Happy Friday, dear friends.

Today’s post marks the end of our Breathing Room Blog Book Club! I’ve loved journeying back through the nuances of the book with you this fall.

This book is my love letter to every soul that has ever been hurting. Some of you thought you were the only one. You were alone. No one understood. I hope Breathing Room is one small gesture that helps you know . . . me too.

It’s an interesting thing to go back and read through a book you’ve written. I realized that many of the events written about in this book feel less acute now, but — the truth is — I have not evolved beyond the struggles that I explain. In other words, I have not “learned a few things” and been able to just move on with my life. I have to practice the practices in this book. By God’s grace. Every day.

I practice beginning again, talking back to the brain vultures, sharing real life, rejecting frantic, being nonGodly, saying no to the bad pants . . . just to name a few. I want to normalize the fact that these are practices and postures we must continue exercising, not necessarily skills we master, or information we possess.

I hope you have begun to see the book as a series of practices, too. Watching the gutter is our last one, and this last chapter is a celebration of being able to see. When we’re in the thick of the Come Apart, it’s so hard to see. So hard to trust that the light will return. In these times, God gives us glimpses of beauty, symbols of his love for us — often totally unexpected. And I just love that.

In this final chapter, I tell a story about witnessing gorgeous hot pink bougainvillea petals dancing down the street on gutter water . . . and how it arrested me when all I had been seeing (and feeling) for days was beige. You will see this story again in the future. That’s a little tease. It became the jumping off point for some important revelations in my life. What it meant to show up, emerge, let myself been seen. You’ll hear more about all that in the months to come.

For today, I leave you with my love and my belief in you. That you can see the wonder that is in the world around you, even if it shows up in gutter water. And, a I share in the Postlude, that you would have the perseverance and encouragement to “continue.” Continue engaging in these life-line practices that will bring you back to yourself and to God and to those you love.

Continue.

Thank you to SO very many of you who continue to tell me that the stories in this book saved you in some small or large way. It makes me want to fall down dead on the floor from the tenderness of it all. Thank you for walking the worn path of grace with me. Thank you for giving me hope.

With so much love,

Leeana

P.S. If you know someone who could use a dose of understanding this Christmas, Breathing Room is just about $10 on Amazon right now, which is a great price!!