I could barely bend low enough to tend our two raised beds with a trowel. We watched the garden grow large as I grew round, both of us spilling over to bring forth new life. The littles ones braved the unwieldy jungle to retrieve hidden tomatoes and monster zucchini. Our harvest that spring was so abundant and delightful that no one could have guessed its dark and melancholy origins.

Shortly before our son’s first birthday, I found myself taking a pregnancy test. At first, it appeared negative. I set it on the counter to attend to the regular rhythm of chaos that hummed throughout our 1200-square-foot house. Built in 1960, our fixer-upper kept our weekends occupied with home improvement projects, but we adored it for its spacious, tree-lined backyard that made it feel like our own private oasis—a rarity in Southern California suburbia where even small houses loom large on lots the size of a postage stamp.

And so, we embraced the pitter-patter of little feet on the laminate flooring that slanted across the uneven foundation, drywall cracking in the corners with the contraction and expansion of the California clay. Later that morning, chaos diffused, and I returned to check on the pregnancy test I’d abandoned on the counter. Before I’d even crossed the threshold, its bright pink line jumped out at me from across the bathroom, instantly producing waves of shock and joy in equal measure.

Delighted as we were to be expecting our third baby, I soon found myself unable to access that joy. As if someone had turned off the water to a faucet, my emotions ran dry. I no longer felt delight, anticipation, motivation, or even contented satisfaction. In their place came inexplicable, sourceless darkness and despair. It was all I could do to drag myself through the most basic motions of stay-at-home motherhood.

About a year had passed since I’d left my full-time teaching job to stay home with my kids a few months after completing my master’s degree in bioethics. I had just begun a writing stint for a publication of which I had all but begged to be a part. Dream after dream was coming true, but now it felt as though someone else had dreamed them. Confused and ashamed, I had to ask my editor for a leave-of-absence. I could no longer put words on the page. It stayed blank, just like my insides.

I now know that this was the first sign of my burgeoning battle with chronic disease. It would be years before I would put it together that my bouts with prenatal depression in this and the following pregnancy, my bone-deep exhaustion, hair loss, difficulty losing weight, and searing joint pain were all connected.

For many women with autoimmune disorders, their symptoms take a back seat during pregnancy. I don’t know if it is me or the Hashimoto’s, but my symptoms flare up worse than ever. There is something about growing new life that makes me feel like I am dying. All I knew at the time was that my life—a life that had once been full of joy and possibility—was suddenly bleak and gray. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. That’s when I found her.

She was this incredibly vibrant woman, not much older than me, with a few more kids and a velvety smooth voice. I stumbled across her YouTube channel, and immediately I was hooked. Every inch of her was as lovely as the flowers that sprawled across her cottage gardens. I was drawn in by the aesthetic appeal of her videos, but even more enchanted by the beauty of her words and enticed by the lifestyle she espoused. She spun tales about life on the homestead that quickly became my own grown-up fairy tales.

From the stunning flowers blooming on the borders of her stone steps to the ripe, juicy tomatoes she sliced on her well-worn wooden cutting board to the luscious grapes hanging heavy from the vines spilling over her courtyard arbor, I devoured every second. As I binged her videos, I absorbed her philosophy and let it take hold until it became my own. My soul soaked it all in, and, like a dried out old sponge, sprang back into life. By my second trimester, we were building raised garden beds and filling them with compost.

I give thanks for my initial ignorance; if I had known from the beginning what a vast undertaking it is to grow your own food, I am not sure I would have persisted. Years of schooling may have earned me two master’s degrees, but I knew next to nothing about how our food is grown or where it comes from. Blissfully ignorant, I plopped down with a couple of classic gardening books and calculated how much space we would need for our small but growing family.

I quickly learned that you cannot, in fact, grow all your own vegetables in two raised garden beds, and that even if you fill your yard with fruit trees, it will be years before you actually taste the fruits of those labors. As we prepared to relocate to Idaho’s Snake River Valley, my homestead dreams quickly took a back seat. We packed up boxes. Our fourth baby was born. I published my first book.

Six years later, we find ourselves a thousand miles away—literally and figuratively—from where we were in those early gardening days. We moved to a one-third-acre property in a typical suburban neighborhood that backs up to an irrigation canal that borders the remnants of rural Idaho. My writing desk on the second floor overlooks twenty acres of open field, home to prancing peacocks, millions of chirping crickets, and soaring birds of prey. Our neighbors raise their own cows, horses, and chickens. We may live in suburbia, but if you close your eyes, you’ll find yourself immersed in the sounds and scents of the country.

We dove into homeschooling and settled into our new parish community. We built relationships with some of the best neighbors around. We eagerly awaited fruit from the small orchard we’d planted the first year we moved in, and we munched on peas, lettuces, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini from the five raised beds we built that first year. The garden was buzzing, but the dream of growing enough food to feed our family was dormant, sealed away in one of our unpacked boxes. Then one day, I stumbled upon it hiding in the weeds behind our fence.

Our home borders one of the many canals in the valley’s intricate irrigation system. Our property line runs down its center. Our backyard fence stops quite short of that due to an easement next to the canal that allows for easy access when it needs to be serviced. The area between our fence and the canal was a weedy patch of puncture vine, bindweed, and tall grasses. The brush was almost too thick to walk through, but the occasional venturesome dog walker would find his way through.

That day, my heart sank as I discovered the remains of nocturnal teenage revelry in the form of piles of trash littered about our property. I thought back to my days studying Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, in which he describes how New York officials cut crime by eliminating signs of disorder, like cleaning up graffiti on the subways. As disappointed as I was, could I really blame those kids for treating our property like a dumpster? It looked utterly abandoned, certainly not as though it mattered to anyone.

As quickly as if I’d dropped a match into those dried up weeds at my feet, the spark of an idea engulfed my consciousness. “What if this space became a garden?” I asked myself. If this were a well-tended place of beauty, not only would our kids’ bare feet have fewer wounds from puncture-vine thorns and neighbors receive the signal that this land belongs to somebody, but we could also reclaim this soil—our soil—as a place of productivity and nourishment for our family. I had lost any illusion that we could grow everything we needed in those two small garden boxes long ago, but continued to pack away my thoughts of what ifs and somedays tenderly, sealing them in a box marked for a future property on sprawling acreage, a property with towering barns and open fields signaling the potential for self-sufficiency.

But as I surveyed the weedy patch of dirt and plucked trash out of the dust, those dreams burst out of the box where I had sealed them and settled in the soil before me. Words echoed unbidden through my mind. First, the words attributed to St. Teresa of Calcutta: “Grow where you are planted”; followed by those from the Gospel of Luke: “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (16:10). From that moment on, those escaped dreams took on the character of a call, a call that rooted itself in our soil, on our land. Those words opened my eyes both to the dignity of our land and to the faithfulness with which I was called to steward it. How could I truly say I dreamed of living off the land when I hadn’t yet been faithful to the land beneath my feet?

That day, I got to work. I laid down cardboard and hauled in yards of compost and mulch, employing the “no-dig” approach I’d seen in dozens of gardening videos. The land sloped down from our fence toward the canal. I evened it out by applying thicker layers toward the lower end. Later, I purchased compost and mulch in bulk and shoveled it into our wheelbarrow to apply it to the garden plot. It took me weeks in the whipping spring wind.

When at last I finished and surveyed twelve garden beds of dark earth neatly demarcated by wood chip paths, my husband cheerily observed that they looked like freshly dug graves. In a way, they were. My lofty, starry-eyed homestead dream was dead and buried; my new mission to grow where we are planted was born.

Slowly, I discovered that we could do so much more on our little piece of land than I had realized. Every inch of our property took on a new air of possibility. We devoted a section of our yard to chickens and used their spent bedding for compost and to fertilize the raspberries. That first year, we grew enough onions, potatoes, and squash to last us through the winter.

The next year, we added a year’s supply of garlic, dried herbs, and herbal teas. I canned jam from our blackberries, and we canned a hundred pounds of peaches from a local orchard. The kids spent their summer stuffing their faces with strawberries, and we welcomed bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds as they hovered above jewel-toned zinnias towering over the children. We have become stewards of abundance—not just of food, but of beauty and joy, simplicity and wonder. Even with all this fruitfulness, we have yet to maximize the harvest potential we have on our one-third-acre suburban property.

With abundance comes work. Gardens need tending, weeding, and a vigilant sentry to keep squash bugs at bay. Simply receiving the bounty requires diligence in cultivating, harvesting, and preserving. Everything from the unpredictability of the weather to unexpected pests guarantee that the gardener bathes daily in the sometimes gentle and sometimes torrential waters of humility. With every seed sown and fruit harvested, I was encountering the Holy Spirit in the gentle breeze of the garden. In the creeping weeds, I saw our need to pull sin out by its roots. Drought spoke to me of meaning in spiritual dryness.

