Hey, friends! How’s your summer going? Ours has been good, though filled with quite a few unexpected events. So, in some ways it’s been kind of a weird summer actually. On the hard and sad end of the spectrum, all four of us got the stomach flu in June, and it was rough! Like a couple of the hardest days I’ve experienced in recent years. Definitely took some time to recover, both physically and emotionally. We had a couple other odd health situations that turned out to be nothing (everyone is fine!), except that I’ve lost a bit of sleep because of some “What if…” worrying/praying. Then at the end of July, my dear Grandpa passed away. He was 94 and had lived a wonderful life. We knew he wasn’t doing well recently after having a heart attack in the spring, but somehow it was still so surprising and sad to say goodbye. The hope of heaven has been a sweet comfort, along with getting together with my extended family to celebrate Grandpa’s life by telling stories, looking at pictures, and being together.
On a more fun note, Cade and Savannah learned how to swim this summer! They recently finished taking lessons, and I’m so proud of them! I’m proud of myself, too, because wowza, it was a commitment. I kept going back and forth about how and when to have Savvy take swim lessons, and then a friend happened to post some info about ISR lessons. I looked into it, and I liked that they train babies as well as toddlers, so we went for it. It’s a bit more involved than other swim lessons, but we’re so happy with how the kids did. I plan on doing a whole post about it soon!
The drive to swim lessons every day gave me some extra podcast listening time. In between taking directions from my 3-year-old backseat driver, of course. She’s really upped her game recently. She used to just tell me the color of the traffic signals, but now she throws in a few “This is the wrong way, Mommy!” and “Go fast!” and “Go slower!” to keep me on my toes. =) Anyhow, I thought I’d tell you about a few episodes that you might want to check out:
Emily Freeman started a podcast last week called The Next Right Thing, and I am loving it. I even listened to the short intro twice because I liked it so much. Soul care + wise decision making = LAURA IS SO INTO THIS
This episode (#62) from the VOX podcast with Mike Erre still has me thinking. He talks about the different phases of spiritual maturity, and gosh I found it to be a really helpful tool to use as I process my own faith journey and changes my church has gone through this year.
Jen Hatmaker interviewed Shasta Nelson, who has done research on female friendships. Her work is fascinating! I took note of quite a few things she said.
Help me Teach the Bible is a podcast that I really like. The episodes give insight into various topics and books of the Bible, so it’s interesting even if you aren’t a Bible teacher. The recent episode called How Not to Be Boring is an interview with an Australian pastor named Peter Adam. I enjoyed hearing his testimony at the beginning of the interview, and he’s got a cool accent. So there’s that.
And this isn’t a podcast, but one of my favorite bloggers/podcasters is Sophie Hudson and she put together a great playlist when she released a new devotional a few weeks ago. You can find it here on Apple Music or here on Spotify. All of the songs remind me of the beauty and glory of God, who never changes or leaves. Just what my heart needs to hear on the daily.
Happy listening!