Join us for an intimate conversation with Brandi Wilson, author, coach, and speaker, as she courageously shares her journey from the highs of leadership to the depths of heartbreak. In her book "Better than Okay," Brandi unveiled the raw reality of her shattered marriage to a megachurch pastor and the sudden loss of her church community and her identity as a "pastor's wife".
Her suffering has become a survival guide for others navigating similar emotional turmoil and heartbreak. From divorce and the shame that accompanies it to the profound wisdom found in solitude, Brandi offers insights into redefining identity, finding gratitude amidst pain, and the transformative power of mindful movement. Whether you're a single mom, a divorced woman, or simply a woman still waiting for God to answer some prayers or open doors, there is a powerful gift for everyone in this raw interview.
GUEST: @lovebrandiwilson
Brandi's Book: Better Than Okay
Brandi's Website, Speaking, & Coaching: https://lovebrandiwilson.com/
HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.com.
What's God Got to Do With It is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast network. It's written and hosted by Leanne Ellington, Executive Produced by Elizabeth Fazio, Post Production and Editing by Houston Tilley, and Original music written by Cheryl Stark & produced by Adam Stark.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
If you want to go on a journey.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
If you're skeptical, don't worry. Not here to preach.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm going to keep the clean and talk to me
and the coach where faith needs, stops nature and get
in touch with your creator with a bacon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Love and jew She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
What's done, what's well said? Talking transformation, what's dope?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Don Well?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Hello, Hello, what's God got to do with it? We
are here with a very special guest today. I'm here
with Brandy Wilson. She just has such a beautiful story
and we're going to hear it in just a moment.
But she is an author, a coach, a speaker, she's
been in leadership for over a day, and she's also
a personal and executive coach. But really, her story, her testimony,
(01:05):
is what seasoned her to be a stand for what
she stands for now and how she pours in to
other people and women.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So, first of all, hello Brandy, and thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hey, Leanne, I so appreciate you having me on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Well, we are just grateful you. I binge your whole book.
I follow you on Instagram. The way you communicate, how
you share Your story is so powerful, and I know
that whatever anybody needs to get today, they are.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Going to get.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So before we get into some specifics, would you mind
just kind of kicking us off, share a thirty thousand
foot overview of your story.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And I know.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
That's a challenge to do because it's so robust, But
how you became the woman that you are today, what
shaped you? Obviously you're a mom as well, you are
are a servant, So just kind of share a thirty
thousand foot overview of your journey that brought you to
who you are today, and then we'll dive into some
of the nitty gritty.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, I am a single mom to three sons. Who
you are twenty three, twenty and eighteen, which just blows
my mind that I have young adult sons and we
live right outside of Nashville. I actually married my college
sweetheart right out of college. I walked the aisle instead
of walking the graduation line. And we started two churches,
(02:17):
the latter being here in Nashville, Tennessee, called Cross Point
Church and served there for fourteen years and loved it.
Loved it. I loved being a pastor's wife. I loved
getting to be part of the staff family, having lunch
with the staff and doing staff meeting every Tuesday. I
led moms groups with other moms whose families were growing.
I just kind of saw myself as the chief cheerleader
(02:39):
for cross Point and loved doing that. Did it for
fourteen years, and then in twenty sixteen, pretty suddenly, my
then husband chose to walk away from the church and
the ministry there, and our marriage and family unit and
life as I know it fell apart overnight. I found
myself restarting everything. I think we would both agree that
when your life publicly apart, it's been falling apart behind
(03:02):
the scenes for a long time. I still never foresaw
the fallout in all areas of my life the way
I experienced it. So, as I said, life as I
knew it ended overnight, and I found myself forty two
and starting all over.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Wow, there's so much shame that comes alongside divorce in general,
and probably exacerbated when you're in a faith based or
religious circle.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
You know, So for you, what was.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
It like to walk through that and to really reframe
it and chart your own path and deal with the
unexpected change. Like you said, overnight, your life completely shifted.
So this was an identity crisis, I'm assuming to say
the least like it was. You had to completely recreate.
So can you just share a little bit about that,
what that experience was walking through that. Like you said,
it was in the public eye.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There was a lot of shame attached to it. As
you said, it was pretty public, so it was headlining local, state,
and national publications. I wouldn't go to Kroger unless I
had a hoodie that I could put over my head
when I was grocery shopping because I was afraid i'd
run into people I know. Oh, and I had more
questions without answers. So it just all felt overwhelming and
there was a ton of shame. I would say. I
(04:08):
experienced every emotion you could experience, and shame was one
of the heaviest that I carried. And part of the
reason I felt so much shame as I came from
a long history of marriages. Both of my sets of
grandparents were married until death. My parents are still married
to this day. I just believed that divorce was not
the answer to the problem. And when you're raised in
a conservative Christian culture, I had been told for years
(04:31):
that God hates divorce, and when you're a person getting divorced,
you kind of equate that to God hates me. So
there was definitely some digging in of you know what,
God does hate divorce. He hates divorce because of the
herd it causes his people. But God loves divorced people,
which is something I had to recognize and live with
that he loves me. He hates what happened to me.
(04:51):
He knows that I didn't choose this. He knows that
I wanted my marriage to continue, and I fought really
hard for my marriage. But you have to have two
people who are fighting for a marriage in order for
it to work. So to get to that realization of
even though I'm divorced, God still loves me and even
though I'm divorced, God can still use me was huge
for me when it came to leaning into my identity.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And in your book, better than Okay, you walk us through.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I mean, it's so clear that you fought for it,
but like you said, two people have to fight for it.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, would you say that was there?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Obviously there was the shame of the air quote, stigma
of divorce and your brain and what you thought it
meant about you and your relationship with God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And I love that distinction, how you're like, No, God.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Hates divorce because of the torment that it puts me through,
and I'm and you know you're his daughter.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
He doesn't want to see you hurting.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
For anyone that's here and has suffered a loss or
a divorce or somebody walked away from them in a
relationship or whatever it was, and their shame is coming
from the shame blanket of there's something wrong with me,
like what didn't I do?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Where was I not enough? Can you just.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Speak to that a little bit, because I think that's
going to be a big theme for a lot of
people that are listening to this in their heartaches.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I remember where I was. Our marriage was in terrible
shape and we were in marriage counsel at this point.
The resignation had not been announced, but I remember exactly
where we were when my ex husband looked at me
and said he was My then husband looked at me
and said, I've never really loved you. And I remember thinking,
if you could spend three years dating me in twenty
years years married to me and you never really loved me,
(06:16):
Am I ever going to find anybody who can love me.
So I think that for me was a lot of
the identity of you know what, this is not about you,
This is about what is going on in someone else.
And you are lovable and God still loves you. And
I just remember praying and being so grateful that God
continued to show up and love me in big ways
(06:39):
and small ways, and lots of times those small ways
mean as much as the big ways that we see
God's love for us. But I had a neighbor who
anonymously about once a week would leave some little gift
on my front porch, and every time, whether it was
like a new candle or a flower or a handwritten note,
the only thing I would say is you are so loved.
(07:01):
And I just stuck those everywhere in my house to
remind me that even though the person who was supposed
to love me the most left, it didn't mean that
I wasn't worthy of being loved.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah, And that's such a powerful distinction, like this idea
that it's not about you, it's about them, right, and
what's going on in their brain. And it's so hard
to kind of download that in the moments. And I
love how you talk about how divorce is not the
end of your story. And that's really it sounds like
one of the pieces that you had to rewrite first.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I think the best thing about your life falling
apart is you get to put the pieces of your
story back together the way you want. Yes, And that's
where I found myself of what can I do if
I've been in this twenty year marriage where I was
never really loved? Well, guess what. Now I get to
choose what I want life to look like and I
get to put the pieces of my life back together
the way I want them. So that was really honestly
(07:49):
empowering for me to realize that I had that much control,
because you feel so out of control when you're walking
through a divorce, grief, any kind of tragedy and trauma.
You feel very out of So for me to realize,
like I can control my attitude, I can control what
it looks my life looks like. I really am empowered
to do that. That was a game changer for me.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Wow, And you lay out this kind of recreation process
so beautifully in your book. Would you mind just giving
us a little bit of a sneak peek? What was
it like to recreate brandy, but also your your image.
It could also think about I know that you pretty
quickly leaned into God like you were in full surrender.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You were like, God's here for me. That's what I
do know, right, And so for.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Anybody who maybe it isn't their first nature or their
you know, knee jerk reaction is to lean into God
and they're trying to kind of will it through their
own way or through their own might and power. You know,
can you just share a little bit about that recreation
process and what does it look like to surrender to
God when everything that you thought that you knew that
you could predict was no longer predictable.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah. And I think that's the reason I could surrender
to God is because life as I knew it had
ended and I had my children at home with me.
Everything else looked different. Even parenting my kids look different
because I'm now a single parent, so I don't have
anyone to bounce it off of. Co parenting is not
easy still is not easy. So when I have my kids,
I am a solo parent and I have my kids
(09:09):
two thirds of the time, so I spend a large
majority of the time with my kids, which I wouldn't change,
and I love that, but even that changed. So all
I had that had stayed the same with God. And
I think for me, I took every emotion to God.
So I took you know, the anger of the frustration.
I would cuss and scream and yell and do all
the things, and God remained consistent. So because he remained consistent,
(09:33):
it meant I could trust him. So that allowed me
to cling to him and to continue to surrender it
to him because I knew that he could be trusted.
And that was huge for me. You know, I had
been in ministry my entire adult life for twenty years.
I'd been leading in subcapacity at a church, and here
I am now the divorced pastor's wife. And I remember
having a girlfriend, the girlfriend that I do the nonprofit with.
(09:55):
She got a hold of me pretty early on and
she said, a title or a role can be taped
and from you, but no one can take Gut's call
on your life but him. And just that reminder of like, oh,
God can still use me and still capable of doing
work for him even though I'm the divorce pastor's wife
was huge.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Yeah, And I love how you shared that kind of
inner working where it came to mind what reminded me
of like, I love Jesus and I cuss a little
like it's you were you weren't afraid to be like, Okay,
I'm not going to paint roses and butterflies. I think
what I when I read that part of it, I
was like, Yes, she is giving people unwritten permission to
be irrashical, illogical, cuss and swear and be human like human,
(10:34):
You're a way through it, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Not have to, you know, paint roses and butterflies on it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
But I love how you also said that you talked
about this concept of feeling so desperate that God feels
like all that you have, and that really spoke to
me because that's really kind of what led me to
the Lord. And you talked about this difference between being
alone and being lonely and that that's how you lean
on God. So I think people, you know, kind of
go down a rabbit hole when they talk about this
(10:59):
idea of being lonely, and it almost you know, exacerbates
it or creates it. Can you speak a little bit
about your observation of the difference between being lonely and
then being on your own and being alone, but it
not having this negative connotation anymore. Can you speak a
(11:24):
little bit about your observation of the difference between being
lonely and then being on your own and being alone.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it not having this negative connotation anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, I think I really felt like they were the
same thing, that they were synonyms loneliness and being alone
or you know, the same thing, And I learned that
it wasn't. I actually had to recognize pretty quickly that
I had been lonely in my marriage for a really
long time. So I think oftentimes we think if you're married,
you're not lonely. If you have a great friend group,
you're not lonely. If you're successful at your job, you're
(11:55):
not lonely. And we project all of these ideas we
have about loneliness on other people and we think no
one feels that but us. And for me, in order
to deal with that loneliness, I did have to get alone.
I remember my therapist challenging me on the weekends I
didn't have my kids, to say, you need to spend
some time alone, because I would my kids would walk
out the door and I would book myself. I'd have
(12:16):
yoga and movie and dinner with friends and meeting a
girlfriend for happy hour, like I stayed busy, and she said,
I really think it would be good for you to
spend some weekends alone. And I'm an introvert by nature,
so that's actually what I craved, was some alone time.
But I wouldn't give it to myself because it felt
too painful. So I would try to set myself up
(12:38):
for success and I would order my favorite sushi in
and I would spend the money to rent a movie
so that I had an evening planned for Brandy. But if
I didn't think I could do three days alone, I
didn't make myself do three days alone. I would at
first just do an evening alone. I would do my
Friday night by myself. And it really became such a
(12:58):
healing process for me because I learned that I'm okay
being alone, that loneliness isn't taken away because there's someone
in proximity to your life, that loneliness can exist even
when you're sleeping in the same bed with someone. But
learning to be alone teaches you a lot about yourself.
So I felt like that was when I really started
to dig in and learn more about me, What do
(13:20):
I want, what do I need? What can I control?
What is out of you know, my hands in regards
to control what I want life to look like. I
said that a lot. I get to decide what my
life wants to look like. But if I'm staying so busy,
I can't figure that out. So I had to take
some time alone to really focus and get to know
myself again.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Absolutely, there's a deep healing, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
One of the things I love how you talked about
this idea of that's when you were able to actually
find yourself. And if we if we hide behind busyness,
it almost becomes a coping mechanism, and the healing that
God has for us in those moments never allows to
see Ben you know. So I know that you have
a heart obviously for the single moms and the divorce women.
But I shared this with you before we started recording
(14:00):
your advice spoke to me because I've shared very publicly
on the podcast that I was you know, I used
to have a belief that I was going to be
alone the rest of my life and that there was
something wrong with me. And so a lot of these
beliefs that people to untangle and redefine after a divorce
or after the end of a marriage, or any other
time of loss and grief and identity crises were the
same ones that a lot of women that might be
(14:20):
identifying as single are experiencing, you know. And for me,
as you were sharing your time, I was thinking about
the time when I was like, I'm going to date
Jesus right, And it was literally like, but that's what
I feel like prepared me to meet my husband. But
that being said, if anyone's listening, you know, for the
women that are overcoming divorce, they're grieving the loss of
a marriage or maybe they're in that recreation process. But
also for the woman who's listening that's like, you know
(14:41):
what who because you said it, Who am I if
I'm not a wife? Who am I if I'm not
a pastor's wife? There was a lot of like undefining
and redefining that had to happen, right.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
But for the women that are like identified by the.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Word single in the terms of like, well, what if
I never get married, what if something's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What would you say to them?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Because I feel like a lot of this transfer over
pretty directly.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, you know, one thing I did super early on
that was a game changer for me is I remember
having to sit down with my journal and at the
top I put what is true about Brandy? And I
started listing things I knew to be true about me
because I had spent so much time being a wife
and being a mom, which I love both of those roles,
but in it I kind of lost myself. So I
had to sit down and remember what is true about me,
(15:24):
what is true about my personality? What is true of
my character? And I made a list and I just
kept it in my journal and I kept adding to it. Well,
that was super important for me because that's who I
am regardless of whether I'm single or married. So I
think I didn't have to have that indicator. This is
who I am regardless. This is who I am. You know,
whether I'm at my kids school doing a PTA meeting,
(15:44):
this is who I am. If I'm at a football
game on Friday night, this is who I am in
the backyard with a bunch of girlfriends just laughing and giggling.
I am true to myself. That was regardless of my
relationship status. I've been divorced seven years and I've been
in and out of several relationship in these seven years,
and it's been a contention a point of pride for
(16:05):
me because it is something that I have been happy
that I've been able to stay myself in and out
of relationship. Before I would self abandon. Self abandonment is
something that I am prone to. So it has been
really great to realize that I can be in a
relationship with somebody, a healthy relationship, and I don't have
to self abandon. I can stay true to who Brandy is.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Yeah, And it's almost like a prehab but versus rehab
in a way, because when you talked about it too,
there's so many people that are in relationships that they
can be sitting on the couch next to their the
air quotes love of their life and feel this deep
sense of loneliness. And it's one of the things that
I became aware of. And I thank God for this
because I knew I'm like Leanne. If you don't hang
on to the identity of who you are as the
(16:47):
daughter of God, I'm so prone to self abandonment and
self rejection and self isolation and all those things as well.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I knew it.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It was so conscious, it was almost a gift from
I do believe it was a gift from God. Of
like Leanne, you will lose yourself if you don't stay
identified in who you are and who you are in
a marriage, but also independent of a marriage. So I
think having these conversations now because these women that are
thinking like, oh, when I get married, when I find
my person, then I'll be happy. It's not always grasses
greener on the other side, because who you are you
(17:14):
bring with you everywhere. So I love that you're sharing
that on both sides of the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's so so powerful.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
You talk about this idea of grumpily hateful or humbly grateful,
and you talk about gratitude being the bridge between pain
and joy, and how you mentioned you're like, when nothing
around me is good, God is still good, right, And
you also mentioned that gratitude is not an emotion, it's
a posture, right, and you can turn towards it. So
(17:42):
can we talk about because I think it's so easy, simple,
not easy right to just go into that grumpily hateful
posture instead of being humbly grateful.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So what was the role of gratitude for you and.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
How did you shift out of the grumpily hateful when
it was probably so easy to go there.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, you know, it's so fun. I did not realize
when it happened that it was a gratitude practice. I
think for me it just felt like survival. But I
was in the midst of the middle of my separation
and life just felt messy and ugly, and I was
having those cussing, screaming fits like we talked about. And
I remember having this moment. I was in the middle
of like doing house stuff. It's not like I was
(18:20):
sitting down having a quiet time or I was praying,
but I was just moving around doing house stuff, and
I had this moment where I realized that, you know what,
I believe God is still good. And if God is
still good, then there's goodness around me and God is
still going to be good to me. So how can
I be intentional to look for that? Gratitude is something
(18:40):
you have to be intentional about. We choose gratitude. You
can be grateful even when you don't feel like it.
That's what's so great about gratitude. So for me, in
that moment where I just recognized God is still good
and I believe that God is still going to be
good to me. I pulled like a journal that I
had on my bookshelf, and I took an orange sharpie
and I just wrote focus on the good on front
of it. And every day I made myself write down
(19:03):
four to five good things that had happened in my life.
And sometimes those things were, you know, really significant, like
meaningful conversations with my kids, or maybe being able to
get together some next steps to move forward so that
I didn't feel like I was so overwhelmed with life.
And then some days it was very small, what felt
(19:24):
like insignificant scenarios, like once I got a new hair dryer.
And we know as girls the importance of a new
hair dryer. It will change your life, it can make
you or break a good hair day. But I remember
writing it down in my journal, got a new hair dryer,
and I looked at it, and what stood out to
me was not the fact that I'd gotten a hair dryer,
(19:44):
is the fact there was new and the reminder that
even through everything that was ending, there would still be
new in my life. God was still going to bring
new things. He was going to show up in new ways.
There were going to be new situations and new relationships
and new love coming from So that was kind of
how gratitude was born for me, and then I just
became obsessed with it. I mean, it was such a
(20:05):
like overnight switch in the lens with which I saw
my life that I really started to be intentional and
see the goodness of God without having to go and
look for it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, Okay, what you just described, I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
We talk a lot about the fusion of science and
faith here on this podcast, and there was the consistency
of renewing your mind and shifting from we'll call it degratitude.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's a word I just made up to gratitude, and
literally it was a choice.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
It was a conscious choice. You had to posture in
that direction. And so it happens in the short run.
But then what happens in the long run if there's
positive neuro associations alongside it, which there were. You were
feeling the weight and the levity of that gratitude, what
happens is little by little, your brain actually shifts so
that becomes your new default. And that's exactly what you
were just describing. It became almost like an obsession because
(20:52):
it felt so good, you did more of it and
your brain almost became that. I feel like that is
very life giving and gives us a lot of hope
because anyone who's listening to this and they're just like.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I'm not there yet, right.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
It didn't happen overnight, but it was these little little
baby steps that added up and they literally shifted the
default state of your brain. And that's and there you are.
But the circumstances didn't change. Your marriage had still ended,
you were still single, momming, you were doing all the
things like, the circumstances were the same, but your posture
and that your heart had shifted such a beautiful testament
to that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
The circumstances are the reality of the situation. What does
change is how you see the reality of the situation
and how you show up in that situation. And that
is what can make gratitude really switch your life overnight,
and anyone's capable of it. Anyone can start writing down
four good things a day. It doesn't take you anything
fancy to do that, just a piece of paper or
(21:42):
the notes app on your phone. But anyone is capable
of that, which is why it's so great.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
So one of the things that I just want to
brag on you on, But also have you talk about
is just how you showed up as a mom to
your boys when you were in the pits of despair,
you know, and they were going through it too, and
you know say their their own perspectives in different ways.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But the way you created this family unit right.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And the way you you made a decision to feel
like nothing was missing. Could you just share a little
bit about what that experience was like with your boys.
I'd love to hear if you want to share what
your son texted you when he was live streaming you
across the country when I think you were in Vegas
or wherever you were, and I know you had two
very different experiences, the milkshake Monday and then the US
(22:34):
four and no More, which were two very different experiences.
So for anybody who hasn't read the book, and definitely
go read the book, can you just share a little
bit about how you recreated this beautiful foundation as a
family unit to build something new and I dare say
better right, but better than okay for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
But in this way that like it was such a
gift from God.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I was so overwhelmed with being a single parent. I was,
you know, healing from my own trauma and tragic I
was trying to leave my kids through their own trauma.
It was you know, my therapist that I worked with
with my children said that my kids actually experienced two divorces,
the divorce of their parents and the divorce from the church.
Because my kids went from you know, they were one
(23:15):
Sunday with me hugging necks at one of our campuses,
and the next Sunday, I was telling them that the
dad wasn't a pastor anymore. So it was like whiplash
for them, and there was a lot of anger and confusion.
And you know, I know now that my kids had
seen things I didn't realize they had seen, and they
actually knew some stuff that I didn't know. They were
trying to protect me. But I just felt very strongly
(23:37):
that I wanted to recreate family, like nothing was missing
the first when you're going through separation and divorce, the
first holidays and birthdays and any significant date like that,
it just doesn't feel the same. Even though you might
be on a better trajectory, You only know what you know,
So you go through these holidays and birthdays and it
feels like, well, something is missing, is my family? Unit
(23:59):
ever got to feel complete. So I became super intentional
with I want to redefine family where it feels like
nothing is missing. And I remember I was having a
quiet time with God and he was so generous because
I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed thinking, you know, what
if my kids end up hating church in general because
of what happened. What if my kids mimic a dysfunctional marriage.
(24:20):
What if they turned to alcohol on drugs because of this?
And I was trying to build these walls of protection
based on the foundation of fear, which is never something
that is very smart because the foundation of fear is
not stable. So those walls of protection were very justified,
but being built on the foundation of fear was not
what I needed to build my new family foundation on.
So I was having a quiet time with God and
(24:41):
I was actually reading in Joshua three, and it's where
the Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for forty
years and they get to the edge of the Jordan
River and the Ark of the Covenant is at the front.
It's being carried by the priest and the Jordan was
at flood stage. So it's somewhere between one hundred and
one hundred and ten yards wide. And the Jordan is
not a zero entry river like you know we go
(25:04):
to the beach. It is you take a step and
you drop. And I was reading that, and what was
so interesting is it says the Bible says, as soon
as the priest took the first step into the Jordan River,
the water piled up in a heap. And we now
know that the water piled up about nineteen miles upstream.
(25:24):
And what happened is then the priest who were carrying
the Ark of the Covenant, they walked to the middle
of the Jordan, and they stood on solid ground, and
all of Israel, millions and millions of Israelites passed by
the Ark of the Covenant and finally got to enter
the promised land that they'd been waiting forty years to enter.
So when I read the scripture, I really believed that
(25:47):
that's what leading my kids through trauma and tragedy look like,
that I had to do it all, that I had
to lead them through the forty years of the trauma
of their life, forty years of wilderness, that I had
to get them to the edge of the Jordan, that
I had to be carrying the arc of the Covenant.
I had to have enough faith to take the first step.
I had to hold back the water. I had to
create the solid ground for them to stand on, and
(26:08):
then I had to lead them to the promises that
God has for their life. And I remember just having
this moment where God just implanted on my heart, Brandy,
that is not what I've asked you to do. What
I've asked you to do is to hold who I
am for your kids.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And that's what your job is. To love me. Your
job is to trust me. Your job is to trust
that I will lead your kids to the promises that
I have for their life, not that you have. Because
the promises I have for your life are greater than
what you have even for your kids' lives. And it's
my job to make sure. It's God's job to lead
(26:43):
my kids through the trauma and tragedy. It's God's job
to take that first step of faith into the water.
It's God's job to hold back the water like a barrier,
and it's his job to lead them across the Jordan
end too the promised land. And when I had that
moment with him, I just felt such relief because I
knew loving God and trust in God that I could do.
And if I can do that and my kids see
me doing that, then I can trust that God, who
(27:05):
loves my kids more than I do, is going to
deliver them to the promises that He has for their life.
So that was a game changer for me in regards
to parenting. And when I took that perspective, it allowed
me to just exhale a little bit and to enjoy
my children. I think I was functioning in such hypervigilance
of what's going to happen to us next and if
(27:26):
this has fallen apart, what else can fall apart that
I didn't really just get to relax and enjoy my kids.
And when I had that moment with God, I just
knew God had them. And we started honestly living a
different life. We moved, we bought a new house and
new to us home, and we defined some family values
and we became super intentional about us four. That's what
(27:47):
I call us. There are four of us total, And
when we needed to have time, you know, to celebrate
a birthday or maybe have some kind of family talk,
I would say, this isn't us four, No, more situation,
but to really create that. I kept a really tight
nest initially in order to protect my kids. And I
remember when we started, I started letting down the walls
(28:07):
of our nest and started letting people come back around.
