“When my life changes… He doesn’t change. Yahweh is.”
With those words, Olivet alumna Raechel (Pennington) Myers ’05 captivated the Centennial Chapel audience, setting the tone for a heartfelt and practical conversation on faith during seasons of change.
Myers, who co-founded She Reads Truth, a global community of women committed to reading the Bible daily, returned to her alma mater to speak with students about what it looks like to follow God with consistency and authenticity. 
Joined by Olivet’s Tammy (Salyer) Chenoweth ’89 and Hannah Priest ’21/’22 MBA, Myers opened up about life transitions, grief, parenting teenagers and the importance of anchoring your life in God’s Word.
Over the past year, Myers transitioned from her role as CEO of She Reads Truth to focus more on her family and writing. But her calling, she said, has not changed—only the way it looks.
“Whether I am the CEO of a Bible-reading ministry that reaches millions of women or I’m the person making ham and cheese sliders at 3 o’clock so there’s food when my kids get home from school, the call is the same,” she said. “The way that it looks is just different.”
This year’s Chapel theme at Olivet is “Shema”—a Hebrew word meaning “hear” or “listen.” Myers reflected deeply on how this call to “hear and respond” plays out when life is good, but especially when it’s not.
She shared a tender story of her family’s grief over the loss of a daughter, and how it shaped her relationship with God. “Loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and strength looked like looking at Him and going, ‘I don’t get it. I don’t like it. I don’t want it. But I want You.’”
In those moments, she said, the Word of God became life, breath and oxygen. Myers offered practical insights like “hot potato prayers”—quick prayers to hand anxiety or fear to God throughout the day—as well as “long walk prayers,” which invite deeper time and presence with Him.
Another insight Myers offered came from a recent trip to Paris. After buying a pair of glasses without prescription lenses, she found herself squinting at menus despite wearing glasses. That experience, she said, was a metaphor God used to remind her—and the students—about the danger of looking like you see clearly without truly perceiving.
“It is not hard at a Christian university to look like someone who knows God,” she said. “But in the quiet moments, are you actually walking with Him?”
Myers urged students to take just five minutes a day to read Scripture. “Our lives aren’t changed in intensity—they’re changed in consistency,” she said. Reading even 500 words of Scripture a day, she explained, allows us to know God’s promises and character, so we can cling to them when life gets hard.
Myers offered an invitation for students to join She Reads Truth or He Reads Truth—free Bible-reading communities that help answer the question of where to begin.
Tammy (Salyer) Chenoweth, closed with encouragement from Jeremiah 33:2–3: “Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wonderful things that you can never figure out on your own.”
“The greatest gift you can give yourself in a life shift,” Tammy shared, “is the ability to pause and ask God to give you spiritual lenses in this season.”
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