From Prison Rows to doctorates: Breaking Generational Shame with Donald Williams ❖ 284

The deeper story is one of reconciliation, grace, and learning who God says we are rather than who the world tells us we are." —Donald Williams

EPISODE TAKEAWAYS

• The Power of Hidden Intercession: How a grandfather's agonizingly specific night prayers anchored a family tree.
• A Miracle at 3:00 AM: A literal angel wakes Donald up, leading him to save his atheist son from a fatal drug overdose—a son who is now a global pastor.
• Overcoming the Spirit of Shame: The difference between guilt (what you did) and shame (who you think you are), and how to permanently strip off the labels the world gave you.
  
•  The Art of Two-Way Prayer: Moving past one-sided grocery lists to actually listen to the Creator.

Are you letting the first chapter of your life write the rest of your story? This conversation will change how you look at your past, your pain, and your family tree forever.
Today, I’m sitting down with Donald Williams, co-author of Born of Nothing. Donald’s life is a masterclass in shifting a multi-generational trajectory. He grew up in a South Carolina cotton mill village, surrounded by poverty and labeled a "linthead." He broke through that invisible ceiling to earn a Doctor of Education and work globally for the Department of Defense.
But this isn’t just about academic success. It is about heavy, painful contrasts. While Donald was sitting in university classrooms, cousins he grew up playing with every day were heading down a dark path that landed them on death row and in prison. How does one family line produce both prison rows and doctorates? Donald and I strip away religious theory to look at the raw, redemptive reality of how God operates in the grittiest corners of our lives.

Your family history is an explanation of where you've been, but it is not a prophecy of where you are going. What label are you ready to lay down today to step into the true identity and legacy Jesus has for you?
Turn the volume up for this one. It is time to live Spiritually BRAVE.

That man would get down on his knees beside his bed... and he’d pray specific prayers of everyone he knew. I would hear him praying for hours." —Donald Williams

SUMMARY

In this powerful episode of the Interviewing Jesus Podcast, host Kristen Wambach sits down with Donald Williams, co-author of the memoir Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations, to unpack a raw and gritty look at multi-generational transformation. Donald shares his journey growing up in a South Carolina cotton mill village—an intense environment defined by socioeconomic limitations, systemic silence, and the derogatory label of "lintheads"—and how he broke the cycle to earn a Doctor of Education and serve globally as a researcher for the Department of Defense.
Navigating the heavy contrast of his own professional success while beloved family members ended up on death row and in federal prison, Donald uncovers how God hides in plain sight within our darkest histories. Listeners will be deeply moved by his memories of his grandfather’s unceasing specific prayers that anchored the family tree, as well as a stunning, firsthand account of a literal supernatural intervention where an angel woke Donald up at 3:00 AM to save his atheist son from a fatal overdose. Today, that son is an ordained pastor preaching the gospel worldwide.
This conversation strips away empty religious theories to offer practical keys for anyone feeling trapped by the limitations, addictions, or poverty of their family tree. Tune in to learn how to actively silence the voice of shame, cultivate an ear to hear God's voice through intentional listening, and execute a brand-new legacy built entirely on who Jesus says you are.

The Power of an Interrupted Trajectory: Breaking the Invisible Ceiling of Generational Shame

We often treat spiritual transformation as something reserved for pristine altars, quiet prayer closets, or polished religious spaces. But heaven rarely limits its operations to neat environments. More often than not, the most profound redemptive blueprints are executed in the grittiest, most ordinary corners of human existence—places where the world has already written a script of limitation, poverty, and defeat.
In a recent episode of the Interviewing Jesus Podcast, I sat down with Donald Williams, co-author of the raw and gripping memoir Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations. Donald’s life is a masterclass in what happens when the living God steps into a family line and completely alters its trajectory.

Never let someone tell you you cannot do it, because you can. God can take you from the depths of the mud, from the depths of despair, and he can lift you up." —Donald Williams

