What Life Leaves Behind—and What God Grows Within

I wasn’t expecting to have a spiritual moment while standing at my kitchen sink. The dishes were piled beside me, warm water was running, and Amy Grant’s newest song, The Me That Remains, began to play. My hands kept working, but my heart stood still.

Sometimes God speaks in church, during our quiet times, or over a sink full of dirty dishes.

As I listened, my thoughts drifted through the many seasons of my life. Some were filled with joy. Others with unimaginable grief. Some I would gladly relive, while others I would never choose again. Yet every season has shaped the woman I am today.

When I was younger, I imagined life unfolding much differently.

I believed that if I worked hard enough, planned carefully enough, and loved people well enough, everything would somehow stay together.

Like many women, I wore many hats—wife, mother, daughter, caregiver, friend. I organized. I anticipated needs. I solved problems. If someone was hurting, I wanted to fix it. If something was broken, I wanted to repair it.

The problem wasn’t that I cared. The problem was believing everything depended on me.

Looking back, I can see that I had quietly allowed what I now call the “god of self” to occupy space in my heart, not out of pride, but out of misplaced responsibility. I believed it was my job to carry burdens that God had never asked me to carry.

Life has a way of exposing those misplaced beliefs.

The death of my husband, Roy, changed the landscape of my life forever. The future we had planned disappeared overnight, and I entered a season I never wanted to know. Grief became my companion. In those early days, I wanted answers. Instead, God offered His presence. At the time, I wasn’t sure that was enough. Now I know it was exactly what I needed.

He didn’t hand me a map for the future. He simply gave me enough grace for the next step. Then the next. Then the next.

Years later, another unexpected chapter arrived.

COVID encephalopathy and rhabdomyolysis left me hospitalized and facing one of the greatest physical challenges of my life. There are days from that season I don’t even remember. My sons filled in the missing pieces while doctors marveled that I had survived.

Recovery was slow. Very slow. And for someone accustomed to helping others, becoming the one who needed help was humbling. Learning to sit still felt almost unbearable. But in that stillness, God gently uncovered something I had missed for years.

My identity had become tangled up in what I could accomplish instead of who I was in Christ.

My calendar emptied, my independence disappeared, and for months I couldn’t even drive. Yet God loved me just as much while lying in a hospital bed as He did while standing behind a microphone speaking to an audience.

God was inviting me to let go of expectations, outcomes, fears, and the exhausting belief that everyone else’s well-being somehow rested on my shoulders.

After all, the world already has a Savior. It isn’t me. What freedom there is in finally believing that.

As I look back now, I can see God’s fingerprints across every season. The waiting after Roy’s death. The waiting for healing. The waiting when prayers seemed unanswered, and I couldn’t understand what God was doing.

None of those seasons of waiting were wasted. Each one was quietly forming something within me.

The woman who remains today isn’t the same woman she once was. I’ve become aware that strength doesn’t come from holding everything together but from resting in the One who already holds everything together.

If you’re in a season that feels unfamiliar, painful, or painfully slow, God isn’t simply changing your circumstances; perhaps He’s forming the person who will remain when those circumstances have passed. And then one day, you’ll look back and discover that what remained wasn’t your strength, your plans, or your ability to fix everything. What remained was God’s faithfulness, and that will always be enough.

What season of life are you walking through today? I would be honored to pray with you.

This reflection is adapted from Chapter 12, What Remains, in my forthcoming book, The Long Exhale: What Remains When Life Changes Everything. If Amy Grant’s beautiful song The Me That Remains has touched your heart as it did mine, I encourage you to listen to it. Sometimes God uses a simple song to remind us that He is faithfully shaping who we are becoming through every season.