The House That Held Our Healing

 

The House That Held Our Healing

Before Heaven’s Lavender had a name, before the vision was clear, there was a small house that quietly held our healing.

This was the house where many of the hardest battles were fought - not loudly, but in the quiet ways life sometimes asks of us. The kind of battles that happen when you are trying to rebuild yourself while raising children who are also learning the world.

I was a single mom, trying to rebuild life over again while keeping my children obliviously happy about their childhood.

That was hard.

It was the house where the girls’ art slowly began to cover the walls.

Sometimes the art happened because we were celebrating something.

Sometimes the art happened because mommy was tired of fighting battles that day.

On those days, I would roll a long sheet of butcher paper from one end of the house to the other. Paint would come out, brushes would appear, our favorite playlist on blast, and we would spend hours creating color where exhaustion once lived.

Those paintings stayed on the walls for seven years.

They weren’t decorations. They were evidence that we were still creating something beautiful.

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In the windows, you could see suncatchers - little pieces of color we made together from Christmas kits gifted by loved ones and “Santa.” The light would catch them in the mornings and scatter small pieces of color across the room.

We also kept banners in the house. All year long.

Most people hang banners for celebrations and take them down when the moment passes. We never really did that.

Because to us, banners mean something else.

Banners mean victory.

Sometimes victory looks like survival.

Sometimes victory looks like laughter after a long season of tears.

Sometimes victory looks like children painting on butcher paper while their mother remembers how to breathe again.

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There was a particular window where I would sit with my coffee in the quiet mornings. 

Those mornings felt like peace slowly returning.

I would watch them walk down the street to their friends house and watch them play in afternoons after school. They enjoyed their childhood freedoms, and I enjoyed watching them grow.

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There was also a light in that house.

It was my favorite light - even though it was the most stubborn thing in the world to get working properly. Every time I fixed it I wondered if it would decide to cooperate again the next night.

But when it did work, it was beautiful.

Warm. Gentle. Soft against the walls.

It reminded me of my love for Tiffany lamps.

Sometimes the things that give us the most light require the most patience.

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At one point we even hung a solar system from a light fixture. It was part of one of our attempts at homeschooling.

We laugh about it now.

It turns out homeschooling wasn’t exactly our calling - but the memory still makes me smile. The girls painted planets and hung them carefully, proud of the little universe we created together in our living room.

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This house held the beginning of change for us.

It held the tears.

It held the laughter.

It held long walks through memory and healing.

But seasons change.

And this next chapter is different.

This chapter is about creation.

It’s about building something that reaches beyond our home - something that tells stories of healing, resilience, and the quiet victories people experience every day.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been quiet for a while. Not just with Heaven’s Lavender, but with other projects I’ve been working on, such as my podcast.

Life has been happening again in the quiet ways it sometimes does.

Settling into a new home. Rebuilding rhythms. Creating structure and routine again — the very things I once spoke about so often in The Light of Metanoia.

Seven years ago I was trying to figure out how to survive those ideas.

Now I’m learning how to live with joy.

And I’m grateful for the people who came into our lives along the way, who keep choosing to show up.

Showing my girls what it looks like to practice patience, kindness, and steady love. 

The kind of presence that quietly changes a child’s understanding of what family can look like.

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The podcast, The Light of Metanoia was always a very personal project for me. It still is. It hasn’t disappeared - it’s simply resting for now. People can still find it and listen to the conversations that are there. But somewhere along the way it began to feel a little performative, and that wasn’t the reason I started it.

When we moved and life shifted, I had a realization about many of the things I talked about on the podcast - routines, rituals, boundaries, confidence, healing. All of those things rely on something foundational: structure.

And through the work I’ve done alongside nonprofits and the relationships I’ve built with people who have experienced marginalization, I’ve learned that structure is something many people simply don’t have access to. Support systems are fragile. Community assets exist, but they are often uneven. There are places where rehabilitation, development, and care are happening beautifully - and places where there is still deep need.

That realization changed my focus.

I’ve been learning more about community assets, about the spaces where healing is already happening, and the spaces where advocacy and support are still needed. Heaven’s Lavender is becoming a place where those stories, those efforts, and those people can be seen and supported.

So while some projects have paused, it hasn’t been because we disappeared.

It’s because the work is shifting.

We are still here.

Just… a slow burn.

Life has also been full in other ways.

I’ve been working on photography. Taking on small creative projects. Doing a few gigs alongside my dad. Spending time learning, creating, and enjoying the quiet rhythms of everyday life.

Because the truth is, I do many things beyond digital production.

I’m a multifaceted artist. I’m a mother raising children. I’m someone who works, creates, and values the parts of life that happen away from an audience.

