Life with Amy

Takeaways

• Relief and heartbreak can exist side by side in grief, and feeling both does not mean you loved someone any less.
• God does not promise an easy life, but He promises to walk with you, weep with you, and carry you through the hard seasons.
• When doors close one after another, getting curious about what God is doing can open you up to a future you never planned.
• Choosing to look for goodness and gratitude changes your perspective on loss, even though grief never fully goes away.

Summary of the Episode

In this episode of Life with Amy, Amy Poepping continues last week's conversation about "395 Days of Hard" as her family marks the two-year anniversary of her father-in-law's death from cancer. She is clear that nothing was good about losing him, but she shares the goodness she has seen come from the last two years and how she holds onto God's promise to work all things out for His good and His glory.

Amy walks through the day Dale died, which she describes as hard, beautiful, and relieving, and the funeral, where friends told old stories about him. She shares a sweet moment with her three kids, who ate ice cream to remember Papa and pictured him farming in heaven. She also talks honestly about the angry prayers she prayed, and how she and her husband, Casey, chose every day to let God and other people into their lives.

From there, Amy lays out the timeline of loss that followed: the end of living on the family farm, the death of her 97-year-old grandma, and the sale of her flower shop. She explains why she and Casey did not ignore those closed doors, how a long-term dream of moving south turned into a leap of faith to Texas, and what she means by "God-fidence" when you are not feeling confident but you know God is.

She closes by challenging listeners to find the goodness and gratitude in their own hard seasons, to avoid staying stuck in grief, and to remember that life does not end at loss. Whether your grief is the loss of a person, a job, a relationship, or something else, this episode offers faith-filled encouragement for living after loss.

Takeaways

• Grief does not mean moving on. It means learning to move forward while carrying the love and the loss.
• You can start grieving before a loss happens, and naming that grief is part of walking through a hard diagnosis well.
• Receiving help is hard, but letting people carry your burdens is a gift to you and to them.
• A hard season can also be a good one if you look for the good, and the good is often what you remember most.

Summary of the Episode

In this episode of Life with Amy, Amy Poepping shares a story that has been on her heart as the two-year anniversary of her father-in-law's passing approaches. It is part healing for her and part encouragement for anyone struggling with loss, grief, or the work of moving forward.

Amy takes us back to the family farm where she and her husband, Casey, moved seven and a half years ago, and to the ordinary September day in 2023 when a small bus accident led to a brain bleed and then a stage four lung cancer diagnosis for her father-in-law, Dale. She walks through the shock, the anger, and the disbelief, and what it was like to be a caretaker with a background in medicine while parenting and supporting her husband.

From there, Amy talks about grieving the loss before it happens, the hard conversations she was honored to have with Dale, and the lesson of learning to receive after a lifetime of giving. She shares how her church family and friends showed up with meals, rides, babysitting, and help with bills, and what it meant to see the body of Christ in action.

Amy also holds the joy alongside the hard: ice cream dates after treatment, ringing the bell after his final radiation, and Dale teasing the nurses. She closes with the day Dale died at home, why she chooses gratitude, and a preview of a follow-up episode about how her family has moved forward over the last two years.

You can think you're a positive person and still be the drain in the room. In this episode, Amy shares two simple visuals: the faucet and the drain, and the stadium of people in your life. You'll learn how to spot who fills you up, who empties you out, and how to honestly check which one you are. Amy also explains why you can't (and shouldn't) kick every drain out of your life, but you can move them to the nosebleed seats and bring faucets to the front row. Plus: why healthy faucets turn off, what Jesus modeled in Luke 5:16, and why your front row only needs three to five people.

Key takeaways

• A faucet adds value to the room. A drain takes it away. It is not about positive versus negative; it is about what you leave behind.
• Drains are easy to spot in others and hard to spot in yourself. Turn the lesson inward.
• You can't always remove people, but you can choose who gets a front row seat to your life, business, leadership, motherhood, and home.
• Healthy faucets turn off. Rest is not selfish, and if being a faucet exhausts you, it is probably people pleasing.
• Your front row needs only three to five faucets.

Try this this week

1. Name the faucets in your life and what they do that fills you up.
2. Ask yourself in one specific place: "What can I add here?"
3. Decide who needs to move a few rows back, and whether you need to move back for someone else.
4. Hit the unfollow button on social media drains. It's the easiest practice round there is.

Takeaways

• Amy shares how saying yes to God ten years ago turned a season she calls a train wreck into a life she never believed was possible.
• Real change comes from a thousand little yeses, and the hard nos that come with each one.
• God has a long track record of using people with messy pasts, from Paul to Rahab, and your story is not a disqualifier.

