The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – CAPTURED BY HIS HEART: POETRY OF HEALING AND REVELATION by Monica Hansen

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

CAPTURED BY HIS HEART: POETRY OF HEALING AND REVELATION by Monica Hansen https://amzn.to/3Stv6Bn Captured by His Heart is a profound collection of poetry that delves into the depths of the writer’s spirit and its relationship with Jesus. Authored by Monica Hansen, this book is a testament of her journey of faith and discovery of God’s Love. Through her unique style, readers are invited to witness her personal exploration of her significance to God and the wounds He wanted to heal within her. As she learns to surrender these to God, she experiences healing and finds her heart brought to a place of wholeness through His love. This book of poems is a beacon for those seeking solace and understanding in their own questions of God. Experience the transformative power of poetry as you read and are Captured by His Heart.

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Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't loan you money. So don't ask. Please stop sending messages and ask. We're not that kind of family. We're the kind of family that loves you even though you might be the black sheep of the family. And other families, you can't pick your family. But we do have one difference is we just don't like you know, and you know, other families, you can't pick your family, but we do have one, you know, differences.

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Chris Foss, one of the TikTokity, and Chris Foss on goodreads.com. That's always good for Goodreads for the authors and books that we have on the show. We have an amazing young lady on the show today. We're going to be talking about her new book called Captured by His Heart, Poetry and Healing and Rel—here, let me recut that, actually. I just butchered it. My bad.

Captured by His Heart, poetry of healing and revelation. Monica Hanson joins us on the show with us today. We're going to be talking about her book out June 4th, 2024 this year. Hot off the presses. You can check that out for inspiration and everything else. Monica Hanson is the founder of the Graceful Warrior Podcast, which empowers believers to drive meaningful change in the world for the glory of God. She's passionate about helping others to put on the full armor of God

daily by equipping them with truth by and through the word of God. She's on a mission to cultivate a powerful community of listeners, equipping them to harness their influence and authority to uphold Christian values and advance the purposes of God, plus encouraging them to mobilize others to blaze the same trail. She's the author of the newest and latest book, and her podcast can be listened to on all audio platforms and her video platforms on Rumble and YouTube. She's also a U.S. Army veteran during the Desert Storm era, and she's served seven years and is now

retired living in the picturesque mountains of Idaho with her husband, Michael. Welcome to the show, Monica. How are you? I'm doing great, Chris. How are you doing? I am doing excellent as well. We've got some inspiration coming down the pike here from you today. So give us your dot coms.

Where can people find all of your stuff there on the interwebages in the sky? You can follow. I have an author website. I'm on monica-hansen.com. And you can also check out my podcast, thegracefulwarrior.com. There you go, thegracefulwarrior.com. So give us a 30,000 overview, a new book, Captured by His Heart. What's crazy is Captured by His Heart came after

I gave my heart to the Lord. I thought that, you know, that's all that would happen. You give your life to the Lord, you go to church, you pray, you read your Bible, yada, yada, yada. But after all of that, I was like, no. All of a sudden, I started just hearing words hit my heart, and I wake up midnight, two o'clock in the morning, and just hear these words, and I was like, wait, and I wake up midnight two o'clock in the morning and just hear these words and I was like wait I was scrambling to grab paper and pen started writing and get up the next morning and start reading this and I'm just like oh my gosh what does this all mean so over the course of four years the Lord just started downloading all of these poems to my heart and I would just throw them in my desk.

Didn't know what to do with them for years. And finally, God just said, you know what? It's time, Monica. And I'm like, no! You know, I was like afraid. I was scared to put it all out there. And it was totally because of the fact that who reads poetry these days, you know? And what do you offer society out there? People love poetry still.

We've had poets on the show before, yeah. That's amazing. So there you go. The book came out, and he totally just led me through the whole process of the title, the cover, everything. Wow. There you go. So you were inspired through all that.

