Hi friends!

I hope you are having a wonderful Friday. I'm officially settled into what will be my home for the next twelve months. It feels good to be out of boxes and bags, to have clothes hanging in the closet and books on shelves where they belong.

I've been spending a lot of time this week thinking through the verse John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." A friend recently began helping me reframe my perspective on what "life" means by suggesting that life is not that experience between birth and death, but life is Jesus himself. If I reframe my perspective to think that all experiences, good and bad, all moments of joy or suffering are meant to bring me to my chief end to glorify God, and to fully enjoy Him forever (Westminster catechism), then I realize that Jesus has already fulfilled His promise to give me life to the full because he offers all of himself for me.

That reframing has made a lot of healing revelations in my heart lately, and you'll have the opportunity to read more about this fleshed-out idea when I post the devotionals to my website that will be companions to Pursuing Rebecca Bedford and Becoming Anne Whitlow. Those will start being posted at the end of this month, and I'm hopeful that the things Jesus will use all that he is revealing to me to touch your life in some way too.

In other news, I'm scheduling time to begin plotting out my next book. I'm a pantser when I normally write, (author lingo, which means I don't typically do a lot of rewriting or planning, I just sit down and start writing.) But as this book will be a part of the Bedford series and a world and set of characters that we've already learned so much about, I need to make sure that the story unfolds in a way that lends well to those things.

I'd appreciate prayer for a clear mind that allows the story to begin unfolding and creativity to flow.

I'll be back here on August 18th with more updates and guest author spotlights. See you then!

-Audrey

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine."

Isaiah 43:1