Intimately Worded with Michelle

Tag: wounds

  • Grace, Pathways, and the Cost of Becoming

    New Beginnings

    The new year does not arrive quietly. It comes with memory, with residue, with the echo of prayers whispered in exhaustion and spoken aloud in faith. As I step into this year, I do so aware of divine forces that have been at work long before I had language for them. God’s love has not been performative or punitive—it has been steady, corrective, and deeply intimate.

    Some prayers were answered quickly. Others were answered slowly, through redirection, loss, or delay. And some were answered in ways that required me to grow into the answer rather than simply receive it. I now understand that unanswered prayers are often invitations to become wiser, more honest, and more discerning.

    The Pathways of 2025

    The pathways established in 2025 were not accidental. They were carved through difficult decisions, uncomfortable boundaries, and moments where choosing myself felt lonely but necessary. I learned that God’s guidance does not always feel gentle in the moment—but it is always precise.

    Every hard pivot created alignment. Every closed door reduced distraction. Every ending taught me discernment. What once felt like disruption revealed itself as divine order.

    The wisdom gained did not come from ease. It came from emotional pain—pain that now reads like a highlight reel of growth rather than a list of regrets. I can trace my maturity back to moments where I survived disappointment without losing my softness, where I chose integrity over convenience, and where I honored my values even when it cost me comfort.

    Emotional Pain as Wisdom

    The older I get, the more I understand emotional pain as a form of instruction. Pain exposes what matters. It clarifies what cannot be negotiated. It sharpens our ability to love ourselves with boundaries rather than abandonment.

    Grace, I’ve learned, is rarely delivered as “I told you so.” God does not shame us with hindsight. Grace is extended from love—quietly, patiently—without the language of “you should have” or “why didn’t you.” Instead, grace says: Now you know. And knowing changes everything.

    This understanding has softened my relationship with my past. I no longer interrogate myself for what I didn’t know then. I honor who I was with the tools I had. Growth does not require self-punishment—it requires acceptance.

    Acceptance Without Self-Erasure

    Acceptance does not mean betraying your desires. It does not require you to prove your love by shrinking your wants, lowering your standards, or redesigning your future to make others more comfortable. Acceptance is not compliance.

    I am learning to lean into acceptance without changing the landscape of my wants. Without negotiating my needs. Without confusing patience with settling.

    Because settling has consequences.

    And I have learned—sometimes painfully—that the cost of settling is always higher than the cost of waiting, choosing again, or walking away.

    Counting the Cost

    I will continue to ask myself one question in this season: What is the cost?

    What is the cost of staying where I am tolerated but not cherished?

    What is the cost of silencing my intuition for the sake of harmony?

    What is the cost of convenience over calling?

    This question has become a form of self-respect. It keeps me aligned with God’s wisdom rather than my fear. It reminds me that love—divine or human—should not require self-abandonment as proof.

    Moving Forward

    As this year unfolds, I trust the pathways already laid. I trust the wisdom earned. I trust that God’s love will continue to guide me—not through coercion, but through clarity.

    I enter this year grounded in faith, sharpened by experience, and unwilling to settle for anything that costs me my peace.

    Grace has met me here.

    And I am ready. 🌿

    A Closing Prayer

    God of wisdom and gentle correction,

    Thank You for loving me without humiliation and guiding me without force. Thank You for the prayers You answered, the ones You delayed, and the ones You answered by changing me. As I step forward, help me to trust the pathways You have already established, even when I cannot see the full picture.

    Grant me discernment to know the cost of settling and the courage to choose what aligns with Your truth for my life. Teach me to accept what has been without diminishing what I still desire. May my wants be refined, not erased. May my love be rooted, not desperate. May my decisions be guided by wisdom rather than fear.

    Cover me with grace as I continue becoming.

    Amen.

    “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5–6

    Soul-ing Quote:

    Emotional pain did not break me—it instructed me. What once hurt now highlights the wisdom I earned and the grace that carried me forward.

    ✨🌿✨

    Be brave,

    Michelle

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle.

  • Love Does Not Require My Exhaustion, Only My Honesty

    by Michelle Tillman | Intimately Worded

    There’s a quiet kind of fatigue that can come from wanting to be loved well. It isn’t physical — it’s emotional and spiritual. It’s the weariness that shows up after you’ve overextended your heart just to be understood, after you’ve carried more of the emotional load than the relationship ever asked you to.

