Nuff Said.
Cassandra
Category: Hobbies
WHAT IF.
WHAT IF YOUR PREFERENCE IS REALLY A RULER?
LOVE IN ACTION. IN REAL TIME.
Beloveds, I watched something this morning that reached underneath several conversations I have been having lately.
It was an episode of the Dear Future Wifey Podcast called “God Delivered Us From Our Preferences,” featuring Joshua and Courtney Washington.
You can watch it here:
https://youtu.be/fln2OcdzvZI?si=bz7aLccwfJpPbBY6
According to their preferences, Joshua and Courtney should never have chosen each other.
Joshua did not want to enter a relationship with a woman who already had children.
Courtney had four.
Courtney had also made an inner vow as a child that she would never have Black children.
That vow did not appear from nowhere.
She had been bullied because of the color of her skin.
A wounded Black child tried to protect her future children from experiencing the pain she had experienced.
Her conclusion was harmful.
But before we rush to condemn her conclusion, we must be willing to sit beside the child who reached it.
She was trying to solve an injury with the understanding and power available to her at the time.
Joshua also had a ruler.
He had decided that a woman with children represented a responsibility he did not want.
But Courtney’s children were not defects attached to an otherwise desirable woman.
They were part of the whole life she had already lived.
To receive Courtney, he had to see more than the category he had placed her in.
Both of them had to investigate the rulers beneath their preferences.
And that is where this stopped being only their story.
beloveds, some of our preferences are simply preferences.
Some of them are healthy boundaries.
Some of them are expressions of wisdom, compatibility, safety, and discernment.
But some of the things we call preferences are rulers constructed from fear, injury, racism, ableism, rejection, church culture, family expectations, ego, or the determination never to be hurt that way again.
Sometimes we are not measuring what is good.
We are measuring what feels familiar.
Sometimes we are not protecting our peace.
We are protecting an old wound from ever being examined.
Sometimes we are not exercising discernment.
We are rejecting a complete person because part of that person’s life does not match the picture we created.
Sometimes the ruler is pointed toward somebody else.
Sometimes it is pointed toward us.
I know something about being measured.
I am a Black woman.
I am loud.
I am a woman whose speech changed after a stroke.
I use a wheelchair.
I am a believer.
I am a writer.
I am still Cassandra.
But even that word “still” deserves examination.
“Still Cassandra” must never mean that the present me is valuable only because enough of the former me survived.
Pre-stroke Cassandra is not the preferred model against which post-stroke Cassandra must be measured.
Post-stroke Cassandra is not a damaged reproduction of an original woman.
The woman before the stroke and the woman after the stroke belong to one complete journey.
My wheelchair is not an unwanted responsibility attached to the parts of me people find inspiring.
My changed speech is not an inconvenience people must tolerate before they can reach my intelligence.
My fatigue does not cancel my calling.
My need for assistance does not erase my agency.
My grief does not make me ungrateful.
My joy does not mean nothing hurts.
My strength does not eliminate my right to need tenderness.
My complete humanity does not require me to perform excellence every moment before I am allowed to occupy my chair.
And neither does yours.
The video asked me to consider what happens when we prefer an imagined person over the complete human being God places before us.
Then, while I was processing it, the lesson became real.
Someone who matters deeply to me began diminishing himself after making a mistake.
He took accountability and then kept going until accountability became self-erasure.
He began removing his own chair.
He seemed to believe that honoring my agency required him to surrender his voice, judgment, contribution, humor, and personhood.
I recognized what was happening.
And because I love him, I refused to benefit from his disappearance.
I called Robie back into his chair.
I told him that he mattered to me.
PERIODT.
End story.
My hand does not allow me to type freely or endlessly.
Every word requires something from my body.
But this morning, I chose to type as much as my hand would allow.
Not because I wanted anyone to call it suffering.
Not because I wanted praise for pushing through pain.
I did it because love sometimes chooses to spend something precious.
It was love in action.
In real time.
For the world.
For the beloveds.
For God.
And today, it was for Robie.
I did not help Robie by pretending he had done nothing wrong.
I did not help him by taking responsibility for work that belongs to him.
I did not help him by making myself smaller.
I helped him by refusing to accept a partnership purchased with his disappearance.
That is another ruler we may need to break.
Some of us believe that accountability means crawling beneath the chair.
Some of us believe that repentance requires permanent humiliation.
Some of us believe that if we made a mistake, we must forfeit our voice before anyone will trust our remorse.
Some of us make ourselves so small that the person we harmed must stop processing their own experience and come rescue us.
That is not repair.
Correction does not require disappearance.
Accountability does not require self-destruction.
Humility does not require pretending we have nothing meaningful to contribute.
Love does not need one person to vanish so the other person can remain visible.
There is room for two chairs.
Two whole people can remain present.
One can say, “You hurt me.”
The other can say, “I hear you, and I am responsible.”
One can offer correction.
The other can receive it without collapsing.
Both can think.
Both can speak.
Both can learn.
Both can retain agency.
Both can remain worthy of love.
That is not domination.
That is not obedience disguised as partnership.
That is contribution without takeover.
Correction without erasure.
Agency without isolation.
Love without requiring sameness.
Two chairs.
Both occupied.
So here is today’s love challenge.
