I recently found myself rereading words I wrote years ago.
Words from a woman who was brought to her knees.
She was forty years old, standing in the middle of a life she thought she understood, when everything changed in a moment. She was forced to confront fear, trauma, faith, marriage, motherhood, and the fragile beauty of being human.
Reading those words now, at forty-nine, I recognize her.
I love her.
I also want to reach back and tell her something she didn’t yet understand.
You were never broken.
You were becoming.
For most of my life, I believed I knew who I was. I knew what I valued. I knew I loved deeply. I knew my faith mattered. But if I’m honest, I also spent many years making sure everyone else was comfortable.
I wanted to be kind.
I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to bring peace into every room.
Those are not bad things.
But somewhere along the way, I confused being loving with being quiet. I thought having a voice meant risking conflict. I worried that speaking about my faith would feel like preaching. I never wanted to be the person who thought she had all the answers.
I still don’t.
But I have learned something important.
Sharing your story is not the same as forcing your beliefs.
A testimony is not a lecture.
It is simply saying,
“This is what carried me.”
For me, my faith carried me.
Years ago, my husband and I took a trip that was supposed to be a celebration. A week away together. Time to reconnect. Time to breathe.
We had no idea that within moments our lives would forever be divided into before and after.
I watched my husband get shot. Those words still don’t roll off my tongue lightly.
I watched him endure unimaginable pain while somehow still trying to reassure me.
I was terrified.
I was broken open.
In the weeks and months that followed, I learned something I had never fully understood before.
Pain and faith can exist together.
Gratitude and grief can exist together.
God’s goodness does not mean we will never hurt.
It means we are never alone in our hurt.
That experience changed me.
It made me softer toward struggles I couldn’t see.
It made me more aware that every person is carrying something.
It taught me that people rarely need perfect words.
They need presence.
Compassion.
Love.
It brought me to my knees. (Which is exactly where he wants me to stay.)
But it also gave me my eyes back.
Eyes that notice.
Eyes that feel.
Eyes that refuse to waste this one beautiful life.
Years later, becoming a grandmother awakened something else inside of me.
Holding my granddaughter made me realize that our greatest legacy isn’t what we accomplish.
It is what we leave in the hearts of those who come after us.
It is courage.
It is kindness.
It is showing the next generation that they are allowed to become exactly who they were created to be.
Maybe that is why I have found my voice now.
Because I want them to know that kindness does not require silence.
Faith does not require hiding.
Love does not require pretending.
As I have started speaking more honestly, I have also experienced loss.
Some people were comfortable with the version of me who quietly smiled, agreed, and absorbed everything.
Finding your voice has a way of revealing relationships.
That has been painful.
It has also been freeing.
Because I have learned this.
We do not have to be identical to love each other.
Differences do not have to divide us.
I can stand firmly in what I believe while still extending kindness to those who believe differently.
I can have convictions and compassion.
I can have boundaries and grace.
Both can exist.
For years the world has told us we need different versions of ourselves.
A business version.
A personal version.
A polished version.
But I think, for a very long time, I lived as the version of myself that everyone else needed.
I was my husband’s wife.
I was my children’s mom.
I was the person who encouraged, supported, organized, and made sure everyone else was okay.
Those roles were never the problem.
They remain some of the greatest gifts of my life.
The problem was that somewhere along the way, I started believing those roles required me to become smaller.
Quieter.
Less opinionated.
Less willing to challenge.
More concerned with making everyone else comfortable than discovering who God had created me to be.
The truth is, I struggled.
Not because I didn’t love those roles.
I loved them deeply.
But beneath them was a woman still trying to discover who she was when she wasn’t defined by what she did for everyone else.
I wasn’t trying to become someone new.
I was trying to finally become fully me.
Today I understand something I once believed had to be separated.
The woman who is a devoted wife, a loving mother, a grateful grandmother, and a passionate business owner is not four different women.
She is one.
Who I am personally and who I am professionally cannot be divided.
The woman who creates meaningful journeys, obsesses over beautiful details, and loves refinement, elegance, and ambiance is the very same woman who loves muddy boots, dirt trails, simple mornings, and imperfect adventures.
I love a beautifully set table.
I love sitting on a porch with a cup of coffee.
I appreciate luxury.
I appreciate simplicity.
I love the extraordinary.
I love the ordinary.
That doesn’t make me complicated.
It makes me human.
My faith guides me—not because I have mastered life, but because I know I need guidance.
It shapes how I love.
How I serve.
How I forgive.
How I begin again.
I no longer want to minimize the things that matter deeply to me.
I no longer want to apologize for the heart God gave me.
My voice still cracks sometimes.
I still wonder if I said too much.
I still care deeply about how my words affect people.
But maybe courage was never about having a fearless voice.
Maybe courage is having a trembling voice…
…and speaking anyway.
Because sometimes when your world becomes smaller, your heart becomes larger.
Sometimes when you stop chasing approval, you discover purpose.
Sometimes when life strips away everything you thought mattered, you finally see what always did.
The truth is this.
It was never really about this world.
It was always about love.
It was always about serving.
It was always about becoming who we were created to be.
Today, when I look in the mirror, I see someone different than the woman I once was.
She has scars.
She has stories.
She has softer edges and stronger convictions.
She has learned that deep waters do not always destroy us.
Sometimes…
