The Eric Metaxas Show - Mallory Millett

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

For Miracle Monday, Mallory Millet shares her beyond-death experience that resulted after a mistaken dose of anesthesia during her Cesarean section ended her life, temporarily; what's it like to be "outside time and space"?

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. I'm the announcer Todd Wilkerson. And what in the world? I just noticed that my toenails are way overdue for a good clipping. Holy Toledo. My feet look like dragon's claws. How did it get to this point? Maybe the vet can do something for me.

Wow. It's just nasty. And now your host, Eric Mattaxas. Folks, welcome to the program. Every now and again, on a Monday, we like to do what we call Miracle Monday, which is to say I talk to someone who's experienced. I vet these, okay, a. real miracle. I've experienced some insane miracles. I have a number of friends that have experienced

insane miracles. And usually when you hear the story, you get it. It's not something that you can describe in a sentence. You kind of have to hear the story to get the context. Today, we have a friend who's already been on this program. Her name is Mallory Millett. She is the director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. So she's a right-wing fanatic, like yours. truly and some of my friends. And Mallory, welcome to the program. Hi, Eric.

I'm so glad you. I'm glad you, and I realized that Anne Coulter is moderate compared to you. I didn't think that was possible. But you're the director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. You're involved in all kinds of stuff. You came on the program,

I don't know, like some months ago or a year ago, talking about your sister who was a radical leftist, feminist Kate Millett. Yes. But today, we're going to talk to you about an experience you had. I love it when friends of mine tell these stories because we need to know God is real.

This is true. This doesn't happen. So you are a Christian, but this happened quite a while ago. This happened a long time ago. In the year 1963. Yes. And you say this is the night you died? This is the day I died.

I was giving birth to my baby daughter in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I was having to have a cesarian birth. So I was on the operating table having a cesarian section, and I died. and it's very interesting to try to tell this story because when you try to talk about eternity, when you've been to eternity, and now you're back in linear life, where one thing comes after another,

where things happen in the past, the present, in the future, and you have to use the English language in a linear way to describe this incredible phenomenon, it's very, very difficult. I would say it's akin to, if you've lived on the equator your entire life, you've never experienced what it is to be cold. And somebody is trying to tell you what is the state of being cold. Because what I'm describing here, everyone, is eternity, which is a state.

I'm trying to describe a state of being. So if you try to tell somebody on the equator what it is to be cold, you can use a million words. You can talk for two hours, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, about what it is to be cold. You shiver, you this, but it still has nothing to do with being cold. It's not remotely. You're talking about something, and this is why these stories are often so hard to translate,

because you're talking about being literally outside of time. We know that God created time and space. So imagine a world outside of time and space. Well, here's the point. We can't. So you're going to have to do your best. But tell us, though, when you say you died, what happened physically on the operating table such that you would have died? Well, you see, in those days, now it's different now, I'm sure, but in those days when you did a cesarean section, their biggest concern was that the anesthetic not reached the baby.

So they had two minutes, 120 seconds, in order to cut you open, cut open your uterus, get the baby out and cut the umbilical cord. They had 120 seconds before they could cut that umbilical cord. And it was a very dangerous situation for the baby. So I remember I met the anesthesiologist. He was sitting right by me as he began to put in the anesthetic. and they were going to do a twilight sleep, which means you're put into this place where you're sort of not there

and you're paralyzed. You can't move, you can't speak, you can't do anything. But then the pain medication, which was the dangerous thing, would come in at the very end. They had two tubes, and the two things would come and join in one tube. So they put me out,

and I'm waiting for the pain medication to hit, and the pain medication never happened. So what happened is that I, as a human being, experienced what it was to be lying on a table and having what I experienced it as a butcher cutting me open with an axe from my top to my bottom, cutting my entire abdominal cavity open with no pain medication. So I felt every single thing that you would feel if some maniac were cut. you open. And so I went into this state of such extreme and dire pain that it was so excruciating. And I kept waiting and waiting for this pain medication to hit, and it just, it never hit.

So what I experienced was the pain began to become like sound. It turned into decibels. I remember thinking, this pain is so agonizing, so terrible. It goes one decibel more, and I will die because there is no way I can I can absorb or accept this level of pain. It isn't possible. And so now I have to preface this all by saying that at this point I was an atheist. I was a smart Alec Convin schoolgirl who decided when she was 16 that there was no God. The whole story about Mary getting pregnant of 14 was a cover story for the city of, for the town of Nazareth. And they all swallowed this lie. And she got away with them telling us. everybody it was the son of God and all of this stuff and in my cynical little way when I was an

older teenager I decided there was no God it was all a fairy tale I was not going to believe in anything unless I could see it feel it hear it touch it that was it I was going to be in reality and all the other stuff was nonsense and so when I was experiencing these decibels of pain I kept thinking, well, this is, I will be dead any minute now, any second now, I will be dead. And then it did go up one, another decibel, another decibel, and I was only here experiencing it now as sound, is this agonizing sound. And then I died. Now, just before I died, I heard, it's a girl. I heard the young orderly, I knew who it was, it was a room.

full of people. It was a lot of people in that operating me. I knew it was the young orderly that it just wheeled me in. And he said, it's a girl. And just at that moment, I died. Now, do they know that you died at that

point? Well, so this is a part of the story that I need to tell right at this moment because it was totally affirmed and authenticated because two days after the birth, Now I had met the anesthesiologist

And we kind of made friends a little before he started to administer the anesthesia And so about 48 hours or so 60 hours after the birth I'm lying in my hospital bed in a total state of shock I was in such shock that I had died I was terrified to tell anyone what had happened All of a sudden this hat comes flying into the room and I see this hat flying into my room and it lands on the floor.

I was too young to know this whole thing and the old-fashioned thing of a person throwing a hat in a room and if nobody shoots the hat, it means that they're welcome to enter the room. I never heard of that. That was old-fashioned in 63. I didn't know why you are. I didn't know about this.

Okay, so a hat comes flying into the room. So what's the hat? So the next thing I know, I see the anesthesiologist peeking around the corner. He's peeking around the corner and sort of tentatively to, coming in and he said, are you okay? I said, what happened? And he said, you know what happened? You know what happened? I said, it took two days for them, for somebody to tell you what happened? Well, you know, nowadays, they probably wouldn't at all because they'd be afraid of being sued. But in those days, they didn't have that kind of paranoia. So, yeah, I think he was waiting for me to recover a little.

It was, it was a tough thing. They had had to bring me back to life. And I was, I was, I was, I was pretty knocked out and I was in great shock. Okay, listen, we're going to go. We're going to go to a break, Mallory. Don't move, folks. This is one. You're not going to, you're not going any place. We'll be right back.

Folks, I got some embarrassing news to share with you. But you know what? This is just the kind of a show where I don't care. I'm willing to lay my heart, you know, on the line. Here's the issue. Mike Lindell with my pillow, you may notice that I have a bobble-ha-head. of him near me. He's here to remind all of us that when you go to mypillow.com, you get whopping discounts if you use the code Eric. Now, there are a lot of people who haven't done that

and we have your names here. And Chris Heim's Ann Albin pointed out to me that there's like three pages of you whose first name is Eric. You yourself, I mean, that's humiliating for me that even though your name is Eric, you're still not willing to use the code Eric. I mean, if you don't want to use it because it's my name, use it because it's your name. But the point is that I see who you are, and I just feel humiliated by this. Please go to go to mypillar.com. It's okay, Mike. It's going to be okay. Go to mypillar.com.

Use the code Eric. You're going to get whopping savings and really high quality products. Did I mention that? Thank you. Folks, it's Miracle, Monday, we're talking about someone who died and then came back to life and then got to be a guest on my program. Mallory, welcome back. You're just telling us about the horror, the horror of what you went through, 1963, Secyrian birth, you die on the operating table. You're going to tell us

about that experience in a minute, but you're telling us what happened two days later when the anesthesiologist who's effectively to blame for the nightmare that you just went through. He comes into the room, And what does he say to you? He said, you know what happened? I said, I died. I died. And he said, so you know that that happened? I said, well, yes, I'll have to tell you, doctor,

if there's one thing you ever know in your life, there's one thing you know for sure is that you've died. There's no mistaking it at all. And he said, we were absolutely in a panic. I said, I said, what happened? What happened? And then he explained to me how he, he had mismixed the anesthetic

it hadn't gone right with the anesthetic combining in the tube with the twilight sleep and it just all went confluent and didn't work and I said you're telling me I experienced a human being cutting me open

and taking a baby out of me and that was no fun and he said but then what did you experience I said well I died and he said we were we were he said it was a

quiet, disciplined pandemonium in that operating room. We went crazy. We had a lovely young woman, 23 years of age, who had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, and she was dead. He said, we went nuts, and we brought you back. And he said, but tell me what you experienced. Tell me what happened.

