I used to think strength had to look powerful.

Now I know sometimes strength looks like simply continuing.

Quietly.
Prayerfully.
One day at a time.

There is strength in softness too. 🤍

Divine Accolades — Words & Wellness.

DivineAccolades #QuietStrength #FaithOverFear #ChristianWomen #Grace

Marriage, Part Two: When Staying Changes you because some think it’s weakness but you call it a need softer side.

Marriage is often described by what can be seen: two people, one home, shared plans, anniversaries, photographs, children, memories.

But there is another side of marriage that photographs rarely capture.

The waiting.

The silence.

The prayers whispered when the other person is asleep—or when you are lying beside someone and somehow still feel alone.

There are seasons in marriage when you begin to wonder whether you are behind. You look at other couples and see what appears to be tenderness, partnership, laughter, and ease. Then you look at your own life and wonder, How did we get here?

But comparison cannot tell you the truth about anybody’s marriage.

And sometimes, neither can appearances.

There is a kind of strength that does not announce itself. It gets up in the morning. It tends to responsibilities. It loves the children. It goes to work. It prays. It cries where nobody can see. Then it washes its face and continues.

For a long time, I thought strength meant holding everything together.

I thought strength meant enduring quietly, carrying what needed to be carried, and somehow continuing as though nothing inside me was tired.

But there came a point when things began to fall apart—and perhaps for the first time, I allowed myself some softness.

Not weakness. Softness.

There is a difference.

Weakness was what I had been afraid people would see if I stopped holding everything together. Softness was something entirely different.

It was allowing myself to feel.

To grieve.

To admit that something hurt.

To stop demanding that I be strong every minute of every day.

I began to understand that I could be strong and still need tenderness. I could be capable and still be tired. I could love deeply without abandoning myself. I could cry without collapsing. I could say, This hurts me, without apologizing for having a heart that could be hurt.

Maybe I wasn’t falling apart after all.

Maybe some of what was falling away was the armor.

And underneath it was a woman learning that softness did not diminish her strength.

It humanized it.

That realization changes you.

There were prayers I expected God to answer quickly. There were moments when I wanted Him to explain everything—to tell me why certain things happened, why love could become so complicated, why two people who once imagined forever could eventually struggle to recognize each other.

Sometimes there was no immediate answer.

Only silence.

But I have learned that God’s silence is not God’s absence.

Perhaps some answers arrive only after we have become strong enough—or still enough—to receive them.

And perhaps healing does not require pretending that nothing happened.

Healing is not amnesia.

It is being able to remember without allowing every memory to dictate your future. It is keeping the wisdom while slowly putting down the weight.

It is understanding that forgiveness, reconciliation, trust, and access are not necessarily the same thing.

Marriage can teach you beautiful things about companionship.

It can also teach you things about yourself that you never expected to learn.

Your boundaries.

Your voice.

Your capacity to endure.

Your need for truth.

Your relationship with God when the person beside you cannot provide the security you once expected from them.

I used to think storms only destroyed things.

Now I know storms reveal things too.

They reveal foundations.

They reveal cracks.

They reveal what was planted deeply and what was merely standing because the weather had always been good.

And sometimes, after the storm, you meet a version of yourself you had never known before.

Not harder.

Not bitter.

Just clearer.

Softer, even.

Because softness after hardship is different from softness before it.

Before, softness may simply have been part of who you were. Afterward, softness becomes a choice. You know what it costs to remain tender in a world that has given you every reason to become hard.

And still, you choose tenderness.

Still, you choose love.

Still, you choose not to allow what hurt you to determine the kind of person you become.

Maybe that is part of becoming.

I cannot say that every painful chapter makes sense simply because time has passed. Some things still leave questions. Some memories still require grace.

But I no longer believe every unanswered question has to prevent me from moving forward.

Sometimes faith sounds less like:

God, explain this to me.

And more like:

God, I don’t understand this—but don’t let me lose myself in it.

Maybe that is where healing begins.

Not when the entire story has been resolved.

Not when every question has been answered.

Not when you have proven how strong you can be.

But when you finally give yourself permission to put down the armor.

To breathe.

To feel.

To be tender without calling yourself weak.

To be strong without becoming hard.

And to understand that whatever happens to the marriage, God is still writing your story.

And so are you.

Perhaps I was not falling apart.

Perhaps I was finally allowing myself to become soft enough to meet the woman underneath all that strength.

Make it make sense.

— Joan A. Roberts
Divine Accolades — Words & Wellness