Lecrae Has A Deep Convo With Dr. Anita Phillips

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Deep End with Lecrae

Episode: "Lecrae Has a Deep Convo with Dr. Anita Phillips"

Date: June 18, 2026
Host: Lecrae
Guest: Dr. Anita Phillips (New York Times bestselling author, pastor, trauma therapist)

---

Episode Overview

In this heartfelt and insightful conversation, Lecrae sits down with Dr. Anita Phillips to discuss the complexities of trauma, faith, mental health, and the often-unspoken struggles that Christians face. The episode explores the intersection of spiritual and clinical healing, dismantles misconceptions around religion and mental health, and provides practical wisdom for navigating pain, grief, and life’s darkest moments. Dr. Phillips shares her personal story, theological insights, and professional expertise in a vulnerable, accessible, and empowering exchange.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Anita Phillips' Background & Formative Experiences

[05:32–11:04]

• Dr. Phillips grew up in a multi-generational pastoral family with a strong heritage of ministry, care for people, and non-judgmental support.
• Her upbringing blended intellectual curiosity (engineering, math, physics) with deep concern for people, leading her to a career as a trauma therapist.
• The combination of her mother’s pragmatic and fiery approach to scripture and her father’s methodical, academic style shaped her multidimensional understanding of faith and science.

"People are the machine that I love most. They're the most beautiful machine of all." – Dr. Anita ([07:04])

• She recounts an early story blending faith and science: recognizing E=mc² as a possible explanation for the rapture, reflecting her lifelong drive to connect seen and unseen realities.

---

2. Integrating Faith, Science, and Spirituality

[13:00–16:21]

• Lecrae shares his own crisis of faith and mental health struggles, torn between neuroscientific and supernatural explanations.
• Dr. Phillips describes her journey reconciling spiritual warfare with mental health realities, telling the story of her late sister’s struggles with both spiritual and clinical symptoms.

"Two things can be true. I could be under spiritual attack, and there could be some chemical, genetic stuff happening as well." – Lecrae ([15:27])

---

3. Trauma, Mental Health, and the Church's Response

[16:21–22:07]

• Dr. Phillips shares how her family initially attributed her sister's experiences to demonic oppression, but eventually recognized the need for mental health treatment after a dangerous episode.
• She stresses the importance of erasing the false boundary between the visible (clinical/mental health) and invisible (spiritual/demonic), advocating for a holistic, integrative approach.

"As soon as we can see it, it's not spiritual anymore. That's one of our major problems... and neither of those are 100% true." – Dr. Anita ([21:04])

---

4. Spirituality vs. Religion & Cultural Differences

[22:15–29:09]

• The distinction between spirituality (inward beliefs, invisible realities) and religion (visible practices, institutions) is explored.
• Dr. Phillips uses clothing metaphors to explain how religion “hangs differently” on the frame of diverse spiritualities and cultures.

"Spirituality is like the frame of my body. Religion is like the clothing. It hangs different on different bodies." – Dr. Anita ([26:25])

---

5. Bridging the Gap: Prayer and Clinical Help

[29:10–34:09]

• The conversation addresses how to help elders in the church, like “Mother Jenkins,” understand and accept the biological basis for mental illness without losing faith in the power of prayer.
• Dr. Phillips honors the generational power of authentic prayer while advocating for respect and linking scriptural metaphors (trees, gardens) to biology and neuroscience.

"Nobody's willing to hear you when you don't respect them... I love the church." – Dr. Anita ([32:26])

---

6. Western Obsession with Progress & Healing as a Journey

[36:11–40:17]

• Lecrae and Dr. Phillips unpack the constantly future-oriented mindset in Western culture, noting its impact on approaches to healing.
• Dr. Phillips cautions against seeing oneself perpetually as a “project” and urges acceptance of the present self, distinguishing journey from destination.

"We're all trying to get somewhere, but our healing journey should also be about being happy with myself and accepting me where I am." – Dr. Anita ([37:49])

---

7. The Pastor/Scientist in Hollywood

[46:15–51:38]

• Dr. Phillips reflects on bringing her deep faith, scientific background, and nonjudgmental compassion into ministry at a prominent church in Los Angeles—often viewed as “shallow.”
• She values spiritual openness over rigid religiosity and highlights California's history of transformative spiritual movements.

"Spiritual openness… means people are out there asking questions. They absolutely believe in this world that we can't see…" – Dr. Anita ([48:54])

• Dr. Phillips pushes back against fear-driven and shame-based methods used in Christian culture to promote holiness.

"We have confused love with fear, obligation, and guilt… and we've used it in our religion." – Dr. Anita ([52:59])

---

8. Grace, Love, and Judgment in Christian Community

[54:39–58:34]

• The conversation uncovers the deep lack of love in church traditions and the tendency to use fear, obligation, and guilt, rather than God’s love, as motivators.
• Dr. Phillips expresses her own experience as a strong Black woman in ministry, lamenting harshness in prophetic circles and underscoring the biblical centrality of love.

"God is love. It’s a simple scripture... you will have a hard time finding the primary description of God as love in statements of faith." – Dr. Anita ([58:01])

---

9. Death, Divorce, Adultery, and the Nature of Pain

[62:57–82:01]

• Lecrae and Dr. Phillips discuss major adult traumas—death, adultery, and divorce—and why they destabilize faith and identity so profoundly.
• Dr. Phillips explains grief as a never-fully-resolved human response, the true meaning of the five stages of grief, and how pain impacts belief.

"Pain dislodges belief. That's a fact… Anytime someone hits a certain level of pain, they question what they believe." – Dr. Anita ([67:43])

• She reveals vulnerability about her own divorce, the limitations of being able to “self-heal” despite her knowledge, and the importance of community, therapy, and hope.

"A surgeon doesn't perform surgery on themselves… I am still also a woman." – Dr. Anita ([79:07])

---

10. Enduring Hope and Navigating Pain

[83:07–87:52]

• Dr. Phillips shares her philosophy on developing a "healthy relationship with pain" as key to well-being and resilience.
• Emphasizes the importance of accepting that pain will come, not rushing to interpret or solve for it during the darkest moments, but simply surviving, trusting God, and allowing for healing over time.

"If God blessed me to stay alive, the clock will keep ticking, the sun will keep rising. At some point, I will be 5 days away from this, 50 days, 5 years... it actually does pass." – Dr. Anita ([84:01])

• She draws a powerful analogy: don’t seek to explain the storm while it’s happening—“Go to shelter, let it pass, and rebuild.”

---

Memorable Quotes

• “People are the machine that I love most. They're the most beautiful machine of all.” – Dr. Anita ([07:04])
• “Two things can be true. I could be under spiritual attack, and there could be some chemical, genetic stuff happening as well.” – Lecrae ([15:27])
• “Spirituality is like the frame of my body. Religion is like the clothing. It hangs different on different bodies.” – Dr. Anita ([26:25])
• “Pain dislodges belief. That's a fact… Anytime someone hits a certain level of pain, they question what they believe.” – Dr. Anita ([67:43])
• "If God blessed me to stay alive, the clock will keep ticking, the sun will keep rising. At some point… it actually does pass." – Dr. Anita ([84:01])
• "God is love. It’s an actual scripture... you will have a hard time finding the primary description of God as love in statements of faith." – Dr. Anita ([58:01])
• “Don't try to answer the hard questions in the middle of the pain. Just survive it.” – Dr. Anita ([87:15])

---

Useful Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dr. Phillips’ upbringing, faith & science: [05:32–12:54]
• Spiritual/clinical integration & her sister’s struggle: [16:21–22:07]
• Respecting tradition while offering clinical help: [29:10–34:09]
• Western culture & the journey of healing: [36:11–40:17]
• Ministry in Hollywood: [46:15–52:42]
• Fear, shame, and the misuse of 'love' in religion: [52:42–58:34]
• On grief, death, and why pain shakes belief: [62:57–69:01]
• Dr. Anita’s own divorce, vulnerability, and healing: [78:03–82:01]
• Navigating pain & holding onto hope: [83:07–87:52]

---

Closing Reflection

Lecrae and Dr. Anita Phillips deliver a rich, moving, and wise episode that affirms vulnerability, integrates spiritual and psychological truths, and invites listeners to approach pain and faith with honesty and compassion. Listeners are left with practical wisdom on grief, trauma, and hope, and a deeper understanding of how love—not fear—is the foundation for true healing.

Recommended Reading:

• Dr. Anita Phillips' book: “The Garden Within: Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins”

---

Transcript

[A]

Everywhere I go, people are carrying trauma, anxiety, loneliness, grief, dysfunction. And they got questions that they don't know how to answer. And they need more than information. What they need is they need wise, compassionate people who can walk with them toward healing. And that's why I am excited to tell the world about Richmond Graduate University. So Richmond equips future counselors and ministry leaders with the skills and compassion to help others heal and grow. And. And what I love is that they do not separate clinical excellence from spiritual formation. They integrate both advancing God's work of healing, restoration, and transformation in the lives of individuals, churches, and communities. So listen, whether you are called to be a licensed counselor or serve in ministry or help people process trauma, or just walk alongside others in seasons of pain and growth, Richmond offers master's degrees and in counseling, master's degrees in ministry, a doctorate of ministry degree, and a specialized certificates designed to help equip you for whatever that calling may be. So maybe you'd be listening to these conversations on the deep end and you felt like something is stirring in you and your experience healing for yourself. Or you wonder if God may use your story to help somebody else heal. Listen, if that's you, don't ignore that nudge. Like, if God is calling you into counseling or ministry, Richmond can literally help you take the next step. Trust me. Apply for the fall semester, July 1st. Use my promo code, Lecrae. Waive the application fee. If you want to learn more, go to Richmond Edu. You got the power to change lives through your career. Richmont Edu.

