Finding Unshakable Peace: Katie Davis Majors

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Finding Unshakable Peace

Guest:Katie Davis Majors

From the series:Safe All Along (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:December 3, 2024

Dave:One of the exciting things about December is we get to bless our listeners, as they bless us, with some pretty cool premiums. If you give a donation, of any amount, to FamilyLife this month, guess what happens? It’s pretty cool: your donation is doubled. So that’s incredible; that’s the match. We have generous donors, who said, “I want to match anything that’s given, up to $2.5 million,” which is crazy; which is amazing. And then, we get to send you some gifts.

Ann: That’s what I was going to say: we want to send you two books, just as a “Thank you.” And the first one’s a devotional by Katie Davis Majors called Our Faithful God Devotional. And then, we want to send you a second book—it’s a children’s book by Ruth Chou Simons—and it’s called Home Is Right Where You Are.

And let me just add: this isn’t just about donations, and giving you gifts, and our thanks; we just want to say, “We can’t do this ministry without you.” We want to impact families; we want to impact marriages. We want to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and so see this as really a way that we can partner together to reach people for the kingdom of Jesus.

Dave: Really, changing the world, one home at a time. So if you’d like to jump in, and do that, you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and send a donation there. Or you can give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. And let us just say, “Thank you.”

Ann: Yeah, “Thanks.”

Dave:If you sacrifice to give, we want to bless you; but you will be a blessing, not only to us, but to thousands and, maybe, millions of others that get to hear this program.

Katie:I found myself living a life that was completely different than anything I had ever imagined for myself and my family. I felt that God had been so intentional to give me that message to write; because then, I wasn’t just writing about it. I was actively having to live it out—and actively having to ask God, day after day—“God, show me how to live in Your peace because, on my own, I don’t know how to do it.”

Ann: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann:I can remember years ago,—

Dave:Oh, boy; I have no idea where you’re going; no idea.

Ann: When a book came out, that everybody was talking about it, they couldn’t get enough of it. They wanted to support what was going on in the book. And I’m like, “What is this buzz?” And it was a book called Kisses from Katie about this young woman, who was adopting so many children and impacting so many children in Africa. I felt like, in every small group, somebody would say: “Have you read that book?” “Have you read that book?”

Well, that book came out in 2011. And actually, Katie Davis is the author; she’s the one everybody’s talking about. And she was on FamilyLife Today, back with Dennis Rainey and Bob Lepine. We have Katie back because her—

Dave:—she’s no longer Katie Davis; she’s Katie Davis Major. She’s married since then.

Ann: And if you didn’t hear yesterday—go back; listen to that—because we kind of retold the story of how you ended up in Uganda, Katie. You’ve written another book—you’ve written several—but one of them that we’re talking about today is called Safe All Along—but I like this part, because we’re all relating to this subtitle, especially this time of year—Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God’s Unshakeable Peace. We all need that, especially.

Dave:So welcome back to FamilyLife Today.

Ann: Thank you.

Dave:And by the way, if our listeners like this interview, they’re going to get your book. And we have it in the bookstore; you can get it there, FamilyLifeToday.com. But talk about even the title; I know you opened with this crazy story—in the river—and your perspective on that story. So I think you got to start there, right?

Katie:Yeah; the genesis of where the idea for this book came about was: several years ago, I had experienced just a season of crippling anxiety. My family and I were still living overseas in Uganda.

Ann: And share a little bit, because we didn’t say how many kids you have and all that; so share a little bit of that.

Katie:My husband and I have 15 children; 13 of them are adopted.

Ann: And people are like, “Girl, this is why you have crippling anxiety. What are you talking about?!”

Dave:Honestly, when I read that, I was surprised. I thought, “Anybody, who has 15 kids running around the house, like you do—doesn’t have anxiety—you’ve been able to—

Katie: —“You’ve conquered it!”

Dave: “There’s no peace, and it’s chaos.” But it’s like you’re not worried because…but you really did.

Ann: And you’re 36 years old—15 kids, and you’re homeschooling—”Are you kidding me?!” I mean, if we had you on a pedestal, back when you were 18 years old; and now, the pedestal has risen to the heavens.

Katie:Oh, man!

Dave: “And now, I understand anxiety”; okay, you’ve got it.

Ann: No; but no, that really is—you’ve probably experienced God’s incredible peace—you love Jesus so much. So to say you had crippling anxiety, some of us are feeling like, “Oh, I can relate to that.”

Katie:And I think any parents listening will be able to relate to this. It was kind of during the season that a lot of our daughters were a bit older when they came into our family. And so their childhood already goes so rapidly; but when you jump in, right in the middle, it goes even faster.

