This is a story about my deep love for the Peloton bike. 

And also about how truly ridiculous I am capable of being. 

A little bit of backstory: like a few hundred thousand other people, the Peloton was a pandemic purchase for me. But it wasn’t just that. I was 38 weeks pregnant with my sixth baby, Bray, and I had gained a good bit more weight with his pregnancy than any of my others. Like almost double, if you’re wondering. So, sitting on the couch one day, with an achy back and throbbing lady parts, in a moment of I can’t wait to not feel this way anymore I texted my husband at work and told him I think we needed a Peloton. We could use our tax return. I supported my argument by reminding him that we once paid for a YMCA membership that cost around $100 a month for the whole family, and we went roughly one to two times a month. If each 30-minutes on the elliptical cost us $50 then really, the Peloton would be a steal compared to that. He texted back with a thumbs up and before my temporary momentum left me, I ordered the bike. I knew if I thought too much about it, I’d get tired again and DoorDash a Carmel Macchiato to my porch instead. 

Like I said, hundreds of thousands of other people were also ordering their bikes, so we were going to have to wait six to eight weeks for it to arrive, but like I also said, I was 38 weeks pregnant so that felt just about perfect to me. I would have a baby and a few weeks later my get back in shape savior would arrive at our doorstep.

It didn’t totally work out that way. The bike did arrive, and I did of course use it the first day, and it was the hardest twenty minutes of my life. Taking spin classes a decade ago does not prepare you to just hop on a bike again. Plus I didn’t know that a gel bike seat cover would have been a great help and I paid for those twenty minutes down below for days. It was another week or so before I got back on.

I was hit or miss on the bike the first few months. I would try for twice a week, but then I would accidentally go ten days or so without riding. I started mentally calculating the price of each workout with the monthly membership fee I was paying and while it wasn’t the YMCA membership we weren’t using expensive, it was enough to make me feel silly for not riding more. By the Fall of 2021, I was seven months postpartum and needed to stop making excuses for that extra pregnancy weight that was still hanging around, so I started making riding a priority. 

In December, life got really hard, and the bike became the place I went to work some of that pain out. 

That’s another story I would love to tell you sometime, but what I am telling you here is that Peloton keeps track of everything you do: every ride, every output, every personal record. And I started to get addicted to the metrics. They were like my own personal performance reviews: you’re amazing at this Katie, look how much you are improving! You bring so much to this team, Katie, we’re lucky to have you show up on this bike. 

Of course that’s not what they were saying. The truth is the bike was cheaper than therapy and I need a S&%$-ton of therapy, so I rode a lot. 50 rides. 100 rides. 150 rides. I ate up every milestone, giddy like a little girl getting a trophy in front of her parents.

Around mid-May of this year, I looked ahead and realized that if I could finish approximately 32 rides in two weeks, I could get my 200th ride on my 37th birthday. This probably only makes sense if you’ve ever taken a Peloton class, because you know that the instructors take a little time each class to give a shout out to people who are taking the class live that have milestones, like getting to 50 rides or having a birthday. 

Welllll. What do you know, I could potentially have TWO milestones in one day and if that wasn’t going to earn a public shoutout, what would?

I turned into somewhat of a crazy person for the last two weeks in May. 32 rides in 14 days. I got up early and stayed up late and sometimes did three or four rides after the kids went to bed. They weren’t all super long or super hard, but I wanted a shoutout and I was going to get it, so I did what I needed to do to add those rides up. 

The day before my birthday, a Saturday, I took my 199th ride, which tee’d me up perfectly for the 5:00am 30-minute 2010’s Hip Hop class on Sunday morning. That night, Alex took me to my favorite restaurant where I diligently ordered a salad because “I’ve got a big ride in the morning. I’m getting a shoutout.” [insert smug face]. I didn’t have any pizza, lest I feel sluggish in the morning.

Around midnight, something Alex ate turned his stomach over and he rushed to the toilet. He ended up being fine after that, but I have this thing in my old age where I cannot fall back asleep easily once I am woken up. I tossed and turned until around 3:00am, or that was the last time I remember seeing the clock, because I was doing that thing you do when you know you have to wake up early and instead you stress about missing your wake up call so just never really get any rest. At 4:40am, the alarm went off and I felt dead. Absolutely no way I could do a bike ride in 20 minutes. 

BUT YOU ARE GOING TO GET A SHOUTOUT, KATIE! I told myself. You’ve literally been killing yourself to get to this moment. Don’t miss it. Kendall Toole’s class is waiting. I dragged myself to the bike.

Friends, I’m sure Kendall is a lovely person, but she doesn’t care about a stranger’s 200th ride on her 37th birthday. I rode every single one of those 30 minutes waiting for her to tell me I’m doing a good job, and the shoutout never came. 

To add insult to injury, I had told a handful of friends my plan, even invited them to join me on the bike, but I keep company with people who have far more sense than I do and a 4:40am wake up was not in their game plan. But, they did text to ask enthusiastically, “Did you get your shoutout, friend?!” and four or five times I had to say “Sure didn’t.” I was moderately bummed all day.

I’d like you to know that my temporary loss of sense has returned. I don’t do more than one ride a day anymore in order to gain one sentence of approval from someone who can only see my profile name. And, I’m working real hard on not caring so much about the metrics but the other day I went on a ride and THE OUTPUT WASN’T WORKING. I did a whole ride and at the end it said “0”. ZERO. I mildly panicked that people might see that and think I quit the ride or something and then I remember absolutely no one on earth cares. No one. 

I don’t think I need to tell you the lesson here, but I will: Don’t ride for the shoutout. It may never come (plus there is the whole bit in Matthew 6 about not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing and I don’t know if that could be any more clear - the shoutouts aren’t supposed to come). Chasing the applause of others is going to let you down eventually. And then you just look really silly and end up incredibly tired all day and regret not eating the pizza to celebrate your 37th birthday.

This fiction piece was written as part of the GDC Writer’s Cohort I am participating in this year.
I have not written fiction for twenty years, but it was so fun to sit down a workout a creative muscle that as been dormant for a long time.
*****

Enoch’s Daughter

Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 
Enoch walked with God...
Genesis 5:21-24

The morning sunlight was just rising over the eastern mountains, slowly turning the desert landscape a fleeting, momentary shade of soft morning gold. This had always been her favorite part of the day, the cadence of her morning routine matched by the waning sound of crickets and soft rustles of the camp’s other early risers.