Now, had you ever written poetry before in your life, or did this come out of left field? Chris, you could not pay me to write a poem. I am the typical Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. You know, I cannot write worth saving my life, but it was totally was totally god i mean that was it was just crazy everything just came to fruition the way it was supposed to be it was it was amazing that is awesome you know so had you ever written anything like maybe inspired to try and write a book before or just it just really just came out of nowhere and it came out of nowhere. I remember writing a thesis in college. That's about all I have. So the book just really came, and I remember just throwing all those poems in my desk,

just going, I don't know what to do with these, and I don't know what they mean. Inspiration comes at interesting times. And so you compiled it all in your book, Captured by His Heart, Poetry of Healing and Revelation. What are you hoping that readers come away with when they read this book? You know, the same thing that I came away with was the fact that we all ask at some point in our life, what's our purpose here on earth? And is there really a God? What is heaven? heaven you know looking at

all the things that he has created and and i had to look at that myself so the whole catch is hey we've all had those questions and you could ask those questions to the to the lord god almighty and he will answer you in time there you go those pose the questions and they will come as it were. Exactly. Exactly. Let's talk about how you were raised and what inspired you. Were you always religious? Did you grow up in a religious family?

And what was your journey through life? You know, I did. I grew up in a Christian environment, but it was like I looked at it as that was my mother's God. And as I got older and graduated from high school, I didn't want anything to do with God. I was like, you know what, that's your God. And if he is controlling the way you are, I don't want anything of that. You know, I didn't. I didn't want that.

I didn't see love. You know, I closed my heart, you know, that. I didn't see love. You know, I closed my heart. You know, under my parents, where my father was a Navy veteran, I was raised under that thumb. And so it was controlling. It was power, you know, and I didn't want that. Kind of that strict Navy, strict military sort of. Yeah. My dad used to be like, I'm gonna make you you have to bounce a

quarter off the bed or whatever it is there you go yes yes make your bed just perfect or yeah the white glove inspection through the house i wouldn't survive that but my dad would joke that he was gonna implement it he went through just basic training oh no he would just threaten us with that every now and then we're like it was like in the military they made us do this and we're like yeah but we're not in the military dad we're just kids that's what i thought what the hell's going on i don't remember signing up for the military at two but you know kids need kids sometimes need some structure we certainly did i Exactly. My kid has kids with me and my brother. We were trouble.

Nothing's really changed either. No. You know, the trouble is always there. I think with boys, more so girls. Yeah, it's troubles in the nature of disagreeableness is kind of a manhood thing. Yes, it is. I think women are more agreeable and they get along better than we do. We have to fight each other and do stuff,

and it's a pecking order for tribal hunting and all that crap we do. You end up somewhere joining the military. I did. I did. It was a crazy thought. I actually told my parents, you know what? I'm going to go somewhere where I can have my own say. I'm going to go in the military.

Wow. You really thought that? I really did. Boy, how gullible was I. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Went in and they did. My parents looked at me and laughed too.

And I went in and it was a whole new world. It just made my parents look like a like a party house or something you know a basic training you're like i wish i could go home now my parents were that bad i did i did but i absolutely loved it i loved the just the dedication of it they they stripped you yes they stripped you of all of your individualness. And they were going to turn you into a part of the team, something bigger. And it was the greatest thing I've ever done. There you go.

And you served seven years in Desert Storm. What was that like? Oh, gosh. I did a total of seven years, but Desert Shield, Desert Storm was under General Storm and Norman was a whole, what, 90 days. And I mean, we went through and I was in an aviation unit. So we had all the Blackhawks and Apaches, everything. And so we went out there and supported 82nd Airborne. Every time 82nd would jump and jump is when they would move forward into the into the

battle so every time they would jump we would have to jump with them not out of the plane but they did that they were the ones jumping but we would move on the ground and give them support anything that they needed there you go you gotta have support for that stuff. That was a fine little war. Man. I don't even know if it was a war half the time. It was so fast. It was so fast. I mean, my understanding is the Russians saw it and went, yeah, we need to give this thing up and try and quit competing with them.

