What Happened After 1:53 a.m.

by Jennifer Greene-Sullivan

Earlier this week, I shared about waking up at 1:53 a.m.—restless, unsettled, and unable to ignore the quiet pull of the Lord. That moment became one of repentance, a return, and a laying down of things I had carried longer than I should have. It was not dramatic, but it was deeply necessary. Something in me had to come back into alignment.

What I didn’t know then was what God was preparing me for next. Just a few days later, I sat down to write my column for The Ledger. I approached it the way I usually do with a general idea and a willingness to see where the words would lead. This time, though, something felt different from the start.

The words came with clarity, not because I had planned them well, but because the Lord had already done the work in me. The message about love, about the tongue, and about walking in grace did not require searching. It had already been written in my heart in the quiet hours before dawn. That early morning moment was not random—it was preparation.

God, in His kindness, had already begun correcting my heart before asking me to speak to anyone else’s. I am learning that He often works in private before He calls us to speak in public; He refines in the quiet, corrects in the unseen, and restores before He releases. What felt like conviction in that moment was, in truth, mercy.

He did not leave me where I was. He drew me back and reminded me that repentance is not the end of the story—it is the doorway to moving forward. Scripture tells us, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal…” (Philippians 3:13–14, ESV). That is what this week has felt like for me.

It has not been about perfection or arrival. Instead, it has been about movement—forward, lighter, and more aware. I find myself more dependent on Him than I was before, and that dependence feels like freedom. The work He began in the quiet is still unfolding.

Now that my column is live, I can see it clearly. The words I shared publicly were born in a place of surrender, and that realization changes everything about how I want to write moving forward. I never want to write from performance; I want to write from obedience.

I want my words to come from a heart that has first been corrected, softened, and aligned with His, and then, last night, I saw that same lesson lived out in front of me. It was not in a quiet room this time, but on a baseball field. It was not written—it was demonstrated.

This week, my son and I have talked often about turning to Jesus when we do not know what to do. After he was not invited to a birthday party that many of his church friends attended, we talked about handling rejection and choosing to love anyway. Those conversations stayed with us as the week unfolded. I did not realize how quickly he would be asked to live them out.

Last night, after his doubleheader, the 10u team scrimmaged the 12u team. At the end of the game, the boys lined up to shake hands as they always do. When my son reached his church friend—the one connected to that moment of rejection—he did something different. Instead of simply shaking his hand, he hugged him.

There was no resistance, no hesitation, and no conflict. He simply chose love. It was quiet and unannounced, but it was real. In that moment, he lived out what we had been talking about all week.

Later, as we packed up to go home, he asked me if I had noticed. I hadn’t. I was busy gathering our chairs and missed the moment entirely. (Oh, Martha, you still need to pay attention!) Still, I told him what I know to be true—Jesus saw it.

Ultimately, Jesus’ presence is what matters. Love matters. A heart who returns to Jesus time after time, and a heart who chooses to love anyway matters. Those unseen moments carry more weight than we realize.

In that instant, I understood something even more clearly. The Lord did not just prepare me to write about love this week because He was teaching us how to live it. He was showing us that love is not only spoken—it is chosen.

Thank You, Jesus, for Your patience and Your correction. Thank You for meeting us in both the quiet and the visible moments. Thank You for reminding us that love, when rooted in You, is never wasted.

Link to the Column

👉 Read this week’s column: When Love Leads the Way

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