There’s a temptation when you write about the spiritual life to get overly serious. You use big theological words or quote authors you’ve never read (here’s lookin’ at you, Chesterton!).

Our life with God can become overly theoretical and cerebral—so far removed from the earthy, touchable world and the intoxicating sound of a river rushing past a grove of Cottonwood trees. This is why I love authors who ‘put flesh to ideas’ with vivid storytelling.

Books and ideas are great to a point. But then we have to step out and actually live our lives. We have to get our hands dirty and engage our five senses. Our bodies are sacred, and so is the natural world. As detached as we’ve become from physical embodied spaces and friendships, it’s so deeply important to spend time outside, having fun, moving our bodies, and interacting with the world God has made and continues to reveal himself through. The Greek word for “Spirit” is pneuma, after all, which means wind or breath.

We’re meant to savor life—the flavor of grilled peaches and hot honey on pizza, the sound and rhythm of drums and banjos, the icy rush of a cold plunge, the sight of woodpeckers doing their thing, and a spontaneous laugh shared with a new friend over the silliest thing.

This spring/summer, and specifically this past weekend, I’ve enjoyed a handful of outdoor and communal activities that have allowed me to experience God’s beauty and goodness, not just think or read (or talk) about it. So, at the end of this short piece, I thought I’d share a collection of photographs embodying these things. I really am so grateful to live in this beautiful region of Northern California, and I want you to feel like you were right there, savoring the goodness with me.

Now, here’s a short reflection I recently shared on Substack Notes about the beautiful complexity of being human.

Poetry gets me out of my head and into the real world, and this reflection felt poem-like in its DNA as it tumbled out of me after listening to some favorite but very discordant music genres.

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We’re All Walking Contradictions ✨

I am fascinated by this idea that to be human is to be complex and multifaceted.

Today, we’re often asked to fit ourselves into a niche, a byline, or a résumé, when really we’re meant to spill out over the edges — as people who bear and reflect the prismatic image of a limitless and expansive God.

I want to embrace the parts of me that don’t clearly fit into a single niche or relate to one another. I want to follow my myriad of interests and curiosities, voyaging deeper into the heart of life.

💭 Here are just a few of these contradictions:

I am a lover of quiet and of loud concerts.

Highly sensitive, and also a fan of ultimate frisbee and rollerskating under a glittering disco ball to early 2000’s hits.

I love hiking and staying inside with a good book. I love listening to chill vibey music as well as dancing like a lunatic to “Mr. Brightside.”

I am confident on some days and horribly insecure on others. I love solitude, but also get lonely and cherish the company of good friends. I love the crisp winds of fall and the sticky sands of summer. I try to live a natural, low-tox life, and I also find the nostalgic lemony smell of Sun-In intoxicating.

I enjoy contemplative hobbies like reading, writing, and catching up with old friends over tea, but I also adore the thrill and challenge of whitewater rafting, blackberry picking, swing dancing, and hot power yoga. I love being married, but I’m still fiercely independent. I love daydreaming and cloud-watching as well as getting stuff done.

I’m interested in deeper topics like spiritual formation and theology, but I can also talk for hours about my favorite Owl City lyrics and the art of making a great taco (or watermelon agua fresca). I love high culture—Van Gogh, Chopin, live theatre, Westminster Abbey—but there’s no greater beauty than the Grand Tetons or rugged cliffs along the Pacific Coast Highway.

I love Jesus, and I also find the way of Jesus absurd and unclear at times. I feel close and connected to God’s Spirit in certain moments, and like I’m wandering in the wilderness in others.

We are all of these things and more. Mystifying, complex, beautiful, God-breathed.

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—> What are some of your unique contradictions? Tell me in the comments below!

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Three years ago, I began receiving spiritual direction consistently. Since then, my friend Diana and I have met monthly over the phone, and each time we do, it’s a place of deep refreshment with God.

In an era where real presence is craved but hard to find (and trust), I believe we need the timeless practice of spiritual direction more than ever.

Readers and friends often ask how to find a spiritual director. And if you’re not in contemplative or liturgical faith circles where spiritual direction is regularly practiced or talked about, it might be a foreign concept to you. So, I’ve created this guide, inviting my Substack friend, Lahni Blair, to join me for a conversation all about spiritual direction—what it is, what needs it serves, and how to find a director if you’re interested in this type of long-term companionship. We both sense a vocational call to soul care, and Lahni’s beginning that journey this fall with a two-year program. She also writes beautiful prose on everyday spiritual formation over at her Substack, One Sacred Question.

Quick note: This guide is fairly substantive, so feel free to hop around to whichever questions stand out. You can always bookmark it and come back later. Also, consider passing it along to a friend. <3

We hope it’s helpful!

—Bailey

Q: What is spiritual direction?

Bailey:

One of my favorite writers, Emily P. Freeman, defined this in a wonderfully succinct way when Ian Cron asked her this question on the Typology Podcast. Here’s her response:

“It’s simply one person holding prayerful space for another to help them discern what God might be up to, in and around them.”

Lahni:

Historically, spiritual direction has its roots in early monasticism and cura animara (the “cure or care of souls” in Latin). Today, Christian spiritual direction draws deeply from the same framework of soul care, integrating a pathway of care that seeks to honor the whole person and the spiritual, psychological, and emotional realities unique to their life. Contrary to its name, spiritual direction is not about giving advice or telling somebody what to do. Rather, it is about directing a person toward a pathway of spiritual discernment and safety where they are able to begin recognizing and noticing the current of God’s love that is always at work beneath their life.

Through the gift of attentiveness and holy listening, a spiritual director accompanies another person right where they are on their journey of faith, coming alongside them in spiritual friendship, and asking questions that help illuminate the quiet rhythms of grace and Spirit-led invitations that are presently drawing them into the shelter of God’s presence and care.

Steeped in the contemplative tradition, many spiritual directors incorporate contemplative practices (silence, imaginative prayer, lectio divina, etc.), weaving them throughout a session as pathways of exploration and intimacy in our life with God.

Q: Who is spiritual direction for?

Bailey:

Spiritual direction is for anyone, whether you’re a lifelong follower of Jesus or newly exploring the faith. That said, it can be particularly helpful for those asking the following questions or experiencing these feelings:

• “I feel stuck.”

• “How do I hear God’s voice?”

• “Why does God feel far away?”

• “I’m unsure if I want to attend church again, but I still want to know God and experience his love.”

• “How do I discern my calling in life?”

If you’re someone like me who struggles to sit still and quiet your brain, just the practice of being still for an hour is good for the soul. It might also be disorienting if you’re used to achieving goals or are looking for specific answers.

As Lahni mentioned, spiritual direction is different from therapy or business coaching in that you’re not doing anything. You’re simply learning to be with God. For some of us, this is super foreign and weird. But this kind of quiet, restful, and attentive presence is the transformative quality in all true relationships, and it’s actually what we crave in the deepest places of our hearts. Scripture tells us that Mary was the sister who “chose what is better” by sitting at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38–42). And since we’re out of the habit of leisurely spending time with God, and listening to his voice, having the accountability and guidance of a spiritual director is a real gift.

Q: Is it biblical?

Lahni:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” —Matthew 13:31–32

Yes! If there is one place in Scripture that I would point someone toward to better grasp the Kingdom-centered roots of spiritual direction, it would be this one. The ministry of spiritual direction is a haven for the sheltering of souls, one of the many branches on the expansive tree that is the Kingdom of God, a place where others can come home to the heart of Christ.

In the same way that Jesus modeled sacred companionship, seeing and meeting people where they were at, we see all throughout Scripture how God used the lives of his people, fueled by the mission of the Kingdom, to embody the love of Christ in the world. The ministry of spiritual direction—rooted in the spiritual gifts of discernment, wisdom, knowledge, exhortation, and shepherding—is an outpost of that embodiment in the world. It’s a place where people can experience the love of Christ in a tangible way and begin noticing how that love is ever-accompanying them along the way, long after they get in the car or turn off the laptop and part ways with their spiritual director.1

Q: How often do you meet with a spiritual director?

Bailey:

Typically, you meet monthly, which gives you space to meditate on God’s presence in your life between sessions. So much can happen each month, and I’ve found this to be a good timeframe for reflecting on what God is showing me. But you and your direction will decide on the frequency.

Q: How is spiritual direction different from meeting with a therapist, coach, or mentor?

Lahni:

While there are areas of overlap in how each of these can meet us on our journey, and while they can be allies that support us in different capacities along the way, spiritual direction is a ministry of soul care that is uniquely distinct from therapy, coaching, and mentorship.

Therapy is often a pathway looking backward, examining the fractured places in our stories and lives and seeking some sort of understanding and integration from within a therapeutic framework.

Coaching and mentorship are pathways looking forward, coaching exploring next steps of a goal or a specific direction we want to go in our life, and mentorship exploring growth, spiritual habits, and maturity in the ways we live out our faith.

Spiritual direction, while at times invites us to look both backward and forward, is a ministry of presence rooted in the present. It is not about fixing or analyzing our problems, measuring progress, attaining greater levels of knowledge, or figuring out what steps to take next; it is about learning to be present to what God is already doing in our life amidst the loose ends, unanswered questions, and unknowns; looking back not to fix or seek resolution, but to begin seeing where the Light has always been weaving a story though the darkness. It is about restoring attachment, intimacy, and safety with Christ, noticing the holy invitations he extends as we journey with him each day of our unfinished and ever unfolding story.

Q: Where can I find a spiritual director?

Bailey:

Connecting with a local or long-distance spiritual director should definitely be within reach for you! It just takes a little research and exploration.

Thankfully, you aren’t limited to attending sessions in person, though you absolutely can (and I would say you bring more intention with you into a physical space). People meet with a spiritual director over the phone, on video, or in person, depending on what’s offered and what you prefer.

The simplest way to start your search is by Googling “spiritual direction near me.” There may be local retreat centers or more traditional churches that offer this service for free. But there are also individuals who host sessions independently. If you attend church, your community may have a spiritual formation pastor or a soul care/counseling ministry where skilled people can point you in the right direction. Looking for online directories or asking a friend (or a Substack writer!) who is familiar with this world is a great starting point, too.

Q: Why is there such an interest in spiritual direction right now—especially among women in their 30s and 40s pursuing formal training?

Lahni:

As someone preparing to step onto a vocational pathway of soul care, a couple of things come to mind. First, based on my own experience and the conversations I’ve had with others, there is a growing weariness sweeping through the Christian West. So many of us, especially those of us who grew up in or are still steeped within evangelicalism, are looking and longing for something that holds beyond the fractures, disillusionments, divisions, and performative culture of the institutional Church.

Moreover, I believe this increased interest in spiritual direction is, in part, due to the gaps in discipleship in the West. Many of the discipleship models we see center around an increase in habits that emphasize growth in the knowledge of God without being deeply formed by intimacy with Christ.

More than an increase in knowledge and checklists, we need Spirit-filled rhythms of intimacy, receptivity, and reciprocity that strengthen us in our inner being, root us and ground us in love, and walk us through a door where we begin to grasp the width, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (paraphrasing Ephesians 3:16-19).

Simply put, we need to know we are safe to journey with Jesus. And for many of us, walking with a spiritual director put flesh to that safety, inviting us to journey with Jesus through the door of trust and love. It is a door we now hope to walk others through.

Q: What’s one meaningful story or encounter with God that came from your time in spiritual direction?

Bailey:

Shortly after becoming engaged to my husband, a long-distance friend offered to come alongside me in this way while she was finishing a spiritual direction program. She was looking for a directee, and I desired prayer in this season of transition. I’m really grateful it happened in this organic way. The two of us have only met once in person, 12 years ago at a retreat center called Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country. (A fun story for another time.) We loosely stayed in touch over social media, so the transition from wise friend to spiritual director felt natural and welcomed.

During months when God seems distant, or I wrestle with feelings of disappointment, anger, or neglect, spiritual direction is always timely and centering. It softens me again, helping me see beyond my limitations and notice the ways that Christ’s goodness and mercy are woven all throughout my life.

These conversations (and the holy silence within them) remind me that even though my emotions burn brightly, they also change quickly, and no matter how I feel on a given day, God never abandons me. I’m grateful for the ways my friend carries hope for me on days when I cannot find it myself. The consistency of our monthly sessions also gives me something to look forward to and a reason to become more attentive to the Holy Spirit’s movement in my life.

Lahni:

When I first began my journey of spiritual direction three years ago, my spiritual director spoke about “The God Who Is” and “The God Who Is Not”, two phrases that would begin to companion me in beautiful and challenging ways.

One carries the truth that there is The God Who Is, the One who is perfect and righteous, abiding in steadfast love and compassion, altogether removed from everything that seeks to distort His image in our lives. But the other carries with it the idea that there is The God Who Is Not, the one we’ve created in our image and shoved into our preferential boxes. Our perception of him is created not by the reality of The God Who Is but by the distortions of our deepest woundings and experiences.

