When I was eleven, I was water-baptized. Despite being so young and not fully understanding what I was doing, I was still so sincere and excited. I genuinely loved Jesus — or at least I loved what I knew about Him. No one had taught me yet how to have a personal relationship with God, and I certainly didn’t know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, at the time, I was just doing what I believed I was supposed to do to be a good Christian.

It wasn’t until almost two decades later — about a year into genuinely pursuing a relationship with God for the first time — that I learned about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that it is different from water baptism.

And I learned that I needed to ask for it.

Luke 11:13 says, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

In 2020, during the Covid lockdowns, my parents and I started taking an online healing and deliverance class together each week. Topics included identity in Christ, intimacy with God, the power of worship, authority in Christ, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Through the teachings in this class, I started seeing so clearly in Scripture that water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit are two different things.

John the Baptist could only baptize new believers in water, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given. Jesus himself was water baptized first, and only after coming up out of the water did the Holy Spirit descend on Him. In Acts 8:14-17 we learn that the apostles traveled specifically to pray for believers who had only been water baptized, making sure they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit as well.

And again, Luke 11:13 says our Father wants to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

After learning all of this, I knew I wanted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

But I had unsettling stories rattling around in my head — stories of other people’s experiences with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some said they had felt electricity surge through their body. One person said they became so hot they thought they might die. And many more mention falling over, shaking uncontrollably, and other dramatic manifestations. Now, I don’t know whether or not these were truly Holy Spirit baptism experiences, or something else, but regardless, these stories still made me feel nervous about what might happen to me.

But I wanted the baptism of the Holy Spirit bad enough that I was willing to risk it.

The day after our class on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, my mom and I went on our usual daily walk around the neighborhood, and we were talking about what we had learned the night before.

I don’t remember all the details of our conversation, but my mom jumped right in to asking if I wanted her to pray for me to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I hesitantly said yes — I had imagined this would need to be a more intentional, sacred kind of moment. A quiet room, worship music playing in the background, not during our casual walk around the block.

But she put her hand on my shoulder as we walked and prayed quietly. And that was it. Nothing crazy happened. And we just kept walking.

And nothing happened for the next two weeks.

Over those two weeks, I kept bracing myself for something. Where was the lightning, the heat, shaking, bursting into tongues out of nowhere? Where was the sign that God had answered my mom’s prayer? Every quiet day that passed made me more anxious. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I went to my mom in tears, telling her I didn’t think it had worked and she needed to pray for me again.

She looked at me and said, “I don’t need to pray for you again. I believe you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit.”

“Really??” I was shocked. “How do you know?”

She told me she had noticed a change in me almost immediately after she had prayed for me — something in me had shifted. I was more helpful around the house without being asked, I was pleasant to be around (no longer easily irritated and snappy), I was more peaceful, and more joyful.

I had been anxiously waiting for a wild experience and could not recognize the quiet transformation that had taken place in my heart. A transformation that I had nothing to do with – I simply asked for it.

I believe I was saved when I was water baptized, but I am so glad someone showed me that I also needed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that it was a gift that was available to me — I just needed to ask.

Only after I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit did I begin to transform dramatically as a person, and grow in deeper understanding of Scripture, conviction, and discernment.

My experience wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t about electricity, heat, shaking, bursting out in tongues, or suddenly walking powerfully in the other gifts of the Spirit. I love all the gifts of the Spirit, and I believe they are still available to us today, but in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul makes clear that even the most extraordinary spiritual gifts mean nothing without love.

I am so grateful that my mom was able to see that quiet transformation in me and reminded me that the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — is the most beautiful evidence that you have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and are a follower of Christ.

My husband and I have been a little obsessed with the Artemis II mission this past week. Four astronauts launched on April 1st and just completed humanity’s first lunar flyby since 1972.

They have been capturing photos of the far side of the moon that no human eyes have ever seen, and they witnessed a total solar eclipse from space. They named two craters — one called Integrity, and one called Carroll, after a crewmate’s late wife.

And on Easter weekend, when someone asked astronaut Victor Glover (a Christian) if he had a message, he said that while people might think what the astronauts are doing is special because of how far away they are, everyone on Earth is also on a spaceship — “a spaceship called Earth, that was created to give us a place to live in the universe and the cosmos.”

Think about what we know about our universe. The mathematical precision of planetary orbits. The exact distance Earth sits from the sun — close enough to sustain life, far enough not to burn it. The gravitational pull of the moon regulating our tides. The seasons cycling perfectly to grow food, rest the earth, and renew life.

The probability that any of it is random is mathematically absurd.

And then there are the other planets. The stars. The galaxies beyond galaxies. I wonder sometimes — did God create all of it for us to simply marvel at? The sun warms us, the moon and stars light our nights, but what about the rest?

Maybe He made it for the sheer delight of it. Maybe He made it knowing that one day we would build rockets, fly to the moon, and come home with footage that gives us goosebumps.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says He has set eternity in the human heart. I think our obsession with space — the childlike wonder of it, the billions of dollars and decades of work we pour into getting closer to it — is evidence of that longing. We were made for something bigger than this earth. We feel it. We can’t explain it. We just keep looking up.

