I was in my twenties, and on paper, I was doing really well at life.
I had an education, a successful career, a house, a nice car, money, no debt, and a 401(k). All the things I had been told to work toward. All the things that were supposed to mean I was doing it right.
But I remember looking at my life and thinking, Is this it? This is all life is?
That feeling was so confusing. I had worked hard. I had followed the path. I had so much to be grateful for. Why was there still this ache that there had to be more?
When I tried to explain it, I was told I was killing it at life. I had nothing to be sad about.
So I thought something was wrong with me.
I didn’t know then how many years I would spend trying to make that feeling go away—or that I was searching for Jesus without realizing it.
I had always believed. I had never surrendered.
I grew up outside Chicago in a big, loving family. Parents, grandparents, cousins—I had all the things a kid could want. I went to Catholic school from preschool through high school, and I loved my experience. I had wonderful teachers and great friends.
There has never really been a time when I didn’t believe God and Jesus were real. That never even entered my mind.
But I can also say that I hadn’t met Jesus. I believed in Him, but I didn’t know what it meant to surrender my life to Him.
The way I understood faith then, there were rules I needed to keep, and I was afraid I couldn’t keep them all. When I left for the University of Iowa, I told my mom I was done going to Catholic church. I remember thinking that if I was going to hell anyway, I might as well live how I wanted now.
I stopped going to church. I didn’t stop believing in God. I just went out and did life my way.
I drank too much. I got close to too many boys. It seemed so normal. I wasn’t praying, and I wasn’t opening the Bible.
But in other ways, I was still following the rules—the ones the world says will lead to a good life. Go to school. Get good grades. Get the job. Work harder. Achieve more.
I worked while I was in college. I was always doing, doing, doing. More to be better. More to win at this game called life.
Then I reached what looked like success, and I still felt empty.
There has to be more. There has to be more.
That thought stayed with me through my years in Iowa. So did tremendous anxiety.
I went to therapy. I went on medication I hadn’t wanted to take, and I remember feeling like I could no longer tell whether I was happy or sad. I used to call it Botox for my emotions. I was just there.
That is my experience, not a statement about everyone else’s counseling or treatment. What I can say is that I was still searching. I hadn’t found the truth I needed.
Then a family friend died young. He was a great guy with a beautiful family, and his death shook me. I started thinking about life and death and where we go after this.
My husband at the time and I eventually moved to Florida. It felt like an adventure. A brand-new house. Palm trees. Sunshine everywhere.
It was glorious until it wasn’t.
Six months later, I was divorced.
I had told people I needed to find myself. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I certainly didn’t think it would take longer than two weeks.
Instead, I found myself lying in bed watching too much Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, and QVC. One of my closest friends had stopped talking to me, and I didn’t know why. I was divorced, unemployed, and living in a big, beautiful house with no idea what to do next.
I had always been able to work. To do more. To get another job and figure it out.
Now I had no direction and no ambition to go do what I had always done. Life made no sense to me.
I kept thinking I had finally found it.
When I was introduced to The Secret, it sounded like an answer. Manifestation. The law of attraction. Creating the life you wanted.
They used language that sounded familiar. They referenced Scripture. I thought it was almost like spirituality 2.0. Maybe this was what I had been missing.
I went to a Bob Proctor conference in Toronto even though I was unemployed and had drained my savings. I was full of motivation. At the time, I mistook that for being full of life.
One night, walking down a hotel hallway, the idea for Hallway Stories came to me. I thought about the rooms we walk through in life and the uncertainty between them. That hallway where you don’t know which door will open next. Where you can feel so scared that you want to run back into a room you already know.
I wanted a place where people could share stories in those seasons. But I also thought I had found my big, multibillion-dollar company. I can admit now that greed was part of what motivated me.
I went and did all the things. Investors. A major PR company. Work and money and effort. People believed in it.
And it didn’t work.
I had put everything into it, including my reputation. The shame and guilt were awful. I had never failed like that.
But I kept going. I taught hundreds of cooking classes. Anything I could do to serve and earn money went through Hallway Stories, even when I couldn’t clearly explain what Hallway Stories was anymore.
I kept searching, too. Books, conferences, teachers—anyone who might help me understand why life felt this way.
Even our beautiful home began to feel like a burden.
Eric and I started dating in 2016. We were both convinced we would never marry again. We thought we were just bad at marriage.
But we eventually found ourselves in Jacksonville, in a home that was more beautiful than we could have imagined. We both believed it was from God, even though we couldn’t have explained how we knew that. We married in its backyard.
Then, one by one, things began falling apart.
A major lawsuit. Eric’s work ending. Jobs that didn’t come through. Businesses that wouldn’t work, even though he had built successful businesses before. It seemed that no matter what either of us did, we couldn’t bring money in, and money kept going out.
Everything about everything didn’t make sense.
And I was still trying to find the answer. Psychics. Tarot. Astrology. Marianne Williamson, Gabby Bernstein, Wayne Dyer. Pretty much anything Oprah recommended. I was studying Think and Grow Rich like it was a Bible.
