4th quarter

“2026 is yours”

is what I felt at the beginning of the year. It didn’t start feeling like it until the middle of the 3rd quarter (about mid-July). I was devastated as months had come and gone and things seemed to progressively wax and wane. What happened?

I expected the “bombs to burst in-air” apparently, and I guess you rarely ever emerge from an assassination attempt looking like the Empress of Rome lol.

A year is not one month in and of itself; it’s not even a collection of months where you decide if they were good or bad: A year is what you make of it.

In this last cycle of 12 months in my life August 28, 2025-today, I understand this as it relates to how we approach our lives: it’s not about what happens to you, it’s how you conceptualize it, metabolize it, and use it to fuel the next cycle of your life.

So, now, as we enter Quarter 4: October-November-December, I am compelled to reflect on how I navigated Q4 of 2025 and share what I hope to be some valuable insight for you as you embark on your 4th quarter.

If you’re new here, 1st &Lynn’s name comes from many things, but one of its references is football. Not here to argue who the greats are, but good ol’ Tom Brady is undeniable in the 4th quarter, and you should be too. What I love about life, like football, is that you don’t have to score on every possession, you just have to move ahead enough to move the chains; however, in the 4th quarter forward movement is not sufficient enough—

You must score, outpace your opponent, and by the time the clock winds to 00:00 you must win.

You do not win the game without maintaining a solid defense and playing aggressively on offense to finish. While I pray we do not have to end our year with a Hail Mary, I am confident that God’s children will win. So, think of it: do you want to have a close finish or a landslide win? How you play—how you aggressively attack your goals, address your fears, confront your past, build your intelligences, and protect what’s of value—matters, so act like it.

Last year’s 2nd half, the opposition was sure to defeat me after being crushed in the first half:

Mid July, small slights of hostility and microagressions began as I began my transition back to work in August 2025. By August’s end, I’d decided to separate from my husband after 4 years of marriage. Simultaneously, I began trying to manage my response to my life’s transitions by relying on other relationships. I now know that God was dethroning idols for me. I’ve always relied heavily on people to help me lighten life’s load. I know that’s not an unfamiliar concept to social people. Different for me, however, is my unwillingness to release people. That unwillingness was because I continued to assign my emotional heavy lifting to those around me.

YOU need to accept that in order to grow, You Cannot outsource the hardwork.

Finally, I was deciding my life’s fate and this time it was independent of other people. I had to learn to walk alone and it was the best lesson of my life. See, I ended 2025 with a Hail Mary, this year, I am much more confident of victory.

If I could give you any advice?

Close out the year. That’s it. No, I’m talking do it now. Start next year with the mentality that you are a sentient body still here in the present time and committed to seeing the year to its end, but you should be in the future. Next game, running new plays, trying new strategies. January is the perfect time for silence and to watch film and draft, so imagine this 4th quarter as a January of sorts. You should be smashing these last 3 months—end the cycle of dependency, part ways from the relationships that keep you small, follow the dream, start the task. I don’t care how 2026 started or how it’s going, how do you want it to end?

Because I used October 2025 to start a totally different game, it helped me power through 2025 with confidence. I left the year with virtually nothing—90% of my friendships done, marriage failed, quit my job, my family was falling apart, and recovering from the psychological terror of involuntary hospitalization—yet I had everything: perspective. “Virtually Nothing” was a fresh start that I didn’t realize was such, so I ran it how I imagined I would have had I got another chance.

Sometimes what you see as failure is You living in the middle of Your 2nd chance. Capitalize. do what you said you were going to do.

Let me tell you something. 4th quarter energy is infectious. Football is my favorite sport, but the 4th quarter of a basketball game is absolutely incredible. I remember April 13th’s game of 2016 like it was yesterday. Goodness, 2016 really was the end of the world lol. Anyway, Kobe dropped 23 points in the 4th quarter of his final game of his career. Some people drop that in an entire game. 37 years old and at the very end of his lifeline as an NBA player. 23 points. The number of the sport’s touted goat who’d only dropped 2 points in the 4th quarter of his final game.

