Helping People Love Jesus – Chelsea + Josh
JOSH: Hi, I’m Josh. I’m a chef, and my wife Chelsea owns a small business.
CHELSEA: I’m originally from South Africa. I moved to the U.S. for a culinary internship, and that’s where I met Josh. I was a sous chef, and he came in as a line cook. We had no idea how much our lives would change.
JOSH: I had a lot of trauma when I was younger. This world is so broken, it makes you think everything is okay. I was the popular kid, always had to have this and always had to do that, you know, and I always was around people, always a leader. I feel like I’ve been fighting a spiritual battle every single day. It’s David vs Goliath. My parents were divorced, so every other week I would have to go to a different church, one was a Catholic Church, and then the other one was a Methodist Church. God was always there, but it was never really a part of my life. It was more of head knowledge instead of heart knowledge. You know, I think that really affected my whole childhood – my parents and being on my own a lot. I also was exposed to pornography when I was nine or eight, eight years old, and it really brainwashed me a lot.
Over the years, I dealt with a lot of internal struggles—holding in what I was feeling, depression – and I used alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. It was a way of blocking out all negative things in my life and trying to fill the void. Every day, it felt like I was just going through the motions, never truly dealing with what was inside. It was an everyday thing. I had to have a drink or use drugs to decompress every day.
One day, I was heading home and I was drunk and driving. The Holy Spirit overwhelmed me in a way I can’t explain. I felt like I was floating, and in that moment, I knew I had to make a change. I never touched booze again. Now I don’t even think about it. Before I used to think in the middle of work, “Oh man, I can’t wait to get done with work to have a drink.” Now it’s the complete opposite.
I think having a purpose to express my emotions more to my children, to be a better father to them, to show them a way through Christ, to make the disciples, and then, to make myself a better disciple, to be a servant to the Lord. I think my work now, I’m doing it for him, not for myself. You know, I’m not doing it for my boss, I’m doing it for him. Just being a better husband, you know, being a better son, brother.
The transformation wasn’t overnight, but little by little, I began to change. Now, I don’t think about alcohol at all. I don’t need those things to decompress anymore. My focus shifted from trying to fill the emptiness inside to living for Christ and serving Him in everything I do. I want to be a better husband, a better father, and a better man of God. I’ve been through spiritual battles, but each day I grow closer to my purpose in Christ.
My focus shifted from trying to fill the emptiness inside to living for Christ and serving Him in everything I do.
CHELSEA: For me, it was a slower journey. I wasn’t sure how to answer my son when he started asking questions about God. As I grew up, I had little bits and pieces of knowledge about God, but I did not grow up religious at all. My dad’s one girlfriend went to church, and she took me once. It was it. I was always a people pleaser. I always had to be the funniest in the crowd, or because I was never the most popular. I was bullied at school and that was like my way of coping – being silly, trying to make people laugh, and people-pleasing, as much as I could.
But it was my son’s excitement in worshiping at Vacation Bible School that first sparked something in me. We had signed him up, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into, just that he would be learning about God. But I walked in to pick him up one day and he was up on the front row, just worshiping God, giving it his all with no cares in the world. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what about it was hitting that trigger point for me but now I know that was God pulling at my heartstrings.
I know that was God pulling at my heartstrings
It wasn’t until I had a really awful encounter with someone on social media as a part of my business and didn’t know how to handle the anxiety that was brought up that I was really open. I honestly thought something this person said was going to bring my whole business crashing down. I was up till 3:00am in the morning, calling every friend that I could looking for reassurance. I didn’t want to lose something I had worked on for two and a half years. That was on a Friday, and the following Monday, one of my friends sent me a message saying, “Hey, I know this is last minute, but we’re starting Women’s Bible Study tomorrow.” She had previously invited me, and I had declined, but at this point, I thought, “What do I have to lose? I can just go experience what it is.”
I just felt extremely overwhelmed with emotion coming into the church. I remember texting my friend and saying, “When I left today, it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel lighter,” and she replied, “That’s the Holy Spirit, girl!” Through that study, I just felt more and more encouraged. I remember telling Josh that I’d really like to start going to church, and he said, “Okay, let’s go.” And that was it!
Every time I am in the Worship Center worshiping, I’m brought to tears. I’m a very emotional person as it is, but you can find me, someone handing me tissues every time, just worshiping and crying. I know it’s something special. It isn’t just emotions, it’s releasing a lot of my life’s anxieties to the Lord and being able to give it up to Him. I had a moment of realizing how much of a life change I could have and I felt baptism is what I need to do. I want to be a part of this expression of giving myself to the Lord and becoming new. It’s an outward expression of an inward profession.
That’s when I decided to do the beach baptism. I told Josh about my desire to do it, he thought about it for like a couple of days and then we had a conversation about it again. He said, “I’d really love to do it with you.”
JOSH: Baptism was a big decision for me because I usually bottle things in and I don’t spit them out. But I bawled my eyes out. I bawled my eyes out. Just because of the pit that I was in my whole life. Now I feel like I’m free. I don’t know how else to express it.
CHELSEA: And now I feel like I don’t have to people please, because I know who I am in Christ. I don’t need that acceptance, I don’t need that approval from others when I know who I am, and He knows who I am, you know. I love my family, I live for God, and that’s the only person I really need approval from.
From there, we started serving in Kids Ministry and have never looked back. It has been wonderful for my soul to see that childlike faith. Knowing that we have an opportunity to plant those seeds in those Preschool Kids’ minds to grow their faith, even though it’s a tiny, tiny part, I still get to do that!
JOSH: I love the kids. I think the biggest part of everything is also to be a better father. I’m putting my past in the past, so my kids don’t see that as they grow. So they see a man in Christ instead of a man in a bottle.
a man in Christ instead of a man in a bottle
CHELSEA: I have to say, he is not afraid to tell people about Jesus. He is the first person to invite people to church. There is not one ounce of hesitancy, and there are so many people from work that he’s brought to church. I’ve read the messages saying “ Thank you so much for bringing me here. It’s honestly been life-changing.” So when we say that, the mission is to “help people love Jesus, to live for him every day,” you know, he’s on a mission to do that for real.
JOSH: If I can get free, you can get free.
Just follow the light, and it will set you free.