Emily Conrad's Blog, page 14

Indivisible: Charissa Steyn on Saying Yes to Jesus' Romantic Pursuit of Our Souls

by Emily Conrad and Charissa Steyn

In preparation for doing this series on God’s love, I ordered a 40 Days of Love Letters journal from Art of Adventure. The exercise of carefully reading a passage of Scripture and then writing out a love letter from Jesus to me was so powerful, I immediately knew I not only wanted to use the journal as prep for myself for the series, I wanted it to be a part of the happenings on the blog this month.

Charissa Steyn of Art of Adventure, the journal’s creator, graciously accepted the invite to join us for a Q and A today. And yes, we're giving away one of these lovely journals to someone who comments on this post-keep reading for details!



Thanks for taking the time to join us for the Indivisible series today, Charissa! I’m so excited to have you visit the blog!

What inspired the 40 Days of Love Letters journal?
There were a few things that inspired me to create the 40 Days of Love Letters journal. The first bit of inspiration came from my desire to always be attentive to God’s voice and presence in my life, to be on the lookout for His love letters throughout the day- be it through a verse in the Bible, the encouragement of a friend, a colorful sunset, a hug from my kids, a worship song…He is constantly pursuing us!
Read more »

Introducing Indivisible: seen, known, and forever loved by a wholehearted God

by Emily Conrad


A novel, a journal, a load of Bible verses, and emails from writer friends. Through all of this and more, God has been nudging me.

Emily, there’s more to this.
Emily, you’re glossing over something.
Emily, pay attention to this.
Emily, you don’t really know what you think you know, and you haven’t yet fully experienced this.

Again and again until I finally surrendered my attention to this thing He’s been nudging me toward: His love.

I can no longer simply skim over passages like Ephesians 3:18-19, in which Paul prays that we would understand the dimensions of God’s love—how high and wide and deep it is.

I must now ask, What are the dimensions of the love of God? How can we know something that surpasses knowledge? How does God’s love really make a difference in my life?

I can no longer stop puzzling over references to Jesus as a bridegroom and the Bible as a love letter after just a few moments of furrowing my brow.

I must ask, Why do those make me uncomfortable, and is it fair to talk about God’s love that way?

I can no longer imagine I have an adequate understanding of what Paul means in Romans 3:38-39 when he writes that we can’t be separated from the love of God.

I must now ask, What does God’s unconditional love really look like? What did it mean for Him to accept me as His child, and how should that impact my other relationships?


As my curiosity grew, I reached out to others. They added more questions to the pile: Who is this God who loves us so? How can God love and forgive me when I can’t love and forgive myself? Is God’s love similar to the human love I experience, or is it something completely other?

These are ambitious questions, the answers to which I am sure I will not fully understand until Heaven. But nonetheless, God invites us to explore His love, and so, with each post from now through February 28th, explore we will.

After all, February is when we celebrate Valentine's Day. What greater love can we celebrate and enjoy than the love of God?

I am so excited to invite you along for the journey, and I hope you’ll follow along!

Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store:
40 Days of Love Letters journals giveaways - I teamed up with Charissa Steyn and we're giving away a total of 4 of these lovely journals this month. 2 will be given away on the blog--watch the posts this month for your chance to win them by commenting. (When these giveaways happen, they'll be open to US residents only. Winners will be picked randomly one week later. I'll make the announcement on the blog, and the winner will need to contact me with their mailing address within a week.)2 will be given to email subscribers. Subscribe to my newsletter or blog to be entered for these. (US residents only. Winners will be randomly picked on 3/1 from all current subscribers at that time and notified via email.)Q and A with Charissa Steyn of Art of Adventure Guest posts from 5 talented writers I'm oh-so excited about: Robyn Hook, Rachel Scott McDaniel, Christina Hubbard, Jerusha Agen, and Allie Crume.  Reflections on some of what I've been learning about God’s loveThe best way to be sure you don't miss anything is to subscribe to the blog via email--as a bonus, subscribers get a free short story about beauty, scars, and love titled "A Thing of Beauty." There's a sign up box in the upper right of this blog, or you can go here.
To kick things off, I've written a new short story, "Thirty-One and Falling." You don't have to be a subscriber to get this one, so if you like it, feel free to share the link!


