Ep. 1605 – The Good News with Angie Austin – VONNA LAUE GLAD I DIDN’T KNOW/ LESSONS LEARNED THROUGH LIFE’S CHALLENGES & UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS / GRACE FOX TREASURES -SAILING AWAY FROM THE DOCK & FINDING TREASURES IN LIFE
In this episode, Angie welcomes Grace Fox who discusses her devotions for joy and spiritual growth. As they share memorable experiences from breathtaking moments in nature to miracles of faith, listeners are invited to look for the gifts in the ordinary and find hope through life’s challenges. The episode also features Vonna Lau who delves into life lessons learned through adversity, providing personal insights that inspire resilience and gratitude.
00:00:31 Introduction to The Good News with Angie Austin
00:00:39 Talking with Grace Fox – Treasures and Spiritual Reflections
00:14:26 Introduction to Vonna Lau – Lessons through Life’s Challenges
00:15:45 Discussion on Glad I Didn’t Know by Vonna Lau
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SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello friend, Angie Austin here with The Good News along with Grace Fox. And we are talking about her book, Fresh Hope for today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. And we are focusing today on the devotion titled Treasures. Welcome Grace.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thanks so much for having me again, Angie. It’s always good to be on your show with you.
SPEAKER 03 :
You are welcome. All right, so what is Treasures all about?
SPEAKER 05 :
So my husband and I, living on a sailboat, were able to take it away from the dock for a short time. And this particular experience happened a couple of summers ago where we put the anchor down in a secluded cove. And the water there was really clear. You know, you could look down and it was quite deep, but it was clear as far as you could see. And so one morning I was sitting out in the cockpit enjoying some quiet and having my coffee. And there was no wind at all. The water surface was just like glass. And then off in a little distance away, I saw some ripples all of a sudden just across the surface of the water. And these ripples were in the form of circles. So imagine circles about 18 inches across, a whole lot of them, like dozens of them, almost overlapping each other in some places and moving towards the boat. And I thought, what is this? This is something is going on under the water that I can’t see. And it came closer and closer to the boat. So I stood up, I leaned over the edge and looked in when it reached the boat. And there were, there’s no way I could count, but little tiny fish, like thousands and thousands of little tiny fish, maybe two inches long. And they were swimming among dozens of jellyfish. So everything was coming towards the boat at the same time. And it was something like, incredible I had never seen anything like it and I’ve never seen anything like that since when we’ve been out in those nice little secluded coves but it was a once in a lifetime scene I think that I saw and I was just blown away by it I just thought of how in the that’s in the physical realm but in the spiritual realm stuff happens behind the scenes all the time we can’t see instead of behind the scenes we can say below the surface you know Where God is at work, he’s always doing something. And even in those really hard places of life, he’s at work. And there’s stuff happening that we don’t always see or understand. Just like in Joseph’s life where he was in prison. He didn’t know what was going on. But God was at work in his life getting him ready for that position where he would someday be second in command for the entire country.
SPEAKER 03 :
wow wow wow wow that is so okay so first of all one of my favorite things of all to watch and i’ll even put it on like i’ll take a live feed um and i’ll from an aquarium and like just around the country around the world and i’ll watch jellyfish And because I find it extremely relaxing, especially if you have like really cool, relaxing music on with it. I just find it so like mesmerizing the way that they move. And then to see all those fish in there. I think about one time when we were snorkeling in the Keys in Florida and the cute little lady, she looked around. It was a man and wife and they had this really cool boat. It was just my family and them. and the two of them, and she just looked around, you know, and then she put a couple, like, little pieces of, like, a little, like, breadcrumbs in there. And then we were just, like, swarmed by thousands of little colorful fish, you know, and I was, you know, my phone was in a… a waterproof little packet around my neck and i saw you’ve got the video and it was just one of those things where like you said once in a lifetime experience and just today i was watching because you’ve mentioned to me living on your boat in uh vancouver british columbia that you uh have seen whales quite often which i’ve only seen up close once so this guy is in a kayak And his wife is taking a video. And you see the hump of a whale come up behind him. And I was like