What does it look like to parent a child with a mental illness — and keep your faith intact? Kelly Jackson has lived it. This conversation is for you.

There are moms sitting in church pews right now who are exhausted, confused, and quietly wondering if they're the only ones.

Their child is struggling — with moods, behaviors, diagnoses they didn't see coming — and no one is talking about it.

This episode is for them and for those who know someone who has mental health concerns.

Kelly Jackson is the Executive Director of NAMI Johnson County and a mom who has walked one of the harder roads in parenting: a husband who experienced a suicide attempt, a daughter who began hearing voices at eleven, and the long, winding journey of learning to love her family well in the middle of it all.

She doesn't speak from theory. She speaks from Tuesday mornings and medication trials and moments of grace.

Together, Misty and Kelly talk through

✦ what mental health conditions actually are (and why "one in five" is a number every mom needs to sit with), ✦ how to find the right therapist for your child, ✦ what guilt and grief look like from the inside, and ✦ why Kelly believes the church has more room to grow in this conversation.

Kelly also shares the one daily rhythm that has kept her anchored through all of it — and it's simpler than you might think.

This isn't a heavy, clinical episode.

It's a conversation between two women who love Jesus and love moms, trying to make sure no one has to figure this out alone.

Kelly's honesty will meet you wherever you are — whether you're navigating a fresh diagnosis, wondering if what you're seeing warrants concern, or just trying to understand someone you love.

NOTE: This podcast is for educational and encouragement purposes only and does not constitute professional counseling, therapy, or medical advice. Misty Hughes is an ICF-certified life coach. For mental health support, please consult a licensed professional.

Resources mentioned:

NAMI: https://www.nami.org/

Child Mind Institute Symptom Checker: https://childmind.org/symptomchecker/

MISTY'S RESOURCES: Episode #22: There is Such A Thing As Good Grieving with Laurie Goddu https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/there-is-such-a-thing-as-good-grieving-and-busy-moms-can-do-it/id1738069561?i=1000668456618 Rhythms Of Renewal Guide: A FREE tool to help you Discover God's life-giving rhythms of life. https://mistyhughes.com/resources

Check out Misty's New Website: https://mistyhughes.com/ Join the BECOMING WAITLIST for the next Group Coaching Cohort

One hundred episodes of real conversations for real women — and for this one, I brought someone new into the studio. My husband Craig. The first man to ever sit across from me on Mom~2~Mom Mentoring.

Craig and I are wired completely differently.

👀 I see the world through rose-colored glasses full of sparkle and shine. He sees it through spreadsheets.

📣 I process everything out loud. He goes quiet and sits with it for days.

💃🏻 I live out loud. He surrounds himself with a few close friends and lets the world carry on without him.

And somewhere in the middle of all that difference — we have built something that is genuinely life-giving for both of us. Not because we became the same. But because we kept choosing each other anyway.

In this episode, we get honest about what connection actually is — and what it isn't.

We talk about ➤ core fears, ➤ the cycle that trips most couples up, ➤ what safety has to do with reconnection, ➤ ➤ ➤ and what Craig's spontaneous Neil Diamond reference in the middle of our conversation taught me all over again about why we work.

This isn't a perfect marriage episode. There's no formula here. Just two people, six years in, still

learning — and still choosing.

What you'll take away:

• Why connection is not the same as proximity — and how to feel the difference

• The core fear cycle that trips up most couples (and how to interrupt it)

• What safety has to do with reconnection — and why God is the safest place first

• What it looks like when the dreamer and the realist stop defending their own plots and tend the garden together

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

Notice, Name, Feel, & Free Your Emotions - A FREE RESOURCE

https://mistyhughes.myflodesk.com/feelings

Contact Misty & Craig For Symbis (Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts)

https://mistyhughes.com/inquire

Your calling is supposed to shift. Your purpose never does. Misty shares the testimony that will free the Christian mom striving in the wrong season.

Have you ever felt on fire for God — heart so full it needed somewhere to go — and then had Him redirect that fire somewhere you weren’t expecting? Somewhere smaller, quieter, and far less visible than you had in mind?

In episode 99 of Mom2Mom Mentoring, I get honest about one of the most significant redirects of my life. In the mid-nineties, in the middle of a genuine community revival, I experienced an awakening to the love of God that lit me on fire. I was wired to build, to connect, to pour — and I was ready. But God’s answer to my fire wasn’t a platform. It was a kitchen table and four kids.

What followed was decades of faithfulness in unsexy, unglamorous, often invisible assignments — a homeschool co-op, teenagers at church, a children’s ministry, people always around the table. And when the bottom fell out in 1998, and my marriage ended, I had to find her footing all over again. It was in that broken season that God gave me the longer vision: give it twenty years.

This episode is for the Christian mom who can’t see evidence that her faithfulness is doing anything. The one asking God to show her He’s working — and almost missing the answer because it comes in the form of a little boy quietly singing a worship song while playing with his toy cars on the floor.

In this episode:

• The difference between purpose (your why) and calling (your how) — and why your calling is supposed to keep shifting
• Why staying faithful in a hard, slow season costs something real — and why that’s worth naming
• The exponential math God showed Misty about faithfulness in her own home
• What Isaiah 61:3 says about oaks of righteousness — and why some plantings take decades
• The harvest belongs to God, not to you — and why that is the most freeing truth you’ll ever stand on
• A direct invitation to the BECOMING Cohort for women ready to stop striving and start living from purpose

Key Scripture

• Jeremiah 20:9 — His word like fire shut up in my bones
• Isaiah 55:8–9 — My thoughts are not your thoughts
• Isaiah 61:3 — Oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord
• 1 Corinthians 3:6–7 — I planted, Apollos watered, God made it grow
• Philippians 1:6 — He who began a good work will complete it

Free Resource

Grab the Rhythms of Renewal Mini-Guide — a free workbook walking you through rest, restoration, and relationship, with a Discovery Bible Study through Matthew 11:28–30.

Download free at https://mistyhughes.myflodesk.com/discoverrhythms

Ready for More?

The BECOMING Cohort begins May 5th — a 12-week small-group coaching experience for the Christian mom who is ready to stop striving and start becoming. Only 11 spots. mistyhughes.com/cohort

Don’t Miss Episode 100

Craig Hughes joins Misty for the very first time — and they’re talking about connection. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it.