I once had a therapist tell me something about healing that I didn’t fully appreciate until about three years after she said it. She said: “The story you’re telling yourself about what happened may be the thing that needs healing more than what actually happened.” I nodded politely in the moment, filed it somewhere in […]
I am not a private processor by nature. When something breaks in me, in a relationship, or in a season of life, my first instinct is to talk it out with others. But after years of facing betrayal from several in a community I thought I could trust and being judged for who I naturally […]
I have a prayer I’ve been praying for years. Not decades, but long enough that there have been seasons where I’ve approached it with fresh faith and seasons where I’ve just gone through the motions. Long enough that I’ve had the quiet, uncomfortable thought more than once: What if this particular thing just isn’t going […]
Some wounds are clean. A loss that was no one’s fault. A disappointment that came from circumstances rather than choices. A hard season that arrived without a person attached to it. Those wounds still hurt, and they still require real healing. But there’s a certain straightforwardness to them. You know what happened. You know what […]
I remember the exact moment I realized I wasn’t just physically tired. When I needed a complete overhaul to fully renew. It was just an ordinary Tuesday in an ordinary week. I had slept a reasonable number of hours. I had coffee and a to-do list that was entirely manageable. But, when I sat down […]
I broke my wrist once and didn’t know it for three days. I was convinced it was just a bad sprain, so I wrapped it, adjusted my grip on things, started using my other hand for tasks that required any real pressure, and told myself it would probably renew itself and feel better by the […]
Nobody told me I was allowed to stop. I come from a long line of people who push through without stopping to renew. It’s not a bad inheritance, honestly. There’s real grit in my family tree. People who showed up when showing up was hard, who kept their commitments even when the cost was high, […]
There’s a moment in spring when you walk outside and something has shifted overnight. Growing happens whether or not you’re paying attention, but it’s best if you take an intentional moment to pay attention. You can’t point to the exact day it happened. The trees didn’t announce it. The ground didn’t send a notification. But […]
I kept a journal from my early twenties that I reread a few years ago. It was my way of measuring how well I’d been growing in my faith, in my spiritual walk, in life. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Maybe some nostalgic warmth, a few cringe-worthy fashion references, the general amusement of […]
I have in recent years become a bit more of a solitary grower. Other than a few rants out loud, I’ve mostly processed things internally. Maybe it’s spiritual growth, but lately, I’ve believed the deepest growth happens in private. In the quiet, in the pages of a journal, in the space between me and God […]
Sign up to receive nonprofit spotlights, first announcements of our latest word additions, and fun extras.
