On this week’s episode, I talk with enneagram coach and co-leader of the non-profit, 40 Orchards, Stephanie Spencer. 40 Orchards creates safe spaces for people to learn about and wrestle though biblical texts using the ancient Jewish concept of Midrash. Stephanie had a first career as a pastor and now facilitates Scripture Circles in the Minneapolis area and, remotely, around the world. She currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband and their two adolescent sons.

In my time with Stephanie, we talk about how reading the Bible in a new way “opened up the world” to her. She also discusses how we have been made to delight in the world around us and highlights the common thread of feeling like we don’t measure up when it comes to beauty standards and so often in the life of faith as well. Perhaps most importantly, Stephanie reminds us that God is not a God who stands far off but is, instead, intimately involved in each of our stories and that He sees us as beautiful, good, and rejoices over us, even now.