Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - How to Live a Bounce Back Life with Real Talk Kim

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. Guess what? It's Running Hope. Unfiltered. Real, raw, relevant. What are you doing?

I'm so tired.

What you tired for?

I've been in meetings and I've been talking. Yeah, I might just let you and Kim talk.

We didn't even tell them that Kim's here.

They know Kim's gonna be here today.

No, they don't know that. How would they know that, Ryan?

Because I Instagrammed it.

You're just on edge today. On another level. But anyway, that's real.

When I'm tired, I get silly.

I know you do.

It's been a long week. It's been a good week. Yeah, but it's been a long week. I'm just ready for Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is over.

No, it ain't.

When this airs, it is. Okay, let's start over. Okay, ready? We're gonna start over. Ron, we're not doing Mother's Day.

This is good.

I love this.

We're not gonna start up. We're not starting over. This is with this way we go. This is real, raw and relevant right here. Carry on.

Carry on.

We carry it on. Carry on.

Okay. Well, guys, guess what? I do have a guest today, and it's. I don't know, what is her name? Ron, you just told everybody what it is. Talk.

Real Kim.

Rtk. That's Real Talk Kim. She is my buddy and I am so glad to have her. I know. The whole world knows. If you don't know who Real Talk Kim is, you've been under a rock somewhere for the last five years. But she is an amazing friend. She really is. She's worldwide. She is everywhere. This woman, I don't know how she even breathes or has time to brush her teeth. She's. I mean, God's just taken her and just put her globally, all over the world.

Really amazing journey.

It really is. And we're going to talk about it today. But more than that, she is a personal friend of mine and I'm grateful to have you know you can count on one hand usually who your real close friends are and people who really know you and love you anyway.

You have friends.

Man, you about to not be on the list.

I don't have any. I don't have no friends.

Anyway, here she is. Real Talk Kim. Can you believe this guy?

This was the best opener I've ever seen. For starters, I am so honored to be here. And secondly, y' all are probably my favorite married couple. Oh, I love yalls love. I love how crazy y' all are about each other, and. And y' all are just amazing, man.

She is very crazy about me. I'm gonna be honest with you.

Look, listen, I'm gonna tell you something, Pastor Ron. You are in love with that woman. Hear me. I have been out with you guys.

That obvious?

Yes. You yalls. Yalls love is. Is. Is a good thing to watch, but it's also an. A dangerous thing to watch because you got all these women out here thinking, I want my husband to be touching me like Pastor Ron.

It sets the bar way high.

Yes.

Yeah, it does.

Y' all are great.

Well, you know what? We've been through the fire.

Yeah.

You have had a little pressure put on us, and it forges you in a different way. I mean, you come out on the other. Look at him touching you. Come out on the other side different when you've been to hell and back. You know a little bit about that. So why don't you tell the listeners, you know, if they don't know who you are, who you are, how you even got to where you are today? Come on, let us hear your testimony.

Well, you know, I was. I'm. I am Pastor Kim. Real talk, Kim. I get to pastor an incredible church right here in Atlanta, Georgia, called the Limitless Church. It was my father's church. My daddy and mom were pastors. We just built churches. My dad would just move and build churches. He was fearless, and I'm pastoring his church that he passed down to me. But I was raised in a very strict religion. Raised in church my whole life. And in this religion, women couldn't really preach. Women really were, you know, just. They took care of their families, which was great. That's an incredible calling. But I was, man, the enemy. Wanted me to mess my life up so bad that he was. Listen, there's a little bit of ratchet in me, you know what I'm saying? There's a little bit of hood and holy.

Yes.

