In The Living Room With Pastor Narda Goodson

Tell our viewers who you are and a little bit about you.
     My name is Narda Goodson and I am a New Yorican, that is, a native New Yorker, who was born in New York but raised in Puerto Rico until the age of four. I am a proud mother of three anointed daughters and a recent first-time grandmother to a lovely prince.
     I am currently the first lady of the beautiful city of Whitewright located in the northeast region of Texas and the wife to the Honorable Mayor Bill Goodson. I am a pastor, author of Will the Real Me Please Stand Up, speaker, singer, teacher, and mentor, but really, above all the titles and fluff, I am a woman who loves and fears the Lord, and am extremely passionate about my answer to His call.
     Although, I live in a double glasshouse – the world of politics and Christendom, I choose to live and enjoy my life by God’s great design and not by the limited standards and traditions of men, who are so readily apt to impart its venom, as well as, impose and impair the insignia of the Cross and my God.

Pastor Goodson, how do you spend your time and what are some of the things you like?
     Most of the time, you will find me with the teens.  I love people, music, culture, fashion, and shah-ooes (shoes).  For a long time, even as a Christian woman, I was the queen of mask, that is, until I got so tired of trying to find the shoes, the hat, and the bags to go with it. But after being healed by my God, (and it was a peeling process), from the betrayals of a wounding first marriage, abandonment, rejection, and sexual abuse (to name a few), I never knew that my obedience to overcome and outlast the most traumatizing hardship of my Christian journey would lead me straight into the arms of my 21st Century Boaz.  Now, what concerns me most is reaching and pulling out those who are wounded and stuck in the loop of hopelessness.    

Do you truly believe that you are walking in your purpose and what did it take to get you to this point?
     Wow, I need to pause, because when I think about this question, I think about the dynamics of its relevancy and how walking in my purpose despite the raging storms sent to obliterate my destiny brought me to the place I am today.  
     Just as a vision without a plan is a nightmare, so is purpose without IDENTITY. You must know WHO you are in Christ.  At some point in your Christian journey there comes a time when despite how bad your circumstances look or how big your Goliath is, the conviction, confidence, and calling of God arises within you without hesitation, reservation, and trepidation and you simply know WHO YOU ARE and to whom you belong to.
     Purpose then kicks in like adding fuel to the fire.  Purpose is your drive, your determination; it is your resolve, your willpower; it is the gas to your tank and the tick to your tock. Without a steadfast, tenacious, dig-your-heals into the ground doggedness, destiny will never be fulfilled.      So yes, with all my heart I believe I am walking out my purpose.  It is a daily walk with Christ.  When I think about PURPOSE, I think about what I was made, created, designed, and custom fitted for.  

What advice would you give to a young woman who knows that God has something special for them, but somehow can’t seem to get enough faith to walk in her purpose?
     The Bible clearly tells us how faith is obtained. So in keeping it plain and simple, a lack of faith or “not enough faith” is a result of “not hearing” or a neglect of refueling your spiritual gas tank with the Living Word.  “Not enough faith” is a direct result of disobedience to 2 Corinthians 10:5; casting down EVERY imagination and taking into captivity EVERY thought that exalts itself against the Word of God.
     I know that many women have heard what I am about to say a thousand times over. God is not looking at our biological clock.  Well, He really isn’t, though I can hear some of you saying, well if He’s not, I sure am.  
     If my Heavenly Father can give my husband a wife at his age, let this testimony be of consolation to you. My husband is 81 years of age.  The man doesn’t look like it, walk like it, talk like it, or behave like it.  In fact, he’s been the mayor of our city for close to thirty years.  My husband neither takes medicine or vitamins, okay, ladies (smile). My Father gave me a strong Boaz; a mighty man of valor.  

That’s great Pastor Goodson! I know a lot of women feel like they will never be found and they stay in the same place, tell us what lead to your being found by your 21st Century Boaz?
     I am 41 years old, lost all I had, my marriage, home, money, business….everything. In 2005, I left New York with my three children and one luggage and a laptop, which by the way, was all I was allowed to take by the direction of the Holy Spirit.  I was told to take the “Abraham Walk”.  Where was I going?  I didn’t know.  All I heard was God said go!  
     To speed things up, my children and I came to live in a nursing home in the city we now reside in, where we came for a mission’s trip with some other pastors. It was there that God began to perform major spiritual surgery in my personal life.  It was there that I met with God.
     While there, I lost myself in ministry, gleaning the lives of humanity as people began to come for prayer, counsel, and encouragement. After about a year and a half, I was able to purchase a vehicle, and while driving around the city, I got a ticket. As I went to court to dispute the ticket, I remembered the prayer of Esther. Before entering, I prayed for favor and grace in the eyes of theking and prayed that he’d also stretch out the golden scepter to me.  HE DID!
     The next day, I was awakened by the loud sounds of a tractor. When my daughters and I looked outside the bedroom window to see what the noise was all about, the judge, who also happened to be the mayor of the city, was atop his mower cutting my grass. Talk about the favor of God. Like Ruth, your noble choices will always cause you to be at the right place at the right time.  It is only when you lose your life for His sake that you will find it.  We married one year later.

