The question dropped like a ton of bricks right on me. He looked softly through his camera; his fatherly presence loomed due to the angle of his laptop. My expression probably registered as shock.

How can he see that? How does he know? The lump in my throat grew. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head with a kind smirk, clearly satisfied his question hit the bullseye.

In the final few years of my 3-decade career with the US Department of Agriculture, I finally found a mentor that got me. He saw where I had been and what I was holding back. Then, as a great mentor would, he asked me this question inspired by the Gospel of Matthew.

I can’t even remember what I said. I remember his expression, his blue dress shirt, and sticky notes scattered around my pandemic-era home office like colored confetti. And the feeling of being torn between the overwhelm of being seen and delivering a politically-savvy answer on the spot like I was trained to do.

We were a great duo while it lasted. One day he asked for a meeting about some trouble I stirred up with my often-unwelcome zeal for improvement. I thought I was in trouble, so I shrunk in my seat waiting for the usual — Take it slow, Laura. This is not a proactive culture, Laura. This has to go through the chain of command, Laura.

This time, I got the opposite. “I like the kind of trouble you stir up!” He appeared giddy, a fan of my incessant innovation and the hackles it raised. It felt so good to hear that I started saying it to my own employees when they ruffled feathers too.

I would like to think that I actually did take off my basket with his mentorship. At least for a few short years, I tasted what felt like to be fully myself.

But that was at work. Could I be myself at a church? I had my doubts.

Never let them see you sweat

The sermon I heard last month echoed the same thing. Don’t pull back, the pastor had said. Your gifts are welcome here. (link to last month’s post)

But, what does that even look like?

I know from my national-level position in IT what it looked like. Innovate. Challenge. Lead. Take heat. Win.

After one incredibly high-conflict meeting, my mentor, now boss, and I assessed the rubble.

“You did great. Just don’t let them see you suffer next time.”

I was the only woman on camera in a high-stakes, uncivilized exchange. It wasn’t my meeting to get under control and I was outranked, so I was trapped. I eventually put my head in my hands to calm down and probably dissociate.

“Never let them see you sweat?” I asked, quoting a line from a deodorant commercial from the 80s. He nodded.

Right. Release your gifts but never show how much it hurts. That was the culture. In other words, stay frozen.

But faith leadership needed almost the opposite. My deepest, delicate center had to shine from under the basket. This level of thaw was going to need time in the prayer room.

The Prayer Room

My prayer room, or prayer closet like in the movie War Room1 is where I learned to hide and heal. For 20 years, it has been where I put my own oxygen mask on first.

It started after my son was born and my marriage fell apart. I was in desperate need of a refuge so I chose the tiniest room in our small house and painted it purple so I could steal a few moments of peace while my baby slept. The soft lavender with candles and lighting felt soothing and feminine.

It was just an empty purple room, but I felt safe and peaceful there. Slowly I added one special thrift-store find at a time—purple fabric, a low table for an altar, a small fountain, and a cross. In this dedicated sacred space, the walls kept out all the other voices except for God’s.

When I wasn’t in a faith community (which was most of the time), this room also became my church. I could stay on my knees or curl up in a ball and pray without being watched or judged and soak in the presence of God.

So, when the words don’t pull back hit me so deep that I felt a burning in my throat, I knew exactly where to go.

Frozen in Battle

When I open the door to the prayer room, my seeking finds rest. I usually have a verse from the Bible or a bookmarked paragraph that I need to find and spend a moment with. This time was no different.

The sensations in my body were pushing me to review some of Peter Levine’s work on trauma. I knelt on the soft fuzzy carpet thumbing to my little blue sticky note where he explains the freeze state is like being stuck in a vice.2

I read it a few times, letting the concepts sink in. I did some stretches and took a few more deep breaths.

Next, I went for my favorite scripture when I get this feeling: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Something about the image of him in agony to the point of sweat dropping like blood reminds me of what it feels like to me in my pressurized freeze state.

But before I could get to the passages in Matthew and Luke3 my attention was diverted to a little note—a prayer question on a sheet of paper from a year ago, right after I suddenly retired.

Lord, how can I let go of something I am frozen into?

There it was—a little treasure. I took a breath of gratitude, then went outside to check on the monarchs and do some yardwork.

After wearing out my body processing emotions, I showered and put my sore feet up to listen to a soothing podcast. I found a recent sermon from Mark Sayers4 on being human in the age of AI and settled in to enjoy the message.

But the sermon, called The King that Kneels, was not a normal sermon—his wife’s cancer had returned, and she was in the hospital. His voice held raw emotion, drawing me deeper into my own feelings.

His teaching didn’t take us to the Garden of Gethsemane where I was heading. He brought us to Jesus taking off his outer robe, wrapping a towel around his waist, and kneeling down to wash the dirty feet of his disciples.

Surrender. The answer to my prayer question.

Images flashed through my mind as I curled up, like bracing for a predator attack. My throat burned until the feelings broke through. I sobbed and sobbed picturing my Lord, the washer of feet.

I let the tears run their course as the Spirit of the Lord spoke through Mark’s words. Something inside me thawed.

Something inside me unfurled.

Don’t pull back

The habits of forcing myself forward and holding my own in a male-dominated culture got me this far. I fought a good fight. But these habits are not going to work where God is taking me next, wherever that may be.

Like most of us in a time of global turmoil, I don’t know what my future looks like in three years or even in three months. I just know my future will have a lot more unfurling.

And don’t pull back for now just means surrendering enough to thaw.

One small, faithful step at a time.

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For your prayer time: Where might you be pushing yourself forward when God is inviting you to surrender?

This is the story of that morning.

Slip out the Back, Jack

I sat in the back row with my head in my hands, the tears of so many emotions streaming down my face. I tried not to sob out loud as the words I had waited decades to hear from the pulpit echoed in my mind. I actually felt welcome.

But that is not how Sunday’s church service started.

As is my habit, I came early and sat in the back against the wall. Here, no creepy guys could sit behind me, and I could escape quickly if I needed to.

Today, my luck ran out as a guy sat down right beside me, way too close considering how many seats were still available. I could feel his whole arm up against me. I stopped breathing.

My jaw tensed and I shrank in the seat so my arm wouldn’t touch his. My stomach burned and my breathing stayed shallow.

Right on cue, the script started rolling. See? See?! This is why you don’t go to church anymore. This is exactly why. I don’t know why you keep trying. The same thing every time. You need to get out of here. I figured my Sunday morning was ruined.

While I stood during the music, I shuffled things around to put my book bag and hot coffee between us to avoid bodily contact. I sighed in frustration and hypervigilance, taking deep breaths to calm my nervous system and not walk out.

I could see him staring at me in my peripheral vision. He leaned over during the introductory prayer like he was making his big move. Here we go again.

“How are you doing today?” he interrupted.

I glared back, my eyes boring right through him. My lips tightened and I pointed my finger firmly toward the front of the church. My body language said I am here for this, leave me alone, and this is your last warning all in one gesture.

He jumped back like I had shocked him with a cattle prod. I calculated how many more times I might have to do this over the next hour before I lost my cool or went to the usher.

But what would I say to the usher?

What did he do? Nothing, really.

Just vague creepy stuff. Maybe the ushers know him. I am no one here.

Words from the last time this happened in a different church rung in my head—Oh, Laura, he’s harmless. Turns out he was not harmless and I wasn’t the only woman he drove away.

Every instinct told me to leave before he did something else. But the pastor was doing a series with my favorite readings on the Holy Spirit from the Gospel of John and Acts, the part of the Bible where Lydia makes her appearance. I couldn’t miss this. So, with my icy glare holding and a seat between us, I decided to stay—at least for this service.

I have been stuck in this repeating pattern for so long. Sometimes I feel foolish for trying again. Sometimes I feel guilty for giving up. Then I work towards another try. Rinse and repeat.

A Deep Digger’s Faith

I was baptized as a Christian in a local church in a small town in Maine when I was 14. I can still smell the old oak pews, which they made into pens and pencils when the church got sold and turned into a bar and restaurant.

My faith was real, but my logical nature could not reconcile some of what I saw. The self-righteousness, narcissism, lying, and straight-up abuse—especially to women—did not align with the beautiful message. Were they just not hearing it? Who here was going to hell, exactly?

The doctrines and hypocrisy I could do without. But I could not do without the part of the Bible in the Gospel of John where Jesus promised he wouldn’t leave us alone. With this scripture burned into my heart, I felt close to God and prayed often about my struggles being a teenage girl in the 1980s.

When I packed up for college and later moved around for jobs, I carried a deep hunger for a church home with me. I tried so many but never found a place where the message of Christ and the culture of the church seemed to match.

Sometime in my 30s, I thought I was close when I found a start-up church with a slogan: “A first-century church in the 21st century.” That resonated with me—before all the oppressive doctrines cemented together, when women like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla, and Lydia had voices. But after I saw the giant photo of the president on the pastor’s wall, I did not return. If this really were the 1st century, that would have been Caesar.

Organized religion kept driving me further away from the faith of my childhood. Once I became a soil scientist, I doubted I would ever go back. How does a scientist fit in a Christian church? I wasn’t sure back then.

So, my “church” became the great outdoors—mountaintops, waterfalls, and the rich soil shaped by glaciers thousands of years ago. I worshipped the beauty of complexity and nature’s patterns as I studied and dabbled in the world’s different faith traditions.

But no matter where I turned, the ache in my heart persisted, searching for something as deep and true as those red letters in the Gospel of John. Nothing felt like the love of Christ, deep in the temple of my heart. Nothing else. In the toughest, darkest moments of my life, that love met me there with raw power—with clarity and truth beyond any scientific explanation. Beyond words.

That’s why I never gave up.

So, I kept looking for a church that understood the power I had met in Christ. Not just in doctrines to enforce or litmus test me, but as life itself.

This series in this new church was about exactly that.

Don’t Pull Back

The message this week was on spiritual gifts, one of my favorite topics as a leadership development nerd. In a Christian context, it’s the beautiful promise of the Holy Spirit helping unique people bring love and peace to the community and world. I literally cannot imagine anything better than that.

To mentor and lead teams at work, I studied sermons, books, and courses on this topic, and even created resources for others. To be honest, all those times I left churches, the pain that never went away was the longing to see a community alive in faith—just like it describes in the Bible.

I found myself nodding along with his balanced approach, my nerdy brain’s analysis helping me forget about the guy next to me. Then I heard something specific that jolted me. I leaned in, taking in every word.

“Can I just call something out? Some of you have tried to make yourself too small in church. You show up at work and you operate fully in the gifts. And—maybe I am just speaking to the ladies in the house—in the church you have never been in a place where your full gifts and strengths of those gifts were welcomed. But we need the power of God operating in every part of the body. It’s a key ingredient to say ‘Don’t pull back.’

Maybe you are making yourself small because people have told you what you are not going to be. Maybe you’ve made yourself small because you never had anyone to encourage you or call it out.

Can I just tell you? Your gifts are welcomed here.”

His words hit me hard, the lump in my throat growing so fast that my head hurt, tears rolling fast down my cheeks. Yes. I had made myself small that morning. Not just that morning. I couldn’t believe his courage to call this out.

But he didn’t stop there. He closed by challenging us to imagine what it would be like if we all used our gifts empowered by love.

I have. So many times. Heaven on earth.

I sat crying while everyone stood for the last song, doing my best to compose myself. I am never getting over this, I thought shaking my head, smiling through the tears of the irony of almost walking out on something I had been waiting so long to hear.

As we started filing out, I glanced at the guy next to me, but I felt different. I felt more like me.

I watched him closely as he tried to get attention from the young women in front of us. I slowed my exit to make sure they had cover and eye contact if they got cornered.

They may not know how rare those words were from a pulpit. They may not know how many women have waited decades to hear them. But they do know whether they feel safe in this room.

I have no idea what the future holds for me and the culture of my new church. But at that moment it was simple: I wanted these two young women to feel welcome.

The rest will unfold one tiny, courageous step in faith at a time.

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1. Prompts for reflection
   Did you learn to make yourself smaller in church?
   What would need to be named, changed, or protected for you to bring your full gifts into the room?

• For pastors and church leaders
  Have women in your church been told their full selves and gifts are welcome?

• What are women in your church learning they have to manage quietly?

• Who could they tell before something becomes serious enough to prove?

I know what I would want — a non-judgmental person with an open heart with a safe place to encourage me during a crisis.

A person like Lydia.

Like Bobby Gilles wrote in last month’s guest post, Lydia is one of those biblical women many of us somehow missed. My first discovery of her story was on May 13, 2022. The memory is burned in my mind — a Friday afternoon on my front porch, trying to soak up some Maine spring sunshine.

I had been invited to a Bible training for women summit nearby. After registering, I received my homework assignment by email—read the Letter to the Philippians twice before coming. I have always been a faithful doer of homework, so I did what I always do. I dug right in.

I turned to Philippians in my large study Bible I recently got, my first Bible purchase as an adult. It was so heavy on my lap, it reminded me of my chemistry textbook in college, the one I always regretted putting in my backpack. I opened to the beginning where it gave the setting and referred to the history of the Philippian church. A little parenthetical sent me to Acts 16: 11-40. I flipped back a couple hundred pages to Acts.

