Called to Love: An Adoption Podcast for Christian Parents - Christian Adoption, Trauma and Healing, Foster Care, Parenting Adopted Children

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, my special guest is the amazing Nicole C. Mullen, a Grammy-nominated, Dove Award-winning American Christian singer, songwriter, actress, and author of the new book, “ It’s Never Wrong to Do the Right Thing: Courageous Stories to Inspire Godly Decisions”. She also has an incredible story of overcoming domestic abuse, adopting her two sons, ch...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  Thank you for joining me on the very first episode of Season 4! It is a privilege and gift from God to be able to share the practical, clinical, and Biblical information with you every week about adoption and foster care, which is a calling so near to our Father’s heart. In this episode, I am sharing with you the power and significance of praying for your ch...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This is the end of season three. The team here at Called to Love are so grateful for you joining us every week to learn practical and Biblical tools and knowledge for adoption and foster care, a calling which is so reflective of God’s adoptive love for us. As we look forward to another year and a new season, we wanted to share with you the five top moments f...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This is the second part to my special episode where my husband, Corey, and I reflect on ten years as adoptive parents. We share stories from when God first placed this calling on our hearts, the messy beginnings to bringing our baby daughter home, the changes in our marriage, and how God always had a plan.  Corey shares valuable insight from his perspective...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This is a very special episode, split into two parts, where my husband Corey and I reflect on ten years as adoptive parents. We share stories from when God first placed this calling on our hearts, the messy beginnings to bringing our baby daughter home, the changes in our marriage, and how God always had a plan.  Corey shares valuable insight from his perspe...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, my special guest is the founder of The Mission Driven Mom and creator of the MDM Academy: Audrey Rindlisbacher. Audrey’s world was turned upside down when she, at the time a mother to four kids herself, decided to foster her cousin’s four children, ages ranging from twelve years old to newborn. In this conversation, we unpack her story, this...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, Jill Marier joins me on the podcast to discuss the need for fostering medically fragile children. Jill has a rather unique family, and in her words she says “we get stares.” They have a large household full of children that are adopted, biological, and fostering, many of them are medically fragile. Jill’s heart was moved to medically fragile...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am helping you better understand embryo adoption. IVF treatments have risen in popularity as desperate families seek to get pregnant, but the process comes at a great cost— and not just financially, but also emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually as families navigate what to do with excess embryos. Because the success rate is so small...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am joined by a joyful and light-filled author, speaker, and mom: Alice Matagora. Alice shares her story about a painful waiting process, depending on God’s promises. Inspired by this waiting journey, as a new mom Alice wrote the book, “You Are My Miracle”. All children are a miracle from God and this book helps us affirm this truth over ou...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am joined by the amazing and inspiring Jamie Finn. Jamie is an author and busy mom to both biological and adopted children, and their family has been fostering for years. She is also the founder and president of Foster the Family, a national nonprofit that serves vulnerable children and the families welcoming them, as well as the founder o...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am joined by Leah Brandon Akannam and Brian Murphy from the Gift of Adoption Fund. One of the biggest things stopping people from pursuing adoption is the cost. Resources like the Gift of Adoption Fund are here to bridge the gap and take down this barrier to a child finding their home.  We discuss the different ways the fund helps various...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am joined by the founder of Finally Home: Kristin Orphan. Finally Home exists to walk alongside foster, adoptive, and kinship families with faith-rooted resources that bring hope, healing, and strength. They are a national non-profit that provide tools, courses, resources and community to families so they can find connection and confidence...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  In this episode, I am joined by Hally Wells. Hally Wells is speaker, author, and mental health advocate. After struggling with infertility, Hally and her husband had their biological child, but following a miscarriage she felt God place adoption on her heart. She is now the mother of bio, step, and adopted children, and advocates for their mental health and...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am fan-girling out just a little bit because my special guest is Dr. Kathy Koch. Dr. Kathy has a PhD in reading and educational psychology from Purdue and is a former university professor now turned child advocate who founded Celebrate Kids. She has written several books, and her latest one (co-written with Dr. Jeff Myers) is called “Raising Gend...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with Bill High. Bill is the CEO of Legacy Stone and the author and co-author to many books. He is a counselor and public speaker, passionate about empowering families to leave a legacy for generations.  In our conversation, we explore the importance of building a lasting family legacy through faith, family values, and purposeful living....

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with Dr. Zoe Shaw. Dr. Zoe is a licensed psychotherapist, author, speaker and an expert on what she calls “Complex Shame”. She is also a busy mom of five kids, and actually part of her story is being a birth-mom. We talk a lot about being adoptive and foster parents, and this conversation gives us a small glimpse of a birth-mom’s experi...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with Daryl Potter. Daryl doesn’t have adopted or fostered children but he does have a miraculous daughter with complex medical needs and another biological son. Whether your kids are biological, adopted, or fostered, there are universal truths in parenting and along with it circumstances which take us to the brink of our capacity–physic...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with an adult adoptee and new author, Emmanual Jean Russle. Emmanuel grew up in Haiti with his grandmother before being adopted into the United States. In our conversation, we briefly discuss his upbringing and transition to the states and then Emmanuel shares his passion for sharing this message: God has a plan for  every child. Emmanu...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with Dana Hargrus, a mental health counselor with over twenty-five years of experience in trauma-informed care. We discuss the innovative approach of biofeedback in helping foster and adoptive parents navigate the challenges of caring for children from hard places. Dana shares her personal journey as a foster and adoptive parent, emphas...

Hey friends, today we’ve got something special for you: a bonus episode straight from the  Pardon the Mess  podcast! Every Monday, host Courtney DeFeo shares a short prayer to help you lift up your kids. This year’s series follows Christian Parenting’s brand new prayer journal,  A Great Cloud of Witnesses .  Each week highlights a biblical hero of the faith, paired with Scripture-based prayers for...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with Abby Halberstadt, who’s been on the show before. Abby is a busy mom of ten biological kids, homeschools all of them, builds houses with her husband, and works as a fitness instructor, but most importantly she is a woman firmly planted on a Biblical foundation. In this conversation, we unpack the myth she shares in her recent book “...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This week I am joined with author and busy mom, friend of the show, Molly DeFrank! Molly is the proud mom of six kids, ages ranging from teenagers to young ones, both biological and adopted. Her family has also fostered children, and her two adopted kids came first from fostering.  In this episode, we are talking specifically about raising Godly sons as we l...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This is the fifth and final episode in this summer series breaking down how to emotionally regulate your household, tips that I have learned and personally used and hope will benefit you. Specifically, this episode wraps up our series as I talk about five ways you can recover after a dysregulation incident. There is so much adrenaline rushing in our kiddos b...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  We are in the fourth week of my series breaking down how to emotionally regulate your household and I am going to give you tools for de-escalating your child during those meltdown moments. This week has honestly been challenging as I’ve been at my own breaking point and needed to use these regulation tools on myself.  I am going to share my personal experien...

Welcome to the Called to Love Podcast!  This is our third week in my new series breaking down how to emotionally regulate your household and I am going to give you tools for de-escalating your child during those meltdown moments. This episode is all about the 3 B’s: Breathing, Bilateral Movement, and Beating Heart. These three tools can effectively help you calm your child, build trust and connect...