44: Grace in the In-Between

Today I turn 44. Birthdays mark more than candles on a cake — they invite us to pause, to breathe, and to take inventory of both the goodness of God and the weight of life. For me, this birthday feels like standing in the in-between: caught between deep gratitude and very real difficulty.

I am grateful. Grateful that God has sustained me through every season, even the ones I thought might break me. Grateful for family, ministry, and the countless ways love has shown up. Grateful because the testimony of my life is that God has been faithful, even when I have been weary.

But I must also be honest: this year has not been without difficulty. The responsibilities of leadership, the trials that come with caring for others while managing my own humanity, and the silent battles of the heart are all present. To turn 44 is to stand at a crossroads where blessing and burden hold hands.

And yet, maybe this is where true faith is lived out — in the tension. The Apostle Paul once wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair… struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Those words ring deeply for me today. They remind me that difficulty does not cancel gratitude, and gratitude does not erase difficulty. Both can coexist, and both can shape me into who God is calling me to be.

So as I mark this birthday, I choose to see it as a sacred pause — a moment to honor both the goodness and the struggle. Gratitude tells me God is still writing my story. Difficulty reminds me that I cannot write it alone. Together, they push me closer to the One who knows the plans He has for me (Jeremiah 29:11).

Here’s to 44 — a year of walking honestly in the tension, trusting that even here, in the in-between, God’s grace is sufficient.

A Blessing for Year 44

May the God who has carried you thus far carry you still.

May the weight of difficulty never silence the song of gratitude.

May your steps be ordered, your heart be strengthened,

and your spirit find joy in both the sunshine and the shadows.

And may this year be marked by grace upon grace,

until your testimony shines brighter than your trials.

Amen.

When Support Means More Than Asking

One of the unusual admissions I’ve had to make as a caretaker is that I hate the question, “What do you need?”

At first glance, it sounds thoughtful. It sounds generous. But for the one in the thick of caregiving, that question can feel like another stone added to an already heavy load. The truth is, in any given moment, my greatest need is for the issue or concern before me to be resolved. My need is not a theory—it is practical, immediate, and often too big to explain in words.

When you become the caretaker—the responsible party in a family, an organization, or a community—you become the gravitational pull of that orbit. People trust and rely on you to make things happen. They believe you have the skills, the wisdom, and the strength to hold things together. And yet, the gravity of that role often pulls you away from your own center. You become so focused on what others need that neglect—emotional, physical, even spiritual—sets in almost without warning.

That is why support for the caretaker is not optional—it is essential.

The Misstep of Asking

The question “What do you need?” comes from a good place, but it misses the heart of what it means to support someone carrying the weight of others. To answer that question honestly requires thought. It requires a pause. It requires energy to sift through the whirlwind of demands and identify one thing among many.

But for the weary caretaker, thinking itself is one more task. Recall is one more task. Decision-making is one more task. What seems simple to others is, in fact, another layer of labor for the person already overburdened.

This is why many caretakers don’t answer the question at all—or give a polite, surface-level response. It is not that they don’t have needs. It’s that articulating those needs is too costly in the moment.

Real support must take a different shape.

Elijah’s Story: Exhausted but Not Abandoned

In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah stands as a mirror for every exhausted caretaker. After his great victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah should have been celebrating. Instead, he found himself utterly spent—emotionally drained, spiritually discouraged, physically empty. He collapsed under a broom tree in the wilderness and prayed for his life to end. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” (v. 4)

Elijah had given everything he had. The tank was empty. His spirit was broken. He could no longer see past the weight of his assignment.

But notice what God does. God doesn’t respond with a lecture. God doesn’t send a vision of a brighter tomorrow. God doesn’t even ask the dreaded question: “What do you need, Elijah?”

Instead, God sends an angel. Quiet. Gentle. Practical. The angel touched Elijah and said, “Get up and eat.” (v. 5) There was bread baking on hot coals and a jar of water at his head. Elijah ate, drank, and lay down again.

And when he still could not go on, the angel returned a second time. This time the message was even more compassionate: “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” (v. 7)

With that nourishment, Elijah gained the strength to travel forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. There, in the quiet of a cave, God revealed Himself not in wind, not in earthquake, not in fire—but in a gentle whisper (v. 12).

This is the picture of true care: no interrogation, no heavy demands, just sustenance, presence, and the reminder that even in exhaustion, you are not alone.

What True Support Looks Like

If you want to support a caretaker, don’t ask them to think harder. Don’t hand them another responsibility wrapped in the form of a question. Instead, remember their humanity.

Support looks like the angel in Elijah’s story—meeting needs without asking for instructions. Support is showing up with a meal when words fail. Support is folding the laundry without asking which load to start. Support is offering to watch the children or sit with the loved one so the caregiver can rest. Support is stepping in without ceremony and lifting the weight, even for a little while.

It’s not about fixing everything at once. It’s about helping someone make it through this moment so they have the strength to reach the next.

No one can continue the journey without help, sustenance, rest, and restoration. And sometimes the smallest act of care—bread and water by the bedside—becomes the very thing that allows a person to keep going.

