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December memories – 2024

January 6, 2025by Laurel Luehmann2 Comments

Goodness sakes…the last blog post of the year!

To hope is to wait with your heart intertwined, knotted up, tied to God Himself.
To be a people of hope is to let go of hoping in all the things of this world, and have all your hope, all your heart, all your aching, waiting expectations, bound to Jesus.
Ann Voskamp

Things worth remembering…

Building a book tree with a sister
Studying Malachi
Seeing Sidewalk Prophets in concert at last!!
The drive home with sad songs and 40 ounces of Nighty Night Extra
Chik-fil-a, Barnes & Noble, and the guitar shop
Christmas lights!!
Finishing my short story and getting it out to my newsletter gang
Honest, tearful conversations
My sisters’ Christmas program
Hot cocoa and gift wrapping
Savoring the white Christmas while it lasted
Singing in five-part harmony around the bonfire
Walks on soggy gravel roads when the snow melted
Jigging with the youngest sisters
A misty moisty morning
Several outrageous rounds of Who What When Where Why

That was hope. Not a violent jolt or reawakening,
But the constancy of living as though each moment was worth it,
Rising up under pain because by the power of the living God it will not end us –
It will not end us; it will not end here.
Hannah Hodgson

What I’ve been reading…

The Boys in the Boat – Daniel James Brown

It’s taking me awhile to finish this one, but it’s brilliantly written! I’m just easing into non-fiction again. XD

The Greatest Gift – Ann Voskamp

I didn’t end up reading this one all the way through like I did last year, as I was reading another Advent book (see below).

Advent: a collection – Hannah Hodgson

If only Hannah’s books were available for purchase all the time…her poetry blesses me so much and I want to share it with the world. If you want to catch a glimpse of her poetry, though, go follow her on Instagram!

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

Oh, goodness, this book brought me so much joy!

A Thousand Mornings – Mary Oliver

I so wish Mary Oliver had had a better grasp of theology, because if that had been the case this collection would be absolutely flawless. The beauty of her thoughts and way of expressing them is so natural. I adore her poetic style.

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes…and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
dietrich bonhoeffer

From the journal…

Oh, Father, help me to catch a vision for something greater than my own life story!

You’re never late, I know.

You have never skimped a single one of your children, Father, and I pray that I would know that deeply, even if Your richness and generosity meet me in this same position of life next year.

Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.
Luke 10:21

What are you tucking into your book of memories from this December?

Stay the course!

Laurel

P.S. My short story, Grace Werner’s Perfectly Imperfect Christmas, is available to you for FREE when you sign up for my weekly newsletter! You can do that here. ❤

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase something through one of the links I share in this post, I receive a small commission…at no extra cost to you.:)

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August Memories – 2024

September 2, 2024August 31, 2024by Laurel LuehmannLeave a Comment

Another month in review! ❤

Pain, if sanctified, creates tenderness towards others.
c.h. spurgeon

Things worth remembering

my sister’s graduation party
cousin shenanigans
mosquito bites and songwriting
diving into edits on Project Redemption
laughter and encouragement shared via Facetime
a sibling bonfire
scavenging flowers from the field edge
corn day, the slip and slide and moon gazing
being at eye level with the hawks or vultures or whatever they were
marching out of the grocery store with a shocking amount of mini donuts
starting a weekly schedule for my newsletter
the first apple fritters of the year

Know the holiness of waiting.
hannah Hodgson

What I’ve been reading

change of state – Hannah Hodgson

And in the tidepools of all the tears there is sea glass and shells, a cradle of mercy; you are producing beauty housed in the presence of God.

One of my very favorite poets finally released a poetry collection!! Hannah portrays grief and loss in the light of the resurrection so beautifully and with such poignance. Sadly this collection was only available for a limited time…but you can read some of Hannah’s poetry over here on her Instagram account. I highly recommend it.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle – Beverly Cleary

The sound of voices so close made Ralph more eager than ever to escape. “No!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the metal chamber. “I won’t have it! I’m too young to be dumped out with the trash!”

Reading this again has been such a joy. XD

Giants in the Earth – O.E. Rolvaag

Her loneliness was so great that she felt a physical need of bringing happiness to some living thing…

I finally finished this book! Towards the end there were a couple of characters that drove me crazy, but it was definitely worth the read and the ending was powerful.

It is sure to be well with us when we feel and know our own folly, and are heartily willing to be guided by the will of God.
charles spurgeon

From the journal

Oh, Miracle-Worker, may I rest content, joyous even when healing hands seem stilled.

