you hurt? Like, I don't understand why this hurt you. I had no concept of all how big the lie was, and what the consequences of that lie was going to be. If I had even thought that he was gonna leave me, I would not have told him, You know, I would probably have carried it on. But in the same, it was kind of this feeling that now that I had told the truth, you know, instead of him riding along on a white horse to save me, not only did he desert me, but the whole church deserted me and I couldn't run home. I was could never tell my mother that my marriage had failed. So I was stuck, stuck by myself to try to work it out.
Rodney Olsen
So you starting to repeat patterns that happened right from your early childhood, those early childhood memories were of all those arguments, and then your dad eventually leaving, and you're seeing the whole pattern play out over again. What was that doing to you internally,
Samantha Jackel
I didn't see the pattern was only many years later, I saw that pattern. In fact, I would sit out as nothing like my mother Back then, I would have said that my allies are very different. I was in complete denial that I was anything like her. But I think more I was just in this incredible pain. And it was a pain I'd never felt. See through my childhood, everything seemed normal, you know, even though I'd be in anguish at night, and I'd climb into bed crying and sobbing because of what mum was doing, or I would beat myself up. Because what she was doing, it was a pain that I didn't understand what this pain was different. It was like, here, I was thinking that I had a church family and that life was different. And suddenly I lost everything. And I was alone. I always had my mum there when I was a kid. So the pain was very different. This was a real isolation, just a yearning to be accepted and loved. And realizing that I probably was never going to be accepted or loved in this world.
Rodney Olsen
How did things start to turn around for you at that point? Okay,
Samantha Jackel
it took a long time. I remember getting a call from Peter and him saying he wanted to come and see me and we made a time. And he came around and I thought he was actually going to hit me. I thought he's just gonna come in and he's gonna just beat me up. I hadn't seen him. I hadn't spoken to him. Now, in all of this, his father was this incredibly gentle man. And every week his father would put a check under the door of our flat for me to be able to pay my bills, because Peter had just wiped his hands clean of me. I just thought he's found out maybe that he's dad's been supporting me and he's going to go through the roof. What is he going to say? And he came back and he knocked on the door and I had a girl living with me at the time and he said, You need to kick her out. And I'm moving back in. I don't know what's going to happen. But the Lord has spoken to me and he had had this conversation with a leader base. The leader said You have no right to divorce Sam. And he didn't like that at the time. But then he was led to Joshua. And in Joshua, it talks about Joshua making a treaty with the Gibeonites under deception. And the Lord made Joshua honor that. And so Peter was like, okay, Lord, I'll honor my vow to Sam, but I don't know what that's gonna look like. So I really don't love her. He moved back into our unit and slept in the spare bedroom, and I slept in the main room, we lived together. And that's really what it was, was living together, there was no communication between us, I was holding down a part time job was just three hours a day, I'd get home from that. And I would just go ballistic and him and scream at him and tell him, you know, he was useless. And I didn't love him being in the house, I hated him being in the house, and he was invading my privacy. And one day, I got home from work. And I just remember feeling this tense, anger towards him, like I could kill him. And I had shaking hands, and they were hot. And I thought I could just kill this guy, and walking into his bedroom. And he was praying for me. And I thought that was just ludicrous. Like, why would you be praying for me, and just going off at him walking out of his room and slamming the door shut and going into the kitchen. And Peter came in. And he had had just enough, he had a gut full like, of my slinging matches with him. And he just came in. And he's, he says, and he writes is in my book, that all he could think of is rebuking me in Jesus name, because he didn't know what else to do. So he just came into the kitchen I was facing the other way. So it was to my back. And he said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And I remember at that point, feeling like something was gonna burst out of me. And I remember turning around in this incredible voice, I could hear the voice but not control and tell him in not so many kind words where to go. And that was it for him. He said, there was this relief that came over him, because he suddenly realized there's a spiritual element to what's going on here. And that I can deal with. And from there, we kind of sat down and talk that we come down, he sat down and chatted to me and said, Sam, I actually think that you need deliverance, I think that you have some really deep wounds, and the enemy has come in and taken advantage of those deep wounds. And I think that's what the problem here is. And I still hadn't shared with him about what happened in my childhood. So he was still completely in the dark about my mom and my dad, other than he had met them and thought they were weird. But other than that, he didn't really understand the depth of the abuse.
Rodney Olsen
So going from something that seemed to be just following a pattern that came out of your family of origin. Even though Peter didn't know about this stage, he realized that there was something going on there from this weird family that he had made. Yeah, to now realizing that there's something deeper going on, there's something spiritual going on. How quickly Did you accept what he was saying? Or were you still saying no, no, I'm okay.
Samantha Jackel
Look, I listened to him. And it took a little while for me to understand what he was saying. And he asked me some questions. He said, Sam, have you ever been abused? All through my childhood? I was asked the same question that they always targeted my stepfather. Does your stepfather touch you in inappropriate ways? You know, and I would always defend in a way, you know, I love the guy, he would never do that. But no one ever asked about mom. So there was no questions about mom, so I never had to talk about it with Peter. When he started asking me, I said, well known, you know, my stepfather didn't harm me at all, or my stepbrothers nor my siblings never did. And he said, Have you ever been abused? Has anyone touched you in appropriately and now we had a babysitter, a girl babysitter that did it sexually abused me as well. And so I told him about that. And then from that, I started telling him about what would go on in the bedroom with my mom, you know, that started snowballing. And I'd tell him about all of the things that happened. It was like I had permission to talk. And I guess at that very point, because he had come back, I I trusted him enough that he wasn't going to leave again, that was at this feeling that he wasn't going to just run out on me again. And I'm not sure if that was just God, covering me for that moment. So I just I started telling him things that had to happen. And one of the things that happened was when I was young, I had so much pain in my heart that I remember screaming out at the top of my voice, God, if you love me, and if you get me out of this situation, I'm going to follow you for the rest of my life, Satan or the devil, if you get me out of this situation, then I will commit my whole entire life to you. I don't care who gets me out of this situation, just get me out. So I was telling Peter that and he says, he's just looking at me wide eyed and saying, Sam, we need to pray for you. We need, you need to pray for you, you know, you need to start learning scripture. And so he started making me memorize scripture. And it was so hard, you know, it was like falling on deaf ears. I just couldn't remember I'd read it. And then I'd forget it. Luke 10:19. You know, I was trying to where it says that I have authority to walk on snakes and, and I'd be trying to read it, and it would just fall apart. And I'd be like, what does that scripture say again, and he would be like, you just read it. And I'd be like, I don't know what it said. And so he realized, you know that there was a lot at play here. So we worked for around three weeks, training me up and getting me to learn scripture, understand scripture, understand God more, understand what Jesus actually did for me on the cross. And then from there, he's began to pray for me.
Rodney Olsen
And I guess at this stage, a burden is starting to lift even though you're not quite there, you're finally able to tell the truth. And finally telling the truth is actually having a more positive effect. What was the result of that praying for you? How did that begin to turn things around,
Samantha Jackel
Look it completely turned things around. But it wasn't a one prayer one day, you know, it wasn't like I got a prayer. And then life was beautiful again. But Peter did pray when over three days, and I was delivered of many different spirits, actually, that had permission to come into my life that I had allowed to enter in. And I knew I had through different ways of different prayers, or asking the enemy to help me at different times. So we went through that, and after that, I actually felt empty. I felt like I had to articulate but it was like I had been completely cleaned out. And suddenly, I didn't even know who I was. All the games had played for the entire time of my life. 22. Now I am, I suddenly had no idea who I was, I didn't know what I liked what I didn't like what I thought was humorous, what I didn't think was humorous, how to love. And so after that period of prayer, I went into counseling, it was through those many, many counseling sessions that went on for a few years of rebuilding and understanding who I was, and who I was in God, it was a Christian counselor, a beautiful, beautiful, older lady. She just walked me through, you know, my childhood, what happened, and it was an incredible place to feel safe, to be able to tell her everything. And to have her just gently work me through that and allow me to process what was going on, but also enable me to be in a safe place to be who God created me to be, you know, to understand who I was, you know, what I did enjoy what I did think was funny, and what I didn't think was funny, or, you know, even the point of how I spoke, I changed with whatever my mother wanted me to change. So she wanted me to be a boy than I put on a tom boy voice, you know, and I would play the game really well with her. So it was undoing all of those years of training as a kid, and discovering who I was, while Peter was patiently waiting, and watching and walking with me through that.