In this episode of Life With Amy, Amy Poepping reflects on the last 10 years of her life and says the things she wishes someone had told her in her 20s. She opens up about a season of derailed decisions, drinking, and a deep longing for more that she kept looking for in all the wrong places. She also shares how one decision to say yes to Jesus, made ten years ago in May, changed the direction of everything that followed, including the businesses she has built and the stages she has spoken on. From there, Amy walks through three reminders for anyone who feels too far gone. First, stop using your past as evidence against your future. Second, your life changes through a thousand little yeses and the hard nos that come with them. Third, do not discount what God can do with a willing person. She talks about the difference between guilt and conviction, why forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and the image of walking through a door to your future with no baggage. She also gets honest about learning to say no to friends and to the next drink, and why she still has to choose growth every single day. The conversation closes with a reminder that you do not need your Ts crossed and your Is dotted to begin. You just need to show up willing and wanting, and trust that your coming days can be greater than your former days.

Download the bible app: https://www.youversion.com/bible-app

Takeaways

• You don't need to know anything before you start growing in your faith. Curiosity is enough to take the first step.
• Skip Genesis. Start reading the Bible in the Gospel of John, using an easy to read translation like the NLT.
• Faith grows through small, consistent habits, not big all or nothing efforts. Five minutes with your Bible open matters more than waiting for a perfect hour.
• Prayer doesn't require memorized words or fancy language. It's simply conversation with God, exactly as you are.
• Your relationship with God isn't a to-do list to check off. It's built the same way any relationship is: through consistent time and attention.

In this episode, Amy opens up about what it actually looked like to start building a relationship with God from zero. She shares her own story, growing up without a regular faith practice, a season of curiosity in her late twenties, and the unexpectedly scary first step of walking into church without knowing what she was doing.

From there, Amy gets practical. She walks through exactly where to start reading the Bible (hint: not page one), which translation makes it easiest to actually understand what you're reading, and how to use tools like the Bible app's Compare feature and Plans library to go deeper without feeling overwhelmed. She also breaks down what prayer really is, why it doesn't require special language, and why comparing your faith journey to someone further along only gets in your way.

The episode closes with a simple, doable challenge: read one chapter of the Gospel of John every day for the next 30 days. Amy explains why this specific book, and this specific timeframe, sets beginners up to actually build a lasting habit instead of one more thing that falls off the to-do list.

Key Topics Covered:

• Starting a faith journey when you feel behind or intimidated
• Where to begin reading the Bible (and why it isn't Genesis)
• Choosing a Bible translation that's actually easy to understand
• Building a consistent, low pressure Bible reading habit
• Using the Bible app's Compare and Plans features
• What prayer actually is and why it doesn't need to sound "spiritual"
• Why comparing your faith to someone else's slows you down
• The 30 day Bible reading challenge (starting in the Gospel of John)

Takeaways

• Rest is not the reward you earn after the to-do list is finished. It is part of how you were designed to function, and it comes before the work, not after it.
• True rest has three layers: physical rest for the body, mental rest for the mind, and soul rest for what you are carrying emotionally and spiritually. Most people only address the first one.
• Scrolling, bingeing a show, or zoning out are forms of distraction, not rest. Real mental rest means creating space where your mind is not managing, deciding, solving, or consuming anything at all.

Summary of the episode

In this solo episode, Amy makes the case that most of us are practicing physical rest while our minds and souls are still running a marathon. We take the day off, but we are already thinking about tomorrow. We watch football and fold laundry on Sunday, then jump right back into the exact pace that exhausted us in the first place.

Amy grounds the conversation in scripture, starting with creation. God rested on the seventh day, not because He was exhausted, but to establish a healthy rhythm. Adam, the first human, was created on day six, which means his first full day was a day of rest. He did not work to earn rest. He rested first, then worked from that place. Amy builds her entire framework on this idea: rest is not the reward for work, it is part of how we were made to work in the first place.

From there, she breaks rest into three categories. Physical rest covers sleep, nourishment, and movement, and she shares her own history of running on empty during a season of burnout. Mental rest is about clearing the "open tabs" in your brain through practices like writing things down, taking silent drives, and a five-minute quieting exercise she walks through in detail. Soul rest, drawn from Matthew 11, is about identifying what you are carrying that was never yours to carry, and surrendering it, not once, but continually.

