Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Shonda Pierce is an Emmy-nominated comedian

and the IRAA's most awarded female comic in history.

She has been a television host, author, and now actress. In addition to

ten successful albums to date, she has also authored eight books, including

Laughing in the Dark, which inspired a documentary by the same name.

While Shonda was bringing joy to others through laughter, behind the scenes she was experiencing

great challenges and loss.

She shares about her battle with depression and her resolution to always tell the truth no matter how hard it might be

God knew exactly what family to put me in and he put me in a little

small church you know in the south with a with a

father who struggled with mental illness a mother who you know trained us to keep

every secret but I love that I always tease and say, you know, it's a good thing I grew up in a holiness church because can you imagine how I would have turned out?

I'd be a star in Vegas. That's what I'd be.

My sisters and my brother and I we were we were very

close and sadly when I became a teenager my big sister was 20 when she was killed in a car accident. We had just moved to the Nashville area. That was hard and then about 19 20 months later my little sister

We found out she had leukemia and she passed away in 21 days and so I lost

both my sisters by the time I was out of high school and that tragedy I think was also

the catapult to just really end the marriage and my parents divorced.

And it was one of those very public and sad and embarrassing things that a little teeny tiny community finds out that the

preachers you know having an affair and it was just it was messy you know it's just a

messy life and an embarrassing way to end of you know ministry and all of that and my brother

...