Megan Griffith Megan Griffith

Episode 280 - A Heaven Focus in Our Suffering with Randy Alcorn

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 what life was like for Nanci after death, comforted Randy in his own suffering and grief. While we've all been told a lot of different things when it comes to heaven, knowing what the Bible says and anticipating the joy and peace that is to come is the only way through the unending pain we face. And if our eyes remain on this earth, we will continue to see the temporary heartache instead of the eternal joy that is to come.

In this conversation, Davey talks with Randy about the question everyone who has faced the loss of a loved one has wondered: what can we expect when it comes to heaven? They discuss why we need a heaven focus in our suffering, what we actually know (and what we don't) when it comes to heaven, and why our theology matters in our thinking about life beyond what we see.

If you've ever asked the question: what is heaven like?, this episode will begin to answer that question and more importantly, lift your eyes from your suffering and upward into what is beyond this broken, pain-filled earthly existence.

Read More
Megan Griffith Megan Griffith

Episode 271 - Experiencing the Comfort of God after Loss and Trauma with Rachel Faulkner Brown

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 knew what it meant to experience pain, but learning to experience God's comfort took some time. It took her truly understanding God's abundant love for her, even when her circumstances felt quite the opposite. Since experiencing those losses, she has since remarried again and has walked with her husband through depression and anxiety and started a ministry for widows, encouraging them to hope in their pain to purpose journey. Through it all, Rachel has found a rich faith that is rooted in trusting Jesus in every season of life. While it has never been easy, it has been what has carried her through the valleys she has encountered.

In this episode, Davey sits down with Rachel to discuss the importance of knowing our identity and God's love for us before we can ever begin to heal, how our worship can become a weapon against the enemy, and the power of encountering God's comfort in our pain.

Chances are you haven't experienced the level of loss and pain that Rachel has, but this conversation will spur you on in your journey towards faith and hope in whatever hurt you are enduring.

Read More
Megan Griffith Megan Griffith

Episode 268 - When Mountains Crumble with Danita Jenae

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 to 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, her world was forever changed when her husband passed away. New to town, without a community and just before the world changed for everyone with the pandemic, Danita didn't even have the resources she needed to make it through such a devastating loss. But God was gracious and even in the isolation, the loneliness, and the doubts, He proved Himself faithful in Danita's story.

Davey and Danita both know the pain of losing a spouse and how it can forever change your life. In this conversation, they talk about what to do in the silence and doubt after loss, why lament is so imperative for finding our way through grief, and how to help kids through grief when we don't know what to do.

Whether you've seen mountains crumble around you or not, this episode is a reminder that in our greatest pain, God is still making a way for us.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 240 - Making Your Way through the Seasons of Loss with Laura Hao

What do you do when you were living the life you always dreamed of and find it taken away in a matter of moments? How do you learn to trust God after a tragic loss? How can you forgive when a grave injustice is done against you and your family?

Laura Hao had to answer these questions and so many more when she lost her husband in a senseless murder in 2018. Laura had always dreamed of becoming a missionary since she was a little girl. She realized that dream and moved to Asia as a young woman. There, she met her husband, had her four children and began working as missionaries in the place the Holy Spirit had planted a seed of a dream in her heart so many years ago. Together, they experienced blessing and favor as they served the Lord and sought to build the Church in a closed part of the world.

But that all changed just two days after returning to the United States for a time of refreshment and visiting loved ones. While packing her daughter's bag for camp the next day, gun shots echoed just outside the door. She opened it to find a traumatic scene, her husband was lying lifeless on the ground after being shot in a random act of violence.

Laura experienced the depths of the darkness that grief can bring. Feeling buried like a seed, she felt as though she was frantically grappling her way out of the dark. But through it, she also experienced the illuminating light of truths that can only be found in the recesses of pain. In this raw conversation, Davey and Laura talk through a shared experience of learning to live in the darkness of a painful loss, how to trust the Lord in the seasons fo grief, and how justice, mercy and forgiveness all coexist.

The truths Laura and Davey share are ones that will help you as you navigate the most difficult parts of your story with honesty and hope, whatever it may be.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 222 - Making Today Count with Liset Navas

What if your worst-case scenario happened? Could you still say that God is good? For military spouse Liset Navas, those questions prompted a searching and wrestling with God long before she lost her husband, US Marine Captain Mo Navas in combat in 2020.

Just days before the world shut down from Covid, Liset got the knock at the door that no military wife wants to receive.

In her grief, Liset found that she had to answer those hard questions about God and His goodness while walking her four young children through the painful loss of their father.

In this episode, Davey has a conversation with Liset about the importance of numbering our days as well as our spouse's, grieving with hope, and leaning into the fears and doubts that come before and after a loss.

Whether or not you are a military spouse, this episode is a powerful challenge for us all to keep a heavenward perspective about life and learn to live each day to the fullest.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 218 - Learning to Depend on God after Loss with Lisa Appelo

Have you ever asked yourself how life can be good again after a devastating loss? Have you found yourself having to learn to depend on God in your deepest pain?

