Guest: Brian Hardin, founder of Daily Audio Bible
When you’re holding it all together on your own, peace can feel like a luxury.
You wake up already behind. You’re needed in a dozen directions before you’ve had time to breathe. The house is loud or too quiet. The weight of holding it all on your shoulders is constant. As a solo parent, it’s easy to believe that if you could just fix something, your anxiety, your finances, your schedule, then maybe you’d finally feel calm. Finally feel peace.
But what if peace isn’t something you find by solving everything outside of you?
This week’s episode invites us to rethink how we define and pursue peace. We sat down with Brian Hardin, founder of Daily Audio Bible, and someone who’s spent the past 20 years reading Scripture aloud every day. His life may sound grounded and centered now, but he knows what it means to feel disoriented, overwhelmed, and completely undone. Especially as a solo parent.
Key Insights From This Episode
- Peace isn’t something you achieve by fixing your circumstances. It’s formed internally through stillness, not striving.
- Trying to compartmentalize your spiritual life only increases anxiety. Integration, bringing God into every part of your story, is where true peace begins.
- Wilderness seasons aren’t failures. They’re sacred ground where transformation and resilience take root.
Peace doesn’t start outside you. It begins within.
Brian shared that for years, he tried to find peace by fixing things. He thought if he could just “figure out” his life, if he could demystify Scripture or structure his world just right, then peace would come. But after two decades of immersing himself in Scripture, what he’s discovered is much simpler and much harder: peace is cultivated from within. It cannot be earned, purchased, or arranged.
“I came to believe the world is an organized system that tells us everything is about the external,” he said. “But peace is never available there. It’s cultivated from the inside.”
That might feel discouraging at first, especially when everything in you wants relief. But what if peace isn’t something far away you have to chase? What if it’s something already available, if you stop striving long enough to receive it?
Striving doesn’t produce peace. Integration does.
One of the most profound shifts in this conversation came as we explored how striving, even spiritual striving, keeps us fragmented. We try to fix one part of our lives over here, while our faith stays neatly boxed in over there. But real peace, Brian suggests, comes from integration. From bringing all of ourselves, our fears, our questions, our parenting, our past, into the same conversation with God.
Elizabeth reflected, “I fall into that pattern too, thinking, ‘This is where I’m anxious, and I have to figure it out.’ But really, it needs to all bleed together. That’s how I welcome peace into those places.”
Letting go of compartmentalization isn’t easy. But it opens the door to a kind of peace that isn’t dependent on circumstances. It’s rooted in presence. In belonging. In surrender.
The wilderness isn’t a detour. It’s where peace is born.
When you’re in survival mode, it’s natural to want the chaos to end. You want to “arrive” somewhere peaceful. But Brian reminded us that wilderness seasons are part of the process. They aren’t a sign something’s gone wrong, they’re often how we’re formed.
“This isn’t the whole story,” he said. “Being a single parent is brutal, but it’s not the end. You don’t have to see the promised land. You just have to be open to the possibility that something new will emerge.”
Peace isn’t always a feeling. Sometimes, it’s a quiet knowing that God is with you. That you’re not stuck. That even this, as painful as it is, is part of how you’re being shaped.
You don’t have to fix everything to find peace.
You just have to stop running long enough to notice where peace has already been forming in you. In your breath. In your honesty. In your wilderness. It’s not perfect. It’s not polished. But it’s yours. And it’s holy.
Listener Question:
“When your child asks why your family looks different than the typical nuclear family, how do you answer in a way that makes them feel proud and not less than?”
Robert and Elizabeth both acknowledged the tension in this question. There’s no easy fix or perfect answer. But the heart is this: comparison robs our families of the beauty they already hold.
“There are strengths and weaknesses to both,” Robert said. “But the connection in a single-parent home can be so deep. That deserves to be honored.”
Elizabeth added, “I wouldn’t be the mom I am today if I hadn’t gone through what I’ve gone through. And who knows how that’s shaped my son? There’s redemption even in what’s been hard.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Daily Audio Bible – Brian’s daily podcast that walks listeners through the Bible in a year. It’s also a global community and one of the most accessible daily spiritual rhythms available.
- Books by Brian Hardin:
- Passages: How Reading the Bible in a Year Will Change Everything for You
- Reframe: From the God We’ve Made… to God With Us
We want to answer any Solo Parent questions you may have. Submit your listener questions HERE.
Additional Resources:
