# Walking in the Quiet Light > True stories of God speaking, warning, rescuing, and showing up in one ordinary life — testimony that He is still powerfully, tenderly at work today. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About this site URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/about/ Last updated: 2026-01-17T02:30:45.000Z *Walking in the Quiet Light* is a personal record of God’s faithfulness told over time. This site exists to bear witness to the ways God works patiently, gently, and often without spectacle. The stories shared here are real, drawn from lived experience, and written with care for truth, privacy, and humility. They are not meant to persuade, impress, or dramatize. They are meant to remember. All posts are written by a single author — me, **Marin A. Welles** — a pen name chosen to allow these stories to be told freely while protecting the privacy of others and keeping the focus where it belongs. Some of these accounts include moments of clarity, protection, waiting, correction, and grace. Others reflect long seasons where God’s work was only visible in hindsight. Together, they form a quiet testimony of how faith is shaped through ordinary days and long unfolding seasons. This is not a teaching platform or a place for doctrinal argument. Scripture anchors everything shared here, but the focus remains on testimony rather than instruction. Where insight is offered, it is shared gently and without claim of authority beyond personal experience. The pace here is intentional. Stories are told slowly, with room for reflection. Not every question is answered. Not every experience is explained. Waiting, obedience, and trust are part of the narrative. If you are walking through your own season of uncertainty, healing, or quiet faithfulness, you are welcome here. These pages are offered as a place to notice what God has already done, and to trust Him with what is still becoming clear. All glory belongs to God. --- New posts can be delivered quietly to your inbox if you choose to subscribe. ### Subscribe URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/subscribe/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T20:50:37.000Z If you’d like, you can receive new reflections by email. Posts are shared quietly 2-4 times per month on Thursday evenings — thoughtful stories of faith, waiting, healing, and the ways God meets us along the way. Read when it’s convenient. Stay as long as it’s helpful. Unsubscribe at any time. Sign up in the page footer below. You’re always welcome here. ## Posts ### God Still Speaks — Here’s How I Know It’s Him URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/he-speaks-quiet-power-into-your-everyday-faith/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T08:10:23.000Z *He rarely booms from the sky. He repeats Himself — a verse that keeps surfacing, a thought that won’t leave, a burning in the heart that says this is the way. Here’s how I’ve learned to tell His voice from my own.* --- It’s eight a.m. on the morning of January 6 when I sit down for that day’s read-through-the-Bible chapters. As usual, I open my Bible app. Today is no different. The screen loads, and a notification flashes: Verse of the day — Isaiah 60:1. My eyes widen. My heart leaps. I double-check what I’m seeing. Am I reading that right? Isaiah 60:1 is the dearest verse in all of Scripture to me. It is the passage God spoke over me from the chariot in the waking dream I experienced sixteen years ago: > *“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”*— Isaiah 60:1 (NIV) As I shared in [the post that tells that story](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/), I’ve been waiting for God to reveal, in His timing, what those words truly mean for my life. That verse-of-the-day moment was the catalyst that finally got me to sit down and write about the encounter itself. Now, fourteen days later, let me tell you what has been unfolding since that January morning. That day, something in me lit up. I was drawn to study the verse again, and as I followed the cross-references for “light” and “the glory of the Lord,” they led me almost immediately to Ephesians 5 — Paul’s instruction to the church on how believers are to live. As I read, my soul caught fire. The words carried weight and clarity I had never experienced in them before. They meant something new, something timely, something personal. Don’t you love when God does that? I’m certain flashing exclamation points must have been visible in my eyes as I read verses 6 through 20\. Every line was alive. And when I reached the opening portion, my breath caught. Paul warns against partnering with those who deceive you into sin, and against alignment with those who operate in darkness. And suddenly I saw it. When God declared Isaiah 60:1 over me all those years ago, I was in the process of being pulled out of a marriage marked by deception. I had been partnered with a deceiver — not by choice, and certainly not knowingly — and I was deeply deceived myself. I had been fighting for the healing and restoration of my marriage, unaware of the depths of betrayal, deceit and exploitation within our union. The realization landed gently but firmly: God had not been asking me to repair what He had already declared finished. He was rescuing me from what was devouring me. And the heart of the passage sits right at its center, where Paul quotes what was likely a saying the early church already knew: > *“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”* — Ephesians 5:14 (NIV) God was waking me up. He was calling me out of darkness and into light when He declared that my light had come. I had been so emotionally battered I was nearly dead inside. But He was lifting me up out of that grave. Oh, how gracious He is! As I kept reading, verse 13 unfolded with fresh meaning: “Everything exposed by the light becomes visible — and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” When Christ shines on us, we don’t merely see the light. We become it. I knew then that I wasn’t meant to rush past this chapter. God was inviting me to stay — to sit with Ephesians 5 for however long He has appointed. And here is where I want to pause and explain something important. I’ve learned to recognize God’s voice not by volume, but by pattern. When something comes to my attention repeatedly, in unexpected ways, I pay attention. Usually three confirmations are enough for me to say, “Okay, Lord. I see You.” This time He didn’t stop at three. In the fourteen days after that January 6 morning, Ephesians 5 followed me everywhere. January 7, my small ladies’ Bible study group met for lunch. When the moment felt right, I shared what I’d been learning about deception and partnership. These women know my story well, and the conversation opened into gratitude — gratitude that God had been kind enough to lead me out when I couldn’t yet see clearly. That night, I watched the next teaching video in our study series. The speaker taught directly on deceivers versus liars — from Ephesians 5\. Mind blown. The following day, I listened to a completely unrelated podcast while driving. The guest began talking about learning how to walk as a believer. Again — Ephesians 5. A few days later, I wandered into a Christian bookstore looking for something entirely different. A book by Watchman Nee caught my eye — a name I’d heard many times but never read. I turned it over. Of course. It was about learning how to walk as a Christian, using Ephesians as the guide. That book now sits on my nightstand. Then Sunday came, and the pastor referenced Ephesians 5 in his message. And fourteen days in, at a leadership meeting, the theme introduced for our church’s next teaching series was announced: Walking in the light. At that point I stopped counting. I’m not sure I’ve even remembered every moment it surfaced — but six is already double the way God usually confirms something for me. There was no booming voice, no thunder from the clouds. Just unmistakable alignment, over and over. Each time, my heart burned, my spirit stirred, and my attention sharpened. It was that powerful, that quiet, and undeniably God. He can speak loudly. He usually doesn’t need to. If you’ve wondered whether God still speaks — or how to recognize His voice — let this energize you. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear audible words. Watch for the nudges. Notice what keeps returning to your attention. Pay heed to the Scripture that seems to follow you, and look for confirmation through trusted teaching and godly counsel. If it matters, He will stay with you on it. And when He does, your heart will know. He is not distant, and He is definitely not silent. He delights when His children lean in to listen. As for me and Ephesians 5 — I’ll keep following and leaning in. I know there’s more for me here, and I am here for all of it. But you, my dear friend: ask God to reveal Himself and what He wants to say to you. Then listen. You’ll be delighted when a pattern emerges or a word arrives that could only be His. And so will He. Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. ### The Afternoon I Finally Surrendered URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/the-surrender/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T18:15:39.000Z *For years I called endurance faith — I prayed, but I kept my hands on the wheel. Then, in a campus parking lot on a cold February afternoon, my degree nearly finished and my life still hollow, I ran out of strength to steer. That’s where God had been waiting all along.* There comes a point when trying no longer feels brave. For a long time, I believed endurance was faith. If I could just keep going, keep believing, keep standing, surely that counted for something. I prayed, but I also decided. [I trusted God](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/peace-through-surrender-in-uncertainty/) — as long as I remained the one steering my life. I told Him I was willing, and I kept the authority over outcomes. Eventually the self-effort of that “I’ll do it myself” approach runs empty. I did not reach surrender through courage or clarity. I arrived there tired — worn thin by my own authorship, at the end of what I could manage, explain, or improve. And in that quiet exhaustion I finally saw the truth of it: I hadn’t been resisting God out of defiance. I’d been resisting Him out of fear — fear of what obedience might require if I stopped negotiating. ### **The exhaustion of self-rule** There comes a point when you can no longer stand the life you’re living. You wake up one day and realize everything you’ve accomplished still hasn’t brought the relief you expected — just relentless disappointment, repeated relational failure, self-betrayal, and a deep mistrust of your own judgment after years of trying everything your way. A restlessness that will not resolve, humming under the ordinary tasks of daily life. I had tried every tool I had to find joy, laughter, peace. I wasn’t doing wrong for the thrill of it. I was chasing the happiness promised in movies and magazines: *If you’re attractive enough, the right person will fall for you.If you’re sexy enough, they’ll commit to you forever.If you make enough money, your worries will end.If you’re successful enough, you’ll be respected.If you’re stronger, smarter, faster than everyone else, you’ll secure your place.* Every one of those promises is a lie. I know because I tried them all — I even found what the world calls success — and none of them delivered. Life felt lifeless anyway: dry, empty, disappointing. That is the desperation and loneliness of self-rule, and that is exactly where I found myself. It was a cold February day, driving to campus. I was weeks away from completing my degree and moving back to Kansas City to begin my career. That milestone should have sparked joy. Instead, I realized I was completely empty. There was no shortage of grief in my life. My first husband, Drew, had devoured my empathy and trust and left behind shame, confusion, and debt I had no means to pay. While my children were with their father and grandmother, untruths about me were spoken to them — shaping their understanding of who I was and which of their parents could be trusted. Those narratives were built to maintain control and secure allegiance, whatever they cost the children’s hearts. I carried that grief daily, all while trying to meet the demands of an architecture program — studio hours, overlapping deadlines, weekends claimed by coursework. At the same time I was driving hours for visitation with my children, and often losing that precious time to Drew’s deliberate absence or evasion. It was maddening, and I was burning out faster than I could admit. When school forced me to stay and work weekends, my absence from my children was met with condemnation from Drew and his mother, Drucilla. My love as a mother was questioned. My character was judged. Words were spoken to me that cut deep — and worse were the words I could only imagine being spoken to my children, with no way to know what was said or how to protect their hearts. And because Drew and Drucilla lived closer to my parents than I did, they had access to my own family, who were vulnerable to their persuasion. Soon the condemnation echoed from the very places that should have been safe. I couldn’t win. Living the world’s pattern — giving myself fully to men who demanded everything and returned nothing — had left me empty, despairing, and self-loathing. Life hadn’t followed the fairy tale, and I wasn’t enough to force it to. I had finally achieved everything I’d been pushed toward since childhood: a degree, a profession, independence. It felt hollow. I felt dirty — the kind of dirty that settles into your sense of who you are. I was clawing at the walls of another pit I could not escape, and no matter how resilient or resourceful I believed myself to be, I could not pull myself out. I was out of answers. ### **The white flag** Sitting in the campus parking lot as the amber light faded on that cold winter day, I gave up. I remember thinking, I don’t want my life anymore. Not the way I’ve been living it. And in that moment, I realized I wasn’t alone. Through the entire inner dialogue, God was there — not condemning, not distant. Present. I was waving a white flag, and not out of cowardice. I was simply out of ammunition. Out of ideas, out of strength, out of my own way. I had tried everything I knew to try, and the only way left was His. I surrendered. For years, [He had been calling me back](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/god-spoke-clearly-i-didnt-follow/) to Him and to His church. I had resisted with everything in me — my fears shaped by earlier experiences in that space, ones that taught me I wasn’t good enough and that grace was theoretical, not personal. Returning felt like walking straight back into judgment. But I was desperate enough to risk it. If going back to church mattered this much to Him, maybe there was something I hadn’t yet seen. His invitation came as a persistent thought, a quiet knowing — gentle, but insistent — and it felt like the only way forward. And when I sensed His presence there in the car, it wasn’t new. My attention was. He knew everything I had done and everything I had endured, and He did not condemn me. [He just waited](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/). Surrender did not feel humiliating. The humiliation was everything I’d felt before surrender. After, there was peace — the sense that the bleeding would finally stop. My prayers were not eloquent: *“I don’t know what I’m doing.”“I can’t fix this.”“I don’t trust myself.”“If You want my life, You can have it.”“I’m done choosing.”* I did resist one last time, in a practical way — I told myself it would all start when I moved back to Kansas City. A new city, a new version of myself, less risk of being exposed. But obedience didn’t stay theoretical forever. The first step was walking into a church alone, sitting in the back, leaving quietly, and coming back the next week. It wasn’t comfortable. It was obedience. ### **What surrender actually bought me** Today, when I look back at that woman in the parking lot, I feel gratitude for her surrender and grief for the years she spent running. And I know this now: following God is the only path that has ever led me to peace, rest, and life. God does not force obedience. He allows wandering; He allows rebellion — not with anger, but with patience, and with sorrow for the consequences we’ll face out there on our own. Rescue requires surrender. Not perfection, not instant maturity. Just willingness. He was in that car with me that day, just as He had always been, waiting for the moment I was finally willing. And He lifted me out of the pit I had dug for myself — again. The psalmist could have been writing my afternoon: > *“I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.”* — Psalm 40:1–2 (World English Bible) I did not lose myself when I surrendered, the way I had feared. I found the life I had been starving for — more abundantly than words can hold. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for taking this walk with me. If this story stirs something in you — if you find yourself empty, tired, and lifeless — consider what God might be asking you to lay down. Not to punish you. To relieve you. To replace survival with abundant life. ### **Scriptural Framework** Luke 15:4–7 — God’s patient pursuit and repeated rescue. Proverbs 3:5–6 — Relinquishing authorship and direction. Psalm 40:1–3 — Waiting in the pit and being lifted out. ### The Slow Education of Listening URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/the-slow-education-of-listening/ Last updated: 2026-06-12T01:00:46.000Z For a long time, I believed that hearing from God was something other Christians could do, but not me. I would listen as people spoke confidently about sensing the Spirit’s leading or recognizing God’s voice, and I quietly wondered how they knew. How could they be so certain it wasn’t just their own thoughts or desires? Was there a formula I had missed? A spiritual maturity level I hadn’t yet reached? I remember watching from the sidelines, feeling as though everyone else had learned a language I didn’t speak. Hearing from God felt mysterious, advanced, and just out of reach. It seemed reserved for believers who had it all together. And deep down, I wondered something even more painful. Would God even want to speak to me? Many believers never say this out loud, but I know I wasn’t alone in it. I believed God loved the world, everyone else, but somehow not me in the same way. They were worthy. I wasn’t. And if I didn’t deserve His love, why would He take the time to speak to me personally? So I watched. And I waited. And I doubted myself constantly. ## **Viewing That Past From Today’s Vantage Point** Looking back now, I can see something I couldn’t see then. God was speaking to me in the same quiet ways He always does. I just didn’t yet know what to trust. My heart was capable of writing its own narratives, and I was afraid of mistaking my desires for God’s direction. I expected His voice to sound dramatic, unmistakable, earth-shattering. Surely if God were really speaking, it would feel overwhelming or obvious. “How can I know it’s really Him?” played on repeat in my mind. That confusion was complicated by the voices around me. I received conflicting explanations from the adults in my life. Some dismissed the idea of God speaking at all. Others attributed spiritual experiences to anything but God. None of it brought clarity. It only deepened my uncertainty. So I stayed cautious. Yet at the same time, I was desperate to hear Him. That tension, wanting God deeply while doubting you’re capable of hearing Him, is an exhausting place to live. I wonder if many believers sit there quietly for years. Sometimes, when I sensed God saying something I didn’t want to hear, I would try to reinterpret it. Surely He didn’t mean that. Surely I misunderstood. I told myself I couldn’t really hear Him, so I couldn’t trust what I thought I had heard. Once, when God warned me against a [***relationship I was settling for***](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/god-spoke-clearly-i-didnt-follow/), the weight of that warning felt unbearable. The loneliness I’d face without the suitor felt more unbearable than whatever might come if I pursued the relationship. I didn’t want to believe it was Him speaking. So I reshaped the message until it sounded more survivable. What I didn’t know then was this: God never “kind of” means something. He doesn’t speak in half-truths or shifting opinions. When He speaks, it is always rooted in truth, and that truth does not change, even when we struggle against it. What does change is us. ## **The God Who Does Not Rush** Over time, God began teaching me something precious about His nature. He is not impatient when we don’t understand Him right away. He does not withdraw when we resist or hesitate. He waits, calmly and faithfully. Like a gentle trainer walking beside a young colt learning the halter, or a puppy tugging uncertainly against the leash, He does not give in to confusion. But neither does He grow angry or force the lead. He remains present. He stays. He does not shout. He does not repeat Himself in frustration. He waits, quietly and steadily, until we are ready to follow. And when we stop resisting His leading, He affirms us. Sometimes He allows His words to rest with us for a season before He speaks again. But He does speak again. Over time, we begin to understand that this back-and-forth is not unkind. He is not a dictator issuing commands from a distance. He is a loving Father who sees the full road ahead and knows what is best for us far better than we ever could. Obedience, then, is not only our responsibility. It is also our reward. Let me explain what I mean. The outcome of His leading, though we may not recognize it at first, is always the same: love, peace, joy, and deep satisfaction, when we submit. But when we decide we know better and take the reins for ourselves, the fruit is different. We find ourselves walking into unrest, disappointment, harm, and heartache. Not because God is punishing us, but because we have stepped outside the safety of His care. > Sit with that for a moment. I used to envy people who prayed aloud with great confidence, saying things like, “I sense the Spirit saying…” Sometimes that language unsettled me. Other times it made me wonder why I didn’t hear God that way. Was I missing something? Was my faith deficient? Here is what I have come to learn: God does not speak to all of His children in identical ways. But He speaks faithfully to every one of them. [Discernment ](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/)is not a spiritual talent bestowed on the elite. It is a relationship that grows over time. God teaches us to recognize His voice the same way we learn to recognize anyone else’s, through consistency and familiarity. If you’ve ever wondered whether what you sense is really Him… If you’ve feared trusting your own perception… If you’ve felt behind or unqualified or unsure… You are not broken. You are learning. And God is not frustrated with you for being in process. He is far more patient than we imagine. He does not rush clarity. He builds it gently. And when something truly matters, He doesn’t whisper once and disappear. He stays with you on it. He confirms. He returns. He brings understanding, in quick time or over time. Looking back now, I can see that even in my confusion, God was steady. Even when I misunderstood Him, He remained truthful. Even when I ran ahead, He did not abandon me. He was teaching me discernment, not through instant certainty, but through long companionship. If you are walking that same path, take heart. You are not failing at faith. You are learning how to listen. And the God who speaks is patient enough to teach you. One quiet step at a time. I considered ending the post there. But as I reread what I’d written, I realized there might still be a quiet question lingering in your heart. ## **What Hearing Looks Like for Me Today** “Yes,” you might be thinking, “but how does He speak to you now, now that you recognize Him more clearly? What does that actually look like?” That’s a fair question. When God is truly speaking to me, there is usually a thread, a theme He is drawing my attention toward. And He doesn’t mention it once and disappear. He stays with it. Often, He repeats it, gently and patiently, until I can no longer dismiss it as coincidence. It may surface through everyday moments: a conversation with a friend, a verse someone mentions in passing, a line in a book I wasn’t even looking for. The next day, the same idea appears again, in a message, a podcast, a sermon, a quiet nudge while I’m praying. Nothing dramatic or forced. Just a sense of recognition that settles deep in my spirit, like a spiritual highlighter softly marking the page. Other times, someone may speak words over me that make me pause. I wonder whether they’re meaningful or merely well-intended. And then, without striving, God confirms their truth in a way only He could arrange. Something so specific it leaves no room for doubt. And occasionally, He allows a moment or encounter so tender or unexpected that it feels like a gift meant just for me. Later, sometimes days afterward, He reveals its meaning, answering a prayer I had not even spoken aloud. Some of these moments feel quietly profound. Others would sound ordinary if I tried to explain them to someone else. But all of them share the same fruit: peace, clarity, and a deepening trust in His presence. That is how I’ve learned to recognize His voice. Not by urgency or volume, not by spiritual performance, but by consistency, gentleness, and love. I want to say this humbly and clearly: I am still learning His voice. I do not assume that every thought I have is from God, and I don’t treat discernment casually. When I believe He may be speaking, I pause. I pray. I return to Scripture. I ask Him to confirm what I’m sensing, and I remain willing to be corrected if I’m wrong. The Bible tells us to test the spirits, and this is a necessity. If what I’m sensing does not align with Scripture, it’s not from God. If what I’m hearing causes me to behave with malice, injustice, to lie, to slander, to enact my own judgement, it’s not from God. No matter how righteous we think we’ve become, “our truth” can never be separate from “THE truth” which is wholly encapsulated in the Word of God. Jesus is the Word, He is the Way, the Light and the Truth. We cannot be true and correct if we stray from what He says and does. God is faithful to confirm what truly comes from Him, and He is just as faithful to redirect us when our understanding is incomplete. So when I share how He speaks to me, I do so without claiming perfection or certainty in myself. My confidence is not in my ability to hear. It is in His ability to lead, clarify, and lovingly correct me as I continue to grow. God does not rush His children. He does not confuse them. And He does not abandon the conversation halfway through. If you are learning to listen, if you are unsure, hesitant, or afraid of getting it wrong, take heart. You are not failing at discernment. You are being taught. And the God who speaks is patient enough to walk with you as long as it takes, one quiet step at a time. ## **Scriptural Framework** ### **John 10:27** My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ### **Isaiah 30:21** Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ### **James 1:5** If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ### **1 John 4:1** Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ### **Psalm 32:8** I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. ### God Spoke Clearly. I Didn’t Follow URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/god-spoke-clearly-i-didnt-follow/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T19:33:47.000Z It was late afternoon, and the March sunlight felt dim and russet as I walked across the asphalt parking lot of our family doctor’s clinic toward my mother’s Pontiac. My heart was heavy. I had just heard devastating news, and my thoughts were crying out to God silently so my mother wouldn’t hear. *Why do I seem to be targeted by men of low estate, Lord?* *Are hurtful men all that there is in this world?* *Will I ever find a good, kind man who genuinely loves me?* *Is there such a thing?* *Why aren’t men with ambition around? Men who might become doctors or lawyers? And if they are around, why aren’t they attracted to me?* *Aren’t you preparing a husband for me?* *When will I finally meet him?* Then I proceeded to give God my shopping list for a mate. *Could he please be a career man instead of someone who wants to live off me?* *I’d like it if he were taller than me, but if not, could he at least not be insecure about it?* *Lord, he can even have a belly instead of a ripped physique. Just make him kind.* I felt like I was negotiating for my sanity. I thought I was negotiating for the only source of love I would ever find on this planet. Instead of platitudes, I heard one simple sentence. > **“I am preparing your husband, but you will not meet him until your late thirties.”** “What? No! That’s over twenty years away,” I shot back. For a sixteen-year-old, that feels like a life sentence without hope of parole. Especially for a girl desperate to feel accepted, wanted, and enough. I pushed back immediately. “Lord, I can’t wait that long.” God knew, and I would soon learn, that this was not a negotiation. It was His specific plan for my life. And there was no worming my way out of it. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t imagine going twenty years without someone to love. Truthfully, I was terrified of loneliness. That emotion had been with me all sixteen years of my life. So I packed God’s words into a neat little box and ignored them. I set out to make my own future in relationships. What followed was fruitless searching. I dated here and there, hopeful each time, only to find the same emptiness, the same poor morality, the same brokenness. I both hated these men and couldn’t imagine being without them. *So this is love,* I settled. One day, I was on a plane to Las Vegas with the man I was dating. We were accompanying his mother and her fiancé for their wedding. Under relentless pressure and manipulation, I caved when he begged me to marry him while we were there. Exhausted and afraid, I agreed, quietly telling myself, *I can always get it annulled.* After the most surreal ceremony at the Little White Wedding Chapel, complete with an officiant waxing poetic about wolves howling in the desert, I woke the next morning determined to annul the marriage. When my previously doting, love-bombing fiancé, now turned new husband, caught me flipping through the hotel’s thick yellow pages looking for annulment information, he snapped, “What the hell are you doing?” Terror struck. I slammed the book shut and said, “Nothing.” In that moment, I realized the man who had been sweet and attentive no longer needed to pretend. And that marked the beginning of three years of tiptoeing through my first marriage with a dark triad personality. More on this later. God’s plan had been better. I didn’t reject Him. I ran ahead. I tried to force fulfillment of God's promise and learned a painful lesson. Much like Abraham and Sarah, when they took matters into their own hands rather than waiting for God’s promise. Why do we do that? Why do we rush to manufacture what God has already planned? But here is the good news. Despite my impatience and disobedience, God did not leave me. He walked patiently beside me, waiting for repentance, humility, and surrender. Though I was wounded and abused, I was still protected. After three years, I fled that marriage without allowing God to finish the work He wanted to do in me. I devised my own rescue. I loaded what I could into my truck, gathered my two children, and left. But I carried my pride, control, and disobedience with me. Now I understand why it would take twenty years before I was ready for the husband God designed. Two failed marriages. Two nearly identical men. And deep, soul-wrenching surrender later, I found myself in my late thirties, healing from damage I could have avoided. The second time, in the second marriage, I didn't run away. The fire refined me. I learned to lean on God alone for acceptance, love, and approval. I learned that men are not my god. And I learned to [respect God’s timing](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/). God answered the heart of my teenage cry. Now, at fifty-four, I can say I have been happily married for fourteen years to the exact fulfillment of that sixteen-year-old’s prayer list. He is the kindest man I’ve ever known. Generous beyond words. Tall, dark, handsome, with a bit of a belly. And yes, he’s a doctor. Isn’t God something? God answers cries, even messy ones. God speaks to the young. God is not offended by immaturity. God does not revoke His care when we get it wrong. So if you heard God and acted too fast… If you’re waiting on clarity you didn’t have when you wanted it… If you wonder whether you “ruined” something… Take heart, dear one. God is not done. He is faithful with timing. And He has not left you. ### A Name Revealed in the Midst of Fear URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/a-name-revealed-in-the-midst-of-fear/ Last updated: 2026-07-12T20:20:17.000Z *One night, fear I couldn’t explain gave way to a dream, and a name I had never heard. What it meant told me who I am to God, and to the enemy who wanted me to forget it.* --- A few weeks before the night I was woken at two in the morning and shown the “chaos” that had taken root in my mind—a night I’ve written about in [its own post](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/naming-the-chaos-changed-everything/)—there was another that marked me just as deeply. For a while, waking at two or three in the morning had simply become part of my life. I chalked it up to too much caffeine or to the hot flashes that came with this season of life. The wakeful nights had stacked one on top of another for so long that I had stopped questioning them. This was just my normal now. What made them hard wasn’t only the lost sleep. It was what filled my mind the moment my eyes opened. The thoughts came in a flood: that I had forgotten to do something the day before, that I needed to tell someone something, that I should have handled a problem differently, that I had said the wrong thing to a friend and left a bad impression, that if I didn’t fix some small thing right away there would be a consequence I’d regret. On the surface they looked like ordinary mental housekeeping. Underneath, every one of them was stitched together with fear. The thoughts would loop and feed on themselves, and the adrenaline they stirred kept me awake for two or three hours before my body finally gave out. I would sleep for maybe an hour before it was time to get up. Living on three to five hours of rest became routine, and I moved through my days drained and foggy, working at half capacity and calling it normal. It had crept in so gradually that I never saw it take hold. Each night was only a little heavier than the one before, the intensity climbing by degrees too small to notice, until one night in the middle of October 2025 I woke at two in the morning inside a full-blown panic attack. What happened next I can only describe as marvelous. ### From my journal, October 25 Nathan and I were both jolted awake at two that morning, though neither of us knew the other had been lying there awake until we compared notes the next day. We had each been swallowed by the same thing: a wave of anxiety with nothing behind it, our hearts pounding, our minds crowded with fearful, irrational thoughts. Every bit of calm and safety had been pulled out from under us, even though nothing in our actual lives was wrong. It was pure, baseless fear. I prayed for hours, wrestling my racing thoughts back down, until sleep finally returned. And when it did, I dropped straight into a vivid dream. I walked into a room that felt like a small-town pub, dim and low-lit, people scattered at the tables and lost in their own conversations. As I stepped inside, I noticed a small, noisy cluster of figures off to my left, tucked back in the shadows and celebrating something. Their voices carried anyway. They sounded giddy, almost disbelieving, like people who had just gotten away with something they never expected to pull off. They were shouting. *“We did it!”* *“We killed it!”* *“We destroyed it!”* *“We conquered Alona Peace!”* One of them stepped out of the shadows, held my eyes, and smiled wide. “We killed Alona Peace,” he said. Over and over in the dream I repeated the phrase to myself—Alona Peace, Alona Peace—determined to hold onto it long enough to look it up when I woke. Then Nathan's alarm went off. He left for work, and I got up to start the day. When I finally searched the words, what I found stopped me cold. Alona is a Hebrew feminine noun, and it means oak tree. Not long before, I had been praying through Isaiah 61:3, asking God—hesitantly, almost afraid to hope—whether I might ever be counted among the oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. And here, in a dream, the enemy had handed me the answer to that very prayer, wrapped in a name I had never heard. The other meanings I turned up only deepened it. Across languages, Alona carried the sense of an oak, strength and resilience, but also bright, shining light in its Slavic roots, precious or offering in Hawaiian, noble in German, little rock in Breton. To be called an oak. To be tied, without my asking, to bright and shining light, which is the very language of Isaiah 60:1, a verse God had already marked over my life. To be named precious, noble, and strong. And the enemy knew me by those names. That was what rattled him enough to celebrate. He had managed to steal my peace for a little while, and he threw a party over it. But the theft was temporary, and the One who names me is not. God loves me, answers me, and tells the truth about who I am, even to the powers that would rather I never heard it. Jesus reigns, and when He speaks, it is love. ### What the night taught me A few things settled into me afterward. God speaks in the direction of peace, and the fear that had flooded those nights was never His voice. Our truest identity often surfaces in the most unexpected moments, and mine came through a dream I hadn’t asked for. And God, it turned out, had been paying close attention to the quiet ache underneath my prayers. I had struggled for years to believe I could really be called an oak of righteousness; it felt like too much to claim, even after a lifetime of trying to follow Him. He answered the question anyway, in a way I could never have manufactured or argued myself into. I also learned that the enemy tends to go straight for whatever God is strengthening, and that his intimidation cannot survive contact with God’s truth. Even a dream, I found, can be a place where God restores confidence and clarity, sometimes simply His way of letting us know He is listening and that we are