Book releases and ovens that won’t come clean

Listen.

I don’t even know what to say about how y’all have supported Everyday Holy. It means the world to Richard and me. I mean, look what you made happen.

I posted that picture on Instagram along with this caption about Richard wanting to rename the devotional book Richard Calling since Jesus Calling is pretty much the bestselling devotional book of all time.

And then look what happened next.

The Jesus Calling folks are totally supporting Richard and his quest for a book deal. My heart couldn’t be more full. There will be no living with Richard from here on out. I’m concerned that he and Mabel may team up for a book deal and totally cut me out of the equation. As it is, I see Mabel taking notes behind my back all the time. I suspect she’s compiling information for her eventual tell-all.

But in all seriousness, I am so grateful for your support. I’ve mentioned several times that Everyday Holy was so hard for me to write and some of that was because of all the pressure I was feeling about the fall release of Church of the Small Things.

(I’m about to share a little behind the scenes of how the book sausage gets made so feel free to either keep reading or just click away if you prefer to believe that books just magically go out into the world carried on the wings of songbirds and fairies.)

First, let me say that I love Church of the Small Things. It was the book that God put on my heart and in my head and it’s a message that I believe in so much. It’s actually my personal favorite of all my books. But the thing about having your fourth book published is that it comes with a lot of expectations and goals for it to surpass your previous books. I was essentially a dancing monkey trying to make sure that I wrote every article and was a guest on every podcast and basically did anything and everything I could to make sure it would be a success. And I want to clarify that this was pressure I was putting on myself more than anything. I am a people pleaser by nature and I wanted everyone to be SO HAPPY.

Here’s the thing, Church of the Small Things has done well. It just hasn’t necessarily sold over and above what my previous books have sold. It hasn’t set the world on fire. No one is offering to turn it into a movie and Reese Witherspoon still hasn’t called me. (Although if I’m picking, I’ve always thought Sandra Bullock should play me in my life story because she confirmed she can do a good Texas accent in Hope Floats) And I’m totally fine with that. In fact, it’s been a good lesson to me that where I belong – where I live my life – is truly in the small things. That was the whole point of that book from the beginning. It’s just that behind the scenes of it all it started to feel messy and I lost the joy of what it means to get to write books because it felt like it was under a microscope. It was the book that broke me. I forgot that all of this was a dream I didn’t even dare speak out loud just six or seven years ago.

All of this say, I approached the release of Everyday Holy with zero expectations. I basically said no to everything I was asked to do. It was all part of my YEAR OF NO. And I felt great about it. God has absolutely used the last six months of my life to bring my focus back to what really matters and to not worry about the rest. You know what matters to me right now? Soccer games, track meets, dinner with my people, wine time with my girlfriends, and sitting out on the back porch on a pretty day. The end.

So it’s been a fun couple of days because everyone has been so great about Everyday Holy and welcomed Richard with open arms. I’ve already gotten so many kind messages about the first couple of devotions and how they have spoken to you or encouraged you in some way. And that’s what this is all about for me…letting God use whatever meager little offering I have to help someone in some way.

Thank you for that.

And since so many of you have asked, Heather Gauthier doesn’t have a print of Richard’s Third Espresso available at the moment, but she is working on it and we’ll let you know just as soon as it’s ready for purchase.

Also, for those of you who pre-ordered the book, your free matching journals will ship separately from my publisher in the next week to two weeks.

Finally, I shared on Instagram that book release day is always super glamorous for me. This time I managed to do three loads of laundry by 9:00 am. and then I almost hesitate to tell you what I did next for fear the envy will overtake you.

I cleaned my ovens.

We had an Easter brunch tragedy over here that involved a french toast casserole that boiled over onto the bottom of both my ovens. The whole house filled with smoke as I inadvertently created burnt caramel inside my ovens. Nothing says gracious hostess like not being able to see your brunch guests through all the haze.

Then I did what I always do in these situations which is forget all about it after the smoke clears. So when I went to make baked ravioli for dinner on Monday night, all of that burnt caramel concoction on the bottom of the ovens heated up and smoked up the house all over again. It’s moments like these when P is so glad he married me.

And so I vowed AS GOD IS MY WITNESS that I would clean the ovens the very next day, which happened to be book release day. I used a Pinterest solution I read about that involves baking soda and vinegar.

Sadly, this is the after picture.

So if any of you have any great ideas about how to get baked on grease off an oven door and burnt heaven even knows what off the bottom of an oven, I’d be so appreciative. I mean, I probably won’t actually clean it again anytime soon but it will give me something to do the next time I have a book release.

Once again, I’m sorry to make life the life of an author seem so extravagant and over the top. All I can say is don’t hate the player, hate the game.

And somewhere right now Caroline just felt embarrassed and doesn’t even know why.