Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: When the world is closing in on me and it gets so heavy.
Hey there.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome to Grace and Grit podcast, and I'm your host, Shanna Williams. So what is this all about?
Grace and Grit is a faith filled journey designed to empower you with spiritual strength and resilience. Each episode, we're going to delve into biblical topics, offering insights and teachings to help you overcome life's mental and emotional challenges. We're going to use scripture. I'm going to tell you stories. It's going to be a blast. I can't wait to see you today.
So I just want to say, first off, thank you for joining me. I know that there are a bazillion podcast out there, and there are fantastic teachers and I don't know, you know, just all kinds of amazing people out there with huge followings that you could be listening to and maybe you will listen to.
But, you know, maybe God led you to me, and I think that there's a reason for that. There is probably something in my story that I'm going to share with you today that maybe, just maybe, could help you and where you are in your journey. So let me just tell you a little bit about myself, and then I'm going to talk about adversity and how to make it your ally.
So my name is Shanna Strange Williams, and I had released a podcast about four years ago, five years ago, I guess, 2019, and it was a spin off from a book I had written called Providence. Embrace your beautiful destiny. And the podcast was called embrace your beautiful destiny. And that was just in addition to some other things that I do as well. I also am a christian songwriter, worship leader, recording artist, and author and speaker. So I had a lot going on there. And so at that time, I released.
I decided to release the podcast to kind of go hand in hand and work with the book.
So it was fantastic, you know, and I was enjoying things, and I was kind of just zipping along. I had been married at that time for about 24, 23, 24 years, something like that.
And the book, the Providence book, and the podcast are just kind of all about the idea that God is guiding and sustaining our destiny and even the things in our life that look, you know, like an accident or some kind of situation where it looks awful and it's definitely like, what is going on here? Even those times where those twists and turns come and those detours come, they're still God and how he uses them. And so if that's something you're interested in, you can definitely get my book. You can go to shannonstrange.net, and you can find links to the book and all that and the old podcast. But.
So I was going along with life, you know, and my, at the time, my husband, our daughter was getting married. She was probably about 21, 22, somewhere in that neighborhood. And he decided.
He decided at that time, after she got married, I knew things were getting bad, but he decided, I don't want to be in this marriage anymore. But, you know, he waited until she had gotten married, and then he told me, dropped kind of the bomb on me. And to say that that was difficult would be an understatement.
Yeah. Yeah. To say that that was difficult would be an understatement.
It was devastating to me.
I was in shock and lots of grief for a while.
It's one of those things. I think I was in denial, honestly, because that whole year, he had been telling me that if things didn't change, my marriage didn't get better, he was going to file.
I was just in denial because I was like, it's not that bad. I understand what you're so upset about. I would just pray a lot. I would do a lot of interceding prayer. And anyway, he went ahead and filed. He told me on the phone one day, you should be getting the paper soon. And it took a couple months, but I got him. And I was still kind of in shock, still kind of believing, like having, hoping to have, like a lazarus moment where God would resurrect it. I remember even praying that way, you know, having all my family and friends praying with me, just believing that God would perform a miracle and resurrect the marriage.
But he did not. And because of that situation, it forced me to have to leave.
You know, what I was working on in the ministry, I had to leave that I could not pursue that. I ended up having to go back into a career field that I had previously worked in just to support myself because I went from being, you know, supported at that time by my husband to kind of let, okay, I have to completely support myself. And, you know, at some point, this is going to be over and he's going to not pay me any kind of alimony. And my daughter was grown, so there was no child support. And it was a very.
I don't even have words for it other than to say it felt like death, or maybe even worse than death.
There were so many things that happened with the ending of that marriage that I, you know, I'm not going to talk about today. I'm just going to tell you that where I've been the last few years and what led up to this podcast. So if you go back and listen to my other podcast, it was, understand, a strange.
And then I ended up, you know, going through this really difficult divorce where I grieved some, of course, and the loss of my family unit and kind of ripping apart our family and having to start my life over. Right. And so ministry kind of took a back burner, to say the least. I mean, it's a little difficult to be in ministry when you are.
You're completely, your life is completely destroyed or what seemed like it at, at the moment. And so I just kind of had to lean into the Lord in that season, and that's a whole string of episodes that I can talk about.
But today, I just want to share with you, you know, where I'm at now and what led up to this point, because you can definitely understand that I'm not a person that hasn't been through some pretty difficult things. I mean, I wouldn't be calling this grace and grit unless I had experienced both. And really, honestly, that's exactly what has gotten me through the last four years of my life. I mean, 2020 was terrible for everyone because it was Covid, but I was doubly, it was doubly compounded in my life because not only was it Covid, but that was the year that the divorce proceeding started, and it was finalized in 2021.
