When Blaine and I married, he gave me my first study Bible. I heard a quote once that said, “If 100 people are investigating God, one will read the Bible and the other 99 will read the Christian.” Once I began digging into God’s Word for myself, I realized that to be true. I realized that for the past two years I had been reading and studying my mother-in-law. Her love for the Lord was palpable. Her life radiated a peace and joy that could not be explained. Her life was marked by Christ, and that mark shaped everyone around her.

I had the gift of knowing her for 35 years before she passed away in 2020. We lived down the street from “Maw Maw and PI” for seventeen of those years, and I cannot recall a single time I saw her in a bad mood. I remember standing beside her in church one Sunday as we sang “How Great Thou Art.” I glanced over and saw tears quietly streaming down her face. That moment marked me. Her love for God was not rooted in religion, ritual, or performance. It flowed from relationship — a deep, abiding, daily walk with her Savior. I wanted what she had — a relationship.

I now understand that kind of life does not happen by accident. It is not built on a rushed, obligatory ten-minute quiet time. It is cultivated by daily positioning yourself close to the Vine. If God feels distant, we must ask ourselves the hard question: Who moved?

When my dad died in 2021, a neighbor in Lufkin invited my mom to a Bible study at her church, and I encouraged her to go. My mom did not have a true study Bible so I bought her one like mine. Around that same time, a friend in Dallas asked if I wanted to do a Bible study with her. I told her I was already planning to do the same study alongside my mom. Without hesitation, Alex said she would jump in with me, and together we gathered three more friends to join us. What unfolded next was something I never could have imagined. But to fully understand it, you first have to understand my mom’s story.

Sallye Ann Dozier was born and raised in a small town in Alabama, the oldest of eight children with seven younger brothers. From an early age, responsibility rested heavily on her shoulders. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her brothers filled her days. She spent much of her life giving to others, but over time, the constant demands quietly gave way to resentment.

At 18, she found her ticket out when she was accepted to the University of Alabama. There she met my dad, a boy from New Jersey. They came from completely different worlds, yet somehow found each other — a Jersey boy and a beautiful Southern belle. They married, began their life together in Virginia, and eventually moved to Austin, Texas, with two small children in tow.

When we were little, we traveled to Alabama almost every summer for about a week to visit family. Even as a child, I could sense something beneath the surface. My mom had not grown up in the kind of environment she worked so hard to create for us.

I was in college when her father passed away, and years later, her mother followed. Watching my mom walk through that season felt like watching a painful door slam shut. Her family fractured. Old wounds deepened. Words went unspoken. Sides were taken. And when it was all over, my mom made a vow: “I will never go back.” For more than 30 years, she kept it. But God had other plans.

After that first Bible study in 2021, something began stirring in her heart, a hunger for more. When the study ended, we did not stop. We found another one and began zooming her in each week. By February of 2022, one of my friends finally said out loud what we were all witnessing: “Something is changing.” And it was. For the first time in her life, my mom was not simply hearing truth. She was seeing it, wrestling with it, experiencing it, and responding to it. We watched as the Lord gently unveiled her eyes and softened her heart. Then came the moment. On a simple Zoom call, one of my friends looked at my mom and said, “Luvvye, you want to ask Jesus into your heart, don’t you?” Through tears, she nodded yes. In that moment, everything changed. The faith she had always professed began transforming from ritual and belief into relationship. Ezekiel 36:26 was unfolding before our eyes, His promise to remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. The walls were coming down, and in their place emerged a heart that was tender, responsive, and fully alive to Him. She was made new.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’” — Jeremiah 6:16

Not long after, another stirring began. The very place she had vowed never to return to — some of the family she had shut out for more than 30 years — began rising in her heart again. But this time, it was not fueled by pain. It was driven by purpose. A gentle conviction. An invitation to obey. She shared her desire to reconnect with her oldest brother, but she had no way to contact him. One of my friends looked at her and said, “Do not let the sun go down. Find his number. Call him.” And she did. It was not easy, but it was clear. God had been preparing her heart, and the deepest truth taking root was forgiveness. Not forgiveness as a feeling, but as a decision. An act of obedience. She wrestled with it. What does it truly mean to forgive? How do you release 30 years of hurt? Slowly, truth began replacing lies.

Forgiveness is not excusing the past. It is releasing it. It is not about them. It is about Him. For 30 years she said, “I will never go back.” But when Christ transforms a heart, He does not negotiate with our vows. He rewrites them. The same woman who once refused to return began to consider going back. Not in bitterness, but in healing, not in anger, but in grace, not as who she was, but as who she had become. That is the power of the Gospel. It does not just change our destination. It changes our direction. It does not just forgive sin. It restores what was broken. It redeems a story. It brings light into the darkest places and rebuilds what we thought was lost. I did not just watch my mom find Jesus. I watched Jesus take hold of her heart, transform it, and send her back into the very place she once ran from, this time with freedom in her hands.

Here is where the story became deeply personal for me. More than 30 years earlier, other than returning for her parents’ funerals, one of my mom’s last trips to Alabama had been for the funeral of her aunt, Mildred Pearson Nelson. I went with her because I had been named after Aunt Milly. I did not know her well, but I knew how much she meant to my mother. To hear her eulogy was to know this was someone who loved the Lord and had lived a life set apart for Him. On the drive back to the airport after the funeral, my mom said, “I hope you get something sentimental of Aunt Milly’s.” I answered, “If I could have anything, I would want her Bible.” My mom quickly replied, “You will never get that. My mother will get it, and eventually it will probably be thrown away.” Only my mother, the Lord, and I heard that conversation. Then life moved on, or so it seemed. Fast forward more than three decades. I was the most likely person to take my mom back to Alabama. I was a momma’s girl, and when something was painful for her, it became painful for me too. But I had a front row seat to her transformation, so I drove her back. We stayed with the one brother she had remained deeply close to in Hurtsboro, just about a mile from her childhood home. Unfortunately, the entire family dynamic is still so complicated. Although several of the brothers live relatively close to one another, there is little to no relationship between them. Decades of hurt and division still linger beneath the surface.

One morning while staying with Bubba, the brother my mom has stayed very connected to, she and I drove to Opelika to reconnect with one of her other brothers. The moment we walked into Billy’s house, I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. He looked at my mom, pointed toward me, and asked, “Who is she named after?” “Aunt Milly,” my mom answered. He paused, turned around, and walked to the back of the house. A few moments later, he returned carrying a large, old, weathered Bible with the words Holy Bible across the front. Inside, written in my great aunt’s own handwriting, were the words: Mildred Pearson Nelson. Billy handed it to me and quietly said, “I think you might want this.” In that moment, I realized this journey back was not just for my mom. It was for me too.

The eyes of the Lord are everywhere. He heard that conversation all those years ago, and in His perfect timing, He answered it. That Bible became my “dessert for the desert” on that trip. I carried it home not as a coincidence, but as a treasure and a reminder: God sees. God hears. God restores. Nothing is wasted in His hands. And here is what I know now: the heart of every issue is the heart. When God gets ahold of a heart, everything changes. Not just a life, but a legacy.

“The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” — Proverbs 15:3 (NIV)

Millye Moment

My first mentor in the faith was a woman who lived across from us in our townhouse before I had children, Suzanne McLain. Her daughter, Melanie, was a friend of mine, and having her parents so close was a gift. Suzanne was the mother of five grown children. Her daughter Melanie was younger than I was, yet so much more spiritually strong in her faith. I remember one moment so clearly. On her mom’s birthday, Melanie had memorized an entire book of the Bible and recited it to her. I was taken aback. That kind of love for God’s Word felt like a foreign language to me, but it drew me in.

Suzanne and I began to build a friendship. I respected her deeply. She was a neonatal ICU nurse who loved children, and there was a steadiness about her that I needed. Many mornings, she and Jack and I would walk at 5:30 a.m., circling our neighborhood, talking about life and faith. Without even realizing it, I was being discipled. She was a constant in my life when I began having children.

Then came one evening I will never forget. My son Blaine was about two years old, and I found myself sitting in Suzanne’s den, completely undone. I was crying, pouring out my frustrations about how hard and repetitive parenting felt. As I recounted the day, all the struggles and frustrations, Suzanne looked at me with a quiet chuckle and said, “Millye, that’s called rooting and grounding for the Lord.” That was it. No long explanation. No complicated advice. Just truth.

I remember walking back across the courtyard that night, repeating those words over and over. Rooting and grounding for the Lord. Rooting and grounding for the Lord. Those words shifted everything. What felt mundane suddenly had meaning. What felt exhausting had purpose. The repetition of the day to day was not pointless. It was preparation. It was discipleship. It was eternal work being done in ordinary moments.

Psalm 127 came alive to me. These children were arrows in the hands of a warrior, and I was being called to aim and release them purposefully. In the middle of the ordinary, God was calling me to something eternal. I was not just surviving motherhood. I was being trained for it.

Rooting and grounding is not busy work. It is battle work. And every ordinary moment is shaping an arrow for eternity.

Questions

• Who is someone whose walk with Christ deeply marked your life?

• What is the difference between religion and relationship in your own story?

• How have you witnessed an Ezekiel 36:26 heart transformation personally?

• Is there a place, person, or painful situation you have vowed never to return to?