Tag: #BraveAndReal
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🧧 What the Color Red Taught Me About Starting Over
The first thing you notice during Lunar New Year isn’t the food.It isn’t the fireworks.It isn’t even the laughter. It’s red. Red lanterns swaying from doorways.Red envelopes pressed into waiting hands.Red paper cuttings glowing against windows.Red banners brushed in gold, blessing the year ahead. Red everywhere. When I was younger, I once asked why everything…
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What I learned from a Marshmallow…
In my twenties, I believed finding love required effort, creativity, and maybe a little desperation.So I tried everything — bars, speed dating, reality TV auditions… even marshmallows with my phone number tucked inside. What I didn’t realize then was that the greatest lesson wouldn’t be about finding someone else — it would be about finding…
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The Quiet Power of Showing Up on an Ordinary Day
Most transformations don’t announce themselves. They don’t arrive with fireworks or before-and-after photos. They don’t wait for Mondays, new years, or perfectly timed breakthroughs. Most of them happen on ordinary days—the kind you almost don’t notice while you’re living them. The days where nothing remarkable happens… except that you show up anyway. Ordinary Days Don’t…
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A New Year, A Lighter Heart: Learning to Let Go
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” ~ Lao Tzu Clarity Cookie: The pain of the slap was still present. It was a rainy day, the 7th anniversary of her mother’s death in September. My friend Grace had decided to forgive her sister for all she’d done wrong…
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The Glory of Looking Back
As the year folds itself gently at the edges, like a page turned with care, I find myself pausing—hands still, breath deep, heart wide open. We made it. Another year lived. Another chapter completed. Another sunrise won. There’s a quiet kind of triumph in simply arriving here. And so, at the edge of this year,…
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Finding Joy Again: What Christmas Softly Reminds My Heart
There’s something about Christmas that softens even the toughest parts of the year.Maybe it’s the lights. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the way December seems to whisper, “You made it. Breathe now.” Growing up, I always loved Christmas — not because everything was perfect, but because for a moment, the world slowed down. Even…
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Meet Gratitude’s Twin Sister, “Attitude!”
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. ~ Maya Angelou At times, life may seem daunting, causing us to complain about our circumstances. Certain situations are beyond our control- illness, the weather, the actions of others, situations at work or school, devastating events like earthquakes, 9/11 or…
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The People Who Carry My Heart
Family is such a simple word, but somehow it holds the weight of our entire lives. It’s the laughter that fills the house on holidays, the quiet understanding in the middle of chaos, the familiar faces that remind us we’re never walking this path alone. For me, family is the thread that stitches my life…
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The love that outlives you
Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about death—not in a morbid way, but in that quiet, reflective way that sneaks in when the world slows down. Maybe it’s the stillness of a late night or the way memories surface when you least expect them. It’s strange how death, though so certain, still feels like something we…
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When God Feels Silent — Trusting Divine Timing Through Stillness and Uncertainty
There are seasons when the silence feels deafening.You pray, you wait, and you wonder if Heaven’s forgotten your name. You do all the “right” things—believe, surrender, stay hopeful—and yet, it feels like the answers never come. I know that space all too well.It’s the space between heartbreak and healing, between loss and meaning, between prayers…
Clarity Cookies 