Can a psychologist hold a deep Christian faith and still take modern therapy seriously? Eric Johnson has spent more than 35 years teaching psychology and counselling, and over 25 years counselling people himself. As founder of the Christian Psychology Institute, he has written books and dozens of papers on bringing a Christian worldview into the counselling room. In this episode, he shares his story honestly, from his days as one of the last hippies, to giving his life to Christ at 18, to discovering that his faith had stayed largely in his head.

In this week’s epsiode of Bleeding Daylight, Eric explains how his marriage and family nudged him towards deeper healing, and why he believes Christ-centred counselling goes beyond both a Bible-only approach and secular psychology alone. Eric and I explore worldview, childhood trauma, the slow journey of healing, and the role the local church can play in making it okay to be broken. If you’ve ever wondered how faith and therapy can work together, this conversation offers hope and a way forward.

I had a wonderful conversation with Alan and Autum Ray on my podcast Bleeding Daylight this week. Below are some details.

Why doesn’t knowing better always lead to doing better in marriage? Alan and Autumn Ray have been married since 1970. They met in college, and Alan spent more than 27 years in the Air Force. They came to faith about a decade into their marriage, only to find that their old reflexes in conflict didn’t disappear overnight. Out of that struggle, they helped build Marriage Team, where over 85% of couples considering divorce choose to stay together.

In this honest and encouraging conversation, Alan and Autumn explain the playbook analogy, why couples so often talk past each other, and how practical skills such as listening, forgiveness and conflict resolution can transform a relationship.

They also share the story behind their Rick and Jane Learn to Be Married series, offer wisdom on money, selflessness and safety in unhealthy relationships, and reflect on why commitment matters long after the early rush of love fades.

It’s a fun conversation with a serious side. Wheter you;re married or not, you’ll learn about relationships and probably a lot about yourself.

I really enjoyed the conversation with my podcast guest this week on Bleeding Daylight.

Mike Dyson’s story begins before he was even born, when a woman named Lena helped change his mother’s mind about an abortion. In this conversation, Mike shares how rejection, isolation and a false belief that he was too broken for God shaped much of his life. After a powerful encounter with Jesus in 1980, a lack of discipleship left him feeling “unredeemable” for 13 years, through a difficult marriage, a Marine career and a battle with alcohol.

Mike describes the night his kids’ words reached him, his surrender on the couch and his journey of healing, which included learning to stop blaming others and reading the Bible one chapter at a time. He also unpacks the two shadows of Psalm 23 and Psalm 91, which inspired his book, The Shadow: Walking Through the Valley, Abiding Under His Wings. Whether you’re feeling stuck in the valley or wondering how to walk alongside someone else, this episode is full of hope, honesty and encouragement.

I was speaking to a friend recently who lost their mother several nonths ago. Today they’ll be facing their first Mother’s Day without their mum. That first one isn’t easy, but all those that follow still carry the weight of what might have been.

Today marks my 39th motherless Mother’s Day. It’s still a bit tricky. Maybe that’s because I was only 23 when mum died and so there are so many more years of ‘what might have been’ than for those who lose their mums later in life. I don’t know. I only know my own experience.

I don’t remember anything remarkable about the last Mother’s Day we shared with mum before the illness that consigned her to hospital for the rest of her days, but then we weren’t expecting it to be the last. As far as we knew there’d be many more days to celebrate mum.

Mum’s last couple of years were spent in hospital after suffering a brain aneurysm. For most of that time she was unable to communicate with us. Occasionally she was able to say a word or two but there were other signs that would show us that she knew a lot of what was going on. Even making movement to communicate was difficult for mum.

There were several times that more bleeding in her brain would cause doctors to tell us that mum only had hours or maybe days to live. We would all begin to grieve our loss only to find the days turning into weeks or months until there was another medical setback and the whole process would begin again. You can imagine the kind of emotional toll that took on each of us, not to mention how it would have been for mum who was trapped inside a body that no longer did what it was meant to do.

When mum finally left this earth I experienced a mixture of relief, sadness and joy. There was relief that she didn’t have to suffer any longer, joy that she was now enjoying paradise but still the immense sadness of losing someone I loved so very, very much. In her final days it was my constant prayer that God would take her home.

I’ve seen many more Mother’s Days come and go without a mum than I have with a mother. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a completeley sad day for me but Mother’s Day always brings moments of reflection among the moments of celebrating what an incredibly wonderful mother my own children have and celebrating with Pauline’s mum.

On the 28th of February, 1987, my mother, Margaret Sadie Olsen, passed away at the age of 66. Like I said, I was just 23 years old when mum died. Mum was 43 when I was born.

