I warned you I was bad at the middle of things!
We aren’t going to talk about how long it’s been since I’ve written in this space. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been stretching my wings writing in some other areas, as well as being involved in a very exciting project soon to launch February 1st.
This is going to be quick, but I wanted to at least ease myself back into posting more regularly, even if it looks slightly disjointed or brief to begin with. I did want to share where I’ve written elsewhere in the universe, so if you click here, you will be taken to my article on my guest column for our church on the subject of community, published recently in the High Country News.
This year has been a real season of learning to say no, let go of longstanding yes’ (yeses? yes’s? yesses? English teachers, chime in…) and in letting God reshape where I find my identity and worth. (Spoiler alert, it’s in being His, not being busy!) I resonated heavily with one of my favourite podcasters said recently in their episode (#59, A New Year’s “Yes”) on the dark side of every yes is a no to something else, but not necessarily in a negative way. Oddly enough, many months of no’s last year turned into a recent yes that involved both Christie and Lisa-Jo from the podcast!
In other news, if you want a good soul dive into our human hearts and how we are all addicted to some degree to something, and how to break free and also just see it for what it is, small or big, dark or slyly grey area-d, dive into this podcast episode from Annie F. Downs’ “That Sounds Fun” and prepare to love Seth Haines and Annie and how they deal with this huge aspect of our spiritual lives.
When you’re done there, hop over to another of Annie’s episodes, this time with author/musician/etc Andrew Peterson about creativity and art and how it functions in spiritual communities and enhances God’s glory. SO GOOD. It basically brought me back to blogging because I’ve been just SLIGHTLY neglectful of that.
I did manage to hit my goal of reading 100 books in 2019! If you want to see the list of what I read, click here for my Goodreads list for 2019. It was an exceptional year of reading, with quite a few I purchased and will be re-reading for years to come. Notable were everything Louise Penny wrote, concluding with going to hear her speak in Edmonton this past fall; Simply Tuesday, Grace for the Good Girl, and The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman; Placemaker by Christie Purifoy; Surprised by Motherhood and The Middle Matters by Lisa-Jo Baker; The Road Back to You (on the Enneagram) by Suzanne Stabile and Ian Morgan Cron; Glorious Weakness by Alia Joy; Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson; In Want + Plenty by Meredith McDaniel; The Shadow Doctor by Adrian Plass; Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist; and that’s just a few of my life-changing faves, I didn’t really read any duds!
Oh, and you should also meet our newest family members, (they make useless interns, sadly), Quill & Ink!
