So.... I'm Adopted Podcast!
This podcast creates a space for genuine conversations about adoption, where emotions are acknowledged, journeys are reconciled, and a healthy acceptance of truths is fostered. Delve into the impact of adoption on all parties involved, gaining insights from adoptees, adoptive parents, biological parents, as well as professional psychologists and social workers. Explore the realities, reconciliation processes, and ongoing dynamics of adoption.
So.... I'm Adopted Podcast!
The Journey to Self-Reliance and Belonging
Imagine uncovering life-altering truths about your past nearly four decades into your life. This is the journey our guest shares, where unexpected revelations about family roots and adoption bring a cascade of emotions. We start by reflecting on the extraordinary lives of celebrated adoptees like Jamie Foxx and Babe Ruth, illustrating how nurturing environments and supportive relationships can shape destinies. Their stories set the stage for our guest’s poignant tale, as they navigate the emotional landscape of discovering their own adoption story and the love and loss that accompanied it.
Our conversation takes a remarkable turn with the unfolding of an unexpected reunion. A mysterious visitor brings shocking news that challenges the very foundation of our guest’s identity, revealing a biological mother thought to be deceased but alive in Alaska. As the layers of family dynamics and motivations unravel, we explore the complex emotions and financial expectations that come with such revelations. Through the turbulence of reconnecting with newfound siblings and confronting a resentful biological mother, our guest’s journey highlights resilience, self-reliance, and the search for belonging in a fractured family.
Finally, we delve into the trials of navigating intricate family relationships, from the painful realities of sibling isolation to the empowering acts of self-sufficiency. Practical skills and personal growth become lifelines in overcoming family trauma, while moments of compassion and empathy provide guiding lights. We share stories of strength and perseverance, including the importance of faith and spiritual guidance as anchors amidst adversity. Through this exploration, the enduring power of family love, respect, and resilience shine through, leaving a profound impact on all who listen.
Music by Curtis Rodgers IG @itsjustcurtis
Produce and Edited by Lisa Sapp
Executive Producer Lisa Sapp
Executive Producer Johnnie Underwood
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Welcome to the so I'm Adopted podcast, where we talk everything adoption. This journey is not one we take alone. Together, we grapple with raw emotions that surface from adoption stories. We want you to be comfortable enough to heal, so sit back and go with us on this journey as we dive deep into adoption. So we want to welcome you to another episode of so I'm Adopted. I'm John, and I'm Lisa. And we are Adopted. Lisa, how have you been? It's been exciting and we're back once more. How have you been?
Speaker 3:I'm good. I'm good Just trying to live life. You know how about you Life?
Speaker 2:be lifin'.
Speaker 3:Life be lifin'.
Speaker 2:That's what the young folks say, right now, yes, and we're making it through.
Speaker 3:Another year, Another year.
Speaker 2:And, as this year wraps up, our hope is that we have created an opportunity and a safe space for individuals to be able to share their truths about nontraditional relationships. If you have an opportunity, please hit that like or share button. Let somebody know. If you have a story that you think would be beneficial to the audience, to us, please reach out. We do respond to email. So please, please, please, ma'am sir, hit the like and share button.
Speaker 3:Yes, please hit the like and share button.
Speaker 2:We are on all platforms Spotify, Apple Music, everything that you need, we are there. So we started Lisa a while ago, talking about famous adoptees, trying to bring light to individuals that are celebrities for whichever reason that are adopted. So who do you have this week?
Speaker 3:So I have this week is Jamie Foxx Did you know he was adopted.
Speaker 2:I think I did, and with his standup that he has right now, you have a very relevant star.
Speaker 3:I do, I do. You know he was born Eric Marlon Bishop. Did you know that?
Speaker 2:I didn't know it, because I saw his standup and he talks about his real government name Government name, as he says.
Speaker 3:You're right. So Fox was adopted and raised by his maternal grandparents shortly after his birth. His biological parents were not involved in his upbringing, but his grandmother became a major influence, nurturing his love for music and comedy performance. The support he helped, the support that he had helped him become a multi-talented artist, winning Academy Award for his portrayal of Ray Charles. Did you see that movie? Of course, just checking, because an actor would have pulled your black card if he didn't see it. Trust me, my black card is solid.
Speaker 2:Alright, I'm just saying Trust me when I tell you that.
Speaker 3:I'm going to have to test you later on.
Speaker 2:You don't want to go there. I don't know. Have you seen the Last Dragon? Absolutely what. Give me the famous line from it?
Speaker 3:Sure enough, one who Sure enough? Sure enough, sure enough. Okay, alright, just make it short, just make it short.
Speaker 2:So you're good, okay, you got that. You got that my disrespect.
Speaker 3:I think you were still smelling.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. I went to the movie theater and watched.
Speaker 3:Formula what when that came out?
Speaker 2:I'm going to digress because I know and I recognize that that's an age discussion and I'm not going to get in trouble.
Speaker 3:That was it for me. That was my favorite discussion, and I'm not going to get in trouble. That was it for me. That was my favorite movie, really. Yeah, I want to say that was like the first movie. Man, I don't know that. Oh, yes, I do. I was about to say Barry Gordy. Okay, yeah, you got it. Who's?
Speaker 2:Barry Gordy's son.
Speaker 3:Oh, what's his name? Utfo or whatever Isn oh what's his name?
Speaker 1:UTFO or whatever Isn't it UTFO.
Speaker 2:See, no, I told you you don't want to go down that rabbit hole with me. No, yeah, utfo.
Speaker 3:Okay, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I know, I know what you're not saying Because of my age.
Speaker 3:Sometimes my memory ain't all that great.
Speaker 2:We talking BET, we ain't talking MTV. What great. We talking bet, we ain't talking mtv. What is his name?
Speaker 3:I see his face you can't google it either. I'm not googling. I am not googling.
Speaker 2:Why are you figuring out what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go right to my you do that so my person for this week? Um, and I was surprised, I did not know this it's babe ruth, oh really I did not so interestingly, he and his sister was sent to the orphanage at a young age.
Speaker 2:The good news is that there he met brother Matthias, who taught him and encouraged him to play baseball. A talent scout became his legal guardian and Ruth spent 22 record-breaking seasons playing ball. So it's so interesting how nurture versus nature, you know, it's to a point where him being positioned with this individual exposed him to baseball.