When I began spiritual direction, I had already crossed a threshold of fear into a vast unknown. But walking with someone provided the scaffolding I needed to begin encountering The God Who Is, learning to name the spiritual ruptures that had distorted my image of Love and begin slowly leaving behind false images that had created a chasm between me and The God Who Is. In one sense, this journey has been a series of encounters and revelations, the first of which was coming to know and truly believe that The God Who Is is safe and that I am completely safe with Him, held in the boundless storehouse of His love and protection. In another sense, it has been an ongoing encounter and unfolding, an arc of discovery and wonder that continues to shelter me.

Q: How much does spiritual direction cost?

Bailey:

Some feel called to offer this ministry for free, and others have a set fee or a sliding scale similar to what you’d find in a counseling clinic. Anywhere from $65-150, typically. Some may even integrate this kind of soul care into another therapeutic practice. For a brief time, I saw a therapist in Nashville who was also a trained spiritual director, and I have a few friends with an interest and/or background in both since these fields complement each other nicely.

Q: How do you prepare for a session?

Lahni:

Preparing is as simple as creating space in your life and heart to show up honestly and practice vulnerability with your spiritual director. Spiritual direction is a non-performative space, and while it can be helpful to reflect on current themes in your life (restlessness, fear, etc.), choosing one or two to unravel with your spiritual director, there is never pressure to come up with something to discuss. Simply come as you are, where you are, with whatever your heart is carrying. Allow the Holy Spirit, who is the ultimate director, to guide and lead your time.

Q: What happens after a session / how do you reflect?

Lahni:

The monthly practice of spiritual direction is a tender journey that comes with moments of deep clarity and inner transformation. As we return to our busy lives, it can be easy to forget the details of these moments (a prayer image received, a word spoken, a question asked, and the invitations the Spirit extended). I have found on my own journey with my spiritual director over the past few years that it’s a helpful practice to jot down the details of these moments on my phone or notepad when I get in my car to leave. When I go back to journal through these moments (something I highly encourage!) and further unravel them with the Lord, I am able to remember those precious details and explore them freely without trying to remember what they were.

A spiritual direction session is just the beginning of what the Lord will unravel in your heart and life as you learn to journey closely in friendship with him.

—> Thank you so much for reading! Are you interested in this type of spiritual companionship? And if you already meet with a spiritual director, do you have a meaningful story to share?

Further Resources

Directory of Spiritual Directors - Leadership Transformations

Directory of Spiritual Directors - Sustainable Faith

Anam Cara Ministries

Kardia Community, founded by Dr. (a spiritual director and previous podcast guest of mine!)

Miranda Benson - a long time friend from the faith/arts world who recently received a certificate in spiritual direction. Miranda has offered to meet with Listen to Your Life readers over the phone for an initial call if you’d like to explore the possibility of spiritual direction! You can email her at mebryant2019@gmail.com.

Susan Cosio - an ordained pastor and spiritual director local to Sacramento who partners with different retreat centers and orgs

The Next Right Thing Podcast: Episode 167 - “Spiritual Direction for Beginners”, hosted by Emily P. Freeman

Iona House - an example of a retreat center that offers spiritual direction as a form of ministry (no cost)

What Is a Soul Friend? - Bailey Gillespie

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“Art is first a seeing and then a revealing.” —Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

The mark of a good book, I think, isn’t how quickly you bluster through it, but how often you find yourself mulling it over or talking about it throughout the day. Would you agree? I’m a notoriously slow reader, but the books I choose to stay with are the ones that stay with me.

I want to sink deep into a book. When you read slowly, you start to notice connections between the themes on the page and also in other parts of your life. I guess this could be what some people call the ‘frequency illusion’ (I learned this phrase from my librarian friend, Andrew Tweet), or it could also be the Holy Spirit. :-)

Here are four books I’m loving and continue to think about long after turning the page or closing the book cover.

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#1. In the Low: Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons by Justin McRoberts & Scott Erickson

Book link

This is the latest collab between two authors who discovered a quirky and beautiful way to pair their poetry, prose, and illustrations. As the subtitle says, In the Low is a collection of prayers for people in low places. Justin McRoberts’ poem-prayers are no nonsense, but they’re deceivingly profound. Scott Erickson’s art is a type of contemplative visual prayer known as visio divina (or “divine seeing” in Latin), and I love how his art engages our imaginations. And as a girl who loves the color blue, and who often feels the blues, I love the pop of blue woven throughout each image.

Overall, this book is just… chef’s kiss.

At the 2026 Festival of Faith & Writing, there was a gallery exhibit for Scott’s artwork. If you ever had a chance to visit the Van Gogh Exhibition: The Immersive Experience, it reminded me of that. Quiet, meditative, sensory, joyful. Makes you cry in all the right places. It was a rare thing to walk through a book concept in this experiential way (with the author there to talk with you, no less!), and I’ll absolutely never forget it. Thank you Justin, Scott, and Calvin College for crafting something so masterful.

#2. How to Hear God: A Simple Guide for Normal People by Pete Greig

Book link

Sometimes, as Christians, we realize that we talk more about Jesus than with Jesus, or we might talk more about prayer than actually pray. That’s the heart of what this book gets at. As Pete Greig uses the road to Emmaus story as a lesson in observing Jesus’s behavior and communication, he also weaves in his personal faith and testimony as a young man learning to hear God’s voice to where he is now, leading an international prayer organization.

This simple guide is wise and also extremely down-to-earth. It’ll make you smile a lot too. Pete is another voice I’ve come to respect and enjoy, and this book is the recommended reading for the Lectio course he created which is how I stumbled upon it.

#3. The Emmanuel Promise: Discovering the Security of a Life Held by God by Summer Joy Gross

Book link

This book flew under the radar, but it should hold a spot on the bookshelves of anyone in the process of shedding false beliefs about God. Rev. Summer Joy Gross is an Anglican priest and spiritual director whose presence and writing style are so gentle, it’s disarming. Her story draws you in from the beginning in a very relatable memory, and you have no choice but to read closely and attentively. I found myself pausing the audiobook over and over because I needed space to take the truths into my being.

The first half explains attachment styles according to attachment theory and gives us language and insight for better understanding our own stories of attachment with our early caregivers. The second half is filled with spiritual practices to help us heal from broken stories and restore a loving, trusting attachment with Jesus. Each chapter also has a link to a lectio divina audio recording, so you can engage with Scripture individually.

(The section on “spiritual object constancy” was actually life-changing, as it paralleled what God was already showing me about trusting in a love you cannot always see.)

#4. How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key

Book link

This book is advertised as a “serious new book from the planet’s least serious writer,”1 and the claim holds up. It’s unlike any other marriage book out there, and for that I’m grateful.

Harrison Scott Key is a brilliant memoirist and humorist, and in this tale he shares the story of his wife’s affair with a family friend, followed by his journey of soul-searching and dissecting the mystery of what went wrong. Being a Savannah academic, Key’s writing accomplishes many things at once: literary prowess, cultural commentary on religion in the South, ridiculous comedy, and a tasteful voyage into the complexity of our human condition and the sacredness (and resiliency) of love.

I read this book two years ago, the summer I got married, which was maybe a little weird, but I’m still thinking about it. The story offers one of the most honest and moving portraits of grace you’ll read, but you have to be okay with a few expletives and choice jokes. And if you enjoy audiobooks, I recommend listening to this one since Key narrates it himself — along with his wife, which is even more special and surprising.

» I’d also love to hear from you! What book has stayed with you this last year and why? If you’d like, go ahead and share here in the comments.

And would you share this piece with a friend who also loves to read and might benefit from one of these books?

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I’d love to tell you a story or two and explore this idea of failing in the right direction, hoping we’ll both leave this essay a bit more honest with ourselves and more expectant of good in the world.

* * *

DRIVING TO THE CHIROPRACTOR, rain falling in that pleasant pitter-patter rhythm, I listened to an episode of Jennie Allen’s podcast called The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe. I had never listened to or read Jennie’s work before, but the episode popped up in my feed after discovering it through Dr. Curt Thompson. The podcast still had a few minutes left when I pulled in, so I put the car in park and finished off the last of my favorite baked good from Pushkin’s Bakery: the Mudpie cookie, which tastes like a chewy, smoky burnt marshmallow in the best sort of way.

And so unexpectedly, it was one of those moments when the words you most need to hear meet you so gently where you are:

“What do you believe about yourself?” Jennie asks.

“When did you start believing this? Who told this to you? Out loud… or was it the way they treated you? What moment marked you and made you really think that this lie was true? Don’t rush past this because naming the lie is the first step to breaking its power. You’ve probably believed lies for so long, they don’t even feel like lies anymore. They feel like the truest thing about you… These aren’t just insecurities. They’re strongholds.”

Naming the lie holding me back was exactly the practice I needed that morning. Even though this impeccable cookie and the spinal adjustment to follow would remake me, this was the hidden weight tugging at my soul: I had believed a lie for so long now, it seemed like the truest thing about me.

This chapter, read tenderly like a letter, was especially meaningful after returning from a week in Grand Rapids, Michigan feeling deflated from the same insecurities, fears, and frustrations I’ve carried around for years. I was at Calvin College with my friend for the Festival of Faith & Writing, hoping for deep refreshment and plenty of book talk.

There were absolutely many bright moments at the festival, like staying in the cutest farmhouse-style Airbnb, roasting sweet potatoes with honey and rosemary, reconnecting with familiar faces, listening to Jess Ray play through her Matin albums (quiet songs filmed at sunrise), exploring a new coffee shop with Carmon, and meeting my literary agent Bridgette Kam for the first time.

But I was so sick. This event fell on the 5-8 days after my period ends when I get a cascade of symptoms, including nausea and an elevated heart rate that made walking the large campus impossible by Day 3. I stayed at the Airbnb instead and spent the whole day resting in the quiet.

But back to the podcast…

In her book, Jennie shares the three core lies we tend to believe that most other lies and identity struggles stem from:

- I am helpless

- I am unloveable

- I am worthless

Which one of them stands out to you?

Whether it’s related to career, health, or finances, I realized that the lie I’m most susceptible to is “I am helpless.”

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* * *

I’m pretty sure this started after losing my first, full-time job at 27.

Ever since graduating from the English department, I had worked for the library and learning center at a private Christian university with a team who had become my family. I knew every shelf in that library. I could also tell you each of my team members’ Myers-Briggs type and their feelings about Brussels sprouts. My supervisors struggled to get the words out after inviting me into the back staff room. Layoffs. The university had hit a financial crisis, the first of many to come, forcing layoffs for 17 employees. I was told to pack my desk and leave by the end of the day.

This setback sent me spiraling. It couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time, having just signed a lease for my first apartment down the street and starting a graduate program. I would have to give it all up: the job, school, my apartment, and this beloved community of colleagues.

I was heartbroken. My first step toward adult stability and the ground was knocked out from under me.

Later, I would actually work two more roles at that school in both academic support and marketing after being hired back, which for a time promised me the security of a paycheck, good health insurance, and an identity again. (I mean, I had a fancy name badge after all!) But after leaving the university, the layoff did a number on my self esteem and followed me like a shadow into other jobs and creative ideas. When you’re hurt early on, any future negative experiences can fortify these lies if you let them. And, sadly, I let them.

Over time, insecurity and a sense of helplessness and worthlessness became a silent stronghold in my life.

* * *

I’m so glad that I’m aware of this lie because now I can start to gently challenge it and live differently.

There will always be setbacks. But right when all doors seem closed, hope has a way of bursting through even if it’s subtle like a Facebook message exchange, lines of poetry, a rightly-aligned spine, or a day when you just wake up and decide enough is enough. I’m going to live differently, you say. Life is too beautiful and too short to let these lies and insecurities hold me back any longer.

Maybe this is what failing in the right direction means? (See, I did come back around to it, haha.)

One of the dreams I don’t talk about much is the dream of working for myself. I’d love to run a small business—and although I’ve made steps toward it over the years, I haven’t stuck with it long enough to cultivate something I’m truly proud of. Instead, I’ve done a lot of cool things once but am craving long-term sustainability and really deepening my creative work. I do believe this kind of entrepreneurial work is most fulfilling for me and also the best fit for my health + lifestyle needs.

After some conversations that are helping me reframe my life and re-train my brain to notice what is good and possible, I hope I’m slowly learning how to live differently and—subsequently—bring a different kind of energy and confidence to the room. Instead of bailing after one idea because of financial challenges or my coach suddenly going MIA, I want to faithfully hold my ground. Just like women who cycle-sync their workouts with their fluctuating energy, I’m hopeful that now I can find the grace to pause and adapt… but to keep going.