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From Prison Rows to doctorates: Breaking Generational Shame with Donald Williams ❖ 284
Episode Transcript
Kristen Wambach (00:01)
Welcome back to Interviewing Jesus podcast where we step past religious theories to look at the practical, raw, and redemptive reality of heaven meeting earth. My guest today understands the power of a shifted trajectory down to his very bones. Don Williams grew up in South Carolina cotton mill village, surrounded by poverty, generational struggle, and what the world labeled "lintheads." He became the first in his family to graduate from college, ultimately earning a doctor of education and serving for over a decade as an analyst for the Department of Defense.
But this isn't just a story of academic success. While Donald was sitting in a classroom, people he loved deeply were ending up on death row. He is the co-author of the memoir, Born of Nothing from White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations. Today we are diving into how God quietly works in the hardest, untampled places of our lives to rewrite our identity, break generational shame, and prove that where you start never determines where you finish. Donald, welcome to the show.
Donald Williams (01:30)
It's great to be here. I'm excited about this conversation.
Kristen Wambach (01:34)
We are going to have a good time. Welcome, welcome. So, Donald, your book doesn't shy away from the raw, the gritty, and sometimes the coarse reality of growing up in a mill village. It isn't wrapped in neat religious packaging by any means. When you look back at that environment through a spiritual lens today, looking back at it—where do you see Jesus hiding in plain sight back then, working in ways that your environment said was impossible?
Donald Williams (02:15)
Okay, a couple of things right before that. I want to define the concept of linthead. These were people who worked in a cotton mill, and this was around 1920 or so. One in six people in South Carolina actually worked in a cotton mill. I think that's the right number. And my parents, my grandparents, they all worked there. And my two grandfathers were child laborers starting at about the age of nine that they were working in the mills.
My father, when he was fourteen, he quit school at the end of eighth grade because he said there was no hope, nowhere else to go. This is the only place to be. And my mother at the age of sixteen, and they were working in mills. And so what happens is you're in that cotton mill and you're working in that all day. And as a little child, I could go into the mill, you could see your daddy or mother working, but when they came out, they would be covered in cotton dust or lint. And it would just be all in their hair, all over their clothes. And so the term linthead came about.
Well, linthead was actually in those days a derogatory term, just like when we hear the term white trash. That concept puts someone in a bucket, let's say. But what happened was with the lintheads, they lived—they were, I'm gonna say they were beholden to the mill, to that mill that they are working at. In my case, my parents, they were working at the JP Stevens Industrial Mill in Rock Hill, South Carolina, that made blue jean material for blue jean pants. That's what they did. And when you did that, you probably lived on the mill hill in a mill house. You went to the mill store, you probably attended a church that was probably donated by the mill. I remember going to the mill Christmas parties where the children would get gifts, things like this. And everything was centered around the mill.
And so if you did something that was inappropriate, that could cost you a job because it didn't have to be at work, it could be a part of your life. Then your family would lose that job. Then you're not only losing a job, you're losing your house, you're homeless. Your family's homeless. And so a lot of times things were quite quiet. And so if things—if abuse or whatever did happen inside of a family—no one would tell, no one would talk about it. And the reason is, I don't want my daddy to lose his job, or I don't want my uncle to lose his job. So you had that.
But now where did I see Jesus in all this? Now both of my grandfathers, I will say, were absolutely born-again believers in Christ in all their life. I never—I mean they were wonderful role models because I never saw them do—I never saw them take a drink, smoke, do any kind of drugs or anything like that. They were just good, and I use that term lightly, but what you would call God-fearing men who believed in the power of God. And my parents, they did not come to Christ until their early twenties and they went to a revival, a tent revival, and the preacher preached, and they accepted Christ and they never turned back.
But where did I see God? And I'll say this is one of those first things. Now I never remember not going to church. I always remember we would go Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and my parents were gospel singers. And so we were going places and singing or watching them sing. And so there were a lot of revivals and things in those days. But I think one of the really first moments that I really would say that I experienced the power of God and knowing that God was so real was my grandfather Williams, Papaw Williams is what we called him.
And he worked in the mill and he had been orphaned at the age of twelve and he had worked in the mill since he was nine and he had done all these things. He had sixteen children and all this, two wives, sixteen children—two wives, not at the same time, but one passed away and he remarried. But anyway, every night when I was spending the night with him, that man would get up and go to bed, he'd close his door, and in those mill hill houses you could hear everything that was going on in there. And that man would get down on his knees beside his bed, and he'd pray and he'd pray and he'd pray. And he didn't just pray like, "Dear God, I'm praying for Kristen. Dear God, I'm praying for Donald." He didn't do that. He would go, "Dear God, Donald's got a problem. He needs to come to Christ. He's a little fella, but he needs to know you. Help me." And he'd be like, "Help me find a way to tell Donald that he needs to be saved."
And so he would pray specific prayers of everyone he knew. And I would hear him praying for hours, just in there every night praying. And he believed in that power of prayer. And so I saw that and I felt that. And I knew that it was powerful and it was something different and it was real and true. And then you could also see the power of when his prayers were answered and how he would rejoice in that. And so it was instilled in me in a very early age that there is something real and that there's something more than I'm the center of the universe. There's something out there. And I saw that through my grandfather. But then my father, my mother, the way they live their lives, of course, I saw that. But you would see that on the mill sometimes. There were other times you didn't see that in some people. But as an early child, you can make that distinction of which path do I want to take, you know.
Kristen Wambach (08:20)
Thank you very much. So you have lived a life of heavy contrasts, earning a doctorate while watching people you love deeply, some in prison, some on death row. The kind of pain that could make your heart cynical. But instead, you gave your heart towards restoration. How did navigating that specific grief help you understand the depth of Jesus' compassion for the broken and for the bound?
Donald Williams (09:08)
Okay, so the story is two of my cousins, and I always tell this story, I have forty-two I think aunts and uncles, about that many, and I have eighty-something first cousins. And I mean, you know, I always challenge people, how many first cousins do you have? Well, I have eighty-something and these people all lived right there. They didn't go away, basically they all lived right there. And I was kind of maybe in the middle, there were some older, there were some younger—maybe I was more kind of towards the younger end, but I saw a lot of these people.
But specifically a couple of them, my mother's country brother was Uncle Charles, and he had six children. And though now this is what I'll say is I look at my cousins and the majority of them are born-again Christians who serve God, and then you see Charles' family. And Charles on the outside, my uncle Charles, he was my mother's brother, he was a few years her senior. And on the outside you would see he was a deacon in the church, he was a leader in the church, and he would maybe teach Sunday school and he professed this life of piety, you know, that this is who he was. But then in those days you would go to each other's houses like on a Sunday. You may like maybe my Aunt Jean would say, "Hey, y'all come over and eat Sunday supper or lunch with us," or we're gonna go to Mama and Papa's house. But if we went to Charles and Shirley's house, my Uncle Charles, my Aunt Shirley, it was like it wasn't the same. The house was dirty, it was filthy, it was barren, there was trash all in the yard. And you know, in my mind I'm thinking something's not right here.
And then these cousins of mine, I mean, I'll go to church with them. I'm playing with them all the time. It's not like I see them once a year. This is an everyday thing that I'm seeing these people. My cousin Eddie was a few years younger, but my cousin Tommy was right at my age. He may be a few months younger. And growing up with him, with my cousin Tommy, he was just like me. I didn't see any difference in me and him mentally or the way we approached the world. I mean, I knew that they lived a different life at home.