Speaker 2:And as a result, he had an amazing career. Now we can go back and forth about the record. That's a whole different thing, but Babe Ruth still is one of the top conversation pieces when it comes to baseball. Okay, but it's just interesting. Like I said, because of where God positioned him, it exposed him to a whole different avenue of sports.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, it is. It is so again. That's why we try and say that wherever you're supposed to be, god will let you be there. Yes, right, but sometimes what happens is he puts us in the right positions. We are so unaware, we're focusing on the wrong things, we major in the minors or we're distracted. So I just want to encourage somebody right now. So I just want to encourage somebody right now. Take an assessment of where you are and ask you know you may not understand the why Start unpacking little pieces of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because where we are today is not by accident, it's not. And those little things, just like with Jamie Foxx if it wasn't for his grandmother, would he be the person he is today? Right, the multi-talented actor. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. If you haven't seen his stand-up comedy, please take a moment during his holiday season to check it out. It's definitely a tearjerker. It is, but he does it through what he knows best comedy and music and music and family and family. Even though he has a lot to say, it's done in a way that only Jimmy Fox can do, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we got some upcoming episodes that I think will be exciting. We're going to do one with our significant others. We're going to invite them here so they can just talk about how they walked along this journey, and I think yours and both are exciting. But yours, titus actually the one that told you. I want to know what was his inner monologue before he had that conversation. Did he wrestle with it or was this like, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and tell her?
Speaker 3:I do know that, and he can talk more in depth about that, that he held it for, I think, a day. Okay, he didn't immediately tell me because I think he had to try to wrap his head around. How was he going to tell me he had to process?
Speaker 3:it yes, he had to process, process and um. So, yeah, we'll save that and I'll let him, you know, tell his his perspective and his the process he went through to finally tell me. So, yeah, I think it'll be very, very good conversation, absolutely um, and now we're gonna jump right in.
Speaker 2:in Are you ready?
Speaker 3:I'm ready, let's go. We do have a guest that's coming on today and her name is Dr Darlene Williams-Praides, and she is an award-winning author, relationship coach and an Air Force veteran with over 60 years of experience in leadership, meditation and emergency management. She's driven by a mission to break generational curses and foster legacy of love and peace. She has authored Destiny Exposed, ladies of Leadership Edition and will release more work in the future. Dr Williams' career spans roles from FEMA and EEOC, where she champions diversity and justice, and as an entrepreneur with Superior Love Forever LLC. She has provided faith-based coaching. A minister and a motivational speaker, she hosts the Relationship Matters podcast, sharing insight on overcoming toxicity and building strong relationships, and that's what we talk about is about relationships. So her life work is a testament to her dedication, compassion and belief in the power of restoration, and so we're getting ready to go ahead and bring her on in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And then let's deep dive into our conversation with Ms Darlene. Hello, Hi, how are you all? We are well. We are well. How are you? I look always on the move. Guys got me going, but it's OK. It's OK. It's better above ground than below.
Speaker 2:That's right. You're built for this, so that's right. You continue to do it.
Speaker 3:Yes, so we did just go over your bio, so we definitely have introduced you to our. We have to figure out a name for our people, you know, everybody has Our folks. You know, like Beyonce has the Beehive. Oh, my goodness. And the.
Speaker 2:Swifties. Oh, we'll figure out something. We'll figure out something.
Speaker 3:The Beehive and the Swifties. Okay, we'll figure out something. We'll figure out something. We'll figure out something. Woo, I'm going to figure that out. I'm going to leave that alone. I was like no, not my generation, I'm going to leave that.
Speaker 2:Not my generation either, trust me. So we want to say thank you, first and foremost, for taking the time just to have this conversation with us. We really do appreciate it and anytime that we are in the space of these conversations it's therapeutic, it's healing and it is encouraging. And that's what I'm excited, because in our previous conversation we had, it was just. It was so much fruit that I walked away with and just it helped me. Even where I am in my journey, I'm still receiving benefits, blessings and help. So just thank you and I'm excited about it.
Speaker 3:Anytime, anytime, anytime.
Speaker 2:So we're going to just we're going to jump right in and tell us your story.
Speaker 3:My story is one of. I tell people I am the tale of two cities, and what that means is I had, of course, my biological parents, and then I had my adoptive parents, but I did not know until I was almost 40, I had biological parents. I thought that the people that I grew up with, who raised me, who disciplined me, who taught me how to build my life and to build my own happiness and to use my gifts, those were my people. That was my village.
Speaker 1:That was my community.
Speaker 3:We're here and so, um, with my mom and my dad it was. It was an interesting life, because it wasn't like my neighbors, because it was just the three of us. For a short period of time it was just the three of. Actually, for a long period of time was just the three of us. I never had a question and no one ever said oh, you don't look like your mom, you don't look like your dad and you know they were real quick to do that, okay.
Speaker 3:People say oh, your child's a little light-skinned, she must look like her father I never got any of that. So I never had the thought of oh, I don't fit here, you know it wasn't like one of these things just doesn't belong here.
Speaker 3:It was more like I'm perfect. So when we celebrated things, we always celebrated together. We went down to Mississippi to work with my grandparents and I did things over the summer and I was in their farmyard and all this other stuff that never once clicked to me. This is not my village, my personal village. So when I lost them, uh, at 16, about six months apart, I still didn't know. That's like my story. I still I didn't know.
Speaker 3:And here's the thing my mom was a maid where when I was younger, she'd take me with her, we would ride the bus and she would take me with her until I got a school age and then she transitioned and became a geriatrics nurse. But in between that I realized now, not then that she helped deliver babies Okay, which, as we call them now, doulas, and that had no name back then. And she helped deliver me and the person who worked me into this world, who was the, the biological mother she didn't want me. Now, previous to, she had more children. I was in the middle, I was number five. She had a total of 11 kids, so that means I was in the middle and she kept those on this end and she kept those on this end. But I was not the kept, I was the dismissed. And the nurse who delivered me said oh yeah, I can't have kids, but I'll keep this one. And it became mom, dad and that's. You know, mommy, daddy. Hey, I got a boo-boo. I'm going to my mom.
Speaker 3:My mom was a nurse. Literally she became a nurse. She had certification, she.
Speaker 3:When I got older, I was a candy stripper at the hospital. So I saw things when I got older, but I was already in my first year of college at Southern University at 16 and a half years old. Okay, I was already doing that and I knew what my path was. I'm going to be a traveling news reporter for Channel 2 News. Why? Because I lived across the street from WBRZ, channel 2. I played in that field with my friends and that just never came to fruition because while I was on the path of attending southern university and becoming the greatest black journalist on the planet, my mother was dying of cancer and where she had taken care of many people prior to us and in fact, the lady across the street many years prior had cancer.
