I've got a message notification on my phone this morning.  

A few nights ago, I had a dream that has me thinking.

I was tired, the kind of tired that settles in after a full week of work, when your body is worn out but your mind refuses to power down. Sometime early in the morning, I remember waking up and checking my email, needing to make sure I hadn’t overslept or missed something important. It’s a strange pressure we carry almost without noticing, like a reflex. Once I reassured myself that everything was fine, I finally fell back asleep.

That’s when the dream began.

I was swimming in a lake. It was a beautiful lake, peaceful, open, quiet. I wasn’t rushed. I wasn’t checking anything. I wasn’t keeping track of time. I was just swimming and snorkeling, fully present, and genuinely enjoying it.  Snorkeling is one of my favorite things to do, so it was great.

When I eventually made my way toward the shore, I noticed something odd. Someone had left all of their belongings along the edge of the water, shoes, glasses, and several binders stuffed with papers. I stood there dripping and curious, scanning the shoreline as if I had stumbled into something that didn’t belong to me. I looked around for the owner, but no one was there. So I opened the binders.

Inside were papers from my high school years, documents that felt strangely familiar. Old assignments. Reminders of the past. And then, unexpectedly, there were papers from my current job as well. Things from my life right now. The present. The responsibilities. The work. The weight of what I’m carrying these days. None of it made sense. Who would leave all of this here?

I felt a sudden urgency. Whoever these things belonged to needed them. I wanted to find the owner. I wanted to return everything. I searched and searched, but I never found the owner. Eventually, I turned back toward the lake.

While I was gone, the water had risen. The shoreline looked different now. The binders I’d seen earlier were no longer safe and dry, they were soaked, the pages sticking together, the corners curling and dissolving. They were sinking into the lake, as if being swallowed. The shoes were gone. The sunglasses had disappeared. And the binders, filled with past accomplishments and present responsibilities, were slipping beneath the surface.

I went back into the water, trying to retrieve what I could as it drifted toward the bottom. I tried to save the papers, to hold on to something, anything. Even though I didn’t know who they belonged to, I felt responsible. But it was impossible. The pages were disintegrating in the water, breaking apart in my hands.

Somewhere in the middle of all that effort, I noticed someone standing nearby, a teacher from the high school. He was watching me. Advising me. Calling me to stop swimming. Calling me to come out of the water.

And then I woke up.

It wasn’t until I was fully awake that I realized those binders belonged to me. The person who had left behind all the papers and proof and performance and identity markers....that person was me.

The binders represented so much of what we think matters: our achievements, our titles, our productivity, our history. All the carefully held evidence that we’ve done enough, been enough, built enough. The things we cling to when we’re afraid we might be forgotten.

But in the dream, when the water rose, all of it became as fragile as paper. The pages blurred. The binders sank. The things that once felt important didn’t stay important for long. Because one day, the things we spend our lives chasing may feel as useless as soggy papers at the bottom of a lake.

But we won’t be useless.
And we won’t be forgotten.

Because what matters most isn’t what we’ve collected or proven. What matters is who we are, and even more, whose we are. What matters is our relationship with the One who teaches us, the One who watches us flailing in the water and calls us out, the One who holds us steady when everything else starts to sink.

The lake can rise. The world can shift. The old landmarks can change until we don’t recognize them anymore. But His voice remains.

What Matters In Eternity?

We carry a lot in this world. We always have. From the beginning of Genesis, humanity has lived under the weight of a broken world. When the earth fell under the curse, work became hard. Putting food on the table became hard. Relationships became complicated and fragile. Nothing came easily anymore. Life itself required effort, endurance, and persistence. We would no longer move through this world untouched, and we don’t.

So we carry it. We carry expectations placed on us when we were young, long before we had the language to name them. We carry the pressure to succeed, to perform, to be useful, to be admired. We carry disappointments and losses we never fully processed, griefs we learned to tuck away so we could keep functioning. And then, as adults, we layer today’s expectations on top of all of that history. No wonder the weight feels so heavy. Pressure didn’t start last week. It’s been with us our entire lives.

Everyone responds to that weight differently. I tend to swing to extremes. When pressure builds, I can become incredibly productive.  I organize. I achieve. I collect binders. There’s comfort in order and accomplishment, in being able to point to something tangible and say, See? I’m handling this. But when the pressure becomes too much, I swing the other direction. I shut down. I hide. I numb myself with distractions. I scroll. I watch YouTube. I pretend the binders aren’t there at all. And I suspect most of us recognize ourselves somewhere in that tension between overfunctioning and avoidance.