[B]

A burst pipe, a dead water heater, the AC calling it quits. Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast savings compared to a renewal price void in Florida.

[C]

You must trust God with the outcome. When we do that, we are moving from a place of power instead of control. I had an older sister. She passed away in 2016. She woke up one night just screaming at the top of her lungs. The bedroom door was open, hallway was dark. And she said, nita, Nita, there's a demon in the door. And it was starting to happen more often. The voices that she was hearing told her to kill us. Why would everyone else be able to be Freed by my parents. Pray, but not my sister. Why isn't the devil staying away?

[A]

You would be a pastor in what some people would call one of the most shallow areas in society.

[C]

Listen, Hollywood's not shallow.

[A]

Maybe the more religious people would say you're a compromiser.

[C]

What did I do? I would rather have spirituality than religion.

[A]

You paused a little bit.

[C]

I want to choose my words carefully. We have used the emotions of fear.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Obligation and guilt to convince people to give their lives to Jesus and to continue to live for Jesus. If you have sex before you get married, then God may not give you a good husband because now you don't deserve it. That's fear.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That's not love. We're really missing it.

[A]

You're dangerous. I've seen death, adultery and divorce make people say, I'm out, I'm out, I'm good. Life is too hard. What is that?

[C]

I love how you phrase that. This is the deep end with Lecrae.

[A]

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited because I don't know if you would say I'm a fan. Fan is strange for what my next guest does and is to the world, but I am, I am. I'm a fan, I guess because the mind that she possesses and on top of that, the capability of helping people who are in dark spaces see light, is personally exciting for me. You know, if you. If you're not familiar with my next guest. My next guest is a New York Times best selling author and in an incredible, incredible communicator. But I gotta, I gotta give you all of the details, okay. Because there's lots of details, titles and all those things that she's far beyond. But just in case you didn't know, outside of being the best selling author, she's a licensed minister, a trauma therapist, a lead pastor of one of the most prominent churches in the Los Angeles area. All these degrees and, and doctorates and the whole nine, and she's still super down to earth. You may have seen her hanging out with people like, I don't know, Sarah Jakes Roberts or Tor or maybe Oprah. But she still makes time to talk to the everyday people who. Who are dealing with things that are perceived as just spiritual. Sometimes it's more than that. So none other than Dr. Anita Phillips. We have you in the building today.

[C]

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I was. Look, I've been looking forward to this conversation.

[A]

Listen, you and me both, good stuff.

[C]

Okay?

[A]

You and me both. It blows me away how well of a. We talked about this. Earlier translator that you are, you're able to speak this lofty academic language, but then, like, make it very palatable and accessible for people. And. And I. I don't know it. I guess it would seem like if that's something that you've, I don't know, try to really master and, And. And pay attention to, and you do it so well.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

And so for people who don't know, all of the incredible things that you've done and who you are will get there. But let's talk about the person behind the titles.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

So, you know, talk to us about growing up. I know both your parents were pastors. You're a pk.

[C]

I am.

[A]

How does that influence who you are today and what you have going on?

[C]

It definitely had an impact. So my parents are pastors. My mom's an evangelist, and my mom's parents were pastors as well. So I'm a few generations down into this. And I think it has influenced me by making people a central concern by personality type. And I'm a big personality theorist by personality type. I should be an engineer, a scientist, a physicist, which actually I started college as a math and physics major.

[A]

I'm not surprised.

[C]

And so I love to know how things work. I love universals, and that's what it is about physics. But because I grew up around people who were taking care of people, I didn't feel like I could spend my life in a lab. It didn't feel right to me. And so I was drawn back into people work. And that's how I ended up as a therapist, but a therapist who likes to understand how people function and work and teach other people the same thing. So I'm still kind of an engineer, but people are the machine that I love the most. They're the most beautiful machine of all.

[A]

It is rare to me, and I'm curious about your upbringing, because it's rare to me to hear a mind that works like yours. So, like, I mean, you know, just your aptitude for engineering or mathematics generally. People like that, generally broad broke, broad stroke, are not the most personable people.

[C]

We're a little nerdy, little weird, you know, just a little, you know.

[A]

But like, I read about, I think you said somewhere where your parents would have people coming in your house late at night and you would have to like, I don't know, anything. I didn't see anything. You didn't see that? Yeah, but. But I. I would imagine it's like, oh, okay, they meet with people, they spend time with people. And that's informing how you're, you're growing up. How is that informing how you.

[C]

Yeah, I mean there was always people coming through the house. This is back when phone numbers were listed so people could look at my parents phone number and call them in the phone book, show up at the front door and they always open the door, they always welcome them. But then there was that counseling as especially that I saw my mother doing where whether a pastor was struggling with some moral issue or a pastor and his wife were struggling and they would come over and have that private time. And one of the things that I was amazed about as I got older and was able to observe certain things is that my mom never judged. She would talk about people in general. She wouldn't say this person did this or this, but I would hear her talking about someone and just what they were struggling with. And it was never judgment.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It was always, they needed the help. They came to talk about it, they're really going through it. And so that non judgmental way of looking at people's problems, it's natural to my personality. But I think absorb that even more from her. She also had a very unique way of looking at scripture that was pragmatic, like make it make sense. What does this actually mean for our lives? And so listening to her teach the Word that way and she's a very fiery preacher. Energy. But then on the flip side, my dad's a PhD and he's a very methodical teacher of the Word. And so I feel like I got the best of both of them.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In that way. And so it all. I'll tell you a story. I don't know if I tell if you've heard this, but when I was in middle school and I first learned equals MC squared, that is the formula that says if you move a solid object at the speed of light squared, it'll disappear because it turns to energy. When I first learned that, I came home and told my parents, we learned the formula for how the rapture is going to happen. And they were like, what? I was like, well, the Bible says we'll be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. And that's the speed of light because twinkle is light in the eye. And so that's the speed of light squared. And so this scientist just figured out how to explain how God had already set it up to work. And my mom was just like, okay. And that's so, that's always been me.

[A]

And so. Okay, so this is, this is middle school version of you yes, this, I've

[C]

always been like this. And I tell people all the time, I'm not like this because I'm a therapist. I'm a therapist because I'm like this. I'm, I'm not. This is how I've always been.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I've always looked to see how everything matched each other. That's always been really important to me. And so Bible was my first language and my first lens for understanding the world because it was so thick in the house and not in a rule based way, in a, how do we explain things? And so if I can't understand it through the lens of scripture, I, it messes with me. I, I will stay in there with God until it makes sense.

[A]

Now, this is just my personal experience. This isn't, you know, I, I generally have seen these incredibly brilliant people, these academics, when it comes to theology or thinking about spiritual things. They've kind of shut that down and just like, oh, I don't have to think too deeply about that. I think deeply about all of this. This is just very black and white for me. It just is what it is. Like, oh, yes, the lights went out because of a demon or whatever, you know, just very basic black and white. And it always intrigued me because I didn't grow up. I grew up around the church, but I wasn't a believer until I became an adult.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

So I was very skeptical.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And things like that. I'm like, did you turn your brain off? Like, what's happening here? How, like, what was that experience for you growing up like this? PhD, dad. But then there's theology, there's science. And were they always, I guess, very, I don't know, exploratory as far as theology was concerned or.

[C]

I can't say that they explored it the way that I did. I mean, my dad's degrees are in theology.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I can't say they explored science the way that I did.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

But because my dad is, does have that kind of mind, there were never any limitations. So maybe it's better said that I never experienced limitations on how I should be thinking. So read it all, do it all, go to college, get your grad degrees, do all the things.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I think that the openness to explore was the key. So I wasn't being given it this way, but when I would speak this way, I was encouraged.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so I never experienced a limitation.

[A]

Yeah, you speak, it's like you speak multiple languages in a sense.

[C]

I do.

[A]

That's what it feels like.

[C]

And because what God has helped me do is to distill things down to the common denominator. Right? There's nothing new under the sun. And that is truly a fact. Right. Whether you're saying the law of physics, nothing's created or destroyed, only changed. We know that that's a fact. Right? And so I'm always asking, what are we really talking about here? Okay, how do we reduce this down to the basics? Because every field is actually saying the same thing in different ways. Whether it's biology or botany or physics or. Or sociology or personality. There's a limited data set from which the problem can be solved. Nothing can be made new. So other than us through Jesus, we don't get to create anything. We just keep moving it around.

[A]

And so, okay, again, when I hear people talk like that, it's typically they're heavily on the science side and they can't fathom there being a supernatural or spiritual world or. Or they're heavy on supernatural world, and they use that to write off science.

[C]

And.

[A]

And I guess that's. So I say all that to say this. I was at the. In my. In my life, you know, I'm at the top of my game.

[C]

I'm.

