Unquenchable Hope

Send a text Do you feel like you’ve been adopted into a royal family, accepted by God and forgiven for all the ways you’re grieved Him? It can be a struggle for us to embrace and walk in the identity God says we have in Christ—an identity that is far more wonderful than all the other things we sometimes try to base our identity on. In this first part of a four-part episode about our identity in Ch...

Send a text What do a desperate widow, a prostitute, a bullied scaredy-cat, and prodigal son have in common? All these people experienced a miraculous, SUDDEN turnaround in their lives when God showed up and drastically changed things. As Luanne and Mary Ann discuss in this episode, because God is “no respecter of persons” He’s still able to change lives suddenly and profoundly today. (NOTE: The l...

Send a text Even though, as Mary Ann says in this episode, Moses could’ve been featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” God knew this fugitive had the right stuff to lead His people to the Promised land, so He spoke to Moses, gave him his marching orders, and the rest, as they say, is history. Moses is just one character Luanne and Mary Ann talk about in this episode as they remind us that because not...

Send a text Do you believe that as you’re going about your daily life, God can SUDDENLY intervene and change everything? Well, He can, and the Bible is full of examples of Him doing just that. From the “famous” to the obscure, Luanne and Mary Ann are going to be talking about some of these people and their stories in this and the next few episodes.  No situation is hopeless because God is alive! (...

Send a text Even though Christmas is all about celebrating the “Light of the world,” Jesus Christ, it can also be a challenging, even dark, season for some. As Luanne and Mary Ann discuss in this episode, if we’ll use the powerful weapons Christ-followers have been given, we can defeat enemies like loneliness, stress and despair and allow the hope-filled light of Christ fill our hearts and minds....

Send a text During the 400 years between the Old and New Testaments, God was silent. No prophets spoke His Word to His people. Crickets. But when the time was right, He broke that silence in a BIG way. First, John the Baptist—a miracle baby. Then Jesus, the “Sunrise from on high," came to this dark world. Join Luanne and Mary Ann as they prepare our hearts for Christmas, truly a holiday of ho...

Send a text Ever play a game called Fruit Ninja? Well, if you want to wait in line behind Mary Ann's grandkids to use her phone, you can. In  Fruit Ninja, you’re challenged to slice and dice various kinds of fruit that fall down the screen at an alarming pace. You control the sword. There’s a lesson there. In the spiritual realm, God has given us a sword, too—the Bible, His Word—not just to k...

Send a text What’s going on inside that noggin of yours? That’s an important question because the Bible says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Women, too, by the way.) Scary, huh? Well it doesn’t have to be. In this episode, Luanne and Mary Ann talk about the “helmet of salvation,” the essential piece of the spiritual armor God has given us to protect our minds, and Luanne gets personal...

Send a text Do you ever feel like a human dartboard? Like you’re constantly getting hit with the fiery darts the devil is slinging at you—darts like condemnation, failure, and discouragement? Well, in the immortal words of Captains Kirk and Picard of “Star Trek” fame, “Shields up!” In this episode, Luanne and Mary Ann talk about the “shield of faith”—what it is (and isn’t) and how essential it is...

Send a text Even if you prefer to walk around barefoot in this earthly realm (even on gravel like Luanne), if you want to experience the supernatural peace God offers in the spiritual realm, you better put your shoes on -- the “shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace.” What’s that about? Tune in and find out as Mary Ann and Luanne do a deep dive into this essential piece of the spiritual a...

Send a text What if you discovered one day that not only was your ridiculously huge credit card debt all paid off, but so were all the other debts you owed? And not only that—someone actually deposited a trillion bucks in your account! Well, that’s exactly what happens spiritually when we accept the gift of salvation God offers us through faith in His Son, Jesus. In this episode, Mary Ann and Luan...

Send a text Every day, hundreds of thoughts come knocking on the door of our minds. How do we know which ones to let in? It's a big deal because the thoughts we allow to move in play a huge role in determining what we do and who we become. In this episode, Mary Ann and Luanne talk about the danger of lies, the freedom of truth ... and the futility  of yelling at people on Facebook. Luanne’s n...

