Beginning is hard.

Beginning again is even harder.

There’s a rush of enthusiasm and optimism that comes with January 1st.

Maybe you set your goals and planned new habits and started out strong. Maybe you started off strong, with the best of intentions to spend more time in Scripture, be more patient with your kids, or eat out less. But it’s been a few weeks or a few months, and those resolutions you made are not top of mind anymore. Work is busy, you chose 15 minutes of extra sleep over 15 minutes in the Word, or your kids had another game or another ear infection or another school project this week.

Beginning is hard, and I’m so glad you did, whatever the date. I’m glad I did when I started writing publicly around 2008 (ah, the golden days of blogging). But it’s February now… of 2024. And you know what’s even harder than beginning? Beginning again.

After writing consistently for over a decade--journaling, blogging, sending email newsletters, pitching articles--life caught up with me and the words slowed from a rushing river to a barely discernible drip drip drip.

My sons M&M are now 2.5 years old and 14 months old. They are an absolute joy, but also four handfuls worth of work, all day, every day (shout out to my incredible husband for providing the other two hands). And last summer I added a full-time job in digital marketing for a Christian publisher. Needless to say, my pre-baby, pre-job, pre-marriage writing resolutions needed to be reimagined.

Beginning is hard, but at least it is marked by optimism. Beginning again, though, is so often characterized by shame. I should have been able to keep it up in the first place, we think.

But here’s the thing: Jesus knew we would need to begin again. And he never shames us for it. After Peter took his eyes off of Jesus, he reached out his hand and pulled Peter out of the water to begin again. After Peter denied him three times, Jesus gently drew him back to begin again. After Peter refused to eat with Gentile believers God sent Paul to lovingly confront him so he could begin again.

So, if your swelling overflow of resolve and new beginnings has inevitably turned into the drip drip drip of depletion, let this be your reminder that God is not surprised. This is the cycle of things, and though it is hard you can always begin again.

So, this is me beginning again. Welcome to Beautiful Discipleship. If you’re receiving this email it’s because you have followed my writing in some form, for some amount of time in the last 16 years. Here’s what you can expect from this new beginning.

• Essays twice a month on beautiful discipleship, because snark is not a fruit of the Spirit. (I’ll talk more about what I mean by “beautiful discipleship” in my next email.)

• Occasional book reviews and recommendations… maybe a book club down the road.

• Study the Bible with me. I’m thinking about doing a series where I study through a book of the Bible in the way I would for my personal study and sharing my process and what I’m learning. Let me know if you’d be interested!

• A front row seat to my writing life, like being the first to know that I just finished my first nonfiction book proposal! (Not sure what that means? Just hit reply or comment below and I would be happy to fill you in.)

Beauty In My Kitchen
After two years of maintaining a sourdough starter I finally found a sustainable method that makes it so easy for me to bake bread on my own schedule, even when life gets crazy. It’s called a dry sourdough starter. Learn more here.

Beauty In the Word
I’m studying Philippians in a women’s Bible study this spring, and I was struck in a new way by Philippians 1:6: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” This verse is true of us, individual disciples of Jesus, but Paul was writing this letter to a local gathering of disciples, so it is even more true of the Church as a whole. What a promise, in a time when the Church appears so fractured to us, that God will complete the work that Christ has begun in his bride!

In pursuit of Beauty,

P.S. If things look a little different, it’s because I’m sending you this email from a new (to me) platform called Substack. If you’re interested you can download the Substack app, which will allow you to comment on these emails. But if you prefer, you can also always just hit reply to say hello or share your thoughts!