Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1310 ｜ Shannon Bream’s Hidden Suffering

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00:00:57.640 NMLS number 819382. Okay, y'all, you are going to love this one. Shannon Bream is a long-time

00:01:04.920 Fox News journalist, and she is here today sharing her incredible testimony of struggling with long-time

00:01:10.860 chronic pain and what God showed her during that really difficult season. She wrote a new book,

00:01:16.760 and it is called Nothing is Impossible with God. And we talk about her own story of going through

00:01:22.260 this trial, but also these profiles in courage in scripture that really aren't about these people's

00:01:29.220 readiness or their strength, but about the power of God. We also talk about what's coming down the

00:01:33.900 pipeline with the Supreme Court, some of the decisions that we need to look out for, and that

00:01:38.780 is her area of expertise. This is a wide-ranging and super encouraging conversation that you guys are

00:01:45.240 going to love. If you love this podcast, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts,

00:01:49.920 on Spotify, wherever you listen. Make sure you are subscribed on YouTube as well. Like this video,

00:01:55.220 share it with your friends that you think are going to love it. And if you haven't gotten your

00:01:58.980 tickets for Share the Arrows, our Christian Women's Conference, our no-fluff, gospel-centered,

00:02:03.260 worship-filled Christian Women's Conference, October 11th in Dallas, Texas. Make sure you get

00:02:07.920 your tickets today. That's sharethearrows.com. All right, y'all, without further ado,

00:02:12.960 here is our friend, Shannon Bream. Shannon, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:02:27.200 I'm sure everyone knows who you are, but in case they don't, can you tell us who you are and what

00:02:30.820 you do? Yeah, my name is Shannon Bream. I currently work as the host of Fox News Sunday and cover the

00:02:35.760 Supreme Court and legal beat for Fox News. And I like to write books. And I have a wonderful husband

00:02:42.560 and a lab named Biscuit who kind of runs our life. We're based in D.C. Yes. And spent a lot of time

00:02:48.060 in Nashville, too. Okay, you've written lots of books. Tell me about your newest one. It's called

00:02:52.120 Nothing's Impossible with God. And this is a book I've had floating around in my brain. You know when

00:02:57.200 you finish a book, there are always some things you think, oh, I could have included that, but maybe

00:03:00.580 that's a different project. And that's really how I felt about this book. It's based off, my jumping

00:03:05.900 off point was Gideon, because I love his story about how he's so hesitant when God comes to him

00:03:11.360 to call him into this big task. And he's sort of like, I'm the least in my family. My family's the

00:03:15.780 least in the clan. Our clan is the least of all of Israel. And God addresses him as a mighty warrior

00:03:20.760 right from the beginning. And to follow his story, you see how he grows in faith and how God kind of

00:03:26.020 strips him down of everything that would have allowed him to get credit for what he's going to do going

00:03:30.080 into this battle. And he trusts the Lord. He grows in that, but he has to overcome so many things.

00:03:34.740 And over the years, I've collected these stories just feeling like there's this threat of overcoming

00:03:38.860 in everyone in this book. And I wanted to put them in one project. So that's what this is.

00:03:42.720 Yeah. And all of the stories that you include in this book, whether it's Jonah or Moses or David or

00:03:49.460 Daniel, they all kind of have that same pattern, that same story. And we see God work in stacking the

00:03:57.000 odds against himself and then knocking them all down just to kind of show people,

00:04:01.540 hey, it's not about you. This is actually about my strength.

00:04:05.240 Yeah. And what's a reassuring thing for all of us and for in 2026 to think it's not really about me.

00:04:11.140 I think that, as you and I have talked about, when you can divorce yourself from that, like,

00:04:15.080 I'm not responsible for the world. I'm not running the world. It's hard if you're a little bit of a

00:04:19.380 micromanager control freak like I am. But in each of these cases, many of these men fought

00:04:25.580 with God, trying to reason with them. And it's so easy to look back at them like, how dare they?

00:04:30.140 But then I'm like, I do that too. I want to reason with God or get my way or argue with him

00:04:35.360 about why something is a good idea or not. And we see that through all these stories where God

00:04:40.040 really does put them into situations that on paper, as humans, they could never get over that hump,

00:04:45.260 get over that challenge, that battle or whatever it is. And he just shows up. And when that happens

00:04:49.940 in our lives too, he gets the glory because we can't say, I did that.

00:04:53.620 Yeah. You know, how you describe these stories in your book is not necessarily the Sunday school

00:04:58.720 version of the stories that we were taught growing up. And that's fine. There are certain

00:05:03.840 elements of a story that you tell your children so that they understand. But when you get down to

00:05:08.760 the nitty gritty of like the story of Jonah, and you really try to understand his fear and what

00:05:14.980 God did in allowing him to be swallowed by the whale, you can really extract a lot more meaning

00:05:20.980 out of those narratives. So tell me about that. Like, why did you decide to really get down

00:05:26.400 into the mud of these stories?

00:05:28.620 Well, like you, I grew up in a Christian home. So I knew these stories and being in K through 12

00:05:33.620 Christian school and then Liberty University. I mean, you're hearing these stories and it's a

00:05:38.000 blessing to me to feel like I have scripture tucked down in my heart and it comes back when I really

00:05:42.440 need it. But every time I study these stories, and as an adult, you have a different perspective

00:05:47.020 too. I feel like, gosh, there's another layer or I'm learning something else, which I think

00:05:51.280 is so beautiful about scripture that you never completely comprehend everything. It's always

00:05:55.500 going to be a learning process. And with my last book, when I dug into David and Bathsheba's

00:06:00.480 story, it was one of those things where I was like, this is not the version that I learned

00:06:04.820 as a little kid. And again, as you said, there's only so much you're going to tell a kid

00:06:08.560 about David and Bathsheba. But I remember thinking like she was the bad guy in that story. And

00:06:13.860 then really studying scripture and saying like, David was the bad guy in this story. We don't

00:06:18.240 know how she responded to his overtures and what happened between them, but we know he

00:06:24.080 did some terrible things. He was still a man after God's heart and God redeemed him in every

00:06:28.420 way possible. He had enormous contrition over what he did. That's obviously part of that

00:06:33.960 puzzle. But every time I study these stories, I'm like, there's really more to it. And the

00:06:38.260 Jonah story is a perfect example because I always just thought as a kid, he's afraid to

00:06:42.860 go to Nineveh. I write in the book about the Assyrians were terrible. They were brutal. And

00:06:47.900 I can understand why you wouldn't want to go there. The things they did to their enemies

00:06:51.080 and the people they oppressed were awful. But it wasn't just that. It was this discovery

00:06:55.740 that Jonah was worried they would get the same grace that he got. And he thought that he

00:07:02.060 was worthy of. So when God says, go to this place, he gets on a boat and goes the opposite

00:07:06.740 way as far as he could in those days, because there's some part of him that didn't feel like

00:07:11.100 these people deserved the chance to repent and get God's grace. And you even see that when it

00:07:15.400 happens that he's upset about that. So there's more to Jonah.

00:07:19.780 Yeah. You know, when you hear kind of critics of the Bible talk about, say, stories like Jonah's

00:07:25.580 story, one, of course, they're incredulous. How is this possible that a big fish would

00:07:29.620 swallow a person? But it's also a way that I hear people highlight God's cruelty. Like,

00:07:35.300 how would God throw a person that he claims to love into the sea and into the belly of

00:07:41.920 a whale just to teach him a lesson? But what you're saying is that, no, this is actually

00:07:45.860 an incredible story of God's grace and his intense desire to give mercy to a people who

00:07:51.660 didn't actually deserve mercy, which is interesting. I've actually never thought about that story

00:07:56.460 exactly like that. And there's mercy to Jonah. And I think about, we've all kind of been thrown

00:08:01.580 into the belly of a whale at some point. I share that in the book and talk about God puts us in

00:08:06.020 these timeouts sometimes when we're running from him to say, I'm going to give you a chance to think

00:08:10.040 about this. And Jonah, as we see this song, this prayer that comes out from him when he's in the

00:08:15.000 belly of the whale, he realizes that he's wrong and he needs to make this right. So God has mercy on

00:08:20.240 him, not destroying him, but giving him a chance to think this over, redeeming,

00:08:23.860 going to the Ninevites. And we see that there was a complete response to God and to the message from

00:08:29.460 Jonah that these people are like, okay, yes, I give my credence to God. Everybody had to fast,

00:08:36.100 even the animals, they weren't even allowed to eat. I mean, everybody was in this repentance mode

00:08:40.100 towards God. So we never know what God's going to do when he asks us to go out of our comfort zone,

00:08:45.920 maybe to speak to someone we don't think deserves God's mercy, which is such an arrogant thing

00:08:50.440 for us. It's like, gosh, I'm a sinner who needs it every day. Who am I to judge that somebody else

00:08:55.260 does not deserve the unconditional love and mercy of God and redemption for those who will come to him?

00:09:01.260 And none of us deserve it. And that's why it's called mercy, because it's God out of his kindness

00:09:05.920 giving us something that we don't actually deserve.

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00:10:38.080 I would love for you to flesh out that analogy a little bit more. You said all of us have kind

00:10:41.760 of been in the belly of a whale and you've seen that season in your own life. What does that look

00:10:47.840 like? Yeah, I think that sometimes things come into our life and it feels like a punishment,

00:10:53.060 but I think there's a difference with discipline and love and that God will, like I said, put us

00:10:58.180 in sort of a timeout to say, hey, you need to rethink this. Because I think it's easy for all

00:11:02.280 of us to get off track, to be about building our kingdoms, to going down the path and the plans that

00:11:07.220 we have. And I think sometimes God gives us a wake-up call. I mean, I share in the book about

00:11:11.820 a terrible breakup that I had with this guy. Not that I dated anyone before, the lovely and talented

00:11:17.140 Sheldon Dream, who I've been married to for 30 years now.

00:11:20.200 Wow. But you know, I did have a couple of relationships before that and there was a

00:11:24.280 guy that just was not right for me. And it wasn't a relationship where he was going to be a godly

00:11:29.080 leader or any of those things, but I was very infatuated with him. And it took some really

00:11:33.960 difficult, unpleasant things happening in that relationship to kind of give me that timeout.

00:11:40.440 Like, listen, I gave you all these red flags. I don't know why you haven't listened to me. I know

00:11:44.600 why you haven't listened to me, but I'm going to let you sit in this kind of painful experience

00:11:48.300 here and realize you need to make a better decision here and have a life that's more aligned

00:11:53.780 with God's plan.

00:11:55.040 Yeah. It is so comforting to us that God continued to use people that in so many ways ran away from

00:12:02.060 him. Like Jonah was like, I'm going the opposite direction. And instead of God saying, okay, fine,

00:12:07.480 fine, I'll just use someone else. He's like, no, I chose you. We're going to figure this out

00:12:12.420 together. Same thing with Moses. As you said, some of these people that we regard as heroes of

00:12:17.340 the faith, and they are in so many ways, like they tried to rationalize themselves out of this

00:12:23.180 situation of leadership. Like I have a stutter. I don't want to do this. Basically, what are you

00:12:28.340 thinking, speaking to the God of the universe in that way? And how many times have we done that?

00:12:33.000 Like, are you sure that you know best God and I'm going to rebel against you? And God is so good

00:12:38.160 that he doesn't just leave us to our own devices. Yeah. He doesn't leave us there because the idea

00:12:45.760 of discipline drawing us to where we need to be, and he's a loving God. And I think sometimes when

00:12:50.700 you're in a tough place, it doesn't feel that way. And we think that that's not, God isn't loving us

00:12:55.860 and God isn't protecting us. But gosh, I'm struck all the time when I stop and think, and I'm many

00:13:01.880 times in prayer, that he's protected me from so many things I will never know about, this side of

00:13:06.120 heaven. Whether it's people or circumstances or relationships or jobs that I thought were right

00:13:10.940 for me or whatever it is, we all think that we have the perfect plan. But when something happens

00:13:16.260 that feels painful to us or unplanned or unpleasant, it's really God's protection in so many times in

00:13:21.820 so many places. Yes. I think specifically about the story of Joseph and you talk about Joseph in

00:13:27.640 your book, but a long time ago, I think in high school, I read a book that included an analysis of

00:13:34.340 that passage of the story of Joseph being the youngest brother, jealous brothers, throw him

00:13:39.120 into the pit. He gets sold into slavery. And this author made this incredible point that the caravan

00:13:46.780 that was going to Egypt was already on its way before Joseph got thrown into the pit. And how in that

00:13:54.740 story, we see this maxim to be true, that man's rejection is so often God's protection. So the thing

00:14:01.280 that feels hard, whatever the belly of the whale is, the thing that feels like rejection and just

00:14:07.020 darkness and despair is God's way of disciplining you and loving you. And it's really hard to see

00:14:14.740 that in the moment sometimes. But that's why he gives us all of these stories in his word to remind

00:14:20.540 us of that. Exactly. And that's what I hope these stories will be, that we'll all see ourselves in

00:14:25.500 these stories and see that God's goodness was at play. Something else that struck me from Joseph's

00:14:31.260 story that again, I've read a million times, but studying at this time, thinking about that verse

00:14:36.340 in Genesis 50 that everybody knows where his brothers finally come back, he's in a position

00:14:41.000 because of all the terrible things that he suffered to save them. They're the genesis of the

00:14:46.120 Hebrew people of Israel. And he says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. Now it's not that,

00:14:52.980 the verse doesn't say what you meant for evil, God turned into good as if he had to then take

00:14:58.240 what the humans had done and fix it. It sounds like to me from that verse, it was always part

00:15:03.420 of God's plan. Like you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Meaning he allowed these things

00:15:07.960 and knew these things were going to happen. He's not trying to play, you know, clean up on aisle 11

00:15:12.220 with my brothers selling me into slavery. He always knew there would need to be a plan to save us when

00:15:17.060 the famine came and we didn't have anywhere else to go. And so it's hard for us. Yeah. When we're

00:15:22.060 walking through things to think, how can anything good come from this? But I always like to think

00:15:26.380 that God is too good to put us or allow us to walk through pain that doesn't have purpose.

00:15:31.660 There's some purpose. Yeah, totally. Is there anything else that surprised you about these

00:15:37.800 passages, these stories that you had heard your entire life, but this time while you were studying

00:15:43.480 them, something maybe jumped out at you that you just hadn't seen before? You know what? This is

00:15:48.280 funny and this is just my own fault, but the story of Daniel, which again has so much richness in it.

00:15:53.060 And he was really somebody who stood against the culture at the time that was trying to

00:15:56.880 shift him and bend him in so many ways. You know, he and his friends had been taken

00:16:01.080 and they were in Babylon, which didn't like the Assyrians try to crush their people with violence

00:16:06.200 and all of these things. They would take them to Babylon and say, look at this beautiful city.

00:16:10.260 Look at this wonderful food and all the pleasures of this world. Come be one of us. I mean,

00:16:14.900 they tried to take their Hebrew-ness out of them, taking where their food and their language and

00:16:19.220 their literature and everything else, Daniel and his friends, whatever had happened, they were so

00:16:23.300 solidly rooted in the God of Israel and of their faith that they weren't moved. But when I think

00:16:29.040 about Daniel in the lion's den, I always say when I was a kid and you have the little flannel graph in

00:16:32.960 Sunday school, that may be too young even for you, too old for you. You're too young for the

00:16:37.760 flannel graphs, but we'd have these little boards with stuff on them. Daniel, to me, in my mind,

00:16:41.780 when he went into the lion's den was 20, 30 years old. He was a young guy.

00:16:45.080 Right. A warrior.

