Parent Forward
Parent Forward: Where Parenting Meets Spiritual Formation
with Julie Ann Luse
Parenting is more than managing behavior — it’s sacred, formative work.
Parent Forward invites you to see raising kids through a new lens: as a holy journey of becoming, both for your children and for you. Join longtime ministry leader, mother of three, and spiritual formation guide Julie Ann Luse as she explores the everyday moments of parenting through the lens of faith, neuroscience, and soul-deep connection.
Through personal stories, research-backed insights, and biblical wisdom, Julie Ann helps parents move beyond quick fixes and behavior charts to embrace the slow, beautiful work of forming souls — including their own. Every episode offers gentle encouragement, honest reflections, and practical steps to help you cultivate a spiritually nurturing home where love, grace, and presence shape the next generation.
If you’re longing for deeper connection, tired of parenting tips that miss the heart, and hungry to weave your faith naturally into daily family life — Parent Forward is for you.
It’s not about perfection.
It’s not about performance.
It’s about becoming — one faithful step at a time.
Subscribe and begin moving forward today.
Parent Forward
God is not quite like that | Advent Series Episode 4
Episode Summary
In this episode, we sit with one of the most tender and often misunderstood names of God: Emmanuel, God with us.
For many of us, “God with us” sounds beautiful… but feels far away, especially when grief, loneliness, shame, or exhaustion are pressing in. Instead of offering explanations or tidy theology, this episode makes space for honesty, lament, and presence.
We explore how Emmanuel did not begin in the manger, but in the cry of an enslaved people where God first revealed himself as the One who sees, knows, and comes near. Not to rush us forward, but to sit beside us.
This episode is for anyone who feels weary this Christmas. For anyone who doesn’t need fixing, only companionship.
Exodus 3:7–8 (NIV)
“The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out… and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…’”
This is the birthplace of Emmanuel, the God who sees, knows, and comes down to be with his people.
Mentioned in This Episode
The Joyful Journey: Listening to Emmanuel by Dr. James Wilder, Anna Kang, John Loppnow and Sungshim Loppnow
The Rabbit Listened by Cory Doerrfeld [read to you by me - on instagram]
Emmanuel Journaling Bonus Episode. Interested? Email me: Julie@ParentForward.com
Closing Prayer [inspired by The Rabbit Listened]
Father God,
I don’t need you to fix this right now.
I don’t need answers.
I don’t need explanations.
I just need you here.
Father, sit with me in this place.
This place I don’t know how to clean up.
This place I don’t know how to name.
This place that still hurts.
I bring you the grief I can’t carry,
the anger I don’t know what to do with,
the exhaustion that won’t lift,
and the ache that words can’t reach.
Father, you see me.
You know what this feels like from the inside.
And you’re not afraid of any of it.
So stay with me, Emmanuel.
Hold what I cannot.
Carry what is too heavy.
Be near enough that I can breathe again.
I don’t need to feel better.
I don’t need to be okay.
I just need to know that I am not alone.
And I trust, even here,
that you are with me.
In your name, Father. Amen.
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- Website: www.parentforward.com
