The Love Offering

At the end of the day, can one person really make any impact at all? When the world's problems loom large and your ordinary life stretches you thin, it is still possible to be a difference-maker--one small, intentional, extravagant act of kindness at a time. Rather than telling you to do more, Becky Keife’s book The Simple Difference shows you how to see more: more of the people in front of you, more of God's lavish love for you, more of his power within you. Becky is on the show helping us to:- stop getting buried in busyness and distraction and discover countless opportunities for impact right where you are - remove your perceived limitations and learn to see that your "not-enough" is exactly what the world needs - discard expectations of what it takes to make a difference and delight in the life-changing power of simple kindness The Simple Difference isn't about totally changing the course of your life; it's about letting God change you and work through you in the midst of your ordinary days. Be a part of The Simple Difference movement--your life and the world will never be the same.Be a love offering by praying “Lord, as I go on my way, have your way with me.”Connect with Becky:https://www.beckykeife.comIncourage.meBethesimpledifference.com@beckykeifeSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

When it comes to disagreement, we are in perpetual fight-or-flight mode. Rather than respond with a posture of compassion and connection, we are encouraged to "resist" others. Either we engage in fruitless arguments with people who refuse to see things our way or we retreat to our echo chambers where everyone agrees with us. But the real resistance, the kind that helps us grow, is learning to love others--especially those who disagree with us. If you're tired of seeing your real-life and online communities in turmoil and you long to be an agent of peace, understanding, and reconciliation, it's time to join a new kind of resistance movement--one that pushes us toward personal transformation. Ashley Abercrombie is on the show sharing about her book Love Is the Resistance. Join us to develop confidence to communicate and connect with others, stop avoiding necessary tension, and resolve your internal and external conflicts. This week's love offering is to be kind. “You can be in conflict and mad and still be kind.”Organization mentioned:TreasuresPodcast:Why tho? Tiffany Bluhm Connect with Ashley:https://www.ashabercrombie.orgSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

As a trauma-informed professional life coach, Janell Rardon spends a good deal of her day-to-day work with brokenness--broken families, broken relationships, broken hearts and souls. In response to the pleas of her clients, she developed a set of emotional-health tools to help them repair the broken parts of their lives. In Stronger Every Day and on today’s episode, she shares these powerful tools with you, showing you how to: ▫️transform pain into meaning ▫️experience secure attachment with God ▫️shape healthy thoughts ▫️shift from shame to self-compassion ▫️practice healthy assertiveness ▫️set mental and emotional boundaries ▫️understand triggers and defense mechanisms ▫️regulate emotional highs and lows ▫️cultivate healthy human connection With inspiring Scriptures, quotes, prayers, personal stories, and case studies, Rardon sets you on the path of emotional health so that you can be stronger than ever--every day.“Your greatest gift to those around you is your emotional health. Your emotional health informs your spiritual health. They are inextricable.”Connect with Janell:JanellRardon.comSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Our bodies are designed to heal. We fall off our bikes and skin our knees―and without effort on our part, the skin looks like new in a few days. But while our skinned knees easily heal, it can sometimes feel like our emotional and relational wounds are left gaping open, broken beyond repair. If our bodies instinctively know how to heal physical injuries, could they also help us understand how to restore painful emotional and relational ruptures? In their book Designed to Heal: What the Body Shows Us about Healing Wounds, Repairing Relationships, and Restoring Community, and on today’s episode, physician Jennie A. McLaurin and scientist Cymbeline Tancongco Culiat:• address the immense felt need for reconciliation, wholeness, and function in our broken relationships and divided communities,• explain the science behind the stages of physical wound healing and how this reveals parallel insights into how people can recover from social wounds,• share current research on brain science as it relates to the damaging effects of trauma and the protective effects of positive emotions and experiences,• equip readers with new concepts and tools to use in resolving interpersonal conflict, and• offer hope and encouragement to readers as they pursue the healing of divisions within their greater communities.Join us to learn how the body is created with mechanisms that optimize a flourishing recovery from life’s inevitable wounds. We pray after listening, you realize we are given a model for hopeful, faithful, and enduring healing in all other aspects of our lives. Our wounds don’t have to have the last word.“We want people to be hopeful about healing and see it as the healthy design. We believe that readers can extract a lot of principles from the book so they can become better agents of healing in their lives/circles—offering themselves as agents of healing — to be essential components of the healing matrix in the circles they live in.” Cymbeline T. CuliatConnect with Jennie and Bem:https://jenniemclaurin.comSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

