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Hey, what's up everyone. So I'm really excited because I'm starting a new series called The Summer stories with xo. And basically the Genesis came from a couple podcast listeners reaching out to me saying, Hey, we love the podcast, we listen all the time. But we actually want to get to know you a little bit more as the host. And I was flattered. And I said, Oh, I guess I guess we should make this a thing. And at anyone that knows me personally knows that I want to get coffee with everyone. I want to know everyone's story. I want to be intentional. But unfortunately, there's not enough time in the day to allow me to do that. So I want the summer stories with zo this interaction between us to be that that kind of feel that we could get if we were sitting down getting coffee together, where I share stories that have transformed my life, principles that have changed who I am, and just moments in my life that have made me me. And so I'm really excited to share them with you get candid, Get real, get personal, so that we can build that connection and that relationship, even if we may not be able to actually sit down together, face to face. So hey, I hope you enjoy the summer series. I would love to hear your feedback. I would definitely love to chat with you. If maybe my story sounds similar to yours, because I believe that we are all so much better together. So hey, without further ado, let's hit it here is episode number one of summer stories with XO 2021. Okay, so track with me here. I am a sophomore in high school, and my 16th birthday party is right around the corner. Now this summer, going into my sophomore year, my family moved to a new neighborhood, same school district, but new neighborhoods. So I had to make some new friends over the summer. And as my birthday party was approaching, and my birthday is in November to give context. My mom had told me though, we want you to you know, invite all your friends to your sweet 16 party. But also, we think it would be appropriate if you invited your neighbors and also a really kind gesture. And my first response was mom, I don't really know my neighbors like, yeah, there's that kid down the street who's in my grade, but we don't talk at all. And she's like, Yeah, but why not just be kind and give them an invitation. So I do that I give my neighbor an invitation, as well. As you know, many of my friends that I had my sophomore year, I thought nothing of it. I didn't really know him. I was like, Okay, hopefully he won't come. But what was really weird was what ended up happening to me in the middle of the night. The weekend before my birthday party, I am startled awake at four in the morning on a Saturday to a call from an unknown number. And I you know, I was like, Well, what is happening right now I'm like, half asleep. And I check the phone. Like that's weird. And before I can actually get up to answer the phone, it goes to voicemail. So I open the voicemail. And what begins to unfold is an unknown voice to me, I have no idea who this person is on the other line on the phone. But they are verbally sexually harassing me. And I was so utterly confused. I didn't know why this was happening to me what I had done to cause it but yet that was my reality in this moment. So I went back to sleep. And the next morning I let my parents in on what happened and this was just the beginning of it all. You see most people know me up to this point in my life as someone who's fun outgoing like will be a little bit crazy an entertainer performer So just to be funny, I wrapped on my answering machine whenever you would call my phone so average I would say like your your phone went to dead at at at dead at at the that's my number. Obviously I'm not giving it out to everybody. Okay, but and so I was like so leave your name and number. I'll go back. I'll go back. Just leave it now. And I'm just being ridiculous. I'm just being made. Okay. Well, that was all that this person this unknown person on the other line needed to proceed to obliterate my reputation in high school. So I go back to school the following Monday. And in one of my classes is my neighbor, which is not the same voice as the unknown voice that left a voicemail on my phone. But what happens is my neighbor and let me remind you, I've never had a conversation with him before. I entered the classroom. I sit down I'm sitting in the front row classic And my neighbor starts to mock wrap my voice message to the entire class. And it was in this moment, that I slunk into my chair, and literally had the thought, I don't want to be here anymore. And, you know, maybe you've heard this right now. And you thought, oh my gosh, yes, I've had that moment in my life. Because it is a moment you'll never forget, it's scary, you have no idea what this person is going to do to you, or with your reputation. And so I run home after school, sobbing, bawling my eyes out because it didn't just stop with making fun of my voice message. It went on to verbal sexual harassment, again, and just became a thing for this neighbor to talk about. Now, I was very confused. Because, again, this this neighbor, I'll call him, Brandon, so that we have some context. So let's say Brandon is my neighbor's name. And yet there's still this unknown voice. Okay. So basically, I run home sobbing, to my parents, and I had this beautiful looking back on it, I can call it a beautiful moment with my dad, where my dad gave me two options. And he said, Zo, do you want me to talk to Brandon? To