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How To Tell Your Story {31 Days :: Day 20}

How To Tell Your Story {31 Days :: Day 20}

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Oct 20, 2014 | Brave, Community, every story matters, Love, Story

If we go through the world with our ear to the ground, with our ear pressed up against people’s words, listening for heartbeats, listening for the heartbeat of stories, it could happen —  Stories are keys that release you out of yourself and into the wide freedom of...
Our Walls Keep *Us* In {31 Days :: Day 15}

Our Walls Keep *Us* In {31 Days :: Day 15}

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Oct 15, 2014 | Community, every story matters, Fear, Haiti, Story

There’s a teal blue Mead journal with pages of thoughts, prayers, and verses from my time in Haiti. It stays tucked away in the bottom drawer of my desk. There are days I’d rather not remember it all. There are days I’d prefer to just forget....
Our Stories Are Stronger Together {31 Days :: Day 9}

Our Stories Are Stronger Together {31 Days :: Day 9}

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Oct 9, 2014 | Community, every story matters, Joy, Story

There are those people you meet and in one quick moment you just know they’re gonna change your life. And then there are those who show up day after day and over time a place in your heart has their name on it. Your story is changed because you’ve welcomed...
Your Story Isn’t Over {31 Days :: Day 8}

Your Story Isn’t Over {31 Days :: Day 8}

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Oct 8, 2014 | Broken and Raw, Community, every story matters, Faithful, Story

It’s October 8, 2013. I’m smiling from ear to ear, my tennis shoes are laced, and the turf beneath my feet is a lot less squishy than I imagined. We’re about to take the field. In every way imaginable, I am both ungraceful and unathletic. But...
Community [Link-Up and Giveaway]

Community [Link-Up and Giveaway]

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Aug 25, 2014 | #fmfpartysnailmail, Community, Giveaway

We were made for it but for many, it has also wounded us. You know it as well as I do, community can heal but community can hurt. Sometimes it walks away and sometimes we choose to do the walking, but instead of focusing on the have-beens or the maybe-some-days I want...
The Written Word [Link-Up and a Giveaway!]

The Written Word [Link-Up and a Giveaway!]

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Jul 28, 2014 | #fmfpartysnailmail, Community, Giveaway

From as long as I can remember, I have dearly loved and believed in the written word. I can ramble for hours on end and spend more than my quota of words each day through texting, typing, or speaking. But there’s something special about the written word, the...
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MY BOOK // Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between

