Author: Cassandra S.
THE CHAIR.
PRE-NOTE: I have been really sick but fighting to get this to you unscathed. Pain and 🤒 won’t let go
Still, I fight on. Hours late, but here. Will have to come back to add photos. Here goes nuttin…
📫 THE CHAIR STAYS. 🪑💜
Beloveds,
I need to tell you something about the chair.
Not a chair.
The chair.
The one sitting beside me.
The one I keep putting into these pictures.
The one that might look empty if you do not know what you are looking at.
It is not empty.
It has never been empty.
That chair is there on purpose.
When I first started imagining this little world we have been building together, I kept seeing a chair beside me.
Sometimes we are fishing.
Sometimes we are sitting near the water.
Sometimes we are traveling.
Sometimes we are laughing.
Sometimes I am tired.
Sometimes I am thinking.
Sometimes I am simply looking out at this beautiful, complicated 🌎 and wondering what God is teaching me next.
But there is a chair.
🪑
And the chair stays.
Because somewhere along the way, I realized what it meant.
The chair is an invitation.
It says:
Come sit with me.
You do not have to believe everything I believe.
You do not have to look like me.
You do not have to sound like me.
You do not have to vote like me.
You do not have to worship like me—or worship at all.
You do not have to understand everything about my life.
And I do not have to understand everything about yours.
You can still sit down.
💜
That matters to me.
Because too many people have spent their lives wondering whether there is a chair for them.
Some of us learned very early what it feels like to walk into a room and wonder:
Where am I supposed to sit?
Some know what it feels like to be left out.
Some know what it feels like to be misunderstood.
Some know what it feels like to be tolerated instead of welcomed.
Some know what it feels like to have people decide who you are before you ever get the opportunity to introduce yourself.
Some have been told directly that the table was not built for them.
And some were technically allowed at the table but were made to feel every single minute that somebody wished they were not there.
I know something about wanting to belong.
And maybe that is one reason this chair matters so much to me.
I cannot fix every table.
I cannot make every room welcoming.
I cannot force anybody to see another human being with compassion.
But I can decide what happens beside me.
And beside me?
There is a chair.
🪑
For the person who believes.
For the person who doubts.
For the person who has questions.
For the person who is angry.
For the person who is grieving.
For the person who has made a mess.
For the person rebuilding after the mess.
For the person who feels strong today.
For the person barely hanging on.
For the person everybody notices.
And especially for the person who has gotten used to being overlooked.
Sit down.
You do not have to perform first.
You do not have to explain yourself into worthiness.
You do not have to make yourself smaller so I can feel bigger.
And I do not have to disappear so you can belong either.
There is room for both of us.
That may be one of the most important things I am learning.
Making room for you does not require erasing me.
And being fully me does not require pushing you out of the chair.
We can be different.
We can disagree.
We can ask hard questions.
We can correct one another.
We can learn.
We can laugh.
We can occasionally get on one another’s nerves. 🤣
We can even have to repair something we broke between us.
And still—the chair stays.
🪑💜
Because belonging cannot mean, “You may stay as long as you never disappoint me.”
That is not belonging.
That is probation.
Love has to be sturdier than that.
Grace has to be bigger than that.
Community has to be brave enough for that.
And Lord knows, I am still learning how to do it.
I am learning that loving people does not mean pretending harm did not happen.
I am learning that forgiveness does not mean abandoning boundaries.
I am learning that listening does not require surrendering my own voice.
I am learning that disagreement does not automatically make somebody my enemy.
And I am learning that sometimes the bravest thing we can do after something has gone wrong is look at the chair and say:
No.
Leave it there.
We are going to try again.
💜
That is the world I want my love to keep showing.
Not a perfect world.
Not a world where everybody suddenly agrees.
Not a world where difference disappears.
I do not want that world.
I want this one.
A world full of colors.
Cultures.
Accents.
Bodies.
Abilities.
Stories.
Questions.
Faith.
Doubt.
Music.
Laughter.
Tears.
People still becoming.
People still learning.
People still getting some act right. 🤣
People still discovering that somebody else’s humanity does not threaten their own.
And wherever I am in that world—
Paris.
Chicago.
At the ocean.
At the Grand Canyon.
In a library.
On a sidewalk.
Fishing somewhere with absolutely no idea whether I am doing it correctly. 🎣🤣
There will be another chair.
🪑
Maybe sometimes somebody will be sitting in it.
Maybe sometimes it will appear empty.
But now you know.
It isn’t empty.
It is holding space.
For conversation.
For possibility.
For reconciliation.
For curiosity.
For friendship.
For somebody I have not met yet.
Maybe even for you.
So when you see that chair show itself from now on, do not ask:
Who forgot to sit there?
Remember what it means.
It means:
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE.
Pull up a seat.
Bring your story.
Bring your questions.
Bring your whole complicated self.
I will bring mine too.
We do not have to become the same person to sit beside one another.
We just have to remember that the person in the other chair is a human being whose life matters.
And Beloveds—your life matters to me.
So wherever this journey takes us next, I already know one thing.
The scenery will change.
I will change.
You will change.
We will learn things.
We will unlearn things.
We will laugh.
We may cry.
We might even have to move the furniture around sometimes. 🤣
But that chair?
THE CHAIR STAYS.
