How do you think about faith and hope when your prayers aren’t answered? What about when they are? 

Steph and her husband, Rivs, have the kind of story you might see in a blockbuster movie. Rivs was a professional endurance athlete who was suddenly put on life support with a mysterious lung disease. But then a confluence of shocking events occurred to get him the care he needed to survive.

Steph grew up as part of the Church of Latter Day Saints, a faith that believed that if she prayed hard enough, miracles would happen. But then her dad died when she was 14. So how does she understand faith and hope and miracles after Rivs' survival? 

In this conversation, Kate and Steph discuss:

•     How do you talk to kids honestly about life and death and hope?
•     How pain is a conduit for empathy 
•     How to allow things to just suck and not feel pressure to find any brightsides
•     How to think about faith, hope, and miracles without idolizing certainty 

Steph is someone who knows intimately that life sometimes just happens and that we have to learn to live alongside all of that pain and that joy and that love that somehow coexists.

CW: cancer, death of a parent

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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