[0:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of Tell Us a Good Story. Today, I have a few questions for you. Do you think your family is dysfunctional? Do you come from a rough family? And do you ever feel like you’ve been dealt a bad hand in life? If you answered yes to any of those, wait until you hear this story. Friends, meet the co-founder of Elevation Worship and his wife, the CEO of Proverbs 31 Ministries, Mack and Meredith Brock. Okay, you guys, this is such an inspiring story. Meredith went from poverty in a very chaotic childhood to the CEO of a large organization. Their families and upbringings could not be more different. And yet, here they are celebrating 18 years of marriage with three adorable children. Steph, this is just an incredible story. Like, how many things can go wrong in your life before you finally get a break? And, folks, listen to the great advice they give at the end of this for anyone who might be going through the toughest time in your life right now. You guys, we can’t wait for to hear this conversation with our new friends, Mac and Meredith Brock.

[1:04] I’m Kevin. And I’m Stephanie. And during our marriage, we have dealt with an electrocution, a brain tumor, brain surgery. Then doctors telling us that children were not in our future, followed by miscarriage, and then Kevin’s cancer diagnosis. However, today we live a life completely healed and restored with three healthy children who doctors said were not possible. And we’re here to tell stories that inspire, give hope, and brighten your day. Welcome to… Tell us a good story.

[1:33] Okay, friends, before we get to this episode, just a friendly reminder to please hit the subscribe button on YouTube and Apple Podcasts or give us a review. Five stars, please. In our world, this is super, super important because it will help with the algorithm to make it easier for people to find us. And thank you for sharing our posts across your social media. That really helps with engagement and with us getting guests. Yes. So, hey, if you want us to keep working our way up to talking to Chip and Joanna, please share us with your friends. But regardless, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.

[2:06] All right. Well, friends, our next guests are a powerful team as husband and wife. One is a multi-platinum songwriter, recording artist, and one of the founding members of Elevation Worship. The other is a literary agent and the CEO of Proverbs 31 Ministries. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Tell Us a Good Story, Mac and Meredith Brock. Mac and Meredith. Eminem’s in the house. Hey, hey, what’s up? So good to be here. Thanks for having us. It is so nice to get to meet you, Meredith. And Mac, you are one of the few guests, right, that we’ve actually met in person. It was awesome. Yes. You were kind enough to invite us to Tim Tebow’s night, right, in Canton. And we got to meet you in person, which was amazing. It was so cool. I was like, does he, do you think he’ll remember us? Do you think he’s just going to run random people? I guess that could be stuff. Yeah, you do so many of these things on Zoom and then it’s just like rare. Like there have been a lot of times that I’ll meet people that I’ve only interacted with on Zoom, and it takes me a minute of like, hold on, I feel like I know you, but… I’ve never met you before in real life. So that was awesome to get to hang with you all that night. It was very nice. It was very special. And so you went up on stage, of course, at this event. You led worship for a little bit. And then Steph’s like, hey, can we leave now? I’m like, no, no, no, no.

[3:16] I was just there to see Mac. If I’m being honest with you, I was there to see Mac. And watch Tim Tebow here and Craig Rochelle. Yeah. So it was wonderful to meet you in person. And before we get to Meredith and her story, which I am dying to talk to your wife. I want to hear about your new album you just released. Yes. Oh, yeah. This is holy. Yes, I love it. I’m glad that it’s out in the world.

[3:39] You write songs and you collect songs and you don’t know where they’re all going to fit. And just kind of over the last couple of years, I’ve just been in the studio recording and then ultimately had a collection that I was like, oh, yeah, I want to release these out into the world. And there’s a lot of songs on there that I think are for the church that are songs that we can declare together. I think there are also a lot of songs that are just kind of personal songs just for like my own time of worship, you know, at the house. And I actually have a song that our daughter is on. Oh, nice. She’s nine. Her name is Cyrus. Her song is my favorite on the album. Oh, that’s fantastic.