Speaker 3:Her and her husband didn't have the money. My mother got a loan on our house so that this woman could have what she needed, and so, when my mother passed away, I found it to be very difficult to understand why it is that, okay, you just saved somebody else, but we couldn't save you, understanding now that if we had the technology and the things that we had now, that situation would be different. Fast forward about six months and my father passed away, but he passed away from a heart attack. Now, when I look at that picture in total as an adult, he passed away because he was heartbroken you've been with somebody, since you're nine years old, so you're passing away at 73.
Speaker 3:That's your wife yeah that's your whole life.
Speaker 3:You understand, that is your entire life and you don't see marriages like that anymore. You don't see marriages where I met you at nine years old on the playground and I just knew you were gonna be my wife and that happened, that came to fruition and they were together and he drove the illinois central railroad for many, many, many years. He would go past my grandparents' house and they would slow the engine down long enough where he would. Whatever he picked up in Chicago, he would drop it off and then, when it was time for us to come home, of course, he's now back in Louisiana dropping off the train. Now he's got to come back to Mississippi to pick up the kid, to pick up the kid, to pick up the kid. But the kid's now got a whole bunch of stuff going back with her, which was fine, which was fine.
Speaker 3:But my life literally fell into a dark hole right after my mom died. It fell into a dark hole. It fell into a dark hole and what I mean by that is it's like all of my emotions were shut off. It was shut off. I did not cry at the funeral, I did not cry at the wake. I didn't cry at any of those moments when I had to go to the funeral home and this is when they were embalming bodies with very large needles and tubes and I'm the one doing the makeup and I'm the one choosing what she's wearing and I'm the one choosing how her hair is going to be.
Speaker 3:You know, when you have a child and at 16, I was a child choosing those things, it's very difficult to have emotions. You've really got to be very in control, and my father was not. He, I would say he was catatonic, he, he would eat, but there was no conversation between us. The relationship we had, which was really really close, where we would just go hang out, we go fish, or we hang out and we go shoot pool, he teach me how to do different things it was no, I no longer existed. Therefore, I'm basically by myself.
Speaker 1:I was by myself.
Speaker 3:So when my father passed away, when people say it takes a village to raise a child, I can tell you from experience everybody in my neighborhood I stayed in my parents' house, I didn't have to move.
Speaker 1:At 16?
Speaker 3:I didn't have to move. Wow, I didn't have to move. Wow, I had a job at Denny's I was still going to school and every neighbor on my street was like what you need, we cook this. Come over here and eat you hungry.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:It's getting late. Why you not at home yet? Why you coming in so late? Or you know I had that. They didn't let the ball drop. So when people think you got to go to other countries for a village, no, ma'am, I was in Backwoods, louisiana, and that village stayed strong. The elderly people that live across the street girl, you know what day it is? Yes, ma'am. Are you off from work today? Yes, girl, you know what day it is? Yes, ma'am. Are you off from work today? Yes, ma'am. Okay, get some rest. Do I need to cook something? No, ma'am, what'd you cook? I cooked macaroni and cheese. Girl, you don't know how to cook macaroni and cheese. Let me go, uh-uh.
Speaker 1:I'm going to cook some fried chicken, some macaron.
Speaker 3:when I went I said, well, I'm going off to the military and nobody understood that. But I'm like, look, I don't have anybody Because my parents were only children. My both sets of grandparents were deceased. Now I am with a situation where I don't literally have anybody. So I've got to do something, and going to the United States military allowed me to build relationships that I didn't have to keep.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay.
Speaker 3:Didn't have to keep. They were not keepers, okay, they were temporary.
Speaker 2:Served a purpose for a season.
Speaker 3:Served a purpose. Look reason season lifetime.
Speaker 1:Come on, that's right.
Speaker 3:There you go. You know and that for me was an experience Going through basic training. It was I want you to imagine you got 61 women and everybody's getting a card, a letter, a care package. All of this is coming in, they get to make phone calls and you're the only one with none of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:With none of that, and so the adjustment for me is before I went to the military, I was always. I ran track in school, I ran cross country in school and the uh, what I want? The technical sergeant said oh, you're going to be the leader of these women. I'm like I don't know them, I don't even care about them. Those are my exact words. I don't know them and I don't care about them. I'm here for me, period.
Speaker 3:He says no, you're going to lead. That's why, when I wrote my chapter in Destiny Exposé, it's called loss leadership legacy, because someone took me and they go hey, you're going to do this. They didn't ask me, they volunteered me. And I was good at it Because not only was I good at leading from the front, I understood how I could lead from the rear, I could lead from the side. I didn't have to be the center of attention and it made me more merciful and graceful with everybody else, because I recognized some of this was hard for them. They had never been away from home, and yet their families were contacting them. I had never I had been away from home, but I had no home to go back to, you know, and one would think, well, weren't you jealous? Weren't you envious? No, because I'd shut down those kind of feelings. The only feeling I had was get through this so you can get to whatever. That other step is. Wow, wow.
Speaker 3:So when did you, after you, transitioned from the military? When did you find out that you were adopted? What did that look like? That was an interesting situation. I was married, I was. He was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. And we get to snob and open the door. White guy standing there say how may I help you? Are you so-and-so-and-so? Yeah and why? And open the door. Why can't I stand there? How may I help you? Are you so and so and so? Yeah and why? Yeah and why? Okay, and well, I need to talk to you about your mother. I said bam, I didn't even let shut the door.
Speaker 3:Wow, Because see now you are messing with my emotions.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:How can you tell me you're going to talk to me about my mother, and my mother is deceased? I know, because I buried her.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying I know because I buried her and he said I want to talk to you about your mother. I said, sir, my mother has been deceased since I was 16. I am currently in my late 30s, so if this is a joke of any kind, it's going to get you physically assaulted. And he said no, no, no, your mother's alive. She lives in Anchorage, alaska, along with your other siblings. And my brain exploded.
Speaker 2:See that's what I did. What was the first emotion? Was it anger? Was it? What was it?
Speaker 3:My first emotion was shock.
Speaker 2:Understandable.
Speaker 3:Because my brain said he's lying and it's my job to make him suffer for that. It's my job to make him suffer for that. It's my job to make him suffer for that. He never had to cross the threshold of my home. I closed the door behind me and we stood out on the porch.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:I said explain. And he began to weave all this information. He gave me some papers. He said just look over these papers and I thank you for your time and he left.
Speaker 1:I went back inside.
Speaker 3:I opened his portfolio and I'm going through all this stuff and each thing that I read. Then the anger came.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep.
Speaker 3:How dare you? That was the posture. How dare you, how dare you, how dare you. And then, finally, dare you. And then finally I shared that information with my husband and he just kind of stared at me and I stared at him and thought, nah. So we didn't throw it away, we threw it in a drawer and he got orders. We left, we left there and they sent us to te and we're in Texas and you know, you're putting away stuff, emptying out boxes, and once again this paperwork comes up.
