The Confessionals - RELOADED | 67: The Evil Girl In The Backseat

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Have you ever watched a spine-tingling horror movie and thought, "There's no way that could happen in real life!" Or maybe you've uttered, "I really hope that's not possible!" after a particularly chilling film. But what if it is? What if the lines between Hollywood fiction and unsettling reality blur more than we'd like to admit? In this episode, titled "The Evil Girl in the Backseat," our guest Connor joins The Confessionals to share a hair-raising encounter with what can only be described as the eerie girl from the movie 'The Ring' appearing in the backseat of his car, and he's not the only one who witnessed this eerie presence!Become a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinWatch The Shape of Shadows: https://www.merkel.media/stream-nowWatch Expedition Dogman: https://bit.ly/3CE6Kg0SPONSORSGET EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase! Listen to this episode for more information! Link: bit.ly/3YaMD1NGET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGET Hello Fresh: hellofresh.com/confessionals60 Promo Code: "confessionals60" for 60% off plus free shipping!!!Get Emergency Food Supplies: www.preparewiththeconfessionals.comCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterSOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIDiscord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkel

Merkel Media I guess it's time To go back in time Are you telling me You built a time machine Out of a glory Time

Is but a stubborn illusion I have a lot of memories Of the past People are time traveling within themselves Time travel Is possible Out of the cave

And they're all frozen and he starts running and firing at this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. He's up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated. It's almost like they're unzippering our reality,

and they pick their heads through it, and they look around, and if it looks like the coast is clear, they step through the rest of the road. If you pick the head, you get the whole package. If you don't take the head off, then what happens is they disappear. This was all circulating around the base

But no one was supposed to talk about it Jack And he's got blood on his face He looks at me And he just says one word He's longer than most people have heard In this bush and I touch air Couldn't breathe

And I couldn't move Because I know I'm seeing A monster Okay, I reload it Welcome to the show everybody You are listening to The Confessionals a proud featured show on blog talk radio.com. I am your host, Tony Merkel.

Thanks for being here. If you have an encounter or story you'd like to share on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is The Confessionalspodcast at gmail.com. That's the Confessionalspodcast at gmail.com. Or you can go to the website,

the confessionalspodcast.com, hit the connection section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way works for me. Just get a hold of me. Now moving on to this week's show, We're bringing it on Connor, and Connor is going to be talking about some different experiences that he's had and some other people have had that he knows. Now, the main thing that Connor's going to be sharing, he gets right to it.

He saw something in the back seat of his car when he was with his girlfriend that he could only describe look like the girl from the movie The Ring. That's right. So let's get to it right after this. Okay, tonight I have a good guest coming on. We have Connor, and Connor is in California. you how you doing Connor good man how you doing good to be here uh man i'm doing good we just had some good conversation and stuff off air it was just very refreshing i just had a really long day at work and uh i was kind of dragging towards the end but you know you kind of gave me some pick me up so

i really appreciate that man well thanks man i'm happy to help absolutely so uh you reached out to me on facebook and your friend requested me and we just started chatting and you mentioned you had a little bit of a encounter that you have experienced. And I was like, well, when I, after I read it, I remember after I read it, I was thinking, well, why don't you come on the show? You know, like, that sounds like a good show, a good show story. That surprised me. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I enjoy talking with people that listen to the show. So either way, when people friend requests me, I enjoy communicating, especially when they reach out to me. Because sometimes people will, you know, just friend request me and they won't say anything. That's fine. But when they, when, like,

you did. You reached out and you said, hey, kind of thing. Like, that was cool because that opens the door for me to just kind of reach out and say, hello. So I appreciate that. Yeah, totally. So you said to me during the email that you sent me on Facebook that you had an experience when you were, I think, in high school, in a car, right? Yeah. I was in high school. I was with, well, she was my girlfriend at the time. She's my ex-girlfriend now. And we were driving. I can't remember what we were driving from. I think we were just hanging out with our friends. It was on a Friday night. I remember

that. We were driving back to her house and we kind of pulled up in her driveway and we were just in a car. It was a little BMW with like a 1984, 1988, something like that, old school. And so I remember getting this overwhelming feeling, this overwhelming sense of just something else is here. And to kind of give a little bit of a backstory of myself, if that's okay. Okay. So I grew up as a Christian, and I still am a Christian. I'm actually a youth pastor right now, but I grew up as a pastor's kid. And one thing I always grew up believing is that I think that when we become Christians that God gives us these things that we call spiritual gifts. And one of the spiritual gifts that God has given me is something that we call distinguishing spirits. And so basically for me, what I experience with this spiritual gifts, gift is that I almost have like an extra sense of like when there's maybe like an evil spirit kind of lurking around or if there's, you know, I can just kind of sense that something bad is going to happen or there's this evil spirit here or, you know, those things get really

