When I gave my life back to God, I wasn’t naïve. I didn’t expect the world to stand up and clap. I knew that choosing to follow Christ. really follow Him, meant letting go of certain things. I knew it would come with questions, sideways glances, maybe even mockery. What I didn’t expect was how quietly lonely obedience could feel.

There’s a certain elegance in living quietly counter to the culture: a kind of quiet rebellion, if you like. I’m in my twenties, a stage of life often marked by experimentation, excess, and the ever-looming fear of falling behind. But rather than feeling swept along by all of that, I’ve found an anchoring, not in ambition or aesthetics, but in faith

I never really thought I’d find myself back in church: alone, emotional, and clutching a tissue like it was the last shred of composure I had. But there I was, sitting in the back pew, trying not to cry too loudly during the second hymn.