She met her mother outside the tent, each of them offering a quiet greeting to each other. “Should we gather more wood for the fire?” Nine year old Emzara whispered to her mother, aware of everyone still sleeping. 

“It is waning a bit. We should head toward the foothills today, on the east side. The western edge has already been picked over for dry wood.” With that, the two of them set off toward the sunrise, the only sound between them the rocks underneath their sandals. 

“It’s nice today,” Emzara offered a few minutes later when they were safely outside the camp.

“Mmm hmm,” her mother mumbled in return, eyes still fixed ahead. 

“Maybe after we find firewood, we can play a game with the others?” Emzara asked timidly, her childish sincerity dampened only by what she was sure her mother would say.

“We have work to do, Emzara. The men will want breakfast before they set off today, and the young animals need tending. You know the sheep were just born.”

“Yes, I do mother.” Emzara looked up at her mother, whose eyes never did come down to meet hers. She was a diligent woman, Emzara’s mother. Her family never wanted for much under her care. There was food and clothing, and occasionally she allowed them to listen to their uncles play the lyre around the fire well into the night. But she was distant from Emzara, from all of her children. Not angry, just distant. She wore her tiredness on her skin; it was always there, visible on her hands and face even when the rest of her was covered in clothes. A life of hard work had left its mark on her, and she could not pretend to match the youthful energy of her youngest daughter. 

“I will walk down along the creek, Emzara. Why don’t you head to the ridgeline? Collect as much wood as you can carry. I’ll help you on the walk back.” 

Emzara dutifully followed the direction of her mother’s hand. “Yes, mother,” she said in return, and began up the foothill, following the early light. She picked up a few sticks as she walked, the biggest ones her little arms could manage, cradling them in the nook of her left elbow. 

As she reached the horizon line, her free right hand instinctively shading her eyes from the sun, she heard a warm, familiar voice. “Bat Ayin, my daughter.” Emzara turned to her right to find her father, Enoch, kneeling on a small woven mat. “Come, come, bat. Come sit with me.”

“Abba!” Emzara put down her small collection of wood and hurried to her father, who gathered her in his arms and put his strong hand on the back of her shawl covered head. “Abba, what are you doing up here?”

“Ah, you’ve found me where I begin every morning, Emzara,” Enoch responded in his calm, confident cadence. “This is where I come to see the sun rise. Isn’t it beautiful, Emzara? And so miraculous - we have to do nothing but wait, and it comes. Every morning, it comes again.” He paused for a moment, letting his young bat take in his words. Then he added, “This is where I come to hear from ‘elohim.”

‘Elohim. Emzara thought for a moment about what her father had said. Her  childish curiosity met with emerging young adult inquisitiveness, and her ability to make sense of this ‘elohim lay somewhere in between the two. “Abba, you talk with ‘elohim a lot,” she remarked, both as a statement and a question.

“I do, Emzara. I see him in the sunrise and the mist covering the ground as I walk up here. I see him in your mother, I see him in you, bat Ayin.” He put his hand tenderly under her chin, and smiled as he looked into her deep brown eyes. Enoch’s gentleness with his daughter had always made Emzara feel safe. 

“Abba, you talk to ‘elohim. What does he say?” 

“He does not always speak with words, bat Ayin. He speaks with creation. He speaks with his provision. He speaks, but you have to listen. His voice is sometimes still and small, but it is powerful, bat Ayin. His words are...” Enoch’s voice trailed off, overtaken by his own awe at what he was trying to say. “His words are life, bat Ayin. He speaks, and it is so.”

“Abba, you have told me stories about the world ‘elohim made since I was a baby. About the day and the night, about the stars, about the plants and animals, and about our ancestors. You know ‘elohim, abba; do you love him?” Emzara asked. 

“He knows me, bat Ayin. He knows me, and I respond. One cannot help but love him if he is known by him.”

“But abba, you know him more than the others do. You talk with him, you begin your day here, on your knees, with him. You speak of him with joy, but not with ease. You have peace, abba. Is it because you love him?”

“Emzara, ‘elohim is too big to speak of with ease. There is much I know of him, but much I do not, I can not know. There are others he knows, others he has chosen, because surely we would not choose him if he did not choose us. We would choose ourselves, bat Ayin, we would want to be as powerful as him, and we cannot be. We were made to enjoy him, yet we desire to be like him.”

“You enjoy him, abba?”

“Ah, I do, bat Ayin,” Enoch said with a smile. “I do.” 

Emzara smiled back up at her abba. 

“Our ‘elohim is so many things,” Enoch continued. “But Emzara, I want you to know this: he is good. Our desire to be like him,” he paused again, carefully weighing his words, “it has caused so many things to go wrong. Our desire for the power only ‘elohim has makes us do things to each other we should never do. You remember Cain, bat Ayin?”

“I do, abba. He took his brother’s life.”

“And we don’t just do things to each other. The whole world, all that God made good now has the stain of sin. There is sickness and death and…” he stopped. “There is pain, bat Ayin. We cannot look around without seeing the pain.” 

Emzara followed her father’s lead and stared out at the sunrise, now warm and bright over the land. She knew something of a world that was not perfect. She’d been sick and weak, nursed back to health by the care of her mother who spent nights awake while Emzara burned with fever. She also knew some of what her mother and father had seen. Emzara had brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and cousins to play with, but she knew there was loss, too. Not every sibling her mother and father had was still with them, not every cousin she threw rocks into the creek with had survived the terrible fevers Emzara had. But Emzara, I want you to know this: he is good. Her father’s words hung confidently in her heart. 

“Bat Ayin,” Enoch continued, as they both got to their feet, the increasing warmth of the day signaling it was time to return to camp. “‘Elohim told us there would be a lot of hard things because of our sin. We will fight, we will work endlessly for food and shelter, we will desire things that are not ours. But he also said there will be someone, a child of Eve, who will come to us. When he comes, he will help. He will make things right. We are never without hope, Emzara. Our ‘elohim is too good to leave us without hope.”

Enoch helped his daughter gather the wood she had found, and together they picked up a few more pieces as they walked back down the hill to find her mother. Enoch’s hand gently supported his daughter on the narrow trail down as she balanced the wood her mother had tasked her to find.

“Emzara!” her mother said sternly as she came into view with her father. “Is that all you gathered? Surely you had time to find more.” 

Enoch smiled at his wife and helped her with the wood she had picked up. “It’s ok ishshah, Emzara has been with me. We were with ‘elohim, together.” 