Now, my cousin Eddie, now he was mean. He was just like one of those kids you just go, he's mean, he's always in trouble. And in the book, you know, you read this. I remember one year they got a shotgun for Christmas and they would—my cousin Eddie and my cousin Ronnie—they would go, one would go stand in the field and the other would shoot him, and turn around and let him shoot him in the back from, you know, a hundred yards away. And he would yell, "Five! You hit me with five pellets!" Then they would run the gun back. And I'm thinking, this is not normal. This is not right.
But so out of Charles's six children, Eddie is the oldest, he's on death row in California. He's been there since the early eighties. He went off for a while because of laws, but he got back on and he's there. He's in his seventies, mid to early 70s. And then Tommy is, I guess he's 65 or 66, so he's right at my age. And he's life in prison, probably would have gotten the death penalty here in South Carolina. But it was a cold case from twenty-something years ago where he had—I don't want to talk about what he did. I don't want to glorify that horrible event. But they finally through DNA, they convicted him.
The other son—there was another son who died homeless, AIDS, male prostitute, drug addict in Florida. And then the youngest daughter was killed by being struck by a car at the age of five. The other two, my other two cousins, I'm not gonna say their name. I don't know where they are. I haven't had any contact with them probably since they were teenagers. I hear stories, and you know, I want to know where they are, but I don't.
The weird thing was is SLED, which is our South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, when they were investigating Tommy for the murder, they actually came to my Uncle Charles' house because they never found the body. The body was just disappeared. They came to my Uncle Charles' house and dug under his house for about a week, looking for the body, thinking that the body was under it. They didn't find it, and there's a lot of speculation about that. But so the question is, how do you reconcile like these people that you grow up with? How do you, what happened, you know, and you and I talked about that before. Is it—was it abuse, was it mental illness, was it demon possession, as we talked about before? What happens? What causes what in anyone's mind, what would cause them to randomly kill a child or randomly kill someone they had never met just because from whatever they're doing?
Why did my Uncle Charles do the things that he did? It was not normal, you know, because he was living like standing in the church, you would see this. This is what everyone saw. When you went to his house, you would go, this is—something's missing. But then after all that, through the testimony and the court trial and all of this, you saw even the worse, you know, the more harm that they did. And just let me add one more little detail in here. My parents lived next to them. This was—I would have been a small child, but they lived next to them and they saw them beating Eddie as a child. He must have been five or six at the time, beating—would beat him in the face with their fist, beat him with an extension cord. In the South we say drop cord, a power cord, if you know what I'm talking about. Extension cord, yeah. I know that when I said drop cord, people are gonna go, "What is he saying?" I knew that. But they saw—and I don't mean to laugh about that, but going back to the story, they saw Uncle Charles beating Eddie and his children with that.
And you know, and they said, "Why did you not call the police?" Well, the problem is my father and mother, they said they would argue about it. "We need to call the police." Well, first of all, the police didn't really do a lot of good in those days. In the early 60s in the South, it was, you know, they would just kind of brush things off. But the other part of it was, what would happen if Charles had been put in jail? He'd have lost his job, the family would have been homeless, all this, and then the rest of the family would be going, "Why did you do that? Why did you turn them in?" And so my parents really struggled with this. And they still—well, my father's past, but my mother still struggles with the concept that they did not, you know, they did not help. But she said circumstances of the day and the way historical things were in that—at that time, you just didn't tell. You just didn't.
But so, you know, back to that concept of where, you know, where do I see Jesus in this and what happened? I hear that my cousin Eddie reads the Bible every day and has become a Christian. I don't know that, I have no idea. I can't contact him. I don't know. I think maybe today I could. I've been thinking about that. But it's like, you know, people will know us by our fruits, and we see his life.
Now, how did that parlay for me into going into a classroom situation because I was a classroom teacher for 28 years? I knew that I was poor. I knew that where I was, I was out of my element. I wasn't raised to be a college student or to be a teacher or anything. I mean, there was zero chance of people thinking that that would be something that I could do. But then I made it. And so when I was in the classroom, I tried to help every student. It didn't matter to me if they were rich or poor. I knew that God made every one of those children and I wanted to tell them, and I did tell them, God made you wonderfully and God has a purpose for your life and choose the good. And I would also tell people you are defined by the friends you surround yourself with. Your friends will either pick you up or pull you down, and it's the friends that you pick that are going to determine who you are in life. And so a lot of times I think about—I saw the bad, I saw the evil, I saw the bad part. And from that it's like, I want to make the world a better place. I want to show people this is not a path. There's a better path. Jesus will take you in a totally different direction than what the dark side will take you. And so that's how I've lived my life.
Kristen Wambach (19:02)
Thank you for sharing that. Generational shame tells us that our family past is our permanent ceiling, like how you were just describing. But you broke that trajectory. And now your own sons hold doctoral degrees. And for the listener right now who feels trapped by limitations, addictions, poverty, even their family tree—what is the first step moving forward from surviving day-to-day to executing a new heaven-inspired legacy?
Donald Williams (19:50)
Yeah, and see that's a problem. A lot of people ask that question. It was like, "Well, Donald, how did you get to where you are? How did you ever get out of that cycle?" Now, and I wanna say this, is I loved where I lived. I didn't know I was poor. I tell people a lot of times, I had no idea. I thought we were rich. We had a house and we had food we picked out of the garden or my daddy caught out of the pond or he shot out of a tree or something. I know a lot of people will like that, but that's what we did. And they had pigs and chickens and cows, and you know, that's the way you lived. And so I thought—I thought I was well off. I thought there was nothing wrong with that.
But I remember it was about the third grade, a teacher showed me a globe, and they were like, "This is the earth, this is where you live." And so as a child, you start picturing this. And you know, we had always sung, "He's got the whole world in his hands," you know. And so I'm looking at this globe, and the teacher's going, "and this is the United States, and this is South Carolina, and this is where you live." And then I remember looking, thinking, "well, here's Germany, and here's Japan." And I mean, I remember looking and thinking, look at this big old world we've got. And I thought, would there ever be a chance of me getting there, and in my mind in the third grade? No, there would be no chance. I had maybe been to one other state, and that was only because we lived right at the state line.
And in my life, honestly, I have taught many students who have never been out of the county that they were in. I remember one time I have a student who I took to the beach on a student trip and he went out on the ocean and he stood and he put his hand over his eyebrows like this and he looked and he said—he's looking and he goes, "You really can't see the other side, can you?" And you know, he had never been anywhere and it was this. And so as this child, you know, there's this wonderment, and then, you know, maybe a missionary would come to your church and they would talk about, well, I'm here or whatever. So as a child, you know, maybe you would see movies or whatever, and you'd go like, there's another world out there that I could do, but how do I get there?
Well, for me, it was through education. And the question is, how do people break that cycle? Well, the first thing, you've got to have a goal. You've got to go, "I want to get out of this." You've got to have that desire to say, "There's something—God has something else for me out here." And I will say this all my life, wherever I have been, God has had his hand on me. Now, I've not always lived every day for God. I mean, I'm a saved sinner. I was a sinner before, but what I'm saying is, you know, you have to decide in your life, this is where I want to go. So you've got to create that mental image.
