Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen. Welcome and thanks for listening. Keep the conversation going by connecting with Bleeding Daylight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or other social media platforms. All the links are at bleedingdaylight.net. As you listen, consider who else needs to hear this and other episodes and then share with one or two others.
How do you find truth when you've been brought up in two different faiths? How do you move forward when what you've learned from those beliefs hasn't brought you the freedom you're seeking? Today's guest has an amazing story of discovery and faith. Today I'm joined by Amelia Walden, an author who never expected to write a book but found herself on an incredible journey of faith.
Amelia answered a surprising call to write her debut book, From Jew to Gentile, during a time of personal identity crisis. Raised in a household blending Judaism and Catholicism, Amelia's life changed after encountering Jesus, leading her to share her transformative journey with others. Passionate about dismantling legalism and embracing the gospel's message of love and grace, Amelia speaks with vulnerability and authenticity, encouraging others to find freedom in faith.
She's also a dedicated military wife. Her story is a testament to the power of God's call and the beauty of a life lived in relationship with Him. Amelia, welcome to Bleeding Daylight. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and thank you so much for that beautiful introduction. That made me sound better than I think I am. Well, in the introduction to your book, you admit to being a backstory teller. Tell me about that.
Yes, I actually had a friend tell me once, she said, you are a backstory teller and she meant it in the way where I can never tell a story without first going back probably to the start of wherever the story is coming from. I have to explain why I'm saying what I'm saying. I constantly tell the backstory so that people understand where I'm going with it and where it came from so that they don't think it's just a random ADHD thought that's popping into my brain that I explained myself.
When I told her that years later, she said, oh gosh, that is so mean. I am so sorry. I was like, oh, no, I don't think that's mean at all. I am a backstory teller. It's something that I constantly do. Of course, your backstory is helpful in this context because we want to know a little bit about where you came from. I mentioned that your upbringing was this mixture of Judaism and Catholicism. Tell me about those growing up years for you. My father was Catholic.
My mother was Jewish, although my mother never went to temple. We really got the cultural side of Judaism from my grandparents. I speak about in the book where my grandparents would come and they would bring us Hanukkah presents while we were celebrating Christmas and they were there for Christmas. Sort of contradictory there. I was raised really in the Catholic church. I went to mass. I went to a Catholic high school. I learned the rituals. I learned religion.
I won't say that I went to mass every weekend, although my dad was a devout Catholic. He went to mass every single Sunday, whether the kids went with him or not. Sometimes he even went multiple times during the week before he would go to work. Very devout Catholic, very set in his faith, whereas my mother was more the cultural side of the Jewish faith. We definitely got the matzo ball soup and the Hanukkah and the festivals and things like that from my grandparents.
Some would say it's the best of both worlds there. I'm wondering what it felt like for you because you're seeing these two different faiths. Was it saying to you, well, you can choose whatever you want to be, there is actually no truth, or did you lean to one side or the other? I actually think that's a really good way of putting it. I don't think I have ever thought of that, that there was a mixture of truths where I think that probably led to a lot, honestly.
I definitely leaned more on the Catholic side because that is what I experienced the most. But I think the feeling for me was more the how I was supposed to act, what I was supposed to do, the prayers I was supposed to say, everything that I was supposed to follow in order to be a good Catholic was really what was instilled from the religion side of both of those religions. So how did that set you up as you then advanced through childhood and into teenage years?
Did any of that faith actually impact the way that you were living? No, not at all. In fact, I think I rebelled at the time. I didn't think that it was rebelling at all. As I grew up and came into my teenage years, being at the Catholic high school, I wanted to be different. I wanted to do everything different from all of the other kids. I wanted to set myself apart. The way that I could do that was by being sort of a heathen, honestly.
And I talk about being on the headmistress's shortlist at the high school, being suspended and all of the things. I rebelled as much as I could. I really feel that when I look back on my past, I was rebelling from the restriction. I wanted freedom so badly that I was going to get that whatever way I could. If that was to break every single rule that I had ever been taught, then I was going to do it.
We get this idea of freedom that we want to be able to do what we want to do, but did that searching after freedom actually provide an internal freedom for you? Did you feel free in doing this? Unfortunately not. In one part of the book, I actually talk about the lies that I had told myself for so long, and they had really been ingrained in me. I truly believed these lies, things like, I'll never be good enough. I believed them through and through.
In my attempt to have freedom, I was ultimately confined the most I've ever been in my entire life. So tell me about the reaction back home. If you're at this school, this great Catholic school where they're trying to teach you the rules to live by, and you're not living by any of them, and you say that your dad was a very devout Catholic, what was his response to you being on that short list? What was his response? His response, and it's sort of funny. My dad was a psychologist.
He had done child psychology at a part of his career. He moved into the executive positions at hospitals later in life, more that I remember. But in his earlier career, he was a child psychologist. So whereas you would think that he would be the most strict parent, he really was the most understanding one. My mom and I fought like cats and dogs, but my dad's reaction was always very loving, very kind, very supportive.
He would try to talk through all of the feelings that I was having and why I was acting the way that I was acting. Some of it, I will say he got through to me, but it was right back to it the next weekend, as soon as I went out with my friends again. As you grew into your adult years, did you continue with any form of faith or did you leave that faith behind? I left the faith behind completely.
So as soon as I graduated high school, I really wanted nothing to do with religion or God because I saw God as only restriction and rules. I didn't see, nor was I taught, that you could have a relationship with God. I was taught the prayers, the rituals, what to do. Like I was searching for the freedom in my earlier years of life, I gained that freedom by being as far away from it as I possibly could and truly wanted nothing to do with it.
I also felt that every time I would encounter a struggle, I found myself seeking out a church. That foundation had been set, although subconsciously, I didn't realize that it had been set. Every time that I came to a hard point in my life, or I was trying to make a big decision, I would always seek out a church. It would never last. I would go a couple services, I would feel better, and then I would go about my life and continue to do what I was doing.
It was a cycle like that for probably about 10 to 12 years after high school, where I would go and then fall off and continue. Mark So what was the beginning of that turnaround to discovering faith in a very different way? Jessica It's funny, my husband and I had seen one of our friends become a born-again Christian from social media. We obviously move all over the country, many different duty stations, and social media is really how we keep up with the majority of our friends.
So we saw this childhood friend of my husband's become a born-again Christian. He also owned the ranch where the church was renting space from. It was an event center, and it also happened to be the same ranch that we had gotten married at 12 years prior. We asked him about the church when we were living in San Antonio. We had moved back for a short voluntary duty of my husband's. We asked him about the church and he said, yeah, you should come and check it out. It's great.
The pastor's really relatable. You would love it. So we walked in, and I do remember telling my husband, because we were both on the same path of not seeking God, not reading the Bible, not really wanting that in our lives. So I told him, I'm going to go to this church service, and it's absolutely fine if you don't go with me, but I would love for you to come with me, and I'm going to go check it out and see what this is all about.
We walked in that day, and I remember the pastor starting his sermon with the book of John. He said, we're in the book of John today, and if you don't know what that is, that's the last book of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I remember going, what? I never knew what the gospels were. I never knew that. I was so shocked that I had been in this religious upbringing for so long, yet I didn't know the most basic facet of the Bible or the New Testament or anything about it.
I instantly was intrigued and wanted to learn more. The sermon just felt like it was speaking directly to my heart. The first sermons and really for the two years after that we were at that church, it felt like every single sermon was speaking directly to my life and what we were experiencing. It was really life-changing. So was that a quick transformation, or were you attending the church for a while before you thought, this is making sense, I need to make this personal?
We actually attended probably two or three services. It was a very quick turnaround. When I went through that first sermon and I realized how much it had touched my heart, I knew I wanted to go back the next weekend. We went back the next weekend, the same thing happened, and it felt like home. I think a piece of that was because we were very familiar with the owner of the ranch. He was a personal friend of ours, and we had also gotten married there.
The church setup was actually in the same room where we had had our reception for our wedding, full circle there. It was probably two or three services when I heard them talk about their next steps class, where you would learn about serving and finding a role within the church, a voluntary role. I signed up, went to that, and it was history from there.
For that young girl who had tried to seek out freedom, did you suddenly, and maybe unexpectedly, find the freedom that you were searching for all those years ago? I absolutely did. When I first went and sat down at that next steps course, I remember they gave us a quiz of sorts. It went through all of the skills that you have, all of the hobbies that you have, everything to sort of narrow down where you would be a best fit for serving in the church. I had played piano for my entire life.
