“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9

There are days when obedience feels less like a confident stride forward and more like a hesitant step into the dark. I’ll feel a quiet prompting to write, to dig through the closet of my past, or to share a story, only to let second thoughts creep in almost immediately.

Does this really matter?
Is anyone listening?
Am I just speaking into the void?

When I allow those doubts to linger, they quickly turn into heavy weights, urging me to step back, pull my post, or stay silent where it feels safe.

Yet, every single time I reach that edge of turning around, I do it anyway. And remarkably, it seems the stories I am the most reluctant to tell are always the very ones that touch hearts the most. It is in those moments of greatest resistance that grace seems to do its deepest work.

Right after I press publish with a nervous breath, whether confirmation arrives immediately or hours later after a quiet night, it eventually arrives through the sweet, quiet kindness of others. It comes as a thoughtful comment, a text message popping up on my phone at the exact minute I felt like deleting it, a warm call, or a simple, encouraging word spoken face-to-face. Someone will say, “I needed to hear that today,” completely unaware of the quiet battle I was fighting just moments before.

When those words come, my natural instinct is to pull back. I’ve never been good at receiving praise, and those moments can easily make me feel uneasy. But I’m learning not to view their words as a compliment to me—they are simply proof of God’s faithfulness. They are gentle signs along the road that He took a small, hesitant step of obedience and used it to light someone else’s path.

At 62, I look back on a lifetime filled with storms, trials, and plenty of mistakes. I don’t have it all together, and I fail miserably every single day. But Jesus has never asked for perfection—He asks for obedience. He doesn’t call us to have every answer or a flawless track record; He simply asks us to show up with what we have. He takes our messy, hesitant, imperfect steps and uses them to further His Kingdom.

We aren’t called to pour out our entire life’s story all at once, nor are we called to please everyone. Our calling is far simpler, even when it costs us our comfort: to share the good news, to love one another deeply, and to love the Father. If sharing my story—bits and pieces at a time, weaknesses and all—gives even one person the courage to step out in faith, then every moment of hesitation was worth pushing through.