Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 941 | Conceived in Rape, Chosen by God | Guest: Steventhen Holland

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Today we're joined by pro-life advocate and worship leader Steventhen Holland to hear his story of finding his birth mother, a mentally challenged woman who was raped as a girl and chose life for him despite all the odds. Steventhen shares his testimony of finding Christ and becoming a worship leader and how the tragedy of miscarriage led to the realization that God wanted him to find his birth mother. We discuss their initial meeting and how he responded to learning what had happened to her and how she still chose life for him. We also respond to those who argue for abortion exceptions and how this is a slap in the face to people like Steventhen and his mother, who courageously said no to the pressures to abort him. This is a story you don't want to miss! --- Timecodes: (00:54) Finding out about adoption (06:25) Finding Christ (08:30) Medical history & finding Mom (17:30) Mom's story (24:20) Meeting Mom (31:20) Response to abortion exception arguments (37:38) Fathers (44:13) Final encouragement --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — get 10% OFF your box today at GoodRanchers.com – make sure to use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe. We Heart Nutrition — nourish your body with research-backed ingredients in your vitamins at WeHeartNutrition.com and use promo code ALLIE for 20% off. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE". My Patriot Supply — prepare yourself for anything with long-term emergency food storage. Get your new, lower-price 4-Week Emergency Food Kit at PrepareWithAllie.com. --- Links: Steventhen meeting his mom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2iq6hjmNA --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 936 | 'We Recommend Termination': Defying Doctors & Choosing Life | Guests: Daniel & Kelly Crawford https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-936-we-recommend-termination-defying-doctors-choosing/id1359249098?i=1000642142579 Ep 921 | To the Texas Mom Suing to Abort Her Baby https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-921-to-the-texas-mom-suing-to-abort-her-baby/id1359249098?i=1000638357091 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Conceived in rape and given up for adoption at seven days old, Stephen Thin Holland has an incredible testimony that points to God's faithfulness and his redemption. He's going to tell us of his story of adoption, of finding out how he was conceived. how he was born, who his mother is, and oh my goodness, you are going to shed so many tears, happy tears and sad tears, but most of all, you are going to be encouraged as you are reminded of how good and how powerful God is. I'm so excited for you to hear Stephen Thin's story. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Steven, then, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. Yeah, so I first saw your testimony in a live action Instagram post, and I thought, wow, this person, one, you're very compelling as you're sharing your testimony, but what an awesome story of God's redemption. So I just wanted to bring you here to get the extended version of your testimony. So let's go back to the beginning. Let's talk about it. And most people don't go all the way back to their concept. when they're talking about their testimony, but you do. Yeah. Well, it started as an eight-year-old little boy, you know, at school. I had some friends of mine make fun of me because of my skin color.

And what they said was, you're weird and different. And I'm like, what do you mean? And they said, well, you're the wrong color. And I looked at my hand and I started thinking about my family. And I'm like, hey, they're white. And I'm not. I'm brown. So I had this moment like, you know, why would they say that?

It kind of hurt. Yeah. To be honest, but I come home and I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my mom. So I've got some questions, right? Like, I'm not the same as you. So sitting on the edge of the bed with my mom that night as Nate, you're a little boy. I found out that I was actually adopted. But seven days old, they brought me into their home as a foster child.

I was on the same bottle of form. I left the hospital with. I was literally so weak that I couldn't suck a bottle. So this family, again, I always say that love goes deeper than color, deeper than DNA, deeper than blood. Because I wasn't any of those things related to them, but they loved me the same. They saw me as their son, and they took me in, and this family literally squeezed milk in my mouth to save my life. I was very malnutrition, so my legs were drawn up into my body.

They literally would take my legs and stretch them out and massage my legs. This family literally saved my life. And why were you malnourished? Because of, well, we didn't know who my mom was at the time, like yet. There was some speculation that she might have some mental challenges. So I was not fed. So I literally, again, seven days old, but I was on the bottle that I left the hospital with. So, you know, and I, and so it's crazy.

They tease that when I was little that I was like a little bulldog because of, my legs early on because of that malnourishment. My leg, you know, I walk bow-legged, you know. So I find that out at eight years old, right? And that's all you know at that point. That's all I know. That your adopted parent said, okay, yeah, this is why you look a little different than us. You're adopted.