I dug back into the details to understand more. I was going to a women’s Bible summit and I needed to be prepared. Here’s the “Philippian’s church plant” story line.

Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke—four companions in the new faith movement called “The Way”— arrive by boat to modern-day Greece, then walk inland a few miles to Philippi, a central city in the Roman empire. They go looking for a place of prayer outside the city gate. There they found a group of women gathered for prayer, including Lydia. The Lord opened Lydia’s heart. She and her household were baptized. This sequence of events culminates in Acts 16: 15 when Lydia convinces these four men to stay at her house.

I read Lydia’s words and that is when my head exploded. Wait - huh? The Philippian church was started at Lydia’s house?! My body registered something beyond cognitive dissonance. Adrenaline dumped into my veins. This is new. Different. Important.

My senses heightened as I kept reading about Philippi, as the next sequence of scenes is nonstop action and drama.

One day while the group is on their way to pray, Paul loses his cool. He tires of being harassed about their mission by a spirit-possessed slave girl, so he impulsively casts out the spirit. This did not go over well with her owners who had been happily profiting from her oppression by selling fortune-telling.

They stirred up a mob, dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities, and got them beaten and thrown in jail. Paul and Silas prayed and sang into the night until an earthquake shook the whole prison and set them free. When the jailer panics and nearly takes his own life, they stop him. They went to the jailer’s house to baptize him and his family and celebrate with a meal. In the morning, they received an apology from the Philippi officials did not know Paul and Silas were Roman citizens with rights. Then, they are asked to leave the city.

That’s a lot of supernatural drama. I can see why the city authorities begged them to leave.

Then, you know what they naturally did next?

They went back to see Lydia.

Four years later, I still can’t stop thinking about Lydia’s house and what it must have been like there. Part of that obsession comes from a story in my own life — a story a friend later reflected back to me after we survived our own supernatural drama, or what we both now call blessings. The story line goes like this:

I first met this friend when she was going through her own serious transition. She was pregnant, in a new city, and through a sequence of events neither of us could have planned, she and her fiancé both ended up living at my house. Her faith was beautiful and contagious, and we bonded as sisters, spending many hours preparing for her baby to be born and come home to my house.

When I discovered Lydia a decade later and returned to my own faith with passion, I wanted to share this story with her. I knew she would be so happy for me. I waited to text her Lydia’s verses until after she put her now three children to bed. I could tell from the delay between texts that she was going to look it up in her Bible. When her response came back it shook me up.

That is what you did for me.

Her words landed deep. The lump in my throat grew large as I could feel the power of being seen. Of her knowing my heart. And of being part of a much bigger story.

I had been reading Acts 16 like a woman discovering buried treasure, excited by the detail that Paul and Silas knew exactly where to go after the prison broke open. I was excited for the permission it implied for women like me.

But my friend handed the story back to me in a way more powerful form. She reminded me it is a pattern.

A woman with an open heart makes room. A person finds sacred space. Nervous systems calm down. A fragile new thing is protected long enough to take root.

That is holy hospitality, even the smallest feeling that says “Come here. You are safe. We will figure out the next step together.” It’s beautiful, feminine, and powerful.

And that is why I love thinking about Lydia’s house, a safe place in Philippi for members of a radical new faith movement to find refuge.

Offering sacred space can be the smallest thing. The key ingredients we see in Lydia’s story — a place where you can relax and be encouraged. Prompts for you to ponder or journal:

1. What kinds of people and places make you feel safe and encouraged?

2. Can you think of tiny ways to create sacred space in your life where you can calm down and get encouraged?

Last fall when I was testing out a resource I had made, I really wanted to get Bobby’s daughter Lydiana’s feedback on it. I sent Bobby a DM and asked if it was ok and he said sure. The next thing I got was a big message of direct and specific feedback from Lydiana, right back to me in the DM! It was great!

It tickled both of us—Bobby was surprised as he didn’t know that was her plan. I loved the bold, courageous action that is just like Lydia in the Bible. I am so grateful that Bobby wanted to join forces for this post.

His writing is below the little sprout. You can check out his simulcast post at this link: Paul Had a Vision of a Man. God Sent Him to a Woman Instead and subscribe to his Substack while you are there.

I will be writing about my experience trying to find a church that appreciates a bold woman leader and why I believe Lydia’s story is so relevant today. I will also be experimenting with fiction, with me as an apprentice working for Lydia in Philippi. To read more from The Lydia Effect, hit the purple button below.

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Now let’s hear from Bobby!

I’d been a churchgoer for over three decades before I ever heard Lydia mentioned in a sermon. For several years after that, I only knew her as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first Christian convert in Europe?” Yet Lydia’s story is so crucial to the spread of the gospel and to our understanding of how women have always led and shaped the church that my wife and I named our first daughter Lydiana (we combined “Lydia” with “Anna,” the New Testament prophet).

Let’s walk verse-by-verse through Lydia’s paradigm-altering story in Acts 16:

A decade or so after this meeting, Paul will write his epistle to the Philippians, in which he encourages Euodia and Syntyche, two women he calls coworkers (sunergoi) who labored side by side with him (sunathleō) (Phil. 4:3), to be like-minded in the Lord. We shouldn’t be surprised that the Philippian church has strong women leaders, since its origin story involves women gathering at a “place of prayer” on the Jewish Sabbath.1

Paul’s team speaks to them, indicating that Paul is willing to establish a church with women as its foundation.2 This isn’t unusual. Ancient and modern sources agree that women far outnumbered men in early Christianity.3

Linda Mahoney writes, “The ‘place of prayer’ (proseuchē) where Lydia and the other women were gathered was probably a house – in fact, very possibly it was Lydia’s house, since she had a business of her own.”4 The phrase “place of prayer” dates back at least to the third century B.C. in Egypt, and was a synonym for “synagogue” among Jews outside of Palestine. Other terms for this kind of gathering place include didaskaleion (house of study) and sabbateion (Sabbath house). “Place of prayer” most often refers to the building, whereas “synagogue” can refer to either the building or the congregation. has a good article about this here.

By the Mishnaic period (around A.D. 200), a quorum of ten adult Jewish males was required to form an official synagogue. If this was true in first-century Philippi, it may explain why Luke used the term “place of prayer” to describe a group of women, at least one of whom was a “God-fearer” but was not Jewish (more on that later). In short, Paul went looking for a group of people worshiping the Jewish God on the Sabbath, and he found them. These people were women, and the “place of prayer” was a building where a “synagogue-like” group met to worship the God of Israel.

The city of Thyatira was in the region of Lydia, leading some to assume that “Lydia” is a nickname. In any event, it means “Lydian woman,” and inscriptional evidence shows at least some other women with this name.5 If “Lydia” is a nickname or secondary name, then perhaps this is why she isn’t mentioned in Philippians (although a more likely reason may be that she had died by the time of this epistle). Some scholars believe her more formal name may be Euodia or Syntyche (the latter is more likely since that name was known in the Lydian region).6

Others suggest she may be the “loyal companion” (syzygos) to whom Paul appeals for help mediating between Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4:3. Syzygos is a masculine noun. Still, masculine-gendered words do not always denote a male individual (cf. “diakonos” for Phoebe in Rom. 16:1).7 These are interesting theories. Whether true or not, the speculation stems from the obvious importance of Lydia to the founding of a church that would later receive an epistle in our New Testament.

Most commentators believe Lydia was wealthy. Unlike today, when anyone can buy any color of clothing they want, only the emperor was permitted to wear an all-purple garment. Lesser officials could wear a toga edged in purple. This was probably not a hard law to enforce because purple cloth could break your bank account. Purple dye came from milking or crushing Murex snails quickly, before the snail died (so the mucus would not dry before processing). When exposed to sunlight, the secretion turned vibrant purple. Twelve thousand snails yielded one gram of dye; a pound of dye may have cost the equivalent of a soldier’s annual wages (one hundred denarii).8

Some speculate that Lydia’s product was the less valuable madder, a plant-based dye, because Thyatira was an inland city. However, inscriptions from Thyatira reveal a thriving guild of skilled purple dyers, larger than any other city in the Roman province of Asia.9 Lydia was obviously wealthy enough to own or rent a house large enough for her household and the missionaries, including at least Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke.10

Teresa Okure notes that, “A household normally included ‘slaves, hired labourers, tenants, business associates and even distant kinsmen,’ and women and men clients.”11 Lynn Cohick adds:

“... we must recognize the elite status of some women mentioned [in the New Testament], such as Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth; in his interactions with her, Paul associated with the upper echelon of society. She likely had slaves and freedmen and women employed in her home and business. She probably exerted at least some influence within the city of Philippi, and perhaps also within her home city of Thyatira.”12

Luke describes Lydia as a “God-fearer” (a term he uses in Acts 13:43; 16:14; 18:7; 13:50; 17:4, 17). God-fearers were Gentiles who appreciated and studied Judaism but had not fully converted.13 Paula Gooder says Lydia is “attracted to the tenets of Judaism and … gathers with others to reflect on them.”14 She has already begun studying the Hebrew Scriptures, which were the “Bible” of the first Christians.

These few words demonstrate Lydia’s agency and authority. As I wrote in my article on Euodia and Syntyche:

The baptism of Lydia’s household follows an early church pattern of baptizing influential individuals along with their entire house, which would then become the home for church gatherings led by the householder (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:16; 16:15-16).15 Householders who hosted church gatherings functioned like the ones who “lead” and “are over/care for you” (proistēmē) in Romans 12:8 and 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13. Roger Gehring surmises that these householders were the proistēmē and that they prefigure the office of overseer.16

“Persuaded” derives from parabiazomai, meaning to “urge strongly” or even “to force.”17 says, “The emphasis here is on compelling rhetoric. She was, after all, a business dealer.”18 Lydia challenges Paul to substantiate his theology in an embodied, practical way.19 If she is truly “in the Lord,” then Paul can stay in the house where she is the “head” (cf. 1 Cor. 11:11-12). It doesn’t matter that she is a Gentile or a woman – they are now siblings in Christ, members of a body in which there is “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female” (Galatians 3:28).

Contrast Paul’s response to Lydia’s forceful persuasion with the complementarian philosophy of John Piper, who explains why it might be acceptable to read a Bible commentary written by a woman but not to listen to a woman preacher in front of him:

“I distinguish between personal, direct exercises of authority that involve manhood and womanhood, and indirect, impersonal exercises of authority which don’t concern gender. So, here is a woman, she is right there. She is woman. I am man. And I am being directly pressed on by this woman in an authoritative way. Should she be doing that? Should I be experiencing that? And my answer is, no. I think that is contrary to the way God made us.”20

Thank God that Paul’s answer was not “no” when Lydia was pressing him directly in an “authoritative way.”

In this episode, Lydia plays the role God played in Acts 10 when God told Peter to go to the house of the Gentile Cornelius.21 Her actions also align with God’s purpose in sending Paul to Macedonia in the first place. Recall that God gave Paul a vision of a Macedonian man begging him to come to this region (of which Philippi is a city). Note the literary parallels between the Macedonian’s persuasive speech and Lydia’s:

(A) 16:9 A Macedonian urges (parakaleō) Paul, “Come to Macedonia and help us.”

(B) 16:15 Lydia urges (parakaleō) Paul, “Come and stay in my house.”

(A) 16:10 “We got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

(B) 16:15 “And she persuaded us” (they concluded that Lydia wouldn’t take no for an answer, so they complied).22

Lydia’s house, which may have been the “place of prayer” where Paul first met God-fearing women, served not only as a refuge for Paul’s missionary team but also as an ideal location for the first church in Philippi. This would be true whether her house was the previously mentioned “place of prayer” or that place was unavailable to them (if some of those who gathered there did not accept Christ). Houses of successful businesspeople were well suited to this, in an era when Christianity was not a legal religion and was not permitted to build stand-alone church buildings.

The ruins of Pompeii include an example of a moderately wealthy house known as “the home of the tragic poet.” These Roman houses were typically rectangular. The rooms encircled an open-air atrium at the front of the house, with an adjacent dining room called a triclinium. Together, these two rooms could often hold up to fifty people, and the atrium’s open-air design would be relatively comfortable in hot weather.23

The word for “encourage,” parakaleō, appears elsewhere in Acts as an act of proclamation, particularly in Christian preaching (cf. 11:23; 14:22; 15:32; 20:1-2, 12).”24 Here, Paul and Silas are preaching to the new believers before leaving town.

