Happy September, my friends! Autumn is a time when we tend to pull inward. Some readers love returning to their favorite tales, which may not actually take place in autumn but evoke some of its softer, more interior themes.

In the spirit of Listen to Your Life, where we reflect on living beautiful and meaningful lives even with unmet longings, here are some ideas to get you started as you build your autumn library and reading list. These are some of my favorite fiction and nonfiction books that capture the cozy comforts and aromas, the brilliant colors, the feeling of nostalgia—or sehnsucht, as C. S. Lewis writes about—and the tender but magical ache this season brings with it. And you’d better know there’s going to be plenty of good eating here, too!

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

The Velveteen Rabbit

‘Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”―Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

This timeless classic is one of my favorites from childhood. I remember how I felt as my mama read it aloud from a thick tome of myths and coming-of-age fairy tales while we curled up under a blanket. It was comforting and left me with a soft ache that I didn’t understand as a seven-year-old. The illustrations of a tattered, love-worn stuffed rabbit stayed with me, and I finally bought a crisp new edition several years ago to add to my barrister bookcase.

Brambly Hedge - Autumn Story

“It was a fine Autumn. The blackberries were ripe, and the nuts were ready, and the mice of Brambly Hedge were very busy.” —Jill Barklem, Autumn Story

Brambly Hedge is home to a colony of ordinary but very well-dressed mice. These books are a lovely homage to the changing seasons, but I think their charm lies in the illustrations. As a girl, I got lost in the intricate details of Jill Barklem’s nature-inspired sketches, whether it was a prickly blackberry thorn or a pink ribbon. The cross-sections of their kitchens, burrowed inside tree stumps, are a wonder. There’s also a ton of feasting: apples, dandelion salad, honey creams, elderflower wine (I don’t know exactly what a honey cream is, but I want it!).

Anne of the Island

“Harvest is ended and summer is gone,” quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in the Haunted Wood.” —L. M. Montgomery

This third book in the series picks up in late summer when Anne leaves small-town Avonlea to attend Redmond College. Her wistful musings, along with the author’s gorgeous prose, put you in the autumn mood as the college girls learn what it means to “adult” together. There’s friendship and funny banter. Golden leaves and fireside chats. Ultimately, we realize that maybe our ideals aren’t quite as romantic as the life in front of us. I swooned over this story as a girl, and you can tell by how fragile the pages of my original paperback are.

The Wingfeather Saga

“You know as well as I do that for young lads, a warning is about the same as an invitation.” —Andrew Peterson

Adventure. Peril. Lost Jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree. Andrew Peterson’s storytelling brilliance and humor really shine in this four-part fantasy series. If you happened to catch his live fireside readings during the pandemic, you got the added delight of hearing his many character accents. And be sure to pay special attention to the footnotes — they’re worth their weight in gold.

ADULT FICTION

Love & Saffron

“There is unequaled satisfaction in composing words on a blank page, sealing them in an envelope, writing an address in my own messy hand, adding a stamp, walking it to the mailbox, and raising the flag. It’s like preparing a gift, and I feel like I receive one when a letter arrives....” —Kim Fay

Love & Saffron is a cozy epistolary novel of food and friendship. What more could you want?

Becoming Mrs. Lewis

“God might not fix things for me, but he would be with me in whatever waited ahead, that was clear.” —Patti Callahan

This historical novel tells the story of the unexpected friendship and blossoming love between C. S. Lewis and writer, Joy Gresham. It does deal with some darker events, like Joy’s unraveling marriage and abuse, as well as some lesser-known undercurrents of Lewis’s backstory that leave room for the reader’s interpretation. But overall, it’s so transportive and explores all the themes so central to the reflective season of autumn. I listened to the audiobook this time last year while driving through the mountains and rainfall on my commute to work.

Persuasion

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.” —Jane Austen

This is Austen’s moodiest novel, which makes for good autumn reading. A handsome sea-faring captain returns after years in the Navy, complicating our heroine’s determination to put him out of her mind. Anne Elliot is no Lizzy Bennet, that’s for sure. But we learn to love her despite her aggravating meekness.

The Fellowship of the Ring

“That very month was September, and as fine as you could ask. A day or two later a rumour (probably started by the knowledgeable Sam) was spread about that there were going to be fireworks — fireworks, what is more, such as had not been seen in the Shire for nigh on a century.” —J. R. R. Tolkien

What’s better than hobbits, wizards, fireworks, and an adventure of the highest stakes? The first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy begins in September, celebrating the shared birthdays of Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo. How kind of Tolkien to establish Hobbit Day on the first day of autumn! This makes for a great excuse to throw a dinner party, inviting friends over for rabbit—I mean chicken—stew, roasted carrots + potatoes (which are the hobbitiest of all the vegetables), Elven lembas bread, and cider. And don’t forget your foot-stomping, soul-stirring Hobbit Day playlist.

Memoir

The Farmer’s Wife

“To me, caring for my family is, and always has been, the most important work in the world.” —Helen Rebanks

This memoir feels like Wendell Berry meets Beatrix Potter. Set in the Lake District of England, it chronicles the life and motherhood of Helen Rebanks as she runs a regenerative farm with her husband and fellow author, James Rebanks. She doesn’t varnish the struggles of their daily life. But the lessons she harvests are so needed as we face a global food and chronic illness crisis. I especially loved her reflections on femininity and the traditions inherited from the matriarchs in her family. There are also recipes like bone broth from Helen’s kitchen and ingredient lists pulled straight from her pantry.

This Beautiful Truth

“My deep belief is that beauty has a story to tell.” —Sarah Clarkson

This is a beautiful book on how God meets us in our suffering. Part memoir and part theological reflection, in it Sarah shares candidly about living with OCD and how it impacted her early life, her Christian faith and years studying at Oxford, along with her hope for finding love. Sarah’s follow-up book, Reclaiming Quiet, also has gorgeous chapters about her journey with unmet longings, including a storied trip to Concord, Massachusetts with her brother where they visited the home of Louisa May Alcott and Walden Pond.