Don’t let my soul live paralyzed!

What made this past month memorable for you?

❤ Laurel

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase something through one of the links I share in this post, I receive a small commission…at no extra cost to you.:)

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The Lost Rose by Victoria Lynn – Cover Reveal

August 22, 2024by Laurel LuehmannLeave a Comment

Isn’t this book cover gorgeous??

Releasing on November 1st, 2024, this is the third book in a non-magical fantasy series, The Chronicles of Elira. The book is available to preorder in ebook, paperback and special edition hardcover!

The blurb:

Years have passed, the world has shifted, and the Eliran people have faced unimaginable loss.

Elgon, ensnared in a royal catastrophe, must navigate betrayals and personal grief. With his kingdom’s fate hanging by a thread, he clings to a sliver of hope, waiting desperately for the return of his most trusted knight.

Malcolm’s quest is a treacherous odyssey, fraught with danger and shrouded in secrecy. With a charge to rescue and protect, the weight of his past mistakes threatens to crush him. Can he redeem himself in the eyes of his brother and king, or will their secret mission be discovered and ended by their enemies?

Rosalie, isolated in a castle tower for most of her life, knows little of the world beyond her prison walls. Rescued by a mysterious stranger and propelled towards her destiny, she embarks on a perilous adventure. Will she survive the grueling journey, or will the trials of a lost heir prove too great?

A knight on a quest, a lost princess, a malevolent foreign ruler, and a secret of epic proportions will alter the fate and future of Elira forever.

Preorder an ebook copy

Preorder a paperback

Preorder a special edition hardcover (think sneak peeks, illustrations and a bonus epilogue!)

Unfamiliar with the series? You can read my reviews for Once I Knew and This Life of Mine!

Poetry, Uncategorized

entry – a poem

March 25, 2024by Laurel Luehmann4 Comments

Hello, friends!

This is my first poem inspired by the Holy Week prompts I posted on Instagram! Happy reading…✨

what causes a crowd who

welcomed You with praise

to turn on You within a week,

demanding blood?

oh, the power of delusional expectations…

You entered and I answered with joy,

making way for You into the fortress of my heart,

laying down my cloak and willing to lay down my very life

for the King of majesty.

but something changed in my loyalties when

You walked a rocky path spattered with Your own blood

and bid me walk beside You.

this, You whisper, is the test of my love, begging it to become

a love that is not contingent on bloated expectations,

but a love that trusts even when

blood runs into the eyes

and pain carves canyons in the heart.

You ask for humility, not royal robes…

my loyalty, not only my cloak.

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Carving legacies in souls

January 29, 2024January 27, 2024by Laurel Luehmann4 Comments

Hello, friends!

Today’s post is a repost from a couple of years ago that echoes what’s been on my mind lately. I hope you enjoy! ❤

What will I leave behind?

It’s a question that’s tugged at my attention for years. As I read the stories of eternal heroes with short lives and stared at the caskets of people I held dear, the question haunted my mind.

so small and

insignificant

one breath will

blow this life away, and

what

will be the proof that

it was here?

mangled lives

and broken hearts?

friendships

that were torn apart by

hands that now lie still and cold?

oh, no!

forbid it, Lord!

A month or so ago a friend and I were wandering through a beautiful cemetery that sprawls over several acres of hills. (You know you have loyal friends when they smilingly join you on strange expeditions.) There were so many old gravestones – some tipped and sinking deep into the soil. Several were ridiculously tall and ornate, but they were so old that wind and water and time had wiped the sentimental words right off of the marker. Their attempts to leave an echo of their greatness were in vain.

Of course I hope that I leave behind me a trail of words that can point others to Christ and to truth decades after I’m gone, but paper burns. Ink fades. Files become corrupted.

If words are all I leave, I’ve failed.

For even if my words could surpass the masterpieces of Dickens and Shakespeare,

If I sang with the voice of an angel,

If the world remembers my name until the world stops turning,

But I have not love…

I am nothing.

oh, Father, keep me

on the sidelines with a loving heart

if I can’t champion the world

with outstretched hands.

Words fade. People don’t.

Let’s live our lives accordingly.

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God with us – a repost

December 18, 2023by Laurel Luehmann5 Comments

Hello, friends!

I wrote this two years ago and decided to reshare it because 1.) it was Christmas program weekend (!!!) and that absorbed my thoughts and enthusiasm more than blog posts did, and 2.) it says so much of what’s on my heart again this year. Why try to be original when something old will do? 🙂

Regardless of whether your joy is full or if it’s something you’re looking hard for this year, this post is for you. ❤

Every year we talk about how the Christmas season is so hard for many people.

