Labels

Labels

by | Jul 23, 2026 | Thoughtful Thursdays

Labels. They have a wonderful purpose. They help us to classify things, to understand them. They make it easy to find what we’re looking for. I’m a big fan of labels in many things–on the clothes on the rack in a store, on my spice jars, on food. And many more places too, of course.

Labels help us to know what we’re getting. And that matters. But I can admit it–I chafe against labels, when they’re applied in other ways. I don’t generally like it when they’re applied to me. And I also don’t like it when they’re applied to my stories.

This is something I struggled with a lot as a new writer. I remember way back in 2005, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I attended an RWA (Romance Writers of America) meeting as a guest. Naturally, “romance” as a genre came up in conversation, and I said something (very uninformed) about how most stories have some romance in them. At the time, I had just put out the very first version of A Stray Drop of Blood, and in my mind, it was a romance.

Y’all, it is not a romance. Some very patient woman with way more experience than I had explained very quickly and offhandedly that in order to meet the definition of a romance, a book had to meet certain expectations and follow some rules. All of which my book did not do. What this woman was telling me was that “romance” is a label that carries a very specific meaning with it. And what’s more, that when people pick up a book with that label, they expect it to hit certain notes.

A Stray Drop of Blood is a love story. But it is not a romance. It’s best classified simply as “historical fiction” or the sub-genre of historical, “biblical fiction.” This was a realization I had to wrestle into place.

And it’s a lesson I carried forward in my writing. I will be honest. I don’t always like genre labels still. But I know their purpose. And so, I’ve embraced them. Because I want my readers to trust me. I want them to know that when they pick up a book of mine labeled “historical romance,” they can be 100% sure they’re going to get a Happily Ever After (HEA, as we call it in in the biz), and that the romance is a key part of the story.

At the same time, there’s still a bit of rebel in me, LOL. When people say “Oh, I don’t like romance,” some part of me really wants to say, “And yet plenty of people who ‘don’t like romance’ read and love my books and tell me they’re not ‘JUST romance.’ So maybe what you mean is that you don’t like certain types of romance.” Same goes for other labels like “Christian fiction.” I absolutely, 100% write Christian fiction. Faith is always a central theme in my stories. But if I’m talking to someone who doesn’t share my faith (or if I’m not sure if they do) and they ask my what I write, I usually drop that label and just say “historical fiction” (if it’s a guy) or “historical romance” (if it’s a girl). I give them the label that is TRUE but which I think they’ll most be drawn to. Just playing Paul a bit. 😉 Not to try to deceive, but to try to get to what lies beneath the label.

Because while labels help us find what we want…they also lead us to dismiss things, even when we shouldn’t. They give us an excuse not to try something. To fall into prejudice.

Most recently, I’ve been thinking about labels because of what, in the book world, has come to be called “spice.” “Spicy” books have open-door sex scenes. So those books that don’t have that have come to be called “no-spice” or even “no spice romances.” Other variations were “closed-door” or “clean” or “wholesome.”

All of these labels come with problems, and some people I highly respect have talked about it with more eloquence than I could. Sometimes the problem is that the term is unclear: “closed door” could mean that the characters don’t have sex outside of marriage, but it can also mean that they do, but the author “closes the door” and doesn’t show it on-page. But it could also mean that characters are married, so of course they’re doing married-people-things, but it’s not described. (I do have some books where characters get married and, by the end of the book, have consummated said marriage–so technically, those books would be “closed door.” Because we know what’s going on, but we don’t need to see it.)

Sometimes the problem is that the term carries a blanket moral judgment, as with “clean.” 

Lately, I’ve had books featured by readers and reviewers who build their platform on “no spice” and also no bad language, no explicit violence, and so on. I’ve joined multi-author cross-promotions that rely on this label too. Because my books fit the label. That’s cool.

And yet…I’ve been chafing at said label, and it’s taken some self-examination to figure out why. And I think it comes down to another review I’ve gotten recently.

See, Guideposts put my Island Shop books in an Instagram tour this summer through a group called BookSparks. They hosted a summer reading challenge called “The Book Odyssey,” and I’ve had fun seeing my books pop up in the travels of readers and reviewers well outside my normal circle. I soon realized that this group was not strictly a Christian-book group. Which can be terrifying for someone who writes obviously-Christian fiction, given the horror stories we’ve all heard about 1-star reviews simply for being Christian.