SPIRITUAL NONFICTION

The Emmanuel Promise

“Our brains have been wired to scarcity, to absence, to loss. Sometimes our brains, through loss, have been wired to believe that we will be abandoned. Lavish love is a new landscape we need a map to find.” —Summer Joy Gross

Rev. Summer Joy Gross is an Anglican priest and spiritual director whose presence and writing style are so gentle. The first half explains attachment theory, giving us language and insight so we can better understand 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.

—> What’s in your autumn library that’s missing from this list? I’d love to know! Drop a favorite book in the comments, sharing why it’s perfect for this time of year.

Listen to Your Life

Exploring the beauty found alongside unmet longing.

By Bailey Gillespie

Thank you for reading! I’m Bailey Gillespie, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I post (mostly) monthly for readers who are learning to trust God in seasons of prolonged waiting and anticipation. Through personal essays and practical guides, I’m using this space to explore how we can stay awake to the beauty and wonder of our lives, especially when we carry unmet longings. 🤍

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides: What I’m learning, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: What Is Spiritual Direction?

For paid subscribers only:

As a paid subscriber (which I’m so grateful for!), you’ll receive the full Listen to Your Life experience — occasional private essays and The Listening List, a curated monthly list of books, resources + reflection questions, and places of beauty I’m drawing inspiration from. It’s a way to put the central ideas from my deeper work into practice as we journey with God together.

Subscribe now

In my early 20s, my greatest aspiration was to become a travel writer. I used to save old copies of Vista Magazine and Travel & Leisure, hoping for an assignment to New Zealand or the Florida Keys. Basically, I would go anywhere they would let me swim with dolphins. I studied the humor of outdoor writers like Patrick McManus and Bill Bryson, adding the Appalachian Trail to my bucket list. These authors were brilliant at writing about misadventure. Even when everything that could possibly go wrong did, they still made you laugh. I tried to apply this philosophy to my own life.

Bringing a notebook everywhere, I thought, “You can get through anything if it makes for good story material.” I still stand by this.

Growing up in rural California, I spent most of my days outdoors, foraging for beauty and wild berries. We had two silver pails and would spend hours plucking blackberries from the tangle of bushes at the edge of our property, across the street from an old horse and a herd of alpacas. The reward for our labor was slow-churned vanilla ice cream. My brother and I spent many of our childhood summers sleeping on the front deck—star-gazing and counting bats, or satellites, under the dome of a great celestial cathedral. We even made up a silly little opera one night. He’s cringing right now, I’m sure.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I remembered not everyone spent their weekends kayaking, sailing, hiking, or whitewater rafting!

My first job after high school was a seasonal retail role at Hotshot Imaging, a rafting photography shop. I spent my shifts behind a counter with a huge canvas photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife rafting the Middle Fork of the American River. My nature-loving soul adored everything about this job: the reggae music, the “Wall of Shame,” the bakery across the street, and the daily half-mile hike (often in 100°F) each shift to pick up flash cards from photographers. Yes—flash cards. This was 2006, after all. Those of us in the shop got to sit with these photographers perched on their rocky overlooks, logging boats on a clipboard. You wouldn’t believe some of the things people float down the river on: inner tubes, air mattresses, etc. I once saw the whitewater devour a whole inflatable giraffe.

The river’s power can be dangerous, but it’s also wildly alive. I feel a special kinship with rivers.

My early life had a mythic quality to it. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a historical moment when Peter Jackson released the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and everyone suddenly thought they were Legolas. But my brother and I thought it was the most serendipitous thing to live on three acres of forest in a town called Greenwood, which is the very place where Legolas hails from in the books. (We were forest bathing way before it was cool.)

For years, I was the self-appointed organizer for Ultimate Frisbee games at Lotus Park, baptized by water and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen. Some weeks, we drew as many as 40-50 people from our midweek young adult fellowship gathering. These “golden years,” as I can’t help but see them, were a highlight of my 20s. Most of my closest relationships were formed around outdoor activities, and so many of our formative conversations took shape on the Frisbee field itself or in between sandwich bites on the craggy river boulders.

The wildness and wonder of these landscapes were undercurrents of my early faith as I learned what it meant to journey with Jesus. They shaped its texture and awakened my desires in ways I’m only beginning to understand, now living in the suburbs, which have a way of quietly lulling your senses to sleep. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but Creation gave me language for God, more than any church service did.

It was the book of natural revelation I read, long before the genres of theology or memoir:

• God was vast and expansive, like the foothill vistas

• Jesus was close enough to touch, like a branch of sun-warmed blackberries

• The Holy Spirit was subtle yet palpable, like the sound of wind rushing through a grove of Digger Pines

• God could not be contained by a building or by one Christian denomination. Not only that, but the spiritual life was the same reality as the earthy, everyday life I was living. And why would it not be?

Each time I sat at the water’s edge or jogged past the 365-acre vineyard near where my family lived, I had an encounter with God through beauty and solitude. The natural world was where he taught me the particularities of how to hear his voice, comforted my sensitive heart, and showed me—over time, through many tears—how to endure through suffering, with hope, for the sake of love.

I also grew comfortable with mystery and questions. When my emotions were too big and unruly for the people around me, I sought the spaciousness of these hills, where I found peace in nature (something I didn’t feel in my mind and body). And I found it every time: in the company of a good playlist and the violet-azure hue of mountain silhouettes.

In Martin Shaw’s book, Liturgies of the Wild, he describes the journey leading toward his conversion to Orthodoxy:

“I associate church entirely with hymns and sermons. The sermons speak good sense (and are probably terrific for the old folks), but there doesn’t seem to be much contemplative spaciousness… We are always indoors, and our religion seems indoors too.”1

There’s something different about a spirituality shaped by the rhythms and textures of Creation. It becomes just that—a true spirituality, but one rooted in Christ. Not just a Christian lifestyle or set of beliefs. It is living and breathing. Theology gets into your cells and your bones. Under your fingernails. Jesus’s parables become more real to me with my feet dangling in the water or with the incomparable taste of a toasted marshmallow. Or when I do something kind for a friend I’ve had a rift with because, really, how can we stay angry when we’re both playing Frisbee under the same glorious summer sky?