scared at first. Like are these killer whales? Because you don’t want to capsize with killer whales. So anyway, you see this hump come up. I’d say like 10 to 15 feet behind him. And you’re like, are you kidding me? And the water’s swirling. And then she continues to take videos as they come up on either side of him. And the water is just swirling. It’s like a toilet. You know the way it’s like. I forget what they call it. But so and then she gets the camera on his face as you know, as they’re moving on. And he has the most surprised look of wonder on his face and maybe terror, you know, and she starts to laugh and then he realizes the way his face looks. But I can’t imagine like those three experiences, yours, mine and that one. Yeah. At church yesterday, the pastor was saying, have you ever thought to yourself, how did I get here? And he mentioned some experiences like that. And then another might have been like the Super Bowl or like someplace where he was like, how did I get here? But those once in a lifetime experiences that you’re just like, wow, it’s like those God wings. It’s so cool.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s absolutely beautiful. And being out on the water like this in God’s creation, we know there’s stuff going on below the surface of the water when we’re out there and But we just have no clue how much, right? There was one time, oh, years ago, before we lived on a boat, we owned a 27-foot sailboat, and we participated in an auction where it was a fundraiser for the Christian school that our kids were attending. And so we donated an afternoon sailing for whoever bid highest. And when it came time to take the winner out, remember, it was in a passage between B.C.’ ‘s mainland and Vancouver Island. So we’re zigzagging back and forth in that passage. That’s where the cruise ships go when they leave Seattle or Vancouver and they go up to Alaska. So we were in that water and all of a sudden a whale breached right beside our boat. And we didn’t know it. I think it was a minky whale is what we finally figured out. But our boat was 27 feet long and he may have been at least that long. But he came up on one side and then he went down. And he clearly went in front of us because he showed up on the other side. And then He did that. He swam circles around us for a few minutes as we zigzagged back and forth. And again, we were just blown away by how close we were to these magnificent creatures that God has created. But you know what? When we’re out in those waters, those whales are out there. They’re underneath us. We might not see them. You know, we see them once in a while and we always count that a gift, but they are under the water. And that’s just how God works. Like, We don’t always see what he’s doing when we’re in a hard place. We don’t always have that luxury of even later coming out of it and looking back and seeing what he did. He doesn’t owe us that explanation. But he is at work even when we can’t see what he’s doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it’s interesting because like all those things you saw, they’re down there all over the place every day. But coming across some of these things and actually seeing it is so, so rare. You know, imagine you live on a boat and this is probably the one time it is the one time you’ll ever see something just like that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. Yeah. You never replay the same thing again. Never twice. Never.
SPEAKER 03 :
So one of my girlfriends used to always say to me, and this is what I think goes with treasures, your devotion. And we’re talking about fresh hope for today with Grace Fox devotions for joy in the journey. She used to always say, look for the gift in every day. And for me, I have to say, Grace, it was never some big, amazing thing. Like I graduated with honors. I got a new car. Like, Generally, the gift in every day, like I love this squirrel that comes up, used to, but I got in trouble with my husband for feeding the birds and the squirrels on our deck because they tore up the top layer of wood where they would, you know, run back and forth and eat. And so he redid it, so I can’t do it anymore. But I was feeding them there, and this mom squirrel came with like three baby squirrels, and they were – eating the bird seed and it was maybe five feet from me because I’m right inside the window and it’s a thin portion of the deck and to see the babies and like the I took a few pictures and the detail that I could get on their fur and their eyes and their faces like to me that that was the gift of the day like such a tiny thing but I think many of our gifts of the day happen and we’re not even looking for them. We don’t even appreciate them because we’re like, well, that’s not a big deal. That’s like three owls flew out of our tree and they got into like an argument in our front yard and they were kind of going after each other. I mean, that one stood out to me as the gift of the day for sure. But I think a lot of times the gift of the day, we don’t even realize how amazing some of these little things are that happen.
SPEAKER 05 :
The other day I was out going for a walk and we have just come through a significant cold snap. So it went from this Arctic front, you know, and then it turned to rain and But we had a day where it was clear, and I got out in the morning about 8 o’clock and went for a 40-minute walk, and I heard the sound of spring bird songs. And I thought, oh, thank you, Jesus. There is hope. We can come through this wet, cold winter and come. I know spring is coming. I know it’s coming because the gift of the day that day for me was the sound of these spring bird songs. Yeah, it’s not big, it’s not huge, but… it’s a different sound right to the songs. Even the birds were happy that day. And I thought, thank you, Jesus, for that gift. It’s the same thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
I, I, yeah, I, I don’t know. I, I, I’m glad that we did this today. Cause I, I remember when she first told me that to look for the gift and every day I did it, but then you get on with your life and you forget things. Your friends have taught you and you get busy and distracted, but I’m definitely going to be looking for the gift or the treasures as you put it in every day. So that’s, um, That’s something you mentioned under your ponder section of your devotion. You said, what treasures can you see hidden in the darkness? Or I would even say, you know, in your day, just like you just did. So I’m going to, I’ll report back to you next week and I’ll have what, you know, I find. And then your prayer is, God, open my eyes to see the treasures in this place, you know, like in this world. And then I love your quotes from Francis Chan, crazy love overwhelmed by a relentless God. The quote is, quote, the Bible teaches that true joy is formed in the midst of the difficult seasons of life. So that’s something I remember telling my friend, and it was so unfortunate. She had three young children at the time. They were the same age as mine, like maybe 18. nine seven and four at the time and her husband passed away from brain cancer and they were going on a ski trip well of course the little ones they’re not as aware of the loss as the older one and i said i know that it’s going to be super painful for you to go on this trip with family i said but try to find like the gift in the day the treasure in the day and so um i i I, I, this is just a good wake up call for me. Like if you can find it, like you mentioned there in the midst of your trials, you can certainly find it in, in everyday trials and joyful days.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. We just have to live life with our eyes open.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Oh, that’s a good way to put it. Cause so many times our eyes are open, but not really.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, we’re so busy. We’re looking from this thing to the next, to the next that we have to do. And we’re, we’re just distracted. Our heart is distracted. It’s overwhelmed with other things that, to live life with our eyes open, to see those treasures that the Lord has for us, those little gifts in every day.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, speaking of a gift, my daughter, I may have told you, got baptized, and she made her own decision, but we had for, I think from when she was born, gosh, I would say until she was maybe 10, 11, 12, 13, we had a nanny who was a really strong Christian, and she’d pray with the kids, and she was such a super great example to them, so… I wanted to send Charlene. She actually works at the radio station that we’re on in Denver. I told Charlene, I said, I sent her the video and I said, Hope was just baptized and you had a hand in this. And I was explaining to her how she’d had such an influence on the kids, even though she doesn’t see them now, that she helped rear them, per se. And she said, congratulations, Angie, for bringing hope to this place. And congratulations, Hope, for making the decision to follow Christ. Thank you so much for sending me this. What a blessing for me to see. It nearly brought me to tears as this was always my, she puts in quotes, hope for each of your children, from me to all of you, love. So I thought that was pretty cool because she’s in her 70s now and her grandkids are grown. So she helped raise my kids like her own grandkids.
SPEAKER 05 :
And what a gift to her. You’re sending the video. of this baptism and those encouraging words to her, and that would have been a huge gift for her in that day. Sometimes a gift comes. We can give gifts to other people in the middle of the day just by sending an encouraging word like that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’s a good point. We can be the treasure in a day for somebody else, or our words can. I love that. Okay, GraceFox.com. She’s on every week with us. Fresh hope for today. Devotions for joy on the journey. Thank you, Grace.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ll see you next week. See you next week.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. Well, the good news is we are talking about the book titled Glad I Didn’t Know, Lessons Learned Through Life’s Challenges and Unexpected Blessings. Vonna Lau is joining us. Welcome, Vonna. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here today. So I understand you used to live in Colorado. Is that right?
SPEAKER 06 :
I did. We were in Colorado Springs for 12 years. So your name was familiar to me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’s right, because our morning show did broadcast in the Springs. I forgot about that, because they have their own stations in Colorado Springs, but then the Denver station is broadcast on there, too. Oh, that’s really cool. All right. Well, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks. How fun.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, give us an overview of Glad I Didn’t Know, lessons learned through life’s challenges and unexpected blessings.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, one of the things that’s fun about this book is it’s 32 short chapters.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
But each chapter is a story about something that the person was glad they didn’t know. A lot of them are challenges that people have gone through, and some of them are just that. They’re an unexpected blessing. But if they’d known in advance, they probably would have either tried to orchestrate the outcome, or they’d have just tried to avoid the challenge, and they’d have really missed out on what God intended. Right. 32 uniquely different stories makes it a lot of fun and an interesting read.
SPEAKER 03 :
I always love hearing stories, and a lot of times when I talk to people, they can’t say who it is per se, but to give you the general overview of the story, does your story play into this? And if so, tell us about how you were glad you didn’t know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Actually, half of the stories are mine. I initially wrote every chapter of the book and then realized – thinking about it, praying about it, talking to a mentor, realized it would be too easy for the readers to say, well, that’s great. That’s how God worked in that person’s life. And kind of, you know, push it off as only being applicable to one person. And so because of that, I actually included 16 other people. And so these are stories from a variety of people. And the neat thing is that I didn’t tell them what to write. Most of them, I knew what story I had in mind when I invited them into the project. But from the day they said yes to being part of it, I just prayed for them every day until I got the story from them. And it was with a little fear and trepidation because I thought, Lord, you know, I don’t need seven cancer stories or 12 stories about a difficult childhood. It was fun to see how that all came together and they’re unique.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, with that said, you do talk about, you know, that families have dysfunction, the majority of them. So let’s talk about that. Did the dysfunction in your own family impact who you are today? And if so, how?
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. So I am an only child and I like to tell people that use the birth order for personalities. I was an only child. And then within two years, from the time I was eight to the time I was 10, my parents divorced, both remarried, and I became a middle child in two families. So go figure me out. But that really is instrumental in who I am. And it’s also instrumental in how I came to Christ. My family were not believers when I was a kid. But by grace, they put me in a Christian school early because they had a good education in the local christian school there and so i got exposed to the gospel and exposed to believers and then after my parents divorced and we moved and there just wasn’t money for christian school i didn’t get to to go for several years but my junior high and high school years i was able to go back and i had a teacher and his wife that were just modeled a godly home and family and it was through Friends and those individuals that I actually came to Christ and, you know, can’t go through everything, but fast forward years and my family are believers now. And part of that was the willingness to stand up for my faith. even in the face of my dad not being happy with my decision. And we didn’t speak for a year when I was 16. But that was part of his story of coming to faith was wondering what was so important to me that I would be willing to sacrifice that relationship. So there was definite dysfunction. And as I write in the book, as a child, I thought my family was the only family that had dysfunction. And then I realized over years that we all have it. It’s just taking different forms in each of our families, I believe.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I’ve got three teenagers and I know how common, you know, divorce is. I just went to a signing ceremony of a lot of the schools like 3000. So this early this morning, early this morning, we had to get up to go to all these athletes signing. And it was probably only about 25 kids, I would say, from a school of 3000 for the senior class signing to signing. play sports for various universities. One was going to UCLA, University of Minnesota. There were some great athletes there. And anyway, so with my daughter, I noticed that a lot of the parents, you know, weren’t necessarily sitting together, you know, and so it just is another reminder to me of how many of my uh, kids, classmates, parents, um, are divorced and not to toot my own horn, but like we’ve, we’ve always told the kids, like, that’s not even an option. That’s not even something that will, will ever happen because we just ride out any of the storms. That’s just the way it is. So you say, um, you talk about divorce following kids or, you know, molding them and that it follows them through the rest of their lives. Um, and that there’s that, you know, long-term effect. Can you talk about that a little bit or would you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. So one of the other things that I touch on in the book is something that I’m hearing a lot of people talk about these days, and it’s probably age and stage of life, right? But many people are caring for aging parents, and there are needs and difficulties and challenges associated with that as well. And as I’ve walked through that over the last several years, I’ve realized, wow, I’ve kind of come full circle. And the difficulties of having parents that were divorced when I was a kid are are the difficulties of being a kid of divorced parents when you’re an adult. Because now, you know, I had one in Virginia and one in South Dakota. And as an only child, trying to care for their needs was incredibly difficult. You know, by God’s grace, when you’ve got your spouse and, you know, the two of you can kind of help each other and the kids can supplement that. But when you don’t have that, then it falls on the kids and the responsibility is, twice as much, I think, as it was before. And so that’s why I think it follows them. It is a lifelong impact. And obviously, there are other moments in life, you know, whether it’s holidays, those don’t get any easier than they were when you were a kid. For people that get married, and you’ve got to have parents that can behave at a wedding, and do you have your dad or your stepdad walk you down the aisle? All of those are things that follow the kids of divorce through their lives. And God is good and he’s in each of those moments, but they are challenges that we have to be able to face and know that he’s sovereign and we just need to be obedient. He’ll be faithful.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, in terms of kids, I understand that you had a miracle baby. Can you talk about your miracle baby and the impact that having that child had on your faith and family, et cetera?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. So our miracle baby story is that we have a child that tried to come four months early. And fortunately, we were able to hold her off with me being in the hospital for a month, but she wasn’t going to wait any longer. And so our youngest daughter was born three months early and was in the neonatal intensive care unit for three months. And in there, really kind of back with the theme we were just talking about, one of the things that’s interesting is in the neonatal intensive care unit, there are a lot of young moms a lot of absent parents altogether, very few intact families. And so we had the opportunity to minister to the other parents that were in there, as well as the medical staff. But I’ll say that one of the things that was most faith building for us was that we had a network of people around the world that were praying for her.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And there were times where, we were just too close to the situation. I couldn’t pray. You know, when you’re, when you hear the alarms go off and you know that she, she’s not breathing and her heart stopped and you see them over the bassinet tending to her. I was just too close to it, but I knew that that was okay because there were others that were praying for her. And so that was one thing that was incredibly faith building about that situation. And then, There were stories, I won’t go into all of it, but fast forward five years, we moved from Colorado to California only to find out that her kindergarten teacher is best friends with the neonatal surgeon that saved her life.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’s so neat. Oh, I love that story. That is so cool.
SPEAKER 06 :
You get to see God’s hand in it. And, you know, if we had known that we were going to go through all those struggles, because the The medical staff said we have early babies in the NICU and we have sick babies and your baby is both. I don’t know. Would we have chosen to have another child? You know, if you knew well in advance, maybe we’d have just said one and done. But we didn’t. We didn’t know. And I’m so glad we didn’t know because there are so many things. that we learned as a result of that in ways that God stretched our faith. And now we have this amazing 22-year-old daughter who graduated university a year early. She should have a litany of issues, and she doesn’t. And I know that’s not everyone’s story, but I know that that’s our story in this particular situation. And we can see God’s hand in it.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, you make a really good point about, you know, when life is in chaos, we often think we’re the only ones and that we feel very alone. And I know with my mom, I kind of tease her, but she doesn’t like me teasing her about it, that her life always is the worst if she compares it to anyone else’s life. I had a friend who wrote a book about abuse that was unspeakable. And I’m like, Mom, you’ve got to read her book. I’m like, she went through so much. And I think you’ll relate to her. But it was daily for her, like not once a month or three times a year, which I’m not minimizing what you went through. But I think that her healing is so profound. And it’s all through her faith. She became a Christian. and her healing. And I think, you know, you’ll just really get something out of it. So anyway, mom reads the book. She’s like, well, was it worse than my life? And I’m like, you know, my mom’s always got to be, she wants the trophy for the worst life. And she’s going to explain to you why she deserves the trophy for the worst life. And, you know, because this happened also. And, you know, so-and-so didn’t go through this. And I’m like, my, you don’t have to win the trophy for the worst life, you know, every time. So with that said, I think we isolate ourselves sometimes in our pain and think no one else can relate to what we’re going through. And we’re driving around and we see people at the mall and on the highway and we’re like, look at them smiling and they’re having a great day. They don’t know what I’m going through, you know. And so you talk about that in the book, how we tend to think that we’re in isolation in our pain. What do you have to say about that to help other people?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that concept actually came up when my brother-in-law was dying of cancer. And we were young. We had a two-year-old. We lived in Colorado. He lived in California. He was divorced and had three kids. And so we wanted to give them as much normalcy as we could. So we were taking turns commuting back and forth trying to keep our jobs. Our two-year-old actually thought that dad lived at the airport for a few months. That was the only time she saw him was Wednesday. I would fly out there or he would fly back. So I would say, let’s go to the airport. And she’d say, see, Daddy? But that was where we were in that season. And it was incredibly difficult to be with our brother-in-law as he declined and passed away. And I remember you’re talking about driving around, and that’s exactly what it was. I remember vividly one day sitting at a stoplight and looking around at other people that were there and thinking, it’s just a normal day for them. They have no idea. What I’m going through, and they’re just having a normal day. But what that’s caused me to do is realize that when I sit at a stoplight and I look around, that I don’t know the story of the people that are in those cars, but some of them are not having a normal day. Some of them are living that day in chaos. And they’re hurting as well. And so that’s one of the thoughts that has just really come to be personal to me in this journey.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Vonna’s book is Glad I Didn’t Know, Lessons Learned Through Life’s Challenges and Unexpected Blessings. Vonna, would you give us a website for you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. It’s gladidentknow.com. Just don’t put the apostrophe in it. gladidentknow.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Awesome. Thanks, Vonna. It was a real blessing to have you on the program. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
