Have you ever thought about how God’s will intersects with your story? In this reflection episode, we’ll consider specifically what we’re telling ourselves about God’s will and how that affects our thinking, our view of ourselves, and our stories.

So, in story language, we’ll be talking about three parts: the past, the story that’s already been written, the present, the life we’re now living, and the future, the parts that are left to be written.

As always, we’ll begin our time together with a slow-down exercise and end our time together with a benediction.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

Today, we’ll be examining the characters who show up in our stories through the lens of relationship. Specifically, we’ll be talking about 3 paradigms for relationship: independence, codependence, and interdependence. Each of these relationship strategies affect the way we view relationships, and thus the way we interact with the people in our lives. I hope you’ll join me for this 15 minute reflection episode as we consider how our relationship strategies affect the way we interpret our own stories.

What are emotions and what purpose do they serve? In this episode, we’ll answer that question, as well as talk about how we can recognize, name, and learn to regulate them. It was a joy to talk in this episode with my friend and fellow counselor, Deni Huttula, about emotional regulation and about her book, The Bridges of Chara: an allegory for your brain’s emotional landscape.

Deni shares about her history of working with children who struggle with emotional and behavioral challenges, and how that experience led her to write her book. We also talk about how we experience emotions in our bodies, and ways that we can co-regulate in safe relationships.

Deni is an old friend of the podcast. In fact, she was on PRN in the 2nd season to talk about soul-care. You can listen to that episode here.

If you’re interested in journaling, I hope you’ll go check out Deni’s other book, The Author Still Speaks: 21 days of questions to ask God.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

In today’s episode, we’re going to be meditating on one of Jesus’ parables, and gleaning what He is teaching about His kingdom through the story. If you’d like to read along, we’ll be reading from Luke 12. As always, we’ll read the passage 3 times, so that we can spend time thinking, noticing, repeating, pondering, and giving the Word space in our minds and hearts.

I’d love to hear what you noticed or thought about as we read this passage together. Feel free to share below!

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

In the second part of my conversation with Leah, she shares about the unexpected difficulties she has faced as a parent. Leah is a single parent of four adopted children, and she honestly talks about the realities of that journey. She also speaks about being a parent of children with special needs.

Leah is so honest and authentic in telling her story, and it is a story that we all need to hear. Whether or not you’re a single parent, an adoptive parent, or a special needs parent, you will come away from this episode with compassion and new understanding for some of the “invisible” needs of our communities and churches.

If something from this episode resonates with you, I’d love to hear about it. Drop a comment under today’s show notes, or comment on Facebook or Instagram.

If you missed the first part of Leah’s story, I hope you’ll go back and give it a listen as well!

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and settle in for quite a conversation today, friends. It was a joy to talk with my friend, Leah Stirewalt, as she shared her story on this episode. It is no easy story, and to say the least, it has layers. Leah has experienced unexpected grief so many times, that she has felt as if she had a “target on her back.”

Whether or not you have experienced grief yourself, you will come away from this episode wiser. Leah shares the nitty gritty about making it through difficult circumstances, and wisdom about how to help others who are grieving.

In fact, Leah’s story could not adequately be captured in one episode, so her story will be continued next week as she shares about her parenting journey.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Comment below today’s show notes, or join the conversation on Facebook or Instagram.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

Did you know that there is more than one kind of memory? In telling our stories, we are accessing both explicit and implicit memories to form a coherent narrative.

In this episode, we’ll begin with a calming exercise, then talk about the role of about explicit and implicit memory in our lives and in our stories. We’ll end with an exercise that can help to access and incorporate both kinds of memory. Make sure to have a paper and pencil nearby for this one!

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

What is memory, and how does memory affect how we process and tell our own story? In the next couple of episodes we’re going to dive into that subject together. We’re also going to talk about how we are story-bound people. So, join me for this 150th episode of the podcast, as we explore our stories through the lens of memory.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

Join me today, as we spend a few minutes together meditating on one the stories of Jesus. His stories, called parables, are earthly stories that carry a heavenly meaning. They share ideas and metaphors to describe his Kingdom. If you want to read along, we’ll be in Matthew 13, in the New Living Translation. We’ll end our time together with a breath prayer.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.

As we continue the theme of examining our stories, today I’m posing the question, what if it turns out that your story is ordinary? Join me today for an 11-minute reflection episode. We’ll begin with a grounding exercise, reflect together on what it means to live an ordinary life, and then close with a benediction.

May you be encouraged on your journey with Jesus.