Long before we knew we had a choice, each of us received a script.
It didn't arrive as a tidy document or clear set of instructions. No one said, "Here's who you're expected to be." But we absorbed it anyway—through parents, pastors, coaches, teachers, politicians, and social media. We learned which roles are rewarded, which ones are punished. We internalized what it means to be "good," "successful," "patriotic," "faithful," "masculine," "feminine."
Your script may have included things like what faith system to follow, who you should marry or whether you even should, what kind of job is respectable, and which political values are righteous or dangerous.
We don't all receive the same lines, but we all inherit a script.
And life gives us opportunities to question that script.
Sometimes those opportunities arrive quietly: a friendship that challenges everything you thought you believed. A book that blows your mind. A podcast that causes you to think outside the lines. A moment where your body reacts instinctively long before your brain does.
Other times, those opportunities come like earthquakes—loss, betrayal, awakening—and suddenly, the old lines no longer make sense. You might even wonder: Whose life have I been living?
I've had such moments. The loss of a child. A sense of betrayal at work. The loss of a close friend by suicide.
One of the biggest shifts in my life happened the moment one of my children came out to me as trans—and I knew my life could never be the same again.
Each of those moments cracked open the script I had been handed and invited me to start listening for my own voice.
Your moment won't look like mine. And it's not supposed to. That's the beauty of it.
Every invitation to rethink the script is also an invitation to grow—exactly in the ways that we need to.
But many of us resist. We worry that if we grow too far in the wrong direction, we'll lose everything—family, community, certainty, safety. And speaking from experience, you may lose one or more of those things. But you'll gain immeasurably more.
That being said, I'm not here to push you into growth. I'm just here to remind you:
Only you can decide what's true for you. No one else has that right.
You can keep reciting lines that feel hollow. Keep showing up in costumes that don't fit. Keep doing what's expected and safe.
But if you do, you may never know what it's like to live your actual life.
What's waiting for you when you reclaim your voice isn't chaos. It's not rebellion for rebellion's sake.
It's sovereignty—the grounded, sacred authority of someone who knows who they are.
And that doesn't start with a manifesto.
It starts with something quieter. More ancient. More trustworthy.
Your intuition.
That knowing in your gut. That sacred "yes" or holy "no" that doesn't need defending.
So I'm not asking you to rip up your script.
I'm just inviting you to notice it.
Reflection Prompt: What part of your life still feels like someone else's story?
Don't rush to fix it. Just notice. Then ask: What would it look like to begin writing my own lines here?
Tell me: what's one line from your inherited script that you're starting to question? I read every comment and often find that sharing these moments helps us all feel less alone in the questioning.
I was able to leave my script behind when I heard Gene Robinson say, "The God I know is not like that." The Lord who came to live inside me freed me from unrecognized bibliolatry.