loved. This is the encounter that later shaped the middle name I write under. Alona sits quietly inside “Marin A. Welles” as my own private reminder of where my peace actually comes from, and Who defends it. ### For you, dear reader God knows how to reach us, and sometimes He does it through a dream, even in the middle of a restless, frightening night. If you have ever come awake with fear pressing on you, or carried a dream that wouldn’t leave your spirit, bring it to Him and ask what He wants you to see. He is faithful to answer with clarity, to guard your peace, and to remind you exactly who you are to Him. ### Waiting Didn’t Mean Standing Still URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/waiting-didnt-mean-standing-still/ Last updated: 2026-07-12T17:14:43.000Z ## **I Didn’t Know What It Meant—So I Kept Going** After the morning of the [chariots and Isaiah 60:1](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/) encounter—an experience that marked a turning point I’m still learning to understand—I was filled with joy and a sudden release from grief. But alongside the relief came a quiet puzzle. A promise had been made, but no explanation followed. It felt significant. Weighty. I would have preferred to get started on it right away. That uncertainty could have turned into frustration. Instead, the awe of the encounter itself was enough to hold onto. The delight of being seen and spoken to by God carried me farther than immediate answers ever could. Naturally, I began to search. I turned to commentaries and Scripture indexes. I followed cross-references and read late into the evenings, looking for understanding. I wanted to know what it meant that “the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” I wanted to know what that looked like for me, personally, as a believer. In that searching, I was drawn to passages like Ephesians 5, where Scripture speaks of moving from darkness into light, of being awakened, of learning to live as children of light and finding out what pleases the Lord. > *For you were once darkness, but *now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)* and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness…But *everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light*. This is why it is said:* > *“*Wake up, sleeper,** > ***rise from the dead,*** > **and Christ will shine on you.*”* > *\-Ephesians 5:8-14 (emphasis my own)* I also revisited John 1:9-13, where Jesus is described as the Light from the beginning, the One through whom we become children of God. > *The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world… to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.* > *\-John 1:9-13* Slowly, something was settled into place. God had been marking a crossing. A waking. Not into perfection, but into light. Not into certainty, but into life. He was affirming that I had been drawn out of darkness and into His light, not by my own strength, but by His mercy. God had literally and spiritually woken me up to light out of the darkness. It was not a declaration of arrival. It was an acknowledgement of rescue. For a long time, I assumed that one day—perhaps far off, perhaps soon—I would be called to declare Isaiah 60:1 over others in some clear, defined way. I imagined a future moment when the meaning would become obvious and the purpose unmistakable. But as the years passed, something else became clear. God gave me the strength to resist my instinct to force the promise into action. And He gave me the maturity to not sit still and wait for the promise to arrive before I took another step. I did not pause while waiting. The waiting was not empty; it was full of obedience. In the months following that encounter, I attended a women’s Bible Study. Then I helped lead it. I served on the women’s ministry leadership team, then was asked to lead it. I helped start a women’s Sunday school class and also walked with that group for several years. My husband and I opened our home to a small group, which eventually grew into helping lead a church plant in our community. Along the way, we joined mission trips, supporting schools, medical clinics, children’s shelters, and walked alongside ministries far beyond our own walls. Today, my path looks quieter but no less meaningful: coordinating fundraising efforts for an organization that serves orphans around the world, and returning to a first love of leading a small women’s Bible study rooted in fellowship and prayer. I’ve never laid all that out at once before. Looking back, I’m overwhelmed by how faithfully God has led, step by step, without urgency or spectacle. Waiting on God did not mean standing still. It meant continuing to find what pleases Him and doing it. When people hear the story of Isaiah 60:1 and ask what it means, I still answer honestly: “I don’t know for sure.” I’m at peace with that now. I’ve learned that not knowing does not mean nothing is happening. Perhaps the promise was never about a single future moment. Perhaps it was about learning to live as light—consistently, humbly, in ordinary places. Perhaps the declaration was being spoken through obedience rather than announcement. I don’t yet know if there is more to come. I leave that in God’s hands. What I do know is this: God’s will often unfolds in the middle of regular life, not just in dramatic encounters. Waiting on a promise is not passive. It is the kind of steady obedience that grows as we learn [***how discernment actually works in everyday life***.](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/) It is an active trust that keeps walking, keeps serving, keeps loving, even without clarity. And sometimes, the revelation arrives not when we look ahead—but when we look back and realize how faithfully He has led us all along. ### Arise, Shine — and Wait URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T19:24:52.000Z Some encounters with God mark a turning point so clearly that life afterward is never the same. What we do not always realize in that moment is that the promise spoken there may take years to unfold. The encounter occurred in 2010\. I had divorced Silas and had been drawn into a deep, beautiful relationship with God while I sought Him through the suffering. He had prompted me to lay down the fight for the marriage I had struggled to hold together for years. He made it clear I was supposed to remove myself, and that Silas had no intention of repenting. For months the tears had flowed as I tried to move through the long cycle of grief. I wondered if they would ever end and crying out to God, I asked how much longer I must grieve the loss of this abusive relationship. And not very much time passed before He answered in the most glorious, God-like way. I awoke one morning in my modest apartment to the brightest light I had ever seen pouring through my east-facing bedroom window. Never before or after had the morning sun shone with such dazzling brightness through this window. Normally when light wakes me, I am fully alert and immediately begin my day. But that morning something unusual happened. Though I felt completely awake, I drifted back into a dream state almost instantly. And then the vision unfolded. I was standing in a vast valley. High hills surrounded the valley so that all I could see were gently waving beige grasses rising to my waist. Nothing beyond the hilltop horizon except mostly blue skies. Suddenly my attention was drawn to the top of one of the hills. There they rose above the horizon, riders in chariots—many of them. They came swiftly toward me with the thunder of wheels and the rushing wind of their speed. Many of them whirred past me, some far away and some so near I felt the turbulent air of their passing break the gentle stillness of the valley. The thought occurred to me that I should fear being run over. But I stood in the midst, unharmed by any of the skilled chariot drivers. Then from the middle of the rushing army one chariot separated and came toward me. It stopped beside me on my left. It was huge and the rider was so large I was dwarfed in comparison. I couldn’t see past the rider’s torso and didn’t look up higher to see his face. Why? I can only say it felt like standing outside on a brilliant day and knowing better than to look directly at the sun. The rider turned to speak to me and I felt then He was the Lord. My heart swelled as I listened, knowing I wanted to hear and remember every word. He said, “Today I declare Isaiah 60:1 over you.” And He gave me the distinct impression that, in time, He would put me in the position of speaking that verse over others. And as quickly as the riders appeared over the ridge in front of me, they disappeared over the ridge behind me. And I awoke. I didn’t know what Isaiah 60:1 was so I rushed to grab my Bible and read: > “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” I was awestruck and overwhelmed by the thought that the Lord had timed his word with the brightest of sunrises and that He had even spoken in such a powerful way over me at all. How marvelous is our King. How tenderly He cares for small and ordinary people like us. *But what does it mean that my light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon me?* *What does it mean for others as well?* *When, Lord?* *When am I supposed to declare it over others?* *In what context? What will it mean for them?* I’m still waiting for these answers. At least the complete answers and the “when”. What I do know is that day serves as a turning point in my life after the loss of that marriage. From that day forward, there were no more tears of grief. Only joy in God’s rescue. It marked a new beginning and a whole new me. One who has been healed of the sin that caused me to fall into that predatory relationship and the one before. The sin was mine in the doubt of God’s heart-filling love for me. It was also the weight of generational sin—patterns I did not begin, yet whose consequences I found myself living under because of choices made by those before me. So, while I don’t discount the immediate importance of that message and that encounter, because really – it is EVERYTHING to me, there is still something more I am waiting to learn and to act on. God is calling me to humbly carry this without knowing why just [like before](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/peace-through-surrender-in-uncertainty/). He is challenging me not to “Abraham and Sarah” the promise by trying to force it into existence before His time. Lord, don’t let me fall for fleshly contorting of meaning and purpose just because I’m not willing to wait for your perfect timing. I’ve done that in the past with another of your promises and it did not turn out well. Help me wait. As of the writing of this post, it has been a little over 15 years since the encounter, and I am still awaiting the fulfillment of His words. I have to chuckle in wonder if He will have me wait 25 years just like Abraham and Sarah. If He does, I know it will be okay, because His purpose for fulfilling the promise will be infinitely more amazing than anything I could squeeze out of it by trying to make it happen myself. So we learn to wait and trust — by waiting and trusting. Lord, keep my feet on the right path. “I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Psalm 130:6 ### Scriptural Framework: Genesis 18:11 Hebrews 6:15 Romans 4:19,20 Isaiah 60:1 ### Stranded in Togo, God Gave Us Peace We Couldn’t Explain URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/peace-through-surrender-in-uncertainty/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T18:30:50.000Z *Our mission work in Togo was done and our bags were packed when the COVID tests came back positive. Flights canceled. Borders closed. Quarantine stretched to nearly double. Nothing about our situation improved — and somewhere in that locked room, God handed us a peace that made no sense at all.