The Hope of the Christmas Story: An Interview with Shannon Bream

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. But then she felt directed to pursue journalism. And we'll talk about that in just a little bit. But she is also the author of two books, Finding the Bright Side and The Women of the Bible Speak. So we're really glad to have her. Let's give a warm Harvest welcome to Shannon Breen. So Shannon and I color coordinated here. So we got the blue going. Shannon, it's so great to have you. Thank you for being with us. You know, you wrote a book about what you've experienced in life and how you got to where you are.

And I think it's a little bit of a surprising story. Because people look at you. You're successful. You're so effective as a communicator.

You do such a great job. And the most important thing I left out, Shannon is a bright light for Jesus Christ out there. And that's what we appreciate about you tonight. But it wasn't an easy road getting to where you are right now, was it? Tell us about that. And I think that, listen, we all have things that we struggle with.

And so I think it's good to be honest about that. And I shared with the women this weekend that my very first job I got in TV after I left law and moved over to television at a very unglamorous 2 a.m. to 11 a.m. shift. And they hired me to write copy and make coffee and answer the phones, that kind of thing.

So I nudged my way when I could to go and do some things on air. And my boss there really encouraged me and kind of took a chance on me. And I came in one day and he and his boss were both gone.

Their offices cleaned out. So we had a new guy and all the experienced seasoned reporters there said, this is the worst thing in the world when the new people come, they fire everybody, they want their own people. And I thought, well, I'm not making any money. I'm working this overnight shift like nobody cares that I'm here. So a couple of weeks in to the new guy, I got called in on a Friday afternoon and I went into the office and the head of HR was sitting there.

And I thought, I'm getting promoted, which is if the head of HR is sitting there, you're not getting promoted. And I got fired from that first TV job and the guy fire Shannon Breen. Listen, he kicked me out of the nest, which ended up being a good thing for me. But he said, you're the worst person I've ever seen on TV and you will never make it ever. He said, I hope you're a better lawyer than you are a reporter. Wow. Yeah, it was it was humbling to say the least.

Well, that's a good point, because sometimes what we think is the worst case scenario can actually be an opportunity for the Lord to redirect us. And it did redirect you. And you ended up at Fox News. Now, you interview a lot of really interesting people. You know, you interview presidents and presidential candidates, senators, congressmen, newsmakers and just regular people who maybe have experienced a big event in their life.

Can you look back and think of an interview that did not go the way you expected it to go? You know, I years ago and this is somebody you would never know their name, but years ago when I was a local reporter, I actually interviewed a man. It turned out that he was a Holocaust survivor. And as a very young boy, there was a mistake on his birth certificate, which meant that his parents were able to get him out of Germany. And so he had lost in his entire family. And this amazing story of how he came to the United States, eventually was sponsored and came here and he had such an enormous appreciation and love for this country. And he's saying, God bless America, and was tearing up through it. And I thought, oh, my goodness, this is such a good reminder to me of what people have suffered, what they went through in that time and to be so grateful for the freedoms that we have here. So he was beautiful and unexpected, this older man that I stumbled onto. So they're just people that you meet along the way like that. But then you had some guy that got up and stormed off the set.

Oh, yes. I actually, a couple of these times, we were having a very heated debate, as sometimes happens on cable TV. And one of the guys was getting so exasperated and he was like, I am out of here. He rips his mic off and walks off the set. Let me explain why I did that.

I was, no, I'm joking. You made your point. So this guy leaves and I can hear my producer, who's one of the most talented guys in the business. And he's yelling at someone to go in that room and kick the guy's chair now that he's out of it. So it's swirling around as if he left in such a hurry that the seat is just spinning around.

So it was great TV. But at the time I was like, OK, I'm not sure he's ever coming back. He didn't come back that day.

Wow. I read an interesting quote from Larry King some years ago that he said, if I could interview anyone across time, I would interview Jesus Christ. And then he said, and I would ask him, are you virgin born? And he said, the answer to that would change history for me. Now you think of all the people you've interviewed.

There might be people you would still like to interview. But if you could go across time and interview anyone, who would you interview and what would you ask them? You know, I'm tempted to say Jesus because of course we all have questions about him and about suffering and how it works and what it means. But I actually think I might want to talk to Paul. You know, he talks about his thorn in the side and what that was.

And we've all debated what it was. But he went through so much. And think of his conversion from being someone who prosecuted and persecuted Christians to becoming like the most devout follower of Christ and defender of Christ. And he suffered so many things.

I think he would be fascinating to talk to, too. I'd like to ask him, did you know when you were sitting around writing those letters that they would be our Bible today that we would pore over every word? You know, speaking of a thorn in the flesh, no, we don't know what his thorn in the flesh was. Many commentators think it was some kind of physical affliction, possibly incurred during one of his donings or other things. He was beaten, shipwrecked and all these things that happened to Paul. But you had your own thorn in the flesh, so to speak, with your eyes.

Tell us about that. Yeah, I had a situation that started several years ago where I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night with one of my eyes just tearing and searing pain. And it was such an odd occurrence, I thought I'm not sure how I would have hurt myself while sleeping.

Happened again a few weeks later. Then it started happening with both eyes. And I went to my doctor and he said, well, you're getting older and your eyes are going to be dry. And I thought, this feels like more than dry eye.

