How to listen when God is calling you against the odds – IW EP006 with Alycia Johnson

by Kelly W. | May 8, 2023 | Daily Walk, Podcast

Kelly: Welcome to the I Witness Podcast. I’m your host. Kelly Jo Wilson and this is the show for women who struggle to accept their worth but want to embrace their gifts and share their witness for Jesus. We have a great show today about embracing God’s love against all odds. Our guest today is Alycia Johnson.

Alycia is currently the CEO at Tirzah Ministries and co-founder of Tirzah Place, a home for teenage mothers. As the daughter of teenage parents, she spends her time advocating for strengthening families and giving young parents the tools to break generational cycles. Her passion is for women to know their value and carry out their God-given calling.

Welcome to the I Witness podcast today, Alycia. I’m so happy you’re here.

Alycia: Thank you for having me, Kelly. I’m excited to be here.

Listen to Part 1 of the interview here:

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Part 1 of the interview with Alycia Johnson

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, Alycia and I chatted a bit beforehand, and I just wanted to say that it is such a funny way that we came to meet one another. God has a way of putting people in your path and bringing people together that’s amazing. I’m happy that you are here and happy to be talking with you today. I think you have a wonderful story. So why don’t we just get into a little bit of your background, upbringing, parents, and family? You can tell us about your journey to finding Jesus.

Alycia:  To make it exciting, I will start with my parents’ story because I like to describe it as a Hallmark movie.

Kelly: Oh, that’s great. I love Hallmark.

Alycia: I feel like someday they could be a Hallmark movie. They were teenagers in the Appalachian Mountains and met at a very young age.

They were in high school from two different counties, and I do mean they were from the mountains. My dad had a motorcycle. He played on the football team. He worked at Walmart, helped with his family, and had his guitar. My mom was one of the cheerleaders, so I always think that’s super cute.

They don’t always like to say that’s super cute or even talk about how they got married, but I’ve always thought it was adorable. They actually eloped in a trailer. The man who married them was the pastor and barber, and he might have been the mayor and the school bus driver, too.

Odds were against Alycia’s parents

This wasn’t that long ago, either. My dad’s friends were the witnesses. During that time, and even today, one of the only ways to leave the mountains is to join the military. My dad was a little bit older than my mom, and he was graduating.

So he joined the military and was actually in South Korea for quite a while when I was young, fighting in the war.

He was over there, and I remember my mom sharing this story, I think she was living with his mom at the time, and she’s 16 with me. She’s barely got her license and realizes her husband has left with the credit card.

She’s like, what do I do? He has the card, and he’s like really going away. So they had to figure that out.

So I have had quite an adventurous childhood. My parents are still together today. I am always blown away. I have heard a lot of statistics growing up and working in the pro-life movement, which I’ve done for several years, about the success rates for teenage parents for marriage.

It’s so funny because when I go to church now, the pastor always says that my parents are couple goals. They grew up together, have known each other through so many seasons, and walked alongside many journeys. They wanted something new for my sister, who’s seven years younger than me, and me.

How Alycia’s parents listened to God’s call for the family

So they really sought to figure out what that new thing was, which was leaving the mountains. We go back frequently, but they asked themselves, what’s best for us?

The first three years were a military journey. I was born on a military base in Missouri. My dad was in South Korea.

I lived in Louisiana, and then my parents ended up in Bible college in Washington State. My parents took us wherever to figure that out, and being a child wasn’t easy. We moved frequently, but I’ve never doubted that my parents loved me.

They were young and were figuring out life. So it’s been a cool journey that ties into my faith journey of my parents. From what I understand of the story, I got saved when I was a baby.

Building a relationship with God

It’s really cool that we got to start a relationship with God together. I try to describe that to people, saying I grew up with my parents taking notes all night for Bible college when I was three. So at the age of ten, I was sitting with pastors until midnight.

I know it’s not the norm for most girls to spend their nights with head pastors and missionaries from around the world just sitting there and talking about scripture.

There were also challenges because of the church. We attended that church from when I was three years old until I was nineteen. That church introduced us to Jesus. But we were navigating the dynamics of figuring out life. My parents were teenagers, and this church really became like a parental figure in their life.

That sounds great, and there were great aspects to it, but there was also a lot of control.

