A New Season, New Freedom, New Hope | Joshua 1 & 2

It has been a long time since I’ve written here.

When I stopped writing last July, I didn’t know how much life would change before I found my way back to this space. Last July, while hiking, a screw from my previous tibia surgery went through my leg, and I found myself facing another major reconstructive surgery on that same bone. There is a particular exhaustion that comes with having to heal something you have already spent so much time healing. Then came months of financial hardship. The weight of trying to recover while life continued to require things of me. Eventually, my husband and I separated. Some parts of that story will remain private. But I want to be honest about the ground from which I am writing. There has been physical pain, financial uncertainty, and the quiet grief of realizing my life would look very different from the one I had imagined.

Somewhere in all of it, hope began to feel expensive.

When you have already been disappointed, wanting something deeply can feel like leaving a tender place uncovered. You learn how to brace yourself. You begin preparing for loss before there is anything to lose. I had language for that posture.

If it’s God’s will, it will happen.

It is what it is.

Sometimes those words came from trust. Other times, I am beginning to recognize, they gave me somewhere to hide. I could say them and close the conversation before I had to admit how much I wanted God to move. Recently, as I’ve been studying Joshua 1 and 2, I’ve felt the Holy Spirit gently bringing me back to that place. The place where I stopped expecting.The place where I began wondering whether being surrendered meant learning to want less.

Joshua 1 opens in the aftermath of loss. Moses has died. Joshua is being asked to lead a people into a future he has never navigated, and the Jordan still lies ahead.

I keep returning to the fact that God speaks courage into that moment. There is responsibility to take up. There are provisions to prepare. There is instruction to remember and obey. And woven through it all is God’s assurance that He will be with Joshua. The courage God calls for has somewhere to rest. As I read, I find myself thinking about how often I have wanted the entire road explained before taking another step. I want to know what the next season will require of me. I want to know whether I will be hurt again. I want to know how everything will come together, especially after watching so much come apart. Joshua is given a calling, instructions, and the promise of God’s presence. He still has to move forward.

In January of 2025, while praying, I sensed the Lord impress these words on my heart: “You have to cross the Jordan to live out your anointing.”

I have carried that sentence through seasons I did not understand. I am still prayerfully discerning its application. Reading these chapters again has brought me back to the question of what it means to follow God into unfamiliar territory, to remain teachable, to obey what He has made clear, and to trust Him with what remains hidden.

For me, right now, that includes finding the courage to hope again and to write again.

Then there is Rahab.

Joshua 2 brings us into the home of a woman living inside Jericho. She has heard what the Lord has done. She speaks of the Red Sea and the victories God has given His people. Those testimonies have reached her, and she believes that Israel’s God is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Her faith takes shape in her actions. She shelters the spies. She asks that her family be spared. She receives their instructions and ties the scarlet cord in her window. That detail has stayed with me. The walls are still standing. The city around her has not yet changed. The rescue she has asked for has not yet arrived. But the cord is already there.

In my notes, I wrote: “The walls haven’t fallen yet. The cord already hangs from her window. Her hope appears before her rescue does.”

I keep picturing that thread of scarlet against the window, a visible response to the assurance she has received. Rahab’s story challenges the part of me that wants to wait until everything feels safe before allowing myself to believe. She takes the next faithful action while she is still living inside the uncertainty. Her circumstances have not yet caught up with what she believes about God. And even before Israel enters the land, this quiet work is unfolding inside Jericho. A woman is responding in faith. A household’s deliverance is being arranged. There is more happening than anyone standing outside those walls could see. That gives me room to breathe when my own view is limited.

I am learning to examine what I mean when I say, “If it’s Your will.”

Jesus Himself teaches us to yield to the Father’s will. There is holiness in that surrender. I want a heart that can receive God’s answer, including an answer that requires grief, change, or a different direction. But I also want to bring Him an honest request. I want to be able to say, Lord, this matters to me. This is what I am asking for. This is where I need provision. This is where I long for healing. This is what I am afraid to hope for again. I can pray specifically and remain teachable. I can ask boldly and leave the answer in His hands. The promises given to Joshua and the assurance given to Rahab belong to their stories; I cannot turn every desire of my own into a promise God has made. What these chapters are teaching me is how faith responds to Him: with courage, attention, obedience, and a willingness to act before the whole story has unfolded.

I do not have to call every possibility certain to pray with expectation. And if an answer comes differently than I hoped, I want to meet that moment with God when it comes. I am learning how much of my life I have spent grieving possibilities in advance, trying to make future disappointment hurt less. I want to let Him meet me here, in the day I actually have. So I am writing again. There are still questions on the table. There are things I am rebuilding slowly. There are prayers I am learning to say with my whole heart instead of cushioning every word against the possibility of disappointment. Returning to Letters from Manasseh feels like a small, faithful step I can take from here. I can open Scripture. I can tell the truth about what this season has held. I can remember what God has already carried me through. I can tend to the life in front of me while remaining hopeful about what I cannot yet see.

Hope can stay alive while I keep living. Perhaps you know what it feels like to become careful with your prayers. Perhaps there is something you barely mention anymore because saying it aloud reminds you how much it matters. There is room to bring that tenderness to God.

I am bringing mine.

And as I pick up the pen again, I keep thinking of that window in Jericho, the walls still standing, the waiting still real, a scarlet cord already in place.

Lord, teach me to hope with an open heart. Give me courage to ask, wisdom to recognize Your leading, and grace to receive Your answer. Help me take the faithful step You have placed before me today. Let my trust grow deeper as I learn to rest in Your presence. Amen.