Where You're Going

John Liddle

Welcome into the Where You’re Going Podcast. I’m your host, John Liddle. I am so excited to have you with us on the show this week. Got a very special guest, somebody that’s very important to my heart…Mr. Tony Dominguez. Guys, thanks to everybody that has watched the show or listened to the show so far, you are literally a part of spreading the word about this show. When you get it out there to people, when you say, “Hey, this meant a lot to me, I think it would mean something to you.” Yeah, just send somebody a text with a show link and especially if this show means something to you. And that’s how we grow the show organically over time. Thank you to all the people who have rated the show, reviewed the show, left comments. If you’re on YouTube, you can do that. Leave a comment for us at some point in the show with one of your favorite things that you took out of it. All of it helps drive people, those algorithms, if you will, to the show and gets more impact to the people that need it. This show in particular is incredibly personal to me because the man that I have on today has just taken a step of faith to say: “I am going to lead my family. I didn’t have it all together before, I still don’t have it all together today, but I am going to do the things it takes as a man to lead my family.” And I look up to Tony Dominguez so much. He’s a guy that I get to have basically dinner with every Wednesday. We’ve got a Fuzzy’s taco shop right next to our church. And we sit there, we eat tacos, we talk about Jesus and we talk about what’s going on really in our lives with our Circle group. And Tony is a huge part of that circle. His story will absolutely amaze you. His faith through really difficult times, sometimes of his own making and sometimes through no fault of his own whatsoever will inspire you so much. And I am so excited to bring on my friend Tony Dominguez. And I asked Tony right off the bat what his life is like right now. What kind of sweet season is he in?

Tony Dominguez

My life is wonderful right now. It’s faith based. It’s based around love, family, direction. I feel a lot of purpose right now. It’s just really moving in a forward direction with God within our household and it’s been amazing.

John Liddle

Tony and his wife Anasia have been married less than a year now, and so they’re still newlyweds, which is absolutely awesome.

Tony Dominguez

The newlywed phase is still very strong and going and I’m not getting in trouble too much for forgetting chores. It’s still very much great. We’re blended family. I have two of my own, 17 and 13. My oldest being a boy, and she has three. Well, now we have three together. They’re just amazing kids, all five of them, and they each have a different story and they play a different role within our family. But my wife has really taken on an incredible role, and we’ve really partnered up as a team to try to drive this family in the right direction.

John Liddle

And I love how Tony and Anasia are doing that with their family right now. But for Tony, he would be the first to admit that that wasn’t always where he was headed, that he wasn’t always submitted and surrendered to what God has been doing in his life. That has turned around. But it wasn’t always that way.

Tony Dominguez

No, it wasn’t. I was in a very unhealthy marriage twice to the same person over the course of about 15 years. For me, individually, this spiritual journey has been in the last four and a half, five years. For me, it’s been incredible. God has really taken direction, taken hold, and I feel like he’s guided me in a very specific direction, where I was, where I am, and where we’re going. And I love that, because where I was at at the time was selfishness, dishonesty, greed. The level at which my life was focused was surrounded by money and my career. And that turned into me being dishonest within my career and not taking into account other people businesses, lives that I was essentially taking advantage of for a long period of time. And I ended up landing myself in federal prison. I think that was probably the best decision that God ever made for me. And I know that’s hard to say, and I talk about it loosely, because God has really made me comfortable in sharing this part of my life with other people, because it may not be prison or dishonesty. There’s just so many things that we go through individually in life, and there’s so much hope out there if you listen, and I think that’s the part that’s important. I’m not going to say that there weren’t many times that God tried to reach me prior to that. I think that I was so self centered and self focused that I didn’t have the ability to hear Him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hear Him. The priority wasn’t there. So when I went to federal prison the first year, I couldn’t tell you one thing that happened the first year. It was so chaotic and messy and just not good. I was still in this very negative mindset. I actually turned myself in. I drove myself to the prison, which was a very hard day.

John Liddle

Wow.

