What’s So Funny about Faith?

🎙️ Episode Show Notes

Title: What’s so Funny About Faith? 

In this deeply honest and vulnerable episode, Kerri and Suze jump from lighthearted life updates into a powerful conversation about faith, trauma, deconstruction, and the tension between personal pain and public expression.

From airport flirtations sparked by a bold “Jesus is better” hat to a sobering discussion about a fellow comedian’s journey away from Christianity, this episode explores how life experiences—especially trauma—can shape belief systems.

They wrestle with big questions:

• What happens when someone walks away from faith?
• Is it rebellion, pain, or something deeper?
• How should Christians respond—with anger, heartbreak, or compassion?

Suze shares a deeply personal story about how harmful church leadership impacted her trust in Christianity, while Kerri reflects on her own perspective shaped by a positive faith upbringing. Together, they model what it looks like to hold truth, emotion, and empathy at the same time.

The episode ultimately lands on hope: that faith journeys are rarely linear, God plays the long game, and no one is beyond redemption.

Key Takeaways;

• Pain often shapes belief more than logic
• Trauma + bad theology can deeply distort faith
• You can feel heartbreak, anger, and compassion at once
• Jesus and people are not the same—don’t confuse them
• God’s timeline is longer than our judgment
• The most Christ-like response is prayer, not condemnation
• And as always- be kind. 

TIMESTAMP

00:00 Intro & life updates

00:58 Beauty mishaps & Nair story 😂

02:42 “Jesus is better” hat & airport moments

04:36 Comedian’s faith journey begins

06:24 Fame, distance & public deconstruction

09:00 The Prodigal Daughter reaction

10:28 Faith vs Hollywood pressure

12:00 Church trauma & personal story

16:30 Why people walk away from faith

20:02 How upbringing shapes belief

24:48 When faith becomes unsafe

26:19 Jesus vs people

30:16 Success, comparison & compromise

34:13 Comedy, pain & storytelling

35:37 God plays the long game

36:44 Meaning of “Prodigal Daughter”

37:05 Final thoughts on grace

38:06 “We Don’t Hate It” segment 😂

40:00 Outro

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And we're coming to you live from California. Yeah. Where are you, Suze?

SPEAKER_03 0:13

I'm in my favorite city other than New York City, LA.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yes, and you are in my favorite city other than New York, LA. And I'm in Northern California because I um was stupid and wanted to live a hallmark lifestyle. And now I live with chickens and turkeys and peacocks in my yard. But I'll be back. I'll be back. Um, how was your week, Suze?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Well, uh, we had a gymnastics tournament out of town, so we were out of town, and then we also had the stomach flu in pink eye.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

During the gymnastics tournament.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

During the gymnastics tournament.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

My daughter had one. And then we'll be in Arizona next week for another gymnastics tournament. But I don't know. Can you see the pink eye? Um it's not as bad today.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

We're both uh scarred up today, and I full disclosure will share everything. I got always when I get stuff done, I want to tell the people. Uh, I got a peel yesterday, like uh it's called a V peel. And I felt like I paid a lot of money for this girl to take paper towels and and put it with acid on my face. Like I sort of felt like I could have done this at home with some like fingernail polish remover, but apparently it makes your skin smooth like a baby. Um so I will be researching at home acid peels. It burns, but I think I look really smooth. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

At some point, remind me to tell you of the time I had to do like headshots back in the day, and uh I narrowed my face. You narrowed your face, my entire face. I used Nair on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Okay, for the Gen Z that don't know what Nair is, tell me.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Nair was something that you had in the 90s. Well, how old am I? No, okay. Whatever. And it would take off your mustache. That's why girls used it. But um, I was like, ooh, I'll just use it all over my face, but I left it on too long. And the next morning they had to do headshots. So when you look at those headshots, it is I my face does look smooth, but it also looks burnt. Burnt. Is that a word? Yeah. Burnt, it um, yeah, it's horrified. It was, it was really I love it.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

