Welcome to BeyondTheShadowed.podcast. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today. You will not be disappointed. I have a new friend with me today, and I am so excited to get your story recorded because it hit me like wildfire—no pun intended, maybe intended, I don’t know. You’ll understand better as you listen to the episode. Your story, when I recently read it on an Instagram account—someone I’ve also recently interviewed, who runs the Women on the Stand account—was so powerful. Welcome, welcome.
I want to give you as much time as we can, so I’m going to turn the time over to you to introduce yourself to our listeners—your upbringing, who you are, your background, where you’re from, including faith, profession, education, whatever you would like to include.
Absolutely. I’ve been married for 20 years—we’ll be celebrating 21 by the time this publishes—and we have four kids. Our oldest daughter is at Iowa State University studying chemistry and dietetics, then we have two in high school—a senior and a sophomore—and then a big gap and a fourth grader. As a family, we love the outdoors and we love to travel. We’ve made international travel a priority in the last three years as the kids get ready to leave. We’re in a place of privilege to do so, and as parents our goal is to show them the world isn’t scary and to let them sit—for a moment—in that place of discomfort where they don’t know the language and they don’t know the systems, and just see the world through firsthand experience.
My degree is in landscape architecture, so I’ve been tied to the land for a long time. Currently, I am a director at a small nonprofit and we focus on nutrient-dense foods. People know Iowa farms—we have 23 million acres of corn and soybeans—but we also import 95% of our food because those fields go to cattle feed and ethanol. We have a very high food insecurity rate in the Midwest. My work right now is to connect communities to vegetables. I get to work with farmers who have immigrated from all over the world to grow things they can’t find in our local grocery stores. Half my job is in the field and the other half is in the boardroom, so I get the best of both worlds.
That is amazing. I love to garden—I bet you have one heck of a garden.
I do not. It’s like 10 by 10 feet. By the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is garden anymore.
I can only imagine. What a fantastic profession—thank you for bringing light to those important issues. Today, though, we’re here to talk about something a little different, although symbolically related. One of my goals with this podcast is to normalize how beautiful each of our faith journeys are. They’re not supposed to look like carbon copies. Allowing questions—embracing and leaning into them—and doubts…that’s where the growth and refining occur. With that, would you share about your faith journey? When questions and doubts have come up for you, how have you navigated them? Maybe it was different earlier in life than it is now. What is your approach when something doesn’t make sense or doesn’t resonate?
Absolutely. I grew up in Northeast Iowa. To give perspective on how rural this area is: my county doesn’t have a stoplight and the nearest Target is an hour and a half away. I grew up in a very tight, small community. My parents were Lutheran and joined the church in the 1980s. I was four or five years old. They joined a tiny branch that stretched about an hour and a half east to west and two hours north to south—not the stake, the branch. I grew up where the church was “a” community, not “the” community. I was the only LDS kid in our school district, the only LDS family in our town. Because of the distance, we had mutual once a month, maybe twice in the summer. Seminary was the old home-study paper kind before the internet.
As my parents transitioned out of farming, they started a tombstone shop—stone carvers for 25 years. It was a family business. I worked there as a teenager and saw grief up close. After the funeral, when everyone goes back to their normal lives, people are in transition and the next steps of life. I remember seminary lessons that said the Holy Ghost will comfort you and then leave, but in the shop I saw a different story: the comfort many people described was an unseen power that didn’t just come and go; it stayed for days, weeks, sometimes years. Death doesn’t start when the heart stops; it begins as we start to lose the person. I’m grateful my parents made space for questions and for discussing different beliefs. Spirituality and religion outside of ours weren’t scary—they were part of the community and to be respected.
Later I attended Iowa State University. That’s where, for the first time, I felt like “the other” in the church. I was accepted to BYU; I visited and it felt very stifling for me. People said I’d feel like I “belonged” there, and I didn’t. I felt that sense of belonging at Iowa State. Some were disappointed I didn’t choose the church school—there was a reaction like, “Maybe you’re in the wrong.” But at Iowa State, we had a great singles branch. I met my husband there. We fell into a typical LDS pattern—married at the beginning of our senior year—which is typical for church culture but not the Midwest. He came from a more orthodox background, and we followed that path. From college on, I followed the “shelf” approach—put questions on the shelf with the promise the answers would come. After two decades, the weight kept mounting.