My understanding was they saw that our missiles had video screens on them or whatever, video recorders. And they're like, yeah, we're not. Yeah, it's time to just. We're not jumping in this now. We're giving this USSR thing up. Yep. Yep. We had the French there, and they had, oh, my gosh, they had the best MREs there.

We would trade them. Oh, really? We would give ours to them, and they would hand theirs over. And they would have, at the time, you'd have smokes in there. You'd have candy. You'd have dessert in there. Ours were just like these dehydrated meals. And you're just like, yeah, here you go. Let me take one of yours.

I joke with the French because they surrendered in the first two World Wars. Yes. They did put up resistance, so I can't give them full shame. But I would be too worried. I'd always be checking their bags for white flags. Two World Wars. Yes. They did put up resistance, so I can't give them full shame. But I would be too worried. I'd always be checking their bags for white flags. Don't surrender. We're winning.

Don't surrender. We think we're winning. Don't give up like you did to Hitler. Anyway, that's a World War II joke. That is. Yes. Yes. Gen Zers, listen to the show. That's a World War II joke.

Oh, yes. There was two of them. Check your history books. It's not on TikTok. Anyway, I kid the Gen Zers listen to the show. That's a World War II joke. There's two of them. Check your history books. It's not on TikTok. Anyway, I kid the Gen Zers. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta teach them. So, when did you start finding more about your relationship with God and religion? And as you were talking about your God, not your mom's God, when did that kind of come to fruition? You know, when I gave my heart to the Lord, I don't know if you've ever heard of the prophet Kim Clement. He has talked about the times that we are in now.

He passed away 2015, but he gave a prophetic voice to everything that we're going on in America right now and all the exposure. And so I got saved through him by giving my heart to the Lord through him. And yes, and then it was during that time of giving my heart to the Lord and hearing those poems, because when I came out of the military, I was filled with so much bitterness, so much anger, so much hurt. I had dealt with not only just the battle, but I also dealt with the R word that we had discussed prior. Oh, really? Wow. Yes.

I had dealt with that in the military. So there was MST, and those that are veterans listening to the show, you know what MST is. It's military sexual trauma. Oh, no. And so I had dealt with that. So, when I got out, and I have a lot of injuries due to an accident in the military, is that when I got out, I felt so much loss in my life because it was like the military for me defined who I was. I was going to be a lifer. And so, I got out with anger and bitterness and hurt of everything that had happened. And the Lord, through all of the poems, began to say, all right, you know what?

I'm going to grab everything that you've been screaming and yelling at me in your heart, and I'm going to turn it around and put it into poetry and show you who I am. And then as I started reading those, I was like, whoa, this is a God that loves me. A bit of inspiration coming through there. Yes. So the healing began. Wow.

And you're just kind of self-healing through, you know, these poems that are coming to you and stuff. Exactly. He just began to show me how much he loves each one of us for who we are because that's who he made us. And so the healing started. And now, I mean, I used to be pretty high-rated PTSD. And I was on every type of medication there was. I was going through all of the counselors, civilian and VA, and it wasn't enough.

I mean, at one point I had the VA security guards outside my counselor's door and they're like, Monica, if don't calm down we're gonna put you upstairs on the seventh floor for a couple of hours you know so i was filled with so much anger and then the lord just gradually got me off the meds and he was like you don't need these i am the way the truth and the life and so i was like yeah okay so i started just downing my doses bit by bit. And now I've been like drug free of all of these medications that they give you for PTSD for about five years now. Wow, that is awesome. That is awesome. And so it's really helped you through your journey and you decide to share it so that it could help others. Exactly.

