For the stuck, there is hope

This essay was first published on July 5, 2025, on The Daily BS.

On a beautiful summer morning, we head for the office. Beneath a vast, spreading sky of blue, past the green and growing fields of corn, we drive along. At once, I look to my right, and there it is—a freight train. For some brief moments, we keep pace with it. A boxcar rolls steady outside my window. On the bottom right, someone has written one word in black spray paint. “Stuck.”

All week, that word has been, well, stuck in my mind. For days, I’ve been reflecting on what it means and how it looks in our daily lives. Then, in the midst of my meditation, the word came up in a conversation.

Standing in a local coffee shop, the aroma of espresso ribboning through the air, she said it aloud. “I feel stuck. I’m not sure why. I know what I need to do, but I just haven’t done it yet.”

Stuck.

There’s not a human alive who hasn’t been there. Every human alive will almost certainly be there again. If this is true, how do we navigate those times when we feel stuck, immobilized, and powerless? Whether it is vocationally, relationally, emotionally, or spiritually, the sensation of “stuckness” is unpleasant, and it’s difficult to shift ourselves out of it.

I know well the experience of being stuck vocationally. I have watched as my husband and our adult sons have gone through long periods of being stuck in jobs they hated, working with people who were intolerable. I have felt that way myself. The desire to move on and to find something more lucrative or enjoyable is strong, but no doors will open up. We have all, individually, been stuck at various times.

Many people (maybe you?) feel stuck relationally. When important relationships flounder and fault lines begin to appear, they scramble and work toward repair. The closer the relationship, the more desperately they work, but as time goes by and the situation only worsens, the heart begins to despair. If it fails at last, as some inevitably do, they’re immobilized, unable to move past what just happened. They are stuck.

Others get stuck emotionally. Caught in mental loops, replaying their failures or the seeming impossibilities of their current situations, they cannot seem to stop. Over and over, they play “what if” on a continuous feed, gaming out worst-case scenarios. Reliving the past, they are unable to conceive a different future. If this is you, I empathize. I’ve been a looper myself.

Spiritually, it is easy to feel stuck. When the sky is made of brass and your prayers, by all appearances, are bouncing back down to land at your feet, you can question your very own faith. You can question your very own God. I do know. Oh, it’s tough when you’re a visitor in the Kingdom of Stuck.

One of the biggest things that keeps us stuck is fear. When we long for something more vocationally, when a dream is burning like a flame inside your very core, the voice of fear shouts loudly. “What if you fail?” it says. “What if you’re rejected? What good is it to try?”

To that, I say, “But what if you don’t? What if you don’t fail? What if you aren’t rejected? What if great good awaits if you try?” What if that?

When I need guidance and direction, my favorite prayer is, “Close every door but the right one.” A closed door, after all, is an answer as much as any open one. There is also this—if you never knock on a door, how will it ever open? Here is where courage steps up, helping you to lift that fist and to rap on a door called Opportunity. The opening or closing of it, then, is in Another’s hands. Along this way, I have found great peace.

To the suffering soul that is stuck relationally, I offer my compassion. It is so hard to know when to stay and when to walk away. Walking away too soon can do an untold amount of harm. Staying too long can do the same, and it is wisdom that guides us aright.

If you have walked away or you have been abandoned, and you are held hostage, waiting for an apology or repair that will never come, I offer you a lifeline called hope. There is life and a future on the other side if you can open your clenched fists and release the offender from your demands. It isn’t fair. It’s terribly hard, but it will set you free.

For the loopers, there are many ways to get yourself unstuck. Sometimes, simply moving your body will bring relief to your brain. Often, talking to a trusted friend or a wise counselor can help your mind to clear. Practice using your imagination to your advantage instead of your detriment. Like everything else, it gets easier the more you do it. Refuse contempt toward your own self because you struggle; rather, offer yourself the same compassion you extend to the suffering around you.

Lastly, to all who are stuck spiritually, I want to tell you this. Your faith, whether great or small, is of great value in the sight of the Lord. He knows what he is asking when he requires that we walk by faith and not by sight (or our other four senses), and he insists on rewarding that faith. Though at times he is silent, he is never absent.

You are always within his sight. You are always under his care. Keep walking.