BW 019: Learning to Serve after a Tragic Loss - with Sheyna James

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The Transcript is below.

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Sheyna James is extremely transparent and authentic. She has overcome tragic loss and uses that time of her life to help others who are going through difficult times to discover God's unique purpose and divine destiny as disciples of Jesus. She was a widow and single mom of two boys for 13 years, and recently was blessed to find love again.

She is now married to Anthony James and they are a blended family with six children. Sheyna is a certified coach, speaker and trainer with John Maxwell team and the owner of Top Dots Digital Marketing Agency.

 

We talk about:

-the fear of loving again

-it's okay to be where you are

-blocking off time for yourself

 

Quotes:

"Feel the feels, that's the only way you're gonna get out of it."

"You cannot keep filling everybody's cup from empty. You have to take care of yourself."

"It's okay to be where you are. I think so many times people are trying to pull us so quickly out of our grief that we don't have the time to properly grieve so that we can move on."

 

You can find Sheyna at:

sheynajamesconsulting.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachSheyna

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The Brave Widow Community is a place where you can connect with other widows, find hope and healing, and begin to dream again for the future.  Learn more at bravewidow.com.  

 

Hey guys, I’m Emily Jones

 

I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary.  Nathan and I have four beautiful children together.  My world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.  With faith, community, and wisdom from others, I’ve been able to find hope, joy, and dream again for the future.  I want to help others do the same, too!

 

FOLLOW me on SOCIAL:

Twitter @brave_widow

Instagram @brave_widow

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bravewidow

YouTube@bravewidow

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 Transcription:

Emily Jones: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 19 of The Brave Widow Show. Today I talk with Sheyna James, who really is a woman after my own heart. She loves leadership. She loves serving others and she's a real go-getter. I think you are absolutely gonna love Sheyna's story and some of the bits of wisdom that she has to share with us today.

So let me introduce her. Sheyna James is extremely transparent and authentic. She has overcome tragic loss and uses that time of her life to help others who are going through difficult times to discover God's unique purpose and divine destiny as disciples of Jesus. She was a widow and single mom of two boys for 13 years, and recently was blessed to find love again.

She is now married to Anthony James and they are a blended family with six children. Sheyna is a certified coach, speaker and trainer with John Maxwell team and the owner of Top Dots Digital [00:01:00] Marketing Agency. You can find Sheyna at all of her links, which we'll include in the show notes as well [email protected].

All right, let's dive in. I can't wait for you to hear her story.

Welcome back to another episode of The Brave Widow Show, Sheyna. I am so glad that you've joined me here today. Excited. So, thank you for joining me.

Sheyna James: Oh, thank you, Emily, so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it.

Emily Jones: Absolutely. Well, for our listeners and our viewers, I think Sheyna and I, we connected several weeks ago and nerded out.

I'm pretty sure about John Maxwell and his material. So if you're also a fellow John Maxwell fan, you can nerd out with us as well at some point. But Sheyna, people are not here for that. Why don't you share a little bit about your background and what you do, and then we can dive into your story.

Sheyna James: Yeah, so [00:02:00] actually I have a very diverse background.

I consider myself to be a little. Rare, I have a degree in electrical engineering. I have a Master's in business and a Master's of Divinity. I pastor a church in San Jose, California, and then I also do executive coaching, speaking and training for leaders in corporations, public and private entities all over the world.

Emily Jones: And you look fantastic as you're doing that too.

Sheyna James: Well, thank, thank you.

Emily Jones: Yeah, I remember when I was speaking with you just how impressed I was at how much you've accomplished, and I think about, especially of a lot of the younger or newer widows that I get to speak with, and they're really, those first few months and year, you're kind of in a haze.

How am I gonna survive this? How can I ever laugh again? How can I be excited about the future? And so I'm really encouraged to be able to allow you to share your story so that people can see [00:03:00] how that transformation is possible. And maybe for them even to be able to work with you or learn more from you about what that looked like.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about if you wanna start even at the beginning with how you met your spouse or what your relationship was like? I think people would love to know.

Sheyna James: Yeah, so my my husband Jeff was my best friend. We started off, I met him when I was 21 years old, and he was my bible study teacher.

And we connected immediately. We started doing work in the community. We were friends for five years, never dated. And then one day he got down on one knee in front of a room full of girls that I was leading in a workshop. It was 60 girls. He gets down on one knee, they're all yelling and screaming. I can't hear him.

