BRAVE CHANGE: How to Trust God in Life’s Biggest Transitions with Kate Battistelli

Dawn Damon: Hi everyone. My guest today is an actress, a bestselling author, blogger, and one-third of the popular Mom to Mom Podcast. She writes books, helping women find purpose, and she also partners with God to help children find their purpose. We're gonna have a great conversation. Welcome, my guest today, Kate Battistelli.

Dawn Damon: Hi, Kate!

Kate Battistelli: Oh, hey Dawn. Thank you for having me today.

Dawn Damon: You're so welcome. I'm so glad that you're joining us. It's a treat for us to have you here today, and I wanted to start with a question that you probably get a lot. I did not know that you were such an incredible actress and that you enjoyed the first season, you and your husband, the lights of Broadway, New York. What an incredible experience that was. Tell us a little bit about that.

e no cell phones yet. This is: 1981

And I mean, you know, I, I'd rehearsed, I knew my part, I knew what to do, but I'd never worn the costumes, never handled the props. Never done a scene with this mega star. And I thought, well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So, and I learned, yeah, I learned in that moment. And I taught my daughter this many times. I said, sometimes you just have to do it afraid. You know, sometimes there's no option to back out. This is what I was being paid for, but I went out, I did it. I didn't die. I ended up doing it for two weeks because the leading lady had pneumonia. She was out, and she came back to the tour. I went back to the course. But it doesn't end there. This is the crazy part.

Oh, a month later, I get a call from one of the producers. He says, Mr. Brenner has sent the leading lady back to New York. He's paid off her two-year contract, and he wants you in the role. I gotta tell you, that never happens. Never. I mean, they're not gonna bring in somebody. They're not gonna have somebody like me. I mean, I was a young actress. I was good. I could sing all that stuff, but I wasn't a seasoned Broadway actress, which they'd always bring in. But he really liked me for some reason. I ended up doing the show for almost three years, about a thousand performances about 25% of all the performances he ever did of The King and I. And I mean, just stuff like that blows my mind.

Dawn Damon: Just commenting. That is just so incredible. And we, you know, here at the BraveHearted Woman, we like to applaud women who do brave things that certainly were brave. Keep telling the story. So you guys just must have had some chemistry that he wasn't feeling so much with the first girl.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah, I think, plus I was quite a bit younger. She was probably 40s-50s. I was in my twenties, so I think actually historically, I was the right age for Mrs. Anna to go to Siam and teach at King's Children and all that. I just think I brought youthfulness that he liked. I don't know. There's something about me. I know for me that was probably, if there's a perfect part in musical theater, that was the one for me. You know, there are lots of great roles, but that just suited me so well.

But the best part, my husband joined the tour as the associate conductor. I didn't know him, but we met and fell in love across the footlights, truly. Because I could see him in the orchestra pit. And he was super cute. I thought, okay, I gotta find out about that guy. What's the scoop on him? So we met, and we got married. I'll tell you this story if you wanna know about how he got saved, 'cause I didn't know the Lord yet.

Dawn Damon: Well, I do wanna know, and that's what I was gonna ask you. You know, was this God's favor on your life? You weren't even a Christian at that time. So you weren't walking under that umbrella.

Kate Battistelli: No, I see it today. It was like a prophetic picture of how God will reach down and he will pull you out. You know, he'll pull you out of obscurity into his purpose. So anyway, he joined the tour. We left, I left after almost three years. We got married, and we had a little side business. We are still living in New York, pursuing fame and fortune. I wanna win a Tony, be a star. You know, you want all the things. Why? Of course. Why else are you there? But we had a little side business, and there was a gal that was mentoring us, an older gal, and we found out she was a born-again Jewish woman, a Messianic Jew.

Yes. She kept inviting us to church; she was pretty relentless, and we just were, you know, we had no interest, the desire to have Jesus or any of that. It was not even on our radar, but she kept inviting us. She really was relentless. And I always tell people, don't stop inviting, because eventually, like what happened with us, you get embarrassed to say, no, one more time. It's like, let's just get this over with. And then she'll stop bugging us on a Friday night. She said, Come this Friday, we've got this great gospel choir. You're gonna love the music. And we thought, all right, let's just go. And she won't bug us anymore.

