Dear Reader,

September 20th, 2026

Sunday’s church service changed something inside of me.

The message was about the sin of unbelief, and it made me realize that believing in God and truly trusting God are two very different things.

To believe in God isn’t just to acknowledge that He exists. Even the devil knows God exists. Even the devil believes in God. But truly believing in God means trusting Him. It means honoring His commandments, knowing right from wrong, and choosing to follow Him even when we don’t understand what He is doing.

As I sat there listening to the message, I started thinking about my life. About all the times I have trusted God and all the times I haven’t. About the moments when I have cried out to Him, begging Him to show up, and the moments when I have questioned whether He was ever there at all.

During worship, we sang a song that hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. It was about being tossed into the water but never going under. About walking through the fire and realizing that Jesus was right there beside you. About how He was always on time. And as I stood there singing, I started thinking about my life again. There have been so many moments when I have said, “God, where were You? Where were You when I was hurting? Where were You when my life was falling apart? Where were You when I was begging for someone to help me?”

I have spent so much of my life questioning where God was during some of my darkest moments. But this year, something has started changing inside of me.

In May, I experienced a moment when I had no choice but to put my trust completely in God. I was walking into a courtroom knowing there was a possibility that I could lose my baby because of my arrest in September of 2025, even though I had not done the things I was arrested for. I was told that I could lose my baby because I suffered from PTSD and postpartum.

I cannot begin to explain what it feels like to walk into a courtroom knowing that someone could make a decision that would separate you from your child. The fear. The helplessness. The thought of walking out of that courtroom without my baby.

But despite everything I was being told, I trusted God. I walked into that courtroom believing that He would show up for me. And there was a moment during that hearing when things were not looking the way I had prayed they would. I remember sitting there thinking, “God, please show up. Please. Where are you?” And at the very last minute, He showed up. I did not lose my baby.

Standing in church on Sunday, listening to that song, I thought about that moment. About how close I felt to losing everything. About how terrified I was. About how I trusted God even when everything happening around me was telling me that I should be afraid. And He showed up. He was right on time.

And that wasn’t the only time God showed up for me this year. I have spent so many nights crying out to Him, begging for the truth about my arrest to come to light. Begging Him to take away the weight of something I did not do. There were moments when I wondered if my prayers were even being heard. But God heard every single one of them. And almost a year later, my charges are being dismissed. Not on my timing, but His. And once again, He reminded me that He is always on time.

People say all the time that everything happens in God’s timing. That God shows up when it is His time, not ours. But do you know how hard that is to accept when you are the one suffering?

When you are the one crying yourself to sleep?

When you are begging God to change something in your life and nothing seems to be changing?

It is so easy to say that we trust God’s timing when life is going the way we want it to. But what about when it isn’t? What about when you have prayed the same prayer over and over again and you are still sitting in the same painful situation? What about when you are doing everything you know to do and your life still feels like it is falling apart?

Do we still trust Him then?

Something the pastor said really stuck with me. He talked about how we put more trust in everyday things than we do in God. We trust that a chair will hold us when we sit down. We trust that someone will stop at a red light. We trust that when we get home, the electricity will be on. We put our trust in these things without giving them a second thought. Yet when it comes to God, our trust becomes conditional. We trust Him when things are going well. We trust Him when our prayers are being answered the way we want them to be. But when life gets hard, when things don’t make sense, and when God doesn’t show up the way we expect Him to, we start questioning Him. We start doubting Him. We start wondering whether He is even listening.

And I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of this. I have spent so much of my life struggling to trust people, and if I am being completely honest, I have struggled to trust God, too.

I have questioned Him. I have been angry with Him. I have wondered why He has allowed certain things to happen in my life. I have begged Him to take away pain that I am still carrying. I have asked Him why I have had to endure so much when all I have ever wanted was to be loved, to feel safe, and to have a peaceful life. I don’t always trust Him. I wish I could sit here and tell you that I do, but I would be lying. I am still learning.

I am learning that just because I am going through something painful doesn’t mean God isn’t going through it with me. Just because my life isn’t turning out the way I imagined doesn’t mean He has abandoned me. Just because my spouses didn’t love me the way they promised they would doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me. It doesn’t mean that I am unlovable. It doesn’t mean that I am not worthy of being cherished, honored, and treated with kindness.

I have spent so much of my life looking for love in people who have left me feeling empty.

I have begged people to love me. I have begged people to be kind to me. I have begged people to stop abusing me. I have begged people to treat me like I matter. I have begged people to comfort me. And somewhere along the way, I started allowing the way other people treated me to determine how I saw myself.

But their inability to love me the way they promised does not change the fact that I am loved by God.

I am learning that I don’t have to understand everything that happens in my life to trust that God is still with me. I don’t have to know why I have endured so much pain. I don’t have to have all the answers right now.

I have to trust that there are lessons I am learning through these experiences that may help me one day. I have to trust that the things I have walked through can become a beautiful testimony of God’s love and faithfulness. That maybe one day, someone who is sitting in the same darkness I once sat in will hear my story and realize that they are not alone. That they can survive what they are going through. That their pain does not mean God has forgotten about them.

And I want to be clear about something.

I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for us. I believe in a love so great that He willingly gave His life for people who would continue to sin against Him. I believe that every single person deserves to experience that kind of love.

But I am also a sinner. I sin every single day. I have been mean to people. I have hurt people. I have said things that I wish I could take back. I have wished bad things on people who have hurt me. I have lied. I have made choices that I am not proud of. There are things about myself that I am still working to change. I am not going to sit here and pretend that I am some perfect Christian who always does the right thing, because I am not.

I am a woman who has made mistakes. A woman who has hurt people and been hurt by people. A woman who is still trying to figure out how to live a life that honors God while carrying wounds that have not been healed.

But none of that makes me unsavable. And none of the things you have done make you unsavable, either.

You do not have to have a perfect past to turn your life toward God. You do not have to pretend that you have never hurt anyone. You do not have to hide the ugly parts of yourself from Him. He already knows.

He knows the things we have done. He knows the thoughts we have had. He knows the things we are ashamed of. And He still loves us.

But we have to be willing to change. We have to be willing to acknowledge where we have gone wrong. We have to stop making excuses for the things we know are wrong and start choosing to live differently.

Change doesn’t happen just because we say we believe in God. It happens when we make the choice to follow Him. When we choose to trust Him. When we choose to honor Him through our actions, even when it requires us to confront the parts of ourselves that we would rather ignore.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. I don’t know what my life is going to look like a month from now or a year from now. I don’t know why some of the things I have prayed so desperately for have not happened. I don’t know why some of the people I have loved have hurt me so deeply. And I don’t know when I will finally have the peaceful life I have spent so many years longing for.

But I am learning that I don’t have to know.

I just have to trust Him.

I have to trust that when I am tossed into the water, I will not go under. I have to trust that when I walk through the fire, He is right there beside me. I have to trust that even when I cannot see Him working, He has not abandoned me. And I have to remember that moment in May, when I sat in that courtroom terrified of what was going to happen, begging God to show up, that He did.

I am still learning. I am still healing. I am still struggling with things that I wish I could say no longer hurt me. There will probably be days when I question Him again. Days when I cry and ask Him why. Days when trusting Him feels harder than it did the day before.

But today, I am choosing to follow Him. Today, I am choosing to trust Him.

Not just when life is good. Not just when my prayers are answered the way I want them to be. But even when I am hurting. Even when I am afraid. Even when I cannot understand what He is doing.

Love always,

Kelsey