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Speech Transcript (very little editing so not exact)

Time to shine. Today podcast varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson and I was introduced to my good friend Susan Louise Gabriel. I’m just going to call her Susan because there is another author out there named Susan as well, susan Gabriel, but Susan Gabriel and through a mutual friend through his platform Pod Match. And I’m pretty picky, as you know, about the people that I kind of bring on to the show show. Not to sound bigger than anything, but I want to make sure a story and her experience resonates with you out there to really maybe tug at some heartstrings. Also in triumph over tragedy as well. Susan Lewis gabriel she’s the author of a Heart Tugging Memoir, which I’m going to do a book giveaway at the end, so you have to listen to them until then. As well. As shame to say, I haven’t read it yet, but I’m eyeing it today to dig into it. But it’s a heart tugging memoir about her crusade to get her daughter back after she was taken by an out of controlled child protection agency. And Susan’s. Resultant activism on a national scale. After a lifetime career in business development, she’s moved in over to really helping authors out there get their story out as well. Susan goal, really, is to inspire others to live a life that’s present and active in this world, yet shaped by forces that lie beyond it. And our our mutual force is God. And people that know me out there know I’m a Christian, so we’re going to dig into God a little bit on this as well. And my good friend Susan lives in Texas, where it’s probably pretty nice now, but it gets hot. I think it’s the way God created it was the sun Texas and Florida than the earth in the summertime. So, Susan, thank you so much for coming on. Please introduce yourself to time to Shine today podcast Varsity Squad. But first, what’s your favorite color and why I’m wearing it? Purple. Purple. Purple. Violet purple. Okay. And why is that? I’ve just always loved it. It’s such a deep and rich color. It has so much intensity. I really just really like it. I love it. One, it’s royal and regal, right? And in the book of numbers, anything that was royalty in the book of numbers was purple. Remember that? And it’s also a mix of red and blue. So I’m sure that both you and I have that side to us where especially the tribulations that you’re you had to go through a red side probably came out when it had to, but you’re also pretty laid back in blue as well. So, seriously, thank you so much for coming on, Susan. It’s a blessing to have you here. And if you don’t mind, let’s get to the roots of the story of wheels of injustice and then we’re just going to kind of move on from there. Yeah, well, the major part of my story really starts when I got married to my second husband. And six weeks after that time, the Department of Social Services gave me a call and said, we haven’t. Daughter. And I was in total shock. I had no idea what they meant. They said, Come down right away. We want to talk to you. And so when I went down to their office, they told me that my new husband had molested her. And I was in shock. I had not seen any indication that he was anywhere capable of something like that at and I said, Where? What happened? And they said, well, he tickled her. And I said, well, where did he tickle her? And they said, well, on the stomach and on the knee. And I said, that’s not molestation. I said, what are you talking about? And I said, Can I speak with your supervisor? And they said, well, she’s not here right now. You’ll have to come back later. And they asked forwarded me out. They said they were keeping my daughter until I kicked out my husband from the home and did not allow him. To have any contact with her, and he could not live at home. But I didn’t immediately do that. I’m not the kind of person that just will immediately do something somebody says without thinking it through. Right. So I didn’t do it. Understandably. So your husband yeah. Right. And if he’s falsely accused, I’m not going to go along with their persecution of him. Right. What year was this? This was 1986. Okay. How old was your daughter then? Nine years. She was just her nine years old. Okay. Got it. Yeah. My other daughter was 15. Okay. They kept her. We didn’t even really know where this came from, this accusation, but it was just a misunderstanding from something that she told her teacher. So it’s. Really wasn’t anything. But the Department of Social Services did not believe us. And the harder we tried to tell them what the truth was, the more they fought us. And it just kept getting worse and worse. And they eventually charged my husband with a felony. Felony? A felony. And the penalty for it, they said, was 16 years in prison. It could be up to that, right? So it just continued to get worse and worse. I was beside myself. I just felt awful because my daughter wanted to come home so bad. I wanted her to come home. But I knew that if kicked my husband out of the house so she could come back, then the Department of Social Services would then see that as an admission of guilt. Believed yeah, that I had believed that he had molested her. Oh, my God. So I was really stuck in a really hard position. I tried to kill myself. It got so bad. I was just I just completely lost it. And I tried it in such a way that I did not believe that anybody would ever find me or stop me. I drove up in the mountains west