Sacred Thorns

We live in a culture that wants every empty space filled, every loss explained, and every painful story wrapped up with a testimony of redemption. But what happens when the room stays empty, the prayer remains unanswered, and the grief doesn't go away?

In this episode, Rachel Walters reflects on eight years of infertility through two doorways in her home: the front door where she welcomes trick-or-treaters on her wedding anniversary, and the closed bedroom upstairs that was supposed to become a nursery. Through the imagery of bare autumn branches, she explores what it means to remain connected to God when life looks nothing like the harvest we imagined.

Rachel confronts the quiet ways Christians minimize suffering, from the familiar “at least” statements to spiritual bypassing and the dangerous practice of turning biblical testimonies into personal promises. She also explores why “everything happens for a reason” can cause more harm than comfort, offering a different understanding of redemption.

Through four practical ways of acknowledging absence, naming grief, holding gratitude and sorrow together, and resisting the pressure to manufacture resolution, this episode invites us to stop treating abiding as another spiritual performance.

Not everything has a reason, but everything can be redeemed. And sometimes abiding means learning to live in the house with a God who is present, even while the room remains empty.

Visit sacred-thorns.com for the reflection guide for this episode.

What does it mean to live a fruitful life when the fruit you prayed for never came?

For those carrying infertility or childlessness, Christian language about fruitfulness, blessing, motherhood, and legacy can sometimes feel less like good news and more like a verdict. But the pressure to prove our lives are producing enough reaches far beyond infertility. Most of us have a scoreboard somewhere.

In this episode, Rachel Walters returns to Jesus’ image of the Vine and branches and asks what changes when fruitfulness is understood not as something we manufacture, but something that grows through abiding. Through the stories of Ruth and Naomi, Genesis 1:28, Psalm 127, the Fruit of the Spirit, and the idea of spiritual motherhood, Rachel explores the difference between faithful action and exhausting striving.

She also confronts harmful Christian language around a “spirit of barrenness” and the assumption that an empty womb says something about the condition of a woman’s soul. Fruitfulness is bigger than biology. Legacy is bigger than lineage. And you may already be bearing fruit in places you’ve been calling barren.

When the church tells hurting women to "start your own group," it doesn't just miss the moment - it deepens the wound. Rachel Walters and Jacqueline Rivalksy unpack why so many women carrying infertility, singleness, widowhood, or other hidden crosses feel invisible in faith spaces, and what true abiding together actually looks like.

Rachel opens the conversation with a raw theological question: if the body of Christ is meant to bear one another's burdens, why do so many people still leave church feeling unseen? 

Jacqueline, known as @hopefully_joyful_journey_, brings lived experience and hard-won insight from years of navigating primary infertility, disability, and the pain of not fitting the default mold of women's ministry.

People, Things & Resources

(non-affiliate links)

Episode Guest: Jacqueline Rivalksy @hopefully_joyful_journey_

Book: Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler 

Person: Steffani Aquila @steffani_hisgirlsunday

Book: Festive Faith by Steffani Aquila 

Sometimes, the most faithful act is simply to stay. Across years of unanswered prayers, enduring pain, and quiet suffering, the true challenge isn’t giving up; it’s learning how to abide. In this episode, we uncover how true resilience isn’t about relentless effort but about staying present in the long middle, the ordinary Tuesdays, the unseen years, the unchanging realities—and trusting that this is where transformation happens.

Rachel explores the difference between resignation and abiding, revealing how psychology’s concept of psychological flexibility mirrors biblical teachings of remaining rooted in faith amid uncertainty. You’ll discover how embracing paradox and trusting God's love, even when prayers remain unanswered, cultivates a deep, resilient hope that sustains us through life's darkest seasons.

We break down practical ways to remain connected to God and ourselves, even in pain, and how small, consistent acts of presence translate into profound spiritual maturity. Whether you're feeling stuck in a season of unresolved longing or simply seeking permission to live fully in the long middle, this episode affirms that your staying matters. It’s not about fixing your suffering but learning to abide with it, trusting that God's love remains present, always.

Perfect for anyone carrying invisible thorns, enduring ongoing challenges, or simply wanting to deepen their spiritual resilience, this episode invites you to see that the journey isn’t about rushing toward relief but about becoming more fully alive in the here and now. Because sometimes, abiding is the most courageous and faithful act of all.

In the season one finale, Rachel explores what it means to live in the sacred middle, the long, uncomfortable space between unanswered prayer and resolution. Inspired by a listener's question about navigating infertility while holding onto faith, she turns to Elisabeth Elliot as a guide, a woman whose life was marked by devastating, repeated loss and who spent her life wrestling with the question: Is suffering for nothing?

Rachel unpacks Elliot's profound concept of offering our suffering as sacrifice, not as a problem for God to fix, but as an act of worship. Drawing from Elliot's teaching that we can offer to God all that we are, all that we have, all that we do, and all that we suffer, Rachel explores what it means to hold your hands open in the waiting: not clenched in demand, not closed in resignation, but open as an offering.

This episode offers a framework for those who find themselves stuck in the waiting room of their own lives, tired of being told to either "move on" or "just have more faith." Rachel reminds us that our unfulfilled longings can become material for sacrifice, and that the sacred middle—the waiting, the not-yet, the still-hoping—isn't a failure of faith. It's where we learn that offering ourselves with our suffering transforms the burden into a gift, and the middle into something more sacred than we ever imagined.

In this episode, Rachel explores what happens to our faith when the prayers we've whispered for years seem to go unanswered, and Heaven stays silent. She shares the personal moment of standing in an empty bedroom after a third adoption fell through, realizing she had finally run out of words to say to God.

She unpacks the difference between prayer as transaction and prayer as abiding, challenging the idea that persistence means repeating a request until God gives in. Drawing from the lament Psalms and the "nevertheless" of Gethsemane, Rachel reframes prayer not as performance or petition, but as the holy stubbornness of refusing to leave the relationship. She examines how lament gives us language for the messy middle, where we can hold both faith and doubt, and why mystery doesn't mean failure.

Whether you're tired of being told that unanswered prayers mean you lack faith, wrestling with anger at God, or wondering if staying connected matters when the conversation feels one-sided, this episode offers space to breathe. It's an invitation to discover that abiding matters more than answers, and that staying in the room with God might be the most faithful prayer we have.

In this episode, Rachel challenges the spiritual hierarchy we've created around valleys and mountains, assuming that God primarily dwells on the mountaintop and only "still" remains with us in the valley. She explores what it means that God doesn't just tolerate being in the valley with us, but actually dwells there.

She unpacks the popular "you were assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved" theology, examining what happens when the mountain doesn't move and your testimony doesn't have a triumphant ending. Drawing from Psalm 23 and the physical reality of valleys as sheltered, fertile places, Rachel reframes the journey: maybe we weren't assigned mountains to move them, but led into valleys to discover that God makes His home in the low places.

Whether you're starting this new year in the same valley you ended last year in, whether you're tired of being told to climb higher to find God, or you're wondering if your story only matters if it has a victory ending, this episode offers a different framework, one where presence matters more than elevation, and dwelling matters more than conquering.

In this episode, Rachel explores the whole Christmas story, not just the comfortable parts with angels and shepherds, but the violence, grief, and impossible circumstances that surrounded Christ's birth. Through her own story of refusing to put up a Christmas tree for three years during infertility, she examines why the Church places the Feast of the Holy Innocents right in the middle of Christmas celebration, refusing to separate joy from sorrow.

She unpacks what it means that Jesus entered the world through a barren womb, why Rachel's refusal to be comforted is recorded in Scripture without rebuke, and how Christmas became not a denial of her pain but a defiant declaration of hope in the middle of it.

Whether you're dreading Christmas this year, whether the decorations feel like mockery, or you're tired of the sanitized version of the story, this episode offers permission to enter the real Christmas—where Light breaks into darkness, where grief is woven into joy, and where hope costs something.

In this episode, Rachel explores what it means to wait well during Advent—and what we've lost by rushing past this season of preparation. Through the image of a rose blooming out of season, she shares how to engage your actual season rather than the one you wish you were in, why Mary's blessedness came from her faith rather than her fertility, and the difference between passive endurance and active waiting.

She offers practical ways to practice Advent when Advent itself feels painful—from lighting candles to praying the O Antiphons—and permission to do this season differently than everyone around you.

Whether you're dreading Christmas imagery for the first time or the seventh year running, whether your Advent never seems to end or you're just learning what Advent actually is, this episode offers hope that you can bloom in the season you're in—not the season you wish you were in.

In this episode, Rachel explores the concept of "already and not yet," a biblical idea that God's kingdom has come but isn't yet fully present, and how this perspective transforms our understanding of gratitude in the midst of ongoing suffering. She shares how genuine thanksgiving can coexist with honest grief, how transformation happens in liminal spaces, and how to navigate painful holiday gatherings when your arms are still empty or your heart is still broken.

Whether you're facing your first Thanksgiving after loss, your seventh year of unanswered prayer, or somewhere in between, this episode offers permission to hold both gratitude and longing without having to choose between them.