How Quiet Strength Can Grow in the Unlikeliest Moments | Business Motivation

Some of the greatest lessons in life — and in business — don’t come from books, courses, mentors, or even the strategies we try so hard to master.

They often arrive in quieter ways… through the people we love most.

My daughter has taught me more about gratitude, strength, resilience, and staying true to what you believe than almost anything else in my adult life.

She has been a mirror, a reminder, and sometimes even a teacher of the kind of character it takes to build something meaningful with God.

This moment I’m about to share didn’t feel like a gift at the time.

In fact, it arrived wrapped in heartbreak.

But it shaped both of us in ways I’m only now beginning to understand — and it revealed truths I now carry into the way I lead, build, and follow God's calling in business.

For those of you who don’t know, I love to write. And every Saturday, I share a little piece of my heart in a series called Saturday Stories over on my Facebook page.

This week, I wrote about my daughter — and the quiet strength that grew in her during one of the hardest moments of her young life.

Here is her story…

The Girl She is Becoming

I used to think childhood was meant to be soft.
Warm.
Sheltered.
A place where innocence was held carefully — especially for a child like my daughter, Madeleine.

She has always been someone who notices everything.
Not the noisy things, but the small things — the change in a person’s tone, the way a leaf tilts toward the sun, the quiet sadness behind someone’s eyes.

She is thoughtful, gentle, and so observant that sometimes I think she sees the world twice: once with her eyes, and once with her heart.

For a long time, I believed that children like her should be protected from the sharper edges of life.
That kindness should be met with kindness.
That faith should be respected.
That grief — especially the kind she has already lived through — should earn you gentleness.

But life doesn’t always do what I think it should.

The day she came home from school with her shoulders a little lower and her eyes too old for her age, I knew something had happened.
She sat beside me quietly, as if deciding whether to trust me with the words she carried.

And then she told me.

The comments about her Christian faith.
The mockery.
And then — the part that still catches in my chest when I think about it — the cruelty about her father.

Not about how he died.
Not even about the grief she still carries in quiet ways.

But about her belief that he was in heaven.

A child told her that heaven wasn’t real, that her father wasn’t anywhere, that she was “silly” for believing he was with God.

It was said with the bluntness only children have — but without the innocence they usually carry.
And for a moment, it shook something in her.
Not her faith, exactly.
Just her sense of safety… the fragile knowing that her father’s presence hadn’t disappeared, just changed form.

As she repeated the words to me, I watched her try to stay composed — that familiar way she has of holding herself together before she allows herself to feel.
Her voice was small, but clear.
Matter-of-fact, but wounded in the way only truth can wound a child.

And in that moment, I remember thinking:

How do you protect a child from something like this?

How do you explain the unkindness of a world that doesn’t understand the tenderness of her belief?

My first instinct was anger — that fierce, maternal surge that rises before rational thought.
But beneath it was something deeper, something heavier: heartbreak.
Because I could see it… a tiny crack in the soft world I wanted her to live inside a little longer.

We spoke gently that afternoon, sitting together with her hand in mine.
I reminded her of what she already knew — that faith is both fragile and unshakeable, that heaven is real, that her father lives with God, and that belief is something held in the heart, not measured by another child’s understanding.

She nodded, quiet but receptive, listening with that inward focus she gets when she’s rearranging her world to make sense of it again.

But even after she’d gone to bed, I sat awake in the living room, the question lingering in the silence:

Why this? Why her? Why now?

At the time, it felt like nothing but a wound — unfair, unexpected, unnecessary.

But time has a way of revealing the shape of things.

And over the months that followed, I began to see something I hadn’t noticed at first.

Madeleine did not become hardened.
She did not become cynical.
She did not begin to hide her faith or soften it to make others more comfortable.

Instead — slowly, quietly — she grew stronger.

Not louder.
Not defensive.
Just… steady.

She started asking deeper questions.
Not because she doubted, but because she wanted to understand her faith more fully, more personally.
Her belief became something lived, not inherited.
And something else happened too — something unexpected.

She became more compassionate.
More aware of the pain others might be carrying behind their own sharp words.
More willing to stand beside those who felt unseen or misunderstood.

It was as if her heart stretched — not in spite of the hurt, but because of it.

Then came the moment I will never forget.

Months after the incident, we were driving home when she said, in that matter-of-fact way she has:

Mum, I don’t think that girl was trying to be mean.

I think she just doesn’t have someone who taught her about heaven.”

I nearly had to pull the car over.
Because it wasn’t only compassion that had taken root in her —
It was a strength.

Strength of character.
Strength of conviction.
Strength in her faith.

Not long after that conversation, she later told me something she had held quietly to herself.