Tony Dominguez

And I remember hearing the lock on the door, and I still to this day remember that sound. And from that point until about a year into my sentence, I didn’t really know what was going on. And so, long story short, I needed something to do when I was in prison, and I’ve always believed in God. I just never trusted him. For me to get into this scenario where I was completely going towards rock bottom, I still hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, but I was going towards rock bottom. I got involved in church. I started going to church. It was something I could do to get out of my cell. I could get out of the unit, and there was music, and I started participating at that level, but it really started with this guy named Marty Pendleton. He was a career criminal. He probably has somewhere between 60 and 70 criminal charges. He had been in and out of prison his entire life. But this man loved Jesus, and I didn’t understand that. I didn’t understand how we were in such a bad place. We were such bad people who had done bad things, and that this man still understood that Jesus loved him. Jesus had forgiven him, that he could grow from this point if he changed. Today, that kind of carried into me spending more time at the chapel. I got involved in the worship band there and playing guitar, and that was still even selfish for me. I was doing it because I liked playing guitar, and I was getting to do something that I wanted to do. What happened in all of that is God spoke to me through music, and he made me understand not only his love, but start to understand what it meant to love him back and to love myself in a way that was not self fulfilling, I guess, would be the right word. So as I kind of progressed through this worship journey and participating at the church, naturally I met a few other people in prison that they’re not all bad. Not everybody in there is bad. People make mistakes, and that’s okay. There’s a guy named Paul Slough. He’s a highly decorated veteran and amazing person. And when I tell you this man is probably one of the most spiritual men I’ve ever met, he kind of took me under his wing a little bit when it came to my faith and my walk. And I remember Paul was very specific. He would bring me scripture, and we would talk about it. And even if it was as simple as him sliding a piece of notebook paper under my door that had specific scripture on it, it was just stuff that was relatable that he thought would guide me in a direction. And I say all this because Paul has been exonerated. He was found innocent of all and is out living life and doing incredibly well. But this man had a huge impact on my journey, because, as I told you earlier, I came from a very toxic marriage that I held onto while I was in prison, dearly. And it wasn’t until that was completely taken away and I didn’t have access to even communicate with her anymore. That Paul came to me and he told me, he said, “Tony, you can pray for specific things. It’s okay to pray for a wife. But don’t just pray for any wife. Don’t just pray that somebody takes your loneliness away and that’s going to cook a meal with you. Pray for somebody beautiful. Pray for somebody that’s God focused. Pray for somebody that’s headed in the same direction as you.” That was so beautiful to me because I was like, “You know what, God? If you’re so powerful, I’m going to pray like this. Yeah, I’m going to trust you.” And that turned into very intentional prayer for me. And the more times that that happened, the more I started to believe it, the more I started to trust God, even though at this time I didn’t know I was trusting God, right? But I was. Because every time you pray for something and you do it again, even if you haven’t received it, you’re trusting that God’s going to do it.

John Liddle

Yes. That’s so good, man.

Tony Dominguez

So it doesn’t matter how many times you do it. It was a beautiful thing because I finished my prison sentence and in the midst of all of that, I went through a year long cognitive behavioral program that had a lot of spiritual mindset to it. That was life changing for me in itself, but being able to walk and halfway through my sentence, find Christ. I know people say everybody finds Jesus in jail. Well, the pastor that spoke at our church, he said the one thing he said to me, he said, “There’s a dumpster right outside that gate and it’s full of prison Bibles. Don’t let yours be in there.” Mine’s sitting in there on my nightstand. Come on. I got goosebumps. That was probably the first big step that God took in my life, where I started to see God’s love and God’s forgiveness. And it wasn’t until I was okay with loving myself that I realized how important it was.

John Liddle

Sometimes it’s not an instantaneous. Sometimes it takes a while and it takes going through a process. And for Tony, it took some deep, hard work over many, many years to get where he is right now.

