Dr. Tina Fornwald welcomes author, minister, and prophetess Patricia J. Williams to explore faith after loss and navigating the deepest seasons of grief. Walking through devastating bereavement requires immense spiritual strength, community, and trusting that God meets us in our pain. Together, they discuss Patricia’s book, How to Flourish in Spiritual Seasons of Your Life, and how widows can discover renewed hope, healing, and purpose. Patricia’s ministry focuses on helping people experience spiritual freedom and breakthrough through God’s Word. Whether you’re newly widowed, supporting a grieving loved one, or searching for encouragement, this powerful conversation provides practical guidance and biblical wisdom for taking the next step forward.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. 

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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Watch the episode here

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Can Grief Become Your Friend? Finding Hope After Loss With Patricia J. Williams

Redefining Widowhood And Community Support

Our guest is Patricia J. Williams, a minister of the gospel, psalmist, and motivational speaker. She writes to inspire, encourage, and motivate. Let us get into this conversation now. Patricia is going to share with us from her book, How to Flourish in Spiritual Seasons of Your Life.

Patricia, welcome to The Widowhood.

Thank you for having me on.

When you hear, Welcome to the Widowhood, what is the first thing that comes to mind for you?

A deceased spouse. The one who has lost a spouse and they are trying to get more encouragement any way they can. Just forming a group with, per se, other people that are widows as well. You really do not have to be a widow, but just trying to find someone else that will share the same thing. You went through, or that you all happened to go through?

I like that you made the point of not having to be a widow. I’m from Chicago, so hood means family to me. Widowhood is that community. Oftentimes, what the widow or widower is missing are the people that were in their community before their spouse died. They need them now more than ever to be entrenched in their life. That’s a worthy conversation. It’s not that you have your spouse’s past, but if this is your family member, your friend, someone that you care about, they are suffering, and they’re needing that community to embrace them

Even not a person per se, it could be like a loss of a marriage, a job. Something you were married to, because people are married to their job, their careers. Something can just come in, and just, everything just lost. You just wipe it out. It goes in many forms.

That would be the broader scope of grief itself. The widowhood itself would be the direct loss of your spouse. You’re correct that when you think of grief on a broader spectrum, it’s dealing with your own body suffering, having to relocate unexpectedly, problems with your children, loss. The thing that I have seen, and tell me about your experience, people may have some of those lower losses that they may say, “My pet is important,” and then you may have lost the job, your health. The passing of a loved one has a different implication than that of some of these other things because we feel like those are fixable. Those are things that we can adjust, but your child passes, your mom passes, a close cousin or neighbor. Those are not fixable.

Learning To Adjust To Life Without Physical Presence

They are not fixable because we are learning how to live without them being here. Even though they have passed on, we are trying to adjust how to live without the physical being. Even though we have the memories and everything we used to do with them, we love them unto death. Now we are trying to fix our hearts to say, “They are not here no more.” How do we adjust when we see every little thing, say, like you are in Walmart and you just passed by something they like to eat, and then bam. Here comes the memory again. How do we adjust to that? That’s what we’re going through day by day. How to live without it, without them.

I would also add that we love them currently. Oftentimes people go, “loved one,” ED, as if it’s a past tense. Some of the conflict or trauma. We love them currently. The love does not stop because they stop breathing.

It’s just a continuation. It’s just how do we adjust to love them without seeing their physical being? That’s why we have to learn how to get past that stage. As you said, it would never stop.

You say we, so that leads me to believe you have a personal experience with grief or someone no longer being here. Would you mind sharing about that?

Moving Beyond Titles To Acknowledge Personal Pain

I had gone through a season where I lost my mother, my sister, actually two siblings, two first cousins within a three-year span, and my dad too. Me being a minister of the gospel, we tend to always encourage someone else, and we give them like they are in a better place or something like that. I had to learn how to, per se, take off a title and be like, “God, how do I hear?” We have a tight-knit family. I had to learn how to adjust to them leaving me, just going on because I didn’t know how to handle grief because I was in a place where grief wanted to succumb to me.

