October 30, 2025 • 17 mins
In this powerful re-air of My Legacy, Sarah Jakes Roberts returns with her mother, Serita Jakes, to share a raw and redemptive conversation about healing, identity, and the beauty of life’s “messy middle.”
Together, they explore:
- How Sarah turned early setbacks into a source of strength
- The truth about “functioning depression” and survival mode
- Why presence, not perfection, defines great parenting
- How to find beauty and peace in the messy middle
Don’t miss this intimate mother-daughter exchange about love, legacy, and the courage to tell the truth.
New episodes every Tuesday, with bonus drops every Thursday.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is my legacy.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Today we revisit our unforgettable conversation with Sarah Jakes Roberts,
a woman who has inspired millions by telling the truth
about her struggles and her triumphs. From teen mom to
best selling author and global leader, Sarah reveals how to
transform setbacks into strength.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Let's dive in, Sarah. We're truly honored to have you
here today, and would you mind introducing to us your
plus one, the person who knows you best and who
has been with you on your life journey.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It is my honor and privilege to have my mother,
Serrita Jakes, joining us today. I could stop it just
saying how much she means to me as my mother.
But she is an incredible woman. First, she is courageous
and brilliant and vulnerable and strong. She's the glue of
our family and certainly throughout some of my most difficult seasons,
(00:56):
I would say that she was the oil that got
me unto stuck when I was in some spots that
I never thought I would get out of. So I'm
just so honored that I get to share her with
the world.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know a little something maybe about being a preacher's kid,
but there obviously are additional dynamics when your parents are
larger than life. And so missus Jakes, how did you
help Sarah maybe become and navigate through those potential challenges
(01:34):
that would come.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Well, you know, when I think of a legacy, I
was thinking today, you're looking forward, but you're also looking backwards.
So when we got to this huge city, I did
not realize that I was going to have to move
to the forefront and that my children would be left
alone without me hedging them on either side. And my
mother died shortly after we got here. So in hindsight,
(02:01):
I would have done what she does. She'd make certain
that her children or wherever she is. I wish I
had done that more. And so seeing her overcome the
lack of my presence to try to do it differently
than I would have even thought to do is amazing
(02:22):
to me.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I will say, though, even though you guys had a
lot of responsibilities and a lot of things going on,
I think one of the things that my mother did
is that when she was present, she was completely present.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
You would let us sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
In the bed with you. We would always be doing
dinner like you'd have us running around doing errands with you,
like I never felt like a burden.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
Too you now and Sarah becoming a mom at fourteen,
I'm sure that was a lot of judgment, a lot
of pressure, expectations, especially when you look at it within
the faith community, right, So what do you remember around
that in that moment and how do you feel it
shaped you and your legacy moving forward.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Fourteen is such a young age to become a mother
that I think to properly contextualize it, you have to
understand that I was not afraid of being pregnant or
having a baby. I thought I was going to get
in trouble. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to
get grounded or my parents are going to be so upset.
It wasn't until I saw their response that I began
(03:27):
to realize that this is much bigger than like you
got in trouble, Like your life has completely changed. But
to my mom's credit, one of the things she told me,
she's like, I didn't get rid of my babies. I
didn't give them away. Whatever you decide to do, I'm
going to stick with you every step of the way.
And she did that, and a man, there were so
many moments where I've won. I felt like the pregnancy
(03:49):
just solidified this idea that I don't belong in that family.
