This episode of The Good News with Angie Austin dives into the life of Kenza Haddock, a former Islamic devotee who found her true calling in Christianity. Through a heartfelt discussion, Kenza reveals her battles with anxiety and depression tied to her religious upbringing, and how divine intervention steered her towards a career in counseling. Her personal journey has inspired her latest book, ‘The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health’, where she unravels the threats that can derail our spiritual and mental well-being.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin. Happy to welcome back a repeat guest. Really enjoy her. Kenza Haddock. And her book that we’re speaking about today is titled The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health. Welcome back, Kenza.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, so before we get into the book, give everybody a little background on yourself. You have an interesting life.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. I grew up in an Islamic household, and so… Essentially, that’s what led me to just my salvation and everything. But through Islam and growing up, I struggled with so much anxiety and depression. Islam is based on works. And there was no assurance of salvation. And just in the midst of that, there was no comfort. And my perspective of God was distorted. It was highly distorted. And so there wasn’t much I could turn to where I could receive any grace or any mercy. And throughout that time, the Lord started sending me dreams, one of which eventually led me to Him. And then He called me to the field of counseling. And when I started, after going back to school and doing my clinicals, when I started treating brothers and sisters in the faith, I noticed that many of them were struggling with similar thoughts and thought patterns that I struggled with when I was Muslim, and it was interesting to me because, and sometimes we even turn to things that are contrary to Scripture in an attempt to even grasp For happiness or something or adopt certain mindsets. And that’s what led to the three enemies of your mental health.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I want to get into those. And, you know, in our speaking, we’ve had several interviews and I’m fascinated by your strength. A couple of things that really stick in my mind about you. is um being you know leaving the islamic faith um was something your family did not agree with so even to this day they still try to come get you like sneak up on you kidnap you back when you’re now a christian woman with a highly successful career and a family and it just is uh I can’t wrap my mind around that. And then the other thing that is so neat is I recently started following you on social media and you really do have the picture perfect. Like when you think of an American family with a white picket fence and beautiful children and a gorgeous mom and family and as you, I mean, you really have it all, don’t you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. God has definitely, you know, it, scripture says you’ve turned my mourning into dancing and you took off my sackcloth and clothed me with a garment of joy so I will sing praises to you and not be silent and it is true I mean he really has done that and I mean he has taken me from desperation to and he has given me just like a song of praise and it’s true I mean yeah and you see it like it he has given me an incredible husband and And children and it’s just, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I saw like a photo shoot or something you’ve done recently. And I just like, you’re so beautiful. And I just, you see the happiness. You made me just cry just now when you said that, because I know the anxiety and depression you went through. And I’ll never forget when you said to me, I mean, here’s someone with no Christian knowledge or faith whatsoever. And you are crying out to God and you become a Christian through faith. a feeling that you receive when you’re in the midst of despair, when there are no Christians around you training you and you just become a Christian because you reached out and just said, I need help.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes. And he is there. He is right there drawing us. And that’s the thing. I think sometimes when we are so busy in the hustle and bustle, we forget that God is right there with us. He’s right there. He wants to carry the load with us. He never called us to carry the load on our own.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, and as we get into your book, The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health, Kenza is an expert in this area besides her own background struggling with depression and anxiety and then becoming a Christian and leaving her family’s faith. She is a licensed professional counselor supervisor and an accredited clinical trauma specialist with expertise in treating complex mental health conditions through both clinical and biblical methods. So what are these three enemies of your mental health?
SPEAKER 05 :
The first one is the devil. And when I say the devil, I mean he’s Satan. He’s the accuser of the brethren. And so often we don’t recognize that Satan wants to split our faith. Even if it’s 90% Jesus and 10% another object of our faith, he will seek to do that. And he will do it through socially acceptable methods like us practicing chakras or Reiki or reading our horoscope, or he will do it through inserting self-condemning thoughts in our day-to-day life. And because we’re not investing time in God’s Word, we’re not able to discern, is this from God or is this from the enemy, and therefore refute it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. All right. What’s next?
