Author Archives: oldtonew_creation

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About oldtonew_creation

I am a wife, a mama, a creative, and someone who has spent most of her life believing that God is in the business of making something new out of the old, the broken, and the left-behind.

I Didn’t Know What Spiritual Formation Was — Until It Changed Everything

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I have been a Christian for most of my life.

I grew up knowing God. Loving God. Trying to follow God in the ways I had been taught — going to church, reading my Bible, praying, serving. I was not a nominal Christian going through the motions. I was genuinely trying.

But there was a whole world of practice I had never been introduced to.

A depth of intentional, structured, ancient spiritual discipline that the Church has carried for centuries — and that somehow had never quite made it into my faith formation in any meaningful way.

I did not know what I was missing.

Until I did.

The Cohort That Changed Everything

Through my work I was given an extraordinary opportunity — the chance to participate in a Spiritual Formation cohort developed in partnership with Fuller Theological Seminary.

I want to be honest about what I expected going in —

I expected to learn some things. I expected it to be interesting. I did not expect it to reshape the way I practice faith at a foundational level.

But that is exactly what it did.

What made it different from anything I had experienced before was not just the content — though the content was rich and deep and more practically useful than anything I had encountered in years. What made it different was the combination of three things that I have come to believe are essential to real spiritual growth:

Time and space to actually practice. Honest community to practice alongside. And tools — real, concrete tools — to put in my bag and carry forward.

Be With Jesus. Be Like Jesus. Do What Jesus Did.

John Mark Comer — in his spiritual formation curriculum Practicing the Way — describes the goal of discipleship in three simple steps:

Be with Jesus. Be like Jesus. Do what Jesus did.

That framework stopped me in my tracks the first time I encountered it — because it is so simple and so complete at the same time. Discipleship is not primarily about what you know. It is about who you are becoming. And you become like Jesus the same way you become like anyone — by spending time with Him, by practicing the things He practiced, and by doing the things He did in the world.

That is what the cohort gave me.

Not just information about spiritual disciplines — but the time and space and community to actually try them. To sit with them. To discover which ones opened something in me and which ones I would return to again and again.

The Practice That Changed Me Most

I want to tell you about one practice in particular — because it is the one that most surprised me and most stayed with me.

Listening Prayer.

I had prayed my whole life. Talked to God, thanked God, asked God, wrestled with God. But I had never been intentionally taught to simply — listen on behalf of others.

In our cohort we were given instructions and then given space to listen to God on behalf of one another. To be still and quiet and open — and to receive whatever came. A verse. An image. A word of encouragement. A sense of something that was hard to name but unmistakably present.

And then one by one we shared what we had received.

I want to tell you what happened in that room — because I have no other explanation for it than God.

As each person shared what they had heard or seen or sensed on behalf of someone else in the group — the themes connected. Not because anyone had planned it or coordinated it or known what anyone else was going to say. But because the same God was speaking to all of us — and He was saying something consistent and true and deeply personal to the person it was for.

I watched it happen again and again — in the cohort and later in the small group I led.

People who came in skeptical left undone. People who had never experienced God that personally before encountered Him in a way that changed their understanding of what prayer could be.

That is what spiritual formation does when it is practiced in honest community.

It makes the invisible God suddenly, undeniably present.

The Practices I Still Carry

The cohort introduced me to a full range of spiritual disciplines — and I continue to draw from all of them in different seasons and in different ways. But there are a few that have become the most consistent threads in my daily and weekly practice:

The Examen A practice of pausing at the beginning and the end of the day to recognize God’s presence in it. Not rushing past the ordinary moments but looking forward and backward and asking — where was God in this? Where did I feel most alive? Where am I struggling? What does God have in store for me today? It is a practice of paying attention — of training yourself to notice the God who is already there in the moments you might otherwise miss.

Gratitude Journaling Simple and profound — the daily practice of naming what you are grateful for. Not because everything is good, but because there is always something good if you are willing to look for it. Gratitude does not deny the hard things. It refuses to let the hard things have the only voice.

Intentional Prayer for the People You Love One of the things I brought directly into the Old to New journals is the practice of praying specifically and intentionally over the people in your life — your spouse, your children, yourself. Your future spouse or future children if they have not yet arrived. Your grandchildren. The people God has placed in your care and in your heart.

