The Queued4Christ Show: "Faith Talk with Deborah Faith"

Welcome to Faith Talk Fridays, a powerful new segment of the Queued4Christ Podcast where faith meets real life! 💜

Hosted by Quiana Jackson, this weekly conversation dives deep into what it truly means to live a F.A.I.T.H.-filled life — being Faithful, Available, Interdependent, Teachable, and Hungry for God. Each Friday, Quiana sits down with inspiring guests, faith leaders, and everyday believers to unpack real stories of perseverance, purpose, and the power of God’s promises.

This weeks episode, we talked about "What if the hardest yes you’ll ever give is the doorway to everything you’ve prayed for? That’s where we meet Deborah Faith—a creator, author, and mother who moved from New Jersey to Georgia on a nudge from God, bought a house in 21 days, and then faced a sudden storm of loss, loneliness, and pruning. Her story isn’t neat or easy. It’s real faith: raw prayers, long flights to care for her mom, and the quiet courage to keep showing up while everything familiar fell away.

We walk through the moments that anchored her—divine confirmations, practical obedience, and a home that became a refuge for others. Deborah opens up about grief literacy and why therapy, fasting, and journaling became essential tools alongside prayer and Scripture. She explains how overproduction can mask pain, how to plan for tender days like holidays, and why isolation is a trap when sorrow hits. If you’ve ever wondered how faith and grief coexist, this conversation offers language, practices, and hope you can use.

What surprised Deborah most is what came after goodbye. In the months following her mother’s passing, doors opened onto sets, studios, modeling work, and film production—rooms that rarely mention God, yet where faith quietly shows up through presence and compassion. We talk about turning grief from a crutch into a gift, stewarding rooms with integrity, and finding your next step in the one thing you least want to do. Expect takeaways on obedience, legacy, therapy, prayer, and how to recognize “divine collisions” that confirm your path.

If you’re feeling numb, unsure, or overdue for your next yes, this episode will help you find footing. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review with the one insight you’ll act on this week. Your yes might be the map someone else is praying for.

Transcript

Warm Welcome & Purpose

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I get on the move, I get on the move. It's a new day with a new way. Praise to the father for eyes to flash. My guys did a clear that my god is the dopest. So loop respect to the blue.

Introducing Deborah Faith

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Hey, hey, hey, everyone, everyone. How are you today? This is Kiana, your creator and the host of Q for Christ. And I want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone that has liked, you shared, you commented, whatever you've done. I'm so excited. And I tell you that this is an honor to be a vessel for Christ, right? It's not a privilege, it's an honor. So I thank you all for tuning in on tonight. Giving me your Friday. Y'all giving me your Friday night. And it's Halloween. You know what I'm saying? We I'm excited, right? So, um, anyways, I want you to go ahead on and make sure you are sharing this with someone. Um, go ahead on and send it to someone because we are going to have such a wonderful time tonight. Okay. I want you all to be ready. Um, because my my guest is going to really, really be able to get you, get you on that faith because we're talking faith talk tonight. So, um, so, anyways, make sure you are going to the website at www.qforch.com and you are going and um registering, okay. You all, I am getting ready to start prayer every Wednesday morning. So if you want to be a part of the Zoom, go ahead on and do that. It will be live stream. So if you want to be on live stream, that'll be fine as well. But we will start our Wednesdays with prayer, okay? So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about what is coming. You do not want to miss what is coming, you want to make sure that you are there, and um, so, anyways, anyways, anyways, I am ready to bring my guest in. Y'all, I'm telling you, this is one of the sweetest persons that I've ever met. And when I tell you, she is her name, she is her name, right? I am so excited to bring in none other than Deborah Faith. How are you, Deborah Faith? How are you doing? How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I, you know, it's been so good. The last time I had you on here, it was, we just talked about it was like 2020. Like, oh my goodness. I mean, 2022. 2022. Yeah, 2022. So, you know, it's been a minute so since we got to like just chop it up and everything. And for sure, you know, and I'm so excited that you are able to be on here because you are a busy lady.

The Call To Move To Georgia

SPEAKER_01 4:52

You I that I am, that I am. But anything for you, you already know. I um, well, you know, I'm I I've kind of taken a step back from podcasting. I think back in 2022, I was full-fledged in my own podcast. Yeah. And I love that space. So I think that's around the time that we talked. And then in 2022, I knew I was moving. The Lord um told me I was moving to Georgia. So that was it was like, huh? What's in Georgia? But I was obedient to that. So a lot has transpired since I moved here. Well, I bought my house in May of 2023, and I was fully here from August 1st, actually, of 2023. And it's been it's been a journey. It's been yeah, it's been a thing, it's been a thing. Right. But I'm it's been a thing that's that is um, it's one of those things that is hard while you're in it, and I'm still in it, because I don't want to make it seem I'm like I'm out of it. But it was some hard spaces, but it is all worth it, and all things work together for those who love the Lord. So I'm I'm living in that right now, not just speaking that. I'm living in that. So um grateful, and God is still unfolding why He sent me here, because I people used to be like, Why you come here? I got nothing.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Look, look, and the thing about it, you know, like when Pastor Darius came here, I and I I was like, Well, maybe she came from Pastor Darius, but you know what's funny?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

So I knew I was Pete coming here was more of a confirmation that I was coming here because it was like, oh, you know, and the Lord, see, the Lord is so tricky, he's so tricky. I think the Lord will give you just one thing that make you say, Okay, yeah, that's this is definitely it. I I felt like because coming here is not like people are like, Did you come for a man? Absolutely not. Right now, I have some family down here, but they're not proximity-wise, really close to me, um, location where I am. So it wasn't that, and it was literally a prompting of the Lord and a knowing that I was supposed to be here. So when change, because they were doing change nights initially here, but they hadn't they hadn't said that they were opening up a location. I actually at that time, I don't know if you remember, I was my podcasting mentor. I had had a dream. It's so funny how the Lord talks to me, and I saw myself here in his studio that I didn't know he was building at the time. Wow. And I was in class, and he was like, it was like the end of class, and he was like, I just want to share something with you guys. Now I had this dream prior. He's like, um, I'm in the midst of doing a studio, and I was like, Oh my god, that it is exactly what I saw. I was like, I already seen it. I was like, I saw it in my I saw it in a dream that I had. So that was one thing. And then shortly thereafter, PD announced, like, we're opening up a location because I thought I was like, well, at least I'll have change nights here, right? Because I have been a change since 2014 or 2015, somewhere around there. Yep. I was at the first Thrive in Florida, the whole thing. Oh no, yeah. So it wasn't necessarily because of change. I think change made it comfortable for me to come here. I'm like, at least I got church. Right. I know people. I know, look, I know some people here. So yeah, yeah. It was a it was a big leap of faith, all pun intended, kind of here. Um, the Lord told me that I had to leave by a certain time, and he made that way. He made I literally, I bought my house in 21 days. Wow. Unbelievable. Without financial, I was not prepared to buy a house. I'll just say that to the to the folks that there was nothing in me. And I was like, You sure a house? Like I could just get an apartment that way, I could kind of go back home. But the Lord, the Lord knows where where we're going, and He knew. Um if all the stuff would have happened, I probably would have gone back home. I probably, if I didn't own my home, I probably would have gone back home for sure. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

For sure, right? For sure. Look, I'll tell y'all, that is why we're up here, because her faith is literally going to show you that it is possible, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

It is so possible. And the Lord is always thinking of us, yes, um, he is always mindful of us, and like I was I was telling you before we came on, it is like I'm living Jeremiah 29 and 11. Like he knows the thoughts and plans that he has for us, like, and they are plans of good, even in times where they don't feel so good, right? Because I've been in a fire, baby. Uh it's been it's been it's been Hebrew boy-ish for a while. Right. And I was like, giving Hebrew boys that like Hebrew boy, and it was giving, like, I'm like, did I hear the Lord? You know, I think we always go back on what we heard, the promptings of the Lord, and like it it literally tests your faith, right? And it's like, am I hear correctly? Am I, you know what I mean? Am I am I crazy? I was like, Am I crazy? Was I supposed to come here? Because it it just got it got real crazy real quick, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Like real, really, really quick, you know, and and that is that is literally how certain things, and that's how the enemy wants us, is to question whether what we heard, like like, is that true, God?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Like, that's how he got eve, right? In the garden, right? Did God say, like, did he really say he really say that?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Did he really say he was gonna die? Yeah, that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