SPEAKER 05 :
The second one is the flesh. Now, in order for us to defeat the devil, we have to be able to earn friends between God’s voice and the enemy’s voice. That is so important. The second one is the flesh. The flesh is basically our attempt to exert our own will over God’s perfect will. And, I mean, listen, we struggle with a sinful nature, and that’s something that we’re going to struggle. We’re never going to get so wise that we don’t have to struggle with our sinful nature. I mean, the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament and walked so close with God… wrote in Romans 7 that he struggled with his sinful nature. And so we’re going to struggle with it, but in order to defeat it, it comes down to what are you feeding more, your flesh or your spirit? Whichever one you’re feeding more is going to win. And so we have to make a habit of spending time in God’s Word and feed on God’s Word and say, you know, Whenever thoughts like, I’m ugly, come to mind, say, I was made in the image of God, according to Genesis 126. We’re appropriating God’s word into our lives. That’s the flesh. The third one is the world. And a lot of times we overlook this. That is, any time we allow people’s influence, negative influence, to sway us away from God’s will for our lives. And so sometimes we don’t pay attention to even our own behaviors like people pleasing, for example, or compromise or flattery. And so throughout the book, I go through these behaviors and help people identify which cycle are you stuck in. And this is a practical step to overcome it because, you know, people pleasing, telling someone stop people pleasing is not going to help them. We have to understand that it’s rooted in insecurity and, in God’s love for us. And it is only when we root ourselves in God’s love and actually spend time with him that we’re able to overcome it.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, you’re talking about, you know, insecurity and depression. And I got three teenagers and I think about all this social media and then I’ll hear about like one of their classmates. Fortunately, you know, no one that we’ve known, but I always have such a heart for these kids when I hear stories from school and I’m like, Well, just, you know, be careful because those are the kind of kids that, you know, sometimes they’re so depressed they kill themselves. Like maybe that’s why they’re acting out in this certain way when we’re discussing what’s going on at school. And it’s a big high school. It’s about 3,000 kids. Why do you think so many young people are depressed and suicidal in this day and age?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I don’t know if you grew up the same way. I didn’t have a cell phone until I was 18. And so I had to engage with other people and not just look at social media. And so we’re missing, to be real with you, Angie, we’re missing a huge component, and that is human connection, like just person-to-person connection. Human connection itself releases two chemicals. One is serotonin, which combats depression, and one is oxytocin, and that is a loved hormone. and it combats depression and anxiety. And so if we’re all the time looking at our phones, paying attention to social media, we’re comparing our lives to everyone else’s, then, and I mean, especially these teenagers, they don’t even have the objective part of their brain developed yet. It doesn’t get developed until their mid-20s. And so they’re right there throwing all of this information and reacting to it emotionally, that’s why the suicide rate is rampant.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I’m so glad you’re doing what you do. Again, the book is The Three Enemies of Your Mental Health, Ken Zahadik. You know, with your own children, does that also push you on to do more for kids and mental health in general?
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely, yes. Oh, yes. I… I try to educate as much as I can. And there are, I mean, just the one little thing, even for parents is to watch what their children are watching. I know as parents, we can get very tired and just want our kids, you know, have an iPad, babysit the children. But we, listen, we have to be very, very just conscientious on what our children are watching because we, What’s been presented to us on TV when you and I were growing up, for example, is not the same thing that our kids are watching. And there is a lot of contradictory information out there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I would agree with you there wholeheartedly. Oh, my goodness. All right. I wanted to ask you about some of the defense mechanisms. So many of us have these, and a lot of times they come out of an unhealthy mental state, an unhealthy childhood, an unhealthy upbringing or relationship. What are some of the defense mechanisms that keep us trapped in this anxiety and depression?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. So basically, defense mechanisms are about deceiving our hearts into believing that something is not true, right? So that we don’t have to confront the very reality that God wants to heal us from. And then one of the most popular ones I see is denial will literally deploy this to to just not deal with a situation. Now, another one that I’ve seen in in people who have been raised in environments where they weren’t allowed to process through their feelings is repression. So that’s similar to denial, but a little different. Repression acknowledges the problem, but we deny its effects on us. I don’t know if you’ve heard the term shock absorber. This is the person who has been used to carrying the weight in their family, the emotional toll in their family. Like they’re in crisis. They’re the calm ones. And so that person has literally mastered the art of repression. And if you’re listening to this and that’s you, here’s something that you can do that’s very, very practical. Go out for a walk for 20 minutes. Don’t take anyone with you. Don’t even take your dog with you. Go out for a walk by yourself and talk to yourself about how you’re feeling and talk to the Lord about how you’re feeling. Because when you’re doing that, you’re allowing yourself to process through your emotions. And that’s the opposite of repression. It’s processing.
SPEAKER 03 :
I want to make sure that people can find you and your other books. And I want to have you back soon because we always have so much to talk about. So give us the best contact info for you, Kenza Haddock.
Have you been getting some good feedback on your latest book?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, and I’ve been traveling a lot, so it’s been a lot of fun.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I love it. Well, I love having you on. We’re out of time. Kenza Haddock, we’re going to have you back in the next month or two because you’re pure joy to me. Thank you so much, honey.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you. You bet.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
KLT, Denver.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. And we are welcoming back George Shamblin. His book is The Four Faces of Christ. And I really wanted him back as well to talk about his missions work, some of it in Cuba. And I was very curious about that. Welcome back, George. Thank you, Angie. Glad to be back. So before we get back into your book, tell us a little about you and how you got involved in this work, this missions work outside of the country.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, it’s one of those things that people can relate to, that for whatever reason, God puts a certain people group or a certain area of the world on your heart. And my wife and I have done a bunch of missions together. And before we ever went to Cuba, I heard a sermon, and I looked over at her, and I said, I think we’re supposed to do something in Cuba. And later on, she was like, you know, I think we’re supposed to do something in Cuba. The Lord has been all over it, Angie. It’s been tough. It’s been very difficult. They are under dire circumstances. But there’s never been a question, almost like a call to ministry, or even when somebody gets married. You just know that you know that you know. that God’s called us to do a lot of work down there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, when you’ve gone down there, so you get started, you start going down there, what happens? What do you do when you get there? What’s the experience like?
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. We do door-to-door evangelism. Wow. And, you know, it’s one of those things that this is our philosophy of ministry. We want the Cuban Christians and churches to be self-sufficient, self-sustaining, and self-sending. Meaning we don’t go down there with a bunch of things to give away. We do help, but we give things to the church and any kind of provision we give to them and say, would y’all please hold this for a month so that we’re out of the picture? And then it’s a gift we’ve given to your church. And when you give it out in the community, you can say this is a gift from First Baptist because that’s true. It belongs to them. And that church becomes the beacon, not the Americans. So we do door-to-door evangelism. We will help with provision, but we always tie it back into the local church. We want to make them the pillars in the community, not the Americans.
SPEAKER 03 :
Are there other places you’ve gone as well or predominantly Cuba?
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, a lot of places, India, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, we spend a lot of time in Honduras. In fact, I don’t mind saying that Auburn University is my alma mater. They’re ranked number one in basketball, at least for now. And half of the basketball team went with us to an orphanage down in Honduras. And, again, we do door-to-door real evangelism practices. Do you know Jesus? Can we share the gospel? We’ll see people pray to receive Christ. And for college kids to take the lead, much less basketball stars, it’s been a real treat to be involved with.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. That’s quite a few locations for your work with missions. I take it you’ve been doing this for decades. I mean, that’s a pretty big undertaking.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is, and… Here’s the thing. I had these two guys that work with my ministry. They’re just businessmen. That’s my main ministry. They said, George, we’re taking a men’s trip to Honduras. We want you to kind of lead the team. And Angie, I said, I’ll pray for y’all. The Lord bless you and keep you. I’m not going. I’m just not called to mission. They really started leaning on me. And I’d say, well, I don’t have a passport. George will pay for the passport. You know, I don’t have the plane ticket and all this. I have to tell you, 12 years ago when I took my first mission trip, I absolutely fell in love with it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so we’ve been involved ever since.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. And if people are interested in ever getting involved with your trips, I know that they kind of ebb and flow with the conditions of the countries you’re going to visit as well and how welcome you’ll be at the time or how safe it will be at the time of these trips. So where do they go to get more info?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. We set up a nonprofit. It’s called the overseas initiative dot org, the overseas initiative dot org. This may not matter to other people. It matters to me to say I don’t receive any compensation. We only have one administrative assistant. We want as much of the resources and much of the emphasis to go to Cuba. And so we have a light overhead there. And we do a lot of things predominantly in Cuba. We’d love for people to get involved, maybe go on a trip in the future. It is a communist country. And so there are a lot of hurdles. We also just don’t let anybody go. We have to make sure that people buy into our philosophy, that we’re not going there to say Americans first. We want to support the work down there. And sure, we’d love for people to take a look at what we’re about.
SPEAKER 03 :
And then, George, do they fundraise in order to fund their admission trip?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So when we take college kids, they will talk to family, friends, do fundraisers, things like that when they want to go. With the adults, if somebody is unable to come up with the resources, we try our best to help them out. We usually can’t cover all of it. that I can talk to some different supporters and in certain circumstances say, Hey, we’ve got somebody, they can come up with a portion of it. And can we help them out? And we want to do everything we can for somebody to go.
SPEAKER 03 :
Excellent. All right. So George Shamblin talking about mission trips. And now we are going to get back to his book, The Four Faces of Christ. So we didn’t get as much time to talk about it last time either because we got carried away talking about other things. So give us an overview of The Four Faces of Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. You know, if we think about an intersection and let’s say somebody sees a collision take place in Manhattan, for instance, You have different people on different street corners that witness the same event, but they have different angles. So they all see the same thing, but it depends on where they’re standing, their vantage point. And so I kind of took that analogy and ran with it with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew is coming from a very Jewish perspective. He wants to show that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Mark is actually, his audience are Gentiles, and he wants to show that Jesus is the Son of God. Luke has a real heart for people that are down and out, people who feel like they’ve been on the outside looking in. And then John, of course, is going to present Jesus not so much as the Jewish Messiah, the Son of God, even the Son of Man. He’s going to say, Right off the bat, Jesus is fully man and fully God, beginning in chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, George, a lot of people in their books, they don’t sometimes get into the personal aspects of their own story. And I know that in the book you get personal about your relationship with your own dad, your own father, and how healing took place when you came to Christ. And that was important for you to include in the book. Would you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. My father was an unbelievably gifted general surgeon. He was Mayo Clinic trained. He was on staff at Mayo. Sometimes his personal life was a little rocky, to say the least. And once I became a Christian, my wife said to me, she said, George, what are you going to do about your dad? Meaning the bitterness, the anger, the resentment. And I can tell you where I was sitting at a restaurant. I’m looking out the window. It’s kind of misty and rainy. The cars are driving by. And I thought two things. I thought, number one, I don’t want my dad to have control over me. And if I’m hanging on to this bitterness, I’m allowing him to control me. And the other one, I get chill bumps right now talking about it. The parable of one person crying. was forgiven an insurmountable debt they could never pay. And then that individual goes to another person that owed them a little, you know, pittance. And they were, you know, beating the other person, saying, you have to pay me back. And the point is, I was forgiven such a huge debt that I thought, how could I not forgive my father? And I promise you, As much as any miracle, that bitterness and anger was left on the floor. It was gone. It was done. I actually went and spoke to my dad the next day, and I said, Dad, I want you to know I’ve forgiven you. And he said, forgiven me for what? What have I ever done? It didn’t make me mad. It didn’t upset me. All I had was love and compassion for my father. We had a great relationship from that point forward, but he didn’t change. God changed me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you think he, at some point in time, noticed the change in you and noticed the change in your relationship, your dad?
SPEAKER 04 :
He really did. And we do believe that he prayed to receive Christ. He got pancreatic cancer. And even though we had a great relationship, he said he wasn’t ready to accept Christ. And I love the honesty of my dad. He said, George, I realize if I accept Christ, I have to change, and I like me the way I am. And I said, Dad, thank you so much just for being honest. I get it. And towards the end, he said yes. He trusted Jesus, and he received him, and he gave him his life. So I look forward to seeing my father again.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that must have been pretty satisfying to work alongside him to get to that point.
SPEAKER 04 :
It really was. And, you know, the Lord did have to, I think my dad had certain things he was kind of putting his trust in, and those all had to be taken away. And at the end of the day, I think when a lot of things have been taken away, he realized, okay, now it’s time kind of, I would call it an empty palm prayer. I think my dad just so many things kind of slipped through his hands. And towards the very end, his palms were empty. And that’s a great place for somebody to be, to say, yes, Jesus, and receive him.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I had a similar situation, I think, occur with my dad, and I think he accepted Christ in the end, too, but he was not very empathetic or open, I should say, to my situation and why we’d been estranged for maybe 35 years. He was also very brilliant, but completely out of our lives. He had his Ph.D. attended some law school and gotten straight A’s while he was attending there. And, you know, real bright, a professor, but, you know, definitely lacking in the parenting and human department. But I think he did as well. So at the end. All right. So I want to ask you about when people read the four faces of Christ, what do you want them to get out of it? What do you want them to walk away with? If it was like your dream come true, this is what I want people to learn.
SPEAKER 04 :
If I had to just pull out one little nugget and say, I’d love for people to see this, it’d probably be on the chapters with Luke. Luke was the only Gentile writer in Scripture. He was somebody who saw himself on the outside kind of looking in. And then when he became a believer, he had a special— eyesight towards people that felt overlooked, people who felt abandoned or ostracized, just real people who were hurting. And not surprising that Luke, the physician, was able to quote Jesus when Jesus said, I didn’t come for those who are well, but for those who need a physician. And Luke just really had a heart for down and outers. I think even with me personally, I find myself sometimes maybe waiting in line to get coffee, and I’m just in a huge hurry, and I’m not thinking about the people around me. And sometimes now I’ll stop and say, no, Jesus stopped. He paused. He listened to people. He touched people, you know, embraced people. And so now I kind of look around me in the immediate situation and say, Lord, give me somebody just to encourage and be a friend to and really listen to right here where I am now. That’s changed. And I trust that People will be changed as well, hopefully, by reading some of these chapters.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I sure get a kick out of having you on the show. I’m looking forward to having you on again. If people want to get involved, go to Cuba, be on one of your mission trips, read your book, The Four Faces of Christ. What’s the best place for them to find you?
SPEAKER 04 :
GeorgeShamblin.com. It’s George Shamblin, S-H-A-M-B-L-I-N.com. And we’ve got a lot of resources on there. There’s going to be a link to the missions ministry, and we’d just love to hear from people if they go to that website.
SPEAKER 03 :
Excellent. Thank you so much, George. Okay, Angie, thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
