Actors Carlos and Alexa PenaVega say their faith did not erase the grief of their daughter, Indy’s, death, but it gave them a place to stand when their family faced its hardest season.
“…we had immediate peace,” Alexa said on the “Unashamed” podcast. She and Carlos were discussing the stillbirth of their daughter and the faith that carried them through the days that followed.
PEOPLE reported that Indy was stillborn in 2024. The couple’s upcoming book, Joy Isn’t Canceled: What Grief Taught Us About Pain, Peace and Purpose, will be published by Nelson Books on Nov. 3, according to PEOPLE.
Indy’s death was painful, and the PenaVegas still had to walk through it one day at a time.
Before the conversation turned to loss, Carlos described the spiritual foundation of his relationship with Alexa. “God was at the center of the relationship from the beginning,” he said.
Related: Alexa PenaVega Chronicles Grief and God’s Presence in New Book
The couple met through a mutual friend’s Bible study after both had come through difficult seasons. Carlos said he was searching for a different life, while Alexa said she had long wanted a deeper relationship with God but did not know how to pursue it.
“I knew it wasn’t just this check the box on Sunday,” Alexa said.
That foundation has also affected the way the PenaVegas approach entertainment. Movieguide® previously reported on the couple’s desire for projects with good messages and their decision to set healthy boundaries around their careers, and PEOPLE has reported that they were the first married couple to compete on DANCING WITH THE STARS.
While competing on the dance series, Alexa said she refused to let the competition outrank her marriage. “My husband does come before any of this,” she recalled saying after a judge told her to focus on her dance partner.
The couple said the difficult parts of that experience unexpectedly encouraged other marriages. Viewers wrote to tell them that seeing a husband and wife stand together had prompted them to reconsider their own relationships, a response Alexa said they never set out to create.
Alexa connected that same posture to grief. “You do have to prepare your heart. You do have to sit there with God,” she said, urging listeners not to treat suffering as an abstract possibility but to stay close to God before the hard season arrives.
The PenaVegas are now bringing that perspective to their own “LEXLOS” podcast, which they described as a place for honest conversations about building a life and a family. Their story is not a claim that grief disappears; it is a testimony that sorrow and joy can exist together when a family refuses to walk through either one alone.
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