Ep. 1657 – The Good News with Angie Austin – Kenza Haddock, How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God / GRACE FOX, POLAND MINISTRY WORK WITH UKRAINIAN REGUGEES
Join Angie Austin as she delves into a heartfelt conversation with Kenza Haddock about her new book ‘Secure: How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God.’ Kenza discusses the importance of mental health and identity in understanding one’s relationship with God. She walks us through the steps in her book designed to help people develop a healthier and more personal connection to their faith. This episode also features Grace Fox, who shares moving stories from her missionary work, underscoring the power of faith across the globe.
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SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News. And we’re welcoming back what I would call you an old friend now, Kenza Haddock. She is joining us to talk about her new book, Secure, How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God. Hey, Kenza.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. How are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m doing well. I’ve been following you on Facebook, too, since we’ve done so many interviews now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I’m so glad. God has been so good.
SPEAKER 05 :
He has. Well, I have to say I would agree with you. And just tell everyone who hasn’t heard you before a little bit about your background and the book you wrote about changing, you know, your religion, basically. I mean, it was more than that. You changed everything in your life. So just give us a snippet of that before we start talking about your new book so people kind of know, you know, who you are and what you’re all about.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely, yes. I grew up in an Islamic household, and so my understanding of God and just my purpose in life were so distorted because I believed that I was here for a certain amount of time, that I needed to just earn my salvation. I believed that I could earn it. And just through a series of life events and traumatic experiences in God’s by his grace and mercy, sent me a dream. As a Muslim girl, he sent me a dream that it was the end times. And in my dream, I saw heaven open and a man in a white robe descending from heaven. And that man was Jesus. And he was coming down. And I don’t know if I mentioned this before, Angie, I felt this peace that just stuck with me. And it was this peace in my dream that I had never felt before. Because before that, anxiety was my norm. And so I knew there was something about him. And that led to my conversion and leaving my family. And because leaving Islam is not celebrated at lunch at Cracker Barrel. Leave in Islam, you’re seen as a traitor. And so it meant I had to leave everything that I had ever known and start my identity from scratch. And that’s what I did.
SPEAKER 05 :
And one thing that always sticks with me is that you told us that your parents, your family, even siblings have tried to kidnap you and take you back on numerous occasions. And that may not end well. We know there’s sometimes violence associated with that, obviously kidnapping, but even more so than that sometimes. There have been some stories in the news just recently, one about a high school girl whose father tried to kill her because she refused a marriage. And she was maybe 17. But anyway, to make a long story short, this has been something that you’ve had to look over your shoulder ever since you left.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, absolutely. I make sure that my doors are locked. I have to double and triple check because they have shown up when I didn’t know. and they’ve done it on numerous occasions, and it’s something that’s been ongoing. God has protected my husband, my children, and I, and we take proper precautions, and we’ve had to have those discussions with our kids, as little as they are, But it’s something that we have to do while we’re on this side of eternity until Jesus calls us home.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’m just astounded when I look at your Facebook pictures and your Christian lifestyle, your counseling, you’re an author, you’ve written numerous books now, and just your life really revolves around your faith. So talk about a life turnaround for you. And now you’re on to a new book, Secure, How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God. Tell us about Secure.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. You know, what’s interesting, and I was talking to a friend just yesterday, it seems like the theme of this book, Secure, really revolves around not only just mental health, but also just our identity in general. Our misconception of God really affects our mental health. And so we Because God is the one who created us, he’s the one who gets to tell us who we are. But if we don’t have a healthy relationship with God, meaning if we don’t get down to the nitty and gritty and truly be transparent with ourselves and ask ourselves, do I see God as distant? Do I see God as someone who’s looking down on me under a microscope? Do I have a faulty understanding of God, meaning that whole bottomless grace mentality? Then if we don’t do that, we’re never going to figure out who we truly are. And that’s what leads to so much anxiety and depression and confusion. And so what this book does is it asks a series of questions And it helps the person navigate what their true perspective of God is so that they can go from there to developing a healthy attachment with God.