Speaker 4: Welcome everyone to Faith and Purpose podcast.
Each episode of this podcast contains the personal testimony of an ordinary person
transformed by an extraordinary God.
My name is Kaylin and I'm here to introduce this podcast
for my friend Jesse Duke.
Jesse is a husband, father, author, life recovery guide, lay counselor,
and small group leader, but his most important role is disciple.
As a disciple of Jesus.
Jesse created this podcast to help other believers tell their faith stories.
We'll be hearing the personal testimonies of all sorts of people
who have one thing in common, Jesus has transformed their lives.
Jesus used parables because he created us to learn best through story.
And as we listen to how God has worked in others lives, we find encouragement
and inspiration for our own faith walk.
Whether you are already a believer or just a curious seeker, we believe that
as you listen to these stories, you will be encouraged on your own faith journey.
We are sure that God can speak to you through one of these episodes and that you
will see that our Heavenly Father truly works all things together for our good.
When we simply love and trust him.
If you are currently going through a trial, we believe that you will come
to see that your troubles, heartbreaks, and failures are not gravestones, but
stepping stones into new life in Christ.
Here's Jesse with today's guest.
Okay.
Welcome everybody to faith and purpose podcast.
I'm very happy today.
Have a new friend, Lisa Palmieri to tell her story.
And I know you're going to get a lot out of it, so let's get to it.
How are you doing Lisa?
Jesse: Okay
Thank you for having me on this podcast.
I'm very humbled to be here.
Lisa: tell us how the Lord's been dealing with you in your life.
Jesse: Okay.
I guess the best place to start is the beginning.
And, and we always had a sign in our kitchen all the years growing up that
the best way to begin is to start.
So I'm going to start.
I was, I was, born in, Okinawa.
My dad was in the service.
I was born, to.
Two Italian parents, very Italian.
My, my mom, I have an older brother who was 11 years older than me.
So I prayed for many years.
so it was, I was thought of as a miracle, to my mom and dad when I, they
found out that they were pregnant with me, my birth was somewhat traumatic.
my mom almost died and so did I, and, looking back, I suppose that was the hand
of the enemy from the beginning, but, we survived, and I had a younger sister,
so my mom had another baby a year later.
And we moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, when I was four and I, had, another
brother who was born in Las Vegas.
So my mom had three of us, as an older woman at the time, she was 40
when she had my younger brother and my dad was still in the service.
And, I grew up, Roman Catholic, so very Catholic parents.
and so I remember on the base, even back in that time frame, getting on a blue bus,
going to church with my older brother.
my mom didn't take me, but he did.
And, vague memories of that, but I do remember it.
And, In 1969, my dad, decided he was not staying in the service because they
were going to deploy him to Vietnam.
And because he had young children, he made a decision that it was time to retire.
As a senior master sergeant in the Air Force, so it was a decision was
made to move back to Massachusetts where they were both from, and to be
with family, especially for my mom to help her with the younger kids,
so we moved back to Massachusetts and so my first real experience with.
I'm going to say religion because it really wasn't with Jesus.
It was more religious, was in first grade.
I went to a Catholic school, went to Catholic schools, in my early youth.
But as a young girl, going to Catholic school, formed.
I'm going to say my, what I thought was who God was and who Jesus was and
really the Holy Spirit was somebody that was referred to as the Holy
Ghost and never really talked about.
And so God, was someone to fear.
So my image of God as a young child was someone that I feared.
And so because I was taught, early on that, God was looking at me and he
was seeing all the things I did wrong.
and I was taught by nuns.
And so in that, back in that time, the nuns could hit you and the nuns could,
I remember getting our knuckles slapped with a stick and it was just a, it was
just a different way of understanding God.
But I was a very holy little girl at the time, very much, knew what sin
was, knew what the right and wrong was.
And I was always very hyper vigilant that I didn't do anything to upset God because
I didn't want the black spot on, I was told that black spots would go on my soul.
And because God looked at those spots.
And so I, as a little girl, didn't want any spots on my soul.
and when you look back, when I look back and I, as I teach now, I realized
how horrendous that was of a teaching for a young child, but that's what,
The belief was that was the teaching.
And and that was my image of God.
And that fun carried through, for me, all through my experience in Catholic
schools was, I was always afraid.
I was a very anxious child because I was always afraid I was going to do something
to upset God and he would punish me.
And my mom, My mom hard.
my dad was because he had retired.
He still had to work.
So he went into the post office civil service job.
So he was gone a lot.
he worked a lot on a lot of overtime.
My mom didn't drive.
We used to have to rely on my uncle and other people to take us places.
But my mom suffered from depression.
I didn't know that at a young age, but as the years went on, she struggled.
So my mom was, it was hard to be around my mom at times because she was volatile.
Like sometimes she was nice.
Sometimes she wasn't, we didn't really know what to expect.
So I always felt I was being punished.
If some, if she would have an, a period of time where she wasn't
okay, I felt like it was my fault.
I did something wrong and the Lord was punishing us.
So I lived in that sphere.
and my mom used to always tell us if we did something wrong or
if we made a face or something.
God's going to combine say amen, meaning we're going to get stuck that way with
the ugly face, or, that, so this was the, it just added to my image of who God was.
I always was searching.
I, as I look back in retrospect for the answers.
So I was always, digging.
Unfortunately, I was looking in the wrong places because God was someone I feared.
in middle school, junior high school, I started to, try to get
answers to, to just life in general.
And I had a very, a very keen, understanding that something, there was
a big, there was something bigger, but I was, I decided that it was somewhere else.
And so because my, my mom and she didn't mean anything by it, but when I was a
little girl, my birthday is in October.
And so when I had a birthday cake, the cake always had witches.
And so for me, which is in that type of thing, there were
good, that was my birthday or associated with something good.
And sometimes like a coloring book and crayons, my mom would hand me a coloring
book and say, the witch brought it.
I don't know why she said or used those things, but she did.