So we get on the train all the way to Jamaica, Queens. If you know New York. It's probably not where people go when they're coming to, you know, to visit, to be a tourist. You don't go to Jamaica. But anyway, we take this long subway ride, we come up outta the subway. It's about two weeks, about two blocks from the church, which is in a big old theater. Well, as we're walking, you can almost sense the building, like pulsating with the music and the Holy Spirit. I know now that's what it was, but we, and we're already starting to have a little trepidation. It's like, where is she taking us? Well, right. What did we say yes to? I mean, when you have an experience with the Holy Spirit, it's kind of scary. You know? You don't know what's going on.

So we walk into this church. It's an all Black Holiness church. And if, for those of listeners who don't know what that is very strict. Women wear dresses or skirts, no makeup, and no jewelry. They sit on one side of the church. The men are on the other side. So that alone was enough for me to just go, What planet did they just drop me on? I was raised going to the Episcopal church, but we didn't. There was never that, you know, that call for a relationship with Jesus; it was nice and pretty and liturgical, but I never felt like I had this need to know God.

st,: 1984

But God was pretty clear. We thought, all right, I guess we're walking away from this. And all our friends thought we were crazy, you know, which sounds like that. But we knew God was asking us to do something really hard in obedience to what he was calling us to. Yes, it makes sense today, but at the time, it made no sense.

Dawn Damon: Well, yeah, and like, talk about that just for a moment because many people might be confused about how, why God is calling me away from something that he's gifted me to do or that he's given me favor, and yet still, you even as young believers. You were 5, 6, 7 years old in the Lord. Maybe at that time.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah. Not even.

Dawn Damon: Not even, yeah. About two years. Yeah. Two years old in the Lord. But you had the discernment to know the voice of the father saying, yeah. Lay this down.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah, it was difficult. It makes me think of Abraham. You know how God told Abraham to leave behind everything. You know, your family, your friends, your land, everything. Go to a land that I'll show you, but I'm not gonna tell you. You just obey. And Abraham didn't know why. He had no clue. He was about to change the world. You know? I mean, if he hadn't done what he did, we probably wouldn't be here or be sitting here.

But because of his obedience, and a lot of times we're not gonna know. A lot of times, it's gonna be years we'll give perspective. But what I see now, God honors obedience, not always right at that moment, but what I see now, what God did with our daughter, with, you know, her career in Christian music, all that stuff, I see that it's like our ceiling became her floor. You know?

Yeah. What we'd learned, what we had, just what we'd learned about the Lord, what we knew about just that entertainment world. Not Christian music, but you know, just in general. I could see it just makes total sense today, but at the time it didn't, didn't, we only have one daughter, so she's our only, well, our one child, she's our only, but so we had the ability to really pour into her as we saw what God was beginning to do with her.

Dawn Damon: So, yeah. Well, we may have some listeners that are not completely familiar with who your daughter is, but before you unpack that, let's go back just for a moment, because when you found out that you were pregnant and your husband was still working and radio city and conducting and all of that, then you started to feel God's saying, lay it down. Where did you go and what did you do?

Kate Battistelli: After she was about a year old, we ended up, we're both from New Jersey, so we moved back 'cause that's what we were familiar with. Had a home business. I started homeschooling back in the eighties, way before it was a cool thing to do. And now, thank God, people have caught on 'cause you know we need as many homeschoolers as we can get. But it was doing that, you know, just trying to figure out life as a mom.

Eventually, we moved down to Florida, where she was raised. We were there for 20 years. Now we're in Franklin, Tennessee, 'cause she's here. Okay. With seven grandkids, which blows my mind that she has seven kids. But it's amazing. But yeah, there's just those times. God's going to say, obey and he will not tell you why. And that's okay if you know it's him. If you don't know, I mean, get confirmation. Get some people to pray for you. Get some mature believers to pray with you to make sure that you're doing what he says you're doing. I call it a God dare. That was my second book. It's like, God, just, God will dare you to do something crazy way outside your comfort zone.

Sometimes you'll get what it is, and sometimes it's just God that I don't know. I think you're saying this like with us, our first leaving New York, we were pretty certain that's what he was saying. And we got our friend June who brought us to the Lord, her and her church, you know, to pray for us, 'cause you don't wanna make a huge blunder like that.

Dawn Damon: No, you don't. But it makes total sense today. We can look back and we can connect the dots and say, boy, I see God's hand here and here and here. And he was definitely directing me.

So you had your daughter. Your daughter is Francesca Belli, and she's an amazing singer, worship leader. She is and has taken the world by storm. Now she's been around, she's had a long career in music, and praise God for that. I'm gonna ask you this, and then we can shift gears a little bit 'cause I wanna ask about your career and your ministry today, but where did the beautiful name Franchesca come from?

