How do you find the words to pray when you are in the middle of loss and suffering? How do mark the holy moments, both big and small, in a special way?

Author Doug McKelvey and artist Ned Bustard have collaborated on three volumes of Every Moment Holy, books filled with liturgies to help people find the words in the joyful, the mundane and the most difficult moments of life. In their second volume, Every Moment Holy: Death, Grief, and Hope they offer prayers for those who are in the middle of life's most painful seasons. From helping those who are caregivers to offering words for those who are facing their own mortality, their book combines both visual art and words when it is hard to know what to even say.

Ned would eventually experience the art he was creating to help others serve as a balm to his own heartache in the loss of his wife. It was through the power of Doug's writing and Ned's creative process that Ned felt the power of this work in his own personal pain.

In this episode, guest co-host Eric Schumacher discusses with Doug and Ned how liturgies can help us find the words to pray, the creative process in creating meaningful work, and what happens when what you create for others ends up ministering to you.

If you've ever found it hard to pray in either the moments of grief or in the everyday moments, this conversation will teach you the power of liturgy in our journey as believers.

Warning: This episode does briefly discuss loss by suicide and may not be suitable for all listeners.

How do we care for a loved one with a disease that steals their memories? How do we tend to ourselves when we are helping aging parents?

For Guideposts Editor-in-Chief Edward Grinnan, these were the very questions he had to answer after his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Edward had to learn not only how to walk through such a difficult disease, but also how to face the reality that he too might one day suffer from it. Edward went on to chronicle his own journey through his mother's illness in his latest book, A Journey of Faith: A Mother’s Alzheimer’s, A Son’s Love, and His Search for Answers. It was through his journey that he was able to see with clarity God's presence and love.

In this episode, Davey talks with Edward about how telling our stories reveals who we are, the impact Alzheimer's Disease has on families and caregivers, and specific ways that caregivers can care for themselves while tending to their loved one with the disease.

If you are being impacted by Alzheimer's, caring for aging parents or know someone who is, this conversation will encourage you to see how God can show up in the ways we show up for those we love.

What can we learn from those who have walked the road of suffering before us? How do we take the stories of Christians whom we admire and glean the hard-won wisdom from what they've endured?

Many know the story of Elisabeth Elliot, who lost her first husband Jim after he was killed when on a missionary trip in a remote part of Ecuador. She would later lose her second husband, Addison Leitch, to cancer. Yet in all of her pain and loss, Elisabeth was a prolific teacher, speaker and author, pointing others to her only source of comfort in her suffering, Jesus.

Elisabeth's legacy has touched countless number of lives and has impacted how others have viewed their pain including Davey and Kathy Reeg. Kathy was drawn to Elisabeth's teaching at an early age and through what she can only explain as several God moments, would become the head of the Elisabeth Elliot foundation, which has worked tirelessly to preserve Elisabeth's legacy and artifacts from her life.

In this unique episode, Davey sits down to talk with Kathy about the importance of understanding God's sovereignty in our suffering, Elisabeth's willingness to do what God asked of her, and how each of us have the same power of the Holy Spirit that worked in Elisabeth in our own lives as we face trials and difficulties.

The legacy of Elisabeth Elliot is a reminder that God is faithful when our lives are full of suffering and that even when our stories are not the ones we want, He is working for good in whatever heartache we are experiencing.

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.

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.

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.

What happens when we start to share our story of pain and loss? How can retelling what we've walked through help us in healing?

For Jonathan Pitts, sharing the story of how he lost his wife, Wynter, has been a part of the process God has used to heal his greatest loss. In 2018, life was going well for Jonathan and his family. With an exciting upcoming move to the Nashville area and a new position as a pastor, Jonathan, Wynter and their four girls were excited about what was ahead. But within moments, their lives took a tragic turn that none of them could have imagined when Wynter died suddenly from a heart related issue. Just like that, Jonathan and his girls were on a new trajectory in their lives as they continued on with the move and began a completely new life without Wynter.

In this episode, Davey and Jonathan talk about how so much of our healing can come as we share parts of our story, the importance of having permission to feel what we feel, and ways we can combat shame in our grief.

Life has taken unexpected turns for the Pitts family as Jonathan has now remarried and pivoted in his professional life, but this conversation is a reminder that as much as life can change in an instant, God remains the same.

If you've been around here at Nothing is Wasted, you probably know the story of how we came to be as a ministry. It was after his own pain to purpose journey in which Davey Blackburn lost his wife, Amanda, and their unborn child in a tragic home invasion that God birthed this idea of a ministry that walked others through whatever pain they faced.

In this special two-part conversation, Davey sits down with Aubrey to discuss what the past few months have been like as the legal side of their journey came to a close with the trial and sentencing of the perpetrator of Amanda's murder.

For many, it may come as a surprise that this part of their story is just now happening, seven years after that fateful day that forever changed Davey's life. And yet, for the Blackburn's and Amanda's family, the significance of the number seven, a number that means completion in Scripture, is more than a mere coincidence. In spite of all the suffering they've endured, the timing is just another reminder that God has been with them every step of the way. And as this chapter in their journey comes to a close, a new one is beginning.

