Russ Hedge: Courage at the Crossroads of Cancer, Faith, and Purpose

In this episode of Courageous Crossroads, Jeff visits with Russ Hedge about what courage looks like when faith, fear, hardship, and hope all meet at the same crossroads. Russ shares that the most courageous thing he has ever done was walking down the aisle at church to give his life to Jesus, a public and deeply personal step that changed the direction of his life. From there, he reflects on courage as moving forward despite difficult circumstances, trusting God through uncertainty, and choosing your perspective when life does not go as planned. Russ Hedge is a Salem, Oregon-based Christ follower, husband, father, encourager, speaker, marketing coach, livestream producer, and author whose purpose is to inspire people to live a purpose-driven life of significance. Known for his positive outlook through major life challenges, including a near life-ending car accident, the loss and illness of both parents, and his stage-four melanoma journey, Russ continues to encourage others through his book Life Happens… And Then You Choose!, his website RussHedge.com, and his shows including Marketing with Russ… aka#RussSelfie, The Experience Live with Russ & Scott, The Experience Local, Live with Russ & Scott, and his broader podcast links on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads podcast. You are absolutely going to love our next guest. We’ve been off for a couple of weeks, archiving some new content, and Russ Hedge is the first one up. And he is out in the Pacific Northwest, introduced by a mutual friend of ours, Keith Mercer, who was on the program several months ago. You’ll want to go back and listen to Mr. Mercer’s interview as well on the topic, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done. But you’re going to be blown away and inspired with what Mr. Hedge has to say about that same question. So without further ado, here is Russ Hedge.

Welcome everybody, the Courageous Crossroads podcast. I’ve got a new friend on board today, Russ Hedge. And Russ was put together, Russ and I were put together by another mutual friend, somebody that I trust immensely, a guy that was actually at the Iowa Prayer Conference with me, and has been a previous guest on the podcast. When I get a recommendation from some of these friends of mine, I jump at him. So I was tickled that you offered to be on the program, Russ. So wonderful to have you with us.

Russ Hedge: Well, thanks, Jeff. It’s an honor to be here and I just really appreciate you having me on.

Jeff Johnson: So I’m going to get to know a lot about you while we go through this and to put you in context before I ask you questions around the topic of courage. What I’m going to do here is about that main question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But before we do that, let me learn a little bit about you as long as along with our listeners and give us a little bit of background history. Who is Russ Hedge? Where you from? What do you do? That sort of thing.

Russ Hedge: Well, my name is Russ Hedge. Remember what I’m a Christ follower. Number two. I’m the husband of a beautiful woman for over 38 years. My beautiful wife and have two amazing children that have grown up a little bit, my 38 year old daughter and my 33 year old son. And I have wonderful daughter in law. My son’s married. And I tell you, I am all about people. I love people. I love to inspire and encourage people. My wire purpose in life is to inspire and encourage you, Jeff, and everybody else to have a purpose driven life of significance. It’s really making impact for God on this world. And that’s really what I’m all about.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Born and raised.

Russ Hedge: Born and raised in Salem. Well, yeah. Born in Salem, Oregon, raised in Oregon, city, Oregon. And now I have lived in Salem, Oregon again for the last 37 years.

Jeff Johnson: And Salem, Oregon is exactly like Des Moines, Iowa, how? Russ, have you ever been to Des Moines?

Russ Hedge: I have. And there are zero things that are the same. No, Des Moines is flat as a board. And Salem is all bumpy. So we live in the Olem at Valley. And there’s mountains on one side and the coast range on the other side. So we’re an hour from the Oregon coast and an hour from the mountain range. And so it rains probably a lot more than it does in Des Moines. It’s not hot and humid. Oh my goodness. I was knocked over like someone hit me with a bat when I came to Des Moines. It was like, woo. Okay. How do people live here? So anyway, yes, there’s a few differences.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Wow. Well, I would live no other place other than Des Moines, Iowa. I’m an Iowa boy. Born and raised. I absolutely love it here. But I love to travel from here. And I got to tell you your Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful places on the planet Earth. And I’ve been lucky to travel around a whole bunch and it’s just gorgeous where you live. Russ.

