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  <title>Slow Christian Devotional: Murray, Fénelon, Spurgeon</title>
  <link>https://stillingwaves.com/</link>
  <language>en-us</language>
  <copyright>© Hayley Louisa Mark, Stilling Waves Press</copyright>
  <itunes:type>episodic</itunes:type>
  <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
  <itunes:summary>Contemplative Christian devotional readings — drawn from the older tradition: Andrew Murray, François Fénelon, Augustine, Spurgeon. From Stilling Waves Press.</itunes:summary>
  <description>Contemplative Christian devotional readings — drawn from the older tradition: Andrew Murray, François Fénelon, Augustine, Spurgeon. From Stilling Waves Press.</description>
  <itunes:owner>
    <itunes:name>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:name>
    <itunes:email>hello@stillingwaves.com</itunes:email>
  </itunes:owner>
  <itunes:image href="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/podcast-cover-3000.jpg"/>
  <itunes:category text="Religion &amp; Spirituality">
    <itunes:subcategory text="Christianity"/>
  </itunes:category>
  <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:01:29 +0000</pubDate>
  <lastBuildDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:01:29 +0000</lastBuildDate>
  
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Printable Devotions for Women&#8217;s Groups: Resources for the Leader Who Doesn&#8217;t Have Time to Write Them]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You lead the women&#8217;s group. You may also be working full-time, raising children, supporting a husband through a difficult season, or all three. The Tuesday-night meeting is in three days and you have not yet written the devotion. You are searching for printable devotions for women&#8216;s groups because you do not have the energy to invent one from scratch.
This is for you. Not for the leade...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/printable-devotions-for-womens-groups-resources-for-the-leader-who-doesnt-have-time-to-write-them/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1224</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:45:01 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-printable-devotions-for-womens-groups-resources-fo-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3781533"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:10:30</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You lead the women&#8217;s group. You may also be working full-time, raising children, supporting a husband through a difficult season, or all three. The Tuesday-night meeting is in three days and you have not yet written the devotion. You are searching for printable devotions for women&#8216;s groups because you do not have the energy to invent one from scratch.
This is for you. Not for the leade...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Prayer Journal Notebook: What Actually Makes One Work]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have probably bought a prayer journal notebook before. You have probably also stopped using it. This is the most common pattern among Christian women who try to journal — buy the lovely notebook, use it for ten days, leave it on the bedside table for a month, finally put it in the drawer with the others.
This is not a discipline problem. It is almost always a structure problem. The blank noteb...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/prayer-journal-notebook-what-actually-makes-one-work/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1223</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:59 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-prayer-journal-notebook-what-actually-makes-one-wo-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3516573"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:09:46</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have probably bought a prayer journal notebook before. You have probably also stopped using it. This is the most common pattern among Christian women who try to journal — buy the lovely notebook, use it for ten days, leave it on the bedside table for a month, finally put it in the drawer with the others.
This is not a discipline problem. It is almost always a structure problem. The blank noteb...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[A Gratitude Journal for Anxiety: The Slow Practice That Actually Helps]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have heard you should keep a gratitude journal. You have probably tried it. You may have written I am grateful for my family, my home, my health one night, felt mildly fraudulent for not feeling more grateful, and not opened the journal again. This is normal. The standard gratitude-journal advice does not work for an anxious mind. The slow, specific Christian practice does — but it requires a...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/a-gratitude-journal-for-anxiety-the-slow-practice-that-actually-helps/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1222</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:57 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-a-gratitude-journal-for-anxiety-the-slow-practice-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3880749"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:10:46</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have heard you should keep a gratitude journal. You have probably tried it. You may have written I am grateful for my family, my home, my health one night, felt mildly fraudulent for not feeling more grateful, and not opened the journal again. This is normal. The standard gratitude-journal advice does not work for an anxious mind. The slow, specific Christian practice does — but it requires a...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[The 5-Minute Journal for Christian Women: A Structured Template]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You do not have time. You have read enough about journaling to know that &#8220;ten minutes in the morning&#8221; sounds simple to the person writing the advice and impossible to the woman with three children, a job, and a husband who needs to leave by 7:30. This is not a piece of advice about finding ten minutes you do not have. It is a structured template for the five minutes you probably have —...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/the-5-minute-journal-for-christian-women-a-structured-template/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1221</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:55 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-the-5-minute-journal-for-christian-women-a-structu-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3557613"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:09:52</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You do not have time. You have read enough about journaling to know that &#8220;ten minutes in the morning&#8221; sounds simple to the person writing the advice and impossible to the woman with three children, a job, and a husband who needs to leave by 7:30. This is not a piece of advice about finding ten minutes you do not have. It is a structured template for the five minutes you probably have —...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Online Devotions for Women — vs The Slow Paper Practice]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have probably tried both. Maybe you started with a paper Bible and a notebook and moved to an app because the app was always with you. Maybe you started with an app and moved to paper because the app started feeling like another inbox. This is not a guide to which one is right. It is a guide to when each one helps — and when the older paper practice is doing something a screen cannot do.