So I've I've been tested, I've been tried, I've been put in the fire and purified a number of times over these last two and a half years. Um, but Lord, I feel like pure goal right now. It is it is the Lord really showing me. I was at um Woman Evolve, and this young lady said to me, because I was just telling her all the things, and she was like, This year, the Lord will show you how good it could get. And daily He has been showing me how good it can get. I am in, I am living Amos 9, 13, 30. Come on, not it is my head spinning. It's like my head spinning. I can barely catch my breath of just come on the connections, the the the the clarity, the right. It's just it's it's so much some days. Like I literally today I left the studio, and every day I leave the studio, I cry because it's like me, little old me that you were mindful and you knew exactly where I would be right now. And though, over the two years, I could not, you couldn't have told me I would be doing half the things that I'm doing, learning half of the things I'm learning, connected to the people I'm connected to, um learning from I mean, the greats in certain areas, and just I'm grateful. I am, I do not take it lightly that the Lord trusts me with that. You know what I mean? Like, and I think over the last just even six months, it's been like a specific prayer that I've been praying that Lord, the people that you connect me to, um every room you allow me to walk into, let me steward it well, let me love people well, let people see my heart and not even just my gift, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And it's just it's been a beautiful thing. It really, really has. It really has. So I'm grateful, I'm grateful. And it just not, you know what um somebody told me. I was in California, and this prophet said to me that what was on me would be on my children, and it's been beautiful to even see that. That is it's like the favor of the Lord that's on me is on my kids. So, you know, I'm honored. My my oldest son is in Argentina playing pro ball. Like, what you know what I mean? Like I'm literally I'm in awe of God, and not because not just because of the stuff, but that he kept me in a time that I don't even know that I wanted to be kept, if I'm honest. Right, right. It's been it's been look, it's it's been a lot, and I just lost I lost my mom in June. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. Yeah, so like I said, we we we need to that's what I'm saying. We we're gonna catch up all through here. Right. It's been we are, we are well, you know what?

Dreams, Confirmations, And Provision

SPEAKER_02 13:56

That right there, you know, has literally just gave me, I know it done gave y'all some like something to go by because we are getting ready to like literally dive into this faith talk because like I said, for her to be able to be sitting here talking to me today is faith, right? I was telling um, you know, the people when I did Beyond the Pages my conference, and I said, Y'all think y'all came to the conference, but y'all came to see faith in action. Because this is faith. For me to even be in this building, for me to be doing putting this conference on together, it it was literally faith. And um, and so I'm I'm super excited. So I, you know, I'm gonna go ahead on and and say a quick prayer, and then we'll go into it. And and because I want you to just kind of be, you know, be what you've been talking about, you know what I'm saying? What you've been living about, right? So I'm gonna say a little prayer and then we'll go further. So, dear Heavenly Father, God, I say thank you. God, I say thank you for this time that you have allowed us to be here, God. You have known this moment before we did, God. You knew um all the plans that we had, God, but you brought us here. And so we thank you for what you're doing in our lives, God. We thank you now for going with Deborah of faith. God, we ask you to touch her now, strengthen her all the more, God. Everything that she's doing, God, we ask you to go before her and open up the doors, God. And so we thank you now for her life. We thank you for protecting her children. God, we just thank you now for everything that you're doing, God, in the lives of her, God. We thank you for all the blessings that are gonna come her way, God, because she has given you that yes. And so we thank you for um what you're doing, God. We thank you just for even the people that are watching on tonight, God, that are spending the time with us, being able to listen to this faith talk. God, we ask you to go with them, God. We ask you to pierce their heart, God, where they're sitting, where they're standing, God, even wherever they listen, God, God, even if it's next week or next year, God, we ask you to touch them now in a mighty special way, God. Show them what faith looks like, God. And we thank you now, God, for allowing them to be able to walk through those, those obstacles that are in their way, God, and have the faith that you have given them. And so we thank you for everything you're doing. God, we ask you to hide us behind the cross, allow someone to hear something that they want to be saved, someone to hear something that they want to have the faith that we are talking about. And so we thank you for everything that you're doing in the lives of your people. We love you, we honor you, and we cherish you. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. I'm so excited. Look, I just want you to just kind of give a little quick introduction because we didn't even introduce you, right? Lord. But let the people know what what Deborah Faith does and who you are.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

This is always the hardest question for me to answer. Um, so I am Deborah Faith. I'm originally from New Jersey, um, but rooted right now in Atlanta, where the Lord has me until he says something different. Um, I am a servant, I am a daughter, first of all, um, but a servant of Christ. Um, I am a mom, which I love my children. Um, I am a podcaster, an author, um, a creative just at heart. I'm an entrepreneur. Um, I do some talent management, I do some AI stuff. Lately, I have been in front of the camera doing more modeling type stuff. Right. And um, I'm learning film. Um yeah, I've always kind of been a jack of trades, or I know PD always says, you know, we are this and that. And kind of what I was saying to you, I said I'm always like this, this comma, this comma, this comma. Um, so it depends on it it depends on what season the Lord has me in. And right now, um I'm doing a lot of production assistant work. I am working with a lot of filmmakers and photographers and you know, whatever it calls for at this point, but enjoying it. Um, I'm an empty nester now. So really getting back to the creative side of me, which I literally put down to really be a mom. And not that you have to, I want to speak to that, but I think my mindset back then was that. So I gave up a lot of things, whether it was singing or writing or all the things. And as as my children have gotten older, I have, you know, slowly started, and now it's just me. So I am able to do a lot more, and I am enjoying. I mean, it's so refreshing. It takes some getting used to because it's like, you know, when you've been serving somebody and your kids so much and just basketball games and all the things, you know, that comes along with being a mom. So um it is a different space, but it's refreshing. So I'm trying a little bit of everything. I've been doing voiceover, I'm taking acting lessons. Um all the things, all the time. Yeah, I'm like, why not? Like, you know what I mean? Like all the things that I wanted to do, and then some of the things that I used to do. Um, and then I'm learning along the way, it's like I come there for one thing, and God gives me something totally different that I'm like, oh what? I don't mind this either.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

I don't mind this either. He's always pulling, and he'll say he'll say, Oh, you know what, try that out.

Buying A Home In 21 Days

SPEAKER_01 19:42

You know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, you know what's so amazing about the Lord is that we really don't know, you know, people used to say that to me a long time ago, and you know it because you hear it, but like I literally feel like I'm living in it. Like some of the things that I'm doing right now, I did not know was in me. You know what I mean? Like I would have never, you'd have been like, I'd have been like, uh-uh. Absolutely. Right. And I think he's constantly doing that to me. So it is a lot of there's pruning of Atlanta was pruning of who I thought I was, and the box I even though I was I was doing a lot of things in Jersey, there was a a comfort, um, you know, of where you grew up and the people you know. And Atlanta has forced me, and I've always loved people, and you know, people, I'm a people person, a heart person. Um, but Atlanta has has kind of forced me of like really to ask myself the question, like, who are you? Not what you necessarily do, but like, who are you at the core of who you are? Because okay, Atlanta, you're not gonna know everybody. You walk in rooms that you they like, who, who, who, who are you? What are you? What are you doing? Where did you come from? Where did you come from for sure? Um, but the Lord has a way of setting us in a family, and He is giving me and has given me, and I think still giving me just what I like to call right now is divine collision. Like, I'm daily meeting people, and it is so Him. Like, I'm gonna tell you this quick story. I'm gonna tell y'all the this quick story. But the other day I Ubered to um a shoot that we had, and me and the Uber driver, which is common for me, we're just having a conversation, and I mentioned my car's name is Mordecai, and we start to talk about Esther and all the things, and the girl had for such a time as this tattooed on her arm. Like he's always reminding me like nothing incident, accident. You are not here by incident. Even down to the Uber that you're gonna get in. It is like, do you know what I mean? It is one of those, and I mean, he's been doing that so much, it's been so clear to me that it's it's like I'm like, okay, Lord, I know it's you, but he's like, just in case you were thinking it wasn't, it's me. It is me, it is me. I'm I'm doing all the things I am lording all over your life for sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

You are I'm about to, I'm about to run over here. I'm literally trying not to like, because I remember one day I was I was I I had got in the Uber and I was questioning God and I was like, well God, no, you know, like is this real? And literally the guy said something that I had just asked God about.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

