Author: Stephanie Henderson

I’m working in a new space today. Lots of things are shifting and I’ve been sitting in the quiet space between projects and planning. A song came up on the playlist I’ve got going in the background and I stopped to listen.

“I have witnessed funerals and wars
Worried mothers, empty shelves, and empty stores
The storms will rage and the winds will blow
You are gonna find out that you’re stronger than you know

And the time for flowers will come again
Maybe in one year, maybe in ten
There are days despair will win
But the time for flowers will come again.”

We just tilled and planted wildflowers in our garden at home. The dirt is still the most prevalent thing you see when you walk up the sidewalk. But what a hope it is to remember that seasons change, relationships come and go, growth spurts and slows, life moves on.

Even on the days when despair wins, the coming change is sure. Time for flowers will come again. It always has. And even on the darkest, shortest days… even on the longest hottest days… even when it seems most unlikely, it always will come again.

In the meantime, we can tend the gardens of our hearts, taking gentle care of who we are and all the people we have been to show up as we will be. If that’s work that’s been difficult for you, I’d love to work with you and empower you to find healthier patterns as you wait for the flowers to bloom again.

No matter who you are or where you are or what season you’re in…

Drop your shoulders.
Lower your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
Relax your eyebrows.
Take a deep breath.
And know you are loved.

💜💜💜

It was the beginning of December when I first “met” my friend. No one could have prepared me for the life changing reality that would come with knowing them.

The first conversation we had was hours long. So many things came together as the history I had long lived but not been allowed to give voice to became reality. My story, our story, the story of so many, was not new to them.

As we talked, we came to understand the depth of our connections. Not just because of our shared spiritual family of origin… Not just because of similar educational pursuits or the efforts to advocate for healthier ways of handling abuse within the structured religiosity… but somehow there were a million tiny threads of my past and future that connected in that conversation.

We messaged periodically after that until they couldn’t anymore. A multitude of health problems and a terminal diagnosis was slowly becoming real. After a couple more times on the phone… suddenly the loss was looming.

Now, I sit grieving. Not for them. Not even for myself. But for the loss to the church of our history and the world as a whole.

My whole lifetime, this crusader fought the demons that stole my childhood. And in the coming days and weeks the weight of loss will become more and more real. The responsibility of carrying on the fight cannot be buried, neither in the grave nor by grief. And so I press on, thankful to have been gifted the knowledge of much that has gone before to encourage me on my way.

I don’t doubt that this person will slip into eternity quietly. The church may acknowledge the forward-facing side. It may honor the “ministry” in generalities and acceptable terms. Nothing of the larger efforts to live love out loud will be spoken officially. But that will not be the end. This story will be told in my life and mission, if nothing else.

Your work will not be in vain, friend. Thank you for all you did. Thank you for who you are. Save me a seat and someday we’ll sit and have all the kinds of fudge we can imagine while laughing instead of crying.

I didn’t walk into a church today. The sun rose and I wasn’t scrambling to make it to a service in a new outfit with bleary eyes having stayed up all night to get everything ready. My kids didn’t have smiles pasted on because I made sure they knew the consequences of looking anything other than glorious this morning. We didn’t brunch between services or have an elaborate Easter dinner planned. For the first year in my entire adult life this holiday was low pressure, simple, and real.

I worshiped in quiet conversation as the sun brightened the sky. Then we ate and laughed as we planned out the day. Part of our crew will be able to gather this evening with the community of faith that has non-judgmentally welcomed any of us who can be present whenever we are able to be there. The rest of us will stay on schedule and rest. Tomorrow, we’ll continue living into the resurrection as we celebrate a traditionally milestone birthday for our oldest. (Pictures will come from that time because today is wonderfully rainy and cool and we don’t want to go pretend it’s not.)

None of this is what I would have thought life would be if you asked me five years ago. But it is so, so good. Life keeps moving because we are alive.

We laugh.
We cry.
We’ll live and die.
All in the name of Love.

