A Chat with Tina Campbell

Hey y'all, it's Chrystal Hurst and I am so excited to have Miss Tina Campbell with me on tonight. Hey Tina. Hello. So y'all need to know, y'all know I like to tell y'all the truth. So first of all, everything that was on that panel is just on the floor. It's just on the floor. It ain't this neat. I just went like this and it's just on the floor. And I was commiserating because she was on trying to get settled, and she heard me yelling at everybody, be quiet, I told you already, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I felt good because she was trying to get her kids in order as well before this. We are just two moms who are making an hour to chat in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the chaos. Okay, so Tina.

Yes, Tina.

So here's my first thing I just have to know.

Yes.

Um, I said to you before we came on, I said, listen, just let me know if you're good with whatever I ask, and if you're not, then just, just say so. Like, my feelings won't be hurt. And you said, girl, please, that I, I don't mind talking about nothing. God has given me the ability to speak without fear about whatever I want to talk about.

Isn't that something?

So this is what I want to know though. Why is that? Is that your personality? Is that life has taught you to say what you want to say? Like, what is— why is that?

You know, if I can be honest, I think God put something in me for his own purposes. I'm not sure if it's always been perfected. I'm not sure if it's perfected now. But I am pursuing God to be perfected so that he has sanctified all that he's given me. But I've always been very honest, very straightforward. I do not like fake. I do not like phony. I do not like facades. And for some reason, I'm not going to say that nothing bothers me. And some, you know, you want to put on your best for people and all that kind of stuff. I would like for my kids to be at their best behavior. You know, nobody wants to just be out there misrepresenting themselves. But I'm okay with me. I'm okay with my failures. I'm okay with my lack. I'm okay with what I have. I'm okay with what I don't have. I'm okay with the praise of people. I'm okay with with being bashed and ripped to shreds by people. 5 years ago when I went through some things in my marriage, one of my prayers was— and the Holy Spirit actually taught me how to pray because I didn't know what to pray. But I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me to pray. And one of my prayers were that I accepted, that I received, that I focused on God's opinion of me more than anyone else's. And I know that God loves me. I know that God is with me. Um, I don't intentionally do things that are offensive or, you know, just careless. Uh, I don't intentionally live a compromised life or anything. I try to be honest with myself. I try to be true to my God, true to my family, true to what I say I am. And so everything else that comes with that, I'm okay with it. Like me, love me, stay with me, leave me, whatever. Say what you want to say or don't. I'm just going to be me because I'm pretty good at that. And the other stuff is too hard. And caring about what everybody thinks is too, too much because my own thoughts are worse than everybody else's. I am extremely hard on myself. So you can't say nothing that I haven't already said to myself. You can't probably offend me more than I've offended me. So I don't really care what nobody think that much. And it's not— I'm not heartless. I'm not like, you know, bump your opinion. It's not that kind of thing. I just, I can't care to make someone else's opinion of me and someone else's thoughts of me. I don't allow them to make me. So they don't have the opportunity to break me. Does stuff sometimes offend me or bother me? Yeah, but I will shift and tell myself, God's opinion of you is the one that you, you accept. And sometimes people who are hurting or broken or in bad spaces, they, they think things that's not wonderful about you. Get over it. What kind of thoughts have you had on your bad day? Maybe they just— you on your bad day, you know. Forgive them and let it go. And so because of that, I don't, I don't care about sharing anything. I am what I am, and if I mess up, you know, God will cover me because he loves me and he's got my back.

So, so sounds like seasons or times where you have to say something to yourself. In general, you're geared to kind of just be who you are and oh well. Well, it's not, it's not an oh well because not oh well, but just Like, what I'm trying to say is there are people that they don't have that story. They don't, they don't have the— not the oh well, but the, you know, well, Lord help me, but I mean, like, and I want to be unapologetic, unapologetically, authentically me, right? And if it ain't a fit, God bless you, it ain't a fit. It's okay.

Because I make it my business to not— now, this has not always been my story. I have been very obnoxious. I have been very offensive. I have been very condescending. And I am not proud of some of the representation that I have put out there of myself. But I am changing. I have committed my life to God. God did a work in my life some years ago. And I'm not committed to the fool that I was, nor can I sit and spend all my life explaining the fool that I was. But I refuse to be her. I reject all of that. And I'm just walking in sanctification, allowing God to perfect me. And so I'm okay with the fact that I am a public figure. And people will have things to say about you. People will have opinions. Sometimes people understand. Sometimes people take you too seriously. Sometimes people give you a value or put a place of responsibility on you that's unrealistic. And sometimes you just let people down. So I'm just okay with trying to be my very best, trying to represent God, trying to represent my family, trying to do what is right. And if that don't work for everybody, may the Lord be with you until we meet again. I'm okay with being like that.

Okay, so when you meet people who are not— past or present, whether that's past, you know, obnoxious, doing the fool, I say what I got to say, or the present where God has tamed some things, but their general way of operating is not comfortable in their own skin. I've been on the podcast for a month talking about what does it mean to be comfortable in your own skin, right? What would be your words of encouragement to the woman? I'm sure you've met a few of them. Who are not naturally comfortable in their own skin. They're apologetic for who they are. They're comparing themselves to other people. They're not going to speak their mind because they don't want to offend, but so much so that they're offending themselves by not speaking up. So what would you say— and I'm sure there's got to be at least one woman in your life who sometimes you're just like, girl, come on. What would you say to that woman who is not naturally wired that way, but who does need to be comfortable in her own skin?

Well, first of all, I would not try to make anyone how I am. Um, I think God has given everyone their own unique personalities, and I believe that he's given them a personality that he can use for whatever their respective area of, of, you know, effectiveness is for the kingdom. So I would not recommend that everybody would be this way. I believe that God placed this inside of me because he knew that he was going to need somebody that was bold, that was fearless, that, um, speaks truth, that, um, has integrity. And I'm not trying to put myself up there, but I, I think what was not perfected much of my life, God is perfecting so that he can use it in a very great and grand way to glorify himself. So I would just say to people, when you are very uncomfortable with what someone might think and what they might say and how they might respond, first of all, that's pride. Let's just be honest, that's pride. If you're concerned about what everyone will think, then your attention and your focus is on you. And if we are Christ followers, or if we are disciples of Christ, his word says, if you gonna be my follower, you gonna be be my disciple, you must first deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. If you are always thinking about yourself— what they gonna say about myself, what are they going to think, how are they going to feel— if you're always doing that, then you are self-centered. And if you are self-centered, you're following self, you're not following God. So I would say that it— you can have, you know, some people have extrovert— extroverted personality, some people are introverted, some people are more quiet, some people are loud, you know, everybody— we have all these different personalities. But if you are scared to be yourself most of the time it has a lot to do with wondering and having, um, being greatly affected by the opinions of others. Maybe you're letting shame and embarrassment hover over you. And what I would say to you is, uh, uh, you will always be bound by those things if you hold on to them, but if you let go of them, they will let go of you. I have been through some ridiculously embarrassing things in my life very openly and very publicly. But I chose to let go of the power of embarrassment and shame. Was it embarrassing?

Yes.

Was it shameful? Yes. Did I live through it?

Yes.

