Full Circle

In this deeply honest episode of Unrelated Sisters: Truth & Grace Conversation, Shannon reflects on the tension between last week’s heavy, emotional season and this week’s unexpected emptiness.

What do you do when you go from feeling everything… to feeling nothing?

Through personal reflection, Scripture from Psalms, 1 Kings, and Isaiah, and real-life moments—including a recent trip to Washington DC—this episode explores the full circle of faith:

God is not only in the breaking…
 He is in the quiet rebuilding too.

If you’ve been feeling tired, unmotivated, or spiritually off—this conversation will meet you right where you are.

After opening up about past abuse, she found herself in an unexpected place:

•  waking up at 2–3 AM 
•  feeling empty 
•  frustrated at work 
•  carrying quiet worry for her husband 
•  struggling to feel like herself 

Why does that happen?

Through biblical truth, personal reflection, and real-life honesty, this episode explores the full circle of healing:

Telling the truth is not the end of the process…
 it’s often the beginning of deeper healing.

With encouragement from Psalms, 1 Kings, and Matthew, this episode will help you understand what’s happening—and how God meets you in it.

Psalms 23

“He restores my soul.”

Restoration is quiet.

It’s not loud.

It doesn’t always feel powerful.

Isaiah 40:31

“Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength…”

Waiting isn’t exciting.

But it’s where strength is rebuilt.

What if…

this isn’t a funk?

What if this is recovery?

Psalms 34:18

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted…”

Not just when it happened…

But when you finally feel it.

Look at Elijah again in 1 Kings 19.

After the fire…

After the victory…

He crashes.

He isolates.

He says, “I’ve had enough.”

 WHAT DO YOU DO NOW? 

1. Don’t shut the door again

You already opened it.

Stay honest.

2. Talk to God in the middle of the night

When you wake up at 2 or 3?

That’s not wasted.

That’s an invitation.

3. Give yourself grace

You didn’t “mess yourself up.”

You started healing.

4. Let God sit with you here

Not rush you out.

Not fix it instantly.

Just be with you.

🙏 PRAYER 

Lord,

You see every layer we’ve uncovered.

Every memory.
 Every feeling.
 Every restless night.

And instead of running from it…

help us trust You in it.

Sit with us in the quiet.

Meet us in the middle of the night.

And remind us that healing is not a moment—

it’s a process You walk with us through.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

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https://unrelatedsisterspodcast.buzzsprout.com and tell us your stories and let us know if it’s okay to share (no names). Let us know if you need prayer or how we can support you in your journey. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for your mercy, your blessings, and your grace. We thank you for this opportunity to speak your truth into others, Lord Jesus. I thank you for this opportunity for this podcast and for the moments to share your word and all the grace that you have given me, Lord Jesus. I pray that you give me the strength today to let your words flow, to be honest and vulnerable with our with our audience today, Lord Jesus. I just want to thank you. I want to thank you for the people that are listening to us, Lord Jesus, and for the people that are going to be listening to us. And I pray that this resonates with whom it's supposed to resonate with. Amen. Well, welcome back to Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation. And it's Shannon, and I'm by myself this week. And I sat down this morning. I got up this morning, and I um I was like, well, I need to get ready for the podcast. You know, Deb texted me and said that something came up, she wouldn't be able to come over. And I was like, okay. And um and then I sat downstairs. I didn't get up. I didn't come up here to my room. I didn't play worship music. I didn't I just sat on the couch, didn't turn the TV on. I scrolled through my phone, scrolled through TikTok. Um I did all the things except for what I knew I should be doing, right? Um but I don't know how to say it, right? Like I've been lost this week. I've been somewhere else. I've been I've not I'm just not motivated. I'm tired. My head hurts all the time. I'm frustrated. I'm just ugh, just ugh. And so I started, I come upstairs, you know, and I have this great episode about Jacob and Rachel and Leah. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do that one. So I started reading through it, and I'm like, no, it's missing something, and it's not missing anything, it's a great episode. I'm missing something, right? So last week I talked about something out loud that I had never truly shared with anyone that I cared about or anyone that loved me. Um, you know, I shared it with the counselor back when I started trying to heal, but I never really shared it, and that part of my story has always been. I don't know what I want to say. It's always been embarrassing, right? It's always been embarrassing to me to know that I let a man put his hands on me and that I stayed, and that I didn't go through it once, but I went through it twice, and both times I stayed. You know, I'd kept it buried for so long. And I thought, you know, well, I can talk about it now. You know, I've been through counseling, I know my worth, right? I know who I am, I know who I belong to, I know I'm loved, I know all the things. But this week I feel the opposite. Let's just be real, right? Let's just confess a minute. I have woke up every day at 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. Um, and when I mean wake up, I don't mean I wake up to go pee. I mean I wake up my eyes wide open, my brain 90 to nothing. And that's not me. That is not me at all. Once I go to bed, I go to bed, and I don't wake up with my brain 90 to nothing until I wake up the next morning. That's what I do. But not this last week. And maybe it was going on before I told the story. I had a coworker at work talk talk to me about being in an abusive relationship a little while back, and maybe that brought up some ghost. Uh, maybe that was an opening of something I didn't notice at the time. But I've just been tired. My spirit has been so unsettled, especially this last week. I've been frustrated at work, I've been worried about my husband, and yet I haven't been able to express my worry to him. I haven't been able to let him know that I I'm worried. He's, you know, been dealing with some medical things and some unanswered questions that we're not sure of what's going on. And he needs me to be vulnerable with him, and he needs me to be strong for him. And I just can't. I just haven't been. I just haven't been. I have reverted back to if we don't talk about it, then it's not happening, Shannon. I have reverted back to if I pretend like it's not happening, then I don't have to deal with it. And that's not who I am. If I'm being honest, I just feel empty inside. I feel empty inside. I feel I feel lost and confused. In certain situations, I feel like the old Shannon, the one that just doesn't want to deal with it, that would rather get high than deal with it. You know, and when I sat down this morning, or when I finally did come up here this afternoon to start trying to do some kind of episode, I couldn't figure out why. And then I just started typing, and this is what we got. I didn't just stare, I didn't just share a story last week, I didn't just listen to a story a few weeks ago. I opened a door, and whether it was a door that I opened and the spirit of God came in, or it was a door that I opened and the whispers of the enemy came in. It was still a door that I opened. It was an emotional door that I opened. And nobody talks about that part, right? We all we celebrate the breakthrough and we celebrate the testimony. We celebrate the moments that we speak up about it and the moments that we're strong and ready to help someone else. But we don't talk about what happens after, what happens to us, to the ones that are sharing their testimonies, to the ones that are feeling the breakthrough. Just because you have breakthrough today doesn't mean that tomorrow it's all gonna be, you know, rainbows and unicorns because it's not. When you release something that you've