“Clarity isn’t about knowing what you want to do with your life, it’s about knowing what you want to do this week. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to know your next step.” ~ James Clear

March 16. We’d been home from Cancun for only a few days, and Michigan wasn’t being gracious about the transition. The ice on the lake had started to give way, but there was still snow sitting on top of it. Looking at it, you couldn’t tell whether we were two weeks or two months from open water. Winter had gone on so long I’d stopped trusting the calendar.

I was on a call with my business coach, talking through what was next. But I already knew.

Somewhere underneath the conversation, in that quiet place where God speaks to me, I knew what He was asking me to build. A place for women who were tired of striving. A room where we could learn together to live gentler, not harder.

I was sure it was Him. And yet, I was scared.

I want to be honest about what the fear actually was, because it wasn’t stage fright. It was upkeep. What if I couldn’t create the content? What if I opened the doors, and women walked in, and three months later I had nothing left to give them? I’ve watched people build beautiful rooms and then run out of breath trying to keep them furnished. I didn’t want to do that to anyone, and I especially didn’t want to do it to women who came to me because they were already worn out.

It didn't help that I was already in the middle of revisions on Keeping Company with Jesus. There was no tidy, empty season waiting for me to start something new, and I kept thinking that if I just waited a little longer, one might show up.

So I did what I always do when I’m scared. I tried to figure out the whole thing first.

That impulse looks like wisdom. It sounds responsible. It even borrows spiritual language. I’m waiting on the Lord. I’m seeking clarity. I want to be a good steward of this. But underneath, more often than I’d like to admit, it’s the same old striving in nicer clothes. If I can just see far enough ahead, I can make sure I won’t fail. I can be my own security.

But God rarely lets us be our own security, and I’ve come to believe that’s His mercy.

There’s a line in Psalm 119 I’ve read a hundred times: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (verse 105).

Think about what a lamp was when those words were written. A small clay bowl with a wick and a little olive oil, carried low, throwing a circle of light maybe three feet wide. You couldn’t see the road ahead. You couldn’t see where you’d end up. You could see where to put your foot.

That’s not a defective lamp. That’s the design.

We keep treating the small circle of light as a problem to be solved. God offers it as provision. Enough for the step, and no more, because more was never what we actually needed.

So I stopped trying to see the road.

I outlined the year, and then I set the outline down and built the first piece. Just the first one. Then I wrote the emails that would point women toward it. Then I did the thing that scared me most: picking a date and inviting women to come.

None of that was the whole plan. Every bit of it was the next step.

And the confidence I’d been waiting for before I started? It showed up after. It was on the other side, the way it always is. You can’t think your way into it. You walk into it.

So let me ask you what I had to ask myself that morning.

Not what do you want to do with your life. That question is too big for a Thursday morning, and it’s probably been making you feel behind for years.

What do you want to do this week?

What’s the one thing inside your circle of light? Make the call. Open the document. Say the honest sentence to your husband. Look up the class. Send the message you’ve been drafting in your head for a month. And if the next right thing is rest, then rest, without apologizing for it.

I know what some of you are thinking, because I thought it too. What if I take the step and it turns out to be the wrong one?

Then you’ll find out, and you’ll adjust, and He’ll still be there. The lamp was never a promise that you’d never wander. It was a promise that you’re never walking alone. The Shepherd who leads you doesn’t abandon you over a clumsy step.

You don’t have to have it all figured out, friend. You were never going to.

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Have you ever found yourself bending over backward to win approval from people you wanted to like and admire you? I have. For years I walked a tightrope, carefully managing relationships with people who, in an ideal world, would have offered me unconditional love. “I’m sorry” rolled off my tongue at the slightest hint of disapproval, and I carried a deep fear of rejection. I became so focused on meeting everyone’s expectations that I lost sight of who I actually was.

It didn’t happen overnight. It started with small compromises. Laughing at jokes I didn’t find funny, agreeing with opinions I didn’t hold, saying yes when every fiber of me wanted to say no. Those seemingly innocent adjustments slowly hardened into a pattern that hid my authentic self. And the most insidious part was that I didn’t even notice it happening. I adjusted to each new demand until I’d been completely transformed, and not in a good way. My relationships looked perfect on the surface, but underneath, resentment and exhaustion were quietly brewing.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’ve laid your God-given identity on the altar of someone else’s happiness. You’ve dimmed your own light so others could shine brighter. You’ve contorted yourself into acceptable shapes just to avoid the discomfort of disapproval. The cost of all that shape-shifting is enormous. It drains your energy, erodes your sense of self, and leaves you with a constant, low-grade feeling of inadequacy. And no matter how much approval you collect, it’s never quite enough to fill the void inside.

Think about the last time you were praised for something you didn’t really care about. Did it satisfy you deeply, or was it more like empty calories, pleasant for a moment but ultimately hollow? That’s the thing about external validation. It can never substitute for the affirmation of God. When we live for others’ approval, we hand them our power. Our moods rise and fall with their reactions. We become emotional chameleons, changing colors to match the room instead of bringing our own unique hue to it.

But what finally set me free was something I didn’t fully understand until I stood beneath a tree in Africa.

On our first visit to Kruger National Park, back in 2021, Brian and I were exploring with friends who live in South Africa. At one point we came upon an enormous baobab, one of those ancient giants the African bush is famous for, trees that can stand for more than a thousand years. We climbed out of the vehicle and stood beneath it, just to take in how truly massive it was. Its trunk was so vast that the four of us together couldn’t even reach halfway around it. There’s an old legend that the baobab was planted upside down, which is why its bare branches look like roots reaching toward the sky. I’ve never forgotten standing in its shade, thinking about everything it had weathered, and the fact that it was still standing, because of everything happening underground, in roots I couldn’t see.

That’s the kind of confidence I’ve been learning to want. Building real confidence isn’t about pumping ourselves up with slogans or affirmations. It’s about rooting our identity so deeply in Christ that the storms of criticism and the waves of approval can’t knock us off our feet. You want your roots so deep, so entrenched in the soil of God’s love, that when the winds come, and they will come, you don’t topple over. You might sway a little, but at the end of the day you’re still standing. That’s what inner confidence actually is. It’s knowing you’re a beloved child of God, period.

This kind of confidence isn’t built overnight. Just as a tree develops its root system over years, a secure identity takes time to grow. It happens through reading Scripture not as a distant historical document but as a love letter addressed directly to you. It deepens through prayer that moves past the list of requests and simply sits in God’s presence, absorbing his delight in you. And it grows through community with people who see and celebrate the real you, not the performing you or the achieving you, but the actual you, with all your quirks and struggles and gifts.

The shift from seeking human approval to resting in God’s approval is like finally stepping off a stage you’ve been performing on your whole life. It’s realizing that the Creator of the universe looked at you, in all your imperfect and broken glory, and said, “You are mine, and you are loved. Not for what you do, but for who you are.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 puts it plainly: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Our acceptance by God was never earned by our effort or achievement. It’s freely given through his grace.

That truth changes everything. When we know we’re already approved, we can take risks without the fear of failure defining us. We can voice an unpopular opinion when it matters, because our security doesn’t depend on consensus. We can set healthy boundaries without guilt, because pleasing God sometimes means disappointing people. And when we’re no longer desperate for approval, we can love people more honestly. We listen better, because we’re not silently rehearsing our next line. We forgive more readily, because our worth isn’t riding on how others treat us. Even prayer changes, becoming less transactional and more relational. We serve not to secure God’s love but because we’re already overflowing with it.

So how do we begin? It starts with noticing the pattern, catching that familiar anxiety about someone’s opinion, the reflexive apology, the quiet abandoning of our own preference to keep the peace. From there we can gently challenge the fear underneath by asking what we’re actually afraid would happen if we didn’t win this person’s approval. More often than not, the fear turns out to be exaggerated, rooted in an old wound rather than present reality. And we can immerse ourselves in truth. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that God “will rejoice over you with singing.” Let that slowly replace the lie that your worth depends on your performance.

Remember, your worth is not up for negotiation. You are more loved than you can fathom by a Creator who is wild about you. Living from that truth doesn’t just change how you see yourself. It transforms how you relate to everyone around you.

So what might change in your life if you truly believed God’s approval was enough? Maybe you’d finally pursue the dream you’ve kept buried for fear of failing. Maybe you’d speak truth in a place you’ve stayed silent. Or maybe you’d simply feel a new and quiet peace, the steady confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and Whose you are.

This journey toward authentic identity isn’t a destination but a daily choice to remember the truth and live from it. There will be setbacks, days when the old patterns resurface and others’ approval looks tantalizingly important again. But every time you return to the foundation of God’s unchanging love, those roots grow a little deeper and that confidence grows a little stronger. You were never meant to live as a reflection of other people’s expectations. You were created to reflect the image of God in a way that only you can.

So today, take one small step off the exhausting treadmill of people-pleasing and toward the liberating truth of who God says you are. It begins with a single truth: you are already loved, already approved, already enough. Not because of anything you’ve done, but because of who God is.

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Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone’s kindness triggered an unexpected emotional response? Where their genuine attempt to help felt more like an invasion than a blessing?

Our friends from South Africa were visiting us for several weeks. Wanting to show their appreciation for our hospitality, they naturally gravitated toward helping with household tasks. After dinner each evening, they would cheerfully begin clearing the table and washing dishes, their laughter echoing from the kitchen as they worked together.

You would think I’d be grateful for this generous help. You would think I’d put my feet up, relax with a cup of tea, and enjoy the gift of someone else handling the cleanup. Instead, I found myself in an emotional tailspin that caught me completely off guard.

The moment they weren’t looking, I would sneak back into the kitchen, quietly redoing everything they had just finished. I would rearrange the dishes in the dishwasher according to my own system.

I was beside myself. Seriously freaked out. Here were these wonderful people, just trying to help and show love through service, and I was having what can only be described as an emotional meltdown. The worst part? I was trying to hide my distress, keeping my reactions visible only to my poor husband, or so I thought. All I knew was that I desperately wanted them out of my kitchen. It was embarrassing, irrational, and completely out of proportion to the situation, but I didn’t know how to stop myself.

I simply didn’t know how to let go.

This kitchen crisis wasn’t my first dishwasher drama. It was simply the most glaring example of a pattern that had been building for years. As newlyweds, Brian and I had our own version of this same struggle. One evening after dinner, he sweetly invited me to curl up on the couch and watch a movie together. When I protested that I hadn’t done the dishes yet, he assured me with the easy confidence of someone who genuinely didn’t see the problem: “It’s alright, you can do them later.”

Reluctantly, I settled in beside him, though part of my mind stayed tethered to that stack of dirty plates in the kitchen. Halfway through the movie, Brian paused it to make popcorn. While waiting for it to pop, he decided, with the best of intentions, to put the dishes in the dishwasher.

