Eek! What a beautiful response I received to my last blog entry announcing my upcoming book “The Ugly Cry: Hope For When Your Faith is Barren.” To all who left comments here and on social media and messaged me privately, my heart is bursting with your loving support. 💗
Just over 7 years ago, it was a stormy night when Stephen and I were briefly living in Nashville and I told him “I’m heading out to the bookstore.”
“But why right now? It’s dark and storming out there,” he questioned.
“Because that’s the exact condition my heart is in, and I need help,” I told him.
On that dark thundering Nashville night, I went to a bookstore desperately looking for the kind of book my heart needed in that moment when my faith was shattering into a million pieces questioning everything I ever believed in. I had reached a breaking point of disappointment in waiting on God for the one very thing I was believing all these years for, that everyone around me was being blessed with, that I simply felt overlooked and forgotten about. So in the midst of that stormy Nashville night, I set out to find a book that could help give me some kind of hope while I felt stuck in my unwanted circumstance. As my fingers scrolled over the spines of nothing jumping out at me, I joked to myself “I guess I’m just going to have that write that book I can’t find.”
As I waited for the rain to let up outside, I made my way over to the coffee shop of the bookstore and sat there starting to type on my iPhone’s Notes app all the things my aching heart felt at the moment, all the answers I wanted from God in the midst of His silent season with me. In the months that followed, my words moved to my laptop, as I started digging into God’s word for some kind of glimmer of light in the mist of what felt like the darkest season of my faith. As I journeyed through each month of disappointment, I kept writing and writing documenting the glimpses Jesus was showing me of how His heart actually loved me most in the midst of my mess of ugly cries. And before I knew it, it became a full 19 chapter book I had given birth to, that I appropriately titled “The Ugly Cry,” because most of this book was written with tears streaming down my face as God slowly put back together the pieces of my broken faith through His redeeming love.
Then, all of a sudden, it was His perfect timing and God moved quickly fulfilling the desires of my heart, not once but twice, and my world got turned upside down overwhelmed by my double blessings. And my book sat there for now almost 5 years untouched. Until now.
The past few months, I have been putting all the finishing touches on everything, and I’m excited to announce that my book now has an {official launch date of April 1!} So mark your calendars!
However, for those on my blog’s mailing list, you will get the opportunity to PRE-ORDER my book BEFORE anyone else, so if you haven’t signed up yet, add your name to the list here so I can slide into your inbox with all the pre-order details! (You also get a free excerpt from one of my chapters just for signing up! Yay!)
🎉 And the next exciting news today is…. drum roll please… I’m excited to share with you a sneak peek of my book cover! It’s officially official, y’all! 🎉
I can’t wait to share even more with you soon! So jump on the list! 🥰
