Episode Summary

What do you do when faith alone hasn't fixed it? In this powerful, deeply honest episode of the Junk to Jewels™ Podcast, host Georgette Beck sits down with Chris Morris — ministry leader, award-winning author of three books, internationally known TEDx speaker, and founder of a mental health ministry that launched with 70 people on its very first night.

Chris grew up in a home marked by fear and abuse. At 15, in the middle of a suicidal moment, he prayed a desperate prayer to a God he didn't yet believe in — and gave Him seven days to show up. What happened next changed everything. And yet, life didn't get easier. Chris wrestled with depression and suicide ideations throughout his entire adult life, ultimately reaching a crisis point in August of 2020 that landed him in a psychiatric ward.

But from that dark place, he heard a whisper that turned everything around: "Chris, I still love you."

Today, Chris brings together theology, neuroscience, and real talk to help the church become a safer place for the hurting. In this episode, he and Georgette talk openly about:

• His childhood in an abusive home — and the mom who had the courage to break the cycle
• The "7-day prayer" that led him to Christ at age 15
• His suicide attempt in 2020 and the divine encounter that followed in the psych ward
• Why medication, counseling, and mindfulness are NOT the enemy of faith
• Launching a 70-person mental health ministry — and what it revealed about the church's unmet needs
• His three books: By Faith, Resilient & Redeemed, and Trekking Toward Tenacity
• What he wishes every pastor and church leader understood about mental health
• A direct, heartfelt message to anyone silently struggling and wondering if God sees them

"God is good every day, all the time, no matter what — even when He feels absent. Believe that." — Chris Morris

Connect With Chris Morris

🌐 Website: chrismorriswrites.com

📖 Books: chrismorriswrites.com/shop

📩 Substack: refugefortheweary.substack.com

Books Mentioned in This Episode

• By Faith: 40 Devotions from Hebrews 11 — Chris Morris
• Resilient & Redeemed — Chris Morris
• Trekking Toward Tenacity — Chris Morris (Psalm 139 for parents)
• The Divine Conspiracy — Dallas Willard (Chris's foundational recommendation)

Connect With Georgette Beck & The Junk to Jewels™ Podcast

📚 Book: Junk to Jewels: A Journey from Brokenness & Despair to Beauty & Delight

📸 Instagram

👍 Facebook

💼 LinkedIn

🐦 Twitter/X

🎵 TikTok

▶️ YouTube

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What does it look like when a little girl from the hills of West Virginia who couldn’t stand to see her grandmother step on an ant grows up to defend the most vulnerable among us? It looks exactly like Sue Chess — 24-year CEO of CareNet of the Treasure Coast.

In this deeply moving episode, Georgette sits down with Sue to talk about the life-saving work happening right here on Florida’s Treasure Coast — and the miracle stories that keep Sue showing up every single day. From an unlikely mobile unit that arrived when only ONE was left, to a nursing student who chose life and now works at Cleveland Clinic, to the son who considered abortion and whose daughter just turned 25 — this conversation will stir your heart.

In This Episode You’ll Hear:

• Sue’s origin story: a sense of justice rooted in childhood, nursing training in 1975, and a pro-life debate that changed the trajectory of her life
• How a personal family crisis — her son and his girlfriend facing an unplanned pregnancy at 17 — led Sue to eventually lead CareNet for 24 years
• The full scope of CareNet’s ministry: pregnancy counseling, ultrasound, STI testing, parenting classes, a baby boutique, student outreach, fatherhood initiative, and abortion recovery healing
• The miracle story of CareNet’s new Mobile Unit — equipped with ultrasound and a QR code, serving Martin and St. Lucie Counties
• Why seeing the baby on ultrasound within 24 hours can be the most life-changing moment for a woman in crisis
• The truth about the abortion pill: dangers, trauma, and the abortion pill reversal that has already saved 8,000 babies nationwide
• How the Fatherhood Initiative increased life-saving outcomes by 61%
• Sue’s life motto: “Just do the next right thing”
• The peacekeeper vs. peacemaker distinction — and why Jesus was a peacemaker
• Sue’s beautiful tribute to her mother, and the devotional she’s writing from her mom’s “Sips of Living Water” Facebook posts
• Her favorite Bible: the WallBuilders Bible, weaving America’s founding history with Scripture
• The woman she’d love to have coffee with: Priscilla Shirer

