Unexpected Opportunity After the Ache

When grace reaches into a place you thought had only held disappointment, and God gently unsettles the story you had been telling yourself

🕯️ I wasn’t expecting the phone to ring.

Last night, after Clive had already gone to bed — worn out from a day of listening to his mother’s old voice messages and weeping through every one of them — I was left alone with my thoughts, which is never the safest place for me when I’m already carrying more than I know what to do with. I’d gone to The Crate earlier for towels and NNTs, carrying a quiet guilt about leaving him at home alone, and I hadn’t been very successful at anything there either. The grief had settled low, like a fog that doesn’t lift — heavy and still — and I was close to tears when my phone rang.

I saw a familiar name on the screen. He introduced himself as though I wouldn’t know him, which almost made me laugh. Almost. What’s up with that? 🤔 He asked how I was, and I said “okay.” Then he asked whether I’d meet with him about a possible opportunity.

✍️ This morning has left me utterly flabbergasted.

I walked into The Crate today not quite knowing what to expect. What followed was one of those conversations that moves through many layers all at once — grief and humour and vulnerability and surprise — like water finding its own level without being told where to go.

We spoke about Clive, about Ann’s passing, about the boys, about Cape Town, about funerals and family and the ordinary weight of extraordinary loss. There were small moments of laughter too — the kind that sit oddly but kindly beside heartache, as though the soul can’t stay underwater for too long without needing one small breath of air.

🕊️ The thing about grief is that people mean well. They genuinely do. Still, they so often say the wrong thing. She’s in heaven now. She’s in a better place. She’s not suffering anymore. Every word is true — and yet somehow those words, offered too quickly or too brightly, press down on the grief rather than making room for it. They send a quiet message: you shouldn’t still be hurting. So you nod and smile and feel the grief fold itself up and slip somewhere harder to reach.

I said it aloud that morning, though. I said: you are allowed to grieve. I think I needed to hear myself say it. I needed a witness to that small declaration, because the temptation to push it down is so strong — especially when I’ve watched, my whole life, how pain gets spiritualised away rather than walked through.

📖 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.” — Isaiah 43:2 (NKJV)

He doesn’t promise we won’t get wet. He doesn’t promise the fire won’t be hot. He promises He will be with us in it. That’s different. That matters.

🪨 There was something deeply disarming in being seen that morning. Not exposed — just noticed. Not interrogated — just gently recognised.

At one point, he told me he hadn’t believed me when I said ” I was okay” the night before. He’d sensed a distance, felt he’d interrupted something, or perhaps caught me in a difficult moment. He was right. I’d been in one of those near-to-tears dips, the kind that come quietly and sit heavily, where grief and old pain and present uncertainty all gather in the same room. That he’d noticed — that he’d held it overnight and asked again — did something in me.

Then the conversation shifted.

He asked about me. About what was happening beyond the next difficult weeks. I mentioned TENx at the Speakers Tribe Gathering in May, applying for the mini TENx in June, writing the book, the Learning and Community Hub, the studio, the healing gatherings, the encounter groups, the leadership training — the vision of being outside a church building so the wounded, the overlooked, and the ones in the gutter might still encounter the love of God in a space they can enter. I was simply answering. I didn’t realise the ground beneath the conversation was already moving.

🌱 Then he told me why he’d called.

There was a role. An administrator needed somewhere he was involved. As he began describing it, I realised he was describing everything I’d done before. All of it.

Then he asked:

“Who do you know that I should know?🤔“

I thought he meant someone else.

He was looking at me when he said the only person he could think of was the person he was looking at right now.

Me.

🕯️ I don’t think he understood how much weight landed in that moment. After everything last year — after being replaced by the virtual administrator, after the inner wrestlings, the tears, the anger, the prayer ministry, the self-questioning, the quiet sense of having been set aside and made disposable — I sat there hearing someone say, in essence:

I know you. I trust you. I’ve seen your growth. I know what you can do.

Those words landed in a place that still remembers last year’s bruising.

What I realised, sitting there that morning, is that I’d been self-sabotaging. Not just with him. With myself. With opportunities. With trust. Because underneath the anger was always the older wound: the fear that when it comes down to it, I’m replaceable. That I’ll be overlooked. That people won’t show up.

Then there he was. Showing up.

✍️ I felt both honoured and cautious.

Part of me immediately asked the honest question:

Do I want to do this again? 🤔

Do I want to step back onto that kind of roller coaster?🤔

Do I want to put my heart somewhere old pain might be stirred?🤔

Those aren’t cynical questions. They’re sober ones. There are seasons when an opportunity isn’t just about whether you can do something, but whether it’s wise, whether it fits, whether it aligns with where God is taking you — and whether your yes would flow from peace rather than fear, striving, or the need to prove something.

🕊️ I told him I’d think about it and pray about it. That felt right. No forced answer. No hurried performance. No need to decide from shock. Just space. Just prayer. Just wisdom.