🪑💜
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
I have tried since after midnight to have this scheduled for 6:30. God and life had other plans. Be encouraged… RISE
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are ¹ alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His. ❤️
THE
Help me be loud:
WEDNESDAY 🌎
🤣🗺️🛣️🔑 WEDNESDAY NOON
APPARENTLY, THIS IS THE PLAN. 🤣
Beloveds,
I have reviewed the itinerary.
I have examined the map.
I have consulted the available evidence.
And I have one question:
WHO PLANNED THIS?!
😭🤣
Because I KNOW this cannot possibly be the route I selected.
I distinctly remember requesting something smooth.
Maybe a little sunshine.
A reasonable incline.
Snacks.
Adequate bathroom facilities.
And preferably NO surprise character development before lunch.
Yet here we are.
🗺️
PLAN A ➡️ CLOSED.
PLAN B ⬅️ UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
PLAN C ⤴️ APPARENTLY REQUIRES EQUIPMENT.
PLAN D ⤵️ Why are we even going down there?!
And then there’s one handwritten sign leaning sideways beside the road:
PROCEED SOMEHOW.
Sir.
Ma’am.
Beloved.
That is not a direction.
🤣🤣🤣
Life has an absolutely fascinating habit of changing the itinerary without consulting the traveler.
You packed for one destination and somehow ended up somewhere requiring an entirely different wardrobe.
You practiced the speech and nobody asked the question.
You prepared the answer and life changed the test.
You organized Monday beautifully and Tuesday arrived carrying a folding chair, three unidentified problems and absolutely no paperwork.
😭
And sometimes all you can do is stand there looking at the situation like:
You tried it.
Because I might be on the detour—
but I still have some agency around here.
🔑
I can stop.
I can rest.
I can ask questions.
I can ask for help.
I can refuse foolishness.
I can change direction.
I can laugh.
I can cry.
I can sit down.
I can get back up.
I can reconsider.
I can say, Nah, fam.
I can take two seats if necessary.
I can take THREE if somebody brings snacks.
🤣
And perhaps most importantly:
I do not have to insult myself because the road got difficult.
The map can be ridiculous without ME being ridiculous.
The situation can be frustrating without ME being a failure.
The plan can fall apart without ME falling apart with it.
And even when I do fall apart a little?
Okay.
Apparently that was on today’s itinerary too.
❤️
We’ll gather the pieces.
We’ll pull up a chair.
We’ll get some water.
We’ll find somebody trustworthy.
We’ll breathe.
We’ll laugh when we’re ready.
And then we’ll decide what belongs to us next.
Because yesterday’s plan does not own today’s person.
🔑🔑🔑
Now, my faith tells me God can work with a detour.
Actually, if I read my Bible correctly, He has quite a history of meeting people in places that were definitely NOT on their original itinerary.
Wilderness.
Boats.
Prisons.
Roads.
Storms.
Gardens.
Mountains.
Dinner tables.
And more than a few situations where somebody probably wanted to ask:
Lord…THIS is the plan?
👀🤣🙏🏿
I don’t always understand Him.
I don’t pretend to.
But I trust Him enough to keep walking when I can, sitting when I need to, and listening along the way.
And if faith isn’t part of your map?
Come sit down anyway.
Atheist.
Agnostic.
Questioning.
Believing.
Not believing.
Still deciding.
Never planning to decide.
You do not need my theology to understand a detour.
Life has handed every kind of human being at least one map that made absolutely NO sense.
🌎❤️
So maybe we can meet each other there.
Not pretending our roads are identical.
Not demanding everybody travel the way we travel.
Just saying:
Ohhhh. Your map got weird too?
🤣
Pull up a chair.
Now listen, Beloveds.
If you are standing somewhere today thinking,
This was absolutely NOT the plan…
Welcome.
Apparently, we have a club.
There are no dues.
The dress code is whatever you managed to put on.
Attendance is optional.
Snacks are strongly encouraged.
And our official transportation policy is:
Whatever gets you there.
Feet.
Wheels.
Cane.
Walker.
Crutches.
Somebody’s arm.
A chair.
A pause.
A crawl.
A prayer.
A good friend.
One stubborn little step.
However you move through this world—
your movement belongs to you.
💯🔑
And if somebody comes along pointing at your detour and explaining how THEY would have traveled it?
Wonderful.
Hand them the map.
🤣🤣🤣
Go ahead.
Since you know everything.
You drive.
I’ll be over here with my snacks.
😭🤣
Beloveds, sometimes encouragement sounds profound.
Sometimes it sounds like scripture.
Sometimes it sounds like somebody whispering, Keep going.
And sometimes encouragement is simply looking at the absolute foolishness happening around you and deciding:
This situation will NOT steal every laugh I have left.
That laugh belongs to me.
That joy belongs to me.
That choice belongs to me.
🔑
So no, this may not have been Plan A.
Frankly, I’m beginning to suspect Plan A left the group chat several exits ago.
🤣
But I’m still here.
You’re still here.
There is still road ahead.
And apparently—
THIS IS THE PLAN.
Or at least this is where we are.
And HERE?
We can work with HERE.
🛣️🔑❤️
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours. ❤️
If your life has ever looked at your carefully prepared plans and said, “That’s cute” 🤣, come tell us about your detour. Comment, share this with somebody whose map has gotten weird, like it, subscribe/follow, and come back for some daily encouragement.