More than ten years ago, a disastrous relationship froze Sarah Jordan into a life of shame and consequences. With no interest in another romantic foray, she's looking forward to Valentine's Day as a special date night with her son, Peter. Peter's plans for the night, however, inadvertently force Sarah to question the beliefs she's lived by face the past, romance, and everything she believes about God's love and willingness to forgive.

Refusing to let heartbreak define him, Luke Carter takes a chance on pursuing Sarah Jordan, but to thaw her opinion of romance, he must first find a way to She makes it very clear, however, that a man's attention isn't going to thaw her opinion of romance. God's love just might, if only Luke could figure out how to show it to her.

Download your free copy here.

I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this series! As I worked on it a little bit at a time over the last month or so, more and more has fallen into place, and I truly believe God has great things in store for us this month.

At the start of this post, I mentioned I felt God nudging me toward this theme through a variety of channels--a novel, a journal, Bible verses, discussions with friends. What in your life has given you just a glimpse of God's love for you?








Indivisible: seen, known, and forever loved by a wholehearted God + free Valentine's story via @novelwritergirl

Poem: Nature from a House in the City

by Emily Conrad

The way humans interact with nature is a theme in my reading life right now. Not one I chose to focus on, but one that is deeply imbedded in the books I happened to pick.

What does nature mean to me? To you? How do we interact with it? What does it do in our lives?

Our answers to these questions reveal so much about our beliefs. What do we think of the ways humans live? Where do we believe nature originated? If we believe it was created, to what end?
Read more »

The Post About Weakness I Didn't Intend to Write

by Emily Conrad


I'm writing to you from Saturday morning. I quit what I was doing as this post began to play in my mind. This is a breakthrough, as writing posts lately has been a struggle.

The problem with writing started a few weeks ago. I attempted to right it. I explored my relationship with Christ in new ways. I prayed. I tried brainstorming. I asked friends for feedback and ideas.

Eventually, I decided this was a time of spiritual growing and stretching that would leave me uncomfortable until the work God was doing in my heart was complete. And so, I tried to continue, valuing discipline and showing up, even though I didn't make much progress.

Then I took a personality test on Friday. Of all things, that prompted a breakthrough. It spoke about two of my weaknesses. I know I have these particular weak spots, yet somehow they sneak up on me more often than I care to admit.

First, I hear criticism loudly. Second, because I detest failure and imperfection, I tend to burn myself out in my pursuit of perfection.

To see these aspects of my personality spelled out so clearly on a screen in the results of the personality test was liberating. Not everyone has the same weaknesses as me, which means others think about life differently than I do. And if they can, I can, too.

I don't have the power to overcome my weaknesses in myself, but I certainly have it in Christ.

If He is for me, who can be against me? I needn't care so much what others think. Not everyone does. I also needn't so doggedly pursue perfection. Actually, burning myself out feeds into the failure I want so desperately to avoid. God built rest into even the law by naming a Sabbath and in other ways, as well. How much more so is rest intended for followers of Jesus, who live not under the law but under grace? We're meant to drop our heavy burdens for his light yoke.

With fresh awareness that posts (and other writing) were coming only by struggle because I had allowed both of these--sensitivity and perfectionism--to take the reigns, I entered my Saturday with determination that today would not be a normal day of work for me.

I would not sit at my computer for hours, wishing words would come. I would not sit there dabbling without inspiration.

Instead, I put on a T-shirt labelled WEEKEND SHIRT (yes, in all caps), took a pile of 8 books (one notebook, one journal, and one planner in the pile) and settled in with an extra-large latte made from my favorite save-it-for-Saturdays-to-make-it-last coffee. I began to read.

