S2 Ep.18-Everyday Faith

Nobody talks much about Anna, the wife of Tobit, and that’s exactly why I can’t stop thinking about her. She doesn’t part seas or stand before kings. She works, worries, carries a household through financial strain, and loves her family with the kind of vulnerable strength that feels painfully familiar. Today I sit with her story from the Book of Tobit, an Apocrypha text often included in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, and I find a picture of everyday faith that many of us are living right now.

We explore what it means when faith doesn’t feel dramatic or shiny. Tobit’s blindness turns their world upside down, and Anna becomes a caretaker, provider, and protector while also holding fear for her son’s safety. I reflect on how Scripture makes room for her unpolished emotions and why that honesty matters for Christian spirituality. If you’ve ever felt pressured to sound “strong” when you’re actually exhausted, anxious, or grieving, Anna reminds us that love and worry can exist together, and that hope can live right alongside fatigue.

We also talk about the holiness of ordinary life: emails, bills, dinner, hospital waiting rooms, and the quiet decisions to keep showing up. God is not confined to church walls. God is present in kitchens and in worried hearts, and sometimes the most sacred thing we do is continue in love. I close with a prayer for endurance and share a quick look ahead to Pentecost on May 24, 2026, when we’ll talk about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

If this encouraged you, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share it with someone who’s carrying a lot, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show. What part of ordinary life do you most need to see as holy today?

Let's Get Into It!!

Transcript

Meet Anna And The Apocrypha

Speaker 0:08

Hello, friends, and welcome back to Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart. I'm Steve Pozzato, and as always, I am so glad that you're here to spend this time with me. Today I want to spend some time with a figure in Scripture who is often overlooked. She doesn't part seas, she doesn't stand before kings, and she isn't remembered for dramatic miracles. In fact, many people may not even know her name. But her story carries a kind of holiness that feels deeply familiar to everyday life. Today we're talking about Anna, the wife of Tobit, from the Book of Tobit. And it is one of these beautiful ancient stories tucked within the Apocrypha. If you are not familiar with the Apocrypha, it generally appears in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Bibles. They are additional scriptures or additional biblical stories and other writings that are included in those Bibles as an additional section, but are not perhaps linked to the Gospels themselves or were not part of the Torah Tanakh or any of the ancient books. In fact, some of them are intertestamental, as we would say, occurring between the time of the Old Testament and the New.

When Hardship Makes Faith Ordinary

Speaker 1:42

And more specifically, this book, the Book of Tobit, deals with everyday faith. It's the kind of faith that doesn't always look extraordinary from the outside. And it's the kind of faith that wakes up tired and keeps going anyway. The kind of faith that loves deeply and worries honestly and works quietly and still hopes even when life feels uncertain. Because if we're really honest with ourselves, that may be the kind of faith that most of us practice. The book of Tobit itself carries themes of suffering, healing, family faithfulness, and God's presence through hardship. Much of the story centers around Tobit and later his son Tobias, but woven into this story is the narrative of Anna, Tobit's wife and Tobias's mother. To me, Anna feels very, very real. Tobit becomes blind in the beginning chapters of the book. The family struggles financially. Life becomes uncertain. Anna is now working to support the household while caring for her husband and son. She carries the stress of survival. She carries the weight of worry and eventually the pain of watching her son leave home on a dangerous journey. And perhaps what strikes me most is that Scripture doesn't try to make her emotions neat and polished as if she is some sort of faithful follower and says, No, God will provide in all ways, and I believe fully. She is not described as being righteous in that way or perfect in her faith in that way. She strikes me as a person just like you and I. Someone who wakes up and faces struggle. Someone who wakes up and thanks God for the things that we are given, who is appreciative of all of life that has offered us joy and happiness, but again aware of the struggle, living in the moments that are the everyday. Perhaps not seeing or even expecting faith as something dramatic and miraculous in our everyday. But that faith lives with us and we with it in our existence, our daily lives. Anna worries just like we do, she grieves just like we do. And Anna speaks from fear and love and exhaustion. She is not portrayed as endlessly serene or spiritually untouchable. And again, if we're honest with ourselves, I'm not sure how many of us would say that about ourselves either. We're human. Anna is human. And maybe that's exactly why her story matters so much. Because sometimes we inherit this idea that faith always looks strong, right? Again, confident, big, unshakable. We imagine that holy people move through life without doubt or without fear or without weariness. But it's Anna and other people like her that remind us that faith can also look like and often does look like continuing to love while your heart is anxious, while your heart is troubled, while your mind is filled with struggle and questions. Faith can look like showing up to another ordinary day when you are emotionally spent. Faith can look like caring for others while quietly carrying your own burdens, as we all so often do. And I think there are many people listening today who know exactly what all of these things feel like. Sometimes all at once. Anna is overwhelmed with fear for her son's safety. She essentially says, Why did we let him go? Her grief rises immediately because she knows how fragile life can be, and it's her son. That feels so deeply human. Parents know this feeling. People who love know this feeling. Anyone who has watched someone walk into uncertainty, or is a caretaker, or a friend, or an acquaintance. They know this feeling. You know this feeling. And there is something profoundly sacred about Anna's love because it is not detached or idealized. It is vulnerable and protective, and it is honest. And I think sometimes we forget how many women in Scripture carried entire worlds quietly within them. Women who held families together, women who waited, women who endured uncertainty, women whose faith was expressed not through public recognition but through daily acts of care, labor, resilience, and love. Well, Anna belongs to that lineage. And I think that's a huge part of why her story is being told now, why it still matters today. Because our world often celebrates loudness, achievement, and visibility, but the kingdom of God has always recognized another kind of holiness too. That is the holiness of everyday faithfulness. The holiness of people who keep loving, who keep tending, who keep hoping, who keep showing up even when, or especially when, no one applauds them for it. I think about how many people listening right now, perhaps, are practicing this kind of faith every single day without even realizing it. Maybe you are caring for aging parents today. Maybe you are trying to hold your family together emotionally. You might be grieving quietly while still going to work every morning. You might be struggling financially while trying to remain hopeful. Maybe your faith feels less like mountaintop certainty and more like simply getting through the next day with kindness somehow still intact. If that's you, then I want you to hear this clearly today. That kind of faith matters deeply. Because Scripture does not only honor the prophets and kings, it also honors the people who remain loving in difficult circumstances. And Anna reminds us in her anxiety, in her moments of frustration, in her worries and cares, in her love, that holiness is so often hidden inside ordinary life. This is not a character who goes about being perfect in the world or is changed so amazingly or miraculously by faith. She simply lives with it. She is so much the remarkable human in the Bible. She is so much the person living in everyday life. And perhaps that is where the story connects so deeply to our modern lives.

