As a little boy, Carlton preached Psalm 23 every Sunday evening at the request of his great-aunt. It was how he learned to read…from the pages of his family’s big King James Bible. Twenty years later, that same boy was a soldier in the Army, crying himself to sleep at night, convinced he had wandered too far for God to ever take him back. He even warned his fellow soldiers to get right with God while believing there was no hope left for himself. Maybe you know someone like that. Maybe you are that someone…living miserable, anxious, and afraid of dying.
In this Veterans Day episode, Kimberly Faith sits down with Army veteran Carlton Howell and his wife of 26 years, Ivy, who held down the home front with four kids through his three deployments. And friend, you’re going to love how God brought Carlton home. It started when his five-year-old son asked for one thing for his birthday: “Daddy, will you go to church with us?” Then God sat Carlton right in the sound booth, where he had to listen to every single word. Ah, do you see God at work? His Word says that faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17). The seed his great-aunt planted all those years ago never died. God’s Word kept working on his heart, and just like the father of the prodigal son, God was waiting and ready to run to him. If you’ve got a child who has walked away, keep praying! God is working.
To every person who has served, we thank you. And for anyone who thinks they are too far gone to come home…He is waiting. Carlton’s story is proof.
Key Takeaways
Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.
Kimberly Faith: Well, welcome to the Truth in Love podcast. I’m so excited to have Ivy and Carlton Howell. Good evening.
Ivy Howell: Good evening.
Carlton Howell: Good evening.
Kimberly Faith: It’s probably morning when people are listening to this, but we’re going to say evening because we’re sitting here in the dark. No, I’m just kidding. Well, so, just by way of introduction, I met you Carlton because, I think we met because I needed one of my appliances fixed and you run a shop.
Carlton Howell: So we met, yes. It was your
Kimberly Faith: My refrigerator.
Carlton Howell: Your refrigerator. And at the time I was actually working for someone doing appliance repairs.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right, you were. And so we’ve, I’ve had occasional and of course we had a huge discussion about the Lord
Carlton Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Because I think you had just been called to the ministry.
Carlton Howell: So I had already been doing ministry.
Kimberly Faith: Okay.
Carlton Howell: So I started ministry in 2000, I started pastoring in 2014. No. Yeah, 2014.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. I know we had a little revival in my kitchen.
Carlton Howell: I think she called me because I got there around 4:30 and it was like 9:30 at night. And my wife’s like, where are you?
Kimberly Faith: I got the Holy Spirit and we’re doing a dance.
Carlton Howell: Because it started because I saw your menorah. And I started talking about the menorah.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: And it just evolved, I don’t even think, I don’t know when we worked on, it was
Kimberly Faith: And Ivy, I think I’m just meeting you for the first time.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: And so we were chatting a little bit before we started recording and I found out that you are a remarkable woman. First of all, you’ve been married to Carlton for twenty six years, right?
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: And you have four children that are between the ages of 19 and 25?
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Girl. I had to space mine out four years apart because I thought I’d die. And you’ve also been a military wife because this is a Veteran’s Day Podcast, right?
Ivy Howell: Yes, yes.
Kimberly Faith: And so you followed your husband around and then sometimes were, well, I guess you guys were apart a lot, right?
Ivy Howell: Right.
Kimberly Faith: So first of, I want to ask you, when were you saved?
Ivy Howell: When I was five.
Kimberly Faith: That’s amazing.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: That is so amazing. Tell us about that.
Ivy Howell: I remember going to children’s church and they asked us if we wanted to receive Jesus Christ. And I think the following Sunday, I actually got filled with the Holy Spirit. So I remember it because I remember some family members being like, you’re all over the place and you’re bubbly. I remember the transformation. My momma, she still kind of tells me about it.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s, and so when did you and Carlton meet? How were you introduced?
Ivy Howell: His stepsister.
Kimberly Faith:Okay.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Were you friends with her?
Ivy Howell: We went to high school, actually, we went to middle school and high school together.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, but you never met him?
Ivy Howell: And I hadn’t met him. And we actually both were kind of like, in between relationships, had broken hearts and she was like, I’m going to set you all up.
Kimberly Faith: And you know Carlton’s told me that you’re a big part of his salvation story. And Carlton, when you were growing up, now I know you’ve told me about your aunt had a big influence on you, but you didn’t surrender your life till much later.
Carlton Howell: Yeah. It was much, much later.
Kimberly Faith: But your aunt was kind of the inspiration behind your preaching, isn’t that right?
Carlton Howell: She was the biggest inspiration behind my preaching.
Kimberly Faith: Tell us about that.
Carlton Howell: So my aunt, she’s my great aunt. We affectionately called her Aunt Beth. She would take me to West Hunter Street Baptist Church, that’s where she went to church. Reverend David Abernathy, that was my reverend.
Kimberly Faith: Abernathy, that’s a great name.
Carlton Howell: I remember sleeping up under the pews. If they still have those pews in there, it’s the second pew, and if you go halfway down, you’ll see where I carved my name in it.
Kimberly Faith: Oh my goodness. The admission.
Carlton Howell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I grew up in church, but did not, you know
Kimberly Faith: Didn’t surrender?
Carlton Howell: Right, didn’t surrender. But my aunt, every time we go to church on Sunday, we come back and she would have me open up this old King James Bible, I mean the pages are thick and she would, that’s how I learned to read.
Kimberly Faith: Really?
Carlton Howell: Yeah. She would have me read Psalms 23, Psalms 100, and Psalms 150, and I would have to preach it to her. I would have to preach the word of God to her.
Kimberly Faith: I love that.
Carlton Howell: I was her evening service.
Kimberly Faith: Oh my goodness.
Carlton Howell: Even though we went, we started church at 8:00 in the morning, because she was one of the mothers of the church, she would go there to cook. So I’m there from eight in the morning to 3:30 in the evening. And then she comes home. She’s like, all right, you know what you’re supposed to do, little reverend, go open up that Bible and you start preaching that word. And she would invite her friends over to, look, my baby preaching.
Kimberly Faith: Oh my gosh, that’s great. What a great influence. And I’m a firm believer that when I run into somebody who’s maybe at a crossroads in my office because they’ve maybe been charged with a crime or something, one of the things the Lord always leads me to ask is, What is it that you dreamed of doing when you were a child? Because that’s when you were most genuinely transparent about who you thought you would be. And here we are, right?
Ivy just said y’all met when you were teenagers.
Carlton Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: And well, what do you want to say about Ivy?
Carlton Howell: She, again she is my rock. Knowing now, you know, hindsight being twenty twenty.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: I know that God placed her in my life at a critical moment.
Kimberly Faith: I can tell that from just looking at you both.
Carlton Howell: It would not have, I would not be the man I am today. I wouldn’t have even ventured into ministry. And I don’t know when I would have found my way to the Lord. His plan for my life directly ran through her and with her. So she
Kimberly Faith: When did y’all start dating? What was the, what was the pivotal moment?
Carlton Howell: Okay, so let’s talk about this. The whole dating thing, this dating story makes most people laugh and makes me cringe at the same time. My mother was having a, I think it was an end of the year school get together with all her faculty and staff. She would invite them all over to the house and they would go in the back and then just everyone, and me and Ivy were friends. It wasn’t dating. We would hang out. We were friends. We were cool. We enjoyed each other’s company.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: So I bring her to this party of sorts that my mother is having. My friends, but my other friends were there too. So all of my friends, my crew who I used to hang out with was there. She was new to it. My mother, not knowing who she is, asked me who she was. And without her knowing what I was going to say, I said this is my girlfriend Ivy.
Kimberly Faith: Ivy, what did you think about that?
Ivy Howell: I’m just looking like what? Everybody’s staring at me and I’m like, what is going on here?
Carlton Howell: Now mind you, none of my other friends knew I was going to say this either. So everyone, my friends are like, really? And my mom instantly falls in love with her. Before I could say I misspoke, she snatches her
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Carlton Howell: And runs her and starts introducing her to all of the faculty and staff as her baby boys, now I am a, I’m the baby of the family. My brother closest to me is ten years older than me and the oldest sibling that I had was over thirty years older than me.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, wow.
Carlton Howell: So she’s running them around everybody saying, this is my baby boy’s girlfriend.
Kimberly Faith: Well, look at you.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: You were just love at first sight with the mama anyway, right?
Ivy Howell: Yep. Yep.
Kimberly Faith: So how long from then did y’all get married?
Ivy Howell: You tell the story.
Carlton Howell: Was it two years?
Ivy Howell: We knew each other for two years, remember?
Carlton Howell: I’m not sure. Three years.
Ivy Howell: Because we’ve been married twenty six years and it’s two years added to that.
Carlton Howell: Okay. Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. A couple years later, you were married. Now was this before or after you joined the military?
Carlton Howell: This was after I joined the military. So we were dating during that time.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. What branch of the service were you in?
Carlton Howell: I was in the army.
Kimberly Faith: Tell us about your, a little bit about your service.
Carlton Howell: I enjoyed my service. It had ups and downs. I was a combat engineer. I was what many would call a fast tracker. I rose through the ranks pretty quickly. I enjoyed what I did. I enjoyed leading troops. Through deployments, my biggest thing, especially when I became a leader in the military, one of my biggest things I loved was leading troops. And seeing them, when I got out, surpassed me in rank. Because of my illness, I wanted to stay way past 20.
I did about 19, somewhere around there after I got sick.
Kimberly Faith: How many deployments did you have?
Carlton Howell: I had three deployments.
Kimberly Faith: Three? That was probably hard on the family.
Carlton Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: So I mentioned four children. What year were they in military service?
Carlton Howell: Destiny was, she was pre-nine eleven, so she was after an NT, she was after the Bright Star rotation that I went to. We did the Bright Star rotation. No, she was before the, no, yep, she was the Bright Star rotation.
Kimberly Faith: Well, let me ask this question since your memory is, you know, I mean, it’s rough. How many deployments was he at where you had all the kids to yourself?
Ivy Howell: Oh.
