Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #293: 'Courage, Dear Heart' Author, Rebecca K. Reynolds

<LYRICS>Hymns, Prayers and Invitations</LYRICS> The latest album from Rick Lee James has garnered praise from CCM Magazine, Worship Leader Magazine, UTR Media and more. Written and arranged using hymnals and prayer books for inspiration, this collection of 10 modern hymn-like worship songs will inspire individuals and congregations to draw near to the heart of God. <LYRICS>—Holy name of God.</LYRICS> Highlights include Christ Is Lord, inspired by St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer, Advent Hymn, and the communion hymn, The Invitation. Worship leaders will be glad to know that all songs on the album are published through Lifeway Worship. Find hymns, prayers, and invitations on Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and at Rick Lee James.com. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I am so glad that you could be here with us this week. My guest today is author Rebecca Kay Reynolds. Rebecca is a humanities instructor in a classical Christian school. She's also a lyricist for Ron Block of Alison Krauss and Union Station. In addition to that, she also writes for an award-winning music artist named Andrew Peterson, who has been on this show numerous times. He has a website that she writes for called The Rabbit Room and a sister website called The Story Warren. She has also been a featured speaker at their annual national gatherings, Hutch Moot and Inkwell. Rebecca Reynolds, welcome to Voices in My Head podcast today.

Thanks for having me, Rick. I appreciate it.

Well, I appreciate you being here, and I know your schedule is busy. You're in the middle of moving, you've got a book, you've been speaking at Hutchmoot, you've got a little bit of a scratch in your throat, and in spite of all that, you still made it today. So thank you so much for being here. Well, you're welcome.

I'm looking forward to talking with you.

I want to read a description of your book that I found online that I think describes a lot of it very well as we begin today. It says, our world is chaotic and often feels dark and devoid of hope. And it's not just the headlines we see every day. Our relationships are broken. A loved one's health is failing. We're distorted and restless and wrestling with fear. These things are the reality of living in a fallen world, but our God is over that world. He is present in the midst of the daily ache of life. He loves us in the midst of that ache. In a series of 11 letters, Rebecca Reynolds writes to the lonely, the weary, and the restless and afraid, anyone who feels the ache of our broken world and their broken life, and provides perspective and hope to find where God is in the midst of it. You'll need to connect to the internet first. I don't know why Siri's talking to me right now, but she is.

Hold on. Siri wants you to connect.

She must want to be on the podcast. But anyway, all that is— Let's talk to Siri about Jesus. That's right, let's get Siri saved today. Oh my, I don't know what happened there. I've never had that happen. That's kind of awesome. Well, you know, it's interesting because my first question after reading the description of that book, which is a very good description of it, you write with such empathy. And you take great care in addressing your readers and their particular needs that they may be facing. And this book feels like a safe place to land in all our brokenness and all our hurt and our bad choices and even our good choices that went wrong. And it's one thing to write from a place of empathy, but I wonder, do you, Rebecca, yourself consider yourself an empathetic person?

Well, with most people I guess. I mean, there— don't you think that we all connect more easily with some personality types than others?

Oh, that's true. Yes.

You know, so most of the time with most people, I, I feel empathy for them. There's some people just kind of irritate me, and I have to, I have to pray for Jesus to help me love them. But yeah, I mean, in general, my personality type, if you know, some people have said that Myers-Briggs is just not really legit or whatever, but for what it's worth, I'm an INFJ, and so I tend to feel what other people feel, you know, and take it in pretty easily.

So, well, you know, it's, it's very interesting. I'm, I'm a big fan of Fred Rogers and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and all that, and I actually, I run a Twitter account that I just quote Mr. Rogers all the time, and we've got about 16,000 people that follow that. And that's so cool. They just love Mr. Rogers. And one thing that I find is there's a lot of empathy there with someone like Fred Rogers. And as I read your book, I felt, to me, that same empathy coming from you. And even though you say, you know, there's people that rub you the wrong way, and that's true with all of us. I'm sure it was even true of Fred Rogers. But there's something about the way you write and the way that you even begin the book, writing to the people that you are writing to, telling them, you know, that this book is for you. There is such an empathetic feel to that, and it just welcomes you in. And so I— that's very unique. I don't find it very often. And I would tell friends when I was reading it in the beginning, I said, you know, I feel like it's rare that I say within the first chapter of a new book I'm reading, I feel like I'm being changed in some way because of the way I'm being invited in. But I do really feel that about this book, and it's been evidenced by that from not only my pastor who I shared it with, and then he went and bought copies, and then we've bought copies for other people. He's been using it in sermons. You've really hit what I think— and by the way, I credit this to the Holy Spirit's leading, not just to any person— but I think you've hit something that people are deeply feeling right now. I think we are In a Weary World. So with that in mind, I'm going to quit talking so much and let you talk, but I'd love for you to tell us the story of how this book came about and, and how you settled on exactly who you were writing for, being weary people, right?

