On Track
On track- is a dynamic podcast that was created with the intent of providing guidance to listeners on exploring what a purpose-driven life requires.
Creating a community that is safe, loving, and healing for all that may be lost or may not understand the direction their life is headed. This space is where we dig further into our mind, body, and spirit figuring out our purpose God has intended for our life.
We will cultivate skills required not only to answer these questions, but also assist in navigating everyday obstacles.
We want to provide mentorship, showing vulnerability through personal experiences we've dealt with throughout our life and marriage, and speak with those of influence within our community.
Our Goal is to provide clarity through the storm, cultivate a healthy/ healing lifestyle, and continuing to move forward in the purpose God has provided YOU specifically!
This is our intention behind shepherding the community that's created, and these are the words behind our acronym in order to do so!
S.H.E.P.H.E.R.D
S - Safe
H - Hope
E - Equipping
P - Purpose
H - Healing
E - Encourage
R - Redirecting
D - Dependable
On Track
Breaking Free: How a Small-Town Boy Found Faith and Freedom
Brandon's testimony unfolds like a map of divine redirection – from a troubled childhood in small-town Minnesota to finding purpose in unexpected places. Growing up in a household marked by emotional volatility, financial struggles, and his father's alcoholism, Brandon's early years established patterns that would follow him into adolescence. When his parents divorced during his third grade year, followed by his cousin's suicide after military deployment, Brandon began suppressing emotions that felt too overwhelming to process.
School offered little sanctuary as bullying pushed him further into isolation. Without healthy outlets or role models, high school became a blur of parties and drinking – desperate attempts to find connection with others who were similarly hurting. Though technically raised with church attendance, the experience left him without understanding what a genuine relationship with God might look like.
The transformation began subtly. An internal voice repeatedly urging "go to church" led Brandon to distance himself from negative influences. A period of solitary searching followed – exploring careers from acting to carpentry, each path teaching valuable lessons but never quite satisfying his deeper longing for purpose.
When the opportunity to join the military suddenly presented itself, Brandon made an impulsive decision that would ultimately change everything. Though his early days in California initially led back to familiar patterns of drinking, God had positioned him perfectly for a divine encounter. Finding a church community that embraced him completely, Brandon discovered what authentic discipleship looks like – mentorship that sees potential before you can see it yourself.
Through intentional spiritual growth, volunteering with children, and what he calls the "School of Transformation," Brandon finally experienced freedom from the mental barriers separating him from Christ. His testimony beautifully illustrates how God redeems even our most painful experiences, using them as stepping stones toward a life of purpose and love.
Ready to experience your own breakthrough? Subscribe to OnTrack Podcast as we continue sharing stories of transformation and practical wisdom for your spiritual journey.
Hey guys, welcome back to OnTrack Podcast with your hosts, brandon and Isabel Diamond.
Speaker 2:Hey guys.
Speaker 1:We'd like to start off our podcast by sharing our testimonies, beginning with mine, and Isabel's will be in next week's episode. I look forward to sharing my testimony and all that God has be in next week's episode. I look forward to sharing my testimony and all that God has done in and through my life. We hope you're able to connect with parts of my story and enjoy this week's episode.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm so excited for today's episode. I've had the deep privilege of hearing your story, brandon, and getting to witness all that God's done in your life, but today we get to just share your story a little bit further with a broader audience, and we are so excited. So, yeah, I think it would just be incredible to start from the beginning, a little bit more about where you're from, where you came from. You know, your background, your family, just all the details of your childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was born and raised in a small town 1400 people in Minnesota. I have three siblings and obviously my parents they all reside in Minnesota, yet Came from a more low-income family and we were just raised to always spend money, which didn't really make sense to me and we can dive into that a little bit deeper later. But as a kid I was just super outdoorsy.