How many minutes do you know that it was from, when you experienced that death to when they believe they brought you back? Well, I believe I was dead for five to ten minutes. Okay. Somewhere there. I mean, the idea of time. Okay, well, yeah, forget about earth time. Okay, so you experienced this.

So suddenly the pain comes exusciating and you know that you died. So what did you experience initially? Well, the first thing that happened was I know. knew I died and this sense of I blew it came up. I blew it because I had died

an atheist. I had ruined my life. I'd ruined everything. I'd lost my chances. And so at the same time, of course everything is simultaneous because you're going into eternity so that nothing is linear anymore. But I have to say it in a

linear way. So try to understand this, everybody, that this is all simultaneous. It's all happening at the same time, but I have to put it in linear terms. So the next thing I experienced was falling, falling, a terrible experience of such God-awful falling. Now, at the moment that I realized I had died and I was falling, if I'd had a body to do it with, I imagined it as I was reaching my right hand up to God, screaming God. I screamed God. Even though you were an atheist, in this moment, suddenly you believed that there was a God

and you're reaching upward toward him. Yes, my entire soul reached up as far as it could, screaming God, God. And I was falling. And I was falling in this blackness. the blackest blackness you've ever known ever, falling, falling, falling into an end, bottomless, bottomless pit. And the bottomless pit was made up of the most wretched loneliness and sense of abandonment that you could possibly imagine.

You can't even imagine the torture and the torment of falling through this blackness. Now, at the same time, I was falling through this blackness, waiting to hit bottom, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting to hit bottom, waiting with such horror. I was surrounded by a thick chorus, a din of laughing, jeering, mocking voices. It was clearly, I mean, it was the demons of hell. Thrilled that they were getting me. Thrilled that they were having it. And it was like the most, they were in a state of glee.

It was demonic glee that just surrounded my being, this sound. of demonically laughing, laughing, jeering, mocking. And just as I was just about to be in complete despair of abandonment and everything, suddenly, I mean, in a millibular second, I was way out in eternity. And I was in the brightest, brightest light that you could possibly, the light is so glorious and so exquisite. It's not like any light. Now, you hear this from other people.

Now, since then, of course, I've read other records. I've known of other people. I've read their books. I've seen their movies. But I want you to know that nothing I'm going to tell you today ever came from anyone else. I'm only telling you what I alone experienced. I alone.

So there was this white, white light that I was in. I was way, way out in space. And I could see Earth. There was a point where, looked down and I saw the blue marble. It's just what's so astonishing. I saw the blue marble of Earth. And the first experience I had, the moment that I was in eternity, was home.

This feeling of the word home, just falling down upon me like some glorious drape. The drape of home coming around and completely comforting me, I had finally come home. home again. And I realized right then that that's where I had been before, that before I was born, this is where I'd always been, and that I was immortal. Now, this is the one thing I want to tell everybody, you are immortal. You are not only going to, first of all, there is no such thing as death. So get over that. I tell everybody, as often as I can, wherever I can, please stop being afraid of death. There is no death. You are more aligned. The moment I died, I was the most alive I've ever, ever been in life.

But hang on a second, but there is hell. But there is hell. Yeah, so there's a good reason to fear death if you end up going to hell. What you mean to say is if you know, if you know Jesus and you trust in him, there's no reason to fear death. But otherwise, death sounds to me like what you were just describing, it sounds like, you know, worse than any nightmare. But so suddenly you find yourself for reasons I don't understand in heaven.

Well, I don't know where I was. I don't know where I am. All I know is I'm back where I came from. I'm back where I belonged. I never felt such a sense of belonging and relief. It was such a relief to no longer be on earth and to no longer be in a body. Because I have to tell you, the body is such an encumbrance. the minute you're out of your body, it's just a state of such ecstasy.

Even if you're in a perfectly wholesome, healthy body, you're always in some sort of discomfort. Well, but you know that when we get to heaven, we will get resurrection bodies like Jesus at when he was walking through walls, which is another story. But, okay, but so you're so far out in space, it sounds like, which is crazy, that you can see the blue marble. It seems to me that 1963 is before. we had any photographs of the blue marble. That's why I was very shocked when I saw the first photographs from, you know, it was amazing because it was exactly what I saw. In late 60s, right, okay.