The next step I think is really you've got to incorporate God into your life. There has to be that spiritual aspect. Without God, nothing is possible. With God, everything is possible. And you have to realize that. You have to know, "I need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I will let him guide me in the direction I need to go."
Now the next part is—and I use this term loosely as well—family. You've got to have a good family. Well, but family could be friends. I remember talking to an atheist one time and I said, "Hey, God is"—he wanted to know what my concept of God is. I said, "God is like my father," and he goes, "Well, my father was rotten. I don't want a God like that." And you know, you hear that, you hear people say that. So we have to say a lot of times, I had to realize I had to change what I would say. God is like a good father. But and so you have to—you've gotta have that goal, but that goal through Jesus Christ and you gotta have that spiritual being. Surround yourself with good family and friends. And that's what I talked about before. They're going to be the resources that will help you, that will teach you and show you how you can make it.
Now, I did not have that luxury when I went to college. No one in my family had ever been to college. There was no context. The expectation was you—if you could graduate high school, if you could do that, that was amazing. But the next step was within a couple of weeks or a couple of months, you would be married, you would move out of your parents' house, and you would start your life. All three of my older brothers, they did exactly that. They graduated high school, they got a job, they moved out of the house—one within two weeks of graduation. And that's what they did. And well, all of them within a year, they were out and marrying and starting their families. That's what they did. And so you have to—you have to have that mindset of like, this is not all there is. And family can help you go, there can be a different dream for you. Is there something else you could do?
And when I went to college, and like I said, I didn't have that support. I had to figure it out on my own, you know, and it was difficult. And I tell everyone, I didn't when I said that I didn't know I was poor—and my parents would get mad, they still get mad if I say that I was poor, 'cause they would go, "No, you were not." But I went to college in homemade clothes. I had two shirts that my mother had stitched together, two pairs of blue jeans that my mother had stitched together. I didn't have a suitcase. I had a duffel bag—it was just a blue jean bag that she had made and I would stuff my clothes, my sheets and blanket and pillow in it. And I go, I look like a hobo with a sack over my back, and I go to college and everyone else is walking in with designer clothes and suitcases. And I knew that I—I knew that I was in a different place. But I never knew that I didn't belong. No one ever told me, no one ever said.
Well, I will say this, a lot of teachers said, "You won't make it." There were a lot of adults who go, "You can't do this." The guidance counselor, the counselor at school, when she pulled me in, "What do you want to do, Donald?" "I want to go to college." And her look was like, "You're the son of lintheads. What are you talking about, college?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I think I'd like to do that." And she, you know, she pulls out and she goes, "Well, yeah, you've got really good grades, but it's kinda like you've not been on our radar." You know, they had pushed me to the side. And so when I got to college, it was very difficult.
And so it's the same thing when someone is looking to get out of this—it's not going to be easy. But you need to find those resources of people that can help you. And I will say this, when I say God had his hand on me, there was a knock on my dorm room one night. Man knocked on my door and I opened the door and he goes, "I see your name's Donald and you're an agriculture education major." He goes, "Well, we've got a group that we meet, and we'd like for you to come to this meeting if you would like to." I had no friends, I had no relationships with anyone, and this was a couple of months in, and I was struggling. And so I said, "Sure, I'll go." And I went with him. And these people surrounded me with love. And they showed me how to study. They showed me what to do and how to navigate college. And I know God placed them in my life to help me.
When I went after my first year, I went home, and they would mail grades to you then. I opened my report card, so to speak, or my grades from college. My first semester, I'd made a 2.0, so a C average, so I'm making it. My second semester, I had seven courses. I had six D's and one B, a 1.3. And my parents—I open it up, I remember I was in the kitchen, I open it up, and my mother starts screaming—not really screaming, but sternly saying, "You're wasting our time. What are you doing? You're goofing off, just quit. Come back home, go to work. That's where you belong." And my father, my daddy, he patted me on the back. He goes, "Son, I'm proud of you. You did a good job. Go back and try harder." Now, the thing is, I needed to hear both those messages. I needed to hear, "Quit goofing off, try your best," and I also needed someone to pat me on the back and say, "You did a good job," or "You will do a better job."
And from there I got better and better and better. My last three semesters, I made the dean's list, I made a 4.0 for straight A's for the first time in my life my last semester, my senior year. And my master's and doctorate, which was a different day back in the 80s and 90s, I made straight A's. And so, you know, I know without that conversation at the table, I never would have made that because I was ready to quit. And it's the same thing with the question you asked me: people cannot give up. There may be times that life is going to be hard. There's going to be difficult things that happen. Maybe your friends let you down, your family lets you down. But remember, you have a goal, you have a God, you have people that can help you. And then the third thing is become educated in what I'm saying there. If you have a computer, if you have access to an internet, the world's at your fingertips. And a professor instilled in me back in the eighties, "Become a lifelong learner."
And Donald Williams will not go quietly into the night. You will not hear of me moving to Florida and retiring in some village. I will work until the day I die and I will serve Christ until the day I die and I will do what I can for that. I retired from federal government service a year ago; I will never retire. And that's the mindset that people need to take.
Kristen Wambach (30:39)
Amen. Amen. I agree. I changed the word when my husband stepped away from the workforce. I go, "Hey, you ain't retiring, you're re-firing. You are re-firing." Because there is a mental thing that goes along with that word retire that has threaded itself in our society, and we do expect less from life and less from ourselves. And our health changes tremendously from that particular word. Yeah.
Donald Williams (31:21)
I agree, but I refuse to be that person who just sits and watches television. I will not. Now the Lord may take me home in the next minute, but I will go knowing that today I worked hard. You know, I have worked since the moment I woke up this morning. I've not stopped. And I will work until the time I go to sleep. But this is who I am.
Kristen Wambach (31:47)
Now I can relate with some of the difficulties in your grammatical and educational journey. I suffered with dyslexia before they knew what dyslexia was. So reading, writing, and arithmetic—you know, those numbers—it was just painful, tremendously painful. If I didn't have music and PE, I probably would have flunked out. So, you know, something that was so difficult for me, and then 20 years later, God healed me of it. And go figure, now I'm speaking and talking with people and writing. For something that was so hard, it was hard, it was painful. And I remember on my report cards, it always said, "She doesn't apply herself."
And those kind of things that get attached to us—whether it's generationally, whether it's a trial or struggle that we duke it out with—those labels sometimes are so difficult to remove from us, and they just will create a shame. Because I was embarrassed because I couldn't—I wasn't comfortable reading at all because it was so hard and so difficult. And I remember Jesus helping me when he removed shame. You know, the shame that attaches itself—it's different than guilt, because guilt, you have a portion of responsibility with guilt. Someone could make you feel guilty, but you're still taking that and giving it permission to make you feel that way. And also guilt is, "If I did something wrong, then you can feel that you did something wrong." But shame is a different nut totally. And I just wanted to share that. Listening to your story, listening to it, I could feel that—how shame will try to squash us down and keep us from that goal, that intent.
Donald Williams (34:22)