Parakaleō is also the word translated “urged” in verse 15: When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” First, Lydia “preaches” to Paul, Timothy, Silas, and Luke by grounding her invitation to “stay at my home” in the evidence of her conversion through their gospel announcement. Then Paul preaches to the new community at Lydia’s house before his missionary team departs. Who do you think preached to them the next time they met ... in their church building ... which was Lydia’s house? Gordon Fee writes:

“The evidence from Acts indicates that at her conversion, Lydia became patron to both the small apostolic band and the nascent Christian community. By the very nature of things, that meant she was also a leader in the church, since heads of household automatically assumed the same role in the church centered in that household. Moreover, Macedonian women in general had a much larger role in public life than elsewhere in the empire; in Philippi, in particular, they were also well known for their religious devotion.”25

Willie James Jennings adds, “She makes her home a site of the new intimacy of the Spirit and forms it into what will become a cell of the church …. Here is power put to good use.”26

Paul’s team has just left Philippi, heading to Thessalonica (Acts 17). What clue in Acts 16 suggests someone might supplant Lydia as a leader in this new church? None. Who would be better suited to lead this brand-new cell of spiritual siblings? As I wrote in my article on Euodia and Syntyche:

“Householders likely preached in the absence of apostles and other itinerant evangelists. Roger Gehring asks, ‘Why would the householder, as the leader of a house church, not have taught or spoken prophetically? Aquila and Priscilla exemplify such house church hosts who exercised a teaching ministry (cf. Acts 18:1-3, 24-26) ... it would be expected that a well-to-do homeowner who in general had a higher education than the other members of his household would have accepted teaching responsibilities for the group that met in his home.’”27

As Paul’s team continues preaching in Macedonian cities, they will continue to find “leading women” who become Christians (Thessalonica in 17:4 and Berea in 17:12). This pattern aligns with what we know about women leaders in Macedonia during the New Testament period.”28 Lydia’s leadership makes sense not only in the context of Macedonian culture but also in the context of Christianity’s rapid growth. Early opponents of Christianity denigrated this way of life because so many women were prominent Christians.”29 The Greek philosopher Celsus, writing a polemic against Christianity called True Doctrine in the latter half of the second century, said, “They [Christian missionaries] want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children.”30

Lydia’s Lasting Influence On The Philippian Church:

Perhaps Lydia is dead by the time Paul writes Philippians in the next decade. Or perhaps she is Syntyche, or Paul’s unnamed “true companion,” who will help Syntyche and Euodia be like-minded in Christ. Regardless, the evidence of Lydia’s benefaction and her forceful entreaty for Paul to stay at her house shaped his relationship with this church in the years to come.

Contrary to Paul’s usual policy, he accepted financial aid from the Philippians while he was with them and even after he’d gone (Phil. 4:14-16). His partnership with Lydia and other women at the “place of prayer” blossomed into a “side-by-side” coworker relationship with Euodia and Syntyche.31 Lydia left her mark. All of us, men and women alike, would do well to emulate her open heart, her hospitality, and her determination to prove that there is no more Jew, Gentile, male, or female in Christ, for we are one.

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As I drove quickly away, the tears stung my eyes.

I chastised myself for a rotating list of things I had done wrong, with the worst thing showing that I was upset. I had shared my passion for Lydia of Thyatira (Acts 16)1 with some teen girls and we got goofing off about me being obsessed about it. They were my first “readers” before it was written down — when it was just animated storytelling after church. They were very familiar with my purple-attired nerdy charm.

A man was nearby and overheard the conversation.

After the teen girls walked away, he rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you taking this whole ‘Lydia thing’ too far?” he said, “It’s only a couple lines in the Bible.” He dismissed my concept outright, with a tone that held silly little girl and a pat on the head.

The question made my skin go cold. I got this demeaning tone from someone almost every day at work in the world of data, science, and IT so my hair trigger reflexes kicked in to beat it back with a verbal machete. But I was at church—all the words caught in my throat until it ached.

As my composure deteriorated, he ramped up his dismissiveness to match my defensiveness, with the same teasing tone in his eye. Out of patience with the dominance game I was losing, I made an excuse and left.

By the time I got home, I understood better what had happened. His question penetrated into my own fears like a thief, just like the serpent did when he asked Eve “did God really say….” and started her mind churning — and doubting.

For months, the spark of excitement I’d felt at discovering Lydia’s story had been flickering, getting overshadowed by a gathering storm of fear. Even surrounded by stacks of Bibles and sticky notes and scholarly interpretations, I felt like I was walking on eggshells.

Researching Lydia’s story was one thing: safe, intellectual, comfortably within my scientist’s tendencies. But telling this story? About something in the Bible? That was something entirely different.

The fear spiraled, each worry feeding the next: fear of making a mistake, fear of not having credentials, fear of failure, fear of success. Some days, my anxiety loomed taller than the pile of books on my desk, which is pretty tall. Doubts swirled—maybe I should just stop annoying everyone with my endless talk about Lydia. The irony was excruciating —captivated by Lydia’s courage, yet afraid to follow her example.

Sitting in my own driveway I knew I had a choice: let his question steal my future and stay silent—like women are often trained to do—or keep pushing forward.

But my analytical brain still craved evidence. I leaned my forehead on my hands on the steering wheel for a minute as the gears in my mind kicked in. My jaw set in determination. I got out of the car and marched inside to do what I always do when this feeling hits — get into a pile of books.

I curled up in a fleece blanket with dozens of books within reach, thumbing to the carefully placed purple tabs. Just like so many times before, no magical stream of logical evidence poured out to settle my mind. Why does Lydia seem invisible? Why does no one seem to see the implications of those few little lines in the Acts of the Apostles? I searched online for more information. Again. I soothed myself by buying a few more books that might have more clues. Yeah, again.

I felt so out on a limb. This is the story of my life, the familiar thought ran through the storm in my mind as I sighed in frustration. This time when the cat came to insert his fuzzy presence into my flurry of reading, I gave up and laid my head back on the couch cushion to stare at the ceiling.

As the cat purred and by breathing returned to normal, the kind of certainty I could never get from a book hit me. Yes — this is the story of my life. A deep-digging soil scientist and woman of faith, nerding out on details and often-invisible patterns below the surface. Oh yeah. That’s me.

I may never get a logical left-brain answer about my holy obsession with Lydia, but I do have something that no question can steal from me: my identity in Christ and my story in God’s story.

I smiled.

This event was a few years before I started writing The Lydia Effect Substack in 2025 after suddenly retiring from my federal career. I enjoyed reading this chapter from the past with fresh eyes, noticing how much my courage in faith has grown. Lydia of Thyatira still inspires my calling to mentor young women. I built a little house church with a shed chapel. I wrote some stories and made some new friends.

One of those new friends will be joining me next week as a guest author on The Lydia Effect next week —. Bobby is studying theology and writes with care and conviction. He even named his daughter after Lydia.

When I found that out, my spirit soared. God was answering my old fears with something more fun that I could have imagined — a pastor studying theology with a young daughter that wants to be a theologian, too.

So next week, Bobby has an article for us about Lydia of Thyatira. And spoiler alert — I was NOT making too much out of these few lines in the Bible after all.

Have you ever been told that you were making “too much” of something you know God placed on your heart?

Who are the “skilled workers” God has brought into your life to help you weave your story?

I failed to resist picking it up to see what got worse since I put my head on the pillow. I remembered preaching voices—Stay informed, do your part, don’t look away.

That was back in January, when I identified the mental invasion for what it was: a toxic addiction. I drew my line in the sand as a choice between light and darkness— my attention is sacred space. No more.

As the last post in this short series on The Spirit’s Attention Economy, I wanted to report back on how it went.

Well, it worked. I really can’t believe how well or the results.

First, the behavioral shifts helped — my own thoughts came back once I set the boundary and reoriented to God. The small choices got easier. I practiced by returning to Scripture and added a new helpful habit—a sacred and embodied practice of coloring.

As I colored with my new set of colored pencils and pink pencil sharpener, I could smell the wax and feel the weight of the pencil against my hand. I could see the white areas on the page filling in with color, just like I used to see on an aerial photo when I filled in the soil mapping lines. Just like over the summer when I worked on my shed project. My mind calmed.

As the winter storms kept coming, I kept reorienting my attention to God. My calling came back to the front burner. What was next for me and The Lydia Effect in a world where yesterday’s ideas seem tone-deaf? The temptation to scroll would pop up to try to glean clues about the future so I could plan.

But, each time, I would reorient to God. Attention is sacred space, I would say to myself. I just kept making pages, coloring, and one more thing—learning.

I knew that the attention economy drags me away from my real calling to help real people. That is not a neutral influence. But to finish my reset and adapt, I needed to understand the pattern. Not just in me, but how it is affecting my son and the women I mentor. I needed to know how it scales.

So, I got curious and my analytical scientific mind took over and started digging. Time for one of my soil scientist-level rabbit holes.

Not only did this research retrain my algorithm, but it also took me on a wild ride from the attention economy through addiction and brain wiring to social platforms and manipulation. I will spare you the details of the whole adventure, but let’s just say what I found while excavating, coloring, praying, and reorienting my attention to God changed my whole plan.

What I kept seeing, over and over, at the bottom of each little tunnel was this: we are up against identity theft. Not the type that takes your credit cards or bank accounts, but even worse. The thief walks in right through the front door and, with your permission, steals who you think you are. And that means it steals your future. All of our futures.

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Identity itself is at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Of course—the same old serpent logic from the Garden of Eden when Eve fell for identity theft, too.

One night while I was coloring and reading Scripture, I got a text from a friend. I heard the special little ringtone, and later saw it was about an idea we had a couple years ago. We had both drifted into other priorities and she was texting to confirm that reality to put it to rest. I was grateful for the clarity as well.

The next morning, I woke up with crystal clear clarity. The puzzle pieces snapped together in my mind. Identity. Imago dei. Young women and faith. Social media and the attention economy.

The people I am called to help don’t need my Lydia story. They need theirs.

I went to my files to find the project my friend had texted me about. I found it and a whole lot more. Everything I had pushed aside for after I wrote “the real book” was what I needed to work on now.

Instead of the course I took on writing a book, publishing formulas, platform building, or influencers with a digital course, I just had to turn my attention toward God. Staring at all my neatly organized purple folders, I saw my experiences, my testing and analysis, and my gifts. I saw my future.

I knew what I needed to do.

So that’s what happened in the last two months. I wrote the second book first. I approved the digital proof at the printer today.

Identity in Christ: The Image of God in Me

Stay tuned for more news on this resource and the plan for The Lydia Effect in the next post!

Questions for you to ponder or add some feedback in the comments:

1. Attention economy recovery is not one-and-done, just like most addictions. They take an identity shift. Have you tried a social media fast? How did it go?

2. Have you noticed how easily the feed turns identity into a battlefield?

Plugging the Leaks

As crisis after crisis brews and boils over, it is not an easy task to discern what needs attention. I thought back to the days when a single natural disaster could dominate the news for weeks and there would be a genuine outpouring of help. Not anymore, especially through the churn of suspicion in a polarized and confused world. We must be getting numb in crisis fatigue.

But we are wired as humans to connect and help — we can only withdraw, ghost, and hide for so long, especially with so many people needing help. This helping instinct pulls me back to screens sometimes, robbing my attention. I recently found myself on one app, staring at a blank white screen with an hourglass: You’ve reached your limit. Yeah, that tracks.

I caught myself as my finger hovered over the bypass option: Why again?

My mind had rationalizations ready:

“I need to stay informed so I can help.”
“I need to stay in touch on social media to see who needs help.”
“They need me to ‘like and subscribe’ since they are starting something new, too.”

So much for the 5-minute quick check. The attention economy’s grasp is strong, so I needed to plug the leaks and get organized about helping.

Onesies and twosies-style helping

It feels wrong to ignore what is unfolding around us, but it feels toxic to pay attention to the feed, so what is the move?

A friend of mine has noticed how she loves what she called the “onesies and twosies” in her yoga classes. That made sense to me and her words have echoed in my mind for months. I pondered this and prayed about this next small step so I could find more solid footing in this moment.

The answer came when another friend asked for something.

“Hey, Laura, do you have any more journal pages I can test out? I could use them at the laundromat.”

Ah-ha! I knew specifics about her life and what she was navigating so I thought for a minute about what pages I had ready that would be most helpful. None of them were quite right, though. Her drive to make a life of purpose and help people is strong as she faces big life decisions, so I wanted to do more than just send her something handy.

I mobilized to help. One person in real life.

I dug in, happily spending a couple of hours with my heart awake in helping. I waded through my trusted standby resources from years find my own strengths and life purpose. I opened the old file folders, the aged pages reminding me of stuffy conference rooms and trusted colleagues that I still miss. I even smiled remembering my favorite blueberry-scented marker as I saw my notes and faded pink highlighter.

I flipped through everything, but nothing stood out. I wanted something more feminine and less corporate. I wanted something that would engage the creative brain and the senses. And I needed a sharper tool — something that would help her that day. A tool so sharp that it could make saying yes feel right and saying no feel easier.

So, I made my own contemplative version, and she and I are testing it now. I am sharing it here to see what you all think. English and Spanish versions are below.

Heart Strings Helping Practice

539KB ∙ PDF file

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Printable coloring practice to help you find the ways you love to help. Please share with someone that would enjoy!

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Ayuda Hace Que Mi Corazón Cante

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Práctica de colorear imprimible para ayudarte a descubrir cómo te gusta ayudar. ¡Compártela con alguien que la disfrute!

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The Heart Strings

The practice is designed to lightly hold the attention while engaging in coloring so the mind opens and leads into a nice quiet space. The Scripture is there to contemplate or pray while you smell the markers or colored pencils. I like colored pencils since I can feel the scratching on the paper and smell of wax.

