Category: Writing

I miss my wombie.

I miss my wombie. I miss my twin. Not in a sad way. In a ” what’s up with you ” way.

I’m thinking of you, sis. How are you?

Your 🦁 Detroit Lions won today. I miss the sound of your voice, sis.

Look after Russell and Jr. and all who have gone before.

I’m sad, sis. Maybe, just a little bit…*sigh *…

I have been enjoying my football. I have a new friend, sis.

You would really like him. We crack each other up and get on the other’s last nerve.

We got into a huge fight last week. I wanted to kick him to the curb. I did for an hour or so. We made up. I think. For now 😅🥹

He did something awfully thoughtful, last night. I may keep him around. He laughs at my jokes. He is super smart. He enjoys Geordi and Data and Picard. One can’t have enough Star Trek  Next Generation friends…hehe

I gotta go, sis. The beloveds need tending to.  I need tending to…*sigh*

Yell at The Giants for losing in such spectacular fashion.

missing you 
Me

P.S. Life is short, beloveds. It’s okay to miss loved ones. It’s okay to reminisce. It’s okay to enjoy what you did before loss or hard moved in 

Be encouraged. Enjoy every moment. Think I’ll go see if my friend wants to watch something ridiculous…

I love this! I can express a million versions of me. I am so grateful for technology that allows me to dream where I can see.

I wonder if anyone can understand what I mean. I have had to reinvest myself. I have had to picture myself in new settings.

I think I shall set myself next to The Sydney Opera House…🥰

Where would you put yourself if you could. Give me some ideas and we’ll go together ❤️ 

YOU GOT THIS!

We got this!

This music 🎶 is so uplifting.!

No matter your walk, or lack thereof, God got us. Be encouraged.  Be patient with yourself, beloved.

You can still do so much more than you give yourself credit for!

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Friday, October 9, 2026 — 6:00 PM

Friday, October 9, 2026 — 6:00 PM

Love was already in the room ❤️🔑

Beloveds,

Yesterday I left you with half a sentence.

I know.

That was wrong. 😅

I said:

The door may have been locked.

But…

👀

Well…

Hhm…

👀

I came back to finish it.

The door may have been locked…

But love was never locked out.

❤️

That’s where I want us to land tonight.

Not with another lock to examine.

Not another key to sort through.

Not another door to decide whether we’re ready to open.

Come sit down.

🪑

We’ve done enough walking through rooms this week.

Monday, we asked:

Where are you stuck?

And instead of immediately demanding movement, we asked something gentler:

What happened there?

Because sometimes the place where somebody stopped makes sense once we understand what happened before they stopped.

Tuesday, we went behind the door.

What have you locked away?

Trust.

Tenderness.

Hope.

Joy.

Dreams.

Need.

The parts of ourselves that once felt safer hidden.

Wednesday, we came for that little five-letter lock:

Should.

Where should I be?

Who should I be?

What should my life look like by now?

And maybe one of the most important things we discovered was this:

Maybe you didn’t fail. Maybe the map changed.

🗺️

Yesterday, we talked about keys.

Who has one?

Who shouldn’t?

Who lost access?

Who may deserve another look?

And whether shame has ever convinced us to pack up our own chair and leave before anybody actually asked us to go.

🔑🪑

That’s a lot for one week.

So tonight…

I don’t want anything from you.

❤️

No assignment.

No list.

No demand that you identify one more thing to work on.

No instruction to unlock anything.

No requirement to forgive tonight.

No pressure to trust somebody again.

No insistence that you move.

Just sit here with me for a minute.

Because there’s something underneath everything we’ve talked about this week.

Love.

❤️

Not sentimental love.

Not love that pretends nothing hurts.

Not love that calls every boundary unforgiveness.

Not love that tells somebody to open a door that still needs to remain closed.

I’m talking about the kind of love that comes.

The kind that doesn’t wait until everything is cleaned up.

The kind that can hear the lock click and not take it personally.

The kind that knocks.

