What friendship, faith, and God’s provision taught me during one of the most uncertain seasons of my life
In January 2009, I was convinced I was starting over.
Not because I wanted to.
Because life had made the decision for me.
A chapter had ended.
A role I had held was gone.
A routine that had defined my days disappeared almost overnight.
For a while, it felt like someone had erased the roadmap I had been following.
The funny thing about hindsight is that it reveals what fear tries to hide.
Seventeen years later, I can see something that thirty-year-old Lela could not.
I wasn’t starting over.
I was rebuilding.
When Loss Feels Like Identity
For several years, my life had revolved around ministry.
I loved serving.
I loved supporting people.
I loved helping build something bigger than myself.
Like many people who dedicate themselves to service, I didn’t realize how much of my identity had become attached to what I did rather than who I was.
When that season ended, I was left with a difficult question:
Who am I when the title is gone?
The answer didn’t come quickly.
But the question itself changed my life.
As I look back through old Bible study notes from that season, I see page after page filled with declarations about faith, authority, identity, and emotional health.
I wasn’t writing notes because everything was okay.
I was writing because I needed reminders of what God said about me while I was learning how to believe it again.
God Sent Me Community
One of the blessings I often overlook when telling this story is that I wasn’t walking through it alone.
Nicole and I met while serving at World Changers Church New York.
Our friendship developed through years of ministry, leadership transitions, and shared experiences.
At the time, our professional paths were different, but they often intersected. I had served in Member Care Services before moving into another administrative role within the church. Around the same period, Nicole was serving as an administrative assistant in a different department.
Over the years, both of us experienced unexpected changes, new assignments, and seasons of uncertainty.
Those experiences created a bond that would prove invaluable later.
Eventually, Nicole returned to New York after serving in Atlanta, where she had been living in temporary housing while supporting a ministry assignment.
By late 2008, we became roommates.
Looking back, I don’t think either of us realized how important that timing would become.
Before we moved in together, we shared communion and committed the next season of our lives to God.
Neither of us knew exactly what the future would hold.
We only knew that we wanted to trust God through it.
Over the next several months, both of us found ourselves navigating major life transitions.
Because we had experienced similar highs and lows, there was a level of understanding between us that didn’t require many explanations.
We knew how to pray.
We knew how to encourage one another.
And when one person’s faith felt weak, the other would help carry the load.
God’s Provision Often Has a Face
One of the people God used during that season was our friend Al-Nisa.
There was a period when Nicole and I were both trying to determine our next steps and trusting God for provision.
Al-Nisa never distanced herself from us because of our circumstances.
Instead, she drew closer.
She prepared meals for us.
She prayed with us.
She encouraged us.
She showed up.
Years later, I may not remember every detail of those uncertain days, but I remember the kindness.
I remember the food.
I remember the prayers.
I remember the feeling of being seen.
Sometimes we talk about God’s provision as though it only arrives in the form of a job offer, a financial breakthrough, or a miraculous opportunity.
But sometimes provision looks like a friend standing in your kitchen with a meal and a prayer when you’re not sure what tomorrow holds.
To this day, I remain grateful for Al-Nisa.
If she ever reads this, I hope she knows I still remember.
I remember the meals.
I remember the prayers.
I remember being cared for when life felt uncertain.
And I remain grateful.
Becoming Brand New
Something else happened in 2009.
I began paying attention to myself again.
Not in a vain way.
In a healthy way.
I focused on my appearance.
I worked on my health.
I released my first book, Poetry of a Black Girl: The Darkness and the Light.
Little by little, confidence returned.
People began saying something that I heard over and over:
“You look brand new.”
At first, I assumed they were talking about weight loss.
Now I think they were seeing healing.
The grief I had carried after losing both of my parents at a young age had shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand.
For years, I had survived.
In 2009, I began living again.
The shell of a woman that had emerged after loss was slowly giving way to someone stronger, healthier, and more hopeful.
Healing had finally become visible.
The Future Was Already Knocking
What amazes me now is how many things were already taking shape while I was busy worrying about what I had lost.
Oji had already re-entered my life.
We had known each other since 1992.
We graduated high school together in 1996.
After years apart, we reconnected around 2008.
At the time, I didn’t know where that friendship was headed.
I certainly didn’t know I was talking to my future husband.
I only knew that God was bringing familiar people back into my life at exactly the moment I needed reminders of who I was.
Today, as I write this, we are celebrating fourteen years of marriage and looking forward to seventeen years together as a couple later this year.
Sometimes restoration doesn’t arrive as something new.
Sometimes it arrives as something God preserved.
I Wasn’t Starting Over
That’s the biggest lesson these notes have taught me.
In 2009, I thought I was starting over.
I thought I was standing at the end of something.
But looking back now, I realize I was standing at the beginning.
The beginning of healing.
The beginning of authorship.
The beginning of restored confidence.
The beginning of a relationship that would become a marriage.
The beginning of a family I couldn’t yet imagine.
The beginning of a woman becoming herself again.
And maybe that’s why old journals matter.
They remind us that God was working in seasons that felt uncertain.
They remind us that what looked like an ending was often construction.
And they remind us that some of our greatest blessings begin disguised as disruption.
Scripture Reflection
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
— Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)
Selah.
© 2026, Lela Fagan. All rights reserved.
