Meanwhile, in the Walmart parking lot.

I hit publish yesterday, writing about Q3 — about my boss resigning, the implosion that rattled our team, and the way I found myself standing in a leadership role I never planned to pursue, only to realize I had been ready for it long before I could say that out loud.

It felt vulnerable and honest, but mostly obedient, and the response surprised me in the best way. The messages, the quiet encouragement, the “I see you” texts from people who had been watching from a distance — it all landed gently. What had felt heavy and private for months was suddenly understood, and I found myself sitting in gratitude more than anything else.

Today I was in my truck between errands, still letting it sink in. It was an ordinary afternoon in a Walmart parking lot when a song I’d never heard before came on.

"Testimony."

The song opened with Terrian singing about oceans parting — about the kind of miracles that change geography and rewrite history, the dramatic ones, the obvious ones. The Red Sea kind of stories.

And then the song turned in a way I didn’t expect.

It wasn’t only about what God did out there. It was about what He did in her — the shaping, the carrying, the sustaining, the becoming. The quieter miracle of formation.

And sitting there in that truck, something in me just knew.

Not hype.
Not coincidence dressed up nicely.
Not emotion for emotion’s sake.

Just steady.

The kind of knowing that comes from learning His voice over time — especially when there was a season you didn’t know it at all. Because there was a season I didn’t.

There are only a handful of people who know your whole story because they walked it with you. They remember the nights you doubted yourself, the prayers that felt small and desperate, the seasons where nothing looked like progress. Most people meet you mid-chapter. They see the stability, the growth, the title. They don’t see the girl who once dismissed faith entirely and lived with the quiet assumption that she would never amount to much, if anything.

I still remember being that girl. I remember wanting a different life long before I had language for faith — wanting stability, purpose, something solid to stand on — at a time when I didn’t yet have a relationship with God and, if I’m honest, didn’t trust Him because I didn’t know Him. There were years when I equated God, Jesus, and the Bible with something closer to a fairy tale than a foundation. The path I walked and the decisions I made didn’t resemble the life I live today — a chapter I may write about someday, because it holds more grace than I once believed possible.

And still, even in that season, something steadier was unfolding.

Looking back now, I can see that He was working long before I acknowledged Him. Even when I was skeptical. Even when I was misaligned. Even when I had no framework for grace. What felt like random turns and self-driven pivots were, in hindsight, part of something far more intentional than I could see at the time.

That perspective changes the way I hold this season. It softens success into gratitude and turns expansion into humility, because testimony isn’t measured by spectacle.

We talk a lot about parted oceans, but we don’t talk enough about the person who walks through them. The miracle isn’t always the sea splitting; sometimes the miracle is the strength to keep walking.

And sometimes that strength looks very different depending on the chapter you’re in. Sometimes it looks like stepping forward. Sometimes it looks like enduring.

Right now, God is writing very different stories in very different lives — even in the lives of people who have walked side by side for decades.

M has been my best friend for nearly thirty years. We met my freshman year of high school, when she was a junior, and somehow from that moment on we’ve been woven into each other’s lives. She’s my chosen sister, my parents’ “other daughter.” We’ve grown up together. We’ve seen each other through every version of ourselves — awkward teenage phases, heartbreak, reinvention, faith, doubt, joy, loss. There is almost no version of me she hasn’t known.

And if I’m honest, she has carried what almost anyone would agree is an unfair hand of cards — not just now, but for much of her life. The kind of weight that would make most people bitter. The kind of circumstances that test your resolve again and again.

Today, while I am stepping into expanded responsibility and celebrating a season of growth, she is fighting for her life against cancer.

From the outside, those stories couldn’t look more different.

One looks like expansion.
The other looks like survival.
One feels like favor.
The other feels like a fight no one would willingly choose.

M believes in God. She always has in her own way, but not in the same way I do. Cancer has forced conversations she didn’t ask for; it has pushed her into prayers that don’t come easily, into questions that don’t have clean answers. I know she’s been trying to talk to Him, trying to understand the “why me.” Trying to trust something she’s still learning how to trust.

There is nothing tidy about it, and maybe that’s part of the testimony too.

Testimony isn’t measured by visible success or polished certainty, and it certainly isn’t measured by promotions or perfectly formed theology. It’s measured by faithfulness in whatever chapter you’re standing in.

God is just as present in the hospital room as He is in the promotion, just as active in endurance as He is in expansion. One story may look like growth, while another may look like grit. Both are sacred. Both matter to Him.

And maybe that’s what He was reminding me of.

Not through a burning bush.
Not through parted water.
But through a song I didn’t plan to hear, in a place I didn’t expect to feel anything holy.

Sitting there in that Walmart parking lot, something simple and steady settled into place.

He parts oceans, and sometimes He parts doubt.
Sometimes He parts the insecurity that has been sitting quietly in your chest for years.
Sometimes He simply reminds you that the life you once prayed for is now the life you’re living.

And that gratitude is not sentiment — it’s worship.

Sitting there, it felt like God whispering — quietly, without spectacle —

I’m proud of you.

Not because of a title.
Not because of applause.

But because you walked into what I had been preparing you for.
Because you stood where I placed you.
Because even imperfectly, you are trying to live in My name.

Yesterday was obedience.
Today felt like grace.

Meanwhile, He’s still writing testimony — in hospital rooms and parking lots, in leadership transitions and long treatments, in quiet endurance and steady yeses.

Different chapters.
Same Author.

Amen.