It’s easier for our brains to interpret a string of setbacks as failure. But as a practice in listening to our lives—which is to say, listening to those deep knowings and whisperings from the Holy Spirit—what if these setbacks are really an invitation to boldly pursue what we’ve been dreaming about? What if the “failures” point to a different path that is more life-giving and sustainable for the life we’ve been given? Maybe we need more flexibility and autonomy than most corporate jobs allow, and discovering this truth is actually a kindness.

Kindness… not failure.

Sure, I got 10 rejections for my book manuscript last fall. But I also made a new friend in Bridgette, and getting to know her while lunching in between festival sessions was my favorite part of the Michigan trip.

All this makes me think of a question asked by the spiritual formation team at Leadership Transformations yesterday in their weekly newsletter:

How might God invite you to dwell upon honorable, beautiful and true things today?

If I think about my life from this framework, considering the path that I’m on with Jesus by my side, the story I’m telling might sound more like this:

Yes, I’ve had a pattern of set-backs in my early life. This is not because I’m a failure or the world’s out to get me (or that God is neglecting me). One day when Jesus makes his home among us, all will be made right. Not only are setbacks not the truest thing about me… but they don’t get to determine what happens next. God has created me for growth, play, creativity, freedom, and restoration in all things.

Today, I want us to have an imagination for all that is still possible.

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Why are you so afraid to fail
What are you so afraid to lose
If all of the love you’ve ever dreamed of
Already belongs to you

The door you’re knocking on is open
And you have been welcomed in
The gate, the way is standing wide
Never to be closed again

What if everything is better than you thought it’d be?
What if you have all you need baby?

There’s a place here at the table
Nobody’s gonna take your seat
So, you can come and go as much as you need
Be yourself and be at peace

What if the side of you you’re hiding
Is what the world really needs
And this puzzle finds a missing piece
When you are who you were made to be

What if everything is better than you thought it’d be?
What if you have all you need baby?
I’m sure it’ll take some time, and I know I can’t change your mind
But darling we are all behind you
Darling, we are all behind you

—Jess Ray, “What If” (MATIN: Rest)

Listen to Your Life offers essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either one would mean the world to me!

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We passed ducklings in the creek, patches of vetch and lupine, the earliest spottings of California Poppies, and wispy fronds of wild fennel from this one bush I love trailing my fingers through. (It smells just like black licorice!)

When Bethany and I arrived back at my doorstep 8,000 steps later—our sleeves drenched with rain, but both feeling a bit more alive—we each gave a brief update on our writings and how we’re learning to rest in God even when our lives may look a bit stagnant to those watching from the outside.

After that conversation, a situation came up later that unearthed some fresh disappointment in my heart. And I found myself reduced to tears in a manner of seconds, like all the things we had just talked about weren’t actually true—or maybe it was just my body remembering the way disappointment feels and wanting to be anywhere but here again.

And then Noah and I ordered Mod Pizza. Chicken and bacon… artichoke hearts… basil, arugula, garlic, and an olive oil drizzle. It’s my favorite go-to dinner when we’re too tired to make dinner. We made the 4-minute drive to church for our first couples counseling session since getting married (wonderful, by the way), and somehow when we left the building and I felt the cold rain-washed air on my cheeks, suddenly the disappointment stung a little less.

I had him, and we had each other.

This kind of love is still new to me.

Even two years in, there are days when I still identify as a single 30-something because that was my story for so long. This sounds terrible, but I almost forget I’m married some days. Not really, but you know what I mean. My name hasn’t changed. My lifestyle hasn’t really changed. I still spend time with friends in this stage of life but don’t always know how to relate now because, although I’m not there anymore, I was there very recently and walked that road for a very long time. It’s like standing on a bridge, looking back on what you still remember vividly while walking slowly toward a future you haven’t quite built but are hopeful for.

Tonight, I’m reminding myself that even if another good thing doesn’t happen in this life, I’ve already experienced more goodness and grace than I deserve, and marrying Noah is my best dream come true. I am still waking up to this. I’m not sure that it’s fully “hit” yet. Every day, his giggle and silly dancing and loyal companionship heals another hidden layer of me even when I’m not fully aware it’s happening, and I truly love him with my whole heart.

And—tomorrow is our orange tabby’s second birthday… this silly stupid cat that brings us so much happiness. This emotional support creature I didn’t know I needed when Noah foolishly surprised me with him (in photo form) at our wedding. All our neighbors know him by name, and even the burly maintenance guy who replaced our air filter said, with joy, “His tail is so floofy!”

So, happy birthday, Chef. We sure do love you.

Originally, I had a different post intended for today, but I just wanted to be real and in-the-moment with you this time. <3

I also want to share about a fun project!

Emily Grabatin is a book/author coach who hosts a podcast called Welcoming Slow Growth, and she recently invited me on as a guest to share about a guiding word or phrase that has been meaningful. Of course, I had to choose ‘listen to your life,’ and so we talked about what it means to listen to your life and practice discernment as a creative person. We also chatted about drafting books by hand, restorative practices (like picnicking while you write), and why becoming a healthy and whole person matters more than producing great work.

I hope you enjoy it!

(And if you don’t have time to listen now, totally fine. You can always add it to a “Future Podcasts” playlist - I created one of these on Spotify as a way to save episodes I plan to enjoy later.)

I hope your weekend is full of rest and adventure and wonder, or at least a good meal shared with someone you love.

With you,

Bailey

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Emily’s Substack:

The Heart's Calling

10 Listen to Your Life: Finding Your Writer's Voice

I’m Emily Grabatin, and this Welcoming Slow Growth Podcast is a space for God led writers, entrepreneurs, and creatives called to bring hope and healing through your work. This season, we’re exploring stories of like-hearted people who chose one word to guide who they’re becoming…and what happened in the process…

Listen now

2 months ago

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Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either one would mean the world to me!

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

Hello friends,

Holy Week is upon us, and I find myself feeling a bit disconnected from the familiar rhythms of life within the Church this year.

My husband works weekends, and I work Sunday nights online. (And this year, we happen to have a wedding to attend out of town the night before Easter.) The last two years have been survival for us, and I’m so grateful for the work we have now—but it does limit what we can join and host. It limits how well we can integrate into our new(er) church community for this season.

At first, this really saddened me, realizing how meaningful the liturgical rhythms of Holy Week have become for me since college.

I feel like I’m missing out as I see the festivities in my newsfeed or emails from local retreat centers like Iona House. Maybe there’s still time to experience a few tastes of the practices I have grown to appreciate over the last decade — like walking to the Eucharist table, spending Holy Saturday in quiet reflection, reading psalms of lament at Tenebrae services (Latin for “shadows” or “darkness”), feasting in observation of the Lord’s Supper, and flowering the cross in joyful celebration on Resurrection Sunday.

There might be loss as we reflect on what we aren’t participating in this year. But the Holy Spirit is showing me that even though these Christian rhythms are beautiful and sacred, they are not necessary to draw near to his heart. The Greatest Story is still true, whether we find ourselves in our preferred church community (or season) or not. When the “aesthetic” of Easter becomes more precious to us than Christ himself, then we have lost everything.

* * *

Like you, I imagine, I’ve experienced some beautiful Holy Weeks over the years:

• Performing in an outdoor passion play

• Participating in liturgy through music and poetry

• Attending Easter morning service at Notre Dame with my graduating English class

• Finding belonging at Andrew Peterson’s home for his family’s annual Easter picnic (I’ll never forget standing in a circle while Douglas McKelvey—author of Every Moment Holy—led us in a call and response of “A Liturgy for Feasting with Friends”)

• Walking Church of the Redeemer Nashville’s stations of the cross while Fr. Thomas Makenzie was still with us

• Camping in Yosemite Valley for a dear friend’s surprise engagement

• Hosting my parents for a quiet Mediterranean lunch

This year may look different, but I’m beginning to experience a sense of God’s closeness and affection again. I have a growing desire to stay close to Jesus again, and I’m learning to practice the presence of God in delightful stolen moments throughout the week—at the park, in my car, at work—and to trust his love more. This means everything.

Right now, I’m listening to this really beautiful book called The Emmanuel Promise: Discovering the Security of a Life Held by God by Summer Joy Gross who is an Anglican Priest, mama, spiritual director, and host of The Presence Project. It’s healing something deep within me, and I think you would love it, too. The book is all about understanding spiritual formation through the lens of attachment theory and how we can awaken to God’s loving presence all throughout our days. I think we need this hopeful message now more than ever.

Friends, I hope you’re able to stay close to Jesus in the midst of love, loss, gratitude, or wherever else you find yourselves this year. I pray you have a beautiful Holy Week and that you’re reminded of what Brother Lawrence once wrote in his famous work, The Practice of the Presence of God:

With you,

Bailey

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P. S. If you’re a music lover like me, you might also enjoy listening to this Spotify playlist called THE EASTER NARRATIVE. It follows the story of Christ from the season of Lent through Resurrection Sunday, and I’ve been curating it for years now. Five of my favorite tracks (if you’re short on time) are these:

• God Rested by Andrew Peterson

• Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted by Fernando Ortega

• Christ is Risen by Matt Maher + Mia Fieldes

• Easter Song (Cover) by Jess Ray

• Death in His Grave by John Mark McMillan

Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either one would mean the world to me!

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

Once upon a time, I sat next to the illustrator John Hendrix during an arts conference. He scribbled away, wildly transforming lecture notes into a masterpiece of words and images. Not one inch of white space remained. It looked like chaos—but, like an English flower garden, “beautifully ordered chaos.” I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about the lecture, but I’ll never forget watching John work while I snooped over his shoulder.

Here’s a sketchbook image from his portfolio called “How to Survive the Arc of Every Long Project.”

I love everything about this illustration. It’s a great comfort, despite the skull and crossbones. Patience. Perseverance. Trust your process.1 It reminds me that life is aggravatingly nonlinear at times and that I’m not alone. There are lots of people wrestling with their own persnickety projects, and it’s okay if the creative process sometimes feels more like scaling Mount Doom. Especially if the work is deeply personal (and, really, when is it not?).

For a time, I pinned this illustration above my writing desk as an icon to remind me that perseverance pays off. At least, I hoped it did. That was five years ago. I still haven’t published the book I was working on at the time. But I did write it, and that’s something.

* * *

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what the book of 2 Thessalonians calls patient endurance. Like most virtues, it’s not very sexy and hard to quantify, isn’t it? It’s pretty boring to watch, too.

But the act of remaining steady on a course, despite obstacles, is a transformative way of living and prepares you to become the kind of person who wakes up ready for goodness every single day.

When we normalize struggle, maybe we can even learn to open our hands to what it teaches and forms in us.

In the pursuit of any goal, patient endurance matters. Because endurance is intrinsically linked to becoming.

Justin McRoberts shared something equally compelling during a different art talk, which I wrote down immediately: “It’s not about your work, and it’s not about you making great work,” he said. “It’s about you becoming the kind of person who makes great work.”

Sadly, I don’t remember this talk either (sorry, Justin!), but these words still haunt me in the best way. Not only do I want to publish, but I want to be the kind of person who commits to—and completes—a substantial writing project. I want to be someone who is driven by personal mission, despite weariness, illness, marketplace trends, or any other obstacle that comes.

As the hymn goes, there will be times when we’ll be tempted to despair, yet the human spirit is remarkably resilient. It wants to hope. It wants to heal, and it wants to dream. But it’s so damn hard to endure patiently when there’s such little evidence of positive change sometimes—especially when our time, money, and energy run low. In my own struggles, I’m still very much in “the middle,” but I’m grateful for the fruit that persistence has brought so far.

If you find yourself somewhere between where you’ve been and where you want to be, take heart. You’re still here, so it’s not the end of the story.

* * *

In a guest post called Refusing to Let God Off the Hook, Eugene Peterson once wrote this:

If you’re patiently enduring something, you have so much to offer us. Wisdom, inspiration. Your hope is hard-won. What can make all the difference is not just finding the breakthrough we long for, but when another person actually sees us in our struggle and is kind enough to tell us that our life is marked by beauty or points them to God. I want to be this kind of person.

God’s presence and blessings are not just reserved for some future golden hour when we’re rid of everything that plagues us most—no, he is our home, our very breath, sustaining us right now even as we long for wholeness.

May you find all that you need today to keep going.

With you,

Bailey

Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

* * *

When I sit here and quietly reflect on my life, I notice two kinds of stories unfolding side by side:

One is a story of sadness and struggle. It’s very heavy and hard to look at.

The other is a story of joy, threaded through my days like a gold filament.

Like you, maybe, I struggle to reconcile these two stories. I don’t always know how to live in a world—or a body—with this kind of tension, where both are true at once.

One hour, I have my feet grounded in the story of joy. And then all it takes is a look, a word, a particular absence, or a shift in hormones for the story of sadness and struggle to come tumbling in, spilling black ink over everything. It stains my hands, and I can hardly think or breathe.