We need to have put the headshots in the show notes. We gotta find them.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

I don't even know where they are, but I literally burned off like 10 years of my face. But I was only in my early, no, I was in my 20s. Like, what was I trying to burn off?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

I miss I miss headshots without filters. Uh yeah. Like we literally shot on film, people. But uh, my hat, I bought this hat in Louisiana. It says Jesus is better, which when I first bought it, I was like, that's an arrogant statement. But let me tell you, I'm gonna make a prediction, Susie. Uh-huh. I'm going to meet my future husband in an airport because of this hat, because I get stopped by the hottest guys. I'm not even kidding. This gorgeous man in the airport in Sacramento. I have my leopard coat on. I was like sporting it. And he's like, girl, all you, can I take a picture with you? Yeah, gorgeous African-American man. I'm like, uh-huh. So Jesus is better is definitely a conversation starter because good looking men will come up, and I feel like it's the secret handshake of I'm on Team JC, because it's sort of a I'm I'm out there, and then some men will come up to me and go, Jesus is better, better than what? And I was like, Let's have coffee and talk about it. Right. Uh so I've been pilots, good-looking pilots, uh-huh, good-looking men in first class.

unknown 3:50

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Good-looking men are like, yeah, um, gorgeous man who works for Ralph Lauren. He followed me into the lounge. We have this gorgeous talk, he's beautifully dressed. He lives in Miami. I found out later he lives in Miami with his roommate. So I don't know that he was gorgeous working for Ralph Lauren in clothing, batting for my team. If you want to like yeah, but he was his name is Pablo, and I was so excited. And then I was like, two plus two equals four. Pablo works for Ralph Lauren men's clothing, lives in Miami with his roommate, never married, early 40s. Probably not. Uh, so we'll see. But um, so that's my that's my hat story too.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

I like it. It's it's your travel hat.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

It is my travel hat. It's a it's a bold statement. Um, so we I want to talk about our week and like important topics. So here's a scoop. Uh, I'm not going to name this person that I'm going to talk about because then people will say I'm getting it for clicks, but I'm going to give you the background about what happened to me this week. I have a great girl. She's a comedian. She's a well-known comedian. She has several specials. She had hosted a show. And about 10-ish years ago, I would say, she was in the church world doing comedy as I did comedy and stand-up comedy in the church world. She came to a conference that I was at, and we became friends. I wouldn't call her my official mentee, but I think she came to me for advice. She was in college at the time. She opened for me a couple of times, really funny, at churches. And then she was like, I think I'm going to drop out of college to pursue this comedy thing in LA full-time. And I was like, I don't want to make that decision for you, but if that's what you feel that you want to do and you want to gangbusters it full-time, you should do that. Um, at the time she was performing in churches and secular venues. And just to give you the 30-second background, her career took off like wildfire. She went to Montreal, she got with an awesome agent.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

It took off. She stopped doing churches. We stopped being in touch. I didn't really worry too much about it. It just happened, and I was doing my life, and she was doing hers. I ran into her in a club several years later, and it was a really awkward encounter. She really didn't want to engage with me too much. And she's a Gen Z. I think she's an elder Gen Z, maybe younger millennials. So she had that like slouchy posture and looked very depressed.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Stop talking about me right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, I know. She's like, oh, she's like Eeyore. I think Eeyore should sponsor millennials.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

