words for election week
In case you need a deep breath right about now . . .
In case you could use a little beauty to stare at, truth to hold onto, and words to carry through . . .
In case you’d simply like something new to greet you every time your phone lights up with This, That, or The Other in this week of Important Things and Big Feelings . . .
On Tuesday, yes, and likely the rest of the week as we receive alerts and updates while waiting for election results — but also, just, any time. Any day. Because the real-real is that there are other Important Things happening in our own individual lives, too, and they won’t make national news.
They still matter. They still hold weight. And so — some words for you and me. For us.
Tomorrow morning, my newest (in)courage article goes live. It’ll land in tens of thousands of email inboxes, show on up newsfeeds, and appear in the podcast feed. (I’ll also send it to you here!)
At the beginning of September, after turning in A Promise for When the Waves Just Keep on Coming, I told our Editorial Director that for once I had a solid idea of what I’d write next. Weeks in advance of the deadline! Amazing! I wasn’t sure if it was a shorter caption or truly a full post, though, so I shared the general idea and waited for her feedback. “Yes! Write that! I love it.” Perfect. I mentally removed figure out the topic for my November post from my to-do list.
And then in October I looked at the calendar, stared at my assigned date, and immediately scrapped it because absolutely no.
I’ll tell that story in 2025. The beauty and truth and goodness of it is and will still be beautiful and true and good… it’s not that November 4th is some sort of exception… but it wouldn’t be sensitive to the timing, one day before the election, and so I went back to the drawing board.
How do you write something for this day/week when it’s still four weeks away? It felt weighty, but as I prayed for wisdom, only one topic/theme came to mind. Sure, I could have written about anxiety. Peace. Courage. Loving our neighbors. The list goes on and on, and all of those are, in some ways, threaded into the piece. But no, instead I wrote about the women of the ancient church. As one does.
It won’t be political enough for some; it’ll be too political for others.
“People will read what they want into it”, I said to a friend this week. “It’ll be too This or not enough That for someone, but I can’t stop thinking about the legacy of the women. Their words are a challenge and an invitation, a sobering reminder and an encouragement. I can’t shake it, so I wrote it, and now I’m just praying that God takes it where it needs to go—and nowhere else.”
It’ll be in your inbox tomorrow . . . but this weekend, I realized what I myself need right now is something beautiful / true / good to look at all week long whenever I’m tempted to reach for my phone. Whatever new news arrives and lights up the screen, it’ll sit atop something chosen on purpose.
And I thought, maybe you’d like one of these designs, too? 💛
I’m so not a fan of lots of emails in my own inbox, and I’m entirely uninterested in adding to the noise in yours. We’re a “2-3 emails per month” operation around here, unless it’s a extra email for paid subscribers, and I try to space them out as much as possible. I nearly scrapped this since you just received Thursday Things last week + tomorrow’s post is timed specifically for the 4th . . . but, I’m hoping it slips in like a deep breath and not a hot take, a small gift and not an annoying notification.
Below you’ll see brand new designs with words from this round-up of November words + older designs that have been tucked away for years but feel timely for today. However you’re entering this week, whatever you’re feeling or carrying, worried about or hoping for, nationally or personally, I hope you know tonight that you are seen, thought of, and loved.
To download a lock screen:
Hold down on an image above until there’s an option to “save photo.” If you have an iPhone, go to Settings → Wallpaper → Choose a New Wallpaper → All Photos. Select the image and then shrink it (think: the opposite of zooming in). This will allow the full image to show.
P.S. Every once in a while, y’all ask if it’s okay to share one of my lock screens on social media/with your people. I love that you love them and want to share! While designs made for All The Things must stay within that group (prints/lock screens are two of the things included in ATT as a thank you for support!), the ones in this post are available for sharing on social media.1 I simply ask that if you do post, you tag my account and include the URL to this page so that your friend(s) can download the full-size version, too!
This does NOT include selling it anywhere, claiming it as your own, or using as inspiration but then not including proper credit. I hate that I have to include that, but unfortunately, not too long ago a Big Box Retailer stole one of my designs and put it on products in stores across America. I only found out from one of YOU kind people recognizing the design and alerting me. As weird as it feels to put this “fine print” here, because none of y’all would do something like that, I hope you understand why it must be included. 💛