Why Your Work Matters to God, But Not Always to the Church

There is a kind of woman the church hasn’t always known how to celebrate. She doesn’t bring a casserole to the potluck because she’s flying in from a business trip. She leads a team of twenty at work and sits alone in a pew on Sunday. She loves God fiercely, shows up for her kids if she has them, and has the quiet suspicion that maybe the gifts she brings to the boardroom don’t count the same way as the ones offered in the church nursery.

Peggy Bodde knows that woman because, for most of her career, she was that woman.

A single mom who climbed from receptionist to senior vice president, Peggy spent more than two decades navigating the intersection of deep faith and high-stakes corporate leadership—a crossroads the church rarely talks about, and the marketplace rarely prays about. She’s now a writer, speaker, and founder of the Sacred Work Foundation, where she pours those hard-won years into other women free of charge.

The House That Looked Perfect from the Outside

Before Peggy was an executive, she was a child trying to survive. Adopted as a baby, she grew up in a home that appeared, by every external measure, completely fine. Mom stayed home. No drinking. Church three times a week. White picket fence.

The abuse was invisible to everyone except Peggy.

What made it especially disorienting was the religious scaffolding around it. The message she absorbed from her adoptive parents, reinforced week after week in Sunday school, was a twisted theology of conditional love: when she was good enough, God would accept her. Until then, she deserved what happened to her. The result was a child who became a perfectionist, an overachiever, and a relentless chaser of approval before she was old enough to name any of those things.

But God had already written a different chapter for her.

At twelve, a family move from suburban Chicago to a small town in North Georgia shifted the power dynamic enough that Peggy found the courage to fight back. She threatened to talk. She was kicked out. And walking away from that house, she felt relief. She knew, with a twelve-year-old’s clarity, that wherever she was going would be safer than where she’d been.

Peggy eventually landed with Jim and Kathy Brown, who already had five children, and opened their door without hesitation. They believed in her. They loved her without conditions. And for the first time, Peggy caught a glimpse of what God’s love was actually supposed to look like.

“That started my healing and faith journey,” she told Kelly, “And it was long and messy. There was not one conversion or magic moment. But God faithfully pursued me. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s the beauty of grace.”

The Career She Didn’t Plan

Peggy was supposed to go to law school. She had been accepted. She was only working for the summer. Then her boss, the first real mentor she’d ever had, asked her a single question that changed everything. As a single mom, had she considered a business career instead?

She stayed. Doors kept opening. And she discovered a passion for business and a job that paid well enough to raise her daughter.

“I know that God orchestrated all those open doors to put me in the job that would be best for my daughter and me,” she said.

She offers this as an encouragement to women who never felt especially driven toward a career but now find themselves in the workforce out of necessity. God doesn’t waste anything. She started as a receptionist in a seasonal job. She left as a senior vice president. You never know what He has in mind—so don’t give up, and don’t be afraid to dream.

The Church Social That Changed Everything

For years, Peggy felt like a square peg in a round hole in her faith community. She was a single mom in corporate leadership surrounded by women who homeschooled, volunteered in ministry, and had husbands to share the load. She wanted to talk about hiring and the supply chain. She felt the gravitational pull toward the other side of the room where the men stood talking about work, but she knew that wasn’t acceptable either.

It all came to a head at one particular church social event. Comment after comment landed like small arrows: “I’m so sorry you have to work and can’t stay home with your daughter.” “I hope your work slows down so you can volunteer at church more.” And the one that hit hardest: “God gifted you as a leader. You should think about leading in missions or ministry, you know, something that matters.”

She left early. That afternoon, alone with God, she prayed what many working women have prayed in their most vulnerable moments: maybe they’re right. Maybe I misunderstood my calling. Maybe I’m a terrible mom because I like my job.

And then the Holy Spirit answered her.

“Who are you listening to? Because it’s not Me.”

That question became her turning point. She dove into Scripture and prayer with focused intention, studying what God actually says about work. What she found was clear: we are image bearers of a working God. We serve a God who works. And our work matters to Him.

The situation in her faith community didn’t change overnight. But her need for approval from that community did.

Trusting God When the Numbers Don’t Add Up

After twenty-five years of corporate leadership, Peggy felt God calling her to leave it all and become a full-time writer. She was not enthusiastic about this plan.

