Some seasons don't feel like seasons. They feel like a hole you keep getting pushed deeper and deeper into.

That's where I found myself for the better part of the last five years.

 

It Started With Loss

It started when I lost my sister unexpectedly. Then less than a year later, my grandma was gone too. I was grieving two of the most important people in my life while the world kept moving — and I had to figure out how to move with it.

What followed was a whirlwind I couldn't have scripted. A new relationship that turned into marriage. A career change. Opening our home to family in the middle of a really hard season. Plans that fell apart. Relationships that shifted in ways I never expected… some more quietly, and others more painfully. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I left the stability of a teaching career to bet on a business and a calling I wasn't sure I could trust yet.

Every time I thought I'd found solid ground, something shifted.

 

The Victim Trap

Somewhere in those years I started to believe I was a victim. Life felt like it kept happening to me against my will. Every loss I experienced felt pointless. The pain I felt was someone else's fault. And nothing was going to get better. At least, that’s what I believed.

Looking back, I think that's exactly what the enemy wanted. Not just for me to suffer — but for me to believe the suffering had no purpose. That God had forgotten me. That I was alone in the hole and no one was coming.

And honestly? For a while, I let him win more times than I'd like to admit.

 

When Truth Starts Coming In

But little by little, truth started coming in. It wasn't all at once and it wasn't this big breakthrough moment. It's been a slow process. I think that's partially by the kindness of the Lord. There was still so much healing I had to do. My heart couldn't handle it all at once.

I had to forgive people — a lot of them. Family, friends, people from my childhood. There was a pretty big list. I had to forgive myself. I even had to forgive God. I had to confess all the emotions and beliefs that were eating at me and I had to counter them with the truth.

Over time, I realized that I had been so focused on what was wrong and what should have been different that I was missing what was actually being given to me.

A husband who loved me for me. A peaceful home. A playful pup who was always at my side. A calling that kept finding me no matter how far I ran from it.

I lost people I will never get to share these gifts with. I lost the version of life I had planned and envisioned. And at the core of all of it I had to answer one question:

Was God still faithful?

Not faithful in the way I had imagined. Not on my timeline or in my preferred order. But faithful. Constant. Unchanged.

 

The Pride I Didn't Know I Had

Here's what I kept running from and kept coming back to: His promises don't change. They just unfold differently than we expect sometimes. And I had spent years believing that if it didn't happen my way, it wasn't being fulfilled. There's a lot of pride in that. I carried the belief that I had suffered enough and that I had earned a different outcome.

But suffering isn't a currency. And grace isn't a transaction.

I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to control the things I couldn't. I kept searching for a stable job, a clear path, a plan that finally made sense. I kept running from the very thing the Lord had clearly placed in front of me — the very thing I couldn't yet see as a gift. And every time I ran, I ended up back at the same place. What I kept seeing as the starting line, the Lord kept declaring as the point.

 

Where I Am Now

On the outside, life looks very similar to what it was a year ago. I'm still building and I'm still in the mess. I have a lot more questions than answers. Our finances aren't fully stable yet. Our businesses are still growing in ways that don't always show up in the numbers yet. Some days it's hard to believe the work isn't in vain.

But I've learned something about hope in these years.

It doesn't put you back where you were. It doesn't give you the same footing you had before. It gives you new footing — footing that grows with you. You don't feel the same again. For years I kept trying to just feel normal again, but you never truly feel normal again.

Instead, you just rediscover yourself in the middle of the loss and in the middle of the uncertainty. You learn how to carry it and carry yourself at the same time.

And I think that's the choice we all get to make. Not whether life is hard — I think we can all agree that it is, (and that loss has a way of being heavier than anything we could have prepared ourselves for). But whether we're going to live as victims of our circumstances or as people living in truth who are fiercely held and protected by the One who never moves.

There's no safer place than being with the Lord. That doesn't make the pain disappear. It just means you're never in the hole alone.

And that's enough to keep hoping.

 

A Prompt For Your Journal

What is something you've been waiting for that you've been so afraid to admit? Be bold and write it down. 

And then ask yourself — what would it look like to carry this with faith instead of fear?

 

The Lovely Letter Co. exists for moments exactly like this one — when you need words that are honest enough to hold the weight of what you're carrying. If someone in your life is in the middle of a hard season, browse the shop for a card worth keeping.