How God Gave Chonda Pierce ‘Compassion’ for Her Father
By Movieguide® Contributor
Comedian Chonda Pierce says her faith helped her through her difficult relationship with her father.
“There’s always been a lot of trauma in my life and in other people’s lives as well,” Pierce said of her decision to share her story in her book, “Life Is Funny Until It’s Not.”
She continued, “The stories that [make] you grow and learn are the times in between…you’re either traveling up or down, and that’s when you learn stuff.”
In her book, Pierce details her struggles — “a preacher’s daughter’s childhood filled with heartbreak, including abuse, her parents’ divorce, and the sudden deaths of her two sisters in the span of two years,” per a description.
When asked why she waited until now to share her story, Pierce replied, “I wanted to find some healing first, and I wanted to understand the power of forgiveness.”
“The sweetest thing that ever happened in my life was to understand that the heavenly Father is divine, and the earthly father is flesh and bones,” the comedian said of her relationship with her dad. “That let my dad off the hook. Not excusing it, but what it did was remind me that he needs compassion, too, and he needs prayer, and he needs love. And so, to know that my heavenly Father is perfection and my earthly father is not, it helped me have compassion for him and understand him better.”
Pierce also stressed the importance of talking about the things in your life that bother you, saying, “I believe everything that is drug out of the dark into the light has no more power over you.”
She spoke further about her desire to share her story through comedy in an interview with the Christian Post.
“It is interesting; if you research, a lot of comedians walk some dark roads, and that might be why we love to make people laugh,” Pierce said. “Hearing people laugh is just as much medicine for me as it is for anybody. I think early on in my career, my comedy was probably a lot of deflecting going on to try to mask some pain.”
She continued, “This is the reason I got into stand-up comedy to begin with. I wanted to tell my story. I felt like the Lord had really delivered me through some things that would be helpful to other people.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Pierce’s book:
Who doesn’t love a good laugh?
Comedian Chonda Pierce knows all about making people laugh, but she also knows that some things are funny and some aren’t.
“I spent 31 years on the road telling the funny stuff and the goofy stuff, and telling stories about my father and our dysfunction and all of that,” Pierce told The Christian Post.
“And I didn’t want my career to end without me telling the gut-wrenching truth about myself,” she continued. “It’s one thing to give a word of testimony and go, ‘The Lord saved me when I was 4.’ I have to go, ‘He saved me when I was 4, 7, and then a few times in high school and about eight times in college.’ It’s the in-between of those salvation moments in my life that I’ve never really talked about.”
Pierce decided to write a book so her fans could better understand her story.
Despite the hardships she’s faced, the comedian believes God will use them to encourage others. “I like to use…the things I’ve been through in my life as a way, perhaps, to inspire,” she told Just the News.
“My greatest hope is that people see a thread of Christ through every chapter, even the bad stuff, the hard stuff,” she told The Christian Post. “I want people to see a person clinging to Christ on a good day and on a bad day. And that is the only way you make it through.”
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