So once they became pastors, there were many things like unnecessary rules controlling what we did. We lived in properties owned by pastors, and they weren’t the best properties to live in.

How listening to God’s call took Alycia to an unexpected destination

We moved from Washington State to St. Louis, Missouri, when I was six. My family went from the Appalachian Mountains into the hood. What surprises many people about me is I grew up in a predominantly African American community. But it wasn’t odd for me at all.

That’s what I knew. That was my norm. We lived there from the time I was six until I was fifteen. My sister was born there. I loved it.

I have so many fond memories, and that really surprises people. But there’s such a sense of community. The neighbors have to protect each other. You really have to watch out.

You know who your neighbors are because you need to know what’s going on. I had so many friends that I loved, and that looked out for me in St. Louis. Let me tell you, that city is amazing because it has so many free things to do.

They just had so many fun things for a family who didn’t have a lot. We could go and explore all these programs, and my parents were really able to learn more about who they are. But unfortunately, in the Appalachian Mountains, there is still a lot of racism today.

Racism is real, but so is God’s grace

That was something I had to navigate growing up. Visiting the mountains every year and having family members ask me what’s it like being around black people. I would say, “Why are you asking me this?”

That wasn’t my norm. My parents were always so loving to everyone. To be honest, nobody ever looked at me as a child and said, you’re white. You’re not black.

I never experienced that when I was in St. Louis. That’s the beauty of the church we attended.

There were so many different races, and you were accepted for your own story, not because of your skin color.

Kelly: That’s fantastic.

Alycia: I feel like my family grew a lot there. It was very challenging. When I was fourteen, I asked Jesus into my heart, but it was more from a place of fear than from wanting a relationship. To be honest. It felt more like, “Well, hell sounds worse, so I don’t want to go there. But I don’t know that heaven sounds that great based on what I’ve been taught.”

Trying to listen to God’s call through fear and unrealistic expectations

Learning through my journey then was like, “I’m going to own this.” But it was all based out of fear and perfection. At that church, my parents were very loved, but I was also seen as one of the perfect children, for lack of a better way to put that, of doing what they were told and following the rules.

I was one of the youngest to be allowed to teach Sunday school alone. That sounds nice, but that is a lot of pressure on a fifteen-year-old girl, for example. If I could go back, I would tell myself, “Don’t take on the responsibility that’s not yours to take on.”

There were grownups in the congregation with their own stories who would look at me and say, “I can’t believe you’re sitting in the back row reading a book right now. Somebody could have got saved while you were reading this book.”

Kelly: That’s tough.

Alycia: The journey of a pastor’s child as well at times. That was hard to hear those things. I’d be like, “Well, am I doing the right thing?” I was constantly questioning. It wasn’t a sense of am I capable of doing something. I’ve always been told I could do many things. But it’s more about, can I not do something? Is there a time when I get to sit and let other people lead? I can go read the book or go to the park. I feel like my family walked through that as well.

The church craved control, but God is the One who provides

Kelly: It’s difficult because it sounds like your family had a lot of faith. They were dependent and active in the church and wanted to do wonderful things.

As you said, they always shared love. They were always loving people. They raised you to see people for who they are.

The initial goals of that church sound like they wanted that too.

But sometimes you get too much control because God takes us through trials and different seasons of our lives to experience how He steps in and is strong for us. Sometimes you don’t always have, especially at fifteen, you don’t always have all that to give out.

Your cup is constantly pouring out, but you have to give yourself some time for Jesus and God to refill your heart with that love. They are so capable through the Holy Spirit, but it’s hard for us in our flesh because you’re trying so hard to help people. Especially when you have all that pressure on you, that’s difficult.

But I love that your parents were very loving and raised you both that way. What a sweet story. That is a very Hallmark-style story.

I love it. God bless them so much.

So you were in that church until you were nineteen. Do you feel like that helped you get closer to God? Do you feel like it helped you search for Him more, or do you think it pulled you away from him?

Listening to God’s call based on a foundation in His word

Alycia: Well, I think that’s what surprises people within that whole journey is there’s this movement now that’s deconstructing your faith. I hear a lot about that, and I disagree with it.

There was a book that came out recently where she talked about disentangling your faith instead of deconstructing. Just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t mean you need to throw out the whole thing.

Sometimes you need to go back and say, “What are the core moments that I can agree with?”

