Category: Running

Heart Check — Monday, October 5, 2026

Heart Check — Monday, October 5, 2026

Where are you stuck? 🔐❤️

Beloveds,

Before we talk about moving forward, I want to ask something else.

Where are you stuck?

Not where should you be by now.

Not why haven’t you gotten over it.

Not what are you doing wrong.

Where are you stuck?

And maybe an even more important question:

What happened there?

Sometimes we look at the places in our lives where we haven’t moved and immediately call ourselves lazy, afraid, stubborn, weak, unmotivated or unwilling.

But sometimes we are standing still because something happened there.

Somebody left.

Somebody hurt us.

We lost someone.

Our body changed.

Our plans changed.

Our money changed.

Our family changed.

Our career disappeared.

Our heart got broken.

Something we were absolutely certain would happen…didn’t.

Or life simply became something we never imagined it would be.

And we got stuck.

🔐

I want us to be careful with that word this week.

Because sometimes what looks like a prison today started as a shelter.

You closed that door because you needed somewhere safe.

You stopped trusting because trust hurt.

You stopped dreaming because disappointment hurt.

You stopped reaching because rejection hurt.

You stopped expecting because hoping hurt.

You stopped letting people close because somebody taught you that closeness could cost too much.

Maybe that lock served a purpose once.

So today’s Heart Check isn’t:

Why haven’t you opened the door?

It is:

Why did you need to lock it?

❤️

That is a very different question.

One begins with judgment.

The other begins with compassion.

And, beloveds, sometimes we have spent so long judging ourselves for being stuck that we have never stopped long enough to understand the person who got stuck there.

Maybe that person doesn’t need another lecture.

Maybe they need you to come back for them.

👀

Come back for the version of you who was scared.

Come back for the version who didn’t know what to do.

Come back for the version who made the best decision they could with what they knew then.

Come back for the version who survived.

Come back for the version who thought closing the door was the only way to stay safe.

And sit with them awhile.

🪑

Don’t drag them out.

Don’t tell them how long they should have been there.

Don’t tell them everybody else has moved on.

Don’t tell them they are wasting time.

Just come for them.

Because love doesn’t have to kick down a locked door.

Sometimes love simply sits beside it long enough to say:

I’m still here.

🔑❤️

I have learned something about love.

Real love can tell the truth without turning truth into a weapon.

Real love can say something needs to change without saying you are unworthy because it hasn’t changed yet.

Real love can correct without condemning.

Real love can see the lock and still see the person behind it.

And sometimes that person is you.

Maybe today you are the one who needs to hear:

You are still worth coming for.

Not when you’re healed.

Not when you’ve figured everything out.

Not when you’ve finally become who you think you should be.

Now.

Right there.

Behind that door.

❤️

And for those who share my faith, I believe something even deeper.

Sometimes we imagine God standing outside our locked places waiting for us to get ourselves together and come out.

But I have lived enough life to believe differently.

Sometimes I discover that while I was asking why God hadn’t come through the door…

He was already sitting inside the locked room with me.

😭❤️

The door was locked.

Love wasn’t locked out.

So Monday’s Heart Check is not asking you to unlock anything.

Not yet.

Today, just notice.

Where am I stuck?

What happened there?

What was this lock protecting?

And maybe one more:

What would change if I stopped judging the person behind the door and started loving them instead?

We have all week.

Nobody is kicking your door down.

I’ll come back tomorrow.

❤️🔐🔑🪑

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

START FROM WHERE YOU ARE.

START FROM WHERE YOU ARE.

Beloveds.

Before this week starts asking anything of you, I want to say something that somebody may need to hear:

Start from where you are.

Not where you thought you would be by now.

Not where somebody else thinks you should be.

Not where you were before life changed some thangs.

Where. You. Are.

There is no shame in locating yourself honestly.

Maybe you are tired.

Start there.

Maybe you are hopeful.

Start there.

Maybe you are grieving something you cannot get back.

Start there.

Maybe you are excited about what comes next.

Start there.

Maybe you have absolutely no idea what comes next.

Start there too.

We spend so much time looking at the distance between where we are and where we want to be that sometimes we miss something important:

You cannot take the next step from an imaginary location.

You have to put your feet—or your wheels—where you actually are.

👩🏿‍🦼

And beloveds, that is not giving up.

That is getting honest.

There have been times in my life when the map changed without asking me.

I did not get to vote.

Life just lifed.

And I have learned that accepting where I am standing today does not mean I have agreed to stay here forever.

It simply means I know where I am beginning from.

Proverbs 16:9 says:

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” KJV

My faith tells me I can make plans and still leave room for God to redirect the route.

And if faith is not your language, there is still a chair here for you.

You do not need certainty before you begin.

You do not need a five-year plan.

You do not need to know exactly how this turns out.

Sometimes you just need enough truth to say:

This is where I am.

