Both True at Once
You know what it looks like before anyone says a word.
The morning of the second one, I opened the Zoom and saw two people where there’s usually one. My manager. An HR person. That was enough. I just started crying. Not from surprise. From recognition. Two years before that I’d been in the same place. Spent twelve months climbing back out. Took a new job. Did the work. Thought this time was different. Thought the work was good enough to matter long-term.
It wasn’t a performance issue. Budget. The call was cold. When it ended I went numb, because I’d been here before and already knew how heavy the road back was.
What people say in moments like this, especially if you believe, is that God is setting you up for something bigger. The struggles getting heavier are a sign. Confusion is just preparation wearing a bad disguise. I’ve heard it. Said it. There’s truth in it. But it assumes you’re watching the story from outside. Like there’s a narrator and all you have to do is hold on until the turn. Assumes you can feel the arc of the thing while you’re still inside it.
You’re not watching from outside. You’re inside it.
Inside it is three days without brushing your teeth because that effort doesn’t seem worth what it costs. Your dogs sitting by the front door. Knowing you should take them out. Not doing it. Your savings going month after month, not because you’ve been reckless, just because being alive costs money and the gap keeps going. You’re the person other people lean on with nobody leaning back. Too ashamed to say a word about it. You don’t want to be someone else’s weight on top of everything they’re already carrying.
Some days you believe God has something coming. Other days you don’t know what the point of any of this is. Both of those are true, sometimes in the same hour.
The script doesn’t have room for that. It needs you to land somewhere. Faith or doubt, peace or fear. Pick one and the story makes sense. That’s not how it works.
What I’ve landed on, slow as it came, is this: holding both things at once isn’t a failure of faith. Fear and trust aren’t opposites. They live in the same chest. The way through isn’t clarity. It’s the next small thing.
Not the application that changes everything. Not the call that turns it around. Today I took the dogs out. Today I made the bed. Today I sent one email. Called it a win and stopped there.
That’s not inspiration. That’s what’s left when everything else is gone. One thing. Then another.
You’re not alone in this. Do one thing today. Call it a win. Come back tomorrow.