What is the connection to our brain's health and our mental health? How can taking care of our brains help us heal from grief, trauma, depression or anxiety?

Dr. Daniel Amen is a world renowned psychiatrist who began to notice early in his practice that there was a disconnect in psychiatry and the lack of study being done on the brain. It was through years of scanning brains through a technology called SPECT that Dr. Amen began to recognize that what many considered mental health issues were actually brain health issues and that when you started to heal the brain, you could begin to see incredible healing with the myriad of symptoms plaguing his patients. Dr. Amen has spent his lifetime and practice teaching people the importance of brain health through his many books. He recently released Raising Mentally Strong Kids: How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults to help parents.

In this episode, Kristi and Davey sit down with Dr. Amen to discuss why brain health matters with our mental health, how to heal our brains after trauma, and how brain science can help us in parenting.

If you or someone you love struggles with mental health or if you are trying to raise brain healthy kids, this conversation will teach you how to better care for the part of you that impacts your life the most.

How can you find hope when life shatters before your eyes? How can you continue to believe in the goodness of God after tragedy?

For young mom Kellie Bullard, she couldn't imagine how quickly life could change. In an ordinary night, her life was turned completely upside down when her husband, Alex, died in a car accident less than a mile from their home. What was once a picture perfect life was ripped apart as she was left grieving the loss of her husband with a seven week old baby and a 2 year old. But even in the midst of her greatest pain, God showed up in small and tangible ways along her journey towards healing. She wrote about the truth of her grief and what God taught her along the way in her new book, Behind My Smile: Finding Hope When Life Leaves You Feeling Shattered.

In this episode, Davey talks to Kellie about what it looks like to step out in faith when life is uncertain, how we can see God in our story, and the ways in which we can help young kids through their experience of grief and loss.

If you've ever experienced life changing in an instant, this conversation you show you how to see the goodness of God and find hope again amidst the shattered pieces of the life you once knew.

What does redemption look like in our stories of pain and suffering? How do we step into the story of someone we love and hold space for them?

For Nothing is Wasted co-founder, Kristi Blackburn, learning to be a place of refuge and healing for her husband, Davey, and son, Weston, years after they lost their first wife and mom, Amanda, has been no simple task. In the messiness of grief, blending families, and navigating the impact of trauma, Kristi has had to step into the call of being a wife and mother without a manual but only the grace of God to guide her. She has had to learn how to do it all from a place of faith and not fear, while also tending to her own story of shame, loss and grief. While it hasn't been easy, she has found that in the midst of it all, God has given her the strength and wisdom she has needed to be a source of healing and help to both Davey and Weston as they continue to put the pieces together of their shattered hearts.

How do you learn to feel the pain instead of just filling it? What does surrender look like when we've entered a story that we never imagined for ourselves?

On this first ever live Nothing is Wasted podcast episode from the Nothing is Wasted Book Launch event, Davey and Kristi Blackburn are joined by Daniel and Brittany Brooker to discuss the messy road of healing and redemption. The Brookers know pain--having both lost a spouse at a young age while parenting small children. Their process towards healing and hope and finding one another along the way has been full of incredible joy and difficult heartaches. Finding friendship with the Blackburns, another couple who understands the impact of trauma on a marriage and children and who are also blending together a family, has been a gift in the journey of grief, loss, and redemption.

In this conversation, the Blackburns and the Brookers discuss why we have to feel our pain and not just fill it, the importance of surrender in our deepest valleys, and how God gives us people along the way that can be a part of his healing plan for us.

If you've ever struggled to allow yourself the opportunity to really feel the emotions that come from a loss or your unique path of suffering, this episode will help you to realize that healing cannot happen until you admit there is hurt and allow God to meet you in the messy middle of it.

How do you help an adult child who is experiencing an unimaginable loss? What does it look like to parent our kids who are grown and who are walking through difficult seasons?

For Davey's parents, Dave and Brenda Blackburn, navigating how to help Davey walk through his own grief while also taking the time to grieve their own pain of losing their daughter-in-law, Amanda, and unborn grandchild was at times very difficult. Yet through their own hurt and watching Davey walk through his, they learned that many of the same parenting principles they had used throughout Davey's life applied in his season of suffering as well. It was through prayer, giving Davey space when he needed it, being there for him, and loving him through the ups and the down that God showed Dave and Brenda how to be the kind of parents their adult son needed as he walked through a tragedy.

