The Fiercest Action Twelve weeks of surrender, humility and childlike trust

There are twelve weeks left in 2026.

And rather than rushing towards the end of the year with another list of things I must accomplish, I am choosing something that, for me, may be far more difficult.

I am choosing to surrender.

Not as an idea.

Not as a religious abstraction.

But as a daily reality.

I am choosing, for these final twelve weeks of 2026, to walk more deeply into a posture of radical humility and childlike trust.

I am a Catholic woman living with chronic illness, while also wanting to live a creative and meaningful life and continue building Studio Kre’at.

For a long time, I have understood surrender as something beautiful to contemplate.

But chronic disease has a way of taking beautiful ideas and placing them directly into your hands.

It strips away the illusion of self-sufficiency.

It brings me face to face with a body that can change the plans I made yesterday, sometimes within the space of a morning.

There are days when weakness decides what I can do.

Days when my mind may be willing but my body is not.

Days when the studio must wait.

Days when ordinary things become extraordinary efforts.

And sometimes, if I am completely honest, this breaks me.

Yet perhaps this breaking is also where I am being invited to learn something I could never have learned through strength alone.

Perhaps there are hidden graces here.

Hidden strengths.

A different kind of courage.

And so I am beginning these twelve weeks not by asking, How much can I achieve?

But by asking:

What happens when I stop trying to carry everything myself?

The Fiercest Action

I have called this the fiercest action because surrender does not feel passive to me.

It takes courage to release the timetable.

Courage to accept the body I have today.

Courage to let go of the shame attached to unfinished things.

Courage to trust God when I cannot see what He is doing.

Courage to continue creating without knowing exactly where the work will lead.

And courage to believe that a life lived within limitations can still be a life of extraordinary meaning.

So these twelve weeks will become an experiment in another way of living and creating.

I will document it through written reflections, audio notes and a small surrender jar

~ a physical place where I can place the things I am learning to release.

Not because I expect every week to be peaceful.

But because I want to become more attentive to what is happening within the ordinary days.

And I want to share that journey here, honestly.

1. Surrendering to the Sacrament of the Present Moment

Living with chronic conditions means my body often dictates what is possible.

There are things I can plan.

And there are things I simply cannot control.

So my first practice will be learning to receive the day I have been given rather than constantly fighting against the day I wish I had.

When a flare comes, I want to practise acceptance rather than shame.

When weakness arrives, I want to listen rather than immediately resist.

When my carefully written studio plans cannot happen, I want to release the guilt of the unfinished list.

My daily prayer will be simple:

“Lord, this is the body I have today.

I accept my limits.

Guide me as You will.”

This does not mean giving up on my life.

It means giving up the belief that my worth depends upon everything getting done.

The studio can wait.

The house can wait.

The list can wait.

Perhaps sometimes the most faithful thing I can do is simply be present.

2. Living the Liturgy of Spiritual Childhood

For these twelve weeks I am placing myself particularly under the gentle guidance of St Thérèse of Lisieux and her little way.

She reminds me that holiness is not necessarily found in great deeds.

It can be found in ordinary things done with extraordinary love.

That speaks deeply to me.

Because there will be days when I cannot get to Mass.

Days when I cannot complete the studio work I had imagined.

Days when even ordinary tasks within my home feel beyond me.

On those days, I want to stop measuring the value of my day by what I managed to accomplish.

Instead, I will offer the weakness itself.

The confinement.

The waiting.

The frustration.

The small act of patience.

The quiet prayer.

The cup of tea.

The stitch.

The moment of choosing love when I could have chosen despair.

Perhaps these too can become little acts of love for Jesus.

And perhaps I do not need to be strong all the time.

Perhaps I am allowed to be His little child.

3. Cultivating Holy Indifference

The third practice comes from St Ignatius of Loyola and the beautiful discipline of holy indifference ~ the desire to trust God’s will above my own.

This does not mean becoming indifferent to life.

It means becoming less attached to insisting that life unfold according to my plans.

So when the day becomes intolerable, I want to return again and again to:

“Father, not my will, but Yours be done.”

And when I pray my rosary, I will carry this prayer with me:

**“My Lord and my God,

I am Your little child.

I do not understand why my path includes these chronic illnesses,

but I trust that You will hold me.

Take from me the burden of trying to fix everything,

the anxiety of tomorrow,

and the guilt of my limitations.

I offer You my weaknesses.

May Your strength be made perfect in me

as I wander through this life

and through the rooms of my studio.”**

Perhaps this is where I will begin to discover a different rhythm.

Not forcing.

Not pushing.

Not proving.

But listening.

Walking.

Receiving.

Creating when I can.

Resting when I must.

And trusting that both can belong to the same life.

What I hope these twelve weeks will teach me

I want these twelve weeks to change the way I understand strength.

Because perhaps strength is not always found in doing more.

Perhaps sometimes strength is found in knowing when to stop.

Perhaps humility is not thinking less of myself, but accepting the truth of who I am, the body I have been given, the limitations I carry and the God who meets me within all of it.

And perhaps surrender does not make my creative life smaller.

Perhaps it creates the spaciousness for something deeper to emerge.

There are so many creative projects still waiting within me.

Stories from yesteryear.

Processes once loved and then forgotten.

Memories.

Family fragments.

The hands and work of those who came before me.

The quiet things that have been sitting on shelves, inside notebooks, within boxes and inside my heart.

I want these things to be found.

I want them to be seen.

Not because I need to make noise about them.

But because I believe that quiet work can travel far.

And perhaps Studio Kre’at can become a place where some of these forgotten or unfinished things are gently brought back into the light.

A place where ancestral memory, creativity, faith and ordinary life can sit beside one another.

A place where someone, somewhere in the world, might find a little companionship.

A little courage.

A little peace.

So this is my accountability letter.

For the next twelve weeks, I am going to show up here and tell the truth about the walk.

Not only the beautiful parts.

Not only the creative progress.

But the days when my body says no.

The days when surrender feels beautiful.

The days when surrender feels impossible.

The things I place into my surrender jar.

The prayers that carry me.

The lessons I resist.

The unexpected gifts.

The creative sparks.

The ordinary moments that become sacred simply because I noticed them.

I am not promising twelve weeks of productivity.

I am promising twelve weeks of presence.

Twelve weeks of practising humility.

Twelve weeks of learning childlike trust.

Twelve weeks of releasing what I cannot control.

Twelve weeks of discovering what might become possible when I stop trying to force everything into being.

And perhaps, by the time Week Twelve arrives, I will discover that I did not need to become stronger by carrying more.

Perhaps I will have become stronger by learning how to be held.

So here I go.

Not with a perfect plan.

Not with certainty.

Not even knowing exactly what these twelve weeks will bring.

But with open hands.

A willing heart.

A body I am learning to receive.

A studio I am learning to build slowly.

And a God whom I am choosing to trust.

Father, not my will, but Yours be done.

Let me walk these next twelve weeks in rhythm rather than force.

Let me attend rather than accelerate.

Let me create when I can.

Rest when I must.

And surrender the rest.

Week One begins here.