Even though it won’t be shipping until October 2014, that doesn’t mean my team at Thomas Nelson isn’t hard at work getting ready for the big day. Today, we finalized the cover for the new book, Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Committed and Consistent Community.
The first question out of some peoples’ mouths is, “Wait, is this a chick book?” Pink flowers, girly font…come on, Miller. What are you thinking?”
That was the same question I had as well when we reviewed the first round of book cover designs. Is the book a “chick book?” Not at all. However, the way books – well, my books – have been purchased, shared, and talked about, as well as some other demographics we’ve considered, a vast majority of them have been carried by women.
Generally speaking, a man is online or in a book store and is browsing books. He most likely purchases a book written by another man…especially in the faith-based market. Women, however, buy from both genders and increasingly more from female authors. And men generally buy more electronic books than women, so a cover doesn’t really apply.
Regardless of if or how or when you buy this book (I’ll let you know when it’s available for pre-ordering), I am thrilled with this cover. Knowing the content of the book, the metaphor really captures the message.
I’m in the process if going through my first book Mad Church Disease: Overcoming The Burnout Epidemic and am realizing what an important book it truly is. I wrote it in 2007, when I was twenty-seven…and that seems like ages ago. Knowing that, as I flip through the pages I see how clearly God had His hand in the words. This is not some attempt at a false modesty; God just really spoke loudly the message that needed to be communicated in that book. Somehow, I listened the best I could.
I found out in February that it was out of print – nobody from the publisher told me, nobody offered to let me buy any copies…there were none. How it happened was outside of the parameters of my contract and because of that, all the rights were reverted back to me.
At first, I was crushed. Then I realized the potential the news brought. With another seven years of life and ministry experience and after talking with literally thousands of pastors and church staff, I was encouraged and inspired to add pertinent value to the book.
The study questions and burnout assessments are getting expanded considerably. New stories are being added. As ancillary products I’m writing a devotional and creating a plan that can be customized for anyone who’s feeling burned out or on the brink.
Some of you have read it. What would be helpful for you to have included in this book?
It’s my hope to begin pre-selling it soon (if you’re on the “extra inspiration” email list on the right side of my blog, you’ll get some pre-sell discounts and free stuff…!) and I’d appreciate any feedback you have on what would help you be a healthier minister of the Gospel.
One by one I peeled away the sheets and the duvet from my skin, only to walk into the main room of our home and see the curtain pulled back a few feet and a new blanket of soft grey clouds coming toward me, wrapping me up, deceptively sad and cold – they look so soft and peaceful from afar.
Around my mind and heart they reached with arms damp with regret and fear and worry and yes, even that slightest bit of pain. Like a needle, so small but I’m so aware of its presence, slowly pushing through the layers of tissue around this cross-stitched heart.
At least I can feel, I think to myself, my mouth twisted and eyes slightly closed, chest expanding with air as I promise myself if I only breathe deep it won’t feel like I’m suffocating. It’s funny what property owners say about open spaces; sure, there may be no walls in between my kitchen, my dining area and my living room, but they don’t tell you that an open floor plan is only as open as the heart of the person moving in.
So many choices flash through my mind as I ask myself what’s the next right step and try to slough away the clouds from my insides and outsides. Today is a long shower that’s running out of hot water, teasing me with streams of liquid growing colder, subtly, until the chill hits and goose pimples break out and cover me too. I race to find warmth.
So many things covering me, so many layers that are not my own skin. I want to strip down to dry bones and walk away from the pieces of me that are still warm because sometimes its the living that is so hard. Bones don’t have eyes to see and judge or mouths to speak words that harm or flesh to wound or hearts to feel regret.
But bones cannot feel joy either. Bones shatter and turn to dust much faster than this body will. Aches and bruises, confusion and chaos, damp clouds that darken a morning. I must keep in mind those mental photographs of the sunsets that take my breath away with colors that have no name. I must remember the early morning light that paints my windows with silver and gold. I cannot forget the sun and its warmth as it soaks into my skin warming away the coldness of moments like these.
I was fairly certain I would never date again, let alone be married again.
When you find yourself wrapped up in a crisis of an unexpected divorce that takes you from being with one person for almost a decade to being alone and it happens so fast you’re a balloon that has been slowly punctured with a needle so you don’t pop, but instead the air and life leak out of you until you’re limp, well, it kind of messes with you.
Once the initial shock wore off, when sleeping alone became normal and I stopped making dumb choices that only reinforced loneliness as a curse instead of accepting it as a gift, I realized I was quite happy being single.
I lived in west Michigan a mile from the lake and spent the summer on the beach or visiting friends or in Africa, and when I returned, I got an email from a Christian dating site asking me to visit and check out the new matches they had for me. Surely I’d find someone. Surely it was God’s plan. God’s timing.
I laughed.
I laughed but I clicked.
And I saw a picture of a guy on a mission trip who loves telling stories about what God’s doing in the world, and loves serving the local church and the big church. And I sent him a message and blamed the jet lag for falling into the dating site’s trap.
