When the Ground Gives Way

There are moments in life when everything seems to be settling into place then, out of nowhere, the ground gives way. Sometimes that’s just a metaphor. In my case, it was literal. A sinkhole opened up next to my house.

At first, it was chaos, phone calls, measurements, and trying to wrap my head around what 50 feet wide and 40 feet deep really means… all while I was supposed to be launching a new book at the Scarecrow Festival. Life has a funny way of testing your sense of timing.

Filling a sinkhole isn’t glamorous, it’s shovels, heavy equipment, clay, and sweat. But there’s something strangely grounding about it. Watching the hole slowly shrink, load by load, became a reminder that progress doesn’t have to be fast to be meaningful. Persistence, not panic, is what restores solid ground.

The truth is, we all hit these “sinkhole seasons.” Something collapses, a plan, a job, a relationship and we’re left staring into the depth of it, wondering how to fill what’s been lost. But I’ve learned that restoration rarely happens in isolation. It happens when people show up with shovels, with time, with heart. It happens when you keep showing up too, even when you’re tired of looking at the hole.

Maybe that’s the real lesson here: sometimes life collapses not to break us, but to reveal what we’re made of, how capable we are of rebuilding, one load at a time.

What’s the biggest “sinkhole” you’ve had to fill in your own life and what helped you find solid ground again?

"When the ground gives way, you learn what you’re really standing on."