buried, your mind goes back, your body remembers, your heart starts processing. And what it didn't process the first time, maybe it starts processing some of the things that's already processed, you know. And Deborah likes to talk about, you know, breaking the chains and then picking them up and playing with them. And even though talking about your trauma is something that you should definitely do, and sharing your story is something that you should definitely do, I don't know that we're ever prepared for the consequences of playing with that chain again. In Psalms 34, 18, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and I read that verse a lot, and I don't feel brokenhearted, not every day, not every moment, not every minute. But when it does happen, when you feel when you finally do feel it, when it finally when it does happen, and you do feel brokenhearted, or you do feel lost or frustrated or confused. What is it? You know, it's not random. This is not you falling apart. This is not me going back to being the old Shannon before God. This is what was already there, just coming to the surface. I didn't create a feeling, I just uncovered one that I already had, and now I gotta figure out how to deal with it. You know, last week I spoke the truth, and this week I'm feeling the impact of it, and that's a full circle. That's a full circle, that's a full circle of emotions, that's a full circle of life, and in your full circle, truth equals release, and release equals exposure, and exposure equals healing. We want to stop at release because that's when it's easiest. But God finishes the process, He wants you to go through the exposure, and He wants you to go through the healing. Let's look at Elijah and Kings 1, 1 Kings 19. After the fire and the victory, when Elijah was at his highest, he crashed. He ran away. He isolated in a cave. And he says he's had enough. He's done all he can. He's done. And that's the way I've been feeling this week. And you know, I've cracked jokes about I'm done with you, like I'm done. I'm just done. I'm done with all of it. You know, and people laugh because they think I'm joking, but emotionally and mentally, I feel like I'm just done at work in my in my life, just everything. I just feel done. But you know, God didn't rebuke Elijah, God let him rest. And I think that was it's what God's been doing with me. He's not been hollering in my ears, and he's not been sending people for me to pray for, and he's not been giving me those moments of high that I search for. Because I'm not helping someone, or God's not sending me someone that needs prayer or needs my spiritual guidance or needs whatever God has me throw up and speak, that He's just been letting me rest, that it's made me uneasy, that it's made me feel some type of way. For a long time in life, I was taught that love was by was given by for good deeds. You made good grades in school, you were rewarded. You made good choices, you were rewarded. Um, and then in life, I didn't make good choices, and I have always had this disconnect in my life with the people that were there that went through it with me. My mom and my sister, my dad, my aunts, my cousins, the ones that were around when I was making bad choices. And even though all of them didn't see all of the bad choices, and all of them wasn't all completely a part of the bad choices, they still know, right? I've never hid the fact that I was a drug addict, I've never hid the fact that you know I lived a lifestyle that was ungodly, that was full of sin, full of disappointment to myself and to others. But I've always felt this disconnect. I've always felt like the black sheep. I've always felt different than the rest of the family. And I think talking about the abuse last week and talking about it out loud, knowing that some of those family members were gonna listen to the episode. I think it I think I allowed a door to open and I think I allowed some negativity to come in. You know, God meets us after the moments, not just in them. And even though the abuse was 15, no, even though the abuse was 20, well, one of them was 40 years ago, and one of them was let's see, Dylan's 22, so the other one was with his dad. Um so 23, 24 years ago, it's still there. I still went through it, you know. So let's talk about the emptiness, and because you know, that word matters a lot. Feeling empty doesn't mean neglected. Just because you feel empty doesn't mean you need to jump out here into the world and search. I searched for so many years to try to fill an emptiness that I had, tried to fill a void that I had, and I did it all the wrong way, right? I, you know, I drank and I did drugs and I had boyfriends and and you know, and I put up with a lot of things that my worth is worth more in the process, and feeling emptiness today, and feeling the emptiness that I've felt over the last couple of weeks. I think that's why I've had a hard time getting up. You know, the change of the seasons, going from winter to spring, the transition of of of waiting and now of preparing and getting ready and doing all the things to start the new the new season. And you know, I feel like I've been going through that preparedness for months now. But I haven't been searching for emptiness in in bad ways, but I have been searching. Uh when we went to Washington last week, um, I took my mom and my aunt and my cousin, and we went and visited Michaela, um our cousin in what in Washington, D.C. And she's newly pregnant in in her 12 or 13 weeks. And you know, we talked about a baby shower, and then we've been texting back and forth, and so I have been just hyper focused on on the baby shower and on figuring out what she wants and just to keep my mind busy, just to keep myself not feeling empty, right? And