The moment I heard the clatter of plates and the whoosh of running water, I flew up the stairs like a woman possessed, practically begging him, “Please, stop! Please!”

He couldn’t understand why I was so upset. From his perspective, he was simply being helpful, taking care of a task so we could both relax. The next night after dinner, he decided to address my reaction head-on. He pulled up a chair near the dishwasher and gently but firmly made me sit and watch while he loaded and ran it.

It was excruciatingly painful. Somewhere along the way, I had absorbed the belief that the dishes were my job, my responsibility alone, to be done right after dinner. I genuinely didn't know what to do with a husband who simply wanted to help. His kindness tripped an old alarm I didn't even know was still wired inside me. I clearly had some old wounds that needed tending, and eventually they were, with the marriage therapist Brian and I saw in our early years together.

In that moment, watching my husband load the dishwasher, something clicked. I became aware of where my need for control was truly rooted, and it had nothing to do with clean dishes or kitchen efficiency.

Sitting there, I finally understood what was really going on. It wasn't about the dishes at all, at least not entirely. It was fear, though it wore two different faces.

With Brian, it was an old alarm: the deeply ingrained sense that the dishes were mine to manage, and that leaving them undone meant I was failing. With our friends, it was something harder to name, the feeling that my space had been entered, my system quietly taken over. I had a particular way of doing the dishes, and I didn't like anyone messing with it.

But underneath both reactions was the same root: control, and beneath the control, fear. And the people I was guarding against weren't critics scanning for flaws. They were friends and loved ones who genuinely wanted to serve and bless me. I just couldn't see it yet.

Do you recognize yourself in my story? Do you sometimes feel like you have to do everything yourself because no one else will do it “right”? Has anyone ever lovingly, or not so lovingly, called you a control freak? Have you found yourself redoing tasks that others completed with genuine good intentions?

Our attempts to control, however well-intentioned, often damage our most important relationships. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:5 that “love does not demand its own way.” When we insist that things be done our way, in our timing, according to our standards, we’re essentially telling others that their efforts aren’t valuable, their methods aren’t acceptable, and their hearts to help aren’t appreciated.

The older I get, the more I realize how remarkably little I actually control. I can’t control other people’s actions, attitudes, or responses. I can’t control circumstances, timing, or outcomes. I can’t control the weather, the economy, or world events. I can’t even fully control my own health, my emotions, or the consequences of my choices.

But here’s what I’ve discovered. While I can’t control my external circumstances, I’ve become increasingly aware of how much my thoughts and beliefs control my reactions. My internal landscape, my mindset, my perspective, my spiritual foundation, that’s where I actually have both responsibility and opportunity.

Surprisingly, that realization brings me calm rather than anxiety. When I focus on controlling my responses rather than my circumstances, I find peace. When I choose to trust God’s character rather than manipulate outcomes, I discover rest. When I practice gratitude for the help offered rather than criticism of the methods used, I experience joy.

We can trust God in all things and not fear the outcome of whatever we face. Why? Because we can look back across our lives and see the evidence of His goodness and faithfulness, even in seasons that felt chaotic or disappointing at the time.

Think about your own story. Can you identify moments when something you initially resisted or couldn’t control actually turned out better than you could have planned? Times when someone else’s “wrong” way of doing things brought unexpected blessings? Seasons when God’s timing, though different from yours, proved to be exactly right?

For me, those South African friends washing dishes in my kitchen taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way. Their presence in my space, their different methods, their cheerful help, all of it forced me to confront the fear-based control that was quietly limiting my ability to receive love.

And here’s the part that still amazes me. A couple of Christmases ago, after our Sunday brunch, my son-in-law Chad quietly cleaned up the kitchen and ran the dishwasher. And I sat there, completely content. No tailspin, no sneaking back to rearrange anything, no white-knuckling.

The woman who once begged her new husband to stop loading the dishwasher had somehow become a woman who could simply receive the gift. That’s what God’s slow work of surrender looks like. Not a switch flipped overnight, but a heart gradually, mercifully changed.

What area do you need to loosen your grip on? Maybe it’s your schedule, demanding that everything happen on your timeline. Maybe it’s your relationships, trying to control how others respond. Maybe it’s your work, insisting every project meet your exact standards, or your home, managing every detail of how things are done.

What would it feel like to trust God with that situation instead of controlling the outcome? What if you held it like a gardener who plants the seeds, waters them faithfully, and then trusts the natural process of growth rather than trying to force the flowers to bloom on demand?

The invitation isn’t to become passive or careless. It’s to hold our responsibilities lightly, do our part with excellence, and then trust God with the results that are beyond our control anyway.

Sometimes peace beyond perfection looks like accepting help that doesn’t meet our standards and discovering that the world doesn’t fall apart when the dishes are loaded differently than we prefer. In releasing control, we don’t lose something precious. We gain something priceless: the freedom to be loved, served, and blessed by others, exactly as they are.

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Have you ever had your life perfectly mapped out, only to watch it unravel before your eyes? Those carefully constructed plans, the meticulously organized schedules, the well-intentioned dreams, suddenly suspended in midair while God whispers, “Not yet, my child. I have something different in mind.”

In the spring of 2018, my carefully constructed life imploded. Within months, my best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, my mother with terminal uterine cancer, and two of my adult children faced life-changing decisions. We had just sold our house and moved into a temporary apartment. It was as if God had taken my beautifully organized planner and scattered its pages across the floor, leaving me scrambling to pick up the pieces.

I still remember the antiseptic smell of the hospital waiting room, that strange blend of cleaning supplies and uncertainty that seems to permeate every medical facility. My mind raced with to-do lists and contingency plans while I waited for my mother’s surgery to end. I was already mentally rearranging my schedule to accommodate her recovery when the surgeon approached with that look, the one that immediately makes your heart sink.

“I’m sorry,” he began, and those two simple words shifted everything. “Your mother’s cancer is invasive and terminal.”

In that moment, my whole world crashed down around me. The floor seemed to tilt beneath me as the word echoed in my mind. Terminal. How could this be happening? I had plans. We had plans. My mother was supposed to see my son get married, my daughter have her first child, to celebrate more holidays around our family table, and to grow old gracefully.

But God had different plans.

The next three years were a crash course in living with uncertainty. The doctors gave my mom six months, but in God’s timing, she held on for two and a half precious, challenging years. During that season, I couldn’t plan anything, not knowing what Mom’s needs would be from one day to the next. Visits from the hospice nurse and trips to the doctor became our new normal. My temporary living situation stretched from weeks into months. Everything felt unsettled, unfinished, uncertain.

I was forced to slow down and trust God. I’ll admit I did it kicking and screaming.

For someone like me, accustomed to planning every detail and keeping everything under control, this season of limbo was excruciating. I’m the woman with color-coded calendars and backup plans for my backup plans. I find comfort in certainty and security in knowing what comes next. Perhaps you can relate?

Our brains are actually wired to seek certainty. Neuroscience shows that uncertainty triggers our threat response, activating the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, and releasing stress hormones throughout the body. No wonder uncertainty feels so physically and emotionally draining. When we face the unknown, our natural instinct drives us to grasp for stability and control, and the stress mounts when we can’t secure them.

It was during this season that I stumbled on an Anne Lamott quote: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” Could it be that my desperate quest for certainty was actually interfering with my ability to exercise faith?

Think about it. If we knew exactly how everything would unfold, we wouldn’t need faith at all. Faith, by definition, requires stepping into the unknown, trusting that God will meet us there. It’s walking forward when we can’t see the whole path, believing that the One who created the universe holds our future securely in His hands.

Hebrews 11:1 reminds us that “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Faith doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. It thrives in it. Faith is the bridge that carries us across the chasm of the unknown. But oh, how hard it can be to step onto that bridge when everything in us craves the solid ground of certainty.

During another difficult stretch, when we’d sold one house and were waiting to move into the next, I found myself confronting that need for control all over again. We were living in our fifth wheel far longer than planned, our belongings scattered across multiple storage units in multiple states. I was still emotionally reeling from my mother’s death and the estate auction that followed, watching generations of family possessions carried off by strangers.

I felt completely out of control, vacillating between sadness and anger. One particularly difficult afternoon, after yet another call about delays, I broke down completely. I didn’t know what to do with all the emotions churning inside me.

So I did something completely contrary to my fix-it nature. I lay down and listened to praise and worship music for several hours. As the lyrics washed over me, I began to loosen my grip on the situation. Then I asked myself three simple but profound questions: What is God trying to teach me in this season of uncertainty? How could my good, good Father be intending all of this for my good? How can I change my perception of this situation so I don’t feel so helpless?

For over an hour, I scribbled my thoughts and God’s gentle responses into my journal. I poured out my frustrations, my fears, and my desperate desire for things to go according to my timeline. And slowly, as I wrote, something shifted within me.

At some point during that time with God, I made an intentional decision to give everything, all the little details and hurts and disappointments, to him. Not because I had suddenly figured everything out, but because I knew I couldn’t carry the weight of all that uncertainty another day.

As I opened my clenched fists and released my grip on control, something extraordinary happened. A warm, all-enveloping peace crept over me. Not instantly, but gradually, like the sun slowly warming cold earth. It wasn’t that my circumstances had changed. It was that I had changed in relation to my circumstances.

This is the peace Jesus promised in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” His peace doesn’t depend on perfect circumstances or a clear path forward. It comes in the middle of the storm, in the heart of uncertainty, when we choose to trust that he is working all things together for our good.

It wasn’t until much later that I began to see glimpses of God’s greater purpose in those delays and detours. Looking back, I can trace His fingerprints across so many of those painful months. The extra time with my mother became precious memories I would have missed entirely if my original timeline had prevailed. The temporary housing created unexpected opportunities for deep community with neighbors we’d otherwise never have met.

As Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God’s perspective is infinitely wider and longer than ours. While we see only the immediate inconvenience or pain, he sees the beautiful tapestry he’s weaving across generations.

Sometimes I feel like a little girl clinging tightly to her old, ratty teddy bear, while Jesus gently asks me to hand it over, not knowing he’s holding a new, bigger, better one behind His back. That image has stayed with me through every season of uncertainty since. When I find myself gripping my plans, my timeline, my version of how things should unfold, I picture Jesus quietly asking me to release my worn, familiar comforts so He can give me something far better than I could imagine.

What about you? What “teddy bear” are you clinging to today? Is it a relationship that needs to change? A career that’s comfortable but unfulfilling? A dream that may need to die so something new can be born? A timeline that keeps getting disrupted? What might God be waiting to give you if you’d only open your hands and trust him?

