Jul 20, 2026 · 24 min · 10 segments
In this episode, guest speaker Stephen Rodriguez shares how faith in God sustained him through profound loss, encouraging listeners to trust God's strength, find hope in difficult seasons, and rely on…
Stephen RodriguezGuest
One, obviously, it's opening day, but unfortunately, I actually feel honored to be able to share a story that I hope that can impact you and is about losing a family member.
So I know some of you may have experienced that before, know somebody who has, and I actually experienced that pretty young in my life.
So today I feel fortunate because of that, because what God's done and what he's taught me, but I'm just going to quickly kind of give you the background on that and then share a couple things, but my life is probably pretty normal.
And my mom made about $25,000 a year and somehow still provided for three kids.
So I just became, I decided that I was just going to take control and I was going to start early in life.
Again, was just really able to muscle it out and do things on my own, beat out the next guy and get a foot forward.
And also, in the mix of all that, the reason why I actually got a job at Walmart in the first place was because I was dating someone in high school and I wanted to make a little extra money so I could buy her a Christmas gift.
And that lady actually ended up being the mother of my two daughters later down the road.
The point of the story I really want to get to is that I became, in my life, I just became that person that didn't rely on God a whole lot.
I just kind of relied on my own strength and was able to get things done, at least in my eyes, to a level that I was comfortable with.
The mother of my two daughters, we actually got married when I was 19 years old.
We were divorced by the time we were 21, so I had already been married, divorced, had two children by the time I was 21, so I had a lot going for me at a very young age.
One, obviously, it's opening day, but unfortunately, I actually feel honored to be able to share a story that I hope that can impact you and is about losing a family member.
So I know some of you may have experienced that before, know somebody who has, and I actually experienced that pretty young in my life.
So today I feel fortunate because of that, because what God's done and what he's taught me, but I'm just going to quickly kind of give you the background on that and then share a couple things, but my life is probably pretty normal.
And my mom made about $25,000 a year and somehow still provided for three kids.
So I just became, I decided that I was just going to take control and I was going to start early in life.
Again, was just really able to muscle it out and do things on my own, beat out the next guy and get a foot forward.
And also, in the mix of all that, the reason why I actually got a job at Walmart in the first place was because I was dating someone in high school and I wanted to make a little extra money so I could buy her a Christmas gift.
And that lady actually ended up being the mother of my two daughters later down the road.
The point of the story I really want to get to is that I became, in my life, I just became that person that didn't rely on God a whole lot.
I just kind of relied on my own strength and was able to get things done, at least in my eyes, to a level that I was comfortable with.
The mother of my two daughters, we actually got married when I was 19 years old.
We were divorced by the time we were 21, so I had already been married, divorced, had two children by the time I was 21, so I had a lot going for me at a very young age.
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