Real Talk Kim encourages people to get up and seek healing after divorce: 'God's got a plan'
Pastor Kimberly Jones of Limitless Church in Fayetteville, Georgia, who's also known by many as “Real Talk Kim,” said her divorce almost allowed hatred to lead her astray from God's purpose for her life. She is now empowering others to get up and move forward as they work through the problems that are keeping them stuck.
Jones, a pastor's kid who grew up with a learning disability, thought she would never recover after her first divorce at age 36. She found herself depressed, financially destitute with two sons, and having to move back in with her parents. Several years later, after another failed marriage, Jones began the process of self-evaluating, seeking God daily, and finding the purpose in her pain. Through that process, Jones penned the new book, You Gotta Get Up: Grab Hold of Your Life After Being Knocked Down, Held Back, and Left Out.
Jones says she has come out on the other side and wants to empower others to do the same.
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"I walked through a divorce in 2006 after an 18-year marriage, and he was my god. In the religion I was raised in, if you get divorced, you're going to Hell on a slip and slide. It was not even heard of in 2006 in the church, now it's rapid,” Jones said in a recent interview with The Christian Post.
"I found myself humiliated. I found myself with two sons, Lincoln and Morgan. They were 7 and 9. No one understood what I was walking through because nobody in my family had walked through a divorce. I felt like a mockery to my father who was in ministry,” she explained.
Jones said she and the father of her two sons were like the “Barbie and Ken of the church,” with the picture-perfect life as they led as worship pastors. After he left, she didn't know how she was going to recover.
"I laid in my bed for the first year just mad at God because why couldn't he heal my marriage? I had to move back in with my mom and dad because I lost everything. In that process, after a year of laying in my bed feeling sorry for myself, one day I remember praying and saying, 'God, take this pain away from me. If you're not going to heal my marriage, take the pain away. And I promise you, probably the first time in my life, I felt this still small voice inside of me and He said, 'I can't take it away, you got to get up and walk away from it,” she recalled.
Hearing God’s voice was the beginning of Jones’ healing. She started getting into the Word of God to renew her mind, and by age 38, says she was “breaking soul ties” and “breaking generational curses” off her life.
“Just me and God. It was no conference. Nobody was laying hands on me from that point,” she added.
Jones preached her first sermon at age 41 and went into full-time ministry after one of her videos went viral on social media. Now the senior pastor at Limitless Church, she has seen how time and time again God has encouraged her to get up.
“I had to get up and realize that nobody's coming to get me up. I gotta get up and I've got to pull my thick thigh, even if it feels like a turtle stuck in peanut butter. I've got to get up and I've got to believe that Romans 8:28 is a fact, that God is working all things together for my good. And as long as I got a pulse, God's got a plan,” she declared.
Her book, You Gotta Get Up features declarations, prayers and tools from Scripture and Jones’ firsthand experiences with getting up and going forth.
"I would lay hands on myself every day and I would say, 'God, get my heart right. I don't want to miss out on my healing because I won't let go, she said, detailing her actions in the midst of depression.
“For the first month that I was walking through my divorce, I was praying to God, 'Kill him with the train. I wanted God to kill him with the train.' ... And I remember having to lay hands on my heart and say, 'God, heal my heart. I know this is ugly. I'm drinking poison and hoping that someone else dies.'”
For anyone that finds themselves stuck, the 50-year-old preacher advised that they practice spiritual disciplines.
"Pray over yourself every day. Pray over your heart and just tell God, 'God, I want to heal quick. I don't want to be angry. Let me love like you love,'” she illustrated. “God will do it because when you're praying, life and death are in the power of your words. He already knows where you're at. And He said that He'll give you grace to get through everything you're going through.”
"The quickest way to heal is to literally, every day, prophesy over yourself. Let me be an example to my children. Let my kids see you. Let my kids call me blessed,” Jones continued.
Today, both of Jones’ sons work with her in ministry despite their complicated childhood.
"Go in that bedroom, have your meltdown and come out like a soldier," she advised.
"You got to remember that God knew before we were ever even a thought in our mother's womb that we would be here. He knew it. And He said, 'I'm giving you grace, and I'm going to turn your scars into stars. I'm going to turn your pain into a pulpit. I'm going to turn your wounds into wisdom and you're gonna come out of this thing and every single thing that devil did to bite you. I'm gonna bring you out and let you pull thousands of people out of their own hell because of your testimony.'"
She also encourages people to not allow bitterness to keep them from doing what God made them do. She also cautioned individuals not to allow labels assigned to them to become their identity.
"The devil is a punk. The devil got kicked out of Heaven. He used to be the apple of God's eye. ... He knows that you are the apple of God's eye. ... His job is, he cannot take you out so he's trying to wear you out. The way he does it is he begins to attack you with labels,” Jones continued.
"Your divorce is an event that happened in your life. It is not who you are. You are not a divorcee. That was a situation that came in your life that took the wind out of you, but it also gave you free life college and a lot of anointing amid the crushing. That addiction was an event. It was a season, not a sentence.
"People literally have told me, 'How can you talk?' One of my biggest lanes of social media is relationship talk. [People ask], 'How are you talking about relationships when you walk through a divorce?'” Jones said. “I'm the very one to talk about the relationship and tell you how to keep him and how to run them off.”
She assures that the place people think is going to kill them is the platform God will use to propel them forward.
"God will use you so greatly if you stop being mad at what you're going through and begin to push yourself and push other people to the grips of breakthrough. That's why the devil has been fighting you because he knows the power you possess,” she concluded.
For more information about Jones and her new book, click here.
Jeannie Ortega Law is a reporter for The Christian Post. Reach her at: [email protected] She's also the author of the book, What Is Happening to Me? How to Defeat Your Unseen Enemy Follow her on Twitter: @jlawcp Facebook: JeannieOMusic