Exactly. So that it could help others. Exactly, exactly. And also, Chris, I know that there is a lot of attention given to the guys, rightly, who serve in the military. But I think that there is a lot of a lack of education in the fact that women do serve, too. You know, we are out there serving too if it wasn't for desert storm because desert storm allowed women to get up there to the front lines we had our female pilot that were that crashed you know in desert storm she became the first prison female and of that war and so yes prisoner of war and you know women do servant and everybody you get on va on the phone you talk to them and they're like can i speak to the veteran you're like you you are i am the veteran oh really they do that too they do that too and so they're you know it's it's

it's just bringing out the fact of women do serve too you know i think we have a lot of women in the military now we do i heard a figure recently so it's a huge percent and yeah and it anybody who serves this country and and puts their life on the line is is a patriot in my book i think we need to take care of them better i i know the va has gotten better than it used to be. In the 90s, we used to go, we used to do stat runs for our courier company for blood and blood testing and body stuff testing. You know, and somebody would be in an emergency room and you'd have to go pick up their blood or the urine and you have to race it to the blood testing facility so they could figure out what was going on very quickly. And so we'd have to go to the VA and all the hospitals for, you know, the pickup stuff.

And it was always like the morgue in there in the 90s. It was really bad. You'd have people that had been there for four hours, five hours. Oh, geez, yes. In the waiting room. And hopefully they fixed some of that and a lot of it. But, yeah, anything for our veterans because it's just, we need to treat our veterans way better.

Yeah, we do. So many of them die every day, homeless, a lot of homeless veterans. PTSD is a big issue as well. And yeah, I'm glad you found a way to help deal with the issues that you experienced. And now you live in Idaho. Oh, man, I live up in the great, great mountains of Idaho. Oh, there you go. It's a beautiful place.

It is. I have the pleasure of, I'm literally up in the mountains of Idaho. Like, we do not have Walmarts over here. We do not. We don't have. I don't know where you're at. I hate Walmart. Oh, my gosh. We don't have Walmarts not we don't have to where you're at i hate walmart oh my gosh we we don't have walmart's we don't have fast food restaurants here really we don't i mean we

it's all community support here you know so the old style of the old stream exactly yeah i go up to sun Valley every now and then that's all up there yes it's beautiful there it's kind of turned pretty industrial though it's kind of gone from a small town to to bigger town but I think it's still kind of small town we used to we used to fly in for an events out where they hold the Allen and Company thing out at the Sun Valley Hotel, I think it is. Yes, yes. Yeah, and all the townspeople kind of look askance at you,

like you invader. Don't even invade us. You weird out-of-towners. We try to go into town and get drinks, and they're like, we're closed. And we're like, damn, what the hell kind of town is this? But it was always lovely to go up there. So there you go. What are your plans for future stuff?

Do you have more poems coming that you're being inspired to write, and maybe a second book? No, actually, I just started writing last week. It's another book coming out, and the title is called The Undaunting Pursuit of Christ. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. And this didn't come from myself. This was given to my heart by the Lord, and it's just been one of those where it's like, I don't actually know what this means, Lord. You're going to have to show me. Fill in the blanks.

It is. It very much is. So, it's a journey, personally, in my walk with God. At the same time, it's a journey of writing it and going, wow, this is what I've learned in that undaunting pursuit. Darrell Bock There you go. Undaunting pursuit. Mary Laird Yes. Darrell Bock Just pursue Jesus like he owes you money. Mary Laird Exactly. There you go. Pursue him like the blessings he gives us We do the jokes around here

Jesus, you owe me that five bucks, damn it You have to get in the car to stay up with him Yeah, he's, you know, he's, anyway I don't want any more jokes But what was the thing I was going to ask you about? Oh, tell us about your podcast Oh, great question You know, I'm doing a podcast called the graceful warrior it's the only podcast where we actually bring in the significance of the armor of god and how it applies to everybody's

life daily and putting on that armor of god because you know it the word of god says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood i don't have a fight with with Chris Voss it is the the the spiritual realm you know the Satan and his demons it's it's against the darkness that that's where our battle is and so it is teaching and encouraging our listeners that you have to put on that armor of God and each piece of that armor means something to me, especially because as I learned it, I began to look at it as my armor, what we wore, our flat vest, what we wore when we were in the fight in Iraq. And we had to wear a flat vest to keep, to protect our chest or for those incoming rounds that would come in our

