What happens when the future you carefully planned changes one week before closing?

Kim Hardy and her husband had finally sold their home after a year on the market. Their boxes were packed, another home was waiting, and then her husband unexpectedly lost his job.

With their daughter finishing her senior year and their family facing financial, housing, health, and emotional changes, Kim began recognizing that God had prepared them before the crisis through prayer, Psalm 91, and earlier reminders of His provision.

In this episode, Kim shares how uncertainty taught her to notice God’s care in ordinary moments, strengthen her marriage through prayer, ask for help, surrender control, and write down His provisions as stones of remembrance.

KEY TOPICS

• Trusting God when carefully made plans suddenly change
• Recognizing spiritual preparation before a crisis
• Finding God’s provision in small, ordinary moments
• Prayer in marriage and written stones of remembrance

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• God may begin preparing us before we understand what lies ahead.
• His faithfulness does not always look like receiving the outcome we planned.
• Writing down small provisions helps us remember what fear makes us forget.
• Trust is often practiced one ordinary day at a time.

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When every responsibility matters, it can feel as though everything is urgent, everything is yours, and everything must happen now. But caring deeply does not create unlimited capacity.

In this solo episode, Stephanie shares the moment her computer exposed just how exhausted she had become: she fell asleep with her hands on the keyboard and woke to a row of letters stretching across the screen. Through Mosiah 4:27 and Mark 6:30–31, she explores why diligence must live alongside wisdom, order, honest limits, and rest.

This conversation is not about caring less. It is about discerning what is yours for now, what can wait, where help is needed, and what was never yours to carry alone.

KEY TOPICS

• Why meaningful responsibilities can all begin to feel urgent
• Diligence, wisdom, order, and human strength in Mosiah 4:27
• Why Jesus called the apostles to rest while needs still remained
• The four-part Capacity Sort for making one faithful adjustment

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A real need is not automatically your assignment for this exact moment.
• Your limit is information—not automatically an indictment of your faith, discipline, or love.
• Rest is not something you earn only after every need disappears.
• Faithfulness is doing what is yours without destroying yourself over what is not.

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What happens when you trust God and your heart is still broken?

Rachelle Boyd-Huff knew how to walk other families through death as a hospice nurse. But when her own father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died three weeks and one day later, professional experience could not protect the daddy's girl in her from the pain of losing him.

In this conversation, Rachelle shares how she advocated for her father, honored his desire to die at home, and held onto his final birthday message. She also speaks honestly about the grief that remained after caregiving ended, the struggle to recognize herself without her father, and the support she received through therapy, medication, rest, faith, and an unexpected community.

KEY TOPICS

• When the hospice nurse suddenly became the grieving daughter
• Honoring her father's wishes and advocating through his final days
• Identity, therapy, medication, and learning to live after caregiving
• Why grief and faith can coexist in the same heart

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Professional knowledge cannot remove the pain of losing someone you love.
• Grief has no fixed timeline, and needing help does not mean faith has failed.
• Faith may look like taking one small step on a difficult day.
• God can continue carrying us even when grief remains unfinished.

Continue the conversation: https://gloryandgritpodcast.com

You are praying, showing up, and doing what you know to do—so why does it still feel like you are not getting anywhere?

In this solo episode, Stephanie explores quiet progress: the kind of growth that may be happening even while the answer has not come and life still feels unfinished. Through her experience with a delayed surgery, Alma’s seed image, and Galatians 6:9, she considers how God may be changing the person standing in front of the door even before the door opens.

KEY TOPICS
• Why finished outcomes are not the only evidence of progress
• Recognizing changed responses, steadiness, and recovery
• The seed, the unseen harvest, and faithful waiting
• Why waiting is not the same as passive avoidance

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• An unfinished life is not the same thing as an unchanged life.
• A setback is not automatically a reset.
• Sometimes progress means asking for help or changing the plan.
• You can take one faithful next step without controlling the outcome.

Continue the conversation: https://gloryandgritpodcast.com

After 25 years of marriage and ministry together, Stephen Ongo suddenly lost his wife, Susan. In the months that followed, grief became heavier rather than easier, until Steve reached a point where he had to decide whether he would turn away from God in his pain—or lean toward Him without understanding why.

In this conversation, Steve shares his personal journey through loss, the experience he believes changed the trajectory of his grief, what it meant to remember Susan without attaching her memory only to pain, and how he began rebuilding his identity and discovering joy and purpose again.

Key Topics

• Sudden loss and the reality of walking through grief
• Choosing trust when there is no satisfying answer to “why”
• Steve's personal experience of finding freedom in the midst of grief
• Rebuilding identity, welcoming joy, and discovering what it means to live “in Christ”

Takeaways

• Grief is a process, and becoming stronger does not mean forgetting the person you lost.
• Trusting God does not require having an explanation for everything that happened.
• Pain does not have to remain attached to every memory of someone you love.
• A devastating chapter can change your life without being allowed to define the rest of your story.

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You can keep walking and still reach a point where you look at your life and quietly ask:

Who am I now?

Sometimes the things we carry become part of how we identify ourselves — the job, the relationship, the calling, our independence, being needed, or always being the strong one.

Then something changes.

In this episode of Glory & Grit, Stephanie talks about what happens when life changes how we see ourselves, including the unexpected identity shift she experienced after being released from a church calling she had carried for years.