I’d like to think Kobe smashed that game because he imagined himself as having already closed out that chapter in his life. He’d already done all the things that made him one of the greatest, there was no need to prove anything except, close it out. The game had to end in order for his new beginning to start.

I’d like to think he dominated the 4th quarter on April 13, 2025 because he knew how he planned to dominate what would ultimately be the 4th quarter of his own life thenceforth.

Kobe went on to focus on his life as a man to his family. At the end of the year he and his wife welcomed their 3rd child and within a year of his death had welcomed another baby girl, Capri. A girl dad. In 2018, he won an Academy Award and in the time following his retirement he built Granity studios, authored children’s and young adult books, and became deeply involved in youth basketball, heavily invested in his daughter, Gianna, and I believe his advocacy swung the pendulum in the right direction for women sports and women in sports. A true masterclass in how to nail the 4th quarter.

I’d also like to think that the “Mamba mentality” is the mentality of someone who, if he had not encountered the genius of Apostle Paul’s Philippians 1:6, for sure would be moved by the poetics of: I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

What the kids say?

“I know ball,” and I’m telling you: ball. out.

Happy 4th quarter ❤️

Sabbath: (re)examining our relationship to rest

Disclaimer: This is not about rest so much as it is about looking at what we currently perceive as rest and compare it to the biblical exegesis of sabbath and what our relationship to rest means and what it should say about our connection to our output.

Today is the 1st of the month so I think it’s appropriate that we talk about the sabbath since the day we usually characterize as the sabbath also happens to be the 1st day of the week.

In Genesis 1, we see God exact creation in what is expressed in the text as 6 days separated by day and night. On the 6th day, the day of man, God “saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) There’s something different here. Other days of creation you see words like “and it was so” or “God saw that it was good,” but at the end of the day of man he saw everything and deemed it very good.

Day 7 opens up Genesis 2 which is pretty cool because what we consider the sabbath (Sunday) is more like the 7th day of our week, but it’s the beginning of a new week as the sabbath opens up a new chapter in Genesis. The first verse states that the heavens, the earth, and all their multitude were finished. Verse 2 does something very interesting. In the NRSVUE it says “on the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” Now, I take notice that he finishes on the 6th day, yet rests on the 7th. I decided to look to the Hebrew for an understanding of the words “finished” and “rest,” because I know my human understanding of work is to do the work and then rest immediately after. That we see God rest on the 7th day rather than the end of the 6th lets me know rest that is the sabbath is different from rest from labor.

Which brings me to the Hebrew shāvat (Strong’s H7673) and the form in Genesis 2:2 is vayyishbōt (and he ceased/stopped). Shāvat means to stop, cease, desist and it is the verb from which Shabbat (Sabbath) comes. Now this is interesting. In verse 1, the Hebrew word for finished is kālāh (Strong’s H3615) and it means to be complete, finished, brought to an end and the form that appears in Genesis 2:1 is vaykhullû (and there were completed/finished). This begs the question, why not use the same word if it was essentially the same thing? It’s because it’s not. If kālāh renders creation as being complete and brought to an end, what does shāvat do if not the same thing? Shāvat speaks to God’s relationship to the completed work. In order for shāvat to occur in a sense, something has to happen in between kālāh and shāvat, and I believe that middle ground is where God is able to cease on the 7th day. Specifically I think the “something” that has to happen is reflection and it is where the Sabbath asks us to go when it suggests rest. It doesn’t necessarily mean lay down or take a break, it means to evaluate or have a relationship with what was created in the days before that necessitates such a reflection. Sabbath is where new ideas emerge, where joy comes, where a renewed sense of purpose breaks forth, and it is able to do all of this when we, the image bearers, are able to journey between completing a thing and looking back and evaluating our connection to it, our experience with it, and how it brought us to the now. Sabbath/shāvat/ceasing is really about God’s relationship to that completed work. To cease the work is to look at it and see it and establish a relationship with it and to understand, right?

