#CrossingBridges:

The Third Day Promises: Healing is Agency

Where Lent Found Me

Lent met me in the present this year. Not in old wounds. Not in childhood memory. Not in something buried. But in something current.

I was recovering from a breakup I was growing in; it had great potential. There was no explosion.

No dramatic ending. Just the quiet understanding that something meaningful had run its course.

And even when you accept that with maturity —there is still grief. The kind that lingers. The kind that shows up in ordinary evenings.

While Falling Forward

I felt the need for structure. So I went dry.

I walked more. I paid closer attention to what entered my body. I thought I was already mindful.

But intentional seasons reveal subtle attachments. It wasn’t about food. It was about comfort. It was about what I reached for when I didn’t want to feel the weight of missing someone.

The Moments I Leaned In

There were evenings when I felt the ache more than usual. I would stand in the kitchen —

not hungry, just unsettled. And I sensed it quietly:

Stay here.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

Stillness felt harder than indulgence.

But stillness was where clarity lived.

So instead of soothing myself outwardly,

I turned inward. Instead of numbing, I walked.

Instead of filling silence. I let it hold me. Solitude is a practice of extending self- grace.

Easter Sunday: Third Day Promises

The Third Day has always meant resurrection.

But this year, it meant the in-between.

The space between surrender and rising.

The quiet before clarity.

“And we know that all things work together for good…” — Romans 8:28

Even this. Even endings that didn’t break me —

but stretched me. I realized I wasn’t in collapse.

I was in refinement.

The Better of Things

What surprised me most was not the discipline around my body. It was the clarity around my calling. There has been a gentle stirring in me —to expand professionally. To step more fully into my work as a therapist. To build with greater intention.

There are rooms I feel called to walk into now — not from lack, but from readiness.

Grief clarified my capacity. I am not shrinking.

I am strengthening.

What I Know

Healing is Agency. It’s choosing differently, even when it’s hard. This season taught me, Healing this Lent wasn’t dramatic. It was disciplined. It was honest. It was present. Spiritual intimacy, for me, became alignment.

Alignment between: what I feel

what I release

what I consume

what I build

The Third Day reminds me that resurrection is not always loud. Sometimes it looks like:

acceptance,

a long walk,

a closed chapter,

and quiet courage.

I am still becoming.

And that feels enough.

Being brave,

Michelle

©️Intimately Worded, Michelle