Beloveds,
Your story is NOT over. Be encouraged.
Stand!
Fight!
Try!
Believe!
In YOU!
You are never alone. Still really sick but standing TEN TOES down on faith, hope, and love.
I love me some YOU. SO DOES HE!
Cassandra
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.
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.
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
📫 YOU WERE NEVER UGLY. 💔🌎🥹🔑
Beloveds,
Apparently somebody, somewhere, got appointed President of the International Committee of Who Gets to Be Beautiful.
Nobody remembers voting.
Yet somehow, human beings have spent generations walking around with imaginary clipboards deciding:
Too dark.
Too light.
Too fat.
Too thin.
Too loud.
Too quiet.
Wrong hair.
Wrong nose.
Wrong body.
Wrong clothes.
Wrong accent.
Wrong voice.
Wrong neighborhood.
Wrong country.
Wrong way of speaking.
Wrong way of moving through the world.
And some of us received those evaluations before we were old enough to understand that the people holding the clipboards did not actually have any authority.
I was eight years old when “ugly” became more than a word.
Children can learn very early which faces the world celebrates and which ones it mocks. They can learn who gets invited, who gets chased down hallways, who sits at the lunch table surrounded by laughter—and who learns how to eat while pretending being alone does not hurt.
Sometimes a child carries one careless word for decades.
Ugly.
That word can grow up with you.
It can follow you into mirrors.
Into photographs.
Into friendships.
Into dating.
Into marriage.
Into classrooms.
Into workplaces.
Into churches.
Into hospital rooms.
It can even follow you into recovery, when the body you finally learned to love suddenly moves differently, sounds differently, needs different equipment, or requires help doing things it once did without thought.
And that is why this conversation is bigger than beauty.
It is about belonging.
Because humanity has created thousands of sophisticated ways to say:
You would be easier for me to accept if you were a little less you.
Speak differently.
Straighten this.
Hide that.
Lose this.
Change that.
Fix your accent.
Lower your voice.
Control your face.
Make your body less noticeable.
Make your disability less inconvenient.
Make your Blackness less Black.
Make your culture easier for me to understand.
Make your faith quieter.
Make your doubt quieter.
Make your anger prettier.
Make your grief more comfortable.
Make yourself acceptable—
and then perhaps we will let you belong.
Nevertheless.
However.
What if belonging was never theirs to give?
🔑
What if the little girl somebody called ugly was never ugly?
What if the accent somebody mocked was never broken English?
What if the voice somebody dismissed was carrying wisdom they simply had not learned how to hear?
What if the wheelchair was not an eraser?
What if the cane was not a declaration of defeat?
What if scars were not disqualifications?
What if age did not subtract beauty?
What if different was never another word for deficient?
What if the problem was never the human being standing before us—
but the tiny measuring stick we were taught to use?
💔🌎
The world is heartbroken.
And sometimes we keep handing broken measuring sticks to one another.
That is one chain I desperately want us to break.
⛓️ You must look like this to be beautiful.
🔑 No. Human beauty was never manufactured from one template.
⛓️ You must sound like this to be intelligent.
🔑 No. Intelligence has accents.
⛓️ You must move like this to be whole.
🔑 No. Wholeness has wheelchairs, walkers, braces, prosthetics, canes, trembling hands, altered bodies and very creative ways of getting from here to there.
⛓️ You must believe what I believe to sit beside me.
🔑 No. Pull up a chair.
Believer.
Atheist.
Agnostic.
Questioning.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Still figuring the whole thing out.
Come sit.
My faith does not require me to make you smaller so God can be bigger.
I believe God so loved the world.
Not the polished world.
Not the attractive world.
Not the Christian-enough world.
Not the able-bodied world.
Not the English-speaking-with-the-approved-accent world.
The world. 🌎
And if you do not believe any of that?
You still get the chair.
Because you matter to ME.
Not because you agreed with me.
Not because you passed a theology examination.
Not because you became inspirational enough for somebody else’s story.
Not because somebody finally decided you were beautiful.
You matter because you are here.
Maybe somebody called you ugly.
Maybe nobody ever said the word aloud, but they taught it to you anyway.
Maybe they taught it through who they photographed.
Who they dated.
