Sunday, February 9, 2025

Writing As Resistance: Censored, Not Silenced

Do you ever re-realize something you already knew? Like you already knew it in your head, but it drops into your heart like a missing puzzle piece, falls into the peaceful stream of your day like a rock in a pond, sending outward ripples extending over the water? This week that happened to me, because lately I've found myself in a battle I'm not sure how to win.

I pride myself on being a storyteller, but I also pride myself on my honesty. I try hard to balance truth and kindness in my life, but recently I've struggled with an increasingly uncomfortable sense of forced silence. There's a story I want desperately to share, based on a truth I think the world could benefit greatly from—but lately, every time I find the courage to speak I find the power of words stolen from me, my lips stapled together and covered in tape. Not because it's false or harmful, but because it's about the inherent instinct for survival, and the desperation that drives us in our darkest moments to seek light at all costs.

The story I'm aching to share sits in my soul like old family legends passed down from generation to generation, whispered in secret or passed hand to hand in the night. It's the kind of story that will never disappear until it leaves an irreversible mark, like the echoes of lines drawn on paper regardless of how hard the world tries to erase them.

But I? Rubbed raw in spirit by the world's erasure, I will muster truth and resilience to tell this story—even if it's only whispered from one soul to another—and I will pray that it finds the right hearts, that it sinks into those hearts like ocean water soaking into sand. And that the knowledge of it takes hold like a contagion of change that births new safety in empowered autonomy.

The wordsmith stood on a rickety wooden platform, all her dreams and hopes for the future held in her hands, stained and crumpled pages of parchment eager to escape her grasp and take flight on the passing wind. No longer a girl, not yet the village crone, she tipped her face to the sky, sending a whispered prayer to the heavens. She braced her feet against an almost palpable wave of fear, her throat hot with the acid burn of anxious bile rising with every breath. "No stopping now," she whispered, shaking fingers still clenched on the sweat-dampened edges of her story.

The story was written in blood, each page torn from the depths of her soul, the papers assembled carefully in the quiet, spider-webbed recesses of a troubled past no one dared—or cared—to explore. But she had walked a long and lonely road from her hidden cavern of isolated solitude, and scared or not, she was ready.

One lone woman filed into the space, lowered herself to a bench, and was soon joined by a man clearly from a distant land. Soon the wooden benches filled, and a sea of watching eyes focused on the shaking wordsmith. She watched their brows furrow and lower in confusion as she opened her mouth to begin, only to find her voice suddenly muted. She glanced down at the pages, stunned as bloodred ink blurred and then faded into the parchment. A quiet murmur rippled through the crowd, and the wordsmith scanned the room, horrified to find her greatest fear standing in the shadows beyond. The Censor narrowed eyes as large as pools of blackest tar, a menacing smile teasing at the edges of pale, thin lips.

The Censor had plagued the wordsmith all her life, deafening those who might hear her, twisting the meaning of her words even as she said them until her resolve shattered and she hid herself away, convinced that writing the words would protect them, preserve them, and give them power to enact change. Hunched over the Altar of Light, she had penned prayers of pain until rain poured from her eyes and there was only the blood of her heart with which to fill the empty pages of her desperation to be seen and heard—and it was only then that heartbreak became hope.

But there he was, waiting in the shadows, unnoticed by the crowd as they pinned her to the platform with scorn-filled eyes. "You can't tell the story!" one woman shouted. "Now is not the time!"

Encouraged, another woman nodded agreement. "It's too dark anyway; there's no hope to be found in a grimoire of grisly stories!"

Closing her eyes against the crowd, she stood like a punished child, heart aching, mouth dry. They were right. It was dark. But the whisper in her soul was a gently encouraging push. "Tell the story," it said. "Someone hungers for its hope." And as she opened her eyes the ink appeared again, as defined as a woodland path and sparkling somehow, like sunshine on the vastness of the ocean. She turned the page as yet unread, and sought the map she'd drawn, topography clarified by milestones and landmarks. The Censor may not let her tell the whole story, but she could show the map. She could lead them to the Altar of Light, where they might find, in the silence of the cavern, their own stories written in her words.

*****

The little fable written above is more than just an afternoon of me playing with genre and style. It's an example of why stories matter. Recently, I've been silenced on social media through automated algorithms that flag any promotion of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM because the cover image shows a woman with visible bruises.

