07/11/2026
On Tuesday, John and I were divorced after a 3.5 year separation.
It was unwanted. I love my ex-husband more than anyone in the world.
Would you guys pray for our family? That's all I have the strength to say tonight.
For those that have walked this kind of pain, this poem was a great encouragement to me.
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Author Sharon Trent:
"Sometimes God closes doors you still love.
Not doors you hated, not doors that harmed you, but doors you poured your heart into.
Doors you painted with your prayers and framed with your dreams.
Doors you thought would always stay open.
And when He shuts them, it feels like he shut the lights off inside you, too.
Sometimes he edits the chapters you thought were the best ones.
He takes the pages you clung to, the ones you thought defined your story, and with one stroke of his sovereign pen--
He rewrites what you thought could never change.
And there you stand, staring at the closed door, staring at those altered lines-- wondering who you are with what you lost.
It is not just the door you grieve.
It is the "you" that existed before the door closed.
The you that belonged there.
The you who felt whole there.
Now, stripped of that identity, you feel like a stranger in your own skin, fumbling through the ruins of who you were-- aching for the familiar version of yourself that feels gone.
And yet...
sometimes you smile anyway.
You quote verses.
You tell others "He is enough"-- because you know it's true, even when you secretly wish He would give you back what He took away.
You whisper "your will be done"-- but somewhere inside, you're hoping for "my will too."
This is the refining no one signs up for.
This is the surrender no one volunteers for.
This is the kind of breaking that feels like death, yet carries the promise of resurrection.
Because sometimes the only way to grip his promises is to truly let go of everything else.
To hold loosely what you once held tightly.
To unclench your fists around what you thought was your forever so you can cling with both hands to the only forever that remains.
And in the end, maybe this is where identity is truly found-- not in the doors that closed, not in the chapters that ended-- but in the One who holds the keys, the Author who writes it all, the Keeper of every beginning and ending.
One day I will look back at the ashes and what I lost and realize the door that closed was not rejection.
It was redirection.
The chapter that ended was not a loss.
It was preparation.
The God who takes is the same God who gives-- and somehow, even here, I am not less.
I am being remade.
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God, help me grieve less over the closed doors and instead praise you for loving me enough to close them.
