Climbing up the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in the full beauty of fall foliage and basking in the joy of Sara's growing freedom, Wayne has an unanticipated engagement with God. He is still sorting out what it all means and invites Kyle to ponder it with him as he seeks to discern What Father was making clear to him. If valid, Wayne saw the 64-year arc of God's working to answer the desperate cry of a seven-year-old girl and how Jesus had been behind the scenes to transform their hearts.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

The video version of the recording of this podcast

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page

Chances are you know someone who has been traumatized, and trying to communicate past their trauma can be difficult and frustrating. While you think you're helping them you unintentionally make them feel more threatened.  What do you do when a spouse or good friend can't see or isn't ready to address their trauma?  Kyle and Wayne focus on how to communicate through trauma, talking about when to risk vulnerability, what to do when someone regrets telling you something intimate, and how to ensure that telling someone what's true does not exceed their security in your affection for them.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

The video version of the recording of this podcast

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page

Healing and transformation take a bit of time and the process can be draining. If we don't honor the process in our own journey we will be easily side-tracked by the compelling lies that can draw us into the darkness or be two busy to recognize and follow Father's work in us. Discovering how the Spirit is leading us to healing takes some attunement to his heart and the willingness to risk our illusions of safety to find our true security in his love and truth. (The recording of this podcast was featured on Facebook Live on The God Journey page. You can use the link below to see it. "Like" our page if you want to be notified of live recordings in the future.)

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

The video version of the recording of this podcast

Deep Trace by Tessa Van Wade

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page

Your life is too unique for anyone else's plan or process to provide what you need, which is why Jesus sent his Spirit to guide you into all truth. Kyle and Wayne reach back to answer some of the most difficult questions that arise for people surviving trauma, especially with religious approaches to healing. As they respond to emails from lilsteners, they cover forgiveness for the perpetrator, compassion for former abusers, and how wants to work with you for the raw, honest questions resulting from trauma.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page

The love we want from God may not be the love God knows we need to experience. How can we embrace his fullness if we're always judging him by our expectations? As Ann Voskamp says in Waymaker, "God is love, but if we get it turned around and make being loved our God, we will get lost in self." This is a continuing look at love, rest, and play and how we enter into a transformative relationship of affection with the God who loves us more than anyone ever has.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Ann Voskamp's Waymaker

Loving our Kids on Purpose

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page

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The next session of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be held Saturday, September 24, at 11:00 am PDT.  You'll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will be covering Chapter 6 on Father God or Fairy Godmother as we look at our expectations about God and hs love for us. We will stream it live on my Facebook Author Page but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it,

What would it mean for a spouse to give a trauma victim the benefit of the doubt? One wife answered it this way, "It would be that you would believe that where I have been, what I have done or not done, has never been to hurt you. I've only been trying to survive." Those words are from another woman to her husband about her trauma but speak so well for what many feel. Wayne and Sara process this email along with questions from others about the trajectory of their healing from trauma, including where God was 64 years ago, when Sara was being violated by her grandpa, and how the moments of reliving some of her trauma resolved enough for her to go back to sleep.

Podcast Notes:

Dana's Poem about Trauma

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page on Facebook

Wayne and Sara have begun their cross-country trip, and that opens a conversation with Kyle about God's desire to restore our innocence, where sin and trauma have intruded upon it. Then they pick up the conversation about transformational love with the relationship God wants to draw us into—one that finds growing security in his love, increasing rest from our own labors, and a playfulness that will help us recognize how Father is revealing himself even in our most brutal circumstances and most ardent pain.

Podcast Notes:

Stay in the Pain

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Keep up with Wayne and Sara's RV journey by liking Wayne's Author page on Facebook.

Kyle and Wayne are still processing Wayne and Sara's journey through trauma just before they sold their home and left on their cross-country trip. They talk about those who don't get the miracle they hoped for and how Father leads them on, as well as Wayne's observations on whether or not God led Sara to leave. What they discover is how each of us begins our journeys in a fog of illusions, misunderstandings, and deceptions that are cultivated as we seek for comfort and safety by our own wisdom. The invitation Father extends to us is to know reality as God sees it—about him, about us, and about our circumstances. Truth can be challenging, however, and if we don't discover truth secure in his love, we will often miss it by clinging to our illusions.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Follow Wayne and Sara's RV journey by "following" or "liking" his Facebook Author Page.

How do you get back to the regularly-scheduled podcast after the story that has unfolded here in the last seven weeks? That's the challenge for Kyle and Wayne as they talk about the aftermath of doing a series like Redeeming Love as they were living in it. Looking back, they talk more about relational repair and the glue that can draw together broken relationships with God's healing. But that takes both parties willing to move toward honesty and tenderness, and there is precious little of that in our conflicted culture. Those who follow Jesus need the strength of character to be misunderstood and continue to be kind and vulnerable, knowing that in their weaknesses, God's glory unfolds best.

Podcast Notes:

Redeeming Love Podcasts

Follow Wayne and Sara's RV journey by "following" or "liking" his Facebook Author Page

This is the final episode of the Redeeming Love series, unpacking a very personal story of pain, trauma, redemption, and resurrection in Wayne and Sara's journey. Somehow Wayne and Sara's marriage not only survived the unrelenting darkness of trauma and the way the enemy exploited to isolate them from each other, but it is also taking them to fresh and new places in their journey together. Is there more trauma yet to deal with, and if not, what will the future hold for them?

Podcast Notes:

Previous podcasts with Sara - Learning Love More Deeply (2012)  •  Finding Our Way to Us (2020)  •  Finding Our Way to Us Part 2 (2020)

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.

Try Softer by Aundi Kolber

Being Known Podcast with Curt Thompson, MD - Season 4 is about unpacking trauma

Helpful video:  How to Find a Therapist

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The next session of the Jake Colsen Book Club will be held Saturday, August 20 at 1:00 pm PDT.  You'll have to work that out in your own time zone. We will be covering Chapter 5 on Love with a Hook and how crooked twists that religion puts on love.  We will stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it,