What Is One Small, Compassionate Step I Can Take Toward Healing, Clarity, or Becoming This Week?
AYFM 2026 Reflection Card
This post is part ten in a ten part series answering each of the questions in the As You Find Me 2026 Reflection Card. Revisit part one, part two, part three, part four. Dive back into part five, part six, part seven. Jump start part eight, part nine or simply enjoy the finale below. You are encouraged to answer each question for yourself.
Thank you for coming along this journey!
There’s a question on the As You Find Me 2026 Reflection Card that feels like it’s inviting me to unclench just a little:
“What is one small, compassionate step I can take toward healing, clarity, or becoming this week?”
Not a breakthrough.
Not a transformation.
Not a grand gesture.
Just one small, compassionate step.
And when I look at my life honestly, everything I’ve been carrying around spiritual authenticity, family changes, expectations I place on myself, I can feel exactly what that step might be:
Giving myself permission to fully inhabit one “unproductive” moment each day.
The Places Where I Actually Feel Most Alive
It’s funny how the moments that feel the most genuine, the most connective, the most me, are never the ones I plan.
They’re the unpolished ones.
Like sitting next to Ben, playing Roblox.
At first, I felt that old tug toward productivity, this whisper that I should be doing something more meaningful, more intentional, more aligned with the version of myself I’m always trying to grow into.
But then something softened.
I remembered (as I’ve been mentioning) playing Nintendo with my own dad.
I felt the sacredness of simply being there.
And suddenly, the moment became holy.
Or my Advent walks, those quiet, unhurried steps where I’m not trying to perform spiritually, just letting myself be found. Those walks have become a place where God meets me without pretense.
These are the moments where I feel the most connected.
The most grounded.
The most honest.
And they’re the moments I usually rush past.
The Step That’s Asking to Be Taken
So maybe the small, compassionate step this week isn’t about doing more.
Maybe it’s about doing less with more presence.
Maybe it’s fifteen minutes a day where I stop trying to be:
the perfect Christian
the perfect father
the perfect husband
the perfect version of myself
And instead let myself be exactly who I am in that moment.
No performance.
No productivity.
No spiritual pressure.
Just presence.
A moment where I trust that God meets me in the unpolished spaces just as much (maybe even more) than in the curated ones.
What That Might Look Like
It could be:
sitting on the couch with Ben without checking the clock
taking a slow walk without turning it into a spiritual exercise
drinking coffee without planning the day
breathing without trying to “use the moment well”
letting myself rest without earning it
The step is small.
Almost invisible.
But it’s compassionate.
It’s a way of saying to myself:
“You don’t have to be impressive to be loved.
You don’t have to be productive to be present.
You don’t have to perform to belong.”
The Sacred Middle of Becoming
Maybe healing doesn’t begin with a dramatic shift.
Maybe clarity doesn’t arrive through force.
Maybe becoming isn’t something I achieve, but something I allow.
And maybe the most compassionate step I can take this week is to give myself a daily moment where I stop striving and simply let myself be found.
Because if God is showing up in the unpolished parts of my life,
then maybe I can show up there too.
Answering the As You Find Me 2026 Reflection Card questions is possible due to journaling with Rosebud. Rosebud offers something rare: a space that listens back. It turns journaling from a monologue into a conversation, helping you slow down enough to hear what your inner life has been trying to say.