It was raining again—the kind of rain that soaked through your jacket and slid down your back like unwelcome memories.
Katie pulled her sweater tighter around her, staring out at her small, untended garden as puddles swelled between the roots of her neglected rosebushes. She hadn't meant for them to die. In truth, she hadn't meant for a lot of things to happen this way: the burned bridges, the cold apologies still lodged in her throat, and the gnawing feeling that maybe, just maybe, she had wandered too far from redemption.
The old leather Bible on her coffee table sat untouched under a layer of dust. She had outpaced it, she thought. She had been smart enough, strong enough to sew her own life—until it all unraveled faster than she could patch it.
Her phone buzzed from the kitchen counter. Another text from her brother, gentle and patient: “No matter what, we miss you. Come home.”
Katie sank onto the couch, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t deserve a second chance. Maybe she even deserved the loneliness weighing down her bones.
In the stillness, she noticed something. A tiny sprig of green pressed against the windowpane—one stubborn pea plant she thought had died months ago. Somehow, against all odds, it was still reaching for the gray sky.
Katie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and, almost without thinking, pulled the Bible into her lap. When she cracked it open, the pages fell to a verse she had underlined years ago during a retreat she barely remembered attending:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
A gift. Not earned, not demanded. Offered freely, waiting only to be received.
Her fingers trembled as she turned another page, then another, finding balm upon balm: promises of mercy, of redemption, of a God who pursues and waits and welcomes.
Katie laughed through her tears—a soft, broken sound. All this time, she had imagined God standing back from her mess, arms crossed, disappointment thick in the air. This open book whispered something far different: He had never moved. Even as she pulled away, He stayed.
The rain gentled, shifting to a mist that bathed the garden in a thin silver veil. Outside, that one brave plant clung stubbornly to life—and perhaps, just perhaps, so could she.
Katie picked up her phone and typed back to her brother: “I’m ready to come home.”
The words came with surprising ease, like setting down a burden she'd carried so long she had forgotten how light her soul could feel.
Outside, a sudden break in the clouds let a narrow beam of sunlight spill across the sodden earth, gilding the broken garden with a promise too beautiful to be a coincidence.
It wasn't too late.
It had never been too late.
Jesus had made sure of that.
—
Bible References:
It was raining again—the kind of rain that soaked through your jacket and slid down your back like unwelcome memories.
Katie pulled her sweater tighter around her, staring out at her small, untended garden as puddles swelled between the roots of her neglected rosebushes. She hadn't meant for them to die. In truth, she hadn't meant for a lot of things to happen this way: the burned bridges, the cold apologies still lodged in her throat, and the gnawing feeling that maybe, just maybe, she had wandered too far from redemption.
The old leather Bible on her coffee table sat untouched under a layer of dust. She had outpaced it, she thought. She had been smart enough, strong enough to sew her own life—until it all unraveled faster than she could patch it.
Her phone buzzed from the kitchen counter. Another text from her brother, gentle and patient: “No matter what, we miss you. Come home.”
Katie sank onto the couch, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t deserve a second chance. Maybe she even deserved the loneliness weighing down her bones.
In the stillness, she noticed something. A tiny sprig of green pressed against the windowpane—one stubborn pea plant she thought had died months ago. Somehow, against all odds, it was still reaching for the gray sky.
Katie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and, almost without thinking, pulled the Bible into her lap. When she cracked it open, the pages fell to a verse she had underlined years ago during a retreat she barely remembered attending:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
A gift. Not earned, not demanded. Offered freely, waiting only to be received.
Her fingers trembled as she turned another page, then another, finding balm upon balm: promises of mercy, of redemption, of a God who pursues and waits and welcomes.
Katie laughed through her tears—a soft, broken sound. All this time, she had imagined God standing back from her mess, arms crossed, disappointment thick in the air. This open book whispered something far different: He had never moved. Even as she pulled away, He stayed.
The rain gentled, shifting to a mist that bathed the garden in a thin silver veil. Outside, that one brave plant clung stubbornly to life—and perhaps, just perhaps, so could she.
Katie picked up her phone and typed back to her brother: “I’m ready to come home.”
The words came with surprising ease, like setting down a burden she'd carried so long she had forgotten how light her soul could feel.
Outside, a sudden break in the clouds let a narrow beam of sunlight spill across the sodden earth, gilding the broken garden with a promise too beautiful to be a coincidence.
It wasn't too late.
It had never been too late.
Jesus had made sure of that.
—
Bible References:
