When I get like that, my natural instinct is usually to withdraw. I become quiet, keep to myself, and avoid interacting with anyone. Somehow, in my mind, it feels kinder to isolate than to risk taking my frustration out on the people I love most. To be honest, there is probably some wisdom in stepping away for a little while. Sometimes we genuinely need a few quiet moments to let our emotions settle before they spill over onto everyone around us.

But this particular evening felt different.

As I stood in the kitchen trying to make dinner, it seemed as though every little thing required more effort than it should have. Nothing was actually going wrong, yet every ingredient, every decision, and every interruption felt like one more thing I didn't have the emotional energy to handle. By the end of the evening, I had retreated into my own little world, and the next morning I found myself sending an apology text to my kids because I knew they had experienced a version of me they didn't deserve.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized dinner had never really been the problem.

The truth was, I had been carrying around hurt for days.

My divorce had been occupying far more space in my heart than I wanted to admit. Old memories had been surfacing again...things that had been said, things that had happened, conversations I couldn't change, and if I'm being completely honest, anger that I hadn't fully surrendered to God. It wasn't that one particular event had triggered me that evening. Rather, weeks of sadness, frustration, disappointment, and hurt had quietly been piling up beneath the surface until even something as ordinary as making dinner felt overwhelming.

Standing there in my kitchen, I remember thinking that I simply didn't have anything left to give. Nothing catastrophic had happened. I wasn't responding to some terrible piece of news. I was just emotionally exhausted.

Looking back now, I realize I didn't simply need a few minutes alone.

I needed Jesus.

Sometimes we think we need Him most during life's biggest crises, a frightening diagnosis, the loss of someone we love, or a tragedy we never saw coming. Those are certainly moments when we cling to Him with everything we have. But perhaps we need Him just as desperately on ordinary evenings when dinner won't come together, our emotions feel heavier than we can explain, and we discover we've been carrying burdens far longer than we realized.

Life is hard, even on its ordinary days. We weren't created to simply survive them on our own strength. We need Christ not only for life's biggest storms, but for the quiet Tuesday evenings when our hearts have become weary and we don't even recognize why.

When the Hurt Leaks Out

But then Tuesday night comes, dinner doesn't come together easily, and everything we've been carrying starts leaking out.

Unfortunately, the people who receive the spillover are often the people who had absolutely nothing to do with the original wound. They didn't cause the hurt we're carrying. They weren't responsible for the memories that resurfaced that afternoon or the anger that has been quietly building for weeks. They just happened to be standing nearby when something ordinary became the final straw.

Unforgiveness has a way of doing that. We might be able to tuck it into a closet for a while, shut the door, and go about our lives as though everything is fine. But eventually, it comes back out, reminding us that it was there all along.

I think that's partly because forgiveness is a process. Deep wounds don't always heal quickly, and sometimes forgiveness doesn't happen all at once either. We can sincerely surrender something to God and discover later that there are still places in our hearts where the hurt remains. Sometimes it even disguises itself as something else. We think we're dealing with anger. Or stress. Or sadness. Or simply the lingering difficulties of a divorce. But God has a way of gently pulling back those layers and showing us what is underneath.

And sometimes, when all the disguises are removed, there it is.

The same darn thing we've been battling for years.

The anger I thought I had contained wasn't really contained at all. It had simply been waiting beneath the surface until an ordinary Tuesday night, when dinner required more effort than I had to give, and suddenly it came pouring out in a place where I never expected it.

Of course, my response to God was something along the lines of, Really, Lord? This again?

In moments like these, I find Peter incredibly relatable. He came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" (Matthew 18:21).

I understand the question.

I want a number.

Perhaps that's the accountant in me, but if we're going to do this forgiveness thing, I'd like to know exactly how many times are required. Surely there comes a point when I've fulfilled my obligation. Seven sounds fairly generous to me.

Unfortunately, Jesus gave Peter a much bigger number.

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." (Matthew 18:22).

I can imagine Peter's reaction because I suspect it would have been similar to mine.

Are You serious? I have to do this again?

But I don't think Jesus was really giving Peter a number to keep track of. He was showing him that forgiveness would have to become a way of life. There would always be another offense, another disappointment, another hurt, and sometimes even another memory of an old wound we thought we had already surrendered. Following Christ would require us to forgive again and again throughout our lives.

And here's the part I don't want to miss: Jesus isn't asking us to model something He has never done Himself.

Think about how many times Christ has forgiven us. Not once. Not seven times. Not even seventy-seven. We come back to Him over and over with our failures, our selfishness, our disobedience, and even our repeated struggles with the very same sins we promised Him we would leave behind.

And still, there is grace.

Still, there is forgiveness.

Jesus is the ultimate model of the very thing He asks of us. So if my desire is to become more like Christ, I can't give up on forgiveness simply because I'm tired of doing it. Becoming more Christlike means learning, little by little, to forgive as I have been forgiven.

Choosing What Will Hold Me

But what does it actually mean to forgive someone again?

When Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive, perhaps he wasn't only talking about different offenses. What if sometimes we have to forgive the same offense over and over? What if the same wound returns seventy-seven times? What if the person doesn't necessarily hurt us again, although they might, but the memory does?

Something reminds us of what happened, and suddenly we're right back there. We remember what was said. We remember what was done. We remember how deeply it hurt. And every time that memory surfaces, we have a choice about what we're going to do with it. We can pick it back up and carry it around for a while, or we can surrender it to Christ again.

I hate to admit it, but I like to pick it back up.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to forget how I was wronged because remembering feels a little like protection. If I keep the details close enough, perhaps I can make sure it never happens again. If I remember exactly how much it hurt, perhaps I'll recognize the warning signs next time. Somehow holding onto the offense can feel safer than releasing it.

But remembering what happened and remaining bound to what happened are not the same thing.

Forgiveness doesn't require us to pretend something wasn't wrong. It doesn't erase wisdom or eliminate the need for boundaries. It doesn't mean we have to place ourselves back into situations where someone can continue hurting us. Forgiveness simply means we stop insisting on carrying the offense everywhere we go.

We carry it into work. We carry it into new relationships. We carry it into conversations with people who never caused the wound. And sometimes we carry it right back into the kitchen on an ordinary Tuesday night and discover that yesterday's hurt is still spilling into today's life.

I don't think God's command to forgive has ever been about letting someone off the hook. I think it's also about God refusing to allow His children to remain trapped in the places where they experienced their deepest sorrows. Unforgiveness has a way of holding us there. It continually invites us back to the offense, back to the conversation, back to what should have happened, back to what we wish we had said, and back to the pain we desperately want to leave behind.

But we were never meant to live there.

If I've learned anything about God during all these years of walking with Him, it's that He is a God of freedom. Again and again, He leads His children out of the places that hold them captive. He doesn't want us chained to anger, bitterness, resentment, or something someone did to us years ago. He wants our hearts free to follow Him wherever He leads us next.

