Stretched Forward

I never set out to be a writer. And an author? That wasn’t even a thought. Almost nine years ago, I felt the Lord’s gentle nudge to send encouraging messages to those close to me. If I’m being honest, I didn’t take it too seriously at first. I love quotes, so I’d find an image with a good one and use it as a starting point for a short message. Sometimes, I’d follow up with another thought on Friday, and that was that. But somewhere around 2019 or 2020, the Lord began to challenge me to say something deeper that would leave a mark. So, with whatever time I had and whatever was stirring in my heart that week, I shared. I wrote to challenge, to inspire and to encourage. I would have laughed if you had told me then that those small steps of obedience would grow into a blog read internationally. For the longest time, I saw it as nothing more than an act of obedience, a simple thing. I didn’t even realise it had begun to change, shift or grow.

Today, those steps of simple obedience have turned into two published books, with more on the way. “Lord, what is this?” I find myself asking. I’m an entrepreneur, yes, but I never imagined that writing would turn into a thing. And yet, here I am, counting stock, trying to make the numbers make sense, trying to figure out how this became part of my reality. Lately, I’ve been questioning a lot. Because if I’m being completely honest, I never expected that saying yes would challenge me this way. Standing in the middle of it now, I’ve had to wrestle with frustration, disappointment, and even anger. Why does this particular yes feel so hard? Will there ever be a time when I say yes, and things just fall into place? I mean, am I the only one who hears stories like that from others and wonders when ‘my time’ will be?

When you never planned on being an author, ”when this wasn’t supposed to be a career path, let alone a financial investment, you’re not exactly setting aside money to fund these acts of obedience. So, when you say, “Yes, Lord,” you do it believing that somehow, He’ll take care of the cost and that if you sacrifice on the back end, He’ll reward on the front end. And I know He has a plan. Don’t get me wrong, I know He has a plan and the impact stories of these acts of surrender do come through. But when the math isn’t mathing, when the sacrifice is piling up and the reward feels distant, it’s hard not to wonder, “God, are You even planning to come through for me?”

“I don’t want to be afraid to obey the next time You ask me to jump.” The words slipped out one day, unfiltered and raw. I hadn’t even realised how heavy my heart was until I said them out loud. And then the tears came. I sank to the floor of our sacred space, the weight of it all pressing in. “Where is Your hand, God? I can’t see what You’re doing.” The silence filled with my sobs, and I let them come. I’ve learned that sometimes, He doesn’t answer right away. And that’s okay. I’ve made my peace with that. It was the next day that His response came clear and firm: “It’s not to be cruel or unkind. It’s to stretch you. I’m preparing you for what’s to come.”

I won’t pretend to understand or say that His answer makes up for all my questions or all my disappointment. Some closed doors have hurt terribly, and I still have to work through all that.  But I know I’m taking it in stride because I’m not as focused on it anymore. The telltale sign for me? It stops hurting enough for me to share, to reach for someone else who might be feeling the same weight. So here I am, sharing what I’m learning in this uncomfortable, stretching, often painful process, the part no one mentions is in the fine print of saying, “Yes, Lord.”

“Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. ~ Isaiah 54:2-4 (ESV)

Have you ever wrestled with the question, Am I really on the right path? Did you hear God clearly, or did you completely miss Him? And if you did hear Him right, why does obedience feel so different from what you expected? These are the questions that have been weighing on my heart lately, and I’ve had to humble myself before the Lord, allowing Him to remind me: What I have prepared for you has not been forgotten. The waiting, the tension, the discomfort, it’s not a delay, but a stretch. We all have the capacity to align with God’s plans for our lives, but alignment comes with stretching. And stretching, real, deep, soul-stretching, never feels pleasant. It pulls us past our comfort, past our assumptions, past our own expectations and it always lasts longer than we think it should. This is what I’ve been learning lately:

Stretch Your Mind

Do you truly believe that the impossible is possible? It’s easy to ask God for a blessing, but how often do we ask Him to stretch our minds to carry that blessing? We tend to think of the promise as the goal. But God is after something greater. He wants our vision and our mindset. Can we manage what we’re asking for? Can we partner with Him instead of just waiting for Him to do all the work? A stretched mind sees beyond the immediate, beyond what makes sense on paper, it sees opportunities where others see obstacles and it remains steadfast where others falter. Stretching rarely looks like we expect. It often looks like loss before it looks like gain, like delay before acceleration, like failure before fruitfulness. And yet, if we let God do His work in us, we will emerge stronger, wiser, and more capable than we ever imagined. Never underestimate the power of a mind that God has stretched for His glory.

Stretch Past Your Present Circumstance

God is not just stretching our vision, He’s stretching us beyond our insecurities, beyond our perceived failures and beyond the limits we have placed on ourselves. Have you ever felt like your faith was ambushed? Like you stepped out in obedience, only to be met with obstacles you never saw coming? I think of Paul’s words: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”

That’s the stretch. It’s being chased but never caught, feeling surrounded but never overtaken. And I sense God telling me, firmly, “Stop focusing on what is chasing you. Stop focusing on the delays, the roadblocks and the lack of support or resources. Just focus on obedience with no strings attached.”

Comparison will always be a temptation in this tension. Looking at someone else’s journey and wondering, why their road seems smoother? But we don’t know what their stretching looked like, and truthfully, if we knew, we probably wouldn’t want to trade places. When we stop measuring our process against someone else’s progress, we can fully surrender to the work God is doing in us. I may still be in my waiting season, but while I wait, I won’t waste the stretch. And I encourage you to do the same.

Stretch Your Story

Your past is not the whole story, and neither is your present. God is still writing and wants to renew things with the fire of His Spirit. When we think of fire, we think of destruction, danger and loss. Fire also refines and purifies. Lately, I’ve been learning to see the fire not as something to fear, but as something to embrace as God’s character. I don’t just want to be stretched, I want to be set ablaze. I want the Holy Spirit to refine me, to ignite me with a fire that doesn’t fade, and I want to keep returning to Him so that the flame never burns out. Because the truth is, the fire will only stay lit if we remain close to the source.

If you feel burned out, emotionally, financially, or spiritually, God isn’t finished with your story. He is still stretching the narrative, and here’s the thing, He won’t force any of us forward. We have to choose to stay in His fire, even when it’s uncomfortable, feels unfair or when we don’t understand why the stretching has to hurt this much. We must be resolute in letting God’s fire keep us telling His story through the pages of our lives. That is the tension of His stretch.

Lean into the Stretch

At some point, we must come to see the stretch as holy and as purposeful. When we stretch before a workout, it’s uncomfortable, even painful at times. But we lean in, knowing it will prevent injury and prepare our bodies for movement. In the same way, we must trust that the stretching of our souls is for our good. Lately, God has been challenging me with some difficult assignments, some uncomfortable partnerships, and some unexpected turns in my journey. And I see now what He’s doing. He’s stretching me beyond what I thought was possible. He’s showing me that loss teaches us to appreciate victory, that service stretches us for leadership and that waiting on Him stretches us to receive. If we let Him, God will stretch us so far beyond ourselves that we will look nothing like what we went through.

Our Heavenly Father’s agenda is to shape us into the image of Jesus, to stretch us until we reflect His character, His patience, and His strength. And yes, that kind of stretching hurts. It costs something. But my prayer this year is that we stop resisting the stretch and start seeing it as the gift that it is. That we would lean in and let God do what only He can do, because if we do, one day, we will look back and testify: The stretch didn’t break me, it transformed me.