And so I had to go. I tell my family this all the time. I had to mess up a whole lot and just so I could understand the world, because my parents never did anything wrong. And so I tell them all the time, I had to be the rebellious one. I had to be the one out there testing the waters and nay, naying and not pray, praying so that I could understand the world and I could bring people to Jesus that way. But, yeah, man, I went the long route. Got married when I was 18. My baby's daddy loved him so much. For 18 years, he was a preacher's kid. Met him at World Harvest Bible School. And probably about year 10 of our marriage just with church hurt and we were worship pastors, we ended up just. Sin took us over and sin took us farther than we wanted to go, cost us more than we wanted, wanted to pay, and kept us longer than we wanted to stay. And it ruined our marriage. So, yeah, it was, it was a tough thing. I had to move back in with my mom and dad at 36 and start all over.

Wow.

That's how I got here, man. I got, I got healed. It really happened, y'.

All.

One night when I was laying in my bed, I was raised that if you just get in the heel in line and you fall in the floor, yeah, God's going to take care of it. Yeah.

We were raised the same way that.

God was like a genie in a bottle. And we really didn't have to do anything. We'd just walk around and call everything spiritual warfare when it was really our choices. And I'm laying in bed one night, y', all, and I'm like devastated. I couldn't even buy cheese with my credit, man. I was just a mess. And I had a nine year old and a seven year old and I'm laying in bed and I was like, God, take this pain away from me. You ain't going to heal this. Take this pain away from me. Because I was the queen of blaming everybody.

Yeah.

And that night God spoke to me and said, I can't take this pain away from you. You got to get up and walk away. And until you get yourself humbled before me and you let me do what I need to do in your life, you're going to keep repeating this cycle. And if you want to do that, you can. God's kind of thug with me, you.

Know what I'm saying?

I wonder why he's like, go ahead, go on and mess your life up.

I've always said God speaks the language. You understand?

Yeah, he does.

Well, that's it. I'm ratchet God.

God speaks the language. You understand. Now jog my memory because we've known you for some time now. You also had some kind of defining moment when it came to God putting you on this platform about a broke down car. And you just going off on a broke down car. I've only heard that story one time. You got to just give us a quick synopsis of that.

So it was about, let's see, I walked through my divorce at 36, 37. I was depressed the whole year. 38 39. I started. I mean, when I tell you, Pastor Ron, I would listen to you. I would listen to Rod Parsley. I would listen to TD Jakes. I was having to drive an hour to work every single day to Lenox Square Mall to work for Estee Lauder, which I hated. And I am in that car. And I just felt this. I was sick of being sick and tired. You know, I was sick of feeling sorry for myself. I was sick of being mad that my brother had this great life and ministry. And I'm over here working at estee Lauder for $9 an hour at 38 years old. And I'm just complaining to God. And I know for a fact at that moment, it was like God said, start getting Bible school. I want you all the way to work, to listen to preaching, all the way home listening to preaching. And I did that for six months, y'. All. When I tell you my life shifted, I'm talking, like, depression fell off of me. Messiness. Now, I still had to go through some stuff in the years, but for the most part, I found God in that season. And so I got so saved in those six months that if a mosquito would have bit me, it would have got the Holy Ghost. I was shifted. So I'm driving home one night, and, I mean, I was so full of God. It was like I had an experience. So I could never go back to the old Kim. I'm driving home one night, and I'm driving this knockoff Bentley.

So it was like, okay, what's a knockoff Bentley?

It was a 300 Chrysler.

Okay. Okay.

I love it. And I had on it the Bentley, the grill. Oh, I did, man. It was like I was going to fake it.

Thug life.

Yes. And so I am driving home, and that thing would keep me on the side of the road. It broke down all the time on me. And I used to get out and kick the car. Cause I'd have to sit there for 30 minutes while that car heated down. This was just when I was 38, 39 years old, so I could put the antifreeze in it.

Good Lord.