I just see the ring and I'm like, whatever it is. Yes. So we basically had a community style relationship, which means everybody in the circle that we were serving, a lot of high school, college aged students were just [00:04:00] like a part of the process. They were bridesmaids, groomsmen. And then we were married and had married six months later two years later, had our first son, and then two and a half years later had our second.

So, I mean, life was just amazing. I mean, it was everything that I hoped it would be. He was pastoring the church. We were running a nonprofit in the community. My favorite thing at the time, basketball. So I was coaching basketball. We were running a basketball league. We were helping kids get off the street who were in gangs and helping them just come to know Jesus and transform their lives.

So it was really an amazing experience, really, really.

Emily Jones: Oh, that is so incredible. So on the nonprofit work, you worked with some of the youth that was there in the city.

Sheyna James: Well, I mean, we worked with high school and college age students. Many of them were kind of not doing anything with their lives, but they just loved basketball.

So they would come hang out with us, and then we would do a, they in order to play, it wasn't a fee. You had to attend a workshop. And there we taught life [00:05:00] skills. We were able to help them to come to know Jesus in some cases. And then from that is how we started our church. We found a lot of those kids were giving their life to Christ, but they didn't know where to go.

They were like, we don't feel comfortable. So we had a church where you could show up in your flip flops, your sweatpants, your pajamas if you wanted to, and learn about Jesus. And that was the founding of our church, which it'll be 23 years old this year, actually.

Emily Jones: Oh, that is so amazing.

And that's one of the things that I think is almost rare now, is to find churches that are really active out in the community, that are really reaching out to people and making them feel comfortable to be there. Like churches are generally filled with broken people, and sometimes we think perfect people are in church, but a lot of the times it's because we know that we need help. So it's great to see that you guys were so active in the community that you were able to build your own church together. How long were you married before you ended up losing him?

Sheyna James: So we [00:06:00] were married for seven years. It was about a month shy of our eight year anniversary.

And . What happened was, it was, it was a normal Sunday morning, I wake up and I hear the sounds of giggling and laughter in my bed. My two-year-old at the time was just laughing and I heard his daddy, say, Gobi, gimme some sugar. And so he was laughing and they rubbed noses together, like Eskimo kisses, and my younger son was like, Schmos daddy, more schmos meaning more Eskimo kisses.

And so I was in the bed saying to myself, this is, I'm the most blessed woman in the world. I mean, really to have a great husband, to have two amazing children. And my husband said, Hey, you know what? Get some rest. I'm gonna go ahead and get the kids together, take them to church. And so, he took them to church that morning.

And when we got to church, my husband preached this fiery message. It was like, get up and get in the game and serve. And he was like, I'm gonna preach. I'm gonna preach. Somebody's gonna hear about Jesus today. And I was like, come [00:07:00] on through, baby boy. He is like preaching. And after he came out of the pulpit, he came to me and he says, you know what?

I kind of feel like I have to throw up. I'm, and I was like, well, go ahead, take care of yourself. I'm gonna come back and check in on you in a little bit. And about 15 minutes later I went in and I found my husband completely just unconscious on the ground and I was like, what is happening? And so we quickly called 9 1 1.

They came and they rushed him to the hospital. And when I get to the hospital, the doctor comes out and he says, Mrs. Heard, I'm sorry to tell you, but your husband has passed away. And I'm like, what just happened? It was literally less than an hour from the time he preached that sermon that the doctor said that.

And I was like, God, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I did get on my knees in that moment because I had lost my mom and my dad at that point, and I had been angry in the past so much. But in that moment I got on my knees and I said, Lord, I still love you, Lord. I still [00:08:00] trust you and Lord, I'll still serve you.

Hmm. But it took me a while, , it took me a while cuz I had been to grave sites and that was just hard for me. It took me a while to kind of go to the grave where he was buried. And during that time it was about six months. During that time, I felt like I was walking in a haze. I had, I felt like all my hopes, all my dreams, everything that I'd ever wanted in life was gone.

Like it was shattered. And the Lord kinda pushed me and said, go visit him at the grave site. And I was like, this is not, I mean, some people are good with that. It was not my thing. And I went and I started looking around at all of the, the headstones and I remembered a quote from Miles Monroe, which says, one of the wealthiest places in all of the Earth is not diamond mines, oil fields, or banks.