heightened for me. Whereas for most people, they might just brush it off and not think anything of it, but I can kind of sense these things as they're around. And so that's kind of kind of what happened. So we were in our car. I was driving. She was in the passenger seat. And I remember clearly like getting this overwhelming feeling. You know, she was talking to me and it's that kind of moment where, you know, somebody's talking to you, but your ears are ringing a little bit. You know what I'm saying? And you kind of tune out who the person that's talking to you. So sadly, unfortunately, I was tuning her out, not intentionally, but my ears just started ringing. And I just wasn't fully present with her and I had this weird like feeling this weird sense of like there's something else in the car almost like we were being watched and so I decided to look in the rear view mirror because I was too afraid to to look in the back feet myself but I looked in the rear view mirror and that's when I saw it and it was this really creepy looking figure in the back I don't know how to describe it it had really long dark like black hair basically

it didn't have any very distinctive like facial features you could see there was like an area where eyes would be you could see there was a nose but it didn't really have like a mouth or lips or anything like that it just had like really long greasy gross black hair it looked like a look like a girl like a teenage girl almost and she was kind of wearing like this like really raggedy sack cloth almost like over her body and it kind of looked like um And I hadn't watched the ring before, but it kind of looked like the girl from the ring, almost. Very similar to that. But I looked in the rear premiere and I saw that and my eyes just like went as wide as they'd ever been.

And my ex-girlfriend at the time noticed that. She's like, are you okay? She put her hand on my arm. She's like, are you okay? Something doesn't seem right. I'm like, we have to get out of the car right now. And she had known about, you know, some of the stuff that I had told her I had some experiences before. So I had told her about that side of me.

And so she knew instantly she was like, okay, let's get out of here right now. So we get out of the car and we lock the doors and everything. And I look back and I can still see the figure. And so I just put my hands on her shoulders and we just start praying. We just start praying and say in the name of Jesus, you know, any evil spirits just leave right now. And we kept praying and praying and praying and eventually the spirit left. But we like looked at each other. and she had seen it.

So we got out of the car and then she saw it. But she didn't see it until we got out of the car. I said, don't look. Don't look. And she looked and she saw it. And so we like kind of had this like agreement through like we looked at each other afterwards and we just kind of had this like unspoken agreement. And like, hey, let's not talk about this to anybody else.

because both of our families and our parents were very conservative and they were very like, oh, that probably didn't happen or were you guys on drugs or, you know, like, what were you drinking that night? You know, so we were like, let's just, let's keep it between us and let's just not talk about it. And so we kind of had that unspoken agreement. And we haven't really talked about it since. But, yeah, it, I mean, man, growing up as a Christian, too, seeing something like that, like, it really. really changed me and changed a lot about how I think about, I guess, like, spirituality and what's out there and the possibilities. And it just opened a whole new thing for me that probably would not have been opened if I hadn't had that experience. So yeah, absolutely. I happen. I,

you know, one, I would say this, why do you think that happened that night? I mean, when you look back at it and stuff. I mean, like what you just described, it doesn't sound like, you know, you were seeking anything, but you said you do have that spiritual gift. So, uh, why do you think that happened that night? Do you think there was a purpose behind it? Do you, have you ever thought about that? Like, why me? I, I haven't personally thought about that. I always thought that it's just something really weird that happened to me that, um, I don't like sharing. But I guess, I mean, especially in high school, like I wasn't, I wasn't necessarily a good kid, you know, I was a rule breaker. I was a rebel. I didn't follow the norm and stuff like that. And so I was kind of going, I was kind of in a, I wasn't in a very good place, I think, in my life. You know, I would go to parties and say I believe one thing and then, you know, do another thing. And, you know, shocker, a. Christians being hypocritical, but I would say I believe one thing and then go out and party the

next weekend and drink and do bad stuff with my buddies. And so I wasn't really in like a good place in life. So I think, I don't know, I mean, maybe, I don't know, maybe I was, it was just a moment where I needed to be scared or maybe it was a moment where it was kind of a, maybe a wake-up call to me of like, you know, I don't know, I really don't. I haven't thought about that very much. Okay. Yeah, that's a really good question. Well, what were you some of your, I guess, thoughts before this happened?

Was this something that before this happened to you was always something in your head that was a possibility? Or was it something? I guess my reasoning in saying that is, you know, I know, because, you know, obviously I've talked about it before I grew up in the church. and for me personally nobody's ever come to me and said hey you shouldn't you know be interested in ghosts or you know ghosts aren't real

nobody's ever really said that as far as I can remember but I always just had this vibe growing up in church that you just don't talk about those things not that they're not real but we just don't talk about it and they certainly can't happen to us because well we're Christians

you know what I mean like what were some of your vibes before that happened to you. Was that something that you took serious before this happened or what? I don't think I took it seriously at all. I was kind of weird in that way as far as like my Christian circle of friends where I was always a believer of like, you know, hey guys, these things are real. Like, you know, demons are real and who knows if ghosts are real. Like we can't, I was always that guy who challenged everything of we can't say that

these things aren't real. just like we can't necessarily fully say that they are real for certain things. But it was that thing where it's like a very like a suppressive culture of like, yeah, we just we don't talk about those things, you know, those things are weird and you don't want to mess with evil stuff like Ouija boards or anything like that. You know, you just want to get far, far away from those things and don't mess with those things. That's what my, and even my dad, as a pastor, would always kind of say stuff like that. Just don't mess with that stuff.

