Amy Seiffert
12 min read ⭑
“A walk can clear a mind. When I find myself stuck in my writing, trying to help a frustrated child with her math, or battling a sudden wave of anxiety about what someone thinks of me, a walk outside is the gift that keeps on giving.”
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
It’s the drippy egg that gets me. I’ll keep coming back for it over and over. Frita Batidos is a local-ish restaurant that we frequent each Ohio season. But it’s right over the border in Michigan territory, and we’re OK with that.
Boasting the best Cuban American street food, Fritas has a burger topped with a fried egg, garlic mayo aioli, and shoestring garlic French fries—plus chocolate milkshakes to boot.
We live in Bowling Green, Ohio—another college town just south. But nothing beats this burger or their twice-fried plantains. We keep taking our friends up north (about 45 minutes away) because we love this place, we love Ann Arbor’s vibes, and we love a little night away.
In the summer, they close off the restaurant district to traffic, and the streets become fair game for restaurants, which begin spilling outdoors with picnic tables and makeshift outside dining. It’s dreamy and delicious.
And then afterward—when it’s early fall, the Midwest leaves are changing, the streets get blocked off, and vendors are everywhere—we walk, talk, and relax. And usually find some kind of macaroon or ice cream to top off the meal. My mouth may or may not be watering as I write!
Todd Trapani; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
It’s a toss-up (literally) between tennis and Spikeball. We’ve entertained the idea of buying the empty lot behind our house and turning it into a tennis court so we could play every single day.
After I had my first baby, my husband and I took tennis lessons together for six weeks. The first lesson? This is how you hold a racket. Mind blown. I had been holding it wrong all the years we were just casually playing. From there, I was hooked.
Now, 15 years later as my kids have grown, it’s turning into a family affair. You can improve endlessly in tennis and play until you die—which I wholeheartedly plan to do.
But then there’s Spikeball, the backyard game that may or may not have caused my husband to create a semi-competitive tournament a few years back, which ended up attracting folks from several states away. We just love all things competing—anything that makes me run, sweat, and play.
On the slower side, I also love walking outdoors. About two miles from my house is a little nature preserve called Wintergarden Park. I know those paths like the back of my own hand. Those oak trees have heard my tears and held my prayers. Tall, bending trees have a way of telling me I’ll be taken care of, like a grandmother bending over her grandchild to cradle her after an afternoon nap.
When I first started talking to a publisher about my first book, I drove to the park. I walked, prayed, sang, and asked God to bring clarity to my next steps. Each season or opportunity or fear or hope has led me to those walking paths. I have either run my way through the woods to blow off steam and train for a race or taken the long walking path around the wild prairie hoping to catch a deer. It’s a place of rest, solitude, and beauty. I love feeling small, putting my problems in perspective underneath the old forest branches.
So it seems my themes are movement and nature. Both are so good for my soul.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 35, and every single floating puzzle in my life fell into place. This is why menial tasks in motherhood like laundry, meal planning, and cleaning were slowly killing my soul. I put off anything boring for days.
Seeking only challenging, interesting, and adventurous ideas made my heart sing. The problem is, we have our everyday ordinary life to tend to, which is quite spiritual, by the way. When we do tasks that maintain and sustain everyday life, we are acting according to God’s image as he maintains and sustains the world. He causes the tide to ebb and flow over and over, and he causes the sun to rise and set each day.
But as a wife and mom of three, I was having trouble staying organized, which has been my struggle since I was little. My parents said I left a trail wherever I went, I lost things constantly, and I was labeled irresponsible. And so the overcompensation began—being hyper-vigilant about my image, staying very organized and put together, and feeling ashamed when I dropped the ball. Self-compassion? What was that?
But finally, having a diagnosis helped me take myself off the hook and begin to recover my self-worth and freedom. My fear of being rejected started to loosen. I saw the chains of perfectionism for what they were: a heavy weight around me, keeping me from letting others see my messy, creative side with my flaws and failures.
I’m learning so much about being an adult with ADHD and moving toward wholeness. Living with ADHD has its real upsides, too. When I’m into a project? I’m all in with hyper-focus. And that’s a superpower I didn’t use to claim.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
He told me I could bring the brownies. When we sat down to plan the co-ed Bible study we were tasked to create together, I came prepared with Bible study topics and ideas.
As a senior in college involved in the local campus ministry, writing Bible studies and leading discussions with women were some of my favorite things to do. But this male intern told me he would take care of any teaching or leading for the year. And I could just ... bring the brownies. (Why must we always have brownies at Bible studies? And why must we always ask the girls to bring them?)
It wouldn’t be the first time I was told as a woman that I shouldn’t lead, teach, or preach. But it certainly shaped me 20 years ago because I felt a burning inside of me to study and share what the Bible had to say. I loved practicing a holy imagination (although I didn’t have a name for it then) and inviting others to put themselves in the biblical narrative—to feel Jesus touching you, seeing you, and weeping with you.
I had to decide that day—was I called by God or by man? The words of Jesus to Peter after his beautiful restoration always ring in my ears, “As for you, you follow Me” (see John 21:22). So I’ll follow Jesus and his leadership. His recent leadership has called me to write my third book, Starved, and my first published six-week Bible study companion to go with it.
These aren’t brownies. This is God’s Word. I recently left my job on staff at my church after six years (and 12 years before that on staff with Cru on campus at BGSU) and felt called to write, travel, and speak. God has been so faithful and continues to open doors. Meanwhile, my husband holds down the fort that I held down for years while he traveled in our early marriage.
I would be lying if I didn’t say the “You’re just a brownie-bringer” narrative doesn’t creep up on me before I teach. But God reminds me that the first person to bring the Good News was a woman, and I hear him calling me to follow in her footsteps.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
“Try taking a walk around the block to clear your mind,” my pastor said to me when I was having a moment of overwhelm and frustration. I was on his staff team, and we worked downtown above an old, beloved record store. A walk around the block included passing the clock tower chiming on the hour, nodding to the centuries-old homes (or “painted ladies”) and their 100-year-old peeling paint, and listening to the fountain slosh in front of the courthouse.
And he was right. A walk can clear a mind. When I find myself stuck in my writing, trying to help a frustrated child with her math, or battling a sudden wave of anxiety about what someone thinks of me, a walk outside is the gift that keeps on giving.
On a walk, I can see beyond myself. Birds become my pastors and clouds my shepherds. On walks, I remember an old song that has carried me through hard seasons. Some walks have been healing moments with God, tears sliding down my face, asking for a word from him.
Sitting down to write and facing a blinking cursor feels like an impatient clerk is drumming her fingers, waiting for me to decide which gum to buy. But getting up, putting my computer down, and walking outside yanks me away from that blinking computer curser.
A walk has proven to be good for my marriage, too. When looking directly at each other seems too hard because we aren’t seeing eye to eye as it is, my husband and I can still take a walk. Walking shifts chemicals in our bodies to bring serotonin and good vibes. Both of these things shift my perspective, inspire a new thought, and almost always bring clarity.
The best part? You can almost always take a walk anywhere, at any time, for just a few minutes.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
“I can do this because sabbath is coming.” This has been an important mantra for me toward the end of the week when I am running out of steam. I know I can go hard for six days because then we rest.
We’ve been practicing the sabbath for over 15 years. Through births of babies, job changes, health diagnoses, and season changes, a day to rest has been a welcomed and safe harbor for our family ship.
The beautiful thing about taking one day every week to rest is the way God wove it into the fabric of humanity from the beginning. God worked hard for six days creating, making, and doing, and then he rested. Did God need to rest? Was he tired? Spent? No, not the all-sufficient, all-powerful God. He’s the One everything else needs. But he chose to rest so his image-bearers would bear his image in this way, too.
When we practice a weekly rhythm of taking a day to put work away, close the laptops, and put down our phones, we practice a kind of resistance. We resist the productivity and consumer-driven culture we live in. We’re saying God is our provider and our identity comes from his work on the cross, not ours.
On a practical level, our family doesn’t have many rules for our sabbath except these: nap, eat yummy food, get outside, and stay off social media. Other than that, the way we sabbath, who we invite over, what football game we watch, or how we move around in the day depends on the season we’re in.
