Posted on by graceutomo12 · 13 Comments

A Licensed Driver!

“Please – I just got my picture taken three minutes ago. Does that mean we can leave and my driver’s license will come in the mail?”

The DMV manager – no doubt frazzled by an onslaught of similar questions – shrugged.

“I don’t know what to tell you. Computers are down statewide. You could hang around to see if the system comes back up, or you could come back tomorrow and restart your application.” She spun on her heel abruptly to signal our conversation was over. 

Her words threatened to extinguish my sputtering hopes like a bucket of ice water. My original road test – scheduled for October 14th – had been canceled after I arrived due to an administrative mix up. At the time, we’d been told it would be several weeks before we could expect my case to be reviewed, or the test rescheduled. 

But God intervened, and last Monday we received a nondescript envelope in the mail  from the DMV. This puzzled me since we’d been told to expect a phone call to discuss my current medical status in greater detail. The envelope’s contents were even more puzzling: All it contained was a form letter stating I could renew my driver’s license at any DMV field office. This seemed like another administrative error since there was no mention of a road test; however, when I called the next morning to verify, the voice on the phone assured me that the letter was correct. My medical case had been been closed. We’ll never know what changed between the test being canceled on October 14th and then waived last week, other than God wanted to teach us extra patience – and give me extra time practicing my driving skills. And I practice for tests very seriously! 

In God’s good timing, Ivan was available to take me to the DMV last Wednesday afternoon. This is significant because Ivan’s work schedule has evolved a lot this semester. School technically ends at 3 pm, but between private piano students and administrative duties, he often works late or returns to school at night. Hence my dismay at the DMV manager’s suggestion that we restart my license application on a different day. It could be weeks before we had another open afternoon.

Oh Lord, I prayed. We’ve waited so long. First there was the road test cancellation, and then you intervened to take that off the table. A statewide system shut-down is nothing to you, Lord. Please, if there is some way, any way, please let us leave with my license today. 

The manager told the disgruntled crowd that everyone waiting for driver’s licenses should go home and come back a different day. They’d keep processing car registrations, but licenses were over. I kept praying. The clerk who had been processing our application when the system crashed quietly told us not to leave. Ivan and I ambled back to the rows of blue plastic chairs and sat down dejectedly as half the crowd left and the other half selected fresh numbers and reformed a line. 

“What do you think we’re waiting on?” I asked. 

Ivan shrugged.

“She didn’t give us a number.”

“Maybe she’ll call us if the system comes back,” he replied. 

We sat in silence as the clock ticked inexorably toward 5 pm. The car registration line moved quickly, but new driver’s-license walk-ins continued to be turned away. 

Please, Lord, I prayed. All we need is one computer to come back. I realized God could have allowed this bizarre turn of events to teach Ivan and me even more patience, but it all seemed so strange. We hadn’t anticipated getting my license for several more weeks: why would the Lord surprise us with hope so unexpectedly, only to have things not work out at the last moment?

“Okay, let’s go check again.” Ivan’s voice interrupted my musings. I looked up at the clock. The office would close in a few minutes. We shuffled back to the station that had been processing our application.

“Still down,” the clerk shook her head and sighed. My heart plummeted. Then – “Hold on a sec.” She gestured for my paperwork and disappeared. Ivan and I exchanged confused glances. I no longer knew what I was praying for if the system was still down, but I kept praying. The woman’s absence felt even longer than the time we’d languished in the waiting area. 

When she reappeared, she was holding a thin slip of paper. 

“There was one computer still running in the back.” The clerk smiled faintly. “Here’s your license.” She passed the slip under the glass partition. 

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you so much!” I beamed as I snatched my prize.

The lady couldn’t have imagined the all the feelings she triggered by double-checking: Seven years of relying on others anytime I needed to go anywhere, followed by the nerve-wracking process of reacclimating to the road, followed by a canceled road test and the uncertainty of when I could actually get my license. Perhaps, for her, checking was simply the “nice” thing to do. For me, it was the beginning of a whole new world. 

Both Ivan and I are overwhelmed with gratitude to God for this new chapter in our journey. Our suspenseful DMV visit reminded us that my driving again has never been guaranteed, or even expected. It’s a gift, and one that God can give and take back at any time, whether or not it makes sense to us in the moment. We’re very grateful that in God’s love and mercy, he’s decided that my driving again will bring him glory. But that, like all the healing he’s done in my life, is an undeserved blessing. We pray he will help me to be a good steward of it for as long as he allows me to be on the road. 

***

P.S. Here’s an in-depth post about some of the stroke and TBI deficits I still have to manage while driving, and here’s a more light-hearted post about what it was like to actually get reacclimatized to the road. Thanks so much for walking with us!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 3 Comments

Worshiping While Waiting

I avoid hikes due to the hardware in my legs, but this is a throwback from a rare visit to the Redwoods – itself an answer to many prayers!

Happy November 1st, Blogging Family! Many of us are anticipating (and hopefully praying about) Election Day. The course our country charts this Tuesday will influence not just daily life, but also global events for at least the next four years.

But whether or not you consider yourself political, I’m confident we all have cherished personal prayer requests we carry to the Lord regularly. That was one of the main reasons we started this blog in 2017 – to ask for prayer during my initial recovery. 

My gratitude for your faithful prayers, as well as a question I received after my recent testimony video, is why I’d like to share a brief devotional on Matthew 15:21-28. The question was, “What if God hadn’t granted that prayer for deliverance? Would that have changed your outlook on what you were experiencing or how you addressed it?” 

The short answer is, “No.” We are commanded to keep praying and trusting what God has said about our trials and how to respond to them, whether or not he chooses to take visible action on a given day. But better than my short answer is this historical account from Matthew, which has encouraged me throughout years of waiting on the Lord, both for physical healing and spiritual growth. It continues to refresh me as I come into his presence each day, and I pray it will encourage you as well.

“Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.’

But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. ‘Tell her to go away,’ they said. ‘She is bothering us with all her begging.’

Then Jesus said to the woman, ‘I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.’

 But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, ‘Lord, help me!’

Jesus responded, ‘It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.’

She replied, ‘That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.’

‘Dear woman,’ Jesus said to her, ‘your faith is great. Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was instantly healed.

I could write extensively about this passage, but for today there are three points I’d like to highlight. 

  1. We discover what likely drew the Gentile woman to Jesus in Matt. 14:35-36. These verses tell us that Jesus was healing all the sick who were brought to him. Even those who merely touched the hem of his robe were healed! No rejections. No “too busy’s,” “too tired’s,”  or “come back later’s.” And these healings didn’t even require a direct touch, or Jesus’ full attention. Then, Jesus heads to Gentile country. Why would he go there if he weren’t planning to do something similar for the Gentiles? But when this lady shows up, she finds something totally different from everything she’s heard. Jesus not only won’t help her. He won’t even answer her. 
  2. We often get frustrated when we pray and God doesn’t respond immediately. But how would we react if Jesus were standing a few feet away from us and unmistakably ignoring us? Especially when we had proof he’d healed hundreds – if not thousands – of others in similar predicaments? Talk about reasons for a “faith crisis.” But the Gentile woman doesn’t get angry, or even impatient. She also doesn’t stop asking. Instead, she pauses to worship.
  3. There was nothing praiseworthy about what this lady was experiencing. Jesus’ behavior must have seemed like it contradicted everything she’d heard about him. And the disciples weren’t being very helpful either. So why was she worshiping? By the title she uses to address Jesus, it seems that she’d already believed he was the Messiah before asking for healing. Her decision to stop and praise expresses trust in what she knows is true about him, regardless of how he responds.

When we think carefully about Jesus’ final response, we realize that he wasn’t being callous or capricious. His apparent indifference actually served two good purposes. Not only did it briefly test the Gentile woman, but it also elicited a faith-filled response that stood in sharp contrast to the skeptical Jews who were constantly demanding more miracles as proof of his Messiah-ship.

For those of us who are waiting on the Lord to answer our own cherished requests, the lady’s courageous petition-worship-petition example also functions as both challenge and encouragement: Is our faith contingent on our circumstances? Can we worship while we wait? 

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 2 Comments

Spiritual Warfare Testimony

Hello Blogging Family! This is a very significant testimony video that I posted on social media tonight, and I wanted to share it here as well. Please feel free to reach out if you have questions about anything I mentioned. It’s a flyover of a lot of very complex information, and I’d love to talk in-person in greater detail. Ivan and I are so grateful for how God continues to move in our lives, and so grateful to all of you for your love, prayers, and support!

https://walkingwithgraceweb.com/?s=goodbye+seizures

https://walkingwithgraceweb.com/?s=unreached

https://walkingwithgraceweb.com/?s=mental+hospital

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

The Camel and the Needle

Good morning, Blogging Family! I recently received news that, due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, including Hurricane Helene and the health of one of our production team members, the release of Hello God has been delayed from Holiday 2024 until 2025. I don’t have an exact date yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do. 

In the meantime, I wanted to share this short devotional that I wrote last year when I was drafting some sample chapters as a proposal for what would become Hello, God. The book has evolved a lot since then, in both content and depth.  However, I think the heart of learning to talk to God honestly has remained the same, and that includes trusting him to work what is impossible for sinful humans. I hope this short devo will encourage you to keep praying and hoping, whether you’re asking God for someone’s salvation (as is the explicit point of the parable) or something else.

***

“This amazed them. But Jesus said again, ‘Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!’

The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.’” ~ Mark 10:24-27

Have you ever seen a camel? Maybe you met one at the zoo when when you were little.  Maybe, if you met your camel with the nice kind of adult at the right sort of zoo, you got to feed it or even sit on its back.  If so, I’ll  wager you made a variety of discoveries about your quirky new friend. Maybe you expected her shaggy hump to stand firmly in place when you leaned on it. Perhaps you quickly discovered it’s actually a jelly-like mass of water and fat!  Did you expect him to amble evenly around his paddock like the ponies in the pony ride? The camel sways side-to-side in a  jolty, skating motion, you may have learned as you hung on for dear life.

If these experiences don’t ring any bells for you, I recommend looking up a video or these weird, magnificent animals in motion. Take in the originality and beauty of this single specimen of God’s creation.

On the other hand, most of us know our way around needles. Whether it was a parent mending ripped jeans in elementary school, our sister’s obsession with cross-stitching in junior high, or even just the ever-evolving immunization recommendations, I’ll bet almost all of us have felt that quick sting answered by a teardrop of blood more times than we would like.

Can you think of any two things more opposite than a shaggy, side-stepping camel, and a platinum-titanium, extra-fine point embroidery needle? Correction: the eye of that extra-fine point embroidery needle. This eye is a miniscule hole in one end of the needle, barely visible to an average human eye, just big enough to pass one tiny end of silk thread back and forth through whichever delicate fiber we’re embroidering.  This is as close to fairy handiwork as you’ll get in real life. 

Now, close your eyes and imagine that camel you petted or rode as a kid, or just watched on YouTube, standing in the middle of a scorching desert. It’s over  120*  F and the camel will die if it doesn’t get a drink in the next five minutes.  There’s a spring of the purest water bubbling up only a few yards away, and the only thing separating the camel from the water is a tiny embroidery needle lying on the sand between them. The needle’s so tiny that you didn’t even see it at first! 

Jesus says the only way for that camel to pass to reach the life-giving water is by  kneeling down and squeezing itself through the eye of the embroidery needle. No short cuts, shrinking potions, or flat-out cheating by stepping over the needle. Does your camel make it to the other side? Why or why not?

USE IT OR LOSE IT:

  1. What is Jesus’ point to his disciples about salvation? About prayer in general?
  2. At first glance this parable seems depressing. How could Jesus also have meant it as an encouragement?
  3. Do you have an “impossible” prayer request in your life right now? What about it makes you think it’s “impossible”?
  4. How do you think God wants you to pray about it differently after reading today’s devo?
Posted on by graceutomo12 · 9 Comments

Driving Practice is Marriage Practice

“Everyone must teach someone to drive.” I reach from the driver’s seat and pat Ivan’s knee, which is often bouncing like he’s just downed several shots of espresso. “Just remember, you have not yet taught a teenager.” This exchange happens almost nightly now that my road test is less than two weeks away. 

God certainly has a sense of humor. Before my accident, it was generally agreed upon that of the two of us, I was the more law-abiding driver. I also spent one summer during college helping my younger sister learn to drive. Ivan, on the other hand, went to college a year early and so missed both the joy and terror of coaching an adolescent brain on road awareness.  While I’m not an adolescent, parts of my brain don’t always function like they’re thirty-one. And so Ivan is finally “doing his time” reminding me how to drive, even if we’re not starting from square one.

Since my last post, we’ve made a lot of progress. Most of the questions about potential deficits that I wrote about earlier were answered with a thorough physical by my neurologist, who cleared me to drive temporarily but also ordered a DMV road test in order for my license to be fully reinstated. On the road, we’ve confirmed I can maneuver the car safely in spite of not feeling my left hand. I can also spot and respond to hazards in appropriate amounts of time. 

On the other hand, we’ve discovered I have no sense of direction. The Safeway a few blocks from our condo is a great example. We’ve been living in the same complex for three years, and we go to that store at least once a week. This seemed like an easy goal for some of my early drives – until we realized I had no idea how to get there. 

“That’s okay,” I reassured Ivan, embarrassed by such a childlike deficit and unwilling to admit defeat. “Maybe I just need the GPS to help me get there a few times. After that I’m sure it will imprint.” 

On our fourth trip, and my first attempt without the GPS, I confidently turned the wrong way – and didn’t even notice things looked different until Ivan pointed it out a few minutes later. 

The strange contradiction is that my brain remembers traffic laws, which are long term memories stored from when I learned to drive as a teenager. However, getting to the grocery story falls under shorter-term memory and spatial recognition, two areas damaged by the brain injury. But once we realized we should always use the GPS when I drive, both our moods and my success has greatly improved. Praise the Lord!

I’ll close with an anecdote that I can only summarize using the title of the old Carrie Underwood song, “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”  

I was driving down Monterey Highway around 6 pm (for those of you who don’t know San Jose, that is a rather hazardous road due to both speed and traffic), Suddenly, sounds of shock and horror began issuing from the passenger’s seat. Ivan and I have had many conversations about how I need specific feedback when I’m driving. Vague interjections like “Oh man!” “Woah!” or the catastrophic “Noo!” only prompt me to slam on brakes. 

“Ivan – what?” 

“There’s a bee on the window!” 

At that moment, we reached a red light, so I was able to look. It was not a bee. It was a wasp. I’m deeply afraid of wasps because of traumatic childhood encounters. Also because, unlike bees, wasps don’t just sting once.

“Open the window and let it out!”

“But it looks comfortable.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable!”

Then the light was green again. Multiple thoughts flashed through my mind simultaneously. The first was that, whatever Ivan did or did not do with the wasp, I must keep up with the other tired, hungry rush-hour drivers. The second was that I was going to have to ignore the sounds of consternation continuing to proceed from the passenger’s seat.

“Lord, please protect us,” I prayed, as my knuckles whitened on the steering wheel and the chorus of nonspecific, threatened or threatening noises crescendo-ed. 

“He’s gone!” came a weak voice. Then, just as my grip relaxed – “No!”

“What?” I growled.

“You missed your turn.” Ivan was right. I’d completely forgotten the GPS.

It took us some time to find our way back to the route. I was so disoriented by the adrenaline from the episode that I ended up confounding the GPS, and Ivan had to turn it off and give me directions the old-fashioned way.  We later agreed that, unless the DMV has started releasing small, slightly venomous insects into the cars of prospective licensees, my road test will probably not be this nerve-wracking. On the relational side, Ivan and I both have a greater awareness of each other’s strengths. Ivan learned that I can handle the car safely even when I’m scared, and I was reminded that Ivan can give very clear, methodical, and kind directions when he realizes I’m unsettled. Who knew that driving practice was marriage practice, too?

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

“Hello, God” Update: Surprise Co-Author!

Good morning, Blogging Family! It’s been a while since I mentioned my forthcoming devotional on prayer, but I have a super exciting update to share with you all this weekend.

Ivan will once again be joining me as co-author! This may not seem like much of a surprise given his wonderful contributions to Walking with Grace, but I’d actually completed a full draft of the manuscript on my own a month ago. Furthermore, he is in the grueling final stages of completing his own doctoral dissertation. I’m so grateful for the work God’s been doing in both our lives to bring this partnership to pass, and I firmly believe the project will be much richer and more God-glorifying with his contributions.

We hope to release some time during the holidays!

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ICYMI: Grace’s Violin Recital Replay

Good morning, Blogging Family! Ivan and I want to extend an enormous THANK YOU to each one of you who sacrificed part of your Saturday to join us live for my first post-accident violin recital. Our hearts are bursting with gratitude to God for all he’s done in our lives, and to all of you for your tireless love, enthusiasm, and support! As I said at the end of the recital, every time we do a live event, we feel we are the ones who walk away humbled and amazed by the outpouring of love we receive. Thank you all so, so much!!

We also wanted to post the replay here for those of you who were interested in attending but unable to able to make it live. If you have a Facebook account, I’d recommended using this link instead, so you can benefit from the subtitles and browse the comments from the live chat. Feel free to check it out at your convenience, and share with anyone who might need encouragement that we serve a powerful and loving God!

As always, thank you for walking with us, and to God be the glory!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 8 Comments

I Drove a Car!

Everyone knows I don’t drive. When I started having seizures in October 2017, I got three separate notices from the DMV that my license had been suspended. Ivan and I figured out that each time I went to the ER for uncontrolled seizures, the attending doctor was filing a legal report but forgetting to document it on my medical record. We, however, got the message loud and clear: No driving under any circumstances. 

This wasn’t the earth-shattering blow that you might assume. I actually hadn’t been in the driver’s seat since my accident in December 2016. During my early recovery, just riding in a car was a huge source of anxiety for me. We’re not completely sure why, since I was hit by a car rather than being a traditional car accident victim, but our best guess is that some part of my injured brain identified cars themselves as “unsafe.”  

By God’s grace (and a lot of patience from my family) I was able to overcome this general fear of cars after a few months. However, my brain and body were not nearly recovered enough for any of us to consider me taking the wheel again. By the time I started having seizures in October 2017, I was approaching a much better place mentally and physically, but still not what any of us would have considered “road-ready.” 

If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know that from 2017-2023, I fought a debilitating battle with a seizure disorder that perplexed specialists and kept me housebound for most of that time. You can check out these blog posts (Status Epilepticus, “They turned me into a Newt!” Life after Stanford) for a little review. Our recent memoir, Walking with Grace, explores this phase in our journey, gives context on our lives leading up to my accident, and digs into the spiritual lessons God was teaching us during those years afterwards when he was asking us to walk by faith and not by sight. 

In October 2023, I was blessed to be miraculously healed from my seizures after years of trying all the medical cures available and resigning myself to a lifetime of living with a severe disability. (Check out this video to watch me share my testimony live!)

After it became clear that my seizures were gone for good, Ivan gently raised the driving question with me. How did I feel about getting on the road again? I immediately rattled off all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea: 

  • I would need a doctor to “unsuspend” the license, and the process might be convoluted since so many doctors had suspended it in the first place
  • Even if I’m no longer having seizures, I’m still a brain injury patient, and doctors have expressed doubts about my reflexes and vision
  • I’d be effectively steering one-handed, since I can’t feel my left hand

Ivan took my objections well and said he wouldn’t force me to do anything that made me uncomfortable. Deep down, I knew that while there was some truth in what I’d said, the real reason I didn’t want to drive was that I was terrified. I couldn’t bear the responsibility of being behind the wheel of a car again – especially of what might happen to someone else if I made a mistake.

God has been setting me free from a lot of fears recently. Lord-willing, I will post more on this soon, but for now I want to share that a few days ago God convicted me that if he’s graciously healed me from seizures, then he doesn’t want me to live enslaved by my fear of driving. Last night I asked Ivan to take me to a nearby parking lot to learn the truth about where I landed on the vision/steering spectrum.

The first few seconds in the driver’s seat were a bit surreal. I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car in eight years, and our white Hyundai Accent is a completely different feel from the little red Mazda 2 I was driving at the time of my accident. (For example, the Hyndai has power locks, which is a big upgrade from my Mazda. 😊) However, after pulling the seat up and the rearview mirror down – Ivan is a good three inches taller than me – everything else came back relatively automatically. The rhythm of checking my mirrors and shifting from gas to brake and back again flowed surprising smoothly. 

The only major change – and one that will probably take practice to master – is pulling into and out of parking spaces. Since I can’t feel my left hand, it was noticeably harder for me to calculate how much or little to turn the wheel. For a healthy person, your brain sends a command to your hand, gets feedback from your nerve receptors based on what your hand “feels” in response, and then adjusts its command accordingly. For me, my brain is sending the command to turn the wheel, but it’s not getting any feedback from my left hand about whether the wheel is actually turning, or if it is turning, how much or little it needs to be adjusted. 

This parking challenge isn’t something I can’t overcome. It just means that I’ll probably have to practice parking many, many times and train my brain to look for other markers besides feel (probably visual markers), to decide when or how much to adjust the steering wheel.

Interestingly enough, my left hand wasn’t an issue for driving in a straight line, or even backing up or turning, because in those situations it functioned more like a passive counterbalance for the right hand (which I can feel) rather than needing to become an active participant. 

As for testing my reflexes in traffic, there’s no way to do that without getting on the road. But from what Ivan and I saw last night, we would feel comfortable asking my doctor to consider reinstating my license. I’ve far exceeded the written California state requirement of going 3-6 months without a seizure. Although I ultimately can’t control the legal ramifications of my future, and realize that my doctor may still have concerns since I had seizures for so many years, I wanted to share this milestone with you because this time last year I never dreamed I’d be healthy enough to consider getting behind the wheel of a car. Even this time last week, I never dreamed God would have set me free from my anxiety over causing an accident, or discovering that I was truly incapable of driving, or both. We truly serve an amazing God!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 4 Comments

Grace’s First Violin Recital!

Good morning Blogging Family! I have some super exciting news that I’ve posted on Facebook, but also wanted to share here for those of you who may not be on social media.

Ivan and I will be broadcasting a short, LIVE violin recital on Saturday, 8/31 at 2 pm, as a way to thank God for the amazing healing he’s accomplished in my life over the past year.

How do you join? Simply click this link at 2 pm on the 31st. You’ll be taken to a Facebook live event, where you will be able to watch the recital from the comfort of your own home. Facebook Live videos are public, so you DO NOT need a Facebook account to watch.

Ivan and I will be playing four songs that I’ve learned over the past few months, followed by a hymn. I’m SUPER excited that Ivan will be accompanying me on piano, since we never imagined we’d be making music together again.

No worries if you can’t make the actual event – all Facebook Live events are automatically recorded and we’re planning to post the video afterward, barring any technical difficulties.

We hope you’ll be able to join us, either live or by replay, for this celebration of God’s amazing work in my life. As always, thank you all SO MUCH for your love, prayers and support throughout the years!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 5 Comments

Announcing Book #2!


Good morning, Blogging Family! I realize I’ve been a bit silent this summer compared to previous years, but there’s a very good explanation, and I’m delighted to finally be able to share it with you. I’ve actually been hard at work on my second book!

Hello God: Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short will be a month-long devotional on prayer, coming Holiday 2024. The content and writing process for this book has been a completely new process for me compared to my first book, where I was writing primarily about my own life and could rely on seasoned grad school faculty for regular feedback. This time around, I’m realizing my dependence on the Lord in an entirely new way, both because I’m no longer a grad student with expert faculty waiting in the wings whenever I get stuck, and because my topic has changed. I’ll still be sharing lots of experiences from my own life, but I’ll be looking primarily to what God says about himself in Scripture. And handling His word in a way that does Him justice and brings him glory (as much as a flawed human writer can), is a much weightier responsibility than writing about my own life.
I’m very grateful to be continuing our partnership with Shepherd Press for this project, and to work with an editor who understands that praying together over the writing is just as essential – if not more – as our technical collaboration.

I look forward to sharing more updates as we move into the fall. For now, thank you for your patience as I steward my limited hand strength for writing the last section of text for Hello, God. I look forward to returning to more regular posting here once we move into the later phases of book production.

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