Ashley Collier has been part of Good Shepherd for eleven years, and part of a small group for five of them. She grew up Catholic, going through the motions of a faith life for years without ever letting herself truly connect.
“I think I thought I was keeping myself safe by blocking it out,” she says.
Last fall, a new pastor invited her to lunch just to get to know her and hear part of her story. She told him about her life: a wife, a mom to two stepsons, a preschool director who loved to travel.
Later that same day, everything changed. She found herself single for the first time in ten years, and her relationship with the two stepsons she loved shifted in ways she couldn’t control.
In that hard season, something in and around her started to shift too. God helped her see the people who had been there all along: the women in her small group, friends from church who’d been supporting and loving her for years, whether or not she’d ever let them all the way in.
“It turns out God was there the whole time,” she says. “I just needed to accept that and be willing to share my heart with him, and with all the people he’d surrounded me with along the way.”
For five years, Ashley showed up to small group nearly every week and said almost nothing. She’d listen to the other women share their celebrations and struggles, listen to them talk through the week’s sermon, and sit quietly in her corner.
Then one day, something shifted. She spoke up for the first time.
“Everybody was surprised,” she says. “You could see it on their faces. The excitement they had to finally hear me share something of personal value.”
Looking back, Ashley realized those women had been journeying with her the entire time, whether she was sharing or not.
“I know they were still caring for me and loving me along the way,” she says. “I’m really thankful I finally figured out a way to accept that.”
Five years, and then one day, everything changed.
“I can see now that they reflected God’s love for me,” Ashley says, “a love that was there even when I wasn’t ready to accept or receive it.”
People tell her now how different she seems. How much happier. She hopes that’s her sharing the same love with the people around her, the way Good Shepherd and her small group did for her.
This fall, Ashley is leading her own women’s small group, Wednesday mornings at 7 a.m., and inviting others to grow alongside her on the same faith journey that once felt impossible to speak out loud.
