Rediscover Joy & Reclaim Purpose After Divorce with Natasha Harris Butler

In this episode, hosts Lisa and Amber sit down with Natasha Harris Butler. Natasha is now navigating life as a single mother to her three-year-old son while building her private practice as a therapist, and she's just released her first book.

The conversation centers around Natasha's new devotional, "Anchored by Grace: Prayers for Keeping an Undivided Heart After Divorce" - a 30-day resource for anyone walking through difficult seasons. Rather than shying away from hard topics, the hosts create space for honest discussion about taking those things that bring shame and laying them out in the light, because transparency disarms the enemy's ability to use our struggles against us.

Natasha opens up about how God showed up in practical ways during her divorce - including waking up one morning to find attorney fees in her account when she had no idea how the money got there. These are the kind of real-life provisions that can only be attributed to God's kindness in the midst of pain.

The episode explores themes of grief as the loss of our vision for the future, the importance of finding community rather than isolating, and understanding that our broken places aren't sources of shame but spaces where God's light can shine brightest. Throughout the conversation, Natasha shares her heart for creating purpose from her pain and maintaining integrity for her son's sake.

This is a tender, honest conversation about resilience, faith, and God's faithfulness in the messy, grace-filled journey of life when it doesn't go according to plan.

Timeline:

00:00 - Welcome and introductions - podcasting from scaffolding in the almost-finished studio 

01:00 - Meeting Natasha Butler Harris - watching young women grow up and do "grown woman things" 03:00 - Introducing "Anchored by Grace: Prayers for Keeping an Undivided Heart After Divorce" 

04:00 - Taking shame out of the shadows - laying struggles in the light to disarm the enemy 

06:00 - Natasha's journey - waiting 40 years to marry, the excitement and devastation of divorce 

08:00 - Memorializing God's faithfulness - learning to record how God shows up 

10:00 - Broken vessels and God's light - how brokenness becomes a place for God to shine 

13:00 - God's practical provision - mysterious attorney fees and financial miracles 

16:00 - Learning surrender - trusting God with parenting decisions and co-parenting 

18:00 - God's faithfulness in divorce - breaking stigma around hard seasons 

20:00 - Writing the book - from personal prayers to encouraging others in practice 

22:00 - Where to find "Anchored by Grace" - Amazon vs Barnes & Noble 

24:00 - Closing prayer for those walking through difficult seasons 25:30 - Final advice - find community, don't isolate, no shame in reaching out

Thank you for taking the time to like, subscribe, share, and comment. Visit leadingladies.life to find out more. Also, follow @leadingladieslife on social. Amber & Lisa are authors of the multi-award-winning book, Leading Ladies: Discover Your God-Grown Strategy for Success, which dives into the power of community and empowering women of faith to rise up and make a difference, using our gifts and faith to shine brightly in the world. Watch the Facebook Live edition on our YouTube Channel @coffeechatladies .

Transcript

00:00:00] Well, good morning actually. Good evening. Good evening. We are recording this. Welcome to Coffee chat. I have my kombucha chat. And welcome to you have Ice Water Only. Ice Water, Natasha. Water. And she, I am, I'm a two drink girl. Usually I have two drinks on one, either side of the camera. But I am so excited, Natasha, that we have you here and I am so excited to be actually podcasting in my almost for finished office slash podcast studio.

Woohoo. Right now you do not see this, but I am actually. Podcasting from some scaffolding. Thank you, Mr. Smiley, for leaving the scaffolding so that Amber has a great. Chair and set up for her podcast. Yes. I really appreciate that. Thank you guys for tuning in, Lisa. We have a special guest. We do. And this is like a couple weeks in a row. I'm bringing these young [00:01:00] women to you that I've literally watched grow up from a distance for many years. So I have been able to do just that with Ms. Natasha. I've watched her since she was a young woman.

We attended the same church for many years. I. Just marvel that the fact that she is grown and she does grown woman things. She has a child, it's, it always makes me go wow. It you, it's one thing when your own kids are growing and you stop and it takes your breath away, but when it really gets you is watching other young people grow up and start to do grown things, and it just blows my mind.

I'm old Natasha. Yeah, I'm old. This tells me I'm old. She's old. We call her mama Lisa because she is, she's like mama. Yes. Quite a few people we brought at church because of the culture. They call me Mother Burns , oh my lord. On more than one occasion I've been called, gosh. Oh my gosh.

