Enough?

I lie here on my bed, the tears splashing down across my face and onto the rough, woolly knitted blanket that serves as an impromptu pillow. My heart doesn’t know whether it’s broken or dead. Sometimes, it really feels dead – numbed by all the suffering it has no answer for.

Other times the agony is so strong that I know my heart is far from dead or it wouldn’t hurt SO. MUCH. I almost wish my heart were dead so it would just stop hurting. Except I know what deadness of heart feels like, and it’s not much better.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t WANT any answers, but I wonder if that’s just because I don’t think I can have any that will satisfy.

Who has answers for all the things that are achingly, horribly, unfixably broken and awful and shattered about the world?

And the pain. You don’t know how many times I’ve thought this was the worst it could get. Surely it couldn’t hurt any more than it already did? Except it could. It did. It keeps on hurting more and more and more until I wonder how I can even stand it. But somehow, instead of exploding or fainting away or any of the other dramatic ways of getting out of a reality that bears closer resemblance to a nightmare with each passing week, I just keep living on. Struggling on. Hurting on. Crushed more and more irrevocably by the unthinkable miseries all around me – within me.

And today, it’s really just one little thing more that has me lying on my bed, almost gasping with sobs, crying out to God in the only words that will come,

“Father, when is the pain enough?”

If anyone has an answer – a REAL answer, not an answer they think they should believe, because that’s what Christian’s are “supposed” to think – please let me know, because I need an answer right now. (I know I just said I didn’t want answers. I don’t. But I need them anyway.)

I know this blog is supposed to be about finding light in the tunnel – hope in the darkness – and so now I should find some kind of happy ending to make everything better.

But I haven’t got a happy ending. I don’t have anything but the pain that keeps on getting sharper and sharper until I don’t know if I can stand it.

I don’t have anything but that anguished whisper, “Father! When is the pain ENOUGH?!”

Surely He hears and answers, though I keep sitting in my messy bedroom with the tears spilling down my face and the tissues overflowing my garbage can, and the unquenchable aching tearing apart the last fragments of my shattered heart.

“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

Psalm 147:3

He PROMISED!!!!

Sharing Not

Do you ever have it where you’ve sung a hymn dozens or maybe hundreds of times and then all of a sudden something clicks that you never really understood before?

That happened during my devotions this morning. You see, I’m singing my way through the hymnal to find out how many hymns I know, and how many I have left to learn! One of the hymns I sang this morning was “Father Eternal, Ruler of Creation” – it’s one that I’ve known for a couple of years, and today I was quite struck by the picture of division and strife that speaks into so much about our world today.

But I also made a discovery.

The first two lines of the second verse run like this:

Races and peoples, lo! we stand divided,
And sharing not our griefs, no joy can share;

Laurence Housman
(1865–1959)

I had always taken it to mean, “we’re divided and not sharing grief or joy”. This time, I read it a little differently. BECAUSE we don’t share our griefs, we cannot share our joy.

Somehow, that was really powerful to me.

Today, I also had the privilege to attend the funeral of my dear friend’s baby – a little boy who never saw the light of this world and passed straight from his mother’s womb into the arms of Jesus. It was heartbreaking to be there, but it was beautiful too.

Beautiful to think of a stainless soul that never battled with temptation and sin.

Beautiful to think of one more little one “safe home” forever.

Beautiful to think that his brief life made it possible for an unthinkably wonderful eternity.

Beautiful that we could all love and mourn a tiny soul that most of us had never even met.

Beautiful that the body of Christ becomes so real, so precious, so close in moments like these.

There is something incredibly powerful about sharing grief. Something about walking the dark valley with those we love and realizing that it brings us nearer to each other and to the One who walks with us.

Sometimes it takes courage to open our hearts to sharing the grief of someone else. Sometimes it takes just as much courage to share our own grief with those who are longing to walk with us. But it’s that willingness to share the grief that enables us to share the joy – the joy “no man taketh from you”.

When we lose the ability to share our griefs, we lose our ability to share our joys. It’s that simple. Those who walk with you through hardship, will be at your side (in spirit, if not in presence!) in your moments of transcending joy. And somehow, I think there’s an incredible fitness in that. Jesus is the only one who has ever fully taken on our griefs and “borne our sorrows” and so it is Him who most fully participates in our joy.