which, if you're anything like me, in high school, you're like, over my dead body? Is daddy going to come to bat for me? And, you know, so I was like, Absolutely not. And so my dad then said, Okay, well, there's one other option. And that option is we're going to pray for Brandon, to which I was like, Absolutely not, I'm not wasting a single prayer on him, I unless the prayer is that he would get kicked in the mouth. To put it lightly, I was very obviously had a lot of hatred. Because I couldn't believe I was being treated like this, for seemingly no reason. Nobody really knew much about me. But now everybody seemed to know who I was and connected me with this verbal sexual abuse I was getting and completely being bullied by what ended up being a lot of people in the school. I say this because as the days and weeks unfolded, the unknown phone calls in the middle of the night, the blocked phone calls, rather, continued to come in leave voice messages. And then I found out that every athlete in my high school was texted a voice recording of somebody kind of dubbing over my voice message, just completely making fun of me, and just ripping me to shreds. And what I thought was going to be maybe like a short term thing it will blow over ended up being months and months of my life and a literal hell at that point. And I had said a couple moments ago that everybody knew me as the entertainer, and performer but let me just say that all left in an instant. The moment that I had eyes on me, that were not filled with encouragement, I dug myself in a hole and never wanted to be seen again, so much so that at lunch, I felt like I didn't have any friends. I was just trying to be friends with any friend group. So I think the people I connected with were people in band because I was a in the drumline myself, but I was with these people that didn't really know me, you know, at lunch, and I've every single day, I would wait until every last person left the cafeteria, before I dumped my lunch tray. Because I was so afraid that people were going to judge me and bully me or say something about me. I just couldn't handle it. I walked the halls of the high school with my eyes glued to the floor. Because the last thing I could do was build up the confidence to look somebody in the eyes. I had been a hip hop dancer, that was done. I never wanted to be on a stage again. I never wanted to be looked at by anyone again because that would run the risk of somebody making fun of me not liking me and giving them the opportunity to hurt me. So I needed to protect myself. As I was walking to my bus after school one day, I ended up putting two and two together as somebody had opened their bus window shouted something derogatory at me and close the window. Real quick, they tried to be too quick. But I actually caught the face of who that person was, again, somebody that I had no conversation with. But when that person had shouted out the bus window, I immediately knew that is the voice that has been leaving me voice memos, making derogatory remarks, giving me verbal abuse over the phone and completely bullying me. So at that point, after talking with my parents, and talking with some teachers and talking with some people at school, the police ended up getting involved. And what ended up happening was one of the teachers who, who I put had a lot of trust in actually approached that student and said, you know, you don't understand the gravity of what you're doing. Like you can have charges pressed against you. So if you don't want that, I would change everything you're doing right now. And I would apologize mean it and never do the same thing again. And so this other character, I'm not talking about Brandon here, okay. I'm talking about somebody else, that other person from the voice memo in my voicemails, ended up writing me a four page apology letter. This is not immediate. This is months down the road, this happened. So day in and day out and going to school hating my life can't look people in the eyes can't don't feel like I don't have any friends. I'm just completely gutted, my confidence is shot. And I cannot believe this is my reality. Why is my life like this? That's all I keep thinking in that moment. Why? Why is this happening to me, I didn't do anything to them. And I'm completely just being mortified every single day. So these months go by I get this apology letter from him. But Brandon, doesn't really stop. But you know what else didn't really stop my dad forcing me to pray every single day for Brandon. He didn't give me any stipulations on what I should pray for other than to say that you need to spend time praying for Brandon and I was so mad at my dad, obviously, for making me do this day in and day out. And let's be abundantly clear. My prayer started with God, I pray that you would just smite Brandon, like, I pray that you would just that he would just get what's coming to him. You know, it's just complete. Like, I don't want this happening to me God. And I know I'm saying this because I know that there are times when probably all of us can feel this hatred and vitriol in our hearts that we don't know what to pray for. And the last thing we want to do is pray for a quote unquote, enemy. So basically the back half of sophomore year, I'm being bullied consistently. And feeling like I have no allies. In this situation. Junior year, probably gets a little bit better. But in my mind, it doesn't. Because I still feel like I have a tarnished reputation. I'm that girl that raps I'm that girl that's