The Gift of Rejection w/ Nona Jones
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The Holy Spirit said, Nona,

You've been looking at rejection all wrong because you're so focused on the pain of it that you miss the purpose of it. And that's when he said, rejection is actually a gift in my hands. I realized that in every single situation, pain was its wrapping paper, but there was a lesson on the inside of it. That's where it came from, was just recognizing that God can use it for your good and his glory, even when it hurts.

What's up, y'all? It's your girl, Kayla Wanakee, stepping in for our girl, SJR. Now, I know some of you are wondering, where's Pastor Sarah? Don't worry. She's taking some well-deserved rest after that incredible conference we just had. Sis poured out her heart and soul on that stage, and now it's time for her to recharge. And we love that for her, right?

Now, speaking of conference, baby, if you were there, you already know it was an experience like no other. God didn't just show up. He showed out every single night. I'm still trying to process it all.

I had so many favorite moments, whether it was Dr. Anita's mother wounds or when Pastor Sarah just laid out that surrender moment. Pastor Cheryl Brady, Pastor T. Renee Glenn laying me out, my edges, my makeup. Listen, Spanx came down. It was just so much. The worship was off the chain. And for me personally, you know that pajama panel has a special place in my heart.

And I'm sure many of you had your own moments that really were life changing. Now we're gonna take a moment and hear from one of our incredible voices that we had at conference, Nona Jones.

Sis brought that fire and what you're about to hear is a powerful conversation between Nona and Pastor Sarah diving into something we all know too well, which is rejection. But listen, they're about to flip the script and show us how rejection is actually a gift. So lean in, get your notepads and let's get into this wisdom.

Why would you try to make us believe that rejection is a gift? Like, what is wrong with you? Let's get right into the nitty gritty. Like, I'm going to ask you the questions they're not going to ask you on Good Morning America. I'm a professional.

Why would you try to make us believe that rejection is a gift when all it does is make us nervous, insecure, anxious? Now we're people pleasing because I don't want to experience rejection. And here you come with your book telling me that rejection is actually a gift. It doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't make sense. And when God gave me the revelation, I was so confused. But I'm going to tell you the story that led to the revelation. So when I was in high school, first of all, I was like...

I was the chunky girl for most of my childhood, right? So I was never the girl that guys wanted. But when I got into high school, I lost some weight. And this guy who I really liked, he liked me too. And so he asked me to be his girlfriend and I was just over the moon. So anyway...

He was smart. He was handsome. He was all the things. And one summer he went away to do an internship at a state senator's office about five hours away. And he called me and was like, hey, I'm coming back in a week. I want to take you to the movies. And I was so excited. I got my hair done, my nails done. Like I

was ready okay but an hour before we were supposed to go he was supposed to pick me up he called me it was just like hey I had a family emergency I'm gonna have to reschedule and I was just like what of course I was bummed but I was like look it's a family emergency what are you gonna do so anyway I called some of my friends and I was like hey y'all y'all want to go to the movies and so they were like sure so we go to this movie theater and I'm standing in line and I look over and

And I see my boyfriend holding hands with another girl. Now, at the moment that I saw him, he looked back and saw me and like the color drain from his face, right? So as you can imagine, I was so crushed. It's like, I felt abandoned. I felt discarded. I felt humiliated. Like my friends knew I was in this relationship.

And so, you know, the guy the next day, he was calling me trying to apologize. I wouldn't take his call. I said, forget it. So anyway, fast forward. This is maybe 15 years. I'm working at Metta. Well, the company formerly known as Facebook and a pastor friend of mine reached out to me and was like, hey, I need your help with something. And I said, sure. What's up? He said, I need you to help me take down one of my mentees Facebook pages because

Which was crazy to me because I was like, I've had people ask me to help them get their page back up after it was taken down. I've never had anyone ask me to take it down. So I was like, I don't know if I can help you with that. That's really weird what's going on. He said, look, this is one of my sons in the ministry. People are saying really mean things on his page. I need you to help me take it down. And I said, well, I don't know if I can help with that, but send me the link and I'll see what I can do. I'll escalate it. So I click on the link that he texts me.

Staring back at me is a picture of my ex-boyfriend.

