Bible Chat

Rebuild Your Purpose

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I'm 43 and I don't recognize the woman I planned to be. She never showed up. Last month I found a list I wrote at 25, folded inside an old cookbook, ten dreams in blue ink from a girl who was sure about everything. I was making spaghetti when it fell out. Write a children's book. Learn Spanish. Lead something that matters. Ten lines. Two had checkmarks. I stood there with the wooden spoon in my hand and read it twice. The water boiled over. I didn't move. That girl knew exactly where she was going. I couldn't even tell you where I was. Here's what people see when they look at me. The mom who signs up first. The one who remembers everyone's birthday. The calm one at the dental office where I schedule appointments. A woman at church grabbed my arm last spring and said, "I don't know how you do it all." I smiled and said thank you. Then I sat in my car in the parking lot for ten minutes because I didn't know who "you" was anymore. I used to teach third grade. Eleven years. I stepped back when Sam was born because it made sense. It did make sense. I'd do it again. But somewhere between the pickups and the permission slips, the person doing all of it went quiet. I kept waiting for her to speak up. She never did. I tried to fix it. I really did. I bought three books about finding your purpose after 40. I finished half of one. I started a journal. Six entries. The last one just says "tired" and then nothing. I made a vision board on my phone one night. Beaches and quotes. I never opened it again. My sister said, "You need a hobby. Try pickleball." My best friend said, "It's just a season. It passes." A podcast told me to wake up at 5 a.m. and win the morning. I lasted four days. On day five I hit snooze and felt like I'd failed at being a person. Kind people. Kind answers. None of them touched the real thing. Because the real thing was ugly, and I couldn't say it out loud. I was jealous of my own daughter. Ellie is 15. She talks about her future like it's a room she's about to walk into. Every door open. Every light on. I'd listen to her at dinner and feel something sour rise in my chest. What kind of mother is jealous of her own kid? What kind of woman grieves a life she picked out herself? I chose this. The house, the marriage, the town. I chose all of it and I'd choose it again. And still I was grieving. Both true. Neither the whole story. Then came the second Tuesday of October. 6:15 in the morning. I was standing in my closet trying to pick a shirt. That's it. A shirt. And I couldn't. My brain just stopped. I sat down on the closet floor between the shoes and stayed there. Twenty minutes, maybe more. Dan found me when he came looking for his belt. "Are you okay?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. "That's the scary part." He sat down next to me on the floor. He didn't say anything else. Good man. No idea what to do with me. Honestly, neither did I. That night I couldn't sleep. It was after 11 and I was scrolling in the dark like that ever helps. I saw something about a Bible app. A two-week plan about women in the Bible. Your "biblical archetype." Esther, Ruth, Sarah, Hannah. Fifteen minutes a day. I almost laughed. An app was going to tell me who I am? I've been me for 43 years. I figured Bible apps were for women who already had it together. Women with matching journals and quiet hearts. But one line stopped my thumb. Day 1. Esther: when to speak, when to wait. That morning at work, my boss had changed the schedule in a way that dumped everything on me. I said nothing. I always say nothing. I'd been saying nothing for about fifteen years. And I thought, fine. I waste fifteen minutes a night looking at strangers' vacations. I can waste them on this instead. So I downloaded it. Under the covers. Like I was doing something embarrassing. Day one asked me a question. Simple one. When you stay quiet, what are you protecting? I sat with it. Then I typed the truth for the first time in years. "I stay quiet so nobody gets upset." The response didn't scold me. It walked me through Esther. A woman who waited, but on purpose. Who spoke, but at the right time. Silence as a choice, not a hiding place. It named something in me I'd never had words for. I was reacting from fear and calling it patience. Fifteen minutes. I sat in the dark afterward for another ten, just breathing. Day two was Rachel. Loving without losing yourself. I thought about how I'd folded myself smaller every year so everyone else had room. Day three was Sarah. Letting go of control. I cried on day three. Actual tears, at 6 in the morning, over my coffee. Because I'd been gripping Ellie's college plans like they were mine to steer. Her essays, her list, her future. My hands on her wheel. I wasn't helping her. I was trying to relive something through her. Seeing that on the screen, plain and kind, undid me a little. Day four was Abigail. Responding, not reacting. That afternoon Sam left his cleats in the hallway for the hundredth time and I opened my mouth to snap. Then I stopped. Counted to three. Asked him to move them. He moved them. No fight. Small thing. It didn't feel small. Day five was Deborah. Leading without losing him. I read it twice and thought about Dan, and about all the decisions I'd handed him just so I wouldn't have to want anything out loud. Week two went deeper. Ruth and loyalty. Martha and Mary, and the balance I never had. I've been Martha my whole life. Doing, doing, doing, and calling it love. Hannah's day was about patience that pays off. Wanting something for years and not letting the wanting turn bitter. I read that one in the school pickup line and had to wipe my eyes before Ellie got in the car. None of it was magic. I want to be clear about that. No lightning. No new life by Friday. Just fifteen minutes every morning where somebody asked me real questions, and old stories answered back like they'd been waiting for me. The changes were small. I told my boss the schedule wasn't fair. My voice shook. She fixed it by Thursday. I let Ellie pick her own college list. All of it. I just made tea and listened. I wrote one page of a children's book on a Sunday afternoon. It's bad. It exists. Both count. About three weeks in, Ellie was doing homework at the counter and looked up at me. "You've been different lately," she said. "Good different." I turned around so she wouldn't see my face. Then a Saturday came. Nothing special. Coffee on the back steps, cold air, Dan next to me reading his phone. He put his hand on my hand and looked at me for a second. "There you are," he said. That's all. There you are. I'd been gone so long even he had noticed the coming back. So here's why I'm writing this out. If you found an old list and couldn't look at it. If the dreams that used to pull you forward just stopped pulling one day and nobody warned you. If you're the one everyone leans on, and nobody thinks to ask how you're doing. If 40 came and went and the map you'd been following just ran out of road. I wrote this for you, because eight weeks ago I needed someone to write it for me. The app is called Bible Chat. You start with a short quiz that finds your biblical archetype, and then it walks you through women like Esther and Sarah and Hannah, one a day, fifteen minutes each. It's free to start. For me, it turned the scariest question of my life, who am I becoming, into a door instead of a wall. I'm 43 and I'm finally meeting the woman I'm becoming. Turns out she showed up after all.