by Lori Carlson, 2026

There was a time
when the world felt like a locked room
and I was certain
I had misplaced the key.

Hope sounded like other people’s music—
faint, muffled through walls
I didn’t know how to open.
I lived on borrowed breath,
counting the hours,
making agreements with the dark
just to get through the night.

I didn’t fall into belief.
I edged toward it.
Paused.
Questioned.
Turned back more than once.

At first, belief was not a truth—
it was a maybe.
A thin thread I didn’t trust
but held anyway
because my hands were empty.

I believed enough to sit still.
Enough to listen.
Enough to admit I didn’t know
how to save myself alone.

Something met me there—
not loudly,
not dramatically—
but steadily,
like a presence that had been waiting
without judgment
for me to notice.

Faith didn’t arrive as certainty.
It grew quietly,
in the spaces where I stopped fighting,
where I let myself be held
by practices older than my fear,
by people who saw me clearly
and stayed.

I learned that faith is not escape.
It is participation.
It asks for my attention,
my honesty,
my willingness to show up again
after breaking.

Now I trust myself differently.
Not because I am flawless,
but because I am no longer alone
inside my own life.

I trust the voice beneath the noise.
The strength that returns
when I stop pretending I’m fine.
The power that moves through me
when I stop trying to control the outcome.

I believe in growth.
I believe in repair.
I believe in the slow work of becoming and of coming to believe

And I have faith—
not as an idea,
but as a lived relationship—
with something larger than my fear,
closer than my breath,
steady enough to lean into
on days when belief feels thin.

I am still learning.
Still listening.
Still choosing to trust
what carries me forward
when I cannot see the road.

And that,
today,
is enough.