May was a lot.
I don’t know how else to start this post except honestly. It was a month that asked more of me than I sometimes felt I had to give. A month of steep climbs and sudden drops and moments where I genuinely wasn’t sure which direction I was facing.
And yet here I am at the end of it. Still standing. More whole than I was at the beginning.
I want to reflect on that with you today.
The pattern I finally recognized.
If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you will recognize the language Ps. Mara gave us last Sunday: uproot, tear down, destroy, overthrow, build up, plant.
I wrote about that message just days ago. What I didn’t fully say is that I have been living that exact sequence throughout the entire month of May.
The uprooting was painful. Confronting emotions I had buried. Acknowledging things I had been pretending weren’t there. The tearing down was harder. Walls I had built for protection that had slowly become prisons. The destroying and overthrowing were the seasons of grief and resentment that came in waves I hadn’t always seen coming.
But here is what I want to say clearly: all of that clearing was not destruction for its own sake. It was preparation.
Because after the uprooting comes the planting. And I can feel that happening now.
What rebuilding has actually looked like.
Rebuilding, I have learned, rarely looks the way you imagine it will.
It doesn’t look like a dramatic turning point you can point to. It looks like a workout you didn’t want to do but did anyway. A morning walk where you notice the light is nice. A conversation with your husband that goes better than expected. A small, quiet choice to release something you have been gripping too tightly.
I have been consistent with my physical health this month in a way that has surprised even me. The gym. The daily walks. The intentional nourishment. What started as acts of survival have become acts of celebration. My body is not just a vessel I am maintaining. It is something I am honoring. And there is a difference.
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?" (1 Corinthians 6:19)
I have been learning what it means to actually live that verse rather than just quote it.
A night that reminded me why we keep choosing each other.
In the middle of all the hard work of May, Allen and I had a date night.
A real one. Just the two of us.
He took me to a Freemasonry’s charity event (for autism awareness) at 12 Monkeys bar. We had wine. We laughed. And then Mayonnaise took the stage and something in me just exhaled completely. If you know Mayonnaise you know that their music carries a particular kind of nostalgia; the kind that reaches back to a younger, less complicated version of yourself and reminds you that joy is not just something you used to have access to.
For that evening, the weight of everything we have been carrying together simply lifted. We were not two people in the middle of rebuilding a marriage. We were just two people who chose each other, enjoying a beautiful night, remembering why.
I want to be honest about what that meant to me. After everything this season has held; the pain, the hard conversations, the daily choosing; that night felt like evidence. Evidence that what we are building is real. That the effort is worth it. That there is genuine joy waiting on the other side of all this work.
I came home grateful in a way that went bone-deep.
Baguio and the sisters who held me together.
Later in the month I had a brief vacation in Baguio with my sisters and their families.
It was short. It was exactly what I needed.
There is something about being with people who have known you your whole life that requires no explanation and no performance. Jessica and Kimberly have walked alongside me through this entire season. They are the ones who dragged me to the salon when I had forgotten I was worth caring for. They are the ones who show up without being asked.
In Baguio, we simply laughed. We shared meals. We let the cool mountain air do what it does and reminded ourselves that life is still genuinely good.
I came back lighter. Not because anything had been resolved while I was away. But because connection; real, long-standing, unconditional connection; has a way of restoring something that the hard seasons quietly drain.
The surrender that changed everything.
As May came to a close, something shifted in me that I want to name carefully because it matters.
I surrendered the bitterness.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. But genuinely. I made a decision to stop letting unforgiveness anchor me to a past I am actively trying to move beyond. I acknowledged the darker corners of my own heart; the resentment I had been carrying, the ways I had been holding onto pain that was no longer serving any purpose except to keep me from being fully present.
This is what I wrote about in the chapter I called the tearing of clothes. The honest, broken-open acknowledgment that something needs to change. And then the choice to let God do what only He can do in the space that releasing creates.
Forgiveness is not forgetting. I have said that before and I mean it now more than ever. It is not minimizing what happened or pretending the pain wasn’t real.
It is simply refusing to let the past have authority over the present.
And in that refusal; in that quiet, daily, sometimes gritted-teeth choosing; I have found something I wasn’t expecting.
Peace. Actual, genuine, not-manufactured peace.
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."(Philippians 4:7)
It really does transcend understanding. Because by every logical measure, I should not feel as okay as I do right now. And yet here I am.
What I am carrying into June.
Healing is not linear. I have written that so many times this year that it has almost become a refrain. But I keep writing it because I keep needing the reminder; and because I think you might too.
May was waves. Some of them knocked me down. Some of them carried me forward. All of them were part of the same ocean.
What I know as I close this month is that I am not the same woman who opened it. I am more honest. More grounded. More clear about what I value and what I am willing to fight for. More grateful for the people around me who have shown up consistently and without agenda.
And I am more convinced than ever that restoration is not just possible. It is already happening.
One ordinary, faithful, sometimes messy day at a time.
For anyone closing out a hard month:
It is okay if May was a lot for you too.
It is okay if you are arriving at the end of it more tired than you expected. If the healing has felt slower than you hoped. If there were more waves than you were prepared for.
You are still here. That matters.
Lean into the people who love you without conditions. Take care of your body even when your heart is tired. Release what you have been gripping. Make space for the peace that is waiting on the other side of the surrender.
And trust that what God is building in the clearing; in the uprooting, the tearing down, all of it; is something worth waiting for.
June is a new page. And you get to write it. 🌿
How did May treat you? I would love to hear how you are closing out the month in the comments. 🤍
My Brightest Light 
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