S9 Episode #2- But I Prayed For This with Melissa Miller
THE ONE WITH MELISSA MILLER
This week on The Collected Podcast, we are excited to welcome author Melissa Miller for a heartfelt conversation about what happens when God’s “yes” feels heavier than expected. Melissa shares her journey through change fatigue, her “Four Seasons of Blessing” framework, and the gentle reminder that feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. With practical rhythms from her WHOLE model and honest stories of God’s steady faithfulness, this episode offers comfort, clarity, and hope for anyone navigating a beautiful-but-hard season.
ABOUT MELISSA
Melissa Miller is a family girl, writer, and Reboot Retreat facilitator living in Tennessee. She is a contributor to sites such as Mother.ly, Her View from Home, and the YouVersion Bible app. Melissa has been married for over twenty years, has five children, and is an advocate for vulnerable children in foster care.
Having experienced an unconventional adoption as a teen and later adopting a sibling set from foster care, she has a heart to help kids from hard places find belonging. Melissa loves playing pickleball and thinks “just one more chapter” is a perfectly reasonable bedtime strategy.
Through her writing and two-day Reboot Retreat process, she loves helping people step out of survival mode, establish life-giving rhythms, and rediscover joy in their everyday lives.
In her latest book, But I Prayed for This: What to Do When Living in God's Yes Is Harder Than You Expected, Melissa brings a fresh and deeply relatable message: many of us are living in the days we once prayed for, yet still find ourselves overwhelmed, exhausted, or struggling to adjust. Drawing from her experiences with adoption, motherhood, major life transitions, and faith, Melissa helps listeners understand why gratitude and struggle can coexist—and how God meets us in both.
A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE BOOK
[Press Release] In her new book, But I Prayed for This: What to Do When Living in God's Yes Is Harder Than You Expected, Melissa Miller blends personal stories, biblical wisdom, neuroscience, and practical tools to help readers navigate the seasons that often follow answered prayer. With warmth, humor, honesty, and compassion, she gives readers permission to recognize that gratitude and struggle can coexist. Most people spend years praying for marriage, children, career opportunities, ministry callings, healing, or a fresh start. But what happens when the answer finally arrives and it feels harder than expected? Miller knows that experience firsthand.
After praying for years to adopt a child, Melissa and her husband unexpectedly adopted two siblings from foster care. Around the same time, she relocated across the country and stepped into a new professional opportunity. These were all answers to prayer, yet she found herself overwhelmed by change, grief, exhaustion, self-doubt, and the unexpected emotional weight of living in God's "yes."
"Just because something is blessed doesn't mean it comes without a mess," writes Miller.
"Many of us are living in the days we once prayed for, yet we still find ourselves overwhelmed, discouraged, or emotionally exhausted. This book is an invitation to stop carrying guilt for our mixed emotions and instead discover how God meets us in every season of change."
Drawing on her experiences with adoption, major life transitions, and helping others through her Reboot Retreat process, Miller introduces readers to the Four Seasons of Blessing—Blooming, Building, Bittersweet, and Balancing—and offers practical guidance for cultivating stability, resilience, and joy in each season.
LISTEN
WATCH
SHOW NOTES
Faith Journey
Melissa shared how she came to know the Lord during college after a philosophy professor's question about whether she would change her life if she knew God existed, which led her on a non-traditional path to faith. Melissa explained how she began writing prayers during a difficult pregnancy season, eventually writing about each Psalm daily, which developed into a lifelong writing practice.
Change Fatigue and Personal Growth
Melissa discussed her book But I Prayed for This, which explores her experience of change fatigue after achieving what she prayed for, including moving across the country for a job and adopting two additional children, which expanded her family from three to five children overnight. She explained how she went through a difficult adjustment period despite these being positive changes, leading her to research and write about personal change fatigue as a valid experience separate from professional change fatigue.
Melissa advised that people experiencing similar feelings should recognize their nervous system's adjustment period as normal and not feel guilty about struggling with positive life changes.
Four Seasons of Blessing Framework
Melissa shared her experience of finding a supportive community after struggling with shame, emphasizing the importance of having compassionate witnesses to help eradicate shame and guilt.
She introduced her "Four Seasons of Blessing" framework, which includes:
Blooming (when prayers are answered easily)
Building (when prayers come with challenges)
Bittersweet (when gratitude and grief coexist)
Balancing (when external circumstances seem positive but internally feel off).
Melissa explained how this framework helps normalize difficult experiences by providing biblical examples of similar struggles.
Finding Comfort in God's Faithfulness
Melissa discussed how she found comfort in God's unchanging nature during challenging seasons, sharing that she hung relevant Bible verses in her bathroom to memorize and find strength daily.
She explained that these scriptures helped her anchor her soul in God, providing assurance and stability despite life's changes.
Managing Unspoken Expectations
Melissa discussed how unspoken expectations can at times interfere with experiencing God's blessings, explaining the concept of "reward prediction error" where specific expectations can lead to disappointment when reality doesn't match those expectations.
She shared a personal example of having unrealistic expectations about becoming "Mary Poppins" when adopting new children, which crashed when COVID struck during the first week.
Melissa emphasized that while we can always expect God's faithfulness, we shouldn't be so specific about how that faithfulness will manifest, as it may look different than expected.
Book Framework for Life Transitions
Melissa discussed her book's framework called WHOLE, which covers wellness, heart, outlook, life with God, and engagement as domains for finding footing in new seasons. She explained how life changes, even positive ones like getting a job or having a baby, can be stressful and emphasized that it's normal to need time to adjust.
Melissa shared that her book, which releases on August 18th, includes practical strategies for different life domains and addresses common misconceptions about answered prayers, noting that prayer answers don't necessarily mean the journey becomes easier.
GET THE BOOK HERE
NEXT STEPS
Here are a few REFLEction questions to help you dip deeper this week!
Reflect on the season that God has you in right now. Identify whether you’re in a blooming, building, bittersweet, or balancing season and name what feels true right now. Take some time to notice expectations by writing down any unspoken expectations you’ve been carrying and gently release the ones that aren’t serving you.
Choose one verse about God’s faithfulness and place it somewhere visible this week.
Spend time in honest prayer with The Lord. Bring your gratitude, grief, overwhelm, and hope to God without editing yourself.
Thank you, as always, for listening! Please remember that everything we do is funded by those who benefit from our ministry. Our ministry a 501(c)3, so your contribution is tax-deductible.
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The Collected Podcast is a production of Collected Ministries, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping disciples of Jesus discover and live from their true identity in Christ, recognize and walk in their divine purpose within the Kingdom of God, and experience growth in their capacity for mature, healthy relationships.
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The Collected Podcast is produced by Jes French and edited by Jacob Early. Cover art designed by Ben Biondo.