Tony Dominguez

Yeah. And, you know, John, I think the craziest part about that is I say I for me, I carried this know, these decisions, and there are still days I look back on them and they’re reminders, they’re stepping stones. The thing that really helped me out in this entire process is realizing that, yes, these are decisions that I have made. Yes, these are life experiences that I have been through. But God sacrificed his life so that from today forward, I can be a completely different person and to know that the world may not forgive all of the actions, decisions, things that have gone on. Jesus has. I’m not this broken, destroyed, rusted piece of metal that’s laying in the back field that’s just going to continue to rot away. God has given me an opportunity to restore my life. God has given me an opportunity to love myself. And God has given me an opportunity to be the person and the man that he designed me to be in this life and in marriage and in my walk with Him. So I think that the biggest part of me going away was a lesson. It was not punishment. I don’t think that God punished me. I think that God took an opportunity to show me that my life was worth more than the way that I was living.

John Liddle

Absolutely it was. And it took some getting through to Him in several different ways. But one thing that Tony and I both experienced is a sermon recently at church, just reinforcing the fact that God does. And it’s not a punishment. It’s discipline those he loves. Kind of like we would discipline a child or something like that. But it’s in order to bring us to a more refined point because he loves us so much, he wants more for our lives. And when God does that, it really can change our lives.

Tony Dominguez

Yeah, I think it makes a huge difference to understand that these are life lessons. It’s him guiding us.

John Liddle

Yeah.

Tony Dominguez

It’s no different than a horse with a bit in their mouth. It hurts if you pull it one way, but the more they learn, it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s the same concept for us. We talk about heart posture all the time, and one of the biggest areas I think I failed in so often was listening when God was speaking to me. I know there’s a lot of people that say, “Oh, I don’t think God’s ever spoken to me. I’ve never heard directly from Him.” I challenge you to kind of open that up a little bit, because a lot of times when we’re telling ourselves whether something is wrong or right, I really feel like those are opportunities when God’s talking to us and listening to God when he’s speaking softly is something that we’re working on so heavily in our household. And maybe it’s your heart posture. Maybe it’s just you saying, “Hey, this is a bad idea.” Or “maybe I should be kinder.” But I really believe that that’s God. And I believe that’s Him guiding us daily when we have those moments.

John Liddle

I want to know if you caught something just a few minutes ago that Tony said. He talked about how he felt he was a “bad guy.” And sometimes by the world’s standards, we can feel like bad people. I certainly have felt that way before. That’s not how God wants us to feel. He doesn’t want to look at us and label us and say, “Well, this group is good, this group is bad.” He just loves us and he sees us as he sees his Son when we have a relationship with Him. I wanted to ask Tony how he went from feeling like a “bad guy,” like maybe there’s not much purpose…to the point he’s at now, which is knowing there is such a deeper purpose in his life and that God can use him.

Tony Dominguez

I credit a lot of it to Jesus, but there’s somebody very specific: my wife in Anasia. I did not know what true love was. I did not know what it was like to be loved. She came into this picture and she’s so faith-based and her heart is in the right direction and she’s moving and walking the right way. And for her to show me the type of unconditional love that she has in the last almost two years, it made me realize that I’m not a bad person. I was extremely honest with her. It was something that I wasn’t prepared for when we started dating. But God put it on my heart that this woman needs to know who you were, what you did, and if she’s going to love you, then she’s going to love you for who you are. And I shared that all with her up front and she asked questions, but she never judged me.

John Liddle

That’s so good. Oh, my gosh. I can’t tell you how much that hits me, man. It’s not just like somebody knowing what you’ve been or who you’ve been. It’s what they do with that information, right?

Tony Dominguez

Agreed.

John Liddle

Do they love you through it or do they judge you? “You’re not a safe person then because you’ve done XYZ.” Or do they look at you and go, “I see where you’re headed and I see your heart and I see the difference that God is making in your life.” And it’s just amazing, man. It is just amazing. Oh, my gosh. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about how you met this wonderful woman.

Tony Dominguez

I was actually embarrassed to meet her, to be honest with you. I’m a guy, I’m prideful. I like to be macho. And I got home and I was working a regular job. I was delivering pizzas, which was something I’d never done before, and I was dating. I got on a dating app and I was not finding the type of person that I thought was in line with what I was looking for. Anasia’s, a nurse. She’s a NICU nurse and she works nights. She has been for a very long time. She’s out there doing God’s work for sure, taking care of the babies. And I was working during the day, so for us to even communicate right off the bat was really weird. It was so funny because one night I just decided to extend my radius of connections on this dating app, and Gainesville is not close to Carrollton/Lewisville. We started chatting, and I still remember the exact picture…she had on this orange nurse shirt. And her smile was so wholesome. She was so beautiful. I looked at her I say it now because I’m married to her and I love her. I think I knew when I saw that picture that there was potential for something amazing.