Speaker 3:And so, while this paperwork is coming up and you're doing all, I'm sitting there in the house now, sitting alone because there's no kids, there's no husband, there's no dog, alone because there's no kids, there's no husband, there's no dog, it's just me. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna sit here and I'm in this 110 degree in texas and I'm going to actually read darlene. Just slow down and read. So I said, lord, before I read this paperwork, if this is not real, I'm gonna need you to hand me the nicest piece of lightning to set this on five year. I said, and I don't want to match, I'm just going to put it on the front porch and you do you and I'm good. I'm good with that I said, because it's not enough right now that you can sit here straight, it'll be gone.
Speaker 3:I don't have to sit again and I read that paperwork and something in me said this is real and you need to check it out now. Question the reason why this gentleman came to you. Was it because your mother was looking? Your family was looking for you? Okay, but they were looking for me because they had seen things about me, because after I got out of the military, I became a professional singer.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:And so what they saw were dollar signs. She sings, she makes money. She sings, so she makes money.
Speaker 2:So okay, let me 30 second time out. So how did they know you and the connection 30 second timeout.
Speaker 1:So how did they?
Speaker 2:know you and the connection.
Speaker 3:The youngest was one of these people. Back then. She was on the internet and she's trying to find the sister who's not there, okay. And she finds a picture and I am the only one out of 11 kids. I'm a carbon copy of my biological mother tight, great smile, laughter, and she saw this face and it was like wait, she looks like, literally like If you took her picture and you took my picture, you couldn't tell who was who.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:And nobody else looked like her, just me. So did all nine of your siblings knew about you. Did they know that you existed? Everybody knew about me, but I didn't know anything about them, right right, she was honest enough to tell them who their fathers were, because none of us had the same father. She was honest enough to tell us, you know um, who their fathers were, because none of us had the same father uh she was honest enough to tell us who are, who their fathers were, and there was so much.
Speaker 3:Her mother, which would be my biological, had so much really, really visceral animosity towards whoever my father was and towards me that I mean it was. It was venomous. The first time I met them it was years later. We're talking about, I want to say, maybe five years later. Okay was five, five, almost seven years later after the after the guy went to alaska.
Speaker 3:After the guy knocked on your door, it was about five or seven years after, okay, so walk us through between that, that five, that the time he knocked on your door and the time you met them. How. Why did it take so long? Because I know for me. Once you know, we identified who my biological mom was and they were ready to see me as much as I was ready to meet them, maybe the next month. So it was Christmas Day I saw her for the first time, and in January we met for the first time face to face. So explain or give me the understanding of why it took so long.
Speaker 3:So my, my process was a little bit different. Number one my husband was a very, very narcissistic kind of guy. My husband was a very, very narcissistic kind of guy. That's the easiest way to put it. He was a narcissist. And so me just going somewhere and checking something out, he wasn't that guy. He was never that guy. Um, and the fact that he he wasn't still not believing these people were real, it's like, uh, this person? I don't think so. So that was part of it.
Speaker 3:The other part of it was that, you know, when you've done something for 16 years. You're wondering. Well, you've known for 16 years, you're my biological mother. Why did you wait until I'm almost 40 to send somebody out to find me? What's that really all about? So that became, but I wasn't curious about this lady.
Speaker 3:Okay, I wasn't curious about the siblings. I wasn't curious about any of it, any of it, because my brain said you know what? I've been alone this whole time. You guys have never been nowhere in the scene. I've been baptized in the Pacific ocean and everything else, and you guys have been nowhere. So I'm not in a rush, I'm going to walk, I'm going to take a walk. Um, and when I finally divorced my husband, one of the things I did was I packed up my boys and I said, um, I'm driving to Alaska. Now, of course, when you tell somebody that and they're a narcissist their brain is not clicking. It's kind of like that'll never happen, right, and I? I remember he thought it was so funny. He said well, let me help you do laundry. Okay, wow, he did help me do laundry, washed it, dried it folded, put it in the suitcase, but he never once imagined that I would leave, I'm telling you where I'm going.
Speaker 3:So, like I tell people, I give you the answer to the test and you still fail the test. That's your fault not mine and I packed up the kids, and now it's two boys and a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, and we are on this journey from Oklahoma City to Anchorage, alaska, in a Ford Escort. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So okay. So here it is.
Speaker 3:We took this journey on the Alcan, which is the highway one. At that time it was all gravel and that means we had to go through Yukon territory. That means we had to go through Vancouver. Basically, we left the country and went to another country and came back into the country Because I was sleeping on a dirty floor inside a sleeping bag and my boys were sleeping on her sofa. Why? Because she lived in a trailer, so pause. So did they know that you were coming?
Speaker 2:no, so that's where I wanted to kind of get a get some insight of with you about to leave the house. What was the, the trigger or what made you say now is the time I'm going here?
Speaker 3:Because I felt like number one, I could get away from the narcissist. Number two, I can finally get my own life. Number three he was not only a narcissist, but he was a drug addict and an alcoholic, okay. And so he had already almost killed me, almost killed the boys, and I was like, eh, it's time to move on. And that direction, whether I met them or not, seemed so far away from him, okay, and I knew he wasn't going to follow. He wasn't going to follow. It was like because, why, he'd never expect me to go there. He would think she'd go somewhere else, but he never expected me to go there.
Speaker 1:Because for him he never felt like.
Speaker 3:I had the courage to do the things that he'd never seen me do, and so by me doing that, it showed him a different side of me, but he still never came to Alaska hmm, never came to.
Speaker 3:Alaska. In fact, he was arrested for check fraud and a whole host of other things, so they kicked him out. Of course, he had a dishonorable discharge from military and then he was locked in leavenworth for a time. Oh okay, very good, so you just getting back to meeting your biological mother. You just showed up on her doorstep. Uh no, I called her when I got there. Oh okay, I, I called, I was in a, I was in a, we were in a hotel for probably about a month. I found a job and everything before I ever called, and then showed up at the home, which I thought would be a home, but, like I said, it was a trailer home and there were six people in there.
Speaker 1:In a trailer. In a trailer in a trailer and these are your siblings.
Speaker 3:The youngest, uh, was sleeping on a sofa. She had never had a bed in her life the two older sisters.
Speaker 3:They weren't. One was older than me and one was, the other was older than me and one was, the other was younger than me. They slept together in another room and then there was two other guys. They slept together in another room and then she had one that was married. He was somewhere else and the other several children had passed away before I ever got there. Oh, okay, and then she had her room, but I thought okay, so this is a trailer home, this is a mobile home. Why are y'all in here and all y'all adults? I'm not understanding. And it was, nobody was going to move. Well, you know, now that you're here, we can get a duplex and I'm like, no, ma'am, alright. So go back to when, now that you're here, we can get a duplex and I'm like, no, ma'am, all right. So go back to when they identified you the years prior, because they saw that you were singing.
Speaker 3:Because they assumed that I still sang. Now I did, but I left to come there. That means I left behind the band that I was working with and everything else. This was me starting my whole new life, away from the husband. Away from the husband, far, far, far away from the husband.
Speaker 3:And far, far, far away from his family and his life, because the whole family was like a bunch of narcissistic pills and you took one, you got rid of them. The only one that was not like that was his grandmother and his father, but his father was incarcerated. He was incarcerated for murder. Oh wow, yeah, didn't learn that until later, later, but I was already married, but yeah, I mean he, his father, explained to me. I went to prison to see him and his father actually explained why, but that didn't pretty much matter. It's like you incarcerated for murder, which tells me that there is a point for you, that you can go to that level of which means there's a point for this guy. Right, you understand, if there's a point for you, there's a point for him, and I thought, ok, this, this should be a safe place.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I found really interesting when I got there OK, like I said, I was sleeping on a dirty floor in a sleeping bag. It's because you're a trailer and all the traffic was there Within. I want to say, within 10 days, I had my own apartment, I just had my own stuff and one of the things well, life is not a bowl of cherries and you don't understand how to be with family and I'm like okay, and this is not a mentality that I grew up around. Everything I grew up around was very life affirming and very positive, and now you've got this person who's kind of going Because they didn't do anything with their lives.
Speaker 2:So do you think that she was instrumental in the siblings staying put in the house and staying with her staying put in the house and staying?
Speaker 3:with her? Did she control that? Yes, absolutely, because I don't think they would have ever left that kind of life Like now my sister Arlene. She's been living in the same apartment. She's never wanted to own a home. She's been living in the same apartment now for 23 years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:The same apartment. I'm not. She didn't move to a different neighborhood. The same apartment. The apartment where her child was born, is where she still lives. So did your mom ever tell you why, out of all 10 children that she specifically gave you up? She never explained it came from her mother on. I'll never forget that. Came from her mother on Thanksgiving day and she said you know, I never wanted you around. I hated your father and I hate you. Good to know. I said well, here's the thing. I don't know you, so your hate holds no significance for me. Wow, I said if you were someone that I knew, that I had a relationship that might hurt me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might feel something.
Speaker 3:At this juncture you're a total stranger. So to me you're like somebody on the street. You're like some racist white guy. You know I don't like you because you're the N-word. Okay.
Speaker 2:How does she receive that?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, you think you know everything. You think you're smarter than everybody else. No, that's not what I think at all. What I think is you people called me, you people sent somebody looking for me. I said the minute I walked through the door, the first thing you want to know is how much money I had. Wow, wow, no, hug. No, oh, I'm so happy you're here. I never received a hug. Oh, I'm so glad to see you. How much money do you have? Can you help us get a duplex? Why you have a grown daughter. You have three grown daughters in here, two grown sons. Another grown son across town who's married Three of her sons. Two of her sons worked at the same bank and his wife worked at that bank as well.
Speaker 3:The other son was married and he was out somewhere else and I'm like I don't understand. And then you have somebody who was doing childcare and the other person and I'm kept saying, okay, so, all of you people worked. Why did you not ever buy a home? Kept saying, okay, so, all of you people worked. Why did you not ever buy a home? One son out of the entire group bought a home One. What did he do? He married to one and he moved to New York.
Speaker 1:Oh, he left.
Speaker 3:But no, he didn't just leave. I talked to my younger sister. I had to get the explanation when my biological mother passed away. She passed away because the drugstore gave her the wrong medication, which killed her, and they sued. Well, his wife, the son, who moved, became the executor. Now you got your kids in the house, but you got somebody outside your house who was you made the executor of your estate. They took all of the money. None of those kids got anything. They moved all the way to New York where her family and her parents were Boom. So he didn't split it amongst his siblings huh, not at all.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Not at all so. I thought, wow, this is kind of it's a little shady right here.
Speaker 3:This is real shady. This is what's going on. This is a real shady. This is real shady. This is what's going on. This is a real shady situation. And so for me it was like okay, I don't live in this house, so I'm good. At one point, one of the sisters came to live with me when I was in alaska. She didn't. She was 36 and still didn't know how to drive. Wow. So I took my, my el camino, which I rebuilt, which nobody can understand. It was like wait a minute, you're doing all these manly things. I said see, my father raised me where I wouldn't need a man for school. He said when you are in a relationship, you should never need him. Want him, yes, because that gives you options to walk away, but when you have to need him, then it becomes he's got you by the throat because you need him to do X, y and Z.
Speaker 3:But, if you know how to do these things yourself. It's a mutual, respectful relationship where you guys want each other. You don't need each other. He said your need should rely on god, god and god alone. It's true, okay, makes sense to me so when I, when I got a car I let me go back a few steps the escort caught on fire.
Speaker 3:The escort- that took you from Oklahoma all the way to Anchorage, caught on fire With the bubble gum. It caught on fire Literally. I was at a stop sign and I saw smoke billowing from under the hood. I didn't have anybody with me, I was by myself, and when I got out once I got out literally flames were coming from under the car. Fire department came. They said oh yeah, your fuel line broke and your engine was hot and there you go.
Speaker 3:So that's how it was going. I paid $500, purchased the El Camino, redid the whole vehicle Cause I didn't like it. I mean from top to bottom tires, paint the whole vehicle because I didn't like it. I mean from top to bottom tires, paint the whole nine. I probably kept it for six months, sold it, upgraded to a big Wagoneer and my boys and I would deliver newspapers in the morning, they would go to school and then I would go to work, and so that is the thing that kept going.
Speaker 3:We stayed in one apartment where my son fed young moose all of my carrots out the window. So we moved and we were in an apartment in a basement. The basement got flooded, so we moved and then I moved to a townhouse and then everything was everything was prosthetic. And that's when my sister Arlene. She needed somewhere to live, so she stayed with me. I taught her how to drive. She failed the driver's test like five times, but still I taught her how to drive, literally in the dead of winter, um, and she got her driver's license and she's been driving ever since. But she lived with me.