I am hardly the first gardener to be enchanted by God’s presence in growing things. Scripture is filled with agricultural metaphors, as are Jesus’ parables. As I write to you, it is Holy Week, and I am reminded that some of the most significant moments of Jesus’ life—and the Father’s plan for our salvation—took place in gardens: the agony in the garden of Good Friday, and the Resurrection of Easter Sunday. If we look further back, we recall that God’s gift of original holiness was set in a garden. It was there that we fell by Adam’s “happy fault,” catapulting us into the greatest story of love and redemption that will ever be. We may not all be called to off-grid homesteading or large-scale market farming, but we are all made for the Garden.

This journey to increase our self-sufficiency has given our family a vision not born of fear or scarcity but rooted in the call to joyful stewardship. What began as a response to chronic illness grew into a celebration of abundance—a way of life that nurtures the body and soul alike. Rather than retreating into rugged individualism, this lifestyle is an invitation into deeper interconnectedness: with creation, with each other, and most of all with Christ. It is a Christ-rooted, family-centered, seasonally oriented approach to living—one that honors both the limits and the gifts of our days.

I hope and pray that this book nourishes both you and your garden, helping you to deepen your roots and bear good fruit, and always, to grow where you are planted!

This reflection is adapted from my new book, Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard, releasing March 17, 2026!

Grow Where You’re Planted Cover Reveal

A prayerful and practical guide to cultivating seasonal abunance and sustainable family life, this book provides so much value, including:

• step-by-step instructions for cultivating a garden from scratch

• a month-by month chore guide for cultivating the garden

• annual seed inventory

• seasonally-inspired garden-to-table recipes the whole family will love

• tips for raising little gardeners (plus a downloadable year-long, hands-on, lit-based elementary science curriculum expansion rooted in nature, the garden, and the seasons)

• “seeds for contemplation” reflections for growing in the garden of our souls

If you’ve ever felt God move in the garden or wondered if you could grow your own food in your own backyard, Grow Where You’re Planted is for you!

Preorder

Gorgeous and Giftable

The team worked so hard to make the interior beautiful, and it shows. The layouts are gorgeous and the design is delightful.

A hard cover with full-color interior, the book makes a perfect gift for the gardener in your life. Each season includes both devotional reflections and practical how-tos.

I can’t resist sharing some screenshots from the most recent proof they sent me:

The best part is that you don’t have to wait for the book to arrive to get started. When you preorder, you can preview the downloadable files instantly.

Preorder

Instant Downloads, Incredible Value

No need to wait: when you preorder, you receive INSTANT access to the following downloads:

• a list of my favorite nontoxic products

• a month-by month chore guide for cultivating the garden

• annual seed inventory

• seasonally-inspired garden-to-table recipes

• PDF Elementary Science Curriculum with hands-on garden activities, beautiful nature book suggestions for cozy reading, and even a schedule of “TV school” for rainy days of popcorn and snuggling on the couch!

Preorder and get my INSTANT downloads!

Praise for Grow Where You’re Planted

Here are some of the incredibly kind things people are saying:

Both deeply insightful and wildly practical, this book is gold. Connecting the realities of gardening with the spiritual life isn’t a new take, but not once did I feel I was reading fluffy, heard-that-before ideas. Stephenson is also mindful not to overwhelm as she inspires (and wow does she inspire).

As someone who longs to resist the siren call of the internet and fully be where I am, Grow Where You’re Planted was thoroughly resonant. I recommend it with my whole heart.

— , One Tired Mother

The Christian tradition is replete with stories, imagery, and parables from earthy realities. In Grow Where You’re Planted, we are given a two-fold view of both physical and spiritual truths as they are gently placed in parallel. Becoming acquainted with the practical work of the ground, we plumb the human heart.

Hands in the dirt become tools for contemplation. Here is a clear-eyed look at how, like what grows from the soil, we can be transformed—both given and giving life.

— , Life Considered

Grow Where You’re Planted is a wonderfully practical guide, both for the physical realm of the garden and the spiritual life of the soul. This book is a beautiful reminder that any person can experience an abundant harvest in their own lives. Stephenson’s well-earned wisdom in matters pertaining to the garden and to the soul is truly a treasure trove for readers to discover.

— , Missionary of Beauty

In Grow Where You’re Planted, Samantha Stephenson has created a vibrant, engaging vision of what it means to intertwine faith, family life, and gardening. She offers meditations on tending both the growth of the Catholic faith and the growth of a family garden. Readers will enjoy her clear and thoughtful directions and meditations.

— , The Home Front

A book which reveals the garden as a place our divine design is meant to interact with, and where our innate limits are revealed and our innate gifts are of great use. Intelligently ordered by season, philosophical faith-centered considerations for the soul are paired with actionable and practical knowledge for the gardener.

Samantha’s focus on the self discipline she cultivated through the management of her autoimmune disease and how that same sort of discipline can help one access the wholeness which is meant for us via cultivation of our own food is such a honest and hopeful message.

A true call to become literally and figuratively grounded, with our hands buried in the earth and hearts open to whatever may come from our toil, Grow Where You Are Planted is a gardening book for everyone, much like as Stephenson aptly states, “we are all made for the garden.”

— Hancock, mother, nurse, and writer at the Women’s Work Substack

In Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard, Stephenson highlights the unique bond between mankind and the garden. She reminds us that nourishment from the soil feeds both body and soul through pages filled with practical tips and thoughtful meditations.

— , author Theology of Home IV: Arranging the Seasons

Samantha Stephenson offers a practical and personal guide for cultivating the garden in one’s own backyard—an apt metaphor and prescription for the crisis of the modern family. Her timeless vision of fruitfulness has that rare quality of informing and inspiring without pretense.

Give this book to the people you love.

— , Helen Roy Writes

Bursting with rich spiritual and practical wisdom, Grow Where You’re Planted is an inviting and encouraging read for both gardeners and spiritual seekers alike. Grounded in Scripture and time-tested personal experience, the profound insights and detailed tips found in these pages are worthy of revisiting season after season.

— , Wonder & Awe

It is altogether too easy to forget that we were created for a garden, but it was in a garden that God fashioned man from the very soil. And yet, it seems that we wander farther and farther from that primordial idyll for which we were made. There are those who propose radical returns to the land, but in this age in which many of us find ourselves caught between the pull to return to the garden and the reality of life in the city or in the suburbs, what we need is a guide on how to gently return to fertile ground, both spiritually and physically.

Samantha N. Stephenson’s Grow Where You’re Planted is that guide. Replete with the age-old wisdom and practical knowledge of nature that many of us have lost, Samantha correlates the natural rhythms of the land with the movements of the heart and spirit. I can give no higher praise of her book than this: it has made me yearn to spend my days outside, praying as I work in my garden.

—

If you know someone who would delight in this book, would you share this post and help get this book into the hands of readers who love it?

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I, for one, am very grateful to be celebrating the launch of my new book (and that this celebratory day falls just before the somber season of Lent begins).

What better way to celebrate than by sharing with you a sneak peek at a never-before-published bonus letter written especially for Lent—designed to help you enter the season with clarity and courage. (You can download the full letter at my website!)

Download the rest of the letter

Get Your Copy of The Bellbind Letters Today!

Lent is the perfect season to name the lies we’ve absorbed about motherhood—and practice replacing them with truth. This book serves as an examination of conscience, a way to unveil the lies we tell even to ourselves.

If you haven’t your hands on a copy yet, you can still snag it with enough time to use it as your Lenten book study (there’s only 30 letters, so you have wiggle room even if you just read one letter a day!).

The back of the book features a study guide which is great for groups or individual study. There are also two special bonuses:

• a downloadable companion journal

• a bonus letter so you can dive in right away

  Order The Bellbind Letters

  ---

When you receive your copy in the mail, I’d love to see it! Send me a pic or tag me in a post.

And be sure to join us at CatholicMom.com for our Lenten book study, beginning February 25!

AMDG,

Samantha

Subscribe now

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Introduction

Now that the physical copies are fianlly in my hands, I am bursting with excitement to share this book with readers!

While C.S. Lewis said he felt deeply troubled when taking on the demonic persona to compose The Screwtape Letters, I felt the opposite. As I wrote, it felt more like receiving than composing. The process served as a true examination of conscience. The Holy Spirit showed me my weaknesses, and the grace I could receive to overcome them—if only I would ask.

Ultimately, it brought such peace to pull back the curtain on the Enemy’s lies, and fortified my convictions to live otherwise—as the Lord uniquely calls us as women. It is that gift that I am so excited to get into the hands of mothers everywhere this Lent.