Then, another day, I sit waist-deep in the thick gooey burden of my story of sadness when, all at once and wholly unexpectedly, joy pierces through—like the first light of morning. My eyes are still wet, blurry, and bloodshot. But there’s birdsong now. I can hear it all around, echoing from the Redwood trees outside my kitchen window. How could I ever have believed it was lost? There’s also music. The faint thrumming bow of a cello and piano below the deep. And there’s a softening inside me. A softening into the delicate space of joy. It sustains me long enough to keep living another day, even if I am stained once again by nightfall when the birds go to sleep and my demons return.

* * *

I can’t help but wonder a persnickety question: Which of these stories is the most true? Joy… or sadness and struggle? And could either one actually exist without the other?

Lots of authors much smarter than I am have written on these concepts before: about the nature of joy, longing, suffering, desolation, and consolation. But no matter how eloquently we put it, we all have to wrestle with the ways these realities touch our everyday lives.

Most days, I do believe joy is the truest story. A story that’s swiftly moving towards restoration. But I don’t say that lightly or like it’s obvious. This belief is hard-won through years of struggling with the cognitive distortions of my mental illness while continuing to turn my face toward the light—again, and again, and again.

Mental illness is the black hole that threatens to swallow me in a cycle of pain and chaos.

But it’s only one story.

Much of the time, joy doesn’t seem truer, which is honestly part of why I’m convinced now that it is. After all, the loudest and most confident voice in the room isn’t always right (or wise), is it? It can actually be kind of annoying. Truth is a quiet inner voice sometimes, and you have to lean in and listen.

I’ve had to put this into practice a lot as I reflect on past events where sadness/struggle seemed to control the story. But when I’ve sat down, pen and paper in hand, and actually traced the beautiful and the catastrophic, I’ve been able to see two contrasting stories emerge right alongside each other. And it ALWAYS surprises me! God’s goodness ripples all throughout our lives in ways that are easy to miss when we’re only listening to the loudest voice in the room.

“But wait,” whispers Joy, soft and tenderly. “What about all this??”

* * *

As I re-draft this book of mine by hand (which is making my handwriting improve - yay!), I’m fascinated by the question of what spiritual formation looks like when our inner worlds are sometimes unreliable and when we face cyclical patterns of despair that come from a place entirely outside of ourselves yet are also deeply personal.

• What does it mean to abide in Jesus, alongside a condition that makes my hope collapse every 28 days?

• Are we morally responsible for the thoughts we have and the things we say when our brain and body get hijacked due to genetics, biochemistry, and/or early life distress?

• What role or responsibility do we have in accessing this story of joy? And what part of it is given to us through none of our own effort, or even desire, by a loving God, in the way a gorgeous blue sky breaks through the bleakness of winter?

Theologically, I’ve come to believe there’s a wideness in God’s mercy that holds and protects us when we are so far gone we can’t even recognize ourselves. This doesn’t mean we won’t need to repair and apologize for things said and done when the darkness grips us. But there’s such a deep comfort in knowing the Holy Spirit understands the complexity of our story and every fiber of our makeup, actually interceding for us in our fragility. That’s wild.

Scripture says the Holy Spirit “helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.”1

The mercy Christ extends is ever-flowing from the Father who knows all hearts. God knows that, even though we want to believe joy is the truest story, sometimes it’s almost impossible to perceive.

It’s why I adore this scene from The Return of the King:

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

With this momentary pulling back of the curtain, Tolkien reminds us that sometimes the shadow is too strong. The night can eclipse the stars, but then we’re given the gift of clarity, and hope returns. We can count on it. It’s the rhythm built into the fabric of this earth, which our faith hinges on.

Readers, keep reaching for hope.

Keep opening yourselves to the possibility of joy.

Keep turning your face toward the light — again, and again, and again. I’m right there in it with you.

With love,

Bailey

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Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

Thanks for being here!

Since I’ve had the joy of connecting with nearly 1,000 of you (!), I thought it was a good time to offer a fresh welcome today, along with a glimpse at the common topics you’ll find me writing about here.

The name of this publication comes from a quote by the writer and minister, Frederick Buechner:

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

I first discovered the writings of Buechner through Andrew Peterson, and they lit me up inside. “Listen to your life” is a phrase I’ve thought a lot about, and it feels like the best way to describe the Holy Spirit’s movement over the years and the ways God impresses those “deep knowings” (discernment) on our hearts.

I believe a regular practice of reflection is important for all of us. And this always begins with listening.

When we look for the clues1 and listen for God’s voice — through themes, patterns, circumstances + conversations, our own deepest longings, the beauty that calls out to us in Creation, and through Scripture itself — we can live with more intention, alignment, and obedience as we seek to follow Jesus.

In this Substack, I mostly write about:

• Faith and formation, exploring the more tender parts of life with God. These may be sensitive topics at times, or at least things usually thought or felt but not always said out loud. I try and do this with gentleness. Even though I can get just as riled up as the next person, I think self-control is important. Thankfully, writing is a process of refinement that my heart and half-baked thoughts usually need.

• I also write about women’s wellness — specifically my experience living with the mood disorder PMDD. Since physical pain and long-term illness are the most intimate places where God’s mercy meets me daily, I feel a calling to share openly about this so that others feel less alone.

• Lastly, I’m a bookish girl at heart, so my essays will definitely have references to good literature and quotes from favorite books. And I LOVE hearing about what you’re reading and loving as well!

So, what drew you here — and what are you interested in?

Many readers arrive through my essay The Millennial Dream Dash, published through Inkwell, or My Life List of Books on Spiritual Formation—a collection of books that have shaped my faith. That list reflects a deep conviction of mine: that faith is formed slowly, through relationship, hidden prayers, consistent practice, and honest wrestling with God.

From there, you may notice a series of essays exploring what I call a deepening faith. These reflections aren’t about deconstructing and rebuilding beliefs so much as allowing faith to expand, mature, and deepen with time. They’re rooted in my lived experience—through chronic illness, seasons of doubt and healing, romance, and staying close to God even when he feels far.

If you’re drawn to spiritual formation, you might start with:

If all this sounds like something you’re into, then yay! :-) I’m excited to connect more and practice listening to our lives together. I hope you stay a while and find something here that’s helpful, or beautiful, or hopefully both.

I would also be honored to pray for you, if you’d ever like to email me at hello@baileygillespie.com.

Now a question for you! —> What is something in your life you’ve paid attention to (a pattern, a conversation, an image, a desire) that’s led you to a good place?

With love,

Bailey

Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either one would mean the world to me!

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

In January, Grace shared a caption on Instagram that I fell in love with immediately (no pun intended) and wanted to share with my community. It is a deep wonderful gift when your life has room and spaciousness in it to savor all the joys God has provided for us. I admire Grace’s thirst for life and am so happy she agreed to share her piece with us!

(Also if you’re not following her on Insta, you’re missing out on weekly hot takes about everything from AI to Sabbath to bok choy.)

Did you fall in love this last year? Tell us about it in the comments — we’re here for all the good stories.

—Bailey <3

Last year, I didn’t fall in love.

Or the year before that.

Or the year before that.

They’re always saying that singleness is a gift and I laugh and ask, “Well then where’s the gift receipt? Can I make a return? An exchange? Wrap it up for next year’s Secret Santa so someone else can take it home and store it on their shelf until next December—unwanted, unsought, undusted?”

A gift?

Maybe not.

Perhaps somewhere, someone might exist who will come along and become my somebody who everybody tells me I’ll meet someday. But not now—not yet.

Maybe one day? Maybe. Maybe not.

Last year, I didn’t fall in love. Again. But as I look back through my photos, read through my journal entries, traverse the memories of my mind, I wonder if maybe I did.

***

I fell in love with the sound of waves softly hitting the rocks at low tide, the soundtrack of seagulls calling to each other in the marsh beyond the beach path.

I fell in love with the warmth of a mug of mint tea cradled around my hands as I sat around a table, talking about everything and nothing at all with strangers who became friends and whom I’ll remember when I’m old and sitting alone at a table, cradling a mug of warm mint tea in my wrinkled hands.

I fell in love with the way that poems put words to longings I didn’t think I could find language for.

I fell in love with the feeling of the wind whipping through my bike helmet and tangling my hair as I rode down a long hill, not even tapping the breaks because it felt like freedom and it felt like joy.

I fell in love with silent morning runs and hill sprints to a soundtrack of the worst, best pop songs I listened to in high school and the euphoric pain of a race well run.

I fell in love with the way you have to catch your breath when deep laughter fills your lungs and makes your eyes well up and over.

I fell in love with watching my friend become a mother and the way she cried when she watched me holding her son.

I fell in love with handwritten letters and the way you can tell the truth a bit easier when the slow stroke of the pen compels you to say what you want to say because no man became poor by being too generous with his words.

I fell in love with adventure, with the thrill of trying something new, of taking a risk and having stories to tell.

I fell in love with the beauty of my home of almost eight years, of my ordinary life, of a quiet existence and the same walk around the same block.

***

“Will she ever fall in love?” They wonder. I wonder, too. Maybe? Maybe this will be the year, but maybe it won’t. But this much I know: I will keep falling in love with this life I have been given—falling in love with the gift and the grace of being here.

Maybe I’m beginning to believe the truth that He has made everything beautiful in its time. I feel it in my body, in my bones, in my breath. I see it with my eyes, taste it on my tongue, hear it with my ears.

Maybe I’m starting to believe that the table set before me is actually a feast. I am eating and drinking, harvesting the fruits of my labor. This is the gift of God: to not see scarcity in absence of unanswered prayers, but to have your imagination seized by bounty, by beauty, by blessing.

***

Fall in Love
— Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907–1991)

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Grace Leuenberger proudly resides in Northeast Ohio, where she works as a visual designer and spends the rest of her time running, cooking and baking, and trying to convince her friends and family that Ohio actually is a nice state. She writes a Substack called Thirty-Something, which explores ideas around faith, formation, and fun.

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Listen to Your Life offers weekly essays on the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. It would mean the world to me.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

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Welcome! Last week, I shared Part 1 in a three-part series called Dynamics of a Deepening Faith, exploring ways to talk about our faith life when you don’t resonate with deconstruction language. I’d love for you to start there.

On my journey with God, I’ve come to believe that a healthy and vibrant faith isn’t one that never changes. But not everything has to go to shambles in order to be refined and real.

Lots of midlife Christians have needed to walk this path of deconstruction because their spiritual heritage was narrow and unreliable.

But for my younger friends, what might a faith life look like, earlier on, before a complete crisis? I wonder if there are clues along the way. Opportunities to honor our family and friends while still being persistent in asking the hard questions, reading widely, and looking for broader expressions of what it looks like to follow Jesus. This doesn’t mean God isn’t working for good in our prodigal years or time in the wilderness. But how might our experience of God and the Church change steadily over time in healthy ways?

I believe God’s homecoming (as N. T. Wright likes to say) to the restored heavens and earth will be beautifully diverse. But oftentimes, the friend group or spiritual community we grew up in wasn’t. We gravitate toward people who are just like us when it comes to upbringing, personality type, and theological perspective (or at least our parents may). But it’s worth asking whether we’re close with anyone who worships differently than us.

When was the last time we visited a different kind of church with a friend — if ever? Where did we find God at work there?

For a long time, I didn’t. And I think it was only when I branched off from attending church with my family in my early 20s, and started befriending (aka: being thrust into rooms with) different sorts of people, that my relationship with God really began to deepen.

I realized I was someone who loved and needed newness, whether that was a fresh scene (moving to a new city), stimulating intellectual conversation with classmates who held very different perspectives, or some other change. New experiences breathe life into my soul. It makes me think of the verse: “His mercies are new every morning.”1

This hope of newness is what sustains us.

It keeps our faith alive.

The closest I came to faith deconstruction was in college.

I think this is a super normal and healthy time to wrestle with your beliefs and for them to be challenged and to grow. In this sense, the process feels less of a faith-specific thing and more about a becoming an independent thinker as an adult.

Being homeschooled, but resisting trad wife culture with everything in me, I sort of straddled the two worlds of fundamentalism and everything outside it.

One reason I love education is that it teaches you how to think critically and loosen your biases. It puts you in rooms with different kinds of people and teaches you how to examine ideas, critique and synthesize them, and create something new and original. The study of literary criticism allows you to enter into the stories of people who may not be anything like you, yet there’s an invitation to grow in empathy, either way.

This doesn’t have to be a threat. You can read the story of someone making bad choices and not make those same choices yourself.

Sadly, college did feel more like a threat for me the first year or two because of some of the fear-based theology I was untangling myself from that saw “different” as threatening.

In college, I studied English (creative writing)… with a required minor in biblical theology.

Back then, I wouldn’t say I owned my faith down to the bones. It was more of an inherited worldview I was taught to defend (hello, Truth Project!) than an intimate relationship with Jesus. I’m so grateful that I grew up with a mom who prayed faithfully and read Scripture with us every morning. But there were also certain narrow understandings of life I carried into the classroom that needed reorientation so I could live from a place of peace and confidence, not fear.

I still remember the day when I stopped having anxiety about writing my testimony. (It seems like, in Christian spaces, you’re always being asked to do this. And at 21, I didn’t have much to say yet.)

Once I discovered the language of “story,” it changed everything about how I related to my faith and God’s work in my life. Story was so much more attractive to me than testimony. I didn’t have to prove this transformative moment of metanoia2 (“I was a drug addict, and now I’m not…”) And so once I started writing the story of God’s presence in my life in the midst of hardship (heartbreak, physical pain, etc.), it became much more authentic and easy to talk about. It became my story. Down to the bones.

For whatever reason, in college, the key people God placed in my path happened to be some of the most controversial:

My creative writing professor, Alice; a philosophy professor who later became my pastor, and a highly liberal theology + English double-major whom I later dated. Much of our student population saw these folks as heretics or at least highly suspect. And I agreed—so I kept coming back. I wanted to know them better, even though they felt threatening at first. I wanted to know why they believed what they believed.

Each conversation I had during this season of life was filtered through and challenged by people whose spiritual backgrounds and worldviews were different than mine — yet also similar.

Having a personality that presses into challenge, though still hates conflict, helped refine my faith in some really healthy ways. I was bound by a lot of fear and severe social anxiety as a young adult. And though I still struggle with some of that now, what broke the pattern was forcing myself to open up and talk with people. Face to face.

I wanted to be seen and known more than I wanted to hide.

None of this was my own effort, of course. I see the love and guidance of the Holy Spirit all throughout my time in college and beyond. It turns out some of my gut intuition about certain people was true — some of them felt threatening to my nervous system for a reason. But God knew my shy little self needed some broadening. And he wired me with a thirst for learning and challenge, bringing people into my life with specific lessons to teach that were way beyond the scope of English and theology.

Our creative writing workshops were more like group therapy. I imagine it’s similar to how AA feels. Surprisingly, I found I thrived in this environment after the initial discomfort. It forced me to push through my social anxiety and share vulnerably from the quiet hidden places of my actual life for the first time in a way that was healing and needed.

My first free verse poem was called Catharsis. It was my metaphoric attempt to put language to the painful experience with a youth pastor that broke my heart and parts of my family two years before. They say that having an empathetic witness is what changes an experience from trauma to something you can heal and recover from. Well, I had 12 empathetic witnesses.

As we sat in a circle, our professor Alice at the helm, my 12 classmates listened and then offered feedback on my words, my meter, my poetic language, and ultimately my pain.

It was deeply healing.

I didn’t know how much was bottled inside until then. But it was finding my voice in college that began changing my faith from something that was inherited and ‘defendable’ to something real and sturdy and even precious to me. I stopped caring so much about what people thought and become less and less controlled by fear as the blood slowly drained from my cheeks each time I got over what my body considered the worst part of class: talking out loud.

Instead of the word deconstruct, I love the word deepen.

Last year, I read an essay by Sarah Clarkson called The Ripening of Faith, she echoed much of what I wrestled with in my 20s:

“My faith, after a diagnosis of mental illness in my teens, was something I’d fought hard to keep. The story of my belief was one of fierce and hard-won exultation, of beauty triumphing over depression and deep fear.”

There were so many times while reading Sarah’s piece when I quietly yelled, ‘Yes, yes!!’ I love it when another writer puts language to the parts of our hearts and minds that haven’t fully gathered into cohesive thought yet.

We all enter the world with different types of spiritual heritages and foundations. Some of those foundations are shakier than others. I relate to this from a health standpoint. My homozygous genetic variant (MTHFR) means that from birth, my body is objectively at a disadvantage because it can’t naturally detoxify or process common nutrients like folate. The effects are huge, impacting everything from food allergies to digestive pain to mental illness.

Knowing the fabric of our foundation is really important for moving toward wholeness.

Most days, this genetic stuff feels really stupid and unfair. But I don’t want to live from a place of victimhood. This comes all too easy for me. Instead, I want to acknowledge where I’ve come from (what I’ve inherited) and what I’m going to do with the information now.

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Thank you for reading! I would love to hear about your own experience journeying with God if you’d like to share. Which words to describe your faith do you resonate with most: deconstruct, evolve, deepen, untangle, wrestle, or maybe something else?

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I’ve been walking with Jesus since I was a little girl.

In these 30 years, my beliefs about God and the Church have changed and expanded just as my understanding of the world has. Little by little, moment by moment. I’m learning that this is the way of spiritual formation, which is just a fancy term for becoming more like Jesus. One thing that’s stayed the same in my faith life, though, is a pattern of wrestling with God consistently, as Jacob did, from a young age. I’ve felt every human emotion, from anger and betrayal to unexplainable peace — the kind that feels like sunlight warming your face.

Sometimes, my relationship with God and my relationship with God’s people, the Church, have felt like two very different things. In years when I’ve felt close to God, I haven’t always felt close to Christian community. And in years when I’ve struggled to perceive God, I’ve been carried by the faith of others.

This is one of the great mysteries, I think.

Throughout my life, I’ve participated in a wide variety of churches and faith traditions: Anglican, nondenominational, Black/gospel, charismatic, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox. I’ve sat in house church style gatherings in homes, pubs, and local coffee shops. I’ve had the joy of receiving Easter communion at Notre Dame in Paris and worshipped with a Mexican church in Tijuana. I’ve been prophesied over at Bethel Church in Redding, California (not far from here) and found belonging in small neighborhood churches with an appreciation for misfit artists.

But I have never quite deconstructed and rebuilt my faith.

Maybe what I mean is that I never found solace in the faith deconstruction community the way so many others have (mostly Millennials). It never quite felt like home to me. So, I had to sit and talk with God about it.

Even though I was home-educated in a fairly conservative family, I wasn’t caught in the trappings of purity culture and fundamentalism as much as those whose stories I’ve read. I’m grateful for this. My parents had a more hands-off, “use critical thinking to form your own views” approach.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts or wounds. I do, and I’ve fought other battles. But there’s a certain sort of open-handedness that’s accompanied my faith journey.

Honestly, I’ve stayed mostly silent about the topic of faith deconstruction, but it’s close to my heart. I’ve had years of conversations offline with friends and family, and I really do believe these are best face-to-face. By staying quiet, I’ve been listening and letting my thoughts steep.

Long before my Old Testament professor, Cynthia, assured us that doubt and questions are not the evidence of a lost or dying faith (a common belief/fear in some circles) but actually thresholds into a real living faith, I was asking God age-old questions, like: “How can you allow this terribly painful thing to happen to someone who loves you?”

Instead of one big moment or decision when everything unraveled, which is usually not a single moment at all but years in the making, I’ve faced challenges that brought with them an invitation:

• Go deeper or stay where I’m at

• Think critically or stay biased

• Sit in the tension and discomfort or walk away.

And, for better or worse, all I can picture right now is a corkboard in my teenage bedroom pinned with magazine clippings and polaroid photos as well as this quote: “Don’t do what is easy, do what is right.” I have no idea where I first heard it, or why it stuck, but from that moment on I went out of my way to avoid the path of least resistance. Probably to a fault.

This series is meant to offer some alternative language for those of you who don’t resonate with faith deconstruction.

Personally, I prefer words like “deepen” or “expand” since they feel truer to my faith journey. I wonder if they feel truer for you, too?

Often, I’ve found myself using the phrase “wrestling with God.” I like this (the phrase, not the experience!). This is the image I see when I picture nights spent in tears, praying on my bedroom floor or pouring out my heart in writing or song. Like when Jacob demanded his blessing in exchange for a hip wound, I’m asking God for what I feel I need. “Why can’t I find my way into the good life?” is another common question. But we’ll explore that more in essays to come.

The point I think I’m making is that wrestling is still showing up, even when you’re upset. This is still faith. And what I like about the phrase “wrestling with God” is that it’s relationship language, not structural or self-work language.

There’s always a point when we come to the end of what we know, then receive an invitation to go deeper.

And it’s never a one-time thing.

In my own life, this process happens in repeating rhythms because God is vast and I’m pretty limited. I am going to keep wrestling, evolving, and going deeper as God continues to surprise me with new layers of the prism.

I love Skye Peterson’s song More & More Beautiful where she sings of a life that grows richer and deeper with time. She confesses that the older you get, the less you really know.

This, friends, is our life with God.

Click here to read Part 2.

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Last summer, I listened to a wonderful series called Rupture & Repair on the Being Known Podcast with Dr. Curt Thompson and Co.

It changed the way I thought about relationships and really impacted some of the conversations I had in the closing months of 2025.

I plan to write more about this year of rupture and repair, but until then here’s the short version: EVERY healthy relationship, including our relationship with God, will experience small or large ruptures; but if both parties are willing to seek repair, this can strengthen and deepen the relationship rather than cause lasting damage or the silence that leads to resentment. This isn’t easy… but it’s healing. 💛

Lately, I’ve taken it a step further (in counseling and my prayer life), considering my current and past friendships, hoping to grow more of what Celtic Christian spirituality calls “soul friends” from the Latin phrase anam cara.

These are the folks you can count on.

My counselor shared how your inner most circle should embody these traits:

- Honesty
- Trust
- Commitment
- Vulnerability
- Aligned ethics or core values

But sometimes we get excited and think we’ve found emotional intimacy with people who don’t invest in the same measure.

Vulnerability needs to be matched so there aren’t weird power dynamics. Commitment needs to be mutual so they don’t just ghost you. Friendship is a two-way street, right? This doesn’t mean we don’t love everyone God puts in our path. But it does mean we use discernment on who we allow into the deepest places and who gets to speak into our lives.

I’m realizing that my circle is smaller than it once was. At first, this made me sad. But it’s rare to find our anam cara. And friendships change and shift depending on the season and what each of us is able to carry. Still, we need at least one of two deep soul friendships to thrive and grow.

I’m grateful for the ones I have and hopeful for the ones to come.

—> What about you? What has your experience been with cultivating friendships that embody honesty, trust, commitment, vulnerability, and shared ethics?

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Today, I have a special piece for you written by my new friend Madison Aichele. Three months ago, Madison released her debut book on a theme that’s near and dear to my heart: knowing you matter and why, even when—especially when—your dreams come to an end. Even reading that line makes me emotional.

Madison is also a tender and thoughtful writer. So, I invited her to share a glimpse of her story and wisdom with us.

I hope you enjoy.

—Bailey <3

I can see Mary Oliver, knees in the grass. She’s observing a grasshopper who doesn’t know she’s there yet.

The wind sweeps over her, and the grass begins to sway. It’s then that the grasshopper spreads its wings and takes flight. Mary Oliver turns to me, still bent over in the emerald sea, eyes twinkling in the sunlight, and asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

On the wind, I hear a gentle voice say, “Write.”

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. If it wasn’t the teachers telling me I should be a writer, it was my own soul. When I held books, I knew I wanted to make them, too. I wanted to join the ranks of authors who sparked my dream, but childhood hopes didn’t translate as seamlessly into adulthood.

When I finally took my calling as a writer seriously, I discovered a world with gatekeepers. I discovered a world that often screamed no. I discovered a world where our most beautiful visions don’t always come to fruition. I discovered a world that can crush our dreams if we’re not careful.

The greatest challenge I faced wasn’t necessarily in hearing no or waiting for someone to be as excited about my ideas as I was, though those moments were hard to face. The challenge was remaining hopeful.

How do you not let disappointment after disappointment—failure after failure—shrink your soul until you give up trying? How do you not let outcomes dictate the value of a calling? Truthfully, I have wanted to give up. There have been seasons where my hope ran dry.

That’s when I think Mary Oliver, in her field with the grasshoppers, can help. On the surface, the poet’s question isn’t a simple one. It’s one I’ve asked myself many times, in different words—during late nights weeping, wondering if my calling mattered, and in the hard work of dreaming and not seeing any fruit. Yet, in context, the question isn’t an invitation to grandeur or success. Mary wrote this about strolling through fields, staring at grasshoppers, and choosing idleness. She wrote about paying attention and attentiveness as prayer.

Wise attention is one of the ways we can prayerfully remain in hope, even as we wait for our dreams to come true.

We fix our eyes on the right things. We don’t stare at the doors, waiting for them to open. We don’t replay the “no” we heard yesterday. We pay attention to what helps us hear God’s quiet, gentle voice saying, “It matters that you’re doing this.”

Mary Oliver’s poem is a gentle nudge to direct our eyes and hearts toward what matters. That is the secret to remaining hopeful when you face uncertainty, empty rooms, rejection, and slow progress.

