Hole in My Heart Podcast

As Laurie says, “We’re kind of lament-obsessed around here.” It’s true. And it made running this episode a second time an easy choice for this series. Since the first time this episode ran, there is still pain and brokenness in our lives, and we need a place to take it. Cue Mark Vroegop, ushering us to the feet of Jesus with this spiritual practice that truly has revolutionized our lives. Will you lament with us today? I Highlights I “People who know how to lament are comfortable with saying less or nothing. They intuitively have a heart that is oriented toward empathy. They don’t panic when their friend says something that is edgy or a little scary.” –Mark Vroegop “Lament is not just crying. Lament is talking to God about what causes the crying.” –Mark Vroegop “One out of every three songs in the official songbook of God’s people–songs that had music and were sung–reflect this sort of minor key [lament] tune. We are not only unfamiliar with lament, but our churches are generally lament-light.” –Mark Vroegop I Do the Next Thing I Check out Mark’s book, *Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament* here: http://markvroegop.com/books/ Want more of Mark Vroegop? Read some of his articles here! * “Strong Churches Speak the Language of Lament” on Gospel Coalition: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/strong-churches-lanuage-lament/ * “Dare to Hope in God: How to Lament Well” on Desiring God: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dare-to-hope-in-god For more on lament, listen to Laurie’s “How to Lament in the Face of Pushback” talk here: https://soundcloud.com/laurie-krieg/bonus-facing-the-unthinkable-talk Also, to learn about Safe Place Prayer, find Matt’s thoughts here: https://soundcloud.com/laurie-krieg/bonus-safe-place-prayer-with-matt Have you seen our new favorite Bible yet? Check it out here! https://csbholylandillustratedbible.com Join our Facebook group for more updates! https://www.facebook.com/groups/himhpodcast

Welcome to TAKE TWO of Exploring Our Souls of Shame! Rerunning this episode was an obvious choice because we *all* deal with shame. Curt Thompson beautifully describes not only the experience of shame, but also its antidote: Jesus. Join us as we learn resilience and joy in this brilliant conversation! I Highlights I “The gospel–if it is good news–does not begin with ‘I am more sinful than I believe.’ It begins, in fact, with ‘I am more loved than I can imagine.’ It is in that space of being loved incessantly, relentlessly, that we become aware just how sinful we are.” –Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D. “God–even in His pursuit–He is not going to shame us. He is not going to twist my arm. He is not going to shame me for not having my shame cleaned up well enough. He is going to relentlessly pursue me.” –Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D. “The healing of shame is not just a way for us to not longer feel bad about ourselves. It’s a way to re-commission us to do the work of goodness and beauty that God has had for us since before the creation of the world.” –Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D. I Do the Next Thing I Check out Curt’s book, the *Soul of Shame.* https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Shame-Retelling-Stories-Ourselves/dp/0830844333 Want to learn more about shame? Listen to our other episodes on it here! - Episode 155: Getting to the Root of Porn in a Time of Turmoil with Michael John Cusick - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/getting-to-the-root-of-porn-in-a-time-of-turmoil-with-michael-john-cusick/ - Episode 164: The Spiritual Garden with Carolyn Schroeder - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-spiritual-garden-with-carolyn-schroeder/ - Episode 166: The Emotional Garden with Peace Amadi - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-spiritual-garden-with-carolyn-schroeder/ - Episode 173: Marriage and Mental Health with Aaron and Jamie Ivey - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/marriage-and-mental-health-with-aaron-jamie-ivey/ - Episode 83: Sexuality and Shame with Dan Allender - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/sexuality-and-shame-with-dan-allender/ - Episode 82: How to Lament with Mark Vroegop - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/how-to-lament-with-mark-vroegop/ Are you liking this series? Have thoughts about this episode? Email us at lk@lauriekrieg.com. Have you seen our new favorite Bible yet? Check it out here! https://csbholylandillustratedbible.com Follow Laurie on Instagram for more ministry updates! https://www.instagram.com/laurie_krieg/?hl=en

