Holding The Line

Holding The Line: Love Isn’t Always On Time

Holding The Line. Toto wasn’t lying. “Love isn’t always on time.”

Great song. Great band. And if I’m being real, a pretty accurate summary of the past six years of my life.

When you talk to someone almost every single day for a decade, silence hits different. It’s not quiet. It’s deafening. Because it’s an empty, black void that you fill with some straight-up ugly thinking.

And when life has kept you physically apart for six long years, through pandemic, grief, income loss, injuries, health issues, busted engines, and more damn curveballs than a minor league pitcher, silence isn’t just uncomfortable.

It tests your faith. Your discipline. Your mindset. Hell, it even tests your faith to hold the line when everything else falls out of rhythm.

Six Years of “Not Yet”

The highlight reel hasn’t been pretty:

• Her father passed away
• COVID shut down the world (and travel)
• My heart attack
• My income was cut by more than half
• A blown engine on a newish truck I bought
• Broken ribs last year and now a torn rotator cuff this year
• Money is tighter than a cat’s ass in January

All of that… and we still haven’t been able to physically be together for six years.

Then November hits. Ann’s internet disappears, groceries run out, and storms plus disasters keep her offline for nearly two months.

No “Good morning, mahal (love).” No “Mahal din kita (I love you too).” Just… nothing.

For more than seven weeks.
Fifty-some odd days.
1,200 long hours.
72,000 minutes.
4,320,000 seconds…

I’m used to hearing her voice every day for more than a decade. But when she went silent, it was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard.

Holding The Line: Faith vs. Fear

Here’s the truth most people never say out loud:

Life gives you one real problem. Overthinking gives you 99 more fake ones.

Faith whispers, “She’s okay.”
Fear screams, “What if she’s not?“

Faith reminds you of ten years of loyalty, laughter, and love.
Fear invents disasters that don’t exist.

Faith says God has a plan, and it’s working in your life.
Fear says the quiet is proof that something is very wrong.

But then one morning–DING. She breaks radio silence. She’s alive. Safe. Exhausted. Just buried under typhoons, flooding, evacuation, and chaos.

Suddenly, every knot in my throat and chest loosens all at once.

Not because everything is fixed. But because she reminds me, in not so many words, that faith was right, and fear was lying to me.

Discipline & Faith Aren’t Flashy

Most people think that hustle is discipline. Grinding. Motivation. Inspiration.

It isn’t.

Motivation and inspiration don’t show up until after the perspiration begins. Faith is trusting in the Creator’s plan and that He hasn’t forgotten you. But God is also waiting for you to stop complaining before the truth arrives. Waiting for us to be grateful for what we do have.

It’s holding steady when everything around you is falling apart. It’s trusting God’s timing over your own. Stoicism in the face of fear, thinking the worst when silence swallows you whole. Staying firmly grounded when everything feels like a whirlwind of uncertainty.

Life never follows a straight line. And love isn’t always on time.
But discipline, fueled by faith, is what keeps you from falling apart.

The Small Business Parallel
(Because We’ve All Been Here)

The same battle shows up in business.

A lead goes quiet. So you think, “They ghosted me.”
A proposal sits untouched. Then you wonder, “Did they pick someone else?”
Sales slow down. So you overthink, “My business is dying.”

Nope.

Sometimes people are just overwhelmed. Sometimes they’re broke. Also, they may be dealing with category 5 shitstorms of their own.

Silence isn’t rejection. Silence is just silence, and sometimes it really sucks.

Hold the line anyway.

Some related reading for small business owners struggling this year:

• Low Sales Gut-Check
• Relationships Build Your Brand
• Sales Funnels That Work
• Your Brand Is Boring
• Why Leads Aren’t Buying

What This Year Really Showed Me

This year reminded me of something that I learned from my firefighting days:

I am harder to break than the things that try to break me.

And if you’re reading this? You are, too.

Because anyone who survives a year of:

• distance
• disaster
• financial stress
• broken ribs
• broken engines
• broken routines
• and the long quiet of someone they love

…can survive a lot more than they think they can.

I’m living proof. Some of my firefighters are also living proof. But then so are some of my best customers.

Holding The Line In The New Year

Toto had it right: Love isn’t always on time.

But faith? Discipline? Stubborn commitment?

Those are always on time. Because when love finally comes back online, literally and figuratively, you want to be the person who didn’t panic. Didn’t quit. And didn’t break.

You want to be the one who held the line. Kept the faith. So you stayed ready for the moment when reality finally caught up.

Some related articles to help you:

• Holiday Stories Grab Attention
• Lead Scoring for SMBs
• Marketing Attribution Basics
• ROI Tracking With CRM
• The Art Of Storytelling

Stop Letting Silence Wreck Your Head
(And Your Cashflow)

If your leads go quiet and your brain starts writing horror movies, that’s not a leads problem. That’s a systems problem.

Here’s the fastest path:

• Find where the leads are falling off
• Fix the follow-up gaps that cause “ghosting”
• Build a simple, repeatable pipeline you can grow