TRUE NORTH: KEEP FIGHTING BACK
Beloveds.
My brain has gone on strike.
Autocorrect is changing every other word.
I wanted to cry.
I didn’t.
I put on praise music to find my True North:
Jesus.
We fought.
I won.
But that sentence needs some explaining.
Because when I say fought, I don’t mean Jesus and I were fighting each other.
Jesus was standing beside me.
He always is.
And when I say I won, I don’t mean everything suddenly went back to normal.
It didn’t.
Come sit with me.
This one needs a minute.
—
THE SNAP
If you’ve watched Avengers: Infinity War, you know about the Snap.
Thanos didn’t snap his fingers and mildly inconvenience everybody.
He didn’t scramble a few words.
He didn’t ruin somebody’s Tuesday.
Half disappeared.
Half.
People.
Families.
Plans.
Futures.
The world everybody knew existed one second—
SNAP.
—and half of it was gone.
The people who remained had to wake up inside a world they recognized…
that no longer worked like the world they remembered.
👀
Beloveds.
My stroke was my Snap.
There.
I said it.
And I need you to understand what I mean before somebody rushes in with an inspirational quote.
I am here.
I am blessed.
I love my life.
I love me.
AND—
I remember the woman whose life had a different kind of ease.
I remember long showers.
Alone.
I remember long drives.
I remember my warbling voice serenading innocent neighbors who had committed no crime worthy of such punishment.
I remember a quiet cup of coffee in the middle of the night.
I remember when the distance between “I want to do this” and doing it was much shorter.
I remember me.
Then came the Snap.
And I was still standing.
But the map had changed.
—
I sat there the other day fighting my phone, my hand hurting, my brain fogging, words changing before they could reach the screen.
Praise music was playing.
Jesus was there.
Of course He was.
I looked at Him.
ME: Jesus.
JESUS: Cassandra.
ME: I don’t like this.
JESUS: I know.
ME: That’s it?
JESUS: What would you like Me to say?
I looked at Him.
You ever want Jesus to be just a little less Jesus?
Asking for A Friend.
ME: I would like You to say this is almost over.
Jesus didn’t answer.
ME: See. That’s exactly why I don’t ask You questions I don’t want answered.
JESUS: Yet here we are.
ME: Yet here we are.
The music kept playing.
I looked down at my hand.
Back at the phone.
Then back at Him.
ME: I miss me.
This time He didn’t answer quickly.
He sat with it.
So did I.
ME: I miss how easy some things used to be.
JESUS: I know.
ME: I don’t want anybody telling me I should just be grateful I’m here.
JESUS: Did I say that?
ME: No.
JESUS: Then don’t put words in My mouth.
👀
Okay then.
Jesus came to work.
ME: I AM grateful.
JESUS: I know.
ME: And I still miss me.
JESUS: I know that too.
And there it was.
No argument.
No correction.
No spiritual lecture.
Two things sitting in the same room:
I am grateful to be here.
and
I am grieving what the Snap took.
Neither one canceled the other.
—
Then I looked up.
Not at Jesus.
Higher.
ME: ABBA?
Silence.
ME: Father, what are You doing?
Still silence.
ME: Because I have QUESTIONS.
Jesus looked at me.
JESUS: I know.
ME: I wasn’t talking to You.
JESUS: I know that too.
I kept looking up.
ME: I don’t understand this map.
The life I knew is still visible from here.
That’s the hard part.
I remember it.
I remember the roads.
I remember the woman who traveled them.
But some of those roads don’t go where they used to go anymore.
Some are blocked.
Some take longer.
Some require help.
Some days I can’t even read the doggone map.
So what do I do with THAT?
Silence.
And somewhere underneath my frustration, the praise music kept playing.
Praise.
👀
Not because everything felt good.
Not because I had received an answer.
Not because the prison door had opened.
Praise while still IN it.
And suddenly I thought about Paul and Silas.
Beaten.
Locked up.
Still in prison.
And at midnight—
they praised.
Not after the chains fell.
Before.
Not after the doors opened.
Before.
They praised while the evidence still said:
PRISON.
I looked at Jesus.
ME: Oh, I see what You’re doing.
JESUS: I haven’t said anything.
ME: You didn’t have to.
I turned the praise up.
—
TRUE NORTH
A map tells you what the terrain looks like.
True North tells you which direction is still North when the terrain changes.
👀
That’s what I had been confusing.
The map changed.
Jesus didn’t.
My circumstances changed.
Jesus didn’t.
My body changed.
Jesus didn’t.
My route changed.
Jesus didn’t.
