Undone

In part two of our conversation with Fred Jolly, we pick up where his story left off and explore how his faith has continued to evolve over more than four decades.

One of the most significant revelations is that Fred never actually found the scientific answer to the question that had occupied him since childhood: What distinguishes the living from the nonliving? Instead, he came to realize that he didn't need to know. After a lifetime of investigation, discovery, and striving for perfection, he learned to accept that some things are beyond human understanding.

But...

What makes something alive? And what happens when life ends? These are questions Fred Jolly has wrestled with since childhood, and they've taken him on a remarkable journey.

Born in 1939, Fred has lived a life filled with adventure and exploration. From serving in the Navy and climbing mountains alongside members of an early American Everest expedition, to sailing around the world as a marine biologist and crossing the open ocean in a makeshift sailing canoe, his life has been anything but ordinary.

But beneath the adventures was a deeper search. Despite his scientific pursuits, intellectual...

What happens when tragedy shatters your faith, and the God you once believed in becomes the very One you blame?

At just 17, Thad experienced the devastating loss of his stepfather to suicide. The grief brought anger, guilt, and difficult questions about how a loving God could allow such suffering. What had once been a casual, largely unexamined faith gave way to skepticism. By college, Thad was openly questioning Christianity, challenging other believers, and seriously considering walking away from faith altogether.

But the friendships he formed along the way began to change things. Rather than judging...

After years of spiritual hardness, Cameron Hathaway had built a life around work, relationships, achievement, and simply moving forward. He knew there was a God, but he wasn't seeking Him. Then a series of difficult circumstances began to slow him down, including serious medical problems that left him facing his own mortality in ways he never expected.

During a conversation with his father-in-law about a seemingly unlikely subject, Cameron was forced to confront a contradiction he could no longer ignore: he knew what he believed to be true, yet he was not living as though it were...

Cameron Hathaway grew up in a difficult but close-knit family, and at a young age he encountered Jesus in a way that changed his life. But as his faith became entangled with family expectations, discipline, and his growing desire for independence, Cameron began to rebel. That rebellion eventually took him down a very different path, one that included drugs, homelessness, brushes with the law, and ultimately a decision to join the military.

In Part 1 of Cameron's story, he shares about his childhood, his early faith, his family's dramatic conversion, the rebellion that followed, and the experiences that...

Aaron's story continues in Part 2 with one of the most difficult seasons of his life.

After years of disappointment, uncertainty, and growing cynicism toward the church, Aaron found himself questioning where God was in the middle of everything he had experienced. Then, in 2018, his younger brother died by suicide. The loss brought his questions about God, faith, suffering, and family to the surface in ways he could no longer ignore.

Aaron shares honestly about grief, anger, doubt, and what it was like to continue leading a family and participating in church while feeling spiritually empty...

Aaron grew up as a pastor's kid, surrounded by church, Christian education, and the expectations that came with being part of a pastor's family. From the outside, he knew how to play the part. On the inside, however, he struggled to reconcile the faith he had been taught with what he was actually experiencing.

In Part 1 of Aaron's story, he talks openly about growing up in a large family, the pressures and challenges of being a pastor's kid, difficult experiences within the church, and the ways he learned to cope by staying busy and keeping his distance...

Lou grew up in a Christian home where faith was simply part of everyday life. But as he built a career, launched technology companies, and eventually stepped into decades of ministry in Haiti, he repeatedly found himself in situations far beyond his ability to control.

In this conversation, Lou shares the story of leaving a secure family business to pursue an unproven vision for using computers to transform the HVAC industry, the fear and uncertainty that followed, and the unexpected ways God provided when he finally admitted, "I can't do this." He also recounts a harrowing trip...

Raised by a single father in Peru during a period of terrorism, economic hardship, and uncertainty, Ronnie experienced difficult circumstances from a young age. Yet even as a teenager who was drinking, fighting, and surrounded by friends involved with drugs, he can now look back and see God's hand preserving him. One unforgettable moment, when he and his brother were waiting for their father to earn enough money for food, left a lasting impression of God's provision: two warm rotisserie chickens mysteriously appeared beside them at a bus stop.

After moving to the United States, Ronnie unexpectedly...

Tom grew up in a deeply religious Catholic family and eventually entered the Jesuit path with hopes of becoming a priest. But beneath the appearance of having his life together, Tom was carrying wounds from his childhood, struggling with his identity, and learning to navigate relationships, faith, and a growing desire to help others through counseling.

His journey would take him through a marriage that ended painfully, divorce, family struggles, and a season of questioning where God was leading him. Along the way, he experienced a profound personal encounter with the assurance of salvation and eventually sensed...

Dave grew up poor in a small Indiana town, raised by a single mom who never had time to take him to church. So neighborhood pastors did. That pattern followed him for decades. He went to church because it was Sunday, because his wife went, because that's what you did. Even after a tour in Vietnam and years of sitting in the pew, faith stayed something he'd checked off a list rather than something real.

The real shift didn't come from a sermon. It came during one of the loneliest stretches of his life, when a new...

Marian grew up the daughter of a research chemist and a stay-at-home mom in 1950s Michigan, sharp, driven, and set on a path in math and physics. She married a football coach, had five kids, and said yes to Christ young; but life didn't unfold the way she expected.

Her husband's zeal curdled into deception, a self-declared prophet, a cult of three families, a farm in the Ozarks, complete with hiding places for an end that never came. Twenty-two years of marriage, isolation, and spiritual abuse followed, along with a night in the woods when she nearly...

Rich Sullivan was raised Catholic on Chicago's west side, taught to kneel, be quiet and discouraged from opening a Bible. He walked away from church for years - turned off, as he puts it, by hypocrisy he couldn't square with what he was being told to believe.

But God wasn't finished with him. Following a miscarriage scare that brought him to his knees, he found his way back to church. What followed wasn't a clean turnaround but a slow, deliberate work: a mentor named Kent Adams, a well-worn copy of "Mere Christianity," and a heart God kept...

At 90 years old, Bob Dryden has walked with the Lord longer than most of us have been alive - and he's not finished yet. In this episode, we sit down with a man who's been a fixture at Sawyer Highlands Church for generations: a mentor to pastors, a spiritual grandfather to the congregation, and someone whose steady faith has quietly shaped the people around him.

Bob talks candidly about aging, watching his body break down, and choosing gratitude over complaint. He reflects on 38 years in one job (in a world where a little over three years is...

Episode Summary

Some people walk away from faith because it was never tested. Laurie walked away because it was tested too early, and too hard.

In this first episode of UNDONE, Laurie takes us into the parts of her story most people keep locked away - childhood abuse that planted a deep, understandable distrust of God, and years lost to drugs and alcohol as she tried to outrun questions she couldn't answer and pain she couldn't name. She had every reason to stay cynical. Plenty of people would have.

Instead, through the patience...

Every podcast has an origin story. Here's ours...

Pastors carry deeply guarded stories of the people they serve; stories that are shared in confidence - in hospital rooms and kitchen tables and parking lot conversations that stretch past midnight. Stories of people at the end of themselves, finding something they didn't expect. Stories of faith found late, doubt carried long, and grace arriving in the last place anyone thought to look.

For years, Mike Bettig - co-host of Undone - walked away from those conversations renewed. Filled. Reminded of why any of his work matters.<...