Alright. We, they're, at [00:02:00] first I was like. Please don't do that. But then thought, you know what? They love me. They come in my, they eat my food. Yes. They come to my home. It's okay. You can call me Mama Burns. It's all right. Yeah. Well, pastor Westlake, if you're listening. Right now Sheffield needs a stained glass of Mama Burns.

Oh, that would be funny. So that reminds me of a story. I should not bring this up, but you know how sometimes in the churches they have pictures of the pastoral families here and there? Right. One time they took these pictures of our family and it was all of my kids. So it was Hannah, Lydia, McKayla.

McKayla, Zoe baby Elijah, who is 21, and on his way to Hong Kong right now as we see. Wow. Her missions trip. And then it was also Leah now Wesley was living with us and my husband and I, and that picture was. I can't tell you how big that picture [00:03:00] was. So when they get tired of displaying it after years, it got sent home to us.

And it's the joke of the family now. Like, where are you gonna put a picture? Four by three or whatever. Why would you put up a picture? So, yeah, I don't think they need a stained glass of mother birth. Yeah, I'll believe it or not, we do have a topic today, folks. Yes, we do. We are talking to Natasha because she's just released a book.

And the book is called. It's called Anchored by Grace prayers for keeping an undivided heart after divorce. Yeah. And it's a 30 day devo for anyone that's navigating the waters of coming through a difficult season like that. And topics like this are not always the easiest ones to talk about, but I had a thought when we were doing our opening prayer together before we started.

I had this thought and the learner reminds me [00:04:00] all the time that, if we just take those things that we maybe feel shamed from, maybe we feel bad about ourselves, or we feel others will feel bad towards us, or what will they think of us? What will they think of where we come from? If we take those things and instead of hiding them.

Deep down inside because we're so afraid and we just take them and lay them all out on the table, shine the light on them, put 'em out there for everyone to see, allow people to have whatever. Thought process, opinion they may have about us and what we're sharing. Yeah. The one thing that we do when we do that, even if it's hard, is we disarm the enemy because we're being forthright and honest and open about something that no doubt he will continue to use to get in our head, to get in our heart.

And when it's all [00:05:00] out there in the. Open like that. Yeah. We risk, that's a risk. Yeah. But at the same time we take away his weaponry. He can't do anything to us because we've taken his hands off. Right, right. So, so true. When we talk about this topic, it's hard to write about that unless you're going through it.

So, Natasha, I just wanna take a few minutes and just have you just chat with us about this journey that you've been on. It all started in a really happy place, I'm sure. And lead us through what brought you to putting together a devotional like this. Sure. So you're right.

When when I got married, I was so excited because I've known my ex-husband for many years. We grew up in the same youth group and we had dated in the past and, life took us in different directions. And then when the Lord, when I believe the Lord had brought us back together, it felt like, just an opportunity for [00:06:00] reconciliation.

And it's just a fresh start. And I was so excited about it. And so when we decided to divorce I was devastated. I was devastated because. I'd waited for close to 40 years to marry and to have a child. Wow. And I had dreams about, what marriage was gonna look like and what parenting would look like.

And in the church we talk about generational cycles and. And I felt like I had been very intentional, to set my family up for success. Yeah. And so when I, when we decided to divorce, I'm looking down at my book. Yeah, that's all right. Whenever I, but when I, we decided to divorce, I remember saying to myself, a year from now I'm gonna be proud of the woman that, that I am, and I'm gonna be proud of the way that I've navigated this experience. Yeah. And so, one of the [00:07:00] things that our church I attend Grace Way Church and Raytown and our pastors, we'd gone through 21 days of prayer, and I think this was right after, maybe it was before, but I remember.

My pastor saying, we need to begin to memorialize, our journey, our history with God, and the way that, the ways that he's shown up for us. And I just began to number one, grieve because I felt like I should have been doing this a long time ago. Right? And remembering, just how big God is and who he is, been in my life.

Because he's been really faithful, right? And I've experienced some hard things. I've gone, I've lost a parent. I lost, at 14 I lost my dad. At 36 I lost my granddad, who is my very best friend in life. I've gone through things and this is no different. And I just wanted to make sure that I was being intentional with memorializing all of the things that the Lord has done for me.

It doesn't. I don't spill the t about the [00:08:00] details of my marriage or divorce in this book. I wanna say that. But but there are things that, definitely reflect, the specific things that I've gone through. And so, this is just my way of. Making purpose. I want purpose out of my pain.