I only made it through chunks of three of the books before feeling so full of inspiration I got up to work on other things (soup and dishes) so I could take a mental break to think about what I'd read. But something had broken through in just a couple of chapters of reading, in one morning spent not trying to create but trying to absorb.


I had to bring my notebook to the kitchen to scrawl a poem. I had to leave the kitchen for the laptop to write this to you, to say that if you're also feeling burned out, if you're also unsure of where inspiration has gone, or when things got so hard, perhaps it's time to recognize your weaknesses anew.

Though your weaknesses are likely different than mine, all weaknesses have commonalities.

Where we are weak, praise God, Jesus is strong. With God's help, we can acknowledge and actively attack those weaknesses by practicing something new.

I didn't specifically take the personality test or make such an effort with my Saturday in a prayerful way. It's now, as I type that I recognize taking the the test and this morning were answers to my ongoing petitions for breakthrough, for peace, for inspiration and the words God would have me write.

In my weakness, I searched for Him, and He answered when I wasn't looking for it. He filled my weakness with His strength.

He wants to do the same for you, providing rest for the perfectionist, assurance for the insecure, stillness for the busy, solitude for the crowded, love for the rejected.


The funny thing is, when I sat down to type a post, I didn't mean to write about the personality test or the struggle writing has been or my weaknesses. I meant to share with you the poem I wrote. But, since we've come this far, I'll save the poem for another day, proof that when we take the invitation to let Christ be strong in our weaknesses, He answers us richly.

How do you feel when you see the results of personality tests? Have the results of one ever helped you in some way?

In His strength,








Where you are weak, praise God, #Jesus is strong. #strengthinweakness via @novelwritergirl

There's Something About the Light of Jesus

by Emily Conrad


...as the light grew...

The phrase jumped out from the pages of Watership Down, the Richard Adams novel I'm reading.

There is something about light lately.

A few days ago, Christina Hubbard forwarded a Tweetspeak Poetry prompt: write a thank you to a candle. At the prompt's suggestion, I did some research about candles.

The word "candle" experienced a peak in usage around 1900 and fell on a low point in the 80's. It's making a slight comeback now.

The word "light" has also experienced a recent uptick in its usage in books.

So, the stats agree with my experience: there's something about light lately.


Perhaps it's that there's also something about darkness lately. Physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I see it in the winter sky, which the sun vacates before five each afternoon. I feel it as fighting a cold leaves my emotions under a shroud. I hear it when the high schoolers in my Bible study describe the bomb threat at their high school and the bomb that was actually found in a middle school.

Peace, justice, salvation, truth, and kindness all fall far short of the place they once held in our literature. What do we write about but that which we know--or want to know? And if we're no longer celebrating and seeking these, what is that but another sign of darkness?

Yet there's something about light.

As we stand in the gloom, we are not without help or hope. Light pierces darkness with astounding effectiveness. The human eye can see the flame of a single candle from thirty miles away under the right circumstances.

If a single physical candle has such power to illuminate, how much more so does Jesus?

Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5, NET

He is true, unchanging, never-flickering light. He shines all around us.

All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change. James 1:17, NET

There's something about the light.

Our practice of our faith and our methods of applying it sometimes flicker. Our hope and our understanding of God's love falter, soft and fragile like the flame of a little candle.

Still, don't underestimate the power there. Jesus never leaves us to our own devices.

"And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Words of Jesus, Matthew 28:20b, NET

And of Him, the Bible says,

And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it. John 1:5, NET

The darkness has not and will not overcome Him.

There's something about the light.










As we stand in the gloom, we are not without help or #hope. There's something about the light of #Jesus-via @novelwritergirl

The Dog and the Treadmill: A story about protecting priorities

by Emily Conrad

I am working on a short story to share as part of the series on God's love, which will be taking over this blog next month. I needed to get the first draft done as soon as possible to allow for critiques and revisions, so I've been working on it since December 30th.

But as I wrote toward the goal of finishing the story draft, my dog Luther was striving toward his own set of goals, which work at cross-purposes with mine.


