Chase Andrew Jones’ Vulnerable Story

May 21, 2020

So I chose the film my vulnerable story as I was hiking to the top of a mountain here in Cache Valley and doing that during a sunrise. The reason I did that is because of the symbolism that has my own life and because I really love nature made it. A little bit easier for me to share some of the things that are personal and vulnerable in that way. Little background I was born in Albuquerque New Mexico lived out west for the first few years of my life. We moved out to Atlanta Georgia when I was fairly young I think it was three or four and we moved out there. We had my my mom my dad my father four older siblings and when we moved out there we had my youngest brother was born. So there's six kids and mom and a dad move out to Atlanta Georgia. I was the kind of kid that just loved life. It's pretty energized and excited just smiling all the time pretty silly pretty dang silly. And some of my favorite things to do I just love going down into the woods near our place and especially if my little brother could go and build forts pretend that we're pirates or burglars or jump over the creek or bikes down there we'd we had so much fun down in the woods and it's a place of kind of peace and solace for me so I'd think maybe that was one of my first things with nature as I found it to be a place of comfort and fun and just very natural for me. So when I was a hornet say about six years old my my mom and my dad were having a hard time with their marriage. They separated I was about eight years old when they got divorced and I I do want to share that the impact of it on me as a young kid was pretty dramatic. It really struck me in a heavy and a hard way where you know I'm I'm young I don't really know how to process emotion to begin with. But while while all that was going on I remember bits and pieces and it was an emotional time for me as it was really a confusing and conflicting time where I grew up in a church environment and felt like everything that I'd been taught is families are meant to stay together. Having having that divorce take place really rocked my world. I didn't really know maybe how to how to view my own self-worth. At that point and it was something that just a seed was planted by the adversary where I didn't believe that I had worth or value and not all the time was that you know the thing I was fighting against but that was that was one of the bullies in my head was that you chase are not enough. So when I was about 10 or 11 years old my mom remarried to my stepdad. I really struggled with that transition. I wasn't very good at communicating and I certainly wasn't good at communicating emotions. So when that transition took place I really struggled during that time I was faced with different things like being made fun of. That's that's part of life. I don't think anybody gets out of life without being made fun of. But I had no no belief in myself and so I internalized all the things that people would say to me such as you're fat you're slow you're stupid you're not good at art you're not good at running you're not good at music. Some of the things that I love the most. You just internalize that as a kid. You don't have a place to put that if you're not communicating and hearing what the positive voices are saying. So it all culminated to having a whole lot of self-doubt and feeling inadequate in so many ways. Now that wasn't the only guiding force in my life. Definitely had a lot of good positive influence in there as well. But the voice that I listened to and started to accept as the guiding voice was the one who said you know God and once you believe that you're no good you don't have value it's when you start looking outward for fixes things just to alleviate pain. So on a high school. Started looking for relationships that would be more reciprocating. And I found those in people that I would date was also trying to be the the popular kid the funny guy the one who was crazy and outlandish just very attention seeking and every decision that I made wasn't to connect with other people. In true sense it was so that I could get any level of satisfaction. I ended up having a big falling out with my mom and my stepdad. I was 17 years old and my senior year and I ended up moving out of the House decided not point on that I wanted to just try my independence. Was like my goal to isolate myself eventually formed into leaving the home and starting out. I can't really say on my own I had some really awesome people that were again there to help take care of me and give me some guidance during a time where I was pretty lost. As one of the most exciting parts of the day. As fast as I can run right now. So for. Now I'm only partway through telling my story at this point. I want to express how grateful I am for adversity in opposition when you get to this point. You to see all this. The contrast is just so powerful. This is what God wants us to experience. I. I got to college and didn't really have a ton of direction. Just knew there was something that everybody else was doing. So that's what I was going to do. I had some ideas on things that I wanted to work towards and become but I didn't really have any passion. So I get into college. I don't really have a ton of belief in myself either. And I just start doing the routine. You know that's was kind of the thing is do the steps. But I wasn't feeling any excitement or fulfillment from those things. So what I did feel excitement from was seeking my own personal pleasures. So selfish pleasures but things that led to addiction. So sexual addiction and drug addiction. So those are two main things that were kind of like manifestations of the problems that I was facing in my life. So these inner beliefs of that I don't have value that I'm inadequate That I'm worthless that I'm unlovable that I'm unredeemable. Those were my core beliefs and because those were my core beliefs the behaviors were never really or rarely were they for other people. And so this spiral downward is what it was into into this pit. The road that I was on was pure self-destruction getting getting into more and more habits that were longer lasting the binges that I would go on would be longer and more destructive for starting to really take over some of the things that I was doing right. So with school my grades started to slip and starting to fail missing classes missing projects starting miss work showing up to work late or just not showing up at all. And I just got to be where