Several of them had actually already transitioned out of our house, and they were going to university in the United States. And then, it was right around the time they started university—right around the time of the Covid pandemic—things were closed; there were seasons, where we couldn’t leave Uganda to come to the United States. Our girls, who were in the United States, couldn’t come home. We had a loved one who had some medical stuff that was going on, and we couldn’t always get to her. I think that’s where the anxiety really came from.

Ann: That’s a lot!

Katie: When my kids were little, and they were all running around the house—yes, it was chaos—but when your kids are small, on some level as a parent, you feel like you still are in control. You’re not; but you have this kind of false feeling of: “I’m in charge here.” And as they get older, and they launch into the world, it’s such a celebration of the incredible people that they are. But as a parent, it’s also such a realization of like, “Oh, now, it’s only You, God.” And of course, it was always—it was always only God—but you just really—I mean, for me—that was this realization of: “Wow; I cannot protect them from all the things that the world is going to throw at them.” I had been kind of in that place for a year; maybe, two.

Ann: When you say, “crippling anxiety,” what did that look like?

Katie: Not sleeping a ton. When you wake up in the middle of the night; and suddenly, you have a litany of things fill your mind; and you’re solving all these, sometimes, imaginary problems that don’t even—

Ann: Oh, yes; I was doing that last night.

Katie:—“Well, what if this?” and “What if that?” Your mind just starts to spin; and then, you can’t fall back asleep. And then, you’re anxious about, “I’m never going to sleep again!” Especially, as some of our older daughters were facing really hard things that I couldn’t really do anything about, I found that I was spending a lot of time living in the future, in my mind: “Well, what if this happens?” and “What if that happens?” “Well, then, I’ll do this; and then, I’ll do that.” I’m a bit of a fixer, by nature; but just coming up with solutions for problems that I didn’t even have yet. Or I’d be spending a ton of time kind of living in the past, of like, “Oh, maybe, if I would’ve done this…” “Maybe, if I could have done this…” As parents, I think we’ve all experienced that, just that guilt of like, “Oh, man; I really messed that one up.” We all have those moments. And I realize now, hindsight, I realize now how much that was robbing me from the joy of being present just where I was, and enjoying the good gifts that God was giving me.

I’ll talk about that some—there are these moments—we’re going through life, and we’re doing the things, and it’s just a regular day. And then, we all have these moments, where it’s like God gives us a little glimpse or a little peek into: “Hey, this is what I’m really doing.”

The story I opened the book with was one of those moments for me. Most of our kids had been able to come home to Uganda from the United States, kind of mid-pandemic. We were able to get them back to Uganda, and it was Christmas break; so we went on this family camping trip. It was beautiful, and it was just so fun to all be together. And for me, a sigh of relief, of like, “Huh! We’re all okay; we’re all here together.” Uganda is beautiful, a beautiful place to camp. Where we lived is right on the banks of the Nile River, so just as magnificent as it sounds.

We, as a family, we love to play in the river; and swim, and kayak, and paddleboard. My daughter and I decided that we were going to swim. There was this current that looked like a circle, and so it looked fun. You would jump in; and it would kind of circle you around in the current, and spit you back out.

Ann: That sounds kind of dangerous.

Katie:It’s like a whirlpool. This was one of my adult daughters. So for people imagining the story; I’m like, “Okay, this is not a small child—this is an adult person—a strong swimmer, always up for adventure.” She and her dad jumped in; and did it. It did what we thought it would do—they kind of went for a little swim—and it spit them back out. And then, I was like, “Okay, let’s go. I’m going to go with you.” We jumped in. We either overshot the current, or it shifted a little, because rivers are not super predictable. Regardless of what happened, we get swept away down the river; and it is moving fast.

It does not matter how strong of a swimmer you are when you are in a fast-moving current; there’s not a lot you can do. I’m looking at her; I can just see the top of her head kind of bobbing up. She’s so chill; she’s like, “Woo! This is so fun!” I’m like, “Oh my, you’re going to die!” I’m frantically swimming with one hand to try to get to the side; but also, kind of reaching out my other hand to try to reach her, because she was farther out than I was. Eventually, I was able to grab onto a tree and kind of pull myself up; but I could not reach my daughter. I watched her go around the corner, where I can’t see her anymore.

And I’m looking back at the place where we came from, to the rest of my family; they seem totally unfazed. I’m waving my arms around, trying to let them know, “Hey, I’m okay; but I don’t have our daughter. Somebody do something.” I’m sitting on this rock, and I’m sobbing hysterically. I’m praying, “Lord, please; You got to save her!” I don’t know—it feels like I sat there for hours—I’m sure it was a few minutes, but you’re just in that fear and panic mode.