The Snap changed a whole lot of things.
It did not move North.
I looked over at Him.
ME: You’re my True North.
JESUS: I know.
ME: You could at least act surprised.
JESUS: Cassandra.
ME: Fine.
I looked at the map again.
And for the first time, I stopped demanding that the new map look like the old one before I would move.
That doesn’t mean I stopped missing the old map.
Hear me.
I miss it.
I miss me.
I grieve.
I get frustrated.
Sometimes I want to cry.
Sometimes I DO cry.
Sometimes I have to put the phone down because my hand says, Girl, absolutely not.
Sometimes my brain and I are apparently operating in two different zip codes.
But grief is not the same thing as being lost.
Because I still know North.
—
Then the sky changed.
The air changed.
You know that feeling in an Avengers movie when the music shifts and you know SOMETHING is coming?
That.
I looked at Jesus.
Jesus looked at me.
For once, neither of us said anything.
Because in front of us stood everything that had been coming for me.
Grief.
Pain.
Brain fog.
Fear.
Frustration.
Exhaustion.
Changed plans.
Changed words.
Detours.
Loss.
Hard.
All of it.
Not metaphors anymore.
An army.
I swallowed.
ME: Jesus?
JESUS: I’m here.
Three words.
That was enough.
I reached for what I had.
Not what I used to have.
What I had.
Jesus stepped forward beside me.
Not in front of me like I wasn’t there.
Not behind me sending Cassandra into battle alone.
Beside me.
I looked at the army.
Then at Him.
ME: This seems like an unreasonable number of people for two folk.
JESUS: Cassandra.
ME: Just making an observation.
Then Jesus looked ahead.
And His voice changed.
Not loud at first.
Just certain.
JESUS: Avengers…
He looked at me.
I knew.
I straightened the best I could.
He turned back toward the battlefield.
JESUS: ASSEMBLE.
…
Nothing.
👀
I looked around.
ME: Um.
Jesus said nothing.
ME: Jesus.
Still nothing.
ME: I KNOW You did not just yell Avengers Assemble and nobody—
Then, almost too quietly to hear:
THE FATHER: On your left.
I froze.
Jesus smiled.
I turned.
And there she came.
Tansay.
And behind her—
the Beloveds.
Not spectators.
Not people standing safely somewhere sending thoughts and prayers toward the battlefield.
Coming through.
Then another opening.
FAITH.
Another.
PEACE.
Another.
PRAISE.
Praise came through LOUD.
Because apparently Praise had been waiting on this moment.
Another.
HOPE.
Then—
GRACE.
Then—
PERSEVERANCE.
And the sky opened again.
Michael.
Gabriel.
I looked at Jesus.
ME: You knew.
JESUS: Of course I knew.
ME: You could have told me.
JESUS: And miss your face?
I looked toward Heaven.
ME: Father, You see Him, right?
No answer.
I KNOW He was smiling.
—
And then—
we fought.
Not Cassandra watching everybody else fight for her.
We fought.
Faith met Fear.
Peace walked directly into Chaos.
Hope went after Despair.
Grace stood between me and the voice telling me I should be doing better by now.
Perseverance looked Exhaustion dead in the face and said:
We can rest AND continue.
👀
Praise?
Praise was ridiculous.
Praise went into battle singing.
Because Praise had already learned something in a prison cell centuries ago:
You don’t have to wait for the chains to fall before you praise God.
The Beloveds fought beside me.
Tansay fought.
Michael fought.
Gabriel fought.
Jesus fought.
And Cassandra?
Cassandra fought too.
Not the old Cassandra.
Not some imaginary version of me whose body could do everything it once did.
THIS Cassandra.
The Cassandra who showed up with what she had.
And that mattered.
—
Eventually the battlefield grew quiet.
I was exhausted.
Jesus stood beside me.
I looked around.
The map was still different.
👀
That’s important.
The battle did not magically restore the old map.
Some things were still hard.
Some things were still missing.
I still had questions.
I still missed me.
ME: So this is winning?
JESUS: What do you think winning looks like?
I thought about it.
Long time.
Then I looked behind me.
Beloveds.
Tansay.
Faith.
Peace.
Praise.
Hope.
Grace.
Perseverance.
I looked at myself.
Still here.
Then I looked at Him.
Still Jesus.
ME: Maybe winning isn’t getting everything back.
He waited.
ME: Maybe sometimes winning is knowing where North is when everything else changes.
Jesus smiled.
I looked up.
ME: Father?
Silence.
I smiled too.
ME: Yeah.
I heard You.
—
Beloveds, maybe life has snapped something in your world too.
