Jason joins me again in the studio to talk about his relationship with Immanuel this first Christmas without Kara, how he is engaging his grief, and what it looks like to choose joy.

This week, Jason joins me in the studio to talk about community-building, grief, processing loss with children, and this first Christmas without Kara.

This week Caitlin and I discuss loneliness, specifically loneliness at Christmas, and what it means that God came down to Earth to walk with man. Immanuel, God with us. Also, even with the hope of Immanuel, how do we just get through a rough, lonely day? Caitlin shares her experience and how she has learned to do small practical acts of faith, leaning into a God who has shown great faithfulness to her.

On this episode of MFP, we introduce my baby sister, Caitlin, and talk to her about celebrating Christmas in a foreign country with her German husband who grew up in Kazakhstan, what traditions they’ve chosen to adopt into their family, and what she has learned about Christmas from her in-laws. Listener, beware: You are about to fall in love! 

This is the one. This is the podcast that, when I listened to it the first time, broke me. There was something about distance separating me from the day we sat down to record this, listening in my living room with nothing else to do instead of sitting in the studio in front of a microphone following an outline. The stories felt fresh to my heart, the tears in the girls’ voices stung, Kara’s absence an ugly, glaring hole. But I will listen to this one again and again, for it is sitting with these women that brings Kara to mind so vividly and reminds me of her reach and influence so clearly. She changed my life; I’ll never be the same.