But he kind of came at it as more of a, that stuff is legit. And, you know, there are, there's evil stuff out there that can really mess with you and hurt you. And he was doing it out of more of a protective standpoint of don't mess with that stuff. But it was definitely a culture of, you know, you should stay away from demons and even, things and stuff like that because it can really it can really end up hurting you later on in life so right yeah i don't know if that answers your question no absolutely i mean there is no right or wrong answers on the confessionals man like it's all your opinion so i like it i like on like i'm good with whatever uh no i just um yeah no that makes a lot of sense and you know just with me

and with my personal experiences and stuff uh i've always noticed that that you know that's that especially the older I get, the more I think on my own two feet without somebody telling me what to think. I always come back to this idea that in modern Christianity, I can't even say that, Americanized, I guess, Christianity tends to push the supernatural aspect of God into a box because it's easier to contain and digest that way. and, you know, if what you're talking about with, you know, God and angels, if they're real, then there is that opposing force that is real as well, you know? And if we, you know as well as anybody about how in the Bible there's angels that appear

and there's also demons that appear. And if it's in there, in that book, it certainly can happen now. and today. Yeah, what's stopping them now? If they could do it, you know, thousands of years ago, they can do it now. Exactly, exactly. Have you ever experienced anybody, you know, in your congregation or anything like that that have come to you with their own personal experiences?

Maybe not necessarily, you know, some, let me ask you this. Before you answer that, what you saw, was that in the car or was that outside the car? It was in the car. It was in, it was as if it was sitting in the backseat, like right directly behind my ex-girlfriend. That's creepy. Yeah, it was really scary. It was really scary. Yeah.

It was, oof, it gives me, I'm getting goosebumps and the hair is sticking up in the back of my neck right now because I can still picture it, clear as day. And it was, it was in like the evening time on a Friday night, so it was still, you know, Southern California, the sun doesn't set for a while during the summer. so it was still kind of bright outside. So there wasn't really like, oh, you know, maybe you just saw like a shadow in the night or something like that. I don't believe that. Did you hear anything?

Did it make any noises? Did it give you a feeling of this is a very physical thing in the backseat? Or did it give you this vibe of this is something that if I reached out to try touching it, I wouldn't be able to? I think that in those moments, like you're so overwhelmed that I wasn't necessarily like I wasn't like like I said I couldn't even turn my head fully back around to go look at it because I just had this overwhelming like feeling of fear of like there's something in here and I think for me like especially with my my spiritual gift like I didn't get the sense that it was a physical thing but it looked so real like it looked physical but I didn't I knew I knew it in me and I felt like God was communicating to me like, this is this is an evil spirit, you know, you need to protect yourself. But, um, so like I got that sense that it was a, that it was a

spirit, but it looked like it was something physical. Okay. It was weird. It was weird. Yeah, because I mean, just the way you described just now, I mean, that's exactly the way it seemed like to me. Uh, let's just take a break right now. When we come back, we'll jump right back into it. Hello, this is Forrest and Scott from Astonishing legends, and when we're not hunting down ghosts, scripteds, and mysteries, we're listening to the Confessionals with Tony Merkel. It seemed like you saw something that looked very physical, even though it was probably more on a spiritual basis, which is interesting in itself, because, I mean, I always say that

I don't think we're ever going to really get all the answers that we want out of these topics and stuff, and we're probably going to go to our grave with more questions than anything. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. that. So, you know, have you ever experienced anything with people coming to you saying that they've, they've encountered anything, whether it's demonic things or, you know, angelic or anything like that? Yeah, I've had a couple people come up to me and talk to me about it. I mean, I don't like advertise my spiritual gift because it's not about me, but a couple people, like a handful of

trusted people that I know that I'm really close to know that I have this gift. And so some people will come to me. I did have a friend. He was a roommate of mine. He actually came to me with a really interesting story. I don't know if you have time for it, but it was a really interesting story. It actually happened to him at his church that he went to as a kid. And so he used to work there.

I don't want to use his name for his sake, because I didn't tell him I was going to tell the story. That's fine. but he was a roommate of mine in college, and he told me to start because we had kind of gotten on that topic of just spooky things that have happened to us. And so he used to work at his church as like a custodian kind of person, and so he would clean up after all the church events were done and lock up all the stuff. And you know, churches can be really creepy at night, especially when you're alone. Yes. And so I don't know if you've ever been at a church at night when it's near like closing time or anything, but it gets pretty, pretty weird, pretty quick. And so he was at this church and it was a double, it was a double story section of the church where there were like a bunch of classrooms for the little kids.

