​Feelings have a say in our lives. But they don't have to have THE say.

Situations can feel unkind, but we can double down on kindness.

Situations can feel discouraging, but we can be an encouragement to someone in the middle of them.

Situations can feel hopeless, but our voice can sound like hope.

Situations can feel overwhelming, but we can be a calming presence in the middle of the chaos.

Situations can feel unfair, but we can respond with fairness and grace.

Situations can feel isolating, but we can be the hand that invites people back to connection.

Situations can feel rushed and impatient, but we can be the ones who slow down and take a stand against time.

Situations can feel cold, but we can be warmth.

Situations can feel like a frown, yet we can choose to look like a smile.

Situations can make us feel like they are in charge. It's true, they have a say. Sometimes a big say. But situations don't ever get the ultimate say in who we choose to be.

We do.

Just because feelings feel loud doesn't mean we lose our opportunity to be louder.

So be louder.

​At dinner the other night, Solomon and I reflected back on the Summer of 2020. That Covid summer. That summer we did a virtual race across Tennessee. And back.

1,240 miles over the course of 4 months. (An average of over ten miles a day - as in if you skipped a day you had a 20-miler like the one below on tap the next day to jump back on track).

I told him I recorded 60 total miles last month, the most I'd completed in almost a year. But that summer of the GVRAT, 60 miles was a routine five days.

Every five days.

For 4 months.

How, I asked him. How was that even possible? How is it that only five years later I can't begin to fathom such an undertaking?

The thing is, I look back now and know the miles weren't the story. A memory like the one below pops up that when posted five years ago was about a race, was about miles, when today I know that wasn't the story at all.

That summer was the darkest period of my life. Without question. Which is a pretty dark label given I've experienced a few pretty dark periods in my life.

I look back and know that summer was all about running. Not a race, but literally, running. Running every day from the dark into the dark.

There was no escaping it.

It was the summer of Covid. The summer a marriage was rapidly approaching THE END. The summer my bad back gave out, never to fully return. The summer of losing the most meaningful friendship of my life. The summer of trying to do a work life from home that I'd become passionate about doing out on the road. The summer of watching my two boys hole up in their bedrooms, me wondering if they were ever coming back out.

Were any of us ever coming back out?

I didn't run that race across Tennessee and back to distract myself; many runners know you don't escape your thoughts out on the road. Running simply quiets the world such that many of those thoughts show up louder than they do anywhere else.

I didn't run that race across Tennessee and back to save my life, but I honestly believe it did. Because when dark thoughts get their loudest they are always begging you to make a choice - quit or keep going.

Many runners know that running is one of the best ways to live out the choice to keep going. Running is often the greatest reminder that you CAN.

And it was also the summer I started writing. Every day. I'd been writing for years, but this was the summer I REALLY started writing. The summer I started REALLY exploring the meaning of life. The summer I stopped pretending darkness didn't exist and started wrestling with it out loud.

Or at least on paper.

My life.

My journey.

Not the one I'd spent my whole life running from, but the journey I was actually running. Fiction turns non-fiction.

In many ways, that is the race I am still running. I had no idea that summer, in the midst of running from the dark to the dark, that my story was about light on the horizon.

I had no idea that horizon was in me - it had been living in me all along - simply waiting for me to discover it.

I think of that often as I read your posts on here. I find myself wondering, is this post your light, or is this post your search for it?

I think about that because as my daily memories pop up about my Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee story, I know now that was never actually the story at all. Not even close.

People around us are living out stories here and there every day.

It's always helpful to consider - with compassion - that might not be the real story.

It's possible they are simply running (or writing) their way to it. 

​We walk into a beautiful flower garden. And in it, there is a weed. We have a choice. Fixate on what is wrong, or be captivated by what is wonderful.

We walk into the office at work in the morning. We are greeted by the jovial co-worker who always meets us with kindness as we rush away to meet a looming deadline. We have a choice. Fixate on what is wrong, or be captivated by what is wonderful.

We walk into the house after work. Laughing children rush to hug us as we catch a glimpse of the messy living room in the background. We have a choice. Fixate on what is wrong, or be captivated by what is wonderful.

