Raspberry Iced M

The Bible tells us to pray “continually” – or – in another translation – “without ceasing.”

It’s in Thessalonians.

And you have to read the verses around it to understand the context of this command.

I am no scholar, but I think we are given this instruction for a few reasons.

I don’t think the Lord demands that we speak words, out loud, all day, every day. I think He wants us to be aware of His presence in our lives. I think He wants us to stay connected to Him. I think He wants us to express gratitude, and rejoice over the things He does in our lives.

It’s about living a lifestyle based on that connection. It’s about the posture of our hearts.

And I am by no means perfect. But I am learning that there is no situation in my life that I should out of His reach. I don’t just pray continually. I pray about everything.

Of course I pray for other people. For their circumstances. And for the last year, my recurring prayer has been, “Lord – change my heart.” I pray over the decisions I need to make – big and small – before I make them. I pray over my future. My fears. My finances. My health. My character. My mistakes.

And some of those things are easier to surrender to Him than others. But I think one of the hardest things I have ever had to place in God’s hands is another person.

When you love someone, your instinct is to take action. Fix it. Say the right thing. Explain again. Reach out – aggressively. Make sure they know. And then confirm your own timeline with Jesus and make sure He knows what you expect.

I did that last year. And God said, “Trust me with them.”

And that may be one of the hardest instructions He’s ever given to me. But with many stumbles along the way, I tried to follow those instructions.

And yesterday, I was reminded why it was important to do so.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably already know what I’m about to explain. But at the risk of redundancy, this past year is a crucial part of my testimony, and I’ll never shy away from sharing it.

I’ve written about being an estranged mother. About grief. About missing someone. About regret and powerlessness and learning to live with unanswered questions. I’ve written about learning to accept consequences and learning that changed behavior does not always earn us reconciliation.

What I haven’t written about are the details of the relationship between my daughter and me – and what led to that disconnect.

That has been intentional.

Not because I have a problem discussing my mistakes – I’ve talked about those on this forum in great detail.

But because there are two people in the relationship. And while I know my experience, my daughter has her own. Her feelings belong to her. Her memories belong to her. Her perspective belongs to her. And I don’t think it would be fair for me to publish my version of a story that involves someone who isn’t here to tell hers.

To clarify, this post isn’t about why my daughter stopped speaking to me. It’s a post about what it was like to love someone I could no reach…and what God taught me while I couldn’t.

I wanted to fix it. Of course I did. I’m a mom.

But I am also…me. And historically, uncertainty has not exactly been my favorite recreational activity.

I like answers. Plans. Action items.

If something is broken, I want the manual. “How to get your Child Back in 12 Easy Steps.”

For dummies.

But there are some things you cannot fix by working harder. Or by apologizing more. Or by explaining better. And my relationship with my daughter is one of those things. All relationships. Because they involve another human being.

I can control whether I apologize. Whether I change, respect a boundary, pray. I can control myself and the kind of person I become while I wait.

But I am only 50% of that equation. And I can’t control another person’s readiness or feelings or healing or perception. I can’t control forgiveness.

And I couldn’t control whether or not my daughter ever came back.

And that’s where surrender stopped being a pretty Christian word written in my bullet journal…and started to become excruciating.

Trusting God with my relationship with my daughter was painful…is painful.

And at first, I prayed, “Lord, I am trusting You with her,” when I really meant, “Lord, I am trusting You to bring her back to me.”

That’s not the same thing. Trusting God means trusting Him with the outcome, too, even if said outcome doesn’t align with our preferences. Trusting Him means believing that He loves the person I am praying for even when I cannot see what He’s doing. It means accepting that I don’t get to supervise whatever God may be doing in someone else’s heart. It means I don’t get progress reports. I don’t get to peak behind the curtain. I don’t get to know if anything is changing.

Sometimes He wants us to just pray…

…and wait…

…and live.

When my daughter was little, I could authoritatively control her – or at least her actions.

Don’t speak to me that way. Don’t leave your dirty socks on the floor. Be home by 11:00.

But she was 18 when she left home, and there wasn’t anything I could do inside her heart.

I mean, I could work on mine – but that was it. I could ask God to show me where I needed to change. I could examine my own behavior and learn and repent. I could become more emotionally regulated. More honest, patient, faithful. More willing to tolerate being misunderstood. More capable of loving someone without controlling the outcome.

But I couldn’t do any of that work for her. And maybe trusting God with another person means finally respecting the boundary between their soul and mine.

I am responsible for healing myself. I am responsible for loving. And I am responsible for the act of surrendering.

But He’s responsible for being God.

I am reminded of the verse in Psalm (I think Chapter 46) that says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

We have to look at context again, because David was in the middle of a war when this verse was written. And yet the Lord simply said, “Be still.” Sometimes surrender looks like doing nothing. And that’s probably the part I hate the most about it, because doing nothing feels so irresponsible when something matters so enormously.

But what if “doing nothing” is different from “not interfering?”

Sometimes love reaches out. Sometimes it apologizes. Sometimes it fights. Sometimes it shows up. And sometimes it says, “The door is open. I love you. And I will not drag you throught it.” Sometimes love shows restraint…requires restraint…especially when every frightened part of you wants immediate reassurance.

The last text I received from my daughter was on September 14, 2025. It’s a date that will probably be stamped on my brain forever, for one reason or another. And from my perspective, the text she sent was very matter of fact and dry – almost like an email I would send HR to let them know I was taking a sick day. In that text, she gave me some news and ended the text with, “I don’t want anything from you – I just wanted to let you know.”