I learned so much from the Bible, which has shaped who I am in ministry. People joke with me because I try to avoid ministry and don’t always want to see that as my calling, but it’s been ingrained in me.

I believe God had a purpose in that to say, “Hey, I’m going to give you a solid biblical foundation. You’re going to hear the word and wrong things about it, but it will be ingrained in you. Then you can reshape that later.”

So my twenties were this unique journey of believing in those morals. I fell into the pro-life movement at nineteen as well, and it was not something I planned on doing or wanted to do.

How Alycia listened to God’s call through the pro-life movement

I was not too fond of the pro-life movement, which would surprise people because I had teenage parents. Every time I saw signs that said, “Adopt your baby,” I was like, well, I love my parents. I don’t want to be adopted by you. I’m happy my parents raised me.

I wanted to speak to those people to tell them not to adopt their babies. They just need your help, and not put pressure on them and make them into leaders. They just need you to love them and show God’s love.

God knew that, so he pushed me into the pro-life movement, which led me on a journey with God. I had to listen to His call.

I knew I wanted to create a different pregnancy center than I had seen, one that was more of a business model, not just helping people. One that protected the staff the way I wish my parents had been protected when I was younger and that also served the people simultaneously.

A different side of Jesus

It was a crazy goal, especially for a 20-year-old, but I thought, let’s see where this goes. I went to a Lutheran College, which taught me not to discredit one church because I disagreed with the doctrine. I’m not Lutheran, but I went to this Lutheran college. They showed so much grace, which I needed to see at that time, extravagant grace, for everyone and themselves.

That showed me a different side of Jesus that I had never seen.

Kelly: Awe, that’s beautiful. I’m so glad you had that because I can already hear that you have this passion and desire that God fostered.

What a wonderful thing. I love that you said not to discredit a church, essentially not judge the book by its cover immediately. Because anybody, say from Catholic or something else, with Lutheran might be like, “Oh no, I can’t go in there.”

But again, probably rooted in your parents, there’s that teaching about accepting and being open to following your heart and listening to your calling from God.

You went in there and experienced just wonderful grace. I feel like grace is such a beautiful thing to see in action. So I’m so happy you had that church to go to, especially if you’ve never experienced that before.

I was going to ask you about when you went to St. Louis, how sometimes in tough communities, or at least rough from the outside, they’re very close-knit people. Like you said, to protect themselves and one another. Which is an interesting thing that you don’t hear much about.

I feel like it’s maybe for protection, so I’m glad that you had that too.

What happened at the church once you went there? How did that transform your journey moving forward with your goals?

How God’s call was persistent, and Alycia listened even without attending church

Alycia: So that was, it was actually the college. I should clarify.

I still hadn’t stepped foot in a church again. So this was the value of Christian education, knowing their core values would align with mine.

While I was there, they just kept seeking me out. I was not going to seek anyone out, especially in leadership, after everything I had been through.

But they kept following me and put me in a pregnancy center. They said, “You are going to love this. You’re going to intern here and not Lutheran, so you can’t counsel.”

I probably shouldn’t disclose this, but she’s retired now, so this is why I can woman in charge who said, “You can’t counsel people because you’re not Lutheran. But what I’m gonna do is give you the keys of the building, and if there’s no one else to counsel people, well, then you have to counsel people.”

So I’m twenty years old in a pretty sketchy neighborhood next to a bus stop in this house where we did pregnancy counseling for people, including teenage parents.

I would go in there by myself. She was the executive director and taught me to run the whole thing top-down.

I fell in love. I thought it was super fun. This is so many of my giftings from childhood, my family’s story. I really wanted to create that new model for what I know pregnancy centers can be.

Listening to God’s call turns desire into an opportunity

So, I applied to grad school. All of my professors and advisors thought I was a bit nuts because I only applied to one grad school. I realized I had enough credits to graduate a semester early, and I thought, I’m pro-life, and I want to do social work.

By the way, for anyone who doesn’t know, social work is not a Christian field.

It’s very limited in the number of Christians involved and is known for being fairly liberal and pro-choice. So I thought I would have to attend a Christian school because I’d be laughed out of any other school.

Only four were in the country then, so I had to pick between Texas, Kentucky, New Jersey, and California.

