Episodes

  • Episode 387 - Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Moments with Rachel Wojo

    Episode 387 - Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Moments with Rachel Wojo
    Jul 24 2025
    How do you even begin to talk to God when life is unfolding in ways you never wanted? What can prayer do when the pain feels unbearably raw and deep?For Rachel Wojo, these questions became deeply personal. She never could have imagined the depth of suffering she would walk through—navigating her daughter’s terminal diagnosis and eventual passing, enduring betrayal in a first marriage that ended in divorce, and losing her mother in her twenties and her father while writing her book, Desperate Prayers: Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Moments. Pain came from every direction. And yet, in her desperation, Rachel discovered strength through raw, honest conversations with God.In this episode, Davey and Rachel talk about the wrestlings that come with a difficult diagnosis, the vital role of prayer in our darkest seasons, and how remembering God's past faithfulness can help us move forward through grief and heartbreak.If you’ve ever struggled to find the words to say to God in your most desperate moments, this conversation will remind you that you don’t need perfect prayers—just an honest heart willing to keep reaching for Him, even in the pain. Website: rachelwojo.comInstagram: instagram.com/rachelwojoFacebook:facebook.com/rachelwojoauthorBook: Desperate Prayers: Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Momentshttps://amzn.to/4eLBw8K Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.nothingiswasted.com/paintoppurpose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • Episode 386 - Walking Alongside People in Their Pain with Jerry McFarland

    Episode 386 - Walking Alongside People in Their Pain with Jerry McFarland
    Jul 17 2025
    How do we support those in pain when we ourselves don’t have all the answers? How can we be present when we’re uncomfortable with the silence, the sorrow, and the questions that come with loss and tragedy?Pastor Jerry McFarland felt a twinge uncertainty the day he received a phone call asking him to visit a stranger at a local children’s hospital. Unsure of what he could say or offer, he still chose to show up—to step into someone else’s pain as an act of obedience to “mourn with those who mourn.” That’s when he met Amy Sylvestre, a mother clinging to hope as her infant son, Hudson, fought for his life.Healing didn’t come in the way Amy had hoped. But through Jerry’s quiet presence—a man she had never met before that hospital stay—Amy encountered the grace of God in the darkest chapter of her story. It was his willingness to sit with her in grief, to make space for her questions, her anger, and her heartbreak, that allowed her to begin to find comfort and hope again.In this tender episode, guest host Amy Sylvestre sits down with Jerry to reflect on that experience and explore what it means to walk with others through pain, how to entrust God with what is most precious, and why it's not only okay—but necessary—to let people be honest in their sorrow.Whether you're a leader or simply someone who knows a person in pain, this conversation will remind you: you don’t need to have the right words or the perfect response. Your presence, your listening ear, and your willingness to show up may be exactly what someone needs in the hardest part of their story. Episode 175: Amy's Story: https://www.nothingiswasted.com/podcast1/episode-175?rq=amy Need help navigating your own loss? Let Amy help: https://www.nothingiswasted.com/coaches/amy-sylvestre Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.nothingiswasted.com/paintoppurpose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Episode 385 - Healing Leadership Trauma with Dr. Nicholas and Sheila Wise Rowe

    Episode 385 - Healing Leadership Trauma with Dr. Nicholas and Sheila Wise Rowe
    Jul 10 2025
    How can leaders heal from their own wounds? Why does emotional and spiritual health matter so deeply for those who are called to lead?Historian and Seminary Professor Dr. Nicholas Rowe and his wife, SheilaWise Rowe, author and counselor, have seen the ways unprocessed pain and trauma can impact leaders. While countless resources aim to help leaders grow in skill and strategy, few address the inner pain and unhealed wounds that many carry silently. In their new book, **Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish**, Nicholas and Sheila confront this gap head-on, offering a holistic and deeply spiritual roadmap for leaders to find healing, restoration, and renewed purpose.In this powerful and timely episode , Davey talks with Nicholas and Sheila about how our early formation can impact our connection with God and others, the ways unresolved trauma can unconsciously influence our decisions and leadership style, and why we need to consider the weight of leadership before we even step into it. Whether you're a pastor, teacher, nonprofit leader, entrepreneur, or parent, this conversation is an invitation to pause, reflect, and allow God to tend to your soul—so you can lead from a place of emotional health while helping others flourish. Website: www.sheilawiserowe.comwww.nicholasrowephd.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/griotrowe Instagram: www.instagram.com/sheilawiserowe Book: Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourishhttps://amzn.to/3RVLYzW Episode 128 with Sheila Rowe: https://www.nothingiswasted.com/podcast1/episode-128?rq=128 Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Episode 384 - Sacred Attachment with Michael Cusick