And as we, the body of Christ, reach out to our dear ones in their times of heartache, we too will experience the oneness, the joy, that comes from knowing that He has won it all, and we – with Him – are all in this together.

May we never be the ones who “sharing not our griefs, no joy can share”!

Reaching the Summit

Yesterday, I drove through a part of the country I’ve never seen before. (Incidentally, I’m now the farthest north ever I’ve been in my life – which is not that impressive when you consider how much “norther” it goes!)

And as we drove, we passed through a place that was really, really hilly. Like, borderline mountainous except I live in the same country as the Rockies and I KNOW what mountains are.

Nevertheless, these were big hills – so big that your ears would pop going up and coming down. And in one place the road was so straight, without a single bend or curve, that you could see it climbing up, up, up to what looked like a gigantic pinnacle ahead.

It was breathtaking, and I felt a real sense of excitement as I thought about reaching the crest of that tall, tall hill.

But the funny thing was – when we got there, I couldn’t quite tell where the pinnacle stood. There were little valleys and more rises ahead and every time we went up a little higher I thought we must be reaching the top only to discover another ridge farther on.

And when I finally decided we must have reached it, and I looked back to see the view, it had vanished – lost in the distance – and I never really was able to see how high we got.

It happened more than once during our trip through the “hill country” and as we drove on, a little parable unfolded itself in my mind:

Life is like climbing that hill. We see from the valley below how high and majestic a peak lies in front of us – a dream for the future, a distant goal, a place we want to be or a person we want to become – and we think how amazing it will be to reach that summit and look back at how far we’ve come.

But after we get a little further on, we aren’t so sure where the pinnacle lies anymore and we keep pressing on – one more peak, one more achievement, one more victory over self, one more sacrifice before we’ve really “made it”. And then eventually, when we feel sure we MUST have reached it, we give a little backward glance and discover, to our great disappointment, that the moment has been lost and we can’t even remember where we used to be – we can never see how far we’ve really come.

Maybe we’ll never truly get to see those lost views until we cross the final ridge and arrive at Home, but I wonder… do we spend so much time reaching for more, focusing on what is left to be done, striving for the good things – certainly – but focusing so much on pressing just a little further that we forget to celebrate how far we’ve actually come?

Maybe… it’s time we celebrate the mountain as we climb it – rejoicing in its height before we’ve conquered it. Because if we don’t… we might just go through the whole of life never truly realizing all we’ve accomplished.

And that’s just not the person I want to be.

At Home

I got there when I got there – somehow, I can never arrive too early or too late at my friend’s house. A tousled blonde head peeping around the open door welcomed me in, while a lisping voice wanted me to explain why the kitties can’t come in the house. Little Miss thinks I know everything. It’s kind of flattering, really.

I step inside, slip off my sandals and scoop up the baby, who stares at me intently with his riveting big blue eyes, as I call hello to my still invisible friend.

“Oh, I’m glad you just came right in!” she says cheerfully, coming from the kitchen, and I know she really is. I’m glad too that I now feel comfortable “just coming right in” – it feels so homey and natural.

There are a lot of things I like about my friend and the visits I pay to her cozy, down-to-earth home, but maybe the biggest is that things don’t matter.

I mean – dirty dishes, crumbs, kid messes, change of plans, food, driving me home – nothing is really a big deal. We just spend time together, and we don’t care what goes wrong or what gets done or doesn’t get done, and I like it that way. I really do.

It’s naptime now, and both the little ones at home are sweetly slumbering and my friend and I prepare to sit down with hot drinks and just chat. She tells me to get a mug out of the cupboard (that’s another thing I like – she lets me just open the cupboards and get what I need! It makes me feel like family, almost). The mug I pull out is a smooth brownish one with the words, “When the heart is at peace we are always home” printed on the side, and a little chip on the handle.

Somehow, that mug epitomizes all that I appreciate about my friend and our times together. Warm, cozy and down-to-earth, with the peace and heart-homeness of just accepting and belonging, made real by the little chips and rough edges that show we’re all just broken human beings in need of love.

I want to be the kind of person who’s house is a home – the person who accepts and welcomes and is okay with admitting who they really are in the messy moments, the not-quite-perfect moments the moments when life is crazy and we just have to embrace it.

