Drawing Near

Drawing Near

"Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." — James 4:8

There are nights that change your life.

Not because something extraordinary happens.

But because God quietly changes the way you see Him.

This is one of those nights.

It didn't begin in a closet.

It began with a conversation.

Earlier that evening, I had one of the most meaningful conversations I'd had in a long time with Family is was POWERFUL :).

We talked honestly.

Not to fix me.

Not to convince me.

Not to rescue me.

Just to be together.

To listen.

To tell the truth.

Looking back, I don't think either of us realized what was happening.

I think heaven did.

Because something shifted inside of me.

For months, I had been praying.

Desperately praying.

Not because I doubted God.

Because I couldn't understand Him.

That sentence is difficult to admit.

I've always believed God speaks.

I've built my life on following His voice.

For years, our relationship felt familiar.

He would nudge.

I would obey.

Sometimes immediately.

Sometimes reluctantly.

But eventually...

always.

That's how Darren entered my life.

That's how Jaxon shaped my life.

That's how God Said No was born.

That's how speaking, writing, advocating, serving, and showing up became the rhythm of my life.

It wasn't ambition.

It was obedience.

So when everything became quiet...

I didn't know what to do.

I knew grief.

I knew exhaustion.

I knew autoimmune disease.

I knew returning to work after months away.

I knew what it felt like to look in the mirror and wonder who this woman was becoming.

What I didn't know...

was uncertainty.

Not this kind.

For the first time in the last 11 years, I couldn't hear what I believed God was asking of me next.

I had never lived there before.

And if I'm honest...

I didn't like it.

Because obedience had always given me direction.

Now...

direction felt hidden.

Somewhere during that conversation with

, something cracked open.

It wasn't an answer.

It was permission.

Permission to stop pretending I wasn't tired.

Permission to admit that I didn't know what came next.

Permission to say something I had barely admitted to myself.

I think I'm done.

Not with God.

Never with God.

Not with life.

Never with life.

But maybe...

with all the public parts of me.

Maybe the writing had run its course.

Maybe the speaking belonged to another season.

Maybe advocacy had been for then, not now.

Maybe I would quietly return to corporate America.

Be Darryl's wife.

Raise Nolin.

Fight for my health.

And let someone else carry the microphone.

I wasn't angry.

I was empty.

There is a difference.

That conversation ended.

Eventually, I fell asleep.

For two hours.

Two hours.

To someone else that may not seem significant.

To me, it was mercy.

Then...

At exactly 1:12 a.m., my eyes opened.

I laid there for a few moments.

No alarm.

No noise.

No reason.

Just awake.

I wish I could tell you God spoke immediately.

He didn't.

I got up.

I walked through the house.

I prayed.

I drank water.

I prayed again.

I grabbed a snack.

I kept walking.

Nothing dramatic.

Just...walking.

Then something happened that I still can't fully explain.

I didn't decide to go into the closet.

I was led there.

There's a difference.

The room belongs to Nolin now.

Before that, it was Jaxon's room.

Before that, it was Darren's room.

Life keeps moving through our house.

But the closet...

That's still Jaxon's closet.

Some of his clothes still hang there.

His laundry basket is still there.

The fashionable funeral suits we didn't choose are still there.

His medical supplies are still there because maybe one day another family will need them.

His custom bear is there.

His trach.

His G-tube.

His braces.

Every detail lovingly created so my little boy would always know he was wonderfully made.

I sat down on the floor.

I don't know how long I stayed.

At some point I stopped crying.

Not because the grief disappeared.

Because something else had my attention.

A verse.

Then another.

Then another.

Not because I was trying to remember Scripture.

Because Scripture was remembering me.

It was as if the Holy Spirit began opening rooms in my heart that I had read before but had never truly entered.

Psalm 42.

David writing that his tears had become his food day and night.

I understood that.

Matthew 14.

John the Baptist had been murdered.

Jesus heard the news.

And what did He do?

He withdrew.

Not to escape.

To be with His Father.

Mark 1.

Before anyone else was awake, Jesus slipped away to pray.

Luke 5.

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.

Often.

That word wouldn't leave me alone.

Often.

Again.

And again.

And again.

How had I missed it?

For years I had studied Jesus' miracles.

His compassion.

His teaching.

His sacrifice.

But somehow I had overlooked His rhythm.

He kept leaving the crowds.

He kept making space for communion.

Then James.

"Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."

I just sat there.

Looking at Jaxon's clothes.

Looking at the bear.

Looking at everything love had left behind.

And I whispered...

"Lord...

is this what You're asking me to do?"

Withdraw.

Not from You.

To You.

That question changed everything.

Because suddenly this season stopped looking like punishment.

It started looking like an invitation.

What if this uncertainty wasn't God withholding direction?

What if He was inviting me into deeper communion before giving me another assignment?

What if I had been asking the wrong question?

I kept asking,

"What do You want me to do?"

Maybe the Father was gently asking me,

"Will you just be with Me?"