Just wanted me to be in the house, not talk to anyone, and not eat. I had to adjust to how I overcame that mentality because it would literally grip your mind, grip your spirit, grip your soul. It would take you to a place of, they say, no return. So I had to really come together with myself, because I actually thought that God. I say, “God, you did not prepare me for this.” I actually thought that.

Once you get out your feelings, because that’s one thing, we do not want to be open to people. People see you at this level where you do not break down. You are supposed to act a certain way. When I decided I needed to be here for my other family members, my children. I had to get myself together. I could not be a help to anybody else when I wasn’t together. I was broken. I had a personal experience with it.

I want to ask a couple of questions about things that you just mentioned. You said you are a minister of the gospel. Explain that for someone who’s hearing that for the first time.

Minister of the gospel, I walk in the office of the prophet. I am preaching. I be encouraging. I write books. People will call on me for a prayer and everything else. I always had a word for someone else. I always poured into someone else. When it was time for me to get poured into and encouraged, it was like people were scared to say anything to me because they did not know how I was reacting or because of the title I had.

They did not know what to say. They did not know whether I was going to accept it or what. That’s why I be telling people that are in that title position, it’s okay to be you. It is okay to take the title off. It is okay to accept words from other people. We are not that high and mighty, so we cannot come down and say, “I need help. Come on and talk to me. What can you tell me?”

When you say gospel, what does that represent?

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It represents that we can speak to people through song. We can speak through and we can encourage people through the Bible, what God says, and the Word of God. It’s just a whole line of gospel. You can do gospel with a dance. You can dance through a gospel song. It’s a large spectrum of gospel just to reach the people to say, “Jesus saves.”

In all of that, I would guess that that’s taken training and information. People look at you as someone who has a close relationship with God. Now it’s not supporting others. It is your own personal experience where your loved ones have died or transitioned. How do you want to phrase that? If I heard you correctly, you yourself faulted God for that. For the person whose loved one has passed and they say they’re mad at God, what would you say to them because many people struggle with that?

Honest Dialogue And Processing Anger With God

Many people struggle with that because the love is so strong. We love hard. We love really hard. We expect our loved ones to be here forever. We even expect ourselves to be here forever. I had to look at it like this. I was upset with God, but God had to really deal with me. He would say, “Would you want them to live a life of sickness, of pain, of hurt?” We also got to look at their relationship with God. We do not know the conversation they had with God.

They probably told God, “God, I am ready to go home. Come and take me.” We do not want to be in that place of per se selfishness to say, “No, God, do not take them,” because we do not know what they said to him. God had to really deal with him. Do not be selfish. Look at it from their perspective. You’re not going through their sickness. You do not know what they went through.

For the part of them that is just mad at God for this, how does one wrestle or manage? They believe in God, they trust God, but now they’re mad at God because this has happened to them personally.

Emotionalism. We as people go through that all the time. When our emotions get to a certain peak, we do hear nobody. Our ears are shut. We are shut down. We have to go to a place where we have to just, per se, settle down because once we get up in an uproar and everything, we’re just doing our own thing. Once we get to a place of being shut down until we come down, that’s when God begins to deal with our heart, and he can talk to us then because it’s just like your own child. Once you are upset or once they are upset, they are not hearing you. They are not hearing anything you say. Once everybody settled down, we just talked it out.

Once then we just sit down and God, and then we just allow God to minister to us. The first thing he would do is minister to us through his word, through his Bible, through scriptures. That is the first thing. That’s when your spiritual mind, your spiritual ears, your eyes, everything is beginning to open up. That’s when he can come in and really talk to you and really calm you down. It is okay to be honest with him. He would rather you be honest with him than just keep living a lie because we got to know. He knows all things. He knows everything about us. Even before it happens, he knows about us. It is okay to be honest with him.

Another thing you spoke about. You mentioned being able to put down the title yourself and recommending that for other people. You also spoke about these one-liners that people give to those who are grieving and thinking that they are comforting them. For the person that is struggling with saying, “I know how I may have shown up with other people, but now that I’m in this place, this feels different.” I did give those one-liners to other people. Now I’m wrestling with, “That does not land like I thought it did.” What would you say to your fellow parishioners who are in that space? Maybe they’re given the one-liners, they have not experienced profound grief, or they have now experienced profound grief and are wrestling with how they showed up before.

