Collide: Running Into Healing When Life Hands You Hurt

by Willow Weston

What if your pain is the place where healing begins?

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we hoped. Heartbreak, trauma, loss, shame—it can leave us feeling shattered, overwhelmed, and messy. We often try to run from our hurt, but we never get far. Our unresolved pain comes out sideways appearing as anxiety, unforgiveness, friendship break-ups, big feelings and discontentment. But what if healing our hurt is possible? What if our healing can help those hurting around us?

In Collide, Willow Weston invites you to bravely let Jesus run into your hurt—trusting it’s right there that He collides with your mess and brokenness to bring healing, freedom, and transformation.

Through Willow’s own broken and raw story—we are given permission to be real. She will help you understand how Jesus collides with the messiest parts of our lives, not to condemn, but to walk with us, heal what’s hurting, and begin the slow, beautiful work of making us whole.

With honesty, compassion, humor, and deep spiritual insight, Willow helps the roots of your past hurt and recognize how it’s shaping your presentconfront the harmful patterns and beliefs that keep you stuckdiscover that emotional healing begins not by avoiding your hurt, but by bravely stepping into itexplore what Scripture says about pain, weakness, and the nearness of Godexperience healing that not only transforms your own life, but also brings restoration to those around youCollide is a powerful invitation to run—limping, weeping, doubting, hopeful—straight into the arms of Jesus. Because it’s there, in the collision of your pain and His presence, that true healing can begin.

272 pages, Paperback

Published March 10, 2026

About the author

Willow Weston is an author, speaker, podcast host, and founder of Collide, a Pacific Northwest ministry creating spaces for women to encounter Jesus and experience healing, hope, and transformation. With over 25 years in ministry, she brings passion, truth, and story into every room.

She is the author of Collide: Running into Healing When Life Hands You Hurt, where she vulnerably shares her own story of brokenness and beauty, inviting readers to courageously face unresolved pain, find healing in Jesus, and embrace lasting hope.

If you’re navigating hurt, longing for healing, or wanting to grow in your faith, you’ll find a safe place here.

When she’s not writing or speaking, Willow is a wife and mom who loves coffee, the beach, sunset skies, meaningful conversations, and gathering people together.

Reviews

[Hannah Gampe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably a solid 4, maybe a slight 3.5⭐️ I did really like this. There was so much truth in her words and she gave incredible biblical examples! My only thing with this book was that she talked about her unstable upbringing and the trauma with that. And I can’t relate to that on a personal level (thankfully!). Obviously, this book is for everyone and is applicable to everyone, not just individuals with trauma or deep hurts from their childhood. But it did, at times, make it a little harder to connect. Don’t get me wrong: I think she did great and I so appreciate her vulnerability and honesty in this book. She is showing her wounds and not letting them hold her back because she is healed by Jesus and I love that. She is so strong and gives examples of service and forgiveness. And sometimes I thought to myself “wow that would be so hard to do,” but we, as Christians, are called to do hard things and called to forgive and serve and love (not saying those are solely Christian things, but they are important of the Christian faith). So I admired her ‘examples’ and her real-life testimony of forgiveness and service and love and peace. It’s one thing to write a book like this - giving sort of Christian self-help vibes - but it’s another to live by the things she says/practices and to live like Jesus. I also really valued how she had Scripture throughout her chapters. Yes, the Holy Spirit can speak through us, and we love that, but bringing it back to Scripture is always a slay and we stan! I hadn’t heard of her ministry before, so I think this book could be such a big opportunity for her ministry and ‘movement’ of Collide to really expand. Willow lives on the West Coast, so I think it’s really cool to hear about her ministry from this book as an East Coast girlie. I loved the principle and guiding theme of her book and of her ministry, Collide. Despite my one small negative of relating to this book, I learned a lot and took a lot away from it. She had so many good one-liners that HIT and if you know, you know. A good one-liner can stop you in your tracks. I think this is a nice quick Christian read for anyone! We all have wounds, we all carry hurts of some form (whether we want to admit it or not), and Willow has done a great job of being sensitive/gentle with the reader while sharing her story and the ultimate Healer of our wounds, Jesus Christ.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher, Tyndale, for this open-hearted, faith-filled ARC!

[Jessica Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot even express how incredible this book is. Willow is a phenomenal speaker and writer. She absolutely bears her soul and all of the pain she has faced so that we, as her readers, can see how much Jesus wants to collide with us. I truly believe everyone needs this book. If you are lost and need healing or think you are doing fine but really need healing, or are a human being, you need to read this book.

