This essay is part of the Between Chapters project, inspired by the book. What chapters are you between? How did you get from one chapter to another? Share your story here.
What Chapter Are You…
Leaving:
Published author/speaker on the rise.
In:
When success stops being enough.
Entering:
Grace is sufficient.
There is a strange kind of grief that can come with receiving the life you once prayed for.
For years, success was easy to define. It looked like earning the degrees, building a meaningful career in public service, publishing a book, advocating for survivors, speaking from lecterns, and serving a community I love. I spent decades believing that if I worked hard enough, remained faithful enough, and persevered long enough, I would eventually arrive at the life I had imagined.
By many standards, I did.
What I never imagined was standing inside the life I had worked so hard to build and quietly asking myself, Is this all there is?
Not because I am ungrateful. Quite the opposite. I have never been more grateful for the opportunities God has entrusted to me. Yet somewhere between checking goals off my list and reaching the next milestone, I realized I had become exceptionally good at building a life without always knowing how to live inside it.
Then my body interrupted the conversation.
Health challenges I could not explain became impossible to ignore. One specialist led to another. One diagnosis uncovered another question. Pain settled into places that once carried me effortlessly through long workdays and full calendars. Fatigue became something I could no longer push past by simply trying harder. For the first time in my adult life, determination was no match for limitation.
At the very same time, another role quietly began to redefine me.
My mother, who spent so many years caring for me, is now navigating the uncertainty that comes with aging and declining health. The woman who once represented strength and stability increasingly looks to me for reassurance, guidance, and care. There is no manual for watching the people who once felt larger than life become more fragile with each passing season. There is only love, patience, and the quiet ache of realizing that time keeps moving whether we are ready or not.
Some days, I leave a medical appointment of my own only to help coordinate hers. I find myself carrying concern for my health while trying not to let her see how much I carry. It is a sacred responsibility, but it is also a heavy one. Caregiving has a way of revealing both the depth of your love and the limits of your strength.
For most of my life, my identity was closely tied to what I could accomplish. There was always another family to serve, another survivor to advocate for, another article to write, another speech to prepare, another organization to strengthen. Purpose and productivity slowly became inseparable. Rest began to feel like something I had to earn instead of something God had already given me permission to receive.
I have spent years encouraging others to extend grace to themselves while quietly denying that same grace to myself.
It is a humbling realization.
Recently, I wrote that slowing down is not failure. I believed those words when I wrote them. Living them has proven far more difficult. Slowing down asks me to trust God in ways achievement never required. Achievement rewards effort. Faith often asks for surrender.
I find myself longing for things that cannot be measured by awards, titles, or accomplishments. I want mornings that are not dictated by urgency. Conversations that are not squeezed between appointments. Time with my husband that is not interrupted by the next obligation. Moments with my family that remind me why I worked so hard in the first place. I want a life with enough space to notice God’s presence, rather than constantly asking Him to bless my pace.
Perhaps that is the season I am living now. Not one where I prove myself. Not one where I accomplish more than I did before.
A season where I learn that my worth has never depended on my productivity. A season where I discover that quality of life matters as much as the life I have built. A season where I accept that caring for others also requires caring for myself.
I do not know what comes next. I still have unanswered questions about my health. I still worry about my mother’s future. I still wrestle with the tension between ambition and contentment. I still wonder what God is preparing me for in this quieter place.
What I know is this: every meaningful passage of my life has asked me to let go of the person I thought I needed to be before I could become the person God was shaping all along.
Maybe this moment is no different. Maybe this pause is not an interruption but an invitation—an invitation to measure success less by what I produce and more by how I love, how I trust, and how fully I allow myself to live.
For the first time in a long time, I am beginning to believe that this unfinished season may become one of the most meaningful yet.
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“Letting go of the person I thought I needed to be” WOW that is so powerful! Loved reading this!