Russ Hedge: Yeah. Well, it is beautiful. And I do have to say though, I think one big thing that we do have a common is the people are really nice here. And the people were really nice and Des Moines. I really enjoyed it. I was actually a work trip when I was very young, flew into Des Moines. And I had a beautiful God’s electric storm while I was flying in. Now, let me tell you, people that don’t they get a little nervous flying. They were, yeah, they were having trouble. It was really wonderful. It was really wonderful because it was right beside us, right? And it was beautiful. But yeah, it was right there. They were a little nervous. Yeah. But I’m a person that doesn’t really bother me. I enjoyed it. It was great.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. Well, riding in an airplane is a little bit of a courageous act too. Not to be too catchy about this. But this is, this is what we’re talking about. So let me, we’re going to learn a little bit more about you while you answer some questions. But I want to know what your mind is on this topic of courage. How do you define that? Russ, how would you define courage?

Russ Hedge: Wow. I would define courage as moving forward in spite of the circumstances around you. You know, a lot of times life happens and then you choose. I heard a book by some guy about, I don’t know who that was, but anyway, the every day things were happening and courage is moving forward in spite of those bumps in the road and making things happen and trusting God in the midst of it. Yeah, I know you’re going to ask me the other question, but I’ll hang tight on that. But that’s really how I would define courage.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, that’s good. Who represents courage to you? People that are living historical figures. If you think of somebody that’s courageous, who do you think of?

Russ Hedge: Wow. You know, my dad was my hero growing up and my mama was the happiest person alive. And my dad, when I look back, I realize how courageous he was in his life, born at the age of three living in Oklahoma, he contracted polio. And my grandmother was told he would never walk and never be normal in spite of that and her help and God’s help. He not only walked and became normal, but he played football in high school. He was in the army and he had his own businesses and was an amazing person in his adult life. But he had a lot of challenges. I didn’t realize dealing with that he were really painful and hard for him, but he pushed through in spite of that. And those kind of things were like he was always there for everybody. The family needed him. He was there. If I needed him, he was there in spite of how he felt. He still pushed through and was courageous just to live a wonderful life in spite of some challenges.

Jeff Johnson: Now, that’s that’s that’s beautiful picture of your dad. Thank you for that. And does that stand out to you because of the close the closeness that you have with your father or because courage is a rarity in the society that we live in. So it stands out and you notice it?

Russ Hedge: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I think it will probably the closeness and the fact like I said, I mean, I had such amazing parents and a wonderful family growing up. I was really blessed. I always tell people I was, you know, God gave me an unfair advantage because I just had a wonderful childhood, great parents. They were at everything encouraged me to do everything. So when I saw my dad and I knew he was having some struggles, but I didn’t realize how bad they were until I got older and took a look and he was still right there. And one amazing man. I think courage is a rarity. You’re right. I look at I love sports. I look at professional basketball. And back in my day, I thought basketball players had courage. They’d get hurt and they’d have challenges, but they’d push through and they would did persevere and they would be resilient and they would go forward and do great things anyway. And nowadays, it’s really reflective of our society. Nowadays, they get a hang nail. They take a couple games off. Right. You don’t feel it. They just, you know, sit back and decide they’re not going to play a couple games because they got a couple of aches and pains. And that’s not the way it used to be. And so it’s a whole mindset shift, I think, in our society.

Jeff Johnson: You hear somebody sitting out for a game and it’s because they’ve got an upper left index finger, bruise and they just can’t just cannot play and they just sit and have that before you’re right, Russ.

Russ Hedge: Right. And so you learned from that. So my dad, I learned from, you know, you push forward if you were able, right. I mean, there were certain things you weren’t able, but I broke my arm in football and I had to take a break for the last couple of games of the football season. I went into basketball season right out of that and actually practiced with a broken arm. I just had to be really careful. I just couldn’t do everything, but I could do a lot of things. And I learned how to dribble left hand and much better because I broke my right arm. So I’d helped with my skills with my left hand. But, you know, the whole thing was you didn’t sit, just sit around and mope and wine and think, oh, what was me? No, you persevered, had a little bit of courage move forward. And, you know, the other thing I love the definition that I’ve heard too, that, you know, courage is not the absence of fear, but it’s the move, but it’s the fact that you push through and things are more important in spite of that fear. You know, that fear can just shut us down and the enemy uses that. And I just say that we need to do all that we can do. There’s a time to rest, but, you know, it’s just sitting around all the time.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s good. Well, see, this idea of courage. And I’ve interviewed on this podcast of interviewed Muslims, people that are atheists, I’ve interviewed people that have all different kinds of faith. Of course, it’s a Christian platform. So most of the people that I talk to are our Christians. But it’s interesting. The reason why I did this is because I feel like there’s something really valuable about learning from each other about courageous endeavors. And I was sitting at a dinner party one time, not to prattle on too long in my audience has heard me talk about this before, but we were having wonderful dinner conversation and the guests that we were hosting, there were probably a dozen of us around the table. And the guests that we were hosting was a pastor and he said, let’s just stop for a second. Let’s go around the table and everybody answered the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And it started off with a couple of us and it went pretty deep. And then that encouraged people to go deep. And once you got around the table and heard everybody’s story, we all felt elevated and enriched and encouraged, you know, filled up with something. And so it’s a powerful question, but the answers are even more powerful. So Russ, I put it to you. What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Russ Hedge: So to me, that’s easy. The most courageous thing that I have ever done was to walk down to that Isle of the Church and tell the Lord God that I needed him and give my life over to Jesus because my heart was pumping. My beautiful wife was right by my side. We weren’t married yet, but she was right by my side told me she would be there with me and it was so hard. It was easier for me to ask her to marry me and to tell her parents that we were getting married, that it was for me to accept the Lord. It was hard. It took me a few services to really get up the courage to walk down that church aisle and actually do that. And, you know, I think you have to realize we think we can do things on our own, but we need the Lord. And it takes a long time to sometime to come around to that and took me a little while.

Jeff Johnson: So when did that happen? How old were you?

Russ Hedge: I was 20, I’m thinking 22, 22 and it was November, November of 1986. And yes, November of 1986 filled with the Holy Spirit February of 87 and then my beautiful wife and I were married December of 87.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. So what was it before 1986 for us? Atheist, agnostic, didn’t care. You were a Christian, but you were just more potluck than those wetters.

Russ Hedge: Yeah, Christian in name, like a lot of people, you know, I grew up in a wonderful family that took me to church when I was little when I was young. They actually let my sister and I picked the church we went to the one we liked. And so we went to a Presbyterian church and nothing against Presbyterians. I think the one or two in that church can find the Lord, but the, but it was very much staunch, real, ritualistic and assumed that everybody knew Jesus, right? No alter calls, no definition. I didn’t even know what being saved meant. I had no idea. And so, and there were so many things that I didn’t understand. And then when I got into junior high and got really busy, I told my parents, I want to go and we didn’t go anymore. You know, it’s not because they weren’t, they were good, wonderful people. They just did not know the Lord. I was blessed to be able to lead them both to the Lord before they passed, which was amazing. But yeah, and so I thought it was a good person. And I had that liberal philosophy. I said, you know what? God knows. God knows me. He knows that, you know, hey, I stuff happens and, you know, I’m not perfect, but God, God forgive me. And so it was just kind of that flippant, you know, attitude, no relationship.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. So, okay. So now what’s the catalytic event that happened when you’re walking down the aisle? You made a mistake of going to church. You accidentally opened your heart a little bit. You heard something and you were, you sprung to your feet and you ran down the aisle. What happened?

Russ Hedge: I said, I did make a mistake go to church. So I was at Oregon State University and really feeling lost. I was wondering, I was in a mode doing a lot of things you shouldn’t do, drinking too much, party too much, doing things like that. And I really had to even stop at one point just to make sure I could stop drinking because I was drinking during the week and make sure I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was just so much into that mode and doing other things that I shouldn’t be doing. And then I met my beautiful wife and she was the way the Lord got through to me. Jesus used her to speak to me.

