About Tanya Murphy

"I did not come to this work because I had the answers. I came because I desperately needed them."

HER STORY
When striving becomes a crisis

In 2013, my life began to unravel in ways I did not understand. I started experiencing intense anxiety and panic attacks, so severe that I once pulled over on the side of the road, certain I was having a heart attack, and had my daughter call an ambulance. Two ER visits later, the symptoms would vanish as quickly as they came. A kind nurse was the first person to ask me if I had ever experienced anxiety. That question changed everything.

Over the years that followed, the weight of unmanaged anxiety became overwhelming. I was praying. I was seeking counsel. And still, I was struggling. Well-meaning voices told me I simply was not trusting the Lord enough with my mind. That particular wound cut deep. One morning, I reached a breaking point so dark I knew I needed help beyond what I had been trying on my own.

I sought medical care, began therapy, and committed to learning how to care for my whole self, mind, body, and spirit. It was in that season that I received an ADHD diagnosis, which had been the root of the anxiety and depression I had been carrying for years. Finally having a name for what I had lived with brought not shame, but relief. And a clear path forward.

I believe naming what we carry removes the power it holds over us. That conviction has never left me.

THE TURNING POINT
Learning to simply be

As I began to heal, I realized that what I truly longed for was rest. Not rest as a reward for doing enough. Not stillness earned through spiritual performance. I wanted to know what it felt like to be genuinely at peace in the Lord’s presence, with no agenda, no striving, nothing to prove.

I was blessed to find a church community that embraced Christian meditation, introducing me to the ancient contemplative practices of Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. For the first time, I began to understand what it meant to simply be with the Lord, not because I had done enough to deserve it, but because He loves me and I love Him. That simplicity became the foundation of everything.

I went on to become a Certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Practitioner and a Christian Meditation Facilitator, leading classes from a Hebraic perspective, rooted in how Jesus himself practiced meditation and prayer. I began serving in my local church as a minister of the gospel, teaching classes on resting in Christ’s sufficiency. While we must be intentional about rest, scheduling it is only the beginning. The deeper invitation is to inhabit it as a way of life.

WHY THIS MINISTRY EXISTS
Rest In His Presence was born out of my own becoming.
I know what it is to strive inside your own faith. To love the Lord sincerely and still feel like you are running on empty. To sit in a pew and feel more depleted than restored. I also know what it is to discover, slowly and imperfectly, that there is another way.

This ministry exists for the woman who is ready to stop performing and simply rest in Him. Not as a program to complete. As a practice to inhabit.

You are welcome here exactly as you are.

CREDENTIALS
Certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Practitioner
Christian Meditation Facilitator
Minister of the Gospel