While it's my goal to work on writing, it's his goal to bark at anything that moves outside our windows. While it's my goal to use our walks as a time to think, it's his goal to use our walks as a time to gallivant as far and fast as his four paws will carry him.

In order to accomplish my goals, I needed to do something to distract Luther from his.

Read more »

Teaching My Wandering Heart to Abide with Jesus

by Emily Conrad


You can always tell where a kid's loyalty lies by who she runs to when she gets hurt. A child may say she loves her teacher or her friends, but if she falls and skins her knee and her mother is there, she's going to run to her mom. 

The same goes for us as adults. If we find ourselves running to any one or thing other than Jesus when we need comfort, it's time for a heart check.

That's a paraphrase of something I heard a teacher and mother say at church weeks ago, but it's stuck with me.

Today, I spent some time in Psalm 91, and God repeated a similar challenge to me.

As for you, the one who lives in the shelter of the sovereign One,
and resides in the protective shadow of the mighty king –
I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold,
my God in whom I trust –
he will certainly rescue you
Psalm 91:1-3a, NET

Or, as the King James puts it,
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Psalm 91:1-2

Calling God a "shelter" conjures the image in my mind of running to Him when I get in trouble, like the little girl with the skinned knee. And I still like that analogy.

But the Bible talks about living and residing with God. Abiding and dwelling with Him. To stay. To make my home with Him so He could spare me the trouble of running out and skinning my knee in the first place.

And spending this time with God this morning was abiding with Him. It was a good start, but we all know spending a few minutes somewhere in the morning is not the same as residing there.


The day wore on. I began to feel the effects of my poor night of sleep. I worked on writing projects I wasn't confident I was getting right. I worked on another project I'm fairly confident I'm getting wrong (training my dog to walk nicely on a leash, if you must know). My mood plummeted. I worried. I started wandering the kitchen for sugary snacks. I talked to my husband. I tried taking a nap. Anything to salvage my mood and the rest of my day.

Basically, I had left my shelter and skinned my knee. Worse, instead of running back to my Father, I went looking for comfort other places.

The worry, the sugar cravings, the fatigue were all signs I had packed my bags and hit the open road instead of choosing to continue abiding with Jesus.

At any one of those signs, I had options.

Facing similar signs yourself, you have the same choices: look in vain for comfort elsewhere or abide with Jesus.

Instead of snacking in hopes that a full stomach will satisfy a hungry soul, abiding with Jesus means turning to the Bread of Life and the Living Water for fulfillment.

Instead of worrying or overthinking problems to find answers, abiding with Jesus means turning to faith.

Instead of allowing insecurity to steal God-given purpose and passion, abiding with Jesus means believing what the Bible says about us and our standing and purpose with God.

Instead of working extra-hard without His direction, abiding with Jesus means resting when He gives that invitation.

Instead of talking to others and avoiding prayer, abiding with Jesus means lifting problems and praises in prayer. Alone and with others.

Instead of sleeping or avoiding challenges, abiding with Jesus means persevering when He's called for work or wakeful waiting.

I have tried all those "instead of" phrases at one time or another, this last one, trying to sleep when I had work to do, just today.

Trying being the operative word. I never fell asleep. My effort at finding comfort had once again failed, and still I didn't get it. I turned to one more "instead of" for comfort: social media.

Thankfully, despite me choosing "instead of" over abiding with Him, God didn't leave me to my own devices. My feed was crammed with Bible verses. I read just one and felt it already: my soul moving back home, abiding again in the love the God who'd pursued me even though I'd run off and scraped my knee.

Is your knee pretty scraped up right now? Or maybe it's worse than that. Something may be broken or out of joint. Still, God's door is open to you. He's got a shelter waiting that you can call home, where you'll be safe, where you'll find comfort in the only One who satisfies.