John Liddle

Yeah.

Tony Dominguez

And we had kind of started texting. And I’m an extremely spontaneous person. Anything exciting is fun for me. My wife, on the other hand, is very calculated. She’s very smart. So we get to talking one night, and only thing open that late is Waffle House. And I think I Googled or tried to find something in this area to meet so that we could have coffee, which didn’t seem like a bad idea to me. Let me preface this by saying that she did request a copy of my driver’s license and sent it to our friend who’s a state trooper. I think it’s important to let your friends know when you’re going through that kind of stuff. So I get in my truck and drive all the way to Gainesville. I met her at the IHOP in Gainesville. We sat down for what we thought was going to be an Oreo shake. We never actually got the Oreo shake. We sat there for a few hours and we drank sweet tea, and it was the most wholesome, awkward first meet. She’s still mad to me to this day because she had gotten off work, and she’s like, “Look, I’m in PJs, I’m in sweatpants. I’m not looking my best.” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, me too.” Well, I wasn’t. I had boots and jeans. I put myself together before driving up there. So I get to IHOP, and sure enough, she’s got the UG boots with the fur, the sweatpants, the messy band, and probably the most beautiful I’ve ever seen her. For me, she was a 15 on a scale of one to ten. In my mind, I was already of the mindset of, “Wow, you better be on your P’s and Q’s guy! Don’t let this slip away.” And little did I know that she felt the exact same way about me.

John Liddle

Wow.

Tony Dominguez

And when she told me that and we started sharing those moments of how important it was. And the reason it’s so important is because we both came from extreme brokenness and unhealthy relationships, and to be able to start our dating relationship saying, “Hey, I’m on this walk. I’m trying. I don’t know where I’m at spiritually right now, but I know that it’s important.” And the reason I tell you this is because we dove off the high dive into our faith intentionally. And we were driving. This was in the midst of us dating. She had come to Lewisville. We were on our way to Starbucks to have coffee again, together this time, and I don’t remember exactly how the conversation came up, but I told her, I said, “I really feel like I need to get back into church.” And I listen to country music all the time. That’s all I listen to mostly these days anyways. And we were in my truck listening to country music on the way to Starbucks. And we go into Starbucks and have coffee. Everything’s wonderful. We get back in my truck. I start my truck up, and the radio is on. 94.9. (A Christian radio station)

John Liddle

Yeah.

Tony Dominguez

And I was like, this radio station is not even programmed in my truck. Why is there ‘God music’ playing in my truck? Same morning, we’re driving in a town that I’ve lived in almost my whole life, know exactly where I’m at, and she’s talking about her church in Gainesville that she goes to, that her family goes to. I take a wrong turn, and we’re driving down the street, and I’m like, “Hey, we’re not even going the right direction.” She says, “Oh, hey, that’s our church. That’s the main campus for our church. So from that very next weekend on, we’ve been attending Valley Creek. And it was just very specific that God in one day said, “Hey, here it is. It’s this close to you. Come in and get it.”

John Liddle

Come on.

Tony Dominguez

And we decided to take this journey together hand in hand. And it has been so intentional, not without hurdles by any means, because we have had some huge things happen these last two years that have been hurtful, devastating, excellent, wonderful. I mean, you name it. We’ve run through the gamut of emotions together, and it’s been so humbling to have somebody that doesn’t walk in front of or behind me that’s so good.

John Liddle

Walks right with you, man through it, you know also didn’t judge you for not having it all together with Jesus or something like that. You said, “I’m on this faith journey, and I’m trying to figure this out. I feel like I need to do this.” And she didn’t judge you for that. So that kind of takes us to the point at which I met my friend Tony about a year ago, and he got involved with Valley Creek Church, and he got involved with our Circle as well. And he’s been an incredible addition to our Circle. Just a guy that opens up, and that’s our whole group. We’ve got just this group of guys that is not afraid to bare their souls. As I told a story on another podcast, even somebody else from outside the group noticed that one day that we were praying and that we were bearded and tatted up guys. I’m neither, but several of the guys in the group are. And it was just beautiful to this guy on the outside looking in because he could see how much we really loved each other and how deep we were really going with connection. And Tony fit right in in that way. And I talked to Tony about why community in a group like that has meant so much along his journey.