Most humans look at the vastness of the universe and feel small.

Statistically, cosmically, each of us is an insignificant speck. Believing we are just insignificant specks actually drives us to desperately chase significance.

Something in us knows we are meant for more — we just keep looking for it in the wrong places.

I used to want to be famous. I wanted a big platform, a name people recognized, something to prove I mattered. But somewhere along my journey with God, that desire quietly dissolved. And instead I found deep contentment in being completely unknown to the world, but fully known by the Creator of the universe.

Picture yourself right where you are. Now imagine Google Earth zooming out from you — your street, your city, your country, your continent, the whole Earth shrinking to a pale blue dot. Keep zooming. Past the moon. Past Mars. Past Jupiter and Saturn. All the way out to Neptune — the farthest planet in our solar system, 2.8 billion miles from where you’re sitting right now.

You are likely invisible now — not even an insignificant speck.

And yet — God never loses sight of you. You are always in His sight, on His mind, and in His heart. He is intimately familiar with every part of you because He knit you together Himself.

Psalm 8 asks the exact question I keep coming back to this week: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place — what is mankind that You are mindful of them?”

And then it answers: “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”

Knowing this doesn’t make me feel important in a prideful way. It’s simply believing that God knows me and loves me — and finding my confidence and peace in that fact.

What should I fear when the God of the universe cares for me and knows my name?

We are not cosmic accidents. We are not a random collection of cells on a planet that just happens to support human life.

To God, we are each more precious and beautiful than the whole elaborate, breathtaking, and wondrous universe. In fact, I think He created the whole elaborate, breathtaking, and wondrous universe for us to simply enjoy.

Let that be enough today.

For most of my life, I was the woman who was always starting over.

Every Monday. Every month. Every New Year. I loved setting goals. Fitness goals. Business goals. Career goals. But I was horrible at follow-through. I could never stay consistent long enough to see real change. Within a few days of setting a new goal, I would feel overwhelmed and quit. Over and over. I thought something was wrong with me.

Even after I began my relationship with God, I tried to set “spiritual goals” along with everything else. I would wake up really early every morning so I could have hours of quiet time–the more hours, the better. I would try to fast, but I would fail every time. I would compare myself to other Christians who seemed so mature and disciplined and wonder why I wasn’t like them when I was trying so hard.

I was exhausted.

What I didn’t understand yet was that the problem wasn’t my lack of discipline and willpower. The problem was that I was finding my sense of self-worth in how productive and accomplished I could be.

I Was Always Starting Over – and I Couldn’t Figure Out Why

For years, I had my own vision of who I wanted to be. I wanted the perfect body, the perfect life, the kind of success I saw on social media. Boss babe. Thriving. Put-together. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t clean up my messy life long enough to make my vision a reality.

Behind the scenes, I was struggling with depression, anxiety, and health issues. And I was trying to cope with alcohol and food.

Read my full testimony here:

When I started growing in my relationship with God, He set me free from those struggles and addictions, but the start-and-quit cycle still followed me into my Christian life. Now I was setting goals to grow spiritually. The more I could do, the faster I would grow, right? Longer quiet times. More fasting. More ministry. More proving that I was serious about my faith.

I placed enormous pressure on myself to be significant – not just productive, but notable. If no one knew my name, had I really done anything worthwhile? I dreamed of writing a bestselling book, growing a large social media following, or even starting a popular ministry.

The pattern was always the same: set the goal, push hard for a few days, quit, feel like a failure, repeat.

The Season God Asked Me to Stop Striving and Just Rest

I remember one moment clearly. I was listening to the worship song “Run to the Father” by Cody Carnes, and God spoke to me, “I love you simply for who you are, not for anything you do.”

I sobbed. I was so tired and so grateful for this offering of rest.

He had to remind me more often than I care to admit.

Then, about two years ago, He led me into a season where I stopped setting goals entirely.

No fitness goals. No business goals. No spiritual goals. No career goals. Nothing.

My days became very simple: go to work, keep up with the bare minimum housework, spend time with family, move my body in whatever way felt right, and connect with God throughout the day — not in a structured, pressured way, just presence.

For years I had also prayed desperately for a fully remote job with a higher salary, and I obsessively checked job boards every day, but God had me let go of that too.

At first it felt deeply uncomfortable. I felt so lazy and was constantly fighting the urge to set goals and make plans. But over time, something in me began to settle. I started to embrace slowing down, and started believing that God loved me just for me. I didn’t have to be productive, accomplished, or known by anyone but Him. And I started to feel at peace in the simplicity.

The burden I had been carrying for most of my life was finally lifting.

What God Did in the Quiet Season – And How Everything Changed

Then, about five months ago, a thought came to me to check the job listings at my current organization. I checked, and there was a fully remote position I was qualified for, and the application was due that day.

I got the job.

And, quite unexpectedly, things started falling into place.

I felt like I had the grace to set goals again.

I wake up and have a structured morning routine that includes reading ten pages of the Bible before I go on a prayer walk outside.

