Midlife Repurposed

This week, Chris Martin talks with me about how we can have healthy relationships with the content on the web and become more aware of how platforms control us. We talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and what is coming in the future. Chris’s solution is not just delete your accounts and log off. Instead, he has a thoughtful way of approaching technology. Bottom line, Chris says: “Use the platforms and don’t let the platforms use you.”

Chris Martin is a content marketing editor at Moody Publishers and a social media, marketing, and communications consultant. He writes regularly in his Substack newsletter, Terms of Service, and wrote a book of the same title, which released in 2022. Chris lives outside Nashville with his wife, Susie, their daughter, Magnolia, and their dog, Rizzo.

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Have you ever wondered if God isn’t hearing your prayers? It’s more difficult than a country song about unanswered prayers being God’s greatest gifts. This episode explores questions about prayer.

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Does it feel as if your spouse or your kids are home all the time? All. The. Time! Learn how to modify and remodel your attitude to make those tight spaces work in this conversation with author Cynthia Ruchti.

Cynthia Ruchti is the author of 35+ books (fiction and nonfiction) written under the tagline, "I can't unravel. I'm hemmed in Hope." She and her grade school sweetheart husband live in the heart of Wisconsin, not far from their three kids and six (to date) grandkids.

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Practical tips for supporting a friend who is sorting through all the emotions that come along with healing from trauma.

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Bonnie was born in a story that wasn't filled with love but with brokenness and loneliness. Her mother was a teenage mail-order bride from Hong Kong, and her father was a busboy in a noodle shop in San Francisco Chinatown. He abandoned her when she was seven. God used all her broken pieces to bring beauty to shine the light of his love so she can encourage others who hide in loneliness. Broken was once her identity, but God repurposed it to bring beauty and hope to others.

Bonnie Gray is a Soul Care Expert and author of Sweet Like Jasmine, which recently became #1 New Release in Christian Biographies on Amazon, along with Whispers of Rest, and Finding Spiritual Whitespace. As speaker and podcast host of Breathe: The Stress Less Podcast, Bonnie empowers thousands of lives to flourish in emotional wellness and intentional rest. Her writing is featured in numerous Christian media outlets including Relevant Magazine and Christianity Today. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.

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Communication all jumbled up? Seven tips for how we can experience repurposed communication by being intentional and focused with conversations.

1. Repeat. Make sure we understand what someone else said.


2. Assess emotions. Check your own emotions to see they are affecting what you say and hear.


3. Put down your phone. Give the conversation your full attention. When we give communication our full focus, it means our words are more thoughtful, our focus is clearer, and we demonstrate how much we value people.


4. Say what you mean.


5. Assume the best.


6. Practice listening. Let go of the habit of working on your reply while the other person is speaking.


7. If you aren’t sure, ask questions to provide clarity. Keep the tone kind and not condescending.

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If you know God is real and that he is faithful, why do you keep imagining the worst? Kristine Brown was living frazzled, stumbling through the same pattern of defeat week after week. When she came face-to-face with her worst-case-scenario, a diagnosis of colorectal cancer, she knew something had to change. Through her journey with cancer, God taught her how to trust him like she means it.

Kristine Brown is a communicator at heart, ministry wife, mom, stepmom, and Mimi. She is a former chronic worrier who loves connecting with women today and teaching about women of the Bible. You’ll find encouragement to help you “become more than yourself through God’s Word” at her website, morethanyourself.com. Any given day you can find her texting her young adult kids, checking on neighbors, or searching for a new way to cook broccoli.

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Does life feel too crazy to keep your marriage strong sometimes? This episode includes tips for busy couples who want to hang on when life makes them dizzy.

• If you've ever hopped on a playground merry-go-round, you know that when someone spins it as fast as they can, you’re at the mercy of the person doing the spinning. You could not hop off that thing without risking injury.


• Sometimes life and marriage feel that way too. I like to think of it as not a merry-go-round but a marry-go-round. Most of us don't start out on the marry-go-round. Although some start out on kind of a slow spin. Then it ramps up from there.

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Have you ever paused to consider if you're fully using your gifts and abilities? Do you pursue what you think is quote, right? What others want of you? Or do you go after what most fulfills your passions and desires? Today, Esther Littlefield and I talk about what it means to pursue the ideal life. Not perfect, not utopia, but ideal.

Esther Littlefield is a marketing strategist and business coach for Christian women who are ready to stop feeling scattered and confused about how to grow their business online. She’s the host of the award-winning Christian Woman Leadership Podcast and the Christian Woman Business Podcast.

She is passionate about helping clients cut through the confusion, find clarity, and develop confidence in their marketing strategy so that they can focus on what will truly help them create a business (and life) they love.

Esther resides in Maine with her husband Scott, daughter KJ, Golden Retriever Allie, cats Daisy and Zoe, and two leopard geckos.

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When was the last time you said, “I’m bored”? Are your brain and schedule so full that you have no space to dream, solve, innovate, or create? In this solo episode, learn how bringing back boredom can be a good thing.

• We live in a noisy world.… It isn't just what we hear.…It's also the schedule demands that scream at us. It's the internal dialogue that won't shut off because of what's coming at us. I should be working I should you know, all those kinds of things. It's the flood of information from news and from posts we read in from articles in emails and texts and podcasts, yes, even those, and the messages that we get. It's the overwhelm of any kind of input to our senses or our brains.


• Boredom doesn’t mean sitting around staring at blank walls.


• Three kinds of boredom:
  
  • Active – doing a mindless task with sound turned off
  
  
  • Waiting – not going to social media to pass the time
  
  
  • Intentional – setting up barriers to easy access to noise
  
  
  
  


• Turn off the podcasts, music, and TV sometimes, and let your thoughts wander.

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