What happens when you’re exhausted from trying to control a life that keeps falling apart?

After divorce, grief, serious health challenges, and years of searching for his identity through achievement, Eli Brackenbury reached a turning point. He became still, surrendered control, and began building a personal relationship with God.

This week on The Shari Leigh Roberts Podcast, Eli shares how his faith in Jesus helped him find purpose beyond the expectations of the world—and inspired his book, Finding God at 50.

We explore the courage it takes to ask for help, the difference between religion and relationship, and how faith can offer peace even when life’s hardest questions remain unanswered.

If you’re navigating loss, starting over, or wondering what comes next, this conversation offers hope that your present circumstances don’t have to define the rest of your life.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Meet Eli Brackenbury

03:15 Surrendering Control and Finding Purpose

10:14 Divorce, Loss, and Turning Back to God

21:29 Religion, Identity, and the Struggles Beneath the Surface

32:06 Finding God at 50: Sharing His Story and Living His Faith

40:55 Finding Peace Through Tragedy, Grief, and Uncertainty

CONNECT WITH ELI

Explore his books and story: https://elibrackenbury.com

CONNECT WITH SHARI

Explore psychic medium readings, energy healing, and my memoir, Broken to Enlightened: https://shariroberts.org.

Connect with Shari:

Website

Linkedin

Instagram

Listen to all episodes - https://shariroberts.org/podcast

Watch or listen at - Https://youtube.com/@ShariRoberts-g4u

Also available on all major podcast platforms.

Subscribe and give us a thumbs up for more conversations about healing, intuition, and the magic on the other side of trauma. Share this episode with someone who could use a little hope.

#FindingPurpose #FaithAndHealing #ShariLeighRobertsPodcast #elibrackenbury #brokentoenlightened #findinggodat50 #podmatch #podcast #god

Welcome, survivors, seekers, and thrivers.

I'm your host, Shari Leigh Roberts, psychic medium, energy healer, and living

proof that you can transform your pain into power.

Each episode, we dive into trauma healing, developing your intuitive gifts, and

reclaiming your life. Get ready for real stories, deep wisdom, and a little

laughter along the way.

Hello and welcome

Eli

Brackenbury.

It is an absolute

honor to have

you.

So few

men are willing

to not only

admit they're

broken,

But to take that

heroic and difficult

journey towards

healing, welcome

and thank you for

for being here to talk about

your story.

Absolutely. I appreciate your invite.

I'm really looking forward to a good conversation that I hope

some listener will grab on to just

one thing in my story,

and I become kind of an answered prayer to what they're looking for in life

because I've been through so many different things that only the

grace of God has pulled me through.

So, I really look forward to our conversation, and thank you so much for

having me on.

Amen. For

any ladies

listening,

please tell your guy

or your guy friends,

any man you know,

to tune in to hear

what Eli has to

say.

You'll both be better

for it.

Eli I would

like to fill that

things up by

starting with you

sharing how you are

today.

Your thoughts, your

life just

doesn't have to

be long, but

tell us how you are.

Eli I am blessed. That's the first thing I can say is that

I am living a life that I didn't think was possible.

You know, I spent a better part of half a century trying to create this identity

and purpose in my life that was mine, that, you know,

from the time I was raised to the age of 50,

I struggled to find my identity and purpose in the world, to be fair,

and I faced many challenges and failures and

failures, which caused me as a man to say I must not be worthy of

a positive life.

And, you know, a lot of times here we are sitting at the 25th

anniversary of 9-11.

Okay, so I remember 25 years ago where I was when that

all happened, and a lot of times in a very historic event people can recall

where they were sitting in life when this happened.

And so when God came into my life and Jesus tapped me on the shoulder, it was

January 13th of 2024 in my life where he asked me

to surrender control of my life to him.

And it was a very uncomfortable thing because I was so used to

trying to control the outcome to put my hand up and say, you know, I got this,

God, I don't need your help right now.

