05/06/2026
Out of the Ashes: One Year Later
A year ago today, there was a fire.
Most people know that part of our story. The Twisted Turnip went through fire, smoke, damage, cleanup, repairs, delays, setbacks, an ownership shift, and a complete operational overhaul in a matter of weeks.
What I haven’t shared till now, is just how much has happened since that fire. The fire became one of those moments that divides life into “before” and “after.” The fire was the moment everything changed, but it was not the only thing that burned.
After the fire, there has not been one hard thing. It has been a whole chain of hard things. Since the fire, every day that passed every direction I turned, there was another problem waiting on me. If the restaurant needed me, my body was falling apart. If my body needed rest, the business needed decisions. If the business needed money, the legal mess needed attention. If the legal mess needed clarity, my mind was too exhausted to process one more thing. And if I needed support, I often found myself seeking solitude instead, because that fire burnt people away too. It’s a different kind of grief losing people this way, the peace knowing their heart is still beating although that is exactly why it rips yours right out of your chest every single day.
Recently, I had to do what I had been refusing. I had to quit, but I didn’t know how to quit, not because of pride and it certainly wasn’t strength either. What was sacrificed in the midst of the year since the fire, and what it has taken from me, is more than most people will ever know. I was gonna let this kill me if I had to because if this was all for nothing in the end I was gonna die trying to make it mean something. I realized then that nothing could give me anything that would compare to what I had lost. Then immediately after I raised my white flag, my body did too. I am taking the time out to rebuild more than just The Turnip.
One year later, I am not going to pretend everything is going to be magically fixed. It is not. There are still things being worked through. There are still decisions being made. There are still pieces of this story that are unfinished. But I can say this with a clearer heart than I could have said it a year ago:
I am not in the fire anymore.
I am standing in the smoke.
And oddly enough, that smoke feels like comfort and familiarity. It reminds me of the day the fire broke out. The smell. The burning eyes. The tightness in my chest. The feeling of standing there trying to understand what had just happened while everything around me changed in real time. Only now, the smoke is different. The flames were put out a long time ago, but the smoke from everything that followed has lingered. It still smells like loss. It still makes my eyes burn. It still makes it hard to breathe sometimes. But it also reminds me that the flames are no longer consuming everything.
And that matters.
Because now I can see what is still standing.
I can also see what cannot come with me. I am not rebuilding the same way this time.
I am not rebuilding out of panic. I am not rebuilding to prove anything. I am not rebuilding to please people who only know a fraction of the story. I am not rebuilding on confusion, pressure, exhaustion, or broken trust.
If this place rises again the way I believe it can, it has to rise on truth. Truth about who we are. Truth about what we serve. Truth about what community means. Truth about the kind of place this is supposed to be. Truth about the God who has carried me through things I did not know how I was going to survive.
The Twisted Turnip has always been a little different. It’s scrappy. soulful. stubborn. wild around the edges. But at the heart of it, I believe it has always been about REVIVAL. Revival that happens after loss. After fire. After exhaustion. After hard truth. After you have to decide whether you are done, or whether something in you is still willing to rise.
One year later, I am still here. And I am still learning what this calling is supposed to look like now. I still believe a small-town restaurant can carry more purpose than people realize. I still believe God can use broken things, burned things, tired things, and unlikely things. And I still believe something beautiful can rise out of ashes.
I believe this year was something I had to endure. I believe I was being prepared. Prepared to understand faith in a way that is not just something I say, but something I have had to live when everything around me felt uncertain. Prepared to understand that testimony is not always something you only share after the storm is over, once everything is fixed and pretty and you can prove you survived. Sometimes testimony looks like standing when you are tired. Praying when you are angry. Showing up when you are grieving. Feeding people when you are empty. Trusting God when nothing about your circumstances makes sense.
The Twisted Turnip has never been just a restaurant to me. It has been a place where feeding people means more than putting food on a plate. It has been a place where ministry can look like hospitality, service, and showing up with love in the most practical, imperfect, human way.
So today, I am not celebrating the fire. I am honoring the survival. I am honoring the lessons, the prayers, the anger, the silence, the hard days, the community, the grace, and the slow work of becoming someone I am only just now beginning to meet who is more prepared for the next direction this calling takes me.
Thank you to everyone who has loved us, prayed for us, checked on us, fed into us, showed up for us, and believed in The Twisted Turnip even when things looked uncertain. This story is far from over.
Out of the ashes is where we are. I am looking forward to introducing y’all to what rises next.