But instead, I found that these new-to-me-readers were enjoying the stories for what they were. The whole point of the challenge was to explore new books as travelers would explore new cities or countries, and that’s what they did. I was continually delighted to be tagged in these posts from strangers and to find that they appreciated both The Island Bookshop and The Island Bakeshop because of their beach settings, their relationships, their banter, their sweet romances. 

One reader, however, said something like, “I’m surprised at how much I liked these. I usually want at least some spice in my books, and these are no-spice. But I still really enjoyed them.”

And that’s when the label started to chafe. Because yes, it serves a very real and very necessary purpose–to let people who don’t want that in their books know that they won’t find it here. Awesome. I approve. 😉 But as with all labels, it does the opposite too–it tells people to steer clear. This can also be a good thing–it helps eliminate those low reviews, if people don’t know what they’re getting and don’t like what they get.

But I love when readers throw labels to the wind and just read. When they pick something up and give it a chance anyway and find that they love something, even if it’s not they’re norm.

So I guess maybe it’s not the labels themselves that I chafe at. I think maybe it’s the fact that we, as people, fall back on them so much. I don’t mind labeling my books…but I need to be careful not to let labels alone guide me.

And people? This is where it gets really important, which is something I talked about a lot in 2025 around the release of The Collector of Burned Books. Because it isn’t just clothes or food or books that we apply labels to, right? It’s people. And even when we give ourselves those labels–Christian, Catholic, Protestant, wife, mother, friend, American, Canadian, Australian, Conservative, Liberal–we need to remember that that’s not all we are.

And so, it’s not all anyone else is either. Just like my books–they are romance, yes. But they’re not ONLY romance. They are no-spice, yes. But the spice level is not what the book is about. They are Christian, yes. But it’s not a slapped-on, preachy kind of Christianity.

We all have labels. They help define certain aspects–of us, of our beliefs, of our stances, of our nationality, of our ethnicity. But we are MORE than our labels. And so are they.

Labels can help us in so many ways…as long as we never forget that they’re just one little sticker trying to help you understand something really complicated. When we apply them, we need to do it wisely. And we must never, ever forget that Jesus sought out those with labels that usually meant they were dismissed, and He gave them a new one. The only one we really need:

Redeemed.

What Comes from Doubt

What Comes from Doubt

by | Jul 16, 2026 | Thoughtful Thursdays

A couple weeks ago, the Church celebrated the feast day of the Apostle Thomas.

One of the first readings for the day reminded us that Thomas was known as “the twin.” Okay. That makes sense–no doubt he had a twin brother (or sister, though I’m taking a wild guess and saying he’d only be known as “the twin” if he were one of identical twins) running around somewhere, though we never hear about him (or her). To be known by that nickname in those days, when you were often differentiated from others with the same first name by whose son you are, that isn’t strange at all.

But it’s not how we remember Thomas, is it? We don’t remember him for being a twin. We don’t remember him for the fact that he took the Gospel to India. We remember him for one thing, by one name:

Doubting

Doubting Thomas

Ever since I learned that Thomas did, in fact, go on to do some amazing missionary work (and is remembered better for that in other parts of the world), I couldn’t help but think we’ve given him a raw deal in our memories. And as I was pondering Thomas recently and reading the other Scriptures we have that mention him, something even more striking stood out to me.

Yes, Thomas doubted. He wasn’t there the first time Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, and when his friends greeted him upon his return with, “Yo, Thomas! You won’t believe it! Jesus–He’s alive again!” Thomas responded in a very human, very understandable way.

Because why wouldn’t he? If you showed up at a friend’s house a few days after another friend’s funeral and were told, “He’s alive again!” you’d look at that friend like they were nuts. Because people don’t just rise from the dead. You’d probably worry that the grief had made them go a little crazy. You might even wonder (depending on the friend) if they were trying to pull a really bad joke over on you (and this was Peter, so…don’t put it past him).

So yeah. Thomas replied with, “I’ll believe it when I see it. And actually, not just see it–I’m gonna have to touch the nail prints in His hand.” (This is, of course, the Roseanna Paraphrase, LOL.)

Thomas was in a place of logic. I don’t think it was just doubt…it was rather belief in what he KNEW. He KNEW that Jesus had been crucified. He KNEW that He had died. He KNEW that He’d been buried.

What else did He know? He knew that Jesus was the Son of God. By this point, Peter had first declared that, and Jesus had praised him for it, so I think it’s safe to say all the disciples had embraced that declaration.

