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In this episode of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, I share the real and raw journey of becoming the woman God created me to be—and the tension between who I long to be and the messy reality of daily life. As a mom of three, wife, writer, and homemaker, I dream of living a life rooted in faith, intention, creativity, and joy, yet so often I find myself overwhelmed by exhaustion, chaos, and distraction. Here I open up about that gap between the ideal and reality, and how God’s grace meets us in the middle. Together we’ll explore what it means to pursue spiritual rhythms, nurture relationships, embrace homemaking as discipleship, and live slowly with purpose. This new season of the podcast is an invitation to walk alongside me—not as women striving for perfection, but as sisters faithfully taking the next step toward becoming the woman that you want to be.
S3E4 – Clarifying Your Mission: Influence, Ministry, & Your Why – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast
In Season 3, Episode 4 of A More Beautiful Life Collective podcast, we're exploring why clarifying your “why” is the keystone to living with purpose and avoiding burnout. We unpack how hustling without direction leads to overcommitment, comparison, and exhaustion, while a God-given mission statement provides traction, focus, and freedom to say no. Learn to align gifts, burdens, and seasons with your calling, filter decisions through a simple mission, and turn everyday influence—parenting, ministry, creative work—into fruitful Kingdom impact. Perfect for Christian women seeking intentional living, faith-centered productivity, and clarity of purpose.Read the full post here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/clarifying-your-mission-influence-ministry-your-why/Get the 30 Days to a Life You Love Challenge here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/30-days-to-a-life-you-love-challenge-tracker-slow-living-printable-tracker-faith-simplicity-peace/Get the Full Life You Love Toolkit here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/a-life-you-love-toolkit-christian-intentional-living-planner-toolkit-for-women/Get the Build a More Beautiful Life: 5 Days to Align Your Faith, Family and Work here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/build-a-more-beautiful-life-faith-and-family-devotional-workbook-5-day-christian-pdf-to-align-faith-family-and-work/Get The Faithful 12 Goal-setting Kickstart Planner Here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/your-12-week-year-pdf-guide/ Get Cultivate: A Faithful Framework for Aspirations, Goals & Habits here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/cultivate-a-faithful-framework-for-aspirations-goals-habits-christian-goal-setting-workbook-faith-based-planner-printable/ …Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop.Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.
Hey everyone, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 1 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. I’m so glad to be back at my keyboard, scribbling away. As I write this script, my baby girl is on my lap. In the time since the last podcast, she’s grown from being a sleepy baby to an almost toddler. She’s already pulling herself up to stand, and just this week, she’s learned how to push things around to help her walk.
In some ways, I feel as though I am walking the same path as my baby girl, in ministry, my home life, and even in this blog. My dreams have moved from the latent, infant stage to something that is toddling around now. Its personality is taking shape. There are starting to be real glimpses of hope.
When I first started my blog, I wanted it to be a way to journal through what I was reading. Over the years, it’s grown and taken shape into something much more beautiful than what I could imagine. As it’s grown, I’ve branched out, creating a podcast, YouTube Channel, and shop.
But, like every good thing that grows, I’ve experienced some growing pains, and so this summer. So this summer, I took some time to refine my vision and chart a course for what I wanted to achieve with the blog.
This podcast marks the new beginning of A More Beautiful Life Collective, but truly, it is not so much a new direction as a reminder of what I want this space to be.
A More Beautiful Life Collective exists to help you grow in grace. Build with purpose. To live more beautifully.
Here we talk about faith, habits, homemaking, and purposeful living.
If we live intentionally and work to focus on what truly matters, we will create a life we love. And, central to a lovely life is a heart that seeks God.
If you want to go deeper and develop a life you love, join our 30 Days to a Life You Love challenge. In this challenge, we’ll focus on:
- Building a faithful foundation
- Making space for wisdom & reflection
- Pursuing life-giving hobbies and working with our hands
- Living with intention… even in the mess
The challenge starts September 1st. You can join the challenge here. When you join, you’ll get a printable challenge calendar, and you’ll also be signed up to receive encouragement each day of the challenge.
The Life I Want vs. The Life I’m Living
As I’ve explored what it means to develop a beautiful life, I’ve also been thoroughly in the trenches. I am a mom of three, one of whom is a very needy, velcro baby. I help my husband with his local cabinetry business. I try to be involved in our local church. And of course, I am also working to build this ministry online.
