A shy soldier who never wanted the Army. A first-day love that turned into three decades of marriage. A devastating loss that changed how she sees medicine, paperwork, and the quiet ways systems fail people. Jennifer Harris sits down with us to share a candid, moving journey through service, grief, perseverance, and the kind of faith that refuses to give up.

We start with training at Fort Leonard Wood and Fort Lee, then land at Fort Hood, where Jennifer met Donald on day one. From there, life became a cycle of PCS resets and reinvention: finishing an accounting degree, chasing jobs across duty stations, and eventually pivoting into legal studies and personal injury work. Jennifer pulls back the curtain on PI cases, slow timelines, frustrated clients, and the emotional labor of being the front line for people in pain, while revealing how employers often overlook real capability when résumés don’t fit a neat mold.

Jennifer speaks openly about bias, from a surreal “wig committee” before graduation and an officer demanding a salute from behind, to civilian interviews that praised her, then quietly passed her over. The heart of the episode centers on her stillbirth and the missed preeclampsia warning signs that should have kept her in the hospital. She describes the keepsake box that holds her son’s memory and how that experience reframed her understanding of Black maternal health, advocacy, and the crucial habit of documenting everything for VA benefits. Through it all, her faith and family sustain her, along with a stubborn resilience that helped a shy recruit pass BRM on pop-up targets and later speak truth in rooms that didn’t expect to hear it.

If you’ve ever struggled with transition, questioned your worth after a rejection, or needed permission to grieve and keep building, Jennifer’s story will meet you where you are. Listen, share with a veteran or military family who needs it, and if this conversation resonates, subscribe and leave a review so others can find it too.

What if the safest seat isn’t behind a wall but at a table set in full view of your enemies? Dr. Dennis A. Rose Jr. walks through Psalm 23:5 with a soldier’s memory from Desert Storm and a fresh word study that changes how we see preparation, presence, and power. The picture isn’t retreat; it’s a royal meal where God orders specific provision on a king’s table while opposition can do nothing but watch.

Dr. Rose digs into the Hebrew layers of the text, how “prepare” means arranging the exact things you need, how “table” signals VIP honor, and how “presence of my enemies” points to adversaries within line of sight and restrained. That shift matters when darkness presses in. It means you can eat in confidence, not because the fight vanished, but because the Host is unbothered and entirely in control. From there, we move to the anointing oil: more than a ceremony, it’s olive oil for healing wounds and restoring appetite. When battles drain desire, God heals the damage and restores you to strength, reminding you that chosen doesn’t mean crushed; anointed means sustained.

And then comes overflow. “My cup runs over” is not a poetic flourish; it’s a strategy for living from abundance rather than scarcity. We talk about why kindness can feel like a setup when you’ve been in survival mode, and how to keep your hands open anyway. Gratitude becomes a practice, generosity becomes a reflex, and your life turns into a channel of blessing rather than a reservoir of fear. We wrap with a clear, practical cadence for the armor of God (truth, righteousness, peace, salvation, faith, and the Word) so you can stand, eat, and pour out with courage.

If this message strengthens you, share it with someone who’s fighting in the open today. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: where is God asking you to sit and enjoy your meal?

A veteran’s origin story rarely starts where you expect. Ours opens with Gomer Pyle, a folded flag at a funeral, and a seventeen-year-old who thought honor was simple—until basic training taught him what that flag really costs. From there, we ride with a retired Black first sergeant through three decades of infantry life, where discipline arrives early, identity gets tested often, and promotions can hinge on more than performance.

We dig into the questions many whisper but few put on tape: What happens when bias shadows your career? How do you counsel a young person weighing service against the claim that the military is a “white man’s Army”? He shares a raw story from Korea about a promotion penciled over for someone who’d already left, then contrasts that with a counterexample from our host—two truths coexisting inside one institution. The tension sets the stage for a wider look at race, merit, and the uneven progress from the Vietnam era to now.

Faith threads through the conversation with real vulnerability. Dragged to church as a boy, he found his way back as a soldier in Korea—after twice failing to walk through the door. That return sparked a habit of reading, testing, and refusing easy answers. We wrestle with a big claim—“Christianity is a white man’s religion”—by separating origins from empires, belief from weaponization, and spirituality from labels. He argues for character and conscience over tribe, and for reading widely so your convictions grow roots instead of slogans.

We close on the government shutdown with a ground-level view: TSA and air traffic controllers working without pay, military towns bracing, safety margins thinning, and leaders insulated from the fallout. It’s not politics for sport when your mortgage, medical care, and flight paths depend on it. Along the way you’ll hear humor, candor, and a hard-won takeaway: know who you are in and out of uniform, question what doesn’t add up, and keep learning long after you hang up the boots.

If the story moved you or made you think, tap follow, share this with a friend, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest. Your notes shape future episodes and the tough conversations we take on next.

#BlackVeteran

#USArmyVet

#UrbanChristianVeteran