Hear me now Preacher Man, Preacher Woman!

There’s something that’s been on my heart for quite a while. It isn’t new, but it keeps repeating, and it’s time for me to speak to it—because it’s a spirit, not a person. Since I’m not targeting any individual, I’m going to speak directly to the spirit working through these people: a spirit of judgment, a spirit of condemnation, and a spirit that is badly misdirected.

At the end of the day, Jesus didn’t say, “Okay, look, I only want to hear from those who attend church and strive to follow its rules.” Jesus said everybody can call on Him.

Everybody means everybody.

There is help, direction, guidance, healing, and deliverance through Jesus Christ for everyone. Now, if you’re talking about going to heaven, that may involve a different, more select group of people. Some people voluntarily choose to live by stricter standards than others. That is their choice. But when it comes to praying and asking for help while we are here on Earth, anybody can call on Jesus. That’s what HE says in Matthew 11:28:

“Come to Me, ALL you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

—Matthew 11:28

So when criticism is directed at me for talking about Jesus, I get a little confused about which “Jesus” you’re talking about. Surely you’re not talking about MY Jesus!

My Jesus said I can call on Him whether you like me or not. And you can call on Him whether I like you or not. Whether I approve of what you’re doing, believe you’re living wrong, think you shouldn’t date the person you’re dating, or think you should treat your spouse better, my opinion has nothing to do with whether Jesus will help you.

That is a relationship between you and the Lord. I respectfully refrain from offering criticism or expressing “concern” about what you do or how you behave. That is none of my business.

Likewise, what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and whether or not you agree with it are none of your business. You don’t have to like me, agree with my spiritual beliefs, or share my philosophy. But you are absolutely out of pocket if you think you can speak to me as though you have spiritual authority over me and tell me where you believe my relationship with God stands.

You have NO authority here.

Finally, I would like to remind you of a certain woman:

And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.

When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

His disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

He looked round about to see her that had done this thing. The woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

Jesus said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

—Mark 5:25–34

 

Leave me alone.

My 2023 Medical Crises

What Actually Happened to Me

In mid-2023, my body went through a massive physical storm. For about three months before going to the hospital, I was extremely sick, vomiting constantly, and unable to eat solid food. I lost over a quarter of my body weight. I was physically starving and severely dehydrated.

When I got to the emergency room on May 18, my organs were failing from starvation. To save my life, the doctors immediately gave me heavy IV fluids packed with sugar. While this saved my life, introducing sugar to a starving body triggered a dangerous internal chain reaction. My cells instantly drank up the sugar, which completely wiped out the very last drops of Vitamin B1 (thiamine) in my body.

Because the brain and nerves need Vitamin B1 to run, my nervous system experienced a sudden, severe power outage. This caused a metabolic brain injury and a massive state of confusion called medical delirium. I do not remember about three months of that year because my brain was completely offline. My brain was physically short-circuiting because it was starved of nutrients.

What I Am Dealing with Physically Today

The hospital treatment ultimately saved my life and cleared the brain injury, but the months of starvation left severe, long-term damage in my nervous system. I am currently in a long-term care VA hospital, working through a very slow rehabilitation process to rebuild these pathways. Here is what I am actively managing every day:

• Nerve Pain and Numbness (Neuropathy): The starvation damaged the nerves in both of my hands and my feet. Right now, I have a deep lack of sensation. If you touch my fingers or toes and I am not looking at them, my brain cannot register it. However, because these nerves are trying to heal, they constantly misfire. This causes a baseline state of numbness paired with constant, burning nerve pain.
• “Ghost” Muscle Tightness: Because my nerves are damaged, they send chaotic static signals to my brain. My brain misinterprets this static as physical compression. It makes me feel like there are heavy, tight belts wrapped around my biceps and across my diaphragm. My muscles are not actually locked up or frozen, but my brain's software makes it feel that way. My daily stretching helps tell my brain to drop this protective stance.
• Hearing Impairment: The crisis damaged the pathways that process sound from my ears to my brain. I cannot clearly process or hear entirely new music. To fight this, I use music therapy: I sing along to old songs that are deeply wired into my memory from before I got sick. This forces my brain to build new pathways to map and understand sound.
• Muscle Cramping and Standing: I went from being completely bedbound and unable to sit up to mastering independent wheelchair transfers and shuffling with my rollator. However, my deep core and back muscles are still heavily unconditioned. When I stand up, my lower back muscles try to do all the work, fatigue immediately, and lock up into painful cramps. This is why I have to sit down quickly to rest.

