What happens when grief feels like crawling through hot lava? When the weight of loss makes it hard to breathe, let alone believe? In this deeply moving episode of The Widowhood, Dr. Maurice Ball joins us to share his raw and powerful journey of hope after heartbreak, anger at God, and the long road toward healing after the death of his father. Together, we unpack the messy mosaic of grief—how it shatters us, how we begin to pick up the pieces, and how, over time, we learn to separate pain from life. Whether you’re deep in your own grief or walking beside someone who is, this conversation is a beacon of hope, truth, and community.

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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Hope After Heartbreak: Grief, God, And The Long Road Back With Dr. Maurice Ball

Hello, Widowhood. Our guest, Pastor Maurice Ball, is going to drop some gems for you. The conversation is about how we handle when we’re mad at God in our grief, how we handle different statements that people make when we’re grieving, and his personal journey of crawling through hot lava after the passing of his dad. Let’s get into this conversation now.

Hello, Maurice. Welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. I get to hang out with my friend.

When you hear, “Welcome to the widowhood,” what is in your mind? What was the message that came across?

Since I’m not a widower, when I hear that, I think it’s a platform that is designed in place for people who are experiencing that. In that journey, so many times people don’t feel that they have anybody with whom they can connect or walk with. A lot of people feel like they are on that journey by themselves. This is a spot where a community of people can grow and help each other through the pain and the suffering of losing a loved one.

You nailed it because a lot of times, people think it’s only about the widow or widower. I’m from Chicago, and the word hood is family to me. When my husband passed, my children lost their father. When my husband passed, his siblings lost a brother. My siblings lost a brother-in-law, and throughout our community. That hood’s idea is for that widow and widower not to be alone, for that hood to say, “I have a part in this loss also.” When we lose a loved one, we’re usually seeing it from the vantage point of our loss. There are other people who have lost them in a different way.

All I saw was that I lost my dad. I didn’t think about my grandparents losing a child or my sibling, my uncles and aunties losing a sibling, or anything like that. It was when I lost my dad. It makes sense. I love the word play. If you’re from the hood, hood people take care of hood people. I love the play on words.

Speaking of the passing of your dad, was there any type of community conversation where you’re in your pain as the son that you felt like you saw the exposure of everyone else’s pain outside of the service, the day-to-day?

The Struggles Of Grief

At that point, I didn’t care about anybody else. This is before I got in a relationship with Christ, so my choice of words was very colorful when it came to everybody else. I didn’t pay any attention to the effects of his passing on anybody except me. Because I was so young, I was still 19 or 20, I didn’t know anything outside of him. When that glass shattered, it shattered everywhere, and trying to pick up those pieces was very difficult.

I didn’t have time to check on anybody. I won’t check on my sisters. I won’t check on my uncles and aunties. I was trying to survive. That’s what I was trying to do. I think you came on my podcast, and you said that I’m crawling through hot lava. When I look at that analogy, it works for me because all I was doing was crawling through hot lava, trying to make it to the next minute.

It is. When you say the glass exploded, amazing description. What was some of the glass? What did that explosion look like?

My dad was a single parent in the ’80s. Everything that I learned, I learned from him. When that glass shattered, you’re talking about pieces of responsibility that I didn’t have. I had to step up for the accountability that I have now. I got to be accountable for how this funeral and all this other stuff is going to go for and be responsible to make sure that all his affairs were taken care of, the date, those things. I had zero emotional intelligence. I was trying to go through all these pieces and said, “I think I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m frustrated, and I’m depressed.”

Trying to put the pieces back together, I picked up everything instead of going through, saying, “I don’t need that anger piece right now,” or “I don’t need the lack of focus right now.” I went through and put the pieces back together, and it looked like it was a mosaic, but it didn’t form a picture. It was all together. Over time, I had to go back through and surgically remove all those pieces that I realized I didn’t need, which had me in the middle of depression, contemplating suicide. That was a very difficult process as well.

The process from Maurice at nineteen to Maurice now, even knowing what the word emotional intelligence is, what did that journey look like for you?

