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Amy Weinland Daughters

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In this episode of Thriving Beyond Belief, Cheryl welcomes Amy Weinland Daughters—author, humorist, and unexpected time traveler—for a powerful and playful conversation about identity, healing, and the stories we tell ourselves.

In 2014, Amy was a 46-year-old stay-at-home mom in Dayton, Ohio, simply heading back to Houston for Thanksgiving and an estate discussion with her parents. But what happened next was anything but simple. Through an extraordinary twist, Amy is transported back to 1978 and given 36 surreal hours with her childhood family—including her 10-year-old self. What unfolds is a funny, emotional, and deeply reflective journey where old wounds resurface, perspectives shift, and healing begins.

Together with Cheryl, Amy opens up about how reliving her past brought new clarity to difficult family relationships and reshaped her understanding of self-worth, memory, and forgiveness. They discuss how humor and honesty go hand-in-hand in transformation—and how even the wildest detours can lead us to the truth we need most.

Amy’s background includes a Business degree from Texas Tech, a decade in corporate purchasing, and a leap into writing while living in England. She’s now the author of Dear Dana and You Cannot Mess This Up, two books that explore connection, identity, and the hilarity of being human.

This conversation is a reminder that your story matters—no matter how messy, magical, or unexpected it may be.

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Leslie Means

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On today’s episode of Thriving Beyond Belief, Cheryl is joined by the incredibly inspiring Leslie Means — a wife, mama of three, former TV anchor, storyteller, and the founder of Her View From Home, a vibrant online community where women from all walks of life share their hearts and real-life stories.

Leslie opens up about her journey from Nebraska farm girl and broadcast journalist to becoming a champion for women’s voices across the country. What began as a simple dream with a few friends in 2012 has since grown into a nationwide movement of encouragement, faith, and authenticity.

In this conversation, we talk about calling, creativity, motherhood, and the courage it takes to tell your story. Leslie shares the highs and lows of building a platform rooted in truth and vulnerability, and how God continues to guide her every step of the way. Whether you’re in a season of transition or seeking deeper purpose, this episode is for you.

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Laura L. Smith

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On this episode of Thriving Beyond Belief, Cheryl Scruggs welcomes Laura L. Smith!

How many to-dos, responsibilities, relationships…are you  juggling?
I don’t want this frantic feeling of trying to keep it all together but fearing that at any moment it will all come tumbling down.
Do you?It’s urgent for us to slow down. For our bodies and our souls. We can do this. We need to for our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Jesus promises us the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. But if we’re scrolling or speeding so quickly through our lives, it’s hard to notice any of that richness or fullness, let alone make room for it or tap into it. When we’re running full speed ahead, we don’t feel like we can muster any patience or self-control, and we struggle to recall when we last felt anything resembling peace. We’re zooming around so fast we don’t have time to accept lovely invitations from God to connect with Him through prayer, reading our Bibles, being present, and celebrating the good stuff.But I want to.
Do you?
Are you ready to try?
Dive into the pages of The Urgency of Slowing Down and go on a journey with Laura L. Smith of unpacking what’s in our lives, why it’s there, what we don’t need, what we can let go of, and what we can add in…
so we can step into the unforced rhythms of grace Jesus invites us into.

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Courtney Joseph Fallick

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Courtney Joseph Fallick is a passionate follower of Jesus and proud mother of two college students—her 20-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter. She also shares her life with a beloved 9-year-old dog named Snowball. Living in Ohio, she and her family are devoted fans of Ohio State.

For seven years, Courtney homeschooled her children before they transitioned to a Christian school, and now both are pursuing higher education. She holds a degree in Evangelism and Discipleship from the Moody Bible Institute, though she humbly describes it as a reflection of her deep love for studying God’s Word and serving others.

Raised in a strong Christian household as the youngest of three sisters, Courtney married her high school sweetheart after four years of dating, sharing 19 years together. In 2015, the end of her first marriage brought unexpected challenges, but Courtney’s journey took a surprising turn in 2023 when she remarried a widower from her church. Now, she is joyfully blending families, embracing the new adventure with her husband, his two daughters, and a son-in-law. While life brings challenges, Courtney remains deeply grateful for God’s faithfulness through life’s storms.

