Author: Stephanie Henderson

  • a meditation for who we were

    Once, we believed together.
    A faith so vast, it felt like the sky itself,
    a shared promise that stretched endlessly,
    wrapping around us like a safety net.
    We stood side by side,
    two souls tethered to the same hope,
    the same truths.

    But time has a way of unraveling things,
    doesn’t it?
    Not all at once, but thread by thread,
    questions whispering like shadows in the corners
    of a room we thought was full of light.
    I followed those shadows,
    walked into the wilderness of doubt,
    letting my faith stretch, bend,
    and break apart in places
    so it could grow into something new.

    You stayed,
    but not without a cost.
    I still see the weight of your questions,
    the quiet unease behind your smile.
    You told yourself staying was safer,
    that roots were stronger than wings,
    even as you wondered
    if they would one day hold you back.
    You stayed,
    not because you never doubted,
    but because you feared what you might lose
    if you let go.

    Now, when we speak,
    there’s a quiet ache beneath the words.
    Your faith appears solid, unshakeable.

    But I have stood too close for too long to believe all is well.
    Mine feels like the wind—
    unseen, but always moving.
    You look at me as if I’ve lost something,

    as if I’ve drifted too far,
    but I feel as though I’ve found the world.

    As different as we have always been,
    we used to share thoughts,
    the underlying truths in perfect harmony.
    Now, our words stumble,
    colliding like mismatched puzzle pieces.

    Your certainty feels fragile;
    my questions sound like betrayal.

    And yet, I still see you,
    the person who held me up
    when I couldn’t stand,
    the one who prayed for me
    when I couldn’t find the words.

    I wonder,
    is it love that keeps us here,
    or just the echoes of what we were?
    Can a shared history bridge
    two hearts that now beat
    to different rhythms?

    I want to believe it can.
    But every time I reach back
    for the faith we once shared,
    I feel the weight of it pulling me
    into a version of myself
    that no longer exists.

    So here we are,
    standing on opposite sides of a divide
    neither of us meant to create.
    I see you.
    I honor the depth of your belief,
    the way you have stayed steady
    even under the weight of the questions you carry.
    And I hope you can honor who you know me to be—
    even if I’m walking a different path.

    I carry our shared faith tenderly,
    like a pressed flower tucked away in my heart,
    a reminder of what is beautiful
    and true and good…
    a memento of who we were together.

    But I can’t live there anymore.
    I’ve traded the comfort of roots
    for the risk of wings,
    the promise of the unknown
    over the certainty of staying the same.

    It hurts;
    this letting go, this holding on,
    this love stretched across the gap
    between who we were
    and who we’ve become.
    And maybe, just maybe,
    there’s grace enough for both of us,
    even here.

  •  a meditation for who we are

    When laughter ripples like a quiet stream

    and dreams begin to echo yours,

    you know.

    Not in the way you know a fact,

    but in the way you know a song—

    Because it’s familiar,

    like it’s always been there;

    softly being hummed in the background,

    waiting to be sung in harmony.

    At first, it seems like all breathing stops,

    waiting to see if the air in this space is safe.

    Quick, shallow breaths reveal

    the fear of all that has been,

    soon changing to a collective gasp

    of surprised joy.

    Tension exhales itself in a rush,

    peace settling in its place,

    like the whole universe sighed and said,

    “Yes, this is right.”

    Hearts meet

    at the crossroads of laughter and hope,

    of dreams unfolding side by side.

    It feels like finding home in a stranger’s smile,

    like you’ve always been walking toward this moment—

    toward these people

    even when you didn’t know the way.

    This isn’t chance.

    It’s alignment.

    It’s rhythm.

    It’s the kind of connection

    that makes you believe in something bigger,

    something beautiful,

    something undeniably real.

    And now, we journey;

    together, as far as life allows.

    We hold this connection with reverence,

    with gratitude for each shared mile,

    each shared breath.

    We cherish the music our hearts make together.

    Whether the road stretches endlessly

    or curves into parting paths,

    we walk with intention,

    knowing this bond is a gift,

    a moment of grace in an uncertain time.

    For however long we are given,

    we are here.

    And for however long it lasts,

    it is enough.

  • ordination

    It felt like we lived a whole life this last weekend. From highest highs to lowest lows, we survived but I’m honestly not totally sure how. Well… I do know how. It is one of the greatest gifts of my life to have people around to throw out a life preserver when drowning seems inevitable.

