A View from a Pew...Who I Am

Lately, everywhere I go, someone stops me—not to talk about headlines, schedules, or surface-level things—but to tell me how something I wrote in my View from a Pew found them. They say, “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, but I didn’t know how to say it.” And every time I hear that, I have to pause, because what they don’t realize is that those words didn’t come from a place of having it all together. They came from a place of sitting still long enough to be honest.

What’s almost funny—God’s kind of funny—is that for the past few days, one simple line has been replaying in my spirit like a broken record, refusing to let me move on:

I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody.

That sentence is the whole sermon.

Because I’m not writing as an expert. I’m not writing as someone who has arrived. I’m writing from a pew—sometimes encouraged, sometimes exhausted, sometimes still figuring it out. I’m writing as someone who knows what it feels like to smile in public and wrestle in private. Someone who has learned that faith doesn’t mean you never struggle; it means you know where to take your struggle.

I’m just a nobody.

No special title. No spiritual superpowers. Just a person who has seen grace show up too many times to pretend it was luck. I’ve watched doors open that shouldn’t have. I’ve survived seasons I wasn’t equipped for. I’ve been protected from things I didn’t even know were aiming at me. And I’ve learned that when God keeps you, the least you can do is tell the truth about it.

And here’s the part that humbles me: when people say my words sound like their own thoughts, it reminds me that this pew is crowded. There are so many people sitting quietly, carrying heavy things, afraid to say out loud that they’re tired, confused, or barely holding on. So when someone finally says it—plain, honest, unpolished—it feels like relief.

Not because the words are fancy.
But because the truth is familiar.

I’m not pointing people to myself. I’m pointing them to Somebody who keeps meeting me here. Somebody who doesn’t need perfect grammar, perfect church attendance, or a perfect past. Somebody who specializes in broken things, late prayers, and last-chance faith.

And the beauty of it all is this:
He can save anybody.

Anybody who feels overlooked.
Anybody who messed it up and knows it.
Anybody who’s praying with tears because words won’t come.
Anybody who thought they’d be further along by now.

So if something I write feels like it reached into your chest and pulled out what you couldn’t name, maybe that’s not about me at all. Maybe it’s God reminding you that you’re not alone in this pew. That your questions don’t disqualify you. That your silence hasn’t gone unnoticed.

I’m just a nobody, telling everybody, about somebody—
and if He can use these words, written from a pew, to reach you, then surely He can use your story too.

Because hope doesn’t require perfection.
It only requires honesty.
And grace? Grace is still available…

For anybody.