Everyone grieves differently because every relationship is different. Some of us, per se, because I heard a pastor say that he lost his mother and some more people within a time span. It took him to the point where he wanted to pick up vodka. He wanted to go to the nightclub. He just wanted to release the devil, which is the enemy, and wanted to take him back. You see, once you have a title, and when he shared that testimony, everybody just looked at him differently. He is human. We are human. We just carry a title.

That does not mean we do not have the thoughts of going back to what made us feel good. We are human. We just have to ask God to help us navigate what we are going through. Because if not, we can easily be pulled back to what God has because it is easy to get back. That’s how I feel. I feel like just going out to the nightclub. I had to come back to reality. Was this going to ease what I feel? Once I come back down, it’s still going to be there. I can tell them it is okay to have those thoughts, but do not linger and do not allow those thoughts to take you back to that place because you do not want to go back. You want to go forward.

Those things that people are trying to lean into. Is it really looking for something to numb the pain? It is so intense. Do you think from your perspective that the church has space to grow and learn how to support people who are grieving better?

No. From my perspective, the church has lost its deal in that area.

Do you believe there’s more space?

Seeking Counseling Beyond Church Walls

Yes, there are, because you can go beyond the church walls. I had to go to a psychiatrist. It does not mean that we are all crazy per se, but it’s okay to get counseling. Some of the things we have close people in the church you cannot talk to. It’s best to talk to somebody outside of the spectrum that does not know you so that you can get your feelings out because you do not want to hear my perspective. You do not want to hear the Bible. You do not hear anything about God right now.

I had to go outside of my spectrum and go and have a counselor. Plus, I had to navigate to get more people who were on my journey, who felt like after. We just basically took out scripture, took out the Bible and everything, knowing that at the beginning we didn’t have it. As we went down the line into the sessions, that’s when everything came back. Scripture, God, and everything. We did not take him out completely.

Thank you for sharing that because profound loss has a way of baselining us, impacting us in a way we have never experienced before. Being able to say, “I need more than what I’m doing right now.” “I need to have community” is what I heard from other people. Seeking professional advice because we are body, soul, and spirit, and not understanding how the brain processes grief leaves you without information that can be helpful on this journey. How did all of this come into a book that you wrote, How to Flourish in the Spiritual Seasons of Your Life? How did that relate to your grief journey?

We have different seasons, just like in the natural world, we have summer, spring, fall, winter.

No, how did you come to the part to write the book?

I had to go through different phases of my life. I had to go through my winter phase, my summer phase, my spring phase. I had to go through different phases of briefs because that’s what you wanted to know.

People go through those, but what made you decide to write about it, to put it into a book? Often people have those experiences, but it doesn’t culminate into a book. For you, what was that?

For me, I had to come to the knowledge that grief comes in different stages. I had to write it down because I was just journaling the things that it had taken me through. When I was writing it down, I said, “I’m going to share my story because someone else may be going through the same thing I’m going through, but they do not know how to put it in words form.”

Thank you. Let’s get into your book and sort of have a conversation as we go along. We’re not giving everything away because the goal is for our audiences to listen to the book. I have a few things I’d like for you to read and then we talk about. The first one is on page five, the third paragraph, please.

Using the analogy?

Yes, ma’am.

It helps us to, just like I said, a season is when you’re going through different phases of your life, and you do not understand. Just like the natural weather of seasons, we go through spiritual seasons of our life. We have good times, we have bad times, we have seasons of wealth, seasons of depletion. It helps us to draw closer to God. It helps our faith. It helps our trust. You do not get stuck in one particular season.

You want to push on because if you get stuck in that season, you do not want to see what the next season is going to be like. We, as a people, have a problem with change because we get comfortable where we are. Some of us are fearful of change. A season will change because you do not want to take your old season of what you used to do into your new season, because it will cause contamination.

Can you read that third paragraph, starting with using and ending with harvest?

Navigating Dry Seasons And Spiritual Transitions

“Using the analogy of seasons to talk about our spiritual lives helps us realize that the phase we’re in is part of a larger pattern that won’t last forever, but will eventually introduce us to something new and different. It also helps us to see that, like seasons, our spiritual lives have rhythm, purpose, direction, and can cycle back again and again with a change for new growth and new hearts.”

