I have spent a lot of my life watching women learn how to survive, and in many ways, learning how to survive myself.

Survival is an important part of our stories. It shapes us, teaches us, and shows us what we are capable of carrying.

But it is not the whole story.

The identity of survivor can live alongside our growth, our healing, and our becoming.

At some point, we have to stop and ask:

Who am I becoming?

For me, it has been important to recognize that I do not only want to be a woman known for what she can endure…

I want to be a woman known for the safety she creates, the love she offers, and the room she makes for others.

“A Prayer | A Promise” is a reflection on the woman I hope to become.

Who are you becoming?
Who do you want to become?

May our journeys not end with survival, or stop before these questions are ever asked, but continue somewhere after we have begun to answer them.

“A Prayer | A Promise”

I want to be the woman
Who is both loved and quietly feared
For truth
Has always found a home in her

I close my eyes and imagine

She creates emotional safety
Filling her jar
From a river
Flowing with the deepest of loves
Making a place at the table
For vulnerability to sit
Keeping a room
Where grief and her children can rest

I long to be a woman who is
Not just seen for her strength
Or her courage
Or her hope
But for her softness
May it be said of me that I love
And I know what the cost is

May I be known as a woman who
Has trembled with fear
But still did the damned thing anyway
When others abandoned ship
Because the cost was too high
I weighed every last penny
And still chose to do
That damned thing anyway

May I be a woman
Who does not go unnoticed
But is noticed by the tender hearted
The hard shelled who needed respite
Seen by those convinced
They did not matter
Yet mattered more than they ever knew

May I not be anchored to being a savior
But to being anchored
In my true savior
Offering a hand
When there is great need
Helping in labor
In planting seeds
In the waiting
Creating
And everything in between

I will be a woman sustained
Through the sun
Through the rains
In the highest of highs
And the lowest of lows
A woman
With freedom in her soul
And a place at her table
That is always open
And a room
That is always ready