Weave & Cleave

Ashlynn describes herself as someone with an "inner restlessness". This inner restlessness kept her moving, achieving, and functioning throughout years of alcohol addiction. From the outside, she appeared to be managing her life well, but her inner life said otherwise. Debt and turmoil were mounting. Everything felt chaotic. She knew her relationship with alcohol was different than it was for othe...

Genein grew up with the adversity of a stutter, but the challenge to solidify her voice pushed her to find other mediums to express herself. She found music and the arts. She found resilience and the beauty of building brain skills. She didn't know it at the time, but all of these experiences would fuel her future work. Genein went on to get her Masters in Education. Today, she is an author, globa...

Nora had a unique childhood. The child of physicists, she and her siblings were raised in a home where knowledge was priority and feelings weren't tolerated. Still, Nora is grateful to have acquired a zeal for knowledge, and even from an early age, the one thing she wanted to know most about was God. She sought Him on her own and found Him, but her faith in the years to come would be tested in man...

Jeff McGee grew up as the son of a pastor and a teacher. He walked away from faith in young adulthood, but then the Lord brought him back. Today, he's a Christian leadership educator, an author, and executive coach committed to helping leaders live and lead according to Kingdom values. Recognized as a Titan 100 Leader in Phoenix, Jeff doesn't just talk about leadership, he models it. Recently, wit...

Jeff and Carissa grew up in two different states with very different childhood experiences. They accepted Christ at different ages, and came into adulthood with different plans for their futures. Then, they met, married, and started a ministry. Now, they integrate their differences to strengthen their work. Jeff, a lifelong learner and public high school teacher who cares deeply about helping peop...

Pamela Morrison grew up, as she puts it, "poor without knowing it". As far as she was concerned, she had plenty - friends of all ethnicities, two parents at home, and a supportive community. These strong bonds prompted her to give back to her community as a social worker, perhaps a common story, except for Pamela's distinct longevity. In a field known for burnout, her commitment to social work end...

Hayley Winterberg grew up in a family dynamic that afforded her a 'perfect ACEs score', as she shares tongue-in-cheek. It's this sense of humor that helped Hayley tap into her resilience, and eventually, helped her press into post-traumatic growth. But Hayley also points to protective factors in her childhood, too - a grandfather that took her to church every week, a father that encouraged her to...

Shomari Jackson was raised in East St. Louis, but he spent most of his childhood and teen summers in Arizona visiting his dad. He went to college in Arizona, but as he puts it, "Arizona chewed him up and spit him out." He returned home, experienced some major life events, navigated mental health issues, and finally grappled with the questions that would move him forward: Who was he? What was he ca...

Carol grew up in a home where church and service to others was paramount. This was a wonderful thing as it prompted her to pursue social work, but it also had its detriments - which Carol didn't recognize for many decades. She didn't know she had a savior complex. Or codependency issues. Or a desire to control people and situations. But then a series of heavy circumstances hit Carol and her family...

Ben and Sarah met at as ASU students at a prayer gathering thirty-five years ago. They were just friends at the time, but God had other plans. Through their time together in prayer and faithfulness, God was growing their resilience, their desire to bring people together, and their trust in His timing.  Today, Ben and Sarah are Directors of the Campus Christian Center (C3), next to Arizona State Un...

Mary's life changed in her early teens when her parents divorced. Not only did her family change, she also moved, and went from a private school setting to attending public school. It was a difficult adjustment at the time, but now she sees how the Lord used those experiences to open her eyes and heart to a bigger world than the one she had always known. As Mary grew, so did her global perspective...

Curtis enjoyed a childhood surrounded by family and centered on Christ. It was idyllic...mostly. But Curtis also experienced trauma very young - events he didn't consider a big deal, until decades later, as a biblical counselor, the heaviness of his work finally collided with his own personal heaviness. He was forced to confront his trauma and work toward healing. During his healing journey, Curti...

From a young age, Kelly felt like a defender of the marginalized. Events in childhood and adolescence helped to grow her deep empathy, but she admits a desire to repair the world was growing in her from the moment she was born. After running a mental health program for youth and children in El Salvador for several years, Kelly realized two things: one, she was called to find the light in dark spac...