Tony Dominguez

You know, one of the best things that ever happened to me was joining the Circle. And the reason I say that is because individually, if we walk in faith alone or just within our household, sometimes you feel like you’re the only one that’s lost, lonely and broken. You’re not. You’re not. The circumstance doesn’t matter. We all have a circumstance. We all have a hurdle, we all have a daily struggle, a daily insecurity that we’re fighting with. And to walk into a group of men, grown men, that are successful, God fearing, love their family, but that can sit down and say, “Hey, man, this is what I’ve got going on. “And it may be something that you’re scared to talk to everybody about, and somebody else opens up about it, and you’re like, “I’m not alone in this.” And Jesus has got our back. He’s given us this platform to communicate through this, to process it together. I think that the whole thing of community is that we’re so much stronger together. And to have that outlet weekly for us to get in there, talk about Sunday service, relate that to what’s going on that week, and refuel that love tank as it is, I mean, we’re grown men…it’s okay, we love each other. And to go in there and be able to share that and walk together in faith and chaos.

John Liddle

And he says the word “chaos.” And there has been a lot of chaos in Tony’s life over the last year, and almost none of it having to with anything that he’s done. I don’t see it as anything to do with what he’s done, but simply just things that he’s had to walk through that God has allowed him to walk through and allowed him to lead his family through as well.

Tony Dominguez

Huge. Yeah. And one of the things that God really put on my heart when I decided to deep dive into my faith and really trust Jesus was when I got home, my 17 year old and my, at the time, twelve year old daughter, who I was extremely close with, there was an immense amount of distance there. My daughter went through a lot of hurt, a lot of separation. She to this day, is still having a very hard time forgiving me, and that has led to some very poor decision making in my children. So one of the things that God really put on my heart was to focus on being a better dad and to be a better dad. It meant that I was going to have to not be lazy and that I was going to have to be intentional and that I was going to have to set boundaries. And that was going to come at understanding that my kids were going to be frustrated with me. But I wasn’t going to be the dad that was staying up late, that was getting drunk, that was out running around town doing crazy things on the motorcycle. I was making an effort to change my household and to attempt to change your household in the middle of a teenager’s life…I’m not going to say is impossible, but it is extremely difficult…learning how to love my children with a different mindset. The love never changes, but the way they receive the love changes completely.

John Liddle

Wow.

Tony Dominguez

It’s scary because I feel like at times I’ve lost them. And my daughter has been through drug treatment. She overdosed in school a year and a half ago. She got a hold of Xanax with one of her friends and I carried my daughter’s lifeless body to the hospital. A lot of blame, a lot of guilt for being gone. And her mother and I are doing everything that we can to support her the right way. Love her. She’s here. She’ll be here today. I can’t wait to see her. And I think she’s healing. I think she is at her pace.

John Liddle

Dude, I want to let you know, God is honoring what you’re doing right now, man. And sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, and I haven’t been through it with my kids, but I’ve been through it with other relationships. You just choose to make the right decision and God honors it.

Tony Dominguez

Man, agreed.

John Liddle

And we don’t always see it immediately and it’s going to be all right. And like we said, things have not been perfect.

Tony Dominguez

No, they haven’t.

John Liddle

They have not been perfect. Bet you’re still walking it out. What gives you the faith to keep walking that out?

Tony Dominguez

It’s another big thing that gave me strength. And after this situation happened with my daughter, my wife has three beautiful children and when we blended our family, we very much went into it with the mindset that we’re all here for each other. And I did not know what that meant until October of last year. My now three beautiful children lost their biological father October 28 of last year.

John Liddle

Wow. A couple of weeks before you guys got married.