Am I focusing on the fact that I lived through it and I'm okay in my life now? I do not meditate on my failures. I do not meditate on my shortcomings. Sometimes I have bad days and I beat myself and I beat myself up and I complain, but I course correct and I put myself back on the pathway. Like, God don't think I'm junk and neither will I. God does not hold my sins against me, and neither will I. God has a high opinion of me, and so will I. I cannot live my entire life trying to please people, trying to make sure your opinion is high of me. I must live my life focusing on God's opinion and trying to please him. And if that is our focus, most of the time you won't do so bad with people. And then we just have to accept that that's how life goes. Um, I would say to these women, Free yourself. Liberate yourself. If there's, um, the Bible says that, uh, um, open rebuke is, uh, is better than secret love. I might be saying it the wrong way, but it's open rebuke is better than—

yeah, you know, you speak the truth, keep it out, get it out there, right?

You want to speak this truth, you understand what I'm saying? So, so you don't want to offend someone, so you allow them to keep being offensive to you. You keep doing some— something for someone and there's no love attached to it. It's total and complete obligation. God ain't looking up on that, smiling up on that. That God's face ain't shining up on that. That's done. That's not even honesty. That's not even genuine. So what happens is we're learning to be a false version of ourselves. It's almost deception. It's self-deception. You're putting on airs. And so you're trapped in this scenario of always trying to make sure everyone else is OK and you're not OK. And then you're wearing this facade that you are OK. And you don't like it that way. But you are the one that has the power to change it.

Okay, let me, let me ask you a question because you said, you know, let go of shame, let go, let go. And you said, I let go, and you said that a few times. And then you just said, you have the power to change it. So practically speaking, because to someone who is feeling the weight of shame and walks under that cloud every day that they're ashamed of what they have or have not accomplished, or what they've been through, or that people know that things aren't working out in their life, or they got this happened to them, or that happened with their family, or their money, or whatever. They're just clothed in that. What does it practically look like for you to let go? When you say that, and you kind of said it a little bit, you kind of talked about what you rehearse. You said, I don't rehearse my failures. Okay, but like, walk somebody through. Okay, I want to let go of my shame. I hear you, Tina. I don't want to— I don't want to walk in that, and I'm not wired like you, so I'm trying to figure out how to come up out of that practically. What can I do to let— what does let it go mean?

Okay, so let me give you, let me give you something. I'm not like all completely perfect with embarrassing situations and all that. Like, look, if I could just be honest, when my kids is acting a fool and being disrespectful or begging for something, my kids be acting like they poor and struggling. It's terrible, you know, when stuff like that is happening. Sometimes your husband say stuff to you and you think it's embarrassing and he just, he just talking, he don't even think, you know what I mean? Sometimes your family is a little offensive and all that. I don't like all of this stuff, it doesn't always feel good. I'm not like, well, I know God's opinion. All right, well, there's— I'm not always walking in that. I'm not, I'm not saying that, but my mindset is that, you know, embarrassing things happen. This kid is acting a fool. Why? Because they 6 years old and they don't know how to think right. Like, you got to have grace for them. Sometimes I'm like, get it together. But then I'm like, you know what? Everybody's kids are crazy every now and then. My husband, he don't mean me no harm. I can't take no offense to this. All of the crazy stuff that has happened in my life, I'm like, people are not evil at the core. And if you believe that people are evil at the core, then you must believe that you are evil at the core. You see people through the lens of your own life and your own perspective. If you don't trust people, then you don't trust you. If you condemn people, then you condemn you. If you think people that are evil to the core, you really don't believe you're good. If you don't forgive people, you don't believe people will forgive you. So what happens is if you do not put your face in that word and brainwash yourself with the truth of the word. The Bible says, and they will know the truth and the truth will make them free. And then he tells us, sanctify them by your truth. Your word, my word is my truth. If you don't get in God's word and get a perspective that is God's perspective, then your reality will always trump truth. I choose to put my face in the word So much so that God's truth always trumps my reality. Yes, everything looks very bad, but he tells me that all things will work out for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. Sometimes your money is real bad and you like, God, what am I going to do? He says, I will supply all of your need according to my riches in glory. It looked like, like I can't— all my plans seem to fail, don't nothing seem to work out. He tell me if I meditate on this word day and night, everything that I do is gonna— it seems everything that I do is going to be blessed. It's going to prosper. It's like everybody else's plan seemed to succeed and everything that I do just seemed like it don't. He tells me that, um, um, oh my God, what is it? Joshua 1, is it 8 or is it 9? If you, if you, uh, yeah, you study the word and you meditate on it and you do exactly what it says, then will you make your own way, uh, prosperous and you will have great success. So we've got to study the word. The word is what does the work. If I didn't get in that word, I would have never changed my mind. I would be living in embarrassment. I would be living in shame. Every time there's a career change, every time there's an issue in my marriage, every time there's some big issue with my kids, every time something happens at the church, every time something happens with business, when I lose an employee, when, when one of my efforts don't work, there's always reason to be embarrassed, to be shamed, to be frustrated, to be all of these things. But if you put your face in the word, there is hope in God's word. If he telling me my plans for you is good, I don't care if the plans is failing. I gotta find out what his plan is because that plan is good. If he's got all power in heaven and earth and he has given his authority to me and all he needs is a body and a surrendered yes. He can do every great thing that he wants to do through my life. So if I'm looking at my life like nothing's gonna work, nothing's gonna fail, people's looking at me bad, and I, I have a perspective of negativity, I have a perspective of failure, I have a perspective that their opinion is the end-all be-all— but if I study God's opinion, if I study his word, it always trumps my reality, it always trumps my failures, it changes my mind and my perspective about the things that I've gone through when I hear him tell me that I'm super awesome and that he intentionally made me and he had a plan for me before the foundation of the world. Even before I came into my mama's womb, he thought out everything. I'm his intentional thought-up masterpiece. When I study this kind of stuff, it started making me feel good about myself. It's like, oh, okay, is that how you feel? Then I start studying all these characters in the Bible and I see people like David who was— can I say it the way I want to say it?

The way you want to say it, please.

The man was a major screw-up. But he was also a man after God's own heart, because every time he failed and every time he got it wrong, he came to God and said, what shall I do? What is your will for me? How do I do this? And God caused him to be extremely successful. And the word tells us that they that know their God, they that trust their God, will do great exploits. If you feel like I can't overcome people's opinion and I can't overcome this and this ain't working and that ain't working, I think that it's we trusting our situations. We're trusting reality. We're trusting the opinions of people. We're trusting the things that's right within our grasp. But we are not— we are not— we are not setting our affections on things above. We're not having the mind of Christ. We're not trusting what God said. We're trusting what we see. But faith is not about— see, for it's about what God says. And so if you don't know what God says, that's why you ain't got no hope. If you don't know what God says, that's why their opinion is the sum of you. If you don't know what God—

so I'm gonna say, you keep saying if you don't know what God says So you and I, Ms. Selju, you and I were raised in church. So even though we've had to study and make sure that we solidified what we have been taught and nurtured with all of our life, we still had a solid foundation. And maybe we had to know that masterpiece was in Ephesians chapter 2, but now we know where it is. Good and know it. When someone says, okay, because I'm listening to you, and for the person who maybe is not raised in church So they're like, okay, I'm behind. Like, she's just quoting these scriptures left and right, so of course she can talk about what God's thoughts are and how she needs to adopt them because she knows what they are. She had this huge head start. So can you just share—