Several years have passed since that devastating day in the waiting room. My mother has gone home to be with the Lord. We settled into our new home, lived there for over three years, and have since moved again. Many of the uncertainties that once consumed my thoughts have resolved, though new ones have certainly tried to take their place.

What remains is a deep appreciation for the beauty of interrupted plans. I’ve learned that the detours often lead to more breathtaking vistas than the main road ever could. The delays frequently protect us from dangers we can’t see. And the uncertainty, painful as it is, creates the very space where deeper faith grows.

So if you find yourself in a season where God seems to be interrupting all your carefully constructed plans, take heart. Open your hands. Release your grip on certainty. And watch with expectation for the better “teddy bear” he’s preparing to give you. After all, the God who holds the universe in perfect order can certainly hold the uncertainties in your life. And He will, with more wisdom, grace, and love than we could ever imagine.

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Several years ago, I sat on a plane waiting to take off, staring intently at the Ring doorbell app on my phone, watching contractors carry sheets of drywall into our house. The control freak in me was anxious. What if they scuffed the walls? What if that new waterline sprang a leak while we were gone for two weeks?

Sound familiar?

Many of us crave certainty and control. We plan, we organize, we micromanage, all in an attempt to secure the outcomes we want. I’m a list maker and a planner who gets a little giddy opening a pristine new planner each January. Setting goals and mapping out my year gives me a comforting sense of control over the unknown.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth I had to confront in myself: my desire to lock down the future is a form of idolatry. When I lean harder on my planning than on God’s guidance, I’ve made an idol of control.

For many of us, control doesn’t look like what we usually picture as idolatry. There are no golden calves in our living rooms, no shrines tucked in our closets. This idol hides in plain sight, in our planners and our spotless homes, our perfectly curated feeds, our relentless pursuit of certainty.

Control becomes an idol when we find our security in our plans rather than in God’s provision. When things are not going our way, it sends us into real anxiety. When we believe the lie that if we just try harder, plan better, and stay more organized, we can prevent all pain and disappointment. When we spend more time strategizing our future than seeking God’s presence.

The control idol promises safety but delivers bondage. It whispers that we can protect ourselves from life’s uncertainties if we just keep a tight enough grip. But that promise is hollow.

In Matthew 14, Peter steps out of a boat during a storm and walks across the water toward Jesus. At first, he succeeds, actually walking on water, because his focus is entirely on Christ. But the moment he notices the wind and the waves, he begins to sink.

What made him look away from Jesus and fix his eyes on the threatening circumstances? The same thing that makes us anxiously check our Ring app or obsessively plan every detail: fear.

Fear drives our need for control. We’re afraid of pain, failure, rejection, or loss, so we try to manage every variable within our reach. But Peter’s experience teaches us something profound. When we focus on our circumstances instead of on Christ, we sink into the very things we fear.

James 4:14-16 puts it even more bluntly: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.”

Those words sting because they expose our illusion of control for what it is. We aren’t in control, and we never have been.

And yet Proverbs 19:21 turns that hard truth into a comfort: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” No matter how meticulously we plan, God’s purposes ultimately shape our lives. That isn’t a reason for despair. It’s a reason for relief.

Still, our attempts to control everything exact a heavy toll, and it’s worth asking what your need for control might be costing you. It strains relationships because trying to manage a spouse, child, or coworker creates tension and distance. It breeds constant anxiety because the more we try to control, the more aware we become of everything we can’t, and we end up perpetually scanning for threats to our carefully built plans.

It stalls us spiritually, because growth happens in the open space of surrender, not in the tight grip of control, and a clenched hand rarely steps out in faith. It exhausts us, leaving us running on empty and wondering why, despite all our efficient systems, we feel so depleted. And it causes us to miss blessings, because some of God’s best gifts arrive through unplanned moments and unexpected detours, and when we insist on sticking to the script, we can miss the divine appointments and surprising joys right in front of us.

For some of us, though, the need for control isn’t simply a habit. It’s a trauma response. Maybe you grew up in chaos, with unpredictable parents or circumstances that left you feeling unsafe, or you’ve lived through a season when your control was taken from you by force.

If that’s you, please hear this: your attempts to control your environment aren’t character flaws. They’re survival mechanisms. Your brain learned that control equals safety, and it’s been running on that equation ever since.

God sees and honors your story. He doesn’t condemn the ways you’ve tried to protect yourself, but he does gently invite you into healing, where you can begin to find your safety in him rather than in your own efforts. That kind of healing often needs professional support alongside spiritual practice, and working with a trauma-informed therapist who respects your faith can be an invaluable part of learning to release control in a way that honors what you’ve been through.

So how do we actually move from control toward surrender? Not through willpower alone. It takes intentional practices that help us loosen our grip and open our hands.

When I find myself spiraling with anxiety over something I can’t control, I turn on my One Minute Pause app and simply “give everyone and everything to Jesus.” Breathe in. Exhale. Repeat. The peace floods in. As I focus more on Jesus and less on myself, the worry quiets, and His presence fills the space.

Allen Arnold writes, in The Eden Option, “We spend our days either believing life is up to us or experiencing the wildness of life with God. You choose which reality to call home.” I want to experience the wildness of life with God. Don’t you? But getting there requires surrender, willingly yielding to God’s plan for our lives, no matter the cost.

There’s a moment in surrender that feels like free-falling. You’ve let go of what you thought would keep you safe, but you haven’t yet felt the catch of God’s hands. That space between relinquishing control and feeling divine support is where faith is forged.

My friend Susan describes it this way: “For years, I white-knuckled my way through life. When I finally let go, there was this terrifying moment where I thought I’d made a huge mistake. But then came a rush of freedom and lightness I’d never felt before. It wasn’t that my circumstances changed. It’s that I finally experienced them with God instead of just trying to manage them myself.”

That’s the peace that surpasses understanding, the peace Paul describes in Philippians 4:7. Not a peace that comes from having everything figured out, but one that holds even when we don’t.

Surrender isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a daily practice. Even after the big breakthroughs, we’ll catch ourselves reaching for control again. That’s not failure. That’s just being human.

So what are you trying to control today? What would it look like to open your hands, release your grip, and trust God with the outcome? It might feel terrifying. But it’s also the path to a freedom and peace beyond anything your most detailed planning could ever provide.

This road from control to surrender isn’t easy, but it is good. And on the other side of our released grip is a spacious place where we can finally breathe deep and rest in the peace our souls have been craving all along.

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I was standing near the kitchen island with a glass of raspberry lemonade in my hand, half-listening to the hum of a room full of people I didn’t know, when a woman turned to me with a bright, friendly smile and asked the most ordinary question in the world.

“So, what do you do?”

Four words. And something in me momentarily froze.

I felt it happen almost before I could name it, a fast, silent sorting through my options. Which answer sounds like enough? Do I lead with the books? The speaking? Do I mention the newest thing, the shiniest thing, the thing most likely to make her eyebrows lift with interest? I actually watched myself reaching for the version of my life that would land, the one that would prove, in a single sentence, that I was worth the space I was taking up in that kitchen.

She was just making conversation. But my heart had turned it into an audition.

It isn’t really about the question, though. It’s about what I believe the question is measuring.

When “What do you do?” sends me hunting for my most impressive credential, it’s because somewhere deep down I’ve accepted a quiet, exhausting arrangement. My value becomes something I have to establish. I walk into every room slightly in debt, and my accomplishments are how I pay it off. Say the right thing and I’ve earned my place. Say the wrong thing, or the small thing, or nothing much at all, and I’ve somehow come up short.

This is the performance trap in its most sociable disguise. It doesn’t always show up as burnout or an overcommitted calendar. Sometimes it’s just a woman at a party, doing invisible math about whether she measures up, over a glass of lemonade.

But if I sit with that little freeze long enough, it stops being about the party at all. It exposes something deeper.

Why did I feel the need to justify myself in the first place?

I reached for a title because, on some level, I had fused the title to my worth. I thought the résumé was the real me, that if I could just present the right list of doings, the being would be secure. It’s the same instinct that made me equate a productive day with a good day, a full plate with a meaningful life, a gold star with belovedness.

And this is where the gospel does its quiet, dismantling work.

Because God has never once asked me, “What do you do?” He already knows. And it was never the basis of His delight anyway. Consider that before Jesus healed a single person, taught a single crowd, or performed a single public miracle, the Father tore open the heavens and said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The delight came before the earthly ministry ever began. The Father’s pleasure in the Son was not a wage He had to work for; it was the eternal love between them, spoken aloud for us to hear.

That’s the order the world reverses and the gospel restores. The world says: do, and then you’ll be worthy. God says: You are beloved, now live from that. You were loved before you were useful. You are held before you are helpful. Your identity is not your function. It is a gift, spoken over you by a Father who delighted in you before you had anything to show for yourself.

If that’s true, and it is, then the kitchen-island math is a lie I never had to do.

When your worth is no longer up for grabs in every conversation, you can finally exhale. You can walk into the room already secure, with nothing to prove and no debt to pay. And from that settled, unhurried place, sure of whose you are, a completely different question becomes possible.

Not “What do you do?” but “What do you love to do?”

It’s a question I almost couldn’t have answered a few years ago. I’d been in performance mode so long I’d lost the thread of my own delight. Ask me what I did and I could recite it in my sleep. Ask me what I loved and I’d have gone quiet, because loving something requires a slowness that striving never allows. You have to stop performing long enough to remember that you are a person, not a production.

But when you’re rooted, when you know you’re beloved apart from anything you accomplish, the loves come back. The watercolors. The early morning walk by the water. The people you can’t wait to feed. The small, unimpressive, deeply you things that no résumé would ever list and that God delights in anyway.

So the next time someone turns to you with that bright, ordinary smile and asks what you do, I hope you feel it: the freedom to answer without the freeze. Because you already have nothing to prove. You are His beloved, and He was well pleased before you said a word.

And maybe, gently, you can turn the question around. Lean in and ask them what they love. You might be handing someone the very permission you just found for yourself.

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“No” is a complete sentence.

The first time I heard that, it felt both liberating and terrifying. As a lifelong people-pleaser, I’d spent decades adding qualifiers, explanations, and apologies to my rare attempts at saying no. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t. I wish I could. Maybe next time. I feel terrible, but...” Sound familiar?

Saying no without guilt is one of the hardest skills a recovering people-pleaser can learn. And yet it’s essential, for our well-being, our relationships, and our ability to serve God from a place of authenticity rather than obligation. Those two small letters carry enormous power when you string them together. Yet for many of us, saying that one simple word feels like launching a missile.

We brace for the fallout: disappointment, rejection, conflict, and being labeled selfish or unhelpful. What we miss is that our inability to say no clearly actually weakens our yes. When every request gets an automatic yes, our commitments become a devalued currency, easily given but thin on real intent.