I think my outdoor faith may be the reason why I’ve never walked away from it. I can no more choose to walk away from God than I can walk away from the enchantment of the mountains, oceans, forests, and rivers that I will always call home. These are the spacious places where I first encountered the love of Jesus for myself—intimately, for real. Completely outside the confines of warehouses, rules, or the shattered illusions caused by fellow broken humans. And it’s the treasure I will always carry with me.

I can’t afford to live in the wilds of California now. Most of us can’t, nor should we! Each of us has our own place to tend. But there are days when it’s difficult for me and Noah to find contentment in our tiny suburban apartment when we both grew up with space to run and breathe (and crash ATVs). That’s why it was so refreshing to steal away last week for a night of camping to watch the Perseid meteor shower. We were in the high country for less than 24 hours, but I was still reawakened to the wildness of my early faith and the beauty within it, no matter where we live or what do we.

Even if I don’t feel the circumstantial spaciousness that I long for, I still want to invite my friends to encounter the expansive, earthy, beautiful, wild, and wondrous God I fell in love with as a girl.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

What is the terrain and texture of your own faith heritage? What spaces first formed your beliefs about God and the world, whether wild or domestic, and which ones do you still cherish?

Listen to Your Life

Exploring the beauty found alongside unmet longing.

By Bailey Gillespie

Thank you for reading! I’m Bailey, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I post (mostly) monthly for readers who are learning to trust God in seasons of prolonged waiting. Through personal essays and the occasional guide, I’m using this space to explore how we can stay awake to the beauty and wonder of our lives, especially when we carry unmet longings. As always, please join the conversation in the comments. 🤍

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides & Lists: What I’m learning or benefiting from, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: The Listening List or What Is Spiritual Direction?

Subscribe now

Good morning!

I’ve got something new for you today that I hope you’ll enjoy. The most common questions I regularly get asked are questions of curation:

• “How do I find ____________?”

• “What are some of the best __________?”

• “How did you first discover __________?”

Maybe it’s because, according to CliftonStrengths, the ‘Input’ theme ranks really high for me (collecting and absorbing information/ideas), but I’m forever discovering new things that fascinate, inspire, educate, and help me.

Introducing The Listening List

Once a month for paid subscribers, and a couple of times a year for free, I’m sending a curated list of resources. Think favorite books, podcasts, wellbeing practices, music playlists, trusted voices, and other places where I’m drawing inspiration, beauty, and support from.

I’m calling this The Listening List1, and August is our first edition! These lists are meant to be a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life I am actually living, day in and day out. I hope they can help you and inspire you to find the goodness hidden in seasons of waiting and unmet longings.

This first edition is free for all readers. It will be a paid perk starting in September.

Books & Literature

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

This book came up multiple times this spring, so I finally borrowed it from a friend. It’s really interesting. Priya is an ‘expert facilitator’ who has helped people gather effectively all over the world and in some really high-profile settings. She believes there’s always a deeper why behind a gathering—even if it’s just a birthday party or a work meeting. And her goal is to help us unearth that why. This way, we can bring people together in truly memorable ways.

The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile

Noah and I bought this ourselves because some of the marriage books we first read focused too much on what can go wrong in your marriage. I totally believe in emotional health and being vigilant about the “weeds of life” (which is why we see a couples therapist). But we wanted to enjoy each other and have fun again, too. And what’s more fun than talking about the Enneagram?!

Podcasts

Being Known Podcast by Dr. Curt Thompson

God used this podcast in a powerful way last summer. I stumbled across the Rupture & Repair series, where Dr. Curt and his friends explore how micro-ruptures are part of daily life and actually necessary for healthy, maturing relationships. We see this in our life with God too, shown in biblical history. As we grow these muscles, learning to speak more honestly with the intent of peacemaking, we can enter into conflict more easily. This was new territory for me. The series gave me language and courage to enter some very difficult conversations that were years in the making, while releasing the outcome to God.

Here’s the YouTube playlist for that series (Season 11) if you’d like to look it up.

Health & Wellbeing

Paleo-based meals

I’m still enjoying a Paleo-based diet, a simple anti-inflammatory way of eating. This week, I made TWO blueberry crumbles as a way to romanticize August before she slips away. Here’s the recipe.

Spiritual direction

One weekday morning a month, I have a spiritual direction call, which I usually take on the front porch. This has become an anchoring time that I look forward to. It’s a gift to have someone hold space as you learn to be with God and listen for his voice. Usually, there’s no answer or outcome tied to these sessions, which is helpful if you’re someone who struggles to sit still or feel valuable even when you’re not accomplishing anything.

—>Read more: What Is Spiritual Direction?

Brain rewiring

In May, I started a brain rewiring program, which I wrote about here. Each week, we’re encouraged to keep track of positive changes in a journal, and two places where I’m seeing improvements are anxiety and rumination. For some reason, my morning routine (brushing my teeth or doing makeup at the bathroom mirror) is when my mind runs wild. I’m grateful to catch these patterns much earlier now and redirect my attention. Praise Jesus!

Exercise + cold baths

I’m going for short jogs again, as well as strength training using barbells in my living room. As I help my body undo muscle guarding patterns, I’m using gentle movements that don’t make it flare. But the goal is to slowly increase my capacity so I can enjoy many of the exercises and activities I once did. Noah and I let our gym membership go to save money, so I’m also loving cold baths at home (55 to 65-degree water). I know many of you are probably cringing right now, but it’s the most calming and invigorating sensation. Trust me! :-)

Watch —> Madfit on YouTube for strength training

Watch —> Yoga with Adriene for restorative movement

Online Creators

Olivia Wickstrom | Substack

Olivia is a full-time Substack coach and California expat living in France. Her bestselling publication, Petal + Hearth, was recently featured in the Washington Post after hitting a milestone of 25,000 readers. She’s inspiring, and as a paid subscriber, I benefit from all the perks she offers like a new monthly networking hour for fellow writers/creators on Zoom.

