Following God’s path, spreading His word

0

BOTKINS — Botkins native Julia Monnin published her latest book called, “The World is Noisy — God Whispers: Volume II.” The book was published by that Botkins based non-profit publisher Journeys Revealed Ministries and is the third book Monnin has published.

Initially, Monnin never imagined being an author or being the director of her own non-profit. Monnin graduated from Botkins High School in 2004 and immediately after college she married her high school sweetheart in 2007. According to Monnin, she always dreamt of being a wife and mother, but God seemed to have other plans in store for her.

“I was working in his office (her husband’s chiropractic office) and just had a very slow but also radical conversion of my heart. I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life, but never really understood what that meant until my late 20s… I came to understand my faith that I grew up in for really the first time as a 20-something year old,” said Monnin.

Her journey started when she truly embraced God and grew in her faith and prayer. She started reading scripture daily and keeping a journal of just her thoughts and interpretations of whatever scripture she had read that day. After a while she began sharing her thoughts with people in her life in bits and pieces, and months later she began to feel a “nudging” on her heart to publish her journal.

“Which (publishing) was very frightening for me to even consider, because this was a journal that I had no intentions of sharing with anybody or making it public… Much prayer and discernment, talking about it with people and just months of doing that and then I realized I really felt like it was a call from the Lord to turn it into a book,” said Monnin.

Her first book, which came from her own journal reflections, titled “The World is Noisy — God Whispers: Volume I” was self-published in 2017 by Monnin. The first volume consists of Monnin’s personal thoughts and reflections on scripture from 2013 through 2015. Her latest book, “The World is Noisy — God Whispers: Volume II,” was published on Jan. 2, 2023, through the Botkins based Catholic non-profit publisher Journeys Revealed Ministries that was formed by Monnin in 2019 to help fellow Catholic authors publish their works. The second volume picks up where the first left off and details her struggles with the transition to authorship, her and her husband’s struggles with infertility and finally the birth of her son and publication of her first book in 2017.

Her transition to being an author was not the easiest. Monnin mentioned how lonely the transition got for her at times. From being an extrovert who worked around people daily to working at home, alone with her thoughts.

“It was very much a solo project. I was on an island and felt very much alone. Of course not alone in my life of prayer. I kind of withdrew from the world, very intentionally, but not to escape the world but really to just give more of my attention to God. Just spending a lot of time alone with Him, with God, and writing. It was a very solitary project, but also very fruitful in that I’m an extrovert by nature and so it was really the first time in my life where I intentionally made that effort to live more interior-ly and solo,” said Monnin.

Monnin published her books and started Journeys Revealed Ministries as a way to help her fellow Catholics grow in their life of prayer and in their relationships with God. In her books, each reflection ends with a prayer and a piece of scripture so that her readers can transition to the Bible and the scripture itself to end their readings by praying with the word of God. Not only does she hope her books help others grow in their faith, she started the non-profit Journeys Revealed Ministries to help others grow in prayer or spread their message by publishing their works. The non-profit apostalate not only helps others share their stories through publication, the ministry and Monnin also offer individuals time to just sit and speak or pray with them.

“I feel especially called to grow in my own life of prayer but also to help other people grow in their life of prayer. At best, that’s what I think my books do. Prayer can be so confusing and we can really complicate it, especially as Catholics. Growing in the life, we know how to say a lot of prayers but to actually enter into a relationship with the Lord, to pray with our hearts, to pray to God as a friend, that doesn’t come natural to us. So, at best I think my books can help people who are trying to grow in their life of prayer and maybe are getting stuck,” said Monnin.

Monnin switched careers, started writing and started a non-profit because of a call from God to share her religious growth and to help others grow as she did.

Monnin
https://www.sidneydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2023/01/web1_Julia-Monnin-OCDS.jpgMonnin

By Amantha Garpiel

[email protected]

No posts to display