That’s why Jesus’ words land with such unexpected gentleness when we finally slow down enough to hear them. He says, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” At first, that sounds almost impossible. A light burden? An easy yoke? In a world that has never felt light or easy?

A yoke, after all, was a wooden beam placed across the shoulders of oxen so they could pull a load together. It didn’t remove the work; it redistributed the weight. The purpose of the yoke was never comfort, it was companionship. Jesus isn’t promising a life without effort. He’s offering a way to stop carrying everything alone.

That offer stands in direct contrast to what the world tells us. The world insists that the solution to pressure is toughness, strength, and relentless effort. Work harder. Carry more. Fill both hands. Prove your worth. But God tells a different story. And interestingly, so does Solomon.

Back in Ecclesiastes again, Solomon observes that “better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.” He had lived the life of two full hands. He knew the cost of always reaching for more. And he noticed that peace is often lost not in scarcity, but in excess.

Suddenly, the binders in my dream make sense. I’ve been collecting them my whole life, past and present, achievement and expectation, responsibility layered on responsibility, gripping tightly with both hands. And maybe the invitation has never been to organize them better or carry them longer. Maybe it has always been to set them down. To take the yoke Jesus offers instead. To learn that one handful, held with Him, is lighter than two held alone.

Life Without Binders

A few years ago, our house caught on fire.

It started after a Christmas toy malfunctioned and exploded, and within moments, firefighters were on the scene while everything we owned burned. The kids were taken into a neighbor’s house so they didn’t have to watch it happen, but I stayed outside and watched the flames take over the place we had lived our lives. Still, even in the shock of that moment, I remember feeling profoundly grateful that every one of us made it out safely.

Standing there, watching everything burn, I knew something important: all of that stuff could be replaced. Not everything, there were mementos and irreplaceable pieces of our story, but the house, the furniture, the belongings… those things were not us. I still had me. I still had my family.

And yet, even that experience isn’t quite the same as the question on my mind now.

What would happen if I lost my binders?

Who am I without my accomplishments, my achievements, my productivity, my carefully earned proof that I’ve done something worthwhile with my life? Who am I without the man-made awards, the recognition, the reputation I’ve built?

Those questions go deeper than losing possessions. Because binders don’t just hold papers, they hold identity. They shouldn't but they do.  They hold validation. They hold the quiet hope that if we stack enough evidence together, it will finally mean something.

When I start looking at my life through the lens of Christ, I have to ask myself some uncomfortable questions. What actually matters to Christ? Are my days centered on the things He values most? Do I care more about my own ego, my reputation, and getting ahead than I do about someone who is suffering and needs compassion? Do I miss the things God cares deeply about simply because I’m too busy checking things off a list?

Of course, work matters. Deliverables matter. Responsibilities matter. God understands that we live in a world where bills must be paid and work must be done. And in His grace, I’ve often found that He gives us time for both, time to work faithfully and time to love well. The question is not whether we can get things done. The question is where our heart lies while we’re doing them.

Are our hearts aligned with His? Are we seeking the things He asks us to seek?

Jesus said something that flips our entire value system upside down: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant… For the last will be first, and the first will be last.” The Kingdom of God does not run on the same economy as the world. Everything is reversed. What we celebrate here is often overlooked there, and what heaven honors rarely trends on earth.

And yet, here’s the strange and beautiful truth: when we start living that upside-down Kingdom now, we begin to experience a deeper peace and joy. Not because life gets easier, but because we’re finally doing what we were made to do. We were never designed to live for ourselves alone. We were designed for a selfless life.

Solomon talks about this, too. In Ecclesiastes, he warns that it is better to sit with the realities of life, even sorrow, than to drown ourselves in endless entertainment. He writes that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, because reflection shapes the heart. Remember, he could have had any entertainment he wanted, at any time, without consequence. His wealth was endless. Pleasure was always within reach.

And yet, he tells us not to chase it.

Meanwhile, we can flip to the New Testament and find Paul writing letters from prison.

Not from a place of comfort or security, but from a cell. From chains. From hunger and uncertainty. From a life stripped of status, safety, and control. If anyone had reason to despair, to feel forgotten, to question whether obedience had been worth it, it was Paul. And yet, as we read his letters, we don’t find bitterness or self-pity. We find joy. We find contentment. We find purpose.

Paul writes about rejoicing even in suffering. He speaks of learning to be content whether he has much or little. He encourages believers to set their minds on what is true, noble, and eternal. This isn’t the language of a man who has lost everything that matters. It’s the voice of someone who has discovered what actually matters.

That contrast should stop us in our tracks.