But here’s the thing–no one knew what that meant. Because there had never been a Son of God like this, fully man but something more, born of a virgin, untouched by sin. Jesus was something, someone new. Until this time, the phrase “Son of God” (or the plural “sons” anyway) had been used before but to talk about righteous people in general. Similarly, Jesus frequently called himself the “Son of Man,” and that phrase, too, had been used for other prophets.

Those previous righteous men, those prophets…they all died. And when they died, they stayed dead. By doubting the resurrection, Thomas wasn’t saying that he no longer believed Jesus had been sent from God, that He was of God, that He was blameless before God. What he was saying was that he expected Jesus to follow the rules of every other righteous, godly man before Him–to die and stay in the grave. To leave them only with a legacy.

Perfectly reasonable.

But then comes the part of the story where Jesus appears again, while Thomas is there.

I love this story. I love it because Jesus knew. He knew exactly what Thomas had said, and while I think we often read His words as a rebuke, there’s something so tender about this. He appears before this friend of His, and I imagine Him looking Thomas straight in the (wide) eyes. He appears, so He’s already met Thomas’s first condition–he can see Him. And then He invites. He holds out His arms, His hands, and says, “Touch me, Thomas. Touch the nail prints. Touch where the spear sliced me.” He’s saying, Do what you have to do to believe this is real, that it’s me. That I am indeed that same physical self that you saw crucified the other day.

What love! When I think about this, I’m reminded of when my kids were little. There was one night when Xoe, who was probably five or six at the time, woke up in a fright. She went all through the house, turning on every light she could find. She didn’t cry or call out, she just went searching. She looked for me in the living room. She looked for me in the kitchen. She looked for me in the basement, where we watched TV. In her muddle, it didn’t occur to her that it was the middle of the night and I’d be in bed–she just went looking where she usually found me. And the more she didn’t find me, the more panicked she became.

Eventually, she made her way upstairs to our bedroom. Now, this is the part of the story that makes me both laugh and which I hate. David woke up first, saw a silhouette of someone standing by our bed, and screamed. Which made Xoe scream and take off running. I quickly got up and went after her. She was crying in her bedroom, and the story spilled out, that she’d been looking for me and couldn’t find me.

Now, at this point, she knew where I was. She could see me. But that wasn’t enough for a panicked, frightened little girl. Of course it wasn’t. She needed more than sight. She needed to feel that her mama was there. So I sat in the rocking chair, and I pulled her into my lap, and I held her close. And I’m sure you can guess what I said.

“I’m here, baby. I’m right here.” My arms around her told her this truth more than my words, more than seeing me had done.

Thomas wasn’t a child–but I think we’re all that child, aren’t we? When the One we love best is nowhere to be found–and we’ve all gone through those trials where we can’t sense God clearly–we go looking. Or maybe we hear other peoples’ stories, and that empty place inside says, “It’s not enough to just take your word for it. I need to experience Him myself.”

And that’s exactly where Jesus met him. I love that He didn’t just say, “See? Here I am.” He invited the touch. The same man who had told Mary Magdalene not to embrace Him because He hadn’t yet gone to the Father gave Thomas permission to touch Him.

Then comes another part I love. Just the invitation was enough. Thomas, so far as we see in the passage, didn’t actually reach out to touch the wounds. Instead, I imagine him dropping to his knees, fully recognizing something no one else had given voice to yet in Scripture. He did not just say, “Jesus, Son of God!” No. What did he say?

“My lord and my God!”

Sit with that a minute. Thomas, the one we know as the Doubter, was the FIRST PERSON to identify this crucial part of Jesus. Not just that He was the SON of God, but that HE IS GOD.

From Thomas’s doubt came the greatest proclamation, the greatest insight, the greatest faith. He took a leap no one, not even Peter, had taken before him.

Jesus’s response is that rebuke we know so well: “Do you believe because you’ve seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, but still believe.”

But…is that really just a rebuke? In part, yes, but fully? I’m reminded of that line from Romans 10:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Yes, blessed are those who believe without seeing…but we can only believe through our senses. In Paul’s words, we still have to HEAR about this miracle. And how do we hear about Him? Because people tell us. They tell us the story.

And this is EXACTLY what Thomas went on to do. He took that good news out into the world so that others could believe without seeing.

So if you’re in a season where you can’t feel Him…can’t hear Him…can’t feel His touch… If ever you’ve doubted, wondered, struggled… If maybe you cling to that knowledge but it feels hollow…

It’s okay. You’re not alone. But know that, just like Thomas, your story doesn’t stop there, and neither does God’s love for you. He will show up, in that locked room. You’ll see Him. But He won’t leave it at that–He’ll invite you into His arms with all the love of the Father. He’ll hold you close, as His beloved child.