And I scroll down on the page and I see comments from people basically being like, you know, cheaters get what they deserve. You know, this is this was he had it coming. You know, I hope his wife is OK. All this stuff. Right. And I'm like, what happened? Well, so I don't normally watch television. I'm just not a big television watcher. So I apparently missed the news that he was murdered by his mistress.

who also tried to kill his wife. And... No, this is not the direction that I thought the story was going. Listen, listen. So I go, I click on news articles, right? Because I'm like, this can't be real. I click on news articles. It is absolutely true. Not only was he murdered by his mistress, but he had been cheating on his wife with many women who came out of the woodworks after the fact. His wife is the woman he was at the movie theater with.

And so in that moment, it's like Twilight Zone, right? Like the way you feel right now, like multiply it times like 50. I was in a Twilight Zone because what I realized was I had thought he was cheating on me with her. Maybe he was cheating on her with me. And

I could have ended up on either side of that situation. And so when I prayed about it, I was like, Lord, thank you for protecting me. Because those 15 years, Sarah, I had been angry, bitter. I was so upset by what he did to me. But in that moment, the Holy Spirit said, Nona, you've been looking at rejection all wrong because you're so focused on the pain of it that you missed the purpose of it. And that's when he said, rejection is actually a gift in my hands.

And I said, whoa. But I started to actually think about all of the rejection experiences I had experienced in my life. And I realized that in every single situation, pain was its wrapping paper. But there was a lesson on the inside of it that either shaped my character or propelled me into purpose. There was something in it that ended up being a gift. And so...

That's where it came from, was just recognizing that God can use it for your good and his glory, even when it hurts. You said pain was its wrapping paper. I feel like that is worth marinating on because some of us don't get past the wrapping paper. I've never had a gift that I thought was so beautiful that I don't want to open it.

But I have had some issues in my life that felt so painful that it felt like there was nothing that could come from the inside of it. But the paradigm of pain being wrapping paper and us daring to do the work to navigate the pain, to figure out what's inside of it, feels like a journey that each of us should be willing to take. But...

Tearing that wrapping paper over open is almost more painful than the incident itself. How do you get to a space where you're willing to say, OK, if pain is a wrapping paper, how do I carefully? My husband always when he opens presents, he does. He never rips it open because when he was growing up, they were used wrapping paper. And so like he opens it very carefully so that he can preserve the wrapping paper.

I feel like that is kind of how we're going to have to navigate pain being the wrapping paper. How do we gently begin to tear open that pain so that we can figure out the purpose connected to it? I think it starts with, I mean, honestly, the reason why I wrote the book is because

Just the awareness that rejection is a gift in and of itself is a paradigm shift, because what that does is it puts you in a different posture from where at first you would see yourself as I'm a victim. This thing happened to me. I'll never get through it. I'll never get over it. But now that you recognize, oh, wait, there's a gift in this. It places you in the posture of a student. Right.

which is, okay, what can this teach me about myself? What can this teach me about other people? What is it that God may want to work through this situation for my good? I believe that rejection is a gift that will make you better if you open it or bitter if you don't. And many people are walking around bitter because like you said, we stop at the wrapping paper. And I think having that just thought like, okay, this hurts me.

And there's also something that I need to learn from this. What is the lesson? That's how you start to slowly peel it back and begin to explore what it wants to teach you. Okay, so I have a question for you because I think when we think about rejection, we're generally thinking about us being on the receiving end of rejection. But I want to talk a little bit about the reality that in order for us to have boundaries, in order for us to lead, in order for us to have self-care, we have to reject rejection.

Absolutely. Certain people, certain things. That to me is another gift of rejection is what you get to hang on to when you dare to reject other people's expectations, other people's needs in an effort to protect yourself. Has this paradigm changed the way that you handle the reality of rejecting other people? Do you think it's fair to say that when we set boundaries, we're rejecting other people? Let me start there.

