Walking Anyway
What happens when everything changes—and you’re asked to keep walking anyway?
A couple of years ago, my family moved from Vancouver to Spain. On the outside, it looked like a clear step forward. But underneath, it didn’t feel that way. There was grief. Disorientation. And moments where even God felt harder to find.
If you’re navigating a life transition, feeling uncertain about what’s next, or trying to trust God in a hard season, this episode is for you.
This podcast began there—not in clarity, but in the middle of a life that no longer felt steady.
Walking Anyway is a podcast about living faithfully in uncertain seasons—especially during life transitions, when you’re learning to trust God even without clarity.
In this first episode, we talk about what it means to follow God in seasons of change, when your life looks different but your faith feels uncertain. I’m sharing the story behind that beginning—what changed, what didn’t, and the quiet question that surfaced along the way.
In this episode, we explore:
navigating life transitions and unexpected change
what it looks like to trust God in uncertain seasons
how to stay present when life feels unclear
Each week, we’ll come back to this—one small way to stay with your life, just as it is, with your body, your story, and with God, even when you can’t quite feel where He is.
If you’ve been waiting for clarity before you move forward, this episode is an invitation to take one small step… anyway. Because this isn’t something we just think about—it’s something we practice.
Links + Resources From This Episode:
Start with a 21-day Guest Seat at The Table
Find me on Instagram @denisa.o.nica
Download a transcript of this, and every episode at www.denisaonica.com
Find Denisa Elsewhere:
Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
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Transcript
I’m Denisa Nica, and welcome to Walking Anyway. You’re listening to episode 1. This is a podcast about living faithfully in uncertain seasons when life feels unclear and nothing is quite settling yet. If you carry questions and you’re not quite sure how to move through this in a way that feels steady and true, you’re in the right place to keep walking anyway.
I’m an author and spiritual director, and the founder of The Table, a contemplative space shaped by a weekly rhythm, where women practice this kind of faithful living together at their own pace, in the middle of their real lives and faith. I live in Spain, where life moves a little slower and that has changed the way I pay attention, and the way I live inside my own life. Let’s begin.
A couple of years ago…my family made a decision that changed pretty much everything. We moved from Vancouver, Canada to Spain. It wasn’t one of those slow, thoughtful transition where everything unfolds nicely. It happened fast. And if I’m honest something had already been unraveling for us before we left. A lot of that was around the pandemic…
There was grief there. Disappointment. And some things that felt more personal than that. Even at times, a sense of betrayal. And I don’t mean that in a dramatic way, just in the quiet, disorienting way that something you trusted doesn’t hold the way you thought it would.
And then…we moved. and landed in a completely new country, with a new language and where even the most ordinary things had to be learned again. Like not knowing where anything is in the grocery store…which sounds minor until it keeps happening.
I still remember looking for eggs and realizing they are absolutely not where you would expect them to be.And thinking…why is this weirdly hard?
Moving didn’t just change where we lived. It changed what was there to hold us. Some of that didn’t become clear right away. It showed up slowly, in the absence of things I hadn’t realized I depended on.
The friends who knew our life. The rhythms that had shaped our weeks. The church we had been part of for years. I had worked there, Led there. Built a lot of my life inside that community. And suddenly…that wasn’t where my life was happening anymore.
And around that same time…our daughter decided to study abroad. And just like that…the shape of our home changed too. I became an empty nester in a new country, while I was still trying to find my footing in it.
Somewhere in all of that my body felt like it was changing right alongside my life.I brought my body with me, of course. I brought my chronic pain with me too. And even now it’s still something I live with most days.
My husband didn’t go off to an office every morning anymore. He was just… there. In the living room. All the time. Which was lovely and new. And this - you wait five days for the internet provider - or for any home support provider you can think of because he said he was coming and I mean…maybe he is. Eventually. God bless.
The real question underneath it all for me: How do I live here? I think somewhere along the way I started assuming that faithfulness would feel clearer than this. There were moments when I didn’t know where God was in all of it. Just in that quieter way of thinking.
Over time, faithfulness, for me, started to look like staying— even when everything was completely uncertain and heartbreaking. And when say staying, I don’t mean it in some big, heroic way. I mean staying with what was actually real. Staying with my life, not the one I thought I’d be living by now. Staying with my body and learning, slowly to trust it again. Staying with God…even when I couldn’t feel where He was. And sometimes if I’m honest, all I really had was the quiet sense that He was still good.
So maybe here’s something to try today if it helps. Where in your life are you waiting for clarity before you let yourself move? And instead of trying to solve the whole thing see if you can name one small step. Just one. And maybe as you do it you say to yourself, this is enough for today.
I think this is what this space will be about. Each week, a short reflection like this…and one small way to stay with your life. And maybe that question, how do I live here isn’t something you have to answer all at once. Maybe today faithfulness is smaller than you thought. Maybe it’s just one step. Maybe it’s just staying. May it be so for all of us, as we keep walking anyway.
Thanks for listening to episode 1 of Walking Anyway. I hope this simple helps you stay with what’s here, just a little more gently today. And the way you’re walking through this, right in the middle of what hasn’t settled yet is already forming something steady in you.
If you’re wanting a place to actually practice this, not just think about it, you can begin with a 21-day guest seat inside The Table. It’s a quiet space where you learn to stay with God in your real life and where you don’t have to do that on your own. As always, you can find me at denisaonica.com, or on Instagram at denisa.o.nica. As you step back into your day, notice what stayed with you and let that be enough for today. And just like light moving through a room—you don’t need to see everything at once to keep living faithfully here. Thanks for listening…and I’ll be here with you next time.