There was a time when I thought “getting it out the mud” meant surviving hard things, making something out of nothing, and proving I could keep going no matter what happened.
I still believe in resilience. I still believe in getting back up.
But today, I understand the deeper story differently.
Before I could truly get it out the mud, I had to learn how to build a foundation that would not collapse every time life shook.
That is what this testimony is really about.
Reno Was My Wilderness
When I left for Reno, I left on what felt like good terms. People supported me. I had walked away from a job I had established because I believed I was following my dreams. I thought I was walking into a new chapter.
But almost nothing went the way I planned.
School did not unfold the way I expected. I found myself staring at the possibility of starting over from the bottom, financially and academically, and I simply could not make it make sense. I attempted it anyway and failed a class. That hurt.
Then I applied to a master’s program in public health even though, deep down, I knew I did not want to build a life in public health.
I was trying to make the move mean something.
I was trying to force purpose onto a season because I refused to believe I could have gone through all of that and not come out with the version of success I had pictured.
Meanwhile, my children had been uprooted too. They were navigating a new environment, family tension, and transitions of their own. I later realized they had been carrying more than I understood at the time because I was carrying so much myself.
I was also dealing with pregnancy loss, relationship pain, and a sudden change in financial support that took a major piece of my monthly income away almost overnight.
I could not control any of it.
And when you are used to surviving by controlling what you can, losing control feels terrifying.
I had family nearby, but proximity is not the same as support. Some relationships showed me exactly what I never wanted to repeat. Some situations confirmed why I had made decisions I had already made.
Reno did not give me the happily-ever-after I thought I was walking toward.
It gave me information.
It showed me what was unstable.
It showed me what I was forcing.
It showed me what I was carrying that was never mine to keep carrying.
It showed me that I could trust God even when the version of the story I wrote for myself fell apart.
I Came Home Thinking I Had Built the Foundation
When I came back home, I thought I was rebuilding on solid ground.
And in many ways, I was.
But I did not yet understand how deep the foundation had to go.
I was still learning how to date after spending most of my adult life in one relationship.
I was still learning what boundaries actually looked like.
I was still learning the difference between love and attachment, between passion and partnership, between familiarity and safety.
I had to learn that just because a cycle is familiar does not mean it is healthy.
I had to learn that understanding someone else does not require abandoning myself.
I had to learn that I do not have to shrink to be loved.
The Line I Remembered Came From Another Poem
I originally connected one of my favorite lines to Getting It Out the Mud, but when I went back through the video, I realized something important:
That line was not from Getting It Out the Mud.
It was from This Path, This Journey Is New.
“I don’t have to devalue my values to make it easier for the devil to have a value.”
And honestly, that correction makes the testimony stronger.
This Path, This Journey Is New was me recognizing that I was on a different road.
It was me beginning to understand that I did not have to shrink, dim my light, negotiate my standards, or make misalignment more comfortable just because something was familiar.
When I wrote that line, I knew it was powerful.
Today, I understand it differently.
It means I do not have to devalue what God has placed in me just to make something else feel more important than it is.
I do not have to distrust what God has shown me simply because obedience feels uncomfortable.
I do not have to keep choosing what is familiar over what is healthy.
I do not have to make myself smaller so something that no longer fits can keep fitting.
That poem was about the path becoming new.
Getting It Out the Mud became about what it takes to actually walk that path.
The Storm Did Not Stop. The Foundation Changed.
This morning, I was reading Luke and thinking about Jesus’ teaching about the person who hears His words and puts them into practice—the one who digs deep and builds on rock.
The storm still comes.
The flood still rises.
The difference is what the house is standing on.
That hit me because I finally understand that faith is not a promise that nothing hard will happen.
Faith is knowing what I am built on when it does.
I am not the same woman I was two or three years ago.
I still have fear sometimes.
I still have bills.
I still have questions.
I still have moments where I look at what is in front of me and wonder how it is all going to work.
But I do not fall the same.
I do not abandon myself the same.
I do not chase the same.
I do not make every uncomfortable moment mean I am off course.
I have learned to ask for strategy.
I have learned to sit still long enough to hear it.
And I have learned that work is not automatically productive just because it exhausts me.
Now I’m Building Deep
This is especially true financially.
For a long time, money came in and was already gone before I could build with it.
Bills came.
Gas came.
Life came.
Something always needed something.
And I finally had to tell myself the truth:
I do not only need more money.
I need a stronger financial foundation.
I need systems.
I need structure.
I need income that is not dependent on me constantly running myself into the ground.
I need to pour into work that can pour back into me.
That means building my business.
That means looking for stable employment.
That means fixing the broken links in my systems.
That means learning to manage what comes in so every blessing does not arrive already assigned to yesterday.
That means preparation.
That means stewardship.
That means letting God guide me without demanding control over the outcome.
I’m Proud of Me
And I had to stop long enough to say that.
I am proud of me.
I watched my children moving through their own lives and realized how much has grown while I was so busy surviving.
I looked around and saw things that are working.
I saw growth.
I saw independence.
I saw evidence that the work mattered.
Not every answered prayer arrives as money.
Sometimes the answer is looking at what you raised.
Sometimes it is realizing you have peace in a season that once would have broken you.
Sometimes it is recognizing a pattern before you repeat it.
Sometimes it is finally loving every part of yourself—even the parts you once thought were too much, too loud, too emotional, too complicated, or too scarred.
My history is not something I have to hide.
My history is part of my power.
What I survived may become the very thing that helps somebody else survive their storm.
Getting It Out the Mud Means Something Different Now
Now I can see the sequence more clearly.
This Path, This Journey Is New was the recognition:
I am not going back to being who I had to be to survive.
Getting It Out the Mud is the testimony:
I am learning how to build something chaos cannot keep destroying.
I used to think getting it out the mud meant proving I could make something happen in the middle of chaos.
Now I think it means learning how to build something chaos cannot keep destroying.
I am no longer trying to build high just so it looks like I made it.
I am building deep.
Deep in faith.
Deep in self-respect.
Deep in boundaries.
Deep in discipline.
Deep in financial structure.
Deep in purpose.
Deep enough that when the storm comes, I know where I stand.
This is the foundation behind Getting It Out the Mud.
One poem named the new road.
The other tells the story of what it took to walk it.
And now, the testimony has caught up to the words.
I did not outgrow the poems.
I grew into them.
— Tosha
Healing & Hustling 333
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