That journey was a Russian roulette. When the bottom collapses and you fall into the middle of darkness, you learn how to navigate in the darkness. I know what the darkness looks like. I know the depth of darkness. I know how to navigate in the darkness. I got comfortable with being reckless. The depth, when my dad passed, took me all the way to the brink of the crossroads of life and death. What I realized was that I wanted the pain to stop. In my mind, the pain was attached to life. In order to get the pain to stop, I would have to stop the life. That’s why I say it became surgical.

How do I start to break these pieces out of this mosaic that didn’t need it? It was messy separating. I have the life. I have the pain. It was like this. They’re intertwined, but they are two different things. There’s life, and then there’s the pain. Breaking the two apart, the only focus on the pain and the value to life, was a process. I was dark. I was reckless. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about anyone. I was out here floating, trying to make it to the next day.

I want to go back to your description because the idea of trying to navigate life without our loved one is a struggle that people often have to navigate. What was your process of trying to separate life and pain and focus on one or the other?

The Separation Of Pain & Life

I think what clicked for me was when I sat there and said, “You know what? My dad wouldn’t want me living like this. He never wanted me to be the woe is me kind of person or the let me go get my fiddle and let’s go have a pity party kind of thing.” It took some time after I separated the two to say he wants the best for me. He wouldn’t want me down here like this. I had to tell myself that every day, which gave me a little encouragement. Yes, the pain was still there because during that time, too, my mom had slipped into a coma. Now, I was fighting. I don’t know if I was going to lose her, but I’m also getting a little better over here. As you rip it apart and you start to get it further apart, it’s like, “There is some value to this.” A little something will happen to give me a little bit more encouragement.

I started a little less over here. I started to feel the pain a little less and a little more. It took me a while, though. It took me a couple of years to get the two apart, to separate, and then be able to deal with them on an individual basis. It was a very complex, complicated, long, drawn-out process, especially without any spiritual grounding. I was doing all this without any spiritual grounding. It was very difficult. In the process, my friend had invited me to church. That took a little bit of it. Because I wasn’t committed to going, I figured that the one time going was like one time, help me out. I got this thing, and then I have my ups and downs, but then it became more consistent.

Here’s one of the other things, too, that I realized. People don’t go into the depth of what it is that you are going through. They ask how you’re doing. You tell them your surface-level answer. They rock with your surface-level answer and never press beyond the surface-level answer. When everybody was asking me how I was doing, I’m like, “I’m good,” and that was it. Nobody said, “How are you really doing?” Now, I have to open that door and address those emotions and stuff that were coming out of there. Looking back, I’m glad I learned that the hard way because there are so many people whom I’ve been able to touch out of the ashes of something so tragic.

Thank you for sharing that. People often hyperfixate on pain to purpose in these little catchphrases. I don’t know about you, but when I was in pain, I was not thinking about the purpose for nobody else. It evolved into that. I want to make people realize it’s not like you’re going through these and you’re going, “I can’t wait to make purpose out of this.” You’re like my garbage trash. No one wants to be here. Is there not a better way? Can I get the Cliffs Notes? Why are we doing that?

One hundred percent. You aside purpose to God, like God has a purpose for it, but if you don’t know God, then to me, there was no purpose. I was like, “Eventually, I came to know God, I could look back, and I could see the purpose.” While I was going through it, there was no purpose aside from that. There was no meaning for me.

How does your lived experience impact how you show up with people in their pain, in any type of pain?

Developing Faith & Empathy Through Loss

My dad’s death gave me depth. I can now go into any situation dealing with death, be an empath, be able to absorb any of that stuff, and redirect it somewhere else. I went so deep. I crawled out of the mud to get to be stable. As you build this bridge and these steps, these steps become a path for somebody else. Somewhere on the first step to the very last step, somebody’s on that path. I can take my experience. I’m able to be more compassionate, have more empathy, be able to listen, and be able to say, “I understand. I lost a parent violently, and I lost a parent to natural causes.” I understand both ends of the spectrum.