I still say Satan tells me all the time, "You're not good enough, you don't fit, you can't do this." All the time, it's like that discouragement, and I just don't listen to it. Now think about my co-author with this book, Jason. He was diagnosed with a learning disability at an early age. And you know, people made fun of him, people ridiculed him and all this, and they told him, they said, "Factory, maybe at best. Maybe you could join the military." But he refused to listen to that and he kept trying. And I mean, I know Jason, I've known him all my life, and to hear his story is amazing. For him—he ends up being a lieutenant colonel, you know, with two masters. But yet he was told he cannot.
Never, never let someone tell you you cannot do it, because you can. From where he came from, where I came from—you know, I never would have thought that I would work around the world and that I would be, you know, working for the Department of Defense as a researcher, doing this. And living in Seoul and Tokyo and all these places, it's like, it was unbelievable that I got to do the things I did, but also know that God placed me in those places.
Kristen Wambach (35:46)
Your career took you across the globe, analyzing data and working with educational systems. We often think of supernatural wisdom as something reserved for altars or in your prayer closet, but you talk about recognizing God's work in ordinary life. How can we cultivate that ear to hear God's voice and see his hand within our daily practical assignments? I mean, how did you do that?
Donald Williams (36:36)
That's a difficult question, and I hear my son talk about this a lot, the one who's a pastor, and he talks about discerning God's voice. And he said, "I know when it's God's voice. I know when he's telling me go do or see or say this," or whatever he says. "I know the difference between my inner voice and God's voice." And I think a lot of times it's maybe somewhat of a mystery to us. I think a lot of times we realize after the fact that God was doing this for me. After the fact—I wasn't maybe aware at the moment. Maybe I'd been praying, maybe I had been seeking God's guidance, seeking his will, seeking his direction, and maybe things happened. And maybe I didn't realize it until afterwards, and I would go, "That was absolutely God."
But I mean, I've had some instances where I should be dead. I mean, I literally should be dead—accidents and things like that. And I don't care to speak about this personally, but I know that just from a supernatural sense, I'm alive because it wasn't my time. I know that. And there were times in my life in church where I've seen things in church, and things that I've seen in church that I knew that I wasn't speaking any longer, but it was the Holy Spirit through me speaking, that I knew it was there. I think a lot of times when we pray, "God give me guidance, God help me," I think we're inclined to still leave in the human aspect of it. It's like, "God, which job do you want me to take?" But in your mind you think, "But God, I'd really like this one, so I think that's the one you're telling me," you know, but that may not be God's word for us. When we pray, we need to realize we have a conversation with God. But when we pray so many times, we think it's a one-sided conversation—that we're the only ones talking and we're never listening. And so when we pray, a lot of times all we're doing is we're talking to God and we're saying, "God, this is what I want, God, this is what I need, God, this is how I feel." And maybe we give that obligatory, "God, I praise your name and all this," because that's what we were taught to say, but we never take time to listen.
Prayer is a two-way conversation, and we need to say, "God, what do you want me to know today? God, what do you want me to learn today? Please tell me." One of the most powerful prayers I ever prayed in my life—and I tell people I don't ever want to pray this again—I prayed, "God, reveal to me all of the sins I've not confessed to you." And it was like a movie really in my head of all the evil things I had done in my life. And I was like, "God, please stop. You can stop. I get it. I get it. Please stop. I cannot be this person. I don't want to see this filth and trouble that was in my life." And so, we have to realize, yeah, we're talking to the creator of the universe, but we also need to realize that we not only are talking to him, but we're listening to him. And that's a very important part. And the people who are looking to get out of the situation they're in, they need to do the same thing. Step aside and listen. Step aside and ask God, "God, please speak to me. I'm here. I want to hear your voice. I want to hear what you have to say." And he will let you know.
Kristen Wambach (41:49)
Yes, yes. It's when we ask, it is God's responsibility to communicate to us in a language that we will understand. Now, the language could be a certain song coming on the radio. The language could be when you're walking out in nature and nature speaks to you and you hear. God definitely uses many different senses to communicate with us, but he is faithful to communicate. In this day and age, how do you cultivate quietness? Stillness?
Donald Williams (42:36)
How do I cultivate quietness and stillness? I don't think I can. I don't know that I'm capable of that. Okay, so what I do is if I have time alone like that, and there's not an interaction with someone somehow—which I have learned because I've lived a lot by myself, away from home, on the road and with my job and stuff—and so there's a lot of times you're by yourself and television is just not a good thing. You know, it's okay for a little bit of entertainment, but you need to limit yourself. But for me, it is playing the guitar and singing praises to God. And it may be something—and I said I'm not pushing this—it may be something I wrote. My songs are very personal to me, to God, or something like that. Or singing a hymn or something, but for me, those quiet times are strumming the guitar or a musical instrument and concentrating on the words of the song. The words of the songs are so meaningful, and when we sing them, it just makes them so much more alive.
The last time I was overseas with the Department of Defense, I was at the Yokota Air Force Base. I have to be careful what I say, I'm not supposed to say where I was and things, but I was in Japan and I'm in an apartment, this has been a few years ago. And at night I would be by myself and I'd have maybe six hours between the time that I got off of work and the time that I would want to go to bed. And in that time frame, I loved to go into my quiet time in my quiet little room in this small little Japanese apartment, and I had my guitars, and I would play each one for hours. Now, I'm not any good at playing, but I just loved it. And it was just—I'm singing praises to God, just singing praises to God constantly. And I think that's how I spent my quiet time, but also listening, because God speaks to you through his scripture, his word. Think about this: we have God's instruction book that we have, that it's like, "Here, this is what I want you to know. Here's my words. Read them." And it's the same thing with songs, and some of the songs that I was singing just would bless my heart and bless my soul and take away the loneliness, because I knew that God was there with me, you know? And so that's how I handle quiet times.
Kristen Wambach (45:28)
That's good. That's really good. How has in those quiet times, or how has God made it—made his presence tangible, his voice tangible? You know, I'm asking that supernatural question where the love of God just reaches through the dimension and touches you.
Donald Williams (46:00)
Okay, the love of God—that's actually one of my favorite songs or lyric pieces, the love of God. But you know—this is going to sound really odd—but seeing people pass from this life into the afterlife who are Christians, and seeing the smiles on their faces as they leave this life, and knowing that I will see them again, and knowing—and I know they're not thinking about me when they're dying. They're thinking about what they're seeing on the other side. And I've seen the joy on the saints of God's faces as they leave this world, and it is a special time. My son, the pastor, he's of course held a lot of people's hands as they have slipped off into glory, as we say. And he said what a contrast it is to see a person who was a born-again believer in Christ when they die compared to someone who was not. And to see the difference in the way that death happens—you would become a believer if you would see that incident happen.
Now, I have had—I told you the story about the angel earlier. My parents talked about when I was a boy, they said they knew that they were at a church one time and they said the pastor was not there. For some reason the pastor did not come that day, this was years and years ago. And they said two men came in, never seen before, this is on a mill hill. They said they never saw them again. And they said these two men preached the word of God like no one had ever heard before, and then they left. And they were very adamant—they said it was angels that came in and spoke to us that day because there was no before or after. It was only they showed up and then they left, and it was what they saw.
And then in my case, when my son, who is a pastor now, who was at one time a horrible drug addict that overdosed multiple times—and I'm laying in bed and he's living next door to me. And I knew he was in bed. He was there with his wife, I knew he was asleep, and everything's okay. It was like one of those times in your life where every night you're thinking, "He's safe, he's okay, he's with his family. And if he gets up, his wife will call me." And so nothing happened, no one called. And it must have been three o'clock in the morning, something starts nudging me on the side. And there was no voice, but there was a communication. And there was a man in my bedroom, and he was communicating to me, "Get up, wake up. Your son is about to die. You've got to go help him."
