Following The Thread Of Love
How Kim Verriere discovered that the Sacred Feminine had been quietly accompanying her all along.
If you ask Kim Verriere how she arrived at the Sacred Feminine, she probably won't answer the question the way you expect. She won't begin with a book she read or a class she attended. She won't point to a single turning point or conversion experience. Instead, she'll tell you about a thread.
Looking back over her life, she no longer sees isolated moments or disconnected seasons. What she sees is something that has been quietly weaving its way through every chapter—a presence she now recognizes as Love.
"All of my life I have been called by Love.
That's it. That's the path."
For Kim, that path began in childhood. At five years old she remembers giving her life to Christ. At twelve she sensed a call toward missionary work. As a young woman, Love led her into marriage and motherhood, a vocation she still names before almost anything else when describing herself. "I'm a mother," she says with a smile. "I carry the energy, identity, and presence of a feminine, motherly love into most everything I do."
As the years unfolded, that same current of Love carried her far beyond the familiar. Encounters with Muslims in Indonesia, Christians in Kenya, Catholics in Mexico, and Mayan communities in Guatemala expanded both her understanding of the world and her understanding of God. Travel taught her that humanity is bound together in ways we often fail to see.
"Travel gave me Love for humanity, stretched my mind, heart and soul, and showed me how we are more alike than different and connected in ways we may not even understand."
Nature became another faithful teacher. Kim remembers climbing her favorite crepe myrtle tree as a child, searching for constellations beside her father, planting gardens with her grandfather, watching fireflies, and lingering beneath wide Texas skies. Looking back, she realizes those moments nurtured something within her that never wanted to be tamed.
"The natural world grounded me with Love and kept a wildness in my soul, as culture taught me to be tamed and behaved."
For many years, however, the spiritual language she inherited no longer felt large enough to hold the questions that were quietly emerging. By her early thirties, she had faithfully embraced everything her tradition had asked of her—worship, prayer, Bible study, service, leadership, generosity, and raising her children in the church. Yet beneath that faithful life, another longing continued to grow.
"I had mastered the 'way' I was handed," she reflects. "But I knew I couldn't have just 'arrived.' My tradition didn't have much left to offer me, but I knew there was much more to discover."
That realization didn't lead to quick answers. Instead, it marked the beginning of what Kim describes as a slow unfolding. She spent years allowing questions to breathe, gently loosening the beliefs that no longer gave life and exploring places that once felt unfamiliar or even risky. It wasn't until about a decade ago that she encountered the Sacred Feminine as a way of understanding the Divine. What surprised her most was not how new it felt, but how familiar.
"The more I learned, read, listened and studied, the more I recognized Her throughout my life."
Then, eighteen years ago, life interrupted in a way she never could have anticipated.
When her father died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of fifty-five—the age Kim is today—grief became more than loss. It became an opening. In the months that followed, she experienced a depth of mystery for which she had no theological framework. Rather than diminishing her faith, grief expanded it.
"While the death of my father broke me,
it also broke me open."
She speaks of discovering that truth lives beyond logic alone. The imagination became trustworthy. Mystery became a teacher. Love itself became larger than she had ever imagined. Looking back now, she wonders whether that season made it possible to receive the Sacred Feminine with open hands.
Today, Kim's understanding of the Sacred Feminine extends far beyond theology. It has become a way of inhabiting the world. She speaks often of paradox, of allowing both contemplation and action, gentleness and fierceness, grief and joy, to exist together without needing to resolve the tension between them.
Recently, she has noticed this integration taking shape through her work as both a spiritual director and an activist.
"It is precisely my mystic-self who IS the activist-self. One leads to the other and becomes the other in a dance in which partners become one."
That, she believes, is one of the gifts of the Sacred Feminine. It creates room for mystery where certainty once dominated, for imagination where fear once held sway, and for a more generous way of seeing both ourselves and one another.
When asked what she hopes others discover through her work, Kim doesn't begin by describing a curriculum or a body of knowledge. Instead, she imagines what might become possible.
"Understanding the Sacred Feminine opens up something inside you. You begin to see things with fresh eyes. You see new pathways where you once thought there were none."
As our conversation comes to a close, Kim returns once again to the image of the thread.
"There is a thread of connection that runs through my life. I believe that thread is the Sacred Feminine."
Perhaps that is the deepest invitation her story offers. Not that we all arrive at the same understanding, or even ask the same questions. But that if we pause long enough to look back over our own lives, we may begin to notice a thread quietly weaving its way through every season—calling us, stretching us, breaking us open, and gently inviting us toward a love that has been present all along.
About Kim Verriere:
Kim Verriere (she/her) is a lifelong Baptist (an expansive Baptist, you might say), who in the process of tumbling through faith deconstruction, landed smack-dab into her truest calling as a spiritual director about a decade ago. Having raised four now young adult children and founded and led an organization fostering the soul care of women for nine years, she now focuses on her spiritual direction ministry including one-on-one sessions, leading retreats and workshops, and facilitating milestone ceremonies.
Kim’s particular areas of passion and experience include faith deconstruction, the sacred feminine, discernment of call, midlife-unraveling, dreamwork and mystical experiences. She often works with seminary students and the LBGTQ community, and she welcomes those from all or no faiths.
Learn more about Kim in the Retreat House Guide Network (Click Here).