I'm busy, you know, and busy is an acronym, which I can't recall where

I heard it, but buried under Satan's yoke, you know, if the devil can't make you

bad, he'll make you busy.

So your focus is never on him.

And so, you know, that day, January 13th, I paused, which is what he

asked me to do.

I became still.

I started to live intentionally.

And everything in my life changed significantly, personally, professionally,

financially.

Everything changed because I began to live with him at the front of my life.

He became first in my life.

And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it.

But it became a purpose, an identity built in Christ that

I would have never been able to build for myself.

So, there is a

lot of awesome things

to unpack.

Mm-hmm.

To a day and every

other day since

2024

and

surrendering,

which was one

of the most difficult

things in my

healing journey.

I mean, consciously,

we know God is in

control, but

for some reason,

probably ego,

we find it

nearly impossible

to surrender.

Yet, you

must, in order to

reap the

beautiful living

benefits.

Yet, what

preempted your

surrender and,

yeah, what?

We'll start there.

We'll start there.

So, you know what preempted it?

I was tired, you know, I think a lot of people turn to Christ in

desperation, number one.

Number two, they asked for something, meaning if you are real God, I really

need you here, perform for me.

You know, way back in the day, they asked Jesus to perform miracles to prove

that he was the son of God.

Yeah. And in this day and age, if you could just get me a whole bunch of

money to catch up on my bills, I would believe in you.

And that's not the way God works.

Right.

And I had just come to a point in my life where, you know, I was

making continual left-hand turns.

You know, I use this analogy a lot where if you make four left-hand turns, you

end up right back where you are.

And people are shocked, right?

They don't have that change in perspective of going right one time.

And so, I had just gotten to the point where I was very tired.

I was tired of struggle.

I was tired of anxiety.

I was tired of stress.

And so, I said, okay, let's try it.

Tell us about

your life, where you

were, to where you married.

Bring us into

your world and

what led you

back to God.

I am assuming you

grew up a Christian

and, like you

said, we were always

asking for

something.

So, this is kind of a funny story because January 12th, I

had just finalized my second divorce in life.

And I was facing this failure, a second failure, a very

damning failure, I guess you would look at as far as society goes.

And so, I had spent that day after my ex-wife had moved

out cleaning the house and tilting over furniture and vacuuming up dust bunnies

and cleaning walls and washing sheets and all the stuff.

And that night, I turned to social media for an escape, which I think a lot of

people do.

And I turned to TikTok, and my TikTok algorithm was set

to lighthearted things, funny things, jokes, pranks, stuff like that.

And when I opened it up, the first verse that came across to me was Psalm 4610,

which says, be still and know that I am the Lord your God.

And that had never come across my TikTok feed in the past, but it came across

then.

And so, you know, I liked the video because I liked the way it made me feel.

And the next verse that came across was Exodus 14, 14, which is very similar and

stating that, be still and I, the Lord your God, will fight your battles for

you.

And I promptly put my phone away because I was kind of freaked out a little bit,

you know, and because I wasn't quite ready for that.

And, you know, the next moment in my kitchen became the cover of Finding God at

50.

You know, as I brewed coffee in my kitchen and the Keurig is hissing at

me, that's where I felt this moment of peace, of calm, of

stability, where God was with me saying, this is

the time that I'm going to carry you.

And in retrospect, I look back that he was coming to me through social media

and telling me to be still and I'm going to take care of you.

And from the rest of the time forward, I surrendered my life to him because I

liked the way that he was taking control of my life.

Now, back to your original question, was I always raised that way?

I was raised in a traditional Catholic home.

My dad did a wonderful job raising the family in Catholicism, but it

didn't resonate with me.

It's not that I didn't agree with it.

I just didn't understand it as a child.

And so even even scripture talks about how, you know, when we are children, we

behave like children, we act like children.

And I was a child, so I didn't understand what Catholicism meant.