Kimberly Faith: Every one of them?
Ivy Howell: I think it was all of them.
Carlton Howell: All of them.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Ivy Howell: But I kept myself busy.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Ivy Howell: And I made sure, like, when he was gone, he’d be like, go spend my money. Don’t sit around and worry about me. He was like, just go shopping. So I would go shopping, I would attend church. A lot of times I had my family with me. But people always ask me how did you do it? I’m like, it’s the anointing. I actually did a daily devotion today on the anointing. It is the anointing that carried me when he was gone, and I was with those kids by myself because
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, because you had four kids in five years, right? See, my sister did that too, and I just bowed down to her. I’m just like, no, I don’t even know how you did that. But yeah, I mean, then you have your husband deployed and, you know, I mean, you really didn’t have time to worry about him. You were chasing chickens.
Ivy Howell: Yep.
Kimberly Faith: Right? I mean, that’s what I felt like.
Carlton Howell: What was the rule of thumb?
Ivy Howell: Well, the rule of thumb is two days to cry and then you gotta pull it together.
Carlton Howell: Yeah. That was our rule.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: And we still hold to that rule now when bad things go on. Because we have to grieve.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: We have to get it out.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: God gave us that emotion and that process for a reason. So I tell my daughters, just like I told her mother, look, you got two days. After that second day, all right, it’s time to get up, it’s time to keep moving, because guess what, the world’s still spinning.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Good for you. So Carlton, what year were you saved?
Carlton Howell: I was saved in 2011.
Kimberly Faith: ’11? Tell us about that.
Carlton Howell: All of my stories are funny. So I realize that I am the living proof that God has a sense of humor. So my son is about to turn five. Yeah, he’s about to turn five.
Kimberly Faith: In 2011?
Carlton Howell: Was it 2011? Was he five? No.
Ivy Howell: I don’t remember.
Carlton Howell: How old was Carlton?
Ivy Howell: I don’t remember. He was three, four or five, somewhere around there.
Kimberly Faith: We don’t have to worry about what year it is. We know it was a few years ago.
Carlton Howell: Yeah, it was several years ago. So he’s about to turn five, and I ask him what he wants for his birthday. And he says, I want to go to church. And I’m like, woah, woah, what do you want for your birthday? I’ll get you whatever you want for your birthday because I wasn’t trying to go to church.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: And he says, I want to go to church. And so I go to church with him.
Kimberly Faith: So let me stop you. So after you were your great aunt’s favorite preacher boy, you fell away from the Lord after you, as an adult. Is that what happened?
Carlton Howell: Around my eighteenth birthday.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. Alright. So this would have been fast forward. You have married to the beautiful Ivy, you have four children, and now your children are saying, daddy, I want you to go to, or your son.
Carlton Howell: I want you to go to church.
Kimberly Faith: Because you weren’t going.
Carlton Howell: I would ghost periodically. You know, we would be somewhere, my wife would ask me to come and attend with her and I would go.
Kimberly Faith: But not because you wanted to?
Carlton Howell: Not because I genuinely just wanted to be in church or I genuinely wanted to hear the word of God.
Kimberly Faith: If you weren’t born again, what motivation would you have to want to hear the word of God? I mean, your spirit’s dead, your soul’s dead to God. So yeah, so your son convinced you?
Carlton Howell: He convinced me to go.
Kimberly Faith: Alright.
Carlton Howell: And well, what convinced me to stay was my wife was singing on the praise and worship team. I loved my wife and the sound didn’t sound right.
Kimberly Faith: Uh-oh.
Carlton Howell: Well, again, like I said, I had been, I would periodically go to church. Well, I would also periodically serve in church. That should tell something, right? But I served on the, in the music department at a church when I was 16.
Kimberly Faith: Okay.
Carlton Howell: Well, I told my wife, I said, well, this sounds messed up, if the preacher, the bishop at the time, if he asked if somebody could help me with this sound, I’m going to go help him with this sound.
Kimberly Faith: So what happened, Carlton?
Carlton Howell: He asked that service. Cannot make this up. He asked that service.
Kimberly Faith: I mean, that’s the Holy spirit doing its thing, right?
Carlton Howell: Working.
Kimberly Faith: Uh-huh.
Carlton Howell: And so he asked and I said, I responded and said yes.
Kimberly Faith: But God got you in church.
Carlton Howell: God got me in church. Not only did he get me in church, he got me there before everybody else and made me stay there until everybody left.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: That is a good sense of humor. That is our good God’s sense of humor.
Carlton Howell: And I did that about three months. And the whole time I’m, not only, you know how you go to church, people will go to church, and they’ll sit there and they don’t receive anything.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: But when you’re working in the sound booth, you have to listen to everything to make sure they sound right. And you know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
Carlton Howell: And this is, now I cannot ignore because if I ignore, the production goes bad.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah.
Carlton Howell: So now I’m having to pay attention to the word of the Lord.
Kimberly Faith: That’s God’s genius at work.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: I mean, it really is.
