Bonnie Gray

For years, Bonnie Gray couldn’t find her voice. But once she did, nothing could hold her back from using it. Her bestselling books, syndicated blog and popular podcast all offer fresh and unique insights into topics like intimacy with God, emotional healing, soul care and stress recovery. Through each word she speaks or writes, Bonnie strives to communicate an important truth: God cares about your story, and your story is worth telling. In her latest book, "Sweet Like Jasmine," Bonnie shares her own story of growing up as a Chinese-American girl in difficult circumstances. In this interview, you’ll get to learn some of Bonnie’s story and find out what inspires her, what she struggles with and what resources she’s found indispensable in her walk with Christ.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to a meal than palate and preference. How does your go-to order at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

Well, it’s interesting you’d ask me what my favorite hometown restaurant is because it depends on whether you’re asking American Bonnie or Chinese Bonnie! I was born in Chinatown, San Francisco, to a 17-year-old mail-order bride from Hong Kong and a busboy in a noodle shop who left me when I was 7.

So growing up, I felt split between two worlds. At home, I was Chinese Bonnie, helping Ah-ma stir-fry chicken with string beans in black bean sauce over a wok at home (Ah-ma means “Mom” in the Cantonese Chinese dialect).

But when I walked out the door, I was American Bonnie, who grew up eating school lunches, my favorites being tater-tots, spaghetti and pizza. I looked forward to the days those meals showed up on my melamine plastic tray as I went through the lunch line.

I grew up living below the poverty line, so I got free lunches. But you know something funny? I didn’t feel embarrassed to get free lunches (not until high school, that is). I actually loved sampling “American” food every day. It was a fascinating cultural experience for me! My friends would trade their fruit roll-ups for my cheese burrito, and I was happy to oblige!

So my favorite hang-outs are State of Mind Pizza Pub in Los Altos, where I can enjoy a slice of pizza with a glass of rosé, and Chinese dim sum with jasmine tea at Fu Lam Mum in downtown Mountain View! So I’m an East-meets-West kind of girl!

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests, but we tend to hide them. What do you love doing that might surprise (or shock) people?

So this is an ongoing debate in our family. I feel I’m an introvert, but my husband, Eric, and my teenage sons, Josh and Caleb, swear I’m an extrovert. I love planning fun family trips, hiking new trails and surprising my family with indoor skydiving. I’ll wake up Saturday morning and try to convince my homebody Eric to drive 1.5 hours to rent bikes in Carmel for a family ride.

I’m a people-person who started a 30s-singles ministry at our church. The ministry began with 5 people, which grew into hundreds. (Who doesn’t love a good potluck?)

But here’s what shocks people when I tell them (because we live in busy Silicon Valley): The best parts of my day are quiet times alone, enjoying silence and solitude. In the morning, I drive to hike a nearby trail for an hour for prayer. I don’t read my email until I return home, after a cup of coffee and bagel. In the evenings, I play my Chinese violin called the er-hu, take a bath, read and journal.

Of course, there are crazy days when I miss my quiet times, but I keep a mental tally of what I miss so I can make up the deficit soon and not let days pass without feeding my soul. People are further shocked to learn why I prioritize my spiritual/emotional wellness: I suffered panic attacks and anxiety from PTSD due to childhood trauma, so I’m not “whole-me” without time to restore peace to my soul with contemplation, music, journaling, good books and nature.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We're just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?

I am good at being strong. Being self-sufficient is the superpower kids like me develop, growing up oldest in a divorced family — or kids who had both parents but suffered hard times as a child. We learn to take care of ourselves and others.

But my kryptonite was my modus operandi: I hid my heart. If something got me down, I just told myself it didn’t matter.

“Being sad doesn’t change anything anyway,” I told myself. I said my wounds weren’t important, but what I was really saying was that I wasn’t important.

God would later lead me to discover that our stories do matter and, as I share in my new book “Sweet Like Jasmine,” that what others don’t want, God whispers, “I cherish.” To quote my book, “There is no more loneliness, because there, in your broken, beautiful story, is God’s love. … There are no throw-away moments in your life.”

Before I understood that, I tried to erase my past as I became a mom of two boys with Eric. But my weakness was my loneliness. I felt ill-fitting, like I didn’t belong anywhere, because so many things about my life and my story were so different and weird — my dysfunctional family, my broken heart, growing up on welfare, parents who were emotionally or physically absent. Meanwhile, my friends at school and church had parents who were engineers, grandparents who took them camping and so on. It seemed like everyone else was living “normal” lives while I was always trying to figure out how to be normal.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?