And somebody PLEASE bring snacks.
Apparently we’re taking the scenic route. 😭🤣🗺️🛣️
Help me be loud:
WEDNESDAY 🌎
📫 YOU WERE NEVER UGLY. 💔🌎🥹🔑
Beloveds,
Apparently somebody, somewhere, got appointed President of the International Committee of Who Gets to Be Beautiful.
Nobody remembers voting.
Yet somehow, human beings have spent generations walking around with imaginary clipboards deciding:
Too dark.
Too light.
Too fat.
Too thin.
Too loud.
Too quiet.
Wrong hair.
Wrong nose.
Wrong body.
Wrong clothes.
Wrong accent.
Wrong voice.
Wrong neighborhood.
Wrong country.
Wrong way of speaking.
Wrong way of moving through the world.
And some of us received those evaluations before we were old enough to understand that the people holding the clipboards did not actually have any authority.
I was eight years old when “ugly” became more than a word.
Children can learn very early which faces the world celebrates and which ones it mocks. They can learn who gets invited, who gets chased down hallways, who sits at the lunch table surrounded by laughter—and who learns how to eat while pretending being alone does not hurt.
Sometimes a child carries one careless word for decades.
Ugly.
That word can grow up with you.
It can follow you into mirrors.
Into photographs.
Into friendships.
Into dating.
Into marriage.
Into classrooms.
Into workplaces.
Into churches.
Into hospital rooms.
It can even follow you into recovery, when the body you finally learned to love suddenly moves differently, sounds differently, needs different equipment, or requires help doing things it once did without thought.
And that is why this conversation is bigger than beauty.
It is about belonging.
Because humanity has created thousands of sophisticated ways to say:
You would be easier for me to accept if you were a little less you.
Speak differently.
Straighten this.
Hide that.
Lose this.
Change that.
Fix your accent.
Lower your voice.
Control your face.
Make your body less noticeable.
Make your disability less inconvenient.
Make your Blackness less Black.
Make your culture easier for me to understand.
Make your faith quieter.
Make your doubt quieter.
Make your anger prettier.
Make your grief more comfortable.
Make yourself acceptable—
and then perhaps we will let you belong.
Nevertheless.
However.
What if belonging was never theirs to give?
🔑
What if the little girl somebody called ugly was never ugly?
What if the accent somebody mocked was never broken English?
What if the voice somebody dismissed was carrying wisdom they simply had not learned how to hear?
What if the wheelchair was not an eraser?
What if the cane was not a declaration of defeat?
What if scars were not disqualifications?
What if age did not subtract beauty?
What if different was never another word for deficient?
What if the problem was never the human being standing before us—
but the tiny measuring stick we were taught to use?
💔🌎
The world is heartbroken.
And sometimes we keep handing broken measuring sticks to one another.
That is one chain I desperately want us to break.
⛓️ You must look like this to be beautiful.
🔑 No. Human beauty was never manufactured from one template.
⛓️ You must sound like this to be intelligent.
🔑 No. Intelligence has accents.
⛓️ You must move like this to be whole.
🔑 No. Wholeness has wheelchairs, walkers, braces, prosthetics, canes, trembling hands, altered bodies and very creative ways of getting from here to there.
⛓️ You must believe what I believe to sit beside me.
🔑 No. Pull up a chair.
Believer.
Atheist.
Agnostic.
Questioning.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Still figuring the whole thing out.
Come sit.
My faith does not require me to make you smaller so God can be bigger.
I believe God so loved the world.
Not the polished world.
Not the attractive world.
Not the Christian-enough world.
Not the able-bodied world.
Not the English-speaking-with-the-approved-accent world.
The world. 🌎
And if you do not believe any of that?
You still get the chair.
Because you matter to ME.
Not because you agreed with me.
Not because you passed a theology examination.
Not because you became inspirational enough for somebody else’s story.
Not because somebody finally decided you were beautiful.
You matter because you are here.
Maybe somebody called you ugly.
Maybe nobody ever said the word aloud, but they taught it to you anyway.
Maybe they taught it through who they photographed.
Who they dated.
Who they hired.
Who they listened to.
Who they interrupted.
Who they believed.
Who they protected.
Who they mocked.
Who they called “professional.”
Who they called “articulate.”
Who they called “beautiful.”
And who they simply refused to see.
Beloved,
I cannot go backward and sit beside every lonely eight-year-old.
I wish I could.
But I can pull out a chair today.
I can tell the child.
The teenager.
The grown woman.
The grown man.
The elder.
The person staring at a body that has changed.
The person whose speech sounds different.
The person whose accent enters the room before anybody bothers learning their name.
The person who still avoids photographs.
The person who learned to make jokes about themselves before anybody else could.
The person who still hears an old insult when they look into a mirror:
That measuring stick was broken.
Throw it away.
🗑️
Actually—
put it in the recycling bin.
We are trying to be responsible citizens. 🤣🥰
Then come back over here.
We have chairs.
We have room.
We have work to do.
And we have an entire heartbroken world waiting to discover what might happen when human beings stop grading one another and start seeing one another.
I see you.
Not despite the things somebody taught you to hate about yourself.
I am learning to see you with them.
Your face.
Your body.
Your age.
Your history.
Your scars.
Your mobility equipment.
Your language.
Your accent.
Your laugh.