[4:16] Okay, so how many songs are on the album? 11. 11. We wrote a ton. I mean, when you’re working on like a project like that or just kind of like collecting songs, there’s so many. It’s just hard to remember. hold on which ones did we actually record and put out so meredith when we talked to your husband right he was episode 206 okay when we talked to him at the end he’s like listen i feel like my wife would be a good person to talk to and this happens a lot where people hey you should talk to you know my kid or whatever and i’m like oh okay that’s nice and so then tells us your name and I look you up and I’m like.

[4:53] He somehow undersold you, Meredith. I’m watching interviews of you on the Joyce Meyer podcast and some other things. And I’m just like gasping, like, I want to talk to her. Like incredible background, incredible story. So with you, we look at you today, Meredith, and you are very successful, very professional. However, However, the journey you’ve been on to become the person you are today was wild. And I can only imagine how proud Mac is of you, your family is of you. But can you talk about the childhood and how you grew up in this dysfunction that a lot of people can probably relate to?

[5:31] Absolutely. Well, honestly, it’s always an honor to be able to share this story because it brings me back and reminds me of just the goodness of God and how he is in the business of reaching down into messes and plucking his children out of them.

[5:47] You know, and so my story really starts with my parents’ stories. My mom, when, and I won’t go into it too much, but my grandmother was a prostitute. And that sounds shocking. And honestly, up until a few years ago, I kind of thought that it was family lore, you know, like, really, really, guys? But just a couple years ago, I actually found out, and it was verified through another source, that she wasn’t just a prostitute, but she was a madam of multiple prostitution rings on multiple Air Force bases. And so my mother moved around. She never completed a school year in one place. She actually never completed more than an eighth grade education. So you can only imagine what she saw and experienced in life. Her dad was a pretty raging alcoholic. Her parents split. And by the.

[6:41] Decided she didn’t want to live anymore and was going to take her life. They were living in Alaska at the time, and she was actually walking through a mall trying to find the outfit she would wear when she took her life because she wanted to, I guess, look presentable. I don’t know. But some people from the Jesus People movement came up to her and asked her in the mall, do you know where you would go when you die? Yeah. She realized she didn’t. She had not really thought about that. They shared the gospel with her, and she gave her life to Jesus and really started pursuing the things of the Lord. Fast forward, I don’t know how long it was, but they, again, moved. My mom and my grandmother moved down to Idaho, where my mom meets my dad. My dad doesn’t come from too much better of a background. His dad was in the military, and so they moved around a lot.

[7:36] My dad’s dad, biological father, ends up passing away. He’s adopted by his stepdad, and his stepdad really, really hated him, to be quite honest. I don’t know where the fury came from, but he was very physically abusive to him and actually kicked my dad out when he was 16 years old. And so my dad was living on his own at 16, got very entrenched in the drug community, drinking, all that kind of stuff, meets my mom. My mom shares the gospel with him. He comes to know the Lord, and they’re like, we’re going to live for Jesus. But like it goes, old habits die hard, guys. And my mom got pregnant.

[8:12] And so they’re these new budding believers and they’re like, we want to do this right. And so they get married. And really, I have to give it to them. They did the very best that they could. But both of them bringing in such significant baggage into this marriage that they had never dealt with. I mean, my mom was 17 when she married my dad, pregnant with a baby. My dad was 18. Like I said, she had no more than an eighth grade education. And so I got to give it to them. They really did the best that they could. They ended up having five kids together, and they were married for 20 years. But throughout that process, as you can imagine, for lack of education and lack of opportunities, neither one of them could ever really secure a great job. And so we lived in poverty my whole life. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times, We were evicted from our houses and had no running water or no electricity or no heat just because we couldn’t make ends meet. Of the five kids, where are you at in order? I am number four. Number four. Yes, I’m right in the middle. Another one comes along from a stepdad later down the road. So there’s actually six of us.

