I’ll be honest with you, the way I’ve been trying to be honest with myself. There are days I’d rather not show up. Yet, I know the weight I carry on the days I don’t. So here I keep landing in the same strange place: I’d rather not, and I do it anyway. As hard as it is, I know it’s just what it costs to carry something real. The thing I stay wrestling with is this: how do I stay authentic in a space where everything feels so far from the truth?

I’ve been doing this for more than ten years. Long enough to watch the whole space change underneath me more than once. The formats, the rules, the never ending changes of the algorithm. People I started with just gone. Things that worked don’t. And the strangest part is that staying has somehow gotten harder than starting ever was, because now there’s this tension to keep up. To chase whatever the space rewards this season, even when it bears no resemblance to the season before. That’s the quiet danger of longevity: not that I’ll ever quit, but that I’ll slowly become whatever keeps me relevant and lose the self that made me worth following in the first place.

So I continue showing up. Even when everything feels like it’s shifting because I know what I’m carrying is real and not performative. It costs absolutely nothing to be fake, that’s why it’s easier for virality. What’s real has weight and it’s worth more than the algorithm can give or try to take from me. If you’re reading this and you know the feeling, the not wanting, the showing up anyway, I want to say the thing I have to keep saying to myself:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket.” — Matthew 5:14–15

This verse doesn’t say let your light shine on the days you’re up for it. It doesn’t make room for my mood. It says hidden things were not made to stay hidden, and a gift given is a gift owed back. Not to the numbers, but to the One who handed it to me and to the people it was meant to reach. That’s the part that keeps me showing up. Not ambition, stewardship. The plain, unglamorous understanding that this was entrusted, not earned, and I don’t get to bury what I was trusted with just because the weight feels heavy.

But hiding isn’t the only thing I’ve been wrestling with. I started negotiating with comfort. Having so many ideas, yet never following through. Using my children as an excuse to put my dreams aside, rather than taking them along with me for the ride. If I’m completely honest with myself, the dreams I’ve actually been given is big enough to overwhelm me. Some days the scale of it is the whole reason I want to stay in bed. It would be so much easier to want something my own strength could reach.

Sometimes I’m scared of what could be. Failing. Disappointing others, but I know God didn’t just hand me a vision sized to my comfort. He handed me one sized to His provision, which means it’s supposed to feel bigger than me. The overwhelm isn’t a sign I’ve misjudged the dream. It’s a sign I’ve understood it correctly: that it was never something I was meant to pull off alone.

And here’s what I’m slowly learning I can bring the whole truth of myself into what I create. I don’t have to fake what I don’t feel. Some of the most real things I’ve ever made, I made on the days I least wanted to. I realized over the years, my gift doesn’t run on my feelings. It runs on faithfulness. It shows up because I showed up, even halfway, even tired. So if today is one of your “I’d rather not” days, I’m not going to make you to feel differently. I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell myself:

The reluctance is allowed. The hiding is not. After ten years I’ve stopped trying to keep up with the space. The space doesn’t know where it’s going; it just moves, and chasing it is how you get lost. I’m trying to do the harder, quieter thing, which is to stay awhile. To keep bringing the same true voice into a room that keeps changing its mind about what it wants. To let this light I carry be steady even when the trend is anything but.

So I keep showing up. Bringing the tired, honest version of myself. Letting my lamp do what lamps do, shine.

But somewhere along the way, the art of just being, the thing I used to admire, got replaced with the art of always doing. I started measuring my days by how many brand deals I could get, how much I posted, how much I proved. Stillness began to feel almost irresponsible, like I was falling behind in a race I never actually signed up for.

Scrolling with time that I say I don’t have. Handing me everyone’s highlight reel & asking me to hold it up against my ordinary Tuesday. It keeps me reaching for what’s next, what’s trending, what I might be missing, until I look up and realize I’ve missed the very thing that was in front of me the whole time. The small hand reaching for me. The dinner getting cold while I “just check one more thing.” The blessing sitting quietly in the room, waiting to be noticed.

But here’s what God has been showing me lately, when I’m able to consume less, my clarity from Him is undeniable. He downloads fresh ideas in me, things I couldn’t hear when my mind was full of everyone else’s noise. He whispers things I’m finally able to receive, because I’ve made room for more intimacy with Him. I start to see Him in everything around me again. In the slow parts of the morning, in my boys, in the work of my hands.

I’ve learned that stepping back isn’t falling behind. Rest isn’t a gap in my productivity that I have to make up for later. Sometimes the quiet is the assignment and that set me free. Knowing where God provides, I will never lack. Even when the world feels like it’s constantly rushing, I know with Him, there is no pressure to perform. I don’t have to keep up with what’s trending.

I don’t have to entertain Him to keep His attention. He isn’t watching to see if today was impressive enough. I’ve had to learn the slow way, and be okay with knowing that sometimes God just needs me for Himself. Even if it’s only for a little while, so He can take His time pouring back into me. And I can truly enjoy my blessings right in front of me without scrolling right past it.

Signed, Sopha

Psalm 34:10, “But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.”

Showing up in spaces that don’t value slowing down has been a struggle for me. I can’t be the only one who feels this tension. There’s this constant pressure to be “on” all the time, to create, to perform, and to keep up with the relentless pace of the world. But in the midst of it all, there’s a quiet, persistent pull towards rest—a desire to be present with the people right in front of me, to embrace the quiet, to simply be.

The art of being has been replaced by the art of doing. But God is showing me that in the moments of rest, I am receiving what I need the most. When I consume less, when I slow down and turn my focus to Him, His voice becomes undeniably clear. He downloads fresh, new ideas in me. He whispers things that I can now receive because I’ve spent more time in intimate connection with Him. It’s in the quiet moments that I begin to see Him in everything around me.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

The peace that used to elude me now fills every space. In situations that once would have shaken me, I now find stillness.

To anyone reading this who feels like I do—who has struggled with showing up and performing when your heart longs for rest and presence—please know this: sometimes God just needs you for Himself. Even if it’s only for a little while, He desires to pour into you so that you can overflow with what He’s placed inside of you. There is no pressure to perform in His presence. You don’t have to worry about what’s trending or how much you can entertain Him. With God, there is no rush. His timing is perfect, and when He provides, you will not lack.

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” – Exodus 14:14 (NIV)

I want to encourage you to embrace the stillness. In that space, you’ll find clarity, peace, and intimacy with God that can never be replicated in the hustle. You’ll discover that where God leads, there is no need to rush—only the sweet freedom of knowing He has you exactly where you need to be.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” – Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

"How did I end up here?" she began to ask herself. As uncertainty became her new reality, tears steadily streamed down her face. She had such big hopes for her future—determined, yet somehow struggling with her feelings, as if all of this were too good to be true. She let her thoughts distort her dreams, wrestling with her emotions and allowing them to replace her faith. The Word of God became less of her truth. Distant from the Father, yet longing to be near Him. If only she could glimpse her future. If only she could see what God sees. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”—Matthew 19:26 

As she lingered in her doubts, fear slowly crept in. Disappointed by setbacks, she allowed fear of failure to extinguish her desire to pursue. Each day, her dreams felt increasingly impossible to grasp. Under the weight of it all, she found herself shrinking back, feeling that the potential to achieve what God had placed inside her was slipping away. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” —Philippians 1:6

Hopeless, yet with every fiber of her being, she fought her way back to reality. Digging deep within her heart, she began to declare truth. She knew what God said about her through Scripture—she is fearfully and wonderfully made, designed with purpose, for a purpose. With a gentle whisper, a sweet reminder, that there’s always hope: hope in uncertainty, hope in the depths of despair, hope even in pain. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”—Psalm 139:14

As she began to dream again, she understood that her dreams are not just her own. They are a reflection of the big dreams that God has destined for her. Dreams of a future filled with purpose that will change generations to come. Dreams that no one can take away from her—she is needed. So here’s a letter to the girl who stopped dreaming—it’s time to start dreaming again. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”—Romans 8:2

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