[A]

I'm writing songs, I'm traveling the world. I'm reading all these books. I'm understanding theology, but I come from the skeptical background. And then I go through crisis of faith, you know, where stuff just wasn't lining up for me. Now, some of it was the brand of theology that I had subscribed to. It wasn't holding weight.

[C]

Okay, was it holding water?

[A]

Wasn't holding water, right. So I had a crisis of faith. In my crisis of faith, I spiraled out mentally as well. So now I'm having. I'm wrestling with depression, I'm wrestling with anxiety, and I immediately. There's only one way to go. I either dive straight into the neuroscience side of things or I dive into the supernatural side of things. The crisis of faith is making me just go straight neuroscience, right? Like, this is where I'm going.

[C]

But.

[A]

But what ended up happening was I didn't. You know, I'm depressed, I'm crying, I'm wrestling with God. God ends up revealing to me through scripture that he's not done with me, even though I had kind of been like, I'm done with you. Breaks me down. And now I'm like, oh, it's not depression, it's demonic forces. And so I'm not willing to look at anything. Like, as far as neuroscience, right? I'm not thinking about neuroplasticity. Any of these types of things. Meanwhile, my family has this history of mental health issues. And so it wasn't until many years later where I was able to reconcile, like, two things can be true. Right. I could be under spiritual attack, and there could be some, you know, chemical, genetic stuff happening as well. I know some of the story about your sister. Yeah. And I'm just trying to understand how you got to a place where you got to. Maybe you could talk to us about your sister and just, like, how you're able to hold those things in two hands.

[C]

Yeah. So for those who don't know, I had an older sister. She passed away in 2016. But when we were very young, we shared a bedroom, and she woke up one night just screaming at the top of her lungs. The bedroom door was open, hallway was dark. And she said, nita, Nita, there's a demon in the door. And I'm, of course, terrified. I'm 6 or 7 years old, and she's 11 or 12. And I believed her because we are Pentecostal, I always say. They say now people are charismatic, but we were Pentecostal. Okay. And I lived in a very spiritually active household. My mom is people coming over, going through deliverance, casting out demons. So we're learning this at a young age. So I'm thinking there's no reason to believe that she's wrong about a demon being there. And so that happened. She screamed and cried and told. She woke my parents. They came, they prayed. She opens her eyes, she looks, the demon's gone. So we feel like, okay, prayer took care of it. But then it happened again shortly after that, and then it was starting to happen more often. And so my question was internally, why isn't the devil staying away? Because we're seeing people successfully freed from demonic oppression. Why would everyone else be able to be freed by my parents prayers, but not my sister? And so at the first. My first questions, it was a curiosity. It wasn't an accusation to God. It was just like, what's actually going on? So that was the beginning of some years of chaos in our home. Right. Because now she's having these nightmares. But then her mood started changing. She was nicer to me when I was younger, but then she started being mean. She started running away from home. And there was a lot of things on the surface that could have maybe explained it. And, you know, it's rebellion. She's just being. Now I know that one of the things that can happen when someone has bipolar disorder in their manic Phase with young people is running away. We didn't know anything about that then. And so when she would run away or she would act out, then she, you know, she'd get in trouble. We know what black code for. And so it was just a lot of chaos. And I was so miserable. It made me so miserable as the kid in the house. The yelling, the screaming, the terror, the. It was awful. And so I did get to a point where I did start to get an attitude with the Lord. And I say around 14 or 15, I started questioning whether God existed because why isn't my sister getting better? So I wrestled through a lot of those things. So I'd say my teen years, me and God were kind of like, eh, I think I still believe in you, but I'm not really feeling these things. And so I went away to college. The Lord met me at 19, and I gave my life to him. I found out I needed God more than I needed the answers to my questions. And so I was like, I'm gonna have to go with them, because I needed him.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And eventually he answered my questions, But I had questions. I definitely did.

[A]

So how. How did. I mean at the time for what? I understand your. Your family's like, well, she just needs prayer. She needs deliverance.

[C]

It's demonic, Right. And so there was an episode when she was in about 10th grade where the voices that she was hearing, hearing actually told her to kill us. And so my grandmother, my mother and I were home at the time, and my sister had been stashing knives under the mattress in her room. Little did we know, and did attempt to kill us. And so by the grace of God, I'm not a cover story in some old yellow newspaper somewhere. And so police were called, ambulance took her. And that's how she got her mental health treatment for the first time. So she was in a mental health facility. Facility for a few months, but when she came back, she gradually got worse. And so medication. I don't. I don't know if she came home with medication that didn't get taken. I was young. But she spiraled back into that space. And so she was very tormented. And. And it was a very tormenting for all of us. And I remember my mom getting to the point of, I know something is wrong with her. Her sister's name was Valerie. With Valerie, that more than spirit. But I don't understand it. And I still need to understand it in my Bible. And so that became a driving question for me. How do we understand all of this? Working together at the same time, you know, so once I gave my life to the Lord at 19, it still took some time for me to get to where I got about it, because I wasn't a therapist then, you know, and I had some arguments with God still. I was still angry. I still felt like, why aren't you answering these prayers? But he began to just heal me and take me on a journey and let my mind be dedicated to this work. And so once I accepted. Okay, this is all happening in the same sphere. When we talk about spirituality and religion, here's one of the problems. You know, people say, I'm spiritual, I'm not religious.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When we think that something is, as long as it's invisible or intangible, we'll call it spiritual. Once we can see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, measure it, then suddenly it's not spiritual anymore. That's one of our major problems. If we can't see it, it's spiritual. As soon as we can see it, it's not spiritual. Okay, And. And neither of those are 100% true ever.

[A]

That's really good.

[C]

Right? So spirituality, I won't get nerdy about it, but the way that we can define it, it's. It's. It generally tends to be the things that are like our view of deities, our view of the purpose of life, our view of life after death, our view of morality and how we see the relevance of invisible things to visible things. And that's largely cultural and personality based. And then you have religion, which is all visible. You got sacred texts. You have institutions, buildings, traditions, rituals that make up the religion. And so you have some people who say, I'm spiritual but not religious, but you also have people who are religious but not spiritual. And that's a challenge, too.

[A]

That is.

[C]

And that's one we don't talk about enough.

[A]

Okay, Lecrae. Why, why, why? Why do you interrupt my episode? I know we gotta take this break, okay? But this one is close to my world because I know what it feels like to build something from scratch. Music, merch, podcasting, and business. And it all sounds inspiring until you're the one trying to figure out the website, the inventory, the orders, the emails, the customer experience, and all of the things. And it stresses you out. And sometimes the biggest barrier is not the idea. It's all these systems that you need to make the idea actually work. And y', all, that's where Shopify came and saved my life. Okay, what is Shopify? Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. From major brands to people who are just getting started, they have hundreds, hundreds of ready to use templates so you can build your online store that actually looks like your brand. They got AI tools that help with product descriptions. They got page headlines and even product photography. And they help you get the word out with email and social media campaigns. Come on y'. All. What else do you want? Shopify keeps everything in one place. Inventory, payments, analytics, returns, shipping. So you stop jumping between 10 different platforms trying to run one business. And that purple shop pay button, that thing is clutch. Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet, which means fewer abandoned carts, more sales for you. So it's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comdeepin go to shopify.comdeepin that is shopify.comdeepend can we pause this episode? I'm thirsty. I'm parched. We need to pause it. I look like I need something to drink. Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. How are you doing? Let me tell you something. This one, this is special because between the travel and the workouts and the recording and the parenting meetings and just trying to stay sharp, what I've learned is sometimes I'm not even tired. I'm dehydrated. And water is good. Sometimes water alone is not enough. And that's why you need Drip Drop. What is Drip Drop, you ask? I'm glad you asked. Drip Drop is doctor developed proven fast hydration that helps your body and your mind work better. It's made for busy days, long workouts, travel, and those moments when you just feel off and you need to rebound. Being honest with y'. All. Drip drop uses science, science based formulas for rapid hydration. Three times the electrolytes of all the leading sports drinks trusted by firefighters, medical professionals, 90% of top college and pro sports teams, rappers named Lecrae. And also, they just dropped a zero sugar plus with six key electrolytes, 15 essential vitamins and nutrients. No sugar, no artificial sweeteners. I use it. I love it. It's for me. It's for you. And the flavors are actually good. Listen, this is not one of them health things that you gotta suffer through. You can use it in the morning before workout. After work, I hit the midday slump. I need it. I'm parched. Get me my drip drop, please. Bring it to me. And listen, right now, Drip drop is offering all my podcast listeners, 20% off your first order. All you got to do is go to drip drop.com, use my promo code, Lecrae. You don't know how to spell my name. Shame on you. L, E, C, R, A, E. I still love you. It's dripdrop.com promo code, Lecrae. 20% off. Stock up. Do not be parched. Do not be dehydrated. Drip drop dot com. Use a promo code, Lecrae.

[C]

And so, coming from a black American, but also Native American worldview and my family system, spirituality is very relevant to what we see. And so we go to the invisible for answers about the visible. But there are some cultural spaces that stick purely visible. So they're very religious, but they're not spiritual.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

And so I am very concerned with how they link. And that's why you can have the same religion look visible, very different among different groups of people because their spirituality is different. And so my spirituality is like the frame of my body. Religion is like the clothing. It hangs different on different bodies.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

Not everybody can't shop at Banana Republic.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

Some people got a shot. You know what I mean? And I love Banana Republic. No, no, no. Shade. But different body types. A Hugo Boss suit is going to hang different on somebody. I don't. There's certain shoes I don't like to wear. Yeah, they just. The cut don't do right for my foot. Yeah, it's the frame. So when we look at a religion like Christianity or even like Islam, these are revealed religions. These are not religions that are indigenous to a people. And so when people put it on, it looks different, it hangs different.