of Colorado at Colorado Springs. So I was in a remote area. I took pills and laid down to die. And I said, God, if you want me to live, you’re going to have to do something because I just can’t go on anymore. So he did something, obviously, because there are areas thank God. It was a miracle. It really was a miracle. And I talk about that in my book and I won’t spoil it. No, I appreciate. Can’t wait to dig into that. So are you in touch with your daughter now and everything is oh, yeah. I mean, spoiler alert there. But I did get her back three years later, but it took three years. But during that time, I became an activist. I was just so angry. And so my husband and I started a nonprofit organization because there were other people out there in the same boat. So banded together, I started getting speaking engagements. I spoke to the National Press Association. I called into talk radio shows, wrote letters to the editor. I got some attention from national magazines that we were in an article. And then there was a book that came out. We were one of the chapters in the book. Today Show decided that they would interview the author of that book. So they came out. And sent a crew out. So they interviewed us and we were on the Today show as well, so we went wide. Good. And this is before social media. That takes work to guidance. And whatnot? No Internet? Nothing. Just writing letters, calling people. There was no Internet, so it was a lot of work. Other than each other, susan, was there any other support system that was there for you that you could lean on? Yeah. Clark’s sister, my husband’s sister, she was wonderful, a wonderful person. And she never doubted Clark, ever. She always believed in him. Got you. And are you and Clark still together? Yeah. Beautiful ending to just a crazy story. I don’t want to be like, oh, I can’t wait to dig into your tribulations, but I do, because the end result all these guys. God is good and obviously did the right. You did right by him or he did right by you in Colorado. And still here we are having this conversation, right? What lesson did you really pull out of the situation from a 30,000 foot view, susan, what lesson did you pull out? That God is always with you, even when you don’t think he’s there, he’s still there. Love it. That’s 100% true. Because I learned to pray in a different way. I was raised super strict Baptist. Super strict. There’s nothing wrong if that’s what you worship and whatnot that’s fine. But now I almost have to discussions with God and I believe silence is actually God’s voice. So I get really quiet and I actually talked. And then shut up. And things have really started coming around to me because I’ve had my own little run ins in life and I believe in that. So what do you feel, maybe that your strengths are? And how much do you appreciate them after going through this experience? I guess resiliency is one I never would have thought of. That I was resilient. Resilient. But I am. Someone just this morning told me I was a strong woman. I don’t feel strong. There’s one Bible verse that I love that God will not a bruise read he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish. I love it too, because I feel like Bruce Street a lot of times and a candle is about ready to go out. But he won’t let that happen. He steps in and he gives you steps. And that’s what I’ve learned. Sure. Here’s another thing that I think is really important, and that is to not look and worry about the future. Just take one day at a time. Just follow that God has for you today. Ask this morning what he wants you to do and then do it. And it may be completely, completely different from what you had planned to do that day. And at the end of the day, you’ll think, wow, that was really interesting what happened. It was quite an adventure. I love it. I’m a coach, and I coach individuals, and I see so many people have a foot in the future, a foot in the past, and I pee all over the present. Right. It’s just like my analogy. Right. And that’s what they do because they’ll live in that review mirror. If you’re sitting in a car and they’ll. Well, that rearview mirror is your past. It’s small for a reason. The dashboard is big and scary, right? But if you’re not having the hand on the steering wheel, foot on the gas, know where the brakes at? You have to live now. And that’s where you pray and you move forward. And I love that you said that. Don’t worry about the future. Because even Philippians, he says, don’t be anxiety about what is you feel is going to happen. Because, one, you and I both have survived 100% of our worst days, and there’s a reason for that, okay? Period. So we have. And again, it’s cliche. But cliches are cliche because they work. God’s not going to give us any more than we can handle. I love that there is triumph to this story. So do you remember the movie Back to the Future? Oh, yes. Okay, let’s get in that DeLorean with Marty McFly. Let’s go back to the tour. 22 year old Susan. Okay. Yeah. What kind of knowledge nuggets do we call them here? In time, sean, today not so much to change anything. I’m sure there’s things you might change, but what kind of knowledge nuggets would you drop on the 22 year old Susan that maybe help her shorten her learning curve or level up a little bit better through life? Don’t give up. Don’t be sad. It’s going to get better and it’s going to be terrific. Oh, my gosh. That is just it’s strong. Wow. Yeah. And you had to keep telling yourself during that