Yes, exactly. I want my, yeah. I want my son to be able to look back and say, mom did a good job. And and she. Kept the integrity of our family intact, and I'm not ashamed of that. And also I, this is my way of bucking the enemy back, right? Because it's hard and it's a choice day by day, to right.

To be faithful to the Lord, to remind myself that Jesus died even for this divorce, and our redemption. And so yeah. This is what this book is about. I, how old is, can you just tell me real quickly, how old is that sweet little boy of yours? Yeah, my son is three [00:09:00] years and he'll be three years and four months on the 4th of July.

Oh wow. That's amazing. Yeah. When you're talk, you talk about those broken places and God using that, and I've always seen, or in my own life that. How could God's light shine bright through an unbroken vessel? How could that happen? And and a lot of people would say, our brokenness is a place of shame, but our brokenness is really a place for God to shine through.

And. As we let him take control and overwrite everything of shame. Yeah, to just bring his love to the table and bring his light to the table. I think I know that God is honoring that and it doesn't matter what people think. It matters. That God is allowing [00:10:00] you to use something very hard. For something good. And it's not necessarily that God turns it for good in a tangible way. God turns it for good in an eternal way. And that's where I see your story, as I said, and it is hard when you walk through hard things. It's hard to be honest. It's hard to be transparent. It's hard to know what to say and how deep to go.

Especially when you're dealing with people who you love and you want to honor and not just throw their, throw them down on the ground and stomp on them. I'm gonna do a book and it's gonna be an expose and you're never gonna recover kind of thing. Yeah. And you're not using it as a way to bash that someone head for what happened.

Yeah. You said a minute ago, you have a son, you want him someday to look back and My mom did a good job and Yeah. Proud. See the example. Yeah. [00:11:00] Yeah. And I think there is some, there is beauty in your resilience, in, in even. Being in this period of grief, because it's interesting, we talked about last last podcast, we talked about the loss of a child.

Many children, two, two children with with I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna recall names right now. But yes. And.

Went ahead. The, she did. I pulled it out, my menopausal brain and Adrian, bless you. And the thing about it is. You realize that grief is a loss of your vision for the future. It's the loss of what you thought was gonna happen. It's the loss of a your husband, seeing your husband and your son.

You guys picnicking together and playing in the park and happily ever after, and this is not. The [00:12:00] vision that happened was not the vision that is in the, is what you envisioned. So it's amazing how grief takes that form and a lot of people don't understand that. Yeah. And they don't also understand it's a matter of grieving is just that I like to say this.

To people, and my husband's helped me understand it. More and more grief is just evidence. Whether it's from the loss of a human to death or the loss of a marriage, or maybe the loss of a job you've always wanted or you've had, and now it's no longer there the loss of your health. It's, it is a great love.

A great passion you had for someone or something. Yeah. And grief is evidence of just exactly how big those dreams were, right? Yeah. It's, and and so that's the thing that's hurtful. So as you were talking about going through this I love to [00:13:00] hear what God does in the moments of those really tough places.

I love to hear how God can come in and help us get through those moments. Can you tell us about some of that? How did God work during these moments for you? Yeah. I don't even know where to start. One of the most I think tangible things is, divorce is expensive, right? Right. Yes. And and so, when we.

Decided to divorce. I had just started my private practice and I was, I had been, so I'll just say that I had just started my private practice and so, I ended up moving in with. With my folks, and it was just what I needed because there was tenderness and there was mercy and there was love, and there was covering.

And it was just a safe space, a safe space for me to heal, begin [00:14:00] that healing. And then it was also a space where my son saw love, and, i'm not saying that he didn't see love, or did not see love outside of that context, but it was a place where I could, really just pour into him with lots of love.

He also was showered, from my folks. And then there was the financial component, right? Where, I was constantly having to literally. Reach from places I didn't want to like my parents. I would also get bills from attorneys and things like that. Right, right.

I'm like, Lord, I don't know how that's gonna happen. And God would just provide in these really strange ways. I remember I needed to pay. I don't know if this is getting too real or not, but I just remember No, go ahead. Go ahead. Contain like my retainer. Right. With my attorney, I had to pay a couple of thousands of dollars.

Wow. And this is after I'd already spent thousands of dollars and I'm like, Lord, I just literally, I just said, I [00:15:00] just surrender. You've gotta do it. I was so frustrated. I was like, you just have to do that. So I went to bed and I got up the next morning and and I literally looked at my account. Ready to be disgusted and I had.

What I needed. Aw. And I'm like, there is just no way, there's just no there. This is just you, Lord. This is just you being kind to me. And so, just the family's love, the covering, the Lord providing for me financially as I was building my practice and then watching that, grow God is just in those little things, God.