By the time God started setting me free, y', all, I am so. I mean, I'd be putting TDJs on. Get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready. Pause. Get ready, get ready. I was. I'm talking having church for at least six months. Well, all of a sudden, one day, I'm sitting on the side of the road. Now, I never dreamed that God was ever gonna do anything like this in my life, but I was Loving my life. I was loving me for the first time ever in my life. And smoke started coming out of that car. And the old Kim that would have gotten out and been angry and hit in the car, instead I sat in that car and I was so full of God that I was always witnessing to people now. And I just thought, you know what I mean? I was sitting there thinking, I've got 30 minutes sitting here, and I saw smoke coming out of my car. And I thought, oh, my gosh, God, you think of everything. You have given me my own smoke machine. I went from negative Nelly to this crazy off the wall. Oh, my gosh. And I took my phone out and I was like, man, I got a whole Broadway show right here. I took my camera out and I held it in front of me and I said, hello, awesome people. Are you sitting. I mean, 75 people are flying by, and I'm preaching on that phone. It wasn't even anything really great, you know, I. I just had that passion that came from being broken, you know? And by the time I got home, that thing had gone viral. And that video was. I mean, I had like 100,000 subscribers. I didn't even know that was possible. I thought that Facebook was punking me. I was like, what is going on?

Wow.

All of a sudden, people started calling me, asking me if I'd come to their church. I'm like, do you know I've been divorced? They're like, yeah, we googled you. You know? And so from there, God just really started. I started. I had a love for God like, like never before. I went from hating people. Cause I was a preacher's kid, and I just didn't trust nobody. And I went from hating people to loving people became my favorite hobby on the planet. And, man, that's where it started. It started. Car with a smoke machine of overheating in my knockoff Bentley. And that's what God did.

Wow, Pastor Kim, what a story, right? I mean, just go from nobody, nobody knows working at a department store to over 100,000 subscribers.

Yeah, that's not next level. That's a catapult.

That's a God thing.

Yeah, those are the things I love. Like, that is. I've told God, I said, I've seen it when I drag it along and try to do it. And then I've seen it when you supernaturally touch it. And, man, it's so much better when God does it. And God must have figured that she was ready for that kind of platform, or he would not have given her that platform.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But let me talk to parents right now. Parents, it's time. What's it time for? It's time to finally cross off one of the most important things on your to do list. What would that be?

Got to be life insurance.

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We really have seen, we've come into the of families who are going through this and no preparations have been made. And the stress that it puts on the family is undue.

It really is.

They want to be grieving and honoring and remembering not handling, struggling to pay for, not handling, to pay for the bills of.

That's crazy. And it can be done. So go to meet fabric.com ronhope all right, we're back. We're with Real Talk Kim. So we left off with your smoke machine. You're preaching your very first sermon on the side of the road now to millions, to millions. Isn't that like God in that? Like God?

You know what, y'? All, I pitch myself every day. Like, I, I, I literally am just so every single day of my life when I wake up, because, y', all, I've done some doozies. I never did anything just halfway. If I'm gonn, I'm gonna go all the way. Yeah.

On a slip and slide. Yes.

On a slip and slide.

Yes.

And God just plucked me out and, and, and still uses me. And trust me. And man, I think I'm getting it right this time, y'.

All.

I think I, I think I got it now. I think, I think that I've got my, my hand on the plow of the awesomeness of God. And, man, I ain't messing it up.

It takes some of us a minute, don't it? Yes, it takes some of us a minute. And I was talking about you the other day to run. I said, I'm so proud of her. And I, and I. Not trying to sound like looking down, I know I'm older than you are condescending, but I'm talking about just, you know, when you. There's people in your life, you know, I'm the good, the bad, the ugly. Right. And that's the beauty of friendship.

And you knew it all. My safe place, though. Yes.

But I told him, I said, I'm so proud of her. I said, I seen her. I've watched her at low points, I've watched her at high points. But I've watched you fight. I've watched you fight and kick and claw to be the best Kim that you can be. And I am so proud. I really do. I feel the same way about you. I feel like you're living your best life. I feel like you're walking in your call. I feel like you're healthy and I'm just. I really so proud of you. Talk to, talk to the people listening about. You know, I think people sometimes think, Kim, that us here we are on the platform, that we got it all together.

Yeah.