What does that mean to you now after having written this and where you are now in your life?

If I had stayed where I was, I wouldn’t be where I’m at now. I had to let go of what I used to do because I loved where I was, but I knew I had something better that lay ahead. I had to, per se, step out of my comfort zone into, let me get the right word, a new realm, stepping out of my comfort into something of the unknown, which I didn’t even know. Just like the weather, we do not know what the weather is going to be, even though we have the person who is telling us what the weather should be. That’s not what the weather is. That’s how we are with the seasons. We are stepping into something we do not even know about.

What were some things that you had to walk away from that you weren’t comfortable with?

My friends. Some friends that I thought were with me. Once I began to change, wanting more, because I knew, “This is not all of it. It’s something deeper, it’s something more that I can obtain.” I talk about God a lot, because I know He changed my life completely. Once God began to deal with me, they couldn’t accept the change. They still were in my past. They still were holding on to the old me when I was trying to let go of the old me and step into the new me.

I had to let go of some people, some places, some things, somewhere I used to go, used to say, even my mindset, and that’s a very important thing. You have to have a changed mindset. You cannot have the mindset of living beneath your privilege. You have to see yourself as living beyond what you are now. You’ve got to see yourself where you want to be. I had to let go of my own mindset.

Let’s move to page number eleven. If you would read, starting with this and ending with dryness, and then we’ll talk about it. At the bottom of page eleven.

“This kind of spiritual dry spell can come after walking through difficulties, spending time in half-heartedness or sin, or simply getting stuck in a rut. When people say they are spiritually dry, they usually mean they feel distant from God, or they are struggling to grow spiritually. They do not see God working, the burdens of life press in, and they begin to feel discouraged. They search for God in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1. It is a time of spiritual dryness. There may be several reasons for spiritual dryness.

Spiritual dryness for someone who’s not a churchgoer, someone who’s not reading the Bible, does that relate to them, or is that just for people in the church?

People in the church, because remember you have to give your life over to Christ.

Can anybody be having a dry spell in life? Is that overall?

Spiritual dryness is different from the world. Remember, we are children of God, and we’re going to go through a spiritual dryness. That means that you are not. Now, I’m not going to say everybody is not saved because we have different relationships with God. I’m saying this is where you have a close walk with God and then you do not feel God anymore. Something may have come in and wiped your relationship. He has not totally left you. Something you did that blocked the relationship or came in between the relationship. Now I’m talking to the ones that have just given their life over to Christ.

You do not feel him right now. You may not feel him right now. That’s because there is a spiritual warfare going on between him and the devil because you just gave your life over to Christ, and the devil is upset because you had made that decision. The ones that have not given their life over to Christ yet, but you are thinking about, he is tugging on your heart. God is tugging on your heart for you to come on it. That’s when you will feel like something’s not right, like that. That’s him tugging at you. It’s time for you to accept the yes he wants out of you. Yes, God, I will live for you. Yes, God, I will give you my life.

That is part of it too because things will happen. It’s not like he is scaring you to come to Him because we all have free will. We can accept Him or not. When you say, “Lord, I am tired of this life I’m living. What can I do?” He heard those words. He is tugging at your heart to say yes, for you to come to me. That’s when something may happen. You will say, “God, I hear you. I’m coming.” I see what you’re saying. It can pertain to them too, because it’s somewhere down the line. You know about God. Even if it’s about your mama, your grandma, somebody told you about Jesus. There’s no excuse, yeah.

For you on a personal level, what have been some of your dry seasons? What caused them, and how did you manage that?

What caused my dry season? I just didn’t feel like praying. I didn’t feel like talking to him. I was just upset. I just didn’t want to do anything anymore. It all went back to the grief that I had to experience. There was a dry season in my life. I just completely shut down. When I got through pouting, like children, we pout. When I came over myself until I got through, that’s when I started back. I went back to God, and I repented. I repented, and then everything started coming back. My harvest, everything started coming back because I had to go through that season.

When you say repented, what does that mean for someone that’s not familiar with that term?

Repent means asking God to forgive you.

Why was that important?