As the author of three books, my passion is empowering us to experience God’s love more deeply and restore peace in our souls. And as a speaker and podcast host of the “Breathe: The Stress Less Podcast,” I love guiding people to detox stress and anxiety.

But something exciting is happening! A book I’ve wanted to write for 10 years — once rejected by publishers because “there’s no market for Asian American stories of faith” — will finally be released October 5, 2021!

“Sweet Like Jasmine: Finding Identity in a Culture of Loneliness” is about my heart-breaking journey of faith as a Chinese-American daughter, as I go on a search to find my childhood home and my father who left me in Chinatown, San Francisco, to uncover the family secrets I ran away from. It’s a story of how God makes beauty out of brokenness as we discover our true worth in his love.

The truth is, we’re all on a journey to find belonging out of loneliness. We’re all longing to find beauty out of brokenness.

One day, while looking for my son’s birth certificate to enroll him in preschool, I stumbled on a long-forgotten birth certificate — mine.

I wondered, “Why was I born in a hospital called ‘Chinese Hospital?’” Then it hit me: What would I tell my boys if they asked me, “Where’s grandpa?” What would I say if, because they’re half Chinese-American, they asked, “When did our ancestors come to America?” I’d have no answers.

That was the moment I decided to stop hiding and find answers, because I didn’t want my children growing up the way I did, without belonging, without history. I wanted to give them what I didn’t have — a legacy of faith.

What I discovered changed my life, and I know it will empower readers to embrace their true worth. Because we all have a story. Our stories matter. You matter.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?

Writing is hard work. It’s easy to give up between writer’s block, inner critical voices and feelings of inadequacy. Ernest Hemingway said, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

So to write the most honest stories, I energize my soul in three ways:

1. Watching documentaries

“To know who you are and what you should be doing, you have to first know what your history is,” said the American playwright August Wilson.

I love learning about stories people have lived, from every cultural heritage, socioeconomic background and stage in life. The more different the story, the braver I become to write. Because the most powerful denominator in creativity is our humanity.

The documentary “Giving Voice” about August Wilson inspired me to write the toughest chapter in “Sweet Like Jasmine.” It was about a fight I had with my mother. I wrote this line: “The things that make us different and broken are the very parts that make us beautiful and bind us together.”

2. Hiking and being in nature

Studies show that simply looking at trees as we walk lowers stress more effectively than working out at the gym! And when my body and emotions feel good, I’m a lot gentler with my flaws as opposed to critical.

Experiencing beauty is part of experiencing God’s love. While I was hiking a trail through wildflowers one morning, God whispered, “You have a place among the beautiful things.”

Then, this became my prayer: “Help me to be more honest than I am comfortable with to write ‘Sweet Like Jasmine.’” Instead of trying to make my words sound pretty, I boldly let my words flow unfiltered, like clouds moving across the sky.

3. Time with friends

I need one-on-one time with friends with whom I can be honest about how I’m doing and who are equally honest with me regarding how they’re doing. Real conversations with friends make me feel safe. God speaks to me often in “ah-ha moments” in conversation over a cup of coffee.

That’s how I want my readers to feel — as if they’re sitting across from me reading my new book. Because “when we share our stories, we create a place of refuge in the world to say, ‘Rest a while, you are at home with me.’”

QUESTION #6: inspire

Some people divide things sacred and things secular. But you know, God can surprise us in unlikely places. How do you find spiritual renewal in so-called “nonspiritual” activities?

Having fun playing is a sacred space to me. Growing up, I was an old soul with heavy responsibilities, preoccupied with problem-solving. So to me, something as simple as playing board games with my kids, going out for fro-yo, or asking them to show me how to skateboard is a sacred time for my inner child and our family!

Our family has a whiteboard where everyone writes their ideas for fun things to try (or do again). Every weekend or school break, we take turns doing our Fun Things Bucket List! It’s easier to try fun things when there’s a list to choose from!

Maybe to other people, it might seem like I’m trying to be a good mom by organizing fun things. But the truth is, it’s counterintuitive to how I was brought up, so it’s actually a healing, sacred choice for me to have fun!

Joy is radical and countercultural! Do we choose to get more done? (If so, the checklist never ends.) Or do we choose to do something that brings happiness and is life-giving?

