Sara Hagerty

Sara Hagerty loves words, her family and Jesus — and she thrives in the intersection of all three. Having experienced infertility, multiple adoptions and three surprise pregnancies, she knows life rarely goes according to plan. But despite the busyness and frustrations of her very full life, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She loves digging deeper into the meaning and joy God has for her in each season — and sharing those truths with readers of her bestselling books and popular Substack newsletter, SOAR. In today’s interview, she’s unpacking the adventure she finds in reading, the books and journals that keep her in touch with God’s presence and the freedom she now finds in life’s limitations.

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?

I write my books in all sorts of places. I wish I had stories about writing in a cabin on our property heated by a wood stove and designated for just my writing. Instead, some of my most significant creative bursts happened at a local coffee shop called Post or my favorite restaurant, Enjoy Pure Food, which feels a bit like a modern-day Cheers to me, as they know my name, my order, and my kids’ orders.

We moved to Kansas City, Missouri, 14 years ago from a once-small town called Charlottesville in Virginia. I never left the grocery in Charlottesville without seeing someone I knew. The interwoven network of friends-made-family there made the booming metropolis of Kansas City feel sterile and cold to me for years. I fell in love with my husband, Nate, in Charlottesville during the UVA football season. We married on Jefferson Street in Charlottesville and had our reception at Barboursville Vineyard. We adopted our first two children while living in Charlottesville. It was home.

Thus, I used my GPS, then my maps app, to get to Whole Foods in Kansas City for eight years after we moved here — a subtle refusal to believe that I’d never be re-homed.

But Kansas City did become home — home to two more of our children, adopted from Africa, and three surprise babies for Nate and me years later. Enjoy Pure Food’s Bountiful Salad with no granola, extra coconut bacon and two sides of zesty Italian became my food of choice for writing nights when I stayed until the restaurant closed. I often stayed longer in the spring and summer, when I could sit at the tables outside and type out pages of my manuscript before returning home to my household of seven humans plus a dog.

I suppose I’ve enjoyed much more of life than merely pure food at Enjoy Pure Food.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also help you find essential spiritual renewal?

As a little girl, I wore the threads of the swivel chair in our sunroom thin from the long hours I spent folding into it, reading a book. When I was old enough to ride my bike alone (which, in that era, was maybe 7 or 8), I’d bike to The Reading Railroad to shop for the next release from my favorite author.

Books were tangled forests and silent pastures with blue skies for miles — locked doors with keyholes. Books were always a “yes” to a wide-eyed child.

I became a believer at 15 and, shortly thereafter, traded in novels for Christian nonfiction. I wanted someone to tell me how to study the Bible and grow in this faith. I was thirsty, and those kinds of books felt like water. I read at the same speed but with a different lens. Books were manuals now.

It wasn’t until marrying Nate, who brought pocket change and boxes of old classics into our young love, that I started to feel less guilty for getting lost in a story. Middlemarch, Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Till We Have Faces and A Tale of Two Cities were bringing me back to my girlhood. This time, I was the locked door with a keyhole; stories were a part of the key God used to open me.

This past spring, I read Frankenstein for the first time, simultaneously having started to engage in daily personal confession. Sure, I confessed sin before, but this winter, I began using the prayers of long-dead faithful ones to confess my sinful state daily. And yet something about reading Frankenstein and the potential of man as he follows his greatest whim to reach for greatness made those daily confessions and the heart posture of humility before God sink deeper into me.

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?

After all the growing-up pictures, vases, chafing dishes, and tables and chairs have been stored away from the graduation party for two of my daughters, I remember that stress and full schedules take me back to old habits. Like biting my nails as a kid, I could spend months in the broken-habit freedom and slide right back into it after a few minutes of stress studying for a test or facing girl drama with friends.

I haven’t bitten my nails for years; I’ve just replaced the response to my gnawing fear with tasking. Tasking feels safe. Predictable. Something I can do when things spin beyond my reach. I used to receive applause for being so efficient and responsible and on top of my responsibilities, and while those things are true to a degree, I wonder if my motives deserve applause.

So for the month before the graduation party and now, one month after, I’m that little girl again, biting her nails. It was justified leading up to the party ... right? Checking on ample food and drinks and help from friends. Sending last-minute invites. Coordinating travel plans and sleeping arrangements with out-of-town family.

But now I wonder: Was the force I brought to this party planning warranted, or did I feel safer responding to a list than to the growing emotions inside of me about graduating two daughters — looking back on their past, feeling the weight of their future? Lists could be crumpled and tossed, and emotions only lie latent.

