Sarah Jakes Roberts

If I could become an administrative assistant, I could support someone else's work and I could have stability for my son, maybe room for some growth.

And I was, that's literally all I wanted to be.

So you never thought I'm going to be, you know, leading 30,000 people every weekend.

Absolutely not.

No.

No.

And now that I still have to like invite my previous versions of myself into this moment to realize like this is the moment that I'm living in.

Oprah said once that she's living God's dream for her life.

And I feel like that's very much so my reality is that I'm living out a dream that I could have never had for myself.

I had to let them define my present first.

I think that sounds easy.

Like I'm not going to let these hard moments define me for the rest of my life.

And sometimes that's an instant click for people.

But then there are people like me who live in the result of letting those hard decisions define them, where they come to a place where they're like, I don't like the results.

I did not like who I was when I looked in the mirror.

I just didn't.

I just didn't like her.

It started, of course, when I was a pregnant teenager and I was so ashamed of myself.

I'd look in the mirror and I would think the worst thoughts about myself.

And then as my choices continued to reflect that poor self-belief, I just didn't like who I was.