The kind that waits.

The kind that tells the truth.

The kind that respects the door.

The kind that leaves the chair where it is.

🪑❤️

The kind that says:

I came for you.

👀

That sentence has been sitting underneath this whole week.

Because sometimes when somebody is hiding, hurting, ashamed, afraid or convinced they no longer belong…

they don’t need somebody shouting directions from the other side of the door.

Sometimes they need somebody willing to come looking.

❤️

And sometimes…

that somebody has to be us.

Come for yourself.

Come for the version of you who made the mistake.

Come for the version of you who didn’t know better.

Come for the version who stayed too long.

Come for the version who left too soon.

Come for the version who trusted.

Come for the version who stopped trusting.

Come for the person whose body changed.

Come for the person whose plans changed.

Come for the person who thought life would look completely different by now.

Come for the person who is tired of being told how strong they are when what they really want is somewhere safe enough to put the strength down for a minute.

😭❤️

Come for you.

Not because everything you’ve ever done was right.

Not because nothing needs changing.

Not because accountability disappeared somewhere between Monday and Friday.

Come because correction and abandonment were never supposed to mean the same thing.

Come because growth does not require exile.

Come because you do not have to hate yourself into becoming somebody better.

Come because shame has taken enough keys.

🔑

And beloveds…

I come for you too.

Every day I sit down to write, I am coming looking for somebody.

Somebody hurting.

Somebody laughing.

Somebody grieving.

Somebody rebuilding.

Somebody questioning God.

Somebody who doesn’t believe in God at all.

Somebody who needs a chair.

Somebody who needs to hear:

You still matter.

❤️

I can’t know which door these words will reach.

I don’t know who will read them.

I don’t know who will scroll past.

I don’t know who will sit with one sentence for five minutes.

But I can knock.

That’s what love can do.

Love knocks.

Love listens.

Love tells the truth.

Love respects boundaries.

Love leaves room.

Love keeps a chair.

And love comes back.

🪑❤️

For those who share my faith…

this is where the whole week becomes personal for me.

Because when I think about My Father, I think about all the times I imagined I needed to find my way back to Him.

After anger.

After questions.

After disappointment.

After confusion.

After days when I didn’t understand what He was doing.

After life hurt so badly that I didn’t have a neat spiritual sentence to put around it.

And somewhere along the way, I realized:

I wasn’t the only one doing the finding.

😭❤️

My Father came for me.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And sometimes I thought He was standing outside the locked room waiting for me to open the door.

But maybe…

He had been sitting inside the room with me the whole time.

👀

Maybe the door was locked.

But Love wasn’t locked out.

Maybe Love was already there.

❤️

And maybe that’s true in more places than we realize.

Maybe love is the friend who came back.

The person who told you the truth and stayed.

The boundary that finally protected your peace.

The part of you that kept hoping even when you swore you had stopped.

The hand that reached.

The chair that remained.

The quiet realization:

I am still here.

And maybe finding our way home isn’t always about discovering a road we’ve never traveled.

Sometimes it’s realizing love has been leaving the light on for us all along.

❤️

There it is.

Home.

Not perfection.

Not the old life restored exactly as it was.

Not every question answered.

Not every lock opened.

Not every relationship repaired.

Home.

A place inside yourself where shame no longer gets to decide whether you belong.

A place where truth can enter without love leaving.

A place where you can say:

Something needs to change.

without turning it into:

I don’t deserve to be here.

A place where your chair remains.

🪑

So after everything we’ve talked about this week, I have only one Heart Check tonight:

What love is already here?

Don’t go looking for what’s missing first.

Look around the room.

Maybe somebody came for you.

Maybe you’re learning to come for yourself.

Maybe God has been sitting beside you.

Maybe there’s a chair you thought you’d lost.

Maybe there’s a little light under a door.

Maybe there’s more love in the room than shame allowed you to see.

❤️🔑

The door was locked.

Love was already in the room.

And maybe love doesn’t only unlock doors.