Your silence.
Your questions.
Your magnificent, complicated humanity.
Keep it.
All of it.
You were never required to become somebody else’s definition of beautiful before you became worthy of love.
And perhaps today one of us can find the courage to look into the mirror and tell that old word—
“You tried it.” 🤣
Then hand it its little imaginary clipboard.
Show it the door.
And get on with the holy, hilarious, difficult, beautiful business of being alive.
Because the world does not need another perfectly acceptable human being.
🌎 The world needs YOU.
And Beloved—
#YourLifeMattersToMe.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
If this found a tender place in you, pull up a chair in the comments. Share it with somebody who spent too many years believing a broken measuring stick. Like it, follow/subscribe, and come back—we are finding keys together every day. 🔑💔🌎🥹
Help me be loud:
MOM, WOMBIE, LET’S LOVE THE WORLD TOGETHER. 🌎❤️🔥
MOM, WOMBIE, LET’S LOVE THE WORLD TOGETHER. 🌎❤️🔥
Beloveds,
We have grieved.
❤️🩹
We have talked about March.
We have given away the flowers.
💐
We have gone home.
🧸
And now—
come outside with me.
🌎
There is still a whole world out here.
People waking up.
People going to sleep.
People laughing.
People grieving.
People praying.
People questioning.
People falling in love.
People falling apart.
People beginning again.
People who look nothing like us.
People who believe differently.
People whose languages we don’t speak.
People whose stories we’ll never know.
People.
And I love them.
🌎❤️
I don’t mean I know eight billion people.
Good grief.
🤣
I don’t.
I couldn’t.
And neither can you.
So when I say:
Let’s love the world together,
I am not assigning you eight billion people.
Nah, fam.
Jesus already has the Savior position covered.
🙏🏿
We get to be human.
And humans can love humans.
One at a time.
🪑🪑
That’s why I keep seeing those two chairs.
One for me.
One for you.
No stage required.
No microphone.
No enormous organization.
Sometimes changing somebody’s world begins with:
Sit with me.
And sometimes I see two fishing poles.
🎣🎣
Not because we’re guaranteed to catch anything.
Sometimes companionship is sitting beside somebody while absolutely nothing spectacular happens.
Waiting.
Talking.
Being quiet.
Laughing.
Watching the water.
Staying.
Maybe that’s love too.
❤️
Mom taught me something about love simply by loving.
Wombie carries her pieces.
I carry mine.
You carry pieces from whoever loved you.
🧩
And love travels.
Someone loves you.
You love somebody.
They love somebody.
That person carries something home.
❤️➡️❤️➡️❤️➡️❤️
Eventually nobody remembers where the first kindness began.
Good.
Love doesn’t always need credit.
It needs somewhere to go.
🌎
That’s why:
Your life matters to me.
It doesn’t mean I can fix your life.
It doesn’t mean I know your story.
It doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with you.
It doesn’t mean boundaries disappear.
It means:
I refuse to begin by deciding you don’t matter.
👀❤️
Black.
White.
Brown.
Woman.
Man.
Gay.
Straight.
Believer.
Agnostic.
Atheist.
Angry.
Quiet.
Loud.
Disabled.
Walking.
Rolling.
Speaking differently.
Speaking with an accent.
Speaking perfectly.
Struggling to speak at all.
Human.
🌎
Come sit down.
🪑🪑
You don’t have to resolve before you belong.
And you don’t have to become me.
Please don’t.
🤣
This world already has a Cassandra.
One is plenty.
🥰
I want you.
Keep on being…YOU!
That’s not decoration at the bottom of my posts.
I mean it.
Bring your voice.
Bring your language.
Bring your history.
Bring your questions.
Bring your joy.
Bring the parts somebody told you were too loud.
Bring the parts somebody couldn’t hear.
Bring yourself.
❤️🔥
Because love that requires somebody to disappear before they can receive it isn’t the kind of love I’m talking about.
See my difference.
But don’t make my difference all you see.
See the person.
👀
That’s the assignment.
Not perfection.
Not saving everybody.
Not solving every problem before bedtime.
Just:
Who is in front of me?
Who needs another chair?
Who needs somebody to listen?
Who needs somebody to believe them?
Who needs somebody to say their name correctly?
Who needs somebody to stay?
Who needs somebody to laugh with them?
Who needs somebody to cry beside them?
Who needs to hear:
Your life matters to me.
❤️🩹
That’s how we love a world too big for any one of us to hold.
We don’t hold the whole thing.
We hold one another.
🫂🌎
One person.
Then another.
One chair.
One conversation.
One kindness.
One flower.
One fishing pole.
One step.
One step.
One step.
👣❤️
And eventually maybe we look around and realize:
The world wasn’t some enormous thing somewhere “out there.”
It was us.
All along.
People.
Mothers.
Wombies.
Daughters.
Friends.
Strangers.
Grievers.
Laughers.
Questioners.
Believers.
People carrying scars.
People carrying flowers.
People carrying names.
People carrying Marches that never came.
People sitting beside empty chairs.
People pulling up new ones.
We ARE the 🌎.
❤️🔥
Mom,
your love reached me.
🧸
I’m going to keep passing it.
Wombie—
come on.
❤️
Beloveds—
y’all coming?
Because Jesus said:
It is finished.
His work is done.
And those of us still here have people to love.