* We weren’t supposed to stay. Our mission work in Togo had concluded, our bags were packed, and our return flights were scheduled. We were tired in the good way that follows meaningful work, and we were ready to head home. Then the routine COVID testing required for travel came back positive for several of us. Our flights were canceled. Borders closed in front of us. And suddenly we weren’t delayed or mildly inconvenienced — we were locked down, indefinitely, in a foreign country that didn’t yet know what its own protocols were. We were told to quarantine for ten days before we could test again. We didn’t know where we’d be allowed to stay, how long we’d be there, or when we’d be permitted to leave the country. Communication with home was limited, and the anxieties of our families — along with our jobs and business obligations — multiplied in the silence. Information was inconsistent. Every plan we tried to form depended on someone else’s decision, someone else’s approval, someone else’s timeline. The government was enforcing rules it was still writing, which made trusting our fate to its hands difficult. Our illusion of control disappeared fast. At first, we did what most people do. We hunted for solutions that would get us home quicker — our contact could only move our flights to fourteen days out, past the minimum. We tried to manage our thoughts, distract ourselves, stay positive. But isolation strips away pretense, and within a few days the emotional toll was undeniable. We fought the urge to snap at one another as each of us began unraveling internally. Depression crept in. Motivation drained. The silence from home felt louder than any noise. We were physically safe, and internally we were not well. ### **The question that convicted me** About eight days into that first quarantine, during a conversation with the team, someone asked what the Lord had been speaking to us. I didn’t have an answer. And the realization convicted me — not because God wasn’t speaking, but because I hadn’t been listening. Weeks before the trip I had asked God to help me focus on Him again, to quiet the noise, to bring me back to attentiveness. And here I sat with every distraction stripped away, still struggling to sit with Him. I retreated to my room with my journal and asked His forgiveness — not out of guilt, but out of clarity. And there, in the stillness I had been resisting, God met me. The circumstances hadn’t changed. We were still quarantined, still waiting, still without answers. But something shifted. Joy returned — not excitement, not relief, but joy: the settled sense of being exactly where I was meant to be for that season. The place that had felt foreign and restrictive began to feel like home. The landscape took on a beauty it hadn’t had the day before — not because it improved, but because I had surrendered. That day marked a turning point for all of us. ### **Peace that didn’t match the circumstances** The days that followed were not easier in any practical sense. Plans kept falling apart. Testing dates arrived and failed results followed. Timelines stretched, setbacks stacked, and nothing moved forward. But something had changed inside us. We stopped forcing outcomes. We stopped measuring success by escape. We stopped resisting where we were. And peace settled in — not because we understood what God was doing, and not because anything resolved, but because we finally opened our tightly clenched fists and trusted Him. It was the quiet kind of shift that comes as you learn to [recognize God’s guidance in everyday life](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/). We began to see opportunities instead of obstacles: moments to encourage one another, chances to bless the few people we encountered. Joy surfaced naturally — no longer a coping mechanism but a genuine response to God’s presence. Our laughter wasn’t distraction; it was overflow. And the people around us noticed. They expected us to be miserable, anxious, defeated. Instead they found us content, grounded, present, spreading joy wherever we had the chance. Scripture came alive in those days — not as verses we clung to for reassurance, but as confirmation of what we were living. God was fighting battles we couldn’t fight and holding us steady while He did it. One ancient promise to a trapped and frightened people fit our locked room exactly: > *“Yahweh will fight for you, and you shall be still.”*— Exodus 14:14 (World English Bible) Eventually, after nearly double the required quarantine period, we tested again — and just as quietly as the delay had begun, it ended. We were cleared to go home. ### **The delay wasn’t the lesson** Looking back, I understand now that the delay itself was never the lesson. The peace was. God didn’t rush us out of there, didn’t explain Himself ahead of time, didn’t hand control back to us. He stayed with us — and we learned that His control over our lives is all we actually need. That season reshaped my understanding of peace. Peace is not certainty, and it is not control. Peace is the presence of God when everything else is uncertain. It didn’t come from understanding. It came from surrender — [a lesson God deepened in me again, having begun years earlier, in a campus parking lot](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/the-surrender/). Sometimes being on mission means working through human plans to serve others. And sometimes being on mission means learning to rest so deeply in God’s presence that His joy becomes the testimony. That season taught me that peace does not need to make sense to be real — and that God can be trusted not just to deliver us from difficulty, but to hold us within it. ### **Scriptural Framework** Isaiah 26:3 — the steadiness God promises to those who trust Him completely. Philippians 4:6–7 — our guarded hearts and minds even while circumstances remained unresolved. Isaiah 41:10 — God’s sustaining presence and strength when fear and uncertainty press in. Isaiah 43:2 — nothing will overcome us, because God’s presence goes with us. Exodus 14:14 — Yahweh fights for us; we need only be still. 2 Chronicles 20:17 — we don’t have to fight this battle; the Lord will deliver us. ### Warned Without Fear URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-without-fear/ Last updated: 2026-07-15T21:51:31.000Z *A strange thought interrupted an ordinary drive. Weeks later, a pileup on a bridge showed me what it had been for.* --- During graduate school I drove an old Toyota Camry back and forth between Manhattan, Kansas and home most weekends, because that was how I got time with my boys. The car had been unreliable for months. Once it warmed up, smoke would curl out from under the hood. I took it back to the dealership that sold it to me more than once, and every time they told me they couldn’t find anything wrong. I had no money to replace it and no other way to get where I needed to go, so I kept driving it. There was a lot riding on that little car. I was twenty-nine, in school full time, and in the middle of divorcing an abusive husband. The marriage had left me buried in debt, and I was working my way through bankruptcy. I was tired in a way that sleep didn’t touch. And most days I was carrying my children in a vehicle I didn’t trust. Then one afternoon, driving that familiar stretch of road, a thought dropped into my mind out of nowhere. *“I could just drive my car into the bridge.”* It was quick and cold and it made me sick. It didn’t sound like me. If anything it sounded like my ex-husband, the kind of thing he might say, something hollowed out and cruel. I said no out loud before I’d even finished registering it. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t suicidal. Whatever that was, it had come from outside of me, and I rejected it on the spot. Around the same time, I started having the same nightmare. My brakes would give out. I’d press the pedal to the floor and the car would keep rolling, and then there would be a wreck. I woke up shaking more than once. About two weeks after the intrusive thought, I was on the road again, this time driving to a vet appointment for a pet some friends in Kansas City were keeping while I was in school. I’d been driving for nearly two hours when I merged onto I-29 North and came up on the old Paseo Bridge, the one they’ve since replaced. Traffic was heavy and close, bumpers tightened up from a recent merge. And then, with no warning at all, everything stopped. Somebody up ahead had stopped on the bridge to gather bags of clothing that had blown out of their truck. The cars behind them braked hard, and the whole line concertinaed backward. I ran out of room. I hit the green Geo Metro in front of me. My airbag went off. The Geo crumpled until its back wheels were sitting in my engine compartment, and the force turned my car toward the railing. In my mirror I watched a dump truck coming, skidding, unable to stop. It halted a few feet off my back bumper. The driver climbed down and helped wrench my door open so I could get out. Then he apologized and left. His truck was overloaded, he said, and he couldn’t afford the fine if he stayed. When the wrecker came to pull the Geo off of me, the crew started to run a cable from my car to the bridge railing to get some leverage. Someone standing nearby shouted for them to stop. He knew that stretch of old railing and knew the metal had gone brittle. It never would have held. That was when it landed on me. If they had tied off to that railing, or if the dump truck hadn’t stopped when it did, my car would have gone through it and down into the Missouri River. The railing would have given way. But the truck stopped, and the railing was never tested. Thankfully, my kids weren't with me in the car that day. And I walked away with burns from the airbag and nothing worse. The car was totaled, and the insurance paid out enough, in cash, for me to buy something dependable. For years afterward I shook when I drove across bridges. The PTSD was real and it took a long time to ease. But that isn’t the part I’ve held onto. **God knew.** He knew I was frightened of that car. He knew I lay awake over the thought of my kids riding in it, that there was no money and no exit and no way for me to fix any of it myself. He knew what was waiting for me on that bridge. And without handing me a single detail, He made a way through it. He didn’t stop the accident from happening or give me the story in advance. What He did was keep everyone alive, take the car I couldn’t afford to keep out of my life, and provide what I could never have provided on my own. None of the warning made sense until it was over. I’ve since come to see that this is often just how [discernment works in ordinary life](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/): you don’t get the whole picture, only the next faithful step. Looking back, I don’t think God was trying to scare me. He was letting me know He saw what I couldn’t. I think He kept the specifics from me on purpose. If I had known what was coming, I’d have been afraid to leave the house. I’d have studied every route, distrusted every bridge, read danger into every car on the road, and fear would have crowded out trust. Instead it stayed simple. I didn’t spiral or overthink it. I was carried through something I had no control over and taken care of in a way I could never have arranged. That wasn’t the first time God had warned me in a car before something went wrong. It was the first time a warning arrived sounding like someone else’s voice inside my head. I’ve had to learn how to [tell when a thought isn’t really my own](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/naming-the-chaos-changed-everything/), and this was part of that education. The thought was never meant to frighten me. It was there to show me that something was off and that God already had His eye on it. I didn’t have to act on it or untangle it. I only had to notice it, refuse what wasn’t from Him, and keep going. I’ve come to trust the texture of God’s warnings. They don’t come in a panic. They don’t loop and spiral or badger me for attention. They arrive plainly, say what they came to say, and leave. Fear leans on you and won’t let up; God has never worked on me that way. Even when what He’s pointing at is genuinely dangerous, His warning stays quiet and steady and somehow full of peace. What I remember most now isn’t the wreck. It’s that I was not unseen. In a season when everything under me felt like it was sliding, God was paying attention to the smallest details of my days. I drove away from that bridge with something better than an explanation: the settled sense that He goes ahead of us to keep us, and that He is already there before we arrive. Whatever I couldn’t understand yet, He was holding it for me. Years later, the same kind of forewarning found me again. It had nothing to do with a car this time. What was coming was something far more consuming, and once again God went ahead of me. ## Scriptural Framework **Psalm 34:7 —** *The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.* **Psalm 37:23–24 —** *The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.* **John 13:7 —** *Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”* **Proverbs 20:24 —** *A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?* --- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. ### Warned Before Impact URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-me-before-impact/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T19:07:18.000Z I was in sixth grade, riding to school on a morning when we shouldn’t have been out on the roads at all. It had snowed in our part of town, but the snow had fallen on top of a couple inches of freezing rain. The result was one of those dangerous combinations that looks harmless at first glance — fresh powder resting on invisible ice. The kind that turns an ordinary commute into a gamble. School was inexplicably still in session. My mom was driving my dad’s business car, a white Pontiac Grand Am, and we were doing our best to take it slow. We had just turned left on a green light onto a north–south road, inching forward carefully and preparing to navigate the downhill stretch ahead. That’s when I heard it. A grinding, skidding sound behind us. Locked up tires on ice. Fast. I turned around in my seat to see what was happening, and through the rear window I saw a white panel van sliding straight through the intersection toward us. Its wheels were locked. There was no control. No stopping it. We were moving so slowly that we were essentially a stationary target. In that split second before impact, something happened I didn’t yet have language for. As I watched the van bearing down on us, a thought entered my mind. It was calm. Direct. Clear. > “Slide down slightly in your seat and place the back of your head against the seat before impact.” It wasn’t panic or instinct—it was clear. It didn’t feel rushed or frantic. It felt deliberate. Without questioning it, I obeyed. I slid down in my seat, pressed the back of my head firmly against the headrest, and held still. Seconds later, the impact came. The jolt was enormous. The van hit us with enough force to shear the bolts that held the front seats to the floor. Our car lurched forward and began sliding down the icy hill. In that moment, time seemed to slow. I watched several of my large, heavy schoolbooks lift up from the back seat and float — almost gently — through the air between the two front seats, right at face level, before slamming into the dashboard. Had I been sitting upright, turned around with my neck twisted, those books would have struck me squarely in the face. The angle alone could have caused serious injury. But I wasn’t sitting upright. I had listened. And because I had listened, I walked away with nothing more than mild whiplash. I wasn’t bleeding. I wasn’t broken. Mom went on to work that day. Dad let me skip school and stay with him. Life resumed as though nothing extraordinary had happened. But something had. At the time, I didn’t understand what that moment really was. I didn’t know that God speaks into real-life situations with quiet clarity. I didn’t know that His protection can feel entirely natural when it’s happening. I didn’t know that discernment can arrive as a single thought that doesn’t feel like your own— the kind of quiet guidance that becomes recognizable as we learn [how discernment actually works in everyday life](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/). Only later, with adult eyes and years of faith behind me, did I recognize that morning for what it was. It was the first time I clearly heard a prompting from God — and obeyed. There was nothing dramatic about it in the moment. No spiritual language. No heightened emotion. No sense of something mystical taking place. Just a simple instruction at exactly the right time. This story matters to me because not every prompting is about direction, or calling, or spiritual insight. Sometimes it’s much simpler than that. Sometimes God warns because He loves. Sometimes He protects because we belong to Him. Sometimes He speaks because He sees what we cannot. That morning didn’t leave me afraid of car accidents. It didn’t make me hyper-aware or obsessed with listening for supernatural messages. It simply became a quiet marker in my life — a gentle indication that God was present, attentive, and willing to step into an ordinary day to keep me safe. I share this to remind you that God often shows up without spectacle. His care is frequently unremarkable in the moment; known only by the fruit it leaves behind. Sometimes discernment looks like protection. Sometimes God’s voice sounds like a simple instruction. And sometimes obedience is as small as sliding down in a car seat before impact. At the time, I didn’t have language for what had happened. I only knew that I had listened — and that listening mattered. Years later, I would recognize this same kind of warning again, this time with far more understanding and far more at stake — a moment that taught me even more clearly that [God’s warnings do not come wrapped in fear](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-without-fear/). If you're having difficulty figuring out discernment in your own life, here's where I'll encourage you. You don’t have to be spiritually mature, articulate, or confident to hear from God. You don’t need special language or the perfect spiritual posture. Sometimes His guidance comes in the smallest, quietest ways — a thought that steadies you, a pause that protects you, a nudge that doesn’t demand explanation. If you’ve ever wondered whether God notices the details of your life, this is your reminder that He does. He sees what you cannot. He speaks when it matters. And even small acts of obedience — the kind you barely recognize at the time — can result in more care and protection than you realize. ### Discernment Isn’t Drama — It’s Daily Life URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/ Last updated: 2026-07-15T21:44:53.000Z *We picture discernment as goosebumps and dramatic signs. Mostly it’s quieter and far more useful than that — a steady knowing in the middle of ordinary decisions. Here’s what it actually is, and how to tell it from mere discomfort.* --- Discernment is one of those words people misunderstand almost on contact. Some hear it and picture dramatic warnings and spiritual theatrics. Others assume it’s rare — reserved for pastors, prophets, or Christians with some special gifting. It’s neither. Discernment isn’t dramatic. It’s daily. It’s the ordinary, everyday wisdom God gives as you learn to walk closely with Him, woven into how you listen, decide, respond, and love. Think of it as a lens: it brings God’s activity into focus so you can recognize His hand in things you’d otherwise miss. Before this blog goes deeper into the stories ahead, I want to be clear about what I mean by discernment — and what I don’t — because it’s the lens you’ll be reading everything else through. And here’s the part worth saying up front: quiet is not the same as small. Discernment is usually quiet, but it’s exactly what lets you read the loud moments correctly when they come. ## Discomfort Is Not Discernment This is the distinction I most want you to carry: feeling uneasy about something doesn’t make it unbiblical, unsafe, or spiritually wrong. Discomfort is a human reaction. Discernment is a work of the Spirit. They are not the same thing, and confusing them will send you chasing shadows. Plenty of things unsettle us simply because they’re unfamiliar, or because we’re being stretched. Scripture itself often unsettles us before it comforts us. Conviction is uncomfortable. Correction is uncomfortable. Growth almost always is. Treat every uneasy feeling as a spiritual alarm and you’ll wall yourself off from the very things God uses to grow you. Real discernment doesn’t run on fear. It doesn’t shout or rush. It brings clarity — sometimes sobering clarity, but clarity — and it settles you instead of winding you up. That’s the tell. “This makes me uncomfortable” is a feeling. “The Holy Spirit is warning me” carries peace even when it calls for caution. [God’s warnings don’t come wrapped in fear](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-without-fear/) — so when something arrives dripping with dread and suspicion, that’s a reason to test it, not to trust it. ## What It Actually Looks Like For me, discernment usually shows up small and unannounced — mid-sentence, mid-decision, mid-day. A calm knowing. A quiet check in my spirit that says wait. A sense that something looks fine on paper but isn’t quite right, [the kind of quiet protection](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-me-before-impact/) I only recognize as protection later. Waking with someone on my heart and knowing I’m meant to pray for them. A thought that hands me something true I couldn’t have known on my own. Sometimes it’s just the awareness that a situation needs God’s wisdom before I go making assumptions. Often, He confirms it by repetition. Say I sense Him nudging me to go walk and pray through the streets of Lake Annett. I’ll ask, plainly, whether I’m really hearing Him — and then He starts to answer. That afternoon, “Lake Annett” turns up in a newspaper article. The next day, a radio announcer says it. A week later, a stranger nearby mentions visiting there. Every time, the words jump off the page or burn into my ears. He doesn’t let me miss it. None of that is spooky, and none of it is spectacle. It’s just walking with God with your eyes open. And that same quiet attentiveness is what made sense of the louder nights, too — the ones where [something felt off](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/naming-the-chaos-changed-everything/) long before I could explain it. The lens is ordinary. What it lets you see sometimes isn’t. ## It’s for Every Christian The biggest misunderstanding I want to clear up is that discernment is out of reach — something for the spiritually elite or the naturally intuitive. It isn’t. It grows the way faith grows: steadily and honestly, through Scripture, listening, obedience, humility, and practice. Discernment doesn’t make you special. It makes you surrendered. It’s both a gift and a skill. God gives it freely, and Scripture describes the skill side plainly — as senses trained by use: > *“But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.”*— Hebrews 5:14 (World English Bible) That’s the pattern. You can’t force discernment, but you can exercise it — by reading His Word, praying, and staying open to His leading. A few guardrails keep it healthy. It always aligns with Scripture; if you’re not in the Word, you’re simply not equipped to interpret what you sense, full stop. It’s held humbly and tested, because understanding tends to mature over time. It draws you closer to God rather than puffing you up. And it leaves room to be wrong, because He teaches us through our missteps as surely as through our hits. ## Why This Matters Here I’m telling you all of this now because discernment is the lens the rest of these stories are read through. Without it, some of the moments I’ll describe would look random, or frightening, or disconnected. With it, they become grounded and purposeful — you can see what was natural, what was spiritual, and what God was doing in the middle of it. Discernment is how supernatural moments get interpreted, how spiritual warfare gets understood, how a prompting gets weighed, and how fear gets resisted instead of obeyed. So here’s my encouragement as you read on. Discernment isn’t about chasing the supernatural or manufacturing goosebumps. It’s about walking with God in truth and paying attention. If you want it, ask Him — He gives it freely. If you already sense it at work in you, ask Him to sharpen it. And if something in these stories unsettles you, take it straight to God; He doesn’t meet us with confusion or fear, but with clarity. Because most of the time, discernment doesn’t announce itself. It comes in a thought you didn’t expect, a pause you didn’t plan, a sense that something is off before you understand why — and sometimes you only recognize it for what it was after the moment has passed. Quiet, but never small. ### Naming the Chaos Changed Everything URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/naming-the-chaos-changed-everything/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T02:17:21.000Z *For years I blamed caffeine and hormones. Then, at two in the morning, God named what was actually happening in my mind — and once it had a name, I finally knew how to fight it.