And so, today, in a way that honors the weight of it all, I celebrate the One who lived and died and lives again.

If today is different for you, know you’re not alone. Many of us are grieving and celebrating at the same time.

Know you are enough…
Know you are loved…
Just as you are.

💜💜💜

Beloved, the sun today may rise dimly in your spirit.
Even as the tomb is empty, and Love has risen,
The weight of the stone may still linger.

Because resurrection is not without struggle.
It still comes, even in the shadows,
With the quiet promise of grace.

And this, too, is resurrection.
Not because anyone earned it
But because grace cannot be contained.

Come out of the tomb of striving,
Where shadows weigh heavy.
Step into the light of hope,
Where Love restores and renews.

You are called by name,
Not for what you have done,
But for who you are…
Beloved.

In the garden, your name is spoken.
It is a whisper of spring, a call to step forward into life.
Not with judgment, but with tenderness.
Not with demands, but with delight.

Beloved, the grave cannot contain Love,
And shame cannot hold you.
Love has conquered death,
And you are free.

Go now into this Easter morning.
Walk with confidence as one who is loved,
Shine with radiance as one who is alive,
Proclaim with the boldness of one who knows:
You are already enough.

Healing from a lifetime of shame-soaked religious fundamentalism has transformed how I experience holidays. Once about control, they now offer freedom. Last week, I flew west—not for a special service or a brunch dripping with pretense, but to celebrate endings and the beginnings they birth.

Easter, once the season of performance and exhaustion, is now truly about renewal. This year, resurrection didn’t show up in a church pew or an over-sung hymn, but in quiet distance, and sky. I found it in a most unexpected place: the story of a misunderstood witch reclaiming her power. Rising doesn’t always look like whatever story someone decides it should.

During my flight, I stopped trying to earn the air I breathe. Headphones on, I let Wicked sing me into stillness. Chaos un-spiraled itself into calm, like a tightly wound spring finally releasing. For the first time in years, I existed. Not for anyone else, not for a purpose, but simply for me.

We all carry scripts written for us by others, about who we should be, what we should believe, and how we should fit into a world that rarely makes room for our full selves. The weight of those expectations is something so many of us know, even if the stories are different. Letting them go doesn’t mean forgetting them; it means caring for the parts of us they couldn’t erase.

In that bubble of borrowed space, surrounded by strangers who didn’t need me to be anything, I exhaled the burden of my past. It was a breath of renewal, one that carried me back to a decade ago when I accepted a call to ministry. I dove into years of education and endless “discerning,” all to figure out how to live authentically in that call. About halfway through, I realized survival meant ripping up the script. I was a shadow of myself, my feet heavy with the weight of expectations, moving through life as if I were already buried. Every choice was about trying to save the world while convinced I was beyond redemption.

Now, less than a month after being granted ordination outside the church that tried to bury me, I feel like I’m living a rewritten version of my old story.

As a kid, The Wizard of Oz terrified me. The characters felt too big, too loud, too cruel. I watched in fear, hoping for redemption that never came. I prayed for the resurrection of a girl who melted away while the world cheered her destruction.

We’ve all faced towering illusions of power—those voices telling us we’re too messy, too broken, or too much. And we’ve all wondered if maybe they’re right, even when every fiber of our being rebels against it.

Now, I see how warped those redemption arcs always were, crammed into boxes too small to hold the holy mess of reality. They were stories designed to shame and control, not heal and empower.

I’ve cried over both the original movie and its retelling. But I didn’t cry this time. Not because I’m healed or whole, or because there’s nothing left to mourn. But because now I know I don’t have to cram my pain into a praise song to make it allowable.

My life has been shaped by those who stood behind curtains, pulling levers and pretending to have power they never deserved. They pointed to the different ones, the messy ones, the ones who wouldn’t fit, and called them dangerous. They taught me to fear myself.

For so long, I let that story shape me. My whole body rebelled, but I was desperate to find a home, even if it killed me.

Somewhere around the time I got married, a new narrative started to take shape. The same story, mostly—the same players, same stages, same exhausting drama… but now told from the perspective of the ones who’d been othered.

In my life, the curtain always concealed more than one manipulator, and more than one scapegoat sacrificed for their illusion. The binary was always a lie: good vs. evil, saved vs. lost, chosen vs. cast out. All designed to control, not connect. I just had to get beyond the black and white to see it.

At the end of Wicked (a retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the so-called Wicked Witch) when the witch is falling; hunted, haunted, blamed; the angry chorus of her past rises on the wind. In the mirror of a glass tower, she sees herself as a child also falling, reaching out.

The woman reaches back.

And then she flies.

When she rose, reclaiming what was stolen, I saw a truth many of us share: the power to rise is within us, even when the world insists it isn’t. Easter isn’t just a holiday anymore. It’s a reminder that resurrection isn’t about avoiding death but about reclaiming life. It’s about shedding all that was never meant to be ours, so we can rise with the fullness of who we truly are. This is the truth that lives in each of us—the power to embrace who we are becoming. It’s not just my story. It’s yours too.

It’s a power that doesn’t ask for permission, a rise that doesn’t seek approval. And in that rise, we challenge the very systems that sought to keep us small. It’s a resurrection that says the cross of erasure was never holy; it was a scaffold for silencing. And the hands holding the hammer never offered salvation—only a distorted picture of it.

The song that is sung at that point of the movie is my anthem, the one I sing loudly when I’m driving alone: So, if you dare to find me, look to the western sky. As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly. And if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free.

It’s not about renown. It’s about reclaiming what’s mine.

The faith I once knew turned empowerment into pride, self-worth into rebellion, and grace into shame. They insist I’m flying too high. But they’ve always been terrified of people whose perspective allows them to see through the smoke and mirrors.

When I saw Wicked in theaters last fall, my son grabbed my arm as the wizard was introduced. His small fingers squeezing my arm, he whispered his fear in a trembling voice. I held his hand, he snuggled close, and I told him when it was over. It wasn’t the misunderstood witch that frightened him—it was the booming, hollow projection of power, the false face towering above, pretending to be real.

In that moment, I saw the importance of rewriting my story, not just for me but for my son. Where I once clung to survival, he knows he can thrive. Where I feared the shadows behind the curtain, he can see them for what they are: empty projections.

This is Easter now: messy, real, powerful. A sky of freedom, not an altar of shame.

If you’ve ever been told that you’re too much, or too little, or that you don’t belong, this is your moment to rewrite your story. This is a season of resurrection.

The Lord of the Rings books have been peripheral in my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up, hobbits and elves came up in conversation just like any other friends. For many years, Tolkein and Lewis were the safe havens, escape from a life that felt anything but. I much preferred Lewis, and the wood between the worlds is a place I still often daydream to. But in hearing of Rivendell at a moment when my spirit was open, I dove into discovering all it represents. 

What came from that exploration was an hope that echoed forward from my trip to Alaska last weekend. I wrote a piece about that experience and where I found resurrection themes as I flew west that hasn’t been shared quite yet… but Rivendell was a deepening realization of how often these themes have been present in the edges of my awareness.

If you, too, are celebrating Easter differently this year… or if you are simply surviving… may you find a moment to breath as you consider resurrection in Rivendell.

it finds you.

and mercy sparkles plentiful in the morning dew.

All that was lost will be found again.

Beloved, lift your eyes.
See the King who comes in peace,
Riding humbly on a donkey.
He does not come for the perfect,
But for the weary, the broken, the seeking.

Lay down your branches, your cloaks, your burdens.
For He does not demand your striving,
But welcomes you to a safe surrender.

The crowd shouts, “Hosanna!”
And so do we, not because we are ready,
But because He is.
Because we are already enough,
Because we are enough in His love.