Order my copy!

If you order today, you will receive your copy next week—just in time to be your Lenten reading (plus a bonus letter available immediately).

And be sure to join us at CatholicMom.com for our Lenten book club, beginning February 25—check out the page for a limited time discount of 30% off!

30% off discount details

For now, please enjoy the excerpt below. I can’t wait for you to read the whole thing!

AMDG,

Samantha

My Dear Bellbind,

In our last communication, we spoke of ways to create friction between the spouses so as to prevent the mutual exchange of self. I may have been premature in my advice to you. Mind you, I am not suggesting that we abandon the tack of fomenting division and loneliness altogether. The anguish and despair that method yields alone make it worth pursuing.

However, I would be remiss if I failed to call on the great ally we have in contemporary culture: the movement of so-called feminism. Naturally, you and I jitter at the great jest we have made in convincing them to give it such a name. What a lark, to coerce them into bestowing such an utterly contrary name upon a movement that seeks to undermine all that is feminine, to demean their unique qualities and to steal away their most momentous of capacities: that of becoming a mother. Our Father is, of course, a veritable genius in the art of propaganda, and this may be the height of his achievements in the arena yet. Though that last point is debatable as we have achieved so many victories in this present age.

How I shiver with delight when I think of the ways we have managed to invert some of the Enemy’s most basic truths! Take Our Father’s prized base camp, “Planned” Parenthood: in point of fact, the organization relies on what is unplanned, its goal (and ours) being to eliminate parenthood altogether. In these chapels of death, devotees of our abortion cult chant that blessed hymn to bodily autonomy: “My body, my choice,” blissfully blind to the way we’ve engineered this propaganda to destroy bodies and erase choices by the millions.

Yes, I titter with mirth as they echo our slogan “my body, my choice,” while championing the denial of bodily sovereignty for those most despicable little seeds of flesh, whose choices are blessedly stamped out.

I relish the destruction of the flesh in gender “affirmation” and death with “dignity,” alike, through which we in fact deny the goodness of the body and violate the sanctity of life.

To accomplish any of these ends would laudable it itself, but I veritably giggle with glee at the inversions Our Father has constructed to befuddle the issues!

“Compassionate” care—ha! This movement is nothing more than a refusal to suffer with the dying; “aid” in dying has become the slogan for those who are all too happy to kill.

These fleshlings are such simpletons, really. All you have to do is invoke a term that elicits the proper emotion, and they are eating out of our hands. Just think of the many numbers we have seduced into destroying their babies, their marriage, their bodies and even ending their own earthly existences— all by spoon feeding them the message that their happiness somehow depends on their ability to become agents of their own annihilation. It is a delicious cycle; we feed them the lies, and in turn, we have a plentiful bounty of souls to consume through all eternity.

It is among the easiest of our tactics to employ in this current culture, so ripe for harvesting are so many dull and deadened souls. I suggest you mobilize the weapons we have developed in the culture to entice your patient to view her femininity with disdain and abandon those traits in which she has been uniquely gifted. You need merely to teach your patient to despise her femininity and imitate the poorest of the masculine traits. No longer need we whisper that they will become like gods; they are content with the promise that they might become like men. Our delicious propaganda has elicited such rightful distaste for all that women are. We have finally convinced them of the truth: that power is greater than love.

Lure her away from fruitfulness, dangling the carrot of control. Begin with a program of systematic disrespect towards the husband, which, if carefully managed, may undermine the marriage altogether. This tactic works best in tangent with a spouse who is already predisposed to anxiety over the finances, who looks to his spouse not as a helpmate but as a substitute self who can lift his burdens by carrying them herself. He can be made to view this woman he has vowed to protect and provide for as lazy rather than, as the Enemy dictates, the proper recipient of his gifts, the one for whom he is to lay down his life. Coordinate this attack with Inimicus so that the husband seeks to instrumentalize and extract from your patient, with razor focus on her utility to him, and to resent her if she does not pull her own weight.

If she cannot be swayed into idealization of the masculine traits, into a total rebranding of her heart’s desires, then you must push her to the opposite extreme. Teach her to live as a caricature of the feminine, one defined primarily by lipstick and lace. Once she begins to view her femininity as a performative act rather than a constitutive aspect of her person, she will act against her own flourishing in the very effort to attain it.

She can be made to cage herself in the trivial trappings of “feminine” and as she occupies herself with fulfilling this standard, she will retain none of the docility and flexibility to answer the Enemy’s call in the moment—so focused should she be on fabricating her feminine facade. As she further weaves herself into this design, lead her to harbor disdain for those who fail to live up to her imagined ideals of womanhood. With each day that passes within these trappings, she will be less likely to recognize herself without them. And that is right where we want her—a reduction of herself shackled to illusions, unable to answer the Enemy as He uniquely calls her to do so.

This line of temptation is most effective if her spouse is inclined to domination. In time, Inimicus will work on him to demean womanhood, to belittle his wife by the very lifting of her up on a pedestal as a porcelain caricature. Men of this sort can easily be taught to deny all that is uniquely strong about their counterparts and, if you happen upon a generous stroke of luck, he may even turn out to be of the sort who tell themselves they prize their women, even as they pummel them to the floor.

If the one tendency makes her think her husband a fool and regard him with disdain, the other makes her idolize him and think him her king. Whether she regards him with zero reverence or total sovereignty is immaterial; in neither case can one share in communion with the other, and so our Enemy’s aims are entirely thwarted, be the husband a buffoon or tyrant.

Even if her husband cannot be made to entertain such extremes, so long as you cripple her vitality by crafting an ever-smaller circle of acceptability, she will remain docile—to its limits. Do try to usher her into our program of sexual liberty and control, as it is most suitable to our aims; we generally prefer to discourage the habit of docility on the grounds that any practice of a virtue puts our patient solidly in the Enemy’s camp, and there is no telling what He might make of even the smallest of their efforts.

With love and venom,

Boomslang

PS If you know someone who would love this book—or have a friend you’d like to do a Lenten study with—would you share this email and help get the book into the hands of the readers who’d delight in it?

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Which is fitting, really, since it was Lent that inspired me to write it.

My husband and I reread C.S. Lewis’s spiritual classic The Screwtape Letters every Lent. That is, when Screwtape doesn’t get the best of us. For those who are unfamiliar, The Screwtape Letters is comprised of the fictional correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and Wormwood, the junior demon he is assigned to advise.

It is at once brilliantly witty and chillingly insightful. Everything is backwards because it is written from a deeply diabolical perspective. God becomes “the Enemy,” Satan is “Our Father Below,” and the newly converted Christian being tempted is “the patient” (who, of course, they are not conspiring to heal but to corrupt entirely).

The more I read of Lewis (and all great fiction, really) the more I am struck by how it unveils us. Lewis’s fiction somehow makes his nonfiction all the more real. I can read about evil in his essays, but I see it incarnate in Perelandra. He describes the nature of temptation in Mere Christianity, but when I read The Screwtape Letters, I feel it in my bones.

Is there a work of fiction that does this for you—somehow makes what is real even more tangible, as though it were holding a mirror to your soul?

I penned my first letter several years ago when I was invited to write a testimony about our local Catholic Women’s Conference. What kept swimming in my head were all the reasons not to attend—all the little lies that we allow to creep in and separate us from the wonderful. The idea grew from there, blossomed into the book, and is finally ripe for harvest.

I wasn’t the only one to have this idea. There are now a couple of other versions for women on the market. The Holy Spirit seems to be up to something. I can say this is the only version to have a nihil obstat, the only one that features Mary, Catholic motherhood, and the truth about the Mass, Reconciliation, and the Eucharist.

The back of the book features a study guide which is great for groups or individual study. There are also two special bonuses for preordering:

• a downloadable companion journal

• a bonus letter so you can dive in right away

Get my bonuses

If you preorder today, the book will arrive just in time to be your Lenten book study this year—and please join us at the CatholicMom.com book club! (Preorders cost you nothing extra, but they do worlds of good for authors.)

There are so many beautiful ways to spend your Lent. I do hope you will choose to spend it with me and Bellbind this year.

Preorder

Naming the Tempters

And now, it’s time for the big reveal!

If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve been hearing about Bellbind for months. If you’re new here, Bellbind is named for a vicious weed that I battle in my garden (that deceptively pretty flower on the cover is the face of my nemesis). It weaves its way around crops, stealing nutrients and reducing output by up to 50%. If you pull it, it multiplies. Even if you eradicate it from the soil surface, its roots live up to 20 feet below. The battle is daily, and even that sometimes won’t be enough.