Exactly. Here's what it looked like when you first came to us. But at that point, I'm guessing that's about all they told you. Yes. And what I did get was I got eight pages of top writer paperwork from 1982. So I was born on March 31st, 1982. At least that's the date they decided to go with. There was even some speculation on that, you know, a few days.

But I had, I say it's a gift that I was receiving. I didn't know I was getting. At the time, it was just a three ring binder with eight pages of typewriter paperwork. Yeah. And it had my birth mom's name, Glenda Sue Holt. And then it had broken family history of her family that she had given human services when she dropped me off at seven days old. Okay.

So once the family officially adopted me, all those records came to them for me. So I'm receiving that as well at eight years old. And do you remember your reaction or your emotional response when you were eight and you learned that? Yeah, yeah. That's the first in my life I ever remember being broken. You know, to think about that's the first one in my life. I ever remember asking God why? Yeah.

Like, why do I have to be the wrong color? That's what those kids said at school. right um why do i why do i look different um you know why did my mom not give birth to me and but the biggest why question was why would my mother my birth mom not want me you know um that's a lot for an eight year old to think about yeah and uh so honestly i was broken you know i cried a lot i I was mad. I was frustrated. But at the same time, you know, confused because I knew I was loved in this family, you know,

even though they're my adopted family, they love, they've loved me so well, you know, it quickly, you know, the pain quickly turned into like, okay, wait a minute, they love me. I'm in a safe place, you know. And it comes back to, I tease when I speak, you know, nationally and publicly. I had a drug problem growing up, you know. I was drug in and drug out of every church service known to man. I don't know who can relate to that out there, but every time the church doors are open, you know, I was at church.

So my family, my mom saw the family adopted side, had a gospel quartet and used to travel and sing. And my grandmother, I call her Mimi. She was my Sunday school teacher. So I had literally had the word of God poured into my life. And I knew of Jesus, but in the middle of that little broken eight-year-old's heart, I actually came to know Christ in the middle of that pain and that brokenness at a church service. Wow. Yeah, tell me a little bit more about that.

Well, it was revival. I don't know. We still have, we call them revivals in the South. But I grew up in the Tennessee, Chattanooga area, and we were having a revival, a weekly revival. And in the middle of that week, I just, again, sitting there with my family and hearing the goodness of God. And I've heard all my life. remember what the sermon was. I don't remember really any of that other than I just needed Jesus. And I'd heard my whole life that, you know, he's a comforter, he's a provider, he's a protector,

he's a savior. And I needed, I needed somebody to take that pain, you know. So I came running in the middle of the service. I didn't wait for permission. I just came running to Jesus. We're not even, we're barely five minutes in. You're already making me cry. Wow. Yeah. So I, you know, I'm big on, I think, pain. has purpose. Yeah. If we can look hard enough, you know, that's the kind of God we serve, right? Yeah.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they. even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Tell me when you learned the extent of your kind of conception story and who your biological mom was. Right. Well, I carried that why question for a long time. You know, so like for middle school,

high school, I tried to mask that in sports. So I was earthquake in middle school, freight training in high school. I was a fullback middle linebacker. You know, I tried it, you know, to like, you know, that great quote that says, you know, Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Yeah. But I was trying to put something, you know, like sports or relationships. So I actually get to college. I made it to college. And I played baseball in college, major in youth ministry.

And I think my sole purpose in being in college was to find my wife. She was a volleyball player from Tampa, Florida. I married up. She's 5.11. I'm 5. None of your business. But we start dating. We start talking about what it would be like to have a family. Like, do we want to have kids and how many do we want to have and how early do you want to start?

So we get married in Tampa, Florida, her hometown in June of 2006. And we start, you know, to have a family. We try to have a family early. So I was a youth pastor at this little church. My wife had gotten pregnant with our first. And eight weeks in the pregnancy, she wasn't feeling well. I went to church on a Sunday, and I came back to her just in the fetal position. in our living room, she had had a miscarriage at home alone.

And here I find myself, my wife and I asking God, the same question that little eight-year-old was asking God, why? This pain, we didn't sign up for this. And we just want to be parents, you know. So we lose our eight-week-old, our first pregnancy. Then we have Isabella, who's our 16-year-old. I have three daughters, by the way. Our oldest, Isabella, she's 16.