Enoch’s wife sighed, but underneath her aggravation was a gentle smile. She knew her husband would have been at the ridgeline, his mat was always gone from its place near the door of the tent before even she, the woman always up before the sun, woke up in the morning. “And what did you tell her about him?” she asked her husband, a knowing smile on her face, as if the answer was already between them, as if she knew her husband would have been speaking of the one thing he always spoke of: this good ‘elohim.

He returned her knowing smile and kissed his wife on the forehead, and they continued together back to camp.

I don’t pretend to know what I am doing in the kitchen. My culinary accomplishments max out at chocolate chip cookies that are not flat or overcooked, an achievement that is still one I pat myself on the back for. And while I have yet to put much in to practice, I do love a good cooking show and have watched enough Top Chef to learn a few things about the basics of culinary excellence, my favorite among those tenants being the concept of mise en place.

‘Mise en place’ is a French phrase that means “everything in its place.” It refers to the setup required before cooking: chopping all the vegetables, measuring out all the spices, preparing the cuts of meat or any other ingredient needed for the dish. It means all of the necessary utensils are ready, the pots and pans are out, and the oven is preheated. For the chef, mise en place is all about being prepared. Having ‘everything in its place’ helps ensures that when the cooking begins there are fewer errors, interruptions, forgotten ingredients or time wasted. And as I watch the seasoned chefs on television take their craft so seriously, from the setup to the plating and presentation, I can’t help but think about how mise en place works in my writing, too.

The image that first comes to my mind is my big white desk. I love this desk. It is beat up and scratched, the middle drawer is broken and the whole thing needs to be sanded and re-painted, but this desk has been good to me. It’s seen me cry more than my husband, it knows how much time I’ve wasted on social media when I should have been working, and it’s given me a place big enough for my Bible and books and all the bills, too. This desk would be the first thing that goes on my mise en place list. Next would be my coffee. Cold brew coffee, that is, and maybe French press if we are out, because I’m rather picky and I cannot drink just any ole kind of coffee if I’m going to be productive. Then I would probably light a candle, because I write mostly early in the morning, and those pre-dawn hours are complimented so beautifully by the company of a pretty candle. I’d certainly have my journal and my sharpie pens out, and likely the book I am currently reading in case I remember a sentence that had given me an idea while I read. And finally my computer, placed gently in the middle of it all. Of course the house would have to be quiet, because I tend to need total silence to write anything decent. And as mentioned, it would be about 5:30am, before anyone is awake and any events of the day have stolen my mental margin for creating. Yes, this is a good mise en place.

The problem is, I hardly ever write like that.

And I think one of the biggest problems plaguing writers and creators of all kinds, is that we think we need that in order to write.

I have spent so much time pinning pictures of writing spaces or researching the best planners, hoping that if I can just organize what writing looks like it will somehow inspire the words in a new way. And I don’t think I am alone in this, as I have seen a whole lot of great flat lay pictures  of hands around a coffee cup with an open computer on someone’s lap. They are usually in bed, often with a decorative throw blanket nearby for some color and if they are really spiritual, an open Bible, too.

(I meant no offense if you have recently taken that very picture. I’m all about the pretty flat lays and I would totally open my Bible for a picture, too. I am that girl.)

I can get so caught up in thinking I need everything in its place to write that I don’t have any time left to do the actual work of writing. I want to create, but I’m stalling. I love the mental image of a writer and I sure love the finished product, but that space in between –  when it is just me and my words, battling for territory in the most true and honest places – that’s not always an easy place to be.

It is so much easier to just take the pretty picture, and in the meantime, see what everyone else is doing with what was supposed to be my writing time.

I would love to simplify writing down to a three-step formula, or the ever-popular five-point list of ‘things you need to write, and write well’. But like so much of life, writing has proven to me again and again how low-maintenance its friendship is, and that it simply does not need all that much in place. Sure, a big desk and a nice candle are luxuries, but I’ve written some of the most profound and honest words of my life in the most unlikely of places: on the small screen of my phone in the waiting room at the hospital; in the basement of my parents’ house while we lived with them in the middle of our move; short sentences that inspired entire essays while I waited for coffee or in the carpool line at preschool; at the kitchen table with Daniel Tiger in the background – because the idea came and I knew it was fleeting, and I needed thirty more minutes of help from the screen to occupy my kids before that idea left for good.

When I think about all of the writing I have done for the last eight years, I would have completed virtually none of it if I had waited until everything was in its perfect place. Because inspiration rarely waits for you to get ready; if you’re going to write, you need to be ready. Thinking that I need more than I already have in order to write is writing from a place of scarcity. But knowing, believing, and being confident that I already have far more than I need is looking at what is right in front of me and seeing the generosity of it all, and then writing from a place of abundance. And it’s a reminder I preach to myself every single day.

For me, the creative process has been so generous and so forgiving, and also so unpredictable. Our hearts don’t follow a schedule as much as they capitalize on a mind that has been searching for that inspiration all along. When I am constantly looking, always learning, and disciplined enough to be writing in as many margins as I can find, that is usually when the best words come to life.

Mise en place is an ethic, a mindset, that I love. But when it comes to creating, there are truly only a few things I need in place – and they aren’t really things at all: a love of writing and a desire to keep at it no matter what, and a belief that God, our creator, delights in creation. I do my best to live, learn, pray, write, and repeat. And I keep at it, wanting all the stories I tell to point back to One who gave them to me.

a third birthday reflection for just enough brave

On the bottom of our six-level bookshelf, a dozen journals are stacked and cozied up against the left hand corner. That’s my childhood, I think whenever I see them there. And not just my childhood, but my angsty teen years and thought-I-knew-it-all college years, and even the combination of lonely + intense + amazing graduate school years.  Every now and then, I pull out these journals that I have kept for a few decades now, and I read through some of the entries. Allow me to entertain you for a moment with a few highlights:

November 5, 2001

Dear Journal - Well, I don’t know where to start; my life’s been crazy lately with school, soccer and a boyfriend. It’s almost too much stress for me to handle. I seriously can’t get anything done.

December 5, 2001

Dear Journal - Guess what, I made All-American! Pretty cool huh? Oh, and Chris left yesterday for the Marines! He left so quickly! I’m really gonna miss him! My mom is really sad about it! 