In a world often bent on silencing survivors of our inhumane society, fighting for justice and overcoming censorship is now a call to the battlefield of social opinion, a cry for our culture to stop turning a blind eye to victims. For me, the power of storytelling means speaking up for truth, standing up for what's right. It means when silence isn't an option and finding your voice isn't enough, there is still power in writing as resistance, sharing stories that matter.

I'm taking steps to work around this censorship, but the fact is, we still live in a world ready to revictimize survivors by silencing the sharing of their stories. FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is personal for me, drawn from the stories of women in my own family—including me. I may be censored, but I am not silenced, especially when there are others willing to speak alongside me. If you'd like to help share this story and take up arms against censorship, share this blog post, share auto-flagged Facebook post #1 or auto-flagged Facebook post #2, or of course, pre-order the book. Whatever you choose to do, remember to always...

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Writing in the Quiet of Ghosts: The Best Kind of Haunted

I love my life as a storyteller, but I own that title with both glee and trepidation. In fiction, I make up stories entirely—but large segments of every character and plot and developmental idea are pulled from my own real-life experiences, because for me, writing and healing are one and the same. But what if I were to look at my own life as a story and myself as a character in it?

Sometimes the real-life stories I would tell are so outrageous I doubt them myself even though I lived them, and it is only the confirmation of others who lived my life beside me that give me comfort. I write as a way of coping with loss, whether it's a parent or marriage, a child or friend, or simply the sense of my self and who I might have been if my life had gone differently. The magic of processing grief through storytelling is that it harnesses the power of memories—both good and bad.

Last week's post was an exploration of this concept, like pollen scattered over a blooming desire to share my journey and my life as a writer in a new way—through stories told as they were lived. The thing is, some stories are harder to tell than others, because when the laughter is gone and the love has faded into the past, the quiet that lingers after goodbye often feels like torture. This is one of those stories.

I read the words through a film of tears sweetened with time but bittered by loss, and wondered why they felt so different from before. I had written them so many times already, always in joyful celebration of great accomplishment and yet this time, they felt somehow...wrong.

I've always done most of my writing in silence. I'm painfully introverted, highly sentimental, and easily distracted; on top of this, writing with PTSD often means finding inspiration in grief while needing a steady, solid atmosphere of safety in which to create. It's a delicate balance that makes the glowing print on my laptop screen seem like so much more than two simple words: "The End."

I left them there, glowing softly against the deepening cover of night, the screen itself backlit by a window filled with moonlight. And I thought about other times I'd written those words.

The first time was a cold winter evening in 2012, and I had just finished my first novel. Three weeks of frantic typing, crafting letters into words and phrases and sentences of poignant emotion, all to escape the looming threat of grief. We didn't know yet if my mother had cancer, didn't know yet how bad it might be, and it was all so complicated. She was a terrible mother—but she was the only one I had.

I was alone in the quiet then too, but I reached for the warmth beside me and whispered, "I did it. Finally, I did it!" And the dog looked up, surprised at my touch; he sniffed the air, black nose twitching in the light of the laptop screen. Assured that all was well, he arched a tawny eyebrow and burrowed closer, then closed twin pools of deep dark chocolate and went back to sleep. When the book came a few weeks later and I held the paperback in my hands, sobbing alone in my kitchen as I flipped through the pages, he danced at my feet.

He was there for the next book too, and the next one. Always a silent support, a warmth curled against my feet or legs as I tapped my way through nine books and three laptops. He held just as steady when the tapping stopped, offering no judgement for either the silenced keyboard or the tortured artist behind it. He left the warmth of a couch cushion behind to don an itchy vest and lay in silence in my therapist's office through countless appointments. He saw two little girls grow and mature into young women. And when I opened the laptop again he was there just the same, with his graying hair and faded nose and increasingly loud snore.

His story ended on a July afternoon in 2024 but mine goes on in the quiet after loss, my emotional writing journey forever marked by his years of faithful service and support.

And so I looked away from the words glowing on the laptop, absent of his warmth, and caught sight of a stark white box embellished with an offset pair of paw prints. The box sits now on the bookshelf in my office, heavy with the precious treasure hidden inside it. I can't pet him anymore...but he's still here, in the ghost of his bark, in the random tufts of hair we still find in hidden corners of the house, in every memory of who and what he was, so much more than just a dog.