Well, I'm glad that you said that because I asked the Lord, you know, when I was writing, to kind of show me what to say to the people that he loves. And I don't mean to claim any kind of divine inspiration or anything. That's not what I'm going for here. I'm just saying that if the Lord made us vessels for his Spirit, and if he knows who's out there struggling and grieving and trying to figure things out and fumbling and falling, then, you know, maybe he can use us to reach out to a couple of those people. It may not be to everyone. But he spent his life with 12 people and, you know, really focused on 3. And I know he had a ministry to others, but it's, you know, it's a sweet thing. Even if he had 25 people out there and he said, "Rebecca, I want to help those people know that they're loved through you," I think that would be well worth my time, you know? So, yeah, I tried to keep their hearts and their pains in mind as I was writing. You know, I was a pastor's wife for a long time, and we were on staff with the campus ministry, and now I'm a teacher. So I've always been in these fields where I've just been, I guess, around people in a kind of a position of trust where they will come and say, here's what's really going on behind the scenes. And so he's given me access to that place of trust in their hearts. And I guess, you know, after you hear some of the same sorrows over and over again. You just kind of want to say, okay, let's talk to the, you know, talk to this and let's, let's deal with this where people are right now. So, um, you know, culturally I think there's a lot going on right now, and I'm speaking out of where I am. So, you know, somebody who's living in a different part of the country or with a different demographic, they may see different things, but I feel like Christians are just uniquely exhausted right now because of some of what's happening in our culture. Mm-hmm. And people my age grew up watching a lot of theological fights. You know, we saw the Calvinist-Arminian fights, we saw the Young Earth, Old Earth creationist fight, and that was kind of juxtaposed against a lot of equipping resources that we had growing up. You know, if you do dating this way, if you do marriage this way, if you raise kids this way, everything's going to be fine, everything's going to work out. And This kind of, you know, meanwhile we're living this out, we're saying, wow, I tried this stuff and my life is still hard and I'm lonely because I'm seeing all these people in conflict and I don't, you know, I kind of adopt some parts of this theological worldview and other parts of this theological worldview, but people seem cold and they seem more Spock-like about it than that it's actually inside them changing them. And then we had the whole political mess come up, and that's tearing things apart even deeper. And so I think a lot of people— kind of reminds me of pictures you see of a culture after a bomb is dropped or a natural disaster has hit, and people are just kind of walking around shocked, saying, what is this?

You know, you know, I, I've said this a few times, but I, I liken it to after 9/11 happened. Yeah, in many ways, because there was such a sense of shock, like, what, what do we do now? You know, and Where do we go? And I feel like a lot of people in the church, especially because they've been told one thing about what it means to be a Christian their whole life and being grown up in it, and then all of a sudden all the people who taught them that are, you know, very supportive politically of people who are incredibly immoral. And you kind of— you're kind of like, well, now what do we do? You know, where do we walk around? But I've seen it time and time again, and I felt that. And I even felt like the title of your book was inspired in helping us kind of enter into the place that we needed to go with just that great C.S. Lewis line of "Courage, dear heart." And sometimes just hearing a phrase like that is so helpful and so driven by the Holy Spirit. And yeah, it reminds me that we're not forgotten too, you know. And that's something that I think your book does is it it helps us to see the hope that maybe we've lost sight of in many ways. Right.

I think that if— I'm sorry.

No, no, please go ahead.

