A Conversation with Sarah Bessey

by on July 10, 2020

podcast episode with sarah bessey

Today on the podcast, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen have a conversation with special guest Sarah Bessey, an author, writer, and self-described recovering know it all. She is the author of Jesus Feminist, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith, and Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear more about her most recent book, her own story and engagement with trauma, and the ways in which she embodies faith, hope, and love while holding the tension of being human.

Quotes

“For me, learning to practice the reasonableness of miracles, things like taking your medication, going and talking to a therapist, dealing with your trauma, these aren’t the moments where in the moment you’d look at it and say “Look at this mountain move” but at the same time you’re moving a mountain, and it can sometimes look a bit smaller, more of a bucket and shovel kind of moving a mountain.” Sarah Bessey

“When I think about the healing journey as it connects to the faith journey, the one thing I find myself saying over and over again, both to myself and others, is healing takes time.” Rachael Clinton Chen

“God with us is the thing that actually sustains and hold us and is what is holding everything, because then you have access to both mercy and grace, hope and grief, and neither one of them do you have to let go of or pretend is a part of you. God is present in all of those places in the full totality of what that means.” Sarah Bessey

“How has your view of God, yourself, and the world, changed through trauma?” Dr. Dan Allender

“One of the biggest things I have been transformed by is realizing I don’t get hope unless I’ve fully grieved. Hope is admitting that things are not all as they should be, as you want them to be, or as you long for them to be. That requires grieving well and giving yourself permission to grieve well, to fully feel it.” Sarah Bessey

“When we can tell the truth and enter into it, I often think of a different kind of rest that’s simultaneously very restless because when you let yourself obey the sadness there is a longing, a desire, a growing sense of I want more, I’m meant for more, and I actually want to live into that differently.” Rachael Clinton Chen

“Being able to understand that it’s not about trading one set of answers for another set of answers, but instead being able to bring all of it with you with wisdom, discernment, gratitude, and also honesty of releasing the things that need to be released but holding on to the things that unexpectedly become treatures to you or did shape you and set you in this particular direction with your face toward God in this certain way.” Sarah Bessey

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