And so he was on one, the bottom level, getting all the rooms ready and locking all the doors and cleaning everything up. And he had a friend who was a co-worker who was on the top level of that same building. and he was doing the same thing, but for the top level. And his church had kind of been notorious for having really weird hauntings, I guess, so to speak, or just really weird spiritual encounters. And so they were like, this area specifically was notorious for really strange happenings. And so his friend was cleaning all the stuff on the upstairs, and my friend was cleaning all the stuff on the downstairs. And all of a sudden, my friend hears this.

really loud slam, just a door, like it sounds like a door just like forcefully being slammed. So he's like, okay, it's just my buddy like playing tricks on me or pulling my leg. He doesn't think twice of it. And then he goes about his business again. He hears the same thing again. Clams twice. So he's like, okay, ha, ha, ha, I get it. And he kind of shouts at this, and he's like, hey, I get it. Really funny. Like, you can stop now. And he doesn't hear anything, but he's like, okay, just brushes it off and tries to go back to his work. It happens of third time. So that's where he's like, okay, what the crap is going on. He runs up to the second story. And so what they would do is they would lock each door after they were done clean

the room, turn off each light, lock each door. He noticed that one of the doors was locked, but there was a light that was shining through the bottom of the door. And so he was jiggling the thing, and he was calling his friend's name, we'll just say his name is Patrick, whatever. He's like, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, are you okay? And he just hears gasping, like, just gasping. as if he's like gasping for air or being choked or something. So he's jiggling this handle with all his might trying to open the door. And it seemed like the door was locked. And so he couldn't get it open.

And so he's just like, okay, I got to bust through the door. So he tries to bust through the door with his shoulder, won't give, won't give, won't give. He tries to bust through the door with his leg, won't give, won't give. Finally, he uses all of his might and bust through the door and kicks it open. And his friend is on his knees, and he is like gasping for air. And so he, like, is like, oh my gosh, are you? you okay, Patrick, are you okay? Are you okay? And he like lifts his friend up, grabs his shoulders, like tries to get him on his feet. And his eyes are just wide, like crazy wide. And he had

handmarks on his neck. And he measured it. And this dude had, he had pretty small hands. So he measured it with his hands. And there was no way that those handmarks could have been his. Because his hands were way too small to fit like the actual handmarks that were on his neck. and they were the only two people in the building. They were the only two people in the building. And he said that his friend Patrick was like, something, dude, something choked me. And I couldn't see it.

And something was choking me. And he quit like that night. He was like, I got to go. I'm quitting. And he quit like that night and left and never came back to the church. And so to follow up on that story, my friend tells his pastor because he's like, dude, I don't know if I want to work here anymore.

more like this is freaking me out. So he tells his pastor. And his pastor's like, oh, wasn't on the second floor on the children's center? He was like, dude, yes. How did you know? He was like, yeah, stuff like that happens all the time. He's like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, do something about it.

You're a pastor. And so a couple weeks after the pastor and a bunch of other like people in the church go around that whole area of the building and just pray and go through like, you know, those whatever rituals that you need to do to cleanse. the room and the building and stuff like that. And they said they never had another encounter after they prayed and supposedly cleansed the building in the area. But yeah, my friend quit, you know, pretty soon after that because it was just so traumatizing for him that he couldn't go back there. Well, you know, a couple things here. First of all, why did it take that long

for the pastor knowing what was going on to do something about it? That's my thought exactly. That's my thought Exactly. Yeah, I don't know. I think he just, it was just one of those things where it was kind of a really, from what he described it was like kind of a superstitious church, you know, where they did kind of believe in a lot of those spiritualistic sides of religion, Christianity and things like that. And so I don't know, I think maybe he didn't take it seriously enough or maybe he tried something before and it didn't work or, I mean, I don't know. I'm not trying to defend him, but I think it's ridiculous. too, but dude, I would have, like, ran down there and, you know, I would have said, call me if something happens. If I knew, like, if I knew that, you know, something spooky was continually happening in a certain spot in my church, I would say, call me if anything happens, and I'll come and try to help you. You know what I mean? Like, I'll come pray over you or I'll try to help you or I'll, you know, we'll do something. But, yeah, he seemed like a very passive guy. from what I've heard about him.

So he's not there anymore at the church. He quit pretty soon and after that happened too. So we have the case of another cursed or haunted church. I did two different shows already on similar situations. I don't know if you've heard those episodes. Yeah, there's one show that... I might have heard one of them. Yeah, the one show is called The Cursed Church,

and I had a married couple come on and share their experience. And I think I heard that one. That involved some more of shaking of doors. Like, you know how in churches there's those accordion folding doors that you pull. Oh, yeah. It was one of those kind of doors. And it was like just rattling really hard. And it's funny that you said, the pastor said, oh, yeah, that happens all the time because this other couple that they experienced this haunting at their church.

You know, she was really distraught after she experienced it. She went home and told her husband. Oh, yeah. And he suggested that you go tell the pastor. So she did. And the pastor said, oh, yeah, our church is cursed. Like, that's what he said. I do remember that one.

That one was like somewhere in the East Coast, right? Yeah, in Ohio. Yeah, Ohio, that's right. Yeah. So, I mean, like, you have, I just don't, I don't quite understand why as a leader of a church, you wouldn't take these kind of things more serious unless you don't take the supernatural aspect of the Bible and God serious. And I don't want to get on that because I don't want, I just don't, but I mean, I guess if you, you can tell probably by the tone of my voice, I have frustrations there.

So. Yeah, I don't think. And understandable, I agree with you. I think there's a lot of things that the church needs to own up to and find answers. for that we might just simply not have the answers to. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, there's a lot more questions than answers right now. And I think we need to work on that a little bit more. But, you know, you mentioned a funny little thing here when you went into the whole church story that you said that churches feel creepy.

Now, I've never in my entire life expressed to somebody that I thought, churches at night were creepy. But the fact that you said that, I'm like, I'm not the only word. They totally are. And I think that what we don't understand is like, I think this is part of like my background as being a youth pastor. We're like, I've spent nights after events where I've had to go around alone by myself and lock everything up and clean everything up and everything like that. I've actually had an encounter myself that I can't explain at my own current church. Talk about it. It really spooked me. You want to talk about it? Absolutely.

It's really, I think it's really short, but, well, it can't be really short. So what happened was we, we have this nursery room where, you know, we have the babies, we know the babies have their own room during like the church services and stuff so they're not disruptive for everybody else. And they can just play and hang out and have fun. And so we have this nursery room. And, you know, the nursing rooms have like rocking chairs and things like. that. And we keep the doors open at all times. And they have windows all throughout, like, the back wall of each room. So the doors are open at all times, and you can always walk by and

look through and see what's going on. Even at night, we try to keep it the same way, just because we don't want people to think anything bad is ever going to happen in those rooms and stuff. So we just keep it open. We keep it accessible. And so we have this event. It's an overnight event where we're spending the night at the church and I have, you know, some junior high and high school kids who are at the event and everybody's in bed. And I do one last final walk around the church as everybody's life are out. Everybody's in bed. They've all, you know, brush your teeth, you know, done all that stuff, gotten ready, everything, everybody's in their room in bed. And I have adult leaders who are supervising that and making sure that they're where they're supposed to be.

So I'm walking around just to make sure that nobody's giving off, just to make sure that nobody's trying to do anything or make sure that we don't have any people trying to like break into the church or anything like that. So I'm walking around. And our church, the way it works is our worship center is in the middle of the church. And then there's just this one big walkway that's a circular walkway around the whole church. And you can access everything from that one little walkway. So I'm doing my round. I'm doing my loop. And I go past the nursery room. And these kids had told me stories. They were like, dude don't go in the nursery room at night like they they have heard stories of like there like people have told stories about there is like a weird spirit a weird vibe in there

and the kids like will not go near the nursery room they're like don't go in there it's it's creepy like we even played a little game you know like earlier on in the night of like oh go in the nursery room go in the nursery room to spook the kids and they wouldn't do it they were creeped out they wouldn't do it um it's a scary church at night and so So I walk by it and I remember that. And I'm like, I'm walking by the nursery right now. I'm not going to look. I'm not going to look.

So I don't look the first time. And I just walk by. Then I make one last round. I make another round and I look. And what I notice is there's this rocking chair. And it's just sitting by itself in the middle of the front lobby of the nursery. And it's just rocking. As if like either something was sitting in it or something had just gotten up.

and the chair was still rocking from like, you know, the pressure of the weight. And I saw that and I just, I ran. I was like, nope, peace out. See you later. I couldn't take it. I didn't get a weird vibe or a weird feeling. I don't know if anything was actually there, but I looked there and the chair was rocking and there was absolutely no reason for that freaking chair to be rocking.

And it got to me and I just ran. And you want to know the creepiest thing about it? So we wake up the next morning, because we spend the night at church, we wake up the next morning. I walk into the room because I'm like, oh my gosh, did that really happen? Like, this is really weirding me out. There was no chair. Shut up. No, I, I.

Are you serious? I, I freaking kid you not. There was no chair. And I walk in, I check every, so the way it works is like there's like a little lobby where you check the kids in. and then we have like three or four separate rooms to split up the kids based on their age and stuff like that. And I walked through the three separate classrooms. All the rocking chairs are in the classrooms. There was no rocking chair in the lobby.

But when I walked by it that night, there was a rocking chair in the lobby and it was rocking. I almost pooped myself. It was freaky. And here I am. I hadn't had an experience like that. basically since that encounter that I had in high school. So I had almost forgotten about that side of it again. Like I had almost forgotten about that side of spirituality and stuff like that.

It was, that happened about a year ago, a year and a half ago, I would say. I'm still at the same church, but I don't walk by the nursery. Oh, yeah, it was bad. No, I can imagine that's creepy, especially when you add the element of it not being there the next day. Let's take a break right now. When we come back, we'll bring the show in for landing. We're right back, everybody. Let me ask you a question. Are you busy? Because you know I'm busy. I work 60 plus hours a week driving a truck. I have a brand new baby at home. And on top of that, I spend a ton of time on this podcast.

