What if reconnecting with God didn’t require more effort, but more honesty?

In this honest and hope-filled conversation, Willow sits down with Allison Byxbe to talk about what it really looks like to feel disconnected from God… and how to find your way back.

After walking through a devastating diagnosis for her son, Allison found herself in a season where faith felt confusing, distant, and colorless. The way she once connected with God no longer worked, and she didn’t know how to move forward.

But in the middle of that pain, God gently invited her into something new.

Through journaling.

Not perfect words.

Not polished prayers.

Just honest, raw connection.

In this episode, Allison shares how journaling became a powerful spiritual practice that helped her process grief, ask hard questions, and slowly rediscover God’s presence—even in the middle of a 10-year valley.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, numb, or unsure how to talk to God anymore… this conversation will meet you right where you are.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why feeling disconnected from God is more common than you think
• How journaling can help you process pain and reconnect with Him
• The power of honesty in your relationship with God
• How to find God in the middle of long, hard seasons
• Why your “old way” of connecting with God might not work anymore—and what to do instead

Simple Practice to Try:

Ask this one question each day...

“God, where did I see You today?”

Write whatever comes to mind.

No pressure. No perfection. Just presence.

• Connect with Allison: Website | Book: Journaling as a Spiritual Practice

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey, there. Welcome to the Collide Podcast. It's so good to hang out with you. And today I'm going to hand you an interview that I just had with Allison Byxbe.

Isn't that the coolest name? B, Y, X, B, E. Like that just wins a lot in Scrabble. That's what she told me. Anyways, it's worth more, so that's just. That's just a cool last name.

Anyway, she's a writer, a speaker, a college writing professor. She came out with a book called Journaling as a Spiritual Practice. If you're rolling your eyes right now and you're ready to move on, I get it.

Because you think that you're about to be handed an assignment and it's going to get graded and you have to turn it in, but that is not what she talks about at all.

Allison opens up about a hard season, a hard diagnosis that her son received, and how she went into a very dark place and reconnecting with God became possible through this art of journaling. And she talks about some really practical things that could help us with our. Our journaling and our prayers, but also some powerful things and.

And why they're powerful. So if you're looking to grow in this spiritual practice, take a list. This episode. Allison, it is so good to be with you.

You're a friend of a friend of a friend. And as we talked about offline, it just feels, like, good to be with someone who. Yeah. Who. Who feels connected. Like, it's a small world here.

Yeah, it is. And I love that. I just love how God continues to just crisscross paths, and it's a lot of fun.

Yeah. Well, you said you're. You're calling in from South Carolina, and I loved what you said when I asked you about South Carolina.

So you just got to school the people and tell them, what's the difference between South Carolina and North Carolina?

Yeah. So South Carolina, we have mustard based barbecue, and it's the best. And North Carolina has vinegar based barbecue, and it is not the best.

Oh, my gosh. I never knew this. I actually. I mean, you're really schooling me. I'm gonna start researching barbecue food now.

But, yeah, my husband started smoking meat in Covid because I bought him a smoker. He wanted a smoker. Bought him one for, like, Christmas one year, and then it just sat for years. And then in Covid, it was like, oh, why not?

And so he started smoking meat, but he hasn't mastered barbecue sauce, so maybe I'll sick him on the Whole North Carolina. South Carolina thing. And then I'll get back to you.

Maybe I'll ship you some of our mustard based barbecue sauce to try with that smoked meat. And it'll change your world.

Oh, I love it.

Well, Allison, you're a writer, a speaker, a college writing professor, and you spent a lot of your work trying to help women reconnect with God through the practice of journaling. And out of the gate. I just want to have you speak to the people who are like, oh, nope, I. I hate writing. It's like work. It's like school.

How do you want to dismantle, like, the hate of journaling right out of the gate?

Yeah. So I. It has been so instrumental in my relationship with the Lord.

I walked through a dark season of feeling really disconnected from God, just through some losses and some grief that our family was going through. And. And journaling became God's kind invitation to me to reconnect to his heart.

And I saw how transformational that was for me in some of my darkest places. And science would also tell us that journaling is something that helps rewire our brains and can reconnect our hearts to God.

And so I'm just really passionate that I can. That anybody, really, anybody can journal. It's not like high school English class. It's not a grade. It's not performance. It's not perfection.

It really is just about getting honest with yourself and honest with the Lord, and he can do some really amazing things in us when we get to that space.

Yeah, I mean, you're talking to a fellow writer. I love to journal my prayers. I journal them almost every day.

Not because I think I have to or because I think somehow it's impressing God or anything. Sort of like religious necessity, but I'm just better at expressing myself through words. And for some reason, too.

It's kind of like this free flow for me. Like, sometimes it's like a dear Lord, and other times it's like I'm handing you all these concerns and I'll list them. I mean.

Or here's what I'm so grateful for. Or here's how I can see you move. Or here's what I really hoping you'll show up in these spaces.

Like, it just is always so different for whatever's going on in me. But you spoke a little bit off air to me and you said you went through something where the world lost its color.

I'm curious what that, like, what that experience did for you. How did it. How did you find yourself feeling super disconnected to God. What, what did that look like? Were you connected before that?

Talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I. When our oldest son was about a year old, he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that has a lot of complications.

And I kind of described my life, my life of faith before that diagnosis as very neat and tidy. I followed the rules. I felt like God blessed me and everything was right with my world.

And when that happened, I felt like I couldn't trust God because this felt like a very bad thing in our lives. And I didn't understand why the Lord had allowed that to happen.

And I think because of those questions I became very disconnected from God because I didn't know, I didn't, I didn't have the words to pray anymore.

The things, the ways that I used to trust God for things to I guess, work out, just this wasn't feeling like it was working out and it just had all these question marks. And I didn't like feeling disconnected from God, but I very, very much did.

And, and I think that's kind of what I meant when we were talking how the world just kind of lost its color. There had been a lot of joy in my relationship with the Lord and a lot of excitement about what he was doing in me and in the people around me.

And then that diagnosis came crashing into our lives and it just was very disorienting for us.

It's so interesting how we can experience something that jars our life like that. And we almost need a new way of connecting with God. It's almost like the old, the old way isn't working anymore.

It doesn't mean that we need to find a new God. It just means that sort of like how we connected to him is like it's not, it's not working.

I'm curious, how long did you stay in that space where you were disconnected from Him?

Yeah. So I think this number sometimes surprises people.

But I was walking through a valley for about 10 years before I really found my footing again where I feel like the full vibrancy of my relationship with God really returned. It's not to say that I didn't experience God at all in those 10 years, but it was a long wrestling and of getting really, really honest with God.

And so when you talked about having to find a new way to connect, I think the gift of that diagnosis in one sense for me was I didn't have the emotional margin to be anything but gut level honest with God. And when I was finally able to be that honest with him, he was able to start helping me peel back some of those layers and find a.

And find an authentic connection to him that wasn't based on me getting everything that I wanted or life turning out perfectly.

Hmm. Talk to us about what you believed about being honest with God before the diagnosis.

Yeah, well, like, you were talking about prayer journaling. I prayer journaled a lot, especially through my 20s.

And so just kind of writing down, you know, what I was grateful for and praying for people in my life who maybe were sick or things like that. And those things are really good things to pray about. But I wasn't often, I think, really coming to God with my.

With my disappointments, with my questions, because life, in a lot of ways, just made sense. And so I didn't have a lot of questions. And so I think the honesty piece came when I could say, I don't.

I don't understand this, or this doesn't seem. This doesn't seem like the God I thought I knew. Right. Like, being able to ask those questions is the piece that really helped me be honest with him.

So you're in this space, this. This hard space, this sort of colorless world for a decade. What was. What was new for you because you wrote before what.

What happened, where you started to find journaling as a spiritual practice that gave you moments of healing and clarity.

Yeah. So I. I can take you back to this. This was still pretty early on after the diagnosis, and I was actually reading the parable of the.

Of the wineskins, where Jesus is saying, you can't pour new wine into old wineskins because it'll burst. And of course, he's having a conversation with folks about the kingdom of God and how the kingdom of God is something.