Loren Jackson Photography

In her day-to-day, Courtney finds joy in coffee, good books, fresh flowers, lighting candles, and walks with her dog. While not a fan of exercise, she still commits to working out 4–5 times a week. She describes herself as an optimistic idealist who sees the glass half full, though she wishes for better cooking skills and more organized closets. Her favorite place to recharge is by the ocean.

Galatians 6:9, “Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap a harvest if you do not give up,” serves as Courtney’s life verse, grounding her faith and purpose. With a heart full of gratitude, she approaches each opportunity to share encouragement with humility and prayer, always reminding others of God’s unfailing love: “Keep walking with the King!”

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CHERYL SCRUGGS is the host of the Thriving Beyond Belief podcast. She and her husband, Jeff, are doing life together and thriving in Dallas, Texas.

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Jane Lee Rankin

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Jane Lee Rankin is a farmer and founder of Apple Hill Farm, an award-winning first-generation farm in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. She is an advocate for farmers through her leadership and involvement in the North Carolina Agritourism Networking Association, Watauga County Farm Bureau, the Watauga County Economic Development Commission, the Watauga County Agricultural Extension, and local chamber of commerce. She frequently speaks about farm tourism and the benefits of diversifying your farm portfolio at conferences locally and nationally.

Apple Hill Farm is an agritourism destination for thousands every year who tour, shop, and learn about raising a farm family of animals. With a wide selection of fair trade and American-sourced yarns, socks, and apparel items made from alpaca wool, the Apple Hill Farm Store participates in six yearly craft or fiber shows across North Carolina. The farm and store are open year-round for shopping and tours. Since 2010 more than ninety thousand visitors have come to tour the farm and hear Lee’s story. In 2021, Lee won runner-up for North Carolina Small Farmer of the Year.

Lee is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and her first book, Cookin’ Up a Storm: The Recipes of Annie Johnson, is a culinary memoir and tribute to her dear friend and mentor.

 

CHERYL SCRUGGS is the host of the Thriving Beyond Belief podcast. She and her husband, Jeff, are doing life together and thriving in Dallas, Texas.

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Dawn Barton

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Empowering women to embrace their Mid-Life years, obstacles give us reasons to embrace joy, and the little things we do to love ourselves matter.

“I’m ridiculously passionate about working with women. I have the privilege of coaching them to levels of success in their personal and professional lives that transcends their wildest dreams. Before I decided to dive into this joy thing full time, I was a top ten sales director for one of the world’s biggest direct sales brands (my last team hit a million in sales for the year — yay us!). Now my opportunities to empower women take many different forms.

I’m an author, a speaker, an entrepreneur and a mentor. I work in person and online, with individuals, small groups, and auditorium-sized crowds. I’m proud to use the experiences of my personal journey to help others find happiness and success even in the darkest of days. I wholeheartedly believe that the obstacles in our lives should not beat us down, but give us reasons to more fully embrace joy wherever we can find it.

Best of all, I’m arm candy to Craig (it might be kind of like a big bag of cotton candy but close enough); I’m a mom to two awesomely cool females (who are 17 years apart!) and a grandmother to four. We are living happily ever after in Cantonment, Florida, with four dogs, three cats, three horses and a partridge in a pear tree.

We all need more joy. I have found joy in places you’d think it was unfindable — despite the pain of losing a child, divorce, rape, stage 3 cancer and more. I want to share my stories with you because I have discovered how joy is a choice that makes life worth living.”

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CHERYL SCRUGGS is the host of the Thriving Beyond Belief podcast. She and her husband, Jeff, are doing life together and thriving in Dallas, Texas.

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Lisa Appelo

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Lisa Appelo writes stories of hope and encouragement when walking through the hard places.

She’s a former attorney who pushed pause on career to home educate and raise her seven children. Happily married to her high school sweetheart for 25 years and in the throes of a busy household, life as she knew it collapsed around her. Her world shattered into a thousand irretrievable pieces when she awoke in the dark hours one summer morning to her husband’s final breaths.

As a single mom and unexpected widow, Lisa writes about God’s faithfulness in the hard. She peels back the vulnerabilities of heartbreak and fear and an unknown future, anchored always by the practical and spiritual faithfulness of an amazing God.

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Jenny Albers

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Using Scripture and personal narrative, Courageously Expecting empathizes with and empowers women to face a pregnancy after loss with faith and courage, despite inevitable feelings of grief and fear that accompany life after losing a baby.

Pregnancy is widely regarded as the most joyful time in a woman’s life, but for the mother who has experienced pregnancy loss, a subsequent pregnancy can feel like she’s holding her breath and hoping for what she can’t control. In Courageously Expecting, Jenny Albers meets women in this difficult season as someone who has also experienced the worst and cautiously hoped for the best. Through the telling of her own story, Scripture, and heartfelt prayer, she encourages readers to cling to faith in the face of fear and guides them to:

  • cultivate hope when doubt weighs heavy;
  • realize that the past does not dictate the present or the future and that God creates a way in the wilderness of grief and loss;
  • flip the script on the what-if, worst-case-scenario narrative in their minds and learn to take their thoughts captive; and
  • find the courage to humble themselves and ask for and accept help from others.

Regardless of where readers are on their pregnancy after loss journey, Courageously Expecting is a companion to help them through the days when fear overshadows hope.

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Sheryl Giesbrecht Turner

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All of us are products of our upbringing and experiences, and whether we realize it or not, have come to believe things that aren’t actually true. Those false beliefs hold us back. They are like recordings that constantly play in our minds, condemning us, accusing us, shaming us, and blaming us. Is it possible to silence these thoughts in our heads that have tied us up in knots for so long? Can we ever find peace?

Yes! The Bible promises we can be transformed by renewing our minds.

In Unraveling the Lie-Knots, Sheryl Giesbrecht Turner offers encouragement and hope for those who are ready to search out the truth in the Bible. She equips you with practical ways to uncover and dispel lies, even those you may have believed since childhood. She shows how, with the Holy Spirit’s help, you really can untangle knots of deception, discover the lies behind fears, dispel depression, and defeat the effects of trauma.

Discover how to identify and unravel the lie-knots so that you can move forward and become a fruitful disciple of Jesus.

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  • Sign up to receive Sheryl’s weekly blog on her website: www.sherylgt.com or www.fromashestobeauty.com
  • Facebook: @SherylGiesbrechtTurner or @SherylGiesbrechtAuthor
  • Twitter: @SGiesbrecht
  • Parler: @Sherylgiesbrecht
  • Instagram: @sherylgiesbrecht

REPLAY: Jamie Ivey

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My interview this week is with Jamie Ivey. Jamie hosts a podcast called The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey, she lives in Austin, TX, is a wife to Aaron, and together they have four kids under the age of 13.

On the podcast this week I want to focus on an incredible book Jamie just finished writing entitled If You Only Knew: My Unlikely, Unavoidable Story of Becoming Free.  Her book is scheduled to be released January 2018.  

In this book, she is honest, vulnerable, and raw with personal stories about her walk from failure to freedom.  Jamie travels and speaks to so many women and has learned that our stories, when seen through the eyes of the gospel, are not the obstacles to our freedom, they are the key to unlocking our freedom!

We talk about the enormous fear she faced being afraid people would know the real “Jamie:” could she step into a marriage, be a pastor’s wife, lead youth, but inside be completely unsure if God even loved her?  

As her story unfolds, she shares how God kept pursuing her and only through the grace of God, she began to change and learn to truly have an intimate relationship with Him.

Jamie challenges women to ask themselves; are you fearful others will only see you for things you’ve done, not what Jesus has done in you?

Here’s my interview with Jamie Ivey.

Resources

Book: If You Only Knew: My Unlikely, Unavoidable Story of Becoming Free

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