Stay Open

It has been a rough couple of days. If I am completely honest with you.

The kind that settle deep into your bones—where prayers feel heavier, not lighter. Where intercession turns into groaning, where words run out and all that’s left are tears. There has been a lot of that lately. Tears that come quietly and ones that don’t. Sleep that slips away just when you need it most. An appetite that disappears. And somewhere in the middle of it all, a strange feeling of being… lost within your own soul.

It’s a vulnerable place to be. And if I’m honest, it makes me want to shut down. To pull inward. To go silent. To ignore people and focus inward.

But there is something sacred about staying open when everything in you wants to close up and shut out.

I was driving to Easter dinner today at my friend's house with tears in my eyes, the weight of it all rising up again without warning. It felt almost dissonant—the ache in my chest paired with the joy of where I was going. And yet, both were real. Both were present. And both had equal space to be where they were.

I stood in church and said, “I’m great.”

And I meant it. I felt it deep in my soul and didnt feel any conviction of lies or of not being open with others.

Not because everything was perfect. Not because the heaviness had disappeared. But because somewhere deeper than the ache, there was still truth. Still hope. Still a quiet steadiness that hadn’t been shaken loose.

Here’s the thing we don’t say enough: it’s okay to hold both.

It’s okay to carry sorrow and joy in the same breath. To have prayers that feel unanswered and a heart that still believes. To show up with tears in your eyes and mean it when you say you’re okay.

We are not meant to live in extremes—either broken or whole, grieving or rejoicing. Life, especially a life surrendered to God, often exists in the tension between the two. And there is a strange, holy beauty in that tension.

As I look at Easter, that was the hearts of the Disciples and those who loved Jesus. They had a hurt and grieving heart for the friend and Rabbi had been killed. Yet they held hope in the same exhale for the promises He had made. It was not one or the other. It was Yes and.

So stay open.

Stay open when it hurts.

Stay open when it’s messy.

Stay open with people, even when your instinct is to retreat.

Because sometimes healing doesn’t come from having it all together—it comes from letting yourself be fully seen in the middle of it.

And maybe being “great” doesn’t mean everything is good.

Maybe it means that even here, even now… your soul is still held.