Sue’s Closing Word to Anyone in Crisis:

“Don’t try to take care of the whole thing today. Just do the next right thing. Make a call. Make an appointment. Don’t make an uninformed, rapid choice before you have looked at all your options.”

Upcoming CareNet Events:

• Walk for Life — October 11 at MidFlorida Event Center (FREE: food, petting zoo, family fun)
• CareNet Gala — March 5 & 6, 2026, with Dr. Lyle returning as Guest Speaker

Contact & Connect with Sue Chess / CareNet:

Client Website: www.carenettc.com

Supporter/Volunteer Website: www.carenettc.com

Port St. Lucie East Clinic • 6704 S US Highway 1, Port St. Lucie, FL 34952 • (772) 828-3168

Darwin Square Clinic • 3237 SW Port St. Lucie Blvd., Port St. Lucie, FL 34953 • (772) 208-3053

Connect with Georgette Beck & Junk to Jewels:

Book: https://a.co/d/0etqV85U

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgette.beck/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgetteBeckWriter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgette-beck-7a659387/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/GeorgetteMBeck

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@georgette2038

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgettebeck9168

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it means the world!

What do you do when everything you knew changes overnight? When the people you love most are suddenly gone — and you're left standing in the middle of a life you didn't choose?

Award-winning author and immersion journalist Lauren Kessler joins Georgette on the Junk to Jewels Podcast for one of the most tender, honest, and profoundly moving conversations we've ever had. Lauren's memoir, Everything Changes Everything: Love, Loss, and a Really Long Walk, is a book that doesn't just tell a story — it holds your hand through the hardest ones.

Lauren shares the deeply personal journey of watching her husband Tom choose to legally end his life after a terminal cancer diagnosis — and then, while still in the shadow of that grief, losing her beloved daughter Lizzie to a drug overdose. Two losses. Two different kinds of goodbye. Both saturated in love.

Rather than breaking under the weight of it, Lauren did what her body and soul demanded — she moved. She laced up her boots and walked 500 miles alone across northern Spain on the ancient Camino de Santiago — a pilgrimage that became the path back to herself.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What it truly means to love someone through their dying
• The unique grief of losing a child to addiction — and the stigma no family should have to carry alone
• Why movement can be medicine for a shattered heart
• What the Camino teaches you that nothing else can
• How grief and beauty can live inside the same breath
• And the profound truth that everything changes everything — including us

Whether you are walking through loss right now, supporting someone who is, or simply hungry for a conversation that doesn't flinch from the hard and holy parts of life — this episode is for you.

Pull up a chair. This one goes deep.

🎧 Listen, share, and leave a review if this episode touched you. Every share puts this conversation in the hands of someone who needs it.

📖 Find Lauren's book Everything Changes Everything on Amazon (Link: https://a.co/d/0dmJwLAT) and wherever books are sold.

🌐 Learn more about Lauren at www.laurenkessler.com

https://www.facebook.com/lauren.kessler.7oaks

https://www.instagram.com/laurenjkess/

laurenjkess.substack.com/

About Georgette Beck

Georgette Beck is the author of the award-winning memoir Junk to Jewels: A Journey from Brokenness & Despair to Beauty & Delight — winner of the International Impact Book Awards (Inspirational/Transformational category) and Semi-Finalist in the 2025 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition with the Florida Writers Association. She is a speaker, lay minister, mentor, podcast host, and founder of Bella Healing Hearts Foundation.