And then also there are things that the Lord. He was saying, Natasha, you need to surrender in this way too, through friends who had been through, well, a friend I should say, that had been through divorce. And I didn't wanna hear none of that. But later on, maybe it later on I learned that the Lord was trying to prepare me for an event that was gonna take place that I needed to learn that surrender.

And so it took a whole year [00:16:00] to, trust him with, parenting. Type things. Yeah. And so I wanna be very sensitive and of course mindful of others. So, yeah, of course. No, that's, that, that's amazing. And I love it that, because God has taught me a lot in this season is he wants to bring, we all can say, I'm gonna do this to try to do this, or I'm gonna do this to try to pay this bill.

But when God shows up. Yeah. And a very way we can't, we're not doing anything. That's why I love, that we can't ascribe that. We can only ascribe that to God working it out. We cannot ascribe that to just getting another job, selling something on eBay. Yeah. Even though those things, are definitely blessings as well, but when you can talk about those miracles that happened right, in a very bad place, in a very tight time, [00:17:00] it's like the.

God takes care of the sparrows. He takes care of the little, he takes care of the little as well as the big. Yeah. I think we also look at things like that. We're talking, there's such a stigma on divorce and when marriages don't work. And like I said, it's a good way for the enemy to make us feel shame and, the crazy part is we are sitting here talking about God's goodness to show up to give you money at a time when you needed it, just to secure a, an attorney to help you get this divorce. I think, or talking about how faithful God is in a nitty gritty moment, that not everybody wants to just say out loud.

Right? Right. But it was a way of him being faithful and. Showing you that he will provide for you and he will take care of you through this, through what you feel you must do at this time. I think it also shows us [00:18:00] that, you know what, a lot of that stuff that we carry on us, those things that other people or we believe other people think or feel towards us, God is not those people.

Yeah. He loves us. You have to believe that he is gonna take care of you through every moment, even to the point of where, you feel like you have to apologize and say, well, not that he didn't see love in other ways, but. There, there's no need for apology there. He and you were placed in an atmosphere just exactly what you needed to help bind up your wounded heart and to help heal you so that you could walk through.

So for that I'm grateful and I think it's amazing that he showed up and you can recall those things. And I'm sure as you continue to go through this, you'll have even more things you recall. Yeah. You know that he's done. That he's done for [00:19:00] you. So can you tell me about this book and how did you even begin to think.

Okay. Maybe I need to put my heart out here a little bit and do something with what I've gotten. Yeah. Yeah, so literally this actually started with me like diving into another devotion as a prayer journal written for parents who wanna cover their kids, right? So, I got into it that way and then, I thought about, how can I memorialize, what God is doing in my life?

And then I just started writing out prayers, just my own prayers. Wow. Every day I just started. Writing them down. And and then I was downstairs. I live in an apartment building and I was downstairs there, a lot of older, more wiser people in this building than me. And I was sitting in a community area sitting at this table and two of the ladies were sitting there and we're just chatting it up.

I had my laptop out [00:20:00] and one of the women started sharing about her book and she said, look it up on Amazon. And so I did. And and then it was great conversation. And then one of the women said how read what are you writing about? And I said, well, these are just prayers that I'm, have been talking to Jesus about, things that are on my heart.

And she said will you read one out loud? And I said. I am a little shy, but she said, no, I'll be fine. And so I said, okay I'll read one. And so I read it out loud and she said, Natasha, you should publish that. You should publish that. Wow. And and I just received lots of encouragement around the table.

And so, and then so I just persisted, and I prayed and then the Lord is so funny because he started bringing me clients. Who are going through divorce. Oh, wow. And wow. And I pray for opportunities to share Jesus in my practice. It's not a Christian group practice, but I'm a Christian and I'm like, Lord, set [00:21:00] me up.

Help me to be a good helper. And so the Lord just placed it on my heart. And I had a great therapist who is also like Natasha, go. And so, I just persisted with my writing and then and then I got on Amazon. And I saw how easy the process was and I just did it. And so I wasn't expecting, I don't have what, so the thing that the Lord's placed on my heart is, the thing that lasts is his word and his people, right?

And so. I'm just like, Lord if there's a big way, a small way that you wanna use this, I just wanna join you in your work. And so I've been able to give this tool, this resource to encourage, other people in my practice. And, I've sold a few books and that's really fun. Come on.