By the world’s standards, Paul’s life looked like failure. He had given up power, position, safety, and reputation. He was misunderstood, persecuted, imprisoned, and ultimately killed. If success is measured by comfort and applause, Paul had none of it. And yet, his life continues to bear fruit thousands of years later. His words still shape hearts. His faith still strengthens believers. His obedience still echoes.

Solomon had everything the world promises will make us happy, and he called it chasing the wind. Paul had almost nothing, and he spoke of peace that passes understanding.

I think we’ve gotten it backwards.

We chase security, while Paul chased faithfulness.
We chase comfort, while Paul embraced obedience.
We chase recognition, while Paul poured himself out for others.

Paul understood something we resist: that joy is not the reward for an easy life, but the fruit of a surrendered one. Contentment doesn’t come from having enough, it comes from knowing Who is enough. Purpose isn’t found in protecting our lives, but in giving them away.

In the end, God isn’t going to ask us for our binders. He isn’t going to ask how full our hands were, how impressive our resumes looked, or how admired we were by the world.  He’s going to care about our hearts.

And the strange, upside-down truth of the Kingdom is this: when we finally loosen our grip on the binders and place our hearts fully in His hands, we discover the very joy and peace we were chasing all along.

It had been a long day.

I drove home from work already knowing two things to be true: I was tired, and I wasn’t going to feel like going to church. The couch sounded inviting. Quiet sounded necessary. Rest felt earned.

And yet, I knew I needed to go.

That evening was Praise and Worship night at our church. I didn’t have much energy for it, my body felt heavy, my spirit quiet. But wanting to be in His house was enough, so I mustered the courage to go anyway.

As the band warmed up and the first notes of praise filled the room, something in me began to loosen. My shoulders relaxed. My breath slowed. I felt revived in the gentlest way, not energized, exactly, but peaceful.

There was a sweet woman standing next to me. Since it was a bilingual service, it became clear pretty quickly that she didn’t speak English. She must have been seventy-five years old, maybe more. Her hair was silver, her movements slow, her joy unmistakable.

Even though we didn’t share the same language, we prayed for each other during the service. She prayed in Spanish. I prayed in English. She reached over and hugged me several times, unprompted and sincere. A woman I had never met before, yet somehow felt known by.

And then the thought struck me.  I will know her in heaven.

We will meet there again, and we’ll be able to speak to one another then, fully, freely, without barriers. Isn’t that an incredible thought? That love needs no shared language. That the Spirit translates. What begins as a quiet hug in a church pew might be the beginning of an eternal friendship.

Church is not just a building or a service order or a familiar set of songs, it is a glimpse of what is to come. A room full of people from different places, speaking different languages, carrying different stories, all drawn together by the same Spirit.  

By the end of the night, I was so glad I had pushed through and come anyway. I walked in tired and hesitant, but I left lighter, grateful, steady, and somehow more alive. I may not have been able to hold a real conversation with that sweet woman beside me, but I still felt like I’d made a friend, the kind heaven will finish introducing properly one day. And it reminded me of something I keep learning the hard way: tiredness can blur our vision, and fatigue can make everything feel optional. 

Rest is good and holy, yes, but so is choosing what strengthens us when we’re tempted to retreat. It takes effort to swim upstream when the world is constantly pulling us toward distraction and discouragement. But there is something deeply important about making a concerted decision to be in the right place, around the right things, under the right words.  Because more often than not, that’s where God meets us, restores us, and reminds us who we are.

Rest is holy, but drift is dangerous.

The truth is, I wasn’t just physically tired that night, I was exhausted because I’d been fighting a slow drift. My mind had been reeling in a place of negativity, and instead of seeking the things I know help pull me out of it, I leaned into distraction. I scrolled. I isolated. I stayed busy enough to avoid the ache, but not intentional enough to heal it.

And do you know what the problem is with distraction? It makes us tired. Not rested, tired. It drains our energy and leaves us with even less strength to pursue the very things that would restore us. Distraction is sneaky like that. It feels like relief in the moment, but it quietly steals our appetite for anything nourishing. It dulls us, then convinces us we’re too depleted to do what’s actually good for us.

My mind had been sad. Christmas in Florida didn’t go the way I had hoped it would, and part of me needed time to process that, needed space to admit disappointment and sit with it honestly. But instead of letting God meet me in that sadness, I tried to outrun it. And for me, sadness is a showstopper for creativity. I don’t write. I don’t dream. I don’t reach. I just… cope. I bury myself in true crime shows and endless scrolling. It sounds funny, and honestly, it kind of is, until the moment I realize I’ve gone emotionally numb and nothing has actually changed. While I was distracted, no healing took place.