Yeah, I think that if some of the people who are rallying right now politically understood what it was actually doing to certain Christians, I think they would tone it down some. I don't think they're trying to do a bad thing. I think that they're, you know, and I'm very, very conservative politically, so I'm not— it's not like I'm coming from a place of, um, you know, you know, some sort of a leftist progressivist, you know, stance. Um, in some ways I think, I think it's hardest to be a conservative right now because I think we're just going, wait a minute, this is, this is not what we're about. And meanwhile the gospel is being hurt, and, and yet we love the people that are rallying behind. It's not like they're strangers, we know them and we've grown up with them. And so And they're trying to, from their perspective, they're trying to help America survive. I might not agree with what they think will help America survive, but they're trying to help people. And yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's true.

Well, I'd love to write something because we're talking a little bit about the cost of things, and I love this quote by Pete Peterson, and if you don't mind, I want to read it. Sure. He says, "I've always known Rebecca Reynolds had a book in her." Speaking of this book that we're talking about, Courage to Your Heart. Says, "She's one of the best writers I know and also one of the best thinkers and one of the most caring people. I know these things because over the years I've butted heads with her from time to time and I've always ended up wiser for the bruises, no matter who came out on top. And I also know this book cost her a lot to write. Maybe that's part of what makes it so good." So I'd love to just ask you that question. Which, which, by the way, Pete is such a great writer himself, so that's a wonderful compliment he's given you. Yeah, yeah. But I'd love to know— I, I don't expect you to share everything, but I do wonder, what did it cost you to write a book like this, which dives into so much of people's pain?

Yeah, um, well, first off, I love Pete's writing too. He's one— I had 5 people in mind whose writing I really admire, and I thought if I can not in terms of the soulfulness of it, but in terms of the technique. He was one of the people whose opinion really mattered to me, so artistically, because he doesn't allow people to lie, you know. He really lives by that 'a thing resounds when it rings true' kind of goal. So I love that Pete wrote that. I cried when I read it. Oh, Pete, you should— if you haven't read his Frankenstein yet, it's brilliant. It's the best stage play I've ever seen. Oh really?

I love Frankenstein, and I've seen that he's been putting on the play, but I'd love to see it.

Yeah, we, we drove 5 hours to see it. I've never wanted to rush a stage more and grab a character. The monster was so dear and so pitiful, and I loved him so much. So yeah, if it comes to your area, grab it. Definitely. Um, okay, so the cost, you know, you can't really talk about the worst things when you're asked a question like this in public because You know, it's just stuff is still ongoing, but I can tell you this, it was just like a perfect storm hit, um, and it could have been coincidence. I don't want to just say, oh, we're right in the middle of spiritual warfare. What I mean, this stuff could have happened anyway, but it definitely impacted what I was feeling when I wrote. Dad had a heart attack, and right after that, Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. She's not a smoker. Both my parents are athletic, and we just weren't expecting any of this. We had job difficulties that were really hard and financial problems and some family stuff, and it was just disorienting. I mean, it was just— you think when you're gonna write a book you're gonna have this like Joe March moment. You're gonna go to a coffee shop and have a cool hat and drink a, I don't know, a flat white, and it's not like that.

It was just Well, and forgive me for interrupting you for one moment, but you even write in the book— I don't know the timetable of this, but you even write in the book of being chased by someone with a knife, um, at some point. And I'm thinking, who is this person? That's, you know, is this Job? But anyway, please, please continue. I, I just had to interject that.

Yeah, that was weird. That— I was 16.

That was a long time. Oh, okay.

Well, yeah, it hasn't happened recently. Uh, yeah, but it was, you know, It was hard on me artistically because I wanted to have this seamless, flawless book that was just kind of like, you know, in your mind you think, I want to have something that's a classic, and I wasn't able to accomplish that. I was— it— there's some weak spots in it and places that I wish I could have changed, but it was very honest, and I was able to keep the people that I care about in mind the whole time I was writing, if that counts. You know. Certainly. And I prayed through it all. So yeah, well, and I couldn't write from strength because I was hurting too much.

Well, isn't it amazing how, you know, I think in those moments we find what we're told in scripture about God's strength being perfect when ours is gone. And I think especially in our writing and our art and things that we try to endeavor in, so often that is so true that Yeah, God enters in and does something much bigger than we are even capable of in those moments, for sure. Um, I hope so.

