I don’t really do resolutions, but the start of a new year always fills me with this feeling like my heart will burst because it’s so full of the desire to do something. To be better, to learn new things, to find my way to a different, deeper kind of happiness and contentment. The possibilities...

As many of you know, my dad was a professional watercolorist. He painted full-time for 45 years, and once he started painting, he never had another job. One of his favorite sayings, when people asked how long a painting took him, was “three hours and thirty years,” or eventually 40 and almost 50. In other...

  For my birthday in July, a friend bought me a really fun gift—a pocket watercolor set and a 3×5-ish watercolor sketch book. It’s adorable… but I was like, what on earth am I going to do with this?  When I attended the recent Midwest Writers Workshop, Kelcey Ervick, the author of a graphic memoir, taught on graphic novels (putting...

When some people tell me I’m unique, I think perhaps it’s a subtle way of telling me I’m weird. Like, not in a good way. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve quit worrying so much about that and I’ve embraced my uniqueness. After all, God made me this way, and I have to believe He...

Life can be hard—especially when we’re juggling a lot of things. Like holiday gatherings, planning for big family feasts, checking your bank balance online and wondering when you’ll have time to do all the Christmas shopping you want to do, for example :-). For me, simply sitting with God in prayer is easy… when things...

My friend Michele just loves cows. She stops on her walks to take pictures of the cows standing in the fields watching her. Knowing that, whenever I see cows now, I think of her and smile. (And let’s be real—this guy makes you smile, too, doesn’t he? (Or she? I don’t know. I don’t know...

For the cover of the new 2023 prayer prompt calendar, I wanted something a little more conceptual than in some previous years. I wanted to find an image that said “prayer” at first glance. It’s a lot harder than you might think. I sent dozens of texts to my kids and to friends asking for...

I’ll only take a minute or two of your time. Much like my new journal. My daughter gave me a gratitude journal for Christmas, and I’ve really enjoyed getting back into the practice of looking back over my days and remembering. I noticed that my gratitude entries read more like a diary—things I wanted to...

To celebrate the release of InstaPrayer: Prayers to Share, I’m proud to announce a special photo contest! In case you don’t know, this book of colorful, creative, quirky prayer prompts was designed to be shared on social media. Take a pic of a page you like, tag some friends, and start a conversation centered around...

I’ve been creating calendars full or prayer prompts for almost five years. I’ve designed keychain prayers, online prompts, and now (with the release of InstaPrayer: Prayers to Share) a whole book of them. But still, I think a lot of people wonder, “What exactly IS a prayer prompt, anyway?” Think of it as a prayer...