I suspect He supplies different furnishings for each of our shelters. Each contains a Bible. Mine is stocked with blank notebooks, inviting written thought and prayer, which is generally when I find myself most focused on Him. In the corner is a safe where I am to lock away things I would worry about. There's a comfortable chair to rest in as I memorize passages of Scripture so I can repeat them to myself to ward off wrong thinking. There are divots on the edge of the bed, where my husband and I sit to pray together.

It is by writing, doing what must be done and letting it go, by incorporating Scripture in my life, and by prayer that I abide with Jesus.

In what practical ways do you abide with Jesus throughout the day?









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Hope in Jesus for Those Overwhelmed by the New Year

by Emily Conrad

I'm goal-oriented, and New Year's ought to be my time to shine.

It's not.

I find the questions New Year's prompts discouraging: What did I accomplish last year? What are my New Year's resolutions? What do I plan to accomplish this year?

When I consider last year, I am not convinced I did my best. I always feel like I should've done more. The fact that resolutions are so popular reinforces this idea. Why resolve to do something if not to correct a past mistake? But resolutions are notorious for failing, and if those are our hope, how can we expect this year to be better than last?

And so, confronted with the idea that I have this gigantic blank slate in front of me that I must use to the fullest, I lift my hands and back away.

I didn't live up to my expectations last year. I can't live up to them this year. I didn't, and I can't.


This mindset is not what Jesus has in mind for my New Year's celebrations, nor is it what He has in mind for yours.

He patiently holds out His hand to us, inviting us to hop off the New Year's resolution throne and crown Him king of New Year's. Then, He promptly takes the pressure off our shoulders because He is the answer to the New Year's dilemma.

Jesus gives us freedom from the calendar because He is not bound by it.

Jesus is much more than a gigantic, light-up ball dropping in Times Square. We can't count predictably down from ten and arrive at the moment when His plan will flash across our TV screens, blaring a new assignment at us as clearly as the numbers that make up the new date. We can't mark off the squares representing January 1 to December 31 and circle the day He'll give us a breakthrough and hand us what we might consider a big, clean slate.

We cannot force this with any amount of resolutions and effort, and in this, there is rest.

Jesus gives us constant new beginnings instead of just one per year.

To Him, one thousand years is like a day, and a day is like one thousand years.

New Year's is nowhere near as much pressure when we can celebrate one thousand of them in a day. Instead of one try to get it right for an entire year, He presents us one thousand opportunities strung one after the other, less than two minutes apart.

And in this, there is hope.

Jesus redeems the past and holds the future. 

Instead of looking back to see how our year stacks up, we can look back to the cross and see victory. The past becomes a record of how God has provided for us, and by studying it, we learn about who He is.

Instead of looking forward to try to subdue the future with resolutions and striving--a lost cause--we recognize that, as believers, our futures are already secure because of His work on the cross.

And in this, there is peace.

For everything we didn't and can't do, Jesus did and can.

Jesus is not only God of the ancient past and the distant future, but also God of the immediate present. He is God of each new year, and He invites us to celebrate with Him.

To do so, we can rewrite the New Year's questions.


What did I accomplish this year? How has God shown Himself faithful this past year?

What are my resolutions? What has God been teaching me lately? How is He inviting me to go deeper with Him in this area?

What are my goals for this year? What do I need that only God can do? How can I draw closer to Him as I wait? Where might He be asking me to step out in faith to move forward?

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling better about the new year already.

And by the way, to that second set of rewritten questions, God has been teaching me more about His love lately, and I felt He might be inviting me to go deeper with Him in studying that by inviting some other writers to join me. Stay tuned for the resulting series, which is going to take over the blog next month!

What's God been teaching you lately?









Hope in Jesus for those who find New Year's Overwhelming via @novelwritergirl

Faith: An Ice Boat to Navigate Figurative Winters

by Emily Conrad
In spring, a deep emotion wells in me, rejoicing. This joy thaws usually a few weeks before the last of the snow as my being anticipates the warmth and growth of a summer in its infant stage.

Winter doesn’t do this for me. Forced outside, I huddle up in puffy jackets and tough boots, hands shoved deep in mittens or pockets. I march, my thighs growing numb and my face burning as I wait for it to end.