Who they hired.
Who they listened to.
Who they interrupted.
Who they believed.
Who they protected.
Who they mocked.
Who they called “professional.”
Who they called “articulate.”
Who they called “beautiful.”
And who they simply refused to see.
Beloved,
I cannot go backward and sit beside every lonely eight-year-old.
I wish I could.
But I can pull out a chair today.
I can tell the child.
The teenager.
The grown woman.
The grown man.
The elder.
The person staring at a body that has changed.
The person whose speech sounds different.
The person whose accent enters the room before anybody bothers learning their name.
The person who still avoids photographs.
The person who learned to make jokes about themselves before anybody else could.
The person who still hears an old insult when they look into a mirror:
That measuring stick was broken.
Throw it away.
🗑️
Actually—
put it in the recycling bin.
We are trying to be responsible citizens. 🤣🥰
Then come back over here.
We have chairs.
We have room.
We have work to do.
And we have an entire heartbroken world waiting to discover what might happen when human beings stop grading one another and start seeing one another.
I see you.
Not despite the things somebody taught you to hate about yourself.
I am learning to see you with them.
Your face.
Your body.
Your age.
Your history.
Your scars.
Your mobility equipment.
Your language.
Your accent.
Your laugh.
Your silence.
Your questions.
Your magnificent, complicated humanity.
Keep it.
All of it.
You were never required to become somebody else’s definition of beautiful before you became worthy of love.
And perhaps today one of us can find the courage to look into the mirror and tell that old word—
“You tried it.” 🤣
Then hand it its little imaginary clipboard.
Show it the door.
And get on with the holy, hilarious, difficult, beautiful business of being alive.
Because the world does not need another perfectly acceptable human being.
🌎 The world needs YOU.
And Beloved—
#YourLifeMattersToMe.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
If this found a tender place in you, pull up a chair in the comments. Share it with somebody who spent too many years believing a broken measuring stick. Like it, follow/subscribe, and come back—we are finding keys together every day. 🔑💔🌎🥹
MOM, WOMBIE, LET’S LOVE THE WORLD TOGETHER. 🌎❤️🔥
Beloveds,
We have grieved.
❤️🩹
We have talked about March.
We have given away the flowers.
💐
We have gone home.
🧸
And now—
come outside with me.
🌎
There is still a whole world out here.
People waking up.
People going to sleep.
People laughing.
People grieving.
People praying.
People questioning.
People falling in love.
People falling apart.
People beginning again.
People who look nothing like us.
People who believe differently.
People whose languages we don’t speak.
People whose stories we’ll never know.
People.
And I love them.
🌎❤️
I don’t mean I know eight billion people.
Good grief.
🤣
I don’t.
I couldn’t.
And neither can you.
So when I say:
Let’s love the world together,
I am not assigning you eight billion people.
Nah, fam.
Jesus already has the Savior position covered.
🙏🏿
We get to be human.
And humans can love humans.
One at a time.
🪑🪑
That’s why I keep seeing those two chairs.
One for me.
One for you.
No stage required.
No microphone.
No enormous organization.
Sometimes changing somebody’s world begins with:
Sit with me.
And sometimes I see two fishing poles.
🎣🎣
Not because we’re guaranteed to catch anything.
Sometimes companionship is sitting beside somebody while absolutely nothing spectacular happens.
Waiting.
Talking.
Being quiet.
Laughing.
Watching the water.
Staying.
Maybe that’s love too.
❤️
Mom taught me something about love simply by loving.
Wombie carries her pieces.
I carry mine.
You carry pieces from whoever loved you.
🧩
And love travels.
Someone loves you.
You love somebody.
They love somebody.
That person carries something home.
❤️➡️❤️➡️❤️➡️❤️
Eventually nobody remembers where the first kindness began.
Good.
Love doesn’t always need credit.
It needs somewhere to go.
🌎
That’s why:
Your life matters to me.
It doesn’t mean I can fix your life.
It doesn’t mean I know your story.
It doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with you.
It doesn’t mean boundaries disappear.
It means:
I refuse to begin by deciding you don’t matter.
👀❤️
Black.
White.
Brown.
Woman.
Man.
Gay.
Straight.
Believer.
Agnostic.
Atheist.
Angry.
Quiet.
Loud.
Disabled.
Walking.
Rolling.
Speaking differently.
Speaking with an accent.
Speaking perfectly.
Struggling to speak at all.
Human.
🌎
Come sit down.
🪑🪑
You don’t have to resolve before you belong.
And you don’t have to become me.
Please don’t.
🤣
This world already has a Cassandra.
One is plenty.
🥰
I want you.
Keep on being…YOU!
That’s not decoration at the bottom of my posts.
I mean it.
Bring your voice.
Bring your language.
Bring your history.
Bring your questions.
Bring your joy.
Bring the parts somebody told you were too loud.
Bring the parts somebody couldn’t hear.
Bring yourself.
❤️🔥
Because love that requires somebody to disappear before they can receive it isn’t the kind of love I’m talking about.
See my difference.
But don’t make my difference all you see.
See the person.
👀
That’s the assignment.
Not perfection.
Not saving everybody.
Not solving every problem before bedtime.
Just:
Who is in front of me?
Who needs another chair?
Who needs somebody to listen?
Who needs somebody to believe them?
Who needs somebody to say their name correctly?
Who needs somebody to stay?
Who needs somebody to laugh with them?
Who needs somebody to cry beside them?
Who needs to hear:
Your life matters to me.
❤️🩹
That’s how we love a world too big for any one of us to hold.
We don’t hold the whole thing.
We hold one another.
🫂🌎
One person.
Then another.
One chair.
One conversation.
One kindness.
One flower.
One fishing pole.
One step.
One step.
One step.
👣❤️
And eventually maybe we look around and realize:
The world wasn’t some enormous thing somewhere “out there.”
It was us.
All along.
People.
Mothers.
Wombies.
Daughters.
Friends.
Strangers.
Grievers.
Laughers.
Questioners.
Believers.
People carrying scars.
People carrying flowers.
People carrying names.
People carrying Marches that never came.
People sitting beside empty chairs.
People pulling up new ones.
We ARE the 🌎.
❤️🔥
Mom,
your love reached me.
🧸
I’m going to keep passing it.
Wombie—
come on.
❤️
Beloveds—
y’all coming?
Because Jesus said:
It is finished.
His work is done.
And those of us still here have people to love.
Not someday.
Not when everything is perfect.
Not when we finally understand everybody.
Now.
So grab a chair.
🪑
Grab another.
🪑
Grab those fishing poles.
🎣🎣
Bring your flowers.
💐
Bring your heart.
❤️
And come with me.
We don’t have to save the world.
We can love it.
Together.
One human being at a time.
One step.
One step.
One step.
🌎❤️🔥
Your life matters to me.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
And while we’re both still here—
LET’S LOVE THE WORLD TOGETHER.
🌎❤️🔥
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
🏆🏆 POTTY WARS: BABY, TAKE TWO TROPHIES! 🧻🤣
Beloveds,
It is NOON.
And apparently today we are going to church, therapy, physical rehabilitation, philosophy class AND the bathroom.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Pearl clutchers:
Secure the pearls.
Because Cassandra has an announcement.
I WON POTTY WARS.
🏆🏆
Yes.
TWO TROPHIES.
One trophy did not adequately represent the level of foolishness, determination, engineering, cleanup supplies, prayer, improvisation and sheer GET SOME ACT RIGHT required for this particular championship.
🤣🧻🧽🧴🪣🪣🪣
And before somebody says:
But Cassandra, you just went to the bathroom…
👀
YOU TRIED IT.
🤣🤣🤣
There is no “just” in somebody else’s body.
That may be today’s biggest key.
🔑
Before my stroke, there were things my body did without requiring a committee meeting.
Now some ordinary tasks require planning.
Positioning.
Balance.
Equipment.
Patience.
Adaptation.
Concentration.
Energy.
Problem-solving.
And occasionally enough cleaning supplies to make somebody walking past my door wonder whether I have secretly opened a janitorial franchise.
🤣🤣🤣
🧽🧴🪣🧻
But here’s the thing:
I DID IT.
And I’m learning not to make my victories smaller merely because somebody else can accomplish the same thing without thinking about it.
That is a chain.