I had only ever played sheet music, and I had only ever played for my family. But in that, I knew that I would never, ever play worship music. I 100% was absolutely not. I could never get on a stage in front of hundreds of people and play the piano. That is not something I will be doing. That was an absolute no on my checklist that day. I really wanted to be in the background. I felt like I didn't know as much as anyone else there.
I felt like everyone was so much more knowledgeable about the Bible than I was that I wanted to learn, but I wanted to be hidden in the process of that learning. And I actually say in the book with my loud voice that is very hard to do because I am, you know when I am in a room, I am very loud. So hiding is not a strong suit of mine.
I chose the ushering team and through that team, finding the relationships with the families that I did and seeing them truly be the hands and feet of Jesus every single day, walking it out was something that I had never seen modeled for me in my entire life. I had never seen anything like it. The grace, the kindness, the humble nature of the way that they would speak with one another or speak about other people, it was incredible to experience the way that they walked through life.
And I knew I had to have a piece of that. I knew I wanted to get closer to that to continue growing. And I remember after that feeling of wanting to continue to grow, I said, okay, I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to pick it up. I'm going to read it front to back. I've never read it other than what we were taught in religion class in high school. I remember picking up the Bible and I started in Genesis. I ended up texting a friend.
She had grown up Jewish as well, and I knew she had become a Christian. She had brought me to church a couple of times when we were stationed in Utah. So I texted her and I said, girl, there is so much Jewish stuff in the Bible. Because I had no idea that that was a part of the Bible. It was nothing, again, that I had ever been taught, that I had ever experienced. Thankfully, she didn't make me feel like an idiot that day, you know, by being like, well, duh, you know.
She was like, yes, there absolutely is a lot of Jewish stuff in the Bible. Once I started reading and continually and consistently going to listen to the sermons and walking with those around me, my heart completely opened, and my life just transformed. And you raise such an interesting point there, that there is a lot of Jewishness in the Bible.
Because I think sometimes we westernize the idea of the Christian faith and we lose sight of the fact that it was born out of Judaism, that when we're even reading the New Testament, there are references there that the Jewish people at the time would have understood way better than any of the Gentiles. So, has that been a help for you, even though your Judaism, so to speak, was really that cultural Judaism?
Were there still things there that you understood and you had those aha moments, this makes sense because of that background? Yes. Seeing things that I was familiar with was my aha, there's a lot of Jewish stuff in here. I had texted a friend, Lisa, because it was such, I hate to call it a grand revelation, but it really was something just completely out of nowhere. I am a contract auditor. I deal with Excel spreadsheets and numbers all day. I never, ever wanted to write a book.
It was nothing that was on my agenda. When I sent her a message and told her that I was writing a book and told her what the title was, she said, I was just getting ready to send you a text message about my parents' Bible study that they're starting called Bema. The Bema is a raised platform in the temple where the Torah is read. So, this podcast, Bema, goes through the Bible from start to finish. It goes and looks back at the Hebrew and the definitions that were intended in the Hebrew.
We have westernized the Bible so much that some of these stories actually completely change from most westernized understandings from what the Hebrew actually intended. It also brings such a depth to God's word and to scripture that I hadn't gotten even in the two, three years that I had been studying on my own before I dove into this podcast. It just brings such a new understanding and clarity to God's word that I tell everybody about the podcast.
I want to hear the backstory of that call to write the book. Tell me, what was it that made you decide, as someone who never thought they'd write a book, I really need to write a book? I went to a women's conference when I had moved to Missouri, and I'll give you some backstory here. When we learned that we were moving to Missouri, both me and my husband said, where is that? You know, when we heard the city name, we were like, I've never heard of that base before in our lives.
But we also had an instant peace. Even though we had no idea where we were going, I absolutely knew that it was God's will that was moving us to Missouri. And I kept saying, I know something big is going to happen here, and I don't know what, and I can't wait to find out. I feel like I'm in the front row seat of my own movie, you know, and I kept feeling like that as we went through the move.
