Reflections

Top

Sometimes a moment, a memory, or a quiet thought lingers long enough to become a reflection.Here you'll find pieces inspired by everyday life, exploring themes of faith, hope, grief, healing, resilience, gratitude, and the beauty often found in ordinary moments. My hope is that these words encourage you wherever you are on your journey.

I Wish Heaven Had a Telephone

Have you ever found yourself reaching for the phone before remembering there's no one there to answer?

Even after someone is gone, there are moments when you instinctively want to call them. Not because you have something extraordinary to say. Just because you miss hearing their voice.

That's how I feel about my dad.

I wish Heaven had a telephone.

Not because I have unanswered questions or because I need life explained to me. I simply miss him. I miss hearing him say my name. I miss knowing that no matter what was happening in my life, I could pick up the phone and hear his voice on the other end.

Ever since I was little, I looked up to him—literally and figuratively. He was my hero. In my eyes, he was larger than life, strong, steady, and somehow indestructible.

He was the kind of person who could make an entire room laugh. My dad was a comedian at heart. He loved making people smile, telling jokes that made everyone laugh and sometimes blush. He had the most beautiful blue eyes, and when he smiled, they crinkled at the corners. People were naturally drawn to him because he had a warmth that made strangers feel like friends.

Growing up, he taught me countless lessons. Some came through words, and others simply by watching the way he lived. He always told me, "Give everything one hundred percent. If you can honestly say you did your best, I'll always be proud of you."

Those words have never left me. Even now, when I'm writing a book, standing behind a microphone, or facing something difficult, I still hear my dad reminding me to do my best.

When I was seventeen, my mom died. Overnight, our world changed forever.

Watching my dad try to rebuild our lives after losing his wife of twenty-three years was one of the hardest things I've ever witnessed. He had lost his best friend, and the grief nearly broke him. But he kept showing up. He poured everything he had into raising my sisters and me. Even while carrying unimaginable pain, he made sure we knew we were loved.

As I've grown older, I've realized something I couldn't see as a child. Most people knew my dad as the funny one—the life of the party, the man who could make everyone laugh. But I knew the quieter version of him. I saw the sadness he tried so hard to hide. I saw the tears he quickly wiped away. I saw the burden he believed he had to carry alone.

For a long time, I thought strength meant never letting people see you struggle. I think my dad believed that too. But I've learned something different. Real strength isn't pretending you're okay. Real strength is allowing yourself to be seen, even when you're hurting.

Looking back now, I realize my father lived with both incredible joy and incredible sorrow. He had a heart as vast as the ocean. He was generous beyond measure. He could make a room erupt with laughter while carrying a loneliness few people ever recognized.

Strength and sadness lived side by side within him.

And maybe they do within many of us.

Today is the second Father's Day since he died. The first one passed in a fog. I don't remember much of it. But this year, I felt everything—the ache, the gratitude, the love, the sadness. And surprisingly, I'm thankful that I can still feel it.

Because grief hurts. But grief is also evidence that we loved deeply.

I loved my dad deeply.

People sometimes ask whether I've forgiven him. The answer is yes. I forgive him. In many ways, I even understand.

Forgiveness doesn't erase the loss. It doesn't stop me from wishing I could hear his laugh one more time or see those blue eyes crinkle when he smiled. Love and forgiveness don't erase grief. They simply allow it to soften.

So today, I still find myself wishing Heaven had a telephone.

I'd call just to tell him about my life. I'd tell him about the books I've written, the poems, and the people whose lives have been touched by my words. I'd tell him that I'm still trying to give everything one hundred percent, just like he taught me.

And before hanging up, I'd make sure he heard the words I wish I'd had one more chance to say.

I love you, Dad.

I always will.

Maybe someone here today is missing someone too. Maybe it's your father, your mother, your spouse, a sibling, or a friend.

If that's you, let me ask you a question.

If you had just one phone call to Heaven, who would you call? And what would you want them to know?

Maybe we don't have a telephone to Heaven. But love has never needed a phone line to endure.

The people we love continue living in the lessons they taught us, the memories that still make us smile, and the parts of them that have become part of who we are.

Love doesn't end when a life does.

And neither do the things that matter most.

Where the Morning Found Me

When was the last time you stopped long enough to really notice

something beautiful?

A few mornings ago, I stepped onto my porch expecting nothing more than another ordinary day. I wasn't looking for a profound moment. I was simply stepping outside. Then I looked up, and the sky took my breath away.

It was as if God had paused His brush mid-stroke, leaving behind a masterpiece no photograph could ever fully capture. Amethyst melted into sapphire, and sapphire ignited into tangerine. The colors didn't simply fill the sky—they seemed alive, slowly unfolding as the morning awakened.