Our significant other draws near to us. We have a choice. Fixate on what is wrong, or be captivated by what is wonderful.

It's there. All day long. Every day. The choice: fixate on what is wrong, or be captivated by what is wonderful. And the choice becomes the spirit of our lives.

A spirit of admiration or a spirit of resentment.

A spirit of peace or a spirit of anger.

A spirit of contentment or a spirit of insatiable longing.

A spirit of gratitude or a spirit constantly blinded by what is missing or what we wish wasn't there.

In the house of life, there are rooms full of good and rooms often full of the not so good. Why is it our tendency to so often want to open the door and peek into - sometimes even stare - at the rooms full of not so good? It is, after all, not a mandate but indeed a tendency as to which of those rooms we choose.

The consequences of being fixated on the wrong rooms are not small.

Lingering resentment.

Distorted memories.

Defining people by their worst moments.

Missed chances for gratitude and healing.

It might be worth some time today to remember the wonder, not just the wound.

It might be worth it to take a moment and ask yourself, what am I fixating on that might be robbing you of beauty in this world? And if you identify something, please know, fixations can shift.

Often immediately.

And many times, those shifts will become the most wonderful shifts of our lives.

​Yesterday I said, "Hard conversations can indeed be hard to have, but no meaningful relationship will survive without them." I stand by that. But I was reminded yesterday afternoon that laughter is a personal assistant to hard conversations.

Elliott and I went to Kings Dominion yesterday and tackled the new roller coaster, the Rapterra: The world’s tallest and longest launched wing coaster. (We gave it a 9 out of 10 btw). And from the very second that ride launched us into a wild series of ups and downs and twists and turns, all I could hear was Elliott laughing.

Loudly.

You don't think about it in the moment, but there is something inherently soothing about your child's uncontrollable laughter.

Phycologist Alan Schore suggests that shared joy, especially between parent and child, is a critical building block of emotional well-being. It's a kind of interpersonal regulation - your kid's joy brings peace to you, and vice versa.

In trauma theory - the world where I spend a lot of time - laughter and joy is considered one of the clearest indicators of felt safety. When another close to us is laughing, our nervous system responds with contentment and calm.

I say all this because sometimes we overlook the real meaning and value of certain elements in relationships. Like laughter. And when you overlook the meaning you can also come to overlook the potential.

Sometimes when we are feeling down or anxious, we don't need a pill or a drink, we need a roller coaster ride with our kid.

Sometimes when life isn't feeling so fun in a relationship, we need to intentionally go do something that's going to be fun.

Be laughter.

We often struggle in relationships because we start looking for things outside of the relationship to make them work, when it's the inner gifts of a relationship that truly make them meaningful.

That bring contentment.

Like the gift of hard conversation.

Like the gift of laughter.

Like the gift of felt safety. 

​One in three adults do not get enough sleep. The results - insufficient sleep is linked to chronic conditions such as heart disease, obesity, depression, and diabetes.

Seventy percent of adolescents don't get enough sleep. The results - sleep deprivation among teens is associated with increased risk of depression, poor academic performance, and accidents.

Why is it that we have a hard time sleeping, or, that we don't see it as important? Why is it that we see the burdens we carry as medals of honor that are somehow diminished if we give them rest.

In the Genesis narrative of the bible, when God created heaven and earth and all that belonged to it, he blessed three things.

He blessed the animals, he blessed humans, and he blessed rest.

“Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” The first thing God calls holy is not a place or a person, but a period of rest. It shows that rest is not just a pause in productivity—it is sacred and life-giving.

It was not just a blessing, it was a mandate to seek rest. Our bodies are literally wired to need it; we cannot survive without sleep. At the end of each day our bodies literally try to force rest upon us.

The God who blessed rest created us in bodies that crave it.

Yet, culturally, rest is often equated with laziness, especially in high-performance or “grind” environments. Hardly holy. This social pressure leads people to sacrifice rest for productivity, even though rest actually increases long-term productivity and creativity.

Jesus once offered an invitation to rest. “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.”

