The Nothing Is Wasted Podcast

Has church hurt or spiritual abuse ever made you want to quit church altogether? Have the actions of people who claim to know Jesus made you want to give up on God? For author Natalie Runion, a pastor's kid and pastor herself, she has seen the underside of the Church and ministry. As a teen she experienced a deep church wound after her family was kicked out of the congregation her father pastored....

WARNING: This episode contains conversations about suicide and suicide ideation and may not be suitable for all listeners/viewers. Have you ever wondered why you are the way you are? Have you ever taken the time to deep dive into the stories and scripts that keep you moving in the same cycles you wish you could break free from? Author and therapist Kobe Campbell began her journey towards understan...

How do you navigate living between two completely different worlds? How do you honor the culture of a parent while being a part of another culture that doesn't always do the same? For author Tasha Jun, learning to love and embrace the culture of her Korean mother while finding a place to belong in American culture left her feeling caught between two worlds at times. Being biracial, Tasha struggled...

Have you ever truly engaged your story and looked at how God is inviting you into a deeper place of healing and redemption? How do you even begin to unpack all that you've been through and find safe people to share your story with? Author, pastor and coach Karrie Garcia has made it her life's mission to not only engage her own story, but to help others do the same. After overcoming the grips of ad...

WARNING: This episode contains conversations about suicide and suicide ideation and may not be suitable for all listeners/viewers. How do you help a child in your life walk through an unimaginable trauma? How can you begin to navigate their emotions as well as your own when life turns upside down? For Jessye and Ryan Wilden figuring out how to walk through their own pain of losing Ryan's sister, R...

How often have you found yourself stuck in the past? How is looking back keeping you from moving forward? Best-selling author, speaker, and founder of A21, a worldwide anti-trafficking organization, Christine Caine knows how pain, trauma, and tragedy can keep a person stuck. Having experienced abandonment, being adopted, abuse and trauma as a child, Christine is well acquainted with the schemes of...

How do you begin to pick up the pieces when your life shatters in an instant? What do you do when your ministry and your family seem to crumble in a moment? How do you move forward after signing divorce papers? For former pastor's wife and author, Brandi Wilson, she could not have imagined the way her story would go. She had helped to build an incredibly successful church with her then-husband and...

Have you ever faced the loss of a loved one and wondered what life was like on the other side of death? We all have seen heaven depicted in movies and literature, but what can we really expect based on Scripture? For author and speaker Randy Alcorn, it was the work he did in writing his bestselling book, Heaven, that gave him peace after losing his wife, Nanci, to cancer. Knowing the truth about w...

What do we do with the messages that imprint themselves on our souls from our earliest memories? How do we overcome the most difficult parts of our story when our circumstances seemingly want to make us a statistic? For author, speaker and advocate Tori Hope Petersen, growing up in an abusive home and entering the foster care system at a young age made her start to believe that her life didn't mat...

What happens when we experience wounding at the hands of one of the most influential people in our lives...our father? How can we even begin to heal ourselves, our relationships and how we see God when our dad has let us down? For author Kia Stephens, the impact of an absentee father had lasting effects on her life. She started to notice the void of desiring to have a father in her life and not re...

How do you keep trusting God when life doesn't get perfectly "fixed"? How can you begin to see God's glory move in your story within all its imperfections? For author Kristen Wetherell, chronic pain became a debilitating reminder that her plans and her life were not fully under her control. It was through a Lyme disease diagnosis and the subsequent pain and challenges she faced that God began to r...

Women are leaving churches in record numbers at higher rates than ever before. Yet, all of us are in need of healthy community more than ever. What is causing this mass exodus and how can the Church and women recognize their need for one another? Journalist and author Ericka Andersen wanted to know why and started to investigate the staggering statistics. In turn, she found the deeper reasons such...

