Heart Check — Monday, October 5, 2026
Where are you stuck? 🔐❤️
Beloveds,
Before we talk about moving forward, I want to ask something else.
Where are you stuck?
Not where should you be by now.
Not why haven’t you gotten over it.
Not what are you doing wrong.
Where are you stuck?
And maybe an even more important question:
What happened there?
Sometimes we look at the places in our lives where we haven’t moved and immediately call ourselves lazy, afraid, stubborn, weak, unmotivated or unwilling.
But sometimes we are standing still because something happened there.
Somebody left.
Somebody hurt us.
We lost someone.
Our body changed.
Our plans changed.
Our money changed.
Our family changed.
Our career disappeared.
Our heart got broken.
Something we were absolutely certain would happen…didn’t.
Or life simply became something we never imagined it would be.
And we got stuck.
🔐
I want us to be careful with that word this week.
Because sometimes what looks like a prison today started as a shelter.
You closed that door because you needed somewhere safe.
You stopped trusting because trust hurt.
You stopped dreaming because disappointment hurt.
You stopped reaching because rejection hurt.
You stopped expecting because hoping hurt.
You stopped letting people close because somebody taught you that closeness could cost too much.
Maybe that lock served a purpose once.
So today’s Heart Check isn’t:
Why haven’t you opened the door?
It is:
Why did you need to lock it?
❤️
That is a very different question.
One begins with judgment.
The other begins with compassion.
And, beloveds, sometimes we have spent so long judging ourselves for being stuck that we have never stopped long enough to understand the person who got stuck there.
Maybe that person doesn’t need another lecture.
Maybe they need you to come back for them.
👀
Come back for the version of you who was scared.
Come back for the version who didn’t know what to do.
Come back for the version who made the best decision they could with what they knew then.
Come back for the version who survived.
Come back for the version who thought closing the door was the only way to stay safe.
And sit with them awhile.
🪑
Don’t drag them out.
Don’t tell them how long they should have been there.
Don’t tell them everybody else has moved on.
Don’t tell them they are wasting time.
Just come for them.
Because love doesn’t have to kick down a locked door.
Sometimes love simply sits beside it long enough to say:
I’m still here.
🔑❤️
I have learned something about love.
Real love can tell the truth without turning truth into a weapon.
Real love can say something needs to change without saying you are unworthy because it hasn’t changed yet.
Real love can correct without condemning.
Real love can see the lock and still see the person behind it.
And sometimes that person is you.
Maybe today you are the one who needs to hear:
You are still worth coming for.
Not when you’re healed.
Not when you’ve figured everything out.
Not when you’ve finally become who you think you should be.
Now.
Right there.
Behind that door.
❤️
And for those who share my faith, I believe something even deeper.
Sometimes we imagine God standing outside our locked places waiting for us to get ourselves together and come out.
But I have lived enough life to believe differently.
Sometimes I discover that while I was asking why God hadn’t come through the door…
He was already sitting inside the locked room with me.
😭❤️
The door was locked.
Love wasn’t locked out.
So Monday’s Heart Check is not asking you to unlock anything.
Not yet.
Today, just notice.
Where am I stuck?
What happened there?
What was this lock protecting?
And maybe one more:
What would change if I stopped judging the person behind the door and started loving them instead?
We have all week.
Nobody is kicking your door down.
I’ll come back tomorrow.
❤️🔐🔑🪑
loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
