Trading the Quickest Exit for the Slower Work of Wisdom

Come along with me for a moment as we imagine Vincent van Gogh living in the present day and being one of our best friends. We stop by his apartment on our way to what promises to be an incredible party and call through the doorway, “Hey, VG, you coming?” He looks up from his phone, smiles, slips it into his back pocket, grabs his jacket, and walks out the door with us.

What if he never noticed the stars? Never took the time to stand beneath that restless blue sky, study the movement of the light, reach for a paintbrush, and paint The Starry Night? Absurd, I know. But these days, most of us have our own version of that tempting invitation readily available, one that can make the quickest choice look more appealing than the wisest one in the moment.

For me, another tempting avenue is taking some of my most important questions straight to the gentleman I carry around in my purse or pocket. Within seconds, he can offer what I choose to believe is an answer. Hopefully, the correct one.

In my world, I define those conversations with AI as query-and-reply chat-alongs. Before I know, my thoughts have me metaphorically driving up an exit ramp, overwhelmed by the wall of information in front of me and looking for the quickest way through, or maybe the easiest way to leave the whole situation I am pondering behind.

That is usually my clue to slow my roll.

THE “I’M OUT” INSTINCT

These thoughts about how one might apply wisdom to life have brought me back to a conversation I recently had with my husband. Out of sheer protection for me, he has shared where his thoughts go when he watches friends appear to overlook me, only seem to need me when they want something, or compete with me in ways he finds difficult to understand. I use the word friends lightly in some of those situations.

His response can be almost immediate:

I’m out!

In truth, there are memories from my husband’s past that helped shape his I’m out instinct. And sometimes creating space is absolutely necessary. Boundaries are wise, and loving someone does not require us to keep giving them unrestricted access to our lives.

Even so, through all the years I have heard some version of “never mind them, I’m out,” he is still the first in line to help someone when they need relief from whatever despair they may be carrying.

That very kind of human affection and concern is what keeps bringing me back to the question that led me to write this:

Am I out, or am I willing to remain with God and His Word long enough to ask what might be required of me?

YOU’RE DEAD TO ME

I want to share the words of a potential beta reader I interviewed last week. She said, “Michelle, I have friends you’d be dead to. They wouldn’t simply misunderstand you or disagree with you. You would be dead to them.”

Her concern came from the fact that I chose abortion at fifteen and have now chosen to tell the world the truth about that decision. Her warning felt sincere, and I understand that some people will reject me because of my story.

They will, in their own way, exercise the I’m out instinct .

Their decision to erase the very existence of me does not give me permission to become indifferent toward them. So I lean in and create my own I’m in reality.

This reality no longer leaves me enchained by the guilt and shame that once held me in bondage. It also does not leave me eager to be hated. It simply means that if telling the truth about what Christ has done in my life brings suffering with it, I’m in.

THE ALIVE SOUL

Still walking with me, reader?

Because this is one of those I’m in moments when an ordinary detail felt, if you don’t mind me saying so, a little like my own version of looking up at the stars.

Not because I’m comparing myself to Van Gogh. Well, maybe I am a little bit. He did, after all, find plenty of inspiration in shoes and hats. Mostly because I’m showing the connection between the physical details of ordinary objects and the significance I can miss if I am not quiet enough to notice them.

Just a few weeks ago, I had the words He loved first tattooed in small, feminine script beneath my left collarbone. Within roughly twenty-four hours, I found a rough gold ring lying on the sidewalk beneath a starry sky during an evening walk with my dog, Rayma.

I popped the ring into my pocket assuming it was costume jewelry. Once home, I discovered that it was fourteen-karat gold and engraved with the name Bernice.

Had the ring said Joe, I doubt I would have stopped in my tracks.

Instead, I sat down and started one of my Q&As with Google. Somewhere in my stumbling over the meaning of Bernice and its possible connection to Scripture, Google returned a phrase I had not asked for: face to face.

I could have corrected the search and kept moving. Instead, I remained with God and His Word in search of the truth.

That phrase led me to Acts 25 and 26, where Paul stood before Agrippa and Bernice and faced his accusers. As I continued studying, I learned that Bernice carries a meaning connected with victory. That led me to 1 John 5:4:

“Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Then I compared that verse with the words I had tattooed beneath my collarbone from 1 John 4:19:

“We love because He first loved us.”

And there was the cause and effect that stopped me in my tracks.

LOVE. FAITH. VICTORY.

His love comes first. Faith responds to that love. And through faith comes the victory that overcomes the world.

What began with a small tattoo and then a gold ring lying on a sidewalk eventually had me on my knees for the first time in months.

Lord, what do You want me to do with this? You are so much bigger than I am. Please do not let me miss what Your Word is teaching me.

Wisdom in that moment did not encompass the kind of fear that sent me running from God. It was the kind of fear necessary to recognize how vast He is and how very small I am.

