I'm doing something different today! In celebration of the 100th episode, I asked you all on Instagram for 100 questions to answer, and I'm really excited just to have fun and allow you guys to get to know me on a different level. A lot of these are personal, a lot of them are lighthearted, a lot of them are fun and hopefully some of them you'll find helpful to you and your life. Believe me, you want to listen to the end.

Today's episode is a recap of the very last book in our 2020 Book Club: Parenting with Love and Logic. We read it in December. It was highly recommended to me by so many friends, and it's already proven to be such a gift in our own family and my own parenting. I hope today's podcast will be super practical and helpful for any moms and dads listening.

I was talking with a friend the other day and she asked me the question, what are you fighting for this year? And it took me a minute to answer her, but after a pause, I finally said, “You know, I think I'm fighting for fun.” I know that might sound trite or silly, but I'm realizing it's—it's not that silly, it's actually necessary.

Today I'm going to be sharing with you seven ways that you can build trust with those around you and how I'm going to be working on that in my own life.

Today, I'm going to talk about how we don't actually know what 2021 is going to hold, but how we can approach it with wisdom.

Today, I'm going to share three extremely simple prayers that I pray. You have my full permission to take them with you and use them for the rest of your life, and I hope that they bless you.

My friend Reagan has a heart of gold—you'll see in our conversation, just how amazing she is. And the whole reason I interviewed her is because she took the Contentment Challenge to another level. She and her husband, Jeremy gave up shopping—get this—for the entire year of 2020 to pursue a greater life of contentment and eliminate debt. I think their story and how it all turned out is going to inspire you like crazy.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of surface, trite, make-it-what-you-want-it Christianity. I want the real God of the universe. I want what He has to say, even if it's hard to hear it. This book showed me the practices that we can do as believers to welcome Jesus into our very real lives and to hear His very real voice a little bit clearer. I'll be honest. These disciplines, they aren't easy. They are not for the faint of heart, but they are good. And they have changed me.

Today, I'm going to be sharing all of our favorite Christmas traditions. And sharing this is really just to encourage you to make time for the most important things, and hopefully just to invite you into our family for a little bit in sharing how Will and I have brought our different sets of our own family's traditions and made them our own.

So when I became a mom, during that newborn phase of life, it was very hard to determine which way was up or down. The Lord taught me this simple practice. It doesn't take a lot of time, but still to this day, it speaks straight to my heart and it grounds me. It's simply focusing on one word throughout your whole day.

Welcome to this month's edition of the Nancy Ray Book Club, where I choose 12 books to read in a year, and I invite you to join me in reading them, and then I share my takeaways in the book of the month every month. This month I am thrilled to be talking about Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

In today's episode, I want to remind all of us of three things the Lord calls us to, in any and every season of our lives. Three things that, if I'm honest, I feel like they've been pushed to the side. Three things that I believe were part of the founding of this country and three things that we absolutely must maintain if we are to move forward.

This week, we're going to be talking about how to get the most out of your week with the ideal week exercise.

Let's take a few minutes to dream about life and work and lay out a game plan for the next five years.

Often times, this is the time of year where we go a little off the rails with our eating, our spending, with our planning. We just do too much of all of it.

So, my encouragement to you today is that if you want to finish this year strong, you have to start now.

In it, Rebecca outlines four rhythms for a life of peace and purpose. I couldn't help but think back to my episode just a couple weeks ago on self-care, because I feel like this book is a deeper dive and how we can live out these rhythms and have a healthy, mature life as a believer. All in all, I love the book. I feel like Rebecca is somewhat of a soul sister and I can't wait for you to hear my top takeaways.

Today, I brought Emily on to have a conversation about camping, kids, and slowing down. You're going to love Emily. She has a depth and a graciousness that is unmatched, and I love her. It's why she's been my friend for so long. So, I'm so excited to share our conversation today.

We are constantly hearing and seeing the message of self-care. Take time for yourself. Don't forget to care for yourself. Drink water. Exercise. Go get your nails done. I have had so many mixed feelings about the phrase “self-care” for a long time.

So, today, I'm going to dive into the good and bad of self-care and offer a better, more holistic approach.