I love that doubt is not the end of Thomas’s story. It’s just the beginning. And it’s the very thing that opened his eyes to that most mind-boggling, amazing truth. The thing that let him declare what I pray we all proclaim as we look upon Him someday:

“My lord and my God.”

Title Reveal!

Title Reveal!

by | Jul 2, 2026 | Books, Thoughtful Thursdays

Okay, I’ve never actually done a title reveal before…because usually I just talk about the books I’m writing, and I often just use the title as it ends up.

For my next World War 2 historical romance, which will come out in July of 2027, I’d been calling it The Memory of Freedom. I knew it was likely to change, though. It didn’t quite fit the others I’ve done with Tyndale, and I couldn’t for the life of me come up with something better. 

If you read my newsletters, however, you might remember me talking about it as I was writing. About how I structured this one a little differently, with scenes every few chapters from later in the war, when the heroine is in a concentration camp. In fact, the first chapter begins with her intake at Ravensbruck. So we know from the start where she ends up–and we see both how she got there and what shaped her into the person who becomes a leader, an inspiration, in the camp.

Don’t worry! As always, this book has a happy ending, I promise! 😉 And also as always, this “war book” has very little actual war in it, LOL. My reader friends and I were just talking about this recently.

So here’s the character board I was using for inspiration as I wrote the story–I’d already shared it in a newsletter, but if you haven’t seen it yet…

Amalie is my heroine, and I just LOVE the contrast of those two photos–Amalie chic and soft and happy in Paris when the story begins in 1943. And then Amalie bold and brave and defiant in Ravensbruck in 1944. Same girl, same war. And yet what a change.

Amalie, you see, is a translator. She’s also a spy–gathering intelligence from the German military men she meets through her job with the French Industrialists Syndicate. And what sets her apart is that she has perfect recall. Everything she sees. Everything she hears. Everything she’s ever done is filed away in her mind. My Amalie is based on a real person who did the very things I wrote about, and it’s her adventures I’m telling here through my fictional lens.

Jules, my hero, is also based on a real person. He and Amalie went to university together, fell out of touch, and then ran into each other on a train…where he recruited her into his intelligence work.

The other characters you see pictured here are Yves (pronounced Eve, but a traditional male name in French) and Rosette–also university chums; Trudie, the daughter of a German officer with whom Amalie becomes friends; and Helene, a comtesse whose mansion is a safe house for Jules’s intelligence cell, called the Druids.

My editor and I threw out ALL SORTS of words and images to try to find the perfect title for this one. Here are a few of our suggestions:

  • Call
  • Call Sign
  • Sparrow
  • Remembrance
  • Informant
  • Agent
  • Operative
  • Operation
  • Translator
  • Pact
  • Project
  • Network
  • Target
  • Agency
  • Undercover
  • Bureau
  • Radar
  • Waves
  • Transmission
  • Equation
  • Science
  • Formula
  • League
  • Baltic Islands
  • Enemy Shores

So…are you ready to see what we decided on? I love it! Here it is!

The Translator’s War.

I love the simplicity of it. The to-the-point-ness. And it’s a perfect match to what the story is really about. Amalie was determined to use her skills with language to make a difference in the war. She sought out opportunities to help, refused to accept this was France’s future, and deliberately tossed herself “into the lion’s den,” as the real woman, Jeannie Rousseau, put it. This is one of those stories that it was an honor to tell, and I am so excited to see it come to life over the next year!

I just turned in my cover questionnaire for it, so I’ll have that to show you in a few months. For now…I’m so excited to have the title set and hope you love it just as much as I do!

Fathomed Cover Reveal!

Fathomed Cover Reveal!

by | Jun 25, 2026 | Cover Designs, Fantasy, Thoughtful Thursdays

It’s cover reveal time!

Now, I know my usual cover reveals lately have been rather involved, as I share about the characters and show you some of the images I’ve generated.

This one is a bit different…because I’ve already shown you all the characters, LOL. This is for Fathomed, which is the compilation of my three Awakened bonus-stories. (I call them novellas, but Consecrated is actually too long to be a novella…it’s a short novel.) So you’ve already met:

Brenn

Electra

Luciana

And we’ve also already seen the awesome illustrated covers for each that my daughter, Xoe, created for them–which I LOVE!!

