This week I sat down with my dear friend, Val Hystek, to talk about a tender, beautiful topic: grief. Val has experienced her fair share of grief, but it took her a long time to be willing to wrestle with it. In an Instagram post she wrote, “Grief forced my faith to shift. Eventually. When I finally believed I have what it takes to sit with grief and survive.” 

Val came to believe in a God who loves us for all of who we are: who doesn’t just want the put together version of us, but the messy, complicated, grieving, angry, whole of us. Today, she shares her story and experience of that loving God with us.

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.