I cried in the silence, celebrating the accomplishment even as I grieved the way it took so long to finish this book, searching for the balance between holding on to memories and embracing life after loss. Loss changes creativity. It does. And losing a loved one impacts so much more than the breathing lungs and beating heart that go so still in death.

Still, as they say, "The show must go on." So I dried my tears, I nurtured the pride and excitement lingering beneath the sadness, and I picked up my phone. My friend Beth is a lot less hairy and she's never once curled up against my legs because it'd be weird...but when she answered my call I said, "I did it. Finally, I did it!"

And as all the best friends do, she leapt to the occasion and her joy danced with mine.

*****

STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM was one of the hardest writing projects I've ever tackled, not only because I wrote it in the throes of deepest grief, but also because I carried constantly the weight of my desire for accuracy in telling Christine's story of life after domestic abuse. Now that the writing is finished, I'm moving into the editing phase—which is no less tedious or valuable but is thankfully far less emotionally taxing. STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM will release in March 2026.

In the meantime, the expanded second edition of FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is the beginning of Christine's story, and this emotionally evocative novel of growth and survival is available now for preorder! FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM will release May 08, 2025, and will maintain a 40% discount until publication day, so don't miss out! (Links to your favorite retailers are here.)

Until next week, I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes excerpt of my life as an author, and I pray you'll be inspired to always...

Sunday, January 26, 2025

The Story of Josephine

Recently, I saw a Twitter/X post about the before-and-after life-changing moments so many of us have in our lives, those moments that divide our time here so decisively into clear parts and sections. It made me think about my own life story in a different way, contemplating the placement of Act dividers and Chapter headings. What major dividing events drove one part of my story into the next? What would the chapters be called? Would I share them in a linear fashion, or in more of a thematic style dependent on the events of the day? And what if I began to share those moments here, perhaps as fictionalized true story chapters of my life?

My oldest daughter is not my first child. My motherhood journey began with the heartbreak of a miscarriage, and there is a very quiet, mournful place held in my heart for that lost child and who he or she might have been. But my oldest daughter is the first of my children to kick in my womb, the first to make me pee my pants at Walmart, the first to take a breath and issue a blissfully blessed scream of energetic existence into the chaos of a Tennessee operating room. For every moment of every day since then, I've been some version of Mom (Mama, Mommy, Mother!, Bruh...), making dinners, cleaning messes, soothing booboos and always, always, offering the best guidance I could muster with the knowledge and resources available.

She turned 21 yesterday. For the last 21 years, I've made a point of telling my daughter the story of my last pre-mom day, because I wanted her to know that her entry to the world and her existence in it matters. But her birth story is one of the most meaningful turning points in my life too, so if I were to share a chapter of my life here, I think timing and significance make that day the best place to start. 


The day began much the same as they all did, with nausea and soreness. Everything hurt. My back, my swollen legs. My ribs, so strained by constant bouts of sickness. My chest burned like a gaping pool of acid, and as I stumbled out of bed I thought of the people who promised—always with an amused smile—that, "heartburn means the baby will have hair!" I would've been fine with a bald baby, if only I could eat a meal and keep it down.

Nagging worry turned to outright fear as the morning passed, and I poked my rounded belly now and then with increasing determination. The baby hadn't moved at all. I called the doctor, made an appointment, went in to be checked, and was assured that all was well.

"She doesn't have as much room these days," the nurses said gently. "Between you being small and her being tall...plus she's breech...there's just no room in there. She's slowing down, resting up. One more week to go." The nurses met my troubled eyes, nodding patiently. They took the monitors away, folded the elastic bands, threw away the electrodes. "Go on home and get some rest. Put your feet up."

Outside the hospital, the sun was falling toward the horizon; daylight was fading, shadows were lengthening, temperatures began their nightly freefall. I sat in my car, debating. Home to rest? Or Walmart for a Hot Pocket? Walmart won.

In the store I browsed the freezer section, one hand propped idly on my still-quiet belly, my discreetly repurposed fast-food-drink-cup-to-stealth-barf-bucket propped beside my purse in the seat where one day soon, I hoped a living child would fidget and whine. I settled for cheesy chicken and broccoli, thinking of warmth as I added my meal to my cart.

