Arise, My Darling Podcast

In this season 12 finale, we wrap up our meditation on Philippians. We reflect on how to identify God's will for our life, how to be content in all circumstances, and the necessity of simplifying our lives in order to find contentment. We hope this time in scripture encourages you to spend time in scripture- for that time is never wasted. We look forward to being with you all again soon and p...

We loved so many of the verses in Philippians 4 that we broke it up into two parts. In this episode, we discuss the first 9 verses but spend lots of time on verses 6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.   And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mi...

Cultivating awareness in our heart is a great practice to hone at any time of the year, but especially in the season of Lent.  In this episode, we share the parts of scripture that captured our attention and brought us into prayer. We discuss trying to cultivate an awareness of the distortions we believe about the Lord, how we are modeling the Christian faith to others, and who in our life has the...

As we continue pondering Philippians, the second chapter has us discussing unity, suffering, humility, and recognizing that Jesus journeys alongside us in all of it as our model. This chapter of Philippians holds a very dear place in Andrea's heart and is meeting Lizz where she is at in a season filled with challenges. We hope this discussion will aid in your own time of mediation in scriptur...

When we immerse ourselves in the Word throughout our life, coming back to scripture feels like getting coffee with an old friend (wise words by Andrea). Our lives are often filled with many moving pieces as we navigate through different seasons, but we can always come back to the firm foundation of scripture. This season, we decide to return to scripture and spend time soaking in His presence. We...

During this advent season we discuss another great read, Noticing by Kobi Yamada. This story again showcases a friendship between an older woman who is a painter and a young girl. The young girl is impacted by the painters view of the world. The painter encourages the young girl to slow down, to wonder, and notice things-even those we can't see. These practices felt fitting for advent as Pope...

We thought we would keep the children's books for adults theme going with another amazing read: Trying by Kobi Yamada . This beautifully illustrated book shares the story of an older sculptor encouraging and walking with an aspiring sculptor. The book touches on the importance of mentors in our life and how to be one while also reflecting on the power and importance of failure. We dive into b...

We spend time in this episode talking about journeying alongside people in our life through the lense of a children's book titled The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld. The story is about Taylor who built something he was really proud of only for it to be destroyed. Many different characters come along and want to help Taylor process his emotions in the wake of his loss. The character that ma...

We are back for our 11th season and filling everyone in on our summer. The summer always seems to be a season where big changes happen in our lives and we love taking time to think about how God is intentionally pursuing and stretching us. God has shown up for us in a move across the country and a new job to more schooling and unlocking new skills. We also talk a little bit about what we hope to d...

We see Mary display penetrating intuition as she visits Elizabeth shortly after finding out she is expecting in her old age. Given that Elizabeth's husband had lost his ability to speak, Mary's supportive and encouraging words were probably needed in the hard months of preparing for birth. As women, we have a great gift to offer the world of pouring kind words and blessings over others i...

What does it look like to show limitless fidelity and tireless devotion to our work?  Mary was a mother of one son who spent her days caring for her family and keeping their home in Nazareth. We can assume her days would have been filled with many ordinary and mundane tasks. In this episode, we reflect on how Mary is the model that the Lord gives us to imitate as a measure of living out authentic...

We continue to reflect on Mary as she "mirrors the loftiest sentiments of which the human heart is capable." This episode we unpack "the strength that is capable of bearing the greatest sorrows." During Lent, we are all invited to visit places of suffering in our own hearts and reflect upon them. How do these places make us feel? To what capacity have we invited others into our...

As we enter the season of Lent, we are given a time to reflect on our spiritual lives and the ways we want to prepare our hearts for the Easter season. What better way to prepare our hearts than with the help of Mary. She plays a maternal role in the "birth and development of divine life in the souls of the redeemed." She is the role model for us always as women in the Church. In this ep...

We thought we would do a little Advent special because we both missed doing a podcast! During this episode, we reflect on how Christ has prepared our hearts for the celebration of His birth at Christmas. We both realized in typical fashion that the Lord was pursuing us more in Advent than we were pursuing Him. Christ is constantly pursuing our hearts and we hope this serves as a reminder to take a...

This week we reflect on one of Andrea's favorite psalms- Psalm 1. This psalm is a simple psalm about life with God vs. a life without God. We share our insights from personal mediation while continuing to add to our scripture tool box and discuss how different translations of scripture can help to paint a fuller picture of the richness of God's word. Translation Resource:  https://www.bi...

Oftentimes we can exhaust ourselves trying to figure out what the Lord is trying to tell us in prayer. Spending time in scripture can give space for God to penetrate our hearts and speak to us clearly."The word of God is alive and active" (Hebrew 4:12). When trying to discern the movements of our heart, the psalms are a great place to spend time in scripture because the psalms are songs...

As we find ourselves entering into a new season, we would like to take a moment and ask, "What has Jesus done in my heart?" Let us never forget that Jesus is constantly pursuing our hearts and meets us where we are at to usher us into new depths of our own heart and deeper relationship with him. Andrea and Lizz kick-off the season talking about what Jesus has done in their hearts over th...

As we wrap up our fourth season and our study of women in the geneology of Christ, it seems only fitting that we study Mary's life and what she teaches us about being a woman.  We often overlook the humanness of Mary. Just think how awesome it was being the mother of God and hugging little Jesus as he was growing up. She shows us how we are called to live out great faith and give our yes cont...

The next woman's story we dive into in the geneology of Christ is Ruth.  Ruth is connected to Rahab because she ends up marrying Rahab's son, Boaz. Ruth is a Moabite woman who leaves everything behind to follow her mother-in-law Naomi back to her homeland. In this episode, we ponder Ruth and discover the ways we see ourselves and want to see ourselves in her story. We talk about the beau...

So, which women should we model our lives after? 5 women are named specifically in the genealogy of Jesus: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah's wife (Bathsheba), and Mary. Each showcase qualities of womanhood that we are called to model our lives after.  In this episode, we dive into the story of Rahab (Joshua 2). We talk about what strikes us in her story, how we can see our own stories reflected, an...

"It's literally impossible to be a woman." This is how Gloria starts her monologue in the Barbie movie about how difficult it is to be a woman by the culture's standards. We have all been hit with the impossible feat of trying to keep up with the culture's ever-changing standard of women. In this episode,  we dive into ways that we have become victim to chasing this imposs...

We are excited to continue our conversation about womanhood while diving into a specific charism of women: receptivity. Everyone wants to be received by a woman and we also want to be received as women, but we can quickly find ourselves in places where it is hard to receive and be received. In this episode, Andrea and Lizz talk about things that have gotten in the way of their own receptivity, aid...

Where are all the  places and who are all the people that have taught you about womanhood? Our moms, the culture, social media, and people in our lives tell us things about what it mean to be a woman.  We are continuously being exposed to a stream of thoughts that we have to then decipher if their true or not.  In this episode, Andrea and Lizz begin the conversation about what has formed their und...

Being in seasons of suffering or hardships can really test our faith and makes it easy to forget the truths about who God is and what He wants to do for us.  In this episode, Andrea and Lizz walk through hardships they have been experiencing and share some thoughts on how to keep your eyes on Christ. In this Advent season, they hope you will reflect on the places of your heart where you have exper...

We all have strong memories that are connected to scent and find ourselves drawn to or repelled by certain scents. This idea can serve as a metaphor for us in the spiritual life. 2 Corinthians  chapter 2 speaks of us being the "aroma of Christ." In this episode, we talk about what kinds of "aromas" we are attracted to in others and what "aroma" we are giving off. Is o...