    Episode 384 - Sacred Attachment with Michael Cusick
    Jul 3 2025
    What happens when our lived experience doesn’t align with what we believe about God? How do we hold on to faith when trauma, suffering, or loss shatters our spiritual foundation? Author and counselor Michael Cusick understands this tension intimately. As a survivor of childhood abuse, Michael found himself caught in self-destructive cycles that threatened his soul and relationships. Yet through his own healing journey, he discovered the profound impact our personal stories have on our attachment to God — and how restoring that attachment can transform our lives. Now, through his intensive counseling work at Restoring the Soul and in his new book, **Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love**, Michael helps others reconnect with a God who is both safe and loving — even in the wake of deep wounds.In this thoughtful conversation, Davey and Michael talk about what to do when your relationship with God feels fractured, why attachment is so important spiritually speaking, and why it seems like so many leaders are falling in our generation. If you've struggled in your relationship with God because of the pain you have experienced, this episode is an invitation to begin healing, to rebuild trust, and to rediscover a sacred attachment with the One who will never let us go. Website: michaeljohncusick.com www.restoringthesoul.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/michaeljcusick Facebook: www.facebook.com/michaeljohncusick Book: Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Lovehttps://amzn.to/3GMXH1l Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Episode 383 - Helping Kids Overcome After Trauma with Science and Scripture with Dr. Nicole Wilke

    Episode 383 - Helping Kids Overcome After Trauma with Science and Scripture with Dr. Nicole Wilke
    Jun 26 2025
    How do we help kids build resilience, especially after facing trauma? How do we teach kids the skills they need to persevere after pain?Dr. Nicole Wilke had a front-row seat to the impact trauma can have on a child's development. Her parents had a heart for kids with the hardest stories and welcomed seventy children through foster care and adoption. This experience had a profound impact on Dr. Wilke as she watched her siblings grow and struggle after experiencing pain. It was out of her own experience that she was drawn to the work she does now through the Christian Alliance for Orphans Research Center, where she is on the front lines of discovering how we can best help kids who have experienced difficult things find a way forward.Her latest book, which she co-authored—**Overcoming: What Scripture and Science Say About Resilience**—offers practical wisdom backed by science to help kids take whatever challenges they are facing and use them as fuel to build resilience that will carry them throughout their lives.In this episode, Davey talks with Dr. Wilke about how God is in the business of redeeming our kids' stories of difficulty, why our vision matters when it comes to the trauma kids experience, and how to build a child's resilience so that they can move forward through whatever may come.If you are a parent or love a child who has experienced challenges and difficulties due to trauma or pain, this conversation will encourage you that God can take the most painful moments and use them in our kids' lives so that they can become resilient overcomers. Website: cafo.org/research-center/resilience-books Instagram: www.instagram.com/dr.nicolewilke www.instagram.com/cafoalliance Facebook: www.facebook.com/CAFOalliance Book: Overcoming: What Scripture and Science Say About Resilience https://amzn.to/4jGH4mw Caleb Koala’s Comeback Ride: A Journey to Overcominghttps://amzn.to/3F1yZtw Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • Episode 382 - Forging an Unshakable Faith After Loss with Brooke Martin