[A]

It hangs different.

[C]

And so that's why spirituality and religion matter.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay. So that. Going back to your question, I'm raised in a space where everything's linked. So once I came into my walk with the Lord, then it's like, okay, God, if I start at my base, which is that you are the creator of the heavens and the earth, you crafted us. So everything we see was made from something we don't see. The link between seen and unseen has got to be erased. And so if by him all things were made, him being Jesus, and without him, not anything that was made was made. And the invisible became visible through what he made, then I need to be able to link everything. How does the spiritual world link to what I see? How does what I see teach me about the spiritual world? And so once you accept that they are not separate.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Then you can start answering Some questions. But then this fake division is where the problem is. We're not separate. So random, but not random. Ife city in Nigeria. In Yoruba culture, the creation story includes the creation of Ife. So you have people who are living in a city that they believe is the original city that God made. There's no broken. The continuity is not broken.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I started thinking like that. I'm walking past a tree. This tree is a descendant of a tree from Genesis 1. Really think about if we believe this. And that was a challenge for me when I saw that first neuron that looked like a plant. And a lot of people know that story. The first time I saw a picture of a neuron, I was like, it looks like a plant. And my whole world exploded. Because neurons are the basis for understanding of mental health. But if I believe that God created us and the neuron looks like a plant, and he made plants and neurons, and he made a plant on day three and a neuron on day six, at least a human neuron on day six. If I really believe this, then he did this on purpose.

[A]

Why?

[C]

And, boy, I've been running like a crazy person ever since. Right. Code cracked. But you have to erase this line of division between what's seen and what's not seen as unrelated.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Does that make sense?

[A]

Oh, it makes perfect sense. I'm curious, because some people say they're mutually exclusive. Right. Like, that's impossible, though.

[C]

How can my invisible God, who made my visible body.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Romans 1:20. That which may be known of him, is clearly seen being understood by the things that he made.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

So what I'm looking at that he made is going to teach me something

[A]

about who he is, which is unseen.

[C]

Which is unseen.

[A]

Right. So what do you do then with mother Jenkins? Hey, Mother Jenkins got a son in and out of the prison system.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And something's not right with him right now. The doctors keep saying that he's got some mental health challenges. And she's like, I'm just gonna pray that away. What do you tell her?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

As she's trying to process now, let's say she has some aptitude. She can understand what you're saying. What do you tell her? Like, hey, I understand that you just that I do believe in prayer. But where's the line between there's a tangible, natural reality that's happening and there's a supernatural reality that's happening?

[C]

Yeah. When I first started this public work, I call my public mental health ministry, in 2018, I was traveling to churches doing presentations about this. And I can tell you that the older members of the congregation absolutely grabbed this. I was so shocked, so overwhelmed and so excited.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

They had absolutely no problem with it. Once I. Once they saw that neuron looking like a plant. Yeah. We're good. Because now we're right. We're in scripture. There's so much scripture comparing us to plants and to gardens. Yeah. That we're trees planted by rivers of living water. That we will be like, well watered gardens all of our days. And so what? That's it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That's all they were asking. Help me see it in my Bible. That was the answer to the question. That was the bridge that started it all. And then to be able to recognize that we're gardens, that I can show you our biological heart and show you how Genesis 2 is a map of the heart. That's it. They just wanted to see the link, and that's the link. I think they also want respect, and I respect it. I never came into any church space saying, y' all need to stop all this. Pray about it, honey. First of all, grandma, Mother Jenkins pray about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And some of our pray about it. Not the same pray about it. Mother Jenkins can get you delivered.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[C]

With a Jesus and break you free.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Some of these young prayers.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So let's not. Let's. It's not always a direct translation. The power of prayer of these women who have walked with God, who have fasted, who laid on their face in the church building all night. They got a different power on them. So they pray about it. And I pray about it. First of all, not the same pray about it. So we need to get there. Pray about it.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

Because we don't all have the power that they had to walk in a room and they. I won't go there. So let's. I never didn't respect them.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And nobody's willing to hear you when you don't respect them.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

If I knock on your door and your wife opens the door and I say, hey, I heard your house was dirty and I'm here to do something about it. Oh, that door is closing. Well, you don't show up in a church step saying, y' all need to get this together with this mental health. Y' all out here preaching but you not help Click. Because nobody listens to people who want to help them but don't love them.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I love the church.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

I love mother Jenkins. I love the church. I Was never that PK who hated going to church. I loved going to church. And so I think that's been a difference, too. They know I love them. I believe in the supernatural power of God. I do believe in the. What they're doing. And also look at this neuron in this plant. Oh, my gosh. And once they hear that, they see that, they trust me. Then we can look at some other things.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Everybody knows someone who's had a stroke and lost their ability to talk or walk.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

They understand that the brain was damaged, and it affects what we do.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

I use examples like that. That's really good that there can be something on people know sometimes people have a stroke and their personality changes. Now they're mean. Or they know someone with Alzheimer's who yells at people, and they never used to yell at people. Alzheimer's is actually a mental illness, by the way, in the book of mental illnesses, the diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders. Dementia and Alzheimer's are in that book. Right. Along with schizophrenia and depression.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

The only difference between a mental illness and a physical illness. Physical illness is the. Are the symptoms.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When the symptoms are primarily in your thinking, your feeling, or your behavior, then we classify it as a mental illness. Everything else, we call a physical illness. But they are all coming from within the body.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So there. Even that dichotomy is wrong.

[A]

So where do we get the thought or the concept that the brain is a spiritual. Well, I guess because we can't see it. Is that what it is?

[C]

Well, because. Yeah. Anything we can't see, we get. We get struck. We can't see a thought.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Or we haven't been able to. But now we have increasing capacity to be able to see neurons communicating and electric signals from the brain. But we didn't have that before. Every time we can see something more.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

We let. We take it out of the spirit realm into the natural realm. Too much so. Right. Again, we'll let it go. So 100 years ago, what we were calling demonic, now we wouldn't. Because we can say, see it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so every time we learn to see something else. We used to think you couldn't predict the weather.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

That would have been witchcraft. Talking about, you know, a hurricane is coming, and then it shows up in four days, and you're like, they're a prophet. But now it's like, no, we actually have these satellites. And so every time we get our hands on something, we can control something, then we stop thinking it's spiritual. And that's where we lose. Because I also see, still want to know. Nothing can teach me more about the body than the designer of the body.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I still am going to be digging through these plants and digging through scripture and looking for biological insights in scripture, but that hadn't been done. When I was in my PhD program, I was told that I was misusing the Bible.

[A]

Really?

[C]

When I said, I believe there's a theory of personality in this Bible, I believe that there's some biology in this Bible. And I was told that is not what the Bible is for by Christian professors. And I was like, well, you can't tell me what my guy can't do because I'm an old black Pentecostal, so I'm a girl. So I was like, all right, whatever. And it's in there, though. It's just the culture has limited what we believe God can teach us. And so many. All of my scientific theories, my theory, personality, the research that I've done, I'm in, all of it's inspired by Scripture. I don't always say that in every environment, but it is.

[A]

I mean, brilliant. That's a master class, and I would take it tomorrow. I love how you talked about the proverbial Mother Jenkins and how you love the church and how you're able to hold hands and walk people through some of these doors and these corridors. Right. But then let's flip the script a little bit and look at, you know, I don't know, millennial, Gen Z culture. Maybe not churched. Maybe churched. And there's a consistent phrase, and I want to hear you. You can riff on this as much as you want, I hope, but I

[C]

know what you're going to say, but go ahead.

[A]

There's a consistent phrase. When you talk to people about their mental health or whatever, they'll say, yes, I'm on my journey. I'm on my health journey. Yes, my healing journey, my feeling journey. I'm, you know, I'm gonna get there, but I'm on my journey and I'm. I'm curious because I've. I've heard you push back on that. I'm just like that. Become the journey becomes the answer. In some.

[C]

Some sense, we're a project with no completion space.

[A]

So talk to people.

[C]

Yeah. I think that it's important to know that we are on a journey for sure. From here to the next point, from glory to glory. And also, I'm more than a problem to be solved, so everything about my life doesn't have to be. I'm Healing that I'm going to a next plane, better thing. That's still our western future oriented, future obsessed mind.

[A]

Okay, talk to me.

[C]

We're all trying to get somewhere. Western culture's future oriented, so we're always trying to get somewhere. Right. Traditional African cultures are past oriented. We have some cultural spaces that are more present oriented. Many of Native American cultures are more present oriented. They care about history, but the present moment is relational anyway. Past, present and future cultures have one that they prefer over the others where they focus. And so Western culture is very future oriented. So we're always trying to get somewhere. But our healing journey should just be about. Yes, becoming the best version of myself, but also being happy with myself and accepting me where I am. Am that I gotta, I gotta be where I am.

[A]

You might just shot me in foot right there. Cuz I'm always thinking about the future. I'm always thinking about like, I mean, honestly, like, oh, well, you know, we're all on a journey. I mean, I definitely want a destination, but I. It is so difficult for me to rest in the present.

