I was sitting in my prayer room last Thursday, journaling through a week that had quietly worn me down, when my four-year-old son Adi walked in and said, simply, “I love you.” Nothing more. He turned around and left just as quickly as he came.
I sat there for a moment after he left. Who am I to complain?
That question followed me through the rest of the week. I didn’t expect a superhero movie a few nights later to hand me the words for what I’d been carrying, but it did, and I’ll get to that.
A house full of rain and gratitude
The past week brought torrential rain heavy enough that classes and government offices were called off. My husband Allen and my kids, Adi and Snowy, were home with me the whole time.
I have a roof over my head. A comfortable house. A husband and children filling every noisy corner of it while I tried to work from my home office. And if I’m honest, there were moments I felt that quiet, guilty tug of resentment at the noise while I was trying to hit a deadline, immediately followed by the guilt of feeling it at all. You know the feeling, don’t you? Grateful and stretched thin in the very same breath.
Still, I didn’t have to battle the floods or the commute, and I was surrounded by the people who matter most. That’s a grace I try not to take for granted.
The genius I didn’t know I had
Somewhere in the middle of that week, I picked up The 6 Types of Working Genius, a book our CEO had encouraged the team to read. My own genius, it turns out, sits in Wonder and Discernment.
Reading that gave language to something I’d always sensed but never articulated. What energizes me. What drains me. Where my frustrations tend to come from. It explained why I’ve never been able to settle into a role that turned into pure routine. I’m always reaching for where I can maximize the wonder and the discernment, which tracks with the other lens I already knew about myself: Enneagram Type 8, the Challenger.
I won’t pretend the week was entirely light. A concern was raised about something I’d handled, from someone whose opinion carries real weight for me, and instead of being settled in the moment, it followed me home. I carried it into Saturday morning, still turning it over in my head before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee. If you’ve ever let an unresolved conversation quietly hijack a weekend that was supposed to be yours, you know exactly how that feels.
I’ve been in this long enough to know no workplace is perfect, and no one is immune to being misunderstood sometimes. What stings most isn’t the disagreement itself; it’s being seen for what you didn’t do rather than everything you did. What I keep coming back to is that I believe deeply in being intentional with people, in how we raise concerns and how we receive them, because how we handle each other still matters, even on the hard days.
Old notes, a familiar hand
That same evening in my prayer room, surrounded by books and old journals, I got curious and opened my 2013 journal.
It was from the era before AI note-takers. Just me, my pen, and trying to catch every detail from my boss and mentor at the time. Notes from some of my first significant projects, written in my own handwriting, because that was simply how it was done.
I was the one everyone trusted to catch every detail in those meetings. I loved turning those notes into action until the project was done. It’s a different season now, and I’m still learning to keep up with all the new technology; the unlearn-and-learn mantra never really stops. But reading those old pages, I realized the tools have changed and the woman holding the pen hasn’t.
A gift I prayed for ten years ago
That’s the same evening Adi walked in and said what he said. Thank you, Lord, for that gift, the son we prayed for ten years ago. He’s four now. Time flies.
The next night, Allen, Adi, and I went out for a dinner date and watched Spider-Man: Brand New Day together at the cinema. They patiently waited for me to finish work first. My heart is so full watching my son enjoy something like that, being present for it as his mother. Thank you, God, for the gift of this family.
What the movie reminded me
Here’s the line the movie handed me: don’t let heartache, or the pain of losing someone you love, turn you into a person you’re not.
The world isn’t perfect. There will be people who try to tear you down, especially once they notice you carry something they don’t have. But that shouldn’t be the reason we shrink our gift, or twist it into something bitter. Let your power, your talent, be used at its fullest. Don’t hesitate. Don’t hold back your full potential because someone else couldn’t hold it well.
Where this leaves me
There are people, yes, that I cannot please with my work. But God knows my heart. He knows my passion. He knows my calling. I don’t need to justify my worth to those who cannot see it, and I don’t need to carry every heavy conversation into my weekend, into my prayer room, into the people who love me most.
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” — Colossians 3:23
That verse reframes everything. My work was never really an offering to the people scoring it. It was always an offering upward, and that is the only audience I ultimately answer to.
If you’re feeling caught in the crossfire of professional doubt, give yourself the grace to stop overthinking today. Set down the heavy thoughts from the office and breathe in the quiet of your home. You are more than your job title, your tasks, or the feedback you received on a Tuesday afternoon.
Lord, thank you. I am grateful, beyond grateful. There are people I cannot please, but You know my heart, You know my passion, You know my calling.
What would it look like this week to let the people who love you carry a little of what you’ve been holding alone? 🌿
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