There is something powerful about moving from general prayer — “God bless my family” — to specific, Scripture-rooted, intentional prayer for each person by name. It changes the way you see them. It changes the way you love them. And it changes you.

I wrote about what that choosing looked like in the middle of grief here.

The People Who Practiced Alongside Me

I cannot talk about spiritual formation without talking about community — because formation was never meant to be a solo practice.

In the cohort it was the people who sat beside me — who opened themselves up honestly to God and to one another — who made the practices come alive. Spiritual disciplines practiced alone are powerful. Spiritual disciplines practiced in honest community are transformative.

That is still true for me today.

I continue to meet regularly with a small group through my church — people who have walked with me through whatever life has thrown our way for years now. We have supported one another and listened and cried together. We have shown up for each other’s children. We have sat in hospital rooms and celebrated milestones and held each other in the hard middle of things.

That is discipleship.

Not a program or a curriculum or a cohort — though all of those things have their place. But people. Consistent, faithful, honest people who show up for each other over the long haul.

Be with Jesus. Be like Jesus. Do what Jesus did.

And do it with people who are trying to do the same.

How This Became the Journals

I left that cohort with something I had not walked in before —

A full bag.

Practical tools. Tested practices. A framework for intentional faith that I could actually live out in the ordinary rhythm of a busy life. And a deep, growing conviction that these tools were not meant to stay in a seminary cohort or a church program.

They were meant to be accessible.

To the woman who has never heard the word Examen but who would practice it every day if someone just showed her how. To the mother who wants to pray more intentionally for her children but does not know where to start. To the person in the middle of grief or transition or waiting who needs something more than good intentions to anchor their faith.

That conviction became the Old to New journals. (You can read the full story of how Old to New Creations got its name here).

Not a theology textbook. Not an academic exercise. But a practical, approachable, beautiful tool — designed to help women document God’s faithfulness, practice the disciplines that deepen faith, and move from a hurried life to a holy one.

One intentional page at a time.

These were the tools I eventually found my way to after hitting grief bottom – read that store here.

What I Want You to Know

You do not need a seminary cohort to practice spiritual formation.

You do not need a theology degree or a church program or a perfectly structured quiet time. You need a willingness to show up — to be with Jesus in the ordinary moments of your ordinary life — and to practice, imperfectly and consistently, the things that open you to His presence.

If you want to go deeper into spiritual formation, authors like Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Ruth Haley Barton have written beautifully on the subject.

Start with one thing.

Try the Examen tonight — just five minutes of looking back over your day and asking where God was in it. Start a gratitude journal — just three things, every morning. Find one person to practice alongside — one honest, faithful person who will show up for you and let you show up for them.

And trust that the God who showed up in a Fuller Seminary cohort and in a small group Listening Prayer session and in a hospital room in the middle of the night —

Is the same God who will show up in your ordinary Tuesday.

He always has. He always will.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” — Philippians 1:6

If this post resonated with you — I would love to know what spiritual practice has been most meaningful in your own faith journey. Share it in the comments below.

And if you are looking for a practical tool to begin or deepen your own spiritual formation practice — the Old to New journals were written for exactly this.

If you’re just starting to follow my story, you can Start Here to go back to the beginning!

When God Makes Something New Out of the Hardest Thing You’ve Ever Lived

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The story behind Old to New Creations — and why this brand exists

Some of my earliest memories live in the kitchen and at the craft table.

The smell of something baking. The feel of fabric or paper in my hands. The quiet satisfaction of taking something ordinary and turning it into something that hadn’t existed before. I didn’t have a name for it then — I just knew I loved it. The process of taking something old, something plain, something forgotten — and making it into something new. It was a joy that was shared with me by mom and my grandmother.

Some of my earliest memories live in the kitchen and at the craft table.

The smell of something baking. The feel of fabric or paper in my hands. The quiet satisfaction of taking something ordinary and turning it into something that hadn’t existed before. I didn’t have a name for it then — I just knew I loved it. The process of taking something old, something plain, something forgotten — and making it into something new.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized God had been doing the same thing in me all along.

I grew up knowing God was in the business of transformation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17. I knew that verse. I believed that verse. And for most of my life, I watched it come alive in the people around me — children and adults taking their first tender steps toward faith, lives turning slowly and then all at once toward something better and truer and more whole.

Old to new. I had seen it happen. I believed it was real.

And then I came face to face with loss — and I had to learn what it meant all over again.