In a thousand ways, more now than ever in my life, I am grateful for Shabbat/the Sabbath because it is my opportunity to reflect, reveal, renew, and replenish. This sort of process should accompany the type of rest that we generally relegate Sabbath to, and if such process existed alongside that rest, I know we’d be better people, more productive people, more creative people, more loving people, and more supportive people. God created tangible realities for 6 days and created a day to reflect on one’s relationship to that very creation. In a way, creation happens 7 days and that echoes the sentiment that God is everpresent and exists across the span of time. He created a day that was designed to recalibrate us that would prepare us for the next wave of our cycles. This very concept of the 7th day as still a day of creation separates us from being God, because we exist inside the very creation and therefore cannot “create” outside of God.

So, today I reflect on how this current moment in my life mirrors Shabbat and how the wealth of revelation and insight I’ve received from really practicing and observing the Sabbath informs this next phase in my life. The reminder to keep it holy is important because the key word is leqaddeshô and it comes from a Hebrew family of words associated with holiness, sacredness, consecration, and being set a part, so this calls for us to treat this day as belonging to a different category from ordinary time and to recognize its sacred distrinction. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, so it is important that we maintain that. Shāvat tells us to cease and qadash sets the day apart as sacred, keeping it holy means we recognize that this stopping belongs to God. What would it mean for us to treat this moment of time as sacred and holy? Surely we’d do more than sleep.

Happy New year!

In the New Year, we generally like to start clean or “from scratch.” Day 1 of 365. New beginnings. Fresh chapter. New imaginations. New goals. So, what better way for a writer to start their new year off than by actually physically writing. My writing skills have been strengthened and even my physical writing ability and stamina has increased. So, enjoy my handwriting that looks like that of a 12 year old girl lol. Anyway, to give a bit of context, after prayer, I began to read scripture and the flow of scriptures was:

Luke 7:47—“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgive; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.”)

Romans 5:8-10—But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely, therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

Colossians 2:14—erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

Ephesians 1:7—In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

So, here’s how it went: Colossians 2:14 struck me, so I kept reading and I landed on Colossians 2:18 which is how I ended up on today’s journal entry. So, since about May or June, I’ve kept a prophetic devotional journal where I engage with God and then I listen for the word he’s giving for the day’s devotion. It hadn’t been without fail, but it’s the most consistent I’ve ever been with a thing and I’m so proud. I don’t know where this new year will lead, but I anticipate that the devotions will be prominent, permanent, and felt.

So, here’s to 8/31, so whatever happens on January 1, is what happens for me and in me! Happy New Year! Here’s day 1:

Happy Mother’s Day: My Reflections as i wrap up my 3rd year of motherhood

3 years ago today, the promise of God emerged from my womb at 1:41 am: Darryl Grayson Howell. Mother’s day really means nothing to me outside of celebrating my own mom. This day is Mother’s day for me. Becoming a mom has radicalized me in a way that I am grateful and it has saved my life. When I gave birth to my son, I gave birth to my voice. I began speaking up for myself. So, for my baby’s 3rd birthday, I present my gift to the world: my writing.

WELCOME TO 1ST AND LYNN, MY OWN LITTLE CORNER IN MY OWN LITTLE CHAIR :)

It’s time for us to have a tough conversation. Wanna know why the gender war is raging??? Sure, the algorithm’s got us regurgitating talking points, but the algorithm is a reflection of the exact problem with the world today: NARCISSISM.

We are in a narcissism crisis and historically, the narcissist is usually envisioned as a man, and that’s partially because the person the name is derived from (Narcissus) is a man; however, women are notoriously narcissistic. We see the girl narcissist burst at the seems on the birthday trips, during disagreements, or when it’s time to celebrate someone other than themselves and it’s time to talk about it.

