Barefoot Conversations

Some stories make you wonder how one person carried all of it and still kept her faith. This is one of those.   In this episode of Barefoot Conversations, I sit down with my friend Kat, a breast cancer survivor, author, and trauma coach. Eighteen years ago she heard the three words nobody wants to hear: you have cancer. What she learned in that fight became the very thing that carried her through...

Julie Shrader knows what it is to survive. Exploitation, abuse, homelessness, years lost to alcohol, and a voice in her own head telling her she was trash. In this episode, she sits down with me and tells the whole truth about how a trafficking survivor becomes a woman who founds a ministry to help set other women free. We talk about the day she heard God say "Julie, I told you to stop," and how 1...

By 22, Amanda Lawrence had four DUIs, multiple arrests, and had failed out of college twice. The dreams she once had — law school, a future, a plan — were buried under drugs, alcohol, and a three-day party that ended in an overdose. She woke up in her apartment that Christmas and looked in the mirror. She had no idea who she was looking at. That was 2006. Today, Amanda holds a master's degree in c...

Her dad died when she was five. Her mom was kicked out of church and told God was punishing her. Andrea grew up without boundaries, without faith, and without anyone showing her what love looked like. By 14, she ran away. By 15, she was in a home for troubled youth. One night, she jumped off a bridge and broke her leg. Her brother spent the entire night writing her a letter — because he thought sh...

She moved to LA with a dream and a packed car. She ended up in rooms most people will never see — label meetings, industry deals, opportunities that looked like gold. But behind the glitter was something darker. In this episode, Ciara shares what the music industry almost took from her — her integrity, her peace, her faith. She talks about the proposition that would have cost her everything, the a...

Moses wasn't in trouble when God found him. He wasn't in crisis. He was just... hiding. Comfortable in Midian. Forty years into a life that was never meant to be his destination. I think a lot of women are living in Midian right now. This podcast is for the woman who feels like she's been on a scavenger hunt — searching for pieces of herself that got lost somewhere along the way. But I don't think...