That's fun. Yeah, it is fun fun. It's, we like it too. Sign their book and it's like. Yeah. Who am I? I was like, okay, I'll sign it. Yeah. Well, and I kept [00:22:00] this just on, I didn't even tell the women that encouraged me that I'd actually written it until it was published and I received like my first package of, books in the mail.

I didn't tell my mom. I didn't tell anybody I was gonna do it, and so, wow. So I keep hearing, why didn't you say anything? I didn't know you were doing this. And I'm like, listen, this, I was just on a journey with Jesus. So, but now it's just really, it's actually been a healing agent for me, just to 'cause it divorce and going through co-parenting, it can be a very, isolating, thing. And so this is, it's been a good outlet for me to be able to share these prayers to encourage, others. So, and it's 90 days? 90 days? It's 30 days. 30 days. Oh, sorry. 90 days. That's the next. But that's the second edition. I was like, that's a lot of prayers. I dunno if I can write that down and put it in a book, but that is so awesome.

Now tell us tell us about where we, where people who are watching [00:23:00] can get this book. Is it on Amazon in the full title of that? So, yeah, amazon.com anchored by Grace prayers for keeping an undivided heart after divorce, and then also on Barnes and Noble. And no digs to Barnes and Noble, but.

They charge you like 15 bucks and it's not worth it. Yeah, it's it. I think it's worth it. It's worth it, but it's worth it. It's worth it, but yes, it's worth it. But if you got Amazon Prime, you know it's free shipping and Yeah. Yeah, I know. So it's exciting to say I have a book on Barnes and Noble, but then there's like.

But they're shipping. So go with Amazon. Go with Amazon. No digs. I appreciate Barn. It's exciting to see it on the website. Yeah. Yeah. Mike in Walmart. I have one I just published and it's in Walmart and it was like, should I go and asked to do a signing in the produce aisle. Oh, fun. Yeah. Springfield, Walmart.

Here we come. Here we come. I'm walking [00:24:00] up in the world of southwest Missouri. If I can get this book signing in Walmart's right? That's right. Now Natasha, we just really would love for you to, before we end our podcast today, just to close us out in prayer. 'cause I know that a lot of women who have walked through this.

Yeah. That you're connecting them with them on a very deep level would you care to offer a word of prayer for them today? For sure. So, God, we just thank you for who you are. We thank you that you're an attuned father and you care about the matters of our heart, Lord, and I just thank you that. Your word says that you work all things together for our good and for glory, Lord.

And so we're just relying on you resting in that promise. And Lord, I just pray that you would surround your people with love and support and resources so that they will continue to thrive and heal and recover from, their unique situation. And God, I just thank you for grace to have faith.[00:25:00] 

That you'll do all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. So, if you were to give, and we'll just I hate to make you do it shortly, but if you were to give someone just some well-grounded advice that is walking through this, what would it be? Find community. Don't allow the enemy to lie to you and tell you that you need to isolate and not share your story.

When you share your story you unveil those wounded places and then you figure out a way to heal. Yes. And find some resources. Don't be afraid to tap into resources. There's no shame in it. And yeah. That's one way God can provide for you, right? Yeah. And it's not, it's no, there's no shame.

No. When you walk into a building and you're, especially a church, there's no shame to say, I'm having a bad day today. I'm just having a bad day. Shouldn't we? Shouldn't be. No. Yeah. The show us that pretty book again. Hold it UPS and see what it looks like. Looks like, oh my goodness.

It's pretty. Yes, [00:26:00] it's beautiful. Natasha, I'm so thankful you spent this time with us and I know it was a little tumultuous trying to figure out time when we could prerecord and do this, but thank you so much for being willing to share your heart. I know this is still a very fresh walk that you were Yes.

On, and I know that Jesus is with you, but I know it's still tender. It's difficult. Yes. And I thank you for your willingness to share with us. Yeah. Thank you so much Natasha. Thank you. And thank you for holding space. Of course. Well, we wanna make sure that you guys watch the replays, maybe send it to your friends.

We are gonna put this up on our YouTube channel. You can find us at coffee chat. Ladies, you can please subscribe. We're gonna put this podcast up and it'll be on any podcast platform app poll. We're so excited that we have all these episodes to share. We have over, Woohoo. 52 episodes of Coffee Chat that you can download [00:27:00] today, whoever would've, and listen to 51 hours, 52 hours of us or more.

Or more. Nice. There was some rattling on occasion. Well, thank you guys and it was good to see everyone. Yes, and we will see you soon. Take care.