Devotion: Writing Someone Else's Story to Find Your Own

There are moments that don't make sense until much later. And then there are moments that make total sense the instant they happen, even if you can't explain them to anyone else. Kate Clinch sat in a small chapel in Sydney, a self-described non-believer, and felt something she had never felt before. Not a feeling she worked toward. Not a belief she talked herself into. Just a deep, quiet, unquestioned knowing. She was in the presence of a saint. She walked out with armfuls of biographies and a story she didn't yet know was also hers. What followed was a decade of discovery. A historical novel about Eileen O'Connor, a disabled Australian woman who built a nursing organization from her sick bed and is currently being investigated for sainthood. A cancer diagnosis, stomach surgery, chemotherapy, and learning to eat and drink again. A slow, surprising realization that she couldn't tell Eileen's story without her own coming along for the ride. Kate came to this conversation as someone who spent years hiding behind her subject. She's leaving it as someone who finally understands why she was the one who had to write the book. What You'll Hear How a stranger's offhand suggestion led Kate to a chapel that changed her life The near-death experience that quietly rearranged her sense of what mattered What a stomach cancer diagnosis took away, and what it somehow gave back Why she started making rosaries before she knew she'd need them The moment she realized she couldn't tell Eileen's story without telling her own What a century-old smile taught her about what actually changes the world Guest Bio Kate Clinch was a solo General Practitioner until a near death experience prompted a change in priorities, and she became a full-time mother homeschooling her children, with a developing interest in mysticism and the meaning of life. As her children became more independent, she started to write novels exploring those themes. Her first, unpublished novel longlisted for the 2020 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in Australia. Her debut novel, Every Inch a Saint: a Novel about Eileen O'Connor, Australia's Second Saint-in-Waiting, was published in April 2026. It celebrates the inspirational life of a woman who defied the odds of illness and disability and the opposition of the church hierarchy to establish a home nursing organisation to care for the sick in Sydney's slums in 1913. Find her at kateclinch.com. -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- spiritual awakening, cancer survival story, historical fiction, faith without religion, near-death experience, writing as healing, calling and purpose, grief and motherhood, life after loss, following your instincts You Might Also Like: When Illness Becomes a Gateway to Spiritual Awakening Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices