Kenn Kington: Halloween’s coming up, and my kids came up a couple of Halloweens ago, going, “Dad, can I have a… Look at this. Look at this.” It was a tube of candy, mini M&M’s, have you ever seen them? Why? Why did we need that choice? For people eating the regular M&M’s going, “I can’t finish a whole one. They should make those smaller.” Put that in some foil and eat the rest of that later.
John Fuller: Well, that’s an interesting point. Who thought of those mini servings anyway? Today we’re gonna be continuing a presentation from Kenn Kington, on Focus on the Family, and your host is Focus president, and author, Jim Daly, and I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: Today, Kenn is going to share more humor with us, and the second half of today’s message contains a, a really touching story, with some powerful spiritual truths, that I know you’re going to appreciate. And if you missed part one of Kenn’s presentation yesterday, please get in touch with us, we can send you the entire messages on CD or audio download. Or you can get the Focus on the Family app for your smartphone.
John: Yeah, look online for the links to those resources. Our website is focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Or, call us for details 800-A-FAMILY.
Jim: Kenn Kington is a very popular comic on Sirius XM Radio and Comedy Central. He’s been married to Heather for about 30 years, and they have three adult children.
John: Here now, Kenn Kington, on today’s episode of Focus on the Family.
Kenn: I don’t know, mom’s, what… tell me if you agree with this, okay? With each child, do you feel like your mental capacity just shrinks.
Audience: Uh-huh.
Kenn: Uh-huh? Yes. And I see this, because I see the isms in moms all the time. And, and you can just hear moms with them as they go through this. I saw this one mom, she’s yelling at her daughter, she says, “Don’t you look at me in that tone of voice.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Moms, do you understand what that means? Have you said that? I love this, we were in a restaurant, this other mom, she was just, like, she was talking to her child, he’s, kinda, all over the place, and eating and yelling, and singing and eating. She goes, “Stop chewing with your mouth full.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I don’t so mind the chewing as I do the talking, while it’s full, I get that. Another mother, trying to get her son, “Put your hat on.” “It’s not ho- it’s not cold, mom. I just wanna go outside.” “Put your hat on, well, at least take it with you.” He goes, “But, I don’t want to.” She goes, “Better safe than stupid.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Can’t really argue with that.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And see, moms are so busy, they miss just the smallest little details. This little girl came home from school, she was teaching her mother some of the sign language she learned. “Mom, look at this. You know what this is?” She tells me… my daughter taught me some sign language, she goes, “You know what this is? You know what this is? It’s I love you, for blind people.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: See, mom, moms are just, though. I love moms. I love moms. You could trust a mom. You can trust a mom, because moms are trustworthy. And you gotta be careful who you trust, and I learned this at a very young age. Because, in life, we need something we can trust. I learned at three years old, you gotta be careful who you trust. Used to ride my tricycle across the street, to the neighbor’s house. Three years old, I’d sit at the top of this huge hill, and I watched the big kids ride their bikes down the hill, I’d just be sitting there, “Wow. Wow.”
One day, the big kids came on their bikes, shoo. “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m watching.” He said, “You know what’d be cool? Is if you rolled your tricycle down the hill.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “No.” He said, “What? Are you chicken? Are you not a man?” And I’m sitting there, “Um, I’m, I’m, I’m free years old.” He said, “Come on, man. Do it. We’ll be here. Trust me.” So, I took my tricycle, and I went over the edge. Halfway down that hill, I was doing 114 miles an hour.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Do you remember tricycles? Do you remember how the wheels and the pedals are connected?
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I’m like “Ah!” I had two thoughts in my little three-year-old brain. My first thought was, I have no shoes on.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I thought, I cannot put my feet on the ground. My second thought was, I’ll just put my feet on the pedals and slow it down.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: You put your petal-, your feet on the pedals of a tricycle, doing 114 miles an hour, those pedals stop. Not the rest of the tricycle, it keeps going. I went over the handlebars. I went the last 10 feet on my face.
Audience: Oh.
Kenn: I know. It hurt me too.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Have you ever cried so loud you cannot open your eyes, and you make no noise? You know that, like…
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And then, as I’m trying to catch my breath, I reach up, I touch my lip. The bottom row of my teeth had come out below my lip, through the skin.
Audience: Oh.
Kenn: I know. It hurt me too.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And I said, as soon as I catch my breath, as soon as I open my eyes, they will come and help me. I got my eyes open, and they were…
Audience: Gone!
Kenn: Gone.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Careful who you trust. Three years later, they built a tree house.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I climbed up the tree house. 30 feet off the ground, they said, “You gotta be initiated.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “What does that mean?” He said, “You gotta grab a limb from the other tree, and ride it to the ground.”
