Now I Know Who I Am

Season 1 is officially coming to a close, and what a journey it has been.

When I started Coffee Talk, I had no idea where this path would lead. What began as a simple conversation became a place where we explored identity, rejection, healing, faith, waiting, purpose, emotional wounds, and what it truly means to live life more abundantly.

If I’m honest, launching this podcast felt a lot like giving birth. There was excitement, fear, uncertainty, stretching, growing, and plenty of moments where I wondered if I was doing it right. But just like a child, what is born doesn’t stay the same. It grows. It develops. It learns. It becomes.

And that’s exactly what Coffee Talk has done.

Thank you to every listener who tuned in, shared an episode, left a review, sent a message, or simply sat with me over a cup of coffee each week. Your support, encouragement, and willingness to walk this journey with me means more than you’ll ever know.

As we close Season 1, I’m excited about what’s ahead.

Season 2 will be deeper.

Season 2 will be stronger.

Season 2 will be more intentional.

Together, we’ll continue navigating life through different seasons, challenges, transitions, victories, losses, relationships, faith journeys, and everything in between. We’ll have honest conversations, ask hard questions, and continue discovering what it means to become the people God created us to be.

So this isn’t goodbye.

It’s simply, “See you soon.”

Season 1 may be ending, but your story isn’t. Keep growing, keep healing, and keep becoming. I’ll meet you back here for Season 2.

Thank you for being part of the Coffee Talk family.

Be blessed!

With love,

Candace ☕

Transcript

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Hi, friends, and welcome back, and thank you for joining me. I cannot believe that I am at the end of season one of Coffee Talk. But before I close out season one, I want you all to reflect back on a question that I asked you at the very beginning of this podcast. Who are you? Remember when I challenged you to think about what you would say if I bumped into you at the grocery store? Not what you do for a living, not your titles, not your relationship status, not what you've accomplished, just you. Who are you? When I first asked that question, I wasn't sure I knew the answer for myself. So before we end this season, I want to answer it for the now. Because every day I'm still discovering something about myself. I'm going to answer this question, not for you, but for me. But in answering it, I hope that you will find the strength and the courage to discover who you truly are too. Dear Candace, you spent a lot of years introducing yourself by what you did for everyone else. You are the helper, the fixer, the strong friend, the wife, the mother, the nurse practitioner, the encourager. The woman holding everything together while quietly falling apart. You became so good at carrying people that somewhere along the way, you forgot to check if you were carrying yourself. You thought strength meant never letting people see you struggle. You thought being needed meant being loved. You thought if you could just do enough, help enough, serve enough, pray enough, sacrifice enough, maybe you would finally feel like enough. But that's not who you are. You are not what you produced. You are not what you accomplished. You are not the sum of your responsibilities. You are not the woman who was rejected. You are not the little girl who felt unsane. You are not the woman who questioned her worth when people failed to see her value. You are not the mistakes you've made. And you are not the seasons that almost broke you. You are the woman who survived them. You are the woman who kept showing up, even when your heart was tired, even when your faith was shaky, even when anxiety sat on your chest, even when depression whispered lies, even when you smiled publicly and cried privately. You kept showing up not perfectly, but faithfully. You care deeply, sometimes too deeply. You see potential in people long before they see it in themselves. You fight for people, you advocate for people, you pour into people, you celebrate people, you genuinely want to see people win. And sometimes you've given away pieces of yourself trying to save people who weren't ready to save themselves. But you're learning. Yes, my love, you are learning. You're learning that loving people and caring people are not the same thing. You're learning that boundaries are not rejection. You're learning that saying no doesn't make you selfish. You're learning that your value was never attached to how much you could do for others. You're learning that God never asked you to be everyone's savior. Because that position was already filled. You are resilient. Not because life has been easy, but because it hasn't. You've walked through heartbreak, disappointment, loss, fear, uncertainty, marriage struggles, financial struggles, self-doubt, and seasons where you couldn't even recognize yourself, yet here you are, girl, still standing, still believing, still growing, still becoming. You are a woman who loves God, not perfectly, not performatively, not because you've always gotten it right, but because even when you've wondered, he has always felt like home. You are a woman who refuses to quit, a woman who keeps getting back up, a woman who is learning that healing isn't weakness, a woman who is learning that authenticity is more powerful than perfection. A woman who is finally understanding that abundance isn't about what you have, it is about who you are becoming. And after 42 years, after all the lessons, all the tears, all the victories, all the mistakes, all the prayers, and all the growth, I think I finally have an answer. Who am I? I am Candace, a daughter of God, a woman of resilience, a woman of compassion, a woman of faith, a woman who has been broken and rebuilt, a woman who is still healing, still learning, still growing, still becoming, and for the first time in a very long time, I don't need another title to tell me who I am. I already know. Love, Candace. And to everyone who has sat at this coffee table with me during season one, thank you. Genuinely thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for healing with me. Thank you for growing with me. My prayer is that somewhere throughout this journey, you stopped asking who everyone else needed you to be and started discovering who God created you to be. Season one began with the question, and today I'll leave you with the same one. Who are you? I pray you find that answer. Because I finally found mine. Until next season, keep healing, keep growing, keep trusting, and keep striving to live life more abundantly. Blessings and love.