Episode Details

Collide didn’t begin with a business plan or a vision for a women’s ministry—it began with one woman hiding in a closet, confronting her own pain, and allowing Jesus to meet her there.

Episode Summary

How did Collide get started?

In this special solo episode, founder and director Willow Weston takes us back to the very beginning of Collide—a story that didn’t start with a conference, a nonprofit, or even an idea for a ministry. It started in a closet.

Years ago, Willow was home with her baby when someone connected to deep wounds from her past showed up at her door. Overcome by fear, anger, and unresolved pain, Willow hid upstairs with her baby. In that moment, she realized that although she had experienced tremendous healing since giving her life to Jesus, there were still wounded places in her story that needed attention. She sensed God inviting her to come out of hiding and pursue deeper healing. The next week, she made an appointment with a Christian counselor.

It was in that counseling office that the idea behind Collide was born. Willow began describing how wounded people move through life colliding with other wounded people—and how easily our unhealed pain can wound those around us. But when she looked at Jesus in Scripture, she saw a different kind of collision. When Jesus collided with wounded people, they were left more whole than broken.

Soon after, one college student asked Willow to mentor her. A couple of friends turned into more than 20 young women packed into Willow’s living room studying the people Jesus encountered in Scripture and asking what happened when their broken stories collided with Him. What started as the Wounded Collision Bible Study eventually became an experiment simply called Collide.

In this episode, Willow shares the unexpected story of how those living-room gatherings grew into events for women of all ages, how wise leaders encouraged her to allow Collide to become bigger than any one church, and how the ministry eventually took a huge leap of faith to become a nonprofit—even without money, staff, an office, or a clear roadmap for what came next.

Willow also shares some of the women whose stories shaped Collide along the way, including a grieving mother who had walked away from church after losing her son to suicide. At a Collide event, she discovered she didn’t have to pretend she was okay—and that God could handle the depth of her pain. Her story became part of the fuel behind Collide’s commitment to creating spaces where women can show up authentically and encounter Jesus in the places that hurt.

From conferences and counseling support to mentoring, Bible studies, classes, leadership development, and this very podcast, everything that followed grew from that same invitation: bring Jesus the real story, including the broken parts, and see what He can do with it.

Collide began with one woman discovering that God could meet her in her brokenness—and then use that very brokenness to bring beauty into someone else’s life. And as Willow shares, this is only the beginning of the story.

Meet Willow Weston

Willow Weston is the founder and director of Collide and host of The Collide Podcast. Her passion for Collide was born out of her own experience of encountering Jesus in places of pain and discovering that healing doesn’t require us to hide our brokenness.

In this solo episode, Willow pulls back the curtain on Collide’s beginnings, sharing the unexpected moments, people, risks, and invitations from God that transformed a small Bible study in her living room into a growing movement of women daring to believe that God not only meets us in our brokenness—He can use us there.

Key Takeaways

• Healing can begin when we stop hiding. Collide’s story began when Willow recognized that unresolved w