Jolly | YouTube

This one is just good fun. Josh and Ollie (“Jolly”) are two Brits with a thriving YouTube channel devoted to foodie road trips across America—trying cult classics like Trader Joe’s snacks or Cracker Barrel. Then they introduce it to British high schoolers back home. I may have binged 25+ videos last weekend. Fun fact: Ollie (the funny one) has a grad degree in biblical studies.

Places that Spark Beauty

Perseid Meteor Shower

On August 12-13, the perseids descend upon the sky again, peaking at midnight with tails of bright light. Watching this meteor shower has become a favorite tradition for me, and we’ve booked a campground at Loon Lake in the high country to enjoy the magic up close.

Calm Sleep Stories

You’ve already heard me sing the praises of the Lectio 365 app and its nightly Prayer of Examen (an ancient form of prayer to reflect back on the day and where God met you). I love listening to this every night before bed. Then I’ll turn on a sleep story on the Calm app. These are dreamy! Read by actors and actresses, they are so soothing and sensory, bringing a sense of calm to the whole body. I’m falling asleep in 15 minutes now.

—> Here’s a sampling from a favorite narrated by Stephen Frye (aka “Jeeves”) about lavender fields in Provence, France. What could be sleepier?

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides & Lists: What I’m learning or benefiting from, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: What Is Spiritual Direction? or How Brain Retraining Is Helping Me Recover from Illness

For the cost of a monthly chai latte, you’ll receive the full Listen to Your Life experience — monthly downloads, private essays, curated resources, and seasonal webinars to help you inhabit a beautiful and meaningful life with God, even with unmet longings.

About the Author:

Hello! I’m Bailey, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I’m a California girl, English faculty, and am signed with WCA Literary Agency as I develop my book. 💌 Here, I write about longing, beauty + wonder, wholeness, and how to live a meaningful life even when it unfolds differently than we imagined. When I’m not writing, I’m probably reading Anne of Avonlea on a picnic blanket or visiting the farmers market with my husband. We are Anglicans at heart but currently attend a wonderful community called Bridgeway, where I serve in a mentoring ministry. I’m grateful you’re here. ✨

💬 Please tap the heart and leave a comment on this post so more readers can find it!

Listen to Your Life

Exploring the beauty found alongside unmet longing.

By Bailey Gillespie

Hello, fellow writer! Together, we’ll reflect on your creative goals and form a thoughtful plan for what strategies best support these. And hopefully have some fun in the process!

Schedule a free, 30-minute call to see if consulting is the right fit for you!

Fill out the consulting inquiry form

Who I can help

• Writers and creative entrepreneurs looking to develop a more consistent writing practice, sharpen their craft, showcase their work online, and/or identify places to share or pitch projects

• Writers looking for encouragement, accountability, mentorship, and thoughtful companionship on their creative journey

• People with an adaptive mindset, open to learning about the various complexities of the writing and publishing industry

What does a creative consultant do?

I provide professional oversight and guidance, helping you:

• Polish a professional writing portfolio

• Develop a nonfiction book proposal and/or agent query letter

• Craft long-form nonfiction pieces like an article, essay, devotion, or book chapters

• Establish an online presence and strategy on Substack

• Discern your next creative step by considering your current lifestyle needs, personal strengths, the market + cultural climate, and God’s specific calling on your life.

My approach

I bring a contemplative approach to traditional coaching.

In the spirit of my Substack and podcast, Listen to Your Life, I like to ask reflective, sometimes probing questions that help you think deeply and honestly about your writing goals, personal bandwidth, strengths + areas of growth, and spiritual calling. I also love incorporating poems and written prayers into our sessions as a benediction. Think of these consulting sessions as coaching meets spiritual direction—motivational and action-oriented, but still soulful. (I had a creative coach like this once, and it was so helpful.)

Because of my background in student mentorship and spiritual discipleship, I have a passion for coming alongside others as they learn, grow, and discern how to live with purpose.

FAQ

Who is consulting for?

Any nonfiction writer or entrepreneur looking for creative mentorship with polishing a portfolio, developing a book proposal, establishing an online presence, or crafting an article, essay, or book chapter.

Do you meet online?

Sessions take place either over the phone or on Google Meet (video call), depending on personal preference. I recommend the phone as it takes the visual pressure off. (Whew)

How long are sessions?

60 minutes

Can I book ongoing consulting?

Yep, you can book a single session or schedule weekly, biweekly, or monthly sessions, depending on your goals and project scope.

Do you edit manuscripts?

I do, but creative consulting is more expansive than just content editing. If developmental or line editing/copyediting is part of the support you’re looking for, I can absolutely edit articles, essays, or book chapters. But I don’t edit full manuscripts unless it’s a unique exception.

Can you help improve my Substack publication?

Absolutely! This is one of my favorite ways to help writers.

Do you work with just Christian writers?

I have the most experience in Christian publishing and the faith-lit niche, but I enjoy working with all nonfiction writers and (most) topics.

What are your rates?

$75/hour, whether it’s a phone session or admin/editorial work between calls.

My recommendation is to schedule biweekly sessions, so you have time to work on action steps between calls. When you have new material for me to review/assess or substantive interactions via email, I will charge an additional $75/hour as needed (unless it’s a simple question).

How to work together

1. Fill out the inquiry form or email me at hello@baileygillespie.com.

2. I’ll respond within two business days.

3. Together, we’ll form a plan for what strategy best supports your goal and establish a consulting rhythm from there!

Fill out the consulting inquiry form

A little about me

• I have a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Professional Writing. My graduate capstone project was developing an online portfolio.

• 10+ years helping writers and students

• 7+ years of experience working in higher education leadership, including directing the Jessup University writing center and serving as a faculty coordinator at Sierra College

• 3+ years of direct Christian publishing + editorial experience. Currently, I’m a client of Westwood Creative Artists and have collaborated extensively with my literary agent to develop a nonfiction book proposal for top editors and publishing houses.

• Experience in marketing and communications

• Notable projects and publications: 1) writing 50+ online devotions and editing show notes for the She Reads Truth Podcast; 2) teaching a college course for Jessup University on book editing and publishing; and 3) publishing guest essays for Inkwell/Christianity Today, including The Millennial Dream Dash and The Long-Awaited Book Deal.