I'll never remember how or why I ended up in the back of the store. I've always been lactose-intolerant and had long since given up trying to drink milk, but somehow there I was, staring into the milk cooler. With a nostalgic smile for the long-ago days when a cold glass of milk could fix everything, I closed the cooler and turned away. She was standing there, watching me. A large woman in every sense; she was tall and built like a linebacker, with a giant fluff of wild brown curls. Brown eyes peered out over the collar of a puffy brown Mayfield Dairy jacket, a strange mix of suspicious and friendly. She asked about the baby.

"Well, she's been still today," I said ruefully, poking the belly again. "I haven't felt her move at all. The hospital checked her out though, said she's okay. I'm supposed to go home and rest, but..." Gesturing toward the box of Hot Pockets, I shrugged. "Dinner."

The woman shocked me with a bark of laughter—just as big as she was, just as wild as her curly hair. "Honey," she said, her voice filled with energy and southern twang, "they're wrong. Don't you go home; you stay here and wander a while. Walk around; it'll help. You're havin' that baby tonight."

Dismissing the woman's words as the insane ramblings of an old meddler, I smiled and nodded as I lied and promised to walk, then proceeded to the checkout. "Crazy old busybody," I muttered, poking the belly again. The baby didn't answer.

At home I heated both Hot Pockets, choked one down, and threw the other in the garbage with a grimace, cursing myself for not checking the ingredients. "Should've known there'd be onions in there. Damn. Like five dollars, too!" I went to bed still hungry, still frustrated. Still worried over my still-motionless baby.

The baby stayed quiet, but the onions didn't. I barely made it to the bathroom before the Hot Pocket launched itself from my stomach, burning the back of my throat, lingering onion acrid on my tongue. The spasms in my stomach were strong enough to set off shock waves in my bladder; each new gasping retch from above met with intermittent gushing from below. Eventually the vomiting stopped...but the gushing didn't.

I threw up so hard I broke my own water. "You've got to be kidding me."

Four hours later I lay on an operating table, my body numb, my wrists and ankles strapped down to prevent movement, my mind racing. What if I died in the surgery and left my child with no mother? What if it took too long, what if we were too late? What if this child didn't make it either? What if she did?

And in the back of my mind, a repeated mantra: "I guess that Mayfield lady was right, after all."

Stretched out the way I was, strapped down and unable to move, I thought of crucifixion. Death and loss and hope swirled in my mind, a stormy maelstrom of disjointed, drug-induced musings that ground to a shocked and instantaneous halt when the doctor quietly said, "Okay, you're gonna feel some pressure now. It's just me putting your uterus back in."

"I'm sorry...What?" I turned my head, trying to see over the surgical shield that blocked my view. "You're doing what? You took it out?"

He laughed. "Well, I had to take it out and sew it up. I assume you want it back, don't you?"

"Well...yeah. Hey, Doc...make sure you put it in straight, okay?"

It wasn't long before I lay propped on piles of pillows, sobbing. My body still ached, but in entirely new ways now, and my heart had never been so broken. She was perfect. Twenty inches long, 8 pounds even. All ten toes, all ten long and clumsy fingers. Blue eyes like gray skies in winter. Narrow lips that puckered like the petals of a rosebud when I tickled them with the barest touch of a fingertip. And a full head of thick, shining black hair.

Josephine's first rainfall was made of the tears I couldn't hold back as I held her. The first prayer she ever heard fell from the lips of an unbeliever, as a young woman who had taken pride in cursing God begged for the patience and strength to be a good mother. "Please, please, help me. Help me to give her more than what I had, to make sure she's loved and protected and safe. Please, God, please, help me."

As time passed, I saw that shining black hair fall away. I saw it grow back in toddlerhood, a fall of glossy ash blonde that darkened strand by strand until my girl entered middle school with hair a brown that's sometimes chestnut and sometimes honey. Through middle school, I watched it tighten and frizz and develop a mind of its own—and my black-haired, blue-eyed infant entered high school with green eyes and a wild head of brown curls more glorious than that Mayfield lady could ever have imagined.

Twenty-one years, and just as many evolutions of personality and style later, I still say the heartburn was worth it.