Speaker 3:Um, I got a three bedroom town home because my sister lived with me and I had the boys, and it was very interesting because she had these behaviors, behaviors that I was not accustomed to, and her favorite line was my mom, my mom, not our, my mom and she would say that so much to the point where I got to a point where I was like okay, I said, well, how is your mother doing, how's she feeling today? You know, she was a diabetic, she had hypertension, she was just not physically a healthy human being, but at the same time, she was a very giving human being, if she knew you really well. What they couldn't understand about me was I wasn't raised the way you were. I play violin, viola, cello and piano, and I sing. I was writing music, I was writing poetry, so everything about my mind is creative. I wasn't living, though. My parents were dead. My brain was no longer stuck in survival mode.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 3:Why? Because I own two children at the time and you got to be creative.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You have to keep them occupied and help them through whatever little moments they're going through. And it's boys, so it's very, very different. And because I didn't have someone to show me or to mimic after how do you do this? I just did it like my parents did it. You know, they were always compassionate. They were always showing me grace and mercy. I could realize that now they were showing me a lot of grace and mercy because they spent a lot of time with me. So there was not times I can say, oh, you know, my parents would just leave me and go do a whole bunch of different stuff without me. No, we did things together, we did things separately, and my mom and I did things and my dad and I did things, and then, once I did things with my grandparents, were they alive. So I got the experience.
Speaker 3:I got the experience of being somebody's child that was cared for. But in the meantime I got bullied at school. I got bullied in my neighborhood. I got bullied a lot. I got bullied a lot.
Speaker 2:How did you overcome the residual results of being bullied, if that makes sense?
Speaker 3:It does. It took me a while. It took me a while, it took me a really, really long time to really digest all of that Because, remember, everything kept rolling, nothing stopped, nothing stopped. So, from 16, literally until 40, I was this, I was always this, and it's always that, and it's going. I'm caring about the kids, then I'm going to sing, and I remember asking my mother once once hey, can you watch the boys? I've got this gig at this club. Well, you got grown, you have children and you don't need to be singing in no club. And no, I'm not going to watch them for you. Okay, that was number one. Here comes door number two.
Speaker 3:The oldest sibling worked for Procter and Gamble. Procter Gamble was looking for someone to sing jingles. I gave her my tape. She never delivered it. I went in the studio, did all the work, put it together, paid for it. She never delivered it. So, with that being said, what type of relationship do you have, if any, with any of your siblings? Today, I have a relationship with one sibling, and that is Arlene, and she and I literally, it literally until until this year for us to have a real relationship. So it's been a while. Um, she came out in august and I said hey, I gotta, I have to go to washington dc. You want to ride the train with me? And she said I've never ridden a train. I said, oh okay, we're gonna ride an amtrak, because I'm not, I'm not driving, I don't want to. We took a train, we went to DC. I took her to the National African-American Museum, where she was in total awe.
Speaker 3:And then we walked around, looked at some monuments. I took her out to eat. It freaked her out because we had to ride the metro and she was like I will never get on a metro. I was like okay, but this is how we get around.
Speaker 2:She'll never go to New York. She wouldn't be able to hang out on New.
Speaker 3:York. We got off to Amtrak and I took her to eat breakfast and then we got on the metro and you would have thought that I had thrown Mama from the train. I'm like no, you just get on the train and pick a seat, sit down, shut up and get off and just stop. And I said I do this all the time, she's like and you're not scared. I said of right what do I? Well, if you don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and so she's.
Speaker 3:She's been isolated in anchorage for a really, really, really long time. Um, one thing I asked her was hey, why don't you come travel out of the country with me? Nope, not going to ever happen. She's worried about getting trapped in another country and being held hostage. I don't have those fears, I don't. I don't have those fears. I'm like what? You're letting your imagination or TV or whatever get the best of you. You know so those kind of things. But this year we actually had a. We sat and while we were eating we had a real heart to heart talk and I said look, what I do for a living is coach people in relationships, not just marriage, but sibling to sibling, parent to sibling, whatever. I said. So let's have this candid conversation. I said because right now we're adults. You know we're adults. I said number one you no longer take care of yourself. She used to really take care of herself. Now she's like she let herself go. I said but why? She is like she let herself go? I said, but why so?
Speaker 3:I've had uterine breast and brain cancer. I've hit the back of my neck where I just had the surgery months prior, and been told, hey, if we move you the wrong way you could be a quadriplegic or you could die. I said no, that ain't happening, I'm not going to be a quadriplegic and I'm not going. Which I said, no, that ain't happening, I'm not gonna be quadriplegic and I'm not gonna die. I got too much to do. But she has been through breast cancer, she and, and so she's been through a whole lot of stuff.
Speaker 3:The older sibling, which I didn't really spend any time with um, she died a couple of years back. I want to say it's been six years now. One of the things about her she didn't want to stop what she was doing, so she was a diabetic, she drank Coke, she smoked like a train, she had her legs amputated up to both knees, then she had to have triple bypass surgery and finally and then she had uterine cancer and she just would not stop doing what she was doing. So she passed away. And then, several years ago I want to say three, the youngest brother passed away, and that was that. Then one of the older brothers, when I found out he had been living in his car since it was for 17 years.
Speaker 1:He had been living in his car. Since it was for 17 years he had been living in his car.
Speaker 3:He had a beautiful home, he was married. He and his wife and his kids moved out of Alaska and they moved to Washington State where he was working for, I want to say, apple or Microsoft or one of those, because he's a computer person, and his wife was at a bank, working at a bank because that's what she did. Well, when she passed away from cancer, she had uterine cancer but she had lung cancer, but she never smoked a day in her life, but he smoked every day, so it was secondhand smoke and so for those 17 years he pretty much put himself in purgatory and lived in his car. He lived in his car with this younger person because the house that he had, he lost the house. One of the things that he told me when we had a candid conversation is the young lady that he started dating, you know, years after his wife passed away, is I don't want pictures of your wife in the house, uh, and so I'm not gonna live here, you need to get rid of the house. Well, he, basically he lost the house in foreclosure. So that was the getting rid of the house and he stayed in this car and he still went to work, but he went to work at a different place because he allowed this young lady. They had a shower, I guess, at the place where he worked. He gave her his pass card to go in and take a shower. So he lost his job and I explained to him.
Speaker 3:Arlene called me. She said you need to talk to Larry, tell him about any kind of military benefits he can possibly get, because he used to be in the army. I said, okay, like that's fine. I didn't know how long he'd been in the army so I didn't have a whole lot to work with. But I called everybody I knew, got all this information together. He never used it. He never used it. And then just last year, when no, that was this year when Arlene came, she said Larry finally listened to you, moved out his car. He now lives in this place here. He doesn't live with this girl anymore. He gave her the car because what she had done was she had two dogs in his car with them. No bueno.