We believe our value in God’s eyes is measured by our capacity to serve, so we say yes to everything and end up exhausted and disconnected from our own spiritual needs. We confuse martyrdom with service, exhaustion with devotion. But Scripture paints a different picture. Jesus himself modeled healthy boundaries throughout his ministry. He withdrew to solitary places when he needed rest. He said no to some requests in order to stay faithful to his primary calling. Even he did not try to be all things to all people all the time.

Here’s the truth that reframes everything: healthy boundaries are not the opposite of love. They’re how we nurture respect and care, both for others and for ourselves. Setting boundaries isn’t selfish. It’s stewardship. It’s recognizing that our time, energy, and resources are gifts from God that we’re meant to manage wisely. Boundaries are like the fence around a garden. They protect what’s tender and growing while defining the space clearly. Without a fence, people may unwittingly trample our most fragile growth. With one, we create the conditions for flourishing.

For most of us, the hardest part isn’t knowing where to draw the line. It’s managing the guilt that follows. But that guilt rests on a misconception. We aren’t responsible for other people’s emotions or reactions to our boundaries, only for communicating them with respect and clarity. Their response belongs to them. Our worthiness was never earned through constant yes-saying; it’s inherent in our identity as God’s beloved children.

So how do we begin? Start small, choosing a low-risk situation to practice in, maybe declining an optional event when you’re tired or asking a family member to call before dropping by. Use clear, direct language and resist the urge to over-explain. And when you’re ready to find the words, it helps to have a few phrases on hand:

• “Thank you for thinking of me, but I need to decline.”

• “I’m not available for that, but I appreciate you asking.”

• “I’ve committed to protecting my evenings for family time.”

• “That doesn’t work for me.”

• “I’ll need to think about that and get back to you.”

Notice how little explanation these require. Politeness matters, but we don’t need to justify our limits to make them valid. And for those of us raised to equate service with self-sacrifice, it helps to reframe boundary-setting as discernment rather than refusal. We’re not saying no to be difficult. We’re saying no to one thing so we can say a faithful yes to what God has actually called us to.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus offers this invitation: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” For those of us recovering from people-pleasing, that passage is a balm. Jesus doesn’t ask us to carry everyone’s expectations and demands. His yoke is perfectly fitted to who we are, our strengths and limitations, and all.

Your worth was never measured by how many people you please or how many commitments you juggle. Hold onto this as you begin: every “no” that aligns with your values and capacity is actually a “yes” to something better. A yes to health, to presence, to purpose, and ultimately to the life God designed you to live.

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At five years old, I stood uncomfortably on stage at a summer festival in a pale pink leotard with silk rosebuds sewn along the neckline and the tulle of a matching tutu. As I performed plies and jetés under the summer sun and the gawking scrutiny of strangers, I had one goal: to make my mother happy. I had zero interest in ballet. Yet there I was, performing for the reward of her proud smile. And so my journey as a people-pleaser began, a pattern that would follow me for decades.

Sound familiar? Many of us learned early on that the way to get ahead, or simply to feel safe, was to do what others applauded. We discovered that meeting expectations earned approval, while authenticity sometimes led to rejection. Like a sapling bending toward the sunlight of affirmation, our true desires took a backseat to the warm glow of others’ approval. Those early moments when we were validated for being “good” or “helpful” carved pathways that would shape our decisions for years.

People-pleasing isn’t just about being nice. It’s an overwhelming need to put others’ needs and expectations ahead of our own well-being, driven by a deep fear of rejection, disapproval, or conflict. We say “yes” when our hearts are screaming “no,” sacrificing our boundaries and our genuine self-expression to keep the peace and secure approval.

It shows up in countless ways: agreeing with opinions we don’t actually hold, taking on responsibilities that drain us, choosing a career to please a parent rather than follow a calling, staying in a relationship long past its expiration date. The people-pleaser becomes a chameleon, constantly reading the room and adjusting her colors to blend in. And that hypervigilance is exhausting, leaving little energy for discovering who we truly are beneath all the adaptive layers.

Do you remember the movie The Runaway Bride? Julia Roberts’ character changed how she liked her eggs to match whatever her current fiancé preferred. When confronted about it, she defended herself: “That’s called changing your mind.” To which Richard Gere’s character replied, “No, that’s called not having a mind of your own.” It’s a funny moment that captures something painfully true. The bride hadn’t just adapted her egg order. She’d lost touch with her own tastes entirely. Her identity had become so wrapped up in pleasing others that she no longer knew what she actually wanted.

How many of us are living like this, making decisions not from our own convictions but from what we think will please someone else? Our fear of rejection and conflict keeps us from standing up for what we believe. Our fear of disapproval has us suppressing our true selves in favor of acceptable packages tied neatly with ribbons of conformity. And the costs are steep, often invisible until they reach a breaking point.

There’s the physical exhaustion of constantly overextending ourselves, the emotional depletion of suppressing what we really feel, and the resentment that quietly builds as we keep putting everyone else first. There's the slow erosion of self-trust as we override our own inner wisdom again and again. There's the relationship strain that comes from attracting people who take advantage of our inability to say no. And underneath it all, there's a spiritual disconnection as we let human approval crowd out God's voice.

The apostle Paul’s words in Galatians 1:10 cut right to it: “Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.” That verse confronts us with a hard truth. We cannot serve Christ and make pleasing others our primary goal at the same time. They’re competing loyalties.

When our decisions are governed by the fear of someone’s reaction rather than by our values and convictions, we’ve let human opinion quietly take God’s place. We’ve made approval an idol, something we’ll pursue at almost any cost.

And the irony is that in trying to please everyone, we usually end up pleasing no one, least of all ourselves or God. We become thinner versions of who we could be, living from the outside in instead of the inside out.

The path to freedom begins with recognizing the fear that’s driving the pattern. For some of us, it’s the fear of rejection. For others, it’s the fear of disapproval, or conflict, or abandonment, or simply of becoming irrelevant. Which one sits closest to your own heart?

These fears often trace back to childhood, to seasons when love felt conditional, or conflict carried real consequences. Maybe you learned that keeping the peace was your job, or that your value was tied to what you could do for others rather than who you already were. Understanding the fear doesn’t make it vanish, but it does give us the power to respond differently when it surfaces. We can learn to notice when we’re deciding out of fear rather than from our values and authentic desires.

And when we can see what’s driving the behavior, we can start to challenge it with the truth: our worth isn’t determined by anyone’s approval but by God’s unchanging love for us. That isn’t a comforting platitude. It’s a revolutionary perspective that changes how we live. When we truly believe we are already fully loved, fully accepted, and fully valued by our Creator, the desperate need for human validation begins to loosen its grip.

Instead of filtering every decision through “what will make others happy with me?” we can start asking better questions. What aligns with my values? What brings me joy and energy? What honors both my own needs and the legitimate needs of the people around me? What would I choose if I weren’t afraid of disapproval?

The journey from people-pleasing to authenticity isn’t easy, but it leads somewhere worth going, a life where we’re no longer contorting ourselves to fit others’ expectations but living from the core of who God made us to be.

It happens through small, courageous steps. We practice pausing before we answer a request, giving ourselves space to check in with what’s true for us. We start with low-risk “no’s” to build the muscle for bigger ones. We surround ourselves with people who value our authentic voice and not just our compliance. We celebrate the moments we express ourselves honestly, regardless of how they land. And we learn to be gentle with ourselves when the fear of disapproval feels overwhelming.

So what would it look like for you to choose authenticity over approval? Maybe it’s a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding, or declining an opportunity that doesn’t fit your values, or simply voicing an opinion that differs from the consensus. Each small act of authenticity builds momentum toward a life of greater integrity and peace, one where you’re no longer exhausted by the constant performance but energized by the alignment of your inner and outer life.

The world doesn’t need more chameleons changing colors to fit in. It needs women with the courage to be fully themselves, offering their gifts and their perspective without apology.

The little girl in the pink tutu is finally free to choose her own dance. And so are you.

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“I’m such an idiot.” “Why can’t I figure this out?” “Who do I think I am to even attempt this?”

Sound familiar? For many of us, negative self-talk is the constant background music of our lives. We speak to ourselves in ways we would never dream of speaking to a friend, let alone a child.

Perfectionism isn’t something we simply outgrow. It takes intentional effort to overcome. But the freedom waiting on the other side is worth every uncomfortable step of the journey.

That critical inner voice feels like your own thoughts, but it’s actually the voice of perfectionism. It’s the voice that insists nothing is ever good enough, that mistakes are catastrophic, that your worth depends on flawless performance. I spent decades believing this voice was simply “the truth” about myself.

Only when I began to challenge it did I realize how much it had been holding me back, not just from peace, but from the life I’d been hoping for. Perfectionism creates a paradox: in trying to achieve perfection, we often produce less than our best work. We procrastinate out of fear, or we get stuck in endless revisions, never finishing what we start.

So here are a few practical steps that have helped me journey from perfectionism to peace.

Ask yourself the ten-minute question. Instead of avoiding a task because you can’t do it perfectly, ask, “What’s the ten-minute version of the task I’m avoiding?” and do that. Sometimes getting started is all we need to break the paralysis. I learned this as I walked into my office after a week of neglect while on a deadline.

I normally keep a fairly clutter-free workspace, but every surface had something piled on it, including the floor. Stacks of books, reference materials, correspondence, notebooks, my planner, all of it spread across my desk, my credenza, even my reading chair. My perfectionist brain went straight into panic mode: Where do I even start?

Instead of shutting the door and decamping to the dining table like I was tempted to, I asked the ten-minute question. The answer was simple: box up the books to reshelve later, then divide the paperwork between my personal basket and my work basket. Clear desk, clear credenza, clear chair, even a clear floor.

Motivated by that small visual victory, I decided to try another ten minutes on one of my in-baskets, and before I knew it, I’d spent an hour making real progress without the crushing pressure of transforming the whole room at once. The ten-minute question works because it bypasses the perfectionist’s all-or-nothing thinking. It says you don’t have to climb the whole mountain today. Just take one step.

Change your internal dialogue. When you catch yourself saying “I have to do that,” try reframing it as “I get to do that.” Focus on the benefit of finishing rather than the burden of starting. In the same way, replace “I’m bad at this” with “I’m new at this, and I’ll get better with practice.”

Our brains are remarkably responsive to the language we use, even internally. When we shift from obligation language to opportunity language, we actually experience the task differently. The burden gets lighter, and the resistance loses some of its grip.

Start a truth journal. When you notice a perfectionist thought, write it down. Then name the lie in it and replace it with truth. If you catch yourself thinking, “I’m a failure because I didn’t get the promotion,” you might write instead, “Not getting this promotion doesn’t define my worth or my future.”

