Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Vogel.
Hi Amy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
15 years ago, I was working as a high-tech outside sales rep for a well-known enterprise software management company. I was struggling because my older girls, who at the time were very young, would see me in the morning and again in the evening. I felt like I was missing all their important hours, and they only got me when I was rushing to work or tired from work. I felt there had to be something more than this. I felt divided in my desire to work and to be with my family.
This feeling of the need for balance and to live in purpose only intensified when I started going back to Church. I began to feel like I could serve people, starting with my family, more and better if I had a more flexible schedule. When I brought this up with my husband, he was confused but was open to discussion about it.
It took us almost two years to see a way forward, and the door that opened for me to leave work and stay home with our girls led us into a very uncertain future, moving from the United States to the country of Trinidad and Tobago.
It was a whiplash experience. We moved to Port of Spain, and we had to learn to be expats along with a completely different family dynamic happening. We ended up only living in Trinidad for a year, but it was intense. A new way of living to learn, a new culture, new geography, having to make new friends, figure out schools… almost everything felt like two steps forward and one step back.
The only place I felt at home was in a Bible Study I joined. It was multi-cultural, and I was one of the only expats in the group, as well as the mother with the youngest kids. I soaked up so much about how life really was meant to be lived through being the presence of those wise Trini women. They opened their homes, their kitchens, and their hearts to me. They showed me who I was – or who I really wanted to be – as a wife, mother, and person – even when they had to get me straight in the head to do it.
There is no greater love than an “Auntie” figure when you are trying to find yourself!
About three months before we moved back to Houston, I was tasked with leading the Bible Study lesson. It was the first time I’d written anything that wasn’t for school or work. I’d always enjoyed writing, but since my degree from Texas A&M is in Science, creative writing wasn’t something I learned to do or even really had the opportunity to try out until then.
When I was creating that lesson on the Proverbs 31 Woman, something clicked, and I felt like I’d come home. In a season of life where so much was confusing and overwhelming, writing gave me the opportunity to express myself in a deep and sustainable way. I’d been blogging for our family and friends about our life overseas, but this participation with a spirit of creativity was fulfilling in a way I never could have imagined.
We moved back to Houston, and I kept writing. When it seemed liked the opportunity for me to go back to a sales job, I asked my husband if I could try to make a living as a writer instead. That was in February of 2010, and by the summer, I’d gotten some small gigs and managed to crank out a manuscript for a Young Adult Fiction book. However, in the Fall of that year, something was wrong with our youngest daughter. Over the course of a week, her left eyes went from looking normal to appearing to being pushed out of socket.
She was initially diagnosed by a stand-alone ER doctor with pink eye. I was adamant he was wrong but was dismissed. Later that day, when she, then four, told me she could see two of me, we rushed to Texas Children’s Emergency Room in the Medical Center, where they found a mass in the muscles of her left eye. Four days later, it was confirmed she had cancer. That began eleven months of staging, treating, and recovering from treatment.
I wrote when and what I could during her treatment and after. Once she was in the clear (and she has no issues or evidence of disease 12 years later!) and went back to school, I began working on several other projects. None of those works ended up going anywhere, but they were essential to me developing my voice and whatever process I have as a writer. I was doing some speaking locally at women’s groups here in Houston as well.
In 2012, we got the opportunity to move overseas again, this time to the East Coast of Italy. Not long before my husband left before we joined him, I discovered I was pregnant with our third girl! It was an exciting time for us, but I wasn’t doing a lot of writing. There wasn’t time! I ended up homeschooling our daughters while we lived in Italy, and our youngest joined our family in February of 2013. We were back here in Houston for a brief stint before heading back to Italy till August. We came back and joined the church we had been visiting, a multi-ethnic, intergenerational community sponsored by a larger local United Methodist church.
Fast forward to August of 2014, when I got very involved in the church that became our home for a total of a decade. Our kids were raised in that church, and it was through my involvement I started writing again. Through connections made being part of that ministry, I was offered the opportunity to publish my first book, Third Person: 30 Days with the Holy Spirit.
Everyone continued to be in good health growing up, and I went from being a volunteer to being on staff in an associate pastoral role. My first day on staff was the day Harvey hit Houston. Several years in, I began the process to become ordained. It turns out I didn’t have the stomach for being a part of that system, so I bowed out in 2019. I continued to write, but it was getting harder and harder to find the space with my part-time paid gig I was working as a full-time employee.