And so we had her. And then our third pregnancy, 10 weeks in my wife just, wasn't feeling well. She knew that motherly instinct. Something's not right. So we went to the hospital or to the doctor and we had an ultrasound. We see a baby, but no heartbeat. So our third pregnancy, our 10 week old, we lost as well. So now we've had two miscarriages. Now, I'm 41 years old, about to be 42. I still don't know medical history. But so at 27 at this time, when we lost our second baby or this miscarriage. I didn't know medical history.

And what the enemy started doing in me was it's your fault. Because if you knew your past, right? If you, maybe there's generational curses or I was just thinking all these things, right? And if I just knew the medical history, I could save my babies. So that's where my headspace was. But I'm a middle school pastor, Wednesday nights, 100 plus middle. schoolers, you know, and trying to, I talk to pastors all the time that it's okay to hurt. You know, I was young, you know, student pastor and I thought I had to have it all together.

So I didn't tell anybody. So I'm depressed and I'm struggling and you felt like you couldn't be having a crisis of faith or you couldn't be questioning these things or asking God these questions because then people wouldn't think that you're qualified to be a pastor. So you bottled it up. Absolutely. And that's where I was. So in the middle of that, right, I,

I go back to that little eight-year-old boy right in the middle of the pain. Here comes Jesus, you know. And I was sitting in a 975 square foot apartment in Tampa, Florida. We'd have these two miscarriages. We're actually pregnant with the fourth pregnancy now, which is our 13-year-old daughter, Eliana today. And then we had, I'll go ahead and say we have Cadence, our 10-year-old daughter. So this is 2009.

We've had those two miscarriages. My wife's pregnant with Eliana, our second daughter. and the Holy Spirit just moved on my heart in a way that I've never had happened since. And what I heard was it's time. And I'm like, Lord, it's time for what? What's that mean? I need more. And I went into praying and fasting.

And he said, it's time to look for your mom. So 27 years, right? I mean, from 8 years old to 27, you know how many times, like, I thought about seeking her out? You know, like, where is she at? Would she care? Does she want me? Would she like to know me? And just the timing was never right. Like I would get this close. You know, and I had permission and, you know, just support from my adopted family if I ever wanted to do that, which is a huge thing. You know, I wanted to honor them. And so I called them and asked them. I said, is it okay to look? And they gave me their blessing.

So I had that eight pages of typewriter paperwork from 1982 and I had Google. So I start searching. And three days into the search, I was doing name searches. I came across this man named Steve Holt, a website. He's a magician and ventriloquist from Spartanburg, South Carolina. And I know you don't know me out, but I don't like clowns. I don't like Chuck E. I don't like any of that stuff. So, I mean, this guy's like got videos of him like sawing bodies in half and, you know, head on this side.

You're like, oh, heck no. I'm like, not today, Satan. You know, I'm not going on this man's website. Yeah. And really the puppets get me, though, like those wood, you know, their eyeballs, they are. Yeah. You know, I don't. So anyways, I got past that because something said, click on his bio.

And I clicked on his bio. And literally, I'm looking at my paperwork from 1982 and it all matches. It all lines up. And one specific name. It says my baby sister on his online for him. And it says Glenda Sue Holt. And that's my birth mom's name. So I'm like, okay.

you know, it's got to be family. You know, this is my uncle. So I sent him an email and it said, hey, I think I'm your long-lost nephew. And that's why I gave him because, you know, he could be a serial killer or, you know, I don't know. Yeah. You didn't want to tell him. No, I didn't want to tell him anything. But he emails me back.

And then about two months later, I jump on a plane, fly to Spartanburg, South Carolina. I get to meet my birth uncle. What did he say in his response? Do you remember? Well, I know that his wife, my aunt Vicki, said that he reads this email and literally falls out of his chair. You know, and but he writes me back and just says, you know, I think, I think this is legitimate. You know, I think that you are my nephew. I would love to meet you, you know, things like that.

It was actually a very good response, positive. So I felt, you know, good about flying up and meeting him. So we spend two days, you know, I'm standing. I mean, we meet. I'm in his living room. You talk about two grown men just hugging and weeping. Because what he told me was, is in their family dynamic, there were six children. So he was one of six.

Their parents had died in an early age. And the five siblings that he has, they were all mentally handicapped in different ways. Wow. So he has a brother that literally has been, was institutionalized from 18 months old. you know, to my mom being an 11, functioning as an 11-year-old mentally. So, and he was the only one out of the six that was considered normal. Was he the oldest? Actually, I don't remember where he falls in the story.