I mean, I know what you said, it's not the truth. That is not the truth. I did not know the word. I knew at the word. You know how a song come on the radio and you know little pieces of it, so you sing every other word? On the hook, and you know two words on the bridge, and you know the end when everybody going, you know that part. So basically, all together, you know 7 of the 46 words of the song. That's how I knew the word. I just sat in church. I did church. I did religion. I have faith in the people of God. They knew God. I knew them, if I could be honest. I learned the word 5 years ago when my life hit a brick wall, and I was like, everything that I know ain't working. And I realized, because you don't know nothing, nothing. You believe in what mama said and what they said and what they said and what they said. And I was 38 years old. I wasn't no kid. I was 38 years old, and I got faced with the fact that you don't know the word. That's why you bound. You bound by lies and you bound by reality because you don't know what God said. You're scared, you're fearful, you think that you are the sum of what happened to you, and you think everybody's opinion is going to ruin you. That is how I felt in that moment. But I sought God, and in one year I learned that word. My daddy didn't have to quote nothing for me. I didn't have to call Elder So-and-so, Sister So-and-so. I didn't need no prayer from somebody else. I mean, the prayer is very helpful, thank God, but I knew it and I was convinced. First I learned two scriptures, and I'm not saying that I didn't know any scriptures, but I realized that's what I want.

That's what I want you to tell her right there. What did you learn the word— like, walk me through, because you know, I just think this is just me, okay? I just, I feel, I just feel like I'm a little slow. I feel like things that may be obvious to other people, I just— I like— I need people to break it down just for me. So when you say that, what does that— because it's just kind of, oh, everybody's like, know the word. What does that mean you did in that year? Because you got kids and you have a life and you're busy. So what did that mean, you giving your attention to learning the word of God? What did that look like?

So this is what I did. Nothing else worked. Nothing else worked. I didn't want you to pray because I was mad at God. I didn't want to hear all your little scriptures and all that kind of stuff. I said, get out of my face with all of that mess. That ain't work for half the Christians I know. All them fronting, and when the situation get bad, most of them don't trust God anyway. I don't want to hear all of this. I was mad at God. I was mad at life. I ain't know what scripture work. I ain't know if God was real. I knew the devil was real, but I ain't sure if I had that much faith in God. It was terrible. It was a really, really bad situation. And I became acquainted with the fact that you've been sitting up in church all these years, it's like you ain't never even been there. You just know a piece of something, just like all the songs. You don't know if James Cleveland said that or Apostle Paul said— Jesus Moses said he'll know the difference between your pastor, uh, apostles, Jesus God. You don't know the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. I was like, you're just a loose cannon. You just tossed with every wind of doctrine. Anything anybody says, you You, you gravitating to it because you don't know no truth. So I was like, oh, for all intents and purposes, I'm a dummy. So I opened up that Bible and I said, God, I don't want to be confused no more. Uh, King James, he— first of all, he's speaking all this Shakespearean and I ain't never liked Shakespeare, nor do I like English, so I don't understand this. So I opened up the Bible when I said, God, if you are real and if this is real and if this stuff works and if you can change my life I'm gonna open up this book and I am asking you to reveal yourself to me. Show me what you meant by this. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me what you're supposed to do and help me to understand what I'm reading, because if this can change my life, I'm asking you to do that. And if you do that, I ain't never gonna shut up telling everybody about it. And I would open up the Bible and I would just fall where I felt. I, I like— so I would recommend to people, open up the Bible Get a translation that's easier for you. I love the New Living Translation. I love the Amplified Version. They make it very, very plain, and it's pretty accurate, you know, to the text. Um, um, and so I would get the— get the Bible, and I would open it up, and I would start reading. And all of a sudden, I could understand what I never understood. You know why? Because God ain't lying when he said, if you search for me, you'll find me. I will be found of you. The truth is, I'm not sure if I ever searched for God with my whole heart. Maybe I did it because I was supposed to. It's the right thing to do. The pastor is taking the scripture, read it. Was I ever fully interested? No, it was just— it just become a lifestyle. So if you don't know the word, you actually nice because you ain't got a bunch of pollution and corruption and churchisms and, and religious and religion and all of this kind of stuff to get out of it. Just pick up the book, be as dumb as you could possibly be. Pick up the book and let God make you smart, because ultimately that's what I did. My father was a Bible scholar, and I was like, how did you grow up in a household like this, Tina, and you don't really have any of this fully committed? You, you don't really know any of it. Like, you just know at it, and you, you're saying stuff that sounds good, and you believe in one respect, but you don't actually apply. So I just opened up the book. It's like you found the Bible, which is the textbook, and you started reading it, reading it in the New Testament, because, because of Jesus, that's why we have a relationship with God. The Old Testament, um, prophesies and tells you of the coming of Jesus, but the New Testament gives us all of our rights. It explains your relationship, it explains what happened since Jesus. So I would recommend you start reading the New Testament because the Old Testament might scare you if you don't understand and you don't read it in context. So I read the New Testament and I said, God, what's all this stuff with Jesus and all these miracles he did and what they got to do with me right now? Because is he still turning water into wine, and I don't need no water to be turned into wine. I just need this crazy life that I live to be turned into something. And I would start with— I would start reading from the beginning, and everything that was so hard for me was not hard because I really, really wanted it. I didn't turn on my logic and my reasoning. I didn't turn on all of that. I was— I came to God and I was like, I'm broken, I'm lost, I have no hope. I don't even know if what I know is really real. I just want to find you if you are real. I came to God with my whole heart and I found him. And every scripture that I read had more meaning than it had ever, ever had. And I couldn't put the book down. It was therapeutic for me. It regulated my mind. I started to have faith that I never had. My perspective about my situation started to change. My perspective about people and their opinions and their offenses toward me started to change. I started to have grace for people. I started to receive grace for my own life. I started receiving God's love because I'm sitting up here listening to all how much Jesus loved me. And I'm like, I'm sitting up here acting like I ain't nothing, and life ain't good. I look out, he ain't down with me and she ain't down with me, but Jesus is down with me. Like, I'm the bomb. Like, I'm Jesus's number one girl. And I'm finding this out because I'm reading the Bible. I was like, I didn't know I was that special. I didn't know that my life had meaning. I didn't know that you could— I didn't know that I could be so dirty, so messed up, so hateful and mad at you, and reading this word, and you're still showing yourself to be real to me. And I didn't even find this going to church. For 38 years. I'm learning things that I never learned going to Sunday school, going to Sunday morning, doing all of this stuff. So I would say to people, pick up the Bible, start reading in Matthew. Ask God to make himself real to you. So God, I want to know who you are. I want to know who I am in you. If Jesus is real, show me who Jesus is. Because the Bible says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In It goes down a little further and it tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and that's Jesus. Jesus became— the Word became flesh, and that flesh was Jesus. So Jesus is the Word. When you read the Bible, you are reading Jesus. You want to know what Jesus think? You want to know what he says? You want to know what he feels about you? You want to know what his perspective on your life? You got to open up the book and read it. And that is what changed my whole situation. This was not— I was bold and I was forthcoming and all of that, but I was hung up on opinions of people. I was— had some insecurities and all of that kind of stuff. But God started changing that when I started pursuing his opinion of me. And I'm so fully convinced of his opinion of me that I won't let anybody else's tear me down. Sometimes it bothers me, but I self-correct. I start reading how amazing I am to Jesus and how amazing I am to God and how his plans for me are so significant no matter what. And then it gives me the motivation to shift from all the outside variables and factors and allow his truth to free me to be a light that shines for him. Does that, does that make sense?