2020 changed everything for everyone.
It turned the world upside down, and for those of us in houses of worship, that was no different. We had to figure out how to bring community into people’s homes when we couldn’t be together. We drove all over Houston bringing baskets to kids, dropping off communion on doorsteps, and basically scrambling. My writing skills went on overdrive, as did the learning curve for how to do anything and everything online. I wrote a Bible Study for women.
Then, it radically shifted again when George Floyd was murdered. With our lead pastor being a black man and those who came to our church across the racial spectrum, we responded and we processed. We offered (online) opportunities for people to pray, to grieve, and to learn. I was tasked with leading our white folks in growing spiritually, intellectually, and culturally. We also began work on an online new member course that took what I’d been leading in person online.
We continued to stay digital through August of 2021, and the people didn’t come back as anyone expected. We’d had so much momentum in early 2020, and we’d pushed ourselves so hard, never saying no to trying anything up until this point. As I look back now, though, my mental health was heading down into a very dark place. I was writing through it and did finish another devotional manuscript called Dislocated, but I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day. It was the start of the journey of untangling my faith from the toxic religious history of the American Christian church. That process is still happening today and influences everything I write. There are still too many knots to unwind.
In early 2022, the signs of wear and tear were everywhere. It wasn’t just me or the staff at our church. It was happening to everyone. People were leaving their ministry roles left and right. Church closings outstrip openings 3 to 1. But I was slogging it out, preaching more and writing less. It was also the year my oldest graduated high school and went to college. And we also experienced some family instability we had to recover from in the summertime.
By August, after discussions with my therapist that had lasted for months about whether I should go on anti-depressants, I decided that what really needed to happen was a radical change to my life. The day I decided to quit my part-time pay/full-time hours job with a church I’d loved for a decade was the day we got word our parent church was closing our doors. They had reached the end of their desire to invest in a community they didn’t feel could recover.
It was devastating to all involved. For those of us close to the middle, it was like a bomb had gone off. It blew up decades-long friendships and left me and one of our key volunteers trying to hold everyone’s heart together while we bled out on the table. It was an ugly, messy time and the irony of it was that the small group of us who were trying to lead well were the ones who got the least amount of attention and concern from our parent church.
They were done, and so we were done.
I officially resigned as a paid employee 1 week after the decision to close our church. I, however, had reached the end of my rope many months prior, and I had to save myself or hang. There were many who didn’t understand that decision, and I’m ok with that. I retreated after the second to last worship service. I checked in on people via text, made sure day-to-day life for my family remained unaffected, but other than that, I worked out then sat myself down in a chair and read for 7-9 hours a day.
In this time of recovering from spiritual, mental, and physical burnout, reading became my light in the darkness. I’d spent many years reading theology-oriented books to further my understanding, grow spiritually, or research something I was writing on. It had been years, though, since I’d really read anything just for me. I went back to my first love – fantasy fiction. I read 77 books in 5 months.
It was only after that process was well underway did I even have a glimmer of creativity again. Other than the sermons I was preaching, I hadn’t written or edited anything I’d written since 2020. Over two full years had passed since I’d begun a new project. When I finally did try to write again, I felt like a newborn colt trying to learn how to run, but it came back to me quickly.
When I wasn’t tending to the needs of my family or my body, I was either reading or writing. I toyed with the idea for a few months of going to work for a non-profit, but none of my efforts in that area panned out, including any interest from my former employer. I began a fiction project and then started to write about what healing from all this hurt could mean. In January of 2023, I decided to start my own business. It was then AWVogel Publishing, and Amy W. Vogel – author & speaker, was born.
I did submit a book proposal to my previous publisher. They passed, and it was confirmation I should be on my own. So, I pressed into the world of self-publishing. The learning curve has been steep, but thanks to several mentors and plenty of free resources along the way, the two projects I started to heal myself became a non-fiction book called Come to Me: A Devotional to for Healing from Hurt that was released on April 25, 2023, on Amazon, in print, eBook and journal format. Teleosis: A Novel of Trauma and Transformation, a modern-day religious fantasy, will be released in early 2024.
I was also invited to speak to a local chapter of the National Charity League in December, and that reminded me how much I also enjoyed speaking to groups to bring a vision of hope and encouragement. I have several more booked for the Fall and even one in 2024! I am speaking on overcoming burnout, healing, faith, and parenting for the long haul.