What (almost) no one has heard yet is the name of Bellbind’s advisor (yes, in this version, the title is named for the tempter gnawing away at his patient’s soul).

Drumroll, please…

Today, I am proud to introduce you to the diabolical advisor who whispers those devilish lies in The Bellbind Letters: Boomslang.

Boomslang’s name comes from an African tree snake whose venom is so deadly to humans that an antidote isn’t enough; its victims need a blood transfusion in order to survive. We considered all sorts of names for this tempter, from plays on Latin words for nefarious traits to parasites to spiders. But once I learned about the blood transfusions, I couldn’t resist the symbolism.

After all, in the end, it really is the blood that saves us.

There was a fair bit of controvery over the fact that the word boomslang appears as a potion ingredient in the Harry Potter series. In the end, we ruled that J.K. Rowling does not have a monopoly on the words used in the books, which is good news for the future of English literature.

As for those of you who submitted names for consideration, thank you! Some of them do appear as characters scattered throughout the book. I hope you’ll enjoy hunting for them.

Praise for The Bellbind Letters

To close, here are some of the incredibly kind things people are saying about the book:

Stephenson’s contemporary take on Screwtape is utterly captivating, revealing astonishing depths of spiritual insight. She manages to weave together the old-as-time, perennial human temptations with the struggles particular to our secular, digital age. This is a must read for those seeking to sharpen their consciences and deepen their spiritual lives through the sacraments, Sacred Scripture, and the daily habits that help us grow in virtue.

— , Managing editor, Public Discourse

The Bellbind Letters is a powerful and creative work that speaks right into the heart of Catholic motherhood. With wit and insight, Samantha Stephenson unmasks the subtle temptations we face in our everyday lives and reveals the deeper truth of God’s mercy that meets us there. Every mother who longs to grow in faith—and laugh a little at the devil’s ridiculous schemes along the way—will find both challenge and comfort in these pages.

— , author, speaker, and host of the Girlfriends podcast

The heart of a mother is one of the masterpieces of God’s creation: humble, self-sacrificing, unconditionally loving in the face of any obstacle. Naturally, then, a mother’s heart is a special target of our enemy. Satan wants to carry on with his evil plans for mothers undetected, but The Bellbind Letters floods light on these spiritual attacks. This book made me reflect on many habits and attitudes that have indeed affected my walk with God as a modern Christian woman, wife and mother, and now I know exactly which graces to pray for and diversions to ignore. Not today, Satan!

— , author of Holier Matrimony: Married Saints, Catholic Vows, and Sacramental Grace

With wit and wisdom Samantha Stephenson walks us through the landscape of motherhood where we find ourselves seduced by worldly ideas and offerings. So many AHA! moments in this delightful read, recognizing my own temptations (so deviously subtle) presenting themselves untiringly during my own mothering years. As we seek holiness in our vocation, Samantha illuminates where we can be lured, particularly to the extremes that undermine our path of the golden mean of virtue. Satan is real, active and shadowed, enchanting or discouraging us in our weak moments and we must be aware.

Samantha awakens our perception with a cool and compelling hand.

—Bonnie Landry, host of the Make Joy Normal podcast

Women have been attacked by Satan forever. Women are a never ending target of our culture that cripples them with lies, fears, guilt, and being overburdened. This book does a great job of revealing, exposing, and countering those lies to help women find peace, purpose, growth in holiness, and truth that leads to joyful freedom.

—Bryan Mercier, Catholic Speaker, Author, Apologist, President of Catholic Truth

If you know someone who would love this book—or have a friend you’d like to do a Lenten study with—would you share this email and help get the book into the hands of the readers who’d delight in it?

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PS The book officially publishes Feb. 16—just in time to be your Lenten reading—but is available instantly on Kindle if you just can’t wait!

Before the year closes, I want to say thank you.

If you’ve read this newsletter in 2025—avidly or occassionally—thank you for giving it your attention. As Simone Weil observed, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Amidst the many, much flashier things competing for your attention this year, you have been generous with me, and I am grateful.

This space is a place to explore embodied Catholic bioethics, grounded in prayer, family life, and the ordinary limits of being human. Every essay grows out of reading, research, and long hours of thinking carefully about embodiment, technology, motherhood, and hope. That kind of work takes time—and it also takes resources.

In 2026, I want to keep building this together.

If this newsletter has helped you think, pray, or see these questions more clearly, I’m inviting the first 100 readers to become paid subscribers at a discounted rate of $4/month ($1/week).

Paid subscribers make this work possible and help shape the character and future of the newsletter. They also receive:

• access to a subscriber-only chat for conversation and questions

• a monthly letter from me, written more like correspondence than commentary

• sneak peeks and early drafts of essays and book projects as they take shape

Free readers are—and will remain—very welcome here. But the readers who choose to support the work are the ones who make its depth, steadiness, and future possible.

Thank you for reading, thinking, and praying alongside me this year.

Here’s to building something worth tending in 2026.

AMDG,

Samantha

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P.S. A few readers have already joined—be among the first 100 to help shape this space from the start.

Books I Read in 2025

Below are the books I read this year, loosely categorized but otherwise in no particular order. I love seeing what other people are reading in similar posts, so I hope you find something here you enjoy.

This year’s most repeated authors were C.S. Lewis (5), Wendell Berry (2+lots of essays), Ginny Yurich (2), and Katherine Center (whose novels I shamelessly binged, making her the winner by a landslide at 10).

If the list below looks long to you, let me just say that beyond reading, writing, and gardening, I really have no other hobbies. You be amazed what you can accomplish when you apply singular focus to the exlusion of all else (for better or for worse!).

For more on how I “do it all,” you can read this year’s most popular post.

Research

• Fabricated Man: The Ethics of Genetic Control by Paul Ramsey. Top research book of 2025.*

• Theology of the Body by Pope St. John Paul II, translated by Michael Waldstein. Too much to say. More later.

• Bioethics and Character of Human Life by Gil Meilander. Loved. 10/10.

• The Case Against Perfection by Michael Sandel. A nice start to refuting the eugenic urge, but we are going to need to do so much better.

• Begotten or Made by Oliver O’Donovan. Don’t miss the introduction by , which is amazing, whatever he tells you. Maybe I can convince him to write a forward for one of my books some day!

• These Beautiful Bones by . Excellent application and continuation of Pope St. John Paul II’s theology of the body in everyday experiences.

• IVF Is Not the Way by Stacy Trasancos. Great philosophical and pastoral explanation of the Church’s teachings on IVF.

• Everyday Miracles: Curing Autoimmune Disease with Stem Cells by Dr. Richard Burt. Incredible. Interviewed Dr. Burt on Brave New Us.

• Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth by Dr. Catherine Pakaluk. Fascinating and deeply moving. Interviewed Dr. Pakaluk on Brave New Us.

• The Transhumanist Temptation by Grayson Quay. So good. Wish I’d written it. Interviewed Quay on Brave New Us.

• Mom Genes by Abigail Tucker. Fascinating. Best book cover ever. Will cite extensively in upcoming project on embodied motherhood.

Homeschooling/Parenting

• Homeschooling: You’re Doing It Right Just by Doing It by Ginny Yurich. Better for unschoolers I think.

• Until the Streetlights Come On by Ginny Yurich. I preferred this one, hands down, and highly recommend for all parents—homeschooling and otherwise.

• Habits for a Sacred Home by Jennifer Pepito. Different than I expected. Much more of a defence against modern life than I’d anticipated.

• Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie. Required reading for homeschool moms. I reread almost every year.

Spiritual

• Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Phillipe. Should be required reading for all Christians. Top spiritual reading of 2025.*

• The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Ormartian. Helpful, practical, and powerful.

• Letters to Malcom Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis. The positive counterpart to The Screwtape Letters (which is practically free rught now on Amazon). Some fascinating insights into prayer that I had never heard elsewhere.

• God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis. If Lewis had a Substack…

• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Challenging and practical.

Tech + Culture

• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Good practical tips.

• The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch. Good reminders.

• The Tech Exit by Clare Morell. Tough, but necessary.

• The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry. Still true. If I am ever able to write half as well as Wendell Berry, I will die happy.

Fiction

• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Read because it is one of Bishop Baron’s top 5 books of all time. Hated it 2/3 of the way. Have been converted and transformed. Top novel of 2025*

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Am slowly making my way through Austen.

• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Deeply moved, and still struck by Hanna’s observation that her adult children, because they have city jobs, have to pay for everything they need rather than provide for themselves, are “starting out so behind.”

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. First in the space trilogy, but not required to read the others.

• Perelandra by C.S. Lewis. Second in the space trilogy, and my favorite. Continue to be amazed by the way Lewis’s fiction makes his nonfiction seem more real.