The way that he is bringing it is something new, something they haven't experienced in the way that he's showing up. And. But in that moment, I thought, oh, that is such a picture of where I'm at. I have this old life, but this new reality.

And I keep trying to pour this new reality into this old way of living in life and connecting to God, and it's not working. And here Jesus was talking about that idea of why we. That it doesn't work. We have. Have to find.

We've got to find those new wine skins that can hold our new realities. And so as I encountered that scripture and literally just wrote down, oh, my goodness, that makes so much sense, Lord.

It was in those kind of small pockets of realization that I started to sense some healing.

And I think that's Also, one of the biggest kind of maybe before and afters for me is before writing was cathartic, and it was helpful to pray, but I was noticing very strongly the healing that was happening, and I got real curious. I'm like, whoa, how is healing happening in this process of writing? I'm a naturally curious person.

I like to kind of figure out why things are happening. And so I think noticing that that healing was happening led me to that kind of question of what's happening here? And. And that's what I.

That's the thread I've been unraveling in my life.

When.

When someone's listening to you and they're like, hi, I'm kind of curious what this could look like for me, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start. Like, where do you guide us? Like, where do we start? How do we do this thing?

Yeah.

So my favorite journaling question, and it's one that you can use every single day, because I believe that God is active every single day, is to just simply ask God, where did I see you? And listen and then write down what you come to. What answers come to mind for you?

Because I know that God is at work, and sometimes I'm so busy that I haven't noticed it. But if I ask that question, if I'm intentional to pursue that question and to just ask God, where have you shown up? Where have I seen you?

And maybe missed it? That's one of my favorite ways to start. And I tell people, too.

A lot of us tend to think, oh, I've got a journal for pages upon pages or maybe hours at a time, and even just five minutes of sitting with that question and writing down what the spirit might impress on you, I think can. Can be so valuable.

Well, certainly we bust through our days, you know, and it's like we go from whatever it is, whatever season we're in. But it's like, I remember when the kids were home.

They're not anymore at my house, but it's like, oh, you know, get up and, like, spend some time with God.

But you don't have a lot of time because you got to get the kids dressed, and you got to get their breakfast, and you got to get them to school, and then you got to go to work. Then you got to come home from work, and you got to take them to their sports, and you got to make dinner and. And then the next day.

So to, like, pause and stop and, like, note where you saw God at work reminds you of his reality.

And I think when we do experience hard things, it feels frightening that he might not be real, he might not hear our prayers, he might not be able to help. And so that's such a. Such a good practice. What are some. Some other fun journaling practices you recommend?

Yeah, I also really love, and this is really what my book that just came out is based on, is looking at the ways that God shows up in Scripture. So it's kind of related to that first question, but instead of asking God, where did I see you today? Maybe in my.

In my current reality, it's like, how are you show up in the lives of the people we see in scripture? And there's all kinds of fun ways that God shows up. He shows up in a gentle whisper. He describes. Jesus, describes himself as the. As living water. We.

We have the metaphor of God as a shepherd, God as rock. And so there's all these images that we get in scripture. And I love to just take one of those and say, all right, well, what do I know about water?

If that's how Jesus is describing himself? What do I know about my experience with water? And what might that tell me about Jesus as the living water?

That's so good. I love that I often will journal just all the names I can think of of God on a page. Sometimes I just need that so much. But I love that prompt too.

You describe yourself as a verbal processor, and I'm curious what it looks like specifically for a verbal processor to connect with God.

That's a good question.

I think for me, the act of either saying it out loud, whether that's verbally, or saying it out loud by writing it down, that's my way of processing it, of really being able to own. This is what I think. This is what I feel. That's the part that helps me get honest.

It's what helps me kind of sort out my thoughts and my feelings and my questions.

And so as a verbal processor, I need to be able to articulate those things, or they just end up swirling around in my brain over and over and never get really fully processed. And so I know that that is part of why writing and journaling my thoughts to God was so important, because it.

It from just swirling in my brain to actually let me just pull this one thread of thought, put it down on paper and see it for what it is, and ask the Lord what, you know, his perspective on this, on this thought or this feeling or idea is.

