{"id":23371,"date":"2026-03-11T14:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/this-youtuber-developed-spiritual-readiness\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:16:11","slug":"this-youtuber-developed-spiritual-readiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/this-youtuber-developed-spiritual-readiness\/","title":{"rendered":"This YouTuber Developed Spiritual Readiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019d told me when I was in my thirties that I would now run a popular YouTube cooking channel<\/a> called Mary\u2019s Nest, with my hus\u00adband helping behind the scenes with filming and editing, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it\u2014not for a minute. For one thing, YouTube didn\u2019t exist then, and for another, I was convinced I\u2019d be a high-powered lawyer with no time for marriage and children. Yet here I am today, a wife and mom, teaching all the things my mother taught me\u2014the gen\u00adtle domestic arts, as she called them\u2014 to more than a million subscribers! Isn\u2019t that just like the Lord, to surprise us in the most amazing ways<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I was raised in the prepper lifestyle long before the term became popu\u00adlar. Mom had lived through the Great De\u00adpression and World War II<\/a>, and she want\u00aded to make sure that I, her only child, was prepared for every eventuality. \u201cHard times can hit with\u00adout warning,\u201d she\u2019d say. She drilled into me that processed foods were bad eco\u00adnomically and nutri\u00adtionally, and that the best buttress against uncertainty was a garden, a well-stocked pantry and a no-waste kitchen. That\u2019s a big reason my YouTube channel is all about how to become a modern pioneer through traditional cooking skills such as culturing dairy, baking with ancient grains, canning and preserving.<\/p>\n

What I didn\u2019t realize is that on this incredible journey, the Lord was also teaching me about spiritual prepared\u00adness, lessons that would serve me well when my little family of three\u2014my husband, Ted; our son, Ben; and I\u2014faced a crisis a few years ago. Let me show you what I mean.<\/p>\n

LESSON 1: <\/strong>Lay the Foundation <\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I met Ted, my life was on a very different track\u2014a fast one. I grew up in the 1960s and \u201970s in suburban Bedford, New York. Much as I loved the home\u00admaking skills my mom taught me, I couldn\u2019t wait to go to college and join the workforce like my dad, a corporate tax executive. My own office! My own copy of The Wall Street Journal, <\/em>with my name on the address label!<\/p>\n

By my late twenties, I was working in finance in Washington, D.C., and going to law school at night. I was de\u00adtermined to do everything that both my parents had done. When I wasn\u2019t at work or school, I was tending my kitchen garden, making bone broth and sewing my own curtains. I pushed myself every second.<\/p>\n

Finally, I finished law school and was preparing for the bar exam. One rainy December night just before Christmas, I worked really late at the office. On my way home, a teenager ran a stop sign and plowed into my car. I\u2019d thought I was so in control of my life, but as my car spun across the wet road and into a tree, all I could do was call out to God<\/a>. It had been an aw\u00adfully long time since I\u2019d talked to him. Though I had been raised Catholic by devout parents, I\u2019d put faith on the back burner in pursuit of my career.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the other driver and I were unhurt. Sitting on the curb in the rain as I waited for the police, I thought, Is this how I want to live? All I do is work and study. I don\u2019t have a social life, a prayer life. Something has to change. <\/em><\/p>\n

I was due to spend Christmas in Tex\u00adas, where my parents had moved for my dad\u2019s job. As soon as the police fin\u00adished the accident report, I hopped on a red-eye flight. Mom and Dad picked me up at the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs everything all right?\u201d Dad asked.<\/p>\n

I told them about the accident. \u201cI\u2019ve had an epiphany,\u201d I said. \u201cI want to live a slower, more intentional life<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I got off the fast track and moved to Austin, Texas, to be closer to my parents. I started my own law prac\u00adtice<\/a>, helping small-business owners. I set my own hours and made time for friends, family and faith. Going to church every week and praying daily made me feel as if I was becoming a better version of myself<\/a>, the person the Lord wanted me to be. I started to understand why my mom kept Psalm 118:24, \u201cThis is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it,\u201d on our kitchen chalkboard.<\/p>\n

