Journaling Out Loud

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life rarely changes all at once.

Most of the time, it changes in tiny moments.

The moments we hardly notice. The ones that seem ordinary at the time. A conversation. A decision. A detour. A yes. A no. A right turn instead of a left. Small things that don’t feel important enough to remember until years later when we realize they changed everything.

I think that’s why I’ve become so fascinated by looking back.

When I was younger, I didn’t spend much time thinking about how my choices might shape the future. I was busy living life, moving from one day to the next, unaware that a thousand seemingly insignificant moments were quietly weaving together the story I would someday tell.

Now, years later, I can trace the threads.

I can see how one moment led to another, and another, and another. How some of the greatest blessings in my life grew from circumstances I never would have chosen for myself. I can also see how the hardest seasons often became the places where God did His deepest work.

There have been times when I’ve wondered what my life would look like if certain things had never happened. Life hasn’t always been easy. There have been seasons that knocked the wind out of me. Seasons that left scars. Seasons that felt so long I wondered if they would ever end.

But I’m still here.

Not because I’ve always had the answers. Not because I’ve always handled things well. And certainly not because I’ve always trusted God the way I should.

The truth is, for much of my life, I fought for control.

I wanted to understand. I wanted to fix things. I wanted to know where the road was leading before I was willing to take the next step.

But God, in His kindness, has spent years teaching me that faith isn’t about controlling the outcome. It’s about trusting the One who already knows it.

As I look back now, I can see His fingerprints everywhere—in the victories, the heartbreaks, the waiting seasons, and the unexpected turns. I can see how He never stopped working, even when I couldn’t see what He was doing.

The sun came back out.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that every chapter of my story has been leading me toward the same lesson:

Surrender.

Not surrender as defeat.

Surrender as trust.

Surrender as laying down my plans, my fears, my timelines, and my need to control the future and placing them in God’s hands.

This blog is a collection of the crumbs that have led me here.

Some are stories from the past. Some are lessons I’m learning right now. Some are moments that seemed insignificant until I looked back and saw God’s hand woven through them all.

The Surrender Series is one of those stories.

And it feels like the right place to begin.

Come on, I’ve got so much to share with you!

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