I think that's actually a really important insight, which is yes. Rejection is ultimately what we do when we say no to the demand that somebody placed on us. And sometimes rejection

rejection is necessary. It's a gift to us, but it's also a gift to the other person. And I'll frame it this way. I'm sure you understand this. There are people who see your success, my success, somebody else's success as an opportunity to build their empire on what God has built through you. Now,

Once you become aware of that, it is important that you place a boundary between you and that person because otherwise that person will actually kind of absorb

the glory that God has for your life, for their self. And that will actually damage their character. And I think as leaders, one of the responsibilities that we have is to help people grow in character. So if somebody is like, I believe that I'm more qualified than you know they are, it's important to say no, because there's some learning and growth and development they have to do. Now, for the other person who's experiencing that,

Of course, that's painful, right? Like it's painful to have somebody close a door for you, but they're closing the door because they know that there's more growth needed. And so there's a gift in that rejection for you as an individual to have somebody close the door because you're not ready to walk through it yet. There's a gift in that. And so, again, having that as like the thought paradigm, it becomes a learning opportunity on both sides of the experience.

Man. Okay. So this makes me think about all of the ways that I have betrayed myself in order to avoid rejecting someone else. What do you think we have to do as people who are in relationships, parenting, friendships, in order to reconcile the

or normalizing, I'm going to use the word normalizing rejection. Because I do feel like if you've gone through trauma, if you've had some insecurities, rejection feels like a re-triggering. But do you think that we have to normalize rejection in order to both understand it, reconcile it for ourselves, but also to be okay with rejecting other people? Or does it, it feels like a wound every time. Of course, because-

In order to even experience rejection, we have to first have had the hope that we were accepted. So like you don't feel rejected because you didn't get a job that you didn't apply for. And you don't feel rejected because somebody you're not interested in isn't interested in you. As a matter of fact, you're like, thank you. You know, like you don't feel rejected because somebody else's parents don't view you as their child. No, you feel rejected because you applied for the job and didn't get it.

because you gave the best years of your life to someone and they walked away because your mother or your father, they abandoned you. And so when we experience rejection, it doesn't just injure our pride. It actually shatters our hope, which breaks our heart. That's what makes it hurtful is because you have to have first had the hope of acceptance to experience rejection. That said, it's important to know that when rejection happens,

It can teach you so much about yourself or about other people. As an example, you know, growing up in my career professionally, one of the things that used to hurt me so much because I've been an executive since I was 23. So I would be, you know, my colleagues would be in their 40s and their 50s and they would get together and have all types of social gatherings. And I would find out about it after the fact. Right. Like I would find out that I wasn't invited. Right.

And that became a very primitive rejection wound for me professionally. But the lesson in that that I had to learn later is that's not my tribe. And I want to sit with that for a minute because I think some of us, we've been left out. We've been overlooked. We haven't been included. And we take that so personally, like something's wrong with me, when in fact, all that's revealing is that's not your tribe.

Don't take it personally. Just recognize that those aren't your people so that you can actually move on and not become a perpetrator of the hurt that you experience. And I think that's why a lot of times people become what they experience. You become the bully. You become the one who leaves people out because you're trying to get back at people for a pain that you haven't addressed yet.

Okay. So like, I have so many light bulbs going off right now. First of all, the only way that we experienced rejection is if we first had the hope for acceptance is like, that's chef's kiss. That's a beautiful realization because I think we focus so much on the rejection that we don't do the work of recognizing, like there was some hope connected to this. I think that as you were talking, cause I've definitely experienced like the rejection from tribes and I feel like, uh,

Sometimes I feel like kind of like an island in my own little space, in my own little world, because I never really found like the group, the groups. Like everyone's got these little groups, right? And I like have my business. And me and my business are my group. Me and my family and all of the business that the delegation lets me mind, that is my tribe. But I do feel like what I have come to learn about myself is that like my hope for acceptance into some of those groups is,

were also hopes that it would some way increase my value or address an insecurity. And so the hope for acceptance was even rooted in something toxic. Because if I'm one of them, then that will make me smart. If I'm one of them, then that will make me beautiful or intelligent or spiritual or whatever it is. And so that hope is actually rooted in an insecurity. And so recognizing where does that hope come from?

so that I can acknowledge whether or not I should have even had that hope in the first place. Like maybe that hope needed to be broken. Maybe my heart needed to be broken in that way so that I could address that this hope was rooted in something that wasn't sustainable. Moments like seeing my son's team cheer him on mean a lot to me. But after being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer or MBC, which is breast cancer that is spread to other parts of the body,

I'll see you next time.