And so I had to grow up enough to find something that was sustainable for me.

And there's an old Scottish proverb that talks about for every mile of path,

there's two miles of ditch.

And each ditch is religion and rebellion.

And I think a lot of times people will bounce back and forth on the path, which

is relationship with Jesus Christ, to religion because that's right.

You know, we're always talking about religion is good.

I'm religious.

And rebellion where I can do what I want, say what I want, whenever I want, and

there's no consequence to that.

So we constantly cross this path that Jesus wants with us, which is relationship

with him.

And we go from religion to rebellion.

And I did that, too.

I grew up that way constantly.

And until I surrendered that part of my life to him, to that relationship aspect

that he called me to be,

nothing made sense.

I was facing these storms on a daily basis of, you know, little things that were

meant to test my faith that I didn't really have.

And so once I surrendered that point to him, I will trust you with my

life.

I was then able to get the blessings that he wanted for me, which wasn't an easy

process.

Definitely from a man's perspective, we don't like to surrender anything because

we're in control.

Surrender indicates weakness.

But that's not the case.

It is so empowering.

There's so much strength in saying, I need help.

I need help.

And to get help from Jesus is an incredibly empowering thing because he

will guide you in ways that nobody on earth will do for you.

Tell us

examples

of when,

okay,

you're talking in broad

terms.

And people

need to hear, hey,

what exactly

was happening

in your life

when, wow, you got

the message.

So, you said you're

divorced.

Tell us some other

central questions

that happened.

And they had ended up in

God speaking to

you.

Okay.

So, 2016, my mother passed away.

She went into open-heart surgery and never woke up.

Wow.

And, you know, and my brother and I and my dad, we kind of all went in singly

and, you know, said our goodbyes and said, we'll see you later.

And I remember very vividly in that time

where I kissed her hand and I said, I'll see you afterwards.

And she looked at my eyes and she said, make your mark.

And I didn't understand at the time, 10 years ago, what that meant.

So, so I said, I said, okay, yeah, you bet.

And, um, over the next few years, I ended up getting a bachelor's degree and

three master's degrees because she always thought that education was important.

But it didn't fulfill me, okay, so here's, here's a side, uh, from God

saying, make your mark, um, coming through my mother.

That wasn't what God had intended for me, but I ignored it.

I did what I thought, I thought was what God had wanted for me.

And I ended up, um, struggling with jobs, you know, um, I'd have a

job for a couple of years and then I'd move because I was trying to perform and

get a better one, to make more money, to provide for my family so that I could

compare myself to what the Joneses had.

Um, but that's not what God wanted for me either.

He didn't want me to compare myself to them.

He wanted me to be a better person through him.

And so I, I ignored that message from God, um, because I was always trying to

build a purpose and identity that I wanted.

And so he was always trying to talk to me throughout most of my life, but it

became very loud after my mother had passed away in 2016.

I had a serious bout of COVID in 2021 that almost killed me.

Wow.

And I lived through that.

And to me, if, if you're not dead, God's not done with you.

You know, every day you wake up from a coma and you got breath in your lungs and

your eyes are open, you're automatically blessed.

You're automatically blessed.

And so, you know, I, I ignored that part.

Like, okay, you woke me up.

That's awesome.

I'm alive.

I'm still going to try to strive to be the guy that the world wants me to be.

And I know that Jesus was sitting there going, you still don't get it, brother.

And so then, you know, those things happened.

Then I went through the second divorce and he was kind of like, now do you, are

you ready for me yet?

Because I'm tired of seeing you struggle.

I'm going to come in the door, not forcefully, but I'm going to, I'm going to

answer the knock on my own that you refuse to do it because you're, it's time.

It's time for you to do that.

I mean, so I, I had gone through a lot of these struggles that a lot of people

face.

And I ignored the message that God was trying to tell me because I was, I

was putting my hand up saying, it can't be you talking to me.