[9:20] So my parents did the best they could. My dad quickly learned he can’t make ends meet. What’s the best way to make ends meet for him? And that is to begin selling drugs. And so that became kind of the environment that we lived in. Lots of drugs, lots of alcohol. My dad would leave and go do stuff and wouldn’t come back for weeks. Of the 20 years that they were married, my dad openly cheated on my mom for 17 of those.

[9:44] And occasionally they would bring us to church. And I don’t know, we would go through spots of being regular at church and then we wouldn’t go for years. And I remembered thinking to myself in the midst of all of that, like, wow, if this is what they believe, like, I think I’m going to pass. It’s not working real great for them. And so I’m not really interested. Did you live in fear or was it just, you were so conditioned that it was just a way of life for you? I was never, and that’s a very interesting question because fear becomes very much a part of my life later. As a child, I was never really afraid. My dad, I don’t know how much you guys have been around people who are drunk or high, but my dad, when he got drunk, He got fun, y’all.

[10:30] He was the life of the party. And so I never feared my father. I never feared my mother. I think I was bummed when we didn’t have food and running water and things like that. But I was never afraid until my mom met my stepdad. So after 20 years of marriage, 17 years of cheating, my mom finally just said, look, we’re, I can’t keep doing this, you know? And so they got divorced. I was in the fifth grade and I was like, whew, thank goodness it’s over. Cause I had really pinned all the bad stuff on my dad. And I felt like, man, he’s out of the picture now. And this is going to be great. My three older siblings move with my dad. So it ends up being me and my younger brother who are with my mom. My stepdad comes into the picture and he is a raging alcoholic and severely addicted to methamphetamines. And when he got high and drunk, it was just a raging nightmare. Angry, very abusive. He would break windows and throw things and hit people. I have a very vivid memory of him picking up my grandmother, bringing her to the front door and literally drop-kicking her out the front door. A very violent man.

[11:42] This episode is being presented to you by our good friend, Anthony J. Young. Anthony is a new author, speaker, and entrepreneur. And you can get his new book titled Necessary Pain, Understanding Passion on the Path to Greatness on Amazon or his website, anthonyjyoung.net. That’s right. His book came out recently and was a number one new release on Amazon when it launched. We are so proud of Anthony and his book will be a must read for the upcoming holiday season. You can go to Amazon or anthonyjyoung.net to get his new book. And thank you, Anthony, for being a proud sponsor of Tell Us a Good Story.

[12:18] Meredith, did you ever have the police show up? Do you ever have children’s services show up?

[12:24] Yeah, on a regular basis. Are you trained like, hey, kids, here’s what you say to a police officer. Here’s what you say to children’s services. Like, hey, don’t look at these marks on my arm.

[12:36] What do you do when that happens? Yeah, my mom very much put the fear of God in us that you do not tell anyone what is happening here or they’ll take you. They’ll take you away. And so I was, we were so scared that they were going to remove us. Now, the violence that happened, I don’t want to paint a picture that he never, I do have a scar on my chin from him, but I never received bruises. He never hit me in the face. It was more like shoving, tripping, smashing shoulders into you so that you smashed into the wall, but it was never fists to the face or anything like that. It was a lot more covert physical abuse from him to the children. He got sometimes a little bit more violent with my mom. Yeah. So that was like my middle school years. Eventually, it got to a point where we couldn’t pay the bills again. We got evicted, evicted, evicted. And there was a long season of about seven months during middle school where we really didn’t have anywhere to live. We jumped around from place to place and we did, but we didn’t have a home. And so after that period of time, my mom finally realized she could not take care of me and my younger brother anymore. My little sister had come along and she finally said, you need to go live with your dad. And so I went, we went and lived with my dad for a season. It wasn’t too much better, but my dad at least had, we had a roof over our head and that’s about it.

