Today is “release day” for my new book, Begin Again. Some of you will go to your mailbox today and you’ll do what I did a week or so ago — you’ll find a package and you’ll open it to find this book. What a wild thing. I can still viscerally remember the dark mornings I wrote and wrestled and listened this book into existence.

This book came from my bones. That’s the only way I know how to say it. And I believe God gave me the contents to help me navigate a very intense season in my own life. I really do. I don’t know where you are in your life right now, what circumstances you’re navigating, but I do know that the idea of, the practice of, and the grace required for beginning again will help you. Maybe even save you.

I am in Virginia as I write this; my kids and I are visiting family for Spring Break. My sister asked me last night if I was worried or nervous about today, and I said my primary emotion was anticipation. This is my fourth time sending a book into the world, and it is never not vulnerable. Period. But this time, I just trust — in my gut — that this book will make its way into the hands that need it, and that’s what I want more than anything. If you need this message, this hope, I believe it will find you because I know God reaches toward us — even when (especially when) we’re hiding and scared — and he invites us into the next new moment.

So today I am celebrating the book and the entire village that has helped it come to fruition, but I am most of all celebrating four tender words that found me a decade ago. They have walked with me all this time, and God continues to whisper them in my ear. They are these:

“Always we begin again.” -St. Benedict

May they find you, too. Walk with you, too. Save you, too.

With all my love,

Leeana

P.S. The 6 Week Group Discussion Guide is up and ready to go on the Begin Again book page. Find a warrior tribe and talk through the book together!