You know, this is, this is, nah, you're not talking to me right now.

And, and I, I, I got quiet and I got intentional and I got still.

And I said, okay, I'm ready to listen.

And I, the, the, he was talking to me the whole time.

And in retrospect, I look back on it and I just sort of giggle like, nah, okay,

well, I'm a reluctant child of yours.

This is just like an earthly kid, you know, so I'm not surprised.

Yeah.

We all are.

Yeah, very much.

Yeah, definitely.

Take us now.

To your childhood, it

sounds like you

had a good

family upbringing.

Yet, the

Catholicism, I

know, from others,

can be the

crux of the

issues.

It's, it's, it's kind of a hard determination to, you know, I, I don't

want to bash the religious part because it gave me, you know, and I know that's

not what you're doing.

And I, and I, and I feel like, you know, I, I want to be careful with that

because it gave me a strong foundation of who Jesus Christ was.

Okay.

Okay.

And, and, and my dad, my dad and I have had this conversation a couple of years

ago, uh, maybe three, maybe three years ago, he came to visit me

and he sat on my couch and, and, um, he said, you know, son, I, I, I just, I'm

worried about your soul.

And, and, and I said, um, well, how come?

And he said, well, you haven't been to the Catholic church in a long time.

And I said, okay.

And, and he said, you can come back.

You know, you haven't been excommunicated from the church.

I said, well, I understand.

And probably for the next hour, I had a conversation about relationship over

religion and where I was and what I believed.

And he sat there very, uh, interested and very engaged in what I was saying.

And he said, okay, he goes, I, your soul is protected.

That's all I care about.

And so I was very convicted in my faith and I felt very open and, and

transparent with him on that.

Um, going back to your question, my childhood was wonderful.

I have nothing bad to say about the way I was raised.

Um, you know, I, I played sports all through high school, uh, elementary

school.

When I was a little kid, my parents were very supportive, came to all the

events, um, had great friends.

Um, and my, my parents were friends with their parents and, um, they were solid

kids.

Um, um, and I was always exposed to something.

And, and my dad had said that you're going to play, basically you're going to

play every sport so that you, you're out, you, you don't get into trouble.

You know, idle hands are the, are the devil's workshop is what my dad used to

always tell me.

Yeah.

So, so I, I played sports all growing up, um, and then went off to college and

played sports there too.

Um, but they were always there for me.

My mom and my dad were always there for me.

They were fantastic, fantastic people.

Um, and I have a great relationship with my brother.

I did, you know, we had sibling rivalry, like every sibling does.

Um, but you know, we've, we're, we're, we've grown up, uh, very, very close.

I have a lot of respect for my brother.

He's a great man, uh, a God fearing man as well.

So, um, you know, so, so that, that sort of proof that we may,

we may not have understood what traditional religion was back

then.

But it gave us this ability to understand and love Jesus Christ now.

And without that, and I thank my dad, um, on the, on the conversation with, on

the couch and other times since then, I've thanked him without that foundation.

I would have never been able to be where I am today.

And I'm very, very grateful for that exposure that he gave me even at eight

years old.

So, this

is wonderful,

but also it

creates a conundrum.

How did you

become broken?

You're healthy, you're happy, you go

off to college.

What the heck happened?

I let the world define me.

Um, and, and I only know that because in retrospect, now that I have God as

my identifier, I see the shortcomings of what the world can do for

you if you let that identity come from the outside world.

And I think that's what allowed to, to break me, you know, it's, it's sort of

like, you know, I grew up, um, my background is I was a nurse for 10 years.

And, and, and so your body, yeah, your body will give you symptoms.

Um, and if you continue to ignore those symptoms, you will get a disease.

Yeah.

Okay.

That you have to address.

Yeah.

And so I, I look at my life and I look at the life pre Christ and I was getting

symptoms before Christ came into my life.

Um, I was lying to myself.

Um, denial was one of the things, um, you know, I go back to, like I said, when

my mom died and she said, make your mark.