Kate Battistelli: Well, you know, it's interesting. It took us a few days in the hospital. We did not have a name for her. I kept thinking of Jenny or all these cute names. It was like, it just doesn't go with Battistelli. So I asked my husband, I said Italian, your dad's name is Frank. What's the Italian for Frank? It's Francesco. I thought, Ooh. It's like, ding. That just went off of my, I thought, Francesca, that's beautiful, but we, it was so long, Francesca Battistelli, we never gave her a middle name, which she still mocks us about. But the cool thing about her name, one day I thought to myself, well, what does her name mean?

Well, I looked up Battistelli means hit the stars. That's what Battistelli means, which is cool. And I thought, what does Francesca mean? It means free. So I thought, okay, she was around 10 years old, and I thought, all right, Lord, free to hit the stars. What does that mean? But you know, sometimes our names carry some great meaning, so look up your name, you know?

Yeah. Sometimes, if it's Smith, it's probably not gonna have a name. I mean, it might, but it won't typically have a deeper meaning. But this, and I mean, that's just what I thought. It's not necessarily God saying that, but I thought, well, that's pretty cool, Lord.

Dawn Damon: That's a very cool name, and that was the perfect name for her.

Kate Battistelli: I think so.

Dawn Damon: So now, today, fast forward a little bit, you have a ministry, you have written, is it three books now?

Kate Battistelli: Three books, yeah.

Dawn Damon: And your latest book is called The After the Party of the Empty Nest: Mom is Not Your Only Name. That's an amazing title. What's the after the party all about? It's the after party.

Kate Battistelli: So it's, you know, the after party. You know how, like you're doing a show or a movie or whatever, the MO that ends, and you have a big after-party. Or there's, you know, maybe the opening of the show, and there's that after-party. Everybody's excited and thanking, and you know, all that stuff, and it's a great time.

While I look at the empty nest, it was really hard for me when she left, finally at 20 years old and I was just, you know, with an only child that you're pouring everything into, 'cause you know, just getting your career going and figuring out Nashville and all that crazy stuff. We were with her all the time, and all of a sudden, we weren't. All of a sudden, the house is empty. There's, you know, I don't have much to do because she's not around. It was really hard.

That empty nest time hit me because I'd never planned for it. So that's one of the big themes in the book is starting now. For then, 'cause you're gonna get there and it's gonna be hard, but you can get through it if you've got a plan.

Dawn Damon: The empty nest, because so many women think that “Mom” is their only title.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah. That's their role. And it's a beautiful and primary role for us. Once we've had our children, that's what we wanna do. Yeah. But it's not the only thing God's put inside of us to do. Right. It ends that season. It's a season of life.

But that's not the only season. I mean, figure you, you probably have another 40 years of this life, so you can't sit around just moaning that your kids are gone. That was super important, but you're still mom, but your role has changed. Mom is not your only name. When you figure out what that next thing is, it's exciting.

It's like an after-party. I mean it. People look at that as going to the after-party. How can that be? But it really is. If you're doing that other purpose God has for you, I like to say your mom and. What's your aunt? I mean, I'm a mom and I'm an author, which I never saw coming. That was never in my playbook to write books, but now you know, it's something God has called me to.

So, what's that thing God's calling you to? What is that new adventure? You know, what is that? God dare. What does he dare? He totally dared me to write my first book, and it made no sense, but you know.

Dawn Damon: Yeah. Tell us about that.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah. Well, I mean, our daughter, Franny, Franchesca, she had left, gone off to Nashville. She was starting to get songs on the radio. People were starting to know who she was, so she was starting to get famous, you know? Yeah. Whatever that means. So we homeschooled her down to Florida, and we were under this big umbrella group. Homeschool group and the lady who ran it, she calls me one night and she says, Kate, we want you and Mike to come.

We're having our big 20th anniversary. Will you come and speak to our parents? Tell them what you did to raise your daughter. Not only to find her purpose and her destiny, but also to continue having a passion for the Lord. Because so many kids leave home and walk away from the faith, right? So she said, would you, Mike, please come and speak to the parents? I said, oh, sure. We'd love to come. And I hung up the phone. I looked at Mike and I said, what the heck did we do? Because you know, you're raising your child according to biblical principles, but there's no real manual other than the Bible.

So we sat down, though, and we came up with 15 things, and I thought, okay, well that's pretty good. We didn't do too badly. And a couple of weeks later, we give our talk. The parents seemed to love it and came home the next day. And I'm just thanking the Lord that it went well. And as soon as I thanked him for those 15 things, I heard the Lord speak in my spirit. And he said, those are book chapters. And I just thought, no. I don't wanna write a book. I don't know how to write a book. No one will read it. No one will publish it. I didn't graduate from college, though I did go to four colleges in two years. I didn't graduate from any of them, but I wanted to be in theater, you know, college for me, it just wasn't filling the need that I had. But I gave him every excuse that I can't do this, and I don't want to. But I kept it, it just kept rolling around in my spirit, and I thought, okay, what do I do with this?

hat happened. This is back in: 2011

But like I say in the book, you have to choose to be chosen to change the world. We can say no to the Lord. He can ask us to do something, and we can say, Nope, I'm not doing it. It's, I'm too afraid. I messed up too much. I am not worth it. I mean, all those stupid lies that we tell ourselves, yes, as to why we won't do something that we know the Lord is telling us, but it's alive from the pit of hell. The enemy does not want you to fulfill your purpose. Right. That's true. He didn't want me writing books. He doesn't want you podcasting 'cause you're getting his name out there. So he will do everything he can to stop us, make us afraid, make us feel we're not worthy or we're not good enough. All that nonsense. You know? And it, we just have to be bold and step out, do what he tells us to do.

Be careful, you know, know that it's the Lord. Like I said before, get confirmation. Yeah. But if you know it is, jump in. Here's a story about, I don't know if you've ever heard of Reinhardt Bonky. I have. Okay. So you know he was a huge evangelist in Africa, like the Billy Graham of Africa.

Dawn Damon: Yeah. Millions came into the kingdom through his ministry. Well, at one point, at the height of his ministry, the Lord said to him, You were not my first choice. You were my third choice. I mean, can you imagine hearing that? How humbling it would be? But all I can think about is those two other guys. Right. You know, I'm assuming men, they get to heaven and God says, look what I had for you.

No. You know what I mean? And, and, and I'm sure it was hard, there was suffering. I'm sure Reinhardt Brocky went through a lot, and maybe these men saw that they just didn't wanna pay the price. It was a price to follow God.

Kate Battistelli: I don't know what it is, but it just scares me to say no. I think, you know, I didn't meet the Lord till I was 29, so I already missed a lot, a lot of what he probably had planned for me. I'm determined not to miss anything else. I'm like, Lord, I'm gonna go where you tell me to go. I'm gonna do what you tell me to do. I mean, I'm saying that today. If I don't do it, you can come back to me and say, Kate, you were supposed to do this, but you know what I mean? It's like it's scary to say no to the Lord because, well, yes.

Dawn Damon: That is a very sobering thought. And it is scary to say no to the Lord, and God is so gracious, and he is so good because he gives us those holy nudges, as you even say that he begins to stir in our spirit, and it's kind of the voice that won't be silent, it just keeps coming back. It's a relentless, you know, echo within it.

And at some point, you have to say, God, are you speaking to me? And then I think all of Heaven rejoices and goes, yay, she finally got it. Ah. You know? But you know. Those things are so important, and I really appreciate your ministry to women. I have a similar ministry to women in my latest book, The Making of a BraveHearted Woman in midlife and beyond, that there's still a brave calling.

Kate Battistelli: Absolutely.

Dawn Damon: There's still a purpose. Absolutely. For your life and so many women. What do I do now that my children are gone, and do I really have gifts and talents that I can offer? I think a lot of 'em are dormant, that maybe they haven't been Yes. Cultivated yet, and you know, cheers to you. Who took that dare? And allow a gift to be cultivated. I'm sure the first book was very difficult to write. The second one is a little bit easier. The third one, you're going, okay, I get this now.

Yeah, I can do this now. I can do this now. Yeah. So, tell us about your latest book in terms of where we find that, and are you speaking about those things that we're talking about? It's not too late, and there's more yet ahead.

Kate Battistelli: Oh yeah, I'm speaking about that all the time because there's so much more. I think the moms that are listening, if you're facing the empty nest or you're in it, just know that there's more. If you're facing it, start planning now.

What are those things you used to like to do? Maybe there's that thing that's been haunting you since high school, that you know, I'm supposed to do this, but I can't do it. In the mothering years, I couldn't have been writing books. Back then, but I can do it now. Maybe there's that hobby you wanna pick up. You always wanted to start a business. You always wanted to go into politics. You wanna go back and get your degree. Those are all possible now because you have more freedom. That's the best part of the empty nest. Even if you're a working mom, you still have more time. You know there's more time at night. You're not dealing with homework or picking kids up or dropping 'em off. You have that time to spend with your husband. That is another big area is marriage. Yes. Super important to be pressing in now before you hit the empty nest.

Because a lot of times women will hit that, the kids have been this buffer, and they've been everything, you know, and I don't, I don't have time for that. I got this with the kids, whatever. And they don't go out on dates, they don't press into their marriage. There's an awful phenomenon called gray divorce. Yes. And it's unfortunately all too common when the kids. The parents get divorced because there's nothing in common anymore. They forget why they fell in love.

Dawn Damon: Yes. And I think I heard that, that if not the top statistic about one of the top three of divorce today is in that population, and you're so right. That's another whole podcast, man. But you're so right that pay attention to the marriage now because you're right. Those children are a buffer. And when those kids all go, it's you and him.

Kate Battistelli: Yeah, it's all those little things that were, that used to bother you, that have kind of been pushed down. But they all of a sudden come up, and I like to say, you know, you don't plan for retirement when you're in it. You know, you gotta plan 20, 30 years before, same with your marriage. You can't wait to fix it.

this era. We weren't born in: 1850

Dawn Damon: Right. We're born now. That's a huge honor. When you look at how crazy the world is, when you look at how much need for salvation there is.

Kate Battistelli: We've gotta be doing our part to build the kingdom. And if you're just sitting around and not praying and asking the Lord, what is my part? It can be something huge. You know, you can sell a million books. Or it can be, Hey, God's saying I want you to work with those Alzheimer's patients, because there are people that need salvation. You know what I mean? It's not, God doesn't look at the size of our obedience. He just looks at our obedience. Are we ob? Are we doing what he's telling us to do? And one thing leads to the next. You know, as you do this one thing, then God says, take on this and take on that. And it might get harder and harder.

Kate Battistelli: Who knows? 'cause there's always a price to obedience. But that's what he's looking for. So if you're just wondering, what am I supposed to do? Just start praying and really asking the Lord, what's my part in building the kingdom during these last maybe decades? I don't know.

Dawn Damon: So well said. What is my part in the kingdom? And hey, women listening. If you are in that empty nest season, if you're in that postmenopausal season, or if you're in that place where you're about to retire and you are thinking, what are my gifts? At the very least. We can be prayer warriors. At the very least, we can be that light that shines in a very dark world.

So your wisdom, Kate, is so great because we can volunteer, we can get beyond ourselves and say, God, how do you wanna use me? And many times. Just taking a step of faith in serving, in volunteering and doing something can activate.

Kate Battistelli: Yep.

Dawn Damon: Our next season. And we say, wow, I didn't see that coming. But it was just that one step of obedience that brought us into a new place, a new atmosphere, a new environment where those seeds could take root and grow. Oh, absolutely. And one other thing I just wanna say. Moms mentor, younger moms, you know, be the tightest two women to the younger mom coming up. If you're in your empty nest and you're dealing with it, get with a mom who's facing it and scared, because a lot of them women are scared of that. So volunteer, mentor, let things start coming out of that.

Kate Battistelli: You're exactly right. That can sort of foster what that next thing is.

Dawn Damon: Amen. Well, it's been great to be with you. I can't believe how fast the time goes. I'm sure we can find your book on Amazon.

Kate Battistelli: Amazon. Yeah.

Dawn Damon: And that's the best place to get it. And we would love to get a copy of that. Final last words for women listening, and your favorite song that your daughter sings.

Kate Battistelli: Oh gosh. I think Defender is one of them. Probably the biggest one. Oh, there's another, I can't think of the name of it. But anyway, that one I love 'cause that's the first time I heard that I just was pretty much on the floor, you know, just going, oh my word, because of the words of that song. So if you haven't heard it, go get Defender. That's a great song. Or go listen to it. But yeah, you can find me at katebattistelli.com. Kate Battistelli on all the socials, so I would love to connect with you there, you know?

Dawn Damon: Wonderful. And yeah. Well, thank you for being on The BraveHearted Woman Podcast. You are indeed a bravehearted woman. Keep being brave. Keep taking that next step. God's got incredible things we say all the time. If you have a pulse, you have a purpose.

Kate Battistelli: I love that.

Dawn Damon: Amen. So bravehearted women. I'm gonna leave you like I always do, wonderful to be with you again, and you can find all of my free gifts on braveheartedwoman.com/resources, and it's my time to ask you this question. Is it your time to find your brave and live your dreams?