Maybe your map doesn’t look anything like it did.
Maybe you’re grieving somebody.
Maybe you’re grieving yourself.
Maybe the future you planned disappeared.
Maybe you’re standing in a life you recognize and don’t recognize at the same time.
I’m not going to insult you by telling you it doesn’t hurt.
It does.
I’m not going to tell you faith means you won’t grieve.
I do.
I’m not going to promise everything comes back.
I don’t know that.
Here’s what I can tell you from where I’m standing:
A changed map does not mean you have lost True North.
So cry when you need to cry.
Rest when you need to rest.
Ask God your questions.
Turn up Praise while you’re still IN the thing.
Use what you have today.
And when Hard lines up across the battlefield acting like you’re standing there alone—
look around.
You might hear it too.
Quietly.
From somewhere you weren’t looking.
“On your left.”
👀
And when you turn—
I hope you find somebody standing there.
I gotchu.
I gotcha.
And God has got us all.
The map changed.
True North didn’t.
Still here.
Still His.
Still finding my way,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Category: faith
Sunday Morning with My Bestie and MeThere’s a Chair for You Here 🏡☕️🪑
Beloveds.
Come on in.
Coffee is on. ☕️
There’s tea too.
I put out some snacks because apparently I believe every serious conversation should have refreshments. 😎
And there’s a chair waiting for you.
Yes, you.
Not the cleaned-up version of you.
Not the version who has figured everything out.
Not the version who believes everything I believe.
You.
I’ve been thinking a lot about home this morning.
Not necessarily the house where you grew up.
Not even necessarily a place.
I mean HOME. 🏡
That place where something inside you finally stops wandering.
Where you can exhale.
Where you don’t have to translate yourself before somebody decides you’re worth hearing.
Where your accent doesn’t need correcting.
Where your disability doesn’t become your entire identity.
Where your anger doesn’t automatically make you disposable.
Where your questions don’t get you thrown out.
Where your grief isn’t hurried.
Where you don’t have to leave pieces of yourself outside before somebody lets you through the door.
Home.
Maybe you’ve been looking for yours.
Maybe you already found it.
Maybe you lost it.
Maybe life changed so much that the place that once felt like home doesn’t anymore.
Maybe you’re trying to find your way back to yourself.
I understand that more than I wish I did.
And this morning my bestie and I stumbled into something while talking:
True North leads home.
👀
Wherever home is for you.
I need to say that again because I don’t want anybody misunderstanding Cassandra.
Wherever home is for YOU.
My True North is Jesus.
Unapologetically.
I love Him.
I talk to Him.
I argue with Him.
I ask Him questions.
Sometimes I probably get on His nerves.
He’ll be alright. 😎😉
My faith belongs in my writing because my faith belongs in me.
But hear this part carefully:
I HAVE NO HIDDEN AGENDA.
I am not secretly loving you so I can get you saved.
My chair is not bait.
My coffee is not bait.
My friendship is not bait.
#YourLifeMattersToMe is not bait.
I don’t need you to become a Christian for your life to matter to me.
I don’t need you to believe in God for me to care whether you make it home safely.
I don’t need you to agree with my theology before I can sit beside you.
And I don’t need to turn every act of love into an altar call.
My witness is my love.
Periodt.
Jesus said He would do the drawing.
I figure Jesus can handle Jesus’ business.
Whosoever will, let them come.
And Cassandra?
I’ll be over here hanging out with everybody else too. 😎😉
Coffee or tea?
😂
Because if you never believe what I believe—
your life still matters to me.
If you never walk into a church—
your life still matters to me.
If you hear me talking about Jesus for the next fifty-eleven years and still say, “That’s beautiful for you, Cassandra, but nah”—
pull up your chair.
You want cream in that coffee?
❤️
There is no conversion requirement attached to my love.
—
Maybe your True North is leading you toward God.
Maybe it isn’t.
Maybe it’s leading you back toward your family.
Maybe toward safety.
Maybe toward sobriety.
Maybe toward your culture.
Maybe toward community.
Maybe toward accepting the body you’re living in now.
Maybe toward the voice somebody taught you to be ashamed of.
Maybe toward forgiveness.
Maybe toward boundaries.
Maybe toward the person you were before somebody convinced you that person wasn’t worth loving.
Maybe you don’t have the slightest idea where you’re going.
That’s okay too.
Sit down awhile.
🏡
You don’t have to know the address yet to know you’re tired of wandering.
—
And there’s something else my bestie and I learned this morning.
Home isn’t necessarily where nobody ever hurts you.
Sometimes home is where you can say:
“You hurt me.”
