Welcome Home Sugas!

There is life after the pain.

Not just a life where you learn to tolerate what happened or carry it more gracefully.

A real life.

A life where you laugh again. Dream again. Create again. Trust yourself again. A life where you begin to recognize your own voice and remember the things that make you feel alive.

You may not be able to see that life from where you are right now, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

For a long time, I thought what happened to me had taken pieces of me that I would never get back. But God has a way of bringing us back to places we thought were lost.

Not back to who we were.

Forward into who He created us to be.

Pain can make you forget yourself. You can become so focused on surviving, keeping the peace, understanding someone else, or getting through the day that you stop asking yourself what you want.

What makes me happy?

What do I enjoy?

What do I dream about?

Who am I when I'm not taking care of everybody else?

Those questions matter.

Because healing isn't only about what you're leaving behind. It's also about discovering what you want to build now.

Start there.

Think about three things that once made you feel like yourself. Maybe it was singing, writing, cooking, gardening, traveling, getting dressed up, creating something, laughing with your people, or simply having a quiet morning to yourself.

Choose one and bring it back into your life.

It may seem small, but small things can reopen doors.

A song can remind you that you still have a voice.

A journal can remind you that you still have thoughts worth expressing.

A beautiful meal can remind you that pleasure and nourishment still belong in your life.

A new dream can remind you that your future wasn't cancelled.

And if you don't know what makes you feel like yourself anymore, that's okay too.

Start with curiosity.

Try something.

Go somewhere new.

Listen to music you haven't heard in years.

Make something with your hands.

Sit somewhere beautiful.

Ask God to show you the parts of yourself that got buried underneath everything you were carrying.

You don't have to recover your entire identity in one day.

You just have to begin.

And please don't measure your healing only by how much the past still hurts.

Look at what is coming alive.

Maybe you're setting a boundary you couldn't set before.

Maybe you're laughing more.

Maybe you're sleeping better.

Maybe you're making plans again.

Maybe you're saying what you actually think.

Maybe you're beginning to want things for yourself again.

Those things count.

They are signs that the pain didn't get the final word.

God didn't create you to spend the rest of your life defined by what happened to you.

There is more.

More joy.

More creativity.

More purpose.

More beauty.

More life.

You may have lost your way for a while, but you are not lost.

So come back gently.

Come back to your voice.

Come back to your joy.

Come back to your creativity.

Come back to the dreams that still whisper your name.

And come back to the God who knew you before the pain ever introduced itself.

You are not starting from nothing.

You are starting from everything you have learned.

And there is a beautiful life waiting for you on the other side of this.

Not because the past didn't matter.

But because it doesn't get to decide what happens next.

Welcome home, Suga.

Welcome home.

Kashmire Kay | Shine Suga Shine Ruby Slippers — Awakened to the Power Within