Maybe that's why forgiveness sometimes has to happen seventy-seven times. Maybe I really did forgive yesterday, but today the memory returned. So today, I surrender it again. Tomorrow, if it comes back, I'll surrender it again. Not because yesterday's forgiveness wasn't genuine, but because healing from deep wounds takes time, and every time I choose to release the hurt instead of rehearsing it, I loosen its grip on my life a little more.

Eventually, I think it comes down to a choice about what I'm willing to be bound to.

I can remain bound to unforgiveness, carrying around the weight of something I cannot go back and change. Or I can bind myself more closely to Christ, trusting Him with the healing I haven't completely experienced yet.

One of those keeps me living in yesterday.

The other leads me toward freedom.

So perhaps the next time an old memory surfaces, I don't need to be discouraged that I'm dealing with the same darn thing again. Maybe I simply need to recognize another opportunity to put it back into the hands of Jesus.

And if I have to do that seventy-seven times, then seventy-seven times I will choose Christ.

Because I don't want yesterday's hurt spilling into another Tuesday night.

I want to be free.

This wasn't one of the old movie theaters I grew up with. It was one of those newer theaters where every seat is a large recliner and you can order dinner right from your chair. Mine even had a heated seat, which I quickly decided should become standard in every theater. As we settled into our recliners with our food and drinks, I couldn't help but think how different movie theaters are today. My kids have never experienced sitting in a worn-out seat with gray duct tape wrapped around the armrests while your shoes stuck just a little to the floor every time you shifted your feet. Somehow, that all seemed perfectly normal when I was growing up.

We enjoyed the movie, and when the credits began to roll we gathered our things and started making our way out. I had ordered a cheeseburger during the movie, so I picked up my empty tray along with the bottle of water I'd been drinking. About that time, my son realized he had dropped his phone underneath his recliner. Since the theater was still fairly dark, we all stopped while he reached underneath the chair trying to retrieve it. I leaned over to help, balancing my tray in one hand and my water bottle in the other as I looked under one side of the chair and then the other.

What I didn't realize was that I had taken the lid off my water bottle. Every time I turned from one side to the other, a little wave of water sloshed out of the bottle and landed squarely on my son. The theater was dark enough that I never noticed what I was doing, and apparently he was so focused on finding his phone that he didn't say anything either. By the time we finally found it, I had managed to splash him several different times without having the slightest clue.

As we started walking toward the exit, my daughter was following just behind me. I turned around to say something to her while we were talking, and without realizing it I sent another splash of water flying, this time all over her. She hurried to catch up with me and finally said, "Mom, you don't have the lid on your water bottle."

I looked down and laughed. "Oh! I'm sorry."

In my mind I had probably dripped a few drops of water. I had no idea that for the last several minutes I had essentially been spraying both of my children every time I turned around.

We continued through the lobby, laughing and talking about the movie, and I pushed open one of the heavy glass doors leading outside. Still carrying on the conversation, I walked into the parking lot before realizing that my kids weren't beside me anymore. When I turned around, they were just coming through the doorway.

"Mom," they said, "you slammed the door right in our faces."

Apparently after I walked through, the heavy door had swung back behind me. I never even noticed. I had simply kept walking and talking as though they were right there beside me.  Anyone viewing me from the parking lot probably thought I was crazy.  That poor woman, they probably said, she has no idea she just took her kids out with a swinging door.  

As they caught up with me, I finally looked at them and noticed that both of their shirts had long streaks of water running down the front. Completely confused, I asked, "Why are you two all wet?"

They just looked at me and said in unison.

"Because you threw water all over us!"

At that point the three of us completely lost it. We laughed all the way across the parking lot. My son  said, "It's okay, Mom. You just baptized us in the movie theater." My daughter informed me that I was turning into my mother, and I suppose there's probably at least a little truth to that.

The more I thought about that evening, though, the more I realized the funniest part wasn't that I had splashed my kids with water or accidentally let the door swing back into their faces. It was that I had absolutely no idea I was doing any of it. I wasn't trying to make their evening miserable. I wasn't intentionally being inconsiderate. I simply went through the entire experience completely unaware of the effect I was having on the two people walking closest behind me.

As I reflected on that later, I couldn't help but wonder how often I do the same thing in everyday life. We spend so much of our time thinking about the ways other people have hurt us that we rarely stop to ask whether we might be leaving a trail of our own. Maybe our words are a little sharper than we realize. Maybe our impatience splashes onto the people we love most. Maybe we've allowed a door to swing shut behind us without ever noticing who it hit.

It's easy to recognize the water someone else has thrown on us. It's much harder to recognize the water we're throwing on everyone else.

As we laughed about it later that evening, I couldn't help but think about how much of life is lived exactly like that.

Why Does Carelessness Matter?

The water bottle and the swinging door weren't intentional. They made us laugh because I was having one of those classic "Mom moments." I wasn't trying to soak my kids, and I certainly wasn't trying to let a heavy door swing back into their faces. The whole thing happened because I was completely unaware of what I was doing.

The truth is, I think a lot of our relationships work the same way.

Most of us don't wake up in the morning planning to hurt the people we love. We don't set out to be impatient, dismissive, or thoughtless. More often than not, we're simply distracted. We're tired. We're carrying burdens no one else can see. Our minds are already on tomorrow's responsibilities while our bodies are standing in today's conversations. And before we know it, we've splashed someone with our words or allowed a door to swing shut behind us without ever realizing they were standing there.

If I'm being honest, I can quickly make a list of people who have hurt me over the years. I remember the careless words. I remember the doors that seemed to close in my face. I remember the emotional "water" that other people have splashed on me, and if I'm not careful, I can replay those moments over and over again. At certain points in my life, replaying those moments was one of my favorite hobbies.

But as I thought about that evening at the movie theater, another question began to form in my mind.

When was the last time I was the one holding the water bottle?

Figuratively speaking, of course.  Literally speaking, it was yesterday.

Who have I accidentally splashed because I wasn't paying attention? Who has quietly absorbed the overflow of my stress or my distraction while I went through life assuming everything was fine? Who have I taken for granted simply because I knew they would love me enough to forgive me?

Sometimes carelessness grows out of exhaustion. Sometimes it comes from stress. Sometimes it comes from trying to juggle too many responsibilities at once. None of those things make us bad people, but they can make us blind to the needs of the people walking closest beside us.

The people who often receive the least of our attention are the very people who deserve the most of it. They're the ones who patiently wait while we're busy. They're the ones we assume will understand. They're the ones we unintentionally put on the back burner because we know they'll still be there tomorrow.

David prayed one of the bravest prayers in all of Scripture:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  Psalm 139:23-24

What strikes me about that prayer is that David wasn't simply asking God to forgive the things he already knew about. He was inviting God to reveal the things he couldn't see.  That feels much harder.