Come, beloved, join the presence of the hopeful.
Let the rhythm of the palms remind you:
Love is in the noise and in the stillness.
Your worth is not in your works but in His grace.

Go now into this holy week,
With Hosannas still echoing,
And your heart open to
The One who rides in peace,
To remind you: you are already enough.

We stand on the edge of this canyon,

old laughter and shared dreams
tangled in the gusts.
Your voice, faint but familiar,
echoes from a place I can no longer go.

We both have searched for a bridge

neither can build alone.

But oh, how I tried.
Stretching my hands and my heart,
I pulled at the threads of our connection
until they frayed beneath the weight
of unspoken truths.
Still the chasm grew;

rocks beneath my feet caused me to stumble.

I miss you.
I miss the rhythm of a life we once shared,
the harmony of understanding.
But this canyon is deep,
and the fall would swallow me whole.

So here I stand, grieving.
Not just for what we were,
but for the wounds that have happened in the healing,
the chains that we haven’t been strong enough to break.
I ache for the freedom in which we could flourish,
if not crushed by the weight
we’ve been told is love.

In spite of the pain,

my hope—for you, for us—remains.
Hope that one day the walls will crumble,
the canyon will shrink,
and we might meet again on level ground.
Hope that healing will find you
in the quiet moments,
when the noise fades into stillness
and truth sings its gentle song.

Until then, I’ll carry the memory of us;

of days spent weaving conversations into life,

of hours spent in waiting rooms, across tables, on phone calls.

Until then, I will carry you in my heart,

not locked in a dark corner,
not as a burden, but as a reminder:
of what love can be,
of what it might be again.
I’ll hold it lightly, with open palms,
trusting the winds to carry it where it belongs.

And if someday our paths align once more,
if the distance dissolves into understanding,
I will meet you there,
with a heart that remembers the good,
and arms willing to embrace all that is new.

But for now, I let go.
Not of love,
but of the reaching.
Not of care,
but of the climbing.
Not of you,
but of the fight to make us whole again.

I stand here, rooted and grieving even as I flourish and grow,
whispering a prayer into the canyon:
May you find healing.
May you find your way.

May you find peace.

Life has gifted me family in so many different ways. Today, I am thankful for new and old colliding. For learning and growing together even though it feels like lifetimes have already been lived and we are just now discovering them.

for my chosen brother.

The mind races like a storm with no horizon—
thoughts crashing, overlapping, a tempest of everything,
and yet somehow, nothing at all.

It’s a storm of noise and silence, all at once.

Focus?
It bounces like a child’s rubber ball,
escaping your grasp just as your fingers reach out.
Ideas slip, not because you are careless,
but because your hands are already so full.

And the weight of this life?
It’s heavy sometimes,

like the sky fell on your shoulders
and forgot to leave room for light.
The darkness doesn’t knock—it seeps,
quiet, uninvited, curling around the edges of everything.

You carry it all—what else can you do?
You carry it all, and keep moving, too.

I see the strength it takes to get out of bed
when the weight wants to anchor you there.
I see the courage in your chaos,
the beauty in your bouncing,
the poetry in a mind that refuses to sit still.

Your thoughts may scatter on the stormy winds,
but I know this:

There is a brilliance in the way your brain moves;
spinning storms into light,

turning shadows into vibrant hues,

bringing color to a sepia-toned world.

You are not broken.
You were never intended to be a telescope.

You are a kaleidoscope—
turning, shifting, endlessly vibrant.

Offering perspectives that could never come

from a steady gaze in one direction.

I won’t pretend storms in the darkness are easy to weather,
But dear brother, fellow traveler, we’re stronger together.

You are truly valued.
Not for what you do,
not for what you produce,
but for the simple, unshakable truth of your being.

Thank you.
Thank you for existing,
for showing up in all your messy, marvelous ways.
You are a gift my world doesn’t deserve,
but desperately needs.
Even on the hard days—especially on the hard days—
I hope you know you are more than enough.