Episode Details

What happens when the person you've loved since childhood is suddenly gone — and you're left at 29 with three small children and no idea how to be an adult without them?

Courtney Pray Duke doesn't answer that question with easy comfort. She answers it with her life. Widowed after her husband Andrew was killed in a cycling accident, Courtney walked through the kind of loss that rewrites everything — and came out the other side not unscathed, but transformed.

In this episode, Courtney and Brian explore what grief and faith after losing a spouse actually looks like — not the sanitized version, but the raw, fog-filled, one-step-at-a-time reality. They find real common ground across their different frameworks (Courtney's deep Christian faith and Brian's evidence-based consciousness research) because at the end of the day, they're both after the same thing: hope that holds up.

In this episode we cover:

• Who Andrew was — the childhood friend who became her soulmate and the father of her children
• The moment the world went black and white — and the long fog that followed
• How faith shifted from head knowledge to a true lifeline in the darkest season
• The jagged, non-linear nature of grief and why there's no "right" timeline
• Signs and synchronicities that made her feel less alone in the wilderness
• Whether it's possible — and okay — to love again after losing a spouse
• Raising children who remember their father and keeping his memory alive
• How her pain became the foundation for her purpose and her new book

About Courtney Pray Duke

Courtney Pray Duke is an author, speaker, and widow who was widowed at 29 after her husband Andrew was killed in a cycling accident, leaving her with three young children. In the years since, she has built a life and a ministry centered on helping others find hope after devastating loss. Her newly released book, And She Got Up: Shattered by Loss, Restored by Jesus, tells her story with the kind of honesty that only comes from someone who has actually been through the fire.

🌐 Website: https://courtneyprayduke.com 📖 And She Got Up — available wherever books are sold

You've been listening. You're doing the work. But there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place.

Maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back. 

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

All of it, pay what you want. You decide what it's worth. Nobody gets turned away because of money.

https://grief2g

The International Association for Near-Death Studies or IANDS will host its annual conference at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue.  The event features an all-star lineup of keynotes like Proof of Heaven Author Eben Alexander, MD, and Dying to Be Me Author Anita Moorjani. I Early bird registration rates are available through July 15.

Visit IANDS.org to register

The International Association for Near-Death Studies or IANDS will host its annual conference at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue.  The event features an all-star lineup of keynotes like Proof of Heaven Author Eben Alexander, MD, and Dying to Be Me Author Anita Moorjani. I Early bird registration rates are available through July 15. 

Visit IANDS.org to register

Want to go deeper? My Substack is where I share solo essays on grief, consciousness, and continuing bonds — thoughts that don't always make it into the podcast. It's also home to a community of listeners who get it, because they're living it too. Free to s