The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler

It’s easy to be caught in the trap of perfectionism, especially when those around us seem to have it all together. But we can find ourselves alone and discouraged when things don’t go as we’ve planned, and the lives we actually have fail to resemble those we’d hoped to lead.

In her recently released book The Lives We Actually Lead, New York Times best-selling author and Duke University professor Kate Bowler (along with co-author Jessica Richie) offer a collection of blessings that center gratitude and hope while acknowledging the reality of our often messy and frantic everyday lives. They show how embracing our limitations and vulnerabilities, as well as those of others, can open new possibilities for healing, hope, and community.

Finitude, Gratitude, and Being of Help

In this conversation, Kate shares about her work detailing the Prosperity Gospel movement from an academic standpoint, and how her own setbacks and health catastrophe in a cancer diagnosis both deepened her sense of being loved by God and softened her toward those desperate for a miracle.

Kate and Cherie’s conversation goes through deep waters, but does so with much humor and heart. We hope you’ll listen and share it with your friends and loved ones.

This podcast is an edited version of an Evening Conversation with Kate recorded in February of 2023. You can access the full conversation with transcript here. Learn more about Kate Bowler.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, by Kate Bowler
The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities, by Kate Bowler
Everything Happens For a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, by Kate Bowler
No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear), by Kate Bowler
The Lives We Actually Have: A Hundred Blessings for Imperfect Days, by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie
Seneca
Joel Osteen
Oprah
Joanna Gaines
Rev. Dr. Stephen B. Chapman
Wendell Berry

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Happiness, by Thomas Aquinas
On Friendship, by Cicero
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
Augustine’s Confessions
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
Wrestling with God, by Simone Weil
Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

Related Conversations:
Strength in the Second Half with Arthur Brooks
Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz
Being, Living, and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale
Blessings for Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler
The Burden of Living and the and the Goodness of God with Alan Noble
All the Lonely People with Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.