Rodney Olsen
Now someone listening might think, well, that's great. This counseling has helped you to break old habits, and break old patterns, and to start to build up new patterns. But there is something deeper in that isn't there. There's something as you mentioned, that he discovered that there's something spiritual going on, that needed to happen spiritually, rather than just resetting patterns.
Samantha Jackel
The first thing we had to deal with was the spiritual stuff, which was deliverance, I had deliverance. So I had to be set free of all kinds of things, you know, of guilt, a spirit of guilt, I had all these different things that I needed to deal with. And then I had to also release forgiveness to people. And I think it was until I started to realize that Jesus had forgiven me by going to the cross that I had to then also forgive those others. And that was a real tough one, you know. I mean, the deliverance in itself was amazing because I had a spirit of hatred and that Spirit had outworked itself, by me self harming. I didn't necessarily hate other people, but I hated myself. And so I would begin to self harm and Peter would come home sometimes and find me in a cupboard with a black eye or he might find my body scratched up and he didn't understand what was going on at the time. Until he began to pray. And he realized, and when he started scratching around that I had this spirit of self hatred that had come in. And it was something I could never control, I would try to control and maybe some of your listeners have felt this way you, you feel like you've want to get it under control, but it's out of your control, you're unable not to do it. And for me, that was a spirit. And once that left, I was set free, and suddenly I had control of my actions. And suddenly, I didn't want to actually hurt myself, then the Lord then began to come into that area and heal it. And suddenly, I could actually see myself in a new light and begin to love who God had created.
Rodney Olsen
It's one thing to learn how to forgive others as as you did. I'm wondering about accepting that forgiveness, because you mentioned that you didn't even understand way back when you had told that lie about being pregnant. You didn't even understand how that could have hurt Peter. And yet, here he is, he's he's forgiving you for that and helping you to find new life. What was it like for that side of forgiveness for you?
Samantha Jackel
It was hard to accept that, that forgiveness, because of the guilt, you know, you felt guilty that you had done that to someone when your eyes when my eyes were open, when the blinders came off, I suddenly realized all i devastated you, you know, I, I gutted. And it took me a long time to actually come to a place of being able to accept His forgiveness. And again, the more I understood, Jesus, and his forgiveness for me was the more I could then accept forgiveness, and forgive myself, I think, often we don't forgive ourselves for the things we do now there are consequences to our sin or the consequences to the things we do wrong. And there are consequences to what I did wrong. No, I did have to go back and apologize to the leaders of the church and, and I had to live with the fact that some people for many years didn't trust me, you know, I didn't have any runs on the board. And so it took a while for people to trust me, that was just the consequences of my sin. But the Lord renewed me and I could live with those consequences. And I didn't blame myself because of that forgiveness that I had from, you know, it sounds cliche, but I really felt the forgiveness of Christ. And out of that I could forgive others. But I could also receive forgiveness, where I didn't come under that guilt and shame of what I did
Rodney Olsen
You've forgiven a lot of people during this time but that doesn't always mean that things are smoothed over or that things go well, what was your relationship like with your mother after that time of forgiveness?
Samantha Jackel
I truly thought I forgive my mom. And she had now started to show signs of alcohol induced dementia. You know, I truly thought that I was at this place of being able to love my mother, and I have forgiven her for what she had done to me. And then just one day, I remember sitting beside my mom, and I felt the Holy Spirit, I felt this, this word in my mind, share Jesus with your mom. I then just felt this anger, like and I'll be honest, I thought she deserves to burn in hell. I had to leave that leave her. And I went home and it just kept going over, you know, you're meant to love her. But I want her to burn in hell, I don't want it to be in heaven. That was the last place she doesn't deserve that. And I so I kind of pushed it to the side. And then I would go back in the visitor and this again, it's the Holy Spirit right? In my mind, share me with your mother. And I would be like, no way am I doing this? Eventually, I went to counseling, I got advice about I talked to Peter and I was just angry, like, No, I don't want to I the interesting thing here is that I think God is such a gentleman, and he doesn't push us into things that we can't handle or that we're not ready for. So it wasn't like the minute that I said no to her that God gave up on me. But he just gently kept reminding me, you know, keep putting it in my mind. You know, I'd tell her about me, sir. And so one day I was sitting next to her and and at this point, she wasn't really communicating much and she was kind of sometimes she would remember things sometimes she wouldn't. And so I said to her mom, I just want to share with you about Jesus. You know, if you don't love Jesus, you won't be going to heaven. I made it really simple. And I was holding her hand and said if you want to know Jesus Mom, I can pray with you right now you to squeeze my hand and I will share you know I'll say a prayer with you and you know, then you're going to meet Jesus one day and and you're going to have peace in your heart and your life will be the way he wanted it to be. You know, you're going to be dancing with him in heaven. Anyway, she squeezed my hand. And I remember just this overwhelming sense that I was about to lead my mom through a prayer of a prayer of salvation. And as I was praying for her to stop this incredible weight off my shoulders, I've suddenly realized that now I have forgiven you. Now, I have this overwhelming love that the Father has for you. And I truly do forgive you for what you've done. done to me. And, and you know, from that point on, there was this amazing feeling in my heart that I was free, I was free from all that past. And it doesn't mean I forgot anything, I didn't forget anything from my past. But I was free from the pain of the past. And you know, one of my beautiful thoughts are when the Lord calls me home, I will actually be able to embrace my mother, in a relationship that was always meant to be mother and daughter, and that will both be dancing before the throne room of God.
Rodney Olsen
I wonder if there are people listening right now who a yearning for that kind of freedom from the past from past hurts, and perhaps would want to get in touch with you or to read your book, where is the easiest place to find your book or to get in touch with you,
Samantha Jackel
Probably on my website, which is www.mypurplepants.com, I have an email up there, and people are more than welcome to email me and I am the only one that reads those emails. And you can buy my book up there, either hard copy, or you can get it on Kindle. The link is on my web page or connect with me through Facebook. And that can be through My Purple Pants, on Facebook or personally. But I'm happy to connect with whoever needs a hand because I know to have someone walk with you. And it is a hard road to walk with someone that's been abused. It's not a one week walk or a day commitment. It is a lifetime commitment to walking with someone. And I understand that. And I am happy to walk with people through their journey and, and encourage them and help them along the way. And most importantly, pray for them. You know, I have a book. And whenever I go to speak, or I'm contacted by someone, I always write their names in my book. And I bring that book before the Lord and pray over them, pray for their lives, that God would transform them heal them. And they would know what it's like to have the joy of the Lord as being their strength.
Rodney Olsen
And I will put links so that people can find you find your website, Facebook, and your email address as well as being able to buy that book. That's all going to be in the show notes at bleeding daylight dotnet. I want to fast forward just before we finish up, I want to fast forward to what life is like for you these days. How is life traveling for you?
Samantha Jackel
Yeah, life is amazing. Peter and I have been married 33 years in October this year. We have five adult children who all loved Jesus, which is just a blessing in itself. We're pastors of a church here in Melbourne in Carnegie, we are just a family of believers that just have seen God transform a life and my kids know my story of my story, of course, and our story is a couple. And I believe you know that there's so much blessing in that decision Peter made to come back to me that he was a righteous man. Remember, he was only 23 back then. And he made this righteous decision to come back and honor his wedding vows. And through that there's been such blessing and I believe our kids are the product of that blessing. And so life is great. It doesn't mean we don't have hard times. That doesn't that doesn't mean we don't have battles every now and then. But we have seen certainly seen the goodness of God over our lives, our marriage and over our children.
Rodney Olsen
Samantha, it has been such a delight to hear your story to hear about the transformation that has happened in your life and that is available for others. As I mentioned, if people want to get in touch, I will put details in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net. But thank you so much for your time.
Samantha Jackel
Thanks for allowing me to share my story.
Emily Olsen
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