[C]

Yeah, we gotta get here though.

[A]

I'm an anxious type.

[C]

So, you know, and that's anxiety. Lives in the future.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[C]

We're trying to solve for X. Even though we don't know what X is or where X will be, what language X will be spoken in. But we gonna try to solve for it.

[A]

Oh my goodness. I have. Literally. I took my son on a graduation trip to Tokyo and we're out there and he just wants to explore. He just wants to be in the moment and explore. And I was like, hey, so I got a plan for today. So here's this, here's this. What we can do is we can look at this. There's a Japanese garden over here. And he's like, dad, like, like, dad, I just want to loosen up. Yeah. And in my mind I was like, well, I don't want you to miss out on something. And I was like, oh, I'm anxious about him not having a good time. And he's telling me he's having a good time.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And so I'm like, okay.

[C]

Yeah. And even in all that abundance of that moment, it's still a scarcity mindset, man.

[A]

Okay, now I'm not in your chair now.

[C]

Hold on, I'm sorry. No, it's still a scarcity mindset.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[C]

Like here's this dream come true. You can afford to take your son to Tokyo and spend all this time with him, and yet there's still some aspect of it that I got to not lose, that we. That we don't miss something, we don't get our hands on something. There's still the capacity for it to slip through my fingers somehow.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's what. Anxiety keeps us in this kind of scarcity space so that we're never really able to enjoy the true abundance is such a thief.

[A]

How do you. How do you. I. I can see how you use both theology and, like, psychology, neuroscience, all of the things.

[C]

They're all the same thing to me.

[A]

Okay, how do you. How does that. Because you're a pastor.

[C]

I am. And still. It's still. It's still funny to me.

[A]

Which we're gonna. We're gonna talk about that as well.

[C]

We might be part one and two on this. Yeah, there might be two of these.

[A]

But, like, how do you. Do you feel like it just adds a arsenal to your being able to pastor people or. Because what I would imagine. This is just me. What I would imagine is almost like being able to see the thing that they can't see, but they want a spiritual answer for. And you're like, there's some counseling or some extra therapy that would benefit you. And I know you want me to go to James and solve this. Like, how do you deal with that?

[C]

It's like a merry go round.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

You can. You ever been to an amusement park that had a big merry go round, and there was more than one entrance to the merry go round? So I can come in from that corner, I can come in from that corner, and I'm get on the merry go round. So imagine a merry go round that has four entrances. It's got a fence around it, and it's got four gates you can come in. Okay, Call one gate the spirit, one gate, your heart, your emotional life. One gate is your mind, your mental life. One gate is your behavior, your actions. You can come in any gate. What gate you want to come in. We come any gate you want. But once you get on that merry go round, we're going to pass every single one of these at some point. So I can bring you in any gate you want. What gate you want? You want to come in. The biology gate you want to come to motion gate, the mental gate, the spiritual gate, the church gate, the relationship, whatever gate you want to come in on. If we get on the merry go round at some point, we're going to pass every single one of these things because they are linked. And so for me, none of them are separate. It's just what is the access point that is most advantageous at this moment, that will ultimately give you the big picture of how it's all connected. Did. Yeah, but, you know, sometimes I can't do them all, so.

[A]

You're dangerous. That's dangerous. Pause. I must interrupt. I know we pausing this conversation for a second, but this one, this one sits right in the world of what we talk about on the deep end. All right, in all seriousness, there are just so many Christians out here that are silently suffering because they think their unwanted thoughts mean that they're broken or they're faithless or they're failing God. But sometimes what people are calling spiritual failure is actually religious ocd. The technical name is scrupulosity. Ocd. No C D, pronounced N O, C D may be what you need. Okay? So maybe you're in worship or your mind starts spiraling. You're like, did I pray right? Oh, my God, did I offend God? I need to start over. I didn't do it perfectly. Or maybe there's some disturbing thoughts or some blasphemous thoughts that pop in your head and now you're, like, panicking, like, oh, my God, why would I even think that? And listen, intrusive thoughts do not define you, okay? OCD can latch on to what you care about most, even your faith, and trap you in cycles of guilt and fear and confession and over praying and trying to mentally solve every single thought. That's why I appreciate no cd now it is the world's leading OCD treatment provider. All of their licensed therapists are trained in ERP, or exposure and response prevention therapy. It is the most effective treatment for ocd. NO CD therapists understand that these thoughts do not mean anything about you. In live virtual sessions, they help you break free from OCD's grip while still honoring your faith. No CD is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. And they provide support between sessions so that you're never alone. So if you think you might be struggling with religious ocd, please don't wait. I want you to go over to nocd.com, book a free 15 minute call with their team today, and start reclaiming your faith from OCD. Okay? That's no cd.com n o c d dot com. Stop the show. Stop the show. Stop the show.

[B]

Come here.

[A]

Come here. I know. This is.

[B]

This is.

[A]

This is something you need to know, okay?

[B]

This is some.

[A]

This is. This is grown people stuff, all right? There's a point in life where you sleep stops becoming optional when you're younger. You can play with your sleep. When you got family, you got work and travel and your ministry and your business and all these people pulling on you in every direction. You sleep affects everything. Your mood, your patience, your focus, your health. You know, sometimes we start thinking we got to overhaul everything. I need a new mattress and a sleep tracker and some supplements and the blackout curtains. And I need all these things when really the fastest upgrade is what's touching you every night. Your bedding. We upgraded with ball and branch. What they got the signature organic cotton sheets, the pillows, the blankets, the comforters. Breathable, incredibly soft. Designed to get better over time. Listen, most people start with them signature sheets, but boy, when you feel the difference, you going to start thinking about upgrading your whole bed. I know this for a fact. It's one of those little, little quiet luxury things, right? It ain't loud, it ain't flashy. It's just better rest. I need you to sleep cooler this summer with bowl and Branch. They're having the annual summer event for a limited time, 20 off, whole site, site wide. Bowl and branch.comb o l l and branch.com deep end. And use my code. Deep end. B O L L a n d branch.com deep end. 20% of the whole site go crazy. Treat yourself, okay? Don't cheat yourself. Bowlingbranch.com deepin code deep end exclusions do apply because it's. It's wonderful you made us that way. Now, this is what I'm. Okay, so let's talk about the church a little bit.

[C]

Okay? Sure.

[A]

Because. Because this is what. This is what intrigues me. There's so many layers to this. Just so many layers to this. Okay? You are. I mean, you've got Your, your. Your PhD and you are a therapist. You understand how the mind works.

[B]

You.

[A]

You study biology, you studied all these particular things. And you're a deep well. Very deep well. And yet you would be a pastor in what some people would call one of the most shallow areas in society. Hollywood, are you.

[C]

Listen, Hollywood's not shy, okay?

[A]

Well, you tell me different.

[C]

I hear you, though. I hear you though.

[A]

Well, some even, even being in the potter's house realm where, you know, I've talked to T and, and they come under scrutiny for being larger than life and being about the lights, cameras and the action. And here you are with this mind that sees through the veneer of all these things that, you know, it's like, what. What are we really chasing after? And then you're planted in the middle of it, like in the middle of Hollywood, where people are wearing their identity.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And you're at a church where people will say, that's exactly where they are. That's the place where they wear their identity. And you're like, yes, I'm here.

[C]

I love it here.

[A]

Talk to me, man.

[C]

I love it here. I grew up on the East Coast, New Jersey, New York, when church was having a renaissance. Hezekiah Walker was coming out. The choir's coming out. I come from that era, so I come from old school church is what I'm saying. And I remember once hearing a minister say, I don't even know if God lives in California. The view of Hollywood and all this world from there was, there's no saved people out there. I mean, God's not even out there. So I'm just acknowledging you're right. I'm a long way from home. I grew up in church, God in Christ, old school, everything.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I absolutely love it here. I love it here.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Because first of all, California is an extremely spiritual place.

[A]

It is.

[C]

It may have not been seen as this religious place, but it's a very spiritual place, and I would rather have spirituality than religion.

[A]

You paused a little bit.

[C]

You.

[A]

You're like, do I want to say this?

[C]

I want to choose my words carefully. Dr. Anita says. Yeah. Yes, I would. If we're starting from scratch.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I would rather have people who are spiritually open than people who are so religious that they're spiritually closed. It is fertile ground to have spiritual openness. Right. That matters because it means people are out there asking questions. They absolutely believe in this world that we can't see, that there is. That it's populated by gods or angels or whatever they think is there. They know something's there. They believe that it's there. They believe that it can impact my visible life. And so that's huge. And I get to come in and say, let me finish drawing the picture. Let me flesh this out. We can connect these dots and color it in. That's wonderful. So I love that. And then. And then I think that is not a small thing when you think about what's been born here. That Azusa Street Revival happened here, that the Jesus movement started here. So California's got some good history, actually. So I think people underestimate California in that way. Okay. Two major movements of God that changed the nation started here. Yeah. So this is a really fertile place spiritually. Do they have fertile ground for cults here as well? Yeah, there's some pretty solid cult history, which tells me that there's also a deep desire for community and connection. You got to look at what need people are seeking versus where you think they got it. Right, wrong.

[A]

Do you?

[C]

I'm not threatened by their efforts to solve their human problems.