And my husband and our kids kind of eventually wandered over to find me and make sure I was okay. And as they came to me, I heard footsteps running from the other direction. I looked up, and I see my daughter running down the riverbank; and she’s like, “I’m fine! Some fishermen came and pulled me out! Woo; yay!” She and her sisters laugh and joke, and kind of walk back to the campsite. I am just a mess; I collapse into my husband’s arms. I’m sobbing, “I thought we’d lost her. I was so sure that she was gone.”

Benji, who never panics about anything, was like—I think I asked him, “Did you think that she was gone?!”—and he was like, “No; I mean, I thought that it was going to take her a while to get back to the campsite.” And I was like, “What?!” But he was like, “Hey, come here; I want to show you something. He walked me up, kind of higher up on the riverbank, up this hill. And from up there you could see everything that I couldn’t see while I was in the river. While I was caught in this current, the water was at eye level; and I just could hardly see anything but the waves around me. But from up on the top of this bank, you could see the whole river. You could see all the different twists and turns. He started pointing out to me, like, “Oh, here was a little place where the current slowed down, and she might’ve been able to swim to the shore; over there, were some fishermen; over there was a little island, where she might’ve been able to get up. I figured you guys would get out; it just might take you a little bit longer.”

As I was standing there, and as I was looking out at the river, this thought just kind of dropped into my mind, and my heart, “We were safe all along.” I just thought about, “Oh, that would’ve been kind of fun and hilarious if I hadn’t been freaking out.” I felt like the Lord was kind of showing me a picture of the last couple years of my life, that I had been so worried and so panicked. But here we were, all together as a family, on this beautiful trip. We were all okay. We had been safe all along; and yet, we had been kind of banged up and bruised along the way; but we had never been outside of God’s hand.

I just imagined that the way I see my life is so similar to the way I saw it from inside the river. All I could see was water and a little tiny glimpse of my daughter going around the corner. But God sees it like it appeared on the riverbank; and even more so, all the twists and turns. He sees the places that are going to be really hard, and He sees the places that are going to be filled with joy. He has this good plan to keep us safe until He brings us home to Him.

I just started really asking myself a lot of questions: “Okay, Jesus says, ‘I leave you peace; My peace I give to you.’” Jesus says over and over again in the Scripture: “Not to be afraid.” Paul tells us to “not be anxious about anything; but instead, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present our requests to God.” I thought, “Okay, those are all things that I can talk about. But the inner monologue in my head is not living as if I really believe those things to be true.”

And so I started going on this journey with the Lord, really to say, “God, would You show me what it looks like to trade my fears and anxieties for Your peace that Scripture promises me? If it’s a promise, then I can have it.” And what is so crazy about this book—I mean, I still kind of laugh when I look at it—I pitched that idea to my publisher in the middle of 2021. And what I had no idea about is that, by the end of 2021, our family had unexpectedly moved from Uganda to the United States. My husband and I were the only members of our family who had ever lived in the United States. And keep in mind, I hadn’t lived in the United States since I was a teenager. I had never lived in the United States as an adult, as a wife, as a mother; I had barely lived in the United States as a person who could drive a car.

Ann: Were you scared and anxious about moving—even the thought of that—and how you’re going to transition all these kids?

Katie:Yes! And so I found myself, after I had already said that I would write a book about God’s peace, I found myself living a life that was completely different than anything I had ever imagined for myself and my family. I felt that God had been so intentional to give me that message to write; because then, I wasn’t just writing about it; I was actively having to live it out—and actively having to ask God, day after day—“God, show me how to live in Your peace; because on my own, I don’t know how to do it.”

Dave:As I hear you say that—I think, “How?”—it’s in your subtitle. “How do I trade…”; because it feels like we hold onto anxiety; and you’re saying, “No, there’s a trade. You can let go of it, and you can grab His peace.”

I think the listener is like, “How? I was up, all night, last night”; that’s what they’re thinking. “I have kids who are spinning out of control; they’re in a whirlpool.”

Ann: Or maybe, “I’m in the midst of a health issue that doesn’t feel like God’s safe.”

Katie:Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think I do want to say, on the front end, that it’s not an overnight fix. I think, even when we’re discussing it from this higher level, it can sound like, “Yeah, you let go of your anxiety; and you trade it for God’s peace.” And people are like: “Oh, that’s not working for me,” and “That’s not how it’s been for me either.”

I think there’s definitely an element—there is clinical anxiety—I have been in lots of counseling with people, who have really, really helped me. There’s medication; I think all of those things can fall under the umbrella of God working things together for our good; He gives us resources. And so I want anybody listening to not think that it’s just a quick trade; but there are, certainly, some habits. I think God gives us discipline, and self-control, and even spiritual disciplines—not from a place of legalism—but as an invitation. God knows that we are a forgetful people; and so, He gives us things like prayer, and worship, and time in the Word—not to tick a box to say, “Ooh, I did these things; and now, God is happy with me,”—but to say, “Wow; I have a loving Father who invites me to practice the same things, over and over again, so that they become embedded in me and become who I am. And so habits: really prioritizing spending time in God’s Word.

Ann: You’re the perfect person, too, Katie; because in terms of people saying, “Well, yeah; I’ve got a couple kids.” You’ve got 15 children, and you’re homeschooling; and yet, you’re still saying, “No, this is a priority.” “How do you do that?”—because every listener’s like, “Yeah, how do you do that, practically speaking?”

Dave:I mean, I’m going to tell you one way you do it—you know what I’m going to say, right?—“You read a devotional.” You wrote one! I mean, honestly, that is one of the things I do daily: it’s time in the Word. When there’s a resource that says, “Hey, I’m going to sort of direct you…”

Do you want to read something for us? I’d love for you to do it; and tell our listeners: “What you’re going to hear Katie read is from her devotional called Our Faithful God. We’re going to send it to you if you give a donation to FamilyLife at year-end. And by the way, other donors have said, “We want to give, and match what [others] give”; so it’ll be doubled. And then, we’re going to send you Katie’s book as our gift to you. Here’s how you do it: FamilyLifeToday.com; or give us a call 1-800-358-6329; or that’s 800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word, TODAY. Here’s what we’re going to send you; we’re going to let Katie read just one devotional from her book.

Ann: What’s this one about?

Katie:It’s titled “God Who Builds His Kingdom in Us.”

I stand at the top of a hill in Uganda, and tears fill my eyes. It is impossible to consider this scene and not be overwhelmed by God’s goodness and faithfulness. For more than a decade, I’ve had the privilege of serving with a ministry in Uganda that I founded called Amazima Ministries.

As I look down from the edge of the property, where our ministry resides, I remember when it was just a field of grass, filled with children each Saturday, as we laughed, and played, and worshiped God under a lone mango tree. Later, came the chapel building as we outgrew the shade of that tree; and then, a playground and sports fields, houses for the staff, and a kitchen to accommodate the growing number of children who eat lunch with us each week.

Today, I see all of this; and all the classrooms of the primary school, where children come, not just to learn to read, but also to learn that they’re precious in the sight of a God, who loves them unconditionally. As tears of gratitude fall, I know, deep in my soul, that God didn’t grow His kingdom, just here in this village and on this land, He grew His kingdom in my heart.

In Ezra, the building of the wall begins anew after a 15-year pause. Again, they face opposition; but Ezra 5:5 says, “The eye of their God was watching over them.” How attentive He is to us. How merciful to keep choosing a sinful and broken people. The longer I live, the more I know my need for God’s grace to begin a new work in me—to rebuild, to start over—and each time, I am astounded that God would choose to grow His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, both through me and in me.

In what aspect of life or ministry do you need to start over? In what way is God using you to grow His kingdom? In what ways is He growing His kingdom in you?

Ann: I like the idea, too—as you’re reading that, Katie—I was thinking, “What a great time of year to reflect back on God’s faithfulness,”—as you said, “standing on this hill, looking at all God has done.” Sometimes, it’s easy to look at what He hasn’t done instead of what He has done; I think it’s a good reminder. I like the title, Our Faithful God.

Dave:I’m sure you’ve thought about this many times; but what do you say to the mom, who lost her child, that did drown? Or the wife sitting there, right now, and her husband did walk out; or they’re in a hospital room, right now, listening to this; and they’re like, “Man, I know He’s faithful; but I don’t feel it, because life hasn’t gone…I don’t feel safe.”

Katie:I mean, I think we all experience that, especially when we have these expectations; and life just isn’t going the way that we had hoped. I think that I’ve learned, more and more over the years, to experience that as an invitation from God to know His love, even in the deepest, darkest valleys. He doesn’t promise us that it’s going to be without suffering, but He promises that He will be with us. I have known, in my own life, that He has been with me in the really joyful seasons; but also, in the seasons where things look really, really bad. And so just the invitation to know that God sees you; He loves you: and even here, He is with you; and He wants you to experience His witness.

Dave:And just to remind you—of what Katie just read from her devotional—and by the way, I was not kidding: when you read a devotional daily, or sit in God’s Word daily, it focuses you to remember: “We’re safe all along.”

Here’s what you got to remember about this: if you give a donation to Family Life, we’re going to send you that book—FamilyLifeToday.com—you can do that there. And we’ve been talking about her book, Safe All Along, which is in our bookstore, which you can purchase anytime.

Coming up tomorrow, we’ll have Katie Davis Majors back with us again. We’ll see you then on FamilyLife Today.

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