The Stowaways
A story from me + an essay from Emily P. Freeman
Hi friends,
One of my favourite books from last year was How to Walk Into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away by Emily P. Freeman. As I said in my ‘official’ endorsement, “In a time when so many of us have lost old pathways of belonging, Emily met us right in the middle of our anxiety and uncertainty with practical wisdom, gentle companionship, and good questions. If you are in a season of evolution, this book is so much more than a framework for discernment, it is a map for all of us on the edges, a map for loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our world right in the midst of our uncharted places.”
HOWEVER.
That is not the whole story.
I was late with my endorsement to Emily’s editor because I got started reading, thinking I'd do my typical "quick read" when I’m feeling the stress of a deadline with editors waiting, but I ended up spending days with her book. To be frank, Emily’s book meant a lot to me personally, at a time when I deeply needed to be reminded of important things. For instance, I often keep a little notebook handy when I’m reading-for-the-purpose-of-endorsement, in order to jot down phrases or ideas or feelings that rise up in me as I page through in order to make endorsement writing a bit easier, but this time, I ended up using that notebook to write whole entire sentences and paragraphs, word for word, from her manuscript for my own self.
That is, also, not the whole story.
Emily is familiar to many of you, no doubt: she’s a deeply beloved author, podcaster, and spiritual director, whose speciality lies in discernment and decision making. She was also one of my early blogging friendships more than fifteen years ago: Emily and I were writing alongside each other online back when I was “Emerging Mummy”1 and she was still “Chatting at the Sky.” Everyone who knows Emily loves her for her fierce kindness, her smooth-as-butter voice in your ear, her patience, her gentleness, her wisdom, and her unequaled resources for spiritual formation. She’s always been that person. Her Substack is always a recommendation around here. (See:
).And now the rest of the story…
There was a time, about ten years ago, when people like me became a bit of a pariah in the Christian lady-blogger/writer world. In my case, most of this was a result of my progressive politics and my insistence on LGBTQ+ inclusion as well as my proximity to more high-profile writers or influencers who shared those convictions. The sheep were separated from the goats, as they say.
In a short period of time, I went from being that “edgy friend”2 who was frequently invited to the evangelical spaces to being persona-non-grata at best, called out and chased around and condemned at worst.3 It was costly - emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and even financially. Like many others in that two or three year period, I went from being frequently published in a lot of mainline evangelical publications to having every essay or article rejected. Some publishers closed their doors completely. People who were merely associated with me had their own publishing contracts and network cancelled, just for the crime of connection to me. I had a friend whose literary agent dropped her because of her refusal to cancel a speaking engagement we had together. I was called out repeatedly by women-centric websites or bloggers4 whom I had counted as friends. Some charity and justice work I was connected to experienced drops in donations because some more strident donors refused to give while I was there. The label ‘heretic’ was firmly affixed to my work. I was “dangerous.”
That had ripple effects into our real life. A lot of the kerfuffle from those years created the circumstances that cost my actual family a lot of real-life community, as I failed the litmus tests of theological purity due to my insistence on the radical notion that women are people and that LGBTQ+ folks are deeply beloved and welcomed by God.
RELATED: I used to belong there. I don’t belong there anymore.
Now, don’t misunderstand me: I was fine. Genuinely. Then and even more now. No regrets. I’d do it again and better if I knew then what I know now. Everything worked out. Like most of you who have gone through similar things, if anything, I’m grateful for that experience now. I had some loyal friends who were in the same boat, if not experiencing even worse sifting and consequences so I got off fairly easy, all things considered. There were many more who suffered much more than I did and I still had a good cohort of companions and enough stubbornness to re-create community. My earnestness and naivety may have spared me a bit there, too.
Onward, etc.
But when you go through a time like that, woo boy, do you ever remember the friends who stuck with you.
And Emily? She stuck with me.
Even when associating with an “evil leftist menace to the Gospel” (true quote in a true story) like me was likely costly to her own career, she stayed in touch, stayed publicly connected with me, and kept our small friendship intact. She even still linked to my work, publicly “claiming” me at a time when precious few would, and she even supported my work when I had a book release now and then.
Emily was someone who stayed, even when it likely cost her. She was always curious, she was always welcoming, she was always kind, and she was happy to be honest about that in public.5
And sure enough, she was on her own evolving faith journey, too.
Now, that brings me to today.