It totally makes sense, and you broke that all the way down. So, and I think it just helps to hear that people who can do the lingo, because we have church in our background, to say yes, but everybody starts from square one when it comes to Knowing God for yourself. No, nobody has a leg up on anybody else. Knowing God for yourself. And we all start with encountering him through the word. I have a random question for you.

Okay, you know what, I'm sorry, can I just— before you get to that random question, I want to say this. I tend to think that people who never knew God before are better off. They better off.

I say that all the time because you can go in there with nothing.

See, what happened to me is I had to be deprogrammed from bad teaching, deprogrammed from religion, deprogrammed from our denomination, deprogrammed from my, you know, faith-based experience. I had to get rid of all of that and learn the word like from Jesus. So you're in a— you, if you don't know nothing and you just pick up that book, you ain't got nothing to fight against. You ain't got all this bad information to fight against. Like, you, you in a real good place. Pick up the book and God will show you everything and teach you. Listen, he will hook you all the way up. Open up the book. You're in a great place if you don't have to be programmed.

What I always think about is it— I do think, and, and this is not a statement that applies to everybody all the time, that depending on your upbringing, yeah, Christian— it's like being raised in a Christian country, you know. There are some things that when the society has that as a foundation then we're kind of better off in a lot of ways. It doesn't mean everybody's better off all the time and always. It just means that everybody's subscribing to the same moral code, right? So I think that if you're taught right, okay, and, and with the Christian faith as a foundation, the hope would be that you're taught right. And if you choose to use that teaching to lay a foundation in life where you don't have a whole lot of mess to recover from, you know what I'm saying? Then, then in that sense, I definitely see how I could save you from just totally not having any any moral code whatsoever and having to figure everything out the hard way. Because what I— I have a friend who, um, her, her brother, they were both raised in a Christian family. He grew up, decided he wanted to be agnostic, and he made a lot of poor moral decisions in his life. He recently passed away, and someone said to her, because he, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior right before he died, and they said to her, is there anything in you that where you feel like, man, I've lived for God all this time and he's gonna get the same heaven I'm getting even though he hasn't put in the effort and the work? Which the first thing is, I'm like, who had the balls to ask you that?

But that is the most—

that is the dumbest thing. Yes. But here was her answer. Here was her answer. She said, she said, of course not, because I'm glad I'll be able to spend eternity with him. She said, but, but my life lived with Christ had less heartache than his life lived without Christ. So no, I get— we both get heaven, but I've had a little bit of heaven on earth.

So come on, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If Jesus told me to pray that way, he's saying bring the king's domain and all the benefits of his kingdom right here to this earth. And see, that's what we don't understand. We looking for it, we're looking for paradise Oh, uh, uh, uh, when we go on to glory. But if Jesus told us that we can have— we can bring heaven to earth, that is the problem. We're not bringing heaven to earth. And sometimes because we have bad doctrine from people who meant well, very well intended, nevertheless, maybe their own flaws or their own ignorance or their own lack of understanding didn't teach you right. And so you're trying to figure out their version and everybody's version. But if you pick up the Bible when you seek God with the power of the Holy Spirit leading you and guiding you, you can know you can do great exploits within, within days. I'm not saying that you're the equivalent of someone who's been walking with God forever, but God has no respect of person. He don't have no big I's and no little you's. You are the same in his kingdom. Once you come to Jesus and you say, I don't want my old life, I want you as my Lord and Savior and as my King, you have been given place with him, as all the rest of the bishops and the reverends and the elders and all of the hierarchy in Jesus. And so that's what people need to know. And there's no limitations in Christ. You can go, you can have the greatest level of faith, you can have the greatest manifestations of God. Anybody has the right and the authority and the opportunity to have that. And so that's what people should, should know, whether you've been in church all your life or you just met Jesus. All y'all, all of us, open up the word and get to know him more. And let's represent him and reflect him and bring heaven to earth so we don't have to live in hell. And the other thing I will say about what you just said about that— when you have the heart of Christ, you are leaping for joy when people are pulled out of the grasp of Satan and brought into the family of God. If I have God's heart, I don't want nobody to go to hell. I don't want nobody to be tormented. I don't want the devil to be playing okie-doke and messing people's life up and screwing them up and make— and influencing them to make a bunch of bad choices and do things that you know they— there could not be any happiness and any joy in their lives if they're making these kind of choices. I don't want to see nobody living that way. And so when somebody who's been a killer and a murderer comes into the family of faith and they have found God and they have changed their mind and they have started to pursue God, I'm happy. Because you know what? Jesus is happy. One of my lost sheep just got found. And so when you have God's heart, you don't look at the sinner, you look at sin and you hate the devil who is causing people to sin. And anytime somebody is pulled away from your enemy, who is God's enemy, who is the devil, you excited. One of my team members just came back in and they gonna make it. And so you get excited about that. But if you don't really know God and you don't really love him and you don't really have his heart, you'd be jealous, like, they gonna get what I'm getting. That ain't about God, that's about you.

When is the last time Obnoxious Tina showed Oh, today?

I don't know, like, uh, yeah, like, tell me what happened.

What happened? What, what got the rise out of you? Should I—

okay, so these children, my children. So Santana wakes up every morning and he's got a whole nother agenda. He just— he, first of all, he gonna take 7 minutes to get out of bed, and I do not wake these kids up all extra super early. I'm trying to get all 4 of them up on a schedule that's sensible for all of them. I cook every meal that my kids eat, so there's time being spent just on meal preparation and all of that. You waking up, we got a certain amount of time to get ready. I have a certain amount of time to prepare your meal. If anybody got— they got eczema, skin issues and stuff flaring up, I got to be able to prepare that. I need y'all to be able to use the bathroom again before we leave, so you ain't asking me to stop and pull over for you to— yeah, so we're working through all of this, but Santana always wants to have delays with his little agenda. He don't like his new shoes.

To do.

So he just telling me all kind of stuff about just so he don't have to do that, so he's going slow. Um, um, TJ wants to know the whole entire schedule for today and the forecast for tomorrow and everything that we might do. And the time he said Mila wants to hug me and kiss me all morning but can't never forget— remember anything that she's supposed to do. Uh, and then she sits at the table and never likes the breakfast unless it's specially made for her and takes forever and makes us late. And then Leia takes 36 years to do her edges sometimes and ain't as helpful, and she's my oldest child, so I'll be expecting more from her. They be getting on my nerves. And so I just kind of be walking around with no joy fooling with these kids, and I'll be like, y'all drive me crazy. And so I noticed, like, when we're in the car, um, you know, the joy and the upbeat, they don't, they don't be like that because I make the atmosphere tense because they done made me tense and I responded to it. And so, um, I'm not sure if I'm like super obnoxious with other people, but I ain't gonna lie I be struggling with that thing with my children. And so I'm reading a book right now, um, 14 Gospel Principles for Parenting, um, so that just God can change my mind and help me to manage it. Because I've been finding that lately all of my kids are on different schedules, everybody got a different personality, most of them are 3 years apart, so ain't nobody in the same stage. Everybody got their own agenda, they want to share it with me at at the same time. I don't have a life except theirs. And I'd be like, God, this is wonderful. And so this is a blessing. God, I know I can't tell. And so I find myself being obnoxious with my kids. And so I let one of them out. I ain't said I love you or nothing. And she, she told me that yesterday I pulled off because she called the same kid that caused me, caused us to be a little late this morning, um, or contributed to late this morning. Um, she was the same one that caused it yesterday, um, forgetting everything until the last minute. So I pulled off because I'm trying to get the other kids there, and you know, the door had to close while I was pulling off. So as she was getting out today, um, after her delay, she wanted to remind me of how, you know, Mommy, yesterday when, when you was getting out, you kind of pulled off. And, and I said, don't try to tell me about what I did and try to correct that. You correct you making me late every day. And so I don't know if that was God's response Now I know that was— the Lord didn't— the Holy Spirit didn't respond, um, didn't necessarily, um, inspire that response. My self-centered moment, like, you guys are not attending to me, you're not being grateful to me as a parent, you're not helping me. My self-centered moment caused me to be obnoxious with my kid. Then I had to apologize, get out of school and say, you know what, Mommy was wrong. I don't care if we late or whatever the delays are, I should have got up earlier, I should have planned and I should not take out my frustration of having 4 children who's got completely different agendas out on you. So my obnoxiousness comes out with my husband and my kids more than anybody else, probably because I take them more personal than I need to. So yeah, um, I failed at this, but I be trying.