So in my mind, they were the good thing that was good.
So I ended up because living in Massachusetts and having to study
the Salem witch trials, a somewhat fascination with witchcraft in the occult.
And I just started reading books and spirituality and just, my mind went
towards that, but at the same time, I always went to church and I always
prayed, and so there was some confusion.
A lot of confusion.
in high school, I had a very typical high school experience.
I had a high school boyfriend that I had to my whole high school, thought that he
would be the one that I'd stayed with.
But as things go on, after we graduated, things didn't work out.
And that began for me.
a trajectory of a downward spiral of, just being under in a home where things
were just unstable, with my mom and not truly understanding who I was.
In my identity, and who God said I was, I believed the things that were spoken over
me, by people and anger, because I'm short and little, I was teased a lot growing up.
I was, just.
You're sure you're, and I equated that with, I wasn't worthy or
I wasn't good enough or, I was small, so I was overlooked.
I no one knew me or saw me.
I was just this thing, and that was just the enemy's lies.
But sadly, that's what I believed.
And because of the breakup with my high school boyfriend, and there was
a lot of rejection, and I then felt like, I, no one would want me and
I was just lucky to have anybody.
so I met, my, I met someone who I knew was not the right person for me, McGecko.
he had a lot of issues.
he was a drug addict.
He did drugs.
I didn't, but, I thought I could save him.
I thought I could be this, the savior.
I thought that I could make a difference.
I made a choice in my early twenties to, it was either staying at home
in the situation that was with my mom and just, there was some things
going on in the house that was, there was trauma and I can, I just
didn't want to be there anymore.
I didn't want to get sucked into the vortex.
So I made a decision to move to Florida with this person and it
was a very difficult time for me.
That was back in 19, in the early eighties.
and.
Even though when I look back at that time, I'm lucky that I'm alive, some of
the things that happened to me because it was an abusive relationship and many
people ask, like, why would you stay?
And it gets worse because I end up marrying him, but why did you stay
and why, and the only answer you can give to someone is if when you're in
an abusive situation or when you're, have these things happen to you, you
become, you must become under their influence, per se, and you don't
really have the ability to leave.
So that ability to really realize like I have the strength to leave and
even though people said you have to get out or why you with this person.
In my mind, I wasn't worthy.
It wasn't, I, God was already mad at me for making some bad choices in my mind.
I had all these black spots.
I turned away from the Lord, not that I didn't pray, but I just felt like
there was nothing I could do to make up for all, the choices I was making.
And I just got further into it.
And we moved back to Massachusetts in 1988, and I wanted to move home,
but that just didn't work out.
So I ended up moving in with him because we really had nowhere else to go.
And then pressure to, from everyone.
you can't live together.
You have to get married.
and I postponed the wedding date a couple times and ended up getting married.
It was a very big mistake for me.
because it was in a very abusive situation and that lasted, some time.
And I was able to get out.
the situation when we had a big church wedding and everything and I remember
that morning of the wedding being in the limo and it was a rainy, it was April,
and it was should have been a nice day but it was cold and rainy and we had wet
snow, and so if that didn't tip me off.
I don't know what would have, but I was remembering in the
limo just wiping the mist off.
looking at everybody gathering and saying, I don't want to do this.
And my dad was saying like, let's go.
And I just, I felt like I had to just go with it.
Like I, I was just in this thing.
I was in this marriage and it was very abusive.
And, during that time, I met a group of people, group of women in the supermarket
who asked me, do you know who Jesus is?
to know the Lord.
And I said, Oh, yeah, in my, what I thought was.
And so for a while, I was going to a Bible study with this group of people
that are born again, Christians.
And, but I struggled because I was Catholic.
I was struggling with this new understanding of the Bible and scripture,
but I was very interested in it.
but this particular group of people were only interested
in people that were married.
and even though I confided in them about the abuse, they basically
said I had to stay in this.
So they just made it worse, because they said I had to stay.
So my goal was to convert my husband.
So we tried to have different meetings and he would just go out of his way to, to say
things and he was just not going for it.
and so they, when I kept saying I need to leave this situation,
they stopped talking to me.
It just, unless I stayed married to this person, they just.
And had him convert or, they, it was whatever it was, they weren't
there to support me for that.
one day I went away for a weekend and my husband went a little berserk
and broke everything in our home.
So my girlfriend and my sister went and took whatever they could.
And so I, after that, never went back.
I got an apartment.
And I found myself as a single mom and I, thankfully my mom helped me with my son
while I was in work full time, but I found myself as a single mom raising, two boys.
One was in daycare when she had.
And.
Working full time.
And once again, in that same position of being passed over, not being
good enough, there was people had a, written who they thought I was based
off of me being a single mom and, not being married and, having had
this relationship that was traumatic.
And I, what the people that were close to me knew.
About the abuse, but most don't most, and this may be the first time they
ever hear about how bad that was.
But I knew that I left with my life intact, and I may
not have if I had stayed.
and that had to do with the drugs, because when the drugs weren't there, then it was
a totally different person you're dealing with, but drugs will do that, addictions.
so this is all part of my story because I felt as I come from where I am today.
I can do what I do because the Lord has let me live through these stories so
that no matter who comes to me, no matter who I pray for, I, nothing shocks me.
There's probably nothing I haven't seen or done or, have been a part
of that someone's going to say to me or know somebody that has.
So as, as sad as it sounds, In hindsight, I understand why I
had to go through these years.
but the years with my boys, were hard because I worked full time.
we didn't have a lot of money, but I did the best that I could.
Now, my, my second son was a very difficult, child.
So as a single mom, I now have this.
two year old who I'm getting calls from a daycare almost constantly that
I have to either come pick him up that he was acting out his behavior.
There was all these things.
this was a whole new world for me.
And at three years old, we took him to McLean hospital for an evaluation and
they told me I have a report, we never have encountered a child quite like this.
We don't really understand now.