Not someday.
Not when everything is perfect.
Not when we finally understand everybody.
Now.
So grab a chair.
🪑
Grab another.
🪑
Grab those fishing poles.
🎣🎣
Bring your flowers.
💐
Bring your heart.
❤️
And come with me.
We don’t have to save the world.
We can love it.
Together.
One human being at a time.
One step.
One step.
One step.
🌎❤️🔥
Your life matters to me.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
And while we’re both still here—
LET’S LOVE THE WORLD TOGETHER.
🌎❤️🔥
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Help me be loud:
TUESDAY 🌎
🏆🏆 POTTY WARS: BABY, TAKE TWO TROPHIES! 🧻🤣
Beloveds,
It is NOON.
And apparently today we are going to church, therapy, physical rehabilitation, philosophy class AND the bathroom.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Pearl clutchers:
Secure the pearls.
Because Cassandra has an announcement.
I WON POTTY WARS.
🏆🏆
Yes.
TWO TROPHIES.
One trophy did not adequately represent the level of foolishness, determination, engineering, cleanup supplies, prayer, improvisation and sheer GET SOME ACT RIGHT required for this particular championship.
🤣🧻🧽🧴🪣🪣🪣
And before somebody says:
But Cassandra, you just went to the bathroom…
👀
YOU TRIED IT.
🤣🤣🤣
There is no “just” in somebody else’s body.
That may be today’s biggest key.
🔑
Before my stroke, there were things my body did without requiring a committee meeting.
Now some ordinary tasks require planning.
Positioning.
Balance.
Equipment.
Patience.
Adaptation.
Concentration.
Energy.
Problem-solving.
And occasionally enough cleaning supplies to make somebody walking past my door wonder whether I have secretly opened a janitorial franchise.
🤣🤣🤣
🧽🧴🪣🧻
But here’s the thing:
I DID IT.
And I’m learning not to make my victories smaller merely because somebody else can accomplish the same thing without thinking about it.
That is a chain.
⛓️
And I am done polishing chains.
⚒️
The chain that says:
If everybody else can do it easily, your accomplishment doesn’t count.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Needing equipment diminishes the accomplishment.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Accepting help cancels independence.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Disability must disappear before somebody gets to call something recovery.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Bodies doing bodily things are too embarrassing to talk about.
BABY.
🤣
Hand me the hammer.
⚒️💥⛓️
Because dignity was never hiding inside physical perfection.
My dignity did not leave when my body changed.
My dignity does not disappear when I use my wheelchair.
My dignity does not disappear when I use my quad cane.
My dignity does not disappear when something takes me longer.
My dignity does not disappear when I need help.
My dignity does not disappear when my body makes a mess.
And my dignity certainly does not disappear because toilet paper entered the testimony.
🧻🤣🏆
PERIODT.
There are victories people applaud because everybody recognizes them.
Graduation.
🏆
Promotion.
🏆
Marathon.
🏆
Championship.
🏆
And then there are victories almost nobody sees.
Getting dressed.
🏆
Getting yourself something to eat.
🏆
Making it safely across the room.
🏆
Learning how to do something differently.
🏆
Using the mobility aid instead of exhausting yourself trying to prove you don’t need it.
🏆
Asking for help.
🏆
Cleaning yourself.
🏆
Getting through an exhausting appointment.
🏆
Trying again after yesterday went completely sideways.
🏆
And sometimes—
GOING TO THE BATHROOM.
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Count it.
Because difficulty is experienced from inside the life being lived.
You cannot stand outside another person’s body, history, grief, circumstances, disability, resources or exhaustion and announce what should have been easy.
You don’t know the cost.
🔑
And THAT reaches far beyond disability.
Maybe somebody got out of bed while carrying grief nobody knows about.
🏆
Maybe somebody answered the phone after weeks of anxiety.
🏆
Maybe somebody said no.
🏆
Maybe somebody finally said yes.
🏆
Maybe somebody left.
🏆
Maybe somebody stayed.
🏆
Maybe somebody apologized.
🏆
Maybe somebody forgave themselves.
🏆
Maybe somebody asked for help before everything collapsed.
🏆
Maybe somebody finally stopped.
✋🏿
That last one has my attention today.
Because after all my:
DEEPPPERRRR!
⚒️⚒️⚒️
FIND THE KEYS!
🔑🔑🔑
BREAK THE CHAINS!
⛓️⛓️⛓️
LOVE THE WHOLE WORLD!
🌎🌎🌎
Apparently my body convened an emergency meeting.
The agenda contained exactly one item:
BED.
🛌
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And Cassandra?
Apparently I voted unanimously.
😴
No closing remarks.
No benediction.
No final post.
No “one more thing.”
Just:
🛌💤
🤣🤣🤣
And perhaps THAT deserves a trophy too.
🏆
Because I am learning that I cannot celebrate my body’s victories while treating its limits like insubordination.
WHEW.
Read that again.
I cannot celebrate my body’s victories while treating its limits like insubordination.
🔑🔑🔑
Sometimes the key is:
🥾 Go.
Sometimes:
⚒️ Work.
Sometimes:
🚪 Open it.
Sometimes:
🗣️ Speak.
Sometimes:
😭 Cry.
Sometimes:
🤣 Laugh until your stomach hurts.
And sometimes:
✋🏿 Enough.
