The Critical Journey | A Summer Book Club
May 4, 2026
“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
My name is Christie. I’m a story + soul companion. Over the years, I’ve spent time with many people who are thoughtful, faithful, and deeply committed—everyday people like you—who are tired, carrying grief, or holding wounds that have gone unnamed for a long time. Sitting with them has shaped the way I understand both suffering and grace. I’ve learned how much our histories matter, how profoundly our bodies and relationships are shaped by what we’ve lived through, and how patient Christ is with us as He meets us in the story.
My approach is Christ-centered, trauma-informed, and narrative-focused—but mostly it is relational. I care about earning trust, listening well, noticing what is happening beneath the surface, and resisting the urge to rush toward answers or resolution. I welcome questions and curiosity, wonder and weariness. I believe Scripture gives us language not only for hope and restoration, but also for confusion, sorrow, waiting, and lament.
People often come to me because something in their life is no longer working as it once did. You may be carrying the effects of a painful experience, finding yourself caught in familiar relational patterns, navigating a season of loss or transition, or realizing that the ways you learned to survive and care for others have left little room to attend to your own story.
You may know that something needs attention without yet knowing exactly what it is.
Experiences of abuse, neglect, betrayal, or spiritual harm may continue to affect your body, emotions, relationships, or experience of God, even when you understand what happened.
Suffering, disappointment, church hurt, spiritual abuse, or unanswered prayer may have left you carrying anger, doubt, grief, longing, or questions you have not felt free to ask.
Anxiety, shame, anger, perfectionism, numbness, withdrawal, or a need for control may keep appearing, and you want to understand what has shaped these responses rather than simply trying harder to change them.
Loss, changing relationships, caregiving, vocational or ministry transitions, or the loss of what you thought your life would be can leave you needing room to grieve and discern what comes next.
You may be a caregiver, ministry leader, helping professional, parent, or simply the person others depend upon, while finding there has been little room for your own needs, limits, grief, and story.
You may be navigating a destructive or controlling relationship or recognizing patterns of overfunctioning, people-pleasing, withdrawal, self-protection, conflict, or difficulty trusting.
You do not need to arrive with a diagnosis, a neatly articulated goal, or a clear explanation of how your past connects to your present. Sometimes the most honest place to begin is simply the awareness that there is more here, and I want to understand it.
Our work can begin there.
In the context of relationship, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created us in their image (Genesis 1:27). We bear His beauty, goodness, glory, and truth. This is the very core of who we are—before sin, sorrow, and suffering laid its mark on us, before the stories we’ve grown up in told us otherwise.
My desire is to help you get back to this place, to live in and from this truest identity—that you are a beloved child of God who bears His image.
We see in the Scriptures, time and time again, that our Father is a patient one. He is provoked to anger, yes, but first He is compassionate and merciful, abounding in steadfast love (Exodus 34:6). It is not a surprise to Him that we move slowly from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor 3:18).
Our sanctification, our returning back to the truest sense of who we are (the Imago Dei) and who we are becoming (like Christ), is progressive. Ours is a journey that goes through stages, and stages within each stage.
Why is this worth noting? This journey is one you’ve been on for quite some time. You may have expected to arrive somewhere by now. Yet here you are. Your struggle, your suffering, is a part of your process of becoming.
“Knowing the impact of our stories and finding God’s redemptive work within them is vital for emotional, relational, and spiritual health.”
Before time (as we know it), a story was already unfolding. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—unified in their love—were a living love story. Beauty, goodness, and truth in harmonious relationship. Wholeness and flourishing. Compassion, gentleness, justice and love to the fullest extent. Shalom. And though it is wholly mystery to me, we have been born into this incredible, infinite story.
Stories have enveloped and enfolded us. Micro stories of our parents and the generations before them, the stories that have unraveled throughout our lived lives, the stories others have told us and the stories we’ve told and continue to tell ourselves; stories that are sacred and profane. We are storied beings—ensouled, embodied, enstoried.
Story is the means and relationship is the context by which our lived truth and reality are revealed. When others bear witness to our stories of both suffering and celebration, we come to realize that not only does God see us, hear us, and know us deeply—but He comes for us, too.
When we engage this work in the context of 1:1 companionship or group, we are given space to be unsparingly honest, exposing parts of ourselves that have longed to be seen, heard, and known—our stories become witnessed by another. We were made for this. Being made in the image of God, our sense of dignity and worth is repaired in the context of relational community that images God’s love back to us.
By engaging our stories through the lens of grace and redemption, storywork becomes a transformative journey of spiritual wholeness where we become increasingly like Christ. It renews our strength and draws us into deeper connection with God and with those around us. Our relational wounds begin to heal.
“We are created for the purpose of loving relational connections with God and other people, and we are designed such that we grow and develop through relational connections.”
Ongoing individual care offers a consistent place to tend to your story, relationships, emotional and spiritual life, and the circumstances you are navigating. Our work is Christ-centered, story-exploring, trauma-informed, and clinically informed, with space to move at a pace that allows trust, awareness, and meaningful change to develop over time.
Individual counseling and soul care are offered primarily online, allowing us to meet regularly without the limitations of location or travel.
Sometimes a particular part of your story needs more room than a traditional counseling hour can provide. Story + Soul Care Retreats offer extended, focused time to slow down, listen carefully, and give sustained attention to a story, wound, relationship, loss, pattern, or season that feels ready for deeper exploration.
Retreats are available in person in the greater Houston area as well as online. Each retreat includes intentional preparation and integration so that our time together is held within a larger rhythm of reflection, prayer, rest, and continued care.
There are parts of our stories that are difficult to heal or understand in isolation. Groups create space to practice being known, listen to the stories of others, and experience the kind of connection that can deepen both personal healing and spiritual formation.
My groups vary in focus and may include story work, contemplative spiritual formation, relational connection, or exploration of a particular theme. Most groups are offered online, making it possible to gather with others across locations while developing a consistent and intentional community.
“One life on this earth is all we get…and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.”