Fast forward a little bit, we found a church out here, and one of the women was speaking at a women's conference at a church in a nearby city. A few of us went down to that women's conference to support her and to be there in the pews for her while she spoke. I will never forget this young teenage girl. She just had an absolute presence about her. She got up and she started speaking about somebody with a lack of identity, and it was a poem that she had written for a class of hers.
She had said, be careful not to be too loud. You don't want to be the loud girl, but you don't want them to think that you want the attention. Things like that, where it was show people that you're smart, but not too smart, because you don't want them to think that you think too much of yourself. I just remember black mascara running down my face. I really shouldn't have worn makeup to this conference. It hit my soul in a way that words had never hit me.
After that, Lisa got up and spoke, and she talked about a brick wall of lies and lies that we had told ourselves. She explained those lies as lies that the enemy wants us to believe about ourselves so that we build this brick wall up and it keeps us away from the path and the light that Jesus has for us.
I remember continuing to cry the entire way through her speech after they had a moment of prayer, and a lot of people would know it as an altar call, even though being loud, I don't like to be the center of attention. I really do sort of like to stay behind in the shadows. I don't like the attention. But I went up to her because she wasn't in the front, and she had just given the speech.
When I went up to her and asked for prayer, I remember continuing to cry, but just feeling this overwhelming peace. She later told me we exchanged phone numbers after the conference, and she later told me that when I walked up to her, she heard in her head, this one's going to be your friend. And she was crying throughout the entire prayer, which I didn't even realize because I was crying so much. We continued to speak.
Through those conversations, I realized that I didn't know my identity in Christ. I didn't know my identity at all. I actually googled identity in Christ to see which book of the was best to study on that. Overwhelming result was obviously Ephesians. I found a sermon series that I like to listen to for my Bible studies verse by verse, started going through Ephesians. I remember the header right before Ephesians 2, it said Jew and Gentile.
And for some reason, obviously I had known that there was a Jewish part and discovered that, but for some reason, it had never hit me the difference between the two, but also the relationship between the two. I remember sitting there thinking, I was like, wait, which one am I? Genetically, I am Jewish. It shows up on my DNA tests. I am Ashkenazi Jewish, but I always considered myself a Gentile when I was reading the Bible. And I never thought twice about it until I read those words.
And for some reason that day, they popped out at me. It was really perplexing to me. I kept it in the back of my mind and I said, okay, I'm going to think about this. I'm going to research this more and I'm going to look into this. As I was getting ready for work that morning, I remember this loud thought. And I say in the book, I'm not schizophrenic. I promise it wasn't, I wasn't hearing audible voices, nothing like that.
But I think anyone that has ever experienced that knows exactly what I'm talking about, where it is a loud thought that silences everything else around you. And it's something that you can't steer away from. It's something that you can't not pay attention to. That thought was from Jew to Gentile, write a book. And I remember pausing and I was like, write a book? What? That's out of left field, nothing I ever wanted to do.
But in my experience and in my walk with coming to faith, I learned how much God loves obedience. And he loves for his people, those that love him to be obedient to his calls. And so I was like, well, I don't know what this looks like, but I will sit down and write a book. And all I had was the title from Jew to Gentile. I opened a word document and I wrote that at the top in bold letters. And I remember sitting on the couch, writing this out and really starting.
And my husband looked over and he said, what you doing over there? I looked at him and I had, I'm sure a confused look on my face. And I said, uh, writing a book. And he was like, what? Come again? He really, he didn't know what to make of it at first either. And then I told him about the experience and told him that I had no idea why I had no idea where it was going to lead. But if I could find my own identity through writing the book, then it would be worth it.
And then as soon as I started writing, I started thinking if this could help one other person that's gone through hard times, that's gone through struggles in life, find their faith with God again, it would all be worth it. If one person could find a relationship, well, that's already happened. And I've heard so many stories from so many people of God's word, reaching them through my testimony and through the book. And really, I can't take credit for it at all.
I feel like the entire thing was a very Holy Spirit led process. It was written in one month from start to finish. When I started writing to when I finished the last word in the last chapter, it was one month's time. It was like, I couldn't stop until all of the thoughts were out of my head. It was a pretty incredible process. And I'm sure one of the things that people are connecting with as they read through the book is that you use the power of story.