God In The Unnoticed Moments

Speaker 11:09

Most of us do not live dramatic biblical narratives. Most of us live ordinary Tuesdays. We answer emails and we cook dinner and we pay bills and check on loved ones and sit with anxiety and wake up in the middle of the night and navigate disappointment. And so many times we wonder if what we're doing even matters at all. But it does. And sometimes spiritually, we can feel disconnected from all of that. As though faith only exists inside church walls or sacred moments. But the story of Anna pushes against that idea greatly. And it pushes against our ideas that God only exists in buildings like churches or holy or sacred spaces. God is everywhere all the time. God is present in kitchens. God is present in caregiving and in waiting rooms and in worried hearts. And God is present in all of the unnoticed moments where love continues despite exhaustion. Because sometimes the holiest thing we do is simply continuing to show up for one another and for ourselves. Because so much of Christ's own ministry centered around ordinary people carrying invisible burdens, fishermen, widows, parents, laborers, the sick, the grieving, the overlooked. And again and again Jesus notices them. And he doesn't notice them in the Bible because they were powerful, nor because they could perform miracles or they were more righteous than others, but simply because they were human.

Honest Prayer And Unpolished Faith

Speaker 13:31

And there's something important about Anna's honesty and the explanation of her grieving, of her worry and anxiety. Anna does not pretend that everything is fine. She is stressed, she is exhausted, she still loves, but life has made her weary. And that matters spiritually too, because so often we feel pressured to make faith sound polished, as though doubt, fear, grief, frustration somehow mean that we are failing spiritually. But that's not true, and biblical faith has always included honesty. The Psalms are filled with honest prayers. Job is honest. Jeremiah is honest. Esther, Ruth, Naomi, all honest. Even Jesus weeps. Love and worry can exist together. Hope and exhaustion can exist together. And maybe mature faith is not the absence of struggle, but the willingness to remain open to God in the middle of it. And I also think that Anna speaks powerfully to the sacredness of women's stories in Scripture. So often women in the Bible carried spiritual strength through caregiving, endurance, wisdom, hospitality, and emotional labor, yet many of their stories are only briefly mentioned. But when we slow down enough to notice them, and I hope that you do, we discover profound wisdom there. Anna's faith is not performative, it is lived. And there is something, I think, very deeply Christ-like about that, because Jesus consistently revealed that love itself is holy. Feeding people, welcoming people, caring for them, remaining compassionate, these things matter to God. And maybe that's comforting for many of us who sometimes wonder whether our lives are spiritually significant enough. But the truth is, friends, that everyday love has always mattered in the kingdom of God. And that everyday love is not the absence of fear and doubt and anxiety, it is not being fully awake and not exhausted. It is not about perfect prayer or about miracles or big dramatic moments. It's about living. God is still there with us. When the world becomes still, God is still there speaking. When we are busy and frustrated and in a flurry, God is still present. Because faith does not disappear in those days. Faith does not have to be dramatic. It is as simple as taking a breath and letting out what is worrying you. It is as simple as breathing in before you begin another day. It is as simple as breathing and staying alive in love all day long. Sometimes the most important faith we practice is not the faith of certainty either, but that faith of continuation. The faith that keeps loving after disappointment, that shows kindness in a hard world, and the faith that wakes up another morning and says, I will keep going. Anna's story reminds us that God is not only present in dramatic miracles or extraordinary moments, but that God is also present in ordinary endurance, in tired hearts that still love, in worried people who still pray, in quiet acts of care that no one else sees. And perhaps that is really good news for all of us, because it means that your life, exactly as it is right now, may already contain more holiness and more grace than you realize. Let

A Guided Prayer For Endurance

Speaker 18:53

us pray together, my friends. God of amazing grace and steadfast love, build in us, build in us your love so complete and so full that we feel you in all the moments of our lives, especially when we don't much feel as holy or as faithful as we think we should. We are grateful, God, that you meet us where we are. Where we are. We are grateful, God, that you are with us, that you help us to carry our burdens, and that even in the moments where we fall to our knees in worry and grief and despair, you are there to help us stand again. You are there to help us breathe again. You are there with us in every moment of every day, especially the ones that aren't dramatic or miraculous. Amen.

Pentecost Next Week And Sending

Speaker 20:12

My friends, next Sunday, which is May 24th in this year, 2026, will be Pentecost. So we'll talk about the coming of the Holy Spirit. So I do hope you'll join us here again on Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart. Again, I'm so grateful that you spend this time with me. So my friends, go into this day with joy in each step. Go with hope spoken from your lips and carry the light of love wherever you go. Because wherever you carry love, there will you go in peace. Until next time, my friends, be well.