This is Everything Happens. I'm Kate Bowler.

I lived a pretty shiny life, but lately not so much. On one level, everything is perfect.

I'm married by high school sweetheart. I'm the mom of an amazing little boy.

I have my dream job as a professor at Duke Divinity School, where I am a historian of North American religion.

Okay, maybe not everyone's dream, but it was my dream. Perfect, right?

Except that life has been hard. At 35, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

There was no history of cancer in my family and then poof. There I was.

Trying not to die. I was watching my son learn to walk and trying to keep him away from the toxic chemotherapy bag attached to my waist.

This podcast is about those times when you realize that your life does not look great on Instagram.

It's about trying to figure out how to be a human being in a world that loves you more when you are shiny and whole.

And what you learn when you are.

So, I know this may sound difficult or depressing and you're thinking, please let me get away from this now, but hold on.

In this series, I have conversations with some wonderful and sometimes hilarious guests who've made it through their own terrible times.

And who have interesting and surprising and even funny things to tell us about how to make it through the dark.

I've learned a lot on my own journey and I'm still learning in part through these conversations.

And one quality I've come to really appreciate during this time is frankness.

Another is openness. The willingness to meet other people's troubles head on.

My guest today, Nadia Bullsweber is famous for both. She doesn't mince words when dealing with life's hard stuff.

Nadia Bullsweber is a New York Times bestselling author of books including Pastrix and Accidental Saints.

She's a speaker and a mom, church founder, CrossFit athlete, yoga enthusiast, a comedian, and we'll definitely get to that later.

She's also very famous for her cool tattoos and her foul language, which I find endearing.

She's a minister, but she doesn't just preach to the bright, shiny, well-dressed people. Instead, she seeks out, I guess, everyone else.

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