Where I Find God Now: On Resilience, Faith and the Women Who Guide Me

How Saint Hildegard, Mary Madgalene and Maya Angelou help me reclaim faith and find strength in spiritual resilience - especially during hard times.

There are places I look when I’m trying to believe again.

In the garden, amongst the quiet rhythm of life.

My favorite beach, right where the salt water crashes down to batter the sand.

The silence of a church pew.

Each one offers something sacred: movement, growth, stillness.

And somewhere between the saltwater and soil, I’ve learned faith is not the loud, public certainty many of us were raised to admire.

It is quieter now.

Less performative.

More embodied.

It has its own unique resilience - not of toughness, but of tenderness that refuses to shut down.

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Faith After Breaking

There have been moments when I thought my faith was gone.

After the gunfire.

After the losses.

After the countless ways this world teaches you to harden.

And recovering from it all requires serious resilience and faith.

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Resilience carries you past recovery - and is fueled by faith.

And you must have faith in your own resilience.

The path forward, past recovery, isn’t always about getting back to where you were.

It’s about staying in motion.

Even when everything inside you says STOP, you choose to evolve anyway, for your own sake.

It’s trusting that if you keep planting, praying or walking on the sand, that maybe something holy might meet you there.

That maybe your miracle is one measure away - while knowing if it’s not, you’ll still be okay.

Faith, for me, is no longer about having the answers.

It’s about choosing not to close myself off to grace - even when I’m grieving.

Especially when I’m grieving.

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The Women Who Teach Me to Endure

Resilience often feels lonely.

It often means feeling misunderstood.

Sometimes, when I need a reminder, I research stalwart figures who’ve stood the test of time.

For understanding.

Companionship.

Philosophical enlightenment.

This week, I’m feeling the feminine divine in quiet moments. Strength that doesn’t always look like power, but presence like Saint Hildegard, Mary Magdalene and Maya Angelou.

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Saint Hildegard of Bingen

Benedictine abbess | Renegade nun | Mystic | Polymath | Composer | Herbalist | Author | Contemporary to Dear Abby | Renaissance Woman | Total

Hege Kristoffersen

Vibes

Saint Hildegard was a woman of the Church who spoke of the divine in trees, music and femininity.

She saw human beings and all life as sparks of God’s love.

Saint Hildegard was at one with the universe as the Holy Spirit flowed through her being.

And she dared to write her mystic visions, her hopes and visions for the Church’s future…. in the 1100’s.

As a woman.

Hildy also sang. She created. She danced.

She debated for a more humane church.

She crossed lines.

She properly buried an excommunicated man.

Saint Hildegard knew God was not confined to doctrine alone.

She connected with God in rivers and gardens.

She communed with the Holy Spirit whilst dancing beneath starlight.

Hildegard explored resilience, not as resistance to the world, but radical participation in its beauty.

“Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.”

- Saint Hildegard

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Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

Jesus follower | Witness to Resurrection | Possibly in Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa | Ride-or-die-and-beyond | Other debatable things | Bad Bitch

Mary Magdalene epitomizes loyalty. Devotion. Love.

When nearly everyone else abandoned Jesus in his final hours, Mary stayed.

She stayed at the cross.

She stayed at the tomb.

And she was the first to see Christ risen.

She knew how to hold space for the most Holy… and the horrifying.

She didn’t flinch from grief. She bore it.

Mary still showed up for the possibility of life after death.

Mary Magdalene took “ride-or-die” to a whole new, heavenly level.

Now that’s resilience.

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Maya Angelou

Poet | Activist | Survivor | Woman of deep faith and deeper courage | American treasure to the fullest

Oh! Maya Angelou transports me to simpler days of childhood, the hope of a spring breeze and the perfume of library books.

Her words resonate from a deeply divine, feminine core.

And Madame Angelou’s life was its own scripture: unflinching, luminous, unapologetically real.

Her words speak for so many when our own fail.

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

- Maya Angelou

Maya didn’t separate her spirituality from her survival, but allowed her faith to resound in her language, freeing the souls of many.

In a dark time in American history, Maya Angelou’s illuminating spirit glowed with resilience - just as her words will certainly traverse the challenges of time.

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This Is What I Know Now

I used to think finding God meant finding answers.

Or finite facts as deciphered and dictated by man.

Now I know it means learning how to live inside the questions.

In the ocean, I find peace.

In the garden, I find hope.

In church, I find stillness.

And in the stories of these women, I find permission.

To keep showing up.

To speak, to play in the dirt, to believe.

To live everything.

Not because I’m certain, but because I’m choosing to believe that maybe, just maybe, life still has something holy to offer.

Even now.

Especially now.

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Author’s Note

This piece is part of an ongoing exploration of faith, resilience and healing appearing across platforms.

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If you’ve found God in unexpected places or learned how to stay soft in a hard world, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.