Carlton Howell: Yeah. So now I’m paying attention. Three months later, after he tugged and tugged, now we had several conversations before that fateful day. Like she knew
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Oh, yeah, his day of salvation is like right around the corner.
Ivy Howell: Oh, I knew.
Carlton Howell: And just one day I’m not in the sound booth. I’m not in my assigned place. I’m standing on this back wall negotiating with myself. If I’m going to go down for this altar call, I’m fighting against, you know, fighting
Kimberly Faith: Fighting the spirit.
Carlton Howell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until finally I just walked down in tears.
Kimberly Faith: Wow.
Carlton Howell: The bishop at the time asked me, what are you doing? You know, he didn’t think he had a non-believer up there, you know, just working his stuff, you know? I said, I need to get my life. And you’re not saved? It shocked him. Like, you’re not saved? You know, wait, what? You can have, you know, you can have the look, you can have the feel, you can have the walk, you can, you know, because I was respectable in church. I was raised as a kid in church. I knew how to handle myself in there.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: You’re not saved? No.
Kimberly Faith: So what happened?
Carlton Howell: I, it’s almost like I realized everything that I had done wrong. I had been freed from it. I, because I, and I received that salvation, but my road to sanctification was even longer. I wish I could say that it just like, for me.
Kimberly Faith: Well, yeah, know, when we get saved, our soul and spirit are made in Christ, but our flesh is never any better than the day we’re born again. But your story is classic because so many people who grow up in church, they walk the walk, talk the talk, but in their heart they’re dying because their soul is dead to Christ and you’re living in that hypocrisy and it’s suffocating you. And it doesn’t surprise me a bit when people, they have your story, say by the time I was 18 I was an atheist because it was so fake. Well of course it was fake, your soul wasn’t even alive in Christ. You’re pretending to be something you’re not. What a great misery.
Ivy Howell: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: I mean, that’s what, by the time I was 18.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: You know, and then I went and studied and I took, what messed me up was I took a class of religious studies without being rooted in the word.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: I took this and not being saved. Took this class and now
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Now I’m gone.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: But he had a plan for me. My great aunt was not wrong.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. She was not wrong.
Carlton Howell: He set me up with someone who although I didn’t believe, she had faith for me. He carried me through all the mistakes in me.
Kimberly Faith: You know what you just said makes me think about something. Taking a class in religious studies without being saved is kind of like learning about marriage, all the hard parts of marriage, all the things that you’re going to have to do before you get married and say no. That’s way too much work and that doesn’t sound fun at all. And that sounds miserable actually, because you’ve never entered into the love relationship. That’s what that reminds me of when you said that, that’s really, man, what a great story.
Carlton Howell: Right. Because if we would tell someone who’s never been married about just nothing but our hard times and the things that we went through that we had to survive, that God got us through.
Kimberly Faith: And the sacrifice you have to give.
Carlton Howell: Right. And not giving you the full context of everything, just giving you the bad parts of it.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: No one would want to
Kimberly Faith: The rule keeping, right? And not the relationship.
Carlton Howell: Exactly. No one would want that.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: But when you introduce it by his word or we, by his word, we introduce the marriage in such a way that it brings, they’re able to get the fulfillment out of it. Sometimes I tell this, ignorance is bliss at times because coming in I, just coming into work as a child, not doing much, but as a child just learning it. How I ended up coming when I came to the Lord, although I had all understanding of
Kimberly Faith: You’d read the Bible.
Carlton Howell: I read the Bible
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Back to front, up and down. But now when I came in, I knew nothing. I didn’t
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s like a profound wonder about who God is. Now, so were you still active duty when you got saved?
Carlton Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. So how many more years did you serve after you were saved?
Carlton Howell: I think it was about thirteen, fourteen years.
Kimberly Faith: Okay. Now, before we were on the recording, Ivy mentioned something that I’m kind of curious about. She said that when you were active duty before you were saved, you were always telling other people that they needed to get saved. What’s that about? Another funny story, Carlton?
Carlton Howell: It is a funny story. I had somehow, I went to this religious class or studies and I came up with this wonderful idea that I was forsaken.
Kimberly Faith: You were forsaken by God?
Carlton Howell: By God.
Kimberly Faith: Oh gosh. What a terrible thing.
Carlton Howell: Because I cursed. I didn’t curse the Holy Spirit, but I did curse God.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: I renounced the faith I had or the faith
Kimberly Faith: So you’ve been taught.
Carlton Howell: So I’ve been taught. Yeah. I had been taught.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: I renounced that, and I walked away. I’m not going to church. I don’t, I know there is a God
Kimberly Faith: You were stiff arming God.
Carlton Howell: Oh, yeah. I was the worst part of any Jonah story you could ever think of.
Kimberly Faith: But at least you weren’t calling yourself a Christian and acting that way.
Carlton Howell: No, I wasn’t.
Ivy Howell: He wasn’t.
Kimberly Faith: I mean, that’s what I’m saying. To me that’s worse. So why did you think you’d warned people about hell in the military?