I realized something that night.

For more than eleven years, God had taught me how to obey Him while moving.

Now...

He was teaching me how to obey Him while remaining.

That frightened me.

Because movement had become familiar.

Stillness had not.

But Jesus wasn't still because He had quit.

He withdrew because communion was where clarity was born.

Communion was where strength was renewed.

Communion was where the Father's voice became louder than the crowd.

And that's when I understood why I had been led to that closet.

Not to remember death.

To rediscover life.

Not to relive grief.

To relearn God.

Because the woman who had survived hospitals, loss, advocacy, and impossible responsibility could not enter the next season using the same rhythm that had sustained the last one.

God wasn't asking me to become less obedient.

He was inviting me into a new expression of obedience.

One that begins...

not with going...

but with drawing near.

STAY WITH ME...

I left the closet differently than I entered it.

Not because every question had been answered.

They hadn't.

I still didn't know what my health would look like.

I still didn't know how long this season would last.

I still didn't know what work, ministry, or writing would become.

I still wanted the same things I had wanted before I walked into that closet.

I still wanted one dream.

Just one.

One where I could hear Jaxon laugh.

One where I could watch him run.

One where I could hear him call me "Mommy."

I still wanted healing.

I still wanted certainty.

I still wanted God to tell me what came next.

None of those desires disappeared.

But something inside me had shifted.

I stopped believing that answers were the first thing I needed.

I needed communion.

That realization has changed the way I will live.

I will no longer wake up believing my first responsibility is to accomplish something.

My first responsibility is to draw near.

Some mornings that means opening my Bible.

Some mornings it means sitting quietly.

Some mornings it means praying.

Some mornings it means saying nothing at all.

I've learned that silence is not the absence of God's voice.

Sometimes silence is what makes His voice recognizable.

There is a difference between isolation and withdrawal.

Isolation is driven by fear.

Withdrawal is led by God.

Isolation pushes people away because we no longer believe anyone can help.

Withdrawal creates space because we believe God can.

Jesus never withdrew because He stopped loving people.

He withdrew because He loved His Father enough to make room for Him.

Then He returned to people with renewed compassion.

I want that rhythm.

Not because it sounds peaceful.

Because it's biblical.

For so long I believed rest was something I earned after I had finished the work.

Now I wonder if rest is where the work actually begins.

I wonder if I spent years asking God to bless my pace when all along He was inviting me into His.

That doesn't mean I'll never write again.

It doesn't mean I'll never speak again.

It doesn't mean advocacy is over.

It means those things no longer get to define whether I am being faithful.

Faithfulness isn't measured by how visible I am.

Faithfulness is measured by whether I remain close enough to recognize the Shepherd's voice.

The world rewards production.

Jesus invites communion.

For most of my life, I thought those two things could live at the same speed.

I don't believe that anymore.

So if this season seems quieter...

it's because it is.

If I say no more often...

it's because I'm learning that every yes carries a cost.

If I disappear for a while...

I'm not running away.

I'm returning to the place where Jesus so often went Himself.

A solitary place.

Not because I'm finished.

Because I believe God is still speaking.

And this time...

I don't want to miss a single word.

A Prayer I Didn't Know I Was Praying

ABBA,

If this is the season You have called me into...

teach me how to live in it well.

Teach me not to confuse stillness with stagnation.

Teach me not to measure my worth by my productivity.

Teach me not to chase visibility when You're inviting me into intimacy.

Forgive me for believing that every season of obedience had to look like the one before it.

Forgive me for thinking movement was always faithfulness.

Thank You for being patient enough to lead me instead of pushing me.

Thank You for meeting me in a place no one else would have thought to look.

Thank You for leading me to a closet that held so much of my grief...

only to fill it with Your presence.

Help me become a woman who listens before she speaks.

Who rests before she runs.

Who worships before she works.

Who seeks Your face before she seeks direction.

Teach me to recognize Your voice above my fears.

Above my grief.

Above my expectations.

Above the pressure to become who I used to be.

Because I don't believe You're asking me to become who I was.

I believe You're inviting me to become who only this season could shape me into.

Protect this retreat.

Protect the conversations You and I are having.

Protect the healing I cannot yet see.

Protect my sleep.

Because I trust that even while I sleep...

You are working.

Your Word tells us that You give sleep to those You love.

So teach me to receive it as a gift instead of fighting it like another battle to win.

And if, in Your kindness, You choose to answer one prayer I've whispered more than any other...

let me dream.

Not because I need proof that Heaven is real.

I already believe.

But because I long to see my little boy whole.

To hear what I never heard on this side of eternity.

To watch him run where his little legs never could.

To hear him laugh.

To hear him call me "Mommy."

And if that dream comes...

thank You.

If it doesn't...

thank You.

Because whether You speak through dreams...

through Scripture...

through silence...

or through the quiet whisper of Your Spirit...

I know this much now.

You are still speaking.

So make me the kind of daughter who is quiet enough to hear You.

Amen.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)