Standing at the edge, wind at your back, ready to leap.
Good morning, beautiful souls. ☀️ It's Friday — and we made it to the edge. This week hit hard and early, but here we are, still standing, still grateful. Let's look back before we leap forward. 🌊
🕯️ The Candles Are Lit
This morning I'm burning three candles, each holding an intention for us as we close out the week:
📖 The Word
"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!"
Malachi 3:10 — NLT
This one's been sitting with me all week, and not just because of the candles. It got me thinking about how His love works — we say God loves unconditionally, and He does, but there's still a "try it, put me to the test" built right into this verse. That's an invitation to close the distance ourselves. Put God first, and He puts you first back — not because He plays favorites, but because relationship deepens with what you bring to it. This week I watched that play out in small, human ways — a friend who showed up with a spare tire, a shop owner who ate a price difference rather than pass it to me, a crew that took the time to explain things instead of just handing me a bill. None of it had to happen the way it did. It happened anyway. That's the blessing so big there wasn't room enough to receive it.
🃏 The Cards
This week's three-card pull came in strong, and they have something to say.
This is the week we spent staring at the one cup we didn't have — the tire cost, the brake quote, the battery on top of it all — arms crossed, so fixed on the bill in front of us that we almost missed the three cups already sitting behind us. The friend who showed up with a spare in the middle of nowhere. The small shop that went to bat for us. The people who showed up all week without being asked. The gift was already there. We just had to turn around and see it.
Upright, this card is clean truth cutting through confusion. Reversed, it can look like clouded judgment or a truth you're resisting — but sit with it a little longer and there's another read: the sword is still in our hand, gripped tight, ready for a fight that's already over. We keep glancing back over our shoulder bracing for the next hit, but the flat, the brakes, the battery — that was the fight. It's finished. The clutching is just muscle memory from a hard few days, not a sign there's more coming.
And here's why this Knight isn't galloping in urgent or rushed. There's nothing left to race toward. The cup is already filled up and running over. No charge, no crisis — just an easy ride in on relationship and warmth rather than cold logic, the same way everything else showed up for us this week. Stand down. Turn around. Receive what's already been poured out.
This week wasn't easy — a flat tire out in nowhere, a missed appointment, new brakes, a dead battery, and a hard look at what we spend and where. But it also wasn't a fight we were left to fight alone. Old friends showed up. A small shop earned our trust twice over. And somewhere in the middle of it, gratitude found its way back to the front of the line.
The candles are burning green, brown, and gold this morning — grounding, abundance, and gratitude for what already got us through. The Word reminds us that the blessing was already promised, and the cards remind us it's already here. Put Him first, and watch Him put you first back.
🕯️ Rest. Restore. Rise. 🕯️
📖 One More Word
"Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given."
Luke 12:48 — NLT
This week, I don't think the blessing was just landing on us — I think it was moving through us. Russ didn't just fix a tire; showing up for someone else was its own small step toward God. That shop owner didn't know what our tire business meant to him that day — maybe it was the one sign he needed that doing right by people still pays off. We weren't only receiving. We were part of somebody else's provision too. And that's what much-is-given, much-is-required really means — it isn't a debt you owe. It's a current you're now part of. Those of us blessed with more knowledge, more privilege, more resources aren't just lucky. We're held to a proportionally higher standard of responsibility — to notice the ones in front of us, and to pass it on the way it was passed to us.