December 26, 2001

Dear Journal - It’s the day after X-mas and winter break is going on right now! It’s so awesome. I’m still doing ok on my diet, but I’ve cheated a few times! Brian and I are still 2together. He got me some really pretty earrings and a Bop It for X-mas. Our 2-month anniversary was last Thursday! Wow, huh?

December 18, 2002

Dear Journal - Well here it’s been a whole year and I haven’t written! I’m so sorry! But I’m not gonna forget for a while now, I promise! Here’s what’s happened: Broke up with Brian (he was so dumb and I had absolutely no regrets), went to Homecoming with Kevin Madsen and it was fun. I didn’t go to my Junior Prom because I was coming home from Florida with the National Team that day, but it was totally ok ‘cuz I didn’t really want to go. Hard to explain but I really didn’t. I played really bad in Florida, and I know it was because I screwed myself over by not eating enough. But I won’t let that happen again! Rage finally beat the Blues in the semis at Regionals. It was so awesome! Then we won the whole thing. But the week before Nationals I tore my ACL at Regional Camp. But I’ll be back on that National Team, I will! And one of the coolest things happened: I’m going to Arizona State! I absolutely love it there and couldn’t be happier about my decision. Gosh a lot has happened that I can’t believe I never told you about. But I promise more details later. This was just a quick recap! I’ll write tomorrow, but it is 12:17 and I have to wake up in 6 hours! Bye!

A few reflections:

*Almost too much stress for me to handle. Oh my. Tell me about it, fifteen-year-old Katie.

*Brian, if you ever read this, you were not dumb. You were a very sweet first boyfriend to me.

*I remember the day my older brother left for the Marines, just three months after 9/11 and with everyone thinking war would be imminent at some point soon. My mom wasn’t just sad about it, she was devastated. I can still picture that day so well, and I remember that I had never seen her like that, with swollen eyes from crying and so few words to even talk about it. I could not have understood that feeling as a teenager, but with three of my own now, I think get it.

*The diet stuff. Ugh. What I see as I read it now is the start of almost a decade of stronghold for me; almost ten years of starving, bingeing, purging, writing down every single calorie that I put in my mouth and now a lifetime of stomach issues that are very likely a result of the way I treated my poor body for too long. All because a fifteen-year-old really wanted a six pack.

*The people in my life as a teenager helped define it. I think I’ll be holding on to that thought quite a bit.

Of course my journal entries got deeper as my faith and maturity did. I wrote through the next decade in much the same way: highlight by highlight - more soccer and more injuries, more food issues, more boy issues. In fact, that last topic took over around 2008, because I had been in about six weddings at that point and had never had a date to bring to one, and a clear sense of longing seemed to accost my words for the next few years. Then children came in to the picture, and it wasn’t so much a place of longing I was writing from, but a place of desperation, with Lord, please help me! sentiments of all kinds.

And that emotion is usually where I still write from.

Three years ago, just enough brave was born. After four years of blogging with my best friend, I had planned on putting the words—at least the ones for the internet—to rest for a while. But when a friend asked me over breakfast one morning why I wasn’t writing, I realized I didn’t have a good answer, and I definitely did not have a God answer. (Side note: these kind of friends are good ones. Keep them around). So I started again from the most honest place I could think of, and that was the desire to be brave. Just enough brave.

Life and motherhood have taken a hard turn off the map I had spent a few decades of life plotting and following, walking me and Alex straight into unknown and fairly scary territory. But I kept writing, and this tiny space on the internet has safely held some of the most vulnerable words that have ever come out of my heart. I have always, always loved this about writing: it helps me see what is true about me in ways I could not have seen before I wrote it all down. And still, the best part comes a few years (sometimes decades) later, when you can look back and laugh at the things you thought were stressful, cry at the hard lessons you thought you understood but had to really learn the hard way, and mostly see how far God has brought you - how his provision has never wavered, and how he has been good enough to not give us what we want, but what we need. My words have truly become an anthology of getting what I needed.

For that reason alone, I’m so glad I wrote it all down.

Here’s the truth: writing for my own heart and writing for an audience are two very different things, and I have found that I am not very good at doing both. But I have also found that when I do the former, the later seems to happen organically. Unforced rhythms are the most sustainable rhythms, and I think that is true in every area of life, but certainly in writing.

Writing has taught me so much; more than I know how to sum up and wrap a bow around, because the lessons never stop. It has taught me to be honest and to be brave. It has shown me my pride and my tendency to compare myself to others. It has been the friend that has never kept score but welcomed me with open arms when I returned after a long break. And it has been what God has used to lift my eyes back up to him. I have loved words my whole life, but now I need them.

An anthology of getting what I needed. Thank you, Jesus.

We measure things, all of us. So aware of all that is bigger, grander, beyond our control, or outside of our ability to explain, we use measurements as a means to grasp what we can, however we can— with the intent to put our lives onto a tidy shelf in our minds and label its contents: this is what I understand, this is what I am worth, this is how other people think of me.

We measure height, weight, growth, and shrinking. We measure bank accounts and retirement funds. We measure influence in likes and comments, and we measure accomplishment in applause. We quantify our lives in every way that we can, because against the backdrop of a life that is unpredictable and impossible to control, there is comfort in knowing and naming, in calculating who we are with whatever satiates the appetite to be known for that moment.

I first noticed this tendency in myself when I started writing on the internet seven years ago. I would toil over an essay, proud of the way I crafted sentences to be both rhetorically beautiful and theologically sound (that was the goal, anyway). I prided myself on honesty and connecting to the most common experiences of my peers that I could, then I would hit publish and share it with the world (or, with my Facebook friends, who certainly felt like the whole world in my self-centric mind).

One hour later, I’d wonder if anyone “liked” it and casually open the browser. I did not know at the time what was happening, but I see it so clearly now: the measurements—not based at all on my effort to honor Jesus but rather on my word’s and their reception with others—they would take over my day. I was valuable if people liked my words and I wanted to quit writing forever if people didn’t. My worth was found wanting or not based on the fickle, simple click of a tiny thumbs up button on a screen.

My words, my value, my day. And over time and too many emotional roller coasters, I learned that the problem with measurements is that there is simply too much of me in every equation I use.

It’s easy to make a life out of measurements; too easy, in fact. And when we set our sights on the one we want—whether it be salary, followers, publications, purchases or promotions—we chase it hard, with all of the God-given talent and passion and creativity we have. And while God-given pursuits are noble, needed even, it is also tempting in that chase to forget how Jesus went after his God-given pursuit: we go fast, famous, and big, always considering ourselves and our influence. Jesus went slow, overlooked, and small, only considering the will of his Father and the heart change his words of truth offered.