What I didn’t know is that my partner—who had served as a bishop in his early 30s and was a staple of leadership—had his own shelf crumbling. When it broke, it broke hard. We stood in the shattered pieces and realized we could rebuild into something new, but we couldn’t mend it back to what it was. For me, that forced me to look at what was too heavy. I’m a systems person—I work in food systems—so when I find something I don’t understand, I make a system. My system was: What are my parameters? What’s my angle? At that time, my angle was to stay fully engaged with the church. My parameters were to read sources—not opinions—go to the source (church website, solid historians), work through it, and give myself space when things felt too heavy. No timeline; I’d go at my own pace.
I’m curious—what did putting those systems in place accomplish for you? How did it serve you?
Keep in mind, as I started this, I was new to a mixed-faith marriage. My spouse—the more orthodox of the two of us—was stepping away completely. We had teenagers. We were navigating a transition, opening our own questions, and trying to keep the household together—which is complex on its own. I had also returned to the workforce full-time. So I needed guidelines because it couldn’t be all-consuming. The framework let me take bite-sized chunks of a massive mountain of information. It also gave me the ability to stop and rest when needed and not barrel through. Did it create perfect balance? Not always. But for how my brain works, it helped compartmentalize the issues in a way that wasn’t completely crushing.
Kudos for honoring your boundaries while being willing to venture into the unknown. Humans try to avoid that—but sometimes you can’t look away anymore and you have to navigate forward.
Absolutely.
You recently talked about your faith journey in a more poetic, artistic way—you wrote a piece. I read it and was so moved. What led you to write it? Could you share the backstory, and then I’d love for you to share part of it with listeners.
This spring, a friend recommended the book Rage Becomes Her. We have a small friend group that trades reading recs. I finished it and called her, eager to discuss all the validating points for me as a 43-year-old woman. She said, “I actually haven’t read it—I’m terrified to. I recommended it so you’d be the first to read it.” It was funny, but it also made me realize how much anger I had packaged inside me. I’ve had good experiences in the church, but I married young, had kids young, set aside a promising landscape architecture career, and stayed at home for 15 years. I love those years, but a part of me died. When I returned to the workforce at 40, I knew I could be a mom and a professional—and I saw the years of what could have been. In church, I spent years working to be fully engaged and kept running into the same systemic issues with patriarchy. It’s tiring. The anger starts to boil. And as women—in church and culture—we’re told there’s no place for anger; push it down.
Last fall, I gave myself permission to take a sabbatical from church. That was healing. By spring, I thought I was ready to come back. I remember sitting down to watch conference and realizing how much my perspective had shifted—that maybe there was no longer a place for me as a woman in the church.
Why did you feel there was no longer a place for you as a woman?
Twofold. First, in my professional world—male-dominated farming—you must earn respect, but once you do, you’re equal. I’d also served years in ward leadership and in the stake; especially in my last five years in stake communications, it’s hard to see your work erased with a raise of the hand. By spring, I was exhausted. The book helped me see my anger was valid, but I didn’t know where to put it. Then spring came. Our family farm is now fourth generation. Much of the land is very hilly—it probably should never have been farmed—so we enrolled acres in the Conservation Reserve Program, returning corn and soybean fields to native Iowa prairie. Those prairies require burns at least once a year until they’re well established.
I used to do a lot of burn work in college. It’s kind of a young person’s game. This tract was 40 acres—sizable—with hills and terraces; a lot can go wrong. Fire has a wandering way of getting away from you. My dad called me to be an extra set of hands—someone with experience. With a prescribed burn, you start with a backburn—you burn around the perimeter to consume fuel. When the main fire meets that burned line, there’s nothing left to burn, helping keep it from jumping to barns and houses and roads. The backburn takes four or five times the effort of the main burn, but it’s critical. On the backburn line, you’re lighting and immediately putting out dozens of small fires, ensuring nothing gets out of control. I’ve led backburn crews; as I was doing it, I related it to women: we’re taught to extinguish fires right away—to never let a fire grow. Same with anger—if anger flashes, tamp it down.
I have daughters—teenagers and younger. I realized I do the same to them. They come home from a rough day and I say, “Let’s simmer down.” I realized my home should be a place they can set that fire and let it burn safely. Usually, women do the backburn, not the main burn. That night, I had the opportunity to start the main fire. When you drop the match, there’s a point where you know you don’t have control anymore. The only thing keeping the fire in line is your backburn. There’s a parallel with faith and anger.
So the backburn is the pre-burn—the boundary—done before the main burn you can’t control?
Absolutely. Backburns are typically a bunch of small fires: burn a little, douse with water, repeat. Sometimes you create a full perimeter—a 10–12-foot strip with no fuel because it’s already been burned.
Very thought-out and planned—precautions to keep everyone safe and to protect what needs protecting.
Exactly.