I want to be the kind of person like my friend is, the kind of person who makes other hearts feel at peace – and at home.

Come, Bring Your Burdens

It was damp and rainy and the warm glow from the campfire was not enough to chase away the evening chill. It would have been drier under the tree where I spent most of the evening, and it probably would have been warmer anywhere else that I could have been that Saturday evening.

But there’s nowhere in the world I would have rather been than right there, sitting round the campfire in the rain, lifting up our voices in song – not the polished, perfect “Sunday” voices of an ordinary congregational singing, but the rough-around-the-edges, thin, squeaky and indefinably “homey” voices of church family in one of its most “family” moments.

I love singing round the campfire with my church family any chance I get, and there was something fun about the inclement weather and the cozy circle of camp chairs and cold people in the gathering dusk, as we sang a few simple songs that at least SOMEONE knew by memory . . . most of the time!

But it was when the wife of one of our ministers asked for “Come, Bring Your Burdens” that my heart gave a little lurch and a thrill of warm recollection.

That song . . . how can I describe all that it means to me? It was the keyword in a very difficult time for our congregation, a rallying point that bore us through some tough days and then some very difficult partings. Sometimes, in some moods, it still brings tears to my eyes.

But last night, it did something more too, because it touched on a chord that has been out of tune for me lately – called forth from the rocks of my wilderness a hidden spring of refreshment that has run dry too often in recent days.

It reminded me of what really matters in life, of emotions and thoughts and desires that have been long dormant for want of stimulus and . . . maybe . . . because I’ve gotten afraid of the pain that is linked to the very beauty of that song for me.

The simple appeal to bring our burdens to our Maker . . . the promise that He will not “say us nay” . . . both brought a prick of pain in the midst of their flood of warmth and pleasure.

It seems like He’s been saying “no” a lot lately . . . maybe I’ve stopped trusting Him because of it. Maybe I’ve been refusing to bring my burdens because I feel like He’s just not going to listen and give me what I’m asking for.

But I don’t really think that’s what the song is saying, anyway. I don’t think it’s promising us a God who will just blindly give us all we ask for – a “vending machine” God, as I remember a Sunday School Superintendent talking about a few years ago. No. What I hear from that song is not a promise of universal yeses from God, but a promise that He’s never going to turn away from the burden. He’s never going to make us bear it alone – He is always, always, going to lift it gently from our shoulders and carry it for us. If we’ll let Him.

Sometimes, it’s hard to bring our burdens to a God who doesn’t always say yes. Sometimes, I’d rather do anything else. But it doesn’t pay. It REALLY doesn’t pay in the end. Only I never seem to remember that until I’ve wandered so long in the wilderness that I’m pining for water to cool my parching tongue. THEN I remember. THEN I return.

I’d like to imagine that it won’t happen this way next time. That I’ll always remember to bring my burdens BEFORE my desert gets so dry.

In my heart, I know it won’t be that way, though. I’m human. I fall and fail. I make mistakes. I forget.

And that’s why I need a reminder like last night. An invitation. A call. A pillar of memorial rising up with the smoke of a rainy-day campfire and telling me, “Listen! This is YOUR God – this is what He’s promised! Don’t forget it. Come!”

And even though in my humanness I still long for a God who says yes all the time, it’s so good to remember . . . there is ONE thing He will never meet with a no.

Where Hope Begins

Okay, it’s been a long time since I posted. I’m willing to admit it. You see, there are two things that keep me from blogging or journaling, and I’ve been dealing with both of them: 1) being REALLY busy, and 2) not exactly knowing how to express and process the emotions I’m feeling.

I assure you, however, that the busyness was in a good cause. You see, I had this lovely idea that I was going to publish three books in four months so I could create interest in my debut series and release my Christmas novella in time for Black Friday…

I really didn’t think it was going to be that hard. Until I was far enough into the process that there was no turning back. THEN I understood my friends’ wide-eyed astonishment and the various obviously impressed replies I got to my casual explanations of my plans.

But of course, by then it was too late to do anything about it, and so I’ve just been really busy. And now, I’m happy to announce the fruit of those labours! My debut novella, A Desperate Experiment, is available for purchase!!!! If you want more details and/or links to Amazon, check out my release post on SAW Publishing.