    But I’ve come to realize something sacred:

    Love does not require my exhaustion, only my honesty.

    That truth has become a balm for me. Honesty isn’t just about what I say — it’s how I choose to show up. It’s admitting when I’m tired, when I feel unseen, when I’m hoping for more depth. It’s saying, “I want a meaningful relationship,” without trying to earn one through over-effort or performance.

    There’s a kind of peace that only comes when you stop negotiating your needs. When you release the urge to chase clarity or beg for consistency. When you start trusting that the love meant for you will never confuse you, diminish you, or ask you to betray your spirit in the process.

    As we begin to heal with our own stuff, something shifts. We stop seeing love as a rescue and start seeing it as a reflection. We start realizing that the relationships around us mirror where we are internally — what we believe we deserve, how safe we feel within ourselves, and how deeply we’ve allowed grace to meet us in our healing.

    My journey now is about emotional healing and spiritual safety — finding a rhythm in love that doesn’t disrupt my inner calm. I want connection that feels like prayer: steady, honest, rooted in presence. The kind that honors the quiet work I’ve done to heal, forgive, and grow.

    When someone fades away, or blocks, or simply doesn’t have the depth to meet me — I breathe. I remember that peace isn’t the absence of longing; it’s the presence of alignment. I remind myself that my worth doesn’t rise or fall with someone’s ability to recognize it.

    So I’m learning to love differently — without rushing, without rescuing, without rehearsing who I think I need to be. I’m letting honesty, not exhaustion, lead the way.

    Because love that is divine, grounded, and true doesn’t demand my striving.

    It welcomes my stillness. It meets me where I am,

    and says: You are safe here.

    Be Brave,

    Michelle🌿

    “I have found the one whom my soul loves.” — Song of Solomon 3:4

    Intimately Worded | Sunday Reflections

    What would it look like for you to love without exhaustion — to let honesty, not effort, guide your connections?

    SelfLove enables better choices.

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle

  • Sundays, Early Mornings & Friendship Loss

    Journey towards Better

    There’s something sacred about early Sundays — before the world fully wakes. It’s where truth sits quietly, waiting to be named.

    I know the world is on fire—

    yet what continues to amaze me is how these global flames mirror our internal ones.

    The ache, the quiet unraveling, the loss that comes not only from tragedy but from truth.

    Humanity feels lost.

    Personal and political beliefs now hold the power to alter the direction of our lives, our connections, even our sense of belonging.

    Recently, I severed a long-term friendship—

    one built on love, laughter, and shared seasons.

    It wasn’t over something petty or misunderstood.

    It was because of politics.

    Not politics as in policy, but politics as in morality.

    People often underestimate the depth of their words or the weight they carry.

    What I’ve learned is this:

    if an apology begins with “I’m not racist” but ends with unwavering support for those who harm and divide—then it isn’t an apology at all.

    It’s an attempt to seek comfort in the very space where harm was done.

    And I’ve decided I don’t have to comfort you through the ending of our friendship.

    My heart is fragile, still healing, still learning.

    But I am also living—intentionally, fully, and with boundaries rooted in love for myself.

    I love deeply, in both length and width.

    But I will not prove that love by tolerating hate, bullying, or dismissiveness disguised as “difference of opinion.”

    “Some endings are not betrayals of love — they are affirmations of self.”

    Sometimes I chuckle, not out of humor, but out of disbelief—

    because people truly forget how long we have been Black and hated.

    How long we’ve known the weight of racism—not as theory, but as lived experience.

    I have felt its ugly claws, tasted its unyielding rage, and recognized how ignorance allows it to thrive.

    And still, on early Sunday mornings, I rise.

    I pray.

    I breathe.

    I choose peace over pretense.

    Friendship loss hurts, especially when love still lingers in memory.

    But truth has a frequency that can’t be silenced, even for comfort’s sake.

    Reflection for the Soul

    This Sunday, take a moment to sit with the quiet after loss.

    Friendship, even when it ends, leaves imprints of who we were — and who we are becoming.

    Ask yourself: What does peace require of me now?

    Not the kind that avoids pain, but the kind that honors it, transforms it, and releases what no longer loves you back.

    May you find grace in your boundaries, rest in your truth,

    and gentleness in the parts of your heart still learning how to heal.

