We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sara Hill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I think the biggest risk I’ve ever taken was the decision to write and publish my first book. I am a nurse by trade and had never aspired to be a writer before. I was wrestling with the realities of brokenness that you see as a frontline worker and struggling through questions of faith in light of brokenness. I woke up one night with an outline for a book in my mind. Over the course of the following couple of years, I went from seeing if I could actually write this book to pursuing publication.

It was a terrifying and exhilarating new endeavor. I had no idea if I could write a whole book’s worth of words. I had no concept of what it meant to be an author. It was a huge learning curve that demanded hours of my life and funds from my bank account. I went to conferences and writing retreats. I joined a writer’s group and worked on the craft. It was three years of hard work, all while working on the front lines and raising two children.

In October 2019, I self-published my first book, Hope in the Darkness: A Medical Professional’s Guide to Gospel-Centered Care. In 2021, it was picked up by a nursing professor at Azusa Pacific University and is now an assigned text for graduate-level nursing students. In the course of promoting this book, I became aware of the fact that there are so few resources to meet the spiritual needs of healthcare workers. Over and over, people would ask if I had a podcast or anything else besides the book. And I knew that there was nowhere I could send them for support.

In 2020, I started a newsletter to encourage healthcare workers. This grew into community groups that launched in local hospitals in 2021, and in 2022, the newsletter-turned-ministry grew into a nonprofit called Undercurrents Ministries. The mission of Undercurrents Ministries is to bring the Hope of Christ back to healthcare by creating free and easily accessible resources for healthcare workers of all disciplines. We have community groups, a podcast, and other online resources.

None of this would have happened if I had not taken the risk of pressing into writing from outline that woke me up in the dead of night, way back in the spring of 2016.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a restless soul who grew up overseas, who also happens to be a nurse, writer, painter, and founder of a nonprofit ministry for healthcare workers. As far as nursing, I am a pediatric nurse who has transitioned from the bedside to case management. I have expertise working in general pediatrics, endocrinology, rheumatology, medical psych, and utilization review. It is actually my writing that has propelled me into the realm of content creation. Now, I leverage my craft as a writer, nurse, artist, and Christian to bring hope and encouragement to many who feel unseen, hopeless, burned out, and lonely.

I have been a nurse for almost 15 years now, and even before COVID, I realized that there were not very many organizations or places to care for the hearts of healthcare workers. Before COVID, people were already burned out and weary of increasingly demanding work. COVID only exacerbated what was already present. My hope is to create a place of hope. There are many wonderful organizations that try to meet this need in part. But they are discipline specific, and their resources often come with strings attached, such as membership fees or expensive conferences.

What Undercurrents Ministries is doing is unique in the sense that everything created is free to all. There are no membership fees. There are no requirements or surprise expenses. What we create is for all, with the hope that it will bring hope and rest for weary souls. In short, we want to be generous to a population of people who pour themselves out for others.

On the thread of generosity, that is what painting has become for me. I started painting in 2023. I used to love art, but like many adults who make careers out of other non-art specialties, I had put my art supplies away. I started painting as a way of resting my heart. A dear friend and art teacher had given me a huge set of Van Gogh oil paints several years before, and I figured it was time to dust them off. Oh, what a joy painting has become! Since the art supplies were given to me, I enjoy giving away the art I create. Generosity breeds generosity.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being able to love others well. Being a creative means that I have the ability to love others in a way that feeds my soul. Whether it’s hospitality, painting, or even writing, all are at their best in me when I’m doing it for others. I can be generous as I open my home and make delicious food for others. I can be generous and give away my paintings, allowing someone who might not be able to afford original art to have a piece in their home. Or, as I write, I can generously create a safe space for someone with a weary or lonely heart to safely sink into.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

The Bible. All wisdom, the kind that stands the test of time, can be found in the pages of the Bible. The most significant thing I have learned from those pages is the truth that God wants to have a relationship with me. If I want it, I can have access to preeminent wisdom. The wild thing is that it’s not wisdom that is the prize but God. The more time you spend with God, the more wisdom grows in you. It’s like a byproduct.

As I’ve spent countless hours reading the Bible and pursuing a relationship with God, I’ve walked paths I’ve never dreamed were possible. Generosity is a joy. Juggling creativity, work, and nonprofit work becomes less and less stressful as I learn to trust God more and more. Doors have opened up, not because I have to work myself to the bone to make things happen, but because God makes a way forward.

Wisdom is learning to trust God, to lean on his love and wisdom, even if you can’t see the way forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.saradaniellehill.com, www.undercurrentsministries.com
• Instagram: @saradaniellehill, @undercurrents.ministries
• Facebook: Facebook.com/saradaniellehill, Facebook.com/undercurrentsministries
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@undercurrents.ministries
• Other: Podcast (This is the link to spotify, but it’s on all platforms): https://open.spotify.com/show/3gpjusEPnPGnvlB1PxPBsB?si=cc30f7c6891e4a2f