Show Notes
In this episode, I had the joy of sitting down with Charaia Rush, a writer and speaker based in Colorado and the author of Courageously Soft and her newest book, The Myth of Bouncing Back. Charaia carries such a rare and needed voice for this generation. She speaks with tenderness, grit, honesty, and deep spiritual wisdom for those of us who are learning how to stay soft without pretending life has not been hard.
In this conversation, we unpack the lies we often believe about resilience, especially the idea that strength means quickly getting over what hurt us. Charaia speaks so beautifully to the slow, sacred work of grief and the importance of lament as part of healing. We talk about what it means to bring our honest sorrow before God, how to stop rushing our own recovery, and why true resilience is not pretending we are fine, but allowing God to meet us in the places where we are most undone.
In her newest book, The Myth of Bouncing Back, Charaia offers a much-needed reframe around resilience. Instead of treating resilience like the ability to snap back into who we were before the heartbreak, before the failure, before the grief, before the loss, she invites us to consider something far more honest and far more holy: maybe healing is not about bouncing back at all. Maybe it is about learning how to rise for real. Her book walks readers through the process of lamenting, learning to stand again, rebuilding a beautiful life, and discovering who we are becoming on the other side of life’s hardest falls.
I pray this conversation gives you permission to stop rushing your process, to bring your lament honestly before God, and to believe that even here, even now, even slowly, you can rise again.
Disclaimer: As always, the views and opinions shared by guests on Let Me Ask You This are their own. This conversation is offered for reflection, encouragement, and exploration, and is not intended to replace professional, medical, mental health, legal, or therapeutic advice. Please use discernment, seek wise counsel, and reach out to a trusted professional when needed.
More from Let Me Ask You This
This week on Let Me Ask You This, I'm joined by Mac Bridges and Kenz Durham, the beautiful hearts behind Delight Ministries and authors of their newly released book, This Wasn't the Plan: How to Surrender Your Stuck and Set Your Soul in Motion. Together, we're unpacking the tender, messy, and often surprisingly beautiful work of navigating life's unexpected twists and turns. We talk about surrendering the timelines we've written for ourselves, learning to trust God's character when we cannot trace His hand, and discovering that feeling stuck doesn't necessarily mean God has stopped moving.
This week on Let Me Ask You This, I'm joined by the lovely Kayla Craig, bestselling author, spiritual director, and the heart behind Liturgies for Parents, for a beautiful conversation about her newest book, Our Daily Breath: 365 Prayers and Practices That Whisper Peace in a Shouting World.
For the third and final episode of our Midnight Hallelujah mini-series, we're turning the tables! Throughout this series, we've been inviting you behind the pages of Midnight Hallelujah, pulling back the curtain on the stories, prayers, and wrestlings that gave birth to this book. And for this final conversation, I couldn't imagine a more fitting person to take the host's seat than one of my dearest friends, Anjel Murphy. Anjel is no stranger to the podcast, but this time she's the one asking the questions! She's also someone who has walked closely beside me through so much of the life that fills these pages. She's seen the tears, the wrestling, the waiting, and the quiet ways God has met us in the middle of it all. In this tender and honest conversation, Anjel interviews me about the parts of Midnight Hallelujah that were the hardest to write, what it meant to put some of our most vulnerable stories into the world, and what I hope readers will carry with them long after they turn the final page. We talk about the beauty and cost of telling the truth, the courage it takes to hope when life has left you bruised, and why I believe this book is ultimately less about finding our way out of the dark and more about discovering the presence of Jesus within it. It feels especially meaningful to close this series with someone who hasn't just heard these stories but has helped me live through some of them. And the sweetest part? Midnight Hallelujah is officially out in the world! My prayer is that these pages find their way into the hands of those who are weary from waiting, aching from loss, or wondering whether hope is still worth the risk. Get your copy of Midnight Hallelujah: Why Hope Is Still Worth the Risk at midnighthallelujah.com.
Welcome to part two of this special three-part Midnight Hallelujah series here on Let Me Ask You This!
Welcome to a special three-part Midnight Hallelujah series here on Let Me Ask You This. In celebration of the release of my very first book, Midnight Hallelujah: Why Hope Is Still Worth the Risk, I wanted to set aside a few conversations to take you a little deeper into the heart behind these pages, the stories beneath the stories, the things I discovered while writing them, and the hope I pray you carry with you long after you close the book. And there was no one I wanted to have one of these conversations with more than my husband, Zac Hepworth. Zac has had a front-row seat to nearly every story inside Midnight Hallelujah. He has lived beside me through the prayers, the disappointments, the wrestling, the waiting, and the hallelujahs that can still rise up even when the night is long. In this episode, Zac and I sit down together to unpack what I found in the process of writing this book. We talk about what it was like to revisit some of the hardest seasons of our lives through the writing process, what Zac noticed happening in me as I put words around grief and hope, the ideas that became clearer as the book took shape, and what I hope readers ultimately walk away believing about God, suffering, prayer, and the risk of hoping again. Midnight Hallelujah releases September 29, 2026. If you are listening before release day, I would be so grateful if you would take a moment to preorder your copy. And as a thank-you, every preorder comes with access to free gifts I spent a long time creating specifically for you to help you go even deeper into the message of the book. And if you are listening after September 29, Midnight Hallelujah is officially out in the world and available wherever books are sold. I cannot quite believe I finally get to say that!!!!! Thank you for listening, for sharing these conversations with me, and for making room for this little book in your life.