Audience: Oh. (laughs).
Kenn: “Really?” So, I grabbed it, pfft, I launched into the expanse, approaching Mach 2.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I thought, this is gonna work. And then, something reminded me that tree branches are connected to tree trunks. And I looked up, whoo, I moved my face. Wa-pfft! Snapped my collar bone in half.
Audience: Oh.
Kenn: I know. It hurt me too.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And I laid at the bottom of that tree …”ah”… I got my eyes open, and they were…
Audience: Gone.
Kenn: Gone. You gotta be careful who you trust. But see, there, are, who are we gonna trust? How are we gonna trust this? I, I learned this idea of trust one trip I took. I love to fly, and because of my job, I fly all over the country. I’m sitting in the plane, and I had the window seat. I love the window seat. And I’m sitting in the window seat, and I didn’t know I was praying, but it turns out, when you just, kinda, think and talk to God, that’s called prayer, and I’m sitting there, going, “God, I would just… you know, it’s all the way to San Francisco, it would be great if this middle seat was empty.” And that was what I was thinking. And I know God listens, and I know He’s got as sense of humor, because I’m sitting there going, it’d just be great if this seat were empty. I didn’t, no more have that thought they came on, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a full flight today, so make sure you’re in your right seat.” I’m like, really? Okay, a little girl, a small girl, she could sit here. The last guy through the door was a door, okay.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: This guy was going to San Francisco for a tryout with the 49’ers.
Audience: Oh.
Kenn: He was a lineman.
Audience: Oh.
Kenn: Now, if you don’t follow football, this guy was minimum 6’3″, minimum 300 pounds. When he sat in the middle seat, the metal arm rest bent out.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: He exhaled, oh, and it was pfft. This is gonna be a great flight. He’s like, “I’m really sorry.” And I’m like, “You’re big, what are you gonna do?” You know.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: He said, “Hey, I got an idea, why don’t I lean forward, you lean back, and then we’ll switch?” So, the whole flight, we’re just doing this.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And it was so awesome. And then we started out descent into San Francisco, we made it the whole way, and they came on the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re fi- on our final descent into San Francisco Bay Area, please put your tray tables in ” I’m just, like, what? I love the window seat, and there’s this beautiful bay, with these little white specks of sailboats, and the beautiful cliffs, and I’m just like, oh, that’s awesome. But we just kept going down, and I’m looking, and there’s the cliffs, and there’s the bay, and the cliffs and the bay. And we’re just going down. And everything in my body, we got to about a 1,000 feet and I wanted to ring the flight attendant and go, “Hey, um, yeah, I was just noticing out my window here, um, beautiful bay, and the cliffs and stuff. I was just thinking, probably one of the most important parts of the word landing is land.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “And it’s over there. You wouldn’t mind scurry up, tell the pilots, turn! Great.” But I just sat there. I didn’t say anything. And then we start our way down. Then we got down to under a 1,000 feet, 800 feet, 700 feet, 600 feet. I’m like, ah. And we just keep going down over the bay. I am… we get under 200 feet, and I’m looking out, going, oh, I fly all the time, I am physically nervous at this point, just going oh! And the only thing in my mind is going, ring the flight attendant. Jump up. Run up, tell the idiots, turn. The land’s over there.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I’m looking out the window and I’m just thinking, we’re dead. We’re dead. I’m seeing people on sailboats, waving to us as we’re going down.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: The only thought going through my brain is, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: That was like ah! We get under a 100 feet, I’m like, we’re dead. Water. Dead. Dead. Dead. 80, 70, pfft! Out of nowhere, a runway appeared. And within 10 seconds, we’re on the ground. I’m like, ah! Had a little different prayer at that point, I said, “God, I hope you enjoyed that.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And the thought came to my mind, well, why didn’t you get up? Why didn’t you run up? Why didn’t you beat on the door? Because, I trusted. I trusted United Airlines does not hire guys off the street with “We’ll work for food” signs.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “Wanna fly an airplane? It’s really fun.” They don’t do it. I trusted my friends who are pilots. They carry that case with them, and they have an approach, but, most of all, I trust that they had the front window, and they were gonna get us there. And, and what I’ve learned in, is, is trust is, you know what, sometimes, the best we got is a side view. And, and I wanna tell you a, a quick part of what I’m learning about trust, just to really get that to the core. I, I know that, intellectually, that God really does have the front view, and, and He gets it. I get that part. But, a couple of years ago, I learned it at a different level. I just wanna share it with you real quick.
April 27th, of 2007, my whole world changed. I was in Colorado Springs on tour, I get a phone call from my wife, Heather, and she goes, “Hey, I’m gonna take Kennedy to the doctor, she’s still complaining about her knees.” She goes to the doctor, then goes and gets an x-ray. They call her at the x-ray to go to another doctor, to a specialist, and by the end of the day, I walk off stage, I call home and say, “Hey, how did it turn out?” She’s crying. And I said, “Whoa, whoa. What’s wrong?” And I heard three words that no parent should ever have to hear. She said, “Kennedy has cancer.” My three-year-old daughter. And my whole body went numb. And I’ll never forget that moment, and I’ll never forget where I was. I, I went to the airport, there wasn’t a flight. I rented a car, I drove to Denver, I took the Red-eye, I came home, and I went to Children’s Hospital, and I saw my daughter laying in a bed there. And my whole world changed. I’ll never forget those first several weeks. The first eight months of chemo is intensive. Where they go every week. And then, if any complications, you have to go to the emergency room. And the one part I wanna share with you tonight, that just really was a radical change in my understanding of trust. In 10 days, I was at the hospital eight times. I was averaging about two hours of sleep a night. I was physically, emotionally, and mentally drained. And I’ll never forget my daughter had a temperature again, due to the side effects of the chemo. And I remember scooping her up, three in the morning, putting her in the back seat, and driving to the hospital. And I was having one of those thought prayers, just in my mind, just going, eh, disgusting. Now in a happy, flowery, prayer kinda way. Really? Really? What do you want? God, what do you want? You want to hear me pray again that my daughter would be better? Is that what you want? And I’m just, in my mind, angry, and bitter, and just saying, “What? What do you want? Why won’t you give us a break?” And as I’m thinking that, I hear my daughter begin to cry in the back seat, and I reach back and I grab her hand, and I’m like, “Honey, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?” She goes, “I don’t wanna go there. Daddy, I wanna go home.” And I was just like, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Because she knows what’s gonna go happen. We’re gonna get there, she has a port in her chest, and they’re gonna stick a needle in her port, and they’re gonna put medicine in there, and they’re gonna rule out all kinds of stuff. And she goes, “Daddy, I don’t wanna go there. I wanna go home.” And I just had this understanding, how do I explain to her? How do you explain to a three-year-old, we have to do this. See, there could be complications. And we have to do this, because if we do this, you have an 85 or 90 percent chance of remission, with no reoccurrence. But, if we don’t, you have about a 20 to 15 percent chance. We have to do this. How do you explain that to a three-year-old? You can’t. You can’t.
John: Mm. You’re listening to Kenn Kington on Focus on the Family, and you might be thinking of a friend or a family member who would be encouraged by, uh, his humor and his insight, and, and heart, as you’re hearing it.
Uh, contact us for a CD, which has a lot of extra content that we can’t present here. Uh, we’ll send that out to you when you make a gift of any amount to the ministry, a monthly pledge or a one-time gift. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY, 800-232-6459, or you can donate and request that DC at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Let’s return now to more from Kenn Kington.
Kenn: And as I held her hand, I said, “Honey, I’m right here.” And I had the realization, the one person that she trusted was taking her to the one place she did not wanna go. And in that moment I just thought, I get it. I literally, I prayed, I said, “God, I’m not gonna get this. I’m not gonna understand it.” And there was a verse that came to my mind, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t lean on what you understand.” And I’m like, “I get it.” I can no more explain to her why we’re having to go through this, than I’m gonna understand why we’re having to go through this. And I said, “But all I got is trust.” And I’m so glad something bigger than me. And I begin to learn about that. And as we went through this, I learned some incredible lessons. And, and there’s one word… I love to encourage people. This is my livelihood, this is my life, I love to make people laugh, I love to encourage people. I remember coming back from the hospital after two weeks, and I’m learning this at a new level. One of my son’s friend’s from schools dad, owns a landscaping company. He drove up, parked on the curb at our house. I’m walking to the mailbox, we haven’t been there for two weeks. He got out of his truck and he came around, I’ll call him Royce, because that’s his name.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: So, Royce, Royce came over, he goes, “Hey, man. I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter.” He says, “Just want you to know we’re praying for you.” And I was like, “Thanks, Royce.” I said, “I appreciate it.” He goes, “And I just want you to know, we’re, we’re in this area all summer, and I just want you to know, we’re gonna take care of your yard all summer.” And I said, “Royce,” I said, “Man, I appreciate that. You don’t have to do that.” I said, “If you can do it one time though, that’d be great.” And he’s like, “No, we’re gonna do it all summer.”
