Let this be my story.

November downloads + December news you're hearing first

This one stumped me right up until the minute it stunned me with clarity.

Usually by the time a new month rolls around, I have an idea for the next All The Things print & lock screen . . . but this time, the only thing that came to mind was unoriginal and vague: maybe something with a fall theme or color palette…?

So, I waited, knowing the clock was tick tocking. There are only so many days in which to create, order test prints, photograph, and deliver a promised November design before fall becomes Christmas and suddenly the year is coming to a close. I was driving to the doctor last week, praying about the design once again (that might seem silly? but I know what it’s like to receive the right words at the right time, and the words I choose to display in my apartment and on my phone are chosen with care, so I really do pray through all designs I send you!), when the song changed on the radio. I began singing along, honestly not giving it too much thought, and then a line left my lips and I saw it and knew.

That’s it.

(Actually, that’s it times two.)

(At some point I’m gonna have to include fewer bonus prints because it takes away the surprise of the extra gift when it arrives nearly every time - ha!)

I must have made nearly a thousand images for Jennifer Dukes Lee over the years, and once or twice a similar sentence slipped out. Naturally and understandably, she asked “What do you MEAN you see it? You read or hear words and you just… see something… that doesn’t exist until you create it?”

Pretty much… yes? Not every time, no. Not even most times. But every once in a while, it’s like a finished design crosses my mind in a flash and then I just have to go and make it. I remember one phrase she sent my way and, as soon as I read it, I mentally saw the words arranged to echo the look of a clock. Another time, a familiar verse came into literal focus in a new way to hint at the timing and idea of paying attention.

Or there was this one that I, shocking NO ONE, instantly loved because AMPERSAND (!) and look how it all connects and just keep going because hello life but also hello God and hello both/and.

ANYWAY, you get the idea. This time was unlike any other that I can remember, though, because between the red light two blocks away and walking into the waiting room a couple minutes later, another version/image/idea/whatever you’d like to call it arrived. Same words, new look, different message. I laughed out loud and then walked inside with both images crystal clear in my mind.

The only thing I could come up with is that one is for someone and the other is for someone else, but truth be told, after I made them I sat back in the chair, stared at my laptop screen, and thought “well, it turns out that I need both.”

One is for when we’re waiting and watching for the sea to split and the promise to prevail, for seasons we’re declaring the lines even as the waters rise, certain that God is carrying through even as He makes a way. (Think: red sea road, linked in last Thursday’s email)

The other is a heartbeat echoing through all the day of our lives, light in the sometimes murky dark, bookending the story from beginning to end.

So! Consider this your November design and an early Christmas gift! (You’ll know which is which from the format of the words and the color chosen, paired with the message underneath. ;) But also yes, there’s a gentle callback tucked within the December one, a cousin to our first 2024 print. Because—bookends.)

P.s. If you’ve moved recently or you’re a newer paid subscriber and forgot to fill out the mailing address form, don’t miss that below! I made something to send to your mailbox in January, a gift to begin the new year! There’s also a piece of news at the very bottom that you’re hearing first so be sure to read past the prints.

Before I share the designs, let me link to the song real quick so you can have it in the background. I’ve never done this before and literally only time will tell if I stick with it, but as this played on a loop in the early morning hours of my birthday this weekend, the evergreen candle flickering beside me as year 31 came to a close, I decided to sing the words every day of 32. Ask me about it in March and we’ll see how that’s going — lol — but for some unknown-to-me reason it feels like this is going to matter. Does that make me a little nervous about why I might need THIS for the days to come, yeah sure, a smidge, but I’m believing for a year of seemingly impossible miracles and so . . . I’m going to sing.