S5 46: Love God and Do What You Want with Heidi White

The Strong Women Podcast

Sarah Stonestreet

Christianity, Relationships, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

2.4 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is really the parable of two brothers: one who’s ruled by unchecked desire, and the other who’s ruled by legalism and pride. I think a lot of us can resonate with both brothers. We feel torn between what we want to do and what we ought to do. But God designed these two things to be united within us! Using this parable as a framework, my friend Heidi White joins me again to talk about how we can not only do what’s right but also desire what’s right ... and find true freedom and joy as a result.

The Divided Soul: Duty and Desire in Literature and Life by Heidi White

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

On Strong Women, we celebrate God’s good design for women in every season of life. It’s all part of a bigger mission: to help the Church be the Church—by celebrating what’s good, resisting what’s evil, restoring what’s broken, and creating what’s missing. As we approach our June 30 fiscal year end, we need your help to keep that mission going. You can support the next year of Strong Women, as well as all the other resources from the Colson Center, by making your best gift today at colsoncenter.org/swchurch.

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center, which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them. Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Strong Women podcast, where we explore the beautifully diverse ways God invites and equips women to participate in his story.
0:16.0	We're here to encourage one another as we step out of the shallow definitions of what it means to be a woman
0:22.3	and into the flourishing life that comes when we walk out our design. I'm your host Sarah Stone Street.
0:28.8	I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back to the Strong Women Podcast. I'm so glad you guys have
0:35.5	joined us today. I have a returning guest, Heidi White.
0:39.4	She's my good friend. And if you remember in our series about the Christmas Carol, I had Heidi on.
0:45.3	And one of the things I said about her is she is the most fun person to talk about books with.
0:51.3	And so she has just come out with her own book called The Divided Soul. And the
0:56.1	subtitle is, listen to this, you guys, duty and desire in literature and life. I hope that
1:02.2	what's your appetite? Because we're actually going to dive into that in our conversation today.
1:06.2	Heidi is an author, podcaster, a speaker, and a teacher, actually she teaches my daughter, Allie, at this hybrid
1:14.5	classical Christian school here in Colorado Springs. And I'm so thankful for just her voice in
1:20.3	Ali's life and her voice in my life. And so, Heidi, I'm so glad you're here. Oh, I'm so glad to be
1:26.3	here. Thank you, Sarah. And you know what?
1:27.9	I don't know. Allie might usert my title as one of the most fun people to talk about books with.
1:33.6	That is true. She is so delightful. I love having her in class. Thank you for sharing her with me.
1:38.5	Yes. She's definitely a story formed girl, you know, and I realized that early on. Actually, Heidi and I have done school
1:45.1	together off and on for all of our, and I'm, when I say we've done school together. What I mean is
1:50.9	we've homeschooled our kids together. And learned together. And learned together, for sure.
1:55.2	Off and on for years now. And we have a dear friend Emily Hill. And I remember Emily read Ali a story when she was
2:02.8	about six in one of her classes. And Ali came home and listed out the entire story. Like I just
2:09.1	was like, oh, we're still going. Chapter 10. That's right. She remembered. She remembered the whole thing.
	...

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