I am sitting with the day.
It has been a SuperSoul Sunday.
Church was beautiful today. Worship was high, the kind of worship that doesn’t just sound good but reaches somewhere inside of you and reminds you: You’re still here. You’re still held. Keep going.
And then there was the park.
I have been going there since my children were babies. My youngest is 19 now, which means this place has been part of our family story for nearly two decades.
But somewhere along the way, it became more than a park.
It became one of the first places where my heart learned how to heal.
I walked there. I ran there.
There were seasons when I didn’t know what was next. I remember losing my job (corporate thug life) and going there to walk and run—to move my body when my mind didn’t know what to do with itself.
I ate lunch there by myself, sitting at a picnic table. Sometimes solitude was not something I had chosen. Sometimes it was simply where I was.
And somehow, Jesus met me there.
Every time.
Not necessarily with an answer.
Not always with some grand revelation.
Sometimes just enough peace to make it through the afternoon. Sometimes enough room to breathe. Sometimes enough quiet to hear myself again.
That is what makes a place sacred to me.
Not the building. Not the landscaping.
Not whether anyone else would understand why it matters.
It is what happened there. It is who I became there. It is where I encountered God there.
Over the last ten years or so, the area has become increasingly crowded. Neighborhoods have grown. A school is nearby. There are more people, more activity, more life.
And for a while, I stopped going.
There was even a guy who kept talking to me every time I went. He wasn’t scary. Just irritating.
Sometimes we leave places for reasons that aren’t nearly as profound as the reasons we once needed them. I found other sacred spaces.
Places where I could breathe. Places where I could pray. Places where I could be alone with my thoughts and with God.
But that park remained my first.
Today, on a Sunday, I went back.
Bru had invited one of his best friends to church. Autumn was off. It was great attending as a Family. The boys decided to walk the trails together.
I chose not to walk with them.
I took my own path around the park.
And then I saw them.
Three deer. 🦌🦌🦌
Walking. Pausing. Looking at me.
I stood there in complete awe.
I have been coming to this place since my babies were babies, and I have never seen deer there.
Not once. And today, there they were. Three.
I don’t know if God sent the deer to give me a message. I don’t need to make them into something they may not be.
But I know what it felt like to stand there.
It felt like being reminded to pay attention.
To notice. To stay present. To slow down enough to see what had always been possible but had somehow remained unseen.
I thought to run, walk past or turn around. I heard, “wait.”
Maybe that’s what healing does.
It doesn’t always take us somewhere completely new. Sometimes it brings us back to an old place with new eyes.
The same trees. The same trails. The same picnic tables. But a different woman walking through them.
I have changed. A lot.
The woman who once ran those trails after losing her job is not the woman standing there today.
The mother pushing through the seasons of raising babies is not the woman watching her 19-year-old son walk trails with one of his best friends.
The woman who needed that park to survive a season is now able to return simply to receive the beauty of it.
That feels significant.
And maybe this is what I am learning about sacred spaces:
They don’t have to remain untouched to remain sacred. They can become crowded. We can leave them. We can find other places. Life can change around them.
And still, when we return, something in us remembers.
I think that’s true of people, too.
There are places we once needed desperately that we no longer need in the same way. There are relationships that held us for a season but aren’t meant to hold us forever. There are versions of ourselves that did the best they could with what they knew.
And there are places—physical and spiritual—that become part of the architecture of our healing.
That park is one of mine.
It is one of the first places my heart learned that being alone did not necessarily mean being abandoned. That movement could become prayer. That lunch at a picnic table could become communion.
That tears could fall beneath a sky and somehow you could still leave lighter. That Jesus could meet me outside of a church building.
Actually, maybe that’s one of the reasons I love sacred spaces so much.
Because Jesus has never seemed particularly concerned about staying inside the places we expect Him to be.
He meets me on trails. At picnic tables. In quiet mornings. In difficult seasons. In unexpected conversations. In our emptiness.
And apparently…
sometimes in the middle of a park with three deer staring at me. There was another little reminder today, too.
I had been thinking about taking a break from the dating app. The fatigue was beginning to creep in—the endless conversations, the sorting, the wondering, the discernment.
And then this morning, I matched with a man with a beautiful smile and really good conversation.
And then came the complication.
He is legally married, though separated for three years. They aren’t trying to reconcile. We both respected each other’s position, and we agreed not to continue.
Could there have been something there?
Perhaps.
But I am learning that possibility is not the same thing as permission. Something can feel good and still not be for me. Something can have potential and still require a boundary. And something can end before it begins without being a failure.
Maybe that’s another kind of healing.
Being able to say, “I see the possibility. And I also see the boundary.”
No bitterness. No drama. No chasing. Just discernment.
At 5:28 PM, I am thinking about all of this.
About the woman I was. About the woman I am.
About the places that have held me.
About the places I have outgrown.
About the places I may return to.
About the sacred spaces I haven’t found yet.
And about the strange, beautiful truth that sometimes we don’t realize a place was helping us heal until years later.
I thought I was just walking.
I thought I was just getting some air.
I thought I was just eating lunch alone.
I thought I was just trying to survive losing a job.
But maybe Jesus was teaching my heart something. Maybe He was showing me that solitude could be holy. That movement could be medicine for the soul. That I could sit alone and still be accompanied. That I could lose something and still find myself. That I could leave and return.
That I could become someone new without abandoning the woman who came before me.
And today, after all these years, I walked through that sacred space again.
And three deer stopped to look at me.
Maybe they were simply deer. Maybe that’s all they needed to be. But I stopped, too.
And for a moment, we just looked at each other.
And I smiled.
Because sometimes healing isn’t a dramatic revelation. Sometimes healing is simply realizing:
I am still here. God is still here. And there is still beauty I haven’t seen yet.
SuperSoul Sunday: Lean into your miracles.
Have courage,
Michelle
©️Intimately Worded, Michelle.
I am sitting here thinking about my Church life, my pastor and my parents. My pastor is due to retire next year….I am sadden, happy, proud and grateful for him and his wife. His leadership is more than phenomenal. He is 76 years old and still preaches two services every Sunday. I have never had to call him for anything personal, never had to reach out to him outside of the Church. Yet, he and his wife know my name. No one knew me personally at the Church, yet when I joined six years ago it was him and his wife that were standing up for me (as my family)…..it felt like home. So many Waxhaw, Momma & Daddy feelings, flashbacks at that time.
Intimately Worded with Michelle 
You must be logged in to post a comment.