Healthy Homes

What do you do when someone you love gets that diagnosis, the one nobody should ever have to hear?

Josh and Katie get real about how grief and faith are not at odds. Every situation is unique, and many of us have stories of well-meaning Christians saying insensitive or poorly timed things in painful seasons. They’re passionate about equipping the church to honor and support each other through the hardest times, which is why they sat down to share simple tools to help us rally with compassion and empathy, love well, and believe for miracles together.

Whether it’s your spouse, parents, friend, or someone in your small group, this one’s for anyone who wants to love like Jesus in the hardest seasons.

How Jesus Leads the Way: When Lazarus dies, Jesus doesn’t just shed a tear. He weeps, overcome with grief over what has already happened and over a death that should never have been. But He isn’t grieving the future, because He has faith for that. After Lazarus has been dead four days, Jesus calls him out of the tomb. He grieves what should never have been while holding faith for what’s coming, and He shows us that the fullest picture of love carries both at the same time.

In this episode:
What to actually say (and what to skip) when you first hear the news

You do not need someone else’s faith in order to have faith yourself

Ask the spectrum question, then honor whatever room they give you

We grieve what has happened, but we don’t grieve the future

Whatever path they choose (traditional medicine, alternative, or nothing at all) , add your faith to it and triple team this thing

How to follow a family’s lead with their kids, whether you’re the parent, the grandparent, or the friend driving them to soccer practice

Scared yourself? Offload to the Lord, not to the family you’re carrying

Contending for someone’s healing or breakthrough? Send this episode to your crew and start a prayer group. Here’s how:
Ask first. Find out where they are on the spectrum and what kind of prayer they’re comfortable with.

Gather your people, whether that’s your small group, your friends, your roommates, or your family, and commit to believing together.

Make a sign-up sheet so someone is praying with them every day or every week.

Pray over them and take communion together, thanking Jesus that by His stripes they are healed.

Carry the practical stuff too: meals, rides, babysitting, a mowed lawn.

Keep showing up. Mustard seed faith keeps bouncing back and doesn’t quit.

Let's mustard seed this thing.

Chapters
00:00 Grief and faith aren’t at odds
00:23 Walking with someone through a hard diagnosis
02:49 When someone isn’t believing for healing
06:33 Asking the “spectrum” question
09:04 When the news catches everyone off guard
10:27 Holding grief and faith together
11:21 Jesus wept: the story of Lazarus
14:52 The boundary line for grief
18:58 Sitting with someone after a loss
20:51 Medicine, natural treatment, or faith: honoring their choice
24:49 When we don’t see the breakthrough
25:32 Talking to kids about a diagnosis
28:38 Where to take your own fear
30:21 Rhythms of prayer and communion
31:30 Mustard seed faith
33:24 In the doctor’s office
34:06 Closing prayer

Scripture: John 11, Romans 12:15, Matthew 6:34, Psalm 118:17, Matthew 17:20

What happens when your most "inspiring" family moment turns into a full-blown family meeting twenty minutes later?

To close out Season 2, Josh and Katie are answering the questions you've sent in from topics across the season — and they're kicking it off with a story that did not go the way they pictured it. After hearing Eric and Becky Watt talk about family on mission, they decided to surprise their kids with a spontaneous, 10:30 p.m. neighborhood trash cleanup. It was going to be the perfect teaching moment…until it wasn’t.  They get honest about where it fell apart, the accusation that stung more than they expected, and why the repair mattered more than the moment itself.

From there, they work through the questions from the rest of the season: how to actually find a qualified EMDR therapist (and the certification to look for), what "shared time" schooling is and why they're trying it this year, why buses are a hard no in their house, how to help kids who don't want to be in big church anymore, why some of their richest friendships have been with single friends, and where the line is when you're navigating boundaries and confiding in others about marriage struggles.