Most of us already know the areas where we struggle. We know the sins we wrestle with. We know the habits we wish were different and the places where we need God's help. But David was essentially saying, "God, look deeper than I can. Show me what I'm missing."

Show me where I'm careless.  Show me where my words have been sharper than I realized.  Show me where I've taken someone for granted.  Show me where I've been so distracted by my own concerns that I haven't noticed the person standing right beside me.  Show me where I'm walking around with the lid off my water bottle.

That's a brave prayer because we may not always like what God brings to our attention. But I think there's also something incredibly freeing about it. We don't have to spend our lives trying to discover every blind spot on our own. We can invite the One who knows us completely to gently show us what we cannot see.

And maybe that's where change begins.  Not with becoming more aware of everyone else's faults, but with becoming willing to let God show us our own.

How Do We Create Distance

Isn't it interesting that the people closest to us are usually the ones who get the splash?

And isn't that so unfair?

When my daughter finally caught up with me and said, "Mom, you don't have the lid on your water bottle," she wasn't trying to embarrass me. She wasn't trying to make me feel guilty. She wasn't angry.  She was simply trying to stop me from splashing people when I didn't even realize I was doing it.

I wonder if we need to become better listeners when the people closest to us tell us they need more of our attention, more of our time, or simply a little more care. Maybe instead of assuming they're asking for too much, we should pause long enough to consider that perhaps they're trying to point out something we can't see for ourselves.

God does the same thing.

Sometimes He speaks through His Word. Sometimes He gently nudges our hearts during prayer. And sometimes He lovingly speaks through the people who know us best.

Proverbs 27:6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend."

Not every wound is meant to hurt us. Some wounds are meant to heal us.

Sometimes the people who love us the most are willing to risk an awkward conversation because they care more about the relationship than avoiding an uncomfortable moment. They want to be close to us, but they're also trying to tell us that something we're doing is creating distance.

The question is whether we'll listen.  Will we become defensive?  Will we explain ourselves?  Will we tell them they're asking for too much?  Will we insist they misunderstood our intentions?  Or will we respond the way David did and simply pray, "Lord, if this is true...show me."

So today, instead of asking God to show me who's been splashing water on me, I think I'll ask Him a different question.

Lord, am I carrying around an open water bottle?

And if I am...

Would You lovingly show me before I soak someone else?

I glanced down at the screen and immediately let out a long sigh.

Give me a call when you get a moment.

The message was from someone I always found particularly stressful to talk with. Every conversation seemed to leave me emotionally drained. We rarely saw eye to eye, and I often walked away feeling as though I had been talked down to rather than listened to.

For a brief moment I considered pretending I hadn't seen the text. Maybe if I waited long enough, the need for the phone call would simply disappear.

Unfortunately, according to my driver's license, I'm a responsible adult. Responsible adults return phone calls, even the ones they'd rather avoid.

I rested my forehead against my hand and stared at my computer screen. Maybe I could put it off for an hour. Then I shook my head. What good would that accomplish? I would simply spend the next hour dreading the conversation instead of getting it behind me.

I reached for my phone, took a deep breath, and prepared to make the call.

Before I could dial, my phone rang.

An unfamiliar number flashed across the screen.  Normally, I probably would have ignored it. But in that moment it almost felt like a welcome interruption from the conversation I was trying to avoid, so I answered.

"Hello?"

A warm, gentle voice greeted me on the other end.

"Hi. I'm with the women's ministry at church. I was just calling to see how you're doing today and to ask if there's anything I could be praying about for."

For a second, I wasn't quite sure what to say.

"I...I'm actually doing really well," I finally replied. "I really can't think of anything I need prayer for."

Looking back, that's almost amusing.  Only moments earlier I had been anxious enough to delay making a simple phone call, yet it never even occurred to me to mention it.  Part of me dismissed it because it seemed too small. It wasn't a health crisis. No one was dying. It hardly seemed worthy of asking someone else to pray about. Besides, explaining the situation would have taken too long.

But if I'm being honest, I think there was something deeper going on.  I've always found it much easier to be the person praying for someone else than the one admitting I need prayer myself. There's something vulnerable about allowing another person to carry one of your burdens before the Lord.

The sweet woman didn't seem bothered by my answer.

"Well," she said, "then let's thank God for how well He's taking care of you. Would you like to pray together now, or would you rather I pray for you after we hang up?"

I chose to pray with her.  Her prayer wasn't long or elaborate. She simply thanked God for His faithfulness, praised Him for His goodness, and asked Him to continue watching over my life.

When we finished, we said goodbye.  I sat quietly for a moment before walking over to the window. Looking up toward the sky, I sighed.

"I know that was You," I whispered.

Behind The Scenes

So I took a deep breath and dialed the number.

Ironically, the conversation turned out to be about almost nothing. The issue that had consumed so much of my attention was resolved within just a few minutes. There was no argument. There was no conflict. It wasn't nearly as stressful as I had imagined it would be. Before long, I was hanging up the phone and returning to work as though nothing had happened.

But something had happened.

As the afternoon wore on, I found myself thinking less about the phone call I had been so anxious to make and more about the unexpected call I had received just beforehand. The timing was simply too perfect to dismiss as coincidence. That woman from church had no way of knowing what was weighing on my mind. She couldn't have known how emotionally exhausted I already felt that day or that one more difficult conversation, however small it may have been, felt like more than I wanted to carry. Yet somehow, at precisely the right moment, God had placed me on her heart.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized that the size of my problem was never really the point. From an outsider's perspective, it wasn't much of a problem at all. It certainly wasn't a life-altering crisis. In fact, within a matter of minutes it had already been resolved. But God wasn't responding to the size of the situation. He was responding to the condition of my heart.

I was tired.

I was already carrying more than I realized.

What seemed like a molehill to everyone else felt like one more weight on shoulders that were already weary, and my heavenly Father saw that long before I did.

Jesus once said, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." I have read those words many times, but that afternoon I experienced them in a way I never had before. I hadn't prayed about the phone call. I hadn't asked anyone else to pray about it either. In fact, when that sweet woman asked if there was anything she could pray for, I told her there wasn't.

Looking back now, I wish I had been honest. I wish I had told her that I was anxious over something that probably seemed insignificant. I wish I had explained how perfectly timed her phone call was. But I was so focused on what was directly in front of me that I almost missed what God was doing behind the scenes.

Before I ever realized I needed encouragement, He had already sent it.

That realization has stayed with me ever since. How many times do we assume we're facing life's challenges alone, all the while God is already at work in ways we cannot yet see? How often is He quietly moving through the obedience of another believer, arranging circumstances we could never orchestrate ourselves, gently reminding us of His presence before we've even thought to ask for it?