I know my mom was the youngest. Okay. But he basically, he cared for them because mom and dad died. They were all thrown into orphanages. Wow. And sadly, you know, I'm a big... And this was what in the 6070s? Yeah, because I was born in 82 and she was actually 18.

Okay. So 60s, yeah. Yeah, late 60s, 70s. So just I'm a big advocate for foster care and adoption. You know, that's my story. But these children, because of nobody wanted them. Yeah. You know, so they were in orphanages literally, you know, for most of their adolescent.

years until they aged out of the system. My mom at 18, when she aged out, she became award of the state of Georgia, so this near the Atlanta area. Because she had special needs, and so it's not like she could just go to college or get a job. Exactly. So no parents, you know, no family to care for her. So the state took over and they placed her in a mental institution. And one evening, we don't believe it was workers.

They set her up with kind of a work program because she could function something, you know, to work like to safely walk a short distance, like potentially work, you know, kind of like a little job that she could have some independence. But one evening on her way home, she was actually raped by five men. Wow. So she was just attacked in a random attack. She didn't, as far as you know, she didn't know these people. No. So we don't know who. We still to this day don't know who the men were.

Wow. But so again, think about she's 18. physically, but mentally, she's only a child. Yeah. So does she even know what happened to her? You know, has anything ever, you know, has she been exposed to anything like that? I don't, we didn't, we don't know. And how did you, so I guess your uncle somehow learned of everything that happened.

That's how you know. Well, they found out they, the, obviously, she, she didn't tell anybody that it happened. Yeah, she probably couldn't really articulate that. And so when they do find, they find out the. staff find out that she's pregnant because she's showing, you know, that's how long, you know, it took for people to find this out. So, I mean, you know, she tells the story. So, I mean, it's her account, you know, of what happened to her. Yeah. Just as she was attacked by five men when she was walking home. So, so this is a state-ran facility. Yeah. She has no resources,

no job, no money. So what do you think that they're telling her to do? You know, have an abortion. I'm sure that they're trying to pressure her to do that. They're not giving her options, right? They're literally pressuring her every day to get rid of her baby. And I mean, she's amazing. You know, she said even with an 11-year-old mental capacity, 18 years old, she said, my baby's worth fighting for. Yeah.

So to fight for me and save my life, she actually ran away from the facility. I don't, we don't know how she escaped. But the last time my uncle, had, I guess, seen me. He didn't really see me, but I was in the womb. She actually came to him for help, and he cared for, for she and I for about a week until she disappeared for 10 years. So he didn't know what happened from 1982 to 1990 to he reconnected with her. So he never knew what happened to the baby. And here I am, 27-year-old man standing in his living room. So he did meet you when you were a baby. So I mean... In the womb. In the womb.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so not, you know, he didn't meet me, meet me, but I was in his presence. Yeah. Wow. And so, I mean, I don't know how it's to explain that beyond just the Holy Spirit convicted her because that's what God can do. He can communicate to and through anyone. Right. Just convicted her to fight for you and to fight for your life when really you would think within an 11-year-old, you know, mental capacity that she would have just complied with what the people told her to do.

but she knew that I'm going to fight for my baby. And so she ran, she ran away. Do you know, like, how she gave birth to you? Did she run to a hospital? Do you know how that worked? Well, we know that she made it to a women's shelter in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which, from where things happened, it was about two hours. Yeah, so was she in Atlanta?

She was in the Atlanta area, like Rome, Georgia area. So she made it to Chattanooga, was there for a little while. they cared for her. We just know from paperwork trail. But then by the end of the pregnancy, she's nine months pregnant and she's living on the streets. So she's actually in a cardboard box behind this little grocery store

in this little small town called Whitwell, Tennessee. And it's if the people, if you're from there, they say Wittwell. So it's a mining town like Chattanooga's over here. There's a mountain. Then Whitwell's in the valley. So it's literally tucked in two mountains.

And she's living in this box behind a store and a 16-year-old boy named Bobby came around the skipping school, came around the back of this store and sees the box move, pulls it back. And here she is, 18 years old, nine months pregnant. He takes her home to his family, like walks her home and walks in the door. You know, 16 years old walks in the door with an 18-year-old, nine-month pregnant woman and it's like, hey, I found her in this box behind the store. Can we keep her? Right. And that, you know, to me as a parent, you know, a parent, a 16-year-old young man walks in with an 18-year-old, nine-month pregnant woman.

It's like, I got some questions here. Yeah. Right, but no, I just found her. Can we keep her? And they took us in, cared for us for like two weeks. Wow. And then she gave birth to me in Chattanooga, Tennessee at Erlanger Hospital. Wow.

They said on March 31st, 1982. And so everybody always like, who, you know, how did you get the name Steventon? Right. Well, this mentally challenged, 18-year-old woman, 11-year-year-old. capacity said, I want my son to be named Stephen, then William. Oh. So Stephen was her brother, my uncle, who I'm standing in his living room. Yeah.

And William was her dad, my grandfather. So she wanted me to have both names. So what we think, you know, she probably didn't speak very well, articulate very well. So they're asking her like, what? You know, you want to name him what? Stephen then William. Stephen then William. So whoever heard it put S-T-E-V-E-E-V.

E-N-T-H-E-N. Steventon is my first name. Oh, my goodness. I think I'm the only one in the world that we know of right now with that name. Yeah. So I'm finding all this out at 27 standing in his living room. Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah, but it's not over yet.

Yeah. I'm standing there, and it kind of got awkward. It got quiet. He, I thought I said something wrong, you know. And he just says, you know, I had to meet you and look you in the eyes and see what kind of man you were before. I told you this, but your mom is alive. She's five hours south of where we stand. And he asked me one question.

He said, do you want to meet her? And what the Holy Spirit had spoke to me a couple months before I got to fly up there was it's time. So we jump in a car the next day. I wanted to go that night. Yeah, of course. Let's go. But we drove five hours south to a little town called Jeffersonville, Georgia, where my mom was staying in another mental institution, like a nursing home.

Okay. had men on one side, women on the other. And my uncle was like, hey, let's do a magic show. I'm going to do a show for the residence because that way, because again, I mean, I'm 27. She's 46, but she's still only 11 mentally. So you're about to meet, you know, we're about to drop a bomb in her life. You know, 27 year old, hey, here I am. And that's like such a tough dynamic for you to be in some way older than your mother.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to spend two hours just interacting with her. Like she didn't know who I was, but I knew who she was. What was it like when you saw her for the first time? It was like trying to hold back a flood, you know, 27 years of tears.

Well, eight, you know, whatever the math is. Yeah. You know, just trying to hold back, just thankfulness. Yeah. Because all I needed, I mean, my God's faithful. He's good. I know my identity and my worth is, I didn't have to meet her, you know. but for me to have the opportunity to meet her,

I just wanted to tell her I loved her and thank you for giving me life. And if that's all I got, I was okay with that. Yeah. So, you know, it was, I was dying to just tell her, you know, but we were trying to ease it in.

Like, I'm your, I'm your brother's friend, Stephen. You know, we didn't, you know, give the full name because she named me that. We didn't want to give it away. So anyways, he does this magic show. And, I mean, you know,

these people are like schizophrenics and, you know, and he saw it putting ropes through people's bodies. It was really, I'm just, I've got to set the scene because, you know, it was very, there's a lot going on in this moment. Yeah. It's not the scene that maybe like Hollywood would have painted for this like grand reunion. There's like this crazy magic show and these residents who, right, has got a lot going on

themselves. And in the midst of all of that, you're seeing your mother for the first time. Right. And so we were going to go to her room. do this private encounter because we didn't know how she would take it. Yeah. But she had been singing songs all day. And I'm a singer, worship leader, singer-songwriter.

And he gets through the magic show. I'm working a camera. Like we hadn't planned to film it. But we were just kind of filming his magic show just to kind of capture the moments. And she gets through singing, and I just felt led to come sing Amazing Grace. And I come up and the camera's still rolling and my uncle standing in between us. and I start singing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved.

And when I hit that word saved, it was like not just a salvation, you know, moment, but a, this woman I'm looking at in the eyes saved my life. And I lost it. And she hasn't sang on pitch or key all day long. And she looks at me and she just finishes the whole verse, like, perfectly. And just, and this is a, you know, this is on YouTube. We have a video that people can, we decided to make it public.

a few years ago just for, you know, it's just too good for God's faithfulness is goodness, you know, not to hold on to. It's testimony. So I'm getting to meet, you know, he, he, in that moment after we did that, he was like, we weren't going to do it this way, but basically here's your son, you know, and she just embraced me and said that she loved me and she had never given me up if she could have kept me. And those are all those questions I had. I didn't have to have them, but God gave me a lot of closure that I didn't even know I needed. Yeah. You know.