It’s important because, just like if I do something to you and I realize I have hurt your feelings. I do not want you to walk around just down hard and hurt because I did something to you. I’m going to say, “I am sorry I did this and that, because that will hinder my relationship with you.” We were not talking. I do not want it. It is important to God because we will hurt him, even though he is a spirit. It will hurt him. You have to say, “God, please forgive me.” It’s just like his son died and people spat on him, people hit him and whipped him, but yet he still died on the cross.

He forgave those people, even though they may not know. He forgave them by dying on the cross for us. If I do not go to God and ask God for forgiveness, He would not accept my prayers. He will not accept anything that I do unto Him, because why? We still got this here left open. We still have not settled this matter here. Nothing, and that is another thing that will cause spiritual dryness too, unforgiveness.

What does repentance do for the repenter?

It frees him. It frees you. You are no longer in bondage to that. It is no longer a rope around your neck, per se. It’s no longer running space in your head.

Let’s move to page 46. If you would read the first two paragraphs, please.

“The very mention of the word brokenness causes many Christians to shudder inside, though they may nod their heads agreeing that it is something spiritually necessary. Scripture makes it clear that this process is essential for spiritual growth as well as fruitfulness. There remains quite a bit of uncertainty and confusion regarding it. Brokenness is God’s requirement for maximum usefulness. Often Christians struggle to get to what they see as the top. They forge their extensive list of accomplishments, perhaps with the hope that they will one day be able to hand it to God and say, “See what I’ve done for you.”

Thank you for reading that. What would you say to the statement that people judge or measure their walk or success with God based on everything being perfect? When things are going awry, or there’s turmoil, or there’s difficulty, then that means my life is not going well with God.

Just like I read, people will say, “There’s nothing wrong with accomplishing this education. I do encourage education.” You cannot hand your education, your theology, to God. You have to come to a place because the Bible says, “Know the person by the spirit.” I do not know you from your outer shell because we are a spirit and this body houses a spirit. I have to know your spirit, not saying that you are unhappy or going through stuff. If I do not know you in the Spirit, I cannot minister to you in the Spirit. I will minister to you from the way you look on the outside.

God wants us to know a person by the Spirit, not by what they have accomplished, not what they have accomplished. Yes, I do applaud you for your diplomas and your accomplishments, but it goes beyond that scope. It goes beyond that. Versus that and the spirit, I do encourage you to go to theology school because it’s more. Do not just base everybody on book knowledge. Some of us got to go through some stuff in order to help somebody else too.

The person that has a relationship with God, and from what they know, they are doing the things that God has called them to do. Their life has a large amount of challenges and difficulties and things that they are having to endure. Does that mean they’re doing something wrong in life because their life has those challenges?

Not necessarily. We can go through change. We can go through challenges because the Lord knows I have, and I still go through challenges. There comes a time when you can allow the challenges to overtake you. You can be preaching like I was, preaching from a place of pain, a place of challenges. When you get to that point, you have to sit down. You have to regroup because you’re doing more harm than good. You are spewing what you’re going through over that person’s life.

I would tell that person, sit down, allow God to heal you. Allow God to take you through the things you have to go through before you speak to someone like the congregation. Because true, and we know we got people that are out there going through mental illness and things. They are just going alone. Nothing is going on. Everything is fine. Come on now. We got to be real with ourselves. We got to be real with God. “I need help. I can help nobody until you help me.”

Is pain part of living?

Yes, it is. Through your pain, you will find your purpose. Pain, you will never outgrow. You will never outlive pain until the day God calls us home. We’re going to have pain.

Having a relationship with God does not make me immune to pain.

Exactly. It teaches you how to handle it. It also teaches you not to allow the pain to overtake your life. We can go through pain, and we do not even know that we do not go through pain. It just comes that quick because it teaches us how to handle it.

You were writing this book. What did you want the reader to take away?

I want the readers to know it’s okay. It’s okay to be you. Do not let your old version of you label your new version of you. Do not allow your past to overcome your future. When I was writing this book, the seasons that I went through, I had to think it was out. I thought everything was out, and then I was free and I was walking.

Dude, and you passed that. You got the t-shirt and know what to do.