Maybe love helps us remember which way is home.

❤️

No cliffhanger tonight.

😅

Just this:

You don’t have to abandon yourself anymore.

The chair is here.

Sit awhile.

We made it to Friday.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

Heart Check — Friday, October 9, 2026

Heart Check — Friday, October 9, 2026

Love was already in the room ❤️🔑

Beloveds,

We’ve been opening drawers in our hearts all week.

Looking at locks.

Looking at doors.

Looking at the places where we got stuck.

We found things we had tucked away.

We found some “shoulds” that had been sitting there far too long.

We talked about shame.

About correction.

About belonging.

About who gets a key.

That was a lot.

So today…

we’re not doing all that.

Come sit down.

🪑

You don’t have to figure anything out today.

You don’t have to open another door.

You don’t have to make a list of everything you need to work on.

You don’t have to promise that Monday morning you will wake up healed, fearless, trusting, forgiving yourself and ready to conquer the world.

Nope.

Today, I just want us to notice something.

We are still here.

❤️

Maybe you found a locked place this week.

Okay.

Maybe you realized you have been harder on yourself than you knew.

Okay.

Maybe “should” has been running its mouth in your head for years.

Okay.

Maybe you realized somebody has a key who shouldn’t.

Maybe you realized somebody trustworthy has been standing outside a door you haven’t been ready to open.

Maybe you discovered that the person you’ve been shutting out is you.

Okay.

You don’t have to solve all of that before we leave Heart Check this week.

Some things need time.

Some things need help.

Some things need boundaries.

Some things need grieving.

Some things need forgiving.

Some things simply need us to stop running from them long enough to say:

I see you.

And maybe that’s enough for today.

❤️

There is something I want to leave with you, though.

All week we’ve talked as if love were the key that comes to our locked doors.

And I believe it is.

🔑

But maybe we have been imagining it wrong.

Maybe we’ve pictured ourselves sitting alone in some dark locked room while love stands outside knocking.

Waiting for us to become brave enough.

Strong enough.

Ready enough.

Healed enough.

Worthy enough.

Maybe not.

👀

Maybe when we finally stop fighting ourselves…

when our eyes adjust to the dark…

when we quit staring at the lock…

we look beside us.

And there is love.

Sitting in the room.

🪑❤️

Maybe the door was locked.

But love was never locked out.

Whew.

Maybe somebody came for you a long time ago and you couldn’t believe they meant it.

Maybe somebody kept your chair even when you thought you had lost your right to sit in it.

Maybe somebody corrected you and stayed.

Maybe somebody knew the truth and loved you anyway.

Maybe somebody kept showing up.

Maybe you are beginning to realize that you can become that somebody for yourself.

❤️

Come for yourself.

Not the polished version.

Not the future version.

Not the version who finally gets everything right.

Come for the one sitting here.

The one who made mistakes.

The one who got hurt.

The one who got tired.

The one whose plans changed.

The one who survived things nobody saw.

The one who is still figuring some things out.

Go get them.

Sit beside them.

And don’t make them earn the chair.

🪑

I come for the beloveds every day.

I don’t know which door these words will reach.

I don’t know who will read them.

I don’t know who will scroll right past.

I don’t know who will sit quietly with something I wrote and never tell another soul that they needed it.

That’s okay.

Love doesn’t kick doors down.

Love comes.

Love knocks.

Love leaves a chair.

Love stays long enough to whisper:

You are still worth coming for.

❤️🔑

And for those who share my faith…

this is where I come home.

Because through every locked room of my life, I have discovered something.

God didn’t wait on the other side until I got myself together.

He didn’t wait until I understood.

He didn’t wait until I stopped asking questions.

He didn’t wait until I wasn’t hurting.

He didn’t wait until I became the version of Cassandra I thought I should be.

My Father came for me.

And sometimes, when I thought I was waiting for Him to come through the door…

I discovered He had been sitting in the room with me the whole time.

😭❤️

So I’m not ending this week by telling you to unlock the door.