It's the cemetery cuz he said in the cemetery lie, dreams that were never [00:09:00] realized. Books never written, songs, never written businesses that never got started. And I looked and saw my husband's headstone and said to myself, wait a minute. Even though we got the double headstone, there was a space for me. I was like, I ain't in that thing yet , and it kind of kicked this thing into me where like, I can dream again. Like it's okay. Maybe my dream got shattered, maybe the way I thought my life was gonna be completely got flipped upside down, but I'm gonna dream again. So I decided to just say, well, what is the dreams that lie in my heart for me and for my children?

 And because of that, I started pastoring the church where he was. So I actually do teach leadership now for people who are going through personal crisis and, and professional crisis. Like how do we work through that? I started pastoring the church. We tripled the church. We quadrupled the income of the church.

We met, one of our largest goals was to get into a building cuz we were mobile for a long time. I raised up seven new pastors and leaders. Within two [00:10:00] years after him dying. And I was like, what in the world God is going on? It was only by the grace of God, but I realized that my dreams weren't done Since then, it's been almost 15 years.

I've written six books. I've, just things that I could not have ever dreamed about before having, being with my husband. Completely different now and I'm so, I'm not glad. I'm never glad that my husband passed, cuz he is still my best friend. Still the love of my life, but I'm grateful to the Lord with how I've come out stronger, wiser, and better because of that situation, God didn't waste my grief.

Emily Jones: I think that's such an important point because one of the platitudes people will say is, well, everything happens for a reason, or This was all in God's plan and I don't think that's always the case. I think no, we have free will. We live in a broken world and I think it's okay to say sometimes [00:11:00] bad things happen.

Yeah. I don't think your husband had to die for you to make a positive impact on the world, but I think it's such a beautiful and incredible thing to be able to say that you are going to take a tragedy and I'm gonna take a tragedy and instead of bearing ourselves under our covers, which we have every right to do. We're gonna say, how do we make a positive impact? How do we take this and create something good out of it? Even though it was something very bad. And I know I can think of so many widows right now that they're in that first six months, one year, 18 months, and they're thinking to themselves, it's what you're saying sounds so great and feels so impossible.

And let's say you hadn't yet had that moment of being, in the cemetery and thinking about your dreams, what would you say to somebody who's feeling [00:12:00] like, oh, it's hopeless and I don't know if there's a future for me. Is there anything that you would share with them.

Sheyna James: I would say it's okay to be where you are.

I think so many times people are trying to pull us so quickly out of our grief that we don't have the time to properly grieve so that we can move on. If you are in those early stages, six months to a year, feel what you feel. Don't try to feel what people are telling you to feel. And one thing that used to make me mad is that people would say, well, you ought to be over it by now.

I'm never gonna get over it. I, I'm 15 years post having lost my husband. It'll be 15 years this October, so 14 and a half years, and I still ain't over it. I, I've, I've got a new normal, I've learned how to live life in a different way, but I'm not over it. So it, that's kind of one of my pet peeves with people who grieve.

Like, don't tell us to get over it. So I say Have your feelings and lean into 'em, cry, [00:13:00] experience what you're experiencing. I didn't have the ability to lay in the bed and not get out for a long period of time. I had a child who was two and just turned three, two days after his dad passed. And I had a five-year-old.

They needed to eat, they needed to go to school, and I needed them not to be falling apart because if I saw them falling apart, it was gonna be too difficult. So, What I did was I took care of them. So if you're in that stage and you have children, or you have responsibilities, get up and do what you gotta do.

Block off some time for yourself. When they went to school, I would take an hour or two hour and I'd just cry and I'd just be sad and I'd just look at pictures and I'd just pray and I'd just, and then I'd. Suck it up and I would get up and do whatever I had to do. Not everybody has the ability to just suck it up.

Some people, you, it's too, it's, they're just different and they have too many things going on, and the emotions are too deep. Feel the feels, that's the only way you're gonna get out of it. And I, I say it like this, if, if you've ever been downhill skiing, which I have, and I am [00:14:00] awful at it, but I've done it.

One thing that I had a person who mentored me, he was a widower and he he was a friend of my husband, so when I became a widow, he grabbed me and was like, anything you need. But what he told me was, he said, if you've ever been downhill skiing, you know that when you look down that hill, it's big and it's scary.

He says, whatever you do, don't lean back. Cuz if you lean back from the big and scary, you're gonna fall. It's gonna be hard to get down the hill. He said, in order to get down, go downhill skiing, in order to get down the hill, you gotta lean in. So he was like, lean into your pain, feel it. Journal about what you're going through.

Journal your feelings, journal your emotions. Tell God you're mad. Tell God you're angry. Say every God's big enough to handle all your emotions, but lean into that. Don't run away from it. So if you're six months to a year in. , I would say do that and biggest thing, don't make any major decisions in my opinion.

If you can avoid 'em, sometimes you don't have a choice, but if you can avoid, don't make any major, major decisions during that [00:15:00] first year cuz you're so emotional. There's a lot that's happening. You don't need to deal with it, but it's okay, after that year, not to say that this is the time point, change it.

Then there's some things that we, we talk about how to lean in in a more healthy way that you can do. But the first year I say go through it. Now. I'm not a grief coach like you, Emily, so you may have different, different way to get through it, but that's how I got through it. I leaned in, I let myself feel it.

I let myself experience the hurt and, and I would package it and say, here's my space to deal with it, and here's my space to handle my kids, and I would move on.

Emily Jones: That is such a beautiful analogy, the downhill skiing, and I may have to credit you and steal it for future purposes, but you're so right it's very common in coaching.

They'll say the only way out is through and you cannot numb only certain emotions. Like you can't numb yourself from feeling pain and sadness and be able to feel joy and happiness. That's just not the way that our bodies [00:16:00] work. So it is important for people to be able to really lean into the pain.

Hold onto those things and I just read a book, the Grief Recovery Handbook, and one of the things that said that I thought was really powerful is that, when you're showing up and you're listening to people and say, somebody's sharing, and even it's, it's painful and it's awkward and they're crying and they feel bad and you feel bad is not to touch or hug them or do anything to break that moment , because touch interrupts emotions, thoughts, and feelings. And I hadn't thought about that before because culturally we're so quick to comfort, to sooth, to tell people it'll be okay. We don't like for people to just sit in the sadness. But as I reflect, like that's all I wanted somebody to do for me, is just let me be sad and not try to make me feel better.

Sheyna James: It's kind of weird because I have [00:17:00] a new principal that's come out of my grief journey now. Like I said, I had, I had lost my mom and my dad before. That journey was different than losing someone so connected to you as your spouse, but journey's nonetheless. Since I've gone through this journey with losing my husband, as a pastor, people think I'm weird, but I don't contact you until at least a week and a half to two weeks after the person's death. I'll have other people in our church contact you. But let me explain why. Because what happens is, is during that first week and a half to two weeks, everybody bring you food.

Well, at least in the black culture, we eat so much. I was like, but half the time you don't want to eat cuz you can't eat. Refrigerators are full of food. People come through the house left and right, people got issues with how you did this or that, and just all kinds of drama. And then two weeks after you're left by yourself in that home with the empty space in your bed.

And nobody is thinking [00:18:00] about you or checking on you. They all care about getting through the funeral. They don't care about you gotta now live a whole new life. So I wait to call just to listen, just to say, how are you? what do you feel? It's okay to feel what you feel because people, and I don't think it's bad.

I think people need to jump in and do those things in the first two weeks. It's not my place because I feel like what I do is so much deeper. Like the calls two weeks after, three weeks after four weeks, a month, two months after, are to me more important because nobody called me like that. Nobody picked up the phone.

I had family and they would say, how you and the boys doing, and it was always how you and the boys, well, wait, can we just talk about how am I doing? Like I am awful right now. And I know you care about my kids, but somebody needs to help me. And just dealing with my own personal experience and still having to, by the way, the night my husband died.

our, our board, the Lord called me to pastor and [00:19:00] our board said, I need, we need you to run the church until we can figure out what to do. And then two weeks later, they officially hired me as the senior pastor and I was like, I don't wanna be a senior pastor. I didn't wake up in the world to say one day I'm gonna be a senior pastor.

So I told 'em, I'll give a year and then y'all can do what you want to it. It's, it's been almost 15 years. I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere. But the point of it was you're not just dealing with your grief. You have children and they're, they're, they still have to go to school. They still have responsibilities, sports, all these different things.

You still have to deal with finances, which, the financial side of dealing with someone post-death, especially like in my case, because it was wasn't like he had been sick or, so it was a, it was in just, he was fine that morning and died that afternoon. Luckily we had a lot of stuff in place, but still working through all of that, social security and realizing like, you gotta go file Social Security.

I'm like, I ain't never did nothing with Social Security or the government like this. I don't know how to [00:20:00] do this. Just all of these details and you're planning a funeral, all these details, you're stuck in the moment and you have to do, but you're still feeling what you're feeling. And that's why you're in a I I think that's why the haze hits because in order to get stuff done, I can't really deal with everything that's going on.

