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What if We Chose to Be for One Another?

What if We Chose to Be for One Another?

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Feb 21, 2022 | (in)courage, Community, Family, friendship

Shelves and screws and seemingly random pieces of what would eventually become a wooden cabinet covered the living room floor. It was somewhere around step thirty-one that I knew without a doubt: This was a two-person job. Four hands were needed to ensure the boards...
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay Today

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay Today

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | May 12, 2021 | (in)courage, Devotional, Faith, Family

I wrote this article three weeks ago, Nana went Home two weeks ago, and Pap-Pop passed away exactly one year ago… to the day. As someone who loves and remembers dates/details, when I was assigned the May 12th article at incourage.me, I was confident it wasn’t a...
What If It’s as ‘Simple’ as Everyday Faithfulness?

What If It’s as ‘Simple’ as Everyday Faithfulness?

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Jun 23, 2020 | Devotional, Faith, Faithful, Family

My grandfather passed away last month. A few hours after receiving the news, the memory of a long-forgotten college paper crossed my mind. It was late. Both night and tears had fallen, but instead of going to bed I sat at my desk searching through documents. There....
When You Need a Miracle in the Messy Middle

When You Need a Miracle in the Messy Middle

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Apr 8, 2020 | Easter, Even If Not, Faith, Faithful, Family

A few years ago, my family spent week after week sitting in waiting rooms and hoping for answers. Just a few hours before the light of Easter morning began to stretch across the sky, my phone lit up with one of the worst text messages of my life. Exactly two years...
Choosing Thanks-Living

Choosing Thanks-Living

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Nov 24, 2014 | Beauty, Faith, Family, Story, Thanksgiving

In order to truly live, one must do one’s living amongst the breathing. I’m sure it’s been said more beautifully before, but those fourteen words sum up my November. After writing 31 days in a row on how and why every story matters, the well had run...
Women: We Can’t Shrink Back

Women: We Can’t Shrink Back

by Kaitlyn Bouchillon | Jul 15, 2014 | Beauty, Broken and Raw, Family, Fear

This is a follow up to the recent post For The Girls With Thighs That Touch. We will not – can not – shrink back or shrink down just to please another. Sun streams in mid-morning and I stumble down the stairs after completing my morning work routine. There...
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RECENT POSTS:

  • 13 New Books I’m Looking Forward to This Fall
  • Don’t Forget to Remember
  • Get Your Hopes Up
  • When It’s Been a Lot for What Feels Like a Long Time
  • 13 New Books I’m Looking Forward to This Summer

