How The Conference Went and March Reads

I got back late last night from the writer’s conference in California. The first time I went was last year, and it was such an encouragement. This year was no different. Last year, the conference confirmed my call to write. This year it confirmed something else.

You have a place. You are not a fraud. This is worth it.

This applies to us all.

If you have a dream from God simmering in your heart, pursue it. I always thought the epitome of my writing journey would be to get a contract. But I have learned there are two things much, much better.

The relationships you form as you walk the path God has for you, and the way God heals your heart.

Writing has been hard. So hard many times, I strongly considered quitting. But from the hard, deep healing has blossomed.

Is God stirring something in your heart? I challenge you to chase it. Even if it’s in small ways. Even if it is hard. Do it, it matters, and it’s worth it.

Now onto my March reads!

After the Shadows by Amanda Cabot

Topic or themes I saw: Overcoming your past, the value people hold, starting again, being looked down on, standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.

Read it if you love:
✔️Stories that increase compassion and empathy.
✔️Stories that have characters with disabilities
✔️Small town settings
✔️Christian Fiction
✔️ Historical Romance

Story: Craig Ferguson is looking for a fresh start for himself and his son and Emily is back in Sweetwater after her abusive husband died in a bar fight. This is a romance, but it has many other elements. It has tough things in it like a past of abuse and the death of a spouse, but it’s not heavy. It’s all handled in a very honoring way. There is also a girl with down syndrome (they didn’t say it specifically since they probably didn’t know what it was back then, but the descriptions pointed to that) who Craig and Emily really love on and it’s so heart-warming. There is also an element of trying to dig up the suspicious death of Emily’s father. Everything is tied together in a beautiful way and the characters are so lovable!

Main takeaway: The future can be bright even if your past was not.

Thank you Revell for a gifted copy. All opinions are mine.

Beside Still Waters by Tricia Goyer

Topic or themes I saw: The Amish lifestyle and beliefs. Fear. The feeling of not being enough.

Read it if you love:
✔️Christian fiction
✔️Amish fiction
✔️Stories that point to a deeper relationship with God
✔️Strong themes

Story: The audio book came to an end and all I wanted to do was shed a few heart-warming tears. The way this story unfolds really wrapped itself around my heart. Mariana doesn’t feel good enough, and she thinks she thinks if she does everything right, she’s safe. But there’s alot of pressure with that. It ends in the most beautiful way.

I grew up with an Amish babysitter, so I was entrenched in the Amish community. Because of that, I don’t read Amish fiction. But because I absolutely love the themes in Tricia’s books, I have read hers. They are the only Amish stories I’ll read!

Marianna’s story is inspired by a real Amish couple Tricia knows. She wrote a book about them called Plain Faith. It was so neat to read both that one and then start this series. Beside Still Waters is the start of a series that follows Mariana’s journey. She thinks all she wants to do is get married and join the church. But when her family moves to an Amish community in Montana she begins questioning many things. This novel is very transporting and really sets you into the Amish community. The audio book is excellent, the narrator did well with the Amish accent.

Main takeaway: You are loved.

The Weight of Air by Kimberly Duffy

Topic or themes I saw: Low self worth, finding identity in your work, failure, seeing the world through past painful experiences, and depression.

Read it if you love:

✔️Christian fiction, light on the faith threads
✔️Circus settings
✔️Historical fiction
✔️Dazzling settings
✔️Women’s fiction
✔️Marriages of convenience

Story: The Weight of Air is a lovely story told in three POV’s: Mable, the worlds strongest woman who feels weak inside. Her mother who struggled with depression and thought it would be better for her to leave rather than raise Mable with her ‘shadows’ and Jake who struggles with bitterness over what happened to his first wife. It’s a story of wading through the shadows of depression, rejection, and abandonment. It’s about finding worth and acceptance separate from what you do and offer. It’s not a light and airy book, but it’s a topic I am glad is being explored in fiction.

Exposing the Rejection Mindset by Mark DeJesus

Read it if you:

✔️Struggle with people pleasing or performance based living
✔️Have unhealed rejection wounds
✔️Want to see life through eyes of opportunity and abundance, not scarcity or fear of rejection
✔️Want to be at peace with who God made you
✔️Want to understand better why people operate in hurtful ways sometimes. There’s unhealed hurt in us all.

Mark’s teachings, whether in book format or podcast, have been an incredible tool for me in many ways. The way he writes, teaches, and shares vulnerably always resonates with me, gently opening my eyes to areas in my heart that need healing. One thing that he talks about in this book that really stuck out to me is being rejected vs taking on the rejection mindset. We will be rejected in life, but we don’t have to live under its mindset.

Main takeaway: We were meant to live in freedom, in God’s love as His children. We were made to be who God created us to be. Reading this book helped me step closer to that. It is filled with truth and love in a safe way that says: you can do this, you can overcome.

The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond by Jaime Jo Wright

Topic or themes I saw: Grace, religious shame, sin, repentance, forgiveness, confession, misguided religious vigor.

Read it if you love:
✔️Christian fiction
✔️Suspenseful plots
✔️Deep characters
✔️Gothic type reads
✔️Duel time
✔️Heavier reads with strong spiritual threads
✔️Crime stories
✔️Women’s fiction

Story: I love the way Wright weaves together a story of hard topics in an entertaining and hope-filled way. This story centers around an upstanding town with secrets. Present day Annalise battles her own secrets and shame. Then a local man passes, leaving her his trailer…filled with pictures and newspaper clippings that dig up a colorful past for the charming little town. As always, Wright’s stories are filled with larger-than-life characters, spectacular settings, and strong themes. She’s a master storyteller.

The Stories We Tell by Joanna Gaines

Topic or themes I saw: Worthiness, insecurity, past pain to present healing, progress over perfection, beauty in the moment, getting back to the things we value over trying to please everyone.

Story: Wow, this story felt so close to home I wondered if I had written the book. Joanna Gaines opens her heart wide, welcoming us into her struggles, fears, and the internal strongholds she has worked through. It’s the best when I come across stories I resonate with so deeply. The ones I can say, me too on. The ones that loosen the tight bands around my lungs so I can breathe free knowing I am not alone, that the strongholds can be overcome. Thank you Joanna, for your vulnerability, it gives me courage to step fully into mine. And even more, thank you—your story has given me courage to believe mine matters too.

This is a very up-close and personal book paving a path that shows each piece of our story matters and why. It’s a book that is less in how to, and more in—this is what I’ve learned from my experience…maybe you can relate? And I could.

Main takeaway: As I read, the thing that kept coming to my mind was something Jesus said. The truth will set you free. Lies come at us but when we write the truth over our hearts we will find freedom.

I jotted down so many quotes, here are a few:

“Safety feels less like control, more like love—less like performing, more like belonging.”

“There is strength you don’t know is yours until you resist the flow. And there is strength that’s sown in secret when you’re willing to rebuild one piece at a time.”

“When you live for endings, the middle is a nuisance.”

“There is more that binds is than breaks us.”

“Fame requires that you’re seen, with no
Guarantee that you’ll ever be known.”

The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce H. Wilkinson

This quick and easy read is packed with power. It draws from the prayer Jabez prayed in 1 Chronicles 4:9 and can be boiled down to: Bless me, Enlarge my territory, Keep your hand with me, and Keep me from evil. I’ve heard many times about praying bigger and expecting God to work in big ways in your life. I’ve also heard satan attacks when we are doing Gods work. I’ve seen families break apart while pursuing these big things. And I’ve been fearful of that, not wanting to sacrifice my family in the name of ministry. This book really addressed those fears and gave me alot more confidence to step into the place I am meant to take for God’s glory.

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