Because I respect Emily so much and I love her latest book, I reached out to her and asked if she could write an essay for us here at Field Notes. I knew that her story in there would resonate strongly with so many of us and I wanted a way to share her work with you. But when she graciously emailed her contribution, I was unprepared for all it stirred up in me and I knew that it would meet all of us right where we are at this moment. She Emily-ed us. By which I mean, as always, Emily comes alongside of our painful stories of belonging and helps us to find God in the midst, locate the thread of grace that held us together in difficult times, even while giving us permission to know what we know now without compromise.
So that was a lot of preamble for me to say, hey pals, this is my friend Emily P. Freeman and this is a guest essay by her. I hope you buy or borrow her latest book. How to Walk Into A Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. I hope you follow her here at Substack or on social media.
And I hope that this essay is a faithful stowaway for you, too.
Love S.
Check out my books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com
A Stowaway
By
When we left our beloved church in 2020, there was a lot we couldn’t bring with us. As a faithful reader of Field Notes, I know you most likely have at least an adjacent understanding of this experience (if not a full-blown story of your own) of leaving a room that was once home and comfort, but became for you unwelcome for anywhere between one and one million reasons.
When it’s time to leave a room (a job, relationship, church, etc), no matter how much preparation you’ve had, no matter how longed for or planned for the leaving is or was, no matter how much you begged to be let out, there will be things you can’t take with you; they simply won’t fit through the door. These are things like clarity, explanations, a sense of being understood, or the luxury of being able to tell your side of the story.
There are, of course, also always things you can bring, like the person who you have become and are becoming, like what not to do as a leader or a friend. These aren’t as satisfying at first, but they are perhaps more important in the long run.
But then there is this third category of belongings, those things you didn’t know to pack but you get down the road and realize there, in the bottom of your bag, lives a small token of something important that has stowed itself away. You didn’t bring it on purpose, but there it is, with you still.
As for me and my family, we couldn’t bring a sense of being fully understood, the blessing of the congregation, or the comfort of the community we loved. We just had to go. In the leaving, we also left a fair amount of certainty behind about God, about ourselves, and about what community and belonging meant now that things had changed.
When we make these kinds of moves, we all have those things we bring with us and the things we are forced (or choose) to leave behind. But as we make our way into the woods, as we find our path in the wilderness, we begin to take inventory of all of our belongings and we may discover some of those gifts that have made the journey with us.
When Sarah graciously invited me to share some words here, I was reminded of one such gift I’ve carried for over a decade now. I haven’t shared this story anywhere and now seemed like the right time. I hope you’re impressed that I managed to squeeze an intended 500 words into over a thousand. You’re welcome and I’m sorry.
It was back in 2013, during the heady days of blogging when Instagram was a place mostly for friends to share personal photographs of kids, sunsets, and food with bad filters. Anyone you met on the Internet, you did so through the blog comment box or maybe a blogging conference. It was in the midst of those days that I received an invitation to a faith-based retreat-like event with other writerly and speakerly types of women who I had met, read, or heard of from the Internet. I felt out of place and unsure about the whole thing at the time but was hopeful that perhaps I would find my place among them. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.)
Toward the end, they organized a time for us to pray with someone in the room in a random kind of way. Were it to happen now I would likely, at the very least, find my way to a bathroom or a hallway to avoid it. But at the time I followed the rules and did the thing, submitting to the prayer activity and the potential for forced vulnerability.
Wouldn’t you know, the partner I ended up with was one Sarah Bessey.
The instructions were to take turns to pray for one another and she went first, probably because I was already crying. Where the tears came from, I have zero memory. I don’t remember if it started before or after I saw her face. I don’t remember a single word she said, how long we stood there, or what happened much before or after.
What I do remember, dear reader, is that in those moments when Sarah prayed for me, what started as polite lady tears launched into a full blown ugly cry, one I could not give boundary to no matter my efforts. I stood there before this lovely human who I only knew from the Internet and listened to her pray powerfully on my behalf. In those moments I felt seen and pastored by the mothering heart of God in a way that had never happened for me before.
I never got to pray for her in return, at least I can’t remember doing so. I was too wrecked, too shifted, too overcome with emotion and something else . . . love? Longing? Mystery? This was 2013, before I began to disentangle my ideas about God from actual God, before I began to question in earnest some of the certainties I had grown to depend on, and a full seven years before we would leave our church.
