Dose of Hope: Katie M. Kelley

(creativity, prayer, and Grace Will Be There)

Welcome to Dose of Hope! This is a series about looking for the light, stewarding our stories, and foraging God’s goodness when it’d be easier not to. It’s a collaborative Protest, really, against letting darkness settle into our bones and instead choosing to uncover the grace that’s already waiting for us. I believe these bite-sized Q&As will inspire you to lean into the promises, the beauty, and the little joys right in front of you. Check out Notes of Hope, too, for the glimpses of hope that keep me going.

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I’ve worked with Katie at Coffee + Crumbs for the last five years. I’ve been reading her words for much longer than that. In recent years, she’s endured heartache that no one should have to. But still, Katie looks up. Still, through writing, prayer, and God’s grace, she’s found hope.

What role does writing or creativity play in you finding or experiencing hope?

The writing process is a little bit like a quiet hunt for meaning. I usually have an idea when I start, but I almost never end up where I thought I would. It’s like I see the end of a thread in the thick of the tangle, and I go over and just start pulling on it, following the next thought or the next sentence, to the next scene and to the next epiphany. The stories are always there, but it’s my job to find them and then connect them to something meaningful and true.

But gosh, this process is my best therapy, and always has been. Because it forces me to look beyond the temporary. It’s like, as I pull and pull and pull on this thread, my eyes are lifting a little more toward the horizon with each tug. And that’s where the hope is, right? In eternity. Not on my momentary pain points or struggles. Those are real, absolutely! But looking up to the bigger story even when mine (all of ours, really) gets tangled up in pain and suffering and circumstances we would not have asked for, it helps me remember the aim of my life. And for me, that’s getting to Jesus’s arms.

What is a prayer that God recently answered? Big or little, remind us how he’s working behind the scenes.

I’d actually like to tell you about something I was afraid to pray for and God still answered: my husband, Benjamin. Almost three years ago I went through a really painful divorce due to addiction and infidelity. I was single parenting six children—one with severe autism—had just lost 75% of our family’s total income, and honestly, I thought the black hole of grief and sadness and anger that I felt would swallow me whole.

If you had asked me even a year ago if I would ever want to be married again, my answer would have been “absolutely not.” Trauma had really robbed me of my ability to trust, and the idea of feeling vulnerable again was not even something I could consider. I had made up my mind to be as strong and healthy and capable as I could be alone. I was going to heal alone.

But God knows us better than we know ourselves. And about nine months ago, Benjamin and I crossed paths in an only-God way. Today, he is my husband and the sweetest, closest picture of Jesus in my life. But here’s the thing: I was way too scared to pray for him! So I protected myself, and I didn’t. Prayer has been a complicated thing in recent years for me, because so many of the things I’ve begged God for did not get answered the way I truly hoped. So I can only conclude that in the deepest parts of my heart, the places I kept hidden from everyone—even from myself—God still heard how desperately I wanted to be loved, and to be safe, again.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit really does intercede for us.

And as I wait with desperate anticipation for some other prayers in my life to be answered, I just look at my husband. Because God bringing Benjamin into my life is an Ebenezer stone—a reminder that He is always, always listening, and always working.

What are you feeling hopeful about right now?

I’m feeling hopeful about my growing blended family (8 kids, y’all!) because even though it is total chaos, sometimes I just look at all of them making a mess of everything in the backyard and being so loud the neighbors are wondering what is going on, and I think, Wow, you always knew this was going to be the story, Lord. All of these kids. You always knew! More than I could ask or imagine.

And I’m feeling hopeful about my book, Grace Will Be There, which comes out in August! It’s a collection of essays, which is my preferred way to write anything: in a story. All of them are really just me pulling that thread through the tangle, finding my way to Jesus in all of life’s moments, big and little. It’s a miracle this book got written through the chaos of the last three years, but isn’t that just like our God, to do a miracle?

Katie M. Kelley (formerly Katie Blackburn) is a mama to eight in a beautifully blended family, a writer, teacher, and a lifelong learner. If she's not making a snack for someone or finding a moment to put words on paper, she's probably on the Peloton bike. She is the author of Gluing the Cracks, The Very Best Baseball Game, and her first book of essays, Grace Will Be There, comes out August 4, 2026.

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