Ready to Thrive

These have been incredibly challenging times and I know I have felt the impact on my mind. Have you felt it? Increased anxiety, depression, hopelessness? How do we strengthen and renew our minds during this season?

I loved this candid conversation with my friend Jackie Smith Bell as we talk about the growing pains of this moment and how we can mature and learn to trust in what God is bringing us through. I so appreciate Jackie’s wisdom in this conversation and that each response to a question is answered through the truth of God’s word.

Jackie Smith-Bell is a wife, mother of 3, writer, and speaker who loves to encourage women to trust God. Whether it’s helping mothers balance the journey of motherhood or reminding them of God’s faithfulness, Jackie provides a Biblical perspective with humor, transparency, and truth. She has a published blog and podcast, “At Home with Jackie” where she shares wisdom and encouragement to help women “grow well” despite challenging circumstances.

Check her out on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube or on her website!

We’re taking a pause from our summer series on health and it is well worth it. Kristen is one of those people whose life has been radically changed and you can’t help but be changed as you listen to her. And in many ways, shouldn’t that be what all of our lives are like? As we encounter Jesus for ourselves and are changed, shouldn’t that be what others say about us all?

This episode will encourage you, but more than anything I think it will challenge you as it challenged me. What if us running toward comfort in our lives, and holding back from those things that scare us, the things that God has set right before us in our lives to get our attention - what if those are the exact things we need to thrive? What if our best life is actually found in turning to face those things head on. Grabbing Jesus by the hand and saying, “Ok, I’m scared, but I’m in, I’m all in.”

Kristen Welch is the founder of Mercy House Global, an organization that exists to engage, empower and disciple women around the globe. She is the author of several books including Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, Raising World Changers in a Changing World, and her latest book, Made to Move Mountains: How God Uses our Dreams and Disasters to Accomplish the Impossible.

If you are a parent this is a conversation you don’t want to miss! Kim Amici hosts the Build Your Best Family Podcast and is a certified life coach taking parents on a journey to help them thrive in their families. She asks the question - “What do you want your family to be known for?”

Have you ever thought about the culture in your family? What is your family known for? What do people say about your family when they’ve spent time in your home? This is culture. And sometimes we are creating a family culture without intention.

I am trusting this episode will give you aha moments and tools (like this free pdf FULL of resources that Kim mentions in this episode) to help you begin to thrive as a family.

I also mention the power of sitting down at the table and the stats that prove it as shared by Abby Turner in Episode 50.

The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!

Do you ever feel like you’re operating on autopilot? I hope you said yes because you are! So much of our life is simply a series of everyday habits. But why does it feel like we often drift towards unhealthy habits when we have the very best intentions? How about our thought lives? Have you ever thought of your thinking as habitual?

Krista unpacks this and more as she teaches us about the power of habits and how we can actually begin to make the changes we want to see in our lives. I am trusting this episode will help you navigate towards the habits you would like to see to help you thrive in your own life! (You might even begin to floss ;)

Krista Penner works in leadership development with Fellowship Pacific and Leverage Women, an organization equipping, inspiring and connecting female leaders as they “leverage” their collective strength for a God-honoring impact. Krista and her husband Jerome live in Mission BC and have three grown children. She can often be found in her kitchen making something that calls for a pound of butter.

Bethany and her husband Corey are millennials. But they are on a mission to break the stigma’s we have when we think of when we think about that demographic. They are also on a personal mission to get out of debt and they aren’t keeping their journey to themselves. They give regular updates on their podcast, The Millennial Mission, and Bethany shares how they are tackling their debt and actually beginning to see progress!

Have you felt hopeless when you looked at your finances? Or have you avoided looking at them altogether? I know I have been there! This episode will give you tools to begin tackling the debt mountain that may be looming in front of you as well as a motivational kick in the pants to get going and begin to live freely and lightly when it comes to this area of our lives.

Did you hear the news?? The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!

Have you ever felt lonely in your adult life? Have you ever wondered, “shouldn’t friendship be easy by now?” Have you had a miscommunication that led to a friendship fall out, or had a friend simply disappear and stop returning communication attempts? You are not alone my friend! Adult female friendship is complicated!

Noelle Rhodes is a female friendship researcher and host of the Friending podcast! She shares about the 3 types of friends we need in our lives and is very candid about how creating and maintaining female friendship as an adult is hard!

In this episode I reference being on her podcast and you can listen to that episode here!

Did you hear the news?? The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!

That area of your life where you’re not thriving? You already know what to do! But are you doing it? I unpack this and what it looks like to follow those little nudges from God. I share about my own recent God nudge that had a crazy outcome! I still can’t believe it!  And one I am beginning to follow this summer.

I also talk about doing the “heart work” and how it is really impossible to thrive until we’ve done that. If you want some tools to take you through this heart work and move you to Thriving this summer check out Tangled: A Soul Care Revival Guide on Amazon.ca or Amazon.com or if you want to really do this work this summer check out the Tangled Course and I will help walk you through the content and encourage you along the way! Check it out here!

2020 is the year of clarity and vision...does it feel that way to you? Do you feel like you have a strong sense of vision for your life? “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18 Vision is tied to hope, and in this past season we have walked through couldn’t we all use a little hope?

Often we simply think about vision in terms of our career or with the idea that we will “arrive” somewhere. But what about having a vision for your family, your marriage or your finances? In this episode I unpack what it looks like to sit with God and dream with Him to get a vision for our lives in every area.

Did you hear the news?? The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!

Sharon unpacks the danger of nice Christianity and why we like to be liked. Her latest book was birthed through her desire to speak out against racism but feared how she would be received, after all she was a nice Christian girl. What if being “nice” is keeping us from who we are meant to be as true disciples of Christ?

Sharon Hodde Miller co-leads Bright City Church in Durham, NC alongside her husband Ike. She holds a PhD and is the author of the books Free of Me: Why Life is Better When It’s Not About You and Nice: Why We Love to be Liked and How God Calls us to More.

Did you hear the news?? The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!

Have you ever asked yourself the question “what is my purpose?” And did you hope to find the answer in a particular vocation? In a world that asks us from a young age “what do you want to be when you grow up?” it is no wonder that we begin to place our identity in our vocation. As people who have been designed to find their identity in Christ, we often get stuck in a cycle of striving vocationally to try and find fulfill our deep need of walking out our purpose. It is when we live out our faith calling, to love God and love others, that often our vocational calling begins to arise. But don’t take my word for it. Paula Faris writes about this in her book Called Out: Why I Traded Two Dream Jobs for a Life of True Calling.

Paula had not one but two dream jobs that she walked away from when God got her attention in a variety of ways. She was co-anchor of Good Morning America Weekend and co-host of the View. Her and I sit down and unpack what it looks like to identify a vocational calling and how that looks different from a faith calling and how mixing up the two can keep you stuck and unfulfilled in what God would love to do in and through your life.

Did you hear the news?? The Tangled Course is now available online for you to do at your own pace! If you are sick of being stuck in fear, anxiety, doubt, discouragement, anger and all the things, then this might be the right time for you to get un-tangled. Check it out here!