Where I Am Going From Here

Recovery from this kind of neurological and physical injury is slow. There is no shortcut for rebuilding damaged nerves, retraining the brain, restoring muscle strength, and teaching a body that has been through a major medical crisis how to function again. The work happens through repetition, rehabilitation, stretching, movement, music, and consistently challenging my body and brain to do a little more.

My doctors cannot guarantee that I will make a full recovery. There are simply too many variables involved, particularly when it comes to nerve damage and neurological healing. But they remain hopeful that, with continued rehabilitation and my determination to keep working, I can regain a significant amount of function and get as close to full recovery as my body will allow.

And that is exactly what I intend to find out.

My progress may be slow, but it has been steady. I have already gone from being completely bedbound and unable to sit up independently to transferring myself, using a wheelchair independently, and walking short distances with my rollator. Those changes did not happen all at once. They were built one movement, one stretch, one exercise, and one stubborn attempt at a time.

So I measure recovery differently now. I don't need dramatic leaps to know that something is happening. Sometimes progress is an extra few seconds on my feet. Sometimes it is a movement that hurts a little less than it did before. Sometimes it is recognizing a sound more clearly, stretching a little farther, or discovering that my body can do something today that it could not do six months ago.

Consistency is the key. As long as my body continues to respond, I will continue to give it opportunities to heal, strengthen, adapt, and relearn.

I don't know exactly where the finish line is.

But I'm still moving toward it.

What if?

What if your understanding of the world was shaped by the environment your family created around you?

What if a lot of what you believe about people, relationships, safety, conflict, love, disappointment, and what you can expect from life didn’t come from the world itself, but from the particular world your family created inside of your home?

When you grow up inside of a family system, that system becomes your first model for how life works. Your brain doesn’t know that this is just one household, one group of people, and one set of dynamics. It takes what’s happening around you and begins to build expectations from it.

So if certain things happened over and over again in your family, you may have started to believe that this was simply how people behaved. This was how relationships worked. This was what happened when you spoke up. This was what happened when you needed something. This was what love felt like. This was what you had to prepare yourself for.

Then you move out into the world carrying those expectations with you.

And when you keep running into similar situations, similar people, or similar challenges, it may feel like proof that what you believed was true all along. But what if those situations kept presenting themselves because there was something in you that needed the opportunity to finally stand up, confront the pattern, and respond in a way that you weren’t able to respond when you were still inside of the original family system?

What if the repetition wasn’t there to punish you or prove that the whole world was the same? What if it was giving you opportunities to break the hold that the original pattern still had on you?

Because as long as your family system remains the model your brain is using to understand the whole world, you’re going to keep interpreting life through the limits of that structure. You may continue expecting certain outcomes because those were the outcomes you were trained to expect.

But once you begin to recognize that your family’s way of operating was not the way the whole world operates, something opens up.

You begin to understand that what happened in your family was one system. It was one environment. It was one version of reality.

When you stop using that family system as the blueprint for what life has to be, you become open to possibilities that your brain may never have been trained to imagine. You become open to different types of relationships, different responses, different outcomes, and different ways of being treated. You begin to make room for a world that is much larger than the one you were raised inside of.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it!

I was Anti-AI. Then I had a medical crisis.

When artificial intelligence became available to people outside of the IT world, I had already decided it wasn’t something I was going to explore. I spent seven and a half years in the Army during the 1990s working in information technology, and felt comfortable with what I knew. Computers have always made sense to me. If I wanted to accomplish something on one, I either knew how to do it or could figure it out.