Is that what people are finding that as you share stories from your own life, pointing back to scripture, pointing back to Jesus, that people are able to connect with that? Absolutely. And something that my mother-in-law has said consistently since she read the book and since she has given it to people, had people around her, all of my friends, the one word that consistently comes up is relatable.
I have heard relatable from so many people because so many people, I think, go to church and they want to have their faith, but they feel like they don't know enough to go. They feel like they don't have a deep enough understanding.
And seeing that somebody has gone through that process and they felt the exact same way, I think, is really freeing for a lot of people and encouraging for them to continue walking forward in their faith and that they can continue to go down that path of a relationship and that God is only going to grow it from there. As long as you are willing and as long as you are showing up, God is going to continue it and He's going to make a way.
And the beautiful thing is that rather than being like a textbook, this is almost like you're inviting people into a conversation of you just sharing your story, sharing some of your backstory, but certainly sharing your story of finding freedom, finding identity, finding who God wants you to be. It must have been freeing for you, but it must be really empowering when you hear that this is becoming freeing for other people. It absolutely is.
I actually remember a text message that I got from one of the women at my church. And she said, I am sitting here at the car dealership, reading your book, waiting for my oil to be changed. And I am sobbing. I am sobbing in public because this is hitting me in a way that I never thought that a story could hit me. And the way that I have learned scripture through your stories relating back to the Bible is empowering.
It's been a reoccurrence through many people that I've talked to and it's wonderful. And every single time I hear it, though, I really do have to give all the glory to God. Because again, I never wanted to be an author. I didn't think of this for my own good. I still have my full-time job that I go to nine to five and I love it. I have no intention of stopping that anytime soon, but God put this call on my life and I was going to be obedient and lives are being changed because of it.
All that glory goes to Him. It's wonderful to be in a front row seat to see it. Although it was never intentional, you grew up in a home that was confused as far as faith is concerned and not quite knowing what to believe and whether it was going to have any effect on your life.
I want to know what it feels like as a mom to be bringing up your daughter in an environment where you can share with her the freedom that Christ brings, the identity that Christ brings, knowing that her growing up is going to be so different. It is the most wonderful feeling and I absolutely love teaching her about the scriptural stories, of course, but the relationship side of walking with Jesus every single day, kind heart, grace. It is so wonderful to see faith through a child's eyes.
I would encourage everybody who knows a child if they don't have a child, really, it is the wonderful thing to see Jesus through a child's eyes and to see how inspired they are to just continue that walk. One thing that I have loved is that my daughter has taught me stuff about the Bible, so we've sent her to Christian schools. She came home with stories and knowledge and memorization of the Bible that was incredible.
It actually led to her being baptized and her choosing to be baptized, which was one of the most incredible experiences to date, I think, in my life. She came home from school and said, Mom, did you know that John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin? I said, I don't know about that. I said, I'll have to look that one up. I'm not so sure, sometimes you don't always trust what comes out of the four-year-old's mouth. I remember looking it up and I said, Lana, you are absolutely right.
John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin. She said, does our church do baptisms? I said, yes, they do. They will walk you through the process. I said, you have that conversation with Jesus, though, because it's not about Mom and Dad telling you what to do. It's about you praying about it and you knowing the right time in your heart when you feel that you want to give your life to Christ. We fast forward a few months later, we're at an event at the church and I had her up on my shoulders.
It was a family event and we had worship music and the worship team was up playing and I had her on my shoulders so that she could see and she had her arms up in the air and she was praising. That was awesome in itself. But I remember her leaning down and whispering in my ear and she said, Mom, sign me up. And I just, whew! Mothers! Oh, man, it can still make me tear up today. It was awesome.
And a few weeks later, she was baptized and it's been to date one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen is her giving her life to Christ. Amelia, I'm sure that there are people who want to read your book, having heard part of your story, wanting to hear more of it. Where's the easiest place for people to find that book? Thank you for asking. Yes, that is going to be Amazon. There is an audiobook version, paperback, ebook, whichever version that people prefer.
There is a hardback version as well, but Amazon is going to be the best place to get that. I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find that book easily. I'm sure they're going to enjoy it. But Amelia, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing some of your story today on Bleeding Daylight. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
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