For my email subscribers: Surprise! It’s a blog post! It’s been a while, and I’ll explain what’s brought me back to the blog in this post. If you would rather not receive blog posts via email anymore but DO want to receive monthly newsletters from me, reply to this email, let me know, and I’ll update your preferences. If you don’t want any emails from me, there’s an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

And now, for our (irregularly) scheduled message:

In preparation of having guests soon, I’ve been deep cleaning our home.

I’ve washed windowsills, organized and cleaned kitchen cabinets, and decluttered bookshelves. It’s amazing how much nicer things look when surfaces I didn’t even realize had collected grime sparkle.

This has me reflecting on other things I’ve gotten used to that aren’t really working for me, and the habits that might restore more balance to my life. That brings me to writing this blog post after over a year of silence here.

When I blogged regularly, I spent at least one day per post, writing and prepping. My goals were to encourage people, yes, but also to impress publishers. I made it a big production. When I started self-publishing, I decided all that hard work took time away from creating stories, which I felt called to as my main ministry. So, I let blogging go.

I’ve never once missed the production.

However, I have missed the way writing a devotional blog required me to slow down and focus on the truly important aspect of life—God and where I see Him in my daily life. Since the blog is for public consumption, it served as accountability to not only read my Bible, attend church, and pray, but to deeply reflect and listen and apply what I discerned as the Lord’s message for me.

I want more of that in my life again.

I want it to calm my heart. I want it to grow my attitudes and lead my relationships. I want it to better inform my fiction.

So, here I am, dusting off virtual cobwebs and looking forward to letting a little more light in. I do not plan to return to a strict posting schedule or elaborate social media campaigns to bring people to these posts. That hustle served an old goal of building a platform, and again, my goal now is simpler. I want to lean in with the Lord. I hope to find a rhythm that honors the Lord’s leading.

If, along the way, others find encouragement here too, well, thank God. He is good and faithful, and it’s a special joy when we get to draw closer to Him together. I’m glad you’re here. I’m pausing to pray (right after I type this sentence) that God would use this blog, whatever it becomes, to draw me and any readers who come this way closer to Him.

What routine or habit feeds your relationship with God?