Kimberly Penrod Pelletier
My life has been so many things I never dreamed, and not always in a good way. Can you relate? Through it all I’ve experienced the deepest truth of all: I am truly free and I am deeply loved. Suffering is hard, but it does not have the last word about who I am.
My Story
As a spiritual director I’ve learned to hear the invitations of the Spirit in all circumstances in life. But it wasn’t always this way. I thought hearing God was some sort of hit or miss experience, depending on if I did something right – or at least avoided something wrong. I exhausted myself “seeking God.”
Meanwhile, God had been ever-seeking me.
After a challenging marital separation, losing our home from job loss, stepping away from grad school half way due to illness, I found myself pregnant with our first son. Finally, something good. Except it wasn’t. I remember about a week after his still birth I was lying on my bed sobbing from the depths and I came to a wall I had never hit before. I had nothing to pray. I couldn’t pray for what I wanted – my son back in my arms, out of the grave. What exactly does hope look like when you can’t hope for what you really want?
Against all odds, my son’s death was the beginning of new life in me; an entirely new way of relating to God. I continue to depend on this new life as I mother three kids, learn to become true friends with my husband after his Christian deconversion, allow the limitations of chronic pain, and walk with others as they learn to hear their invitations to a deeper, more awake life.
Published Writing
Popular Articles
- My Husband is Deconstructing Faith. How Do I Journey With Him? Christianity Today
- Following Jesus Into Radical Self-Love. The Art of Telah
- Evangelism, Meet Soul Care. Christianity Today
- The Welcome of What Is. The Mudroom
- Finding Balance In Limitations. The Redbud Post
- These Three Remain. (a poem) The Redbud Post
- How to Ask Someone to Leave Your Small Group. Smallgroups.com
- Study Guide for Mystics & Misfits: Meeting God Through St. Francis and Other Unlikely Saints. Herald Press
Read to Re:Imagine life?