There is one major difference between this practice and all the others like it I have taken or studied—the focus on one-on-one helping in relationship. I wanted to try something counter-cultural that doesn’t even scale. I don’t know about you, but my job at a national office warped my mind to think that small, relationship-based things seemed inferior.

Yes, I got satisfaction and even pride from delivering speeches or products that impacted tens of thousands. But, if I am honest with myself, that was more about performing well than truly helping. What made my heart sing, even during all those years at scale, was helping someone one-on-one.

When we help in a way that is unique to us, we can feel it in our heart. Time flies. It feels right like nothing else in the world. And this is part of the Spirit’s attention economy, helping and serving in real relationships. It might sound small and simple, but it was part of the quiet revolution of the early church. I can just imagine how it worked at Lydia’s house church.

And that’s my focus today with this one little sheet. I pray it is contagious.

:-)

The Heart Strings Practice

If you can, set aside some time to print out and color the wreath in the PDF link while you contemplate the question and Scripture.

• Remember the times that you helped another person and it made your heart feel so good. Ponder the specific ways that you were helping them.

• Write down a few words around the wreath that come to mind as you colored. Circle the one that feels most alive. Some words to ponder: comforting, coaching, listening, validating, de-escalating, mediating, encouraging, clarifying, troubleshooting.

• When you feel the urge to scroll “to help,” do this instead, meditating on the Scripture, thinking about the question, coloring, tracing the words over, or even doodling.

Prompts (for journaling or use with the printout)

• When I am helping someone one-on-one, when do I feel most like me?

• What activities make time disappear?

• What types of things make me come alive?

• What would I do if I wasn’t trying to earn approval or get attention?

  “And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works”
  Hebrews 10:24 (CSB)

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In a season like late winter and Lent, we may find we need more quiet time. So much happens under the surface at this time of year as the sun warms Earth — the sap starts to rise, the buds swell, and our hearts crave an end to winter.

This Lent holds so much. Our attention may be wearing thin or even shutting down. We may need things that cradle our attention gently and calmly.

So, to continue this series on the Spirit’s Attention Economy, I offer up this simple, contemplative practice for you to sit with.

I invite you to print it out from the image or PDF below, get a few colored pencils handy, and set them beside your favorite spot. Make it a full-bodied experience with the smell of sharpened pencils, a candle, and coffee. Listen to the scratching of the wax on the paper and feel the pressure of the pencil on your fingers. Focus your attention on the short strokes and color filling in slowly.

If you feel up to it, invite a friend over to color with you if it would be relaxing. Just see what unfolds when you give it a little soft attention. I would love to hear how it went.

Artists are creating more contemplative coloring mandalas, so more practices like this will be available soon. Stay tuned.

Coloring Wreath Longing Practice

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One-page coloring practice to discover your longing. See what you find as you explore this contemplative practice.

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1. Attention as sacred space (link to this post)

2. Why the orientation of the heart matters —choosing sides (link to this post)

3. A Choosing Practice — welcome to this post.

This week, I don’t have a new topic as my heart is still working with the last topic, but I created a practice you might enjoy. It’s in the style of Butterfly Reading.

Here’s the process:

• Print out the custom mandala for this practice1

• Slowly read Galatians 5:13-262.

• Contemplate Galatians 5:22-23 while coloring

• Get curious about the 5 bullets from last week (see below)

Let me know what you think of the practice if you have a chance to give it a try.

5 Bullets from Last Week

Making a commitment and building an identity around it has some wildly important consequences:

1. The story we tell ourselves locks in — our inner narrative solidifies like cement. The choice converts uncertainty into clarity like an internal compass, setting a course for our future.

2. Our thoughts organize to be consistent — choices cascade as we align with the original choice for inner stability.

3. Our attention reorganizes and we notice different things — the Red Car Effect is real. If you buy a red car, your brain will then notice more red cars even if the number of red cars does not change.

4. We save mental energy — since we have established our inner compass, energy is freed up from confusion and decision-making into action.

5. Spiritually, our heart has taken a pledge of allegiance — on a deep level, even if we don’t know it, we have made a commitment to be formed by this choice.

Prompts for prayer and journaling:

• Have you ever felt a rush of relief after you make a decision?

• Are there any unmade decisions that are fogging up your mind? What would it take to make even a tiny one?

• How does it feel to say this: “I am the kind of person that chooses light, love, and peace.”

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Choice

Last week, I watched news of terrible events unfolding in the world, as probably most of us did. One clip was peculiar—the speaker kept saying the word choice, anointing the word with a special tone. They had a choice. She had a choice. Choice choice choice.

What is this strange emphasis on choice? I wondered, with a sour feeling in my stomach.

My scientist risk manager brain started analyzing before I could stop it, absorbing more perspectives to “get informed” enough. My anger and adrenaline rose as I watched angry words flying through the air like weapons. I felt nauseous from the yelling, scapegoating, and hate.

I put my phone down to sooth my buzzing nerves with closed eyes and a few breaths. My overwhelmed emotions settled into resolve: NO ONE is going to use the fog of war to blind me into a false choice.

But what is the real choice? I felt it deep inside but couldn’t explain it well. I knew I needed something rock solid to protect my sacred attention.

Two Ways

Over the past few years of study of Lydia of Thyatira and her Philippian church, I often wondered what their rules were, since there was no official written doctrine in the first century. I was curious —what boundaries did she set? What daily small choices did she make? I kept digging to find clues.

My research led me to an ancient text — The Didache. The Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Nations, circulated as a well-respected guide to the house churches of that time.

The Didache begins fairly dramatically with a clear choice1:

There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways. The path of life is this—first, you shall love the God who made you. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. And all things you would not want done unto you, do not do to another person. (Didache, Chapter 1, verses 1-2)

This choice felt real —deep and true.

After my episode with the news clip about choice, I spent hours with these words. I read Scripture references2 to understand how Jesus elevated ancient commandments and how the Didache summarized teachings into a clear threshold-type choice.

So, why was this choice so important to make?

Sacred Compass

I nerded out in my library of leadership books on how the brain and attention function with choice. The more I studied, the more I realized how potent the Didache approach is — and how deep the destruction of polarized politics is.

Making a commitment and building an identity around it has some wildly important consequences:

1. The story we tell ourselves locks in — our inner narrative solidifies like cement. The choice converts uncertainty into clarity like an internal compass, setting a course for our future.

2. Our thoughts organize to be consistent — choices cascade as we align with the original choice for inner stability.

3. Our attention reorganizes and we notice different things — the Red Car Effect is real. If you buy a red car, your brain will then notice more red cars even if the number of red cars does not change.

4. We save mental energy — since we have established our inner compass, energy is freed up from confusion and decision-making into action.

5. Spiritually, our heart has taken a pledge of allegiance — on a deep level, even if we don’t know it, we have made a commitment to be formed by this choice.

Does this sound like something to take casually, leaving ourselves unprotected in whatever latest outrage hits the screens? Or, like something to treat as sacred?

Staring at these 5 bullets on my screen puts a lump in my throat. Identity-level vows matter because they have the raw power to create our lives. This explains why the Didache starts with a choice.

This is why we all need to.

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The Choice I Become

I remembered a time at my old job where I was in a battle over a high-stakes project. Passions ran high and stress spiked off the charts through daily toxic meetings. During this months-long episode, I created an avatar to help protect my mind from other people’s agendas. In one way it felt silly, but in another it felt like armor — my avatar’s slogan was this: “I pack my own Kool-Aid, thanks.”

That is how I feel today with my attention. It is sacred space that I protect from other people’s Kool-Aid with the sacred choice to follow Christ. This was why I had such a bad reaction to the news — the choices being served up did not match my inner compass.

So how do I practice discerning light from darkness in real life? I follow what Jesus said, doing my best to walk with the Spirit. I do not identify with polarized labels. I listen to my body and heart that have been forming in the light. And I look for the fruit people bear in their life to stay clear of darkness.

Coming back to this single, simple choice soothes my whole being —it protects my sacred attention from darkness while it forms me. It guards my heart.

Like the Didache says, the difference between these two paths is great. In Part 3, I will share practices that help.

Food for thought

• Which identity-level commitments are forming you?

• How might the Didache choice help you face the outrage-bait attention economy with more clarity and calm?

Experiment for you

• Here’s the choice line I carry to protect my sacred attention: I am the kind of person that chooses light over darkness.

• When I get tight or unsettled, I interrupt the thoughts with this question: What is the darkness here?

• Try it out and let me know in the comments or text me how it went for you.

The soft light of dawn penetrated my dream as I heard the voices of outrage and analysis from my phone that I had left on beside me. What am I doing? I groaned.

I failed to resist picking up the phone, checking to see what got worse since I put my head on the pillow.

Stay informed, do your part, don’t look away. These voices from the attention economy echoed in my mind.

I was way out of “best practice” territory—watching the news in the morning or even having my phone in bed. Or even in the bedroom. Why was I still looking? How many times this week did I hit skip on an ad? Grrrr… I felt everything clenching. I was losing sleep. And peace.

I took a deep breath, exhaling deeply as I put my phone down, angry at the world and my bad habits. No, no, no rippled through my body, my jaw already locked against the day. It felt like years ago when I was quitting alcohol — waking up with the toxic chemistry still in my body, asking myself why I was still doing it.

Addiction. Dammit.

I know this feeling — the resistance that doesn’t hold as easily as I think it should. The attention economy feels like an invasive force, penetrating into my mind, nervous system, and bloodstream.

And I am the one letting it happen. I rolled over in bed, putting my hands on my eyes. I sighed as a big lump formed in my throat. I already know I need to put my own oxygen mask on first to help.

“Lord, help me — protect my mind from this fear and hate.”

I quieted my mind with breathing, waiting for an answer. I contemplated one of my favorite Scriptures — where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Freedom. Sweet freedom. Gratitude washed over me.

I got the clarity I was praying for, stopping my mind instantly. The attention economy is parasitic. But my attention is sacred space.

Yes. Deep breath. Yes, it is sacred. Right —I know this. I forgot in the fog of the battle for my attention. My heart holds the image of God, a holy temple in my body.

This clarity created enough space for a treasure hunt in the Bible, looking for what Jesus taught about the temple in our hearts. It helped make even more space. Then, I remembered the word attention in the story of Lydia of Thyatira, whose unique story fuels my courage.

I unleashed my imagination, anchoring my thoughts in Chapter 16 of Acts. What would have been competing for Lydia’s attention?

I thought of her on her way to her women’s prayer meeting in Philippi, a bustling city on a major trade route in the Roman Empire. Lydia walked through a city where a girl was exploited for profit, crowds were whipped into mob rule, and leaders ordered public beatings and imprisonment.

But Lydia focused in a different direction— maybe even because of what she had seen. She prayed with the Jewish women and those that worshipped with them. She protected her heart. She was a seeker.

She did her part as a leader in her time and place. She listened and did what the Spirit’s attention economy wanted her to do, not what the spectacle of human depravity called her to look at.

Attention is sacred space, to be protected from desecration. I am the one with the power to choose what enters, but I don’t have to do it alone. Where the Spirit is, there is freedom.

Prompt: How can I save a little space for what is sacred?

Curiosity prayer: Lord, what do I need to see today?

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My arms tightened and jaw locked as I held my breath around the lump in my throat. I put the book down to stare into the dark morning.

Deep breaths. I sipped hot coffee and smelled the apple cinnamon candle as my breathing returned. I pressed a prayer stone into my palm for a few seconds, as long as I could wait. I put it down and grabbed the pencil case from my book bag, my shaking hands opening the zipper. The musical sound of fumbled writing implements stopped when I found what I needed.

I popped off the cap and ran my green highlighter over the 100-year-old words.

“unbarring of the soul to the public gaze”

One word terrified me. Unbarring.

Choking back tears to keep the morning silent, I wrote the quote and page number on an index card and put it with all the others next to my coffee cup that was still steaming quietly. For later. Maybe someday.

These notes piled up in spots around the house, like oak leaves in wind-protected hollows. Sticky notes, index cards, poems, prayers. Some are high-profile like on the fridge or next to a lamp, but some need secret hiding places. I learned long ago that if the truth only hurts me, I am safe.

For years, the deepest cuts weren’t written or even thought about. Maybe if I hid the pain long enough, I could forget it was even mine.

But all these little notes are sneaky—they picked locks on the gates to my heart. So, I keep doing it. I fold up prayers and drop them into an old, wicker offering plate in my prayer room.

Write. Fold. Drop.

Then a little breath. The little sound of paper hitting paper helps. A little.

Some notes stay in a mysterious circulation. They turn up to be read, delivering a smile at their unruliness. They defy my attempts at categorizing and sorting, but the feeling and sound of them shuffling in my hands when I try is a ritual. Some are so sacred I carry them with me – I made four hand-written copies of one and laminated it with clear duct tape.

Others are like messages in a bottle from the old me to the renewing me, proving prayers were answered. I don’t throw them away, but I do burn the ones my eyes need to see disintegrating into the flame.

But tonight, the hunt was on for a specific haunting quote. I looked in the usual spots with no luck, so I went to my library for the book.

