Maybe This Is Thriving
What if thriving isn't somewhere on the other side of everything that's hard? Maybe resilience isn't always dramatic. Maybe it's ordinary—showing up, loving, praying, hoping, and trying again tomorrow. I've spent so much time waiting for the next big thing that I'm beginning to wonder if I've misunderstood which parts were the big things all along.
Maybe They Do
What started as a ridiculous “Why not?” turned into two months of voting, sharing, dreaming, and approximately 7,482 references to Jeff Goldblum. We didn’t win America’s Favorite Couple—but somewhere along the way, I realized the contest had stopped being about winning. It became about 28 years of choosing each other, growing through the wonderful and the ugly, and realizing that maybe I’ve been keeping the wrong score.
Deliverance in the And
What happens when the miracle we’ve been praying for doesn’t come? When the prison doors don’t open, the grief doesn’t leave, and the circumstances we desperately want changed remain the same? Maybe deliverance isn’t always about being rescued from the thing we’re facing. Maybe sometimes it’s discovering grace, peace, and even hope right there in the middle of it.
And Yet
What happens when nothing happens? No breakthrough. No revelation. No miraculous answer to prayer. Just life happening somewhere between the plot points—between the prayer and the answer, between knowing something needs to change and knowing what that change is supposed to be. I don't know what any of this means yet. Maybe that's why I'm writing it now instead of six months from now when I can tell you what it meant. Because maybe faith in the middle isn't certainty about what happens next. Maybe it's certainty about who is still there while I wait.
And Then What?
What happens when the thing you've been waiting for finally happens? The new job. More money. The accomplishment. The recognition. The moment when it finally feels like it's "your turn." I've spent a lot of time believing happiness was waiting for me somewhere just up ahead—but lately, a much more uncomfortable question keeps showing up: And then what?