Examine one ruler you have been carrying.
Do not immediately condemn yourself for having it.
Ask where it came from.
Ask what happened before you picked it up.
Ask what wound it has been protecting.
Ask whether it is measuring wisdom or merely familiarity.
Ask whom it excludes.
Ask whether it prevents you from seeing the whole person standing before you.
Ask whether that person is someone you love.
Ask whether that person is you.
Then consider telling somebody—without adding a qualification, usefulness test, correction, warning, or “but”:
“You matter to me.”
PERIODT.
End story.
If you believe in God, invite Him into the place where the ruler was made.
Ask Him to reveal every agreement rooted in fear rather than truth.
Ask Him to help you break the ruler without abandoning the wounded person who once needed it.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.”
—Psalm 139:23, KJV
If you are unsure about God, do not believe, or may never believe, there is still a chair for you here.
You can examine inherited rulers without pretending to share my faith.
You can practice love in action.
You can refuse to reduce another human being to a category.
You can stop demanding that people disappear before you consider them worthy of remaining beside you.
You belong in this conversation too.
beloveds, perhaps healing is not becoming the person we would have preferred to be.
Perhaps healing includes learning to see, love, and understand the complete person who is actually here.
No selected pieces.
No preferred version.
No disposable chair.
The ruler can break.
The key can emerge.
And love can become visible while the moment is still happening.
You matter to me.
PERIODT.
End story.
If this spoke to you, please comment, share, like, subscribe, and follow.
You never know who may need permission to put down the ruler and return to their chair.
🔑
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra S.
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Help me be loud:
🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE THREE
COLUMBO DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
Beloveds,
I have apparently become Columbo.
🤣🕵🏿♀️
Not intentionally.
Nobody issued me the trench coat.
I did not apply for the position.
But after spending an absolutely ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out why my posts suddenly would not behave, I found myself doing exactly what Columbo does.
Looking.
Thinking.
Walking away.
Coming back.
Trying something.
Discovering that wasn’t it.
Looking again.
And then:
“Just one more thing…”
👀
That might be one of the most useful things I have learned about perseverance.
Sometimes perseverance is not courage first.
Sometimes it is curiosity.
🔑
We usually tell stories about perseverance after everything has worked out.
That makes them sound much prettier than they felt while somebody was living them.
We say:
She kept going.
He refused to give up.
They persevered.
Wonderful.
But what did “kept going” actually LOOK like?
Because sometimes it looks remarkably unimpressive.
🤣
Try something.
Nope.
Try something else.
Still nope.
Get irritated.
Take a break.
Come back.
Ask a different question.
Realize you have been solving the wrong problem.
👀
Now THAT will humble you.
🔑
I had been looking at my posting problem and thinking one thing was wrong.
Then another.
Then another.
At some point, the problem itself became less interesting to me than the assumptions I was making about it.
What if the problem isn’t where I think it is?
What if what LOOKS wrong is not actually what IS wrong?
What changed?
What stayed the same?
What haven’t I tested?
What am I assuming because it worked yesterday?
And—
just one more thing…
🤣🕵🏿♀️
What if I don’t need the whole answer yet?
🔑
That question matters.
Because sometimes we quit when we cannot see the entire road.
We think we need certainty before taking another step.
We want the solution.
The plan.
The explanation.
The guarantee.
The map with a cheerful little arrow announcing:
YOU ARE HERE.
And preferably another one saying:
EVERYTHING WORKS OUT RIGHT OVER THERE.
🤣
Life has been extremely inconsiderate about providing those maps.
So maybe I don’t need to know everything.
Maybe I need to know the next useful thing.
🔑
What can I learn from what just happened?
What changed?
What did not?
What have I already ruled out?
What deserves another attempt?
What absolutely does NOT deserve another attempt?
Do I need more effort?
Or better information?
Do I need to keep pushing?
Or stop long enough to notice what all that pushing has been hiding?
Do I need an answer?
Or do I need a better question?
👀
There it is.
🔑
Sometimes the key is not an answer.
Sometimes the key is the question that finally opens something.
That changes how I think about failure too.
A failed attempt can feel like:
I couldn’t do it.
But curiosity says:
Interesting.
That didn’t work.
Why?
What did it teach me?
What do I know now that I did not know five minutes ago?
What happens if I change ONE thing?
That failed attempt just became information.
It did not become prophecy.
It cannot tell me what I will never accomplish.
It can only tell me what happened THIS time, under THESE conditions, using THIS method.
That is a much smaller statement.
And smaller statements leave room for possibility.
🔑
Beloveds, maybe there is something in your life you cannot figure out right now.
I am not going to hand you a motivational poster and tell you to TRY HARDER.
Sometimes trying harder is exactly how we wear ourselves out doing the wrong thing more efficiently.
👀🤣
Instead, I’m handing you Columbo’s question.
“Just one more thing…”
🕵🏿♀️
What haven’t you asked yet?
Maybe:
What am I assuming?
What am I afraid the answer will be?
What changed?
What keeps repeating?
What have I learned?
Who could help me see what I cannot see from where I am standing?
What happens if I rest?
What happens if I change the method?
What happens if I stop demanding that today’s information answer tomorrow’s questions?
What if I am not stuck?
What if I am still investigating?
🔑
I like that.