Tony Dominguez

It was a couple of weeks before we got married. It was actually on my daughter’s birthday. And God had already pointed me in the direction of being a better father and I thought that that was just being a better father to my kids. And when I realized that God had put me in this specific place at this specific time because he knew what was going to happen, that was huge. That was a big moment for me in my heart where I said, “Okay, God, I’m listening, I hear you. And I’m going to do everything I can to love these kids. And that comes at me being a better parent to them and being a better parent now to mine as we walk through this.” And Anasia and I have been extremely intentional about how our faith is leading us to parent our kids and it’s not been easy but it has been extremely rewarding from a sense of my kids are falling back into their faith. My daughter is participating. I think she’s about to shoot her video hopefully tonight for students up here in Gainesville. And I really feel like my wife is at some point very soon going to be sharing some information with me about where she’s ready to take her next steps. She is getting involved with the babies at church and we spend a lot of time there and I believe it’s where we’re supposed to be. It’s made for a household where don’t get me wrong, we have five kids. There’s chaos and arguments and upset teenagers and resting teenager face as we call it in the house. All of those things are still there. We’re not living this perfect bubble in this sphere of happiness and crosses everywhere. We have normal everyday life but God is so intentional on how he’s driving us and showing us what love is and that we love it. I can’t explain to you what it’s done. There’s hope for everyone and these situation that have happened in this season I’m not going to minimize them by saying they’re not bad because they’ve been tough but I have prayed about it and they’re all situations that have grown our family in a stronger direction. They’ve taught us to care for each other more. They’ve taught us to be humble. They’ve taught us that we don’t need everything. We downsized our life. We scaled back. God pushed us to Gainesville for a know there was a lot of family involved in know, we took this big picture that we thought life was and my wife and I sat down and we talked about it and we said what does that look like? What does happiness for us look like? And it was stripping things back down and focusing on what’s important and that’s what we’ve been trying to do so many times.

John Liddle

The world wants us to think of what’s next is bigger and better but what are you making bigger and better? You’re making your family bigger and better right now by downsizing a little bit. Second Mountain is about impact and that’s where you guys are right now. Everything is about impact and that’s really awesome.

Tony Dominguez

It is. There’s so many outside influences in our daily lives and to be direct about the decisions that we’re making and they’re tough. Telling a teenager that we’re going to cut back on media and phones, it’s hard. Well it’s a learning process. Family is a constant learning process. We’re always growing, we’re always getting better and I think that I hate to say it but even my own mistakes and things that I have been through my personal experiences are going to carve a different path for the future of my family. And so with understanding the direction that we believe that this family should go. And what’s healthy for the kids, they don’t meet the world. Everything that’s worldly is not….nd I’m not saying all things are bad by any means…but there are a lot of things right now that are influencing the direction. So by us downsizing, it’s not just financially downsizing. It’s kind of just stripping life back a little bit to be a little bit more pure and give the kids space to be kids. And that’s where Anasia and I see so eye to eye. And that’s what I love about her, is when we talk about something, we talk about it. And that’s something I’ve never done before, because I didn’t trust myself in the decisions that I was making. And by me not trusting myself in the decisions that I was making, I was reckless. So trusting her opinion because we’re headed in the same path, it gives me somebody to fall back on, and that goes back to community hearing the guys in our Circle talk about something gives me trust, to trust in the decisions that I’m making so that we can carve that new way.

John Liddle

And one of the big ways that you have tried to show the way for your kids was by making the decision to get baptized. It’s like you showing your surrender to Jesus. What did that mean? And what did having your family, your kids there, mean to you?

Tony Dominguez

First off, I’d like to say thank you to you because you were a big part of that as well. You baptized me. I think I was so excited, I tried to dunk myself. And I want to clarify, too, something about that. I think a lot of people have this thought that as soon as you go into the water and you come out, all your problems go away and everything is just peaches and cream. That weight was lifted off my shoulders before I decided to get baptized.

John Liddle

That’s right.

Tony Dominguez

It was gone. And the reason why I felt confident enough to make that confession in my life and to my family was because I had already forgiven myself.

John Liddle

That’s good.