Mom fail is real. Yesterday I, I knew I had to pick up my third son from basketball. I knew it. I got my keys ready. I was looking at the clock. Something happened that just kind of distracted me for a little bit.

Right.

Girl, I looked up, it was 7 o'clock. My baby— and the funny thing is, he didn't even realize I wasn't there because he was playing basketball with his friends.

The point is, he's supposed to be picked up 5 PM.

Oh, oh, I wasn't 15 minutes late. I was like 2 hours late. The problem is when I picked him up and then I was feeling so bad because I was late, then he decided to milk it. Like, his whole demeanor, he's like, "Hi, Mom." Then he was like, "You know, I'm kind of hungry. You know, I was waiting on you a long time." But my point is this: mom fail is real. And I just believe you just tell your kids, you know, you're sorry as often as you need to, to remind them that we are all human creatures, which means we are imperfect. We make mistakes, we sin, and if you can learn how to forgive me, your mom, as a child, you will have a good head start to the rest of your life.

Listen, I apologize. Sometimes I apologize to my kids so much that I be thinking, you know, after a while they gonna be like, Mama, don't tell me you sorry no more. Now get this thing right. Because, you know, I hold my kids to a high standard. And the truth is, they gonna do unto me as I been doing unto them.

And they gonna be like, Mama, what? I told my daughter, my oldest one, I told my oldest one, I said, listen, this is how the world works. I changed your diapers, you will change mine. So what goes around comes around.

Listen, I send that diaper changing situation back to the pit. I'm gonna potty for the rest of my life, you hear me? We don't want that diaper thing to be a part of my life. That is not the will of the Lord for my life, girl. The "uh-uh, depends" is not gonna be a part of my situation. I refuse. Oh my gosh.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a lot. I have to apologize to my kids all the time. I feel like I be apologizing to my kids like a couple times a week. Like, it just a lot, a lot, 'cause I refuse to teach my kids a truth and not be accountable to it. And I tell them, "Mommy does not mean to be imperfect, nor do I justify it, nor there's no excuse." explanation for it. It's not okay. Mommy is a work in progress, and sometimes I get it wrong, but I don't have a wrong perspective. We're not going to excuse wrong and accommodate wrong. We're going to— we're going to aim for God's way. We're going to fall down and get back up. We're going to course correct. And so sometimes I have to do that as a parent, especially my oldest here, because she's the first that I'm raising and learning everything. So probably having most of my failures with the oldest. I'm probably putting too much on the child. One, like, one the other night I called myself encouraging her for 1 hour and I failed at it the whole time. All of my words. All the baby needed was a hug, not all these wonderful words of me trying to help her to be strong and give her a bunch of scriptures. She didn't need that. She was discouraged and she needed a hug and no words. And so me trying to help her probably was just very unhelpful and made her feel like, well, I had a weight on my shoulder and now I have the weight of all those wonderful scriptures. So I got to bring my righteousness up to par when I was just telling you that I just needed grace and hugs and love right now. So, you know, I don't, I don't always, I don't always get it right, but I'm not, I'm not okay with not getting it all, all right. I'm not okay with failures. I'm not going to live a compromised, fallen, sinful life, know better, and always make excuses for myself, you know what I'm saying? Jesus didn't make no excuses for himself. He didn't accommodate sin. He didn't accommodate compromise. He didn't accommodate weakness. There was grace for that, but he didn't accommodate that. So I cannot have a perspective that accommodates, that excuses myself, because I'll always be stuck with the same error and the same flaws if I don't run to his word and say, hey, this is what happened, but what do you say? And then shift to that. I got to be transformed. I got to be changed by— have changing my perspective to his. And that's why I got to keep my face in the word.

Now you have your kids, y'all are in and around LA somewhere, aren't you?

Yeah.

Okay, so they're in LA, which, you know, how— what, what do you feel like, not just the LA part, but just what your kids are able to be exposed to in a good way? You know, just what your work and ministry opportunities, how God has blessed you— the doors that are available to them.

Right.

How do you feel about that? And does that— really what I want to know is, does that present challenges for you as a mom that wants your kids to have balance? And I'm not suggesting that they don't have it. I'm just wondering if there are any challenges with all the good stuff that has been available to you and how that influences the way your kids see the world.

I am very grateful to God for this, but I believe that my kids have a very balanced perspective. I do not allow my kids to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. I don't, especially once they got to the age where they were old enough to understand it and know it. I do not— my kids do not have every designer shoe. My kids are not allowed to just ask me for stuff at the last minute, have unlimited budgets for everything, get everything they ask for. They have to work for stuff, they have to earn stuff. I don't just put money in their pockets just so they can walk around and be having a bunch of stuff. It— people would be blown away by the conservative way that me and Teddy raise our children. We do not let them watch TV at all throughout the week. Um, we monitor what they watch, we monitor their devices? Can you keep them from everything? Absolutely not. But we have a very watchful eye, a very attentive eye, and we spend time with them. So whatever it is that we don't know, if we watch them enough, if we're around them enough, we can gather it. We can put one and two together. We can pray and ask God, God, I'm seeing this and this and this, show me what I need to see. So we're attentive to our children. Like, actually, right now I've made a decision not to travel extensively, and I'm not going to travel travel again extensively until Santana is maybe 15, and Santana is 6 right now. I'm going to be here for my children. They're at the most formative years. Um, my husband as well, he does stuff and travels every now and then, but we refuse to be a part of productions or traveling or take opportunities that take us away from our children extensively because they're in the formative years where they need us most. They don't need our our presence. They need our presence. They need us to physically be here, to be at their games, to help them with their school projects, to notice when they're being bullied or they're experiencing pressure from, you know, from school. They need us to see and to notice, and they need us to talk to them and to engage them. And so because of that, I believe that my children— I don't let— again, I don't let my children have no Hollywood life, so my kids don't come in asking for everything. Now I will say this, some of the things that they ask for, they don't even know that they make an unrealistic request. Like, they just, you know, sometimes they just be asking, they want to go to this state for their birthday and bring several of their friends.

They don't even know, but they're just being kids. That's just being kids.