Then I had a medical crisis that changed my life overnight.

I became septic, and my body started shutting down different functions in order to keep me alive. First I collapsed and couldn’t stand back up. Then my hearing was affected. I could hear sounds, but I couldn’t identify what they were. It sounded like there was a giant refrigerator running somewhere inside my head, mixed with the sound of water rushing through the walls. I could see people’s mouths moving, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I couldn’t hear my own voice either. The people around me told me I was talking loudly, but I couldn’t hear myself, and that was terrifying. Eventually I lost the use of my hands, and slipped in and out of delirium for months.

When I woke up from the delirium, I was told that I had suffered significant brain damage and that recovery would take time. The first estimate I received was between two and four years. So I got to work. Physical therapy, occupational therapy and learning to read lips became my job. People used whiteboards to communicate with me until I became good enough at reading lips to carry on conversations again. As my hands have gotten stronger and I’ve been able to walk farther, my hearing has slowly improved as well. My ENT believes they’re all connected to the same neurological injury, so every improvement gives me hope that more recovery is still ahead of me.

When I woke up, I also realized that every hobby I loved depended on abilities I didn’t have anymore.

I’ve always been a writer. I couldn’t hold a pen. I couldn’t comfortably use the touchscreen on my phone or tablet because the sensation overwhelmed me. Typing on a keyboard required dexterity that my hands simply didn’t have. The only thing I could really use was the microphone on my phone, so I started journaling by speaking into the Notes app. It was painfully slow. The speech recognition constantly misunderstood what I was saying, and every paragraph required corrections before I could move on to the next one. Between August of 2023 and July of 2024, I think I managed to write two blog posts. I felt like I was moving through molasses.

Writing wasn’t the only thing I lost. Music has always been a huge part of my life. After my illness, music sounded like noise and static. I couldn’t separate the instruments or enjoy the melodies. It was emotionally devastating because music has always been one of the ways I process life. Hiking disappeared. Singing disappeared. Dancing disappeared. Many days I sat wondering what I was supposed to do with myself because the activities that had helped me cope with stress, recover from trauma, and simply enjoy being alive were suddenly unavailable to me.

Sometime during all of that, I saw an article online about a program that could create images from a written description. I remember reading it and thinking that it sounded interesting, and then I realized they were talking about artificial intelligence. I closed the page and went on with my day because I still wasn’t interested.

A little while later I came across another article, and curiosity finally won. I downloaded OpenArt AI and typed something completely ridiculous. I asked it to create an elephant wearing a pretty dress while dancing in the parking lot of Walmart. A few seconds later there it was. It made me laugh. I spent some time creating funny pictures and eventually used it to make character sketches for a short story I was working on. That was enough to convince me that AI could be entertaining, but writing was still the thing I cared about most, so I put it aside.

Then I heard about ChatGPT. I downloaded the app in June of 2024 and decided I was going to spend a month seeing what it could actually do. People were talking about using it for coding, writing reports, homework assignments, and business tasks. My interests were completely different. I wanted to talk about dreams, psychology, philosophy, religion, tarot, creativity, and all the random thoughts that constantly bounce around in my head. I think in stories, symbols, and images, so I was curious whether a program like this could actually work with someone whose mind naturally moves in that direction.

The first thing I did was speak everything I wanted to say about a particular topic into my tablet. I organized it as well as I could, just like I used to do before I lost functioning, and then I asked ChatGPT to edit it for grammar and flow. When I read the result, I cried. It felt like I had gotten a piece of myself back. The thoughts were mine. The experiences were mine. Every opinion belonged to me. The program helped me shape everything into the version I would have created if I still had the same physical and cognitive abilities I had before my illness. It did in a few seconds what would have taken me hours, and seeing that happen was incredibly emotional.