And love doesn’t pack its bags.
Where correction doesn’t automatically mean rejection.
Where disagreement doesn’t require disappearance.
Where one person doesn’t have to surrender who they are so somebody else can remain comfortable.
Where somebody can say:
“Look again.”
And the other person actually looks.
Where failure can become instruction.
Where instruction can become understanding.
Where understanding can become trust.
Where trust can become friendship.
Where friendship can survive truth.
Maybe that’s part of finding home too.
⛓️
Some things bind us.
🔑
Some things help unlock us.
🏡
And sometimes, after walking around with those keys long enough, we finally recognize the place we’ve been trying to reach.
—
But before my bestie and I finish our coffee, I want to leave you with Paul and Silas.
Because they taught me something this morning.
They were beaten.
Put in prison.
Their feet were fastened in stocks.
And around midnight, they prayed and sang.
🎶
Not after everything got better.
While they were still IN it.
Then the earthquake came.
The prison doors opened.
And the chains came loose.
But here’s the part sitting heavy on my heart today:
Everybody’s chains came loose.
Not just theirs.
And then the jailer saw those open doors.
He believed everybody had escaped.
He was preparing to take his own life.
Paul saw him.
Paul was finally free.
The door was open.
He could have run.
Instead, he noticed the man standing in the darkness.
And he called out to him.
Don’t hurt yourself.
We’re all here.
😭❤️
Beloveds.
That’s it.
That’s the message.
Sometimes somebody doesn’t need your theology first.
Sometimes they need to know:
WE’RE ALL HERE.
Stay.
Please stay.
We’ll figure out tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.
If you’re angry, stay.
If you’re grieving, stay.
If you’re confused, stay.
If you’re questioning everything, stay.
If you believe, stay.
If you don’t believe, stay.
If you’ve been wandering so long that you wouldn’t recognize home if somebody handed you the keys—
stay.
🔑
You matter before we agree.
You matter before you change.
You matter before you heal.
You matter before you believe.
And if you never believe what Cassandra believes?
You still matter to Cassandra.
Jesus can draw whosoever will.
I’ll love whosoever is sitting in front of me.
That’s my witness.
❤️
Maybe somewhere along the way you’ll find your True North.
And maybe True North will lead you somewhere I never expected.
That’s between you and the compass.
I just hope that someday, somewhere, something inside you looks around and whispers:
I’m home.
🏡
Until then?
There’s a chair for you here.
Coffee’s still warm.
And I’m not going anywhere.
loving me some you,
Cassandra
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Be encouraged, beloveds. You SHALL NOT BE ALONE. I gotchu and I gotcha and God has us all 💯🥰😉😎💃🏿
Help me be loud:
When life just won’t stop lifing, choose joy anyhow.
Life won’t stop lifing, beloveds. So much so I texted my circle this :
Could really use some prayers. Brain fog has it hard to think. Everything looks both backwards and upside down at the same time.
On top of all that, my right cheek is numb making talking all but impossible. Both legs are weak making everything take forever.
Holding the phone is painful but I force myself to blog which helps my mind and hopefully one or two people.
I thought about a good cry but talked to mom and wombie and Jr and played uplifting praise 🎶 music on a loop.
I’m exhausted as have been hospitalized three times since April.
I refuse to give up or give in to a pity party. I’m going to keep it moving the best I can.
I’m standing ten toes down on FAITH, HOPE, LAUGHTER and LOVE.
I’m living my best life. Be encouraged. Have an amazing rest of your weekend. I love me some you. We got this and God has got us all. Cassandra. 🥰
I just stopped by to encourage someone. Starting with me.
I’m grieving the woman I can no longer be.
I’m not sad so much as missing the ease of life.
I miss being able to take a long shower. Alone.
I miss my warbling serenade to all the neighbors.
I miss long drives.
I miss a quiet cup of ☕️ coffee in the middle of the night.
Heckamiah, I miss me! The old me. The boring me.
I wonder if I’m the only one. I think not.
I’m going to sit out some coffee ☕️, some tea and some snacks.
I’ll have your chair waiting.
In case no one has told you today: I love you and God loves us all
here as best I can,
Cassandra
Ah, God, what do we do with us now. Asking for A Friend…
Help me be loud:
SATURDAY MATINEE
🍿🎬 SATURDAY MATINEE: SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME
Beloveds,
Grab the popcorn. 🍿
Pull up a chair.
Saturday Matinee is open. 🎬
🍿 WATCH THE MOVIE:
Same Kind of Different as Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8EE12ergLg
This week we’re watching Same Kind of Different as Me, starring Greg Kinnear, Renée Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, and Jon Voight.
