Have you ever wondered about the strength that lies within faith? Our intimate conversation with Sister Elizabeth Stewart -Williams explores this profound question as she recounts her incredible journey of survival, from a spiritually-guided childhood to a tumultuous, abusive relationship, and her eventual spiritual upliftment. We dive deep into Sister Elizabeth's life, painted with chilling realities of being a Christian, targeted by Satan after accepting the gospel, and her personal struggle with domestic violence.
Understanding coercive control, its subtle signs, and its dangerous escalation forms the second part of our heartfelt discussion with Sister Elizabeth. She narrates a shocking revelation from a routine domestic violence test that signaled her to escape, protecting herself.
As we journey through Sister Elizabeth's life, we can't overlook the significant role of faith and her church community in helping her overcome depression. Her resilient belief in God, and the unwavering support from her mother, helped her brave through these trying times. Her powerful testimony serves as a potent reminder of prayer, faith, and the transformative power of God's love. Join us on this inspiring, tear-jerking, and ultimately triumphant journey of Sister Elizabeth Stewart -Williams.
Have you ever wondered about the strength that lies within faith? Our intimate conversation with Sister Elizabeth Stewart -Williams explores this profound question as she recounts her incredible journey of survival, from a spiritually-guided childhood to a tumultuous, abusive relationship, and her eventual spiritual upliftment. We dive deep into Sister Elizabeth's life, painted with chilling realities of being a Christian, targeted by Satan after accepting the gospel, and her personal struggle with domestic violence.
Understanding coercive control, its subtle signs, and its dangerous escalation forms the second part of our heartfelt discussion with Sister Elizabeth. She narrates a shocking revelation from a routine domestic violence test that signaled her to escape, protecting herself.
As we journey through Sister Elizabeth's life, we can't overlook the significant role of faith and her church community in helping her overcome depression. Her resilient belief in God, and the unwavering support from her mother, helped her brave through these trying times. Her powerful testimony serves as a potent reminder of prayer, faith, and the transformative power of God's love. Join us on this inspiring, tear-jerking, and ultimately triumphant journey of Sister Elizabeth Stewart -Williams.
This is one thing. This is another form of control my ex would do. My ex would come if he was mad at me. He wouldn't talk to me for months. He would come in and wouldn't I say a word to me. It would be like I'm talking to him, not a word. He would talk.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Call by God podcast with Adne Godin and myself, nixon Sylvain. This show is about dialogues of biblical characters and testimonies of Christians who submitted to the will of God. Each week we bring on one guest so that they can share their story of how they were called by God. I hope this show inspires you. Enjoy Hello and welcome world to the Call by God podcast. I'm yours truly, brother Nick, and I'm here with Sister Adne, and we have a special guest. Well, she's been here before, she's not a stranger Sister Elizabeth Stewart Williams. Welcome to the show again. Thank you again for coming on. We welcome you, we enjoyed your presence and we thank you for saying yes to another call. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2:
Before we dive into your episode, adne and I were so intrigued by your episode I mean you shared so much nuggets with us. First of all, you talked about your call. You talked about when you was called by God at 10 years old and in my mind I know when people are brought into the body of Christ, we know that a servant is not greater than his master. Whatever that Jesus Christ went through, we're going to go through too, because Jesus Christ was God and he was this good man just walking here on earth, just talking about the gospel, healing folks and doing all the good works. But I know that when Christians say yes to the gospel, we know that Satan is interested. Interested because it's like we become a target. So Satan is interested in putting us back in to his family.
Speaker 2:
So I pose a question to you. I mean because I just just looking at your whole resume, your whole life, you know all these ministries that you're involved in, precious jewels lists if on dispute resolution services and founder you are the founder, I am pro se. So I say, hold up. How did all this stuff come about? And you took us way back.