And when I was looking, that moment that I looked back at Earth, I saw, I, and not only was seeing the blue marble, but in this strange sense that eternity has about it, I could see the street I grew up in, the town I grew up in, everything that ever happened to me in my entire life, every single moment of my life became clear to me. I don't want to say visible because... But you hear people say this, right, that you can see everything in a moment. We can't understand how that could be, but it's from God's perspective, the perspective of eternity, you can see everything. I mean, that sounds crazy, but I've heard others describe that. So you experienced that. And what I saw, I saw my whole life and the main thing that the sharpest understanding that you get at that moment is that you created the whole thing.

You see, you existed before you were born. You know how in Jeremiah and Isaiah and those places in the Bible? It says, before you were, I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. I knew you well. I called you by name. There are all these different quotations from the Old Testament where this is the message that you have always existed.

You existed long. And that's something that I would say, theologically, I'm not sure that I agree with you. I don't want to have that conversation now because I'm not saying I disagree with you either. It's a little complicated. But go ahead. The point is that there you are.

One night, Eric, I was at a big dinner that you gave for Danish D'Souza. and there were three priests at the table, Father Rutler and Father Gerald Murray and another priest, and my husband goaded me into telling this story. Now, I have to tell you, I was never, I never told anybody about this. I was terrible. We're going to go to another break. Folks, I know you're not going to any place.

I'm talking to Mallory. Millett. Stick around. Okay, I'm talking to Mallory, Millett. Mallory, so you were at a Socrates in the city event with Dinesha Sousa some years ago, And you said that Father Rutler, super genius, and these other New York Catholic priests were at the table. And your husband, Thomas, goads you into telling the story and you didn't want to.

No, I didn't want to. You seated us at the table with Danish, who was the guest of honor. And I was humiliated that I was forced to tell this story because I felt as if I was trying to gain attention to myself. I was some narcissistic woman at the table who wanted to be at center of attention or something. So I was very embarrassed about the whole thing. But I did tell them a small summation of the whole thing. And one of the things I mentioned was the fact that, first of all, it's such a surprise to find out that you're still alive when you're dead. It's such a shock.

I mean, the thing I'm thinking, wait a minute, who's observing this? I'm dead. But who knows I'm dead? Oh, my God, I'm observing. I'm aware. I'm here. Oh, my God. And you are more you than you've ever been in your life, Eric.

You have never been as totally the personality, the individual God made you to be. You don't go into some big oceanic thing where you're part of some other thing or you become a flower or you become a, you know, a song. You are more you than you have ever been in your entire life. You are the you that is sitting right there now with that necktie on talking to me. You are you. And you are somebody that God loves so much. He loves you individually as a specific human being, you know. So I told these priests this story.

And there was one priest because I mentioned the fact that I had come home, that I'd come back to the place I had come from. And that I learned immediately in the instant, Thomas Aquinas calls this infused learning where normally we learn linearly. You learn, you know, first you learn the alphabet, and then you learn your multiplication tables and things like that. But there's another kind of learning called infused learning, where you instantly know.

I would just call it revelation, but whatever you call it, I get it, yeah. Well, you just know all these things instantly that did not come from you. You didn't invent them or anything. But what I did know was that I had chosen to be. born. It was a choice I made and that every single thing, nothing ever happens to you on this earth people. Nothing happens to you. You do everything. Every single thing that ever occurs in your life is done as a result of your choices. Period. So where's God in this? Now, if we're talking about a couple things, obviously there's the issue of free will, but you don't, it sounds like the way you're

saying it is that God's hand is not in this, but I know that you believe that it is. Oh, no, but God is everything. God is everything. The one thing I realized that I had pre-existed before my birth only for eternity. I'd always existed, but that you're, you are part of God. God is part of you. You are, you are an element of God. He created you. He needs you to exist. He needs you. You need God. Okay, Catholic theologians, and I know you're Catholic, would disagree with some of this. Let me see if I can rephrase this so we don't get a thousand emails.

The point is God created us for himself. I would say he doesn't need us, but he loves us. And if you are love, you want to share that with others whom you love. So he creates us for himself. Yes. Then he allows us to turn our backs on him if we desire or to turn to him. We were created for him and he loves each of us infinitely and individually. He doesn't love humanity.