That we never struggle in, that we never sin or we never make mistakes and talk a little bit about your up and down journey and, and what's gotten you to this stable point now.

Yeah. You know, I. For so long in my life, I think that I was so, so in a lane all by myself. Like, nobody in my family had ever done what I've done. Nobody in my family understood. And I. And I found myself. I mean, I did preachers of Atlanta, I did. I've done just crazy stuff. And I found myself never allowing myself to feel the pain when I'd walk through stuff, when I would. When people would leave our church, when staff would leave, when the stab in the heart, I just would. I would act like it didn't happen.

And suck it up, buttercup. Keep going.

Yes. I was the queen of being loyal to my mistakes.

Got it.

I was a queen of just faking it and getting up there and preach. I could preach even if all hell was breaking loose. And probably about three years ago, I found myself hitting rock bottom again. And I remember one night I packed my bags and I was headed to Australia to preach. And I had allowed myself to get to a place where I had opened some doors. I would sit on my back porch with people and drink wine and all this kind of stuff. And it was okay to me because everybody does that. And I remember it was another defining moment in my life. Just like at 38 years old and I was on a plane headed to Australia, and God hit me upside the head. And he said, kimberly, he said. I mean, I heard it. Like, it was audible to me. I didn't hear it, but I just felt this overwhelming, like, conviction. And at that moment, the Lord said, there's people in your life that want to see you fall. And you are being so, so messy with what I've given you. You better get it together, or you're gonna mess up, and thousands of people are gonna go to hell because they followed you. Man, that did something to me, y'. All, because, you know, the. The. The blood of people's hands that God's trusted us with is on our life.

Yeah, man.

I went for probably 23 hours, and I got off that plane and I started. I. I mean, it was like, 23 hours of detox for me.

Wow.

And I immediately got myself together. I went home, got back to Atlanta, started going to counseling so I could get rid of all this stuff that I'd been carrying for all these years. I don't hurt. I don't hurt. I don't hurt. I don't. And that was probably one of the moments in my life that was so defining, because that was the moment that I made a transition.

Wow.

I'm never going back like God. I am. I am straightforward. I am not going to try to help you. Wherever you send me, I'm going. And I'm going to keep my private life and my life right so that this never happens. What you get, y', all, when I tell you there are moments in our. In our lives that are so defining. And if you're listening to this today, maybe you're like me. Maybe you are so used to pretending that everything's so perfect. Or maybe you're in a marriage that's going to hell on a slip and slide. Y' all are now partying when you know God is where, where, where it's at. And maybe you feel like that, maybe it's even your have seen you sitting on a back porch getting drunk and then getting up in a pulpit and preaching. I don't know what your story is, but I do know that God is not taking his hand off of your life. All he's doing, he's waiting right now with his arms wide open, saying, get up. I need you to get up. Stop trying to right the wrongs Let the wrongs be gone and let me use your mess as a message so good. Turn your scars into stars. And if we would understand that Pastor Hope and Pastor Ron, it's like in the church, the place that's supposed to be a hospital, the building has now not become that now. We're so used to not talking about pastors especially.

Yeah.

We're hurting in secret. We're walking through things. We don't want accountability. Just reach out. Don't lose it all, because you won't get it right.

Yes. Kim, do you think. Do you think you found yourself, though, at that dark place, you know, sitting on your back porch and. And the. The drinking and the surrounding yourselves with people, you know, yourself with people that you knew weren't going where you were supposed to be going? Do you think it was because all of those years that you didn't deal with the pain?

Absolutely. Pastor Hope. I believe that my family was. We were raised. Don't ever tell anybody anything.

Don't rock the boat.

Rock the boat. Fake it till you make it.

What happens in this family stays in this family. Yep.

And I remember. And everybody puts these preachers as preacher kids in a box anyway, Right. A see through. We gotta. We gotta share our parents. Plus, you know, we've never done anything wrong. And I know that was it. You know, my brother is 52 years old, and my brother has just started going to those people, those friends of yours in North Carolina.