But this moment, sobbing in front of Sarah actual Bessey, was one I would return to for many years. Because the Spirit I experienced in those few moments was both familiar and not yet known, like a loved one who moves far away for a very long time and upon their return you observe them to be healthier, wiser, and more relaxed. Here is my best shot at explaining what I believe happened in those moments of prayer with our dear Sarah.
I believe the God I’ve come to know now, in 2025, paid me a visit there in that awkward retreat in 2013. And I believe something of my future self was revealed to me there, too. God, unbound by time or space, offered me a flash of the freedom I would one day find and the expansiveness of the table I at which I would eventually sit. And my only response was to weep.
This thin place moment has traveled quietly in my spiritual pack for many years.
I share this now in case there’s a chance you might be in a threshold between feeling lost and wanting to rebuild something. Maybe there is a small moment or two from years ago that you’ve discounted because they happened in a setting you intentionally left or among a group that you no longer identify with. I wonder if you might reconsider their importance or allow them to be isolated from the context and exist in solitude for you; perhaps a moment where you knew that you were loved and seen and held and known. These have traveled with you over all this ungracious space and time, a tiny stowaway in your spiritual bag, not packed on purpose but stubbornly belonging to you for good.
I want to tenderly suggest the possibility that it’s enough. It’s enough to build (or rebuild) your faith on. It’s enough to build a life on. It’s enough to begin again.
Emily P. Freeman is the New York Times bestselling author of six books, including How to Walk into a Room. As a spiritual director, workshop leader, and host of The Next Right Thing podcast, her most important work is to help create soul space and offer spiritual companionship and discernment for anyone struggling with decision fatigue. Emily holds a master's degree in spiritual formation and leadership from Friends University. She lives in North Carolina with her family.
Managing my own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain: Ask Me Anything Q and A time!
I know the words by heart: Or, Permission to borrow courage from each other
Your job isn’t to get over your anger.: Anger is our holy starting point, but it is Love who sustains the passion and directs it into life-giving transformation
Are we still calling ourselves Christians?: Or are we done here?
Bless my own heart, I coined that moniker as an homage to my then-interest in the “emerging church” conversations coupled with my season of life as a mum to tinies but as the SEO later proved, I ended up with a lot of folks who had interest in horror films about Egyptian mummification instead. For those of you who remember that era, bless YOUR heart for sticking around until I got comfortable enough to use my real name on a website.
As I’ve said before, if a straight, white, long-time-married, mother of four church lady who loves Jesus is anyone’s idea of edgy, we all need to get out more but oh well.
There were a lot of outside factors that made the “line being drawn” into a big deal at the time and I won’t re-hash that. I was just one teeny tiny cog in that big machine, I’m not under any illusions about my importance there.
Usually at the behest of their male counterparts or leadership who didn’t want to be seen as tangling with women online and so deputized women to do the dirty work for them. Some things never change.
…unlike a lot of other folks who publicly disavowed people like me but privately agreed and even wanted absolution …
 | A guest post by
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When I pulled at the threads of my spiritual tapestry enough to discover that I was actually not straight, I spent a good three years in prayer, marinating in worship music and teachings from a certain very popular, very conservative charismatic church that was associated with my home church. I jumped feet first in because their focus at the time was fully on unconditional love and acceptance by God, no matter who you were.
I still remember the visit to the church in 2018 where I was standing in the middle of the crowd at the front fully engaged in worship, overtaken by the peace of God and full-conviction of His love and acceptance of my entire identity. Followed immediately by the realization that I would have recriminations rained down on my head if I did what I saw others do and asked for the microphone to share the conviction that God said I could be fully queer and still fully His.
It started a whole chain of events that ended in me dating my now-wife later that summer, leaving my home church after taking her there and getting a number of shocked and horrified glances, and starting a whole new spiritual journey in the welcoming embrace of Reconciling Methodists. But I still can't shake the three years of being slowly convinced of God's love for me and His full acceptance, the number of times I asked, "but what about...?" and was always answered with, "yes, even then," culminating in that moment where I was finally released into full freedom to accept and love myself wholly.
I’m so sorry for what you both went through. And so grateful that you have used that pain to grow and help others. You’ve helped this 77 yr old woman who was only allowed to teach women and children in the church. I’ve come a long way, Baby, and now speak whenever and to whomever I want 🥰. As loud as I want too!