He loves you and me and every person specifically. So you had a sense of this while you were one minute you're an atheist, next minute you die, and all of this stuff is downloaded to you. It's kind of kooky. no atheists anymore because I was back with God I was that but I wasn't really I have this sense that you know they came they pulled me back they got me back into my body and all of that and so it is hard to explain that even though I was in eternity there wasn't enough I didn't end up in heaven yet I didn't get that far no I didn't end up skipping through green meadows with

gorgeous flowers and birds and all these things that other people described I just had this experience of being in eternity in this incredibly blindingly gorgeous light, which by the way, it's not a light that would blind you or that you would get sun tan from. It's not that kind of light. It's another kind of light that's so clear and white and beautiful. And God needs your love. That's what I'm trying to say. The reason that he made us, he wants us to love him, he loves us totally and completely died for us on the cross. That's how much he loves us. And so it causes him pain when we turn away from him. He needs to know that we love him.

This is something that I don't think people quite understand, you know. We need him. He needs us. He didn't do this all for nothing. He does need you to love him. I'm just saying that people would argue that God is utterly self-sufficient. We don't need to have this theological conversation right now. But I know what you're saying.

But how long? So you're there. Why do you think you're falling into the pit of hell and then suddenly you're whisked into eternity? Do you have any ideas of what happened? Well, my only explanation possible, because there was no explanation evident there during it happening, is what I learned when I was growing up in the convent school, that even a last-minute repentance can save you. And I believe that when I cried out for God, he heard me. And he loved me enough to save me from the fires of hell.

That's the only thing I can imagine is what happened. I don't really know what happened. All I know is that I was. Or that he knew, since he knows everything that you weren't going anywhere ultimately. Oh, we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back with Mallory Millett. Talking to Mallory, Millett, it's Miracle Monday, and we were just talking about this idea that maybe, you know,

God who knows everything knew that you weren't going to die forever at that moment, and that he would, in a sense, give you a taste of eternity or of hell and then eternity. We don't really know any of that. All we know is that you were 23 years old, you're on the operating table, and that you experience death and that the doctors experienced it along with you. They saw you die and that they frantically tried to bring you back. So you're in this eternity. All of these things are immediately known to you instantly.

And then you say you're whisked back into your body. Is that or is there more... Well, but lots of other things that, like, for instance, when you're in this state, I've written a few notes here so that I don't forget certain things. You know, the whole idea that you choose everything that ever happens to you. Everything is a series of your choices. But then also, the fact that once you're out in eternity,

it's your naked soul. I was existing as a naked soul. And so I didn't have the burden of the body. The body is a terrible burden. It really is. It's such a weight. And there's always something wrong. Every minute of your life, there's some little thing about your body that's tormenting you in some way or another.

But when you're out and you're just a pure soul, the ecstasy of that is amazing. But also the exposure of that because you're naked. You're completely naked. I realize now perhaps that it really may not be. a judgment, like a judgment day. We always have this idea that we're going to be judged and we'll be standing before God and we'll be judgment. You should write a book version of this and call it naked without a body.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, so go ahead, yeah. But the thing is that everything that you are shows. It's all clear. Every sin, every thought, everything is just written all over your soul. Your soul expresses it all. The thing that makes me, the analogy that I think of is when Adam and Eve, after they'd eaten the apple, before they ate the apple, they were free to frolic naked through the eaten and they were perfectly happy. And then the minute they'd eaten the apple, they were hiding from God.

Why were they hiding from God? It's because when God saw them, he would know they ate the apple. Every single thing that you've ever done or thought or chosen in your life is written all over your body. It's everywhere. You look at, look at George Soros. Look at the face of George Soros. What do you see when you look at George Soros? I always figure it's the face of Satan.

I mean, it's probably what Satan's face would look like. But yet every repliculate that you see of Mary, she has this exquisitely beautiful face. Your soul all by itself out there shows everything about you. There's nothing that can be hidden. It's all absolutely evidence. and you have to own up to you. You own whatever it is.

Now, the, this is also, one of the things that I became infused with, and I knew instantly was that the only way you can ever change is if you're on earth in a body. All change is only possible through being in a body, making choices, moving yourself and things around in a material world. I think what you're saying is that once you die, you're baked. You're baked in that state. It's almost as if you become crystallized in that state.

Right. So I guess when people talk about there's no opportunity to repent or anything, once you are, you know, once death occurs, that's the horror. In other words, no more changing. No more changing. There's nothing to change with. There's no material. There's nothing.

So did you have a sense then of guilt while you were in eternity? No. No, I was just incomplete and utter ecstasy. I was just in complete and utter ecstasy. I mean, it was so, it was home. You know, if you've been in a long, terrible, arduous journey and you finally come home and you walk in the house and you close the door and you're home at life.