It could have been, I'm not going to say my, my, it could have been some
autism could have been from vaccine.
Because he was as a baby and infant.
He was very good.
He was one of the easiest one.
It started after a, a doctor's visit.
Some, there was some noticeable changes, but then it just got progressively worse.
But whatever the case is, God knows.
And, it opened, it began this, I worked full time for a job that I was getting
called all the time to come pick up my son, or he couldn't be managed.
And at that same time, I met my husband now.
and so he was very supportive of, me trying to find help for my
son and, just different things.
So when we decided to get married.
We also made a decision because we worked in the same company, that I would
not work anymore and that I would stay home and concentrate on getting help
for my son, Joshua, and what I did.
And, shortly there after three months after having gotten married
for a second time and a marriage was something I wanted to do again.
And it took a lot for me to say yes.
To want to get remarried and to open myself up to, a new relationship.
And, but I did it because I really wanted to give my children, my
sons, the better part of me.
I thought I, I could stay home and I could take care of them and we'd
have a nice home and, it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to,
but it's been a work in progress.
my, my son.
It got progressively worse as time went on, and at the same time, I found
myself pregnant at 40 with my daughter, three months after we got married.
Our anniversary is actually next week, so it'll be 20 years.
three months later, here I am pregnant with another child.
And dealing with this child with what happened to be, mental health issues
or something that looked like that.
And, that first year of marriage was very difficult because
there was a lot of stressors.
Going on, with my son, with my daughter, and my husband has a son too, and there
was just trying to figure it all out, and it became very stressful, for me,
my, and then when I was pregnant in March of that year, my, my son got,
It was in kindergarten, called, he was in school and he made a little
thing with a paper clip and they said that he made a little weapon.
And they called the police and the ambulance came and
he went into a hospital.
So here I am, newly married with, pregnant with my son in a hospital
and it was a whole new world for me.
It was just, I didn't, I had never, Even knew that this existed
that, five or six year old would be in a psychiatric hospital.
and so I spent a week mostly in the hospital at the same
time my grandmother died.
and my mom got very sick all, all in the same time.
So there's a lot of trauma.
There was a lot of stuff going on when I was pregnant with my daughter.
Lisa: Wow.
Jesse: yeah, but I had my faith at the time I did lean on the Lord.
I always prayed, I was always carrying, my books of prayers.
And, I always, no matter where I was always had that be upfront
and people would always notice that, how are you standing up?
Like, how are you doing this?
And I said, I'm praying, I have faith.
and again, it's not like the faith I have now because it was more that rote prayers
as, pleading with God to help me, but not understanding that he was with me.
it's more of, he's out there somewhere, but I'm just gonna hang on.
and so for Josh, it was a long road that we had with him.
he had five hospitalizations before he was 10 years old.
and a lot of it was because nobody knew really what was going on with him.
We had tests and different things and, because I was not understanding, I,
it was in a different place back then.
I was just under, didn't understand the whole world of psychopharmacology
and medicine and different things.
And so a lot of what I know now was probably medicine related.
Sometimes it made him worse.
Some helped, but he really struggled and, in those years
of him being in the hospital.
I had my daughter who, also struggled.
She was almost as difficult as him, and she had selective mutism.
By the time she was two years old, she wouldn't talk.
She would talk to us, but no one else.
And.
The Lord blessed me with two other children.
So in four years from 40 to 45, I had three more children.
yeah, so the Lord, for whatever reason had, it has this all plotted
out and I know he knows what he's doing, but at the time it was a lot.
There was a lot, and I have my older son who was, he was in high school by the time
I had my youngest son, he was graduating.
So by the time Josh was 10, Josh went to live somewhere else, because we
could no longer manage him safely.
and there was I'd like to say that everything in the home
was perfect, but it wasn't.
So there was a lot of, in our marriage, there was a lot of.
discord.
There was a, there's, there was a, we weren't on the same page.
There's a lot of difficult time.
And I really had to lean on the Lord in those times because I found myself
here, like I said, 45, five kids in a marriage that didn't necessarily
turn out the way I'd envisioned it to, and leaning on the Lord the best
I could, but also aging parents.
and I ended up having to take care of them or, help, especially with my dad.
I was driving my dad back and forth to doctor's appointments
and just, different thing.
Being the caregiver, in my family, I guess that's what I've always been
looked at as even though I wasn't the oldest, I just took on the role of mom.
Especially, for my younger sibling when my mom really couldn't do it.
so it was something I was used to, but it was without my faith.
I don't know how I would have been able to handle it.
so when my son was, when we were really trying to fight the system
to get my son the best care and the best schools, I decided to go back to
school to become a special ed advocate.
which I did and that I used a lot of my faith.
I brought my faith into a lot of things and each, it's, it, when I look back how
God was in every single moment, where I could witness, even though I didn't know
at the time, that's what I was doing, the power of God and the strength of God.
just the way he laid out different things.
And so as a special ed advocate, I was able to get my son the best.
schools and in the best programs where no one thought I could.
So this is where I started to gain some strength of this is who I am, not who the
world tells me I am, and not the labels that have been put on me by meme calling.
Because, at this point, Being in abusive, verbal abusive,
physical abuse, verbal abuse.
The words spoken over me were always like, you're not good enough, you're not smart
enough, you're ugly, you're fat, you're this, you're that, whatever mean thing
somebody would say would come at me, it was, everything was on me and those were
the labels that I carried for a long time.
So that self condemnation and just being in trauma really does affect your body.
It affects how you think, it affects a lot of different things.
So for that period of time, when I was the advocate, when I was advocating for
other I really felt like the Lord was using me in many situations to bring.
I would pray with people, it was every single person that he brought
me to was somebody that was open to prayer, where I was able to pray
with them through situations and get services and get, especially fighting
the system, it's almost impossible to gain, get services and IEP meetings.
And if anybody's familiar with that, they know that it's very difficult.
and
Lisa: So you were you advocating for other parents?
