Teaching through Questions

From an early age, Rachel displayed an ability that set her apart. While other children played obliviously, she observed with uncanny perception, cataloging the subtle dynamics of family relationships, sensing energies that others couldn't feel, and developing an intuitive understanding of people that went far beyond normal childhood awareness. This gift of perception, forged in the absence of secure parental bonds, became both her burden and her blessing.

Born to parents who "struggled with their own stuff," Rachel found herself navigating childhood as an only child who craved connection while her parents preferred isolation. "I loved being around people, but both of my parents didn't," Rachel explains. "My biggest struggle throughout the years has been with my mom. I haven't seen a lot of desire for her to learn how to do healthy relationship better." This fundamental disconnect created a sense of emotional orphanhood—a brokenness in the relationships with her parents that would shape her entire life journey.

Rachel was constantly seeking out neighbors and friends, watching other families with almost anthropological intensity. She mentally recorded how husbands treated wives, how mothers nurtured children—studying the human connections denied to her at home.

The absence of secure parental bonds pushed Rachel to develop an acute sensitivity to others as a survival mechanism. "I can sense things from people very quickly and very easily," she explains of her ability to detect emotional undercurrents. “I can sense how people are feeling and the motives behind their words.” What began as a child's desperate attempt to understand what she lacked at home gradually transformed into an extraordinary gift—a capacity to see others with unusual clarity and depth—which would later shape her calling as well.

"I always knew I wanted to be a good mom," Rachel recalls, "and I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. If you look at my school year’s scrapbook, it asks, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' A mom and a teacher were my answer every year."

This certainty about Rachel’s calling remained steadfast even as her parents' marriage dissolved when she was twelve. In her small Christian school where she was one of the few children from a broken home, Rachel found herself cast as an outsider. She embraced the role defiantly—wearing Doc Martens and all black in a school that required dresses, writing assignments that silently screamed for help.

"I was writing poems about what I was feeling during those seasons, turning them in, and hoping that the teachers would say something, notice, and help me," she says.

It would be years before Rachel understood that these painful experiences were preparing her for her true purpose. The sensitivity that made her childhood lonely was slowly transforming into something extraordinary—a spiritual gift of discernment that allowed her to see beyond surface behaviors into the hidden chambers of human hearts.

When asked when she first realized this was a gift, she answers, "I was at the mall, probably in middle school. This woman walked by, and I heard God say that this woman struggles with demons. So I just started praying over her and telling the demons to go. It felt natural."

This ability to perceive the spiritual and emotional undercurrents around her continued to develop, though not without cost. Rachel's intense presence—her way of truly seeing people—was inseparable from her natural inclination to ask penetrating questions.

"I'm a questioner," Rachel explains, "because to me, that's the best way to really get stuff out of people." Unlike casual conversation that skims the surface, Rachel's questions probe for deeper understanding, for the authentic person beneath the social facade. "I'm just genuinely interested. Why did you think that? Why did you feel that way?"

This questioning nature, born from a genuine desire to understand others at their core, often backfired unexpectedly. In a culture of smalltalk and superficial connections, Rachel's desire to truly know others could feel invasive or threatening. "Sometimes people will take those questions like they are being interrogated," she explains. "Not everyone is used to being asked questions." 

"I'm so passionate about deep relationships and deep connection," Rachel says, "because I feel like what's the point if all of our relationships on this earth are just going to be surface? Then what's the point? How are we going to help each other?"

This philosophy of connection led to painful losses. Two significant friendships abruptly ended, leaving Rachel devastated and questioning herself—until one friend returned years later with a startling confession: "When I was with you, you were so confident in the things that you believed in. At the time, it felt like you were pushing them on me. But now what I realized is you never pushed them on me. I was just intimidated."

The irony wasn't lost on Rachel—her very attempts to connect through questioning, to truly know and understand others, was precisely what created distance for people uncomfortable with being deeply seen. Yet she couldn't abandon the essence of who she was. The questioner, the perceiver, the one who saw beneath the surface—these were integral to her identity, even when they cost her relationships.

