Discovering the God who remains when life has taken everything you thought you were.
There are some storms that don't end when the rain stops.
The sky clears.
The puddles disappear.
People go back to work.
Life keeps moving.
Yet something inside you has been permanently rearranged.
I know that kind of storm.
The kind that changes your name without changing your address.
The kind that quietly divides your life into two chapters.
Before.
And...
after.
I don't remember exactly when I stopped asking God to fix everything.
Grief has a way of blurring time.
Some days folded into one another until morning and night no longer felt very different.
I only remember becoming tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix.
A deeper weariness.
The kind that settles into your bones after carrying more than one heart was ever meant to carry.
I had spent years believing that if I loved hard enough...
worked long enough...
prayed faithfully enough...
I could somehow protect the people I loved from pain.
Then life taught me something I never wanted to learn.
Love cannot control another person's choices.
And even the fiercest mother cannot stand between every child and heartbreak.
That realization broke something inside me.
It also began rebuilding something far stronger.
The Weight I Could Not Carry
There are moments in life when no decision feels right.
Only necessary.
When everything happened with my daughters...
I found myself standing in the middle of one of those moments.
A pastor.
Someone who should have protected children.
Instead became the source of unimaginable pain.
The details belong to my family.
They are sacred.
But the aftermath...
that is part of my testimony.
When he was released from jail, he began appearing near my daughters' school.
I worked nights in the Emergency Department.
I couldn't be in two places at once.
Every instinct in me wanted to gather my girls close and never let them out of my sight.
Instead...
I did the hardest thing a mother can do.
I sent them away.
My mother.
My sister.
Another state.
Another home.
Another layer of separation.
People often think courage feels powerful.
Sometimes it feels like placing your own heart on an airplane and praying it lands safely.
I did everything I knew to do.
Everything.
And still...
my daughters were angry.
Not at the man who caused the harm.
At me.
Children see life through children's eyes.
They didn't yet have the years or the perspective to understand the impossible choices their mother was making.
For a long time...
their anger became another burden I carried.
I wanted to fix it.
Explain it.
Heal it.
Erase it.
I wanted them to understand.
Eventually, I realized something that changed my prayers.
Love cannot force understanding.
Healing has its own timetable.
Forgiveness cannot be rushed.
Sometimes the most faithful thing a mother can do is continue loving her children while trusting God to gently reveal what only time can teach.
That realization didn't remove the ache.
It simply taught me where the ache belonged.
Not in my hands.
In His.
When God Changes the Vehicle
There was another loss I never saw coming.
For years...
the Emergency Department felt like home.
The fluorescent lights.
The controlled chaos.
The teamwork.
The moments where seconds mattered.
The privilege of standing beside people on the hardest days of their lives.
I loved it.
Not simply because it was my career.
Because I believed it was my calling.
Then my back was injured.
Almost overnight...
the future I had imagined disappeared.
There are losses that happen all at once.
This one happened slowly.
Each doctor's appointment.
Each limitation.
Each realization that I would never return to the work I loved in the same way.
Grief doesn't only visit funerals.
Sometimes grief walks quietly into an examination room.
Sometimes it arrives holding an MRI.
Sometimes it comes disguised as the words,
"You can't do that anymore."
For a long time...
I believed I had lost my purpose.
I hadn't.
I had lost the vehicle.
There's a difference.
The more I sat with God...
the more He gently began showing me something I couldn't yet see.
My calling had never been emergency medicine.
My calling was to serve.
The Emergency Department had simply been one place where I lived that calling.
Today...
Rooted Vines has become another.
Different vehicle.
Same purpose.
Different road.
Same destination.
I wonder how many women believe they have lost themselves...
when what they've really lost is only the season they were walking through.
When the Words Wouldn't Come
There is something we don't talk about very often in church.
We know how to celebrate answered prayers.
We know how to encourage one another to trust God.
We know how to tell people that joy comes in the morning.
But very few people talk about the mornings when you don't have the strength to pray.
I had always believed prayer was something I offered to God.
Words.
Thoughts.
Requests.
Gratitude.
Scripture.
Then life introduced me to a kind of grief that emptied every sentence I had ever known.
After everything happened...
I didn't stop believing in God.
I simply stopped knowing what to say.
There were no polished prayers.
No carefully chosen verses.
No eloquent conversations.
Only silence.
There were nights when I lay awake staring into the darkness, listening to the sound of my own breathing, wondering how life had become so unfamiliar.
There were mornings when getting out of bed felt like an accomplishment.
And there were tears...
more tears than words.
For a long time, I thought my silence meant I was failing God.
Now I wonder if He was simply sitting beside me.
Sometimes love doesn't ask us to explain our pain.
It simply refuses to leave while we're living through it.
When Tears Become a Language
One of the most comforting passages in Scripture is found in Romans.
"The Spirit helps us in our weakness... the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
Romans 8:26
I have read those words many times.
This time...
they read me.
Groanings.
Not speeches.
Not sermons.
Not perfect prayers.
Groanings.
The deep sigh that escapes before you even realize you're crying.
The ache you cannot explain.
The silence that settles over a room after another difficult day.
What if heaven understands that language perfectly?
What if every tear you've ever cried was heard before it touched your cheek?
Looking back now, I realize something that grief kept hidden from me.
God was never waiting for me to find the right words.
He had already heard my heart.
Every tear drop.
Every nightmare.
Every sleepless night.
Every question I couldn't ask.
Every prayer I couldn't finish.
He answered the unspoken call.
Not always in the timing I wanted.
Not always in the way I expected.
But faithfully.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Like a Father sitting beside His daughter until she was strong enough to speak again.