⛓️
And I am done polishing chains.
⚒️
The chain that says:
If everybody else can do it easily, your accomplishment doesn’t count.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Needing equipment diminishes the accomplishment.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Accepting help cancels independence.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Disability must disappear before somebody gets to call something recovery.
⚒️💥
The chain that says:
Bodies doing bodily things are too embarrassing to talk about.
BABY.
🤣
Hand me the hammer.
⚒️💥⛓️
Because dignity was never hiding inside physical perfection.
My dignity did not leave when my body changed.
My dignity does not disappear when I use my wheelchair.
My dignity does not disappear when I use my quad cane.
My dignity does not disappear when something takes me longer.
My dignity does not disappear when I need help.
My dignity does not disappear when my body makes a mess.
And my dignity certainly does not disappear because toilet paper entered the testimony.
🧻🤣🏆
PERIODT.
There are victories people applaud because everybody recognizes them.
Graduation.
🏆
Promotion.
🏆
Marathon.
🏆
Championship.
🏆
And then there are victories almost nobody sees.
Getting dressed.
🏆
Getting yourself something to eat.
🏆
Making it safely across the room.
🏆
Learning how to do something differently.
🏆
Using the mobility aid instead of exhausting yourself trying to prove you don’t need it.
🏆
Asking for help.
🏆
Cleaning yourself.
🏆
Getting through an exhausting appointment.
🏆
Trying again after yesterday went completely sideways.
🏆
And sometimes—
GOING TO THE BATHROOM.
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Count it.
Because difficulty is experienced from inside the life being lived.
You cannot stand outside another person’s body, history, grief, circumstances, disability, resources or exhaustion and announce what should have been easy.
You don’t know the cost.
🔑
And THAT reaches far beyond disability.
Maybe somebody got out of bed while carrying grief nobody knows about.
🏆
Maybe somebody answered the phone after weeks of anxiety.
🏆
Maybe somebody said no.
🏆
Maybe somebody finally said yes.
🏆
Maybe somebody left.
🏆
Maybe somebody stayed.
🏆
Maybe somebody apologized.
🏆
Maybe somebody forgave themselves.
🏆
Maybe somebody asked for help before everything collapsed.
🏆
Maybe somebody finally stopped.
✋🏿
That last one has my attention today.
Because after all my:
DEEPPPERRRR!
⚒️⚒️⚒️
FIND THE KEYS!
🔑🔑🔑
BREAK THE CHAINS!
⛓️⛓️⛓️
LOVE THE WHOLE WORLD!
🌎🌎🌎
Apparently my body convened an emergency meeting.
The agenda contained exactly one item:
BED.
🛌
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And Cassandra?
Apparently I voted unanimously.
😴
No closing remarks.
No benediction.
No final post.
No “one more thing.”
Just:
🛌💤
🤣🤣🤣
And perhaps THAT deserves a trophy too.
🏆
Because I am learning that I cannot celebrate my body’s victories while treating its limits like insubordination.
WHEW.
Read that again.
I cannot celebrate my body’s victories while treating its limits like insubordination.
🔑🔑🔑
Sometimes the key is:
🥾 Go.
Sometimes:
⚒️ Work.
Sometimes:
🚪 Open it.
Sometimes:
🗣️ Speak.
Sometimes:
😭 Cry.
Sometimes:
🤣 Laugh until your stomach hurts.
And sometimes:
✋🏿 Enough.
Then:
🛌 Rest.
The key doesn’t always open a door leading outward.
Sometimes the key locks the door for the night.
🔑🚪
👀
Ohhhhh.
There’s one.
Sometimes agency means opening the door.
And sometimes agency means being the person who decides:
The door is closed. I am resting. Come back tomorrow.
✋🏿🚪🛌
That is still agency.
That is still dignity.
That is still freedom.
And that means today’s Potty Wars trophy isn’t really about a toilet.
The bathroom just happened to be where the lesson showed up wearing combat boots.
🤣🥾🥾🧻
The deeper victory is this:
My changed body and I are learning each other.
Not fighting each other.
Learning.
Listening.
Adapting.
Negotiating.
Laughing.
Resting.
Trying.
Stopping.
Beginning again.
And sometimes standing together afterward looking at the evidence like:
👀
Girl.