Once the backburn is complete, the next step is dropping that match on the larger portion.
Yes. In the Midwest, we burn right before the heavy evening dew sets; the dew helps keep the fire where it needs to be. May I read an excerpt?
Please do.
“I stand overlooking 40 acres, now outlined in a string of smoke and fires. I tip the torch, watching the fire-infused oil drop into the grass. This is a moment of legal arson for men, but for women, it’s sacred—to light the world and watch it burn. I breathe in the smoke that now hangs thick in the air from the backburn and sharply exhale all the anger neatly packaged away. And for a moment, there is nothing but silence. I feel the prevailing wind at my back and the heat at my feet, making the flames flicker and climb. Within a minute, the stillness is overtaken by the deafening roar of destruction as the oxygen is consumed, and I watch an uncontrollable wall of fire originating from my actions. What was just a tiny flame a moment ago is scorching an acre a minute. Dusk has fallen; the night sky turns pink; it appears as if the sun is setting in the west and in the east tonight. I follow the wall of fire, walking across the now blackened earth. There’s no horizon where the black earth meets the black sky. The ground is still warm, with smoke emitting from what is still burning beneath. The landscape looks brutal, like a mistake that will never recover. I have scores of burns to reference, but there is always this moment when I think, ‘This is absurd. This can’t be right. What did I destroy?’ But I know the science, and I am reminded that we burn to heal, and we burn for growth. The fields will fall silent over the next few days—the birds will not sing—but within weeks the charred earth will vanish and be replaced with a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.”
Wow. You made a distinction between how men might approach the burn—fun, legal arson—versus women, for whom it’s sacred. There’s so much symbolism. You weren’t just an observer; you were relied on for a major role because of your experience.
The opportunity to drop the match is exhilarating and a responsibility. For me, releasing anger often happens with pencil to paper. I thought about how, as women in the church, we “do the fields burn,” but it’s typically one person out there with the match. In reality, prescribed burns are a team effort. If you’re one person in a field with a match, you’re an arsonist. With a team—communication, safety barriers—it’s no longer dangerous; it’s helpful and healing. In the church, many women know how to burn; we don’t teach other women the art of burning and how to do it correctly. We don’t share our transitions out of fear—sometimes for valid reasons like lost relationships. With teenage girls in my house, I asked: how do I teach them to use their anger properly and to connect with other women so the fire is controlled?
From a distance, prescribed burns look terrifying. You call the fire department beforehand because they’ll get dozens of calls. But neighbors who know what’s happening pull up a lawn chair and watch. I’ve been thinking: how can we put our anger to work instead of letting it simmer in our bodies and quiet spaces? Fire doesn’t have to be disastrous. Prescribed burns—allowing things to burn on schedule—help plants and control weeds. I’m not a forest firefighter, but many large forest fires are worse because for 80-plus years we didn’t allow burns—so there’s too much fuel.
And by fuel, you mean brush and organic material that needs to be consumed.
Exactly. We did this prairie burn in late April. I returned in June—no sign of the burn. The ecosystem was replenished in eight weeks. Growth happened again. Green returned, flowers were out; weeds were still there, but more were being suppressed.
The symbolism is unreal—the controlled fires, the harmony, the intention and care to protect and rebuild with a long-term vision. Women can teach the art of burning to one another, but we often stay quiet. People call the fire department—they see danger and react. Yet nothing is going wrong; it’s a natural process that benefits the ecosystem. Nature is wonderful; change is good. A hard-burnt field isn’t a permanent state.
Yes. My first connections with God were never in a building—they were in the field. Sitting on terraces watching the sunset after planting with my dad, being out in the fields with my mom. For years, the church was my “home,” but I never felt fully connected in the chapel or temple—I did it because I was supposed to. Reclaiming connection with Deity among the trees and in the fields—feeling that presence in nature—has been important. Some connect best indoors; some of us connect next to soil and plants.
I want to read a few lines you wrote: “The landscape looks brutal, like a mistake that will never recover… I know the science and I am reminded that we burn to heal. We burn for growth… within weeks the charred earth will vanish and be replaced with a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.” If we apply that symbolically to our faith and communities—and acknowledge the good in such burning—there’s always that moment where we think, “This is absurd; this can’t be right.”
There’s a moment, after lighting, when you no longer control it. You see a wall of red and think, “What did I destroy?” In faith transitions—deconstruction—there’s “What did I just burn to the ground?” The reality with prairies is that the little fires of the backburn aren’t hot enough to suppress the weeds. You need a fire that rolls hot and fast to do the work. Do the preparation so the burn is done properly and large enough to accomplish the goal. Prairies don’t always burn evenly—fuels vary. Sometimes burns don’t go well not because they get out of hand but because there wasn’t enough fire strength to knock out the invasives. There’s always fear, but knowing what comes next—and the growth that follows—dispels fear and lets us keep burning.