That’s how I still use AI today. I’m speaking this entire article into the microphone on my iPad. At the top of this conversation, I gave ChatGPT instructions to organize everything I say into a rough draft. The stories are mine. The ideas are mine. The experiences belong to me. AI helps me bridge the gap between the way my mind still works and the limitations my body continues to recover from.

The old Army computer specialist in me eventually became curious about how far these programs could go, so I started stress testing them. I pushed them in every direction I could think of. I wanted to know what they handled well, where they struggled, and where they simply fell apart. I still do that today because understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a tool has always been part of the fun for me.

Over the past two years, AI has become one of the most valuable tools in my recovery. It has given me a place to organize my thoughts, work through ideas, develop creative projects, discuss philosophy, explore psychology, and reconnect with the parts of myself that felt so distant after my illness. I genuinely believe it has helped me strengthen cognitive pathways that needed exercise while giving me an outlet for all the ideas that were piling up in my head.

That experience is the reason I wanted to write this post. I know there are strong opinions about generative AI, and I understand why. I also know that there are people whose lives have been made better because these tools exist. My perspective comes from living through a neurological injury that changed almost everything about the way I moved through the world. AI became one of the bridges that helped me find my way back to writing, creating, and participating in conversations that matter to me.

I also think AI is going to change the workforce in very real ways. Some job functions will disappear because software will perform them more efficiently. I expect that to happen, just as technology has changed jobs throughout history. I also think people who learn how to use these tools will have an advantage because they are already becoming part of everyday work. We’re seeing them in business writing, product descriptions, research, customer service, marketing, and countless other industries.

The creative side excites me just as much. I can create original artwork for a blog post instead of searching for stock photos. I can generate music specifically for a project instead of worrying about copyright claims or licensing fees. I can write my own lyrics, choose the style, choose the instruments, and create something that supports the story I’m trying to tell. That opens doors for independent creators who simply want to share their work with the world.

Three years ago I woke up in a body that could no longer do many of the things I had always taken for granted. Today I’m still recovering, and every month I notice another small improvement. Alongside the therapists, doctors, nurses, and countless hours of rehabilitation, generative AI has become one of the tools that helped me reclaim my voice. For someone who has always loved writing, storytelling, and sharing ideas, that gift has been immeasurable.

And look, I understand that there are serious issues concerning the operation and maintenance of these massive AI systems. Keeping these computers online and operational uses large amounts of freshwater for cooling, along with enormous amounts of electricity. Those concerns are real, and I think they’re worth paying attention to. At the same time, AI isn’t the only technology that depends on huge data centers. Cloud computing, streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, online gaming, cryptocurrency, search engines, social media platforms, and countless business services all run inside facilities that consume significant amounts of electricity and water to keep thousands of servers operating around the clock. As our reliance on technology continues to grow, improving the efficiency of these systems becomes a high priority across the board. I hope the companies building AI, cloud services, and the next generation of computing continue investing in better cooling systems, renewable energy, water recycling, and other innovations that reduce the impact on natural resources.

I hope this post gives people another perspective to consider. My experience with AI has been deeply personal, and it has become one of the most meaningful tools I’ve used during my recovery. I have every intention of continuing to learn alongside it, and I’m excited to see where this technology goes over the next ten years.

The Christmas Joke

 

There was once a man who had a peculiar form of entertainment. He enjoyed making promises simply so he could watch people believe them. He liked building someone up with anticipation, only to pull the rug out from under them at the last moment. Watching hope collapse amused him. It was a game he played with people, including his own children.

One year, one of his children asked for a particular toy for Christmas. At first, he insisted the child was too old for it. Then, sensing an opportunity, he suddenly changed his mind.

"All right," he said. "I'll get it for you."

The toy was popular, and the nearby stores had sold out. He told the child he was keeping an eye out for one. A little while later he announced that he'd found it.

"You'll have it for Christmas."

That was all the child needed to hear.

For the next three months, that promise became part of Christmas itself. Every day brought the excitement a little closer. By Christmas morning, the ten-year-old could hardly wait. The father sat nearby with a grin as the child eagerly tore into the package.