Yeah.

I mean, y'. All. I have. I need to go to that place in North Carolina. We all need to make sure that we're doing heart checks and we're taking care of our souls and realize that just because we go sit down and talk to somebody doesn't mean that God's disqualified us.

No.

We all got issues. And if people are people listening, they'll probably say, what's that place in North Carolina? It's the place where I went to live for nine months, Kim. When Ron and I separated in 2013, I went to live there for. You know, some people get to go for a weekend, but I was so messed up, I had to live for nine months, so. But it's an amazing place. It's called Living Waters Ministry. Life changing. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of pastors, pastors, wives, evangelists, all the way down to a housewife go there to release their pain. It's a safe place.

He's talking about pastors, especially during COVID Covid. Covid revealed a lot. Yeah, Covid. Covid revealed a lot. And in our ministerial fellowship especially, we had to put Living Waters on retainer.

Yeah.

Because I had. I had marriages falling like flies. But because, you know, in a normal world, you can kind of get away from what you don't like. But when you get quarantined with what you don't like, it, it reveals a whole lot of things. And. Yeah, and it was amazing to me at just how unhealthy a lot of homes have gotten. And it was a wake up call to a whole lot of marriages. And so we do pressure, does pressure.

The squeeze. It shows you what you're really made of. So that's what he did.

David got in the cave of adullam. And the Bible says everybody he was with was broke, busted and disgruntled. And the word adullam means the place of the squeezed. And he went into there with a bunch of broken people. But those same people who were in the tunnel became David's mighty men. So David never became like them. He changed them and made them into something that they were not. And there's a time where God will put you in the squeeze to get stuff out of you that's never come out of you before.

Absolutely. You know, all of my friends, many people I don't even know, great people, come from a gross past, a kind of a tainted, troubled, traumatic. You know, you can either go two ways. You're going to go, you're going to run from it. Are you going to run to Jesus and let him fix it and let him use it? And that's what, you know, my book's about. It's the most beautiful disaster to the world. It was horrible. It was the most horrible situation. But in God's hands, look what he did. Here we are today, more in love and rubbing on each other. He said, don't be touching me during the podcast, baby.

Don't be doing that. Trying to be holy during the podcast.

That is holy.

Let me, let me hit you with this. We did none of this stuff, guys that are watching, none of this is rehearsed, none of it's scripted. We just, we come on here and just going out of our hearts. I'm just going to throw a question at you. It has been my experience that the most important decisions in my life have come in a moment of failure. Bill Gates, I'm out here in the Silicon Valley. Bill Gates said, success is a lousy teacher. And I thought to myself, am. I don't know if he's ever been amened. But success has a way of teaching you you can't lose.

Yeah, it does.

And it's a lousy teacher. And when I look back over my life, I don't know if everybody can say this. It was not the decisions I made. When I had just won. But it was the decisions I made that when life was falling apart, those decisions defined the trajectory of my next season. And how. What would. What would be your advice to people who really need to make a good decision in a bad place? Because I agree with you. You said a lot of what we call spiritual warfare is nothing.

That's all it is.

It's nothing but harvest of seeds that we've sown. And we got to blame it on a devil, got to blame it on a demon. But basically, most of us have sowed, spoke, and thought our way all the way to where we are. And now you got to have the grace to deal with that harvest. But how do I make a decision in a bad place to make sure that that's not repeated again?

Well, you have to go against the grain, you know, I had to get to a place where I stopped doing the same thing that I always did. I had to dig. I had to jump in the mud of Kim, and I had to start looking at Kim. I had to allow myself to. Man, I would cry. I would. I mean, the joints of my fingers would ache. Just the pain of letting it out. Because here's the key, y'.

All.

