One of my favorite questions people have been asking me the last few weeks is what I am praying as the new book launches and what they can be praying for me and for the book.
My answer is simple, but it hasn’t come simply.
I have big hopes and dreams. Looking for Lovely is my fifth book (here are the others) and so I want every launch to reach more people that the one before. I see how other authors’ books do on launch weeks, I see the best-seller lists and I see the “million copies sold” stickers and I see the Today Show appearances and I see all of it. And if I’m being honest with you, I want all of that. I want to be really good at my job. I want to run a great business with great resources and happy employees. I want all of our books and products and Bible studies to make an impact and fly off shelves.
And so I wrestle with my insides about deciding what matters and what doesn’t matter, fighting off the lies that this book will never matter and the pride that says this book matters more than anything else. I’ve been narrowing down which of that list is about me and what is about God and the reader, the ones who actually matter here.
(Overuse of the word “matter”? Yes. Definitely.)
It has been a process. God has refined me deeply in the last few months, it has been ugly and painful at times, and brought my heart to a more right place. A place where what matters most is HIM and YOU.
So here’s how I’m praying and here’s how I’m asking you to pray alongside me tomorrow and for this whole launch week.
–> I’m asking that God would put Looking for Lovely in ALL the right hands.
–> I’m praying that He would protect the mail and guard bookstores and that every person who wants Looking for Lovely this week will be able to find it easily.
–> I’m praying that any plan the enemy has to steal, kill, or destroy launch week would be thwarted in the power of Jesus’s name. Satan has no authority in this situation. None.
–> I’m praying that every reader who receives this book would be brought under the shade of God’s tree, a tree of peace, so they can sit and read and rest.
–> I’m praying people who don’t know God will meet Him in the pages of Looking for Lovely and give Him access to their hearts.
–> And I’m praying that whatever happens this week, people would look at God and know He did this, He made a way, and He is worthy of all our praise.
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