Todd Chrisley's Mother Nanny Faye Is in a 'Real Dark Place' but Is Looking for the 'Light' in His Prison Stint - PEOPLE

Todd Chrisley's mother Nanny Faye is keeping the faith despite being “a real dark place” amid her son's 12-year prison sentence.

Nanny Faye told her granddaughter Lindsie Chrisley on the latest episode of PodcastOne’s The Southern Tea that she believes “everything is done for reason” as Todd, 54, and his wife Julie, 50, serve a combined 19 years in prison for financial crimes.

“I am the queen, and the Sergeant is still barking orders. I have to be the backbone. I have been and I will be,” shared the reality family's matriarch, 79. “I check on each and everyone to make sure they're doing what they need to be doing. Am I in a dark place? I am in a real dark place. But I know that there [is] going to be light at the end of the tunnel.”

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Nanny Faye insisted the family will find strength in the turmoil, affirming, “We're going to come out bigger and better because what they were accused of is wrong.”

“And you know what? When Daniel was in the lion's den, he never worried about the lions. He always stayed focused. And you see what happened to him, and that's what's going to happen to them,” she continued, referencing the Bible. “And I believe it within my heart. And I'm here to make sure that my grandchildren and those two little greats have the love that they need and the guidance that they need."

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Todd and Julie were sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison for financial crimes last November. Todd began his 12-year sentence at Florida's Federal Prison Camp Pensacola in mid-January on the same day as Julie started her seven-year sentence at Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky. They're currently in the process of appealing their case.

On The Southern Tea in April, Nanny Faye revealed how she was coping with the couple being behind bars.

"My heart is broke," she shared at the time. "I don't know that I have been this broken in many days, but I have to ask God to give me strength and courage to get through it because not everybody is treated [with] justice, not everything is fair."

"But you know what we have to get up, I tell you children, we have to get up and be like the tree planted by the water. We shall not be moved," she continued. "Let people see that we're really the people that we are. Get up, do the right thing. Be kind and let God take over."

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Lindsie, 33, then revealed a lesson that she learned through the family's hardships, sharing, "What I've learned through that experience alone is that you have to be very careful and very mindful of not falling into what the media paints you out to be."

However, Nanny Faye advised to live her truth and stay strong: "See, I would never give them that joy because I am hurting deep in my heart, but I'm not gonna let no one see that because you know, I have to be strong. I am still the mother and the grandmother and I know that I have never done anything bad in my life. Never."

She added, "But I have to let people see what Christ has done to me, what made him move on with life and so that's what I'm gonna do. But I am broken."

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