insert derogatory remarks, a whole slew of them. And I can't really look at anybody else or even myself, right now. But I just remember my dad, keep forcing me at first until I started doing it on my own. To keep praying for Brandon. Just keep praying for him. Pray that He would find God's love that something would happen to his heart that he wouldn't act out at me or anybody else because he definitely was a school bully at that point. So let's fast forward all the way to the end of junior year where in a crazy turn of events, I'm at my locker after school, I have my softball bag on it's weighing me down. And I see Brandon coming down the hallway. We are the only two people after school in this hallway and I clutch my locker. And I close my eyes because I am panicking, freaking out. Are we going to fight? What's going to happen? I don't know. And I just remember being really scared. And even in spite of being scared, I felt like God pulled these words out of my mouth. I looked at Brandon. And I said, Hey, Brandon, that was it. Why did I greet him? I don't know. I don't know. I still don't know to this day. But what I won't forget is Brandon locking eyes with me saying don't ever talk to me again. And I just remember feeling like any positive movement I had felt over the past year plus since that incident started to happen, was just completely unraveled in that moment. Why was this person treating me like this? We've never had a conversation. I've never done anything to him. And yet, he hated my guts, and wanted to make sure that I didn't feel worthy, valued loved or anything like that. As long as I was in his presence, Junior year ends, and I keep praying. Now, by this point, this is a year and a half. Since this began in my life that I have been praying with my dad, for Brandon. And this is where the story begins to take a turn. Because I enter senior year. And I feel like I have just a little bit more confidence just because I'm a senior, I'm getting out of there, I get a fresh start on life, you know, going into college, so I'm just like, Okay, well, at least it's gonna come to an end eventually now. And early on in senior year, I am in an after school group, which is called Christian youth outreach, which definitely sounds dweeby. I'm not going to deny that at all. And it was in the library, after school. And it was just basically a lot of people that loved Jesus hanging out together, chatting about life, after school. And as we're in the library, starting our meeting, would you believe Brandon walks in. And everybody in the meeting, starts to death grip, our chairs. Because we think, Oh, crap, what is this guy about to do to all of us or say to all of us. And then Brandon sits down, looks around the room and says, Hey, this is pretty random. But can I pray for you guys? My jaw dropped to the floor. And I couldn't believe it. And here's the craziest thing about this. Brandon actually found God that summer, going into senior year. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, that it was partially because of the prayers, that my dad refused to stop praying, and also made me pray for Brandon as well. And so as this is happening, lifetime, I'm trying to hold myself together. But I'm realizing for the first time exactly what the power of prayer actually means. And it was a moment where I felt God put on my heart. Don't you dare give up on people, because I never gave up on you. I mean, it was a dream. It was a dream. But that this was now my reality, the person that I had prayed a year and a half for now, had a completely transformed life. And afterwards, I messaged him on Facebook, and I was like, Hey, I just want to let you know. I forgive you for everything that happened. And we're good. And that's what was crazy to was because the moment that I saw this happen to him, I was just overwhelmed with this sense of forgiveness, like how can I ever hold this against someone whose life has radically been transformed by the same Jesus that I love? And so he read the Facebook message, and he replied with thank you so much. You don't know how much that means to me. And as senior year continued to progress, Brandon and I actually became friends. And that is the power of prayer. And that is what God can do. Now I left a couple of holes in the story that I want to go back to because I said that the performer and entertainer in me, was completely in the dark wanted to never be seen again. Early on in senior year after this forgiveness point happened with Brandon, they were doing a Dancing with the Stars program at my school, and they were looking for MCS and I remember passing the flyer in the hallway. And thinking to myself, yeah, right. Because the flyer was actually asking for MCs for the event. And that would have been cool back in my heyday, when I actually liked performing and actually was confident enough to be on a stage to be an emcee. But not anymore. Not anymore. That's it. This is a new me. I'm not who I used to be. That's what I'm thinking. Senior year as I'm walking by this flyer. Well, would you believe that that very night, I had a dream that I was an emcee for this dancing with the teachers performance. I think I said Dancing with the Stars earlier. I meant to say dancing with the teachers that would make more sense. So I have this dream. And the person in my dream is someone who is excited to be on stage who is excited to be just out there performing entertaining, making people laugh, and doing her thing. And it really struck a nerve with me when I woke