Fill out the consulting inquiry form

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In this piece:

• The gift of reader feedback

• The difference between private encouragement and public engagement — and why this matters for writers on a publishing path

• An overview of the partnership between readers and writers and the active role readers play in helping good stories reach the people who need them

• A personal (+ kinda bold) ask for you to share and comment on my writing when you’re able to!

Recently, an author named Lore Wilbert wrote a piece called A User’s Guide for Sayable + Substack. She wrote it to help friends and readers better understand how the platform’s ecosystem works and how different types of engagement help a writer flourish.

“We participate in the good work of good words by sharing them with others,” said Lore. I love this.

On my phone, I keep an Encouragement folder with screenshots of texts, emails, and DMs (184 and counting) that I pull out on the days when I need to remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. It reminds me there are real people on the other side of this funny thing we call the internet.

For example, this summer I received an email reply to a recent essay and was delighted to read a very long message about this woman’s resonance with certain topics. She even invited me to stay at her family’s ‘mini monkhouse’ that they’re renovating on an island in the PNW. I mean, what an honor, right!? I didn’t even know mini monkhouses were a thing. Other meaningful examples of private interactions are those asking for prayer during seasons marked by things like physical limitations and injury, loneliness, transitions, shifting beliefs about God and the Church, and a general ache to know that everything is going to be okay… even though their life didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped. Some just share a love for good books.

At least three of these have led to phone chats and real-life friendships. Truly, so special!

Private Encouragement vs. Public Engagement

Because I often write about very personal topics, people who connect with a piece tend to message me privately rather than comment on the essay itself. I totally understand and respect this.

Here’s the thing, though:

Private encouragement (as beautiful and needed as it is!) is different than visible, public engagement.

And for writers who are on the path to traditional publishing, both are really important for different reasons:

• Private encouragement creates a personal connection and builds trust.

• Public engagement shows the outside world—which includes prospective agents, editors, and publishers—that this conversation matters and is worth helping more people discover the work.

Nowadays, publishing houses require writers to handle most of the marketing, so they must show an actively engaged and growing readership. This means that when you interact with a writer’s work—on the platform itself—this could be a game changer. And you probably didn’t know this because I just learned it too, but if a Substack piece doesn’t receive engagement in the first 48 hours, it drops out of the feed’s algorithm. Invisible. Unread. Now, there is a caveat where, if someone stumbles across it again and comments, the algorithm will re-circulate it into certain people’s feeds, which is cool. But, ultimately, Substack rewards real-time conversations happening, more than simply reading it from an armchair.

Typically, I don’t give a damn what an algorithm thinks. But because I have a goal to write and publish, I must try and work within the existing systems with integrity and humility, like any writer.

I prefer savoring words from an armchair, too. (Especially when there’s a cozy blanket and a mug of tea.) And that’s exactly why I’m trying to faithfully work toward the dream of publishing books that you can, one day, hold in your hands.

My Publishing Goals

If I haven’t shared this before, my long-term hope is to write and publish books.

Writing is a business for me, as well as a ministry and passion project. Last spring, I signed with a wonderful literary agent (you can read that cool story here) and am actively working toward traditional publishing, even if my timeline is slower than some. I see my platform development as a form of stewardship, just like any other sphere of the Christian life. Since I’m now a business client of Westwood Creative Artists Literary Agency, I want to take my writing goals even more seriously and steward this partnership well.

I’ve been wordsmithing for most of my career in very different streams. But my primary aspiration, long-term, is authorship. I would love love love to contribute a literary artifact to the beautiful tradition of memoir and essays. Possibly even a novel. Because this is the sort of literature that held and transformed me, what an honor it would be to companion others in this way.

Writing is also a ministry and a spiritual practice.

I’ve been writing since I was a little girl—hands stained with the thorn-pricked ink of blackberry brambles as I clung to a tiny three-ring notebook and poured out my heart through prayers.

There aren’t many areas of life where I feel confidence and see God consistently clearing a path and opening doors to opportunity. But I do see this in my writing life. By sharing my story with you, there’s the hope you’ll feel less alone and encounter something beautiful and true about who God is. I don’t shy away from the tender parts, and I always press into my questions because I believe that wrestling with God honestly is the only way our faith deepens. I feel closest to God and most like myself when I write. And it doesn’t have to be deep spiritual stuff. It could be the mysteries I use to write when I was 10. *Shoutout to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen*

In 2024, I wrote an essay called The Millennial Dream Dash, which was published by Inkwell (Christianity Today). Three days later, I nearly leapt off the couch in PURE JOY when an agent named Bridgette emailed me, saying she’d read the essay and wanted to offer literary representation. What a dreamy surprise! This whole experience connected me with dozens of wonderful new readers, and I remember reading message after message from women sharing vulnerably about how they’re trying to live a faithful and meaningful life, even with an unmet longing for things like romantic love, children, a home, physical healing, a creative dream, etc.

All this is to say I’m committed to finding the right publishing home for my book, along with stewarding the conversational soil it will grow from—which relies on reader engagement!

An honest ask

I would love and so appreciate it if you could interact with my writing directly! Would you consider doing this a few times before the end of the year?

Here’s what that might look like:

• If you’re reading this in your email inbox, click ‘Read in app’ or ‘View in browser’ so you can engage on Substack. You’ll have to make an account the first time, but it’s easy.

• Click the ‘heart’ button if you enjoyed it.

• Comment on the essay with a story, piece of encouragement, different perspective, or something you connected with. It doesn’t have to be long. One sentence is fine. So are smiley emojis. 😉

• Re-stack it in your feed or quote/tag the author in your own post.

• Forward the link to a friend by clicking the “share” (paper airplane) button.

I would love my words to be only the beginning of a larger conversation. 🤍

Thank you!

—> Who is an author you admire and return to often? I’ll go first: . Her lyrical prose, paired with theological depth, is unmatched. Especially during the first rains of autumn. If you haven’t yet, pick up This Beautiful Truth or Reclaiming Quiet.