Speaker 1:Kid, I was just super outdoorsy and I really loved to play army, which was a foreshadowing for what was to come, unknowingly at the time. Yeah, me and my siblings we always just took any opportunity we could to get outside and really just explore the vastness of of nature, and that was a really fun time. We used to play nintendo 64 and there was this one particular game. It was called army, uh, soldier, army something, and there was one particular map where you had to go in a gumball machine to complete a mission and there was a little divot in our yard, um, that we kind of used and acted as if that were the gumball machine and we had to kind of just rescue each other from from the gumball machine and how to avoid enemy, enemy that were trying to uh, kill us. And it was just, it was just something silly and super fun that we used to do 24-7.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a lot of fun times within my childhood, but also there was not so fun times, and those not so fun times came whenever I went to school and I think that's particularly why I maybe had a slight issue with school and not really wanting to be there essentially and do my homework and become a good student. It was most likely because I got bullied and I didn't really get treated the most fairly, which was pretty difficult to understand as a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I love that story that you shared about playing army and sometimes home life and school life are different. But also it seemed like maybe some of the hardships you experienced in school trickled into home, or vice versa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't that easy growing up. Just because my family, we just all knew how to raise our voice very well which was unfortunate, that was pretty common within the household of just emotionally abusing essentially one another and not really knowing that we were doing that to some degree. It was just kind of normal and I think we just learned it from my parents and what they had been through growing up as children themselves. So I think it's just been something that stemmed from generational trauma essentially. But, yeah, reeling it back to school, I played baseball second, third and fourth grade. I believe I wasn't the best and I thought I could just fit in and maybe be seen by someone um other than my family, and that was through baseball. But that didn't turn out that way.
Speaker 1:Um, I still was hard on myself and, yeah, I just couldn't understand my self-worth and what I was bringing into the world at such a young age, between eight and nine years old. Yeah, my father was very inconsiderate and I didn't ever have really a role model or mentor to understand me and to understand my desires and hopes and dreams, and I think that was one thing that really impacted me and it was really difficult for me to understand and really grow beyond who I currently was, just because I didn't have that role model, that figure that was able to guide and direct me. We went to church as children, but it always felt forced. It was a more traditional style Lutheran church that just read scripture word by word and had no extra interpretation of it and for it to be easily applicable to your life, which I think was the biggest, biggest thing that really made me not press into the Lord and press into my relationship with him, because I had no idea what that looked like. My mother had no idea what that looked like. My father never attended church.
Speaker 1:Yeah there was just so many different mental walls and ways that I was trying to work in and through my family's life to basically tear it apart, and that inevitably happened when I was in third grade, eight or nine years old yeah, just finishing up third grade. My parents then bam, got divorced. I think that was a really hard time within my life, not only because my parents got a divorce, but because my father had drinking problems. He would emotionally yeah, just emotionally abuse my mother and us kids from time to time. I think there was times where we would just come home from school. He was just there every single day sitting drinking a pack of beer every single night, and I think that was something that really impacted me. To agree, that I didn't really understand at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, how did that make you feel as you were witnessing that day to day? Did you notice that that was you know, not, not okay? Did you see that as just normal? Did you desire something different?
Speaker 1:I think at the time I just seen it as normal. Um, there was nothing really indicating it that it it was unhealthy, besides my parents fighting within the bedroom and, um, my mom always making that a point. Um, that was pretty apparent that at that point, when I heard that for like the fifth time, that that wasn't something that was healthy and right. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure my dad gave me a sip of beer when I was like five years old, or something which is absolutely insane and a pocket knife when you were wet too, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:so overall it was just a lot of yelling, screaming and then my mom finally decided enough was enough and we we got out of that situation. A year after my parents divorce, um took another turn. That I was not expecting was when my cousin came home from Kuwait. He was in the National Guard. He came home from Kuwait and whatever he did over there really messed with his mind and I think I believe mental illness runs within my family's history and he came home from Kuwait. He was driving one night. He had a few drinks I'm not sure how under the influence he really was, but he rolled his truck and eventually ended up taking his life, which was the breaking point of my understanding of what emotions were. And after that day I think I began to find ways to suppress the way I was feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see how all of those events just led to a place of steeply desiring something maybe to help cope with that, um, but not necessarily knowing exactly what that would look like. Could you kind of invite us into, yeah, your life after that, after all the hard things as a kid, and you know how did you navigate that and what did that look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so from middle school to high school, roughly from 2016 to 2020 is when I graduated. But during this period, beginning of middle school, I was in English class and again, the school environment it was just not for me. I was just a chubbier little kid and got bullied for my weight, got bullied for just not fitting into really any clique, so to speak. There's always these cliques that form, unfortunately, within a school and unfortunately I was a part of, like the outcasts, so to speak, and we didn't really fit in with anyone. We didn't play sports, we didn't do much of anything outside of school. There was just not those opportunities that a lot of kids do have to find a healthy outlet, especially when you're coming from a family with a single mom, three other sisters, so four kids in total.