You read that, I suppose, and maybe it doesn't sound like rest. Jesus is asking us to be yoked to him and his burden, even if light. Well maybe I don't want yoke and burden, I just want all that robs me of rest to disappear.

But the truth is, we are all yoking ourselves to something in search of escaping our burdens, of seeking rest from them.

We yoke to the substances.

We yoke to unhealthy relationships.

We yoke to compulsive shopping and buying.

We yoke to things that in the long run add to burden and not subtract from it.

So many times my turning down an invitation to be yoked to Jesus looks like me being yoked to something else. It's not that I'm turning down the invitation to be yoked, I'm just accepting it elsewhere.

(Wow, writing that, I'm not sure anything better summarizes my life of burden).

The beautiful thing about Jesus, though, he never rescinds that invitation. He will watch us go to every other party on the block, he will watch us go knowing that those parties are not in our best interest, and yet, answer the door when we decide to finally attend his.

In Hebrews, the bible tells us, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…”

God’s invitation to rest is never revoked. It didn’t end in Genesis. It wasn’t only for the Israelites in the wilderness. And it’s not just about physical rest—it’s about soul-level rest that comes from trusting, not striving.

Trusting, not striving.

Sleeping, not plowing ahead.

What does accepting this invitation to be yoked to Jesus really look like, practically, things you and I can do each day?

Before grabbing your phone or your to-do list in the morning, utter these words: “Jesus, today I don’t have to carry what you’ve already promised to carry. Help me walk with you, not ahead of you.”

Let go of the idea that rest is a reward for doing enough. With Jesus rest is not a reward, its a reminder that you are already loved, no matter what your boss or Instagram followers say.

Rest in Jesus means resisting the pressure to please the masses at the expense of your own rest.

Sprinkle reminders to rest throughout your day - because life is always begging us to forget the importance of rest: a verse on your mirror, a post-it on your laptop that says, "I am not in this alone", listen to Elevation Worship music on the drive home (a personal favorite approach for me).

It's sometimes hard to imagine that Jesus can bring us the kind of rest we are so desperately seeking from our burdens. But then again, what isn't hard to imagine, at least not for me, is the self-destruction that often comes when I seek that rest elsewhere.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

What a beautiful invitation.

Rest.

​Forever the most profound moments of my life will be meeting my two sons for the first time. Not their first words or their first steps, but the first time their eyes met mine.

Even before they could speak or understand language, they searched for a face. And when they found it, they could not look away. For in it, a human face, they found connection. And for the very first times in their lives, they felt and saw the initial sparks of human healing.

There is something hardwired in all of us to look for a face in times of distress. Even as adults, we seek it. You ever feel the sweet relief of a familiar face approaching you in a room full of strangers? The sweet relief of finding your friend in a crowded restaurant?

It's like magic, isn't it?

We are always looking for the kind of face that doesn’t flinch when we share our struggles. The kind of face that doesn’t rush to fix us, but stays close enough to remind us we’re not alone in our feeling that something just needs to be fixed.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, I’ve seen the posts. The well-meaning reminders to check in with those around us. To let people know we’re here if they need to talk.

I believe those reminders are important.

But I also believe in this: sometimes the most healing thing we can offer isn’t a conversation, it’s our presence.

It’s our face.

And not just any face. A face that has come to mean something. A face that doesn’t carry judgment or shame or fear. A face that, over time, has become a place of welcome. A lighthouse face. A face that has said, again and again: “You’re safe with me.”

If you’ve ever had someone like that in your life, you know the power of it. You know what it’s like to have someone walk into your pain and without a single word make you feel much less adrift.

Like a lighthouse....

But there are so many who’ve never had that. They don’t know what it means to look into a face and see light. And in the seeing FEEL light. For them, all the well-crafted words in the world might still fall short.

Which is why our face matters.

One of my favorite scriptures says, “May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you” (Numbers 6:25). It reminds me that God’s healing often comes in my imagining his face. His sweet and precious and forgiving face.

And in imagining his face, maybe I can imagine my own face shining upon others - with grace.

Not perfection. Not glass half full positivity.

Just grace.