One day, when the same girl made another comment about her belief, Madeleine looked at her calmly — steady, centred — and said:

“You have a right to believe what you believe.

And I have a right to believe what I believe.”

No anger.
No retaliation.
Just a clear boundary drawn by a girl who understood her worth and her faith far more deeply than her age might suggest.

That moment — quietly delivered in a playground by a child with strawberry-blonde hair and eyes too wise for her years — taught me more about courage than most adults ever display.

And then came the request I never expected.

One evening, she curled up beside me and said, almost shyly,

“Mum… I think I want to go to a Christian school.”

She was only seven.
Seven.
And yet she knew her heart.
She knew her faith.
She knew she wanted to be somewhere that nurtured it, not mocked it.

It wasn’t running away.
It wasn’t fear.

It was clarity.
It was conviction.
It was the quiet bravery of a child choosing the environment in which she could grow.

Her request wasn’t a reaction — it was direction.

What began as pain had become conviction.
What began as cruelty had become courage.
What began as heartbreak had become the compass pointing her toward a place she felt safe to learn, ask, grow, and believe without apology.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, gratitude found its way into the story.

Not gratitude for the cruelty itself — I would never be grateful for that.
But gratitude for what it revealed in her.
For the toughness it uncovered.
For the clarity it brought.
For the compassion it seeded.
For the confidence it grew.
For the kind of faith that deepened, not diminished, under pressure.

I didn’t see it then, but now, looking back, I can bless what it made in her —
a steadiness, a softness, a strength.
A moment that never felt like a gift,
but became one anyway,
shaping the girl she is becoming in ways only time could reveal.

When God Grows Strength Through Struggle

As I watched my daughter grow through that moment — not away from it — I realised something powerful: the qualities that carried her through are the same qualities we need in business and calling.

I remember watching her at the kitchen table weeks later, quietly colouring, her shoulders relaxed again, but her sense of self somehow stronger. There was a steadiness in the way she held her pencil, the same steadiness she carried into conversations, into decisions, into her own faith.

And I thought: This is what it looks like to grow while the soil is still hard.

Because in business — especially as women building something with God — we meet moments that test us too.

We face rejection, misunderstanding, slow seasons, and voices that don’t always believe in what we’re building.

Yet the qualities she embodied are the very ones that carry us forward:

Gratitude for what is growing, even when progress feels unseen.

Strength to hold your ground with kindness when others question your “why.”

Compassion that sees beyond criticism into the deeper stories people carry.

And a quiet steadiness — the kind that lets you take the next faithful step even when the path isn’t fully clear.

These are not just personal traits — they’re leadership traits.

They’re the quiet foundations of building something meaningful, sustainable, and faith-led.

They’re the traits that turn calling into impact, and small beginnings into Kingdom work.

And if you’re reading this and feeling that tug-of-war between wanting to build your business with faith… and the pressure to figure everything out on your own, you’re not alone.

I’ve been there too — the overwhelm, the second-guessing, the “Lord, am I doing this right?” moments. If that’s you, I wrote another post that will meet you right where you are.

It’s called “Faith-Led Leadership: How to Put God at the Centre of Your Business,” and it will help you realign, breathe again, and remember Who’s actually guiding this journey.

👉 Read it next — it will bless you.

MINI DEVOTIONAL

Faith That Grows Through Resistance

📜 SCRIPTURE

“But those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.” — Isaiah 40:31

🕊 REFLECTION

Strength doesn’t always show up in loud ways. Sometimes it’s the quiet kind — the kind that grows underneath the surface while no one is watching. The kind that develops through moments we wouldn’t have chosen but ultimately shape us for what’s ahead.

Just as Madeleine’s faith deepened through a moment of resistance, so does ours — in life, in purpose, and in business. God doesn’t waste the things that press on us. In His hands, even the hardest experiences become a kind of holy training: forming courage, clarity, compassion, and conviction.

Sometimes the gift is not the moment itself — but who we become because of it.

🙏 PRAYER

Lord,

Thank You for the strength You grow in us through the moments we don’t understand at the time.

Teach us to walk in gratitude, courage, and compassion — the same qualities You nurtured in Madeleine.

Help us build our lives and our businesses with a steady heart, trusting that You are shaping us for the work You’ve called us to do.

May we stand firm in our faith, gentle in our words, and brave in our calling.

Amen.

Stay Blessed

Deborah 💛

If you’re building something with God — a dream, a business, a new beginning — I created a free guide to help you take your next small, faithful step:

👉 “21 Purpose-Filled Niche Ideas for Christian Women Who Want to Earn Online.”

It’s a gentle place to start, especially if you’re ready to build with clarity, confidence, and grace.