[13:57] And so fast forward, my mom leaves my stepdad. She kind of gets up on her feet. She starts cleaning houses and get some good clientele. So she’s stable. And so me and my younger brother are able to move back in with her into this teeny tiny little apartment, y’all. It was like one bedroom, a kitchenette and a living room. Okay. And in there lived me, my little brother, my little sister, my mom, my older sister who was pregnant and her boyfriend. Oh my gosh. It was wild. There were so many people, but I am here to tell you it was like the happiest time because we had all of our physical needs met. Yeah. And we were close. there wasn’t fighting there wasn’t it wasn’t afraid like all of it was we had started to stabilize physically and that’s really when oh you know all my physical needs started getting met and then my emotional needs that I had been shoving down for all those years just because you had to survive right started to bubble to the surface and I started letting myself actually think and wonder questions that I had never allowed myself to think before which was like does anybody like care that all of this has been happening to me my whole childhood? Yeah. And how old were you in those thoughts started happening?

[15:13] So it was my sophomore year in high school after those middle school years with my stepdad, that really those stabilization of like my physical needs. And then those emotional needs started to really come to the surface. And so I, somewhere along the road, guys, I don’t know where I adopted this thought. It was certainly not from my parents. I think maybe I watched too much PBS Kids, but I really believed that the only way out of my situation was to get a really good education. I was like, that’s it. Somebody told me about a scholarship and I was like, I think I need to get one of those. I don’t totally know what they are, but I need one. And so I, from a very young age, threw myself into school, very much. I was like, I’m going to get straight A’s. My mom, my dad could care less about my grades, but I was very driven. And so, All through middle school, all through high school, all through that chaos, like on the outside, I didn’t look like a kid that was living in that environment. I was getting straight A’s. I was the captain of the cheerleading squad. I was in the National Honor Society. I was in the Latin Club, Key Club, everything you could think of that didn’t cost money.

[16:25] I was a part of. And so by the time I hit my sophomore year and all those emotional needs started to bubble up, I was like, well, I think if I just do better in school, my teachers will love me. People will respect me, you know, because that will fill this hole in this wanting that I had. And that didn’t work. And so then it was like, well, then I’ll just get a boyfriend, you know, and haste after boys. And then when that didn’t work, I did what was most readily available to me and started using drugs and drinking and those kinds of things. So it was there in that place that I started to realize i needed something more but meredith how do you how do you hide this from teachers right from adults and then from your friends from friends and then in today’s world when you see a child can you point it out can you see a child you’re like hey they need help like can you just from your past experience can you just notice it immediately yeah well i mean i was trained at a very young age to to fake it yeah you know like my mom even though all that chaos was going on. My mom, I cannot even tell you how many times my parents talked about like, clean your face. I mean, we looked from the outside. We didn’t look like what you think we looked like.

[17:42] And so I do think I will tell you this. I believe wholeheartedly that there were teachers that were very suspicious of what was going on. And there was a sixth grade teacher, Mr. Lithgow. I’ll never forget him. I think he was very suspicious. He had like four or five kids. He would pick me up on the weekends, y’all, and just bring me to the school while he graded papers and let me just hang out in the gymnasium with his kids. Just to get away from your family. He would go on family hiking trips and come pick me up and take me on family hiking trips. Miss Keeney, my cheerleading coach, there were multiples of them that I think they saw my drive and my desire to do well in school, but they were like, nobody knows who her mom is. where are her parents? Like no one shows up to anything that she’s doing. You know, I had to, I forged all my parents’ signatures on every single form forever.

[18:34] Like that was just part of the process, you know? And so I do think there were people that had suspicions, but I was so good at holding it together that they never really prodded too much. You know, I was performing well, so they weren’t concerned in that regard, but I think they saw that. Ooh, this is right on the edge. This girl’s right on the edge. I will say I pick up on things that Mac doesn’t pick up on. Very much so in our children’s friends or in other environments where I’m like, Ooh, let’s pull that kiddo close. There’s something going on there. But I think I don’t know if I sense it or if I even see if I could even tell you particulars that I see, but I can feel it. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll say we’ve had several people live in our house over the years and various stages of life. And there are a lot of times where Meredith will be like, oh, so-and-so was like very high tonight. And I’m just like, really? I didn’t notice anything.

