Episode 76: Marsha-Ann Donaldson
Reclaim Your Faith, Your Voice, and Your World.
Looking back over the past seasons of At the Podium, there were unexpected themes that emerged organically. Season One – what happens in our lives when we step out on faith into the unknown and overcome poverty, failed dreams, profound addiction and abuse, and the curse of low expectations to embrace the magic of living. Season Two – when we use our voices, our platforms, and our talents for the good of humankind, we can literally create an impact that can be felt around the world.
This season, there is a theme that hums as an insistent undercurrent with my guests. That through our brokenness, through our fractures, at the rock bottom, there is created an avenue by which divine healing becomes available to us. Whether you experience the dissolution of a marriage. The unexpected medical diagnosis. The diminishment of your talents. A parent’s rejection. A society imposing limits on you to make you fit in. In these moments when life brings us to our broken places comes that moment of our surrender if we allow it. In these moments, we become useful vessels for the divine to heal us, to guide us, to use us.
My guest this week, Marsha-Ann Donaldson, left a stunning impression on me and many of the ATP listeners last season when she gave us a thunderous call to action. She and I both received heartfelt texts, emails and messages from people who were prompted to action by her thesis. Simply put, we must identify the people, the habits, the secrets and untruths, and the belief systems that we are holding onto that are blocking our access to unspeakable joy, freedom, and liberation. Identify and release them. In our conversation this season, Marsha-Ann goes even further and leans into the brokenness of our human condition. We are all mosaic tiles that have been chipped and fractured by the buffets of life, on purpose and for a purpose. That our souls are indeed strengthened and liberated when we can embrace that the fractures are a part of life that give us clarity and help us to define our “Why.” And that’s only the first 10 minutes of our conversation!
What I love about these conversations with Marsha-Ann is that despite the seriousness of the topics, we still have space for much laughter. Also, she goes beyond Gantt charts, Excel spreadsheets, and textbook vernacular. She moves into the real, downhome language of her lived experiences that grip you in your heart and shake you to your core. She is calling us to a radical transformation by a tender reclamation of our faith, our voice, and our world.