You're gonna keep making the same decision, sticking with the same actions that you've been doing, and you're only gonna get the same results. So what I did was I looked at my life and I said, either I can at 39, at 40, even at 45, I can look at my life and say, is this what you want? Like, you going and preaching and doing all your hooped in and all that other stuff, but when you lay in your bed at night, you ain't got no peace. That's what's going to be for the rest of your life. So I had a conversation with myself, and this is what y' all need to do. Have a conversation with yourself and ask yourself this, Do I want this in 20 years? Do I want to keep repeating these cycles? Do I want to feel so lonely in a room of a thousand people? Do I want to keep faking it and never making it? Do I want to? Man, if I died, y', all, I wouldn't even had a Facebook memorial page. I was just broken. And it was my own actions and my own pride. And so if you're in this place today, my defining moment was hitting rock bottom.

Yep.

Finding the rock at the bottom, which was good. I let all the people fall off that needed to fall off of my life. I stopped giving CPR to dead Situations. I stopped trying to fight. I started. I stopped trying to defend myself. And I just let people believe whatever they want to believe because most of it was true. And I said, I will let my fruit outlive their lives. My character will outlive my past.

That's so good.

That's what you have to do. You gotta do it. You gotta own it. You gotta realize you don't have to stay here.

No.

When God got on that cross and stretched his arms out wide, he said, for you, it is finished. For that depression, for that alcohol addiction, for that drug addiction, for that adulterous affair, all for your flesh. He said, I got on that cross so that you can live a happy life. I don't know why y'. All. We think we gotta live a dreadful life. And we're not fighting sadness, and we can't be too joyful. We can't drive too much. You know, we can't live too big. We can't. That is not the kind of God that we serve.

No, it is not enough. And, Kim, while we're talking about that, I want to talk to our listeners about, you know, a lot of people don't have a place to go. They don't have a place to go. And I thank God that I had a place to go. Living Waters.

You can't be healed in a familiar place.

No. And you need a safe place, and Living Waters is a place to go. But, you know, not everybody has the finances. Not everybody has the resources. Nobody can get. Not everybody can get on a plane and miss weeks of work. I want to talk to you about another place. It's called Better Help. Have you ever felt stuck? Have you ever felt alone? You know, what is it that's interfering with your happiness and with your success in life? And there's times when every single one of us have felt like this, and we've all needed a place to go. So I need you today to check out betterhelp.com roninhope. It's professional counseling. It's online. You can message your counselor at any time. It's safe, it's private, and it's affordable. So listen, if you're strung out with depression, if you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with sleep and trauma and grief, whatever, whatever it is, I want you today to start living a happier, healthier Life. You'll get 10% off your first month with this counseling at Better Help by visiting our sponsor, betterhelp.com RonAndHope so join today, over 1 million people. Ron. 1 million people who've already gotten help with betterhelp.com Ron and Hope. It's amazing. We gotta have a place to go, right?

Yep. I wanna. I got two more questions. Let me throw some questions at it. Well, I got it. I'm gonna ask for questions. Last week I did a staff meeting and with east coast and the west coast campus, and it's. I'm sitting there just grinning, hearing her talk about having. She had to look at herself and have conversations with herself. And I've started doing a teaching on sustained success. In other words, so many people are coming off the rails and so many people are not ending well. And I want God to show me how to end well. You know, I'm not an old man, but I'm not 30 no more. And so I'm beginning to look at how the things of my life are going to come together and tie together at the end.

How to go the distance.

Yeah, I want to go the distance. And I want to honor God. I don't want to be. I don't want to be a sad story. I don't want people to say when they talk about me. I don't want to say, I remember when. I remember when. I don't want to be that guy. So I'm like, God, in your grace and mercy, preserve me and let me honor you all the days of my life. Having said that, one of the first things that Hope and I talked about with staff is being self aware. I don't think people understand really how that's defined. And I defined it as this. Being self aware is you having real conversations with yourself so that nobody else has to.

That's so good.

Be honest with yourself. Your dominant weaknesses. Know your weaknesses because your enemy does know your weaknesses and build. And until you're free from them, build lines of separation where you can't get to them. I tell them when I got married.

