A rhythm of awakening from usefulness to essence
Seeing Jesus as a spark changed something in me.
It softened the line between the sacred and the human—between what I admired and what I might become.
But it also confronted me.
Because if that same spark lives in me, then what have I done with it?
For a long time, I believed the purpose of a life was its utility to moments in its lifetime.
That to be meaningful was to be necessary.
That presence needed to serve a purpose—offer light, move something forward, make a difference.
I carried that belief like a kind of loyalty.
To show up. To help. To fix.
To be useful.
But usefulness slowly began to feel like performance.
And performance eventually began to feel like distance.
From Utility to Grace
The shift wasn’t sudden. It was tender.
It happened in moments I didn’t plan for—
Holding my children without trying to teach them something.
Sitting with someone’s sadness without reaching for a solution.
Letting silence stay silent.
Presence, I began to see, wasn’t about being useful.
It was about being with.
Grace arrived not as something I gave, but as something I allowed.
To share time.
To offer attention without outcome.
To be a spark that didn’t have to ignite anything—just warm what was already there.
It was still hard to believe this was enough.
But it began to feel like love.
From Grace to Essence
And then—something quieter.
Not more. Not better. Just… deeper.
I began to feel the spark not as something I used, or even shared—
but as something I was.
No audience. No agenda.
No arc to complete.
Just presence, attuned to the moment.
Some days that presence was gentle.
Some days it burned through illusion.
Some days it stayed hidden.
But it was always mine to carry—
not to prove, but to protect.
I stopped needing to be remembered.
I started learning how to be real.
“Whether I light the way or set the world ablaze depends on the moment.”
And I don’t get to choose the moment.
I only get to be.
The World Between
This is what I mean by awakening to the world between.
Not just the world inside me.
Not just the world around me.
But the space between—
where my spark meets yours,
where presence becomes shared,
and something sacred flickers to life.
The spark is not a stage.
It is not a status.
It is a rhythm—
that moves through usefulness,
softens into grace,
and rests in essence.
And when we live from that rhythm,
we don’t just burn brighter.
We help each other remember:
we were never meant to burn alone.