I joined Substack a little over a year ago. To share my story, sure, but more than that, to find others who’ve been transformed by grace. Writers that feed my soul.
I began this series a few months back. I share writers I’ve met on Substack who feed my soul and inspire me in my walk of faith.
My name is Jen. I’m a recovering alcoholic and anorexic. I came to the LORD late in my life. When I entered recovery in March of 2018, I was broken. A sinner who believed I was too far gone to receive grace.
I was wrong.
The LORD met me at the well. He welcomed me just as I was, covered in shame, drowning in guilt, and overwhelmed with the exhaustion of carrying all of it on my own.
When I surrendered my life to Christ, the miracle of complete healing and peace was instant. God didn’t wait for me to clean up my mess. Instead, He covered me in grace. The grace that is Jesus Christ and the cross He endured for me. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9.
In a stark hospital room on the darkest night of my life, Christ met me. Not with condemnation for all I’d been and all I’d done, but with unconditional grace and forgiveness.
That moment transformed my life.
The woman I am today has nothing to do with my efforts, and everything to do with the love Christ poured into me. The love of the Cross and the grace that saved me.
I joined Substack a little over a year ago.
To share my story, sure, but more than that, to find others who’ve been transformed by grace. Writers that feed my soul.
And I found them. So many that speak to my heart, encourage me in faith, guide me through Scripture, and show me what it truly means to live for Christ.
I’m humbled and so very grateful for that. Sharing them feels small compared to the gift they’ve become in my life.
Let me introduce you to three of them.
The Whisper and the Scream
Nate Currin is a singer, songwriter, and poet. He describes himself as “a writer chasing the space between doubt and belief, beauty and decay, the whisper and the scream.”
That describes his writing well. From his first note and then his first article, I was pulled into that “space between.”
I’d lived in it for many years but could not put it into words as beautifully as Nate does. The more I read, the more drawn into the journey I became.
One of Nate’s first posts I read was simply called Quietly. A poem he’d written about “quiet, patient love.”
I thought of my husband when I read it, and all the years he quietly stood by me as I struggled, floundered, and tested his love beyond, I’m sure, what he thought he could give. He stood beside me anyway.
That’s more than quiet, patient love; it’s faith. Faith that sustained him through the storm. Faith that God would work all my dark years into a purpose for His good. He quietly prayed through all those years, and when the light finally broke through, he was standing right beside me in its warmth.
Quietly I go about my days
No fancy things, no loud declarations
Just quietly alive in your background
Like a lonely pine beside the flowing stream
Watching from a little ways off
In a dense forest of days
— Nate Currin, The Whisper and the Scream
His article, The Lens, is another that grabbed me.
“I’ve come to believe that every one of us is looking through a lens shaped by a thousand experiences we didn’t choose and a hundred choices we did. Nobody hands you your first lens. You learn it by how you were raised — by your mother’s care, your father’s discipline, the church you grew up in — and by the time you’re old enough to know you’re wearing it, you’ve forgotten it’s there.”
Nate doesn’t leave it there. He takes it further, to what we do with the lens we look through. For Nate, it became a mirror reflected back on himself.
“Here’s the strange part. The greatest gift this lens gave me wasn’t how I see other people. It was how I began to see myself. The more I understand how people become who they are, the more I understand my own fears. My own failures. My own contradictions. The ways I’ve hurt people while trying to protect myself. The ways I’ve believed lies about who I am.“
That’s the beauty of the lens he describes. A lens of perspective that becomes one of compassion before judgment and grace before condemnation. Isn’t that the same lens Jesus sees us through? And no, it doesn’t excuse our behavior, but it does lead us into forgiveness and into doing better.
That was my takeaway.
Though Nate said it better: Maybe wisdom isn’t finding the perfect lens. Maybe wisdom is realizing you’re already looking through one. And once you see that, you begin extending to others the same grace you’ve been desperately searching for yourself.
If you are searching for honest reflections, ones that find you in the darkness and feed your soul, I encourage you to visit Nate’s Substack, The Whisper and the Scream.
The space between is an opportunity for self-reflection. A space where perspective, if we let it, moves us into truth. And not just any truth, the truth that sets us free.
The Fourth Watch Project
The first thing that led me to THE FOURTH WATCH PROJECT was a note.