In this episode, Davey sits down with his parents to talk about the difficulty of watching your adult child hurting after loss, how to be there for your kids, and what it looks like to build a foundation of faith in your children before they experience pain and suffering.

If you are a parent walking through a season of heartache of any kind with your adult child, this conversation will give you hard-won wisdom as to how to even begin to love and show up for your children, even when they are grown and living their own lives out of your home.

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.

How do we navigate those questions we have in the middle of our struggles? How can we hold onto our faith when doubt seems to want to unravel what we know to be true?

For author and podcaster Laura Wifler, walking through a season of doubt in the middle of life's challenges wasn't something she anticipated. As someone who spent much of her time encouraging other women on her well-known podcast and through her book by the same name, Risen Motherhood, to cling to Jesus in their lives, she never imagined to find herself wrestling with uncertainty in her own faith. And yet through that season and through parenting a child with special needs, Laura found God reveal Himself to her more and more. Learning to cling to her faith when it felt impossible was a lesson that continues to carry her through the lingering questions and challenges she is experiencing. She also found that her vulnerability in sharing where she was in her journey with Jesus gave others permission to do the same.

In this episode, Eric talks with Laura about what the gospel offers in parenting a child with special needs, how to find hope in our pain, and what it looks like to cling to faith in our doubts.

If you or someone you know have found themselves in a season where there seems to be more questions than answers, this conversation is an invitation to ask God what is on your mind and know that there is no question or struggle with doubt that can keep you from His love.

What do we do when we find ourselves in the middle of a medical crisis with our kids? How do we learn to trust God with our most precious gifts, our children?

For author Jessika Sanders, learning to surrender and trust the Lord was a journey after she found herself in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It was through that experience that she began to not only pray for her own child, but the countless others that she met while attending to her son's medical condition. As she saw the need for support and care for those in the NICU and PICU, she felt led to begin a ministry for parents who find themselves in the stress and uncertainty of a medical crisis. Her ministry, Praying Through, offers practical support and encouragement for families journeying through the NICU, PICU, and child loss. Her upcoming book co-authored with Eric Schumacher, In His Hands: Prayers for your Child or Baby in a Medical Crisis, helps parents with specific prayers to pray when the words may be hard to find.

In this conversation with Eric, Jessika shares how God often will prepare us in advance for the valleys we will walk through, the importance of surrendering to the Lord in a crisis, and ways that anyone can help a family facing a difficult medical journey.

If you or someone you know is a parent in the midst of a life altering medical diagnosis of their child, this episode will be a balm of hope in helping you remember that when everything feels completely out of your control, the Lord is inviting you to just be still and trust Him in the unknown.

How do we move through our deepest hurts in marriage? What do we do when the marriage we envisioned is not the one we are living in?

For authors and podcast hosts Aaron and Jennifer Smith, the difficulty they endured in the early days in their marriage made them wonder if they would even make it as a couple. Troubles with physical intimacy and disappointment threatened to undo their union. It took them learning to be vulnerable and transparent within safe Biblical community for God to start to heal the places of brokenness in their marriage. And it was through learning how to be honest with others that God began to reveal an opportunity for them to serve others in their marriages by sharing about their own. Through the Marriage After God podcast and their many books on marriage, including their latest, The Marriage Gift: A Daily Devotional Journey to Inspire, Encourage, and Transform Us and Our Prayer Life, the Smiths have been able to help others find healing in their relationships and to turn to God every step of the way.

In this insightful conversation with Davey, Aaron and Jennifer share how the struggles in their marriage taught them the power of prayer, how community can be an agent of healing in our relationships, and the way God can use our own vulnerability to welcome others to share their pain.

If you're in a season of difficulty in your marriage or know someone who is, this episode will encourage you to keep praying, even when you feel like giving up.

How do we begin to experience the strength of God in the middle of our weaknesses? How can we allow the Creator of all to enter into our greatest place of need?

For author and podcaster Emily Jensen, walking through her son's medical challenges revealed weaknesses in her spirit that were unlike any she had faced before. The missed milestones, the extensive plans for intervention, and her own grief in the midst of it all revealed to her a need for God's strength where she felt the weakest. It was learning to navigate the waters of parenting a child with special needs that led her to a greater reliance on the Heavenly Father's power in her life. Through co-hosting the Risen Motherhood podcast and her recent book, He is Strong: Devotions for When You Feel Weak, Emily explores what it looks like to truly lean into the supernatural strength we all need when it comes to all the ways we experience brokenness this side of heaven.

