Dear Daughters

In 2013 Kate Merrick said goodbye to her 8 year-old daughter Daisy Love when she left for heaven. She wrote on grief, joy, and struggle on prayfordaisy.com . Kate is making her way back toward laughter and finding life to be filled with good things. Kate Merrick is a pastor's wife, writer, speaker, and mom to a teenager and toddler. She and her husband Britt cofounded the Reality  family of church...

The single greatest cause of homelessness is a profound, catastrophic loss of family ~ Alan Graham What does it really look like to love your neighbor? What does it look like for you to share your life and somehow be family to people who may not be just like you?  Alan Graham answers those questions in profound and practical ways. In 1998, he started a ministry to feed the homeless here in Austin....

"Sometimes I think I'm afraid to listen to desire, the gentle heartbeat of my own life, the thing that makes me come alive because I discount that God speaks within me and to me through the Holy Spirit." ~ Emily Freeman Are you afraid to listen to the gentle heartbeat of your own life? These are the kinds of things Emily Freeman thinks about and it's one of the reasons I love reading what she's wr...

The mother-daughter relationship is one that is delicate, beautiful and let's be honest … sometimes fraught with boundary issues. As a mom of two young adult daughters and a daughter-in-law, my heart goal is to make sure that I love and honor them in the new stage they are in as young married wives. Not always the easiest thing because what I'd really love to do is beg, cajole and/or guilt them in...

"I thought I could pour myself into ministry and make the pain go away. But God started breaking down walls, helping me look honestly at my pain, and teaching me how to really grieve."  ~ Hilliary Cheatham In this episode of the Dear Daughters podcast, I talk with Hilliary Cheatham. She is a story-telling photographer in China as a missionary. She lives and works at Show Hope. Hilliary is also a v...

"Sometimes there's no getting around tough circumstances, but changing the way you handle them can make a big difference.  It doesn't take much to go from feeling completely in control to completely overwhelmed.  Sadness, isolation, anxiety… whether it's a lifelong struggle or a season of life that just doesn't seem to be passing, we all experience times when it would help to have someone in our c...

How are you feeling about those new year resolutions? Already tired underneath the weight? Yeah, I've felt it too. That's why I'm trying something a little kinder and more centered on this truth: Only God knows the future you. Resolutions, best efforts and inspiration will wane. So when it does, the best new prayer is … As You wish Totally got that from The Princess Bride . Not at all concerned ab...

Kind of a different format on the podcast today because I wanted to touch base and catch up with you. And I also wanted to talk about how Christmas time while wonderful, can make things wonky. And wonky sometimes makes for lonely or sad feelings. And I just don't want you to feel lonely or sad. I want you to know everyone feels those confusing Christmas-y feelings sometimes. I've certainly felt th...

One of the things I love best is introducing you to people like Lana Rush. She is a  pastor's wife , mother to three beautiful girls and spiritual mama to many. She's a woman full of wisdom and God's kind of deep joy. In this episode, she shares honestly about some of her greatest struggles in being the parent of a child with special needs. She opens up about how she and her husband handle the cha...

Do you dream of owning your business? Working your own hours? Living your Big God Dream? Then you're going to love meeting  Lauren Gaige  in this episode 12 of   The Dear Daughters Podcast . Lauren is a graphic designer who built her own business with just ten a couple dollars in the bank. The heart behind Lauren and her brand is to help women start a successful business and/or blog by providing a...

Jesus is it. I met Lisa Whittle in Austin years ago through a mutual friend and discovered we shared a literary agent. Lisa is a truth-teller, a bold communicator and she has a bottom line approach to everything: Pointing people to a passionate pursuit of God. Lisa is the author of six books, including her latest, I Want God ,  and her forthcoming (April 2017), Put Your Warrior Boots On . Today on...

Relationships are the key to life. That's Carolyn Dixon's motto. She spends her days counseling people how to have healthy relationships with God and others. Carolyn received her MSW at The University of Texas after her youngest son went to kindergarten. From there, she spent twelve years at (a residential psychiatric treatment center) and part-time at a private counseling center focusing on relat...

Oh y'all. Today on the podcast I talk with one of my all time favorite people,  Shauna Niequist . She is a bookworm, a beachbum, and a passionate gatherer of people, especially around the table. She is married to  Aaron , and they live in Chicago with their sons, Henry & Mac. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Present Over Perfect  and a few other fantastic books. Shauna and I me...

What if your family turned completely upside down three weeks before your wedding? And then you discover a few days later that your dad was leading a double life? How do you function when everything feels absolutely surreal? Like you're in a bad movie? Meet Chloe Hamaker . She walked through a dark time in her life and God not only brought her through, He brought joy and peace and light into her l...

I only took one book on vacation this fall. Because well, the aspens were turning and I knew it would have to be one good book to pull me away from porch-sitting and staring out at the front range of the Rocky Mountains. That one book was Sophie Hudson's   Giddy Up, Eunice . It's hands-down the best reading on the topic of relationship for spiritual mamas and dear daughters. Sophie pulls from impo...

Do you have a big God dream? Is there something you wish God would do with your life that is so big and so fabulous that it sounds crazy to speak out loud? Or maybe you wish God could use your life to speak to the people in your neighborhood but you don't know where to start? If any of these questions tug at your heart, then you gotta meet my friend, Kristin Schell. Because that's just the kind of...

I once read that in the next five years, you become just like the people you hang out with … which is why I meet with my friend, Liz. She is a cancer survivor (though she hates me mentioning that) and also a bit of a goof. She is a fantastic wife and mother. And she is a mentor to hundreds of young women. She is the kind of person I want to be like and she is a person I think you'll really like ge...

In episode #4, I talk with Jamie Ivey about her relationship with her husband and her honesty with him about her past. She says the things she's done yesterday or twenty-five years ago don't define her, only Jesus does. We also talk about her best marriage tips, some favorite books and her newest success in the kitchen.    

Today on the podcast, I talk with my very own dear daughter, Sara, about the real life and not so pretty 'in-between Instagram moments' in our life. We talk about how comparison kills creativity and unpack how to get through arguments with people you love ...

Want a better marriage? Then you'll love listening to what therapist Rick Reynolds has to say on the show today. Rick talks about the most important things you can do in your marriage, how carrying shame isolates and how people-pleasing is actually one of the most self-centered things ever. All that and more in episode 2 of the Dear Daughters podcast. 

Hayley Morgan is one of my favorite people. She is  wife to Mike and mom to four darling little boys. She co-authored the best-selling book, Wild and Free , with Jess Connolly . It was creativity that brought us together and her bold ask for mentoring that made us the friends we are today.     

Host Susie Davis shares a little about herself and talks about why she started the Dear Daughters Podcast.