Silent Help, Holy Help

People mean well when they say, “Take care of yourself. Get some rest. Make time for you.” But advice often falls flat because the environment isn’t right. The words don’t stick when the storm is raging.

What makes a difference is silent, holy help. The kind of help that doesn’t need recognition, that doesn’t demand a thank-you, that simply acts in love. It is in those quiet acts that the caregiver’s environment begins to change. And once the environment changes, healing, restoration, and renewal can take root.

When Elijah finally reached Mount Horeb, God came not in the dramatic signs but in the gentle whisper. Caregiver support is often like that whisper—quiet, consistent, and life-giving.

Be an Angel

Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is not to speak, but to act. To show up with food. To take on a responsibility without being asked. To sit in silence beside someone carrying the weight of others.

The angel who ministered to Elijah never asked him what he needed—the angel simply provided it. That is the kind of presence that gives life. That is what it means to be an angel in someone else’s wilderness.

Be an angel.

Closing Prayer

God of compassion and strength,
We lift before You every caregiver—those who hold families together, who shoulder unseen burdens, who quietly keep life moving for others while their own strength runs thin. We confess that too often we ask them questions when what they need is presence. Teach us to be angels—hands that bring bread, voices that bring calm, hearts that bring rest. For the weary caregiver, we pray Your renewal. For the isolated, we pray Your companionship. For the burdened, we pray Your peace. May Your gentle whisper remind them that they are not alone, and may we be faithful to embody Your care in small, quiet, sustaining ways. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Kumbaya and the Cost of True Unity

Most people hear Kumbaya and picture a campfire singalong — a circle of smiling faces swaying under the stars. But that image is a distortion, a sanitized version stripped of the depth, urgency, and history that birthed the word.

Kumbaya comes from the Gullah Geechee people — descendants of enslaved Africans living along the coastal islands and low country of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. In the Gullah language, a Creole shaped by both West African tongues and English, Kum ba yah means Come by here. This was no casual lyric; it was an invocation. In praise houses and hush harbors, people would sing: “Someone’s crying, Lord, come by here. Someone’s praying, Lord, come by here. Someone’s dying, Lord, come by here.”

It was a theology of survival. Like the psalmist who prayed, “O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed” (Psalm 10:17–18), the Gullah Geechee trusted that God’s presence meant more than comfort — it meant justice. In the midst of brutal systems designed to break them, they cried out with the same confidence as Israel in Egypt: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people… I have come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7–8). God’s “coming down” was not abstract sentiment; it was liberation in motion.

Yet today, I am often approached by well-meaning people who speak of unity as if it were a warm feeling — a “cosmic euphoric moment” that can be reached simply by gathering together. They imagine oneness without truth-telling, without repentance, without repair. It’s the same illusion Amos confronted when he warned Israel that worship without justice is an offense to God: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). That image is not a gentle trickle — it’s a relentless flood that sweeps away oppression.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called empty religion “cheap grace” — grace without repentance, discipleship, or the cross. What I see in many unity conversations is its twin disease: cheap unity — unity without justice, without sacrifice, without dismantling the systems that harm the vulnerable. Paul’s charge to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) is not a suggestion to keep things calm. The Greek phrase for “make every effort” (spoudazontes) speaks of urgency, discipline, and cost. True unity is forged in the hard work of confession, reconciliation, and shared sacrifice.

As a Black man, a leader, and a pastor, I cannot and will not accept unity that demands my silence for someone else’s comfort. Too often, “peace” is defined as the absence of tension rather than the presence of justice. But Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). That sword is the dividing line of truth — the confrontation that must happen before reconciliation can take root.

If unity means ignoring the cries of the oppressed, it is no unity at all — it is collusion.

If “togetherness” means the powerful remain untouched while the wounded remain unhealed, it is not gospel — it is heresy in the name of harmony.

If “reconciliation” does not include reparations, restoration, and restructuring unjust systems, then it is simply the status quo in Sunday clothes.

The Gullah Geechee cry of Kumbaya was never a plea for cheap togetherness. It was a desperate, holy demand for the God of justice to enter their reality, meet them in their pain, and change their condition. And it is still the prayer of many Black believers today:

Come by here, Lord — not to bless our illusions, but to shatter them.
Come by here, Lord — not to affirm cheap unity, but to lead us into costly love.
Come by here until your justice rolls down like waters, and your righteousness like a mighty stream.

A Closing Prayer

Lord of justice and mercy,
Come by here.
Enter the spaces where truth has been silenced.
Enter the places where unity has been faked to protect power.
Enter our hearts and burn away our apathy.
Strip us of cheap grace and counterfeit peace.
Give us courage to repent, to repair, to restore,
and to walk in the costly love your Son demonstrated on the cross.
Let your justice roll down like waters,
and your righteousness like a mighty stream.
Amen.

Reflection Questions

1. When you hear Kumbaya, what comes to mind? How does knowing its true origin change that picture?

2. Where have you seen “cheap unity” — unity that avoids truth for the sake of comfort?

3. What might it cost you — in relationships, resources, or reputation — to pursue true biblical unity?

4. How can your faith community practice repentance, repair, and restoration in pursuit of God’s justice?

5. In your own prayers, what would it mean to truly invite God to “come by here”?