My truth journal became a lifeline during my most perfectionist seasons. The process is simple: write the thought down exactly as it came to you, ask whether it’s absolutely and objectively true, identify the distortion or exaggeration, write a more balanced and truthful statement, and then read the new statement aloud.

Over time, you’ll start to recognize the patterns, the catastrophizing (”if I make this mistake, my career is over”), the all-or-nothing thinking (”if I can’t do it perfectly, there’s no point trying”), the mind-reading (”everyone will think I’m incompetent”). As you practice identifying and countering these patterns, you’re actually rewiring your brain to think differently.

Give yourself grace. You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay. It’s part of the process, one I’ve been working on intentionally for years. I’ve become far more aware of my tendencies and the lies behind them, and I still fall short. So be patient and gentle with yourself. Grace isn’t only a spiritual concept. It’s a practical approach to life.

When we extend grace to ourselves, we make room for growth, learning, and genuine improvement. I keep a grace note on my desk that reads, “Today, I give myself permission to be a work in progress.” It’s a daily reminder that perfection isn’t the goal. Progress is.

Set realistic goals. Instead of “I’m going to the gym six days a week,” tell yourself two days a week is enough. Achievable goals set you up for success rather than inevitable failure. Perfectionists tend to set the bar impossibly high, then beat themselves up when they can’t clear it. Realistic goals create a cycle of success that builds confidence and momentum.

When I first started exercising regularly, my goal wasn’t about results. It was about showing up. “Put on tennis shoes and walk for ten minutes” was something I could actually do, even on my busiest days. As it became a habit, I naturally wanted to do more.

Stretch your comfort zone. Try a new hobby, share an unfinished project, or let yourself make a small mistake without piling on the self-criticism. Tell yourself, “I’m not good at that yet.” The “yet” matters. It acknowledges that skills develop over time through practice and effort, not through some inherent perfection we either have or don’t.

Several years ago, I took a watercolor class despite having zero artistic ability. My bleeding flower petals and misshapen stems taught me more about letting go of perfectionism than any book or lecture ever could. When I hung those imperfect little paintings at home, they became daily reminders that beauty doesn’t require perfection.

Celebrate progress, not perfection. When I started my weight-loss journey, I didn’t punish myself for not reaching my goal overnight. Every few pounds was worth celebrating, and when the scale didn’t budge, I looked for the non-scale victories instead. Acknowledging effort and celebrating small wins builds momentum toward lasting change.

Perfectionists often discount their progress because they’re fixated on the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Celebrating small wins trains your brain to notice improvement rather than shortfall. You might keep a progress journal where you record the small steps forward. On hard days, reading back through it can remind you how far you’ve already come.

Here’s what holds all of this together. Perfectionism didn’t develop overnight, and it won’t disappear in a day. The journey toward peace beyond perfectionism is exactly that: a journey, with ups and downs, steps forward and back. But each step away from the tyranny of perfectionism is a step toward the freedom God intends for you.

Philippians 1:6 reminds us that He “who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.” The pressure isn’t on us to perfect ourselves. It’s on God, who promises to finish what He started. That truth doesn’t excuse us from effort, but it does release us from the crushing weight. We can work diligently and still trust God with the outcome.

The strategies above aren't a checklist to perfect. They're tools to try, and some will resonate more than others. That's the point. This was never about finding the perfect anti-perfectionism strategy. The path to peace isn't perfect, but it is possible. And you don't have to walk it alone.

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Perfectionism isn’t just about having high standards. It’s a prison with invisible bars. The world might celebrate your meticulously organized spice rack (yes, mine used to be alphabetized) or your ability to meet impossible deadlines, but the costs of perfectionism often stay hidden beneath the surface of our seemingly put-together lives.

Let me ask you: Do you put off starting projects because you’re afraid you won’t get them right? Do you agonize over decisions, fearing you’ll make the wrong choice? Do you push yourself to exhaustion because “good enough” never quite feels good enough?

Those are a few of the symptoms of perfectionism’s silent toll. When I was writing Peace Beyond Perfection, I found myself paralyzed by the fear that I wouldn’t be able to create something good enough to make a lasting difference in readers’ lives. The blank page stayed blank while the questions tormented me. What if I can’t help them? What if they judge me?

Perfectionism exacts other costs, too. It makes decisions, from menu choices to bathroom paint colors, nearly impossible. It leads to burnout as we pour an excessive amount of time into getting things “just right.” It fuels a self-criticism that would devastate us if we directed it at anyone else. And it steals our joy by making us feel like we never quite measure up. What’s worse, perfectionism often disguises itself as virtue. We call it “attention to detail” or “high standards” while ignoring how it’s quietly draining our energy, our relationships, and our peace.

The costs aren’t only emotional or spiritual either. Perfectionism takes a physical toll. Research shows that perfectionists are more likely to experience chronic fatigue and insomnia, headaches and digestive issues, a compromised immune system, elevated stress hormones, and higher rates of anxiety and depression. I’ve experienced this firsthand. During my most stressful seasons, my health suffered dramatically. Constant tension headaches, disrupted sleep, and an ever-present knot in my stomach became my normal. My body was sending signals my mind refused to acknowledge.

Perhaps the highest cost comes in our relationships. Perfectionism creates unrealistic expectations, not just for ourselves but for the people around us. We become hypercritical, seeing flaws where others see normal human variation. We struggle to be vulnerable, fearing judgment if we let our true selves be seen. My own perfectionism nearly cost me my marriage. My husband once told me, “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, afraid of doing something wrong.” His words pierced my heart because I recognized the truth in them. My impossible standards weren’t just hurting me. They were hurting the people I loved most.

The Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19 reveals the spiritual dimension of perfectionism. Here was someone who had done everything right according to the religious standards of his day. When he asks Jesus what more he needs to do, you can almost hear the perfectionist anxiety behind the question: “What must I do?” He’s looking for another checkbox, another achievement to secure his standing. But Jesus doesn’t hand him a new task to perfect. Instead, He points to what the man is holding onto, his wealth, his security, his identity apart from God. “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus says, using the man’s own language before inviting him to let go of what he’s been clinging to.

So what are you clinging to? Is it the illusion of control? The approval of others? The belief that your worth comes from what you do rather than whose you are?

At its core, perfectionism isn’t really about standards. It’s about security. We believe that if we can just be perfect enough, do everything right, we can protect ourselves from criticism, rejection, or failure. It becomes a shield we hold up against vulnerability. But that shield slowly becomes a wall, one that keeps us from authentic connection with others and with God. Behind our perfectionism, there’s usually a deeper fear: if people saw the real me, would I still be loved?

First Peter 5:7 reminds us to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Perfectionism is ultimately about fear, the fear of failure, of rejection, of being found inadequate. But God invites us to bring those fears to Him, to lay them at His feet, and to discover that our value never depended on our performance in the first place. The path to freedom begins with recognizing the costs we’ve been paying and choosing a different way, the way of grace.

It can start small. Practice self-compassion, speaking to yourself the way you’d speak to a dear friend who’s struggling. Embrace “good enough” by setting time limits and letting things be sufficient rather than perfect. Celebrate progress rather than perfection, noticing the small steps forward instead of fixating on the finish line. Challenge your “should” statements, asking whether the expectation is even realistic and whose standard it really represents. And share your struggles, because vulnerability with trusted friends breaks perfectionism’s grip.

What if your imperfections aren’t flaws to be fixed but invitations to experience grace? What if the cracks in your carefully constructed image are exactly where the light gets in? I’ve found that my greatest moments of connection with others have come not when I presented a perfect image, but when I let myself be authentically seen, messiness and all. And my deepest experiences of God’s love have come not in moments of achievement, but in moments of surrender.

The truth is, perfectionism promises security but delivers bondage. Grace promises freedom, and it delivers on that promise every time.

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Have you ever tried so hard to make something perfect that you ended up ruining it completely?

That was me, standing in my smoke-filled kitchen on a Sunday morning shortly after Brian and I got married, surrounded by the ruins of what was supposed to be a Pinterest-perfect breakfast for my visiting adult children. I had spent the entire weekend hovering, asking “Do you need anything?” every five minutes, trying desperately to orchestrate the perfect family gathering with my new husband. My mission was simple: I wanted my kids to love our life together with Brian. My method was less so: Control every detail until everyone was miserable.

When I finally sank to the kitchen floor in frustration, covered in pancake flour, Brian scooped me up, kissed the top of my head, and whispered, “It’s going to be alright, honey.” Then he calmly salvaged breakfast while I watched through tears of defeat.

Later, as we cleaned up, he said something that stopped me cold. “Honey, I don’t like it when your kids come to visit.” Before I could protest, he continued, “Not because I don’t like them, but because I don’t like who you become when they’re around. You’re critical and demanding. You get stressed when things don’t go the way you planned.”

His words stung because they were true. In my desperate attempt to create the perfect experience for my family, I had become someone no one wanted to be around, including me.

Perfectionism does that to us. It transforms us from the authentic people God created us to be into anxious, controlling versions of ourselves we don’t even recognize. It’s like trying to hold sand: the tighter you squeeze, the more it slips through your fingers. What begins as a desire to create something beautiful becomes a force that pushes away the very people we were hoping to bless.

Galatians 3:3 asks, “How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” That question lands right at the heart of perfectionism, the exhausting attempt to achieve through human effort what only grace can accomplish. It’s trying to earn an approval that’s already been freely given.

So how do you know if perfectionism is quietly damaging your relationships? You might feel anxious before gatherings. You obsess over details no one else notices. You can’t enjoy the moment because you’re already worried about the next one. You feel responsible for everyone’s happiness, you apologize for things that aren’t your fault, and you come away exhausted after time with the people you love most.

When my family visits now, they actually enjoy being with me. Not because I’ve finally mastered the perfect brunch, but because I’ve stopped trying to. When I’m being myself, imperfect and relaxed and present, I’m actually pleasant to be around. Authenticity creates space for genuine connection. When we drop the perfect façade, we give others permission to do the same. We make room for people to breathe, to be themselves, to truly connect.

So I’ll ask you what I had to ask myself. What area of your life has perfectionism hijacked? Where are you trying to control outcomes instead of embracing the beautiful mess of real life? Maybe today is the day you sink to the floor, admit defeat, and let God lift you into a gentler way of living, one where peace replaces perfectionism.

It can start small. Notice when you’re slipping into perfectionist mode, and take a breath. Ask yourself what’s truly the worst that could happen. Remind yourself that the relationship matters more than the result. Invite others to help instead of carrying it all alone. And celebrate the imperfect moments. They’re so often the ones that become your favorite memories.

Because here’s the irony: when we stop trying to be perfect, we usually discover that what we already have is pretty wonderful. In letting go of my need for picture-perfect gatherings, I found that my family was never looking for perfection at all. They were looking for connection. They didn’t need me to make a flawless pancake breakfast; they needed me to be present, relaxed, and real.