So if you go back to that image of me
as a little girl being confused and amazed, I think
in that moment, it was solidified, like, oh, my goodness,
you don't belong here, and so it became so easy
for me to kind of move into the background. But
I think in moving into the background that it also
gave me an opportunity to discover my identity outside of
(04:12):
my family name. It's like I'm already the black Sheep,
I'm already disconnected. Now I get to just kind of
figure out who I am and what I want to
do with my life. And though my life had certainly
had some twists and turns, even since having the pregnancy,
I found a real sense of being okay with myself
without the validation of other people, because I'd lost it
in many ways. And the moment that I began to
(04:33):
really say, you know what, this is my story. I'm
want to love it. I'm going to embrace it, and
I'm going to wake up each day and really do
the best that I can, I began to see my
life change for myself, and then the overflow of that
kind of changed into this touch point for other women
who could relate to experiences like my own.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And so you didn't know at the time that you
were practically battling with depression. Just you felt something was broken,
and you've now been so open about others helped others
to create safe spaces. You know, our family, my wife's
a psychologists. Our families battle those same issues. So when
you look back and you reflect back in your own journey,
what have you learned about mental health and what do
(05:13):
you share with others?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I think that I learned really a lot about functioning
depression and trying to achieve to cure depression. I just
there are so many pockets of my life that I
feel like I don't remember because I was in such
a fog of depression that they are just memories that
(05:35):
I can easily pull from. But what I have learned
is whether we acknowledge where we are, especially when we're
having harder emotions, whether we acknowledge it or not, it
doesn't mean that it's not showing up in our actions
in our life in some way. And I think giving
myself permission to feel because I think when I first
(05:57):
got pregnant and I realized by everyone else's respect that
this is something bad has happened, this is something that's wrong,
I think I immediately shut down and just went into
survival mode. And oftentimes when we're in survival mode, even
in a physical experience, if we're having a car accident
or something traumatic has happened to our bodies physically, sometimes
(06:17):
we don't feel the pain because there's so much adrenaline
you're in the moment that you can't tell that you're bleeding.
And I feel like mental health is very similar to that.
The shock of the trauma that we have experience can
be so jarring that we don't even take the time
to assess how we're showing up in the world and
how that could be depression, it could be anxiety, And
a lot of times it ends up showing in the
(06:37):
choices we make to a neeseize those pains. And so
I think that I have learned to really take a
moment and ask myself, how did you feel after that happened.
Whether it feels like it was an immature response or
a mature response, I think it's important to really assess
I had a reaction to what just occurred. And it
has allowed me to not just recognize the moments where
(06:59):
I'm having a heart emotion, like depression, like anxiety, but
also to allow myself to experience joy. Because there are
so many things that happen that our answers to prayers,
that our dreams that we thought would never achieve, and
we're so busy moving on to the next thing that
we don't take a moment to really recognize, like I'm
(07:20):
already standing in a dream that I thought would never
be and so I am prayer for that part of
what I get to pass down and maybe pass up,
because I think the beauty of legacy is not just
what we pass down, but we get to throw some
things up. Is this opportunity to allow yourself to take
up space in your own world, to not just run
(07:41):
your world and to function function in your world, but
to take up space to allow yourself to be one
of the main the main character in your story, and
to give yourself permission to do that has been really
helpful for me as I navigate what mental health looks like.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Well, let's talk about some thing that you wrote on Instagram,
because in your getting better and getting better and getting better.
At one point you thought that you didn't you did
not ever want to get remarried.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Then someone changed your mind. Oh yeah, and this is
what you wrote on Instagram. The vulnerability required to become
one after you fought to become whole is not often discussed.
I had to surrender my identity as a powerful single
mother to discover my power as a married woman.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, nasty work, you know. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
You know. I got to a space where I was healthy,
I'd bought a home for me and my children, and
I thought, this is the dream. Like I thought that
getting married and having the white picket fence was the dream.
I saw that white picket finch just keep falling off
(08:57):
over and over again, and I said, you know what, fine,
I love me and my mindself. I'll travel the world.
I'm still young. Everything will be fine. Then I met
this man, and in meeting him, I just I love
the way the world looked through his eyes. It was
a compliment to the way the world looked through my eyes.