Marriage, motherhood, and a seventeen-year tenure at the same church provided a season of stability—until 2020 arrived like a divine earthquake, shaking everything Rachel had built her life upon.

It began with a seemingly innocent event—a book recommendation from a colleague. The book questioned traditional Biblical translations, planting seeds of doubt about religious interpretations she had accepted without question. Simultaneously, she noticed concerning behaviors at her church. When Rachel stepped back to process these questions, the church leadership instructed the congregation not to speak with her family, fearing they were abandoning their faith.

The tremors continued in rapid succession—her mother crossed boundaries with her teenage son, requiring painful family separation. Her father-in-law passed away just before COVID lockdowns began. Her church community—gone. Her mother—estranged. Her father-in-law—deceased. Her son—struggling.

"If I can't stand on that," Rachel said of her faith, "and it felt like everything was broken and shaken, then what am I standing on?"

For nearly two years, Rachel lived with this profound spiritual vertigo, questioning everything she had believed since accepting Jesus at age five. Yet in this season of isolation, her family of four drew closer together.

Unlike many around her, she sensed immediately that the growing COVID panic was misplaced. "I knew from the very beginning," she explains. "I was like, no, there's no fear. This does not need to be feared."

Instead, her spiritual antennae detected something else—an invitation to an unexpected future in Tennessee. A visit in 2021 yielded a moment of clarity for Rachel's husband Dean—sitting in a hole-in-the-wall barbecue restaurant, he experienced what Rachel calls a "God moment." By May 2022, they had moved across the country, starting over without a support system.

The challenges of relocation—financial struggles, housing complications, building a business from scratch, establishing new social connections—might have broken someone with less spiritual resilience. But Rachel's gift of discernment served her well, helping her navigate which new friendships to pursue and which to release.

"Sometimes I need to work on you and I need to work on them," Rachel heard God saying about certain relationships, "and sometimes that needs to be in separate places." Her spiritual perception helped her recognize that "walking away is not you failing."

This hard-earned wisdom culminated in a significant realization: the very questioning that had once threatened to destroy her faith was actually essential to her spiritual purpose. God had been answering a prayer she'd offered fifteen years earlier: "I prayed that God would help me unlearn everything I've ever known so that I could relearn it."

Through this unlearning, Rachel discovered that her gift wasn't simply about perceiving hidden truths in others—it was about embracing the mystery within her own journey. Her true calling crystallized in Tennessee, where she founded her own academy, a space fundamentally different from traditional educational environments.

Rachel built her school on a radical premise: questions, not answers, would be the cornerstone of learning. Her academy became a sanctuary where students were encouraged to explore their emotions, motivations, and inner struggles—creating a safe space for the very expression she had once desperately hoped her teachers would notice in her own writing.

"When I see a kid who is really trying to get everyone's attention in the room, or they're being really silly, or they're really quiet—what's the reason behind that?" Rachel explains of her teaching philosophy. "There's a reason why they're behaving the way they're behaving. There's a root to it, and that's one of the things I'm passionate about. Let's find that root so then we can speak into that child so they can be seen and loved."

This ability to truly see her students—to look at them with an intensity that some once found intimidating—became her greatest teaching strength. Unlike traditional education that prizes certainty and correct answers, Rachel's academy celebrates curiosity and embraces the divine mystery of not knowing. Her students learn how to sit comfortably with questions, how to explore multiple perspectives, and how to find their authentic voice in a world that often demands conformity.

In founding her academy, Rachel had come full circle—from the child desperate to be seen to the woman who could truly see others. The girl who once wrote assignments hoping teachers would notice her pain had become the teacher who could perceive the unspoken struggles of her students.

"If we think that we're right, then what?" Rachel reflects. "Then where's the seeking? Where's the adventure? Where's the mystery?"

Her greatest purpose revealed itself not in having all the answers, but in creating spaces where questions were valued and genuine curiosity was encouraged. The very gift that once made her feel like an outsider had become her most powerful tool for connection.

"There's always more to learn," Rachel affirms with quiet confidence. "God designed it that way."