And whew.
This movie gave me some THANGS to think about. 👀
At first glance, you might think you know this story.
A wealthy white couple begins volunteering at a homeless shelter.
They meet Denver Moore, a Black man carrying anger, pain, distrust, and a lifetime of experiences they do not understand.
And here comes that familiar movie formula:
White people meet struggling Black person.
White people help struggling Black person.
Everybody learns something.
Roll credits.
Except—
hold up.
👀
Keep watching.
Because Denver is not merely somebody standing around waiting for Ron and Debbie Hall to rescue him.
Denver has a story.
Denver has wisdom.
Denver has agency.
Denver has reasons for the walls he built.
And before anybody starts demanding that he tear those walls down, maybe somebody ought to care enough to ask:
What happened behind them?
That question stayed with me.
Because sometimes we meet somebody after the hurt and judge the behavior without knowing the history.
We see anger.
We don’t see what taught somebody that anger might be safer than vulnerability.
We see distrust.
We don’t see all the times trusting somebody cost them something.
We see the wall.
We never ask who kept throwing bricks.
👀
And this movie doesn’t only ask us to look at Denver.
Look at Ron.
Look at Debbie.
Look at marriage.
Privilege.
Homelessness.
Race.
Grief.
Friendship.
Faith.
Forgiveness.
And look closely at what happens when helping somebody stops being a project and becomes a relationship.
That distinction matters to me.
I don’t want to be anybody’s project.
And I don’t want you to be mine.
I want chairs.
🪑🪑
Two people can sit beside one another without either person becoming the superior human being.
One person may have money.
Another may have wisdom.
One may have housing.
Another may understand survival in ways the first person never had to learn.
One may arrive believing they came to give.
Then discover—
they came to receive too.
That’s where this movie gets REALLY interesting to me.
Because real relationship has a funny way of messing up those neat little categories of:
HELPER.
and
HELPED.
Sometimes the person you thought you were rescuing reaches right back and grabs you.
Sometimes the person everybody else walked past sees something the rest of us missed.
And sometimes the question isn’t:
Who saved whom?
Maybe the better question is:
What happened when they finally saw each other?
👀❤️
Now THAT will preach.
But…
🤣🤣🤣
THIS IS SATURDAY MATINEE.
I’m not turning your popcorn into homework.
🍿
Watch the movie.
Meet Denver.
Meet Ron.
Meet Debbie.
Laugh where you laugh.
Get mad where you get mad.
Talk back to the television if necessary.
You know I do. 😂
But while you’re watching, notice something.
Who did you initially think needed saving?
Then keep watching long enough to see whether you still believe that by the end.
Because sometimes we walk into somebody else’s life thinking:
I gotchu.
And somewhere along the way we discover:
Wait a minute.
You got me too.
👀😭❤️
And THAT, Beloveds, is a conversation I know a little something about.
But we’ll leave that right there.
👀
For now—
the lights are going down.
The popcorn is ready.
The movie is cued.
And yes…
I saved you a chair. 🪑
Actually—
I gotchu and I gotcha.
🍿🎬❤️
Unapologetically His and Unapologetically yours,
loving me some you,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
#SaturdayMatinee
#SameKindOfDifferentAsMe
#IGotchuAndIGotcha
Help me be loud:
I TOLD HARD, “HA!”
I TOLD HARD, “HA!”
Beloveds.
Life came for me.
Hard came for me.
And I told Hard—
“HA!” 😂
Now, before somebody thinks Cassandra has finally lost what little sense she had left, let me explain. 😂
I didn’t tell hard it wasn’t hard.
I told hard it wasn’t God.
Sit with that for a minute.
Because I am not going to lie to you and pretend everything that has happened to me has been easy.
It hasn’t.
I’m not going to tell you I haven’t cried.
I have.
I’m not going to tell you I haven’t gotten tired, frustrated, angry, disappointed, scared, or just plain sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I have.
Hard is HARD.
And sometimes faith doesn’t change that fact.
Sometimes prayer doesn’t immediately change the circumstances.
Sometimes you can believe God with everything in you and still wake up tomorrow facing the same thing you were facing yesterday.
I know something about that.
I am taking care of myself.
I’m listening to my doctors.
I’m preparing to begin outpatient therapy.
And I also understand that I may have to live with some residual symptoms from my stroke unless and until God heals me.
Maybe He will.
I believe He can.
But Beloveds, I also have to tell you something that matters deeply to me:
I may not get the miracle I want.
And God will still be God.
I will still be blessed.