• That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. Final book in the space trilogy. Can be read on its own. Lewis said it was the fictional version of The Abolition of Man, and this is a dytopia whose warnings should be taken seriously.

• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. Excellent short novel for those interested in science, technology, medicine, and/or bioethics.

• Next by Michael Crichton. His final novel. Terrifying because it is impossible to tell whether the headlines included are fact or fiction.

• The Ghost and Mrs Muir by R.A. Dick. A rare occassion when the movie is better. Definitely watch the movie!

• Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center. This was my gateway drug to my month-long binge of Center’s novels. Avoid the movie at all costs.

• The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center. She captures early motherhood so well.

• Hello Stranger by Katherine Center. What if a portrait artist suddenly became face blind?

• What You Wish For by Katherine Center. Picks up with the adorable Duncan from Happiness for Beginners.

• Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center. A novel about a female firefighter could have been obnoxiously feminista (as Dr. Laura would say), but instead it was just awesome.

• How to Walk Away by Katherine Center. How could a novel about recovering from a plane crash be so not depressing? Center is the queen of gratitude.

• The Lost Husband by Katherine Center. Again, avoid the film.

• The Love Haters by Katherine Center. This was the only one that way just okay. Plot was far too over the top and convenient.

• The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center. As a writer, this one was especially fun.

• The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. Also great.

• The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkein. My moto for this newsletter:

  “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
  “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.

  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I’m writing today with an invitation that is also a moment of vulnerability. I am so excited to be launching two books in 2026, but this is by no means something I can do alone. It really does take a village—in parenting and publishing both, it seems.

That’s where you come in.

In Lent 2026, my Screwtape-inpired book for moms The Bellbind Letters will be released (February 16), followed just a few weeks later by Grow Where You’re Planted (March 17). Both have the potential to deeply impact readers, and I am so excited to share them. We are gathering a small launch team to help them find their way into the the hands of the readers who need them most.

Being on the launch team is simple yet hugely impactful. It means:

• Pre-ordering the book(s) via the links above (no charge until the book ships!)

• Sharing them with a few friends who might love them

• Leaving an honest review once they’re out

• Helping create early momentum so bookstores, libraries, and algorithms take notice

There’s no pressure to do everything—just to show up thoughtfully and faithfully.

In return, you receive:

• early PDF access to the texts

• a free hard copy in the mail when the book launches

• a complimentary subscription to Choosing Human during launch months to celebrate and share ideas and enthusiasm in the subscriber-only chat

• my undying gratitude and intercessory prayers

If you complete the launch checklist, I’ll be sending a little “thank-you” in the mail as a small sign of my gratitude.

If you’d like to apply to be part of the launch team for:

• The Bellbind Letters

• Grow Where You’re Planted

• or both!

you can do so here:

Apply for Launch Team

The team will be in touch in the new year with next steps.

Thank you for being the kind of reader who makes writing possible.

Merry almost Christmas!
Samantha

We live as if life were never enough.

We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn to perform.

Holy Saturday invites us to discover that life does not always depend on what we do, but also on knowing how to take leave of what we have been able to do.

In the tomb, Jesus, the living Word of the Father is silent. But it is precisely in that silence that the new life begins to ferment.

Like a seed in the ground, like the darkness before dawn. God is not afraid of the passing time, because he is also the God of waiting.

Thus, even our “useless” time, that of pauses, emptiness, barren moments, can become the womb of resurrection.

Every silence that is welcomed can be the premise of a new Word. Every suspended time can become a time of grace, if we offer it to God.

—Pope Leo XIV

Those words, sent to me by a friend, felt like a punch in the stomach.

In the best way. In the way that only a message from the Holy Spirit, who sees past all our best efforts to obscure our true selves from the world, can hit home. With those words, in a season of scrambling to do too much and ignoring all signs and signals to rest, I was laid bare.

My reaction to this invitation to lay down my checklist was equal parts attraction and resistance. A deep part of me is drawn to surrender, to embrace slower pace of a life measured not in boxes checked but in moments lived, fully present to reality.

Then, there’s the me that meets deadlines. That gets things done. The part that can’t see the difference between dropping a ball and setting it down with intention—the part that fears setting one down means dropping all of them.

Yet, if there’s anything I have learned in the process of writing this book on growing things, reflecting on the wisdom of the seasons, and unveiling the costs of usurping natural processes, it is the divine purpose hidden in all things. Even—or perhaps most especially—rest.

Maybe that is why this year, instead of palpable dread, I feel quite cherry as we approach the drab grayness of winter. I am beginning to recognize there is beauty beyond color, and that light is all the more precious amidst the darkness.

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After reading ’s kind words about how the “Winter” section of the book touched her, and this jaw-dropping reflection from Pope Leo, I felt drawn to share the following excerpt from my upcoming book Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard (which, though currently still coverless, is now officially available for preorder).

Though it began as a scrappy paperback you could take into the garden in your back back pocket, my publisher tells me it has grown into a hard cover with a full color interior. I can hardly wait to see what they’ve done with the layout, and have been delighted with what I’ve seen so far during the cover design process (I promise to share an update as soon as it’s “official”!).

A little sneak peak—the full reflection on the spiritual significance of winter, bare branches, and chill hours—is available for the paid subscribers below. I hope you enjoy!

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One fun tidbit: because I love hearing the behind-the-scenes details from my favorite authors, I‘ll first share briefly that, although the exact details didn’t make it into the final cut, the characters from the books Brideshead Revisited and Silence were pivotal influences in praying through this section. See if you can guess how!

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Seeds for Contemplation in Winter

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

Read more

Even better, we get to be there together to celebrate some exciting book news. After the sessions, you’ll find us at our table with books, pens, and plenty of time to chat. You can:

• Pick up a signed copy of Caitlan’s brand-new children’s book, The Restless Grain, and help us celebrate her very first launch!

• Grab a signed copy of Samantha’s Reclaiming Motherhood. (It’s currently out of stock on Amazon, but she’ll have copies with her. If you can’t come in person, you can still order from OSV.)

• Say hello, share stories, and let us sign something special for you.

Details:
When: Saturday, October 25, 2025
Where: Alta Dena, CA

Register

If you can’t make it to the conference, the vendor fair will open up to the public at the conclusion of the event!

It would mean so much to see some familiar faces, celebrate this milestone together, and place these books in your hands. If you’ll be there, please come find us. We’d love to meet you in person!

With gratitude,
Caitlan Rangel, Rest and Rise & Samantha Stephenson, Choosing Human

P.S. Do you know someone else heading to FIAT? Please forward this note their way. We’d love to meet as many of you as possible!

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Hard life, right?

There is so much I could say about the gift of being raised by this place and its people. But today I want to share just one snippet of my experience of returning home, and how it is slowly transforming my writing life.

As a child, I could never have dreamed up my homestead wannabe lifestyle in rural-adjacent suburban Idaho. I wouldn’t have pictured homeschooling my children, wrestling with bioethical questions, and I definitely never would have expected I’d be doing so as a Catholic.

But I might have imagined myself as an author.

When I was 13, a short story I wrote placed second in the Maui Writer’s Conference. As a reward, the group of winners got to attend for free (and sleepover in the aquarium at the Maui Ocean Center, sharks passing overhead as we slept beneath). We got to attend many sessions on the craft and business of writing—including one session by the writers of the screenplay for the movie Crash. I’m not sure I remember much more than that, to be honest.

But I do recall standing in the the hustle and bustle of all these professional writers bouncing between sessions. As a child who loved nothing more than she adored books, I was in awe, and I harbored the secret dream of becoming one of them someday. One day, I would be an author.

Having recently stood on that same spot invited my to reinhabit my 13-year-old self just long enough to realize that her secret dream is still the whisper of my heart:

One day, you will be an author.

My 13-year-old self looks at me with disbelief and pity. She sees that this secret desire has shifted, become something malevolent, and stolen the gratitude that belongs to her.

Technically, I am an author. I have two books out, one self-published and one by a Catholic publisher. I have two on the way coming out next spring. 13-year-old me would have exploded with joy to know that this day was on the horizon.

Her gaze is humbling, and I stand chastised. I am grateful for this visitor, my ghost of ambitions past. But as she departs, she leaves me wondering about the ghost of ambitions present that remains in her wake: will this Specter of Impostor Syndrome every go away?

If you are likewise haunted by this harrowing figure, you have my solidarity. Maybe yours whispers that your Substack only counts when you reach a certain number of readers, or that you are not a “real” writer unless you publish an article, a book, make the bestseller list. Here is the truth: if you write, you are a writer. Period. No external validation or metrics necessary.

But I can tell you from experience, that once you cross his imaginary goalpost, the Specter will just drag it further away (is that the right metaphor? Apologies to my football-obsessed parents for never fully absorbing your enthusiasm or basic comprehension of the lingo).

Or maybe it isn’t just moving the goalposts. Maybe he is a she, wearing Lucy’s blue dress as she gives Charlie Brown her sincere promise that this time will be different, and she won’t yank the football out from under his foot as kicks. I certainly hear her cackle as I attempt various kicks in my writing, only to miss entirely and find myself laying in the dirt wondering how I could have fallen for her wiles once again.

For me, this looks like chasing the rabbit trails of my varied interests—blogging about homeschooling, bringing the prayerful insights of parenthood to life through story, musing on God’s revelations in the garden, typing furious cultural criticism about everything from reproductive technologies to abortion to genetic editing. And every time I hit a rhythm or publish a piece I find meaningful, Lucy flounces by in her blue dress, and pulls the football out from under me.

She tells me that no one will be interested in reading what I have to say, and that I need to pick a lane and stay in it. This point is very important, I think, because she is constantly telling me that what matters to me and what I have to say (ultimately, the words I believe God made me to speak into the world) cannot fit in one container. These things cannot all fit together.

Pick a lane.

Be less than you are.

Be this. Be that. Be anything other than what God made you to be.

One year ago, I attended the Blessed Is She retreat, and the word I received, not 5 minutes into the conference was harmony.

The beautiful about harmony is that it weaves in and out. It isn’t the melody, and the more harmonies that come into the song, the more lovely it all is when it comes together.

I am sorry, dear readers, that I have not fully figured out how all of this fits together, but thank you for accompanying me on the journey as I learn to harmonize these passions. I haven’t fully figured out how I will use this space, despite many previous assertions. I do believe that God wastes none of it.

I am thinking of expressing it this way: Samantha Stephenson writes on faith, family, and the future of being human.

Nice, right? I think so, too—or at least I will, until Lucy pulls the football out from under me again.

AMDG,

Samantha

Around the Web

A look at where my work has taken root lately—articles, interviews, and conversations in the wild world of the internet.

Articles and Essays:

• The Egg Freezing Indusctr’s False Promises at Public Discourse

• Ignatian Wisdom for Moms at CatholicMom

• Cultivating the Garden of Our Souls at Blessed Is She

• Not new, but garnering a lot of attention: RFK and the Silencing of Debate at Crisis

Podcast Interviews:

• Catholic Momcast: Mom Hacks

A couple of announcements:

1. In an effort to harmonize, I have renamed this Substack Slow Motherhood and pulled my author updates under this umbrella. They will be separate sections, so feel free to unsubscribe from the Slow Motherhood content if you only want author updates. The bioethics stuff will remain a separate publication—for now.

2. The new season of Brave New Us: Being Human in the Age of Biotechnology (same podcast, new subtitle) is rolling out. If you are interested in these topics, so far we have covered:

• Pronatalism and the New Eugenics Startups in Silicon Valley with Emma Waters

• Reversing Autoimmune Disease with Stem Cells with Dr. Richard Burt

• The Alternative to IVF No One Is Talking about with Grace Emily Stark (except now the head of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine is talking about—and she’s out for blood. IVF makes a pretty penny, and we wouldn’t want to give that up, now would we?)

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Podcast: Brave New Us: Being Human in the Age of Biotechnology
Web: www.snstephenson.com

I anticipated greeting the sunrise with black coffee, pen poised over my journal, and long afternoons full of fiction, sipping kombucha while the kids splash in the pool. And I will say that in those respects, summer has not disappointed. But, like a garden suddenly awash with color from unexpected wildflower seeds, summer surprised me with not one, but two books preparing to bloom.

Which brings me to a little announcement. Many of you know that my Screwtape-inspired book, The Bellbind Letters, is in the final stages of editing and will go to print in time for Lent next year. Here’s the surprise: I’m wrapping up a second book, completely unexpected, that will be published shortly after The Bellbind Letters.

After submitting half a dozen queries to my editor at OSV that just weren’t the right fit, a new book deal suddenly landed in my lap. An editor at Sophia Institute approached me with a book idea. It was nothing like anything I had been pitching, but it was too delightful to resist. We met on Holy Thursday, and by Easter Monday, I had a contract. What a whirlwind!

Inspired by Claire Swinarski’s recent reflections on which of her books was the hardest to write, I thought I’d share my own reflection on which of my books is my favorite. The trouble with that is this: choosing a favorite book is like choosing a favorite child.

I love them all fiercely, but each is so unique and unrepeatable. Some are spicier than others. Some births go more smoothly. Each is imbued with shiny loveliness as well as its own dark shadows.

Book #1 — Reclaiming Motherhood

Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad is a theology of the body for motherhood in a biotech era. It married my deep passion for theology and bioethics, and executing it well required wading through piles of research and distilling timeless moral truths into digestible chapters, applying them to current culture. The labor was intense, but the reward sweet and satisfying.

Book #2 — The Bellbind Letters

Of course, taking on a demonic persona to search out temptation and highlight brightness through shadow was heavy, but paradoxically uplifting as a creative exercise. One gift of fiction is being able to hold up a mirror to our dark places and see our own reflections more clearly in the face of another. The Bellbind Letters flowed from my own experience and that of mothers close to me, and, like my unmedicated births, brought something beautiful and precious out of painful struggle.

Book #3 — Grow Where You’re Planted

This newest book—just a few thousand words from completion—reminds me of my fourth labor. The early work was almost effortless. But now, in the final push, I find myself stalled in transition. These final hours are the hardest. Though the publisher will ultimately select its title, for now, I am calling it Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard.

It has been sheer joy to unveil prayerful meditations that have arisen amongst fragrant flowers and to combine that with hands-on instruction for cultivating seasonal abundance and tips for raising little gardeners. I can’t wait to share it with you!

What season of life are you in right now—germinating, blooming, or somewhere in between?

AMDG,

Samantha

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Around the Web

A look at where my work has taken root lately—articles, interviews, and conversations in the wild world of the internet.

Articles and Essays:

At Public Discourse, I argue that the problem of egg freezing cannot be solved by safer methods or better policies. Beyond the physical and financial costs, there is a more insidious myth at work—one that speaks to our deepest assumptions about time, control, and what gives life meaning.

Read the Article

For CatholicMom.Com:

• Will You Just Hold Still?

• Bringing Each Other to Jesus

Audio:

I was privileged to record one of my pieces for CatholicMom.com’s new audio digest. I hope you’ll check it out and consider subscribing to their new feed!

Let’s Connect

Looking for a guest for an event or podcast?

I’m currently scheduling podcast interviews and speaking engagements to support the launch of both upcoming books. If you host a podcast, run a newsletter, or lead a women’s group, I’d love to connect. Whether it’s a thoughtful conversation or a virtual visit, let’s talk about how we can serve your audience together.

Let's Chat

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Podcast: Brave New Us: Being Human in the Age of Biotechnology
Web: www.snstephenson.com

Last fall, I raised a glass to toast a friend and fellow author.

I had just signed my book contract and submitted my manuscript for my Screwtape-inspired novel The Bellbind Letters. We were celebrating these wins—but also commiserating. She had just learned that a well-respected writer would soon be publishing the very book that she had always dreamed of writing.

“Don’t fret over this!” I assured her with confidence. “If this is the Lord’s will for you, you will write it in a way that is completely unique to you. Don’t listen to the voice that says ‘If someone else wrote it first, it’s not worth trying.’” I added, “That’s Screwtape talking.”

My words would come back to haunt me just a few short months later. Not one, but two other authors announced the release of their own Screwtape-style books for Christian women. My publisher decided to delay the release of The Bellbind Letters. Mine wouldn’t merely face competition—it would be last in line.

With disappointment and angst swirling in the pit of my stomach, I immediately texted my friend: “See, someone else wrote my book first, too!” I paired the note with a laughing/crying emoji to fully capture my emotional state.

It hasn’t been easy. But I tried to follow the example of St. Ignatius, who once said that if the Church dissolved the Society of Jesus, he would allow himself 15 minutes to grieve—then move on and accept God’s will. I can’t pretend to know what the Holy Spirit is doing with this triple-dose of satire for women. But such a flood suggests that this message is desperately needed in our time.

So I sighed, took my fifteen minutes, and surrendered the book’s future to the One who inspired it.

I curled up with a cup of tea and read both books cover to cover while I waited for my edits. My Dear Hemlock, by Tilly Dillehay—an Evangelical pastor’s wife—follows its “patient” throughout her life as a married woman and mother. Sincerely, Stoneheart by Catholic speaker Emily Wilson unpacks the cultural lies women tell themselves. Both are lovely books, with reviews lauding them as powerful and even transformational.

The voice returned: “What could you possibly hope to add to the mix?”

The original Screwtape-imitator, esteemed Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft called his own 1998 copycat The Snakebite Letters “a shameless plagiarism,” defending the genre of imitations thus: “I have no shame about it, because I’m sure Lewis wanted such ‘plagiarisms.’” What did he mean by this?

Fiction is a powerful device that lowers our defenses and holds up a mirror to our souls. In this inverted genre, demonic disgust also reveals to us the radiant beauty of precious things—and how easily we overlook it.

Kreeft had something to say about spiritual warfare and society. Dillehay explores a woman’s struggle to love both her husband and her Savior. Wilson helps women reject lies and embrace their belovedness. Lewis, Dillehay, and Wilson penned books for broadly Christian audiences. Kreeft and I write for Catholics.

After reading these variations and having written one myself, I can confirm with confidence that my advice to my friend was correct. Each of these “shameless plagiarisms” shines with its own brilliance—something only its unique author could bring forth into the world.

So, what makes The Bellbind Letters unique?

Unlike Lewis’s newly converted Christian, my “patient” is a Catholic mother striving—imperfectly—to live a holy life. Lewis emphasized the psychological currents beneath modern philosophical and cultural trends, with relationships playing a minor role. My book, in decidedly feminine fashion, reverses this: relational vices take center stage, with cultural undercurrents swirling below.

And while Lewis wrote of “mere Christianity,” I write from the fullness of Truth in the Catholic Church. To my knowledge, The Bellbind Letters is the only “shameless plagiarism” where you’ll find the Mass, the Eucharist, Confession, and Our Lady taking center stage—described, of course, in all their “despicable filth” (as the demons would say).

I believe each of the seven deadly sins and Ten Commandments appear somewhere in The Bellbind Letters (though I’d have to do a full audit to be sure), making it a uniquely immersive examination of conscience in fictional form, perfectly timed for its Lenten release in 2026.

None of these books says everything. But each says something true, beautiful, and worth sharing.

Ultimately, only the Holy Spirit knows what He intends to do with each of these books. I'm grateful to be part of the conversation, and I can’t wait to share these letters with you. I revisited my letters last night with the usual bout of author anxiety—half-expecting to cringe and furiously rewrite whole sections. Instead, they touched me again, making me shiver once more at the deceptive power of sin.

If nothing else, the Lord has worked to soften my heart and strengthen my will to do good. And that, my friends, is worth every letter.

AMDG,

Samantha

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Around the Web

A look at where my work has taken root lately—articles, interviews, and conversations in the wild world of the internet.

Earlier this week, I was asked to submit a list of my published work from the past two years. It was a fun exercise to review those pieces and interviews as a whole, reflect on their trajectory, and imagine where the Lord might be leading in it all—a sort of professional Ignatian examen.

As I’d already compiled the list, I thought I’d go ahead and share it with you fine readers in case you stumble across a topic that is of interest to you:

Articles and Essays:

• Artificial Wombs, Artificial Love at Public Discourse

• Maintaining Joy in a Culture of Death at OSV

• RFK and the Silencing of Debate at Crisis

• Are We Fundamentally Good? A Response to Allie Beth Stuckey at Crisis

• How to Talk to Kids about Abortion at CatholicMom.com

• Book Review: Now and at the Hour of Our Death at CatholicMom.com

• Raising Prolife Kids at CatholicMom.com

• Women Deserve Better Than Abortion at Word on Fire

• On Bringing Children to Mass at CatholicMom.com

• Does Genetic Testing Put Babies at Risk? at Crisis

• Designer Babies and Genetic Editing at OSV

• Why Contraception is Dangerous at Catholic Review

• Finding Happiness in a Success-Driven Culture at Radiant

• How to Help a Child Struggling with Gender Identity at OSV

• The Problem with Postmortem Conception at Catholic Review

• Elon Musk and the Reproductive Revolution at Public Discourse

Podcast Interviews:

• Catholic Truth YouTube: IVF

• Good Distinctions: Dystopia, IVF, Cloning

• Make Joy Normal Podcast: Homeschooling and Bioethics

• Edify Podcast: A Culture Gone Mad

• Dr. J Show: Reclaiming Motherhood

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Web: www.snstephenson.com

I recently concluded a two-year fellowship with the Paul Ramsey Institute at the Center for Bioethics and Culture—a season of study, prayer, and conversation that asked much of me and gave more in return.

The questions we carried were not light ones: What does it mean to live well, to die well, to bear responsibility in an age of technology? These are not questions one hurries through. I hope to offer some of that fruit in writing soon, and I’ll share links to new pieces here when they’re published.

In the meantime, most of my days are given to the quieter, slower work of the garden. Dirt under my fingernails. Chickens scratching under the fruit trees. Something green pushing up through straw mulch. The garden has become my school of patience again this spring. And as I watch the seedlings reach upward and the weeds return like clockwork, I’m reminded that waiting is its own kind of work. Maybe even its own kind of hope.

If you’re feeling hurried, I’d offer this: not everything fruitful can be forced. Much of what matters begins in hidden places. Seeds wait underground. Ideas take root in silence. And some of the best work we’ll ever do—parenting, healing, praying, repenting—doesn’t come with fast results. I return again and again to the words of Teilhard de Chardin on this—whose most influential essays, incidentally, were not published until after his death. Talk about patience.

I’ve started filming little glimpses of that life—just a few minutes at a time—and gathering them on a YouTube channel called Grow Where You’re Planted. It’s a simple collection of days in the garden—nothing fancy. Just glimpses of tomatoes, trellises, and the worth of staying put.

And because the lines between the soil and the soul blur more than I ever expected, there’s also a new writing project beginning to sprout. I won’t say much yet. But like the best seeds, I’m trusting it to grow in the dark awhile. Thank you for walking with me through these seasons.

What are you growing this season—or rather, what is the Lord growing in you? Let me know in the comments!

AMDG,

Samantha

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PS My brilliant friend and editor at Natural Womanhood

Grace Emily Stark

just gave an incredible interview for theProblematic Women podcast(one of favs) on all things fertility. Definitely worth a listen!

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
YouTube: Grow Where You’re Planted
Web: www.snstephenson.com

It started with a pretty little vine twisting around my cornstalks. At first, I didn’t think much of it. The leaves were a soft green, the flowers delicate, heart-shaped, and white. But almost as soon as I noticed it, its tendrils covered the garden —choking out my tomatoes, suffocating the basil, creeping into every unguarded space.

I spent an afternoon tearing it up by the roots, but a week later, it was back, just as strong. That’s when I learned its name: bellbind. A weed that looks harmless, even beautiful, but is nearly impossible to kill.

I didn’t know then how much this little battle in my garden would teach me about the battle for virtue.

There are things that creep into our hearts, too. Small annoyances that take root as resentment. Little indulgences that grow into habits. Worries that wrap themselves around our peace, strangling it bit by bit.

Most of the time, we don’t even notice it happening. Not until we find ourselves snapping at our children or lying awake at night, hearts tangled in anxious knots.

The devil doesn’t come crashing in like a storm; he slinks in like a vine. And before we know it, we’re wrapped in something we never meant to invite in.

That’s why I wrote The Bellbind Letters: Inside the Devil’s Plan for Your Motherhood.

And that, friends, is the title of my next book.

If you’ve read The Screwtape Letters, you’ll recognize the form: a series of letters written from one tempter to another. But this one is set in the thick of modern motherhood. The senior tempter—still unnamed*—is coaching his understudy, Bellbind, on how to sabotage the soul of a mother.

Fortunately (or not), I didn’t need diabolical insight to generate the content of these letters. Yes, we are all entrenched in a spiritual battle, but the brilliance of C.S. Lewis’s original work didn’t stem from intimate knowledge of spiritual warfare. Rather, Lewis was a keen observer of the human psyche.

In The Bellbind Letters, I attempt to imitate not only his sinister tone, but also his detailed descriptions of the nature of temptation and how it worms its way into our hearts and minds.

It has been quite the examination of conscience.

What began as a simple promo-letter for my local women’s conference some years ago has grown into a book full of letters detailing the specific ways in which Satan attacks a woman’s soul.

But make no mistake — this isn’t a book merely about evil. As in the original Screwtape Letters, a demonic perspective helps us to adjust our focus. When we see the utter disdain Satan has for all that is holy — especially motherhood — we begin to recognize just how glorious a vocation it is.

Whether you fasted and sacrificed dutifully these last forty days or, like me, failed utterly at Lent this year (a story for another time), I invite you to pencil in Bellbind for an examination of conscience upon the book’s release next spring!

