This morning I woke up with that familiar weight sitting beneath my ribs—an ache I’ve tried so hard to pretend isn’t there. As I sit in the quiet, with the snow outside and the warmth of the fire inside, I keep thinking of the verse, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). I feel that closeness today, maybe because I finally stopped trying to silence the hurt.
I’m realizing how deeply the years of not being chosen settled into me. How waiting for Clay to be sure about me carved out spaces of doubt in my own heart. I think about that conversation with Casey more than I’d like. “Either you want to or you don’t.” That truthfulness struck me because it echoed something I’d buried. Maybe love is supposed to feel clearer than what I was living. Maybe I just didn’t want to admit it.
Clay’s “I’m working on it” loops in my memory, and it still stings. I always imagined a man who saw me and knew—someone who would say “yes” without hesitation. Instead, I learned to be patient, quiet, easy… I learned to make myself small so he wouldn’t feel pressured. That’s hard to write, but it’s true. And God sees truth. “Surely You desire truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6).
There’s also the weed. I’ve tried to minimize how much it scares me, but deep down I know his dependency shapes everything—his mood, his decisions, his presence. And I find myself wondering who he would be without it, and if I’ve been waiting for that man all this time. I think of the verse, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Maybe part of my freedom begins with admitting the truth of how this has affected me.
What I keep coming back to is this lingering question: Why have I believed I deserved this? But maybe that isn’t a question of shame—it’s a question of awakening. A reminder that God placed worth in me from the beginning. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Loved. Chosen by Him, even when I haven’t been chosen easily by people.
I’m trying to learn gratitude again, not by pretending the past didn’t hurt, but by recognizing how God has carried me through it. Gratitude not for the wound, but for the strength He has been building in me quietly. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). Maybe that’s what today is—the binding.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what the road ahead looks like. But I feel God here in the quiet morning, in the honesty, in the unburying. And maybe that’s enough for now.