(09:19):
But it also had so much more vibrancy and color,
and there was so much more care and depth for
people and opportunities and I thought to myself, I think
that he would make me better. You know, as we
talk about this better better. But I will say that
I underestimated the transformation necessary for me to let go
(09:41):
of the pride of being like, oh my gosh, I
made it. I'm this, you know, single mother who bought
this house. And I can make good decisions and I
can take care of my family. I can I can
bring home the bacon and fried in a pan. And
now I have someone who's like, hey, I could grab
the pan, or hey, I could bring home the bacon.
And I think I did have this sense of pride
and identity connected to that. I never wanted to need
(10:03):
a man again. I never wanted to feel like my
life would fall apart if something happened. And I think
in the resistance of oneness that I could have lost
out on the opportunity to experience the beauty of oneness.
And so that took a lot of work. He's got
some battle scars, God bless him. But my life woman
(10:26):
evolved when exists if it wasn't for him, because his
ability to create space for me to dream and to
believe in those dreams and to say they're not crazy.
They're possible. Gave me the courage to actually pursue them.
So he's definitely been a north star for me for
many years now.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Next, Sarah talks about the messy middle, living in it
and loving yourself through it, like follow and share with
someone you love, to let them know you've got them,
no matter where they are in their journey. Now back
to my legacy.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And Sarah, when I think of your ministry, or I
think of Women Evolved, it has been built on this
radical transparency, Like you have redefined what it means to
be a woman of faith based on radical transparency, your past,
your marriage, You're sharing your stories. Why with Women Evolve
has it and your entire ministry, why has vulnerability been
so important? Why has it been so important for you
(11:29):
to be this radically transparent with all those who look
to you?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You know, I don't know that I saw it as
radical when it started. Like I said, I kind of
thought that if I told people, they would be like, oh,
my goodness, will leave her alone and it won't be
a thing. But the more that I realized how many
of us are suffering in silence, the more I felt
like if I can tell my story and it helps
someone else, then I'll tell it one more time, and
if it helps someone else, I'll tell it another time.
(11:56):
And I think what I have learned is that through isolation,
the darker voices, the harder voices, the meaner voices that
we hear in our head, they're louder and until you
hear someone say like, hey, I felt that too, But
I'm telling you it wasn't always like that, or that
I found a flicker, that it gives someone permission to
start looking for light even in their dark seasons. And
(12:19):
I didn't want to. I didn't want to be in ministry.
I didn't have this as like a goal in my heart.
And so I'm like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm
gonna at least be honest. I don't want anyone to
ever be surprised that because I preached a message that
I experienced depression, that I worked at a strip club,
Like I want you to know, like this is what
you're getting. It is not much, but I am gonna
(12:41):
give my best. I'm gonna share my best, and if
I make you feel less alone, then girl, we could
grab arms and move towards better together. But I just didn't.
I just didn't want to. I didn't want to live
on a pedestal. I wanted to be able to. Sometimes
on my social media, I'll be like all glammed up,
dressed up. Other moments, I'll literally be snatching my whip
golf and washing my face like this is like this
(13:02):
is all of who I am, and I just don't
want people to be connected to this caricature. I don't
want to be trapped in my own life, and so
for me, my honesty has been my freedom. My honesty
has been the runway that allows me to not feel
stuck in this life. And I think because of that,
(13:22):
my prayer is that I'll continue to have endurance for
what is ahead because I don't have to figure out
how do I keep this mask up? How do I
keep this facade going? My greatest question is how do
I continue to be honest in a way that reaches
the most unlikely person. I think that people should know
that it's all the messy middle. You know what I mean.
(13:44):
That's that it's all the messy middle, that there is
no there, there, there is no Once I do this,
then that once you get there, you realize that there's
another mountain, that it keeps going that there's something else
that you have to overcome. So instead of trying to
get post anything, I think the question is how do
(14:06):
I find the better in now? And I think that
that has been one of the things that has really
been instrumental for me, is recognizing that there's beauty in
the messy middle. And if I keep moving the goal post,
then I'll never find peace. But if I dare to
believe that there's peace somewhere here, then all I have
(14:26):
to do is start searching for where it exists. Now
I just have gone through enough to I mean, especially
if you think about my life like as a team mother,
I thought, when I get married, then I'll be okay.
