David Zimmer: Hello, and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin.
David Zimmer: And who do we have today on the podcast?
Bob Kauflin: We have a very special guest. It’s the female version of Devon. Just kidding. Devon is my son. This is my daughter. Devon’s on the podcast a lot. This is my daughter, Mckenzie Fuller. It’s so great to have you on the podcast today.
Mckenzie Fuller: So good to be here.
Bob Kauflin: Thanks for joining us. She had to leave her children at home to be with us.
David Zimmer: Yes. She could be the most famous guest we’ve had on the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast.
Bob Kauflin: At least for a member of Sovereign Grace.
David Zimmer: Yes. Here’s why. Because if you’re watching the podcast, you have seen Kenzie’s face. Every year at Christmas, we post a reel of her singing “Oh, Come All You Unfaithful.” And that clip has gone viral multiple years in a row.
Mckenzie Fuller: So wild.
David Zimmer: If you’re listening to the podcast, you have heard her voice on the last however many recordings.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, a lot.
David Zimmer: A lot of them.
Mckenzie Fuller: 10 years.
David Zimmer: So it’s great to have you, Kenz.
Mckenzie Fuller: Thanks.
Bob Kauflin: So Mckenzie is married to Zach for seven years. I checked. And she has three children. Ruby is five, Finley, who’s three, and Calvin, who’s one. They live here in Louisville with us. Zach, her husband, is a just a great, great guy. Very grateful for him. Runs sound in the church, plays drums, plays other instruments as well. And as David mentioned, Mckenzie has sung on a lot of our albums, done some teaching with Lacey Condy at some of the Worship God seminars. And I thought of this verse, Kenz, in preparing for this. It’s Proverbs 23:24. “The Father of the righteous will greatly rejoice. He who fathers a wise son or daughter will be glad in him,” or her. And, yeah, you just bring me and your mom so much joy. And those who are listening or watching this could be thinking, well, this is so sweet, a Christian home. Her dad’s a worship leader, pastor. Probably converted at a young age. Always wanted to sing for Jesus, and he eventually happened. Her life has just been one continual, happy thing to another.
Mckenzie Fuller: No hardships here.
Bob Kauflin: And we wanted to clear up the misconceptions that it hasn’t been quite so. So simple. Although what God has done is marvelous, it’s wonderful in our eyes. It’s a wondrous work. He does wondrous things, and this is one of them. The pathway to today has not been quite so simple. So we’re just going to walk through your life, if you don’t mind.
Mckenzie Fuller: All right, let’s do it.
Bob Kauflin: We were talking earlier about how you don’t need to be nervous. You’re just talking about your life. But what God has done has been so, so encouraging. So, many people know you as you’re this vocalist and you’re a godly mom, wife and member of the church and just so many things are. Lead a small group in the church. So many things are… Show sign of God’s favor. So let’s go back early. What were your early years in the home, in our home?
Mckenzie Fuller: They were good.
Bob Kauflin: If you throw anything in there about what a great dad I was, that’d be fine.
Mckenzie Fuller: We had piano. No, this is funny, actually. We had piano lessons, you and I, every Monday.
Bob Kauflin: Tried to give them to every child.
Mckenzie Fuller: For like a little while and I dreaded them.
David Zimmer: Says more about the teacher than the student, really.
Bob Kauflin: It’s going downhill fast.
Mckenzie Fuller: But what I learned from that, though, was that I had an ability to play by ear, which served me in my lack of practice. But that continued on through, like high school and middle school, and I was always playing songs that I heard on the piano. Yeah. But early life, my oldest, I’m the youngest of six with 15 years between me and the oldest and six between me and the next. So I was always in a different season of life.
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
Mckenzie Fuller: Than my siblings. I had a lot of older parents. But the…Yeah, I grew up with my nieces and nephews. So my first nephew was born when I was six.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah.
David Zimmer: Wow.
Mckenzie Fuller: And yeah, we just. I have a lot of memories. I have not a lot of memories.
Bob Kauflin: So musically…
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: What, two, things musically? What were your aspirations?