    Saturday, Sunday, Monday… Life was on full display. In all it’s horrible beauty. By yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining, a breeze blowing, I could breathe again, and I looked up from a conversation with a friend to realize that the storm had passed.

    “We stop, whether by choice or through circumstance . . . We wait for our souls to catch up with our bodies.” -Eugene Peterson

    That was me last night.

    This day has been a Tuesday. Meetings and phone calls and the mundane things of life. But in the middle of the afternoon I got an email that let me know that my application for ordination had been approved. And just like that, nearly eight years of work came to a conclusion. Maybe not the one I would have first thought, or dreamed of, or even thought I wanted. But it is done. My soul caught up with my body.

    And now I move forward, blessed beyond belief by the growing community of faith that surrounds me, thankful beyond measure for the legacy of faith that raised me to be who I am, scared beyond words by the enormity of the tasks that lie ahead, and firmly standing in the center of this surprisingly, beautifully, awe-fully wonderful life.

    A friend posted a quote from a book she was reading this morning, and I had no clue just how applicable it would be by this evening. Emily P. Freeman, in her book “How to Walk into a Room.” said this about the journey of astronauts:
    “Just because re-entry is difficult doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong. On the contrary, that bumpy, fiery ride is not a mistake. It’s the actual way home.”
    I feel that tonight. This weekend was reentry, I guess. It was bumpy and fiery and felt all wrong. But here I am… having found it to be the way home.
    I love you, friends.
    And I am oh so thankful to see you here on this side of the trip.
    1f49c ordination1f49c ordination1f49c ordination
    For reference because I didn’t think about the questions people would have, information about this group that has accepted me and affirmed my call to ministry through the process of ordination can be found at opentable.network
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  • Snowfall

    It’s late. Cold. Dark.

    But I knew something was coming.
    Something hopeful.
    Something fresh.
    Snow.
    And now it’s here.
    I can breathe deeply in the frigid air. I can cool my whole body down. I can stand in the calm and quiet of the beauty falling all around me.
    Tomorrow morning, we’ll wake to a wonderfully white world outside.
    Tonight, I can rest.
    I cannot tell you how much I love winter.
    Something inside me comes alive when the snow falls. I joke that there’s ice in my veins because I was born in South Dakota… that winter is when I’m most me.
    I waited up to see the snow begin tonight. In this time of uncertainty, when so much is changing… there is hope in the snow falling quietly. There is peace in moments standing in the cold, letting my whole body know this season is here.
    Even if winter isn’t your cup of tea, take a moment to appreciate that the world keeps turning. The sun will rise. The season will change.
    Hold on, friends.
    Lower your shoulders.
    Drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
    Relax your eyebrows.
    Breathe deep.
    The snow didn’t fall all at once. And I bet some of those first snowflakes wondered if they were alone… they weren’t. You aren’t.
  • peace

    I have said for some time now that a peace which was never made cannot truly be kept. Many people are speaking these days about peacemaking and how very different it is from peacekeeping. And this statement was a part of that journey that was missing perspective for me.

    “I was taught that keeping quiet kept the peace… until I realized whose peace is it keeping. Oh, right. The offender’s at peace, the people who don’t want to deal with it at peace, and I in this little body am holding all of the war. So, l don’t want to hold it anymore.”
    It recently came to my knowledge and understanding that someone I trusted and whose perspective I valued determined me to be too unhealthy to do what I am doing because of my physical size. It’s so easy to look at someone and know whether they are healthy or not, right? To know what they should do to “appear” as they should if they were really “healthy.”
    I could go on all day about the wall that exists when we prioritize perception over reality. Sigh.
    The reality is that I spent almost 32 years having to be able to hold a war that wasn’t mine just to survive. I contained that war for far longer than I ever should have because I didn’t know any better. And my body holds the scars of that.
    On top of the war I contained, the genetics I was born with held the fallout of wars from generations gone by. Strong people in my lineage have worked to hold the entirety of wars in their time in order to keep peace and stay alive. Individuals did the work of armies in order to empower me to greater possibility and health. So many before me only had the chance to survive… Now, my body has evidenced that struggle to simply exist, and it is benefitting from the healing that has occurred and that will continue.
    I grew up believing I was only worthy if… that there was nothing good about me unless… and my body knows all about the impact of the lies it internalized in order to get me to this place in ways that I am still discovering.
    Today, I’m documenting for myself and those who may need to know it around me that I will not contain the war at my own expense any longer. I start hard conversations. I lean into the fray. I do my own work, and I will be accountable for the spaces and ways in which I fail.
    AND… I will not apologize if that doesn’t look right to people who aren’t close enough to me to know reality.
    If you would like to live in the perception that you are perfect, avoid me in 2025. Because none of us are, and I’m not pretending anything to keep peace anymore.
    I’m making peace with myself, with my immediate surroundings, with the world in which I exist. And I am living the life for which I have long fought. It’s a battle which has made and revealed peace internally which I never dreamed possible. And it is a continuing work that will likely have ongoing benefits.
    Whether any of them are ever evidenced by the size of my body or not, I will do good. I will be kind. I will live love out loud. And I will not be shamed into silence by those who would be more comfortable if I existed as they would have me.
    As the year resets, the world around me freezes, and I prepare for what is to come… I’m more ready than ever, and also thankful to keep finding areas within me that I can work on. I’m not done until I’m dead. And I’m not dead yet.
    In this last week of the year, I’m counting lessons. They’re not all pleasant, but I’ve learned so much, and I for that I am thankful.
    Look for peace, friends. Real, true, authentic peace. And if you’re seeing it in everyone around you but not within you… consider different. Consider new. Consider change. It’s happening anyway, so choose what’s next.
    I love you!
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  • Advent