I’m not even asking whether you’re ready.

I’m leaving you with one last Heart Check.

Look around the room.

Really look.

What love is already here?

Maybe it is a friend.

Maybe family.

Maybe somebody who keeps showing up.

Maybe it is the love you’re slowly learning to give yourself.

Maybe, like me, it is God.

Maybe it is more than one.

Whatever you find…

don’t rush past it looking for the key.

Maybe love is the key.

Maybe love has been there all along.

🔑❤️

And maybe home isn’t always somewhere we finally arrive.

Sometimes home is the moment we realize:

I don’t have to abandon myself anymore.

The chair is here.

🪑

Sit awhile.

We made it to Friday.

❤️

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

FRIDAY

Beloveds,

We made it to Friday.

Not everybody arrived triumphantly.

Somebody crawled.

Somebody coasted.

Somebody changed the plan four times.

Somebody did the bare minimum and had to call that enough.

Somebody surprised themselves.

Somebody is still waiting for the thing they hoped would change this week.

Welcome.

This week we talked about rest, beginning again, voice, agency, and joy.

None of those subjects requires a perfect ending by Friday afternoon.

Life is not a weekly television episode.

Sometimes the victory is not resolution.

Sometimes the victory is presence.

Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” KJV

For me, that rejoicing does not mean denying what hurts.

It means this day still contains life.

If you do not share my belief, I hope you can still receive this:

Your unfinished life is not an unworthy life.

🔑 You do not have to wait until everything is fixed to belong here.

You matter to me.

Bring the wheelchair.

Bring the cane.

Bring the running shoes.

Bring the grief.

Bring the laughter.

Bring the questions.

Bring the faith.

Bring the doubt.

Bring yourself.

There is a chair.

Tomorrow, I am going to the movies. 🍿🎬

And we are going to see what we see.

Asking for A Friend,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

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Thursday, October 8, 2026 — 6:00 PM

Thursday, October 8, 2026 — 6:00 PM

Who has a key? 🔑❤️

Beloveds,

Yesterday I told you we needed to talk about keys.

So…

empty your pockets.

👀🔑

Because somewhere along the way, some of us started confusing love with unlimited access.

They are not the same thing.

You can love somebody and change what they have access to.

You can forgive somebody and decide they don’t get the same key they used to have.

You can care deeply about somebody and still say:

You cannot keep entering my life this way.

❤️

And that doesn’t automatically make you bitter.

It doesn’t automatically mean you haven’t healed.

It doesn’t automatically mean you’re holding a grudge.

Sometimes a boundary isn’t punishment.

Sometimes it’s a lock doing exactly what a lock is supposed to do.

🔐

We’ve spent this week talking about locks that may no longer serve us.

But some locks still have a job.

👀

That matters.

Because I don’t want us leaving this week thinking love means every door should be open.

No.

Some doors need to stay closed.

Some people should knock.

Some people belong on the porch.

Some people had a key once and demonstrated exactly why they shouldn’t have one now.

And some people?

Beloveds…

they don’t even need the address.

😆🔑

Love does not require foolishness.

Grace does not require unrestricted access.

Forgiveness does not automatically restore trust.

And reconciliation, when it is possible at all, doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened.

Trust can be rebuilt.

But rebuilt trust is still rebuilt.

It has history.

❤️

And here’s where this gets more complicated.

Sometimes the person we’re afraid will misuse the key…

hasn’t.

Sometimes shame makes us take somebody’s key before they’ve done anything wrong.

👀

They correct us.

Click.

They disagree with us.

Click.

They misunderstand something.

Click.

They disappoint us.

Click.

They don’t respond exactly the way we hoped.

Click.

And suddenly we’re standing behind the door thinking:

See? I knew it.

But did we know it?

Or did an old wound recognize something that looked vaguely familiar and sound the alarm?

🔐

That’s why we have to learn the difference between discernment and fear.

Discernment says:

Pay attention to what is actually happening.

