Unshakeable
By Cathie Ostapchuk
You don’t discover what you’re anchored to until the ground beneath you begins to move.
This week, the city where my daughter and son-in-law live, St. Catharines, was declared a disaster zone after devastating flooding.
Like so many of their neighbours, they watched water rush into places it was never meant to reach. Basements filled. Possessions were ruined. Carefully laid plans disappeared in a matter of hours.
Yet what stayed with me wasn’t the flooding itself.
It was watching the two of them step outside their own home and begin asking a different question.
“Who needs us?”
Some neighbours had experienced far greater loss than they had. While they were certainly disappointed by what had happened, they were not defined by it. They were grounded enough to look beyond themselves.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that. Not because they escaped the storm. Because they remained steady in the middle of it.
This week in Gather Circles, we explored a question every leader - and every follower of Christ - must eventually answer
Now that you know who you are… what will hold you when the storms come?
One story from their street has lingered with me. After the first flood, a neighbour installed a brand-new furnace and sump pump, believing the crisis had passed. No one knew a second wave of the storm was coming.
When it did, everything was lost again.
How often do we place our confidence in things that seem secure until life proves otherwise? Careers. Titles. Savings. Health. Plans.
Even the things we’ve carefully built cannot always hold us.
Psalm 46 offers a different kind of confidence.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…”
Notice what Scripture does not promise.
It does not say we will avoid hardship. It does not tell us faithful people are exempt from disaster. It tells us that when everything around us is shaking, there is One who remains unshaken.
This week in Gather Circles we reflected on these words:
Resilience is not a personality trait.
It is not something some women are born with while others are not.
It is a spiritual practice.
It is the result of roots that go down deep over time.
It is the result of returning to the same Anchor, again and again, in ordinary seasons
so that when extraordinary ones come,
your soul already knows where to go.
The women who endure are rarely the toughest. They are the most deeply rooted.
Long before anyone sees strength in a storm, invisible roots have been growing beneath the surface.
Prayer. Surrender. Scripture. Community.
Small daily acts of faithfulness that no one applauds.
Do not underestimate the invisible work. It is holding everything.
Perhaps that is the invitation before us today.
Not to pray for a life that never shakes. But to become women whose roots run so deeply into Christ that when it does, the Anchor holds.
Applications for The Studio have been extended until August 15. Many of you have shared that you’re simply getting your homes, ministries, work, and families ready for another season. We understand and want to do our best to remove any barriers from women being able to invest in their leadership and to be supported in their calling.