Send a text Forget to put on your belt and you’re liable to lose your britches. Forget to put on your spiritual “belt of truth” and you’re liable to lose something far more important. In this episode, Luanne and Mary Ann continue their discussion of spiritual warfare with a look at the first piece of the armor God has given us to fight spiritual battles: the belt of truth. And boy, do we ever need...

Send a text Mary Ann's husband continues to recover from a traumatic brain injury, so we're re-running some of our favorite episodes. In this one, you're sure to learn one thing: Mary Ann hates snakes. Don’t miss her story about an up-close encounter she had with a slithering, yucky serpent in her garage. (It may or may not involve her husband running naked across the lawn.) There’s...

Send a text When it seems like we can’t hear from God or sense His presence, is it because He’s too busy or too big to care about our wee little stuff? (NO, IT’S NOT!!!!) In this episode, Luanne and Mary Ann look at some lies we’re tempted to believe when we can’t sense God near and some reasons why perhaps God allows His kids to experience these “quiet” seasons. And Mary Ann speaks a little Greek...

Send a text As Mary Ann is with her husband while he recovers from a traumatic brain injury, we’re revisiting some of our most popular episodes. In this one, Luanne and Mary Ann talk about those distressing times when we desperately want to hear from God but He seems strangely silent. Does it mean He’s mad at us or can His silence mean something very different? In the course of discussing this hea...

Send a text Mary Ann and Luanne wrap up their deep dive into the topic of hope by discussing the familiar promise of Romans 8:28, the enigmatic man in the Bible who waited 38 years beside a pool for healing, the danger of embracing victimhood, the stages of hopelessness, and how to dig ourselves out when we’re in that dark pit. (Baking cakes and eHarmony may have come up.)  Luanne’s newest book, “...

Send a text While Mary Ann is by the bedside of her husband, who is hospitalized after a terrible accident, the ladies are reposting some of their favorite episodes from the past. In this one they discuss how we become emotionally attached to whatever we put our hope in, so we need to be sure to place our hope in the right things. Mary Ann and Luanne also share some  heart-wrenching experiences th...

Send a text While Mary Ann's husband, Joe, is recovering from a traumatic brain injury, her full-time job is helping him, so she and Luanne invite listeners to go back to the beginning with them and in this episode, hear how this podcast was birthed. Even if you've heard this episode before, the ladies pray it will remind you that no matter what, there is hope in the Lord. Luanne’s newes...

Send a text In this episode, Mary Ann and Luanne talk about the scads of promises they found in the Bible about the blessings that come from having an appropriate fear of God. One of those blessings? If we fear God, we don't have to fear anything else! Luanne’s newest book, “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God,” is available for order through her website (see below) and on amazon.com, as i...

Send a text Many people swing to one extreme or another in their opinion about what God is like, but in order to have a healthy fear of God, we need to have an accurate, Biblical view of Him and His love for us. As Mary Ann and Luanne discuss in this episode, if we believe in Jesus Christ, God has given us the right to call him “Abba,” but He also commands and deserves the respect and honor that i...

Send a text What does it mean to have a healthy fear of God? What’s an unhealthy fear of God? Why is this subject even important and relevant today? Those are some of the questions Mary Ann and Luanne tackle in this new series. And as the ladies emphatically repeat, it may seem counter- intuitive at first, but having a proper fear of God has everything to do with having unquenchable hope! Luanne’s...

Send a text God never asks us to put off sinful behaviors and attitudes without also instructing us what to put on in their place. In this episode, Mary Ann and Luanne wrap up their series about complaining with some healthy, joyful alternatives that will improve your mood and make you a lot more fun to be around. Plus, as Mary Ann is ever so diligent to point out, these alternatives will also kee...

Send a text Would you keep doing something that was creating bad neural pathways in your brain, making your stomach fat and possibly taking years off your life? Well, that “something” is complaining and sadly, nearly all of us do it to some extent. In this episode, Mary Ann and Luanne discuss one of the big reasons why God takes grumbling so seriously: it’s really, really bad for us. The good news...

Send a text God loves us, but He sure doesn’t love to hear us complain. In fact, as Mary Ann and Luanne talk about in this first episode of a three-part series on complaining, the Israelites suffered some pretty awful consequences for their whining and grumbling. God may not send a bunch of snakes to bite us like He did the Hebrew complainers, but  that doesn’t mean He takes it any less seriously....