    Episode 382 - Forging an Unshakable Faith After Loss with Brooke Martin
    Jun 19 2025
    What do you do when you are faced with an unbearable decision? How do you walk firmly in faith when you know the outcome will most likely be devastation?For former local news anchor and author, Brooke Martin, and her husband, the choice to carry their daughter, Emma Noelle, to term even though she was diagnosed with a condition that meant she would not survive outside the womb, was one of trust. Although they knew pain was on the other side of their second pregnancy, they also knew that God could be glorified as they walked out their faith. While she only got a few short minutes with her daughter alive after her birth, Brooke has seen the ways in which God has used the pain and suffering to bring glory to Himself. With the vision of how life's fires can completely destroy or bring about unimaginable fruit, Brooke wrote the book **Controlled Burn: Rising from the Ashes to Forge an Unshakable Faith** and shared how her own story of pain brought about so much spiritual growth. In this moving conversation, Davey and Brooke discuss how we can step out in faith in decisions that feel impossible either way, why praying for God to be glorified is such a powerful request, and what grief looks like as time moves forward. If you've ever felt like an unexpected fire has rolled into your life, this episode will give you the courage to let it burn away what needs to be and watch as new life springs forth from the ashes when you lean on your faith in whatever suffering you are facing. Website: www.MOREwithBrookeMartin.com Instagram: instagram.com/brookemartin.tv Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeMartinMORE Book: Controlled Burn: Rising from the Ashes to Forge an Unshakable Faithhttps://amzn.to/438OsQG Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Episode 381 - Hope in a Hard Diagnosis with Alan Hester

    Episode 381 - Hope in a Hard Diagnosis with Alan Hester
    Jun 12 2025
    Where can you find hope when a diagnosis is difficult to accept? How can you trust God when life's challenges feel insurmountable?For Alan Hester, finding out that he had ALS-a degenerative neurological disease-was devastating at first and yet, he now describes it as one of the best things that happened to him. Not because the suffering or the pain has been easy, but because of the depth and richness he has experienced in his relationship with Christ through it. Learning what it truly means to depend on God in the midst of his suffering, Alan has gained spiritual strength as his body has experienced more and more weakness. In this heartfelt conversation, guest host Amy Sylvestre and Alan talk about how suffering can connect us more and more to Jesus, why scripture is so important in our pain, and the importance of allowing community to walk alongside us when we can't stand on our own. If you or someone you love is facing a difficult diagnosis, this episode will encourage a steadfast strength to trust in the Lord in whatever you are facing. NO SOCIAL MEDIA OR WEBSITE AVAILABLE for Alan; Instagram: @amysylvestrecoaching Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • Episode 380 - Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends with Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague

    Episode 380 - Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends with Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague
    Jun 5 2025
    What do we do with the doubts, disillusionments, and dead ends that can come in our faith journey? How do we help someone who has questions in their walk with Jesus?Authors Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague each had a unique experience when it came to wrestling with doubt and disillusionment in their faith. They knew the confusion and pain that can come when you have questions and are struggling to find the answers in safe places within the Christian community. It was out of their own personal experiences that they together wrote the book, **Mid-Faith Crisis: Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends**, to give others a roadmap through the twists and turns of walking out a true faith in Christ. In this helpful conversation, Aubrey sits with Catherine and Jason to talk about the beauty that can be found after a crisis in our faith, how we can better prepare children and believers for the realities that may come in life, and the way the church can better step into conversations and provide a refuge for those wrestling in their faith. If you're in a season of doubting or disillusionment and it feels like you have reached a dead end, this episode will be a reminder that no matter how big the questions are, God is strong enough to withstand them and you are not alone. Website: www.catherinemcniel.com www.jasonhague.com Instagram: instagram.com/catherinemcniel instagram.com/jasonhaguewriter Episode #208 with Catherine McNiel: https://www.nothingiswasted.com/podcast1/episode-208 Book: Mid-Faith Crisis: Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Endshttps://amzn.to/4iXBD1f Wondering where to get started on your journey towards healing? Join Davey on our next FREE, live Zoom call and find out how you can begin to take back your story and how Nothing is Wasted can help. Sign up today at: www.nothingiswasted.com/starthere Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: www.nothingiswasted.com/coaching Want a pathway through your pain? The Pain to Purpose Course can lead you through all you've been through: www.mypaintopurposeplan.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins