published!
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.”
-Psalm 136:1
Today is the launch date of Known: A Study of the Good Shepherd! I am overflowing with gratitude for the Lord’s presence in my life, His Spirit at work within the pain, and the joy that comes from knowing Jesus.
I have dreamed of becoming a published author since I was a girl. For decades, I envisioned this dream coming to fruition as a novelist, but as the years marched forward, the Holy Spirit started doing something unexpected in my life. Over the past fifteen years, I grabbed a hold of as many opportunities to study God’s Word as time would allow, and a new vision began to emerge. I discovered within my heart a burning passion for the Word and a desire to share that passion with others.
As I began to teach in a women’s Bible study, I realized how perfectly suited I was to the role. The teaching our team did was exegetical, so it took a great deal of time to prepare, research and write each lesson. If my medical school training did nothing else, it taught me how to study! Some of my most precious memories in recent years have been hours spent reading and writing at my kitchen table, which occupies a brightly lit alcove comprised on three sides by large windows. It probably sounds crazy to most people reading this, but I absolutely love studying. It fills my soul, and I thank God that He made me this way.
When I look back over my life, the overwhelming sense I have is one of fulfillment and gratitude, but even so, there was a time when a perfect storm of events landed me in a place of despair. One of the greatest things God did for me was to use pain and heartache to create something beautiful. He lifted me out of the ashes of depression by showing me how intimately He knows me. He did this through His Word, specifically Psalm 23, as well as the other passages that I included for study within Known.
Little did I know that my girlhood dream of becoming an author, my training to be a doctor, my love for God’s Word, and my battle with depression would all collide in a beautiful project that would one day become my first published work. Along the way, God was piecing together the fabric of my life to create an opportunity for me share His story with others. I am reminded of Paul’s words in Ephesians, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).
I invite you into my journey, and I hope you will bring others along! Known is available HERE. Join me on your own or gather a group of friends or neighbors and do the study together. I pray you discover just how intimately God knows you.
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
