No More Perfect Podcast with Jill Savage

I have my hubby, Mark, with me this week for a conversation on conflict in marriage. Now, conflict is inevitable when you live in close quarters with someone, but even more so when you merge lives together! How you approach life can rub up against the way your spouse approaches life, and this can lead to conflict and even accusations that harm our connection and intimacy. Accusations and conflict...

I will never forget the day I got a call from my doctor’s office and the words “Jill, you have breast cancer.” turned my world upside down. Suddenly, I was thrust into a new world filled with unfamiliar vocabulary and sometimes more questions than answers.  My guest Beth Wilmes has also had this experience. Beth took her experience walking through breast cancer and founded Faith Through Fire, a no...

As we start into our fifth year of the podcast, you'll start hearing a shoutout at the beginning of each episode. This is an opportunity for us to celebrate our listeners, and specifically the transformation and celebrations in your life. Want to reach out to us? You can contact us here on our website or text our new No More Perfect hotline at 309-431-1718. We launched our own non-profit, and...

Grief can come over us like crashing waves. We most commonly experience it when we have lost a loved one, but grief is wider than that and can accompany all kinds of circumstances. It can happen at the end of a relationship, the death of a dream, or the shock of a diagnosis that you did not see coming. The loss we feel when we experience grief can feel like too much to bear on our own. My guest in...

We see the term "female empowerment" throughout mainstream media and it is referenced often in our culture today. This could be defined as believing in yourself or looking within to find the power to succeed. But what happens when we grow weary by trying to do it all in our own power? What happens when we come to the end of ourselves? Jesus offers a better way. In this episode, we are ta...

Content Warning: This episode does discuss challenging topics like child abuse and suicide. Please listen carefully or consider skipping this episode if those topics could be triggering for you. As a parent, we would do almost anything for our children and strive to protect them from the dangers in the world. However, when my guest took their child to the hospital to get a bruise checked out, he n...

Can you believe it? This episode is not only our 200th episode, but it also marks our four-year anniversary of the podcast! Incredible! I can remember when our kids were pushing us to start a podcast and I could think of numerous reasons not to do the podcast. And I’m so glad I didn’t listen to those reasons! Today, the No More Perfect Podcast ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and we have o...

Have you been called shy or quiet before? Or perhaps you’ve considered yourself a “wallflower.” The truth is that we all have felt like we couldn’t find our place at one time or another. We may have even been labeled as one of these things by others and then struggled to overcome that label. The truth is that labels create limitations. This is why I'm eager to have Cally Logan on the podcast...

Most people go through life almost on autopilot, especially when things are going well. We cruise through life and it can be hard to imagine life any other way. However, life can take a sudden left turn when tragedy or the unthinkable happens and our entire world is thrown into crisis. It can be hard to even know how to recover or figure out the next steps. That is what this episode is all about:...

Mark is back with me on the podcast today to help answer a question we hear often: “What makes the difference in people who are able to overcome difficult things?" This could be in regard to marriages that are restored or lives that experience growth and transformation. Are there elements that make transformation more possible? In our coaching, we’ve seen some couples turn their entire relati...

What do you do when you are offended? Do you quickly let it go, or do you sit and ruminate on it? If you, like most people, tend to do the latter, it can create bitterness, resentment, and pent-up anger in your life and in your heart. Living in a place where we are constantly offended is an unhealthy place to be. My guest today knows this all too well. Brant Hansen is an author, nationally syndica...

There’s nothing better than a story of hope! When we hear of someone who has overcome struggles, it puts things in perspective and inspires us to persevere in the midst of our own challenges. My guest today has risen above truly desperate circumstances. Peter Mutabazi survived on the streets of Uganda for five years before one man saw potential in him and changed Peter’s life. Today, Peter is a si...

These days, teen girls are under relentless pressure to measure up to peers and social media influencers. The expectations feel impossible to meet. Today, I’m partnering with my friends Lee Nienhuis and Shannon Popkin to share a conversation about this important topic. Lee and Shannon are authors and speakers who have teamed up to write a book, Comparison Girl for Teens , that gives help and hope...

