Author: Stephanie Henderson

I attended a funeral service this past weekend for a friend of my family. Our two families have been friends for generations now. There is history that spans years and miles, so extensive I will never even know it all. My mom and I were there together, and my youngest child attended with us and saw again what family can look like. It was a long trip, covering not much ground but having us travel back across all those years and miles in an exhaustingly short time.

It is always worth it to be present, to remember, to love. Always.
And we are tired. Both are true.

Grief has a way of stripping things down, and what it exposed for me was not just exhaustion, but clarity.

For me, the tired is not just weary. It is beyond the lack of sleep that comes from sharing a bed with a kid. It is more than just the off-schedule that happens with travel. It is the tired that comes from showing up in spaces where harm has been done and seeing people who are still doing it being elevated to positions of power where they have greater access to continue.

One person speaking at the service claimed to know “with certainty” what everyone who died with faith in Jesus would want people to hear at their funeral. And it stopped me in my tracks. I have not thought about my funeral for years, not even while attending countless ones in recent seasons. When I was younger, I used to have flashes of anxiety where I would plan out the whole service in case I died so that no one else would have to worry about it. That has not happened in the longest time, so I was taken aback to realize that this man, shaped by a kind of religious certainty that caused real harm in my life, assumed that he knew what I would want said.

He went on preaching in typical evangelical fashion. It was a good service for a solid churchman who had spent a lifetime believing as this man seemed to.

Having spent years healing and unwinding from the shame-based religion of my past, very little of it resonated with me. It felt forced to me, rehearsed in a way that left no room for grief or mystery, and it made me sad. It was incredibly clear to me that, though I still claim faith, this man did not and could not speak for me. His certainty was very misplaced.

Which led me to wonder, for the first time in many years, what I would want said at my service. What legacy do I hope to leave? What last words would I share?

So I started processing. Not because I am dying or planning an ending, but because endings happen all the time. Without warning, I may never speak to someone again. People I have known for years. People who have been close. Change is constant, and endings are change that I may not like but will no longer ignore.

Here is what I hope someone will say for me once I am gone, because it is what I try to say every day that I am alive:

I was never trying to be impressive.
I was trying to be honest.
I was trying to love people who had been taught they were hard to love.
I was trying to sit beside pain instead of walking past it.

If you learned anything from my life, let it be this:
shame is a liar with a loud voice, but love is older and stronger and tells the truth in a whisper.

Choose the whisper.

Make space.

Space for people who feel outside.
Space for questions that may not have answers.
Space for healing that takes longer than anyone ever wants.
Space for tenderness where life is sharp.

I was not perfect. I was becoming.
I was not fearless. I was willing.
I was not certain. I loved anyway.

Please do not remember me for what I built, for what success I found or did not, for anything I made.
Remember me for who I believed in, the wounded, the misfits, the ones told they were too much or not enough.

They were never either.
They were holy, and their lives are sacred.

Carry each other gently. You are all worth it.
Tell the truth even if it costs you belonging. It will not always.
Make gentleness louder than judgment, both inside and out.

Above all else, unlearn anything that teaches you to hate yourself.
You are infinitely precious. Lovely and lovable. And always worthy of gentle, loving care.

If my life means anything, let it keep loving forward in yours:
As far as it depends on you, repair what is broken.
Welcome who was excluded.
Love like it is the only religion that actually heals.

And when the waves feel bigger than your faith, build a pier anyway. Walk as far as you can. Look for what is next. Get comfortable in the unknown. And love.

That is where we will be able to meet again. In love.

Remember that.

We can only see a dim reflection now. But faith can withstand the unknowing, hope is not as far away as it may seem, and Love has always and will always know your name.

💜💜💜

Creator of wholeness, True Source of Love,
I come as one who is grieving and growing.
I am tender, trembling, and continually trying again.

Grant me the serenity I need today to feel what I have long avoided,
give me the courage needed to release what was never mine to carry,
and empower me with the wisdom to know the difference 
between protection and isolation.