In this honest conversation, Eric sits down with Emily to talk about the different kinds of weaknesses we can face, the challenges of parenting a child with special needs and how the gospel applies to all of our weaknesses.

If you've ever found yourself at the end of your own strength, this episode will serve as an encouragement that it is in that place that God's power is most magnified in your life.

How do you keep trusting God when life doesn't get perfectly "fixed"? How can you begin to see God's glory move in your story within all its imperfections?

For author Kristen Wetherell, chronic pain became a debilitating reminder that her plans and her life were not fully under her control. It was through a Lyme disease diagnosis and the subsequent pain and challenges she faced that God began to reveal to her how important it was to live a surrendered life before the Lord and see His grace and compassion in the midst of suffering. In her book, Hope When it Hurts (co-authored with previous guest, Sarah Walton, Episode #274), she encourages those battling any sort of pain, to see the hope God offers in our aches and hold onto Him when we want to let go.

In this episode, Davey sits down with Kristen to unpack how we can begin to discern the will of God in our lives, what it looks like to walk by faith in our suffering, and the importance of leaning into others when we can't stand on our own.

With profound wisdom, Kristen points out how God remains faithful to us when our story takes unexpected twists and turns and how we can keep trusting Him even though life unfolds in unexpected ways.

Have you ever watched someone you love struggle through addiction? Or perhaps you were the one with an addiction and saw the devestating impact it had on those who loved you most? How do you heal, on either side of an addiction?

For Geoffrey Banks, a youthful curiousity turned into years long struggle with drug addiction while his father, James, endured the pain of watching his son walk through so much self-inflicted pain. Now, years later, Geoffrey is sober and has followed his father's footsteps into ministry. Both serve as pastors and they've taken their heartbreaking journey through the pain of addiction and shared their story with others who are on a similar path, either as the adult child or the parent. Together, they shared what they've walked through in their book, Hope Lies Ahead: Encouragement for Parents of Prodigals from a Family that’s Been There. Addiction can feel relentless with one step forward and three steps back, but Geoffrey and James prove that through Christ true healing can come.

In this episode, Davey talks with Geoffrey and James about the spiritual warfare that can take place amidst addictive struggles, how to love well those who wrestle with addiction, how our journey with Jesus doesn't always look neat and tidy, and the role identity can play in our pain and our healing.

Whether you've walked through an addiction or know someone who has, this conversation will remind you that even when things seem bleak, hope can restore even the most broken stories.

How do we create safe environments for our children when it comes to emotions? How do we allow those within our home to feel like they can share their feelings and find healing when there is disconnection?

Dr. Josh and Christi Straub have been on a mission to teach families what emotional health looks like and how to prioritize it in the home. Having worked with many ministry and business leaders who have experienced moral failures, they have seen first hand how emotional unhealth can destroy a family. It is why they started Famous At Home, to provide resources and coaching to families struggling with how to deal with emotions. Their work has led them to help families through books, their podcast and coaching not only name what they are feeling, but know how to navigate the uncomfortable emotions. It was also through their own personal story that they learned what can truly help in the emotional chaos of life. When Christi found herself on what she describes as "the bottom rung of life" after difficult pregnancies and exhaustion from parenthood, Josh and Christi leaned into the pain and found a way through. It wasn't just one thing, but a plethora of practices, communication and support that led them through that season.

In this conversation, Davey, Josh and Christi talk about why we need to be known in order to be emotionally healthy, what are kids need most (and it's not perfection!), and how to get curious about our emotional responses in order to gain insight into what is truly happening within us.

Families need to know how to talk about and handle the different emotions that come on ordinary days and in the days when facing a trauma or crisis. This episode will give you the tools to start the conversations that will lead to greater freedom and healing in your home.

Parenting is complicated whichever way you come into it. When grief and trauma are part of the equation, it can add even more layers to navigate. How do you sit in the messiness of adoption and fostering while learning to see the joys and the wins in the midst of it?

For Jillana Goble, it has been through the challenges of parenting via birth, foster care, and adoption that she has learned to welcome the invitations the Lord offers in the tensions of it all. As she said yes to the difficulties and joys, she has seen her own understanding of God and family widen in an unimaginable way. She has learned that parenting of any kind does not come with a road map or a formula with a promise, but rather it is the small, daily obediences to say yes to loving our children well in all circumstances. It is there that we begin to see God show up in places that were once thought to be irrevocably broken.