I never heard the man's voice. The man never scared me. I was never afraid. It was just, "Okay, and I will do what he did." I didn't know where my son was, but that angel led me straight to him. And when I got to my son, the angel was gone. And my son's heartbeat was, let's just say, less than ten beats a minute. He was about to die and let's say not go to a good place, because he was lost at that point. As a matter of fact, he would have been what we would describe as a hardened atheist. That's how he was.
But through that angel waking me up and me going to him and him not dying—because he was taking his last breath—and him not dying, he ends up becoming a born-again believer in Christ and then became a pastor. And there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have been led to Christ through—not his ministry, but God's ministry through him is what I say. I never say it's Zach's ministry. It's not, it's God's ministry. Zach is just a vessel. And Zach has preached around the world. And that supernatural experience—like I said, I don't care if anybody believes me or not. It doesn't matter because I was there. I know what happened. If someone wakes you up in the middle of the night, you're going to sit up in bed and you're going to be terrified and you're going to scream. It was nothing like that. I woke up surrounded in love, but it was like, "Hey, Donald, we need you to get up and go do something." And I did. And it's as real to me as any experience I've ever had in my life.
Kristen Wambach (50:46)
Yes, it is. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's definitely—this is a great place to share that. The subtitle of your book mentions moving from nothing to purpose. The world is incredibly loud, and the world can be incredibly confused or doubtful just of wonderful stories that you just shared. And sometimes our history or where we started or came from, it hinders us. When you finally stripped away the labels that the world set before you, who did you discover Jesus says Donald Williams actually is?
Donald Williams (51:53)
You know what? I learned that I once again—and I believe I said this earlier—that God made me and He made me with a purpose. And I've never doubted myself from that standpoint, even though I know, like I said, I've always had Satan going, "You're not good enough," all this. I'm just gonna like just move away because I know who I am.
But I've had instances—I can tell you of a specific instance. I was in South Korea, I was in a meeting, and there were some people who were like—they were very rude. And they were like, "You're from the South and you're stupid and you're a nobody." And I mean, they literally were saying this to me, and they meant it. They're like, "Who do you think you are? How can you be here with us?" And they would even say, "Why don't you try to get rid of that southern accent?" You know, this kind of thing. And I'm like, "You can have your Hollywood image of me in your mind if you want to, but I know who I am. I know where I came from. Yeah, I came from lintheads, the cotton mill. I know that. But guess what? I deserve to be here just like you deserve to be here. I earned my way to this position just like you did. And as a matter of fact, if we compare resumes, maybe mine's greater than yours," is what I thought. I think I maybe even said that because I fall back a little bit.
But I mean, I have had that instance in my life where people have just, you know, they judge you. The Hollywood version of all Southerners is that you're backwards and stupid and you don't know anything, and that's the furthest thing from the truth that there could be. And when they hear me speaking in this southern language and they'll go, "Wait a minute, he's not stupid. What's going on here?" Actually, I was in a doctoral class, doctorate class one time—this was at Clemson University, back in the days before the internet when you still had to go to class. And a fellow student actually said, "Donald, you know, you really have a strong southern accent, but you're smart." And so really I looked at him, I said, "So what you're saying is I sound stupid, but I'm smart. Is that what you're saying?" And he laughed. We all had a good laugh out of it, but you know, he was giving me a compliment.
But there are people in this world who want to change you. That's the thing when we talk about that line about purpose across generations—generational change, and don't let where you come from define who you become. I have never forgotten where I came from. I am more proud of my parents and what they did and what they did for me. Every time I see my mother now, I tell her, "Mama, thank you for the way you raised me. Thank you for allowing me to go to college. Thank you for funding me to go to college." They paid for it, penny by penny they paid for it. And I said, "Thank you for that." And I will never forget that upbringing. I will never forget how I started this. I will never forget my grandfather being on his knees and praying for people. Just what a wonderful image that that man gave me and is embedded in my mind—that this man, he cared for everyone, and it means so much. But I will never forget where I came from. I will never apologize for being a linthead from South Carolina. I will not. As a matter of fact, I wear that label proudly—not from a bragging standpoint, but from a concept of guess what? God can use anyone. God can take you from the depths of the mud, from the depths of despair, and he can lift you up and he can make you into something. He did that for my son Zach, he's done it for me, and he's done it for a lot of other people.
Kristen Wambach (56:12)
I agree. I agree. Donald, where can people connect with you and learn more about your book?
Donald Williams (56:20)
Okay. Of course, the book's on Amazon and Kindle and all that. I think it's free in Kindle right now, it may still be, I don't know. There is an audio version out now, which you can find at Amazon or Audible. It's there, so you have all those, you know, just the typical places that you can find. And it's easy—all you have to type in is maybe "Linthead" and you will see it, one word, or "Born of Nothing Linthead" and it'll pop up. Like I said, I'm the co-author, but it's there. But also I have a webpage, IamDonaldWilliams.com. IamDonaldWilliams.com. And there you can go to see if they're interested, if they feel like they would like to read this story and read more about my meager story, they can go in and see that at IamDonaldWilliams.com. And also, of course, they can reach out. I'd love for them to reach out, email me if you have any questions. Or if someone would like to speak, I'm more than willing—I'm talking not on a podcast, I'm talking about just speak one on one. I'm more than willing to talk to anyone.
Kristen Wambach (57:27)
That's wonderful. That's wonderful. And just a reminder, listeners, I have already built this particular episode's blog post, and all those links are connected there to make it really easy for you to connect with Donald. Now, I didn't ask your permission before, but in the spirit of your grandfather, which I believe rests upon you—would you pray for our listeners?
Donald Williams (58:05)
Yeah, absolutely. Let's bow our heads. Dear God, we just come to you with praise and admiration that you're the creator of the universe. And dear God, we just love you so much. There's not a breath we take that it's not ordained by you. There's not a step that we take that you don't know about. And dear God, we just praise your name for that. Dear God, I do ask for prayer for the family of my uncle Robert tonight. He's almost a hundred years old, a World War II veteran. And dear God, you know him and you know his life, you know his heart. But dear God, I know he's about to slip off to meet you—he's talked about this. But dear God, I ask that you be with his family, his children at this time to give them comfort. And dear God, in some kind of way, if there's anyone connected with him who doesn't know you, that through his life and through his death and his passing to you, dear God, that people may come to know you. Dear God, just thank you for this opportunity that we've had today to speak about how you have interacted in our lives and the things that you have done to us and about how you have led us. Dear God, just continue to give us opportunities to be able to tell others about you and about your love. Dear God, you are the great God. You're the only God, and we praise your name for it. Thank you for giving us your son, Jesus, who died for us. Dear God, thank you for that. And we love you so much. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Kristen Wambach (59:42)
And listeners, I always just encourage you in that time of prayer, just put your hand over your heart and just remain in the pregnant presence of God and let him bathe you with that tangible touch of his love, of his encouragement, of the words that say, "You can do this, you can break through, you can move forward." And I thank you for that. Thank you. Donald, thank you for joining us here today.
Donald Williams (20:16)
Thank you for this opportunity, Kristen. I appreciate it.
Kristen Wambach (20:19)
I appreciate it too, so very much. Thank you.

