In this episode, Angie and her guest, Grace Fox, dive into the profound routine of finding hope amidst turmoil. Discover how Grace’s experiences of working tirelessly and learning to trust in God’s timeline offer valuable lessons on perseverance and resilience. Follow Angie as she explores Nashville’s vibrant music scene, balancing personal adventures with spiritual insights, and the power of setting boundaries to nurture mental health.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 03 :
Kenza Haddock is back here on The Good News with Angie Austin, and I’m so excited to have you, Kenza, because your story is like really no other story that I’ve covered in my 30-plus years in the TV and radio news business. So welcome back, my friends.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much. I’m excited.
SPEAKER 03 :
I love it too that, you know, I used to have a therapist on the show all the time and we just had so many things to talk about and we became, you know, great phone, radio friends. I said phone friends, radio friends and just really, I enjoy covering so many issues because I really think I would have been a therapist if I hadn’t gotten into news. Like news, you know, it’s like every day you have to become an expert on something. Like if I interview you, I might look into the Muslim religion and then becoming a Christian and what are the ramifications of that. If I’m interviewing someone that’s a doctor, then I look into like the fetal surgery he does. So every day you get educated on a new thing and you have to become an expert to do the story. But in your case, every day you’re like helping to heal people. And you’ve written about healing. And you’ve also written about your journey, The Ex-Muslim’s Guide to Christianity, which I found to be fascinating.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much. Yes. God, I found that God uses our stories in so many ways, you know. And even when he called me into the field of counseling, honestly, I didn’t know why, because I was raised in so much dysfunction. I was like, God, really me? How about someone more qualified than me? But that’s not how he works. And it reminds me, Angie, of there’s a verse in, I believe it’s 1 Corinthians, where Paul says, think of what you… how you were when you were called. Not many of you were of noble birth. And it goes on to say, but God used the foolishness of this world to shame the wise. And so it’s a really humbling passage, and it’s also a reminder that it doesn’t matter where we are right now. God sees the end result, and that’s what we need to look to. I love that.
SPEAKER 03 :
So after you left the Muslim faith, and I’m still just – dumbfounded that you knew nothing about Christianity and that it just came to you when you were so depressed and so down, you know, the vision of becoming a Christian and then helping others. So what are some of the things that people come to you about that they might want help with? And I wonder too, if anyone that wants to become a Christian or leave their faith comes to talk to you because you are, you know, a bit of an expert in the area now.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, what’s interesting is it’s usually these behaviors that we don’t catch because a lot of times they’re socially acceptable behaviors that little by little affect our mental health, and we don’t see that because they’re socially acceptable. And really, one of them that has been huge, and it makes sense because anxiety, clinical anxiety is the number one diagnosis.
SPEAKER 03 :
In the United States. Clinical anxiety is the number one diagnosis in the U.S. That is fascinating to me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And, you know, in the last couple of just years, I’m noticing that it’s because our culture teaches that rest is a reward for our hard work. Whereas the Bible teaches that rest is our inheritance for being children of God. it’s like we feel like, no, no, I need to get everything done or else no one else is going to do it. And because of that, sometimes we can pick up and carry things that God has not given us. And then also, We just we either implode on and within ourselves and we can go over the difference between imploding or we explode. Have you ever I mean, I won’t even ask you, but I have had situations where I’ve taken my anger out on the wrong person. They had nothing to do with it. And just because I’ve been carrying so many pent up emotions and anger.
