Meet Your Companion
Julie DesJarlais
Grief & Spiritual Care Counselor
A Yooper Girl Who Came Home
Raised in Menominee on the shores of Green Bay, with roots running deep through Menominee and Marinette Counties. After college and a big-city creative career in Madison, the river called me back in 2020. This is where I belong — and where I now serve.
Trained & Called to Walk With You
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Master of Divinity in Pastoral Care (Cum Laude) – Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
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Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling coursework (60 of 66 credits completed) – CACREP-aligned program covering clinical diagnosis (DSM-5), grief-informed care, counseling theories, ethics, group process, and multicultural practice (non-licensed track)
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300+ hours Clinical Pastoral Education in nursing, memory care & ventilator units
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10+ years as certified GriefShare facilitator (600+ people served)
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Former Student Chaplain and Corporate Chaplain
Seminary was pure wonder—every day an adventure for both mind and heart. Years later, I’m still in awe of how the Bible holds endless depths for lifelong scholars, yet speaks with breathtaking clarity and tenderness to someone who has never opened it before—to the curious, the doubting, the broken, the brand-new seeker.
A clear note about licensing:
I am not a state-licensed mental-health therapist or counselor.
The support I offer is spiritual companionship, pastoral care, and faith-based grief support grounded in my seminary training, chaplaincy experience, and GriefShare facilitation. If you need or prefer licensed clinical therapy, I’m happy to help you find excellent referrals.
25+ Years as an Art Director — Training for This
Led creative teams across North, Central, and South America. Directed million-dollar budgets, photoshoots, and 100% Spanish-language campaigns — all without speaking fluent Spanish.
Why it matters: I learned how to truly listen, read a room in any language, and turn complex emotions into something clear, beautiful, and healing. Those skills live at bedsides and in support groups now.
Beauty Is Still My Language
My garden explodes with color every summer — wave after wave of perennials and annuals I plant myself, living palettes that spill over fences and stop traffic. Neighbors roll down windows just to say, “It looks like a magazine!” Gardening is my slow-motion canvas, the place where I still get to mix color, light, and story exactly the way I did for 25 years in the design world.
Once a month I teach acrylic-painting classes in the community. I watch beginners discover color theory for the first time — complements, temperature, harmony — and hear the same words every single session: “Julie, you should teach full-time.” Their joy reminds me why I stepped away from the corporate studio and into the calling I live now.
Travel keeps my heart wide open and my empathy sharp: Iceland’s black volcanic beaches and northern lights, Thailand’s golden temples and the warmest smiles on earth, the highland markets of Ecuador, the coffee farms of Colombia. Every trip brings new textures, light, and human connection that I carry back into every conversation and every bedside.
And waiting at home are one house panther, Dexter, and my always dressed for success, tuxedo cat, Gilbert — official supervisors of all projects. They claim the best cardboard boxes (especially the ones with bathrobes printed on them), patrol the windows for “Cat TV” at the bird feeders, and make sure no lap stays empty for long. Their quiet purrs and soft weight are daily reminders that comfort often shows up furry, unhurried, and exactly when it’s needed most.
All of these — the flowers, the paint, the far-away places, and two velvet panthers — keep me tender, attentive, and ready to sit with you in whatever season you’re walking through.
This is What I Bring
Whether I’m arranging flowers, framing light in a photograph, or sitting quietly with you in grief or hospice, my aim is the same: to help you feel seen, loved, and never alone.If life feels heavy right now, you’ve come home — to someone who knows these waters, this sorrow, and the stubborn way hope grows back.
With you in hope and healing,
Julie DesJarlais
