Our Time to Rise in Midlife

Melanie Shankle remembers her grandparents and the way they loved her through the small things. There wasn't a parade or lots of fanfare. It was walking down the street in the afternoon for an ice cream. They made regular moments special because they loved her in them. The small things held meaning. In her new book, Church of the Small Things, Melanie considers the everyday elements of significanc...

Sally Clarkson is a woman who loves the table. She knows that it can be an anchor for families and friends to gather. It can be a place of tradition. It can be simple or elaborate, but it must always be welcoming and safe. A trusted voice on areas of parenting and homemaking, our conversation with Sally is one that will inspire you to make your table a place of refuge for those in your home. We at...

Service is a great antidote for the self centered culture in which we live.  Most of us want to help nurture this in our children, and give them a heart for a world,  but often we don't know where to begin.  How do we start?  What do we do?  Should we help globally or locally? Tricia Goyer, author of the new book Walk It Out ,  joins me on the podcast today to talk about these questions and more....

It's fall! And for many families that means football. This special episode of The Open Door Sisterhood Podcast features two women with similar stories that surround family and football. In both cases it's about reaching out to a young man, a football player, offering him a safe place to live, and in the process changing their family forever. In fact the details they share may sound eerily like a m...

Katie Davis Majors did an extraordinary thing as a young adult. Right after high school she moved from Nashville to Uganda and eventually adopted thirteen girls. Her story was chronicled in the New York Times Best Seller Kisses From Katie . But much has happened in her life since that book came out. She's gotten married, had a son, and the ministry she started to support Ugandan children and famil...

If you've ever wondered if constant exposure to social media is having an effect on teenage girls, the answer is yes.    While we can't be sure of the depth of the impact, we do know that it contributes to feelings of low self-worth, the desire for approval, and perfectionism.  These, in turn, can lead to other self-harming behaviors. After realizing that her daughter had an eating disorder, Krist...

Rachel Swanson was coloring with her daughter and searched for a devotional coloring book they could do together. She didn't find anything on the market and decided to create one of her own. We hear how God prompted her to pursue this project and her journey became one of taking the next step, doing the hard thing, in order to be a world changer for good right where she was. A woman who encourages...

In a world where bigger, louder, and more seems to be the goal, Sara Haggerty is on a quest to find the quiet, unseen places. Or more specifically, to meet God in those places. It's hard to do when you have a house full of children. And yet even when we are surrounded by people we can feel unseen. It's these moments of feeling misunderstood, invisible or overlooked that we can find God has not for...

Art and creativity can be powerful tools when we are wading through difficult emotions and a journey of healing.  Today on the Hey Sister! show we discuss how art can help us look at scripture in fresh ways, how visuals can be a form of prayer, and how the act of practicing all forms of creativity can foster growth and strength.   Gayla Irwin, author of Creative Moments of Grace , explains what ma...

Shauna Shanks' life changed in an instant. The moment her husband told her he didn't want to be married anymore. No surprise, everything stopped. And in her cries out, God gave her a clarity to fight for her marriage by focusing on 1 Corinthians 13, a chapter in the Bible about love. Her discipline to display love to her husband became a spiritual journey of obedience, then developing into a deep...

What does it mean to honor your life? In this episode of The Open Door Sisterhood Podcast we dive into this question with author and speaker Chrystal Evans Hurst. She starts by asking "Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered, ' Where did I go? Whose life am I living?' " After hearing from many women, Chrystal believes this is a common feeling. That we are disillusioned from our daily purpo...

Are you someone who has to move a lot because of a job?  Or maybe you are a military family who has to continually plant, and then uproot.  Or maybe you have recently made a decision to move because you want to be closer to family or friends.  Whatever the reason, today on Hey Sister! we are discussing how to create home wherever you are -- whether you are choosing the place, or it's being chosen...

Michelle Warren swears she's not political, that she simply wants to help her neighbors. It was this drive that thrust her into the advocacy arena. As the Advocacy and Strategic Engagement Director for the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), Michelle directs national advocacy around platform issues: immigration, mass incarceration and education equity. Her desire to advocate for po...