Then:
🛌 Rest.
The key doesn’t always open a door leading outward.
Sometimes the key locks the door for the night.
🔑🚪
👀
Ohhhhh.
There’s one.
Sometimes agency means opening the door.
And sometimes agency means being the person who decides:
The door is closed. I am resting. Come back tomorrow.
✋🏿🚪🛌
That is still agency.
That is still dignity.
That is still freedom.
And that means today’s Potty Wars trophy isn’t really about a toilet.
The bathroom just happened to be where the lesson showed up wearing combat boots.
🤣🥾🥾🧻
The deeper victory is this:
My changed body and I are learning each other.
Not fighting each other.
Learning.
Listening.
Adapting.
Negotiating.
Laughing.
Resting.
Trying.
Stopping.
Beginning again.
And sometimes standing together afterward looking at the evidence like:
👀
Girl.
🤣🤣🤣
WE DID THAT.
🏆🏆
So today I am taking my trophies.
I am taking my laughter.
I am taking my quad cane.
I am taking my rest.
I am taking my keys.
And yes—
somebody please bring the toilet paper.
🧻
Because apparently around here liberation requires supplies.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Beloveds, I want you to take your trophy too.
Not tomorrow.
Not when somebody else agrees that your accomplishment was difficult enough.
Not after you explain yourself.
Today.
🏆
Whatever your victory was.
However strange.
However private.
However ordinary.
However messy.
COUNT IT.
And if today’s victory was simply surviving today?
There is a chair here.
🪑
Sit.
If you believe in God as I do, you are welcome to celebrate His faithfulness with me.
WON’T HE DO IT! 🙏🏿💖
And if you don’t believe in God, don’t believe yet, aren’t sure, or never will—
the chair does not disappear.
🪑
Nobody has to believe exactly as I believe before I can love them.
Come laugh.
Come rest.
Come tell your story.
Or say absolutely nothing.
🥂
The celebration still has room for you.
Now I need to know:
What completely ordinary thing have YOU done that deserves an absolutely unreasonable, ridiculously oversized trophy?
🏆🏆🏆🤣
Tell me in the comments.
Let’s celebrate some victories the world forgot to count.
Share this with somebody whose invisible work deserves to be seen. Like it. Follow or subscribe. And come back tomorrow at noon.
We’ll pull out the chair again.
And apparently—
🧻
we’ll keep the supplies nearby.
🤣🤣🤣
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
Help me be loud:
🔑🌎😭💔🤯🥰
🌅🔑🛣️ TUESDAY MORNING
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE FINISHED TO BE FREE.
Beloveds,
I have spent a lot of my life thinking freedom lived somewhere farther down the road.
After I figured it out.
After I healed.
After I understood.
After I got stronger.
After the problem was solved.
After the prayer was answered.
After the thing that hurt stopped hurting.
After I finally became whatever version of myself I thought I was supposed to become.
Then, maybe, I could exhale.
Then, maybe, I could celebrate.
Then, maybe, I could call myself free.
But what if freedom isn’t waiting at the end of the road?
What if freedom can meet us right here?
At the crossroads.
With questions.
With unfinished business.
With plans that didn’t work.
With bodies that changed.
With relationships that changed.
With dreams that had to change shape.
With things we still don’t understand.
With roads in front of us that don’t have nice little signs explaining exactly where they lead.
🛣️🔑
Maybe one of the cruelest things we can do to ourselves is postpone living until everything is resolved.
Because some things may never resolve neatly.
Some questions may remain questions.
Some losses cannot be reversed.
Some doors really did close.
Some people really did leave.
Some things really were unfair.
Some plans really did fall apart.
And some mornings we may wake up still carrying something we thought we’d have put down by now.
But unfinished does not mean imprisoned.
Read that again.
UNFINISHED DOES NOT MEAN IMPRISONED.
❤️🩹
I can still laugh while I’m healing.
I can still create while I’m learning.
I can still love while I’m grieving.
I can still receive love while I’m figuring myself out.
I can still change my mind.
I can still say no.
I can still say yes.
I can still rest.
I can still begin again.
I can still choose what belongs in my life.
I can still decide what doesn’t.
I can still pull up a chair.
I can still leave a chair open.
I can still look at a road I never intended to travel and say:
All right. I’m here. What can I do with HERE?
🔑
That question matters to me.
Not, How do I pretend this is the road I wanted?
Not, How do I convince myself nothing hurts?
Not, How do I turn every difficult thing into some beautiful lesson before I’m ready?
No.
What can I do with HERE?
Because HERE still contains choices.
HERE still contains people.
HERE still contains laughter.
HERE still contains music.
HERE still contains rest.
HERE still contains curiosity.
HERE still contains love.
HERE still contains another morning.
And as long as there is another choice available to me—even a tiny one—I want to notice it.
One step.
One step.
One step.
Sometimes one step is enormous.
Sometimes one step is getting out of bed.
Sometimes it is asking for help.
Sometimes it is accepting help.
Sometimes it is trying again.
Sometimes it is deciding, Not today.
Sometimes it is changing direction.
Sometimes it is sitting perfectly still at the crossroads until you are ready.
Sitting is a choice too.
Nobody said every crossroads requires an immediate answer.
💯
My faith tells me something else about detours.
I believe God can meet me on roads I never would have chosen.
I believe He can sit beside me before I understand.
