The Nothing Is Wasted Podcast

No matter how successful we are in life, all of us are just one piece of bad news away from our entire world shifting into something we can’t imagine. That’s what Robb Hiller experienced when he was diagnosed with not just one form of cancer, but three. With his prognosis extremely negative and unsure how much longer he’d be alive, Robb embarked on the most difficult journey of his life. But in th...

We often think of our lives as sectioned off in different parts, each one wholly independent from the other. Our mental, physical, and spiritual lives have nothing to do with each other, or so we think. But in reality, our selves are nothing like that. The physical, mental, and spiritual sides of ourselves are all interconnected, and when one suffers or thrives, so do all the others. Anne Kertz Ke...

When we think of greatness, it’s hard not to picture a career like Darryl Strawberry’s. For many of us, he’s a household name, and his accomplishments as a professional baseball player speak for themselves. But no amount of fame and fortune could truly bring Darryl happiness. Instead, it would take a radical shifting of everything in Darryl’s life for him to realize that he’d spent his time chasin...

Most of us believe in God in our minds. We think all the right things, that God is in control, that he is good, that nothing is wasted. But when these beliefs only live in our head, there’s only so far they can take us. It’s when we walk through intense suffering that these ideas move from our heads to our hearts, and that’s when God truly becomes real to us. Vaneetha Risner knows this all too wel...

For most of us who have walked through difficult seasons, we can probably point to one big trauma in our lives. There’s usually this one point where everything went wrong, everything shifted in ways we never saw coming, and now we’re left trying to pick up the pieces. But for Kendra Clark, those painful seasons just kept coming. In the span of a few years, Kendra lost her parents and her brother,...

For those of us who are parents, seeing our children suffer or in danger is one of the greatest pains we can experience. We want to hold on to these blessings from God, to keep them safe within our grasp from any harm that could come their way. But, as Meg Apperson knows all too well, that isn’t always possible. Meg’s second child was born with a rare birth defect that led to life-threatening comp...

BUSINESS AND FINANCE SERIES PART FOUR   Each of our financial situations looks different. For some of us, 2020 was a hard year, and we’re still trying to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move forward. Others of us are more comfortable, able to pay our bills on time without any worry and perhaps wondering how we should handle this privilege. No matter what our bank accounts look like, we ar...

BUSINESS AND FINANCE SERIES PART THREE   Painful seasons often bring financial struggles in their wake. As so many people have learned over the last year, our financial situations can be overturned in a moment’s notice due to circumstances beyond our control. Even those of us who have enough money have to ask ourselves, are we really doing everything we can now to prepare wisely for the future? Ry...

It’s all too easy for us to try to separate the elements of the Christian life. We go to church, maybe we read our Bibles, but we only apply that to our inner lives. We see pastors and ministry leaders working full time for God, but we don’t see ourselves the same way. Most of us go about our day-to-day lives at our workplaces as though the truth of God’s word doesn’t affect that part of our lives...

BUSINESS AND FINANCE SERIES PART ONE   Painful seasons are hard enough to walk through on their own, but too often, these trials come with the added burden of financial hardship. Whether it’s the loss of a job, unexpected medical bills, or any other number of factors, pain can multiply when money gets involved. Rachel Cruze has made it her mission to help people get control of their money no matte...

Erin Weidemann thought she made all the right decisions growing up. She was ambitious, driven, and seemingly healthy, chasing after the success that she believed would bring her a good life. But under the surface, she was far from okay. A devastating form of cancer had begun growing in Erin without presenting any outward symptoms, and by the time she found out, it seemed like it was too late. With...

It's easy for us to put pastors on a pedestal. We look to our spiritual leaders to be further along in their journeys than we are, but who does the pastor turn to with their own struggles? Too often, the answer is nobody, as was the case for Justin White. A prescription to treat a headache sent Justin down a slippery slope that ended in a full-blown heroin addiction. Small secrets led to bigger on...

Every married couple believes they’ll be together forever. But what happens when that doesn’t come true? All too often we ignore little problems until they become large ones, and too many marriages end prematurely as a result. That was the case for both Mary and Dave Gothi. When both their first marriages failed, it seemed like the death of both of their dreams. But God had plans for both of them...