The Collision of Two Opposite Thoughts

I want to be honest with you about something, because I think it matters.

When tragedy arrived in my life — and it arrived more than once — I didn’t immediately land in a place of peace and theological clarity. I landed in a place of collision. Two thoughts that seemed impossible to hold at the same time:

God is powerful enough to stop this.

And yet — He didn’t.

I have wrestled with that. I suspect you have too.

Here is where I landed, after a lot of sitting in the hard middle of it: I don’t believe God selfishly orchestrates suffering for His own purposes. I also don’t believe He is a passive bystander, wringing His hands at the brokenness of this world. What I believe — what I have had to learn to believe through lived experience rather than just theology — is that it is precisely through His deep love for us and His absolute faithfulness that He walks with us through the brokenness. He doesn’t stand outside of it. He enters it. And somehow, in His supernatural wisdom, He allows the broken places to shape us — not to harm us, but to form us into something more and deeper and truer than we could have become without them.

That is not a cliche. That is the hardest and most beautiful thing I know.

And it is the heartbeat of everything Old to New Creations is about.

The Moment Everything Changed

The moment this brand grew into something deeper — something I could no longer keep just for myself — was the moment my sister and brother-in-law received the news that no parent should ever have to hear.

My sweet niece, Madison Joy, had suffered a brain bleed. Emergency brain surgery followed. And then, thirty-five days after she came into this world full of life and promise and all the hope a new baby carries — the doctors told them she no longer had brain activity. (Read her story here).

She was here.

And then she wasn’t.

I watched my sister walk into the darkest valley I had ever witnessed someone I loved enter. I watched her grieve with a rawness that only a mother who has lost a child can know. I watched my brother-in-law stand beside her. I listened as she told the story day after day of my two-year-old nephew pad down the hall, looking for his baby sister, asking the question that would eventually become a book —

“Mommy, is Madison sleeping?”

We all felt a longing for Heaven like never before. But… we watched God show up.

Not by fixing it. Not by reversing it. Not by answering our prayers the way we desperately wanted Him to.

But by being present in the most unshakeable, undeniable way — in the middle of something that could not be fixed or reversed or explained away.

That was the moment I understood — really understood — that Old to New is not just a craft philosophy or a brand aesthetic. It is a theology. It is a way of living. It is the defiant joy, hope-filled conviction that God is not finished with any story — no matter how broken the middle looks.

What This Space Is For

Old to New Creations exists for anyone who has ever sat in the hard middle of something and needed to be reminded that the story isn’t over.

It is for the grieving mother who doesn’t know how to explain death to her toddler. It is for the father who is grieving quietly and doesn’t know where to put it. It is for the woman who has lost someone and is trying to figure out how to keep believing in a God who could have stopped it. It is for anyone who has ever held something broken in their hands and wondered if it could ever be made new.

This is not a space where grief gets wrapped up neatly with a bow. This is a space where we sit in the hard questions together. Where we tell the truth. Where we hold onto the Biblical hope that has held us — even on the days we barely held onto it ourselves.

Because Old to New isn’t just something God does once.

It is something He does over and over and over again.

In crafting tables and kitchen counters. In hospital rooms in the middle of the night. In the lives of people who had every reason to walk away from faith and chose — slowly, painfully, stubbornly — to stay.

A Note Before We Go Further

In the weeks ahead I am going to share more of this story with you — the full story of Madison Joy, and the story of my own daughter Lucy Grace, who I delivered still three years later.

I am going to share the book that grew out of both of those losses — Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping? — a children’s book for families navigating grief with their little ones, rooted in Biblical truth and written from the inside of the hardest thing I have ever lived.

And I am going to share the tools, the journals, the Scripture, and the community that have helped me — and that I hope will help you — move from the old thing to the new thing.

However long that takes. However hard the middle gets.

God is still at work.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” — Isaiah 43:19

If this resonated with you — share it with someone who needs it today. And if you are in the middle of your own hard season, I would love to hear your story. Leave a comment below or reach out directly. You are not alone here.

If you are in a season of waiting or grief right now, the Old to New Journals were designed for exactly this.

Join the Old to New Creations community and receive new posts, honest stories, and faith resources directly in your inbox.

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    Let’s Talk About the Things That Matter Most — Jessica Mitchell, Christian Women’s Speaker

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    I believe that the most powerful conversations happen when someone is willing to tell the truth — about the hard things, the beautiful things, and the God who shows up in the middle of both.