All of us have gone through some rough times, Can you recall a time when you really believed that God had left you by yourself and how did you overcome?
     You know, Pastor Danyelle, I have to be honest about this question. I have faced extreme catastrophes throughout my life, and in those catastrophic situations, and I’d like to stress that although it felt like God had left me and I was by myself, I knew deep down that I never really was. Did I feel afraid at times? Yes, many a times.  Did I hurt and cry?  Oh gosh, double yes!  I’ve cried crocodile tears enough to fill a riverbank.  Did I ever feel like I was alone?  My Lord, yes.  
     What made the difference in my life was in the dividing asunder of feeling versus the knowing. I know my Heavenly Father.  I have a personal, intimate relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ, and it was His precious Holy Spirit that was my companion in my days of despair and despondency.  It was His Words of Life that often wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket as He spoke faith into my heart each time I felt scared and alone.  John 3:  says that my sheep hear my voice and another voice they will not follow after.   It was His love buried deep inside my heart that never once led me to believe that He had ever left me alone.  I know my Father’s voice.

In Ten minutes, would you give our viewers a testimony of God’s goodness and something specific that has happened in your life that will encourage, change, or usher them into a new perspective on life. 
     I’d like to share a couple of paragraphs from my book. This was a very difficult time in my Christian life.  It was a time when, yes, the clock struck twelve and my carriage turned into a pumpkin.  May it minister wherever God is sending it...  
     I thought I had perfectly buried this place.  I was certain I left no memorials or landmarks for recognition or identification.   I kept no record of the gradual self-inflicting death that I had imposed upon myself.  But God knew and He knew it all.
     The self-slaughter had continued for years.  I never realized that in the process of hating, resenting and suppressing who I really was, I was also destroying the very person my husband loved and treasured.  I had no idea that what I had done was to my own demise.  I had no knowledge of the pain I inflicted upon him, nor how I made him undergo the suffering of watching the woman he cherished so much die a slow and ongoing death.
     But God began to visit the deep places of my soul.  He paced through the corridors of my heart, each time hitting me like a tsunami and destroying everything that was unlike Him in its path.  He was searching, finding, pulling, breaking, tearing and clearing out all the debris that had taken root over the years.  He touched my broken areas; pieces that were only patched and appeared to be whole and issues I could not face up to on my own.  This was unfair and unjust.  How could a loving God that said that He loved me permit what had taken place?   Why would He allow me to suffer this tragedy?  What glory could He get from all of this?
     But if I were to be used by Him, this broken vessel would need inner healing and a release from a spirit of rejection and self-hatred that dwelt in the inner chambers of my heart.  I had carried this load for years and my deliverance had come; yet it was not coming without a fight.   
     I remember my nights being the worst of all.  For it was then, in the stillness of the night that loneliness would uninvitingly cuddle its poisonous arms around me.  His undesirable comrades made themselves my bedroom guest every night.  I dreaded the nightfall because it only reminded me of the rejection and abandonment I felt.
     Every night they arrived with their tormenting and venomous sonata, enslaving my mind to their ghastly-oeuvre in order to spellbind my already crestfallen soul.  Their luring symphonies interlaced my thoughts and inveigled my judgment.  Each time I was consistently led to a place of desolation where I would wallow into the hopeless lake of despondency; there unrelenting distress and sorrow subjugated every part of my soul.
     Many times I felt pressurize to concede defeat.  I grew tired of the importunate opposition I faced day after day.  But the more the enemy dished out, the more I flexed and wielded my Sword.  I had come too far and I knew I could not back down.  There was too much at stake and victory was contingent upon my fortitude.  So through clouded tears, serrated trails and daunting courses, I prevailed against the melancholic fabrications my adversary hurled my way while each time fixing my eyes on the prize ahead.

Chapter 19~Buried But Not Dead, Will the Real Me Please Stand Up by Narda Goodson
Find out more about Pastor Narda Goodson by going to www.nardagoodson.org.