Jesse: other parents, as well as from my own children, yes.
I didn't charge anything.
it was more for me to just, because advocacy can cost a lot of money.
So I know that when I tried to get one for myself, it was, would have
been thousands of dollars that I would have spent to have somebody help me.
So I chose not to charge people.
I just gave them my time to do it because.
It was important for me to see these kids be successful and not, push to the side.
yeah.
And so I'm happy to say that for my son, I fought for him to get
into a specific school that had everything he needed because he
was in a place that was not helping him and the school was denying him.
they said they wouldn't pay for it and Department of Mental Health
didn't want, they weren't able to pay for this when they would have,
but they weren't allowed to give that money to this particular school.
but this school had everything he needed and I even sought out attorneys
and, they said, Lisa, there's no way you're going to win this.
Because you have, you have to set them up to fail before the
way the system's set up, you fail before you can get what you need.
And I said, no, we're not going to do that.
I, and so I prayed and I prayed and we came to the meeting
and I let everybody talk.
And then I just basically spoke from my heart, what the
Holy Spirit told me to say.
And, I just, leaned on the Lord and I trusted that he was going
to do what he was going to do.
And Sure enough, he won.
I won and my son was able to go to the school and they, so it
was twice that the Lord did that.
and then in 2014, my dad, 2013, he got sick New Year's Eve.
We, he was diagnosed with.
colon cancer, and they told us he had six months, but it was
really six weeks that he had.
So in 2014, my dad passed away and my dad was really my, Person that I relied
on, so my dad was always there for me.
He was my rock.
And so I think that's why I'm able to understand the love of the father, because
I had the love of the father and I get it.
so when my dad passed away.
at that time, my now it was my daughter's turn to be facing
some things that my son did.
So the school, said that she could no longer attend public school and
they had her in a 45 day placement trying to evaluate where they
thought that they could send her.
my dad was had passed away and my son was now having to be moved to a
different school because there are some problems and all in this timeframe.
I was trying to hold it all together.
So I remember just fighting the fight for my daughter.
Once again, when I found myself fighting for my son, my dad having
passed away and having to take care of my mom and trying to get her
everything she needed and settled.
And I remember fighting the same fight with Ava and the school was
telling me that she had to go to a behavioral school, which was, It would
be detrimental for my daughter because she, my daughter needed a very quiet
place that was trauma informed and this place wasn't and they weren't listening.
Again, it was try it if it doesn't work, then we'll, and
I, so I was fighting, fighting.
And it was that same, was the same thing.
You're not going to win.
This isn't going to work.
And the school I wanted her to go to had only so many spots.
So it was like a lottery.
So as the spots went, that was it.
Once the spots were gone, there was no, there was nothing.
and when we first started the process, there were six spots.
And as we were getting closer to the school, just not giving
in, there was one spot left.
And then I got a call saying that the spot was taken.
So I was devastated and I said, I'm still going to fight for her to not go to
this other place, whatever that may be.
But I prayed to the Lord.
I remember getting on my hands and knees and saying, Lord, I really, I need
this, why Ava needs this, we need this.
And I got a call saying the person backed out, they weren't able to get the funding.
So I said, okay.
And I went to the meeting and I said, listen, this isn't about bureaucracy.
It's not a, whatever it is, this is about a child's life.
And I got a call and it was from the school and they said, you can have it.
And so I knew that the Lord was with me, but I have to tell you at that point, I,
felt like I ran the belt Boston marathon.
And everything I had just gave way.
And I just remember feeling like I just needed to fall on the ground,
like it, just, and at shortly thereafter, my body, got sick.
And so this is the part of the story where all this, all these years of
trauma, all the years of abuse, all the years of fighting took a toll on my body.
And swells, the grief of losing my dad.
In, September of, or August of that year, I was diagnosed, I was told that
I had, tendonitis in both my feet, and I was not, so at the time I was doing
a lot of, boot camps, and I was at the gym, and I was spending a lot of time
at the gym because it was an outlet.
But it was also something I was good at and I was doing training to be in
these, obstacle courses and probably shouldn't have been doing it at age
of 50, but I was doing it and I was keeping up with the younger kids and
I actually felt good about myself.
and so I was diagnosed with the tendonitis.
But then it got worse, where I couldn't walk at all and the
pain in my feet was unbearable.
So I went to the doctors and they couldn't figure it out.
And this is what happened.
I went to an internal doctor and she looked, she looked at me and said to
me and spoke this over me and this power of what people say matters.
You have an autoimmune disease.
You had a good run, but it's over now.
And, you could have lupus, you could have this, you can have that.
Sent me down a rabbit hole.
and so for a year and a half, my life was very difficult.
It was very sick.
My entire body was riddled in pain.
I did have to an MRI on my feet and both my feet had the same exact injuries.
there was torn tendons, torn ligaments, there was some
deformities in the bones of my feet.
I could, couldn't wear shoes.
it, it was so hard for me to, it went from this to not to nothing.
I had also something going on in my skin where my skin felt like
it was on fire and it would burn.
I can't tell you in painful, but if you touch my skin, it was ice cold.
my face would go numb.
Like the right side of my body would go numb.
My feet would go numb.
it was extremely difficult and I was told, I rheumatologists and I was told,
you're just going to have to live with it, you'll get used to it kind of thing.
And I said, I'm not going to get used to it.
I'm like this and my, and I was in a lot of pain.
So for during that year and a half, I found myself back at church.
So instead of going to the gym every day, I went to church every day.
And I.
Again, was being told things that were not what I believe now.
So I was being told that God loves me so much that he gave me the sickness.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jesse: that the suffering was a gift and that I, to offer it up for other
people, to share in the cross and.
And I have to tell you that in that time frame, when you're in so much pain
and you don't really know what your day, what life is going to give you,
what it's going to look like, it almost made me feel better to know that if,
okay, if I'm suffering and I'm helping someone else, And I'm okay with that.
