Here, Too: the new Lent book

I remember where I was sitting when I got the idea.

In the middle of a writing workshop on time and place in memoir. How to deal with challenges of chronology and context.

As often happens, my mind leapt from the question at hand to a brand-new idea.

What about a book on the times and places that God meets us?

I mentally wandered away the class for fifteen minutes, scribbling in the back of my notebook. Metaphors and memories, stories from Scripture and stories from our lives. On the road. In the desert. At home. In the storms.

I scanned the list, satisfied. Something there, for sure. But I remembered my own time and place, turned back to the teacher, closed the notebook, and forgot all about it.

Until Jenna and I got to talking about Lent last year.

Thanks to the work of a team of beautiful writers and a brilliant designer, that book is now brought to life.

Here, Too: Where We Meet God is the Blessed Is She Lent book for 2020. A journey through seven places in our lives where we can encounter God.

In the desert. At home. On the road. In the storm. On the mountain. In the garden. At the tomb.

Each week a different writer reflects on stories from her life that illuminate the theme. I gathered Gospel stories and Psalm prayers to guide our meditation.

And I got the chance to reflect on each of the times and places that I first brainstormed years back, inviting us to wonder together: where and when do we encounter God?

How might we find God here, too – wherever we are today?

Here, Too is now available here from Blessed Is She. Our Lent books sell out fast, so get your copy today.

If you’d like to pray through Easter, you can grab this combo deal that includes a copy of Risen: 50 Ways to Celebrate Easter. You can use this Easter book every year, and I have new ideas up my sleeve for how to refresh our prayer together all the way through Easter.

I look back on the birth of that book, an idea conceived in the middle of a writing workshop, led by the author of a memoir that helped convince me to have another baby, even as she made the opposite decision.

Here I am now, looking ahead to a Lent that will take me from pregnancy to birth to newborn days once again.

Another journey through unexpected ways God meets us.

I can’t wait to walk this way with you.

Photos by Therese Westby.