Aug. 23, 2024
Freedom Friday: Global Adventures, Spiritual Growth, Overcoming Domestic Violence, and Embracing Solitude
In this episode of the Unlearned Podcast, Ruth Abigail sits down with Karis Gilmer, who shares her incredible journey from a childhood of global adventures as a missionary's daughter to overcoming domestic violence. Karis reflects on her spiritual growth, the importance of personal scripture study, and the shift from religious rituals to genuine faith. She also bravely discusses her path to healing and the wisdom gained from unlearning harmful patterns. This conversation is a powerful testament to finding strength in vulnerability and achieving true freedom.
Chapters
00:10 - Personal Growth and Unlearning Journey
10:55 - Discovering Spiritual Growth and Authenticity
22:14 - Journey to Healing and Redemption
30:36 - Learning From Past Mistakes
40:20 - Learning to Embrace Solitude
44:46 - Embracing Alone Time for Growth
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello, hello, hello everybody, and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.
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I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where me, or me and a friend of mine, come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free, and it has been a while since I've had a friend, and today I have a friend with me.
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What's up, karis?
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Hey, ari.
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Thanks for having me.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is fun man.
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So like, yeah, it's been a while since I've had somebody on this segment.
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I don't know why, but uh, but I'm glad you're on the show.
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So, caris, is this your first podcast?
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this is oh yeah good.
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So y'all be kind uh to caris.
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It's our first time on the microphone, um, but it's gonna be easy, we're gonna have a good time because uh.
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So, karis, just to kind of let people know a little bit about you, like kind of share a little bit, just a little bit about who you are my name is Karis Gilmer.
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I was born in DC but raised a little bit of everywhere.
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My parents, I grew up in ministry, my parents used to be on staff with crew and it was a wonderful way to grow up because it meant that my summers I got to see it have a different experience than a lot of kids growing up.
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So that was amazing and it had its drawbacks, of course.
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But grew up in church and yeah, but it's been definitely a huge journey.
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So I'm really excited to be here, just excited.
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Yeah, in general, I've been listening to Unlearned for a while and so I'm thrilled to be here.
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That's really cool, man.
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Okay, so what's CRU?
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Tell us what CRU is.
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What does it stand?
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for CRU is now what they call campus to save for christ.
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So when my parents were on staff, originally in the 80s um, it was campus to save for christ, and now they shortened it recently to crew.
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So, um, my parents specifically worked with the impact movement um, which was a organization that focused on reaching African-American college students.
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Cool.
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Okay, and so that's what you grew up in, and you said your summers were interesting.
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Why?
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Why were your summers interesting for people that don't know what that might mean?
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Yes, I was not quite a preacher's kid but definitely a missionary's kid, and that every summer there was some sort of summer project, summer mission trip, which meant on occasion I was missing out on summer fun with my friends locally.
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But I got to have experiences like I've been to more countries than a lot of people in similar situations, like I've been to more countries than a lot of people in similar situations.
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So I'm I'm grateful for having international experiences, national experiences as well, cause some of the summer projects were stateside as well.
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But we usually took.
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It usually meant that every summer we would basically school would end and then we transplant someplace for a couple of months, which was fun because we got to get to know a new city and we would explore it.
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It was, it was amazing in that way.
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But also it meant that you know, we just weren't, we didn't have nothing to do ever.
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We always had something to do during the summer.
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So what?
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What has?
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So what's the country you would want to go back to as an adult, that you went to as a kid?
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Oh, that's a tough one.
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I think most likely Zimbabwe, zimbabwe.
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At the time that I went.
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There was definitely some challenges that they were experiencing, but it was also incredible to see how there was a lot of light in the dark place and dark times kind of thing.
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Dark place and dark times kind of thing.
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Um and their child.
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You know, it's been over two decades since I've been there, but, um, I had a profound impact on me.
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Um.
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Another country that had a profound impact was um, when we went to visit Kenya, um, just because I had heard so much about the country um before, and so being there and experiencing certain things and actually understanding what it means to have joy in some ways, we also got stuck in an elevator once while we were in South Africa.
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That's fun, that was.
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Yeah, it was terrifying.
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I grew up in Florida for the most part.
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Was there a lot of people on the elevator?
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No, it was terrifying.