Then I noticed everything else. The birds were already singing, their songs weaving through the silence. A soft breeze moved through the trees, and the leaves answered with their quiet applause. Even the air felt fresh, carrying that earthy scent that only seems to exist in the first moments of a new day.

I stood there barefoot on my porch, completely still. For just a moment, life stopped asking anything of me. And something unexpected happened. The weight I'd been carrying became a little lighter. The constant noise in my mind grew quiet. The ache I don't always have words for loosened its grip. All that remained was light.

Not because my circumstances had changed. Not because all my problems disappeared. But because, for a few sacred moments, I remembered that beauty still existed.

I think that's something many of us forget. Life gets busy. We carry responsibilities, grief, disappointment, worry, and unanswered prayers. We become so focused on getting through the day that we stop looking up. Yet beauty keeps showing up anyway.

The sunrise doesn't wait until we're ready. The birds don't stop singing because we're overwhelmed. The wind still moves through the trees whether we notice it or not. The gift isn't that these things suddenly appear. The gift is that, occasionally, we slow down enough to see them.

That morning reminded me that joy doesn't always arrive with fireworks. Sometimes it comes quietly. Sometimes it arrives on tiptoe. Sometimes it waits on your porch to see if you'll notice.

For me, that sunrise became more than a beautiful sky. It became a reminder that even in seasons when I feel weary or uncertain, there is still goodness to be found. That the sky still has room for me. That God is still painting beauty into ordinary mornings. That every sunrise is a quiet invitation to begin again.

So let me leave you with the same question I asked at the beginning.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to notice beauty?

Because I have a feeling it's there. Maybe it's waiting outside your window. Maybe it's in someone's laugh. Maybe it's in a conversation you've been too busy to appreciate. Maybe it's simply the fact that you've been given another morning.

Sometimes the most extraordinary moments don't happen because the world changes. They happen because we finally stopped long enough to see it.

That morning, that's where the morning found me—standing in wonder, wrapped in color, and deeply, unexpectedly, soulfully grateful.

Hope After Grief

There are moments in life that divide everything into a before and an after.

For me, that moment came on October 3, 2024, when my dad died by suicide.

Nothing prepares you for a loss like that. In an instant, the world became unfamiliar. The days that followed were filled with questions I couldn't answer and emotions I didn't know how to carry. Grief isn't just sadness. It's disorientation. It's waking up each morning and trying to figure out how to live in a world that suddenly feels different.

As a Christian, I found myself asking God questions I never imagined I would ask. Why did this happen? Could I have done something differently? Why didn't You stop it?

Those are difficult questions, but they're honest ones. And I've come to believe that God isn't intimidated by our honesty.

For a long time, I wanted answers. Instead, God gave me something I didn't know I needed even more—His presence.

I remember mornings when I would sit with my coffee and my Bible beside me. I wanted to read. I wanted to pray. But grief has a way of making even the simplest things feel impossible. Sometimes I would just stare at the pages, unable to open them. Sometimes all I could offer God were tears.

And somehow, that was enough.

God kept meeting me there. Not by explaining my pain or answering every question, but simply by being present with me. He walked beside me through every wave of grief, every sleepless night, every moment when I thought I couldn't take another step.

Over these past twenty months, I've learned that faith isn't pretending everything is okay. Faith is trusting that God is still good even when life isn't.

I've also learned that hope isn't the absence of grief. Hope is what allows grief to breathe without becoming the whole story.

I still miss my dad every single day. There are still moments when the ache catches me by surprise, and there are still questions I may never have answered this side of heaven. But I've realized that my hope has never depended on having all the answers.

My hope rests in Jesus.

Because of Him, death doesn't get the final word. Because of Him, brokenness isn't the end of the story. Because of Him, I can grieve honestly while still living with hope.

If you're carrying grief today—whether it's the loss of someone you love, the loss of a dream, or some other deep hurt—I want you to know that you don't have to have everything figured out to have hope. Hope isn't found in understanding. Hope is found in the One who understands us completely.

I don't stand before you today because I've moved on from my grief. I stand here because God has carried me through it, and He continues to carry me every day.

If there's one thing I hope you leave with this morning, it's this: grief may become part of your story, but through Christ, it never has to be the whole story. God's faithfulness is greater than our deepest sorrow, and His presence is often most real in the places where our hearts are most broken.

That is what I've learned over these past twenty months. Not that grief gets smaller, but that God's faithfulness becomes bigger than I ever imagined.

And that has made all the difference.

If I Fully Trusted Myself

What would change if you fully trusted yourself?

That question became the beginning of a piece I wrote called If I Fully Trusted Myself. At first, I thought I was writing about confidence. I thought it would be about courage, taking risks, and believing in myself. But as the words unfolded, I realized I was writing about something much quieter—and, perhaps, much more difficult.

I was writing about trust.

Not trust in the sense of having all the answers, but trust in the quiet voice within us that so often gets drowned out by fear, disappointment, and the expectations of others. Somewhere along the way, many of us learn to question that voice. We begin looking outside ourselves for permission to move forward, waiting for someone else to tell us we're ready before we dare take the next step.

One of the first images that came to me was the line, "I would stop standing at the edge of my own life like a guest waiting to be invited in." I think many of us know what that feels like. We stand just outside the life we long for, convinced the invitation hasn't arrived yet, when perhaps the only one we're waiting on is ourselves.

As I continued writing, another line surprised me: "Some of what I have called caution has really been grief wearing sensible shoes." I hadn't intended to write about grief, but writing has a way of uncovering truths we don't always recognize at first. I realized that sometimes what looks like wisdom is actually fear born from old wounds. Sometimes what feels like caution is simply our hearts trying not to be hurt again.

There is nothing wrong with being careful. Life has a way of teaching us to protect ourselves. But there comes a point when protection quietly becomes limitation, when surviving begins to keep us from truly living. That's a difficult line to recognize, and an even more difficult one to cross.

As I wrote, I found myself returning to nature again and again. The sunflower turns toward the light without apology. The river keeps moving around the stones in its path. Roots grow quietly beneath the surface long before anyone sees the tree they will become. None of creation seems to question its purpose the way we so often question ours.

Perhaps that's because nature understands something we forget: becoming is rarely dramatic. It is usually slow. Faithful. Unseen.

I think that's why one of my favorite lines in the piece became, "Maybe trust is not a sudden blaze. Maybe it is a lantern lit softly in the ribs." We often expect transformation to arrive like lightning, yet most lasting change comes one quiet decision at a time. One honest conversation. One boundary. One brave "yes." One necessary "no." One small step toward the life we've been afraid to claim.

The older I get, the more I believe self-trust isn't about becoming someone new. It's about returning to who we were before fear convinced us we needed permission to exist as ourselves. It is learning to distinguish between the voice that protects us and the voice that confines us. It is believing that our experiences, our faith, our intuition, and even our scars have shaped a wisdom worth listening to.

Perhaps the hardest part of trusting ourselves is extending compassion to the versions of us who couldn't. The ones who stayed too long. The ones who became smaller to make others comfortable. The ones who doubted themselves because life had given them reasons to. They deserve grace, not judgment. After all, they were doing the best they could with what they knew at the time.

So I'll leave you with the same question that began both the piece and this reflection.

What would change if you fully trusted yourself?

Not the fearless version of you. Not the version who has everything figured out. You, exactly as you are today.

Maybe the answer isn't found in one bold leap. Maybe it's found in the next faithful step.

Maybe trust isn't waiting somewhere in the distance.

Maybe it's already quietly calling you home.

What Was Never Mine to Carry

How much of what you're carrying was never yours to begin with?

That question stayed with me long after I finished writing a letter I called The Past, My Toll. I thought I was writing about my past. Instead, I found myself writing about blame.

Not the blame we earn through our own choices, but the kind we quietly inherit. The kind that settles on our shoulders so gradually we stop noticing its weight. The kind that convinces us we could have prevented someone else's pain if only we had loved more, done more, been more.

For years, I believed that was my responsibility.

As I wrote this letter, I realized how easily we confuse compassion with responsibility. We grieve for the people we love, and somewhere along the way we begin believing their struggles were ours to fix. We replay conversations, second-guess decisions, and live in the exhausting country of what if and if only. We convince ourselves that if we had somehow been better, someone else's story might have ended differently.

But love has never been the same thing as control.

One sentence in this letter became the turning point for me: "I have been living as though I had to atone for sins that were never mine." Writing those words felt like setting down a weight I hadn't realized I was still carrying. I began to understand that there is a profound difference between honoring our past and allowing it to sentence our future.

Our past shapes us, but it doesn't own us.

There is something sacred about telling the truth—not to rewrite history or pretend the pain never happened, but to finally name what belongs to us and what never did. Healing isn't denying the wounds. It's refusing to keep accepting responsibility for the knife.

Perhaps the greatest act of healing is not learning to forget. It is learning to release. To stop asking questions that have no answers. To stop carrying burdens that were never ours to lift. To stop apologizing for surviving circumstances we didn't create.

Near the end of the letter, I wrote to the younger version of myself with gratitude instead of criticism. That may have been the most healing part of all. For so many years, I looked back with regret, wishing she had known more, done more, somehow been enough to save everyone she loved. Now I see her differently. I see a little girl—and later, a young woman—doing the very best she could with a heart that loved deeply and a world that often asked too much of it.

Maybe that's where freedom begins.

Not when the past disappears, because it never truly does. But when we stop allowing it to collect payment for a debt we never owed.

So let me leave you with the same question that stayed with me after writing this letter.

How much of what you're carrying was never yours to begin with?

Maybe it's time to set it down.

Not because it didn't matter.