The girl who was fine without a guy, who was happy being single and hopping on planes whenever she wanted to wherever she wanted, was secretly afraid to be hurt again with a pain so dark she was certain she could not survive.
But she said yes to the first date, she said yes to being his girlfriend, she said yes to his proposal and she said yes to being his wife.
Tim and me in the Philippines this June, doing a video update on our mission work there.
People sometimes look surprised when they realize Tim and I have only known each other for a little over a year and we’ve been married for half that time. And marriage is not some thing to enter into lightly. We both come from marriages that broke like glass and did not reflect Christ like a mirror and we know that’s what a marriage should do. When Tim approached me even before that first date, it was with the sole intent on getting to know each other so that we could commit our relationship to serving God.
Even with our weaknesses and in the places we need to grow, and with the things we have to learn and the new things we get to experience, I continue coming back to two things that I think not only apply to marriage, but apply to everything we face in life where we feel like the resistance is too much to push through.
It’s about being holy: It’s not about us.It is now about how I feel, or how Tim feels. It is about my decisions and asking myself if those decisions bring glory to God or don’t. There are many other things like dates and flowers and friends and dinners and holding hands on a walk, but this covenant is about how we reflect Christ to each other and to the world. And when you’re in the throes of it, in the mundane and the dirty dishes and the taking for granted and the heat of raised voices, sometimes it is so difficult to remember that. It’s is wonderful and is not easy. Marriage is hard and I tell my engaged friend this; but it is the hard things that make us holy. The same holds true for anything. It’s not about you. It’s about being holy.
It’s about taking a chance: I know there are people who are on the verge of commitment but fear (sometimes a just fear) keeps them from pursuing or being pursued. I think I was one of them. The old saying of “you’re never ready” generally applies to marriage, to having kids (I imagine), or to taking that big leap – whether it’s marriage or a new job or something else. It has been said a million times by a million people but the things we fear the most are usually the things we’re meant to do. In regard to relationships, one friend comes to mind. Tim and I met him over pancakes on a rainy day and he told us how he thinks he likes a girl, and he loves her kids, but was he ready to not just become a husband but a father? Tim said some things about just making a decision, whatever that next step was, anything to not stay in limbo. And our friend listened. He committed to her, proposed a couple months later and they’re getting married next summer.I think of friends who have quit jobs or taken a shot at their dreams, who have done “crazy” things like give up health insurance and took a million part time jobs so they could do that one thing that makes them come alive.
Everyone says it’s terrifying. Everyone says it’s worth it.
What is that thing for you? That desire that won’t go away, that longing that is glued to you like your shadow? And what is that thing that’s keeping you from diving into it, giving it all (or at least, giving it something)?
Tim and I just moved back to Nashville last week, and our bathroom mirror is a lot bigger than it was in our apartment in Illinois. The lighting is also better, well, let’s just say it’s brighter, and evidently this has had an effect on my mental well-being in the subsequent days after moving into our new place.
I wake up.
I walk to the bathroom and turn on the light.
And I stare.
I stare for an uncomfortably long time at the big mirror with the brighter lights and I realize things aren’t what they used to be.
I understand. I’m only 33. Beauty is not a number, nor is it even really what can be reflected in a mirror. But let’s take a moment and say this isn’t about beauty.
It’s about gravity and yes, those two hairs my friend Kat saw when she cut my hair really are grey, and why is there an eyebrow hair growing half an inch away from my eyebrow? When did that tooth shift over, and where did these valleys of lines under my eyes come from? And even though I pretty much have weighed the same over the last five years, why are certain things larger and certain things smaller and is that lotion really working?
It’s not that I’m freaked out necessarily, but if anything, these slight modifications in my appearance which seems to have happened quite literally overnight reinforce the fact that I am 33.
As we were unpacking boxes, I stumbled across an old Bible study I did when I was 21. It asked what limitations, if any, I felt were placed on me. “My age,” I wrote, knowing people just didn’t take 21 year olds seriously. And now I look back 12 years at my 21-year-old perfectly toned memory and I wish I could tell her just how much she could actually do and how much to savor every moment of being 21 (anti-gravity superpowers included).
33 is not old, but it is different and being married to a 33 year old and doing things like “meeting with an attorney to discuss business taxes” and “getting my cholesterol checked” and “taking a lot of vitamins in the morning” are making me realize that yes, I am older. And I’ve been to enough Women of Faith events and heard Anita Renfroe enough times to have a biological road map created in my mind on where I can expect more things on my body to move to. When I was in my twenties I used to find her comments on growing older funny but now that I’m in my thirties I find them slightly terrifying.
And I’m getting off track again (it’s just that it really seemed to happen overnight so I’m still in a little bit of shock this morning) but it also helps me recognize no matter how many years I have left, if it’s 33 more or 66 more, I don’t want to look in a mirror and ever feel regret.
It’s okay if I feel fear, feel surprise, feel shock, feel horror, feel humor, yes. All of those things I accept (with only a little bit of bargaining with God).
But regret? Lord, help me. No. Please help me and my slowly declining estrogen make each day count for something beautiful and lovely for You.