I was in such a place of chaos in my own life. It felt like everything was just out of control. At the lowest point for me. I was just totally manic. I was depressed. I was anxious. I didn't trust people. I was confused. I had breakdowns during times when I know my friends look back at those times and they're like Man you you had some jacked up stuff going on because I would just start crying in the middle of hanging out you know having having good time even even the best time that I could be having. I would just break down. And so it was rock bottom for me. I got to a point where I was suicidal and. God save. I was so broken that I was willing to do anything. I knelt down on my knees and I prayed. And poured it out in. Every bit of my soul and God answered the point in my life when I felt the most alone the most depressed most anxious most turmoil I felt instant peace I felt as though there was this wave of calm that came over me. The moment I reached out and opened up my mouth. With so much love. So love for myself. So after feeling so much love from God I. Knew that I needed to do everything that I could to change. It's not enough to just feel those things and then let it sit. I I needed to change my life so I could feel more of that love and recognize it more readily. So I made a commitment to get rid of as much of the darkness in my life. Replace it with light and that process was a beautiful process. It was in no way easy but it was so valuable in the things that I got to learn. I learned so much about myself. I learned that I could overcome things like addiction and not because of my own strength and power but through the grace of God as I sought out to change something. I would rely as fully as I could on on the strength that comes through Christ and I would feel different things that were that seemed impossible insurmountable at first became possible. And over time I was able to climb out of that pit and be pulled out of that pit at the same time. It's probably more more like being pulled out of the pit. But so few of the major factors. Able to look at the examples in my life and say I want what they have. How are they to the point that they are at so I just started to emulate and really just mimic until it became my own thing. And I recognize that the power of making a decision and setting a goal. Making a decision and seeking after that and learning about yourself all along in the process. And so identity became so critical and so important to me. I wanted to learn more about who I was and how to develop a better relationship with God and with myself through God. So I set a goal to this kind of a coin. It's really cool. I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. I set a goal to ride my bike across the United States and to surprise each of my siblings and family members along the way. So there my family is kind of spread out across the country and at that time we had family and Florida and Tennessee and New Mexico Texas and Utah and Idaho. So we're all spread out you know and I. I set my sights on starting in Portland Oregon on the other side of the country where I was so in Florida I go to the other side of the country to start and I bike all the way home. It was amazing. Some of the best experiences of my life I had during that time and the whole purpose of doing that trip was to connect with God through prayer through scripture study through reading books that are inspired to learn about myself through coming up with a challenge a real obstacle and overcoming that through resilience through self-expression journaling poems photography video through just pondering even pondering about the things that I am interested in and the kind of man that I want to become. That was so cool and then connection to other people so I got to meet a lot of people along the way that were really inspiring and helped lift me beyond what I was able to do at that point. I also got to connect with my siblings and my my Dad and Papa along the way and had so many good experiences from that showing up at their house and surprising them saying this you know this kid that's just disgusting and just giving them the biggest embrace. Know a lot of them are family members I hadn't seen for a year two years maybe longer and it was really really special having that that reunion. So that was a three month trip. That was another huge landmark in my life that helped me get the right pacing in the right foundation that I needed when I got back. I was pretty well on fire with just the excitement and zeal for life. I set a goal to watch the sunrise every day for a full year to watch it with as many people as I could. And the reason I wanted to do this was because of the transition that I had just experience. It was so monumental. It was so drastic the contrast was perfectly polar from absolute pitch black to blindingly white radiant light. That's that's what I got to experience in a spiritual sense. And so with that I was so curious about it and wanted to understand more of what took place. So I set this goal to watch the sunrise because it's the perfect embodiment of of that transition and as a physical. Embodiment. This phenomenon that takes place every single day all across the world since the beginning of of time and the beautiful thing about it is everybody has some type of connection to light and dark. So anyway I won't get off on that change and I'm very passionate about about that but I set this goal and I ended up completing the goal year later. Having watched the sunrise almost every day with two hundred and sixteen people and it was it was awesome. It had me so excited again kind of furthered the excitement for life and some of the things that I wanted to do and accomplish. And so while I was working on the sunrise goal I ended up meeting somebody that I fell in love with and eventually asked to marry me. She and I got married and we were together for three years and had a really difficult relationship and I look back and recognize one of the major threads throughout it was that she didn't know who she was and didn't have the same type of foundation that I had and not that I I started out with that either. I had to learn and grow and and develop that foundation. But but instead of seeking for the right types of things to build that foundation she went the other direction and at some point she reached out to me and said we need to get a divorce. And I remember feeling that coming on and being so devastated and just brutally devastated imagine