time, oh, my gosh. When I was 22, I was in a failing marriage that drug on for 15 years. So I was sad a lot larger part of the time and I didn’t have a lot of hope. Right. So my life is totally different than I ever would have thought. Right. I’m sure you look back. During those 15 years also. And you see only one set of footprints, right? A guy who’s carrying you through a lot of that time. That’s great. So how does Susan want her dash? Remember that little line in between your incarnation date and your expiration date, your life date and your death day? Hopefully, it’s way down the road, miss Susan, but how do you want that dash? Remember, she loves God, and God loved her. Yeah. And God is love. So that means there’s love everywhere. That’s beautiful. So, Susan, what do you feel maybe people might misunderstand the most about you? I appear a lot of times to be a very soft spoken and easy going person. That’s the blue side of it. That’s that’s the part that department of social services thought, mistakenly, that I was just going to cave in. Right. But I know I’m. Across that way a lot of times and part of that is of course, my personality. I’m just sort of laid back in a lot of ways but Mama Bear comes out need be it’s funny that’s me something in the name Susan, my fiance’s name Susan and the same thing. Everyone’s like Susan. There’s times when I push it a little bit too far and I get let knowing love that. I love it. What, if anything, keeps you up at night? I can’t really think of a whole lot. I usually hit the bed, go right to sleep and wake up about 7 hours later. Honestly, it must be a Susan thing because literally I have timed my Susan. One time she’s you laid down I hit the timer and I just watched her and she had 8 seconds. The next day was 18 seconds. It was just like she does. To me, it’s a superpower. I’m not like an insomniac, but I have to have a whole protocol. Go to bed, get the air right, get my pillows right and stuff like that. So that’s awesome. Let’s take computers, cell phones, any of the other technological stuff out of this question. But what are three things that Susan can’t live without besides my friends? You can add friends or family. My friends. But a lot of my friends. I need technology to contact them. Because we’re online friends. Right. No, I feel you. They all live in other countries. Sure. Right. I really need that technology. Need the community, the friends. What else you need the other two. I would say music definitely is another one. And. Probably art. Art beautiful. I love it. I love it. There’s all three fantastic things. And Susan, what is your definition of a life well lived? A life well lived. That’s one where I am following Jesus, where I know every day that I’m doing what to the best of my ability, I’m doing what he wants me to do, that I’m following on his path. I have a little dog, a little Chihuahua that watches feet all the time. I think it’s because he’s afraid somebody’s going to step on him. So when we go down to the mailbox, he follows me like 4ft behind, never veers off, and the same thing coming back again. So I want to do that. I think of him. He’s my role model. I want to be like that and follow Jesus, 4ft behind, always watching his feet and. Making sure because when you’re watching feet, you don’t really care where you’re going to know. You want to go wherever that person is going. So that’s where I want to go. I don’t care the destination. He knows the destination I don’t need to know. Find faith and trust. That’s beautiful. That’s fantastic. Fantastic. In squad, we’re going to take my good friend Susan Louise Gabriel through our leveling up lightning run just as soon as we get back from thinking our sponsors and affiliates. Time to shine. Today podcast. Varsity squad. We are back. And if you have put down the Kleenex, we’re going to move into a little bit something a little bit more fun. And Susan, you have 5 seconds acts with no explanations to answer each one of these questions. They can all be done that way. Are you ready to level up? Okay, here we go. Susan. What is the best leveling of advice you’ve ever received? Don’t look back. Share. What are your personal habits that contributes to your success? I like to listen to music at night when I go to sleep with headphones on and listen to music. A Christian music. Beautiful. It’s really a wonderful thing to do because it gets into your soul that way. Love it. So other than your book and also the good book, the Bible, is there any other book that you like to gift to people? Oh, yes, and I have several of them. What’s the number one? Yeah, the number one book. I prefer the audiobook version. It’s wonderful. One of the best books I’ve ever listened to. And I do like to listen to this when I go to sleep too. It’s called don’t miss out. Don’t miss out by Jeannie Kanye. Okay. Beautiful. Excellent nicknames growing up. Susie. Susie. Love it. So chess, checkers or Monopoly? Monopoly. All right. Two ice cream flavor chocolate marshmallow. You and I can hang out any time. Awesome. So there’s a sandwich called the Susie build that sandwich for me. What’s on it? Definitely banana peppers. Okay. Start with that. Spicy. Love it. Yeah. And mayonnaise. Okay. And a nice selection. Of Italian meats. There we go. Nice. Italian cheeses and a little bit of Italian dressing. Yeah, that sounds good. Now you’re making I know. I’m not ready to go to Jersey mugs or something. I don’t know. Also favorite charity? Charity and or