Not.

Not as bad as earlier in my high school. Early in my high school, I had a dad. Back then, we didn't have Internet. Whose dad. I had a friend whose dad sold pornography on the back on the black market. And so after the football games, all of us jocks, I guess, you know what house we spent the night at, Everybody went to his. And we went to his daddy's little basement and we watched him movies all night. So by the time I had met Hope, who had. Who was a. Who was a church girl and I was not a church boy at that time. By the time I met Hope, I had come out of that a little bit but there was no doubt it still had a hold in my life. So when I got saved and entered the ministry, I was always so scared. I'm going to be one of these guys that's going to just let the whole world down one day. And I didn't want to be that. But I knew I had this thing that I had let get too deep in me, and I didn't know. I knew the line didn't work. I fell down in the floor four or five times. That didn't do it. I did all the stuff that my religious church told me to do, but the fact was that temptation was still there for me. And then I started getting asked to travel. Not big churches, but just little, small opportunities. And I remember there is some time where you don't get delivered, but you starve something out. You starve it out. And I remember because people, I would tell people say, let me show you how I got this off my back. I would build in a buffer between me and it to where I couldn't get to it. And one of the people I brought into it was Hope. This was not a secret that I kept away from Hope. I brought Hope into it and asked for her help. And that is where our relationship is really unique. She didn't cuss me. She didn't fuss me. She didn't hit me. She came in and became my covering. She became my accountability because she didn't want this to have any part of her husband's life. But I remember I would get real anxious when I knew I was going somewhere and I was going to spend the night in a hotel and I would get on the road. I didn't fly back then. I would drive, and I would literally call these little hotels, these little Holiday Inns, and wherever these little churches were going to put me at. And I would tell them, remove the tv.

Come on.

And they would say, remove the tv. I say, all right, well, I'm going to the hotel down the road. In other words, for years, I would either have them remove the cable box, the little thing with the dial on it, back then I would have them remove it, or have them take the TV out. Why? I was so determined that demon was going to be starved to death, and I was not going to let it continue to have a part of my life. And this is where you're talking about. You got to look at yourself. You got to put in the work, and you've got to put in lines of separation between you and that thing.

That'S trying to have you every One of us has that weakness that the enemy wants to self aware destroy us with.

I know where I'm strong, but I've got to be honest about where I'm weak. And until that is not a weakness no more, I've got to remove myself from the possibility. I see so many people. I know it's an old cliche who dance around fire all the time and just can't believe they get burned. They just can't. I got burned. I can't believe it. And I'm like, well, you flirted with it every day.

Yeah, it's.

Sooner or later it's going to burn you. What. What say you about those conversations that you. You have to talk to yourself honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you did, you did. You had to say, okay, Kim, this is not working. I did too hope this is not working.

Yo, I still do it. I. I still have moments in my life. I still am the queen of talking to myself. There was a situation that happened a few months ago, and I'm just like God, you know, I'm just having this conversation with God, like, I need you to take care of this. And I heard God say to me, how do you know? Just like you think you're right, they don't think they're right. They think they're right. Just like you think you're right. So I'm constantly talking to myself like that. Well, why am I mad at this situation? Because the same way I think I'm right, they think they're right. So stop worrying about them and get yourself right, Kim. And I've learned to stop doing it. Now it is. I can't change anybody but me.

You.

The only way you're going to ever change anybody in this life is their diaper when they're a baby.

Yeah, that's true.

Your job is to get your heart right. Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Love your neighbor as yourself and get over the pettiness. Stop being mad at yourself, stop being jealous. All of this goes away. All the jealousy, all the comparison, all that mess goes away when you get your heart right and your heart begins to look at itself, instead of pointing three fingers, point back at me every time I'm pointing a finger. And so, yes, Pastor, that. That story right there that you just gave. Yeah, man, that is going to really talk to some people out there today.