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What you said gets to really the root of the message, which is rejection is often what we experience when our hope is misplaced. Because here's the thing.

When your hope is rooted in Jesus, when your hope is rooted in who he says you are without qualification, like I often think about how we use Jeremiah chapter one and five to talk about the sanctity of life, right? We say life begins at conception and it's like, no, Jeremiah one and five said, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you right before the sperm met the egg.

I set you apart before your mother knew your father. I called you. And so the God of the universe decided you were necessary. And because of that, it really doesn't matter if we're accepted or included by man because God decided that you were necessary. And so when we place our hope in that fundamental, unchanging truth, it's like, okay, yeah, I wasn't invited to the thing.

I wasn't included in the thing. It hurts because it hurts my humanity, but it doesn't affect my hope because my hope is in Jesus and what he says. I feel like that's going to bless so many people right there. So can you tell me a little bit like in the book, like what is the journey we go on? Like where do you meet us and where do you leave us? Yeah.

So I start with a really formative rejection experience. And I'm a vulnerable person anyway, because vulnerability is my ministry. But one of the things I talk about is my formative mother wound. I'm an only child. I was born to a mom who did not want to have children. And so her live-in boyfriend started abusing me at the age of five. And so I was like,

And I told my mom what he was doing to me. I told her around the age of seven, she had him arrested and I thought it was over. But on the day of his release from jail, she took me with her to pick him up and brought him back home. And the abuse resumed from that point. And she became physically and verbally abusive. And my childhood was marked by

incredible trauma and dysfunction and pain. I tried to end my life at the ages of nine and 11. And I share this with people because I think when you walk into the chapter that my life is on right now, you might assume, oh my gosh, her story must be great. She had a loving family. She came from, it's like, no, like I am a statistically improbable product of God's grace. And so I share that because I do believe that so much of the rejection that we experience in our adult years is

is because our identity is resting on a foundation that was cracked in our formative years. So I talk about that because one of the things that happened to me that was really, really, I think, damaging is when I got older, I tried to have a conversation with my mom about what happened in my childhood because I actually wanted us to have a healthy relationship. We've never had a healthy relationship. And what she said to me is she said, well, it wouldn't have happened if you would have just kept your legs closed.

And so that's how she explained everything. And so it's rejection after rejection layered with all types of rejection that I carried into relationships. I carried into my profession. I have a chapter where I talk about the expressions of rejection. And one of the ways that rejection gets expressed is what I call explosion into ambition. And that was my experience. It's like,

I need to matter. I need to get the awards. I need to be the best. I need, I remember there's not a student organization I was a part of that I wasn't president of. I was captain of the dance team, captain of the track team, captain of the Tennessee. Like I had to be the best and the first and the youngest, um,

Because I was trying to fill a rejection black hole. I didn't have language for it, but that's what it was. And so I help readers through this story really see, number one, I don't care what it looks like. I am quite literally just a product of God's grace. But number two, all the insights that I received when God helped me to unpack my own rejection experiences, I'm just hoping will help people see it from a new light because God can truly use that pain to propel your purpose.

So our theme for week 24 is surrender. And that's not just conference, like literally it is our theme for the year. I am wondering in order to get to a place where your hope was rooted in Jesus, where your identity was no longer connected to those series of rejections, what did you have to surrender in order to get there? Oh man, this is going to sound crazy.

but it's true. Like I had to surrender the pain of my rejection because I did not realize, I literally did not realize until I started to do the work. I didn't realize how much it has shaped me, how much my personality was a derivative of the pain. Like I, I didn't know that so much of who I am today is because of the pain I experienced in the past. So I literally had to take all of that and,

and lay it at the foot of the cross and just say, God, I'm going to believe what you have said about me. I'm no longer going to strive. It's funny. I don't normally have a word for the year, but in December of last year, the Lord gave me the word surrender for this year. That is my word for the year. And what happened was I was, you know, at the chief executive level at YouVersion, which is the maker of the Bible app, loved what I was doing. And the Lord said,

that the assignment was over. He said, I've called you to be a light in dark places. This is a light in lit places. And I was like, but I like what I'm doing. I like what I'm doing. He said, no, you're going to have to surrender this because your rejection has caused you to seek your identity in roles and titles. So I literally had to surrender that pain to God and be like, you know what, Lord,

I'm giving this up. And so now I've been in full time ministry, full time consulting, just doing what God's called me to do. And I remember when God told me to step away from that role, the first question that popped in my mind was, but if I'm not an executive, what am I? You know, so I had to surrender that and just trust that God can do something powerful with and through it.