So I'm a busy guy. And when I'm a busy guy, it's hard for me to focus in on eating healthy. But Hello Fresh comes in and changes that narrative directly. Hello Fresh is a meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers, step-by-step recipes, and pre-measured ingredients so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. With Hello Fresh, you can make family dinners fuss-free with Hello Fresh's picky eater, kit-tested, and approved family plan recipes. I'm telling you guys, Hello Fresh's selection is off the charts. Now, rediscover your excitement of cooking by feeling confident when cooking Hello Fresh with

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So bottom line, spend less time meal planning and grocery shopping. each week and get that time back to do more of what you love. So for $30 off for your first week of HelloFresh, visit Hellofresh.com and enter promo code, The Confessionals 30. That's Hellofresh.com, enter promo code, The Confessionals 30 for $30 off your first week of Hello Fresh orders. Now go to their website and check them out today. Welcome back to the Confessionals with your host, Tony Merkel. All right. So with the experience that your friend, had with the other church, your experience with your church, the experiences that have already been recorded on the show, what kind of conclusions do you think you could come to as to why

churches seem to have these kind of issues? I think it goes back to that old passage in the New Testament, you know, where it says, we're two or three are guys. gathered in my name, there I am also. I think that anywhere where God is going to be, there are going to be evil forces trying to go against what God's trying to do. And even at churches, you know, we think we think of churches as, oh, it's such a holy place, it's such a sacred place, which is, you know, kind of true and kind of not. It's just a building.

It's four walls. What's to stop evil spirits from manipulating those places? what's to stop evil spirits from, you know, doing things to Christians. I think I firmly believe the only thing that spirits can't do to people who actually truly believe in Jesus is I don't think that we can be possessed. And I might get backlash for that. But I don't think, I personally don't believe that we could be possessed by evil spirits because we are, quote unquote, possessed by the Holy Spirit. We already have the Holy Spirit protecting us and protecting our spirit. so I don't think that we can be possessed by an evil spirit, but I could be wrong.

You know, that's just my theory. I could be wrong. I tend to agree with you on that line of thinking. You know, if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, he's taking up house and there isn't any room for anything else. I do believe that Christians can be oppressed by demonic entities. 100% and things like that. Absolutely. But possession is hard for me to comprehend.

Now, I have talked to Christians who, you know, study these types of things and all that, who have said, absolutely, a Christian can be possessed by a demon. I personally do not comprehend that. I don't want to say I can't see it or understand it. I understand where they're coming from. But I just, for me, it's just not something that I can totally comprehend at this point, at least. And, you know, maybe one day, you know, my mind will be changed and stuff like that. Hopefully not by firsthand experience.

That's hope not. No. That would be rough. That would be. But, no, I tend to agree with you. And, you know, I just wrote down on my notepad here, Battleground Church. You know, that's kind of what it is, you know. It's like a battleground.

Totally. So, I mean, you have a bunch of people coming together to worship God. and because you're doing that, there is a supernatural spiritual warfare going on right there. And so it's a battleground. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, the thing I will say about that, too, to add on, if you don't mind, is I think that the Holy Spirit will be with us, you know, as we worship God. And the Holy Spirit, I believe, is always with us once you decide to believe in Jesus Christ.

and I don't want to preach right now. I'm not trying to do that. But so even with that, the Holy Spirit's with us, but the one that the demon's fear is Jesus, right? I think that the name of Jesus has power. And I experienced that in my first story, my first encounter with a demon or evil spirit, I don't know exactly what it was.

I know it was flat out evil, 100% evil. There was nothing good about. that spirit in the car. But when I started praying and when I started saying the name of Jesus Christ, that's when it started losing its power. That's when it started losing. That's when I gained more courage and I stopped fearing it and started remembering, oh, yeah, by the way, like, you know, I got God on my side.

You know, I'll be good. and I think that I think that the enemy knows that that not everybody has strong faith and not everybody has a strong belief in God so when we do gather to worship whenever your churches do gather to worship the enemy you know what do

predators do they pray on the week right and I think that that spiritually speaking I think that the demons and the devil do the same thing I think they pray on the weak. You see that in instances in the Bible as well. Like you see that in the book of Job where God and, you know, the devil's like, oh, I can make sure that Job doesn't have faith in you anymore. I can give him terrible life circumstances so that he doesn't believe in you anymore. And he thought that Job would have had a weak faith, but he faltered a little bit.

But in the end, he had strong faith still, even with all the stuff that happened to. I mean, he lost his entire family and everything he owned, but he still had strong faith in God in the end. And so I think that, you know, as this battle is going on, whenever you're fighting somebody, you're trying to get to know the weaknesses and the strengths of your enemy. And I think that the devil does that too. I wouldn't be surprised if there were evil spirits outside of every church, you know, or inside of every church. I'm not trying to scare anybody, but, I mean, the reality of it is is that there's a spiritual battle going on. And when we go to gather together, that spiritual battle is 100% happening and it's 100% real.