Scheduling regular, fun dates nights with Eric is also a sacred activity! One time, I surprised Eric by taking him to a brewery in San Francisco. And he surprised me by taking me to the art museum in the city.

In my research writing “Whispers of Rest,” I came across a brain-science study that shows “novelty” (new experiences) activates the brain’s reward system, flooding it with norepinephrine. That means that simply doing new things together as a couple, as a family, or with friends recreates the chemical surges of courtship or the excitement of new friendship. Enjoying new experiences together literally renews those bonds!

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith. But you know about some really great stuff too. What are three of your favorite resources?

My three favorite resources are:

1. “The Way of the Heart” by Henri Nouwen. I found this book 20 years ago when I was a missionary serving in Hong Kong as a 20-something, and it began the journey of discovering the joy and practice of silence and solitude. It became so foundational to my spiritual life. I learned how to listen to God’s voice in Scripture and grow as his beloved daughter.

2. “Healing Is a Choice” by Steve Arterburn. I grew up in a church culture that made me think that going to therapy meant my faith had failed (which isn’t true). This book helped me realize that investigating why there was a pain in my heart and my story was the most powerful step of faith God was inviting me to take to heal! And now, it’s become my core life message — that our stories matter because our stories have the power to bring healing not only to ourselves but also to the people in our lives and the strangers who become our friends, because they realize they are no longer alone.

The funny thing about loneliness is that it disappears the moment we share our stories. How beautiful is that?

3. “The Color of Water” by James McBride. This is a memoir, but as Frederick Buechner said, “Listen to your life. Listen to what happens to you because it is through what happens to you that God speaks.” This memoir inspired me to listen to my life, and it will inspire you too!

We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it's done for you.

The “Pray As You Go” prayer podcast. I listen to this every morning as I begin my morning walk and prayer time. It brings instant calm and peace as I focus on listening to the loving voice of God through Scripture meditation, music and quiet reflection. This is a podcast written by Jesuits, and the style of prayer is based on Ignatian Spirituality.

I discovered this prayer app during a season when I was suffering most severely from panic attacks, anxiety and depression while healing from childhood trauma and PTSD. When you’re hardly able to breathe and your eye sockets hurt because you have insomnia, you find you don’t have words to pray.

When you’re healing from trauma, all you can do is mourn and grieve. It’s very painful, but it’s a necessary part of healing. This app helped me to pray when I could not pray. The act of simply listening became my prayer as I walked among the beauty of trees and the sturdiness of a dirt trail.

A lot of my journaling and healing came from conversations that emerged from my time listening to “Pray As You Go.” And I continue to enjoy this rich resource in contemplative prayer.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

Emerging from the pandemic, we have all experienced different levels of loneliness. We have all gone through hard things. The good thing is that we now value each other more than ever.

Sharing our stories is a part of building a meaningful new life out of our collective brokenness. Sharing our stories is a step of faith because it calls us to be real.

When we offer our stories to each other, we are choosing joy, because it means we don’t have to walk alone. And in a world filled with doubt and division, choosing joy is a step of faith.

Join me, as we explore how God makes beauty out of brokenness. Because it turns out, we all long to experience God’s love and belonging.

Join me, as we explore the stories that have shaped who God created you to be. Your story matters. You matter.

I am so grateful and excited to empower you with encouragement in my new book, “Sweet Like Jasmine: Finding Identity in a Culture of Loneliness.”

I’ll share my heart-breaking journey and my hard-fought lessons. Let’s explore the answers together, friend!

Preorder “Sweet Like Jasmine” at sweetlikejasmine.com and you’ll get free bonus gifts that are powerful resources to encourage your faith:

My free audiobook
“A Story of Faith Journal” (with inspiring journal prompts, quotes and Scripture)
The “Legacy of Faith LIVE Workshop”
Access to a private book club community with me

Who is a friend to encourage with this book? Please share. Thank you, friend!

The world tells us that it’s a sign of weakness to talk about the scars of your past. “Don’t share about the pain you’ve faced. Don’t talk about the shameful things you walked away from. Don’t discuss the trauma you went through.”

At least, that’s what the world says.

But Jesus offers us a different way. The Bible says our stories have power: “They defeated him [the enemy] by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony” (Revelation 12:11a, TLB).

Our stories of struggle, healing and redemption can transform others’ lives if we let them. If we’re willing to share them. Because, as Bonnie so beautifully puts it, your story matters.