SPEAKER 03 :
the reality is god calls us to operate from rest because we’re not trying to earn by performing anymore yes yes and you know it’s funny when you said that a lot of people believe that rest is like a byproduct of hard work if you get it i i am a lot less stressed than i was when i was younger because i don’t have as many responsibilities as i used to have and i am able to um you know, spend a lot more time with my family. I used to work seven days a week. I went to school full-time, graduated with honors, always trying to over-excel, you know, to prove myself. And now I, you know, I’m like a totally different person. Now, when you have people come into your practice and they want help with various issues, anxiety, people may not realize, leads to And depression, I didn’t realize for some people, can lead to anger and come out as anger and outbursts. I wasn’t really aware of that. I just thought, oh, anger issues. But a lot of times when we’re dealing with something, it comes out as anger.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, absolutely. Especially in the A type personality. Yes. If the person is more expressive. Now, sometimes it can come out in an anger outburst if the person has had so many pent up emotions and did not just never verbalize them and they just. they will take it out on sometimes even the people they feel safest with. Now, that doesn’t mean the recipient should just take it, because I’ve had, especially in marriages or in relationships, parent-child relations, where the parent would say, hey, you know, my child is great with everyone else. Why do they take their anger out on me? And that’s because we normally do that with the person we feel safest with. Now, the recipient also needs to set boundaries when it comes to that and maybe help them process through it. Hey, what’s going on? I’ve noticed that over the last couple of weeks you’ve been, you seemed a little more stressed out. Can we talk about that? Something like to encourage conversation. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I think, and you tell me if I’m wrong, but I get the impression that men are less likely to talk about these emotions. They don’t have as many. We have our girlfriends. We have our mom. We have our sisters, family members, cousins that we may talk to. But oftentimes men, you know, my husband talks to his dad a lot, you know, but he’s in his mid-80s. Like, who else is he going to talk to? I mean, me, obviously. But he doesn’t have any friends that he talks to at all about anything that he might be dealing with.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Oh, yes. And our culture doesn’t help that either. We teach men to not verbalize. We teach that, oh, if you don’t verbalize your emotions, that’s a sign of strength. Whereas that’s not true, because Jesus, the strongest person who ever lived, walked the face of the earth actually displayed healthy emotions because he wasn’t scared of them. See, God is not scared of emotions, and we shouldn’t. And one thing that I always like to say, because I had to learn it the hard way, is if we don’t process and express our emotions in a healthy way, we will be led by them. That’s the way we get led by them. It’s because we don’t allow… to just talk about what’s going on.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wait, say that again.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s so important. Yes, absolutely. When we don’t take the time to process through and talk about our emotions in a healthy way, we become led by our emotions. Oh my goodness, that’s good. Because whatever we repress,
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, if you’re repressing it and it’s just finding a crack to just ooze out or fly out or break out of when you repress all these emotions, then someone like drops a dish or gets a B on a test or forgets to mow the lawn and all of a sudden you’re enraged over something that should elicit a smaller emotion. My mom is the queen of where it was. She’s getting so much better now. And I’m saying now you can teach an old dog new tricks. But like the kids would leave a backpack in the living room and she would just become enraged. And I’m like, first of all, it’s my house. It’s my kid. Why are you screaming at the top of your lungs? And you’re on an emotional roller coaster ride every day. You get so easily enraged. And I’ve really gotten her giving her a separate apartment, you know, in her home to not choose to sit right in the middle of the living room and like on her throne, dictate every move my kids made and just use them as an excuse to get all of her rage out. And I could never understand how you could get so angry about a sock or a backpack in the wrong place.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Yes. I’ve had patients who had the same theme, like who lived separately. And usually it goes back to the way they were raised as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, it goes back to the way they were raised. And so they made agreements in their minds, like I will not – go to bed unless the dishes are washed. Now, that’s great. But once it becomes a rule that is emotionally disruptive, that’s not good. And so that’s when someone will ask, well, are you saying I should just live in complete chaos? And no, absolutely not. But it’s good to set certain boundaries and certain guardrails and also understand that you’re human. You’re not going to get it Right, all the time. Sometimes you’re going to go to bed and the dishes are going to be in the sink, and that’s okay. It should not cause you to lose sleep.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, yes, yes. I love that. And coping. OK, so someone comes to you and we’re going to be doing these segments more often. I’m so excited that you’re going to be joining me. I just love the idea of helping people. And I love Christian counseling. And when you have someone come to you who’s dealing with anxiety, the number one diagnosis, depression, anger issues, my When my daughter was younger, she said, Mom, could I have counseling to deal with my anger issue? She didn’t know how to process it when she was mad. And I was like, how mature for her to ask for that. And we started getting these bills in the mail. My husband’s like, what’s this about? They literally have. outside counselors that you can visit at the school that, you know, your insurance can cover, that they don’t even have to leave school to go see them. And I said, Hope, ask me. She said she wanted to be able to better deal with her anger. So how do you tell people to start? Like what’s the starting point when you have a new patient come in? Where do you like to start them to start feeling better and healing them emotionally?
SPEAKER 06 :
I like to ask questions about their current life because not everything is is… issues that have been embedded or agreements that we have made or inner vows that we have made growing up. Sometimes it’s just you’re going through situational stress and reminding yourself that, hey, this is just for a season and reminding ourselves that God is with us in this season, but also taking inventory of what are we watching on TV? Who are we talking to? Are we surrounding ourselves with people who are bringing us down? And you wouldn’t believe it. You probably do believe it. The people who are closest to us affect our lives more than we lead on because we have our guard down with those people. And so we have to be willing to set healthy boundaries. If someone around us, and it’s okay to say, hey, but I’m ministering to this person, and that’s fine. But if they are dragging you down and causing you to miss your number one and number two priorities, you know, your time with the Lord and your time at home, then maybe reevaluate that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I also found something that is beneficial to me, if I can be so bold as to say what I think has been somewhat helpful, is journaling. And I don’t know why I’m so resistant to doing it because every time I do it, my day is better.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know what’s interesting? The reason you feel better is because journaling activates the brain region. It’s called bilateral stimulation, so it activates both sides of your brain, the logical part and the creative part.
SPEAKER 04 :
There’s a reason.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. So it’s like you’re opening the door for emotional processing. It’s the same by journaling. You’re getting the same effect as walking because walking, you’re activating both sides of your brain. And so unfortunately, in our world, we type more so than write and walk. And so we’re not getting this similar effect. And there’s one thing that, you know, speaking of leaving my biological family and when I left, I was by myself and the Lord, obviously he was with me and he took, I mean, he is so incredible and he reparents our hearts. He really does. The Holy Spirit does. lets us know. He convicts us when we need conviction. He encourages us when we need encouragement. And one thing, so my husband and I are both very strong personalities. And when we got married, our first year was like the worst year on our marriage. I mean, we were at each other’s throats. I’m talking like toilet paper up or down, open cabinets, closed cabinets, stuff like that. And what we have learned and what I have learned is that A lot of times I think I’m right, and a lot of times I’m sure he thinks he’s right. But one thing we’ve learned is we, whenever we have an issue, we go to God with it first. Not together, because obviously that’s going to be like a… Oh, let’s do this, Kenza.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re out of time, but let’s do this. Let’s save that topic, and that’ll be our next topic, okay? Because it goes all back to Dr. Phil’s, do you want to be right, or do you want to be wrong? Kenza, give us your website.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, it’s www.kensahaddock.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, friend.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin and Grace Fox here on The Good News. And today we are talking about finding hope in crisis, devotions for calm in the chaos. We’re talking about hope in action and also vacations and how important those are. I’ll bet there were years, Grace, when you didn’t used to take a lot of vacations.
SPEAKER 05 :
That is exactly true, because we worked at a year-round Christian camp for 11 years, and during that time, summer is our busiest season. And so other families would come to our facility to do vacation, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t go away. So you’re right. I hadn’t read out about that. But during the wintertime, same thing. We had groups that would come and rent the facility for a weekend. My husband was the program director, so… He just couldn’t get away, and it was lots of times work seven days a week, 16 hours a day. I wouldn’t recommend that, but we were short-staffed at that time, and there wasn’t a whole lot we could do but keep going. But God gave us the strength. We’re glad we don’t have to work at that pace anymore. It’s not the way the human body is made. We do need to take breaks.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, seven days a week, 16 hours a day for 11 years. I would think that would take a toll on you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so it wasn’t consistent like that for the full 11 years, but it was like that for the first few years that we were there, and it was tough. It was tough on the family, too, because my husband just wasn’t able to be fully present like he had been before we went into that ministry. But we had to do what we could do, and we had to learn to work with it and work around it. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
You do some pretty fun family vacations with the kids and grandkids. What did you do this time? Wasn’t it a houseboat?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we just got back last night, and we rented a houseboat in the interior of British Columbia. There’s beautiful big lakes, and there are companies that will rent houseboats. And so we went out with our two daughters and their families and a nephew and his wife, and we had – six or seven nights out on a lake. So we can take the houseboat out and then you don’t throw an anchor down at night. You just can’t do that. The lake is way too deep for that. and the winds can come up, and if it’s like a channel or an arm, the wind will just start blowing and pick up speed, and you could have havoc on your boat. So you have to tuck in to a safe little cove at night, and you can beach it. So, you know, walking pace, you just take this big boat at walking pace right into the beach, and then you put a ramp down onto it, so you can come and go. So we had campfires at night and roasted s’mores and You know, the little ones played in the sand with their buckets. The weather was perfect for that week. And then my son and his wife and their crew joined us on Saturday for my husband’s birthday. And this boat had a slide off the back, so the kids were going down this slide and having a great time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, when you get the houseboat with the slide, we had a houseboat like that, too. And it is so much fun for the kids. And we did ours in Kentucky. So I think an interior lake in British Columbia would be really beautiful. And the fact that it was warm enough, you know, because I guess we’re going to June now. And so it was warm enough for the kids to get in the water and have a blast.
SPEAKER 05 :
They had so much fun. My son and I brought a paddle boat, an inflatable paddle boat. And so the kids… And we had our dinghy that we had taken along in the back of a truck and then put it behind the houseboat. So the kids, my husband or my son, drove the dinghy and then… Kids could get pulled behind it on this paddle boat. So not water skiing, but they were still hanging on to a tow rope like that. You could have two kids on at a time, one standing, one sitting, or one at a time. It just, they had a blast.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s pretty creative. I never would have thought of that, a tow rope with a paddle board behind a dinghy. I love that. That sounds like a blast. All right, well, I always like to catch up on your adventures. I’m headed out to Nashville. My daughter is going to school there outside of Nashville next year, so she’s going to help out with a… a volleyball camp for younger kids. She’s going to stay in the dorms with some of her teammates, some of whom she’ll just be meeting for the first time, including her new roommate. And then I am going to go back to Nashville, and I think I’m going to go to the Grand Ole. I don’t like normally – I shouldn’t say that. Normally I wouldn’t choose to travel alone, and I’ll be without her once I get back to Nashville. But I went on to Hotwire because in downtown Nashville, the hotels are pretty expensive, and I found one that would normally be like, I don’t know, maybe $300 a night, and that’s not an expensive one there. And I got it for $122 on Hotwire. And then I couldn’t find one the next night, but then I logged in this morning, and they had another good deal for the following night. So I booked another one for $124. So I was like, ooh, I’m really getting the good deals in Nashville. And then I thought – I’m going to do a food and history tour with a friend of a friend, a musician that used to be a teacher. And I saw him perform at Robert’s Western World, which is a cool place in Nashville where they only play old school music like Johnny Cash and like the old performers. And so nothing can be like before 1970 or something of that sort. So I love to go there and hear the stuff my dad used to listen to. But I can’t take my daughter in there. So I’m going to have to go on the nights when I don’t have her. And then I thought I’d get a ticket to the Grand Ole Opry because I haven’t been there since I took my dad for his bucket list trip about 10 years ago. and uh the night i looked up nashville for teenagers you know so the kids want to hear music after like six o’clock at night you have to show an id for most of like honky-tonk kind of places but i was astounded there’s like 15 different places where you can go for a meal or whatever and she can listen to music and get this one of them’s a taco bell with a performance stage
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, I wouldn’t have expected that one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Me either. I just found it last night. I know about the food court. It’s like kind of a highfalutin food court. I saw at least last time two performance stages while I was there. And then I love this Justin Timberlake restaurant. It’s called the 1230 Night Club. And they had really cool, like, blues music. And you can sit and listen to the music. It’s just so cool in Nashville because all these musicians are trying to make their big break. And so every place has live music, even the Taco Bell. And they’re talented too because they’ve moved there specifically to try to make their big break. So they were like the big, you know, Shazam in their own hometown. And then they’re moving to the big city to, you know, show off their talent.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I wish them well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Me too, me too. All right, let’s talk about hope in action, page 96 of Finding Hope in Crisis.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so this is, I wrote this with a couple of my friends in mind. They had been in a really hard place for a while. They tried to sell their house. They wanted a downside. He was caring for his parents that lived seven hours away, and she was writing a Bible study, and they have a marriage ministry together, so she was trying to direct that as well. At the same time, he was so involved with caring for his mom and dad in their senior years. And so they were just seeing their savings go out the window and the stress was going up and up. And they just cried out and said, help, help. And so this one verse or two verses rather that he spoke to them through these verses. And it was this. It was Psalm 71, 20 and 21. It says, you who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again. From the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. And they hung on to those verses and just said, okay, okay, we feel like we are in the depths of the earth right now, but We are going to trust that he will revive us, bring us up, increase our greatness, and comfort us. And my friend Pam took a little pair of, you know, a little pen, and