Why Do We Stay?

Hi friends,

There was a moment during my conversation with Christy when I asked her a question I think a lot of people have probably wondered:

Why didn't you just leave?

Why stay when someone is hurting you? Why go back when you know the relationship isn't healthy? Why keep fighting for something that is destroying you?

But the longer we talked, the more I realized how complicated that question really is.

Christy and I were friends when we were young. I remembered this energetic girl who loved people fiercely.

She loved big.

What I didn't know were all the places life would eventually take her.

Addiction. Prison. Abusive relationships. And eventually reaching a place where she knew that if she went back, she might not survive.

But there was something underneath Christy's decision to stay that really stayed with me.

Her parents had divorced when she was young, and she was determined that her girls weren't going to experience what she had.

She was going to keep her family together.

In her mind, leaving meant failing.

And I think that's where this conversation became about so much more than Christy's story.

Because how many times do we hold onto something because we've convinced ourselves that letting go means we failed?

A relationship.

A dream.

A plan for our family.

The life we thought we were supposed to have.

Sometimes what looks like strength from the outside is really fear of what it would mean to let go.

And sometimes we can want something good so badly that we don't recognize when our determination to preserve it is actually hurting us.

There is a difference between giving up and surrendering.

Christy eventually learned that difference.

One of the moments from our conversation that I don't think I'll forget happened when Christy was locked up.

She had reached a place where she knew she couldn't keep living the way she had been living.

And her mom gave her enough money to buy a candy bar.

That's it.

A candy bar.

It sounds so insignificant compared to everything Christy had been through.

But that small act of kindness reached her at exactly the right moment.

Something shifted.

She was ready.

I keep thinking about that.

We tend to look for God in the big moments. The answered prayer. The miracle. The unmistakable sign that everything is about to change.

But sometimes grace looks much smaller than we expected.

Sometimes it's someone showing up.

Sometimes it's a little kindness.

Sometimes it's being loved when you don't feel particularly lovable.

And sometimes God uses something that seems ordinary to remind us that we haven't been forgotten.

That doesn't mean everything suddenly became easy for Christy.

She still had to make choices.

She still had to rebuild.

She still had relationships that needed restoration.

But she stopped trying to return to the life that was destroying her and surrendered to something different.

And look at what God has done with that surrender.

Today, Christy works with people walking through many of the same things she once walked through herself.

The addiction.

The brokenness.

The feeling that you've gone too far to ever become someone different.

She gets to look at someone in that place and know, not because she read it somewhere, but because she's lived it:

This does not have to be where your story ends.

I think that's what stayed with me most after our conversation.

God didn't waste any of it.

Not the pain.

Not the mistakes.

Not even the years Christy probably wishes she could rewrite.

He is using the very places that once brought her so much shame to give someone else hope.

Maybe there is something in your own life you've been holding onto because letting go feels too much like failure.

Or maybe you're praying for someone you love, wondering why they can't see what seems so obvious to everyone around them.

Christy's story reminded me that we can't always force someone's turning point.

We can love them.

We can pray.

We can keep showing up.

And sometimes we can offer something as simple as a candy bar.

Then we trust God with the part we cannot do.

Because surrender isn't always the end of the story.

Sometimes it's where the story finally begins.

I hope you'll watch my full conversation with Christy. Her story is difficult in places, but it is also an incredible picture of grace, restoration, and what God can do with a life surrendered to Him.

With hope,
Dallas