About Stilling Waves Press

Stilling Waves Press is an independent contemplative-Christian devotional publisher. The 140-Day journals and the long-form articles on this site are written under the Hayley Louisa Mark name, working from the long arc of the older Christian writers — Andrew Murray, François Fénelon, Augustine, Spurgeon, the desert mothers and fathers, the quieter Puritans.

The voice behind the journals

Hayley Louisa Mark

Hayley Louisa Mark is the contemplative-Christian voice of Stilling Waves Press. The journals exist because devotional books had grown performative — and these set out to do the opposite: to sit with one passage slowly, the way the older writers did, instead of rushing through a survey of the Bible in a year.

The 140-Day journals are built for specific seasons of Christian life — the dry stretch, the tired stretch, the slow return after something has gone quiet. Each is paced for ten minutes a morning, structured so the page does the work when the morning is hard.

The full catalogue lives on this site, and the articles are written in the same contemplative voice as the journals.

The editorial conviction

The contemplative tradition has been quietly waiting for the modern Christian reader to come back to it. Murray’s Abide in Christ. Fénelon’s letters. Augustine’s slow self-examination. Spurgeon’s Faith’s Checkbook. These books are not a survey of theology — they are a way of sitting with one passage long enough to be changed by it. That is the Stilling Waves practice.

What we publish

140-Day journals — one passage per day, one short prompt, paced for the woman whose life is already too full.
Long-form articles — over 415 essays in the contemplative voice, drawn from the older writers.
Free printables — prayer journals, scripture worksheets, war room prayer cards, all free in the library.

A note from the publisher

Stilling Waves Press began with a simple conviction: that most devotionals speak to a Christian life in general, and almost none speak to the particular season a person is actually in. The woman walking out of a hard year does not need the same words as the new believer, or the caregiver, or the teenager learning to sit still. So we set out to make journals for the season, not the slogan.

Each one is built as a 140-day practice — slow, scripture-anchored, unhurried. The voice draws from the older devotional tradition: Andrew Murray, François Fénelon, Thomas à Kempis, and the contemplative writers who understood that depth comes not from being told to cheer up, but from being met where you are. We are less interested in pep than in presence.

We publish independently, and each journal is shaped with care around the one season it’s meant for. If it finds you in the right one, that is the whole reason it exists.

— Stilling Waves Press

Contact

For general questions: hello@stillingwaves.com. For bulk orders for women’s groups or churches, see the groups page.