Carlton Howell: Because I knew that my life was not right. I knew that upon any judgment that where I was going to go was not going to be planned. And I wasn’t okay with it, but I had become content that my life was doomed. And I would cry at night because I thought that there was no salvation for me.
Kimberly Faith: Wow. Was this when you were deployed or was this just the whole time that you were
Carlton Howell: This was the whole time up until, it just wasn’t when I was deployed. This was even before we deployed. I had this misunderstanding that I was outside of the reach of God.
Kimberly Faith: There’re so many false religions that they use fear, they use greed, all kinds of things to just deploy evil and deploy the lies of Satan. And one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because I thought about this when you were talking about how you learn God’s word, both of y’all, as children, right? I think about how you were saved at a young age, Ivy, but then Carlton was hanging on to his own way pretty much, and I did the same thing, so I understand that. But isn’t it interesting how when you think about Hebrews 4:12 and how the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, the Word of God was showing you that where you were going was not where you wanted to be, right? And that’s ultimately, I think, what draws us back is we know the truth and eventually the truth will set us free. Because when you tell somebody the gospel, whether they reject it or not, it stays in their heart. It’s planted. That seed is planted.
Ivy Howell: The seed is planted.
Kimberly Faith: I just want to encourage people who are listening to this, look, if your kids are teenagers and you think they’re rejecting what you’ve taught in the Bible their whole life and they act like they want nothing to do with God, don’t give up. Because you know, we’re evidence. I’m evidence of that. You’re evidence of that. You’re evidence of the seed that just grew and grew Ivy that never stopped growing, right?
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Carlton Howell: And it’s, you know, I always think of the prodigal son in that story. And not from the prodigal son’s standpoint, but what I ended up seeing in that story was the father.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
Carlton Howell: I saw a father who never gave up on his son. That’s evident because the Bible says that as the son was on his way back, the father saw him and ran to him.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
Carlton Howell: That meant that the father was always
Kimberly Faith: Looking.
Carlton Howell: Even though he said his son was dead. I think that was a coping mechanism. My son is gone. But I have that hope that he’ll come back and he always stood and watched.
I always imagined the father standing on the porch every morning in the evening looking out to see if his son’s on his way back.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: And when he saw him, he took off running. How many times did he take off running because the mailman was coming down the road, right? Just, oh, oh, my son. Just that whole, and I said, well, I was that son because I would cry at night. And she would call for me at night, tell me, this is no, this is the Holy Spirit trying to draw you back, and I’m like, no, I’m forsaken. First God, I don’t belong. I would love to come back, I would love to come. I would love to be saved. I would love to have salvation.
Kimberly Faith: That’s so interesting because I just wrote a devotional about what is the unpardonable sin and how do you know if you’ve committed it. And I remember as a, a lot of people get really confused about that because first of all, if you’re born again you can’t because Jesus Christ lives in you and He doesn’t forsake Himself. But if you’re feeling sorrow and being drawn, you know you haven’t committed it because the people who Jesus was talking to were the religious leaders who were watching the miracles and watching him be the Messiah and saying, you must be Satan, you know?
Carlton Howell: They reject him.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: But how much of a trickster is the enemy then?
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: That he convince, make the argument so convincing
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: And this is what I warn people about, you know, especially in the church. He can make an argument which to us right now as we said, seems so fine. Like, how could that
Kimberly Faith: Ridiculous because we have a perspective like Christ.
Carlton Howell: Yeah. But imagine someone who doesn’t have that perspective.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: You know, an impressible young boy at the age of whatever, where the gospel could have really been, I was 13. It had to be around 13 that the process started drawing me away from church. So then away from that, I would say, covering of sorts.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, genuine childlike desire that Jesus talks about we all have to have, right?
Carlton Howell: Around 13 that started happening. Not fully having an understanding of his word because the Holy Spirit was not with me to truly reveal his word to me, the spirit of truth is not there. That lie
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: That one little lie set up almost twenty years, close to twenty years of a deception, maybe fifteen or whatever it was, of a deception that even extended into my military career.
Kimberly Faith: You know, that reminds me of the four lies that Satan told Eve. You know, God is not good. He doesn’t judge sin. And you won’t die, and you can be like God. And I think he’s telling us those lies still today. I have a question for you, Carlton. So you mentioned this earlier when you were active duty, how you loved to lead people. You loved to lead the troops. Has that carried over to now that you’re in the ministry and discipleship, has it carried over that leadership building quality?
Carlton Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: Tell us about that.
Carlton Howell: I love mentoring young men. That even my ministry is also a part of my business.
Kimberly Faith: Explain that.
Carlton Howell: Raise Appliance, it’s not great and profitable, let’s put it like, it’s not overly profitable. But what it gives
Kimberly Faith: I mean it’s like no more spending money.
Carlton Howell: That’s not why I said that, but, yes. The reason why
Kimberly Faith: I’m sorry. He’s trying to talk about something serious and we’re thinking about shopping.
Carlton Howell: Was trying to be serious.
Ivy Howell: Laughter is good.
Carlton Howell: When I say it’s not, it’s a mentorship thing.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s about ministry first.