And that’s something I can actually do, without setting off the smoke alarm.

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I came across a line in James Clear’s newsletter this week that stopped me mid-scroll.

“A lovely blend: Always reaching. Already enough.”

I sat with it for a moment because it put words to something I had been feeling. I am in the heart of a writing sprint right now. A deadline in front of me, a community I am building, words I am wrestling onto the page. I am reaching. And underneath all that reaching is a question, the one I suspect you know too.

When is it ever going to be enough?

The line offers a beautiful answer. Hold both. Keep reaching, but rest in the truth that you are already enough. Two truths, side by side, in lovely balance.

And yet.

For a long time, I tried to hold those two truths in my own hands. I gripped the reaching in one fist and the enoughness in the other, white-knuckling both, waiting for the peace to arrive. And it did not come. Because holding “I am already enough” by sheer effort is just one more thing to strive for. We turn even our rest into a performance.

Something has changed for me. I am no longer trying to prove myself. Not to the people watching, not to the people who are not, not even to the quiet judge in my own head. I have stopped reaching for proof because somewhere along the way, I stopped needing it. I know I am already loved and accepted, just as I am. And from that settled place, my work has started to flow out of the overflow of my heart instead of trying to fill a gap that was never mine to fill.

That is what feeling enough actually is. Not a truth I muscle myself into believing. A gift I have finally let myself receive.

This is not a new idea. Paul wrote it to the church at Ephesus: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” The gift was never something we worked up. It was always something handed to us. And there is nothing left to boast about, because there was nothing we did to earn it.

The world tells us we are enough if we achieve enough, affirm it about ourselves enough, and believe it hard enough. But self-made enoughness cracks the moment the deadline looms, or the launch stalls, or the affirmations stop working. It cannot bear the weight we put on it, because it rests on us.

The enoughness Jesus offers rests on Him. It was settled before you reached for anything. You were already loved, already held, already enough, on the days you produced nothing at all. Nothing you accomplish this week adds to it. Nothing you fail at this week subtracts from it.

When you are no longer reaching to prove anything, the reaching itself changes. It stops being a frantic search for proof and becomes a free response of love. You can still write the book, build the thing, chase the good work in front of you. But now it pours out of a full heart instead of an empty one. You reach from enough, not toward it.

Always reaching. Already enough.

Not two truths you have to balance.

One gift you get to rest in, and one life that flows out of it.

So if you are reaching toward something good this week, friend, I hope you can feel the difference I am learning to feel. You are not reaching to become enough. You get to reach because you already are.

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There is a question that follows so many of us through our days, even if we never say it out loud.

Am I enough?

Enough as a mother. Enough at work. Enough as a friend, a wife, a daughter, a woman of faith. We move through our days quietly wondering if we have what it takes, and that wondering makes us grasp. It makes us strive. It makes us perform our way through life instead of rest our way through it.

Today I was reminded of a devotional I shared with my local SpeakUp group back in January, built around one of the shortest psalms in all of Scripture. Just three verses. And in those three verses, David hands us a completely different picture of what it means to be at peace.

My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

— Psalm 131

This is David writing. The same David who killed a giant, ruled a nation, and poured out some of the most emotionally raw poetry we have. And here he is, describing himself as a small child curled up against his mother.

The image of the weaned child is everything.

Think about the difference between an unweaned child and a weaned child coming to their mother.

The unweaned child comes wanting something. Milk. Comfort. Relief from hunger. The mother is a means to an end, and the child is focused entirely on what she can get.

The weaned child comes simply wanting to be near. She is not after anything. She is not hungry or demanding. She just wants presence. The relationship itself has become enough.

That is a picture of contentment.

So many of us come to God the way an unweaned child comes to her mother. We arrive wanting things. Open doors. Clarity about the next step. Relief from the hard parts. Reassurance that we are doing it right. We are always a little hungry for something more.

But David describes a different posture. I have calmed and quieted myself. Notice that he did this. It was not automatic. Contentment asked something of him, a deliberate settling of his own soul.

And look at where it led him. Like a weaned child I am content. He is not straining toward the next thing. He is not anxious about how it all turns out. He is simply present, and that presence is enough.

The weaned child has nothing to prove. She is not performing for her mother’s love, because she already has it. She is just enjoying being held.

I want to live in that place. Not from hunger but from fullness. Not from I need this to go well, but from I am already loved, already enough, and whatever comes is simply overflow.

David ends his short psalm with an invitation, turning from his own quiet heart to the whole of Israel: put your hope in the Lord. But here is the thing about that invitation. We can only call another woman into rest once we have found it ourselves.

So this is my gentle question for you, and for me.

Are you coming to God as an unweaned child, hungry and grasping and needing something from Him? Or as a weaned child, already satisfied, simply present, content to be with your Father, no matter how things turn out?

The invitation of Psalm 131 is to calm and quiet our souls. To move from grasping to resting. From striving to receiving. From hunger to enough.

May we be weaned children.

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“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” Acts 1:4 (NIV)

Have you ever had to sit still in the middle of something you desperately wanted to fix? Not a small thing, but the kind that keeps you up at night, the kind where every instinct in you says do something, make this right, don’t just sit here. That is where we find Peter in the days before Pentecost, and I think it is the part of the story we tend to hurry past.

We remember the Peter who stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached, the one whose words brought three thousand people to faith. But before any of that, there was a quieter Peter, sitting in a closed upstairs room with the others, told by Jesus to wait. And he was not waiting alone. The whole frightened, grieving company of them gathered in that room together. The disciples were there, and the women, including Jesus’ own mother, were among them. They had no plan and no strength of their own. They could only keep company with one another while they waited for a gift none of them could summon. No timeline. No task. Just the waiting, and each other.

Waiting was not Peter’s gift. This was the man who jumped out of the boat and onto the water, the one so sure of his own loyalty that he swore he would never deny Jesus. When the soldiers came for Jesus in the garden, Peter did not wait to see what God might do. He drew his sword and swung it, cutting off a man’s ear, because doing something, anything, felt better to him than standing still and trusting. He trusted his own two hands to carry him through whatever came. And not long after, in a courtyard beside a fire, those same hands had failed him completely. Three times someone asked if he knew Jesus, and three times he said no, until the rooster crowed and he went out and wept.

So when Jesus told him to wait, I imagine it landed hard. There was nothing left to prove and no way to earn back what he had lost. Striving had run out. All he could do was stay in the room with the others and trust that something he could not manufacture was actually coming.

I wonder if that was the real work, those quiet days before the wind. The work of resisting the urge to fix what could not be fixed. The work of staying put when everything in him wanted to act. The work of simply being present to what was unfolding.

I learned something about that kind of waiting in the last weeks of my mom’s life.

It was November of 2020, when COVID had shut the world down. My mom had stage 4 cancer. She had fought it for a long time, longer than anyone expected, but it had finally caught up with her, and the doctors told us there was nothing more they could do. So we came to Indiana to stay with her through her final months, settling into the guest house while she remained in the lake house she loved. But for the last three weeks, we moved her into the guest house with us so we could care for her around the clock. We didn’t want her to have to go into a nursing home, where she would inevitably die alone. Leaving the house she had grown up in was hard on her, but she knew the end was coming, and she was grateful to have us near. There was nothing left to fix by then. No outcome to change, no problem to solve. There was only staying.

And we were not staying alone. Our family gathered in those weeks the way families do when the end is near, taking turns, sharing the hours, keeping watch together. None of us could do anything to change what was coming. We could only be present, together, in the waiting.

So we stayed. We gathered for Thanksgiving the week before, while she could still enjoy it. We played games while she still could. The morphine made her thoughts wander, but she simply loved being with us. I found the old slide carousels from when she was a girl, and she told us what she remembered about the people and the events they depicted. She and I watched Downton Abbey together until she could no longer follow it, and then I kept watching while she slept. I played worship music in her room. People came to say their goodbyes.

One night near the very end, she woke in the dark, aching from lying in the hospital bed hospice had provided. I sat her up on the edge of the bed so she could stretch a little. Not wanting to leave her alone in that precarious position, I pulled up a chair beside her, and we talked. I asked her about her childhood. She shared memories I’d never heard before, about her mom and her dad, her first love, her friends, and a long line of family dogs. I will cherish that night as long as I live. It was the last coherent conversation we had. Two nights later, Brian and I held her hands, one of us on each side of the bed, while Brian prayed over her and I stroked her cheek. She died knowing she was loved.

When the man from the funeral home came to take her, I said to him, It was a good death. And it was. I was so full of joy that she was walking with Jesus now, and so deeply content that we had loved her well, right to the end. It was good not because we had managed it perfectly or done everything right, but because we had stopped trying to fix the unfixable and simply stayed with her, present to the very last breath. The gift of those weeks was never something we accomplished. It was something we received.

I think that is what Peter discovered, too. When the Holy Spirit finally came, He did not come because Peter had pulled himself together. He came while Peter was simply there, waiting. The same man who had denied Jesus by a fire stood up and spoke without a tremor in his voice, and it was not because he had become strong enough on his own. The strength was no longer his to manufacture. Someone had moved into the empty place his own effort had left behind.

The Spirit did not meet Peter in his competence. He met him in his stillness. Not in the courtyard where he failed, and not because he had finally redeemed himself, because he never could. Jesus had already done that on the shore, asking three times if Peter loved Him, one gentle question for each denial by the fire. The Spirit simply met him in the quiet room, where he stayed and waited and let himself receive.

So here is what I am learning to do: on the days I catch myself pacing the room with empty hands, certain there must be something I can do to fix what cannot be fixed, I stop and name what I am actually waiting for. Not a list of things to accomplish, but the one thing only God can give: peace I cannot manufacture, a way forward I cannot yet see, the steadiness that comes when the wind finally arrives. And then I do the hardest thing of all. I leave my hands open instead of reaching for the next task, and I let myself simply stay in the room a little longer. Most days, nothing dramatic happens. But something in me settles, the way it must have settled in that upstairs room, in the quiet before the wind. The way it settled in mine, in those last tender weeks with my mom.

You do not have to perform your way back into God's presence. You do not have to redeem your own failures or fix every unfixable thing by trying harder, because Peter could not, and he is the one Jesus chose to build His church on. The gift was never something he earned. It was something he received with open hands.

The wind came to the one who waited. And here is what I most want you to hear: it is still coming. The same Spirit who filled that room is not finished, not with Peter’s story, and not with yours. You are not behind. You are not disqualified. You are simply being asked to stay in the room a little longer, with your hands open, until the gift you cannot manufacture arrives on its own.

It came to the ones who waited. It will come to you, too.

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I’ve been reading Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, and one of her frameworks caught my attention.

Three columns. Plus. Minus. Next.

Plus: wins, gratitude, the small graces of the week. Minus: obstacles, mistakes, the places where things didn’t land. Next: what the first two columns are telling you to try.

Five minutes. That’s it. The whole review is designed to take under five minutes so it becomes a rhythm rather than another thing to perform.

It wasn’t the framework itself that stopped me. Frameworks are everywhere. It was one line in the guiding principles:

Treat “minus” items as data points to be addressed next week.

Data points. Not verdicts.

I realized I don’t usually do that. When a post doesn’t land, when an email gets only a few clicks, when a conversation goes sideways, I don’t file any of it as information. I file it as evidence. About me. About whether I’m really cut out for this. About whether I missed a memo on my own calling.

And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Plus and minus aren’t just about tasks. They’re about identity.

When I let a minus be a verdict, I’m not just saying “that didn’t work.” I’m saying “I am the kind of person for whom things don’t work.” The data has moved from the column into the soul.

But here’s the part I miss more often. The same thing can happen in reverse.

When I let a plus become vindication, I’m doing the very same thing. Proof that I’m finally worth something, finally on the map, finally approved. I’m letting the column rewrite the soul. And the problem with building your identity on the plus column is that it always changes. Next week’s data can take it away.

Real identity doesn’t rise and fall with the columns. The columns contain information about the work. They are not a verdict on the worker.

I’m writing this in a season of visible wins.

A second book making its way into readers’ hands. A membership community opening this summer. Speaking invitations I’m genuinely looking forward to. Rooms I have been praying into for a long time.

From the outside, it looks like the arrow is pointing up.

What people don’t see is the long stretch of years before this one. The months I couldn’t bring myself to show up at all, when survival was the whole job, when I was barely hanging on, when there was nothing left in me to give the work. The seasons the inbox was empty partly because I hadn’t written anything to fill it. The doubts that were louder than the calling. The valleys no one clapped for, including the ones where I couldn’t even clap for myself.

And here is what startled me when I finally looked at it honestly: the wins I’m living now exist only because of the valleys no one saw.

Every chapter I’ve written came out of a hard thing I had to walk before I could name it. Every message I get to share from a stage started as a private ache without words. I help women step out of the performance trap because I spent years inside the room. I know where the door is.

The valleys weren’t a detour from the calling. They were the training ground for it. God used the hard places to give me something real to say. Even the ones where I wasn’t doing the work. Even the ones where I was only surviving. I don’t believe I’d have a single page, or a single stage, without them.

If you are in a valley right now and it feels like the work is invisible, I want to gently say: it isn’t invisible to Him.

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7

The columns are outward. The heart is where He is doing the deeper work, and it is often most visible to Him in the seasons it is most invisible to everyone else.

And one day, that hidden work may be the very material that lets you speak straight to the heart of someone walking where you are walking now.

And yet. Even in a season of visible wins, the old lie still whispers.

You should be further along by now.

The lie doesn’t care what’s actually in the plus column. It moves the finish line. It always has one more further to point at. One more list I’m not on. One more metric that would prove I have arrived.

Here’s what surprises me: it isn’t competitive. I can be genuinely happy for a peer whose book just won an award or whose launch went beautifully. And still, later that same evening, feel the whisper that I should be further along. The lie doesn’t need someone to lose to. It just needs a metric I haven’t yet met.

What I am slowly learning in this season is that further along isn’t what actually satisfies. Contentment isn’t a finish line at all. It is the quiet knowing that my worth was never waiting at the end of a race. It was given before the race began.

The practice of calling a minus data is also the practice of calling a plus data. Both are information. Neither is a verdict on the soul. And the lie that says I should be further along is trying to do the same thing the minus column does when I’m not watching. It’s trying to turn what hasn’t happened yet into a statement about who I am.

Because setbacks stick so loudly, we usually forget to pause for the pluses. We rush past the good week. We mentally file the win and move on. We treat a bright spot as an anomaly and a dull spot as the pattern. Ten good weeks are just the baseline. One quiet week is the verdict.

So I have started keeping a running list in my planner of the things I am celebrating. It is not elaborate. Sometimes it’s a ministry win: a reader’s note saying the book met her in the middle of a hard season, a chapter finally finished, a speaking opportunity that opened out of nowhere. But just as often, it’s an afternoon spent with my grandkids. A walk that cleared my head. A long, slow dinner with friends. A conversation that made me laugh all the way down.

All of it gets written down. Because if the plus column only counts professional wins, I have already missed the point. The wins that actually tether me are not the ones that look like progress on a scoreboard. They are the ones that remind me who I am when nothing is being measured.

You stop asking “what’s wrong with me?” and start asking “what is this telling me?” The first question has no answer you can act on. The second one does. The flat launch becomes information about the offer, the timing, the trust. The quiet post becomes information about the headline, the message, the moment. Each of those is fixable. I’m a fraud isn’t.

None of this erases the ache of a hard week. It doesn’t bypass grief, and it shouldn’t. But it keeps you from handing a single week, or a single season, the power to rewrite your whole story.

When plus and minus stop being verdicts, something loosens. You publish more and earlier, because a flat post is a signal instead of a sentence. You experiment smaller and more often. You stay in relationship with your work instead of retreating from it.

The part that matters most to me is this: you get to move at a sustainable pace. The rhythm of prove it or else burns you out. The rhythm of notice, adjust, and continue is sustainable.

You can do curiosity for a long, long time. You can’t sustain panic that long.

Sometime this weekend, before the new week starts, try the five minutes.

Plus. What went well? What moved? What did you notice with gratitude?

Minus. What didn’t land? What felt hard? Where was the honest friction?

Next. Given all of that, what’s one small thing worth trying this week?

Don’t polish it. Don’t make it another project. Five minutes with a notebook or the notes app on your phone. Let the minuses be information. And let the pluses include the quiet noticings too: the small mercies that had nothing to do with your output, and everything to do with grace.

And as you do, hold the whole thing loosely. The columns are real. They just aren’t you.

That’s the gentler rhythm.

And I believe it is the one we were meant to walk in all along.

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The chair was halfway up the stairs when I realized I wasn’t going to make it.

This was last Saturday morning. Finally spring in Michigan. Time to bring the wicker furniture out of winter storage and up to the deck.

I had been thinking about this for weeks. Not the carrying part. The sitting part. Morning devotions on the deck. Sitting with Brian while he drinks his coffee, watching the sun come up over the water. My favorite hour of the day. Evenings around the fire table after the sun sets.

I wanted that back.

So I headed down to storage to retrieve the deck furniture.

I had been strength training since February. My trainer, Coach Keri, lives in Costa Rica. We meet monthly on Zoom, and I check in with her weekly in between. She is patient with my progress in a way I cannot quite manage to be patient with myself.

I had thought I was ready for the chair.

Halfway up the stairs, my arms started to shake. I balanced one end on a step, still holding the other, and felt a small panic rise. I don’t know how I am going to make it the rest of the way. Brian was right inside the kitchen, so I called for him. He came out, lifted it like it weighed nothing, and carried it the rest of the way.

For a moment after he set it down, I felt frustrated. I have been doing the work. I should be able to carry a chair up my own stairs by now.

And then, underneath the frustration, something quieter. Something I almost didn’t want to feel.

I wasn’t strong enough yet.

I confess, I have spent decades trying not to feel sentences like that one.

But the body has its own honesty. There was a long stretch of years when carrying a wicker chair up a flight of stairs would not have crossed my mind as a thing to think about. Then my mom got sick. A pandemic happened. My body changed in ways that were mostly good but cost me something I had not accounted for. The muscle did not announce its leaving. It just quietly went, year by year, the way most things in a busy woman’s life do.

It has been six or seven years since I have felt strong in my own body. I will be 62 next month, and I would like a body that can keep up with the rest of my life. I would like to carry chairs up my own stairs.

Performance-driven women have a complicated relationship with weakness. We have been trained to caffeinate it, schedule around it, pray it away, optimize it out of existence. We treat it as the thing that disqualifies us. The thing we keep trying to fix on our own before anyone notices.

Which is why, every time I read 2 Corinthians 12, something in me wants to argue with Paul.

Three times he asks the Lord to take the thorn away. Three times the Lord says no. And then this verse, which I keep underlining and keep forgetting.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. —2 Corinthians 12:9

The Greek word Paul uses for weakness here is astheneia. Sthenos means strength, might, vigor. The little alpha at the front cancels it out. Astheneia, literally, is without strength. The empty tank. The shaking arms on the deck stairs. The quiet panic of not knowing how you are going to make it the rest of the way.

Notice what astheneia is not. It is not sin. It is not a failure of character. It is not the spiritual equivalent of being lazy or undisciplined. Paul is not describing his moral shortcomings. He is describing the simple, embodied experience of being a creature with limits.

And here is what I keep missing.

Paul does not call astheneia an obstacle to God’s power. He calls it the place where God’s power lands.

For me to be made strong, there has to first be a place where I am not.

Coach Keri does not pile on the weight. She watches what my body can actually handle and adds just a little more, just in time. The progress is real, and the progress is slow, and she does not seem the least bit worried about either.

Sometimes I wonder if this is how God works in the soul.

We want the spiritual equivalent of going from five-pound dumbbells to fifty in a month. We want to wake up tomorrow and find that the thing that has tired us for years no longer can. And meanwhile the gentle, attentive Coach of our actual lives is watching what we can carry today, and adding the next pound only when our hands are open enough to receive it.

The vine does not strain. The branch does not set quarterly fruit production goals. Apart from me you can do nothing, Jesus said, and yet I keep trying to prove Him wrong.

Brian carried the chair the rest of the way up. But I think the deeper gift of last Saturday wasn’t the chair making it to the deck. It was the moment on the stairs, with my arms shaking, when I had to admit that I wasn’t strong enough yet. That phrase used to feel like a verdict. It is starting to feel like an invitation.

Yet is the most hopeful word in it.

Maybe by fall I will be able to carry the chairs back down to winter storage myself. Maybe I won’t. Either way, the chair was never really the point. The moment on the stairs was. The moment my arms gave out and I had no choice but to call for help. The moment grace had room to land.

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The last week of April, we took the family to Cancun.

Five of our six adult children. Their spouses. Three grandsons, ages three and under.

I keep remembering the pool. Milo, three and a half, and Ollie, almost two, are taking turns leaping into the water to my husband, whom they call Papa. He caught each of them, again and again, to squeals that echoed across the pool. I lay on the lounge chair next to baby Tate, just five months old, who watched his big brothers splash with wide-eyed curiosity.

And the days kept giving. Long, slow meals where nobody was rushing off anywhere. Late nights playing Flip7. My grown children laughing and trading stories about life and shared experiences, the inside jokes of siblings who’ve grown up alongside each other.