I love what you said about like, I had to be willing to lay that pain of rejection down and truly believe. A lot of times when people are like, I don't know how to surrender. And I pray, I'm praying. We're recording this before conference, but I'm pretty sure it's airing after conference. But one of my prayers for WE24 is that I will be able to advocate for surrender being an exchange of beliefs. Yes, that's it.

It is. It's a belief system that you have to be willing to let go of that my life needs to look this way, that I should have had this, I should have had that, I should be here, I should be there. And to surrender, to receive the acceptance of like, this is what my life is and this is all my life needs to be. Like to accept that not from a place of like grief and reluctance and giving up and resignation, but

but hope that where I am and what I have is all that I need. Like that is my greatest prayer. I love that so much. And even when I learned about the theme of the conference,

What struck me is when we surrender, we surrender under one of two circumstances. We either surrender in fear because there's something that's more powerful than us and it's threatening us that if you don't surrender, I'm going to harm you. Or we surrender in faith, which is...

I trust that you have my best interest in heart. And I trust that where you lead me will be better than where I lead myself. And I think we have to come to that fork in the road, which is

which type of surrender, because when I think about even like marriage, right? When I said those vows with my husband, I wasn't surrendering in fear. I was surrendering in faith that I believe that what we're going to build together is better than what I could build on my own. And so, yeah, you're right. There's so many of us that are protecting parts of us because that's all we know.

But when you know that God is for you, you can surrender everything to him because you know he has your best interest at heart and he'll always love you better than you can love yourself. Mm-hmm.

Man, I feel like that's the greatest opportunity that we have right now as leaders, as women in ministry, is to express the love of God to others, not just women, but to others in such a way that they can trust again. I feel like...

Life has been so scary and unpredictable and uncertain that it's difficult to believe this whole God's in control and everything's going to be good. Like trying to express that you're going to be okay, that good is not a situation, that good is not in a bank account, good is in my soul. I can find a way to good no matter what.

Because I can find the presence of God and he'll lead me and he'll talk with me and he'll guide me and he'll comfort me. I'm going to be good. Like, I feel like that's just the greatest opportunity. And I think to the point of the book is how we be able to begin to see rejection as a gift. We had Viola Davis book for conference this year and then she had something changed with her production schedule and she couldn't come. And my immediate response was like, that's okay. We want what God wants for conference. Like, come on.

Like, and then about three weeks later, I was like, it's not okay. Actually. Well, let me tell you what's so funny about that. So there's so many reasons why I'm grateful for you. But one of them I will say is as I'm releasing a book about rejection, I have been experiencing so much rejection. I bet. And it has been. And it's funny because I remember saying to God, I was like, Lord,

I walked this message out to write it. Why am I walking it out again to release it? Like I just- Make it make sense. Listen, but what was funny was one day in particular, I had got some news about something that I really had my heart set on and it wasn't going to work out. And I remember just being like,

Like I was so hurt by the whole thing. So I went and I like ugly cried, right? I was like, and I ugly cried. But after I got done crying and just telling God just how hopeless I felt and how hurt I felt. And I just kind of, you know, I sniffled and I felt better because I released it.

no lie, about an hour and a half later, you sent me a voice memo. No lie. And you were like, girl, we gonna get you on this podcast. It was one of those things where I felt like, I felt God wink at me. And he was like,

He was like, you have to understand, I hold it all in my hands. I hold it all in my hands. And so just trust me, I am a good father. And it was just so encouraging to me to know that even in what may seem like a small thing,

God sees and he hears. And so that's part of surrender is knowing who God is. And yeah, that whole thing with Valadez, I know he was like, oh Lord, yes, Father. And sometimes we're so spiritual. We'd be like, well, Lord, whatever you allow. But at the end of the day, you'd be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, Jesus now. But even that he hears and he honors, he honors our disappointments and our discouragements and the things that we had our hearts set on because

because he's a good father and that is who we surrender to. Not our circumstance. We don't like the circumstance, but I surrender to the God who controls the circumstance. Yeah, I have a feeling too because I'm,