There's nothing like it. Are you aware of the presence of God, or was he still up there in heaven, and you were moving toward him? I'm not clear on that. I felt completely enveloped by God's love. I was as if I became part of God. You know, it's like I was home with God,

but I didn't see him. I didn't have any of those experiences that I read about other people. I didn't see Well you didn't get very far If you could still see Earth I think you were still within our galaxy Yeah well I was

I don't know that sort of went away That earth thing that was just a moment You know where I was Seeing and I tell you The one thing I experienced is that Once you're out in eternity You're very unconcerned with your previous life I mean it all

You know it's like think about think about a Monday in 1991, quick. Can you remember that? Do you care about it? Everything is a blur. It's just a blur. The whole thing, my life seemed to have lasted for 39 seconds, the entire 23 years. It was just nothing, and it was utterly negligible.

It was like an old towel you've used and thrown into the laundry. You just don't care about it. that was one of the mysterious things about it that I can't quite grasp. But there was nothing but God and love and exquisite joy. Now, I heard choirs of angels. I have to say that what I became aware of with this sound thing, with the pain becoming sound, it's as if I went way deeply inside some kind of sound phenomenon,

where everything is sound, everything on earth is sound. Like the thing I'm sitting on right now is sound and you are sound. I've heard people talk about this that when they, people who have gone to heaven talk about that kind of thing. And C.S. Lewis writes about it, that there seems to be some sense. Oh, C.S. Lewis writes about it? I did not know that.

Yeah, well, he doesn't write about the concept, but in some of his fiction, he talks. about it, you know. It's as if, it's as if when you look at the molecules in a glass of water, you know. My eyes aren't that good, Mallory. Okay, hey, hang on, hang on. I want to end on a dumb joke. We'll be right back talking to Mallory.

Millett's Miracle Monday. Folks, it's Miracle Monday. I'm talking to Mallory Millett. And we were just talking about, you said that there was a special sense that everything was composed of sense. I've heard people talk about that, but you said you could literally hear choirs of angels. Yes.

Well, what I became aware of was that it's as if sound has molecules. It's as if I'm looking at a glass of water, and the molecules in the glass of water are actually made up of sound, that everything is sound. And I became enveloped in this exquisite music. The sound of angels. angels. When I later, you know, meditated down under, it must have been the cherry have been in the seraphim. I mean, there was this, this choir of angelic singing that was

so indescribable that enveloped me. Just, it was absolutely unbelievable. And I, and I, and because I, because I can't, it's so ineffable all of this, too. One of the revelations I had is no wonder Jesus could only speak in parables. Because I always used to think, why does he just tell us, you know, how about God? And tell us about death and about heaven and all that. Why? Because, you see, even I, you know, it's just impossible to put these things into words. So I see why he was, he just had to speak only in parables when he talked about these things.

Because there's no other way of doing it. Well, yeah, you're talking about another dimension or other dimensions. And it's very difficult to translate. obviously. Yeah, yeah. So, no, there are certain things

that I want to make sure I get up. Oh, the whole idea of you being you. One of the things I want to say to people is give up all ideas of escaping yourself. You cannot escape yourself.

That's the problem. Everybody is spending all their time on earth, drinking, taking drugs. They think if they go to parents, and they're living in Paris, they'll be a different person. If I go live in Hong Kong, I'll be, I can escape myself. I'm a man, I want to be a woman. You know, like Bruce Jenner, you know, all of this stuff.

No, no. Give that all. Stop trying to escape yourself. Because you cannot, you are you, you can only be you. You are the only... Although I guess the point that I would want to make is that God created us to be ourselves and that in a sense he created us for himself. And the only thing we can do is try to become the person that God made.

In other words, many of us that means being redeemed or repenting of things we've done and whatever. But becoming precisely who God intended for us to be. That that's our destiny here. And when you think about Jesus giving the two great commandments, the apostle said, what are the commandments, Lord? And he said, two commandments, love the Lord thy God with their whole heart and soul and mind and spirit. Number two, love thy neighbor as thyself. People just skip over that. They don't really realize that there's a predicate for loving your neighbor. The second law after loving God is to love yourself. You must love yourself fully and completely because that's the model you use to love your neighbor. And we're not talking about self-esteem here. We're talking about accepting the valuation of yourself that God gives it. God says, I love you infinitely. I died for you.

And I expect you to understand that that is correct. And you should go along with my love for you and love yourself the way I love you. Now listen, we're at the end of an hour, Mallory, don't go away. I hope my audience doesn't go away because, my goodness, there's more. Folks, thanks for listening. We'll be back with our two.