Marlena Graves—author, writer, speaker, and teacher—joins me on the podcast this week. Marlena has written a terrific book titled, A Beautiful Disaster: finding hope in the midst of brokenness.

We spend some time talking about two different passages in the book—first, about how God really sees us, and second, we focus on play. I struggle with letting go of the serious and playing. If you have those tendencies, you’ll especially appreciate the second half of our conversation.

The New York Times best-selling book Christy by Catherine Marshall celebrates its 50th anniversary. Catherine Marshall, best known for Christy, is the New York Times best-selling author of 30 books. The novel, based on the life of her mother, was once required reading for middle school children in the public school system.

My guest, to talk about Christy, is Nancy LeSourd, the daughter-in-law of Catherine Marshall. LeSourd has her own story that we delve into of growing up in Atlanta during the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960’s. The podcast is definitely about strong women, but encouraging to anyone wanting to make a difference in the world. Nancy LeSourd also serves as publisher for Evergreen Farm, an imprint of Gilead Publishing.

We not only mention Christy, but also the Liberty Letters, a great Christmas gift for young girls. You can also find Christy: The Complete Series here.

Karen Wright Marsh is executive director and cofounder of Theological Horizons, a university ministry. Karen directs daily programs, writes resources and curriculum, teaches weekly classes, mentors students, leads the staff, and speaks at retreats, churches and campus ministries. Karen and her husband live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Besides focusing on Karen’s book, Vintage Saints and Sinners, we also talk about the vintage lunches where Karen speaks each Friday at The Bonhoeffer House, and we spent time talking about the recent protest that took place in Charlottesville.

With the hashtag #MeToo showing up all over social media, I knew I needed to record a podcast with Mary DeMuth. She is an author and speaker and has focused on what a Re-storied life looks like–especially after living through sexual abuse or sexual assault. She has written over 30 books. I’d like to highlight two here that we mention on the podcast. Thin Places and Not Marked are excellent for someone who has experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault.

We spend a lot of time talking about what not to say to a victim of sexual assault. You can find the article we focus on here.

Mary also mentions Jimmy Hinton and a podcast she did with him. Find that podcast here.

Mike Murphy joins me and we spend time responding to emails, largely about the last two podcasts, so you might want to listen to episode 101 with Melinda Schmidt and Lori Neff, as well as last week’s episode 102 with Mike Murphy and John Lustrea. We talk about friendship and other things a bit more controversial. Grateful for emails that keep flowing in. The email address is [email protected].

Here are links to a variety of books and movies talked about on the podcast this week.

Mike, John, and Anita at John’s wedding this past summer

On this episode of Faith Conversations, I’m joined by Mike Murphy and John Lustrea. It has been a full couple of weeks in the news, and we take some time to talk about some of the news stories that have occupied a lot of headlines lately.

We begin by talking about the NFL protests, also known as taking a knee during the National Anthem. We focus some of our conversation on Puerto Rico and the devastation from Hurricane Maria. And we wrap up our time talking about the horrors of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

How are we to respond as followers Christ? Hopefully this podcast will help answer that question.

This week I talk with former radio colleagues Melinda Schmidt and Lori Neff. We talk about what we are reading, what we are feeling at this stage of life as we’ve all made a shift in employment, and we laugh together which is no surprise to anyone.

Casey Tygrett joins me on the podcast. We focus on a topic near and dear to my heart, Becoming Curious. It just happens to be the name of his book which is subtitled a spiritual practice of asking questions. Casey is the teaching pastor at Heartland Community Church in Rockford, Ill. He is also a spiritual director and an adjunct seminary professor at Lincoln Christian University and Seminary.

Casey also mentions Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings blog.

You can follow him on Twitter @cktygrett.

Also mentioned was the book A Roomful of Questions by Tracy Gallup.

Hurricane Irma came and went. The aftermath includes what happened before during and after. What does prayer look like in the middle of crisis and in the middle of our everyday lives?

Mike Murphy joins me to talk about our thoughts, our emotions, and our spiritual lives in the middle of the struggles we encounter.

John Lustrea joins me on the podcast this week. John is the blog editor and website manager at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. We talk about weddings, marriage, and favorite podcasts. And John introduces us to a new spiritual practice which we demonstrate on the podcast. It is called Florilegium. And John was introduced to it by one of his favorite podcasts, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.