Growing Home Together Podcast

Adopting our youngest son through the foster care system ten years ago was truly one of life’s greatest gifts. But one thing we didn’t fully understand as we looked forward to a bright future with our beloved little boy was just how much trauma a child suffers when they’re separated from their birth parents. 

Like many foster and adoptive parents, we are on a constant learning journey and are always looking for better ways...

There’s a common misconception that it's always the big things—like dishonesty or infidelity—that cause marriages to fall apart. But the truth is, many marriages experience death by a thousand cuts as small areas of misalignment add up over time.

Every marriage has its squabbles, clashes, and little flare-ups of friction. Over our more than 30 years together, we’ve certainly had our fair share of moments where our min...

We all have wish lists in life—wishes for bigger houses, more quality time with our spouses, or even just a simple wish for better weather.

While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, we find our spirits dragging when we grow too preoccupied with the parts of life we wish would change. When this mindset takes over, it can prevent us from finding joy in the present.

So what’s the solution?

Our inspiring g...

Raising our two sons has been one of the most rewarding journeys of our lives. If you have boys of your own, you know that parenting sons comes with its own unique set of blessings and challenges.

One skill we strive to help our sons build is the ability to overcome the lies they encounter in life. We want to help them better understand what’s true and false about who they are, what’s really important in life, and where Go...

Our son entered middle school this year and he is growing in all sorts of new and fun ways! He outgrew his shoe size, his appetite is bigger, he’s grown a wider circle of friends, and he’s definitely sleeping longer and longer hours. Along with that growth, his desire and appetite for screen time is growing bigger too!

Honestly, navigating our son’s screen time isn’t a new challenge to us. We’ve wondered for years how to s...

The goal of our ministry has always been to help you care for the soul of your family and help you nourish relationships that keep God at the center of your home.

We know that many couples desire the closeness and encouragement of sharing their faith with their husband or wife. Instead, they feel a painful sense of disappointment when their spouse isn’t stepping into the role of spiritual leader as they expected. It can fe...

Before you got married and into the first year of marriage, you probably spent hours dreaming about what your life would look like together. But today those dreams may feel far out of reach. Your marriage may have settled into a predictable routine that seems impossible to get out of. You may even feel like you're stuck in a rut and have lost your sense of excitement for what the future could hold for you as a couple.

I take you to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

Whether it’s been one year, ten years, or 25 years since you uttered those vows, we can all agree that they have and will be tested! We all experience some kind of disappointment, loss, or pain. And even though we’ve vowe...

Words are powerful! They have the potential to tear down our relationships or build them up. Ever since I (Joanna) was a young girl, I loved words. I would spend hours writing stories and poems. When I went to college, it just made sense to pursue a major in communications. Even though I took numerous writing and even a public speaking class, I was never taught was how to talk to people with kindness and express my thoughts in a wa...

From the time we had the first of our five children, some of our most special moments were snuggling up to read books together. And some of those stories became like familiar old friends as we read them over and over until the kids could probably recite them by heart.

We found so many gifts in reading together with our kids – the quality time, our children’s enjoyment of language and artwork, and many sweet life lessons co...

We got married young and it felt like we were launching out of a starting gate with other couples we knew who got married around the same time. As the years have gone by, one of the hardest things to hear is when one of the couples we care about has fallen to sexual sin and some have even chosen to get a divorce.

It’s a sad reality that many marriage partners struggle against the pull of pornography. This sin is wreaking h...

Many of us have the perception that prayer is a one-size-fits-all aspect of our faith with God. We may think that we are getting it wrong or failing that aspect of our Christian life.

We believe that prayer is a deeply personal practice. It is an essential way to invite God’s power and wisdom into our lives, marriages, and relationships with our kids.

We are so excited to welcome Janet McHenry back to the podcast ...

Most couples have encountered situations where they feel stuck. Maybe there’s a recurring area of conflict. Or a pain from the past that keeps showing up in the present. Maybe you wish your spouse would utilize your love language more, or that the two of you would be more unified in your parenting.

No matter the area of your marriage that feels stuck, the good news is that change in your marriage is possible! The Bible say...

We are keeping it real today! You’ve likely heard us say that we are committed to quality time as a couple. Even when our kids were small, once a month we would scrape together whatever money we had left in our budget to pay a sitter to make sure we got quality time together.

Date night has always been a big deal for us, but lately these last months we’ve fallen out of our routine. It’s felt like a struggle to find time al...

Did you know that we’ve been parents for over 30 years? We can still remember holding each of our children as newborns and feeling overwhelmed by our love for them. But we also had many fears about raising our children in a world that is so broken and full of dangers. While we knew we couldn’t change the world, we did have hope that our children would grow resilient, full of faith in God, and able to cope with whatever life throws ...

I have to be honest with you. This month is just giving me all the excuses to lay awake at night and worry about my kids. I have one that is headed into middle school and it’s just so easy to spiral into worrying about his friend group, how he is going to manage academically, and what kinds of influences might drag him down this year. Not to mention we have a daughter who is moving away to college for the first time.

I thi...

Recently, I (Joanna) have been meditating on the story of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12. In the story, Abram becomes afraid that someone will murder him because his wife, Sarai, is so beautiful. It can seem like a pretty crazy story. But it shows how we can look at our spouse's assets and view them not as gifts, but liabilities.

In this episode, Rob and I want to look at why we can struggle to celebrate our spouse&apo...

Next month, our family remembers one of the most important anniversaries of our life together–the adoption day of our youngest son. We view this day as a blessing and a celebration, but for our son, that day holds a whole mix of feelings. While he loves us and is securely knit in the love of our family, his story holds confusion and loss that are an inherent part of a child’s separation from their birth parents.

As our son...

You may have heard of decision fatigue where you just have so many choices to make it can kind of be exhausting. Well, our family has been going through transition fatigue.

We have had so many transitions both as a family and as individuals over the last year and a half. These transitions have been everything from switching jobs, moving to a new house, saying our goodbyes as a family member moves overseas, and having a dau...