When my mom passed, I didn’t have to recreate the steps. It didn’t put me in a place of darkness because now, I had established the spiritual step. I understood that this has a purpose. Now, I understand the purpose. All it did was allow me to put guardrails on the steps that I’ve already created. The chances of you falling off are slim to none because now, I have guardrails. I’ve already developed the steps. I already processed this. I’ve already been to the depths of this. I could tell you, somewhere along these steps, this is what’s going to happen. This is how you feel. This is what you do. Now, here are some guardrails. Here’s what I did before. I didn’t have to say, “Here’s what I did,” because nobody in my circle could relate to me. Everybody in my circle had at least one parent.

Maurice, what was the time frame between your parents’ passing?

About two years.

You had a well-established process and had gone through an intense journey. How did your faith develop in that process from when your dad passed and your mother? What was that faith journey like for you?

Faith & Salvation Journey

That wasn’t what led me to get into a relationship with Christ. It was something external. It was over here, it was pushing me to it. What led me to it was that I was tired of being this human. Once you go to the dark side, you pick up some things, and your morals, your character, and your values start to get tainted. The stuff that you move in becomes normal and acceptable behavior. I was trying to be a better human. In that process, I got saved through watching Creflo Dollar. It was crazy because I used to be big into fashion. I see this dude in his suit. It was a navy blue suit, window panes, sky blue shirt, with the burgundy Tommy, and he was clean. I was like, “This dude is clean. I like the combination.”

He was explaining salvation. Nobody ever took the time to explain salvation. He made it very simple. No sooner did that show go off, my mentor called me and was like, “We’re having a family and friends day at church. Are you coming?” I went to church. When he got to the altar call, it made sense. I got saved, and that was at 26. My mom passed when I was 30. I had already been on my walk for 4 to 5 years before she passed. By the time she passed, I was solid in my walk. I was serving. I was praying. I was fasting. I knew how to read it. Before she passed, God had told me that the year was ’04. In January, He was like, “This is the year.” Mother’s Day in ’04 is when it happened. When the phone rang, I told my wife, “That’s the call right there.”

Lo and behold, it was my sister. She was like, “Mom passed of a massive heart attack.” I was cool because I’m like, “I have five months of preparation. I have five months of praying.” I stayed in my word, so I was okay. The best thing about it was that God used me to lead her to Him. Before she passed, we had a very good conversation about salvation. I led her through the prayer. She said it. I was okay with her spirit being secure. Didn’t know if my dad cried out when he passed because I wasn’t there. I would like to hope that he did, but then again, I’m not sure if he did.

Thank you. I want to circle back to something you’ve mentioned twice, the idea of salvation. What does that mean? What is that process for that? What does that give a person?

Salvation is getting your soul saved and rescued from eternal damnation. The process of that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You confess your sins, you repent of your sins, and you accept Him into your heart as your Lord and Savior. What that does is it now secures your soul that your body is going to ever is always perishing away. That’s what He says. It’s like grass. It’s always perishing. Your soul is now secure when you relinquish everything over and give it up to Him, because there had to be a price to pay for all the bad things that I’ve done, which we call those things sin.

It says that the wages for that sin are death. I couldn’t afford to pay what it costs. God had a plan, put that plan in place, and said, “Do you love Him enough to take His punishment?” Jesus says, “Yes, I do.” He steps in for all the wrong that I did, all the wrong that I was doing, and all the wrong that I am doing. I mean, we’ll do. He steps in, he pays the penalty for that. When you receive that, then your soul is secure, and you will have a mansion built for you in heaven.

Thank you for that explanation because a lot of people have different faiths, different backgrounds. I don’t want to make an assumption in terms that somebody may understand what that looks like. How does one maintain a relationship with God and then manage a church relationship because those two are not the same thing?