And, you know, earlier that year, I remember the Lord telling me, you know, through Covid, he was going to bring alignment to families.
I didn't realize he was going to bring realignment to my family. I thought that meant he was going to heal my family. But in fact, what happened was he separated.
He separated me and my ex husband. We were unequally yoked.
We definitely were nothing in the same place anymore. And we, he had just decided to take a different life. He didn't want kind of that christian life anymore. And, you know, there were some things going on behind my back that he was doing and adultery, that type of thing. And, you know, I think God gives people a chance for a while, and then if they don't take it, it's not fair to the other person. And so he just ends that relationship, and he brought that to a head. And I didn't even have to file my ex filed, and I'm not here to talk about whether I believe divorce is right or wrong. That's not what the point of this episode is about. This is more about what happened and the facts of what happened in my life so that you can hopefully get some hope from some of the things I'm going to share with you. But that happened and it was difficult that in 2021 I also, as I was wrapping up that divorce, God did bring my husband now into my life, which has been, he has been such a godsend and we are in, we have such a beautiful marriage and I've just honestly, I've never experienced anything like this before. And so I'll be sharing about that as well at some point. But that's part of the grace I think that I had in that season. Washington. God brought the right person into my life to help, to help, you know, and to realign me. He realigned me and I'm equally yoked now. And so that is an amazing, amazing feeling. But, you know, the grit of the last few years, the last four years to be exact, I think I've learned so much. And that's why I wanted to start this podcast. I wanted to be able to share with my audience that there is really nothing you cannot get through. If you lean into God's grace and you have some grit, if you will hang on even in the worst seasons, he will turn it around. He will make all things new in your life. And I'm a living testament to that.
I came out of that really difficult season and ended up taking a backseat from ministry, like I said, focusing on work. You know, I'm in mortgage lending as a career. That's kind of where my bread and butter is.
But I'm highly creative, as I mentioned earlier, I like to write songs, I like to write books and release podcasts and all those things. But at the time, I had to give my soul some space to grieve and heal.
And so now I'm feeling like I'm good, you know, and it takes time. And I want to encourage you in that as well, that if you are going through something difficult like that, it takes time. It takes time, but it also takes really sitting with the Holy Spirit and letting him cover you, letting him speak over you, letting him sing over you even. I ended up going to a prayer and intercession group that meets here locally. We would meet lots of times during the week and do these worship and intercession, intercession sets of, that were filled with spontaneous worship moments, but also planned. You know, sometimes we would pray specifically for things on certain days or just whatever God would lead us to do. And they were kind of long sets, like 2 hours. But I can tell you that that season of my life was full of so much grace. I mean, the Lord just met me in ways that I could never, ever even. I can't even find words to describe it. How close he was to me and how he led me. But those were the moments that I look back on now and go, man, those were so amazing. I. I kind of wish that I could have that back. There's definitely a special grace that comes upon your life when you are going through something so, so difficult.
And that kind of leads me to making this statement that I kind of wanted to make this episode about really quick.
Is making adversity your ally, maybe changing your perspective on adversity, realizing that adversity is not sent to destroy you. It's actually sent to make you who you're really meant to be.
And, you know, I didn't know back then the strength of who I am. I think that's really what happened through this was as horrible as it was. And it was.
It was beyond words how painful it hurt and the death of a marriage like that. And I know some of you can relate, and it breaks my heart that you can relate. I hate that. And you know what I'm talking about when I say it, how horrible it was, how painful it was.
But what happened is I became the person that I was always meant to be because the adversity brought out.
It brought it out in a way that I don't think anything else could.
Even though it was hard, even though I hated it, even though I just. There were days where I cried myself to sleep, it made me who I am, and not in a harsh, mean kind of way. You know, a lot of women or men go through divorce and they become extremely hardened and they become, you know, really kind of independent and self sufficient. And, you know, I can do it on my. I don't need anybody to help me. And that's not what I'm talking about because that's really just a survival coping mechanism that we can kind of start using when we get in a place where we're like, nobody's going to hurt me again. So we just create these survival coping mechanisms to help us through. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about. I leaned into God and fully am dependent on him. But he began to reveal to me who I am and that I was a lot stronger than I gave myself credit for. And I've had to do things in the last three years and four years my life that I never thought I would do. It's caused me to be a lot bolder it's caused me to be a lot more confident, and I'll talk about that in some of these later episodes. I will get into what exactly I mean and how you can do that as well. But realizing the first step is just realizing that adversity can be your ally.
Adversity can be used in such a way that it grows you, it develops you, it makes you stronger. It's just like lifting weights, you know, weights.