Still investigating.
Because there are seasons when I genuinely do not know what comes next.
And I am learning that “I don’t know” does not automatically mean:
There is nowhere to go.
Sometimes it simply means:
I don’t know.
Yet.
So I can stay curious.
I can look again.
I can ask another question.
I can change my mind when the evidence changes.
I can admit when my first theory was wrong.
I can rest without closing the case.
And when I am ready—
👀
“Just one more thing…”
🤣🕵🏿♀️🔑
Maybe perseverance isn’t always charging forward.
Sometimes it is refusing to let confusion have the final word.
Sometimes it is staying curious long enough to discover that the problem was never quite what you thought it was.
And sometimes the next step isn’t an answer.
It’s a better question.
You matter to me.
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
One step. One step. One step.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
Help me be loud:
Just stopped by to ask…
Just stopped by, beloveds, to ask…
How are you—really?
Not the answer you give because somebody is waiting, somebody needs something, or you do not feel like unpacking the whole suitcase today.
I mean you.
Have you eaten something?
Had some water?
Taken your medicine?
Rested before your body had to submit a written complaint to management? 🤣
Have you laughed today?
Cried if you needed to?
Sat quietly without turning your quiet into another assignment?
And if the honest answer is, “Cassandra, today has been doing entirely too much,” that answer is welcome here too.
You do not have to turn a hard day into a testimony before bedtime.
You do not have to make your struggle sound inspiring so somebody else can be comfortable with it.
You do not have to explain every bruise life left where nobody could see it.
Maybe you are celebrating.
Maybe you are surviving.
Maybe you are somewhere between “Won’t He do it!” and “Lord, what exactly are We doing?” 😭🤣
Whatever you believe, do not believe, or are still figuring out, there is room for your honest answer here.
If words are too expensive tonight, leave one emoji.
If even that is too much, just know I stopped by and left the porch light on.
There is a chair for you.
There is no admission test.
You matter to me.
So tell me, beloveds:
How are you—really?
Comment with a word, an emoji, or whatever you have.
Share this with somebody who may need a loving knock on the door.
Like, subscribe, and follow so we can keep checking on one another.
🔑
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Help me be loud:
ITS NEVER TIME TO QUIT
🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE TWO
WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANOTHER TRY IN ME TODAY?
Beloveds,
Yesterday I told you that sometimes the way you refuse to quit is by refusing to keep going the same way.
Today I want to talk to the person who read that and thought:
Cassandra, I don’t have another way right now.
I don’t have another plan.
I don’t have another idea.
I don’t have another ounce of patience.
And if somebody tells me to “keep going” one more time, I might invite THEM to keep going.
Right on out the door.
🤣
Pull up your chair.
🪑
Because this one is for you.
And, frankly, sometimes it is for me too.
🔑
There are days when you are not deciding whether to quit.
You are deciding whether you have anything left for today.
Those are different questions.
I need us to stop treating them like they are the same.
Sometimes you have tried.
And tried.
And tried again.
You made the phone call.
You filled out the form.
You went to the appointment.
You had the conversation.
You tried the workaround.
You asked for help.
You prayed.
You waited.
You started over.
You adjusted.
You did everything you knew how to do.
And now?
You are tired.
Not inspirational-poster tired.
Not “drink some coffee and get back in there” tired.
Tired tired.
❤️🩹
Your body is tired.
Your mind is tired.
Your feelings are tired.
Your hope might even feel tired.
And sometimes the most truthful thing you can say is:
“I do not have another try in me today.”
Notice the last word.
Today.
🔑
Today is not forever.
This hour is not forever.
This feeling is not forever.
This particular amount of strength is not necessarily all the strength you will ever have.
You do not have to make a lifetime decision from one exhausted moment.
And you do not have to borrow strength from tomorrow to prove you did not quit today.
Read that again.
You do not have to borrow strength from tomorrow to prove you did not quit today.
🔑
Sometimes stopping protects the part of you that will try again.
Sometimes sleep is part of perseverance.
Sometimes eating something is part of perseverance.
Sometimes turning the phone off is part of perseverance.
Sometimes cancelling something is part of perseverance.
Sometimes asking someone else to carry something is part of perseverance.
Sometimes saying “not tonight” is part of perseverance.
Sometimes watching a movie and refusing to solve another problem until tomorrow is part of perseverance.
🍿🤣
Yes.
I said it.
Because perseverance is not punishment.
And rest is not a character flaw.
🔑
We have created some strange ideas about strength.
We praise the person who keeps going when they are exhausted.
We praise the person who never asks for help.
We praise the person who carries everybody.
We praise the person who works through pain.
We praise the person who never misses a day.
We praise the person who says, “I’m fine,” while clearly being anything but fine.
And then we wonder why people collapse.
👀
Beloveds, sometimes strength looks like continuing.
And sometimes strength looks like knowing when continuing right now is costing too much.
That is not weakness.
That is information.
Your body gives you information.
Your mind gives you information.
Your emotions give you information.
Your circumstances give you information.
Wisdom pays attention.
🔑
I am learning that there is a difference between surrendering my life and surrendering my schedule.
There is a difference between abandoning my purpose and changing today’s expectations.
There is a difference between quitting and resting.
There is a difference between “I cannot” and “I cannot right now.”