I was like, okay, like it was like a it was like, okay, God, I have he had that's the thing that I know that I know that I know that the Lord has us in this season and he always has, but in a way that I think if we are, if we pause a little bit, if our eyes are open a little bit, if our ears are attuned to what he's speaking, he's in everything and he does not he does not miss. If I told you how many Uber stories, my kids are like, Ma, I'm no way. I'm like, I'm I'm not making this up. I I could not make it up, I could not make it up. And anytime I might even slightly is like where there's a whisper of like, he like, no, it's me. I got you. I am literally ordering your steps, and I have planned this. The reason you came to Georgia is this, and I still don't know what the this is. That's the funny thing. Like, people are like, Oh, is it I don't know that I will fully know. It's like just keep walking, keep saying yes. It's not one yes that we give, that's where we get it twisted. It's like right, yes, you're coming to Georgia. That was the first yes, and just keep saying yes. Keep saying yes, and that's why people are saying this yes. That's why when you asked me to come on here, I said, Of course I would.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Yes, come on, yes. And I'm excited, I'm super excited because um, you know, God, God, like I said, this was divine, right? It was.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

I believe I I literally believe that when you asked me to come on, it's funny because I kind of giggled. Because if I'm honest, um, a lot of people have asked me, like, you know, where have I been podcasting-wise? And you know, my show was kind of based on healing, and I know we'll get to that later. But I was like, I I recently just lost my mom. I buried her in July. So I was like, I want to make sure before I come before the camera, um, that I'm in a space to even talk about it, that I'm in a good space. And I was like, the Lord will let me know when it's time, right? And he let me know when it's time. So when you ask me, it's like, it's time.

unknown 25:00

It's time.

Faith In Action Amid Trials

SPEAKER_02 25:03

And the thing about it is like, because when you say, because I was like, okay, I need to get her back on here, but I was like, wait, we did it, we did, we did a success on purpose. Like, what can I do with her? And and and that was one of the things that like that came to me because you know, I'm doing, um, I'm getting ready to do a spin-off on faith. Because in the the beginning of this year, I started, I did, um, God gave me an acronym and I started, um, we I talk on it on Monday, because on Mondays I have my um the like I it ain't you can call it Bible study, but it's called it's called um it's called book the books of the Bible, book study. So I have that on Mondays where we we just talk about, you know, we take a subject and we and I sit there and I teach it. And so we started talking about faith, and we had this acronym that God gave me. And so when I said it, I was like, oh, yes, instead of, you know, so now this will this will be the first spin-off um of that, where it's gonna be faith talk. So I have people on here and asking them about their faith journey because of the simple fact that we need to see what that looks like, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people, a lot of people hear people talk about faith, and but to actually hear it and see it and know that someone lived it is different, right? Because of the simple fact that we can say, Oh, okay, yeah, you say it, but I when you're walking in it, I and like I said, and I tell I tell people all the time, you can't wait to grab faith, to have faith. You got to be exercising faith from you know from the from the smallest things, right? You know what I'm saying? Because if you wait to to you know just say, you know, God forbid somebody's parent die, if you wait to your parent die and say, Oh, I need faith, it's gonna be too late. You know what I'm saying? You have it. But at this time, your faith is really gonna be tested. And so that is um, that's why when when God gave me that, I was like, oh yeah, we can do faith talk. Okay, let's do it. So, you know, so one of the one of the things that that I did when I, like I said, with the acronym is I talked about that it was faithful, available, interdependent, teachable, and hunger. And so one of the things is is that we you know, we have to understand about being faithful. Um, you I mean, well, having faith, you have to be faithful, and so you have to like remain consistent and grounded when life don't make sense. So, can you just talk about one of those times where you just had to say, you know what, I'm gonna stay faithful. And how did you stay faithful in that moment?

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Oh yeah, let's just talk about my life. I mean, I think that moment would probably be my faith has been tested more in the last two years than probably in my whole life. Um moving here was uh, you know, it was it was a big step. I've lived in New Jersey my whole entire life, right? So everything that I know was there. Um, so it was a big faith move for me to move here. Um, and then to kind of have I was here, I came here, bought my house in May. I was here fully in August. My mom got really sick the end of September going into November. So for the last two years, I was back and forth from Jersey here, and nothing about that made sense. It's like, okay, Lord, so you told me to go here. I am I'm being obedient to you. I have bought a home, so I can't just quickly pick up. Right. Right. My youngest son at that time, he's he came here and made friends and got took off basketball, all the things, right? So I'm trying to be a mom here. I'm trying to help my brother as much as I can take care of my mom, which was a hurtful space. My my well, you know, I lost my dad in 2016 and I was his caretaker, right? So it was a very different position for me. Of course, I'm back and forth, but I can't be there in the manner that I would have wanted to, you know, all the time because I still have Jaden here. He's still he's a he's a senior at this point. Well, he was a junior when we first got here, but junior senior year, all the things going on, right? Right. And I'm still trying to hold on to my my job. I'm trying to be all the things to everyone. And if I'm honest, I was like, God, where. Are you like where are you in this? Because this didn't look like anything that I was expecting. Um I stopped podcasting all the things I was podcasting at that time. I also was teaching podcasting, I was doing all the things, you know what I mean? And it went from everything to nothing. I mean, I lost friends, right? I mean, it was it was like a stripping that I was not prepared to be in. Um I was like, okay, all the people who you know, I'm there for you, I got you.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Gone.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Wow.

Prayer And A New Season

Identity Beyond Titles

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Like white away. Like, where I'm I'm like, am I bugging? Like, is it me? Am I um so it was a very lonely time, but a beautiful time because it it forced me to go inward, and my inward is always gonna be in prayer, it's always gonna be to the book, it's always gonna go be. I have never fasted and prayed as much as I did during over the over these last two years because I'm like, I know I'm not crazy, I know never had I ever in my whole life said I was moving to Georgia. Georgia was never, I always knew I was moving, but I want to be clear I was always moving to the West Coast, like I never wanted to come here, like a desire of my heart at all. And I literally came here in obedience, and it felt like punishment initially. Wow, had I done something, you know. You start thinking all types of stuff. Like, are all these people kind of leaving you and dropping you? And I mean, people who I knew, I mean, marriages would break. It was just so even when I go home, home didn't feel like home because nothing that I knew was anymore. So it's like nothing to go back to. I mean, I had don't get me wrong, my oldest son was still there at that time. He had he was he was there in college, so it was like people, but the structure and comfort of New Jersey was gone quickly. It was like by the end of 2023, everything I had known in Jersey was wiped away. Wow, like a storm had came and wiped it away. And then here, my house felt comfortable, but nothing that I had planned, and I had I didn't really have a lot of plans because I didn't really know why I was coming here, but even being able to podcast that was taken away. It's like I don't even have the space or capacity to do that anymore. I'm not teaching anymore, um, I don't feel creative anymore. I'm questioning all the things I am alone, you know what I mean? Um, but the Lord is so kind that I remember when I got my house, because it was a bigger house than I what I had originally wanted, and I remember walking through this house and looking in my backyard and being like, Lord, what is all this for? Because the the kids aren't small anymore, so I really don't need all this space. And I like I said, I literally bought my house in 21 days, and I remember just being home, praying over this home, and all the people that would come through here, that people even walking down the street, that there would be a level of healing that coming here. And by the time by the end of 23, even on all the craziness. So, my my younger son came to me, I'll never forget, he was newly here. He's like, Mom, I need to talk to you. I'm like, Oh god, because I'm thinking like I need to take off my earrings because the kids are bothering him or something because he's new, right? And he's like, one of my um friends from basketball doesn't have anywhere to go. Can he come and live with us? Oh wow, and he's like, You remember what you said? And I said, I always remember what I said. I'm gonna we're gonna talk to the Lord about it, and you know, and he lived with us for about two years. Wow, so the Lord just I mean, he's so strategic that he was even thinking of him before I got here. So my yes was not just to me coming here, it was for other people, right? Sometimes we missed that because it was just a blessing to be able for a number of reasons. He was he reasons he was raised Jehovah's Witness, first of all, so you know he getting all the Lord and all the worship and all the prayer and all the things, right? Oh no, um, and I also got another son, like in the process, so just a beautiful thing, and there's been so many of those type things of like being able to help somebody transition down here and all the things. Um, but for for me personally, I think a lot of times I was like, okay, I love though that I'm able to do that. I'm talking about when I was in it. I was like, but what about me, Lord? What do you?

