Forming a Biblical Vision of the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker
IVP
What if your child doesn’t “fit the mold” of what is considered successful and flourishing?
Christian parents in today’s culture can get swept up in the pursuit of achievement, perfection, and performance. They often feel pressure to measure their children’s success by grades, behavior, or milestones. But what happens when your child doesn’t hit those marks—or when you begin to question whether those marks matter in the first place?
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In this powerful episode of The Teach Your Children Well Podcast, host Sarah Cowan Johnson welcomes Amy Julia Becker—author, speaker, and mother of three—for a profound conversation on parenting, disability, and what it really means to live the good life. Amy Julia is the author of To Be Made Well (https://amzn.to/4km5ktQ), White Picket Fences (https://amzn.to/3I7zrrk), Small Talk (https://amzn.to/40sj6DW), and A Good and Perfect Gift (https://amzn.to/4l6gd3Y), and the creator of the Reimagining Family Life with Disability workshop. Through her writing and podcasting, she helps others explore how disability, faith, and culture shape our vision of wholeness.
Amy Julia opens up about how her vision of the good life, once shaped by merit, achievement, and perfection, was undone and lovingly rebuilt. Through formative moments such as her own health crisis, the loss of a loved one, and the birth of her daughter Penny, she began to see that limitation is not a flaw to be overcome but a deeply human experience that can draw us closer to God. Sarah and Amy Julia reflect on how parenting through the lens of disability reveals the hidden values we carry, and how belovedness—not performance—is the foundation for true identity and growth.
Whether or not disability touches your family directly, this conversation offers a deeply human invitation to embrace limitations, see God’s image in every child, and parent with grace rather than pressure.
Tune in now to reimagine family life through a lens of grace, humanity, and spiritual formation—one
