Fear Not: Isaiah 41:10 (And Why I’m Taking a Break)

Isaiah 41:10 has always been one of my favorite reminders that God meets us in our fear, steadies us with His presence, and holds us with His righteous right hand. In today’s short episode, I share a simple devotional on this verse—and a personal update.

This season of my life is shifting, my boys are getting older, and God is stirring my heart to pause, pray, and realign the podcast and blog for what He has next. I’ll be taking a few weeks off to seek clarity, listen for His voice, and return with fresh direction for serving you in the season ahead.

If you need encouragement that God is with you in your own transitions, I pray this episode points you straight to His faithful heart.

Grace for My Home's top 5 most popular episodes:

1. Take Care of Yourself So You Can Take Care of Those You Love
2. Hearing the Voice of God
3. The Purpose of Marriage
4. 7 Pearls of Wisdom From the Parable of the 10 Virgins
5. Discipline, Correction and Punishment...Oh, My!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Thanksgiving Plans
• 3:20 Campus Visit And Family Update
• 3:47 Isaiah 41:10 As A Lifeline
• 5:27 Naming And Battling Everyday Fear
• 7:22 Strength In God’s Righteous Right Hand
• 9:24 Why Grace For My Home Began
• 11:27 From Mom Encouragement To Bible Teaching
• 13:22 Two Books And Their Heartbeat
• 15:12 Major Life Transitions And Calling
• 17:22 Tired Not Burned Out: Need For Clarity
• 19:12 Choosing Obedience Over Algorithms
• 20:52 Taking A Short Break To Seek God
• 22:17 How Listeners Can Help And Topics

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Hello, welcome back to Grace for My Home. I'm Audrey McCracken and I am so glad to be back with you again this week. I hope that you're doing well and I hope that you're ready for Thanksgiving. This will actually air the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and I have a lot to do to get ready for that. I haven't even thought about what we're going to have this year, which is unlike me. Usually I'm a little farther ahead than I am right now. And my family will come here to my home. That'll be my sister and her family, and then my mom. And we invited a friend from the coffee shop this year, a friend of ours who comes in and sees us almost every day. And his family live way up in Maine. And he just wasn't able to make that trip this year. So he's going to come and have Thanksgiving with us. So we're looking forward to that. And I'm looking forward to having my family all in one place. This week we took my middle son Luke on a campus tour. We went to Charleston Southern University and he really liked it. I thought he would. We're not sure right now exactly where he's going to go to school. He still hasn't made up his mind. Um he's got a little bit of time, but he he loved that campus. And I had never been. That was the first time I'd been, and I liked it too. It's a it's a very nice campus, and they were very hospitable. This week I wanted to share a scripture with you that is one of my favorite scriptures. I know I'll probably say that about all of them, but I promise you this is a foundational scripture from my life. It's a scripture that is ingrained in my mind, in my heart, and it comes up effortlessly, and it comes up a lot because it's just one of those that the Lord has helped, has used to help me renew my mind. And it's Isaiah 41, 10. And it goes like this Fear thou not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will help you, I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. Isn't that beautiful? And that is a foundational scripture for me. And, you know, fear comes at us in so many different forms. It it's not always that fear with your heart pounding, you know, that is a that is fear, but there are so many different forms of fear. You know, dread is fear, dread is a fear of the future. It's like a low-grade fear, you know, it's it's just this worry about what's coming next. And worry is a fear, and anxiety is fear, and all of those are different forms of fear. And so that's why I love the scripture because in so many different areas of life, you know, when I'm not certain what's going to happen and I'm anxious, or I'm worried about one of my children, or there's something that catches me unexpectedly, or I think about what happened in the past, and I'm afraid that the past is going to repeat itself. So many times, the scripture, the Lord will bring it to my mind, and I'll just say it, you know, over and over in my mind, fear thou not, for I am with you. He is with us and he promises that he will never leave us and he will never forsake us. And though I may not know what is going to happen down the road or what's going to happen in this situation that I'm worried about, he knows and he's not going to leave me. And he promises that he will strengthen me, he will make me stronger through this. And he will help me. He promises to help us, and he promises to hold us by his right hand and to take us through. So whatever you're going through in this time, in this season, in this in this place where you are right now, just know that the Lord is with you, that he has promised not to leave you, that you belong to him, and that he is holding you by the hand, and he is guiding you through this. You are not alone, and he is going to strengthen you, and he is going to help you, and he's going to show you the right way. He's going to show you the way. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. And he is with you during this season, during this test, during this trial, during this season. And and I just I encourage you to take that scripture and make it your own. Put it on a note card, stick it in your pocket, put it on the screen of your phone so that you can pick it up and look at it at a moment's notice. You know, make it a part of your vocabulary, of of the of just the way that you think constantly as things come up. I will not fear. The Lord is with me. Fear not, for I am with you. He will help me, he will strengthen me, he is upholding me with his righteous right hand. You know, it's not about your righteousness. A lot of times when we get in trouble, the enemy, well, I should say we, me for sure, when when something happens and I'm afraid, the enemy will come to me with all kinds of reasons why I deserve this bad thing that has is happening to me. If I had done this better, or if I had known this, or if I had really trusted God way back then, then today things would be better. And so I love that he says his righteous right hand. He is the one who is righteous, not me, not you. Our righteousness is a gift from him. I can come before him because of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, not by my own ability, not by my own goodness, or you know, not it's not about me, it's about him. And so he gives us his righteousness, and we don't have to be perfect. We're never going to be perfect. And if we wait to come before him and ask him for help when we get it all together, then we will never come because we will never be able to. So he takes us by his righteous right hand and he leads us. And I pray that that will give you comfort in in any area that you're struggling with this week. I really want to share with you guys from my heart this week. I I think of you as my friends. I've spoken to many of you. I know many of you personally, and I've met many of you from the podcast. And I know there are a lot of others out there who I've never spoken with, who've never contacted me, but are faithful listeners. And I just want to share my my heart with you this week. I started Grace for My Home, the blog and the podcast, about three years ago. It was actually three years and five months ago. And I have I now have 154 episodes. And when I first started this podcast and blog, my heart was to encourage Christian moms. I at the time, at that time, I was a homeschool mom, and I had um I had two who were still homeschool schooling. I had one who had started public school. But I was at almost at the end of my homeschool career. But I had been a mom for for at that time 14, 15 years. And I had had a rocky road in the beginning. You know, when I first became a mom, I did not have much confidence as a mom. I struggled, and I thought that somebody else could do this mama thing much better than me. You know, why did God give me these children? Because I just wasn't very good at this mama thing. And I just felt bad that my children were stuck with me. You know, I wish they had a better mom, but they were stuck with me. And so over that 14 years, the Lord was faithful. He helped me to grow. He helped me to become a better mom, to become the mom that my boys needed. And I was so encouraged when I saw what God could do, when I saw how he could take someone who had little to no confidence in her ability to be a good mom and help me, you know, and and not in a way like where I became super mom or anything like that. That was just daily grace. And that's why I named my podcast and my blog, Grace for My Home, because I found out that there's always enough grace. He supplies what we need each day. And each day, as I put one foot in front of the other, he built my strength, he built my confidence, he gave me wisdom, and he opened the right doors and shut the wrong doors. And I wanted to share the things that he had shared with me with other moms. So when I started the blog and podcast, Grace for My Home, it was to encourage moms. And as the years have gone by, my heart is still for moms. But when I look back over the subjects that I've shared on, it seems that I've I've drifted into more of a Bible teaching mode, which really is my heart, my gift. I've taught at my church for many years, and that's my heart is to teach women and encourage women in their walk with the Lord. And so in the, I guess the last year or so, I've I've been thinking, who should what should I be sharing here on this blog, on this podcast? Why do people come to me? And during this time, I've been able to write two books. The first book was called Covered in Prayer: 31 Prayers to Cover You and Your Children and God's Grace. And that was a book that I actually wrote the prayers before I had the idea to put them in a book. For many years, I had been praying the same prayers for my children, and they were prayers that I covered them with as they went out into the world and found their own place, and they're still doing that. But I remember I had those prayers, many of them written in a notebook on my nightstand. And I thought one day, I thought, here's a morbid thought. I thought, okay, when I pass away, when I die, um, that they're gonna throw this out. Nobody's gonna know how important these prayers were to me, and they're just gonna be chunked into the garbage. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna write those prayers down because I bet they would be an encouragement for another mom like me who just needs to know that God hears her prayers. And so I wrote those prayers down and I put them in a book, and the Lord gave me the great the grace to do that, and I caught it covered in prayer. And then the next year I was able to write a devotional book, which is Seek First 31 Quiet Moments with Jesus, and that just released this past October. And that was my way of helping women who just want to have a few minutes with Jesus, don't have a lot of time maybe, and just need some help getting started. When when when my kids were little, we would go to the park and they would get on the swings and they would need me to get them going. You know, there was three of them and one of me, and so I was trying to keep my hands on three children and, you know, make sure everybody was safe and not hurt and you know, doesn't run into the road. And but I remember when they got on the swing, if I could just give them a push, they would get the momentum going and they could keep themselves going on the swing, and then I could take care of the other one who was not on the swing. And they just need a push. And so that's how I saw Seek First. It's just a little push in the morning to get you going, to get you talking with God, to get you focused on his word, and then you have your own conversation with him, and that has been a blessing. Both of those books have have been a blessing to me, and I believe they've been a blessing to many. And that's something that I'm very proud of. And during this time, I've transitioned from being a homeschool mom to not being a homeschool mom. I opened a coffee shop for my church. We actually opened it, and I've run that coffee shop for about two and a half years now. And in the last nine months, my husband resigned as pastor of our church as he focuses on his PhD and his career in education, because the entire time he's been pastor of our church, he's also been a high school principal. And so he came to a fork in the road where he just could not continue to do both. And he felt like that the Lord had called him to be at school, to be at that school, that that was the calling that God had placed on his life for this time. And so during this transition period, the last eight, nine months, that's that's been a process. So I say all this to say that I am not the same person I was when I started Grace for My Home. This podcast, this blog has really helped me to grow. And I'm thankful for the people I've met. I'm thankful for the conversations I've been able to have with women. I'm thankful for these opportunities, these doors that have opened. It's just been a wonderful growing process. But I'm at a place right now where I need to make some decisions on what's next. I don't feel like I have I have a clear direction right now. I feel like that, you know, one week I'll come and do Bible study, and then next week I'm talking about marriage, and then the next week I'm talking about homeschool. And sometimes I'm just not sure what my focus should be. And to be quite honest with you, I'm a little tired. Now I'm not burned out. I have been burnt out before, but I'm not burnt out at right now. I think I'm just tired. And, you know, I I've never done this before. I do not know another person in my real everyday life who even has a podcast. So I'm just trying to figure all this out, to be honest with you, and trying to decide what's next. Because I don't want to burn out, because I want to be strong and I want to do what God's asked me to do. But I'm at a point right now where I feel like every week I am studying the Bible, not to know Jesus, but to prepare something for someone else, whether that be the blog, the podcast, or my ministry with my church and the coffee shop. And so I really need to hear from Jesus. Like, I need to hear from Jesus for myself. I need to hear what he is saying and get direction for this next season in my life. And hear, you know, what should I be concentrating on? Who should I be pouring out to? You know, what is the message that he would have me share right now? And it's hard to do that when you're constantly going. And right now I'm constantly going. All of the experts have will tell you, don't take time off, don't skip a week or a month because you will lose followers and you know, and all of this. And and so for a long time that's been in the back of my head. And I've been like, no, I can't stop. I don't want to lose my followers. I don't want to disappoint people. But it really defeats the point if I don't have anything fresh and if I don't have anything useful to say, or most of all, if I don't have anything from God. Because my prayer every week is that I bring you something from heaven, not something that I've thought up, but something that He's let on my heart to share with you. Because my heart is ministry. My heart is not to make a bunch of money. I don't make any money from this podcast or blog. The only money I make is the money I make on the books that I sell. And and trust me, it doesn't cover the expenses of the blog and the podcast and all that. This is certainly a labor of love. And that's why I do it because I love doing it and I want to encourage women. Because my heart is to help those who are where I was, or who are struggling with walking with the Lord and believing him for good things and being the person, the mom, the wife, the friend, the Christian that he's called you to be. And I want to bring you a message of hope and a message of comfort and a mess, and I want to inspire you to go into your world and to do great things. I want to come to you each week and inspire you and encourage you and you know, give you that little push, give you that push to keep on going and to get your momentum going. But I can't pour from an empty cup. And I feel like that's what I'm trying to do right now. So I'm saying all of this to ask you to excuse me for a few weeks while I take a break and I seek the Lord and I pray and I just chill for a little bit and figure out what am I supposed to be doing at this time? What should my blog and podcast be about? And who needs the messages that God has put on my heart? Because I want to be real. You know, if I'm not real, if I don't have a real message, if I'm not living out the messages that I'm sharing to you, then they're not real to me. And there's no power in my words. They they don't mean anything. And I want to be a woman of integrity. And so I'm going to take a few weeks off to pray to seek the Lord, to think about, you know, what direction I'm going to go in. And I don't want you to go away. Um, I'll be back. I promise I'll be back. Um, but you can help me during this time. If you love grace from my home, if this is a place where you come and you get encouraged, this is how you can help me. Send me a text, send me an email, and let me know what kind of messages you come here for. What speaks to you? If you look in my in the show notes of this episode, you'll see a link where you can send me a text. You'll also see a link where you can send me an email. Send me one or the other. If you send a text, I cannot respond. It does not give me your um number to respond to that. That's a one-way communication. If you send me an email, I will respond. Let me know what kind of what kind of messages you come here for. Do you come to hear about motherhood? Are you interested in Bible study? Are you interested in messages on marriage or homeschooling? I speak on all those topics here, but sometimes I don't know if I'm just scattering too broadly, if I need to concentrate, if I need to be more specific. Just to give you an idea, then these are the top five podcast episodes since I started the podcast. My number one downloaded episode is take care of yourself so you can take care of those you love. That was number one. Number two is hearing the voice of God. Number three is the purpose of marriage. Number four is seven pearls of wisdom from the parable of the ten virgins. And number five is discipline, correction, and punishment. Oh my. So there's a wide range just right there. So is there one thing, one reason that you come to me, one topic that you're interested in? Or are you interested in all of these topics? So if you could send me a text or an email and tell me what you're interested in and tell me a little bit about yourself. I would love to hear from you. And like I said, if you send me an email, I'll definitely respond. I respond to all the emails that I get. And just know that I am going to take a few weeks off. I have been thinking about doing a daily podcast, um, a debate, a daily devotional, and so that's something that I may play with in the next few weeks, maybe after my break. So be on the lookout for that. I'm I'm pretty sure I'm leaning that way, that I'm gonna try that just to see um how that goes. And I will definitely be back, um, but I am gonna take at least two weeks off to clear my mind, have Thanksgiving with my family, not have to think about recording a podcast. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'll be back very soon. God bless.