don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about helping plan this baby shower. That's my that's my jam, that's my hobby. I love planning baby showers and birthday parties and decorating for them. I love decorating my house for holidays, but lately I've not been doing a real good job of it. I've not been doing a good job of decorating my house for the holidays. I've just been in this funk, and maybe I've been in this funk longer than a few weeks. Maybe I've been in it for a while, and I just haven't seen it because God was still talking to me, and he's still talking to me today. He's just not giving me what I think I need or what I think I want. So when you've carried something heavy for a very long time, it takes up space, and when you finally release it, there's a gap. And as humans, we don't know how to deal with the gap. So the emptiness is not absence, it's making room for what's coming next. And you have to make room. You know, your picture and God's picture are two different things. Your picture is small and his is huge. So he's trying to make room for healing or truth or what he wants to be next, what God wants to be next. So this is why everything feels connected right now. This is why I've been frustrated at work. This is why the worry about my husband, the lack of sleep, just feeling off. When one emotional door opens, everything seems connected to it and it gets touched, whether it's heightened or whether it's sad or it all connects together, which makes our humanness, if that's actually a word, feel very heightened, very, very loud, very loud. I don't like loud anymore. So, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do now? I'm not gonna fix it. I can't snap out of it, right? I'm just not gonna be okay. I've done this podcast and today I'm better. Because I'm not, but I can work through it, I can read my Bible, I can talk to people, I can do lots of things. You know, I don't want to shut the door again. I've already opened it, so let's just stay honest about it, right? Let's let's work through whatever emotions this is allowing to come out, which is not one of my strongholds. When I wake up at two or three in the morning, I should take that moment or that time. And even though my mind is racing at 90 to nothing about nothing, I need to see it as an invitation from God. It's a quiet moment. I need to get up and go to the living room and pull out my Bible or pull out my Bible study or pull out my phone with my Bible on it, and just read and talk to him about whatever is going on in my head at Nandi to nothing. Don't waste it. You know, in Psalm 63, 6, it says, I remember you up on my bed and meditate on you in the night watches. So he remembers us. And in the night is when he wants us to meditate with him the most. I'm gonna give myself some grace. I'm not good at giving myself grace. I'm good at giving others grace, but I'm not good at giving myself grace, and I'm not good at giving the people I love grace. So I didn't mess up this time, I didn't mess up my family, I didn't mess up, I didn't drag anybody in with me, and I didn't mess up myself. So I'm gonna start trying to figure out how to heal by giving myself grace. It's okay to be empty, it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to have a hard time getting out of the bed as long as I get out of the bed. I'm never gonna let God sit with me right where I am. I'm not gonna try to rush out of this season. I'm not gonna try to fix it instantly, which is what I think I'm supposed to do. I just want to be with him. And I just want to take time. So the full circle. You know, last week I found the courage to tell the truth. And this week I'm learning how to live in it. Sometimes when you're honest, sometimes when you're truthful, sometimes when we talk about our emotions, the next week we have to learn how to live in it or how to live with it. Healing doesn't happen when you say it. It happens when you walk through what saying it reveals to you. If you've told your story and now you feel worse instead of better, you're not doing it wrong. You're in the middle of it. And he's in the middle with you. He's standing right next to you. He is there giving you the grace that you can't seem to give yourself. He is there holding your hand with his arms wrapped around you. You are a daughter or a son of God. And he loves you because he chose you. He chose you from the moment he decided to let you be conceived. And you need to know that. Every memory, every feeling, every resentless night. And instead of running from it, you help us. Help us to trust in you. Help us to find a way to give it to you. To lay it at your feet, Lord Jesus. Give us the strength to do it again. Sit with us in the quiet and meet us in the middle of the night. Give us the strength in the middle of the night to pray to you, to cry to you, to say what we need to say, Lord Jesus. To know that you are listening to us, Lord Jesus. Give us that strength and that guidance. And remind us that healing is not a moment. Healing takes time. And it will only happen in your time. Remind us it's a process that you will walk with us through. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. If this episode felt deeper, that's because to me it was. And if you're in this place too, you're not alone. You're not broken. You're just healing. So if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone else. There's someone you know that is feeling that emptiness, that is feeling that loss. That was a light of joy the other day and feel lonely today. Share our episodes. Let others hear the grace that God has given you and the grace that God has given us. So next time on Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation, I can't wait for you to listen to the