The f...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/online-devotions-for-women-vs-the-slow-paper-practice/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1220</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:54 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-online-devotions-for-women-vs-the-slow-paper-pract-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3671229"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:10:11</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have probably tried both. Maybe you started with a paper Bible and a notebook and moved to an app because the app was always with you. Maybe you started with an app and moved to paper because the app started feeling like another inbox. This is not a guide to which one is right. It is a guide to when each one helps — and when the older paper practice is doing something a screen cannot do.
The f...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[A Bible Verse for the Day: How to Actually Sit With One]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You are looking for a Bible verse for today. You have searched it before. You have probably found the same fifteen or twenty verses that get cycled across every Christian Instagram post, every devotional graphic, every morning roundup — and you have nodded at them, sometimes felt them, and most often closed the app or the page and moved into the day without the verse staying with you.
This is not...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/a-bible-verse-for-the-day-how-to-actually-sit-with-one/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1219</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:52 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-a-bible-verse-for-the-day-how-to-actually-sit-with-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3526941"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:09:47</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You are looking for a Bible verse for today. You have searched it before. You have probably found the same fifteen or twenty verses that get cycled across every Christian Instagram post, every devotional graphic, every morning roundup — and you have nodded at them, sometimes felt them, and most often closed the app or the page and moved into the day without the verse staying with you.
This is not...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[What Proverbs 31 Actually Says: A Slow Read for the Tired Woman]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have heard of the Proverbs 31 woman. You have probably heard of her too many times, and rarely from someone who has slowed down enough to read the chapter the way it was written. If you are tired of being told to &#8220;be a Proverbs 31 woman&#8221; by people who appear to mean: rise earlier, accomplish more, sustain everyone, do not visibly need rest — you are not the one who has been misread...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/what-proverbs-31-actually-says-a-slow-read-for-the-tired-woman/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1218</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:50 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-what-proverbs-31-actually-says-a-slow-read-for-the-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="4064061"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:11:17</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have heard of the Proverbs 31 woman. You have probably heard of her too many times, and rarely from someone who has slowed down enough to read the chapter the way it was written. If you are tired of being told to &#8220;be a Proverbs 31 woman&#8221; by people who appear to mean: rise earlier, accomplish more, sustain everyone, do not visibly need rest — you are not the one who has been misread...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Spurgeon&#8217;s Faith&#8217;s Checkbook: A Victorian Devotional That Still Holds the Page]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Most &#8220;promises of God&#8221; devotionals feel like claim-tickets. Open the page, find a verse, claim the promise, expect the outcome. That is not what Charles Spurgeon was doing when he wrote Faith&#8217;s Checkbook in 1893.
He was dying. He had buried friends. He had watched his own depression — what he called the &#8220;fits&#8221; — come for him for years. And in the last year of his life...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/spurgeons-faiths-checkbook-victorian-devotional-still-holds-the-page/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1217</guid>
    <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 20:44:48 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-spurgeons-faiths-checkbook-victorian-devotional-st-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="3459693"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:09:36</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Most &#8220;promises of God&#8221; devotionals feel like claim-tickets. Open the page, find a verse, claim the promise, expect the outcome. That is not what Charles Spurgeon was doing when he wrote Faith&#8217;s Checkbook in 1893.
