I’m happy to say my cynicism was roundly knocked on its head by Run Like a Woman, a new podcast from the already highly-listenable Eternity Podcast Network. Hosted by the eminently normal (though clearly very talented) Penny Mulvey and Bec Abbott, this is a smart, frank and engaging series of interviews with professional and academic Christian women on issues of work, health, family and faith. Episodes run for a full hour, yet each one left me wishing I could pop into the studio and ask just a few more questions of these immensely interesting, articulate guests.

I am grateful to the RLAW team for giving us a window into the hearts and faith journeys of some truly extraordinary ordinary women.

From tracing long-forgotten birth parents to navigating a daughter’s suicidal depression; from a theology of women in the church to the path to becoming a female CEO; there is absolutely nothing clichéd or saccharine about the conversations on Run Like a Woman. Hosts and interviewees alike exude honesty, insight and realism. Not all the stories have a happy ending, yet underpinning each one is a bedrock of trust in the God who is ever at work in the messes and complexities of human life. I am grateful to the RLAW team for giving us a window into the hearts and faith journeys of some truly extraordinary ordinary women.

These pocket-size meditations, a mere 15 minutes each, are escapism in its best form.

Small Wonders with Laurel Moffatt is available at undeceptions.com/small-wonders/

Compelling in a very different, almost visceral way is Dr Laurel Moffat’s podcast Small Wonders, from the Undeceptions Network. Laurel stands and gazes at natural formations, at places and relics of her childhood, at the artworks of a favourite painter.

She shares warm, thoughtful reflections on the emotions and questions these encounters evoke, quickly putting a finger on the anxieties and dissatisfactions that pervade the human heart and mind, then gently and winsomely leading our gaze back to God the Creator and Redeemer, in whom alone our restless souls can find peace.

These pocket-size meditations, a mere 15 minutes each, are escapism in its best form. Laurel’s charming radio voice blends with quiet music and the sounds of nature to produce a podcast that is curiously relaxing, challenging, soothing and profound all at once. A ‘small wonder’ indeed. Do give it a try.