Brenn

Electra

Luciana

Now I adore this artwork and love my daughter’s style for these shorter books…but her style is different from the style of Caroline, who does the character art for my full-length books in the series. As I was debating what to do for the compilation cover, I decided that since this book would be in print, it needed to look like the other books in the series stylistically, so that when they’re all together on a shelf, they look like a set. So I reached out to Caroline to say, “Hey, um…can I have you do another illustration super quick?” And Caroline, lovely friend that she is, said, “Of course!”

So we got going. =)

This time, we did things a bit differently. Before, she did the character art first and then I found/created a background to go with it. But this time, I’d already been playing around with images (trying to create this cover without imposing on her for another illustration at the end of the school year, when I knew things were crazy for her) and had a background I already liked:

So I sent this to Caroline, and she said it was SO NICE to have the background–it allowed her to scale and position the character to fit it. So that’s what we’ll be doing from now on, for sure! We tried a couple different positions, because I thought I knew what I wanted…but ended up liking another she tried better.

What I thought I wanted…

What we both liked far better…

So Caroline got to work making that sketch into a full character design. She first played with (again) the colors I told her  I wanted…

Which is GORGEOUS. I would have been totally content with that. But then Caroline texted one day to say, “What about a pearl overlay over her top?” She sent as an example these stunning bridal tops from Catherine Dean.

How was I supposed to say no to THAT?? Soooooo pretty! So of course, I said, “YES, let’s try that!!”

The results were stunning. We debated whether to do the pink tail with it but ultimately decided to stick with the color scheme from the stories and went with a pebbled ray-skin in more muted colors. Which gave us our final illustration! I had only to put the text on, and voila!

So here it is–the cover of Fathomed: The Awakened Mer Novellas.

Isn’t she pretty?? And just look at how beautiful the series is together!

Here’s the official back cover copy for the compilation:

Power flows beneath the surface of the deep…but so do the secrets that could undo it.

In the waters of the Atla and Calm Water mer, magic is both a gift and a burden—binding rulers to duty, testing loyalties, and demanding sacrifices that echo across generations. From a princess on the brink of a crown she never wanted, to a queen who has borne its weight for nearly a century, to a distant kingdom where ancient laws threaten to destroy everything they were meant to protect, these three stories reveal a different thread in the fragile tapestry of the Awakened world.

Because beneath the surface, love, faith, and destiny are always at war with the cost of power.

CAPTIVATED

Brenn has spent her life dreading the crown—and the responsibility it demands. But when her father’s failing health makes her ascension inevitable, she seeks guidance from the one ruler she trusts: her cousin beneath the sea. Instead, she finds a kingdom on the brink of rebellion…and the one man she has never been able to forget. Atlas chose the mer over her years ago, and now he may be the only one who can help her survive long enough to claim a throne she never wanted.

CELEBRATED

For nearly a century, Queen Electra has led her people with strength and faith—but even the strongest rulers cannot escape loneliness. Each year at Holytide, she allows herself one night to remember joy…one night with the man she should never have loved. But when strangers arrive from distant waters with an offer that could reshape their world, the fragile balance she has fought to maintain begins to shift—and the past she thought she understood may no longer hold true.

CONSECRATED

In Soltierra, Crown Princess Luciana is slowly giving her life to sustain her kingdom—while her sister refuses to accept that such a sacrifice is necessary. Far beyond the desert, King Koa of the Calm Water Mer faces a different crisis as his people’s magic begins to fail. When land and sea come together in search of answers, both must confront a truth they have long avoided: the laws meant to preserve their world may be the very thing destroying it.

Here’s what the full cover will look like too. My new gauge for deciding if these covers are done is if looking at them just brings me joy–and this one definitely does. I love the colors!

This print compilation will be coming this summer…we need to see when the printer can squeeze us in, and then we’ll be creating a printed-edge design! You can, of course, go ahead and pre-order the paperback now, and they’ll ship as soon as we have them in hand!

Pre-Order Now
25 Years

25 Years

by | Jun 18, 2026 | Thoughtful Thursdays

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary. So naturally, for this week’s post, you get mushy-gushy musings. 😉

We got married young–we were both 18. There were plenty of people who told us we were making a mistake, that we were too young to know what we wanted, and why didn’t we just live together first to make sure we were compatible? Um, no. 

Were we young? Absolutely. Too young? Absolutely not. Because we both went into this marriage with an understanding of what marriage is supposed to be, fully dedicated, and also fully aware that it wasn’t about me but about each other, about us, and about being made one by the One who made us.

We were young…so we finished growing up together. We wove our dreams together. We did every stage of life together. We moved, we had two precious children who are both adults now, we fought for those dreams together. We weathered the storms together.