Speaker 1:It was just the opportunities were not there, especially when my mom was just fending for herself and fending for her children and doing what she could. We just yeah, again didn't have opportunities to or outlets outside of school that we're able to latch onto and really take a hold of. To get us by our childhood years. I was just yeah, I remember in fifth grade, when I was in English class, I was just bawling my eyes out and I felt so weak, I felt humiliated, I felt like I just didn't belong.
Speaker 1:It was just something that I'd never experienced before, to that degree, with the emotions I was feeling, the emotions I was feeling and again, from that moment forward, I think I felt so embarrassed within that class that I just began to then suppress emotions to a certain degree.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that was something that I just. I think that became a continual pattern of me being embarrassed or me being humiliated or me just grieving. To a certain extent, that just made me continue to suppress and suppress and suppress and eventually that led to other things within high school, I think. Ninth grade I, I? Um started drinking and um just found ways to to cope with what was going on, and I was never proud of it. Um, I was just influenced by the party world and by by the time ninth grade came around, I was really into this group of kids that weren't the healthiest, they didn't inhabit the healthiest lifestyle and they just found themselves doing the same thing I was.
Speaker 1:I just really related to them on the level of being deeply hurt and not understood, not feeling like I've ever been seen, not understood, not feeling like I've ever been seen. And just again, throughout my entire childhood I was emotionally neglected, not only by my father, but by my mother because she had to take care of three other women. I was just never the one to get that attention.
Speaker 1:So I was just looking for it elsewhere and that eventually again led to partying, drinking and um just never felt loved or affirmed in any way, shape or form right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for sharing those things. I know it's hard to be open and honest and vulnerable about different seasons in life where we were at our lowest and experiencing things that, honestly, are difficult to even wrap your head around. When you look back, you know when the enemy has reign over your life. It's just challenging to really comprehend what's going on. Were there any turning points with that? How long were you kind of in that perpetual rut of partying and drinking and things like that?
Speaker 1:Things kind of took a turn. I think the last year of high school, um, I started to realize this wasn't healthy. The the lifestyle is going down the path. I was following um with the friends I had quote unquote friends that I had were just for a period of time, and the Lord allowed me to draw near to him through just little, little things. He would speak to me occasionally, to a certain degree that I didn't necessarily understand at the time, but he would just kind of thoughts would pop in my mind and I just thought there were thoughts and not anything that the Lord was speaking to me. But I kept on hearing like go to church, go to church, go to church. And it was like time and time again and I didn't. I now realize that was like the Lord drawing me closer to him through something so simple of just having that continuous thought of go to church. Um, and so eventually, uh, I dropped all my friends. I didn't party, I didn't drink, I didn't go out. I was just alone for three to four years after high school or midway through high school, and that allowed me to explore different things. It allowed me to work multiple different jobs, it allowed me to search for what was missing and understanding how I could get back on track. And I think that period of solitude was the most beneficial thing for me. It wasn't necessarily alone time with the Lord, because I wasn't at that place yet I didn't really know what a relationship with the Lord looked like. But I began to then understand and um trying to grow within that area. And I would. I would go to church by myself, I would um not not go out, not party.