*****

I've recounted this story for Josephine in various ways for the last twenty-one years, and each year I'm amazed—remembering the past and celebrating milestones like this one shows just how much each outgoing chapter shapes the next. If you’re curious about other chapters I’m writing these days—both in fiction and in life—make sure you check the sidebar for updates. You'll find progress info on my latest book-in-progress, recent releases, and my upcoming publishing schedule! And until next time, I hope as your story unfolds you will always strive to...

Sunday, January 19, 2025

The Fall of Mankind: A Call for Compassion in the Chaos

We love to follow people. We track celebrities and scroll through headlines like addicts seeking the next fix, the newest high, the latest gossip; it makes us feel somehow connected to the strangers we care about. We nurture secret fantasies of being one of those people, cared for and invested in on a grand scale. And if we achieve this, we call our followers "community."

I myself am hoping to build such a community, a platform from which to encourage and seek encouragement, a place to share my stories and appreciate the stories of others entrusted to me. But is it "community" really? Or in our loyalty to the communities we claim, are we sorting ourselves into separatist groups of hatred?


We're increasingly close to a world where every headline screams division, every comment section boils with hostility, and every interaction threatens to create enmity and ruin lives. Maybe it's dramatic to liken such a thing to the fall of mankind, but I know I'm not questioning this alone; a host of people like me are looking around the world these days in common grief because we as humans are losing the unity that carried us to the top of the food chain.

  • Wise women like Mary Katherine Backstrom ("Can Empathy Save Us?")
  • Gentle encouragers like Sarah Tomlinson (the creator of this post and many others at Little Sparrow Loved), and
  • Poets and wonderers like Esther, the Dolly Mama (who explored grace, not only for others but for herself in this post)

In general, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist; regardless of whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, it's refillable. Maybe I'm a realist—I tend to call the situation as I see it, then do my best to deal with it as it is, and while my Christian faith lends hope for growth and improvement, my fascination with historical patterns often tips me toward the negative. Perhaps this is balance; perhaps it's cognitive dissonance.

Either way, when I reflect on the state of our world, I see overwhelming echoes of civilizations we've failed to learn from, societies that crumbled when they forgot to nurture and maintain empathy and understanding. And I can't help but wonder: can we draw lessons from this history before it's too late? Or have we gone too far?

The Bible introduces humanity's first societal rupture in the book of Genesis—Adam and Eve's broken relationship with God, the way they turned on each other, the resulting guilt and shame. For centuries, interpretations of this story continued the cycle: we shovel shame on Adam, the weak man who followed his wife into trouble, and we hurl guilt at Eve, the foolish woman who believed a lie and ruined everything. Right from the beginning, judgmental instinct and separatist views lacked compassion, context, and understanding.

We can't ask for more details; scripture doesn't explore the depth of intent or nuanced motivation driving Adam and Eve. But if the emotional driver behind that little picnic truly was willful disobedience...why didn't God kill them? What if his compassion suggests an acknowledgement that their actions weren’t born of pride...but longing? Genesis 3:5-6 tells us Eve wanted to be like God, wise and just and knowledgeable. What if we're jumping, as we so often do, to wrong conclusions? Could it be that the desire driving Adam and Eve stemmed not from rebellious hunger for power, but from love for the God they saw as a parent and admiration for who He is? What child doesn’t emulate the parents they revere?

This shifted perspective doesn't excuse what happened, anymore than a murder in self-defense lessens a painful loss of life. But it does invite a powerful alteration in how we approach Adam and Eve—as well as how we might approach each other. For example:

  • Poverty: The poor among us are often told they deserve hunger, homelessness, or lack of opportunity because they’ve somehow failed to “choose better.” We dismiss their stories without ever hearing them. When's the last time you looked at a homeless person without fear or disgust? When's the last time you asked for their name and acknowledged them as people?

  • Domestic Abuse: Instead of offering compassion, society interrogates survivors far more often than they punish offenders. “Why didn’t they leave sooner? Why didn’t they choose better?” These questions deepen already painful wounds. I have personally lost people I loved dearly, because if they could turn a blind eye to abuse, their support of the abuser over the survivor screams in the silence.

  • Sexual Assault: Rather than supporting survivors, we analyze their clothing, their behavior, their choices. Too often, we decide that somehow, they must have invited their trauma or deserved to be violated.