What would you do if the unthinkable happened? Where would you find the strength to endure? The Gordon family was confronted with that very challenge when their five-year-old son, Sawyer, known for his big blue eyes and vivacious spirit, cheerfully pedaled his bike onto their busy road. Moments later, a distracted driver, someone the family knew, stood over the motionless child—the unthinkable had happened. Part memoir, part Christian apologetic, Hope Remains is much more than a self-help book on grief. It is a transparent story of loss, love, forgiveness, and the unshakeable goodness of God. Join Summer Gordon on today’s episode to realize that shattered hearts don’t have to mean shattered hope.“To be a love offering we have to spend time with Christ. When we do we are changed from the inside out and we are better versions of ourselves. Apart from Christ, we have nothing to offer.”Connect with Summer:https://summerandreppardgordon.comhttps://www.facebook.com/SummerEGordonSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Do you feel crushed by your circumstances? How do we hold onto hope in the midst of despair? Jackie Aviles says, “Hope isn’t a thing we grasp for, it's a person we connect with.” She is on the show sharing her story of never meeting her biological father, becoming a pastor’s wife, and being diagnosed with terminal cancer. On today’s episode we chat about:▫️Marriage and motherhood in the midst of a diagnosis▫️Judging God’s story before He reveals His hand▫️Loving others well through a diagnosis▫️Hope killersAs you tune in, we pray you feel more equipped with the disciplines to take your next step out of your pressing situations and to keep walking toward your purpose. Resources Mentioned:Go And Tell Gals with Jess ConnollyPressed Toward Purpose“To love starts with listening. My prayer is that God makes us a people who want to hear.”Connect with Jackie:Jackieaviles.com@jackie_avilesSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

If we're honest, that's a sentiment we’ve all shared. Prayer can be challenging and confusing. Often we feel abandoned, betrayed, and anxious. We don't know what to pray for, we don't know the words to say, and sometimes it just feels like there's no one on the other side. Pastor and bestselling author Derwin Gray addresses all of these feelings and thoughts today on the show. Using his book “God, Do You Hear Me?” (B&H) as a guide, Derwin walks us through the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13). We also chat about:▫️His time playing in the NFL▫️God’s transformation process▫️Partnering with GodTune in to discover the prayer God always answers. We pray this episode helps you break through to a completely new and refreshing prayer life. “When we try to be good without God we end up being bad. So, the way you become a love offering is you let the unlimited, life-giving, sin forgiving, love of Jesus ravage you.”Connect with Derwin:Derwinlgray.com@derwinlgraySupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Emotions—love them or hate them, we’ve all got them. And we’ve all got to figure out what to do with them. But wait—can we do anything about our emotions? Can we learn how to identify, express, experience—and yes, sometimes wrangle—our feelings in order to live a vibrant, healthy, fruitful life for Jesus?Elizabeth Laing Thompson uses her experiences as a big feeler to encourage and equip different kinds of feelers with the biblical perspectives, practical tools, and scriptural reservoir they need through her book All the Feels (Tyndale) and All the Feels for Teens (Wander). As a woman who has lived every day of her life having All The Big Feelings All The Day Long, Elizabeth knows what it’s like to live life through our emotions—and how important it is to understand, take control of, and grow from those emotions. Whether you have a sensitive soul with more feelings than you know how to name, a logical personality that doesn’t quite know what to do with feelings, or a steady flow of emotions somewhere in the middle, this episode will help you:▫️discover your own God-designed “feelings style” and how it impacts your life and relationships,▫️distinguish fact from feeling and figure out which feelings you can trust, and▫️understand which emotional gifts God wants you to expand, explore, and enjoy.Get ready to throw open the doors of your heart, bringing God to your emotions and your emotions to God—the One who invented feelings and who always welcomes yours.Plus we chat about Elizabeth's other books When God Says No (Barbour), When God Says Wait, and When God Says Go (Shiloh)! So much goodness in one episode! This week’s love offering is to “love someone else through their hard time. Comfort those who need comforted. That is how we redeem those difficult times.”Connect with Elizabeth:http://LizzyLife.comhttps://facebook.com/alizzylifehttps://instagram.com/elizabethlaingthompsonSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

The Lucky Few is a social awareness brand on the mission to make a more inclusive and loving world with an emphasis on shifting the Down syndrome narrative. Heather Avis is the founder and chief visionary officer of The Lucky Few and mom of three adopted children, two of which have Down Syndrome. She is on the show chatting about her children’s book titled “Different—A Great Thing To Be!” (WaterBrook & Multnomah, imprints of Penguin Random House). Join us as Heather shares about learning to value the "different" in all people, leading the way to a more inclusive, kinder world in which our differences are celebrated and warmly embraced. This week’s love offering is to say to ourselves and to say to those around us “who you are, exactly as you are, you are loved and you are worthy. Who I am, exactly as I am, I am loved and I am worthy to be loved.” Connect with Heather:https://www.heatheravis.comhttps://instagram.com/theluckyfewofficialSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Anxiety and depression are on the rise. Michelle Nietert is the Clinical Director of Community Counseling Associates in Dallas, TX. She is a mom of two and a former school counselor with over 20 years experience in private practice. She is on the show sharing her expertise on how to protect our mental health and the mental health of our children. We chat about:Empowering our children to struggle well in hard seasonsManaging difficult emotions and age-specific vocabulary to useWarning signs to look for & how moms can help5 ways moms can protect their own mental healthWe pray after this episode you are better equipped to handle the mental health challenges life brings.This week’s love offering is “to be a vessel and be open to the moments to experience God. Let him do the work.”People and Books mentioned:Sissy Goff Dr. Caroline LeafHenry Blackaby - Experiencing GodConnect with Michelle:https://michellenietert.comSupport the Show: https://rachaelkadams.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.