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LISTEN

“Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father’s house. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.” —PSALM 45:10-11 (NIV)

Reflect
When did you realize that the family you grew up in was…different from other families? Maybe it was a worldview you were given. Or the rules you lived under. The dynamics between your parents or extended family or siblings might not look like that of your friends’. At some point, we may realize our family is odd. And simultaneously, so much of that
strangeness is also familiar—it’s what made you, you. How do we discover compassion for our families of origin though we might not fit in anymore? That is the ever-evolving question as we navigate growing and changing and loving, but never forgetting.

Respond
Take a blank sheet of paper, and turn it sideways (panoramic view). On the top left, write ‘sticky,’ and on the top right, write ‘stuck.’ The rest of the page is yours to fill, with words or drawings—no matter how rudimentary—to illustrate the you that is now. What small problems are sticky? What are the big problems in which you feel stuck? Talk to God about what little changes you are ready to make to get unstuck.

Blessing for when you feel stuck

You may feel like you’re cemented still.
Unable to see a way out.
Blessed are you who admit:
“I have no idea how I got here,
or how to escape this
but I am ready—
ready for more light, truth, grace.”

May today’s moments move you
to where love can reach you.
May a deep truth remind you
with each step.

May you grow where you are,
sending down roots into trusted truths,

to where love lives,
and beauty is wide awake.
Let your heart seek the one good step.

And then the next.
Movement.
That is the way.33

33 Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie. “For When You Feel Stuck” in The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for
Imperfect Days. (New York: Convergent Books, 2023). 148-149.

© KateBowler.com