If you want to know more about my Bible reading habit that has changed my life, you can read about it here:

I keep up with daily housework, meal prepping, and gardening. I lift weights 4-5 times a week. I publish articles on Substack twice a week. I spend quality time with my husband, and have weekly phone calls with my parents.

Maybe that sounds like a lot, but I wake up every morning so excited to start my day. I don’t feel overwhelmed or like I’m pushing too hard. Yes, I’m tired at the end of the day, but it’s the good kind of tired. And I am able to be consistent in a way I have never been consistent before in my life.

Why? I believe it’s because I’m not finding my identity in any of it. I’m not doing any of it to feel worthy. All of these habits and routines are simply aligned with my core values and they genuinely bring me joy.

Are You in a Striving Season? Here’s What God Might Be Saying to You

Do you feel like you’re always taking on too much and ending up burnt out, yet still feel like a failure? Do you feel like you’re never doing enough for God? Do you feel like you haven’t done anything significant, but you keep trying to? Do you feel like your worth is tied to how productive or consistent you are?

If you answered yes to any of those — you might need a season of rest.

God has taught me that striving is about control. It’s about trying to achieve perfection in your own strength. And if it feels painful to let go of your goals (like it did for me), to stop being so productive, to just rest — that pain is a signal worth paying attention to.

If you feel God is leading you into a season of rest, take Him up on it. You won’t regret it. Let go of everything that is not absolutely necessary. And for the things that are necessary, take a softer approach.

What does your heart, mind, body really need in each moment? Maybe workouts are gentle walks and stretching. Maybe time with God is just sitting in silence. Maybe you take a break from serving at church.

There will come a time when you can start setting goals again. When you can do more. But it won’t come from striving. It will come from a place of security, peace, and joy. You will have the discernment to say no to what isn’t right for you, and to say yes to what God is truly calling you to do.

Surrender Is Not Giving Up – It’s How You Finally Move Forward

My days are fuller now than they have ever been, and yet I feel more restful and more peaceful than I have ever felt. And I am consistently pursuing my goals each day. The fruitfulness I chased for years through striving is now simply the natural overflow of a life rooted in God.

I did nothing to become this person except surrender, rest, and start to find my identity in Christ, not in what I could achieve.

Are you in a striving season right now, or has God brought you through one? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

“Thank you, God, for loving me.”

It felt strange. Foreign. Almost blasphemous. The audacity of believing that the God of the universe could love someone as imperfect as I was.

I had spent the last twelve years ignoring Him, numbing the pain only He could heal with alcohol and food and distraction, hitting rock bottom in the hospital at 28 with an incurable disease, and spending three more years trying to heal myself through New Age rituals and practices.

I was not exactly who I pictured when I thought of someone God loved. But a friend told me to step into my identity in Christ, I had to start believing He loved me. I had to start declaring this truth out loud.

So I said it anyway. And I kept saying it everyday. And something began to shift.

What I discovered over the next few years shook everything I thought I knew about what God had actually done for me.

I had turned away from God and Christianity because I didn’t understand the fullness of the Gospel.

I didn’t understand what it really meant to be saved.

The Greek Word Sózó — And Why It Changes Everything

The Greek word translated as “saved” in the New Testament is sózó.

Sózó means: to save, to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction, to save a suffering one from perishing, to make well, to heal, to restore to health, to make whole.

It is the same word used in John 3:17 — “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save [sózó] the world through Him.”

It is the same word used in Matthew 9:22, when Jesus heals a woman and Scripture says: “And the woman was healed [sózó] at that moment.”

And in Acts 14:9, when Paul looks at a man and sees he has faith to be healed [sózó].

Saved. Healed. Delivered. Preserved. Protected. Whole.

So many Christians sell the finished work of the cross so short. Somewhere along the way, we stopped believing in the fullness of the Gospel – the full redemption of our spirit, our soul, our mind, our emotions, and our physical body – and its ability to completely set us free from the curse of sin.

The Cross Reveals Your Worth, Not Just Your Sin

Isaiah 53:4-5 tells us that Jesus bore not only our sins, but our sicknesses and our sorrows. The cross was not just a legal transaction to deal with sin. It was a rescue mission – to restore us back to purity, righteousness, and wholeness. To remove the barrier of sin and make a way for us to live in His presence once again.

Back to the Garden.

This has enormous implications for our worth.

So many of us are afraid to believe we are worth something to God.

But ask yourself this: why would God go to such an extreme to save you if you were worthless to Him?

You were created perfectly, knit together in your mother’s womb, holy and whole, with no separation from God. Then you were born into the fall — into sin, into brokenness, into a world of trauma and shame and lies about who you are. But the blood of Jesus pays the full price to restore you to your original value. No separation. No condemnation. Full access to the Father.

To Him, you are worth the blood of Jesus.

What Sózó Looks Like in Real Life — My Story

For years I suffered from depression, anxiety, alcohol addiction, disordered eating, Crohn’s disease, and deep shame. I was self-centered, easily frustrated, and completely disconnected from any real sense of identity or purpose. I tried to heal through diets, self-help, new age practices, and willpower. None of it provided lasting freedom.