Fear says:

What happened before is about to happen again.

Discernment watches patterns.

Fear can turn one moment into a prophecy.

Discernment can change its mind when new information arrives.

Fear has already written the ending.

👀

And shame?

Shame does something else.

Sometimes shame doesn’t wait for somebody to take our key.

We take theirs.

We decide for them that once they see the messy part…

once we make the mistake…

once they disagree with us…

once they discover we’re unfinished…

they won’t want to stay.

So we leave first.

We get quiet.

We pull away.

We start packing up our own chair.

🪑

Because rejection hurts less, we think, if we can beat somebody to it.

But beloveds…

what if nobody asked you to leave?

😭❤️

What if correction wasn’t an eviction notice?

What if disagreement wasn’t abandonment?

What if somebody saying:

“This hurt.”

or

“This needs to change.”

didn’t mean:

“You no longer belong here.”

Those are different sentences.

And some of us have spent years hearing the second sentence whenever anybody speaks the first.

👀

That’s shame again.

Shame turns:

Something needs attention

into:

Something is wrong with me.

And then it tells us to run before anybody confirms what we’re already afraid is true.

But love can do something shame cannot.

Love can tell the truth and stay.

❤️🔑

Read that one again.

Love can say:

That wasn’t okay.

That hurt.

We need to talk about this.

Something has to change.

And still say:

Your chair is here.

🪑

Truth can enter the room without love having to leave it.

THAT is a key worth keeping.

🔑❤️

Because safe love isn’t love that never corrects.

Safe love isn’t love that agrees with everything.

Safe love isn’t love that avoids every uncomfortable conversation.

Safe love is love where truth doesn’t automatically threaten belonging.

And maybe that’s part of finding our way home too:

learning which voices help us return to ourselves and which ones keep teaching us to abandon ourselves.

🧭❤️

Somebody can love you and challenge you.

Somebody can love you and say no.

Somebody can love you and have boundaries.

And you can do the same.

Because boundaries aren’t the opposite of love.

Sometimes boundaries are how love refuses to become resentment.

👀

So who has a key?

Not everybody.

And not everybody needs the same key.

There are people who may have access to the front porch of your life.

Others get the living room.

A smaller number know where the kitchen is and don’t need directions. 😆

And maybe a precious few have seen you sitting on the floor in the middle of the night when nothing made sense.

Different access.

Different trust.

Different history.

That’s okay.

❤️

But here’s another question:

Have you given somebody a key who keeps using it to hurt you?

And another:

Have you taken a key away from somebody safe because somebody unsafe once had one?

Whew.

🔑

Those require different answers.

And neither answer should come from shame.

For those who share my faith, one of the things that continues to undo me about My Father is that He knows.

Not the edited version.

Not the Sunday version.

Not the version with all the doors cleaned up before company arrives.

Me.

And He comes anyway.

❤️

Knowing me does not require Him to abandon me.

And being loved by Him does not mean nothing in me ever needs correction.

Both can be true.

What I do matters.

And:

I matter too.

Maybe we need to learn how to hold those together.

With God.

With each other.

And with ourselves.

🔑❤️

So tonight:

Who has a key?

Who has earned your trust?

Who respects your no?

Who can tell you the truth without making your humanity feel like a crime?

Who keeps showing up?

Who handles your tenderness carefully?

Who needs less access?

Who perhaps deserves another look because fear—not their behavior—locked the door?

And one more:

Have you been standing outside your own home because shame convinced you that you lost your key?

👀

Beloveds…

stop moving your own chair.

You live here.

🪑❤️

And tomorrow…

we’re going home.

Because after a week of locks, doors, shame, chairs and keys, I have one last thing I need to tell you.

The door may have been locked.

But…

👀❤️

I’ll see you tomorrow.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

Heart Check — Thursday, October 8, 2026

Heart Check — Thursday, October 8, 2026

Who has a key? 🔑❤️

Beloveds,

We’ve talked about being stuck.

