It’s been 7-1/2 years since the release of my first book, Mercy Like Morning and, in many ways, those years have been a total whirlwind. A month after the book came out, we sold everything that we owned and moved back across the ocean to our little mountain town. A few weeks after that, Jonathan was born. Then, when he was five months old, we got the surprise of our lives with baby number three.
Rinnah was born in early 2020, seven weeks before the world shut down, and I spent the next five ynears hidden away, mothering little ones, and quietly building behind the scenes. I changed approximately 18,000 diapers and got each of my babes weaned, walking, potty trained, and reading. During their naps, I worked and wrote, dreamed and created, and slowly built a ministry one hour at a time, clinging to the hope that one day God would use it all at the very moment He was ready.
Part of that quiet building included creating a place to put my words from my morning digging. As I began brainstorming ways to do that in late 2022, I heard that my editor for Mercy Like Morning had recently left her position at Harvest House Publishers. I quickly messaged her, asking her if she was interested in freelance editing the content I had been preparing (yes, for grammar purposes, but mostly for an extra pair of accountability eyes to ensure I wasn’t inadvertently communicating some sideways theological truth I didn’t realize I was presenting).
I passed her along a few of the first pieces. She quickly called me and said (rather convincingly), “This absolutely needs to be out in the world! You cannot gate-keep this. It’s too good.” I was hesitant because I honestly didn’t love my last publishing experience and never wanted to traditionally publish again. But she was insistent. And I became curious.
Shortly after that, my one-time official editor turned freelance self-published editor became my writing agent. We put together a proposal that she began to shop around. To be honest, I was unsure how all of this would go. I’ve heard a whole lot of hard “no” in the last few years. But I determined to keep walking through doors until they slammed in my face.
Spoiler alert: They didn’t. Quite the opposite, actually, because the morning that Kathleen began submitting my book proposal, we received a reply from an interested publisher within 27 minutes! And that kicked off four fast and furious weeks of what I like to call publisher speed-dating: zoom calls, emails, asking the hard questions (like, “What do you believe about the Holy Spirit?”), and a whole lot of begging God for the discernment to land these words in the hands of the publisher who will properly care for them. Because the truth is, I wasn’t just shopping for a publisher. I was searching for a publishing-partner who believed in my brand and my vision to teach women to know God’s Word intimately. I wanted one that would be with me for the long haul. I believe deep down inside of me that I found them.
Ultimately, I didn’t just sign a book contract with Baker Publishing, I signed one for my second AND third books. 😭
Those 120,000+ Dig Your Well Community words are now also my newest manuscripts. I still have some writing left to do – two chapters in Ephesians, plus Colossians, and Philemon, and then, come spring, it’s off to the publisher for the first round of edits.
Book One will be the Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah collection. And Book Two digs through Paul’s collection of prison letters.
Both books will be part of a larger Dig Your Well series featuring a unique Bible study/commentary hybrid (laid out exactly as you see inside of the community if you are a member there). Different from a traditional devotional, the content is designed to start with the Bible first (no fill-in-the-blank questions, just a few Scripture-digging tips to help get you going in the right direction). And then, once you dig yourself, I point you back to the passage with the things that I dug up, and to see for yourself what you might have missed. They are written in a way where my words are only ever subservient to Scripture, never a supplement for it. And, through it all, I embrace the distinctly feminine (never feminist) lens through which I relate to God and His Word.
All that to say, I’m absolutely thrilled to finally reveal the cover of my next book, now available for pre-order!
It is my absolute joy to introduce:
Worthy isn’t just the release of a new book—it’s the hard launch of my entire Dig Your Well ministry and the first in an entire series of biblical study commentaries. You have to know that because the biggest catalyst for learning how to study the Bible the way that I do came back in my waiting days with the inability to see myself and my experience of being a woman whose body does not do what it was created to in the universally male-authored biblical commentaries.
It’s wildly full-circle, on the 20th anniversary of the month we began trying for our family, and the 10th anniversary of when God finally began creating it, to be releasing biblical commentary of my own. And, in doing so, I’m breaking the glass ceiling so that women won’t have to search so hard to find a deeper biblical understanding of their uniquely feminine experiences.
Worthy is now available to preorder, which is so important because preorders tell the publisher that a book needs to be in the world by the absolute flood of orders on the day it’s released. And, for Worthy, preordering also signifies that female voices in the world of biblical commentary aren’t just necessary, they are desperately wanted. So get your friends, your Bible study, your entire women’s ministry together and order all at once! Your fall, winter, and spring study is waiting for you!