We chase what we can measure. Jesus walked through life in awe of the immeasurable one, of His Father.

At the heart of our misplaced pursuits is a simple solution, not easy, but simple: chase Jesus first, then we will chase after purpose like He did. We don’t need to abandon our creativity, our good endeavors, our goals or our passions; but we might need to do them in a different way, we might need to stop measuring them and simply let God use them. Open handed, humble, willing to let our very best effort and accumulated hours go completely unseen, we must remember that God has always used a very different system of metrics than the world, and all the applause on earth cannot earn the favor of a Perfect God. The cross, and only the cross, already did.

But a heart that pursues him and his glory with all that it has? That, friends, is where the abundant life is found. That is where we find joy immeasurable.

God does not need us, not one of our fancy offerings or impressive measurements is even worth holding up to the One who told the oceans where to stop. But he uses us! He lets us be a part of kingdom work and gives us real influence right where we are. How often do we sit in awe of that truth? And in the end, I think we will find that the most important measurement of all is the distance between a perfect God and our feeble and fickle hearts, and the marvelous fact that only scandalous grace could bridge that distance perfectly.

Everything changes when we stop measuring ourselves for Jesus, and simply start following him. 

__________

*This essay originally appeared on the Open Door Sisterhood blog.

It started with five words.

“We are writing a book!”

And it ended with something I did not expect.

On Saturday, April 2nd, I stood in a room in Sacramento, California, with over 150 people who were there to celebrate Coffee + Crumbs and the humble words we have offered to the world every month. I got to see my friends from Sacramento loved on by their people, and I got to hug and laugh with the writers who have made me better in more ways than I can tell you. We gave hugs to readers and thanked them for coming, we tried our best to read essays without crying and we failed miserably, and then we stayed up until 1:00 in the morning eating In ‘N Out Burger and talking about the future of Coffee + Crumbs with literal tired eyes and full hearts.

It would be impossible to name a favorite moment of the weekend, but one of them had to be a walk along the river with Sonya. We had the latest flights out, with two hours and a sunny day we had to take advantage of. We talked about politics and social ills, she shared about her three months young adoption of a beautiful three-year-old girl from China and what that has meant for her family dynamics, and I talked about Cannon and what he has meant for my faith and my marriage and my heart. And as I chatted with Sonya about so many things, I was reminded that our best writing does not come from the easiest things in life, but the hardest. And you know, the hardest things are also where I have met Jesus the most—so there is certainly something to that. Shauna Niequist once said that all writers want good stories to write, but God is going to make you live them first. This, friends, is one of the truest things I know about writing.   

Less than a week later, back home in Spokane, we were getting ready for one more launch party to book-end a week of celebration. Around 12:00pm on Thursday I heard a knock at my door. My husband went to answer it and immediately I heard “surprise!” and yelling and hugging and laughter. When I walked around the corner to the front door there was Emily, my best friend who had flown in from Atlanta (!!!) with her precious duaghter to show up for this little local book launch.

Cue the ugly tears.

This is the same woman who got three kids under five years old in the car and drove five hours by herself when I was in labor with Cannon to make it to the delivery room in time for his birth, so I should not have been surprised. But I was. I was totally shocked and speechless with gratitude. Showing up for people is the greatest gift we can give them, and I know that not because I have done it perfectly, but because Emily has done it for me. 

Ashlee Gadd flew in Friday night, we splurged like rockstars and got our makeup done by my favorite makeup artists on Saturday, the books never made it off the UPS truck for delivery so my sweet Dad drove around Spokane buying every copy he could find, and then we got ready to party thanks to my mom and Tannya and my talented MIL who handmade all the gorgeous desserts.

And one by one, people started filling in. I wish I could articulate what this felt like.

You’re here! You’re really here for us, for this book! You showed up! I felt underserving the entire time, like all these people got duped and were really there for the wine. But they weren’t. They were there to celebrate something with me and Ashlee, and they did just that. I want to name every single woman who came and tell each of them how truly grateful I was for their presence, but just know this: I will never, ever forget the night that 70 people gathered together with delight in their eyes. Never. I was on the verge of tears for two straight hours because of them, because of people. It was love in real life, and it was perfect.

It makes total sense to me that Jesus is all about people, and all about showing up. 

*****

So now I sit on the back end of this amazing experience, reflective and introspective and humbled all at once.

Writing a book is, with few exceptions, every writer’s dream. Just ask them. Often times the content of said book is only loosely defined, but most of us have allowed ourselves to think about it—to picture a cover with our name on it, imagining it on shelves at Barnes and Noble and ourselves sitting at a table signing hundreds of copies.

So when an email came into my inbox from Ashlee Gadd with those five words in it, I saw the first step towards every writer’s dream handed to me.

And y’all, it has been a dream. It has been the sweetest gift to write a book with a team of women whom I both admire and love, who have made me laugh hysterically and cry uncontrollably, who have taught me and challenged me and encouraged me and loved me. I have a new respect for Ashlee, who has spent countless hours working on this dream and sacrificing so much so that we could all have a small piece of it.

But what I did not expect, and maybe I should have, is this: nothing about my real life has changed.

We wrote a book, and so far, people really like it. (All the praise hands!) But I feel the same today as I did over a year ago, perhaps slightly more humble. I struggle with the same sin. I fail at parenting in many of the same ways. I get my priorities mixed up in the same manner I always have. I got something I always wanted, and the best thing it did for me was remind me that it is not what I needed. Not the book or the applause or the attention, anyway.

But isn’t this the very thing we fail to believe all the time? That when we get what we have always wanted our lives will change; that we will be content, accomplished, we will be someone.

To the only audience that matters in the end, we won’t. We will never be more or less than we are right now, because the most important work in our lives is what Jesus did on the cross and that was finished long ago. This is a paradox that used to baffle me, but not just leaves me grateful. 

Still, book launch week has also given me something I did need: a whole lot of perspective and whole lot of amazing people. And in the end, this is a story about people; about the gratitude my heart feels when I think about them, and about how, if I have learned anything in the past two weeks, it is that I want to be for people, I want to be someone who shows up.

We hope you love the book, because we sure loved writing it, and we are very proud of the hard-fought words that fill up its pages. It would be all we could ask for to know that those words made a small, meaningful difference in the story of your motherhood. But when this work is a distant memory, when we are all reading and celebrating the next thing, we hope you remember Jesus and people, and what love for each of them looks like in real life.