Anything to make that feeling in my chest go away: There has to be more.
I was teaching manifestation even though it wasn’t working for me. Somehow I thought that sharing it might make it work for others.
In November 2023, I started a Daily Call at 8 AM for eight dollars a week. It was about manifesting what you wanted in life and business.
I had spent years looking for answers in things that sounded like the Bible. I still hadn’t read the Bible for myself.
That November, Eric and I sat in the bar area of our house and agreed something had to change. At the top of both our lists were the same two things: read the Bible cover to cover and find a church.
I walked into church and started crying.
In January 2024, we walked into The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville.
Almost immediately, I started crying. Eric asked me why. I told him I didn’t know.
Then we went into the worship center. I had never heard worship music like that. It was beautiful.
During the sermon, Pastor Joby Martin asked whether we believed we would go to heaven if we died that day. Of course I thought I would. I had gone through the sacraments. I had never murdered anyone. I was a good person.
Then he asked why—and challenged that very answer.
As he explained the Gospel, I began to understand that being a good person could not save me. I was a sinner who desperately needed a Savior.
My world was rocked. I had believed in Jesus my whole life. How had I missed this?
I cried like a baby.
When he invited people to surrender their lives to Jesus, both my hands went up. It almost felt like they went up before I fully understood what was happening.
I didn’t understand everything. But I knew this was what I had been looking for.
Later that January, I was reading at the little dining nook in our home, overlooking the water. I came to a prayer about repentance and surrendering your life to Jesus.
I fell to my knees and cried out to Him. I told Him I didn’t understand any of this. Nothing made sense. But I knew He was who I was looking for, and I asked Him to save me.
I surrendered my life to Jesus.
I was learning that I wasn’t alone.
About twenty minutes later, I received a call from family near Chicago. One of my aunts was about to pass away.
Money was so tight, but Eric had enough Delta miles to get me a one-way ticket. On the way to the airport, I was crying and talking to Jesus. I needed to know He was there.
At the airport, a man named James came up to me with a tremendous smile and shared his favorite Scripture. After that encounter, I knew I wasn’t alone.
I got to see my aunt. She was in an induced coma, but she could gently squeeze a hand or move her eyebrows. The only thing I could think to tell her was that if Jesus was talking to her, just say yes.
She gently squeezed my hand. About twelve hours later, she passed away.
I came home knowing everything had changed. I almost didn’t know how to think or act anymore. I was beginning to learn who I was in Christ instead of who I had always thought I was.
The joy came while we were still walking through the hard things.
I thought that now that I had surrendered, everything would get better.
Let me tell you—that didn’t happen.
The lawsuit, the lost work, the financial struggles: some things seemed to get worse. I was confused. But somehow I knew I needed to be in God’s Word.
With money so tight, we couldn’t go out and do the things we used to do. So Eric and I spent hours at home reading the Bible and praying. There was a lot of crying—more from me than from him.
We joined a discipleship group. God surrounded us with people who listened, prayed over us, and kept pointing us to Jesus and the cross. I needed that more than I understood at the time.
I wanted the game plan. Give me the ten things to do to follow Jesus so I could do them right.
Instead, He began teaching me to trust Him. To pray for my husband. To encourage him. To be still when I wanted all the answers. Our marriage was changing. I was changing.
The Daily Call changed, too. It was the first place I shared my testimony. Some people left, but others stayed. It became a sisterhood where we worship, pray, study His Word, and learn to follow Jesus together.
And I began seeing His care in moments I could have missed. A three-dollar ham when family needed shelter from a hurricane and we barely had money for food. A photo shoot that brought in what we needed for bills. A woman opening her home to me when work required travel I didn’t know how I could afford.
I’m still in awe of His goodness. I’m also still surprised by how quickly I can worry and doubt. I have so much more to learn.
But there is joy now. There is peace in following Him, even when I don’t know exactly where we’re going.
We’ve since sold our home and moved into an RV. From a big waterfront house to about four hundred square feet. It might look crazy to someone else, but living it has felt freeing. There’s adventure. There’s joy. I feel like I’m becoming who He created me to be.
I spent so many years doing more, trying harder, and looking everywhere for something that would make life make sense. Now one of my favorite things is simply being available for Him to use.
I ask Him for eyes to see, ears to hear, and the willingness to go where He leads. I get to watch Him work in places as ordinary as an airport hallway or a gas station lunch counter.
And that is why I’m telling my story. I want to remember. I know how quickly fear and doubt can pull my attention away from what He has already done. I want someone else who is searching to hear what Jesus has done in my life.
If you’ve checked the boxes and still feel empty, I know that place. If life has stopped making sense and you don’t know what to do next, I know that place, too.
You can call out to Jesus right there. I did, with tears and questions and without understanding it all.
The answer is always Jesus. The activity is worship.
You don’t have to walk alone.
—Carey