The Weight of the Label

Donald grew up in a South Carolina cotton mill village in the mid-20th century. His family members, like generations before them, were "lintheads"—a derogatory term used for mill workers who emerged from grueling shifts covered from head to toe in white cotton dust. The mill didn’t just employ the village; it owned it. It provided the housing, the store, and even the church. This absolute dependency bred a culture of heavy silence. If an uncle or a father caused trouble, or if abuse occurred behind closed doors, no one spoke up. To speak meant losing your job, which meant instant homelessness for your entire family.
It was an environment designed to establish a permanent ceiling. Donald’s own father left school after the eighth grade because there simply was no other path visible on his horizon. Yet, Donald went on to break that cycle completely, eventually earning a Doctor of Education and working globally as an analyst for the Department of Defense.
However, Donald’s story is not a shallow narrative of self-made academic success. It is a story marked by agonizing contrast. While Donald was navigating the halls of higher education, cousins he grew up playing with were stepping into cycles of crime, addiction, and violence—eventually landing on death row and in federal prison.

I will never forget where I came from. I will never apologize for being a lint head from South Carolina... I wear that label proudly because God can use anyone." —Donald Williams

CONNECT WITH DONALD WILLIAMS

Kind Warning: language is occasionally graphic to depict the story.

Donald Williams Website
Donald Williams Facebook Page

Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations

Deep in the American South, poverty was rarely temporary. For many families, it was inherited.
In the cotton mill towns of the American South, generations of families lived in a world defined by lint dust, mill whistles, and long days of exhausting labor. Poverty was not simply a hardship. It was a system that shaped communities, reputations, and the expectations placed on entire bloodlines. Families like these were often labeled with a single dismissive word: lintheads.

Born of Nothing traces the story of Southern mill families shaped by that world. Through the intertwined experiences of two families raised in the same linthead culture, the book explores the lives, struggles, and choices that defined mill-town America.
At the center of the narrative is a boy born in 1934 to a teenage mother with no husband and no clear place in society. The identity of his father was never known. For years, he and his mother drifted through the border counties of North and South Carolina, moving between sharecropper cabins, shack towns, and mill villages during the hardest years of the Great Depression.
Eventually, they settled in a crude wooden shack on the side of Stoney Mountain above Hendersonville, North Carolina. Life there demanded resilience in the face of hunger, violence, and the rigid class divisions that defined mill-town society.
From these beginnings unfolds the story of a sprawling family whose members would follow very different paths. Some remained trapped in cycles of poverty, abuse, and crime. Others found ways forward through discipline, education, faith, and service.
Authors Jason G. Pike and Donald Williams, both descendants of Southern mill families and lifelong friends who first met at Clemson University, bring together family testimony, historical research, and personal memory to uncover a largely forgotten chapter of Southern life.
Part memoir and part exploration of American class history, Born of Nothing examines how the same origins can lead to radically different outcomes, and how the choices of one generation can change the direction of the next.

Hiding in Plain Sight

How does one break an invisible ceiling when the gravity of your environment is pulling everyone else down? When asked where Jesus was hiding in plain sight during those gritty early years, Donald didn’t point to theological systems. He pointed to the thin walls of a mill house and the knees of his grandfather.
"Every night... that man would get down on his knees beside his bed, and he’d pray," Donald shared. He didn't pray vague, poetic blessings. He prayed specific, agonizingly detailed prayers for his grandchildren by name, asking God to rescue them from the cycle. Donald fell asleep to the sound of unceasing, generational intercession. That raw, unfiltered faith proved more resilient than the industrial machinery of the mills.
Breaking a generational pattern requires a deliberate refusal to allow your starting point to dictate your permanent destination. The world is incredibly loud about labeling us based on what we lacked or where we began. Satan utilizes those labels to breed a specific kind of paralyzing shame—a shame that whispers you will never belong in a room of purpose. But guilt is about what you have done; shame is an assault on who you are.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable and worthy of change." — Brené Brown

When Heaven Interrupts the Dark

The ultimate proof of Donald’s shifted legacy didn't just manifest in his own academic achievements; it manifested in the miraculous rescue of his son, Zach. Years later, Zach had become a hardened atheist and a severe drug addict. One night, at three o'clock in the morning, a supernatural intervention occurred. Donald was awakened in his bedroom by a physical nudging. There was a presence in the room, communicating with absolute clarity without a spoken voice: Get up. Your son is about to die.
Surrounded by a bizarre sense of peace rather than terror, Donald followed that unseen guidance directly to his son’s side. Zach was taking his final breaths, his heart beating fewer than ten times a minute. Because of that angelic interruption, Zach survived. Today, that former atheist is a born-again believer and an ordained pastor preaching the gospel around the world.

