You walk out of that relationship or that church or that job wondering if you are the problem. Wondering if you imagined it. Wondering why, if you prayed hard enough and tried hard enough and gave enough of yourself away, it still ended in rubble.

And when they need us someday, and they often do, we get to show up simply because we love them. Not because we owe it. Not out of guilt or obligation. Just love, freely given.

One of the most painful aspects of hard seasons is that we cannot see them clearly while we are living inside them. We are too close. The grief is too loud. The fear takes up too much space. And so we interpret our circumstances with whatever emotional vocabulary is available to us in that moment, which is usually limited to words like failing, stuck, lost, forgotten.

Love for yourself, first. You cannot pour from an empty vessel. You cannot model healthy relationships for the people watching you, your chi