And then, sixteen days before the launch, my computer wouldn’t start. If it hadn’t been a Saturday and I hadn’t had most of my important docs backed up on a stick and I didn’t have a phone with which to connect to the world, I think I would have had a meltdown. A really unprofessional, immature, two-year-old kind of meltdown. If I had known the hassle and time-lapse that would occur before I got myself a shiny new rose-gold laptop with some fun perks that just happened to go along with my actual needs in a computer, I probably would have been even more unhappy.

But there was ONE good thing that came from the laptop incident. I happened to find a new song. I guess, actually, it had been sitting in the middle of the 40-some internet tabs I’d lazily allowed to accumulate on my phone. But I suppose I must’ve seen it somewhere, and opened it to listen to later, which I never did until I found myself laptop-less and started combing down my large collection of internet tabs . . .

Clearly, God had a purpose in letting it lie buried in my phone until exactly the moment I needed it. That song spoke directly into some things I was and am dealing with, and brought a measure of comfort and soothing to my tempest-tossed heart.

It spoke of a place of quietness and rest – a place to grow and live and hope and dream – a place near God’s heart, where we can feel and know Him, can seek and find and dream.

And then came the invitation:

“Come to the home near God’s own heart,
“Where hope begins and healing starts”

Where hope begins. Sometimes, it feels like hope is far away. Like there is no healing. Like expecting things to get better is no more than a foolish dream. But that’s because I’m looking at the world. At myself. At the brokenness all around me.

There IS a place where “hope begins and healing starts”. Jesus stands ready to bring about my wildest dreams of redemption and victory. But I’m going to have to lift my eyes from the ground and dare to “come to the home near God’s own heart”.

Maybe . . . if I do . . . I’ll find that I’m less busy and less stressed and have more time to post on my blog! Only time will tell.

Writing My Own Story

Do you ever write pieces of your own story?

I do.

Maybe it’s just the author in me that loves to play out scenarios and invent dialogues between myself and real or imaginary characters who people my future.

Occasionally, I write them down, but more often I just invent them, sometimes over and over, adding or changing details as inspiration or altering circumstance dictates. Some “scenes” in my life I’ve rewritten so many times that you’d think I’d get tired of it. But I don’t. I just love writing that much.

Sometimes—I’m a bit ashamed even to admit it!—I feel a twinge of regret that God probably won’t write it the same way I did. And I’m sorry He won’t, because I’m just so pleased by the coincidence or clever line that I thought up in my wandering fantasies about the future. I KNOW in an intellectual sense that “God will write the story much better than I ever could” but sometimes I don’t quite believe it.

But as an author, there’s something else that I’m keenly aware of. Sometimes characters want to write their own story. (If you don’t believe me, I can call in backup—in fact, I don’t think I know a single author of fiction who would deny the statement!) Sometimes the character convinces me to give their way a try, and sometimes when I do it works out alright after all.

But sometimes I know better than to let the character have a “happily ever after” before the mid-point disaster, or even after the “epiphany” of Book One. I still have more for them, I see the ending, and I KNOW that I’m going to work things out way better than they could ever imagine.

I have a feeling God feels about me the way I feel about my characters. He’s proud of my growth, He cherishes my dreams, He knows He has a wonderful plan for my future . . . and He also knows that He’s going to write the ending way better than I could.

I’ve seen some of that in the last few weeks. This year has been tough—tougher than any I’ve ever known. Some days I didn’t really believe that the darkness would end. The quote “It is darkest just before the dawn” pinned up on my bulletin board, almost seemed to mock me. It had been dark for a LONG time.

But lately, I’ve started to see the dawning—I’ve watched the clouds begin to part and the Light long sought for shine in. It’s not over—there are probably still dark days ahead. But I’ve SEEN the Light in two or three situations where I wondered if I ever would. The dark clouds that lay between me and some of my dearest dreams, they’ve been slipping away. I see a path forward.

There are still some places where the darkness tempts me to wonder, “Are You still here, God? Are You still working? Why all this pain? Why all these things that I can’t fix?” But I KNOW, even if I don’t feel it, that He’s going to work those things out the way He did all the rest.

I have a quote up in my bedroom that has been a lifeline for a number of months.

“Wait, and the cloud shall roll away” it says.