I think that every Christian needs to hear that because I think that not every Christian believes that. And that's my firm thing. I've never been a person who will put any of this stuff in a box and say that I understand all of it. I don't understand. You know, there's so much of it I don't understand. I'm a young guy. I'm still in my 20s. There's so much of it.

I'm still learning. But one thing that I do know is, that in this battle, you're on one side or the other. You know, and that's just the truth of it. No, I hear you, man. There's, I've mentioned this before on shows, but I'm going to be trying to get this one guy on a show who was, who is an ex-satanic priest. He's actually an ex-high priest. He actually used to go to Bohemian Grove and perform ceremonies there.

and things like that. Like, he was invited in. So, like, he was one of the high priests of the satanic. That's crazy. Coven that he was part. Like, he, his coven, obviously, he was the priest, but, like, he was a high priest. I don't remember how he breaks it all down. But I'm going to be trying to get him on the show because he details some of the things that he did as the high priest.

And it involves infiltrating churches. It involves attacking churches. and either, you know, becoming, quote, unquote, members inside that church to infiltrate it from the inside, or, you know, casting spells and things like that. And he lists the typical things that they would do to help break up churches. That was their goal to break up the church. And so, yeah, I mean, bottom line is there is a lot of attack that goes on. And unfortunately, a lot of people don't recognize it.

They don't even believe that could happen or attack. happening. Yeah. And, well, you know, teach their own, I guess. True. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I know it sounds like nonchalmodally, but I'm not, I'm not here to try changing people's minds, you know, so like, you know, if neither. Believe what you want. Absolutely. 100%. And, you know, I always think the approach of like, you can never force anybody to believe anything. And I think that there are some people who are so abrasive about what they believe in and it's, you know, their way or the highway. And I've never been that kind of guy. And I, I don't think I ever will be that kind of, I hope I'm never that kind of guy, you know. I don't want to be, I'm not saying that everything is, you know, everything is truth and like everything is accurate, but at the very least, like, you know, let people believe what they want to believe and then it, and then just let them live their life, you know, that's kind of who I am. So, I don't know. Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, I mean, it's, I understand what you're saying. I mean, yeah, listen, I don't even know how to, to say it. I mean, you're not going to, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, people in the world and everybody has their own opinions on things. And you're, you're, you're not going to change the whole world's opinion to agree with you. And, you know, you accept that fact. And the people who are willing to talk with you, cool. If not, yep, that's fine too. You know, it's as simple as that. So I, I totally dig it. So, all right, man, listen, you mentioned to me earlier, uh, something. And I, I, I, I made a, note and I titled it, Miracle Baby. What happened when you were a baby? It's a good title. Yeah, well,

I was born with something that's called Failure to Thrive. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a symptom that people get when they're first born where basically, and I don't know all the medical history of it, I'm not a doctor by any means, but basically what was happening is like my body wasn't growing. Like I wasn't taking in nutrients. I wasn't functioning properly as like a normal baby. And so, you know, my mom would try to feed me and even the nurses would like try to feed me and stuff like that. And I just, I wasn't having it. I wasn't growing. I was staying the same weight and all that stuff. And so my parents were getting like really, really, really concerned. And they were like, oh my gosh, is this baby going to even survive? And so they took me to all these

doctors all across Southern California and like Los Angeles and Orange County and just tried to get the best doctors that they could afford and everything like that. And nothing was working. You know, there isn't really a cure for this failure to thrive symptom that is still around. There's no known cure for it yet. And so they were going from doctor to doctor from specialist to specialist trying to get a cure for me. And all the while, you know, my parents were praying the whole time, just praying for a miracle the whole time, the whole time. So one day they took me to this doctor at the UCLA Kids Hospital or whatever. whatever it's called. And he took me to the doctor and they were like, something crazy has

happened and your baby is going on the right track now. Like your baby is being healed. And he couldn't explain it. He was flabbergasted because he was like, this is so rare. The success rate of somebody surviving these symptoms is incredibly rare. I don't know the stats on it right now, but he was just absolutely beside himself. And so he knew that my dad was a pastor and he was working in ministry. And so he just some random doctor who was not a religious guy just said, it must have been a miracle. And my parents hearing that from a doctor like opened their eyes and they're like, oh, this had to have been a miracle. Like there's no other explanation because I just randomly healed.