When I started pursuing a real relationship with God in 2020 – not religion, not performance, but genuine intimacy – everything began to change. Believing that He loved me was the starting point.

Today I am free from depression, anxiety, addiction, Crohn’s disease, and shame. I have joy and peace, and I genuinely love who I am in Christ.

Sózó is real. The finished work of the cross is real. And it is available to you — not someday, but now.

How to Walk in Your True Identity in Christ — Where to Start

If you have been building your identity on the things life has handed you – childhood trauma, failures, what others have said about you, a diagnosis, an addiction, a broken relationship – please reject them.

They are not who you really are.

John 10:10 tells us that Jesus came so that we could have life — abundant life. Not barely surviving and striving to be holy in our own strength.

And John 17:3 tells us that eternal life is knowing God. Not knowing about Him. Knowing Him. Knowing Him is knowing His love for us – the day we begin to know His love is the day we begin to live forever.

If you want to start walking in your true identity in Christ, start here:

Wake up each morning and thank your Father that you are worth the blood of Jesus. Say it out loud, even if it feels strange. Especially if it feels strange.

Ask the Holy Spirit: “How do You see me?” Then sit quietly and listen. He will answer that prayer.

Take stock of the false identities you have been carrying. Write them down. Where did they come from? Are they from God, or from the enemy, or from a wound that never healed?

Begin to envision your true identity — who God says you are. Write it out in your journal if that helps. Speak it out loud. Renew your mind.

Your Identity in Christ Is Not What Happened to You

Your Heavenly Father paid the blood of His Son to save you – sózó you – spirit, soul, and body. That is your value. That is your identity. It was established before you were born and it cannot be taken from you.

What false identity have you been carrying that God is asking you to lay down? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

That morning, after four brutal months of pain, nausea, and weight loss, I’d had a blood draw appointment. I was barely coherent — eyes half closed, vaguely aware of the needle going in my arm, vaguely aware of my own voice saying things I can’t fully remember. When we got home, my parents sat on the edge of my bed and looked at me as I lay there in the fetal position–they weren’t sure what to do.

“I need to go to the hospital.”

What I didn’t say out loud: I’m going to die if I don’t.

I fell asleep during the car ride and woke up in a hospital bed attached to tubes. Nurses and doctors crowded around me. Liquid nutrition running through an IV. Morphine for the pain.

A doctor later told my mom that if we’d waited a few more days, I wouldn’t have made it.

I had Crohn’s disease–an incurable autoimmune disease. I was told I would eventually need surgery to remove my colon, and I would be on medication for the rest of my life.

No part of me could accept what the doctor said. I knew I was going to do whatever it took to be completely healthy someday. Why? I had dreams. I wanted to make a positive impact on the world. And I needed to be healthy. Dealing with Crohn’s disease for the rest of my life just wasn’t an option.

Today, I am completely healed. No medication. No surgeries.

When I was in the hospital, I knew I was going to overcome Crohn’s disease, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know God was going to heal me. At the time, I didn’t even know that He could.

Six Years of Diets, Doctors, and Dead Ends

It all started over Thanksgiving of 2011 — stomach pain that lasted for days. I brushed it off and blamed the oatmeal and raisins I had eaten right before. I cut oatmeal out of my diet and moved on.

But over the next six years, the stomach pain became more and more frequent. And I cut more and more food out of my diet.

Behind closed doors, I had been suffering from depression and anxiety since 2008, and I had started drinking and binge-eating to cope. These health issues only pushed me further into darkness, isolation, and destructive habits.

At the time, I didn’t realize the main issue I needed to address was my mental health and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Instead, I did everything else I could to heal myself. Elimination diets. Supplements. Blood tests. Stool tests. Functional medicine doctors. Brain scans. I gave up intense workouts for gentle movement. I tried everything I could think of, but the pain kept coming back.

The symptoms weren’t just painful. I would also get embarrassingly loud stomach noises, so I wouldn’t touch food until I was done with work and school because I was so terrified of my stomach making noise in a quiet classroom or a meeting. If I didn’t have to be anywhere, I would stay in my room and binge on food and alcohol while I watched TV. It was the only place I could relax and feel safe.

When Crohn’s Disease Nearly Killed Me

Then, in the summer of 2017, I had a flare-up of stomach pain that didn’t get better.

In four months, I went from 125lbs to 75lbs. I couldn’t keep anything down. I quit my job. I was in bed all day, trying to eat small bites of food or sip broth, watching mukbang videos on YouTube – don’t ask me why watching other people eat was comforting, but it was. I felt nauseous all the time.

By September, I received the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, and I honestly felt relieved. Maybe now I could make a game plan and finally heal.

But by October, I was in the hospital.

I remember waking up in the hospital and feeling so much shame. The drinking. The binge-eating. I had done this to myself.

But then, for the first time in years, I couldn’t numb my emotions with anything. Everything I had avoided and stuffed down began to release. I cried and cried. And then I laughed until I cried some more.