Mckenzie Fuller: I wanted to sing. I loved singing. I loved… I would do music videos with Imovie in my bedroom, you know, singing Justin Bieber.
Bob Kauflin: I still have some of those.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, it’s pretty bad.
Bob Kauflin: Spiritually, what were… What was happening?
Mckenzie Fuller: I believe, you can correct me if I’m wrong.
Bob Kauflin: No, no. Before. Before then. Even just in your elementary years.
Mckenzie Fuller: Oh, I didn’t really. I mean, I knew all the right answers. I was in Sunday school, I sang in choirs. Yeah. But I didn’t really understand, like, who Jesus was and what that meant for my life.
Bob Kauflin: We had family devotions and by that, you know, by your time, there’s this 15 year spread and so I’m… What will, like, help everybody? It was a little challenging, but yeah, I think that’s accurate. And then in high school, you went to Christian High School and… Yeah. So spiritually, where do you remember the first significant encounter with the Lord?
Mckenzie Fuller: It was at a youth retreat. I wasn’t supposed to be there because I was nine, but I was the youngest, so I was there.
Bob Kauflin: You were nine?
Mckenzie Fuller: I was nine.
Bob Kauflin: Oh, my gosh.
Mckenzie Fuller: I know. But every… The last night there was a ministry night and you were doing the piano. And I just remember, I mean, part of it was like the emotions of just singing a bunch of worship songs and praying, but I just remember feeling this burden of, like, I keep sinning, I’m a sinner, and I can’t do this on my own. Like, I need help.
Bob Kauflin: And for those who don’t know, ministry night.
David Zimmer: Oh, yeah.
Bob Kauflin: It was just as a time where…
Mckenzie Fuller: Worship and prayer.
Bob Kauflin: We sang songs and we prayed for people in small groups.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. So you came down from the piano and you and mom prayed for me. And I remember getting back into the car to go home and I think Brittany asking, like, do we think she’s a Christian? Like, did she get saved?
Bob Kauflin: Brittany was always asking the question.
Mckenzie Fuller: And you saying, well, we’ll see. Like, we’ll see if the fruit’s there, we’ll see if the Lord is working. But I do think, I do think that that’s where it started.
Bob Kauflin: Did you think you had an understanding at that point of the need for Jesus to die for your sins, to pay for your sins, because you and yourself could not, you couldn’t get to God apart from that?
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, yeah, I do. But I do think that I thought it was just a one time event. And it was. But, like, that was all that happened and all that mattered. And then I can just live my life.
David Zimmer: Yeah. And then it’s great.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, I’m good. I’m saved, I’m redeemed.
David Zimmer: Right, right.
Bob Kauflin: Which is not what we were teaching you. But apparently that’s all that got through. What challenges… And I’m sure there are parents listening to this right now going, yes, yes, that’s exactly, what… So we’ve talked about the externals. What challenges and temptations did you face as a pre-teen and a teenager? Just walk us through some of that. So outwardly everything looks pretty good.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: I mean, I remember you having some fears. I remember. Was it you going to junior high school, seventh grade? I think you were just so fearful because you’d been homeschool and just didn’t want to go.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, eight grade.
Bob Kauflin: Didn’t want to go. So there was some fear going on in there, for sure.
Mckenzie Fuller: Immense fear.
Bob Kauflin: But you were in a Christian school. So what, what were some of the things that were going on in your mind, because before we get to, like, your dark years, there’s something that happened before that. So what was going on?
Mckenzie Fuller: I cared a lot about what people thought of me. I was thinking this morning, I think it’s from having older siblings and wanting to be like them, but wanting them to respect me as their younger sibling and not just the kid. That’s kind of where that started. And then, yeah, I wanted to be liked. I wanted people to think that I was cool. I wanted boys to think that I was cool.
Bob Kauflin: Of course.
Mckenzie Fuller: And a lot of the ways I found that coolness was through being critical of people and of things like, that’s how I made people laugh, was I made fun of them and I was sarcastic. My senior superlative in high school was most likely to make a sarcastic comment, but mean it.
Bob Kauflin: That was your superlative. I forgot that.
David Zimmer: That’s amazing.
