Circle 31 Podcast

Note: Please note that the text below is an uncorrected transcript of the audio captured for this podcast. We pray the Lord uses these words to bless you as you seek Him!

Kendra LeGrand: All right, everybody. Back like we never left. Another week

Ellen Adkins: Here we are.

Kendra LeGrand: With Ellen and Wendy, and I'm Kendra. And let me tell you, the story was already pretty good.

Ellen Adkins: It's good. It's getting even better.

Kendra LeGrand: It's getting better. And so that is a gift of Tessa and her writing and just her ability to draw you into a story, like she is doing. And so we have a fun question that we've been talking about around the office.

And we're even gonna ask this question to our community. Okay, Ellen? We gotta make sure we do that.

Ellen Adkins: We'll make sure to add it in.

Kendra LeGrand: And so you guys, if you were casting a movie of the Hidden Prince, who would you cast as Keren, Jared, and Daniel?

Ellen Adkins: Go for it, Wendy.

Wendy Blight: I went first last time. You go first.

Ellen Adkins: Okay. I'll go first. Okay. So I think for Keren This is Keren, by the way. This is this was very difficult for us. I'm not gonna lie. I really struggled with this.

I would cast Gal Gadot, who ... Okay, you might know her as Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman.

For Jared, I would cast a young Harrison Ford. Like Indiana Jones, young Harrison Ford. And then for Daniel, I would do current day Harrison Ford.

Kendra LeGrand: Oh, wow. Harrison. Okay. Okay. So would require a little bit of time travel. And this is your movie and so you're allowed to do whatever you want.

Ellen Adkins: Exactly. Okay. I'm sure with AI, we can make it happen.

Kendra LeGrand: Sure. All right, Wendy.

If you were the casting director of The Hidden Prince. Okay. You had to help me a little bit with this because I'm a little bit older than most of these young girls that I am sitting here with around the table. But Keira Knightley is who you told me.

Kendra LeGrand: And I agree with you fully, Wendy. Yep. I just feel like she I don't know. It has that way about her. Right?

Yeah. I don't know. I think she'd be great.

Wendy Blight: Yeah. So and then I chose Chris Pratt because he's actually a believer for Jared.

He's actually a believer. He stands strong in his faith. And, that was it. And then my husband helped me pick Anthony Hopkins for who am I picking that for? My I'm just thinking for Daniel. And, and it was because, he played C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands. So it’s kind of that you have to be really old to be able to do that. But that was sort of the connection between the two.

Kendra Legrand: Okay. That was that was good. See Girls. All right. Let me tell you who I would cast.

I just crack up. Keira Knightley. I do think she'd be stellar. Okay? So she's gonna be my Karen.

Jared, I feel like he's, like, attainably cute based on what I can, like, gather. And so, like, not, like, so astronomically attractive where, like, I, like, have to, like, go, like, super Hollywood. I'm thinking like a like a like a Nick or Kevin Jonas.

Ellen Adkins: That's not what I thought you were gonna say.

No. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

Wendy Blight: But he could sing then.

Kendra LeGrand: That would be great. Then we could turn it into a musical. Yes. Okay. All right. So that's my Jared. And then King Daniel, we were talking about this.

I'm not exactly sure where we're gonna land. But, how do we feel about like a like a Not a king. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Wendy, the fun thing about being a podcast is audio only.

I'm sorry, everybody. Wendy is, like, trying to get my attention to correct me, which is so good. And so if you could have just seen her, she wagged her finger and said, not a king. Which is so great. And I'm like, that's why you are, who you are in the biblical content specialist.

Listen. We've all been there.

Wendy Blight: This is why they hired me.

Kendra LeGrand: This is why we hired her to keep us honest and not to steer us. Yes.

And you are quite the teacher. That was a very teacher move of you if you'll excuse me before you go any further. Okay. Daniel, how do we feel about, like, a Morgan Freeman or a Clark Gable?

Wendy Blight: I love the Morgan Freeman.

Kendra LeGrand: I think I don't know. I feel like the wisdom we talked about Harrison Ford upstairs, Wendy, and you were just talking about, like, the wisdom that he now in his roles that he plays. And so I feel like Morgan Freeman could be just wise.

I love it. Teaching Karen what's going on. All right, everybody. So you just let us know who you would cast if you were the casting director.

And we're gonna get into more about the book. All right. So we're in part two. So now we all know the accident that happened was, spoiler alert, Keren accidentally stabbed Jared in the eye. Okay?

Ellen Adkins: It was tough. Yeah.

Kendra LeGrand: It was tough to read about.

Wendy Blight: Blinding him forever.

Kendra LeGrand: Yeah. And the thing that I can't stop thinking about is, like, when that all happened, right, Jared had to learn all these new skills. Like, he was already such a skilled guy. His job, he was in a position of strategy and, like, seeing things.

And he was a great sword fighter, if that's what it was called. Had great skills. And he just had to learn it all again. Even walking or running or I forget. He was, like, whipping it all Everything.

Wendy Blight: All of it.

Kendra LeGrand: And forth. Yeah. And so I can't stop thinking about when an accident like that happens or when you, like, come up against these hard things. Like, you have to, like, relearn something sometimes and just how hard it would be.

Even if it's, like, a mental block and you have to, like, relearn something. And so, what about you guys? What do you guys think about that? Thoughts?

Ellen Adkins: Yeah.

I have been thinking about it's just so interesting in this part of the book, watching Keren and Jared's story unfolding, like, in such different ways. You know, you have, like, one event. It was the same event. But then they are experiencing the repercussions in just, like, such different ways. And yet, we can see God working in their life so differently in the midst of that.

So I think that's something that's really I've been thinking a lot about.

Wendy Blight: I actually have a friend who, during childbirth, had something happen to where she lost her memory. So when she came out of she ended up going into a coma, and this this will sound sad right now, but and it was at the time, but she couldn't remember her children. She could not remember, but she could remember her mom and dad, so she, like, lost some memory.

It's like a movie. But what's so beautiful is over time, it took her a year or two to kind of fully come back to all of this, but as she but she was in a dark, dark place during that time. But as she began to just kind of like what happened here with Jared, exposing herself back to her faith and growing in the Lord, then what happened is now she is like a speaker. She's an incredible artist. She travels, has a book.

So it's amazing that one of the darkest places in her life allows her to now go shine light everywhere.

Kendra LeGrand: Oh, I love that. And I don't love what happened, but I love how it you can, like, now see how she's using that. And it taps into the theme this week, which is God's goodness.

And sometimes God's goodness, you could be going through something and you're wondering how in the world he's gonna bring good out of it. And so, yeah. We're gonna read a lot about we're gonna read a lot about that.

Ellen Adkins: Now, one of the things I love about fiction, Wendy, I don't know if you experienced this when reading this book, but it really engages your imagination and draws our minds to themes that are just so deeply ingrained to think of us as humans. But the thing that's neat about biblical fiction specifically is that it actually points to God as the source of all of those, deepest longings that we have.

Things like redemption and goodness. And so I would just love to see, you know, one of the themes that we're talking about this week is God's goodness. How have you seen God's goodness show up in this part of the story? And maybe how has it show shaped your own understanding of what God's goodness means?

Wendy Blight: Well, I think, when I was talking with Kendra about this, I just backed up all the way to say sometimes I, and I think all of us are tempted to equate God's goodness with whether or not he answers our prayers or things go the way we want them to.

Right? And when they do, we're like, raise our hands in church. God is good.

And then when it doesn't, we're like, what have we done wrong, or does God even care? You know, those kind of questions. So, the truth about God's goodness is our circumstances are never a barometer, and we're never meant to be a barometer of God's goodness. And I wanna say that again. It's so important.

The truth about God's goodness is our circumstances are not a barometer of God's goodness. It is not dependent on whether our prayers are answered or whether things go our way. His goodness remains unchanged because it's rooted in his unchanging character. So when we ground our faith, not in our circumstances or answered prayers or whatever, but in the truth that God is good and what he does is good, that's when we come to know and experience his goodness. Both Karen and Jared, they came to experience God's goodness most deeply in the midst of their places of affliction, and that's what's powerful about His goodness.

And I say that because, to me, God's goodness overflows in our hardest places when we seek him in the midst of them, and that's what's important. And how do we do that? That's looking for glimpses, glimpses of his presence, of his power, of his comfort, of his activity, his hope, and I think looking for glimpses of his glory is just one of the sweetest ways.

Kendra LeGrand: Oh, I love that. Glimpses of glory.

And so how would you say I'm putting you on the spot, Wendy. How would you say we can start to notice, like, glimpses of glory? Is it something we do? Is it something we pray for, like, for open eyes to see?

What would you say?

Wendy Blight: I mean, I have had glimpses of glory in the strangest of ways. One time, I was traveling with my kids alone, driving from Charlotte to Dallas, Texas, and it was just a beautiful sunny day, but it was my first time by myself to travel all that way with my little kids. And I prayed with my kids, show us glimpses of your presence and your glory, God.

And no joke, these are sunny days, but we would see clouds, just little bitty clouds, resting among the trees almost halfway when our trip started, and then we never saw any again. But things like that, just say a prayer, look, watch, listen. And it was sweet because my kids got to experience it too because I prayed my prayer out loud so that they could be a part of the glimpses of his glory, and I got such a piece.

Ellen Adkins: I love that, Wendy. It's just been so great having you here talking about the book.

It's been fun leading up to this book, watching you really be a champion of this book. It's made me all the more excited that we're doing this with Circle 31, and I hope that everybody listening is enjoying it as much as we are.

And, guys, we are gonna be back next week. Wendy is not gonna be joining us. I know. Yes.

But we are back with Tessa. And so be sure to tune in next week as we round out this conversation with Tessa. And don't forget, we do have a downloadable resource to help us when God might feel distant, or silent or far off, perhaps how Keren and Jared have felt throughout this whole book. So go ahead and grab “Choosing to Trust Over Taking Control” in the show notes and we will see you next week.

Kendra LeGrand: Bye everybody.