How do you find your way back to faith when grief seems to tear it apart? For Pastor John Onwuchekwa, losing his brother Sam sent him down a path that he never expected.

Having spent his whole life teaching others about the goodness and power of God, John found himself questioning the very foundational truths he so often preached.

Grief made him feel like a liar. But he slowly began to see that it was in the wrestling that these truths and others he hadn't learned, could be found.

Through community, honesty with God and persistence, John traveled the road back from what seemed like a lost belief into a deeper faith than he ever could have imagined.

In this episode, join Davey as he and John talk about the importance of others walking with us in grief, the wrestlings that can come out of loss and why hindsight is better than insight.

If you are finding yourself drifting off the path of faith in your pain, this conversation will encourage you to find your way back.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you’re following what’s happening at Nothing Is Wasted Ministries, you probably know that last week was a significant week for us.

Last Monday, the trial was set to begin for the man accused of murdering Amanda Blackburn, Davey’s late wife.

More than six years later, this chapter of the story was finally ready to come to an end. However, mere minutes before the trial was set to start, a careless mistake caused it to be declared a mistrial.

Now facing several more months of waiting, it seems like this season will never end, and we’re left asking “Where is God in this?”

On this special episode of the Nothing Is Wasted Podcast, Davey shares his reflections on the failed trial, and what God is teaching him and all of us when we’re stuck waiting.

When we experience something traumatic, it affects far more than we often realize. We often carry our worst moments with us in both our minds and our bodies. Take Michelle Moore for example. Michelle spent much of her life carrying the trauma of watching her mother die at a young age. Entering motherhood herself caused Michelle to experience the trauma at a whole new level, but it seemed like Michelle’s worries were coming true as medical issues threatened both her life and that of her child at the same time. But through it all, Michelle learned to find God in the midst of pain, and from there to find healing from trauma both new and old. Michelle sits down with Davey to share some of her story and how she’s turned it into her purpose to help other mothers who face the same challenges they did.