82No Live | Episode 10: "Mother's Nature" ft. Tesa Connelly | 82No Live

82No Live | Episode 10: "Mother's Nature" ft. Tesa Connelly | 82No LiveIf you have been watching 82No Live this season you already know her name. She whispered confirmation over Kelly when he was questioning whether God was real. She got the host back into Forward City and set in motion everything this show has become. She has been woven into the story of this season without ever being its subject.Until now.On Mother's Day Tesa Connelly finally takes her own seat and tells her own story for the first time.Born and raised in Columbia South Carolina Tesa is a therapeutic foster parent of nearly twenty children over twelve years a woman working toward adopting her current foster son Kasi and one of the most quietly powerful people in the Forward City community. In this episode she talks about growing up in a Baptist church where God was in a box and the night a play about heaven and hell at eighteen years old arrested her heart and changed everything. She talks about the spontaneous baptism night at Forward City where PT called her name out loud after she told God he was going to have to do exactly that. And she talks about what it means to hear from God on behalf of other people and why she believes she is one of his hands and feet in the earth.But the heart of this episode is what Tesa carried privately while showing up publicly for everyone around her.In 2020 her father was hospitalized with COVID and told the family to come say goodbye. Tesa put the phone to the glass and prayed healing from the crown of his head to the souls of his feet. She told the doctor who said her father would not make it to leave the room. And her father walked out of that hospital a living breathing miracle. Her mother survived COVID too but the disease accelerated her dementia and began taking the woman Tesa had always known piece by piece. For the season that followed Tesa became the mother her mother needed. Building routines. Creating protections around the house. Finding humor in the hard moments. And showing up every single day for a woman who would have shown up for her without question if she could.All while fostering children who needed a mother at the same time.Host G witnessed much of this season firsthand. Working in Tesa's home for months. Watching her care for her mother and her foster children simultaneously. Being present the day her mother passed. And in one of the most vulnerable moments the show has ever produced G tells Tesa on camera what she means to him and what she pulled him back from in a parking lot on a day he almost gave up.Tesa closes with a word for every mother grandmother auntie mama and woman who has been showing up for everyone else while carrying something privately that nobody around her fully sees.You don't have to be the greatest to be a great.82No Live. Real people. Real testimonies. Real God. Every Sunday at 7pm.