A bookmark did its work, opening to the page with the faded green highlighting on Frank Laubach’s words from September 28, 1931.1

Unbarring hit me in the chest again, just like it did that morning years ago. The word I was both trying to remember and forget.

The familiar surge came back. I braced, the “no” burning in my chest. The lump in my throat grew, filled with all the things I never said. The pain expanded to my whole neck until it made me nauseous from all the lies I had to eat.

Not again. When the tears broke through this time, I grabbed a box of tissues on my way to my room where I could cry. I looked down at the bookmark that fell out, the words from Scripture staring back up “Everything that is concealed will be brought into light...”

There is no going back now.

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When I wrote this piece last fall, I was working on the next post for The Lydia Effect, but this wasn’t it. This just popped out when I was trying to write the planned post! After reading it to myself, I saw what I did differently.

I saw that my office supplies and prayers were not just my own neurotic coping habit. This process was fueling my spiritual growth. I just hesitated to accept it as sacred because it wasn’t what “experts” teach about faith.

Well, guess what? It is sacred.

I have a sacred practice that matches the brain that I actually have, not someone else’s. It worked so well that I kept testing different ideas and improving it. Now, it is refined into a scrapbooking process where I create poetry, framed art, and inspirational gifts. And maybe an occasional shed (long story).

So, back to Frank Laubach. His whole quote from that letter in 1931 is why the word unbarring hit me so hard.

“When one has struck some wonderful blessing that all mankind has a right to know about, no custom or false modesty should prevent him from telling it, even if it means the unbarring of one’s soul to the public gaze.”

So, just the most terrifying thing imaginable, right? Courage it is.

With attention spans going down and anxiety going up, I wanted to do something more than just write or talk about the problems. My action-bias kicked in and I rummaged around my life for the most helpful thing I could offer — a soothing sacred practice to help calm our nerves when our minds don’t want to stop.

So, I wrote down my sacred practice so others could test it out for themselves. I called it Butterfly Reading after my summer with the monarchs and writings of Teresa of Ávila.

Version 1.0 is in the link below. I am improving it into Version 2.0 from the goldmine of feedback from the women that tested it. Thank you so much if you sent me thoughts!

If you haven’t tried it, take a look and let me know what you think. Maybe unbarring won’t be so hard if we do it together!!

Laura

Butterfly Reading Journal Version 1 (12 Pages)

2.89MB ∙ PDF file

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To make the flights work, the trip stretched into three weeks for the quinceañera, Christmas, and whatever family adventures could fit. Danilo and I needed this —his first trip to Guatemala and my first time back in twenty years. I had a feeling we would come back different.

The emotional stakes built as the departure date closed in. The days between Thanksgiving and the flight blurred—getting sick twice, recovering twice, passports, lists, last-minute errands—while Danilo worked shifts at the gym and tried to stay steady.

But finally, my busy-bee prep work got on his nerves. He confronted me in the kitchen with my to-do lists unfurling and nervous energy filling the room. He looked me straight in the eye and said, in essence, “Don’t do this anymore.” No anxious heroics.

I don’t remember the exact words, but won’t forget his tone, and the way my heart almost stopped. He was accurately naming an old unhealthy pattern: my nervous managing of everyone’s emotions like it’s my job to keep things from blowing up.

Standing there under his dead-serious stare, I made a commitment out loud: no old Laura. I would be calm and adaptive the whole trip. I would be the non-anxious presence. And he and I prayed about it.

Years ago, I heard pastor and author Mark Sayers talk about Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Friedman gave language to what I have experienced: in anxious systems, the steadiest person quietly sets the temperature of the room. My own model for this calm posture is Jesus in the Gospel of John, Chapter 11. Throughout the whole crisis of the death of his friend Lazarus, Jesus is led by the Spirit instead of urgency. He is calm, steady, and emotionally honest. I even keep a copy of John 11 handy to read when I need a refresher.

So, non-anxious presence became my north star in planning. I turned the trip management over to “the kids” and focused on gathering my sacred items: a Spanish-English Bible, my Butterfly Reading Journal draft I needed to test out, and a few more soothing things. My purple backpack became my traveling chapel. I was ready.

After a long trip through too many airports, we made it to Guatemala and through customs into a beautiful reunion with our family. My heart swelled as we navigated through the city, with horns, exhaust, and that familiar chaos of traffic that somehow still feels ok when you’re finally with your people.

When we arrived at their house, Danilo and his brother disappeared for a few days to shelter from the storm of women preparing for the quinceañera. And then I was led to the room they had prepared for me. It was all purple—soft lighting, a purple candle, and a prayer card we had made at my house last year set like a little altar by an open Bible. I just stood there for a second, quiet.

My daughter-in-law saw my face, smiled with tears in her eyes, and said, “Lydia!” cutting through our broken Spanish and English to the heart of the matter: they knew I needed my Lydia of Thyatira-inspired chapel space. I was in good hands here.

The week became a whirl of preparation and family parties. My stepdaughter owns a beauty spa, so we spent long hours there doing nails, hair, and makeup with everyone becoming the most beautiful version of themselves for the photos and the celebration.

As a soil scientist earthy type, I have to admit I don’t have much need for a salon. But my hands were still rough from a summer of landscaping, so they tried their best to fix me up for the big event. When I got bored or anxious, I’d open to a page of my Butterfly Reading journal, read a few things, and pray curiosity back into my body, like God, what do I need to learn right now?

My non-anxious presence held steady. And, with such good teamwork, the quinceañera was amazing. The energy shifted to Christmas preparations with all six of us now together in one house. And it was then that I had a relapse.

Danilo kept texting options for Airbnb’s for our Christmas adventure. My youngest granddaughter wanted a place with a pool. We were running out of time to reserve a place. I was not in charge. This was too much like 20 years ago.

My breath shortened and I felt my nervous system shift up from my peaceful state into amygdala-driven fight/fawn. I frantically tried to gather some facts to solve the problem.

Then I remembered. No, no, no – not this Laura.

I slipped away to my Lydia-inspired room to calm my system. At first, I ran through worst case scenarios, just to confirm to my mind we would be ok. I stood staring blankly for a minute unsure of what to do. Then, I saw the scripture card that we had made at my house last year. I remembered the sound of joy in my granddaughter’s voice when she read the verses in Spanish. I leaned over to inhale the lavender smell of the purple candle. I slowly smoothed the purple fleece blanket. It felt like this humble space had been made with love just for this beautiful moment.

I took a deep breath and pulled out my Butterfly Reading journal pages. I sat down on the bed with my pens and started doodling and coloring. I let my mind roam around, read a few Scriptures, and made notes in the margins. In a matter of minutes, a deep exhale hit me and I felt my system shift down again. My shoulders dropped—I was back.

I got a cold drink and rejoined the family in the living room. My granddaughter and I dug out even more colored pens and she joined me in coloring peaceful things. Now, a deep gratitude flowed through my veins instead of adrenaline.

The Christmas in Antigua was magical. As I sat by the pool with my coffee watching the volcano spit smoke, I felt the lessons sink in. Steadiness isn’t something I either have or don’t have. It’s something I practice— finding the thread and surrendering again with breathing and prayer.

The day before we left, I lingered in bed to let the morning sun warm my feet through the window. I looked around that purple room and soaked in the beauty of the hospitality they had given me. And I found myself thinking about Lydia in Philippi, opening her home like a doorway for the early church. I wondered if she had purple curtains too, with sunlight filtering through them. I imagined her making space for a woman visitor the way my granddaughters made space for me.

Part of my obsession with Lydia is because of her leadership. Her speaking part in Scripture tells you a lot about the kind of leader she was: “If you have judged and decided that I am faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” (Acts 16:15, AMP)

That is Spirit-led authority and leadership without performance. She wasn’t controlling or proving anything. She was giving them the choice, so when they stepped across her threshold, everyone was on the same wavelength about who was in charge—the Lord.

And that’s my commission as I head into 2026 in a world that seems to be unraveling: rereading Mark’s book Non-Anxious Presence, and practicing the John 11 posture, and letting the Lord be in charge. No multiplying anxiety, but being the steadiness in the chaos, returning again and again to prayer and the quiet courage of making peace.

Not someday. Now.

If you want to try the first draft of the Butterfly Reading journal, you can find it here on this post.

Thank you so much for reading!

I wanted to give you something for Christmas that is practical and soothing.

My thoughts kept returning to the sacred reading and contemplation that worked so well for me over the summer while I was watching monarchs. So, I cooked it down and gave it a name inspired by my 2025 season of transformation: Butterfly Reading (catch up on the monarch backstory here and here).

Butterfly Reading Journal (12 Pages)

2.89MB ∙ PDF file

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Sacred Reading Like a Butterfly

Do you have an overactive mind or a short attention span? I sure do. I often overthink and flit from one topic to the next in little bursts of energy. When I read about people meditating or praying, I wondered how on earth they kept their minds under control. I sure couldn’t!

But since I am a curious scientist type, I kept experimenting. That’s how I created Butterfly Reading. Butterfly Reading is a way to read and pray while your mind wanders during activities.

It’s how I’ve learned to practice sacred reading with the untamable mind I actually have. This method has helped me so much that I wanted to share this practice with you, too. The process is outlined below or you can just download the PDF from the link above and go from there.

Here’s an overview:

• Butterfly Reading is a sacred reading approach inspired by how butterflies seek nectar.

• It is a practice that is friendly for busy minds or those with limited attention spans

• Butterfly Reading is meant to be flexible and creative, so the process may last days, weeks, or even longer.

• The steps go roughly in order, but sometimes they might circle back like a butterfly in a meadow

• There is no “right way” to do it. It’s adaptable.

• I don’t force myself to sit still or meditate. And you don’t have to, either. If my body and mind want to move, I move.

• I help my busy mind stay focused on my sacred process with a simple curiosity prayer, which I included in each section below.

The first step is to let things surface and notice them. Picture a butterfly gliding over a meadow, scanning to sense where the nectar might be. Like this, your attention surveys the landscape of your life. Just a gentle roaming to see what shimmers.

What is challenging you? What are you struggling with? What are you grateful for?

Ideas, words, and phrases will bubble up. Jot down the notes of what comes up without judging. This helps clear the mind, too.

If you are tempted to go on your phone for a distraction (it happens!), keep your curiosity prayer handy while you scroll.

Examples from my summer process (especially the Imago chapter): renewal, rubble, remnant, speak, metamorphosis, transformation, chrysalis, recovery, voice, imago, temple, identity.

In this phase, the words and phrases begin to sift. Butterflies don’t drink from every flower—they circle back to a few, testing and tasting to get the nutrition they need. In the same way, certain words and images begin to draw you back, while others quietly fall away. You might start crossing some words and phrases out and adding more. I scan books, online resources, and my Bible to find things that help or align to my phrases. This part of the process usually takes the longest.

You may find that art helps, like maybe a word cloud, poetry, doodling, dancing, or scrapbooking. No perfectionism—just art for your imagination to breathe a little.

Using your imagination helps, too, especially when you are doing sacred reading. When you read the Bible stories or other resources that speak to words that surfaced, what images come to mind?

Don’t forget to rest your mind. Even butterflies have their last meal of the day before sunset and settle down until morning. Your busy mind will have a chance to rejuvenate and process while you rest.

Moving your body helps during the sifting phase too. When butterflies first come out of their chrysalis, they slowly start moving their wings, opening and closing them until they are ready to fly. I find it especially helps me discover what I need to let go of. You can ponder your list while you take a walk, do some stretching or yoga, or play some music.

Examples from my summer process: I did poetry about rubble and remnants and watched butterflies. I built trails, drew a monarch mandala, and did some voice work.

In this part, the words and phrases take their time to settle. For a butterfly, the biggest settling step is when the caterpillar finds a sheltered safe spot for their chrysalis. Here, their metamorphosis begins.

Like the caterpillar, this settling step begins a transformation that leaves something old behind. As you look through your words and process, let them settle out. Something new is taking shape.

Now, it’s time to dig deeper for what resonates with you most in your life—especially Holy Scripture and other sacred readings. In this step, I revisit the Bible verses that were sifted and contemplate the context and story for each one. This helps me pick only the ones that really match.

As you let the transformation settle, the finalists will become clearer. Keep the ones that feel truly special.

Examples from my summer process: The finalists were a few scriptures from the Bible, a poem I wrote, and a few phrases from my favorite mystics’ writings. This process left me with about 5-6 that reflected the truth of my life in this moment.

Finally, nectar—drink deeply. In this part, soak in the Scriptures (like lectio divina), reading over the words until there are no more thoughts, only the soothing contentment of God’s presence. This is what is traditionally called contemplation.

Contemplation is the part when you can rest in the presence of God and let the clarity you have just found work itself into your whole being.

Keep your Scriptures close. If you feel like it, listen to some music with them, too. Let these few curated words run through your mind for as long as you need to. You may eventually start the rhythm again in a different season of your life.

So, this is the summary of my Butterfly Reading practice with the 4-S’s. Now, finally, I feel like I squeezed every last bit out of my monarch season for 2025. I will be praying that you find joy in the process, and I look forward to hearing your stories and suggestions.