Sure, “men aren’t accountable,” but who am I kidding? Neither are women. I think of all my former fave “accountability queens” and they have been notoriously unaccountable and hella unkind. So, who goes first in the accountability olympics? I argue that we (women) should.

This is my personal psalm and its theme surrounds how women fail one another. There is a conversation, largely untapped, around women and the ways mean girl behavior has eroded communal systems of girlhood. Women, like me, are afraid/hesitant to be friends with other women. At what point do we ask “wtf is going on with us?”

Sure, we can blame the patriarchy, but how should the matriarchy respond? How can women be accountable to men when we are not accountable to one another? If there is a visible end to the gender war, I hope to be at the forefront of the conversation. I argue that by (re)connecting woman with her identity as mother—regardless of if she has a womb or not, kids or not—is the panacea to our social ills.

Here is my first submission, or moreover a plea, in what I hope to be the thing that is “the shot heard ‘round the world.”

I hope it’s readable. At least much more than this intro was lol. Thank you for reading and enjoy :)

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I’ve lived enough life and helped raise enough of other folks’ kids to know that being a mother is about what you can bring forth in others more than it is about physical or biological motherhood. Mothers nurture, cultivate, discern, and push humanity forward—this is the life we give. Society’s pervasive need for motherhood requires that we show up, also, as aunts, grandmas, sisters, cousins, and friends.

I am privileged to be born into a legacy of great mothers—Regina Gray and Jerlen Gray, my mother and paternal grandmother. These women are/were Proverbs 31 women—women of God, prayer, enterprise and ultimately service-oriented. I carry this posture of care into my relationships with people and I serve them from that place. So, I’m reminded of a grief that exists when I look up and find myself alone, abandoned, and mishandled in the same places where (and by the same faces whom) I mothered. It is a devastating disappointment and one I am all too accustomed to.

There is no one way to grieve your “mom issues.” People mourn mothers who died, mothers who left, mothers who stayed but were never emotionally present, mothers who did their best and still caused harm, mothers they never got to become, babies they never got to raise, and relationships they thought would feel more nurturing than they do.

This year, I find myself grieving the mothers I thought I had—mother figures, spiritual mothers, big sisters, and grieving mothers I supported. Play Aunties who aint show up for me when it was time. The women who knew what it meant to receive tenderness yet did not offer tenderness back. The women who let me be a safe place for them, and a black hole for me when I needed a place to land. Hell, I just found out on the phone that a woman I considered a mother was dogging me at my wedding. That sort of betrayal, abandonment, and overall letdown is destabilizing for someone who has a fear of needing people and thus being disappointed.

Moms who I admired/respected who for no other reason than a trick of the enemy morphed into my foes. It’s a certain break you experience in being victimized by mothers you admired/loved/mothered.

Women like me don’t only lose our babies or husbands. We lose the community we thought would surround us (who bore witness and vowed to at least), and we lose the fantasy of being cared about and for by women we care for. Coming through loss and grief, I realize that shared pain does not always produce shared maturity. Some people know how to receive mothering, but they do not know how to give it, and sometimes they refuse to learn how. There are people who demand to drink from your well rather than figure out how to become water in order to be a well for you and that is grief too. Realizing some people just do not have it or they just won’t give it to you is tough either way. Accept that—it’s what the serenity prayer encourages us to do.

I have had to grieve the relationship I thought I would have with these women, especially my mother-in-law. My own mother did her very best and with humility allowed me to seek out relationships with women to get what I was looking for, knowing that it did not all have to be found in her. I was constantly rejected or placed in constant battles for power. Perhaps they were rejecting themselves or felt powerless in other areas in life? That’s a reflection for another day.

Maternal rejection in this context is when women who you are in intimate relationship with reject you by doing some sort of thing that you perceive as harmful/hurtful. This sort of grief is tender because it is not just about a person and what they did to you, but the ways that it shatters the security of the relationship and picture you had in your mind. It is about grieving the hope thinking there would be another maternal presence who understood the sacredness of what it means to become a wife, a mother, a woman carrying so much at once.