I believe He can love me without requiring me to have the map figured out first.
I believe He can work in places that don’t look anything like the destination I imagined.
And I believe sometimes what I call a detour may simply be a road whose meaning I cannot see yet.
But Beloved, you don’t have to believe what I believe to pull up a chair here.
You may believe in God.
You may be angry with God.
You may be searching.
You may doubt.
You may be atheist or agnostic.
You may have stopped asking spiritual questions altogether.
You may never believe.
The chair is still yours.
Because this morning isn’t an entrance exam for faith.
It’s an invitation to life.
🌎❤️
Your life.
The one happening now.
Not the imaginary one where everything finally cooperates.
Not the polished one.
Not the someday one.
This one.
Maybe you don’t know where the road goes.
Neither do I.
Maybe your map has coffee spilled across half of it. 🤣
Maybe somebody apparently printed yours upside down.
Maybe life handed you directions that simply say:
PROCEED SOMEHOW.
😭🤣
Okay then.
We proceed somehow.
Not because we’re pretending the detour is easy.
Because we’re still here to travel it.
So this Wednesday morning, I am giving myself permission to stop demanding that I become finished before I allow myself to be free.
I can be unfinished and joyful.
Unfinished and loved.
Unfinished and useful.
Unfinished and curious.
Unfinished and tired.
Unfinished and hopeful.
Unfinished and uncertain.
Unfinished and becoming.
Unfinished and completely, gloriously alive.
And so can you.
🔑🛣️🌅
Beloveds, if you’re standing at a crossroads today, you don’t have to know the whole route.
Look around.
Find the next thing that belongs to you.
A choice.
A boundary.
A laugh.
A prayer.
A nap.
A phone call.
A song.
A good cry.
A tiny beginning.
A chair.
A road.
A single step.
Take what is yours.
Leave what isn’t.
And remember:
The detour did not revoke your right to live.
You don’t have to be finished to be free.
And you certainly don’t have to be finished to belong here.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours. ❤️🌎🔑
If this met you somewhere on your road today, pull up a chair and tell us about it. Comment if you want to. Share it with somebody navigating a detour of their own. Like it, subscribe/follow, and come back—we’re making room for a little encouragement every day.
There is always another chair. 🪑❤️
Help me be loud:
I. AM.STILL.ME!
Beloveds,
This is my voice before my stroke. Will be sharing others. I miss thesound of her….🤯🥺🥹😭😱
sad but grateful still,
Cassandra
Help me be loud:
TUESDAY — THE KEY DOESN’T MAKE THE ROAD EASY 🔑🥾
Beloveds,
I have been thinking about keys.
Not cute little decorative keys. Not the kind we hang on a wall beside a word like faith and call the lesson finished.
I mean the keys that cost something.
Because sometimes you spend years staring at a chain ⛓️ without realizing there is a lock. Sometimes you know there is a lock but cannot find the key. Sometimes somebody else has been holding the key. Sometimes the door has been unlocked all along, but fear, pain, history, prejudice, grief, exhaustion, disability, rejection, or somebody else’s definition of you convinced you that you were not allowed to walk through it.
And sometimes, Beloveds, you find the key—
and discover that freedom still requires work.
🔑
That one has been sitting with me.
I am learning this in my own body.
Some things that once required almost no thought from me now require planning, patience, equipment, adaptation, humor, rest—and occasionally enough cleaning supplies to make it look like I am opening a small janitorial company. 🤣🧻🪣🧽🧴
Yes. I am talking about Potty Wars.
And YES.
I WON. 🏆🏆🤣
Laugh with me, because I certainly am.
But don’t miss the victory because the battlefield happened to be a bathroom.
We celebrate people for running marathons, climbing mountains, earning degrees and crossing finish lines. We should.
But there are victories nobody sees.
Getting dressed.
Taking a shower.
Making it safely across a room.
Getting yourself cleaned up.
Using the bathroom.
Holding a phone.
Trying to make your fingers press the tiny thing on the screen that everybody keeps telling you to “just tap.”
There is no just when your body has changed.
There is effort.
There is adaptation.
There is frustration.
There is learning.
There is grief sometimes.
There is laughter sometimes.
And there can still be victory.
🏆
My quad cane does not cancel the victory.
My wheelchair does not cancel the victory.
Needing rest does not cancel the victory.
Needing help does not cancel the victory.
Doing something differently does not cancel the victory.
And stopping when my body says ✋🏿 does not cancel the victory either.
That may be one of the keys I needed most.
🔑 Rest is not disqualification.
🔑 Assistance is not disqualification.
🔑 Adaptation is not disqualification.
🔑 Difference is not disqualification.
🔑 A messy victory is still a victory.
And here’s another one:
🔑 My body is not my enemy.
I refuse to turn recovery into a war against myself.
There are chains I want broken. ⛓️
There are doors I want opened. 🚪
There are miles I still want to travel. 🥾🥾
There is work I still want to do. ⚒️
There is an entire world I still intend to love. 🌎
But if I have to destroy myself to prove that I am healing, I have misunderstood healing.
So I am learning another rhythm:
⚒️ Work.
🥾 Move.
😭 Grieve.
🤣 Laugh.
🧻 Clean it up.
🏆 Celebrate it.
🛌 Rest.
✋🏿 Stop.
🔑 Begin again when I can.