So she had the ability to have a conversation with you about it. She did. She did. And, you know, I am worth it. And she did love me, you know. And again, I knew that. But that was closure. I didn't even realize that I needed. When she said that, it was healing for me.

And then I had also made her a photo album that was really special to me. It was the first picture they ever had of me. And, you know, and I filled it up with pictures. over the years because she held on to a picture for like 18 years that wasn't her wasn't me that she thought was her baby. So I was able to bless her with this photo album. And so we had 11 years with Mama Glinda. My girls call her Gigi, Grandma Glinda. So you talk about like the age difference. My girls would bring coloring books and baby dolls and play with my mom. Yeah. You know, they were like sisters when they get together.

you know, like coloring or playing. But even though that was beautiful, it was also painful. Because she's a worthy state. They would move her from, you know, whatever the cheapest place was, kind of under, you know, sadly they're understaffed, over-medicated. And but she, even with all that, and even though it was hard on my girls, we took them at least once a year, sometimes twice. It was hard on them to be in those places.

But my mom deserved respect. She deserved to be loved on. And, um, so that was what, 2009, 2010? It was 2009 when we met. Okay. Um, so then she, uh, she actually passed away on Thanksgiving of 2020. She choked on a sandwich, uh, in the facility that she was in. What?

So, yeah, she was in a wheelchair and, you know, they, it's something that obviously they, you know, it was very, just a tragic, tragic accident. But, um, you know, here I am asking God, why again, right? but you know this beauty that comes out of pain by that time i have been sharing our story quite a bit and probably 200,000 people or so i've shared you know just doing a lot of pregnancy center fundraisers and and a right-to-life events pro-life events and when it hit social media you know shared about her her death i started getting floods and messages hey she's not just your hero because i call her my hero she's mine too

And so I have this beautiful mandate calling to carry on her legacy because she is a hero. She fought for me. And I'm thankful for that. And what do you think when you hear these conversations and debates that go on in the political realm on social media when you hear, well, the compat, like, you're basically what they say is the exception, even if someone is pro-life, they'll say, well, but if they heard of the case of your mom, they would say the empathetic thing to do, the compassionate thing to do would be absolutely to make sure that she gets an abortion. They would say, sure, maybe I'm pro-life, but rape, incest, if the mother, you know, has special needs, then we should kill that child. That's kind of the narrative that you hear sometimes on the left

and the right. I imagine just being who you are and having your testimony, it's hard to hear those conversations in that tone. Yeah, it's hard to not take it personal. Yeah. You know, I can sit here and say, well, you know, I don't take it. Well, it kind of is, you know. I'm a, I'm a lover of people. I'm, if that makes sense, what I'm trying to say there. I try. I'm going to respect your position in where you stand, but that still doesn't mean that I can't have a voice. And I think that for me, the way I fight that is I share my story, right? Like I'm here. I believe I have purpose.

I have worth. That wasn't dictated by how I was conceived, right? And I think we say, you know, in the exception world, it's, you know, the sins of the father shouldn't be passed on to the child. You know, and I used to, I used to say, man, I wish that would have never happened to my mom. You know, like if I could trade places with her. I mean, you know, I don't want her to have to go through that. I mean, that was horrible and terrible. But then there's this other side I had to think about like, but God had this, you know,

God worked in the middle of all that pain and all that brokenness to bring me. And I have three beautiful daughters, you know, that are 16, 13, and 10. They love Jesus. And they lead worship and they write songs. Yeah. What Satan means for evil. God uses for good. And I just, I love that verse so much.

I mean, when you think about the story that that verse is in, that Joseph, think about, it's hard to think about things more tragic than one, what your mom went through, but also the story of Joseph. I mean, imagine being sold into slavery by your own brothers. You're the youngest of the family. And your brothers take you. They throw you into a pit. So you get sold into slavery.

