Closing the Folder

January 15, 2026

I was cleaning up my Outlook today.

Old categories. Old folders. Old names.

Each click felt heavier than I expected — like lifting stones I didn’t realize I’d been carrying in my pockets.

That season asked everything of me.

Statewide responsibility.

Decisions that touched real lives.

Systems that never slept.

And I answered. Every time.

With my whole heart.

With competence.

With sacrifice.

I was good at that work.

But some folders didn’t just hold tasks.

They held tension.

Expectations.

Silence I learned to translate.

Lessons that only come when obedience costs more than comfort.

As I closed them, I felt something holy in the letting go.

Not erasure — release.

Not bitterness — discernment.

There is a difference between honoring a season and continuing to live inside it.

So I thanked it.

I named what it taught me.

And I laid it down.

God does not ask us to carry what no longer belongs to us.

Sometimes faith looks like endurance.

And sometimes it looks like closing the folder and trusting that what’s ahead will ask less of your soul.

This season mattered.

And it is complete.