Relationships Episodes

Relief and regret arrive together, and you don't know what you're feeling. Learn what David left out of his lament for Saul, and why what he put in matters at a complicated graveside. There's a grief nobody warns you about. Somebody you had a difficult history with dies, and you have no idea what you're feeling. Relief shows up, and it brings regret along with it. Sadness arrives right alongside anger. You want to grieve him, and you don't want to turn a man you clashed with into a saint. And t...

You're waiting for the conversation where they finally admit what they did, and it isn't happening. Learn where Jesus placed the command to forgive in Mark 11:25, and why that makes it available to you tonight. You know exactly what you're waiting for. The email. The sit-down conversation where they finally say the words and admit what they did. And it isn't happening. Days turn into weeks, and then the months go by. You check to see whether they've reached out. They haven't, and you tell yours...

The crisis is years behind you and the marriage works, and there's still a list of subjects neither of you brings up. Learn why Ephesians 4:32 speaks to a couple who assumed the healing ended long ago. Some couples went through a crisis, or a string of them, and they made the decision to stay married. That was the right call, and they have lived with it for years now. And the deeper wounds from what happened never fully closed. You still avoid certain subjects, and both of you know which ones t...

You see things your child can't see yet, and every word you say seems to push them further in. Learn what Psalm 25:12 changes about the way you pray, and what fifty years of research says about a parent's leverage. Few things pull on a parent like watching your child with somebody you're worried about. You see things they can't see yet. You've been around long enough to know how much a partner shapes a life, and you can already picture the next ten years of it. And you're walking a line every d...

Somebody gets short with you, and a group goes flat when you walk up. Learn what Romans 14:19 asks of you once you suspect you've been the friction at your own church, and where the pursuit starts. This one is for the person who has finally noticed. Maybe somebody said something to you kindly, and it stayed with you longer than they meant it to. Maybe you started seeing a pattern in how conversations at church go when you're part of them. Somebody gets short with you. A group goes a little flat...

Someone brings you information about another person that you had no need to know. Learn why Proverbs 20:19 aims its warning at the listener, and what to say when the conversation starts. Gossip has a pull that most Christians underestimate. Somebody comes to you with information about another person that you had no need to know. And here's the part we skip over. There's a small rush that goes with it. Being handed something private feels a lot like being trusted. So you feel the tug to ask one ...

Your kids are grown, and you can see things you would do differently. Learn why Psalm 103 ties God's tenderness to what He knows about you, and what one sentence to an adult child can still open up. A lot of parents get to a point where they look back at twenty years of raising kids and see things they would do differently. You were more critical than you needed to be, and you said things you can't unsay. Maybe you worked through years when you should have been at the table. And now they're gr...

Some of the loneliest people are living in a house full of people. Your spouse is buried in work. The kids are behind a bedroom door with their phones. You get through a whole evening under one roof and exchange maybe forty words, most of them about the schedule. Then you look around at the family you helped build and feel like a guest in it. It's a strange kind of lonely, because you can't point to the thing that went wrong. Nobody fought. Nobody walked out. It came apart slowly over a few yea...

You went to the person. You told them you were sorry. And they didn't accept it. Maybe they told you it was too late. Maybe they got up and left the conversation without saying anything at all. Most of us grew up with a simple picture of how this is supposed to work. You apologize and they forgive you. Things go back to normal. When the second half never comes, you're left holding something you already paid for with nowhere to put it. So you start second-guessing the apology itself. Maybe you s...

A lot of families are spread out now. Grandparents live in one state, parents in another. The grandkids grow up on a handful of visits a year. Jobs move people. Housing prices move people. Nobody sat down and planned it this way, and here we are anyway. Some things get lost in the spread. The stories your parents could tell your children about where the family came from and what God did for them back when things were tight. The habits and small kindnesses grandkids pick up just from being aroun...

Most of us have a friend we've slowly let drift, and the longer we wait, the more awkward it feels to reach out. Discover why the fix is simpler than you think, and how to make the first move. A lot of us have a friend we used to be close to, and we can't quite remember when we stopped calling. Life sped up. New responsibilities came in. Somewhere in there the calls got rarer, then stopped, and neither of you meant for it to happen. Then one day their name crosses your mind, you realize how lon...

You watch another couple, and something in you twists. They finish each other's sentences. They laugh at each other's jokes in a way you and your spouse haven't in a long time. You drive home from that dinner feeling worse than when you walked in, taking inventory of everything your own marriage seems to be missing. The comparison feels like information, as if you're seeing the truth about their marriage and yours side by side. But the comparison is rigged. You're measuring what they let you see...

When a close friend disappears without a word, the world rarely treats it as a loss. Discover why that grief is allowed, and how David and Jesus both knew the sting of being abandoned by a friend. One of the more disorienting hurts in life is when someone who was close to you disappears. No explanation, no conversation. They just stopped responding, and now weeks or months have gone by. Because there was no ending and no reason given, your mind goes to work trying to supply one. You run back th...

Feeling guilty for being okay when people around you aren't is more common than you'd think. Discover why you can stop apologizing for your stable life, and how God means for you to spend it on others. Sometimes the trouble is that your life is holding together while someone close to you is falling apart. Your marriage is solid and theirs is ending. Your kids are fine while someone else's are in crisis. Instead of being grateful, you feel almost ashamed of it. You hide the good news and downpla...

Watching a parent lose their memory is a grief that starts long before anyone dies. Discover why that grief counts, and how numbering your days helps you love the parent who's here today. There's a grief that comes long before the funeral. It shows up when your father asks the same question three times in an hour, or when your mother calls you by your brother's name. The person who raised you is losing pieces of themselves right in front of you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. You go...

The fear of getting old alone is one people don't talk about much, but it lives in a lot of hearts. Some pictured a spouse walking through the later years with them, and that person never came. Others raised kids who grew up and moved across the country, and now they lie awake wondering who will be there when they can't drive themselves to the doctor, and who would even notice if they got sick. It's a frightening thing to wonder about, and most people wonder in silence. This episode opens at a ...

A close relationship with an adult child doesn't come standard, and it's easy to stop noticing it. Discover why John called this the greatest joy, and how to receive it with gratitude. This episode is for the parents whose grown kids call. Whose kids text just to check in, or make room for you at the table when they didn't have to. That kind of relationship does not come standard. A grown child who wants you around is choosing you, over and over, with a life full of other options, and some part...

Years after a relationship ended, a lot of people still feel the pull to look. You scroll the profile at midnight. You ask a mutual friend how they're doing, like it's just curiosity. Each little check feels harmless. It isn't. Every time you go back to look, you pull the scab off a wound that was trying to heal, and you plant yourself again in a place God already led you out of. This episode opens with Linnie, who spent 3 years trying to move on after a 7 year relationship ended. She threw her...

Some wounds don't stay in the past. They move into your head and take up residence. You replay the conversation, or the thing they said that you can't unhear, and every time you run it, you feel it again, fresh, like it just happened. That's what makes it so exhausting. You're not being hurt once. You're being hurt on a loop, and it can go on for years before you notice what it's costing you. This episode opens with Lysa TerKeurst, who led a growing ministry and loved her family, then found out...

We can all name a moment we wish we could take back. Discover why James compares the tongue to a spark, and how to go repair the damage even long after the words were said. Most of us can name the moment. The sentence you fired off in an email before you cooled down. The remark about somebody that got repeated and spread further than you ever meant it to. You would give a lot to reach back and pull those words out of the air, but you cannot. That is the trouble with words. Once they are out, th...

Some people find it far easier to help than to be helped. Discover why Peter refused to let Jesus wash his feet, and why learning to receive may be exactly what God is asking of you. You will drop everything when a friend is in trouble. You will bring a meal and take the late phone call. But turn it around, and you go stiff. When you are the one in trouble, you wave people off. I'm fine. I've got it. You would let a friend do for you a fraction of what you would gladly do for them. This episod...

Home is supposed to be a place of rest, but for some it feels like a second shift. Discover how a two-minute practice on the drive home can change what happens when you walk in. Some people leave work and feel something tighten in their chest at the thought of pulling into the driveway. Maybe a child is struggling and every evening turns into a battle. Maybe things with a spouse are strained, and the air in the house goes tense the second they walk in. Home is supposed to be the place you final...

Most adult Christians spend their time with people in the same life stage, and miss the wisdom of believers who have walked with God far longer. Discover what older Christians offer, and how to find one. Most of us spend our time with people in our own stage of life. Parents of young kids know other parents of young kids, and those friendships matter. But when your whole circle is people the same age and mileage as you, something gets left out. Nobody in that circle has been where you are going...

Betrayal changes the way you see people, and forgiving someone is a different thing from trusting them again. Discover how God rebuilds trust by inches when you make Him the refuge under everything else. Betrayal changes the way you see people. A friend talked about you behind your back, or a spouse lied, or someone you counted on walked away right when you needed them. Even years later, long after the wound closed over, you catch yourself flinching at things a healthier version of you would ha...