And then I got married and I'm like, well, if
he would do this, then I'll be okay. And if
we do that, then I'll be okay. And then I
left it and I'm like, if I could get the house,
then I'll be okay. Then I got the house and
I met this incredible man, and it's like, okay. Once
(14:47):
I moved to La then like it just kept moving.
And so it dawned on me this is all a
part of the journey. It's all the messy middle. But
I do believe that our lives can be scripted, incursive,
and I say it can be because a lot of
times we miss out on how things can be woven together.
We miss out on how all things can work together
(15:08):
because we segment our lives, we try to leave some
things behind. I'm gonna pretend like that never happened. I'm
going to become another person, not realizing that the beauty
of our story is the full weight of our story.
And so if we can collect all of our pieces
and look at the President and say, Okay, this is
the wisdom I have, the experiences I have, how do
I apply it to this moment? I have found that
(15:30):
that is the shovel that we used to find the
beauty in the messy middles.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Sarah and missus Jakes, it was a privilege to listen
and to witness the two of you together, Missus Jake's
it sounds like the love that your daughter holds for
you is boundless, Sarah, the admiration your mom holds for you,
and the two of you being so just open about
(15:56):
the journey, how it hasn't always been easy, so vulnerable,
but what we through the healing, the reconciliation, the learnings,
the ministry, the sharing, that messy middle, that caterpillar emerging
into that butterfly that inspires now millions around the world.
And so thank you for sharing your legacy with all
(16:16):
of our listeners and viewers, and thank you for sharing
that legacy with the.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
World, and for allowing us a safe place to just stop,
share our hearts and take off the mask and be real.
It's so important that we don't have to pretend this
is who we are. Thank you, thank you so much,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Thank you, bo thank you, thank you for joining us.
If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us
on at my Legacy Movement on social media and YouTube.
New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus content every Thursday.
At its core, this podcast honors doctor King's vision of
(17:01):
the beloved community and the power of connection. A Legacy
Plus Studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and executive producer
Suzanne Hayward co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is my legacy.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Today we revisit our unforgettable conversation with Sarah Jakes Roberts,
a woman who has inspired millions by telling the truth
about her struggles and her triumphs. From teen mom to
best selling author and global leader, Sarah reveals how to
transform setbacks into strength.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Let's dive in, Sarah. We're truly honored to have you
here today, and would you mind introducing to us your
plus one, the person who knows you best and who
has been with you on your life journey.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It is my honor and privilege to have my mother,
Serrita Jakes, joining us today. I could stop it just
saying how much she means to me as my mother.
But she is an incredible woman. First, she is courageous
and brilliant and vulnerable and strong. She's the glue of
our family and certainly throughout some of my most difficult seasons,
(00:56):
I would say that she was the oil that got
me unto stuck when I was in some spots that
I never thought I would get out of. So I'm
just so honored that I get to share her with
the world.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know a little something maybe about being a preacher's kid,
but there obviously are additional dynamics when your parents are
larger than life. And so missus Jakes, how did you
help Sarah maybe become and navigate through those potential challenges
(01:34):
that would come.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Well, you know, when I think of a legacy, I
was thinking today, you're looking forward, but you're also looking backwards.
