1000 N Great Neck Road, Virginia Beach, VA

Church #166 was a blessing to visit online with The Wave Church, and once again I found myself grateful for the gift of being able to join from home, because while I have not been able to physically step back into church yet, God keeps reminding me of something I have spent years telling other people: the church is not a building. It never was.

The church is the people of God, the presence of God, the Spirit of God meeting us wherever we are, and in this season, as my own heart is still in mourning, I find myself needing that reminder more than ever.

I love God.

I love visiting churches.

I love the beauty of gathering in person, the warmth of seeing people worship together, the sound of voices lifted up in one place, the beauty of stepping into a sanctuary.

But right now, my heart is still grieving, still tender, still trying to find its footing again.

Between work and life and circumstances and loss and exhaustion, I know I am not ready yet to step back in physically until I can do so as fully myself.

I do not want to walk back in pretending I am okay when I am not.

I do not want to try to speed up my healing.

I do not want to force strength where God is still tending broken places.

And that is part of wisdom too, knowing when your heart is still in a place that needs gentleness and time.

Lately, my schedule has felt all over the place, and so has my heart. Grief does that. It unsettles things. It interrupts rhythm. It makes even simple days feel uneven.

One moment you are functioning, the next moment your spirit feels pulled under by memory, sadness, or worry you cannot quite name.

The sermon, preached by Pastor Sharon Kelly, was titled “A Wise Woman,” and it began with words that immediately reached into me: “The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.”

Then came the reminder from the Bible that by wisdom a house is built, through understanding it is established, and through knowledge its rooms are filled with beautiful and rare treasures.

What a question to sit with in a season like this…how do we build our life with wisdom? And maybe just as importantly, what is stopping us?

When life is hard, when grief is loud, when your heart is tired, and your path feels hectic, it can be easy to live reactively instead of wisely. It can be easy to let pain do the talking. Easy to let exhaustion lead. Easy to let fear start laying bricks where faith is supposed to be.

But wisdom calls us into something steadier. Wisdom asks us not just how we are surviving, but what we are building.

What am I building in this season?
What is grief building in me?
What is worry trying to build in me?
What is God building in me?

Because those are not all the same thing.

I know what it is to worry. I know what it is to feel like my mind runs ahead of me, trying to solve everything, trying to brace for every possibility, trying to make sense of what hurts.

And yet Jesus keeps calling me back to wisdom, not panic; to trust, not spiraling; to surrender. That does not mean all my worries vanish at once. It means I am learning, slowly and honestly, that wisdom is sometimes choosing not to let fear furnish the rooms of our heart.

Pastor Sharon’s encouragement to become a student, and keep seeking, keep learning felt so timely to me.

I loved that because wise people are not people who think they already know it all. Wise people stay teachable. Wise people stay humble. Wise people stay hungry for the Lord. Wise people keep learning… even in change, even in seasons they never would have chosen.

Grief can make a person close in on themselves. It can make you feel stuck. But wisdom says keep seeking. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep letting God teach you, even here. Keep letting Him show you what matters. Keep letting Him shape the house of your life, even if the construction process feels slower and harder than you imagined.

I think that is one of the things I am learning in this season, wisdom is not just about having the right answers. Sometimes wisdom is knowing where to place your heart when life feels unsteady. Sometimes wisdom is knowing when to rest, when to pause, when to say no, when to wait, when to grieve, and when to let God keep rebuilding you from the inside out.

I need wisdom for grief.
Wisdom for worry.
Wisdom for the hard decisions.
Wisdom for the exhaustion.
Wisdom for the rebuilding.

Because I do believe God is still building something beautiful, even in me, even now, even in a season that feels so worn in places.

I do believe He fills the rooms with beautiful and rare treasures, but not the treasures of this world. The treasures of wisdom. Of understanding. Of deeper faith. Of character. Of gentleness. Of endurance. Of a heart that has been broken and still chooses to trust Him.

That kind of building takes time.

The wise woman builds her house. She does not tear it down with her own hands through fear, foolishness, bitterness, or neglect. She builds. She keeps building. And she builds with wisdom.

That is what I want.
I want to build a heart that still seeks Him, even when it is tired.
I want to build with the kind of understanding that only God can give.

Thank you to The Wave Church and to Pastor Sharon Kelly for such a timely online message. It ministered to a heart that has been weary, grieving, and trying to stay steady in the middle of so much.

I am grateful for the reminder that wisdom still matters, that God still teaches us, and that even when life feels all over the place, He knows exactly how to speak into it.

And as always, I am thankful for where this church journey keeps leading me. Even from home, even while mourning, even while waiting for the day I can step back in person as fully myself, God is still faithful to meet me.

I cannot wait to see where the Holy Spirit leads next.

And tonight, the thought I carry with me is this, grief may shake the house, worry may rattle the windows, and exhaustion may make the work feel slow, but by the wisdom of God, a life can still be built, a heart can still be established, and the rooms can still be filled with beautiful and rare treasures.

Love you all,

Annie Stewart Lambert