The Prayer That Changed Everything
Somewhere along the way...
my prayers became smaller.
Not because my faith had grown smaller.
Because my striving had.
There was a time when I prayed,
"Lord, fix this."
"Lord, make them understand."
"Lord, change the outcome."
Eventually...
my prayers became much quieter.
"Lord...stay with me."
"Lord...show me the next step."
"Lord...help me trust You with what I cannot carry."
Those prayers changed me.
Not because every circumstance suddenly improved.
Because I stopped measuring God's faithfulness by whether He removed the storm.
I began recognizing His faithfulness by the fact that He never left me in it.
There is a difference between asking God to remove every burden...
and discovering He is willing to carry the ones that were never ours to begin with.
That realization didn't happen overnight.
It came slowly.
Like sunrise.
Almost unnoticed.
Until one day I looked back and realized the darkness wasn't where I was standing anymore.
What Empty Hands Can Hold
For so many years I thought strength meant holding on.
Holding everyone together.
Holding every responsibility.
Holding every expectation.
Holding every dream.
Holding every outcome.
Life gently taught me something different.
Hands that are clenched cannot receive.
Only open hands can.
When my career slipped away...
my hands opened.
When my daughters' anger became something only time and God could heal...
my hands opened.
When prayer became tears...
my hands opened.
It wasn't surrender because I had become brave.
It was surrender because I finally understood that God's hands were stronger than mine.
Perhaps that is where faith quietly begins.
Not when we finally have all the answers.
But when we discover that even with empty hands...
we are never empty-hearted.
Tea at Today's Table
Today's cup is Lavender.
I've loved lavender for years.
Its fragrance has a way of slowing my breathing before I even take the first sip.
Maybe that's why I keep returning to it.
Not because it changes my circumstances.
Because it changes my posture.
It reminds me that there is another way to live.
A slower way.
A gentler way.
A way that trusts God enough to loosen its grip.
There was a season when productivity had a scent.
If you had asked me what it smelled like, I would have said coffee, hospital hallways, and exhaustion.
Today...
it smells different.
Today it smells like rain on warm soil.
Fresh lavender gathered from the garden.
An open Bible.
A quiet porch.
A life that no longer has to prove itself.
Sometimes I wonder if healing has a fragrance.
If it does...
I think it smells like peace finally finding its way home.
Return Practice
This week...
I don't want you to add anything to your life.
You've carried enough.
Instead...
I'd like to invite you to put something down.
Find a quiet place.
Pour yourself a cup of tea.
Place both hands around your mug.
Close your eyes.
Take one slow breath.
Now ask yourself,
What have I been carrying that no longer belongs in my hands?
Don't rush the answer.
It may be guilt.
It may be someone else's expectations.
It may be regret.
It may be the responsibility of fixing another person's life.
Or perhaps...
it's the version of yourself you thought you were supposed to become.
When you know the answer...
open your hands.
Literally.
Place them in your lap with your palms facing upward.
Then whisper these simple words:
"Lord...this belongs to You now."
Stay there for a moment.
You don't have to fill the silence.
God has never been uncomfortable with quiet.'
From My Journal
If you had told me years ago that one day I would no longer be working in the Emergency Department...
I wouldn't have believed you.
I thought that place would always be part of my story.
In many ways...
it still is.
The lessons I learned there shaped me.
The people I met changed me.
The long nights taught me compassion.
The suffering I witnessed taught me gratitude.
The work gave me purpose.
Or so I thought.
Now I understand something I couldn't see then.
The Emergency Department was never my purpose.
It was one of the places where my purpose lived.
Purpose isn't a building.
Or a title.
Or a profession.
Purpose travels with us.
It follows us into new seasons.
Into unexpected endings.
Into quiet beginnings.
The vehicle may change.
The purpose remains.
Looking back now...
I can see that God never took my calling away.
He simply placed it on a different road.
And somehow...
that road led me here.
To this table.
To this conversation.
To you.
A Moment at The Table
I used to believe faith meant having the strength to hold everything together.
Now I think faith looks very different.
I think faith is trusting that God can hold what I cannot.
Perhaps you've been carrying a relationship that has broken your heart.
A child whose choices keep you awake at night.
A career that ended before you were ready.
A dream that quietly slipped away.
A grief that still catches you by surprise.
If so...
I want you to hear this from someone who has sat in that same kind of silence.
You do not have to carry tomorrow before it arrives.
You do not have to heal another person's heart.
You do not have to force understanding.
You do not have to rescue everyone you love.
There is a God who watches over what you cannot.
The same God who counted your tears.
Who remained beside you when words disappeared.
Who gently carried you through nights you never thought would end.
He is still there.
Still faithful.
Still holding what has exhausted your hands.
And perhaps...
that is enough for today.
Reflection Questions
Take your time.
These questions aren't meant to be answered quickly.
They're meant to be lived.
• What burden have I been carrying that God never asked me to hold?
• Where have I mistaken responsibility for control?
• What dream, title, or season have I struggled to release?
• How has God remained faithful, even in the chapters where I couldn't find the words to pray?
• What would it look like to trust that my purpose remains, even if the vehicle has changed?
🌿 Take Today's Conversation With You
I've created a companion journal worksheet for today's conversation.
Print it.
Tuck it inside your Bible.
Return to it throughout the week.
There is no deadline for healing.
Only an invitation to keep walking with God, one honest page at a time.
Continue the Journey
If today's conversation met you in a tender place, I'd love to continue walking with you.
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Sometimes hope arrives through an unexpected invitation to sit at the table.
With love,
Mayah
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