I tried to define what that mark should be.

Um, and what, what God was saying through my mother is to make your mark on the

world.

And that became becoming a faith-based writer.

That was what the goal was in the end.

But in 2016, I, I had not accepted Christ into my heart yet.

So the identity that God had for me hadn't been planted in my heart.

So I was trying to make the mark on my own, which I thought meant get

overeducated, you know, get all these degrees, make the world proud of you, have

all of these titles.

And that was, that's one example.

Um, what were your

illnesses that you

had that were coming out?

Sure.

Sure.

Sure.

So, uh, I went to nursing school in 2011, 2011,

uh, two, two, 2009, uh, I was diagnosed as a type two diabetic.

Um, a very noncompliant one.

Um, 2013, I was, uh,

I had a mass on my pancreas.

Yes.

And, um, and, uh, coupled with type two diabetes, that is potentially in

jaundice.

Okay.

That you, you Google all those symptoms.

You could have pancreatic cancer.

It turns out I had a obstructing, um, gallstone.

And so I, I had that taken care of.

And then I had an infectious, uh, gallbladder after that gallstone was

removed.

So I was in the hospital for six weeks, which ultimately shut my kidneys down in

2013.

And so I faced these kind of diseases at first.

Um, then I got COVID because of my diabetes in 2021.

Um, and you know, I, I, I just decided in

2021 that I needed to do something or else I was going to die, you know, because

I couldn't control weight.

I was 400 pounds.

Um, I, I didn't have the, the willpower to stop eating food.

I was a food addict because my life was sort of out of control.

It was the only thing I could control, which was the food in front of me.

Um, so I went and had my stomach cut in half and lost 150 pounds.

Everything since then has been found fantastic.

Um, blood sugar is under control.

Um, I'm essentially a non-medicated diabetic now.

Um, blood pressure is fantastic.

Cholesterol is fantastic.

And I think through all of these things, as I look back, I'm not dead yet.

There's a reason why I, why God hasn't taken me off the face of the planet.

And I, you know, I had a cancer scare.

I had a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer scare.

And, um, all of these things have led to the point where I'm not through with

you.

Put your faith in me and I'm going to carry you through all of the things that

you've been through and all the things that you will go through.

So I stopped, I ignored those early on in, you know, from 2009 to

2021, I, I ignored those things and thought, well, I'm going to roll the dice.

And I'm going to let me control the outcome of these things.

And then in 2024, I, I said, I'm, I'm done trying to control it because

I still had the financial issues.

I still had the job issues.

I still had the directional problems.

I didn't know what my identity and purpose was, but when he gave me those,

everything became clear.

I had gotten out of the health scares and now I was getting into the purpose

that he had for me, which is to write books, to spread this message of how I

relied on God to get through these things.

And, and we do this, we can do this.

If you just surrender the idea that you don't control anything in your life.

And I know that's a very simple way to put that.

And that's why the books are outlined the way they are.

You have to take steps in order to do it, to accomplish those things.

Excellent segue I,

too, am an author wrote a

memoir that

is not easy

either.

It is another

difficult step

in a healing

journey to speak

our truth and tell

our story.

Tell us

about your first

book and how

that came to

be.

Well, that, that actually is easier than I thought it would be.

And, and, um, as, as my life became a little bit more clear

in the purpose and identity that he gave in me, I started to outline

finding God at 50.

You know, because I think a lot, I think a lot of people, when they get into the

midlife, whether that's, you know, 50, 55, 45, maybe they, they've raised kids

as I have.

And, um, they're out of the house.

They've reached a empty nest phase and they wonder what their purpose is.

And I thought that kind of my story, the struggles that I had gone through,

you know, loss of my mother, the health issues, um, grief, loss, uh, divorce.

That's another thing that I think a lot of people will go through.

And I started outlining the story of, of how God intervened in those things and

healed me as, um, a man, a father.

Uh, and I thought the story would be very relevant to the world.

And I wrote the first eight chapters or so.

And I let my, my now wife read them.

And she's a very devout reader.

She reads all the time.

And she, she took a look at it and, and she said that, well, this story isn't

finished, is it?

And I said, I don't think so.

I said, do you think it's a story worth sharing?

And she said, no, yes, you have to keep going with this story because it would

affect a lot of people.

Yeah.

And, you know, so I did.

And, and that goes back to when you are given the purpose and identity through

Christ, you're going to know exactly what you were made for when you were knit

in your mother's womb.

The one that you thought you needed and created for the X amount of years you've

been alive is no more.

You were reborn in the eyes of Christ and that purpose becomes very clear.

And so for me, when I talk about, oh, that wasn't hard at all.

It was hard.

It was hard because I had to put my faith out there, which I didn't know how

people were going to take it.

But, you know, like this conversation, like any other podcasts I've been on, my

hope is that either the book or the message is an answered prayer to somebody

I've never met who is sitting there wondering.

I can't talk about the struggles I'm having, but I'm going to listen to this

because I can do it in silence or I'm going to buy this book because maybe it'll

resonate with me.

I mean, the book is written a lot like this conversation is because it's very

down to earth.

It's not theoretical.

It's in lived experience.

And I'm not a celebrity.

I'm not, you know, I don't have all these endorsements that make me live my life

free.

I work 40 hours a week.

You know, I have bills and obligations.

And I just feel like I was called to provide

a message of hope to people that may not have it.

And that's my purpose.

That's the purpose that God gave me 2024 said, now that you're here, let's

make your mark.

Let's make the mark that I tried to convey through your mother.

Now you get it.

Now you're listening.

Let's do it.

So, you hear God,

you hear Him, like you

go about your day, or

do you meditate?

Or how do you

hear or feel or see

or connect with

Him?

I keep my mind open.

Okay.

So, I will say that is a general statement.

You know, we kind of talked about it before.

But every morning, you know, a lot of times people wake up and they say it's

Monday.

I don't want to go to my job.

And so, their day automatically starts off with aggravation.

And I approach it a little differently.

And I was that guy, okay, so I'm not knocking anybody that does that, man or

woman, I understand.

But I wake up and my eyes are open, breath in my lungs.

I give thanks to God.

I tell God I love Him.

And I say, what is your will for me today?

Whatever that is, let's do it together.

I don't ask for Him to appear to me because then I'm asking a demand

of my Savior, which is the wrong approach.

So, if there's going to be something that He shows me, let it happen.

What does that look like?

I have no idea.

You know, but I will use an example where, you know, I was going to work last

week.

And I stopped into a convenience store before I kind of got back on the

road.

And it was probably a few minutes stop.

And when I got back on the road, there was an accident at a traffic light that

had I not stopped, I would have been in that accident.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, is that God talking to me?

Yes.

I don't know.

I mean, I would say yes.

I was protected at that point.

Yes.

Did I hear the voice of God say, stop at Circle K and you need to stop

here?

I didn't hear that.

But I thanked Him for the stop and I prayed everybody was okay in that

accident.

But, you know, I don't meditate.

I pray a lot.

I pray a lot.

Sometimes I pray out loud.

Sometimes I pray in silence because I think the power of prayer is real.

Because He and I have that relationship where it's like an open text message

thread that if I felt like, quote, texting Him, I could.

And He hears me and I hear Him.

Yeah.

Not literally, but figuratively.

He will answer the prayers that you request of Him in His time.

That's the other thing.

If it was really simple to put coins in a prayer vending machine, one, the line

would be miles long.

Yeah.

You know, where you put in 50 cents and you pull the arm and you get your prayer

answered.

That's not how God works.

Waiting in God's waiting room allows you to rely on the faith that you have or

don't have in Jesus Christ.

They will be answered in His time and His timing is never wrong.