SPEAKER_02 35:14

That's how we be. We'd be like, I I'm I'm glad that I can help somebody, but Lord, I want to help the help myself.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

I need some help myself, right? But he's been um, he's been so kind, and I I wouldn't change, it's almost like my dad's death. Um, I always tell people this, you know, I had 18 months with my dad. My dad passed of cancer, and it is the most beautiful time that I had with my dad. Not people are always like, What? Because it was the time that I got to know him as a person and not a parent. Right. And even though I knew he was leaving, there was a level of intimacy, a level of understanding, right, a level of being able to empathize with him in certain areas that I didn't agree with just growing up in a way that I can never have gotten any other way. And I feel like that about here, that where I am right now and all that is happening and all the blessings that God is giving me, that literally it is like it is me really firsthand experiencing the hand of God. Like, do you know what I mean? So it hurt. I don't want to hold you. I ain't gonna tell y'all if y'all it was not easy. I cried a lot, I cried a lot. I cried, let me say it again, a lot, a lot. Um, and there were a lot of days that I was just like, I don't know how much longer I can do this, right? I don't know, I don't know what you're doing. None of this feels good. My mom is sick. Um I am every day getting a call this way. Oh, you gotta head up this time. Like last my last birthday, I spent in Jersey, my mom in the hospital with my mother. You know what I mean? It was just, it was not any breathing room at all. And kind of being on edge because I'm here of like when my phone ring, you just, you know, you everything is that. Um, so it was hard, it was really, really hard. But um, you know, my faith comes from my mama. Uh, you know, I I I got introduced, and of course the Lord was always with me, but I my mother was a praying woman. Um, and I grew up in a household where my mother literally would close the door for an hour every day and pray. Um, so that was very normal for me. You know what I mean? And I used to have to tell my my friends when they spent the night, like, don't worry about my mom. And at this time, don't matter how loud she gets, she's praying. You know, I watched she okay. Yeah, I watched her worship, I watched her pray. Right. And I really, and I said this at her funeral, I really got to see the kingdom live in in front of me, not just in church, right? My mother, she opened, she she fed the hungry, she she she clothed people, she loved people, like my house was that, right? And I didn't realize sometimes when you in stuff, you don't really realize that, right? But it is when things get hard, I I you know, I'm I'm I'm on my face, you know. Right, so it's like that that's the only thing that I know to do. I'm gonna cry through it now, right? But but that's the only thing that I know to do. That is, I go to the rock.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

That is and that is that is so good because we have to make sure that we are just really knowing that we can go to the rock, right? You know what I'm saying? We know that great is his faithfulness. We know that that is the main thing right there that we have to be able to take away from, um, especially seeing when you you got the opportunity that that guidance from your mom anyway. We you saw you saw how faithful that you know God was and how faithful she was to God, right? And you know, and that is the thing right there where we have to understand that we have to in that faithfulness, we have to be available for God now, and so making room for God is is good when we because we have to be able to do those things, but doing grief, I know is difficult, right? Yes, very difficult because you know, because we want to shut down. So, can you just talk about one of those things that how did you stay open to just listening to God's voice and those assignments that He has taken you through, even recently, right? Because I can imagine. So, can you just talk about how you were able to stay open to that?

Divine Collisions And Daily Guidance

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah, so grief is tricky when we talk about grief. I think, and you know this, but just to catch the audience up, I I experienced grief very early. Um, when I was 11, almost 12 years old, my little sister died in my arms, right? So um I always say I got introduced to death very, very, very early in that type of grief, and through continuously, I I've lost a lot of people. Um, and the last one being my mom. Um I think so, and I'll I I want to I kind of want to talk about this, like, and I love the Lord for sure, but I also know that therapy has been a huge thing for me. Um and after my dad's death, which we've talked about before, it really um it really pushed me in a place that I didn't even realize how much grief I had, you know, kind of endured over the time because I learned very early when my sister was when my sister passed away to kind of look normal and I overproduced, right? I had hero syndrome, I still it still can come up, you know. I'm I'm very aware of it, but it still can, it's still kind of it'll peek, you know, it'll peek in every once in a while. So I think um for me where you know I guess grief and faith kind of meet, it is the Lord, and it is also very much therapy. And I know people sometimes, but it's like we go to the doc. If you if you cut yourself and you bleeding, you headed to the hospital because you need stitches. So we have to use the resources that the Lord has, you know, given us. And I am an advocate for therapy. I um at a time I thought I would be a therapist at at some point, and maybe I still will be, okay. As long as the Lord keep me, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Like what Pete said, we this and that. You can do what I want.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

But I I I love therapy because it really, it really gave me an opportunity to um understand the 11-year-old me, um, as well as you know, me now and all the stages of that. Um, so as well as praying, definitely therapy, man. Um, definitely give myself tools of how to function because I am not the, you know, people get some people get they're debilitated and can't do anything and suck. I will overproduce to a way to to a place that is dangerous, right? Um, so it is producing because that is how I even now that is a way that I process my grief. Um however, it is knowing today is not that day, you know, and taking time. And those times I spend with the Lord, you know, those times I spend, you know, remembering, those times I was I spend, you know, allowing my feelings to feel. Right. Right. I'm not okay today, you know, right. And those are, you know, it's okay. It's okay to have those moments. It's okay to um to feel in those moments. It's just not okay to get stuck there, you know what I mean? Sometimes I have I do have to sit in those moments because I want to feel, I don't want for me, I had a lot of delayed grief, which was like opening a floodgate when I finally started therapy, right? So I have learned even with my mom, um, and over the last couple of years, it was like the grief of knowing that she was leaving as well and what that would look like, but also grieving who I thought I was in Jersey. That was a whole different level, grieving relationships that I thought would come with me, you know. So it was like grief on top of grief on top of grief and different types of grief. Um, again, to my face, man. I I don't have I don't have no, it ain't it's no magic thing. A lot of worship, a lot of prayer, a lot of writing, a lot of journaling. Um, and it was not easy. I'm grateful for the people that the Lord assigned to me in that space because I know that's a special assignment, and I know that um there were not a lot of people who could have seen me in that space, if that makes sense. Like who had the ability to pray for me, um, really pray for me. I mean, not like, oh girl, I got you. I'm gonna no, I'm talking about I know I need you to pray, pray.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

I need you, I look, I need you to go in there for an hour and close the door, get in your closet. I need you to turn your plate down today because this is really that's a good one.

Stewarding Rooms And Relationships

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Fast with me, fast with me, because we have we're having a hard time over here. I everybody laughing at laughing at me when I say this, but I literally felt like I was fighting for my life though. It was it was my garden of Gesemony, literally. It was a fight of like, you know, not my will, but your will, Lord. And yeah, I think once I kind of was like, whatever you want, I don't understand this. I have no, and you know what? I got comfortable with telling people I don't know. Because I think there is a okay, you don't know why you came here. Now you're going through all these things, all these things have happened, your mom's sick and all of that. And people, I was like, I got nothing, and until the Lord gave me something, I got nothing for you. So I don't even want to make it up because I couldn't if even if I wanted to, I don't, I don't know. I'm like, I I don't I don't know. And I'm okay with saying I don't know until the Lord shows me what it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:01

So right, yeah, yeah, and I know and I know that um you know what PD had said one time, I don't know why God got me here. Go ask him. Like, I don't know, you know, and we have to be okay with with that because you know, we'll we'll sit up there and make things up, like, oh yeah, he got me here because of this, this, this. You know what I'm saying? And I was literally telling someone in the um one of the goated groups that I lead that um, you know, sometimes God give us instructions or he'll he'll give us um tell us what we need to be doing and don't say nothing else, right? And we'll be figuring out and she was like, you know, but I get, you know, I just want to know. I said, well, what I normally do is go back to what he said because it's almost like, you know, now, you know, it's almost like the GPS, if the GPS tells you to go a hundred miles, it ain't gonna say nothing. You'll be sitting there driving, you'll be like, Am I going the right way? Like, what am I doing? You know what I'm saying? You go back and you already know where you're going, right? The GPS, you already don't put in a GPS. And so we have to understand that the teacher does not speak when the test is being taken. And so we have to understand that. That is a that is literally, you know, one of the best ways that I can put it in that thing, because I I it's been time where I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen. Like, God, you don't brought me here. I'm trying to figure this thing out. Like, you want me to be like, you sure you want me to be, you know, full, you know, full podcast? Oh, okay, okay. And one of the things that you said that that stuck out to me is that um sometimes you'll be an overproducer. And I noticed that, you know, when I am dealing with something, and and like I told my son the other day, I was like, look, if I'm dealing with something and I get on this computer, I'm finna produce a lot of stuff. And that gets me in trouble because now I got extra stuff on top of extra stuff that I'm already dealing with, right? And some of the times we have to understand is that, you know, like you said earlier, therapy is one of those main things. And so we have to recognize that we're stronger together and not meant to do this thing alone. So, you know, most people feel like, oh, you got God, you don't need to go to therapy. No, you need to, you need to go and talk to someone, right? So, what advice would you give someone um who is isolated during those hard seasons? And and instead of them leaning on others, what would you what advice would you give them to say, look, make sure you go and ask somebody for some prep or something, like you were saying?

Grief, Legacy, And Motherhood

SPEAKER_01 49:01

I I would say, you know, find a even if it's not a therapist to start, because I know it took me a very long time to get to the therapy point, and I literally got pushed there. Um, but I would say try try and find a trusted friend who you trust um and who is in a good space themselves who can handle and has capacity enough. And I would say have conversations and share, truly share where you are. I agree with you. I don't isolation is it can be very, very scary because not only are you hearing the voice of the enemy, you're also hearing your own thoughts, your own. So it's a lot of stuff going on when you're by yourself. There's nobody to counter those things. And normally we're not in a place to do that, right? So I would say that, and I would also say to really study the word that you know how to, when those thoughts, those voices are being when you like, oh no, and they like, nope, you can't do that. No, but all those things that you have something to combat that is the truth, which is the one you got, right? So I I would say that too, but I would definitely say, you know, find somebody that you trust, even if it's a stranger, and you never know. I mean, I have people DM me all the time, like you never know. It doesn't have to be somebody who knows, knows you, and I believe, and this is just my belief, but uh, you know, I believe that the Lord will send you what you need, right? And that is not always people that you have, you know, hand-on-hand contact with, but that you can DM. I mean, we live in an age that's a beautiful, it's a scary age at some point in uh, you know, social media, but yes, it is. It does give you the the ability to have access to people that you probably would not have. Right. Um reach out. You never you never know who is in their DMs and would have a conversation with you or say a prayer with you or reach out to you and make sure that you're okay, you know. Um yeah, that would that would that would be that would be my advice to anybody, especially in grief. Um, because grief is just it's tricky, man. It's I know we always like, okay, my dad has been going nine years, and there could be a smell that take me all the way back.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Girl, I know exactly because you know, our both of our fathers passed in 2016. Uh mine's was the end of 2016, and yours were, I think, June. It was August. It was August. Yeah, see, my yours August, mine died in December of 2016, and I know exactly what you're saying. It could be, you know, matter of fact, the other day I was looking at one of the t-shirts that um my son had made for the funeral, and I just broke down crying. And I know it was because I was like, you know, get ready for the the conference, and I was like, oh my God, he would have loved this. And I just like that is it downright.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Like, that is it. You know how many moments like, you know, both of my my oldest son graduate graduated college in May, my younger son graduated high school, my son even going off to you know, Argentina to play ball. Those are moments that I'm like, oh man. And now that doubled too. Right. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very different feeling. You know, I'm like, I remember my first thought, like, I don't have parents anymore. You know, it's like, which I'm still, I'm still processing, I'm still working through what that looks like. I'm very um aware. This is the other thing I would tell people, you know, we plan for good stuff. I don't think we always plan for bad things. And like I'm going to spend Christmas with my brother, and the boys will be up and all the family. And I'm like, I've really been thinking about like I don't know how I will feel, right? So, like, in my in I'm planning that, okay, we'll be there, we'll cook my mom's old recipes, we'll be everything will be good. But uh, there's also the backside of that, which is like, but if I'm not, right? What does that look like? And if I'm not, what am I gonna do? Um, what does that look like there? You know? So those are things I ask myself. I'm a journaler, so of course, for me, I'm also gonna have a plan if that's not a thing, because people know I'm coming back. So part of that is, oh, we want to get together. I'm like, I don't want to really plan a whole lot because I don't know how I'm gonna feel. Right, right. So I think those are measures and just things that people can put in place if they are experiencing grief, right? And grief doesn't always look like death, it could be, you know, all things like losing your job or moving to another location, really finding out who you are in the new space and all that. So I I really think like, you know, there are measures and things that we can put in place to be able to function in those things. And there may be, maybe that whole week I don't feel like doing anything. You know, I'm gonna spend it with the kids, it'll be very low-key. In my head, I'm like, okay, we cooking my mom pound cake because I'm not a baker, but my youngest son knows how to bake.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

Like, I'm a dad.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Yeah, because I'm like, I it's where I was with my dad moving here, is like grief to gratitude, right? I've lost, I lost spiritual dad in 2015. Um, and then I lost um my my dad in 2016. I mean, death, that's the death, that's the death. I found my aunt dead in 2020, just a lot, right? So I am um, I know death well. I know death, even the death of who I think I am, you know what I mean? Or myself as. So just really again putting things in place for myself that I know will be like, okay, I want to do this even with my friends that I don't get to see often anymore that are still there. But also knowing, and I'll, you know, I tell them, like, hey, I want to go out, that's my plan, you know. But I don't know if we're gonna get there, you know. I don't know if I'm gonna make it. I don't know if I'm gonna get through trying to make a pancake, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

I'm right. Oh man.

Prayer As Anchor In Loss

SPEAKER_01 55:40

I don't know if the smell of that is gonna do something for me. I don't know if I it could be a Sunday. My family was really big on Sundays, so we had Sunday dinner, it's football, and there could just be a Sunday out of the blue, and I'm done. I just get up in the morning and I remember what Sundays would be, and it's just I'm I'm I'm no good. I'm like, I'm gonna stay in today. I'm gonna watch church on, you know, online. And I just, you know, I need a minute. And I think those days are okay. I don't think it's like regression of of grief or like, oh, you're you're not as far as you thought you were. I don't know that grief and you know, other people can maybe have different opinions, but I think for the rest of my life, there's gonna be moments that I mean the people that I love are no longer here physically, right? Right. And though I know what the word says, I understand that there's still a physicality part of that and connect part of them not seeing certain things and them not knowing, oh, I'm keeping my promise in this area, or you know, the boys are doing really good. My group, my dad would have been over if you told him my he called my my first son, grandson number number one. If he knew he was in Argentina, he right now on the phone calling everybody, you know what I mean? So thoughts go through my mind, and sometimes I sit with them. Like, what would it be like to be there? So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think understanding and not getting stuck there, and also again, not isolating yourself where you only have those thoughts and those thoughts, and you talking to yourself and all those, and you talk to yourself way more than anybody else. So, a lot of times what we have been saying to ourselves or what we're saying, it's like it is somebody out there that would love to talk to you, it is somebody who would, and maybe it's not a conversation. Like when my mom died, I think I too realize that when people are like, What can I do? Sometimes you just come and sit, right? It's just presence that is the gift, be in the present, yes, yes. The presence is the gift, like yeah, we don't have to talk, we don't have to you don't have to cook for me. I just I just need somebody in my space, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Yeah, somebody I trust, you know what I'm saying? Like trusted, a trusted just come and let's look at TV or something, you know. Oh, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

That's all you need, you know. Yeah, I believe the Lord will provide that. He has provided that for me, even in places that I wouldn't necessarily ask for it, you know, right? He has provided that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

That's that is so good, and you know, I I I really, really um just can can appreciate those ones that when I was going through that, you know, it wasn't like a oh, you know, let's go do this, do this, do this. You know what I'm saying? They they literally um just sat with me or literally just was like, oh, you know, let's let's look at TV or let's listen to music. I'm a I'm a big music fan. So you know, they knew to listen to music. And, you know, one of the things that you had said about um learning yourself is is that you have to remain open to learning, so being teachable in that moment, and so you have to learn how to. So, how has that taught you more about yourself and um and being able to accept that? Because a lot of people don't like the change. You see what I'm saying? It's like I'm who I am, and and I'm gonna be this way. So, talk about how how that you know the grief have taught you more about yourself and how you can be able to really be the and step into this space of this new person.