I had no theological framework for it yet. But it was the first time I made a small connection between emotional and physical health.

How I Was Finally Healed

After three weeks, I came home from the hospital. Grateful to be alive. Still fragile. Still a long healing journey ahead.

I first tried to heal through new age methods — meditation, law of attraction, self-love habits. I ate as clean as I could: lean protein, vegetables, nothing processed. I had a long list of foods I avoided like the plague. It helped keep me from getting really bad again, but I was still dealing with the same symptoms.

Finally, in 2020, I started pursuing a relationship with God. I had grown up in a Christian home, but I never had a personal relationship with Him. So at 18, I decided I was done with God and Christianity–and I started down a path that led to depression, anxiety, addiction, and disease.

I began learning about my identity in Christ and His desire to redeem my spirit, soul, and physical body. In fact, He had already finished the work on the cross for my healing.

By His stripes I am healed (Isaiah 53:5). Not by His stripes I might be healed.

My healing was already done, I just had to grow in faith and intimacy with God–my Healer–and step into it.

As I grew in my relationship with God, depression and anxiety began to lift, and the painful and embarrassing symptoms began to leave too. I began to recognize the direct connection between anxiety and physical pain.

Whenever I had a flare-up, the only thing that made it go away was releasing pent up emotions and surrendering whatever I was anxious about to God in prayer.

Even after I began my healing journey and anxiety had lessened a lot, I remember a time when I was comparing myself to other Christians and how mature and spiritual they seemed. I believed I wasn’t doing enough and maybe God was disappointed in me. Fear built up to the point that I believed God had abandoned me and wasn’t hearing my prayers to take the stomach pain away.

I was laying on the floor in tears when my mom reminded me of Matthew 11:28-30:

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

As I held onto this promise, the stomach pain disappeared, and the pattern became undeniable. The root issue had always been fear.

What I Know Now About Disease, Anxiety, Healing, and God

Crohn’s disease is classified as an incurable autoimmune condition. I was told I’d likely need surgery and lifelong medication.

But now I am free.

I still eat well – not out of fear, but because I love stewarding the body God gave me. I enjoy a wide variety of foods, and I am not afraid of ingredients.

I believe, not just because of my experience, but also the experiences of many others I have come across, that the majority of physical sickness can be traced back to a root of fear. And the only answer is living in God’s perfect love.

He is Jehovah Rafah — the God who heals. Darkness cannot stand in the presence of God. So I live in His presence where I am loved, transformed, and healed.

Crohn’s Disease Was Not My Identity

If you are dealing with a physical illness, I want you to know you are not your diagnosis. You are not what doctors have said over you. If I had believed what the doctors told me and taken on Crohn’s disease as my identity, I would not be healed today.

What do you need to release, surrender, and lay down at the feet of Jesus? God is your Healer, and you cannot stay the same when you boldly enter His presence and let Him remove all fear and shame.

Have you ever seen a connection between what you were carrying emotionally and how you felt physically? How has God set you free? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

Every morning I get up and brush my teeth, fill up my water bottle, and settle in on the couch with my Bible and highlighter. I count 10 full pages — sometimes a little more, so I can finish at the end of a chapter — and start reading. I highlight whatever stands out to me, but I am not doing deep study right now.

No looking up the original Hebrew or Greek. No cross-referencing commentaries. No spending 30 minutes on a single verse. Just 10 pages and a highlighter.

I am simply reading and moving through Scripture like a novel, highlighting what stands out, and then talking to God about it on the morning walk I take afterwards.

That’s it.

And in the last three months, it has quietly changed me more than I expected.

My Bible-Reading Journey Hasn’t Been a Perfect Progression

I grew up in a Christian home, but I never developed a personal reading habit. It wasn’t until I was thirty years old — after a very dark decade where I intentionally turned away from God — that I finally started reading on my own.

I slowly fell in love with reading every morning. After a while in this routine, I distinctly remember running up the stairs after getting my water, feeling genuinely excited to open my Bible — it no longer felt like a chore. Because let’s be honest — when you first start reading the Bible, it’s overwhelming. It’s confusing. You don’t understand how other Christians seem to rattle off verses by memory in the middle of a conversation.

But I stuck with it. I asked questions. I asked God to help me understand what I was reading — and understanding came.

And then I had seasons where I wasn’t excited about it again. Some days I skipped it entirely — not for any particular reason, just my flesh telling me I had more important things to do. I would feel anxious and unable to focus, unable to stop thinking about everything I wanted to accomplish that day.

My Bible-reading journey has had its ebbs and flows. There was even a season where I set out to read the entire Bible in sixty days. I ended up reading the Old Testament in six weeks — and then took a break before I ever got to the New Testament. But that experience was still incredible.

I didn’t finish the New Testament that time around. But what I found in those pages — a God so faithful, so wildly present across thousands of years of human history — made me wonder why I had ever been afraid of anything.

And I discovered something else: I really loved reading the Bible at a faster pace without the pressure of deeper study.

The 10-Pages-a-Day Experiment

Then three months ago, I set out to complete 75 Hard — a mental toughness program where you complete five tasks every single day for 75 days. One of those tasks is reading 10 pages of a non-fiction book. I decided I would read 10 pages of the Bible every day.

I have not yet completed 75 Hard — I’ll save that story for another article — but one habit that has stuck without fail is reading 10 pages of the Bible daily. I am at the point now where I can’t NOT read. It would feel genuinely weird — like leaving the house without brushing my teeth.

There are so many ways to read the Bible. Fast, slow, audio, deep study, handwriting, with a devotional, in community. I am not saying this way is the only way or even the right way.

What I Didn’t Expect

Here is what I didn’t anticipate when I started this simple little habit: the Word would start doing things in me that I wasn’t even trying to make happen.

Most mornings, after I finish reading, I lace up my shoes and head outside for a walk. And that’s where the real conversation begins. I talk to God about whatever verses stood out to me. Sometimes I tell Him what I found really cool. Sometimes I ask questions. Sometimes I just say, “I don’t totally understand that, but I trust You.” It’s not a formal debrief or a structured prayer — it’s just a conversation between me and God about His Word.

And slowly, without me doing anything dramatic or trying really hard, things started to shift.

My mom has always said that the Bible is alive. I grew up hearing that. But in the last three months I have watched it happen in real time.

Hebrews 4:12 says: “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”

No expectations. No feeling like I’m studying for a test. You just need to show up and read. God does the rest.

The Quiet Transformation

And now?

I feel steady.

Not perfect. Not without hard days. But underneath everything — underneath the stress, the uncertainty, the noise of life — there is a steadiness that was not there before. More peace. More joy. And when I go through something difficult now, my first instinct is not to spiral. It’s to pray. To trust. To hand it over.

Things that used to trigger anxiety just... don’t anymore.

I want to be careful here not to make this sound like a formula, because it isn’t. I didn’t even start this habit with the goal of having a dramatic transformation.

There was no singular moment in the last three months that I can mark as the turning point. No dramatic encounter. No specific verse that cracked everything open. Just a simple daily habit — showing up, reading, talking to God — that He used to quietly refine me from the inside out.

Romans 12:2 says: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

I used to think transformation was something I had to manufacture through discipline and effort and sheer willpower. And while discipline matters — I am not dismissing it — I now understand that the actual transformation is God’s work. My job is simply to put myself in front of His Word every single day and let Him do what He promises to do.

You cannot read the Bible consistently and stay the same. The Word is alive, and it does its work in you whether you feel it happening or not.

You Don’t Have to Feel Like It

Here is what I want to leave you with, because I think it might be the most important thing to remember.

You do not have to feel spiritually warm, intellectually ready, or emotionally prepared to open your Bible. Some of my most significant mornings in Scripture have come on days when I sat down feeling dry, distracted, or just plain tired. The feeling is not the point. The faithfulness is.

There is a lie that whispers to a lot of us — that we have to be in the right kind of mood before we come to God’s Word. That we have to be in a good season, in a good headspace, free from distraction and full of spiritual hunger. But that’s not faith. That’s relying on feelings.

Obedience is not the same as motivation.

Open your Bible today. Even if you don’t feel like it. Even if you only read 5 pages instead of 10. Even if your mind wanders and you have to read the same paragraph twice. Just show up. Bring yourself — distracted, tired, confused, upset — and let the living Word of God do what it promises to do.

Give it three months. Give it consistent, humble, daily obedience — and watch what God does.

It wasn’t a passing dark thought. It was something I accepted as fact — a quiet, devastating belief that was slowly killing me.

From the outside, I looked like someone who had her life together. I earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English. I received glowing evaluations at work. But on the inside, I was depressed and completely lost. I binged on food until I felt sick. I numbed my emotions with alcohol. I wasted hours in front of the TV trying to escape my reality.

Every Monday, every new month, every new year, I told myself I was finally going to change my life. But no amount of willpower, no fresh start, no promise to myself could break the cycle I was trapped in.

That’s what a shame spiral does. It makes you feel like there’s no point in hoping things will ever get better.

If you’re a Christian woman struggling with shame, feeling spiritually stuck, or trapped in patterns you can’t seem to break — this is for you. You’re not broken. You’re just stuck. And there’s a way out.

Rock Bottom at 27

After almost a decade of feeling like Rapunzel stuck in her tower, I ended up in the hospital at 27.

The years of depression, anxiety, binge eating, and numbing myself with alcohol had taken its toll. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease — an autoimmune illness that, looking back, made perfect sense. Everything inside me was at war–just trying to survive.

For six months I suffered through near-constant nausea, dramatic weight loss, and a revolving door of doctor’s appointments. Then one morning I couldn’t even keep down water. I was so delirious I couldn’t hold a conversation.

My dad carried me to the car. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.

And that’s when something unexpected happened.

People showed up. Cards arrived. People were praying for me by name. And I had to confront something shame had convinced me was untrue: people would notice if I died. People would care.