I leave you with this memory from an amazing two weeks of book launches, because it perfectly captures so much of it.

I mentioned that the books we ordered for the party in Spokane did not arrive in time for the party, but we really wanted to at least fill the pre-orders that night. I called my Dad, who had already offered to help in any way we needed, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind spending a few hours in the car and grabbing every copy of the book he could find around town. Without hesitation, he said yes, hopped in the car and was on his way.

Ten minutes later, as my Dad was on the freeway headed to the northside of town for the first stop, I got a text from him:

“Katie, what is the title of your book again?”

Stay small, friends. 

Oh dear reader, thank you. Thank you for being here, for meeting up in this little space and then being willing to come back for a visit. I do not tell you this enough, but it humbles me to no end that these simple words actually have an audience, and that by the grace of our good, good Father, they connect with some of you. Do you know I keep every email, every message, and every word of encouragement you all have sent? Yep, every single one. From South Africa and New Jersey and Texas, from the teacher at my daughter’s preschool, from the fellow special needs mamas, and the friends I do life with on a regular basis— when you tell me that something I offered on paper was even the slightest bit encouraging to you, I praise Jesus and then ask him to help me to show up again and write some more.

Because can I tell you the truth? This has been hard, at times harder than I have wanted to work through, and I cannot do it without him.

When I started just enough brave I was certain God was calling me to pioneer something big and bold in my city. I had grand visions of people all over my tiny pocket of the country being inspired to live bravely and fight for justice in their places. I was slowly but surely stepping in to an idea I knew—and still believe—was from God as an advocate for women in the sex industry. I wanted to tell a different story about them, and I wanted to help them see a way out. Well, God raised up a few like-minded women and we stumbled our way through something we had no idea how to actually do. But let me tell you something: all God needs is obedience, He’ll do the rest. And he has. He has sustained and grown something that is allowing women in a very dark place to see Jesus.

And he has done it not because of me, but in spite of me.

But two and half years ago, that was my brave. And I believed if I could find just enough of it, God would honor that. That ministry has grown in ways I would never have pictured. No website, no social media, only—much like this—vague descriptions of our end goal coupled with massive amounts of prayer and faith. We have a prayer team, consistent donors, and a support group far bigger than I had even thought to ask God to grow it. And yet with every month of growth or moment of ‘only-God’ praises, I have had less and less of a role. It has grown bigger, and I have gotten much, much smaller. I have had to.

It was just over a year ago that we started seeing signs of ‘something wrong’ in our little guy. So many of you have followed that journey since I started sharing it, but all roads seemed to point to autism from the beginning, and that is where we find ourselves today.

I wish you knew how many times I have asked God, “Why?”

“Lord, we were willing, we were ready to go anywhere! But what Cannon needs is here. Why are you keeping us here, why did you give us this? We were willing to go!”

Yet God is so patient with our myopathy, isn’t he? We can only see right here, right now. All of human history has been directed by his hands and we are so quick to grumble over the things we do not like in this moment. But over my months of protesting, he gently kept whispering this to me: ‘If I have asked you to do it, no matter what it is, you’re going to need to be brave.’

If he has asked me to be a special needs mama, I need to be brave.

If Cannon is angry and upset for reasons I cannot understand, I need to hold him tight so he doesn’t hurt himself, and I need to be brave.

If treatments and therapies and endless doctor appointments sweep away savings accounts and extra income, I need to trust that it is truly God’s money anyway, and I need to be brave.

If we cannot participate, or have to cancel plans, or if my little one is misunderstood by onlookers and people who do not know him, if we have to sit outside a birthday party while others walk in and silently wonder why we can't just yet, I need to offer a quick plea for patience and grace, and I need to be brave.

If we do not understand why, if there is no clear cause and no clear cure, if for all of our effort we cannot find a formula that guarantees a way through this, I need to trust the Author of every great story, and I need to be brave.

‘This is your brave, Katie. You only have to find just enough of it.’

If I could summarize our short time on this journey so far I would say this: God has grown bigger, and I have gotten much, much smaller. He’s always been big, I just haven’t always seen it.

And all along the way, I’ve done the only thing I know how to do: be honest about it. I have been honest with my grieving and honest with my hope. I have written from exactly where I am because there would be no possible way for me to pretend to write from some other place. I have thought a hundred times in this past year that I should quit, that these hours spent at the computer could be better spent researching methods and therapies and all manner of options for treating something that is so hard to wrap our hands around.

And almost every time, in the moments I am most ready to stop, there’s an email, or a text, or someone somewhere—maybe I know her but most often I don’t—telling me not to. Bob Goff said once that, “God doesn’t pass us messages as often as he passes us each other.” That, sweet readers, could not be more true for me.

A few months ago, as I was processing all of this with my friend Jen, she said something to me that I have been holding on to all this time. “Katie, I don’t think it is an accident that while your little guy has so much trouble finding his words, God has given you so many of them.”

God certainly does not struggle to see the whole picture, does He?

Today, I am just feeling… I don’t know, some combination of grateful and pensive, as I sit here thinking about how far God has taken me, and what he has done as I have so imperfectly shared the story. This space has kept growing. But I keep getting smaller. While I used to want to be a Writer, capital 'W', and a Leader, capital 'L', now I just want to be someone with unshakable faith, even if it is merely the size of a mustard seed.

If I did not see it two and half years ago, or even a year ago, when two very different journeys began for me, I see it so clearly now: He increases, we decrease. And as that happens, as the distance between God and us gets bigger and bigger, his glory fills in the space. It is so, so beautiful; I just had to get much lower to see it this well.

*****

So dear reader, that is the just enough brave story. My life looks so little like I thought it would when we began. But it looks exactly how God wants it to, and knowing that is all that I need to feel so incredibly grateful to be chosen for this work. I still think and pray all the time about how and when and why to share in words—when you are convicted to your core that God sees every single motive that governs your heart it quickly changes how you do everything. But for today, I think I will keep at it. These hours could be spent in a dozen different ways, but so far they have all added up to teach me about God, and they leave me more in awe of him with each passing one. Time well spent, I think.

I know now that brave is not always leading and not always grand and not even always something anyone but God will see. Being brave is doing exactly what God has asked you to do, and humbly pointing every bit of that work back to the One who sustains it. If you ask me, I think humility is the new brave.

So, what do you say we all keep getting smaller?