🤣🤣🤣
WE DID THAT.
🏆🏆
So today I am taking my trophies.
I am taking my laughter.
I am taking my quad cane.
I am taking my rest.
I am taking my keys.
And yes—
somebody please bring the toilet paper.
🧻
Because apparently around here liberation requires supplies.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Beloveds, I want you to take your trophy too.
Not tomorrow.
Not when somebody else agrees that your accomplishment was difficult enough.
Not after you explain yourself.
Today.
🏆
Whatever your victory was.
However strange.
However private.
However ordinary.
However messy.
COUNT IT.
And if today’s victory was simply surviving today?
There is a chair here.
🪑
Sit.
If you believe in God as I do, you are welcome to celebrate His faithfulness with me.
WON’T HE DO IT! 🙏🏿💖
And if you don’t believe in God, don’t believe yet, aren’t sure, or never will—
the chair does not disappear.
🪑
Nobody has to believe exactly as I believe before I can love them.
Come laugh.
Come rest.
Come tell your story.
Or say absolutely nothing.
🥂
The celebration still has room for you.
Now I need to know:
What completely ordinary thing have YOU done that deserves an absolutely unreasonable, ridiculously oversized trophy?
🏆🏆🏆🤣
Tell me in the comments.
Let’s celebrate some victories the world forgot to count.
Share this with somebody whose invisible work deserves to be seen. Like it. Follow or subscribe. And come back tomorrow at noon.
We’ll pull out the chair again.
And apparently—
🧻
we’ll keep the supplies nearby.
🤣🤣🤣
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
TUESDAY — THE KEY DOESN’T MAKE THE ROAD EASY 🔑🥾
Beloveds,
I have been thinking about keys.
Not cute little decorative keys. Not the kind we hang on a wall beside a word like faith and call the lesson finished.
I mean the keys that cost something.
Because sometimes you spend years staring at a chain ⛓️ without realizing there is a lock. Sometimes you know there is a lock but cannot find the key. Sometimes somebody else has been holding the key. Sometimes the door has been unlocked all along, but fear, pain, history, prejudice, grief, exhaustion, disability, rejection, or somebody else’s definition of you convinced you that you were not allowed to walk through it.
And sometimes, Beloveds, you find the key—
and discover that freedom still requires work.
🔑
That one has been sitting with me.
I am learning this in my own body.
Some things that once required almost no thought from me now require planning, patience, equipment, adaptation, humor, rest—and occasionally enough cleaning supplies to make it look like I am opening a small janitorial company. 🤣🧻🪣🧽🧴
Yes. I am talking about Potty Wars.
And YES.
I WON. 🏆🏆🤣
Laugh with me, because I certainly am.
But don’t miss the victory because the battlefield happened to be a bathroom.
We celebrate people for running marathons, climbing mountains, earning degrees and crossing finish lines. We should.
But there are victories nobody sees.
Getting dressed.
Taking a shower.
Making it safely across a room.
Getting yourself cleaned up.
Using the bathroom.
Holding a phone.
Trying to make your fingers press the tiny thing on the screen that everybody keeps telling you to “just tap.”
There is no just when your body has changed.
There is effort.
There is adaptation.
There is frustration.
There is learning.
There is grief sometimes.
There is laughter sometimes.
And there can still be victory.
🏆
My quad cane does not cancel the victory.
My wheelchair does not cancel the victory.
Needing rest does not cancel the victory.
Needing help does not cancel the victory.
Doing something differently does not cancel the victory.
And stopping when my body says ✋🏿 does not cancel the victory either.
That may be one of the keys I needed most.
🔑 Rest is not disqualification.
🔑 Assistance is not disqualification.
🔑 Adaptation is not disqualification.
🔑 Difference is not disqualification.
🔑 A messy victory is still a victory.
And here’s another one:
🔑 My body is not my enemy.
I refuse to turn recovery into a war against myself.
There are chains I want broken. ⛓️
There are doors I want opened. 🚪
There are miles I still want to travel. 🥾🥾
There is work I still want to do. ⚒️
There is an entire world I still intend to love. 🌎
But if I have to destroy myself to prove that I am healing, I have misunderstood healing.