We’ve looked at what we locked away.

Yesterday we confronted that enormous little lock called “should.”

Today I want to talk about keys.

Who has one?

And maybe just as important:

Who shouldn’t?

👀

Love does not mean everybody gets unrestricted access to you.

Some doors have locks for good reason.

Some boundaries are wisdom.

Somebody can be forgiven and still not receive the same access they once had.

You can love someone and recognize that closeness with them is harmful.

You can wish somebody well without inviting them back into every room of your life.

Love is not the absence of boundaries.

Sometimes love is exactly why a boundary is necessary.

❤️

But there is another side to this Heart Check.

Sometimes nobody is trying to get through our door anymore.

And we’re still standing behind it.

Because shame has convinced us we don’t belong on the other side.

Shame is sneaky like that.

It doesn’t always say:

Hide.

Sometimes it says:

If they really knew you, they wouldn’t want you.

So we leave before anybody asks us to leave.

We withdraw before somebody can reject us.

We stop speaking before somebody can correct us.

We disappear before anybody gets the opportunity to stay.

We stand outside our own chair.

🪑

And this week I have been thinking deeply about something:

Correction and condemnation are not the same thing.

Somebody can say:

“That hurt me.”

without saying:

“I don’t love you.”

Somebody can say:

“You misunderstood me.”

without saying:

“You are worthless.”

Somebody can say:

“We need to fix this.”

without saying:

“There is no longer a place for you here.”

👀❤️

But shame translates.

“You missed me” becomes:

I am a disappointment.

“I need you to do this differently” becomes:

I can never get anything right.

“That wasn’t okay” becomes:

I am not okay.

And suddenly we aren’t responding to what somebody actually said.

We are responding to the verdict shame added afterward.

🔐

I have learned that one of the most loving things we can give another person is a relationship where truth can enter the room without love having to leave it.

Read that again.

Truth can enter the room without love having to leave it.

❤️🔑

Love doesn’t have to pretend nothing happened.

Love doesn’t have to excuse harm.

Love doesn’t have to erase accountability.

Love can say:

No.

Love can say:

That hurt.

Love can say:

Come correct.

Love can say:

We need to do this differently.

And still say:

Your chair is here.

🪑

That matters.

Because some of us learned that mistakes cost belonging.

Get it right or get out.

Be useful or become disposable.

Don’t disappoint me.

Don’t need too much.

Don’t change.

Don’t fail.

And when you’ve lived with that long enough, you can begin treating every correction like an eviction notice.

But what if it isn’t?

What if somebody loves you enough to tell you the truth and enough to stay in the room while you work through it?

What if you could do the same for someone else?

And what if you could do that for yourself?

👀

Because maybe the person you’ve been threatening with eviction is you.

Every mistake:

Get out.

Every setback:

You should know better.

Every bad decision:

See? This is who you are.

Every time you don’t meet your own expectations:

There goes your chair.

Beloveds…

Stop moving your own chair.

😭❤️🪑

Accountability can sit here.

Growth can sit here.

Regret can sit here.

Repair can sit here.

Correction can sit here.

And love can remain seated too.

Maybe that’s what grace looks like in ordinary life.

Not pretending everything is fine.

Not refusing to change.

But refusing to turn every imperfection into evidence that someone—including ourselves—is disposable.

🔑

And this brings me back to the question:

Who has a key?

Who has earned enough trust to speak truth into your life?

Who can correct you without trying to control you?

Who can sit beside you without demanding access to every locked room?

Who knows how to knock?

Who respects “no”?

Who doesn’t use what you reveal as a weapon later?

Those people matter.

And maybe today is also a good day to ask:

Am I that kind of person for somebody else?

❤️

For those who share my faith, this reaches even deeper for me.

I believe God knows every room.

Every lock.

Every mistake.

Every hidden thing.

Every place where shame whispers:

If He really knew…

Beloveds, He knows.

And He comes for us anyway.

Not because truth doesn’t matter.

Because love is not frightened by truth.