Speaker 2:
I know we talked about going back to the future and it was good that you brought us way back, because it's one thing just to share your story, but it's one thing to kind of like highlight the origin of how everything came about. Because I know for a person that has been saved, this young, as I mentioned, you had to go through some stuff. And as we go through stuff, we know as we go through stuff in life and even in ministries, we know we continue to evolve and grow. So I know you're doing some powerful things, but I know the last time you was on because we're this month, this whole month is dedicated to you to bring awareness to domestic violence. But I know we left off of your story when you started talking about baby number one, so kind of like walk us through, walk us through and take us back to that place where you once were end out abusive relationship and baby number one.
Speaker 1:
First, thank you. It's an honor to be here, so to just dive right in and I want to make sure that there is an understanding. Like domestic violence, many times it doesn't just abruptly happen right. There are steps that come with that and one of the main are a huge step that came in my situation. It started off with what you would call coercive control and I didn't bring this up last time but I want to bring this in.
Speaker 1:
So coercive control, it's a term. Basically it states or it implies like threats or force. But coercive control is very, it can start out very subtle. So it can start off with financial control. It can start off with autonomy, basically the removal of any type of autonomy in your world humiliation, isolation, a lot of verbal abuse and then it can lead to things like assault or sexual coercion. It can lead to monitoring all of your activities. So a lot of times it's not initial.
Speaker 1:
So, like the examples that I gave, I would go to work and then come home and I've been completely removed. I was completely removed out of my environment, but I was removed or moved further away from any support system that I had, so any community that I had when I would come home and he's completely moved us. It's further out, it's not further in to the people that I love and care for. So, in moving, god-allowing baby to a baby to come forth, it was actually at a time where I literally found out that I was actually being abused. And this is how God works. I worked at a law firm at the time and they were volunteering for a domestic violence organization and we had to complete these. In order to be a volunteer, you had to kind of go through the process of what a survivor goes through and there was a test that was given to determine if you were in a state of abuse. And so I'm looking, I'm filling this test out and in this test it's literally telling me you know, does he cuss at you? Does he? Yeah, like you're answering these questions and you're going at the bottom and then there's a tally and then there's a number that's given of if you need to stay, if you just need referral services or if you need to run In that test. It literally told me to run Right. Literally told me like get out, but I'm pregnant. And I'm like, wait what? Because a lot of times, especially black women, especially those who come from and this is the thing I come from a very loving my parents were a loving relationship home. I didn't know what the signs were, I didn't understand what I was going through, but here it is and I'm asking God, like why now? Why am I being informed this now? And I have a child with this person?
Speaker 1:
So it only became, it progressed to get worse and I'm recognizing oh, like he didn't cuss me, but I was. You know every other name ugly, bad, stupid, I was every, every other adjective that you could think of and I'm like I am being abused. Right, it was almost like checkpoints, like this is really happening, but what it did was with my child. So I was so excited to have my son and, just like I stated before, god made all these provisions for me. But at the same time, it was almost like you know, I now have this knowledge, you know what is this.
Speaker 1:
But I began to make plans in my head like if this doesn't get better, you know if, if, if. And the attempt was we had already been to counseling, we had already, you know, at the time he had stopped going to church with me. I was already in my head like, okay, I'm going, I'm going to have my child start researching, going back, going to law school, right? So I start researching certain things anyway, and and then moving forward, having the child, I had no idea the emotions that would come with it. So here it is.
Speaker 1:
I have my son, which was the best, that was like the best thing in the world, but I had complications after it. And my mom. She literally stayed with me almost a month but then she had to go with my father. He had, he had a ministry event that he had to go to, so my mother had to leave and go actually, and he and she was going to be gone for a while, but I was still having complications. So I had, I went through four years of my life. I had.
Speaker 1:
I went through 14 hours of labor because my baby was big, he was a big boy, he did not want to drop. So I had to have emergency C section and so afterwards my healing process was very different than the norm. So it was difficult for me to be able to pick up my son because of the muscles. The muscles were cut and then, on top of that, I had air pockets. So my incision kept reopening, not because of infection but because because I had air pockets and they hadn't popped those air pockets. So here it is during that six weeks time frame I'm like in complete and utter pain and the third week.
