Faith & Feelings

In this episode, I’m sharing something that feels both really right and really hard to say out loud. After years of showing up weekly, I’ve recognized that I don’t have the space I want to give this podcast. Not just time, but energy, creativity, and depth. And I care too much about what we’re cultivating here to keep showing up in a way that feels rushed or stretched thin. So I’m shifting this po...

What does emotional safety actually look like in real life?   We use that language all the time — “I don’t feel safe” — but it often holds a wide range of experiences, from true relational harm to simple discomfort or vulnerability. In this episode, we slow that phrase down and explore the difference. Drawing on insights from author and psychiatrist Curt Thompson, we unpack why emotional safe...

The depth of our relationships is often shaped by the depth of our communication. Not just what we say, but how we say it...and even more than that, why we say it. Communication isn’t just a skill we learn. it’s something that’s been formed in us. Through our stories, our families, our attachment, the environments that shaped us long before we had language for any of it. In today’s conversation, I...

Vulnerability is often talked about as openness, but what if it’s actually about capacity? In this episode, we continue our series on friendships by exploring what it really takes to share our inner world with one another in a meaningful way. Drawing from Dr. David Schnarch’s work on the Four Points of Balance, we look at vulnerability not just as something we do, but as something we practice with...

How do we actually cultivate deeper friendships? The kind where we don’t have to perform, hide, or carry the weight of our lives alone? In this episode, we begin a new series on soul friendships: relationships marked by honesty, presence, and a shared attentiveness to God’s work in our lives. But before we talk about how to build them, we start with something more honest: the tension so many of us...

In this episode, I invite us into a guided time of imaginative prayer — a contemplative practice rooted in the early church mothers and fathers that helps us encounter God in a personal, embodied way. Together, we step into a crowded home in Luke 5, where a group of friends carries someone they love to Jesus. As we enter this scene, we slow down, engage our senses, and notice what stirs within us...

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Not the surface-level kind, but the kind that actually sees you. The kind that knows the messy, unedited parts of your life…and stays. In my own life and in my work with clients, I keep noticing the same patterns: we hold back, self-edit, and worry we’re “too much.” Beneath those fears, though, is a quiet longing: to be known, understood, and truly...

Most of us learn early in life who we need to be in order to survive. We adopt roles and masks that help us belong and stay safe. But often, somewhere along the way, the soul initiates a crisis. The strategies that once worked begin to feel constricting, and we’re invited to look beneath the roles we’ve been playing. In this final episode of our Why Does My Healing Matter? series, I explore how he...

Many of us go through life unaware of how our histories influence the way we relate: to God, to ourselves, and to the people closest to us. Old patterns and unresolved pain often surface in subtle ways, shaping our reactions and the ways we show up in relationships. In this conversation, I’m joined by Pete Sharp, a family friend and missionary with over 20 years of experience in cross-cultural wor...

Sometimes the places in our hearts that feel most tender are also the places we avoid looking. Rejection can leave quiet echoes, forming the way we see ourselves, the lens through which we trust others, and the story we tell about our worth. These old wounds don’t always announce themselves, but they shape how we show up in relationships and in life. In this conversation with trauma therapist Tabi...

We speak of spiritual transformation as if it should be obvious: visible, measurable, steady. Yet many of us quietly wonder what participation in God’s work of transformation actually looks like. Beneath our theology often exists a deeper question: How do I actually step into the transformation Christ has already secured? In this episode, we explore what it means to let the finished work of Jesus...

There are seasons in life when no matter how much we give, how hard we try, it feels like effort isn’t enough. The work we put into our relationships, our faith, our responsibilities meets walls we can’t move, questions we can’t answer, and pain that refuses to be ignored. In these moments, we are often confronted with the reality that pushing harder isn’t always the answer. In this conversation w...

There comes a moment in many of our lives when we begin to notice that the way we love has been shaped by pain we haven’t fully tended to. Old wounds resurface, familiar patterns repeat, and our unhealed places begin to influence how we show up in relationships. In this conversation with spiritual director Barb Boatner, we explore how healing changes the way we love. Barb talks about learning to l...