she Googled, not Googled, what do you say? You know, she just drew, sketched a pair of glasses in her Bible. And she wrote the verses across this picture of the glasses. And because, you know, you who have made me see all these things will do all these good things for me. And so for months, she would recite those verses every time she put on her glasses. And God did fulfill those promises for this couple. And, you know, sometimes he will do these things. He will revive us and bring us up in the depths of the earth. he’ll restore us do all these things quickly but sometimes it doesn’t happen quickly and that’s when we have to persevere we have to keep going keep trusting and not give up and it’s so easy when it seems like there’s no end to the troubles we face or to the pain we’re in but to you know to remember that God’s timeline is a whole lot different than ours And to keep trusting in his timeline, not demanding that he work according to ours.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, it’s interesting because so many times, at least with me, I always have some kind of a workaround, like some kind of a fix, some way to take a problem and solve it. And I usually have, you know, like three or four different ways to do it. In this past year, for like six months, I was trying to solve a problem that was kind of life-altering, you know, if I couldn’t get the problem saved. Yeah, it was like, you know, not in a horrible way. There were other options. And that, you know, would be acceptable. But this was obviously the best option that I really wanted. And I was getting so frustrated because everything that I normally I can find a solution. And I was doing everything. And I was almost starting to get angry with the people that I felt were putting roadblocks in my way, you know, even though they were doing what they thought was best and following protocol. I always kind of think there’s like can be exceptions or figure out a way. And I think that that really tested my ability, you know, to trust God, to, you know, to be patient and to not freak out as we’re waiting for the solution. And in some cases, there might not be a solution that we’re happy with.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. And honestly, Angie, we never see the full picture. We just don’t because we’re humans. That scope of wisdom that God has. And so we think we know what the best answer is. We think we know how to resolve this thing, right? And then we get frustrated because things don’t pan out the way we think they should. And sometimes I think God just shakes his head and sees the whole picture and he knows He knows how it’s going to turn out in the end. And so when we’re anxious, we can get ourselves into trouble trying to solve it too soon. But if we can learn patience and learn to persevere, even when it feels like it’s taken far too long, then we are always going to come out better off in the end when we let God do it in his time.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, you talk about, you know, your friend Pam drawing the glasses and then writing the verses, you know, for her to read every time she put her glasses on. And I think about routine and how important it is and that routine can sometimes help us stay calm. And that routine might involve reading. that prayerful thought as she was doing and meditating on verses. And sometimes we forget to do that. And I love that she did something so simple to remind her. You know, sometimes I set alarms or I have a to-do list or I send myself an email, I send myself a text, like whatever is fast for me to do to figure out a solution to me remembering to do what I need to do. Because some of us have like a scattered train of thought. or a lot of people have ADHD, and I always find all of these workarounds for people with ADHD, and I find they’re helpful for me as well because I don’t necessarily think that that’s my issue, but it’s my daughter’s issue, so I’m always looking for tools for her, and they’re certainly effective for me. And as I’m aging, they’re effective for me as I start to forget things. Like my producer sometimes will send me a message like, hey, I’m waiting for this show. It’s like half an hour before the show is going to air, and I’m supposed to send some audio files, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh. I went out – because I’ll have like 12 alarms set a day for things for my kids, you know, pick up a kid at lifeguarding, take a kid to an appointment, get the kid at basketball, take the other kid to a volleyball lesson. It’s just insane how many things I’ll have alarms for, and I’ll forget my own show. And so it just cracks me up that he’ll remind me, and I’m like, oh, well, I already recorded it this morning, but I was in a hurry to get out the door, and I figured I’d come back and send it to you later, so – Yeah, I need those workarounds now as I’m getting older as well. Well, Grace, I always appreciate you. I’m so glad you had a great houseboat vacation. GraceFox.com. We will talk to you next week. Thank you, friend.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
