Part 3 of 3: "Chewbacca Mom" Candace Payne Discusses Going Viral, Overcoming Guilt & Releasing Shame

So let me just back it up for just a second. So you're married?

Yeah. You've been married for how long? It'll be 16 years in December.

Oh, okay.

16 years. Come on.

And your kids are how old?

7 and 8.

Boys or girls?

One of each.

One of each. Okay. So prior to this year, your life consisted of worship leading apart from family. Yeah. Worship leading. Were you working?

Stay-at-home mom.

Stay-at-home mom.

So yeah, I was working.

Yeah, working outside the home. And then worship leading, any Bible journaling for yourself? Then you decided to teach a class. Anything else?

Yeah, I was doing art for my church. We were also teaching young adults at our church for a while. We volunteer. We would have, you know, it's the normal, we have small groups and people.

So in the last year, How has your life changed besides the 3,000 media outlets?

I am now a stay-at-home mom and a working mom, work-from-home mom, which that's always a new season to navigate. We had a come-to-Jesus moment in our living room about a month afterwards because my son started using the manipulation card of, "Mom, you just, you're on your computer." I'm like, "I'm writing a book, baby. I'm writing a book." So that's gonna happen. It's a new normal. And then there's also— oh, and then there's the, the balance of knowing that I'm not responsible to pay everybody's bill in my house. So there's a cost for everything that's happened this past year. There's a cost that I have to pay, that my husband has to pay, that the kids have to pay, that the dogs have to pay. It's just what it is when you have a next level.

Has the cost been worth it?

Yes. And, but I will tell you this, if I was busy paying everybody's bill in the house, I'd go bankrupt really fast. So it's been hard to learn as a mama to let my kids stand on their own two feet.

Boundaries.

Oh, to let them experience through their life.

Do you feel guilty about that? No.

Why not?

Because a lot of women struggle with, first of all, every question I ask her, she goes, no, yes. Like there's not a, there's not a real, and I think there have been some struggles.

Yes.

But yes, it seems like you're kind of quick to know. That's what it seems like. You don't seem like, well, okay, so let me go back. You, why did you not struggle with guilt? Cause a lot of people do, especially if they've been a stay-at-home mom and you've been available, right? When you have to say, I can't right now. Well, I think that's not a thing.

I think the question frames itself to where you're asking me if I struggle with guilt. No. In general, did I struggle with time management? Yes.

Okay, no, no, go back to guilt. Why don't you struggle with guilt?

Oh, I know, I know I'm forgiven. I know the one who's been forgiven much loves much, and you gotta love yourself too. You gotta give that love to you.

You never struggle with guilt?

Oh, I've struggled with it before, but in this, no. This was a— this was God releasing something different. It was, it was just, you knew that this was from him. So there's that safety of, okay, I don't have to worry if he's going to do this. He's going to take care of my babies. If he's going to do this, he's going to take care of my family and my, my husband.

There was nothing to feel guilty about. No, there had been a gift given to you. The opportunity to laugh your way through destiny to your destiny. Everything. Well, you probably had to say no to a lot, but many things that have come to you were gifts. You felt that this was God giving this to you. So to say we have to make a shift, It wasn't a guilt trip, it was making room for the gift.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Which totally reframed it.

Listen, anything you do through self-promotion has to be sustained through self-promotion, and that's where guilt comes. And so, um, I'm talking about this.

Yeah, we had to high-five across the room, right?

But I feel like that wasn't there, so there was nothing to be worried, you know, worried and fretting about, and oh, are my kids gonna need mom here and there? No, they're gonna need to see I want you to see that Mama had something incredible happen because she followed the voice of the Lord. And watch what happens on the other side too. Babies, pay attention because I want to see that when you are this age that you're gonna be miles ahead of me because you learned how to do it when you were 7 and 8, not 37.

So what do you say to moms who feel guilty about cultivating their— because I mean, this is before this whole book situation, you were cultivating the singing thing. You've cultivated the art thing. So you, you have had, even before the Facebook situation, you've had a mindset to cultivate you. So what do you say to women who struggle with that, who say, I just don't have time to do that for me, or, you know, I just, I can't, uh, I just don't know how to, to, to, or I don't even know.

Mm-hmm.

Because you've been able to do it before, and when the time came to do it in a different way, you were like, oh, I've got to make space for this thing that God is doing with me. Why do you think women struggle, and what would you tell a woman who said, "I just don't know if I have time.

I don't know what it is." Well, I know my natural tendencies were always to feel as though I had to create something on my own. And when that stopped, it got much easier.

Create?

Anything. Art, music, authority.

Okay.

You know, anytime I feel like I've got to make something happen.

Did that stop before?

That stopped about 4 years ago. And I know the moment that it happened. What moment did it happen? It happened November 7th.

Ooh, not the moment, the date.

November 7th, 2014.

I was like, oh, I know my moment.

Which ironically is the exact same November 7th this year will be 4 years later that the book's coming out. That was a God wink. Like the publisher set that up. They had no clue that that would be 4 years to the day. What happened November 7th, 2014? It was a Wednesday night service at my church, and I literally believed that I was finally relinquishing all control of my life to Jesus in a new way. I had never done that before.

What was happening in your life to even make that a thing?

I was being humbled a lot. I was being humbled a lot. You know, when you feel overlooked, undervalued,, and you wonder, "God, is this all I have is changing diapers?" And I just remember thinking I was at a critical crossroads in my faith. I was tired. I mean, I was really tired of playing a Christian game, and I didn't want it anymore. I mean, I was—

Why were you feeling like you were playing a Christian game?

Oh, I knew there were parts of my life that were fake. I knew there were parts of my life that I didn't mean the words I was singing.

—because you— but it was time to sing.

But it was time, and I got a microphone, and I got— we rehearsed, and people are dependent on me, and I gotta— oh, and, and I remember just feeling as though I put myself there. I thought, God, how did I even let myself get here to where I'm this person in front of you? And I remember that night, it was— we were singing Holy Spirit, you are welcome here, come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. And just like lightning, it just struck. And I remember thinking, I am not a welcoming atmosphere for him. He's inside of me and I'm not welcoming. I'm actually kind of chaotic right now. And I remember saying, God, I don't want this. I don't want this. I want you to literally feel at home in me, and I need things to stop, and I don't know how. And I I give it. It was one of those moments of genuine surrender. Now, from that moment, I believe that I was filled with the Holy Spirit on a whole other level, and that's a whole other conversation that we can have.

I mean, it kind of is not though, because somebody is listening right now, okay, watch it, and they're going, okay, I've had a moment like that. Yeah, yeah, but nothing really changed after that. Yeah. Or, or you— I mean, I can't tell you how many times I got saved Church camp. When I went to church camp, you know, I was like, no, this time Jesus, night 3, it's for real. It's for real. You know? And then I looked back at my Bible and I'll never forget. I think I still have the Bible in the back. I got saved the date. I got saved the date. I rededicated the date. I mean, there's this emotional moment. Yeah. Yeah. And we have it. And one of the, crucial things, I think, about— and I think one of the crucial things for people who are not Christians or who are not in church is people who have an emotional experience but there's no change. So what was the change after that moment for you? Like, why was it different from that? Why did that moment not just become a moment, a date that was written in your Bible?

I'm gonna have to preach just a little bit, just a little bit. So Acts 1:8 tells us that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses. I really honestly and earnestly believe that I was lacking so much power from the Holy Spirit because I wasn't willing to be a witness. I really didn't want to be a witness. And at some point— That's so preachy in so many different ways.

I just threw your book.

That's okay. Throw it. When you get it, throw it. Just threw the book. Just throw it. But I believe—

Pick it back up though.

Exactly.

Pick it back up.

Read it. But I believe that at that moment it was severely different where I had said, "All right, I'm ready now. I'm ready now.

This mouthpiece is yours, whatever you want." So did you consciously start making different choices about how you used your mouth to be with us?

Well, so the next morning I wake up and I— And you still got the dirty diapers and you still got the dog barking in the house.

Right, and you still have all those things.

You still have all those things. I woke up, sent everybody away. Because they were starting kindergarten, first grade, and, uh, or pre-K, one of those. And I remember I carved out 30 more minutes than I normally did because I felt different, and I felt that responsibility to that moment the night before. And I asked God, I said, you need to reveal something solid to me that I know that this is changing, this is changing me. And I believe that he revealed a memory of abuse that I talk about in the book that I'd suppressed for years. And because of that moment that was such an abusive moment, I started repeating that behavior in every relationship that I had. I didn't remember the original moment where it originated, but I remembered my behavior, and I was wrapped in shame, literally wrapped in I was mummified in shame. And I felt like God started just like Lazarus calling me up from that and saying, "Let's uncover all of those death clothes, and I'm going to take off all of that stuff and show you who you really are, even in that moment right there. I didn't forsake you. I saw it, and I'm bringing it to your mind right now so that you'll actually have power to get out from under it." My husband came home from work. I told him about the memory.

Because you had not told him about it before?

Oh, I didn't remember it. And I told him, I said, this happened to me in 7th grade. I mean, you can read about it. We talk about stuff being still in a book that I didn't thought would be putting on a Christian shelf. Look up at what page is that? What page is that? What chapter is that? That's why my kids can't read the book till they're older. But I told him everything that God had brought to my mind during remember that. And he held me and he said, honey, there is no wonder why this has been a struggle for us. He said, I love you. I'm so sorry you experienced that. But I tell you what, before my husband got home, God told me, I'm going to restore your passion in your marriage, your passion with me. You will never be— he told me, you will never be at this place again. You won't be here. And when you're told that by God, it changes It changes everything. It changes you. You can't go the next day without getting up and going, that's not me. It's not me. I'm not there. Go ahead.

Go ahead. No go. So November the 7th, you have this moment with God where you're wanting to surrender. You're in a crisis of faith. The next day you get up, you send your kids to school, you spend more time with him. He reveals something to you. Not only does he bring it to light to you, Right. But he also encourages you to bring it to light to someone else. Oh yeah. Who loves you, who cares about you. Oh yeah. And that bringing to light, bringing something that was yucky to light, was what, what I'm hearing you say is kind of what sealed the deal. That, that, that, yeah, it was more than a moment. It was the revelation of something that was holding you back. Yeah. And releasing that and being honest about it was part of the step of being set free.

Absolutely. One of the chapters in there says that joy evicts shame, and I was not able to have pure joy in my life because I had too much shame.