My bones carry the fear of remembrance.
When memories flood without warning, 
encourage me to meet myself with gentleness.

Grant me patience with the pace of the unbecoming.
Offer me grace to show myself 
on the days when survival doesn’t feel like enough.
Remind me that becoming is the ultimate goal
not a mark of success or failure for each day. 

Find in each day a way to reinforce the truth 
that safety is not the absence of pain.
It is the presence of love… steady embodied, and real.

Help me trust the healing of my scars.
Help me speak truth when my voice shakes.
Help me rest when my body remembers.
Help me to rise when my soul tells me it’s time.

Teach me that healing is not forgetting,
But remembering differently.
By offering myself compassion instead of reinforcing shame
I reclaim my authentic power. 
I show up for myself as myself.

Spirit who holds all that has been broken,
Keeper of all that has already been made new,
Grant me serenity, courage, and wisdom
for the lifelong work of healing.

So be it.

We both know the sting of being let down by the ones who should have held us up. The ones who spoke of love but practiced control. The ones who taught us to trade our own needs for their comfort. The ones who called sacrifice holy while asking you to disappear. You learned to betray yourself because they taught you betrayal in the name of belonging.

But hear this: it is not our calling to abandon any part of who we are to make anyone comfortable. It is not righteous to shrink. It is not selfish to love yourself first. 

It is sacred, it is true, it is the very foundation of all we are becoming.

Yes, shame will always sit heavy. Trauma will rear its ugly head. The weight may never vanish entirely. But heaviness is not destiny. The isolation it breeds is a lie. Shame does not own the last word. 

Love does, always love.

One day we will see that choosing ourselves isn’t abandonment of others. Rather, it is the first act of faithfulness. We will learn to stand without apology, and we will discover companions who honor all of who we really are, no longer asking us to fit into spaces that smother or restrict. We will no longer hand our worth over to those who squandered it. We will learn to love ourselves as fiercely as the God who first called us beloved.

So keep pressing forward, little one. Love yourself with a fierceness that will feel strange at first. Hold that love like fire in your hands. Because the little girl who thinks she is not enough will one day become the woman who knows that enough was written into her bones from the very beginning.

Always,
Your Future Self

There’s something sacred about making bread. The slow rhythm of it. The mess it creates. The way hands move without needing to speak. Bread takes time. It doesn’t rush. It demands warmth and rest, and then more kneading, and more waiting. Maybe that’s why it feels like such an honest metaphor for the kind of love I’ve come to trust—not the performative kind, not the rule-bound kind I once learned in pews from pulpits, but the quiet, enduring kind that shows up with its sleeves rolled up and a willingness to get flour everywhere.

I’ve found that when love is a way of life, community doesn’t always look like a scheduled gathering or a sermon three points deep. It looks like the couch you crash on when the world’s been too loud. It looks like a kitchen that never really closes, where someone’s always willing to put the kettle on or have another cup of coffee. And even if it’s 2 a.m. and nobody knows what day it is anymore, love leans in.

Love in community looks like someone checking that you’ve eaten. Someone texting “you good?” even when they may not be. Someone giving time sacrificially, not because they have to—but because they get to. Because they love you, and that love is real, not ritual.

I used to think spiritual life meant polished shoes and reverent silence. I knew sacred spaces to have stained glass and still air. I knew holiness to come dressed in hierarchy. But now I know better. I’ve seen more of God in living rooms than in sanctuaries. I’ve experienced more communion in a kitchen, drinking from irreverent mugs and eating homemade baked goods than in any formal liturgy.

The holiest ground I’ve stood on in quite some time was the floor of a friend’s house who let me cry without trying to make anything better.

When love is a way of life, not a theological construct, community becomes a refuge instead of a proving ground. It becomes the place where bread is both made and broken in real time—not just as a symbol, but as sustenance. We don’t just remember love. We live it out loud. And we learn to let ourselves be loved in return, even when it’s hard. Even when it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

Because the truth is, receiving love requires trust; not just in the love but in the one offering it. In their sincerity. In their wholeness. In the grace that led them to offer anything at all.