She was my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah. And I was Tigger. So that makes sense. Gen X is Tigger, millennials are Eeyore. So she was like, uh, I got an agent and they're doing a sitcom about me. And I'm like, oh, sad eyes. Sad for you that during a sitcom about you. But it was kind of a weird interchange, weird energy. And they were doing a sitcom about her. And I know that comes with a lot of pressure. And she was, you know, middle 20s. She then went on stage at the ice house and proceeded to not only just denounce her Christianity, kind of mock her Christianity, mock her upbringing. And I had a guttural reaction to that as a Christian. I literally almost was in tears. And then I had to go on stage after her. Was in tears to see somebody suffering. Like it was so obvious to me that her personal life was suffering to the point where she needed to bring it up. It wasn't an act. And she had been raised in a Christian home and she had lost her mother. And this is all facts. I'm not gossiping. My mother said it's not gossip if it's true. Uh, so it was sad. It was like, oh my gosh, who did that to you? Did you do that to yourself? Did the enemy come in and just like wave a carrot and say, here's fame and fortune? And I have worked in Hollywood long enough to know that it is edgy to be not Christian. You know what I mean? Like it's edgy to be dirty and talk about your sexuality. And so I followed her career since then. And she's definitely come out as a former Christian, not just a former Christian, like not for Christianity. And how I haven't heard her say it was damaging. I would just say that it's not a part of her life anymore. This week, her latest special came out, and I'll tell you the name of it. It's called The Prodigal Daughter. And it's filmed in a church. And I watched the promo, and you it's a free country. I support comedy. I support whatever you want to do. But not only was she saying, I'm not Christian anymore, and you know, my sexuality is different, and I want to talk all about that, she was using the name Jesus Christ and making fun of Jesus Christ. And that's the reaction that I had of now you've taken it from me like too far. Like that hurt me. That hurt me that you went all the way from A all the way to Z. And I'm struggling with what her journey must have been. Um and it it did it did cause a reaction for me. And several of my other friends that knew her uh were talking about it. And the cool thing I think about us being Christians is nobody was putting her down and nobody was disparaging her, and we were all literally the same reaction. Every there's four of us, every one of us was like, we gotta pray for this girl. But I want to pray for her because it just made me sad. And I don't I don't know if you have thoughts on that, but I I had you watch the trailer and what your reaction was.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

You know, I so you know, I have a lot of issues with bad theology and a lot of issues with um theology in our country and how biblically illiterate many people are that read the Bible every day. And I will say, like many things how do I say gently? So, like of course it's upsetting because you know her and you love her, right? I'm a big believer that God doesn't God deals with the motivations of our hearts, right? So, so he understands pain and trauma, and it's not like it stops him from leaning into people. And I know people both can be like, well, what about Pharaoh? But we could, you know, we could go into that.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Obviously, not in this podcast is not the place to go into that. And when you're mocking God, that's what real like it hurt me. Like, even if I didn't know her, it hurt me because she's mocking my God, but I also don't know if she had like we don't know, maybe she had bad theology, maybe she didn't, but we still are responsible for our own actions. And I kind of was like, what happened to her that somebody might have said to her, it's was said to me, Susie, by the way, it was said to me so many times. If you weren't Christian, I will sign you with my agency. If you're not so Christian, I want to represent you. If you're not so openly Christian, uh, I want to go on tour with you. Yeah. And she's an example of the majority, the majority of performers that go, yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Like, I don't think she's yeah, I don't think everyone has to make like um not everyone has to make their faith their like you felt called to be a Christian comedian. That you was what you felt your calling was. Not everyone has to, so this is different from I think who you're talking about, but yeah, not everyone has to make the their faith part of how they make money. I mean, I know that sounds like ironically, ironically, she is because she talks about it a lot. She's yeah, she's I guess she's using it as part of her comedy, her anti-faith or whatever. And it's sort of like if people do not have some kind of damaging theology or damaging experience in church, then they traditionally are just like, oh yeah, Christians, and there's kind of a walk away. I don't think there's always such maybe an aggressive, painful response to it. And I will say it this way. So my biological father, I didn't meet him until I was 16, right? He was a my mom met him in the church. There's a whole, it was a horrible situation, horrific situation. He was a men's leader, whatever. The pastors handle it horribly. I met him when I was 16, hired a private investigator, whatever, because I didn't like my stepdad. Turns out that was discernment. But um, I thought maybe I'm projecting, you know, like this negative feeling I have for my stepdad. Maybe it's a projection of some something. Didn't really think about having a biological father because like no one did. And genuinely, none of the cool kids did, or most of the cool kids didn't. There were the Fagans. Um, so I met him. It was the most damaging thing that's ever happened to my faith in my life. I made a commitment that I would never date Christian men after that. He was a predator, and my mom didn't even have that language until I was 40 years old. So obviously, I should have never met him to begin with. But if I can tell you the nature of meeting someone who he was working on a pastor at a time, he traveled the whole world. I guess that's what my biological uncle told me as a pastor. He was in a lot of different churches, he worked with Benny Henn. He did all these hyper-spiritual, hyper-religious things that had very damaging theology. And I remember one of the second times I talked to him on the phone, he wanted to be my spiritual leader. He ended up ended up stalking me. And he ended up being able to do that because of his own, you know, bananas-ness, but also because the theology in which he was indoctrinated into meant that he not only had spiritual authority over my life, but he had authority over my life. And this is a man that did not raise me. But I want to interject, like you're the only reason what saved my faith is because I loved theology, but I absolutely didn't date Christian men. I found Christian men to be the most damaging, frightening, dangerous people.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