And enough courage to ask:

What can I do from here?

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about keeping going.

But today?

Find your here.

No shame.

No comparison.

No pretending.

Just here.

Because here is a real place.

And real places are where real journeys begin.

🔑 Maybe the key is not knowing the whole route.

Maybe the key is being willing to begin from the place where your life actually is.

You matter to me.

Bring your here.

There is a chair for it too.

Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

SATURDAY MATINEE

🎬🍿 SATURDAY MATINEE: THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Beloveds,

Pull up a chair.

Popcorn first. 🍿

Today’s movie is The Company You Keep, starring Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie and an ensemble cast that just keeps going.

And this one comes carrying a question I’m not going to answer for you before we watch:

How long does something we once did—or once believed—get to tell the world who we are?

Because people have histories.

People change.

People make choices.

People live with consequences.

And sometimes somebody discovers one chapter of our story and decides they have found the whole book.

Maybe they have.

Maybe they haven’t.

That is exactly why we are not deciding anything from the lobby. 😆🍿

Saturday Matinee has never been about me handing you the lesson before the opening credits.

We watch.

We pay attention.

We let people in the story be complicated.

Then we talk about what we saw.

No predetermined conclusion.

No homework.

No test afterward.

Just a movie, some popcorn, a chair saved for you, and whatever conversation follows.

🎬 Today’s movie: The Company You Keep

🍿 WATCH THE MOVIE HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP6Nhyg0iy0

Grab your snacks.

Find your spot.

I already saved your chair.

Let the movie tell its story first.

Then we’ll talk.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO EARN REST.

Beloveds,

Today, I am not handing you another assignment.

I am not asking you to prove that you are healing, growing, believing, achieving, or holding everybody together.

Sometimes the holy thing is to stop.

Sometimes the human thing is to stop.

And sometimes those are the same thing.

Yesterday, I watched a movie simply because I wanted to enjoy a movie.

I did not demand that every scene become a message.

I did not make recreation audition for the right to exist.

I watched.

I enjoyed.

I noticed what I noticed.

And I rested.

That matters to me because so many of us have learned to turn even rest into work.

We evaluate it.

We justify it.

We ask whether we were productive enough first.

Nah, beloveds.

Pull up a chair.

Bring your questions, your certainty, your uncertainty, your faith, your lack of faith, your laughter, your tiredness, and the version of you that has absolutely nothing impressive to report today.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 KJV

That is part of my faith foundation.

If you do not share my faith, you are still welcome here.

I hope you find a place today where your worth is not measured by your output.

This week we are going to talk about beginning again without pretending the old beginning never happened.

We are going to talk about voice, agency, belonging, limits, laughter, and what it means to remain ourselves while life changes around us.

But not today.

Today, rest.

You matter to me.

🔑 Maybe the key today is realizing that rest does not have to be earned.

Come back tomorrow if you want to.

There will be a chair for you.

Asking for A Friend,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Like, comment, share, subscribe, or follow if something here gives you company — and if you do none of those things, you are still beloved.

Note: I love you, beloveds.  Be encouraged. You are enough. So, am I.

COME AS YOU ARE…

Come As You Are—There Is Room

Beloveds,

Friday finally got here.

And apparently everybody came through the door carrying something different.

One person brought joy.

One brought grief.

Somebody brought hope.

Somebody brought a blanket because this week has asked entirely too much already.

Somebody is laughing.

Somebody does not feel like laughing at all.

Somebody did something this week that may look tiny to everybody else but took everything they had.

And somebody barely made it to Friday.

Come on in.

You do not have to finish this week looking like somebody else’s version of okay.

That may be one of the hardest things we learn about doing life together.

We can share a room without sharing an emotion.

Your joy does not disrespect my grief.

My quiet does not reject your laughter.

Your need for company does not mean somebody else is wrong for needing a little space.

The person celebrating is not necessarily ignoring what hurts.

The person hurting has not necessarily forgotten everything worth celebrating.

We are human.

We arrive differently.

And maybe belonging was never supposed to require us to become emotionally identical before we could sit beside one another.

Some weeks end with answers.

Some end with victories.

Some end with plans.

Some end with us looking at the same unanswered mess that was sitting there Monday morning.

And some Friday nights the only thing we know for certain is:

I am here.

You are here.

And there is room for both of us exactly as we arrived.

No performance.

No emotional dress code.

No requirement that everybody in the room call this week good just because it is finally over.

We made it here differently.

That counts too.

So bring your joy.

Bring your tired.

Bring your quiet.

Bring the thing you are proud of.

Bring the thing you are still trying to understand.

Bring your popcorn if that is what kind of Friday you are having. 🍿

And if Life comes bursting through the door tonight carrying one more problem like it forgot to give us something—

I believe this may be the one thing the entire room can agree on:

Life.

Don’t.