So I am learning another rhythm:
⚒️ Work.
🥾 Move.
😭 Grieve.
🤣 Laugh.
🧻 Clean it up.
🏆 Celebrate it.
🛌 Rest.
✋🏿 Stop.
🔑 Begin again when I can.
And perhaps somebody reading this needs permission to redefine victory too.
Your victory does not have to photograph well.
Nobody has to clap.
Nobody has to understand how difficult it was.
And you do not owe anybody a performance of strength.
Maybe you got out of bed.
Maybe you stayed in bed because your body needed it.
Maybe you asked for help.
Maybe you tried again.
Maybe today you finally stopped trying.
Maybe you cried.
Maybe you laughed in the middle of something that once embarrassed you.
Maybe you found one tiny key.
Hold it.
Not because I know which door it opens.
I don’t.
Only you get to discover that.
And if you believe in God as I do, you may believe He knows the door before you ever recognize the key.
If you don’t believe in God, don’t believe yet, or never will, there is still room beside me.
Pull up a chair. 🪑
Nobody has to believe exactly as I believe to be loved here.
Bring your questions.
Bring your laughter.
Bring your mess.
Bring your keys.
Bring nothing at all if that’s what you have today.
The chair stays.
Because maybe freedom isn’t reaching some imaginary place where we never need anybody again.
Maybe freedom is being able to say:
This is the body I have today.
This is the life I have today.
This is what I can do today.
And—
I am still here.
🔑⚫️🏆🥂🥾🌎
Beloveds, what counted as a victory for you today—even if nobody else would understand why it mattered?
Tell me in the comments if you want to. Share this with somebody whose quiet victories deserve celebrating. Like it, follow/subscribe, and come back tomorrow. There will be another chair waiting.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
Unapologetically yours.
MOM, WOMBIE, I GOT IT FROM HERE. 🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
Beloveds,
The last two pieces went out into the world.
This one comes home.
No enormous assignment.
No trying to explain grief for everybody.
Just family.
Just love.
Just some things I need to say.
🧸
Mom, thanks for your love.🧸🥰
Thank you.
Not because everything was perfect.
Not because life gave us every day we wanted.
It didn’t.
There was supposed to be a March.
There was supposed to be a vacation.
You were supposed to see my new car.
We didn’t get those things.
But before March didn’t happen—
you happened.
❤️
You were here.
You were my mother.
You loved.
You gave.
We gave away your favorite bears at your funeral.
🧸
Mom left giving love.
I love in her stead.
And here I am, still trying to give love away.
Still trying to tell somebody:
You matter.
I see you.
Don’t give up.
Love somebody.
Love this world.
🌎❤️
Mom,
thanks for your love.🧸🥰
I can’t hand it back to you.
So I’ll keep letting it travel.
❤️➡️🌎
But—
Mom, I’m puzzled.🧩🧸
I am.
About life.
Timing.
Things that happened.
Things that didn’t.
Things I thought I understood.
Things I still don’t.
Pieces that don’t seem to fit.
🧩
And I’ve learned something:
Faith doesn’t require me to pretend the puzzle is complete.
Sometimes:
I don’t know.
That’s my answer.
I believe God.
And I don’t know.
I trust God.
And I’m puzzled.
I miss you.
And God has been good to me.
Those truths can sit beside one another.
🙏🏿❤️🩹
Which brings me here:
Mom, Won’t/didn’t He do it!💝
Mom—
look.
👀
Not because everything happened the way I wanted.
Not because every prayer received the answer I would have chosen.
Not because I haven’t hurt.
Not because every puzzle piece suddenly fits.
But after everything—
I’m here.
❤️🩹
Still loving.
Still believing.
Still questioning.
Still laughing.
Still crying.
Still learning.
Still finding my voice.
Still using it.
Still telling somebody not to give up.
Still looking at this enormous world and saying:
I love you.
🌎❤️
Won’t He do it!
Didn’t He do it!
💝🙏🏿
I’m puzzled.
🧩
And I have testimony.
💝
Both are mine.
Both are true.
Now—
Wombie.
🧸
No translation.
No explanation.
No footnote.
Some words belong inside relationships.
Some names carry histories outsiders weren’t there to witness.