And I said, “Well, you know what, if you could just do it, like, twice, like, this week and maybe next week, because, I, I, we’re trying to figure this whole thing out.” And he’s just like, “Yeah, um, you’re not getting this. Uh, we’re doing it all summer.” And I was like, “Oh.” Because he took this word. And this one word has changed my life. As my best friend and I that sat down at lunch one day, and we came up with this idea. He said, “What do you want?” I said, “What do you mean?” He says, “What do you want? What can I do? I gotta do something? What do you want? What can I do? I gotta do something?” And I said, “John, for the next seven months I’ve gotta go to intensive. Which means, every Monday, I have to take my daughter out of bed at about five-something in the morning, put her in the back of the car, and drive her to the hospital. Every Monday, I’m gonna go through triage, and then we’re gonna go into the m- into the room, where they’re gonna sedate her. They’re gonna put a needle in her chest. They’re gonna do a spinal tap on my daughter, and they’re gonna do chemo through her port.” And I said, “And I have to hold her down. And that breaks my heart.” I said, “What do I want?” I said, “I know God is timeless, and He knows all, but here’s what I want. I want every Monday, every Monday, I wanna know that what I’m going there, there are people praying for my daughter during that time. That’s what I want.” And he said, “Done.” And he came up with this idea, these little bracelets that just says, “I pray for KGK.” That’s my daughter’s initials. And he had some made. And he handed them out. And then he gave them out to some more people, and had some more made, and handed them out. And for those seven months, for those seven months, this is one of the single greatest encouragements of my life. I will never forget it. Every Monday morning, over 3,000 people wore these bracelets, and prayed for my daughter. I, I can’t put into words how cool that is. It’s that word. It was my neighbor who set up a computer site for us to be able to communicate with people. Unbelievable. It’s that word. It’s that word that one of our neighbors… now, I, I didn’t tell you this, that year was our year of Job. Have you ever had a year like that? Where nothing goes right. Both our cars broke down. Both our computers, my home and work, crashed. I got my ho- my computer for work back, I turned it on, there’s nothing there. I call, I say, “Hey, where’s my files?” They’re like, “Did you wanna save those?”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “Yeah!” I lost 12 years of work in one day.
Audience: Oh, wow.
Kenn: Unbelievable. Our refrigerator burned down.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Have you ever heard of that?
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: It burned down. My son said, “Dad, I think the, there’s sparks.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And we looked down, there’s fire coming out from our… what? They came and replaced our refrigerator. I said, “Have you ever had one burn down?” They’re like, “Never heard of it.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Our refrigerator. Our little dog… we got a dog, two years old, when we were first married. He was 14, and he passed away, and I’m just like, “What else is gonna go wrong?” So, a year of Job. And, in the middle of that year, my wife was playing tennis one day, and Kennedy, with her little bald head, went over to the tennis courts, and one of our neighbors had a little puppy. And Kennedy’s holding the puppy, and she goes, “This is Daisy.” And she’s petting the puppy, and the little puppy’s running around. The cutest thing you ever saw. And wh- I actually use Daisy. One night Kennedy did not wanna take her medicine. She was just like, “Mm-mm. No, I don’t like it.” And I’m like, “I know, baby, but you gotta take it.” She goes, “I don’t want to.” And I don’t know why I said it, I just said, “Hey, if you’ll take your medicine, we’ll go play with Daisy for a minute.” And she just went.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And I gave her, her medicine. Well, now I’m in a little bit of a dilemma, because now I gotta take her to see Daisy. It’s a little awkward to go to your neighbor’s house, at 7:30 at night, and go, “Hey, can, um, can your dog play for a minute?”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “She took her medicine.” But then, Mary did something amazingly cool. Mary is Daisy’s owner, she called a couple of breeders, and a breeder called us and said, “Hey, I read about your daughter in the paper, and I wanna giver her a Pug puppy.” And he drove two hours one day to drop off this Pug puppy, because he said, “Hey, when can I deliver it?” And Heather said, “Well, Tuesdays good, and in… well, Monday would be better, but Kenn’s out of town, but Tuesday’s fine.” And sh- he said, “Why Monday?” “Well, that’s Kennedy’s birthday.” He said, “I’m bringing her.” Brought the cage, the dog and everything. And if you could see her with this, this puppy. Skittles, the Pug.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Skittles makes everything better. And she has Skittles, because somebody took this word. And I learned that word very, very well through this process. The word is simply this, initiative. It’s initiative. The number of people that took initiative to just make our world bearable was unbelievable. I even learned it to the point of saying, you know what, I w- I’ve gotta do something. And when Kennedy lost the last little bit of her hair, I, I want, came home, and she was just smiling ear to ear, these beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, and I said, “Kennedy, I love your hair.” And she rubbed her head, and I said, “I want your haircut.” She said, “Okay.”
And I said, “I want you to give it to me.” She said, “Okay.” We sat on the front porch, and for about an hour she just took the razor and bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: You haven’t lived till you have a four-year-old give you a haircut, okay. I’m just saying.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: My wife came out halfway through, and she said, “Oh, goodness.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Said, “You look like you have mange.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And she goes, “You’re gonna let me fix it.” I said, “Oh, no. It’s going. It’s all going.” That night, we laid down to read books, I had bits in my head.
Audience: Aw.
Kenn: And we laid down with the books, and Kennedy could not pay attention. She just kept rubbing her head against mine, going, “Daddy, we’re bald buddies.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: See, I wanted her to know, you’re not alone. You’re not alone. You’re not going through this alone. See, that’s what initiative does, it just says, “Hey, I’m here. And we’re going through this together.” And I, I’m so thankful for what I’ve learned from that. Kennedy is doing wonderful. We’re now about four months past the end of her chemo. She has a great prognosis. But I’ll never change what I learned through this process; that idea of taking initiative. And taking the time to say, hey, there’s something more important than me. And I want you to be able to trust. And that initiative is something that changed my life. I wanna leave you with a mental picture of what that means tonight, that, that idea of initiative. A buddy of mine, after one Sunday, he said, “Hey, what are you doing after church today?” I said, “Nothing.” He goes, “Hey, I got tickets to the Falcon’s game, you wanna go?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” So, we buzzed down. I’d never been, at that point, never been to the Georgia Dome. How many of you’ve ever been to the Georgia Dome, raise your hand? Oh, yes. You’ll get this.We had great seats. We were in the fifth row… from the roof.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: My other friend was like, “Which team are we?”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I said, “We’re the little red and silver dots.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Now, when you sit up that high, after the game, I didn’t know this existed, but you go down those huge ramps that we walked up, and you can walk down, and they spiral around and around and around. By the time you get to the bottom, you have vertigo.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: But there’s a choice. On each end of the Georgia Dome, there’s an express escalator. And it goes from the top level all the way to the street level. And the line wasn’t long, and my buddy says, “Hey, come over here real quick.” So, we got on it, we were like, “Oh, man. This is awesome.” Then we started going, and it’s like a 100 yards long. And we’re like, “Oh, this is great.” Only problem was, halfway down, tshh, it broke. Ugh. But then, we stood there.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And we stood there.I begin to lean over, like, why are we just standing here? And I couldn’t see because everybody else was leaning over, why are we just standing here? We stood there two and a half almost three full minutes, stranded on this escalator.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Finally, some guy in the back, out of frustration, I wish it was me, just screamed at everybody, “Walk!”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “Just walk!”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: And we all started walking down.
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I wish I could’ve seen the guy in the front, “Oh, darn. And I was almost there too.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: “I hope they fix this soon, I gotta get home.”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: I’m gonna eat the rest of this M&M.
Audience: (laughs).
John: Well, what a great conclusion to a really insightful, humorous, and touching message from today’s guest on Focus on the Family, Mr. Kenn Kington.
Jim: Man, that was good stuff. And I can’t imagine trying to explain cancer treatment to a three-year-old. And my heart just goes out to Kenn and Heather and little Kennedy. What an incredibly trying time they had, and isn’t it so comforting to hear how God really does walk us through those situations, and sends other people along to provide for those tangible needs, like mowing the grass? That’s just one reason why it’s so important to be a part of a local church. Those are the people who can be the hands and feet of Jesus to a family in crisis.
And let me remind you that, if you’re going through a difficult time, we’re here to help. Our friendly staff would be honored to take your call, hear your story, pray with you, and if needed, they can arrange a call back from one of our caring Christian counselors. This is a free service that we have provided for over 40 years. So, please, reach out to us. We’re here to help. And, if you appreciated what Kenn shared today, let me encourage you to get the CD. It’ll have a lot of extra content as well. And we’d be happy to send that to you when you make a donation of any amount, to the work that we are doing here, at Focus on the Family. That is to help families thrive in Christ.
John: Yeah, that’s our mission. And you can get that CD, with extra content, and maybe share your story with our staff, when you call 800-A-FAMILY, 800-232-6459. Or you can find us online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast, or follow the link in the show notes.Next time, Chris Marlow explains how doing good for someone else is simpler than you think.
Preview:
Chris Marlow: And here’s one of the things I’ve realized, we have a plan for a lot of things in life, finances, our vocation, but sometimes we actually don’t have a plan as families and as disciples, of how we’re gonna make a difference in the world.
End of Preview
