Entry #14 • December 9th, 2025

The Quiet Ritual of Sunday Afternoons

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m at my treasured reprieve: Kiln Coffee Bar. I’ve been coming here on Sundays for about seven years now. Sunday afternoons have always felt a bit haphazard in my schedule. We go to church in the morning (10am–12pm), then home for lunch—pasta salad, the same lunch for more than ten years. The kids settle into their allotted "electronic time," my husband takes his Sunday nap, and by 6 p.m. we’re back at church for the evening service.

For years, I felt caught in between everything. I wanted to “rest,” but I didn’t really know what that looked like for me. If I tried reading, I’d get sleepy. If I stayed home, I’d end up folding laundry because there’s always laundry. Sundays never felt like a break. In fact, I kind of dreaded them because they were exhausting in their own quiet way.

About seven years ago, I had an idea: what if I went out for coffee by myself and just stayed for an hour and a half? No agenda. Just a yummy chai latte and space to breathe. I told my husband that staying home on Sunday afternoons didn't really refresh me—I’d try to nap and wake up feeling worse, and the whole day felt sour. He doesn’t really get the “go sit in a coffee shop alone” vibe; he’s a Sunday nap guy. Luckily, that works out perfectly. He gets the couch. I get the coffee shop.

So here I am—my greatly anticipated Sunday afternoon. Most weeks, I use this window to physically write in my journal or fill in my planner for the upcoming week. Sometimes I let myself do a bit of “fun” work. Mostly, I just leave it open. No agenda, no expectations—just an hour and a half to fill however I want.

On my drive over today, I was thinking about how to use the time. I have personal tasks I should do, but I didn’t want them overtaking this little pocket of peace. I considered journaling, which I love, but then thought…today I’m going to journal directly into a Just Me entry. No handwritten journal.

And that’s how we ended up here—you with me at Kiln on a Sunday afternoon, as I type straight into a Google Doc labeled JM#14.

When Loss Comes in Layers

This year has felt riddled with loss. Loss in so many facets. Loss of friendships. Loss of innocence—or maybe ignorance. Loss of independence. Loss of perceived control. Loss of time. Loss of community.

I think back to this summer when a wildland fire ripped through the canyon where my parents’ cabin sits. They’ve had that land since I was in middle school, and so many memories are etched into it. Miraculously, the fire stayed hundreds of yards away on the other side of the highway, but the destruction left in its wake is still visible from the cabin porch.

While we were on our family trip to see my husband’s family this summer, one of my boys received a life-changing diagnosis. If you’re new to Just Me, you can read about it in Entry #3. The diagnosis brought a wave of change and loss with it. In the middle of that trip, trying to navigate this new reality, I texted my mom and asked if, once we got home, I could spend a night or two alone at the cabin. I needed a break from my “vacation.” I was drained mentally and emotionally. She immediately said yes, and offered to help with the kids while I was gone.

Just days after we returned, my husband and older boys left for youth camp with our church, and my mom stepped in to help with the younger kids so I could go back to work as scheduled. But I couldn’t work. I couldn’t think straight. My whole world had been turned upside down. I was deep in grief, and the cabin trip felt like the only solid ground ahead of me. After a few days of trying—and failing—to work, it was finally time to go. I packed some meals, bought ice cream, and drove toward that anticipated retreat, alone.

But as I pulled up the driveway, my heart dropped. Smoke was rising behind the mountain southwest of the cabin. Once inside, I grabbed the landline—no cell service up there—and called my dad to see if he could check the news. He assured me there was nothing major or threatening. He’d call if that changed.

The next two days felt like bliss on the mountain. Smoke kept pushing through the valley, but I stayed focused on reading a book, reading my Bible, and journaling my heart out. Time slowed. It felt like my soul and body finally had a chance to come back together. Everything had been so out of sync for months, culminating in the chaos of my son’s diagnosis.