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides & Lists: What I’m learning or benefiting from, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: What Is Spiritual Direction? or How Brain Retraining Is Helping Me Recover from Illness

For the cost of a monthly chai latte, you’ll receive the full Listen to Your Life experience — monthly downloads, private essays, curated resources, and seasonal webinars to help you inhabit a beautiful and meaningful life with God, even with unmet longings.

About the Author:

Hello! I’m Bailey, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I’m a California girl, English faculty, and am signed with WCA Literary Agency as I develop my book. 💌 Here, I write about wonder, longing, wholeness, and how to live a beautiful and meaningful life even when it unfolds differently than we hoped. When I’m not writing, I’m probably reading Anne of Avonlea on a picnic blanket or visiting the farmers market with my husband. We are Anglicans at heart but currently attend a wonderful community called Bridgeway, where I serve in a mentoring ministry. I’m grateful you’re here. ✨

💬 Please leave a heart or comment on this piece so more readers can find it!

I’LL NEVER FORGET THE FEELING of driving down Caldwell Lane during my first visit to Nashville.

The pavement was soaked with warm rain. Orange and yellow leaves blew across my windshield as the city skyline disappeared. I rolled down the windows. Back home, friends had warned me about what humidity could do to a woman’s hair, and they hadn’t lied, so I pulled back the wild blonde strands with a bobby pin. My knit dress stuck to the car seat as a single drip trickled down the small of my back.

That October, I was in town for Hutchmoot—The Rabbit Room’s annual arts conference that’s famously hard to describe. One participant called it a “Jedi Council for the hopeless romantic.” These were my people.

The Rabbit Room is a faith-based community of artists and everyday lovers of the beautiful, good, and true. It was conceived as an online experiment by Andrew Peterson and his brother, Pete, blossoming two decades later into something far bigger, I’m sure, than they ever imagined. Eventually, what started as an Inklings-inspired blogging community led to shows, podcasts, a printing press, two annual gatherings (one in the UK!), and North Wind Manor—the brick-and-mortar operational hub of The Rabbit Room.

I pulled into the driveway of the Anglican church serving as our venue for the week. “Arrived at Church of the Redeemer,” announced Frederick, my GPS companion (the one with a British accent). The building was gorgeous. Butter-yellow with great columns and elaborate stained-glass window panels glowing warmly from within.

After adjusting the zippers on my boots, I straightened the wrinkles in my dress. Inside, I could hear people of all ages mingling and laughing, so I stepped through, eyes searching for someone familiar. Picking up my lanyard and welcome folder, which was made from recycled brown paper with a blue linocut print of a bell ringer, I ran my fingers along the spines on the bookshelves, hoping I didn’t look as out of place as I felt.

Hutchmoot is like four days of heaven. It’s a “found family” for the quirky artist type, which I lovingly confess I am.

For dinner, we feasted on Chianti-braised short ribs, roasted butternut squash with fennel, garlic-rubbed asparagus, herbed fingerling potatoes, cucumber and raisin salad with tarragon vinaigrette, assorted cheeses, and lemon raspberry pie.

Since the event theme was “Home,” we talked less about what we did for work and more about the qualities we loved about our home state. I fell into conversation with some delightful empty nesters and a girl my age who lived in the same Minnesota town as Adam Young of Owl City (a serious flex, in my Millennial opinion). Everyone was warm and open. Every person in the dining hall had a Hutchmoot origin story—the winding path that led them to the event—and this quickly became my favorite thing to ask about. It usually went something like this:

“What brought you here?”

“Well, two decades ago, I had a head-on collision with Jesus through the music of Andrew Peterson.” (This is a reference to a similar quote of AP’s about his songwriting hero, Rich Mullins.)

Or: “It’s the only community where I’ve ever felt like I belonged. Weird hobbies and all.”

The room was filled with people from every stage of life. But there was a quiet ache that bound us together, regardless of our job title or whether we were single, dating, married, widowed, or divorced: we had a shared longing for more. Sehnsucht. That wonderful German word I tattooed on my left forearm that means “wistful yearning.” Never had friendship come so effortlessly. Not only that, but both the men and women here seemed equally interested in having a thoughtful collective conversation. This was really different from social circles back home. It was dignifying in a way I didn’t even realize was missing.

At Hutchmoot, in the enchantment of warm lighting and that contentment that comes after a good meal, people lingered over tea and coffee (or pipe tobacco out back near the bonfire), connecting over favorite books, music, theology, travel adventures, comics, family recipes, ideas, and really any subject that came up. Singles sat across the table from older couples, and teenagers listened to stories from grandfather figures who looked like Father Christmas.

* * *

AS SOMEONE WHO HAS OFTEN FELT LIKE A SOCIAL MISFIT, this experience met a deep longing of mine to be seen and to belong.

It also formed an imagination for what a healthy community might look like that transcends “life season” (sameness).

Instead of gathering in groups based on biological similarities, like gender or age, the Rabbit Room gathers people around what actually connects us and makes us most human: the things we love (and love to talk about). But why did I have to fly across the country to find this?

* * *

EVERY ESSAY I PEN BEGINS WITH AN ACHE. I try to sit with this feeling for a while before ever putting words on a page, listening for what it’s trying to tell me. After sitting on this essay for probably two years, I realize the ache it’s flowing from has two layers:

• I want to share life with a close friend my age

• I also want to be formed by an intergenerational community that gathers around shared loves and inner journeys more than external markers (like age, relational status, career stage)

God has given me an abundance of wonderful friendships over the years. But in the last five years (ages thirty-three to thirty-eight), my relationships began to shift in foundational ways when I returned to California after a three-year adventure in Music City. It was the kind of shift I didn’t see coming. My world is much smaller now. The larger infrastructures that helped me build organic relationships in the past, like working at a university or attending a small church for nearly a decade, are no longer in my life, and even if they were, most people my age have young kids or even teenagers now.

Because I didn’t get married until I was 36, I don’t fit nicely into any traditional “life season” you tend to see advertised in church bulletins. I am not a young adult (ages 18-30) or single. I am not a young mom nor an empty nester. So, where do people like me find meaningful community?