There's so much power in naming things, like naming pain. I'm. I'm big into you can't heal a pain you can't name.

Yeah.

Naming lies you believe about yourself, and also naming truths that God has for you. You even dreams. I know so many women who have these dreams, and they're kind of like, held inside and they don't tell anybody.

And there's so much power in telling God your dreams, you know? So what have you found?

Where.

Why is there such power in actually naming these things?

Yeah. So I think that what we name we can begin to know and understand. So what's just.

Maybe this kind of amoeba, like, thought or fuzzy kind of feeling when we put a name to gains some reason, we gain some clarity. And those are the things, especially when we're in pain. I think those are the things we're longing for. Make it make sense. Help me understand it.

Help me know that this isn't all for nothing. Help me know that you see me.

And so when we can name what those things are, it gives it subs, it gives it form, it gives us a way to navigate it and to understand it. And. And when we can do that, that feels like a step forward, because then I can really start to process it kind of a lot.

Like with that wineskin parable, for me, when I could say, in a sense, to name it and go, that that's what I'm experiencing. It's like a light bulb. And it connected me to realizing other people have had that. That same kind of experience. Right. It wasn't.

If Jesus was using it with his. With the people he was talking to, they must have understood what he meant. That must have resonated with them.

So I can't be the only one who's had that feeling or that experience before. And so there's such. I think you're so right. There's such beauty. And just naming something. I mean, it's kind of like when we name our babies. Right.

We're like, oh, that's who you are.

Right.

You know, And I think very similar to anything that else that we're experiencing in life, that it. It really is that step toward understanding.

You had this experience where your child was diagnosed with something that you wouldn't have chosen, and you went through this dark, hard time, and journaling became this really helpful spiritual practice to draw you closer to him. The diagnosis hasn't probably changed, I'm assuming.

No.

And so it's not like journaling made the hardship go away. Talk to us about what that's like.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He. Our son, he'll live with that diagnosis. His whole life. It affects literally every cell of his body.

It's the way his genetic code is written into his. You know, into. Into who he is. And I think journaling in one sense becomes the. The record, it becomes the story, it becomes the.

The way to document God's grace, especially in the small moments along the way of this lifelong journey that we're walking.

And it helps me put things into perspective because it can be very daunting to think about dealing with something, especially, you know, I mean, for him, dealing with a lifelong disability, super daunting.

But being able to write down the small graces, the good things along the way, the way that God is shaping and shifting my thoughts, I can see it in black and white on the page. And there is something to. We remember better the things that we write down. And I can be super forgetful.

And so to be able to look back and look at God's faithfulness through this journey, and our son's 15 now, so we've been on it for a while. But to look at God's faithfulness from diagnosis to this day and how he is shaping and forming all of us through it is a real gift.

And I have a record of that because I've journaled it.

Yeah. I was going to ask you, do you ever just go back and read your journals?

Sometimes I do. I find it to be a lot of fun. There's some parts of my journal I don't go back to because I'm like, I don't need to relive that right now.

But there are.

I do.

And there's actually, it can be a really good practice to go back and reread things we've written because it allows our brain another opportunity to see something and maybe gain another insight, see something we didn't see even when we were originally writing it. So I think there's all kinds of benefits for writing things down and revisiting them in healthy ways.

I always joke around that my kids are really going to get, like, an earful when I pass away. And they open up all my prayer journals that are, like, praying for them, like, my deepest concerns or hopes or whatever. They're just going to.

All my insecurities, my things I cry over. Oh, geez. Well, I won't be here. I won't be here to. To experience the. The fallout of that.

But I often think about going back and looking at my journal from, like, last week. Like, we just had, like, a God thing happen this week in our family where I was like, I literally prayed this prayer in my prayer journal.

And then that day it happened. And so I was like, I gotta go back. But I never think to, like, go back to the bajillion notebooks that I have all over my life and read those.

But maybe some someday I'll have time.

One thing I'm curious about, Allison, There's a lot of people who could go through a hardship like you've gone through and feel like they can't find God anymore, feel disheartened, disappointed. Where are you? Why? Why would you allow this and choose to just stay disconnected?

When you look back to that diagnosis, why are you so glad that you chose connection in the hard over disconnection?

Well, it brought color back to the world for sure. And there was a very vivid moment in this journey where I, God, really put before me.

He's like, you can choose the path of death and despair and destruction, or you can choose the path of life. And the path of life is the one that you walk with me.

And it just became crystal clear to me that I wanted to walk that path of life, to trust that God still had good things for us and our family, that he had not abandoned us. And taking that first tiny baby step toward, yes, God, I do actually want to walk this road of life with you again. Has. I've just.

God's been so gracious to, as I've taken each baby step to confirm that and to show me good things and to show me his faithfulness and to even help me, you know, again through my journaling, to look back and show me that through those 10 years that were really hard. He said, but look, I was still there. I was still there.

And so whether I look backward or I am here and now, or I anticipate the future, I can see the goodness of God no matter what we're going through.

And that knowing that he is with us and that he is a God of goodness, that's what makes me so, so glad that I chose that reconnection that was going to be true whatever I chose. But now I get to see the beauty of that along with him.

For women listening who are maybe feeling really disconnected from God and have no, no sense of how they could, like, come back to trusting him or, I don't know, liking him or spending time with him, what's your encouragement to them today?

I think my encouragement is you don't, you don't have to force it. You don't have to manufacture liking God or feeling like you trust him and to know that he is willing to Meet us where we are at.

I think sometimes we continue to stay disconnected because we don't know that he's actually okay with where we're at. But he is, and he wants to meet us in those moments too.

And so for me, I think what really helped at least keep the seeds planted was staying in community, staying around other people who did have vibrant relationships with the Lord, people I trusted, people who would pray for us with us. Staying connected to our church. Again, just being around people who could kind of carry us when we really couldn't even walk ourselves.

That was, again, just kind of kept those seeds planted so that when I was more open, when I could imagine and envision a reality where I loved and liked God and trusted him and wanted to walk with him, those seeds were there.

Yeah, that's. That's so good. I mean, isolation is. It's the enemy. It will do you no favors. I love that you're encouraging us to connect with God in this way.

And there's going to be women who want to hear more about the art of journaling and how it can be an amazing spiritual practice. So how can they follow along with you and get a copy of your book and all the things? Thanks.

Yeah, so the book is on Amazon. Journaling as a Spiritual Practice. It's pretty easy to find there, but also can connect with me on Instagram. I stay pretty active over there.

And then also through my website, which is just Alison Byxbe.com can get you connected to all the things that I'm doing journaling wise these days. And I would just love to connect with anybody who has even just a little bit of curiosity about it.

Allison, thank you so much for being with us today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Hey there, friend. I truly hope that you're not feeling disconnected from the Lord, but feeling disconnected in any relationship is so common.

It's common with our spouses, it's common with our friends, it's common with our kids. And so it makes sense that it will also happen in our relationship with God and maybe even more so with God than anyone else.

And so I want to encourage you to think about trying journaling as a practice. I do it every day.

I again, don't do it because I'm somehow trying to fill a page to please God, but I do it because it's how I can get all my feels out on paper. And it helps me to see things, to become more self aware, more God aware, more others aware. And there is power in naming things.

If this isn't the practice that you think will work best for you to connect with God, what could you do? What is one step you could take to grow closer in your connection with God? Our relationship with God is like any other relationship.

If I feel a disconnect with my husband and it means that I have to lean in, not isolate and move away, if I'm frustrated with him, if he's disappointed me, if I'm irritated, or just simply don't feel close to my husband, Rob, that means I have to actually intentionally lean in. So I don't care what it looks like. As long as you're leaning into Jesus. What is one thing you can do this week?

To lean into him, to tell him your heart? To hear his, to spend time with him, to walk alongside him, to be reminded of his character, to hear his words? He's spoken over you.

No matter how you feel about him, no matter how far away he is, he promises there's nowhere you can go where he is not. You can go to the heights and he is there. You can go to the depths and he is there. He knows you're coming in and you're going out.

He knows your thoughts from afar. He knows how you're doing even when you don't know how you're doing. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. Don't walk away. Lean in, friend.

Keep colliding and we'll catch you next week.