Perhaps that's one of the most beautiful aspects of God's love. He doesn't simply respond when we cry out to Him. So often, He is already moving toward us before the prayer ever leaves our lips.

God The Father

I sat on the little barstool at my kitchen counter, eating my oatmeal and reading through the Bible app on my phone. I'm making my way into Deuteronomy now, which means I'm reading through many of the moments when Moses reminded the Israelites of where they had been and all God had brought them through. 

When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us, ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. It is time to break camp and move on.’ --Deuteronomy 1:6–7 NLT

I read those words again. Maybe it was because I'm heading toward my fiftieth year on this earth, but I sat there thinking about some of the things I've struggled with for what feels like most of my life. I find forgiveness difficult. I've detailed that struggle plenty of times here. I have a temper. I can hold on to hurt far longer than I should. And there is an entire list of other things I really don't feel the need to rehash this morning.

But as I sat there staring at those words, I had one overwhelming thought. Aren't you tired of it?

Isn't there a point when we finally become exhausted from fighting the same battles? Isn't there a moment when we look around at the familiar landscape of our struggles and realize we've been circling the same mountain for far too long? Maybe sometimes God looks at us with all the love of a Father and simply says, You've been here long enough. It's time to break camp and move on.

I sat on my barstool thinking about what breaking camp would actually mean for me. Because breaking camp isn't simply standing up and walking away. If you've been somewhere for a while, you've accumulated some things. You have to pack before you can leave. And packing means you have to go through your stuff.

I know a little something about that after moving this year. There comes a point when you're standing in the middle of a room surrounded by boxes and you have to decide what is actually coming with you. What do I still need? What still serves a purpose? And what have I been dragging around simply because I've had it for so long that I've forgotten I have the option to let it go?

I've walked through some really deep mourning since my divorce. God has done an incredible amount of healing in me, and I don't want to minimize that. I am not standing in the same place I was years ago. But if I'm honest, there is still some debris lying around the campsite. There is some unforgiveness, some bitterness, some anger, and some frustration. There are things that may have made sense in the middle of the pain. Things I picked up because I was hurt and confused and trying to make sense of a life I never expected to be living.

But I'm beginning to wonder if I've reached the point where God is asking me a different question: Are you really planning to pack all of that and take it with you?

Because breaking camp means going through some things. Anyone who has ever moved knows what it feels like to open a closet or pull a box from the back of a cabinet and wonder why on earth you've been carrying something around for the last ten years. Maybe it served a purpose once. Maybe you loved it once. Maybe there was even a season when you genuinely needed it. But you don't anymore.

And if you're moving forward, especially if you're moving into a place with less room, you quickly realize that everything cannot come with you. Some things have to be left behind. Some things have to be thrown away. Some things no longer serve the person God is calling you to become.

Maybe its time to go through some boxes.

Going Through the Boxes

Going through the boxes means we have to identify the things we don't want anymore. We've all heard about decluttering our homes, but have you ever thought about decluttering your mind? What are the things you don't want to move with you when you finally break camp and leave the mountain where you've been sitting for far too long?

I can tell you that I've got all kinds of things I don't want anymore. In fact, I've probably got a truckload of stuff that can go straight to the dump. I've got some bitterness I don't need. I've got anger, unforgiveness, and old wounds I've been carrying around for years. Who wants to keep hauling all of that from place to place? It's a bunch of old junk, and most of it isn't even relevant anymore.

When I was moving out of my old house earlier this year, I spent a lot of time going through things I had accumulated over the years. At some point, I came across an entire box of VCR tapes. There had been a time when those tapes were a major source of entertainment for my kids. They held movies we had watched over and over again, and at one point they certainly served a purpose in our home.

The problem was that I hadn't owned a VCR player in years.

Why on earth was I still carrying around an entire box of tapes when I didn't even own a machine capable of playing them? Yet there they were, taking up space. I had apparently moved them before, probably more than once, never stopping long enough to ask myself why I was still carrying them.

So I threw them away.

Of course, those old VCR tapes weren't actually hurting me. They were simply taking up space. Bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness are a whole different story. They take up space too, but they are also toxic. It's like packing a box of poison, loading it onto the moving truck, carrying it into the next house, and then wondering why we don't feel very good.

Not only are those things useless, they hurt us. We cannot be healthy while continually carrying around the very things that are poisoning us. Yet isn't it interesting to stop and think about how much we carry from place to place? We carry it into new seasons. We carry it into new relationships. We carry it into our homes, our churches, and our workplaces. Everywhere we go, we bring the same boxes with us and then wonder why the new place eventually starts to feel so much like the old one.

Unfortunately, anger and bitterness aren't quite as easy to throw away as a box of VCR tapes. Once I decided I didn't want the tapes anymore, getting rid of them was simple. I picked up the box and threw it away. Emotional wounds don't leave quite so easily. But I think the first step is still the same.

You have to decide you don't want them anymore.

You have to make the decision that you are ready to get rid of them.

For a long time, there was probably a small part of me that kept those VCR tapes because I thought maybe someday I would buy another player. Maybe the kids would want to watch those movies again. Maybe I would need them. Of course, I was never going to buy another VCR player, but apparently I still wasn't quite ready to completely let go.

I wonder if we do the same thing with bitterness and anger.

Perhaps somewhere deep inside, we believe we might need them later. Maybe we think our anger protects us. Maybe bitterness helps us remember what someone did so we never allow ourselves to be hurt that way again. Maybe unforgiveness feels like a wall we've built around ourselves, and we are afraid that if we tear it down, we will somehow become vulnerable to the same pain all over again.

But that's not actually what happens.

Instead, we end up carrying our pain with us. We pack it carefully into boxes, load it onto the truck, and move it from one season of our lives into the next. God says, Break camp and leave this mountain, and we respond by asking Him to wait while we finish packing all the pain we collected while we were there.

But what if we don't need it anymore?

Sometimes we hold on to pain for so long that it begins to feel like part of our identity. The wound becomes part of our story, and eventually we have a hard time separating what happened to us from who we actually are. We become the person who was betrayed. The person who was abandoned. The person who was hurt. The person who wasn't chosen. The person who didn't get the life they thought they were going to have.

But that's not who we are.

Christ calls us to something different.

It reminds me of the question Jesus asked the man who had been lying beside the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years. The man had been in that condition for so long that Jesus asked him a surprisingly simple question: “Do you want to get well?”

Of course he wanted to get well. Who wouldn't?  But maybe the question is deeper than it first appears.

Getting well means something has to change. Getting well means leaving behind the place where you've been lying. It means stepping into a life that may feel unfamiliar. It means no longer defining yourself by the wound you've carried for so long.

Maybe deciding to leave behind bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness begins with answering that same question.

Do you want to get well?

I do.

I don't need this stuff anymore. It doesn't serve me. It doesn't protect me. And the crazy thing is, it never did.  I've been at this mountain long enough.  It's time to break camp and move on.

What Lies Ahead

As I thought about all the things I would gladly take to the dump instead of packing onto another moving truck, I continued reading through Deuteronomy. The very next verse caught my attention.

"See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land..." (Deuteronomy 1:8)

What do You mean You've given us a land?  I'm already here. I'm comfortable at my campsite. I've got all my pain and past trauma surrounding me. I've unpacked everything. I've settled in. This is familiar.

But that's not God's purpose.  He has a new land waiting for His people.  The problem is, they can't get there until they break camp and leave the mountain where they've been sitting for far too long.

I think sometimes we assume God asks us to leave things behind simply because He wants us to forgive, be obedient, or move on. Those things certainly matter, but I don't think they're the whole story. God wasn't asking the Israelites to leave because He enjoyed making them uncomfortable. He was asking them to leave because He was taking them somewhere.

He had an inheritance waiting for them.

And He didn't simply tell them to walk into that land. He told them to take possession of it.  Taking possession means more than simply passing through. It means putting down roots. It means living there. It means enjoying what God has given you. It means embracing the life He intended for you all along.

But none of that could happen if they refused to leave the mountain.

The same is true for us.

God isn't asking us to get rid of something without replacing it with something better. Getting rid of all these boxes isn't just about throwing away junk. It's about creating room for the life God wants to give us.

Our lives have limited space. Every moving box we insist on carrying has to live somewhere. Every box of bitterness, anger, resentment, disappointment, or unforgiveness takes up room in our hearts. The more unnecessary things we keep carrying, the less room there is for the things that actually belong there.

If we're already filled with bitterness, where does peace fit?  If we're filled with anger, where does joy go?  If we're consumed with replaying yesterday's hurts and disappointments, how do we fully embrace what God wants to do today?

God didn't simply want the Israelites to leave the mountain. He wanted them to walk into the inheritance that had been waiting for them all along, an inheritance they could never experience as long as they remained camped where they were.

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in carrying boxes that are decades old if they're keeping me from stepping into what God has for me today.

Why on earth would I keep hauling around a box of old VCR tapes when God has something infinitely better waiting for me? Those tapes don't work anymore. They serve no purpose. They simply take up space.

So maybe the better question isn't just, What do I need to leave behind?  Maybe it's, What do I want to carry instead?

I want boxes labeled peace, joy, forgiveness, wisdom, humility, trust, and gratitude.  The boxes labeled bitterness, fear, anger, resentment, and old wounds?  Those are going straight to the dump.

I believe God is still whispering the same words He spoke to Israel thousands of years ago.

You've been at this mountain long enough.

It's time to break camp.  It's time to move on.  It's time to leave something behind so you can move toward something better.

The Israelites weren't wandering aimlessly after they broke camp. God already knew exactly where He was leading them. He had prepared the destination long before He told them it was time to leave.

The same is true for us.

God already knows where He's leading us.

Our job is simply to stop unpacking yesterday's boxes... and start following Him.

The request seemed simple enough.

A friend asked if I wanted to go to a baseball game. It was a Major League game, complete with stadium lights, cheering fans, overpriced hot dogs, and everything that makes a summer evening at the ballpark so enjoyable. Under different circumstances, I would have been excited to go.

The problem wasn't the baseball game itself.

The problem was that I already knew what I was supposed to do.

After an incredibly busy week at work, I had promised the Lord that I would do a better job of listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In my last post, I wrote about learning to embrace God's rhythm instead of constantly pushing myself beyond my limits. As much as I wanted to spend time with my friend, I also knew I needed rest. Deep down, I sensed the Holy Spirit gently nudging me to decline the invitation. It wasn't an audible voice or some dramatic experience. It was simply that quiet conviction that I have come to recognize over the years when God is trying to redirect me.

But I didn't want to disappoint my friend.

So I said yes.

At first glance, it seems like such a small decision. It's only a baseball game. Surely that couldn't matter very much. But by the time we arrived, I was already feeling the weight of an exhausting week. I tried to enjoy myself, but it was a struggle.  I could barely stay awake. Yes, it would have been fun to spend time together and watch the game. But, I was simply too tired to enjoy it.

Then the game went into extra innings.

What was already going to be a late evening became even later, and by the time I finally pulled into my driveway, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. I remember crawling into bed knowing I had another full day waiting for me in just a few hours.

As the week went on, I found myself dragging through each day, trying to recover from one late night that never should have happened. More than once, I caught myself thinking, I wish I had listened.

It wasn't that God didn't want me to enjoy a baseball game.  It was that He knew what I needed better than I did.  The more I reflected on it, the more I realized this wasn't really about baseball at all. It was about obedience. 

Why is it that we sometimes work so hard to avoid disappointing other people while thinking so little about disappointing God? Why does someone else's approval sometimes carry more weight than the prompting of the Holy Spirit?

Paul addressed this very issue when he wrote:

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. — Galatians 1:10

That verse has been echoing in my mind ever since.

The boundaries God gives us aren't meant to keep us from enjoying life. They are acts of love. They protect our hearts, our minds, our bodies, and our relationship with Him. His "no" is rarely about keeping something good from us. More often, it is about lovingly leading us toward something better.

The more I grow in my faith, the more I realize that obedience isn't just about avoiding obvious sin. Sometimes it is simply trusting that God knows what is best for me, even in something as ordinary as whether I should spend an evening at a baseball game. 

Why Does God Tell Us No?

It's not because He wants to keep us from enjoying life or because He expects us to become little robots who do the same thing every day. Quite the opposite. The boundaries God gives us are ultimately about our joy, our protection, and our flourishing.  Not our punishment.

There have been countless times in my life when God has gently placed a boundary in front of me that I didn't fully understand. Sometimes I ignored it, convinced that my way would be fine. Without fail, those decisions eventually led to exhaustion, unnecessary stress, temptation, or simply becoming someone I didn't want to become.

On the other hand, every time I have trusted God enough to respect a boundary that didn't make sense to me at the time, I have watched Him bless that obedience in ways I never expected. In fact, it almost seems as though the sweetest blessings come when we choose to obey before we fully understand why.

Think about Noah.

Many theologians believe it is possible that rain had never fallen on the earth before the flood. Whether that understanding is correct or not, one thing is certain: when God told Noah to build an ark, it sounded completely unreasonable to everyone around him. Day after day, Noah continued building while people  questioned his sanity. Yet God didn't simply tell him to build a boat. He gave him exact instructions, right down to its dimensions and construction.

Noah could have decided he knew a better way. He could have shortened it, widened it, or skipped parts that didn't make sense to him. Instead, Scripture simply tells us that he obeyed.

The Bible doesn't record every conversation, every difficult day, or every obstacle Noah faced while building the ark. But I imagine God's faithful hand helping him through each challenge. After all, building something that enormous wasn't exactly an everyday project. I know from experience that I struggle to assemble a piece of furniture correctly even when I have the instructions sitting right in front of me.  Noah needed help, I'm sure.