There is a difference between “never” and “not today.”
Those little words matter.
They leave a door open.
🚪🔑
Maybe tomorrow you try again.
Maybe tomorrow you still cannot.
Then perhaps you need another day.
Maybe the answer comes next week.
Maybe somebody else knows a route you have not considered.
Maybe circumstances change.
Maybe you change.
Maybe the thing you were fighting so hard to preserve turns out not to be the thing you needed to preserve at all.
We do not know yet.
That is the point.
You do not have to decide the entire future tonight.
🔑
Some of you have been carrying things for years.
Family responsibilities.
Caregiving.
Grief.
Financial pressure.
Loneliness.
Work.
Recovery.
Disappointment.
A dream that keeps taking longer than you expected.
A relationship you do not know how to repair.
A body that requires more attention than you wish it did.
A life that looks nothing like the one you planned.
And people keep telling you:
“Stay strong.”
Sometimes I want to ask:
Strong HOW?
👀
Strong enough to pretend?
Strong enough to hide?
Strong enough to never need anybody?
Strong enough to keep doing something that is breaking me?
Nah, fam.
That cannot be the only definition of strength.
🔑
Sometimes strength says:
I need help.
Sometimes strength says:
I need to stop.
Sometimes strength says:
I need to think.
Sometimes strength says:
I need to sleep.
Sometimes strength says:
I need to cry before I can figure out what comes next.
Sometimes strength says:
I don’t know.
And sometimes strength says:
Ask me tomorrow.
🤣
That counts too.
🔑
There is something else I want to say carefully.
Not everything is supposed to be endured forever.
“It’s never time to quit” does not mean remaining indefinitely in something harmful just so you can say you stayed.
Sometimes what needs to end is the thing hurting you.
Sometimes perseverance means persevering toward freedom.
Sometimes the 🔑 opens a door out.
Leaving one thing does not necessarily mean you quit on yourself.
Sometimes leaving is exactly how you refuse to quit on yourself.
That distinction matters.
❤️🩹
So when I say WE FIGHT ON, I do not mean we fight everything forever.
I mean we keep choosing life.
We keep looking for the next honest possibility.
We keep protecting what matters.
We keep learning.
We keep adapting.
We keep loving.
We keep asking questions.
We keep making room for help.
We keep making room for joy.
We keep making room for God.
And sometimes we keep going by going to bed.
🤣🛌
Won’t He do it.
🔑
If today has taken everything you had, hear me.
You do not owe today anything else.
You do not have to squeeze one final achievement out of yourself so you can call the day successful.
You survived the day.
Maybe you loved somebody.
Maybe you let somebody love you.
Maybe you handled one difficult thing.
Maybe you handled ten.
Maybe you got out of bed.
Maybe you stayed in bed because that was what you needed.
Maybe you laughed once.
Maybe you cried seventeen times.
Maybe all you managed was here.
Then here counts.
👩🏿🦼
I have learned to respect here.
Here is not always where I wanted to be.
Here is not always comfortable.
Here does not always look impressive.
But here is where the next choice becomes possible.
You cannot take tomorrow’s step tonight.
You can only decide what faithfulness looks like here.
And sometimes faithfulness looks like rest.
🔑
So tonight, if you are tired, I am not going to holler at you to PUSH.
I am not going to tell you that winners never stop.
I am not going to hand you another assignment.
I am going to pull out a chair.
🪑
Sit.
You can be tired here.
You can be uncertain here.
You can believe here.
You can doubt here.
You can disagree with me here.
You can have no idea what comes next and still have a place here.
There is room for you.
You do not have to resolve before you belong.
And you certainly do not have to perform strength before you are loved.
You matter to me.
🔑
Tomorrow will arrive soon enough.
We will see what strength it brings with it.
Maybe tomorrow is the day you try again.
Maybe tomorrow is the day you ask somebody to help.
Maybe tomorrow is the day you discover another route.
Maybe tomorrow is simply another day to rest.
We will deal with tomorrow when it becomes today.
For now:
Put down what can be put down.
Breathe.
Rest.
Laugh if something is funny.
Listen to some music.
Watch the movie.
🍿🎬
Let yourself be a human being instead of a project that is perpetually under construction.
And if all you can say tonight is:
“I am done for today.”
Then say it.
Without shame.
Without turning it into forever.
Without writing an ending that has not happened.
Because:
“I’m done for today” is NOT the same as “I give up.”
🔑
Sometimes tomorrow’s courage begins with tonight’s rest.
We fight on.
And sometimes fighting on means:
Good night.
One step.
One step.
One step.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Unapologetically His.
🔑
Help me be loud:
ITS NEVER TIME TO QUIT.
🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE ONE
SOMETIMES THE WAY YOU REFUSE TO QUIT IS BY REFUSING TO KEEP GOING THE SAME WAY.
Beloveds,
I want to start this new series by clearing something up.
When I say, “It’s never time to quit,” I do NOT mean you should keep pushing yourself until there is nothing left of you.
I do not mean you cannot stop.
I do not mean you cannot rest.
I do not mean you cannot change your mind.
I do not mean you cannot ask for help.
I do not mean you have to keep using a method that is hurting you just because it used to work.
And I definitely do not mean that exhaustion is evidence that you simply need to try harder.
👀
Nah, fam.
Sometimes you need to sit down.
🪑
Sometimes you need to sleep.
Sometimes you need to cry.
Sometimes you need to laugh.
Sometimes you need to admit, “This is not working.”
Sometimes you need somebody else.
Sometimes you need a completely different plan.
Sometimes you need to leave something alone for the rest of the day and come back tomorrow.
And sometimes the strongest declaration of “I am not quitting” sounds like:
“I cannot keep doing it THIS way.”
🔑
That distinction matters to me.
Because there have been times in my life when continuing did not look particularly impressive.
There was no inspirational soundtrack.
Nobody was standing nearby applauding.
There was no dramatic finish line waiting for me.
There was just another thing that needed to be figured out.
Another adjustment.
Another frustration.
Another moment when what used to be simple was not simple anymore.
Another moment when I had to decide whether changing the way I did something meant I had failed.
I am learning that it does not.
I can change the method without abandoning the mission.
I can change the pace without abandoning the journey.
I can accept help without surrendering my agency.
I can rest without surrendering my purpose.
I can have a difficult day without declaring that I have a difficult life.
I can say, “Enough for today,” without saying, “I am finished forever.”
Those are not the same sentences.
❤️🩹
Maybe you need to hear that too.
Maybe you have been calling yourself a quitter because you had to stop.
Maybe your body made you stop.
Maybe your finances made you reconsider the plan.
Maybe somebody disappointed you.
Maybe something you thought would work did not.
Maybe you tried again and it STILL did not work.
Maybe you are tired of beginning again.
Maybe you are embarrassed that you need help with something you once handled easily.
Maybe everybody around you seems to be moving while you feel stuck in the same place.
Maybe you are looking at somebody else’s progress and using it as evidence against your own.
Please put down that measuring stick.
🔑
You are allowed to continue differently.
You are allowed to move slowly.
You are allowed to crawl through one season and dance through another.
You are allowed to change directions.
You are allowed to learn.
You are allowed to adapt.
You are allowed to discover that the thing you thought was the destination was only one possible route.
And yes, beloved, you are allowed to REST.
Rest is not quitting.
Changing your strategy is not quitting.
Asking for help is not quitting.
Using a different tool is not quitting.
Taking longer than you expected is not quitting.
Starting again is not quitting.
Beginning from somewhere you never expected to be is not quitting.
Sometimes those things are exactly what continuing looks like.
👩🏿🦼
I know something now that I did not understand in quite the same way before my life changed.
“One step” does not always mean putting one foot in front of another.
Sometimes a step is a decision.
Sometimes a step is asking.
Sometimes a step is accepting.
Sometimes a step is trying something differently.
Sometimes a step is admitting that you are tired.
Sometimes a step is stopping long enough to recover enough strength for the next one.
And sometimes your step will not look like anybody else’s.
It still counts.
One step.
One step.
One step.
🔑
I also want to say something to the people who are exhausted by motivational language.
You know the kind.
KEEP GOING!
PUSH HARDER!
NO EXCUSES!
NEVER STOP!
👀
Listen.
Sometimes you absolutely need to stop.
Human beings are not machines.
And even machines overheat.
🤣
So this series is not going to be about pretending you are limitless.
You have limits.
So do I.
Some limits can change.
Some can be stretched.
Some need to be respected.
Some require accommodations.
Some require another person to come alongside us.
Some require us to grieve what we cannot do the way we once did it.
And none of that makes our lives less valuable.
None of that removes our purpose.
None of that means the story is over.
🔑
There is another sentence I want us to carry through this series:
The hard thing does not get to write the final sentence.
It may write a sentence.
It may write a paragraph.
It may even write an entire chapter you never wanted.
But it does not automatically get the ending.
You are still here.
And while you are here, there are still choices available to you.
There may be fewer choices than you wish you had.
They may not be the choices you expected.
But somewhere in what remains, there may still be a 🔑.
Maybe the key is help.
Maybe the key is rest.
Maybe the key is forgiveness.
Maybe the key is trying again.
Maybe the key is stopping something that is destroying you.
Maybe the key is beginning something you are terrified to begin.
Maybe the key is admitting that the old way is gone.
Maybe the key is discovering another way.
That is what I want us to explore together.
Not some shiny version of perseverance where everybody triumphs before the commercial break.
Real perseverance.
Messy perseverance.
Tired perseverance.
Wheelchair perseverance.
Starting-over perseverance.
“I have absolutely no idea what I am doing but apparently we are doing it anyway” perseverance.
🤣
That kind.
Because I know something about that kind.
And I suspect some of you do too.
So pull up your chair.
🪑
There is room here for the person who is certain.
There is room for the person who is questioning.
There is room for the person who believes as I do.
There is room for the person who does not.
There is room for the person who is hopeful.
There is room for the person who cannot find hope today.
You do not have to resolve everything before you belong here.
You do not have to agree with me before I care about you.
You do not have to become somebody else before your life matters to me.
You matter to me.
🔑
And Cassandra is going to keep saying that.
Because somebody needs to hear it until they can believe it for themselves.
This week we are going to talk about what refusing to quit can actually look like when you are tired.
When you are afraid.
When you are angry.
When you are disappointed.
When you need help.
When the original plan is gone.