    Peace… What a strange word, a foreign concept, and a welcome reality. I have for sometime held the belief and advocated for the truth that a peace cannot be kept which has never been made. For the first time in a long time, I am seeing the benefits of the peace that has been made; for which we have fought, grown, survived, lost, grieved… and I am also getting a glimpse of how it looks to keep it.

    This season, Advent has been a whole different experience. It has been interesting to see how the themes are naturally arising in life as it progresses. These are natural rhythms of grace beyond the structure that always seemed critical.
    Today, around our table, we will reflect on the hope we have encountered in this season, and we will speak peace into the coming week. As I prepared for this time together, I was reading about Mary’s song… how it looked for her to speak about a tangible peace, a lasting peace, a concrete change in circumstances that was rewriting people’s lived reality. This quote that I read from our Illustrated Ministry materials caught my attention:
    “The more public [hope] is, though, the more of a threat it becomes. The more Mary’s words began echoing in the streets, the more people start humming along, the more dangerous the world becomes for her. But she knows this: it has always been this way. To take aim at the powers that be means becoming a target yourself. And she has been instructed by the angel: “Do not be afraid.” She has the hope she inherited from Hannah and the Psalmist to let her know she’s not alone in this imagining, this yearning for a better day. She carries both of those in her heart. And in her hands, perhaps, she carries the tools to begin building a better world.”
    In that is the hope that we need in these days… as well as the challenge for us each and all of us to make the peace it will take to find our place in the ongoing story of redemption.
    How will you make peace in the coming week? How can I? Not just keeping the false peace that has been handed down by structures of oppression and violence that have benefitted from leading us to believe they were the peacegivers… but really and truly hoping forward into a peace that surpasses our ability to understand. What will that look like in the coming week?
    Let us move forward making peace by living into the health that we are learning is possible. May we make peace with the life within us so we can offer authentic peace to those around us. May it spread like Mary’s song of hope did. Look around for the tools that are already available to you, pick them up, feel their weight, recognize the power they contain, and find a place to begin or continue the work of peacemaking this week… look inside, look around. Start with yourself, however possible. And let it spread.
    You’re worth the effort, and you’re capable of being the change.
    I love you.
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  • Hope

    I think that hope was spoken into existence this week in ways that I could never have imagined that it was even possible anymore. As unusual as a lego flame adorning plastic candles with “stained glass” in the background… the strangest of hopes spring to life.

    Phone calls, emails, work, life… today has been busy from start to finish.
    My littlest kid has an appointment with a doctor I trust to help me help him be healthy. My employees are gearing up to begin services that seemed unfathomable just a few short months ago. My wonderful home has Christmas spread in and around it. My biggest kid is slowly regaining some balance after med adjustments. My class is wrapping up and this certificate is halfway completed. My eyes are heavy and I feel like rest is not far off.
    The grief side of hope is still there. Losses are not far from my mind. Friends who are no longer. Family that has shifted dramatically. There is a deep sadness that is recognized anew in the flickering light of fresh hope.
    Still I press on. I stand in the truth of who I am. I show up for myself and as myself. And I love.
    I’m off to sleep. Tomorrow is another day…
    I’m holding out hope for you, friend.
    It may show up where you least expect it, so keep an eye out.
    I love you.
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  • Christmas

    The Christmas season has been slowly creeping into our home over the last few weeks, so Advent settled in softly this morning. Early morning conversation across the miles, a nap (because the work of healing is EXHAUSTING), and then we had family worship around our dining room table.