The journey to what’s next has never been linear for me. I’ve always felt like I’ve stumbled into what I was meant to do. That is certainly true of writing and speaking, and I’m completely humbled by the opportunities to pursue this facet of my career and life. It has been a very difficult and challenging road, but love has always been available in abundance.
That was true in Trinidad, in pediatric cancer treatment, in raising our girls, in Italy, in the experience of life in ministry, and most assuredly in this new thing. I don’t look like what I’ve been through, and it is by the grace of God that all things are possible if you participate with the love that wants to heal you and make you whole.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Absolutely not! It hasn’t always been rough, but when it was, it really was rough!
I am leery of anyone who says they’ve had a smooth road. That is not what I find the human experience to be. Those challenges, setbacks, and seasons of when you are down and out are only places to start. They hone our skills, reveal our gifts, and are opportunities to create. It is actually the darkness in which we find our canvas to paint the story of our lives. Or, in my case, write the story of my life.
The journey to what’s next has never been linear for me. I’ve always felt like I have been tripping over the things I am meant to do in this life. That is certainly true of writing and speaking. It still, and I hope will always, humble me to have the opportunities to share hope, vision, and the potential for all humans to thrive, whether through my own story or telling the stories of others.
In pursuing healing and wholeness, I am so much more aware of what challenges offer. That doesn’t mean to say I like them or enjoy the feelings that come with them. Yet, I am growing in my awareness that love has been, is, and always will be available in abundance. When I live from a place of love, the challenges take on a different shine and texture. I am learning not to have a pity party about it but breathe so my eyes can be opened to what would otherwise be hidden if I stayed all about me.
The journey to what’s next has never been linear for me. I’ve always felt like I’ve stumbled into what I was meant to do. That is certainly true of writing and speaking, and I’m humbled by the opportunities to pursue this facet of my career and life. It has been a very difficult and challenging road, but love has always been abundant. That was true in Trinidad, going through pediatric cancer treatment, raising our girls through adolescence into adulthood, experience of life in ministry, and most assuredly, in this new season of my life, pursuing this new endeavor of full-time writing and speaking. I don’t look like what I’ve been through! It is certainly by the grace of God through the Spirit that all things are possible. It takes openness and willingness to participate with the love that wants to heal you (and me) and make us whole.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I am most known, at this point, for Christian devotionals that invite the reader into a level of depth and a new relationship with the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer. My work promotes hope, healing, and vision through a spectrum of spiritual practices – both ancient and dreamed up in my own meditation time. I am also known as someone who fights for racial justice and heavily values my friendships with those who may not look like me or have my same background. Most of the time, though, there is always a connection point if you scrape the surface, and I love to build on that.
I’m also super funny.
I am most proud to follow through on a dream I never knew I had. Writing and speaking for myself and seeing the results of my effort are very humbling and uplifting at the same time. I am always proud when something I’ve written or said connects with someone else. It’s why I do this and why it is such a privilege to be even a small part of another person’s journey as a human.
I believe what sets me apart is that I am authentic. I really am “what you see is what you get,” but there are layers you get to see if you stick around awhile. I love to have fun and joke around, but I’m also cognizant of the bigger picture. I think I have one foot on the earth and one foot in the Spirit and can switch between the two pretty effortlessly because it is just who I am.
I continue to learn who I am, and the overarching theme of my life is joy. That’s becoming more and more true every day!
What matters most to you?
That people know they are inherently good. That God loves them and wants what is best for them. The darkness in their life is only a place to start, the origin point for creativity. It’s where God meets us, and in that place is abundance.
Truth also matters to me. It is not just honesty but a rigorous search for the truth – about us, where we came from, and how it can be different in the future. So much of our society and culture is based on the insidious fear that things aren’t good enough – that we aren’t good enough at our core. I can’t stand that thought because I know just how untrue it is, although I’ve had to unlearn it in my own life.
Science, movement, openness, respect for others, and growing in your understanding of our world is also hugely important to me. And have some damn fun while you do it too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amywvogel.my.canva.site/
- Instagram: @awvogel
- Facebook: @AmyWVogel
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amywvogel
- Twitter: @AmyWVogel
- Youtube: http://youtube.com/@amyWVOGEL
- Other: https://linktr.ee/awvogel