Therapy, Tools, And Not Isolating

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Yeah. So I am, I think, naturally an introspective person. So I'm always questioning myself before anybody else can. Like, why are you doing that? What's the root of that? I mean, it it was a real people know it's a real thing. Like, I really had full blown conversations with my Myself. And I think I think grief, I think the 11-year-old me helps me do that. Like um really ask the questions of like the why. I think we get so comfortable with who we think we are. And I still don't fully know who I am. That I know who I am in certain seasons, right? I don't know that, like I said, I can't even imagine what I'm doing now. I wouldn't have imagined that, right? So I I can imagine a year from now, let alone four or five, right? Right. Um, I think there is a humbling to know that, that I don't know everything and I won't know everything. Um, but also a trusting in the the creator, right? What he has created, and I trust that in a way that I probably have never trusted that. So I don't know. I just trust the Lord. I know that's like a cliche thing, but I've been through so much that I shouldn't be sitting here. Right. I've been through so much that there's no way I definitely don't look like what I've been through. Right. I'm never afraid of doing a different thing or what people will say, or if that don't work for somebody else, I literally follow the leading of the Lord. So if the Lord says so, I'm there. Um I think I'm confident in that. I'm confident that first of all, I'm confident that I hear the voice of the Lord, right? So I am I'm confident that no, I there's a strong, there's a there's a knowing, like I know that I know that he sent me here. I don't know the why. I I still don't fully know the why. I'm grateful for the things and the peaks and the you know the the the things that he's allowed me to see so far, but the full picture, it's like I got this part, he got the view from up to so he sees everything, you know what I mean? Um, but I literally trust Jeremiah 29 and 3 that like literally he knows the thoughts that he has for me, and those are thoughts of good and not things that are gonna harm me. So even in a place that it hurts, in a place that I'm pruned or um that I get no's like I think I think where we go left is that we always we we trust a yes from the Lord because if it lines up with what we want to do, we good. I think we don't trust the no's as soon as they get that no, they be like, you know, okay, that ain't God. No, it's not right. Right, some of that is the Lord, some of the testing is the Lord, right? Everything is not the devil. Um and I I think once you get confident in that, that even in the fire, like the Hebrew boy said, like, well, you know, if it be, he can rescue me. Right. But if not, he's still God. So, like, do you know what I mean? He's he's still God. So there is a trusting, like I've never trusted the Lord before right now, that literally all things work together for his good, and that he is doing exactly what he's always known he was gonna do. Yeah, I just wasn't in on the full plan. I just my job was to say yes. My job was to come in in an uncomfortable place and stay in the uncomfortable. I think it's only here's the thing: we don't grow in the comfort places, we grow when there's uncomfortable. Um uncomfortable is growing. That's why it's called growing pains, right? So it hurts to grow if we really understood that. And yeah, I'm okay with the hurt. I mean, it's like, okay, Lord, this is what it is. And as much as we're gonna have, we're gonna have mountaintops, but we're also gonna have valleys, and sometimes we have them at the same time going on. You're at the height of something here in one area, and at the lowest low in another, and just trusting him in all those things, like right, and I don't, you know what it is, too? Nothing in my past goes again. It's like in every place and hard place that I've ever seen, he's always come through, right? So this is no different. If he did it, then he's gonna continue to do it. So it's just staying in that place to to let him do it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:47

That's it. That's it. People people think that it's cliche is that when we say, oh, we I'm trusting in the Lord. I literally, that is the life I live, right? I tell people all the time that, you know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know what God got for me. But I'm I'm totally, you know, and I was I was thinking the other day that God is introducing me into a version of myself that I never knew. You know what I'm saying? And you know, we have to make sure that we are allowing that. Like you said, you he got the picture, he got the plan. All you can do is just say, okay, uh, all right. You know, like you know, somebody told me the other day, and she said, it's hard to see, it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame. And I was just like that's good, that is good. Yes, and it and it really, really, you know, when you can understand that God is drawing you and that He is the one that is creating the picture, you don't have to see it until it's finished, right? You you know what I'm saying? Um, just like you go and you let, you know, you taking pictures, or you know, I I don't know if people would go and actually let an artist draw them anymore. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? I know that Jason is. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, but you can't see that picture until it's done, right? You know, and so people, you know, a lot of people they they get so desperate that they lose hope, right? And that is the main thing that we are trying to do here is to help them get their hunger back. So, what would you say to someone who has lost their hunger for God and feels spiritually numb? They are just sitting there just because they, you know, they don't see the full picture and they don't see what's going on.

Planning For Tender Days

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

I so for me, what did I do? Because I had lost my, I was like, there was a point over those two years when my mom was like right at the end where I was like, I was like, I don't know what I believe in this moment. And I think I think this is something we don't talk about. I think it's I think it's okay to get to those places. I just think we gotta be honest with God that we're there, right? Right, I told the Lord straight up, you're gonna have to show me something because none of this is me and the Lord, we talk a little bit different. I don't know about the Lord. I'd be like, yeah, what's because none of this is making sense. I am tired, I am fasting and praying, you show up because you gotta show me something. You prove prove to me that you are God, right? And He has, right? And He has. So I I think those are things that we don't naturally do, but I would say even in my lowest things times, even when I didn't feel like it, I'm like, okay, Laura, yep, you good, all the things, and I'll be just like that. Like, are you good? I don't have the energy to pray, but pray for all the people that I want it'd be like a you know, don't be an on-my-face prayer, but it'd be a prayer. Like, I know what you told me, I know you sent me here, I know I'm not crazy. So you have to show me that you are the Lord, and he keeps showing me that he is the Lord. I mean, so much so that I literally it it was almost like, and this is the weird thing about my mom's death. My mom died June 24th. And we we were bringing her home for um home hospice. I got on a plane that morning and she died while I was in the air, literally, before I I got to to care for her in the way that I thought was, you know, the way that the way that it was gonna go, because God is God, right? I buried her on the 8th of July. And since then, it's all it's like uh it's like the the death of a thing or even the death of a person is also like the exit is also an entrance. So while I was saying goodbye to her, that's why I said it's it's like it's mountaintops and there's also valleys. While I was saying goodbye to her, all these other things that I could not imagine are unfolding. And I'm like, what I'm not even prepared. Like, I wanna, if I'm honest, there was a part of me is like, I'm going to grieve, like I'm going to curl up, and he like take off the great grape clothes, right? That's not, you know, you said goodbye to her, you you did well by her, all the things, and this is a time that I've set aside for you and watch me work. Take your hands off, and when I tell you from July 12th, and I know the date because there was a specific thing that happened on the 12th, to what is it, October 31st? You couldn't imagine. I mean, you I can't make it up. It's like you would not imagine what the Lord has done, and not only for me. Wow. The I mean, he's enabled me in so many different ways, he's gifted me in in uh, I always say a weird, awkward way that I'm kind of gifted in certain years, but he's he's allowed me to help other people right in a space where I should really be curled, like somebody would be like, You really should be curled up, and you know, no, but that's right, that's not his plan for me. That's not what he has for me. And even though he knew that my mom was leaving here, he he he made it so I could literally lay her to rest, and then all these things could come. Because if all these opportunities and stuff would have came while she was sick, I would have said no. I wouldn't go back because my focus was her, my focus was back and forth to Jersey. I I halfway couldn't think most things. Right, right. But I'm just I'm I'm so grateful. The Lord is my daughter says the Lord is kind, the Lord is so kind, yes, he's so kind, and it makes me cry when I think about all the little when I was coming to Georgia, there was something I I kept on saying, like the pieces are coming together, and I'm just so grateful that I'm right now living in seeing him put pieces together that even people that I meet, like I said is divine collision because people I meet, I'm like, when you get here, they're like, Oh yeah, 2023. Oh yeah, whatever, around the same time I got here, but the right I knew all this stuff will be happening, but I still had them for you. They were still, yeah, it just wasn't the time when the time when the Lord's time is time, right? Uh when he says it's time, it's like I mean, I'm like, wait, you want me to okay, wait, huh? You want me to do me? You want me to do that? Right, okay, okay, yes, yes, all you need, and it's it's refreshing, it's not, and even in the things, here's the here's the amazing part, even in the spaces that he's putting me in, he is literally sending faith there, right? So I've been able to connect with other people who have grief, younger people. I've been able to not even coming to like because people like, oh, you preaching, or like, I'll be in the studio, I'm reading my Bible because I done, you know, read on the on the way there or something, or I didn't finish or whatever. But he's allowed me to be able to minister to people in a space that is the Lord is not always present in. Let me just say that, right? In an industry that doesn't always talk about the Lord. I'm in a very some of the spaces and places, but faith is there, right? Literally, literally and figuratively, right? Both of those places, because oh, I'm gonna talk about the Lord, it's not even knowingly, like I'm just gonna, there's always gonna be a reference of that, and I I've seen already like people coming to me wanting to confide or ask questions or all the things, and there's moments that I'm just like, okay, Lord, okay, I I see what you I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing. You putting a look like you, this faith talk, you're putting a little faith in here, right? And you making you putting me in rooms that faith would not necessarily be.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:45

But when you show up, literally, faith is there, baby. Faith has entered the room, right?

Trusting God Without The Full Picture

SPEAKER_01 1:13:53

Oh man, so it's it's it's humbling, it really is. It is amazing. I'm loving the space that I am in. I am clear, right? Um, I'm honored. I am. You ask me, like, oh, what do you want me to put on there? I say, you could put servant or daughter of Christ, because it'll be messing me up when they're like, Well, what are you? I'm like, I just I love the Lord and I pray that everybody gets to know him in the manner that I have been able to. And I'm looking forward to going deeper with him. I'm looking forward to more of him.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:27

And just knowing that this is like this, to know that there's more of him is like it like right, it kind of blows your mind because it's like, you know, because I have I have learned how to be content in the nose, and I've been telling my children, you know, we God says yes, but when you can get content with the no's and know that he got something better for you, it better be better, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:59

Look, it better be uh, I know you think whatever that thing is, whether it's a person, a job, right, a guy, a girl, a location, a home, or whatever. Like it's always better. Always, it's always better. I tried to buy a house this is years ago, but I sometimes I wake up, I'll be like, it's like this, all of this for me. I don't even need all this, so I I it's all ways better. It's always above and beyond what you could think. Ever as think, yeah, as think or imagine, like you, you we can't imagine what the Lord has in store for us. Like, right, it's like it will literally blow your mind, it will literally blow your mind, and I'm in a mind-blowing season, and just like I said, uh it's like when I say my head, it's finished, it's like I some days I'm like, okay, I can't catch my breath because you're doing too much, Lord. Okay, just oh, and it's like I'm like, are you tripping? Like, am I I'm not being punked, right? I'm like, this is a real life. Let me pinch myself so I know I'm up. I'm like, no, you up, right? And he is he is so kind, he is so kind, and here's the thing I'm not special. What he will do for me, he will do for you, right? And like that alone is like, yeah, the same way he loves me, he loves you and you, and you, and you, and you too, right, and he has plans for us. Oh, right. Oh, he's such a good father.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:55

And the thing about it, we like we are for real. I don't think y'all understand it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

I don't know if people understand, but don't be talking about my daddy because I'm like, listen, I oh, and I've been, I think that's the other thing is like even in all that I've been through, I'm just grateful of how good he is, and it's not even the stuff that he's doing, but that he is who he says he is, right? Like he really is who he says he is, like for real, right?

Rekindling Hunger For God

SPEAKER_02 1:17:26

For real, and for me, it's the is the peace that I've got. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, like even when I was, you know, um planning the the conference, like I was at so much peace. I would wake up and I would be like, oh, I gotta get this, this, this, this, and you know, Tiki wouldn't sell it and all that good stuff. But I was just like, man, I ain't worried about that job. Like, people was like, like, I was like, I and they was like, how are you not stressing? Like, because at one point I was, and then I was like, uh, like God literally had to, like, he had five to four people call me to like literally tell me to calm down. You know what I'm saying? Like out of the and ever since then, it was like a peace that came all over me. So we were playing, we was praying every morning at seven o'clock uh for for B pages, was getting on on the praying every morning, and it was just one morning I got up and peace was in my spirit, and ever since that day, it was like I had peace. I was like, and my son, my son was like, okay, mama, we going up here. Like literally, literally to the day. I was I probably was like, okay, I had to pay pay for the hotel room because the hotel they had messed up my hotel room and all that stuff, so I had to pay extra money. And my son said, Mama, like literally, you ain't worried about it. I was like, nah, somebody got it, you know what I'm saying? Like I was literally, and it did, you know, and that is that is what we talk about when we talk about faith. We are literally talking about living it. Like we're not talking about just, you know, just talking it. You know what I'm saying? You have to live this journey. You have to be able to say, you know what, for God I live, for God I die. And I'm literally going to exercise the faith that he has given us. And so, you know, I what I want you to do is just, you know, just leave another word of encouragement. I know you're done left plenty. If y'all ain't heard anything, you don't heard plenty encouragement. But if you wanted to just leave something with them, um, just you know, to help encourage them within their faith and their journey and their grief, or whatever state they're in, just leave something for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

So I got I have two things. Um, one thing is not mine, but it's something that someone told me. So I want to share that. And there's something, there's a conversation that I had with my daughter, and I'm I'm holding to it and sticking to it. So the first thing is there was somebody who told me that I have a I had I had a decision to make what I would do with my grief. That it could be the crutch that I lean on and make excuses of why I'm not doing or what I'm not doing and how it affects that. And I'm not taken away from the effect of it because I've gone through it and I'm going through it. So I understand that. Or it could be a gift that you give people. And tonight is a gift that I give people to know that it is possible to still have life with grief and also after certain griefs. Because I do think, like grieving myself and all of that, there's an ending, right? Grieving people, I think, looks a little bit different, at least for me. Um, so I would say that to them. Like you have you have a decision to make if that will be the thing that you say, that's why I did not, and that is why I can't, and all the things that we tell ourselves, or you have the opportunity to make grief a gift that you give to people. And I know that sounds weird because it's like a gift you give. I think we can give grief as a gift. There will be, and I can promise you this: there will be someone else who has experienced the exact same thing. There will be someone else who has lost a parent, there will be someone else who's buried a mom. There will be um uh someone else who's buried a child, there will be someone else who moves to another state. You will at some point be the example that someone looks at and says, it's possible. Right. So you get to choose which one of those things are um the way that you use grief. The other thing I would say, and I tell my daughter this your blessing is in the very thing that you don't want to do. Whether that is getting in front of a camera, whether that is um taking a leap of faith and moving to a location that is uncomfortable, whether that is letting go of relationships that you know good and well, you don't belong in anymore, you know good and well there's an expiration date on your milk, and so is there normally on a lot of these relationships.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:30

But you get the truth, right?

When Valleys And Peaks Overlap

SPEAKER_01 1:22:33

You get the truth. So, in the place that you feel like, oh, this is hard, oh, this is uncomfortable. That is exactly where the blessing is. That is exactly the crossover, that is exactly where the Lord says, Okay, cool, just go on over. Just sometimes it's not about doing stuff, sometimes it's just simply about showing up. Sometimes all he wants you to do is show up. Let him handle the rest. He got it. Trust me. He'll make it, he'll make it clear and plain, he'll send the people, he will send the job, he will send all the things that we need. I think it is really taking that leap of faith. And sometimes for those of us who are hiding, those of us who know we have gifts, know God has given us stuff. We would rather be the one in the Bible that you know goes and hide it, right? But this is a season that the people that are in the back are calling, come to the front, come to the front, come on, come on, come on. And no, you might not know what comes along with that. No, you not may not know what you're doing. I step on stages and sets and have no clue. My thing is this today. I walked on, nope, show me what to do, show me what to do. And there are people, I'm learning stuff that I would never learn that I probably would have had to go to school and be in that industry for 10 years in days. Wow. And the Lord will, with your yes, yeah, and your obedience, the Lord will send the people who want to help you, who want to help you get along, and whether that's writing your book, hear me good, because there's some people watching who's supposed to write a book, and you still have right, don't go to the grave with that book, don't go to the grave with that book. Come on now. This is not about us. I tell my children very often, I was I was last Sunday we were in Crocker Barrel, and there was a um a book about grandmas, and it was like, and I said, I always I want my great-great-grandchildren who probably will never get the opportunity to meet me, to know that I was thinking of them, that everything that I have done, all the things that I have written, all the things I will write, all the things I produce, all the movies that I make, every scene that uh screenplay that I write, everything that I do, every time I get in front of the camera, it's not for me. It is that there's gonna be a time that I may never physically get to see, that they're gonna sit around and be like, grandma, she was about that life. She knew what it was, she knew what the death. That is it, that is our responsibility. It's not about just fame and fortune and all the things that people pump to you. It is what do you leave behind? What is the next generation? What have they learned? What are they getting from you? Right, and sometimes getting is just like she was afraid, but she still did it. She didn't know what she was doing, but she still tried. Yeah, so that is my encouragement to them to get from behind and come on up to the front, ask for help, and God will send those who help you for sure. And I'm a witness because the stuff that I've learned over these last couple of months is no way, only the Lord, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:53