Author and speaker Lisa Appelo knows all too well what it looks like to search for meaning and joy in life when your world falls apart. In the summer of 2011, she found herself a widow and single mom of seven children after the sudden, tragic loss of her husband, Dan.

Davey chats with Lisa about how she walked her children through their own painful grief, how death revealed her idol of self-sufficiency and how she learned to lean on God for everything in her journey towards healing.

Whether or not you have lost a spouse, Lisa's wisdom on how pain can shape us and wake us up to eternity is for you. Her story is a reminder, no matter what your pain, that life can be good again.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 212 - Walking with Grief with Clarissa Moll

How do we learn to walk with grief? Clarissa Moll has been learning to do just that ever since losing her husband, Rob, in a tragic hiking accident in 2019. Through her pain, Clarissa has seen grief transform her into a more compassionate person while teaching her how to live more fully in the midst of great loss.

In this conversation, Davey and Clarissa sit down to talk about what to do with the most intimate, sacred parts of your story, how to transform your trauma into post-traumatic growth and ways to help others who are hurting while still in your own pain.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 205 - Jon Hagedorn

On one fateful day, Jon Hagedorn gathered his wife and children to engage in a family tradition of theirs, something they did to make sure they always remembered God’s goodness and faithfulness. But they couldn’t have known how much that belief was going to be tested.

Mere hours later, Jon’s wife died suddenly. Facing life as a single father while dealing with his own grief, Jon had no choice to face the same questions that any of us would ask in that situation.

Is God really good or really faithful if he let this happen?

To conclude our Widowhood Series, Jon sits down with Davey to share his story and how he found a deeper, richer knowledge of God in the midst of unimaginable pain.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 204 - Jim & Martha Blackburn

We all hope that our faith will leave a legacy, that our decisions to follow God even in the middle of incredible hardship will have affect the lives of people who haven’t even been born yet. Faithfulness, it turns out, has a way of rippling across generations to impact the lives of our children’s children’s children.

This is the story of Jim and Martha Blackburn. Having both lost their first spouses themselves, Jim and Martha found themselves in a unique position to minister to Davey, their grandson, in the wake of the loss of his late wife Amanda.

To continue our Widowhood Series, Davey sits down with his grandparents Jim and Martha as they share their story of loss, healing, faithfulness, and redemption.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 203 - Brandon Janous

There are certain words and phrases that we all dread to hear, and perhaps one of the worst is when a doctor says “cancer.” When Brandon Janous’ wife was diagnosed, he knew their family was in for a long, hard struggle. But sadly, Brandon’s wife wouldn’t make it through this season.

Suddenly left grieving one of the worst losses imaginable and with three children to take care of, Brandon found himself in an impossible situation.

In this installment of our Widowhood Series, Brandon sits down with Davey to share some of his story and what he’s learned about who God really is through this painful season.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 202 - Gracie Parrish

Every partner of someone with an especially dangerous job has to face the reality that there is always a chance their husband or wife won’t make it home one day.

But no amount of theoretical expectations could have prepared Gracie Parrish for the day when two uniformed police officers showed up at her door to deliver the last piece of news she would have ever wanted.

Suddenly left as a single mother of two young children, Gracie found herself on a difficult journey that she could never have expected. To continue our widowhood series, Gracie sits down with Davey and Kristi to share her story of loss, grief, redemption, and newfound purpose.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 201 - Ron Hutchcraft

The loss of a spouse is one of the deepest forms of pain that any of us can imagine. Marriage is one of life’s greatest joys, and when that is suddenly cut short, the pain that results is something that most of us can’t even begin to imagine.

Ron Hutchcraft, however, doesn’t have to imagine. In 2016, Ron’s wife of more than 50 years passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Through this unbelievable pain, Ron found a new, deeper understanding of God.

To kick off our Widowhood Series, Ron sits down with Davey to share his story of loss and healing, and how we can find hope in the middle of our deepest pain.

Read More
Amy Sylvestre Amy Sylvestre

Episode 194 - Veteran's Day Special - Jim & Ginger Ravella

For too many of the brave men and women who serve in our armed forces, death isn’t an abstract concept. It’s something they face every day.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to face when the person you love most in this world dies. That was what happened to both Jim and Ginger Ravella.

They both lost their spouses at an early age, and it sent them reeling. Their story is one of incredible pain and loss, but also unbelievable hope and a picture of God’s provision and redemption that is at work in each of our lives, even when it might not seem like it.

In this special conversation to honor Veteran’s Day, Jim and Ginger sit down with Davey to share their stories and some of the wisdom they’ve learned along the way.

Read More
Davey Blackburn Davey Blackburn

Episode 177 - Kristy Furlow

Our faith in God can be tested beyond our wildest dreams in a moment. We can think our faith is strong one minute, and the next minute a single event, something as small as a conversation or a phone call, can shatter our delusions and bring us face to face with reality. Kristy Furlow experienced this when doctors told her that her husband had a rare, terminal form of cancer. With only a few months left together on this earth, Kristy and her husband learned to see God for who He really is in the midst of trials, and found a deeper, truer faith out of all of it. Kristy sits down with Davey to share some of her story of losing her husband and the purpose she has found out of the ashes of this pain.

Read More