Movement is healing according to Edie Littlefield Sundby. So when she was diagnosed with stage 4 gallbladder cancer, Edie began to walk. Her journey became a pilgrimage. A long and hot one along the El Camino Real Mission Trail. First through California and then through Mexico, making her the first person since the 1770s to walk the sixteen-hundred-mile mission trail. But our interview with Edie s...

Have you ever gone through a season that knocked your confidence?  Or maybe you've never figured out how to harness confidence at all.  Whether you are struggling with getting confidence back, or striving to discover it for the first time, this interview will give you fresh insight into what creates confidence and how we reclaim it for our own, despite our circumstances. Using her own story as a s...

Nicole Johnson knows busy. As a mom of two and a dramatist with Women of Faith she was maintaining a steady pace. And then a life event sent her in a downward spiral she couldn't escape. She realized she needed to find internal calm in the midst of external crazy. This episode is our conversation with her about this journey. Nicole explains what it means to react verses contemplate in stressful mo...

Candice Curry's story has had its share of heartache. From a father who was a con man and battled mental illness, to divorce and infidelity, to unexpected triplets and financial strain, she knows what it is to live under pressure. And yet she walks through life these days with a freedom she attributes to God's restoration of her spirit and her marriage. A refreshing straight forward storyteller, C...

As our teenagers grow, we do our best to set them up for success for life.  We teach them to drive, set up a bank account, help them learn about car insurance and credit, and offer support for college applications.  But what about an issue equally important, that could profoundly affect the rest of their lives?   Do we spend the same amount of intentional energy and time talking to our teens and y...

Sharon Miller has found herself in some public conversations in recent years. As a PhD, writer, and soon to be author, her voice is one of encouragement to women pursuing Jesus. She sifts through Scripture to discern if particular expectations and behaviors are cultural or are indeed directed by God's word. Sharon holds a posture of listening to learn. Whether with friends who bring difference to...

What happens when life changes suddenly? Gari Mitchell was living her regular life in 1988. She was taking her two kids to school, enjoying tennis with her friends, when she had a routine sinus surgery. She woke up to debilitating depression that lasted for ten years. And then a phone call a few years later from the FBI changed her new normal even further. The following months resulted in her husb...

Like a sleeping giant, anger can sit dormant or relatively calm until we become parents.  Then, suddenly, it can feel like it wakes up and takes over.  If you feel that parenting triggers anger, on any level, this podcast is for you.   My guests for this episode, Amber Lia and Wendy Speake, are the authors of  Triggers: Exchanging Parent's Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses.   We discus...

What happens when prayers aren't being answered? At least in the way we are asking God to answer them? When the circumstances we desperately want to change, don't? In this episode we talk about this with our guest Ann Swindell. Her new book, Still Waiting , is birthed from her own experience of moving through life within the context of unanswered prayers. Where she has been still waiting. We talk...

Lisa Whittle is a woman who gets to the bottom of things quickly. She calls herself a bottom line person. So she tells it as she sees it, but always with a humble spirit. This combination of self disclosure with honest (and sometimes uncomfortable) truth makes her a voice worth listening to in this noisy world. A mom of three, we cover Lisa's latest adventures of moving, and then moving a year lat...

Change is an inevitable part of life.  Whether we are looking at personal or cultural shifts, dead end roads, a strained relationship, or a season of crisis, we will be forced to deal with transitions.  What we get to choose, however, is how we navigate that challenge.   Ken Wytsma, author, speaker, innovator, and social entrepreneur, shares with us how we can explore various aspects of creativity...

Catherine McNiel found herself in the middle of mothering. Pregnant, with two small children already underfoot, she was forced to tackle the question, what happens to a mom's spiritual journey? Do exhaustion and distraction prevent mothers everywhere from having a deep and meaningful spiritual life? Or does God perhaps have a rich spiritual journey available to moms right here and now? In her book...