Carlton Howell: I take young men in who have no skills, no trade, no background in anything, like my son-in-law, and I teach them trade craft. I teach them troubleshooting, which brings forth decision making.
Kimberly Faith: I think that’s remarkable.
Carlton Howell: I teach them how to interact with different walks of people because you never know what’s going on in someone’s house.
Kimberly Faith: You never know what kind of crazy you’re going to be in the living room and start praising Jesus.
Carlton Howell: How many times have I just gone to someone’s house, I didn’t even have to say the name of Jesus. I just go in there because I’m a light, right? And I’m just working, I’m talking, and they’ll see something or some way there’s this conversation that happens, and I start talking about the Lord. I’ve been in people’s houses, they’d be like, I perceive you to be a man of God.
I’m like, yeah.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, yeah. What a great, and you have this unique opportunity because you’ve done hard things, you have credibility, and Ivy, you have too. I know being a spouse, military spouse, is no light job.
Ivy Howell: Oh, no.
Kimberly Faith: And you have credibility to be a leader instead of just saying, Oh, I’m a leader, but you have no creds, right? And then you also have skill sets. I’m sure you have lots of skill like singing, that sort of thing that you mentor people as well. And I don’t mean to leave you out of the conversation.
Ivy Howell: No, you can.
Kimberly Faith: We actually, just so everybody listening knows, I didn’t know that Ivy was going to be on tonight. I just kind of, she showed up and I was like, why don’t you come on too? So if you don’t hear her talking much, it’s because you know
Carlton Howell: Outside, you have to understand outside of me working, everywhere I go she’s with me.
Ivy Howell: Well, I’ve been on some jobs too, actually recently too, where we had to minister but not minister, kind of like sneak minister.
Kimberly Faith: Sneak minister, tell me about this
Ivy Howell: When I say sneak, I mean like we didn’t throw the Bible at this person, it was just like this person just needed somebody to be there.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, love on them.
Ivy Howell: And they were actually like, you can come back and I’ll make some food or whatever and we were like, we’re going to go back and visit. But as I was standing there and she was talking, I was like, the Lord had me come on this job. And He even told me, He was like, you’re supposed to be on this job. And then there was another job he went on with a young lady who had just had a baby or whatever and I’m sitting in there and I’m like, She just needs somebody to hear her. And so we experienced that together when I go with Him on some jobs.
Kimberly Faith: Well, I think you showing up tonight was a God thing as well. I mean, I didn’t, I
was just pleased as I could be that you would actually take up my mic and say, yeah, girl, I’ll get on the show with you. Because I heard so much about you from Carlton, you know, the times he’s been over fixing my various supplies, appliances have conked out. So it’s very exciting to me that you, because this is something I like to encourage people to do, use the business that God’s given you as a mission field. My law practice is a mission field, but you’re using it completely differently, you know? But you’re in contact with people necessarily, unless you got crazy people who open their garage door for you.
Carlton Howell: People, you’d be amazed, even not, someone not even being there. Because many times I’ll go to a house and the person, especially up in the lake, that’s their vacation home. And I go in and I take care of their home. And you know, they call me how’s everything?
They get the reports. You just start talking on the phone. And I have to give them my private cell phone number because my business phone, well, I pay for those minutes.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Right? And even that, I had one guy who was like, when I come down there, maybe I’ll come around and visit your church. And I’m like, okay, that’ll be awesome, you know.
Kimberly Faith: That’s so interesting. Because it’s like you’re not even having to proselytize people. People are saying, I want what you have. And they sense the peace, they sense the joy, and biggest, they sense the love. Ivy, like what you were talking about, just being present with these people. What an incredible ministry.
Carlton Howell: It’s service.
Kimberly Faith: It’s service.
Carlton Howell: It’s servanthood. It is servanthood at its best. I told one of my mentors, I love serving. They wanted me to do something, something in the ministry, in the fellowship where, of course, I go to school, get my schooling and everything else like that. They wanted to do something. I said, that’s a lot of work. Can I just be a servant? They had to pick another job for me. They had me in this one job and it’s like, well, we know you can do it. Yeah. But that’s not what my heart is.
Kimberly Faith: It’s so interesting because you have, you are quantifying what I think Jesus really wanted us to do. He doesn’t need more people being called deacons or bishops or whatever. Not that that’s bad.
Carlton Howell: I’m a consecrated bishop. That’s cool.
Kimberly Faith: But I’m just saying, he needs people in the mission field
Carlton Howell: Doing the work.
Kimberly Faith: Doing the work, because I think the church, I mean, we need to make the church better and better and better, you know, the talks about sanctifying the bride of Christ, you know? But where are the workers in the field? Where are the troops? And we are called where we are sent in whatever, like I mean, my law practice is my mission field, your appliance business is your mission field, you know, and I didn’t even think about Ivy, the dimension that you bring to the table on, you know, I don’t know if you fix refrigerators too, but
Carlton Howell: Let’s speak about what she does, because she has been in, I’m going to promote her. She has been in childcare since I’ve known her. When I met her, she was working at a place called Kids for Kids down in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kimberly Faith: Okay.
