I first met Elaine when I came to this current job that I now have. She was a quiet, gentle soul and immediately I was drawn to her  warmth. I do not know if she realized it, but her warmth radiated from her to everyone she came into contact with. And everyone in the company said the same thing about her, “she’s such a sweet and kind person.”

There are seasons in life that feel like a sudden winter, cold, barren, and heavy with silence. When loss comes in waves, one after another, the heart often cannot keep pace with grief. You experience a succession of goodbyes no one is ever prepared for, and in the rush of arrangements, responsibilities, and emotional exhaustion, there was hardly a moment to breathe, let alone grieve.

Some seasons feel like standing in the center of a storm with no shelter in sight. The noise of responsibilities swirls around you, the unanswered emails, the deadlines approaching, the moments of rest shrinking until they feel like thin, fragile threads. You wake up already tired. Even when you pause, your mind keeps running. Peace feels like something just beyond your fingertips, close enough to want but never close enough to hold.

Thanksgiving morning carried the familiar scent of cinnamon and clove, warm, comforting, and expectant. I stepped out for a quick errand, thinking only of the missing ingredients needed to complete the day’s meal. But on my way home, the rhythm of the holiday shifted.

For twenty-eight years, I lived inside a storm that seemed to have no end. Abuse has a way of shrinking the world around us—narrowing our view of ourselves until we can barely recognize the person that God created.

This morning, sit still for a moment. Feel the air around you, cool, warm, or somewhere in between. Notice the quiet hum in the background, the rhythm of your breathing, the gentle rise and fall of your chest. Sometimes fear whispers the loudest in the calm. It creeps in as a tightness in your stomach, a flutter in your chest, or a heaviness behind your ribs. You feel called, truly called by God, but the idea of stepping out makes your body tense before your mind even forms the words: “I can’t.”