I’ve clung to it in many situations, and one in particular where I couldn’t see any good way out, and something beyond my field of influence was standing between me and a dream of mine. I’d asked God, “Is it time for this dream to come true?” and He said to me, “Wait, and the cloud shall roll away.”

Some days, I’m not sure that I believed Him. But “He is faithful that promised” and He DID roll the cloud away. Maybe it’s time to move forward into that dream. I’ll have to ask Him. But it gives me HOPE to know that He didn’t fail—even though I sometimes doubted.

There are a couple of things I’m struggling to let go of. A couple of things that hurt and I want to run away from the hurt, even though I know that’s not going to help me or anyone else. A couple more that are dreams I have that almost make me want to say no to what God might have for me. “I wanted to do THIS, God, can’t we just wait that other thing until I’m finished?”

Of course, He has all of this planned out, too. I can be the character who insists on their own will and writes out their story how THEY want it. If I do—God might give me my way. He might still “work it for good”. But He won’t be able to give me what He had for me originally.

I’m not going to stop writing out my story. When we stop dreaming and imagining and fantasizing, something inside of us dies. I’ve been there, in that dead place, and I don’t want to go back.

But as I write out my story the best that I can imagine it, and rework details with pleasure and excitement, I’m going to hold it up to God. I’m going to put it in His hands and say, “There! That’s the best I can think up. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? But I know YOU’RE going to write it way better, and I just can’t wait to see what that looks like!”

There IS Light in the Tunnel—and praise God, I’m getting glimpses of it at last!

Book Anniversary for Jayne’s Endeavour

One thing I love about starting a blog, is that I can post whenever and whatever I like! And today, I just want to drop a quick line telling you about another friend’s book anniversary and some fun things she’s doing over on her blog!

I met Lauren not quite a year ago at King’s Daughters Writing Camp, which is another (LONG) and really good story . . . Lauren had just published her debut novel at the time, an Australian historical fiction adventure which I had the chance to review last August. (You can find my review here.) It was full of delightfully interesting “Australian” details, and an exciting sequence of adventures, through which the main character learned beautiful lessons about God’s provision and love for orphans.

Well, this week is the book anniversary for Jayne’s Endeavour, and Lauren has some fun things going on over on her blog, as well as a sale if you happen to live in the US or Australia! (Sorry fellow-Canadians, I feel your pain!)

Anyway, if you enjoy giveaways or quizzes (yeah – you can try to answer the quiz even if you haven’t read the book, because with multiple choice, you’ve still got a chance of getting SOME of the answers right!) make sure to check out Lauren’s anniversary post, and if you live in the US, you might want to grab the book on sale, too!

Light is Dawning

Five years ago, I think I would have said the light was dawning.

It had been a hard five years previous—perhaps the hardest I’d ever known. For almost the entirety of it, I had been sicker than I’d ever been before in my life, and for a good three-and-a-half years, I’d been without a church also.

There had been good things—things I still feel had a major impact on my future life—but it was hard to see them at the time.

Now, with a new house, a new city, new access to dozens of churches, and a hope of finally recovering some of my lost health—things looked like they were getting better.

And that’s where I found myself one bright and glorious Sunday May 22^nd morning—five years ago yesterday—driving down a gravel road to a church I didn’t even know if I wanted to visit, wondering if it would be the answer to all my dreams and questions.

I was right—the light was dawning. But I had absolutely no idea what lay ahead.

The five years that followed have been, without question, the hardest of my life. Yes—not even excluding the five years that went before.

I thought I knew what “hard” looked like—but these last five years have taught me otherwise. Like waves on the seashore, problem after problem, struggle after struggle has swept over me, leaving me no time to recover. I couldn’t list all the things that have made it hard—I don’t think I’d want to even if you would have the patience to listen to the narration.

If it’s true that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” than I should be pretty strong by now. Because I’m still alive. Because I’m still growing. Because God never let go of me.

But sometimes, I don’t really feel that these years have made me stronger. Sometimes I feel like they’ve shattered the last pieces of me that survived the years before. Sometimes I feel like there’s never an end, and the light will never be more than a distant spark in the distance—a deceitful star of hope beckoning me on to a world of light that doesn’t really exist.

Oh, I know that sounds terrible. It really does. I don’t believe it—not really—but sometimes I think it all the same.