That’s why drift is so dangerous. We can call drift “rest” and tell ourselves we just need a break, and don’t get me wrong, there is such a thing as true, holy rest. God designed it. We need it. But what I was choosing was escape. It was dulling. It was disconnecting. And the enemy loves that kind of distraction. He uses it to lure us away from God, yes, but he also uses it to fatigue us. And fatigue doesn’t just affect our energy. It affects our perspective.

That’s why choosing worship mattered more than usual this week. Because choosing God, choosing His presence, choosing His house, choosing praise even when we feel hollow recenters the mind. It lifts our eyes. It interrupts the spiral. And little by little, it pulls us back to truth again.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure… think about such things.
—Philippians 4:8

Showing up is spiritual warfare

We’re standing on the edge of a new year, and I’ve found myself with more space to breathe than usual.

Florida has a way of slowing everything down. Recovery does too. As illness worked its way through our family, life narrowed to simple, steady moments, watching the waves roll in and out without urgency, sitting by a campfire in the evenings as the air cooled, noticing dolphins surface briefly and disappear again just offshore. In that quiet, when there was nothing to rush toward and nowhere I needed to be, my thoughts kept returning to a single, rather random question: Who does God say we are?

The world has no shortage of answers. It tells us to look a certain way, speak a certain way, fit neatly into a narrow, carefully defined box. It insists that we should all somehow be the same, polished, perfected, and perpetually improving. This week, I’ve watched more television than I normally do, and with it, more advertisements than I usually see. I’m not often exposed to them; a busy schedule and ad-free YouTube tend to shield me from most of that noise. But watching now, I couldn’t help noticing how tight the world’s definition of beauty has become. How repetitive. How uniform. How exhausting.

And yet, nothing about God is uniform.

He is endlessly creative, and His creation reflects that truth everywhere we look. The ocean doesn’t apologize for its depth or variety. No two waves arrive exactly the same way, and still, they all belong. Dolphins don’t question whether they measure up before breaking the surface. Diversity isn’t a flaw in God’s design.  It is the design.

Scripture affirms this in a way that feels deeply personal:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
—Psalm 139:13–14

God didn’t rush when He made you. He didn’t mass-produce you or copy someone else’s blueprint. The psalmist tells us He knit you together, intentionally, thoughtfully, with care woven into every part of who you are. Long before the world formed an opinion about your worth, God had already declared it.

And then there is this reminder from Peter, one that feels especially grounding in a culture that constantly asks us to prove ourselves:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession…”
—1 Peter 2:9

Chosen. Royal. Set apart.

God calls us His daughters, and that makes us royalty, not in a loud or self-important way, but in the quiet confidence of belonging to the Most High King. He calls us set apart, not because we are better, but because we are His. And for those of us who stand for Jesus, especially in a world that often resists Him, Scripture reminds us that we are also warriors. Not always visible. Not always recognized. But faithful, steady, and strong in ways that matter deeply in the spiritual realm.

So while the world insists that we are not enough, God says something entirely different. He calls us precious. He calls us loved. He calls us His own.

As a new year approaches, this is what I want to carry with me, and what I want to gently remind any woman who may be reading: you do not belong to the world’s definition. You belong to God. And that truth changes everything.

The Anointing (Imagined by me)

The brothers stood in a line.

Their presence filled the space, men accustomed to being noticed, shoulders squared, faces confident, hands calloused from work that could be seen and measured. They looked like leaders. They looked like men who belonged at the center of the room. Samuel studied them carefully, searching for the familiar inner confirmation he had learned to trust, yet with each passing moment, the silence grew heavier.

No.

Not him.
Not this one either.

The line that had seemed so certain now felt unfinished, incomplete. Samuel hesitated, the weight of obedience pressing in on him. He had come with clear instructions, and yet none of the obvious choices fit. Finally, he asked the question that changed everything.

“Are these all the sons you have?”

There was a pause. Almost an afterthought.

“Well… there is still the youngest,” Jesse said. “But he’s out in the fields, tending the sheep.”

Jesse’s answer came casually, as if it hardly mattered. There was still the youngest, he said, but the work was ordinary. The boy was young. No one had thought it necessary to call him in.

Time stretched as someone was sent to fetch him. Dust clung to David when he arrived, the scent of the field still on him. His clothes bore the marks of work done far from witnesses. He hadn’t prepared for this moment because he hadn’t known it existed. He stood there, uncertain and out of place, surrounded by older brothers who had already measured themselves worthy of something greater. It would have been easy for him to shrink back, to wonder why he had been summoned at all.

Before anyone else could speak, God did.

