January used to be my annual performance review of being a Christian (read: my annual delusion that I was magically going to become a new person). That first fresh, crisp day of the ✨New Year, ✨I’d tell myself, “I am going to consistently read the Bible this year.”

(Variations included: “I will complete all of Fr. Mike Schmidt’s Bible in a Year Podcast” and “I pinky swear not to quit in Leviticus…again”)

I’d buy a beautiful Bible study workbook, a pack of gorgeous highlighters, and a new journal. I’d set my alarm to get up early and cozy into our oversized armchair. This time was going to be different. 

But, I actually live in the real world. 😅

And as soon as the usual wintertime plagues hit our family…

Or the laundry piles grew so large we were sending search and rescue after our toddler (kidding, mostly)…

Or I had to continue feeding everyone in our family (three times a day if you can believe that madness)… 

I’d miss a day. Then two. Then, suddenly I was four chapters “behind.” I promised to catch up on the weekend but—say it with me—she never did. And eventually, I’d tuck the workbook back on the shelf (next to the other dusty workbooks that have been holding silent vigil for longer than my kids have been alive. Bless). 

I came to the heavy conclusion: I wasn’t disciplined enough and didn’t care enough. 

If that’s you, I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me years ago. I don’t think you’re the problem. And I don’t think your desire for God is the problem either.

Recently, we surveyed more than a thousand Catholic women to find out if their experiences matched our own. 

And wow. Woman after woman told us the same story. Not the exact same circumstances but very similar feelings. One of the questions we asked was: “How important do you think studying Scripture is for Catholics? (10 being most important)” and this was the result:

Almost 80% of women said Scripture was nine or ten out of ten important. Nearly 20% said it was seven or eight out of ten important. Only 3% thought it was less important than a six, and no one rated it less than a three. So… obviously women thought this was important. 

And later, when we asked, “If you could wake up tomorrow and have one thing change about your spiritual life without any effort, what would it be?” hundreds of women said things like:

• “I would automatically be consistent… daily prayer, spiritual reading, Scripture reading… and that it wouldn’t be just going through the motions.”
• “I would spend more time reading and learning from the Bible.”
• “Having space in my mornings and evenings to spend with God that isn’t rushed but where I’m truly present.”
• “I just wish I had the motivation and willpower to put mental prayer before any other thing like scrolling.”

So… 

If almost every woman we surveyed believes Scripture is essential to the Christian life…

And if hundreds of women told us their deepest desire was to spend more time with Jesus, to be more consistent in prayer, and to let Scripture shape their everyday lives…

Then why are so many Bible studies sitting half-finished on our bookshelves? Why are we giving up? 

As we read through the responses, one pattern emerged again and again: Life interrupted and then guilt did the rest. 

This was, by far, the most common pattern we saw (and it is absolutely one we feel and see in our own lives at times, too). Literally no one wakes up on a Tuesday morning and thinks, “You know what? I think I’ll stop pursuing Jesus today.”

What usually happens is something more like this: You start a 14-day Bible study with the very best intentions (and excellent stationary 🙌🏼). For five days, you’re great. You feel so good, you’re really getting into the study annnnnnd then BAM. Your toddler gets sick. Work is hectic. The baby decides sleep is an optional activity. You fight with your spouse. Life happens. So you miss one day. That’s it! Just one day.

Objectively speaking, there’s* nothing* sinful (or even remarkable!) about missing one day of a Bible study. But WE make it mean something. Instead of thinking, “Life happened. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.” Our minds tell us a completely different story:

• “I always do this.”
• “I never follow through.”
• “I’m just not disciplined enough.”
• “I’m failing.”
• “If I can’t do it perfectly, what’s the point?”

So what’s actually happening here? One of the things we teach at Marian Mindset is that our lives aren’t shaped primarily by our circumstances—they’re shaped by the thoughts (and the meaning!) we assign to those circumstances. Let’s look at what actually happens.

CIRCUMSTANCE

The circumstance is the objective thing that happen—something a camera could record that you could definitively prove in a court of law. In this case it’s that you missed a day of Bible study. That’s it. The circumstance is not:

• “I’m inconsistent.”
• “I’m a bad Christian.”
• “I never finish anything.”
• “I’m not disciplined enough.”
• “God must be disappointed in me.”
• “I don’t care about my faith.”
• “I’m failing.”