The wrapping paper came off, and the child found a practical joke instead of the promised toy.

The excitement drained away in an instant.

The child quietly said, "Thank you," set the gift to the side, and didn't complain.

The father laughed.

He kept asking, "Do you like it?" smiling as he watched the disappointment settle in. Every question was another chance to enjoy what he had created.

Only one person was entertained.

A couple of months later, he eventually bought the toy he had originally promised. By then, however, the lesson had already taken root.

The child no longer trusted their father's promises.

Something much larger than a Christmas gift had been lost that morning. The child learned that sharing dreams, wishes, and excitement with their father carried a cost. Anything that mattered enough to bring joy could also become a target.

Whether the father ever understood what happened is almost irrelevant. The child understood perfectly.

Some moments last far longer than the people who create them ever imagine. A single thoughtless act can quietly reshape a relationship forever. Once someone learns that their joy is safest kept to themselves, it's unlikely they'll offer it to you again.

 

The Universal Algorithm

The algorithm on social media has people in a real chokehold! If you’re not careful, you can get trapped in a toxic loop of ragebait. You train the algorithm by the content you engage with. So if you consistently consume content that rattles your nerves, that is exactly what the algorithm is going to continually bring to your doorstep.

You open your app and before you know it, you've spent the entire evening arguing about something stupid with someone you don’t even know. The next day, you log back in and see more of that person’s content and more posts just like it.

Now you’re on the hamster wheel.

You’ll continue to see the content you keep responding to. From the algorithm’s perspective, this makes perfect sense. You’re engaging with this material, so clearly it assumes you want more of it.

When studying the Law of Attraction and the process of manifestation, it helps to define what’s happening as the Universe’s version of the social media algorithm.

Whatever you focus on, whatever you pay special attention to, whatever consistently captures your interest, that’s what you’ll keep receiving.

Your affirmations are a way of training your mind to pay attention to what you want. They help you deliberately direct your focus instead of allowing your attention to be hijacked by whatever is loudest, most dramatic, or most irritating.

So when you spend more time engaging with ragebait than with your actual goals, what do you think you’re reinforcing in your life?

It really is that simple. And it really is that difficult. Most people allow social media algorithms to shape their experience without ever intentionally curating what they consume. In many ways, this mirrors how people live their lives. They feel as though they are at the mercy of the Fates, as if life is simply happening to them.

But there are many ways to steer your experience if you’re willing to take conscious responsibility for where you place your attention.

When you view the Law of Attraction as The Universal Algorithm, it becomes much easier to understand why those of us who study Spiritual Law emphasize the importance of watching your words and monitoring your focus.

Imagine you decide that you absolutely cannot stand women with green hair. You come across a woman with green hair on social media and proceed to comment on every photo, explaining how much you dislike her hair.

(First of all, it is none of your business what color she chooses to dye her hair. Second, if you dislike it so much, why are you spending any time over there? Questions to ask yourself.)

But then, the next day, you open your account and your feed is overflowing with women with green hair.

Now you are irritated. What’s happening?

You spent six hours engaging with green-haired content, and the algorithm interpreted your behavior as interest.

The Universe operates similarly, it’s impersonal. The Universe isn’t analyzing your preferences or trying to decode what you claim you dislike. It responds to what you consistently focus on.

The Universe simply says:

“This person spends a lot of time thinking about and engaging with women with green hair. Say less! Here’s some more women with green hair! Enjoy! 🥰”

 

If you’re not getting what you want from life, just as if you’re not getting what you want from your social media feed, it may be time to reset your algorithm. Deliberately focus your attention on what evokes the feelings and experiences you want to expand. Spend less time reacting to what irritates you.

Move on!

Would you rather see women with purple hair? Great! Now go find the purple-haired girlies and like/comment on their content. Engage with what you genuinely enjoy. Do the same thing in real life.

This way you intentionally change your algorithm!

Watch Your Mouth!