organization. Like to give your time or money to yeah, I like something called IMA Bridge Africa. Expand on that. And it’s an organization that does good works in Nigeria in particular is one of the areas I did a mission trip to the Nigeria. Oh, really? I have three really good friends in Nigeria. Nice. I also did Zambia. That was interesting as well. Excellent. So, last question. You can elaborate a little bit on this one as well. But what is the best decade of music? Sixty s. Seventy s. Eighty s or ninety s? Seventy s. Seventy s. I love it. I was almost going to predict that for you because you said the ages of yours. Your children. So it’s like she had to have listened to a lot of 70s music. I’m 50, so I was born in 72. So I’m probably a little bit younger than your oldest, but about four or five years and older than the one that you have. Exactly. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. So how can we find you, Susie? Susan, my company’s website. I have a publishing company now yes, that’s talk a little bit about that, please. Yeah. It’s called soul sunshine. And that’s S-O-N-S-H-I-N-E-I love that for like, the Son of God. Yes. That’s beautiful. We’re all Christians in my company. Okay. It’s wonderful. We pray with each other and we work together. We have, like, for example, there’s sunshine in my soul today. That’s, like, one of our slogans. And we give your book a shining start. I love it. It’s a wonderful it’s time to shine. Yes. I thought of your podcast and I thought, I love it. We match. I love it. We’ve alluded to it before. If you’re an author out there, please let me make a warm introduction, my good friend Susan, to help you get your message out there. I’m also going to do a book giveaway. She wrote a book, the book that she wrote regarding her daughter called The Wheels of Injustice saving my child from the child savers. I think it’s an excellent title. And she also has a book button goes to I can’t read my writing. Can you help me out with that? Cool. Button goes to school. Button goes to school. The wheels of injustice. I am going to do a book giveaway. First person that puts Susie Q. Suzy Q in any of our social I don’t care if it’s Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever it is or even texted. 561-440-3830, because I’ll know you’ve listened. I will get a signed copy out to you on Time to Shine Today’s dime. I’ll just send you the name in the money if you don’t mind mailing it out for me. That’d be fantastic. Susan yeah, yeah. And then what is Button goes to school. Button is based on a little dog that I used to own. And Button goes to school. Button goes to a doggy school. Training. Okay. Yeah. And she teaches the other dogs the golden rule. So kind of do unto others if you have done to you exactly. Love that. I know that you can find the wheels of injustice on Amazon. Is that on Amazon as well? Yes, it is. Awesome. Or goodreads. Or anywhere else you really find your book. Alexander susan, do me one last favor and leave us with one last knowledge nugget that we can take with us. Internalize and take action. Okay? When I started my publishing company, god told me something about the process. He said, pay attention to the process. The process at that time had to do with finding author or finding artists to do illustrations for a book of poems that I have coming out also. And during that process process of finding artists, I met all of the people that are now in my company. And it was the process that was the most important part. The process is where I became friends with them and got to know them and we got to know each other and realized that God had brought us together for this purpose. Wow. Stay present in the process and pay attention to that. Yeah, we had a really fun, heart tugging, emotional triumphal conversation. Issue with my good friend here, Susan, and she wants to remind you God is always with you. You have to have that faith. A lot of people will say, I’ll believe it when I see it. But if you see it, you’ll see it when you believe it, you believe in God. It’s there. He wants to give you great things. And if you like my good friend Susan here, resilient and strong like she was, god will never extend that flame as long as you stay true to it. Don’t worry so much about the future because you are basically sinning. And I’m not saying that in a religious kind of tome like sinning. If you go back to the Greek root word of sin means missing the mark. That’s exactly what that means. So I believe that if you’re worrying about the future you’re sinning against today. God gave you the present for a reason, Lin. Live there. And if you are stuck, pray to God and he will put the people in your life, just like Susan said about paying attention to the process. Because. With that process, a tribe became available to her. That is in her vibes. Like they say, your vibe attracts your tribe, and it’s just beautiful. My good friend Susan is just fantastic. I believe that she’s planting trees that she’ll probably never sit in the shade of. And I know that I am inspired after listening to my good friend Susan and having this fantastic discussion. She levels up her health. She levels up her wealth. She’s humble. Yes. She’s fierce and hungry. She’s earned her varsity squad letter here at Time to Shine today. Thank you so much, Susan, for coming on. I absolutely love your gods. Thank you so much. You bet. We’ll chat soon. Okay. Okay. Bye now. Bye.

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