Those may feel true. But they aren’t facts. They’re thoughts. And this is super important because if we mistake our thoughts for facts, we’ll spend our lives trying to fix ourselves instead of questioning the story we’ve been telling ourselves. So let’s look at those thoughts. 

THOUGHTS

Our thoughts are how we interpret our circumstances. Those interpretations might be accurate… but oftentimes they’re not. So, when we skip Bible study, instead of saying, “I did not do my study tonight, but I can pick it up tomorrow,” our brains jump to:

• I always do this.
• I never finish anything.
• I’m behind now.
• God must be disappointed in me.
• I’m just not disciplined.
• What’s the point of continuing if I’ve already messed it up?

And once we start stewing on these kinds of thoughts, we have lots of feelings about them. 

FEELINGS + ACTIONS

It’s tempting to believe that our feelings come from our circumstances. (“He made me feel bad.” “If they would just listen the first time, I wouldn’t feel so angry.”)  But our feelings do not come from our circumstances. They come from our thoughts about our circumstances.

We tend to think: I missed my Bible study… so naturally I feel guilty. But that’s actually not what happened. If simply missing one day automatically caused guilt, then every woman who missed one day would feel exactly the same. But they don’t. One woman might think, “Life happened. I’ll pick it back up tomorrow.” She probably feels peaceful, hopeful, and motivated. Another woman misses that exact same day but thinks, “I always do this. I’m so inconsistent.” Now she feels discouraged, ashamed, and defeated. They experienced the exact same circumstance but they had completely different thoughts about it. And the feelings they had came directly from those thoughts. This matters (so much!!) because our feelings don’t just sit there; they fuel our actions. 

When you feel hopeful, you’re much more likely to open your Bible tomorrow. When you feel defeated, you’re much more likely to avoid it. Neither of those things has to do with how much you love the Lord, or if you’re disciplined or not. But if you choose to believe thoughts of failure, you’ll naturally act exactly how anyone would act when they believe they’ve already failed. That’s why we’re so passionate about telling Catholic women to take their thoughts captive. We have to constantly test the thoughts we have against the truth. If the thought isn’t true—or isn’t helping us love Christ more—it doesn’t deserve to keep leading us.

And there’s one more HUGE thing I want us to note before we move on. Notice how the interruption to our Bible study is not what actually ended our Bible study. The MEANING we attached to the interruption is what stopped us from continuing. 

The lovely women we surveyed believed that falling behind = failure. But those are not the same thing. Falling behind is something that happens to every human being. Failing is a judgment we place on ourselves.

And I wonder how many beautiful Catholic women have quietly walked away from Scripture—not because they didn’t love Jesus enough—but because they believed one interrupted week had somehow disqualified them from beginning again, from coming back. But we know the saints didn’t become The Saints because their lives were free of interruptions and setbacks. They became saints because they kept returning to Christ. Again. And again. And again.

Now, before you exit this page, I want to show you just how possible a consistent Bible habit is for you. So let’s take five minutes. Read the passage below + some thoughts from St Ephrem The Syrian and then reflect on the question below. There’s no reading plan, nothing to catch up on. Just you and Jesus for a few minutes. 

We’re reading from Mark Chapter 5:

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵ Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. ²⁶ She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷ She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” ²⁹ Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰ Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” ³¹ And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” ³² He looked all around to see who had done it. ³³ But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Form St Ephrem The Syrian in his Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron:

“Glory to you, hidden Son of God, because your healing power is proclaimed through the hidden suffering of the afflicted woman. Through this woman whom they could see, the witnesses were enabled to behold the divinity that cannot be seen. Through the Son’s own healing power his divinity became known. Through the afflicted woman’s being healed her faith was made manifest. She caused him to be proclaimed, and indeed was honored with him. For truth was being proclaimed together with its heralds. If she was a witness to his divinity, he in turn was a witness to her faith…. He saw through to her hidden faith, and gave her a visible healing.” 

St. Ephrem tells that before this moment, the crowd only saw a woman marked by twelve years of suffering. They couldn’t see anything else about her—not her dignity as a child of God, not a woman of faith, nothing. But when Jesus stopped and called her “Daughter,” He revealed her true identity to everyone around them. Her healing made Jesus’ divine power visible, and Jesus’ words made her hidden faith visible. In other words, she revealed who Jesus truly was, and Jesus revealed who she truly was.

Reflection Question: What story have you been believing about yourself that Jesus might want to replace with His truth?