Some of the strongest Christians I know are barely holding themselves together. They still pray. Still believe. Still get out of bed when the darkness begs them not to. The world calls strength the ability to stand without help. But I’ve learned something. Sometimes faith looks like a man on his knees, whispering, “Lord, I cannot do this without You.” And heaven calls that surrender.
—Daniel Johnson, THE FOURTH WATCH PROJECT
When I clicked on that note, I knew I’d been led to it by the Holy Spirit. It’s like that sometimes. We scroll, stop, read, scroll some more, and then BAM, in the middle of our meanderings, we stumble on words that demand our attention. I’m truly grateful Danny’s words found me.
It wasn’t that long ago, but he’s made an impact. One I feel called to share.
What is THE FOURTH WATCH PROJECT?
I had to research that. The Bible refers to it as the final Roman military watch of the night, spanning from 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM, right before dawn. It’s often called ‘the darkest hour‘ because it represents the coldest, darkest, and most exhausting stretch of the night, just before the first light of day breaks.
Danny describes the Project as “Faith for the hours when heaven feels silent. The hours in a man’s life when the world grows quiet, but the soul will not.”
I’ve sat inside those hours many times, but I could never have described them as powerfully as he does. And I identified with his testimony right from the start. Our lives have been very different, but our path to Jesus feels the same. I think that’s the beauty of finding another soul that speaks to yours so powerfully; you feel their words more than simply reading them.
I cannot describe it any better than that, so I’d like to introduce you to Danny Johnson, “A United States Marine combat veteran. A former law enforcement officer. A man who has witnessed the terrible things this world can do to the human soul, and who has carried some of those things home.”
His words are raw and real, and that’s what makes them so powerful. He tells the stories from a place of deep knowing, what it’s like to walk in darkness and what it’s like to step into the light.
“I have known grief that made prayer difficult. Anger that made forgiveness seem impossible. And nights when I wondered whether heaven had gone silent or whether I had simply wandered too far to hear. I do not write from some platform above the darkness. I write as a man who has knelt in it.“
See what I mean?
I don’t know what it’s like to be a combat veteran. But I do know what it’s like to face an overwhelming battle. I’ve known grief, despair, and anger that made forgiveness seem impossible. I’ve knelt in the darkness and cried out to a God who never abandoned me.
I think Danny expresses it beautifully. That moment of surrender. That moment when the LORD meets us where we are, just as we are.
“And somewhere along the way, I discovered something beautiful. The God I thought had abandoned me had never ceased to be near. I have not received an explanation for every sorrow. But I have come to know the One who meets us in them.”
I’ve come to know Him too.
One of his most powerful testimonies, The War Was Won on the Cross, landed with a gut punch.
Danny shares his very real struggles; his pain, regret, and guilt find their voice in his words. But they don’t get the last word. The Cross does, and the love that paid for our redemption.
He takes us to the Cross: “Over two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ stepped onto a battlefield far greater than any I have known.”
His words describe Christ’s suffering, His anguish in Gethsemane, the whip, the nails, the mockery, and the jeers. He paints the picture of a Savior who came to serve, to bring light into the world, but who ultimately came to die for our transgressions: “He could have called down armies of angels, but instead, He chose to stay. To suffer. To die. Because love held Him there.”
Then, he brings it home: “I was dead in my sins, lost to addiction, drowning in regret. I carried the faces of the fallen, the guilt of surviving when they did not. But when Christ said, “It is finished,” He meant it. My past no longer had power over me. The grave could not hold Him, and because of that, it would not hold me either.”
He ends with an invitation: “To the veteran who feels beyond saving. To the addict who thinks they’ve gone too far. To the broken who believe they are beyond repair—look to the cross. It is not the end. It is the beginning.“
Often when I read Danny’s words, I have to sit with them for a while. I feel so much in those moments that all I can do is share them just as they are. Writing like that is a gift. One that stays with you long after you’ve read the last word.
The Biblical Man
I came across Adam Johnson, The Biblical Man, when I first joined Substack. The moniker, ‘The Biblical Man,’ caught my attention right away.
Coming to Jesus later in life meant I was reading scripture later in life too. My desire to move deeper into God’s Word was proving overwhelming. Where do I start? At the beginning and work my way through? Do I skip around? Then I thought, who better to help me answer those questions than the Biblical Man himself? So I subscribed. And I’m so glad I did.
One of the most powerful tools I’ve received by subscribing to Adam’s publication is The Plain Bible Manual.
Adam calls it a manual for real people. I’m one of them, a real person struggling with the magnitude of God’s Word, but longing for understanding.
On the very first page, in the first paragraph, Adam pulls no punches: “You will never understand the Bible unless you read it dispensationally; that’s a fact, no matter who tells you otherwise. Unless you rightly divide the Scriptures (2 Tim 2:15), you won’t understand God’s Book.”
I was willing. But first I needed to understand what dispensationalism actually is.
Adam tells us, and then he guides us into the Word using 8 dispensations that take us from Creation to the fullness of times. He also provides practical guidance and what NOT to do. Like adding or subtracting words from a verse or taking verses out of context.
However, the most powerful gift I’ve received is how to read the Bible. The reading order, the connections, the words themselves, and the way the Old Testament prophecies are connected to the New Testament and the life of Jesus Christ.
The Manual takes you on a journey through God’s Book in an organized, methodical, contextual way, with worksheets and guidance that demand you do more than simply read the words; they demand that you spend time with them, the people who said them, and who they said them to.
The Plain Bible Manual is a system that requires work, but it is work worth doing. For what is more important than spending time in God’s Word and growing in faith, discernment, and wisdom with the help of the Holy Spirit?
But that’s not all. Through The Biblical Man, I found Adam’s website, Dead Hidden, and his Substack publication with the same name, as well as his wife’s publication, Biblical Womanhood. I invite you to visit them; their ministry breathes the truth of God’s Word and the light of Christ into me every time I visit.
Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.
One of the most sobering things I’ve read lately is Adam’s article on Psalm 22.
By the time I finished reading They Pierced His Hands 1,000 Years Before Crucifixion Existed, I was crying.
Adam begins with a harsh reality: “Four hundred years before any civilization on earth strung a man up on wood and drove nails through his limbs, a shepherd king in Israel sat down and described it in clinical detail. Not in vague terms. Not in loose metaphors. In the kind of language that reads like an autopsy report written before the body was born.“
From that opening, I knew I was about to encounter truth that transforms.
Adam didn’t disappoint.
Instead, he walked me through the verses against the stark backdrop of the crucifixion and the reality of what Christ physically suffered. It’s brutal and hard to read, and many times I had to stop, close my eyes, and just breathe.
Then, he brought it to a culmination, one that ended with me and you, and every single person who believes Christ suffered and died for our sins: “They shall come, and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this.” (Psalm 22:31).
Adam makes it personal: “A people that shall be born. That’s you. You weren’t alive when the nails went in. When the soldiers cast lots. You weren’t standing in the crowd when they laughed Him to scorn. But you were the reason He stayed on the cross.”
That’s how Adam writes. With real, raw honesty.
And that’s how I receive the words.
Words that invite me into Scripture and feed my soul.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian opening your Bible for the first time, or someone who can recite Scripture verbatim; The Biblical Man will change how you read God’s Word. “You can sit under years of preaching and still not know how to open the Bible at home and explain one hard chapter to your own child, or how to answer when an old hurt comes back up in the middle of a Tuesday night argument.”
That’s what you’ll find. The words are real, and the Bible is always open.
Writers that Feed My Soul is an ongoing series.
I began this series to share writers I’ve met on Substack who feed my soul and inspire me in my walk of faith.
There are so many other writers I could add to this list, and I will over time. In the meantime, I invite you to also check out James Lucas, Dani McArthur, and Antonio Castellaneta. I’m grateful to each of them for the work they put into sharing their faith, beauty, and gifts.
I encourage you to read their work. It will feed your soul.
JN Fenwick | mothjournal14 | ©2026 | All rights reserved. | I DO NOT WALK THIS RECOVERY JOURNEY ALONE.
Faithful Recovery is a publication for those entering and continuing their recovery journey.
Addiction robs you of peace; your life revolves around the very thing destroying you. I know. I lived it for over thirty years. Addiction didn’t get the last word in my story; God did. He wrote a new story from the ashes. He’s waiting to write yours too.
If you’re struggling with addiction of any kind, you’re welcome here. You’re not alone in your journey.
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