falling in love with somebody caring so much about them and you know and I'm in no way a perfect man and I did as good as I could in that relationship but I looked back and I think how hard it was and how broken I was from giving up the vote in the most vulnerable parts of yourself to another person and then to be rejected that. It was it was really really difficult. I made a commitment to God to keep trying my best even despite some of the pain and the raw emotion that I was feeling even despite some of the confusion and the fears and rejection all the doubts everything that came flooding in because of the high emotion that I was experiencing. And as I made that commitment to keep trying my best. God gave me opportunities to succeed and there were small victories some of them one of them was to move out west and to live with my sister and Utah and I had four nieces there that I lived with it just took such good care of me I remember the day that. I my ex-wife told me that we were going to get a final divorce letter and everything signed. I just so much emotion I felt so much emotion I was so broken and my youngest daughter Paisley comes knocking on the door and she's there with her mom and I'm laying down in bed just crying to myself and she says Hey do you paisley want to go for a bike ride down to the gas station and get some candy. Do you want to go with her. I love riding bikes. If that's not obvious I love spending time outside. If that's not obvious I love my family. If that's not obvious. That was the perfect thing to help get me out of bed when I didn't. Nothing else would have done it. So go spend time with my niece. We got some candy. She's ran and got this like unicorn helmet with the little horn on the front. And I remember that was a day where God totally saved me and he came through the form of something very simple. It was through a family member through my niece through my sister. I ended up having so many of those experiences during my recovery from divorce that it helped me to stay as on track as possible. And I really attribute so much of my successes in that recovery to doing group therapy with with my brother in law. Tyler I got to learn so much about vulnerability and empathy and self compassion and our core behaviors. I connected to other men and built a brotherhood of people that had the same type of addictions that I was trying to stay away from. And they they were also doing the work that I was doing it felt so good to have that connection and be able to call somebody up and say Hey man I'm struggling. I'm really struggling right now. Do you have a few minutes to talk and to also be that person to receive those types of phone calls that that help me in a tremendous way. Having those types of connections and then the one that I think I maybe glow the most when I talk about is falling in love with my wife Chelsea. So Chelsea moved out west. At the same time that I moved out west. He's from Florida. Kind of like me. We met at FSU and knew each other briefly. We weren't really friends we were just kind of acquaintances but we knew each other well enough to become Facebook friends and I saw that she moved out west and she's about four years younger than me. I tried setting her up to go on a date with my little brother who was also living out west and it in the communication back and forth with her I found out that she actually was not in the same part of the West that my brother was living in. So I thought she was in Utah. Turns out she was in Idaho. I was in northern Utah. I was able to reach out to her and say hey I need a friend. Would you be willing to go watch a sunrise with me. I connected with her after after I'd gotten divorced so the week after I got divorced she and I watched the sunrise together in Roxburgh Idaho. It was just sitting in the middle of this frozen potato field. November 8th 2015 I remember that morning being transcendent in every kind of way and at a point where I wasn't ready to get into a relationship. I felt God just kind of pushing me like a like a confident father knowing that his son is capable of doing something just pushing me saying Hey this girl is going to love you in a way that you don't even recognize right now. And. That's true justice helped me to learn so much about myself. She's not going to feel so much unconditional love. Are our dating process was phenomenal. We had some ups and downs we had we had some around in rounds we totaled the car going 80 miles an hour and rolled two and a half times and came out unscathed. That was a miracle. We had a few emotional things within our relationship that were difficult to navigate. But by by the end of a few months of being. Getting to know her I I knew that I I needed somebody as good as her as loving as her as patient and thoughtful as her in my life. And she's been that example for me ever since we've been married for going on almost four years now and we've got a son named August and we're expecting our second kid later on this year in November. I am amazed at how. God is able to work such miracles in our lives. I remember when I was going through the divorce I thought there is no chance that I'm going to be able to find a relationship where I feel love and want to give myself fully to and with Chelsea God led me to her and we have that and in a way that I've never had in any other relationship. I'm so grateful for for the way God works miracles and gives us the experience that we need. He's able to redeem the most broken the most lost the most the darkest of of any kind of problem that we've ever faced and he wants that. He wants to heal us. I believe it's fully possible and I know that it's fully possible no matter what your situation is. I've been in the therapy that I've gotten to do and even with the sunrise goal and some of the other projects that I've worked on I've kind of learned so much about other people and their darkness. I've learned about the light that they've experienced and the choices that they've made and I I have such a strong testimony and witness of the ability for God to change us to make something to purify our hearts to help us be whole. I'm grateful. For his love for me. For his relentless nature and calling and reaching out to me and trying to bring me into his arms of love. Matchless love. I share these stories knowing the. Our stories have the power. To bind arms together to lift people out of darkness and to help us all become closer to God.

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