* --- For a few years now, I’ve been waking around two in the morning. At first I chalked it up to this stage of life — my sleep had already been broken for a while by physical symptoms, and that explanation fit. But the symptoms eased, and the two a.m. wake-ups didn’t. They kept coming, with no noise, no discomfort, nothing outside me to blame. And they never came alone. The moment my eyes opened, a rush of thoughts came with them — fast, scattered, insistent reminders of everything I needed to do. On the surface they looked like my mind keeping me organized. Underneath, every one of them was wired to fear: fear of letting someone down, of missing a deadline, of forgetting something that mattered. Within (very few) minutes the adrenaline would have me wide awake, and sleep was gone for two or three hours. Because my body never slept in to make up for it, the next day started already emptied out — foggy, irritable, too scattered to focus. Worst of all, it dulled my ability to pray, to read Scripture, to sit quietly with God. Anything that reliably steals a believer’s rest and crowds out her time with God is worth a hard second look. The thoughts never felt chosen. They felt pushed — like being yanked from one false emergency to the next, just enough to keep my mind churning and my body awake. And it always came at the same moment of weakness: in the dark, in the quiet, with my guard down. By now it had happened enough times that I recognized the familiar pattern when it started. But this night was different. Even from the first minute — the same assault I'd come to know, turned all the way up. I pushed back the way I'd learned to, singing worship songs in my head. The words wouldn't hold. They dissolved mid-line, and my focus slid off them toward the churn no matter how hard I clamped down on it. It was like doing mental gymnastics in a room with the gravity doubled — every effort to lift my thoughts toward God cost far more than it should have, and something kept dragging them back to the floor. And the harder I reached for praise, the heavier the pull became. When the lyrics slipped away for good, I turned to prayer, and even shaping the words took a deliberate, grinding effort. I told God about the agitation and asked Him, plainly, what was going on. Something in me knew this wasn't a night to endure. It was a night to be dealt with. In the middle of that prayer, He answered. Direct and simple, I understood Him to say: “You have chaos in your mind.” It didn’t land as an accusation. It landed as a diagnosis. And all at once several things came clear — the chaos wasn’t coming from me. It wasn’t my personality. It wasn’t ordinary stress. It was something working on my thoughts from the outside. The word “chaos” carried weight. I’d recently heard a teaching that described the biblical Leviathan as the embodiment of chaos — an ancient adversary of the Most High. Some hold that image as metaphor, so I don’t build doctrine on it; I hold it loosely and let Scripture have the final word. But it helped me see what the word was pointing at. What I knew for certain that night was this: the chaos had a spiritual source. It wasn’t random mental noise. It was something stirring up fears and accusations faster than I could sort them. Naming it changed everything. The moment I understood what I was actually facing, every one of those sleepless nights snapped into focus. Knowing God was right there with me, I prayed with a settled authority. My husband slept beside me; the room was still. In my mind I spoke to the chaos directly and asked God to break its hold on me. Scripture had already told me how this works: > *“Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”* > — James 4:7 (World English Bible) So I resisted. And it pushed back. I felt actual pressure in my head — not pain, but a physical push against my brain as I prayed. My thoughts crowded and tangled, whipped up like a whirlwind that only intensified the longer I stayed at it. I didn’t flinch. I kept praying within the thought storm, and kept asking God to show me what was happening. The pressure didn’t lift all at once, and I sensed there was something underneath it. I asked the Holy Spirit to show me any foothold — anything I’d agreed with, believed, or left unconfessed — that was giving the chaos room to work. As things surfaced, I brought them to God one by one, confessed what needed confessing, and asked Him to clear out anything that didn’t belong. As I did, the pressure — physical, mental, spiritual — began to give way. And I remembered that an emptied space doesn’t stay empty; it has to be filled. So I asked the Holy Spirit to move into the rooms I’d just cleared, to fill my mind with His peace and His presence. The strain loosened. My thoughts settled. Warmth and calm moved in. When I finally looked at the clock, two hours had passed. I closed my eyes and slept in total peace. I want to be clear about one thing: I was never afraid. Even while the thoughts raged and I could feel something pulling at my head, God’s presence was steady, and I knew I was protected. The night was anxious, but it wasn’t frightening. It was clarifying. And instead of waking wrung out like I usually did after a night like that, I woke with a peace and clarity I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something had shifted. For years I’d wanted to write about [the supernatural moments in my life](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/what-i-mean-when-i-say-supernatural/) and never known how to begin. That morning, the wanting became a calling. This blog started here. When I walk through something like this, I always take it back to Scripture and let His Word test it. A few passages have shaped how I understand what was going on these nights: Ephesians 6:12, that the real fight is against unseen spiritual forces and not flesh and blood; 2 Corinthians 10:5, that we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ; Isaiah 26:3, that the mind stayed on God is kept in perfect peace; and 1 Peter 5:8, to stay alert, because the adversary prowls. A couple of passages — Job 41 and Isaiah 27 — speak in poetic, symbolic language about spiritual beings, and they stretched my thinking about the word “chaos” without my forcing them past what they say. And in Matthew 12:43–45, Jesus warns about a life swept clean and left empty — an open door for what was removed to walk right back in. It’s why, once God clears something out, I don’t leave the room vacant. I ask Him to fill it. ## What that night taught me Not every thought that enters my mind is mine. Scripture is plain that there are spiritual forces at work, and not all of them are for me. Their reach is limited — God holds the leash — but they still push through distraction, fear, confusion, and discouragement, always aiming to pull a believer away from peace and away from God. The timing was never random. It came at the same hour, night after night, and left me too foggy and scattered to pray. That was the point. The target was never my sleep. It was my clarity. And the to-do lists were never the real problem — the fear underneath them was. I’ve leaned on lists for years without trouble. What was different here was the dread bolted onto them: fear of failing, of falling behind, of letting someone down. That fear was the fuel. Most of all: naming a thing exposes it. While the chaos worked in the dark, it was easy to doubt anything was wrong at all. The moment God named it, the pressure moved off of me, and I knew exactly where to stand and what to resist. He didn’t just point at the problem — He handed me understanding, and taught me to tell the difference between my own thoughts and something intruding on them. That became one of the clearest lessons I’ve learned about [how discernment actually works in everyday life](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/). God is willing to show us what we’re up against and how to stand against it. The chaos was never coming from me — and the moment I knew that, I could resist it with clarity and peace. If you’ve ever fought intrusive, unsettling thoughts, ask God to show you what’s behind them. He is faithful to bring the truth into the places that feel confusing, and to steady your mind with His peace. That night was a turning point. It told me the things I’d lived through in the quiet hours weren’t random or meaningless — and that God will bring understanding the moment we ask. I’d carried these stories privately for years, never sure how to tell them. That morning, with a clear head and a settled spirit, I knew it was time. This blog is where I finally do. ### Yes, It Was Really Him URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/what-i-mean-when-i-say-supernatural/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T23:08:32.000Z *I don’t mean spooky, and I don’t mean metaphor. I mean God still speaks, still warns, still shows up in the middle of ordinary days — and I’ve stopped explaining that away.* --- You’ll see me use the word supernatural on this blog, and I want you to know exactly what I mean by it — because people load that word with all kinds of things I don’t intend. When I say supernatural, I mean it plainly: above the natural. That’s all. Not Hollywood, not New Age, not spooky. Just God working in ways that ordinary cause and effect can’t account for. And that isn’t a fringe idea. It’s the Bible’s own account of reality. Strip every supernatural moment out of Scripture and you’d have almost nothing left. God speaks. Angels show up. Dreams carry warnings. The Holy Spirit leads, comforts, and corrects. There are battles going on that no eye can see. Scripture takes an unseen world completely for granted. There’s a scene in 2 Kings I’ve never gotten over. Elisha’s servant wakes at dawn to find an enemy army surrounding the city — horses and chariots everywhere — and he panics. Elisha isn’t afraid. He tells the young man there are more with them than against them, and then he prays one thing: *“Yahweh, please open his eyes, that he may see.” Yahweh opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.* — 2 Kings 6:17 (World English Bible) The enemy army was real. But the far greater reality — a hillside blazing with God’s own cavalry — had been there the whole time. The servant simply couldn’t see it until God opened his eyes. That is the world I mean when I say supernatural: not a world that isn’t there, but one most of us haven’t been shown yet. I have my own reason to love that verse. Years later, God let me see chariots of my own — but [that’s a story for another day](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/arise-shine-and-wait/). So when I use the word, I’m not reaching for something exotic. I’m describing the world the Bible says we already live in — and the world I’ve watched God move in, personally, more than once. The things I’ll tell you happened in daylight, in ordinary rooms, some of them with other people right there. They came with timing too precise to write off as coincidence — [a thought arriving at the exact second I needed it](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/when-god-warned-me-before-impact/), a dream that only made sense years later, a warning that turned out to be protection. I hold all of it against Scripture. That is my anchor and my test. If something contradicts what God has already said in His Word, I don’t trust it — I let it go. Learning to tell the real thing from my own imagination, or from something worse, is what Scripture calls discernment, and [I’ve had to learn it in very practical ways](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/). But testing a thing is not the same as being afraid of it. I won’t shrink these accounts down to make them easier to swallow, and I won’t dress them up to make them more impressive. I’ll tell you what happened, plainly, and let God carry the weight. I sat on the word supernatural for years, because it’s so easily misread. But no other word is honest. What I lived through was above the natural, and calling it anything less would be a lie. So here is the frame to read the rest of this blog with: we live in a spiritual world, and God is active in it. The stories ahead are about His protection, His warnings, His voice, His interference with things meant to harm me, and His nearness on ordinary days. The emphasis is always on Him, never on the experience. If something here unsettles you, take it straight to God — He is not the author of fear, and He will meet you with clarity. And if you’ve ever wondered whether something was just a passing thought or actually Him, [I’ve written about one of those nights](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/naming-the-chaos-changed-everything/). Start there, and see what you think. ### A Childhood Glimpse of God’s Joy URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/a-childhood-glimpse-of-gods-joy/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T18:25:04.000Z I grew up living in two very different worlds. At home, spirituality was heavy, confusing, and threaded with practices I didn’t have language for at the time. But at school, my mother—who didn’t attend church, didn’t pray openly, and didn’t follow Scripture—insisted I be placed in a private Christian environment. I didn’t understand why she was so determined to do this. I only knew there was something safer at school than what I lived with after the final bell. I didn’t have the vocabulary then to describe the contrast. I only felt it. And one small moment during those years became a quiet turning point. ### **A Ride I Never Forgot** I can still remember sitting in Mrs. Johnson’s car. I don’t recall where she was driving us—some school activity, no doubt—but I remember the atmosphere. She was there. Her husband was there. And both of them were lighthearted in a way that felt completely foreign to me. They were funny. Not polite-church-lady funny. *Genuinely funny.