Some conversations stay with you long after they’re over. Not because they were loud or dramatic, but because something in them quietly rearranges how you see things. That’s what happened during this week’s conversation on the Not Just Waiting Podcast.
I sat down with Hansi Sherwood, and somewhere in the middle of our conversation she said something simple that I haven’t stopped thinking about since:
“God is reminding me that I’m a daughter first.”
A daughter. Not a leader. Not a speaker. Not a mother. Not a pastor’s wife. Just a daughter.
And the more we talked, the more I realized how easy it is to forget that.
Because most of us wake up thinking about our responsibilities first. The emails we need to send. The people we need to care for. The things we need to fix, manage, solve, or hold together.
We step into our roles immediately. But what if we started somewhere else? What if we started the day remembering whose we are?
Hansi shared that every morning lately she reminds herself of one thing before anything else: I’m a daughter of the King.
Not someday. Not once everything works out. Right now. And honestly, that changes how you show up in the world.
Because daughters don’t live the same way servants do. They live with belonging. They live with expectation. They live knowing they are loved.
Hansi shared a picture that stuck with me. She and her husband love surprising their kids. Because of that, their kids live with a certain kind of anticipation. They don’t always know what’s coming. But they trust it will be good. That’s the posture God has been inviting her into in this season. Not control. Expectancy.
And if you’ve ever been in a season where life feels uncertain or slow, you know how hard that can be.
Waiting has a way of making us question everything. God’s timing. God’s goodness.
Sometimes even God’s presence. But what if the waiting isn’t about punishment or delay? What if it’s about formation?
During our conversation, Hansi shared a story from years ago that shaped her faith in a profound way. When she was 29, she and her husband were in the process of adopting their daughter. They had already brought her home as a newborn, but months later they found themselves in the middle of a painful legal battle. For months, it looked like their daughter might be taken from them.
Every day she prayed the same prayer. God, save my daughter. And every day she wrestled with the same question she felt God asking her: Do you trust me?
Not in theory. But here. In the middle of uncertainty. In the middle of fear.
One day, after months of wrestling, something shifted. And through tears she prayed a different prayer. God, save my daughter… but if you don’t, I still believe.
That kind of faith doesn’t happen overnight. It’s formed slowly, in the middle of long prayers and honest wrestling. But that’s often how God works. Sometimes He’s more interested in shaping our hearts than fixing our circumstances. Not because He’s indifferent to our pain, but because He knows what kind of faith can be formed there.
We talk a lot about waiting around here. It’s literally in the name of the podcast. But waiting doesn’t always look the way we imagine it. Sometimes we picture waiting as sitting still until God finally moves. But the kind of waiting Scripture invites us into is different. It’s active. It’s intentional.
Hansi described it as choosing how you will wait. Choosing to renew your mind when fear starts to spiral. Choosing joy even when circumstances haven’t changed. Choosing to release control again and again.
One of my favorite images she shared was something she calls a hope chest. For a long time, she said, her hope chest was filled with the wrong things. Fear. Lies. Worry. Expectations. But in this season, she’s been intentionally filling it with truth instead.
And the more I’ve thought about that, the more I realize we’re all filling something while we wait. The only question is what we’re putting inside.
If you’re in a season where things feel slow, uncertain, or painful right now, I hope this conversation reminds you of something simple but important.
God is not absent in the waiting.
He’s forming something. Your faith. Your character. Your identity.
And maybe, just maybe, He’s inviting you to remember something too: You’re not just someone trying to hold your life together. You’re a daughter. And daughters don’t live from panic. They live from belonging.
- Reanna
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