So I’ve stopped looking for the perfect table and started showing up at the one that’s already set. Sometimes the bread is store-bought. Sometimes the conversation trails off into raucous laughter… or silent tears. But it’s all sacred. Every crumb. Every moment of togetherness. Every cup of coffee poured like a blessing on the altar of another long, beautiful, aching day.

In all of life lived in this way, there is love… and it is holy.

Drop your shoulders, friend.
Lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
Relax your eyebrows.
Take a deep breath.

Know that I love you.
Know you are enough.
💜💜💜

I learned to scan the sky for storm clouds

every time the sun stayed too long—

I clung tight

because people slip

when I loosened my grip—

I was never asking for too much.

I was asking for consistency

in a world that kept moving the goalposts.

And then,

they arrived.

Not with lightning.

Not with thunder.

Just quiet presence

and eyes that didn’t look away.

They didn’t ask me to shrink.

They didn’t vanish when my voice cracked.

They didn’t label my longing

a liability.

They just held space

like it was holy.

They answered the text.

They showed up the next day.

They let me be,

without needing me to do.

And slowly—

oh so slowly—

My nervous system stopped flinching

at love.

I find peace

where there used to be panic.

Laughter

where there once was chasing.

Stillness

in the middle of connection.

They didn’t fix me.

They loved me in the weaving of a life that is soft and warm.

And in that soft, unshaken bond,

I am finally finding what safety feels like.

Not silence.

Not distance.

But this:

A love that stays

when I shake.

Friends who lean in

when I want to run.

Soul mates who prove—

not every great love story is romantic.

Some are resurrection.

Some are rewiring.

Some are renewing.

Some are rest.

There’s a trend going around social media where you pick a random group of people you know, hide your caller ID information, and call them to say “good night.” The results of these phone calls are sometimes hilarious, sometimes enraging, and often confusing.

It kind of strikes me as odd, though, that this kind of ritual connection which has always been presented as a soothing part of bedtime would be weaponized. And yet… it isn’t strange at all when taken in the context of the larger picture of how disconnected so many are from themselves and their shared humanity.

So at the end of this day, I’m choosing to shift this trend to move toward the world in which I would like to live. I’m not hiding who I am, I’m not limiting who I reach out to, and I’m going with this:

As this day comes to a close, take a moment to pause. Feel the weight of the day’s events settle, not as a burden, but as a reminder of your humanity and survival. Breathe deeply, and consider the quiet power of a simple connection.

Think of a comforting individual in your life—a friend, a family member, even yourself. Imagine their face turned toward you with kindness, their voice calmly speaking to you, their welcoming presence. Now, let these words form in your heart: Good night. I see you. I love you. You are enough.

Carry the image of yourself and that individual with you as you drift into rest. In choosing connection, we sow the seeds of a gentler, more loving world.

I love you, dear one.
Rest well.
💜💜💜

When the world trembles under the weight of its own unpredictability,
and a message brings news sharp enough to cut through the fiercest independence,
you learn who your people are.
Not just the ones bound by blood and birthright,
but those who choose to stay, time and again,
with love that defies convenience, expectation, or circumstance.

Even on a holiday weekend,
when calendars are painted with plans
and bodies yearn for rest.
When the whole world tilted there is no hesitation.
Stepping in as if it were the most natural thing to take on the weight of our world
so we could share the weight of another’s.

Not just watching children,
but guarding innocence,
crafting safety from chaos,
offering laughter where anxiety blooms.

Chosen family isn’t a title;
it’s a testimony.
It’s the arms that stretch wide when yours are too tired to lift,
the eyes that see you when you feel invisible,
the hearts that give courage
when fear inhibits a step into the unknown.

For the friends who turned crisis into clarity,
showed us that kinship isn’t in shared DNA
but in shared burdens,
in the sacred act of standing in the gap.