It’s easy for me to slip into believing I did something (or am something) wrong when I compare my life to others. It goes back to that lifelong desire to belong. I’m guessing I’m not alone here.

During the two years between moving to Nashville and then coming back, most of my close friends moved out of state—including a best friend who relocated to Vancouver, Canada, to earn a second master’s degree. Voice notes became the norm. Because I later moved into a shared home with four other girls who were 5-10 years younger, I started feeling insecure about my age for the first time. Dating someone 10 years younger only heightened this feeling. The truth was, I felt behind or delayed.

There’s a loneliness I feel, even though it’s also a beautiful life that I love and am grateful for. I willingly signed up for this, but you just don’t know how something will feel until you start walking it out, do you?

I really want Noah and me to meet another couple (older but still newly-ish married) without kids that we can both enjoy spending time with and who can “split the difference” between our ages. But I understand that finding this — a mirror of the unique pairing that we are — may be a unicorn of a wish. Still, I haven’t given up hope. God knows what/who we need.

So, revisiting the central question here:

* * *

THE LAST TIME I WAS SURROUNDED by people in the same stage of life was the year I graduated from college with my B.A. in English.

It was twenty-thirteen—the year of Frozen and the Harlem Shake. (Pretty good year, IMO.) Even though my English cohort and I were learning what it meant to be a working Millennial in 2013, I wouldn’t necessarily say we were in the same season of life. Soon after graduating from our private Christian university, many of my classmates went on to get married, go to grad school, work at Uber or Safeway, deconstruct and leave their faith, explore their sexuality, etc. I chose to stay at the university, building my resume in a town that was safe and familiar while navigating tumultuous emotions.

If we think of natural biological seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter, these are just labels marking the passing, and repeating, of time. But each season also brings its own distinct qualities.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word season as “a time characterized by a particular circumstance or feature.” If we think of our life seasons in this way, then, in theory, you can have two people in the same life stage (early 30s, unmarried, working professionals) but in totally different inner seasons.

Maybe, then, a truer way of looking at this topic of ‘life season’ is that there are actually two seasons always unfolding side by side: what you see on the outside (socio-economic markers and development) and what’s happening underneath (psycho-spiritual markers).

I’m also learning that one person can straddle multiple life seasons and stages. I think of myself here: newly-ish married, but not young and married. Feeling energized physically, but noticing natural signs of aging. Growing internally through spiritual mentorship, but stalling in my career. Learning about libido hacks for the first time while also approaching perimenopause. (Like—what the actual heck?)

This season feels clunky with lots of paradoxes. But I have a feeling more of us feel this way than we let on…

* * *

Those shared meals in Nashville that autumn changed me.

(So did the pie.)

It was such a beautiful embodied expression of God’s family. Found family. The people you adopt in life simply because you love being around them, and they accept you as you are, and they feel like home. Hutchmoot gave me a vision of what friendship can look like for people who may not be in the same stage of life, but who share the same loves and an inner journey or state of the soul, which is a deeper sort of bond.

I want to be the sort of woman who’s so rooted in my identity that I don’t feel the need to compare my life to others. I want us to have confidence and peace with the story God is writing with our lives.

And if you still can’t find what you’re longing for, try seeking out new communities online or in another region. It can help paint a picture of what’s possible. Who knows… you might be the very person meant to spark the kind of friendships that will help someone else believe they belong, too.

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💭 Question: What seasons do you feel like you’re straddling right now? What sort of friendships are you longing for, or where have you already found them? Share your story in the comments so we can all learn!

With you,

Bailey

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides & Lists: What I’m learning or benefiting from, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: What Is Spiritual Direction? or How Brain Retraining Is Helping Me Recover from Illness

For the cost of a monthly chai latte (my fave!), you’ll receive the full Listen to Your Life experience — monthly downloads, private essays, curated resources, and seasonal webinars to help you inhabit a beautiful and meaningful life with God, especially when life unfolds very differently than expected.

Subscribe now

About the Author:

Hello! I’m Bailey, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I’m a California girl, English faculty, and am signed with WCA Literary Agency as I develop my book. 💌 Here, I write about wonder, longing, wholeness, and how to inhabit a beautiful life with God, especially when life unfolds differently than we expect. When I’m not writing, I’m probably reading Anne of Avonlea on a picnic blanket or visiting the farmers market with my husband, Noah. We are Anglicans at heart, but currently attend a wonderful community called Bridgeway, where I serve in a mentoring ministry. I’m grateful you’re here. ✨

💬 Please like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack readers can find it!

Want to go deeper? Here’s how I can help:

📞 Book a 1:1 creative consulting session, and we’ll explore your creative project and goals together.

🪩 Host me for a podcast interview. You can also check out my guest interviews on Meg’s Reading Room and Welcoming Slow Growth.

✨ Register for my first-ever webinar, coming this September! We’ll talk about practical wisdom for staying with God through seasons of waiting, disruption, and delayed dreams.

❤️‍🔥 If you’d like to hang outside of your inbox, find me on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Leave a comment

In Theo of Golden, the delightful small-town novel that became a word-of-mouth bestseller this year, Allan Levi writes this: “There’s no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is a beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”

So many great novelists and writers use their sadness as a well from which to draw beauty and meaning. Their well-tended experiences become a source of insight and wisdom for others, and this is a thread woven throughout each of the books that have shaped my faith.

Last June, when I published My Life List of Books on Spiritual Formation, I never imagined it would reach over 13K readers. This isn’t the only topic I enjoy writing about, but it did spark an idea to turn that post into a larger reading guide you can hold in your hands and interact with. I pictured all of us looking up these books, maybe discovering a story that changes the trajectory of our year, scribbling little notes in the margins when a sentence is just too beautiful to forget.

The start of paid subscriber offerings

This new spiritual formation reading guide is a choose-your-own-adventure-style guide for different seasons of your life with God.

There’s a short reflection for each book list, journaling prompts, and a song that relates to each theme. As you follow these literary pathways in whatever ways you choose, you’ll have space to ponder and practice their themes and how they support your spiritual formation—the process of abiding in Jesus and becoming more like him.