Doing the day-to-day work\u2014prayer, devotions, Bible reading<\/a>\u2014gives you a solid spiritual grounding and prepares you for life\u2019s inevitable challenges<\/a>, such as when our son was diagnosed with a brain tumor during college in 2021. I\u2019m convinced that seeking the Lord\u2019s direction in prayer, which was already a years-long habit of mine by then, enabled me to stay calm and be strong<\/a> for Ben when he needed me the most.<\/p>\n

LESSON 2: <\/strong>Don\u2019t Put Your Plan Ahead of God\u2019s Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n

That rainy-night car accident made me rethink a lot of things. Why was I working 24\/7 if I didn\u2019t feel fulfilled? Had I put my plan ahead of God\u2019s plan? I was a total type A<\/a> then, and I had a hard time letting go. But when you release the illusion of control and put your life in God\u2019s hands, you\u2019ll dis\u00adcover his plans are much better than any you might have.<\/p>\n

Take what happened to me when I was close to 40 and had all but given up on having a family. I\u2019d calculated how much time I had to meet the right person, build a relationship, get mar\u00adried and start a family before I would be too old to bear children. \u201cThe math wasn\u2019t mathing,\u201d as I\u2019ve heard Ben and his friends say. No way could there be enough time. Okay, if God called me to be single, I would accept it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I met Ted Shrader. My parents and I and Ted and his mother were flying on the same airplane and really hit it off. Ted was a software de\u00adveloper. We exchanged business cards. I thought he was handsome and so nice, but I didn\u2019t expect anything to come of it because he was in his twen\u00adties, 10 years younger than me.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks later, I arrived at my little country church early for Saturday night Mass. The lights weren\u2019t on yet. I sat in a pew in the dark and prayed, \u201cFather, why do I keep thinking about that guy from the airport? I don\u2019t know what your plan is here, but I\u2019ll go with it. Guide me, and I will follow<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted emailed and invited me to meet at a local bookstore caf\u00e9 to catch up. Was his interest in me friendly or ro\u00admantic? \u201cI think I\u2019m a bit older than you,\u201d I said as I sipped a caf\u00e9 au lait and Ted enjoyed an iced tea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d Ted said. \u201cYou have wrinkles around your eyes.\u201d Then he stopped, realizing how that sounded, and added, \u201cThey\u2019re the most beauti\u00adful wrinkles I\u2019ve ever seen!\u201d<\/p>\n

We had a good laugh over that. In fact, we had such a wonderful time together that, by our third date, we were already discussing marriage. Ted was like no one I\u2019d ever met. Whenever an ambulance or fire truck with sirens on passed us, he would pause to pray<\/a>: \u201cFather, please keep the emergency responders safe, and, Jesus, please put your healing hand on whomever they are going to rescue.\u201d Soon we were praying together, growing closer to God and each other.<\/p>\n

I discovered that the same evening I\u2019d been sitting in that dark church, Ted had been at Mass, where a visiting priest asked people to write down their prayer requests and put them in a bas\u00adket. Ted wrote, \u201cIf it\u2019s your will, Lord, bring me someone to marry<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted proposed on our seventh date. We married a month later, and Ben was born nine months after that. I still laugh at myself for thinking that God could be limited by my math!<\/p>\n

Surrendering control to God<\/a> brings far better blessings than anything we can make happen on our own. It was accepting God\u2019s plan over mine that led me to Mary\u2019s Nest. When Ben came along, I threw myself into moth\u00aderhood<\/a>. Then we found out Ben had severe dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and it became clear that I\u2019d never go back to practicing law. In\u00adstead, I homeschooled Ben. I formed a group with other homeschooling<\/a> moms. I was in my forties, and they were in their twenties. They wanted to know about good nutrition<\/a> for grow\u00ading brains and asked me to teach them the traditional cooking methods I\u2019d learned from my mom. I hosted classes in my kitchen. Word spread, and the next thing I knew, I was teaching in homes all around town. Ted and Ben suggested I post videos of my classes on YouTube. Before he left for col\u00adlege, Ben cheered us on as Ted and I learned how to film, edit, produce and build our audience. If I\u2019d done things according to my own plans, Mary\u2019s Nest and the fulfilling life I have now wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

