Hello, Blogging Family! It’s good to be back. 😊 Although I’ve written a light-hearted post, Ivan and I want to acknowledge the burdens many are carrying during this unprecedented season, whether from personal trials or world events.

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Whether or not you’re American, or celebrate Thanksgiving this particular Thursday (sorry Canadians!), or eat turkey (apologies to the meat-averse and diverse), it is my joy and delight to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Our culture often markets the day as a warm up for Black Friday – eat plenty of turkey so you’ll have energy to (literally) shop sun up to sun down! Officially we’re to devote ourselves to thanking God for all his blessings, but who isn’t prioritizing their “must-haves” and puzzling over the perfect itinerary at the same time? I stand guilty as charged.

This year I want to make a change by publicly thanking God (and you!) for some amazing blessings we’ve received over the past year. I wish I could sit at each of your dinner tables and thank you personally, but this post will have to do. If you’ve been following us a while, I’ll probably bore you by repeating facts you already know, but bear with me for the sake of the holiday. 😊

I’ll start by praising God for everything he has allowed – for good or ill – in our lives this year. Highs included going to Europe with some of Ivan’s students, and watching God grow our new church, City Light Bible Church. Lows included me earning my first F on a school assignment (ever) and us finally catching Covid after avoiding it for the past 3 years. Only God knows whether or not any of these seemingly little things will impact ours or anyone else’s life in the future, but we trust that they fit into God’s meta-plan:

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.

    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so my ways are higher than your ways

    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55:8-9

And now’s the part where I thank YOU, our faithful Blogging Family!Thank you for the unbelievable enthusiasm, support, and advertising you gave, embraced, and shared during every step of publishing Walking with Grace (WWG). When I started working with Shepherd Press last December, turning our vision into a physical book seemed like climbing Mount Everest. Thank you also for supporting my and Ivan’s blog for the past six (wow!) years. You bore with both of us as we learned how to write. Because of this blog, I wanted to learn to communicate better. The obvious next step was returning to school…

Summing up five VERY long years, I first added a BA in English to my BS in health science (1 year). Then God allowed me to get accepted to my top pick for grad school, and he paved my way financially. What an amazing God we serve!

Here is where I thank y’all again as well: The Master of Fine Art (MFA) in creative writing took me four years to complete (It’s considered a doctorate for writers). Over the past four years, y’all have waited graciously when I forgot to post, or posted a first draft, or didn’t check for typos (gasp). You didn’t lose interest and drift away, no matter how much I struggled to keep up with school and the blog simultaneously. THANK YOU!!! 

I was told that no serious readers would stick around if I was that erratic, but you did. And the fact that you hung in there through it all was one of my biggest selling points when I was “auditioning” the book for agents. To you, it was a simple click. To me, it was another chip in my favor as I hung in the balance. You never know what God might be doing while you blog surf!

I’d be extremely remiss without thanking the staff and volunteers at Hillside Church for hosting our live radio interview with Craig Roberts about WWG. We also really appreciate City Light Bible’s volunteers. Thanks to both churches for the space to do book signings!

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Whether you walk with us through this blog, social media, our book, or real life, Ivan and I can’t express how grateful we are to be surrounded by such a God-glorifying cloud of believers. I truly believe we wouldn’t have made it anywhere close to where we are now without your faithful, expectant, tireless prayers. May God enable us to pray the same way for you!

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back

and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

~ Ecclesiastes 4:12