I can live with that sort of, but I would cry.
I was in, and I, my kids were small and I still had to deal
with my son was still in a place.
My daughter was in special school.
my, my mom needed me and it was just a, it was a really difficult period of time.
And this is where, I was invited to go to a church that
was having a special healing.
It was called the School of the Holy Spirit.
And it was a charismatic conference.
And I'd never gone to anything like that.
I didn't even know that was a thing.
I thought I was suffering for the souls and all these other
things that I was taught.
so I went to this conference and there was praise and worship.
And I remember just, everybody was dancing.
So I must, I wanted to, part of the story I left out was that I, as a kid, I was
a dancer, dancing was always something that made me feel better even today.
and then I had always aspired to be a dancer, professionally,
but that didn't happen.
But when I was hurt, there was, they told me I'll never be able to dance again.
We'll never be able to do any of these things.
So I saw everybody dancing and praising the Lord and I was sitting there crying
and they had some speakers come and talk about healing and talk about Jesus
and at the end of the third day, the person running the conference said,
if there's anybody here who's never really invited Jesus I was listening
to a lot of things that I teach now, but I didn't have never heard before.
if you, want to invite Jesus into your heart, if come to the altar
and I remember I ran to the altar and I didn't even give a thought
about my feet hurting or anything.
I just made my way to that altar and they prayed over me
and I fell out in the spirit.
I was out for a long time.
And I woke up with a hunger for the word of God.
So from that moment, I just took, I always have my Bible with me, but I
was hungry to understand who Jesus was.
Who is this new Jesus that I'm hearing about?
Who is this God that actually loves me and didn't punish me?
And this is not from the Lord.
This is not something I have to keep.
This is not, and so I'd like to say I was instantly healed.
But I wasn't, but I had a lot of fear.
There was a lot of fear with this illness.
And what I learned was there was a lot of, forgiveness I had to go through.
There was a lot of internal inner healing prayer that I needed.
But it was the first time that I felt like Jesus loved me, who Jesus was.
And I started to read the scripture and understand more and more about how to
pray the right way and how to pray for people and how to pray for my family.
And not, it doesn't have to be these real prayers.
And, at the same time.
My son, Joshua, was still living away from us and they were telling me that
I would have to start to get used to the idea that he may never come home
and that he would have to live in a group home or something to that effect.
Lisa: So how old was he at this time?
Jesse: 16, 16.
And so I, had him come to the conference.
I took him out of the school, I had him come to the conference,
the rest of the conference.
And my son, at the last day, went to the altar, got prayed over, received
the Lord, went back to his school, and in, by November of this, that
year, he was back home living with us.
Lisa: Whoa.
Jesse: yeah, he attended, he was able to go to a high school, a
special high school, but it was.
very much academic based.
He was accepted into Newberry College in Boston and happy to
say he is, has zero medicine.
he's medicine, he's very successful.
and The Lord has done wonders in his life.
that was that very same conference that I went to where I began my healing journey.
And as you can see now, I'm completely 100 percent healed.
my body has zero pain.
My feet are completely healed.
I dance.
I walk six miles a day.
I do whatever the Lord asked me to do.
the same thing happened for my daughter, Ava.
She, so I ended up, wanting to know more about how to pray for
healing and how to, seek healing for myself outside of this conference.
So I was, I ended up in Jacksonville, which is why I'm here, at
Christian Healing Ministries.
And I took their schools, Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4.
And then took part in their internship and I am now an active prayer minister
at Christian Healing Ministries.
But I also have my own ministry, in, as I said, in the Winter Healing
Ministry where I go back and forth to Boston, but I also do local things.
But the Lord has taken me from this place of brokenness and through,
forgiveness and forgiveness.
Amen.
Forgiving the people in my life that have hurt me and letting them go, surrendering.
I have, I've been able to understand who Jesus is and who
God is and who the Holy Spirit is.
And the Word of God is not to be feared as far as God is not our punisher.
He doesn't look at the black spots on us.
He impacts us and see them.
He sees us as his creation.
and all those imperfections that, We have, all those things that I lived
through, the different, the different trials, especially with my children
and my marriages and, God has been there through every single step of
the way, and even in the hard times.
When I look back, you can see, I can see where he was in each one of those
places and how I was able to influence all the people around me with my faith
and especially with my daughter Eva.
As I, they knew me when I was sick.
So she first started that, that school in the, when I first got diagnosed.
So they knew me as very sick and, by the time she left that school, I was,
on my way, I was healed when I was well on my way to the, to this healing
ministry, but they were able to see firsthand miracles happen and even, I
had shoulder surgery and I had a big giant bruise and it was a big hematoma.
And I was there the day that I had the surgery because I had to pick my daughter
up and they saw it and they told me there was because of the surgery because I had
such a big tumor taken out of my arm that it was going to be like that for months
before that hematoma would go down.
So we prayed over it.
And when I returned it, it was completely healed.
Two days later, it was completely healed.
It was like completely healed.
As you can see, there's nothing there.
it was, they saw with their own eyes.
But I was able to open up a place that didn't really ever pray, it wasn't even
a place where people wanted to pray.
it was a school that probably was different than that.
But then people said, I remember as a girl going to church and I remember this.
And so people then were open to the prayer.
They said, you should pray at these meetings.
And, I just see that the Lord has been working in my life.
with this ministry, I was sick and I went to the trials and everybody saw
me go through them and then they saw me get well and I got well through
the process of inner healing for me.
there were some physical healings, but as I healed on the inside,
my body healed on the outside.
I was rid of the fear, the labels, just the different things that, the
enemy made me believe about myself.
So I lived in shame, I lived in guilt, I lived in, just blame, different
things, regret, which are all the topics that I talk about, and teach
on because I lived through them.
Lisa: So let me just ask you, you not only got physically healed, but
you got healed of a lot of the trauma
Jesse: huh,
Lisa: and the, the attacks of the enemy, all the, there's condemnation
and all that stuff that he throws at us.