[A]

You, I see you as, I mean, that's. To me, that's the purest motive and intent of like a missionary or somebody who cares for people deeply. Right. But the outside looking in, maybe the more religious people would say you're a compromiser.

[C]

What did I do?

[A]

You're, you're too close to the, the, the, the nastiness.

[C]

The belief that we need to. That the only way we can be holy is to be separated physically is a lie.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And it's destructive. It's destructive. And I didn't raise my children that way. I'm very proud of them. But we did some very intentional work. They didn't have to be an only Christian school and, you know, homeschool them, separate them. Don't let them see, touch, ever see anything. I needed them to be able to be where people are. How else will the love of God get anywhere?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Does that make sense? I think a lot of the challenges that we have had in the Christian church, the Western church. I've only been in church in America, is that in our effort to maintain our relationship with God and in our effort to convince our children to do it, we have employed non sacred methods to try and get that done. We see it in that effort to separate control. We've seen it in purity culture. We've seen it in that extraction from the world. And we have used the emotions of fear, obligation, and guilt to convince people to give their lives to Jesus and to continue to live for Jesus. Fear, obligation, and guilt have been our tools. I'm not saying it was done on purpose. I don't think it was.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But it has been. Those have been the primary tools and fog. Fear, obligation, guilt kept us in a fog. Those are also, unfortunately, the tools of narcissism and other kinds of control. If you're afraid of me, if you feel obligated to me or you feel guilty.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But we have so often presented the gospel through that lens, and those have been substitutes for the actual love that's supposed to be the inspiration here. We have confused love with fear, obligation, and guilt. In our families, in our parenting, in our romantic relationships, in our friendships, in our institutions, we have used fear, obligation, and guilt, and we've used it in our religion.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

And so I need you to be afraid if you have sex before you get married, then God may not give you a good husband because now you don't deserve it. That's fear.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That's not love. That's fear. That's shame. I want to shame you into this. I remember when I got saved for real at 19, I became a part of a campus ministry. I won't name the campus ministry, but it was in the. It was, you know, 1992, so height of the purity culture movement. And man, I had already been sexually active at that time, so they weren't successful in trying to convince me that sex was awful because I knew it wasn't. I knew it was fun. I knew it felt good and I missed it. But I was living for Jesus now. And. But I remember them passing this cup around and they were like, spit in the cup. And you just spit in the cup. And they're like. When you kiss somebody, it's like you're drinking their spit. And I was like, you gotta be kidding me, right? But they were trying to, like, see, scare us into.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[C]

Keeping ourselves chased or whatever. Like unnecessary. Unnecessary. But so often this was how we scared people. You know, you. You need Jesus. Your. Your sins, you are covered in. In dirty sin. Come and let him cleanse you.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like

[A]

it.

[C]

Do you see what I'm saying?

[A]

And I'm. Here's the crazy part, though. I 100% agree with you, and I'm 100% guilty.

[C]

I mean, we've all been there, right? Because that's how we came in.

[A]

Yes. I'm 1,000%. I'm in agreeance with you. And I've 1,000% said, hey, but you know, you could get pregnant.

[C]

Right. And you could. And that's real. And I have a son and a daughter. Right. And so had to have these conversations with my daughter, but I was always so careful. I know now we're kind of on a different topic, but not. But I always was really clear with her. Hey, I believe that this is God's best plan.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That sex with just your. Whoever becomes your spouse is the way to go.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

And I know there's reasons for that. I can tell you from my own experience that why I see that is better. Yeah. And I'm sure there's more to it than we'll ever understand because God designed us. But if you don't make that choice, you will not be worth less to me or to God.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

And she needed that to be said.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That was not said to us.

[A]

This is why you're a Great therapist.

[C]

Oh, thank you.

[A]

And not sincerely. And I think this is why I. Because I can't remember. I remember hearing you talking like 2018, or maybe it was a little bit later, but I remember thinking, this woman is brilliant, but not judgmental.

[C]

How can I be judgmental? God has rescued me from so many things.

[A]

I mean, you understand as well as I do how the church tends to look like the judgmental, the judgment police, 100%. And then on top of that, a strong, intelligent black woman. My mind, I'm not gonna blame anybody else. My mind would tend to think, oh, she's gonna look down on us. She like, get it together. Cause we've seen these caricatures.

[C]

No, we have. And one of my great laments is, particularly in the prophetic space, is there's such a harshness that seems to always be linked to it. Love is. We're really missing it. We are missing it. On love, we don't, we don't have the revelation of it that we need to have. We're not walking in it the way we need to walk in it. And at this moment in history, it's being maligned. You know, to say love is almost as bad as to say woke, you know, but love really is actually the answer. And we grew up with not enough of it in the Christian church, in my experience. And I actually did little research on this in a specific way. At one point, I pulled the statements of faith of major denominations, three black, three white major denominations, and looked at their statements of faith. I was searching for the word love. And when I tell you it's sparse. The statements of faith break down who God is, what we believe about the Trinity, God the Father, God as the Son, the Holy Spirit. And you will have a hard time finding the primary description of God as love.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

God is our God is the all knowing, he's the all powerful. He's an intelligent being. He is coming as judge. But there is an actual scripture that says God is love, even in the King James Version. Yeah, it's a simple scripture. We don't even need to. It doesn't say God is lovethe it's God is love. We don't even need the esv, the niv. God is love. It's an actual verse. I could not find one statement of faith that began with that verse or quoted that verse, or even referenced that verse, so. So we're missing it. Do you see what I'm saying?

[A]

I totally do. So now I'm saying there are people who are saying, well, where should I go? Where do I do if this is an epidemic like the Bible?

[C]

And that's the problem, you know, is that we get so caught up in theology, which is somebody else's explanation of what they believe Scripture says and means instead of Scripture itself.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

I'm not saying we shouldn't study. Yeah, but the church fathers didn't get it all correct.

[A]

Right.

[C]

We'll talk about the mothers. But anyway, the church fathers didn't get all correct. Get into your Bible.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When I got to la, when I moved to California, God was preparing me for this role. When I got here, I didn't know it, but as I began to have more and more clients in la, in the. In the entertainment industry, some Christians, some not Christian. Not all my clients are Christians.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I work with people who are not Christians. And they also get better. That's a whole nother conversation. Right. Nobody gets better without Jesus. Just like. Well, yeah, yeah, they do in certain ways. Yeah. It might not be they gonna miss heaven if they reject Jesus. Let me be careful with that theology too, because the Bible talks about those who've never heard him, but by conscience do the. So I'm not saying that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But I can improve my mental health.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Even if I'm not a Christian, just like I'm sure you know somebody who doesn't know Jesus who can bench press more than you. Absolutely they are. And they may be in better physical health than you. That's right. So don't say that they can't be healthier than you.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

Okay. So when I got here and I began to work with people in the area as clients, like, it just opened up so many more things. And I started asking God for a fresh experience with the Word. I said, God, help me see the Bible fresh. What does it look like? Sound like? How does it read to someone who didn't grow up like I did? Because I feel like there's a lot of assumptions that I might be carrying that I need to go and reexamine. What does the Bible actually say? Because when we've grown up in it or however we were brought into it, we can embrace how it's given to us. We embrace the theology.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But we never ask Scripture the question. And I started looking at Scripture fresh and asking God to give me fresh revelation. And our poor handling of love has been one of the deepest experiences I've had with that I can imagine. It's like, man, we really got to get this right. There is so much about love. In scripture that we're skipping. And this love is deep and strong. Jesus, on the night he was going to be taken into custody to be crucified when he prayed his last public prayer for us was talking about how much love let them know that they're loved and that you love like love.

[A]

I mean that's what drew me back to the Lord was actually seeing how he treated Peter after Peter denied him. That's what, what put me in a, a place of like, oh, I think I looked at you as a tyrant in the sky who if I messed up, you were going to.

[C]

And that's how so many of us received fear, obligation and guilt to this dangerous God.

[A]

That's exactly right.

[B]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Ready to save.

[A]

It's time for cyber deals. Kick off summer with fresh savings that brighten the season. You don't want to miss these exclusive week long digital offers on your favorite products that are only available when you shop online. Save on eligible items from Jack Links, Celsius, Chobani International Delight and Too Good.

[B]

Only available now through June 16th on pickup or delivery orders only.

[A]

Restrictions apply.

[B]

See the website for full terms and conditions. A burst pipe, A dead water heater, the AC calling it quits. Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast savings compared to renewal price void in Florida.

[A]

So, so I'm also curious because you have a lot of tools in your at your disposal. And I think, in my experience, I think we have this awakening generally. Oh, Jesus is real. We come alive. We're on fire. Then we, we grow. We try to get tools to change our mental maps and learn about God. And then we get productive. We and we start working and doing, serving. And I have seen, I've seen like three killers come in and put. I think people peak at productivity. Oftentimes they don't know where to go beyond that. I've seen death, adultery and divorce make people say, I'm out. I'm out, right? Those three categories tend to make people say, man, God, I tried. Like, I'm good. Life is too hard. What is that from your vantage point with all the tools in your belt? Like, you know People, there's all kind of things people get wrong and mess up. But I feel like, man, let mama die all of a sudden. God, you let me down.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Divorce, God, you let me down. Adultery. God, you let me down. What is it? I mean, I guess this trauma, but it seems like these common adult traumas.