Mckenzie Fuller: Which, like. Yeah, it’s so sad because I thought that I was making all these friends by tearing them down and tearing others down. And if I can jump ahead really quick, that’s one of the things that I admire most about my husband. Oh, I don’t want to cry.
Bob Kauflin: You can always talk about that.
David Zimmer: You can cry.
Mckenzie Fuller: Is that I’ve never heard him tear someone down, and I’ve never heard him make fun of someone else or crack a joke at the expense of someone else. Which, like, it’s just, yeah, anyways.
David Zimmer: Yes, wonderful.
Bob Kauflin: That’s one of the many endearing characteristics of Zach.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. So high school was… Can I jump to high school?
Bob Kauflin: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: Real quick. High school was tumultuous in ninth. So I’m at this.
Bob Kauflin: Let me go back and say, to one thing. You said, you know, you wanted to be liked. And I think at some point, we’re going to… I’m going to do one of these where I’m going to talk about a time in my life. It was very dark. But one of the things that you realize is it’s not just you like to be liked. You’ll be like, you want to be worshiped.
Mckenzie Fuller: Oh, yeah.
Bob Kauflin: You want people to think you are amazing. And so even when we talk about. I want people to think I’m cool.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: What’s that mean exactly? Who are the cool people? Oh, they’re the people that everybody loves. So just want to make that clear.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. I mean, one of my, like, standout memories in high school was we were sitting in the row for chapel, and this girl that I thought was super cool said, no, Mckenzie, you sit next to me. And I was like, okay, I did it.
David Zimmer: I made it.
Mckenzie Fuller: But, yeah, high school was tumultuous. My freshman year, I was all about academics. I wanted people to know that I was smart, and I wanted to work hard, and I wanted to impress the teachers. And then 10th grade, everything around me kind of fell. And I realized that I had been putting my hope in my friends, my church, my family, and myself. Kind of the four legs that I was table that I was standing on. And one by one, God just swept them out from under me. Starting with my nephew being diagnosed with leukemia when I was in 10th grade. And then my sister’s marriage started crumbling. Her husband stopped talking to her and went a little crazy. And I just started having these doubts and these questions of, like, why? Like, I had always prided myself in the fact that nothing bad ever happened to our family. We stayed in the same place. We always came over for on Sundays, had Sunday lunch. But that was not my reality now, that over there, it was falling. Everything was failing.
Bob Kauflin: Very difficult times in the church, leadership, with many issues going on.
Mckenzie Fuller: Difficult times in the church. I started hating the church. Was very angry at God. Just kept asking, why? Like, why is this happening? We have done nothing wrong. Why is this happening to us? Why is this happening to me? And then being at the Christian school that was in our church was just very isolating. My, like, closest friends had different views on everything, and that was just really hard.
David Zimmer: Wow.
Mckenzie Fuller: And so I was kind of left with… I went from loving academics to, like, not caring at all, to finding out we’re moving to Louisville the summer before my senior year. And then it’s like, okay, well, my plans. I don’t have any plans now. Like, I’m not going to college. I don’t… Like, I just. I have no plan for my life.
David Zimmer: Just total indifference at that point, when those fell.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. I stopped going to church.
Bob Kauflin: You did?
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. I would, like, say…
Bob Kauflin: Wait a minute here. I’m finding out stuff I didn’t know.
Mckenzie Fuller: I would not go to the morning church. And then I would say I would go to a different one. But then I just… Something happened, and I didn’t end up going.
Bob Kauflin: Okay, we need to deal with that right now.
Mckenzie Fuller: But I go to church now. I love church now.
Bob Kauflin: You were not in church. No, I know. No, that’s fascinating. I didn’t even know.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: So it just, I…
Bob Kauflin: So deception going on?
Mckenzie Fuller: Probably. Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: I thought you were going to the meeting. All right, let’s move this thing along.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: So 2012, after your senior year in high school, you found out the summer before that we’re moving. So then we…2012, we moved to Louisville to start Sovereign Grace Louisville.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. We drove down on June 3rd, and I… Then we drove back and I graduated on June 9th.
Bob Kauflin: Oh, that’s right.
Mckenzie Fuller: And then we drove back. And then we drove back again the next weekend to be sent off from our church.
Bob Kauflin: Oh, man.
Mckenzie Fuller: Or the church we were going to. And then we drove back, and by that point, I was like, I’m done saying goodbye. I’m done seeing everyone. Like, I wanted, I wanted to leave Maryland, but I did not want to come here.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: I just had no idea what was… What it was going to look like, what was going to happen.
Bob Kauflin: It’s interesting. All your supports that you mentioned had fallen apart.
Mckenzie Fuller: Except for me. I was the last one standing, till.
Bob Kauflin: There’s a dependable.
Mckenzie Fuller: Well, yeah. Did you want to say something?
Bob Kauflin: No.
Mckenzie Fuller: Or I was just going to keep talking..
Bob Kauflin: Well, I was going to ask you what was your mentality towards music at that time?
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: What kind of music were you listening to? What was going on in your heart?
Mckenzie Fuller: My favorite artist was Ingrid Michaelson, and I wanted to be her. I wanted to write like her, I wanted to sing like her. I wanted to tell stories like she did. So I wrote songs all the time. I would record YouTube videos. I would do, like, Garage Band things. And, like, I just… I was like, I’m going to write all these songs, I’m going to make an album and I’m going to do it. I’m like, I don’t know, 16 at this point.
Bob Kauflin: So big aspirations.
Mckenzie Fuller: Big aspirations.
Bob Kauflin: Okay.
Mckenzie Fuller: And then after, after moving, I was like, okay, this is my chance. Like, I’m going to do shows. I’m going to do, like, coffee shop things and, like, gigs and all these. I don’t know what I was thinking, but… And I tried for a while, but it… Nothing ever, like, worked out. And I don’t have enough drive in myself to actually, like, do the hard work to get there. But my desires are really strong.
David Zimmer: Yeah. Right.
Mckenzie Fuller: Which don’t always work out.
Bob Kauflin: And was it during that first year that mom took you somewhere to audition for American Idol?
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: Okay. So you had big hopes for yourself. All right. Inside, we knew… Well, from the outside, we knew this was okay. It’s a dark time. You weren’t responsive. You start becoming more and more unresponsive. So tell us what was happening inside, what you were thinking and what you were doing.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, I was thinking a lot about myself, and I was doing a lot of destructive things. I have always, like I said, wanted people to think highly of me, and I thought that they wanted me to meet. They being anyone, wanted me to meet this standard that was unattainable. And then when I didn’t meet it, that crushed me. And my family is a very critical family. And so any criticism that I received…
Bob Kauflin: Wait a minute. Wait, wait, that time, let’s fix that comment.
David Zimmer: Hey, this is a honest…
Mckenzie Fuller: Historically.
Bob Kauflin: Man, I’m finding out all kinds of things.
David Zimmer: This is good, Bob. This is good.
Bob Kauflin: We don’t let people think they’re better than they really are.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: And we do enjoy a lot of good sarcasm, because…
Mckenzie Fuller: Which I appreciate now. But as a 17 year old, insecure teen, it was soul crushing.
Bob Kauflin: We’re not afraid to point out that people aren’t as great as they think they are.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, I’d say it that way.
Mckenzie Fuller: Sure. Potato, potato.
David Zimmer: You’re not as critical as you are.
Bob Kauflin: Let’s just move on. Move on.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, so any criticism that I received, I just like, I took it to heart. I was like, I am just a terrible person. The church didn’t start until September. So like that summer and then the church starting, I just, I lived on the Internet, I lived on my phone. I lived talking to people who kind of were struggling with similar issues or didn’t love Jesus. And I just sunk deeper and the clouds got heavier and to the point where like, I hated waking up, I didn’t want to do anything. I hated everything that I did. I hated every action that I made. Every word that I said, I just like poured over.
Mckenzie Fuller: Everything was like a chore for me to do. And that became so like this self… Now I see it as self-pity, but this like, I’m so awful and I’m so terrible and no one likes me. And that just became destructive.
Bob Kauflin: The world would call that a low self-image.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, sure. And I started self-harming.
Bob Kauflin: And well, even before that, you may be getting this, there was a whole eating…
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. So I had started self harming. And I did it anytime I had an emotion that I didn’t know what to do with, which is like a lot of the time as a teenage girl. And thankfully, this dark period lasted three months. So October to December of 2012. But that time was very, very dark. Alongside that, I had always struggled with my weight. I had lost a bunch of weight in high school. And then like, because everything was failing and falling and crumbling, I gained it all back and then more. And so I was like, well, like, I’ll just, I’ll stop eating. Like that’s the answer, right? I stopped eating for a while. I would make myself throw up. And then it became the cycle of I’d eat something, I’d feel guilty about it. I’d make myself throw up. I’d feel guilty about that. I’d self harm to atone for all of those sins and all of those things that I did wrong.
Bob Kauflin: Punish yourself.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. I mean… Yeah, punish my sins. Punish myself for my sins.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: Okay. Okay. So thank you for being so transparent.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: And open, because I know that there are probably people listening to this podcast who either can identify or have children who can identify or know someone who can identify. So we want to move into okay…
Mckenzie Fuller: Hope. The light.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah. Well, we started with this bright, cheery Christian family and now it’s like we’re in the depths of despair. What did the Lord do, again, both internally and what means did he use to change you and show you the lies you believed in?
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, I… So looking back, one of my favorite things to do, even though it’s kind of uncomfortable sometimes, is looking back and tracing the Lord’s hand. Like through everything. I have always had sin found out in my life. I thought I was really good at deception, but I really wasn’t. Whether that was my conscience and I would like slip a note under my parents door of like something that I was confessing or like my mom found a pack of cigarettes in my purse one time and it’s just like all of these things that I tried to hide, but the Lord always found it out to the point where I would if it was a while since sin had been found out, I was like, like what’s gonna be, what have I done that is gonna be found out? Or he used other people. So I had a friend, the only other person my age in the church who I had confided that I had been self harming. And at a point he said, if you don’t tell someone in your family, I’m going to. And so I went home from that time, got a speeding ticket, went home, told my dad to, texted him and asked him if he could come out.
Mckenzie Fuller: And then I’ve blocked out most of what happened in those three months, to be perfectly honest, but I do remember you coming out and me showing my arm to you.
Bob Kauflin: I remember that as well.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. And that was in like November-ish. And I don’t know what, I’m sure that you guys did something at that point, but I had slipped back down and it had gotten worse. And then I remember just I was so miserable. Like I was in pain from not eating. I was in pain from self harming. I was in pain from just like carrying the weight of sin and the burden of the fact that I was not helping anything. No matter how many things I tried, I couldn’t fix it. And so we were in Williamsburg, right before Christmas, visiting my brother. And I told my mom that I had stopped eating. And she looked at me and she said, how many things are you going to try before you believe that Jesus is the only thing that’s going to satisfy you? And then, so after that. So you guys… So we got home, I went upstairs and self harm one more time, came back down, told you everything. You took away my phone. And then in the midst of that, I decided to apply to Boyce College.
David Zimmer: Wow.
Bob Kauflin: Christian College.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah, Christian College. And I was like, I’ll go, but I’m not gonna do music. I don’t want to do music. And so I got accepted. I got a computer for Christmas. You took that away, kind of cut me off from everything that I was seeking, hoping.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: To only use it with supervision.
David Zimmer: Right.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
David Zimmer: Right.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. And just started meeting with me. I’m with you. I’m with a pastor in the church, student life, guy at school. And just, like, slowly piecing my life back together, built not on me, or the church or my family.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Mckenzie Fuller: Or my friends, but on Jesus, who sacrificed his own body so that I didn’t have to sacrifice mine.
David Zimmer: Amen.
Mckenzie Fuller: And that, like, we have an amazing savior, and his death affects every single thing that we do and what we say and what we think and the gifts that we have. So after that, music was, like, nowhere in my vision. I’d kind of put that dream to the side. And I was just. I was reading the bible. My sister had got remarried. My nephew finished chemotherapy. The church was flourishing. I was learning so much about the gospel. And those next six months were, like, some of the best in my life.
