Author and Bible teacher Jane Johnson founded Dig Your Well® in 2022 after starting a blog in 2013, eight months after her best friend died from stage four colon cancer and seven years into what would be a decade-long wait for a family.
Throughout those excruciating ten years, Jane dug her well and began teaching women the things she dug up in God's Word in person at conferences throughout the country and with her online community.
Today, Jane teaches women worldwide how to do the same: digging deep into God's Word and studying it for themselves, transforming their quiet times forever. Jane continues her Biblical teaching from her home in Bend, Oregon, alongside her husband, Josh, and their three miracle babes.
the story behind Dig Your Well
I stood in Shawna’s kitchen, looking at photographs on the refrigerator as she expertly pulled shots from the espresso machine in the corner. The motor hummed and the caramel-colored liquid trickled out. She poured it into a cup of ice before topping it off with a swirl of canned whipped cream and a quick finish of sprinkled cinnamon.
Handing the glass to me and keeping one for herself, she led me into the living room and we took our perch on the well-worn, deep purple couch. Kaleb was stirring in his crib upstairs, not yet asleep. And Shawna began asking the kind of questions you ask someone in the throes of a brand-new discipleship-based friendship.
Where are you from?
Do you have any siblings?
What is your major?
Tell me your life story.
This happened once a week—this sharing of learned life lessons. Week by week, we sat there swallowed up in her couch, reading different parts of the Bible alongside commentaries for explanation and insight and application. Shawna knew well that she didn’t have to be a Bible teacher in order to disciple-teach.
Natural conversation followed. The simplest ones that always lead to the deeper ones. The ones that have grit and meaning.
The ones that stick to your bones.
“Dig your well,” Shawna said one day. I had been lamenting my struggle through singleness when the pastor’s wife [who would later become my best friend] taught me her most important life lesson. It was a reference from Psalm 84:6 and the people who pilgrim-pass through the Valley of Baca and make it a spring—or, as it can also be translated, a well. The pilgrims traveling through drew water from that spring-well before continuing on their way.
“Dig your well for yourself,” she said, “and also for the people who follow along after you. And do it now, while you are single and can dig a little bit deeper and linger a little bit longer.” She had a point. I really had nothing else to do but pass the hours drinking coffee, studying for exams, working my part-time job, and dreaming of how the rest of my life would shape up.
Shawna had been digging her own well for years with regular quiet times, letting God fill it with the water of His Word. And on those afternoons, I sipped her handmade iced coffee and drank from her dug-out-well wisdom.
Of all the things she taught me, that was what stuck. To dig down—and dig deep. Every day, coming to God’s presence whether or not I wanted to, whether or not I had the time or the inclination. In the good days and the ones full of tears. Dig in and dig down and dig deep into His Word. So that when life got busy, and there was marriage and a mortgage and little ones at my morning-feet, I could draw from my dug-out-daily well.
And when I walked through the desert, I could drink from it.
excerpt, Mercy Like Morning
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Six years ago, a dear girlfriend from college messaged me here - she had picked up Mercy Like Morning to read again. The first time she tried to read it, she wasn’t ready and only made it halfway through. But this time, she felt God calling her back to His Word.
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“Today was a turning point,” she told me.
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Two weeks later, she messaged me again, blowing Holy Spirit wind onto a spark I had been feeling but was too intimidated to lean into. Five days later, I began writing my first section of biblical commentary, sending her a photo as proof. That day was a turning point for me.
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“It took me an hour to write verse one,” I said, “but it’s started. Thanks for allowing God to use you for the nudge I needed.”
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I had NO idea that, six years later, I would be a woman getting ready to traditionally publish two books of biblical commentary covering seven books of the Bible.
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It’s so amazing to look back and not only see how far I’ve come, but to see the details of the beginning of things that I didn’t know were even being written into my story.
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And it all started with a little DM.
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Worthy (the inaugural book in the Dig Your Well series of biblical commentaries) will be released July 28th! Comment “worthy” for the pre-order link!
There’s no bikini promise in the Bible, but God gave me one anyway. And He reminded me of it at the very moment I needed it the most. 😭🔥
It’s not lost on me that I spent the first quarter of 2026 speaking at events which mirror the bookends of my story: the first was in a room full of women who have all experienced infertility, miscarriage, and child loss. And the last was this most recent one — an event geared specifically toward mothers.
The first part of my story was the catalyst for learning to study the Bible the way that I do. And, the rest of it? It’s to teach you how to do the same. Whether you are a woman in waiting, a career woman, a mother desperately trying to keep her head above the water, or a retired woman with grown children, wondering what’s ahead for you in your senior years, I teach this for you. And I’ve watched women across all circumstances and of all ages be completely changed by it.
All that to say, the School of Scripture doors are now open. It’s an investment in yourself and the generations of women who will follow you along after, whether or not you birth them.
(Swipe to hear my prayer for every woman that walks through my virtual doors.)
Digmywell.com/sos
This the way that we warfare. We come boldly to His Revelation 4 throne and join with all of heaven in worship. Then we will receive mercy. Then we will find His grace that helps us when we need it the most. Then we can go back to the front lines and fight another day for as many days as He gives us.
You know those viral videos of little ones who have had trouble hearing their entire lives and a doctor flips the switch on a cochlear implant? Mom starts talking, that child’s face lights up when he hears his mama’s voice for the very first time, and everyone in the room is crying? This is that for me. 😭
