Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide.

In this episode, John Swinton speaks with author and advocate Kay Warren about the intersection of faith, mental health, and the deep wounds of grief. Drawing from her experience of loving and losing her son Matthew, Kay shares honestly about parenting a child with severe mental illness, navigating unanswered questions, and learning to hold both hope and mystery at the same time.

Together, John and Kay explore what true companionship looks like in the midst of suffering, and how the church can become a place of presence rather than silence or stigma. Their conversation reflects a deeper truth at the heart of this series: mental wellness is not the absence of struggle, but the courageous work of finding peace, meaning, and connection in the midst of it.

If this topic is difficult for you, please reach out to someone you trust or to local mental health supports. You are not alone, and you are loved.

Welcome to Thinking From the Heart, a podcast about theology, mental health, disability, and music.

In this first episode, host and practical theologian John Swinton guides us in looking at mental health through a different lens—one that moves us beyond self-improvement or symptom management and invites us toward shalom.

John leads a reflective exploration of mental health as a lived continuum rather than a fixed state, considering how faith, community, and our shared humanity shape our well-being. He reflects on shalom as a holistic way of being—rooted in relationship with God, with ourselves, and with one another. Throughout the conversation, we return to the idea that healing is profoundly communal, sustained by connection, presence, and shared belonging.