It was six weeks after my husband passed, before I really, really cried. I mean, I cried the first couple weeks, but I mean like deep guttural, God, this is awful. Cry. And it was because I went away on a trip. Took my boys, put them in daycare at the hotel for four hours, cried profusely for four hours, picked them up, went to the pool and act like everything was great.

But I had to, I had to have that. And needing someone to sit with you, I, I didn't, my closest family members didn't know how to do that. They care, but they didn't know how. So that's why I think what you're doing is so important. Having a coach who could, when I went through this 15 [00:21:00] years ago, we didn't, I didn't know nothing about a coach who could walk me through my grief.

I had nothing. So I would say use these resources. I've been reading your, your newsletters, Emily, they are so encouraging. Even if it's just, if you have a subscribed to Emily's newsletter, subscribe because her articles are so encouraging and it takes me back to places that I was when I was a widow, and I'm so glad she's writing them because I couldn't find people to write stories about it.

I couldn't find 15 years ago, there weren't people who were like, let me help you through being a widow. There weren't I, I didn't know how to be a pastor as a woman. I was a woman who was a pastor and a widow and a single mom. Now the single mom, there was a lot more people I knew, but the other three, I didn't know anybody.

So, so I mean, I was searching. So yeah, get the help, go to Emily, write her, call her, get involved in her program. Do whatever you've gotta do. But we need help to get through this, and if you're dealing with something from a professional standpoint, for me, I had my personal crisis of I'm a [00:22:00] widow, but I also now have a corporate crisis from the church.

I'm dealing with grief in the church and I'm dealing with leading in organization while I'm bleeding. And if you're dealing with that, then you reach out to me like, man, I'll help you deal with that. But she'll help you deal with the, the crisis of being a widow. I'll help you deal with how do you lead well as you go through these crisis.

Emily Jones: Thank you for that. And I did not pay Sheyna to say that, by the way. That was just her, her kind feedback. But so many good things to unpack there. I have just found that for whatever reason, especially culturally here in the US , we don't know how to deal with grief. I heard somebody say it like, we live our life with our backs towards death until it comes around and slaps us in the face. And we don't know what to say or how to help, and you find this big gap between people who wanna help and don't know how, and people who need the help and don't wanna accept it or feel bad about [00:23:00] asking for help. And it is those moments after that first one to two weeks where everyone goes radio silent.

I was very fortunate I had a couple of friends or acquaintances, and it was not the people I was expecting who were very persistent in reaching out and asking and just doing, showing up, sending stuff, just letting me know, like assertively inserting themselves into my lives because they knew like I was retreating.

I was just trying to hold it all together. And I was working and dealing with four kids and trying to learn how to cook well for the first time cuz my husband did all those types of things. And it, it's really challenging. So being there for someone, especially after those first couple of weeks, is so important.

Just taking care of them, letting them process their own thoughts and feelings. Especially in a role where you're taking care of other people. How did you do this? Taking [00:24:00] on the role of a church and leading that? I mean, how many times must you have thought, when's somebody gonna take care of me? Or when is my time to deal with all these challenges?

Sheyna James: You know what, Emily? I don't know if I ever thought, when is somebody gonna take care of me? I just felt like this is my life. I will be honest with you, and I kind of feel like I'm prompting to just share this. One of the things I said after my husband died was because the pain was so great and most people don't realize it's not just that this person has died. I've lost my best friend, I've lost my confidant. I've lost every hope of what I thought life would be like. I'm grieving a lot of different things here. This is Brave Widow podcast. I'm a Christian. I've lost my sexual partner. So all of that's gone. That's not necessarily the first thing you think about, but eventually you think about it.

And one of the things I said that I tell every widow, please don't say this, and I know it's hard [00:25:00] not to say it cuz I said it so much, is I said, I will never marry again. That's what I said. I was hurt so bad and part of that was I didn't wanna open up and let somebody else love me, but I didn't wanna be hurt because every, here's the thing, everybody dies.

So whoever I love again is gonna die, which means I'm probably gonna go through this again. I don't wanna do that, so I don't, I don't ever wanna do this again. So because of that, there were walls that I, that I kept up that wouldn't allow people to get close to me. I'm not just talking about love interest, but I'm talking about people, period.