Or consider the Sabbath.

When God gave Israel the Sabbath, He wasn't creating another burdensome rule for His people. As Jesus later explained:

Then he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.' — Mark 2:27–28 

The gift of rest wasn't something God needed from His people. It was something His people desperately needed from Him.  I think we're living in a culture that needs to understand this more than we realize.

We are exhausted.

Physically.

Emotionally.

Spiritually.

We have become so accustomed to constant movement that true rest almost feels uncomfortable. Yet biblical rest is about far more than taking a nap or sleeping in on Saturday morning. True rest is making space to be with the One who created us. It is stepping away from the noise long enough to remember who God is and who we are in Him.

God lovingly leads us because He knows us better than we know ourselves. He sees what we cannot see. He knows where our choices will lead long before we ever arrive there.

Whether it's a life-changing decision about a career, a relationship, a ministry opportunity, or something as ordinary as deciding whether to attend a baseball game, His guidance matters.  Whether God was giving instruction in the scriptures to build an ark or recognize the sabbath, it was about protecting His people.  

Obedience isn't about surrendering freedom.  It's about entrusting our lives to the One who knows exactly what is best for us.

The Small Decisions Become the Big Ones

We often assume obedience in life is about about life's biggest decisions.

Who should I marry?

Should I take this job?

Is this where God wants me to live?

Those are certainly the kinds of decisions we should bring before the Lord. They have the potential to shape the course of our lives, and it only makes sense that we would seek His wisdom before taking such significant steps.

But, God is just as interested in the small decisions as He is in the big ones.  In fact, the small decisions are where He does some of His greatest work.

Most of our lives aren't made up of monumental crossroads. They're made up of ordinary Tuesday afternoons, quiet evenings at home, conversations with friends, interruptions we didn't expect, and countless choices that seem insignificant in the moment. Yet those ordinary moments become the place where God teaches us what it means to trust Him.

Sometimes obedience looks like saying no to one more commitment because you know your body and your spirit need rest. Sometimes it means turning off your phone instead of scrolling for another hour. Sometimes it means going to bed because you know the Lord has been reminding you that you're exhausted.

Other times, obedience looks completely different. It means showing up for a friend even when you're tired because that's exactly what love requires in that moment. It means speaking gently when frustration would come much more naturally. It means extending patience when someone has tested it over and over again.

None of those moments will ever make the evening news. No one is likely to applaud them. Most people won't even notice them.  But God notices every single one, and He uses them.  

My mom has told me a story almost every year on my birthday for as long as I can remember. While she was pregnant with me, she talked to me constantly. Whether she was standing in the kitchen making dinner, folding laundry, or simply going about the ordinary routines of her day, she would tell me what she was doing. Long before I ever saw her face, I was listening to the sound of her voice.

After I was born, she said I immediately knew her voice. When she spoke, I would turn toward her because I already knew who she was.

I've always loved that story.

Isn't that's exactly what God is doing with us in these ordinary moments?

Day after day, He speaks through His Word. He prompts us through the Holy Spirit. He reminds us of His truth during quiet moments of prayer. He comforts us when we're hurting. He redirects us when we're about to wander. Little by little, He's teaching us to recognize His voice, not because He's trying to control our lives, but because He wants to walk through life with us.

The more time we spend with Him, the more familiar His voice becomes. Eventually, we begin to recognize the difference between our own desires and His loving direction. We start to discover that His guidance is never random and His boundaries are never arbitrary. They always flow from His love for us.

He knows when we need rest before we realize how exhausted we've become. He knows when we need courage before we recognize our fear. He knows when we need to step forward in faith, and He knows when we need to be still.

Most of all, He knows us.

God's desire has never been simply to manage my behavior or make me follow a list of rules. His desire is relationship. Every boundary He gives, every gentle prompting He whispers, every invitation to trust Him is another opportunity to know Him more deeply.

That's why the baseball game was never the real lesson.  The lesson was discovering that the God who lovingly guides the biggest decisions of my life also cares enough to guide the smallest ones.

And maybe that's what faith looks like.

Learning to recognize the voice of our Shepherd so well that, whether the decision is life-changing or as ordinary as attending a baseball game, we trust that His way will always lead us to something better than our own.

Our hearts beat in a rhythm. Music is built around rhythm. We sleep according to rhythms, wake according to rhythms, and move through our days according to rhythms whether we realize it or not.  Spring gives way to summer, summer fades into fall, and fall eventually settles into winter before the cycle begins all over again. Even the ocean moves as the tides rise and fall with a predictability that has existed long before any of us.

Our God is a God of rhythm.

The interesting thing, however, is that I often find myself fighting against the very thing He designed. Like many people, I enjoy predictability. I like plans and schedules. I like knowing what tomorrow is going to look like before I get there. Deep down, I am constantly trying to create a rhythm for my life that feels manageable, efficient, and productive. I want to build a system that works every day and then simply repeat it over and over again.

The problem is that life rarely cooperates with that plan.

What I have discovered is that God is far less interested in helping me create a perfectly predictable life than He is in teaching me to walk closely with Him. I would love it if He handed me a detailed blueprint for every day and simply asked me to follow it. Instead, He seems to invite me into something much more relational. Rather than giving me the exact same rhythm every day, He asks me to learn how to recognize His voice and trust His guidance in each season.

That can be difficult for someone like me because I have a tendency to run hard. Whenever I find a new project, a new hobby, or something that excites me, I often throw myself into it with more enthusiasm than wisdom. Even harder, I approach my job the same way, particularly during our busier seasons.  Before long, I find myself stretching my days longer and longer, adding more and more responsibilities, and convincing myself that if I just push a little harder everything will somehow come together.

It never works that way.

Eventually the warning signs begin to appear. I stop resting well. I stop paying attention to what my body needs. My thoughts become increasingly anxious, and the peace that normally accompanies God's presence begins to feel distant. Sometimes that anxiety expresses itself as worry. Other times it comes out as irritability. It is almost as though my emotions begin bouncing back and forth between fear and anger, never settling long enough to experience the calm that God desires for me.

Last weekend I found myself in exactly that place. I had been running hard for long enough that I finally reached a point where I didn't know how to fix what I was feeling. I was tired, stressed, and carrying a level of anxiety that had become difficult to ignore. As I prayed, I found myself telling God the truth.

I didn't have the answer.

I was exhausted and overwhelmed and that I didn't know what to do next. I expected some complicated solution or some grand revelation about what needed to change. Instead, what I sensed was a gentle reminder that felt both simple and profound.

Life has rhythms.

Your life has rhythms.

However, much of my frustration comes from trying to impose my own rhythm onto seasons where God may be inviting me into something different. I often assume that faithfulness means maintaining the exact same pace every day. But, the rhythm He has designed for my life is not always identical from one day to the next.

