Meet Michelle
Founder of Storybrook Ministries
I’m Michelle — founder of Storybrook Ministries, chaplain, bereavement counselor, ordained minister, writer, speaker, and Christian counselor with a heart for women walking through grief, identity questions, life transitions, and the sacred places where faith and real life meet.
Storybrook was born from the places where my own story, calling, wounds, healing, faith, imagination, and ministry began coming together.
It was not built from theory.
It was built from a life.
A life of loving God, carrying things I did not always know how to name, sitting with others in their deepest grief, walking through my own losses, and learning that God does not only meet us in the polished parts of our story.
He meets us in the honest ones.
My Heart for Storybrook
For years, I have sat with people in some of the most tender moments of life.
As a hospice chaplain and bereavement counselor, I have prayed beside bedsides, listened to final fears, heard final stories, watched families say goodbye, and learned that the presence of God can fill a room even when hearts are breaking.
As a minister, I believe Scripture is alive and able to bring truth, comfort, correction, hope, and healing into the places we cannot reach on our own.
As a counselor, I care deeply about helping women understand the stories, wounds, labels, losses, roles, and life chapters that have shaped how they see themselves.
As a writer, I believe words can become a doorway — a way to remember, grieve, tell the truth, and notice where God has been present all along.
And as a woman, I know what it is to need God in the middle of the story.
Not after everything is fixed.
In the middle.
Why I Created Storybrook
I created Storybrook for the woman who is carrying more than people can see.
The woman who has been strong for a long time.
The woman who loves God but still feels heavy.
The woman grieving someone she cannot stop loving.
The woman standing in a life transition wondering, “Who am I now?”
The woman who has lived under old names, old shame, old wounds, or old expectations and is ready to know what God calls true.
The woman who wants care that is Christ-centered, honest, personal, meaningful, and rooted in compassion.
I did not want to create a place where women felt rushed, managed, fixed, or handed easy answers for painful chapters.
I wanted to create a place where a woman could come as she is and begin telling the truth in the presence of God.
A place where grief is honored.
A place where identity is restored.
A place where story matters.
A place where Scripture brings light instead of shame.
A place where women are reminded that God has not forgotten them in the chapter they are living.
What Makes My Work Different
Storybrook brings together several pieces of my life and calling:
Christian counseling.
Chaplaincy.
Bereavement care.
Ministry.
Writing.
Speaking.
Story work.
Symbolic reflection.
Prayer.
Scripture.
The real woods and brook of Storybrook.
That may sound like many things, but to me they all belong together.
Because women are not one-dimensional.
A woman’s grief is connected to her story.
Her story is connected to her identity.
Her identity is connected to her faith.
Her faith is connected to her wounds, her hope, her questions, her family, her calling, her memories, and the life she is still trying to understand.
Storybrook gives space for those pieces to be held together.
Professionally.
Prayerfully.
Creatively.
Honestly.
With Christ at the center.
The Story Side of Storybrook
If you spend any time around Storybrook, you will also meet Lumi and the Storykeeper.
Lumi is the story-name I write from — the part of my heart that notices rain, memory, lanterns, little houses, old keys, empty chairs, songs, stones, brooks, and the way God can use ordinary things to whisper, “Look again.”
The Storykeeper is the voice behind the quill.
She gathers the details that might otherwise be missed.
The phrase someone’s mother always said.
The chair no one is ready to move.
The wound a woman has carried for thirty years.
The moment she realizes she is not who shame said she was.
This is the writer side of Storybrook.
It is playful at times.
Poetic.
Wonder-filled.
But it is also ministry.
Because sometimes a story helps the heart speak before a woman knows how to say the words plainly.
My Background
Michelle Episcopo-Williams is the founder of Storybrook Ministries, LLC.
She serves as a chaplain, bereavement counselor, Christian counselor, ordained minister, speaker, and writer. Her work is rooted in Christ-centered care, Scripture, prayer, story, grief support, identity work, and compassionate ministry for women.
Through Storybrook, Michelle offers Christian counseling support, six-week grief and identity journeys, Next Chapter Coaching, premarital counseling, funeral and memorial officiating, personalized stories, workbooks, and speaking for churches, women’s events, grief gatherings, and ministry settings.
Her heart is to help women bring their real stories before God and begin seeing their lives with truth, compassion, and hope.
A Note from Michelle
There are parts of my story I will not place on a website.
Not because I am hiding them.
But because some holy things are not meant to be displayed for everyone passing by.
What I can tell you is this:
I know what it is to carry wounds and still love God.
I know what it is to serve while hurting.
I know what it is to grieve.
I know what it is to feel unseen.
I know what it is to live for years under names God never gave me.
I know what it is to ask, “Who am I now?”
And I know what it is for God to meet me there.
Not with shame.
Not with a demand that I hurry up and be healed.
But with truth.
With patience.
With His Word.
With His presence.
With people who helped me tell the truth.
With small reminders that He had not left the chapter I was in.
That is the heart I bring to Storybrook.
When I sit with a woman, I do not sit above her.
I sit with her.
As a chaplain.
As a counselor.
As a minister.
As a writer.
As a woman who knows what it is to need Jesus in the real places.
My prayer is that Storybrook becomes a place where women feel safe enough to stop performing and start telling the truth.
Because healing often begins there.
Not in the polished version of the story.
The real one.
The one God already knows.