Only the Lord, only the Lord, right? Yep, right, and that that's so good. I was uh, you know, literally telling somebody uh what PD has said that you'll be looking for the blueprint, but you the blueprint, you know. And we be we be sitting there trying to figure out how to do something, and God already done told you, look, I got you, somebody gonna teach you, you learn, and then that way you can teach somebody else. That is it. That is the whole thing. It that's that's it in a nutshell, is that, and like one thing that you said that I really, really love is that you know, we get to give that gift of grief. Somebody has watched us go through these these steps of grief, right? Yep, and they are they are learning that oh my god, they and and I know you know a lot of people they know about what we done went through. Like, like you say, we can't make half of this stuff up. Can't make it up. The beginning of this year. I mean, we went through depth after death after death and situation after situation, and then you know, another uh one went in the hospital, and you know, he had to have well my brother, one of my brother went in the hospital, he had to have brain surgery, and it was July the 3rd, or well, it was the fourth, and the fourth of July, right? So we like literally, it was like January, March, April, May, you know, it was literally that it was January, February, March, then May, then July, like it was literally back to back. And for people to have watched me continue to do what God has called me to do, has been a testimony, like literally. Like I ain't had to walk around here and say, Oh, I've been doing this, this is what I've been going through, you know, da-da-da-da. People, when they saw me and they knew, they were like, Oh my god, didn't you just didn't you just lose your auntie each day? Like, it's one of my favorite, not just a you know, like, not just a long down the road. This is one of my favorite auntie, you know? And it was like, you know, boom, boom, boom. Well, it actually started last year, Thanksgiving. I lost a brother-in-law, and then another brother-in-law, like it was literally back to back. And um, but like you said, we give that gift of um grief where instead of making it a crutch, like you, you know, I I've known people that that that talk about their grandma that died, you know, 15, 20 years ago, and they that's why they it's like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:38

I want you to feel that, but I also want you to keep going.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:42

Right. It's you gotta keep going, you know what I'm saying? Because you can't go in the grave just, you know, your life doesn't went in the grave with hers. With her, right? Yep, you know, so now it's time for you to move, and like she said, don't take that book to the grave. The richest place is the grave, you know what I'm saying? Because it's ideas that's in the grave, it is entrepreneur businesses that were supposed to be produced that's in the grave, books, movies, everything, all in the grave, everything, you know what I'm saying? Because you have been afraid to step out on faith, and so this is what we are talking about stepping out on faith, faith talk, and I'm so excited that you have been here. I mean, look, we can go on and on.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:33

We always, every time, we always gonna have a long, long one every time.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:37

It's okay, it's all right, you know what I'm saying? I'm so excited, and um, and I'm so thankful. So just let everybody know where they can reach you at if you're back in the business of you know teaching people podcasting, you know, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:55

I'm not looking, I'm not there yet. Um I'm hoping I'm I'm definitely putting. That I love, I love this space, right? I think it is it's what I do naturally. It's what I do with my kids and my house. Like it's a natural thing for me. And I think in mine is called the exchange place, but in the exchange, we all leave better, right? Right. It's always like I got something from you, you got something from me. Prayerfully, everybody who ever watches this gets something and takes something away. Um, I am really asking the Lord when that is and when the best time that is. I do not feel like the one thing I do I can say about podcasting is that I do not feel like that season of life is over. I think when it comes back, it's gonna look very different.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:40

Yes.

Turning Grief Into A Gift

SPEAKER_01 1:30:41

And once he says go, I'm on it, you know. I know, I know you want it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:46

And even if not, y'all can go back and watch the old ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:49

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:50

It's go back and watch the old ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:52

They are you know, it's all we're on YouTube, we're on all the streaming platforms for podcasts. It's called the Exchange Place, and that's the and it's just X, not EX, um, exchange place. So for sure, go back and watch. Um, and I pray that it blesses you. I had to I had a great time creating and talking through all types of healing and spaces and from everything, not just from the deaf perspective, and just you know, it was it was a great place, and you know, it's not over. It's not over. What it will look like in 2026, I don't know. And I'm okay with saying I don't know, but um, everybody, if you wherever you can find me, I'm always I am Deborah No H D E B O R A faith. Um, so I'm on Instagram, I am on Facebook, I'm on TikTok that way, YouTube is that as well. So all of the platforms, um, that's that's the way you'll find me. Um, yeah, so that's more to come. I don't, you know, I don't know the next time that we get together where I'll be and what I'll be doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:03

Right. I'm just gonna keep watching you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:06

Look, wherever he tells me to go, I'm going. So that is then I might, you never know where I'm gonna end up. Right. Wherever he takes me. He is so right.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

He is so yes. So if you want to go ahead on a prayer sour, then I'll come back and and and end us.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

Okay, for sure. Father God, we thank you. We thank you for this time, God. We thank you for everything that was said, God, everything that was thought. We thank you for everybody who will who will listen or watch this, Lord. We thank you that you will do something new in them. We pray that you would you would you would show them yourself, that you would show them that you are God and God alone, Lord. We we pray that they know that you are present, that if they make their bed in heaven, that you are there, but if they make their bed in in hell, that you are still there. So we thank you. We thank you for this time. We pray for this platform, Lord. We pray that you do with it what you would have done with it. You we pray that you would bring those that have a heart for you, God, that spend time with you, Lord. We pray that you would bring them to this platform, that they would be able to share their faith walk and everything else, God. We pray that you would keep her ears attentive to you, that her eyes and ears in this season would just be so attentive that she would hear different than she has heard, God, that there would be even more clarity than she has now. I pray that you would give her visions and dreams, Lord. I pray, even in the name of Jesus, that anything that she's thinking about or pondering on of if she should create it, if she should do it, that you would tell her how to move, that you would give her strategic plans, God, that you would write the vision, that she would write the vision and that you would make it plain, that those who read it would not just, they they they would not just read it, they would read it and they would run with it, God. We we thank you for her heart, Lord. We thank you for everything that she does in secret, God. We pray that you would reward her in the season publicly. We pray that every room that she steps in, Lord, that you would give divine favor, God, and we pray for divine collisions into the people that she needs for what she's planning to do, what she what she's uh afraid to do, God. And we pray that she would not at all even second guess herself, but that she would go forward and that she would keep saying yes. So, Father, we thank you. We thank you that you are God, you are God all by yourself. And even though we we planned this or we think we planned this night that you already knew that it was gonna happen. So, Lord, we thank you, we bless your name. It is in Jesus' name that I pray, amen.

The Blessing In What You Avoid

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

Amen. Oh my god, thank you for having me. You are so you have been such a blessing, literally, like it just trust me, that was so divine because I've been sitting here wondering, like, okay, God, you want me to do this, and and I'll girl. Anyways, God has so excited. So I thank you all for tuning in. Um you know, if you if you want to be a blessing in this ministry, you can always, always, always um go scan the barcode, go to buy me a coffee.com, make you for Christ, and you'll be able to be a blessing in this ministry. Um, you know, and one thing that I I forgot to say that I want to say, if you want to give your life to Christ, this is a this is a show where we are talking about giving our life to Christ. If you want to give your life to Christ, all you have to do is X. You can acknowledge that you are a sinner, you can confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross. You can turn from your ways, and then you can seek after a Bible-based church, a church that is teaching the word of God and not changing the word of God. And so, anyways, I thank you all again for your time on this Halloween, is it when they say Hallelujah, hallelujah? Ain't no Halloween, they don't Halloween, Hallelujah night. And uh so, anyways, anyways, I thank you all again, and please, please, please just thank you for Christ. All right, bye y'all, bye y'all.