In Part 2 of this two-part episode, Davey shares walking through the sentencing of one of the accomplices in Amanda's case, how you never know the impact your response to your story may have on others, and the wrestlings that can come as we struggle to understand God's justice in our hurt.

Whether you've been following Davey's journey since the beginning or if you are new to the Nothing is Wasted family, this conversation will encourage you to press into the hard parts of your journey with God because His faithfulness will be revealed and redemption will come in the most unexpected of ways.

If you've been around here at Nothing is Wasted, you probably know the story of how we came to be as a ministry. It was after his own pain to purpose journey in which Davey Blackburn lost his wife, Amanda, and their unborn child in a tragic home invasion that God birthed this idea of a ministry that walked others through whatever pain they faced.

In this special two-part conversation, Davey sits down with Aubrey to discuss what the past few months have been like as the legal side of their journey came to a close with the trial and sentencing of the perpetrator of Amanda's murder.

For many, it may come as a surprise that this part of their story is just now happening, seven years after that fateful day that forever changed Davey's life. And yet, for the Blackburn's and Amanda's family, the significance of the number seven, a number that means completion in Scripture, is more than a mere coincidence. In spite of all the suffering they've endured, the timing is just another reminder that God has been with them every step of the way. And as this chapter in their journey comes to a close, a new one is beginning.

In Part 1 of this two-part episode, Davey recounts what he encountered during the trial, how he learned to find closure outside of the courtroom, and the way the picture of his earthly father helped him deeply understand the posture of His heavenly one in the depths of his pain.

Whether you've been following Davey's journey since the beginning or if you are new to the Nothing is Wasted family, this episode will remind you that even in the complicated parts of our story, God is ever so near.

There are moments in life where in an instant, everything changes. How do you choose joy when your whole life is blindsided by pain? How do you find hope when you don't even know what the next hour may bring?

For Kelli Campbell-Goodnow, she never imagined the turn her life would take one night in January 2016. As she went to sleep, her life was good with her loving husband, United States Marine CH-53 pilot Major Shawn Campbell and her four children that she homeschooled at their dream duty station in Hawaii. But when she awoke, she got the call that every military wife fears, there had been an accident. For five days, rescue workers searched for the wreckage of a two helicopter collision off the coast. Soon thereafter, the search ended and Shawn was among the twelve Marine lives lost.

Kelli would have to immediately step into a completely unknown life. She would pack up her home and move across the country to be with family. She would decide to put her kids in school instead of homeschooling. And she would remind herself that while everything around her was changing, God did not.

Davey and Kelli discuss why it is important to pay attention to the small details of our stories as they unfold, the daily act of surrender that grief requires of us, and the ways we can trust God even when our lives change completely.

Kelli's story will help you face whatever circumstances you are in with a determined perspective to see God in the midst of it.

Losing a spouse is devastating. Losing a spouse to suicide is full of layers of pain and questions. How do you even begin to wrap your mind around such a traumatic event and how do you walk your children through their pain? What do you do when a new tragedy stirs up your past wounds and hurts from your childhood?

Blake Williams has spent the last year navigating those questions and so many more after losing his wife, Hope, to suicide. Having wrestled with mental health issues and chronic pain, Hope took her life in the couple's home and Blake found himself in the middle of a story he had never imagined for himself or his five children. As he has started to heal and move forward, the pain was a reminder of some of the past lies that haunted him his whole life after being abandoned and rejected by his parents. Blake could have easily allowed the old scripts he so often felt in his life to become his reality, but instead, he decided to shift his perspective from that of a victim into a victor.

In this transparent conversation, Davey and Blake talk about the importance of not allowing our past to dictate our future, the paradigm shift that is necessary to keep us from going under from our hurt, and the value in learning to speak truth to the lies we are believing.

You'll be encouraged to look through a different lens when it comes to your history, no matter what you have experienced.

There are some stories with such unfathomable pain that it can seem impossible to ever see a glimpse of redemption throughout them. When the depth of heartbreak is so great, how can you ever see the light of goodness again?

Jerry Sittser has walked a road of catastrophic loss that most of us cannot even imagine. In 1991, Jerry and his wife and children were hit head on by a drunk driver. In an instant, life as Jerry knew it was completely over as the wreck claimed the life of his wife, his young daughter, his mother and the wife and unborn child of the other driver. There in the complete wreckage of his life, Jerry slowly began to learn how the must excruciating of suffering can grow the soul in unimaginable ways. The lessons Jerry learned through his own grief have served as a healing balm to many through his groundbreaking book, A Grace Disguised. Recently revised for a 25th Anniversary edition, Jerry vulnerably shared how grief has not only changed him, but grown him in ways that only suffering can. Through his story, he recognizes how all griefs, whether comparable or not to his own, invite us to step in to a grace that transforms us.

In this episode, Davey talks with Jerry about how experience can and ultimately has to be, the catalyst for our growth, the tensions that exist in pain and suffering, and how to step into the questions that inevitably come from our greatest pain.

With a hard won wisdom, a theological richness, and a profound outlook, Jerry's insight will help you process any grief you've experienced through a completely new lens. This conversation is one you'll want to listen to more than once as you glean from the deep well of Jerry's experience and wisdom.

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.

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.

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.

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.