God doesn’t discover us.

He knows us.

And still…

He comes.

❤️

Yesterday we talked about forgiving ourselves for not being where we thought we should be.

Today maybe we forgive ourselves for believing every mistake meant we deserved to lose our chair.

Maybe we stop running from rooms nobody asked us to leave.

Maybe we stop assuming correction means rejection.

Maybe we learn to hear:

“This needs to change.”

without adding:

“Therefore, I am unlovable.”

🔐🔑

Because shame says:

If I am fully known, I cannot be fully loved.

Love answers:

Knowing you does not require abandoning you.

And maybe that is one of love’s greatest keys.

Not:

Nothing you do matters.

But:

What you do matters—and you matter too.

❤️

So today’s Heart Check:

Who has a key to me?

Why do they have it?

Who needs to lose access?

Have I confused boundaries with bitterness—or love with unlimited access?

Do I turn correction into condemnation?

Have I been leaving rooms nobody asked me to leave?

And finally:

Can truth and love sit together in my heart without one evicting the other?

🪑❤️🔑

Tomorrow we reach the last door.

And nobody is going to make you walk through it.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

JOY DOES NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN ITSELF.

Beloveds,

I would like to file a complaint against the idea that everything enjoyable must also be productive.

🤣

Sometimes I want the movie.

Sometimes I want the music.

Sometimes I want the joke that makes absolutely no contribution to civilization.

Sometimes I want to laugh until whatever was heavy five minutes ago has to wait its turn.

Joy is not evidence that pain was exaggerated.

Laughter is not betrayal of grief.

Pleasure is not proof that recovery is finished.

A hard life can contain a ridiculous Tuesday.

A grieving person can laugh.

A disabled person can have fun.

A believer can enjoy something without turning it into a sermon.

Ecclesiastes 3:4 says there is “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” KJV

I am taking the whole verse.

💃🏿

If you do not share my faith, I still hope you give yourself permission to experience joy without cross-examining it.

🔑 Joy does not always need a reason.

Sometimes the key is simply opening the door when it knocks.

You matter to me.

What made you laugh lately that had absolutely no deeper meaning?

Asking for A Friend,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Bring your answer to the comments, share this with somebody who needs permission to enjoy today, and follow along if you want more.

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 — 6:00 PM

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 — 6:00 PM

What has “should” locked you out of? 🔐

Beloveds,

I told you yesterday I was coming for one little word.

I’m here.

👀

Should.

Five letters.

Tiny word.

BIG lock.

🔐

I should be further along by now.

I should be over this.

I should have healed by now.

I should have figured this out.

I should be stronger.

I should be happier.

I should have more money saved.

I should have the career I planned.

I should have found somebody by now.

I should still have the life I had before everything changed.

I should be able to do what I used to do.

I should…

I should…

I should…

And before we know it, we’re standing outside our own lives holding a measuring stick somebody handed us years ago.

👀

But here’s what I’ve been wondering:

Whose “should” is it?

Who decided where you were supposed to be by now?

Who decided how long grief gets?

Who decided how quickly a heart should recover?

Who decided when somebody should trust again?

Who decided what healing is supposed to look like?

Who decided there was one acceptable timeline for becoming who you are becoming?

❤️

Sometimes the person who decided was us.

But even then…

which version of us?

The version who made plans before the diagnosis?

Before the loss?

Before the layoff?

Before the divorce?

Before the betrayal?

Before the caregiving?

Before the accident?

Before the financial crisis?

Before the phone call?

Before life took the map we had carefully drawn and said:

We’re not going that way anymore.

🗺️

And then we punish today’s version of ourselves for failing to arrive somewhere yesterday’s version expected us to be.

Whew.

Read that again.

We punish today’s version of ourselves for failing to arrive somewhere yesterday’s version expected us to be.

That’s a heavy sentence.

And an even heavier way to live.

❤️

Maybe you didn’t fail.

Maybe the map changed.

👀

That doesn’t mean everything that happened was good.