That belief — that I was invisible, that my absence wouldn’t affect anyone — had been one of shame’s most convincing lies. Right there in that hospital room, it started to crack.

When I laughed, I felt the pain physically leaving my body. When I cried, I felt years of buried emotion finally releasing. I still had years of hard work ahead of me. But for the first time in a long time, I felt real hope.

The Gap Years (27 to 30)

Surviving the hospital didn’t fix me.

I went home different — quieter, softer — but the same patterns were waiting. The same habits. The same pull toward numbing. It would be another three years before I left the tower for good.

I tried everything. Self-help books. Motivational podcasts. The world’s version of self-love. I even practiced the law of attraction and manifestation — which, I now understand, is just witchcraft with better branding. None of it provided lasting change. I was trying to fix a soul problem with self-help solutions.

Then I turned 30. During a health coaching certification course, I did an exercise called the Wheel of Life — a tool that asks you to rate your satisfaction in different life areas from one to ten. Career. Relationships. Health. Finances. Spirituality.

My spirituality score was zero.

I had tried every worldly path to find peace, but it all led to the same empty place. And no matter how many times I tried to convince myself God wasn’t real, I couldn’t shake the feeling that He was standing in the corner of every room — quiet and steady, just waiting for me.

So I decided to go back to church.

The Unexpected Grace of a Pandemic

I went back to church at the end of 2019 — right before the world shut down.

March 2020 took everything: routines, community, normalcy. For most people the pandemic was pure loss. But for me, it gave me something I had been longing for without knowing it.

Without anywhere to go or anything to distract me, I started having church in my bedroom every single day. No performance. No going through the motions. Just me, God’s Word, and a quiet room.

The more time I spent in Scripture, the harder it became to believe the lies shame had told me. As Romans 8:1 says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” I was beginning — slowly, imperfectly — to believe it.

The Truth That Finally Broke the Cycle

Then, through a friend of a friend, I heard about an online class focused on living life by the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew immediately I had to join.

In the very first session, the teacher said something that stopped me completely.

She said that my identity is not what people have done to me or said about me. It is not my past mistakes, my sickness, my addictions, or my struggles with depression. My identity is not found in any of those things.

My identity is found in Jesus.

She said that the Father never lost sight of my original created value — who He made me to be before the wounds, before the bad choices, before the years of self-destruction. And that Jesus came and died specifically to get that back. To redeem me. To restore me to someone whole, healthy, full of joy and peace. Someone who could be a light in this dark world.

I turned off my camera and microphone and sobbed.

Because here is what shame had told me for over a decade: that I was my worst moments. That the girl who drank too much and ended up in a hospital bed was simply who I was. And here was the truth — the actual, biblical truth — dismantling that lie in real time.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17

That was the beginning of the end of my shame. Not because I suddenly had it all together. But because I finally knew who I was — and it had nothing to do with who I had been.

How to Recognize a Shame Spiral

Your story might look completely different from mine, but shame works the same way in every woman it traps. Here’s how Christian women overcoming shame learn to recognize it first.

Shame tells you who you are, not what you did. Guilt says “I made a mistake.” Shame says “I am a mistake.” Guilt can motivate change. Shame paralyzes it. When you hear yourself saying “I am such a failure” instead of “I made a mistake” — that’s shame talking. And it is lying to you.

Shame convinces you that you’re uniquely broken. It whispers that everyone else has figured out something you simply cannot. This isolation is one of shame’s most powerful tools. The moment you speak your struggle out loud to the right person, shame loses its power.

Shame makes starting feel pointless. Why try again if you’re just going to fail again? This lie kept me stuck for years. But staying still is its own kind of slow death.

Shame feeds on hiddenness. It thrives in the dark — in thoughts never spoken, in habits hidden from people who love you. Shame cannot survive the light. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” — Isaiah 43:18-19

You Are Not Too Far Gone

I don’t know exactly how shame shows up for you. Maybe it’s food, alcohol, doom-scrolling, or something else you use to escape your reality. Maybe it’s health issues you blame yourself for. Maybe it’s a stagnant spiritual life or a bone-deep exhaustion from starting over so many times that trying again feels cruel.

I know that feeling. I lived there for years.

Start with a simple exercise.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the lies that you believe about yourself–words that describe your [false] identity. Find an empty notebook and a quiet place where you can write down whatever comes to mind.

Next, write the opposite truth statement or word to replace each lie. I made this graphic over five years ago (feel free to do the same) to remind me of my true identity everyday.

You were created with value. Jesus came to restore it. The life you’re longing for — strong, peaceful, joyful, anchored — is not out of reach.

— Julia

Though I grew up in a Christian home, I had rejected God and Christianity when I was eighteen. I was tired of church politics and drama, and I honestly felt like the people I knew who didn’t go to church were kinder and more peaceful than the people I knew from church.

I also didn’t understand the difference between going through the motions of religious tradition and having a personal relationship with God, so I decided I was done with all of it.

For over a decade, I fell into depression and anxiety, drinking alcohol almost every day, struggling with binge-eating, and suffering from ever-worsening symptoms of Crohn’s disease.