So when we got to this huge city, I did
not realize that I was going to have to move
to the forefront and that my children would be left
alone without me hedging them on either side. And my
mother died shortly after we got here. So in hindsight,
(02:01):
I would have done what she does. She'd make certain
that her children or wherever she is. I wish I
had done that more. And so seeing her overcome the
lack of my presence to try to do it differently
than I would have even thought to do is amazing
(02:22):
to me.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I will say, though, even though you guys had a
lot of responsibilities and a lot of things going on,
I think one of the things that my mother did
is that when she was present, she was completely present.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
You would let us sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
In the bed with you. We would always be doing
dinner like you'd have us running around doing errands with you,
like I never felt like a burden.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
Too you now and Sarah becoming a mom at fourteen,
I'm sure that was a lot of judgment, a lot
of pressure, expectations, especially when you look at it within
the faith community, right, So what do you remember around
that in that moment and how do you feel it
shaped you and your legacy moving forward.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Fourteen is such a young age to become a mother
that I think to properly contextualize it, you have to
understand that I was not afraid of being pregnant or
having a baby. I thought I was going to get
in trouble. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to
get grounded or my parents are going to be so upset.
It wasn't until I saw their response that I began
(03:27):
to realize that this is much bigger than like you
got in trouble, Like your life has completely changed. But
to my mom's credit, one of the things she told me,
she's like, I didn't get rid of my babies. I
didn't give them away. Whatever you decide to do, I'm
going to stick with you every step of the way.
And she did that, and a man, there were so
many moments where I've won. I felt like the pregnancy
(03:49):
just solidified this idea that I don't belong in that family.
So if you go back to that image of me
as a little girl being confused and amazed, I think
in that moment, it was solidified, like, oh, my goodness,
you don't belong here, and so it became so easy
for me to kind of move into the background. But
I think in moving into the background that it also
gave me an opportunity to discover my identity outside of
(04:12):
my family name. It's like I'm already the black Sheep,
I'm already disconnected. Now I get to just kind of
figure out who I am and what I want to
do with my life. And though my life had certainly
had some twists and turns, even since having the pregnancy,
I found a real sense of being okay with myself
without the validation of other people, because I'd lost it
in many ways. And the moment that I began to
(04:33):
really say, you know what, this is my story. I'm
want to love it. I'm going to embrace it, and
I'm going to wake up each day and really do
the best that I can, I began to see my
life change for myself, and then the overflow of that
kind of changed into this touch point for other women
who could relate to experiences like my own.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And so you didn't know at the time that you
were practically battling with depression. Just you felt something was broken,
and you've now been so open about others helped others
to create safe spaces. You know, our family, my wife's
a psychologists. Our families battle those same issues. So when
you look back and you reflect back in your own journey,
what have you learned about mental health and what do
(05:13):
you share with others?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I think that I learned really a lot about functioning
depression and trying to achieve to cure depression. I just
there are so many pockets of my life that I
feel like I don't remember because I was in such
a fog of depression that they are just memories that
(05:35):
I can easily pull from. But what I have learned
is whether we acknowledge where we are, especially when we're
having harder emotions, whether we acknowledge it or not, it
doesn't mean that it's not showing up in our actions
in our life in some way. And I think giving
myself permission to feel because I think when I first
(05:57):
got pregnant and I realized by everyone else's respect that
this is something bad has happened, this is something that's wrong,
I think I immediately shut down and just went into
survival mode. And oftentimes when we're in survival mode, even
in a physical experience, if we're having a car accident
or something traumatic has happened to our bodies physically, sometimes
(06:17):
we don't feel the pain because there's so much adrenaline
you're in the moment that you can't tell that you're bleeding.
And I feel like mental health is very similar to that.
The shock of the trauma that we have experience can
be so jarring that we don't even take the time
to assess how we're showing up in the world and
how that could be depression, it could be anxiety, And
a lot of times it ends up showing in the
(06:37):
choices we make to a neeseize those pains. And so
I think that I have learned to really take a
moment and ask myself, how did you feel after that happened.
Whether it feels like it was an immature response or
a mature response, I think it's important to really assess
I had a reaction to what just occurred. And it
has allowed me to not just recognize the moments where
(06:59):
I'm having a heart emotion, like depression, like anxiety, but
also to allow myself to experience joy. Because there are
so many things that happen that our answers to prayers,
that our dreams that we thought would never achieve, and
we're so busy moving on to the next thing that
we don't take a moment to really recognize, like I'm
(07:20):
already standing in a dream that I thought would never
be and so I am prayer for that part of
what I get to pass down and maybe pass up,
because I think the beauty of legacy is not just
what we pass down, but we get to throw some
things up. Is this opportunity to allow yourself to take
up space in your own world, to not just run
(07:41):
your world and to function function in your world, but
to take up space to allow yourself to be one
of the main the main character in your story, and
to give yourself permission to do that has been really
helpful for me as I navigate what mental health looks like.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Well, let's talk about some thing that you wrote on Instagram,
because in your getting better and getting better and getting better.
At one point you thought that you didn't you did
not ever want to get remarried.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Then someone changed your mind. Oh yeah, and this is
what you wrote on Instagram. The vulnerability required to become
one after you fought to become whole is not often discussed.
I had to surrender my identity as a powerful single
mother to discover my power as a married woman.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, nasty work, you know. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
You know. I got to a space where I was healthy,
I'd bought a home for me and my children, and
I thought, this is the dream. Like I thought that
getting married and having the white picket fence was the dream.
I saw that white picket finch just keep falling off
(08:57):
over and over again, and I said, you know what, fine,
I love me and my mindself. I'll travel the world.
I'm still young. Everything will be fine. Then I met
this man, and in meeting him, I just I love
the way the world looked through his eyes. It was
a compliment to the way the world looked through my eyes.
(09:19):
But it also had so much more vibrancy and color,
and there was so much more care and depth for
people and opportunities and I thought to myself, I think
that he would make me better. You know, as we
talk about this better better. But I will say that
I underestimated the transformation necessary for me to let go
(09:41):
of the pride of being like, oh my gosh, I
made it. I'm this, you know, single mother who bought
this house. And I can make good decisions and I
can take care of my family. I can I can
bring home the bacon and fried in a pan. And
now I have someone who's like, hey, I could grab
the pan, or hey, I could bring home the bacon.
And I think I did have this sense of pride
and identity connected to that. I never wanted to need
(10:03):
a man again. I never wanted to feel like my
life would fall apart if something happened. And I think
in the resistance of oneness that I could have lost
out on the opportunity to experience the beauty of oneness.
And so that took a lot of work. He's got
some battle scars, God bless him. But my life woman
(10:26):
evolved when exists if it wasn't for him, because his
ability to create space for me to dream and to
believe in those dreams and to say they're not crazy.
They're possible. Gave me the courage to actually pursue them.
So he's definitely been a north star for me for
many years now.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Next, Sarah talks about the messy middle, living in it
and loving yourself through it, like follow and share with
someone you love, to let them know you've got them,
no matter where they are in their journey. Now back
to my legacy.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And Sarah, when I think of your ministry, or I
think of Women Evolved, it has been built on this
radical transparency, Like you have redefined what it means to
be a woman of faith based on radical transparency, your past,
your marriage, You're sharing your stories. Why with Women Evolve
has it and your entire ministry, why has vulnerability been
so important? Why has it been so important for you
(11:29):
to be this radically transparent with all those who look
to you?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You know, I don't know that I saw it as
radical when it started. Like I said, I kind of
thought that if I told people, they would be like, oh,
my goodness, will leave her alone and it won't be
a thing. But the more that I realized how many
of us are suffering in silence, the more I felt
like if I can tell my story and it helps
someone else, then I'll tell it one more time, and
if it helps someone else, I'll tell it another time.
(11:56):
And I think what I have learned is that through isolation,
the darker voices, the harder voices, the meaner voices that
we hear in our head, they're louder and until you
hear someone say like, hey, I felt that too, But
I'm telling you it wasn't always like that, or that
I found a flicker, that it gives someone permission to
start looking for light even in their dark seasons. And
(12:19):
I didn't want to. I didn't want to be in ministry.
