Tanya Moore has spent more than 25 years trying to open every corner of her life with the same intent: to live a life with God and for God. This has applied to dating decisions, financial choices, friendships, grief, and the particular anxiety that comes with not knowing what comes next. Her focus has been to pay attention to what God has offered her in the present, not get distracted by future promises.
"I am committed to this path with Jesus because I believe that living in the reality of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that Jesus tells us is available now, is the truest and most life-giving reality that there is," she said.
That conviction was tested a few years ago when a family member was hospitalized with a traumatic injury. Doctors didn't know whether they would survive, let alone what recovery would look like. They had been living independently, and it wasn’t clear whether they could receive the care they needed outside a nursing facility. When Tanya toured one, "I knew in my bones that this was not where he belonged," she said.
What followed were weeks of advocacy, grief, and negotiation — with hospital staff, with her family, and with God. She screamed. She cried. She tried to find a way for her family member to get admitted to an inpatient rehab facility. Tanya saw potential in recovery while the facility’s staff were skeptical. In a rapid turn of events, they did agree to transfer the family member to inpatient rehab with one condition: There had to be a home for them to return to after their stay.
Tanya made a decision before knowing whether her loved one would walk again, eat solid food, or speak. She offered her downstairs bedroom.
The next six months reshaped her routines, her sleep, her evenings, and what she describes as "my will, my routine, and life as I knew it." Her family member eventually returned to independent living. She calls those months hard and sacred in the same breath. “I was called to trust in the grace God offers for each day, one moment at a time, with no guarantees of the future,” Tanya said.
Now Tanya is a student at the Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation, a program geared toward working through questions that sound simple until you sit with them: Can we hear from God? Can people actually be transformed into Christlikeness?
Her current assignment is writing a “Rule of Life” — a structured, intentional framework for how she wants to move through her days. She initially resisted the idea of rules, but now "I'm starting to see it more as an invitation to set an intentional path on this journey of discipleship," she said.
The underlying goal isn't structure for its own sake. It's staying close enough to Jesus, she said, to learn what He called "the unforced rhythms of grace." It’s continuing to discover ways to live a life with God and for God.
“My underlying intention is to live a Rule of Life that keeps company with Jesus,” she said. “It’s one that watches His interactions and learns more about the ways of life He teaches as I live my everyday, ordinary life with Him, with my family, in my clinic work, and in community with everyone at Blacknall.”