Still.

A year ago, I limped into the mess hall—bruised, pale, and unsure of how much of me was still intact.

Some of you were there. Some of you carried me. Some of you prayed when I couldn’t pray. I had nothing in the tank. Just pain, and the sinking sense that maybe I had finally hit the edge of what I could handle.

I wrote about it back then, when everything still felt cracked open. I called it Hope in the Wreckage because that’s all I could see—wreckage. And maybe a little bit of hope pushing through the smoke.

Now it’s been a year. I’m not the same. That’s not a metaphor. I literally don’t move the same. Still wince in the mornings. Still feel it when the storms roll in. Still think twice before lifting something too heavy or jumping down from the back of the truck.

But it’s more than that. Something inside me moves different now too.

The illusion of control, that sense that if I lead hard enough, pray big enough, push through strong enough, I can hold it all together, that broke, and it hasn’t really come back. And maybe that’s okay.

Because something else showed up in its place.

This summer I’ve been walking the same trails. I’ve stood in the same spot where I fell. I’ve driven the same road where the ambulance came to get me. I’ve sat at the same bench, this time with Judah on my lap, watching chipmunks dart between the pines.

I still limp. But I’ve learned that leading with a limp isn’t a disqualification. It’s a kind of qualification.

There’s this verse I keep coming back to: “It was good for me to be afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” I don’t use that lightly. Pain is still pain. But this slow healing, this quiet, persistent grace, it’s been doing a deeper work than I ever expected.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be back to how I was before. But maybe that’s not the goal.

Maybe slower isn’t failure. Maybe less confident is more dependent. Maybe weaker is actually stronger.

So here I am, one year later. Still walking. Still healing. Still leading, even if I do it more quietly now. And more than anything, still grateful.

Step by step. Breath by breath. Grace has carried me. And grace is still enough.