In this conversation, Davey sits down with Jillana to discuss the often complicated nature of adoption and fostering that we don't always see as well as how understanding how integrated we are-mind, body and soul-can help us love kids who have gone through unfathomable loss and trauma and how in it all, Jesus shows up in the mess.

Whether you have adopted or fostered or know someone who has, this episode will help you see that God invites us to know Him more through the imperfect and often difficult stories we all walk through.

Perhaps one of the greatest questions that comes after trauma or tragedy is how do we help our kids navigate pain? What do we as parents need to look for after loss or in the everyday struggles that kids are facing? When do we need to bring in an expert to help and what can we do in the in between?

David Thomas knows all too well the questions that emerge when families encounter crisis and the everyday difficulties plaguing our children. As a licensed counselor at Daystar Counseling in Nashville, TN, he has met with hundreds of kids and has walked with them through all sorts of challenges from trauma, grief and loss to anxiety and depression. What he has noticed in his clinical experience is that above all else, kids need parents willing to do the same emotional work of healing that they are wanting for their children. When we as parents start to look at our own stories, we can better help our children through theirs.

In this practical and timely conversation, Davey sits down with David to discuss why we need to do our own work as parents, the importance of following our child's lead after pain, understanding behavior as communication as well as how to help kids navigate anxiety and technology.

If you are struggling to know what to do with the pain or challenges your child is experiencing, this episode is full of helpful wisdom to help you parent well in the midst of it.

Every parent looks into the eyes of their young child with hopeful anticipation for their future. What do you do when the dreams you had seem to shatter and you find your relationship with your child not what you had imagined? How do you continue to love well when their choices are taking them down a road of relational disconnection, personal pain or destruction?

Through her own parenting journey and by watching others, Mary DeMuth has learned how to surrender her ideas of what should be and lean into what is when it comes to her children. In fact, her most recent book, Love, Pray, Listen: Parenting Your Wayward Adult Kids with Joy, is a guide to help any parent navigating the murky waters of parenting adult children who have chosen a path contrary to what was hoped for.

As a sexual abuse survivor, Mary had to learn how to parent well while healing from her own story. She also had to learn to trust God in the messiness of her own children's stories and not to parent out of fear, but instead rely on God's love for her kids to be enough. By looking at Scripture and the first example of wayward children in the Garden of Eden, Mary has found comfort and solace in knowing that God not only sees her pain, but also understands the journey she is on.

In this raw conversation, Mary and Davey talk about how our healing can often come through our giftings, why formulas don't work in parenting and the power of surrendering our kids and their journeys to the loving care of the Lord.

No matter where you are in parenting, this episode will help you remember that ultimately God is in control of your children's lives and that no matter what, He cares for them and for you.

What do you do when life takes a turn you never saw coming? How can you step into a story you didn't plan for yourself?

For Kelley Scites, the wrestling with those questions began after an unexpected surgery. What had promised relief from pain and a new lease on life ended with having to be put on full time oxygen. The life she had imagined as an active mom came to a screeching halt as she had to adapt to this new pace of living. But it was through this shift in her story that Kelley began to see the importance of perspective. Living focused on Heaven rather than her current circumstances began to give her hope in what at times felt hopeless.

In this honest conversation, Davey sits down with Kelley to talk about why perspective is so important in circumstances that won't change, learning to trust God with the outcome of our story and choosing growth over bitterness.

The details of Kelley's story may be different than yours, but they offer a rich insight into how our perspective can make or break us in the middle of hard things.

Crystal Paine is known to many as “The Money Saving Mom.” With a new book out on parenting, she has a reputation as a person with a lot of wisdom to share on parenting, finances, and more.

But Crystal’s wisdom didn’t come easy. When she went through a rough season with one of her children, Crystal learned all over again what it truly means to be a parent, and at the same time how deeply we are each loved by God.

Crystal sits down with Davey to share some of this story and the wisdom she’s gleaned along the way.

Ryan joins Davey to share some of his incredible story and what he’s learned from this journey.

When you can't pick just one favorite podcast episode ... you pick 5! And when you can't pick one topic to talk about ... you pick as many as you can fit into the hour! We had a blast recording the podcast these last 6 months and we want to celebrate by sharing some of our favorite moments and answer some of your questions! Don't miss the Nothing is Wasted Podcast End of the Year Best of Spectacular! 

Davey continues his conversation with Amanda's mom and sister as they talk about how pain has changed them, raising children in the wake of tragedy, how to help someone going through loss, and more.