[19:31] It was just like way over my head. So I’m grateful, you know, for our family that we have someone like Meredith that is like looking out because I’m just like, la-da-da-da-da. It’s like everything is fine. Pastor’s kid didn’t get to see what I saw. I was so going to say that. That sounds like Kevin. That is totally me. I’m like, if you say, hey, they’re on drugs, I’m like, hey, it must be marijuana because that’s like the only drug out there, right? So, I’m the same way, brother. We love the innocence, guys. We really do. What a beautiful thing. Yes, Meredith. Yes.

[20:08] So, anyway, y’all, by the time I was in high school and had really like gone down the academics road, gone down the boys road, gone down the drugs and alcohol road, I was really in a dark place. It was actually, it was the summer before my senior year. And I made a bunch of really dumb decisions. I ended up getting a minor alcohol consumption ticket, which was a really big deal to me because it put at risk a lot of my academic achievements, you know, and things like that. It was very scary to me because I had worked so hard. I had a boyfriend who cheated on me with my best friend, which was super devastating. And because of those two events, I ended up making a really bad choice and doing way too many drugs one night and probably very close to taking my life, like overdosing on it. Woke up the next day terrified and very like this weight of realizing where, where I really was. You know, I was 17 years old and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can tell you even where I was at. I was in that tiny little apartment,

[21:07] And realizing I’m 17 years old, and I have worked so hard to not be like my family. And here I am, just like my mom at 17, who almost took her own life. I’m just like them, you know. And so going to my senior year, and this gal named Emily Bankhead was a Young Life leader and just would not stop asking me to come to Young Life.

[21:35] And so, bless her heart, I just think that the Lord, this is what I mean when I say the Lord just reaches down and plucks people out of their disasters, you know. And so he had put on Emily’s heart to pray for me and to really target me. And she would not give up, y’all. She invited me over and over and over again. And when I finally had gotten to that place of despair, I was like, fine, I’ll go to Young Life with you.

[22:00] So I went and I had heard the gospel before. It wasn’t the first time I had gone to church on and off. But because of where I was at, I realized I have got to do something else. And so all alone in my room one night, I was like, okay, God, if you are real, I will do what you say. I’m going to read your word. I’m going to do that weird thing that they all keep saying that you’re supposed to journal, whatever that is. And I will give my life to you, but I’m not going to tell anybody because I don’t want to be manipulated by other people. This has got to be me and you, and you’ve got to make the changes that you promised that you will. And so over, there wasn’t some big lightning bolt moment in my room in that moment, guys. It was just over a matter of weeks and months of reading my Bible, writing what I thought I understood in the Bible into this journal and allowing some of my heartache to pour out in prayer to God, even though I didn’t know that’s what was happening at the time, the weight of all that hurt and trauma began to lift, and I started to find hope again.

[23:10] Friends, we have been asked to speak at a few events recently in regards to sharing some of our story, and it has been an absolute honor. We have a lot of personal stories to share that will hopefully inspire, encourage, and maybe even make you laugh. So if you’re hosting some type of event or need a guest speaker, we’re here to help. That’s right. Just go to kevinandsteph.com and click on the contact button. Like Steph said, let us know if we can be of help in any way, whether it’s our personal testimony of healing and hope or me just telling some jokes. Oh God, please, you guys, please don’t ask him to do that. But seriously, just go to kevinandsteph.com to contact us. And as always, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.

[23:50] And so i went up and worked at this camp called malibu why they call the camp malibu in canada still lost on me um but you’re like what is what is this the brochure was completely different, yeah there are zero palm trees here um but i went to to this camp i met this couple named caleb and tracy richardson who are from alaska once again the lord intervenes and for some reason And he put me on their hearts and said, at the end of this month, they said, hey, do you want to come to Alaska? We’re going to go backpacking and fishing and hiking, which was like, I’ve always loved adventure and the outdoors and all that kind of stuff. And so I was like, sure, as long as it doesn’t intervene with, like, mess up any of my plans, because I was about to go to Boise State University. I had all these plans. And so it ended up being fine. I went up there, and for the first time in my life, I really told another human being what had happened to me and all the things that I had been through. And they were so patient and so kind in listening to my story and pointing me to Scripture. Oh, my gosh. They would say, you know what God’s Word says about you and just

[25:01] speak God’s Word over me and over the lies. I had believed about myself and believed about God. And so I ended up living with them for six years until I married this guy right here.

[25:12] And they are still very much a part of my life. I love them so much. They still live in Alaska and our church planters up there. But that’s it, y’all. That’s my wild and crazy story of just God’s kindness.

[25:27] Our internal cue here, Meredith, is when we want to talk, we tap each other on the foot here. Because you can’t see that on camera or on the Zoom call here. We’re basically stepping on each other’s feet right now. We’re having a fight underneath this table. We are having a fight under the table because it’s like, no, I want to ask something here. So, Steph, go ahead. Feel free. You’ve got the floor. Well, I want to know how you two met because you’re going from Alaska. Mac, are you in Carolina at this point? Yeah. So, I grew up in South Carolina. She’s living in Alaska, but she goes to a small Bible school in South Carolina. Okay. And me and her actually met at an event, literally her last semester. She was graduating in like two months. Uh-huh. So I had to work fast.

[26:14] Yeah, you did. Get the guitar out. All the moves that I had like very quickly. No, but she graduated. She tried to break up with me when she moved back to Alaska. I wouldn’t receive that. I was like, I don’t receive that word. Yes. I rebuke that in Jesus’ name. And she moved back to Alaska and eventually convinced her maybe, I don’t know. I couldn’t go to Alaska. I went to Alaska and I was like, if this is going to work, we’re going to have to move to the South. I can’t handle the cold. I’m a wuss. So you’re going to have to come back to South Carolina because that’s like the only option for us. And she did. And so she came back to get her master’s degree in South Carolina, and we got married shortly after that and moved to Charlotte, and we’ve just celebrated 18 years of marriage, which is crazy. Aw, congrats, guys. Okay, my turn. No, I want to go. I want to go one more time. One more time. Okay.

[27:07] So talking to you, Mac, and now listening to Meredith’s story, you two come from two polar opposite family lives. Mac grew up as a pastor’s kid. Now we know that Meredith grew up- Not a pastor’s kid. Not a pastor’s kid. No. So how, like, was that an issue with your family after they discovered? When they first met. Yeah. It wasn’t an issue at all. I would say for Meredith, there was a lot of fear, I think, on her part that she was scared of that. She knew my family. She knew, you know, where I came from. And she was hyper reserved and hyper like, I don’t want to get close to this guy. I don’t want to, like, let myself be vulnerable with him and just scared of that. For me and for my parents, that was never an issue or never a thing. That’s amazing because I can only imagine Meredith and Mac. Meredith, you go to this dinner. You’re comparing families. You’re comparing his background of probably pastor, pastor, pastor. Typically, pastors’ kids become pastors themselves. I can only imagine you comparing like, man, I don’t fit in here. How do you overcome that mentality of, hey, here’s where I came from. I don’t fit in here.

[28:22] Yeah. Well, I will tell you this. First of all, it’s very important. Anytime we have this conversation about like two very different people coming together in marriage and it working in a healthy way, you got to do your work first, separate from your person, you know? And so when I say that, what I’m meaning is, y’all, those six years that I lived with Caleb and Tracy, it was like a biblical counseling intensive every day. And I had untangled a lot of the trauma and the hurt and the lies and the dysfunction in my own life so that when I met Mac and Mac had done his own work, I didn’t need him to make me feel okay. I had gotten to a place where I knew the Lord loved me no matter what another man or another person said about me. And so when I entered into this relationship, but he’s not kidding. There was a moment when I genuinely tried to break up with him and I was like, I can, we were driving in his little Jeep, Cherokee, and I was about to go back to Alaska. And it was more like a game of logic for me where it was like, look, I’m going back to Alaska. I had just graduated from college. He’s younger than me, guys. He was starting college.

[29:36] I was like, my background, your parents, this is going to be too complicated. You know, like they’re going to want to have a relationship with my parents and they will not be able to. Like, that’s not an option for them. And so it was a lot more logical for me to be like, this equation doesn’t work. You know, there were some emotional things. I mean, I said to him multiple times, I was like, I just want you to know, like, I have massive baggage. Like things are going to trigger me.

[30:04] That you will never understand y’all crazy things. Like even to this day, I cannot sleep without the door closed. Like I can’t. And if you wake me up, I go immediately into, I will kill you mode, like fight. I am straight to fight. I have zero flight. I have zero fawn. I am like fight all day long. And a lot of that is because of a lot of terrible things happened in the middle of the night for me as a child, you know? And so it’s very deeply entrenched in me. And in my mind, was like look you don’t want to deal with this is complicated and it’s not going to get any less complicated but he was so compassionate and so empathetic and not turned away by it and i honestly think a lot of that had to do with his parents modeling of that as well did you inform mac of that before you’re on your honeymoon of like listen bro if you wake me up in the middle of the night i will cut you and she still it’s like she’s so sweet and kind but like when she’s in that sleep state she’s so mean it’s just it’s so real like and i’ve just learned to like i’m like okay that’s not her it’s okay you know don’t put this on yourself i think the other thing for for me is that like i mean when we even did like our premarital counseling you know meredith comes from like this very chaotic background yes i have such like a good family upbringing like such a good like my parents are amazing.

[31:31] Yeah. But I also realized like through that counseling, I was like, oh, I probably have a lot deeper rooted issues that I got to deal with way more than her. Cause all of hers are like surface level.

[31:42] And you can see mine are all tucked under all this other stuff. And so like, we’re very, we’re both very screwed up people that have like worked hard to become healthy people and to become the best version of ourselves through Jesus. And we’re still trying to do that.

[32:00] If you like what you hear please tell someone about us as soon as this episode is over go tell your spouse your closest friend a parent a co-worker or share one of our posts on social media however if you don’t like what you’re hearing please do not don’t tell anyone don’t tell anybody just disregard this message don’t worry about it about us yeah go on with your merry day and to get more information about us or our entire catalog of episodes be sure to check us out at kevinandsteph.com. Thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story. Well, I want to know with all of this, where did Proverbs 31 ministries come from?

[32:36] Well, this is a wild story too. When we moved to Charlotte, Mac and I were both on staff at Elevation Church. I was on staff for like four or five years. I can’t really remember. It was maybe four and a half years. Got pregnant with our first son. Very excited about that. Y’all know the pace of being on staff at a church, it is a lot. Yes. You work a ton. And so we recognize, you know what, I think it’s going to be best if I don’t stay on staff at the church just so that I can be the steady at home, you know? And so I ended up connecting with Lisa Turkhurst through this webcast thing. I was helping produce it, all this stuff. She, at the end of the webcast, came to me and said, I told her that I was pregnant with our first child. I was looking for women who were a little bit further ahead. She had five kids and had been doing ministry for a really long time. And so to see her a little bit ahead of me, I was like, man, I want her to be my friend. I want to hear how she did this. Like, how has she been able to be in ministry and raise a family and all this stuff? So she took me out to lunch and I told her that I was pregnant with our first kid. And she was like, well, what are you going to do after you have that baby?

[33:46] And I was like, well, I don’t really know. And she was like, well, if you just want to work a couple days a week, I’d love to talk about that, you know? And so it just progressed from there. I’ve been there now for 13 years, which is wild because our oldest son is 13. And I started out just doing some branding stuff and marketing stuff. And then it slowly evolved over those 13 years of taking over her kind of literary publishing side of things and then taking over the business development and strategy at the ministry. And then two years ago, they asked me to be the CEO. Wow. Look how far God has brought you Isn’t that amazing? It’s wild Oh my gosh Okay, so when are you writing your book?

[34:29] I get asked that a lot and here’s what i tell people i know what it takes to write a good book right and i don’t want to do i can imagine yeah i know what it takes and i have wrestled with that with the lord and he has not given me the green light yet so maybe one day who knows what he may have but right now i think my gifting is being used very well as the leader at proverbs 31 Yeah, for sure. Okay, so final question for y’all. So life is tough. It is very tough, whether it’s growing up in poverty, overcoming the stuff you had to overcome, whether it’s stepping out in faith, Mac, and being a musician, singer, songwriter, all that you’ve done, right? What would you tell listeners who might be going through the toughest thing in their life right now, and having to step out in faith and do something tough? What would you encourage them right now? It’s so interesting that you would ask that, because I just recently, and we heard a sermon in our church that really perked something in me to do a little bit of a word study in 1 Samuel right at the end. I won’t go too much into it because I could get really excited. I love the Word of God. But it’s right when David basically is in despair. He goes and lives with the Philistines for a while, which is wild because he’s supposed to be the king of the Israelites. He finds himself in this place called Ziklag.

[35:47] He goes to fight for the Philistines against the Israelites, and the Philistines even reject him. And so he goes back to Ziklag. All of their children and wives have been taken, and Ziklag is burnt to the ground. And he’s sitting there with his 600 men, and they say… We’re going to stone you. This is all your fault. So David is in the most desperate moment of his life. He’s been rejected by Israel. He’s been rejected by the Philistines, and now he’s been rejected by his men. And you know what he does? David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. Y’all, I did a study on what that phrase actually means. And the phrase strengthened him in the Lord actually means to cleave, cleave to the Lord. And I was like, man, what do I know that cleaves? You know what? What I know that cleaves is our youngest son. When I tried to drop him off anywhere, y’all, he grabs hold of my leg and cleaves to my leg, does not want to go, no, mommy, no, mommy, no. And that image came to my mind of when we are in a hard place, it’s not time to get tough. It’s not time to bow your back and say, I can handle this. No, no, no, no, no. It’s time to strengthen yourself in the Lord, cleave to him and say, God, I don’t want to do this without you. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I need you so desperately. And so I think that is the key to getting through the hard seasons and surrounding yourself with the resources that you need to move through it and not just be buried underneath it.

[37:13] So good. Yeah. Well, listeners, for more information about Mac and Meredith, you can go to Meredith’s Instagram and you can see all the cute pictures about their family, right? Meredith Brock. Their website, macbrock.com and proverbs31.org. And Mac’s new album, This Is Holy, is available now at all digital and streaming outlets and via macbrock.com. Well, Mac and Meredith, y’all are fantastic. I was so excited to talk to you, meet you, Meredith. And oh my gosh, so blessed to get to talk to you, right? And what you’ve gone through, right? What you’ve overcome and be such an inspiration to so many people out there. So Thank you for saying yes to us. Of course. This is awesome. We love talking with y’all. Oh, thanks, guys. Thank you. Friends, we want to encourage you to please follow us wherever you listen to this, whether it’s on the Apple Podcasts app, iHeartRadio, Spotify, or one of the other platforms. You guys, it’s completely free. And while you’re there, feel free to give us a rating or a nice review. Thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.