This week on Glow Brighter with Toni, I’m talking about something we often forget when we’re in the middle of a difficult season: the beginning of a story doesn’t tell us how it ends.

The inspiration for this episode came from a conversation with someone celebrating a birthday who admitted they just weren’t feeling it. No excitement. No inspiration. No sense that the day was particularly special.

It immediately brought me back to my own 39th birthday.

This episode is a reminder that whether you’re looking at a birthday, a month, a year, or even the last five years of your life, don’t assume where you are today is where you’ll always be.

Growth doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

Sometimes we’re not going in circles at all—we’re moving upward on a spiral.

And when we pause to look back, we realize we’ve come much farther than we thought.