Even If Not: Living, Loving and Learning in the in Between

kaitlyn_bouch
“Blessed [spiritually prosperous, happy, to be adm “Blessed [spiritually prosperous, happy, to be admired] are the poor in spirit [those devoid of spiritual arrogance, those who regard themselves as insignificant], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [both now and forever]. Blessed [forgiven, refreshed by God’s grace] are those who mourn [over their sins and repent], for they will be comforted [when the burden of sin is lifted]. Blessed [inwardly peaceful, spiritually secure, worthy of respect] are the gentle [the kind-hearted, the sweet-spirited, the self-controlled], for they will inherit the earth. Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied. Blessed [content, sheltered by God’s promises] are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed [anticipating God’s presence, spiritually mature] are the pure in heart [those with integrity, moral courage, and godly character], for they will see God. Blessed [spiritually calm with life-joy in God’s favor] are the makers and maintainers of peace, for they will [express His character and] be called the sons of God. Blessed [comforted by inner peace and God’s love] are those who are persecuted for doing that which is morally right, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [both now and forever].” - Jesus in Matthew 5, AMP 💛 A small quote of my own and timeless words from Jesus that have been, time after time, a lighthouse and a guide for me. Perhaps they’ll find you at a time you need a line or two, too.
Country number one: Greece 🇬🇷 And y’all listen, I Country number one: Greece 🇬🇷 And y’all listen, I know this isn’t a travel page and I’m not about to make it one, BUT ALSO I took nearly 2,000 photos and videos over the course of two weeks and in this time of AI, I so just want to keep sharing snippets and words and run-on sentences from real life. 99.7% of the time, that’s much more mundane than a once in a lifetime trip. And you KNOW I believe there’s goodness in all of that too. I started the #beautifulordinarynow hashtag a decade ago and I believe it still—deeply. There is remarkable beauty in the wildly ordinary of our right now lives. BUT ALSO (again): when friends travel to places I may never get to see with my own eyes, I so want them to share allllllll the pictures so I can learn and watch and appreciate and enjoy from afar. I’ll spare you the majority because, again, not a travel page. And let’s be honest, I know some will leave (because: not what you came here for) and the algorithm will likely hide these (because: beauty, not a hot take). But for a hot minute, maybe a deep breath and a lovely view would be a nice addition to the dumpster fire of… *waves hands around* I try to offer that to you, here and via email, through words and posts and art prints. Perhaps we can temporarily add this to the mix. You tell me! Are there any of these you’d like to see? 🤯 Photos/videos from Corinth and Philippi 🏛️ The Acropolis ✨ Small beauty tucked within the ruins 🇬🇷 Greek mythological locations 🥰 My personal favorite pictures and moments Seriously—what say you? And would you be at all interested if I created a brand new Advent collection inspired by the trip? Because between exploring Greece and then visiting Country Number Two (just you wait… the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen), I have Some Ideas. 😉
October was the month of traveling between time zo October was the month of traveling between time zones—I’ll show you over the coming weeks, because I’m not gatekeeping beauty—but somewhere over the Atlantic on my way eight hours “into the future” I remembered a truth tucked away long ago, words written as I crossed the US on my way home from the Pacific coast. It found me again, somewhere else up in the clouds, truth for life on this side of the sky, as @laurawifler beautifully puts it. Years ago, after a few days with dear friends in which we covered everything from snacks and clothes to diversity and being seen to quiet dreams and deep heartbreaks, somehow we kept coming back to the thread of God’s past provision for the present moment. Not because everything looked lovely or felt great or made sense. No, not that. But in that way of looking back that happens when you catch up after too long, when you’re summarizing seasons into sentences and suddenly you see something you couldn’t before? It was that. It was a thread woven among the group, conversation to conversation, of the veil being just a little bit thinner, of looking back and seeing what was there all along, true at every turn, but easy to miss. I carried ⁣it with me on the plane, this looking-back-reminder, as I flew among the clouds into the future, crossing timezones and struck by the mystery. And like only God could orchestrate, that memory came back to me this month, one more “past provision for the present moment.” He prepares. He provides. He puts things in place long before we know what’s coming. He makes a way before we know we’re going to need one, holds what was and what is and what is to come, and He says “Come and rest. You don’t have to figure it out or hold it all. I’ve got it. I see you and I see what’s coming and I’ll meet you there. So just come. As you are, with your hope and grief and doubt and fear. I’m with you here and now, and I’ll be with you there and then. I already am.” Goodness in the past, presence in the present, faithful in the future. Emmanuel, God with us now. Emmanuel, wherever we’re headed, He’s already there.
(Free gifts ✨) It’s a simple phrase, just four wor (Free gifts ✨) It’s a simple phrase, just four words, but if it’s true than it has significance and weight and changes, well, perhaps everything. Grace is not seasonal. In October 2025, I created an instagram post with a collection of 9 lines, verses, lyrics and phrases I kept returning to and turning over when my own words were few. A few (3) of the slides included my own quotes, and isn’t it interesting how the familiar can be made new as seasons shift? What doesn’t ever change, though—thank God for God—is grace. The images were shared nearly a thousand times, and the first one with “grace is not seasonal” specifically seemed to strike a chord as friends and strangers alike added it to their Instagram Story. This year, I turned it into an art print. Bonus: Pulled out of the archives, a “grace is not seasonal” print shared inside All The Things back in 2023. (I send new prints to email subscribers all throughout the year.) The words aren’t new. But perhaps we need them now in a new way. Hints of light in the dark. Beauty even in the blaze. And always: a grace that remains. God is outside of time, setting things in motion, meeting us in the Right Now while preparing what we’ll need in the There and Then. Goodness will not fail in its continual pursuit. Even when the seasons shift and the ground shakes and you watch the world burn bright, the leaves igniting and then dying, falling, cracking into fragments… Even when. Even then. There’s a needle weaving a thread of goodness through it all. In the fire and the flame, still, there is grace because God is present—Emmanuel at Christmas *and* on every other day, turning the ordinary and horrible and wonderful into holy ground. If one of these prints would be a wanted addition to your gallery wall or a gentle reminder of what will remain true no matter the season, I’d like to send them to you 100% free. Just message me or comment GRACE below and I’ll send a DM with the link to download—my gift to you. ♥️ Here’s to the slow but sure changing of the season, the familiar made new again, and the constant in it all. May grace gently find you in expected ways this fall.