This is for you,
the quiet heroes who bind together the frayed edges of our hearts,
who say yes without hesitation,
who hold space,
offer grace,
and show up,
over and over,
in ways that ripple out and reshape the meaning of love.

This is for the ones who love out loud
so that we can all breathe together,
for the friends who are family
because love isn’t passive;
it’s a verb.

It’s the car packed in a hurry,
nights spent in the couch,
the meals shared with messy hands,
the late-night laughter that doesn’t need explanation,
the unwavering yes,
the safest no.

And in those moments when life unravels,
and fear threatens to choke out hope,
they show us this truth:
We are not meant to carry it alone.
When the world trembles,
they stand.

It seems like a lot longer ago than it has been since I was sitting in a quiet boat floating down the canals in Amsterdam. The return to real life certainly did not come gently. And yet, my mind keeps going back to the gentle sharing of facts and history that the skipper of that boat kept up throughout the tour. 

I learned things I hadn’t known before about the city built on a swamp that shouldn’t be able to exist, and how it has maintained a seemingly precarious balance beautifully for 750 years. I saw beauty in the quirks and slightly off-kilter places, and the reality that people are free to be themselves there was palpable. It is a place whose welcome and encouragement connected and still connects the world. I felt more at peace there than I have in very many places I’ve ever been. 

I felt like me there.

Returning to the country of my birth was a more foreign experience than I knew it could be, but I have gotten reaclimated and life has marched on. Finding common ground on a different side of the world definitely set the stage for stretching beyond what has always been when I got back, though. 

We spent this past weekend experiencing a wide range of new things on many levels. And as we lived and loved in new and growing ways there was definitely an increasingly real understanding of the phrase, “Home is where the heart is.” 

I could very much be at home in Amsterdam. People were welcoming and friendly. Places were beautiful and welcoming. And I was comfortable and confident being myself. But I am also very much finding home where we live now, also. Not as much in the warm welcome of strangers or the beauty of places I have known variations of for much of my life… but in the community that has grown to be a home I never dreamed possible. Both are very much felt experiences of home in recent weeks and I am thankful for their juxtaposition.

Near the end of the canal cruise, we floated by the house where Anne Frank hid during the writing of her diary. I had known it was there but wasn’t certain that we would go past it on this particular tour. When the building came into view and the skipper started talking about it, there was a kind of internal collision that occurred. This was not just a story from my childhood. There was a real place in this very real city where that very real human had been hidden from very real evils that have long seemed far-removed from my lived reality. 

Seeing it as the adult I am now in the life I am living made a world of difference in my experience of it. All the scared parts of childhood collided with my adult advocacy and healing in an instant. 

On the wall outside the museum next door is a quote from Anne’s father, Otto. It was one of the last pictures I took in Amsterdam and has stayed with me in the weeks since I’ve been home. 

“We cannot change what happened anymore. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realise what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means.”

That’s what I am working to assimilate into my being now. The lived experience of being in a place like this, of looking into a space where humanity struggled to survive the worst of evils by hiding away, of being on the outside of that without taking on the role of evil, of knowing the weight of privilege and the responsibility of awareness.

I want to love in ways that honor humanity in all its forms because I believe that only in living that kind of love out loud can we hope to change the world. The hateful actions of individuals do not cause the most harm. It is the apathetic response of groups who perceive themselves to be unable to make change which result in chaos and the harms that are all too common. 

Love is the answer to it all. Not because it’s happy and rainbows, but because a healthy love counters apathy and empowers the compassionate and empathetic response that will ultimately win over hate. 

This week… month… year… has been rough. And there is no indication it’s getting any easier. I’m learning what this balance looks like in new ways every day.

Step back when you need to. Start with loving yourself by setting boundaries around what you consume or participate in. Lean in when you need to. Start with loving you by allowing yourself to be who you have always been. Whether leaning in or stepping back, be gentle. Live with compassion. Love with boldness. 

Drop your eyebrows.
Lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
Relax your shoulders.
Hand on your heart.
Breathe deeply. 