Because I had been hurt by loving someone who left, and it's not like he left by choice. He died. So it was like, I can't even be mad. I didn't even know who to be mad at. I can't be mad at him. It ain't like he wanted to die. I can't, I can't be mad at God. I mean, I kind of wanna be mad at you, God.

But it's kind of like, I mean, everybody got a time to go like, who am I mad at? Like, and I was [00:26:00] frustrated cuz I didn't know who to be mad at. And in the meantime I'm going, but I still gotta take care of myself. Because one thing my, my brother was so amazing, he just kept saying, he was like you, you cannot keep filling everybodies cup from empty. You have to take care of yourself. And so I did not because of the walls, look to other people to fulfill those places, I'll be honest. So I would say be careful. Don't put these emotional walls up, because what happens with an emotional wall is you keep everybody out and that's fine, but you also lock yourself in by yourself.

It's hard. So what I did, I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but I learned, I, I started learning how to take care of myself. I was always very independent, but what I mean, take care of myself. I scheduled regular massages like once a month. I would get a massage or I made sure I did my pedicure and manicure.

I've always liked to have my hair nice, so I wouldn't get my hair done. Just all the things that I felt like took care of me. I had to [00:27:00] do on my own because I didn't feel like I had the emotional capacity to let somebody that close to me. I would say about two and a half, three years after that, I started opening my heart up and really got close to girlfriends.

My girlfriends were that space and, and taking time. I didn't wanna leave my kids alone, so I didn't go out very much. But about two or three years afterwards, I felt comfortable leaving them with the babysitter and go out for a couple hours with some girlfriends. But again, my kids were little, so it was a, a different story.

But yeah, it, it, you really, even if you can't find somebody, you have to figure out how to love you. I had a trainer. I loved going to my trainer because there was just something about getting that and every it, it wasn't until after my husband died that with my trainers, I started boxing because I needed to punch something.

Emily Jones: definitely.

Sheyna James: My trainers, I remember this one guy, he was like super big. He was one of my. . He was like, you hit harder than any six foot two man I ever trained. And I was like, cuz I got a lot more in me aggression and [00:28:00] anger than any six foot two man you've ever trained. It's, it's like that, it's just, you've gotta find something.

Even if you can't, if you, if you have a friend, lean into that friend. Spend time, make the time. But if you don't take care of you, make sure you take care of you.

Emily Jones: Those are all great points. I mean, I think about, Physically, the intimacy that you're missing and your body goes through its own set of grieving.

And yes, you can hug your kids and you can, be affectionate, but it's so vastly different. So taking care of yourself and trying to help your body feel good, whether that's through exercise or massages or whatever that looks like is really important. And I, from an exercise perspective, I really neglected that for a long time.

I had every excuse in the book and have recently gotten back into the habit of working out. And I was actually talking to my coach earlier today again, and I was like, I just felt this [00:29:00] big release, like I'd been, my body had just been tensed up and I was holding onto something for so long and it's like all of a sudden now I can breathe.

And I've never experienced anything like that before. So that's, that's definitely a huge tip for people. So I know people are going to want to know, how long was it before you felt like you may wanna get remarried again or you would be interested in dating again? And what did that look like for you?

Sheyna James: God had to slap me upside my head and tell me, girl, it's time. That's what happened. Yeah, it was, I was so like, I'm never getting married again. I did a little bit of online dating because I was bored and I was like, I would enjoy the companion of a guy, but I was like, I ain't trying to marry nobody.

And then then I did get engaged to someone. I met him and six weeks later he asked me to marry him. And I felt like, and I'm just being honest, I felt well, I should jump on this because who would wanna marry somebody like me? I'm a widow and I have two kids and I'm a pastor. I'm not really [00:30:00] your kind of gal people wanna marry. And I had experiences where guys were really interested until they found out I was a pastor and I was like, Ugh. But I will say this guys weren't as turned off by having children. So if you have children in your widow, don't worry. Guys are cool with that. It's not a big deal. But it was 11 to 12 years later.

So 11 years later, 11 years later, I'm on a plane to a pastor's meeting in LA I live in Northern California, so it's a short ride, but I'm talking and praying and like spending this great time with the Lord on the plane. And I sense the Lord saying to me, Sheyna, it's not good for man to live alone. I was like, I know that.

And he was like, I'm kinda talking about you. And I was like, what? Now? This is 11 years of being a widow, 11 years of being celibate, by the way. And so by this point I've gotten, I've gotten my plans down. I don't watch certain things. I don't listen to certain things cuz I'm trying to stay as I told people, I need to stay holy.

But, I got, I left that and I was like, God, but I love ministry and I don't wanna deal with the partner and all [00:31:00] this. And God was like, you can do more, one can chase. 1,002 can chase 10,000. I was like, okay, interesting. We can do more together. But I ain't trying to hear that. I'm like, whatever. God. Put that in a book, put it away.

Go to the prayer meeting. They're praying. And this lady comes up in the middle of worship and she says, I feel like I have a word from the Lord. And I'm like, okay, good for you, girl. Preach that. Bring it on. And she was like, some of you have said words out of your mouth that you have canceled what God has promised you he wants to do. And I was like, okay. And she said There was a journal somewhere that you have written that wrote down what God promised you, and God says, go pull that journal out. And I knew immediately God was speaking to me because a year after my husband died, I wrote in my journal five things that God was going to give me.

Four of the five had come to pass. The fifth was a husband. He told me, he described him, he said he was gonna be a certain height. He told me what his heart was gonna look like, told him how he was gonna love him, told him how he was gonna treat my kids, how he was gonna treat me, all these amazing things.

And I just wrote it in a journal and I was like, I don't care. Now that was a promise from God. And [00:32:00] what I learned is that God, that I had to renounce my own words, that I would never marry again and say, God, forgive me for speaking those words. I canceled those words over my life. A month later the Lord sent me, put me on websites.

A month later, the Lord told me to go to this specific website. I went to a specific website, Emily. He was fine. I was like, here we go, now. So I met what would later become my husband. We met dated for a year. We're engaged for seven months and we will be celebrating our two year anniversary coming up.

But I could not believe that God would send me someone. Who while very different than my first husband, I have two. I I got over the idea that you only have one soulmate. Cuz I was like, I gotta have a second one cuz you want me to marry God , . And, and I found someone who is, is very different than my first husband, which is what I wanted.

And yet so loving, so [00:33:00] amazing. And another best friend. Like, it's just amazing to me. And he was a middle and a haystack girl. Don't, finding him online was hard, but I had to go to a specific site. Yeah. . Cause that's where God had him, but it was funny. Yeah, that's, that's how that, that journey went.

So it was a, it was a process. It took time. It's not something that I say get out and go do tomorrow. I have friends who are widows in, within a year, they're ready to go back out there, but their stories are different. They had long-term, illnesses and mine. Just, it was just different. Different people, different strokes, different folks.

You do you, but make sure you just ask God to help you.

Emily Jones: I think for me, I was definitely curious like, what's out there? How bad is this gonna be? We really devalue, I think our own worth, right? Like, oh, we have all of this baggage. But if you think about it, there are so many people, especially in our thirties and forties, that they've been through divorce.

They have kids. You're not the only, first of all, you're not the only widow out there. But then secondly, I mean, everyone has a story by [00:34:00] the time they've reached their twenties, thirties, forties, that you are not of less worth. And in fact, you have to be careful. Because a lot of times widows can be targeted online and there's all kinds of scammers.

And I was gonna be a whole nother episode. We may have to get this special website in that episode, Sheyna, so we can include it.

Sheyna James: I don't give out the website. I don't give out the website because it was one that was unique that God had for me. Okay. And I tell people, everybody asks me, what website did you find your husband.

I have friends who found folks on websites that I thought the people were just trash on. So it is not really about the website, it's about you getting with God and trusting God through your journey of this new space of singleness and what that looks like for you. It, and that it was that God said it is her time.

And this is where this guy I have for her is it, it really is not caught up in the web. The website is great and I've, I've seen their, they were making matches. Like all of 'em are making matches. Everybody's [00:35:00] making a match. It doesn't, the website don't matter, but I'll tell you them Christian ones, they, they people look like they lived in they basement.

I was like, they mama's basement. I was like, I'm good on that one, but Well, that's just a joke. That was a little joke.

Emily Jones: I've learned that Christian is a very broad term, very, very, very broad. Yeah. And there's a hollow smorgasboard in.

Sheyna James: Yeah. If you do decide to date as a widow, you do have to, you have to move out the emotion out of dating.

And, and I know that seems really weird, and you have to put in kind of like, I, I work in business, so I, and I'm an engineer, so I approach dating as an engineer and a business person, which was simply, , let me watch you to see what qualities and characteristics you have. As I get to know you.

I'm not going to allow my heart to just go super all in until I know you got certain qualities. So I prayed. I told the Lord, I was like I know he just coming from church cuz I met him on a Sunday after church and he was looking all snazzy, with his church clothes and stuff, and I was like, that's a good sign.

