Where Do I Go From Here?

tl;dr—this is a story about creative dead ends and how I almost threw this book idea in the trash (literally).

Book launch weekend has come and gone and I’ve been blown away by the support and kind words coming from so many people around the globe.

I’d love more than anything to be holding my own book in my hand right now to snap a celebratory picture—but alas, Amazon does not deliver to Indonesia. (Side note: please send me all the pictures of the book if you get a copy so I can oooh and aaah over it from afar).

The full story of how this book came to be is told from all three authors’ perspectives in the afterword—so I won’t give it all away here. But I’d like to tell a little bit more about the part of my story when I assumed this book idea had reached a dead end.

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In March 2021, a few weeks after quietly saying yes to God about writing a book of liturgies for people who live outside their passport country, I was on a beach vacation with my family. While reclining in a hammock chair on the porch, I received a friend request on Instagram from an account called @liturgiesforalifeabroad. I stopped swinging and sat upright.

Wait, what?
How?
Who?

I couldn’t believe it. Someone else had had the same idea as me, but instead of a book, it was an Instagram account. And it wasn’t just some random person on the internet—it was a fellow writer friend of mine.

To be fully transparent with you all, my heart sank a little bit in that moment. How could I move forward with writing a book that had the exact same purpose and vision as my friend’s new Instagram account? I felt happy for her, knowing she would do a great job writing these prayers. But I also felt sadness weighing on my heart. I had finally said yes to a project, only to have to let it go a few weeks later.

I spent the next several days wondering why God had nudged me so much about this book idea in the first place. How could an all-knowing God (who certainly knew what was brewing in the mind of another fellow writer) put this book idea on my heart, only to take it away?

Was it because I was slow to obey?
Did I drag my feet about it for too long?
Should I have been more enthusiastic with my “yes” and announced the book idea, instead of keeping it to myself?

Ultimately, I didn’t throw away the notecards filled with all my ideas. Deep down, I still wanted the book to happen. However, I felt a lot like the Israelites standing on the shore of the Red Sea—God had brought me this far, but I didn’t see a way to keep going. When I returned home, I slid the cards into my desk drawer and closed it shut. If God wanted to make this book happen, He’d have to reveal the path forward, because I couldn’t see it.

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“Should we take my parents to that same beach we went to for our vacation?”

It was February 2023, and my husband was trying to plan what to do when his parents came for a visit the following month.

“Sure, that sounds good to me,” I responded. “Maybe the manuscript will be finished and I can have them bring me a copy of my book,” I added with wishful thinking.

Narrator: The manuscript would not, in fact, be finished by then and she would not receive a copy of her own book she so wishfully hoped for.

By this point, the book had been brought back to life in a way only God can breathe life back into something. However, the official launch day was still up in the air. “Coming soon” was all we could tell people. We all did what we could with the time and resources we had, and continued to trust God’s perfect timing with the whole process of the book.

But when the final pieces of the book started to come together, they came together quickly. Before I knew it, we had settled on a date: March 11th. With a mere week left before launch day, I could hardly think about anything else on my calendar near or around that date—including my in-laws arriving on March 9th, and our planned beach trip the following week. But in all the hustle and bustle, when I finally had a moment to think about our trip to the beach, I had a realization that sent goosebumps up my arms. I hurried to find my phone and opened my calendar app.

The day after the book (which began as notecards) released into the world, God would take me back to the exact same place where I almost tossed the notecards in the trash—almost exactly two years later. His timing was, indeed, perfect.

I found the original notecards and slid them into a bag for the beach trip.

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I wasn’t standing on the shore of the Red Sea, but I did get to stand on the shore of the Indian Ocean as I witnessed Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner: Volume One launch to readers around the globe. I didn’t need a physical copy in my hands to be awestruck by the full-circle moment.

While people celebrated with us and posted pictures of the final version of the book from various countries, I stood on the shore where I thought this book had reached a dead end.

Instead of holding up my book, I held up what the book looked like in the very beginning. Instead of holding up the notecards in front of the desk where I jotted down prayer ideas (because termites destroyed that desk—and yes, there is a prayer about termites and other pests in the book), I held up the cards in front of the spot where this book almost didn’t happen.

And instead of only celebrating the book launching into the world, I also celebrated God making a way for this book when I saw no way.

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P.S. Tamika, one of the co-authors of Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner, just joined Substack! Go check out

Elephant Blossoms

and subscribe!

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On Instagram, I’ve been slowly (slooooowly) sharing “30 Stories from a Sojourner” for a 30-day series I started two years ago (why am I like this?) Since some of you just started reading my writing once I moved to Substack, I figured I’d introduce myself by sharing one of my posts from this series. Read “The Life We Know” to find out a little more about our family.

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Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner: Volume One is now available on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle version. If you purchase a copy, I’d love for you to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for your support!