And I responded to her text, but I have no idea if she got it or saw it or read it, because for the following 359 days, I heard nothing. No texts, no calls. Blocked on all forums of social media. And the only updates I received, for nearly a year, were from other family members.

And maybe other people can relate to this – after one year of praying for something…for someone…it is easy to become discouraged. I remember, right at the 3 month mark, praying the Elijah prayer.

“Lord, I can’t do this anymore. Please take me out of this world.“

And at the 4 or 5 month mark, I began asking Him to just help me grieve in a healthy way, because I had resolved myself to the fact that my daughter was gone forever.

But around the 6 month mark, something shifted, and I am not even sure I could tell you exactly what it was. But my prayer became very different.

“Even if…“

I prayed for her happiness. Her peace. I prayed blessings for her. I prayed that He would protect her in my absence. I prayed that she learned faster, recovered better, and healed more wholly than I ever could. And I also vowed to remain in a place of surrender.

“Lord, even if the relationship with my daughter is gone forever…You are still God.“

And that’s been my prayer for 6 months. On top of that, I’ve been committed to healing in my own right, because at the end of this life, my happiness is my responsibility. I couldn’t condition my progress or my relationship with Jesus on my daughter’s return.

So, yesterday, I was working at my desk, as is routine every weekday. I think I was listening to a podcast. And my mind wasn’t really focused on anything besides my work.

And my phone lit up.

*Incoming text notification*

“i love you mom.”

With no capital letters. No explanation. No novel-long speech about all that has happened in a year. No resolution of all that has happened. No roadmap for what is next. Just…

“i love you mom.”

And I know I am healing…even if at a turtle’s pace…because I didn’t reach for the speech or the resolution or the roadmap.

I just replied, “And I love you, my Girl.”

I didn’t ask questions or use the opening to unload a year’s worth of rehearsed commentary. I didn’t ask what the text meant. I didn’t ask if we were okay now. I didn’t react gutterally to try to turn one beautiful moment into ten future ones.

I let it be what it was…

…because what it was…

…was enough.

For yesterday.

And the funny thing – what my daughter didn’t see – what no one saw – was the metaphorical Jesus dance that I did after I responded to my daughter’s text. Someone said to me, once, that when the Lord gives us a miracle, He sometimes does it in a way that the recipient cannot chalk the miracle up to happenstance or properly aligned stars. He blesses us so that we know – for sure – it’s His doing.

So a 30 second text exchange morphed into a ten minute praise break at my desk. And all I could really do was sob uncontrollably and lift my hands toward heaven and repeat “Thank you, Jesus” over and over and over.

A year of no contact. A year of missing out. A year of grieving. A year of sleepless nights. A year of wondering. A year of accepting. A year of forcing myself to press on when I wanted to curl up. A year of carrying around a metaphorical, heavy suitcase full of pain that I deserved but didn’t want…

…but also a year of personal reflection. A year of examining the darkest, unhealed, unmanaged parts of myself. A year of trying my hardest to do the “next right thing,” no matter how small. A year of daily, intentional surrender…

…only for the Lord to answer a prayer on an ordinary Wednesday. A prayer I could not answer myself.

So my conversation with Jesus last night before bed contained very specific pleas.

First, Lord, thank you. Over and over and over. For this miracle. Second, I am still in total surrender. I do not want to mess this up, and I do not want to take this for granted…ever again. And because of that, I do not want control. Please hang on to this relationship for me. And finally, please direct my steps, and give me the wisdom I need, give me the words to say, and give me the patience required to navigate this new season of my life, and of my relationship with my child. But more than any of that, please help me to remember that my kids are a gift you gave to me, but not a gift I can hold forever. I am their mom, but they belong to you. Reveal yourself to each of them in a way so mighty that your love for them is never in question.

(I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point.)

Yesterday was a gift, and I received it without making immediate demands for guarantees. I am committed to accepting His blessing without demanding clarification from Him. My brain would be delighted to turn my daughter’s 4-word text into a full strategic planning session complete with charts and projected outcomes.

But trusting God with her means trusting God with her. That trust did not end when I got her text.

And maybe this is what open hands look like. Maybe it’s not peaceful the way I once imagined.

Sometimes your hands are open because you’ve finally accepted that gripping tighter won’t make someone stay. Sometimes they’re open you’re learning that love cannot be clenched.

And sometimes something beautiful gets put back into those hands, only for wisdom to remind you to resist the urge to close your fists around it.

Yesterday, I got 4 words. And I am holding them gently. With immeasurable joy. With hope for growth, forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration, and closeness in the future.

But I am also aware that the second chapter of this season mandates recognizing that I am not the only one capable of holding someone I love…because He loves her even more than I do. And where I have failed her, He never will.

Yesterday’s text didn’t erase the last year or answer every question or repair every detail. And I am not going to turn that text into a conclusion God has not yet revealed.

“i love you mom.”

But only after learning some very valuable lessons – that I could love her without access to her. That I could pray for her without knowing her circumstances. That I could work on myself without knowing whether she would ever see it. That I could leave a door open without standing in the doorway screaming her name. That I could trust God to hold someone I desperately wanted to hold myself.

I don’t think trusting God means that He will always bend to our preferences. Faith can’t be reduced to a formula like that.

But yesterday reminded me that silence is not proof that God is absent.

Today I have four words that I didn’t have before.

And instead of grabbing them and demanding to know what comes next, I want to do something different:

Receive the gift. Thank Him for it. Keep the door open. And trust Him with tomorrow, too.