Speaker 1:
So when my mother left, right at about that six month timeframe where I should be able to be moving pretty well, I still was struggling a bit. So as soon as my mom left, as soon as she left, then what you would consider a coercive control type of abuse occurred. So he literally took my son. I was going to through not so much postpartum in a sense of postpartum, in a sense of I'm not a good mother because I can't pick my child up, and so it was emotional, very emotional for me, and I wasn't so much pain too. It was affecting my breastfeeding. So I was going through all of those feelings and what he would say is you should just you should kill yourself, or I'm going to have to put you in a mental hospital because you know you. You just not talking because I would cry. I would cry because it was so difficult to just be able to pick. I could pick him up from the side, but like, pick him up, you know, throttle to me was difficult.
Speaker 1:
Well, I'm still open and what he did was in my my son was what, right at six weeks, he took? He didn't tell me he was taking my son. He took my son, he took him back home to his family, which was like two, two and a half hours away, and he didn't tell me. And then he just he left. So here it is. I'm like where is my child? Like what is like, what is going on. I woke up to them being gone. I got in the car, drove myself to try to to go where I thought my child would be, which was with his mother. She calls him on the phone cause I'm like give me my baby, give me my child, right, I'm, and I'm open, like my wound is open, and he's literally on the phone and he's like mom, she, she doesn't want us to have him. This is how he's talking and he's my husband and he's talking with his mother in that manner. But then I shouldn't have been surprised, because even before I had my son I have to tell this incident really quick Even before I had my son, which these are indicators of, are the realization when I would, if finally just settled, I am in a loveless place. I was pregnant with my son. So before just going back, I have to tell this I was pregnant with my son.
Speaker 1:
Now, during my whole marriage, god blessed me never to run into any of my exes. Okay, my exes loved me, not a question. The only reason why there wasn't a moving forward with my exes is because they did not have a genuine desire to follow God. That was the issue. The issue was I never hold, I would never hold anything over someone and say you must do this or you have to do this. I respected people where they were and then, if they weren't in that space, then I would say, hey, it's just, it's not gonna work because I'm gonna frustrate you, because I love God, you don't love God. Y'all know this, huh. So I mean love God, right. So all my exes friends like cool, they understood me, but there was a genuine, honest, just love care. So God allowed me never to meet any one of those because and they was characters, yes, they weren't ones to be messed with, especially where I grew up and God blessed me.
Speaker 1:
So one he was actually one of my first boyfriends. He had just got cause he was living that life. He got out of prison and he had called my best friend. And he asked my best friend hey, give me her husband's number. And I'm literally, I'm like I'm literally about to drop this baby any day. And she called me. She said can I just give him your husband's name? I told him you were married, you're good. I was like, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:
So my husband is sitting on the couch playing the video game and he calls. So my ex-boyfriend calls my husband and tells my husband, put my wife on the phone. And so my husband puts him on speaker. He said say that again. He said man, you heard me. I said put my wife on the phone. He said you ain't got no wife over here. My husband is talking to him. And I said so, I'm like. I said in my spirit, I was like this joke would better not give me the phone. He better not give me a phone. I'm rubbing my belly. My son is in, our son is in me and I'm looking at him.
Speaker 1:
So my ex my ex was on the phone said man, let me tell you, the only reason why you're there is because I didn't understand who she was. But I understand now I'm out. He said matter of fact, give me your address. He said I'm gonna come pick him up. I understand she pregnant right now, but I and I'll make sure he knows that you are the father, but I need to come get her. So I'm sitting there and I'm looking.
Speaker 1:
So my ex has been his patient and I'm like because who I dated before him would have given him the address and waited. They would have waited outside, you know, like, please come through, right, he's pacing and he's a and I'm on that, he said. And so my ex on the phone is just ripping him, give him, give her the phone to like going in, he hands me the phone and that moment I said, so I get on. And he said what kind of punk did you marry? And I told my ex, I said my ex-boyfriend. I told him I said hey, man, you can't call here, you being disrespectful.