He's the accuser of the brethren.
He accuses us night and day.
Jesse: Really.
Lisa: was this healing I know you, you're, you said your physical
healing wasn't instantaneous.
What kind of work did you have to do in order to start seeing the freedom
from the the mental stuff, the condemnation and the shame and all that?
Jesse: So for me, and what I find to in my healing ministry is that unforgiveness
and bitterness are the biggest things that hold us back and can cause us to be sick.
So when we get sick, we think of it, we have a disease.
It's because we're diseased, we're not at ease, we're diseased.
It has a lot to do with how, that bitterness and unforgiveness for me.
And I didn't even understand, a lot of it, that, I thought I forgave people
or that things I needed to forgive.
a lot of it had to do with my mom.
and I, and thank God for, my understanding of the prayer now, because my relationship
with my mom in her latter years was much better than it ever was, because
I understood, I saw my mother as.
Where she was coming from, where she, where her heart
was and where her pain was.
And I could see her as the way the Lord saw her, not how I used to
view my mom in that critical eye.
So I had to forgive my mom, for lots of things that I didn't even
realize I needed to forgive her for.
But, even my dad.
for letting me stay there in the situation as much as I love my dad.
He left us in the situation knowing that my mom struggled and
may or may not be able to care for us in the way that we needed.
and then from my ex husband and even, in my own current marriage, like There's
things that we hold on to, and I had to let go of a lot of the stuff that I was
hurt by, the rejections or the, betrayals and the different things that, It's the
inner healing piece for me, which is why, I teach on inner healing and I pray for
inner healing because I feel like it's really the key to a lot of, what holds
us back from living the destiny, the life and the purpose that God has for us.
And the enemy uses that mostly to keep us from our destiny.
so it's one of the very first talks I ever did was on the power of the tongue.
And it's not just what we speak, but what's spoken over us can act as a curse
Lisa: Right.
Jesse: for our life.
And then we live under that curse.
And that's truly what happened to me.
because as a girl graduating high school, I want, I always wanted to be
an accountant as silly as that sounds, or I'm a car mechanic and they always
told me I couldn't be a car mechanic.
You're a girl, but I wanted to be a CPA and that was what I wanted to do.
And I got accepted to Bentley and my dad said, no, you, I'm
not going to send you there.
I'm not going to spend the money because you'll just get married and
never use that degree kind of thing.
And that was his mentality.
And I, wanted to go and I didn't, but it really did act as a curse and a
trajectory to why I made the choices I made, because in my mind it was
like, Oh, I just have to get married.
And I just had to get married because that's what my father said, like whether
he meant that or not, it's what happened.
And so I'm just going to get married and have kids anyway.
So I need to do that.
And so when that didn't work out with my high school boyfriend and I just was like
in this hurry, I need to get married.
I need to have kids.
I need to, whether it was a good or bad or the ugly and it was all of that.
it's very important what we believe about ourselves and what our image of God is.
So that's the other thing that I really try to teach is God is a loving father.
He's a protector.
He's always there for us.
He's always with us.
he never leaves us or forseeks us and it's, we leave him lots of the time,
he never takes his eyes off of us, but we tend to take our eyes off of
him, especially when we're in sin and when we're doing things that we know,
Tend his to tobacco, I know I did.
I'm not gonna speak for everyone, but I just just I don't want him
to look at me, so I'm just gonna kinda pretend he can't see me.
and then the enemy swoops right on in with his lies and his deceit.
So if there's people that need to forgive someone, today's a good day to do it.
just hand them over to the Lord and release.
The other piece is to release people from our judgment.
That's the other side of forgiveness, so it's not just forgiving people,
it's releasing them from judgment.
So there's three pieces that I had to learn.
I had to forgive, I had to release them from my judgment,
but then I also had to bless them.
And that was the hardest part for me because people would give me these
prayers to pray blessings over the people that hurt me and I didn't want to.
And for a long time I wouldn't.
I said, no, why would I want them to have all these good things that, why
would I want them to be prosperous?
Why would I want them to have favor?
Why would I want their life to be good after what they did to me?
And then I realize now I gladly say those prayers because it only benefits us.
It only benefits me and only benefits those that know them.
that's when you truly know that you're able to forgive and it's gone.
It's when that, when you don't, when you think about the situation and it
doesn't make you crazy anymore, it doesn't bring that fear and anxiety.
You just feel peace in it.
Then you know the Lord has done the work that needs to be done in your
heart because it's all about the heart.
Lisa: Yeah.
Jesse: That's what we hold there.
Lisa: Yeah, I was just talking to somebody yesterday about how the resentments are
really holding them back and that, and, unforgiveness is such a powerful thing.
There's a really good reason why Jesus put it in the Lord's
Prayer, And so we have to forgive.
Others, the way that God has forgiven us, but the only way that I've
found that I can do that really is to remember who I am in Christ.
It all has to do with my identity and how I see myself.
So what you said about forgiving, and forgiving yourself and letting
go of the past, that's so important.
Jesse: Yeah.
And it's hard.
it's hard.
And it's hard when you, I guess this biggest hurdle to that is when you
start to begin to heal and you begin to work on yourself, it doesn't mean those
other people are going to do that too.
Lisa: Right.
Jesse: if they're still in your life or they're still around
you, you have to find a way to.
to have peace and not let them take the peace.
And that's the struggle.
And that's where we lean on the word of God always.
And, when I was walking and praying this morning about talking with
you today, the Lord reminded me of, there's this Japanese art.
They take all the broken pieces.
So if there's a vase that breaks, they, that it, they put it back together, but
they put it back together with gold.
or silver or platinum, but you can see where it was broken.
And the whole theory behind that is that it's a beautiful, beautifully
imperfect, but it doesn't hide our flaws.
It enhances the beauty of it.
And so we have to know that's who we are in God.