It’s always acknowledged, but all the acknowledgements in the world won’t change the fact that many of us will be crying inside at times this Christmas, even as we’re surrounded by family and friends who love us more than we know.

But don’t you know that this ache, this emptiness, this longing loneliness is the very reason Christmas even exists?

This world is broken. People fail. Hearts shatter. People hurt. People die.

So God wrapped himself in trembling flesh to heal that brokenness for eternity.

God with us.

Not God peering down on us from the heights of His holiness. Not God ruling over us. Not God commanding us from a distant galaxy.

No.

God with us.

God wailing with hunger and cold.

God being carried from His home country to safety.

God playing in the very dirt His fingers once molded to form the first of his people.

God trying to escape the exhausting press of a crowd.

God sleeping in a boat in the middle of a churning sea.

God weeping.

God making a meal for his best friends.

God sweating our blood, pleading with His Father for an easier path.

God dying.

God hurling away our sin and drawing us near to Himself.

God with us.

In our pain, in our sorrow, in our heartbreak, in our loneliness, in our brokenness, in our despair…

God with us.

God promising that the brokenness of this world is not the end. The end of the brokenness will come and seep into eternity…

Us with God.

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some more autumn-inspired poetry (pt. 2)

September 18, 2023by Laurel Luehmann8 Comments

Hello, friends! Here are a few more little poems that I wrote this week…hope you enjoy! ❤

haunted

my rearview mirror

is covered in dust because

I won’t live haunted.

tea

like the tea she loved,

steeped in boiling water she

only grew stronger.

shadows

don’t let the shadows win…

they dance across my path and

try to smother me in darkness.

(oh, why am I so weak??)

Father, I don’t have the strength

(or light) within this heaving chest

to let the light shine brighter than

the fear they throw around me.

Father, p l e a s e

dispel this night

and hold me tight

within the light.

Stay the course!

❤ Laurel

Photo by Taylor Wright on Unsplash

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a rambling post on time and hurt and promises (perhaps with a couple of poems)

August 28, 2023August 27, 2023by Laurel Luehmann5 Comments

“…hurry up, God, if You please, and — I forgot.

Thy will be done.“

I seem to forget that

the Author of my story

spun a universe in six days, and

Adam’s bride in one.

Tell me I’m not the only one who tries to rush God…

I’ve started reading through the Old Testament chronologically again, and it’s incredible to me to see how God is not bound by time or hindered by the limits of human power and knowledge as we are.

Job spent nearly 40 chapters mourning and questioning and yet trusting God in the middle of a despair so deep that he wished he’d never been born…and in the 42nd chapter that Job never saw coming, God doubled his wealth and cheered his broken heart with more children.

Abraham, an elderly man with a wife who was barren, was promised what man deemed impossible when God told him, over and over again, that his descendants would be well-nigh impossible to count. Abraham clung to that promise for dear life, raising altars as visual reminders of that impossible promise…and in the end, he only lived long enough to see a glimpse of its fulfillment.

In Exodus we hear of how God provided manna in the wilderness to His hungry grumbling chosen ones. They called it manna (which basically means “what is it?”), and I find that intriguing because God’s provision was right there in front of them, looking nothing like what they had expected. When they realized what it was, they wanted to hoard and store it away for the days to come, but it rotted overnight…

And so they spent forty years surviving on God’s provision that looked nothing like what they had wanted or expected. They spent each day in the wilderness depending completely upon His mercy…

And how are we any different? God isn’t.

Can’t we, too, in our unspeakable pain, trust the Healer?

Can’t we, in our breathless impatience for miracles, trust the Maker and sustainer of time?

Can’t we, in our longing for more, trust the fulfillment of our desires to the Giver of all good gifts?

when I watch my dreams lie dying

while God’s healing others’ broken dreams,

give me the trusting heart of Jairus,

to open wide the door of my mourning soul

to the Master who tarried as

the light of my eyes slipped away.

(nothing…nothing is beyond His healing touch.)

And so, friends…here’s to trusting Him with each joy, each tear, each longing.

His shoulders are broader than yours and mine. ❤

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

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Carving legacies in souls – a repost

June 12, 2023by Laurel Luehmann2 Comments

Hello, friends!

This week I wanted to bring back a post from last fall that really embodies what I’ve been considering lately…I hope it challenges you like it’s challenging me.

Click here to read the post!

Stay the course!

❤ Laurel

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash