Episodes

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...

Every so often God puts His finger on something in your life and asks you to open your hand. A possession you've grown attached to. A relationship you've been trying to control. You probably know what yours is already, because it came to mind the moment you heard the title of this episode. And the first thing you feel is loss. You start counting what it would cost you, and the number gets bigger the longer you stare at it. This episode opens with Jeff and Kari Patterson, who had finally built t...

Somebody tells you they're praying for you, and you don't quite know what to do with it. You mumble a thank you. It feels awkward, and you couldn't tell anybody why. Maybe part of you wonders whether they mean it, or whether it's the church version of saying take care. And underneath the awkwardness there's usually a thought you would never say out loud. You aren't sure it does anything. This episode opens with Kent Brantly, a young doctor who had gone to Liberia to care for people nobody else ...

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 ...

You get asked how you're doing maybe a hundred times a week. The checkout line, and the hallway at work. Every time, you say fine. And most of the time you aren't. You're worn out in a way that sleep hasn't touched in a while, or you're grieving something nobody around you can see. Fine is the polite answer that ends the conversation, which is exactly the job it was built to do. The trouble starts when fine becomes the only setting you have left. You say it to your spouse across the supper table...

A lot of Christians have picked up a message from the culture without meaning to. A meaningful life has to be big. A platform, and a story people would want to hear. And then there's the week in front of you. You got up and went to work, and at some point you made supper and helped somebody with homework. Most people's lives are made of small things. Raising children, and staying married for a few decades. Somewhere in there a thought shows up. Is this all there is. You would never say it out lo...

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...

You went into the appointment with ordinary worries and came out with something that changes everything. Learn what Isaiah 43:2 promises about God's presence in the days after a diagnosis, and how a church is meant to show up. A diagnosis changes the shape of your life in a moment. You went into the appointment with the ordinary worries about parking and getting back to work in the afternoon. You came out with something that reorders everything. The drive home is a strange thing all by itself. ...

Sometimes the thing that bothers you most about God is the schedule itself. Learn what Jesus did when Martha accused Him of showing up four days late, and why you can say the same sentence out loud. You know the feeling if you've prayed about something long enough. A door that stays shut year after year. A diagnosis that arrives in the worst possible month of the worst possible year. And the part that gets under your skin is the schedule itself. God could have done this last spring. He didn't. ...

The kids are grown and gone, and the house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. Learn why grieving an empty nest is normal for a Christian parent, and what the arrows of Psalm 127 say about the work you already finished. The empty nest is one of the more disorienting transitions in adult life. The house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. You walk past a bedroom that's made up and stays made up all week. The rhythm you built your whole life around, the practices a...

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...

Some nights the day ends and you have nothing left, and the prayer you meant to pray never comes. Learn why a short, plain prayer counts with God, and what Jesus said about willing spirits in worn-out bodies. There are stretches when the day finally winds down and you know you should pray, and you have no energy left for it. The words won't come. The moment you close your eyes, your mind wanders off to the grocery list or something your boss said that afternoon. You start to wonder if there's s...

Almost every Christian goes through this at some point. You pray, and it seems like the words don't get past the ceiling. You open your Bible, and the verses that used to move you read flat. Nothing scandalous has happened. You didn't walk away. God just feels far off, like He stepped back and didn't say why. It's disorienting, and it can last a lot longer than you expected, weeks or even months of reaching for a presence that feels absent. This episode opens with Sara Hagerty, who wanted to be...

Familiar Christian music can hold you when nothing else quite does. Discover why the songs you've sung for years reach places words can't, and how God meets you in a melody when your faith feels dry. There's a comfort that comes the moment you hear the first few notes of a song you've known forever. Maybe it's a hymn you sang as a kid, standing next to your mother in the pew. Maybe it's the one they play at every funeral you've been to. Before you've thought about a single word, something in yo...

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...

Watching your congregation shrink is a grief few people talk about. Discover why declining numbers don't get the final word, and how Jesus keeps building His church even when yours feels small. If you love a local church, a shrinking congregation can be depressing. You stand at the back and count, and there are fewer heads than a year ago, far fewer than five years back. You know the empty seats by name: the family that moved for a job, the couple that slowly stopped coming. Every absence is a ...

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...

Always being available may look like generosity, but it slowly drains you dry. Discover why Jesus withdrew from people who needed Him, and how his example frees you to be unreachable sometimes. Some of us take pride in being reachable. The text gets answered the second it comes in. You never turn down the request for coffee, and you never let a call go unanswered. From the outside it looks like generosity, and part of it is love. But some of it is something else, a person who has never learned ...

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...