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I grew up in Florida for the most part.
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Was there a lot of people on the elevator?
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No, it was me and my sister, and my sister is younger than me by four years.
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So I was like the big kid at the time and I was not prepared to have that role in the elevator.
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That is terrifying man.
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How old were you, fine man?
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How?
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old, was it?
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It was when this happened, probably maybe 13 and 9, something like that.
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I'm with you on that.
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I'm the oldest too, and if I had been stuck on an elevator with Rhoda when we were that age, I don't know that we would have both made it out.
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I mean, I'm still, I don't know that we would have both made it out.
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I mean, I'm still, I don't remember how it ended.
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To be honest, I know I'm here today, but I don't remember how it ended.
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I don't know that that would have happened.
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Okay, so, zimbabwe and Kenya and South Africa, maybe for some redemption, but, okay, cool, maybe.
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I love that.
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That is really dope.
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I, like other, I've never I've only been to two other countries.
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I've been to Mexico and I've been to Germany, that's it, like I've never been to any other countries.
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I think that's.
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I think that's super cool.
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Um, so this is freedom Friday.
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Uh, and I would love so.
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One of the cool things I think about, um, about the, the conversations we've been having, is that you have kind of said like I kind of want to start my own podcast, and I was like man, that's super dope.
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So you know, why don't you come on this one and see how it feels?
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So I think so you were like the best way to start one is just to get on it.
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So I want to put you on the spot a little bit, because that's kind of what podcasting is about, like being vulnerable and just kind of putting things out there so other people can glean from it and get help by it, and you can just, you know, you can kind of lend yourself to the world.
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So, first of all, why do you want to start a podcast Like why, why in the world would you want to do that?
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I don't know.
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But in all seriousness, just because, as some of this birth from uh it, the podcast that I'm getting ready to start soon is going to be a mother daughter and mother daughter, take um, my mom and I have had quite a journey together, um, from being a missionary's kid to, you know, my mom just trying to kind of break some cycles in our family and the journey of the things that she kind of passed on to me and things that I'm trying to break cycles in as well in my family.
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My life, while I grew up with a firm foundation and I returned to that, my life definitely took a very different turn than what I thought it would.
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And I returned to that, my life definitely took a very different turn than what I thought it would, and in that there was a lot of growth, a lot of healing and a lot of unlearning.
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And so my mother and I, in this journey together, we've realized that we both have something to kind of say, to offer to some of the challenges that come across across generations in some ways, and really just the reality that not everybody's going to have the same perspective, and that's okay.
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Even if we have the same firm foundation, we may land differently on different topics and things like that.
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So she and I both also really don't take ourselves very seriously.
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So we just have a vision for really starting something that's going to speak to multiple generations.
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And another part of my story is that I'm a survivor of domestic abuse and so even talking about that and what God intended for marriage and how beautiful that is because I had a beautiful example in front of me that my parents are still married today and just what that looks like being a single mom, that things when they take a left turn, like what's that going to, what does that mean, and what does that mean for my faith and what God is growing in me.
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Yeah, you said something really important.
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I think you said that you can come from the same foundation but maybe not land in the same place.
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Right, can you talk a little bit about what you've unlearned about that?
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Because that is, I mean, you know, I know you're talking, you're talking about your you and your mom or you know, but that can happen with siblings, that can happen with um, people who, like you know, people you went to school with, go to church with, whatever where you are.
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It's like you have very similar experiences, you have similar foundations, you've taught the same thing by similar people, but, for whatever reason, you do land in different places.
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Sometimes you land in a place you think you're going to land and sometimes you don't.
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What are some of the things you've unlearned about that?
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Like, I think that's so.
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It scares people, I think, especially I'll be more specific when it comes to, uh, spirituality, because that's a real, that's a real thing.
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Right, you got, you got people in the same house that have the same foundation, but they don't necessarily own land in the same place spiritually.
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That's just one example.
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I mean that we could talk about it in different ways, but I think that really freaks people out, like, so what, what, what?
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What's to be unlearned around that?
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The biggest thing for me really was to learn to have confidence in my walk.
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So that would be the which is scriptural, that's what God tells me to do according to the bible.
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My parents taught me more than anything else that kind of drove home was to actually read the bible, not to just trust what's said on the stage, um, and which meant that, you know, we had different experiences.