Of course, dreams can and do come true. Waiting with hope means remaining open to the possibility that the best can happen because it does. My first book came out with Calla Press Publishing late last year. I hear people talk about only needing one yes. One person. You will find the one who sees what you’ve known all along. I know because it happened to me in God’s perfect timing.

But while you wait and the no’s start to stack one on top of the other, while you write to what feels like an empty room, hold on. Pay attention to what helps you hear God’s voice say, “This is what you’re supposed to do with your one wild and precious life. Keep going.”

Madison is an author and community leader with a heart for dreamers. After serving as Executive Director and Publisher at Calla Press Publishing for two years, she now leads Co-Creatives Collective, an online community for writers, artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries faithfully stewarding their God-given callings. The message of her debut book, True Things Last, encourages dreamers that their creative dreams matter even if they don’t come true. You can find her living in Nashville, TN, along with her musician husband and calico cat.

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QUICK NOTE: You’re invited to a special wellness workshop exploring how to embrace winter and savor the season you’re in! Click here to fill out an interest form for a fun virtual event my friend and I are hosting.

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I’m not a winter girl.

Which is funny because I am a January baby. But being born and raised in California, I am a heat and sun-lover through and through. I feel like my healthiest and truest self while being nurtured by the warmth of sunlight. Heat also soothes my chronic pain, allowing the muscles to relax. Give me an afternoon sprawled out on river rock in the brightness of summer, soaking up rays like a napping lizard, and I am perfectly happy.

Winter feels like the antithesis of this.

In California, I live near the Sierra Nevada foothills which still get very cold, wet, misty, and sometimes snowy. It’s nothing like the Midwest or New England, but as you can imagine, we Californians have less tolerance for the cold and thus throw a fit when five days go by without sunlight.

Over the years, I have tried making peace with winter.

We’ve had some fun together, and most of these memories revolve around my birthday (1/28) or Christmas:

• ice skating

• four-wheeling in the snowy moonlight

• literature-themed tea parties

And let us not forget the Great Snowman Demolition Day of 2002 when my dad, brother, and I built a colony of snowman in our front yard, then proceeded to destroy them in as many creative ways possible. (As our family slogan once went: “That’s what country people do.”) We smashed, chopped, blow torched, and used our ATV to bulldoze straight through these poor snowpeople. We also caught it on video camera. I have no idea what inspired this idea, but it was iconic and really cathartic.

I want to appreciate winter, though. Deep down in my bones, I know it is needed. I believe God crafted all four seasons for the wellbeing of our souls and for this good earth, so in the spirit of listening to your life, I have to ask myself these questions:

• What lesson or invitation does God have for us in winter that’s unique to this season?

• Even if there’s no snow on the ground, what interior winter am I facing that God longs to reach with his love and light?

After the brutal heat we’ve endured in the Sacramento Valley the last two years, I’m opening my heart toward the cold a bit more. I think the movie Frozen, of all things, was one of the first pieces of art that truly romanticized winter for me. I loved the wintry soundtrack and its Nordic influences. I also loved the joy it inspired during a time that usually left me hollow from seasonal depression.

I want to enter winter’s mystique and learn to appreciate its quiet beauty. I’m hoping the slowness of its rhythms will help calm my hyperactive mind, which so easily mistakes rest for boredom. And we need both, don’t we?

I also want to discover the fun and wonder hidden inside the coldest and darkest months of the year. So, I’m slowly learning to make peace with winter.

I have my friend Taylor Parra to blame thank for this. Last February, I invited her onto my podcast — LISTEN TO YOUR LIFE1 — where she was very sneaky and made a case for winter without my consent. Taylor is a cool and absolutely hilarious beekeeper, mom, writer, and much more who’s passionate about living faithfully within the seasons in which we find ourselves. She also has a daughter named Winter. I was astonished to learn this.

Who actually loves wintertime enough to name a child after it?

It turns out Taylor does.

However, she lives on a homestead in Pennsylvania where the days are colder and darker during winter with dusky moonlit fields surrounding her home. And I live in Big Suburbia (stealing that phraseology from ) surrounded by Dunkin Donuts and what we lovingly call “the sad Savemart.” Our winters are not so very different from our falls and springs, except for a distinct lack of wildflowers.

This year, I’m making peace with winter by not resisting the cold and by nourishing myself in slower, intentional ways.

I’m starting each morning with homemade bone broth. This has evolved into a full broth fast for the month of January, which looks like starting and ending the day with a mug of broth and having one light meal in between.

I’m not working. Our local college is on winter break for three weeks, so I’m trying to use the time wisely for rest.

I’m enjoying red light therapy, strength classes, and infrared saunas.

I’m reading books (novels!) for enjoyment again, not just for growth or self-improvement: The Mythmakers by John Hendrix, Mary Oliver poetry, the Brambly Hedge children’s books, Marmee (a Little Women retelling) by Sarah Miller, and The Eights by Joanna Miller.

I even bought myself a pretty new journal and ballpoint pen to capture favorite quotes from the books I read this year. I’ve not done this before and look forward to finding quotes more easily.

I’m getting acupuncture treatments for my digestion.

I’m using sun-catchers to cast light from the windows. As of now, I only have one disco ball, but I’m hoping to get one of these glass lovelies next.

I’m using the Calm app for sleep hygiene, including their new EMDR bilateral stimulation audio. Just the other night, I listened to a sleep story, The Capital of Christmas, about the delight of strolling through holiday markets in Strasbourg, France. I slept like a baby and was pleased to see an excellent sleep score on my Garmin watch the next morning. I’m a believer!

I’m investing in local, in-person community again. In December, my new friend Julie and I hosted our first Inkwell Local gathering at her home, and I’m so looking forward to having a monthly meet-up with fellow creatives.

I’m making birthday plans. I only have a couple years left in my thirties (absolutely shocking), so I want to savor all the remaining joys and lessons this wonderful decade has to offer.

Lastly, I’m also collaborating with my friend Taylor of The Local Wild. We’re co-authoring two pieces here on Substack later in January and then hosting a virtual wellness workshop called THE HEART OF WINTER, exploring how to savor the season you’re in. This gathering is for anyone longing for rejuvenation, deeper heart connection, and gentler practical ways of making peace with the winters of our lives. <3 Please come! We're going to have a lot of fun.

I hope you’re having a peaceful start to the New Year, friends. I’m really looking forward to sharing new stories and writing on some topics that are near and dear to my heart very soon, and I hope you’ll stay with me.

Here are two reflection questions for the road (and I’d love to hear your real answer in the comments):

• What do you love most about the season of winter?

• What do you find hardest about living well during wintertime?

May God’s peace be with you — today, and always.

With love,

Bailey

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Dear friends,

It is the Tuesday before Christmas, and here we are. How are you?

I don’t know about you, but it’s the point in the year when I become a bit of a Scrooge, my threshold really low for tolerating social outings, sugar, traffic jams on Highway 65, choruses of weird sexy Santa songs, or less than six hours of sleep. Can you relate? When my body hits the point of exhaustion, I just break down and collapse into a puddle of tears.

The college campus where I work is closed for winter break, which means three weeks of this strange liminal space where time stretches out and I long for life to resume its normal routines and rhythms. Don’t get me wrong… I’m happy for the break. But you can also have too much of a good thing.

I am my best, most rested and healthy self with these rhythms in place. Routines serve as guardrails. They are the “breath marks” to use a musical term. They’re the page breaks between one moment and the next, where there’s margin to reset and collect your thoughts before moving onto the next plot beat. (And maybe these plot beats are part of the routine itself.) John O’Donohue writes about dwelling inside “slow time.” But slow time without guardrails is terrifying to me. It feels aimless, like No Man’s Land. And I’m well-acquainted with this No Man’s Land in seasons of unemployment.

I love hard work, and I love working out. I also deeply value rest, which is why using the recovery room at my gym is a favorite part of the day. In it, I enter a quieting calm again and regulate in the silence, whether I’m using the hydro massage chair or sweating toxins in the infrared sauna (something that’s really important for my detox pathway issues). This recovery time, whatever it looks like, is a satisfying rhythm that centers my emotions and purges the day from its stressors. And, of course, it doesn’t have to be expensive. Routines like exercise, healthy meal prep, nature walks with a birding app, or just laying on the floor in silence are markers pointing me toward the good life — toward peace and embodied connection, not only with my Maker but with my own heart and inner life where God meets me intimately.

But in No Man’s Land, I’ve known it to be a depleting sort of rest rather than one that fills and restores. In the midst of Christmastime, it’s the opposite: lots of activity.

Coming off the heels of a very full week, brimming with hard conversations and lots of driving, I was plumb worn out when I collapsed into bed Saturday night.

And then we slept four hours. I woke from a nightmare 20 minutes before church started, feeling angry at myself and the world. It’s like I was trying to grab hold of time and stop it from pummeling me forward, only to watch it slip through my fingers. Advent seemed to be slipping through my fingers, and it’s my very favorite time in the Church calendar! We had already missed one or two candle lightings, and I needed this rhythm to remember the holiness of Christmas.

As my husband said with a laugh, “Welcome to Christmas — when we spend time with everyone but Jesus.”

Our worship leaders played an acoustic set on piano and guitar, and I cried through most of it, partly from the beauty and mostly from exhaustion. Sadly, I also left some space in the row between me and my husband because… well, Scrooge mode. I didn’t want anyone near me or touching me. My wick was already smoking and I desperately needed something to fill and replenish my soul.

This worship service was the first drop.

Part of why I was mad at church is because that evening was an event I was truly looking forward to, and now I feared I was too tired to be good company.

Funny enough, I forgot that it was also the Winter Solstice. The shortest day and longest night of the year.

Each Advent since I can remember, I’ve felt an ache. When I was single (from age 0-34), the ache was from loneliness. This would all be so much more special with a companion, I thought. Or at least a Christmas kiss.

Now I have the guy — but I’ve exchanged my sacred solitude for other things. I miss girlfriend time with friends who feel like sisters. I miss making up for a lack of romance with fun day trips and baking soirées, re-runs of The Holiday and music rehearsals. Music was also a huge part of life growing up, and this time of year was full of choir practices, concerts, caroling at convalescent homes, and contributing music to the Christmas Eve liturgy at church. Not to mention playing for the pure joy of it in my living room.

I miss it a lot. And I was telling Noah yesterday that I think the reason why the Advent season has felt longer and richer in the past is because of the three-month build up that’s required for music performances. You start in September, just as the leaves turn. There’s way more time to savor and enjoy. It’s the “slow time” O’Donohue was talking about. I miss that. But music isn’t a part of my life right now, and I don’t have access to a piano.

I’ve found myself secretly wishing for one of those lonely days when my greatest responsibility was deciding whether to take a long walk or a long bath. (Don’t tempt me with the past!) I’ve wished I could disappear into a snowy Airbnb for a week.

Of course, most of this has nothing to do with getting married. I’m so grateful for the companionship. It’s everything else in my life that has changed too since then.

For me, the ache of Christmas touches many things, but I sense it most in the need for silence and solitude. Unlike most extroverts I’ve met, solitude fuels and fills me. Time on my own is not a punishment — it’s a delight that I crave. Just like the act of writing feels like coming home to myself, so does the quiet of solitude. It’s centering in the best way and actually opens up this whole other spaciousness to reflect, feel, and spend with Jesus. You can’t hear from God when your calendar’s bursting 24/7 or you’re spending all your time talking. Even I need this reminder daily. I am guilty of crowding out the still small voice with hours of audiobooks and Spotify jams.

And so four of us gathered Sunday night on the Winter Solstice…

It was our first Inkwell Local arts gathering. A Christmas feast. The Inkwell team gave us wonderful materials for hosting, including conversation cards, poetry, a thoughtful piece on a theology of creativity, cute holiday place cards, and even a recipe for Chesterton-inspired punch (which we chose to replace with easy packets of cider).

As much as December has depleted my energy, those four hours in a new friend’s living room supercharged me, like a thermostat rising with warmth. It was everything my weary introvert soul needed: beauty, breathing room, books, twinkle lights, tender and intentional conversation with people who want to remember the Lord’s faithfulness together.

I can’t tell you how much I needed that hot cider served in floral tea cups, popcorn, roasted chicken wings, and sweet potatoes stuffed with chickpeas and spinach. These slower reflective rhythms just make me more whole. That… and quiet moments to connect over a shared desire for physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

“Come, let us return to the Lord.

For He has torn us, but He will heal us;

He has wounded us,

but He will bandage us.”

—Hosea 6:1, The Message

Within the season of Advent, this ache finds a home. What a blessed comfort! It’s a slice of the Church calendar where our feelings of longing, fatigue, and the frustration and unknown of waiting are channeled into worship through rituals as simple as the lighting of a candle.

This, my friends, is the power of a good routine.

If you’re also feelin’ the ache of Christmas right about now, may I suggest a gentle remedy or two?