They are totally separate. If you’re not careful, you’ll attach them together because it’s the church. You automatically assume that it’s God. They are two separate things. The church is there for me. I could say the church was a hospital because I needed to grow. I needed to be healed. It became a school, and it walked me through pre-K, all the way up to post-grad. It became a trade school because now, it deployed me to apply everything that I learned. At the same time, I was always trying to build my relationship with God external of the church. Pray, fasting, reading, praying some more, reading some more. It’s like with anything, the more time that you give it, the more you can grow and develop in it. I started to do more outside of the building than I was doing in the building.

It came together that the church, the building, was a place for me to connect with other people who believed and were walking in the same way that I was walking. Once you get into the technical side of this thing, the building is a building until the people get into it. It’s the people that’s the church. As my mentor was training me up, teaching me how to read, and teaching me how to pray, he always made sure that that was the base. No matter what happens with the building, you are still obligated to fulfill your portion of your side of the relationship with God outside of the building.

Would you say in the churches that you attend that there are predominantly more women than men?

The Role Of Church & Gender Dynamics

Absolutely. In the church where I got saved? No. The church where I got saved had more men than women, and I thought every church was like that. When we would go visit other churches, I’m like, “Where are the men at? Why are all these women here?”

Answer that question from your perspective. Where are the men at?

It’s a twofold thing. Men don’t attend church because the church hasn’t realized how to let a man be who he is. I want you to come out, I want you to take your Timbs, you’ll fit them off, and I want to put you in some hard-bottom shoes and a suit. We have to learn how to catch the fish, allow the fish to be whatever it is, and still clean the fish up so that the fish can go back into their respective circles to make a difference. I can’t go into a grunge space and make a difference. Why? Because I didn’t come out of the grunge space. For somebody that came out of grunge, I don’t want them to come out of grunge, get cleaned up, and then make them something that they’re not. They still need to be able to go back into a space that they came from and be the light to those who are sitting in darkness.

If I’m trying to change your character, personality, your core beliefs, or something that changes you where you have to fit in with the status quo, most men reject that. Women are more susceptible and receptive to being able to receive change. Depending on where you come from, culturally, men see that the pastor of a lot of these churches is the only one thriving. In their mind, it’s like, “Why aren’t all the other men thriving?” Everybody is in here and doing it for the pastor. When we break this down, if you look at the base, it was based on twelve guys that came together outside of Jesus and started working. Somewhere along the way, society, preferences in church start pushing me in a way that if you take one generation out of the church, then most of the other generations are going to follow suit.

My dad didn’t press me to go to church. If I hadn’t found God and gotten my relationship, I wouldn’t press my son to be in a relationship with God. It becomes generational. You start to push things off. On top of that, some of these churches were too restrictive. You couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t come in if my shoe were untied. We became too rigid. Most men are saying, “Instead of fighting against you and doing all that, guess what I would do, I’m not going to come.”

That’s why even now I try to make sure that I create an environment for people to be themselves. I don’t even tell people I’m a pastor because I want you to be your authentic self. The moment that I tell you I’m a pastor, you automatically subconsciously think that you have to act a certain way. You don’t. I let you act the way that you act to be who you are. You happen to find I’m a pastor. You’re like, “Man, you’re cool.”

What does it mean, as you look at your life now, to be a pastor and know the road is taken for you to be there?

I didn’t sign up for it. It chose me. I ran for as long as I possibly could until I couldn’t run anymore. Every time I started to put my track shoes on, I ran as far as I could go. The next thing you know, I’m like, “How did I end up back right here?” It’s like God said, “I’m going to have you run in circles. You’re going to keep running in circles until you get tired and realize that you can’t escape this.”

I’ve been a pastor for over ten years. It is crazy to me because I’m an inner city kid from the east side of Indianapolis who didn’t have any desire to be a pastor growing up. Once I got into my relationship, I said, “God, nevertheless, not my will, but Your will be done.” As He started to move me towards that, I was still kicking and screaming because I’m like, “A pastor? Who wants to do that? Nobody signs up for that craziness.” To be a pastor now is part of one of the things that he assigned to me. No matter where I go, even if I don’t say anything, I still pastor people.