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

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

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It’s the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Fall It’s the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of Fall, and it’s an actual 97 degrees here. And I’m just saying that sometimes seasons don’t change as quickly as we’d like them to. Somethings a thing, a situation, a diagnosis, a job, or an unknown drags out so. much. longer. than we thought it would.⁣ ⁣ Sometimes the calendar doesn’t line up with our timetable.⁣ ⁣ The season will shift—eventually. How things are today is not how they’ll always be, maybe not even how they’ll be tomorrow. But for now we’re here waiting for leaves to fall, for someone to call, for a positive test, for a benign report, for an open door, for an apology, for forgiveness, for for for…⁣ ⁣ I could tell you the things you already know. I could say that times of waiting don’t equal wasted time. I could remind you that God is never late, that He doesn’t make mistakes, that there’s more to the story than what we can see today.⁣ ⁣ That would all be true. But what I know is that waiting can be exhausting. So I’ll just say to you what I need to hear on this Autumnal Equinox, when the calendar says “here it is!” but it’s just more of the same:⁣ ⁣ You haven’t been forgotten.⁣ We have a God who doesn’t tease.⁣ You are seen by the One who is still writing.⁣ The Author is kind.⁣ ⁣ Every day, every shift, every season.
This is all I’ve got today.⁣ ⁣ It’s enough This is all I’ve got today.⁣ ⁣ It’s enough.⁣ ⁣ The Lord is my Shepherd,⁣ I have everything I need.⁣ - Psalm 23:1 💛
Thinking today about miracles and prayers answered Thinking today about miracles and prayers answered in ways other than we hoped… thin places and feeling stretched too thin… shadows and light and the stunning mystery of grace…⁣ ⁣ May your weekend be one of deep rest, unexpected “just thinking of you!” texts, and the smell of fresh cookies wafting through the air. May you see God’s goodness woven into the storylines you’d rather not walk, His faithfulness in the unknown, and His nearness in the long wait. May you choose deliberate, risky hope that He’ll heal what is broken and restore what seems too far gone. May you say, even if your voice shakes, that God is good—even if not. May the morning bring the daily manna of new mercies, may ordinary afternoon light push back the dark one dancing shadow at a time, and may Love be the last voice you hear as you close your eyes at night. May the mystery and the miracle of abundant grace find you in your beautiful, ordinary, right now days.⁣ ⁣ “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you've prayed for. God probably won't undo what's been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the new day.” - William Kent Krueger⁣ ⁣ “By no means am I trying to minimize God to a trivial fraction of who He is. I'm only attempting to magnify the detailed and caring nature of His character. The same God who made elephants and buffaloes also made pansies and ladybugs. Big and small, He cares about them all. The miracle of how He heals a paper cut is no less God-like than the way He heals the stuff they make feature stories about. He knows when His children are in agony, and He knows when it's just been a long day. Nothing escapes His attention.” - @PriscillaShirer⁣ ⁣ “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness… because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” - Frederick Buechner⁣ ⁣ #beautifulordinarynow #miracleseverywhere
May I present to you a giveaway to celebrate my fa May I present to you a giveaway to celebrate my favorite random national day & an old picture from when I first announced #EvenIfNotBook. ⁣ My phone lights up with a reminder every September 8th: It’s National Ampersand Day! 🎉 I had a post planned but then health stuff took me out & invited me to live it out. That might sound like a cliché; I assure you it looks a lot more like wrestling. And I guess, here on September 9th, that’s actually fitting. Because that IS the ampersand, the symbol I love so much, the thing that covers the cover of my book, the middle place we each live in.⁣ ⁣ An ampersand (&) is the sign for “and”, a connection between between two things. It goes right in the middle & keeps the story going. So often we try to rush through the messy or mundane middle & turn the page, hurrying to the ending, tying a tidy bow. The truth is, most of our days are somewhere in between...⁣ ⁣ Hope & heartache. Joy & stress. Grief & delight. Anticipation & disappointment. Devastation & redemption. Community & loneliness. Grateful & overwhelmed. Belief & unbelief.⁣ ⁣ The list could go on & on because we live our days in the ampersand, in the tension of the Already & the Not Yet, the both/and of the story. For me, literally yesterday, that meant walking through the “and” of sickness & healing, of hope & disappointment, of trusting & waiting & doubting & believing. It’s messy. And it’s good, in its own way, because it’s here in the ampersand that I’ve found God’s goodness doesn’t waver or run out… it’s the thread running all the way through, leaving fingerprints on every page of the story.⁣ ⁣ If I could, I’d send Even If Not to everyone walking through an “and”. Obviously money is a real thing, but I do have an extra copy I'd love to gift away. No need to follow or tag, just raise your hand or share one of your ampersands below! I’ll randomly select a comment on Monday & send a book your way.⁣ ⁣ May you see Him in every middle place & on every page. You aren’t walking alone. 💛⁣ ⁣ (P.s. Email subscribers, check your inbox! There’s an extra giveaway waiting for you there.)⁣(Not sponsored. Paid for by yours truly. The end. 🫶🏼)
On repeat over here: Borrowing worry from tomorrow On repeat over here: Borrowing worry from tomorrow only takes away from today. Pause. Go slow. Rest well. Take your time and breathe deep. The One who made you declared you to be worth it all before you had done anything at all, so you don’t have to do it all, hold it all together, be it all or even always be okay. It’s okay to just be. Every burden you think you carry, every weight and every worry, is securely in His hands. He’ll hold it, and you, together. So pause. Go slow. Slower still. Rest well. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” - Jesus (Matthew 6) And in The Message: “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” 