• 🕯️ First, pour your heart out to God. Write it out, sing it out, yell it out, dance it out. He is honored to listen.

• 🕯️ Clear your calendar, if you can, for at least a whole hour or two. Spend it basking in the stillness, as quiet unfolds herself to you.

• 🕯️Listen to this gorgeous cover of Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus by Future of Forestry. The ache and joy are there.

Whatever headspace you’re in, here’s a short and earnest prayer for you:

Dear Lord—thank you for everything Advent represents. Help us to slow down long enough to remember it. May the gift of your Son fill and replenish us in all the ways we need most right now. Amen.

Blessings on your Christmas week, friends!

With love,

Bailey

You might also enjoy My Life List of Books on Spiritual Formation, which gathers many of the voices that have shaped my faith. Thanks for reading and reflecting with me — I hope you’ll stay a while. <3

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Dear friends,

Last year, shared an exercise in his post Looking Back on 2024. I loved the questions he chose to help readers reflect on the past year, so I decided to do the same. (You can find that post here.) It reminded me of the Ignatian spiritual practice of the Daily Examen, a prayer to reflect back on the day’s events and notice where God was present. Well, I guess this is a yearly tradition now because here I am journaling my way through it again.

At the end of this post, I’ve included the list of questions in case you’re inspired to copy and paste them in your own piece!

May I also nudge you to listen to Tanner’s episode on my podcast, Listen to Your Life, from last Advent? He reads two beautiful pieces of original poetry that pair well with this season of waiting and longing.

Some questions to reflect on as the year closes:

What did you learn in 2025?

I learned that consistency is the secret ingredient in everything worth doing for the long haul. I also learned a handful of new words while using Duolingo to refresh my high school Latin skills. I can now say, “The teacher makes cookies.” Clearly, I’m ready to visit Rome.

What prayers were answered this past year?

So many prayers were answered. Both my husband Noah and I found jobs after praying for nearly a year. I made new local friends through the Inkwell arts community and signed with a literary agent. Noah was accepted into one seminary program so far and preliminarily approved for a veterans program to cover his grad school tuition. I recovered from iron deficiency this summer and regained strength. And we have a healthy new nephew, Henry.

What brought you joy?

Homemade hot cocoa. Being able to eat eggs again. Listening to audiobooks on my commute to work. These Bearpaw socks and heating pads in bed. Infrared saunas. Watching the TV show, The Middle. Tony’s Chocolonely bars — namely, the dark chocolate sea salt flavor. This candle warming lamp. Reading before bed. Swing dancing. Watching Little Women with my husband for the first time.

*I realize that most of these are fall/winter focused. But the ocean also brought me joy!! This summer, we had a chance to spend quality time in La Jolla, Monterey, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, and the beach is forever my happy place!

What is a memory from this past year you’ll be holding onto forever?

Balancing on a dining room chair under a tree, trying to rescue my cat. He was hyperventilating and so was I. Eventually, I just leaped up, swung from a branch with one arm like a gorilla, and grabbed him.

Who do you need to thank for helping you make it through this year?

My chiropractor and massage therapist. So many kind readers and fellow writers. Dan from Covered California (a legit angel). Our orange tabby, Chef. My spiritual director and therapist. My loving husband. The Throssel and Levin families for welcoming me into their clan. Our “newish married” community group at church. The Lectio 365 app and its nightly prayers.

Where did you see the faithfulness of God in your life?

In simple, everyday moments.

I heard this quote somewhere recently: “When you’ve been in survival mode for a long time, peace can mistakenly feel like boredom.”

That really struck me as true. I’ve found myself struggling with restlessness and boredom this fall and winter, but I think what my body is experiencing is actually a fresh kind of peace and stability. This is a very good thing. I want to settle in and savor the rhythms of my life right now even when the days are predictable. We’re building a future, and I see God’s faithfulness in every daily habit, every prayer, every meal, every workout, grocery run, and email.

What did you learn about yourself this year?

I learned that I can trust my own voice and judgment more than I’ve given myself credit for. God gives us a spirit of discernment1, but I have often allowed other people’s voices to have more influence and power over me than they should, making up for my own insecurity. As always, I am learning that faithfulness and obedience to Jesus are the goal, not acceptance by others.

What are you leaving behind in 2025?

Medi-Cal… thank the sweet Lord.

Last year, I shared how I’d also like to leave behind the habit of letting vegetables go to waste in the produce bin. I’m happy to say I’ve gotten better about this. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the bananas on the kitchen counter.

What are you taking with you into 2025?

A plane ticket to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

My words for this year were “consistency” and “softness,” and I plan to take them with me into the new year. I think we can all agree a year just isn’t enough to learn certain lessons or embrace certain words, is it??

Now, it’s your turn!

As you reflect on these questions, how would you answer them?

• What did you learn in 2025?

• What prayers were answered this past year?

• What brought you joy?

• What is a memory from this past year you’ll be holding onto forever?

• Who do you need to thank for helping you make it through this year?

• Where did you see the faithfulness of God in your life?

• What did you learn about yourself this year?

• What are you leaving behind in 2025?

• What are you taking with you into 2026?

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Thank you for being here, friends. I look forward to connecting more in the days to come!

With love,

Bailey

Listen to Your Life offers weekly essays on the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. It would mean the world to me!

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ON CHRISTMAS EVE 2013, I grabbed a stack of philosophy finals from my car and walked through the doors of an unfamiliar church. The sidewalks were wet and lined with paper luminaries. I settled into a pew against the back wall of the sanctuary and held the essays close to my chest.

“Hey, kid!” said a familiar voice. “We saved you a seat.”

It was the pastor, who was also a faculty at the university where I had graduated from earlier that year. He’d asked if I wanted to earn an extra $50 grading finals (basically an underground TA), and since I was only working at the university part-time, I said yes. The truth was I didn’t love his class when I took it, but we later bonded over a shared love for Frederick Buechner.

Tonight, he wore a sweater vest and slacks—the most dressed up I’d ever seen him. He led me to the front row where his wife was sitting, and she leaned over to put her arm around me.

“Sit here,” she said in a light Dutch accent. “He told me to look out for one of his past students.”

A woman in her 60s sat in a rocking chair near the Christmas tree, reading a storybook to the kids. The scene was warm and cozy. Compared to the mega church where I’d sat week after week in a darkened auditorium—anonymous—there was no hiding here. You had to know people up close. The children shifted back and forth, pulling their holiday suspenders up over their heads, and I smiled.

When the service ended, I handed over the finals and followed the pastor’s family to the parking lot.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “You know you’re welcome here any time.”

This church became my spiritual home for the next 10 years. It was the first place where I dared to believe I might truly belong.

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THE FOLLOWING SEMESTER, I got hired full-time at the university. I was so grateful. During some heavy years in my 20s when I began taking antidepressants for the first time, this had become a safe place to land.

I grew up in this academic family, overcoming fears and early career fumbles. It was a theologically diverse space that welcomed our questions, allowing faith to grow and ripen. Our faculty were everything from ordained female Presbyterians and archeologists to Greek Orthodox priests. (Then there was the time I took a selfie with N. T. Wright—but that’s a story for another day!)

I know now that academics will always be home for me. I feel most like myself surrounded by books and ideas. I loved working in a theological library, helping students with essays and planning our annual Christmas Story Time. Most of all, I loved working in a close-knit community. It was fulfilling to play a small part in a larger organization and gave me a meaningful place to fit. A defined role. To someone who has always struggled to feel like I belong, this was huge.

I experienced the love, acceptance, and belonging meant to exist in God’s family. Which is why it was such a blow when I got laid off the next year.

The school had hit a financial crisis, which was a repeating pattern in the years to come, so I knew it wasn’t personal. But the day my supervisor broke the news, and I received an automated email from HR asking me to collect my things and leave campus, the message was clear:

You don’t belong here anymore.

It’s a message I’ve had to fight against believing ever since.

I’ve often wondered why losing this first job cut so deep. I think it’s because we were more like a family. There were so many wise people across campus to talk to about faith, careers, mental health, the Church, etc. It was such a privilege. I know that having some of your closest friends and mentors also be colleagues who are industry leaders isn’t typical. That’s why it was special.

And when I lost my job, my friend Portia invited me to live with her. She was Chair of our English department, and I had already attended Christmas parties at her home, so I knew how fabulous her floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were (straight outta Beauty and the Beast). As a divorced woman in her 50s, Portia lived alone in a cozy two-story home, and her hospitality was unmatched. She opened her doors to me and many others in need.

ADVENT IS THE SEASON I FEEL MOST AT HOME IN. The longing it holds is a familiar space. I feel drawn to its mystery and the reach for hope and wonder. I wonder if it’s the same for you?

I love the tapered candles, the music, the holy anticipation and collective joy, the memory of peeling open tiny cardboard windows on our family calendar. I love how listening to the Piano Guys’ cover of O Come, O Come Emmanuel is still the most worshipful experience. This season in the Church calendar calls us to remember the arrival of the Christ child, whom the Jewish people believed was coming to save them. And he was — just not in the ways they thought.

Advent reminds me that I also need saving. I’ve been talking about this a lot with my therapist, but from a slightly different angle. What I’ve learned is that the little Bailey inside of me, who was completely overwhelmed for a very long time, still wants to be rescued. And even though I’m an adult now who is resilient enough to “handle” it, there are days when the weight still crushes. I ache for someone bigger and wiser than I am to step in and make it stop.

So, I’m learning how to do two things:

• Rewire my nervous system so that my body understands I am no longer that little girl and am more capable and safe than I think;

• Remember I am still in need of a Savior.

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“NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU…”

Have you heard this phrase? Someone in our small group quoted it the other week, and I’ve been thinking about it. It’s the first line of a pretty downer quote from Nathaniel Branden’s book, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem:

“No one is coming to save you; no one is coming to make life right for you; no one is coming to solve your problems. If you don’t do something, nothing is going to get better. The dream of a rescuer who will deliver us may offer a kind of comfort, but it leaves us passive and powerless. We may feel if only I suffer long enough, if only I yearn desperately enough, somehow a miracle will happen, but this is the kind of self-deception one pays for with one’s life.”

This feels very anti-Advent. It echoes my greatest fear: that I am all alone in this world, and it’s up to me to take care of myself.

There’s a seed of truth in it, of course. It’s what makes it tempting to believe so that we don’t have to be vulnerable and admit our needs. Cynicism is always easier than hope, I think. As adults, we may be responsible for a lot… but we’ve never been responsible for saving ourselves. We need friendships and family (biological and chosen) to share the load (just think of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life), and we need Christ’s mercy to provide for us what we can’t provide for ourselves.

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In his writings, J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word eucatastrophe. It means a good catastrophe. Andrew Peterson calls it a sudden, joyous turn of events.

Last week, I had this experience firsthand.

I scheduled a cervical MRI to rule out new disc issues and find the source of my shoulder and neck pain. You see, the most beautiful thing had just happened the day before. A reader (whom I’ve never met!) sent me a generous gift on Venmo so I could pay cash for this MRI and my first couple of PT sessions. He said the Holy Spirit had put this on his heart after seeing my prayer request online. I couldn’t believe it.

Before I left the clinic on Wednesday, the front desk clerk handed me a single red rose tied with ribbon.

“Just a thank you for coming,” she said.

I almost cried. After years of medical disappointments, this was such a powerful kindness. I felt God say to me: “You are seen, and I am taking care of you. I’m doing for you what you cannot do for yourself.”

Eucatastrophe. Two sudden, joyous turns —  all in one week!

When I trace God’s hand in my life, I can see the saving everywhere. Through therapy and time with God, I am learning that I no longer need to live as that little girl desperate to be rescued. Our daily well-being doesn’t depend on others. But, as people of faith, we have always been a people in need of divine salvation.

And this, Charlie Brown, is what Advent is all about.

Both the gift from a stranger and the rose remind me that when we have people in our lives who love us up close and are attuned, it changes the way we carry things. Our burdens don’t feel quite so heavy because we’re no longer carrying them alone. These miracles are what water our faith, carrying us through on the slow, repetitive days. They’re born from the place where all the beauty came from1 and all the longing points to.

Last year, we left the church I’d grown to love.

It was just after our wedding, and it broke my heart. But at the same time, I was ready to leave. Actually, I’d left three years before when I moved to Nashville, but I’d made my way back. It never felt like home again, though. Not that it should have. But change always surprises us, I think.

The community had changed since the pandemic, and I had too. Dating and getting married in a small church when people know you best as a “single” was uncomfortable at times. Nobody seemed particularly interested in getting to know us together or inviting us over for dinner, which we longed for. (And we’ve tried to get better at being direct about this and just asking.) I no longer sensed the deep belonging I once enjoyed and struggled regularly to find a place to contribute. We also both began to have other concerns. It’s strange how a community that once felt so right can suddenly, yet gradually, feel so not-right. But I suppose this is the way with things.