up, because I didn't recognize who that person was because I didn't think that person could be me anymore. Over the next week, I continued to think about this and decided that I was going to audition to be an emcee for this dancing with the teachers event. That took a whole lot of gumption that I really didn't have in the moment, I think. I just felt like, I wanted to see if that person in my dream was still there, if that version of me, was still there, so I audition. And I get it. And I get the role of emcee for the first ever dancing with the teachers event at my high school. But no, the story isn't over yet. Because that summer, going into my senior year, was actually the year that Michael Jackson died. And for those of you that don't know, I am a self taught hip hop dancer, and have been teaching myself how to dance since I was 11 years old, strictly from watching Michael Jackson. So Michael Jackson was the biggest entertainment, performer inspiration in my entire life. So whenever he passed, it honestly felt like I lost a friend, because that's how much I had watched his movements, I had studied him as a performer as an artist. So this is important because this designate the teachers event on the emcee of it, and somebody catches wind that I'm a Michael Jackson dancer. And they asked me, Would you like to do a tribute to Michael Jackson in the dancing with the teachers event? To which my gut said, No, absolutely not, that will cause an entire repeat of the bullying experience that I witnessed and went through two years ago. But my gut just said that my heart, on the other hand, caused my voice to say yes. So now I committed to dancing to a sold out audience at my high school, for dancing with the teachers event that I happen to also be emceeing, which also happened to be the first time I stepped on a stage in two years in the spotlight. Um, I was freaking out, I was freaking out. Because this would be a moment that I knew would either make or break me. This is the moment where I either prove to myself, No, I can be an entertainer, I can be a performer once again, or no girl, that's part of your past, and it's going to stay there. So I spend like a week or so creating choreography for it. And I'll tell you what, let's fast forward to the night where it's the dancing with the teachers performance. And I'm emceeing. I'm having so much fun. It's awesome. I feel like I'm home. Again, to be honest. It's like the moment stage lights come up. And any any performers can understand this, the moment that the lights come up, a curtain comes up. It's like suddenly you have such an adrenaline rush that you can bend steel. That's what I was feeling. And it was incredible. So we're going through the show and right before intermission, it's my turn to do the Michael Jackson dance tribute. And that was a moment I will never forget, because for the first time I get back on stage and actually perform for people. I got a standing ovation from the entire sold out audience and one of the judges actually said, You made Michael proud today. And considering that he was the person I looked up to from a dance perspective and an artists perspective growing up. There couldn't have been anything better than anyone would say. So this was the day that a lot of things became clear for me. One so other people don't get to steal your confidence. You just give it away. Stop giving it away to people that don't understand you, too. It's okay to be unique. In fact, that's the best three what became such a weakness in my life has now become such a strength. I mean, I can literally look you the camera in the eyes today and say I am so grateful for the bullying I experienced in high school because It has made me the person I am today. It has made me have so much faith in God. And it has made me pray for everybody differently as a result. And you know now as I look back on the experience, there's a verse in Genesis 5020, which the context is Joseph, if you read Joseph the Technicolor Dreamcoat, that Joseph basically years later, ends up reuniting with his brothers, I don't want to ruin the story for you, I want you to read it on your own. But the Genesis or the the gist of it is this one line, where it says what was meant for evil, God meant for good. So the reason I'm sharing this story with all of you is because you may be experiencing a traumatic season in your life right now. Or maybe the story reminded you of some trauma that you've had to go through. God's not done. Until he turns it for the story isn't over until God turns it for good. That's what I fully believe. And I make sure that I am living proof of that. Because, yes, we're all going to be bullied at some point in our life, if we're entering any sphere where there's any eyes on us. But what voices are you going to allow to hold weight in your life? So I know this was a story. I know, I went a lot of different directions. But this was a moment in my life that changed me forever, and has made me who I am today. And so if you can relate to any of this, seriously, I want to hear from you like DM me at XO Escher or at accidentally intentional because I want to have these conversations. And I want you to know that you are not alone. God is in this with you. And you're going to see it through. You cannot give up. You can not give up. You have to see it through. So that one day, you're going to have a powerful story to tell so many other people. And God's gonna use it for good. I love you guys. I'll see you next time on episode two of summer stories with XO