When you have to begin again.
And when continuing looks nothing like you imagined it would.
We are not going to pretend any of it is easy.
We are going to look for the 🔑 anyway.
Because sometimes the way you refuse to quit is by refusing to keep going the same way.
And sometimes the bravest thing you can say is:
“This way isn’t working.”
Followed by:
“So let’s find another one.”
🔑
We fight on.
Not recklessly.
Not endlessly.
Not without rest.
Not alone.
But we fight on.
One step.
One step.
One step.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Unapologetically His.
🔑
Help me be loud:
SUNDAY WITH CASSANDRA. IT ME!
SUNDAY WITH CASSANDRA. IT ME!
📖 SUNDAY GRATITUDE JOURNAL WITH CASSANDRA 🪑🔑
Beloveds,
Come sit with me.
Yesterday, I invited you to the movies.
Today, I’m inviting you somewhere quieter.
Pull up your chair. 🪑
Bring your coffee.
Bring your tea.
Bring your questions.
Bring your faith.
Bring your doubts.
Bring your laughter.
Bring your grief.
Bring the parts of this week that made sense.
And bring the parts that absolutely did not.
You don’t have to clean yourself up before you sit down.
You don’t have to manufacture a testimony.
You don’t have to convince yourself that everything is wonderful.
And you certainly don’t have to pretend.
This is Sunday Gratitude Journal with Cassandra.
And I want us to begin with something important:
Gratitude is not pretending everything is good.
🔑
Sometimes gratitude is easy.
A beautiful morning.
A good meal.
A phone call.
A friend who checked on you.
A song that found you at exactly the right moment.
A movie that made you laugh.
A cup of coffee that deserved its own standing ovation. 👀🤣☕
Sometimes gratitude comes running toward us.
And sometimes?
Beloveds, we have to sit awhile before we can find it.
Sometimes we are grateful and grieving.
Grateful and disappointed.
Grateful and angry.
Grateful and exhausted.
Grateful and confused.
Grateful and still waiting for an answer.
Those things can exist in the same person.
At the same time.
That doesn’t make our gratitude fake.
It makes us human.
❤️🩹
And sometimes the truth is even simpler:
“I don’t know what I’m grateful for today.”
You can say that here too.
Pull up a chair.
🪑
I don’t want this journal to become another assignment you can fail.
I don’t want us performing positivity for one another.
I don’t want somebody reading this during one of the hardest weeks of their life and thinking everybody else found the secret to gratitude except them.
No.
Sometimes the journal begins with:
This week hurt.
This week disappointed me.
This week confused me.
This week exhausted me.
I wish some of what happened had never happened.
And I am still here.
Ma
ybe that’s where we begin.
🔑
I also want to make something very clear.
We do not have to be grateful FOR everything that happens to us in order to find something to be grateful for IN the life we are living.
There are things that happen in this world that I will never call good.
Cruelty is not good because somebody survived it.
Injustice is not good because somebody learned from it.
Loss does not become wonderful because eventually somebody found meaning.
Pain does not need a pretty bow around it.
Sometimes something was simply painful.
Sometimes something was simply wrong.
And gratitude does not require us to lie about that.
Maybe the gratitude is:
It hurt me.
I wish it had never happened.
And I am grateful it did not get the final word.
👀🔑
Now, you know Cassandra.
My faith is part of me.
I am going to talk about God.
I am going to pray.
I am going to tell you when I believe I saw God’s hand in something.
I am going to tell you when scripture carried me.
I am going to tell you when I prayed and believed God answered.
And I may also tell you about the times when I prayed and still had questions.
That is my chair.
But your chair is here too.
🪑🪑
You may believe exactly what I believe.
You may believe something different.
You may be questioning.
You may be uncertain.
You may not believe in God at all.
You do not have to borrow my beliefs to belong beside me.
If I say:
“This week, I saw God here…”
Maybe you say:
“This week, I saw kindness here.”
Maybe you call it humanity.
Community.
Love.
Resilience.
Goodness.
Chance.
Hope.
Maybe you don’t have a name for it yet.
We can tell the truth about what we believe without demanding that everybody sitting b
eside us use the same language.
🌎
That matters to me.
Because I don’t want a bigger table where everybody has to become Cassandra before they’re allowed to sit down.
🤣👀
Lord, one Cassandra is PLENTY.
🤣🤣🤣
I want a bigger table because the world is already full of different people.
Different stories.
Different beliefs.
Different questions.
Different histories.
Different wounds.
Different joys.
Different ways of understanding this strange, beautiful, difficult life.
And maybe we can learn something by sitting together.
🪑🌎🔑
So every Sunday, we’re going to open this journal.
Not because Cassandra has all the answers.
Please.
🤣
We’re opening it because reflection matters.
Sometimes life moves so quickly that we survive one thing and immediately start fighting the next.
We never stop long enough to ask:
What happened to me?
What helped me?
Who showed up?
What did I learn?
What surprised me?
What am I carrying that I don’t need anymore?
What deserves to come with me?
Where did I notice God?
Where did I notice goodness?
Where did I notice love?
Where did I notice myself becoming?
👀
Those are different questions.
And we don’t have to answer all of them.
This is not homework.
Pick a door.
🔑
Maybe today your journal says:
I am grateful for someone.
