The Smoldering Wick

Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

I have found myself standing again at the edge of pain and renewal, looking out toward that thin place where darkness begins, slowly, to surrender to dawn. The road behind me has been long. The burdens have been heavy. And yet today, beneath all the ache, I sense something small stirring in me—not triumph, not certainty, not some sudden shining wholeness, but hope. A whisper of it. A fragile, almost unbelievable thing. After years of wandering through the fog of wounds I could not name, I finally have words for them: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The name is heavy, yes. But it is not a chain. It is a lantern. It does not imprison me in my past; it illumines the landscape of it. It helps me see where I have been, why certain roads have felt so impossible, why certain shadows have followed me even into adulthood.

For thirty-eight years, the echoes of childhood have trailed behind me like dusk stretching across the floor. Where others seemed to step easily into adulthood, I have often felt like a lost child in a world too large, too loud, too uncertain. And now, as a mother, the weight of my unhealed places presses harder still. How does one nurture life while still learning how to tend to her own? How does one comfort a crying child when part of her is still crying too? How does one become shelter when she is still learning what safety feels like?

And yet—God.

He has not abandoned me. Not in the sorrow. Not in the confusion. Not in the dark corners where illness whispered that I was alone, too broken, too late, too much. He has been the unseen hand on my shoulder, the quiet mercy beneath my feet, the light that did not go out even when I could no longer see it. He has met me in unlikely places, through books, through conversations, through the steady kindness of those who know how to sit beside pain without rushing it away. I marvel at this. How gently He leads. How patiently He reveals. How He takes even the things we feared would destroy us and turns them, somehow, into the beginning of healing.

So I stand here now, trembling but grateful, at the threshold of a new honesty. This space, these words, this small unfolding of my life on the page—perhaps it will become part of my healing. Not because writing fixes everything. It does not. But because words can become both offering and balm. They can steady the flame. They can give shape to the ache. They can hold a candle to what once hid unnamed in the dark. With each post, I hope to let the smoldering wick within me burn a little brighter—not blazing, perhaps, but still alive. Still warm. Still held by God.

Today, I am thinking about mindfulness—not as something I practiced well, but as something I hope to reach for tomorrow. To be present. To feel one moment without condemning it. To let pain rise and fall like waves without deciding I must drown in them. To stop fleeing into yesterday or bracing against tomorrow long enough to breathe the breath God has placed in my lungs right now. Mindfulness, for me, is not empty stillness. It is trust. It is a quiet defiance against the storms of the past and the anxieties of the future. It says: I am here. God is here. This moment is not the whole story.

And so tomorrow, I will try again. There was a time when I did not believe in tomorrow. A time when each sunrise felt less like a promise and more like another burden I did not have strength to carry. But today—tonight—I do believe in it. Not perfectly. Not without fear. But enough to say, “I will try again.” And that, too, is mercy.

Today, grace found me in the pages of What My Bones Know. There is something sacredly strange about reading another person’s story and hearing your own heart answer back. Her words opened a door in me. They gave language to struggles I had carried in silence for so long that silence itself had begun to feel like truth. As I read, it felt almost as though God was whispering through the pages: You are not alone. You were never alone. Even this can be named. Even this can be healed.

I once heard the line that God knows the poor, struggling machine we are trying to drive, and oh, how much comfort there is in that. Because this machine has felt wretched at times. Exhausting. Unpredictable. Hard to steer. But God is not repulsed by my brokenness. He is not confused by it. He is not standing at a distance, waiting for me to become easier to love. He knows what I am carrying. He knows where the wiring was damaged. He knows which parts tremble before I do. And still, He calls me toward life.

I long for that life. I long to step into goodness—not as an idea, but as something I can taste. I long to see what is beautiful without flinching. To receive kindness without suspicion. To inhabit my body without fear. To move through my days without being ruled by old alarms. To heal. And if you, too, feel this way—if your light feels dim, if your soul flickers weakly against the wind—then stand beside me. We can name the darkness without becoming it. We can tell the truth without surrendering to despair. We can remember that a smoldering wick is still a wick, and even the smallest flame is precious in the sight of God.

A quieter season is approaching, one that asks me to lay things down, to listen more deeply, to let the noise fall away so that what is truer can be heard. And this year, I do not want to enter it as a test I must pass. I want to enter it as a path of healing. A place where the hidden wounds can be touched by mercy. A place where the dim flame can be guarded. A place where I remember that I will not be defeated, because Christ was not defeated. My beginning may have been rough. The first steps of eternity may have felt, for me, like stumbling through smoke. But the end—oh, the end will be bright.

So I press forward. One step at a time. One breath at a time. Carrying my little flickering flame. Trusting that even this small light matters. Trusting that healing is not impossible. Trusting that God is not finished with me. Press forward with me.