Without hesitation, without explanation, the instruction was clear. This is the one.

Samuel moved forward, oil in hand, and the room seemed to hold its breath. The act itself was quiet, almost understated, yet its meaning thundered beneath the surface. As the oil touched David’s head, something irreversible took place. The youngest son, forgotten, uninvited, still smelling of sheep, was anointed king.

Shock rippled through the room. Confusion. Disbelief. Perhaps even offense. The brothers who had stood so confidently moments before now had no words. The father who hadn’t thought to call his son in from the field watched as God overturned every assumption he had carried. No crown appeared. No throne followed. Only a declaration from heaven that rewrote the story entirely.

It was then that God spoke words that still unsettle our assumptions today: People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

David left that place the same way he had entered it, no crown, no army, no change in status that the world could recognize. He would return to the fields. He would wait. But something had been spoken over him that could not be undone. God had named him long before the world would ever agree.

And maybe that is the part we most need to remember.

God’s view of you is not shaped by who notices you, who invites you in, or who overlooks you entirely. His declaration does not wait for the approval of others or the validation of the visible. He sees the heart. And what He sees, He calls enough.

What's In A Name?

Florida looks different in the winter.

Here on the bay, the water barely moves. It stands still like glass, holding the sky in place. At sunrise and sunset, the light spills across the surface and reflects back up again, as if the sun is pausing just to be noticed. It’s quiet. Still. Almost reverent.

Getting here, though, was anything but.

My mom and I traveled together, with my kids arriving a few days later after celebrating Christmas with their dad. But, after arriving at the airport, Mom and I were told our second flight had been canceled.  They could rebook us, but we'd be in Dallas for eight hours. Yes, an eight-hour layover.

Normally, that wouldn’t have been ideal, but not disastrous. But airports are hard on my mom, someone who lives with pain. Navigating crowds is exhausting. Sitting in a terminal for eight hours is brutal. We survived it, with some comical moments along the way, but by the time we arrived, we were wrung out and Mom needed some serious recovery.

Two days later, my kids showed up carrying more than suitcases.  They also brought the flu.  Not the mild kind. The real kind with fevers, chills, and bodies that couldn’t move. Since they arrived, they’ve been holed up in their bedrooms, trying to recover, while my mom and I do our best to stay healthy and keep things running.

So no, this trip hasn’t gone as planned.  And then there was the other news.  My ex-husband has taken steps to move on with his life.  It wasn’t unexpected. It’s within his right. But there’s a finality that comes with hearing it out loud, a door closing in a way your heart still needs time to absorb. I wasn’t prepared for how much that would land, especially here, especially now.  

Nothing has gone according to plan. Not the flights. Not the arrival. Not caring for my mom through long hours in an airport. Not sick kids. Not this.

But Jesus knew. He knew before the flights were canceled, before the fevers started, and before the news reached me.  And somehow, in the middle of all of it, I’ve found myself alone with Him more than I have been in a long time.

My kids are sick. My mom is recovering. So I’ve spent evenings by campfires alone. I’ve swum in the pool alone. I’ve read books alone. I’ve watched waves roll in and out with no one talking beside me.  And God has been very, very present.

I don’t know if this is theologically airtight, but I wonder if maybe some things were allowed to fall apart so He and I could sit together longer. So I could talk through a broken heart without distraction. So I could listen. So I could be quiet enough to hear the question He keeps asking me.

Am I enough for you?

He reminded me I live a deeply blessed life, and our story hasn't been easy.  When my divorce began, I had no idea how I would pay the bills or keep my home. At the same time, my son’s cancer returned. My daughter was battling deep depression. My marriage was unraveling. Life wasn’t just difficult, it was burning down around me in every direction.

I took a job with a small business that offered flexibility, simply because I had no other option. That business grew. Against all odds, stability came back into our lives, slowly, then all at once.  My kids are better now, my son's health is stable, my daughter is healing.  And now, here I am, hearing God ask again:

Am I enough for you, even now?

Because if He is enough, I can walk through this too.  This ground I’m standing on wasn’t given easily. It was fought for. Prayed over. Cried into. This is holy ground. Sacred ground. 

Now He’s asking me not to look backward.  Not to deny my feelings, but to handle them His way.  Not to control what I cannot control, but to keep walking in His direction.  Divorce is ugly. That's the reality of it. There are things I don’t get to call the shots on, things I can't give my opinion on. No matter how unfair it feels.

But I’ve fought too hard for my peace, too hard for my sanity, too hard to let anxiety and anger reclaim ground they no longer own.  So my answer, even through fear, even through grief, is yes.