My favorite picture of the sabbath is when Jesus lifted the day out from underneath the sediment of rules and healed a man on it. So it seems sabbath is for healing—healing the hurry of our culture, healing the nagging message that our worth is tied to our work, and healing the menacing pull to see people for what they can produce for you instead of who they are as an image-bearer of the Most High.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?
Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird has been parked in the little basket of toiletries in my parents’ downstairs bathroom for years. My father is a writer, and this was a fixture as a bathroom read. I finally opened it on my own accord the summer I declared I was going to write a book (2017) and my friend mailed me my own copy.
If I ever run into writer’s block, I just read any chapter in this book and am inspired and unstuck. Her chapter on perfectionism alone is gold. She writes, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.” And this carries me onward.
Life Without Lack is another book that has fed my soul in a way I didn’t know I needed. Dallas Willard penned this one, and he calls us to move out of scarcity thinking that says, “I won’t have enough energy, time, or money,” and into the presence of an abundant God who promises that “my cup overflows.”
Psalm 23 is the outline for this book. Grandpa Willard, as I affectionately call him, teaches us to trust God to be our shepherd in every area of our lives. It’s his most accessible book, in my humble opinion.
And finally, Ted Lasso carried my husband and me through the pandemic. We laughed, cried, held our breath, and grew close to every character on this show. An optimist with a flair for therapeutic advice, Lasso had these fantastic phrases that were so true to life.
I love that at one point he apologizes for “bringing an umbrella to a brainstorm,” something one should never do. And I’ve recalled this often before I step into a meeting. Stay curious and open to every idea, silly or serious. Put your umbrella away. And his thoughts on challenging seasons are fantastic: “Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn’t it? If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.”
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it’s done for you.
Tara Beth Leach wrote a book that feels like I’m reading my own diary. It’s called Emboldened, and it’s a vision for empowering women in ministry.
I’m currently in the Propel Cohort Ecclesia for women who lead, teach, and preach. We have a monthly book and resources to read and assignments to complete.
Weaving her own experiences, heartache, Scripture, and theology, Leach has emboldened me to be a woman who sits confidently in my calling in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. Being a woman in ministry can be a place where you’re “the only” or “the first.” This can be an exhausting place to work as you navigate being “the elephant in the room with a skirt on,” to quote Beth Moore regarding all the male-dominated spaces she has walked into over her years in ministry.
Leach leads us to Jesus, who befriended women, loved women, and invited women to follow along with his disciples (see Luke 8). When women don’t use their gifts alongside men, we miss the other half of the image of God. Male and female, he created them. In his image, he created them (see Genesis 1:27).
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
My new book, Starved, has a six-week Bible study companion that goes with it. I hadn’t ever officially written a print-form Bible study in this way, so I’m all matters of nervous, excited, and sweaty thinking about it coming out into the world.
And yet it was easily the most exciting and invigorating writing project I’ve done to date. Commentaries open, coffee growing cold, hours of research and study passing—those days were my favorite in the process.
But of course, imposter syndrome reared its head. Who am I to write a Bible study? I thought. I only have a handful of seminar classes under my belt. What am I even doing? My comfort when the imposter rises is to consider that many of the disciples were fishermen. No degrees. No scribe education. No masters in Torah. They were just faithful, available, and teachable. Mostly. What they did best was walk in Jesus’ dust. So I’ll do the same and trust that God will take my offering of fish and loaves and multiply them for his kingdom—however he’d like.
It seems that researchers are continually finding new benefits to walking. Studies have long shown that a nice walk can help you maintain a healthy weight, curb unhealthy cravings, reduce the risk of certain diseases, boost your immune system, and even ease joint pain.
But there are other benefits to walking, too. It can give us the interrupted time we need to commune with God, to hear his voice, and to receive his inspiration for a project we’re working on. It’s no wonder that Amy Seiffert chooses to walk whenever she faces writer’s block!
Even if we’re too busy to hit the popular 10,000-step goal, many of us can probably find five or 10 minutes to get out of the house and walk around outside. So why not try it today?
Amy Seiffert is the author of Grace Looks Amazing on You and is on the teaching team at Brookside Church. She is an affiliate Cru staff member and a regular YouVersion Bible teacher. She loves to travel and speak (and try new foods on all her adventures!). Amy is married to her college sweetheart, Rob, and they live in Bowling Green, Ohio, with their three kids.