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Here’s the link to the booklet again below. Please feel free to share with a friend and practice together. In my family time over Christmas, me and my girls will translate the PDF into Spanish, so stay tuned for that version as well!

Butterfly Reading Journal (12 Pages)

2.89MB ∙ PDF file

Download

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As a rhythm of prayer, sacred reading means listening, then responding, then resting, then going back to listen again either to a new text or to the same text with fresh docility. Each time we approach the text in a loving, listening way, it can yield a new layer of meaning, like peeling off layer after layer of something that never diminishes in size. The Holy Spirit assists in this activity, disclosing truths, setting the heart afire, and leading the reader into the Sabbath rest of contemplation.

Charles Cummings, Monastic Practices, Cistercian Publications 2015.

The Remnant in the Rubble

My mom and I stood inside my old pool shed, craning our necks back to see if it was salvageable. The moist odor of soil and rotting wood did not bode well.

Fifteen years ago, I moved home to Maine from Florida and found my dream house nestled against the forest for me and my son. I named this sunny nook in the landscape Chickadee Draw, where chickadees find a warm place to sing even on the coldest day in January. I learned every smell and sound of Chickadee Draw building my garden soil, tending bees and chickens, and making plans for an earthy sanctuary. Chickadee Draw became a part of me.

But life pulled me in a different direction. While I worked full time as a single mom, Chickadee Draw naturally got neglected. Weeds invaded my trails, trees fell in storms, and random stuff piled up behind my garage. Some days I couldn’t even look outside at all my dreams decaying.

Has this kind of thing happened to you, too? Just look away. I’ll deal with the pain later.

But when friends visited from Florida last year, it got clear. One of them said “You have been talking about Chickadee Draw for years.” He nodded toward the shed. “Next time we visit, we’ll burn it down.”

Ouch. The sharp words of a jiu-jitsu master with a twinkle in his eye pierced my avoidance. Yeah, ok fine. Chickadee Draw, my shed, and me—we are all falling apart, I thought. I was just hoping no one noticed.

But life changed after my sudden departure from federal service. While reorienting, I poured my residual nervous energy into reviving Chickadee Draw with the help of my mom and son. I didn’t yet know if I was preparing to sell or making myself a beautiful retirement bunker—I just knew it had to be done. The eyesore of a shed was near the top of my checklist.

“So, Mom — do you think we could save it?” I said looking at the hole in the roof a fallen tree had made.

She didn’t even hesitate. “Oh, heck yeah! This has another 25 years in it!” She reminded me of the much older one down the street.

The experienced encouragement and willingness to join the adventure was music to my ears. I took a deep breath of relief—at least this one thing was clear.

Slow Motion Renewal

While I waited for the first monarchs to arrive, I threw myself into the shed project—cleaning out old pool junk, digging out woodchuck tunnels, and fixing the roof. My energy came in surges, each burning through another layer of pent-up stress. As my body learned to rest, my energy dropped and the work slowed to a crawl. I had to accept that the shed refurb, let alone the whole Chickadee Draw renewal, was going to take all summer. At least.

By the time the monarchs arrived, I had a routine. I did my best to rest while the monarchs had breakfast then settled into my shed office. The scent of coffee mingled with damp wood and soil while I planned the day’s light work in the soft angled sun.

In the evening, I walked barefoot on the moss trails I had restored, arranging solar lights to enchant the Maine summer nights.

I lingered in my favorite spots, breathing Chickadee Draw deep into my being. The smell of the soil, the forest, and the brook permeated me to my bones. My homeland.

She Shed?

By July, Danilo knew that if he needed me, he could find me in the shed. One hot day he found me there sketching designs and supply lists at an old artist’s desk I had moved from the garage. He sat down in my Adirondack chair and put his feet up on an old milk crate, leaning back to survey my handiwork.

“You can still see all the wood,” he said like it was a bad thing.

For a split second, I wondered if I loved it so much because of the geosmins—that beautiful soil smell—from the rotting wood and woodchuck tunnels. Maybe for a soil scientist it was already heaven.

Danilo’s parting shot: “You should make it into a she shed.”

His words stuck, but I didn’t have that kind of energy. I looked around at the wood and wondered, but my mind wasn’t ready for this analysis.

Just One Short Prayer

The slow progress continued, but the fog in my mind lingered. Sometimes I prayed in frustration: What now, Lord? What is the future of Chickadee Draw? What is my future?

Each day of Lectio Divina, prayer, and movement brought a little more clarity and calm. Small moments felt like answered prayers, a slow trickle of something returning. I practiced being present in my body, especially with my barefeet on the soil. But I still wanted answers.

One August afternoon my next Bible study arrived in the mail. I looked down and giggled in gratitude as I read the title: Nehemiah – Rebuild and Renew.

If Nehemiah could face rebuilding Jerusalem from rubble, trusting God one step at a time, so could I here on my little renewal project. My heart opened.

A peaceful patience came over me, and my mind surrendered its need for answers. I thought of Teresa of Ávila, the monarchs, and John of the Cross’s dark night of the soul. Awash in humility, I felt this life transition come alive with divine order – renewal had taken root.

I now carried one short prayer with my folder and plans —“Lord, please just show me what is next.”

Labora

As my energy and clarity returned, the land called me to labora — sacred hard work of monastic life. I shoveled, chainsawed, and wheelbarrowed. My muscles got firmer, and my skin got darker from the long days. I felt my body alive again—strong—like when I used to map soils in the woods. Only this time, it was to make Chickadee Draw beautiful again.

Progress sped up and I could see new purpose emerging from old spaces. While the monarchs ate milkweed, I exhumed my workshop that was buried under my idle beekeeping gear, made old decking into new bridges, and cut fallen trees into erosion control structures. The piles behind the garage were cleared for parking and a shady nursery for baby milkweed. And even the ugly ditch was transformed into a salamander habitat corridor.

At night after a shower and food, I would go back out to process my day and plan the next. Now, Nehemiah’s night walk was in my mind. I remembered that the very first thing Nehemiah’s teams restored from the rubble was sacred. They dedicated the structure to God.

I pondered this as I walked through fireflies in the cool musky air, my one short prayer repeating in my mind.

Love Lives Here

Despite my strength returning and long daylight hours, my shed project was slow going. My garden tools were still in there but Danilo’s she shed suggestion had wormed its way into my heart. I made adaptations as I discovered a need—a hook for my purple gardening vest, bins for purple blankets, and vases for cut flowers. When my mom poked her head in one day, she could see that the shed had become my chrysalis.

“Pretty soon you’ll be sleeping out here!” she joked. Hmm…..good idea. I made a mental note to bring in a cot and sleeping bag. Oh, and fairy lights and all my purple items that reminded me of Lydia of Thyatira.

One night I wanted to see the moon and went to the shed to wait for it to come up. I sat down and dried off my feet, wet from the dew on the moss. I unpacked the purple items and laid them out on the artists desk, arranging and rearranging them, stepping back every few minutes to tweak.

When I was satisfied and turned on the fairy lights, what I saw took my breath away. I felt a quickening, like a rush in my chest and a lump formed in my throat.

I saw my life purpose blooming from inside of me into real life. I was in a sacred, cozy, feminine space.

Through tears of gratitude, I saw that I had built an altar —like a little purple temple—right in the middle of Chickadee Draw.

And God met me there.

Imaginal Disks

This summer I learned that the butterfly in the monarch’s life cycle is called an imago, as it represents the truest image of the species. We know the basics, right? The caterpillar eats milkweed, then hangs in a J shape, goes into a hard green shell, then comes out a butterfly. But, as usual, I wanted details.

I researched the tiny structures inside the caterpillar called imaginal disks, which hold the blueprints for the imago. After the caterpillar forms the chrysalis, the imaginal disks unfold and form the wings. The breathtaking moment the butterfly opens its wings for the first time was there the whole time.

The identity of the imago was there, dancing with Creation to make butterfly wings.

And, my shed’s identity was waiting there too. Sure, it was just a upcycled pool shed with old wood showing, but when I turned on the lights of the altar, it became the Chickadee Draw Chapel.

And last night with the cool autumn rains falling on the new shingles, the fairy lights on the purple cloth, and me toasty in my sleeping bag, I thought of Nehemiah and his people. I thought of my family of strong women. And I prayed and dedicated the future of my little chapel to God.

Creation’s sacred renewal continues —something new is just beginning.

One thing Lydia of Thyatira was known for was creating sacred space for her community. I imagine she had a small prayer corner for herself where she could rest from the demands of a purple cloth trade and hosting a fiery new faith movement.

That’s what I sure do. The cornerstone of my renewal process has always been a small sacred place where I can spend time with God by myself—even in the bottom of my closet when I was a kid. Solitude…just me and the openness to Spirit to come make a home.

• Do you have a little sacred space of your own?

• If not, can you imagine one little spot you could make that would feel sacred? What would you put in it?

I wrote this introduction weeks ago, intending to send out a little post about renewal and how the monarch butterfly inspires living in renewal. I snuck in a little soil nerding, too.

Then, the raw power of renewal hit me. Hard.

Deep Renewal

I really should have seen it coming after abruptly leaving my career after 28 years under difficult circumstances (see my DOGE’s fork in the road story), my son graduating high school, and writing about Lydia – but alas, I tried to fast-forward through my own renewal.

I was stuck on overdrive.

This high-speed gear got me through work deadlines, soccer mom life, and much more. I just didn’t realize I had lost my middle gears. Pushing through physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion had become normal. Does this sound familiar to you?

My overdrive felt like this—adrenaline rushed in my veins when there was no threat or deadline to meet. I had been in freeze-flight-fight mode for years. I sort of knew this, but when a teenage friend told me she had seen this tension vibrating off of me, it hurt. She didn’t know me any other way.

Not anymore, I thought, my resolve to heal deepening. Once I down-regulated my nervous system with breath prayer and Scripture, my system crashed. My body felt like lead, no longer able to hold years of pent-up stress in my cells.

As I watched the graceful flights of monarchs from my reclining deck chair, tears of so many different emotions streamed down my cheeks. My fists and jaws clenched in resistance—God, I want to heal, but do I really have to feel all of this? I felt my familiar excuse ring in my head…please I can’t now – I have stuff to do.

But the feeling reminded me too much of my bout with Lyme disease. Then, I had a fatigue so deep I was afraid I might stop breathing. So, without another choice, I rested.

My Mystic Mentors

I was too tired to read books, but I picked two from my mystic mentors I had already read to keep next to me with my journal and Bible.

My favorite Christian mystic is Teresa of Ávila, a 16^th Century saint who uses a silkworm’s transformation as a metaphor for spiritual union with God in her book The Interior Castle. When the monarchs return to Chickadee Draw, the name for my little patch of ground, I re-read her words.

Teresa describes the silkworm entering the cocoon of Christ’s love. Her protégé, St. John of the Cross, wrote about the “dark night of the soul” as a purifying fire that needs quiet acceptance. I imagined traveling with them on their journeys to reform their monastic tradition. I would ask them how these are the same or different.

Teresa and John are both crystal clear about one thing — surrender. Which was exactly the same thing my son, Danilo told me: “Mom, embrace it.” As I watch my monarchs hang in their J-shape, naturally doing what comes next, I knew they were all right.

Monarchs and Silkworms

The deep fatigue continued processing through me as I watched monarchs courting, eating, mating, and laying eggs. I did a lot of crying, shuffling around, and stretching. After dark, I would come in and listen to my favorite podcast series—Teresa of Ávila on Turning to the Mystics.

Immersed in monarch life during the day, I naturally wanted to hear the silkworm stories at night! I pictured when Teresa stayed at her uncle’s farm in the Spanish countryside to recover from an illness. I wondered if that is when she watched the silkworm. I turned out the lights and listened, discovering a perfect description of what I was going through.

Here’s Jim Finley’s wry teaching from Session 4:

Imagine a silkworm hears about metamorphosis, and the silkworm decides it wants to prepare for its metamorphosis. And so, it starts reading books on how to metamorphosize. It goes on retreats to prepare for its metamorphosis. It decides maybe that it’s going to take with it a journal so I can journal about it; maybe publish later; go on tour: “My Metamorphosis.” But when the metamorphosis begins, something happens that the caterpillar did not anticipate. Its very brain—that is, the very mind of itself as a caterpillar is the first thing that begins to metamorphosize..

It felt like Jim was my spiritual director, his amused tone and soft eyes watching me do a beautiful voice work session, process through a challenging breath workshop, grieve through a peaceful Easter retreat by the ocean, and launch a Substack. Check, check, check, and check — my metamorphosis checklist. My brain felt like goo, just like the silkworm’s.

My Chrysalis

Soon I started regaining strength as my body chemistry reset from its steady diet of stress hormones. I was able to move my chair around to different spots to watch the monarchs more closely and do some light puttering.

But the brain fog dragged on and I started getting frustrated. I had a lot I needed to do! Finally, still unable to clear my mind, I cried out to God — please God, just show me the right things to do. Give me a sign…

I got one. This divine clarity did not translate into words, but it was crystal clear what to put into action. I had to build my chrysalis. Right here at Chickadee Draw.

So that is what I did. That is what I am still doing.