He was dying. He had buried friends. He had watched his own depression — what he called the &#8220;fits&#8221; — come for him for years. And in the last year of his life...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Final Counsel for the Soul Walking the Slow Path]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have been walking with God a long time and you do not know how to keep going. You are not in crisis. You are not tempted to walk away. You are simply, quietly, tired in the way the long-walking soul becomes tired — and the early metaphors for the Christian life, all of them written for the first decade of the walk, have stopped speaking to the stretch you are in. You need a different kind of c...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-final-counsel-for-the-soul-walking-the-slow-path/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1187</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:58 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-final-counsel-for-the-soul-walking-the-slo-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="6319677"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:17:33</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have been walking with God a long time and you do not know how to keep going. You are not in crisis. You are not tempted to walk away. You are simply, quietly, tired in the way the long-walking soul becomes tired — and the early metaphors for the Christian life, all of them written for the first decade of the walk, have stopped speaking to the stretch you are in. You need a different kind of c...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Letter for the Soul That Cannot Forgive Herself]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have asked God for forgiveness and you cannot forgive yourself. The asking happened years ago, or months ago, or last night, and the answer was given — quietly, completely, the way He always gives it — and yet inside you the thing has not been released. You are still carrying it. You are still rehearsing it. You are still, in the small hours, prosecuting yourself for it as if His mercy had not...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-letter-for-the-soul-that-cannot-forgive-herself/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1186</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:53 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-letter-for-the-soul-that-cannot-forgive-he-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="6228813"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:17:18</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have asked God for forgiveness and you cannot forgive yourself. The asking happened years ago, or months ago, or last night, and the answer was given — quietly, completely, the way He always gives it — and yet inside you the thing has not been released. You are still carrying it. You are still rehearsing it. You are still, in the small hours, prosecuting yourself for it as if His mercy had not...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Letter to the Christian Tempted to Quit]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You have considered walking away from your faith and you are afraid to admit it. The thought arrives most often at night — quietly, without drama, as a small heretical what if I just stopped — and you have not said it aloud to anyone, because saying it aloud feels like the first irreversible step toward actually doing it. You have not become a different person. You have become a tired one. And the...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-letter-to-the-christian-tempted-to-quit/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1185</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:51 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-letter-to-the-christian-tempted-to-quit-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="6023181"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:16:43</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You have considered walking away from your faith and you are afraid to admit it. The thought arrives most often at night — quietly, without drama, as a small heretical what if I just stopped — and you have not said it aloud to anyone, because saying it aloud feels like the first irreversible step toward actually doing it. You have not become a different person. You have become a tired one. And the...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Counsel for the Christian Who Feels Far From God]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[God feels distant and you do not know how to close the gap. You are still going through the motions — the morning Bible, the bedtime prayer, the Sunday service — but the felt nearness has thinned, and somewhere inside the practice you have begun to wonder whether He has moved or whether something in you has stopped registering Him.
François Fénelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-counsel-for-the-christian-who-feels-far-from-god/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1184</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:47 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-counsel-for-the-christian-who-feels-far-fr-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="5855997"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:16:15</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[God feels distant and you do not know how to close the gap. You are still going through the motions — the morning Bible, the bedtime prayer, the Sunday service — but the felt nearness has thinned, and somewhere inside the practice you have begun to wonder whether He has moved or whether something in you has stopped registering Him.
François Fénelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Letter to the Woman Who Has Lost Her Way]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[You do not know what to do next in your faith and the old practices have stopped helping. The reading plan that fed you for a decade has gone flat in your hands. The prayers that used to settle the morning now run off the day like water on glass. You are not in crisis, exactly — you are disoriented, and you are afraid to name it.
François Fénelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose pa...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-letter-to-the-woman-who-has-lost-her-way/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1183</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:41 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-letter-to-the-woman-who-has-lost-her-way-chimed-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="5433645"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:15:05</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[You do not know what to do next in your faith and the old practices have stopped helping. The reading plan that fed you for a decade has gone flat in your hands. The prayers that used to settle the morning now run off the day like water on glass. You are not in crisis, exactly — you are disoriented, and you are afraid to name it.
François Fénelon, the seventeenth-century French archbishop whose pa...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Letter for the Perfectionist Christian]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Dear one,
Your perfectionism is killing your relationship with God, and you cannot stop it. You have tried. You have read the books on grace. You have underlined the verses on mercy. You have been told, with kindness, that God loves you as you are, and the kindness has not made the inner voice quieter. The inner voice still measures every prayer, every quiet time, every act of obedience, against a...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-letter-for-the-perfectionist-christian/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1182</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:38 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-letter-for-the-perfectionist-christian-chimed-2.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="6153501"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:17:05</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Dear one,
Your perfectionism is killing your relationship with God, and you cannot stop it. You have tried. You have read the books on grace. You have underlined the verses on mercy. You have been told, with kindness, that God loves you as you are, and the kindness has not made the inner voice quieter. The inner voice still measures every prayer, every quiet time, every act of obedience, against a...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Fénelon&#8217;s Counsel for the Christian Who Cannot Be Still]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Dear one,
Stillness terrifies you, because of what comes up when you stop moving. The motion has been the strategy for years — the small busynesses, the planned days, the noise that keeps the deeper things from rising. You have read enough Christian writing to know that be still and know that I am God is the verse you are supposed to want. You do want it. You also dread it. The chair, the silence,...]]></description>
    <link>https://stillingwaves.com/fnelons-counsel-for-the-christian-who-cannot-be-still/</link>
    <guid isPermaLink="false">everspring-podcast-1181</guid>
    <pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 13:43:35 +0000</pubDate>
    <enclosure url="https://stillingwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/audio-fnelons-counsel-for-the-christian-who-cannot-be-st-chimed-2.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" length="5730861"/>
    <itunes:duration>00:15:55</itunes:duration>
    <itunes:author>Hayley Louisa Mark</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary><![CDATA[Dear one,
Stillness terrifies you, because of what comes up when you stop moving. The motion has been the strategy for years — the small busynesses, the planned days, the noise that keeps the deeper things from rising. You have read enough Christian writing to know that be still and know that I am God is the verse you are supposed to want. You do want it. You also dread it. The chair, the silence,...]]></itunes:summary>
    <itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
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