I am grieving the gap between the relationship I imagined and the relationship that currently exists and it hurts. That’s ok. When you become a mother, you need advice, covering, and humility around you. You need women who know when to step in and when to step back. You need people who understand that helping is not the same as controlling, that presence is not the same as pressure, and that being older does not automatically make someone emotionally safe.

There is a culture of maternal disappointment that many people are afraid to name and for a long time, so was I. I did not know how to express my “mom issues” and hold mothers accountable without sounding like I was bashing my own mom. We are often taught to honor mothers publicly while suffering under the weight of them privately. We are told, “That’s just how she is,” as if dysfunction morphs into the sacred once it has repeated itself long enough. We are taught to excuse emotional immaturity because someone gave birth, raised children, helped somebody survive, or carried pain of their own.

For some time, moms have carried tremendous pain by being under-supported, unseen, overworked, betrayed, abandoned, and expected to nurture from places that were never nurtured in them. Many mothers were handed children before they had language for their own wounds, and some became mothers while still needing mothering. I think our reality deserves compassion, but compassion cannot be where accountability goes to die. We can honor mothers without idolizing motherhood, acknowledge sacrifice without ignoring harm, and have empathy for what shaped a woman without pretending her resulting behavior did not shape us. Motherhood is sacred, but it is not a shield from reflection. We gotta be accountable.

Maternal disappointment comes from any woman who occupies a maternal space in our lives and then mishandles the responsibility that space requires.

It’s the auntie who made you feel small, or the church mother who harshly corrected you and made you feel judged.
The mentor who only loved you when you needed her or when it was time to exploit you, or the grieving mother who let you hold her pain but disappeared when yours arrived. It’s the mother-in-law who refused a safe space. The woman who called herself family but abandoned when it was time to show up.

These disappointments cut so deep because they often come without clean endings. Nobody died, but something did and you mourn what you thought it would be, who you thought they were, and the version of yourself that kept hoping this time would be different. You mourn the child in you, the woman in you, and sometimes the mother in you who needed support and instead got silence, competition, control, dismissal, or distance.

This is a quiet grief, but it is indeed far from small and lives in your body. A grief that shows up when the world celebrates a role that has been both beautiful and bruising in your life. A grief that surfaces when you are trying to be a healthy mother while still recovering from unhealthy dynamics around you. And yet, I do not want to write this as an indictment but an invitation for repair ❤️

Repair happens where humility, a commitment to truth, and changed behavior is. Repair begins when a mother or mother figure can say:

“I did not realize how that affected you.”
“I may have meant well, but I still hurt you.”
“I want to understand what felt unsafe.”
“I do not want to repeat what harmed me.”
“I am willing to listen without defending myself first.”

Most importantly, repair asks something of those of us who have been disappointed. Openess. Repair asks us to tell the truth without making bitterness our home and it requires that we grieve what is missing without becoming permanently defined by its absence. In order for us to repair, we must release the fantasy version of people so that we can deal honestly with who they are. One of the biggest things we learn in repair is that we stop auditioning for care from people who have shown us they do not currently have the capacity to give it.

I am learning that I can honor what I need without begging unsafe people to provide it.

So, in memory of the griefs of motherhood, I choose to remember all the forms of mothering I have grieved and I remember them because grief deserves a witness; however, I also make room for truth, accountability, and softer conversations. I make room for mothers to become more than what wounded them and for daughters to stop pretending they are fine just because it’s their mama lol.

If we are brave enough, this witness can also become a doorway into real repair that starts with truth and grows through humility. The kind of humility where we admit that motherhood is sacred, but sacred things still need tending. Especially moms. We owe it to our sisters, and most of all we owe it to ourselves.

I love you.

-Lynn

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEARSKI!!!! 🐻❤️

Mama love her baby! I hope I made you proud!

1st & Lynn