Ruth's trauma story is not your typical Adverse Childhood Experience, but it changed the trajectory of Ruth's life. It transformed her understanding of grace and forgiveness. It taught her to embrace God's love in all its fullness. It shaped her into the leader she is today. And ultimately, it became her story of healing and recovery. Ruth shares that story vulnerably in this episode. After years...

Jannah Scott grew up in San Fransisco, amidst diverse friends and the unique leadership of her mother. It's no surprise then that Jannah found her place as a leader in government and civil society, both nationally and internationally. Having served as Policy Advisor on Faith and Community Initiatives to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Jannah was given the opportunity to serve in Presiden...

Growing up with alcoholic parents, Clay knew the shame and pain of neglect and not being heard. But his older sister was there for him, protecting him and nurturing in him a strong resilience that would carry him throughout adulthood. Years later, Clay would find out the many secrets his family kept. At the age of 40, he finally decided it was time to heal his childhood trauma. For decades, Clay w...

Welcome to the first episode of Season 5! Join us as we speak with Keiko Ratcliffe, founder and CEO of Skye's the Limit! Foundation, an orginization that empowers youth and families through creativity and connection. In 2014, Keiko lost her daughter, Skye, to a drug overdose. The devastating loss turned her world upside down, but even then, Keiko knew she would somehow use Skye's story to help oth...

Andy Mainiero's missional experience started with obedience and small beginnings. He started house churches and clubs for youth. These ministries grew, and as they grew, so did Andy's awareness of trauma and its impact. But when Andy and his wife adopted children from the foster care system, he dove into learning all he could about trauma--or more importantly, what it means to be trauma transforme...

Amber knew profound grief from an early age. First, it was her parent's divorce. Then her father went to prison to serve a life sentence. Four months after receiving a cancer diagnosis, her mother died from cancer. All of this happened before Amber graduated from high school.  From an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) perspective, Amber could have sought people, places, or behaviors that compou...

Tammy grew up in a Christian family dedicated to ministry and education, which for their family meant moving. A lot. By the age of 13, Tammy had moved 32 times, an experience that taught her the value of connection and community. Later in adulthood, after a divorce from an abusive marriage, Tammy also learned the value of vulnerability, and it was the power of these three together that ushered her...

From an early age, Rose Ann lived the party life. Decades later, as a wife, mom, and high-level executive, she found Jesus, but she couldn't find a reason to give up alcohol. Most programs required complete abstinence from substance use, but they couldn't explain the neuroscience behind addiction. Shortly after a divorce from a toxic marriage, Rose Ann found a program that psychologically and scie...

Tansy was born in the country of Burma (Myanmar) - a country that has endured the world's longest ongoing civil war. By the time she came to America at the age of 21, she'd witnessed and experienced trauma, violence, and having her world turned upside down in a day. As Tansy grew, her passion for her people, the KaRen ethnic group, also grew. Her passion for Jesus grew, and people invested in her,...

When Kent was three years old, he went into kidney failure. While in the hospital, he watched everyone in the unit die around him. He was the only one who lived. This was Kent's first exposure to trauma, which extended into a childhood marked by racism and abuse from people in his Alaskan village. It would be many years before Kent would find the name for the symptoms he'd experienced most of his...

April Yamasaki is a pastor, author, magazine editor, spiritual formation mentor, and resident author with a liturgical worship community in Abbotsford, British Columbia. April's a busy woman but she's also "grounded in sacred pauses, soul care, and living with faith and hope." April will tell you that decades ago, when she unexpectedly came into pastoral ministry, she thought it'd be a temporary a...

When Stacey Sutherland entered the mission field twenty years ago, she knew she wanted to help people who were experiencing crisis and trauma. But she didn't know how trauma and crisis would affect her marriage, her five children, or herself. She couldn't have foreseen how much of her trauma knowledge (or trauma wisdom) would be shaped by her lived experience, by her endless pursuit to heal her fa...