Before you settle in, I want to invite you into a small ritual, one that warms the body and steadies the heart.

Make yourself a cup of hot tea.

If it’s morning or afternoon, I personally recommend Rooibos Red Tea with a splash of pomegranate and raspberry. It’s bright, soothing, and full of quiet strength.

If you’re reading this in the evening, steep Chamomile with honeybush, mandarin, and a hint of orange zest. It’s gentle, calming, and perfect for reflection.

Now take a slow sip…

Breathe in…

And let your heart settle as we walk together through this story.

The Stories That Shape Us

Growing up in the Appalachian Mountains, my Granny used to share story after story from her own childhood — tales of faith, hardship, and the quiet kind of strength our ancestors carried without ever naming it.

But there is one story she told me that I have never forgotten.

I was walking through a difficult season, one of those times where life feels too heavy to hold. Granny sat me down and told me how, every Sunday without fail, her mother gathered their whole family and brought them to a little old Baptist church in Marble, North Carolina. And during the worst years of the Great Depression (when work was scarce, food was thin, and hope felt fragile) her mother would lift her eyes and say,“God don’t put more on us than we can bear.”

For years, I rolled that phrase around in my mind. But it wasn’t until I faced my own impossible seasons that I finally understood what my Great Grandmother meant. And it wasn’t that God was putting hardship on their shoulder…

It was that when hardships do come –sometimes from our own choices, sometimes from the choices of others, sometimes from a world groaning under the weight of sin.

As Scripture says:

“The whole creation groans… waiting for redemption.”

— Romans 8:22–23

It’s like the Great Depression, it didn’t fall out of the sky. It came from a chain of disastrous decisions (based upon choices), economic failures, and human folly.

And yet, right there in the middle of the rubble, grace appeared.

Because the truth is this:

We don’t break because God crushes us. We break because life is fragile. But when we cry out, He is near.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.”

— Psalm 34:18

When our hearts finally whisper “enough,” when grief softens the soil of the soul, when we stop pretending we can hold everything together —He runs to us. He gathers every tear. He lifts every burden.

“Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”

— 1 Peter 5:7

The Hardest Season of My Life

My Granny’s stories carried me farther than I ever realized.

Just two years after she passed away, I found myself at one of the lowest points of my life. I had already experienced 4 of my 6 miscarriages. A dear friend had just ended his own life. And the greatest economic downturn of my lifetime had hit like a tidal wave.

One moment life felt stable and the next, I was standing in food lines at churches, wondering how everything had collapsed so fast.

That Christmas, I started my own little business inside of my cousin’s thrift store and I worked as a gift wrapper just to afford presents for my sister’s youngest daughter — a little girl who needed clothes more than toys.

Humbling doesn’t even begin to describe that season.

By 2012, when this “mini-depression” finally began to lift, I remember standing outside in the freezing cold on the dock in front of my cabin.

The lake beneath me had dried to cracked earth from a severe drought, and so had my faith.

I whispered into the winter wind:

“Lord… if You don’t show up soon, I won’t survive this.”

Before the Storm, the Glory. After the Storm… Job.

From the 1990s up until my Granny’s passing in 2006, I saw God move in ways that would bring most people to their knees.

Miracles.

Signs.

Wonders.

Deliverances.

Healings.

Moments of His presence that were undeniably Him.

But after 2007, my life began to resemble something far closer to Job’s story:

• six miscarriages

• my husband’s diagnosis of Fanconi Anemia

• multiple cancers

• my own genetic disorders

• loss after loss

• trial after trial

And like Job, I too heard the painful opinions of others:

“This must be because of sin in your life.”

“You must have opened a door for enemy attacks somewhere.”

“You brought this on yourself.”

All of the while drowning in sorrow and even having my own Job-like God encounter.

Let me say this plainly:

Jesus never said that this life would be easy, matter of fact it was quite the opposite.

In fact, when His disciples pointed at a suffering man and asked whose fault it was, Jesus replied:

“It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

— John 9:3

Some storms do not come to destroy. Some come so that the glory of God can be revealed in the saving. And I learned this painfully, beautifully, slowly. Not everything that happens to us has a reason that we will ever understand.

But everything becomes a place where God can meet us.

Everything becomes a place where redemption can bloom.

The Invitation in Your Storm

If you’re reading this today, I want you to hear my heart. You don’t have to hold your world together anymore. You don’t have to pretend you’re strong. You don’t have to keep pushing until you break.

Sometimes the most courageous prayer you will ever pray is simply: “Lord… help me.” And He will.

Oh dear friend, He will.

“Call to Me, and I will answer you.”

— Jeremiah 33:3

So, make yourself a cup of tea. Sit with Him.

Let the warmth soften your chest and the scripture soften your spirit. You do not walk alone. And you never have.

 If this encouraged you…

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