It is. Kim. Kim, you know, we're all. We only got about five more minutes. And one thing I love about you, just absolutely, truly adore about you, because I'VE been in ministry 32 years and seen a lot of people, but you, you seem to have this down pat. And if you don't, you've got me fooled. But you're always so positive. Yeah, I mean, please, please tell people how to be like this, because the majority of people are not. You just seem to have a smile on. You just seem to keep trucking. You just stay busy. You stay in your lane. Give people that advice because it really does make a difference to your joy, to your peace, to your happiness. Come on, share with them.

I'm very careful, Pastor Hope. Number one, happiness is a choice. It is not contingent on what's going on in your life. I have walked through straight hell.

Yes.

My dad dying, all kinds of situations in the last three years. I chose joy every time. I chose to look at it like, God, I'm still on this planet and you still have a plan for my life. As long as I have a pulse, you got a plan. So it's a choice. And I'm very protective. Yo, I will go literally preach in someone's church. And the next day somebody like, how was it? And I'm like, what do you mean, how was it? Well, you know, they're going through a divorce. I'm like, what? Like, I'm so aloof.

Yeah.

I just don't even allow myself to get caught up in. I let stuff go quick. I don't. I don't hold on to offense. I realize hurt people, hurt people. Heal people, heal people. I don't, I don't. I don't. I don't take anything. I don't let anything get in my spirit. And here's another thing I do. I have a 3 second rule. When someone hurts me or someone says something ugly to me or something doesn't go my way, or I'm facing a mountain in front of me and I just cannot. I can't grasp how I'm gonna get over it. I've got three seconds. Whatever that thought is in my head or whatever is said to me, I've got three seconds to grab it and suck it into me or let it go. And so at three seconds and so I'm just like, I'll let it go and I'll just start. I'll start changing. I'll change my thought so that I don't focus on what they've done to me or what is what I'm walking through. I will renew my mind. That's how I stay positive. Yeah, it's work positive that way.

It's Work, too, though.

Positive as a result of focus. Yes, positive as a result. You got all kind of things happening to you all the time that are out of your control. But whether or not you fall deep into a depression or whether or not you walk through your life joyfully is all determined by focus. It's what you determined. There are things that happened to me today that are amazing. There's a couple of things that happened to me today that sucked. And so I get to choose which one I'm going to focus on. I'm going to focus on the goodness of God.

But focus is work. Focus is work. And I think a lot of people don't want to put in the work to get the prize. I think we want it Shamalama ding dong. We want the genie in the bottle. We want somebody else to do the work for us. We're basically lazy. We are. But it's not quick. Healing is not quick. Success is not quick. It's not easy. But it is worth it. And I am so excited about what God's doing in your life. Kim, we love you so much. The world loves you. Don't listen to any haters. Don't read that mail. You just keep doing what God's called you to do. You're winning so many people to Jesus, and we are so thankful for your life.

We appreciate your time, too. Thank you for giving us your time.

We really do.

Thank y' all for being such great examples for all of us out here. Thank you all for being such true, great friends. Y' all have been a man, just like a mentor to me, and I'm just so, so thankful that y' all are so loving and. And. And the funnest people ever to hang with. Y' all are a whole party.

You are, too. That's why we can't get together much. People can't handle us.

Listen, we got a whole. A whole comedy show going while he's preaching.

I love it. I love it. Y' all. Tell people, Kim, Tell people how to get in touch with you real quick.

Let's go to my website, real talk kim.com. i'm on every social media platform as Real Talk Kim. And yeah, stay connected. She's.

She's got an inner circle. She's got friends. She's got ways to connect. She's got books. She's got amazing clothes. I love your clothes. You got a new whole merch. Yes. You got a whole new wardrobe now.

I got clothing that is off the chain.

Okay, well, you know my address, girl.

Yes, I do.

Now, I love you. Listen, guys, it's been Ron and Hope unfiltered, real raw, relevant, with real talk. Kim. So until next time, we love you.

Blessings.