  • The Unvaccinated: During the pandemic, as I lay isolated in a hospital room, battling double pneumonia from COVID, I prayed for survival and the ability to return home to my children. This was at the height of the societal battle over the new COVID vaccine, and because of my previous health history, I had chosen not to vaccinate. An x-ray tech—who knew nothing of my beliefs, my medical history, or the various factors influencing my decision—told me I deserved to die because I wasn’t vaccinated. He told me, to my face, as I lay sick and in his care, that I deserved to die.

Whether it’s victims of natural disasters, survivors of abuse, or people in the crosshairs of war, drugs, or systemic inequality, we've normalized a disturbing breach in the foundation of humanity and the patterns are undeniable. We've internalized a belief that those who differ from us deserve bad outcomes simply because they're different. They don’t speak like us so they don't deserve to be heard. They don't think like we do, so they don't deserve to be understood. They don't live like we do so they don't deserve to be alive.

Are we ready to live in a dystopian world, where all of humanity is at our fingertips but we're still so willfully disconnected from each other? I don't think so...but if we're on a downward slide, what can we do about it as individuals? I believe the first step is to choose compassion. To embrace empathy and understanding as strengths rather than weaknesses. In a divided world that seems so eager to segregate and demonize, these basic traits are the foundation of community that draws us together—and we can, with seemingly small acts of humanity that ripple through our personal circles, still rewrite the narrative of our world culture.

Like Adam and Eve, we all carry a similar longing to be seen, understood, and valued, and on this common ground, perhaps we can restore a little of what we've lost; the fall of mankind doesn’t have to be the end of the story. So, wherever you are, whatever your community looks like, let me challenge you to treat every day like a blank page, ready to be filled with empathy, compassion, and the will to...

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Restored: A Harvest of Hope After the Locust Years

 A few weeks ago, I shared my focus word for this year, along with a bit about why I chose it and how it connected to previous focus words. I don't know if it's because we're still in January so I'm still thinking heavily on the topic, or if it's just that I tend to be more introspective during the enforced stillness of winter and snow days, but this week I wanted to dig a little deeper into the imagery of locusts and the symbolism of a damaging swarm.

Every year, I choose a Bible verse to go along with my focus word, something to hold onto, meditate on, learn about, study, and pray over. This year's verse is a perfect metaphor for what I feel about my life and the path I've been on in recent years as a writer, a mother, and a woman still learning to thrive after trauma:


All my life, I’ve been a writer; even as a child, I loved books and stories of all kinds. In many ways, the stories I loved were the hope of adventures I never believed I could experience, people I never thought I would meet, and loyal friends who could be accessed as easily as turning a page. I covered the trauma of those early years with a wallpaper collage—pages and pages of unfinished tales, undeveloped characters, stories with infinite potential because they never ended. But it wasn’t until 2012 that I completed my first novel as a way to cope while my mother went through a cancer scare. My daughters were three and eight at the time, and every time I glanced up from the computer to watch them play, I thought about how to mother them differently, how to offer them more than I had. How to leave something tangible behind if the cancer running through our genetic makeup should find me before they were ready.

That book birthed a new career for me, and a chance to mold a lifelong passion into a legacy I hoped my little girls would be proud of. Proof that the dreams of our hearts don't have to be passing fancies only applicable to other people. Proof that when you go for it, when you muster the courage to give it all you've got, when you're willing to sacrifice and put in the effort...a dream can become so much more than the secret longing of a heart.

What's funny about dreamers like me is that we often find ourselves surrounded by people enraged by a dreamer's audacity. As a young writer, family and friends would happily pat my shoulder and smile indulgently and praise my efforts. They'd read my writing, discuss my poems, brainstorm characters and plot twists. They were happy to talk about fantasies of fat wallets and big houses—until I published my first novel. It felt like a dream; I cried the first time I held one of my own books in my hands, my name on the cover blurring behind a film of tears. By the end of 2013, I had written and published five novels. If my writing was a crop field, I would have needed a team to help me manage the coming harvest.

There are a few people who have been with me since the beginning, people who held me up when I wanted to quit, who believed in me when I didn't, and who reminded me of the bigger goals when I listened too hard or too long to people trying to tear it all down. Those people would have showed up for the harvest...but to keep with the metaphor, locusts are often an unpredictable and devasting plague.

Setting boundaries around my writing as it gained momentum nearly cost me everything in the beginning. I lost relationships with people who wanted access, credit, and control. I saw people I had previously trusted turn on me and begin to actively sabotage what I was trying to grow. I went into therapy, got diagnosed with complex PTSD, and had to step away from writing to focus on my children as the turmoil in our private lives left them both with chronic mental and physical health problems.