As much as most of us probably hate to do it or hit or anything like that, you know, it's horrible. It hurts. We have sore muscles. We have to break those muscles down to make them stronger and they can rebuild. It's the same thing. These situations that happen in our life, they cause us to be broken down, but it's so that God can rebuild us the way that we should have been all along. And really coming out of that broken marriage made me realize that I had a lot of toxic thoughts about myself, about God, about even about what marriage was. There were so many things that needed to be torn down and rebuilt.
And so the last four years of my life, that's what it has been about, been about rebuilding. But in a way that it's right. It's built on the rock. And I hope that throughout the episodes of this podcast, and maybe some of the guests I have on here, some of the stories I share and the scriptures that we dig into, that it's going to make more sense. And that you, if you feel like you are a victim, my number one goal is to get you out of that, that kind of thinking. You are not a victim. You are not a victim. And I'm going to challenge you to take back your power, because you're not a victim. When you begin to realize that you're not a victim, something inside of you changes. And you get this grit that you've never had before. And it's not like I said, I'm not talking about a toxic way of thinking where you. You're like, I don't need anybody. You know, I'm so independent. I don't mean that. I just. I just mean in a healthy way that you realize that you're no one's victim, that you have the power God's put inside of you. The Holy Spirit is with you and for you. And no one can do anything to you unless he's allowed it. And if he's allowed it, it's because he wants you to learn something or to grow from it, or he's going to rescue you out of it. At some point, if it is truly a bad situation, he's good like that. You know, he's our good, good father. And when we press into him, lean into him, trust him, develop these. These things that we need, these character traits that we need to become that person. I can guarantee you your life's going to change in ways that you never dreamed possible. When you learn to become a person who is full of grace and grit to a person who sees adversity as their ally, as a chance to, hey, this is going to make me stronger. Instead of seeing every situation that comes up in your life and being so miserable and frustrated and begging God to just take it away and let it be over, but seeing it as, okay, lord, you know what? I'm up for this challenge. Like, what are we going to learn here? What are you trying to teach me? I'm not afraid of it. I'm not a victim. I'm an overcomer. That's the kind of attitude that I personally want. And I hope that as you journey with me through this, you begin to become that person who is an overcomer. Right. That's who we're meant to be as christians. We're meant to be overcomers. We're not meant to be victims. We're not meant to be people who are weak minded, people who let their emotions control them, people who are swayed about and tossed about by every wind of doctrine, as the scriptures talk about. But we're people who are single minded and know who our God is, know that he is for us, know that he's always going to help us, that he's never going to lead us into a position where he's not going to be there to help us or not provide for us.
That's how good he is. And when we start to take hold of that and become that person, I'm telling you, you will start to impact everyone around you. You'll start to make waves in your world. And that's my hope for you. That's my hope for myself, that when I leave a space where I go somewhere, that I impact the people there, that they don't forget who I am. Not because I'm so amazing, but because I have allowed the Holy Spirit to work through me in such a way that people are inspired by it, that they're saying, oh, man, in spite of what she's gone through, in spite of the fact that, you know, the marriage she was in for 25 years that he left her, in spite of this challenge and this challenge, she's still. She's still an amazing, strong person who trusts in the Lord and he's blessed her. That's what I want for you, too.
I don't want to be remembered for the terrible tragedy I went through. Right. I want to be remembered that I was a person who overcame it, overcame the tragedy, overcame. And I was no longer a victim.
And not just because I want to be amazing, but because I want that to point back to Christ and who he is and that he always overcomes and that he was not a victim. He laid down his life because we could get in a place where we feel sorry for ourselves, right? Where we say, oh, we are so. We're so broken. We're so messed up. We didn't deserve that. Da da da da da. And when you stay in that place where it's always about what someone did to you, you will never overcome. You will never be the person that God desires you to be.
So that's just a little bit about this podcast and me and the things we're going to talk about. And I hope that stirs you up. I hope that you are excited to jump into this with me. I cannot wait to get into some of these topics. And so, yeah, with that, I will see you next week for episode two.
You can always go to my website, shannastrange.net. i've got resources there. I've got the Providence book. I've got music links to my music that you can download. I have blogs that I've written in the past that are going to be so encouraging to you that can help you. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Oh, man. I'm just kind of everywhere. I'm just thinking out loud. But just to clarify, my name now is Shanna Williams. However, my podcast, my older music, my website, it's going to be shannastrange.net. dot. Don't let that confuse you. It's. I am the same person. So thanks for joining me. And until next time, have some grace.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: And have some in on me.
And it gets so heavy I can hardly breath.
I won't walk out. We'll run to the center of your wings like a prodigal coming home.
