BONUS Episode: The “Weird and Wonderful” Gift of Disability with Martin Deacon

What if the only way to bear our grief is to share it? My friend Mayer Buisson is living with the “invisible wheelchair” of Huntington’s Disease. The shame she felt around her diagnosis caused her to keep it a secret. Eventually, carrying it alone became unbearable. Today, Mayer lives with a radical acceptance of her story, and she’s inviting us into the “collateral gifts” of her grief. In this special conversation, you’ll get to sit down in a version of one of my beloved S.O.S. group gatherings to witness that it’s possible to move from shame to surrender, just like Mayer.

What do we do with the stuff that’s not good and hard, but just hard? Toni Collier is no stranger to pain. She’s navigated a childhood of tragedy and two marriages marked by abuse and infidelity. According to her, the pain hasn’t been worth it…but it hasn’t been wasted either. In our conversation, Toni shared how she’s surviving those seasons of “ashes from ashes,” and why she’s not trying to do it alone. Show Notes Mentioned in this conversation: Broken Crayons Still Color by Toni Collier

How are we expected to live well on this side of the sky? Sometimes we need wisdom for the deep, hard, dark suffering. But most of the time, we just need encouragement for the normal lives we’re living on this side of heaven. Laura Wifler is a mother and poet who finds endless inspiration in the mundanity and mess of her everyday life. In our conversation, Laura shares what’s changed in her theology of the body, why she’s relying on the grace of the present, and how a crisis of faith invited her to doubt “toward God.”

What is the first step of moving forward from the worst thing that’s ever happened to you? Join me today for a solo episode as I process some recent thoughts I’ve been having about how healing actually begins with heartbreak. I share some of the painful (and downright bizarre!) early memories of “waking up” from my stroke and being in total denial about my situation. That season taught me just how critical it is to confront the reality of our stories if we ever hope to move forward. In this episode, we’ll process through some insights about how Jesus named his pain, what true lament looks like, and a simple exercise you can borrow to confront reality for yourself.

What if your suffering is not a curse on your children, but instead an inheritance of breathtaking value? In this deeply personal conversation, I sat down with my son James the day before he left for college. James opened up about the reality of growing up with a mom who has disabilities and how the experience has formed him into a person who shows up helpful and grateful. I reflected on one of the heaviest questions of my life: has my suffering been a burden to the people I love, especially my children? I also got to offer James the truths I wish someone had given me at his age—about God, about pain, and about the story he gets to write with his own life.