I don't know what's going to happen this year, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be standing in the moment and I'm going to be like, everyone who's supposed to be here is here and everything that was supposed to happen has happened. And my plan was better than your plan. And this would not have happened had your plan. Like I just, that's what I trust about God is that like, though I am discouraged and maybe disappointed right

now. And I'm willing to tell you that I am also waiting with much anticipation and expectation for the moment where I see that it had to be this way. I think that part of experiencing God's faithfulness is staying in the tension of disappointment so that you get to the other side and realize that what I was calling disappointment was actually the setup. It was actually construction. It was actually how I was being built to experience the

the greatest version of myself and to experience a new wave of God's glory. I do believe that like wholeheartedly. - Well, because God sees, like one of the through lines in the book, I was reading in 1 Samuel 16, this was like a year and a half ago, and I was going through a really painful rejection experience.

But I was reading it and I saw in the text how, after David was anointed the next king, how it says that the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and it says it was replaced by a tormenting spirit. And the text then said that Saul was being tormented. So his attendants were like, hey, we should find somebody who can play the lyre. They'll play and it'll soothe you. And whenever the evil spirit comes on you, you'll feel more calm.

And the king was like, okay, cool, like who? And it said that a servant in the king's court said, I have seen the son of Jesse of Bethlehem. He plays the liar, he's fine looking and God is with him. And Saul was like, okay, bring him to me. What caught me in that text when I read it is of course the son is named David. David wasn't in the room. Saul didn't know who David was, but a servant who was in the king's court said,

knew who David was and placed David's name in the room. And the reason why I bring that up is so many times we feel discouraged because the king, the person with the platform, they didn't choose us, right? But God will use a servant in the king's court, right?

to place your name in rooms that you don't even have access to. This is the God that we serve. The one who's like, I know that door closed in your face. I know that window slammed shut and you had your heart set on it. But he's like, I've set up a servant

to be in the room who's going to place your name in it. And you can take your courage from that. Like God, he's just faithful. And so that's where I take my courage from. When things don't work out, I'm like, okay, God, I know you're faithful. I'm going to believe that you're faithful because if you can do it for David, you can do it for me. How has embracing this gift of rejection changed the way that you pursue your dreams? Because don't you think that so many more of us would be

fearless in the pursuit of our purpose and dreams if we weren't looking for the hope of acceptance? Like, wouldn't we be more obedient if we weren't hoping to also be accepted in our obedience? Listen, when I say you hit the nail on the head, so much of what we don't do

is because of a fear, a preemptive fear of being rejected. I know people right now who have business ideas, book ideas, people who want to leave relationships that are no longer serving them, but they don't do what they need to do because they're afraid of what somebody will say. They're afraid of being discarded. They're afraid of not being chosen. And it's like,

If you can just recognize that whatever happens, if rejection happens, there's a gift in it. If you can recognize that, yes, you will literally take the brakes off because it's like, what's the worst that can happen? I get rejected. Yeah. Okay. Well,

Moving on. Yeah, absolutely. Moments like my daughter telling me a new joke mean a lot to me. But after being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer or MBC, which is breast cancer that is spread to other parts of the body, they mean even more. I take Ibrance Palpacyclib. Ibrance 125 milligram tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR positive HER2 negative MBC as the first hormonal based therapy.

Ask your doctor about Ibrance and visit Ibrance.com. Ibrance may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. Ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. Both of these can lead to death. Tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. Before taking Ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are or plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding.

Common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite.

So I want to talk about Joined by Blood for a minute. This is a national effort led by the American Red Cross, and they're spreading the word about the impact blood donations can have on people suffering from sickle cell disease. Joined by Blood references that special kinship we all feel for other African Americans, even when we've never met. Did you know that one in three African Americans is a match for patients with sickle cell disease?

And on top of that, most of us have type O blood, which is commonly needed for emergencies of all types. The need for donors is real, regardless of your blood type. Every day, our blood saves lives and eases the pain of those living with sickle cell disease. Our blood is essential. Donate blood September through October at a Red Cross blood drive near you. Visit RedCrossBlood.org slash OurBlood to make an appointment now.

Oh man, that is so good to me. I feel like you're, I know your book is already going to help so many people because didn't you preach a message that kind of went crazy viral? Yes. Yeah. It's yeah. And it's, it's amazing. I've actually had people like of other faiths see the message and convert to Christianity because of the message. And like, what's funny though, is I remember when we uploaded the gift of rejection message about a year and a half ago,

we just uploaded it. I didn't think anything about it at all. And I remember people started to text me, like just random people that I haven't talked to in years. We're like, I just saw this message. Oh my gosh, it blessed my life.

And I was like, really? And so I went to YouTube and I saw, I was like, how, how have you heard a thousand people seen this thing in like a week? How, how, how YouTube? Um, but God has been using it to heal people. And that's what let me know, okay, I need to write this in a book because you can only say so much in a 40 minute message, but there's so many layers to it. Um, that I decided then, okay, this is the message I think God wants me to write. What do you think you're most proud of as it relates to the book?

And

I am most proud of my honesty in the book because there's a temptation to curate yourself, right? To present yourself in the best light. But I'm really proud of my honesty because as people have started to read even like the manuscript and the sample chapters, they have already said, this has set me free from things I didn't even know I was still wrestling with. This has given me language for

pain that I could not even articulate. And I mean, look, you cannot address a pain that you can't name. You just can't. So once you have the language for it, now we can address it. So yeah, the vulnerability. And I've done a few interviews. One of the stories I tell in the book, I won't go into it too detailed now, but years ago, I had a procedure done

Because let me describe it this way. My father had a flat chest and a booty. My mom had the breasts, but she had no booty. I got my dad's chest and my mom's booty. So just flat, flat. Okay. And you know, nevermind. Right.

As a black woman, I got made fun of so bad because I didn't have a booty. So some years ago, I decided to get that procedure to try to get me a booty and-

That mug burned off in six months. It was gone. What do you mean it burned off? Listen, so it's a fat transfer procedure. Okay. Yeah. So they take fat from one place or multiple places and they put in your booty. Well, I work out a lot. And the doctor told me, he said, look, after you get this procedure, you cannot work out as hard as you do because you'll burn the fat. I was like, I'm not going to have a booty and be unhealthy. So I started working out and in six months,

It was gone. And through that experience, I learned a lot about insecurity. But I share that because I've done some interviews about that procedure and I've had people be like, I can't believe she's telling people that she's supposed to be a woman of God. How could she say? And I smile when that happens because I'm like, well, this message isn't for you.

Because I've had other women reach out to me and say, I was planning to get that procedure. And after hearing your story, I'm canceling it. And so that is what I'm proud of. It's just the honesty so that it could be a mechanism of awareness and insight for people.

So I know. OK, just remind us when it comes out, all of the things like are there any other ways that we can connect with you while you're sharing this message? I know people are probably going to go and watch the message for sure that went viral on YouTube. But how else can we get connected with the book?

Sure. So it comes out October the 1st and it's available on all the online platforms. You can connect with me on all my social media. I'm on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Nona Not Nora. You can connect with me there. But yeah, I'm just I'm excited for people to get the message and whatever God decides to do with it. I will rejoice because I know that he's going to get the glory. Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with me.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you. My pleasure. Evolve.

You could sit there and listen to ads, or you could take a moment to have a Diet Coke break. First, grab a chilled Diet Coke, because if you want it to be perfect, it needs to be crispy. Next, get a big cup of ice, because everyone knows Diet Coke is best served swimming in ice. Then, sip it slowly, feel that burn, and enjoy your break for as long as possible. When you need a break, don't forget to grab an ice-cold Diet Coke and take a Diet Coke break.

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Is Coke Zero Sugar the best Coke ever? Try and decide. Moments like seeing my son's team cheer him on mean a lot to me. But after being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, or MBC, which is breast cancer that is spread to other parts of the body, they mean even more. I take Ibrance, palbocyclib. Ibrance 125 milligram tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR positive HER2 negative MBC as the first hormonal-based therapy.

Thank you.

Thank you.