 

You fall out of alignment with what you’re trying to manifest by doing or saying things that seem small and trivial to you, but are actually major red flags spiritually.

For example, if you’re wanting to attract love and romance, but you’re constantly sarcastic or salty about other people being in relationships, whether online or in person, you’re transmitting a very different signal than the one you think you are.

You can do all the affirmations in the world. You can sit in beautiful vibes, meditate, and send out loving intentions all day long, and still completely block yourself through your true inner feelings about love and relationships.

If you’re looking at a relationship that seems solid, loving, and healthy, and your first response is sarcasm or bitterness:

“Oh my God, get a room.”
“You guys are doing too much.”
“You make me sick.”

…you’re repelling what it is you say you want. You say you want a loving relationship, and when anything that resembles it gets in front of you, you smack it down.

Instead, you need to bless it. You need to be able to say:

“That’s beautiful. Thank God that energy exists in the world, and that I had the privilege of witnessing it, because it means that kind of love is available to me too.”

When you become critical of what other people have, you create a shield to cover your own longing for it. That shield mangles the signal. All of that positive energy, meditation work, affirmations, and spiritual practice gets distorted because underneath it all is resentment, envy, anger, or grief.

Then you sit there saying:

“This shit doesn’t work.”

But it’s not just about the words coming out of your mouth. It’s about the emotional state those words are coming from.

If you’re dealing with issues of self-worth, rejection, or deservingness around relationships, then underneath all those affirmations may still be a deep feeling of:

“Why not me?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“I want that and I don’t have it.”

So when you see love expressed openly in front of you, it makes you uncomfortable. Instead of admitting the longing, you lash out through sarcasm, passive-aggressive comments, criticism, or jokes.

“OMG, you guys are always all over each other.”
“No one wants to see all of that.”

But the truth is, you do want it. You want it deeply.

And those bitter, resentful emotional states are repellent to the very thing you’re trying to attract.

Now understand what I’m saying carefully: your feelings are your feelings. I’m not condemning you for having them. That emotional state is exactly why you’re doing the affirmations, meditations, visualizations, and spiritual work in the first place. The goal is to work through those toxic emotional states, not pretend they aren’t there.

So every time you feel yourself getting ready to leave a snarky comment under someone’s wedding photo, engagement announcement, anniversary post, couples vacation picture, or relationship update, stop yourself.

When you notice yourself starting to feel some kind of way, interrupt the pattern immediately.

Drop in an affirmation.

Personally, I prescribe ten affirmation reps for every violation. Minimum. 😌

Use your affirmations liberally in those moments. Use them as long as the feeling persists. The more you start shooing away those negative thoughts and reactions toward other people’s relationships, the more space you create within your own energetic field to receive the loving relationship you desire.

Your manifestations are always preceded by witnessing similar energies and situations around you first. That’s part of the process. You see it. You acknowledge it. Then you come into spiritual agreement with it.

When you can look at love and honestly say:

“Yes. I like that. That feels good to me. I desire that for myself.”

…you move closer to experiencing it in your own life.

But every time you move into criticism, judgment, sarcasm, mockery, envy, or spite, you push that energy away from yourself.

You just shooed away your blessing.

So yeah, watch your mouth! 🫢

Your Divine Portion

 

Your Divine Portion

The Manna from Heaven – Exodus 16
The Parable of the Talents – Matthew 25:14–30

For all who believe, there is a Divine Portion set aside for you—one that you do not have to struggle for. It is accessed through Right Action and Divine Direction.

If you have obtained much through struggle and still feel dissatisfied, it may be a sign that you are not operating in alignment with your Divine Portion. Scripture tells us, “The blessing of the LORD makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22). If what you have carries sorrow, strain, or unrest, you may be moving according to what you have seen others do, or striving for what belongs to someone else.

What God has for you is for you. What God has for others is for them. Envy, pride, and jealousy cloud your vision, making it difficult to recognize and receive what is yours. Your portion will not look like anyone else’s. It has been uniquely designed to bring both provision and peace—a sense of satisfaction and a settled spirit. When you pursue what is not yours, dissatisfaction follows.