00:16:46.320 Right. But his story is he was probably in his 80s when that happened with him being thrown into

00:16:50.740 the lion's den. And there's been this big gap where Daniel's respected, but there are different

00:16:56.340 kings. There are different leadership now. And something happens and finally somebody remembers,

00:17:00.760 oh, this guy who could interpret things, let's bring him back. Daniel's now into his 80s.

00:17:04.760 That's when he ends up getting thrown into the lion's den because there's this jealousy over him.

00:17:08.860 And the people think, we're going to trap him by his faith. We're going to get the king to do this

00:17:12.920 decree that anybody who prays elsewhere or does anything else is going to be in trouble,

00:17:17.640 knowing and hoping that they would entrap Daniel. Daniel's like, nope, still going to do my prayers

00:17:22.380 and be faithful to God and do my thing. So he was very seasoned in his life and had been faithful

00:17:29.900 in his walk that entire time and was an old man being thrown into that den. And still was strong

00:17:36.920 enough to say, my God's got this. Yeah. It just seems that that's who God chooses on purpose to

00:17:45.020 be able to show that the reason why you were able to accomplish this is because of me. I mean, David was

00:17:51.640 a little boy with a slingshot. Noah was old. Jonah was rebellious. And then of course, David later

00:18:00.400 had an issue with all kinds of murderous rage and lust and all kinds of things. Moses had a stutter.

00:18:07.300 Joseph was thrown into slavery as a child. I mean, over and over again, we see this just group of

00:18:12.640 misfits that God uses. And it reminds me of that passage in, I think it's 1 Corinthians 1,

00:18:18.220 and I don't have the exact quotation in my mind, but it's this whole passage that I've always loved.

00:18:22.740 It's like God uses the fools to shame the wisdom of the wise. He uses what the world considers weak

00:18:28.480 to shame the strength of the strong. And that's just a through line that we see even in Jesus,

00:18:34.240 that he didn't come as like the pagan gods at the time were thought of intersecting with time and

00:18:39.880 space. He came as an embryo, as a baby, as a newborn, as the son of a carpenter. And it all just goes

00:18:46.880 to show the glory of God and the power of God that really has so little to do with us.

00:18:52.620 Which again, I think is freeing because it takes the pressure off of us of having to control or run

00:18:57.060 the universe or control a person or a situation. We know that God's got it. And when you talk about

00:19:02.300 Jesus coming as this little embryo, I'm always blown away by thinking about the God of the universe

00:19:08.740 coming down here to deal with the crazy human race and just the fragilities and the pains of a human

00:19:15.880 life. And if you've been in the faith for a long time, sometimes I think we can lose sight of that

00:19:22.000 and almost get hardened or deadened to that. Like, man, he came down here knowing exactly what he was

00:19:27.640 going to have to do the whole time in those 33 years, which to him is the blink of an eye. But he knew

00:19:33.620 what the ending would be here on earth. He always had that awareness of what he was walking into.

00:19:39.120 He's the final chapter in the book because he's the ultimate overcomer.

00:19:42.460 Totally. We've already answered this question in so many ways. I mean, you just

00:19:45.760 mentioned that it's freeing to realize it's not about us, but why else is this such an

00:19:51.640 important realization for people that nothing is impossible with God?

00:19:55.440 Because it may feel like whatever you're walking through, and I say, you know, tough things that

00:20:00.100 you think you have to walk through can be, you know, these guys were walking through battles and

00:20:03.680 famines and threats on their lives. That may not be what you're facing. You may be facing a financial

00:20:08.560 downturn or a tough diagnosis or a broken relationship or losing a loved one. I mean, that's just the

00:20:14.520 life that we live. All those things are going to come into our life. So you need to know that

00:20:19.400 nothing's impossible. It may not go the way that you want it to go. I've had prayers that

00:20:23.160 we all have are not answered in the way I would have chosen. But it is freeing to realize that whatever

00:20:29.200 work God is doing, it is for the greater good. And he may not remove the storm or the challenge or the

00:20:34.960 barrier, but he will be with you in that. That's a promise that is unbroken through everything I've

00:20:40.520 walked through in my life. I wouldn't have chosen a lot of it, but he was always faithful to be there.

00:20:46.880 There are also good things that you may feel like are impossible in your life. Maybe you are wanting

00:20:51.360 to start a family. Maybe you want to start a ministry or a Bible study or a new business,

00:20:56.260 whatever it is. Challenges can be something we view as negative. They can be positive things,

00:21:01.340 but we're always going to need his help. And just to know that he's there, regardless of whether

00:21:07.360 the issue or the problem is taken away, he's still in the midst of it. And there is purpose.

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00:22:19.680 You've written about your own struggle with chronic pain. Can you tell us more about that?

00:22:24.720 Yeah. I mean, several years ago, I woke up one night with excruciating pain in one eye.

00:22:29.920 And it was bizarre. I'm stumbling around the bathroom looking for eye drops. I try like a

00:22:35.220 compress, a washcloth on it. And I thought like your eye, not like, yeah, no, it was an eye. It

00:22:40.640 was the surface of my eye. And I thought, what have I done while I'm sleeping? This is so strange

00:22:44.880 and kind of thought of it as a one-off. And that went on for a while. A few weeks later,

00:22:50.100 a few months into it, I'm now getting this pain in both eyes. I've gone to my eye doctor to say,

00:22:55.360 what's going on? I was the little kid with the Coke bottle glasses, like second, third grade.

00:22:59.820 I've never had great eyes, but never painful until this point. And my doctor said, well,

00:23:05.040 you're getting up there in your years. You're going to start having dry eyes. It's very common

00:23:09.680 with women. And we worked on it for a little while. And he's like, I can't help you. I don't

00:23:13.700 know what's happening here. Let's get you to a specialist. I'm several months into this.

00:23:17.840 It's now happening only at night. It's very mysterious. It's only at night,

00:23:20.840 but it is a 10 out of 10 when it happens. I'm setting alarms so that I can try to get up every

00:23:26.060 two or three hours to get drops in my eyes, try to stay ahead of it. Because once it happens-

00:23:30.380 And the drops helped?

00:23:31.280 No. I mean, it might give a little bit of, it didn't relieve the pain, but it relieved some

00:23:35.460 dryness. And I knew if I could stay ahead of it, that seemed to work. But I got to the point where

00:23:39.780 I couldn't sleep. I would often have double vision and migraines. I'm kind of stumbling through the

00:23:44.240 day. I go to the specialist who's highly recommended. He gives me an initial treatment,

00:23:48.900 gives me some things to try. I only get worse. I'm now to where this, as crazy as this sounds,

00:23:54.360 I'm carrying eye drops with me everywhere at the gym from machine to machine, even in the shower,

00:23:58.980 like water touching my eyes hurt. And there was just this mystery about it. And so I'm well into

00:24:04.240 it. I go back to the specialist and say to him, I'm really struggling. I can't sleep. That I think

00:24:09.300 exacerbates anything you're going through. It makes your mental health, it's more of a struggle.

00:24:13.440 You're physically in pain. And I just told him, I'm kind of barely holding on right now.

00:24:17.920 And I don't, I need some answers. And he said to me, you know, you're very emotional.

00:24:23.900 And I always describe it as feeling like I needed somebody to throw me a life preserver. And he

00:24:28.580 threw me an anchor. And I just went under. And I felt like, yeah, I am emotional because I don't

00:24:35.440 know how to get through one day, one night at a time. That's all I can do. And I left there and said,

00:24:40.840 that's it. I'm done with medicine. No one's helping me and I can't do this. And I was just trying to

00:24:46.540 survive literally 12 hours at a time. Daytime, nighttime, daytime, nighttime. And only my husband

00:24:51.800 knew, Sheldon, what was going on. And it was just so incredibly painful physically and emotionally

00:24:57.380 because I felt so despondent. Am I crazy? Am I too emotional? I know this is real pain. What do I do?

00:25:03.700 So I did what you should not do, which is go online and start searching your symptoms and diagnosing

00:25:08.660 yourself and finding out like you're dying.

00:25:10.380 But you probably felt desperate at that point. You tried to go the expert route.

00:25:14.340 I did. And I felt like I'm going to find something somewhere online. And I did find these message

00:25:19.540 boards and these chat groups that were talking about these symptoms and being turned away from

00:25:23.360 emergency rooms and feeling so despondent. And people on this chat room were talking about wanting

00:25:28.460 to end their lives. That didn't sound crazy to me at all. At the time, it sounded, okay, I'm pushing

00:25:34.400 into the second year of this of having no answers and being in pain all the time and feeling like

00:25:40.020 barely existing. Like I have written about this before and saying, when you live like that,

00:25:47.080 nothing, you look forward to nothing. There's no trip you want to go on. There's no meal you want to

00:25:51.040 eat. Nothing is funny. Everything just feels like you're trying to exist. And that's where I was.

00:25:57.160 It's hard for me to even understand how you were doing your job, which takes a lot of eyesight.

00:26:01.320 You got to read the teleprompter. I imagine that was a struggle too.

00:26:04.440 It was. It was. And I was hesitant to let my team or anybody at work know because I felt so weak and

00:26:09.980 I didn't have a description. I didn't even tell my parents because I'm thinking, what do I, I don't

00:26:14.160 even have a diagnosis to tell you or the language to tell you what this is other than I'm in a really

00:26:19.520 bad place. So Sheldon knew. And after reading that message board and these people talking about

00:26:24.900 ending it, I thought, man, it would be so nice to just go to sleep. The Lord knows how much I'm

00:26:29.880 struggling. Just wake up in heaven. Just be done with this. I can't fathom another 40 years of my

00:26:35.960 life living like this. There were times I couldn't fathom 40 seconds. I mean, I just was in such

00:26:40.240 excruciating pain all the time. And I sat down and remember it was a Sunday night. I sat on the bed,

00:26:45.260 just pouring out my heart with Sheldon and crying. And he knew and saying, I'm really, this is as dark

00:26:52.140 as it's gotten. And him saying, we will figure this out. We'll clean out our bank accounts to our last

00:26:57.720 dime. We will find you the doctor. We're not going to give up on this. And I'd been so adverse to going

00:27:01.620 back to medicine because it hadn't worked for me, traditional medicine. And I was always so struck

00:27:07.580 during this by Paul's words in Corinthians, where he talks about that thorn in his flesh. And of course,

00:27:14.040 I read that a million times, but now I was living it and saying, you know, he'd asked the Lord three

00:27:18.120 times, take this from me. And Lord's like, nope, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. And Paul

00:27:22.180 goes on to say, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's

00:27:27.800 power may rest on me. So I never turned my back on God. Like, why are you letting this happen?

00:27:32.740 I know for some people, that's a very natural part of their journey and that's where they go.

00:27:37.380 For me, I was just clinging even tighter to him and saying, okay, your answer may be no,

00:27:42.520 you're not going to get healed of this, but please, please, Lord, give me somebody to help me

00:27:47.900 with this. Send me to the right doctor. So I decided the next day, I was just going to get up

00:27:51.720 and start calling and start finding. And I'd seen an article on one particular doctor in DC

00:27:56.360 who was just lauded across the board. I was afraid to go back to some fancy specialist,

00:28:01.380 but it talked about him being very good with corneas. And I thought, this is where my problem

00:28:05.880 is and let me call. And I called and they were like, we're not really taking new patients. And I

00:28:11.780 said, you know, do you have any cancellations? Can you put me on a list? I'll do anything.

00:28:16.020 And they said, let me put you on hold. The woman came back and said, I just had a cancellation

00:28:21.440 for tomorrow. Can you come? And I was like, thank you, Lord. And I said, I prayed, get me

00:28:26.640 through one more night, just this night till I can get to this doctor tomorrow. I was like, I will

00:28:29.680 be there. I was filling in for my colleague the next day for Brett Baer for his 6 p.m. Eastern show.

00:28:34.840 And I left during the middle of the day to go to this appointment. And I got there and the

00:28:39.220 physician's assistant was fantastic. They do the whole workup, you know, before the doctor comes in

00:28:43.300 and I could hear him slip the file into that slot outside. I heard the doctor pick it up.

00:28:47.320 And when he came in, he said, oh, I know what you have. Before I had ever, he hadn't looked at my

00:28:53.600 eyeballs, had done none of that. And it was this weird, hopeful feeling that I really had not had

00:28:59.180 in almost two years at that point. And he said, but let me check you out. I'm 95% sure. Got to the

00:29:03.640 end of it. He said, this is what you have. And I'm certain of it. I'm surprised it wasn't more fully

00:29:08.640 diagnosed and treated before. What was it? It's called map dot fingerprint dystrophy,

00:29:13.760 which is a mouthful. But I have a genetic condition that my corneas, most people, your

00:29:18.480 cornea cells root back into your eyeball. And mine don't do that. So they tear off very easily. So I

00:29:23.760 was tearing my cornea every time this was happening. So if you've ever scratched your eye or done

00:29:27.720 something like that, and the doctor said to me, it's like a soccer field and somebody's out there

00:29:32.140 playing with their cleats and you're just ripping this grass over and over and nobody ever repairs

00:29:36.520 the field. It never gets better. You're just, you're digging deeper and deeper every time you have

00:29:40.820 these tears. And he's like, I don't know how you've gotten through the past year or so,

00:29:44.920 year and a half with this level of pain. And I'm just so hopeful. I'm thinking, oh my goodness,

00:29:50.980 I have not slept more than two or three hours in over a year. I'm in pain all the time. And this guy

00:29:56.580 finally has an answer. And I still for years would say to him, you're my answer to prayer,

00:30:00.120 which kind of weirded him out. He wasn't a believer, but I'm like, it's okay. You need to know you're

00:30:05.020 my answer to prayer. And so even through that, God allows it to be a witness. But towards the end of

00:30:11.380 that appointment, he said to me, before you go, here's the next appointment. Here's the follow-up

00:30:16.220 we're going to do. Here's what we're going to try. There are a lot of different therapies we can try,

00:30:19.580 but he said, just so you know, there's no cure for this. And that just sent me into a tailspin. I felt,

00:30:27.680 God, how could you give me this bit of hope? It feels so cruel. I don't even remember leaving the

00:30:32.040 office. I just wanted to get to my car as fast as I could because it was in complete panic mode at

00:30:37.060 that point, thinking like, oh no, he's told me what I have, but he's telling me there's no cure for

00:30:41.600 this. And I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed in the car. I knew I needed to get back to work. I knew

00:30:46.600 Sheldon was waiting for me to call him. And I really was crying out like, Lord, how can this be? How can

00:30:52.420 this be the answer? And I heard him say, not in an audible voice, but I heard him in my spirit, if you've

00:30:57.980 felt that, say to me, not I'm going to heal you, but I will be with you. And he says that so many

00:31:05.520 times in scripture. And every time I see it in someone's story, I'm like, thank you, Lord, for

00:31:10.680 that promise. You've promised again and again, not that you're going to take away our pain or our

00:31:14.740 trouble, but that you'll be with us. And that was enough for me to continue to go back to that doctor

00:31:20.560 to try the therapies, ultimately having a surgery, which isn't a cure, but it's pretty close for me.

00:31:25.220 And so I learned a lot through that. I would not choose it. I would not wish it on my worst enemy,

00:31:30.340 but so much bittersweet there because it really deepened my faith in so many ways,

00:31:35.180 made me much more empathetic and just grateful to be on the other side of that.

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00:32:37.040 my code Allie. PatriotMobile.com slash Allie. Okay. I know this is besides the important spiritual

00:32:48.900 point that you're making, but I'm just curious. Maybe there's someone out there who is struggling

00:32:53.400 in the same way and they're like, okay, what was the surgery? What was the therapy? How did you get

00:32:57.640 better? So you can try a lot of things if you have this. And I always love when I get an email or

00:33:02.900 something from somebody who has this, cause I'm like, man, I needed help. I'm happy to be your

00:33:06.420 resource. Cause I went down this path and there is actually an ointment that I put on still every

00:33:13.060 night with my eyes. And it's a little bit weird. It's almost like putting Vaseline in your eyes,

00:33:16.560 which kind of grosses people out, but it creates enough of a coating that it protects the cornea to

00:33:22.000 get you through the night, run a humidifier. I take fish oil, like anything that can help with moisture.

00:33:26.620 At one point I had my tear ducts plugged. They put these little tiny plugs in there that keeps

00:33:31.500 more moisture. So you're not losing moisture through that opening. It sounds kind of gross

00:33:36.340 and weird, but anything that can moisturize is good. Now the surgery I ultimately had,

00:33:40.600 my doctor said it doesn't work for everybody. It's a super painful recovery, but you'll know

00:33:45.420 when you get there. And I was- I think I remember when you had to take some time off for that.

00:33:50.640 And it was several years into my working with him. He's like, you'll know when it's your last option.

00:33:54.700 So we got there and essentially they burn your corneas off with acid. I'm sure doctors listening,

00:34:02.440 there's a much better terminology for this. But the hope is that your cornea regrows stronger

00:34:08.180 and reroutes itself and repairs itself in some way, which is pretty much what happened for me.

00:34:14.040 Now, I also got to get my vision corrected in that process. So the fact that I could see that cactus

00:34:19.760 behind you, I could see you. I mean, that's a miracle for me having been in glasses since I was

00:34:23.960 seven, eight years old. But the recovery is really tough because you have destroyed your corneas. And

00:34:30.800 for most people, you come back in a couple of weeks and you're much better. I could not see for a long

00:34:36.400 time. I could see you. I mean, I had no clarity. I couldn't read a teleprompter. It was really

00:34:40.760 difficult. And I tried to kind of fake my way through that. And I kind of laugh when I think about,

00:34:45.600 this was during President Trump's first term. He was in Hawaii. And because it was daytime there,

00:34:52.580 but I was doing the nighttime show at that time, it was live in our 11 p.m. hour. And normally,

00:34:57.440 you know, what you do with these live events is you see the president, you watch him and you

00:35:00.820 describe to the audience what's happening. He's laying a wreath. He's doing this. He's whatever.

00:35:04.260 Couldn't see anything. And I mean, that prompter was up on the desk. And I was like, well,

00:35:09.440 I can see a few words there, but I can't see what the president's doing.

00:35:12.400 Luckily, my amazing friend and colleague, Martha McCallum, was in Hawaii. And I just had to keep

00:35:17.200 tossing to her, Martha, what are you seeing now? What is the president doing now? So there was a

00:35:21.660 lot of faking it through that time until my vision came back. And it took a while, but several months

00:35:27.000 into it, I began to be able to see details again and see things and improve. And I'm just, I think

00:35:32.880 anytime you walk through difficult things, I hope it does. In my case, it made me so much more grateful

00:35:38.060 for just little things and God's faithfulness through that.

00:35:41.780 Yeah. And it really does give you so much understanding for what other people go through.

00:35:46.800 I haven't had something chronic like that, but just in the past going through birth and healing

00:35:53.680 from that, C-sections, different things. I'm like, man, this is really painful. There are people who have

00:35:59.860 this level of pain or more every single day without relief. I think about that woman who was

00:36:06.100 bleeding for 11 years before she just touched the hem of Jesus's robe and was healed. And I think

00:36:13.220 about your story and what faith it took for you to go back to the medical system and try to find an

00:36:18.320 answer. What faith it took for that woman after 11 years of probably trying everything, every holistic

00:36:24.300 solution, every herb under the sun. She was an outcast and she had enough faith in that moment

00:36:30.060 to reach for Jesus and just ask for help. And I just think about how God uses pain for a purpose.

00:36:38.560 You write about that, that your pain doesn't have to be without purpose. And it's part of that purpose

00:36:42.880 is like the building up of our faith, even if it's really hard to understand in the midst of that.

00:36:49.260 Yeah. And I love her story so much. I'm so glad you brought that up because

00:36:52.580 she really had spent everything she had. She tried everything. And think about she would

00:36:57.680 have been considered unclean with that bleeding. So she shouldn't have even left her house and

00:37:02.020 certainly not have approached this esteemed rabbi, if that's how you view Jesus, even if you didn't

00:37:06.440 yet see him as the son of God, certainly not to be out in that crowd and certainly not to reach out

00:37:11.660 and touch him. And I love that Jesus, I mean, obviously he knows, he feels, you know, scripture tells us

00:37:17.080 the power go out from him and he's got people pressing in on every side and he stops, who touched me?

00:37:22.580 He knows who touched him and how many people were touching him at that point. But he says to her,

00:37:28.180 daughter, which makes me, I feel like I want to cry when I think about that. Cause it's like,

00:37:32.740 he knew how much pain she had and how much bravery it took for her to show up there.

00:37:37.960 And he doesn't condemn her and say, how dare you, you unclean woman touch me. He says, daughter,

00:37:43.860 first thing he says to her. And then he says, your faith has made you whole. I mean,

00:37:47.660 he credits her with reaching out and having that faith. And I just think that's such a beautiful

00:37:51.920 thing. If people think of God as vengeful and angry and listen, he has that. He's a holy God.

00:37:59.320 There's that part of him. But how did Christ describe himself? Gentle and lowly. I mean,

00:38:03.780 he was there to redeem, not to condemn. Yes. Turn from your sin. Yes. The woman in adultery that he

00:38:09.040 caught there, he redeemed her. Turn from your sin. But he wasn't just about that message. That was

00:38:15.760 why he came and to save us. But he pours out so much mercy and grace and kindness and love.

00:38:21.740 Women were part of his ministry, which was revolutionary back then, that they were part

00:38:25.360 of his inner circle. I mean, he was really progressive in that sense of the word and that

00:38:31.160 he was pushing the boundaries of what the religious leaders and the norms of the day were to say,

00:38:36.600 I'm here for everyone. I'm here for everyone ever created in my image, past, present, or future.

00:38:41.220 And just love how much he pours out on her. Yeah. He certainly probably was considered

00:38:46.540 progressive. And he's like, well, I'm actually the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

00:38:51.380 I don't fit your labels. And so I'm foundational. Everything that Jesus does

00:38:55.660 has always been true and has always been the most righteous and has always been good. So like his

00:39:02.720 recognition of women, his recognition of children, it did so buck up against the culture at the time,

00:39:08.560 even much of the Jewish culture at the time. And yet, like he has always been the source of what

00:39:14.320 is actually good, right, and true. And I just love, I love that about him. I love him being the source

00:39:20.860 of those things. You know, I'm going to put us both on the spot as we're talking about the purpose of

00:39:25.520 pain, because I actually got a message this morning from someone who I think is probably not a believer,

00:39:29.860 but is exploring. And she asked me, what kind of God would need suffering to glorify himself or need

00:39:39.040 pain to glorify himself? And that's a good question. I just want to tell that person if

00:39:43.080 they're listening, it's a really interesting question that we as Christians need to grapple

00:39:47.000 with. I don't know that you or I have the perfect apologetics answer for that, but I wonder if you could

00:39:53.160 just explore more the idea of what you talk about, that pain comes with a purpose and there is

00:39:58.500 something good in it, not just for God, but also for us.

00:40:02.440 And I love that person reached out to you and that that question came in, because we should

00:40:06.620 question, and God can handle our questions. When I get angry at him or I question him, I think that

00:40:11.740 that's, you know, why not take it to him? And I think that's the number one question I probably get,

00:40:17.200 I don't know about you, where people would say, why does God allow pain? Why do children suffer?

00:40:20.680 Why do these things happen? And it's not easy. I don't have a pat answer for it, other than

00:40:25.160 we're not living in the world he planned for us. I mean, Eden was going to be perfection. We were in

00:40:29.900 perfect fellowship with the Lord. There was no sin. There was no barrier between us, but now we're in

00:40:34.640 a fallen world where there is sin, there is suffering. There's also free will, meaning God's

00:40:41.320 going to allow people to do things that are evil. He's also going to allow us to choose him. That's,

00:40:46.800 you know, part of free will. Suffering, I think, if we're thinking about it for ourselves, I know for me,

00:40:52.280 matured me, made me more empathetic, made me more willing to look out for other people.

00:41:00.060 And gosh, you write so well about this issue of empathy and toxic empathy and what empathy is and

00:41:05.920 isn't. And it's such a clear message that you have on that. And I think we are called to be

00:41:12.420 empathetic, but did I need to be more empathetic? I did. Did I need to be less judgy? Yeah. I mean,

00:41:17.740 in some ways, part of my growing up in church, one church in particular, was very legalistic. And so

00:41:23.340 I got a lot of judginess in there that I got to scale back. So I think suffering matures us and

00:41:29.580 makes us more Christ-like if that's what our ultimate goal is to be more Christ-like. I did

00:41:35.120 not come out of the womb Christ-like. I came out selfish and I came out self-centered. So while I

00:41:40.440 wouldn't choose suffering, I do see the purpose of it for maturing me. Yeah. And I think it's important

00:41:45.740 to remember too that God doesn't need anything. He doesn't need actually suffering. He doesn't

00:41:51.500 need us to give him glory, but he loves us. And so there must be something in the things that he

00:41:59.840 allows or causes that is actually good for us in the long run, even if we can't see it. And I think

00:42:06.680 as a parent, there are things, disciplines that are good for my children that in the moment seem

00:42:11.860 like suffering, eating vegetables, eating their chicken, things like that. Yes. They would

00:42:16.980 perceive in the moment it to be loving. If I gave them ice cream and cupcakes for dinner,

00:42:22.420 they would. But if I fed them that every night, they would actually look back and say, well,

00:42:26.280 why didn't my mom ever give me healthy food? Now I'm riddled with all of these health problems

00:42:30.800 and it might not be a perfect analogy, but there are things that seem unpleasant at the time for our

00:42:36.940 kids. And actually I can't explain to them fully. They don't understand counting macros and protein

00:42:42.980 and all the things that are going on in their body. And it would not help if I explained it to

00:42:46.880 them in the moment. It wouldn't help if I explained all of that because it's my four-year-old and she

00:42:51.600 doesn't have the capacity. It would make her angrier and more confused. Actually, sometimes I just have

00:42:55.740 to say, no, this is what you're going to do. Trust that I love you. And I think if that is the gap of

00:43:02.140 understanding between two finite people who are just a couple decades apart, that how much of a

00:43:08.760 gap of understanding is between an infinite God and us, that even if God explained to you in the

00:43:13.780 moment, this is why I'm allowing your eyes to be painful, you wouldn't have wanted to hear it

00:43:18.220 probably. And you might not have been able to understand it. So I think sometimes God just

00:43:23.120 reminds us of the title of your book, Have Faith in Me. Nothing is Impossible with Me. Just have faith in

00:43:28.840 me. And hopefully on the other side of glory, we're going to see this grand tapestry of why

00:43:33.320 things happened the way they did. Do you have a list of questions? I do, for when we get there

00:43:37.980 on the other side. But then I think they probably won't matter at all. We won't think about them at

00:43:42.000 all. I think my questions that I have now, everything will be resolved in a way that I'm

00:43:45.880 not going to say, okay, Lord, here are my 367 questions I've been keeping for when I get here.

00:43:51.220 I don't know. I do, though, hope that there are things that we can see that we don't get the full

00:43:57.280 picture of in scripture. I think about Joseph's story. When he finally reveals himself to the

00:44:04.200 brothers, and they have to go back to their dad and be like, oh, Joseph's alive. There's so much

00:44:08.700 of the conversation we don't have there. What did they decide they were going to tell the dad?

00:44:13.360 Surprise! He must have gotten kidnapped when he was coming to visit us. Those kinds of things,

00:44:20.040 too, are a little bit more lighthearted. But I think there are a lot of things that we won't have

00:44:23.380 answered this side of heaven. But I got a lot of questions. And I wonder if we'll be so joyful

00:44:27.260 and worshipful that those questions won't matter anymore.

00:44:31.580 Yeah. Or if there will just kind of be a knowing and a satisfaction. I don't know. I'm reminded of

00:44:37.780 that lyric in the song, when we've been there 10,000 years, we'll have no less days to sing

00:44:42.920 God's praise. And so I guess we have time for the questions and the sitting and the worship and all of

00:44:48.020 that.

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00:45:58.720 Okay. Tell us more about your career and how you specifically, because you could talk, I'm sure,

00:46:05.060 about all the things that you've seen and done and talked about for the past decades, but

00:46:08.280 specifically how you tie this truth, faith in God's omnipotence, hope that he's coming back and he's

00:46:17.300 going to make all things right, joy that's found in the strength of the Lord. When you talk about

00:46:22.080 some really, really hard things. Yeah. I don't know how people without faith do it without a belief in

00:46:28.160 all of those things, because you do see horrible things. I've been in the middle of natural disasters

00:46:33.360 and hurricanes and crimes against children. I mean, it can chip away at your soul if you don't

00:46:41.080 believe that there is going to be ultimate redemption, that good triumphs over evil and God

00:46:45.020 has promised to make all things new and that all of that will be redeemed. So for me, I've always been

00:46:52.080 in the word, journaling, studying, praying. It became though during COVID for me, a complete

00:46:59.740 non-negotiable in the morning. Because some mornings you get busy, you oversleep, things are crazy,

00:47:03.500 you've got little ones. I mean, you know, for me, mornings are when I do my devotions and do my

00:47:07.640 reading. But during COVID was the one time I couldn't separate myself from a story. Because

00:47:12.660 you do have to compartmentalize yourself at times, but we were all the story during COVID. Like

00:47:16.480 every one of us in the beginning had so many unknowns. We were frightened. We were worried about

00:47:21.020 people we loved. We just couldn't figure things out. It was hard with lack of information.

00:47:25.080 We have a lot of 2020 hindsight now, but we didn't then. And I remember getting up every day

00:47:30.540 and having to do the news and think how many more people died today. We've got this counter from

00:47:35.000 Johns Hopkins. If you remember, they had these counters on how many people were dying and how

00:47:37.820 many cases. And it was such a doom death spiral. There was real trauma for millions of people,

00:47:45.840 billions of people around the world. And it was the one time I couldn't just go report on a story and

00:47:49.660 then put it away and go home and seashell and be fine. And I just woke up so heavy hearted every

00:47:55.900 day. Like, oh, how much worse is this going to get today? What bad news do I have to tell people

00:47:59.480 today? And so that first thing in the morning, having to be my time with the Lord and getting

00:48:04.760 anchored in that, I don't know what today is going to bring personally and professionally.

00:48:09.100 That is such a source of strength for me in doing the work that I do. And so having the eternal

00:48:14.940 perspective, like this thing today feels terrible and it is truly awful, but there will be hope and

00:48:21.040 joy and wiping away of every tear at some point. I don't know how people do the job I do without

00:48:26.180 that kind of assurance. Yeah. Now you're a straight news woman. Has there ever been a time on any story

00:48:32.140 that you have struggled not to insert your opinion or to editorialize it a little bit?

00:48:40.360 Every day. Really? Every day?

00:48:41.880 Well, because I think we all have such strong opinions of our own. And I always say when I

00:48:46.280 come out of a show or an interview and I have people and I really don't look at much social

00:48:50.360 media anymore, it's become such a dumpster fire of the soul. But when I come out or I get emails

00:48:55.960 from people and like, they are so mad on both sides of any issue. Like what? You know, I'll get,

00:49:01.580 you took your talking points straight from President Trump. Did he call you right before the show and tell

00:49:05.360 you what to say? Or you're so mean to President Trump and disrespectful of him. Why do you hate

00:49:09.460 President Trump? But I'm like, these two people just watch the same show. Yeah. So I feel like I'm

00:49:14.280 doing my job. If people do a lot of projection, they're frustrated. I get that. People are so

00:49:19.380 frustrated on either side of these conversations. But I also have to check myself that I don't

00:49:24.020 overcorrect because sometimes you're thinking like, okay, I know how I feel very personally about

00:49:28.760 this issue. So I'm going to really sanitize every single potential comment here. Well, I don't want to

00:49:33.900 do that to the detriment of getting facts out to people and just letting them decide for themselves.

00:49:39.020 But there's some topic is it's harder than others to really say, okay, I know how I feel very strongly

00:49:43.860 about this. And if people get to know me enough, they're probably going to be able to figure out

00:49:48.400 some of that. But my job for the viewer who tunes in on Sunday morning is to let them hear from both

00:49:53.060 sides, all sides of a story. And I trust them to be discerning enough to make their own decisions.

00:49:57.480 Do you feel that the career path or the industry that you're in of true journalism,

00:50:04.760 sans bias, has changed a lot over the past, I don't know, couple decades?

00:50:10.120 I think what's tricky is that people who were viewed as straight news reporters or hosts or

00:50:14.900 anchors have become advocates, which I think is fine. There's some really persuasive, intelligent,

00:50:20.440 entertaining advocates out there. But just be honest about what you are. I think if you label

00:50:24.780 yourself like, I am an advocate for this particular issue or this cause, or I am a commentator or I'm

00:50:30.300 an opinion host, great. There are so many good products for that out there, left, right, and

00:50:34.880 center that I think are thoughtful. I think it's when you have opinions and you weave them into

00:50:39.340 everything that you do and you come in with preconceived notions but still continue to call

00:50:43.460 yourself a straight news reporter or journalist, that's where you're doing a disservice to people

00:50:47.920 at home and why they're so distrusting of the media. Because they can sense it. They're not stupid.

00:50:52.280 And people feel like, well, that didn't sound like a straight news report. Clearly,

00:50:56.260 you were bashing this person or this idea or this policy. So you have a position. And that's fine.

00:51:01.060 If you do, just own it.

00:51:02.760 Okay. Tell me how you navigate this. I wasn't planning to ask this. And this might not be an

00:51:06.720 issue at Fox. It probably would be another issue at maybe some other networks. But nowadays,

00:51:12.540 I think it is really hard to be unbiased and precise even in our language when there are so many

00:51:19.140 euphemisms used to describe things like reproductive health care or women's health care or the whole

00:51:24.940 pronoun issue. Obviously, you as a Christian, you want to tell the truth, even if your job is to be

00:51:29.780 unbiased. So how do you navigate this war of words that we're in?

00:51:33.760 Yeah, that's such a good point. I think it's so tricky because there are even news organizations

00:51:36.880 who will put out sort of a bulletin or guidance like, we're now using this word.

00:51:40.720 Right.

00:51:40.920 And this is what we'll do in our coverage. I've never run into that at Fox ever.

00:51:44.860 I've never had anybody say to me, this is how we're going to refer to this. So as much as people

00:51:50.520 may think from the outside, like, oh, Fox has their buzzwords and tells you what to do. I love

00:51:55.460 that it's the one place I've worked where I've never been given guidance on, this is how we're

00:51:58.940 going to refer to this. It's, we trust you. You're an adult, you're a journalist, and you're going to

00:52:03.820 use the language that you think is factually appropriate in these cases. So I've never gotten

00:52:08.980 dinged internally or had anybody say to me, we're going to do it this way.

00:52:12.600 We do have, you know, conversations that words do sort of morph over time. And if they're changing

00:52:19.320 in a way that is simply more descriptive, that's fine. If we're trying to neutralize or take a

00:52:26.000 position through the wording, I'm not going to do that. You know, I'm going to just call facts for

00:52:32.140 facts for what they are.

00:52:33.660 Right. Okay. You told me that you love to, quote, nerd out about the Supreme Court. So tell me why you

00:52:39.500 love reporting on SCOTUS. I, you know, I was a lawyer. I went to law school and practiced for

00:52:44.020 a few years. And so I have so much love for the court. And the thing about it too, is there are

00:52:48.760 no cameras there. It's very old school in a lot of ways. It's really unlike the rest of Washington

00:52:53.960 is that you don't have these guys running to the cameras to make statements all the time.

00:52:58.080 They're very cloistered and they want to be viewed as very apolitical. And I think they all

00:53:02.740 respect the institution and take that very, very seriously. Access to them is difficult. It takes a lot

00:53:08.540 of time to build relationships over there. And, um, I just, I love a good opinion, you know,

00:53:14.740 and then it's terrifying. I can remember before I got into the business, um, 2000 happened in that

00:53:20.760 election. And I remember seeing reporters out there on the steps of the Supreme Court trying

00:53:24.300 to read through this thing and get through it. And I just had like these panic attacks from law

00:53:28.380 school where the professor's yelling at you and you're trying to figure things out. And I'm like,

00:53:31.380 why would anybody do that? Like, it seems so hard and crazy.

00:53:34.280 Yeah. And now I do that. And I, man, I pray so much for guidance to get things right. And just

00:53:39.280 to be accurate and slow and we're not always perfect. And we have to own that if we're not,

00:53:43.780 but I just have such a reverence for what they do. And they all really have very distinct

00:53:48.500 personalities. Um, all nine of them and to spend a little time with them away from that,

00:53:53.820 you see their sense of humor and you see where they're coming from. And I think they're all very

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00:55:09.640 Do you think it's a possibility that President Trump gets to nominate another justice in the next

00:55:21.240 few years? Yeah, I do. And there's so much speculation right now about Justice Alito,

00:55:26.020 but Justice Thomas is a more senior member of the court. Now, this is just my educated guess.

00:55:31.800 I don't think Justice Thomas ever steps down. I hope not. I think that he will pass away on the,

00:55:37.400 not literally on the bench, but I think he loves the court, has so devoted his life to it.

00:55:41.640 Yeah. And it's so many people who really tried to stop him from getting there. I think he takes joy

00:55:45.940 in that job. I think he takes joy in showing up every day like, yep, still here. Right. So I feel

00:55:51.060 like I wouldn't expect, I'd be surprised to get a retirement from him. People have to think,

00:55:56.660 and justices, like I said, want to be viewed as apolitical. They don't want to make political

00:56:00.620 decisions, but they're under so much pressure when a midterm's coming, when the Senate could flip,

00:56:05.140 and that affects the ability of the president to get somebody confirmed. Yeah. You know, they're

00:56:10.220 human. They have to, those things have to calculate in there. I would think, and I have no indication

00:56:15.640 at all, but I would say if someone retires, it would be Justice Alito before it would be Justice

00:56:20.040 Thomas. But they've hired clerks. They're moving forward. They've given no indication they're going

00:56:24.740 anywhere. Yeah. Oh, it's so tough because I want Thomas to stay in there forever. But I'm like,

00:56:31.300 you cannot die though when a Democrat is in office. Right. And they have to think about those

00:56:36.640 things. Yes. Right. Right. Alliebeth has forbidden you, Justice Thomas. You can't go anywhere. That's

00:56:41.720 the end of it. That's the end of it. Yeah. But they do as much as they don't want to, there's got to be

00:56:46.240 some political calculation in their brain. I mean, think about all the pressure that Justice

00:56:49.820 Ginsburg was under and how the left was furious at her for trying to hold on. And it would be really

00:56:56.480 impossible probably to get somebody like her or Justice Scalia confirmed now. I mean, because

00:57:01.280 they had such strong opinions. She had been an advocate for abortion and for other things and

00:57:06.560 for, you know, things that would be viewed as left-leaning things as an advocate that she'd

00:57:10.680 done that. I don't know that you could get confirmed having strong advocacy and really important issues

00:57:15.380 on either side now. And you think about them, they were confirmed like 95 to nothing, 98 to nothing.

00:57:21.040 Now it's all about counting partisan votes and seeing how you can maneuver. And sometimes that means

00:57:25.160 that, you know, the GOP doesn't all stick together. They vote for Democrat nominees or they don't vote

00:57:30.020 for Republican nominees sometimes. So it's very much a numbers game. And so I just have to think

00:57:35.520 in my heart of heart, the justices are aware of all of that. Yeah. Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett,

00:57:41.960 and Roberts in Gorsuch have all at different times disappointed conservatives or surprised conservatives.

00:57:49.000 Do you think there's anything that conservatives misunderstand about these justices? Or if you could

00:57:54.900 just say, okay, but this is how they think, or this is kind of like why they aren't necessarily

00:58:01.180 reliable like Thomas or Alito are because this is their process? I do think people get upset because

00:58:11.400 it's the big case where one or two of those votes go in a different way and they're not with Thomas

00:58:16.800 or Alito. The people get really frustrated, but like 95, 98% of the time those justices vote together and

00:58:22.180 they do stick together as a conservative block on many things. There's some weird splits here and

00:58:25.700 there sometimes. But I think that Justice Barrett, Justice Gorsuch has a little bit of a libertarian

00:58:32.180 streak to him, I think. And I think that that's going to take him in a different direction sometimes.

00:58:36.820 He's got some pretty specialized topics that he does his own thing on too, like Native American

00:58:40.960 rights and issues because he served out in the 10th Circuit, Colorado, that's where he's from.

00:58:45.420 He has a special understanding of that. Justice Barrett, I think very much like all of them,

00:58:49.960 wants to be seen independent, as an independent. And I can see this from her on the bench when she

00:58:54.440 asks questions. She's very meticulous and very pointed with both sides. She was a professor for

00:58:59.900 a long time too. And so I think they all just approach things in their own way. The conservatives

00:59:04.560 will say they're about the text and the statute as it's read. And I think this tariffs decision,

00:59:10.520 when you saw the 6-3 against the president, the ones that he appointed who went with the majority

00:59:15.760 and the chief justice are saying, tariffs were not in the language of the statute. That word is not

00:59:21.620 in there. It doesn't give the president that exact power. Whereas the dissenters are going to argue,

00:59:26.420 but the spirit of the law does give the president that power. That's what they were arguing.

00:59:30.520 But generally, the conservatives will say they're about sticking to the text of the statute and the

00:59:34.460 history that matches it. And Justice Gorsuch, in his tariffs concurrence that he had, I feel like I'm

00:59:39.240 getting way too wonky now, but he actually called out both sides and said, hey, you guys have said that

00:59:44.720 you would interpret things this way. So why did you vote against it this time? But he called out

00:59:48.680 the liberal wing of the court too, saying, you guys came to the same conclusion as we did,

00:59:53.800 but for different reasons. You guys would have voted differently if this was President Biden.

00:59:57.820 Yeah. I like when the justices kind of call each other out. It actually gives me some clarity.

01:00:03.280 Okay, last SCOTUS question. Kataji Brown-Jackson obviously gets a lot of attention because she was

01:00:08.700 nominated and confirmed under Biden. I saw some chart, this was several months ago now,

01:00:13.140 that showed that she speaks the most words of all of the justices. Justice Thomas seems to be a man

01:00:18.680 of few words, at least when they're actually speaking out loud, not written words. Do you think

01:00:25.480 that she actually is just similar to the other progressive justices and that she's just getting

01:00:31.180 more attention because she's younger, she talks a lot? Or do you think that she is unique as far as

01:00:37.540 the history of justices go? She does speak quite a bit. And for a newer justice, I picked up from

01:00:43.800 some of the other justices more senior that they took notice of the fact that she was speaking so

01:00:49.040 much during arguments, but she's been a judge on the bench for a long time. So that may just be her

01:00:53.400 style. But she does speak quite a bit in court. And during COVID, they came with this new way of doing

01:01:00.160 things because they weren't actually meeting for part of that time. And so they were literally on phones.

01:01:04.160 And so they came up with this order where the senior most person goes first and they work

01:01:08.420 through. And so she's the last person now. And so any unanswered question that she's got,

01:01:13.280 like she's the cleanup batter for whatever's happening. And so she's been taking notes the

01:01:16.380 whole time, waiting through eight justices for her turn. So maybe it's just that she's kind of

01:01:20.460 built that up. But some people, like you said with Justice Thomas, he's very reserved from the

01:01:25.360 bench. I think he knows having read all the briefs and studied the case before it ever comes to oral

01:01:29.860 arguments, he's sort of one that's like, I'm pretty settled in where I think this case is going.

01:01:34.620 And she just may be a more active questioner. But I do think she's said some things that have

01:01:38.480 gotten headlines. And the fact that she, outside of the court, does some interesting things too.

01:01:43.100 She did this Broadway play thing. And just things that are different that the other justices aren't

01:01:48.340 doing. So I think she's the newer. You're going to get more attention when you're new.

01:01:52.260 Yeah. Biggest decision that's going to come out in the next few months.

01:01:56.320 Well, it depends on your viewpoint. I mean, we're waiting on a big redistricting decision out of

01:02:00.960 Louisiana that will talk about whether you can use race in shaping congressional districts and

01:02:06.120 how you can use it. And it could have a big impact on the Voting Rights Act. If it's decided early

01:02:10.320 enough, it could impact the midterms this time. So that's a big political decision. On kind of the

01:02:15.640 culture front, there's this big case we're waiting for out of Colorado where you've got therapists there

01:02:21.000 who want to work with people who want to address the feeling of sexual urges and different things

01:02:27.080 that they may come in saying, I don't want to have this urge. I want to be counseled away for this or

01:02:32.660 get help from that. Colorado passed a law that basically you can't do what's called conversion

01:02:37.260 therapy or counsel people away from that. And the therapist is suing saying, this is a free speech

01:02:42.480 issue. The state will say it's a medical licensing issue. We don't want to license you to do something

01:02:47.640 that they believe harming people. And the therapist is saying, if people are coming to me and they want

01:02:52.900 this kind of counseling, they're seeking it, you're stomping on my speech if I'm not allowed

01:02:57.880 to give them that counseling. So that's a big one there. They're coupled with executive power. Can

01:03:01.820 the president fire certain people? Kick someone off the Fed board? So there are a few. And there's

01:03:07.820 also one that's not gotten a lot of attention, but it's out of New Jersey with a group of pro-life

01:03:12.020 clinics that we're facing a subpoena there for their donors list. And they're fighting that saying

01:03:18.580 like, no, again, another issue of our ability to people's right to associate or have speech through

01:03:25.480 their contributions. So that's one that kind of under the radar, but I'm watching that one closely.

01:03:29.360 And I'm sorry, I'm adding so many. But you also have the two state cases that are dealing with

01:03:34.300 whether people born biologically male can participate in female sports. West Virginia is kind of the lead

01:03:39.760 on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot coming down. I know there is more than I think.

01:03:43.720 Yes. Okay. We'll have a lot to talk about on Relatable. You'll have a lot to report on. Thank

01:03:47.660 you so much. And your book, Nothing is Impossible with God is available wherever books are sold.

01:03:52.160 Anywhere you like to get them. It's already out right now.

01:03:54.220 It is out March 10th and you can get it anytime before or after pre-order.

01:03:58.180 Okay. It's not out now. It's not, but you can buy it now.

01:04:00.460 You should pre-order now and it's available on Amazon and all of that good stuff. And they'll get it on

01:04:05.100 March 10th. Shannon, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

01:04:07.460 Even lovelier in person. I really appreciate it.

01:04:09.540 Well, I'm a big fan of yours. And so thanks for having me.

01:04:11.800 Thank you.

01:04:12.180 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 27, 2026

Ep 1310 ｜ Shannon Bream’s Hidden Suffering—And What God Is Teaching Her Through It

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