Today, I am thirty-six and have been walking with God for the past six years. I am free from depression, anxiety, alcohol addiction, binge-eating, and yes, I am completely healed from Crohn’s disease – a disease doctors told me was incurable.

This is the story of how God transformed my life.

In my darkest seasons, everything I did revolved around my desire to escape.

Escape the anxiety.
Escape the depression.
Escape the shame of feeling like a complete failure.

Most days felt like I was simply surviving until I could retreat to my bedroom with my favorite foods, a bottle of wine, and watch hours of TV until I fell asleep. I repeated this cycle night after night for years.

Many nights I remember wondering why I hated myself so much. Why did I keep doing these things that I knew made me feel sick and exhausted? I was addicted to the temporary comfort and relief they provided me.

The shame I felt kept me isolated – I didn’t want anyone to see who I had become. The weight I had gained from binge-eating and drinking destroyed my confidence, and on top of that, I was experiencing frequent stomach pain (the beginnings of Crohn’s disease) that eventually landed me in the hospital at twenty-seven years old for nearly a month.

But even in that darkness, something inside me refused to accept that this was my story.

Somewhere deep down, I had hope. I had hope that someday I would be completely free, healthy, and able to help others. I didn’t know when or how, but I just knew that I was created to make a positive impact in this world.

Because of this hope I had, I woke up almost every morning determined to change. I have probably hundreds of journal entries detailing all of my intentions and goals to transform my life.

But good intentions were not enough.

As much as I tried to break the habits that were keeping me stuck, I always fell back into the destructive cycle. I felt trapped.

The problem was that I was only looking at the surface – I didn’t realize yet that these bad habits I struggled so hard to quit were actually evidence of a deeper issue.

Despite my struggles, I had always been interested in fitness, nutrition, and holistic wellness. So when I was twenty-nine, I enrolled in a holistic health coaching program – mostly for my own benefit and healing rather than any real intention of becoming a coach.

Even though the program was online, it gave me the structure and community I really needed.

One assignment ended up becoming a turning point for me.

We were asked to complete something called the “Wheel of Life,” a simple exercise where you rate different areas of your life like relationships, career, health, and spirituality on a scale from one to ten based on your level of satisfaction in that area.

I gave most areas an average rating of about 5/10, but one rating made me stop and think.

Spirituality: 0/10

It was at that moment that I realized something I hadn’t been willing to admit for a long time.

I needed to give God another chance. I needed to find Him for myself.

So, I did the only thing I could think of to do – I went back to church.

I didn’t have a big plan or a dramatic spiritual breakthrough right away.

I felt awkward, out of place, and I left before the final prayer was finished, but I knew I was taking a step in the right direction.

When I tell you God wasted no time to begin working in my life, I mean that just a couple of months later, on New Year’s Eve, I decided I was going to stop drinking.

For years, alcohol had been a near-daily habit for me. I had tried many times to quit, but every attempt eventually collapsed under stress or loneliness.

But this time… I just knew I could do it.

After years of trying and failing, the grip alcohol had on my life simply loosened. I stopped drinking for the next three years.

And now, I might enjoy a drink a few times a year at a nice restaurant, but that’s it. And if I have a drink, I don’t fall back into the same addictive patterns I once had.

God set me free.

I was so excited for the new year–the new decade! A fresh start. I would go to church every week, get involved in ministry, and slowly rebuild the life I had nearly lost.

Then the world shut down.

When the pandemic arrived in early 2020, churches closed and normal life disappeared overnight. I was so sad that I couldn’t go to church every week, and I started feeling so anxious amidst all the chaos.

I didn’t sleep for three nights straight after Covid-19 was officially announced as a global pandemic. The only thing I could think of to do to find some peace was play all the old Christian music I listened to as a kid.

I started worshipping and praying in my room everyday. My sleep returned to normal, and I realized I didn’t need a building to find God.

I could find Him right here in my bedroom every single day.

In addition to worship and prayer, I listened to sermons online and read daily devotionals.

As my relationship with God deepened, other parts of my life began to change too.

My relationship with food healed. I threw out the scale and stopped counting calories, and God set me free from the binge-and-restrict cycle that had controlled me for years. Exercise stopped feeling like punishment and became something I genuinely enjoyed. I effortlessly lost the extra weight I had gained.

And for the first time in years, I felt free from the cloud of depression that had hung over me for so long. I had peace. And despite the state of the world at the time, I was excited about the future.

God also placed people in my life who helped me understand the Bible and the truth about my identity in Christ.

I was no longer the woman who was stuck, ashamed, and barely surviving.

I was becoming a new creation.

Everyday, I thank God that He did not give up on me when I gave up on Him.

I am so grateful that He never stopped pursuing me, patiently waiting for the day that I would finally respond to His love.

Through all the dark years, I remember always feeling like He was in the corner of every room I was in. It’s like He stayed in the shadows, never forcing me to pay attention to Him, but making sure I knew He would be there whenever I was ready.

If you struggle with shame and feel like you’re stuck in a destructive cycle, you are not alone. Turn to God and He will set you free.

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

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