In that role as a pastor, somebody comes to you. Their loved one has recently passed, and they said, “I want to hear nothing about Jesus. I’m mad at God, and I don’t want to be bothered.” What is your response to them?

I will let you be mad. You have every right to be mad right now. You have every right to be frustrated. You have every right to have your own questions and question why. You have every right to that because I did it. I was agnostic. I didn’t know if there was a God. I was mad and I was frustrated. If anybody was talking churchy church stuff, I didn’t want to hear it. If I bring condemnation, that means I’m not validating your feelings, but if I create a space where you can vent and get it out, and I can acknowledge that, you could be mad.

You might not want to hear it the first time around or the second time around, but eventually, you will be open because I didn’t judge you in your state of being mad, frustrated, and disappointed with God. I gave you the space to be mad and frustrated with God. Just drop a little seed here, a little seed there. It says that some sow, some water, but God gets the increase. If it’s my job to sow some seed, then I’ll sow it. I’m not going to condemn you that you have emotions because you lost a loved one. What pushes people away from the church is that we mishear the people’s feelings in the moment.

On that, I’m going to give you a little scenario. Person A lost their loved one. I’m going to tell person A something, and you happen to come up and hear the conversation. I want to know what you would say. They lost their loved one just this month. This is raw, edgy. I tell them, “We don’t mourn like the world mourns. You should be okay by now, just trust God.”

I’m going to say, “You mourn how you want to mourn. However long it takes you to mourn, you do that.” I’m going to say to you, “You can’t cookie-cutter people’s experiences with God. Don’t do that because you might’ve pushed that person away. How long does it take to lose a loved one?” I will probably ask you a question like, “If you lost your loved one right now and it’s been a month, are you going to be okay? Are you going to be over it? Give that person the same grace that you would expect somebody to give to you in that process.” I would say something to the person who said that, and make sure that that person knows that it takes you however long to grieve. It took me some time. It didn’t take me a month. At that point, I was somewhere in the darkness.

Another similar scenario. The person’s telling me, and I go, “You don’t trust God. That’s why you’re still so upset. Do you even know who God is? If not, why are you still upset, and all this time has passed?”

You know those things right there. You asking that question turns my stomach over. No, we are not doing that. We’re not about to weaponize God like that. That’s not what we’re about to do. I am going to check that person as much as I checked the first person because now, you don’t weaponize Him. You are still putting your expectations and how you think you would handle it on that person. That’s not fair to them. You’re taking away the opportunity for them to be able to process how they need to process in order for them to start their healing journey. That’s not fair to them.

Last one. This woman has been a widow for a couple of years. I have found out that she is dating and getting ready to get married. “Girl, that is not how you honor your husband. How are you out here dating? You need to be submitting yourself to God and doing the work of the church. Why are you even doing that?”

Either work at a church or work in the Lord, because that’s two different things.

I said what I said.

Work at a church. No, I will tell you if you feel that you process, you healed, and you are in a place where you can emotionally sustain the relationship, then by all means, but for somebody to come and tell you that you should be doing the work of the church, what are you doing? What work are you putting in? You’re single, or you’re in a broken marriage. Mind your business. Don’t bring your stuff that’s in your lane into somebody else’s lane. If that person doesn’t put the work in, they don’t get with God, they don’t sit with God, they don’t heal, they don’t move, and they still have a desire to want to be married, and God fulfills that desire, who are you to tell them that they should be doing anything different than what God has led them to do?

You’re saying I would have had that individual relationship with God, and I’m hearing His prompting and His directing. What is the difference between doing the work of the church and the work of God?

Differences Between Church Work & God’s Purpose

Church work is church work. I thought I was doing the work of the Lord because I was in church all the time. I was having an affair with my wife with the church. Every time the doors open, I am there. The church call, I was there. It was all this. I came to find out that just because I was going to church doesn’t mean that God was in the building. The church assigns a purpose to fulfilling something in the church. Now, your purpose is attached to coming to church, and you are doing church stuff. That’s where you start to get assigned that. I have this calling to do X, Y, and Z. That’s the need of the church. Why don’t you do that? What if what God has called me to do is not attached to the church? How do I fulfill that?