How do we take the immense heartaches we experience and use them for God's glory? How do we continue to trust in the Lord's goodness when our experience feels quite the opposite in our pain? For author Tim Challies, losing his 20 year old son tragically and unexpectedly gave him the opportunity to lean into all he believed to be true about God as he resolved to steward his sorrow well. Through his...

How do you stay afloat when it feels like waves of grief and trauma keep crashing over you? How can you keep a marriage together when it feels like everything is trying to tear you apart? For Jeff and Sarah Walton, navigating the relentless storms of a child's neurological challenges, losing a job, and the impact of Lyme disease in their home seemed impossible. It felt like the story of Job where...

What do you do when you have a good theology of suffering and pain and yet struggle in the midst of your experience to believe that God is even present, let alone good? How do you hold the tension between your pain and what you know to be true about who God is? For Pastor Adam Mabry, it was his own hardships and emotional struggles paired with the seeming silence of God that took him on a journey...

What does it look like to grow in your faith when you came from an environment that contradicted so many of the things of God? How do you become a follower of Jesus after experiencing a childhood riddled with so much trauma and pain? For Preston Perry, growing up in the inner city and facing so many challenges from being fatherless and the collective pain of a community in crisis, Preston struggle...

How do you continue on in faith when pain and tragedy seems to plague your life? How can you keep going towards healing and wholeness when heartache relentlessly comes into your life? Those were the questions Rachel Faulkner Brown had to wrestle with after losing not one, but two husbands: one in an unexpected medical trauma and the other in a military plane crash. As a young widow twice, Rachel k...

Have you ever watched someone you love struggle through addiction? Or perhaps you were the one with an addiction and saw the devastating impact it had on those who loved you most? How do you heal, on either side of an addiction? For Geoffrey Banks, a youthful curiosity turned into years long struggle with drug addiction while his father, James, endured the pain of watching his son walk through so...

How does our personality impact how we respond after a loss or heartache? Why does knowing more about our inner world matter when it comes to healing? Beth and Jeff McCord have been using the tool of the Enneagram to help countless people understand the connection between their core longings and the unhealthy ways they are showing up in the world. Using a gospel lens, they have found the value in...

Have you ever felt like you've just gotten to a good place in life only to have it completely unravel unexpectedly? What do you do when you had finally reached a mountaintop and then find yourself in the deepest valley? Danita Jenae knows all too well how life can be looking up only to seemingly fall apart in a moment. After struggling with chronic health issues and finally finding some relief, he...

How does the hope of the gospel apply in the midst of a miscarriage or season of infertility? Where can we find comfort when our desire for a child isn't being fulfilled? So often this conversation is focused on the experience women have but silently suffering are the men who too face the grief and pain after pregnancy loss or infertility. Eric Schumacher, pastor and author, walked through several...

You can be doing everything "right" and still find yourself struggling in the grips of depression and anxiety. The fact remains that depression and anxiety are indiscriminate when it comes to who will encounter it. How can you get to the spiritual root of what you are facing and experience freedom in the pit of pain? As a clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Michelle Bengtson thought she had every tool...

How do we create safe environments for our children when it comes to emotions? How do we allow those within our home to feel like they can share their feelings and find healing when there is disconnection? Dr. Josh and Christi Straub have been on a mission to teach families what emotional health looks like and how to prioritize it in the home. Having worked with many ministry and business leaders...

How do you lead when your own story is full of pain? What is the cost of control when it comes to ministry, leadership and marriage? For Ike and Sharon Hodde Miller, learning to navigate the difficulties in ministry these past few years since church planting and a pandemic has led to some insight into their own hearts. As an adult child of an alcoholic, Ike began to see the way his past was impact...

What do you do when you're overcome with anxiety? How can we connect our faith with our physical and mental health? These are questions that Jenn Tucker began to ask after first walking her young daughter through anxiety and panic attacks, only to discover she herself was dealing with anxiety as well. As Jenn was on the journey of having a child who was struggling with both mental health challenge...