In this episode:
What to do when your family-on-mission moment falls apart instead of coming together

How to know if you actually need EMDR, and what to look for in a therapist if you do

A hybrid schooling option you may not know exists, and how to know if it's right for your kids

How to protect your kids in unsupervised spaces like the bus, when driving them isn't an option

How to help a kid who's lost their love for church find their way back in, without shame

Why friendships across seasons of life might be exactly what your marriage and family need

Where to draw the line on sharing your marriage struggles, and who's actually safe to confide in

Questions we should be asking as those that are mentoring others, investing in others, and disciplining them:
How can you become more like Jesus in this moment? 

Who do you think God is revealing Himself as for you?

How do you think you could love them the way Jesus would love them in this season?

What do you think forgiveness looks like?

How are you going to forgive them? 

What are some lies that you’ve been believing that you feel like God is replacing with things Truth? 

What is the truth from the Word that God is revealing to you? 

How do you think you could’ve responded in a different way? 

What are three other ways you could’ve responded in that conversation?

What if the thing that qualifies you to serve isn't having it all figured out first?
In part two of this conversation, Josh continues talking with Eric and Becky Watt about what it actually looks like to build a life — and a family — around service instead of self-improvement. They talk about learning to yield instead of strong-arming in their own marriage, and why they've never felt competition between their callings, only privilege that they get to serve together without serving identically. Eric and Becky get honest about the Turkey story — the time they thought they were helping a family and found out their "help" wasn't actually help at all — and how their very first family mission trip started with something as ordinary as raking a neighbor's leaves down the street. They also name the temptation most parents don't talk about: building your kids' lives instead of building alongside them, and the daily pull to let busyness crowd out the things that actually last. Along the way, Eric doesn't hold back on one conviction — that being a grouchy Christian is a disservice to the God we say we serve.
This one is for anyone who's been waiting to feel "ready" before they start serving — and anyone quietly wondering if they're building their kids' lives instead of their own.
In this episode:
Learning to yield instead of strong-arming

What happens when your "help" isn't actually helpful

Why you don't have to be healthy or have it all together before you serve someone else

Letting your kids watch you serve instead of waiting for the next generation to change the world

Discerning what's yours to carry, what to rally around, and what to release

Why it's a disservice to God to be a grouchy Christian

The daily temptation to live your life through your kids instead of alongside them

Sometimes being right isn't actually the point, and somewhere along the way, most of us started leading with our position instead of our love.
In part one of this conversation, Josh sits down with Eric and Becky Watt to talk about what happened when Becky realized someone had seen her as a person before they saw her politics, and how that one experience messed with everything she thought she believed. They get into what it looks like to love people across a dividing line instead of fighting them across it, why becoming a constant learner from another generation might be the thing that keeps you from getting stuck, and what actually gets lost when we stop listening long enough to understand each other.
This one is for anyone tired of picking a side and ready to pick people instead.
In this episode:
Why being seen as a person, not a position, is what actually softens someone

Loving someone across the line instead of fighting them across it

Becoming a constant learner from another generation instead of assuming your way is the only way

What gets lost when we stop listening long enough to understand instead of convince

Why honoring someone might matter more than being right

Not avoiding hard conversations, but listening through them instead of around them

Most parents try to hide conflict from their kids. But kids don't need a perfect marriage modeled, they need a resilient one.
In this conversation, Josh and Katie get into what it actually looks like to let your kids see your relationship — the affection, the disagreements, the apologies, and the repair. They talk about why kids need to watch conflict get resolved (not just avoided), how to regulate your own emotions in a way that teaches your kids something instead of scaring them, and why speaking well of your spouse behind their back might be one of the most powerful things you can do for your children.
Your home doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to feel warm.
In this episode:
Why kids should see you disagree, and what they should see immediately after

What direct conflict looks like when it isn't yelling, and why that distinction matters

How to tell your kids you're dysregulated without making it their problem

Why building gratitude for a spouse is a parenting strategy

Letting kids see your faith, your finances, and the real cost of life