No, I am not routinely blogging again. But for what I want to share with you, this familiar format seems like the best way to relay an important message.
Some of you have followed my writing for years. Others may know me only through something I have written more recently. Either way, I want you to understand why I have spent so much of this past year writing, what that season has required, what God has done in me through it, and what I hope might remain when the writing itself is finished.
A year ago, I could not have explained where a year of writing would lead. I simply knew God had given me years of studying His Word, teaching women, walking alongside others through difficult seasons, and learning for myself that Scripture speaks truth and hope into the realities of everyday life. Writing became a way to gather some of what He had taught me and place it into the hands of others.
Along the way, I realized God was doing more than giving me words to put on a page. He was using the process in me.
Through this writing, I found myself examining once again what I believed, why I believed it, and how firmly those beliefs were grounded in Scripture. It sent me back to Scripture again and again and challenged me to communicate theological truth clearly and faithfully while keeping in mind the woman who might one day hold the book in her hands. I was writing to encourage and equip others, but God continually used those same truths to encourage, correct, strengthen, and teach me.
Have you missed me yet?
Writing has required a season of solitude. Books are written one word, one paragraph, and one page at a time, and much of that work happens alone. There have been many hours when I chose the desk over something else I could have been doing, time with people I love, activities I would have enjoyed, and even some of the ordinary rhythms of life.
For a season, I chose that solitude intentionally. Writing required it. But it was never solitude simply for the sake of producing books. I have prayed that God would redeem those hours and use the words written there in ways that reach far beyond my desk and far beyond me.
There is something humbling about spending so much time creating something while knowing you have little control over what happens once it leaves your hands. I can write, edit, pray, prepare, and make a book available. I cannot determine who will read it or how God will use it. Faithfulness is mine to pursue. The outcome belongs to Him.
Still, when I look back, there are tangible results.
Mornings With an Everyday Theologian was never intended to lead to a series. When it was published in late fall 2025, the thought of writing a separate series of four additional books had not even been conceived. Mornings was a stand-alone work, and bringing it together was slower and more reflective than the writing that followed. I was not simply writing fifteen weeks of daily readings. I was gathering pieces of a life and a family history I wanted to preserve.
I dedicated that first book to my children and was determined to weave bits of our family stories and memories throughout the manuscript. Genealogical research can give us the names of our ancestors. Census records and other documents can tell us where they lived, when they were born, and other facts about their lives. Those things are recorded.
But family stories get lost.
The stories told around the table, the funny things someone said, the difficult seasons a family walked through, the ordinary moments that became treasured memories, and the experiences that helped shape who we became can disappear when those who remember them are no longer here to tell them. I wanted to preserve some of ours.
Writing Mornings required looking backward as well as studying forward. I pulled from journals, folders of old writings, blog posts, Bible study notes, and things I had written years before. I searched my own memory, sometimes through laughter and sometimes through tears. I revisited people, places, experiences, mistakes, joys, losses, and lessons that had become part of our family’s story and mine.
But I was not preserving family stories merely for nostalgia. I wanted to place them within the larger framework of everyday life and theology. Theology does not belong only in seminaries, commentaries, classrooms, or church buildings. What we believe about God matters in kitchens and hospital rooms, in marriages and parenting, in disappointment and celebration, and throughout the ordinary events that make up our days. The stories provided the setting, but God’s truth provided the meaning.
When Mornings With an Everyday Theologian was published, I believed I had completed what I set out to do. There was no Freedom Series in my plans.
My husband, however, saw the possibility of something more. He encouraged me to keep writing and suggested there might be other books still to be written. His prompting caused me to consider what else God might allow me to do with the years of biblical study, teaching, counseling, and life experience He had already given me. Only then did the idea begin to take shape for a separate collection of books addressing specific struggles through the lens of Scripture.
One stand-alone book had unexpectedly become the catalyst for something I never planned.
Writing The Freedom Series was different. The books came at a faster pace because I was no longer gathering and preserving decades of family memories. Instead, I was considering specific struggles and asking what Scripture says to the person living in the middle of them.
Again, I opened old folders, but these held different materials. I returned to lecture notes from biblical counseling training, Bible study and teaching materials, and resources collected through years of learning. I researched books and works by men and women far more skilled and educated than I am, grateful to learn from those who have spent years thinking carefully about Scripture, theology, counseling, and the Christian life.
But research alone could not produce these books.
Writing The Freedom Series required me to reflect on friendships and the women who, through the years, have trusted me with problem-focused conversations while seeking solace, wisdom, and answers. Those conversations have taught me much about the struggles women carry and the questions underneath the questions. Circumstances have a way of exposing what we believe about God, ourselves, other people, and what we think we need in order to be okay.
Writing required me to look honestly at those struggles, including a few of my own.
Four books took shape. The Accusing Memory and the Freedom of the Gospel addresses the burden of the past. Freedom for the Weary Soul considers weariness and biblical rest. Freedom at the Crossroads examines God-honoring decision-making with wisdom and clarity. Freedom to Say Enough turns our attention toward contentment in an age continually telling us we need more.
Together, they became The Freedom Series.
I am grateful God used the encouragement of the person who knows me best to prompt me toward something I had not considered for myself. What I saw as the completion of one book became the beginning of four more.
Five books will sit where, a year ago, there were journals, folders, Bible study and counseling notes, family stories, experiences, convictions, and ideas.
But something more important happened in the process.
Writing these books solidified my confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture. As I studied questions surrounding guilt, weariness, decision-making, discontent, relationships, suffering, and the complications of everyday life, I returned to the same conviction: God has not left us without truth. His Word is sufficient for salvation and equips His people to live lives pleasing to Him. Scripture does not promise an easy life or answer every question exactly as we might prefer, but it gives us what we need to know God, understand ourselves rightly, respond faithfully to our circumstances, and grow in Christlikeness.
That conviction is at the heart of why I write.
I am not naive enough to believe these books will become bestsellers, nor do I measure the value of this season by sales or pages published. God has already been gracious enough to allow me to see something far more meaningful.
Women have read my published words, followed the biblical references to God’s Word, and applied those truths to their hearts and lives. I have heard from women who have been encouraged, challenged, helped, or caused to think more carefully about what Scripture says concerning their circumstances. Those responses may never translate into impressive numbers, but they are precious evidence that God can use what is offered to Him.
That is also why I think about these books somewhat differently. My primary concern has never been writing as a craft or art form for its own sake. Certainly, I want to write well. I want my words to be clear, thoughtful, engaging, and worthy of the reader’s time. But the writing is meant to serve something greater.
I want these books to be resources.
I want women to underline them, write in the margins, answer the questions, work through the journaling prompts, look up Scripture references, and consider how biblical truth applies to everyday life. I hope they use them personally and alongside other women. Especially with The Freedom Series, I hope these books are not read once and forgotten on a shelf.
I hope women return to them.
When an accusing memory resurfaces, I hope they return to gospel truth. When their souls are weary, I hope they revisit what Scripture teaches about rest and dependence upon God. When they stand at a difficult crossroads, I hope they return to biblical wisdom. When discontent whispers that what God has provided is somehow not enough, I hope they remember what they learned about contentment, gratitude, and the character of God.
I hope these become familiar resources women reach for again and again, not because my words hold special power, but because they point the reader beyond my words to God’s.
All five books will be available through Amazon, where free samples are available for reading. That allows women to look inside, read some of the material, and determine whether a book might be helpful for the season they are walking through. My greater hope is not simply that someone purchases a book, but that she uses it.
My words can explain, encourage, ask questions, and point in a direction. God’s Word is the authority. His truth renews the mind and transforms the heart. If something I have written helps a woman open her Bible, understand truth more clearly, recognize wrong thinking, trust God more fully, or apply Scripture more faithfully, then the solitary hours spent writing have already begun to be redeemed in ways greater than the sacrifice required to write them.
Perhaps that is one of the most significant things God has shown me through this season. The years spent studying His Word were never wasted. The years of teaching, counseling, serving, learning, writing blog posts, filling journals, taking notes, saving folders, and walking through difficult seasons were not disconnected pieces of my life. In His providence, He has woven them together.
Writing has become an extension of my teaching ministry. It allows the truths I have taught across a table or in a classroom to travel beyond the places I can personally go. A book can sit beside a woman I may never meet. It can accompany her into a season I may never know about. It can point her back to Scripture, remind her of the gospel, help her think biblically about a difficult circumstance, and encourage her to trust God when life does not make sense.
That is why I have been writing.
Not simply to become an author or fill a bookshelf with books bearing my name. Certainly not because I expect bestseller lists or widespread recognition. I have written because I believe God’s Word is sufficient, Christ is our hope, and biblical truth belongs in the middle of ordinary life.
This season of writing will have produced five books, but God has also used it to deepen my trust in Him, sharpen my understanding of His Word, strengthen my confidence in its sufficiency, and teach me to persevere when the work required solitude and sacrifice. He has reminded me that I am responsible for faithfulness. He determines what He will do with the work once it leaves my hands.
I do not know how far these books will travel or whose hands they will eventually reach. I do know what God has asked of me in this season: study faithfully, write carefully, serve willingly, and leave the results with Him.
If the hours spent alone writing help other women know God’s Word and live its truth more faithfully in everyday life, then those hours will have accomplished far more than producing books.
For this past year of memories and study, words and sacrifice, tears and laughter, lessons and unexpected opportunities, and the privilege of putting biblical truth into print, I am deeply grateful.
I have one final request.
If something I have written has encouraged you, strengthened your faith, helped you think more biblically about a difficult circumstance, or pointed you more clearly to God’s Word, I hope you will consider sharing it with someone else.
Perhaps you know a friend or family member walking through a season addressed in one of these books. She may be struggling beneath the weight of her past, weary in body or soul, facing a difficult decision, wrestling with discontent, or simply desiring to know God’s Word more deeply and apply its truth more faithfully. If you believe one of these resources might serve her well, would you share it with her?
Share a book, a post, or this message. Tell someone why a particular resource helped you, or point her toward a free sample on Amazon so she can read for herself.
Not for the glory of my name. Not at all.
My name on the cover is of little consequence if the words inside do not ultimately point beyond me. My hope is that whatever reach these books have will serve a greater purpose: that women will open God’s Word, believe what He has said, grow in their love for Christ, and live His truth in everyday life.
So, if you believe something here is worthy of sharing or might meet a friend or family member in a particular situation or season, please pass it along.
May every useful word serve the good of others and, above all, the glory of God.