Like he'll take us and he'll put us back together.
And it says in the scripture, he refines us with the gold and the silver.
he does that with us.
And it's so that we know who he is.
And who we are in him.
And we're that beautiful base that's been put back together.
Lisa: I love that image, Psalm 147, 3 came to mind, where it says, He heals
the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds, and it's that binding, that gold
streak that, in all the broken places, that was what makes, Him shine through,
Jesse: That's right.
That's right.
Lisa: that's beautiful.
Jesse: Yeah.
Lisa: we might run out of time in a little while, but I wanted to ask you, what
does a typical day look like for you?
how do you start your day?
what kind of spiritual practices do you have?
Jesse: my day starts, I get up early.
I spend time, in the word and pray.
I'm a constantly in prayer, though, like my day is there's God.
I'm always in conversation with God.
And so as I teach prayer is just a conversation with God.
So coming from that Catholic background.
The hardest part for me or I remember saying like the hardest part to pray
with people is I don't know how to pray.
I only know these cards and these prayers on the, the road prayers.
I don't understand how to pray scripture.
I didn't understand that.
Now I know that prayer is just a conversation with God.
And that's what I tell everyone.
You just start talking to God and sometimes it's just being quiet.
but my day always starts in that quiet reflection time.
And then I go for a walk every morning.
And I do some more talking with God, or just reflections, or just
try to figure out what my next talk is going to be about, what does
the Lord want me to share with the world, what is it he wants me to do.
I still live.
I have four kids at home still, Josh was still here and Ava and I have two kids, my
daughter and son are still in high school.
So the busyness of being a mom, living here in Florida has been a challenge
because we don't really know anybody.
Our family's back in Massachusetts.
So there's been a lot of, Pressure on me to just be everything for everyone here.
So that's a lot of my days just trying to make every sure everybody is okay.
I have prayer appointments some days I still do, help with the schools, I do.
I minister to the prayer ministry.
so every day is a little bit different.
I do a food ministry on Wednesdays.
So I, like every day is about trying to serve the Lord the best way that I can.
and then come up with where the Lord is going to take me.
What he wants me to do, with this ministry, what my next topics will be.
Just, and just every day the Lord will send someone new to me or some,
something new for me, a challenge of, my past, just as we were just
talking, somebody just reached out about the school that my daughter went
to and some challenges she had there.
Somebody needs my help that is facing the same challenges today.
So again, the Lord is always on the move and he's always, doing things to,
to, to show me where he was in that and where he'll be for that person as well.
Lisa: Yeah, it sounds to me like you're just totally devoted to hearing his
voice and following him wherever he leads and you're making yourself available
to whatever he wants, That's awesome.
if there was one bit of advice that you could give to somebody out there
in the future, this happens to come to this podcast, what would Lisa
Palmieri pass, want to pass along to somebody that may be struggling?
Jesse: I think that the biggest thing I would want someone to
know is that they are loved.
That they are cherished by God, that they are not forgotten,
that they are not invisible, that God sees them and he knows them.
And no matter what it is that they're going through, that he is always
going to be there with them, that he's for them and he's not against them.
And I guess what I've learned is to just to let go and let God.
and to surrender.
it's so hard not to try to do things in our own strength, but to, to
peen on the strength of the Lord.
And I guess my favorite scripture is that I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.
I have it on the wall behind me.
to, as a reminder that, like I said in the beginning, I cannot
do anything in my own strength.
I can, but I'll mess up if I try, but I can do everything.
With the Lord.
And so I think if you can just remember, and if you find yourself in a place.
Of trauma or abuse that you do not have to stay in it.
You can go to those someone you trust and tell them what's
going on, but to seek help.
I was given some bad advice early on.
but that wasn't right.
You don't have to stay and you can find help.
And so that for me, it's let go and let God surrender everything to him and
trust that he has the best plans for you.
Even if they, even if your circumstances don't line up to what you think they
are, just stay to the word of God that says that he wants to prosper us and
he has a future full of hope for us.
And then we have to just hold on to that word.
because it's truth.
Lisa: Yeah.
Wow.
That's great.
I wanted to go back and ask you, about that healing service that you went
to, you had the praise and worship and the dancing and then the Holy Spirit.
You fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit.
Do you think that was a baptism in the Holy Spirit or that was
Jesse: Oh, yeah.
I'm pretty sure that it was a baptism.
that's what it was a school of the Holy Spirit.
So basically, we're baptized in the Holy Spirit now as Catholics, I received
confirmation that is truly the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not taught.
That way, and I didn't even know that's what I received.
it was just more of, understanding the power that I had through the
Holy Spirit, understanding the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
I never was taught any of that.
So this, it was an all new experience for me, and I did, for
many years, go back to that school.
They still are close to my heart and, I'm very close to the people that, and they
still do that school every summer in July.
It's a week long school, in Massachusetts, and I've seen lives transformed
and changed over and over again.
And.
I love them.
and so they, they were instrumental in me and my healing and just, praying over me.
They spoke words, prophesied over me.
prophesied about the ministry.
And at the time I couldn't even fathomed that what the
Lord was going to do with me.
And I still don't know what he actually has in store, but, even just me,
having that YouTube channel and me getting up there on the, And speaking
was not something I was always the person in the back of the room.
I was not the person that wanted to be up front in any way, shape or form.
So the Lord can do immeasurable things with us as long as we trust him.
Lisa: tell us about your YouTube channel, so in case people are interested in
hearing more of what you have to say.
Jesse: all of the nights of healing prayer that I have, I have
run are on my YouTube channel.
It's Lisa Palmieri workshops and there's I think there's probably 23 or 24 different
videos now and each one is a teaching, but there is prayer incorporated in each one.
So as you listen, you'll hear.
You will be able to pray through certain subject matters or, I have had
people testimonies of people who have listened to them because as we know,
there's no time and space for the Lord.
And so people have listened and have received, breakthroughs.
