What God does with the girl who almost didn’t show up
๐ “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.” โ Isaiah 40:29 (NKJV)
๐ฏ๏ธ Some milestones don’t announce themselves loudly. They don’t arrive with fanfare or a trophy in your hand. They arrive quietly โ like the moment after a storm when you realise the rain has stopped, and you’re still standing.
That’s how it felt when TENx 2026 came to a close.
At day’s end, after all the buzz and excitement had settled, I sat with it for a while before I could even find words for it. Something had shifted. Not just in the room, not just in the theatre โ something had shifted in me.
โ๏ธ A little over a year ago, I almost ditched the final day of bootcamp. Almost. I had struck a blank during rehearsal for my six-minute presentationย at home that morning, and that blank felt like a wall so high I couldn’t see over it. The old voice โ the one that whispers you’re not ready, you’re not enough, who do you think you are โ had found its moment. It doesn’t take much, does it?๐ค Just a blank page, a forgotten line, and yes I did forget a line, a moment of silence that stretches a beat too long.
I remember the feeling: the hot flush of embarrassment, the dry mouth, the sudden certainty that perhaps I’d been wrong about all of it. Perhaps the stage wasn’t for me.
๐ฏ๏ธ I went to bootcamp anyway because Clive insisted I had come to far to give up and he dropped me off.
I say that as though it was easy. It wasn’t. It took everything โ every ounce of the courage that I’ve been learning, slowly, tenderly, to borrow from God when my own runs dry.
๐ “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” โ Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)
๐๏ธ There’s a kintsugi truth in this, I think. The Japanese art of mending broken pottery with liquid gold doesn’t hide the cracks โ it honours them. It says: this piece was broken here, and here, and here โ and look how the gold has run into every fracture and made it more beautiful than it was before. The girl who almost didn’t show up to bootcamp is not the failure in this story. She’s the gold vein. She’s the evidence of where God poured Himself in.
I’ve spent years resisting the stage. Vehemently, I’d say. The word itself felt foreign in my mouth โ too big, too exposed, too bright. I am, at heart, a painter. I speak most fluently in colour and texture, in the sweep of a brush and the layering of light. Words are a different medium. They require a different kind of bravery.
๐ฑ Yet here I am. Here we are โ eleven speakers, eleven stories, one thread running through every single one of us. Many worlds. One story. That was the theme of Mini-TENx NZ 2026, held at Te Pou Theatre, and oh โ how true it proved to be. We came from different places, different seasons, different wounds and wonders. We had different accents and histories and ways of finding our footing. Yet underneath it all, the same golden thread: love finds us, heals us, sends us.
โ๏ธ Being part of the leadership team for this event was its own gift โ the kind that comes wrapped in exhaustion and joy simultaneously. You know that feeling?๐ค When you’re running on barely enough sleep and somehow running on more than enough grace?๐ค That was the behind-the-scenes of TENx. The logistics, the preparation, the prayer, the encouragement back and forth between eleven people who were all, in their own way, terrified and determined in equal measure.
๐ชจ This is what community does. This is what the Body of Christ does, when it’s functioning the way God intended โ it holds you up when you forget how to stand. It reminds you of who you are when the blank in your memory threatens to convince you that you never had anything worth saying.
I had something worth saying. I said it. Seven keys, one heart, one healing story โ offered to a room full of people with their own keys and their own broken places.
๐ฑ This isn’t the end of the learning journey. I know that. There are still rough edges in my delivery, still moments where I reach for a word and find the shelf bare.The coaches have seen places in me that I haven’t fully inhabited yet โ that’s what a good coach does. They see the next room you’re supposed to walk into, even when you’re still finding your footing in the hallway.
๐๏ธ For now, though, I simply want to sit with this. To receive it. To say โ quietly, with both hands open โ thank You, Lord. Thank You for every blank, every stumble, every almost-didn’t-show-up moment that brought me to this one.
The broken pottery didn’t get here by accident. The gold had to have somewhere to go.
๐ก Reflection:
- What is the “blank” you’re currently facing โ that wall that whispers you’re not ready, you’re not enough? ๐ค
- Can you think of a moment when showing up, even imperfectly, changed something in you? What did God do in that moment? ๐ค
- Where have you resisted a calling because it felt too exposed, too bright, too much โ and what might it look like to take one small step toward it anyway? ๐ค
- How has community held you up when you forgot how to stand? Who are the people God has placed around you, and have you thanked them lately? ๐ค
- If the cracks in your story are the place the gold runs in โ what would it look like to stop hiding them, and let them shine? ๐ค
๐บ Affirmation:
I am not disqualified by the blanks in my story.
I am made more beautiful by the places where God poured Himself in.
I am called โ not because I am fearless, but because He is faithful.
I showed up, and that was enough.
The stage was waiting, and so was He.
๐ Prayer:
Lord, thank You for every almost. Every near-miss and stumble, every rehearsal that felt like failure and every blank page that felt like proof I didn’t belong โ You were in all of it. You were writing me through all of it. I confess that I have sometimes listened to the wrong voice: the one that says sit down, stay small, this isn’t for you. Forgive me for the times I’ve almost let that voice win. Today I choose to receive this milestone with open hands โ not as something I achieved, but as something You accomplished through me. Keep me teachable, Lord. Keep me brave. Keep me showing up, even when my mouth runs dry and my courage runs thin. Let every stage I stand on be an offering, and let every story I carry be in service of the One Story that changes everything. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
There will be more stages. More rehearsals. More moments when the words slip away and you have to trust that the God who called you into the room is the same God who will fill your mouth when you open it. You showed up this time, dear heart โ and that changes something. It changes you. Go gently into what comes next, knowing that the One who gave you wings was never going to let you fall.
