🕯️Honest Prayer for the Swirl of Parenthood

And the last night to preorder Every Season Sacred! 📖

Whether you grew up attending church or have barely stepped foot in a sanctuary, I wrote Every Season Sacred for you.

If you’re simply curious to find out if faith holds any water so you can pass it on to your kids, this book is for you, too.

It’s for all of us—the faithful and the doubtful (though I’d say we’re one and the same).

This collection is for those who sense that, despite the deep inequities and injustices in our world, we sit under the stars of a loving God who doesn’t leave us or forsake us, whose great mystery we may not understand but can feel in the cheek of a newborn or embrace of a child who is suddenly taller than we are.

Tomorrow is the official release day of Every Season Sacred: Reflections, Prayers, and Invitations to Nourish Your Soul and Nurture Your Family throughout the Year.

• Amazon 

• Goodreads 

• Barnes & Noble

• Books-A-Million

• Christianbook 

• Target

This means tonight is your last chance to get the cozy, curated fall playlist and 100 family conversation cards! Just show your proof of purchase.

Feeeelings

If you follow my personal account on the ’gram, you saw the very glamorous life of a mother-writer. By very glamorous, I mean:

• Caring for a daughter who unexpectedly woke up with an ear infection

• Folding mountains of laundry on the floor while crying¹

I am not, by nature, super wonderful at being vulnerable². But I told a couple of friends I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and weirdly a little sad today, and you know what they both said?

Being sad³ is okay. And it can even be good to just sit with those feelings for a minute.

Sure, I would give this advice to my kids, but why did it feel so profound to give myself that same space to be a messy, complicated, honest human, too?

I’m profoundly grateful for the ways you’ve supported my writing. Writing is a privilege I don’t take lightly. It’s a gift I refuse to ever take for granted. So tbh: I don’t know why I’ve felt a little sad. I’m proud of this collection of nuanced, reflective writings. I prayed over and pored over each of the 300+ pages. So I feel bad for feeling bad!

What right do *I* have to be in my feelings?!⁴

We tell our kids to try their best, knowing that there’s not one thing in the universe that could take away our love for them. But when it comes to how we view ourselves (and the One who breathed us into being), we grownups often think of our worth as conditional — our belovedness based on performance, our worth hinging on what we can do.

We’re so prone to forget the deepest truth about ourselves: The truest thing about us is that we’re beloved children of God.

Even if we write a book about it, sometimes we need to be reminded.

A Blessing for Every Season

This is “A Blessing As You Begin,” which you’ll see at the very beginning of Every Season Sacred. In whatever season of life you’re in, may you receive these words:

May what awaits you on these pages be a guide for the changing seasons of your faith and your family life.

May you experience the transformational love of Christ in the seemingly ordinary moments.

May you move through parenting with intention and imagination, presence and purpose. 

May your family be filled with holy curiosity, divine wonder, and sacred delight.

May your time of personal contemplation spur you on to live out your faith in just, actionable ways.

May you release what is not yours to hold as God forms your soul along with the souls of your family members.

May you grow spiritually alongside your children.

May you feel deep in your bones the glorious truth that Christ dwells not only in you but also in your children and in your neighbor, too.

May these words be an invitation into sacred rest for your stretched-thin mind, heart, body, and soul.

And may all your life—your fantastic, dirty, messy, holy life—be a prayer.

Finding God in Our Actual Lives

In the overwhelm and constant demands of family life, it may be difficult to feel present in the season God has you in right now.

(It often feels like I need every ounce of energy just to make it through the day.)

But even on the days we drag ourselves to bedtime, it’s not out of reach to be awake to ourselves and to the kids who have been entrusted to us. We must slow down enough to be awake to the glory right in front of us.

Amid the push and pull of life’s demands, the pages of Every Season Sacred offer an invitation to embrace a thoughtful spirituality—an opportunity to enter into reflection and explore where God is in all seasons of your life.

We don’t get awarded honorary theological degrees when we become parents. And yet, suddenly, we have this little one to nurture, protect, and guide as they have their own wonderings about the life of faith. Most of us don’t have the privilege of embarking on yearlong pilgrimages to hear God.

(It feels like a silent retreat when I can run to the post office alone.)

So how do overwhelmed parents like us nourish our souls in order to help our families live out a flourishing faith?

In Matthew 11, Jesus tells people to get away with Him so they can learn to live freely and lightly. He shares that if they follow Him this way, He will teach them “unforced rhythms of grace” (Matthew 11:28, msg).

That opportunity is still available to us today.

This book is not another item to check off on your to-do list—it’s an invitation into unforced rhythms. It’s permission to release that breath you’ve been holding.

As you parent your children and explore your questions together, may God reveal sacred moments to you—in each season of your life.

Share this Prayer

In Every Season Sacred, you’ll find two prayer options every week. The first is more conversational and uses more straightforward language. It may connect better with younger readers. The second is longer and more poetic, and it may be a fit for older children. Pick what works for your family.

Save this prayer for when the night is dark and you’re feeling a little sad:

God, the world is so big.

When we look at the stars,

We’re amazed at how wonderful

Your creation is and how big Your love is.

As we look up at night

And trace our fingers

Over the stars, imagining shapes and stories,

We are reminded of how connected

Our world is—

How connected we are to You,

To our family, and to our neighbors.

We may not see the stars during the day,

But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

We can remember that even when we can’t see You,

You are with us.

Help us to be on the lookout

For good, beautiful things so we can

Tuck them in our pockets

And remember them when we feel

Sad, afraid, or overwhelmed.

Help us to remember

That Your light shines,

Even when we can’t see it.

Help us to remember

Just how connected we are.

Amen.

On the Podcast

Every week, I read some scripture, share a prayer, and offer a benediction.

That’s it.

I hope it speaks to your soul in this noisy world.

Hey…Thanks.

Thank you. for supporting my writing. Thank you for reading until the end, even though your life is full and you’re likely tired and maybe even a little sad, too.

I’m dreaming up some special newsletter giveaways to thank you for being on this journey with me.

I’m glad we can navigate this weird, wonderful world together.

More soon,

Kayla

1. And then reaching behind the Taco Bell hot sauce packets in the fridge to find the old jade roller I stashed in there to attempt to make myself un-puffy for a video podcast interview.

2. Enneagram eight - I want to help you, not have to be helped!

3. Seven wing - I’ll sit with you when you are sad, but I feel guilty if I am.

4. Sheesh. God bless you if you’re still reading.