To the One in the Storm
Dear friend,
I recognize the way your breath catches at the edge of sorrow, the way your hands tremble with the weight of what feels unrelenting. You have survived so much already, and yet here you are—standing in the middle of another storm that threatens to take all that remains. Or perhaps has already taken everything.
You are known.
Not by the circumstances that seek to unravel you, nor by the heaviness you carry. You are known in the way your heart continues to beat, even when it feels like everything else is breaking. You are known in the resilience woven into your spirit, in the quiet courage of showing up for life even when the very ground beneath you shifts.
I want to tell you something that might feel impossible to believe right now: this season, as jagged and unrelenting as it has been, is not forever. Even the deepest night must eventually bow to the light of a new dawn. I know that waiting for morning feels endless, especially when the night sky literally burns, but the truth is this: your survival is evidence of a resilience no storm can claim.
Life, in all its wild unpredictability, can feel cruel. It can strip us of what we thought would always remain, and it can leave us standing in the rubble of what once was. But, oh, my dear, life is also relentless in its offering of grace. You might not see it now—how could you?—but there is a seed of something tender and unshakable growing beneath the ash. You are its keeper.
You will tell its story.
For now, do not focus on the distant horizon. Stay here, in this breath, in this moment. Let your body remind you of what endures: the heartbeat that keeps you tethered to life, the lungs that burn yet continue to fill even when you think you cannot catch another breath. The thread you feel like you’re clinging to isn’t weakness; it is your strength in disguise.
When the world feels like too much, when all is burning, return to the smallest things:
The way water cools your hands.
The solidity of the earth beneath your feet.
The sound of the wind carrying whispers from places far beyond your pain.
The half-smile from a stranger who knows the storm too.
These are not small things, my love. These are the anchors that hold you steady when the storm howls or strips the landscape bare.
I will not tell you to be strong right now.
Strength doesn’t look like what we’ve been taught—it doesn’t have to be loud or fierce. Sometimes strength is the quiet courage to soften into this moment, to let yourself be held by something greater, even if you don’t have a name for it yet.
What you are walking through is immense. The wreckage you stand in is deep. And yet, even here, hope waits for you. You only need to reach within to find it.
You only need to breathe.
Why brutal storms must come, I do not know. My heart breaks with yours. And somehow, some way it will not last forever. You will not last forever in this place of heaviness. Seasons shift. Weather does too. Life finds a way. You are not just enduring this—you are being transformed.
Take heart, dear one. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to feel everything without apology or explanation. You are allowed to pause. You are allowed to break open. You are allowed to keep going, even when you don’t know how you will.
I believe in you.
From my heart to yours,
Practice Postscript
• Reflection:
What small act of care or comfort can I offer myself today that would feel like a gift rather than a need or demand?
• Practice:
Hold a piece of the earth that is close to you—a stone, a leaf, or even a glass of water. Let yourself remember how the Earth, though battered by storms and fires, heals and continues. Breathe deeply and allow yourself to sense the same resilience in you.
• Question to Carry Forward:
When the weight of life feels unbearable, how can I return to the anchors—my breath, the earth, the quiet hope within me—that remind me I am still here?