[C]

I love this question. This is a great question. I love how you phrase that. They're all deaths of a sort of first of all. And they all speak to the center of what we were created to be. And so they are the greatest pain. We were not created to die. Death is unnatural to our created state. We were not created to die. This kind, we weren't made for it. It will never feel right. That's why people can grieve so much for the hundred year old grandmother who like this is our best case scenario. And it still can feel like a ripping to people because we weren't built for this. And so I tell people it will never be okay. This is one of the greatest gifts that Jesus gave us, that we can pierce this veil of death and be reunited with people at some point and. But it will never feel right. That's why grief doesn't resolve. Grief doesn't resolve. And that's. I'm so glad people are coming to that understanding and not feeling like they're failing because they're still grieving.

[A]

Grieving.

[C]

Grief doesn't resolve. Its intensity changes, its experience changes, but it never just resolves completely. You know, Jesus was acquainted with grief. We.

[A]

Because whatever you're grieving is not there.

[C]

It's not there. And so it becomes. So these five stages of grief that's very misused, that was invented for the dying person, not the survivor. The five stages of grief were designed by someone who was watching people go through the end of their life, terminal illnesses and she recognized certain stages they walked through as they.

[A]

Shut your mouth. Yes, I'm today years old.

[C]

Five stages were for the dying person. And it makes so much more sense now if you think about it, right? Because the first one is like, oh, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna mess up because I don't use them. So I'm gonna see them. But the first is the first one. Anger. Denial.

[A]

Anger. Denial or denial.

[C]

Yeah, okay, whatever. If you think about denial, anger, bargaining. Think about it. That makes sense for the person who then acceptance.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

They finally come to a place of acceptance. And you have many people can think of that now if they think of someone they know who they who died from a chronic illness or a terminal Illness. They watched them walk through. They got to a point of being at. Maybe at peace with their death. They started sharing wisdom, different things. So that's what it was. That. Because there was going to be a resolution, that person actually died. But that wasn't designed to help the survivor.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

We go through very different process when someone dies. There's not.

[A]

So where does the. Where does the. Where does the therapist. Where does Dr. Anita go when she's got all the tools?

[C]

I love it. We're never finishing anything, by the way. Let me just go back. I want to answer your question, and then I'll go to that. So death. That's one of the reasons why death is so jarring. And when we hit a certain pain level, pain dislodges belief.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's why. That's one of those things where the call becomes. Because pain shifts. Pain makes it, loosens it, and sometimes it wipes it out completely. And so we begin to question what we believe when we are in a certain level of pain. That's a fact. Now, you want a scriptural example of that wayside soil. When that soil of the heart is hard and dry and downtrodden, the seed. Seed doesn't get in. It just lays on the surface and a bird steals it. That thought, why would. Why God? That's the bird stealing that seed and rolling out. Because the heart is so pained, it has shut down completely. And so this is a human issue. Anytime someone hits a certain level of pain, they question what they believe. If you are a religious person, then your religion becomes the question. But it is a human thing. So this is big for me. I'm always looking to see what is a universally observed human behavior, whether they're Christian, Islamic, Jewish, non religious, atheist. There are some things that are true about humans across the board. And so when people see that, sometimes they'll think, oh, well, it's just because they're religious or not religious. I'm looking for the biggest picture possible. And then how does my faith interact with this human thing? That makes sense.

[A]

Yes. It's actually like. I mean, if more pastors, theologians, believers in general, looked at things from that kind of sociological perspective.

[C]

I'm always biology, personality, sociology.

[A]

That would change everything.

[C]

It changes.

[A]

Yeah. I've heard a pastor say he always speaks like there are non believers in the room when he's preaching. He just always wants to. And that was me, because even though I grew up adjacent to church, I really wasn't churched.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And so I remember saved was a concept, but I Didn't really know what it meant. So when I was 17, a woman asked me, are you saved? And I was like, I'm not my grandmother, so I guess I'm not.

[C]

What would that look like? What would that mean?

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

Exactly. So, yeah, I'm always looking at what is the universal human experience.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

And then how do I understand it? Narrower and narrower. So I got all humans. Then maybe I have this one region, this culture, this personality, this religion, all the way down to the one person sitting in front of me. Every single time I'm having a therapy session or one on one, it goes. I'm going from the biggest thing all the way down to this one person. Because we're all linked. Everything's linked. So you got to be able to look at all of them. And that helps. And so when I realized that, okay, death jars everyone, then I look at it through my framework of my faith. It's not natural. Then we have to recognize how. Has God been presented to someone? Has God been presented as the problem solver? Has God been presented as the reason why you never have to be in pain again? Has God been. And so now how is this loss jarring up against your understanding of God? And do we need to expand that? Because the way he was presented was genie in a bottle or, you know, and so that usually is where I'm gonna go. Because the reality is, if nobody ever died because someone loved that person, who would die.

[A]

Yeah, that's good.

[C]

And so pulling the lens back a lot of times is what needs to happen. Right. And so today it's my turn to be in the kind of pain that every human ultimately experiences. It doesn't change the truth. It just means it's my turn to now be in the pain. So how do humans respond to pain? Death is a major one. Right, Major one. So death, adultery, and divorce, which can often are often linked, but not all the time. We are created for relationship. We were created to live forever. We were created for relationship and deep intimacy and sexual relationships. When emotion, especially when emotion and sex and everything's in the same place, is the deepest intimacy possible. And to tear, that is yet another form of death. And that shakes people because, again, how did I end up in this much pain? Pain is the actual question.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[C]

You gave the three big pains. Yeah, pain is the actual question. So adultery there, and then it's. There's so much misunderstanding around infidelity and why it happens. That makes it even harder. But people actually come into relationships with a preset propensity towards it because it's shaped in our childhood, in our upbringing, in our family systems. The propensity predates the relationship.

[A]

Really?

[C]

Absolutely.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Absolutely. And this is the thing. We don't know how we're. We don't understand how we get made. Right. And so there's a book called Torn Asunder. It was written specifically for Christian couples trying to recover from affairs. It's an excellent book. The writer's name is Dave Carter. C A R D E R recommended. And he has a quiz in the book that shows what contributes to people's likelihood of having an affair in a relationship. The first set of questions are just yes or no questions. Were you exposed to pornography before adolescence? Were there affairs in your parents system? Whether you knew about them at the time or not, it still influences. Was there a lot of alcohol use in a family? Was there extreme discipline or physical abuse in the family? All of these elevate the chances that someone will go outside of their relationship.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Then there's a whole series of personality questions. Do you tend to like high adrenaline experiences, Speeding tickets, financial. It's all this stuff that he can add it up and look at. Under the certain circumstances, this person is more likely than another person to respond through infidelity. Under relationship. Relationship crisis.

[A]

Sheesh.

[C]

It's not. He didn't pay attention to me, so I left. It's not. She gained too much weight. It's not. That's all surfaced. That's all surface stuff. So when I was. When we were leading a ministry in Baltimore for 18 years, I taught the premarital counseling curriculum and I had every single person in premarital counseling take this quiz so we could have the conversation now about the propensity that you may be bringing into the relationship where under the right strain, this will be one of your first go tos without even realizing it.

[A]

My daughter's. I'm doing a premarital now. I just want you to know that.

[C]

Right. All the stuff. And so we come in with this brokenness. We come in naked.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Who told you you were naked? We didn't know. We don't know how naked we are

[A]

a lot of times.

[C]

So people come in and then when the right or the wrong set of circumstances congeals. Yeah. Often this is the outcome, but we don't understand all of that. And so it's. I gave all this vulnerability to this person and my worst fear just happened. And it's devastating. It's a devastating form of pain. Especially if you did everything right religiously then because Your point? Your specific question was peace out on the God front. And so if somebody feels like I did everything right, I followed the Lord, I didn't sleep with them before we got married. I didn't do this da da. And boom. Then it's just like, none of this can be true because there's been this transactional God relationship. If you do the right things, then nothing bad's gonna happen.

[A]

Tell us a lot about what you think about God and what you were taught about God.

[C]

Yeah, that's good. And so do the right thing, and then it goes the right way, you know? But how we're finding out that that's not the case, that's not always true. Right. Divorce. I know that one. Personally, I think it is another death. Relationally, it's a death. And if you're in a religious space that it's just such an intense pain. It's an intense pain. People are like, oh, God hates divorce. I said, yeah, me too. Anybody who's been divorcing, I think hates divorce. Because you just don't know how. You can't really know how painful it is until it happens to you. You just can't know. And depending on your view of God, what you've been taught about God and what about that should have prevented this. It can really jar people's faith. How the church responds, how they're treated by people in the church and leadership. A lot of times is what also hurts people so much is because they are not given access to love anymore in relationship and community, when that's snatched away, the support is taken away, the judgment is put on. That's so painful. It can cost. Because divorce, when people divorce, more than assets, more than assets are divided. It's not just. Just money and houses and stuff. Relationships.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Are also.

[A]

People choose sides.

[C]

People choose sides.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so some people lose their whole communities, their whole church, or their whole. You know, so it happens. But it's kind of rare for a couple to get divorced and still be two rows apart in the same church. Like, it's such a breach. So people lose so much. And for many of us, our walk with the Lord is reinforced by our social networks and our relationship space and our safety in that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And sometimes in divorce, that's lost. And so it does leave people asking, was any of this for real?