I believe in the power of a platform. I believe stories can change people, and communities can grow when we share them.

But I also believe that not everything needs to be shared.

Some moments are meant to simply be lived.

And those quiet moments - the ones that happen outside the frame - are often the ones that make the stories worth telling in the first place.

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Heaven’s Lavender is growing from those kinds of moments. From homes that held healing. From families learning how to rebuild. From communities discovering their strength together. This space will hold stories of resilience, advocacy, creativity, and quiet victories - the kind that often go unseen but shape lives in powerful ways. And as this next chapter unfolds, my hope is simple: that through these stories, more of us will find the courage to heal, to build, and to become light for one another.

I Was Never Bad at Life — I Was Just Built for Building

I keep thinking about how often I’ve felt like I was doing life wrong.

I grew up too slow.

I grew up too fast. 

Too soft.
Too focused on things that didn’t “count.”

I was the “weird” kid.

I liked going to my cousin’s house and helping her clean her room.

I loved office supplies when I was seven.

I played with Barbies until I was at least fifteen.

When I was a kid, I was the one who went back down the street on Halloween because the elderly woman looked sad when we skipped her house. I wanted to take the candy she had waited to give. I didn’t want her to feel forgotten.

I was the kid who stayed behind at summer camp to help clean up after craft time, long after everyone else ran outside.

I grew up in a house with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and my immediate family all under one roof. I was raised to respect everyone, not just the loudest voice in the room. It was a good home. Not perfect. Not always emotionally mature. I saw things I probably shouldn’t have, and learned things earlier than I needed to. But I was protected from a lot of things other kids weren’t. You take it for what it’s worth.

That home taught me discernment. We weren’t always good at how we reacted to things—but we knew things. Intuition ran as deep as wit, and just as quietly.

I was younger than most kids my age, but somehow wiser than their parents.
I noticed things about the room that others didn’t. When someone spoke, I would scan the faces around them. I knew who was happy, who was confused. I could tell who was sad, and who was about to melt down.

But the truth is, I was never bad at life.
I was just built for building.

Maybe my dad taught me a lot of that. He was always trying to make me think—to see the other side of things and people. He could tell I was a trusting child, and in his own quiet way, he tried to help me understand that things aren’t always what they seem. He taught me to trust that feeling when something doesn’t feel right. In his own way, he was saying, “you learned to read a room before you learned to speak in it.”

He still sits with me and talks to me about my life. I’m grateful for that. It shaped me into the kind of person I am today, someone who thinks in layers, who tries to notice what’s unseen.

That kind of noticing doesn’t disappear when you grow up.
It becomes a way of moving through the world.

I think my dad knew more than he ever said. He was aware, and in his own way, he was trying to do something different. He taught me how to pause. How to look before reacting. How to consider what was happening beneath the surface. Maybe that was his way of breaking generational patterns and surviving in the world, by teaching me how to act instead of react.

None of that fits traditional productivity.

I didn’t burn to perform.
I burned to tend wounds.

Producing, organizing, and even daydreaming- those things didn’t exhaust me. They felt natural. Like putting things back where they belonged. Like preparing space for something good to happen.

Still, there’s a quiet fear in saying that out loud.

In naming what I do without apologizing for it.
In admitting that this way of being is not a phase.
That it’s not something I need to outgrow.

There is relief in finally letting it be enough.

I don’t need to make it useful.
I don’t need to make it impressive.
I don’t need to teach from it.

I just need to witness it.

Some things only exist so we can recognize ourselves in them.
And sometimes, that’s the holiest work there is.

Noticing becomes pausing.

Pausing becomes choosing.

Choosing becomes tending.

Maybe this is how we learn to live on purpose.

Heaven’s Lavender is the personal blog of Stephanie Manns and is produced by SM Productions 812.

The Gospel and Quantum Grace

I cursed God today. I was angry. I was tired. I was honest.

But more than that—I felt lost. I was once again standing at a crossroad in life, staring down choices I didn’t ask for. I had to make decisions, plan carefully, and strategize around new obstacles that kept cropping up like weeds. I was mentally worn thin, spiritually exhausted.

All I really wanted was to rest for a moment. Just one day without having to solve a problem or carry someone else’s weight. Just one breath without pressure. But even that felt out of reach. And then came the guilt—fast, heavy, and relentless. The kind of guilt that whispers, "Now God won’t listen to you." The kind that convinces you the silence you’ve been hearing wasn’t just grief—it was punishment.

But somewhere beneath all of that noise, something else came through. I realized I still believe He hears me. Even when I’m raw. Even when I’m angry. Even when I lash out and fall apart. I still believe God hears my prayers.