Access to your portion is often found through your natural gifts and talents. While your path will require effort, focus, and consistency, it should not be marked by unnecessary struggle or suffering. When you follow Divine Direction and take inspired action, what you need will be provided. If additional education, certifications, or experiences are required, a way will be made for you to obtain them without strain. Honest effort, aligned with Divine guidance, opens the necessary doors.

There are also ways to lose access to your portion. Chasing someone else’s path, engaging in dishonesty, or attempting to manipulate outcomes while claiming Divine guidance undermines your alignment. Speaking negatively about others and their circumstances can do the same. Many people close doors through their behavior—how they treat others matters deeply.

Prejudice, bigotry, and a judgmental spirit can shut doors quickly. Scripture reminds us, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). The very gatekeepers to your next opportunity may come in forms you did not expect—different in race, belief, or background. Maintaining respect, integrity, and proper conduct is essential, regardless of personal bias.

Stay focused. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Listen for the “still, small voice” within (1 Kings 19:11–12), and follow its direction.

When progress seems to slow, remain steady. Do not waver or abandon what you have been led to do. Continue. Some make the mistake of trying to force momentum by “faking it,” scattering their energy in the process. True “acting as if” is an internal posture—a quiet confidence that what you seek is already unfolding. Performing for others, however, is simply deception.

There is also a misunderstanding that faith requires silence in the face of difficulty. It does not. We are not commanded to ignore hardship. God makes room for honest expression. As human beings, we experience anger, frustration, and sorrow. There is space to lament.

The key is sincerity. Speak truthfully, not recklessly. Careless or uninformed words can disrupt your path just as much as misaligned actions. Scripture offers examples of this balance in both the Book of Lamentations and the Book of Job.

Your Divine Portion is not something you chase—it is something you align with. It is revealed through your obedience, your integrity, and your willingness to move in step with Divine guidance rather than human comparison. When you honor your path, guard your conduct, and remain steady in both action and spirit, what is meant for you will meet you without strain. Your role is not to force the outcome, but to stay in position—clear, consistent, and aligned—so that what has already been prepared for you can arrive fully and without sorrow.

Provide and Protect

 

Provision and Protection

In the tarot, the Empress and the Emperor appear early in the Major Arcana as the archetypal parents of the Fool, the human consciousness entering the world to learn how reality works. Traditionally, the Emperor represents the father or father figure, authority, law, government, military command, and institutional power. He stands in for heads of state, corporate leadership, the legal system, and the mechanisms that establish order, boundaries, and defense. In readings, he often functions as a symbol of structure itself: rules, oversight, logistics, and the enforcement of stability.

The Empress, his counterpart, is traditionally associated with the mother or mother figure, yet her scope extends far beyond nurturing in the sentimental sense. She represents production, business, commerce, material growth, health, and well-being. She is the card of fulfillment. In the Empress’s world, there is no needful thing. At minimum, needs are met. At best, there is abundance, pleasure, beauty, and a felt sense of being supported by life itself. She governs the body, lived experience, and the systems that allow people to thrive rather than merely survive. When paired with other cards, she may indicate pregnancy, but more broadly she reflects the conditions that sustain society from the inside out.

Together, the Emperor and the Empress sit side by side as complementary forces. Both are concerned with protection. Both are concerned with provision. The difference lies in how those qualities are expressed. The Emperor protects through structure. The Empress protects through fulfillment. One ensures survival. The other ensures that life feels worth living.

How Patriarchy Disrupted the Balance

Patriarchal systems elevated the Emperor’s form of intelligence while suppressing the Empress’s. Structure, authority, and productivity became synonymous with legitimacy. Relational intelligence, intuition, embodied knowing, and emotional insight were relegated to the private sphere and treated as secondary or ornamental.

This imbalance was promoted as beneficial to men. Protection and provision were framed as guarantees: if men aligned themselves with stability, status, and productivity, access to women would naturally follow. Women, in turn, were expected to offer sex, reproduction, and compliance without requiring recognition of their full humanity or intelligence.

That promise did not hold.

Rather than producing mutual fulfillment, it produced entitlement and disconnection. When reality failed to deliver the expected outcomes, many doubled down on the framework itself, insisting that women were the problem rather than questioning the premise. This dynamic appears loudly in red-pill spaces and quietly in many conventional relationships. Even well-intentioned men often continue to treat feminine expression as diminutive. Emotions, intuition, spirituality, and perception are acknowledged but not trusted. They are heard without being allowed to shape shared reality.

The Impact on Women and the Distortion of Feminine Power

The suppression of feminine intelligence also fractured women’s access to authentic models of feminine authority. With few examples of balanced feminine power in leadership, many women attempted to reclaim agency by adopting masculine frameworks and renaming them empowerment. This produced a version of feminism that mirrors patriarchy in posture, prioritizing dominance, hyper-independence, and material accumulation while leaving relational intelligence unaddressed.

Putting a skirt on patriarchy did not restore feminine authority. It merely shifted who was holding the same tools.

Feminine energy moves differently. It is relational, adaptive, responsive, and life-centered. When women are encouraged to express power only through masculine channels, frustration follows rather than liberation. As a result, many women opted out of traditional relationships altogether. Confinement felt too costly. Diminishing voice, intuition, and interior life proved unsustainable.

Some chose autonomy, prioritizing career and material stability. Others redefined fulfillment outside of partnership. Yet beneath these choices, the desire for connection remained. What disappeared was the willingness to endure erasure in exchange for proximity.

Women are not rejecting relationship. They are rejecting relationships that do not allow mutual evolution.

The Impact on Modern Relationships

As masculine structure is prioritized and feminine fulfillment is diminished, relationships become transactional. Desire weakens under entitlement. Communication falters when one form of intelligence is privileged over another. People remain materially supported yet emotionally isolated.

The masculine principle organizes, builds, defends, and enforces. Relationship, connection, and community arise through feminine energy. When that energy is dismissed, partnerships lose their connective tissue. Individuals begin managing relationships rather than inhabiting them.

Women experience this as partial recognition. Men experience it as confusion and loneliness. Both feel the strain of an arrangement that promised fulfillment but delivered distance.

The Return of the Empress

Energy does not disappear when suppressed. It reroutes.

What we are witnessing now—through experimentation in identity, expression, aesthetics, and relational structure—is the return of the Empress to collective consciousness. This re-emergence is not tidy. It arrives through excess, creativity, visibility, and boundary testing. It is a corrective process rather than a rebellion.

The Empress is restoring fulfillment, relational intelligence, and embodied wisdom to a culture that overvalued structure at the expense of lived experience. She is not seeking dominance. She is restoring function.

Toward Balance

The Emperor without the Empress produces efficient systems that people do not belong to.

The Empress without the Emperor produces nurturing communities that cannot scale or defend themselves.

Balance is operational, not symbolic.

Healthy relationships require shared authority over meaning. Protection and provision must move in both directions, expressed through different forms of intelligence, each treated as legitimate. When intuition is recognized as data and fulfillment as a necessity rather than a luxury, relationships regain coherence.

The task before us is not to discard the Emperor, but to restore the Empress to equal standing. Only then can protection truly provide, and provision truly protect.

Closing reflection: What we are being asked to reconsider is not gender, but governance. Not identity, but authority. The Emperor and the Empress do not compete for dominance. They govern different dimensions of human life, each incomplete without the other. A world built on structure alone becomes brittle. A world built on fulfillment alone cannot endure. The future of our relationships depends on restoring both forms of intelligence to equal standing, allowing protection and provision to move through us as shared responsibilities rather than inherited roles. When structure learns to listen and fulfillment is trusted as real, relationship becomes possible again—not as obligation, but as choice.