But that [00:36:00] don't mean he really know you. Jesus. So then it was, I journaled and I asked God questions and I asked the Lord to show me. So it was very methodical and it was very, I had a, I had questions, but I didn't ask him all those questions. I asked the Lord so that, cuz sometimes you ask people questions when you date and they give you the answers that they want you to have, but that's not really who they are. I just watched. I took a business minded approach.

Let me watch, let me make sure the things that I believe God has for me are. and it took about seven or eight months for me to see and get all my questions answered. And then by then I was like, I'm good now I'm ready. Now I'm emotionally, I like him, I'm attached, but I'm not so attached that if we bounce, I'm not okay.

It was like that. Right. So yeah, so I think, I think it's different than when you're in your twenties and you're just like, I love him now. We got too much at stake. We've got kids' lives involved. I've got, to protect my financial interest, I've gotta protect my church.

It's a little different. So, yeah, dating is, is a whole nother vibe.

Emily Jones: Yes. Yes it [00:37:00] is. Especially from what, what I've heard. So, all right, Sheyna. First I wanna say congratulations. You have accomplished just so much in your life, from your marriage to your church, to your business, to everything that you're doing.

It is so, Inspiring, and I know that other people will really be inspired and motivated by your story. Do you have any final words of wisdom that you would share with us? And then if you'll just let people know, like, how do they find you? How do they work with you? What are the things that you do?

Sheyna James: Yeah, I, I'm gonna close with what I have developed is my rare, it's a, it's a proprietary method for how you get through crisis and lead your organization to success. And the reason I wanna close with this, because I think it's important for widows to know this, whether you're leading an organization or not, you're still leading a family.

And that is my rare method, and it's not s spelled r a r e, it's. R A I R, Rair, and it stands for [00:38:00] resilient, authentic, innovative, and relational. What I wanna share with you is that there is some skills that you have had to deal with to be resilient as a widow, and oftentimes we forget about all the things we've overcome in the rest of our life.

When you think about what you've been through, it'll remind you, you can get through. You're resilient, authentic, be you. Don't try to be anybody else. Don't try to try to figure out or do life, like everybody. Don't try to grieve like this person or, or be the single parent like this person. You be you and you trust God.

That in your authenticity, God's gonna show you how to move through this situation. Be innovative. Look y'all. The stuff we used to know, it don't work no more cuz we ain't. We no. I had to be innovative to learn how to take my kids. I have two kids who played sports and how to get them in they space. They both played the same sports at the same time, on the same day.

You have to be innovative. How [00:39:00] do I get help? Where do I go? What do I do? Be innovative and then relational. You can't do this alone. Find people who you can support. Find people who can support you. Find people who can invest in you. Find people who you can trust to take care of your kids and help you, learn how to deal with finances.

You can't do it by yourself. If you get through that and you understand that's, that's the way I train people to get through difficult crisis situations and lead their organizations. Well, you can do this, so you can find me if you're looking for, It's it real easy. Hit me up on Facebook. Just look up Sheyna James on Facebook.

You can hit me up on Instagram. I think my Instagram handle is Pastor Sheyna. And you can hit me on my website, which is Sheyna james consulting.com. I also have an amazing again, that's Sheyna james consulting.com, but I also have an amazing group of Christian women. I have a group of about 450, almost 500 women that we're just walking through what does it mean to lead well? So, you can find that in our Facebook group. Just look up Christian women leaders in Facebook [00:40:00] group. You'll see my picture. I'm there.

Emily Jones: Awesome. Well, y'all, Sheyna's a pastor when she says she's gonna close and she does so, so eloquently. So we'll have all the links to where you can find Sheyna in the show notes, so you'll have those available to you.

And she is an awesome woman. This is the second time I've had the opportunity even briefly to speak with her, and it's always a great experience. So Sheyna, thank you for sharing from your heart and your words of wisdom. I really appreciated having you on the show today.

Sheyna James: Thank you so much, Emily.

I am so grateful for this opportunity. But more than that, grateful for what you're offering to widows during this season of their life. I know it's desperately needed and I pray that people will take advantage of your coaching services.

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Emily Jones: hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast. I would love to help you take your [00:41:00] next step, whether that's healing your heart, binding hope, or achieving your dreams for the future.

Do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow Membership Community is just what you need.

Inside you'll find courses to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more.

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