I hope, I hope it helps some people.

Well, it certainly is. I know it's been helping me. And, um, and well, and also, encourage, dear heart, you joke that some of your best friends are dead writers, and I, I'd love for you just talk a little bit about that because I think it's very endearing and I get it, but I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

Well, I think that was probably the sweetest part of writing a book for me. You know, I used to dive into it when I felt lonely. Not just— I mean, you can have an intellectual loneliness, right, that a writer like Chesterton or Lewis or Sayers can help with. But there's also just sort of a camaraderie, you know, you can get in there and go, "Oh yeah, you know, we could actually be friends." But then I started writing a book and I realized, no, they did love me. Like, they thought about me and they prayed for me like I'm praying for these people. And, um, yesterday I was pushing a cart in a parking lot at grocery, and I just felt this like warm rush inside me. I thought, I bet somebody's out there reading my book. Like, I'm praying for them right now. I don't know what their story is, but God be with them and help them and help them know you love them. You know, it was just like this connection kind of thing that it wasn't just while I was writing, and it's still there. Like, like there's this unseen string that goes from my heart out there to theirs. And that string also comes from the writers we love, yeah, through time and space and to us. And it's like every once in a while you get a little tug. And I know that— I know now they loved us. I know for sure. I think that's awfully sweet.

That's a great perspective. And, and, you know, you think of it, it's the same with music too, because You know, I write songs and I try that same thing. And how many times have I prayed when writing, you know, Lord, you know what Rich Mullins was to me. If I could only be something like that, you know, for a person as I write. Or the times that doesn't even have to be a new song, like, yeah, I'll go to an old Andrew Peterson, like, After the Tears Fall or something, After the Last Tear Falls. And even though it's an old song, it's like, wow, it's just fresh and I needed it in that moment. And, and I— so I get that, I get that from whether you're writing songs, whether you're writing books, or making TV shows, or movies, or whatever it might be. I think there is that, hopefully, that love for the people that you're writing for, and I really appreciate the way you state that. So while we're on the subject of dead writers and live writers, Courage, Dear Heart itself is taken from a phrase from C.S. Lewis, and you return to the writings of Lewis again and again in this book. And I'd love to know, what is— what does C.S. Lewis mean to you personally?

Well, I hope I didn't quote him too much. You know, if you could see all the quotes I took out—

no, it was just— it was just right. But you can definitely tell he's an influence, for sure.

Honestly, if I could take all the people who read my book and make them read Lewis instead, I would make them read Lewis because he's such a brilliant, good, good man. And, um, You know, I wonder sometimes why people have continued writing after the grades were done. I just think, go back and read them first. Sure. But, you know, I feel like the reason I resonate with him is because he doubted so hard for so long, and he wrestled and he fought against Christianity, and he didn't have like the simplistic mind, and he foresaw a lot of the dangers. I don't know if you've read his Meditation on the Third Commandment, but It's incredible. And he could see way back then some of the stuff that was coming on Christianity. But he also saw the value of myth. And I don't mean myth as an untrue. I mean, he saw what narrative really does and why we need it. And there are a lot of people who did that. Chesterton and Tolkien also saw that. But I feel like Lewis stayed so human and so humble And he didn't really— I don't know, I just— he could have elevated himself more with a mind like his, and he chose to really stay close to the earth and just be a friend. And I just, I love that about him so much.

And, and yeah, that maybe he couldn't have avoided that too. I mean, the only— the loss that he faced, you know, in his life, and maybe it kept him in that place. And, and I, I don't disagree with you. And I, and I have not read that meditation. I'm gonna have to read that one. There's so many Lewis books that I know, so many I've read and so many I have not. And so that's definitely one I want to look up now. But you know, while we're speaking of him, I love this. I'm gonna mix a little of his writings with your writing from your book, and I'd love to have you speak to this just a little bit. Okay. Because you, you are one of the most artful writers that I personally have ever come across. And I tell people all the time, Rebecca doesn't waste a word. Like there's not a sentence in there that is wasted, to me anyway. And I want to share an example of that in case people haven't read the book yet. And after you share the story of Aslan whispering "Courage, dear heart" to Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia, you write this to your readers. So this is me quoting you now. So, courage, dear heart, I know you are tired. I know the darkness is thick and the way is longer and harder than you ever expected it to be, but God sees you. He hurts with you and he welcomes your honesty. Even to the ends of the earth, he will lead you on. So here's the question for you: why do you, Rebecca Reynolds, believe that, and what has convinced you that this is true?