I will still love Him.
I will still trust Him.
And I will not blame God for an outcome I don’t like.
Life came for me.
Hard came for me.
I told hard, “HA!”
Not because hard didn’t hurt.
Not because I won every battle.
Not because everything went back to the way it used to be.
Not because I got everything I prayed for.
HA! is not denial.
HA! is me refusing to give hard a promotion it did not earn.
Hard does not get to become God.
Hard does not get to decide whether I laugh today.
Hard does not get to decide whether I love today.
Hard does not get to decide whether I write today.
Hard does not get to decide whether I dream today.
Hard does not get to decide whether I LIVE today.
And perhaps that is what living your best life really means.
Maybe your best life isn’t the life you would have chosen.
Maybe it isn’t the life you planned.
Maybe living your best life means taking the life you have—
and living the mess out of it anyway.
Laugh while something still hurts.
Call somebody you love.
Watch the movie.
Play the music.
Eat something delicious.
Write the thing.
Go to therapy.
Ask for help.
Take the nap.
Cry when you need to cry.
Start again when you’re able.
Sit still when you’re not.
Find something beautiful in a day that wasn’t particularly beautiful.
And please hear me:
You do not have to defeat hard before you start living again.
🔒🔑
Hard may change the lock.
Hard doesn’t get to hide every key.
Maybe your hard is illness.
Maybe it’s grief.
Maybe somebody broke your heart.
Maybe you’re lonely.
Maybe money is funny and the bills aren’t laughing.
Maybe you’re caring for somebody and you’re exhausted.
Maybe you’re beginning again at 27.
Or 57.
Or 87.
Maybe you’ve been praying about something so long that you don’t even know what else to say.
Maybe today you don’t feel strong.
Then don’t perform strength for me.
Cry.
Rest.
Call somebody.
Get some help.
Do what you need to do to take care of yourself.
And when you’re able—
LIVE.
Because whatever came for you does not automatically get the rest of you.
AND NOW, MY 🥜 EATERS…
😂🥰
Come on in.
Yes, YOU.
Pull up your chair.
You already know I’m not about to sneak an altar call into paragraph six. 😂
You don’t have to believe what I believe for this next part to belong to you.
I believe in God.
I believe Jesus is Lord and Savior.
I believe God can heal me.
That’s Cassandra.
I’m not hiding my faith to make anybody comfortable.
But I’m also not requiring you to borrow my faith before I’ll pull out a chair for you.
So keep your peanuts. 🥜😂
Sit down.
I gotchu and gotcha.
Because whether you believe in God, don’t believe in God, aren’t sure about God, are angry with God, walked away from church a long time ago, or have never walked through the doors—
hard has probably introduced itself to you too.
And here’s what I want you to hear:
Whatever happened to you is something that happened to you.
It does not have to become everything you are.
You don’t have to call that God.
I do.
You don’t have to explain your survival the way I explain mine.
You don’t even have to understand it yet.
But please—
LIVE.
That’s it.
That’s my grand agenda today.
No sorting table.
No religious prerequisite.
No test at the door.
There are chairs.
🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑
Come sit down.
Believers, bring your faith.
🥜 eaters, bring your peanuts.
Those of you somewhere in between, bring your questions.
Everybody bring your keys. 🔑
We’ve got some living to do.
Because sometimes the miracle isn’t that everything changed today.
Sometimes today is simply the day you realized:
I AM STILL HERE.
And being here means there is still something available to me.
Love.
Laughter.
Friendship.
Music.
A conversation.
A sunset.
A ridiculous movie.
A good cry.
Another beginning.
Another chance to say I love you.
Another opportunity to tell somebody else:
I gotchu.
And another day to LIVE.
So Hard…
I see you.
I felt you.
I have the scars to prove you were here.
I’m not pretending you weren’t hard.
But you apparently misunderstood something.
You thought because you changed some things, you got everything.
You thought because life didn’t turn out exactly as I planned, I would stop living it.
You thought because my body changed, Cassandra disappeared.
You thought because I cried, joy packed its bags.
You thought because I hurt, love left.
You thought because I don’t know exactly what tomorrow holds, I couldn’t enjoy TODAY.
Baby…
HA! 😂💃🏿
I’m still here.
Still loving.
Still laughing.
Still believing.
Still writing.
Still dreaming.
Still taking care of myself.
Still finding 🔑s.
Still pulling out chairs.
Still loving me some Beloveds.
And still living.
Life came for me.
Hard came for me.
I TOLD HARD, “HA!”
And whatever came for you, Beloved—
please don’t hand it the rest of your life.