And a hundred times, thank you for letting me tell you everything. You are good friends to listen so well.  

We snuggled up on opposite ends of our oversized couch, sunshine streaming in the window enough to light the room that perfect hue of morning soft, of peace. She had come over with coffee in hand, one for each of us, because all attempts to catch up at an actual coffee shop seem to be thwarted by little people these days. But friends who get that, who can walk in to your home during naptime and squeeze one hour of heart sharing in to their day, and your day, they are a special class of blessing.

With my legs folded up underneath me and hands wrapped around my warm latte, she started with the question we all start with, the default, the one that is clear enough to be universally understood but flexible enough to be taken to any level one chooses to answer with.

“Katie, sweet friend, how are you?”

*****

Maybe it is the season I am in, but the days feel so long. I am up before the sun comes through my eastward office window every morning, circling phrases in God’s word with the intention of carrying their truth far in to my day, but the impact so often lingers only as long as it takes me to walk up the stairs when the first little feet start to pitter patter above me.

I get breakfast ready, fill the baby’s bottle with milk and more often than not have to prop him up with a pillow—holding the third child is becoming more and more of a luxury time does not always allow me these days. I find the preschool bag and finally remember to look at the notes the teacher sent home the day before. We needed to help refill the class snack closet? I’ll grab some animal crackers next time I am at the store. I play hokey pokey with my words for ten minutes before I finally convince the four-year-old to let me comb her hair, and then I listen to her tell me a dozen times how much it hurts when I do. It does not hurt, it’s just part of the deal to tell me it does. I get the two-year-old’s school bag and fill it with his favorite snacks, things he will be motivated to work for at therapy, food that he will happily pick up his picture cards, matching them to the correct name, and hand them to the therapist for. We find socks and shoes and pants and shirts and does any of it match? It does not matter. If it’s clean, or clean enough, it works.

And we are off. One parent does preschool drop-off and another does therapy and the baby goes along for the ride. It’s 8:30am. The whole day is still ahead of us and I already feel like a crazy person and didn’t I read something this morning about nothing being outside of Jesus’ control?* Someday I will remember with clarity, and maybe some application, what I read just three hours earlier.

But I am good. I’m so good. Because this is all I ever wanted. This life, with little mismatched socks and long blonde hair that hates to be combed and three small people who need me for so many things, it is my dream job, and I don’t deserve it. It’s a contradiction of sorts, this incongruity between the life I prayed for and the feelings I sometimes have for it in the middle of the day to day minutiae. But when everyone is buckled in safely and we are all on the way to our places for the morning, I’m overcome with gratitude. What beautiful work I’ve been given to do.

So yes, I am so, so good.

*****

I went in to this new year with many dreams for my words, for the writing I love to do. I have a book proposal and essay topics outlined in pink and yellow post-it notes on the wall of my office and I look at it every day, sometimes with confidence and sometimes with a cringe. What do you want to do with this, Jesus? Does the world even need more words right now? Of course the answer is no. The world does not need more words; we need more quiet, more listening ears. But the world does need more obedience, more humble disciples doing their best with their gifts to make much of Jesus and not make anything of themselves.

Perhaps that is the source of my tension. I really have nothing to say if I am not in some way talking about how things only make sense in my head because of God, and didn’t I just read that nothing is outside of Jesus’ control? But in a world full, so full, of good writers and beautiful creators and social media mavens giving advice on how to increase one’s platform, my head is leaning in and listening and reporting back telling me “yes, yes, do all those things and keep-up-with-the-hypothetical-‘writing Jones’. But my heart pauses, telling me that my words should only be building a platform for the gospel to stand on, not me. Never me. What on earth do I actually have to offer from that platform?

But I am good. I’m so good. Because this is a beautiful tension to wrestle out. This life with a love of words and an even greater love for Jesus, it is my privilege to do the hard work of creating something meaningful but staying small in the process. It’s a contradiction of sorts, this incongruity between the dreams of ‘being a real writer!’ and the conviction that I am supposed to be the smallest, most insignificant part of that dream. But at the end of the day— or maybe I should say at the end of an essay— when somehow my own heart is still and in awe of the way God is weaving every detail of our stories into the most glorious picture, I’m overcome with gratitude. What beautiful work I’ve been given to do.

So yes, I’m good. I’m so, so good.

*****

There are a hundred moving parts to our days, and every one of us has a posture toward God that affects how we handle, and what we build with, all of those parts.

Some days it is hard, it is really hard.

Some days it is fun, it is really fun.

Most days it is a mix of those things, like life generally is. We rejoice and mourn, celebrate and repent, gather and find solitude, and do our best to be busy with the right things.

So how am I?

I am a sinner saved by grace. It’s a contradiction of sorts, this incongruity between the life I deserve and the one I have been given because of grace. I am still figuring this all out, and I think I always will be. But when I think about that question, “How are you?” and I hold out the things that make up who I am, and I know what—I know Who—they are all for, I’m overcome with gratitude. What beautiful work I’ve been given to do.

In all of it— in the mothering and cleaning, the disciplining and special-needs-learning, the good work of words and the important work of loving others, in all things, God has supplied all I need not to make it easy, but to make it.

So I’m good. I’m so, so good. Because God is. May that always be my answer.    

*Hebrews 2:8b

The house is quiet and the window is open, letting in only the swaying sound of the breeze. My Bible is beside me, as are a handful of books I’ve recently read—few things stir the creation of my own words like soaking in others’. The ideas are ready, having been dancing in my mind for days, learning their steps before I let them out for their best attempt at a meaningful performance. The urge to put sentences down, to sort and untangle and organize words, it’s spilling over right now; I think any artist knows that feeling, because it doesn’t go away until we do the work dancing in our minds, until we create as we were made to create.

I love this part.

When I write, I wait for the spilling over, for the words to almost make their way off my fingertips. They have to be ready; forcing words too early is the same as picking fruit that isn’t ripe—the sweetness of meaning has all but lost its potential in a rush to hit that daunting ‘post’ button. I know this now, but it has been a lesson many years in the making.

Sometimes I confuse the writing with wanting to be a writer, and the later gets me all kinds of confused.

I’ve tried to keep a schedule, I’ve tried starting a catchy series, I’ve tried being a creative copy of someone else, and I’ve thought about all the things one could do for their writing career: newsletters, hashtags, allthemarketingthings. These methods haven’t worked for me. They’ve lacked the authenticity of someone who actually knows what it means to have a brand (what?) and they have felt forced and uncomfortable—a good sign that perhaps I am in someone else’s sweet spot, but I’m not in mine.