In the years that followed, as my daughters and I rebuilt our lives, I often questioned my calling as a writer. I believed in my writing as a gift from God, and believed that my stories were meant to minister to others and provide beyond the needs of my family—but as everything fell apart in my hands, I wondered why God seemed to be holding back. Was I doing something wrong? Was I missing the point?

Looking back, I see how God was teaching me about stewardship—and discernment. I began to focus more deeply on the present blessings even as I hoped and planned for a greater future. I also became more discerning about who I am, who I want to be, and the people I allowed into my life. I learned to recognize more quickly the difference between those who would help me grow something meaningful and those who would destroy it out of jealousy or greed. I learned the hard way that if I wasn't careful, my deepest mission as a writer could be devoured from within, as quickly and completely as a field consumed by locusts.

Sometimes, protecting my calling has meant stepping away from people or places I previously loved, and though it left me feeling isolated, I’ve also learned that these periods of loss were seasons of growth. Lessons gleaned in the darkness of those painful years planted seeds only now beginning to sprout in the everyday moments of my life; the time I spent away from writing to focus on healing and raising my daughters was like a seed lying dormant in soil, hidden but not forgotten.

In the darkness, unseen, those lessons rooted my faith—not just in God’s purpose for my writing, but in myself as someone capable of stewarding this calling well. The landscape of my life, though scarred, turned over, and fertilized by the pain of the past, finally feels fertile again, and every new sprout, every new reader or follower, is a reminder of hope.

There are still setbacks, of course; beginning this year with illness threw off my schedule, and STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM isn’t as far along as I’d hoped. I wanted to be finished with the writing and on to the editing by now...and yet three scenes remain incomplete.

Hopefully next week's post will be an announcement that STILL FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM is on to the next phase, because I've never been a quitter (not for long, anyway), and locusts aside, every word I write still feels like water on the field. The locust years didn’t destroy my calling. They prepared it. The land is ready, the seeds are growing, and I fully intend to...

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Q1 2025: Laying the Foundation for a New Year


Starting the new year with a head-splitting, body-roasting, snot-producing, constant-hacking virus was definitely not in my plans; I can't say I'm surprised, though.

It got both of my daughters first, with the oldest falling ill the day after Christmas and the youngest taking to her bed two days later. It was only fair that I have a turn, so I prepared my stock of medicines and snack/hydration options, sanitized and cleaned and sprayed - and waited. And waited. Thursday rolled around (one full week since my oldest daughter got it) and I still wasn't sick, so I started thinking, "Hey, this one missed me!"

Then it rolled over me like the germ version of what you'd get if the British SAS, the US Navy Seals, the Chinese Snow Leopard Commandos, and the Polish GROM had some sort of freakish combo baby that grew up to be even more of an expert at ambush tactics. I haven't felt that deathly ill since Covid literally almost killed me. (Seriously. Ever wonder what a sternal rub feels like? Awful. It feels awful.)

Today, I'm still hacking and sneezing. I'm terribly sore and remarkably tired, which is impressive considering how much I've slept. But I don't have a fever, I can string two thoughts together (I've leave you to judge how coherently), and I'm so desperate to take a shower that I'm using it as a reward to get this blog post written.

So without further ado, an update to my quarterly goals from Q4 2024...


The holiday season was blessed but busy here at the House of Kennedy, and I fell slightly behind on my writing schedule. I thought after Christmas I'd buckle down and catch up - but then Christmas ended and I spent the next week playing nursemaid instead of novelist. With myself falling ill just as my kids rounded the corner, I've had to reevaluate my schedule a bit, adjust my expectations a little, and generally dig deep to give myself a little extra grace. That being said, here are my goals for first quarter of 2025:


Tomorrow, my youngest heads back to school, and I hope to buckle down and take advantage of new-year motivation. These are manageable, but they're still goals that'll take some planning on my part, and I'm honestly not sure I'll get them all checked by the end of the quarter. Still, life is about progress, not perfection - and moving toward my goals is progress even if I don't get them all accomplished as quickly as I'd like to.