Yeah, they don't know. They just asked me, did you come up with $7,000, $8,000 for this little 3-day trip that you did? They don't know that, you know, you know, they don't know the difference between a restaurant is, you know, taking $500, $600 for us to eat, or their favorite burger joint. They just know that I like both of them, but we got to dress up to that one. Well, the one that's older knows, but my kids— we, we allow them to be naive. We allow them to be children. We, we don't let them— they don't get to go on playdates everywhere. Um, we monitor the music that they're around. We monitor where they go and who they're influenced by. So that they're not with people who allow everything. You watch everything, you say everything, your children are able to do everything. Now my children are with you and now they doing it, or they're exposed to it. They are influenced by school. And then we have to spend enough time telling them who they are, who they are in Christ, what our family values are, what the ramifications of these actions and these kinds of behaviors, uh, may lead to. We tell them things like, um, my children tell me about what everybody else else is doing. I said, oh, so you expect me to be a fool of a mama? You expect me to be a lame who wants to be your friend, who does everything that it takes to make you happy so that you will be miserable, miserable later on, just because— just so, um, you can say that all the rest of the kids do it and you get to do it too? So you want me to not care because they mamas don't care? You want me to let you do everything and allow you to be unprotected because their parents do? You want me to expose to stuff that's going to cause you to have a struggle that you cannot handle just because everybody else is doing it. Like, I think enough of you to not usher you into that. I think you're so—

you're so good. My kids say that kind of stuff and I just look at them like this and I say, go ahead and say it because you know what I'm gonna say. And they're like, I don't care.

I don't care.

I don't care what they doing.

It's like, I don't—

I don't know why you think I'm gonna be moved because you came up with another thing that the kids demonstrate I try to get—

I'm one of them people that require explanations. So, so you give explanations to my kids, and so now my kids play those explanations back to me. And now some of them, like, they have a perspective. Like, one of my daughters, Just Reach, she's in junior high school. She experienced people, like, a fight and people were cursing. She was so devastated. It was almost like she was ushered into— she like, she found herself in the middle of a war. She was blown away by the fact that this could happen. She was like, Mommy, this girl was using— she was saying all these cuss words, big horrible cuss words that I never even heard of. Like, she had never seen anything like that. She had never been exposed to that. I have another daughter who's a teenager who talks about all of the girls and the things that they're willing to do to be, uh, to be in be accepted by boys. And she's— and she says, well, if that means I won't have a boyfriend, then I won't have a boyfriend. But I'm not going to treat myself like trash just so you can like me. But it has taken years of me indoctrinating her with, you're more valuable than that. You don't reduce yourself to what you think is necessary for this boy to like you. You got to like you. And you— if you do that, you ain't gonna like what happened, and you ain't gonna like what he has to say to all the rest, you know. So it takes some time, but you, you just— you got to be present with your kids. You got to Um, you have to create the balance. I don't allow the school systems to raise my children. I don't allow the church to raise my children. I don't expect the community— thank God for their help, and thank God for all the things that are surrounded— but God placed these children in my care and in Teddy's care, and we take it very seriously. And so we try to allow them to be exposed to things or to have certain liberties, you know, as time progresses and as they're responsible enough to handle it. And I honestly think that my kids are nothing remotely close to Hollywood, kind of like me. I don't even know why I'm in this city. I'm a part of this thing. I don't match.

I don't.

And I'm grateful for that. But I told God, I don't want that. I don't want these pretentious kids who have to maintain some kind of standard and make everybody happy. Even on the spiritual side. I don't want my kids to feel like you gotta walk in mommy and daddy's footsteps because I want you to love Jesus and I want you to never wanna follow anybody other than him. But we don't hold our kids to some standard of following us and being like us and maintaining appearances for Hollywood. We don't involve ourself in a lot of that. Like, we go do some work and then we come back over here and we be normal. And so I don't believe that my children have that pressure. Every now and then, if Leah googles me too much and looks at all that stuff, she starts to wonder, you know, like, you know, is she going to be able to do something and be great? Because she really looks at me like, "You and Daddy and you guys are all on TV and you do movies and you did this and everybody knows you and you win awards and I'm gonna—" And I was like, "You don't have to be any of that and you're phenomenal." And then I start telling her every single thing about her that's amazing. And I was like, "And when I was your age, I was not amazing. You're way more amazing than I was," you know? And so— I think things like that kind of, you know, you know, help. Are they perfect? No. Um, do they have some expectation based on some of their experience? Are they maybe a little bit more cultured than other kids? But are they like these entitled, um, Hollywood-driven, everything is big, big lights, camera, action? Is that the kind of life and the mentality and the expectation that they place on me or themselves? Nope.

So I, I'm wanting to know if you were— had not been a singer, what, what else would you be doing?

Do you think— Jesus, in the name of Jesus, I don't know. I, I don't know because I don't— I just, I just feel like, I don't know, I feel like, I feel like God would have— I feel like God would have orchestrated my life the way that he wanted it to go because I never knew that I was going to do this.

I didn't— I don't know what I'm saying. Like, today, like, if you— if all your royalty checks just dried up, Teddy quit getting drumming gigs, and you were like, I gotta do something to bring in some income, and the sky's the limit, and no matter what you chose, it was gonna pay the same amount of money, what would you want to do?

Okay, I know it's gonna sound extra super spiritual, but this is my truth. Um, I would do exactly what I'm doing right now. Because it's my choice. Nothing excites me more than talking about Jesus. Nothing excites me more than attending to my family and spending time with my husband. Nothing excites me more. Nothing. If I look at the greatest moments of my life, it will never be on a stage, it will never be behind an award, and it will never be attached to somebody that was famous. It'll be attached to a holiday where we We was laughing and grease was popping all over the place and we was eating a lot and staying up late. And so, um, I just know that I'm a creative person, so I would absolutely, positively be creating something. Like, I thought that I would have ended up being a music teacher. Um, I don't think I'm a teacher kind of person because I wouldn't have never fit none of these very structures. Listen, I substituted one time.

Yeah. And then I was like, I wasn't built for this.

I ain't no box like Chick, so I, I, you can't put me in nobody— that ain't— I don't work with no— the box situation don't work for me. So I'm not sure if I could be a teacher and have to be so restricted with my approach and all these rules you got to follow and you can't, you can't. I don't, I don't live that way. And so I just know that I would be doing something creative. Like right now, I don't know how to actually classify myself because I think that I am a producer of creative content that that's all faith-based. Maybe that's writing books, maybe that's doing conferences, maybe that's singing with my sister, maybe that's singing with my husband, maybe that's singing alone, maybe that's some other thing, maybe that's something children-related, maybe that's something fashion-related. It's a little bit of everything, but it's always expressing my faith because that's what excites me, that's what gets me going. If you want to see me on 10, let's start kicking, let's start, let's start spitting about Jesus. And I'm, I'm— that's it for me. That's that's the highest of the high. And so it sounds like extra spiritual, but nothing excites me like that— Jesus and my family. So I would do something that's centered around that. I love how you said that though.

If you want to see me on 10, like, I'm always talking to people about your passion and what sets your soul on fire. And I, you know, and I, I will say, you know, what— when you start talking about it, what thing could you talk about for a while? Like, you just get— you light up with that. But I like your expression If you want to see me on 10, this is where I want to be. I'm curious, you talked about travel and how you backed off of travel, specifically just to nurture your family in this season in this way. Is there anything about backing off of that season that has been— that you've lamented? Not that you would change your mind, but basically what I'm saying is, do you miss it?