It's always perfect.

So many important

things that you

said.

God, I'm not even going to

try to

recreate

or recreate that.

I understand.

I understand.

You brought up 9

-11 earlier

tonight.

And I'd like to

go there and talk

about that a little

bit.

Or your spirit

team wants us

to go there if

you have time.

I do.

Let's do it.

Okay. Where were

you? And how

old? Well, you were young.

Twenty...

Twenty-eight.

Yeah.

I'll tell you exactly where I was.

I had gone through my first divorce.

And I was in an apartment. It was kind of an H apartment

where there was four living units, a bathroom on each side, and a shared

kitchen and living

room.

Where?

Yeah.

I remember.

It was in Boise, Idaho.

Okay.

Boise, Idaho.

And I was sitting in bed before work.

And I had a little console TV on a couple of milk

crates. And I had turned on the TV to wake up.

And I was on the Today Show. And I remember

Jane Pauley talking about... It had been breaking news when the first plane had

hit the tower.

And they didn't know what was going on.

And I sat there watching it. And I thought, holy

moly. I mean, this is kind of crazy.

I mean, I think 25 years ago, nothing like that had happened.

Right.

And I think today, stuff like that happens, but maybe not to that degree.

I mean, we're

in a different day and age.

Yeah.

But I remember very well what I was doing, where I was, how I felt about it.

I was really

scared. I remember my dad saying to me, I fear for the world that your kids

are going

to grow up in.

Yeah.

And so, in 2001, I had a four-year-old.

And my other two kids hadn't been born yet.

So,

you know, now I've got that four-year-old is now 29.

And I've got a 23 and a 21-year-old.

And so, his statement back to me back then, very, very, very true.

You know, now they're

growing up in the days of AI. I don't even want to talk about that.

So, I mean, it's

It's a very scary time for sure. I do of

course remember that

thought a dear

friend may have been

on a flight

from Europe to

New York City that

day.

My then husband came

in, woke me up, and said,

we are under

attack.

The plans, the tower, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, my God.

So, horror.

Well, my girlfriend turned

out to still be in Europe

unaware of what

had happened.

Now, one year

later, I am

watching, you know,

ABC News

interview survivors

of

that day

two

different

groups

one

were

believers

in a

higher

power

the other

no

okay

Okay.

The ones...

Like not at all?

Not believers at all?

No.

Okay.

Go on.

They were still asking

why, what their

lives were a damn

mess.

The believers, though

still

traumatized,

were moving

on in

love and belief that they

their loved ones were

in heaven, and it was all good.