Some language doesn’t need anybody else’s permission.
So:
Wombie.
🧸❤️
You and me.
Mom’s daughters.
Same Mom.
Different daughters.
Different memories.
Different grief.
Different pieces.
🧩🧩
And somewhere inside all those pieces—
Mom.
Not a metaphor.
Not merely somebody we lost.
Mom.
And us.
Still here.
❤️🩹❤️
The world kept moving after Mom died.
Morning came.
People went to work.
Traffic remained traffic.
Bills remained profoundly committed to being bills.
🤣
And somehow we kept moving too.
Not because we forgot.
Not because we stopped loving.
Because we’re alive.
Living after somebody dies is not betrayal.
Mom’s daughters are allowed to live.
Allowed to laugh.
Allowed to love.
Allowed to make memories.
Allowed to change.
Allowed to heal.
Allowed to remember.
Allowed to have joy.
Allowed to keep going.
❤️🩹
And now I need to say something without explaining it afterward.
Wombie, Cassie, sis, friend. I got it from here.🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
Mom,
thanks for your love.🧸🥰
Mom,
I’m puzzled.🧩🧸
Mom,
Won’t/didn’t He do it!💝
And—
Wombie, Cassie, sis, friend. I got it from here.🧸💝🥰❤️🩹❤️
That’s enough.
No sermon after it.
No explanation.
Just—
❤️
Cassandra
AUGUST 31, 2026 — NOON SERIES 🕛
🔏🔒🗝️🔓🚪 WHO TOLD YOU THE DOOR WAS CLOSED?
Beloveds,
It’s noon.
Come sit with me for a minute.
Every day at noon, I want us to meet right here—not because I believe twelve o’clock magically fixes whatever happened at 8:00, 9:17, or 11:53 this morning. Sometimes noon arrives and the problem is still sitting there looking at you. The diagnosis hasn’t changed. The grief hasn’t packed its bags. The bills haven’t disappeared. The relationship still hurts. Your body may still refuse to cooperate with the plans your mind made.
But noon means something happened that we sometimes forget to celebrate:
You made it here.
And today, I have a question for you.
Who told you the door was closed?
🔒
I have been thinking about doors.
Some doors really do close. People leave. Opportunities disappear. Bodies change. Plans collapse. People we love die. Life can divide itself so sharply into before and after that we barely recognize the person standing on the other side.
I know something about before and after.
My stroke changed things.
It changed how I move through the world. It changed my speech. It changed what ordinary tasks can require from me. Some days I use my wheelchair. Some days my quad cane enters the story. Things I once did without thinking can now require concentration, adaptation, patience, help, determination—or all five before breakfast.
But somewhere along the way, I had to confront a dangerous assumption:
Changed does not automatically mean closed.
Read that again.
Something can be different without being finished.
Something can be difficult without being impossible.
Something can require another route without meaning there is no destination.
And a life can look nothing like the life you planned while still being a life overflowing with purpose.
🗝️
That is where the key comes in.
Sometimes we spend years carrying locks somebody else handed us.
Too old.
Too young.
Too Black.
Too loud.
Too disabled.
Too different.
Too much.
Not enough.
You missed your chance.
People like you don’t belong here.
After what happened to you, what could possibly come next?
And if we hear those things long enough, something frightening can happen.
We stop needing somebody else to lock the door.
We begin doing it ourselves.
🔏
We start shrinking before anybody asks us to shrink.
We stop knocking before anybody says no.
We decide we cannot belong somewhere before anybody has had the opportunity to welcome us.
We confuse somebody else’s inability to imagine our future with evidence that we don’t have one.
And beloveds, sometimes the hardest lock to recognize is the one we’ve learned to maintain from the inside.
That is why today isn’t simply about finding a cute little inspirational key.
We are digging.
⛏️
I want to know what is underneath the lock.
Maybe underneath anger is hurt.
Maybe underneath perfectionism is fear.
Maybe underneath “I don’t need anybody” is the memory of what happened the last time you needed somebody and they weren’t there.
Maybe underneath silence is the belief that your voice only matters when it comes out perfectly.
Maybe underneath exhaustion is the belief that you have to earn the right to rest.