Are you frustrated with getting older?  As women, it’s easy to feel discouraged as our lives and bodies change. That’s why I’m so grateful for our guest's wisdom today! Joining me for this conversation is Heather Creekmore, host of the internationally popular Compared to Who? podcast. Heather is a body image coach, former fitness instructor, and author who is devoted to helping women break fr...

Do you feel rested and at peace, or do you feel like your soul is all over the place?  These days, many of us struggle with anxiety to some degree, and that’s what we’re talking about in this episode. Joining me for this conversation is award-winning author and Bible teacher Tessa Afshar. Drawing from lessons she learned while battling anxiety in her own life, Tessa is sharing about a journey that...

I’m happy to have my husband join me for this episode! It’s been a little while since Mark and I shared a conversation on the podcast, and today we’re talking about the power of our words. If we fully realized just how dangerous careless words can be, we might take our speech more seriously. Our words can bring destruction or healing depending on how we speak, as Mark and I have learned from perso...

How do you respond when someone else’s choices wreak havoc on your life? Sometimes, someone else's choices can turn the lives of those closest to them upside down. I've certainly experienced that in my own life, and yet, even in the most unfair circumstances, God wastes nothing. Today, my friend Cathy Applington is joining me to help us better understand how hope can be restored even whe...

Have you ever been in a season of life where you felt trapped in a relentless lifestyle? Years ago, Mark and I wrote a book called Living with Less so Your Family Has More. One of the key concepts woven throughout that book was the idea of choosing to live with less stress, less money, and less activities than what is the cultural norm. When I read Brenda Yoder’s new book, Uncomplicated, I felt li...

I wish this weren’t the reality we face, but the truth is that anxiety is skyrocketing among people of all ages and stages of life. When you add the whirlwind of teenage hormones into the mix, you’re looking at anxiety amplified to the max. Joining me for this conversation is Kimberly Sells, a mom of four who lives in Wisconsin near beautiful Lake Michigan. Kim has learned some hard parenting less...

Do you ever find yourself feeling paralyzed when it comes to prayer? You certainly wouldn't be alone! However, what if prayer could be as effortless as chatting with a friend? Many of us struggle to understand prayer because we've only witnessed it modeled in a formal way before meals, at bedtime, or at church. What if we could learn to engage in regular, honest conversation with God? In...

Conflict…it’s one of our favorite topics in the world. Just kidding! Most of us try to steer clear of conflict, and those of us who embrace it honestly don’t always handle it in the healthiest ways. We’ve certainly all had moments where we looked back at how we handled a conflict and wondered: Why did I handle it that way? In this conversation, we are taking a look at the many aspects of conflict,...

If you’ve heard our marriage story, then you likely know that I believed our marriage could be restored even when Mark had checked out and was pursuing another relationship. This is often referred to as “standing for your marriage,” but it could also be described as a waiting season. While I wouldn’t wish a season like this on anyone, the lessons I learned while waiting were invaluable. Those less...

We want to talk with you about a question Mark and I get asked often. People really struggle with finding an answer or finding resolve to this question: How do I forgive myself? Many times, they would say, I can’t , or I don’t even understand what I should do with that .  Sometimes, it can feel like you are “unforgivable,” and it would be better if you just locked those feelings away. When we choo...

Life can be a bit messy. Whether that’s a literal mess of toys all over your living room, a kitchen full of dirty dishes, and laundry piled high or an internal mess of feeling behind on work, issues in our relationships, and more! Whatever mess you are facing in your life I have a truth for you—God is at work even in the mess. We can sometimes struggle to believe that statement! The truth is that...

Adversity is a part of life. We can sometimes think that having a relationship with Jesus makes us exempt from hardships that can cause fear, anxiety, and even trauma. While that isn’t the case, it is true that our relationship with Jesus can change how we handle and respond to the adversity that comes into our lives. Joining me for this conversation is Karen Bettison. Karen served as a Bible tran...