Dear Friend,

I want to tell you a story about a woman I know.

From the outside, she looks like she has it all together. Beautiful home. Hard-working husband. Great kids… minus one. (Kidding. Mostly. We all have that one kid who requires extra prayer coverage. I personally have two—sometimes three, depending on the day of the week.)

She gets her family to church, her Facebook photos are flawless, and if perfection were a filter, she’d be using it daily.

But after talking with her—really talking—I realized something. This woman loves God deeply… and she’s fighting battles no one sees. Quiet ones. Heavy ones. The kind you don’t post with a caption and matching outfit.

She’s stepping back into full-time work after 15 years away, hitting learning curves and speed bumps she didn’t expect, and instead of giving herself grace, she’s beating herself up for not being instantly excellent at everything. Her expectations—career, family, life—feel overwhelming, and disappointment keeps whispering that she’s falling short.

I keep asking her about her prayer life and her walk with God, not because she’s doing it “wrong,” but because I know when those things are aligned, perspective changes. God never promised us a life without challenges—He promised restoration through them. This isn’t the end of her story; it’s just a season.

It reminds me of Job. Loss after loss. Pain stacked on pain. Even the people closest to him said, “Just curse God and give up.” But one voice said, look to God—restoration will come. And it did.

My husband read this paragraph to me out of the book “The kingdom Agenda” and it said, the problem in most of our lives today is that God is merely in the vicinity, not in the center.

Here’s the part that humbled me:
I used to be that woman. I made time for what matter to me in that moment, and it didn’t include God first.

Money was first, God was second. I worried constantly. My kids outranked God, and I micromanaged their lives so hard I accidentally raised tiny anxiety managers. I thought I had to perform, prove, and protect everything. I wasn’t living — I was managing optics.

I believed I was who people thought I was, and that belief crippled me with anxiety. The fraud feeling? I knew it well.

Putting God first didn’t make life perfect—but it gave me peace. And freedom. The kind that lets you breathe again.

So, before we look into someone else’s glass globe and assume they have it all figured out, let’s remember this:
We all carry luggage from the past.
We all fight battles.
Two things can be true at the same time — the cover can be beautiful, and the story inside can still be a rough draft.

This woman taught me to walk in love, to be patient, and to never judge a book by its cover—especially my own.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
—Proverbs 3:5–6

With love and a little grace for all of us,

Note: Here is a prayer I prayed and continue to pray that has changed my life.

Dear God, remove the FEAR from me that keeps me playing small and replace it with the FAITH that reminds me I was made for more and in your image.  Amen.

From Your Friend, It’s Me Lorie