They missed them, but carried

God's

love right right right

yeah yeah let me look so let me let me say this so

um

um I was on I was on a podcast uh with a podcaster in seattle um it

was a live podcast I'd never done

that before and so I'm you know giving my testimony and and and it was great it

was fantastic

and there was a a listener that texted in and said you

know this is bullcrap um I I am a believer

I've done all the things and my wife died of cancer and

uh my mom just passed away of cancer as well

I did all the things if God was real this wouldn't have happened and the host

says to me

the host says to me what do you say to that and I

said you know I I really don't know what to say

and and I I said I will tell you this story I said you know my mom and dad

knew each other

since they were eight years old they were all they ever knew and um they

emulated love respect

compassion humility um they taught my brother and I what a

loving relationship was all about

um they supported us growing up they gave us a foundation in Jesus Christ and

then God put down

his finger and said I'm going to take the one and only woman you know and

take her away from me

why would he do that why is there death in the world

why is there child molestation why is there

rape murder why are these things occurring and the only thing I

can say and I'll just speak for my

personal story is that I don't know what God's plan is for my family and

I couldn't definitely tell

you what the plan is for the world why did these terrible things happen on 9-11

I have no idea

but for those group of believers they know that their family is in heaven

and they're going to see

them someday and what I will say for the group of non-believers is that I pray

for them I pray for

them because there's a certain level of peace that my dad found even as a

catholic okay he found a level

of peace that he could deal with that loss and he wouldn't have found that

without Christ in his life

you know I I can't explain the things of this world so I've stopped trying and I

got out of that I got out

of that lane and I went into the lane this the narrow path to righteousness

where it's not it's very

narrow and there's not a lot of people I know on it but it's the one that

provides me peace and

comfort and I'm okay with that I'm okay with that because I went down the path

of destruction which

is full of you know party lights and music I enjoy and all my friends are there

maybe maybe and I I it

didn't sit with me you know so we don't we can't answer the things of this

world and why things

happen if we could we'd be God and I wouldn't want that responsibility I

wouldn't want that

responsibility at all what

I have come to know

is that our

souls choose

lives lives where

we learn and experience

certain things

and that helps

our souls

grow

grow yeah I mean it's

horrific and awful in

a lot of ways but

when you look at it through

that lens

and also stand in

God's loving light

and look at it yeah

under stand yeah yeah and

you said it great there where

you have to look at it from the from the lens of Jesus Christ and God's love

number one I mean every storm

runs out of rain hurricanes have a season they pass they're meant to

destroy so that you can rebuild

and if you look at it through God's lens I mean even the flood in genesis was

meant to cleanse the world

of wrongdoing so that you could rebuild and there's a rainbow there's a

rainbow at the end of that and so

you just have to you have to think of that from that lens that you talked about

so eloquently that

look at it from the lens of Jesus look at it from the lens of God's love and you

can get through anything

if you choose

to look at it that

way step out of

you're not a victim of your circumstance that's the other thing I want to say

too is your circumstance

are just part of who you are um they don't define you and I spent a long time

thinking that I was a

victim that all of these things were only happening to me and um you know like I

said earlier I I spent

the better part of half a century thinking I was a victim and no they were all

meant to teach me

something and when I when I stopped long enough to understand what the lesson

was

oh then I began to understand it from a different perspective and so that would

encourage anybody

listening right now just to sit there and think what are you trying to teach me

and you might roll your

eyes and that's totally fine you might go what are you trying to teach me well

just just just stop and

listen it's like third grade all over again I don't know how to spell

hippopotamus you know but but

pause for a second sound it out and think what is God trying to teach you here I

mean he is a loving

heavenly father he's not going to let you struggle he's not going to forsake you

he's not going to

abandon you and I trusted that concept late in life and um he I mean

he he he came when I was ready

and he fulfilled every promise that he's ever promised me and I look forward to

the promises that are yet to

come tell us your books

and how people

can connect with

you yeah very very easy call to action um

elibrackenbury.com is the best way to kind of read about the books that are

available

um there's books coming you can read the description on that website

about what's coming um Shari and I

talked briefly before she started hitting record about one I just submitted to

publish uh called the

restoration of man it's a it's a great book um that is meant to be walked

and not just read I believe that

men and women are given God-given roles in every relationship whether you're

bound in marriage or not

and when when a man struggles and women pick up a role that they're not meant to

carry that creates

some friction so um but if you go to elibrackenbury.com you can kind of check

out the books and when they

become available they'll be ready um finding God at 50 is available now um

this if this conversation

resonated with you the finding God at 50 book will resonate just as well um

there's a contact me link on

there I love interacting with people um click on it email me you can tell me I'm

full of garbage that's

okay too um but if you're on a walk and you don't know which way to go I'm happy

to converse with

you and help you out thank

you for listening if today's conversation resonated with you and you're

ready to explore your own healing journey or intuitive gifts I'd love to work

with you I offer

psychic medium readings energy healing sessions and intuitive development

guidance at shariroberts.org

and if you're not quite ready for a session but want to be a part of the

conversation in a

supportive community join my private Facebook group the link is in the show

notes you can also connect

with me on LinkedIn Facebook and Instagram this is Shari Leigh Roberts until

next time remember you're never alone