I got this. I started crying. I said, “Wait a minute, I was delivered from this.” Things were resurfaced. It was in the back of my mind. I thought I had. Everything was great. No, thank you. That’s another thing to my writers, those who are writing. Things are going to come up. You thought that was gone, but it was really suppressed in the back of your mind. Once you get it on paper, “You deliver from it. I’m gone now. I’ve conquered this.” Writing actually allows you to free yourself before it gets in the people. It makes sense.

There’s much power in journaling.

Yes, it is.

A way of getting it out. Two more sections. Page number 53. If you would start with times of transition and end with the word wait, please.

“Times of transition will always reveal your character. If you want to learn about who you really are and what you can handle or tolerate, go through a season of transition. Your response during that time will tell you what you’re made of. Sometimes it can feel like these times of change are bringing out the worst in you. You’re asking yourself, “Why am I struggling with this? This has never been an issue for me,” or “I thought I overcame this already. I know I’m way better than how I’m feeling or acting right now. I do not know where this came from.”

Do you feel as though you are in transition in relation to your spiritual gift, prophetic ministry, or calling? Transition can be a challenging time. We are uncomfortable with the status quo and yet the new opportunity that God has not yet manifested. In spite of the trials, transition is powerful. It heralds the fact that a new season of fruitfulness is on its way.

Now this book was copyrighted in 2019. We are now in 2026. What does Patricia see now that she’s learned of herself since writing this, and what have you experienced for your character?

I see that. I see a different version of me because when people say you will be nothing, you will never experience anything, or you cannot do this, you cannot have that. I showed them who I was, who God says that I am. I can go back and say, “Come on, let’s go out to eat,” because you told me I couldn’t do this, but I’m telling you, “Let’s go out to eat. I thank you because your words pushed me.” I didn’t settle for what you said. I dug deep inside, and that transition changed. If I hadn’t stepped out and believed that I could do it, would somebody else say, “I couldn’t do it”? I would never be at the place I am.

Has the experience in life surprised you about anything about your own personal character?

Yes, it has. It has surprised me, overwhelmingly surprised me, because the words had manifested in my mind, and it started back when I had to change my mindset. It all goes back to your mindset. You are who you believe and think you are. You can have what you say you can have, despite where you came from. You can still have it.

The final section, if you would read page 85, starting with “Live through your seasons glorifying God,” and then end with the word task on 86, please.

Page 85?

Yes, ma’am.

“Live through your season glorifying God. Once you recognize what season you’re in, you can shift your thoughts to the Heavenly Father and live through the season glorifying Him. Ultimately, God is in control of our seasons. Whichever season you’re currently in, remember that God is making everything beautiful in His time. King Solomon was a knowledgeable man who thought a lot about the way life goes. He wrote these words in Ecclesiastes 3, ‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”

“A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain, a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to throw away, a time to tear, a time to sew, a time to keep silence, a time to speak, a time to love, a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace to God-given tasks.”

Thank you for reading that.

You’re welcome.

What does it mean to you when you have to wait because God will make everything beautiful in its time?

Embracing The Timing And Purpose Of Waiting

I had a problem with time. We always have a problem with time. We want to rush. We want that microwaveable stuff. We will say, guilty of it, “Come on, God, is it time yet?” I’ve learned our time is not His time. If He gives it to us before time, we can mess it up. If He gives it to us before time, we are not ready to receive it. During the waiting process, He is building us to get ready to receive whatever He has for us.

If He gives it to us right now, we are going to mess up. If God gives us a million dollars, we do not know how to handle it, because we’ll go out and we’ll splurge and get this and get that. Before that time, when we are waiting on the million dollars to come, He’s going to teach us how to use it, how to invest it, and what to do with it. When He says, “Now you’re ready for it,” He’s going to give it to us.

What would you say to the reality that there is a time to hate?

It’s okay to hate, but do not let hate overtake you. Hate is a bad word. We are all human. We will never be perfect because we are being worked on every day. We have got to replace hate with love. “God, teach me how to love instead of hate. Teach me how to love that person instead of hating that person, even though they did me wrong.” You may not ever get an apology, but teach me how to love. You do not want hate to consume you, because hate will put a cement block over your heart. Hate will take trust away so that you will not trust anymore. I will tell somebody, “God, teach me how to love.”

