Goodness Remains Colossians 3:12 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

I always hoped the best for people, even when silence replaced sentences, even when replies stopped arriving, even when a once-warm connection grew cold without explanation or apology.

I was never someone who turned bitter just because someone chose distance, or needed to leave, or couldn’t meet me where I stood. I understood that people do what they must to survive the version of themselves they are still becoming.

Did I hope for more? Of course I did.

I am human.

And the heart, when it loves, wants what it wants with a tenderness that doesn’t always come with guarantees.

But loving deeply never meant possessing.

Wanting connection never meant demanding it.

I have always wanted the best for the people I love, even when that best did not include me.

That, I think, is the quiet grief of a good heart: that no amount of pain could teach it to be cruel, to be ruthless, to be savage in retaliation, even when it is breaking clean in two.

This has never been about religion for me. It has never been about labels or appearances.

It is about who I am in God. Because how my heart responds reveal who I am in Him, not how loudly I claim a faith.

It is not a “Christian thing” to treat people well, it is a human thing, and a Godly one.

I am a good woman of God and a good human before I am a good Christian. Because both of those truths must exist long before words or doctrines ever do.

When I move through life, through other people’s lives, I do so as if God is walking beside me.

Watching.

Witnessing.

Knowing.

And in that awareness, I know I cannot harm His people without harming my own integrity. I carry reverence in moments no one sees, and even in my hardest trials, I have tried to keep my promise to Him, even when I forget my place, even when grief clouds my footing.

This is not a claim of perfection.

I have fallen.

I have stumbled.

I have failed.

But for the most part, I choose to take care of people and their hearts, regardless of their decisions, because that is what love looks like when it is shaped by God.

It does not make me better than anyone else.

It does not make me more holy.

But it does make me careful, and considerate,

and gentle with the souls I am trusted to stand besides, even briefly.

Because you never truly know what weight someone is carrying behind their silence, their distance, their leaving.

So, I remain kind.

Not because it is easy.

But because it is who I am, and who I choose to be, even when it costs me something.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3:12

Lord,

Keep my heart soft in a world that teaches hardness.

Remind me that integrity matters most when no one is watching but you.

Help me love without condition, release without resentment, and remain kind even when my heart is tired.

May my actions reflect your presence, not my pain.

Let me be a safe place for others, and a faithful steward of the hearts you place in my path.

Amen.

Goodness Remains Colossians 3:12 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

Goodness Remains Colossians 3:12 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.