This is what I’ve been telling people for years. If you had a church that does not have what it is that you believe God is calling you to do, still go out and do it. Still go out and create a way to fulfill whatever God has called you to do. The churches that I was part of didn’t have a homeless outreach ministry. Guess what I did? I would still attend the church, but I would still go over here and do what I know that I felt what God was leading me to do. Again, the church says, you’ve got to attach that over here some kind of way. No, I don’t. What I’m going to do is I’m going to come and tell you what I’m doing. If you want to partake in what I’m doing, you’re more than welcome to come and join in with me as I follow God.

It doesn’t take away from me coming over here and still serving over at some church thing that you have. Church purpose and God’s purpose, the church has overlapped them so they could be the same. What I would do is tell you that what God has called you to do, if it isn’t assigned to the church, then God didn’t tell you that. Now, I’m talking you down off of what you feel that God is calling you to do. We have to stop doing that as the church, but the more specific question is, anything that you would do for free, anything that burns your heart, anything that you see a need and it touches your spirit, then that’s the work of the Lord. It may not ever be attached to the work of the church.

Sounds like you’ve learned a lot over this time of life.

One or two things.

If you were able to keep all of the knowledge, everything you have learned in life, and you could speak to Maurice the day after your dad passed, what would you tell yourself?

Advice For Coping With Grief & Life Challenges

I would tell him that this is going to be a long process. Don’t discount the wisdom that you’re going to pick up along the journey. I would recommend that at some point, you’re going to have to sit in this and you’re going to have to look God in His face, have that moment of clarity. Get it all out. Once you get it all out, trust Him and the process, whatever it looks like and however long it takes you. I was on the other side, not knowing if there was a God, but knowing that my dad wanted better, and then being able to say, “I understand, through that was something to help me.” Now, I’ve been able to look back and say, “That was a God thing.” God sustained me. God kept me, especially when I was out here whining.

Don’t lose focus. Stay locked in, don’t listen to the outside noise, and don’t trust yourself in this moment because at that point, you’re going to make some bad choices and some bad decisions. I would highly recommend that you go get around some people that is moving into the place that you want to move in and start gleaning from them. Ultimately, that’s what I did. When my dad passed, I started hanging out with my friends’ fathers who still had their fathers.

While they be gone, I’d be over there hanging out with their dads, learning how to fix cars and sitting around talking sports and all that other stuff because I valued that relationship. When their dads did pass and they didn’t have that, they came to me, and I’m like, “I’m trying to tell you.” learn and surround yourself with some people that’s going to be able to help. Don’t get caught up in a moment and understand that this process is a process.

Thank you. You talked about me being on your podcast. Where can people find you? What’s your social? What does it look like? Where are you at?

You can find my podcast on YouTube @CMauriceBall. You can pull it up, and it is all the shows. My amazing interview with you is on there. They can find me on any other social media platform @CMauriceBall. All the way across all the platforms.

Thank you. Let’s talk about your amazing son and what he’s doing.

He’s an amazing young man. I’m proud of him. God’s hand has been on his whole life. It’s not surprising because he was always set apart, and it took a minute for him to find the thing that he was passionate about. Initially, it was basketball. He wanted to play D1 basketball, and he was good enough to do that. A situation happened where he got caught up in politics, and it damaged him because he equated hard work with failure. That is a very hard puzzle to put back together. It happened from his junior year to a part of his senior year. He put all this hard work in, and he didn’t get the outcome. It messed him up.

In his business and his school, every time he would put that level of work in, he attached it to failure, and he didn’t want to go back to that place. I had to help him understand that this is all part of the process. It’s all part of the journey. Now, he’s out here thriving. He’s the best. He’s one of the top kids at his college. They use him for everything. He brought home all his artwork that he had in their gallery. He had probably fifteen pieces of art that he didn’t tell us there. He had this book that he created. He won an Addy Award, which is the same as winning an Emmy or a Grammy in the advertising industry. He’s doing some big things. He’s in his internship for our Chamber of Commerce. He has a little girlfriend right now. We are watching that.