We live in a world that rewards speed, productivity, and quick fixes, but healing doesn’t move at that pace. The soul speaks a different language. One that is slower, messier, and far more courageous. In this episode, we explore what it actually means to begin the healing journey — not as a linear path toward improvement, but as a winding, nonlinear process we return to again and again.   Dra...

There comes a moment in many of our lives when the idea of “healing” starts to feel confusing — or even exhausting. The word we’ve heard so often begins to lose its meaning. And the hope that we’ll one day arrive at a version of ourselves that no longer hurts starts to feel out of reach. In this episode of our new series, Why Does My Healing Matter?, we explore what healing looks like when it isn’...

In this episode, I invite us into a guided time of imaginative prayer — a contemplative practice rooted in the early church mothers and fathers that helps us encounter God in a personal, embodied way. Together, we step into the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus on the night before His crucifixion. As we enter this scene, we slow down, engage our senses, and notice what stirs within us as we witness...

There’s a question I hear often — both in the therapy room and in conversations about faith: Why does my healing matter? Why does change feel so hard, and sometimes even unnecessary?  This week on Faith & Feelings, I invite us to explore why healing isn’t separate from spiritual formation, but one of the primary ways God’s transforming work takes shape in us. Together, we’ll reflect on ho...

Today, we continue our Advent journey by stepping into Anna’s quiet yet powerful moment of worship in Luke 2:36–38. As a widow shaped by years of loss, prayer, fasting, and devotion, Anna’s eyes had been trained to recognize Jesus when He appeared in the temple. Her story invites us to consider how a life turned toward God forms our ability to truly see Him. Drawing from Bette Dickinson’s devotion...

Today, we continue our Advent journey by stepping into the shepherds’ moment of wonder in Luke 2:15–20. As they hurry to Bethlehem and behold the newborn Jesus lying in a manger, we are invited into a deeper way of seeing — one that moves beyond surface-level observation and into holy perception. Drawing from Bette Dickinson’s devotional Making Room in Advent , we explore the difference between si...

Today, we continue our Advent journey by stepping into Mary’s honest moment of questioning in Luke 1:34–38. When she asks, “How will this be?” she names the real limits of her life — and yet it’s within those very limits that God chooses to work. Drawing from Bette Dickinson’s devotional Making Room in Advent , we explore how God chooses not to bypass human limits but to work within them. In the i...

Today, we continue our Advent journey by entering a moment of profound humility in the Christmas story — a moment of divine descent. We pause with Mary as she receives Gabriel’s astonishing message in Luke 1:31–33, and we reflect on the mystery of how the Son of the Most High chose to come not in power or prestige, but in vulnerability and dependence. Drawing from Bette Dickinson’s devotional Maki...

Today, we begin our Advent journey by entering a quiet moment in the Christmas story — a moment of hiddenness and waiting. We explore Elizabeth’s five months of solitude in Luke 1:23–25 and reflect on how God used that secluded space to reshape her identity and nurture new life within her. Drawing from Bette Dickinson’s Making Room in Advent , we consider how solitude becomes a sacred womb where G...

Preparation for the Christmas season can often feel busy and frantic, but it doesn't have to be this way.  What if we stopped and listened to the movement and unfolding of God's plan around us? Next week on the podcast, we'll begin walking through one of favorite advent devotionals Making Room in Advent by Bette Dickinson. Today,  I wanted to give us the chance to get to know her a...

With exactly 45 days left of 2025, I thought it would be good — and honestly, necessary — to pause and get curious about our inner life as we approach the end of the year. How are we doing…really? And how are we ending this year? In this episode, I guide us through some gentle reflection and invite us to slow down long enough to notice what’s true inside: where we are, what we’re carrying, and how...

As we enter the Advent season, I’ve been longing for a way to slow down. To step away from the rush of December and make a little more room for stillness and wonder. And I thought… maybe you’ve been craving that, too. So this December, we’ll be walking through one of my all-time favorite Advent books: Making Room in Advent by Bette Dickinson. If you’ve never read it, this book beautifully wea...