Connect with Georgette

📖 Book: https://a.co/d/0etqV85U

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgette.beck/

👥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgetteBeckWriter

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgette-beck-7a659387/

🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/GeorgetteMBeck

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@georgette2038

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgettebeck9168

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it means the world!

What if the greatest art ever created was actually a love letter written directly to your soul? In this rich, soul-stirring conversation, Georgette Beck sits down with acclaimed author and theology professor Terry Glaspey — a man who has devoted his life to exploring what he beautifully calls the intersection of creativity, spirituality, and life.

Terry is the author of over a dozen books, including the beloved 75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know, Discovering God Through the Arts, and Not a Tame Lion: A Life of C.S. Lewis. He teaches Inklings studies at Northwind Theological Seminary and is a two-time Christianity Today Book of the Year award recipient.

In this episode, Terry and Georgette explore:

✦ How God — revealed first in Genesis as the Creator — wired us to encounter Him through beauty

✦ Why Jesus taught in parables and metaphors, and what that means for how we take in art

✦ The life-changing power of art, music, literature, and film to reach the places words can't

✦ How Rembrandt's Prodigal Son and a grief-soaked symphony brought tears — and healing — to broken hearts

✦ Why the church must embrace its creative people, and what "Creativity Sunday" looks like in practice

✦ How beauty can reunite a fragmented culture — and why shared art matters more than ever

✦ Terry's favorite books (Mere Christianity & T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets), his anchor verse (Revelation 21:5), and the one person from history he'd most love to meet

Whether you're an artist, a book lover, someone who's been touched by a song in a dark season, or simply someone longing to encounter God more deeply — this episode is for you.

About Terry Glaspey

Terry Glaspey is the author of over a dozen books and a professor at Northwind Theological Seminary specializing in Inklings studies — C.S. Lewis and his circle — and the intersection of the arts and spiritual formation. He has won two Christianity Today Book of the Year awards and has received honors from the Gospel Coalition and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. His forthcoming title, The Faith of Jane Austen, continues his lifelong work of guiding readers to encounter God through literature, music, visual art, and cinema. Find Terry at: TerryGlaspey.com

About Georgette Beck

Georgette Beck is the author of the award-winning memoir Junk to Jewels: A Journey from Brokenness & Despair to Beauty & Delight — winner of the International Impact Book Awards (Inspirational/Transformational category) and Semi-Finalist in the 2025 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition with the Florida Writers Association. She is a speaker, lay minister, mentor, podcast host, and founder of Bella Healing Hearts Foundation.

Connect with Georgette

📖 Book: https://a.co/d/0etqV85U

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgette.beck/

👥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgetteBeckWriter

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgette-beck-7a659387/

🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/GeorgetteMBeck

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@georgette2038

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgettebeck9168

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it means the world!

What do a rare tumor, 150 job rejections, a 14-and-a-half-hour surgery, and a baby named Jehovah Heals have in common? They're all chapters in the remarkable story of today's guest, Kerry Santucci.

Kerry Santucci is a healthcare operations professional and values-driven problem solver with over 15 years of experience in healthcare management. Holding a Master of Health Administration from Florida Atlantic University, Kerry has spent her career bringing clarity to chaos — partnering with physicians, executives, and hospital teams to strengthen both systems and people.

But Kerry's most defining lessons didn't come from a boardroom or a classroom. They came from the patient side of the hospital bed.

At just 23 years old — only nine months into her marriage — Kerry was diagnosed with an extraordinarily rare tumor: one that occurs in only one in a million patients, typically in women who are pregnant or post-C-section. Kerry was neither. And the tumor wasn't where it was supposed to be. It had wrapped around to her spine.

In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, Kerry shares:

• How becoming a patient inside the very healthcare system she served reshaped her compassion, her calling, and her faith
• The 14-and-a-half-hour surgery her neurosurgeon performed against the advice of every colleague — and the miracle that followed six months later
• How she and her husband waited two years before attempting to have a child, and the extraordinary meaning behind her son Josiah's name (Jehovah Heals)
• Her experience pursuing a master's degree at 40+ — and the painful surprise of delay, rejection, and over 150 job applications with no breakthrough
• What God taught her in the quiet, unseen seasons: about humility, faithfulness, serving without applause, and trusting the timing
• Why she and her husband are now stepping into a brand-new chapter with a cross-state move to the Augusta, Georgia/South Carolina area
• The mentor who changed her life with six simple words: 'You're smart, and you're going places'
• Her life-anchoring quote from John C. Maxwell and what it means to choose growth when change finds you

Kerry closes with words she wishes someone had said to her sooner — and they may be exactly what you need to hear today:

"You're not behind. Your value is not tied to a title. Your strength is not proven through exhaustion. And the delay you're frustrated with may be the very thing that's protecting you. Stay faithful in the small things."

Whether you're in a waiting room right now — literal or metaphorical — this episode is for you. Pull up a chair, open your heart, and let Kerry's journey remind you: what feels like junk can become the very place where God does His finest work.

Connect with Kerry Santucci:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerrysantucci

Connect with Georgette Beck & Junk to Jewels:

📖 Book — Junk to Jewels on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0etqV85U

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgette.beck/

👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgetteBeckWriter

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgette-beck-7a659387/

🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/GeorgetteMBeck

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@georgette2038

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgettebeck9168

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it means the world!

What do a hammered dulcimer, aluminum wire sculptures, 33 jobs, and a hilarious collection of short stories have in common? They're all chapters in the wonderfully creative life of Doug Halper. In this episode, Georgette sits down with the multi-talented musician, visual artist, and author she met at the Sunshine State Book Festival — and the conversation is as entertaining as his book.

Doug, who also writes under the pen name Benjamin Douglas, is the author of Don't Miss the Bus and Other Tales from the Road — a very funny, sometimes poignant collection of short stories about making a career of being creative, the adventures of life on the road, and the beautiful mess of simply being human.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How Doug discovered his calling at age 5 and has never stopped creating — even when it meant starting over 33 times
• The accidental discovery of wire sculpture that became his most successful (and wildest) career chapter
• Why staying open and being stubborn are two of the most underrated tools for a creative life
• The T.N.K. filter — a powerful and simple tool for deciding when to speak and when to stay quiet
• What an unplanned electric car adventure taught him about adapting on the fly
• Why Doug would sit down with Jesus if he could talk to anyone — and what questions he'd bring to the table
• His philosophy that keeps him grounded no matter what happens: "It's all part of the gig"
• The book that has changed his life more than any other: Illusions by Richard Bach
• Why he encourages everyone — especially young people — to start putting away even $200/month right now

This episode is a reminder that your calling doesn't have to look like anyone else's, creativity comes in countless forms, and a little stubbornness paired with an open heart might just be the recipe for a life well-lived.

🎧 Grab Doug's book, Don't Miss the Bus, and explore his music and wire art at www.DougHalper.com — and if you search his name online, he promises you'll find him easily (as long as you spell it right).

GUEST CONTACT INFORMATION

Name: Doug Halper (pen name: Benjamin Douglas)

Book: Don't Miss the Bus and Other Tales from the Road

Website: www.DougHalper.com

Social Media: Search "Doug Halper" on all platforms — he's the only one who shows up (if you spell it right!)

https://www.facebook.com/DougsWireWriting/

https://www.youtube.com/doughalper

https://www.linkedin.com/company/doug-halper---entertainer/

https://www.tiktok.com/@dougs_wire_writing

Note: Doug's website features his wire sculpture art, hammered dulcimer music, and writing. All booking and connection goes through his website.

HOST CONTACT & LINKS — GEORGETTE BECK

Book: Junk to Jewels: A Journey from Brokenness & Despair to Beauty & Delight

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgette.beck/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeorgetteBeckWriter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgette-beck-7a659387/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/GeorgetteMBeck

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@georgette2038

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgettebeck9168

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it means the world!