I caught my stepdaughter journaling in a Disney princess journal today — writing about the princess on the page she was on. She's 11. She's autistic. And she was doing exactly what I do. Finding something beautiful and using it to work out what she's thinking. I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I'm making her something. Little fold-over booklets I can staple at home — a Bible verse, something beautiful to color, a place to write in. A new one every time she comes home from her moms. Themes she loves. Verses about who she is, how to be gentle, how to be brave, how to be kind to herself and other people. Not a curriculum. Not a workbook. Just something beautiful that belongs to her. It’s a low pressure way to share the word with her and make it routine and prevalent in her life— and I think there are a lot of girls out there who need something exactly like this. Something that meets them where their imagination already lives. Do you have a tween or preteen in your life who journals, draws, or just loves beautiful things? Tell me about her. I'm building this with girls like her in mind.

I want to share and also celebrate my first entry. I sat in silence and it was a bit strange I usually Journal with music. Something beautiful came up. And look how cute my first page is. So proud of myself.

I left it like the picture on the left at dinner, and my daughter snuck away during dessert to get all my stickers out. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “stickers. Mom the stickers are really hard. Why can’t I draw on them?” so I explained why stickers and markers don’t get along. I almost picked it all up and made her go back to her table, but it’s so sweet to see her, trying to be like me. She sat there and colored with my pink Bible journaling highlighter peeling a whole page of little dot stickers until bedtime.It makes it’s so clear that spending time with God is so very important. I want her to see and to learn to love the process of drawing close to him.

Last week I sat with the free kit from this month. This week I built on that. Only four more days to sit with Lydia and then it’s on to Priscilla and Miriam and then it’ll be time for Pentecost.

I laid it out on my desk in the hopes that both of my children would nap at the same time. One is down one to go…. 😂