But what you're surmising about this girl is that she had some traumatic experience, and I'm surmising that I sort of knew her background and she never talked about any traumatic experience. I think, in my opinion, it's more like this wasn't important to me. So I'm just gonna throw it away. But you might be right because she's not over it, and ironically, I think the prodigal son is a great title, the prodigal daughter, because in the book of the prodigal, he wrestles with his faith, he wrestles, he wrestles, he wrestles, and he does come back. So I'm like hoping, like you, our listeners don't know, by the way, that you have completely married a Christian man. Oh, yeah, totally, sorry. Yeah, totally uh and I'm hoping that this conversation spurs the fact that we're not like judging her, but that this is a prophetic, like title that she could make a full circle someday. I just it's just a bummer that like when people want to share their faith and they want to be in the spot, like whether you're working at an office or in Hollywood or whatever, there's a spiritual component that will come at you so hard that says, I just I don't want to do it, and now I don't even want to be a part of it. Like when Bob Dillon came to faith, by the way, like he was trumbled. I made that word up, trumbled by Christians. They wanted him on the cover of the Bible. He was brand new, brand, brand new, spake and new saved, and they wanted him to be the new messiah, right? And he was like, I'm so trumbled, word made by Carrie, I don't want any part of this. I don't know if he says, I think he stayed Christian, but he was like, I want out. So my point being is for this particular example of somebody in Hollywood, that they were given a golden ticket and they were probably hurt. I'll give you that. She was probably hurt, and then it was like, okay, whatever faith she had growing up, did it stick? Like it wasn't strong enough. I don't know what about your faith growing up, was so strong that you didn't go away from it.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, I can well, I think that someone could question why, because then I did date non-Christian guys. I think because for me, they're delightful, by the way. So fun. They are, and I have an amazing Krishna husband, he's awesome. Um, I grew up in a home that had a very academic and contextual understanding of the Bible, and so that made it a home where I could ask questions and that that concept of, you know, I could ask questions about faith, I could get, I could, and it it just created like the deconstruction that we see happen a lot now. Like I got to live in that kind of deconstruction growing up. So I could say, I think this is crazy. What is the Bible saying here? Blah blah blah blah blah. But how did this happen?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

How did this happen in your house? Did you have Bible study with your mom? Like, where was it implemented?