“Do you know how much of a pay cut we’re talking about here?” she remembers arguing with God. “Hey God, I’m not sure you’ve thought about health insurance, but it’s really pricey.”

The turning point came when she was passed over for the promotion she’d been working toward, the pinnacle of that corporate ladder. Instead of devastation, she felt something unexpected: clarity. She saw how completely she’d let a job that began as God’s provision become an idol. Her eyes were open, and she wanted to obey.

The practical obstacles were real. Building a freelance writing career with a resume full of leadership and supply chain experience felt absurd. She treaded water. She doubted. And then she returned, again and again, to a passage from Isaiah 30 where God promises His people: “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

The phrase “behind you” anchored her. If she could hear God behind her, it meant she was walking forward in faith, taking steps, trusting Him to make the way clear. And He did.

The Pocket-Sized Mentor

“We are image bearers of a working God. We serve a God who works, and our work matters to Him.”

Peggy Bodde

One thing Peggy learned through her own transition was how desperately women need someone to walk ahead of them and then turn around. When she was new to freelance writing, she reached out to writers she’d been given as contacts. One responded to her request for coffee with two words: “Just Google it.”

She didn’t forget that. Her life verse is 2 Corinthians 1:3–4—the idea that God comforts us in our troubles so we can comfort others in the same way.

“Mentorship is walking that out. It is saying, ‘I have all these battle scars, and I’m going to come alongside you so that maybe instead of ten battle scars, you might just come out of this with one.’”

For women looking for mentors, Peggy’s advice is refreshingly simple: stop overcomplicating it. Pay attention to women in your community who embody what you want to embody. Then invite them to coffee. You don’t have to announce that you’re looking for a mentor. Just have a conversation. Nine times out of ten, you’ll know afterward whether this is someone to pursue more time with.

She also urges women to know what they’re asking for before they ask. Can you identify your greatest need right now? Do you know how much time you’re requesting? Clarity makes it easier for both the mentor and the mentee to know if the relationship can work. And one person doesn’t have to cover every category. Different mentors for different seasons is not a failure — it’s wisdom.

Her own book, Sacred Work, was written to fill the gap for women who can’t access a mentor. She calls it a pocket-sized companion for the hardest workplace and leadership challenges women face. The Sacred Work Foundation, now ten years old, extends the same mission: women come to Peggy with specific workplace needs such as negotiating a raise, navigating a difficult boss, or re-entering the workforce after time away. She helps them get to the other side. At no cost.

What the Church Could Do Differently

Kelly asked Peggy, now married, how faith communities can better support single working women and moms. The answer was practical and pointed.

First, recognize that single working moms want to be in Bible study—it’s just harder to get there. Move it to evenings. Offer it every other week instead of every week. Provide childcare. Provide a meal. “Imagine a single mom gets off work, shows up for Bible study, and her kids are taken care of, she has something to eat, and she can focus on studying God’s Word,” Peggy said. “That goes a long way to serve single moms, because it shows: we see you.”

“We can’t change things that we don’t talk about. The church can provide a venue and the structure to have careful, intentional conversations around the bias and stereotypes that surround single Christian women and working moms.”

Peggy Bodde

Second, host events for working women that take their professional lives seriously. Not instead of events on hospitality or marriage, but alongside them. Create space to talk about career, leadership, ethics in the workplace, and how Scripture speaks into all of it. Women are navigating real pressure in corporate culture and making hard decisions about their values every day. The church has wisdom to offer. It just needs to show up.

This is part of discipleship. We need married women and men speaking into single life. And singles want to have a voice in the lives of couples and children. When the whole family of God brings its different experiences to the table, we bear the image of God more fully to the world.

For all of us who have spent too long waiting for someone to tell us our work counts, our marital status doesn’t define us, and our gifts matter outside the walls of a church building. You don’t need a different kind of life for God to use you. You need to know whose voice you’re actually listening to and believing.

Peggy Bodde, former senior vice president of Petzl America, is a full-time writer and small business owner. She founded Sacred Work, a foundation that offers free career and leadership coaching to women. Bodde writes about the intersection of faith and work and is the author of Sacred Work: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Leadership in the Marketplace. “My mission is to take everything I’ve learned as a writer, leader, and child of God and use it to encourage and help you.” — Peggy

You can learn more about Peggy at her website.