    That is what I bring to every room I am invited into.

    I am a speaker, a writer, and the founder of Old to New Creations — a ministry rooted in the conviction that God is constantly at work making something new out of the broken places. I speak from lived experience — as a woman who has walked through infant loss, stillbirth, grief, and the slow beautiful work of healing — and from a deep love of Scripture and the practical, life-changing disciplines of spiritual formation.

    What I Speak On

    My speaking centers on three core themes — the same three pillars that run through everything Old to New Creations is about:

    Grief & Loss Honest, faith-rooted conversations about walking through loss — for grieving families, bereavement ministries, grief support groups, and anyone who needs permission to tell the truth about where they are. I speak from the inside of this — not as someone who has it all figured out, but as someone who has been there and found God faithful in every hard middle of it.

    Faith & Calling Grounded in Scripture and deeply personal — I love helping women discover and walk confidently in the calling God has placed within them. My teaching Act Like Women: From Comparison to Calling explores what it means to be created with intentional design, to bring peace to chaos, and to be rooted in God’s love rather than the world’s ever-changing expectations.

    Spiritual Formation Practical, accessible, and life-giving — I love introducing people to the ancient disciplines of spiritual formation in a way that feels approachable for everyday life. From the Examen to gratitude journaling to listening prayer — these are tools that have changed the way I practice faith, and I love putting them in other people’s hands.

    A Sample of My Teaching & Podcast

    I recently had the privilege of teaching at Northland Christian Church — including Act Like Women: From Comparison to Calling, a message for women navigating the noise of cultural expectations and looking for a Biblical foundation for who they were created to be, and a teaching on lament as part of their Stuck in My Mind series through the Psalms — an honest look at what it means to bring your full grief and wrestling to God and find Him faithful in the middle of it.

    I have also had the opportunity to share my story on podcast conversations exploring grief, faith, and the slow work of becoming — and I welcome the opportunity to bring that same honesty and hope to your audience.

    Links to listen:

    Who I Speak For

    I speak for —

    • Women’s ministry events and conferences
    • Workshops
    • Retreats
    • Guest speakers
    • Church grief support and bereavement ministries
    • MOPS and women’s community groups
    • Parenting and family ministry events
    • Spiritual formation workshops and retreats

    Let’s Connect

    If you are interested in having me speak at your event, church, or ministry — I would love to hear from you.

    More details — including topics, availability, and booking information — are coming soon.

    In the meantime, reach out directly and let’s start the conversation.

    Contact me at jessica @ oldtonewcreations . blog (remove the spaces)

    “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10

    A Book Born From Two Losses: Introducing Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping?

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    For over fifteen years God has been nudging me toward this book — Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping?

    Quietly. Persistently. In the way that only a calling feels — impossible to fully explain and impossible to fully ignore.

    It started with a question.

    Not mine — but one that my sister heard every single morning for months after she lost her baby girl. My nephew — two years old, full of that particular toddler energy that has absolutely no interest in slowing down for grief — would wake up every morning and pad down the hall and find his mama. And every morning he would ask the same question:

    “Mommy, is Madison sleeping?”

    He asked because he didn’t have other words — he had done it so many times before when Mommy was reminding him to keep his voice down because the baby was resting. He asked out of love and out of hope and out of the beautiful, heartbreaking logic of a two year old mind that had no framework yet for what death meant.

    And every single morning — my sister’s heart caught in her chest.

    What the Book Is

    Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping? is a faith-based picture book for children ages 3-6 and the caregivers who love them.

    It follows a little boy named Owen whose baby sister Madison has died. It is the story of a mother sitting down on the couch morning after morning — taking his little hands in hers — and finding the words to answer the question he keeps asking. Honest words. Gentle words. Words rooted in Biblical truth and the real and certain promises of a God who has never broken one yet.

    But while Owen’s story is specific — the truths his mother speaks are not.

    They are for any child who has ever lost someone they loved. Any child trying to make sense of an empty chair at the table. Any child asking why someone they loved is not coming back. Any child who needs an honest, loving, faith-rooted answer to the hardest question they have ever asked.

    The book addresses the questions children actually ask — What does dead mean? Where did they go? Can they see me? Am I going to die too? Will we ever see them again?

