We’re a little over halfway through 2026, and the garden of my life looks different than it did a year ago.

Before anything else, I have to thank my Heavenly Father.

There was a time when I believed I would remain in the same season forever. I mistook endurance for permanence and convinced myself that if I loved faithfully enough, perhaps one day the life I hoped for would finally bloom. Instead, God quietly closed the gate to a garden I was never meant to spend my life in.

Looking back now, I don’t see wasted years as much as I see seasons.

Over ten of them.

Seasons of becoming.

Seasons of waiting.

Seasons of learning what I needed instead of simply accepting what I was given.

For the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m standing in a field where nothing has been planted yet.

And strangely…

I find that beautiful.

This season, I don’t want to spend my life waiting to be chosen.

I want to become the woman Heavenly Father has always known I could be.

I spent much of my twenties tending gardens that were never mine, watering dreams that belonged to someone else while forgetting that my own heart needed tending, too. I made choices that delayed the life I wanted, and there are still days I wish I could gather those years back into my hands.

But time is one of God’s gifts that only moves forward.

So instead of wishing I could begin again, I’ll simply begin here.

With the woman I’ve become.

Since returning to the covenant path, Heavenly Father has scattered unexpected people along my journey.

One of them arrived so quietly that I almost missed him.

If flowers could take human form, I imagine kindness would look something like him.

Not loud.

Not demanding.

Just quietly blooming wherever he happens to stand.

He’s thoughtful in ways that are easy to overlook unless you’re paying attention. The way he notices the little things. The way consideration seems to come naturally to him. The way his actions often speak long before his words ever have to.

I don’t know if he realizes what he’s taught me.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I no longer felt the need to guard every word around him.

For so long, I carried my life as though every burden belonged solely to me. Somewhere along the way, independence stopped being a strength and quietly became a shield. I became so accustomed to lifting everything alone that I forgot kindness sometimes looks like allowing someone else to carry a corner of the weight.

He once told me he’s a traditional man.

I smiled when he said it.

Not because I disagreed, but because I suddenly saw myself through someone else’s eyes. I realized how often I rush to do everything myself—not because I don’t appreciate help, but because I never learned how to receive it without feeling like a burden.

Perhaps that has been one of God’s quieter lessons this year.

To discover that being cared for is not the same as being dependent.

I’ve always found it difficult to trust people with the quieter corners of my heart. Yet somehow, his calm and steady presence created a space where I could simply speak without feeling the need to defend myself.

Ironically, that safety has made me more aware of everything else.

I used to move through life somewhat oblivious to what was happening around me. Now I notice things I once overlooked. I rejoice more deeply when I witness goodness. I ache more deeply when I see unfairness. I find myself carrying concerns that don’t belong to me and praying for people whose burdens I cannot fix.

Years ago, I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me see.

Like the words from Amazing Grace:

“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

I simply never imagined that clearer vision would also mean a softer heart.

Once you begin to notice goodness, you also begin to notice suffering.

Once you begin to recognize light, the darkness becomes harder to ignore.

And if I’m honest…

Sometimes it frightens me.

I’ve tried to live the law of consecration as more than a principle—as a way of loving God’s children. Somewhere along that path, I’ve found it difficult to let people go, even when wisdom tells me I should.

I’ve often asked Heavenly Father why my heart seems to work this way.

Perhaps it’s because the Savior never stopped seeing people as worth loving.

That doesn’t mean every relationship is meant to continue, nor does it mean healthy boundaries aren’t necessary. It simply reminds me that compassion and distance can exist together.

There are people I know I shouldn’t walk beside anymore.

Yet each time I enter the temple, I feel prompted to place their names on the prayer roll anyway.

I’ve stopped questioning those promptings.

Perhaps forgiveness isn’t forgetting.

Perhaps it’s quietly placing someone into God’s hands instead of insisting on carrying them in my own.

Maybe that’s how peace begins.

Not by pretending the past never happened, but by releasing my right to keep reliving it.

I still have moments when I need to grieve, to question, and even to vent.

But I no longer want bitterness to become the loudest voice in my story.

I’d rather become someone whose heart remains soft, even after it has learned how to protect itself.

As I sit here halfway through the year, I also realize this season hasn’t been about finding all the answers.

It’s been about learning to ask better questions.

Instead of asking, “Why didn’t they choose me?” I’ve begun asking, “Who am I becoming?”

Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” I’ve started asking, “What is Heavenly Father trying to teach me?”

Instead of asking God to remove every difficult person from my life, I’ve found myself asking Him to help me become someone who can love without losing herself.

Perhaps that has been the greatest miracle of all.

Not that my circumstances changed overnight.

But that my heart slowly did.

I’ve learned that healing is much quieter than I imagined. It isn’t one grand moment where everything suddenly feels whole again. It’s choosing peace over proving a point. It’s praying for someone you once cried over. It’s walking away without needing the last word. It’s trusting that God sees what no one else ever will.

I’ve learned that forgiveness doesn’t always look like reconciliation.

Sometimes forgiveness is simply deciding that someone no longer has permission to occupy the rooms of your heart they no longer belong in.

Perhaps the person I’ve struggled most to forgive has been myself.

The younger woman who stayed too long, hoped too hard, and believed she had to earn a love that Heavenly Father had freely offered her all along.

I’ve learned that boundaries are not the opposite of love.

Sometimes they are love.

The older I become, the more I realize that kindness isn’t measured by how much of yourself you give away. It’s measured by whether what you give is offered freely, joyfully, and with Christ at the center.

This year has also reminded me that purpose is rarely found in extraordinary moments.

Sometimes it’s found in teaching a Sunday lesson.

Sometimes it’s found around a campfire with youth who don’t realize they’re teaching you just as much as you’re teaching them.

Sometimes it’s found in a quiet conversation after church, in a temple prayer roll filled with names of people who may never know they were remembered, or in choosing to forgive one more time because the Savior has forgiven us far more.

I used to think becoming Christlike meant never feeling hurt.

Now I think it means choosing not to let hurt become the loudest voice in your life.

Sometimes I still wonder why our paths crossed.

Maybe there was never supposed to be a love story.

Maybe he simply wandered into my garden long enough to remind me that gentle people still exist. That kindness is not something I imagined. That the qualities I’ve quietly prayed for are still growing somewhere in this world.

Or maybe the lesson was never about whether someone would stay.

Maybe it was about restoring my hope that people like him exist.

Hope has a quiet way of changing a person.

Once you know goodness is real, you stop settling for less.

I don’t know what the rest of 2026 will bring.

Maybe more closed doors.

Maybe unexpected friendships.

Maybe blessings I haven’t even imagined yet.

Whatever lies ahead, I hope to meet it with open hands instead of clenched fists.

The wallflower in me will probably always prefer the quiet corners of the garden, where she can watch life unfold before stepping into it herself.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because flowers don’t bloom to be admired.

They bloom because that’s what God created them to do.

Perhaps my life was never meant to be measured by who chose me, who stayed, or who left.

Perhaps it was always meant to be measured by how faithfully I chose to become the woman Heavenly Father has patiently seen in me all along.

Perhaps next year this garden will look different again.

Some flowers will bloom.

Some will fade.

Some seeds may never break the soil.

But I no longer measure God’s goodness by what has blossomed.

I measure it by the quiet ways He has continued tending my heart.

And maybe…

That has been the most beautiful garden of all.

So here’s to the second half of 2026.

To deeper roots.

To gentler hands.

To a quieter heart.

And to trusting the Gardener, even when I cannot yet see what He is growing.

Perhaps we’re all standing somewhere between the garden we left behind and the one God is still growing.

Until next season,
Ang 🌸