Carlton Howell: And she has always
Ivy Howell: Worked with children.
Carlton Howell: Worked with children. I remember
Kimberly Faith: Most important job in the world.
Carlton Howell: Raising the future. We, several years ago
Kimberly Faith: I was teasing about the appliances.
Ivy Howell: Oh, you did.
Carlton Howell: She’s actually pretty good at it, you know.
Kimberly Faith: Whatever.
Carlton Howell: But I remember her raising a child from like three months, not her own, three months to kindergarten.
Kimberly Faith: Wow.
Carlton Howell: And we watched them go from, their first steps was in her presence.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Carlton Howell: Potty training because of her, learning of words. That is a minute, and helping, and those parents going through what they’re going through. And her having already experienced and had the grace of God to get her through it.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
Carlton Howell: I’ve seen plenty of parents sit on my couch in my house, because their child was there and speak to her and get some motherly love or sisterly love.
Kimberly Faith: And what a platform for Jesus.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Carlton Howell: That is ministry.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: That is helps. That is service.
Kimberly Faith: Well, it’s the heart of Christ. You know, it gives us again, we’re talking about credibility. You know, when you love somebody’s child, you have credibility with the parents. And probably a greater in than even a preacher. Not saying that to, I think as laypeople, when we are able to speak the Word of God, pray the Word of God over people, but we’re also in the trenches with them, we have the credibility to give them the gospel, bring them to Christ probably before anybody does. And that’s what we’re supposed to be. That’s not like some special calling. No. That is the calling of every person.
Carlton Howell: That’s every blood washed believer
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
Carlton Howell: Should be out there doing the work of evangelists.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Everybody goes to Walmart, everybody goes to the park, everybody goes to get the gas, and everybody has a mission.
Carlton Howell: I told him this Sunday, I said, look, we come, we gather together on Sunday for a recharge. We gather together to be enriched and encouraged to sharpen one another and to get that fire burning even hotter on the altar. Because when you leave here and you go back out in the world, you have a mission to do and you’re giving a little bit of your flame over to this person. You’re trying to spread that fire out and you’re working and the world is working against you to wear you down. And I said to be honest, I need to come back on Tuesday to get built back up a little bit more so I can go back out. I said because by the time we get to Saturday, the world may have beat you up a little bit. Especially if you’ve been out there working.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Because if you’ve been given freely, have you received? Freely should you give? If you’ve been given and given throughout the week, we need to gather back together soon.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: That we may be encouraged and be filled by our Savior.
Kimberly Faith: Well, yeah, shoot, doing what we’re doing right now. It’s filling me up.
Carlton Howell: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: Two or three gathered together, I am there, right? I love that and you know, I really am enjoying myself. Trying not to have too much fun, but you know, I have a hard time disguising it.
Carlton Howell: Why not have fun?
Kimberly Faith: So one of the questions I wanted to ask because this is a Veterans Day podcast. And of course, I want to thank you both for your service. You guys are just a light. And I know that the Army was a better place because of you. And even if you were a heathen, Carlton, you’re a good guy.
Carlton Howell: Well, I wasn’t a heathen throughout the entire stint of my military
Kimberly Faith: I know. Just teasing you.
Carlton Howell: So the first half, yeah.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Well, and so I am curious because I did ask you earlier about how being a leader in the Army is carried over to discipleship and you were talking about your mentorship. One of the things that I’m curious about is when you talk about serving in God’s Army, there are a lot of parallels that you see, that the Army taught you or being in the service taught you that have helped you strengthen your spiritual armor and your spiritual, we’re doing spiritual warfare. We’re doing spiritual warfare right now, right?
Carlton Howell: Absolutely. You just think about the army values. You think about the warriors’ ethos. I was a non commissioned officer. Non commissioned officer’s creed, you know, no one is more professional. I am a non commissioned officer, leader of soldiers. That’s just the first part of it. All of that, when we look at it, when I look at it, it does carry over to leadership because it’s the leadership model that was taught to me. And I see how beneficial it is even in raising up other disciples, mentoring young men to then become leaders, not only in a church, but in their communities at large, you know, how to be a leader, how to be the man of their house, you know, how to to step up and be the man without, you don’t have to hold an iron rod over your family.
Kimberly Faith: Humble leadership.
Carlton Howell: But you can lead them.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: And you could protect them. And you could take that responsibility even through loyalty, duties, selfless service, respect, honor, those things that were taught to me as a young pupil in the Army to where then I taught others that in leadership style or leadership, as I became a leader, it definitely is, I believe fundamental in leadership even in ministry. I think it works well. I see it in that, and you find it in scripture.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: I think it’s Exodus 13 with Jethro and Moses.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Right? And Jethro is like, look, man. He’s leading. The way you’re leading these people is just not right.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah, one thing that I see that the Army does well in, at least when I’m teaching people, you have people who come and say, I hear God speaking to me and he wants me to do this and this and this, but they’re not even going to church or not even having their quiet time, don’t even read their Bible, you know I’m saying? And I like to say, like, well, listen, I said, I know you’re in the army, I know you’re active duty. Did you get to go on any special mission if you didn’t finish basic? Well, I said, would you even be in the big army if you hadn’t gotten out of basic? And would you ever be privy to any special secret operation if you hadn’t gotten out of basic? Would the command even want to talk to you? And that’s real easy to understand, because that’s how the big army works. And I see that as a real basic way to teach people.