I gotchu and gotcha.
And God has us all. ❤️
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
loving me some you,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: Writing ✍️🏿 this actually brought tears to my eyes, beloveds. I dream of raising both arms in praise. I want to run again. I want to drive 🚗 again.
I want to live on my own. This stroke makes that impossible, for now.
Now, I have to literally plan EVERY step. That gets exhausting. It’s why folks who have had a stroke take many naps. Even my try gets exhausted fast.
Still, I am grateful for my life. Even on my harshest health days.
This morning, I told lazy to get up. Lazy, laughter, Jesus and I folded my laundry and put it away.
Whew!
I made a promise to myself that I would take no breaks until the last piece was folded and put away.
In total, it has taken almost four hours to complete my routine.
I just stopped by to encourage someone. Starting with me.
Enjoy yourself. Embrace your life. It’s the only one we get.
In case no one has told you today: I love you and so does He. Be patient. Be resourceful. Be resolute.
Be challenged. Be adventurous. Be…
Heckamiah! Be as many things as you want!😎🥰😂👀💃🏿💯
Take care of your heart as it is precious and priceless to ABBA, to me.
Finally, hit me up in the comments. Tryna sound cool 😎. How’d I do. Asking for A Friend…😂🥰❤️
Help me be loud:
YOU ARE STILL HERE AND HERE IS A PLACE.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
YOU ARE STILL HERE — AND HERE IS A PLACE
Beloveds.
We made it to Friday.
Not everybody arrived triumphantly.
Somebody crawled.
Somebody coasted.
Somebody changed the plan four times.
Somebody did the bare minimum and had to call that enough.
Somebody surprised themselves.
Somebody is still waiting for the thing they hoped would change this week.
Welcome.
This week we talked about beginning again, voice, agency, and joy.
None of those subjects requires a perfect ending by Friday afternoon.
Life is not a weekly television episode.
Sometimes the victory is not resolution.
Sometimes the victory is presence.
Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” KJV
For me, that rejoicing does not mean denying what hurts.
It means this day still contains life.
If you do not share my belief, I hope you can still receive this:
Your unfinished life is not an unworthy life.
🔑 You do not have to wait until everything is fixed to belong here.
You matter to me.
Bring the wheelchair.
Bring the cane.
Bring the running shoes.
Bring the grief.
Bring the laughter.
Bring the questions.
Bring the faith.
Bring the doubt.
Bring yourself.
There is a chair.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Help me be loud:
STILL.
Beloveds,
I’m STILL me.
This stroke has not taken my joy. Yes, my voice is unrecognizable. That’s okay. I’m doing my best to love somebody with all that is within me.
I made this before my stroke. Hearing the old me is bittersweet. There are days when I miss who l used to be. She is still me.
I just stopped by to encourage someone. Starting with me.
Don’t get on yourself for who you used to be Embrace ALL of you
Use the voice you have Enjoy the life you have. Love the person you are now. Right now
loving me some you,
Cassandra
Help me be loud:
I’M STARTING A LOVE TRAIN OF MY OWN.
I’M STARTING A LOVE TRAIN OF MY OWN 🚂❤️
Beloveds.
Life is short.
I don’t mean that as one of those sayings we toss around when somebody dies and then forget as soon as life gets busy again.
I mean life is short.
My big brother is gone.
Gone.
There are things about that sentence my heart is still trying to understand.
And since April, I have been hospitalized three times.
Three.
So when I tell you that I have been thinking about NOW, I need you to understand where that word is coming from.
Not from a motivational poster.
Not from a cute quote.
Not from somebody standing safely on the other side of life telling everybody else how to live theirs.
I’m talking about looking at your own life and realizing:
We keep acting like we have time guaranteed to us that nobody ever promised.
Time to make the call.
Time to forgive.
Time to apologize.
Time to say I love you.
Time to tell somebody they mattered.
Time to laugh until your stomach hurts.
Time to dance badly.
Time to sit quietly with somebody.
Time to stop pretending you don’t care.
Time to put down some foolishness that wasn’t worth carrying in the first place.
Time to LIVE.
We say:
Later.
Tomorrow.
When things settle down.
When I’m less busy.
When they reach out first.
When I feel better.
When I have more money.
When life gets easier.
Beloveds…
What if it doesn’t?
What if this is the life?
Messy.
Beautiful.
Painful.
Funny.
Unfinished.
Ordinary.
Extraordinary.
Now.
❤️
I listened to The O’Jays singing “Love Train,” and something in me heard more than a song.
I heard a question.
Are you coming?
Not when everybody agrees.
Not when humanity finally learns how to act right.
