How can you believe that God's good work will be done in a story that begins with so much loss and tragedy? Where can you find miracles in pain and life's difficulties?

For author, Bible teacher, and ministry leader Joyce Dalrymple, opening her eyes to the way the Lord was moving in her own life and through her daughter's adoption required intentional attention. By starting to notice the way God was bringing redemption into their stories, she began to experience a deeper understanding of how God is always at work. Seeing her daughter practice empathy birthed out of her pain was a reminder that even our greatest wounds can become a well of goodness if we allow the transformation to come from the power of the Holy Spirit's work within us.

In this insightful conversation, Aubrey sits down with Joyce to discuss how adoption involves so much loss and grief, the importance of learning to rest in your belovedness as a parent, and how to practically help foster and adoptive families. In addition, they touch on how to navigate church hurt with a wider perspective that can help you see the good in what the global church is doing and how that can keep you connected to a community of faith.

If you or someone you know is an adoptive or foster family or if you've ever struggled to see the good in your pain, this episode will encourage you that miracles are always beyond the surface of our hurt if we can learn to see them.

What do we do with the hard questions that arise from the pain we are feeling? How do we acknowledge our fears and our doubts while holding onto our faith?

For author Kristen LaValley, the process of moving from a formulaic faith that believed God wouldn't allow pain if she did all the right things into a genuine, messy belief and understanding of God came through several seasons of suffering. From losing her and her husband's ministry position and faith community to witnessing a murder, the loss of a baby and a very traumatic birth experience with her twins, Kristen had to untangle her belief in a God that neatly healed and fixed every pain into the true nature of who God was and how so often it is His presence that He offers us in our heartbreaks. Now, Kristen and her husband help others walking through questions in their faith and spiritual wounds by giving them the same space to ask and process that they received from others in their journey.

In this insightful conversation, Davey talks with Kristen about how what we believe about God shapes how we experience suffering, the way in which suffering shapes who we believe God to be and why wrestling is so important in moving from a transactional relationship with the Lord into a true and authentic one.

If you've ever struggled with questions about God's goodness in the seasons of your difficulties, this episode will help normalize the grappling and undoing we all have to do about our beliefs about God in order to learn who He truly is.

What does grace have to do with our suffering? How do we experience the fullness of who God is when life is full of pain?

Author and journalist Philip Yancey has long sought out to understood the role grace plays in life and in our hurt. Having walked through a difficult childhood and untangling his understanding of God from church legalism steeped in racism and sin, Philip has offered what he has learned along the way to his readers through his many books, including his latest, Where the Light Fell: A Memoir. Philip is no stranger to the hard questions that can plague a lifelong pursuit of Jesus and his words have been a guide for so many in their own journeys.

In this conversation, Davey and Philip talk about the importance of grace and how it is tested, how those who are most desperate for Jesus find Him, and why pain redeemed can do more than pain removed.

If you've ever struggled to reconcile the God you know through misguided teachings from others with the true nature of God, this episode will help you find your way to the offer of grace that Jesus extends.

What do we do when the things we are seeing in church or with Christian leaders is leading to disillusionment? How do we deal with the disappointment in the ways Christians behave in the public square, online and in the pews?

Author and Editor in Chief Dr. Russell Moore has experienced the pain of denominational turmoil and sharp political disagreements that have led to hurtful slander and unkind discourse. He has found himself at the center of conflicts that he never intended to be a part of. It was through his own personal experiences and the experiences of others that he began to consider the ways in which the American Church was drifting from the heart and purposes of Jesus. In his book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, Moore explores how the American Church has lost its way and offers an invitation to repentance as a new start forward.

In this conversation, Dr. Moore sits down with guest co-host, Eric Schumacher and discusses how to navigate the current cultural unrest as believers, what to do with our disillusionment in the Church, and how to help our friends who are struggling to trust in God based on the behaviors of those claiming to follow Him.

If you've struggled with the headlines of fallen leaders and the vitriol of those proclaiming Christ in the midst of current affairs and have been left feeling like the American Church doesn't align with the way of Christ, this episode will give you hope that nothing we are experiencing in this generation is a surprise to Jesus and He is not done yet with His bride.

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 a vital part of the body of Christ was finding its way to the exit. She offers an explanation of why this is happening plus an encouraging call for women to reengage in the Church in her book, Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women. There she encourages women to see not only their need for Christ-centered community, but also the Church's need for the unique gifts of women. In it, she also shares her personal journey with alcoholism and how the Church played such a vital role in her own healing.

In this episode, Davey sits down with Ericka to discuss how women are leaving the Church at faster rates than ever before, how the anger of those who leave is often not against God, and why it is so important to go first and create a safe space for people to share their stories with vulnerability.

If you've found yourself ready to quit the Church because of the wounds that people have inflicted upon your or if you've left Church and don't know how to take the first step back towards community, this conversation will encourage you that even in its brokenness, the people of God are an integral part of our lives of faith.

What do you do when you realize the things you've been taught don't quite match up with God's Word? How do you navigate when what you believed to be true of the body of Christ doesn't hold up when you need care and protection?

For Carlie Tice Cleveland, experiencing an abusive relationship was painful enough yet more hurt was heaped upon her when the response of Christian leaders was shaming and blaming. It was through that difficult season that Carlie began to rightfully question some of the lessons she had learned through the years about purity.

Her questions led her to untangle some prescriptive religious rules that ignored the heart of God's purpose in pursuing purity. In this episode, Carlie and Davey talk about the heart of the matter when it comes to sexual ethics, warning signs in abusive relationships and the importance of deconstructing ideas that don't align with scripture.

This conversation is so important for those who know or love young people who may be wrestling with what purity truly means.

We often expect pastors to have it all put together, to be the one’s who’s lives are so in order that they can help others with their own. Just a few years ago, Ken Baugh was just one such pastor.

But when a season of burnout found Ken without a job and questioning his ministry, it was only then that he found his true purpose in understanding God’s work in our minds on a whole new level.

Ken sits down with Davey to share about his journey and how he’s using what he’s learned to help countless others.

This month on the Nothing is Wasted Podcast - you can join in on this conversation about pain, joy, heartache, and healing. Part one is all about Ally and her journey through heartache and how she's turning it into purpose and healing. 

This month on the Nothing is Wasted Podcast - you can join in on this conversation about pain, joy, heartache, and healing. Part one is all about Ally and her journey through heartache and how she's turning it into purpose and healing.