Carlton Howell: I mean, it’s right at the front, you haven’t even got to anything like, oh, how can you be a leader if you didn’t go through, you know, like PLDC. You just talked about process and a lot of people miss that.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: Like, yes, we don’t need a bunch of bishops and deacons, but there is a process behind it.
Kimberly Faith: Right. The proving ground.
Carlton Howell: It is the proving ground. Everyone should want to better themselves. Believe it or not, when they offered me to be, when I was, to be a deacon, I turned it down. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t go raising my hand. Hey, I want to be a deacon. I was just happy with going out and ministering to guys on the side of the road. I was cool with that, right? When they offered eldership, I was like, I don’t know. I turned it down.
Kimberly Faith: And that speaks really highly of your relationship with God. Because Jesus was really clear that the one who is a servant is going to be, ones who are like a child are the greatest among the kingdom of heaven. And it’s like, man, I just want to compliment you both. And this isn’t to give you, I just genuinely want to compliment you. I see you both as a great example of humble leadership. Because the best leaders, in my opinion, Jesus being the first, are those who are willing to become servant. And I see that. I have to brag on Carlton. The first time I met him I thought this guy is just genuinely kind. And he is like, he is sweating under my freezer or whatever it was, and he was trying to get it through the door and it was stuck and he was just happy. And I thought, he’s a Christian.
Carlton Howell: Even after Misty told me I couldn’t wear my boots in the house and I had to walk through the house.
Kimberly Faith: Misty, Misty was, she’s like the cleaning Nazi at my house. She’s like, you are not, you wash those booties before you walk on my floor.
Carlton Howell: She wouldn’t even let me come in the house with the booties on. I was like
Kimberly Faith: We did have to bring the booties up. We said we weren’t going to bring up the booties, Carlton, and you brought them up. You had to do it. Ivy, get this man under control. No, I’m very serious though. I just really appreciate that example because it speaks to me. It reminds me that to be humble is the key to being your greatest self for Christ, you know? Because then people see Him when they look at us. So I want to give you both the final word. If you’ve got anything you want to share, we’re going to close it up here. What would you want people most to know about you, Ivy?
Ivy Howell: We love Jesus and we love people.
Kimberly Faith: Wow.
Ivy Howell: And we love to serve. We just love to serve. We’ve been at points like, you know, have a ministry and everything and we’d be like, we just go somewhere and serve. Let’s just shut it down and go serve.
Kimberly Faith: You just say yes to Jesus’s first and second greatest commandments.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: I love that.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Kimberly Faith: That’s short and sweet. Ivy’s just profound. How did you hang on to her? Jesus must have a big plan.
Carlton Howell: But by the grace of God.
Kimberly Faith: All right, Carlton, you get the last word.
Carlton Howell: What would I, if someone, when someone listens to this, what would I want them to take away? I would want someone who is in the service. Maybe someone who just got out. Maybe they’re going through whatever they’re going through because my brothers and sisters, we face some challenges mentally. And I want someone to know that I have not found anything that can separate me from the love of God.
Kimberly Faith: I love that.
Carlton Howell: Even in my era, even when I refused him, I know by way of the structure of how my life went that God never did not choose me. So I don’t love God because he doesn’t love me. Let me fix my words because I’m making sure I’m quoting it right and because this is how I feel, it’s not because I loved him, but because he first loved me. He first loved me.
Kimberly Faith: And purchased my salvation.
Carlton Howell: Before I did, He chose, like Jesus said to his disciples I chose you. I know that I was chosen.
Ivy Howell: Yes.
Carlton Howell: Because had I not been chosen, I wouldn’t have been chased after.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell: I know I was chased after because who did he set in my life? So I also want to be encouraged that there is nothing that can separate you. Turn back to the heart of God. I say turn back because we were all created by him.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. We were created by him.
Carlton Howell: That means he had his finger at the beginning on us.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
Carlton Howell:Turn to him.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Children are born with the knowledge of God until they choose to sin.
Carlton Howell: Turn back to Him.
Kimberly Faith: And turn back to Him.
Carlton Howell: Come home.
Kimberly Faith: I love that. Love that.
Carlton Howell: Come home.
Kimberly Fait: Because the Savior is, you know, He died for us when we were sinners. When we hated Him, He died. He chose us. And I just, I think that’s profound that we need to have a great wonder. And I don’t even know how to say it other than that, just a great wonder at what God has done for us and keep that childlike wonder. And I think you all do a good job at that. I really do. And I just want to say thank you again for your service and thank you for coming on the podcast.
Ivy Howell: You’re welcome.
Carlton Howell: You know, there’s debate amongst service members and those veterans how to respond when people say thank you for your service. And this is what I say. It was my honor to serve.
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