Grace Covers Me: Jamie Ivey on Insecurity and Friendship (and Helping our Kids Navigate Friendship)

Each week this season on By Faith, I’m talking with a guest about the ins and outs of friendship. As I wrote about in my book Messy Beautiful Friendship, friendship isn’t easy for anyone; it takes time, intentionality, and lots of grace. And sometimes we have to navigate complexities and hurts in friendship that leave us uncertain and crushed. I’m right there with you, and my guests are here to help us think through it all.

So far this season I’ve talked with incredibly insightful guests about what healthy and unhealthy friendship looks like, how to make friends, how to go deeper in those friendships, and in the last few weeks I’ve talked with Ruth Chou Simons, Hannah Anderson, and Jen Wilkin about the harder parts of friendship like hurt, conflict, and forgiveness.

As we’ve said countless times this season, friendship is often complex and complicated. I’m sure you've found that as you’ve listened, one angle on friendship opens up a thousand more...and a ton of questions! So, as I do each season here on the podcast, I’ll be closing our season on friendship in December with an "Ask Me Anything" episode.

I’ve asked my longtime friend, Jo Franklin, to join me for a conversation where we’ll tackle your questions together. Jo and I have known each other since we were 10 years old. If you’ve read Messy Beautiful Friendship, you may remember Jo as the friend who sang “Friends are Friends Forever” on stage at church with me. We forgot half the words and laughed our way through most of it, which I’m sure we’ll talk about in the "Ask Me Anything" episode. If you’d like to submit a question--and it doesn’t have to be just about friendship--simply click here.

Today I’m so excited to welcome Jamie Ivey to the podcast. Jamie is host of the Happy Hour podcast and the author of the book, If You Only Knew. She’s married to Aaron, who is the worship pastor at The Austin Stone, and she’s mama to four. I asked Jamie lots of friendship questions, like about what has been hard for her in friendship, if she ever feels insecure around other women, and about how she’s helping her kids work through friendship issues. I just love Jamie, and I loved this conversation. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Listen to the conversation on iTunes or, if you're on my website, in the embedded player below. Enjoy!

LINKS FROM THE SHOW