* A little goofy. Unpretentious. Free. They teased each other gently. They made silly comments. They laughed easily. And underneath it all was unmistakable kindness—warm, steady, and safe. I had never seen Christians behave like that. Up to that point, my understanding of faith came mostly from rigid environments, rule-focused teaching, and a whole lot of guilt and perfectionism. Christianity felt like something you performed—carefully, quietly, as if trying not to offend God. But here, from the back seat of her car, I saw joy. I saw believers who weren’t uptight. I saw people who clearly loved God… and weren’t afraid to be human. Later in life, I would learn that [spiritual discernment rarely looks dramatic](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/discernment-isnt-drama-its-daily-life/). It grows quietly through everyday encounters like this one. ### **What Happened Inside Me** Something shifted in me that day. A piece of the tough outer shell I had learned to hold together—the shell built from fear, performance, and the need to be “good enough”—cracked and fell away. And instead of feeling exposed, I felt **relief**. I felt **safe**. I felt a little rebellious. It was almost too good to be true. That you could love God and laugh. That you could belong to Him and still be silly. That you didn’t have to live locked behind rules and fear. I remember hoping—*praying*—that this tiny glimpse was the real version of Christianity. That God might actually be… like this. Kind. Joyful. Approachable. Someone who delighted in His people rather than scrutinized them. I didn’t understand it then, but I know now: something soft and sacred was happening inside me. ### **What I See Now That I’m Grown** Looking back, I believe God knew how little of His true nature I had been shown. He knew the false pictures I had been absorbing. He knew the confusion and darkness surrounding my early years. He knew how much unlearning my heart would one day have to do. So He gave me a preview. Through two ordinary adults in a car, He showed me: - that He has joy - that He delights in His people - that He isn’t fragile, rigid, or easily disappointed - that His presence brings freedom, not pressure - that laughter belongs to Him long before it belongs to anyone else And through their silliness—true silliness, the kind that doesn’t care what others think—He gave me permission to loosen the tight grip I had on perfectionism. He let me glimpse a God who loves without scowling, who watches without condemning, who lifts burdens instead of piling more on—a God who is serious *and* has a sense of humor. This was my first gentle correction from God. The opening crack in a wall I didn’t yet know was there. ### **A Quiet Encouragement for You** Sometimes God reaches us not through thunderclaps, but through the lightheartedness of His people. Sometimes the smallest moment—a car ride, a laugh, a kindness—becomes an anchor we don’t recognize until years later. If you’ve ever wondered whether God sees you, or whether He cares enough to weave small kindnesses into your story, I hope this reminds you: **He does**. He often begins our rescue long before we know we need saving. Thank you for walking through this memory with me. ### Why I’m Writing Under a Pen Name URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/why-im-writing-under-a-pen-name/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T18:17:08.000Z Greetings, fellow traveler. You are welcome here. Pull up a chair and get comfortable. We’ll talk about life, purpose, and the lessons that have shaped us. Some of what I share may feel familiar, some may be new, and some are the kinds of experiences people rarely talk about openly. But everything you read here is honest. Nothing is embellished. Every story comes from my own life. These stories are shared as honest accounts of a life walked with God, [offered simply as witness](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/why-these-stories-are-being-told/) rather than persuasion. Some moments were strange. Some were painful. Some were hard to understand until years later. But all of them point toward God’s faithfulness, and all of them carry hope. My prayer is that what you read here lightens your load, strengthens your faith, or simply helps you feel less alone. I’ve wanted to write these stories for more than thirty years. The desire was always there, waiting for me to grow into the courage and clarity needed to tell them truthfully. I needed time to face my own blind spots, heal from certain wounds, and see the lessons with enough distance to share them responsibly. Over the years, I’ve learned things that reshaped how I understand this life and what God is doing in it. If even one of those pieces fits something you’ve been searching for, I’ll be grateful. Some of what I’ll share is deeply personal, and some parts of my story involve others whose privacy deserves to be protected. That has created hesitation in the past. I’m not looking for attention, and none of these stories exist to bring glory to me. For all these reasons—and a few practical ones—I’ve chosen to write under a pen name. A pen name allows me to write openly without creating problems for anyone connected to my story. I’ve lived through difficult seasons—strained relationships, spiritual battles, wounds, and the slow work of healing. I want to speak plainly about what God has done in my life without exposing or embarrassing the people involved. Some experiences include family members or former spouses, and sharing those details under my real name could create unnecessary conflict for them or for the people they love. That isn’t my aim. I’m not interested in stirring up old pain or assigning blame. My goal is to tell the truth about God’s work in my life and to offer clarity to anyone walking an earlier stretch of the same path. So you know what to expect, this blog will cover parts of my life that include supernatural experiences, moments of discernment, dreams, questions about identity, seasons of healing, and times when I’ve had to stand firm in spiritual warfare. I will share these things honestly, but always within the boundaries of Scripture. I’m not here to sensationalize anything or build a platform on dramatic stories. I’m simply telling the truth about what I’ve walked through. I do not hold a seminary degree, and I’m not writing doctrine. My life is my testimony, and Scripture is the foundation beneath it. My hope is that as you read, you will begin to recognize God’s presence in your own life—maybe in quiet ways, maybe in ways you’ve overlooked, or maybe in ways you haven’t had language for yet. At the heart of this blog is a simple goal: to affirm that the supernatural does exist without exaggeration or fear, and to help you understand what you’re experiencing through the lens of God’s goodness. The world is not as quiet spiritually as we tend to assume, but God is steady, faithful, and present in the midst of it all. My aim is to point you toward Him, not toward the experiences themselves. These stories don’t imply that every experience in life carries a hidden or mysterious meaning. Many things happen simply because of our choices. And some things just happen in the normal rhythm of being human. The stories in this blog are ones where meaning eventually became clear—but they are the exception, not the rule. Most of my days are ordinary, quiet, and uneventful. I’m not claiming expertise or special insight beyond what God has revealed to me personally. I’m sharing these moments because they have shown me the kindness and nearness of our Creator, and I hope they encourage you in the same way. If something in my story resonates with your own walk with Him, then this writing will have served its purpose. This is not a platform for spiritual spectacle. I will treat these subjects with humility and reverence, avoiding sensationalism or anything that distracts from who God is. The emphasis belongs on Him—not on the gifts, not on the experiences, not on the unusual moments. We don’t pursue the gifts; we pursue God. And sometimes, in telling the stories of His gifts, we learn more about His nature and His love for us. Why write now? The nudge has been there for years. I’ve sat down to begin more than once, but the timing was never right. My thoughts were tangled, and I didn’t yet have the clarity or maturity to tell the story in a way that honored what God had done. During some of the hardest seasons, I kept journals simply to clear my head and to document what I couldn’t make sense of at the time. Those journals have waited quietly for this moment. With distance and healing, the events make more sense now, and the larger picture has begun to unfold. Healing had to come first. I couldn’t tell the story until the fruit was ready—until the lessons had settled, and my perspective had been shaped by God rather than by pain. A recent encounter with Him became the turning point. It was the final confirmation I needed to begin the work I had been avoiding for so long. And now, with a pen name providing the privacy and freedom I need, the last barrier has been lifted. Marin A. Welles is the name I chose because I like it, simply. It also holds personal meaning connected to my life story, and it serves as a reminder of who I am in God. **Marin** is often associated with the sea. In Scripture, the sea can represent depth, uncertainty, or chaos—and also the places where God shows His power and brings His people through safely. **Alona** is a name that appeared in a recent dream. It is the feminine Hebrew form related to “oak,” as in the Oaks of Righteousness. It represents strength, steadiness, and identity rooted in God. **Welles** brings to mind places of replenishment and restoration—wells of water, truth, and provision. God often meets people at wells, providing what is needed and drawing up what has been hidden beneath the surface. For me, the name as a whole reflects a simple truth: > **a life brought through deep waters, rooted in God, restored beside His living water.** It reminds me of the identity God has been shaping in me over the years, and it gives me the privacy and clarity I need to write these stories with honesty and safety. Moving forward, I’ll be sharing stories from my life—some gentle, some deep, all honest. We’ll move at a steady, safe pace, beginning with everyday encounters and gradually working toward the heavier parts of my testimony. Some topics are light, and some are difficult to revisit. I’ll be fair to my own soul in the process, giving space for grief where it’s needed and letting God address any layers of guilt or shame that surface as I write. This blog is grounded in truth—real truth, not personalized versions of it—anchored in Scripture, humility, and clarity. I won’t overreach, exaggerate, or force meaning onto something that doesn’t carry it. My hope is simple: that these stories help someone feel less alone, less confused, and more aware of God’s steady presence in their own life. Before we begin, I want to say thank you. Sharing these stories is vulnerable, and I’m grateful for your willingness to sit with me in a spirit of honesty and grace. My hope is that as you read, God will use these words to encourage you and draw your attention more fully to Him. Do you mind if we pray? My prayer is simple: *Father in heaven, I ask that You use every word in this blog for encouragement. Anchor Your Holy Spirit in the midst of it. Be in the room with me as I write, and with the reader as they read. Give each of us a deeper understanding of You. Show them Your love and Your personal, passionate commitment to their life. All glory to the One True God. In Jesus’ name, amen.* With that foundation laid, I invite you to walk with me through these real, unpolished accounts of a faithful Savior who meets us in the everyday details of our lives. Thank you again for being here. \~Marin ### Why I’m Finally Telling These Stories URL: https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/why-these-stories-are-being-told/ Last updated: 2026-07-13T22:45:15.000Z *I’m not writing to impress anyone or to win an argument. I’m writing because these things are true: God has spoken, warned, rescued, and shown up across my whole life — and someone needs to hear it.* --- This is a place for remembering. I’m going to tell you the truth about my life with God — plainly, and without shrinking it down to fit what sounds reasonable. These aren’t teaching pieces. They’re true accounts of God’s presence, His protection, His correction, and His kindness across every season I’ve lived. Some of what happened was gentle. Some of it was hard. Some of it took me years to understand. All of it points back to a God who was already at work long before I noticed Him. He has spoken to me. He has warned me before danger. He has met me in a dream and told me my own name. He has pulled me out of pits I dug myself. For a long time I explained those things away, or softened them so no one would think me strange. I’m done doing that. What happened, happened — and God gets the credit at full size. This blog is where I say so. Not to impress anyone, not to win an argument, not to build a platform — but to bear witness to what God has done, and to help you recognize His hand in your own life. What I write is supernatural in the plain meaning of the word: God moving in ways I can’t fully explain. It never leaves the ground of Scripture, and it never leaves the ground of sanity. [Here’s what I mean by that.](https://www.walkinginthequietlight.com/what-i-mean-when-i-say-supernatural/) I write under a pen name so I can tell the truth freely and protect the people who appear in these stories. The name is changed. The accounts are not. So if you’ve wondered whether God was really at work in your waiting, if you’ve felt His nudge and not known what to do with it, if you’re learning to trust Him before you have all the answers — you’re in the right place. We’ll tell the truth here. We’ll give God the glory He is actually due. And we’ll watch His goodness unfold, one true story at a time.