    It validates every feeling — the confusion, the sadness, the anger, the fear — and gives each one a name and a place.

    It anchors every hard truth in Biblical hope — not vague comfort, not empty reassurance, but the real and certain promises of a God who has never broken one yet.

    And it includes a comprehensive guide for parents and caregivers — because grief is not one conversation. It comes back in new forms as children grow. And every time it does, you deserve a resource to come back to.

    The Two Names at Its Heart

    This book carries two names.

    Madison Joy — born on Christmas morning, gone at thirty-five days, whose brief life raised a question in her brother’s heart that took fifteen years to bloom into something that could help other families too.

    And Lucy Grace — my own daughter, delivered still, whose brief and beautiful presence gave me the courage to finally stop saying someday and start saying yes.

    I wrote this book for my nephew — who deserved honest, loving words for the hardest thing his two year old heart had ever held.

    I wrote it for my sister — who deserved a resource to come back to every time the question returned in a new form.

    I wrote it for my own children — who asked their own questions alongside me and needed truth that was bigger than my grief.

    And I wrote it for you — whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever loss has brought you to this page.

    What Comes Next

    Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping? is currently on its journey toward publication.

    I will be the first to let you know when it is ready to be in your hands.

    In the meantime — subscribe below to stay connected. And if you are walking through a grief conversation with a young child right now and need resources, I would love to help. Leave a comment or reach out directly.

    This book is fifteen years in the making.

    It is almost time.

    “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.” — Philippians 1:6

    Want to be the first to know when the book is available? Subscribe below.

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      Tools for the Intentional Life: Introducing the Old to New Spiritual Formation Journals

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      I believe that faith grows best when it is practiced intentionally.

      Not perfectly. Not without interruption. Not only in the quiet seasons when life cooperates and the calendar is clear.

      But intentionally — with tools in hand and a willingness to show up on the page even when the words are hard to find.

      That conviction is what gave birth to the Old to New journals.

      What They Are

      The Old to New journals are a series of spiritual formation journals designed to help you document God’s faithfulness, practice the disciplines that deepen faith, and move — one intentional page at a time — from a hurried life to a holy one.

      They grew out of a season of intentional spiritual formation that changed the way I practice faith — a Fuller Theological Seminary cohort that introduced me to ancient disciplines I had never encountered in years of faithful church attendance. Disciplines like the Examen — pausing at the beginning and end of each day to recognize God’s presence in it. Gratitude journaling. Intentional, Scripture-rooted prayer for the people you love most.

      I left that season with a full bag of practical tools — and a deep conviction that these tools were not meant to stay in a seminary cohort.

      They were meant to be accessible.

      To the woman who has never heard the word Examen but who would practice it every day if someone just showed her how. To the father who wants to pray more intentionally over his family but does not know where to start. To anyone in a season of grief, transition, or waiting who needs something more than good intentions to anchor their faith.

      The Old to New journals were my answer to that conviction.

      What Is Inside

      Each journal includes:

      • Space to document God’s faithfulness day by day — because the moments we do not write down are the ones we are most likely to forget
      • The Examen practice — a simple morning and evening rhythm of recognizing God’s presence in your day
      • Gratitude journaling — the daily discipline of naming what is good even when the hard things are loud
      • Intentional prayers to pray over your spouse, your children, yourself — and your future spouse, future children, or grandchildren if they have not yet arrived
      • Scripture and prompts designed to move you from surface-level reflection to genuine spiritual depth

      For Men and Women

      The Old to New journals come in two designs.

      The women’s version features a warm, feminine design that feels like a quiet corner and a cup of coffee.

      The men’s version features a cleaner, sharper design — same content, different aesthetic — because intentional faith is not a women’s only practice. The men in your life deserve these tools too.

      If you are looking for a meaningful gift for a husband, a father, a son, or a friend who is ready to go deeper in his faith — this is it.

      Who They Are For

      These journals are for anyone who has ever wanted to be more intentional about their faith but did not know where to start.

      For the woman in a season of grief who needs a place to put what she is feeling and what she is holding onto. For the couple who wants to pray together but keeps running out of words. For the person who has been a Christian for years and suspects there is a depth of practice they have not yet found.

      For anyone who wants to document the story God is writing in their life — so they can look back one day and see His faithfulness clearly.

      “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” — Philippians 1:6

      The Old to New journals are available now. You can find them here.