I didn't have this as like a goal in my heart.
And so I'm like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm
gonna at least be honest. I don't want anyone to
ever be surprised that because I preached a message that
I experienced depression, that I worked at a strip club,
Like I want you to know, like this is what
you're getting. It is not much, but I am gonna
(12:41):
give my best. I'm gonna share my best, and if
I make you feel less alone, then girl, we could
grab arms and move towards better together. But I just didn't.
I just didn't want to. I didn't want to live
on a pedestal. I wanted to be able to. Sometimes
on my social media, I'll be like all glammed up,
dressed up. Other moments, I'll literally be snatching my whip
golf and washing my face like this is like this
(13:02):
is all of who I am, and I just don't
want people to be connected to this caricature. I don't
want to be trapped in my own life, and so
for me, my honesty has been my freedom. My honesty
has been the runway that allows me to not feel
stuck in this life. And I think because of that,
(13:22):
my prayer is that I'll continue to have endurance for
what is ahead because I don't have to figure out
how do I keep this mask up? How do I
keep this facade going? My greatest question is how do
I continue to be honest in a way that reaches
the most unlikely person. I think that people should know
that it's all the messy middle. You know what I mean.
(13:44):
That's that it's all the messy middle, that there is
no there, there, there is no Once I do this,
then that once you get there, you realize that there's
another mountain, that it keeps going that there's something else
that you have to overcome. So instead of trying to
get post anything, I think the question is how do
(14:06):
I find the better in now? And I think that
that has been one of the things that has really
been instrumental for me, is recognizing that there's beauty in
the messy middle. And if I keep moving the goal post,
then I'll never find peace. But if I dare to
believe that there's peace somewhere here, then all I have
(14:26):
to do is start searching for where it exists. Now
I just have gone through enough to I mean, especially
if you think about my life like as a team mother,
I thought, when I get married, then I'll be okay.
And then I got married and I'm like, well, if
he would do this, then I'll be okay. And if
we do that, then I'll be okay. And then I
left it and I'm like, if I could get the house,
then I'll be okay. Then I got the house and
I met this incredible man, and it's like, okay. Once
(14:47):
I moved to La then like it just kept moving.
And so it dawned on me this is all a
part of the journey. It's all the messy middle. But
I do believe that our lives can be scripted, incursive,
and I say it can be because a lot of
times we miss out on how things can be woven together.
We miss out on how all things can work together
(15:08):
because we segment our lives, we try to leave some
things behind. I'm gonna pretend like that never happened. I'm
going to become another person, not realizing that the beauty
of our story is the full weight of our story.
And so if we can collect all of our pieces
and look at the President and say, Okay, this is
the wisdom I have, the experiences I have, how do
I apply it to this moment? I have found that
(15:30):
that is the shovel that we used to find the
beauty in the messy middles.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Sarah and missus Jakes, it was a privilege to listen
and to witness the two of you together, Missus Jake's
it sounds like the love that your daughter holds for
you is boundless, Sarah, the admiration your mom holds for you,
and the two of you being so just open about
(15:56):
the journey, how it hasn't always been easy, so vulnerable,
but what we through the healing, the reconciliation, the learnings,
the ministry, the sharing, that messy middle, that caterpillar emerging
into that butterfly that inspires now millions around the world.
And so thank you for sharing your legacy with all
(16:16):
of our listeners and viewers, and thank you for sharing
that legacy with the.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
World, and for allowing us a safe place to just stop,
share our hearts and take off the mask and be real.
It's so important that we don't have to pretend this
is who we are. Thank you, thank you so much,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Thank you, bo thank you, thank you for joining us.
If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us
on at my Legacy Movement on social media and YouTube.
New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus content every Thursday.
At its core, this podcast honors doctor King's vision of
(17:01):
the beloved community and the power of connection. A Legacy
Plus Studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and executive producer
Suzanne Hayward co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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