    It is another different kind of year. Each one seems to be building on the last. The culture of our home is different as we grow, physically, intellectually, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. As we reflected together on this Sunday of hope, I took firm hold of the belief that by the end of this week, the end of this season, the end of this year… we will be looking forward with fresh eyes and a new perspective. Growth enables that, allows for that, and empowers that.
    I pray that you had time to notice all you have to be grateful for in this past week. And as we officially step into all that comes with the transition from fall into winter, from Thanksgiving into Christmas, from then to now… I desperately pray that you know you are invincibly precious, and that we are holding out hope for you.
    From our house to yours, welcome to Advent.
    You are loved, friends.
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  • done.

    When you would like to know why I no longer trust the Church of the Nazarene USA/Canada, when you wonder why my children are not allowed to be overseen by almost anyone just because the church was deemed “safe,” if anyone would like to know why I will not stop and will not be quiet when people like Keven Wentworth on the North/East Texas District Church of the Nazarene and Eddie Estep on the Kansas City District Church of the Nazarene tell me to be.

    How long will we hide these things by maneuvering people like Jim Bond into places like the Oklahoma District Church of the Nazarene? How long will Michael Thompson guide the pastors to allow and enable harms to be done to protect the establishment of what is no longer a church. I hope the denomination pays for the advice that has been distributed on their behalf. I pray that they finally learn the true cost of being more concerned about liability than humanity.
    You are not the church if you sacrifice children for dollars. You are not a church if you refuse to acknowledge when you are using shame to control people. You are not a church. Period.
    Quit deflecting. Quit hiding behind arguments about issues that you deem “more important,” like how to exclude LGBT people and those who love them.
    Get off the pinnacle, out of your ivory tower, return to your senses. This is not holiness.
    I followed my call, the God given call to relationship and love, right out of the Church of the Nazarene (Official). I knew it was coming. I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to stay if I didn’t comply, and I knew I would not be complicit in this story any longer. But as I told Kendall Franklin when we moved to the Kansas District Church of the Nazarene… I will be here for those who are waking up to these realities. I will do my own work so that I am able to support the pastors and spouses and those harmed by the enabling of perpetual abuse by this denomination.
    Four generations of my family have trusted you, served as many ways as possible, given until it hurts… It stops with me. No more.
    If you have encountered these kinds of situations, if the denomination has dismissed or threatened or discarded you in response… I see you. You are not alone.
    If you have been struggling with addiction that has led you farther than you know how to admit and you need support to move into healthier patterns… I see you. You are not alone.
    If you have been screaming into the inky blackness of the void that is the heart of this denomination for so long that you are work out and your voice is gone… I see you. You are not alone.
    Check in. Reach out. There is hope beyond the breaking hearts we should all have at this news.
    I love you, all. And I’m calling those of you who are offended by this message to do better…
    1f49c done.1f49c done.1f49c done.
  • lights

    Oh, today. You were welcomed early after a short night. You began with a slow burn and ended with embers of a life mid-unmaking.

    Today, we made plans for how to proceed with the intentional religious instruction of our family as we search for a community in which we can be safe and really be present moving forward.
    Today, we made a mess decorating for Christmas because the twinkling pinpoints of hope are desperately needed right now.
    Today, we both relaxed and leaned into the discomfort of the changes that have come and are still happening.
    I cried in the wee dark hours of the morning, grieving the losses of so many friends. I celebrated the courage of a friend I haven’t known long. I ate the most delicious cookies and was thankful for the kind care of a new friend. And I laughed over the most ridiculous things with the oldest and dearest friend of my adult life.
    If the day you had was one that also contained mountains and valleys… I see you. If you’re ending the night unsure of what tomorrow will bring… I see you. If everything seems messy as things come together… I see you.
    Our house is much brighter than it has been in many years. But tonight, it’s all lights on duty. I’m holding onto hope.
    I can hold on for you, too. If you just can’t, I get it. I’ve been there. Tonight, I have enough light to share. Some pinpoints of steady light, some changing in seemingly random ways, some constantly shifting but in predictable ways… sometimes hope is defiant. And sometimes, it’s okay to sit in the darkness and just watch for what’s next.
    I love you, friends.
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