I returned to Acts and read about Paul standing there as the prisoner in a courtroom. Even though Bernice’s name carried the meaning bringer of victory, I realized Paul was the true victor in that room that day. He possessed a freedom no courtroom could give and no chain could take away. He stood face to face with his accusers and bore witness.

His testimony was not,

Let me prove that I have always been right. You are wrong, I am right, and I’m out.

It was, Let me tell you why I am no longer the man I once was.

And that is where I found my story inside his.

The small tattoo inspired by Scripture and the simple gold ring I had found on the sidewalk had already led me back into God’s Word and toward a realization I could not ignore.

Now, some folks may see that as a glorified treasure hunt. For me, it became a lesson that led me to prepare myself to stand face to face with readers who may become my accusers.

I am preparing for a courtroom of my own, so to speak, where I will tell the truth about choices I have made. Some readers may misunderstand my motives. Some may question my faith. And some, as I have already been warned, may play judge and jury, bring down the gavel, and decide that I am dead to them.

I do not need to enter that courtroom defending Michelle.

I can enter clothed in grace, bearing witness to Jesus.

And when I leave that courtroom, I want to remain on the longer road of wisdom, equipped with the moral courage to resist the quickest exit.

THE SILVER SETTING

I rarely feel brave because Jesus is the bravery in my story. He makes me brave. He calls me out. And sometimes He asks me to say the difficult thing. In other words, be brave.

More than ten years ago, I stood inside an extended family member’s home when a heated conversation arose. There had been years of discord between us, along with indirect potshots during holidays and family gatherings. I believed there was sin between us, and it needed to stop.

I told this person more than once that what I was saying came from love. I apologized for the fact that the conversation had to happen at all. In return, I was told, with a little profanity attached, that I was crazy and needed professional help.

I stood my ground. I said I was clear-minded in what I was saying and had no intention of taking it back. To this day, I still wholeheartedly believe there was truth in what I said.

But truth being present does not mean every word has already been given its wisest setting.

Our conversation ended more than ten years ago.

The silence did not.

Over the years, invitations on our end remained open. Early on, my husband suggested that we sit down with a pastor who could pray over us and counsel us. That never came to fruition.

I share this because my hope for reconciliation did not disappear when the relationship broke. The fact remains that reconciliation requires more than one person leaving the door unlocked.

In my opinion, the I’m out theory has cost our family a decade of life together.

Ten years we cannot retrieve.

APPLES OF GOLD

Years before that conversation ever happened, I bought a small silver basket from a thrift store for ninety-nine cents. And man, that little thing had done a little bit of everything.

At one point, it sat on the back of the commode holding toilet paper. At another, it held potpourri. It spent time on the top shelf of my closet filled with rolled-up socks and gloves. It never seemed to have a permanent place.

Then, while spending time in Scripture, I came across Proverbs 25:11:

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that little basket. I ordered one large brass-colored apple and several smaller golden apples and arranged them inside.

And there they were again, ordinary details directing me back to God’s Word.

The basket had not been waiting ten years for me to understand it.

I needed the ten years.

Ten years of loss. Ten years of praying. Ten years of remaining with God and His Word instead of choosing the easiest exit.

Only then could I look at those golden apples and understand that they had become more than decoration on my kitchen table. They had become a living reminder that truth is safest in the hands of wisdom.

I recently photographed those golden apples in their silver basket. When I looked at the finished image, I saw the fire and considered the heat. What it revealed to me was that truth could be present and the emotion completely real, while the words were still being held, not hurled in the heat of the moment.

That was the wise setting in my family’s living room that day, the silver setting we had been missing.

Truth does not need less truth. It simply needs to be held in the hands of wisdom long enough to be spoken well.

INSIDE HIS STORY

I try very hard to remain biblically grounded and to find my story inside God’s story.

When I sit down as a visual storyteller, a creative who has become deeply rooted in Scripture, I am writing from my own conviction that comes from following the light where it gets most honest for me.

That does not mean I never look at my husband and say, “Wow. That was way more than a coincidence. That was definitely from God.”

And when I believe that, it is mine to hold on to.

So when an ordinary detail catches my attention and sends me back to Scripture, I find myself asking:

Lord, what has Your Word already taught me that helps me understand this moment?

Sometimes that lens is literally the one attached to my camera.

As a trained professional photographer, my craft has trained my eye. As a writer, working through my memoir continues to train my heart. The way I see it, one tells stories with light, and the meditation of my heart becomes the lens. The other tells stories with words, and the words of my mouth become my writing.

Somewhere between the two, I became the visual storyteller I am, and I keep returning to the same prayer:

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

So my invitation to you is this:

Come hang out with me every now and then.

We do not have to rush. We do not have to pretend. We do not have to interpret every ordinary detail in life the same way.

But we can learn together how to remain a little longer before taking the quickest one-way exit. We can rest a while. We can suffer for love if necessary. We can be courageous enough to face the verdict. And we can remain long enough for God to show us what comes next.

Because when the fire is real and the truth is ready, we can remember:

Truth is safest in the hands of wisdom.

And there is beauty within the exchange.

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