That realization led me to a small experiment.

For the next couple of months, I have decided that my primary focus will not be productivity. It will not be checking more boxes or accomplishing more tasks. Instead, I want to pay closer attention to God's rhythm for my life. Of course I still have responsibilities. I still have a job to do. Bills still need to be paid, work still needs to be completed, and daily responsibilities are not suddenly disappearing. But I want to become more intentional about asking God what He wants me to do with the hours that remain.

What does He want my mornings to look like?

What does He want my evenings to look like?

When does He want me to work hard, and when does He want me to rest?

The surprising part is that the answer has not been the same every day.

Yesterday, for example, I had every intention of getting up at five o'clock in the morning. The plan was already made. My alarm was set. My schedule was organized. Yet when the alarm sounded, I sensed the Lord gently nudging me toward something I hadn't planned.

Sleep.

Not forever. Not because discipline didn't matter. Simply because on that particular day, rest was what I needed most.

So I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep.

Not too long ago I probably would have argued with that decision. I would have convinced myself that pushing through exhaustion was somehow more spiritual or more productive. Instead, I slept a little longer and woke up feeling refreshed. Later that evening I exercised after work instead of before it. The schedule was different. The routine was different. The rhythm was different.

And everything was perfectly fine.

What God continues to teach me is that He understands how He created me far better than I do. He knows when I need rest and when I need activity. He knows when I need solitude and when I need community. He knows when I need to be productive and when I need to simply sit quietly in His presence. My responsibility is not to force every day into the exact same mold. My responsibility is to remain close enough to Him that I can recognize His leading.

Perhaps that is what walking with God has always been about.

Drawing Closer To Him

One of the things God has been teaching me recently is that weariness itself is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong.

I think many of us spend a great deal of our lives chasing a future version of ourselves that is somehow free from stress, responsibility, and exhaustion. We imagine that if we could just find the right job, the right schedule, the right budget, the right routine, or the right productivity system, we would finally arrive at a place where life no longer feels so demanding.

The problem is that Scripture never promises us a life without weariness.

David certainly understood what it felt like to be exhausted. In Psalm 6:6 he cries out, "I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears." Those are not the words of someone who is experiencing life in a perfectly rested state. 

More and more, I realize that life is simply tiring. Some seasons are certainly heavier than others, and some responsibilities carry a greater burden than others, but living in a fallen world requires effort. From the moment sin entered creation, humanity was told that life would involve toil. We would work. We would struggle. We would carry responsibilities. We would become weary.

As much as I occasionally dream about quitting my job, putting my feet up, moving to Florida, and spending my days staring at the ocean while God somehow takes care of everything else, I know that is not the season He has called me to right now. Perhaps someday life will look different. But for now, God has entrusted me with responsibilities that often leave me tired at the end of the day.

The question is not whether I will become weary.

The question is what I will do with that weariness when it arrives.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

The very existence of that invitation tells us something important. If weariness were unusual, there would be no need for the promise. Jesus knew that His people would become tired. He knew we would become overwhelmed. He knew there would be seasons when the burdens of life felt heavier than we could comfortably carry.

The promise was never that we would avoid weariness.

The promise was that we would have somewhere to take it.

That realization has become incredibly important to me because weariness affects more than just my energy level. If I am not careful, exhaustion begins to influence my emotions, my thinking, and my decisions. When I become tired, I often become discouraged. Problems seem larger than they really are. Obstacles feel more permanent than they actually are. 

And if I am not careful, I begin looking for relief in places that cannot actually provide it.

I might overeat. I might become irritable with people I love. I might distract myself with entertainment, projects, or endless scrolling. Yet none of those things solve the underlying problem. They may provide a temporary escape, but they cannot provide true rest.

Only Jesus can do that.

He is the only Savior who offers rest for weary souls. He is the only one capable of carrying burdens that have become too heavy for us. And I think one of the great challenges of the Christian life is learning that when we are especially tired, especially overwhelmed, and especially burdened, we need to move toward Him rather than away from Him.

That sounds obvious until exhaustion arrives.

When we are weary, prayer often feels harder. Reading Scripture requires more effort. Worship can feel difficult. Yet those are precisely the moments when we need His presence most.

The answer to weariness has never been simply trying harder.

It has always been drawing closer to the One who promises rest.

Rest For The Weary

I think part of the freedom that comes from accepting weariness as a normal part of life is realizing that God has already provided a way for us to manage it.

As I have been working my way through the Old Testament this year, one of the things that has stood out to me repeatedly is how often God talks about rest. Again and again, He instructed His people to observe the Sabbath. Entire sections are devoted to commands surrounding rest, and at first glance it can feel like just another set of Old Testament rules that no longer apply to us. Yet the more I read, the more I find myself looking beyond the rule itself and asking why God emphasized it so strongly in the first place.

I don't believe God's intention was simply to create another obligation for His people to follow. Rather, I think He was teaching them something about the way they had been designed.

Human beings have limits.

We are not machines. We cannot run endlessly without consequences. We were created with bodies that require sleep, minds that require quiet, and souls that require time in the presence of God. The Sabbath was not evidence of God's desire to restrict His people. It was evidence of His love for them. He knew they would become weary, so He intentionally built rest into the rhythm of their lives.

I am certainly not suggesting that Christians return to the legal requirements of the Old Testament Sabbath. The New Testament makes it clear that our righteousness is not found in perfectly observing a particular day. Yet I do think there is tremendous wisdom in recognizing the principle behind it.

God created us to need rest.

So, I have been protecting my Sundays.

Not everyone has that luxury. Some people work weekends. Others have family obligations or schedules that make a full day Sabbath impossible. But for this season of my life, Sunday has become a day when I intentionally step away from many of the things that drain me.

I do not work.

I avoid most electronics.

Instead, I make room for God to pour back into me.

That distinction has become increasingly important to me because so much of my week is spent creating output. At work, I am solving problems, making decisions, answering questions, and carrying responsibilities. Even in ministry, writing, and serving others, there is often an element of giving. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, much of it is good and necessary. But eventually there must be moments when I stop producing and allow God to replenish what has been poured out.

I cannot continually pour from a cup that is empty.

What I find interesting is that biblical rest does not necessarily look the way we often imagine it. Jesus certainly did not spend all of His time resting in bed. We see Him teaching, walking, serving, healing, and ministering to others. Yet we also see Him intentionally withdrawing to quiet places. We see Him stepping away from the crowds. We see Him spending time alone with His Father.

Rest was the presence of connection.

It is easy to assume rest means doing absolutely nothing. While there are certainly moments when we need a nap or a quiet afternoon, true rest goes much deeper than simply being inactive. Rest is allowing our hearts, minds, and souls to reconnect with the God who created us.

The form of rest may vary, but the purpose remains the same.