Tony Dominguez

And for me to trust in God and know how much he loves me and that he’s directing me to forgive myself so that I could be healthy, then my family showed up for that, mind you. My wife and I had a conversation. Her family is Catholic. And she said I can’t remember how the conversation started, but I said, “I have this really weird feeling that your grandmother is going to come to church with us one day.” And she’s like, “Oh, no, she’s not going to come to our church.” And to see her grandmother, somebody who she’s no longer with us. She recently passed, but she was, in the short amount of time I knew her, such a pillar in my life and such a spirit in seeing her faith and her love for her family and for God in whatever area that was for her, was extremely moving for me. So when she showed up to my baptism, my father showed up, my grandparents from both sides, all of my kids to be there, aunts, uncles, it was huge because I think in one sense, too, I didn’t realize how many people in my family were believers. And to regain that connection with them from a standpoint of love, it gave me a different perception on even my own family. And that was really nice too. I didn’t feel like they were just supporting me, they were supporting faith. And it was so great. Yeah, it was wonderful. And I hear my daughters talk about it, and my youngest daughter, Adeline, she said on multiple occasions, when I’m ready, I’m going to get baptized. And to hear her say that, to know that she’s growing, because she knows, she’s saying, “Hey, I’m not sure I’m quite there yet, but I’m on the journey.” My middle daughter, Peyton, she had gone to the baptism class and then unfortunately lost her dad. And that was a huge faith struggle for her, something she just didn’t understand. She was very mad at God and her mind just could not and will not for a long time be able to wrap around how something so drastic could happen so suddenly and so early. And all of that being said, there are some people within our church who have been amazing to her and outside of our immediate family that have stuck by her and have kept that hand of love on her. And watching her slowly but surely trust God again is incredible. And I say that to say this because her faith is one of the things that drew me so much closer to God.

John Liddle

Wow.

Tony Dominguez

Twelve year old girl. Yeah. Her faith. Yeah. Seeing her emotion and watching her worship and it being so pure, I didn’t realize how impactful, seeing not only my daughter, but the youth, praise and worship Jesus could be. I had an opportunity to serve with the kids recently. And when I tell you I love church and John gives a great message and the worship music is always phenomenal, that service was different. I felt God in that room at that moment with those kids, and man, it makes me think, like, we have to have faith. Like, you know, just trust, just put it out there and it’s been incredible. This journey has been insane. John, I love it. Some days I wake up kind of in the pinch myself mode. It’s different. I’m not going to say that we’re not taken care of and we’re not successful, but success changed for our family. What success meant changed. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t still have nice things, and maybe your kids do have phones, and that’s cool for us in our house, this is the direction we’re going. And I’m cool with that.

John Liddle

And I love that man. I praise God for you, that you’ve come into my life and you challenge me with your enthusiasm. It was an honor to be part of your baptism and it’s just an honor to know your family. And I really appreciate you sharing your story today. I know it’s going to help a lot of people who aren’t necessarily right now where they want to be. They have no idea what God has in store for them. It’s beyond their wildest expectations and they’re going to keep stepping toward that because some of the things you’ve had to say today yeah.

Tony Dominguez

And if I could share or say anything, there’s never a time that you’ve messed up too bad and there’s never a time that you’ve fallen too far. There will always be an opportunity and God will always have his hand there when you’re ready to take it. And once you do take it, it doesn’t just go away immediately. It’s a process. And to know that you’re loved and that you’re forgiven is the two biggest things that have been life changing for me, and that has come with having to realize that it’s best if you forgive yourself.

John Liddle

Wow, forgive yourself. That’s a great tease, because the next time we catch up with my friend Tony Dominguez, that’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about forgiving yourself, forgiving others as well, because we all go through those times where we feel like we’re unforgivable or somebody else in our life is. So let’s talk about that with Tony next time. And this is coming from a guy who he was in federal prison, he had a relationship that, by the world’s standards, failed with the same woman twice. But you look on the other side of it at where he is right now, and it is the very personification of the verse, Ephesians 3:20-21. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” And Tony is a guy that gives God all the glory for where he is right now. What a powerful episode of the Where You’re Going Podcast and I cannot thank Tony and Anasia enough for opening up their home to me to record there and just for being open to telling this