Amy closes with a clear, repeatable framework: physical rest says you have limits and you can honor them, mental rest says you do not have to process everything, and soul rest says you do not have to carry everything alone. That, she says, is purposeful rest.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why rest is not something you earn after the work is done
• The creation story and what Adam's first day teaches about rest before work
• Physical rest: sleep, nourishment, and movement without overhauling your entire routine
• Jesus and the disciples in Mark 6, and Elijah in 1 Kings 19, as biblical examples of forced rest
• Mental rest and clearing the "open tabs" in your mind
• Why scrolling and bingeing shows are distraction, not rest
• A five-minute practice for quieting your mind, step by step
• Soul rest from Matthew 11: naming what you are carrying and surrendering it
• The difference between being busy and being rushed
• A closing framework for physical, mental, and soul rest

Takeaways

• There are two kinds of change: circumstantial change that happens to you, and chosen change you decide to make. Both require a deeper level of courage, just in different ways.
• Every change comes with some form of loss, even the good ones. You can know you made the right decision and still miss what you left behind, and that sadness is simply evidence that something mattered.
• Change itself doesn't decide who you become. You do. The same hard season can make you bitter or make you better, and the difference is the choice you make inside of it.

Summary of the episode

In this solo episode, Amy Poepping tackles what she calls "the big C word": change. She breaks change into two categories that shape the rest of the conversation. Circumstantial change is the kind that happens to you, a job loss, a diagnosis, a relationship ending, the kind you didn't choose and might not want. Chosen change is the kind you initiate yourself: leaving a job, starting a business, setting a boundary, deciding something has to give. Amy walks through both using her own life as the example, from her father-in-law's terminal cancer diagnosis in September 2023 and his death in October 2024, to her family's choice to move across the country from Minnesota to Texas this summer.

Amy makes the case that even good, chosen change still carries loss. You can be certain you made the right call and still grieve the community, friends, and routines you left behind. She talks candidly about the anger and grief she felt during her father-in-law's illness, including the angry prayers she prayed, and how adding one line, "I'm so mad, but I trust you," changed how she moved through that season. Her central point: hard seasons change you, but they don't have to damage you. Change can make you bitter or it can make you better, and that part is a choice, not something the circumstance gets to decide for you.

The episode turns personal and challenging in the back half, as Amy asks listeners to consider whether they are the change they've been waiting for, whether it's their habits, their attitude, their schedule, or their heart that actually needs to shift rather than their circumstances. She closes with a set of reflection questions and a challenge: don't waste the invitation that change gives you.

Key Topics Covered:

• The difference between circumstantial change (happens to you) and chosen change (you initiate)
• Why every change, even a good one, comes with a form of loss
• Amy's family's experience with her father-in-law's terminal cancer diagnosis and death
• Moving across the country from Minnesota to Texas as a chosen, positive, but still hard change
• How to move through anger and grief in a hard season without letting it harden you
• Recognizing when you are the change you've been waiting for
• Reflection questions for processing a season of change
• Choosing who you become through change instead of letting change choose for you

Takeaways

• Comparison does not just steal your joy, it steals your identity. The real danger is not feeling bad about someone else's life, it is quietly editing your own life and who you are because of hers.
• Inspiration and comparison are not the same thing. Inspiration is information, not instruction. If you stay inspired without ever taking action, that inspiration will eventually curdle into comparison.
• You do not discover who you are by staring harder at everyone else. You discover it by looking in and looking up, and by getting quiet enough to ask yourself the questions you have been avoiding.

Amy opens this solo episode with an honest update: she skipped an episode last week because she needed to pause, reflect, and process a season of major transition after her family's move from Minnesota to Texas. That reflection kept circling back to one theme she has been wrestling with personally and hearing about constantly in mentorship conversations: comparison. She digs past the familiar idea that comparison is the thief of joy to make the case that comparison is doing something quieter and more dangerous, it is stealing identity.

She walks through four ways comparison pulls people away from who they actually are. First, comparison steals identity, not just joy, the moment you start editing your own life and personality to match someone else's. Second, people confuse evidence that something works for someone else with evidence that it is right for them, and Amy makes the case for staying inspired without letting inspiration curdle into comparison when it never turns into action. Third, being yourself requires disappointing other people's expectations, and most of the expectations people feel pressure from were never real to begin with. Fourth, you cannot discover who you are by staring at everyone else, only by looking inward and upward.

Amy closes the episode with a set of reflection questions designed to help listeners reconnect with who they were created to be: what actually matters to them, what they are naturally good at, what gives them energy, what they are only doing because other people are doing it, and what they would do if fear, time, or money were not in the way. She ends with a challenge to stop auditioning for a life that was never meant to be theirs, and to instead go be exactly who they were created to be.

