Looking Forward Through the Rearview
I didn’t plan to write this today.
This morning, I opened Facebook, scrolled past a few things, and then—boom—it did that thing it does and served up a memory I didn’t go looking for. Actually… it served up two. One from 2021. The other from 2022. Both deeply honest. Both from very different emotional places.
Reading them stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with past versions of myself—one who was barely hanging on, and one who had found his footing again. It caught me off guard and sent me into a spiral of reflection I didn’t expect.
And that’s what led me here—writing this update four years later.
Faith Without the Fix
For a long time, I thought faith meant clarity. Or peace. Or at least relief. I thought if I believed hard enough, trusted deeply enough, or prayed the right way, something would shift—my body, my circumstances, my joy. And when those things didn’t change, I quietly wondered what that said about me.
But lately, I’ve been realizing that faith isn’t always revealed through resolution. Sometimes it’s revealed through endurance. Through staying present when the situation doesn’t improve. Through choosing honesty over performance. Through continuing to believe even when life doesn’t feel good.
Lonely Doesn’t Mean Broken
Loneliness doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it slips in quietly, even when life looks full from the outside. Full calendars. Full rooms. Full conversations. And yet, beneath all of that, there’s an ache that doesn’t quite go away. I’ve learned this week that loneliness doesn’t mean something is broken. Often, it means something has shifted—and I’m still learning how to stand where I am now.
When Everything Feels Like Too Much
Some weeks don’t arrive with a single breaking point—they just keep adding weight. That’s what this one felt like. Every day brought another responsibility, another decision, another thing that needed attention while my body and spirit were already stretched thin. I kept telling myself to push through, to stay focused, to keep moving forward. But underneath all of that was a quieter truth: I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and running out of margin.
Choosing Presence & Learning to Stay
I think we’ve been lied to about what thriving is supposed to look like. Somewhere along the way, thriving became synonymous with momentum, clarity, joy, productivity—good weeks where everything clicks and nothing hurts too badly. By that definition, this has not been a thriving week for me. But I’m starting to realize that thriving isn’t a mood or an outcome—it’s a posture. It’s not about having it together or feeling inspired. It’s about choosing presence when things are heavy, uncomfortable, and unresolved.