Monday mornings were made for this… coffee in hand, grace on the table, and a little honest talk between women who are done pretending they’ve got it all together. I’m so glad you’re here, sister.
I want to talk to a specific woman this morning.
She knows who she is.
She’s the one who has a history that would make most people flinch if they knew the half of it. The one whose childhood was not the safe, soft thing it should have been. The one who has known trauma and loss and sickness and seasons so dark she genuinely wondered if she would make it to the other side. The one who has been broken by this world in ways she doesn’t talk about at dinner parties or post about on social media.
She might be carrying childhood wounds that never fully healed. She might be fighting a body that has turned against her. She might be somewhere on the other side of something that should have taken her out… and some mornings she still can’t quite believe she made it through.
This one is for her. This one is for you.
Because I am her too.
I grew up in a home where alcohol stole what should have been safe. I know what it is to be a little girl in an unsafe world, praying to a God I didn’t yet have a name for. I was seven years old when I started talking to Him… this God I knew was there even though nobody had told me who He was yet. Just a little girl on her knees, reaching for something solid in a world that kept shifting beneath her feet.
And then when I was eight… a man came to our door with eggs.
I know that sounds like the beginning of an unlikely story. It was. He took me to church. And there, for the first time, someone gave me the name of the One I had already been talking to. Jesus. That was His name. The One I had been reaching for in the dark since I was seven years old… He had been there all along. He just waited for someone to introduce us properly.
That was the beginning of a life that this world tried very hard to break.
I was raped. I fought cancer at twenty two. I was diagnosed with Lupus in 2023, after we moved onto our boat… this beautiful, brave, complicated life on the water that I love with everything I have. And through every single one of those storms… every one… There was this anchor that held.
Not because I was strong enough. Not because I had enough faith. Not because I got everything right. But because the God I met through a man with eggs when I was eight years old… He never once let go of me. Not when the world was at its cruellest. Not when my body was at its weakest. Not when I was at my most broken.
He never let go.
“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13 NIV
We quote this verse a lot. We put it on coffee mugs and gym bags and motivational posters. And it IS a strength verse… but I want you to hear it differently this morning. I want you to hear it as a survival verse. A still standing verse. A how are you even here verse.
Because sometimes the “all things” in Philippians 4:13 isn’t climbing mountains or achieving great things. Sometimes the all things is… getting out of bed. Choosing hope when despair would be easier. Surviving what should have broken you. Waking up on a Monday morning and still being here when by all accounts you perhaps shouldn’t be.
THAT is strength through Him. That is Philippians 4:13 in its rawest, most real form.
Sister, I don’t know your story. I don’t know what you survived to get to this Monday morning. I don’t know what you’re carrying that nobody else can see, what wounds are still tender, what seasons you’ve walked through that left their mark on you in ways that don’t show on the outside.
But I know this.
You are still here. And that is not an accident.
God is the author of your life and your destiny. He determined the day you were born and He holds the day you will leave this earth… and every single day in between is written by His hand. The world does not get the final say over your story. Circumstances do not get the final say. Sickness does not get the final say. Trauma does not get the final say.
He does.
And He said… still here.
You know this God, ladies. You know the One who moves mountains and parts seas and walks on water and raises the dead. You know the One who met a seven year old girl in the dark before she even knew His name. You know the One who shows up in cold ocean water and puts glory on a broken man’s face. You know the One who takes the most shattered pieces of a life and builds something so beautiful with them that people can’t look away.
That God… He fixed what broke. He is fixing what broke. He will fix what broke.
The world tried its hardest. It threw everything it had. And here you are on a Monday morning with a cup of coffee, still breathing, still believing, still anchored in a hope that this world cannot touch.
You are still here, girlfriend.
And that… that matters more than you know. 🤍
Abba Father, we come to You this morning as women who are still here. Still standing. Still breathing. Still reaching for You. Some of us are carrying wounds that go so deep only You can see them. Some of us are still in the middle of storms that haven’t passed yet. And some of us are on the other side of something that should have taken us out… and we are still here because of You and only You. Thank You, Lord. Thank You for being the author who doesn’t let the enemy write the ending. Thank You for being the God who fixes what broke. We are still here. And we are still Yours. Amen.
Coffee, Grace and Honest Talk