Maybe:
I am grateful for something small that brought me joy.
Maybe:
I am grateful I finally said no.
Maybe:
I am grateful I finally said yes.
Maybe:
I am grateful I changed my mind.
Maybe:
I am grateful somebody changed theirs.
Maybe:
I am grateful something ended.
Maybe:
I am grateful something began.
Maybe:
I am grateful I asked for help.
Maybe:
I am grateful somebody offered help before I had to ask.
Maybe:
I am grateful I laughed.
Maybe:
I am grateful I cried.
Maybe:
I am grateful I rested.
Maybe:
I am grateful I tried again.
Maybe:
I am grateful I stopped trying to force something that needed to be released.
Maybe:
I am grateful I discovered that a closed door wasn’t the end of the hallway.
🔑
And sometimes gratitude will surprise us.
We may discover we’re grateful for something we didn’t appreciate while it was happening.
A conversation.
A correction.
A delay.
A change of plans.
A stranger’s kindness.
Somebody saying:
“Come on.”
“Try again.”
“I believe you.”
“I’m still here.”
“Keep being weird.”
🤣🥰
Words can become keys.
People can become reminders that doors still exist.
And sometimes the person who handed us a key has absolutely no idea they did it.
That makes me wonder how many keys we’ve handed other people without knowing it.
👀🔑
Maybe somebody still remembers something kind you said ten years ago.
Maybe somebody kept going because you called.
Maybe somebody felt less alone because you sat beside them.
Maybe somebody believed they mattered because, for five minutes, you treated them like they did.
Maybe you forgot the entire conversation.
They didn’t.
That’s worth thinking about.
🌎
And gratitude isn’t a debt.
I need that written somewhere in this journal.
BIG.
🤣
You don’t owe happiness because somebody else has suffered more.
You don’t owe inspiration because people expect you to be strong.
You don’t owe anybody a cheerful version of your pain.
And you don’t owe Cassandra a beautiful answer in the comments.
If all you’ve got today is:
“I made it.”
Beloved, write that down.
If all you’ve got is:
“I rested.”
Write that down.
If all you’ve got is:
“I didn’t quit.”
Write that down.
If all you’ve got is:
“I don’t know yet.”
Leave some room on the page.
Maybe the answer hasn’t arrived.
📖
Sunday can hold an unfinished sentence.
So can you.
❤️🩹
For me, Sunday is also a chance to look toward God.
Not because every question has been answered.
Not because every difficulty disappeared.
Not because faith means I never struggle.
But because when I look back over my own life, I can identify places where I believe God was present even when I couldn’t understand what He was doing.
So part of my journal will sometimes simply say:
Thank You, God.
I don’t understand everything.
I don’t like everything.
I wouldn’t have chosen everything.
I still have questions.
But I can identify evidence that You were here.
🙏🏿
And if that isn’t your belief?
Your chair doesn’t disappear.
Tell me where YOU found goodness.
Tell me who showed up.
Tell me what helped.
Tell me what you learned.
Tell me what made you laugh.
Tell me what you’re carrying forward.
We don’t need identical answers to care about one another’s answers.
That’s part of the world I want us to practice building here.
🌎🪑
Saturday gives us something to experience together.
Sunday gives us room to reflect.
And Monday?
Monday we’ll get up—or roll up. 👩🏿🦼👀🤣
And we’ll keep moving.
Experience.
Reflection.
Movement.
🎬 → 📖 → 🔑
Maybe that’s part of our rhythm now.
We don’t rush from one thing to another without noticing what happened to us along the way.
We stop.
We look.
We learn.
We release what needs releasing.
We carry what deserves carrying.
And then we continue.
Not perfectly.
Not identically.
Together.
🌎
Before we close our first Sunday Gratitude Journal, I don’t want to give you twenty questions.
Just one.
Take it with you.
Sit with it.
Answer it publicly if you want.
Answer it privately if you don’t.
Write it somewhere.
Think about it.
Pray about it.
Laugh about it if your answer turns out to be something ridiculous. 🤣
Here it is:
🔑
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU’RE GRATEFUL MADE IT THROUGH THIS WEEK WITH YOU?
Maybe it’s your faith.
Maybe it’s your family.
Maybe it’s a friendship.
Maybe it’s your sense of humor.
Maybe it’s hope.
Maybe it’s your favorite coffee mug. ☕🤣
Maybe it’s a dream you thought you had lost.
Maybe it’s one tiny bit of courage.
Maybe it’s a question you’re finally willing to ask.
Maybe it’s your voice.
Maybe it’s you.
👀
Yeah.
You.
Maybe the thing that made it through this week with you…
was YOU.
And perhaps we don’t acknowledge that often enough.
You carried yourself through days nobody else completely saw.
You made decisions.
You changed decisions.
You endured disappointments.
You experienced little joys.
You got some things right.
You got some things spectacularly wrong.
🤣
You learned.
You rested.
You kept becoming.
And here you are.
Not finished.
Not required to be.
Still here.
🪑🔑
So come sit with me on Sundays.
Bring your gratitude when you have it.
Bring your questions when you don’t.
Bring your faith.
Bring your doubt.
Bring your laughter.
Bring your tears.
Bring the story exactly where it is.
There is room.
Believer.