Well, Some days I believe it more than others, you know. I mean, it's not like the kind of thing that you grasp and you keep forever. It's like our Achilles heel, you know. You've got that little spot where, uh, was it Thetis who dipped Achilles in the River Styx and missed a couple spots? We have that. I think it's— I think our enemy knows that if we doubt that we're accepted and loved then he's going to defeat us so much easier, at least in the short term. He's going to be able to get us to do things and think things that are, you know, even just to despair. And maybe there are people who either are so deep, so seasoned in their faith that they never doubt God's love, or maybe just have a beautiful childlike simplicity. But I'm not one of those people. So I guess I wrote about this because I struggle with it a lot. Um, I worry that I'm too strong for him, which I know doesn't make any sense. You know, I, I guess I'm afraid he's gonna go, um, you know, I'm just— I'm gonna leave you alone because you've got all these wars that you're trying to fight. Or, or maybe I go into theology proper and I start to try to pick everything apart and kind of vivisect it instead of walking with God like Enoch did, you know, just walking simply with him. So I have to fight to walk from that really simple place of he is the truth and he loves me. You know, it's just almost too beautiful and too simple to be true, it seems like. So we have to— it takes faith even to just get reoriented in that center, doesn't it? And by the— do you, do you struggle with that?

Oh, certainly. Yeah, I do. We probably all do in some way, I imagine. But, you know, you write about it so eloquently, I figured you just figured it out, you know. Now, now there's a sense in which I think the truth that we present is it's not a truth that we're exempt from, and it's a message that we also need to hear again and again, you know. That's what we learn again and again from the prophets in scripture. It's even though they're bringing this truthful message to us, we don't know that they really have got it yet themselves.

Yeah, I mean, we have to preach the gospel to ourselves. That's right. I feel like, you know, I used to not like the Horse and His Boy very much My husband always said it was the best of the series, and I said, no, no, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I've come to agree with him, and mostly because of Shasta running and running and running and running. And why are all these lions everywhere? And yeah, I'm so tired and I can't do this anymore. And I think there's a maturity that happens in that process. And every time we hit that, does he really love me? Does he, you know can I really depend upon that? Then we grow a little bit more. And if we don't struggle, then we can't grow. So I don't know, I just think it's part of it.

Yeah, well, you said it very well. We— if you don't struggle, you don't grow, that's for sure. Yeah. Well, letter 7, I want to get to that one today because that one really resonated with me personally. And as we kind of started the show talking about people who are weary, I think this at least shows one side of that, you know, maybe a person who is younger in their faith and has grown up in the church and felt a certain way. So this letter, number 7, personally for me, more than any other letter in the book, it resonated. And it starts with you telling the story of a student who was upset and came knocking on your door asking you if you had a minute to talk. And I love to have authors read their own words, and you did it so well on the audiobook, so I hate to ask you to recreate it, but I'm going to ask you anyway. I would you mind reading this passage from that book? Because I think it really helps us to hear some of the— maybe at least one side of why people are struggling so much right now. Sure. Okay.

A student knocked on my door. Mrs. Reynolds, do you have a minute to talk? I could tell she was upset, so I pulled up a chair and closed the classroom door to give her space to vent. Ever since I can remember, she said, people have been telling me that the Christian faith is under attack. They've warned me about humanists, relevists— sorry, relativists— evolutionists, globalists, communists, universalists, and liberals. They prepared me for every single argument, but they didn't prepare me for my disappointment in the church. I wanted heroes, but I don't admire most of the Christians I know. On social media, they forward links to these weird sites, stuff that's almost never legit. They don't take time to actually look up the facts. If you try to talk to them in person about what's going on in the world, they don't listen to you. Even if you show them valid research, they interrupt you before you can explain explain it, calling everything that they don't like fake news, even if it's undeniably true. They're frantic, angry, scared. Their leaders are proud. Their social movements are selfish and hateful. Truth doesn't matter to them. It just doesn't. No matter what politicians in their political party have done, they overlook it. All my life they've told me to be moral, and that's been hard, but I've done it. I haven't slept around. But it doesn't matter that I've held on. I see now that purity means nothing to them. It's just something they tell kids to keep them from getting pregnant. She was nearly in tears. "What else?" I asked, wanting to hear it all out before I said anything. Then came the part that really got me. "You know," she said, "I've thought about this a lot. I would be willing to die for my faith." at least I think I would be. God's real. He's worth dying for. Watching adults who have lived 20 or 30 years longer than I have act as they're acting right now makes me wonder if this whole Christianity thing is real at all. If older Christians are showing me where this faith is going, I don't want to go with them. I don't want to be on that team.

Wow, that is a haunting passage for sure. That's a haunting conversation to have, and yet it's one that I hear day after day after day. And I wonder if you— do you run into that a lot with your students?

Yeah, and you know, when I— everything that I wrote in the book, I tried to synthesize so it wouldn't be just one person's, sure, you know, thing, because technically you're not really supposed to just relay one person's thing. So, um, this, this has happened with different students, not just in my school, but different young people in different situations. So yeah, and it breaks my heart to watch it because these kids are kids that have been loved and taken to the Truth Project and taken to one preparatory after another. It's not that they don't know how to fight the secular world, is they don't know what to do with how we're behaving right now.

Hmm, wow, that's a, that's a powerful, a powerful thought. And I, I don't even know what to say about it exactly other than it should give all of us, uh, who are in the faith pause and to think. And if we could do anything right now You know, I don't think necessarily what's going to help in our current environment is to shout louder, but I think if we got quieter, we might actually have some moments to hopefully allow the Holy Spirit to adjust our hearts and realize that there really are people being hurt by the things that are in the air right now, so to speak.

Yeah, I think that if some of the grandparents and, you know, some of the angry people really saw what was happening in the lives of their grandchildren. And if they could really see eternity— and, you know, I'm not saying we need to be passive politically. I think we have a moral obligation to be active in a democratic republic, but we have to do things in the power of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, fear and fury and chaos, those don't come from the Lord, they're from the enemy. And And, you know, I think it's a matter of— I think the Lord will show us what to do for our country and for the world if we will trust him and walk with him. I don't think we have to let the commies take over, you know. I think we can be responsible citizens without letting bad things lead us.

No, I agree with you. And I think part of it too is in the church. We've not done a great job of getting what the kingdom of God is either, I think, because almost in many ways we've married church life so much with conservative politics that we've almost made it like, oh well, that's what the kingdom of God must be. And in reality, it's, it's so much different than anything on either the liberal or conservative side of what we talk about in American politics. And the kingdom of God I mean, we see it in Luke 4 when Jesus is quoting Isaiah and he's talking about what his mission is, you know, and, and to come and give sight to the, the blind and, and help to the oppressed and release to the captives and things like that. And, and that sounds very different than a lot of what I hear from Christians these days, which sounds a lot more like that person needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps even if they don't have boots, you know. And it doesn't, it doesn't really resonate with the gospel for me, right? Um, and so it's, it's, it's a good time for us to be a reflective people and not a reactive people, uh, to be the people who are actually empowered by the Spirit to, to speak truth when it's necessary and to speak truth into the hard places. And as, as the phrase goes, even if your voice shakes, um, at times when you're doing it, right? But this is, uh, this book is a help up in this time. And I think it does give courage to the heart. Again, I, I think you're a very artful writer, but I think you've been led from, um, from a very Spirit-led place. And it hit my life at a very good moment when I needed it, for sure. And I think my family and, and some people around me— and my pastor right now is doing a whole series on anxiety and, and learning what it means to cast our anxiety upon the Lord. And So it's just— your book was just perfectly timed in this manner. So I know our conversation time is starting to run a little bit closer to an end, but before I get into a couple more questions I had for you that are not exactly about the book today, I do just want to refer everyone listening, if you haven't had a chance to check out Rebecca Reynolds' book, Courage, Dear Heart, it really is worth your time, and it's worth your time reading it again and reading it slowly and just sort of allowing it to devotionally sink in as you read it. And that's a very special and unique thing, I think, in our times. So thanks, Rick. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for the book. I appreciate it. Um, on a different subject, because we could talk about your book for a while, but I want people to read it, so I'm gonna allow them to do that. I, I love music, and I love Ron Block and Alison Krauss and Union Station and all these people. And so on a different subject, I just would love to know, because I know you're one of the lyricists for Ron Block, and I'd just love to know how you got involved with that.

Oh, Ron is a great guy. You know, I always wanted an older brother, and that's something God gave me later in life. Um, Ron and I were friends on the Rabbit Room. We were in a group with other people talking about theology, and It's kind of embarrassing what happened. He kept saying that he liked my poetry, and I had heard that he played guitar, but I didn't know who he was. And so one day we were talking and I said, hey, I heard you play guitar, we had to try writing some songs together. I always wanted to do that, be fun. And he could tell that I didn't know who he was. And, um, yeah, so he sent me a demo back and I said, man, you're really good, really good. My mom was a classical pianist and like, you could really be a musician. And I I felt so stupid. I don't remember how it happened, but I Googled him and, and I realized, because he's so humble, like he didn't, he didn't come out and be like, I'm Ron Block, I have 13 Grammys, or how, you know, double award. I don't— it's still— I guess the Lord just kind of put a little cloud over me that I didn't comprehend, because I would have never have— it would have never worked out like this. But by then we had such a sweet friendship that it wasn't you know, it was very natural and we could just create from like two kids making stuff. Um, that's great.

Well, that probably, that probably endeared, uh, you to him a bit too, because, you know, I think that's probably a compliment. Well, and, and not that I'm going to compare him with Paul McCartney because he doesn't have that level of fame or anything, but can you imagine if Paul McCartney ever met somebody that didn't know who he was and was just like, hey, yeah, you want to, you know, want to hang out sometime? Or, you know, because because, you know, the interesting thing about that is he would probably just eat that up because he's always, you know, he's always like, oh, you're Paul McCartney, you know, type thing.

Oh my gosh. Um, so it probably—

that probably did as much to, uh, endear you to him, I'm sure, as anything else. I love that story though. And I thought he was a theologian.

And so there was this moment when I was like, wait, there's a Ron Block banjo. Why is there a banjo with his name on it?

Oh, that's great. Oh my gosh. And in case people don't know, Ron is a, is a very, uh, well-known musician, really among musician circles, but I don't know that he's a household name that a lot of people know. But he does travel with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and, and, uh, and I've never met him personally, but I've, I've had so many mutual friends that know him and describe him in that exact same way as just such a humble person. And I've listened to him for a while now and have a lot of admiration for him. So I love hearing that story. That might be my favorite part of this podcast, that you just didn't know who he was. You know, you really ought to try music someday. You're good. You know what?

He really needs to write a book. His theology is— and you'll understand more of why I didn't know about the other one, you like really get into it. His writing and his thinking. And he's just a unique, wise theologian for our times. And a lot of my book actually comes from Ron's perspective on things. I kind of fought with him for about 4 or 5 years and then decided he was right.

Oh, so those are great friends to have. I mean, it's wonderful when you can have that kind of spirited dialogue, for sure, like the Inklings getting together. So He's the best. He's the best. Well, Rebecca, this has been a really great time, and I don't want to take too much of your time. I know you're a very busy person, but it's been a pleasure for me. And I know this book is going to continue encouraging a lot of people on the way. I appreciate your humility in writing it. I appreciate the way that you write, but more than anything, I appreciate the way that you seem to allow God to just move in you and you speak his heart through your heart in what you do. So I just want to thank you for that today.

Well, thanks for letting me talk, and I appreciate it. It's been fun to get to know you a little bit.

Well, the book is called Courage, Dear Heart: Letters to a Weary World, and I highly recommend it. Rebecca Kay Reynolds is the author. Rebecca, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing on my author page on Amazon. There's also the Voices in My Head Facebook community found at facebook.com/groups/VoicesInMyHead. /voicespodcast. And if you want to follow my alter ego on Twitter, follow my popular Mr. Rogers quote account found @MrRogersSay. Also, make sure to follow my appearance schedule on my website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website at rickleejames.com/bookings. And it would mean the world to me if you would write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction. May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen you in your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.