Speaker 1:
And the reason the place that I went was I know God wouldn't be pleased. Now my coronal feeling was here's the address, come get me. But I was like in that moment, would God be pleased? And he was like and my ex knew my ex-boyfriend knew he was like I knew you weren't going nowhere. He was like you need some money, you need me to bring you anything. Like he said man, he's sorry, that's how. And I was like you can't do that, you cannot call here. Again. He said okay, baby girl, I got you. He said but if you need me, call me. But God allowed me to see I'm in a loveless place and I'm going to have to take care of me and this child inside of me. And from that point it was like so here it is and I think maybe two weeks later I had my son.
Speaker 1:
And then I went through that's when I went through having to go get my son after my support system left and he I'm steady messing with and that's the car to patrol part. That's those are the parts that began to get heightened, because it's you can't imagine I've just had my child and then you just up and take my child without me even knowing. I wake like I don't know where my child is. So after that I made up in my mind okay, I'm gotta leave. Like we got to transition out. I'm in a loveless place. This is not it. God is love. Ain't no love here, like he is trying to destroy me. So I go, I make moves to go to school, found out that I could get free housing, free day care if I enroll into law school. So I'm making moves like that, then I get.
Speaker 1:
So this is like my son now is about six months, and when I tell you it was peer-bliss, it was me and him. So this is one thing. This is another form of control my ex would do. My ex would come if he was mad at me. He wouldn't talk to me for months. He would come in and wouldn't I say a word to me. It would be like I'm talking to him, not a word. He would talk to me. It'll be like two, three months would pass. He wouldn't I say a word.
Speaker 1:
So what I did was I just turned and talked to my son. So my son, my son, was probably more advanced. We had a blast, though, because it was I just poured into him. We did. He was six, seven months. He was just one of those. I read to him all the time, I talked to him all the time, his speech by the time, just moving forward, his speech by about one, two, three years old. I never just baby talked to him. Now I did like I did, of course, the love mommy's baby, I still do that now where he rose his eyes. But I mean, I poured into him. I identified when, during that timeframe, I identified that he we watched ESPN. Yes, I'm a sports mom to date. I love the football season, basketball, baseball. On certain days track like I'm just that one. So our thing was football. Saturday my son was there.
Speaker 1:
Like he started doing the stance at two, three months, like literally he would roll over and just he just did amazing things. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take. There's no way that I'm gonna allow him to see, I'm not gonna allow him to see me being treated in this manner. So I'm like I gotta go. So I started feeling sick about six, seven months. He was walking, which was crazy to me, but I started feeling sick about that timeframe. So I was like man, I gotta go to the doctor.
Speaker 1:
Then I get a phone call from my sister-in-law. She was like hey, are you pregnant? I was like no way, no way that I'm pregnant, there's no way. She's like I need you to go, I need you to go test, get tested. I was like ain't, no way. So my son had at the time he had about his cousins they're all about the same age. There's like four of them at the same timeframe. So at the time, my sister-in-laws. We were all kind of they were pregnant. I was like there's no way. Plus I'm on a mission, there's no way.
Speaker 1:
Lo and behold, I was, and that's a whole other story, but I went into a deep depression. I went into a deep depression. I was like why, like I'm leaving Because it was bad. When I say it was bad, it was bad. And I was like I got to go and no, so here it is.
Speaker 1:
By this time, of course, he moved us again. So that's the thing it would be move after move after move. So he moved us again and by this time I'm wearing I mean, I'm depressed and I don't know why but I chose this wig, I wore this wig and the closet became my best friend. So we moved into this house, which I was. I was happy, it was a larger place, but it was the same Like it was like you never knew. It was like Dr Jekyll-Missile you never knew what temperament you were getting.
Speaker 1:
And then I wasn't talked to. So I would, every now and then I got on a schedule, pick my son up, go to, like he knew, like we would go to the. The closet just became something which a lot of survivors, or something that encompasses them and gives them some sort of peace, or worth this horrible wig, but don't get it twisted. I was still cute, but it was. It was like my mama thought I was going bald. I had a head full of hair under that. I had a head full of hair under my head, but I was. I was depressed.
Speaker 2:
I got a hope, somebody. It's something that you said and I just wanted to shine light on it. And just listening to your story. Whenever I hear people's stories, I like to like, I like to see where God is in it Because, you know, even through our ups and our downs, god is somewhere within our story. And I like you brought up two things. I like the fact that you pointed out that when your ex-boyfriend called you, even though you was going through what you was going through at the home with him, you still found enough strength to cover him and even you know, and that's what I like so I've seen God in that situation, in that aspect.
Speaker 2:
But when you mentioned that you went through a depression because again, I have a real crowd, real listeners, and someone basically, yeah, she's sharing her story, like like she's going through this depression, like where's God is in it, how did you find that source of encouragement to continue to persevere and keep going? So that's what I want to ask you Like I know you mentioned that you was depressed because you sound like you're in a dark place right now. You're going through a lot within the home. So how did you find that source of encouragement? I know you had your son. You're talking to your son, but I'm talking about, I want to hear some of the things that you did spiritually to uplift yourself.
Speaker 2:
Because I brought that up? Because there was a season in my life, in my walk, when I had a real dark time and then I had to find different sources, spiritual sources, to encourage me during my dark time. So I want you to share that with us. When you was depressed, what you know what, what was some of the things that you did to uplift yourself spiritually?
Speaker 1:
So definitely. So everything was a fight, everything. So by this time, me attempting to go to the grocery store to buy groceries was not an option. I was almost. It was like I was stuck at home a lot, unless I was, unless, unless he said, hey, let's go to his, his family's home. But it was like I was stuck.
Speaker 1:
My saving grace, which I believe everybody should have, someone who loves them so much and that's so connected with God that they can see what's happening in your world without you saying a word, my mom, my mom would just pop over. My mom would feel the refrigerator when we I mean we didn't have. He would be gone and make maybe a day and a half and then come back due to his job and I'm looking like I have nothing to feed my child, and then my mom would just pop up. It was nobody but God. There'd be times where keys depended on if he was mad at me. If keys were taken, I did not miss church. I don't care how bloated I looked, if my wig was shifted to the side of my, the side of my head, I did not. I did not miss church, which was so. That was the blessing, because I would go.
Speaker 1:
And there was this deacon's wife and she would come and she wouldn't say one word to me, but she would come and sit next to me and just hold my son and play with my son in the back. And that moment I get emotional thinking about it. She didn't say it and she's pivoted, like she's a pivotal part of my life after having my second child. But she didn't say one word. She would just come and she would just take him and she would just hold him and play with him.
Speaker 1:
And then I was at the time, I was still searching the scriptures because I was saying and I'm talking, I'm literally reaching out and I'm just asking general questions that no one was answering within the body, and I would literally use this term loveless. I said what if you're in a loveless place? Like, am I supposed to just? I know I'm in a loveless place, am I supposed to just stay here, like? But no one could answer that and even my parents couldn't fathom it because they are surrounded by love. So their responses to me was almost like well, what are you talking about? It's almost like that doesn't in their world. It doesn't happen. But I'm sitting here like there were times where I would wake up and just be like sad that I woke my eyes up.
Speaker 2:
Stay tuned for more as we delve more into Elizabeth's powerful, god-given testimony. See you next week. That's it for now, but before we go, please continue to listen, subscribe, share our podcast. Also, if you want to support our show, please scroll down to the bottom of the show notes and click on the link that says buy me a coffee. We were greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening and remember God is good all the time, and all the time God is good and also Jesus Christ loves you. Thank you.