Like the stuff that the doctor's, the doctor were like, we're not doing anything different than it. any of the other doctors were doing. And all those things had failed. And they gave me a survival rate of eight to ten months to live. And then all of a sudden it just turned around and I was completely healed. And I am completely healed from it today. And so it's just, it's crazy to me. And every time I think about that, it just gives me so much joy because it just reminds me to take each day

as a huge blessing. You know, I take each day as a gift because it really is, even if your life sucks. Like, your life could suck and just be the worst, you could be in the worst circumstances, but you're still alive. And I,

whenever I was going through a tough time in life, I just remember back on that of, like, you know, I shouldn't even be experiencing this right now. If the world had its way, I would be dead. But the world didn't have his way. And God, God reached, doubt and he healed me. And there's no other way to explain it. And it's, it's crazy. Yeah, man, that is

crazy. You hear stories like that and it kind of drops you back a little bit and you're like, whoa, because, I mean, what does it take for a body to self-heal itself? You know what I mean? Like, doctors, doctors can't, we couldn't explain that either if that was an option. You know, and not a lot of people know this about me, but, you know, when I was in college, Lindsay and I had just met and I was, you know, very much into basketball. I was very much in shape. And once I met Lindsay, I stopped playing basketball and I started eating more and I got overweight. And, you know, she was going to a different college at the time. The first year we met and so I spent almost every night driving up to her school, which was about an hour away from mine to see her. I was obsessed with my girlfriend. I loved her, you know. And, uh, and, Yeah, totally. I would drive up there. I'd stop and get fast food on the way up.

And then to stay awake, I'd stop and get fast food on the way back. And I became a real binge eater. And I put on about 80 pounds in eight months. Wow. Yeah, I got fat. Let's just put it out with that way. I became a big boy. Talk about sex appeal, you know?

Talk about that sex appeal. Ladies love it, man. Hey, my new girlfriend. How you like me now? So I got sick, though, and I got something called paracarditis, and it's basically the tissue on the bottom of your heart swells. And it can be caused from rapid weight gain. You can die from it. And the tissue on the bottom of my heart was swollen about a quarter of an inch off my heart. And it happened so suddenly. The one morning, I'm laying in bed, I wake up, and I can't move without feeling like somebody's taking a knife. just stabbing me in the heart. And like literally couldn't breathe, couldn't move anything on my upper body without that kind

of pain because everything kind of takes the muscles in your chest to move. And I called my mom because I was scared I was having a heart attack. I was like, I don't know what's going on here, but there's something wrong. And I called my mom and she had me stay on the phone with her while I made my way to the nurse's office, which was like halfway across campus. And it took me like two hours to walk to the nurse's office because it just hurts so bad. And, you know, I sit down there, the doctor said, or the nurse says, I need to go to a doctor. I make my way to my car.

I drive to the doctor's office and I get diagnosed. And then I had to go to see a heart specialist. I think it was a couple days later. And, you know, obviously, once I get diagnosed with what I had and everything, I, I was deathly scared. I think I was like 20 years old, 19, 20 years old, maybe 18. I don't remember. And, yeah, I was scared.

And I'm crying. and I'm praying and everybody's praying for me, you know. And by the time I went to the heart specialist, the heart specialist was pretty ticked off because the doctor that sent me to the heart specialist wasted his time because there was nothing wrong with me. And he said to me, do you feel any pain? And I said, no, actually, since I woke up this morning,

I've been feeling pretty good. And he's like, well, there's nothing wrong with you. And he was kind of like nasty about it, you know? I was like, well, yeah. Sorry, dude. A little salty about it. Yeah, I'm like, it's not a good thing, you know? Yeah, seriously, right?

I'm supposed to be sitting here saying sorry that I'm not sick, you know? I don't know. Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious. Yeah, I kind of experienced something similar to that. And for me, you know, I guess I can say, you know, I was a miracle or I was healed. Yeah, I would say at least you were healed. It sounds like it was a miracle.

Yeah, I mean, don't downplay it. Yeah, no, I guess, I guess, I guess, it was a miracle. guess in my head, I don't know if you got the chance to listen to this week's episode yet, but I played some audio that I recorded from my grandfather, who on his deathbed, was sharing some things that, you know, he experienced, you know, as a life in ministry where he was able to pray for people. And, you know, he didn't share this on the audio, but at one point, he had told me that he would, and my dad was actually in the, in the audience when this happened, my dad has confirmed this to me

that my grandfather they were doing this healing service and people would come up and you'd pray for him and my grandfather actually prayed for somebody on stage that had one leg shorter than the other and their leg literally grew on stage to be the same length

and so like when I think of miraculous healings I want I want I want to know that you know like there's no doubt yeah like I want want my hand to get chopped off and to grow back. Like that's like I want that kind of right. You know, like I don't want any doubt in my mind. Like I'm not, I, I just want that, you know,

but hey, I don't, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I don't know about you, but it would be a miracle to me if the Patriots lost to Super Bowl, man. I'm so right on, man. The Patriots being in the Super Bowl every year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. Pissed off a lot of people, but that's okay. I'm a 49ers fan, so nobody likes me. I'm outside of Philly, so everybody knows what I'm sharing for. Boom. Yeah, Nick Fultz, man. He did a pretty good job in the postseason.

Yeah. Not bad. Yeah, yeah. Not bad. Well, man, listen, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing these stories and stuff, man. And, you know, hey, you're a pastor, so the chances of you encountering more stuff is pretty likely. So feel free to get a hold of me. Yeah.

Absolutely. Hey, thank you so much for having me. And it was awesome talking to you, Tony. Appreciate it. Right on, man. I'll talk to you later. All right. have a good one.