Faith. Women. Empowerment.

“The hour is dark and it’s hard to see, what you are doing, here in the ruins and where this will lead, oh but I know, that down through the years, I’ll look back on this moment, and see your hand on it and know you were here”

—The Story I’ll Tell, Naomi Raine

How April feels so long ago. We’ve entered the holiday season and as my heart prepares to slow down, to be present and take inventory, to grow from what I’ve come through in the past 12 months— it all looks a haze. 

In April of this past year, we received word that my husband had landed his dream job…the work he was so passionate about in the Air Force was now available outside of the military. 

He jokingly asked me to move to IL for this job, after careful considering and knowing we’d be even closer to family, he applied… he got the interview…and then he got the job. 

My heart was excited, nervous, sad… excited to be even closer to family, to my dad, whom, I desperately needed to repair things with, to my youngest sister who could use my presence more in her life with the hopes that she would fully understand her worth and leave behind a substance that doesn’t belong in hers. 

Nervous to sell our home that we had barely spent a year in, that it took us 9 months to build and to leave behind our first home, so many memories… to leave behind a city we loved and friends who were family… to move for the dream. 

Still..it all made sense…at the time. 

Every arrow pointed toward go, our house sold in less than 24 hours… finding a rental was smooth… all of the dots were lining up and we believed this was it. 

Our place to land and settle roots, because after 4 years of being out of the military, we were still moving like we had never left. 

It turns out, this was not it. This was not the place to land, to settle, the dream job has turned into concern for employment at all. 

My dad, the one I thought I would be closer to, has been in a horrific auto accident and is recovering but at the moment, nonverbal… 

I have spent many moments in the past 5 months in anger with my faith in this plan, in my belief that this was it. 

THIS, this was the plan, God?

It has also taken me this long to see that maybe this pain has a purpose in the plan. 

I needed to work through the pain of uncertainty and find true grip into the one who always stands in the gap for me. 

I don’t believe God brings us to painful places on purpose, I do believe we take leaps in life, quite often, and sometimes it doesn’t work out… that’s just part of taking the leap. 

Finding your way back to hope, is finding once again, the faith that led you to leap in the first place. 

My heart wants to tell you friends,

If you’ve leapt and it feels like it was the biggest mistake, if the dream now feels like a nightmare, the job wasn’t what you expected, the relationship isn’t magical, the place isn’t perfect… and now, today, November 6th, 2024– if your heart is grieving the dream that died in the early hours this morning, of a beautiful candidate for our next president—

know that God has not left you. 

You are not alone. 

God is still working to get you to the dream. 

This place that 5 months ago, felt desolate and pointless, has taught me to stop and notice beauty in these stages of life that we are burning through.

What didn’t turn out to be the dream, is not without its peaks of light. 

In these moments of wonder, there is always something to be learned about life, about yourself, about what is coming next. 

I believe we were created for more than burning through seasons and not remembering a thing,  but knowing we somehow survived. 

We are meant to remember the not so great parts, it is where the deepest parts of our courage is tested, to see if we will keep going, keep fighting, if we will keep hope alive. 

I’m here to tell you, don’t run from the fire, run back in, grab the parts of yourself you thought needed left behind— because in the fire is where you come face to face with the strongest version of yourself. In the fire is safe, because God has not abandoned you. 

Don’t mistake the parts of your life that are scary as impossible, because in the fire is the very place where you will find the strength to forge on.