They've, received healings, just physical, emotional, spiritual, and the Lord
continues to use them in powerful ways.
And so that it's, there's just different topics.
There's the power of the time.
There's one and forgiveness.
There's a mother and father's blessing.
There's gifts of the spirit.
There's all different ones.
There's all different kinds.
So the Holy Spirit will lead you?
Yeah.
Oh,
Lisa: okay.
I'm gonna, I've never done it before, but I'm gonna try to put a
link to your YouTube channel in the note, in the show notes for this
Jesse: okay.
Lisa: I'm sure if I can't figure it out, I'll find somebody that can help me.
Because it's awesome.
I want other people to be able to, experience that.
Jesse: Yeah.
And each one has a little tidbit of the story.
My testimony is in each story.
there's something personal that I, put out there.
Something I'm struggling with because life isn't perfect and we're all
going to go through struggles and it's how we deal with those struggles.
And so there's hope in each one of them.
Yeah,
Lisa: Yeah.
That's, that's how God works through our struggles,
Jesse: that's true.
That's true.
Lisa: One more question and then we'll wrap things up.
You said that after you had this experience of falling out, and
the Holy Spirit healing you, that you developed, you immediately
had a hunger for the Word of God.
did you want to make any comments about that?
Jesse: Yeah, I just took the, I started to read the Bible.
I went out and I got a Bible.
I started to read it and really read it.
And, but if you, for me, I take everything that I read through
the lens of an inner healer.
So I see in each scripture, the Lord highlights to me where there's healing
in each one of those scriptures.
And there's a story to bring healing to others.
And that's what I use in my talks is scripture all the time, but I bring
it to life in a way that through the lens of an inner healer, where the Lord
was and what he was doing and how he was healing people through his word.
And so for me, it was just to understand Jesus.
To understand God and the Holy Spirit in a way that I wasn't taught, through
catechism or through anything like that.
it's God speaks to me.
And I still have that hunger, like I love to read the Word of God.
I love highlighting, my Bible looks like it, I mean if you
see it, it's all written there.
And it's got notes, it's got highlights.
it's, I said, this tells a story in itself.
Someday somebody's going to pick up my Bible and they're going
to read a whole lot of stuff.
Lisa: that's awesome.
is there anything else that you feel like you need to add?
Jesse: just to never give up hope, never, think you're alone because
I think that's the biggest piece when the enemy can isolate us.
that's when he does the damage, when he tries, always stay in fellowship,
always confide in another believer, surround yourself with people like
minded, it really does matter.
just never lose hope that no matter what you're facing, God has
the answer and it's in his word.
And when you find it in his word, you declare it to be and it will be.
Lisa: Yes.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you.
Jesse: You're welcome.
Sure.
Lisa: would you pray for our listeners?
Jesse: Thank you, Father.
Thank you for this time, Lord.
And as your word says that we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb,
by the power of our testimony, the word of our testimony, it brings life.
Father, that I just ask that you breathe your life over each and
every person listening to this, Lord, that you bring healing.
That you bring refreshment.
Father God, whomever may be listening to this in whatever period of time in
their life, father, that they know that you are there with them, that right now
in this very moment, that they feel your presence, that you just enveloped them in
a blanket of your love, your protection.
When I ask you to protect Jesse and I thank you Lord for everything
that he's doing with this broadcast.
Lord, I thank you that he brings life and love.
In the word to others, Lord God, so I ask that you protect him and his family and
this ministry surround him, your heavenly host of angels, Lord, bring healing, bring
light, bring peace into his life, Father.
And I thank you for each person that will hear this.
I thank you for their life and I thank you for what you
are going to do in their life.
Lord, I thank you for forgiveness that on the cross, Jesus said, forgive them
for they know not what they're doing.
Lord, I thank you that you.
That we are righteous and we are redeemed.
I thank you for the love that you give us, Lord.
So Father, I ask that you just pour out your Holy Spirit, that you just fill us
up to overflowing from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet, that
any place in our bodies, our minds, our souls, and our spirit that needs
healing, you just bring healing, Father.
We thank you, Father, for the testimonies that will come out of this podcast, Lord.
The testimonies of your goodness and your healing.
And your love.
Father, I thank you for the hedge of protection you place
around us as we go about our day.
We thank you that you protect us and our families.
Protect us from all sickness, harm, accidents, Lord.
And keep our feet on the firm path that you set forth before
us, Lord, that you are a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
And I pray all this in Jesus holy name, that he be glorified.
Amen.
Speaker 3: We hope you've been blessed by today's story.
In case you haven't noticed, there are no advertisements on this podcast,
and we hope to keep it that way.
So if you've heard something that you think could help someone you know, please
share it using the link in the show notes.
Also, if you will give Faith and Purpose a positive review on your podcast platform,
you could help more people find it.
You will probably never know how that small effort can make a big
difference in someone's life, but our Heavenly Father knows.
Speaking of sharing, if you know a Jesus follower with a story to tell, please send
them a link to Faith and Purpose Podcast.
It may encourage them to tell their story.
That person may even be you.
Our only criteria is that Jesus be glorified.
Most Christians don't share their faith because they mistakenly think
their story is not interesting enough, or that it's self centered to talk
about themselves, or that they are not competent to explain the gospel correctly.
But none of that is relevant.
If Jesus has changed your life, you have a story to tell.
All of our stories are completely unique.
No one has a story like yours, and you may be the only one who can reach someone
else through telling your experience.
So don't be intimidated.
A story is just that, a true account of your own experience, and no one
can disagree with your experience.
When we tell what Jesus has done in our lives, we are being obedient to his
command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
It's not about theology, and it's not about how interesting or special you are.
It's all about Jesus.
So when you're ready to tell how Jesus has impacted your life, you can let Jesse
know at his ministry website, jesseduke.
net.
There you can download guidelines that will make it easy to
prepare to tell your story.
Thank you for listening today and Shalom.