With every passing day, the chrysalis sanctuary of Chickadee Draw was renewed. My own story became clearer. And yes, even my obsession with Lydia of Thyatira has never made more sense to me, too.

Now, on the day my resignation/retirement is final, I look out the window and see the last few monarchs trying out their new wings and gearing up to migrate. But there is still one chrysalis left — the latest of the late. I am watching it, with about a week to go before the butterfly emerges.

I knew this day in October would come when I resigned my job. I knew this day would come when the first monarch arrived and started laying eggs. All summer I lived amongst the monarchs, soaking up every beautiful detail I could while my brain and body recovered. I just still dread the moment when the last butterfly of 2025 disappears over the trees flying South.

When I look at that last chrysalis, the little gold jewels sparkling in the fall lighting, I know renewal is happening everywhere, all the time. I can face this season inside my chrysalis of Chickadee Draw, trusting that God is renewing my mind, preparing my wings for what comes next.

Creating Space

Renewal itself is a sacred process, a patient and often painful unfolding. God wove this rhythm into creation—we see it in nature, in Scripture, and even in music. And we feel it in our hearts when we long for something more and when we grow.

This process is more than self-improvement or personal growth; it is the sacred work of healing and restoring our union with God.

• What image, symbol, or scripture speaks to you right now as a picture of renewal?

• Where in your life do you sense God inviting you to rest in a chrysalis season rather than push forward?

• Who or what has been a mentor for you, pointing you toward patience, trust, or surrender?

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Another thing that happened is that writing this post set my soil scientist instincts in motion—I wanted to dig, analyze, and get this right. Uh oh - perfectionism and analysis paralysis!

Part of my charm is that I am an over-analyzer, at one point even professionally with the title “Analyst” with a capital A. I get nowhere with my teenage son who hits me with “Mom, it’s not that deep” regularly. Well, for me, everything is that deep, which can occasionally get me stuck. But I found the thread again as I dug in the soil, with my identity, my story, and my hope for a future that centers on young women

And, I have a lot more than hope or even a great analysis–I have a story. Let’s start with a scene from my childhood.

Staying in the Kitchen

When I first became aware of girls vs. boys, I really didn’t like the equation. To the neighborhood boys I hung out with, there was no bigger insult than being a girl. Or, “go run home to your mommy,” so I tried to be tougher and definitely not girly.

In my family, the men sat in the living room watching football after Thanksgiving dinner while the women cleaned up. I resented this setup and gave sports-watching a try. But it didn’t work. Often, no one answered when I spoke, or they just talked over me. Why didn’t they hear my voice?

So, I went back to the kitchen to do the “women’s work” where the conversation was more interesting. They saw me, they came up next to me with a hug, they asked me questions about my life and my relationships. At the time I didn’t realize I was participating in something sacred. Here is my question: What was really happening in this kitchen where all the women shared their recipes, life stories, and their hearts? It’s not just washing dishes and packing leftovers.

A Girl in a Man’s World

Well, I struggled through my teen identity crisis and college-hopping until I finally found my passion—soil science. I had never pictured myself as a scientist, but my professor changed that and mentored me through a graduate degree with my fellow soil nerds in her lab. I loved it!

I already knew the landscaping field where I worked to pay for college was a man’s world, but I didn’t realize soil science was even after my professor warned us. She said men kept women out of soil science for decades because —get this—“where would they go to the bathroom?” Yeah, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.

When I got a job, I tried to blend in, walking through the forest every day by myself with a shovel, soil tools, and mud-caked boots. This was before GPS, so I had a truck, a topographic map, and a compass. I was fierce, orienteering and digging my way through the foothills of the White Mountains. But I have many stories about how my tough exterior failed to protect me from male superiors talking down to me or inappropriate boundary-crossing. I could never forget how unfriendly a man’s world can be.

I did find women mentors that helped me navigate the culture, but they were stuck with this same question: Why do women leaders have to pretend that are like men? Because we aren’t.

Soft-Skills Deficit

Well that world of science, data, and IT did turn out to be mostly a man’s world and I am still getting my bearings after 28 years in it. I never did have a problem finding a bathroom, but I found plenty of failed projects.

Recently, while upskilling for the AI revolution/apocalypse (no AI does NOT write my posts!), a class I took in AI business strategy validated my long-held observations about why data projects fail: the kitchen culture would be far more successful—or at least properly balanced—projects than the living room culture of exaggerated hunting stories and commenting on sports.

The class goal was to help us avoid the 80% failure rate of AI initiatives. And guess what the top reason was, along with nearly every other downstream issue? Human communication. Bad listening, misunderstanding priorities, overselling and avoiding hard conversations, understanding nuance, and failing to adapt. This gap even came up again last week as I was setting up a team—the critical missing ingredient was relational, which was right there in the “kitchen” the whole time.

The Language of the Invisible

So as I prepared to write this post in analysis mode (which I scrapped), I gathered statistics and logic like I was building a case to make sure my readers understood why I think focusing on young women is urgent and important. But I struggled with language, let alone a politically-correct language to describe “kitchen culture” or “soft-skills”—and I sure don’t have a real answer to “what is woman’s work?” as I spend my days with a chainsaw, a shovel, and leading teams.

I used to think we couldn’t explain women’s influence (at least outside of sex and beauty as defined by men), since we are so mysterious and complex. I don’t believe that anymore. What we’re missing is language. No wonder I still have so many questions.

How can we have a language for something our culture doesn’t value, look for, and name?

How can we know our full God-given potential if we can’t even see these precious gifts in ourselves?

It’s not just my own calling that got distorted—it’s a blindness in our culture and in our minds, the traumatic echoes of “don’t be a girl!” and “that’s women’s work” warping our own self-worth until we can’t even see it. We can’t even see the truth.

What is that truth? That both men and women are made in the image of God and powerfully good. That “woman’s work” is the invisible backbone of families, multi-million-dollar projects, and communities of faith. That women—and especially teen girls right now—possess a powerful emotional and relational potential that, when nurtured, becomes a networked force for deep connection and belonging.

And, if we can’t even see it in ourselves, name it, and value it, how can we mobilize it?

The Power of Teen Girls

In my last post, I worked through my hopes for my son and his boy tribe as it relates to girls. Teen girls are navigating the trauma from the world they’ve inherited and their dreams for a better future. They’re maturing faster than boys emotionally and socially yet facing mental health crises. They’re seeking meaning but sidetracked by spiritual confusion and oversexualization sold as independence. And in this pressure cooker, teen girls still shape culture in ways we can’t always see.

I know the world is spiraling and people are scared. I know people are overwhelmed and wringing their hands about how to best help. I know most of us are still working through trauma, which makes it even harder. Under these conditions, I feel so grateful to be clear in my God-given purpose with The Lydia Effect and mentoring young women as they heal their identities and grow their leadership skills with Lydia as our role model.

I believe it is more urgent than ever. While teen girls’ brains grow into identity, belief, and belonging, what gets wired now will shape how they live, love, and lead for decades. If we affirmed their sensitivity as strength and helped them, they could transform communities. And, if we don’t fight for them now, they may internalize the same lies and oppressions that their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers did.

This isn’t piling pressure on teen girls to rescue humanity – I hear their conversations, questions, and have over-analyzed these dots. I still have a lot of questions and need to grow my own skills and continue to heal myself. But I see what could flourish if we focus our attention and help. Which brings me to this question: What happens when a teen girl knows she’s made in God’s image—and has the sharpened tools and skills to live into her purpose? She becomes unstoppable, and so does the friend group she has mobilized.

And they’ll empower generations of girls who know how to walk in courage, freedom, and faith. We need this kind of leadership now, and that’s why The Lydia Effect starts here.

It is that deep

If we want renewal in this world that seems to be careening off the rails, we need to take the potential of teenage girls seriously. Their capacity to shape community and live out faith-in-action is wildly potent, and I believe still largely untapped.

My son might be wrong about it this time – I think it is that deep.

Maybe the kitchen, the soil, the failed data projects, and the decline of institutions including the church all tell the same story: That “women’s work” has been holding things together this whole time, and we didn’t have the language for it. We have been blind to its power and value.

Well, God found it in me and showed me what to do—I know it is there for all of us. And that’s why I’m still digging.

Next up in The Lydia Effect — the power of story. One of the reasons I got stuck writing, was that I lost track of one important truth that I learned in the last few years: that a story holds more power than facts.

The world is in multi-crisis mode, so most people I know are trying to orient and figure out how to help. Creating space for that is tough — maybe these questions will help.

• Where in your life have you done “invisible work” that held things together? Can you see how valuable it is, especially now?

• Do you see teen girls as leaders worth investing in?

• Where are you being invited to “dig”—to uncover truth, identity, or calling that’s been buried?

• It is tough or even impossible to connect if we are overwhelmed. Are you working on healing and using healthy methods for regulating your nervous system? Are you taking the down time you need?

• Is there a teen girl in your life who needs a mentor? What might that look like for you to help like that?

Well, a whole different rebirth is happening to me this week—my only child turned 18 a few weeks ago and just graduated from high school Sunday. My little boy is becoming a man and it’s finally hitting me.

I spent hours processing this emotional overload with my hands in the soil, gardening, and landscaping until either my tools or arms gave out. The more I tilled and pondered my motherhood, the more I saw how deeply my passion to empower young women of faith has grown out of my love for my son.

So, this chapter of The Lydia Effect is rooted in that processing and how my motherhood is the foundation of my calling. This one was hard to write, so I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or send me a text or DM. Let’s dig in.

Surprised by Motherhood

My son Danilo is a miracle baby. Despite years of prayers and high-tech infertility treatments, I couldn’t get pregnant. As a scientist and a bit of a control freak, this was devastating. It broke me, which also broke my marriage. I moved far away and spiraled into workaholism and achievement for years to outrun the grief. That season of my life ground to a halt at 36 years old when I stared down in shock at a positive pregnancy test.

I reveled in my pregnancy and endured a difficult birth, but things soon fell apart with Danilo’s father, too. I became a single mom, moving home to Maine in time for Danilo to start kindergarten. I raised him with the help of my own mom—another strong woman whose faith and prayers guided us daily.

It was another tough season of my life. I worked full-time and battled constant burnout and PTSD, but I did my best to build a life for my son while still recovering. My years of infertility helped me to see this struggle as a blessing, and I took comfort knowing we were home. And as he grew, so did I.

Our Bunker in the Chaos

During the pandemic Danilo and I isolated at our house on the edge of the woods, just the two of us tucked away. He did his middle-school assignments and played video games online with his friends while I worked at home and overdosed on DIY projects and podcasts dissecting our cultural moment. (This is also the time when God found me wandering—more on this journey in future posts). The polarization deepened, with political issues becoming almost religious in their fervor. But I am staunchly non-political after leaving political science for soil science, so I kept looking for another way to help.

As the #MeToo movement emerged, I stayed out of it. Don’t get me wrong—I have plenty of my own #MeToo stories etched into my story, so I understand the fury. But the swing of the pendulum felt destructive. I was already concerned about Danilo as a young black man, and this anti-boy undercurrent was a new threat. He and I talked about gender and how to protect and treat girls, the confusion boys feel, the rise of BLM, and everything else that blared at us from screens. I studied and prayed. And as life began to open back up, I did my best to listen and adapt, staying anchored in my faith below the cultural battles.

Soccer Mom Taxi

Once the pandemic had passed and we started back into soccer travel league, I became a lucky taxi driver shuttling boys to the games. I loved it. I got them snacks, let them play their music, and listened. If you are a parent that drives kids around, you probably noticed: they forget you are there and just keep chatting.

I learned a lot about teen boys’ emotional lives during these precious drives. I felt like an anthropologist behind the bushes as I listened to how cultural messages and gender issues affected them. I soaked up everything I could, treasuring these moments in my heart.

And I loved these boys—they were Danilo’s tribe, and I knew they were a unit so they formed an extended part of my own motherhood.

Boys and Girl Power

As I drove this car full of growing boys and listened to their banter about girls and crushes, what I heard clearly was this: they craved the attention and approval of girls. And more than I had realized, the girls were the ones defining the terms of engagement. They held the power.

On some level, as a scientist, I probably already knew this—maybe from biology class or a wildlife ecology lecture about how female mammals choose their mates. But the culture I grew up in and my own #MeToo experiences had blinded me. As I listened to the hearts of these boys, I got curious about my misperceptions.

The girl they liked motivated their behavior—that is power. Their rowdy humor and bravado were a smokescreen for deep vulnerability and their desire to be seen and chosen. Sure, they gave each other bad advice about girls instead of talking to them. Once I blew my cover by saying “Why don’t you just ask her?!” from the front seat. But to be fair, the girls intimidated them.

Girls hold real power. And often, they act in ways that seem mysterious or confusing to these boys. They’re maturing faster but they’re also under intense pressure. Be strong, but not too strong. Be pretty, but not too available. Be smart but not intimidating. These struggles I understood all too well, but it was even worse than when I was a teen.