Here I am, one month after the party, and I remember that sometimes a free fall is warranted for us to grow in God. Sometimes, the big emotions need to well up and over in order for us to feel held by him. And the check-check-double-check of our tasks is often a scapegoat.

I’ve been here before. I’m prayerful about this, hoping I won’t be here again — as the eye on task prevented me from both the exhilaration of the free fall that opens me up to what God might do and the safety of his strong daddy arms holding me all the while. But remembering Paul’s words from Romans 7, “I do what I do not want,” I wonder if I might be around this mountain again.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

Too much and not enough: I’ve lived my life oscillating between these two.

Too many Amazon boxes, too many needs under my roof, too much heartache, too many unmet internal desires, too many sleepless nights, gray hairs and unmatched socks.

And then there are the still-healing hearts of four of my children, adopted, who experienced fractures in their childhood before we even met them. And not enough of me to go around. Not enough rest or green salads or hours spent with my nose in a book.

It’s seeing this same tug-of-war that enveloped my 20s (when my womb was empty and my dreams were fading), crept into my 30s (when my home got so full I thought I might not catch breath), and threatened my 40s that has caused me to ask: What if the limitations I keep facing are purposed by God?

So I wrestled with searching for God inside the fence of my life — finally pausing from craning my neck to see and dream over the fence.

I found him.

I found him right where my bare toes sunk into the carpet grass underneath my feet and my back leaned against the home of my life.

I found him in the too much and the not enough of the limited life he gave me. I found him in the weakness I resented for decades, the sickness I read books to mitigate and the less-than-ideal life I was living.

So I wrote a book about it called The Gift of Limitations.

This is my current pet project — the book The Gift of Limitations. However, I also write on Substack more frequently and candidly, as I am still not sure what I think of social media.

You can find that writing here.

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?

This morning, I took the first long walk through the woods I’ve had in over a week, and I remembered: I need this quiet to create, to thrive.

I’d been visiting family. When I’m at home, though, I leave my house after cupping my tea and holding my Bible in the dark of each morning. I make two turns on foot, running, before I reach the straightaway that leads me from the house-lined country road to the path through the woods that spits me out on a gravel park walking trail.

For my first three miles (the ones I run) this morning, my heart was pounding and my mind racing. All I wasn’t accomplishing or was missing passed through my mind like runners in a race — both a crowd-blur and with moments of spacing between “runners,” where I could focus on each individual “loss.” I thought about how I didn’t have enough time with my kids individually, not enough time to devote to my writing, the disorder of my pantry, Amazon returns piling up, and friends’ big life struggles I couldn’t respond to with the time and intentionality I wanted. And when was my husband’s and my last date night?

By mile three, my mind had run its course. I slowed to a walk just before a bridge over the stream. The sun reached through the tree canopy and set a few stones aflame. The summer air was so thick I could feel it. And all of a sudden (or was it?) God felt near.

I pulled out my earbuds. I could hear leaves in the thick breeze and a bunny in the brush ahead. God felt big in this moment, and I felt small. I needed to feel small. The things I wasn’t doing or the ways I didn’t have enough to give felt just right. Every day, there is a sunset — daylight is limited, even in summer.

And like my little girl’s 1950s Etch a Sketch, my mind went blank. I was a canvas. Ideas began to flow for writing, reaching into my kids’ worlds and studying his Word. I was open to receive. I guess the woods quieted my mind. “The heavens declared the glory of God” ... didn’t they, this morning?

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

Cynicism with an edge can seem funny — until we let it tell us the story ... the story of what really is churning inside.

Years of infertility did a number on my hope. And though I talked openly to God about my pain, I still found myself caught in a loop of bitterness, hurt and anger. There wasn’t one golden ticket out of that; several things became a release valve for that pain with God, but one practice I found in the middle of it is still giving me life today.

Adoration.

It’s the nexus of my honest, raw thoughts and heart and his Word. In adoration, I talk to God from right where I am, hold his Word in my lap, and speak it back to him.

It’s a practice that takes two to three minutes. On a walk down the driveway to the mailbox, while changing over laundry (with my Bible propped on my dryer) or sauteing onions, I talk to God from right where I am and let his Word help inform the conversation of my heart.

It looks like this:

I feel anxious about one of my kids. I tell God about this anxiety unfiltered. I talk to him like I talk to my husband — honest, raw, without posture.

I open my Bible to Psalm 23 and read, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

I tell him that I struggle to believe this and wonder if it’s true for me.