For a lot of years, writing was about me. It was about the lessons my twenty-five year old self thought she knew (ha!). It was about being a new mama who thought she understood the sacrifice motherhood required of her (not even close). And it was about a faith that operated primarily as a means of avoiding the hard things in life, because I was a classic abuser of the term “blessing” with a tendency to correlate performance with wordly results.

The problem with that is results are not always good for your heart. As a writer, good results can make much of you and that’s a prideful heart, and bad results can undermine your vulnerability and effort, and that’s a broken heart. The former makes you feel like you are so important and should probably write books forever and the later makes you feel like you should quit tomorrow. As with any work that is fundamentally about us, the ping pong of emotions that striving for acceptance plays with is totally exhausting.

But as writing started to become a response to what was actually happening in my life, I realized two vital things: the first is that I am never out of material if I write honestly, and the second is that I would never manufacture the sort of fulfillment I was looking for as a writer outside of God. The difference between writing and wanting to be a writer cleared up as I started to understand the difference between the gift and the Giver. And I think in anything we do, understanding the distinction is vital.

I think about writing like catching fireflies. You watch and wait and slowly lean in to grab your prize, just like a writer listens and sees and slowly lets the thoughts build momentum until reaching for the page with the hope that she can grab them. Sometimes that golden glow is captured on the first attempt—but most of the time it takes a few tries, just ask the writer. But if you keep watching and keep listening and just keep trying, you’ll catch something, proudly sealing the lid and setting your firefly on the deck. But what happens next for me is the most important part: the writer wants the applause of the process, the words of affirmation that all her work to grab the firefly was admirable and that she must be quite a talented person to make such a gorgeous catch. But the writing, it sits beautifully on its own, forcing people’s eyes to admire only what is brightened by the catch.

The writer wants all eyes on the gift. The writing wants all eyes on the Giver, on God. The first is who I am, a sinner saved by grace. The second is what I do—respond to that grace with things I’ve been given to respond with. But in either case, only the grace is worth illuminating.

We are sitting pretty in the middle of the very best time of the year around these parts: summer. When you live in a four-season destination, the seasons themselves become verbs, universally understood and described by locals according to the activities we can and cannot do based on the weather. And right now, everyone summers: sprinklers, lakes, popsicles, baby sunscreen, red cheeks, s’mores, and 9:45pm sunsets. It’s all just dreamy. Ten months out of the year we more or less live our lives around school and work schedules. But summer in the Pacific Northwest rolls around and all of a sudden we work around our summer. The early, quiet, peaceful rhythm of the mornings makes the days feel welcome and full of potential; and the long-lasting sunsets have this beautiful way of helping me savor the day. When I really sit with all the goodness that fills this time of the year, it is impossible not to measure my gratitude in fresh ways.

And along with the change of pace, there is this new sense of possibility. The schedule-free weeks could be a time of rest, or a dedicated season of goal achieving; summer seems to offer whatever our souls need the most, doesn’t it? For me, the long-days are a mix of both: I read more, I write more, I see my people more in the summer. And yet, for the last two nights, I’ve poured myself a glass of Trader Joe’s sparkling limeade and taken a sunset bath after the kids are in bed. (I know, getting crazy around here!) I can count on one hand the amount of baths I have taken in the previous nine months. But once that blissful quiet of the post-bedtime hustle sets in over our home, and I look outside and see that the sun is still giving me permission to take in the day, I feel like I have to do something to honor it. So I do. We are in a really cool play all day, savor all evening cadence, and I like it.

This year, the gift of summer is refining me in so many ways. We have all adjusted well to my little guy’s therapy schedules, and we are learning, with the Lord’s help, to pan out on our perspective a bit more than we had been. It is certainly a day-to-day process, but progress is much more easily seen from start to finish, so we have to learn to hold both. Cannon is not saying more words than he was yesterday; but he is engaging with tasks and people 100 times more fully than he was two months ago. It’s always a battle for my faith, because I want to come home from each therapy session and say “He said two new words today!” But it is so much more encouraging to say, “He’s not in the same place he was when we started. He’s growing.” God continues to teach me more about Himself and his glory through my son than he ever has through anything else, and that’s not something I say lightly. It’s just true. And see? There’s that hustle then savor pattern showing up again right here, on this journey, too.

I’ve also been writing. A lot. I’m dreaming of a book and I’m actually walking in to that dream as best I know how to. I think most writers dream of the book they will one day write; I certainly have been my entire life. And yet, my efforts have always been stifled by the reality that anything I can say, someone else can say better. That, and I spent five years trying to force pretty words from my brain onto paper and I never got farther than a potential title. I once watched an interview with author Amber Haines, and she said of the book writing process, “Wait for the fire.” And right here, in the midst of motherhood that feels like it is drowning me some days, the embers are staying warm enough to slowly, but surely, grow. It has been the best thing for my heart to listen to Jesus every morning and feel my way towards him in words. And that’s what the book is shaping up to be about: Him, and the knowledge that he is unchanging and unspeakably beautiful even when life feels the opposite. This is the truth I am learning right now, so it’s the lesson I’m writing. (I must add that publishing and writing feel like two very different things to me. It’s all safe and controllable over here in the writing: me and my words, and a few sets of trusted eyes on them. It’s all vulnerable and unpredictable over there in the publishing, where thousands of writers offer their very best efforts every day, only to be told it’s not good enough. So, I don’t know what that looks like. I think I want to try, but when you write about Jesus you’re pretty much forced to measure success as a greater view of Him, and I already have that. So I guess I can say that this writing has been worth it, no matter where it ever goes.)

With two months of the best of the year still ahead of us, we are all looking forward to more of that summer list of sprinklers, lakes, popsicles, baby sunscreen, red cheeks, s’mores, and 9:45pm sunsets. And friends, lots and lots of friends. I’ve never been more inspired by and grateful for the people around me. Friends that are faithfully navigating hard marriages, thinking about returning to school, pursuing their own writing goals, raising precious babies and teaching them about Jesus, opening their homes and family to foster children; you name it, and I have people in my life doing it. It’s the best, seeing the body of Christ on display, doing the unique and beautiful things he has given each of us to do, learn, persevere through, pray for, and believe in.

Wishing you marshmallows, campfires, friends to ask good questions around them with, and the sweet cadence that only the summer can bring.