And perhaps somebody reading this needs permission to redefine victory too.
Your victory does not have to photograph well.
Nobody has to clap.
Nobody has to understand how difficult it was.
And you do not owe anybody a performance of strength.
Maybe you got out of bed.
Maybe you stayed in bed because your body needed it.
Maybe you asked for help.
Maybe you tried again.
Maybe today you finally stopped trying.
Maybe you cried.
Maybe you laughed in the middle of something that once embarrassed you.
Maybe you found one tiny key.
Hold it.
Not because I know which door it opens.
I don’t.
Only you get to discover that.
And if you believe in God as I do, you may believe He knows the door before you ever recognize the key.
If you don’t believe in God, don’t believe yet, or never will, there is still room beside me.
Pull up a chair. 🪑
Nobody has to believe exactly as I believe to be loved here.
Bring your questions.
Bring your laughter.
Bring your mess.
Bring your keys.
Bring nothing at all if that’s what you have today.
The chair stays.
Because maybe freedom isn’t reaching some imaginary place where we never need anybody again.
Maybe freedom is being able to say:
This is the body I have today.
This is the life I have today.
This is what I can do today.
And—
I am still here.
🔑⚫️🏆🥂🥾🌎
Beloveds, what counted as a victory for you today—even if nobody else would understand why it mattered?
Tell me in the comments if you want to. Share this with somebody whose quiet victories deserve celebrating. Like it, follow/subscribe, and come back tomorrow. There will be another chair waiting.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
Help me be loud:
MOM, WOMBIE, I GOT IT FROM HERE. 🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
MOM, WOMBIE, I GOT IT FROM HERE. 🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
Beloveds,
The last two pieces went out into the world.
This one comes home.
No enormous assignment.
No trying to explain grief for everybody.
Just family.
Just love.
Just some things I need to say.
🧸
Mom, thanks for your love.🧸🥰
Thank you.
Not because everything was perfect.
Not because life gave us every day we wanted.
It didn’t.
There was supposed to be a March.
There was supposed to be a vacation.
You were supposed to see my new car.
We didn’t get those things.
But before March didn’t happen—
you happened.
❤️
You were here.
You were my mother.
You loved.
You gave.
We gave away your favorite bears at your funeral.
🧸
Mom left giving love.
I love in her stead.
And here I am, still trying to give love away.
Still trying to tell somebody:
You matter.
I see you.
Don’t give up.
Love somebody.
Love this world.
🌎❤️
Mom,
thanks for your love.🧸🥰
I can’t hand it back to you.
So I’ll keep letting it travel.
❤️➡️🌎
But—
Mom, I’m puzzled.🧩🧸
I am.
About life.
Timing.
Things that happened.
Things that didn’t.
Things I thought I understood.
Things I still don’t.
Pieces that don’t seem to fit.
🧩
And I’ve learned something:
Faith doesn’t require me to pretend the puzzle is complete.
Sometimes:
I don’t know.
That’s my answer.
I believe God.
And I don’t know.
I trust God.
And I’m puzzled.
I miss you.
And God has been good to me.
Those truths can sit beside one another.
🙏🏿❤️🩹
Which brings me here:
Mom, Won’t/didn’t He do it!💝
Mom—
look.
👀
Not because everything happened the way I wanted.
Not because every prayer received the answer I would have chosen.
Not because I haven’t hurt.
Not because every puzzle piece suddenly fits.
But after everything—
I’m here.
❤️🩹
Still loving.
Still believing.
Still questioning.
Still laughing.
Still crying.
Still learning.
Still finding my voice.
Still using it.
Still telling somebody not to give up.
Still looking at this enormous world and saying:
I love you.
🌎❤️
Won’t He do it!
Didn’t He do it!
💝🙏🏿
I’m puzzled.
🧩
And I have testimony.
💝
Both are mine.
Both are true.
Now—
Wombie.
🧸
No translation.
No explanation.
No footnote.
Some words belong inside relationships.
Some names carry histories outsiders weren’t there to witness.
Some language doesn’t need anybody else’s permission.
So:
Wombie.
🧸❤️
You and me.
Mom’s daughters.
Same Mom.
Different daughters.
Different memories.
Different grief.
Different pieces.
🧩🧩
And somewhere inside all those pieces—
Mom.
Not a metaphor.
Not merely somebody we lost.
Mom.
And us.
Still here.
❤️🩹❤️
The world kept moving after Mom died.
Morning came.
People went to work.
Traffic remained traffic.
Bills remained profoundly committed to being bills.
🤣
And somehow we kept moving too.
Not because we forgot.
Not because we stopped loving.
Because we’re alive.
Living after somebody dies is not betrayal.
Mom’s daughters are allowed to live.
Allowed to laugh.
Allowed to love.
Allowed to make memories.
Allowed to change.
Allowed to heal.
Allowed to remember.
Allowed to have joy.
Allowed to keep going.
❤️🩹
And now I need to say something without explaining it afterward.
Wombie, Cassie, sis, friend. I got it from here.🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
Mom,
thanks for your love.🧸🥰
Mom,
I’m puzzled.🧩🧸
Mom,
Won’t/didn’t He do it!💝
And—
Wombie, Cassie, sis, friend. I got it from here.🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
That’s enough.
No sermon after it.
No explanation.
Just—
❤️
Cassandra