Yes, God, you are enough.  And I will keep walking.

Gratitude as a Weapon

It’s astonishing how quickly we can lose sight of God’s blessings when something painful resurfaces. One piece of news, one memory, one unexpected trigger can pull our focus away from everything God has done and fix it squarely on what hurts or what feels lost. That temptation has been very real for me this week as I’ve found myself pulled back into the pain, frustration, and unresolved grief surrounding my divorce.  I thought I was doing much better than this.  But, the news I received landed harder than I expected, and I’ve had to give myself permission to acknowledge that honestly. Some things still need to be grieved, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make them disappear.

At the same time, grief does not get free rein. It does not get to transform itself into anger or sink into bitterness. Grief may be part of the healing process, but it does not get to permanently take my joy or dictate my behavior, especially not during a season meant for hope and celebration. Its OK to honor what hurts without allowing it to grow into something that poisons my heart. The danger comes when grief is left unchecked long enough to take root, introducing toxic emotions that lead straight into anxiety, resentment, and misery.

That led me to a very honest question for God: How do you want me to deal with this? How do you interrupt the spiral when your heart feels broken and your emotions feel overwhelming? His answer was simple, direct, and deeply confronting. God reminded me that anger and bitterness cannot coexist in a grateful heart.

Ouch.

He didn’t minimize the pain or rush me past it. He didn’t offer a quick fix. Instead, He pointed me back to gratitude, not as a sentiment, but as a discipline.

Gratitude is often misunderstood. It can feel quiet, passive, even weak, something better suited for an entry-level Sunday school lesson than real spiritual warfare. But gratitude is not passive at all. It is a powerful weapon against some of the most destructive emotions the enemy uses to derail us. Deep-rooted anger, bitterness, resentment, and fear cannot survive in a heart that is intentionally practicing gratitude. When we choose to be grateful, we actively resist the pull toward darkness that those emotions create.

So I put it into practice, even though I didn't feel like it. Every task I did that morning, no matter how ordinary, I paired with gratitude. I thanked God intentionally and repeatedly. I am starting to feel sick. My throat is sore. My family has been battling illness. Plans have unraveled. My heart is still tender over news I did not want to hear. All of it wants to drag me into self-pity and frustration. But I'm fighting it, with every offering of thanks. 

Soon, I shifted to writing a list of things I was grateful for, and it grew faster than I expected.  By the time I finished, something had shifted. The pain hadn’t vanished, but it had lost its grip. I wasn’t denying what hurt; I was simply refusing to let it define the moment. That’s the power of gratitude. It doesn’t erase grief, but it prevents grief from becoming something corrosive. Bitterness cannot survive in grateful soil. It dies there.

Gratitude is a weapon that can pull us out of a dark pit more quickly than we expect, if we’re willing to pick it up. Even when we don’t feel like it. Even when our circumstances haven’t changed. At the end of the day, following Jesus has never been about doing only what feels natural or easy. Right now, He is calling me to be grateful, and I intend to obey. I don’t want to walk through this season without learning what He’s teaching me. His lessons may not always be comfortable, but they are always for our good. He wastes nothing, and He is faithful to turn even this toward something redemptive.

Loosen Your Grip

This week, as I’ve carried my heartbreak to the Lord, He has gently but persistently reminded me of something simple and profound: Follow Me. That sounds straightforward, but when you sit with it, it raises a much larger question. What does it actually mean to follow God when life hurts and circumstances feel unfair?

One of the most quoted verses in Scripture may help answer that. In Psalm 46:10, God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Many of us hear that as an invitation to quiet our surroundings or calm our emotions. But the original Hebrew word behind “be still” (raphah) means something far more active. It means to loosen your grip. To let drop. To cease striving. The image is not of passive silence, but of surrender, like a soldier lowering their weapon because a greater commander has stepped in to take control of the battle.

That context matters. Psalm 46 describes a world in chaos: nations raging, the earth trembling, foundations shaking. It is precisely there, amid instability and fear, that God commands His people to stop fighting for control and recognize that He is sovereign and sufficient. The stillness He calls for isn’t withdrawal; it’s trust. It creates space to truly know Him, not just intellectually, but experientially.

That’s what He’s been asking of me.

Loosening my grip doesn’t mean pretending the pain isn’t real. It means refusing to let my heartbreak dictate my posture toward God. It means following Him not just in principle, but in practice. Right now, following Him looks surprisingly small and specific. It means returning to gratitude when I’d rather sit on the beach and feel sorry for myself. It means paying attention to what He’s asking of me instead of numbing myself with distraction.

Today, for example, He’s calling me to go to church.