Do you miss it? Um, I don't miss it. I don't necessarily miss it. I don't have to miss it. If I want to do it, I can just do it. And I'm grateful to God that, um, I am my own boss. If I want to do something, I can go do it next month. I can go do it in 2 weeks. I can say yes to opportunities that come this way. I say no to stuff because not only do I want to be home with my children— like, I was literally just discussing with Erica, the other half of Mary Mary. I said, Erica, I'm telling you you, if I told you that I'm ready to go in 2020, I did not mean 2019. And I was telling her, I was like, I'm in a process. I believe that God is trying to peel back some layers, or I want God to peel back these layers and get to the me that he knows. And so, um, I don't want to be busy until I give God his opportunity to have me all to himself, because I think that there's things that he wants to work out in ministry and family and all of that. And so I'm positioning myself to be available for God to do a great work. But I have to be honest with you, sometimes I'll be like, is this my life? Washing clothes, cleaning my own house, like, like clipping fingernails and cleaning the yuck out your toes and cleaning boogernoses and wiping ointments on your face because y'all eczema is flying up and staying up late to finish half your work because you didn't get it done. And I was like, oh, God, I don't— I was like, God, I don't necessarily enjoy this. And so it's been a lot, because home is— I am as busy at home as I would be as if I just put out 2 albums. It's a lot. I got 4 kids, and I am fully committed to parenting them well. And I won't reduce my— I won't lower my standards. I could, but I refuse to. I'm— it's not in me to, but my standard is high and my standard be wearing me out. So I'm going to God.

Listen, there are some things I just gave up. So I'm, I'm a naturally designed Type A individual, but I can, I can go to bed with the kitchen dirty. I don't do that all the time, but I just— there are some things I'm just like, you know what, it just don't, it don't matter. And if I have to choose between, uh, reading a chapter to my 9-year-old, you know, the big kids, they got all the reading. The 9-year-old, he he gets the leftovers. But if I have to choose to read a chapter to him, and that means that once he gets out the bed, I'm not coming back to the kitchen, it's all right. Or the clothes are clean, and most of the time they're put away, but every now and then they're clean and you just need to get your underwear off the couch. Everything on the couch is clean, just get what you need. Now, that's not my natural wiring, it's just that I've, I've learned that some, some moments I choose over having everything you know, like that. Because at the end of the day, there are certain things— like you talked about your family time— there are certain things I want the kids to remember. And I don't want them to always remember that Mommy had everything in order. I want them to remember that Mommy played with us, you know, and that she sat with us and we could cuddle. And sometimes that means there has to be a— but you're right, uh, motherhood, house making, home dwelling, spouse supporting, cooking short order, all of that, it is the hardest job It is the hardest job.

They homework now. I'm in school for 4 hours after y'all out of school. Yeah. Oh yes. I thought I'd been out of school for several years, several decades. Like, what, what is this?

I homeschool. So this is one, I did it first time. It's number 2, number 3. I'm in my 4th time through Algebra 2. I was like, you know what? Uh, the oldest one from 6th grade up, the second one from 11th grade up, the boys have never been. Okay, I'm so—

I'm gonna have— on another note, I'm gonna have to holla at you about that because I'm— I think I'm gonna get into that. I think I'm gonna take my kids out of school for one year to travel them around the world because I think that they could learn a lot more about experiencing other cultures and seeing the greatness of God. And so I'm intending to do that, which means I'm going to have to homeschool them. And I always said that ain't my ministry, nor will it ever be.

And I say that every year. That's what I say every year. I look at my husband, you know, Jesse's my husband, you know, Jesse. So, so I look at him every year and I say, we, we actually gonna do this again? Cause we never intended to do this. It just happened because I was going to fit what you just said. My oldest daughter was coming home and I was like, if I'm going to have to be the teacher from 4:00 PM until 10:00 PM, I'd rather move all of this to the morning. So we were going to do it for a year or two. And then be done. And then 15 years later, 16, I'm still doing it.

So I speak that many years right on out of my life. No, no, no, I speak one year into my life and I'm gonna be talking to you about how to do this because I'm just like, oh God, I'm never gonna be able to escape them. I ain't gonna lie, I like my kids going to school because I like, I like being able to to look forward to seeing them because in the morning I want you to get out of here. I don't want you to ask me stuff, you know, 24 hours a day. I don't want you coming into the restroom because you just want to share. Mama, so what, mama, what we gonna eat? Like, I can't even have privacy in here for 3 minutes? Like, so yeah, I like my kids going to school because that's definitive time that I'm gonna have to myself. I know, I understand that. Only time that I have to myself. And when I put them all down. And that's why my day basically starts at about 10 o'clock when everybody sleep, because that's the only time that's mine. I don't have to fight with anybody. I don't have to feel guilty about anything. I'm not downstairs looking at everything, so I don't have to be aware of all of the needs and all of the responsibilities. So my time starts at 10, but then I'm sleepy the next day, so this ain't working either.

Well, listen, we're almost at the end of our time, but I can't have you and not ask you a marriage question. You know, you have talked extensively over the last, uh, few years about y'all's challenges in marriage, and you've turned that into a ministry where you are pouring out. And the thing I love most about what you and Teddy are doing is probably as a result of who y'all are, you just keep it all the way real, you know, and just, just put it all out there. There. I just want to ask you, if you could describe for, for you and your husband— I know it might not, might not be the same for everybody, but for you and your husband, what puts y'all in the best place relationally? Like, what are the things that he does for you or that you do for him that puts y'all in a— you know, because you know what I'm talking about— when you're in a sweet place with your spouse, you could be married Y'all can be functional, y'all can be faithful, you can be supportive, but there's a sweet spot that you can find with a spouse where y'all are on the same wavelength. What is happening in you all's marriage when y'all are in that place?

Besides, besides good sex, besides good sex, let me tell you something, okay? I know people gonna be like, oh my gosh, she's so spiritual, but I was so unspiritual and my life was a mess. Yes, and I was a complete contradiction. I was a theoretical Christian. Do you know what brought me and my husband back together? Bible study. Real talk. He was pursuing Jesus and I was pursuing Jesus, and we would get together and we would talk about everything that we was learning, and we would get fired up about Jesus. And we started to become friends because we were studying the Bible, pursuing Jesus. He talking about this man that he met and he finding out how much he's into him, and he's giving him— and I'm talking about it, and it's like we never even grew up in church. It's like we brand new college students and we just met Jesus at one of the clubs or something like that. And so now, if I could be all the way honest with you, when I'm spending a lot of time with Jesus and my husband is spending a lot of time with Jesus, first of all, we got the Holy Ghost. So the Holy Ghost will unction you and tell you when you need to pull away and come be with your spouse, you know what I mean? The Holy Spirit will unction me and tell me, apply everything that you just got and go give that to your husband. And when I tell you, man, the situation that be going on with me and Teddy, girl, I can't even believe that Jesus is an aphrodisiac. And I'm not lying, I'm not lying, that's real talk. We— when we get wrapped up in Jesus, everything is better. The conversation is better, the sex is better, the planning is better, our agreement as it pertains to our children is better. Everything about our existence— we're both extremely creative people— all of our creativity is better when we are submitted to Jesus. Like, real talk, listen, we nice to each other, you know what I'm saying? I'm submissive He washes me with the word. He ain't irritated with me. I ain't telling him off, telling him I didn't sign up for this. You know, when we are submitted to the word, God makes us better. Like, if you could ask anybody who like knows us closely, Jesus is the thang in our relationship. You want to see Teddy and Tina turned up? Go start going in on Jesus. When we go on vacation, you know what we do? Jesus, good eating, spas, and sex. And the beach. Real talk, real talk. And Jesus makes all of that better. Like, we don't make Jesus a part of our spiritual— he's a part of everything. Like, he ain't one— this is, this is my life. Like, he, he wrote the manual for my existence. I find out about my whole way of existence, every way, naturally, spiritually, politically, everything, professionally, financially, all in the word. And so we go to him for everything and And he makes everything better. And that's my honest-to-God truth. And that wasn't never my truth 5 years ago, but it is now.