LESSON 3: <\/strong>Make Time to Be Still and Just Be With God<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back when I was working full-time, going to law school and still making meals from scratch, a friend suggested a shortcut: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you just buy a rotisserie chicken?\u201d I blurted, \u201cThat\u2019s against my religion!\u201d I mean, it almost felt that way.<\/p>\n

What most people don\u2019t understand is that cooking the slow way<\/a> doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it\u2019s the most labor-intensive way. You do 15 minutes of prep, but the oven does all the work roasting the chicken after that. And the result will taste better than any\u00adthing you can buy precooked.<\/p>\n

Much of the work in traditional food preparation is simply done by time. Dough needs time to rise; stock needs time to simmer; vegetables need time to pickle. I think there\u2019s a spiritual les\u00adson in that. It goes along with surren\u00addering control to God<\/a>. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait. But it\u2019s in the waiting, the taking time to listen, that we hear God most clearly.<\/p>\n

Ben\u2019s brain tumor<\/a> was found during the early days of Covid, when lock\u00addowns were in full force. He\u2019d been having trouble hearing in his right ear. An MRI showed an acoustic neu\u00adroma, a noncancerous tumor, pressing against his brain stem. Because of its location, doctors wanted to operate right away. Then Ben tested positive for Covid despite being symptom-free.<\/p>\n

We learned we could either wait 20 days for the virus to clear, or we could go ahead with the surgery under quar\u00adantine restrictions, which would entail bulky gear worn over the surgeons\u2019 hands. Given the delicate nature of the surgery, we wanted the surgeons to be as unencumbered as possible. Of course, we wanted the tumor gone as quickly as practicable, but waiting seemed like the wiser choice.<\/p>\n

I tried to break the news to my moth\u00ader gently that her only grandchild had a brain tumor. She was in her nineties, and I wondered if she\u2019d be too frail to handle the shock. I needn\u2019t have wor\u00adried. \u201cHow gracious of the Lord to give us the next 20 days to pray,\u201d Mom said. \u201cBen is strong, but praise our God<\/a> that he gives us even greater strength to lean on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as my mother had foreseen, the delay in Ben\u2019s surgery turned out to be a blessing. Those 20 days gave us the time to process what was happening and prepare ourselves for what lay ahead. Ben made peace with having major brain surgery. Ted and I meditat\u00aded on the words of Jesus<\/a>, who taught us that tomorrow will worry about it\u00adself, and that if God takes care of the sparrow, he will surely take care of us. We prayed fervently and turned over all our worries to the Lord<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The surgery left Ben with no hearing on his right side. None of the inner-ear parts could be saved because the tu\u00admor had wrapped itself around them. I waited by his bedside in the surgical ICU for him to wake from the sedation. When he opened his eyes and saw me, he broke into a sleepy version of his joy-giving smile. \u201cHi, Mom,\u201d he said. It was the sweetest \u201cHi, Mom\u201d I\u2019ve ever heard.<\/p>\n

I think of it this way: For dough to rise, it needs to rest in a warm place, away from drafts. It\u2019s similar to how our souls need to bask in the light of the Lord, away from earthly distrac\u00adtions. If we can learn to prepare spiri\u00adtually for what life brings, to just be still and trust in God\u2019s presence,<\/a> he will work things out for our good and in a way far better than we could have planned for ourselves.<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019d told me when I was in my thirties that I would now run a popular YouTube cooking channel called Mary\u2019s Nest, with my hus\u00adband helping behind the scenes with filming and editing, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it\u2014not for a minute. For one thing, YouTube didn\u2019t exist then, and for another, I was convinced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":30327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,192,225,136],"tags":[15,25,70],"ppma_author":[534],"class_list":["post-23371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finding-life-purpose","category-health-and-wellness","category-life-advice","category-positive-living","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-mother"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis YouTuber Developed Spiritual Readiness - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This YouTuber Developed Spiritual Readiness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019d told me when I was in my thirties that I would now run a popular YouTube cooking channel called Mary\u2019s Nest, with my hus\u00adband helping behind the scenes with filming and editing, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it\u2014not for a minute. 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