What happens when cutting someone off starts to feel like proof that healing is taking place?

In this Thinking Through episode, Jonathan Kindler examines the growing cultural movement toward going no contact with family and asks when distance is wise—and when it becomes avoidance. Beginning with the Wall Street Journal story of Shoshana Rubli, this episode explores why estrangement can bring real relief, why relief is not always the same thing as healing, and how psychological language can sometimes turn complicated relationships into simple diagnoses.

Blending current research, counseling insight, biblical reflection, and cultural observation, Jonathan looks at David and Saul, Joseph and his brothers, Matthew 18, Romans 12, Proverbs 27, 2 Thessalonians 3, Romans 5, and Ephesians 5 to distinguish forgiveness, reconciliation, trust, and access. He also explores the difference between a boundary and a wall—and when ongoing harm may make greater distance necessary.

Whether you’re considering no contact, living with family estrangement, or trying to love someone who continues to cross established lines, this episode invites you to move beyond slogans. To tell the truth. To restrain harm. To leave room for repentance where possible. And to faithfully steward the life God has entrusted to you.

Sometimes distance is necessary.

But the goal isn’t merely to become unreachable.

The goal is to become faithful.

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Is relief really the answer? And is medication right for me?

In this second episode of the Thinking Through: Medication series, Jonathan Kindler slows the conversation down and invites listeners to examine what happens after relief arrives. When the volume lowers, when the edge softens, when life feels more manageable. What do we do with that space?

Blending Scripture, theology of the body, pastoral wisdom, and personal storytelling, this episode explores why relief is not a destination but a crossroads. Jonathan helps listeners discern the difference between mercy and replacement, stabilization and sanctification, quiet and true peace. Drawing from biblical examples of healing, limitation, and dependence, he asks whether relief is helping us walk more faithfully or quietly teaching us what we rely on.

Whether you’re considering medication, currently taking it, or wrestling with what feeling better actually means, this episode calls you to wisdom. To discernment. To a peace that doesn’t bypass formation, and a faith that knows what to do when the volume goes down.

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