The one in Kentucky happened to be an hour away from where my parents were from and where my grandparents lived. I always wanted to experience where my parents grew up because my parents may have had challenges, but that wasn’t my story. I have fond memories of the mountains and wanted to live there.

I had started working with pregnancy centers.

An abortion, a suicide attempt, and listening to God’s call for grace

My grandmother had an abortion before it was legal, so a long time ago, she had only disclosed it to one person. She tried to commit suicide when I started working at the pregnancy center.

My grandmother is someone that I’m very close to. She always shows grace no matter where we live. She’s always there. She’s actually in town right now, and I just picked her up two days ago, so we’re very close.

It’s been this constant journey with my family. I ended up going back there and attended grad school, where I experienced another side of God. My professor at that grad school invited me to Bible study at her house.

This community was predominantly white, and I had grown up in St. Louis in a predominantly black community that I was very close to and fond of. The professor that invited me to her house happened to be black, one of the only ones on staff. So that was a special connection I wouldn’t have had with other people. She had us over every week and told us I want you to read the Bible and tell me what you think of the Bible.

I thought, well, this is new. Nobody’s ever asked me what I thought scripture said before.

So that opened a whole new door. It worked with me going to my grandma’s on the weekends, helping her, and getting to watch her. She helped found the Frankfort Memorial for the Unborn, the state capital in Kentucky, with a memorial devoted to aborted and miscarried babies.

Redeeming a life of guilt and shame

She was one of the founding members. So yeah, it’s. It is beautiful to see her life, see God redeem it, and be a part of her walking this journey of faith, redeeming traumatic things for her.

That showed me how God shows grace even in the worst circumstances and how there’s no guilt or condemnation because I watched my grandma walk through a lot of that.

Feeling guilt for her decisions as a teenager when she had that abortion. My mom’s the only other child she has.

God doesn’t condemn you for that. You’re restored, and you’re made whole. He can use testimony to help start a memorial that helps many lives.

That verse in Genesis, I believe, says what you intended for evil, I intended for the good of many.

Kelly: That’s about Joseph. Joseph says that to his brothers, I love that you just said that verse. I feel like that is so true. That is such a powerful statement.

That verse in Genesis, I believe, says you what you intended for evil I intended for the good of many.

It always gets me. That’s why I remembered it. I don’t remember much from Genesis other than God creating, but the story of Joseph, for sure.

Wow. What a powerful thing. Your whole family has made an amazing impact, probably when you didn’t even feel like it was happening.

Everyone makes mistakes, but God calls us anyway

We all make mistakes. We all make choices that we regret. But a lot of people with abortion don’t talk about the aftermath. The aftermath for the mother, too, is horrendous guilt. Horrendous guilt. I mean to the point that she wanted to take her own life because of it.

So I love that she let herself believe that Jesus accepts her even through that so she could listen to God’s call to do amazing things. As the word says, you are a new creation. So, she became the founder of this beautiful memorial. What a wonderful testimony.

I’m so happy that she had you there with her, too. You’re going to school, learning, and then learning about her journey. You guys are just changing lives over there. It’s beautiful.

I hope you enjoyed today’s show. You’ll find links to what we discussed in the blog post version of this episode IWitnessPodcast.com, and our show is brought to you today by The Wilson Shop on Etsy.

Beautiful designs and encouraging words can change the world. If you’re looking for positive messaging on your favorite apparel, journals, and home decor. Visit TheWilsonShop. If this episode encouraged you, please consider sending it to one friend you think would benefit from what we’ve discussed.

I’m so grateful for this time with you, and thank you for listening.

Subscribe via your favorite podcast apps, such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts, so that you can be notified of part 2 of the interview with Alycia.

Bible Verses for Encouragement

Genesis 50:20, NKJV, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is to this day, to save many people alive.”

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.”

Resources for You

Becoming: A 20-Day Devotional

Join author Alycia Johnson on a 20-day journey to discover who you are becoming! Using stories from growing up in the inner city and the country, working in ministry, and helping moms/babies across the states, Alycia shows you who she is becoming. This biography is separated into daily devotionals so you can look to your past, see your present, and dream of who God wants you to become in the future!

Where to find Alycia Johnson

Visit Alycia at Wonderfully Made or Tirzah Ministries

Connect with Alycia via Instagram

The sponsor of the I Witness Podcast is The Wilson Shop on Etsy.