If you're setting goals like me this quarter, remember to set goals that are possible within the timeframe. Don't be afraid to take those quarterly goals and break them down into monthly milestones or weekly targets. Even if the end goal is a little intimidating, have faith in your capabilities; create a plan, map out the steps, and then start taking them one at a time. Each step is closer, and those steps will add up if you keep moving and remember to...

Sunday, December 29, 2024

When Quiet Speaks: Lessons from a Year of Reflection

In 2023, my annual word of the year was Persevere, and let me tell you, the year lived up to the challenge! For my household, 2023 will always be a year marked by health crises, financial struggles, the end of my marriage...and the revival of my writing journey. So when Quiet showed up in my meditations as the word for 2024, I felt immediate gratitude—and hope. I even joked that I didn’t care if Quiet meant a restful year or waking up deaf on January 1st; either way, I’d be thankful. What I couldn’t anticipate was just how much the simple concept of Quiet, and the deeper meaning to be found there, would shape my perspective and growth as the year passed.

All my life, I’ve struggled to control what I say, and even as I've learned to control my tongue, I still lack the power to control my facial expressions. It stems from a deep-seated value for honesty and openness; still, my determination to display those qualities has definitely backfired a time or two, and through the consequences of those times in my life, I've learned the importance of boundaries.

Maybe that's part of why Proverbs 21:23 became something of a cornerstone for me this year: “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.” More than just learning when to speak or stay silent, this verse was a reminder to protect my inner world, to value privacy, and to safeguard my home and my heart.

Another layer of Quiet? The acceptance of personal rejections I’ve faced because of my dream to live as a writer. Family and friends have often dismissed (or even sabotaged) my efforts, but love and service to my family and community are often the root of my deepest drive to succeed. This has been confusing, lonely, and incredibly painful—so Genesis 37:5 became another anchor in 2024:

“Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.”

Joseph’s brothers, and later, his parents, couldn’t (or wouldn't) understand the dreams he tried to share with them, and my year of Quiet reminded me that understanding and validation aren't necessary for me to move forward with what I have always seen as a calling on my life. Rejection from people I respected and valued, though painful, allowed me to lean more fully into my purpose and the God who set that purpose on me, trusting in him to fulfill his plan for me.

Joseph’s story resonates in a lot of ways. Like him, I’ve often been the black sheep of the family; moving away from toxic patterns and behaviors has cost me relationships I've been heartbroken to let go of. Still, even as recently as last week, I’ve seen evidence of that same separation protecting my daughters from the trauma I grew up in. They don’t know what it is to witness hard drug use, violent behavior, sexual abuse, or the kind of deep poverty that marked so much of my own upbringing.

The rejection and resentment I've faced has often been the result of my desire to provide a better life for my children, one where potential can be celebrated rather than stifled by dysfunction. Keeping my mind and heart focused on Quiet helped me accept that someone else's inability to understand my purpose isn't about me—and I don't need permission to move forward with what I feel called to in life.

In Joseph’s story, we’re not told whether he was bragging or simply sharing when he told his brothers (and parents) about his dreams, but his brothers' collective offense led to years of hardship for Joseph: slavery, false accusations, imprisonment. Through it all, Joseph’s journey was marked by his determination to behave with the kind of integrity and faithfulness that eventually empowered him to save the very family that sold him out. In seasons of quiet waiting and preparation, the restoration in this story fills me with hope and encouragement.

Maybe that's why I'm so excited to share that my focus word for 2025 is Restored. Joel 2:25-26 says, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.” Over the years, I’ve definitely faced my share of swarming locusts in terms of people and circumstances that devoured my time, energy, and joy—but the Quiet lessons of 2024 taught me to protect my inner life, to listen for (and follow) God’s direction, and to trust that He is working.

I’m stepping into this new year filled with optimism. Restoration isn’t just about reclaiming what's lost, it’s about stepping into the promise of hope, trusting that a foundation of Quiet strength and steady Perseverance will lead to visible growth and the kind of success I can make a difference with. Like Joseph, I’m trusting that even the hardest seasons prepare us for blessings ahead.

As we close this year and turn toward the next, I invite you to reflect on your own lessons from 2024 and dreams for 2025. Have you had similar seasons of Quiet? If you're in one right now, what might Restoration look like in your life? If you've chosen a word, verse, or goal of some kind for the coming year, I'd love for you to share in the comments—and until next week, I pray you...