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My dad grew up, um, under a path.
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My, my grandfather, was a pastor in West Virginia and so and so my dad understood some of my perspective, but also he was a missionary, which made things a little bit different than you know.
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There were just some different dynamics that existed, cause, you know, his stage was more not on a local level as much as it was on a missional level, not on a local level as much as it was on a missional level and so really learning that my journey was okay to have, that you know, scripture tells us to work out our salvation, and that working out was challenging for me.
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It was very different.
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It meant that I chased after many things that God would have never had for me.
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It was very different.
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It meant that I chased after many things that God would have never had for me.
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As I've read the Bible and what I've seen, I chased after a lot of things that I didn't need to, and specifically about my parents.
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They were like what are you doing?
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We didn't teach you this, and some of that was that I was trying to find the version of what I thought they had taught me.
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Um, and I, I was taking um other perspectives, which I think were important.
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I needed very much so, but I was applying, I was misapplying them, um, and so, uh, yeah, more than anything else, is to have confidence in who God made me to be.
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Um, it's uh, um, that the lessons that he's teaching my, my heart, um, are okay ones to have.
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Um, that he forgives me and loves me completely, um, and that, uh, where I am is okay.
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And so, yeah, that would be the biggest.
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That would be the biggest thing that I'm learning, as well as know what to focus on.
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I mean Philippians 4, 8, whatever's true, whatever's lovely.
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These are the things that I try to focus on, and there it's very easy to get focused on the negative aspects of my journey, because there are some sad ones, but the reality is is that all this brings honor to God in the end, and the point is to point to the one who loves us completely, regardless of what our journey looks like.
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Um, and my parents also grew up very, um, very much so in the evangelical mindset, um, mindset of just just very traditional in general, as a good way to put it, very traditional, and my father, as I grew older, really started becoming or started we were very religious, focused in some ways.
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Okay, what does that mean they gave me?
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What does that mean?
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Religious focus, Um, what does that mean they gave me.
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What does that mean?
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Religious focus, Like?
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What do you mean?
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Um, we were more focused on the ritual in some ways.
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Now that's not what my parents would probably say, but what I was.
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The message I was receiving is that it was the actions that we.
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You know, faith without works is dead.
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So I was focused on that without works part and that I need to get those works out.
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I need to take my, I need to make sure I'm I'm in the right place at the right time, and all those things.
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But reality is is that those rituals were to help reestablish and realign my faith when everything else kind of felt a mess.
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And so I wasn't.
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I was putting the horse before the cart.
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I wasn't focused on my relationship with God first and, I'm sorry, putting the cart before the horse.
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I wasn't focused on my relationship with God first and making sure I had actual connection with him.
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I was just going through the motions, which meant that I had a mentor.
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I had all the boxes checked of what I needed to have and I had a mentor.
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I had all the boxes checked of what I needed to have and I had the people pouring into me, but I wasn't receiving that.
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Actually, your heart's what needs to change, that you need to have a motivation that's internal, that has nothing to do with anybody else outside of you, because when the doors all close, you still got to sit with yourself.
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And so, in my walk, I started again.
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I started searching for things that were not.
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I was loving people, but I wasn't um, I wasn't loving them to pointing to Jesus.
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I was loving them and like, well, we're supposed to be in the world, not of it, and I need to be.
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You know, I need to not be scared of these people too, which is true, um, but my heart wasn't where it was supposed to be.
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You know, I need to not be scared of these people too, which is true, but my heart wasn't where it was supposed to be.
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Yet I needed to get to a place where I wasn't just focused on the religion that I was doing, but to focus on the heart, the spiritual, the dynamic change as I'm seeking the Lord.
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Yeah, you and I are very similar, I'm realizing.
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I went through a very similar mind shift and I think this is I think this is part of the oldest child syndrome this is what I call it where it's, it's very much like we just we just got to be at the top.
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You know, I'm saying like it's just like, we're just going to be, we're going to be at the top, just going to be, we're going to be at the top.
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I, I remember, I remember when I was growing up and I, you know, it's like, okay, it's you, you're supposed to confess your sins, right, you're supposed to, you're supposed to do that when you, you know, ask for forgiveness.
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And I would go to bed being like, yeah, I don't think I did anything wrong today, and and so I was like I don't know.
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You know, I don't know what I did.
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I think I was pretty good today.
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Like I'm saying like it just wasn't a thing.
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And I remember going nights, but I also remember being really scared about that because I was like, but they say it's supposed to happen, but I don't am I, am I off?
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Like I mean, I assume I'm doing wrong.
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So maybe it's like God forgive me for what I'm not even sure I did, but I don't think I did anything.
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Like I was, like I was a perfect kid today and uh, so it's so that mentality of that ritual thing like I, I really resonate with that.
00:17:17.544 --> 00:17:22.051
It's like that is, um, it's hard to unlearn rituals.
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When it, when it's worked for you, when it, when you feel like it's worked right, when did you realize it wasn't working?
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What was the thing for you that opened your eyes up to like, yeah, this isn't real anymore.
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That's an excellent question.
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Oh, there's a few different moments.
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That that was true, um, I would say, when my parents moved, so, uh, I was, so I took a scenic route through college, um, because I was figuring it all out, um, and uh, my parents eventually everybody else got to college as well, so my parents were empty nesters, but I was only an hour away from them and for some reason, I decided to sell my childhood home.
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I'm not upset, but they sold our other home and decided to go to seminary, and so they moved up to princeton, new jersey, okay, uh, to my dismay, but very happy for them, um, and I got to help them do that, okay, but it also meant that nobody was near me for over an hour, like it was.
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I don't know how close.
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My host, my sister's sibling, was at least 12 hour drive, yeah, um.
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And so when there was nobody around, um, I would say that I reached this place a couple times, but I always found a way to make it work, um, but in this situation, when there was nobody around, it was like, oh, shoot, now what do I do?
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Yep, it was crazy when they were, even though I didn go, it's not like I went to go see them every weekend, but they were still in our way.
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For some reason.
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That made a difference.
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And so, yeah, and I started to open myself up to things that I didn't different opportunities to find my own journey.
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Um, I uh worked in sales, which is a perfectly fine thing to do, um, but you run into a diverse group of people working in sales.
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Um, I was successful in sales, but, um, you run into a diverse group of people, and so I was into dipping and dabbling into different things that had no business to be being a part of.
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And, ironically, I also had a company at one point before I went back to school.
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Okay, that I poured into young girls and got to kind of minister to them, and one of my girls asked me to come back for her graduation.
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So I came back for graduation.
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That's where I met my ex-husband, my now ex-husband, um, and so, uh, and I was open to some of the, to disregarding because I have a big heart um, disregarding some of the wisdom that I had, um, and tossed it out the window.
00:20:27.366 --> 00:20:37.128
Um and uh allowed myself to be deceived, um, in a lot of ways, um and uh, and everybody has their own journey.
00:20:37.128 --> 00:20:45.950
I'm not saying allow myself to be deceived just with him, but be deceived in general by the fact that there's good and good and bad.
00:20:45.950 --> 00:20:46.576
You know what I mean.
00:20:46.576 --> 00:20:50.487
So, um, and I love myself to ignore some of those things, um.
00:20:52.296 --> 00:21:15.096
So, yes, uh, given all those things kind of all culminated into me realizing like, okay, lord, it wasn't until I gave birth to, or two days before my last child was born, I kind of had an aha moment, or not.
00:21:15.096 --> 00:21:18.707
I had a couple of aha moments.
00:21:18.707 --> 00:21:33.976
The first was my daughter was not a year yet, she was just under a year old, and things kind of reached a critical point where I had to separate again from my ex-husband and I knew that I was.
00:21:33.976 --> 00:21:41.521
The reason why I was able to believe that some of these things were my fault was because I had a lot of hidden things that I knew weren't right of me.
00:21:41.521 --> 00:22:04.857
Yeah, hidden things that I knew weren't right of me, yeah, and so I I don't even know, but I was in a friend's, we were staying up in their bonus room and with me and my two little ones at the time, and I just remember falling on my face and saying, lord, it's not going to be because of me, cause that's what would be said is oh, cause of what you did.
00:22:04.978 --> 00:22:13.743
This is what happened, um and I mean, and there was some, it takes two to tango domestic, but I'm not saying it.
00:22:13.743 --> 00:22:15.508
Domestic violence is very complicated.