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let’s work through some of those steps and how you advise us to do that in the book, Insecure.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. The first thing is you want to ask yourself, do I have this misperception of God? So the first one, the first misperception, if you say yes to, I believe God is out there somewhere and I’m over here, or God would scoff at my emotions. In fact, if I go to him with my feelings, he may see me as ungrateful or dramatic. Or if you believe that God just wants you to have it together before you come to him. that all of that is a misperception of God and that you see him as distant. And so you see God as emotionally unavailable for you, which is not biblical, but it’s good to identify where you are first.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
The second, the second extreme, that’s the other extreme is if you see God as controlling or he’s examining you under a microscope, or do you believe that God expects you to be perfect? Or do you believe he’s, disappointed with you or angry with you. So that creates an environment of high anxiety, and that’s called anxious attachment. That’s the second extreme. Now, Angie, where I find a lot of people is the third one, and that’s considered disorganized attachment, is when we believe that God is so unpredictable and that He will will experience his wrath if we approach him at a bad time, or that God will take away your identity if you commit to him, or that you’ll never know if God is pleased with you or angry with you, meaning like he’s always disappointed with you. So that’s where I found a lot of people. That’s the space where they live in. So in order to heal people, from either one of those attachment styles, we have to see God through three different lenses, and that is the lens of a merciful judge. God is a judge. He’s a holy judge. He’s also a judge on our side. He’s a merciful judge. We also need to see Him as a faithful friend, because He is, and also as a loving Father, which is something that is very difficult for, I’ve found, for patients to see when they have experienced abuse growing up. So I include how to overcome that in the book. And so, and also one thing that we have to keep in mind, Angie, is we can’t just open up our whole heart to God in one sitting. A lot of people want to undo all of these years of disorganized attachment in one sitting and fix it. And it’s a process. It takes time for us to learn that God is safe to approach, that God is a loving God. And, you know, we have to reconstruct our brain neuropathways. And that takes sometimes weeks and sometimes it takes months or years.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, that’s interesting. I’ve heard that so many times about pathways, about how your brain automatically reacts and thinks of things. And I know your work as a trauma and pastoral counselor, you know, you are working with people trying to do this. And obviously it varies from person to person. But do you have success with, you know, clients, as you mentioned, your own anxiety, but with clients, anxiety, depression and other issues? you know, issues? Are you able to work through some of these things? And do you have, you know, good success with getting rid of some of those things in terms of your clients?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, absolutely. The way I explain your pathways in God has created us, there’s a concept called neuroplasticity, God has created us with a brain that has the ability to renew itself, it does. through the Word of God. That’s why He tells us to renew our minds. He’s not going to tell us to renew our minds if our mind is set. And so we have to take God at His Word. But Angie, it takes discipline. So it’s not going to take me repeating a Bible verse to myself that contradicts a belief that I have been believing, just repeating it one time. It’s going to take multiple times over a period of time in order to weaken the old belief system and to strengthen the new one and create a strong connection. And so that’s how our brain connections work.
SPEAKER 05 :
I find that fascinating and that we can rewire that per se to get us to think in a different manner. I have another friend that approaches it in a little different manner than you do, and she’s not Christian, but it’s very physical what she does. And she said it’s been life-changing for her to get over the traumatic abuse she suffered as a child and to just react differently to some of these stressors. I don’t know. I just find it all so fascinating. How did you get involved in this work in the first place?
SPEAKER 06 :
The Lord called me into the field of counseling after I gave my life to Him. That’s how I felt the Holy Spirit the first time. Really? I was not a counselor as a Muslim. Yes, yes. And I fought against it because I was like, oh, I grew up in such dysfunction. No, no, no, not me. And the prompting just would not go away. But thankfully, I mean, it has been so rewarding. It’s been incredible and Yeah, there is so much success in it. We just have to, you know, people, and I think we talked about this before, people can fall on two ends of the spectrum. One end is it’s all clinical, but there is no spiritual aspect. You know, they don’t want to bring the word of God into it. And that’s not going to be long-lasting because that’s just behavior modification, not heart transformation. And then there’s the, oh, let’s forget about science. Let’s only try to pray it away, which prayer works, but sometimes God wants to walk us through the process, because if I didn’t walk through the process, how am I going to help someone else walk through that process and be the hands and feet of Jesus?
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow. So your entire life was remolded, transformed by a God you had never really heard about, learned about, experienced. It came to you basically in a moment of extreme anxiety and sadness, depression, and completely changed your life.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Oh, yes. And I say if he could change my life, he can change anyone else’s life.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s truly a miracle. I totally agree. All right, so we’ve got a couple minutes left. In your new book, Secure, How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God, what do you want us to take away from the book?
SPEAKER 06 :
One of the main things that I help people understand is differentiate between a professional relationship with God and a personal relationship with God. A lot of people are stuck having a professional quote unquote relationship with God where we try to hide our flaws or enhance our strength or, you know, that put our best foot forward with God. When in reality, God wants our heart. He wants us to come with our mess. Just like when my child comes to me with their mess for me to, to clean them up and love on them. That’s how God wants us to come to him because the reality is we don’t get healed by willpower. He heals our hearts, but we have to be willing. And so that’s what I walk people through.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I just am so I’m so blessed that you continue to join us on the show because I just think you’re such an inspiration. And I love following you on social media now because we’ve become, you know, like radio friends. So this is all neat. How do people find you, Kenza, to find you and all your books, including Secure?
SPEAKER 06 :
They’re welcome to go anywhere books are sold or Amazon. My website is www.secure.com. Kenza Haddock.com. And that’s K E N Z A H A D D O C K.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
Kenza Haddock.com. What a blessing friend. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Fine Bluffs, Wyoming is tuned to the mighty 670 KLT.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News along with Grace Fox, author, speaker, and also just returned from a wonderful trip. I know she went to Poland. I want to hear about the ministry work she did. We often talk about her book, Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey and Keeping Hope Alive. All right. Welcome back, Grace. You’ve been gone for a while.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, thank you so much, Angie. We were gone for two weeks, so still in a bit of a jet lag mode, but getting better.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love it. Okay, so review with everyone about you and your husband, your ministry and the work you do. And then I want to hear about some of the neat things you did on your travels.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so my husband is a Canadian director for a missionary sending agency. It’s called International Messengers Canada. We have a U.S. office in Iowa. So we’ve got about 300 career missionaries working in close to 30 countries around the world. And the trip that we just did was to have our annual staff conference with the European staff. But it was also to do a week of ministry leading into that conference with some of our staff in a smaller city. So it was very busy, but it was a ton of fun. And it was just such an honor to be doing the things that we got to do.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that. All right, so talk about some of the things that were moving to you. I know you write about some of the experiences you’ve had traveling the world and reading to people out of the Bible and people learning English from the Bible and just some of the neat things that you’ve experienced. Anything that really touched your heart or you thought maybe touched others’ hearts?
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my goodness, yes. There are so many. One of the things we got to do was go into a public high school.
SPEAKER 05 :
Neat.
SPEAKER 07 :
And they had told the staff guy that we were working with is a pastor in this city, a Polish pastor. The teacher had told him, you’re welcome to bring your English-speaking friends into our class so that the kids can practice hearing and speaking English, but no religion, absolutely no religion. And so we agreed to that and went in and we did a panel discussion. So my husband was trained as a civil engineer, and now he’s a director of this nonprofit. We had an older lady traveling with us who has been an accountant and a professor of of that in the university studies and then I’m a writer so we did this panel discussion on these types of occupations and connected with about 50 kids ages 16 and 17. They so enjoyed it. Many of them came up to us and just wanted to talk one-on-one to practicing English. That was really cool. But one of the things that really stands out to me was speaking to a group of about 12 women on one evening And there’s a ministry in this little city that invites disenfranchised women, I will say. Some of them are on the streets. Some of them have just really fallen on hard times. And so they minister to these people. And so about a dozen women gathered together in one little place. And an older lady that was with us shared her testimony of how she had just looked for love in all the wrong places in her life. Um, in her life before she came to find that love need met by Jesus. And then I was asked to share something about overcoming fear. And then we find out that two of these women have fled from the Ukraine. And one of them asked for prayer at the end of all of this, she just quietly shared just a very, very gentle voice that her mother was still living in Ukraine. And just earlier that week, a bomb had gone off close to her mother’s apartment. Her mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and a glass blew in when everything exploded. And, you know, it hit her in the face, took part of her scalp. Now the mother is in the hospital, and she doesn’t have a home left to go to when she’s done. And here’s this sweet little gal just very quietly saying, would you please pray for my mother? And to be able to… connect with these women who you know it’s easy to think that’s happening way over there something we hear about in the news but it doesn’t pertain to me but but to be right there on the spot in the room with this girl as she shared this prayer request and then to be able to pray for her mother just brought it home brought it all home and that that was a very moving moment for me and what a
SPEAKER 05 :
What a, you know, an eye opener that this young woman is in another country and completely helpless, like God is in control. But boy, do you have to believe that and give it over when she’s not going back to the Ukraine to get her mother? Like, does she have, you know, does she have the ability to even, you know… get to her, help her financially. She’s in a hospital. She’s away from the daughter. I mean, talk about a helpless feeling if you can’t get to her and she doesn’t have a home. I can’t even imagine the mental and emotional torture that that would give her. Those are the times when you really have to give it over to the Lord and know how to give it over to the Lord because you are completely helpless.
SPEAKER 07 :
No kidding. I came home from this trip just being reminded of how much I have to be grateful for and that some of the problems that I think are problems, they are such first world problems.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Like, Oh my goodness. Like waking up in our boat home and thinking, wow, it’s cold here this morning. You know, did somebody forget to turn the heater on? That’s how first world problem. And I just, yeah, I was just reminded in a whole fresh way to be so grateful. grateful, and to pray for these people who are in situations that are totally out of their control. They didn’t ask for any of this, and they’re suffering. People are suffering, and Wow, it just really touched my heart.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, what are some of the activities that you do and, like, the purpose of some of these activities? Because, obviously, other than high school, you normally will be able to speak about faith. But sometimes, even when we can’t speak about faith, our faith still speaks through us.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Yeah, and so one thing that we were able to do on this trip— was about speaking of faith was the pastor had rented a room in the public library, which was a beautiful facility, absolutely beautiful. So he’d rented a room there and set up 80 chairs. This was for Saturday night. His wife baked some fancy cakes, and some of her friends did the same, and they set a pretty buffet table at the back of the room for a coffee break. And they’d asked me to teach two sessions on the names of God. And so I chose to speak on Yahweh really, which is, um, uh, I had to stop and pause. And I saw like, uh, it, the Lord is my shepherd and, and El Roy, which is God who sees me. And so I did that with a translator and then they did coffee break in between. And at that, that was all about sharing faith, but they had posters up with my picture and they’d done advertising from social media. And anybody who wanted to come could come. So there were people who were from a little church, people that I’ve known for probably 17 years. Some of them came. But there were people that our pastor friend didn’t know. You know, they walked in off the street and wanted to hear more of this. And what a joy it was to just be able to share that. to share about Jesus to these people who, they can be very religious there, but they don’t know Jesus. They don’t know that it’s possible to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. So about 65 people showed up, and that’s pretty significant for that area.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, the woman that talked to you, whose mother is in the hospital, et cetera, and asked her to pray for her. She touched your heart. Any other experiences that were really moving to you? Because what I think is neat about what you do, and I always tell you, I’m like, you’re a grandma who was raising kids at one point and you were at home and you weren’t working and you wanted more for your life. And then you started, you know, doing the books and your husband’s in ministry. And now I don’t even know if you know that. how blessed you are to be traveling the world and having an impact on so many people and doing all this work for the Lord. Like, I love it, and I love hearing about it. So not only are you touching them, but every time you come back, you’re touched. So in addition to that, young woman, any other experiences you can recount to us? I’d love to hear your stories.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah. So we went for our staff conference as well. We hold one every year. And I think… I think there were close to about 170 people that showed up. So a lot of these are nationals who live there who have become missionaries in their own land. And so we had people from Hungary and Slovakia. We had people from Poland and some from the Ukraine as well. And just sitting across the table and listening to these people who have dedicated their lives to sharing the good news about Jesus Christ, in their countries was so inspirational. Like there’s, um, uh, one young fellow who, who’s he’s from Ukraine and he lived in a parking garage with his family for several weeks when the war first began in the Ukraine. And, uh, he managed to escape and, um, He came to the city of Krakow, Poland, where he met up with one of our American missionaries who was helping displaced Ukrainians find homes at the time. And that’s how their paths crossed. And through her witness, this young man became a follower of Jesus. And so now he’s just on fire for Jesus. And he was telling me how he is spending time with orphans from the Ukraine, because there were Ukrainian orphanages that couldn’t stay there when the war began. So these orphanages just up and moved into Poland, and he goes to visit these Ukrainian orphans. And some of them are small children, but they go right up to about age 18. And living… it’s hard for them to do education. They can’t really go to school. More and more kids are supposed to go to online education there, but that’s very difficult for them if they can’t afford computers. What do you do? So he is just trying to go into these orphanages to bring hope and to show these kids that they’re not forgotten and they are loved. And, oh, my goodness, he’s doing what he can. Here’s this young guy, what? I don’t know how old he is. I guess maybe 23. 24 years old. And this is where his heart is. And to see his passion for that just really touched me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness. I just love the idea of when you’re in need like that, that you’re so open to, you know, the comfort from the Lord.
SPEAKER 07 :
And people want comfort. They need comfort. But just being on the ground over there and hearing these stories about what is happening with Ukrainians who have been displaced and how other people are reaching out and serving and ministering to them and especially loving on orphans, that’s That really blessed me. But, yeah, I love sitting with our staff and hearing what God’s up to. We have an American guy who is working in the Ukraine. He’s been there for at least a decade as a missionary. And his vehicle was damaged about two or three weeks ago when a bomb went off near his vehicle. So he sat there and told us how, yeah, he lives in an apartment in Odessa and And every time he hears the drones that come, he says, you can hear a sound. It sounds like a big truck rumbling down the street. And thankfully there’s a little bit of warning, but he goes, you just get away from the windows. You go out into the hallway because there’s no windows there and you just stay there. And sometimes you end up sleeping there because the air, you know, they’re happening so often throughout the night. And he says, you just have to get away from anything where glass can implode. And we’re looking at him and going, why don’t you return to the States? And he said, because God has called me to Odessa and he’s not told me to leave.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that’s the passion that we’re hearing from our staff.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, Grace, I love hearing these stories and how much you appreciate your life when you come home and all the work you’re doing. And like you said, so proud of him and so humbled. GraceFox.com, thank you for sharing your stories. You bet. I’ll see you again.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
Join Angie Austin as she delves into a heartfelt conversation with Kenza Haddock about her new book ‘Secure: How to Have a Healthy Attachment to God.’ Kenza discusses the importance of mental health and identity in understanding one’s relationship with God. She walks us through the steps in her book designed to help people develop a healthier and more personal connection to their faith. This episode also features Grace Fox, who shares moving stories from her missionary work, underscoring the power of faith across the globe.