helmet you know from anything so i break it down to each piece of the armor of god in the importance and use the military's gear to help people understand it better oh wow like an analogy exactly metaphor yeah an analogy yeah and oh geez but then on fridays oh on friday i i interview guests from all over the world we've had people from africa we've had people from uganda a lot of different places so just bringing their stories in and and allowing them to share their testimonies their heart their trials and triumphs in life as well i love it i love stories it's it's interesting to to hear how people go through their journey of life the choices they make and you know there's so many different pathways you can go through life and so you

you know you talk to people and you're like oh why did you do that way and you know i think i'm just sick of my life and other people's life i'm 56 man i'm over it i'm only three years behind you i'm only three years behind i don't want to hear about my life i don't hear my life anymore i i want to hear about everybody else's lives they think some people have better stories and they have better fun. It's more interesting. I know what I did. It's like people are like, what did you do, Chris?

I don't know. I'm tired of talking about it. People on the show are like, no, he's not. Anyway. So what have we missed or that we should touch on so we can let people know about what you're up to and what you're doing? I think you covered it all. I also have a store called The Graceful Swag. Oh, The Graceful Swag.

The Graceful Swag. You know, you got to hit them Gen Z's again. The Graceful Swag. We've got all of our T-shirts and coffee mugs, all of that sort that they can go ahead and purchase. And where can they get that at? That is graceful-swag.printify.me. There you go.

There you go. So you got the swag for all the stuff. You got all the details there and all that stuff. Good stuff going on. So this is going to be fun. We'll look for the new book. Do you have a plan yet on when the new book comes out? I am giving it a year because we are just in the starting of this manuscript.

Mm-hmm. So I'm hoping that that's going to be a journey. It's got a little fear and trepidation to walk this journey, but I know that the Lord will be with me through this journey. It's a lesson in life. There you go. It should be fun, and we'll look forward to it. So give us your final pitch out to our people who order the book as we go out and all the dot coms. Hey, thank you. Thank you for your invite on this show, and I just wanted to say to your viewers, hey, if you want to check out my book, you can grab that book, Captured by His Heart, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble

as an e-book or as a paper book. There you go. There you go. Thank you very much, Monica, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Chris. You have a great rest of your week. Thank you. You too. I wrote up the book where fine books are sold. It's called Captured by His Heart, Poetry of Healing and Out, let's see, it was out July. Last month, yeah, last month. June, June 4th, 2024. There you go. I like to do that.

Some people watch the show five, ten years from now, and they'll write me and be like, that's not a new book. And I'm like, do you look at the date on the thing, man? Like, seriously. People do that. I think there's 15 years now on YouTube, and people do that to us still.

There's somebody who was just writing a comment on some product that we reviewed, People do that. I think there's 15 years now on YouTube, and people do that to us still. Somebody was just writing a comment on some product that we reviewed, like, I don't know, 10 years ago that should not be working now. And they're like, hey, we can't get it to work. And I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that thing's 10 years old that you bought. Look at the date, people. Look at the date, people. Come on. They'll ask me all sorts of customer service.

Do you know how to fix this? I'm like, what do we look like? Yeah. Maybe they just need that second cup of coffee. Yeah. I'm sure they're going to do that with political books in the future. They're like, is the president anymore, you dummy? I don't know. It was when we interviewed whoever we interviewed about his book or something.

I don't know. There you go. Yeah. We've had people on that talked about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. There's probably somebody who's going to come on and be like, you know, he's dead, right? Yeah. It's freaking YouTube. So there you go.

Thank you very much, Monica. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschristophiles, linkedin.com, 4chesschristophiles. Chris was one of the TikTok and he held this crazy place on the internet be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time