Ever feel like collateral damage in someone else's bad decision? That's exactly where Dot and Cara picked up this week, continuing last week's conversation about counting the cost, but this time turning to what happens when someone else's choices end up costing you. They talk through the real difference between discernment and judgment, and why grace means giving someone what they don't deserve, even when their decisions land hard on the people who love them. Pull up a chair, grab your Bible, and lean in with us.

Got a question about today’s episode or something else you’d like to hear us talk about on the show? Let us know!

Episode Recap

• Intro (00:00)
• Write this down: 1 Corinthians 10:12-13, the promise that God won't let you be tempted beyond what you can bear (00:00)
• Picking up where last week left off, but this time it's not our choices costing us, it's everyone else's (00:34)
• Cara names a feeling so many of us carry: being collateral damage in someone else's decisions (01:29)
• "Take heed lest he fall" isn't a warning about other people, it's a check on our own pride (05:01)
• Why it's not our job to decide what someone else's walk with God should look like, since there's only one Holy Spirit, and we're not Him (10:43)
• The hardest part of loving someone: watching them choose a costly path, knowing you can't stop them, and learning to pray and let go instead of trying to control them (16:10)
• Why God lets us choose freely, even when it costs us, because love that's forced was never really love (18:03)
• A funny detour about Cara's dad Howard and his no frills theory on grace, then back to the harder question of sinning on purpose versus sinning without realizing it (19:00)
• Why it's not "if" someone else's choices will cost you, it's "when," and a story about Stephen that proves God is paying attention the whole time (22:13)

Are you interested in having Dot come and speak to your community? Email us at hello@dotbowen.com.

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1 Corinthians 10:12-13 (NKJV) — "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond that you may be able to endure it."

Every decision has a price tag, and most of us never stop to read it. In this episode, Dot and Cara sit with Luke 14 and get honest about the cost of following Jesus, the cost of our daily choices, and what we're quietly giving up when we say yes to the wrong things. From forgiving the unforgivable to waiting on a miracle you can't control, this conversation is for anyone who has ever felt the weight of a decision they couldn't quite make. Pull up a chair, grab your Bible, and lean in with us.

Got a question about today’s episode or something else you’d like to hear us talk about on the show? Let us know!

• Intro (00:00)
• Write this down: Luke 14:27-30, counting the cost of following Jesus (00:00)
• Cara introduces the theme: every decision carries a cost and a gain, and sometimes we only look at what we're losing (00:47)
• What does it actually cost to follow Jesus? Dot reflects on the moment she realized salvation was free but discipleship is not (01:40)
• Every decision costs something, even neutral ones, and the question is whether your yes is leading you toward what matters most (04:19)
• On forgiveness: it costs you something to withhold it, and it costs you something to give it. Which cost are you willing to carry? (07:50)
• Cara shares her word of the year, miracle, and what it means that the cost of the miracle she is waiting on is surrender (10:59)
• Dot on waiting: being still is one of the hardest and most costly things women are asked to do (12:07)
• Dr. Stanley's principle: "You reap what you sow, later than you sow, and more than you sow" (14:11)
• Dot gets practical: her daily practice of asking whether her yes is leading her toward what she loves most, and whether she could tell Jesus about it at the end of the day (21:49)
• Cara closes the loop: counting the cost is not about controlling outcomes. It is about being honest with yourself and with God about what each decision is actually taking from you (20:55)

Are you interested in having Dot come and speak to your community? Email us at hello@dotbowen.com.

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Luke 14:27-30 (ESV) — "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'"

There are two kinds of sorrow, and one of them is quietly leading you away from God. In this episode, Dot and Cara sit with 2 Corinthians 7 and get honest about broken hearts, the grief that draws you toward Jesus, and the grief that slowly pulls you away. They look at Peter, at Judas, and at what it actually means to bring your whole hurt to Him, even the parts you're afraid to say out loud. Pull up a chair, grab your Bible, and lean in with us.

Got a question about today’s episode or something else you’d like to hear us talk about on the show? Let us know!

• Intro (00:00)
• Write this down: 2 Corinthians 7:6-11, on godly sorrow, repentance, and the kind of grief that leads to life (00:00)
• Cara gets honest right out of the gate: her heart is actually hurting right now, and this conversation is not just theoretical for her (00:03:58)
• God does not send a to-do list for healing; He is a deeply personal God who knows your personality, the way you process pain, and exactly how to meet you (00:04:35)
• Paul describes two kinds of sorrow in his letter to the Corinthians, one that leads to repentance and life and one that leads to death, and he shows us what both looked like in the lives of Peter and Judas (00:06:30)
• How you respond to your pain matters as much as what caused it. Peter ran toward Jesus. Judas walked away. Which direction are you moving? (00:10:16)
• You cannot heal what is not revealed. Naming your hurt honestly before God, even the ugly and angry parts, is where healing can actually begin (00:14:24)
• Dot shares the story of Corrie ten Boom, who begged God not to send her to the concentration camp and came out the other side knowing exactly why He had (00:21:45)
• God cannot heal a heart He does not have. Surrender means handing all of it over, not just the parts you are comfortable giving (00:24:06)
• Closing invitation: wherever you are today, just start somewhere. "Jesus, here's my heart. Will you heal my heart?" (00:29:32)

Are you interested in having Dot come and speak to your community? Email us at hello@dotbowen.com.

Watch Write this Down! on YouTube

Find Dot Bowen on Instagram and Facebook

2 Corinthians 7:6-11 (NASB) — "But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that the letter caused you sorrow though only for a while. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what eagerness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong. In everything you demonstrated yourself to be innocent in this matter."