Free art print & lock screen 👉🏻 I’d love to send t Free art print & lock screen 👉🏻 I’d love to send this your way! Just message me or comment PSALM 23 below and I’ll send a DM with the link to download the art print (available in both 5x7 and 8x10), the lock screen, and the story behind the design. Goodness and love will chase you down in one million random, small, unexpected and wonderful ways. It isn’t always crystal clear. We often only have a glimpse, a whisper, just the outline of what will be… but these truths will hold true until it’s all filled in. Joy is not done with you. Hope has more to say. Love is still writing the story. Goodness will be there on every page. 💛 @kaitlyn_bouch
One greek word in Matthew 6:34 really got me a few One greek word in Matthew 6:34 really got me a few years ago and honestly, I’m coming back to it today, needing it all over again. In case you do too… In the familiar verse, Jesus says “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I grew up with that translation (NIV) and only later learned many others say “Sufficient [in greek: ἀρκετὸν] for the day is its own trouble.” Sufficient. When the hits keep on coming, one after another, everything piling up. When we’re doing our best but can barely catch our breath. Sufficient trouble for the day? Don’t we know it. But there’s also 2 Corinthians 12:9… But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient [ἀρκεῖ] for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Sufficient grace for the day, even with all the trouble it brings. ⁣ The Greek between the two is linked and it boils down to “enough”, which sounds like the promised peace and the guaranteed trouble Jesus talks about in another familiar verse we too often split up: “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” We do ourselves (and others) a disservice when we focus on just one part of John 16:33. Pretending there isn’t trouble is foolish and sticking our heads in the sand is actual disobedience. Happy-clappy words of “don’t worry!” rub salt in the wound, but doom and gloom is far from the whole story. We need the both/and tension of the entire verse, and Jesus kindly gives it to us. He acknowledges the hurt, the struggle, the pain, the trouble. He doesn’t ignore, deny, or downplay any of it. No, He calls it what it is and then literally wraps it in grace and truth, peace and hope, bookending it in goodness. Grace, trouble, grace. Enough, enough, enough. He isn’t surprised or overwhelmed by the muchness of it all; He’s sufficient in it all. It’s not a cute cliché; it’s a lighthouse when we can’t find the shore, an anchor in the waves. There will be plenty of trouble. But there will also be enough grace. Day by day, wave after wave, He will prove sufficient no matter how great the storm.
Just go ahead and make me the captain of team Zero Just go ahead and make me the captain of team Zero Chill about this. Settle in, it is GOOD. Does it mean things will turn out exactly as we hoped and provision will look just like what we expected? No. Of course not, no. But it does offer a gentle reminder and a promise strong enough to rely on right there in the unexpected, the ordinary, the loss, the lack and the forgotten field. God is there even when it doesn’t seem like it, providing even when we can’t see it yet, remaining faithful even when it doesn’t make sense, making a way for the left out and the outcast and the ones struggling to make it by, to make it through, to make it all add up to enough. He is. He is there. He is the enough. Emmanuel, God With Us. The lamb was “missing” so we might notice: the true Lamb was there all along. Worthy is the Lamb seated on the throne.
It’s late and I’m guessing most are fast asleep, t It’s late and I’m guessing most are fast asleep, two words sitting next to one another my body doesn’t understand. Chronic insomnia is a thief that cleans house one toss and turn and tick tock at a time. Recently, I’ve returned to an old rhythm I wish I never slipped out of: praying this verse until sleep arrives around 5 as daylight starts to slip through the blinds. These walls have heard the words thousands of times. There are worse things. (breathe in) Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High (breathe out) will rest in the shadow of the Almighty If you’ve been here a long time, you may remember these ancient words followed me to Haiti. For years, I repeated this verse until falling back asleep after night terrors. There, the Sunday after an awful one, we walked to a nearly full church. I took an available seat, exhausted, until I noticed the writing literally on the wall. Shocked, I scanned the room. Every wall was empty. Except this one. With just one verse. Right next to my 'random' seat: Psalm 91. (The picture of me pointing to it is a pixelated treasure.) Yesterday it surprised me again: an email arrived from a stranger (hello Cindi!) who found me from a “Psalm 91 lock screen” Google search. God is funny and God is so kind. In deep darkness, in chalk on a wall, in a screensaver I designed years ago, in 16 years of midnight hours. Goodness and mercy following and finding me all of my days (nights). Here's the thing: It's true for you too. 🕯️ If you’re up late struggling, worried, hurting, tossing or turning? You aren’t alone. I’m here, repeating Psalm 91 and lighting this candle for you. For me. For all of us. It’s small, but it’s something, a little light pushing back the darkness. In my experience, Hope doesn’t shout “Try harder! Get it together!”⁣ Hope gently whispers “I’ll stay with you as the night stretches on. Even if you let go, I’ll keep holding on. I’ve got this and I’ve got you. I won’t ever let go.” In daylight and in darkness, Hope will see and sing us through. P.s. If you or someone you love needs prayer, I’d like to pray for you by name until morning dawns. Just leave a heart in the comments and I’ll know. 💛
I’m giving away these 3 art prints to everyone who I’m giving away these 3 art prints to everyone who donates $4 (the cost to purchase and ship a book) to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library this week. 🦋📚 Dolly used her gifts to change the world. Kindness. Compassion. Generosity. Love. Wisdom. Friendship. Character. Service. Joy. And, of course music. And books. I don’t think any of these art prints will change the world. But a few dollars from me, from you, from even half of the people who will see this post? Together, we would fill bookshelf after bookshelf for children around the world. And if a set of prints inspires someone to cover the cost of a book for a little one? You bet I’m making the prints to give away. Will you join me? And please, would you help me spread the word? In @dollyparton’s honor, let’s follow in her high-heeled rhinestone footsteps and bless the next generation... Let’s fill the hands and bookshelves of children around the world. Comment DOLLY and I’ll send you the link! (P.s. Thank you!)
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