Maybe I have to feel this ache again as a reminder that even the communities that feel most like home are—at their best—still only “bright shadows”2 of Jesus, as Dr. Curt Thompson puts it.

It makes an ache swell in my chest when I pass my old church building on my route home, remembering all those glad and golden hours. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

I played piano here, wrote liturgies and poetry. I met people whose faith inspired me deeply. I climbed the bell tower ladder once and learned the New Mexican tradition of lighting paper luminaries (“luminarias”) on cold winter nights. It was the church where I met the love of my life. How could it not be special?

These spaces healed parts of me. And though it’s tempting to feel like some of that healing has unraveled in the year since leaving, I have to hold onto the love. I do believe it was real. Nothing is ever lost or wasted, is it? It all counts. The ache is only a reminder that we were made for eternity, the place where all the beauty came from. The place where we will always belong.

We’re at a new church now, and I work at a different college. God is teaching me new lessons here, and I want to open my hands to every one of them.

A lot of ex-Christians, or at least ex-church-goers, write of the loneliness that comes from wandering in a spiritual wilderness. Now untethered from the spaces they once found belonging in, they grieve the loss of home. Many who are hurting are now isolated from community, which—as uncomfortable as it feels to admit—is actually the very thing that can heal us again. We know this down in our bones, I think. But when we’re hurt or angry, we don’t want to admit that part of our grief is just how much we did love and need a particular person or place.

Hardening our hearts won’t help us heal, though, I’ve found. At some point, we must soften and be brave again.

Here’s the good news: There is someone coming to save us. In fact, he already has. And every day, every hour, the saving continues.

There will be days when physical pain, health insurance scams, family fractures, or fatigue will seem to swallow us alive.

But we have this promise: Emmanuel, God with us.

One day, we will live together with Him in the place where all the beauty comes from and all the longing points to.

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Thank you for reading and being part of this community!

If this resonated, would you consider forwarding it to a friend who might need to hear they’re not alone? I’d also love to hear from you: When you trace God’s hand in your own life, what do you see? Comment below or reply to this email—I read every note.

With much love,

Bailey

Listen to Your Life offers weekly essays on the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. It would mean the world to me.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

Dear friends,

Happy Thanksgiving week!

If you’ve always wanted to create a holiday newsletter but aren’t sure where to start, then this post is for you.

Lately, I’ve had the March family on my mind. Maybe it’s because it’s autumn, and everyone knows the holidays are the best time of year to watch Little Women (the 1996 version, of course!). Maybe it’s because my husband is dreaming of attending seminary near Boston, a literary hub that’s only a stone’s throw from the original Orchard House (Louisa May Alcott’s family home).

It could also be because my very first newsletter as a teen was inspired by The Pickwick Portfolio.

If you’re not familiar, in Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, Little Women, the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — publish a family newspaper called The Pickwick Portfolio, inspired by their love of Charles Dickens.1 Through the chill of New England winters, they keep company reading excerpts aloud during top-secret Pickwick Society meetings in their family attic.

I was raised on this film (as were many of you, I imagine!), so the first family newsletter I ever created was written by hand, pasted together from pieces of parchment paper with poetry, recipes, stories, and family interviews just like the Pickwick Portfolio.

Eventually, I used Print Shop (circa 2003!) to digitize it and was tickled to have 35 paying subscribers — all family and close friends.

I have to laugh because that’s way more than I have now. Ah, well, the algorithm shows no respect for how avant-garde you are or how many times you’ve watched Little Women.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating your own Pickwick-inspired holiday newsletter:

Choose a theme

We have a family friend named Brenda who writes a remarkably long and creative family newsletter each year. She always has a theme and finds a way to weave together the random happenings of their family life into a beautiful story. I don’t claim to be as skilled at letter-writing as she is (her humor is top-notch). But I do use her tradition as inspiration.

This year, my theme is thankfulness. Since I tried to beat the Christmas rush by sending it out for Thanksgiving, I followed the theme by using fall earth tones, emphasizing gratitude, and including an autumn recipe we’ve come to love: Sausage-Stuffed Delicata Squash with Caramelized Onions and Pear.

Of course, you can also keep it simple and write a general life update. The fun part is you make the rules. :-)

Keep it Short and Sweet

If you’re a word lover like me, it’s going to be hard to keep your letter short. But your friends and family don’t need to hear every detail of your inner landscape over the past year, no matter how much they love you. Remember, if the newsletter spills over to 2-3 pages, the expense goes up. Especially if you’re printing in color or using photos and graphics.

Mine was three pages this year, 800 words. This included a page and a half of stories/updates, half a page of photos and QR codes for following our Substack writings, and a full page devoted to the recipe. Originally, I had a coloring page in there too but wanted to keep costs under $100.

Use One Fancy Flourish

Is there a fun flourish you can add to your newsletter or envelope? Since you’re already hearkening back to an older time, try going the extra mile to surprise and delight your readers with a creative flair. Here are some examples:

• Write the addresses with a quill pen and inkwell. Your hand muscles may hate you afterward (because nobody writes by hand anymore), but what’s more Victorian than a quill? Pro tip: Keep an ink blotter handy. Or your husband’s old flannel shirt from when he dressed up as Luke Danes for Halloween.

• Secure the envelope with a wax seal and crest. There are lots of fun stamps you can find everywhere from Etsy, to Michael’s, to Amazon. We used a gold wax seal for our wedding invitations last year, and it was a favorite!

• Use a monogram sticker. It took me a while to figure out how to use this device, but what a gorgeous emblem, right? My brother and sister-in-law gifted us this tool last Christmas, and it’s meant to be used for loaning books from your personal library. But I also break it out for other very special occasions. Of course, everyday stickers work just as well on the back of your envelope.

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That’s all!

I hope you make one. If you do, send me a copy!

And if you need a soundtrack while crafting your beautiful newsletter, check out this clip of me playing a favorite piano track from Little Women. You can also stream the playlist below.

With love,

Bailey

Listen to Your Life offers biweekly, soulful essays that explore the more tender parts of life. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. It would mean the world to me.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website

Chronic illness completely reorients your lifestyle. But having people in your life who truly care changes the way you carry it.

I confess that, some days, I find myself longing for love and care in ways I can’t always put my finger on. Over the years, people have asked me what they can do to help, but the truth is, I didn’t even know the answer or how to communicate my needs and desires. So, I’ve given it some thought.

I’m writing this not just for me, but on behalf of MANY other friends who are walking a similar road.

There’s a unique kind of grief that comes with managing multiple symptoms for years, with no end date in sight. It’s a quiet fight that can wear down your spirit and whittle away at your hope. But there’s also a beautiful resilience and wisdom that begins to bloom.

My hope is that this piece inspires you to honor those whose suffering often goes unseen and can easily be dismissed, diminished, and misunderstood. Contrary to popular culture, those who are disadvantaged have much to teach us about what it means to walk with Jesus.

With that said, here are some intentional ways to love and support the people in your life with long-term invisible illness.

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#1. Ask about their life story & interests.

Beyond being a very thoughtful songwriter and author, Strahan Coleman spent years of his life sick. Bedridden, he lost his ability to sing and spent a significant amount of time at a Franciscan retreat center, learning the art of what he now calls ‘beholding prayer’—praying not for a result, but to abide in Jesus. (If you read his words in a Kiwi accent, it makes it even better.)

In his book, Beholding: Deepening Our Experience in God, Strahan pulls back the curtain on what it’s like living with chronic illness. He writes openly about the tension of wanting to share this part of his story—so others feel less alone—while still wishing his friends could see beyond it.

When life is hard, we do want to be seen in our struggle. But we don’t want the seeing to stop there. Beholding another person includes the many wonderful details that make a life. Yes, I may be the girl with connective tissue pain or autoimmune flares. (Who brings 25 supplements on vacation and that one weirdly-shaped pillow.) But pain and disorder don’t have to be the leading story. There are other things that are just as true—or truer—and these are usually the parts people have to rediscover with time, especially if their illness is long-term.

Strahan didn’t want his relationships built around the broken aspects of his life. “I have a thriving inner life, a beautiful family,” he says. “I love following international politics, reading great books, and hunting down the best single-origin coffee in town.” The same way he’s learned to behold God in prayer, he longs for people to see and appreciate his own multi-layered self.

See if you can honor your friend or family member by trying to see the whole person, asking about their broader interests and life story.

#2. Don’t just pray for them, pray with them.

If someone’s on your heart, err on the side of showing up. This might look like a walk, sharing tea at their house, dropping a meal at the door (because there are no Meal Trains for lower-capacity people), or just laughing together. Illness can be lonely and isolating — and we carry guilt when we have to cancel plans last minute due to a migraine or fatigue.

The presence of loved ones means so much, and few things are as comforting as safe and nurturing touch (when appropriate). A hug just heals you in ways that a “Praying for you!” text never could. So, remember to pray for people up close, as well as from afar. Even if it’s inconvenient. (So much of life and ministry is inconvenient.)

*An example of this was this past summer when I was home sick due to what I later discovered was low iron and ferritin. My friend , a spiritual director, asked how he could care for me. I almost brushed it off with the usual, “Thanks, but I’m fine.” But I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me toward honesty. “Actually, I’d love it if you could send me a prayer via voice memo.” So he did… a real, long, and embodied prayer that meant so much to me. (Thanks, Matt!)

#3. Support their passions.

Your friend likely has an outlet where they voice their feelings and experiences. Often, people with chronic illness turn to art for creative expression: poetry, music, stories, painting, or even movement. It’s a way to reach for a greater reality beyond them or to make meaning, or beauty, from their circumstances. When you can, show them their work and their voice matters.

Maybe they had to leave a job, due to their condition. Their creative outlet may be the only way they’re bringing in money, especially if they’re not married. Subscribe to their newsletter or sign up for their Patreon. Leave a loving review for their podcast or share a social media post that resonated. If they have a “Buy me a coffee” button on their page, Venmo them a few dollars just as a gesture. These may seem like small actions, but they are huge encouragements for the person on the receiving end and take so little time.

What creators desire most is connection and resonance. And the truth is we don’t have time to engage with everyone… so find the people whose work (or soul) lights you up and support them to the moon!

#4. Show curiosity, not pity.

Eugene Peterson is one of my favorite writers in the Christian faith. His life involved deep suffering, but wow! was he also known for his compassion.

A few years back, before his passing, he wrote a beautiful guest post on the false connection between wrong-doing and suffering. I’ve returned to this quote many times over the years for comfort:

People do not suffer less when they are committed to following God. But when these people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness, in remarkable ways that could never have been anticipated before the suffering. So, instead of continuing to focus on preventing suffering—which we simply won’t be very successful at anyway—perhaps we should begin entering the suffering… entering the mystery and looking around for God. In other words, we need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and—if they will let us—join them in protest and prayer. Pity can be nearsighted and condescending; shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.

Suffering changes our theology if we let it.

It deepens our empathy and ability to truly see others and bear with them as Christ bears with us. Rather than just trying to pray away a condition or help someone fix or overcome it like an unwanted problem, we can look around for God instead and what he might be doing in our friend’s life. We can allow the discomfort of unanswered prayers (or prayers answered in ways we don’t understand) to drive us closer to Jesus.

So, I invite you to join your friend in protest and prayer.

I am so thankful for the people who have loved me well in my very long journey with illness. In seasons where I feel surrounded by the tangible love of others, it does change the way I carry this burden. And simply understanding my pain is not nearly as important to me now as it once was. Because the invitation’s the same:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

This familiar verse took on fresh life when I met my husband Noah. The name “Noah” shares the Hebrew origin of the word “rest,” and this was so beautiful to me. God did not take away my pain or sickness in the ways I had prayed for, through hot desperate tears. But he gave me himself—embodied in Noah’s loving presence. He brought me a deeper kind of rest, the kind that comes through daily shared suffering and shared joy.

Knowing that El Roi (the God who sees) still loves and knows us fully, even when others fail to embody the love we yearn for, is really what sustains us. Divine love is our birthright. And the ache that drives our hearts toward eternity is, in the end, a good ache. It’s a sacred ache that tells the truth of who we are and what we were made for:

God’s rest.

Heaven and earth, restored.

Shalom — true peace and wholeness in Christ.

“Behold,” says Jesus in the book of Revelation. “I am coming soon.”1

NOTE: I think it’s worth noting that most conditions are invisible, not just chronic illness. Whether it’s chronic pain, mental illness, autoimmune disease, cancer, or autonomic dysfunction, you can’t see these internal systems, but you can often see their effect over time: weakened muscles, thinning hair, sunken eyes, fatigue, or an absence from social activity. The body is good at giving signs, and we’re wise to pay attention to them. <3

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Listen to Your Life offers weekly essays on the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. It would mean the world to me.

Find me on Instagram | Spotify (Podcast) | My Website