SPEAKER_03 17:23

I think just in everyday talking. Like I re and and then obviously we went to church, but I think because of my conception and how badly the church, she went to a pretty very famous church, and how that how badly the church handled it, it like took off the mask that there would be any kind of perfection in Christians.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Okay, so just to give our listeners a little background, your mother was a cost.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

I mean, it wasn't so I would say, um, you know, we have fight, fright, or fleet, fight, yeah, fight, fight, flight, yeah, whatever. So she didn't have the language for what happened to her.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Um, she had she had the support of my family, and like we went to a little Baptist church that my grandparents had founded in Buena Park.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

And so that church, I will say, was like 80 sets of grandparents, which is why the church is no longer there because they all, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

But so she did she model the Bible in your everyday life? Like, was the Bible open in your living room? Like, I just want to know because I'm a mom and I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Um I think there was a lot of open dialogue about it. Like, just in my life.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Like, did you read the Bible when you were 10 years old?

unknown 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

I mean, we always read Bible stories at night, you know, like the precious moments Bible thing. I don't remember seeing my mom study the Bible too much. It was just like God was always part of the conversation. And we lived with my grandma until I was four. My grandma taught Bible study fellowship for 48 years.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

So I think it was, yeah. Because I'm trying, you know, there's moms listening. I'm a mom. I I try to model it. I also do bring the Bible into conversation. You know, it's part of our everyday life. Um, we do read scripture, we do have a reboard. It's not a lot. Um, there are certain things that I want our listeners to take from this that we we can share that we do. Like one thing uh that I do with my kids in the car is we say the full armor of God, like since they've been young. So um when they die, they will know one Bible chapter for sure. They will know at least one. But there are little things that we do. So have you taken any of the stuff that you were modeled with into your parenting with your kids?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Probably expanded it. So not so much. Um, like my mom wouldn't let me go to awa I wanna Iwana's, which I always think is because I think she didn't because I I think she I I think I wanna Iwana's is fine. I don't have a big issue with it. Iwana's is a Christian, so whatever. Um but I think she was always aware that she wanted to be to a certain extent in charge of my theology. She was aware what happened to her and how why it was allowed to happen. And and why my biologic father had been able to be in positions and how how a bunch of other dudes that should have like been there and held him accountable, but he was kind of a bully, you know. You know, you know when people can be funny to the point of being mean, like that's the thing that is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Like, we're talking about this girl, right? And she has a public situation. My worldview and your worldview shape how we view the situation. It's so interesting, right? Like I had a positive church experience, positive two-parent home, whatever, right? So I just go, it's her choice. I'm not going it's maybe I am. Let me just admit that. Maybe I am. It's like her fault, and maybe I'm a little miffed at her. And maybe if I really dig down deep, I'm angry at her. Like, maybe I am, I'll just say it. But you come from a worldview of compassion, which I can learn from. Maybe we can meet in the middle of like we are responsible for our life choices because you could have just thrown it out the window, you could have been anti Christian and you didn't. You really didn't. So I'm I'm learning from you. Hopefully, you're learning from me, and hopefully our listeners are learning something. But it's like our worldview is shaped by our experiences, but we can't. Let that be the whole of how we look at things.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

This is where bad theology comes in, I think. Because there's a worldview, there's a theology that you know, there's you have a lot of different things of theology, and obviously something incredibly tragic happened to her as a young person. Maybe we don't know. No, we do know.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

We're yes, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Yes. And she also has been open about mental health issues. So if you grow up in a church in a worldview that is, say, super reformed, and they're like, God controls everything that happens. Everything that happens is God's will in this life. That is not theologically true. We know that's not theologically true. But well, I think I I think the other damaging theology that most that a lot of churches grow up in is God either willed it or allowed it. As if it's that simple, as if it's not complex. And I think if you're a child or a team and you lose someone and you watch them suffer, and you are part of a world system that goes, Oh, God willed it or allowed it. Did her mom die?

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Did her mom die of wait, did her mom die of cancer?

SPEAKER_03 23:21

I believe so. Um that makes God, no matter what, the abuser, he either willed it or allows it. We know that in our country, if you allow abuse to happen, right, and you know you're knowing that it's happening, that you can be charged for it, right? So, like the reality is this is where biblical hermeneutics is like so epically important to me. And that's what I had. That's what I had.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

And it's really it's funny in the news, uh, right now, 2026, the high school boy that shot other students is in the in court. His father, who did not uh partake in the shooting, is going to jail for uh manslaughter, I believe, uh, because he gave his son the gun. Like so it is very pertinent that we uh what you just said, like the abuse. Now back to what we're uh originally talking about with this person because I grew up with a a theology that allowed complexity, a theology that really did lean into an academic and contextual understanding of the text, that helped me lean into God, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:48

That helped me know I don't understand it, but I know God's not flippant with pain. And it I mean, it just I I don't even know how to explain how lucky I was, even though then I didn't date Christian guys, because that was the most damaging thing to me. Was theology was so horrific. He took Jesus, who was my safe place, literally, as a little girl, I would have Holy Spirit like experiences. I didn't know what that was, but where I would feel afraid and I would, in my mind's eye, I would ask that Jesus would like be with me and I would imagine him enveloping me in his light. Those were my go-to's that I practiced as a little girl, and I think that's what brought me back. But then meeting a you know, my Balgic father who was like so Jesus-y, right? Um, it took Jesus and my faith and my safe place, and it was like it covered it in soot. It was horrific, it was the most damaging thing that's ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

And how many years did it take you to come back to Jesus as a safe place?

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Well, I think um I don't know. I mean, it's like it's not that Jesus didn't become a safe place, but it's like Christianity wasn't a safe place.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

I think this is so good because I hope that people are listening and they have teenage kids that have gone away, you know, as we both have had our experiences with that, and the shiniest pastors, right? Like the most Bible-y people and their kids just have an experience, whether we want them to or not, and they they take a far left. I hope that what I want our listeners to get from this podcast, and I really feel this for my friend as well, and my hope and desire is that if we have these life experiences, whether it's Hollywood or the enemy or people, right? The enemy using people, that we can like swing back to Jesus. And as we kind of wrap up this uh conversation, Suze, like what would you say to a parent listening right now, or even a person, like maybe there's somebody out there who's 16 or 50, and they've just had that traumatic experience and they turned away and Jesus is no longer a safe place. What would you say to encourage them right now?

SPEAKER_03 27:25

I think I would say Jesus isn't pastors. I think that's another thing. So, like, I was never taught to respect pastors more than anyone else. I was never taught I couldn't disagree with the pastor. I was never even given the assumption that they might know God more than me, right? It's not like know God heart-wise, not intellectually.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

And I mean to take to take what you just said, and Jesus isn't people, yeah. Jesus isn't people, he isn't people, so the good and the bad and the hurtful is not Jesus. No, like when people are using Jesus' name and doing horrific things, Jesus is weeping. Like that's how I see it. And it that's the thing that is if we're Christians and we see bad behavior, we see mocking, like if I don't have a guttural reaction to that, like I'm like, where is my faith? If I'm not wounded by somebody mocking Jesus, or I'm not wounded that their journey is so like, yes, I feel bad for her, yes, I'm angry at her, yes, all those things can be through at the same time. But if we don't have any reaction to that and we're numb, that's where I feel like we got to go back to square one and go, Jesus, are you real in my life? Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah, but also I mean, I would say that. Oh, there's so many, there's so many things I see in popular Christianity that infuriates me. Infuriates me. I know. I think that trust me, we'll get to all that. Yeah, but I think I think that the guttural response has to always also be a gospel-centered response. This is totally right.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

He was angry at times, he was sad with times.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

But he was always angry at the religious people. No, I mean that he was angry at the people.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

He was angry at his disciples when they screwed up and they slept. He was angry totally right, right.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

He was not angry at the woman at the well, he was not angry at the woman caught in adultery. But I don't feel he was not angry at the man dying on the cross next to him.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Fair, but for me to be angry at what's happening with my friend, I still it's I'm a person, I'm not Jesus. Like, I'm not angry, I'm not disparaging her, and I'm not like she sucks. I'm not, I didn't call you this morning.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

You're like, no, no, totally. I just want this is a good question. Why is because why is anger because I don't think anger is your first response, but I think no, it was heartbreak. Like is a heartbreak was my first response. That's the first response.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

That's the first response. I think it's out of pizza, Suze. It's like a little bit of anger, 90% heartbreak, a little bit, could I have done more? I wish I could have been there for her. Um, all the things, right? And all the things, and here's the thing she's in my profession, and people have said to me, this is a little selfish and self-serving, but people have said to me, Oh my gosh, you know, so and so. She's so successful and she's so amazing, and she's so like maybe higher on the food chain than you. And I'm just like, like through the years, I've just heard that. Like, I'm like, mm-hmm, yeah, like that's that's her lane, right? But I don't look at her as higher or lower, or you know, the way Hollywood ranks people in their paychecks and their Netflix specials. But people have said to me, Oh my gosh, like, why don't you have a Netflix special? I'm like, I don't know, I I have specials, but like in the Hollywood, to take this back from the very beginning, we are on a path in Hollywood to a ladder of success, whether we like it or not, we just are. We're just like making a living. And to do certain things in Hollywood, sometimes, a lot of times, we're asked to compromise. We're asked to compromise our values, our feelings, and who we are. And this particular person, just to take it back full circle as we wrap this episode up, which is awesome. Uh what I would like to give our listeners from this is it's okay to feel like me. Like it's okay to feel like you, all the emotions at one time. The question is, what are we gonna do with that? And if I don't pray for her and I just gossip about her all day and I slander her and I'm like, uh, she sucks. Like, God is like, you're no better. Yeah, you're no better. No, but people do it, Suze.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

People do it all the time. I totally do it. I will tell you one more story that I think appeals to this. So there was a situation that happened to someone I love very, very young. It was horror, horrific. Horrific. And another person I love many years later um said, Well, you know, she's just made some really bad choices in her life. The person that said, Well, she's really made really bad choices in her life was someone that had lived a charmed experience, not that she had struggled, but like never had paid her own bills, you know, like genuinely like had just a charmed charmed life experience. The woman she was talking about, who was a very young child when these horrific things happened, had had the opposite experience in experience in finances, and many other things. And this homie was like she made some bad choices. Trauma is trauma, trauma has effect, trauma is like tentacles. You add church trauma to it, you add life trauma to it, like our trauma trauma, and I'm not saying this about this girl, this comedian, but our trauma will find us out, and it gets expressed in different ways. The the financial insecurity I experienced as a young person, Jesus or not, if I had had those kind of like um whatchamacallit, um opportunities, I would have compromised it all day long, loving Jesus or not, because I know being broke and scared and constantly stressed about money as a child, constantly having that on my mind, right? Even though I love Jesus, there was a whole issue, like I knew Jesus cared about my daily bread, but I freaking cared about making sure that like I'm not worried about the next two months.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

And then the thing is, as a child, you had to worry about that for your mom. Where I didn't, right? Like, so I was raised, but this is so good. This is such a great wrap-up. What I want to say that you just enlightened me to comedy comes from pain, comedy comes from trauma. Comedy is not, I'm rich and famous, and that's why famous comedians aren't as funny as they used to be when they get a big mansion. Kevin Hart was funnier when his crackhead uncle came to parent teacher conferences with no pants on. Like, that's funny. Then she like literally, I'm like, I want to hear about your crackhead uncle. So even my comedy comes from pain. Like, I use my cancer journey, I use divorce, I use all the things. So, in in kind of wrapping this up, uh what I want to learn from you today, and hopefully our listeners do, is that this girl had pain, and this girl isn't settled with her pain, and she's using her pain in her art form. And it's not how I would do it, but in in the hope that when you guys hear this, when you see somebody who's lashing out or writing op-eds or you know, whatever they're doing in their daily life, it might be that they are not settled with that pain. And the best thing we can do is try to react the way Christ would, and like take a step back and pray for them, right? Like that's the best thing that we can do.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Yeah, and like God plays the long game, yeah, in so much of their lives, you know.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