The first image is my own. The others are from @hertrueworth, @beaheartdesign, @karla.colahan, @morganharpernichols, and @andrearhowey.
Photos from this past month + words to carry into Photos from this past month + words to carry into the next. May September be a month of wonder, holding the hint of a song of hope. May you know the persistent provision of daily bread, may you greet change with open hands, may you pay attention to what you see and may you see the goodness of God in your beautiful ordinary right now days.⁣ ⁣ #beautifulordinarynow #miracleseverywhere
Honestly, I’m more comfortable running and doing Honestly, I’m more comfortable running and doing, listening or creating, showing up or checking in or checking things off a list. Even when I slow down for a moment, “I could be doing XYZ right now” begins running through my mind. It takes intentional effort to turn off the internal clock, to quiet the mental checklist, to ignore the “shoulds” and stop, breathe, and simply be.⁣ ⁣ At the end of each year, I ask myself the same nine questions. For the first time, my answer to this—What’s one piece of advice you want your future self to carry into the next year?—came immediately, sounding the alarm like a smoke detector saying if nothing changed, there would soon be a fire.⁣ ⁣ 👉🏻 Rest. Turn everything off and be unreachable. Don’t wait until it’s convenient (that literally never happens) or until your body forces you to stop. Slow down before you break down. You don’t have to hold it all together or do all the things for all the people. You can just... be. After two intense years of long work days, to say nothing of a Global Situation and the grief of losing loved ones, you’ve got to pause and catch your breath. Fill up what has been poured out. It’s time to rest.⁣ ⁣ I could feel the heat in the dead of winter. I was running on fumes, but there it was, a giant stop sign, a gentle invitation. I have so much more to learn; I’m not “good” at resting. But God is teaching me to take rest as seriously as He does, to make it a priority without a prerequisite of Doing All The Things before pausing, stopping, simply be-ing.⁣ ⁣ This is what I’m learning, and if you've been carrying too much for too long, if you're overwhelmed, exhausted, worn down or stretched thin? This is for you today:⁣ ⁣ There will always be more to do, and certainly there are seasons in which we’re to run hard. But rest isn’t a sign that you’re weak; it’s trusting that the tending of your soul matters more than the completing of a task. Rest isn’t a sign that you’ve given up; rest is accepting the gift that has already been given. It’s okay to rest, friend. It’s okay to rest. 💛
I’m still learning to be comfortable in the skin I’m still learning to be comfortable in the skin I’m in. I’m still learning to look in the mirror and not pick apart or wish away. I’m still learning, particularly after two mouth surgeries and an unfortunate broken tooth situation this spring (honestly what are the odds) to smile instead of shame. I’m still learning to see photos and choose to bless instead of bully.⁣ ⁣ It’s a little too easy to see picture-perfect images and forget that on the other side of the screen, there’s messy hair and circles growing darker under the eyes that stare back in a smudged mirror that needs cleaning.⁣ ⁣ It’s easy to scroll through a bunch of cropped and filtered pictures or reels and to close the app feeling behind or like you’re not doing enough.⁣ ⁣ So, hello there. Here’s a picture of me smiling wide in the skin I’m in, admitting that I say things to myself that I wouldn’t say to you in a million years. There are scripts that spin that, if spoken about one of my friends, would make me outrageously upset. Because how dare you talk to my friend that way?!⁣ ⁣ Last year I decided to use a new filter: If I wouldn’t be okay with someone saying it to my friend, then it wasn’t okay to think/say about myself. And no, scripts don’t get rewritten with the snap of a finger. But I'm noticing them more, pressing pause and choosing something kind (even if I have to think for a while).⁣ I’m taking, and posting, the picture anyway. So I have a challenge for you, and I hope you’ll take me up on it because the words we say and what we name ourselves matters.⁣ ⁣ Take 5 seconds or 5 minutes (however long it takes, but take it right now) and say something true + kind about yourself. Out loud. (For real.) There’s enough negativity in our heads. Let’s speak truth and hear our own voice saying it. We all (including ourselves) could use a kind word.⁣ ⁣ Will you? Put a “challenge accepted” in the comments… and maybe write one more, tagging a friend + saying something kind.⁣ ⁣ Let’s replace a script or two today.⁣ Let’s smile instead of shame.⁣ Let’s bless instead of bully.
Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time. - Oswald Chambers⁣ ⁣ This is the part that gets me—and gets me through, comforting when the waiting seems long and carrying through the ups and downs—His character is worthy of deliberate confidence.⁣ ⁣ Faithful and unchanging… even in the unknowns and in betweens. And so we wait, sometimes, for morning to break, for the answered prayer, for the spouse, for the child, for the diagnosis, for the job, for restoration, for a friend, for the light at the end of the tunnel to draw near. We wait for one thing and then another, time and again, watchful and expectant. We look for beauty in the ordinary and cling to the promise that God isn’t done working even when nothing seems to be happening. We look for the light and preach the very good truth back to our weary hearts:⁣ ⁣ We are not alone.⁣ We have not been forgotten.⁣ We are not behind.⁣ We have not been overlooked.⁣ Times of waiting ≠ wasted time.⁣ ⁣ The night might stretch on, but morning will come. It always does.⁣ ⁣ Deliberate confidence. Faithful and unchanging.⁣ Hope is worth holding onto; the story isn’t over.⁣ ⁣ God of new beginnings, sustain us in the waiting. We don’t know what the future will hold, but we know that You’ll be there. Tonight, that's enough. You, Lord, are enough. Amen
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