[Haley Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Willow holds nothing back in this perfect book that reaches right in our most sacred scared places. I was completely gripped by her story and related to so many “lessons” we learn from a very young age. Are you “moving on or moving with the pain” and were you also taught that “silence is strength?” Willow invites you to revisit trauma, grief, and heartache and to see all of the ways that Jesus collides with us in all of the messy places. This is a book full of reflection, and hurt, and heartache. It’s also a book of hope, and comfort and healing. As a pastors wife, I am incredibly thankful for this resource and will be putting it in the hands of many. Thank you Willow for telling your story with such openness and tenderness and inviting us in to your hurt and healing so we can begin our own journey of healing in the arms of Jesus.

[Sarah Obsesses over Books & Cookies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great memoir about a woman who crashed into Jesus and learned how to keep getting up when life knocks her down, and she wants to help you succeed as well. Willow's mother is not the best, she's a hippie alcoholic who puts her daughter in danger and even sends her away at one point. For most of Willow's life she just wants her mom to stop drinking and she wants to heal. And just like we've heard in other's stories about how God works, Willow takes her pain and uses it to help other women heal as well. I appreciated the casual tone of the book and how she weaves in stories from the Bible along the way. She has a lot of wise words:

"If we don't get healing for what hurt us, our wounds start to wound and wound and wound. our wounds begin to speak. Our experiences conversations and memories have a voice and they start to tel us who we are, who others are and who God is. Our view of ourselves, others and God can become so ver wounded. We walk into job interviews, parties, churches, teams, first dates and committees expecting to be hurt again, which wreaks havoc on our lives. We self-protect by controlling, hiding, shutting down, and putting up walls. Some of us build such high walls that they put the Great Wall of China to shame. Nobody will ever climb them. And if someone tries to climb our walls, we will Taser them with our pain. That oughta keep them out!"

"We start blaming others , and we start blaming God for our pain and for not taking it away. Before we realize it, we've become the father we despised, the boss we'd hate working for, the friend we're annoyed by. Our marriages experience mutual destruction, our friendships are damaged by deep seated insecurity and our kids are handed wounded patterns with their breakfast. We pass the baton of hurt on to our children, who pass it on to their children and their children's children. we see history repeat itself and what we see we don't like."

"Jesus sees where you are and how you got here and He understands He makes room for us to have hope in who we can become despite who and where we've been."

"Before she changed a thing, before she even confessed to walking down some sketchy roads, before she went and tried to sin no more, Jesus made sure she knew: "You are already loved. You are already chosen. You are already worthy." Once a girl knows that she is loved, chosen and worthy, she knows she's wanted. She doesn't have to buy love at a discounted rate. She doesn't have to steal love from someone else. She doesn't have to walk down alleys, longing for someone to choose her. She doesn't have to drink to numb the pain of all the unwanted things she's done to feel wanted."


There were so many more that I highlighted but these were just a couple of the first things.

If you are a Christian I'd recommend reading this, or if you are searching for healing from life, I'd also recommend it or if you just like a good memoir and have a rocky relationship with your mother.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to the book’s publisher and NetGalley for the ARC digital copy. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

You know how the right things somehow regain their place when you’ve given up? I am three weeks into recovering from a concussion and have felt depressed the past several days. I am physically and emotionally hurting, and have become bored out of my mind from inactivity! Haven’t been able to enjoy much of anything that requires my eyes to focus, including reading.

Well, I rediscovered my old kindle that allows dark mode and no back light. Freedom from feeling stuck!

I chose Collide based solely on the title, and it ended up being about healing. To my surprise, I have never highlighted so much in a book ever! The author spoke to my heart and mind, which I valued as an anxious over-thinker currently having processing difficulties. There was a slight overuse of quirky humor, but I appreciated the levity it brought to a deep topic.

Read this book if you are a believer. Read it if you are questioning. If you seek healing. To improve relationships. Forgiveness.

Love to all, especially those with invisible struggles.

5 out of 5 stars and my sincere respect to the author.

[Christie Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gift! Willow is a gifted storyteller who shares her story of trauma and her collision with Jesus. Whether you have small hurts or big T trauma; through raw honesty, humor and truth, she will lead you towards hope and healing that is found when we bring our wounds to Jesus. This would be great as an individual read or with a small group.

[Robert D · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Good ! could not put it down story after story of redemption through Jesus. Willow shares her story while weaving in stories of scripture where Jesus collided with people and their lives were changed forever. Stories are very vulnerable and hard to read at times.. but with so much purpose and emotion, tears and laughter. Well written and fun to read, but also life-changing.