😂

Happy Friday, beloveds.

Come as you are.

There is room.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2026



HEART CHECK FRIDAY: YOU MADE IT. NOW TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF. ❤️

Beloveds.

Friday.

Come in.

Shoes off.

Bag down.

Phone somewhere you can’t hear every ding.

And before anybody starts telling me what they didn’t accomplish this week…

Nope.

Not tonight.

You lived seven days of your life.

That’s worth noticing.

Maybe this week was magnificent.

Maybe it was meh.

Maybe you spent half of it wondering what the fresh hell everybody was doing.

👀

Maybe YOU were the fresh hell.

We’ll discuss your Act Right later.

Tonight, sit down. 😂

There is something I’ve noticed about us.

We are quick to move the finish line.

We finish something and immediately ask:

What’s next?

We survive something and ask:

How quickly can I get back to normal?

We accomplish something and ask:

Why didn’t I do more?

Beloved.

Could you just be here for a minute?

Could you let Friday be Friday?

Could you acknowledge the phone call you finally made?

The boundary you kept?

The thing you tried?

The apology you offered?

The appointment you made?

The moment you chose rest instead of running yourself into the ground?

The laugh you didn’t expect?

The cry you finally let yourself have?

Those things count.

Your life is not made only of giant victories.

Sometimes life is coffee and a comfortable chair and realizing you don’t have anywhere you need to be for the next twenty minutes.

☕🪑

Sometimes that is enough.

Jesus knew how to sit at tables.

ABBA knows how to welcome children home.

The Father knows the whole week you just walked through.

The Holy Spirit knows when your soul needs quiet more than another word.

So we’re not going to fill tonight with words.

You made it here.

Take your shoes off.

Stay awhile.

The 🥜 eaters are somewhere in the back.

For once, they’re behaving.

I don’t trust it.

👀

But we’ll take it.

How’s your heart, beloved?

I’m glad you came home.

❤️

Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.

loving me some you,
Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

LET GOD/LIFE/The Universe HANDLE IT.

LET GOD/LIFE/The Universe HANDLE IT.

Beloveds,

Some things are yours to do.

And some things simply are not yours to control.

Those are not the same thing.

And, beloveds, we can wear ourselves OUT trying to make them the same thing.

Make the call.

Have the conversation.

Tell the truth.

Apologize when the apology belongs to you.

Set the boundary.

Ask for help.

Do the work.

Rest when rest is what your body and mind are asking for.

Try again if trying again is yours to do.

Walk away if staying is costing you pieces of yourself you were never required to surrender.

Do. Your. Part.

And then?

Let God/Life/The Universe handle the rest.

Now, I know everybody reading this does not believe what I believe.

That’s okay.

I call Him God.

You may call it Life.

You may call it the Universe.

You may call it chance, circumstance, reality, or simply the stuff I cannot control.

You may not believe anybody or anything is “handling” it at all.

You still have a chair here.

Because you don’t have to believe what I believe to know what it feels like to exhaust yourself trying to control an outcome that refuses to belong to you.

You can love somebody.

You cannot make them love you well.

You can tell the truth.

You cannot make somebody believe you.

You can apologize.

You cannot control whether your apology is accepted.

You can prepare.

You cannot guarantee what happens next.

You can show up.

You cannot control who meets you there.

You can plant.

You cannot stand over the ground screaming, GROW!

Well.

You can.

😂

But now you’re just outside arguing with dirt.

And the dirt is undefeated.

😂😂

There is freedom in knowing the difference between responsibility and control.

Responsibility asks:

What belongs to me?

Control says:

And now I need to manage everybody else’s part too.

No, beloved.

Put that down.

For me, this is where my faith enters the conversation.

There is a story in Exodus where the people are terrified, trapped between what is behind them and what appears impossible in front of them.

And the message contains two things that have stayed with me:

God will fight.

And they still have to move forward.

That speaks to me because of what I believe.

But you don’t have to share my faith to recognize the principle.

Releasing control does not mean releasing responsibility.

“Let it go” does not mean ignore what is yours to do.

And “something bigger than me will handle it” should never become an excuse to leave your part sitting on somebody else’s doorstep.

Sometimes you are the apology.

Sometimes you need to make the call.

Sometimes you need to change.

Sometimes you need to stop waiting for somebody else to fix what is sitting squarely in your hands.

And sometimes?

You have done everything that belongs to you.

That’s the part I want us to recognize too.

Because there comes a point when continuing to wrestle with something isn’t responsibility anymore.

It’s an attempt to control what cannot be controlled.

And that will wear you slap out.

Maybe you are waiting for an answer.

Maybe somebody you love is making choices you cannot make for them.

Maybe you did your absolute best and the outcome still wasn’t what you wanted.

Maybe you’re standing in a season that doesn’t have a neat explanation.

Maybe there isn’t a lesson hiding behind every corner.

Maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.

Maybe I don’t need to hand you a pretty sentence and tell you everything is going to work out exactly the way you want.

I don’t know that.

Neither do you.

And pretending otherwise doesn’t make hard things easier.

But I do know this:

You can decide what belongs in your hands.

And you can decide what doesn’t.

For me?

I give that second pile to God.

You may give yours to Life.

You may give yours to the Universe.

You may simply look at it and say:

This is beyond my control, and I am not going to destroy myself trying to control it.

Different language.

Same exhale.

Do what is yours.

Own what is yours.

Repair what is yours.

Carry what is yours.

And when you reach the edge of what actually belongs to you?

Stop.

You don’t have to keep reaching over that line just because uncertainty makes you uncomfortable.

Let tomorrow arrive without trying to drag it into today.

Let other grown people own their choices.

Let unanswered questions remain unanswered when there isn’t an answer yet.

Let life unfold without demanding that you personally supervise every inch of it.

I call that trusting God.

You may call it surrender.

Acceptance.

Release.

Reality.

Peace.

Whatever you call it, beloveds, maybe today we can stop confusing caring deeply with controlling everything.

You are allowed to care.

You are allowed to hope.

You are allowed to work.

You are allowed to fight for what matters.

You are allowed to believe.

You are allowed not to believe.

And you are allowed to reach the end of your responsibility and say:

I have done my part.

Now?

God.

Life.

The Universe.

Time.

Reality.

Whatever comes next.

HANDLE IT.

Because this part?

I’m putting it down.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

You’re doing enough.

Beloveds,

You’re doing enough.

Nuff Said.

Cassandra

I love you.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2026

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2026

HEART CHECK MONDAY ON WEDNESDAY BECAUSE MONDAY AND I WEREN’T SPEAKING. 👀😂❤️

Beloveds.

Don’t ask.

Monday knows what it did.

👀

We weren’t speaking.

Tuesday tried to mediate.

I told Tuesday to mind its business.

And somehow here we are on Wednesday doing Monday’s Heart Check.

😂

Okay.

I’m finished.

Mostly.

Come sit down.

Because underneath my foolish title is something I really want somebody to hear tonight:

You can come back to your week late.

Maybe Monday knocked you sideways.

Maybe Tuesday wasn’t much better.

Maybe everybody else appears to be marching beautifully through their week while you are somewhere behind them looking for one shoe, your peace, your coffee and the last little piece of your Act Right.

Beloved…

Wednesday is still here.

You didn’t miss your life.

A rough beginning does not get to own the rest of the story.

And you don’t have to pretend Monday didn’t hurt in order to enjoy Wednesday.

That’s something I’m learning about life.

Two thangs can have a chair.

🪑🪑

I can hurt and laugh.

I can grieve and love.

I can be tired and hopeful.

I can miss what was and still be curious about what is coming.

I can have a hard Monday and a decent Wednesday.

Shoot, I can have a hard Wednesday and still find one beautiful thing before bedtime.

Life doesn’t have to become perfect before I participate in it again.

Neither does yours.

So if you’ve been thinking:

I’ll start again next week.

Why?

We have Wednesday.

If Wednesday is almost over where you are, we have Thursday.

If Thursday acts a fool, we’ll deal with Thursday when Thursday gets here.

😂

For tonight, tell me:

How is your heart?

What followed you from Monday that you don’t need anymore?

What happened today that deserves to be noticed?

Maybe the 🔒 was believing one bad day had locked the whole week.

Maybe the 🔑 is discovering that it didn’t.

Jesus met people in the middle of things.

ABBA loves us in the middle.

The Father is still Father in the middle.

The Holy Spirit can find us smack dab in the middle.

And this little room?

Apparently we can’t even get the DAY right.

So you’re in excellent company.

👀😂❤️

Come as you are, beloved.

Monday and I may reconcile eventually.

No promises.

Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.

loving me some you,
Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Real talk: Tell “Everything will be alright” to shut up.

Beloveds,

Whew.

Whew!

WHEW!!

Even today had the grace to say “My bad, Cassandra”!

I made a promise to myself, long ago, to encourage someone when I was at my lowest. I figured that somebody HAD to be really  hurting if even MY faith wanted to go on hiatus!

So, here I am,  ready to tell someone to kick rocks…*sigh *

Last night, I dreamed of taking a ride in Cherry 🍒 🚗. I miss her. I miss riding around singing badly.

I’m not sad so much as wanting to say “WTH!”.

I’m NOT okay. How can I be expected to be.

I don’t know HOW to say goodbye to my big brother…shit…😢🥹💔

I just stopped by to encourage someone to remember that it’s okayto NOT be okay, okay.

At least, not today. Check with some of us tomorrow! Think I’ll go watch a movie. Who’s up for one…

asking for many friends,

Cassandra