I’m guessing it’s not linear. A land area can need a controlled burn again later.
Yes. Depending on the prairie, new prairies are burned yearly; established prairies every one to five years. Iowa has lost 99.9% of its native landscape due to farming—we’re the most changed landscape in the world. Pre-settlement, the Midwest was millions of acres of grassland; it burned naturally, often. We’re trying to re-establish that natural burn system, which can’t happen now because our ecosystem is so fragmented by settlements and farming.
After the fire—when the fields fall silent and all you see is charred earth—what thoughts help reassure you? What brings hope or peace?
In the field, it’s knowing regeneration comes within months. What emerges from the charred mat is what’s meant to thrive in that habitat. In faith, burning is scary because we don’t know what comes next. I always had one answer and one path. It took time to be comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” I’m willing to be patient and see the beauty that rises from the ashes.
The seeds that survive are the ones meant to thrive—the hardy species. If we can trust nature’s long-running process, why wouldn’t those patterns show up in other parts of life?
Exactly. On this burn, most farm neighbors knew what we were doing. There was a new neighbor from a more urban center—very concerned: “Why would you burn so much habitat?” Part of why we do the backburn is to give animals a heads up the big fire is coming. In my own life, I’m standing in the ashes. The burn is done. I’m in a transitional phase in belief. People see me in those proverbial ashes and think I’ve lost everything and nothing will grow. I have hope that what comes through is what’s meant to be there—and through this process it’ll be stronger.
I love this lens on deconstruction. It has a negative connotation sometimes. At heart, you’re taking something apart and putting it back together, intentionally deciding what goes back in. The process may never be “done.” Even though you’re standing in ashes now, that’s this burn—there may be another later. It’s ongoing.
The first burn is scary—wild and scary. The more experiences you have, the more you know what the second chapter looks like.
Excellent point. Anything else you’d like to leave with listeners?
You used the phrase “I’m curious to know.” I use that a lot—both for soul-searching and in conversations. Faith journeys, transitions, deconstruction—they’re difficult and complex for everyone. It’s hard for spouses, individuals, kids, friends, and especially parents—particularly moms. As one person shifts, everyone around them also shifts. How we shift often resembles how our relationships will be. We’re about four years in. My personal motto is “relationships over ritual.” Our goal—with those struggling with where we are—is to be here and present, to be good daughters and sons and friends, and to respect their journeys as they shift and deal with what may look like empty chairs.
That’s a great motto—relationships over ritual.
It’s served us well.
I always ask guests one final question: What does it mean to you to live beyond the shadow of doubt?
To live in the moment and not allow fear to lead.
I resonate with that. I’m still processing everything we’ve discussed. If you’re okay with it, I’d love to link your sub-stack article in the show notes.
Absolutely. I’m not a prolific writer—my sub-stack is thin—but putting experiences to paper has been beneficial. My hope in making it public is that it helps someone.
I know it will. Thank you for being part of this “controlled burn,” sharing your story, and encouraging others to own and eventually share theirs. Before we wrap, a quick lightning round—one to two word answers if you’re game.
Okay.
Favorite book?
A Sand County Almanac (curl-up-in-a-snowstorm book). Favorite fun book: The Man Who Crawled Out the Window and Disappeared.
Introvert or extrovert?
INTJ—introvert.
Favorite artist?
For running: Black Eyed Peas.
Night owl or morning lark?
I farm. I’m a 4:45 a.m. “let’s get emails started” person.
Celebrity crush?
I don’t have one—I don’t watch much TV.
Still water, carbonated water, or diet soda?
Carbonated water—flavored. I buy the Aldi 12-packs.
Furthest place you’ve traveled?
Croatia—with the kids. Adriatic Sea and the mountains. Drove a nine-passenger van 900 kilometers—thrilling and terrifying.
Amazing—I’d love to visit Croatia. It’s been a pleasure to have this conversation and dive deeper into the concepts you’ve put to paper. I hope it spreads like wildfire—maybe a controlled burn at first. So much wisdom to ponder. Thank you for taking time, for being here, and for owning and sharing your story.
Thank you for the invite and the opportunity to talk and connect. When I started this journey, there weren’t many resources—it felt very alone. I appreciate the way you connect people and help us realize we’re not alone. This is a community and a journey we can do together and carry the load between us.
Yes, absolutely. We are a community. Again, thank you so very much.