Nonbeliever.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Whosoeverwill.
Come.
🪑🌎
I will tell you what I believe.
You can tell me what you believe.
We can listen.
We can learn.
We can disagree.
We can laugh.
We can be quiet.
And perhaps, somewhere in all of that, we’ll notice a few more reasons to be grateful that we’re sharing this complicated world with one another.
Different stories.
Same table.
ALL are keepers.
🔑🌎🪑
Welcome to Sunday Gratitude Journal with Cassandra.
The journal is open.
The chair is waiting.
And there is room on the page for you.
Cassandra
🔑 You matter to me.
Help me be loud:
MOVIE SATURDAY WITH CASSANDRA🌎🎬👩🏿🦼🍿🌎
MOVIE SATURDAY WITH CASSANDRA
Beloveds,
Pull up a chair.
I have something new for us.
Every Saturday, we’re going to the movies together.
Well…
Sort of.
You don’t have to buy a ticket.
You don’t have to get dressed.
You don’t have to leave your house.
And you certainly don’t have to pay movie-theater prices for popcorn.
Every Saturday at NOON, I’m opening the doors to our little Movie Saturday with Cassandra matinee.
I’ll bring a movie.
You bring you.
That’s it.
Some weeks we’ll laugh.
Some weeks we’ll cry.
Some weeks we’ll probably holler at the screen because somebody in the movie has apparently misplaced ALL their good sense.
Some movies may make us think about family, friendship, race, love, grief, faith, disability, second chances, forgiveness, education, aging, belonging, or what it means to become somebody we didn’t expect to become.
And some weeks?
Beloveds, we may just watch a good movie.
PERIODT.
Everything does not have to become homework.
Sometimes joy gets to simply be joy.
For our very first Movie Saturday, I had two movies in mind.
And My Bestie had opinions.
I had opinions.
There may have been a tiny disagreement.
Okay.
Maybe not tiny.
But after careful consideration, extensive deliberation, and the completely scientific process known as Cassandra picked the one she wanted to watch, we have a winner.
THIS WEEK’S MOVIE:
BACK TO SCHOOL MOM
Starring Kimberly Elise and Loretta Devine.
This one gives us plenty to work with:
Education.
Motherhood.
Second chances.
Unfinished business.
Dreams that didn’t disappear simply because life happened.
And becoming.
I already suspect we’re going to have some THOUGHTS.
But here’s something important about Movie Saturday:
You don’t have to see what I see.
You don’t have to like the character I like.
You might understand somebody I absolutely wanted to fuss at.
You might notice something I completely missed.
You might love the movie.
You might hate it.
You might change your mind halfway through.
So might I.
That’s part of the fun.
Different people can sit on the same couch, watch the same story, and walk away carrying completely different things.
That doesn’t have to separate us.
Sometimes it can help us understand one another better.
And everybody gets a chair here.
Believer.
Nonbeliever.
Questioning.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Movie lover.
Person who hasn’t watched a movie in six months.
Person who comes exclusively for the popcorn.
Whosoeverwill.
Come.
You don’t have to believe what I believe to belong with me.
You don’t have to agree with Cassandra to sit beside Cassandra.
That’s not what the chair is for.
The chair says:
Come as you are.
Watch when you can.
Laugh when something is funny.
Cry if something gets you.
Think if something makes you think.
Disagree when you disagree.
Change your mind if you change your mind.
And if all you get from today’s movie is two hours when life wasn’t asking something from you?
Beloved, that counts too.
❤️
Because maybe movies can do something else for us.
Maybe stories let us borrow somebody else’s eyes for a little while.
Maybe they help us recognize people we’ve misunderstood.
Maybe they remind us of somebody we love.
Maybe they show us something uncomfortable about ourselves.
Maybe they give us language for something we’ve felt but couldn’t quite name.
Maybe they make us laugh until our stomach hurts.
And maybe every once in a while, somewhere in somebody else’s story, we find a little for our own.
That’s worth pulling up a chair for.
So grab your popcorn.
Grab your snacks.
Grab your blanket.
Grab the good chair before somebody else gets it. 藍
And come watch with me.
SATURDAY MATINEE
12:00 PM
BACK TO SCHOOL MOM
https://youtu.be/XdhcIGUOpZk
You don’t have to start precisely at noon.
Noon is just when Cassandra opens the theater doors.
Come when you can.
And after we’ve watched?
Ohhhh, Beloveds.
WE’RE GONNA TALK.
What did you notice?
Who did you understand?
Who got on your LAST nerve?
Did anybody surprise you?
Did anything make you reconsider something you thought you already knew?
Did you laugh?
Did you cry?
Did you yell at your television?
And perhaps most importantly:
Did you enjoy yourself?
Because we’re building something here that has room for serious conversations AND popcorn.
Faith AND questions.
Learning AND laughter.
Different stories.
Different perspectives.
Different people.
Same couch.
One amazing community.
Welcome to Movie Saturday with Cassandra.
The theater is open.
The popcorn is ready.
And there’s a chair here with your name on it.
Come watch a movie with me.
Cassandra
You matter to me.
Help me be loud:
Today…
It’s been a day. Be encouraged .
Cassandra
Today was…
*sigh*
Whew!!
It’s not the 2nd but still…
Help me be loud:
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
