After decades of having these conversations in the counseling room and side by side over coffee with friends, we were compelled this year to create a podcast resource to inspire, equip, and train you to use your everyday conversations to connect others to the love of Christ.
Because we learn better together, we want to encourage you to gather and discuss the podcast. Simply sign up for our emails to receive 3 conversation starting questions, visuals, and handouts for each episode.
S6 Ep. 1 / Christine Chappell: Help When Depression Overwhelms You as a Mom
Sharing about depression is vulnerable, especially when it involves being put in a mental institution not once, but twice… Christine Chappell so compassionately and bravely shares her story of facing depression hoping to help us all walk with compassion with others as long as it takes for us to know that darkness doesn’t have the last say… No matter how long it takes.
S5 Ep. 8 / Tim Challies: A Story of Immeasurable Suffering and Incomparable Hope
We’re honored to share time here together with Tim Challies. Tim’s firstborn and only son, Nick, died at college in 2020 after suddenly collapsing while playing a game and there is no diagnosis still to this day. When we look on at the suffering of others, it’s so easy to feel the weight and think we could never make it through something similar ourselves.
S5 Ep. 7 / When All Hope Seems Lost
There are times when we just can’t see a way out. When all hope really does seem lost. Even very committed Christians can face very, very dark times. Oftentimes we’re afraid to talk about emotions, especially big emotions, that come with suffering seasons. In our process of lament, there are times when all we can do is protest. But it’s so helpful to remember that when we protest, we’re still oriented towards God.
S5 Ep. 6 / How Can I Suffer Well and Help Others?
Suffering well might sound like a contradiction, but it is the process of going to God over and over again and allowing him to change us through the process of suffering. As believers we can be confident in who God says He is and that He will do what He says - but in seasons of suffering those truths can be harder to hold on to. We want to be careful to not minimize suffering, or that suffering well means we walk through hard things perfectly. It does not have to be big and glorious. Suffering well can just be putting one foot in front of the other in daily life.
S5 Ep. 5 / What is God Doing in My Suffering?
We all know people who have suffered profoundly and now they walk with Jesus deeply. We can hold on to hope that one day we will be able to tell our story without pain and shame, solely to put the glory of Christ on display. Until that day, we can continue to run to God in our suffering and trust that He sees us, hears us, and is near to us in it all.
S5 Ep. 4 / How to Write a Lament
Through the practice of personalizing a lament we can lay all of our pain and messiness before the Lord who will never stop loving us or get tired of us bringing all of our struggles and deep hurts to Him.
S5 Ep. 3 / Carol Collier on Lament: How to Cry Out to God in Suffering
The reality of lament, is that we’re saying what is true… that we were not made for death and decay and pain.
S5 Ep. 2 / Where is God in my suffering?
Wrestling with God as a believer is not necessarily a sign of unbelief but it’s really a sign of desperate faith.
S5 Ep. 1 / Why do I suffer?
We suffer because we live in a fallen world. None of us escapes the impact of pain and sorrow and even outright evil. And honestly, this is probably one of the hardest things to reconcile for anyone who believes that there is meaning in this life. Sometimes we just desperately just want to know why...
S3 Bonus Episode/ A Conversation with Dr. Curt Thompson
On this episode of Conversational Counseling we are thrilled to have Dr. Curt Thompson share the incredible science of the brain, the Scriptures, how important physical presence is, cultivating community, telling our stories more truly, paying attention to our bodies, suffering, transformation, and more!