I deeply want to have a lovely life.
I want to start my days with a cup of coffee and a candle. But, recently, I woke up with the cry of a fussy baby, bleary-eyed as I tried to nurse and rock her back to sleep.
I want to have a clean and organized house that is welcoming with the smell of fresh-baked bread. But, I feel like I’m constantly cleaning up messes created by three rambunctious kids, five and under.
I want to have space for deep connection and meaningful work. But I feel like I’m so stretched thin. My brain just feels… tired.
And what can we say about the other things that I know to do, and I want to do? I want to spend time outside, read good living books, say prayers every night with my kids, travel, and hike.
I want to cultivate this good and rich life.
But all too often, I feel like the ideals I have far surpass the day-to-day I am actually able to create.
You see, we all go through this tension. And maybe you’ve been feeling it too.
You want to be intentional, faithful, creative – but real life is loud and exhausting.
We exist in the gap. On one side is the ideal. The dream. The beautiful life that we want to create.
And here we are on the other side, with the reality of dirty diapers, stinky socks, and a pile of dishes in the sink.
I’m here to bridge the gap between. To help you navigate the messy middle. To help you work through the hard business of becoming the woman you want to be.
Becoming the Woman that You Want to Be
The first step towards becoming the woman that you want to be is stating what you value. So, who is the woman that you want to be?
She is grounded in faith.
Her relationship with God is central to who she is. She craves time spent in the word. She cultivates spiritual anchors in her life. She knows what she believes, and she hungers after learning more. This faith impacts every aspect of what she does.
We can’t put our faith on the back burner. We can’t relegate it to a corner. We need to be rooted in the good, true, and beautiful.
She lives slowly and intentionally.
This world is speeding up. With technology and the pressure of being always available, it’s hard to take time to pace ourselves, to live slowly. If you’ve ever rushed through something, you know that it’s hard to create something beautiful. A painting that’s made in a hurry will be splotchy and undefined (maybe that’s what has caused the new phenomenon of modern art?). When we take our time, we can live with intention. We can make deliberate brushstrokes that bring to life something grander than we can imagine.
The woman we want to be is the one who is able to live slowly. She can live with intention. She sets a vision for her life rooted in her principles and then makes deliberate choices to live out that intention.
She creates space for reading, rest, and reflection.
The woman I want to be recognizes the importance of depth of thinking. Instead of needing the next dopamine fix, she pauses and sits with herself – or with a good book. She’s okay with her thoughts and enjoys thinking deeply, puzzling out the questions she has. She doesn’t need to constantly reach for her phone. She enjoys the pause in between events, recognizing that many times it is the pause that gives the most space to thrive and grow.
As we’ve talked about on the blog, reading is the antidote to shallow thinking. It makes us slow down, make connections, and uncover truth and wisdom that we would never reach if we just lived with our own thoughts. Reading opens worlds to us. But we are living in a world that is rejecting the page.
Through reading – and its companion, writing and journaling – we can live deep. But we have to be okay with the silence and stillness it requires.
She nurtures relationships, makes things with her hands
She recognizes the value of people. She isn’t willing to let relationships die – whether that’s for the sake of her work or her phone. She checks in. She loves fiercely. She’s willing to take the fall. She’s willing to be vulnerable.
And, even more than this, the woman I want to be is always pointing those she knows to God. Her words are saturated with grace and truth. Her speech is beautiful, her presence a joy, and everyone knows why – it’s because of the one she places her trust in.
This doesn’t mean that she lives all her days as a Pollyanna, vacationing from place to place with no responsibilities. She lives with purpose. She knows who she is and whose she is. She knows that her life has been placed as a calling to grow the Kingdom. So, she does what she needs to do to make her life a ministry. She works hard.
She’s joyful, rooted, present.
Through it all by the Spirit, she lives out the fruit of the Spirit. When you see her, you know she is joyful. She is calm. She is patient. She is present. She is abiding in Him, rooted in Him, growing in Him. Fruitful because of Him.
Oh, what I would give to be this person. How much I desire to be this person. How much I want to become her.
But I look around at the brokenness of my life, the times I yell at my kids, my inability to keep a clean house, the string of broken friendships that I’ve left behind. It breaks my heart.