I pointed it out to my daughter at the other end of the table. Someday this will be you. Watching Milo and Ollie and Tate as adults, sitting around a table just like this, listening with complete contentment.

That kind of moment doesn’t come from striving. It comes as a gift.

It sent me back to a passage in Ecclesiastes I've been sitting with lately.

“Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil, this is a gift of God.” Ecclesiastes 5:19

Read it slowly. There are two gifts here, not one.

The first gift is wealth and possessions. The second gift is the ability to enjoy them.

Brian and I have always valued experiences over possessions. It’s why we plan for trips like this one. It’s why we make our family a priority. It’s why we’d rather build memories together than accumulate things. The second gift has been part of how we live for a long time.

But this verse named it for me in a way I hadn’t quite seen before. Not just one gift. Two. And both come from God.

Because here’s what we already know, even if we don’t say it out loud. You can have everything and enjoy none of it. You can sit at a beautifully set table and taste nothing. You can live in a home you prayed for and yet feel dissatisfied with the furnishings. You can be on vacation surrounded by the people you love most in the world and spend the whole week one mental step removed, already half-home, already worrying about what’s waiting in the inbox.

Wealth is one thing. The capacity for satisfaction is another.

And both, Solomon says, are gifts.

We make the gratitude lists. We light the candle. We say the right things about being thankful. We try harder. We discipline ourselves into peace.

And still, somewhere under all of it, the striving hums on.

What if contentment was never something we were meant to manufacture?

What if it was always meant to be received?

One morning at the pool, Ollie spent twenty whole minutes with an empty water bottle. He filled it from the pool, poured it over himself, poured a little on us, then tipped it onto his round little belly and giggled, belly, belly. Then filled it up and repeated it all over again.

He wasn’t trying to be content. He hadn’t worked his way into joy. He was just there. Fully, completely, undisturbed by any sense that he should be doing something more important.

That’s the picture I keep coming back to. Contentment isn’t a posture we achieve. It’s a posture we receive.

And then comes the promise:

“They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.” Ecclesiastes 5:20

Read that as a tired woman and tell me you don’t feel it.

The opposite of this verse is the way most of us live. We constantly reflect on the days of our lives. We replay yesterday. We rehearse tomorrow. We count and recount what we’ve done and what’s left to do, never quite able to set it down.

In Cancun, I watched this happen in real time. There were moments I was fully there. Tate’s tiny hand wrapped around my finger. The sight of Milo flying into the pool in his Spidey dive, arms outstretched (because Spider-Man is his favorite superhero). The sound of my kids laughing about something from years ago. And moments where I caught myself drifting. Did I respond to that email? What’s the launch timeline again? What do I need to do when I get back home? Every time I noticed, I had to gently bring myself back. Back to the lounge chair. Back to the pool. Back to the actual life God had given me that week.

Verse 20 is the promise of something almost too good. God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. Not because they finally got their thinking right. Not because they followed a seven-step plan. Because God Himself is the one occupying them.

Gladness as a gift. Presence as a gift. The simple capacity to be in your own life as a gift.

Verse 18 says the same thing in plainer language. It is good and appropriate for a person to eat and drink and find satisfaction in the work she’s been given. During the few days of life God has given.

There is no postponement here. No when-things-settle-down. No after-the-launch, after-the-season, after-the-children-are-grown.

The few days are now.

The toilsome labor is yours.

The grandbabies will only be this age for a short season.

The bread is on the table.

So this week, friend, here is the invitation. Not a striving one. A receiving one.

Eat the food in front of you, slowly enough to taste it.

Notice the work in front of you, even the hard parts, as your particular and given lot.

Let the gladness, when it comes, be allowed to come.

And when you catch yourself counting the days again, whisper back: God, would You keep me occupied with gladness of heart instead?

That’s a prayer He delights to answer.

Where have you sensed God keeping you occupied with gladness of heart lately? I’d love to know. Leave a comment below or hit reply.

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On New Year’s Day, I ordered a cold plunge for our home.

I’d read the benefits, heard friends swear by it, and even used one a few times at a spa we visit. I decided this was the year I would make it a regular rhythm. Not an occasional treat, but a practice.

It arrived a few weeks later. Brian set it up for me. And the first time I lowered myself in, the thermostat registered a cool 52 degrees.

The cold hit like a slap. My breath caught. Every nerve in my body lit up at once, all of them shouting: Get out. Now. My hands gripped the sides, resisting the urge to jump out. My mind raced for a reason, any reason, to call it.

And underneath all of it, something quieter: Do something. Move. Fix this.

But the practice, I’d learned, is to stay. To breathe slowly. To let the discomfort be there without trying to escape it.

So I stayed. Teeth chattering, seriously doubting the wisdom of this whole commitment. Somewhere around the sixty-to-ninety-second mark, though, something shifted. The screaming in my body quieted. My breath began to even out. My shoulders softened a little. And by the time I stepped out 15 minutes later, wrapped in a towel, there was a kind of clarity I hadn’t felt in months. A quiet aliveness. Almost a stillness, as though my whole nervous system had been reset.

I’ve been doing it ever since. And the strange thing is, the cold has started teaching me something I didn’t expect. It’s been showing me what I’ve been missing about contentment.

Here’s what I’ve discovered.

Most of us, especially those of us who tend to be performance-driven, aren’t actually uncomfortable with discomfort. We’ve made our peace with one kind of it. The discomfort of more. More hustle, more output, more pressure, more pushing through. That kind of discomfort feels productive, so we tolerate it almost endlessly. We’ve built our days around it. In some quiet way, we’ve built our identities on it.

What we can’t tolerate is the other kind. The discomfort of less. Of stopping. Of stillness. Of leaving things undone. Of sitting with the very thing we’ve been trying to outrun.

We’re trained for the first kind and afraid of the second.

I think this is why so many of us, even when we know better, keep treating contentment as something we’ll arrive at once we finally achieve, finish, or fix the right thing. When I get through this season. When the manuscript is done. When the kids are settled. When the calendar calms down. We picture contentment as the soft landing on the other side of all our striving. The reward at the end of the chase.

And so, without quite noticing it, we add contentment to the list. One more thing to work on. One more thing to achieve. One more way we’re failing.

The treadmill speeds up. We run a little faster. And the thing we’re running toward keeps moving.

It took the cold plunge to make me notice what I was doing. Because the moment my body wanted to bolt, the impulse wasn’t really about the cold. It was about the same instinct that runs underneath most of my days. Do something. Move. Fix this. The discomfort I’d actually signed up for was the one I most wanted to escape.

I suspect I’m not the only one.

I’ve been sitting with Paul’s words from Philippians lately, and they read differently to me now than they used to.

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” – Philippians 4:12 (NIV)

For years, I read that verse looking for the secret. As though Paul had a method tucked in there somewhere that I could extract and apply, and finally arrive at the contentment my soul kept reaching for.

But notice what Paul doesn’t say. He doesn’t say I worked my way to contentment. He doesn’t say I followed five steps. He doesn’t say I finally got the circumstances right. He says I learned it. And the word he uses carries the sense of being initiated into something. Brought into a secret. It isn’t an achievement. It’s a revelation.

And here’s the part I keep coming back to. Paul learned it in a place he didn’t choose and couldn’t escape.

He wrote those words from a jail cell. Not after his ministry was wildly successful. Not after the calendar finally calmed down. Not on the other side of his striving. He wrote them while confined, uncertain whether he would be released or executed, with every reason in the world to thrash against his circumstances.

He stayed. He breathed. He let the discomfort be there.

And in the staying, he was let in on something his striving could never have produced. The enoughness he had spent his life reaching for had been there the whole time. Not in better circumstances. Not in release from the cell. In Christ.

Paul didn’t find contentment by escaping the discomfort. He found it by remaining inside of it long enough for God to do something his own effort couldn’t. The very place he might have been most tempted to flee became the place he was most deeply formed.

I don’t think this is incidental. I think it’s the pattern.

The contentment our souls are aching for isn’t waiting on the other side of our striving. It’s waiting on the other side of our willingness to stop.

Consider this. Maybe the Lord isn’t asking you to add another practice to your contentment toolkit. Maybe He isn’t waiting for you to try harder, work smarter, or finally figure out the secret. Maybe what He’s inviting you into is the harder discomfort. The one your striving has been quietly helping you avoid.

The discomfort of stopping. Of stillness. Of leaving the unfinished thing unfinished a little longer. Of trusting that the enoughness you’ve been chasing has been here all along, in Him, waiting for you to stop running long enough to notice.

Every nerve in the striver’s body will scream the same word it screamed the first time I lowered myself into that cold plunge. Get out. Now.

But staying is where Paul’s secret lives.

And I’m starting to believe it’s where ours lives too.

So this week, a question to sit with:

Which discomfort am I more afraid of? The discomfort of striving, or the discomfort of stopping?

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“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” — Psalm 90:14 (NIV)

The first word stopped me. Satisfy.

I noticed it with renewed interest because my word of the year is contentment. Here it is hiding in plain sight in a psalm I’ve read dozens of times. But this morning it landed differently.

My morning routine is a series of habits I don’t even think about. In the dark, I reach for my phone to check my sleep score on the Oura app. Then my thyroid pill, washed down with a sip of cold water from my Owala bottle — I refill it every night before bed so it’s still cold by morning. Then I shuffle to the bathroom, step on the scale, brush my teeth, and head across the hall to my office, water bottle in hand. By the time I get there for quiet time, I’ve already been fed a small buffet of data about myself. How I slept. What I weigh. How ready my body supposedly is for the day ahead.

And then I settle into my prayer chair, the recliner in my office where I meet with God in the morning. But just beyond me sits my desk, with my laptop and planner on it. The pull to check what I’m supposed to be working on today is real, before I’ve even said good morning to God.

Moses, who likely wrote this psalm, didn’t ask God to satisfy him with a good sleep score, a productive morning, or a favorable number on the scale. He asked to be satisfied with God’s unfailing love itself. Not what God provides. Not what God fixes. God himself.

That’s a different ask entirely.

And then there’s the word morning. This isn’t a one-time arrival at some peaceful, settled place. It’s a daily orientation. A recurring ask. Satisfy us in the morning, before the data, before the planner, before the day has a chance to tell us where to look for our worth.

What if contentment isn’t something we achieve?

What if it’s something we receive, fresh, every single morning?

I’ve started praying this verse in the morning before I open anything else. Not as a formula. Just as an honest reorientation: Satisfy me with You today. Before anything else gets the chance.

Small thing. But small things, offered faithfully in the morning, have a way of changing everything by evening.

What’s the first thing you reach for in the morning? I’d love to know. Leave a comment below or hit reply.

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