    Intimately worded,

    Michelle 🌿

  • Facing Our Monsters

    January has been the most difficult concerning my therapeutic life. It was a rough month. This hurt; this stuff hurts. Its not all due to the therapeutic experiences alone yet hearing certain isolated stories of pain caused me to look at some pockets of pain in my life. We are not just facing traumas…to work in a mental health profession, with #mental illness is upsetting, its great, its wonderful, its inspiring, motivating, its painful.

    Its painful to see the things we have to see; its hurtful, soul wrenching and heartbreaking to hear the horrific things people go through and the things they want to do…its haunting. What I have learned this year, what I am learning this year: its not that I need to do more or that I need to be more intentional: I need someone.

    I’ve set my life up to the point of wanting someone but never will I need someone…that I will ever need someone and that is hard for me to come to terms with. Those are the monsters I’m talking about. The emotional, self- protective modes we come up with because everything becomes very hard, very difficult to deal with. We imagine that no one could possibly understand our journey. So when the monsters show up we don’t know what to do. We stop learning how to let those things go. We don’t know how to process those things. We forget how to not be afraid.

    Yet, it amazes me how the Universe flows towards us and never against us. Its great to have someone to ask about your day. Of course, I do not share particular travesties with those that call and check on me…there’s a responsibility in what we leave with people, what we hand over to them. My children surrounded me during this past week. My eldest popped in for a weekend visit, my granddaughter wanted to spend the weekend and she loves her Umi. My heart healed with having all my children under one roof. Monday I sent them a group text:

    “Being a therapist has been icky these last few weeks. I don’t tell y’all all of it because it’s ugly very ugly at times. This weekend was what I needed and by far one of the greatest moments of being your mother. I’m so proud of each of you. Being with you does my soul & heart well. You are what I need…always what I wanted and you’re always loved. Your Mom. ” They are what I need.

    “Spiritual progress is like detoxification.”

    We have to face the monsters. The monsters show up whether we want them to or not; whether we’re ready or not. We have a base, we have home plate—a foundation. It’s not for you to just be okay, it’s for you to be better. Trust your growth process. Understand the experiences for what they are, understand your humanity, understand your heart for whenever the monsters show up its not as scary. For they come, they show their ugliest. Life is difficult…yet we are given the strength to face the monsters. Learn to be gentler with yourself. Love is reciprocal…allow the greater to #evolve.

    I’m learning to process so that I can progress and man does that hurt. It becomes easier to trust the Darkness when that’s all we see and hear. Our monsters become bigger when we operate from places of patterns—comfortable patterns that we’ve band aided. There’s Light wherever we are even when we have become the glimpse, a fraction, the source of the Light.

    Psalm18:28-29: “You , O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into Light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.”

    Intimately Worded,

    Michelle

  • Fractured, yet Healing

    Intimately Wrded_picDecember 31…the last date of every year. I believe it to be more. It has become the date in which we tend to count our blessings, regret our mistakes, total up the losses. A date in which we ruminate over in regret…decide to regret or make executed decisions to do better while hoping for a grander life than previous. #2017

    What if December 31, symbolizes other than “more”? What if December 31 meant to pause, that we actually live within the momentary time of gratitude. No adjustments, no planning, no goal setting.

    My December 31: I am fractured, yet healing. From here, I will continue to grow in my healing. I will continue to let God have His will, His way regardless of how I feel, how dramatic I may get. Regardless of my hurt, my guilt, my disappointments. I will let Him win this for me…this life, these expectations.

    What if? I know that God’s love for us is bigger than we realize. What if, I just take this date, this last day of the year to let Him love me with His thoughts, His plans for me…for they are never to harm me.

    This thought process has not been easy to achieve. My hurts this year have been gargantuan and not because I am wrong or off path but because He has more in store. Tonight, I will see my life from His perspective—fractured, yet healing. #perfectlyimperfect

    Vulnerability is not an easy path. At times, the vulnerability is to get you where He wants you to be…His best work is when we are open, wounded while processing. I have learned that there are connections I cannot be without; spiritual connections do not break. {bfk}

    I have learned that God’s opportunities look very different from ours. I am learning that getting closer to God does not necessarily mean that I know Him in the depth and realms He knows me. It will hurt, remaining on your path. Yet, you must remain however fractured your soul is. We are forever healing, forever growing in Life processes.

    December 31, you are on the right track. Trust me. #Trust Him Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. May this New Year bring you face to face with God’s purposed plans for your life. I wish you prosperity, grand fortune in love, happiness and peace. #continuedblessings

    Intimately wrded,

    Michelle