We’re in a time when it’s easier than ever to hide our faces. Behind screens. Behind fear. Behind busyness. But healing begins when we risk being seen, and when we choose to truly see others.

So if you’re wondering what to do this month, maybe it’s this: let your face be a safe place. Let it say, “You belong.” Let it be the face someone else remembers when their eyes are searching.

Because we come into this world looking for a face.

And we never stop looking.

​In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about putting on the full armor of God. But the very first piece of the armor?

The belt.

The belt of truth.

The world would be easy, that belt quite unnecessary, if the world was built on truth. But it is not. Not entirely, at least. There is a spiritual enemy out there intent on overwhelming us with deceptive ideas. Ideas wrapped in just enough truth to feel familiar. So familiar that we start to make deceptions the heart of our truths.

"You’re not enough."
"You’ll always be that addict."
"No one really wants you here."
"You’re too broken to be used by God."
"You're too late. Too old. Too far gone."

Without our belt of truth, these spiritual deceptions become real-life identity theft. A belt doesn't just accessorize, it secures, it stabilizes, it keeps the rest of the armor from falling off.

Without it everything starts to sag.

In today’s culture, there are all kinds of lies disguised as freedom:
You are only as valuable as your productivity.
Love is a transaction, give just enough to get what you want.
Success means being busy, being seen, being envied.
Feelings are facts. If you feel it, it must be true.

Truth is whatever works for you in the moment.

Those are cultural deceptions and they’re everywhere. They don’t show up with flashing red lights, they show up in ads, algorithms, comment sections, and even our own inner narratives.

So what is truth?

For me, it’s the unshakable truth that I am a child of God. That I’m not what I’ve done. I’m not what I fear. I’m not what the culture says I must become to be worthy.

Truth is that I am already loved. Already chosen. Already known.
Before I write the first word. Before my boss declares that I am worthy of a promotion. Before the scoreboard says win or lose.

But I also must acknowledge my truth is not everyone's truth. Not everyone believes in God. Not everyone names Jesus as truth. Not everyone finds their value in the belief that Jesus came and died and rose again - all as supernatural testimony to a worth impossible for me to secure on my own merits.

So what’s their belt of truth?

Maybe it’s the truth that:

You are inherently worthy, not because of what you produce, but because you exist.

You matter. Your story matters. Your pain matters.

Healing is possible. You are not beyond redemption.

You are more than what was done to you.

You are loved—by someone, somewhere—and you’re not alone.

We all deserve a belt of truth. Because life without one leaves us exposed - vulnerable to lies that tell stories of us much uglier than the stories we truly are.

The stories this world truly needs now more than ever.

Maybe that’s the invitation here: Not just to wear our own belt of truth, but to help others find theirs.

To name their worth until they can speak it for themselves.

To hold space for someone else’s truth, even if it's still unraveling.

To remind them they don’t have to believe every thought that crosses their mind. Humans can often be the most beautiful mirrors, reflecting back upon someone the truth of beauty they will never see in themselves.

Because the enemy doesn’t come roaring with swords.

He whispers.

And the belt of truth, it's what allows us to hear him loud and clear.

“You’re just waiting for joy to catch up.”

I heard that line in a podcast interview recently. The guest was facing the host as she responded to a question, but it felt like she was looking in my eyes when she answered with those words. 

Sometimes you are going through motions in life you have no idea you are going through until someone names those very motions.

I’m still here. Still doing the work. Still writing and showing up and walking my trails. Still being a dad, a friend, a helper. I’m not broken down on the side of the road - but joy? Joy has been trailing behind. Like Siri mapped it a much longer route to avoid the tolls, indifferent to the possibility that someone was desperately awaiting its arrival.

The word for this, I recently learned, is anhedonia - the inability to feel pleasure from things that used to light you up. It’s one of the quieter signs of depression, especially high-functioning depression.

That makes it easy to miss.

When you're still meeting deadlines, still showing up for people, still producing - no one thinks to ask if you’ve stopped feeling. In a world where wellness is often measured by productivity, being productive can often be quite counter productive to your health.

But that’s the ache. You’re doing more “right” than ever, and still, something’s missing.

The spark. The joy. The full emotional yes.

In this interview, Dr. Judith Joseph said: “You’re not a human being anymore. You’re a human doing. You’re trying to outrun something you haven’t fully resolved.”

That one landed, too.

Because the truth is, unresolved trauma doesn’t always leave behind chaos, it often leaves behind busyness. Productive people, achievers, givers… many of us are just trying to stay ahead of a pain we don’t want to sit with. We don’t even realize how much we’ve built our lives around avoiding what hurts.

Until joy doesn’t show up. And like standing at the bus stop waiting on a bus that's ten minutes late, you start wondering - where is it?

I’ve spent years learning how my trauma shaped me. Childhood experiences I once downplayed or couldn’t name have explained so much of why I’ve kept myself busy. Not just productively busy, but protectively busy. As if constant motion could keep me ahead of the ache.

Side note, world - constant scrolling is one of the way MANY have adopted busyness to stay ahead of the ache....

But here’s the thing: you can only outrun yourself for so long.

I’ve started to understand this as a different kind of crisis, not dramatic, not loud. Just a quiet erosion of aliveness. The moments where you just know something should feel good, but it doesn't. This absence of joy doesn’t always mean failure. Sometimes, it’s a signal that our body, mind and spirit is tired of trying to outperform our pain.

It’s tempting to dismiss this. After all, the world loves functioning. Especially high-functioning. But what if the quiet erosion of joy is a crisis? What if our inability to feel pleasure, to engage deeply, to be present - what if that’s more urgent than we’ve allowed ourselves to believe?

I’ve come to believe it is.

We were wired for joy. It’s our birthright. But trauma rewires us for survival, for vigilance, for going through the motions without ever truly being in them.

And healing? Healing begins by naming what we’ve tried to outrun.

So I’m naming it.

I’ve been waiting for joy to catch up. Maybe you have, too.

The good news? I believe it can. Joy may be late. But it isn’t lost. And it’s not punishing you. It’s just been waiting for you to stop running long enough to be found.

Not by pushing harder. Not by performing better.

But by finally giving yourself permission to feel again. To rest. To receive. To be.​​

​The apostle Paul was one of the earliest practitioners of mindfulness. Some Christians will think that sounds a little too woo-woo. But it makes it no less true.

Paul was in prison when he sent a letter to a Christian community living in the ancient city of Philippi. He founded a church there and had a heart for its people. In the letter he told them he had a secret for a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Last week I found myself in a place where I couldn't begin to locate that kind of peace. Paul's letter felt more like a fairy tale than an invitation. But if this man was writing about a peace he was experiencing in a prison cell, there is no hiding from the invitation within his words.

There is no denying his longing for all of us to experience such peace.

Paul said, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."

If I am being real, the source of my distress last week - at the heart of my lack of peace - was my focus on things that were ONCE lovely. It was my focus on how lovely I thought that things could and should one day be.

While going back and forth - yesterday and tomorrow - I spent very little time focusing on all that IS lovely in my life right now - a form of mindfulness.

Steven Furtick often suggest we are time travelers. Minds wandering off into the future or into the past. This is a problem, he suggests, because true peace comes from being mindful of the here and now.

Monday. It's always easy to feel ugh, where did the weekend go?

Monday. It's always easy to look to the week ahead. What can and must be done? And how fast will the next weekend arrive?

But Monday. Peace CAN be found in Monday. It can be found when we don't think of Monday as the beginning of a new week or as the end of a weekend, but as a day full of things lovely in and of itself.

A peace that surpasses all understanding isn't found in fixing yesterday. Or in stepping into a better tomorrow. A peace that surpasses all understanding is found in all that IS.

All that IS right now.

Monday.

Time travel is the great robber of peace. Mindfulness returns us home, to all that IS, to the God of peace so ready to meet us there.

God knows yesterday. God has seen tomorrow. But God is living with us here - today - Monday.

Close your eyes. Think about something that IS lovely. There you will find a peace that cannot be stolen by yesterday or tomorrow.

There you will find a peace that surpasses all understanding.

There is where I need to spend a lot more time this week than I did last.....