David Zimmer: Oh, praise the lord.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah. And then I got to go to a couple Worship God as a projectionist. Shout out, projectionist. And, yeah. So I’d never had opportunities to sing, even though I still loved it. I didn’t sing on Sundays at church. I did projection from the time the service or the Sunday started. The church was planted until, I still do it sometimes.
Bob Kauflin: We were… Yeah, you still do service as a projectionist. Yeah. We were not in a hurry to put you in a public place, public platform.
Mckenzie Fuller: No.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: No. And I didn’t want to be in one. I didn’t feel like my heart could handle it. I didn’t feel like my pride could handle it.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah. There was an awareness of your sin that God gave you, that you just didn’t have before. It was destroying you, but you just were not aware of it. So I don’t know if you could share this. It’s so interesting hear you tell this because I think I remembered it, some of the things in different order, but…
Mckenzie Fuller: Probably.
Bob Kauflin: Well, I trust your memory because when you’re going through that, everything seems so intense.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: But you know, the Lord is working. He has promised to work and we can trust him. Work all things for our good and for his glory. He’s promised that. So I don’t know when this came, but I remember meeting with you in that little side room and going through Psalm 139 with you. This must have been early on. And just talking about how you are fearfully and wonderfully made, because I really was at a loss in terms of, you know, we didn’t put you on lockdown.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: But we, I think, just said, you know, this is not helping you. This will not benefit you. This will not, you know, your life is not miserable.
Mckenzie Fuller: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: Everybody around you is flourishing. You’re the only miserable one. Do you see the connection? So I think that affected you. Just to think, how did it affect you?
Mckenzie Fuller: I just always thought of myself as the exception to God’s love and not the object of it. And then to see… I mean, that Psalm now has become our community group Psalm. I’ll bring it up, probably every time we had community group last night, it brought it up again.
Bob Kauflin: It’s a wonderful Psalm.
Mckenzie Fuller: Just not only that I’m fearfully, wonderfully made, but that every single day of my life has been planned out and that no matter…
Bob Kauflin: In your book were written.
Mckenzie Fuller: Every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.
Bob Kauflin: Amen.
Mckenzie Fuller: And that no matter what happens, that’s in God’s plan. Like it’s out of all of the plans that I could have been on, this is the one I’m on.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Mckenzie Fuller: And looking back, like, I would have loved to have not have gone through that, but.
Bob Kauflin: Me too. Mom too.
Mckenzie Fuller: But I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. I wouldn’t have met my husband. I wouldn’t have had my kids. I wouldn’t have been in this church. I wouldn’t… I don’t know where I would have been.
David Zimmer: You probably wouldn’t have been here.
Mckenzie Fuller: No.
Bob Kauflin: Wouldn’t be doing this podcast.
Mckenzie Fuller: Wouldn’t be doing this podcast.
Bob Kauflin: Another memory is being up in your bedroom. You were doing much better. And I asked you, I don’t remember exactly. What do you see when you look at the scars on your arm? Do you remember what you said? It was something to the effect of, you know, I realized that when I see them, I think of the scars that Jesus bore for me. Something to that.
Mckenzie Fuller: Well, there’s a song. There’s a song Sovereign Grace song. “Nothing that my hands can do.”
Bob Kauflin: Yes, yes.
Mckenzie Fuller: For when I see my Savior’s scars, I’ll look upon my Savior scars and know they were for me.
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
Mckenzie Fuller: That was like huge for me, of like Jesus was scarred for me.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: But like scripture just became alive to me. Like I remember reading Romans in 8 through 10 and being like, yeah, this makes sense. Like I get it. And Psalm 116 and like being like, this is my story, this is me. I see me in these words.
Bob Kauflin: And open your eyes.
Mckenzie Fuller: And then in Psalm 118:13 is “I was pushed hard so that I was falling. But the Lord helped me.” And it’s like the Lord, he helped me. God helped me. And then I don’t know why you asked me to sing the demo, but I had signed a demo.
Bob Kauflin: Well, yeah, there were some. I want to say that you mentioned the conferences. That was a sovereign work of God, that you were just serving in a non-public way. But at some of those conferences you were hearing messages that were speaking to your soul that you… There was an openness there that wasn’t there before because you thought you had it all together, had nothing together, but now you were like a sponge. So that was again just how God works in his sovereignty to put us where we need to be. Yeah. So the whole music thing, I mean, we knew you had a wonderful voice, but we’re very careful to put you on anything. So I think Neil DeGraide was producing our albums at that time. And I don’t know whether he asked or it was just a demo of a song.
Mckenzie Fuller: Slim song.
Bob Kauflin: Sorry?
Mckenzie Fuller: Just a little song.
Bob Kauflin: I think it’s, “Who Would Have Dreamed.”
Mckenzie Fuller: That’s “Who Would Have Dreamed.”
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, yeah, Who Would Have Dreamed? And so can I tell this story? I’ll never forget this and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but you had sung the demo and we were talking about the album. And just asked me, “Dad, do you think there’s any possibility that I could sing this on the album?” But it was such a humble ask. It wasn’t kind of… Of course I will. But just even that, that those desires, all those desires, this is what I want listeners to hear. All those desires you had, God changed them. He can do that, he can change them and he wants to, but it’s not going to come apart from that faith and repentance. Repentance of what we’ve done and faith in what Christ has done, that opens the door for us to see what he’s given us. So I said, well, Kenz, not only are you going to sing that song on the album, but you’re going to sing three songs through the album because we’d already talked about. And I just remember you crying, just thinking, wow, is she different? This is like…
Mckenzie Fuller: I mean, I couldn’t believe that I would have these opportunities, despite all of the things that I had done and the sins that I committed. Like, the fact that I was getting this opportunity was, like, unbelievable to me. And it still is. Like, I still I’m so humbled anytime I get asked to sing for anything, because I love it. And just because I love something doesn’t mean I get to do it.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Mckenzie Fuller: But I do. And I’m so excited anytime I get to sing, and I love doing it.
Bob Kauflin: And I love that. David, you want to say anything here?
David Zimmer: It’s so powerful. No, it’s so powerful.
Bob Kauflin: We’re having this Daddy daughter time.
Mckenzie Fuller: It’s a family moment.
David Zimmer: No, God, his sovereign hand in your life, Kenz. Yeah, I just think your honesty and your ability to speak openly about these things shows the marvelous nature of the God who saves and that we’re not too far gone for him to powerfully work through us and in us for his glory, not for ours. And so I think your testimony speaks to God’s kindness, But I think it also… I hope it’ll encourage people who are listening, who have been through the depths or are in the valley, currently, that there is hope.
Bob Kauflin: It is. That’s well said. There’s always hope. Go ahead.
Mckenzie Fuller: I was gonna say one of the images that stuck with me was, as a Christian, no matter how dark the clouds are, we know that the sun is on the other side. And it’s like the storm is all we can see. But we know, even if we don’t believe it all the time, that, like, the light will break through and our darkness will dissipate, if not in this life, then in the next.
Bob Kauflin: Yes. Yes, Amen. And what I’ve seen and give testimony to, having lived in the same city now for a number of years, is that humility that God brought about during that time you’ve just continued to pursue. And it’s not like we get humbled because we do bad things. That’s one reason. But we always do bad things. And it just reminded me of… I was going to another scripture, but I thought, no, this is the one where Paul says, in Ephesians 2:8. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works. So that no one can boast,” like we can’t boast about the work that God does in our lives. I can’t boast about, you know, anything that mom and I might have done to help you because we did so many wrong things. We were missing so much. You can’t boast about anything you did in response. It’s all his work. But then he says, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. His goal is never just to forgive us and then leave us.
Bob Kauflin: He forgives us, nails all the accusations that were against us to the cross, raises us up with Christ, and then has prepared all these good works for us to walk in. So I just want to say, as a Dad, how grateful I am for your commitment to walk in those good works and to do it in a way that honors Christ, not just in a public platform, but in your home, in your church, in your neighborhood. You and Zach, both, very grateful for that and just want to thank you for giving testimony to what God’s done in your life. And I pray it’s been an encouragement to those who are listening.
David Zimmer: Yeah, thank you for listening.
