The Cup I Didn't Want to Pass
My alarm goes off at 3am. Most mornings, lying there in the dark before it sounds, I have already felt the weight of the day pressing down before it has even begun. There is something uniquely wearing about waking that early to do work that, if I am being honest, has begun to feel beneath what I know I am capable of. I am not proud of that feeling — but it is true, and this is not a place for half-truths.
But before any of that — before the weight of the day has a chance to settle in — I start with Jesus. Most mornings I make my way to the living room and settle into the comfy chair, put on a podcast, close my eyes, and simply sit with God. It is less structured than it might sound. It is more like settling into a conversation that never really ended, just paused while I slept. This particular morning was no different. Tucked into that chair, eyes closed, listening, talking with God in that quiet way you learn to do when the rest of the world is still dark and still.
And then Sophie, my cat, jumped into my lap.
Now, if you know cats, you know that they operate entirely on their own terms and she is no different. This was not something she typically does, and yet there she was, settling in without apology or explanation, warm and present in a way I hadn't expected. I smiled in spite of myself. It was one of those small, unannounced moments that feels like more than it is — like a gentle hand on the shoulder, a quiet reminder that I was not sitting alone in the dark. It was almost as if Jesus was making Himself known in the most ordinary way possible. Not thunder. Not a vision. Just a cat in a lap at 3:30am, and a heart that somehow felt less alone because of it.
The reading that morning brought me to Mark chapter fourteen. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, hours away from the cross, and what He is facing is beyond anything I can fully comprehend. The weight of it — the betrayal, the suffering, the full knowledge of what was coming — was crushing. And yet in the middle of all of that, He prays something so profoundly human that it reaches across two thousand years and lands in the chest of every person who has ever wanted something desperately and surrendered it anyway.
"Everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." — Mark 14:36
He didn't pretend it wasn't hard. He didn't manufacture a peace He didn't feel. He brought the full weight of what He was carrying directly to the Father — honestly, openly, without dressing it up. And then, in the same breath, He surrendered. Not reluctantly. Not bitterly. But with a trust that went deeper than the pain.
I sat with that for a while. I didn't know yet what the day held. But those words settled into me in a way that felt intentional, like they had been placed there for a reason. I left for work at 3:45, carrying Sophie's unexpected visit and those words from the garden with me.
Thirty-nine days ago I had sent a resume to Kotter International about an IT and LMS Administrator position, but honestly hadn't expected much to come of it. The role was in an industry outside of my usual wheelhouse, and I had nearly let the thought of it go. Then the call came two weeks later. A new HR Director had reached out, and from the very first conversation, something about it felt different. She was warm, engaging, and genuinely curious about who I was. It wasn't the sterile, transactional kind of interview experience that leaves you feeling like a number on a spreadsheet. It felt like a real conversation, and I left it energized in a way I hadn't been in a while.
That energy only grew. I was invited into two more interviews over the last week and a half — one with the Marketing team, one with the LMS team. Both were lively, substantive, and encouraging. The pace of the responses told me something too. This was an organization that moved with intention. Each exchange felt more confirming than the last. This wasn't just a job opportunity. This was a door that seemed to be swinging wide open.
And I needed it to be.
Life at my current job had become a quiet kind of grinding. I work at Target, and the work itself is not the problem — I've never been someone who looks down on honest, physical work. But the environment had become heavy. There is a team lead whose authority has slowly become a burden to everyone around him. Power has a way of revealing character, and what it had revealed here was not encouraging. Decisions handed down from him often created the very problems he would then turn around and blame on the team. The accountability flowed downward but never upward. Those under his care were not treated with dignity or respect, and the result was a team fractured by bitterness and dissent and me trying to keep up morale. For me, the hardest part was watching how little regard he had for the people he was supposed to be leading. I have always believed that leadership is service. What I was witnessing was the opposite, and it was wearing on me in ways I couldn't always articulate.
So yes — I needed a change. Not just professionally. I needed something to believe in again in that area of my life. And if I am being completely transparent, I saw this opportunity at Kotter as a way out. A real one. A chance to stop setting that alarm, to stop walking into that environment, to use my skills in a place that actually wanted them.
The LMS team interview was yesterday.
Afterward, I sent thank you emails to the members of the LMS team. One of them — the Junior on the team — wrote back with words that felt almost like a confirmation. She said she was looking forward to working together. I held onto that. Thinking maybe she accidentally gave something away. Maybe I held onto it too tightly. But in that moment, it felt like the door wasn't just open — it felt like someone was already waving me through.
The response from Kotter came while I was at work this morning. I was standing in the paper goods aisle, working through a flat and a U-boat — which, if you've never done it, is more demanding than it sounds. Retail stocking is physical, repetitive, and unforgiving on the body, and the paper goods section doesn't offer much in the way of mercy. You work through it methodically, box by box, shelf by shelf. It requires just enough focus to keep you present and just enough monotony to let your mind wander.
At 10:39 am I learned they would not be moving forward with me.
I stood there for a moment. The fluorescent lights hummed the same as they always do. The aisle looked exactly as it had a minute before. And everything in me wanted to walk out the door right then and there. Not dramatically. Not in anger. Just — out. Away. Done.
I didn't leave. I stayed. I completed the flat. I finished the U-boat.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I looked up. Not at the ceiling, exactly — but upward, in the way you do when you are talking to Someone you can't see but know is there. I had an honest conversation right there in the paper goods aisle. I asked why. Of course I did — that's the most human question there is, and I don't think God is surprised or offended when we bring it to Him. I asked, and I waited, and I kept stocking shelves. What I noticed, though, was that even in the asking, I wasn't devastated. Disappointed, yes. Confused, a little. But not undone. Something underneath the disappointment was holding steady, and I think I knew even then what it was.
That is part of the path of discipleship. It doesn't always look like a mountaintop moment. Sometimes it looks like finishing your shift when your heart is somewhere else entirely, and looking up in the middle of the paper goods aisle to have an honest word with God.
When I got home, I cried a little. Not a long cry — just the kind that has to come out. I told my wife. She listened the way she always does. And then, somewhere between the tears and the telling, those words from Mark came back to me.
"Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."
And I had to sit with an uncomfortable question: If I am genuinely praying for God's will to be done in my life, do I have the right to be upset when His answer doesn't match mine?
The honest answer is — yes, I think I do. Disappointment is not a lack of faith. Grief over something you genuinely wanted is not the same as rebellion against God. Even Jesus, fully divine and fully human, asked for the cup to be taken away. He felt the weight of what was coming. He brought that to the Father honestly. And then He surrendered.
That is the model. Feel it. Bring it to God honestly. Then open your hands.
After a nap and some time to breathe, perspective began to settle in.
The process itself was a gift. I was reminded that I am capable, that I have something to offer, that doors can open. Hope showed up, and even though this particular door closed, hope itself is not gone. God used this experience to stir something in me that had gone quiet. That is not wasted. That is not cruelty. That is a good Father showing His child something worth reaching for, even if the timing or the place isn't right yet.
Discipleship in real life doesn't mean you never want things. It doesn't mean you go numb to disappointment. It means you learn — slowly, imperfectly, repeatedly — to hold your desires with open hands. To pray with honesty. To trust that the One who sees the whole story is doing something you cannot yet see from the paper goods aisle.
I am disappointed. I am also okay. Both of those things are true at the same time.
And I am ready to start again.
What cup are you holding tightly right now? What would it look like to pray for God's will with the same honesty — and the same surrender — that Jesus modeled in the garden?
