I was raised in the church.

Not casually, not occasionally. As a minister’s daughter, I was fully immersed. Which meant Sunday school, Wednesday night dinners, choir practice, handbell practice, youth group, lock-ins, acolyte service … the whole thing.

At my wedding, 750 people showed up—not because I had an enormous social circle, but because the entire congregation came. When you’re a minister’s kid, the church isn’t just where you go; it’s where you grow up.

And there are truly beautiful things about that. There’s community, ritual, music. A shared language for love, service, and forgiveness.

But there’s another side, too. The part you only see when you’re inside.

There are also the whispered judgments, the hypocrisy, the way kindness and cruelty sometimes wear the same uniform.

There was a girl who acted like my best friend while backhandedly bullying me for years—elementary through most of high school. To everyone else she appeared to be my biggest cheerleader. But to me she was vindictive, calculating, and manipulative. To top it all off, she signed her name with a heart and a cross … because she was the ultimate Christian, of course. What’s crazy is her mother was even worse: loudly pious, quietly cruel, constantly deciding who was “good” and who was sinful in our church, and giving my father a hell of a hard time for raising an independent, open daughter who didn’t always fit the mold of a minister’s child.

So yes, I became skeptical—of the church, of certainty, of anyone who claims moral authority while leaving real harm in their wake.

And yet every year, when the holidays roll around, something softens.

And I don’t mean in a “let’s all go back to church” way, but in a deeper, quieter way. It’s a reminder that hope doesn’t belong to any one belief system—even if you don’t call yourself a Christian or even if you don’t believe in God. Even if faith feels complicated, bruised, or long gone.

Most of us still believe in something like goodness. In people showing up. In the idea that the world can bend—sometimes, unexpectedly—toward care.

Especially right now, when the political landscape feels ugly and exhausting, those reminders matter.

An unarmed man stepping in to stop a shooter. Local nonprofits flooded with donations when SNAP benefits were threatened. My yoga studio lobby overflowing with Angel Tree gifts.

No press releases. No virtue signaling. Just people choosing to do the right thing when it mattered.

That’s the hope I hold onto this season: not a perfect story, not blind faith, and not forced cheer. Just the quiet, stubborn belief that goodness still exists, and that most of the time, it looks like ordinary people doing small, brave things for one another.

At HerHaus, we don’t ask you to believe anything specific. We don’t require certainty or polish or positivity. We just make space for nuance, for honesty, for women who see the cracks and still choose to hope anyway.

And maybe that’s what the holidays can be.

Not a declaration of belief. Just a reminder of what’s possible.

Hope, anyway.

xoxo,

Lindsay