Key Topics Covered:

• The difference between comparison stealing joy and comparison stealing identity
• Why inspiration without action turns into comparison
• People-pleasing, approval-seeking, and disappointing expectations that were never real
• Dismissing your own gifts and talents because they do not feel impressive
• Reflection questions for reconnecting with who you were created to be
• Faith, identity, and the belief that you were made intentionally, not as an "almost" version of someone else

Takeaways

• Health is not one dimension. When one area of your wellness wheel struggles (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, social, environmental, or financial) the other areas feel the ripple effect too.
• Chronic pain does not just affect the body. It affects sleep, mood, motivation, relationships, and even your sense of connection to God.
• You do not need a perfect routine to stay well. You need intentionality in the areas you can control while you work through the area that is struggling.

In this solo episode of Life with Amy, Amy gets real about a chronic pain flare that returned after months of relief. After nearly a year of neck and back pain caused by damaged discs, physical therapy and treatment finally brought Amy total relief, more activity, better sleep, and a return to normal life. Then, just over a week before recording, the pain came back in full force, right as her family settled into a new school year in Texas.

Rather than keeping the struggle behind the scenes, Amy walks listeners through the concept of the wellness wheel: a visual, pie-shaped model of health broken into pieces like physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, social, environmental, and financial wellness. Her core point is simple and important: none of these pieces exist in isolation. When physical health takes a hit, it bleeds into sleep, mental clarity, emotional regulation, motivation to connect with friends, and even spiritual closeness with God.

Amy is candid about what the last week and a half has actually looked like: less-than-perfect eating, resisting time in her Bible even though she knows how much she needs it, and cycling through frustration, tears, and moments of feeling distant from God. But she also shares the practical, intentional choices she is making to hold the rest of her wellness wheel steady while her body heals: reaching out to friends more than usual, protecting her home as a low-toxin environment, staying financially grounded instead of turning to retail therapy, replacing spiraling negative thoughts with truth, and leaning on faith and community to get through what she calls an "analyze and adjust" season.

This episode is a reminder that wellness is not about achieving perfect balance all the time. It is about noticing which piece of the pie is struggling and being intentional with the rest so the whole wheel can keep turning.

Key Topics Covered:

• The wellness wheel model and its seven pieces of health
• How chronic pain affects mental and emotional health, not just the body
• Recognizing and replacing negative, spiraling thoughts with truth
• Staying spiritually grounded during a hard, painful season
• Protecting social, environmental, and financial wellness when one area is struggling
• Practicing mental toughness without pretending to have it all together

Takeaways

• Kids notice more about how adults worry and behave than we give them credit for, and their honest perspective is a great gut check for parents.
• Teaching kids about money early, like saving instead of spending everything at once, sticks even when it is hard for them in the moment.
• Big life transitions like a cross country move hit kids differently than adults, but new adventures and new friendships follow close behind.
• Faith conversations with kids do not need to be complicated. A favorite Bible story can carry a big lesson about courage in the face of fear.
• Some of the best parenting moments are the small, funny, completely unscripted ones, like a 10 year old explaining why "sick" is cooler than "cool."

In this episode of Life with Amy, host Amy Poepping hands the mic to someone very special: her oldest child and only son, Chase, just 10 days shy of turning 11. What starts as a fun rapid fire interview turns into a heartfelt look at how a 10 year old sees the world, from adjusting to his family's recent move from Minnesota to Texas to what he has learned about money, friendship, and faith along the way.

Chase opens up about the hardest part of the move (leaving his friends) and the best part (the Texas heat, biking, and fishing), all while keeping Amy and listeners laughing with his takes on preteen slang, being "weird" versus "normal," and his very specific plans for a hypothetical million dollars (a 220 acre ranch, obviously). He shares what he has learned from his mom and dad, why he loves the story of David and Goliath, and what he thinks adults could stand to do more of: have more fun.

The episode closes with a sweet "how well do you know Mom" quiz, where Chase proves he has Amy figured out down to her coffee order, her go to sushi dinner, and the fact that she is, in his words, "terrible" at video games. It is a candid, funny, and truly touching window into family life, faith, and what really matters to a kid on the edge of becoming a preteen.

Key Topics Covered:

• Moving from Minnesota to Texas as a family, and how kids process big life changes
• What a 10 year old thinks adults get wrong about kids (worrying too much, forgetting to have fun)
• Teaching kids financial responsibility: saving versus spending
• Faith and courage through the lens of the David and Goliath story
• Family traditions, football season, and Friday Night Lights culture in Texas
• A lighthearted "how well do you know Mom" quiz between mother and son