All The Things: January Downloads
A print & lock screen for wilderness wanderings & new year beginnings
When I began dreaming about the authors we’d chat with, the books we would read and talk through, the in-process things and life updates I’d share just with you, the prints I’d create for 2023 . . . I couldn’t see the entire year, but I knew a handful of things FOR SURE—even if I didn’t 100% know why I knew them. That sounds almost as clear as mud . . . which is pretty much how it felt, actually.
But I just—knew.
There’s a document on my computer filled with ideas and plans for All The Things. It spans all of 2023 and yes, there are blank spaces to see where the Spirit leads and what you’re most interested in—but there are also several specific print designs written out, multiple author names and books listed, surprise gifts on the calendar and videos planned. If you were subscribed to my emails last summer/fall, you know Thursday Things looked a little different while I spent time praying, planning, and preparing All The Things. Part of that looked like writing down seemingly random Scriptures, quotes or themes that I couldn’t seem to shake. Why did that book just come to mind out of no where? How is that verse showing up all over the place and why in the actual world do I feel like it belongs right there in the middle of January?
I wrote it down.
Even if I couldn’t point to an actual reason.
The print and lock screen for this month? Well, you already know from what I shared in our private Instagram Stories late last year . . . I knew exactly what words to sit with and focus on this January, what the design needed to look like, but I didn’t know why. All I could come up with: They weren’t random or “out of no where.” They were given in advance so that they would be right on time.
It’s pretty rare that I feel so deeply in my spirit that a Specific Thing (a caption, story, verse, etc) is for a very Specific Time. And it rarely makes sense from my point of view. Why this? Why now? But every time I’ve chosen to follow that prompting, I’ve received a message saying “I really, really needed this today.”
It’s almost uncanny.
It’s certainly mysterious.
And it’s absolutely beautiful.
Because while I’m over here shaking my head and second guessing, going back and forth on if I’ve heard something correctly or losing it just a little bit, God is outside of time, setting things in motion, meeting us in the Right Now while preparing what we’ll need in the There and Then.
My prayer is that the words in January’s print do exactly what I wrote in Stories from the hospital room. I hope they meet you in your disappointments and frustrations as well as your grateful moments of thanking God for what is. I hope the simplicity of the design allows the truth to stand out and the handwritten look feels like a personal declaration. I hope the promise of nearness and newness, of goodness finding us in every season, is a comfort in these gray January days.
I pray it meets you right where you are.
It met me in a hospital room.
God knew.