And she was the perfect example of what you should do with somebody like me. I’m in the car with her. We first met and, you know, we really like each other. We’re really getting to know each other. And I just talked to her and I drop an F bomb while we’re talking, not even thinking about it because that’s the guys that I hung out with. That was the language. And she did not condemn me. She did not say what a horrible person I was. She started paying attention. We both love music. So she started feeding me Christian contemporary music and started letting me listen to this because I had to drive a ways to see her. I had to drive from Oregon State up to a town north of Salem to see her. So she would give me that. And then she started giving me tapes of speakers that she thought were interesting like youth type or young young adult type speakers. And she never told me to come to church. And I wanted to be with her and I said, Hey, can I come to church? And she’s like, well, if you want to. And so there you go. I walked into that church the first time just because I want to be with my soon to be beautiful wife. And yeah, that’s where it all started.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. So when you go down the aisle and you describe that as the most courageous thing you have ever done, is it because of the public nature of it or it’s because you’re making a very logical decision. To accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Russ Hedge: Yeah. Oh, it was. It was being public. Yeah, made me nervous. Also, it was a complete change of my life. You know, accepted the Lord. I didn’t want to drink after that. I didn’t want to smoke. I didn’t want to do any other crazy party things that I was doing. He took care of all that pretty much right off the bat. But I knew it was going to be this huge life change. I knew what what I was heading towards. And also I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just doing it for my beautiful wife. I was not doing it because of her that I was doing it for me. And so it’s a little nervous about all of those things. And yeah, it just it was probably the most I can’t ever remember being so nervous. I performed and done music and and things in front of and performance in front of thousands of people. Not anywhere close to his nervous as I was just walking down that aisle, accepting the Lord.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. I and what’s your life been like since?

Russ Hedge: Amazing. I mean, I don’t know what my life would have looked like when people say I can’t imagine that how people think that way. I just say, well, it is hard for me now, but I look back and I know because that used to be me. So it totally changed my life. It changed my outlook, my perspective. When I was told I had stage four cancer and they were suggesting palliative. They were telling me they didn’t think it would be something that would go away and they were just going to make me comfortable. Yeah, you know what? I just looked up at God and I said, you know what, you’ve got this God’s not done with me yet. That’s a theme that I use. I use that in my book. I use that in life. God’s not done with me yet. I knew that he still had things for me to do. And yeah, it just really, really changed everything in my life. And it gave me the most amazing woman as my wife to live life with here on earth and just amazing.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. This is one of those things where, you know, you explain to people, you know, if you know, you know, that sort of thing, you have to be there. I’ve got a, I’ve got a daughter in the son of a lot about to have their first child. And we’re just overjoyed. It’ll be our second grandchild is going to show up. Hopefully sometime in August.

Russ Hedge: Congratulations.

Jeff Johnson: And yeah, and I keep telling my son along like you’re about ready to fall in love in a way that you have no concept of. And he’s and he’s like, yeah, I know. And I’m like, you know, you just don’t, you just don’t until you get whammy slam like that. I heard a preacher one time came in and he did a really funny thing. He stood at the day. And he said, you know, I just had a, I got hit by a semi truck. He said, I was riding my motorcycle and he said, I got hit by a semi truck head on. And he said, it just happened, you know, like 30 minutes ago. And he said, boy, it was just a mess. And he said, anyway, I’m here now. Well, well, he was making a funny joke about it. And he’s the point that he was making was, you know that I didn’t get hit by a motorcycle because he said, when you’re hit by a motorcycle like that, it’s very evident. And he said, it’s the same thing about accepting Christ. It’s just you notice there’s something just dramatically different. Do you agree with that?

Russ Hedge: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was a dramatically different person. And you know, it was really weird to go back to my good friends. And they were still my friends. But look at the environment that I had had myself in and not have any desire to take part in that environment. And it was very strange. And when I looked at my friends and they were totally wasted and drunk. And I asked my fiance then soon to be beautiful wife. I said, I probably looked at stupid. And she goes, Oh, I’m sure you did. Sure you did. You know, it just completely changed my life. Not just that part. It just, but the desire for those kind of things and the purpose for my life. So I had been searching. I heard once a preacher say, everybody has a God size hole in them waiting for God to fill it. That’s what I was doing. I knew I needed God. I was trying to find something to fill this God size hole in doing the things of the world to try to fill it. And instead I needed God to fill it. So when he filled it, suddenly I had purpose. I had definition of what I was all all about and what my life was all about.

Right. So then when I got that stage for cancer diagnosis, I told my oncologist, you know what? I think you guys are amazing. I have amazing doctors. I said, but I have a great big God. And I’m believing for much better things. So when she watched me go off the cancer treatment because it was killing me faster than the cancer was at one point. And she took me off the treatment and I for 10 months just trusted the Lord and took good care of myself. I did take good care of myself, you know, as far as eating and what I was putting my body and all that. 10 months later, no sign of disease. And that was a real miracle and a real witness to my doctors.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. So it just radiates. It gets on everybody. That’s amazing. Well, you’ve got an amazing story to tell with the cancer diagnosis. I’m sure. But now, because you’ve been changed so many years ago. God’s giving you a platform. Now I understand you’ve got a podcast and you’ve got a book. Can you tell us about that?

Russ Hedge: Well, let me just tell you just quickly going all the way back. My one of the associate pastors at the church, I was saved at had me teach a Sunday school, the next Sunday school class, the next week after I was saved to a whole bunch of retired preachers. Okay. Now that was almost as nerve wracking as getting saved. It was closed. But I told him he was crazy. But yeah, you know, and what I ended up doing was facility. I told him I will facilitate a discussion around scripture, which is what I did. I was perfectly fine because I didn’t know anywhere close to what all they knew. You know, so I facilitated discussion, got everybody talking and I learned through the process. But they launched me into ministry right off the bat. I was a music major in college to start. And they got me into a worse ministry doing all of that became a worse pastor for over 30 years. And my, you know, my daughter now is a worse pastor. My son’s been a worse pastor. But the whole thing is launched me into all of that.

So then later on in life, what you’re talking about, God has given me things that were I thought were just business. But you know what? I’m not ashamed of the gospel. And I’m not afraid to talk about Jesus no matter what I’m talking on. So I’m talking about the Lord all the time. This book is not a Christian book. There’s a whole lot of scripture in here. There’s a whole lot of God in here, right? Because that’s me. And God has used that that platform and that witness. I was speaking at a cancer conference. And Gal came up to me, who’s a believer. And she said, I’ve really been trying to share my faith. And I was really loved how you shared your faith. Can you tell me how you do that? Because I just was having a tough time figuring out how to do that. And I said, well, honestly, I would just say to you, be you. Don’t hold it back. You don’t have to preach to people. But don’t hold it back. So I’ll just be talking and something about God will fly out here. And you know what Jesus has done for me there. And all that. It’s just part of who I am. And because of that in its natural within the stories of my life, people take it really well because people don’t take it like I’m preaching at them. They just like, oh, this is him in his life. But God uses that to get through to people for sure he does the stories that we tell.

Jeff Johnson: Well, that’s one. So the title of your book is…

Russ Hedge: Life happens and then you choose right behind me. Here it is. And you know what? It is. How to be courageous and have a good perspective in the midst of life challenges. You know, it talks about a near life in the car accident when I was 19. I was life-lighted to a hospital. It was this close to death. They said, how did I not be in life-lighted, I would have died on the way. Then both parents, lung cancer, my dad and dementia at the end, my mom, I had a whole Alzheimer’s journey for like six years, I think. And right on the heels of that, I was diagnosed with cancer. And so, you know, we all have stuff. I do not have the corner on challenges in life. So that’s why I say every day of your life, life happens and then you choose always. You get to choose. Do you keep a good perspective or do you choose the alternate, which is not a real good thing to choose, but a lot of people do. It’s unfortunate. So we have that choice every moment. What perspective do we have? What choice? What do we do next with our life? And that speaks volumes to people because you know the old adage actions speak much louder than words, right?

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, that’s right.

Russ Hedge: And so, yeah. And so God used this. He told me, he, God almost audibly spoke to me, but he impressed on me so strongly. At the beginning of my cancer journey, you are going to share your journey with the world. And I had built a worldwide, you know, worldwide community. And he said, you’re going to share this and you’re going to touch thousands of people for the kingdom of God. The first post that I made telling what was happening to me. There was like 70,000 people that looked at the post. There was a couple thousand people that took time to type out prayers and things to me. People called me from all around the world. Wow. Pastor, from Uganda called me and started praying for me over the phone. Just crazy stuff happened, but it was my whole impact was just telling everybody, this is what’s happened to me. But God is on the throne. I’m going to be all good because you know what? I’m holding on to that perspective that God’s not done with me yet.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, amen to that. And you’ve got a podcast as well.

Russ Hedge: I actually have five. I’m actually, yeah, I’m actually shelving one for a while because I just need a little bit of break. Marketing with Russ is about how amazing people connect. It’s all about connection to community building. And how I believe that’s the foundation of marketing and I have tons of guests in there. That’s two times a week. I have one called the experience live with Russ and Scott, which is all about the experience of life. The guest we have on pretty open theme. And then we have one called the experience local, which also broadcast these all convert to audio podcasts to they go from livestream to video podcast audio podcast. The experience local that also goes to radio and it broadcasts on Christian radio in Albany, Oregon and a conservative radio station in Salem, Oregon. And that is the theme of that show is believers in business. So we go out to the local area. We find local business people that are believers that love Jesus. And that’s what we talk about on that show. So that’s a blessing. And then I have one other show on Instagram only called the experience backstage. It’s kind of our whole experience package. That one is just as getting ready for our Wednesday show. And we have another friend who gives video tips and things like that. And just kind of fun. Get people and try to, you know, kind of reach out to the Instagram community. So yeah.

Jeff Johnson: So we love that folks. Look up Russ hedge chase him down. Chasing down on Amazon, chasing down on Apple podcast, Spotify, all the different platforms YouTube everywhere. Russ hedge has got something to say. And this is what we need. Russ, we need these wonderful themes, these beautiful stories told these wonderful testimonies told and squirted into the world to enrich the rest of us so that we don’t we don’t succumb to the rest of the negative stuff that keeps buzzing around all the time. So.

Russ Hedge: Well, yeah, you know, I’m a big believer, Jeff in positive self talk. And, you know, talking to ourselves well and reminding ourselves of God’s promises. And I think that means everything, you know, you can everybody can reach out to me at Russ hedge calm that’s got all my information. So if you know my name, you’re in good shape. But, you know, I have just been blessed and honored to to be given this platform to be able to reach out to so many people so many people say that I have been so courageous through my through my cancer journey. But, you know, the truth is, when I am weak, he is strong. And I believe that God’s going to carry me through when I know that I can’t make it on my own. I don’t think I’m that courageous, but I tried to be obedient and I’ve tried to utilize the opportunities that I have because really challenges are opportunities. You can do so much with the challenges you have in life. You grow so much more, you reach so much more, you can do so much more through that.

I never would have had a post that reached 70,000 people had. I not had this cancer journey. I just had another one the other day. I’ve been quite a while. I’ve gone through a few bumps in the road, a few physical things still from the cancer treatment. You know, there’s a lot of things that were changed in my body. I became a type of diabetic adrenal gland failure, thyroid failure. I can’t hear very well anymore. That’s why I wear these. I have problems with my I said I’ve had eye surgery, just all kinds of things that have gone on. But those are all things that I can live with and God is with me through it all. I’ve been a while and I made a post, asked for prayer and then really encouraged everybody through the post. Another 70,000, no 80,000 people this time looked at that. It just blows me away. It blows me away because it’s all God. These half those people Jeff, I don’t know at all. They’re not even connected to people that are connected to me. They’re people sharing it out and reaching out to other people. Those people take time to pray for me and encourage me and tell me how much I’m encouraging them. So what a blessing. What a blessing.

Jeff Johnson: Well, and it all started, Russ, with you doing the most courageous thing you’ve ever done and walking down the aisle to say yes to Jesus. And then now you’re able to deal with life and you’ve got these testimonies and all this kind of stuff that just emanates. You’re a deep well, Russ, hedge, 30 or so minutes doesn’t do you justice. But God willing, we’ll have you back on the program so we can tap some more of that and people will chase you down a little bit. But Russ, hedge, I consider you a new friend and you’re a man of great courage. Thank you so much for being on the program.

Russ Hedge: Thank you, Jeff. What a blessing to be on. I’d love to come back.

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