There is something beautiful about the way life keeps moving. Morning comes quietly. The light changes. Another season arrives almost without asking. And somehow, another day is placed gently into our hands. We don’t always stop to think about how precious that is. Perhaps because we assume there will always be another day to make…
Category: pains
Weariness Without A Name
There is a kind of weariness that arrives quietly. It doesn’t always announce itself. There may be no particular moment to point to, no single thing that can be blamed for it. It is simply there, somewhere between one ordinary day and the next, settling into the spaces where words usually live. Everything may look…
The Season I Never Had
Fall has always been my favorite season. Perhaps because I didn’t grow up with it. I grew up in the Philippines, where the seasons don’t change quite the way they do here. We don’t have that familiar autumn when the green slowly gives way to gold, orange, and red. The trees don’t put on one…
The Greatest Fumble
I came across a thought recently that made me pause: The biggest fumble doesn’t come as a bag. It comes as a person. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how easily we can misunderstand what a blessing looks like. Sometimes we imagine God’s favor arriving as something obvious. An opportunity. A…
The Cracks We Keep Patching
On my last trip home, my suitcase came back with a crack. It wasn’t completely broken, but it was enough for me to worry about whether it would make it through the next trip. Before I headed back, I put some heavy-duty glue into the crack. Then I did it again. And again. I wasn’t…
Not Mine to Carry
There are things in life that hurt us in ways we never expected. Sometimes it is something someone did. Sometimes it is something they failed to do. Sometimes it is a loss, a disappointment, an unanswered prayer, a relationship that changed, an opportunity that disappeared, or simply the painful realization that life did not turn…
Come and See
There is something about the story of the Samaritan woman that I keep coming back to. Jesus knew where He was going. He knew Samaria. He knew the woman He would meet there. He knew her story before she ever stood at that well. And still, He went. He didn’t meet her by accident. He…
The One He Saw
I wonder if one of the saddest questions we can ask ourselves is not, “Who have I become?” But rather… “What happened to the person God always saw?” Not the person others expected us to be. Not the person shaped by disappointment. Not the person hidden beneath fear, betrayal, or years of trying to survive….
The Shape of Love
I have been thinking lately about how easily we say the word love. We love coffee. We love summer. We love a favorite song. We love a place we’ve visited once. We love people. We even say we love God. The same word carries everything from a passing preference to the deepest commitment a human…
The Storm Doesn’t Test the Leaves, It Tests the Roots
When a storm passes through, our attention is often drawn to the leaves. The branches bending in the wind. The visible damage left behind. The things we can immediately see. But the storm is rarely testing the leaves. It is testing the roots. The leaves may tell us how strong the wind was. The roots…
Charina.Writes 