00:22:15.508 --> 00:22:19.963
What I will say very clearly is that there was some foothold for what he would say.
00:22:19.963 --> 00:22:26.281
And so um didn't mean I deserve what I got, but there was foothold.
00:22:26.281 --> 00:22:29.497
And so, um, can I just, can I just?
00:22:29.557 --> 00:22:32.905
I found myself real quick, I don't want to move past that.
00:22:32.905 --> 00:22:36.481
First of all, thank you for sharing that and thank that's.
00:22:36.481 --> 00:22:38.807
That's um, that's a.
00:22:38.807 --> 00:22:42.221
Really, the first word that's come to me is brave.
00:22:42.221 --> 00:22:43.645
I don't know if that's the word.
00:22:43.645 --> 00:22:47.738
The first word that's come to me is brave.
00:22:47.738 --> 00:22:48.799
I don't know if that's the word.
00:22:48.819 --> 00:22:50.883
It's a very vulnerable thing to say, right, like there's a.
00:22:50.883 --> 00:22:51.243
It was a foothold.
00:22:51.243 --> 00:22:53.166
I didn't deserve what I got, but there was a foothold.
00:22:53.166 --> 00:22:54.410
That's very vulnerable.
00:22:54.410 --> 00:23:03.135
I mean, like I don't need.
00:23:03.135 --> 00:23:04.018
I don't know that I've.
00:23:04.018 --> 00:23:05.180
I don't know, I don't know that I have heard.
00:23:05.180 --> 00:23:06.323
I'll be totally honest, Now, this is me.
00:23:06.323 --> 00:23:13.877
I don't know that I've heard someone who's been a victim of domestic violence say that that's I mean, I don't even know what that's doing to me on the inside.
00:23:13.877 --> 00:23:16.925
That's, that's very, it's like man, like that's.
00:23:16.925 --> 00:23:18.536
I just don't want to move past that.
00:23:18.536 --> 00:23:24.380
I just don't know if you know how, how rare that is to come to that kind of awareness.
00:23:24.380 --> 00:23:29.163
You know what I'm saying and nobody gets to tell your story like you do.
00:23:29.163 --> 00:23:37.548
So you know the truth and the reality of your story and you're telling it and I just want to say thank you for even that's real.
00:23:37.548 --> 00:23:38.529
So thank you for that.
00:23:38.529 --> 00:23:39.651
Anyway, I didn't mean to cut you off.
00:23:39.651 --> 00:23:41.971
I couldn't have said that Okay, you can keep going.
00:23:48.616 --> 00:23:50.707
No, I appreciate't.
00:23:50.707 --> 00:23:51.692
Okay, you can keep going.
00:23:51.692 --> 00:23:53.999
No, I appreciate that I, that that's really, it's just a reality.
00:23:53.999 --> 00:24:00.983
And so I just fell on my first face before the Lord and was like God, okay, no longer me, it's not, this is, this, is, it has to not be me.
00:24:00.983 --> 00:24:09.384
Yeah, and I'm not, and I'm not going to believe that it's me anymore and I'm not going to give reason at all, like whatsoever.
00:24:09.384 --> 00:24:24.938
Um, and then, uh, so when I realized, like I'm chasing after something that's kind of done, um, I'm really grateful because there were some believers who, um my church at the time, uh, came around me and said we can't.
00:24:24.938 --> 00:24:32.520
It was in the middle of pandemic and I was pregnant again with my third child and they came around me and said we can't ignore.
00:24:32.520 --> 00:24:35.622
This isn't what God meant for you, like we can't ignore this anymore.
00:24:35.622 --> 00:24:50.948
And so we've, uh, so I ended up having to do some reporting, um, because that was what needed to happen and, of course, is always working on us.
00:25:05.855 --> 00:25:36.470
But it was between April and July and I had to find the best avenue to keep my children safe, keep the baby in my belly safe and also still try to give my ex-husband his best chance, because we're all on a redemption journey and my prayer was that he would make a choice to make the same heart change and that his actions would align with that.
00:25:36.470 --> 00:25:51.179
And there was a point that I was pulling out from somewhere and I received a text message and I'll never forget.
00:25:51.179 --> 00:26:00.151
I was texting asking if he would have the house clean because I had somebody coming over for a health assessment.
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