The conversation moved into tender territory after that. We spoke about limbo land, about grief, about the prayer ministry session on Monday, about the emotional fallout of recent weeks, about my father, about old unresolved wounds and how quickly news from family can press into places still raw.

At one point I told him something I hadn’t planned to say. That I’d had so many angry conversations in my head with him — full of screaming and crying — all of it pouring out in prayer ministry, all of it tied to pain that hadn’t yet been fully resolved. That wasn’t an accusation. It was honesty. It was the truth that healing often includes admitting that our reactions aren’t always about the present moment alone. Sometimes they carry the weight of old injuries, old fears, old conclusions, old betrayals, and old agreements with rejection.

“You’re off the hook now,” I told him. “You’ve been forgiven.” I meant it. I really meant it. The screaming in my head has gone quiet.

🪨 What struck me most was what he said in response.

“Why would I invite you?🤔

Why would I call you?🤔

Why would I spend time speaking to you if I didn’t like you, trust you, or want you involved?🤔“

Those questions did something in me. Not because another person’s opinion defines my worth — it doesn’t — yet sometimes the Lord uses the voices of others to confront the lies we’ve quietly permitted to settle in the dark.

The lie says you are unwanted. The lie says you’re too much, too wounded, too complicated, too late. The lie says your past disqualifies you. The lie says the door has shut.

I had believed that lie more than I’d realised. I’d let it furnish a room in me and call it truth. I’d decorated around it, built my expectations to its dimensions, and quietly stopped questioning whether it was real or simply familiar. Familiar can feel so much like fact when you’ve lived with it long enough.

Then, in the kindness of God, a conversation comes that simply doesn’t fit the lie. A man looks you in the eye and asks why he’d bother showing up if he didn’t want you there. The lie has no answer for that. It just goes quiet.

📖 “See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it.” — Revelation 3:8 (NKJV)

🌱 The same week I’d sat in a Freedom Weekend session and finally released the resentment and bitterness I’d been carrying toward Ann — thirty minutes before I got the news she was gone — I had the chance to release something else too. God was doing something bigger than I could see in real time. Clearing things. Making room. Opening what I thought were sealed-up doors.

I didn’t go looking for this one. It came and knocked while I was sitting in my grief with tear-stained thoughts and cold coffee.

I don’t yet know what I’ll decide about this opportunity. What I do know is this: today carried an unexpected kindness. It carried dignity. It carried affirmation. It carried the possibility that God is still writing in places where I assumed the sentence had already ended.

This morning didn’t erase last year. Healing rarely works like that. Yet it did interrupt the narrative. It did challenge the assumptions. It reminded me that rejection isn’t always the final word — and that sometimes the Lord allows honour to meet us in the very places where we once felt displaced.

🕊️ Perhaps this isn’t only about a role. Perhaps it’s also about restoration. Perhaps it’s about being seen again in a place where I once felt unseen. Perhaps it’s about learning that I don’t need to run from every doorway that resembles an old wound — and that not every invitation is a trap, and not every new opportunity is a repetition of an old pain.

🪨 I need to pray. I need to sit with it. I need to notice what rises in me — peace or pressure, grace or fear, clarity or striving. For now I’m holding this gently before the Lord with open hands. If this is from Him, He’ll confirm it. If it isn’t, He’ll make that clear too.

Either way, I’m grateful. Grateful for the conversation. Grateful for the care. Grateful for the dignity. Grateful that in the middle of grief, limbo, and healing, I was reminded that I’m still seen.

💡 Reflection:

• Where has past disappointment quietly shaped the way you interpret present opportunities? 🤔
• Have you mistaken an old wound for a permanent verdict over your life? 🤔
• Is there a resentment you’ve been carrying in your interior world — conversations you’ve had with someone in your head that they’ve never heard? What would it mean to release that person from the hook of your unspoken anger? 🤔
• How might God be interrupting a false narrative you’ve carried about being unwanted or replaced? 🤔
• When God opens an unexpected door, what’s your first response — faith, fear, or a mixture of both? What would it look like to step toward it prayerfully rather than running from it or rushing in? 🤔

🎺 Affirmation:

I am not disqualified by grief, bruised by the past, or defined by what once displaced me. The Lord is able to restore dignity in the very places that once carried pain. I am seen, I am still entrusted with purpose, and I am free to move forward in wisdom, peace, and grace.

🙌 Prayer:

Father, thank You for meeting me in unexpected places and for speaking kindness into spaces that still ache. Thank You for reminding me that rejection isn’t the final word over my life. Where old wounds still shape my reactions, bring truth, healing, and holy clarity. Guard me from striving, fear, and self-sabotage. Teach me to discern with peace, to receive honour without fear, and to walk through only the doors You open. Hold my grieving heart, steady my thoughts, and make Your way clear before me. Hold Clive in his grief tonight. Hold Graham as he works through the numb. Draw my father back to life and back to You. Do what only You can do in this broken and beautiful season. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

🕯️ I don’t have to decide today. It’s enough to notice that something tender was touched, something hopeful was stirred, and something long bruised was gently answered. I’m still held, still seen, and still being led.