Where can someone find your book or connect with you?

They can connect with me at PatriciaJWilliams.com. That’s my website. They can find my book on Amazon.com and all of the internet retailers. They can connect to me at FaithIsTheKey47@gmail.com, Instagram, and Facebook. I’m out there, you all.

I try to give my guests an opportunity to be the podcast host. Any questions you have for me?

How long have you been doing this? This is so great.

Thank you. Widowhood Real Talk with Dr. Tina has been in existence since 2022.

That’s a blessing. Do you help many widows or do you go beyond your scope?

The scope is the bereaved. That scope is primarily with the widow or the widower, the person who has lost their spouse. It goes beyond, hence the word hood, to their community. They need to know how to support the person who is grieving. Just like when my late husband passed, I became a widow. My children no longer had a father in this world. My husband’s siblings lost a sibling. Those nieces and nephews lost an uncle. Someone lost a friend.

Even though it may be directly because it’s my spouse, his other relationships were severed, and those people are part of that community as far as what that grief looks like and the people we support. Your success rate has been great in helping others. It’s interesting you would ask that question. I just happen to have my notes because we have a board meeting today. Since 2022, all of our content on social media has had over 38 million views across 124 countries. We are having a gala on May 16th here in Norfolk, Virginia. Currently, we have 96 tickets sold.

That event is to celebrate my birthday, to celebrate widowhood, and a book that I’m releasing called The Five Widows Club. I would say at least half of these people are people that we’ve met on social media and are coming together for the first time. They’ve been tuning in to the show, part of a TikTok Live, or different things or events that we’ve had. Having an annual butterfly release ceremony, we’re preparing to develop a memorial garden that will have a food production part of it. Also, we do programs to help children who have one or more parents deceased to have toys for Christmas or gifts. The reach of that in creating a community is very expansive and beneficial.

It’s a blessing. I’m so glad to meet you.

Thank you.

I do not have any more questions.

I would ask you to close out this conversation with any final comments or maybe something you wanted to cover that we didn’t dive into it and just remind people how they can connect with you.

I just want to let everyone know it is okay. It is okay to share, and it is okay to connect with the people that are in your scope and your community. If you have that book inside of you, some people say, “I do not know where to start. I do not know what’s up.” Just start writing. In the scope of your writing, it’s going to come into the form you need it to come into. I also want, because I hear this buried in my ear, some of you are scared to talk about what’s going on with you. Do not be. Go to a doctor and talk to them.

It is okay to talk to someone out of your scope, out of your spectrum. Get professional help because if not, it is the enemy’s job to run you crazy with things and things of the world. There is so much going on. Your family needs you, your friends need you, people need you. Find you some help. It is okay. If you need to contact me or you need to write to me, my mailing address is P.O. Box 3514, Pineville. It’s Pineville, Louisiana 71361. You can just drop me a line or just hook me up on Facebook. Remember, I am praying for everyone.

Thank you, Patricia.

You’re welcome.

Important Links

• Patricia J. Williams
• Patricia J. Williams on Instagram
• Patricia J. Williams on Facebook
• FaithIsTheKey47@gmail.com
• How to Flourish in the Spiritual Seasons of Your Life
• The Five Widows Club

About Patricia J. Williams

Seasoned with wisdom, humility, compassion, revelatory insight, and personal candor, Prophetess Patricia translates hard-hitting spiritual insights into everyday language that empowers individuals to activate purpose and maximize potential. She is a mother of one daughter, Natasha and grandmother of three, Jeremiah, Jaycee, and Josiah. She resides in Pineville, La. She is under the leadership of Dr. Joshua Joy Dara, Sr. of Zion Hill Church Family, Pineville, La. She serves faithfully on the Prayer Ministry. She is also the Outreach Director of Zion Hill’s Church School. She has a radio show called “Proclaiming God’s Word on KAYT FM88.1 She is a member of The African American Female Authors of America. She is on the Board of Directors for the youth center Jeremiah’s Dream, Inc. and The ARC of Rapides, advocating for mentally disabled and autistic people. She is the owner of Exquisite Publishing & Designs, LLC.