So for the woman who's married, and it takes two to tango, and her spouse is not on the Jesus tip, what would you say to her?

Listen, the godly woman can sanctify that marriage. That's a hard pill to swallow. Because when I first started doing this, I was like, no, that's for the birds. Real talk, Jesus, I got to be over here being lovely and forgiving and godly while he act the fool, and I'm supposed to bring you to him? Why can't he go get you for himself? That was my perspective. So don't think that this just— this didn't just happen overnight. I ain't just wake up like this. And sometimes I'm my husband's greatest discouragement because I failed at this. I do course correct, I self-correct, but I do fail at this at times. Um, but But it took time for me to realize, like, what— when you are your best you, what, what is the equation? And it's always, oh, you spent time with Jesus, you submitted to the word, you've been studying the word all day. Oh, you know why you cooked really, really good and wasn't frustrated and didn't take a long time? You know how you got the kids all out? You woke up and you fully gave yourself to God. You utilized everything that you actually read. You used God's strategy and God's approach to everything. So when I start reminding myself with God, he make everything, he make everything better. And so I would say to that woman, if you use godly strategy— sometimes we only using God as a means to an end. It's not for God. I don't want to please God. I don't want to do what's right. I just want to get what I want. For all intents and purposes, that's manipulation. That's witchcraft. Let's just call it what it is. But when we actually go to God and we love and appreciate God enough to do what he says to do, we get get what he says we gonna get. Case in point, 12 and a half years of my marriage was misery, utter misery. Great sex and some great passion, but no, no, no, no real communion, no friendship. Total contention, like totally, okay? The first 2 years, maybe not. The first year and a half, maybe not. But for a good 11 years, contention, arguing, fussing, never happy, never really seeing eye to eye. I tried God's for 1 year and got everything that I never got in 12 and a half years. God's way works. It just does. So I would say to the woman, don't worry about what he's doing, because— and I know that's a hard pill to swallow, but you can't control it. You've been worrying about what he's doing, right?

You stress yourself out and give yourself a tumor trying to control it.

It ain't never worked no way. Like, try seeing him the way God sees him. And I had to pray for that. I didn't have that perspective. I prayed that God would give me his perspective of Teddy. I prayed that God would give me eyes to see, ears to hear, a mind to perceive, and a heart to receive his spiritual truth, his perspective of me, his perspective of others, his perspective of my life. And I prayed that every single day I woke up and I asked God. I was like, this is what I want. I know I'll be failing at it day in and day out, and I failed at it for decades ways, but can you change me into this person? And I pursued God, and as I was pursuing God, he was pursuing me, and he was changing my mind. And so the things that I didn't have patience for, I started to have patience for. The things that I didn't have understanding for, I started to have understanding for. I stopped hating my husband and thinking he was the scum of the earth, and I start feeling bad that the devil was running my husband through the wringer and ruining his life. So again, when you, when you you run to God to pursue him, he changes you first. He changes your mind. He changes your perspective. He changes your approach. And then the beauty of that godliness and that kindness— now that is an extreme truth to take in, but that's the gospel. The gospel is not to accommodate you and give you everything that you want. It is to give you everything that God planned for you and make you like him. And you're not going to be like him if you're being self-centered. I want him, I want— I'm coming to you, Jesus, so you can get him right so I can get what I want out of him. God is not going to accommodate that. So if you consider his perspective, which is very challenging initially, but you can persevere and you can do it because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. If you keep on pursuing God, God will show you some things you ain't never seen. And I only know that because I lived it. I ain't talking what I heard, I ain't talking what I read, I ain't talking talking what they fed me in church. I had to go through it, and I didn't even know that. I was like, this stuff is real. I was like, this stuff is for Jesus. Ain't playing. He for real. You're like, Jesus works. Jesus works. Jesus is serious. He killing all the strategy, all the teams, all the wealth, all the stuff. He killing all of it. But I had to try it, and it was extremely hard. And I thought Jesus was mean. I thought that God was unrealistic, and thought he was putting too much on me, but I did it and I got what I never thought I could have. And that's just by default, that by deep— like, by default, if you seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, by default everything else gets added. That's not, that's not just something to say, that's real talk. If you pursue God, he pursues you, not what you thought you want. He changes your wants, he changes your desires, he changes your affections. He gives you his heart, and then he really does give you beauty for ashes. He gives you joy for all your sorrow. He gives you something wonderful for your mess. And this is the life that I live because I chose to put my face in that Bible and find out who God was, who I was, what God was supposed to do, what was I supposed to do, and then I did it. That's what happened.

Listen, girl, I love what you're saying. And I love you. Thank you for being you and keeping it real, living out loud, and as you learn, being willing to teach and not hold anything back so people get the lesson without having to guess about what you're talking about. Your ability to just speak it the way it needs to be spoken means people who would get lost in semantics hear you loud and clear. And y'all, if— I'm sure y'all all know Tina, but just in case you missed her last album, It's Still Personal, grab that. And then you've got a Kindle book that I knew nothing about, I Need a Day to Pray. I didn't know about that. Somebody just, um, mentioned it in the comments, um, as we were talking. So y'all read Tina's book.

How about that? That book is— that book is what changed my life. I thought it was a journal. What, what's in that book is the prayers that I prayed for 14 months straight every day except Sunday. Not Sunday because I was at church. Those— I prayed those prayers. Now I'm living what I prayed. It's all God's word. I spoke his truth over my life and I got it. So if you want to see how she brainwashed herself, you read that book. I Think What God Wants Me to Think. Even though I fall sometimes, even though I get it wrong sometimes, I chose his way and it has shifted my whole existence. I love this.

And this book is only available in Kindle.

It's not a paper book. Yeah, yeah. I'm— I think actually I, I'm actually I'm actually going to edit the book and put the book back out on all platforms, or I may just have it available via my website. I actually have that in the works, and I'm trying to work that out for Thanksgiving. God just gave me—

Listen, let me tell you what you need to do. You need to do that because I love a good Kindle book like anybody else, but books like that, when they're personal and it was your journal, I'm going to be the girl who takes a pen So I'm journaling over your words in the margins under— do you write in your books? The books that you have, you write in them?

Oh, all day. In the back.

Yeah. This is the kind of book you got to write in. You got to write in this. It's a journey when you read it. So thanks for doing the work and then being willing to share the work so that others can be blessed. And thanks for joining me. I'm glad we could work it out.

You're welcome. This was great.

This was great. Y'all, thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.