But winter does bring one gift: late sunrises. Even I, the writer with no day job to report to, can get myself out of bed and down the street by 7:30, when I can watch the frozen lake turn purple and pink as the sun rises into the cold.


Yesterday, I made the early trek. Four masts without sails stuck up along the breakwater, and I figured they were sailboats, left to wait out the winter much like me: unhappily. Picking my way over crusty snow, however, I found I was wrong.

These masts belonged to ice boats, fitted with blades instead of hulls, created to skim the surface of the frozen lake at speeds akin to those achieved in cars travelling country highways.

The tracks scraped over the ice and the large boot prints by my feet assure me that while I simply endure winter, others celebrate it.

There is more to this season than I give it credit for, more enjoyment here than I’d imagined in the confines of my warm home.

In the cocoon of my home, I set out across the Internet. I stumble across a site that assures me ice has a glossary all its own. The pictures that accompany some of the terms pique my curiosity, light a desire to return to the lake in search of jumbled ice and ice ridges and dendrites.

Perhaps winter really is a wonderland. Perhaps I miss out on so much, rushing through seasons, waiting for the next. When I lift my eyes from frozen sidewalks and inconvenient storms brewing on my weather app, I see some of the beauty of where I am today, natural ice art that only forms in the cold.


We all have favorite seasons of life, milestones that warm us through and through as they draw near, but those other seasons are as unavoidable as winter in the north.

They come with ridges and cracks and fissures and stresses.

This is the vocabulary of ice, and the vocabulary of relationships and post-holiday emotions.

Literal ice boats can be stopped by things like these. But faith, an ice boat for the figurative winters, can overcome them all.

With faith, we can persevere at loving, even when the relationship feels frozen.

With faith, we can look to Jesus for provision, even as the wind chills drop and the bills increase.

With faith, we can complete our quiet day’s work, believing that each of these little snowflake-like efforts will accumulate into something beautiful as we pile them up in the hands of Jesus.

As a cold day turns into frozen weeks and months, we can bundle up with prayer and love and head out to find beauty more elaborate than we dared to believe existed in such a desert of snow and ice.

The fissures and breaks and cracks are still there, still dangerous, but our Soul Preserver does not fail. Our Guide is experienced, and always ready to show us more.











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Finishing the Year by Giving Myself Grace

by Emily Conrad


This is a time of year for family, and because we had some come to town on short notice, this week has been busy when I expected it to be slow. I've tried to set and keep priorities, but the post I was working on for you for today didn't come together like I'd hoped.

The perfectionist in me says I need to stay up late getting something new together, but I've done a whole series on perfectionism (there's a link to it in the sidebar--look for "Chosen and Approved"), and so I'm learning to extend myself grace, as I hope you would do for yourself, too.

We can't always keep up with these expectations we place on ourselves. Sometimes, we have to call it good enough and trust God.

So instead of stressing tonight, I'd like share with you a post from March that:
1) Includes more photography from our trip to Banff (and my favorite-ever blog graphic).
2) Talks about the awesome things God does for His children.

We serve a powerful God who moves mountains of all kinds--physical, emotional, relational. This is a fitting reminder now, because even as we get a fresh new slate marked 2017, we still stand in the shadow of mountains we cannot climb, much less move, on our own.

Thank God, we don't have to.


Without further ado, here is the post: Hey, It's Possible (Serving a God Who Does More)

If you have a favorite post of yours or of someone else's from this year and would like to share it in the comments, I'd love to take a look! Let's end the year with some mutual encouragement!

Do you know how much you encourage me just by stopping in to read the posts here? Thank you so much for your support, encouragement, and friendship.

I wish you a happy New Year. I wish you peace and joy and rest in the arms of Jesus. I wish you an ever-deepening understanding of His love for you.

In Him,








We serve a powerful God who moves mountains of all kinds--physical, emotional, relational-via @novelwritergirl