Not when every wound has healed.
Not when everybody believes what you believe.
Not when every relationship has been repaired.
Not when you’re certain you won’t get hurt again.
NOW.
Come now.
Love now.
Live now.
Laugh now.
Say it now.
Receive it now.
Rejoice now.
Because somebody you love can be here—
and then not be here.
😭❤️
I know that now in a way I desperately wish I didn’t.
My big brother is gone.
And I cannot change that.
But I can decide what his absence teaches me about the people who are still here.
I can look around.
I can see you.
I can love you.
I can stop saving flowers for funerals.
I can stop waiting until somebody cannot hear me to tell the world what they meant to me.
I can love people while they are alive.
And so can you.
👀
So I’m challenging you, Beloveds.
Who needs to hear from you?
Who needs to know you love them?
Who have you been meaning to call?
Who deserves their flowers while they can still smell them?
Who have you been withholding kindness from because you’re waiting for them to go first?
What joy have you postponed?
What dream have you convinced yourself you’ll get around to eventually?
What part of your own life have you been standing outside of, waiting for somebody to invite you in?
And here’s the uncomfortable one:
Who have you decided doesn’t belong on your Love Train?
👀
Because it’s easy to talk about loving humanity.
Humanity is abstract.
People are complicated.
People disagree with us.
People misunderstand us.
People disappoint us.
People look different.
Believe differently.
Vote differently.
Worship differently—or don’t worship at all.
People carry histories we don’t know.
Some people have wounds that make them difficult to reach.
Some people will never become who we wish they would become.
And still the question comes:
What are we going to do with the time we have?
I’m not asking you to abandon boundaries.
I’m not asking anybody to return to abuse.
I’m not asking you to pretend harm didn’t happen.
I’m asking something much simpler and much harder:
While you are here, what kind of human being do you want to be?
Because I have decided something.
🚂❤️
I’M STARTING A LOVE TRAIN OF MY OWN.
I don’t own the train.
I don’t get to inspect everybody’s ticket.
Actually…
There are no tickets.
😂❤️
You don’t have to believe what I believe.
You don’t have to look like me.
You don’t have to understand every part of me.
You don’t have to have your life together.
You can arrive grieving.
You can arrive laughing.
You can arrive questioning.
You can arrive believing.
You can arrive unsure.
You can sit quietly by the window if that’s all you have today.
Come.
There is room.
And once you get settled?
Scoot over.
Somebody else is coming.
❤️🚂❤️🚂❤️🚂❤️
That’s how I want to live whatever life I have.
Not counting how many days I might have left.
Making the days I have count.
Not waiting for the world to become loving.
Loving.
Not waiting for somebody else to build community.
Reaching.
Not demanding that everybody become the same.
Seeing people.
Not someday.
NOW.
Because my big brother was here.
And now he isn’t.
Because I’ve seen the inside of a hospital three times since April.
Because tomorrow is precious precisely because it isn’t promised.
Because there are people walking around today who desperately need somebody to remind them:
You matter.
You belong.
I see you.
I gotchu and gotcha.
And because despite everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve survived, everything I’ve gotten wrong, everything I’m still learning, and everything that hurts—
I still believe in love.
Maybe that’s foolish.
Then hand me my conductor hat.
😂🚂❤️
I’m doing it anyway.
So here is my challenge:
Don’t just listen to the Love Train.
Become part of it.
Call somebody.
Love somebody.
Encourage somebody.
Forgive where forgiveness is yours to give.
Ask forgiveness where you’ve caused harm.
Laugh.
Dance.
Dream.
Rest.
Begin again.
Tell somebody the truth while they can still hear it:
I love you.
And then make room for somebody you didn’t expect.
The world has enough trains carrying anger, suspicion, division, loneliness, fear, contempt and hatred.
I’m starting another one.
🔒🔑❤️🚂
Destination?
I don’t know.
Maybe we figure that out together.
But I know how we’re leaving the station:
LIVE NOW.
LOVE NOW.
LAUGH NOW.
RECEIVE NOW.
REJOICE NOW.
Life is short, Beloveds.
Everybody aboard.
The Love Train is leaving NOW.
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
loving me some you,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Help me be loud:
Love Train
Beloveds
Help me start a LOVE TRAIN!
I truly believe we can each make a difference. Perhaps, The Universe is waiting for us to BE the difference!
waiting for fellow sojourners,
Cassandra
Help me be loud:
Just Don’t Wanna Know
Beloveds
This is my heart ❤️ today…💔😭
God, where You at?…
Asking for The Beloveds,
Cassandra