I grieve for the way that I’ve fallen short.
Maybe you feel this way, too.
In a world of non-stop information, we know what we need to do. But we often neglect to do it.
We echo Paul. And, we feel the tension that comes from living in between these two selves, these two places of the ideal and the reality of motherhood, mess, and mission.
Sometimes, when I’m working on projects, I read back through the words that I wrote. I feel so convicted. I know what I need to do, but I feel like I’ve fallen short. Have you felt that pain too? What are we to do?
Where Hope Comes In
Here’s the truth I’ve been learning — we don’t grow into “that woman” by grit alone. The change we long for doesn’t start with a color-coded planner or a perfect morning routine. It starts with God’s grace meeting us right in the middle of our mess.
Paul didn’t just lament the tension between his sinful nature and his desire to do good — he declared, “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25)
That means:
- We bring our failures to Him instead of hiding them.
- We anchor ourselves in His Word daily, even if it’s just one verse over a sink full of dishes.
- We practice repentance and renewal because every day is a fresh chance to start again.
- We walk with others, letting sisters in Christ remind us who we are and whose we are.
Here’s what I’m discovering: the woman I want to be is not created overnight. She is shaped by small, faithful steps with God — moments of obedience in the ordinary.
So if you’re feeling that ache between where you are and where you want to be, here’s the invitation: don’t wait to feel “ready.” Start today. Choose one small step toward the life God is calling you to. And let’s walk it together. I’ll be here — not as someone who’s “arrived,” but as someone in the trenches with you, chasing after His heart.
Because in Christ, even our shortcomings become the soil for growth.
Take a step towards becoming the woman that you want to be
So as we look forward to the next year, I want to walk with you in this tension. I have my sights set on those high ideals, and like Paul, I throw off what entangles me and press on ahead.
I want to be transformed into the woman I want to be.
But I know that the path can be rocky. So I want to link arm and arm with you. Let’s live out this vision together.
Over the next year, we’ll be talking about some topics that we’ve always held close on the podcast.
- Faith + rhythms
- Mother culture + education
- Creativity + homemaking
- Technology boundaries + digital simplicity
We’ll fight against culture’s lies. We’ll work against the domination of screens. We’ll create a life we love. And, we’ll cultivate our hearts for God.
We aren’t aiming to be perfect. We are aiming to take the next faithful step as we cross the chasm to the person that God created us to be. The person that he wants us to be. The person that we desperately want to be.
A More Beautiful Life Collective exists to help you navigate this tension between who we are right now and who we want to be. This season on the podcast, we are going to be exploring topics that will take you one step closer.
Here are some of the things you can expect to hear over the next year:
- Walking boldly into the calling that you’ve received
- Homemaking as Discipleship
- Finishing out our Systematic Theology series
- Rhythms of Work & Rest
- Family Discipleship
- Living the Liturgical Year
- Redeeming Your Education
I hope you’ll join me in the journey.
Start Creating A More Beautiful Life
So, who do you want to become?
How would you describe her?
I would love to hear from you! You can send me a message on Facebook or Instagram, or send me an email. I want to hear what your ideal vision is.
If you are looking for a way to take that first faithful step, join our 30 Days to a Life You Love challenge. The challenge starts September 1st and will walk you through each of the areas that we’ve talked about today.
When you subscribe, you’ll get a free printable challenge chart plus daily emails encouraging you every step of the way.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating and review to help others find the show. You can also share it with a friend with whom you would like to build a beautiful life.
So welcome.
Welcome to A More Beautiful Life, the podcast, blog, and shop for Christian women who feel the tension between the woman they want to be and the life they’re living.
I’m Cayce Fletcher — writer, maker, and fellow traveler on this journey. Through honest conversations, biblical encouragement, and practical rhythms, I help you close that gap with grace, purpose, and a heart rooted in God.
Here, we’ll talk about faith that sustains you, habits that shape you, and resources that help you live out your calling in the middle of motherhood, mess, and mission.
Because you don’t have to wait until life is perfect to become the woman God created you to be — you can start today, one small step at a time.
***If you have enjoyed visiting A More Beautiful Life Collective, please like, comment, share, and subscribe. Let’s make the world more beautiful together. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through this link, I earn a small commission at no cost to you. It’s a win-win!***
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