The teenage girl mental health crisis reflects today’s pressure cooker with a recipe of social media, identity issues, and impossible expectations. The Center for Disease Control statistics for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are heartbreaking, with nearly 3 in 5 teen girls reporting persistent sadness and 1 in 3 seriously considering suicide. The article linked above from 2023 still haunts me with this plea in the last line: “I want adults to believe young girls.” Yeah, I get that—my throat sometimes aches from things I said that weren’t heard or unsaid things after I gave up trying.

Boys are struggling, too. We’ve made strides helping girls in schools, but boys are also falling behind at academic performance and feeling valued, too. Our culture is failing boys and girls in different ways. Something is clearly missing in our equation of equality and progress, especially with our current struggles for meaning and the spiritual identity crisis.

Who is Leading Who?

I had it wrong, too. For years, in my healing work, I saw myself mostly through the pain of what had been done to me. Yes, I have been traumatized and silenced by men, just like so many women have. But when I felt the world leaning anti-boy, that became a threat to my son and my mother instinct kicked in. I saw how boys and girls are both hurting from our broken systems. My heart opened to hear the hearts of his boy tribe. They’ll probably never know it, but they helped me see what I had forgotten: girls and women have raw power. And no, no, no a thousand times no — not just about sex.

Girls have emotional, social, relational power that can change community dynamics and define relationships. And if no one helps them root that authority in truth and faith, that power can become warped. Unmoored, it slips back into what we want to grow beyond—old patterns of control through beauty and sex, performance, and manipulation—or stuck in the background waiting for permission.

I am not talking about girls being dangerous because they evoke attraction. I am not promoting fear-based oppression like controlling their bodies, telling them what to wear, or silencing them into submission. I am also not focusing on positional authority, titles, or pronouns, which can become distractions to leadership through action. I am talking about helping girls claim and wield their real God-given power with ferocity: their spiritual authority in their identity in the image of God.

Girl power is an untapped wellspring of spiritual leadership. Imagine what the future could hold if we helped girls root that power in the sacred. Imagine if we helped the seed of their calling blossom into a beautiful garden with faith, mentoring, and bold examples.

I know this is a tricky statement. Women and girls are still silenced and, in some cases, abused. The cultural narrative tells us that girls are victims, and many are. I’ve been one myself more than once. Trauma is real, and so is injustice. But I know that power and pain can coexist in one girl. I am that girl. But my scars don’t strip me of my authority. They deepen it.

If we only talk about victimization, institutional debates, and identity politics, we have stopped short of telling girls and young women the truth: that they carry the spiritual authority to lead with grace and courage—no matter what traumas they suffered or glass ceilings they may never break through. And while boys slowly mature, girls can root themselves in their faith and learn to stand their ground. That helps everyone.

Back to Lydia

What I also heard in the boyish chatter was another need: girls who are clear on who they are and what they are worth. They need girls with the strength to stand up for what’s right, offering emotional leadership and the kind of social glue our world is starving for. They need a girl who neither manipulates nor feeds immature egos but stands alongside them in clarity, courage, and mutual respect. This is the kind of woman I saw in Lydia when I first read her story.

Lydia was an immigrant to a Roman colony and yet she still wielded power. She prayed, paid attention, and spoke up boldly. She didn’t ask permission but acted immediately to open her home and form a church— a sacred space and gathering place for encouragement in difficult times.

A Mother’s Prayer

This is the kind of woman I pray Danilo finds for a wife. I don’t pray for a nice submissive girl—that’s not what an intelligent young man with strong faith like his really needs. I pray he finds a fierce and kind, deeply-rooted woman—one who knows who she is and can stand beside him in purpose and courage. And, yes a woman who he will follow when she reminds him to get on his knees beside her in prayer with her when times get tough. And they will.

So yes, my prayer for my son and his future relationship fuels my passion for writing about Lydia. But it’s bigger than just one mom and one son. It’s bigger than just me processing my own pain. Lydia’s story shows us what happens when a woman of faith is courageous and takes action, and when she builds a church that becomes a key part of a movement. That’s the kind of Spirit-led leadership the world needs now.

In the next chapter, we’ll go deeper into this: the power of young women’s leadership and what we might see if we embrace and empower women and girls like Lydia.

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This was a tough chapter to write and dug up a lot of emotions. Maybe it does for you, too.

Reflection Prompts:

• What does “girl power” mean to you?

• How is our culture supporting or undermining you or young women you know in their faith, self-worth, and identity?

• When you think about the boys and men in your life, what are they struggling with and how might our culture help them?

• When you are listening to teens talk about their issues, what do you hear? Do you talk with other parents or adults about it?

• Is there someone that would benefit from this post and a conversation? If so, please share.

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If you’ve ever felt like things in your life were stuck or slowly falling apart, you're not alone. That’s what my garden looked like, with projects half-finished and plans frozen in place for years due to other priorities. Sometimes I avoided looking at them because it was hard to see them messy and unfinished. Maybe you know this feeling.

Well finally this week, I unleashed some courage and pent-up “transition energy” onto my gardening projects that had been stuck. My solace during these 5 years on hold was to focus on one single thing—building rich, deep soil.

Soil Building

Each fall I added leaves and rotten wood to garden areas and each spring I added cover crops or mulch to shade the soil. I reminded myself when I got discouraged with progress — “Just keep building the soil.” I knew it would take time and eventually pay off, which is the same as my faith journey. When everything visible feels broken or stuck, God is still quietly creating the conditions for renewal underground.

As a soil scientist, I’ve spent years studying what the “dust of the earth” (Genesis 2:7) is doing below the surface. The cycle of renewal plays a leading role in everything hiding under our feet. The soil is a renewal engine, breaking down last year’s grass, leaves, and sticks into food.

Renewal is sacred—a patient, often painful unfolding, always happening even when we can’t see it. God wove this rhythm into creation—we see it in nature, in stories, in music, and in Holy Scripture with rebirth and resurrection. And we feel it in our hearts when we go through loss and recover to grow again.

In the garden like my permaculture projects, renewal requires a death for decomposition for the soil to get deeper and healthier. This part of the process is hard to accept — the breaking down required for renewal.

You may have noticed the painful decomposition process has been happening in the Christian faith. Even if you are Christian-curious or spiritual-but-not-religious, you can see the closed churches, public scandals, and how the culture war has affected Christianity and broken through into our national political conversation. The decay, deconstruction, collapse, and conflict within the “Christian” community even seems to be metastasizing.

What are Experts Saying?

While I have been up to my elbows in soil, I’ve also been watching for signs of renewal of faith. Mark Sayers, a pastor and cultural analyst in Australia, has called the status of renewal a “green light moment” (Rebuilders podcast on April 16). And this month, one article in Christianity Today really got my attention.

Skyler Flowers and Michael Graham wrote A Splintered Generation: Evangelicalism’s fracturing is chronic, but not terminal. Here’s how we can move forward. This article struck a chord with me about the renewal, echoing the decomposition that happens in soil before the renewal can begin. They discuss the early stirrings of renewal but that the trends “code more male than female,” which I have noticed as well.

When I saw their recommendations for the future, I got excited. They reflect what I have been thinking about Lydia of Thyatira.

1. Anchor the center on Christ — Lydia’s church didn’t have a New Testament yet. Their center was telling stories and Christ.

2. Whole-person discipleship — that’s what I imagine the first century being like, with Lydia’s integration of business, home, and worship.

3. Leaders who bear the fruit of the Spirit — not attention-seeking influencers but hosts who create space and empower others.

4. Local focus — Lydia’s church was rooted in Philippi and connected to the other local house churches

The strategies outlined by Flowers and Graham suggest depth and authenticity. They sound like soaking rains and digging deep. They nailed so much of what’s missing and where hope might be found. But I was disappointed in one thing — they lacked curiosity about what might happen when women feel truly welcome and empowered in faith to help their friends and communities. They did not connect the last dot.

If I could be so bold to suggest an addition to their list of recommendations, I would add this:

#5 - Empower women of faith to help lead this renewal.

This strategy deserves more than a footnote or just assumed to be part of the plan. This is the true innovation and collaboration needed to dig as deep as we need to dig. Empowering women in their faith to help lead the church through this renewal is a critical strategy. I will go more into this in my next post.

So, no matter what stage you are at in your own personal or faith community renewal — still grieving a loss, breaking things down, cocooning in preparation, or gearing up to step forward, just remember—you are already part of this natural pattern. And it’s painful, since you have to give up something before you can move forward.

Next week, boys and girl power and renewal of faith.

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Reflection Prompts:

• Is there a part of your life that feels like it’s breaking down or being stripped away right now? Could that be part of a deeper renewal process?

• Can you name a time when growth came after a season of waiting, grief, or decomposition?

• Spend some time in a garden or plants to spend some time thinking about the renewal in soil and nature.

• Ask one woman in your life: “What’s something in your life that’s quietly transforming?” Listen. Encourage her story.

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Courage doesn’t come fully formed and neither does leadership in action. It starts small like a mustard seed, even when you’re scared or completely over your head. And the more I thought about Lydia, the more I realized: bold faith grows when we practice together.

Do you feel like you have enough courage? How do we grow our courage, individually and collectively for the times we face? And how can we be more encouraging to others?

The last line of Lydia’s story in the Bible is so easy to overlook, but it holds something powerful. After being beaten and jailed, the missionaries went back to Lydia’s house. Yes, that’s right — her house had already become a safe harbor for something we all need: encouragement.

So, not only was Lydia a courageous woman for the bold steps she took, but she created an environment that was a destination where others could grow their courage as well.

My mind kept running through the sequence of events in her story. Each time I thought about Lydia’s courage, I felt stronger. I studied the steps she took. I took action and little by little, I grew my courage, too. I learned later that my brain was tapping into Lydia’s story with my mirror neurons that allowed me to emotionally harness the power of her story. My nerd side loved this explanation, and my poet side glowed with the mystery of a mentor from 2000 years ago.

My nerd and poet sides joined together to notice this: with practice, a pattern emerged—a simple process that was helping me grow my boldness in faith by following Lydia’s example.

The Pattern That Grows Bold Faith

We’ll unpack this pattern in more depth as the journey continues. But for now, here’s what it looks like—the same steps Lydia took by the river that day in Philippi:

• Seek God

• Pray (especially with others)

• Open your heart

• Pay attention

• Stand firm

• Speak truth

• Step forward

• And never forget, that when God is with you, you are a force of nature.

This became my courage pattern—a process I followed again and again to build boldness and take action in faith, even when I was afraid. And guess what? It works. And, even better, it’s contagious.

I first noticed this courage in tiny ways in my daily micro decisions and the resistance I felt making them. Then, the benefits of practice paid off when I had to make one of the biggest decisions of my life: leaving my job—with almost no clear answers (DOGE’s Fork, My Story link). I wanted data and certainty, but with neither, I just had a leap of faith. But studying Lydia and absorbing the power of her bold response gave me the courage I needed.

After I left, others began to reach out as they were facing their own crossroad. I couldn’t give them answers or even a recommendation since each situation is so different, but I gave them emotional honesty. And that’s when I felt it: courage really is contagious.

The most important person in my DOGE story is my son — I believed that by staying at my job, he would have more security and a better future. But it turns out, leaving is teaching him even more. He saw me struggling with job stress for years and then facing gut-wrenching uncertainty with a strong faith. He overheard the hard conversations, and the prayer visits with friends. And then when the moment came for courage, he saw me act even though I was afraid.

Just a few months later, even with financial uncertainty, he’s watching the fruit grow. He is watching me grieve, physically and emotionally recover, and get ready to mobilize a new life. And that example of courageous faith is worth more than any paycheck. And I know my example is just one — all of us are facing something big or small that needs courageous faith in action.

The Lydia Effect - Introduction and Invitation

This courage pattern is something I will be writing about in The Lydia Effect, as we journey through the stories, reclaiming identity, and practicing courage. These spring chapters form the invitation to join with other women who are ready to reclaim their stories and step into their Divine purpose. Leadership as action; just living out the courage pattern with faith, conviction, and each other.

So, here’s the question: Are you ready to take that first small step? Because the invitation is already here. The world is yearning for meaning and we are yearning for God and our story. The renewal is officially beginning. Are you ready to say yes?

If you feel that stirring in your heart—if something in you is waking up—then let’s go. Even if this scares you silly, let’s still go. Even if you were hurt before in faith communities and maybe don’t want to try again – let’s find a way through that and still go. Let’s step forward into this journey together.

Because your story is waiting to unfold. And just like Lydia, you were made to be a force of nature.

Next week in The Lydia Effect —we’ll explore the sacred rhythm of renewal that God wove into creation itself. It’s already there in our lives, so let’s name it and live into it.

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Reflection Prompts:

• Can you picture a time when watching someone else have courage gave you courage?

• What would the world be like if we focused on encouraging one another?

Acts of courage can start so tiny that you may not even think of them as courageous, but they are. Any tiny decision take courage, even the smallest ones like picking a paint color or the placement of plant in the garden — saying no and saying yes both take courage. Watch for the tiniest “yeses and noes” in your day and see if you find any resistance.

• Write down one thing — no matter how small — that you want more courage to do. What are your hesitations to stepping forward?

• Know someone who you want to share a conversation with about courage? Text them this post. Tell them why it spoke to you—and invite them to take the first step with you.

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