But there’s another side to the story.

Oh, I’m not pretending the darkness away—I wouldn’t dream of it. There is absolutely no consolation in pretending trouble doesn’t exist.

But I think—after all—I was right when I thought the light was dawning.

That out-of-the-way country church has become a home to me. There have been rough spots—I’m the first to admit it. But in so many ways, it became the doorway to the life God had planned for me all along.

I can’t list all the ways God has blessed me through the people I found there—or the people that have joined me there since. But I can say that every dream I now possess for my future has been directly and majorly impacted by the journey that began five years ago yesterday, and I can never thank God enough for each of the wonderful people He has brought into my life through it.

But the light didn’t dawn in the ways I expected it to. It didn’t banish all my problems, or bring an unclouded sky over my head in one swift sweep of fortune. It didn’t mean the road was any less rocky, or that tears never fell, or that weary feet never stumbled on the long journey home.

No.

But then—it didn’t promise that, did it?

The light that dawned, dawned in my heart, and though earthly hands were enabled by the grace of God to have a part to play in kindling it, it didn’t mean the carefree, trouble-less life I thought it would.

The last five years have been the hardest of my life. But they’ve also been the most rewarding. When I look back at who I was five years ago, and all the ways Light has been victorious in my life since—I can only say, “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!”

Right now, there’s a part of me that would like to think the light is dawning. It’s been a hard five years—the hardest I’ve ever known.

And as I look out into the coming years, I want to imagine vistas of light and beauty and freedom.

Maybe I’ll find them in the years that are coming.

But maybe I’ll find that light dawns in the midst of darkness—that the way is still rocky, that the tears still fall, that weary feet still stumble on the long journey home.

But I believe, with all my heart, that the Light—the “true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” shall dawn in my heart, and make these next hardest five years of my life the most rewarding, most beautiful years I have ever known.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” – 2 Corinthians 4:6,7

Surrender’s Strength Cover Reveal!

I’m very excited to be part of the cover reveal for Erika Mathews’ new book, Surrender’s Strength (Truth from Taerna Book Three)!!

As a beta-reader for this project, I’m currently enjoying the opportunity to read the book early and I’m eager to see where the story is going to take me! Both of the previous books in the series have changed my life and outlook in so many ways, and I’m looking forward to learning new lessons and beautiful truths this time around! This book might just be the best one in the series so far!

And today I’m happy to tell you that Surrender’s Strength is available for preorder in EBOOK and SIGNED PAPERBACK! It’s releasing on July 19^th, 2021!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Her only ambition is keeping her old familiar identity. 

But she isn’t given that choice.

Ever since her mother’s death, all Laelara wants is to keep doing what she’s good at: managing the household. She definitely isn’t interested in higher education. When she’s sent to the city to further her schooling, Laelara finds herself caught up in a case of mistaken identity that seems like the perfect opportunity to avoid the despised Academy. Amid the whirlwind of new friends, new jobs, and the glitzy social life of the Palace District—particularly the trivia contests—her double life becomes more and more precarious. For the first time in her twenty years, everything spirals out of her careful control: her family’s security, her job, her friendships, and her very identity. With her lifelong purpose and identity stripped away, to what will Laelara surrender, and where will she find the strength to persevere?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erika Mathews writes Christian living books, both fiction and non-fiction, that demonstrate the power of the kingdom of God through ordinary people, transforming daily life into His resting life. She’s a homeschool graduate with a Bachelor’s in Communications, a Master’s in Biblical Ministries, and a passion for sharing Jesus Christ and His truth. Outside of writing, she spends time with her husband Josh, mothers her little ones, reads, edits, enjoys the great Minnesota outdoors, plays piano and violin, makes heroic ventures into minimalism, clean eating, and gardening, and uses the Oxford comma. You can connect with Erika at restinglife.com.

ISN’T IT GORGEOUS?

Design credit goes to Megan Mccullough.

If you haven’t discovered the world of Taerna yet, you can start with Promise’s Prayer.

Thank you so much for attending this reveal party. Watch Erika’s Instagram this month for celebrations, or hop over to restinglife.com/signup for all the updates plus a free short story. And don’t forget to preorder the EBOOK and SIGNED PAPERBACK!

 May the blessings of the Lord be upon you today!