BRISALO

I haven’t written a Gentle Pause since July 15.

I’ve thought about that more times than I can count.

I’ve opened a blank page. I’ve made mental notes about things I wanted to tell you. I’ve had entire paragraphs form in my head while driving, sitting by the water, or lying awake at night.

And still, I didn’t write.

For a while, I thought I was behind.

But somewhere along the way, I realized something:

I wasn’t out of things to say.
I was living them.

A lot has happened since July 15.

Enough that I could probably write one very long email trying to catch you up on all of it.

I’m not going to do that.

Instead, over the next few weeks, I want to tell you six stories.

And I think the first one has to begin at a river (Ketchikan Creek).

A couple of days after I last wrote to you, I boarded a plane to Alaska.

My sister had invited me along on a trip with eighteen of her friends—which is exactly the kind of sentence that sounds either delightful or mildly terrifying depending on your personality. 😂

For me, it became something I didn’t know I needed.

There was laughter. Deepened friendships. Ridiculously beautiful scenery. Long stretches of water and mountains that made all of us look very, very small.

But underneath all of it, something quieter was happening in me.

I had entered that trip carrying a lot.

I just didn’t realize yet that I was going to leave some of it there.

This year, my word is Presence.

When I chose it, I thought I understood what it meant.

Slow down.
Pay attention.
Stop rushing through my own life.

All of that is true.

But I’m learning that presence also asks something harder of us.

Sometimes it asks us to stop carrying what was.

And somewhere in that enormous, wild, breathtaking place, I found myself holding a rock.

Not metaphorically.

An actual rock.

I had carried it with me intentionally because there were things I knew I needed to leave behind.

Things I had carried for a very long time.

Grief.

Disappointment.

The versions of my life I thought would happen.

The people I couldn’t save.

The things I couldn’t fix.

The questions that never got answers.

The weight of believing that if I just tried hard enough, loved hard enough, stayed long enough, worked hard enough, somehow I could make everything turn out differently.

I have spent a lot of my life carrying.

And standing beside that river in Alaska, I knew:

I didn’t want to carry all of it anymore.

So I threw the rock into the water.

There was no dramatic moment.

No thunder.

No voice from heaven.

The river simply took it.

And kept moving.

I think about that often now.

Because rivers don’t ask permission to keep going.

They don’t stand at the bend wondering whether leaving the last stretch behind means it didn’t matter.

They carry what belongs downstream.

They leave what belongs on the shore.

And they keep moving toward something they cannot yet see.

Maybe that’s what faith looks like sometimes.

Not knowing where the river is going.

Not having the map.

Not understanding why the landscape had to change.

Just trusting that the God who was present upstream will still be present around the bend.

A couple of days before, I stood on a whale watching boat – waiting for to see a humpback breach near me – but then I looked up, instead of down to the water, and there was a lighthouse. Its name is Point Retreat Lighthouse on the northern tip of Admiralty Island, near Juneau. And it caused me to stop, pray, and speak to God.

I didn’t ask God for a five-year plan.

I didn’t ask Him to explain everything that had happened.

I think I was finally tired enough to stop demanding answers.

I just wanted to know He was there.

And maybe that is the strange gift of this season.

I am learning that I don’t have to know what comes next to be fully present in what is here.

Since that day at the river, life has moved.

A lot.

There have been endings.

Doors I hoped would open that didn’t.

Doors I never expected that did.

There has been fear.

There has been joy.

There have been new beginnings.

There is a new home waiting for me.

There is work that feels like a new chapter.

There is a table and a home I am preparing for women I love.

There are things I prayed for quietly that are beginning to take shape.

But I couldn’t see any of that when I threw the rock.

All I knew was:

This cannot come with me.

There’s one more thing I should probably tell you about the river.

I have a song of the year, and mine for 2026 is…

Jamie MacDonald’s Left It In The River.

I’ve listened to it over and over this year. In the car. In my house. At her concert. On the days I felt strong and the days I absolutely did not.

And there’s a line in it:

“I said a prayer from the banks of a river.”

Maybe that’s why standing there in Alaska felt like more than throwing a rock into the water.

I had been listening to a song all year about leaving things in a river.

And then somehow, I found myself standing beside one.

Holding everything I was finally ready to leave.

I don’t think God misses the details like that.

The song talks about burdens and freedom. About giving what we’ve carried to the Father. About discovering that joy can exist on the other side of surrender.

And maybe that’s why it has become my song of the year.

Not because this has been the year everything worked out.

It hasn’t.

It’s the song of the year because this has been the year I finally began to understand that freedom isn’t always found by fixing what happened.

Sometimes freedom is deciding you aren’t carrying it any farther.

I left some things in that river in Alaska.

And I’m beginning to understand that I can actually leave them there.

Maybe that’s the Gentle Pause today.

Before we rush toward what’s next, maybe we ask:

What am I still carrying that God never asked me to carry this far?

A disappointment?

A version of yourself you’ve outgrown?

Someone else’s expectation?

An old story about who you are?

A relationship that changed?

A mistake you’ve already learned from?

A dream that became something different?

You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going next.

Maybe today you just need to decide what isn’t coming with you.

Find your river.

Name the thing.

Open your hand.

And let the water take it.

I’ll meet you around the bend.

Be here.
Be you.
Be who you are in Christ.
Be love.

— Stacy