In this compelling episode, Angie Austin welcomes back author Grace Fox to delve into her latest book, ‘Moving from Fear to Freedom.’ They explore the common fears that hold people back and discuss practical ways to overcome them through faith and trust in a higher power. With personal anecdotes and insightful stories, both Angie and Grace illustrate the difference between healthy and unhealthy fears, and how understanding them can lead to true freedom in life.
00:00:09 Grace Fox and Moving from Fear to Freedom
00:14:58 Conversation with Beatrice Bruno and Michelle Ron
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to the good news with Angie Austin. Now with the good news, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Angie Austin here with the good news, along with Grace Fox, one of our favorites. We’re talking about her book today, Moving from Fear to Freedom. And what a great thing to do as we move through 2023. Welcome back, Grace.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks so much, Angie. It’s great to be back again.
SPEAKER 07 :
OK, so this is a topic that when you first sent me all your books, because a lot of them are really inspirational, devotionals and, you know, a happy place, a fresh hope for today. And I thought, you know, a lot of women still are in that fear. fear zone. And you and I talked about some of our women’s retreats that we’ve spoken at. And I remember, I think I told you all those sheets of paper that women submitted about their deeper secrets. And it was shocking to me, the sadness and the guilt and the shame within those notes that were, of course, anonymous. And so I thought, you know what, when we get into 2023, which we are now, that I wanted to start tackling this moving from fear to freedom. Where do you want to focus today?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think it’s really important to identify the fact that there are healthy fears and there are unhealthy fears. And so maybe we can talk a little bit about that today, what the difference is.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think that’s good because I think all of us see just fear is fear, you know, and we just lump it all together. But it can limit us and keep us from doing things which really would be great for our lives. So let’s get started. How do we identify?
SPEAKER 06 :
So unhealthy fears are the ones that hold us back. So healthy fears are good for us. Let’s be specific about some of those things. Like when we’re raising our kids, we teach them to look both ways before you cross the street. That’s a healthy fear because we know that if you step out onto the street and there’s a car coming, you’re going to get hurt. So there’s that. There’s a healthy fear. A lot of us, as we begin a new year, we think, okay, I’m going to get back to exercise. I’m going to eat properly. Well, that’s kind of based in a healthy fear because we want our bodies to be in a good place. We want to live long and strong. And so a healthy fear is, okay, I’m going to look after myself so I don’t die of an unnecessary disease, right? Yeah. So those are healthy fears that… I would say kick us into action that stir us into doing something that is good for us or for other people.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. Okay. So some healthy fears.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, healthy fears. So unhealthy fears. Those are the ones that keep us stuck. So let’s say an unhealthy fear would be, I can’t turn the lights off at night because I’m afraid of, I’ll just go ahead and I’ll say it like a child might say the boogeyman. The boogeyman’s out there. If I turn the lights off, he’s going to get me in the dark. That is an unhealthy fear. I had that. You want to hear a story about that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I’ve got one for you just from this morning. okay who wants to go first you want no you go ahead oh sure sure mine’s quick and simple uh every time i come down to the basement that’s where we have a walkout basement so it’s not like your scary basement right and so my daughter has a huge room down there it’s really more like an apartment she’s 15 her friends come over she has a bunk bed set up and then like a queen bed and then a cot like she can have six girls in there and they have tons of room it’s literally like two or three bedrooms in one okay well There is a living room and a kitchen down there, but there’s also the storage room. And so every time I come down the stairs, the storage room, which we just cleaned, it’s even got carpeting in it now. It’s real friendly now. And my office is hidden away behind the storage room. It’s kind of like an escape room, right? Where I am, it’s real quiet because no one would come into the storage room to hang out or make noise. So my office is built, or my studio… off of the storage room. So no one would even know that I’m down here. If they came in the house, they wouldn’t find a door at the back of the storage room that goes to, you know, a studio. So anyway, every time I come down the stairs, including this morning, the door to the storage room is wide open. And keep in mind, it’s not heated and we’re in Colorado. So I’d really prefer it be cold so we don’t have to heat it. And the lights, every single light in the storage room in my office are blaring on full blast. So what she must do at night, and I’ll say like, well, why do you do that? Well, it’s scary. It’s scary. And so I’m like, but we don’t really want to use that electricity. Can’t you just shut, keep the door shut? No, I need to know what’s in there with all the lights on. And I like it open because it’s scary. And I’m like, okay. So she’s almost 16 and still she’s doing that with the door. So I’m assuming that is her teenage boogeyman. She believes it’s in there.
SPEAKER 06 :
I totally get it because I had the grown-up boogeyman thing happening. So when my kids were small, my husband worked overseas a lot. So he had to go overseas. He was going to be gone a week at a time. And we were robbed at one point. Yeah. And I didn’t know that we were robbed. Somebody had broken into our house and we were gone. And little by little, I discovered, where’s my camera? It’s gone. And then one day, I went looking for a little set of cheap pearl earrings. and they were gone. And I had a silver charm bracelet that I collected charms from the time I was in high school, right to Bible college. If I traveled someplace, I bought a charm and it was gone. And that’s how I discovered, you know, somebody had robbed us and we had a suspicious neighbor living right next door. People were coming and going. We sort of wondered if he was dealing drugs out of his house or whatever, but you know, we, we had our suspicions, but nothing was ever proven nothing. And so when my husband would travel overseas, All I could think of was I’m a sitting duck. I’m home alone as a young mom with three preschoolers. And we lived in a double-wide mobile home at the time. So our master bedroom was at one end of the mobile home and the kids’ bedrooms were all at the far end and the big house in between. All I could think of was if somebody breaks in, how am I going to get to my kids to get out of the house? How am I going to rest my children? And so I would sleep with a light on beside the bed because I think at least if somebody breaks in, I’m going to catch a glimpse of his face so I can identify him in a lineup. That was my thought. And so I, but then problem was, if I wasn’t sleeping, I would get really grouchy because I was overtired. And so then I’d start being grouchy with my little kids. And I finally said one night, I can’t do this. I need to sleep. I need to be rested so that I can parent my children. Come on already. And so I remember praying this. Okay, God. I actually, the Psalm 127 just popped into my head that night. And so I turned to it, and this is what I read. It says, unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. And I thought, whoa! You know, that’s so true, because I can try to guard my space by turning a light on and trying to sleep with a light on, which isn’t working for me. Or… I can trust the Lord to post his angels around my home and, and just let him do his job. And I’m going to go to sleep so that I can do my job. And that’s what I did. I remember just saying, okay, God, I am so done with being exhausted out of fear. I need to sleep. So would you just post an angel at both doors, front and back and at every corner of this mobile home? Would you do that please? So that I can get some rest. And Angie said, that prayer set me free like i slept that night i never slept with the light on again and i’ve traveled around the world sometimes by myself where i’ve had to sleep in hotel rooms and and i’ve just been able to turn the light off lock the door turn the light off and get rest and oh oh my you know that was my aha moment that night that was my turning point but i i It just changed my life when I just finally realized that I could do everything to protect myself out of fear or I could say, God, do this. Do this for me. I still get my doors locked. You know, I took common sense precautions.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 06 :
But I trusted him to look after me and it set me free.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, trusted him once we’ve done everything, you know, that we’re supposed to do common sense wise to protect our family, not leave the doors unlocked, make sure the windows are locked. We put like in the sliding doors a little. stick in there or whatever some little device that keeps it from sliding and you know all the normal things you do to protect your home maybe even you know an alarm some of us have a security system but that peace of mind and I was thinking as you were telling the story I’m like well you’re better than I’d be I’d actually have all the kids in the bed with me or I’d be in one of the bedrooms with the kids and we’d camp out while dad was gone in one room that I like put a chair or something or a dresser up against the door so I was like oh well you were better than I was because you actually slept in your tried to sleep in your own
SPEAKER 06 :
bed yeah yeah i get you i hear what you’re saying i i think so many of us um start out even as kids with those fears like i can totally relate to what you’re talking about with the storage room and all that i remember as a kid you know my mom would say to me as a child grace would you go downstairs and get a jar of peaches because she had all this canning room right she did all the food preservation and whatnot and so there was this little cool room down in the basement and And I hated it when she said something like that, because in my head, I had visions of the boogeyman. And so I’d go down the stairs. I’d make sure it had a light switch at the top of the stairs and a light switch at the bottom of the stairs for the same light. So I’d click on the switch at the top of the stairs. So, of course, that was flooded with lights. I’d go down the stairs, you know, into the furnace room and then into the storage room, get the jar of peaches. But then I’d have to come back up the stairs. And that’s where the problem was because I’d have to turn my back on, right, turn my back on the basement. And all I could envision was this. monster whatever he looked like just coming after me chasing me and i would take those stairs by twos and then i get to the top and quickly compose myself because i didn’t want anybody to think i was scared right but i that’s just we develop these fears in in childhood and and carry them with us into adulthood but only jesus can set us free turn the lights on can’t always set us free right put the alarm system in we still might have panic attacks but Jesus is the one who sets us free.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love your example. I hope we have enough time for it. You talk about living jitter-free, and you’re talking about Jesus allowing you to, and not just being scared of the boogeyman. Other things, you talk about living in Nepal, and you saw people carrying these immense loads, and you saw a man with a 200-pound sack of sugar on his back, and you thought that he wasn’t built to carry that, but he lived several days’ walk from the bazaar. No roads existed, and he didn’t own a horse or a mule, and if he wanted the sugar supply, he had to carry it several days on his back. And so you talk about that living in the fear for our kids’ well-being is like piggybacking a huge weight. I love that example. Explain that a little bit.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s exactly the way it is. But the people in Nepal, the ones where I was at, they were a small-boned people. And I was amazed at what they could carry on their backs. But you know what? We, spiritually, are not meant to carry those kinds of loads. God never designed us in our heart and our spirit to carry huge burdens like that, whether it be the fear for our kids’ well-being or The fear of, you know, what if cancer strikes or what if this year just brings all out nuclear war? We just are not meant to carry those kinds of burdens. And that’s why Jesus has come to me. I love that invitation. You can just envision him putting his hands out, you know, extending his arms to us with his hands out and saying, Come here. Come to me. Because you’re not meant to carry those kinds of loads. If you’re weary from carrying that load, I will carry that for you. And sometimes we say, oh, no, no, I’m good. I can do this. No problem. But we’re not good. It is a problem because we’re losing sleep and we’re developing ulcers and we’re turning to alcohol or whatever else to try to soothe those fears.
SPEAKER 05 :
When Jesus is saying, give it to me. Let me carry it for you because I care for you. Mm hmm.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love having your book on Kindle. And just for people that don’t have a Kindle, I’m sure most of you know this, but on my smartphone, I have the Kindle app. And it’s really great. These phones are so wonderful. I have so many books on Kindle, including Moving from Fear to Freedom. And I just pop it up when I’m like yesterday, I spent the entire day at a volleyball game. and my husband was at a basketball tournament, and we had to get up at 4.30 in the morning. So I had at least three hours in my car before and in between and blah, blah, blah. And I just pop this out and start reading, and my mom does the same thing when she drives with the kids that have permits. She has to sit in the car during practices. She does the same thing. And also, I’d love to get your website as well, Grace.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. My website is so simple. It’s just gracefox.com.
SPEAKER 07 :
Love talking to you. It’s always a fun day when I have you on the show. I love your books and I love your speaking.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I’m just so thrilled to be able to do this with you, Angie. It’s great to be able to talk about life and to talk about real life and how faith affects it.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love it. Talk to you next week. Bye, Grace.
SPEAKER 06 :
You bet. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Castle Rock is locked in to the mighty 670 KLT Denver.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin with the good news, along with Beatrice Bruno and Michelle Ron. Always a great day when they’re on the program. Hello, my good news gal, Beatrice.
SPEAKER 02 :
Praise the Lord and God bless you. Good to be here today, Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Praise the Lord and God bless you. Michelle Ron, welcome, my friend.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, and that’s a hard act to follow. I’m just thrilled to be with both of you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, the day I met Beatrice. Wait a minute. No, Beatrice, the day I met you, I had to follow your 30-second elevator speech. Never in my life have I worried about following anyone with my 30-second elevator speech. Oh, my gosh. Because after you went, I’m like, this is the first girl, the first gal that might best me in her presentation of the 30-second elevator speech.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, my gosh. You know, when I go into places and they introduce me or, you know, I’m speaking to people, I say, well, praise the Lord and God bless you today. And people really are taken aback. They’re like, huh? Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
They have to listen again. This is good.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, they do. You got their attention. That’s just me. That’s me. That’s who I am. And you know something? I’m finding that I’m not going to change that. No. Nor could you. No.
SPEAKER 07 :
No. We don’t want any changes to take place in the drill sergeant of life. Every week, ladies, we do the old word of the week. And last week, Arbitrus, you missed it. And I think you took the day off on purpose because the word was sin.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, Lord. A nice easy word there. There we go. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
What’s our word this week?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, this week our word is metal. Metal. M-E-T-T-L-E. And these past few weeks… I’ve been witness to friends who are going through really, really tough situations as all of us have some point in our life journey. And my point, my word this week again is metal. And the first thing that comes to my mind when I when I. came across this word was my generation used to have the saying, put the pedal to the metal. And that was used mainly to describe drag racing. But that is not what I’m talking about. Nope, that’s not it. Because my metal is spelled M-E-T-T-L-E. And what it refers to, it’s a noun that refers to determination or stamina when doing something difficult. And my husband loves watching old cowboy movies. I think he’s seen every single one of them twice. But in the cowboy movies, they call that word grit.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it’s all about the strength of will and persevering through stuff. And right now. Those of you that are listening, I know there are some of you, in fact, a lot of you that something is challenging you. And are you dreading it? And are you confused as to a solution? So what I’ve observed. And being honored to observe is that I’m watching these three dear ones traversing their way through chemo. And I’m observing how each one is showing their mettle in this challenge. But the best thing that I’m observing in each one of these friends is that they are each digging down deep in their trust of their jesus even when their pain is overwhelming and they are demonstrating to me that nothing and no one in this world is stronger than god and when we suffer as they are suffering god allows us to experience his nearness in very very real ways so i’m seeing them using this metal of his strength, and they are persevering. And it’s an honor to be able to watch this because it’s a lesson for me, and I would bet that it’s a lesson for each of you also.
SPEAKER 07 :
I like that word. And I so rarely hear it. And when I spelled it and explained it again, and when he was such a teacher, metal, metal, M-E-T-T-L-E, metal. That’s the way, you know, like when you do your vocabulary tests in school.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Right. I first thought in school. in a devotional that i was doing and that was a couple months ago so i i didn’t i couldn’t find the particular devotion but um i i did look up the word and remember the word so yeah it is interesting to me well beatrice you’ve got it yep you know i’m finding that as i rebuild
SPEAKER 02 :
and revamp the drill sergeant of life, that metal is a huge part of what I have to use to utilize in order to get to where I need to be for such a time as this. Because as we all know, my husband passed, it’ll be five years in August. On August the 7th, my husband will have been gone for five years. Yeah, already. Well, think about this. My granddaughter is getting ready to turn six months on Thursday. So it’s like time is just going. But, you know, as I look at myself and what I need to do to accomplish what rebuilding the drill sergeant of life and taking the drill sergeant of life to where I want it to be. I’ve got to be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. And that’s what metal is to me, determination, stamina of being the Christian that I am, you know, in all parts of my life. And I’ve got to utilize that steadfast and unmovable trait as the drill sergeant of life, because the scripture says, be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know that the work that we do for the Lord is not in vain. And when we start talking about using metal in our lives, M-E-T-T-L-E. When we start talking about using that in our lives, we have to be steadfast and unmovable at who we are. When we look at our friend, our good friend, Angie Austin, and see where she’s come from, you know, starting out as the weather girl, you know, with CBS and doing that out there on the West Coast and stuff and the things that she’s done here in the Denver metropolitan. You know, and she’s still steadfast and unmovable because people know who Angie Austin is. They know what she does, what she represents. They know that she’s, you know, one of the top notches, as far as I’m concerned, in media. She has proven her mettle. because that’s what’s inside of her. As the drill sergeant of life, I have to prove that metal because that’s what’s inside of me. God allowed me to go into the army to be a drill sergeant for the amount of time I did and to serve in the army for the amount of time I did so that when I came out, I would have that inside of me. And that’s like, it sets my backbone up so that my backbone is, I’m just, I am who I am. And that metal is a part of me so that when I stand up on a stage, you know exactly who that is. That’s the drill sergeant of life. And so that’s what that metal means to me.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, teaching the kids, and we use the word grit a lot, Michelle and Beatrice. Yeah, we use grit. And, you know, I’ll use an example of – Well, like last night, my husband said we must have had, you know, my mom’s not here anymore. She did a lot of laundry. We must have had like eight laundry baskets full of laundry. And so my husband calls it a folding party. He’s like nine o’clock in our room. Everybody, we’re having a folding party. Well, for them, it’s not. There wasn’t a party atmosphere, you know, there. They’re kind of griping or this, that, and the other. And then they have jobs at night like the pets and the kitchen and the dishes. So I’d say we spent a good hour, hour and a half doing all this stuff last night after they’d done all their sports. They’re all in sports right now, volleyball and basketball. Uh-huh. Well, the one hope, speaking of grit, and they all did it, you know, and we also told them last night, I’d learned a lot from a sleep doctor yesterday about those phones. And I was thinking they were all napping after school or after their practices, their teenagers. And he said, you should they should not be looking at that phone at night. It’s like being at a slot machine in a in a casino. And so I said to my husband, I’m like, they’re not going to like it. We’ve got to take them away again. And my son’s almost 18. I mean, he threw a fit at first. But you know what? All those phones were downstairs. They all got charged down there. They all woke up this morning. We have a new routine. But the grit that I wanted to tell you about involves hope. She was not starting in her club volleyball team. She’s on the top team for her age group. And there were returning kids that had already proved themselves. And so we said to her, Don’t worry about it yet because these kids have already proved themselves. They’re coming back. They’ve been on this team, you know, some numerous years and you’re brand new. They have to learn to trust you. So when you get that chance to go in, that’s when you can prove yourself. Well, we also decided that she would adjust her diet to gain muscle. Like she added a lot more protein in there and, you know, took out like the whole bag, the family size bag of potato chips that you select. Remember I used to tell her that just because you’re in a family doesn’t mean you eat a family size bag by yourself. Yeah. She’s like, it’s family size. I’m in a family. And I’m like, no, not the whole bag. So she adjusted her diet, added more protein and vegetables, blah, blah, blah. And she trains with her father like five nights a week at the gym and goes to all of her practices and has private practices. And we get the court for her and put up the volleyball net. And then she works with her dad and her brother. They’re 6’2 and 6’6. So she really gets some good volleyball work with blocking. Wonderful. guess what her coach said last night at practice because she started the last um two tournaments she was the starter and she played a lot she said in front of my daughter and in front of the other coach well looks like we have a new right side starter it looks like it’s hope i mean she went from sitting on the bench like a month and a half ago to being the starter out of you know i think it’s 11 or 12 girls on this team and six play at a time and all of a sudden she’s a starter
SPEAKER 04 :
Good for her. Grit. Grit. Grit and stamina. Grit.
SPEAKER 07 :
There you go. She went to a birthday party. She came home. She was starving. I’m like, why are you starving? I’m like, they had tacos and enchiladas and cupcakes. All they had was junk food, and I’m trying to eat like an athlete. So she came home and ate a giant chicken Caesar salad. How many 15-year-olds do that? That’s right. Grit, girl. Yeah. So we’re trying to, you know, put that into the kids. But, you know, I’m trying to, you know, walk a tightrope of not being, you know, to having too high of expectations because I told my son, oh, you should go to the gym with them. And he turned to me, goes, it’s never good enough. It isn’t. I run my own business. I’m getting vintage clothing downtown on the weekends. I’m going through the bins for like six hours a day, Saturday and Sunday. I do all my chores. I do volleyball and I’ve got school and I’m taking college classes every when is it enough mom and I thought oh maybe I go you don’t have to go to the gym with dad never mind good good to listen to him that’s it all right wow wow
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, and you are you are such an example. You really are, you know, and just looking at you and how you interact with your husband, your kids and your family in general. And just the things that you do, because you keep you just like to energize a buddy bunny. You take a lick. Well, no, I’m sorry. Timex, you take a licking sometimes, but you keep on taking, you know, and I think that’s what your kids see in you. Because as your kids, especially your littlest one, with her basketball playing self, that’s a basketball playing little girl, you know. But look at what she has had to go through just to get to where she is. And then when we look at one of our friend’s daughters, she was just in the newspaper on Sunday, Michelle’s daughter. You know who I’m talking about.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, she won a Sienna. She won the Gatorade top, you know, and they won the they won the state championship. Grandview did. Wait, I didn’t tell you. Faith is on the feeder team because she’s going to be in ninth grade next year. And their feeder team just won their championship and beat out all of the other eighth grade middle schoolers.
SPEAKER 02 :
Excellent. Excellent. And see, Faith got that from you because she’s looked at you and she has said, well, if mommy can do it, I know I can do it. And she’s doing it. And look at Hope. Look at how she’s doing that. She said, well, I don’t want to eat all that junk food. I need some good stuff because I’m trying to get somewhere. And I think if we as a people will… Take on some of that stuff because all that’s part of metal and grit, as you say, because we need to have that mentality that, well, wait a minute, I’m looking at my good friend, one of my besties, Angie, and she’s persevering. She’s doing this. She’s doing that. Well, I’m not doing the same thing she does, but in my field, I need to be able to use that same amount of grit to get to where I need to go to. And when we look at other folks, you know, and use it positively so that we can get to where we’re going.
SPEAKER 07 :
When they’re working out, I do my like 10 to 15,000 steps. Like I’ll walk for like an hour and a half. I mean, it’s not the same level of working out, but I want to make sure people can find both of you. Beatrice Books, and she’s a speaker, thedrillsargentoflife.com. And then Michelle, she’d love to speak for you, michellearon.com. Love you both. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