And that belief led me to a theory—one that sits at the strange intersection of faith, physics, and pain.

Is there evidence of Quantum Entanglement in the Bible?

It may sound strange, but some people have wondered if there's a connection between quantum entanglement and moments in the Bible. As someone who deeply loves science and often finds that it affirms rather than challenges my faith, I find these intersections fascinating. The more I study the intricacies of physics, the more wonder and awe I feel about the God behind it all. For example—many people would say that the Mount of Transfiguration holds evidence to quantum entanglement. 

In that mysterious moment, Jesus is suddenly speaking with Moses and Elijah—figures from very different points in time. It's not just symbolic; it's a moment that seems to stretch beyond the normal limits of space and chronology. Some interpret it as a God revealing his power, to which I would agree, but a few wonder—what if there's something deeper going on here?

What if this is a glimpse of how God operates outside of linear time?

In quantum physics, entanglement describes how two particles can be connected across space and time. Imagine two tiny particles being so deeply linked that when something happens to one, the other reacts instantly—even if they're on opposite sides of the universe. It's like a mysterious invisible string tying them together, where distance and time don’t matter.

Now, I’m not saying this is exactly how God works—but it’s a helpful metaphor. What if spiritual moments, like the one on the Mount of Transfiguration, are showing us that God’s presence can connect across time in a way we can’t fully grasp? That Jesus, Moses, and Elijah weren’t just appearing together, but were connected in a way that bends time—because God exists outside of it.. Affect one, and the other responds instantly, no matter how far apart. It’s not a direct parallel, of course, but it raises the question: Could this be a metaphor—or even a shadow—of how God connects past, present, and future in ways we can’t fully understand?

Maybe Jesus’ transfiguration wasn’t just about glory—it was about divine connectivity. Moses symbolizing the past, Elijah the future, and Jesus at the center: a moment that transcends time as we know it.

Now bring in the idea of quantum entanglement: a phenomenon where two particles are linked across space and time. Affect one, and the other responds instantly, no matter how far apart they are. What if that moment on the mountain wasn’t just a divine display—but a hint? A whisper that all things—past, present, and future—are connected in God.

It’s more than a theological flex. It’s a sign: God operates outside our timelines. The connections are already there.

The Cross as a Cosmic Pivot

Now here’s where my theory goes deeper.

Jesus, hanging on the cross, cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That moment is usually read as abandonment. Divine silence. A rupture in a relationship.

But what if—just what if—it was something else?

If God exists outside of time, then what if that "turning away" wasn’t rejection at all? What if, in that very moment, God was turning toward us? Toward every broken human who would ever cry out in shame, in regret, in pain.

What if, instead of forsaking Jesus, God was connecting with us—across all moments, all centuries—at the exact point of our deepest need? In that split-second, Jesus becomes entangled with every moment of human guilt, despair, and longing. God isn’t turning away in rejection, but rather, looking toward every broken human at once, across all time, in that very moment. Because if God is outside time, then the cross isn’t just a historical moment—it’s a cosmic pivot point. A nexus.

It’s not rejection. It's an exchange. Not absence. It’s Absorption.

Jesus becomes the entangled point between God’s perfect love and our absolute wreckage. And in that moment—when everything seems lost—the universe splits open with grace.

It doesn’t make the pain go away. It doesn’t answer every question. But it changes the silence. It reframes the isolation. It reminds me that even in the middle of guilt and spiritual rage—especially then—I’m not alone. God sees me. And He is near to the brokenhearted. Not just in theory, but in the thick of it—in the worst moments when I feel unworthy of love or presence, He’s still there.

Sometimes in those broken moments—when I’m furious, when I feel like I’ve gone too far—I get this mental image. It’s not mine; it feels like the Holy Spirit placing it in my mind. It’s the image of that moment we call time, when God turned His face away from Jesus on the cross. But in that same instant, He was also turning His face toward me. Because He is God. He exists outside of time. He saw me then, and He sees me now—especially when I’m broken.

Christ was broken with me and for me. And because of that, God can face me in my most shattered state—not with condemnation, but with presence. It doesn’t erase the pain, but it does change the silence. It makes it bearable. It makes it sacred.. It means that even in the middle of guilt and spiritual rage—especially then—I’m not alone.

If this post stirred anything in you—or if you just need a moment to be still and remember who God is—this worship song captures the awe of it all. It's called "Transfiguration" by Hillsong and TAYA. The lyrics echo much of what I’ve been wrestling with and resting in: that we are seen, held, and invited to look on God with reverence and wonder.

Watch and listen to "Transfiguration" here.. It means that even in the middle of guilt and spiritual rage—especially then—I’m not alone.

And maybe, just maybe, that matters more than having all the answers.