Your Trajectory Can Shift Today

Donald’s family tree moved from child laborers in a cotton mill to a legacy where both of his sons now hold doctoral degrees. That is not luck; that is the execution of a redemptive trajectory.
If you are surviving day-to-day, feeling trapped by the limitations or addictions of your family tree, know this: Jesus specializes in untempled places. Step aside from the noise. Stop treating prayer as a one-sided list of demands and begin to listen. Ask the Creator of the universe to show you who He says you are. When you strip away the labels of the world, you realize that God can take anyone out of the mud of despair, lift them up, and build a legacy that echoes across generations.

Highlight Subjects

• The Anatomy of a 'Linthead' Village: Explaining the cultural, economic, and systemic entrapment of the historic South Carolina mill hills.
• The Weight of Generational Contrast: Navigating the internal grief of personal success while loved ones face prison and death row.
• The Mechanics of Generational Intercession: How specific, audible prayers by elders act as an anchor that holds a family tree together.
• Angelic Disruption: A firsthand account of a literal supernatural intervention that halted a fatal overdose and turned an atheist into a global minister.
• Stripping the Label: Overcoming regional bias, educational discrimination, and the voice of shame to occupy high-level rooms of influence.

FINAL SUMMARY

In this episode of the Interviewing Jesus Podcast, host Kristen Wambach talks with Donald Williams, co-author of the memoir Born of Nothing: From White Trash and Lintheads to Purpose Across Generations. Donald shares his journey growing up in a South Carolina cotton mill village, a community marked by poverty and the heavy label of being "lintheads." He went on to become the first in his family to graduate from college, eventually earning a Doctor of Education and working as an analyst for the Department of Defense.
Throughout the conversation, Donald reflects on the sharp contrasts of his life—navigating personal and academic success while beloved family members faced incarceration and death row. He shares how God was quietly at work in his upbringing, specifically through the consistent prayers of his grandfather. Donald also recounts a profound personal experience from a difficult season with his son, illustrating how faith and a change in perspective can alter a family's trajectory across generations.
As you listen to Donald's story of breaking through hidden ceilings and environmental limitations, it invites you to reflect on your own history: What labels or cycles from your past are you ready to lay down today so that you can step into the true identity and purpose Jesus has for you? This episode offers an encouraging look at letting go of shame and discovering a raw, lasting legacy through faith.

If you are ready to look at your own history—no matter how messy, raw, or broken it started—and discover how God can rewrite your family's trajectory for generations to come, pick up a copy of Donald’s book, Born of Nothing. We’ve placed the link to his website and the book directly in the show notes below. Go read his history, connect with him one-on-one, and let it ignite the bravery you need to claim your own true identity in Christ.

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COACHING CHURCH ACTIVATIONS

Shifting Your Trajectory

The invisible ceilings over our lives are usually built out of old labels, environmental expectations, and generational shame. Breaking those ceilings doesn't require a complex theological degree; it requires a deliberate decision to let Jesus rewrite your baseline. Use this practical blueprint to identify, strip away, and replace the old scripts keeping you bound.
Step 1: Identify the "Mill Hill" Script.
Donald grew up surrounded by a loud, cultural script that told him his family tree belonged in the cotton mills and nowhere else. Satan uses our environments to whisper a permanent ceiling over our potential.

• The Activation: Take a piece of paper and write down the silent, unspoken rule of your family line or past environment. Is it "We never have enough money"? Is it "We struggle with addiction"? Or perhaps "No one in our family ever finishes what they start"? Call it what it is—expose the hidden script to the light.

Step 2: Separate Guilt from Shame
As Kristen pointed out in the interview, guilt is a response to what you have done (which can be confessed and corrected), but shame is a toxic counterfeit that tells you who you are. Shame attaches a permanent label to your chest, making you feel like a hobo with a duffel bag entering a room of designer suitcases.

• The Activation: Draw a line down the center of your paper. On the left side, list the labels the world, your past, or your mistakes have assigned to you. On the right side, write this question: "Who does Jesus say I am?" Leave the right side blank for a moment—you are about to fill it.

Step 3: Shift from Informational Prayer to Intentional Listening
Most of our prayers are one-sided grocery lists where we tell God what we need and immediately get up from our knees. Donald’s grandfather prayed for hours, but Donald also learned the power of stepping aside to let God speak back.

• The Activation: Find ten minutes of absolute quiet today. Put away your phone, close your computer, and don't speak a long list of requests. Instead, put your hand over your heart and ask one specific question: "Jesus, what is the true name and purpose You have given me?" Sit in the stillness and listen.

Step 4: Write Your New Legacy Decree
Once you receive that nudge, that word, or that sense of divine peace, it is time to build a new trajectory for the generations coming behind you. Donald went back to college because his father patted him on the back and said, "Go back and try harder." You have the authority to speak that same momentum over your life and your children.

• The Activation: Fill in the right side of your paper from Step 2. Write down your new baseline in plain, straight quotes. Post it somewhere you can see it every single day.

Your Activation Declaration:
"Where I started in life does not determine where I finish. My past is an explanation of where I've been, not a prophecy of where I am going. Today, I step out of survival mode and execute a legacy of heavenly wisdom."

MEET THE AUTHOR & PODCASTER

Kristen Wambach is a spiritual investigative journalist, author, and transformational leader dedicated to stripping away religious theory to make room for real, raw conversations with the heart of Jesus. With over 30 years of leadership experience and two decades as a trusted transformation coach and ordained pastor, Kristen specializes in simplifying the supernatural and helping people step into their God-inspired calling.
As the author of How Good is God! and the Redemptive Activation Journal, Kristen doesn't just discuss faith—she provides the practical keys needed to navigate daily life with heavenly wisdom.

Whether she is chatting with global leaders or unpacking powerful, lived testimonies like Donald Williams' story, Kristen’s mission on the Interviewing Jesus Podcast remains the same: to help you bridge the gap between heaven and earth, overcome generational mindsets, and live Spiritually BRAVE.
Ready to dive deeper?
Explore more episodes, dive into Kristen's transformation resources, and grab your copy of How Good is God!