Shannon Bream Shares The Faith That Anchors Her

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Go to HeatTrak.com, coupon code CAREGIVER. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember he knows, he knows the plans he has. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. That's my wife, Gracie, and he does know the plans that he has for you. We're glad that you're with us. 65 million Americans right now are caring for a vulnerable loved one.

And if that's where you are, then you're in the right place. I have a wonderful guest here today. I was on her program about a year and a half ago when Gracie first got COVID. Gracie was the first one in our county to get it.

And since we live in such a remote area, I think most people thought we got it from an elk or a buffalo out here in Montana. But this was Shannon Bream. And Shannon is the host of Fox News at Night, and she's also the Supreme Court correspondent for Fox News. And you know her, you've seen her.

She's also the author of several books, including the recently published The Women of the Bible Speak, The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today, which reached the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. And we are glad to have you with us. Shannon, before we get into anything else, I got to tell you, the world is crazy right now, and you report the craziness. So how are you doing?

I'm good. In fact, I was just having a conversation with a friend about when you have a hope in something greater than you and feeling like good is ultimately, you know, going to triumph over evil that if you can keep an eternal perspective, it really helps you in the day to day. And in the news business, I think it's helpful and important. Indeed. And I've been watching what's unfolding right now, and particularly with things going on with the Supreme Court and so forth.

So I know that you are highly engaged. But as interesting as all that is, and it is, the reason I had you on this program today is because you and your husband had your own journey through this. And I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about that, and then we'll go into kind of what were the ramifications in your life, your faith and so forth.

Sure. Well, you know, we were young kids, newly engaged when he became sick, and for months just thought it was sort of a ear infection and earache, trouble with his hearing, ringing in his ear, all kinds of things. And months into it, he eventually, you know, the doctor said, Well, there's one more thing we need to rule out because nothing was improving. And so they decided to test him do a sound wave test for a brain tumor. And it turned out that's what it was, which was shocking, I think, to everybody because he was, you know, college athlete and strong and healthy.

We thought in every way. And other than the trouble with his hearing, really no clues that there was something much more important that was going on. And so, you know, as a couple of 24 year olds who are planning their wedding, it was a big wake up. And I think for him, very difficult as a young man to have to face something that was that momentous in your life and at that young point. And it really does shift your focus. And the truth is, through that journey, we learned a lot about each other, about ourselves, about our faith. Our families were amazing.

And over the years of now being married, he's actually been caregiver for me too. So through my own illness. So we've had a little bit of experience on both sides of this and, you know, hope to be an encouragement that there is a way through. Well, yes, you had some issues with your eyes, I believe. Is that correct?

Yes. I mean, it took me a couple of years for folks out there who've had to fight for diagnosis. It can be really obviously frustrating to go through that process. And what I two years in eventually found out is that the constant chronic pain that I was living in was I've got a genetic condition in which my corneas were constantly tearing and scarring the tissue over and over again, day after day. And so once I got to a doctor who could help me begin to unpack that and help put me back together, I finally was back on the road to hope.

But during those two years, got to a very dark place. And really, my husband was the only person who was a witness to the worst of it. And you know, as a spousal caregiver, I mean, you alone can kind of know the depth of what your spouse is suffering and what they're going through. And so, you know, I couldn't have made it without him, truthfully.

You mentioned your faith, and I know this is important to you. And I remember when I was doing the interview on your show and I referenced something in Romans and I watched and you had me, I don't know who put that together, the guy that was on the split screen with me who also had COVID. I'm not sure if you ever go back and look at that because I went back and looked a while back. I'm not sure he even knew where he was. Oh, I don't remember who it was.

No, I don't think he remembered who he was or where he was. I'm about to go back and watch it. Well, I was being my normal goofy self, which, you know, I mean, Gracie and I have lived through so much heartache and challenges and you just learn to kind of, sometimes you just have to just go with it. But this poor fellow, it was really funny, but what I said, I mentioned something in Romans, and your face just lit up on camera.

And most people that know who you are know that your faith is very important to you. How did that change when you were faced first with Sheldon things, then you guys went and got married and you took the vows of sickness and health. And those things got real real real at that point when you're taking those kind of vows after you've gone through brain tumor stuff, then you go through stuff with your eyes. Where did your faith go? What happened?

What transformed in that? You know, I think in both of those really tough circumstances for both of us, it grew and we learned a lot about the body of Christ to you know, there would be people who would reach out or send a note and say we're praying for you. We heard about your story, and to feel that, you know, complete strangers are kind of sharing the burden with you or at least trying to lift it from you and intercede for you is an amazing thing. I think unfortunately, listen, I felt very blessed that I grew up in a faith filled home, my husband did too, where we were constantly exposed to scripture and prayer and being in church and being in relationship with Christ.

So we had that foundation, which I'm so grateful for. But I think when you go through these things that really rattle the foundations of everything in your life that you're kind of relying on and enjoying it. It takes you to a different level of maturity, at least for me, it's forced me to be much more reliant on God.

I don't like the idea of being vulnerable or of having to lean on him. But that's what he asked us to do to lay our all our burdens on him to come to him in prayer. And through that, I developed a closeness and a maturity spiritually that I don't think if life was all mountaintops, I would have had that same growth.

I want to think that I would, but I think the truth is that you know through the suffering is where you often learn the most. Well, C.S. Lewis says it's God's megaphone. And that's more often than not, how he reveals himself to us is through cutting away those things. And it sounds like you guys have been through that journey. You wrote this book that is an extraordinary book, went to New York Times number one bestseller. I wanted to talk about one little segment of it, if you don't mind. So many of the listeners of this program, they really understand lengthy journeys.

Gracie has been struggling for nearly 40 years with hers. And in your book, you discuss the woman who wanted to touch the hymn of Jesus' garment. And obviously that really connected with you. It's in three of the four Gospels. It really connected with you.

Talk about that and why you wrote about it. I love that story so much for so many different reasons. And the fact is, when Jesus encounters this woman, what we know about her from the Gospels is she was at the end of her rope. I mean, she had spent every penny she had going to every doctor or expert of that time to get help with this issue of bleeding that she'd had for more than a decade. And when we meet her, she's not only not healed, she's worse, and she has no money left. So I think about how despondent and how destitute she must have felt at times.

That no one was able to give her any hope. But she'd heard about Jesus, and there was something in her that recognized His divinity and His ability to perform miracles. And she said to herself, I'm just going to get there, and if I can touch the hem of His garment, that is going to be enough to heal me. And what I found in writing the book is that during that time, she would have likely been considered unclean because of her bleeding issues.

So she wouldn't have been allowed to be around other people or in the temple or in the markets or with crowds or anything. So she's breaking all of the norms to go and find Jesus. And when she meets Him, He's actually on the way to the house of a religious leader whose daughter is dying.

And the man is, please come with me. He falls down before Jesus. Despite what many of the religious leaders thought about Him at the time, this man humbles himself and says, please come to my daughter. So as they're on their way to that, this woman doesn't ask anything, doesn't try to have a conversation with Jesus, or to even touch Him.

She just touches the hem of His garment. We're told in the Gospels, immediately she was healed. She knew it. Jesus knew it.

Jesus knew that some power had gone out from Him in healing her. And knowing that He knows everything, I mean, He turns around and says, who touched me? To one of His disciples. And I'm thinking, the disciples probably almost halfway chuckling with Him, like, hey, everybody's trying to touch you all the time.

We're in this crowd. But Jesus knew who it was. And she knew that He knew it was her. And we're told in all of the accounts that she falls before Him, trembling in fear because she knows she's not supposed to be there.

She didn't ask permission for this healing or to reach out and touch even His garment. And she confesses the whole story to Him and is there laying on the ground before Him in fear. And in every account, the first thing that He says to her is, daughter.

I think that's so beautiful. He's telegraphing to her and to anybody who was there and knows her story, knows she shouldn't even be out of her home. That she's done the right thing, that breaking the norms was okay, that coming to Him and reaching out to Him was the right thing to do. And He said to her, your faith has made you whole. I mean, He gives her credit for the faith.

It's clearly His divine power. But I just love that no matter what we're struggling with, no matter what the rules are or the norms are, it's always going to be the right thing to go to Christ. And He's always going to welcome us, no matter our circumstances.

We don't have to clean up our act and have everything together and be super solidly mature through our struggles. I mean, we can come to Him in whatever state we're in and He's going to see us that same way. You know, and that is extraordinary. And this is something that so many of us in this journey of, like you said, you were trying to find a diagnosis.

You couldn't even find somebody to give you the right diagnosis. And with your husband, you know, we're going to try this, we're going to try this. So it really resonated evidently with you. And so many of the listeners of this program are dealing with these things which just seem interminable.

Or they know that when it does end, it's going to end in a pretty ugly place. And that's a message of encouragement that I wanted people to be able to hear today. They hear me, but I wanted them to hear you. And I want to hear other people. You know, they get tired of my voice.

I'm sure they don't. But right, I mean, we all have different perspectives. Indeed. And I got two more questions for you about some things.

Well, actually three. First off, when you are bringing the news that you bring every night, and I usually catch you because I catch you right after Gutfell, but I won't call you evil like he does. But I catch you on there and you have, you know, you're so vibrant, you're welcoming and everything else. And yet you're having to bring hard things to the American people when you do this. That must be incredibly difficult for you to do that.

And we only got like 30 seconds left. But tell us about how your faith sustained you through that again. Yeah, I mean, there are definitely those times and certainly COVID, I think, was one of those years for everybody. But the fact is, you know, like I said, God wants us to lay our burdens. He says, cast your cares on me, come to me in prayer and with thanksgiving, make all your requests being made known to God. He wants to hear our burdens and bear them for us. And sometimes whatever job you do, I'm sure it becomes overwhelming.

But God is in that and he's got a purpose where he's got you. Amen. Well, thank you very much for that, Shannon. I'm sorry we just ran out of time. We'll have to do this again. I hope we can have you back on. But thank you so much. This is Shannon Breen. Her book is called The Women of the Bible Speak. And you can catch Shannon Breen every weeknight at 12 p.m. Eastern time when she anchors Fox News at night. We'll be right back.