MARRIAGE SERIES PART THREE   One of the most defining characteristics of marriage is the promise of faithfulness. There is something sacred that happens when we stand before God and promise to love one person only, until death do us part. But for far too many, that promise ends up broken. Too often, we’re left asking “what now?” That was Hilarie and Joe Barry’s story. Both the product of a previou...

Sexual abuse and assault is a pain that is familiar to far too many. This extremely intimate wounding at the hands of another can leave scars and shame that last a lifetime. But they don’t have to. Healing and wholeness are available to us. That is the story of Nothing Is Wasted Ministries’ very own Aubrey Sampson. In this bonus episode for our Nothing Is Wasted Monthly Partners, Aubrey shares her...

MARRIAGE SERIES PART TWO   As a marriage and family counselor, Nicole Zasowski spent her days helping others walk through difficult seasons in their home life. But after two consecutive miscarriages, Nicole and her husband received news from a doctor that no one wants to hear. It would be incredibly difficult for Nicole to have a child, and every attempt would come with a large risk of walking thr...

MARRIAGE SERIES PART ONE   We’ve all been taught that marriage is a gift, and that is certainly true. A healthy, loving relationship between two people is one of the greatest joys many of us will experience in life. But as Leslie Vernick knows well, when two broken people try to make a life together without addressing their own brokenness, the results can be disastrous. A product of her parents’ d...

Perhaps now more than ever, anxiety is an ever-present force in our day-to-day lives. Whether from some traumatic experience, a physiological condition, or just the weight of the broken world all around us, many of us live anxious lives every day with no end in sight. Josh Weidmann knows this all too well. Josh has faced his own lifelong battle with anxiety, and as a pastor and Biblical counselor,...

Our families are among the greatest gifts we can receive in life, but with that gift comes a risk. When pain strikes among these people who are so close to us, it hits us especially hard. Jessica Ronne knows this all too well. When her second child was born with severe special needs, it seemed like that was more trial than anyone should have to endure. Jessica’s journey, however, was just getting...

When we go through trials in our lives, it can be hard to know what to do next. We want to make it through this dark season, and to make our pain mean something, but we’re not sure how. That’s the heartbeat behind Nothing Is Wasted Ministries, and it’s part of why we created the Pain to Purpose Course. But we’ve found that walking through the course by yourself isn’t always the easiest, or the mos...

For a long time, the church has been deprived of half of the voices it could be learning from. While the Bible is full of amazing examples of female leaders, a handful of passages taken out of context have led to women being forced into the sidelines in too many churches. Lisa Bevere is one of the people on the front lines of changing that. Lisa began her career as a speaker and writer in a time w...

SURVIVING ABUSE SERIES PART FOUR   Like many parts of our lives, our beliefs about God are often formed at a young age. When we go through painful experiences before even reaching adulthood, it can shape the way we view God and others in ways we don’t even realize. This was Carissa Gaughan’s story. As a teenager, Carissa was sexually abused by multiple men, and the scars from that trauma caused he...

SURVIVING ABUSE SERIES PART THREE   Teresa Glantz first experienced trauma at far too young an age. Born into a dysfunctional family, she spent most of her childhood living under the roof of an abusive father. Growing up fearing for her safety and even her life, Teresa walked through incredible loss and tragedy at a young age. Little did she know that years later, after she thought she had healed...

SURVIVING ABUSE SERIES PART TWO   For those who have experienced any kind of abuse, it can be hard to find a way to move forward in life. There’s this trauma that’s too big to process, and it’s easy to get stuck in it. Georgia Shaffer has dedicated her life to helping people in these exact situations, but the ability to help others didn’t come easy. After walking though a cancer diagnosis with alm...

SURVIVING ABUSE SERIES PART ONE   Every child deserves to grow up innocent, free of some of the pains and worries of life that we all walk through later in life. But like too many, Becca Stevens was robbed of that chance when she experienced years of sexual abuse at the hands of a spiritual leader as a young child. With this one horrendous act, Becca’s life was forever altered. But where she could...