Season 11 has been filled with golden goodness, as we've considered the topic of friendship deeply and from various angles.
From opposite-gender friendship to soul friendship to lifelong friendship to life-saving friendship to friendship in marriage -- we covered the gamut!
Join me for the last episode of this season as we pause to soak in all this goodness and reflect on what we've learned together. See you in the fall, Gold Digger!
Read MoreWe hear a lot about keeping the romantic fires burning in marriage, or how to resolve conflict with your spouse, or how to speak the love language of the one you love. Rarely, though, do we hear conversations surrounding cultivating and maintaining friendship in marriage.
Many people find the friendship within their marriages diminishes over time, as the cares and burdens of life and parenthood take their toll. Others realize, often years into the marriage, that they never established a firm foundation of friendship to begin with and now their spouse feels like an enemy or a threat.
Join me in conversation with my husband of twenty-five years, Clayton Jones, as we discuss why marriage is often lacking in friendship and where to begin rebuilding friendship with your spouse.
Read MoreSeasonal friendships are important. They provide mutual strength and encouragement for particular times and spaces of our lives. We rely on them for variety, fun, and networking. But lifelong friendships that stand the test of time are harder to come by and take a lot more work. Building these kinds of friendships requires adaptability, humility, selflessness, and creativity.
Join me in conversation today with the woman I made the legal godmother of my children, the person who has been by my side through childbirths, adoptions, funerals, deathbeds, celebrations, and family reunions, Danielle Ramos. Together we discuss the secrets to our lifelong friendship, and how we've grown closer each year despite living far apart and having completely opposite personalities.
Perhaps the gold God has been trying to give you in friendship is hidden in the most unexpected person.
Read MoreTrue, soul-level friendship isn't all fun, joy, and fulfillment. Every relationship is tested at some point. When our friendships run into pain points, we arrive at a cross-roads of sorts. We can resolve to fight for the beauty and love we've experienced together, or we can avoid the pain by abandoning the relationship.
When a relationship is unhealthy (or, of course, if it's abusive), walking away is the right choice. Yet, if the freindship has a foundation of love and is simply running into inevitable rough waters, we risk losing something essential by allowing temporary pain points to overshadow the good.
Join me in conversation with my dear friend, Dr. Tiffanie Wilson, as we discuss the joys and challenges of companionship, and how moving thorugh our own pain points led to a deeper, and truer, friendship for us both.
You can find Dr. Wilson online at https://tiffaniewilson.com/
Read MoreIn our ultra digitally-connected society, it's nevertheless common to be "ghosted" by fair-weather friends when the going gets tough. While we are constantly scrolling, clicking, and liking ourselves into believing we have rich communities, the truth is that many of us don't have a stable place to land when the worst happens in our lives.
Joining me in conversation today is Dr. Lang Charters, who vulnerably shares how his playful, loving, and loyal community literally saved his life after a series of devestations threatened to take him down. What are the ingredients to creating this kind of life-giving, sustainable and sustaining community? What is essential to strengthening and maintaining the kinds of connections that help us give and receive life-saving help?
We explore those questions and more on today's episode.
To find Dr. Lang Charters online, visit his website https://www.lightlovelang.com/ or find him on socials @lightlovelang
Read MoreJohn O'Donahue famously introduced the Celtic term anam cara to the broader world in his book of wisdom thusly named. O'Donahue describes an anam cara as a soul friend, one in which we find recognition and belonging, cutting across all convention and category. These are the kinds of deep intimacies we have a hard time developing in this fast-paced world of surface-level connectivity. Spiritual friendship differs from other types of friendship, and it might just be what we need in our spiritual journey toward transformation. Today's episode is an interview with my anam cara, Jen Slongier. We talk about the special nature of our friendship, how we developed our relationship, and how we cultivate it.
Read MoreSeason 11 is all about friendship, and today's episode explores the topic of opposite-gender friendship. Can (and should) it be a thing? Christian communities sometimes erect elaborate rules, customs & courtesies around the interactions of men & women, with the idea that strict boundaries protect everyone. Is this perspective aligned with God's ideas about how men & women are intended to commune together in the Church? Join me in discussing these questions and more with my dear (opposite gender) friend, Loren Romeus. Together we explore the nature of our long-time friendship and how we navigate these issues.
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