Talk about your amazing wife. She’s doing some great things, too.

She is. Her purpose goes back to something that’s not assigned to the church. She knows that God has called her to empower women and help them go from solo entrepreneurs to CEOs. She is out here creating content, training things, partnering, and teaching people how to get government contracts. I love to see her move. It is amazing to watch. You can actually go and get her stuff at empowHer. You can pull up her stuff, check her out, and see what some of the things that she has going on.

Maurice, I appreciate this conversation. I know you and I have interacted on a lot of different platforms, but by chance, is there a question you have for me?

What question do I have for you? This is what I want to say about you. I want to say, I appreciate the depth and the capacity of the wisdom and knowledge that you have in this grief space. Sometimes, I watch you, I’d be on a porch on TikTok, and I hear what you’d be saying to people. They’re coming in. They’re heavy, carrying all this weight. With your wittiness and your personality, the weight drops off of them. You see them smile a little bit and laugh a little bit. Some of them probably hadn’t done that in a very long time. I value your ministry, I value your space. I am grateful that I had a chance to be in your space with you. I will support anything that you do.

Thank you. I’m going to say something, but I’m going to let you close out with whatever final comments you have. Maybe it was a topic we didn’t cover or something you want to go over. I want to say thank you to everyone who joined us in this conversation. I am sorry for the person that you lost, but I’m glad you found us. I’m glad that you are here. I look forward to seeing you next week.

Just know that no matter where you are in this journey, keep putting one foot in front of the other. You will ultimately land where you want to be. It’s not easy. It’s a very difficult process, but keep moving because the moment you stop moving, that’s the moment that it gets worse. Keep moving, and be encouraged. Know that God loves you. No matter where you stand with Him, His love for you has not changed.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Maurice Ball
• Maurice Ball on YouTube
• @CMauriceBall on Tiktok
• @CMauriceBall1 on Instagram
• Maurice Ball on Facebook
• empowHer Business LLC
• Open For Discussion – Interview with Tina Fornwald

About Dr. Maurice Ball

I am Maurice Ball, a Pastor, Life Coach, Mentor, Doctoral Candidate, and Entrepreneur. I am passionate about making a positive impact in the lives of those I encounter. My journey has been God-ordained, God-led, and God-inspired— one of faith, growth, and a deep commitment to helping others realize their full potential.

As a Pastor, I have dedicated my life to serving my community and guiding people in their spiritual journeys. I believe in the power of faith and the importance of building a strong relationship with a higher power. Through my sermons and counseling, I strive to provide spiritual guidance, support, and a sense of belonging to those seeking it, but my role extends beyond the pulpit. I currently serve as the Senior Pastor for Relevant Church So IN an online community and have been pastoring since 2014. I am married to a dynamic woman of God, Louwana, and we have an amazing son, Isaiah, who will be twenty.

I am also a Life Coach, and I am dedicated to helping individuals discover their purpose and achieve their goals. Whether it’s in their personal lives, careers, or relationships, I work closely with my clients to unlock their hidden potential, develop their skills, and create a path to success.

As a Mentor, I take pride in nurturing the talents and ambitions of others, especially the younger generation. I believe that mentoring is a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, and I am committed to sharing my knowledge and experiences to inspire and empower those I mentor.

My entrepreneurial spirit has led me to explore various business ventures, seeking opportunities to create a better future for myself and my community. I believe that entrepreneurship is a means of making a positive impact, not only economically but also by providing jobs and contributing to the community’s overall well-being.

My life’s journey has been dynamic and fulfilling, driven by a deep sense of purpose and a desire to help others. Through my work as a Pastor, Life Coach, Mentor, and Entrepreneur, I aim to leave a lasting legacy of empowerment, inspiration, and faith.

I am a husband of 21 years and a father of a young adult son.