If you have been checking in, waiting for the next podcast episode, browsing the site, or wondering where I have been, I want to share something tender, weighty, and holy with you.
This past weekend, we announced to our church family that we are stepping away as lead pastors and concluding the regular gatherings of Hope St. Pete.
That is a sentence I never imagined writing. Yet here we are, fully surrendered, fully at peace, and fully convinced that obedience is the only goal.
From the very beginning, our heart has been simple. To say yes to Jesus no matter the cost and no matter the calling. Whether in the Red Sea moments or the Monday mornings, our assignment has always been obedience. Deep in our spirits we knew this season was coming to a close. What we did not want was to hold on longer than heaven intended.
So we have released it.
With that release comes a natural reshuffling of priorities: home, healing, rest, and recalibration. I have been stewarding what is most sacred. My family. My people. My own soul.
That is why I am pressing pause on the podcast and blog for a season. Not because they are not important, but because right now obedience looks like rest. It looks like silence. It looks like letting go of the mic for a while so I can listen more closely to heaven’s whisper.
I wrote on Instagram the other day what I feel deep in my bones:
“In every season, obedience is the only thing that matters.
The yes to Jesus in the quiet, the mundane, and the impossible.
The Red Sea moments.
The Monday mornings.
The everyday whispers of heaven.
Because the fruit is not found in what we build. It is found in who we become when we obey.”
That is where I have been.
Becoming.
Obeying.
Listening.
And because God is kind, I have also been writing. Quietly. Faithfully. I just finished my next book, Still Waters Don’t Make Saints, releasing this fall. It carries the weight and wonder of this season, and I pray it will meet you right where you are, right in the middle of whatever waves you are facing.
This is not an excuse for the delay. It is simply a window into the wilderness.
A pause.
A holy reassessing.
Thank you for your grace.
Thank you for your prayers.
Thank you for being the kind of people who make space for real life, real surrender, and real faith.
I will return this fall with the podcast. And when I do, it will be from a deeper, more surrendered place.
With gratitude and a quiet yes,
Chari