I brought a friend in, another single lady who just
loves to hang out with us. She's a therapist, and
I let her started inviting her over to watch The
Bachelor with us on Monday nights, which is the milkshake
Monday you're talking about. And my kids had always had
all of their friends over for milkshake Monday. We watched
The Bachelor, and I make milkshakes and we call it
(28:30):
milkshake Monday, and whoever wants to come can come. We
watched the Bachelor, Yes, Leanne, It's why I love it.
Write a Quaranteen book. But I had invited my single
friend Emily over, and I just said, you can't come.
Why don't you come watch the Bachelor with us? And
I remember my middle son said, I hope she realizes
what a big deal it is that we've let her in.
(28:51):
And at that point I knew, Oh, my kids have
recognized that I have created a really tight nest as well,
and I think it felt super safe for me, also
felt super safe for them, and as we healed, I
could loosen that nest and just allow our lives to
intersect with people more often.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Wow, it's so beautiful, and it really sounds like you
found that metal ground between keeping something sacred versus that
hypervigilance that control, that self reliance on you to do
everything you know, and then in turn moving into self
abandonment trying to take care of everyone else. Like it
really sounds like God showed up. And it's interesting because
what came up for me is when you in your book,
you shared about this idea of faith doesn't happen in
(29:29):
the straddling, you know, and you talked about how you
had to get a new house. I know, you found
a new church home and you ended up going to
a much smaller community like in people's homes, but that
concept of faith doesn't happen in the straddling. I want
to just expound on that because I think for me personally,
i've I can look back at experiences in my life
where the identity had such a tight grip on me.
(29:50):
I was trying to hold on to anything that I
could that made me feel safe or grounded, but it
was so grounded in the old ways of living, in
old ways of being, and in turn it kept me straddling.
I remember, so for those of you who are listening
might recognize cross Point because that's where I found the Lord.
So Brandy planted the church where I found God. So
this is a very full circle interview. But I remember
(30:13):
when I moved out to Murphisborough, when I met my
now husband, I was having lunch with Ree and Kevin Queen,
and I said to them, because Crosspoint was my first
and only church, Kevin was my first, I jokingly call
in my rabbi. I'm like, Kevin, you're my first rabbi.
And I told them flat out. I was like, I
feel like I'm cheating on you, guys, because I'm going
to a different church. And I think I even use
(30:33):
the word straddling, like I'm straddling Nashville and Murphysboro. And
I felt very unsettled. And Kevin was like, Leanne, we
love you. We don't care where you get it. We
just want you to get it, so go get it
in Murphy's Borough, like We're here for you regardless. And
to be able to then take my foot off of
Nashville and plan it firmly into Murphisboro. It was a
complete shift, right, And it's crazy that that was one
(30:55):
of the little things, but it was straddling.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And you're right, that was the opposite of faith.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And so can you share a little bit about this
concept that you talk about about faith doesn't happen in
the straddling. And sometimes you have to release everything that
you knew to go commit to your new life, which
is not easy.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It's not easy because we cling to what we know,
and the old life is what we know. And that's
where I was. I was stuck between. I had still
been attending cross Point on weekends I didn't have my kids.
I would go to cross Point, the campus that was
closer to me. I'd attend there. I was part of
a small group. I actually I am still part of
a small group that started Gosh at this point, it
(31:30):
probably started twenty years ago and is still meeting on
a pretty regular basis. So that was the old life
I knew, and there was comfort in that, and there
was security and there was safety in that. Even though
everything had fallen apart in that life, I still knew it.
And then during the pandemic. With everything shut down, I
started visiting a home church that has started in my neighborhood.
(31:52):
And we had a massive storm go through Nashville a
few years ago, and I knew at night we were
without electricity. Everything was dark. I knew my yard was
going to be a mess. And we woke up the
next morning. And my house was built in nineteen seventy eight,
so I have some massive trees in my yard, and
I'd lost one massive tree and half of another massive
(32:12):
tree was down, and my backyard was covered, my fence
was demolished. The edge of my steps that lead up
to my back door had the tips of the tree
resting on it, so it came very close to hitting
our home, but by the grace of God, did not.
And that morning I just woke up to a disaster
in my backyard and I thought, I don't know what
(32:33):
to do, Like I had overseen the entire remodeling of
this house, and I didn't know what to do when
I had trees down in my backyard. And for me,
it was that moment of Brandy. What you can do
is you can cling to your old and you can
call the guys. From that small grief and some of
the staff guys from cross Point and they will show
up and take care of this for you. Or God
(32:53):
is offering you something new in this home church and
you're trying to resuscitate what's dead. You can either keep
trying to resuscitate what's dead, or you can grasp on
to the new that God is offering you. And I
made the decision to grasp on to the new, And
in that day it felt like the baton of my
heart had passed from cross Point being my church to
(33:14):
what is local church is the church I attend now.
It's in multiple homes in my neighborhood and other neighborhoods
across Middle Tennessee, but just has a smaller We call
it a micro church, kind of the opposite of megachurches.
It's a micro church. But for me, it was really
just this fact that God had offered me something new
that I had been praying about. I had been praying
about a new church and where I was supposed to be.
But I still, even in the asking for it, wasn't
(33:36):
ready to let go of cross Point. So I was
spending way more energy trying to resuscitate what was dead,
rather than embracing the new that God was offering me.
Even though my backyard was a disaster, it was a
really beautiful moment because I called local church and those guys.
The pastor said, we'll have people there about two o'clock,
and we did. We had probably six or seven men
(33:56):
and several teenage boys, and my kids were home for
a Christmas break, so I had all of my kids
helping and we had the backyard cleaned up in a
matter of hours because I was willing to embrace the
new that God was offering me.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh my God.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
And in your book you actually asked three different questions
alongside that. You said, what are you trying to resuscitate
that's dead? Where does God want to breathe new life
into your story? And then I think the most important
question you asked is and are you willing to cooperate
with him?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yes, that just really spoke to me.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
So good, so good. So I'd love to hear about
the work that you're doing today. You said in your
book that my suffering can be a survival guide for others,
Like that is just so beautiful because I mean, it's
the phoenix rising from the ashes. To be cheesy for
a second, but really you're taking what happened to you
and you are turning it into a pivotal like you're
shortcutting the journey for people that have been through it,
(34:44):
and you're allowing them to struggle but no longer have
to suffer because you can help walk them through that.
So talk to us a little bit about the work
that you're.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Doing with women to walk them through that personally.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, I started talking to so many women post divorce,
just referred by friends or who had followed my story
on social media, Y and I just felt a strong
calling to get a couple of certifications to be able
to work as a coach to help women to feel
I knew I had the life experience, I wanted to
make sure I also have the educational experience to be
able to really show up for them at a high level.
(35:14):
So I got a couple of certifications and I actually
launched a business called Love Brandy Wilson, and it's where
I do my coaching and I work with a lot
of I have two areas of influence that I see
the most, but I work with a lot of ministry
women who are trying to figure out their next best
step in ministry. Because I have you know, over twenty
years of leadership experience in ministry, and then I also
(35:35):
work with women who are walking through separation divorce trying
to figure out what their next best step is in
regards to finding strength, freedom, enjoying their new lives. So
it has been so life giving for me. I never
thought I would take walking through a divorce and actually
turn it into a small business, but it has actually
been great to have a full time job working for
a nonprofit that I love. And this is what I
(35:57):
call my single mom's side gig, and I spent a
lot of time I'm about ten hours a week coaching
women who are walking through similar situations to help them
find their fresh start and hope and healing in the process.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Oh my goodness, Wow, what talk about turning it into
a golden way of being Really like, you get to
be who you are and then walk others through it
and God's with you every step away he is.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
It's been amazing. I have loved it, truly loved it.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Well, I have so many other things I wanted to
ask you, because there's just so much to unpack. We'll
just have to have you come back. I would love
to see but in the meantime, where can people find you?
Where can they google?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Stock?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
You?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Better than Okay? Is her book? I'm telling you, I
binged it. I couldn't put it down.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Where can people find you? Follow you and get more
information about the work that you do as well?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
My website is love Brandywilson dot com on Instagram. I'm
love Brandy Wilson, Brandy with an I for the book,
go to your favorite book retailer.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Well, we will link all of those links in the
show notes so that they can find you directly. Thank
you so much for being here. Thank you for being
a stand and having the courage to share your story there.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I mean there were some lows, there's been a lot
of highs.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
It's just a really beautiful testament to what God can
do when you are willing to own your story, walk
through it and invite Him in.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Thank you so much, Leanne, I've really enjoyed being with
you today.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Thanks for listening. Guys. We'll be back for the next episode. Bye,
We'll be back with more What's God got to do
with it?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
But in the meantime, I would definitely love to hear
from you, so just tell me where you.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Are in your story.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Or maybe what questions you have, like where do you
feel you need clarity or support or wisdom in your
own journey. I definitely want to hear from you, So
head on over to What's God Got to Do with It?
Dot com and scroll down to the form to share
your thoughts, your questions, your feedback, and you can do
that instantly.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
So What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com?
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Speaker 4 (37:48):
And if you like this podcast and want to hear more,
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Speaker 2 (38:02):
You're there, be sure to rate and review to show
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Speaker 4 (38:09):
What's God Got to Do With It is an iHeartRadio
podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's written and hosted
Speaker 4 (38:15):
By me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozio, post
production and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written
by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark
If you want to go on a journey.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
If you're skeptical, don't worry. Not here to preach.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm going to keep the clean and talk to me
and the coach where faith needs, stops nature and get
in touch with your creator with a bacon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Love and jew She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
What's done, what's well said? Talking transformation, what's dope?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Don Well?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Hello, Hello, what's God got to do with it? We
are here with a very special guest today. I'm here
with Brandy Wilson. She just has such a beautiful story
and we're going to hear it in just a moment.
But she is an author, a coach, a speaker, she's
been in leadership for over a day, and she's also
a personal and executive coach. But really, her story, her testimony,
(01:05):
is what seasoned her to be a stand for what
she stands for now and how she pours in to
other people and women.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So, first of all, hello Brandy, and thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Hey, Leanne, I so appreciate you having me on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Well, we are just grateful you. I binge your whole book.
I follow you on Instagram. The way you communicate, how
you share Your story is so powerful, and I know
that whatever anybody needs to get today, they are.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Going to get.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So before we get into some specifics, would you mind
just kind of kicking us off, share a thirty thousand
foot overview of your story.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And I know.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
That's a challenge to do because it's so robust, But
how you became the woman that you are today, what
shaped you? Obviously you're a mom as well, you are
are a servant, So just kind of share a thirty
thousand foot overview of your journey that brought you to
who you are today, and then we'll dive into some
of the nitty gritty.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, I am a single mom to three sons. Who
you are twenty three, twenty and eighteen, which just blows
my mind that I have young adult sons and we
live right outside of Nashville. I actually married my college
sweetheart right out of college. I walked the aisle instead
of walking the graduation line. And we started two churches,
(02:17):
the latter being here in Nashville, Tennessee, called Cross Point
Church and served there for fourteen years and loved it.
Loved it. I loved being a pastor's wife. I loved
getting to be part of the staff family, having lunch
with the staff and doing staff meeting every Tuesday. I
led moms groups with other moms whose families were growing.
I just kind of saw myself as the chief cheerleader
(02:39):
for cross Point and loved doing that. Did it for
fourteen years, and then in twenty sixteen, pretty suddenly, my
then husband chose to walk away from the church and
the ministry there, and our marriage and family unit and
life as I know it fell apart overnight. I found
myself restarting everything. I think we would both agree that
when your life publicly apart, it's been falling apart behind
(03:02):
the scenes for a long time. I still never foresaw
the fallout in all areas of my life the way
I experienced it. So, as I said, life as I
knew it ended overnight, and I found myself forty two
and starting all over.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Wow, there's so much shame that comes alongside divorce in general,
and probably exacerbated when you're in a faith based or
religious circle.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
You know, So for you, what was.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
It like to walk through that and to really reframe
it and chart your own path and deal with the
unexpected change. Like you said, overnight, your life completely shifted.
So this was an identity crisis, I'm assuming to say
the least like it was. You had to completely recreate.
So can you just share a little bit about that,
what that experience was walking through that. Like you said,
it was in the public eye.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There was a lot of shame attached to it. As
you said, it was pretty public, so it was headlining local, state,
and national publications. I wouldn't go to Kroger unless I
had a hoodie that I could put over my head
when I was grocery shopping because I was afraid i'd
run into people I know. Oh, and I had more
questions without answers. So it just all felt overwhelming and
there was a ton of shame. I would say. I
(04:08):
experienced every emotion you could experience, and shame was one
of the heaviest that I carried. And part of the
reason I felt so much shame as I came from
a long history of marriages. Both of my sets of
grandparents were married until death. My parents are still married
to this day. I just believed that divorce was not
the answer to the problem. And when you're raised in
a conservative Christian culture, I had been told for years
(04:31):
that God hates divorce, and when you're a person getting divorced,
you kind of equate that to God hates me. So
there was definitely some digging in of you know what,
God does hate divorce. He hates divorce because of the
herd it causes his people. But God loves divorced people,
which is something I had to recognize and live with
that he loves me. He hates what happened to me.
(04:51):
He knows that I didn't choose this. He knows that
I wanted my marriage to continue, and I fought really
hard for my marriage. But you have to have two
people who are fighting for a marriage in order for
it to work. So to get to that realization of
even though I'm divorced, God still loves me and even
though I'm divorced, God can still use me was huge
for me when it came to leaning into my identity.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And in your book, better than Okay, you walk us through.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I mean, it's so clear that you fought for it,
but like you said, two people have to fight for it.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, would you say that was there?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Obviously there was the shame of the air quote, stigma
of divorce and your brain and what you thought it
meant about you and your relationship with God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And I love that distinction, how you're like, No, God.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Hates divorce because of the torment that it puts me through,
and I'm and you know you're his daughter.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
He doesn't want to see you hurting.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
For anyone that's here and has suffered a loss or
a divorce or somebody walked away from them in a
relationship or whatever it was, and their shame is coming
from the shame blanket of there's something wrong with me,
like what didn't I do?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Where was I not enough? Can you just.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Speak to that a little bit, because I think that's
going to be a big theme for a lot of
people that are listening to this in their heartaches.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I remember where I was. Our marriage was in terrible
shape and we were in marriage counsel at this point.
The resignation had not been announced, but I remember exactly
where we were when my ex husband looked at me
and said he was My then husband looked at me
and said, I've never really loved you. And I remember thinking,
if you could spend three years dating me in twenty
years years married to me and you never really loved me,
(06:16):
Am I ever going to find anybody who can love me.
So I think that for me was a lot of
the identity of you know what, this is not about you,
This is about what is going on in someone else.
And you are lovable and God still loves you. And
I just remember praying and being so grateful that God
continued to show up and love me in big ways
(06:39):
and small ways, and lots of times those small ways
mean as much as the big ways that we see
God's love for us. But I had a neighbor who
anonymously about once a week would leave some little gift
on my front porch, and every time, whether it was
like a new candle or a flower or a handwritten note,
the only thing I would say is you are so loved.
(07:01):
And I just stuck those everywhere in my house to
remind me that even though the person who was supposed
to love me the most left, it didn't mean that
I wasn't worthy of being loved.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah, And that's such a powerful distinction, like this idea
that it's not about you, it's about them, right, and
what's going on in their brain. And it's so hard
to kind of download that in the moments. And I
love how you talk about how divorce is not the
end of your story. And that's really it sounds like
one of the pieces that you had to rewrite first.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I think the best thing about your life falling
apart is you get to put the pieces of your
story back together the way you want. Yes, And that's
where I found myself of what can I do if
I've been in this twenty year marriage where I was
never really loved? Well, guess what. Now I get to
choose what I want life to look like and I
get to put the pieces of my life back together
the way I want them. So that was really honestly
(07:49):
empowering for me to realize that I had that much control,
because you feel so out of control when you're walking
through a divorce, grief, any kind of tragedy and trauma.
You feel very out of So for me to realize,
like I can control my attitude, I can control what
it looks my life looks like. I really am empowered
to do that. That was a game changer for me.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Wow, And you lay out this kind of recreation process
so beautifully in your book. Would you mind just giving
us a little bit of a sneak peek? What was
it like to recreate brandy, but also your your image.
It could also think about I know that you pretty
quickly leaned into God like you were in full surrender.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You were like, God's here for me. That's what I
do know, right, And so for.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Anybody who maybe it isn't their first nature or their
you know, knee jerk reaction is to lean into God
and they're trying to kind of will it through their
own way or through their own might and power. You know,
can you just share a little bit about that recreation
process and what does it look like to surrender to
God when everything that you thought that you knew that
you could predict was no longer predictable.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah. And I think that's the reason I could surrender
to God is because life as I knew it had
ended and I had my children at home with me.
Everything else looked different. Even parenting my kids look different
because I'm now a single parent, so I don't have
anyone to bounce it off of. Co parenting is not
easy still is not easy. So when I have my kids,
I am a solo parent and I have my kids
(09:09):
two thirds of the time, so I spend a large
majority of the time with my kids, which I wouldn't change,
and I love that, but even that changed. So all
I had that had stayed the same with God. And
I think for me, I took every emotion to God.
So I took you know, the anger of the frustration.
I would cuss and scream and yell and do all
the things, and God remained consistent. So because he remained consistent,
(09:33):
it meant I could trust him. So that allowed me
to cling to him and to continue to surrender it
to him because I knew that he could be trusted.
And that was huge for me. You know, I had
been in ministry my entire adult life for twenty years.
I'd been leading in subcapacity at a church, and here
I am now the divorced pastor's wife. And I remember
having a girlfriend, the girlfriend that I do the nonprofit with.
(09:55):
She got a hold of me pretty early on and
she said, a title or a role can be taped
and from you, but no one can take Gut's call
on your life but him. And just that reminder of like, oh,
God can still use me and still capable of doing
work for him even though I'm the divorce pastor's wife
was huge.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Yeah, And I love how you shared that kind of
inner working where it came to mind what reminded me
of like, I love Jesus and I cuss a little
like it's you were you weren't afraid to be like, Okay,
I'm not going to paint roses and butterflies. I think
what I when I read that part of it, I
was like, Yes, she is giving people unwritten permission to
be irrashical, illogical, cuss and swear and be human like human,
(10:34):
You're a way through it, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Not have to, you know, paint roses and butterflies on it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
But I love how you also said that you talked
about this concept of feeling so desperate that God feels
like all that you have, and that really spoke to
me because that's really kind of what led me to
the Lord. And you talked about this difference between being
alone and being lonely and that that's how you lean
on God. So I think people, you know, kind of
go down a rabbit hole when they talk about this
(10:59):
idea of being lonely, and it almost you know, exacerbates
it or creates it. Can you speak a little bit
about your observation of the difference between being lonely and
then being on your own and being alone, but it
not having this negative connotation anymore. Can you speak a
(11:24):
little bit about your observation of the difference between being
lonely and then being on your own and being alone.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it not having this negative connotation anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, I think I really felt like they were the
same thing, that they were synonyms loneliness and being alone
or you know, the same thing, And I learned that
it wasn't. I actually had to recognize pretty quickly that
I had been lonely in my marriage for a really
long time. So I think oftentimes we think if you're married,
you're not lonely. If you have a great friend group,
you're not lonely. If you're successful at your job, you're
(11:55):
not lonely. And we project all of these ideas we
have about loneliness on other people and we think no
one feels that but us. And for me, in order
to deal with that loneliness, I did have to get alone.
I remember my therapist challenging me on the weekends I
didn't have my kids, to say, you need to spend
some time alone, because I would my kids would walk
out the door and I would book myself. I'd have
(12:16):
yoga and movie and dinner with friends and meeting a
girlfriend for happy hour, like I stayed busy, and she said,
I really think it would be good for you to
spend some weekends alone. And I'm an introvert by nature,
so that's actually what I craved, was some alone time.
But I wouldn't give it to myself because it felt
too painful. So I would try to set myself up
(12:38):
for success and I would order my favorite sushi in
and I would spend the money to rent a movie
so that I had an evening planned for Brandy. But if
I didn't think I could do three days alone, I
didn't make myself do three days alone. I would at
first just do an evening alone. I would do my
Friday night by myself. And it really became such a
(12:58):
healing process for me because I learned that I'm okay
being alone, that loneliness isn't taken away because there's someone
in proximity to your life, that loneliness can exist even
when you're sleeping in the same bed with someone. But
learning to be alone teaches you a lot about yourself.
So I felt like that was when I really started
to dig in and learn more about me, What do
(13:20):
I want, what do I need? What can I control?
What is out of you know, my hands in regards
to control what I want life to look like. I
said that a lot. I get to decide what my
life wants to look like. But if I'm staying so busy,
I can't figure that out. So I had to take
some time alone to really focus and get to know
myself again.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Absolutely, there's a deep healing, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
One of the things I love how you talked about
this idea of that's when you were able to actually
find yourself. And if we if we hide behind busyness,
it almost becomes a coping mechanism, and the healing that
God has for us in those moments never allows to
see Ben you know. So I know that you have
a heart obviously for the single moms and the divorce women.
But I shared this with you before we started recording
(14:00):
your advice spoke to me because I've shared very publicly
on the podcast that I was you know, I used
to have a belief that I was going to be
alone the rest of my life and that there was
something wrong with me. And so a lot of these
beliefs that people to untangle and redefine after a divorce
or after the end of a marriage, or any other
time of loss and grief and identity crises were the
same ones that a lot of women that might be
(14:20):
identifying as single are experiencing, you know. And for me,
as you were sharing your time, I was thinking about
the time when I was like, I'm going to date
Jesus right, And it was literally like, but that's what
I feel like prepared me to meet my husband. But
that being said, if anyone's listening, you know, for the
women that are overcoming divorce, they're grieving the loss of
a marriage or maybe they're in that recreation process. But
also for the woman who's listening that's like, you know
(14:41):
what who because you said it, Who am I if
I'm not a wife? Who am I if I'm not
a pastor's wife? There was a lot of like undefining
and redefining that had to happen, right.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
But for the women that are like identified by the.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Word single in the terms of like, well, what if
I never get married, what if something's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What would you say to them?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Because I feel like a lot of this transfer over
pretty directly.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, you know, one thing I did super early on
that was a game changer for me is I remember
having to sit down with my journal and at the
top I put what is true about Brandy? And I
started listing things I knew to be true about me
because I had spent so much time being a wife
and being a mom, which I love both of those roles,
but in it I kind of lost myself. So I
had to sit down and remember what is true about me,
(15:24):
what is true about my personality? What is true of
my character? And I made a list and I just
kept it in my journal and I kept adding to it. Well,
that was super important for me because that's who I
am regardless of whether I'm single or married. So I
think I didn't have to have that indicator. This is
who I am regardless. This is who I am. You know,
whether I'm at my kids school doing a PTA meeting,
(15:44):
this is who I am. If I'm at a football
game on Friday night, this is who I am in
the backyard with a bunch of girlfriends just laughing and giggling.
I am true to myself. That was regardless of my
relationship status. I've been divorced seven years and I've been
in and out of several relationship in these seven years,
and it's been a contention a point of pride for
(16:05):
me because it is something that I have been happy
that I've been able to stay myself in and out
of relationship. Before I would self abandon. Self abandonment is
something that I am prone to. So it has been
really great to realize that I can be in a
relationship with somebody, a healthy relationship, and I don't have
to self abandon. I can stay true to who Brandy is.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Yeah, And it's almost like a prehab but versus rehab
in a way, because when you talked about it too,
there's so many people that are in relationships that they
can be sitting on the couch next to their the
air quotes love of their life and feel this deep
sense of loneliness. And it's one of the things that
I became aware of. And I thank God for this
because I knew I'm like Leanne. If you don't hang
on to the identity of who you are as the
(16:47):
daughter of God, I'm so prone to self abandonment and
self rejection and self isolation and all those things as well.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I knew it.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It was so conscious, it was almost a gift from
I do believe it was a gift from God. Of
like Leanne, you will lose yourself if you don't stay
identified in who you are and who you are in
a marriage, but also independent of a marriage. So I
think having these conversations now because these women that are
thinking like, oh, when I get married, when I find
my person, then I'll be happy. It's not always grasses
greener on the other side, because who you are you
(17:14):
bring with you everywhere. So I love that you're sharing
that on both sides of the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's so so powerful.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
You talk about this idea of grumpily hateful or humbly grateful,
and you talk about gratitude being the bridge between pain
and joy, and how you mentioned you're like, when nothing
around me is good, God is still good, right, And
you also mentioned that gratitude is not an emotion, it's
a posture, right, and you can turn towards it. So
(17:42):
can we talk about because I think it's so easy, simple,
not easy right to just go into that grumpily hateful
posture instead of being humbly grateful.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So what was the role of gratitude for you and.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
How did you shift out of the grumpily hateful when
it was probably so easy to go there.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, you know, it's so fun. I did not realize
when it happened that it was a gratitude practice. I
think for me it just felt like survival. But I
was in the midst of the middle of my separation
and life just felt messy and ugly, and I was
having those cussing, screaming fits like we talked about. And
I remember having this moment. I was in the middle
of like doing house stuff. It's not like I was
(18:20):
sitting down having a quiet time or I was praying,
but I was just moving around doing house stuff, and
I had this moment where I realized that, you know what,
I believe God is still good. And if God is
still good, then there's goodness around me and God is
still going to be good to me. So how can
I be intentional to look for that? Gratitude is something
(18:40):
you have to be intentional about. We choose gratitude. You
can be grateful even when you don't feel like it.
That's what's so great about gratitude. So for me, in
that moment where I just recognized God is still good
and I believe that God is still going to be
good to me. I pulled like a journal that I
had on my bookshelf, and I took an orange sharpie
and I just wrote focus on the good on front
of it. And every day I made myself write down
(19:03):
four to five good things that had happened in my life.
And sometimes those things were, you know, really significant, like
meaningful conversations with my kids, or maybe being able to
get together some next steps to move forward so that
I didn't feel like I was so overwhelmed with life.
And then some days it was very small, what felt
(19:24):
like insignificant scenarios, like once I got a new hair dryer.
And we know as girls the importance of a new
hair dryer. It will change your life, it can make
you or break a good hair day. But I remember
writing it down in my journal, got a new hair dryer,
and I looked at it, and what stood out to
me was not the fact that I'd gotten a hair dryer,
(19:44):
is the fact there was new and the reminder that
even through everything that was ending, there would still be
new in my life. God was still going to bring
new things. He was going to show up in new ways.
There were going to be new situations and new relationships
and new love coming from So that was kind of
how gratitude was born for me, and then I just
became obsessed with it. I mean, it was such a
(20:05):
like overnight switch in the lens with which I saw
my life that I really started to be intentional and
see the goodness of God without having to go and
look for it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, Okay, what you just described, I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
We talk a lot about the fusion of science and
faith here on this podcast, and there was the consistency
of renewing your mind and shifting from we'll call it degratitude.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's a word I just made up to gratitude, and
literally it was a choice.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
It was a conscious choice. You had to posture in
that direction. And so it happens in the short run.
But then what happens in the long run if there's
positive neuro associations alongside it, which there were. You were
feeling the weight and the levity of that gratitude, what
happens is little by little, your brain actually shifts so
that becomes your new default. And that's exactly what you
were just describing. It became almost like an obsession because
(20:52):
it felt so good, you did more of it and
your brain almost became that. I feel like that is
very life giving and gives us a lot of hope
because anyone who's listening to this and they're just like.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I'm not there yet, right.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
It didn't happen overnight, but it was these little little
baby steps that added up and they literally shifted the
default state of your brain. And that's and there you are.
But the circumstances didn't change. Your marriage had still ended,
you were still single, momming, you were doing all the
things like, the circumstances were the same, but your posture
and that your heart had shifted such a beautiful testament
to that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
The circumstances are the reality of the situation. What does
change is how you see the reality of the situation
and how you show up in that situation. And that
is what can make gratitude really switch your life overnight,
and anyone's capable of it. Anyone can start writing down
four good things a day. It doesn't take you anything
fancy to do that, just a piece of paper or
(21:42):
the notes app on your phone. But anyone is capable
of that, which is why it's so great.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
So one of the things that I just want to
brag on you on, But also have you talk about
is just how you showed up as a mom to
your boys when you were in the pits of despair,
you know, and they were going through it too, and
you know say their their own perspectives in different ways.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But the way you created this family unit right.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And the way you you made a decision to feel
like nothing was missing. Could you just share a little
bit about what that experience was like with your boys.
I'd love to hear if you want to share what
your son texted you when he was live streaming you
across the country when I think you were in Vegas
or wherever you were, and I know you had two
very different experiences, the milkshake Monday and then the US
(22:34):
four and no More, which were two very different experiences.
So for anybody who hasn't read the book, and definitely
go read the book, can you just share a little
bit about how you recreated this beautiful foundation as a
family unit to build something new and I dare say
better right, but better than okay for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
But in this way that like it was such a
gift from God.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I was so overwhelmed with being a single parent. I was,
you know, healing from my own trauma and tragic I
was trying to leave my kids through their own trauma.
It was you know, my therapist that I worked with
with my children said that my kids actually experienced two divorces,
the divorce of their parents and the divorce from the church.
Because my kids went from you know, they were one
(23:15):
Sunday with me hugging necks at one of our campuses,
and the next Sunday, I was telling them that the
dad wasn't a pastor anymore. So it was like whiplash
for them, and there was a lot of anger and confusion.
And you know, I know now that my kids had
seen things I didn't realize they had seen, and they
actually knew some stuff that I didn't know. They were
trying to protect me. But I just felt very strongly
(23:37):
that I wanted to recreate family, like nothing was missing
the first when you're going through separation and divorce, the
first holidays and birthdays and any significant date like that,
it just doesn't feel the same. Even though you might
be on a better trajectory, You only know what you know,
So you go through these holidays and birthdays and it
feels like, well, something is missing, is my family? Unit
(23:59):
ever got to feel complete. So I became super intentional
with I want to redefine family where it feels like
nothing is missing. And I remember I was having a
quiet time with God and he was so generous because
I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed thinking, you know, what
if my kids end up hating church in general because
of what happened. What if my kids mimic a dysfunctional marriage.
(24:20):
What if they turned to alcohol on drugs because of this?
And I was trying to build these walls of protection
based on the foundation of fear, which is never something
that is very smart because the foundation of fear is
not stable. So those walls of protection were very justified,
but being built on the foundation of fear was not
what I needed to build my new family foundation on.
So I was having a quiet time with God and
(24:41):
I was actually reading in Joshua three, and it's where
the Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for forty
years and they get to the edge of the Jordan
River and the Ark of the Covenant is at the front.
It's being carried by the priest and the Jordan was
at flood stage. So it's somewhere between one hundred and
one hundred and ten yards wide. And the Jordan is
not a zero entry river like you know we go
(25:04):
to the beach. It is you take a step and
you drop. And I was reading that, and what was
so interesting is it says the Bible says, as soon
as the priest took the first step into the Jordan River,
the water piled up in a heap. And we now
know that the water piled up about nineteen miles upstream.
(25:24):
And what happened is then the priest who were carrying
the Ark of the Covenant, they walked to the middle
of the Jordan, and they stood on solid ground, and
all of Israel, millions and millions of Israelites passed by
the Ark of the Covenant and finally got to enter
the promised land that they'd been waiting forty years to enter.
So when I read the scripture, I really believed that
(25:47):
that's what leading my kids through trauma and tragedy look like,
that I had to do it all, that I had
to lead them through the forty years of the trauma
of their life, forty years of wilderness, that I had
to get them to the edge of the Jordan, that
I had to be carrying the arc of the Covenant.
I had to have enough faith to take the first step.
I had to hold back the water. I had to
create the solid ground for them to stand on, and
(26:08):
then I had to lead them to the promises that
God has for their life. And I remember just having
this moment where God just implanted on my heart, Brandy,
that is not what I've asked you to do. What
I've asked you to do is to hold who I
am for your kids.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And that's what your job is. To love me. Your
job is to trust me. Your job is to trust
that I will lead your kids to the promises that
I have for their life, not that you have. Because
the promises I have for your life are greater than
what you have even for your kids' lives. And it's
my job to make sure. It's God's job to lead
(26:43):
my kids through the trauma and tragedy. It's God's job
to take that first step of faith into the water.
It's God's job to hold back the water like a barrier,
and it's his job to lead them across the Jordan
end too the promised land. And when I had that
moment with him, I just felt such relief because I
knew loving God and trust in God that I could do.
And if I can do that and my kids see
me doing that, then I can trust that God, who
(27:05):
loves my kids more than I do, is going to
deliver them to the promises that He has for their life.
So that was a game changer for me in regards
to parenting. And when I took that perspective, it allowed
me to just exhale a little bit and to enjoy
my children. I think I was functioning in such hypervigilance
of what's going to happen to us next and if
(27:26):
this has fallen apart, what else can fall apart that
I didn't really just get to relax and enjoy my kids.
And when I had that moment with God, I just
knew God had them. And we started honestly living a
different life. We moved, we bought a new house and
new to us home, and we defined some family values
and we became super intentional about us four. That's what
(27:47):
I call us. There are four of us total, And
when we needed to have time, you know, to celebrate
a birthday or maybe have some kind of family talk,
I would say, this isn't us four, No, more situation,
but to really create that. I kept a really tight
nest initially in order to protect my kids. And I
remember when we started, I started letting down the walls
(28:07):
of our nest and started letting people come back around.
I brought a friend in, another single lady who just
loves to hang out with us. She's a therapist, and
I let her started inviting her over to watch The
Bachelor with us on Monday nights, which is the milkshake
Monday you're talking about. And my kids had always had
all of their friends over for milkshake Monday. We watched
The Bachelor, and I make milkshakes and we call it
(28:30):
milkshake Monday, and whoever wants to come can come. We
watched the Bachelor, Yes, Leanne, It's why I love it.
Write a Quaranteen book. But I had invited my single
friend Emily over, and I just said, you can't come.
Why don't you come watch the Bachelor with us? And
I remember my middle son said, I hope she realizes
what a big deal it is that we've let her in.
(28:51):
And at that point I knew, Oh, my kids have
recognized that I have created a really tight nest as well,
and I think it felt super safe for me, also
felt super safe for them, and as we healed, I
could loosen that nest and just allow our lives to
intersect with people more often.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Wow, it's so beautiful, and it really sounds like you
found that metal ground between keeping something sacred versus that
hypervigilance that control, that self reliance on you to do
everything you know, and then in turn moving into self
abandonment trying to take care of everyone else. Like it
really sounds like God showed up. And it's interesting because
what came up for me is when you in your book,
you shared about this idea of faith doesn't happen in
(29:29):
the straddling, you know, and you talked about how you
had to get a new house. I know, you found
a new church home and you ended up going to
a much smaller community like in people's homes, but that
concept of faith doesn't happen in the straddling. I want
to just expound on that because I think for me personally,
i've I can look back at experiences in my life
where the identity had such a tight grip on me.
(29:50):
I was trying to hold on to anything that I
could that made me feel safe or grounded, but it
was so grounded in the old ways of living, in
old ways of being, and in turn it kept me straddling.
I remember, so for those of you who are listening
might recognize cross Point because that's where I found the Lord.
So Brandy planted the church where I found God. So
this is a very full circle interview. But I remember
(30:13):
when I moved out to Murphisborough, when I met my
now husband, I was having lunch with Ree and Kevin Queen,
and I said to them, because Crosspoint was my first
and only church, Kevin was my first, I jokingly call
in my rabbi. I'm like, Kevin, you're my first rabbi.
And I told them flat out. I was like, I
feel like I'm cheating on you, guys, because I'm going
to a different church. And I think I even use
(30:33):
the word straddling, like I'm straddling Nashville and Murphysboro. And
I felt very unsettled. And Kevin was like, Leanne, we
love you. We don't care where you get it. We
just want you to get it, so go get it
in Murphy's Borough, like We're here for you regardless. And
to be able to then take my foot off of
Nashville and plan it firmly into Murphisboro. It was a
complete shift, right, And it's crazy that that was one
(30:55):
of the little things, but it was straddling.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And you're right, that was the opposite of faith.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And so can you share a little bit about this
concept that you talk about about faith doesn't happen in
the straddling. And sometimes you have to release everything that
you knew to go commit to your new life, which
is not easy.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It's not easy because we cling to what we know,
and the old life is what we know. And that's
where I was. I was stuck between. I had still
been attending cross Point on weekends I didn't have my kids.
I would go to cross Point, the campus that was
closer to me. I'd attend there. I was part of
a small group. I actually I am still part of
a small group that started Gosh at this point, it
(31:30):
probably started twenty years ago and is still meeting on
a pretty regular basis. So that was the old life
I knew, and there was comfort in that, and there
was security and there was safety in that. Even though
everything had fallen apart in that life, I still knew it.
And then during the pandemic. With everything shut down, I
started visiting a home church that has started in my neighborhood.
(31:52):
And we had a massive storm go through Nashville a
few years ago, and I knew at night we were
without electricity. Everything was dark. I knew my yard was
going to be a mess. And we woke up the
next morning. And my house was built in nineteen seventy eight,
so I have some massive trees in my yard, and
I'd lost one massive tree and half of another massive
(32:12):
tree was down, and my backyard was covered, my fence
was demolished. The edge of my steps that lead up
to my back door had the tips of the tree
resting on it, so it came very close to hitting
our home, but by the grace of God, did not.
And that morning I just woke up to a disaster
in my backyard and I thought, I don't know what
(32:33):
to do, Like I had overseen the entire remodeling of
this house, and I didn't know what to do when
I had trees down in my backyard. And for me,
it was that moment of Brandy. What you can do
is you can cling to your old and you can
call the guys. From that small grief and some of
the staff guys from cross Point and they will show
up and take care of this for you. Or God
(32:53):
is offering you something new in this home church and
you're trying to resuscitate what's dead. You can either keep
trying to resuscitate what's dead, or you can grasp on
to the new that God is offering you. And I
made the decision to grasp on to the new, And
in that day it felt like the baton of my
heart had passed from cross Point being my church to
(33:14):
what is local church is the church I attend now.
It's in multiple homes in my neighborhood and other neighborhoods
across Middle Tennessee, but just has a smaller We call
it a micro church, kind of the opposite of megachurches.
It's a micro church. But for me, it was really
just this fact that God had offered me something new
that I had been praying about. I had been praying
about a new church and where I was supposed to be.
But I still, even in the asking for it, wasn't
(33:36):
ready to let go of cross Point. So I was
spending way more energy trying to resuscitate what was dead,
rather than embracing the new that God was offering me.
Even though my backyard was a disaster, it was a
really beautiful moment because I called local church and those guys.
The pastor said, we'll have people there about two o'clock,
and we did. We had probably six or seven men
(33:56):
and several teenage boys, and my kids were home for
a Christmas break, so I had all of my kids
helping and we had the backyard cleaned up in a
matter of hours because I was willing to embrace the
new that God was offering me.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh my God.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
And in your book you actually asked three different questions
alongside that. You said, what are you trying to resuscitate
that's dead? Where does God want to breathe new life
into your story? And then I think the most important
question you asked is and are you willing to cooperate
with him?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yes, that just really spoke to me.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
So good, so good. So I'd love to hear about
the work that you're doing today. You said in your
book that my suffering can be a survival guide for others,
Like that is just so beautiful because I mean, it's
the phoenix rising from the ashes. To be cheesy for
a second, but really you're taking what happened to you
and you are turning it into a pivotal like you're
shortcutting the journey for people that have been through it,
(34:44):
and you're allowing them to struggle but no longer have
to suffer because you can help walk them through that.
So talk to us a little bit about the work
that you're.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Doing with women to walk them through that personally.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, I started talking to so many women post divorce,
just referred by friends or who had followed my story
on social media, Y and I just felt a strong
calling to get a couple of certifications to be able
to work as a coach to help women to feel
I knew I had the life experience, I wanted to
make sure I also have the educational experience to be
able to really show up for them at a high level.
(35:14):
So I got a couple of certifications and I actually
launched a business called Love Brandy Wilson, and it's where
I do my coaching and I work with a lot
of I have two areas of influence that I see
the most, but I work with a lot of ministry
women who are trying to figure out their next best
step in ministry. Because I have you know, over twenty
years of leadership experience in ministry, and then I also
(35:35):
work with women who are walking through separation divorce trying
to figure out what their next best step is in
regards to finding strength, freedom, enjoying their new lives. So
it has been so life giving for me. I never
thought I would take walking through a divorce and actually
turn it into a small business, but it has actually
been great to have a full time job working for
a nonprofit that I love. And this is what I
(35:57):
call my single mom's side gig, and I spent a
lot of time I'm about ten hours a week coaching
women who are walking through similar situations to help them
find their fresh start and hope and healing in the process.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Oh my goodness, Wow, what talk about turning it into
a golden way of being Really like, you get to
be who you are and then walk others through it
and God's with you every step away he is.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
It's been amazing. I have loved it, truly loved it.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Well, I have so many other things I wanted to
ask you, because there's just so much to unpack. We'll
just have to have you come back. I would love
to see but in the meantime, where can people find you?
Where can they google?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Stock?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
You?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Better than Okay? Is her book? I'm telling you, I
binged it. I couldn't put it down.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Where can people find you? Follow you and get more
information about the work that you do as well?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
My website is love Brandywilson dot com on Instagram. I'm
love Brandy Wilson, Brandy with an I for the book,
go to your favorite book retailer.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Well, we will link all of those links in the
show notes so that they can find you directly. Thank
you so much for being here. Thank you for being
a stand and having the courage to share your story there.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I mean there were some lows, there's been a lot
of highs.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
It's just a really beautiful testament to what God can
do when you are willing to own your story, walk
through it and invite Him in.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Thank you so much, Leanne, I've really enjoyed being with
you today.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Thanks for listening. Guys. We'll be back for the next episode. Bye,
We'll be back with more What's God got to do
with it?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
But in the meantime, I would definitely love to hear
from you, so just tell me where you.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Are in your story.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Or maybe what questions you have, like where do you
feel you need clarity or support or wisdom in your
own journey. I definitely want to hear from you, So
head on over to What's God Got to Do with It?
Dot com and scroll down to the form to share
your thoughts, your questions, your feedback, and you can do
that instantly.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
So What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com?
You'll find all the ways to do that.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
And if you like this podcast and want to hear more,
go ahead and follow, like, and subscribe wherever you listen
to podcasts to get your weekly dose of What's God
Got to Do with It? New episodes drop every single Tuesday,
and while.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You're there, be sure to rate and review to show
your support. It really means so much.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
What's God Got to Do With It is an iHeartRadio
podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's written and hosted
Speaker 4 (38:15):
By me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozio, post
production and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written
by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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