Speaker 1:I was looking into doing acting and modeling to begin with and I really wanted to do an acting school. So I signed up for one, paid like four grand for nine months of schooling within the modeling and acting industry. That eventually led to nowhere. I desired to be famous and get money but then realized that's not what I wanted to truly do in the long term. It wasn't going to help me towards helping others and really understanding where I wanted to take my life and didn't allow me to apply the desires on my heart at that time. So then that fell through. At one point I was thinking about going to Georgia. I was going to move in with this family that I knew that did modeling and acting themselves, but then they were adopting a child and I wasn't able to go at that time, which worked out for the better. But yeah, then I. I just worked job to job. I worked at a Yeti manufacturing company in Minnesota and that was pretty sweet.
Speaker 1:I didn't understand how Yeti coolers were made, but now I do because I made them, but I worked at a cabinetry company more than once and then I tried to do a wood inside business that I was just trying to create motivational signs on different pieces of wood that I made in the garage in bulk. And I used to do carpentry as a kid with my father and we used to make cabinets. We used to make different projects around the house, we used to build decks together. We just did all sorts of different things and that was that was one way I was able to really bond with my father. Besides uh, I forgot to mention earlier, but we used to go trapping as well and coyote hunting, but it's very rare. We never got anything. We got one muskrat, that's all that's all so gross.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what a muskrat is, it's just like a little rat A little rat. So, yeah, at this point my dad really wasn't in the picture. Um, I seen him like once a month, maybe, maybe every two months. But yeah, um, after trying all these different things, at one point I tried to do social media, um influencing, and I tried to do try to do day trading, um with I am Academy. It was something that I didn't necessarily um want for myself, but I found myself in another group of friends that just like day trading and I never really got into it. But eventually I found my way to a mechanic shop. That was my favorite job I've ever had, which just allowed me to work with my hands and be creative in the ways in which I solve different solutions within a problem when working on a vehicle. Um, I think. From there I decided to join the military. Um, it was something that I really didn't think about.
Speaker 1:Um it was something that was very abrupt and my family was never expecting that. I had a buddy that asked me if I wanted to join. I was, like sure I knew I needed to get out of Minnesota. I didn't enjoy living there whatsoever. There was so much complacency, everyone had a fixed mindset so it was just really suffocating and there was no one to turn to that really wanted more for themselves, which didn't allow you to go, and so In that small town right yeah, there are 1400 people that you can't really expect um, it was all old folk and it's nothing wrong with old folk not at all, but it was just really complacent town that just didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't see myself growing in right whatsoever so from there, I joined the military.
Speaker 1:Um, I thought about it for like a night and went in, signed the contract, and you know it's not that easy. But, um, within like a week or two, I was getting shipped out to boot camp in southern california, and so from there I just kind of went with the punches. I knew, um, that the lord really wanted me to join the military and that was gonna allow me to escape the situation I was in, which I was beyond grateful for, but not realizing it at the time.
Speaker 2:Wow, it seems like the Lord's really taking you multiple directions. So you're here. You're here in San Diego. That's amazing. You've been here for some time. So lots, lots, transpired, transpired. What else took place initially, you know, within the first few months of being in San Diego, what were like some other opportunities or things that the Lord opened up for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it wasn't initially that the Lord opened up an abundance of opportunities. Abundance of opportunities yeah, I think it was a slow progression, and over time he really allowed me to understand my path and purpose that he had created for my life. When I first got here, though, I had no clue what I wanted, where I was going. I just kind of jumped all in, without hesitation, but also without thinking about it. It was slightly a hasty decision, but so, after boot camp, I went to Virginia for four to five months, and from there I was supposed to go East Coast, and then they sent me West Coast and I came back to California which I was grateful for.
Speaker 1:Because that would in turn allow me to meet my future wife. That.
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the schoolhouse I met a guy named kashira. He had a deep connection with the lord um and that was really a great influence on me and the man that god was creating me to be. And yet, despite the great influence that I I've never had in my life, I um fell back into the same same perpetual sin of drinking and getting drunk. And it was only one time within the schoolhouse, but that one time is when I got in trouble and I got NJP'd and yeah, if you know, you know, and so I think I definitely learned from that lesson. And then that friendship kind of fell off as soon as we left the schoolhouse in August of 2023. I think I wanted to maintain that relationship and that friendship, but it was hard for me to really be vulnerable and open with other men just because I've never experienced that before. I lived with three women, four women my entire life. So it was very difficult for me to really approach different men that I looked up to and be able to have genuine conversations with them.
Speaker 2:That's fair and be able to have genuine conversations with them. That's fair. That modeling in the home really impacts the ability to venture out into the world and do what you learned. All right, so you're in San Diego? Yeah, and you went through boot camp. You went through training in Virginia, yep, and you're trying to get your bearings straight, yeah, right. So what next? Like, how did God, like, snatch you and turn things around?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't that easy, and when I first got to Southern California, I fell into the wrong friend group, as I had in high school or middle school. Um, it was just the the people that were drinking and partying and didn't really know what they wanted for their life. So I was just as lost as them. Um, but then realized I I that's not who I was, but it caused me to drink for three to four months straight. That three to four months was one of the most miserable times of my life. I didn't have a car, I had no way of getting around base. I had no way of getting off base to go hang out with whomever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just a really difficult time when I first joined the fleet and got familiar with the military culture and environment. From there, I went home for leave in September of 23. And that was a really beneficial time. I, last day I was there, got a vehicle, and I wasn't expecting to, but I realized the little cheap 2009 Toyota Camry that my sister had prior to me having it. Owning it wasn't going to get me across the country back to california, so I decided I would go to honda dealership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we bought a 2015 toyota camry that um had way less miles and eventually got me back to california. I road tripped here with my mom and that was a really fun time. Um, we got tattoos together just a little shot. So that was. That was really sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after I got to um, back to California with my mom, I decided that it would be good for me to go to church, and the Lord once again drew me near to him, but during this time, I was still drinking. I didn't necessarily feel equipped to go to church and to have the ability to connect with others, but nevertheless, someone from back home mentioned a church out here and I got plugged in and I finally had a car so I could drive off base and have the ability to go to said church, and that was really impactful for me and eventually changed the direction of my life and me allowing God to work in and through me rather than me trying to control every single situation in my life. That was the biggest turning point. And then, in February of 24, I finally found a life group. Which life group is?
Speaker 1:Just a group of godly men and godly women that really press into what the Lord's speaking through scripture, and we had the pleasure of meeting up each week and the ability to really connect with one another and have that opportunity to go deeper within the Bible with one another, and that was really, really beautiful and funny enough, my wife would be in the home, I would go to life group and I had no idea. We always miss each other at church. We always miss each other at church. We always miss each other within that home, even though I was there every single week. It wasn't until like three months or so after that I realized, or a month or two after that I realized we we just been missing each other.
Speaker 2:To clarify I would leave the same night to go to a different life group that I'd previously been attending before I moved into that house, and every time we would just miss each other.
Speaker 1:Really wanted to plug into volunteering my time and, yeah, just allowing myself to give back to, to those um that I've given to me.
Speaker 1:So I, yeah, through the church. I was at um, I just started doing different volunteer opportunities and, um, also, before I did any volunteering within the church, I volunteered through the military at this one elementary school or middle school I think it was and we just played games and had the pleasure of just hanging out with the kids and being mentors in a certain degree to them and we just have the ability to connect with them and play different games, whether that was group games, basketball, volleyball. There's just so many different activities they were able to do during that time. We had like a two-hour period in which we had the pleasure of hanging out with them and that was really fun.
Speaker 1:That really opened up my eyes to what volunteering does and just the joy on the kids' face. It was just the sweetest thing and to some degree, was foreshadowing for when I would volunteer at church and working with the kids there. It's more than incredible and it was just such a pleasure to, yeah, hang out with the kids and hold the babies baby whisper over here, yeah it just brings joy to your heart knowing that you're taking care of such precious cargo cargo.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was really sweet. It's been really sweet to watch him hold babies every sunday, all righty. So what's, what was next? What happened?
Speaker 1:yeah, after all the volunteering opportunities and just getting plugged into a community that really wants the best for you and really knows how to uplift and courage. I think that was the biggest thing within this church community is they knew how to uplift and encourage and see your potential before you were able to see your potential.
Speaker 1:I think that's one beautiful thing that I that I grasped from going to church and not all churches are going to be like that, though, and not all churches are going to be like that, though I think I've been to a handful that maybe missed the mark, not because they wanted a lock in that area, but just because they didn't necessarily know how to cultivate that type of environment. Yeah, after everything, I fixed my eyes on my wife March 31st 2024. We went to a Easter event at an apartment and it was disappointing at the time because I thought she already had a boyfriend and I thought she was, um, yeah, taken. So I didn't necessarily proceed right then and there, but nor talk to her. I just kept staring at her. There was a conference that we had through our church.
Speaker 1:later, um like a week after something yeah, something like that I had the pleasure of going up to her and getting her phone number and then intentionally pursuing her from that day forward. I think it was like April 13th or something that I got her number, but it wasn't until like a week or two after and that we went on our first date. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And to be continued right.
Speaker 1:We'll definitely share um our story and how that happened more specifically later on within this podcast.
Speaker 1:After meeting my wife not knowing at the time but I really started plugging in the church more. I started to after just taking my walk with the Lord serious I began to get discipled and I started discipling men on my own. I didn't necessarily know what discipleship was, but it's basically a mentorship, just really allowing you to dig in with someone closer, pressing into what it means to have a relationship with the Lord, and just allows your entire spiritual walk to be amplified. And and just allows your entire spiritual walk to be amplified and expedited to a certain degree, just because any questions you have, you have someone there to answer them and it's not like going on Google and just asking random questions, but it's just really understanding a perspective. Yeah, and just the accountability within within discipleship is is what makes it valuable, just in knowing that you have someone there time and time again, that's not going to give up on you and the way in which you're you're pursuing the lord that's really good.
Speaker 1:Discipleship is absolutely incredible and highly encouraged highly encouraged yeah, when I went through the school of transformation, I really um began to experience what freedom was. Up until this point, I didn't necessarily know what that meant, um, it was talked about here and there, but I had no idea what that would inevitably do for myself and for my emotional capacity and for just the mental blocks that was in between me and Christ. I think there was barriers that allowed me to relinquish shame and renounce different lies that the enemy was instilling in me from a very young age.
Speaker 1:I know that there was just breakthrough in so many different areas in my life and we'll eventually get into this just because there's so much to unpack from what freedom is and how that looks in your life and just all the caveats to that. We'll definitely be creating multiple episodes on freedom, and after that, life was just really never the same. There's just so many different mental shifts that just allowed me the ability to really connect not only with myself, not my emotions but with Christ, and then with my girlfriend, fiance and now wife. It was just such a pleasure to pursue Isabel and I can't wait to really talk about that on future episodes.
Speaker 1:But yeah, then February 25, I began to start college. Throughout the years gathered what my plans and purpose for my life were, and the Lord really made that clear through situations, people, the desires he placed on my heart and the things I understood and my desire to really help people. That allowed me to understand the plans and purpose he had for my life. It wasn't that simple and I think eventually we'll continue to dive further into this.
Speaker 1:And I'm just excited to continue to walk along life not only with Christ but with you. And that concludes today's episode. We just want to thank you guys so much for joining us today as I shared my testimony and get excited for next week's episode here in Isabel's testimony. As we begin this new launch on OnTrack, we hope you guys have such an amazing week ahead.