Yes, you may have noticed this is no longer a self-titled blog—It was always meant to be bigger than me.
If I were a broken record, after having the most stunning, promising beginning chords—I’d say over and over, “allow me to reintroduce myself-” And just as you get ready for the beat drop, I’d begin skipping and sputtering out, until eventually, the whole track restarts again. Never getting much further than laying the lovely concept itself. Rounding a melody or two before ripping the record back to the 0-second mark. Reintroducing myself. Starting over. Again.
This is one way of looking at it, anyway. Starting over, changing directions, leaving behind projects and ideas once desired can be disappointing or exciting. Is it scrapping all your hard work and going back to the drawing board? Or is it pivoting to something better, more aligned, and alive within yourself? It’s depends on who you ask or the day.
Some identity-gutting sessions have been painful. Others have felt like the surgical removal of something that became a sort of foreign body in the body—cathartic, medicinal, and necessary.
I’d like to think they were all meaningful pivots and not just scrapped ventures—the personal rebrands, the job shifts, the friend groups, (thankfully that door doesn’t revolve as wildly as it did in my early twenties). But if I’m being honest, the last ten years have involved so many pivots, it’s made me dizzy and disoriented when trying to visualize what’s ahead. At times, even leery of the stability and sureness of my own steps.
I’d also like to also think I’ve simply taken every opportunity to explore the parts of myself that asked to be seen. I never forced myself to stay where I didn’t belong. I’ve stayed true to an ever-evolving self, even when it was hard to follow from an outsider’s view. After all, I can say with all sincerity that if there were a back button, I never would have wanted to press it.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to build new things fast. I recognized a yearning to build meaningful things deep.
Suddenly, change didn’t excite me anymore—it frustrated me. It felt like I was sabotaging my own momentum, over and over, before anything could ever fully take shape.
But the thing is, once I soberly saw the outcome I was really working toward—whether it was a particular kind of promotion or platform, I knew it wasn’t for me. Why spend more time toiling away toward a reward I would end up reluctantly accepting, like an awkwardly bad birthday gift?
Justifications aside, the unending turbulence of redirection has been incredibly exhausting and discouraging. In the last few years, I stopped being so goal-centered and started to redirect my attention toward the quality of my everyday life. Heck, I even tried to convince myself that maybe I didn’t need a deeper purpose—that I could just be a mom who keeps the freakin’ laundry done.
But that ache for purpose didn’t go away. It just changed shape.
Though trying to live a “simpler” life, I started holding myself to rigid, idealized expectations that looked (and disappointed) a lot like my old goals. Of course, I sometimes met them and often failed them, or didn’t like the idea altogether anymore upon the second or third look. I found myself back in the rinse cycle of ill-fitting systems, personal philosophies and goals–only to find disappointment, discouragement, and the feeling of orbiting out of control once again.
All the while, I have turned toward God over the last couple of years and have been working this all out with Him. The closer I’ve grown to Him, I realize He is the gravity I’ve longed for. The direction is Him. The goal is His will. And the best way is always His.
It makes looking back on the chapters and ventures left behind softer—because I know I was running toward none of those things.
Now that I am, I wish I could tell you everything has become easy. Funny thing—there’s a lot that goes into partnering your life and your goals with God. Like, first of all, what does that even mean? But for the sake of time, I’ll summarize it like this: it first felt like the standards and stakes only got higher.
That is, until I ran my little purpose-frantic self right into a wall called grace.
The free gift of it in Christ, but also the absolute necessity and constant relevance of it while walking with God earth-side. Grace is the through-line—on our faces, in our stories, and always on repeat. Unbox this gift with me.
Grace is a gift of mercy and favor given freely without qualifiers or conditions, oftentimes in the presence of circumstances or behavior that does not warrant such gracious love and benevolence.
Grace is something I have had to learn how to believe in and allow for myself—a special kind of patience and room to “be” when I fall short of the goals, sharp ideals, and expectations I’ve created in my head. I have lacked and thought nothing of grace in my stumbling beginnings, my messy middles, and especially in the endings that came up short. Historically, “grace” has been foreign to feel and nothing but a cliché heard. It seemed to be an inactive word for a pity-pink-toned bandaid sloppily laid onto poor behavior, poor results, and poor timing. It offered no rest or reprieve to my personal failures or grievances.
And meanwhile while I still struggle with and withhold grace from myself, I have learned Grace is something the God of the entire universe intends to give me.
Grace is part of God’s fundamental character—His goodness and kindness that He intends for us to have amidst our indefinitely imperfect processes. Grace is not something earned or reserved for saints on mighty biblical missions. It is for mothers and creative entrepreneurs too. It is for women just figuring it all out, too.
Grace is a gift offered to us freely, and it only works when we accept it knowing it is ours—wholly, truly, and mercifully, with no take-backs and no hidden expectations. It’s not meant to be a cliché. It’s meant to be received.
I have had to learn the extremely active qualities of grace—God’s grace can move mountains. It can heal, hold, and redeem. It can prepare, teach, and fiercely protect. It can blaze forth the way when there was none. In God’s grace, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished, and nothing able to oppose what He intends to do within it. In fact, the rest found within God’s grace is anything but passive.
Grace seen is the flowering of external beauty as a byproduct of nourished soil and sometimes slow-grown, strong roots. Grace is an attitude and an approach to both carrying and caring for one’s self— especially as a woman and a mother. Grace is in the way you look at and look after yourself daily and over time, and it is how you balance self acceptance and personal accountability. Grace is how you speak to yourself and others. Grace is not only something I hope to receive, but something I hope to grow in the capacity to give.
I need grace every single day. I’ve learned I am not enough on my own—and I wasn’t meant to be. I was never created to navigate this life independent from God, or to be a fixed, self-sufficient being. I absolutely rely— as I was born to—on the grace of my Heavenly Father and the salvation of His Heavenly Son, daily. I am endlessly thankful to rest welcomely in God’s grace when I need to (or in some seasons, when I am required to).
As I embrace my identity in Christ, mother my growing family, create, build and redirect once again, more intently than ever—I need grace more than ever before. And God, knowing me better than anyone else, and in His perfect goodness, has made sure I become well-acquainted with this part of Him.
It’s changing everything. But this time, the changes reveal new layers of peace and clarity—not pressure and confusion.
It’s become the frame of it all—the home I live in. His grace is sufficient.
And it’s by God’s good grace that I’m back.
When I think about it, this blog has always been a home for my good graces—a sacred place to share my inner thoughts, anecdotes, and dearest enjoyments. Mind you, it’s the kind of home where you might trip over toys or touch something mysteriously sticky. But it’s also a place to let your hair down, reheat your coffee three+ times, and lean into just between us conversations that amuse and heal. You’ll leave only after a good squeeze of a hug and a few beauty recs to try on your way out.
There’s so much more to talk about.
Katrisha Rose 
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