But he finally said, I can't help you. I went to another specialist, spent months there with him and this became a situation where every night I would wake up in excruciating pain. And I started setting alarm clocks.

I would sleep maybe one or two hours and try to put drops in and get ahead of whatever it was. And the second specialist, I went back to him a couple of times and I was several months into now. I couldn't sleep and I was in pain all the time.

I had double vision and migraines. And I went in kind of on my last legs and he said, you know, you strike me as very emotional. And I thought, oh, I am very emotional. And I just left his office because I needed a lifeline.

I felt like he threw me an anchor. And I sort of gave up and spiraled for a couple of years into just a very dark place. If you've lived with chronic pain, emotional or physical, you know how debilitating that is. And when you can't sleep, I really had given up. I started going online to try to find out symptoms or try to figure out what this was.

And I always say to people, don't do that because you have like three minutes to live if you Google your symptoms. So I eventually just got to such a dark place with that. And reading these message boards and hearing from other people finally found people who had the same symptoms, but saying that they were considering ending their life.

And I thought, that really sounds like it could be peaceful, like it would be such a relief two years into this. And I confessed that to my husband and said, I'm just in this really dark, bad place. And he said, we're going to keep fighting. We're going to keep going.

Let's start looking for another doctor because I'd given up on doctors. You mentioned your husband. Sheldon, are you here? Is he sitting in here?

I think he's in the back. Okay. Your husband's so fantastic. Please continue.

He is amazing. So he said, let's keep going. So I went back to looking for a doctor, found this great cornea specialist that was nearly impossible to get into. And I called the next day, trying not to be emotional. And I said, I know he's hard to get into. Do you have a cancellation list?

Could I get on the list? And they said, let me put you on hold for a minute. And the woman came back on and she said, I just had someone cancel for tomorrow and I haven't filled it yet.

Would you take it? And I prayed, Lord, if you're not going to heal me because he doesn't always do that, just give me someone to help me through. And this doctor turned out to be that person. And he was able to diagnose me very quickly, which was the best possible news. But at the end of that first appointment, he said to me, there's something you need to know is that there is no cure for this. And so that was a very difficult journey. But he's been amazing and helped me through. I've had surgeries and things on my eyes that have been an enormous help. And I do tell him all the time, you're an answer to prayer.

And he sort of embarrassed awkward chuckles. But I'm working on them. That's great. Now, you've written this book, The Women of the Bible Speak. And you've written about so many interesting women. And I was thinking, since we're in the Christmas season, what women of the Bible story jump out at you? I mean, obviously, if you think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and of course, Elizabeth and others.

Tell us a little bit about what you think about these women and what they were experiencing. Like, just think about Mary for a moment, too. She's a young lady.

We don't know how old, but very young. And the angel Gabriel appears to her. So we know it's a big deal when Gabriel shows up, right? Not just any angel. A heavyweight angel shows up, tells her she's going to be the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Do you think Mary ever sat around and thought, yeah, I think I'm going to be the fulfillment of Isaiah.

I'll be that virgin that will bring forth the sun. Or, I mean, put yourself in the shoes of Mary. And what do you think that was like to hear that? And what can we learn from Mary today?

Yeah, and if you just think of seeing Gabriel, I mean, what an overwhelming thing it would be to have an angel show up. And for her to be such a young woman, though I had someone say to me the other day, her youth may have actually been in her favor and helped her because she was so believing and trusting. And clearly a devout young woman who knew the prophecies and knew what was happening.

But, you know, we talked about this week in the story that she runs to her cousin Elizabeth, who was way past childbearing age. She's now pregnant with John the Baptist. So they both had this miracle together to share this amazing thing that God gave them, this connection. But the first person to recognize the Messiah was an unborn baby.

Right. When John the Baptist leaped in the womb. It was John leaping in the womb. So I love that they have this tight friendship and that God gives this woman who's way past having a baby and a teenager who didn't think she was having a baby this connection so that they could support each other through that. But Mary was faithful. And we see that all through her life, even to the cross where she is there and never abandons her son and has to see the most painful thing a parent could imagine. But even after his resurrection and ascension, we see her with the disciples in the upper room praying. She's not abandoned the church when I'm sure all their lives were under threat at that point. So she was faithful beginning to end. Yes, she was. She said, let it be according to your maid server. Let it be. So she was obedient to the call and the amazing place that God had called her to be.

So Shannon, thank you so much for taking a little time to be with us, speaking to our ladies and letting me interview you for a few moments. Any closing thought you would have maybe to someone in this Christmas season? Because surprisingly, a lot of people are really depressed this time of year. I just read something from the Surgeon General that they said that there's a huge spike in depression and COVID has only made this worse. But people dealing with loss, people dealing with pain.

What would you say to a person like that? I mean, there's so much hope in the Christmas story. We celebrate and we have the trees and the gifts and those things. But Christ leaving everything to humble himself and take on our skin, our body, to come here and sacrifice changes everything, no matter our circumstances. He knows every detail of your life, whatever you're struggling with. And if you are one of those people who's suffering loss and through the holiday season, it's not super joyful.

It's hard and emotional for you. He's in all of that. He sees that. He can redeem every choice, good and bad, that we've made. And He is for you. He's for you. Fantastic. Let's thank Shannon for coming. Thank you, Shannon.