This is the first of some new offerings I’m excited to share with subscribers this fall. ✨📚 Having margin to do this was tough the last couple of years, but I’m at a place where there’s more space in my days (and brain), and I want to be more generative and generous moving forward.

For free + paid subscribers:

• Literary essays: Thoughtful personal narratives on themes like longing, beauty + wonder, waiting, healing, and faithfulness. Example: The Millennial Dream Dash or A Different Kind of Family

• Guides & Lists: What I’m learning or benefiting from, published as a resource to help you do the same. Example: What Is Spiritual Direction? or How Brain Retraining Is Helping Me Recover from Illness

For the cost of a monthly chai latte (my fave!), you’ll receive the full Listen to Your Life experience — monthly downloads, private essays, curated resources, and seasonal webinars to help you discover a deeply rooted life with God when life unfolds very differently than expected.

Subscribe now

About the Author:

Hello! I’m Bailey, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I’m a California girl, English faculty, and am currently signed with Westwood Creative Artists Literary Agency as I develop my book. 💌 Here, I write about life with God, books + creativity, longing, wholeness, and how to live well when circumstances unfold differently than we hoped. When I’m not writing, I’m picnicking, visiting farmers markets, cooking healthy meals with my husband, and serving in a mentoring ministry at our church. I’m grateful you’re here. ✨

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

Books can never replace a relationship with God. But they are such powerful and comforting companions. I can’t tell you how many beloved (and tattered) paperbacks I’ve toted around for years that remind me of what’s true about God, myself, and this world. I’m sure you have plenty of your own. Would you share the title of one of these in the comments below? That way, we can add it to our own lists.

May we all know the joy of a good book that finds us exactly when we need it.

With you,

Bailey

Below, you can download the reading guide and enjoy a worshipful playlist curated just for you:

Spiritual Formation Reading Guide

36.4MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

If you’d like to go deeper, here’s how I can help:

📞 Book a 1:1 creative consulting session, where we’ll reflect on your creative goals and form a thoughtful plan for what strategies best support these.

🪩 Host me for a podcast interview. You can also check out my guest interviews on Meg’s Reading Room and Welcoming Slow Growth.

✨ If you’d like to chat outside of your inbox, find me on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Leave a comment

Welcome! I’m Bailey Gillespie, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I post once a week, alternating between practical guides and personal essays about living a beautiful and meaningful life, even with unmet longings. As always, I’d love you to join the conversation in the comments, just like if we were sitting in a cozy living room or a coffee shop together. Happy reading!

Subscribe now

Hello, friends!

Those of you who have followed my writings for years know my value for sharing about my formational journey with Jesus in real time.

I love doing this and plan to keep at it, but I also want to do it wisely—not sharing out of self-indulgence, but pulling back the curtain every so often, inviting you into the beauty God is showing me. It’s like standing at the ocean with a good friend, tugging at their sleeve when you notice a gorgeous orangey-pink sunset. Beauty’s meant to be shared!

What is DNRS? and a fresh intention

In May, I started a brain rehabilitation program called Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) after learning about it from someone I respect in our church community. She had recovered significantly from long-term illness since doing it, which I found fascinating, and I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to ask more and look it up. After working through the first (free) module, the philosophy made so much sense. I could see how my symptoms were tied to an impaired limbic system, the part of the brain responsible for memory, emotion, and survival. To be fair, I’ve known for many years that my body was stuck in a state of fight or flight, but what I hadn’t found was a way out. All the Scriptures and nervous system regulation tips in the world (very trendy right now) hadn’t touched it. So, I signed up and finished the course.

DNRS does include nervous system regulation techniques, but it’s a lot more than box breathing or giving yourself butterfly hugs. It’s about rewiring your neural pathways with safety and truth. It’s a softer approach (calming the brain + body) but also a focused approach that takes effort (daily, hour-long mental exercises—or, as some like to call it, a HIIT workout for your brain).

It turns out I’m really good at doing HIIT workouts for my body (#WomenWhoLift), but not so much for my brain. Whoops.

At its heart, DNRS teaches you how to redirect your attention AWAY from trauma-based stressors and symptoms so these can actually resolve. You learn how to disarm your brain’s threat response, not for the purpose of staying calm forever (life doesn’t allow this, does it?) but staying calm long enough to heal/reset and become more resilient in the process. I couldn’t believe in this philosophy more.

So, dear readers… for the next 6-12 months, I will be changing the way I think, talk, and write. I won’t be writing about my sickness or general life stressors here at Listen to Your Life.

Since you’re my people, I want to share this intention with you from the beginning so that we’re on the same page, and also in case it’s an approach that helps you, too. There are so many things to love about this life, and I want to explore more of these together. God’s with us in our suffering, absolutely. But he’s also with us in our happiness. Suffering has overshadowed my ability to feel happiness for much of my life, so this feels a lot like obedience right now.

I sense God inviting me to form a fresh theology of attention and to be re-formed by who Jesus says I am, not my emotional wounds and injured brain.

I think of the story of when Jesus asked a man at the healing pools of Bethsaida: “Do you want to get well?”1 The Book of John says this man had been sick for thirty-eight years, which is not lost on me (I am 38 years old). In a moment, his whole story changed.

I also can’t help but think of that one confessional line from the Book of Common Prayer:

“Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.”2

Keep reading to learn how I plan to show up differently in this space for the next six to twelve months and why. After this, God willing, I’ll have a greater capacity to talk about more topics again.

The short version is: I am very hopeful!

What we focus on grows

Read more

Welcome! I’m Bailey Gillespie, the writer behind Listen to Your Life. I post once a week, alternating between practical guides and personal essays about living a beautiful and meaningful life, even with unmet longings. As always, I’d love you to join the conversation in the comments, just like if we were sitting in a cozy living room or a coffee shop together. Happy reading!

Subscribe now

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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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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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!

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

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

5 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!

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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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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!

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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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Listen to Your Life offers weekly essays exploring life with God while living in the tension of joy and pain. 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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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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