Speaker 2:So question with using the, the adoption, the non-traditional relationship in the center. How? Because in listening to your story and it's so much more like we're going to going to have to do maybe a part two with this but how? Because in listening to your story I see how do you encourage those that are wrestling with trying to overcome the challenges of relationships and they don't necessarily have, they're not facing all the challenges that you faced and they may not have the strength that you had to walk away, to go knock on the door, to be able to have and reestablish yourself in a new season and in a new place. Like you said, you didn't need a man, it was. If you wanted one, you were equipped for the journey. A lot of times people aren't equipped for what. They don't understand that they are and they need to unlock some things. So how do you get, how do you help people get to a place that they can unlock what's inside of them in their relationship journey?
Speaker 3:Well, the first thing I tell them, I ask anybody because I don't tell them, I ask them. I say that, what is your faith look like? And when they say, what does that mean? I said, okay, so when you stand in a mirror, who do you see? And well, I see me, do you? Do you see you? Who else do you see? Are you standing there by yourself?
Speaker 3:I said, well, I have a program that has seven biblical steps that will take you from here to there, but you got to follow them. I have a 40-day love journey. I want to send you on 40 straight days. When someone says, I said in numbers, if you go to numbers, they said 12. They said 12. They sent 12. And those people were gone for 40 days and in 40 days, two people came back with a good report. The other 10 did not, but the person that was listening saw two people. When you look in that mirror, there's two people. I said when Meshack, shadrach and Abednego were in the fire furnace, there's four people. I said if you look at Daniel and the lions, then there's still two people.
Speaker 3:I said you're never walking alone. Just stop running. That's what you got to do. What you're running is you're running ahead of your father. He knows what's up there, but you don't. So let's take this walk together. So here's the first step Admitting that it hurts.
Speaker 3:Second step admitting that you don't know what you don't know. So don't make assumptions, don't speculate, don't worry about any of that. What's the information that you do know? Now let's expand on that information. How deep would you like to go into this rabbit hole? Ie together, not just you Together. Recognize that he's standing with you and I'm standing with you. We're going to have to take this journey together. It is not going to be a short journey. This is not something we can fix in eight weeks, especially if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. We can fix in eight weeks, especially if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. Because now I said I need you to imagine every place you've ever been. You picked up a bag. I said there's 365 days. In a year you already got 365 bags, times 33. You're not carrying it, you're dragging it. So let's see how we can let go.
Speaker 2:That's powerful, the acknowledgement and you know, starting with the faith walk, helping them understand whose you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we are both advocates and stand on that belief. Who's you are? Yeah, and I'm, we are both advocates and stand on that belief. And it's interesting some people, when they come to that place of knowing who God really is, in some situations it's aversive. In some situations they hit rock bottom. In some situations it's because they have a curiosity and something is unlocked, right, you know, and it everybody's journey is individualized and that's what's so special in in contact and conversations. So hindsight is always 20, 20 and being able to process where you've gone on your journey so far and then doing it in a reflection of well, why did I go through that? And I'm a firm believer that God's not going to take you through anything that he hasn't already equipped you for we may not have taken he his soldiers there you go, he knows, okay, I already know before I formed this person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's a soldier. She got the helmet, she got the breastplate, she got the leg armor, she got her spear, she got a sword, she got bow and arrow and guess what? She got the strongest sword in the world. She got her Bible. That Bible is a compass. It's a history book. It's a math book, it's a science book. It's everything you need. If you look at it, it's in there, but you've got to be willing to look.
Speaker 3:And then you've got to be willing to receive, because some people will read it. And still, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:You know I have a tool that I give couples called a 40-day love journey and it's called a love dare and some say where did you get this from? I said, believe it or not, I was divorced. My whole church went to this movie and the whole church we had to go. They had to go in three different times because the church, you know a lot of people, but what they were trying to do is they were trying to get the couples to go and I was like I told the pastor. I said no disrespect. I said, but everybody needs this. I said but everybody needs this. I said because guess what's going to happen? I'm going to get into a relationship, but if I know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3:I said people need boundaries and I remember putting this up on YouTube where I have my podcast. And I was talking about boundaries and the guy that responded to me everybody doesn't understand boundaries and everybody doesn't need boundaries. I said here's the problem with not understanding and not needing. Are you that arrogant to believe that God will give you tomorrow just because you don't have boundaries? Because he does?
Speaker 1:He has boundaries.
Speaker 3:There's a line you're not going to cross with him and he's not going to be the bully in the play yard. He's giving you all the answers. If you fail the test, that's you. You've been studying.
Speaker 2:You weren't paying attention.
Speaker 3:The teacher was at the beginning of the class. She was writing everything on the board. Please take notes, students. Please take notes. And you're sitting in the back Didn't pull out a pen. You didn't pull out paper. You're going to pull it up here.
Speaker 3:Test time comes. You want to know why you have a 33. Because you did not take the notes that were given to you. I tell people all the time. I'm going to give you who I am. It's your job not to fail that test. It's your job, if I give you access to me, to not lose that access.
Speaker 3:I said now, like you're going to a military base, they gave you an ID to get on and off that post, but you went in and you stole colonels, whatever. So now they took all that back. Who can we blame for that? Don't say the devil, please, because it ain't the devil, it's you. It's you right. You made a conscious choice to lose access and I'm honest with people. I tell them I gave you access. You chose the wrong choice. I don't have to give it back. I don't have to. There's no way the Bible where it says that I have to. I married a bride this weekend. She didn't want her father to walk her down the aisle. And she said this to me there's nowhere in the Bible where it says my father has to walk me down the aisle. And I started to laugh at her.
Speaker 2:It's the principle.
Speaker 3:She said why are you laughing? I said let me ask you a question Are you telling God you don't want his representative to walk you down? But I mean, I'm just asking, I'm just here to officiate, but you tell him I'm not telling that. All right, you let me know what he says right, you're not getting up to a good start.
Speaker 3:I said because he has his ambassadors and he expects you to respect those. Your father got out of prison just for this and you won't even give him the five seconds it takes to get from here to there, from here to there, from here to there. I said, contrary to popular belief, karma is real.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, yes, it is.
Speaker 3:So for me. That is another reason why I said you know, if I don't take this opportunity to meet her, it will be the it's the wrong thing God gave me. Let me show you how good God is. I traveled from Oklahoma city to Alaska with $700. That's it $700. Got there, got a job and still $700. With two kids and myself, I didn't have furniture. I didn't have anything. That car only had the clothes we were going to wear. Everything else, I left behind Everything else and I got there safely. I got them there safely, Healthy, happy, no problems and no fear, no fear whatsoever. So I knew that I could make things happen, but I just had to keep believing that I could make things happen.