I don’t want to. Everyone else is sick. I’d have to go alone. It would be easier to stay home, to justify my absence, to opt out quietly. But I know that’s not what He’s asking. Following God in this season isn’t about grand gestures or dramatic obedience. It’s about the small decisions, the ones no one else sees. Will I do what He says, or won’t I?

I may end up sick in the next few days. I may not feel strong or energetic or emotionally steady. But, the question isn’t whether circumstances will cooperate. The question is whether I will continue to follow Him with a grateful heart, even when letting go feels uncomfortable.

Loosening my grip doesn’t weaken my faith, it strengthens it. Because every time I release control, I’m reminded of who is actually holding everything together. And He has never once asked me to carry what was only ever meant to be His.

This is the week before Christmas, the fun, frenetic one.  The week of Christmas parties and last-minute shopping, of lists scribbled on scraps of paper and calendars packed just a little too full.

For us, it’s also a week of packing and preparation. Not for a frantic dash through theme parks this time, but for something quieter. Slower. We’re heading to Florida again, but instead of rope drops and reservations, there will be sand and water and rest.

This will be another Christmas that doesn’t look like the traditional Midwest holiday I grew up on. No gray skies. No bitter cold. No familiar routines. Instead, the four of us, my kids, now in their twenties, along with my mother, will board a plane and spend Christmas on the beach.

And while that feels exciting, and I am grateful to be able to do it, it also stirs something deeper.  Holidays are strange that way. They can be wonderful, and they can be incredibly hard.

Gone are the days of a “normal” family Christmas for us. In the first couple of years after my separation, my ex and I tried to keep things the same. We attempted the old rhythms, the familiar traditions. But the truth is, it slowly fell away. What once felt natural began to feel forced, and eventually, it simply stopped.

I had no idea how painful holidays could be until then.  I don’t know which is worse, spending holidays alone, or pretending they’re the same when everything has changed. Those early years after divorce ripped my heart open. Nothing screamed failure quite like a Christmas full of grief. The lights felt louder. The joy felt further away. Every song, every tradition seemed to underline what was lost.

If you’re in that place right now, I want you to know this: you are not weak for feeling it. And you are not alone.

Today, my life looks very different. I’ve embraced being single, not as something I’m enduring, but as something I genuinely love. I know that’s not everyone’s path, but for me, it has become a gift. I’m no longer waiting for my life to begin again someday, when something changes. My life is rich right now, exactly as it is.

But it took time to get here.  Those first few years were brutal. And yet, in a strange way, they clarified something for me. I never needed Jesus more than I did at Christmas back then, and He showed up. Every single time. In the quiet. In the ache. In the moments when joy felt out of reach.  I remembered what Christmas really means. 

Even now, I still feel a twinge of sadness during the holidays. Some memories linger. Some losses still ache. But I’m in a different place. A steadier one. A hopeful one.

This year, I’m actually looking forward to Christmas again, looking forward to watching my kids laugh, to sharing it with my mother, to experiencing the season in a way that’s new and unexpected and peaceful.

Family doesn’t always look the way we imagined it would.  But God really does set the lonely in families, sometimes in ways we never saw coming.  And this Christmas, I’m grateful for the reminder and the opportunity to listen for God amongst the quiet.

Elijah and The Voice (imagined by me)

Elijah was running for his life, not from an army or a battlefield, but from a message. From a very angry woman. Jezebel’s words had reached him like a blade carried on the wind, cold, precise, final. She had sworn that by this time tomorrow, Elijah would be dead. The prophet who had just stood on Mount Carmel, watching fire fall from heaven at his prayer, now found himself undone by a threat delivered quietly, efficiently, through a messenger’s mouth.

Fear has a way of doing that. It settles into the body before the mind has time to argue with it. Elijah’s heart raced. His breathing shortened. The certainty he had felt only hours earlier dissolved as the urgency of survival took over. He ran south, farther than he had planned, farther than he had intended, until even familiar ground gave way to wilderness and stone. By the time he reached Horeb, the mountain of God, he was spent, emptied not only of strength, but of hope.

There, he found a cave and retreated into it. The stone was cool beneath his hands, the air inside thick with the scent of dust and earth. The darkness pressed in, muffling sound and swallowing light. Even his breathing felt too loud, each exhale echoing back at him. He wasn’t resting. He was hiding, hiding from Jezebel, from danger, from the crushing weight of fear that had followed him all this way.

It was there, in that cave, that the word of the Lord came to him. It did not arrive with spectacle or force. It came as a presence, steady, near, unmistakable. A voice that did not bounce off the cave walls, but met him exactly where he was, as if it had been waiting.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The question did not accuse. It did not hurry him toward an answer. It simply opened space for truth. Elijah responded from the place where fear had narrowed his vision and exhaustion had rewritten the story he was telling himself. And he spoke the words as they rose from his heart:

“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

He believed it, even though it wasn’t true.  He wasn't the only one left. Fear had convinced him that he was alone, that the story was over, that faithfulness had led only to danger.

The Lord did not rebuke him for being afraid. He did not correct Elijah’s distorted view or remind him of what he had forgotten. Instead, the Lord invited him to step outside. He told Elijah to stand on the mountain, because He was about to pass by.

Elijah moved toward the mouth of the cave, and the air around him shifted, charged with something unsettled and expectant. Suddenly, a great wind tore through the mountain with violent force, ripping across the stone and splitting rocks apart. The sound was overwhelming, a roar that filled the valleys and rattled his bones. Dust and debris stung his skin and burned his eyes.

But the Lord was not in the wind.

Then the ground beneath him began to shake. The mountain groaned and lurched, as if it were breaking apart from the inside. Elijah braced himself, heart pounding, every muscle tense as the earth cracked and shifted beneath his feet.

But the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake came fire, fierce and consuming. Heat rolled across the mountainside, the sky glowing as flames swept through with terrifying intensity. Everything felt exposed, vulnerable, laid bare.

But the Lord was not in the fire.

And then, after all of it, there was quiet. The wind stilled. The ground settled. The fire faded into memory. The mountain itself seemed to exhale.  And in that stillness came a sound so gentle it could barely be called a sound at all, a whisper.

Elijah pulled his cloak over his face, not in fear, but in reverence. In the calm that followed the storm, the presence of the Lord settled in, unmistakable and near. Sometimes the whisper of the Lord is louder because everything else has finally gone silent. Because after the storm has raged, after fear has spent itself, after the earth has stopped shaking, we are ready.

We hear what we could not hear before. We notice the quiet and we cherish it.  The storms do not mean God was absent. Sometimes they prepare us to recognize Him when He speaks.

God did not explain the storms to Elijah. He did not justify the fear or answer every question that had driven him into the cave. Instead, He gave Elijah something far more practical, his next steps. A road to walk. People to anoint. A future still unfolding, even when Elijah could not yet see how it would all fit together.

And Elijah would go on. He would walk again, speak again, and pour his life into another prophet who would carry the work forward. His story did not end in the cave, it widened. It deepened. It continued. The God who met him in the whisper did not replace him; He restored him. The quiet place Elijah feared became the place where his strength returned, and the calling he thought he had lost was gently handed back to him.

The Still Small Voice

The story of Elijah has always fascinated me. The wind that tore through the mountain, the earthquake that shook the ground beneath his feet, the fire that consumed everything in its path, those moments must have been absolutely terrifying. And yet, as frightening as those forces were, I sometimes wonder if the most unsettling moment came afterward. After everything stopped. After the noise died down. When Elijah stood in the absolute stillness and heard a voice speak to him.

There is something deeply vulnerable about quiet.

You know, I love Christmas parties. Some of my favorite memories are wrapped up in noise and laughter and family. We are a family of card players, and I absolutely loved visiting my grandparents, sitting around the card table for hours on end. My grandmother cooking in the kitchen, the smell of food drifting through the house, presents tucked under the tree, cousins barely able to contain their excitement. Those moments mattered. Family matters. Celebration matters. I believe those things matter to God too.

But for a long time, I missed the deeper reverence of the season itself.

The true miracle of Christmas wasn’t loud or elaborate. It wasn’t announced with spectacle or fanfare. It was quiet. A birth in Bethlehem. God giving His Son, fully aware of what that gift would ultimately cost Him, and giving Him anyway. Before Christmas traditions existed, before it became an event or a season or a schedule to keep up with, God chose the stillness. A holy, holy moment.

And I think that’s where I find Him most often too.

I know God is always with me. But it is in the quiet, when things settle, when the noise fades, when I finally stop running, that I hear Him most clearly. Those quiet moments with God are the ones that strengthen me. They realign me. They steady my heart and gently set me back on the path I was meant to walk. Just like Elijah, nothing around me may change, but I do.

I am deeply grateful for a life that allows me to do things I once couldn’t have imagined, including spending Christmas in Florida this year. And no, you don’t have to travel anywhere special to find a quiet moment with God. But I can’t wait to sit by the ocean, to listen to the waves, to ask Him a few questions. To talk about the year that’s been and the year ahead. To think about my next steps and the path He has for me going forward.

I can’t imagine a better Christmas than that.