• How roles, responsibilities, health, and relationships can become tied to identity
• The difference between usefulness and God-given worth
• Giving yourself permission to miss who you used to be
• Recognizing what survived and what God may be forming now

• You kept walking, even when the steps looked nothing like you expected.
• Your role and responsibilities can change without changing your worth.
• Healing may not mean returning to exactly who you were before.
• God does not have to reveal the whole person you are becoming before He can guide your next step.

The road may have changed you, but it did not erase you.

This week’s reflection question:

Who is God helping me become in this season?

Continue the conversation with the Episode Companion Page and sign up for the weekly Keep Walking encouragement at:

https://www.gloryandgritpodcast.com

What happens when you look at everything unfinished in your life and begin measuring yourself by what you haven’t accomplished?

In the Season 2 premiere of Glory & Grit, Stephanie Doss Ladner shares an honest reflection on health uncertainty, unfinished responsibilities, good intentions, and the pressure of the complete picture we create in our minds.

Through one ordinary evening spent straightening her podcast studio, Stephanie discovers that a smaller, useful step is not a failed version of the whole plan—it is a win.

This episode explores the difference between worth and stewardship, why we often bring God our emergencies but leave Him out of our ordinary responsibilities, and how to discern whether the next faithful step is rest, action, or simply making the task smaller.

Drawing from Luke 10:38–42 and Mosiah 4:27, Stephanie invites us to stop staring at the whole pie, notice the next slice, and ask:

“What is the next most needful step I can take with God?”

In this episode:

• Why unfinished tasks can distort how we measure our progress
• The important difference between worth and stewardship
• Inviting God into ordinary responsibilities
• Discerning between genuine rest and avoidance
• Why “dreading is worse than doing”
• Taking a useful step with the strength available today
• Beginning again without waiting for life to be perfectly arranged

You may not be running. You may not be moving as quickly as you expected. You may need to rest before taking another step.

But you are still walking.

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What if the greatest miracle in Luke 8 wasn't the healing?

In this final Summer Scripture Verse Mapping episode, Stephanie slows down to explore the story of the woman with the issue of blood and discovers that Jesus wasn't simply interested in healing her body—He was restoring her dignity, identity, and place in the community.

Together we'll explore the cultural background of ceremonial uncleanness, the significance of the tassels on Jesus' garment, why Jesus stopped in the middle of a pressing crowd, and the beautiful meaning behind one simple word:

"Daughter."

If you've ever felt unseen, carried a burden for a long time, or wondered whether Jesus notices you, this conversation is for you.

Together we'll discover:

• Why the woman tried to remain hidden.
• What ceremonial uncleanness meant in everyday life.
• Why she reached for the fringe of Jesus' garment.
• The difference between merely being near Jesus and intentionally reaching for Him in faith.
• Why Jesus asked, "Who touched Me?"
• Why one word—"Daughter"—changes the entire story.

The greatest miracle may not have been the healing itself...

It may have been the way Jesus restored her dignity in front of everyone.

• Jesus notices individual faith even in the middle of a crowd.
• Jesus restores more than physical wounds; He restores dignity, identity, and peace.
• We are invited to move beyond simply being near Jesus to intentionally reaching toward Him.

Beautiful Companion Page: Download this week’s companion page at gloryandgritpodcast.com.

Jesus knew exactly who He was.

And He still chose the towel.

This week we're slowing down one of the most familiar scenes in the New Testament—Jesus washing His disciples' feet—and discovering that before Jesus ever knelt, John first reminds us that Jesus knew His identity, His authority, and His mission.

Together we'll explore:

• Ancient foot washing customs

• Why Peter struggled to let Jesus serve him

• The practical nature of Christ's service

• Why knowing must become doing

• And one simple question:

Do I notice the basin?

• Jesus served from security, not insecurity.
• Knowing who you belong to frees you to serve without needing recognition.
• Jesus' lesson was spiritual, but His service was practical.
• Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is meet an ordinary need.
• Before Peter could imitate Jesus, he had to receive from Him.
• The towel never diminished Jesus' authority.
• Knowledge becomes discipleship when it moves into action.
• We cannot represent a foot-washing Savior while believing certain acts of service are beneath us.
• The question isn't only whether we'll serve—it's whether we'll notice the basin sitting in front of us.

Beautiful Companion Page: Download this week’s companion page at gloryandgritpodcast.com.

This week on Glory & Grit, we’re continuing our summer Scripture Verse Mapping series with Matthew 5:13, where Jesus tells His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth.”

This verse comes right after the Beatitudes, and it is more than a familiar phrase. Jesus is speaking of identity and purpose over His disciples. Salt may work quietly, but it still changes what it touches. In the same way, our faith does not have to be loud or impressive to matter — but it does need to stay connected to Christ.

In this episode, we slow down and look at what salt meant in Jesus’ time, what it means to lose savor, and how discipleship can become diluted by fear, bitterness, exhaustion, distraction, or the pressure to fit in.

TAKEWAYS:

• Matthew 5:13 is not just a cute “salt of the earth” phrase — it is about identity and purpose.
• Salt works quietly, but it still changes what it touches.
• Losing savor is a warning about becoming diluted, distracted, or disconnected from Christ.
• You do not have to be impressive to be effective; you just have to stay true to what Christ called you to be.

Reflection Guide: Download this week’s companion page at gloryandgritpodcast.com.