Welcome to the first episode of our Take Two series! It was so hard to choose episodes to highlight over the past four (FOUR?!) seasons, but we’ve narrowed it down to a few that we’ll show you over the next several weeks. This episode discusses Chapter 5 of Francis and Lisa Chan’s book, *You and Me Forever*, as well as some of the good and hard of Matt and Laurie’s own story! Get ready for a good one guys, we’re excited to revisit this! I Do the Next Thing I You can check out *You and Me Forever* by Francis and Lisa Chan at this link! https://www.youandmeforever.org Hear more of Laurie and Matt’s story in *An Impossible Marriage*. Find the book at this link! https://lauriekrieg.com/product/an-impossible-marriage-what-our-mixed-orientation-marriage-has-taught-us-about-love-and-the-gospel/ You can also check out Laurie’s story on Remnant Radio and the Happy Hour podcasts! * The Remnant Radio: https://luminarypodcasts.com/listen/the-remnant-radio/the-remnant-radios-podcast/christian-discuss-lgbtq-subjects-with-laurie-krieg/41bf747e-2cec-4218-acd6-860419d9e3b5 * The Happy Hour: https://jamieivey.com/hh363/ Here are a few of the episodes that were “Runner’s Up” for our favorites! * Episode 111: Can’t We All Just Get Along with David Bennet - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/cant-we-all-just-get-along/ * Episode 167: The Social Garden with Greg Coles - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-social-garden-with-greg-coles/ * Episode 107: Why Male Friendships are Challenging with Sam and Blaine Eldredge - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/why-male-friendships-are-challenging/ * Episode 152: Are Women Responsible for Male Lust? with Rachel Joy Welcher - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/are-women-responsible-for-male-lust-with-rachel-joy-welcher/ * Episode 96: Healthy Community (& Touch) As a Single Person with Meg Baatz - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/healthy-community-and-touch-as-a-single-person/ * Episode 157: Gen Z’s Sex, Marriage, and Singleness Questions with Sean McDowell - https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/gen-zs-sex-marriage-and-singleness-questions-with-sean-mcdowell/ Do you need “a friend in the trenches”? Sign up for a coaching session with Laurie here! https://lauriekrieg.com/product/one-coaching-session-with-laurie/ Also, have you seen our new favorite Bible yet? Check it out here! https://csbholylandillustratedbible.com

Even though picking favorite episodes from this season is like choosing a favorite child, we snagged your top listened-to ones from this season (and some of our most memorable conversations), and reflected on clips from them.  Here are the episodes we cover: “Caring for People Wrestling with Gender” with Mark Yarhouse “Shredding Shame in a Pandemic” with Dr. Curt Thompson “Defining Stress and Success” with John Mark Comer “Start Where You Are” with Rashawn Copeland “Intro to the Gardens’ Series Part 2” with Matt and Laurie “Marriage and Mental Health” with Aaron and Jamie Ivey We also get honest about how we feel about how this season went, and we look ahead to the summer and fall (SEASON FIVE!) Thanks for being a part of what made this season really sweet. There is no reason to do this thing without you. // Highlights: “We’re trying to be proactive, to make the Church a place where it’s safe to wrestle with things, and one of the primary ways we can do that is to really stop worshipping at the feet of marriage and start worshipping at the feet of Jesus.” -Laurie Krieg // Do the Next Thing: Are you interested in any LGBT+/sexuality/Church oneness trainings we do? Email Michele at events@lauriekrieg.com

We think this episode might be worth listening to more than once. It’s that good and that important…especially this month (Pride Month). Author and teacher, Rebecca McLaughlin, takes some of the real-life theological conversations many of us are having right now and helps us to respond with grace and truth. She explores these questions and more: How can we respond kindly and truthfully when people say to us, “Love is love! Why can’t you just love people!”? What can we say when people tell us that holding to a historical biblical view of marriage is intrinsically harmful (ie. It encourages suicidal behavior)? What if people point at slavery being acceptable in the Bible, “And it was wrong about that, so it must be wrong about ‘homosexuality’”? What if friends also say, “How can you prevent people from loving who they want to love?” We’re going to go there, friends. We need to—with grace, love, and truth. // Do the Next Thing:  Find all of Rebecca’s books here. Follow us and what we are up to here.