Pauline and I got to travel to Scotland in 2023 to see the home and town she and her family left at the age of just 6 to begin a new life in Australia. There are now so many more questions I would want to ask her and stories I’d like to hear. Even though we only had a day and a half there, I find myself feeling strangely and overwhelmingly connected to Scotland. I think about Scotland every day and long to return.

There is so much more that I wish she could have shared over the last few decades. Mum wasn’t around to see me cycle across Australia for the first time, just 8 months after she passed away. She never lived to see me realise my childhood dream of working in radio.

By the time I met Pauline, mum had already been gone for close to 5 years. She never got to see her youngest child marry the woman he loves. Mum never got to hold Emily or James in her arms. How I wish she was still here to see our wonderful family. I desperately wish that Emily and James could have met their Grandma Olsen and that Pauline could have spent time with her mother-in-law. I wish that Emily had been able to introduce her husband, Josh, to Grandma Olsen.

Mum never heard me tell stories of my trips to places like India, Canada, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, the Philippines or Bangladesh and never had to sit at home and worry when I had to evacuate from Haiti during food riots back in 2008.

Although she never got there, mum had an interest in travelling to Africa. I so wish I could tell her about my journey to Ethiopia and Rwanda back in 2014. She was long gone before I took up the challenge of working for Compassion for 9 years to see children released from poverty around the world.

She never experienced the thrill of seeing Emily and James born and then grow up to perform so well in many areas of life.

I know that there are many significant events in the lives of my siblings that mum has missed too. There have been highs and lows along the way but all of them would have been quite different if mum had been around to share them.

I know that the person I am today is very much a product of who mum was. I value the influence she was and continues to be in my life.

(Musch of this post is drawn from posts I have previously publsished for Mother’s Day.)

It’s over. 2024 is gone and 2025 has arrived.

Over the last few days, there’s every chance you’ve been exchanging the customary greeting of “Happy New Year” with anyone who happens to cross your path.

Even while you’ve been trying to grab a bargain at all the post-Christmas sales you’ve probably had complete strangers not only hurriedly scanning your discounted items from the other side of the counter but wishing you happiness for the next twelve months.

We wish each other happiness as we draw a line under the year that has gone and look forward to the fresh beginnings of a new year.

We want the next year to be better than the last.

Each year I hear a lot of people talking about how tough their year was personally. Reading through Facebook I see so many describing 2024 as one of their hardest years ever. Some have described it as a roller coaster with some real highs as well as deep troughs.

I’ve heard many people despair at happenings around at home and the world with everything from the massive fires of the recent weeks in Australia to wars, natural disasters, political instability, cost of living increases and other difficult situations.

Others have spoken of the many great lives we’ve lost during the past twelve months.

I’ve got to admit that we’ve faced our own difficult days with the kid of news no one wants to hear.

It’s no wonder we want a little bit of happiness in the new year.

But is happiness what it’s really all about?

Of course, I want to wish you a happy new year but I don’t want it to end there. I want more for you than happiness as you launch into 2025.

Happiness comes and goes and we all know that you’re not going to sail through 2025 with a smile on your face the whole time. There will be struggles and disappointments.

I’m not wishing you difficulties but I’ve been on this planet long enough to know that each year will bring a mixture of good and bad.

Sometimes there’ll also be extreme highs and devastating lows. With that in mind, my wish for you goes deeper.

I wish you joy for 2025.

Joy is different than happiness. It’s more. It’s not so dependent on circumstances. There’s a strength in joy that goes beyond the happy times. It’s a confidence that no matter what we’re facing, we can go on.

I wish love for you in 2025.

Love means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. We’ve all been let down, even by those closest to us. That’s not the kind of love I’m talking about. The kind of love I wish for you in 2025 is a deep, abiding love that never changes, leaves or disappoints. That’s the kind of love we need during the tough days in 2025.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39

I wish grace for you in 2025.

What is grace? It’s been described as undeserved favour but there’s more to it than that.

Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it. It is an actual power from God that acts and makes good things happen in us and for us.

God’s grace was God’s acting in Paul to make Paul work hard. So when Paul says, “Work out your salvation,” he adds, “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Grace is power from God to do good things in us and for us. – John Piper

And more than wishing … I pray these things for you in 2025

I could pray for a happy year for you. I could pray that whatever you do, all runs smoothly. A great job, a close family, healing from illness are all wonderful things that I want for you, but more than that, I pray that 2025 will be a year that draws you closer to the one who created you.

I really can’t go past this prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian church.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. – Ephesians 3:14-19

Wow. Being filled with all the fullness of God? That sure beats ‘Happy New Year’.

There are many other things I could wish for you in 2025 like hope, peace, strength, and wisdom but I’d be interested to know what you’d like to wish for others as we begin a new year.

(This is an updated post from previous years.)