Charina.Writes

Meraki

Some creations don’t just come from skill. They come from the places in us that have felt deeply. There’s a certain way you can tell when something was made with meraki. You don’t always see it right away. You feel it first. A quiet warmth. A sense that someone stayed with the work a little…

One Less Day

We often comfort ourselves with the phrase one more day. One more day to fix things. One more day to say what we meant. One more day to try again. But lately, I’ve been sitting with a quieter thought. Because every morning we wake up, it isn’t really one more day. It’s one less day….

Carrying Rain In Your Chest

Sometimes it’s the simplest moments that catch you. You’re just going through your day. Doing normal things. Nothing particularly wrong, nothing particularly big. And yet… there’s this quiet feeling sitting somewhere inside you. Not loud. Not overwhelming. Just there. Like you’re carrying something you never really had the chance to put down. Some emotions don’t…

Tended, Not Chased

Some mornings, before the day asks anything of us, there’s a quiet moment where the heart checks in. Not with questions about productivity or plans—but with something gentler. Why am I here today? Not in a grand, philosophical way. Just in the way a soul wonders if it’s still aligned with what matters. There’s a…

Divine Preparation

Have you ever looked back and realized that God was taking care of you long before you understood why? For a long time, I thought my job was just something I needed to survive. A way to pay the bills. A season I had to endure. But lately, I’ve been seeing it differently. I’m realizing…

Blueprints, Rewritten

A few years ago, I asked this question once before. It’s a question that doesn’t really age. If anything, it grows heavier with time. We spend so much of our lives building—careers, homes, families, reputations, routines. But beneath all of that, there’s a quieter structure taking shape. One you don’t see framed or celebrated. One…

Holiness, From Where We Stand

We hear the word holiness and something in us stiffens. It sounds lofty. Untouchable. Like something meant for saints in stained glass, not people with tired hearts and complicated lives. Our church is beginning a series on holiness, and I found myself quietly asking—not out loud, but deep inside— What does holiness actually look like…

Komorebi

Light that reaches you only because something stands in the way. Beauty created by obstruction, not absence. I’ve been thinking about that kind of light lately—the kind that doesn’t arrive freely or fully, the kind that has to pass through branches, through resistance, through layers of things that slow it down. Komorebi is the Japanese…

Peace That Stays

静けさ Shizukesa A stillness that carries weight. Silence that feels inhabited. There is a kind of silence that isn’t empty. It doesn’t rush to be filled. It doesn’t ask for music, conversation, or explanation. It simply stays. not empty—just quiet This is not the silence of being ignored or forgotten. It’s not the awkward pause…

Ma: Where Meaning Lives

There is a kind of meaning that doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t arrive with answers or explanations. It waits in the pause. In Japanese thought, ma speaks to that space—the silence, the gap, the breath between moments. Not as emptiness. Not as absence. But as presence. A presence we often rush past because it doesn’t…

Charina.Writes

Resting on the Wings of God

Memoir of my Heart

The Art of Healing

What’s Your Story?

{Make Time}

Flying Through Fog