Church #163 is happening in yet another doctor’s office, in the middle of caring for my family, sitting here with my husband, feeling heartache, concern and exhaustion all at the same time, and if I am honest, this is not the kind of church setting anyone would choose, but it is where I am, and so it is where Jesus is meeting me.

Over these last three years, this journey has taken me into sanctuaries and livestreams, into pews and living rooms, into Palm Sundays and Easter mornings, into moments of joy and moments of heartbreak, and now it has brought me here again, into another room where the air feels heavy with waiting, where prayers feel quieter and more desperate, and where faith has to become more than something beautiful to write about because it has to hold up under the real weight of life.

This season has been so hard, and I do not mean that in an ungrateful way. I mean that it has been hard in the way that it settles into your body and spirit and changes how you move through the day. I am still grieving my mother, and that grief has not moved in any predictable way. It has come in waves and surges and aches and sudden moments that knock the breath out of me. There are still times when it does not feel real, and then there are times when it feels painfully real, and I am reminded all over again that I cannot call her, cannot hear her voice, cannot hug her, cannot reach back into time. That grief is already sitting heavily on my heart, and then life keeps asking for more, keeps bringing more appointments, more concerns, more burdens, more reasons to worry, and I find myself feeling so deeply human in all of it.

And that worry is real. I worry so much, more than I should, more than I want to, and certainly more than someone who knows the Word of God tells us to.

Jesus tells us again and again not to be anxious, not to worry about tomorrow, to cast our cares on Him because He cares for us, to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make our requests known to God, and I know those verses, I believe those verses, I love those verses, and still I worry.

I worry because I love deeply. I worry because grief has made life feel more fragile than ever. I worry because when you have seen how quickly things can change, your mind starts trying to prepare for every possible hurt before it arrives.

I worry because I am tired, and tired hearts are often more vulnerable to fear. I worry because I am carrying concerns I cannot fix with my own hands, and that helplessness is hard for me. And yet even in the middle of all that worry, I am trying hard, so very hard, to lay it all at the feet of Jesus and leave it there.

That is the part I think people are often afraid to say out loud. Laying it at the feet of Jesus is beautiful to say, but it is not always easy to do. Sometimes you lay it down in prayer and then pick it right back up in your mind five minutes later. Sometimes you say, “Lord, I trust You,” while your chest is still tight and your thoughts are still racing and your heart is still asking a hundred questions you do not have answers to.

Sometimes surrender is not one moment but a repeated act of obedience, a constant returning, a constant unclenching, a constant saying, “Jesus, this belongs to You more than it belongs to me.”

That is where I am. I am trying to surrender again and again. I am trying to stop carrying what only God can carry fully. I am trying to remember that worry has never once added a single good thing to my life, but the presence of Jesus has carried me through every hard thing I have ever faced.

And that is the sermon in my heart today, Jesus is still here.

He is still here in the doctor’s office, still here in the family burdens, still here in the panic that tries to rise up, still here in the grief that catches me off guard, still here in the love it takes to keep showing up, still here in the weary places where I no longer have words, only need.

He is not just the Lord of sanctuaries and Sunday mornings when everything is orderly and beautiful. He is the Lord of waiting rooms, of bad days, of heavy hearts, of fatigue, of grief that has not fully found language yet.

He is the Lord of the places where life hurts. Jesus comes near to sorrow, He is not frightened by pain, He does not turn away from human weakness, He knows what it is to weep, He knows what it is to suffer, and still stays.

I keep thinking about how often Jesus met people in the middle of their real lives. He met them on roadsides, in storms, in houses filled with grief, in crowds full of desperation, at tombs, beside sickbeds, in locked rooms where fear had taken over, and He did not tell them to compose themselves before He entered the story. He came near first.

I do not feel composed. I do not feel eloquent. I do not feel strong in the way people often celebrate strength. I feel worn, tender, stretched, and deeply aware of how much I need God. But maybe that is exactly where real faith lives, not in pretending we are stronger than we are, but in knowing where to fall when we are not.

To care for family in a hard season, to sit beside the people you love in rooms you wish you did not have to be in, to keep showing up with concern and tenderness and prayer, to stay present while your own heart is carrying sorrow too, that is a kind of love that means something. And I believe Jesus is in that kind of love. I believe He sees the hidden labor, the emotional strain, the silent prayers, the strength it takes just to remain steady when everything in you feels shaky. I believe He honors the offering of simply staying, of simply showing up, of simply loving people through what is hard.

And today I am sitting here with my injured husband, grateful that in a season of so much grief and change, I do not have to sit in this room alone. Love looks different in hard seasons. Sometimes it is sitting together in silence, carrying concern together, trying to trust God together.

So if Church #163 is in a doctor’s office, then let it be said that church is still happening. It is happening in the waiting, in the burden-bearing, in the tears held back, in the whispered prayers, in the effort to trust God while worry keeps knocking at the door of the mind.

It is happening in the honest confession that I am struggling, that I am grieving, that I am worried, and that I am trying with all my heart to lay every fear, every unknown, every what-if, every ache, and every burden at the feet of Jesus.

It is happening in the refusal to let worry have the final word, even when worry has been loud. It is happening in the trembling belief that Christ is still present, still kind, still merciful, still strong enough to hold what I cannot.

And that is where I have to leave my heart today. Not with all the answers, not with an ending that makes the hard things sound smaller than they are, but with Jesus. Just Jesus.

Jesus who is still here. Jesus who is still holding me. Jesus who is still holding my family. Jesus who is still present in the grief, in the waiting, in the worry, in the love, in the tenderness, in the strain, in everything.

Jesus who is still worthy of my trust, even while I am learning how to surrender more fully. Jesus who is still teaching me that laying it at His feet may be a daily act, a moment-by-moment act, but it is still the safest place to put it all.

Jesus, please take all of this that I keep trying to carry, all this grief, all this fear, all this worry, all this love, all this exhaustion, and help me leave it at Your feet. Remind me again that You are here, that You have not left, that You are not overwhelmed by what overwhelms me, and that even in yet another doctor’s office, even in another hard day, even in another moment where my heart feels fragile, You are still God and You are still with us.

I am always waiting to see where the Holy Spirit leads me next, and I know it will be good because He is still here.

Love you all,

Annie Stewart Lambert