So, for the last long while, I’ve been writing my third book. A month after I turned in the rough draft to my publisher, we still didn’t have a title. I asked my editor Adria to suggest a few after she read it. In one of her emails, the word Leaning came up.
Slightly in jest and slightly serious, I wrote back, what about Lean on Me?
She responded and said she actually considered that, but dismissed it, not sure if it was too cheesy or not.
I loved it. I searched for the lyrics of yes, that old song Lean on Me, and realized it conveys so much the heart of the book.
Sometimes in our lives We all have pain, we all have sorrow But if we are wise We know that there’s always tomorrow
Lean on me when you’re not strong And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on For it won’t be long ‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on
Please, swallow your pride If I have things you need to borrow For no one can fill those of your needs That you won’t let show
You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand We all need somebody to lean on I just might have a problem that you’ll understand We all need somebody to lean on
Lean on me when you’re not strong And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on For it won’t be long ‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on
You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand We all need somebody to lean on I just might have a problem that you’ll understand We all need somebody to lean on
If there is a load You have to bear that you can’t carry I’m right up the road, I’ll share your load If you just call me…
Coming to pages and eReader screens September 2014:
Lean On Me: The Value of Intentional, Vulnerable, and Consistent Community.
It’s a story of a girl who learned a lot about needing community and being community and the beautiful themes woven within. It’s a story of how God used likely and unlikely people to communicate His love and hope. It’s a story of crisis and redemption.
It’s a story for all of us and I can’t wait to share more with you as we continue developing it and the resources around it.
Thank you. Thank you for reading. For believing in me. For being with me on this journey. For letting me lean on you to rest for a while, and for leaning on me and trusting me.
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Please accept my apologies for being such a sporadic writer as of late. Inconsistency is one of my least favorite traits and online, I’ve been extremely inconsistent. However, there are four things coming up in the next couple of months that I thought you simply must know!
1) I am finishing my third book. It does not have a title at this point but I am hoping to email the complete first draft to my publisher by this time next week. It has been the most difficult thing to write because, well, it has caused me to reflect much more deeply and try to use words in the best way possible.
I was 27 when I wrote Mad Church Disease. 29 when I wrote Permission to Speak Freely. I’m almost 33.5 (yes, I celebrate half birthdays) so I pray that whatever maturity I have gained in the last four years shows. This book will release in Spring 2014, likely in April.
2) New website PLUS bringing back the old FlowerDust. Since it has been over three months that I have not been Anne Jackson, I realize I should probably change my website. I hired a talented lad named Sam to work on this and he feverishly is doing so. All of my old domains will redirect to the new website once it has launched (likely in August) as to not lose anyone in the shuffle.
I’m excited to reestablish a home online that is both true to my name and has all the good posts from FlowerDust. If you’ve been around since the beginning, you remember that old FlowerDust.net blog and it’s 1000 posts that we are combing through and refining. So all that material (from 2005 – 2011) will be available again. Woo!
3) New email list opportunities!. Everyone I admire says I need one. I trust them. With the launch of the new website, I will start offering a special email list that has what the website has, but then has a little bit more. I’m excited about the way email lists have returned and I’m excited to share new content with you! What do you think about the resurrection of the email list?
4) I was going to include a fourth thing you must know, but I decided it was worthy of its own little announcement (and no, mom, I’m not pregnant). How about I talk about that one Monday. Cool? Cool.
See you Monday. You will not want to miss this bit of exciting news! If you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you might want to just in case.
I don’t like hyping things up, but the announcement on Monday is super, super exciting!
For the last six months (or three years, depending on who you ask), I’ve been working on my third book. At first, it was going to be about riding my bike across the country and learning lessons in community along the way. But then some not-so-great life stuff happened and I needed a respite. A year later, I thought it was going to be about how to live in the present moment. That idea didn’t work out so well because I learned along the way I was doing too darn good at running from the present moment.
But then my editor said to not think about it for six months. Don’t talk to him about it for six months. Do nothing about it for six months.
I’m so glad God has put smart people in my life.
During that six months, I was able to take a breath and look back at what was making my heart beat. What was the one message I had to tell? That I’ve lived, am living, and will always live and love?
We landed it. I’ve been working on it since.
Presently, it is very much in the [Crappy] First Draft* situation. But at the end of this month, I get to turn this [C]FD in to Thomas Nelson and in about ten months or so, you’ll be able to buy it.
People have asked me what it’s about…and I wish I had a title for it (for some reason, that part just hasn’t illuminated itself to us) so, in a nut shell (as it sits now, which is both subject and likely to change in the editing process):
It’s about vulnerability in relationships, particularly those with other believers. It’s going beyond the word “community” and talks how to figure out how you relate to others, and themes of vulnerable and committed relationships. It offers characteristics for both when you “need a person” and for when you need to “be the person” as we carry each other through life.
I’d love to hear any feedback you have – questions you have about relationships, good experiences, lessons learned, what you feel you need when it comes to having functioning healthy community in the Body of Christ. Feel free to leave it in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook!
Thanks for hanging in the interlude with me the past three years!
*[C]FD is my PG13 translation of an Anne Lamott expression.