You’re not alone. Check in. Reach out. 
I love you.
💜💜💜

I laughed. I cried. I learned. I rolled my eyes. This one article has all the makings of a decent made for tv movie… but it’s real life and oh, so timely.

A long time ago in a life that seems very far from now, I heard a story about raising a special needs child. It told of planning a trip and learning a language, and getting all prepared to go to Italy… and then arriving and finding yourself in Holland. The writer wrote beautifully about how it was sad to not have made it where you were aiming to be… but also about the beauty of the place where you are.

I learned that story as we were finding out diagnoses and realizing the realities of the life we would live as far as we could tell them to be at that time. And ever since then I have dreamed of going to Holland. Tulips have long been my favorite flower, and I have very much grown into a vibrant and colorful life as I have done the work to love myself and the world around me in healthier ways.

On Wednesday night, I left home to make a last minute effort to get to my younger brother’s wedding. I kept wanting to just buy a ticket and go but I wasn’t sure until the very last minute whether I would be able to or not. So standby was the option.

Just as it looked possible from a life view, flights started filling up and much was left very questionable.

Leaving ICT, I barely made it to Dallas. The flight was full but someone didn’t show so they stuck me on. From there, I was struggling to get to the east coast. Flights direct to Paris (where the wedding is) were not happening on standby from DFW. At the absolute last moment, I realized that I could go west to get east… even if Mom has always said that was impossible. I jumped on a plane with plenty of room to Vegas, where I immediately landed and boarded a red eye to Philly.

Just that much of the trip was an adventure. But it was simple. I knew the language. I had prepared for the time in airports and making connections. And from Philly, there was the possibility of a direct flight to Paris.

So, I waited.

About ten hours into my twelve hour stint in the airport there, it became apparent that it would take a miracle for me to get that flight. It was full. And oversold. And I was at the bottom of the list. So I looked and looked, spending multiple breaks from roaming the ENTIRE airport looking at where all I could fly direct to see if anything had actual room. Zurich, Madrid, Nice, Frankfurt, London… one by one, the flights filled and it looked hopeless. And plus, it was very unlikely that I would be able to successfully navigate getting on into Paris without languages or experience or any time to study up.

Several weeks ago when I figured out this might be possible, I had looked at Amsterdam, but it seemed so silly. Fly further to catch a train back to Paris?!? I barely had time to get to Paris, let alone add anything to the trip. And as much as I wanted to go to Holland, it would be like Italy for me. Foreign… unknown… scary.

Wouldn’t you know it, though… that’s the flight that still had room. At the very last minute before it boarded, I transferred over to a flight from Philly to Amsterdam. And off I went.

This morning, I find myself contemplating life on a train to Brussels… and ultimately Paris. I’ll get in this afternoon having gotten a whirlwind tour of places I have long dreamed of seeing. It wasn’t that difficult (no matter what Sean tells you 😘.)

I will make it in time to hug my younger brother and sister, to celebrate the last of our sibling weddings, and to take a deep breath in a place I never thought it would be possible to see in person before starting the long journey back.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would really work. But it did. And, fun fact, even Holland isn’t as Holland as I might’ve imagined. 😂 Thankfully, I did manage to snag a couple clogs and spot an old school windmill amidst all the modern that exists here now.

Life is so strange. I had no clue when I started that breaking cycles, finding balance, and living love out loud could make this much difference. But I’m a world away today, and also very much in love with life at home. I’m thankful for a job with a company that works to make a difference, spending each day with people who believe in me. I’m thankful for friends and family holding down the fort at home. I’m thankful that I have made it to a point in life where both going and staying are such good options.

And I’m beyond thankful to my younger brother for his hopelessly romantic streak without which this trip wouldn’t have happened. 🥰

Find your dream and live it friends. You only have one life… and it’s not too late to love it.

After a tense night of travel, I’m letting every part of me relax intentionally as I travel. You can do it wherever you are, too.

Drop your shoulders.

Lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth.

Relax your eyebrows.

Breathe deep.

Know you are loved… from all the way around the world. 💜💜💜