“I used to think I was the only one who was lonely. After all, when you look around, other people don’t look lonely. They just look like they are drinking a latte.” —Dr. Kelly Flanagan Goodness, this quote from Dr. Kelly Flanagan’s new book, "True Companions: A Book for Everyone About the Relationships That See Us Through," gripped us. If loneliness is that deep-seated reality that you have corners of your heart that only you and Jesus understand, aren’t we all lonely? And isn’t it time we admit it?  Dr. Kelly Flanagan thinks it’s not only time to admit our lonely realities but to befriend loneliness. After talking with him and reading his book, we are convinced we should do the same. Okay…but as we/before we do this, we have a few questions: What is the difference between loneliness and isolation? How much are our friends/family/the Church responsible for alleviating isolation and how much is on us to process with Jesus? Why is befriending this loneliness journey better than avoiding with Netflix and wine? Pull up your own loneliness to the table and listen in to what we found to be a beautiful, de-isolating, honest conversation.   // Highlights: “A lot of us think of lonely as a feeling that goes along with a certain set of conditions. But when I’m talking about loneliness, I’m talking about it as a fact, like a fact of our humanness.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan “[T]o love companionably, to love with the love that we call phileo...is to come alongside, to enter into the life, to say, ‘I’m gonna walk along with you in this.’” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan “We have to cultivate the capacity to create spaces of non-doing.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan “A thousand hearts [on Instagram] leaves us feeling isolated....We need to be attentive to populating our lives with people who we are working together [with] to see each other and understand each other as well as we can.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan // Do the Next Thing: Go get Dr. Kelly’s books, True Companions and Lovable! Looking for someone to walk through stuff with you? Check out coaching with Laurie! Follow Laurie on Instagram for updates on what’s going on next!

If you disciple children in any capacity, how’s it going for you? I mean, we have all gone through a lot in the last year, and so have young people. Today, author and teacher, Dr. Michele Anthony, comes alongside us to help us care for kids’ hurting hearts. Together, we explore: How can we teach kids to hear God’s voice? (Is it even possible?) How can we lead kids as a “spiritual parent” instead of a “fear-based” one? (And what does it even mean to parent spiritually?) How can we help children to have a gospel-centered identity? Only the easy questions today. ;)  Join us? // Highlights:  “First, God is in charge.” -Dr. Michelle Anthony (quoting her daughter) “[Spiritual parenting] means I have an audience of One. It means I’m not parenting for the whole world to say I’m a good parent; I’m parenting before God to say, ‘I’m really taking seriously that you entrusted this child to me.’” -Dr. Michelle Anthony “[Spiritual parenting is] done in concert with the Holy Spirit.” -Dr. Michelle Anthony // Do the Next Thing: Check out more of Michelle at her website! For updates on our ministry and connection to other listeners, join our Facebook group!

When we look at churches and ministries today, we often don’t see Jesus. Instead, we see scandal. Abuse. Toxicity. What do we do with this? How do we change and prevent it? Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer have an answer: tov. Tov is the Hebrew word for “good,” and it’s who God is and who He calls us to be. As Scot says it, tov is “the redemptive dimension of churches that can prevent them from toxicity.” We need more of this. Let’s listen in. // Highlights: “This [book] was really a work of faith for me, realizing that God is in the wounded. That He’s with the wounded, He’s with the resisters. And I’ve found that, sadly, churches silencing victims was so discouraging and so disorienting. But what I found through the journey was that, that is not God, that God is truth and that God, like I said, is with the wounded.” -Laura Barringer “The gospel is about the goodness of God—God is tov—because He is Himself tov, and therefore, we get incorporated into that kind of gospel and it just fills us with tov and goodness! And we want to be that kind of person in the world, because that’s the way Jesus was.” -Scot McKnight “Who are we talking about when we leave the church? Are we talking about God? Are we talking about Jesus? Are we talking about the Spirit? Are we talking about the fellowship of the saints and the worship? Or are we talking about how great the pastor was [and] how great the church was?…When that’s the commentary in the car on the way home, we’re on the verge of trouble.” -Scot McKnight // Do the Next Thing: Check out Scot and Laura’s book, A Church Called Tov, here. Here’s Scot’s blog! Also, guys! We are looking for partners in our ministry! If you’re interested, join us over here. For updates on our ministry, check out Laurie’s Instagram.

Oh, you guys. This conversation… It’s not often Matt and I (Laurie) are surprised by our guests, but we were surprised in the best way today. Podcaster, author, and boss-mom, Jamie Ivey, and pastor, author, and tender-hearted dad, Aaron Ivey, got real—like really real. Matt and I were going along, simply enjoying the conversation with these incredibly humble and kind people, and then Therapist Matt asks a question about how childhood wounding relates to marriage pain. (Way to go, counselor!) We suddenly took a left turn, and found ourselves talking about Aaron’s recent clinical depression diagnosis.  What contributed to it?  How did Jamie respond?  What if we have been feeling similarly this last year, but are sick of people saying, “Oh yes, everyone is depressed. It’s 2020/21.” Ooo, friends. This is a rich one.    // Highlights: “Oneness takes work.” -Laurie Krieg “[Our] friendship turned into deep abiding love, and that’s what’s kept us through the whole [marriage].” -Aaron Ivey “My advice would be….to pray. [It] would really, really be to pray. And no pray, ‘Oh that they come around,’ or whatever, but pray that they fall in love with Jesus. Because I honestly think that [in] falling in love with Jesus, a lot of the pieces that we’re wanting to get fixed, they fall into place that way.” -Jamie Ivey “Single people need to hear and understand: You have value and purpose and there’s something that God has for you to do right now in your singleness. Because if you can wrap your mind around that, then marriage won’t be this thing that you feel like you can finally get to and THEN do something awesome with your life.” -Aaron Ivey “There is no shame with mental health. None.” -Aaron Ivey   // Do the Next Thing: Check out the Iveys’ book! Jamie mentioned interviewing Aaron on her podcast. Find that episode here! Also—here’s that one time Jamie interviewed us!

This is another conversation we cannot engage too frequently: Friendship. How in the world can we do it well? Real-life friends, authors, and founders of The Ruth Experience, Julie Fisk and Kendra Roehl, wisely and winsomely engaged Laurie’s latest habit of tossing quite challenging questions at guests. Together, the group explored:  How do we confront our friends? What about friend-shame? (If I feel that I have too few friends or not enough time for the ones I have?) Should we wait for friends to come to us or do we go to them? How do you know if you are asking too much of your friendships? Do guys do friendship differently? What if we are attracted to our friends? // Highlights: “If the girls of Jesus linked arms and did healthy community with one another, I think we would be an unstoppable force.” -Julie Fisk “We can trust the Holy Spirit more than we think we can when it comes to relationships.” -Kendra Roehl “God asks us to move, and He will meet us when we move, but He often pushes us out of our comfort zones. And as the girls who believe in Jesus, we are to be the inviters…I understand the desire…to be invited, but I have found more often than not, I have to be the inviter….Jesus frequently makes me take the step.” -Julie Fisk // Do the Next Thing: Want to hear more from Julie, Kendra, and the Ruth Experience? Head over to their website here. Guys! The Journey Well Study is ON SALE this week! Check it out here. Want to join a monthly, live Q and A conversation with Matt and Laurie and others who listen? Support the ministry and $15 or more a month and you’ll get exclusive access to this as well as other ministry exclusives and updates!