When it was time to leave the cabin, I looked out at the view one last time—not knowing it was the last time—and headed back to town. Back to reality. Back to constant movement. Back to noise.

Within hours of getting home, news broke that a large wildfire was racing through the canyon. Within 48 hours it had burned more than 20,000 acres and was directly across the highway from the cabin. Our neighbors watched the fire burn down the face of the mountain toward our land, stopping only because of incredibly skilled firefighters and a couple of natural barriers.

During those 48 hours—and well beyond—I was glued to fire maps, news stories, and virtual town hall meetings. At one point I told a friend, “I feel like the mountain just got diabetes.” What I meant was this: the diagnosis that felt like it had ripped everything from me now had a parallel in the canyon. The fire felt like it was about to take something very dear from me, too. My son’s Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis had shaken my world, and watching that mountain burn felt like an eerie loss all over again—just weeks later.

And now here we are in December, the close of a year. I find myself looking back on all the loss woven through it. Not all of it tied to my son’s diagnosis. Loss in so many areas of my life.

But as I look at that charred mountain face, I can’t help but see a picture. There is a lot of loss on that mountain. The scarred ground—what they call burn scar. Animals displaced—we even had golden eagles flying over our house in town, something we never see. It was obvious they’d been pushed out of their habitat. So much loss and disruption.

The mountain will carry its burn scar for years, even decades. It will take time for the soil and plants to rebuild. But new growth will come. It’s not so far gone that life won’t emerge again.

The Burn Scar and the Beautiful Promise

And that’s where I feel myself sitting—on this precipice where new life will eventually emerge. There are burns that will stay with me for years, maybe decades. But new growth will come.

These verses have been on repeat in my mind the past two weeks. If you read the Bible, you’ll recognize them, but I want you to slow down for a moment and really take them in. There is so much tucked inside them.

Do you see that growth arc woven through those verses? Watch the order—it’s incredibly powerful.

Tribulations (hard times) work patience. And the thing about hard times is…you have to go through them. You can’t fast-forward. You can’t skip to the next song. You can’t quit—not if you want to keep living. You just have to go through it.

NUMEROUS times these past several months, a kids’ story song kept coming to mind: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Here are the lyrics:

And then it repeats with rivers, mud, and so on.

I kept saying to myself, over and over: Can’t go over it, can’t go under it…guess I’ll have to go through it.

Going through tribulation forces patience. You can fight it—just like you can fight labor when you’re giving birth. Fighting makes it hurt more, but either way, you’re still in it. Whether resisting or surrendering, you will have to be patient. Tribulation produces patience.

And then Romans 5:4 says, “and patience, experience.”

Tribulation → patience → experience.

Going through hard things teaches you something you could never learn any other way.

And what does that experience produce?

Hope.

“And patience, experience; and experience, hope.”

Look again at that arc:

Tribulations → patience → experience → hope.

Your trials may feel like they’re swallowing you whole. But if you allow yourself to sit in them—if you let yourself go through—patience grows. And from that patience comes experience. And that experience becomes the soil where hope takes root. Hope you didn’t have before the tribulation.

Days are still hard. Some harder than others. That will always be part of life. But despite all the loss this year, I have more hope now than I did in previous years. I have hope despite the burn scars.

I know new growth is coming.

I don’t know exactly what that new growth will look like, or when it will come. But I know the God who tends both mountains and hearts. And just as He rebuilds soil after a fire, He’s rebuilding things in me—slowly, quietly, faithfully—with hope.

If this year has left you with burn scars of your own, I pray you’re able to glimpse—even faintly—that new growth isn’t out of reach for you either. The landscape may look different than you imagined, and the healing may be slow, but that doesn’t mean new life isn’t on its way.

Here’s to whatever hope takes root next, for both of us.

​
​

-Just Me[gan]

​

PS — If you’ve been reading Just Me for a while, would you take a moment to answer this very quick survey (less than a minute)? Your feedback is helping me shape the future of Just Me, and hearing from you means more than you know.

​
​