Speaker 2:So we're definitely going to have to do a part two of this so that we can unpack, because the relationships with the siblings, and that, I think, is another level, that it just there is a another, another level, that it just there's some low hanging fruit there. That, I think, is absolutely.
Speaker 3:I never had a relationship with the younger brother, the older brothers. I didn't have a relationship with the older sisters. I told you, rather than give the audio tape to Procter and Gamble and then let my life build up, because my picture was, this happens, then it becomes a us thing, then I'll get you guys out of here. And it's not a duplex, it's a big enough house where people can have their own space.
Speaker 2:And they couldn't see that, they didn't have the foresight to be able to embrace what you were doing If I hold her back. She's just modeling what she had seen from mom, and that's the unfortunate piece of it, and that's what's horrible.
Speaker 2:That's a whole other discussion. How do you deprogram when all you know is this you know that's a challenge, because you got to be very careful when they truly believe that this way is the right way and it's toxic? And I know in the bio you talk about overcoming toxicity. Um, yeah, yeah. So that's why I say it's. This is, I think, the introduction to a more pinpointed discussion about the sibling restoration for what it could have been we. We still haven't even got to the mom in that dynamic because you're telling her hey, if I really knew you, maybe that might hurt, but it don't, no, I say to somebody metaphorically I'm like if I bump into the wall, I don't have a feeling for the wall, I have a feeling for my shoulder.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what I'm taking on, because the shoulder is me.
Speaker 3:That's right you know what I'm saying. The shoulder is me, the wall is the wall, and so if I don't know someone and they say X, y, z, a, b, c, I'm like, okay, so you said what you said, that's good for you. You feel better now, you know. Well, for probably I would say half a second, I'd be like huh, I'm disrespectful. And then in the back of my mind, I'm saying who cares? This person at this moment is the most insignificant piece of dust because you don't know them. Now here's the converse side of that. What are they going through? What are they going through that they're trying to bring into your front door? See, you don't know. And I'll tell you something that just happened.
Speaker 3:I was at Union Station, I had just gotten in on Friday, and I got to the front doors, the double doors where you go out on the street, and there was a man standing and he had a cane and he was dragging a duffel bag, middle Eastern man, and he was a cane, and he was dragging a duffel bag, middle Eastern man, and he was just standing and everybody was walking around him, you know, walking past him, and he says is this a chair? I said no, sir, that's a trash. Can? I said would you like to sit down? No, I need to get to the ticket counter. Now I could have been like the 40, 50, so many people. And I said take my arm and I'll take you to the counter. And he took my arm but he was scared. He was scared because one. He was scared. He was scared because one he was blind. He was completely blind.
Speaker 3:But see, people thought, because his eyes weren't glazed over and he wasn't wearing glasses and he didn't have the long cane with the little ball on the end, that he was normal. They made an assumption. I didn't do that. When I stopped at that front door, it wasn't because I was tired, it wasn't because it was raining, it's because spirit said I need you to stop moving, I need you to turn around. I could have been disobedient and went on about. Hey, I got stuff to do, I got to go, but I didn't. I took him to that counter and I said where are we going? And this is his words I don't know where I'm going. I just got to get out of here.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:I said, ok, I left him at that counter. Now we all know that checking into a hotel at seven o'clock in the morning is not normal, and I was checking into the Crown Hotel over in Greenbelt. I walked into that lobby and I said my name is Dr Darlene Williams-Pratus. I have a reservation. I know I can't check in until 3. This is what this young lady said. Oh no, no, no, we got your room ready. So it's 12.15. Just go in until 3. This is what this young lady said oh no, no, no, we got your room ready. It's 12.15. Just go in on upstairs. See how fast God worked.
Speaker 2:He already had it lined up.
Speaker 3:He was like you do this and I'm going to do that for you, so you can lay down and rest, because in order for me to leave Rocky Mountain, north Carolina, I have to catch a 229 train, which means I need to be up by midnight. There you go. So I tell people, I say you may not think you're being watched. I say baby, he sits on such a high throne, he sees everything.
Speaker 2:La-di-da-di, everybody, that's right.
Speaker 3:I always treat people the way I want to be treated, but it's just like when I treat somebody's mother, I treat them how I would treat my mother if my mother was still alive Every single time. Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. How can I help you, ma'am? Is there something I can give for you? Do you want this? You have to be my mama.
Speaker 2:You have a reverence for that's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you, yeah, you look oh you want some new shoes? Hold on, let me check and see if I got enough money. My bank complicated for you.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be my mother, you want those shoes.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna get those shoes.
Speaker 2:I'll get the shoes so, yeah, um, I I'm again. I have a whole list of of questions and comments and I want to to. I want to come back, like I said on another episode, because I want to be respectful of your time, but we're going to have another conversation and be prepared for some. It's going to be question and answer on that one Cause I think you have. You have really planted the seed in this one with the illustration of strength and the journey to really show that you know, god makes no mistakes. He, I mean he makes no mistakes. That's the bottom line that we can put on that. So I want to say thank you just for blessing us and giving us a word of encouragement and helping us tonight and be prepared for our next call.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, oh, I'm not. I'm not worried about it. I will tell you, I will tell the audience. When you have something that you really want God to move on, write it down. When I said, lord, I need to break free from this relationship, I wrote it in a journal on October 23rd. Now, it wasn't instantaneous, because that was October 23rd of one year, june of the following year. I was gone, see, but I was. I didn't complain about it and I never went back to ask him. I just wrote it down and I kept it in that journal. I never went back to look at it, I never even thought about it, and he made it happen and you had the faith that he will, yeah, um, answer your prayers. So that's right and that's it so you don't have to ask him 40 million times.
Speaker 3:Ask him once, declare it twice, write it down, walk away.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a whole other episode of tools that you're going to get. So the way that we close, lisa say her name, I'll say my name, you say your name, and then then we say and we're adopted okay, you got it, I got it okay yeah, this has been powerful it has.
Speaker 3:thank you so much, we really appreciate you and until the next time, um, you know, make make sure you subscribe like, leave a comment and questions.
Speaker 2:If you have any questions about what you heard today, so that on the next one we can address it.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, so I'm Lisa, I'm John and I'm Darlene. And we are adopted.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Thank. You are adopted, yep Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you all for watching you too, you too.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the so I'm Adopted podcast. We hope that this was informative and educational. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at so I'm Adopted. Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel so I'm Adopted. And again, thank you for listening and until next time, make the choice to begin your healing journey.