It doesn’t mean you wanted the detour.

It doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to grieve where you thought you would be.

It means your life cannot always be fairly measured against plans made before you knew what the road would require.

And maybe that’s where some forgiveness needs to happen.

Not forgiveness because you did something terrible.

Forgiveness because you’ve been angry with yourself for being human inside circumstances you never planned for.

❤️

Maybe:

I forgive myself for being changed by what happened to me.

I forgive myself for needing longer.

I forgive myself for getting tired.

I forgive myself for being scared.

I forgive myself for not knowing what I know now.

I forgive myself for making decisions with the information I had then.

I forgive myself for surviving imperfectly.

I forgive myself for having limits.

I forgive myself for not becoming the person I thought I would be on the schedule I wrote before life changed.

And maybe…

I forgive myself for not being where I thought I should be.

🔐❤️

Because “should” can become a strange kind of shame.

It doesn’t only tell us where we aren’t.

It can convince us that where we are is unacceptable.

And once shame gets involved, correction becomes condemnation.

A mistake becomes:

I am a mistake.

A delay becomes:

I am behind.

A struggle becomes:

I am weak.

A changed life becomes:

I failed.

A different road becomes:

I got lost.

But what if different isn’t automatically lost?

👀🧭

Maybe finding our way home begins when we stop demanding that the road look like the one we originally planned.

❤️

There it is.

Because maybe home isn’t the old life.

Maybe home isn’t who you were before.

Maybe home isn’t reaching some imaginary place where everything finally looks the way it was “supposed” to look.

Maybe home is learning to inhabit this life without constantly prosecuting yourself for living it differently.

That’s not giving up.

That’s not refusing growth.

That’s not pretending there aren’t things we need to change.

Accountability still matters.

Growth still matters.

Choices still matter.

But accountability says:

This needs attention.

Shame says:

You are the problem.

Those are not the same voice.

🔑

Remember what we said yesterday?

Shame is a sneaky locksmith.

And “should” is one of its favorite locks.

It can keep us outside joy because we think we should have more before we’re allowed to enjoy what we have.

Outside rest because we think we should have accomplished more before we’re allowed to stop.

Outside love because we think we should be more healed before anybody gets close.

Outside our own lives because we’re still waiting to become somebody we consider worthy of living them.

Beloveds…

stop moving your own chair.

🪑❤️

You do not have to exile yourself until you’ve improved enough to come home.

For those who share my faith, I don’t believe My Father waits at some imaginary finish line tapping His foot because I didn’t arrive according to my schedule.

I believe He meets me on the road I’m actually walking.

Even when I don’t understand it.

Even when I don’t like it.

Even when I am tired of it.

Even when I thought I would be somewhere else by now.

❤️

So tonight, here’s the Heart Check:

Where has “should” locked you out of your own life?

And maybe:

Whose “should” have you been carrying?

If the map changed, beloveds, you are allowed to acknowledge that.

You are allowed to grieve it.

You are allowed to learn a different road.

You are allowed to become somebody you didn’t know you would need to become.

And you are allowed to stop calling every detour failure.

Because maybe you aren’t behind.

Maybe you aren’t ruined.

Maybe you aren’t lost.

Maybe the map changed.

🗺️❤️

And tomorrow…

we’re going to talk about keys.

Because once we stop standing outside our own door…

we need to have a conversation about who else gets access.

👀🔑

Oh, yes.

Who has a key?

See you tomorrow.

loving me some you
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe

Love stays.

Love stays.

At least mine does.

I choose to love.

No matter what.

Being ghosted hurts.

Every time.

Yet, the love stays.

You all matter to me.

Everybody.

Friend or foe.

Gay or straight.

Rich or poor.

Believer or atheist.

ALL matter to me.

So, I sit.

Arms outstretched.

Never folded.

Shoulder ready.

Hand extended.

Here today.

Here, tomorrow?

God knows but He’s not telling.

loving whosoeverwill,

Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe