What if faith was never meant to be something we get right?

In this tender and honest conversation, Pastor Kelsey sits down with writer Val Hystek to talk about perfectionism, people-pleasing, and the deep desire many of us carry to be the “good girl” who gets faith, motherhood, and life right.

Val shares pieces of her story, including her experience of secondary infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, and how those seasons unraveled the version of faith she thought she needed to maintain.

Together, we explore what it looks like to stop striving for perfect and instead embrace faith as a practice — something lived, questioned, wrestled with, and held with compassion.

This episode is for anyone who feels tired of trying to earn God’s love, exhausted from performing goodness, or unsure how faith fits into the messy realities of real life.

Because faith was never meant to be perfect — only practiced.

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About Val

Val Hystek (she/her) has always been a writer, but becoming an author was an audacious dream for a 90s kid.

After completing her Honours Specialization in English Language and Literature Degree from the University of Western Ontario, Val went on to become a primary teacher at an inner-city school in Ontario. She is married and a mom to two girls, Savanna (10) and Paisley (6).

After experiencing secondary infertility and three recurrent miscarriages, Val began to write again, trying to find Jesus underneath the pieces of her shattered faith.

She now writes for her online community, both on Instagram and Facebook, and is on a year's sabbatical from teaching to travel and write a book.

She is creating a space where good and holy work can be messy and wild by giving wonder, loneliness, questions, doubt, beauty and anger a voice. This community is stubbornly seeking after the heart of Jesus in a posture of curiosity and discovering just how wide and how deep the love of God is.