AMDG,

Samantha

*P.S. If you have a clever name for a demon, share it in the comments! It might just makes its way into the final book.

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AUTHOR UPDATES

Whether you’ve followed me through Mama Prays, Brave New Us, or simply through these author updates —I’m so glad you’re here.

A while ago, I told my spiritual director that all I really wanted was to write books and homeschool my kids. That’s still true.

As much as I’ve loved podcasting, researching, interviewing guests, and sending newsletters on everything from motherhood to bioethics—I’ve come to see it’s time to choose depth over breadth (and maybe the occasional garden tour).

So I’ve paused all subscriptions to my other newsletters and will be sending updates only from here, the author list. Just occasional notes, a few times a season. I hope they bring something beautiful to your inbox—and I pray they point to the One who is greater.

Thank you for continuing to read, and for walking with me. God willing, there are many more projects to come—and I hope you’ll be both intrigued and delighted by what’s ahead.

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Web: www.snstephenson.com

This was the advice I received from a trusted friend several years ago, when I was wrestling with the apparent contradiction between my vocation as a stay-at-home mom and my budding desire to become an author.

A few years, podcasts, and books later, and I still wrestle with that tension. I agree with the sentiment in principle, but I know all too well that I don’t live out that balance perfectly. Too often, find myself neglecting one call for the sake of the other.

When I had the opportunity to attend the CatholicMom.com contributor’s retreat - the first in my nearly 6 years as a contributor - I jumped at the chance. Yet, as I boarded my cross-country flight and faced the real possibility of being snowed in on the other end, my recurring doubts about spending time away from my family resurfaced.

It it really okay to leave my 2-year-old behind?

Am I kidding myself when I think of my writing as a sacred call? Am I really just being overindulgent in my personal hobby?

What if we get snowed in and my selfish desire to attend this event costs my husband time at work?

As God’s grace poured in throughout the weekend, these doubts began to subside. Through concrete reminders large and small, I received a renewed sense of belonging and call.

Still, the mom guilt is real.

Even in the midst of all these graces, I couldn’t squash the niggling feeling that this work and time for events like this one are things that ought to wait until my children are grown.

You’re missing time you’ll never get back.

This is a burden to your husband.

Your family should come first.

Then, I saw the picture of the igloo.

My husband sweetly sent several texts updates to apprise me of all the fun they were having while I was away: a living room campout, fast food mom never buys, a snowy bike ride to breakfast, and a real-life igloo they build together in the backyard —large enough for all six of us to shiver in together.

If I had been home, this igloo and the living room campout with Dad likely wouldn’t have happened. We would have done some other nice thing as a family, I’m sure.

But my absence made way for my husband to lean in to his fatherly vocation in a new way. Our kids have priceless, life-long of special time with their dad because I stepped out of the picture.

Balance is a tricky thing. Try standing on one foot or surfing a wave. The act of balancing is never static; it invariably involves constant adjustment. It often involves falling.

Anyone who has ever attempted a tree pose knows that balance is made much easier by fixing one’s eyes to a particular spot. A fixed gaze steadies you, makes balance easier, and makes falls much less likely.

If you, like me, struggle to strike the perfect balance between your many responsibilities, allow me to suggest fixing your gaze on Christ. It steadies you, makes balance easier, and makes falls much less likely.

And it just might include a few surprise igloos along the way.

To Jesus Through Mary,

Samantha

Author Updates

Writing Across the Web

Since my last update, I have had a couple of new pieces come out across the web. I shared “How to Start Bible Journaling” at Blessed Is She, and was inspired by a homeschooling course my daughter and I are doing on the history of medicine to write about the demonization of dissent. Crisis Magazine was kind enough to publish that article titled “RFK and the Silencing of Dissent.”

Podcast Updates

New episodes have come out on the Mama Prays podcast. I am excited to share them with you!

• A Humble Gift

• Too Busy for the Better Part

• Sanctifying the Housework

Also, be on the lookout for some stellar interviews with Catholic authors, starting Feb 21!

Lenten Ideas for Families

Family Movie Night for Mardi Gras!

My family and I were FLOORED by the life-changing story of “the Rosary Priest” Venerable Fr. Patrick Peyton. Here’s my proposal for you to grow in prayer as a family this Lent:

On Mardi Gras Tuesday, celebrate with buckets of popcorn, movie theater candy, and settle in for Pray: The Story of Fr. Patrick Peyton. My husband and oldest were blown away when we watched it together (and with a run time of 1 hr and 11 minutes, is very doable even for short attention spans).

Watching the film together as a family is so inspiring and motivating — the best jumping off point to praying the rosary as a family.

This is the perfect entre into integrating some form of the Family Rosary as your Lenten practice this year!

Here are some ideas for making the time:

• Sacrifice music in the car and replace with an audio rosary for 20+ minute drives.

• Sacrifice TV time after dinner and recite together as a family. For couples with littles, you can do a single decade with them and finish after bedtime, or simply pray together on behalf of your family. It counts!

• Pray one decade every morning at breakfast for a full rosary during the week!

• Schedule alarms throughout the day and pause for a decade at each interruption (we like the church bell alarm on the iphone). Yielding to the clang of the bells is a practice in the virtue of obedience!

CatholicMom.com Lenten Calendar

If you are looking for a simple Lenten challenge for your family this year, I urge you to check out the CatholicMom.com Lenten Calendar!

It has a simple prayer activity or challenge for each day of Lent, and if your kids are anything like mine, they will LOVE checking off the challenge each day.

The link below will take you to the page with the downloadable calendar (I recommend the legal size if you have the paper handy), as well as a library of recipes for meatless meals for Lenten Fridays! Who doesn’t need help meal planning??

You’ll also find FREE printable Catholic coloring pages for every month of the year as well as the rosary (as a homeschooling mom, I really appreciate these!). The coloring page for Ash Wednesday is listed under Feb.

We are excited to dive into the challenge using our CatholicMom.com Lenten Calendar this year, and I hope you will too!

Download My Lenten Calendar

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Web: www.snstephenson.com

I stood at the podium looking into a sea of faces at a loss for words. I had just concluded my remarks addressing the question “Is the Culture Toxic?” and I was fielding questions for the Q&A portion of our diocesan pro-life conference.

The very first question caught me off guard. After hearing my summary of the challenging and disheartening developments in medical research today, one audience member asked not about the precise moment that new life begins or the ethical ins and outs of reproductive technologies, but a question far more pressing and practical: “How do you stay joyful?” The incredulity in her voice was palpable.

Read the Rest at OSV

The Disastrous Mysteries of the Rosary

I don’t know much about Pope Saint Pius V, but I know this: he was not of melancholic temperament. As someone who is married to a melancholic with a touch of the disposition myself, I have great affection for the introspective and philosophical bend of these subdued personalities. But as the name indicates, these personalities don’t tend towards optimism—which is why I know that Pope Pius V couldn’t have been a melancholic.

Only the brightest of optimists could take the collection of events we now know as “The Joyful Mysteries” of the Rosary and name them thus. Yes, if Pope Pius had been a melancholic, he would have more aptly named these events as “The Disastrous Mysteries.”

Read the Rest at Blessed Is She

Book Updates!

The unofficially-titled To Tempt a Mother: More Letters from Screwtape has left my desk and gone to my editor. I would love your prayers for this project as we continue through the rest of the editing and publishing process.

As always, you as subscribers will be the first to see a cover reveal, learn the official title (To Tempt a Mother is only a working title for now), and access pre-order information just as soon as it all comes out.

As this project winds down, I can’t help but daydream about what I’ll write next. I am currently mulling over ideas.

Should I write Digital Monasticism, another book that, like my first (which happens to be on sale for $3 at the moment. Buy some gifts. Tell your friends.), marries theology, culture and bioethics?

I’d love to explore what the age of the internet has done to our brains, relationships, and ability to find meaning and happiness in life, and to share some of my story: how withdrawal from the digital world has been profoundly life-giving, and how readers might discern for themselves the best way to forge ahead in a world where our minds are increasingly captivated by screens in ways that are increasingly challenging to opt-out from.

Then again, I might instead choose to relay the story of my downward spiral into chronic disease, and how opting out of Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Tech healed my family and maybe even saved my life. I’m thinking of calling it either Crunchy Mom or Poisoned, depending on which mood I’m in when you ask me.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from YOU!

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In case any of the above piqued your interest, here is a brief bibliography of the research I’ve been doing for these potential projects, in no particular order:

Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
Digital Madness by Nicholas Kardaras
IGen by Jean Twenge
The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read, and Remember by Nicholas Carr
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health by Casey Means
Food Saved Me by Danielle Walker

Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Web: www.snstephenson.com