We are allowing God to restore what life has depleted.

Rest is not a luxury. It is not something we do after all of our work is finished. If that were the requirement, most of us would never rest at all because there will always be one more task to complete, one more responsibility to carry, or one more item to add to the list.

Rest is part of God's design for us.

It is woven into the rhythm of creation itself.

When we ignore that rhythm, we often find ourselves anxious, exhausted, and running on empty. But when we embrace it, we begin to experience the wisdom of a God who understands us better than we understand ourselves.

God knows that in a world filled with toil and weariness, His children will need regular reminders to stop, breathe, and simply rest in His presence.

That is not weakness.

That is obedience.

And perhaps one of the greatest acts of trust we can offer God is believing that the world will continue turning for a few hours while we sit quietly at His feet.

I boarded the flight home from Tucson with tired eyes, stretchy pants, and a deeply driven desire for some coffee. My flight left at 6:00 a.m., which meant I had been awake long before sunrise, shuffling through security lines and making my way through the airport while most people were still asleep. By the time I settled into my seat, I was mostly focused on getting home.

As passengers continued boarding, I couldn't help but overhear a conversation taking place across the aisle. An elderly woman sitting by the window had stopped a flight attendant and was explaining that when her ticket had been scanned at the gate, they had taken it from her and never given it back.

"They took my ticket," she insisted.

The flight attendant looked puzzled. You could see the skepticism on his face, and if I'm honest, most of us around her probably shared it. Airlines don't usually take your ticket when they scan it.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes. They took it."

"Have you checked your pockets?"

As she searched through her belongings, it quickly became apparent that something more was going on. Her confusion wasn't simply forgetfulness. There seemed to be some level of cognitive impairment, and as the conversation continued, the flight attendant eventually moved on to help other passengers while she continued searching for the ticket she was convinced had been taken from her.

A woman was sitting in the aisle seat beside her, and before long a man arrived who had been assigned the middle seat. The elderly woman had placed several bags and personal items in the empty seat.

"You'll have to move your things," the woman beside her said.

"What?" the elderly woman asked.

"You'll have to move your things. Someone is sitting there."

She looked genuinely confused.

"Why?"

"Because he has that seat."

The explanation didn't seem to make much sense to her, but she slowly gathered her belongings and placed them under the seat in front of her. A few moments later, the plane pushed back from the gate and we were on our way.

As the flight continued, I found myself paying less attention to the woman and more attention to the man sitting beside her. She asked him the same questions repeatedly throughout the flight. Every few minutes the conversation seemed to circle back to her missing ticket. She worried about where it had gone and why they had taken it. Each time, he calmly reassured her that she didn't need it anymore. She was already on the plane, and everything was fine.

At one point, an announcement came over the loudspeaker explaining where passengers could retrieve their checked luggage after landing. The woman immediately looked up and answered the announcement.

"I didn't check any luggage."

A few moments later she turned to the man sitting beside her.

"Why do they keep telling me that when I didn't check any luggage?"

But what stayed with me wasn't her confusion. It was his kindness.

For the entire flight he answered her questions patiently. He explained the announcements. He reassured her about her ticket. He listened to her concerns. He never sounded frustrated. He never ignored her. He never treated her as though she were a burden. Instead, he treated her with a remarkable amount of dignity and respect.

The longer I watched, the more I appreciated what I was seeing. Most of us can be patient for a few minutes. Many of us can extend grace once or twice. But it is much harder to answer the same questions over and over again without showing irritation. Yet every time she returned to the same concerns, he responded as though it were the first time she had asked.

When the plane landed and passengers began gathering their belongings, the woman looked up toward the speaker above her seat.

"I need a wheelchair," she said.

Of course, no one responded. The speaker wasn't designed for conversation, but she still believed it was speaking directly to her.

Around her, the familiar rush of deplaning had already begun. Overhead bins were opening. Bags were being pulled down. People were inching forward into the aisle, eager to continue with their day. Yet in the middle of all that movement sat this woman, confused and vulnerable, trying to navigate a situation that no longer seemed to make complete sense to her.

As I stepped into the aisle myself, I heard the man beside her stop a flight attendant.

"The woman in 14F needs a wheelchair," he said.

It was such a small moment that most people probably never noticed it. The flight was over. He wasn't related to her. He wasn't responsible for her. Their connection lasted only as long as the flight itself. He could have simply walked away and continued on with his day.

But he didn't.

Instead, he made sure she had what she needed before continuing on his own journey.

Standing there in that crowded airplane aisle, I couldn't help but think about Jesus.

One of the things that has always stood out to me in the gospels is how attentive Jesus was to people. He noticed individuals everyone else seemed to overlook. He stopped for the blind beggar while others kept walking. He paused for the woman who touched His garment while everyone else was focused on getting somewhere. He made time for people who were hurting, vulnerable, forgotten, or pushed to the margins.

As I reflected on what I had witnessed, I realized it wasn't simply the man's patience that impressed me. It was the dignity with which he treated her. He didn't laugh at her confusion. He didn't dismiss her concerns. He didn't speak down to her. He simply cared for her.

His actions reminded me of Jesus' words in Matthew 25:40:

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

When I read that verse, I often think of large acts of service. I think about mission trips, food pantries, disaster relief efforts, and ministries that serve hundreds or even thousands of people. Yet sitting on that airplane, I was reminded that sometimes Matthew 25:40 looks much smaller than we imagine.

Sometimes it looks like answering the same question for the tenth time.

Sometimes it looks like slowing down when everyone else is hurrying.

Sometimes it looks like showing dignity to someone who is confused, frightened, or vulnerable.

Sometimes it looks like seat 14E.

The longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became that God had been caring for that woman long before she ever stepped onto the airplane. He knew she would be confused. He knew she would worry about her ticket. He knew she would need reassurance throughout the flight. He knew she would need someone willing to patiently answer her questions and help her navigate a journey that must have felt overwhelming.

And somehow, among all the possible seating assignments on that aircraft, she ended up sitting next to exactly the right person.

I don't know her story, and I don't know his. Perhaps he had cared for a parent facing similar challenges. Perhaps he had simply learned patience through hardships of his own. Or perhaps God had quietly prepared him for that assignment without either of them fully realizing it.

What I do know is that moments like these remind me how active God remains in the ordinary details of life. We often look for Him in the dramatic and miraculous. We want burning bushes, parted seas, and unmistakable signs from heaven. Yet so much of God's work happens quietly through ordinary people who choose kindness, compassion, and grace.

How many times has God cared for us through people whose names we'll never know? How many times has He met a need before we even realized we had one? How many times has He arranged circumstances, conversations, and encounters behind the scenes in ways we'll never fully understand?

The older I get, the more convinced I become that God's fingerprints are everywhere. Most of the time, we simply move too quickly to notice them.

Blessings Hidden In Inconveniences