rediscovery – Lele Muthali

Still I Write

We had broken up.

No contact; because talking would pull us back into the cycles of anger, offense, and defense.

I wrote to you; scribbling urgently on pages until I couldn’t see through the tears that made the dark ink bleed. To soothe my heart, I had committed to writing a letter every time I missed you. Every time I wanted to say something to you, I would say it on paper. After all, I did not need for you to hear or receive it. I simply needed to have shared it.

Several weeks and a full notebook later, I had accumulated a hefty stack of personal confessions, hopes, odes, and prayers. My strategy was working well enough.

And then, for whatever reason… perhaps in my naivety, I sought your acknowledgement of my feelings… I gave you those letters. In between awkward platitudes and under a sky that seemed to hang lower than usual, I handed over to you the thick envelope of my heart.

Something inside me died when I learned that you threw it away. The risk had not even occurred to me. I thought I might never write again. What you did was sacrilegious, it was final, and it was necessary.

In the wrong hands, the depth of my vulnerability is no different from used toilet paper and rotting produce.

Now I write, not to grieve, but to survive.

-Lele M

What a Fall

The fall. A narrative as old as time, woven into the very fabric of creation.

Genesis 3 tells of a paradise shattered, of innocence lost, and of an intimacy with God interrupted by a single choice. “What is this you have done?” the Lord asks, His voice heavy with the weight of love betrayed. And in that moment, humanity’s relationship with God—and with one another—was forever changed.

I find myself reflecting on the fall, not in Eden, but in my own life. A public union of hearts and lives, shared and celebrated, has ended. The first partner I ever called home is now no longer mine. The mighty have fallen, the poets say. Though I am no king, my heart feels the weight of that phrase. How fragile the human spirit is, how vulnerable we are when we give ourselves to another, laying bare our hopes and fears, trusting they will be held with care.

In the aftermath, I have asked myself: Was it love that failed, or was it simply us? Is love eternal, as scripture teaches, or is it fractured by the very human vessels that attempt to carry it? Perhaps it is both. Perhaps love remains pure, even as we stumble under its weight.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable,” C.S. Lewis once wrote. “Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” To love is to risk the fall, to step into the unknown with faith that the one you hold close will not let go. Yet, sometimes, they do. Or perhaps it is we who loosen our grip, weary from the journey, distracted by our own frailty.

The fall reminds me of surrender—not just to love, but to God, who is love itself. What does it mean to surrender when the heart is broken? It means to offer up the pieces, trusting that the hands that shaped the heavens can also reshape the human heart. It means to acknowledge that the fall is not the end of the story. Eden was lost, but grace abounds. The mighty fall, but the humble are lifted.

In this moment, I see the nature of man: fragile, flawed, often blind to the divine within one another. I see the nature of relationships: mirrors that reflect not only beauty but also brokenness. And I see the nature of love: a call to transcend the fall, to forgive as we are forgiven, to endure as God endures.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a new story—not one of perfect love but of perfecting love. For even in the fall, there is grace. And grace, I am learning, is where healing begins.

-Lele M

Novelty Noted

I left notes in some books at my local bookstore. Full debrief in the podcast.

#1: I am grateful to be used by God in the lives of others.

#2: I am grateful for the enterprise of book writing, publishing and selling.

#3: I am grateful for the moral support I enjoyed from a kind co-conspirator who hid the notes with me.

I had written the three notes of encouragement before I left my place earlier. I now wish I’d left a way for the future readers to contact me. Alas, for now, my work is done.

– Lele M