And I tell my heart, as I talk to him, “God, thank you that you shepherd me, even if I don’t feel it.”

I go back and forth from my emotions to his Word, and slowly, minute by minute, my heart shifts.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

Twenty-three years ago, I picked up a copy of The Sacred Romance from Barnes and Noble, and I had no idea how it would open my eyes to God’s pursuit of me. In The Sacred Romance, The Journey of Desire (now called Desire) and Waking the Dead, John Eldredge gave language to my parched soul and gave me hope for walking with God anew. I mark that time as one of the most notable shifts in my walk with God.

My husband was gifted Tim Keller’s marriage series on tape by a friend whose wedding he was in. We listened to that whole series together in our newly married days, and I’ve revisited it in the form of his book The Meaning of Marriage since. I didn’t know I’d need that foundation later on when Nate and I thought we were one another’s enemies. I didn’t realize I’d need that refresher (in book format) when I sensed God whisper “Marriage 3.0” to me as I considered facing our 20th year together. (The sermons, thankfully, are still available on Tim Keller’s site.)

At 16, I learned that a critical part of walking with God was reading his Word every day. Though I wrestled through seeing that as a way to earn his love, for many years, I have settled into seeing this daily drink of water as essential for my thriving. Yes, I’m recommending the Bible, which might seem very teacher’s pet of me, but it seems it’s become ancillary in many Christian circles, and at 46, I’m falling in love with his Word again. Resources connected to that that have aided my study: The Growth Book (my favorite journal that I’ve had for now eight years), the ESV Study Bible for when I want to dive in (I pick one book of the Bible to study with a friend each year — perhaps that practice would be my fourth “resource”), and Crossway’s Illuminated books of the Bible that you can purchase separately for marking up. I suppose, like that schoolgirl (well, the older version of her that doesn’t care about being the teacher’s pet), I like my school supplies.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times—times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

The Keeping Company has just released a Gratitudes and Beatitudes journal that is beautiful in look and feel and enables me to mark the things I’m grateful for multiple times a day and look back month to month as I do.

When life pressed in for us over these last few years, I found that one way through suffering was gratitude. I’d dismissed this practice before as trite, but when the big things in life felt hard, and even as if unanswered by God, I could find him in the curl on my daughter’s forehead, watching my husband read to my 10-year-old son at night or the hummingbird at my feeder.

This journal has become my favorite way to record my gratitude, and the book nerd in me likes the format as much as the form.

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?

As a writer, I find natural ebbs and flows in my work.

There is the year-long (for me) preparation for writing a book, where I scribble notes in a moleskin or a note on my phone, read books, and research. Then, there is the year of writing my book at coffee shops, overnight stays at my favorite hotel in town, and in the upstairs lookout of a friend’s beach cottage. Finally, there is the year of holding the book in trembling hands out to my readers.

I’m finishing that last step and thinking about what is ahead. Will there be more books? (Surely, I hope). But I’m a slow life-living and life-learner and, thus, a slow author. I need to live a message for years before I can put it into the pages of a book for others to read. So this next season, I’m tending to the space where I write most frequently and candidly, other than in the pages of a book: SOAR is what I call it. It’s my page on Substack.

In 2020, when the world got quiet and very loud, I realized I didn’t want to share the best of my writing on social media, where we all learned to scroll, skim, and consume. Substack was fresh — many had yet to hear of it — but it was a pared-down version of the old blog, angled for journalists and writers to post their work. I learned I could set up a garden fence of sorts and share my writing with only those who waved their hands and wanted to enter. Those who would absorb and not merely consume. Those who would read and watch and not skim and scroll.

It’s been a favorite space of mine, this growing community.

In two weeks, I’ll have a dream call with members of my team to revisit what I post there and form a plan for the quieter living-my-writing year ahead and how I can grow my craft and cultivate that space while I’m not yet sure what book is growing up next in me.

Tired of your shortcomings? Want to make more money? Want to be happier or more productive or smarter? Just browse your local library or Amazon’s top-seller lists. You don’t have to look far to find self-help books and courses promising to help you overcome your limitations and become everything you wish you could be.

But what if limitations aren’t quite the enemy we think they are?

Sara says she found a deeper intimacy with God in life’s less-than-ideal conditions. The psalmist experienced something similar, saying, “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalm 16:5-6, ESV).

Think about it: What could happen if we allowed God to reshape how we think about our limitations? How could our time constraints or physical and intellectual weaknesses force us to encounter more of his grace, wisdom and care?