[A]

Yeah. So it's not a party then. It's not a, hey, we free now?

[C]

You know, I think when people. No, it's not only that. It's not, but when people have been in very Abusive space for different things then, yes. Sometimes they are just like, yeah, I am free from this abusive thing, so I don't want to undermine that. But even in that, there's still grief.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because you're going to be like, hey, I mean, I was married for. On the day, the stamp on the paperwork. 27 years almost.

[A]

Your marriage.

[C]

Yeah. It's a long. My whole adult life. Got married when I was 22 years old.

[A]

Okay. So see, now that kind of goes back to what I was initially. It blends because I was gonna say, like, how do you heal with all the tools that you have when you're going through things? But I'm sure some people say, how did you even end up divorced because you had all the tools?

[C]

Good question. I asked myself that. Well, first of all, I wasn't a therapist until I was in my 30s. So I got married at 22. So we've done plenty of damage by that time.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

There's a reason why therapists aren't supposed to treat family members. Because you can't see clearly up close. So I am still also a woman. There's a reason why surgeons don't do surgery on themselves. You don't have the right vantage point to cut yourself open. You can't do that. So I'm still a person. I can't. A surgeon doesn't do surgery on themselves.

[A]

Bars.

[C]

And a surgeon still gets sick. A surgeon can still get a tumor. A surgeon can still. You know what I mean? So we still have human problems. That's good, what you do. Hope is different about a therapist is that we go to therapy, that we are aware that we are working on things, and I am always taking care of that. But there was plenty of damage done early and young. Two people who had their own traumas. How did I heal? How did I walk through? I never lost touch with the Lord. For me, I don't have that thing with God where it's like, if something bad or painful happens, he's not real. My mom taught me that when I was a kid. She said, things are going to go wrong. She said that about my sister. You're going to be confused. But here's the thing that's always going to be true. God is good. Everything else will figure it out, but it's not God. God is good. So I always had that anchor. Yeah. And I watched how God walked me through a really hard thing. I leaned on my friends with utter abandon. I never felt bad about calling them. For the seventh time that day, I cried, I screamed, I Was mad. I was sad. I just. My friends. I was completely naked and vulnerable with my friends. I have three girlfriends in particular that I'm super close with. They carried me and I let them. I let them. I fell into their arms and I let them. My friendships mattered so much.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

My own counseling, of course, and just a dogged grip on hope. Hope is a thing. If anything helped me as a therapist and a minister, it's been. I said it earlier. There's nothing new under the sun.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I've seen people survive a lot of things. And what I would say to myself on the most painful days was, it's just my turn. It's my turn. It's my turn. Right now. It hit me. You know, we never say, why do. Why do bad things happen to good people? But we never ask, why do good things happen to bad people? And who's bad and who's good?

[A]

That's right.

[C]

Right. So compared to who in this life, you will have trouble. There's going to be things. And. And I didn't know that divorce would be on my bingo card, but here we are.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I would walk down the street some days and I'd say things to myself. I see someone in the grocery store walking down the street. That person might be divorced. And maybe 10 years ago, they were in as much pain as I am now. But they've moved on. And now they can look back at this moment. But right now, I'm in the moment. It's my turn. I have watched people sit across from me in the chair. Clients, people in the church. And I've watched them break down and I've held them and I've sat with them, and I've watched them eventually dry their tears and get up. I've seen it. It's just my turn.

[A]

It's your turn.

[C]

I'm not special.

[A]

We definitely got to have a part two.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Because there's so much more.

[C]

I know we didn't finish anything.

[A]

I want so many more things I want to talk about.

[B]

About.

[A]

But before you go, I do want you just. I'm just curious, like. Yeah. Like, articulate. Because, I mean, I understand you talk about the heart and the soil and emotions and whatnot. I'm just curious, like, can you articulate even. I mean, for yourself, for anyone. Like, I hate when people say, oh, look at the camera and tell the people out there who are spirit. But I do think that you have a perspective on hope in the midst of darkness and chaos, that a lot of people just haven't grasped. Like, they can tend to let the emotion they're experiencing run. It's like, it's hopeless out here. So how do you help people navigate that? Just in a, like, in a nutshell, I don't know how to. It's so much.

[C]

But I think that the greatest marker of well being and wellness that we should chase is to have a healthy relationship with pain. A healthy relationship with pain. Not that we should be in pain all the time. And trust me, I'm a very. I love joy. I love to be happy and feel great. But when pain comes, what do I believe about pain? If it's present, do I automatically believe that I've done something wrong, that I'm failing, that it will never leave, that it will. Just. What is the story that you tell about pain? What story was told to you about pain? Because pain will come in life. Was it. Was it told to you that it's about it being unfair and now it's all about getting revenge or balancing it out? Is it that it shouldn't happen if you do the right thing? That. What is it? What is it? Because a healthy relationship with pain will get you through a lot of things.

[A]

That's good.

[C]

So my moments of being willing to just grieve in real time, walking through divorce or other losses, to cry whenever I needed to, to holler, to say, God, I don't get it, but I trust you. This is the moment. And to know when they say, this too shall pass. I don't say that lightly. I don't say that lightly. There's a literal truth in it that if God blessed me to stay alive, the clock will keep ticking, the sun will keep rising. And at some point I will be 5 days away from this. 50 days. 5 years. At some point, if the sun keeps rising and I keep living, it actually does pass. The circumstance and intensity will pass. I will have a moment to see it differently. But right now, if I'm in the pain, all I can do is be in pain. I'm in pain. Does that make sense?

[A]

It makes perfect sense.

[C]

And so I held onto that. And so I moved to California coming out of my divorce in 2023. And the thing I said to myself was, I'm gonna be crying for a while. But when my tears do dry, and eventually they will, I know they will. Cause I've seen other people stop. Where do I want to be? I'd like to be at the beach instead of in like, East Dallas. I don't know, you know, shout out

[A]

to everybody living In East Dallas.

[C]

God bless East Dallas.

[A]

Not where you want to be crying your teeth.

[C]

I was not ahead. I started my tears there, and God met me there. But when I stopped and said, I believe that there will be a next. This is the middle of the movie when the character, the main character is like, all is lost. But you knew when you bought the ticket somehow.

[A]

Come on now.

[C]

It was gonna come out at the end. This is the middle of the music video. This is when Lisa. Lisa's looking out the window with the tears streaming down the glass all alone on a Sunday morning, you know? But somehow it ends. Well, yeah, I believe.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That God's next best thing for me is around the bend. And this is the darkest moment. But as long as I still believe in him, somehow or another. So what would my future self. Who's going to preach this? Who's going to tell this story? I have laid. I say, people think I'm not joking. On that bathroom floor, in the bed, soaking a pillow with tears. When I. When I preach how God brought me over, I just. And I think of that moment. It had to be linked to this moment. Every great sermon I've ever heard where a pastor was, like, when I was close to. But here I am. This is my moment. I can't preach that without this. So here I am. And I. And I. The clock's going to keep ticking. I'm going to keep breathing, and God's going to keep writing my story. It is not time to try to answer these hard questions in the middle of the pain. You do when you see a tornado funnel coming at you, do not start Googling. How do tornadoes form? Go to the shelter, close the door, and let the storm pass. My Lord, come out, survey the damage, rebuild. And then if you want to become an expert on how tornadoes form, do it. But not while it's coming at you.

[A]

That's so good.

[C]

And we try that. God must be doing it. This must be his will. There must be a purpose. You cannot answer those questions when pain is blinding you and making you deaf. You just have to hurt. You just have to hurt because you will come to the wrong conclusion about God and about purpose. Because pain is a skew. It skews it. Excuse the signal. So stop trying to explain it while you're in it. Just survive it. Just survive. It's not the advice people were probably expecting, but just survive it.

[A]

That's so good.

[C]

Cling to God and your friends and your heart and your love and your hope.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And to just do one tiny thing that your future self's going. Going to thank you for.

[A]

I thank you now.

[C]

Amen.

[A]

Thank you. I. I knew you were going to come and bless, and I feel like,

[C]

man, was this a decent interview. Like, I feel like we roamed all over the place and did we finish anything?

[A]

I think it's.

[C]

But I hope people get.

[A]

First of all, I got something from it, so, you know, nobody else did. I do hope so. No. No. Get out of here. That was phenomenal. I'm. I'm so honored. Your book, it's. It's been out, but if anybody wants

[C]

to, it's called the Garden Within.

[A]

The Garden Within.

[C]

Yes. Where the war. Where your emotions ends.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And your most powerful life begins.

[A]

I gotta read it now. I've. I've. I've heard you speak so many times, but now I just, like. Let me just read the book. You know, I'm also gonna. I'm also gonna. I'm gonna ask you for a book list later.

[C]

Okay. You got it. You got it. But, yeah, I hope people will grab the Garden Within. It was a labor of love.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, I don't see how anybody's not grabbing that book after hearing this conversation.

[C]

People often tell me they're crying by the first chapter, and I tell them I was crying writing it. I birthed that thing. And so I hope people will get it. Not because I need to sell a book, but because I labored something that. I want to change your life. And it came from the Lord through me, and I don't want people to miss it.

[A]

Dr. Anita Phillips, thank you.

[C]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[C]

That's.

[A]

Bless y'.

[C]

All. We out.