Maybe underneath being “the strong one” is somebody who desperately needs permission to put the armor down.
Maybe underneath I can’t is something somebody said to you twenty years ago that you accidentally adopted as your own voice.
Dig.
⛏️
Because you cannot unlock what you refuse to name.
And I need to say something else because encouragement can become cruel when we pretend every door can be opened by trying harder.
Some doors require help.
Some require accessibility.
Some require therapy.
Some require medicine.
Some require justice.
Some require community.
Some require somebody standing beside you saying, “I know you’re tired. I’ll hold the door.”
Needing help does not cancel your agency.
Receiving help does not make the victory belong less to you.
And independence is not the only evidence of strength.
Sometimes strength sounds like:
“I need you.”
Sometimes courage looks like accepting the hand.
Sometimes the victory is not kicking the door down.
Sometimes somebody simply holds it open—
and you roll through.
👩🏿🦽
Yes.
Roll through.
Because who decided every meaningful journey had to happen on two feet?
I am not waiting until I walk differently to call my life valuable.
I am not waiting until my speech sounds the way it once sounded to believe I have something worth saying.
I am not waiting for my body to become somebody else’s definition of “better” before I participate in my own life.
My wheelchair is not parked outside the story.
It is already inside it.
And God is here too.
🙏🏿
I believe in Jesus Christ.
I believe Him when He says:
“I am the door.” — John 10:9
And that scripture has been sitting differently with me.
Because I have spent so much time thinking about keys that I almost missed the Door.
Jesus did not merely tell me where an entrance might be.
He said:
I AM.
And if He is the Door, then perhaps I need to be very careful about declaring permanently closed what God has not finished with yet.
I don’t know what every door in my life will look like.
I don’t know which things will be restored.
I don’t know which things will be transformed instead.
I don’t know which prayers will receive the answer I want.
Faith does not require me to pretend I know things God has not told me.
But I know this:
I am still here.
And while I am here, I am going to live.
❤️🔥
Now, if you don’t believe what I believe, you don’t have to pretend for me.
You are welcome here.
If you are an atheist, come sit.
If you are agnostic, come sit.
If you believe differently, come sit.
If you used to believe and don’t anymore, come sit.
If you’re angry with God, confused about God, searching for God, or have absolutely no intention of searching for God—
there is still a chair for you.
My faith does not require your agreement before I can love you.
And your questions do not frighten me away from mine.
We can sit beside one another without pretending we are standing in exactly the same place.
That might be one of the doors our world desperately needs opened.
🚪
So here is today’s key:
🗝️ Do not confuse what happened to you with who you are.
Something happened.
Maybe something enormous.
Maybe something unfair.
Maybe something you would undo immediately if somebody handed you the power.
But what happened does not get automatic ownership of everything that happens next.
Your grief doesn’t own tomorrow.
Your diagnosis doesn’t own your identity.
Your rejection doesn’t own your worth.
Your mistake doesn’t own your name.
Your disability doesn’t own your humanity.
Your fear doesn’t own your feet—or your wheels.
And somebody else’s opinion certainly does not own the key.
🔓
So before we leave each other today, I want you to ask yourself:
What have I been calling locked?
Then ask:
Who told me it was?
And then—
DEEPPPERRRR.
⛏️
What is underneath that lock?
Fear?
Shame?
Grief?
Someone else’s expectations?
An old wound?
A lie you’ve repeated so many times that it started sounding like truth?
Don’t rush the answer.
We are meeting again tomorrow.
This isn’t a race.
Today, maybe all you do is locate the lock.
Tomorrow, perhaps we touch the key.
And eventually—
when the door opens—
we go through it however we need to.
Walking.
Rolling.
Leaning.
Reaching.
Holding somebody’s hand.
One step.
One wheel turn.
One breath.
One word.
One act of courage at a time.
Because, beloveds—
there is still a door.
There is still a key.
There is still time.
And for me, beneath all of it:
There is still God.
🙏🏿🔏🔒🗝️🔓🚪❤️🔥
If something here found you today, tell me about it in the comments. Share this with somebody standing in front of a door they think is closed. Like, subscribe or follow, and come back tomorrow at noon.
We are going to keep digging.
And we are going to keep opening doors.
Together.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His.
