Both True at Once
You know what it looks like before anyone says a word. The morning of my second layoff, I opened Zoom and saw two people instead of one. My manager and someone from HR. That was enough for me to start crying. It wasn’t because I was surprised. I just recognized the feeling. Two years earlier, I was in the exact same spot and spent twelve months digging myself out. I took a new job, did the work, and really thought this time would be different. I thought my work was good enough to keep me safe.
But it wasn’t about performance. It was just a budget cut. The call felt completely cold. When we hung up, I went numb. I’d been here before, so I already knew exactly how hard the road back was going to be.
When things like this happen, people usually tell you that God is setting you up for something bigger. They say the heavy struggles are a sign, and that confusion is just preparation in a bad disguise. I’ve heard all that before, and I’ve even said it myself. There’s some truth to it. But that script assumes you’re watching your own story from the outside. It assumes there’s a narrator and you just have to hold on for the plot twist. It acts like you can feel the bigger picture while you’re still stuck inside the mess.
But you aren’t on the outside. You’re right in the middle of it. Being inside it means going three days without brushing your teeth because the effort just doesn’t feel worth it. It’s your dogs sitting by the front door, and you know you should take them out, but you just sit there. It’s watching your savings dry up month after month. Not because you were reckless, but because being alive costs money and the gap keeps getting wider.
You become the person everyone else leans on, but nobody is holding you up. And you feel too ashamed to even mention it. You don’t want to be another heavy weight on top of what everyone else is already carrying.
Some days you believe God has a plan for you. Other days you have no idea what the point of any of this is. Both of those things are true, and sometimes you feel them in the exact same hour. The usual script doesn’t have room for that kind of mess. It wants you to land clearly on faith or doubt, peace or fear. Pick one, and then the story makes sense. But that’s just not how life works.
What I’ve finally figured out is that holding both of those feelings at once isn’t a failure of faith. Fear and trust aren’t opposites. They live right next to each other in the same chest. The way through this isn’t sudden clarity - it’s just doing the next small thing.
It’s not that one job application that changes your life, or the perfect phone call that turns it all around. Today I took the dogs out. Today I made the bed. Today I sent exactly one email. I called it a win and stopped right there.
That’s not meant to be inspirational. That’s just what’s left when everything else is gone. One thing, then another. You aren’t alone in this. Just do one thing today, call it a win, and try again tomorrow.