. I put it off, came up with a dozen reasons why it wasn’t the right timing, and told God that He had picked the wrong girl.

His response was kind but clear: to do anything else would be disobedience.

Three years ago today, I opened a blank page and wrote exactly 2,000 words. I didn’t know where those words would go or what they might become. I didn’t know He’d ask me to write about singleness, revisit heartbreaks, or put words around night terrors and spiritual warfare. I had no idea that over the next several months, I’d need to show up in the darkness, look for the light, and write about what it feels like in the messy middle, in the in betweens of life. But that’s where He led me and I found Him there. On every single page, I found Him there.

On August 19, 2015 I wrote 2,000 words that, with only one or two edits, became the introduction to a book that has been printed and bound and shipped around the world. But that afternoon, it was simply the next right thing, one small step of obedience.

It was anything but easy, but I’d do every bit of it all over again. Because this is the truth:

It’s been three years and I still regularly hear from complete strangers who have stumbled across , readers I’ll likely never meet this side of heaven who say things like “this book is changing my life” and “I met Jesus between the pages.” And I shake my head and really truly honestly the only response I have to offer is simply this: Me too.

My name may be on the cover, but He’s the Author, the mender of the broken pieces spilled out in black ink. This isn’t necessarily the story I would have chosen, but I’m forever grateful it’s the one I was given. My history is really His story, and if there’s one thing I learned from writing Even If Not, one thing I’d go back and tell my August-19th-2015-self, it would be this: Get ready to be blown away by His goodness, because you’re going to find it on every page, in every high and low. He is always present and ever faithful, true and good even in — especially in — the in between.

(Want to learn more about Even If Not? )