I mean, and that was that's seriously the first thing that I thought of. I was like, He's gonna play the long game with her, but I pray, and I literally prayed that she will be on this earth because this earth is precious, like our time is precious, that she will have the time that her mother didn't have to play the long game with God. Do you know what I mean? Because our time is short, Suze. Like, it's short.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah, I think that is I think that's beautiful. We are all working out our pain. You know what I mean? And I think God sees her as like his daughter.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

He sees her as the prodigal daughter. I don't even think she gets it that she named her. I mean, she named her the prodigal daughter, and the prodigal son was loved above and beyond and used as an example to people for generations. That kid was a cornerstone of the Christian faith who went and slept with pigs, like literally, like that kid.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

Yeah, and I think I did note that she says something about the prodigal son, like the older brother, how she like felt for the older brother, which me too. I always thought when I was younger, especially, I was like, Oh my gosh, the older brother, ah, the older brother, you know what I mean? But the whole point was also that there was no partiality.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yeah, that's a whole nother thing. But yeah, I hope I hope that I mean, I really like what you've said to me today has made me think like from a from a rounder perspective. And I hope I've kind of done that for you. And you know, here's the point, listeners, and I'm just gonna say this when Susie and I set out to do this podcast, and we were like, well, let's do this podcast for everybody, Christians, non-Christians, who we have shaped ourselves to be in this life is coming from a perspective of faith and all journeys of faith. So whether you're a faith person listening to this or not, I hope that you can take something from this because we are all a work in progress and God loves you. And I can't, I mean, we just can't hide it. Like this podcast, the best thing I want to say as we close this up is that God loves you, God loves you, God loves you. Now, Susie, we're gonna end our podcast with our favorite section.

unknown 38:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

We don't hate it. What don't we hate today? What do you have?

SPEAKER_03 38:10

So um, from theology to Everline Cosmetics, cosmetic life assumption.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

What do you have?

SPEAKER_03 38:19

So this um this is so like there's like there's my son. Yeah, um, so this is extreme 4D. It's supposed to be a lotion that I put on my body.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Wait, wait, give the brand, give them a shout-out.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Um Everlean, Everline Cosmetics, and where do you get it? Target, uh Amazon. Although I feel like I need to take up, not let go of prime. Um, but slim extra 4D professional. It's supposed to um slim, intensely slimming, and I'm supposed to just put up my body, and my thighs are supposed to shrink. Wait, my thighs are supposed to shrink three cm. I don't know what CM means.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Wait, wait, wait. What is it shrinking?

SPEAKER_03 39:05

Um, my body. It's reducing, it reduces my thigh circumference.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Shut up. Okay, wait. I just want to know that this is 2026. I'm not gonna say the date, but somewhere in 2026, I want an after. Okay. I like how long have you been slimming your body? I want before and after testimonial. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Well, this is why this is why I didn't think pink eye was pink eye. It's because it burned. And I thought I had gotten some in my eye. And so you're trying to slim your face. Well, no, I just, you know, oh, okay. I was, you know, and then I tried to wash it up as best I could. And um, and and I thought that's why my eye was burning because the kids had pink eye like a few days before. And so, but it wasn't, it wasn't this, it wasn't that.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Everly slimming cream is going to slim Susie, even though I don't think there's anywhere on your body that can get more slim. Uh, I love you so much, and I love your cheekbones. Uh I just want to wear my jeans. I don't want to Okay, we're gonna we're gonna give it a shot, and you're gonna report back to us on the slimming cream from Everly Cosmetics. And by the way, we want to hear from you. Uh, please go and leave comments on our YouTube, on our Spotify, our podcast, our Amazon, our Instagram, our Facebook, all the things. And we're so glad that you tuned in. And God bless you.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

God bless you. See you later.