And now, twenty-five years after we said, “I do,” we look back and marvel at how deep the love has grown. Especially in these last two years as we’ve had the cancer battle.

David has always loved me in a way that boggles my mind. I’ve always known that he would do absolutely anything for me, that I and the kids come first (of things on earth–let’s not try to compete with God, LOL). He has told me every day of our life together that I’m beautiful, and I couldn’t begin to count the times in the day that he says he loves me. I know that all I have to do is draw near to him, and his arms will come around me.

But since my diagnosis, that’s deepened still more. And he has marveled so many times over these last two years at how this disease we obviously never wanted taught us both new things about love. “How is it possible,” he has wondered so many times, “that this has made me love you more?” We obviously don’t like cancer–but these new depths of love are something we’re both grateful for and amazed at. And I am so, so blessed.

As a romance writer, I’ve written many a hero. On the surface, they’re not usually like David. But their hearts, the way they love…they’re all David, at least in bits and pieces. He reads all my books for me, which I absolutely love. Not just because then the characters become part of our family, people we talk about in everyday life, but because as he’s reading them, he always says the most amazing things, about my writing and about how he sees me in them. I know not every writer has that support, and it means the world to me that I do.

For our 25th, we were planning a big trip. Probably the Azores in Portugal. We wanted a European adventure. But with my chemo infusions, my oncologist advised “no flight longer than 3 hours,” which eliminated any European destinations. And so, we looked up where on our continent we could find the most European feel, and we decided to go to Quebec City. That’s where we are today–I scheduled this post several weeks ago. Hopefully, we’re having a wonderful time sipping coffee from cafes, strolling the historic district, and just being together.

And praising God for 25 years. Praying for 25 more, and then more beyond that. Looking back over our quarter-of-a-century together with amazement, and looking ahead with anticipatory joy for whatever the Lord has in store for us next.

I’ve written a lot of love stories. And the inspiration for them just keeps on coming. Because I’m living my favorite one.

Gravity

Gravity

by | Jun 11, 2026 | Thoughtful Thursdays

This summer, my best friend, Stephanie Morrill, and I are reading Designing Your Life together. Given that it’s a very-much-bestselling book, you may have heard of it already. If not, it’s basically using design techniques (reframing, iteration, etc) to design a life that builds you joy, whatever season you’re in. All about intentionality, looking at things in new ways, and asking yourself the right questions. It also involves a lot of self-awareness, which is something my hubby and I think and talk about a lot.

Stephanie and I will be, in general, reading a chapter or section every week and doing the exercises, then talking about it during our Friday checkins. Of course, our Junes are a bit crazy, so we had our first chat at the end of May and then will have to take 3 weeks off while we’re both traveling, LOL.

I imagine as the summer progresses, I’ll have lots more thoughts and will likely share here what we’re working through. Today, I want to talk about just one thing that the authors bring up in the introduction.

Gravity.

They use this term to refer to things in life that we can’t change–things we can’t fight against. Things that might get us down (ha! punny…) but which we can do nothing about. And because we can do nothing about them, they do not, therefore, rate as “problems” in the design way of thinking, because they can’t be solved.

Gravity isn’t going anywhere. And neither are quite a few other things in life.

As I began the first activities in the book, filling out the gauges on a “dashboard” for different parts of life, this notion of “gravity” was immediately useful. See, one of the dashboard categories is “health.” In general, health is something we can change.

We can work out more.
We can eat better.
We can adjust our sleep patterns.
We can take (or stop taking) medications.
We can do stretches.
We can drink more water.
We can cut out caffeine or sugar or fill-in-the-blank.

And so on. 

But for me right now, that will only get me so far. Part of my health is gravity. I’m in a year-long chemo regimen, and the leading side effect is “tiredness.” I’m feeling that, guys. At first, I was just super tired for the first couple days after an infusion. Then it was the first week. Then the first two weeks. At this point, the tired never exactly goes away, though it isn’t as intense.

And with tiredness comes a lot of other things. I don’t have the energy to do much by way of exercising…or cooking. Sleep doesn’t actually help.

Right now, my health is a gravity issue. Which means that instead of fussing over it or getting hung up on it, I accept it and work on other problems that can actually have solutions. I focus on what to do with the energy I have, how best to make use of my time and resources.

It’s a great way to think about all sorts of things in life though, isn’t it? There are things we can change–and there are things we can’t. How often do we waste energy–and certainly emotional and mental space–on the things that just are?

What are your “gravity” issues in life right now?

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