Phyllis Everette, Contributor

“Mom, I left some Dove chocolate on the counter for you!” she called, already halfway down the hall, already halfway to the next flight, the next beginning. She knows my sweet spot, I thought, smiling at the small sweetness left behind. I pictured it later with Law & Order, a quiet companionship: me, the couch, the hum of sirens making sense of chaos for forty-six minutes at a time.

Moving throughout the day, I stepped into my workspace and met the note I’ve pinned at eye level, right there on the vision board, so I can’t pretend not to see it. It reads: “It’s spiritual poverty, not material lack that lies at the core of all human suffering.” I stood still for a moment and let the sentence do what it does. If there were no spiritual poverty, I thought, loving without rules would be the easy thing. Without empty places inside us, it would be natural to love one another right through our less-than-perfect behaviors.

Loving without rules asks something fierce and tender of us. It asks for the private surrender first. It asks us to loosen our white-knuckle grip on being right. To lay down grudges like stones. To catch our judgments in midair and decide not to throw them. To unlearn the comforting fictions that keep us separated and safe. And I’ll tell you the truth: some days, giving up these conventions feels like risking sight itself—like the part of me that polices the world would rather have her eyes plucked without anesthesia than see in a new way. That inner officer loves her citation pad. She loves order. But she doesn’t always love the truth.

I reached for the chocolate.

The foil yielded with that small metallic sigh, and the wrapper unfurled like a whisper. It wasn’t grand. It didn’t thunder. It simply arrived in my hand, ordinary and shining, and I felt something soften. I don’t know how to explain it except to say it felt GINA—God-Inspired, Natural—as if grace had disguised herself in silver and sweetness. The tiny message inside was as gentle as a nurse and as precise as a surgeon. There, at my keyboard, a quiet operation began. Arteries I didn’t know were narrowed started clearing—paths clogged by old stories, calcified judgments, and the slow plaque of fear. Darkness met light again, and they recognized each other.

Sometimes the heart breaks open not from thunder but from foil.

“One soul at a time, starting with my own,” I heard myself say—my own voice returning to me like a promise I’d forgotten I made. Because that’s the only way I know how to love without rules: begin here. Let the surgery start with me. Let me be the place where the old vows dissolve—the ones that pledged loyalty to despair, to scarcity, to suspicion. Let me be the place where mercy gets a room and a warm meal. Where joy walks in without knocking. Where pardon outruns punishment. Where love, not law, writes the first draft.

I thought of my daughter, Mich—how she knows when to leave me a lift, how her thoughtfulness finds the exact door that needs opening. Thank you, Mich, for knowing my sweet spot and, more than that, for knowing when my heart needs a hand on its back. Having you in my life is no accident; it’s a divine appointment kept in everyday ways. It’s the ordinary miracle of friendship doing its quiet work, reminding me that I am held, even when I forget to hold myself.

And then I thought of my sisters—blood sisters, chosen sisters, those braided into my life by time, trust, and truth. The women who have seen me undone and stayed. The ones who have answered midnight with soup, prayer, laughter, a playlist, a plan. The ones who don’t need me to be neat to be loved. Shout out to all my sisters, who love me boundlessly. We rise tall when we love each other without rules, as trees joined underground by an ancient root system, passing water and light between us when one of us stands in shadow. This is how we remain: not by being unbreakable, but by being alone.

So I stood there, wrapper in hand, and chose—again—to live my way into new thinking, not think my way into new living. I chose humility over the easy armor of pride. I choose honesty over the pretty mask. I chose to let love have the last word, even when the first words are messy. The TV could wait. Order could wait. Tonight belonged to the part of me that is still learning how to be free.

 We are all trying to make sense together. And maybe the sense is this: love without rules isn’t lawless; it’s faithful. Faithful to the God-breathed goodness in each of us. Faithful to the truth that people are more than their worst moment. Faithful to the possibility that healing is already in the room, disguised as something small—foil, a phone call, a sticky note, a sister’s voice.

 One soul at a time, starting with my own.

 Born to Give Myself Away,

Saffron Trust