Because January Feels Barren – Join the Book Club

For many years, my Januarys felt like the most depressing month. The fun and festivities of the holidays fade behind us. The world outside (for many of us) is often more gray, cloudy, and dreary than the rest of the year. When I lived in Northern Virginia, the literal and figurative fog made me want to curl up under a blanket and hide until spring. Even Januarys while living in Hawaii meant unusually gray days.

One January about a decade ago, I began writing my way through my own disappointments - specifically the ongoing disappointment of a barren womb. My prayers continued to be unanswered, and life felt gloomy in the middle of the winter. Every now and then when we lived in the Washington, D.C. region, God would shower us with a fresh snowfall, and for a day or two, the world would sparkle with a crisp, white, glittering snow. As winters came and went and I gathered my words into a book manuscript, I knew that I held a book that needed to be shared with the world in the winter. But life happened, and I couldn’t pull it together for several years.

Then 2020 came along: a move to a new place where I knew no one and a pandemic allowed me “free time.” But I was delighted that my womb wasn’t barren any longer – I was pregnant, staying home with our toddler, feeling both fatigued and unmotivated, drained of creativity and energy. However, I was determined, and I plodded along, trying to finish writing and editing Beauty in Barren Places: Seeing God’s Goodness Here and Now. In the fall of 2020, toward the end of my second trimester, I had enough energy to really push through and finish the writing and editing.

It felt a little bit weird to promote a book about “finding God’s goodness in barren places” while I was living in lush, green Hawaii, a place where the sun usually shines. It was not the gloomy gray winter I had previously known. Plus, I was expecting a baby in January–barren wasn’t exactly my word of the year.

Then our baby boy died unexpectedly in December.

Suddenly, what I anticipated to be the happiest January I’d experienced in a very long time would be a month of unexpected emptiness–no new baby in my arms, and all of my plans for 2021 were thrown off track.

Once again, I found myself in a barren place–but by then I had learned that barren places are empty spaces for God to fill. I was asking Him daily, sometimes hourly, to fill my heart and home with His presence. We needed Him like never before, and we saw Him like never before.

In the years since then my Januarys improved - we welcomed a living baby one year, and moved back to Virginia to live closer to our extended family the following January.

This January, I invite all ladies to read through Beauty in Barren Places with me. (Confession: I haven't read it in several years!) I’d love for you to join my virtual book club through a private Facebook group and zoom calls. If you’ve already read the book, please join us for the discussion.

You can get your copy of the book through Amazon: order a paperback (delivered to many locations quickly) or order the Kindle book for immediate access. (You don’t need to own a Kindle – you can download a Kindle app on many devices.)

Leave a comment or send me an email if you’d like to. If you have read Beauty in Barren Places I would love for you to tell your friends about it and leave a review on Amazon – word of mouth and reviews help authors more than you might realize!