Like what is more evil and more wicked? than that. He's sold into slavery and then God uses that evil, that wickedness to save his own people from famine. Wow. And I just think of, I think of that when I think of your story, that what was so evil, a woman being raped, a special needs woman being raped, that God used that evil to then multiply his kingdom so that you can sit here, share your testimony, testify to the power and the love and the grace and the redemption of the Lord and your daughters get to do the same thing. Wow. God is so good. Well, and I look at, I mean, there's been moments where I've been able to share at a fundraising event and I had a table, a small group of women at their church that was struggling

with that, you know, the exception, you know, rape and incest. And like they kind of came with, hey, we're here. We lean towards the other, you know, the other side of in agreement with rape and, you know, making the exception. And then after, you know, I got to share. my story. We're, you know, they're surrounding me. We're all crying. And it's like, you, you've changed our hearts. You know, you've changed our minds. Like, we, we can't sit here. You don't hear your story and not be moved. And we have to rethink the position. And God's given me, that's just one, but so many conversations. And for me, it's just being faithful to share the story and let God handle the rest. But I had a 12-year-old Hispanic

young girl that had actually been raped by her uncle and had actually heard me share my story at a, I was there to lead worship at a camp and I wasn't even supposed to share my story, but God opened the door for me to share, and she actually went against the wishes of her parents to choose life. So she got removed from the home. She gave birth to her baby. I was leading worship at a church and this family came in place that baby in my arms. Talk about losing it. Yeah. And then this young woman got adopted by another family, another church family, the little girl. So I got to meet her at 13.

And she's crying. And she says, how do I know that my son is going to know that I love him because I gave him away? And I'm trying to get the words out. I'm crying. I said, you're one of the strongest women on the planet. Totally. You know, to give birth to your child. Give your child a loving home, right?

You loved him so much that you wanted to place him in a place that he could be loved well and provided for, he knows. And one day I hope maybe that he'll have the chance like I did, you know, to look my mom in the eyes, hug her and tell her, I love her. Thank you for giving me life. Again, those are just those little moments where I call, you know, nuggets. God winks. It's like, hey, you know, this is part of your purpose.

I truly believe that's part of my purpose is to continue to share my story. Yeah. And I know that this is, it's painful. But because all of us have this, I think, just natural drive to know whose we are, where we come from, even just physically, obviously, we know that we're gods. But have you ever wondered, like, who your father is? And what happened to those men who assaulted your mom? I've had moments where I've thought about that. Even recently, I've had people ask me, you know, do you not want justice for your mom? They've come out and asked that. And it's not that I don't want justice for my mom, but I don't, I go by the direction of the Lord, you know, and I haven't felt in my heart that he's, you know, called me to seek that out to try to find.

I'm not saying that it won't happen one day. But right now, I feel like he's redeemed and restored all the evil by what, you know, with my mom's life and what I'm able to do and carry on her legacy by sharing our story. I've even had somebody, I mean, we're being honest here, I've had somebody ask me, like, you know, what if he's not a believer, you know, this person? And if you could find them, right? So I'm wrestling with that. I'm wrestling with that right now, you know, because I hadn't thought, I hadn't thought about it in that way before. You know, I put my focus more on my mom, you know, in our story and honoring her. I don't hate my, I don't hate my dad, my father, my birth father.

I don't hate those men. I had to let go of that a long time ago. You know, I think that those bitterness and, you know, hold root and can keep us, you know, held in chains, I guess is the best way. I don't want that. I don't think that's what God wants. But, too, I think one of the biggest reasons that I've never really, I've thought about it, but it hasn't been a deep longing pursuit to find my fathers because I had one of the best fathers, earthly fathers that I could have had.

My dad, I've got a picture in my book on page 36 that I, that's a treasure to me. He was a coal miner. I thought he was black most of my life, but he was not. He was white because he would come in covered in coal and he would clean himself and he would sleep shirtless. And from the first day they brought me home, he would hold me on his chest and sleep with me heart to heart. And I have that. it's a treasure because he died of Alzheimer's. He passed away on August 19th of 2014,

and I got to hold him on his way out. Like he held me on my way in, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. So. Oh, my goodness. I mean, he was a hard-nosed country man. You know, when they tried to remove me, actually, at six months old,

the state of Tennessee tried to remove me from the home because of my skin color. So being a biracial child in the South, They felt like I would be better placed in a biracial home, mixed race home or an African-American home. Oh, wow. And my dad put a shotgun by the back door or the front door and said, you can come in, but you're not taking my son. I'm not saying that's the best way to handle it legally. That's just what happened.

But Tennessee Coleman. He's my dad. Yeah. And he loved me and fought for me. And did you have adopted siblings? I did. I did. Not adopted, but adoptive siblings, I guess.

So it's beautiful. I've been an uncle since I was two. Wow. So I have four, I have four siblings, my adopted siblings, I have, which is, this is hilarious to me. I have Ricky, Rod, Renee, and Robin. And then there's Stevenson. Yeah.

And you would have thought, you know, eight years of, like, why's my name different? Yeah. I just never, they just love me, you know? And I've always been a part of the family. And I teared up, yes, actually flying here to do the show, like talking to my mom and my sister on a call, just thinking. them for just loving me, you know, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, you know. So, yeah, Ricky Rod, Renee, and Robin.

And it's a 13-year age gap. Yeah. Well, there's so much in your story that flies against, flies in the face of common narratives of today that, you know, a southern Tennessee white coal mining family took in a little biracial boy and you having to deal with. everything that came with being biracial in the South and this time and being bullied because of that. Gosh, there's just a lot of complexity and a lot of layers to your story. Well, I think a really beautiful thing, too, for me is I still, to this day,

so when the state tried to remove me from the home, not only did my family fight for me, but I have a folder, a manila envelope that has about 200 and over 250 petition letters that this community, which racism still existed, you know, and it was 82, was prevalent there. And they still rallied behind this family to keep this biracial child in the home. Like if it wouldn't have been for them, you know, their voice and them writing letters into the state. And it even went over beyond state lines, actually, some of the letters. But that just, I think that's, again, like when I get an opportunity to share at fundraising events and things like that, I share that. Because this community decided, you know, Saratman Burke says the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Yeah. And so let's do something, right? Yeah. And the love of Christ transcends. Yes. Transins skin color, transcends. Absolutely. Norms.

And it also just goes to show that history in the world isn't as figuratively and literally black and white as we kind of make it out to be that, okay, everyone in the South that was white was racist or whatever. it is in either direction, like human beings, history, the history of a country, the history of us is people, the history of the church, it's complicated. There are a lot of layers. And the through line is God's faithfulness. And I think that your story is such a great example of that. Is there any just kind of like final message that you would speak to someone who is either in your situation or who has an unexpected pregnancy or just wants to know that. the gospel. What would you say? Well, I think, you know, for us, universal messages that you're not alone, right? You know, whether you're someone who's struggling to know your purpose and, you know,

whether there's a God or does he love me, does he care about me, you're never alone. I love 2nd Corinthians 4, 8, and 9. It talks about how, you know, we're hard pressed, we're crushed and all those things. But my favorite one is, you know, you're never abandoned. You're never alone. You know, you're struck down but not destroyed, not yet. I'll say broken, not dead. That's how I live. But I think that you're not alone. So if you're someone who's, you know, an unexpected pregnancy and looking for help,

there's beautiful organizations that I've been blessed. I've been in 39 states now, you know, and I know that, you know, every single one of those places I've been in is non-judgmental. You know, they love you, support you. They have resources, you know, so just to know that there is help. and there is support to look for your local pregnancy resource center, I think would be a great place, but also to the church, you know, like for the gospel. Like when my mom died, I was struggling with why did she have to die alone?

And God quickly reminded me, you know, after a week or so of grieving and crying and asking God why, she was never alone. You know, so we, I think that's, I think for me, that's, I think a lot of people, if we can just realize that God does have a plan for your life, he's created you for a purpose, you know, on purpose with purpose. And he's there, you know, and he truly loves you. Amen. There's people like me that, you know, if I can help in any way, I mean, there's a lot of us out there in the faith-based world. And where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

The beautiful thing is, Ali Bet, I'm the only Steventon in the world. So I don't have to worry about SEO or anything like too much. You're just right there. But steventhon.com. So Steventon, Holland is my last name. So if you Google me, you know, videos and, and again, I'm a singer-songwriter, so I've got about 22 songs I've recorded. I'm recording in Nashville in February. Good.

And then my nonprofit, Broken Not Dead Ministries. So Broken Not Dead.com is also a good place to track me down. Well, Stephen, thank you so much for taking the time to share your testimony. And may God bless you and your sweet girls and your family. Thank you. Thank you, Alameth. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.