The day had arrived. My books were here. I lifted the heavy book into my home and dropped it onto the ground with the thug.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I dropped the kids off for the day and vowed to have my moment when they were at school. Mostly because I didn’t trust how I would react opening a box full of words that prove what didn’t.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I had spent the better of four years watching my author friends post videos of themselves opening their books for the world. I would watch with the parcel of hope that one day this would be me. And that when it was me, life would look better.
I remember standing in my dad’s bathroom on the phone with an agent from my current agency. It was 2020, my (now ex) husband and I were separated and Lisa had called me to see if I ever thought about writing a book. We chatted about the season of life I had been dropped in and I told her yes, but not yet before ending the call. As we talked I visualized what life would look like when I offered a yes.
The prompting to write this book continued as I walked through separation and reunited with my husband in 2021. When I signed with my literary agency, I was still in the ashes but I was confident that I would be writing a book on the other side. When I pitched the book to publisher after publisher I beamed at how this would be the story of staying soft through separation and while pursuing reconciliation. It was easy to talk about the book I was confident I’d write towards a happy end. Or I should say, towards the ending my heart most desired.
But then one day you wake up and life changes in an instant. Suddenly, you’re signing your book contract from an airplane on your way toward the beginning of an end. Suddenly, you are drafting an email to your editor with the subject line: we need to talk, the book has changed. Suddenly you're writing about the soft heart you’re convinced you don’t carry in your being. Suddenly the book your readers needed becomes the book you need the most.
Suddenly the dream costs you.
No one talks about the dreams fulfilled in the middle of a nightmare. No one talks about being obedient to the words spoken on the mountaintop as you tread through the valley.
I came back home after dropping the kids off and eyed the book as if it would suddenly speak. I pulled back the cardboard and stared at the stack of green books.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. And yet many times it is.
I think the greatest tension we wrestle with is not, will we do what God says? Or will we be obedient to what He asks of us? The greatest tension we’ll find ourselves grappling with is: will you do what God called you to do when life looks different than when he first called you?
For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man started to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ Luke 14:28-30
Obedience requires counting the cost. And sometimes, as seasoned saints, we say yes to God and live our lives having only counted the cost once. But when God calls us to something we must first sit down and count the cost, each and every time. When God invites us to say yes to where and what He’s called us to, we count the cost. And the trouble comes when we exchange counting the cost for considering the outcome.
Because we want obedience covered in comfort. And it makes sense. We’ll sacrifice for God if we can keep that one thing -the relic that says “If obedience doesn’t work out the way I want, at least I didn’t lose it all”. We want to say yes to God and we want him to respond with all the things that are guaranteed when we’re obedient.
But when we are obedient to God, the outcome is none of our business.
If I had known I’d be opening this box of books in an empty house, as a divorced woman, with a “failing” Instagram, a lost relationship with her dad, and a broken heart, I would have kept my yes. I would have convinced myself that writing a book wasn’t my dream anymore. I would have sold myself the lie that this wasn’t my book to write -and God would have found someone else to do it.
But my healing was on the other side of this dream fulfilled in the middle of a nightmare. My tenderness was the outcome of my obedience, even if it felt like my “yes” was mocking my pain. The thing is even though the outcome is none of our business that doesn’t take away the confidence we can have in the outcome being good and very good.
There are things in my life that are still hanging in the balance of not good yet. There are funerals I’ve had to attend for the things in my life that have died for my yes to Him to stay alive.
This book cost me. And though I counted that cost, I didn’t have the foresight to know the specific things that would exactly I’d have to pay. As I launch this book into the world, I consider the cost required in sharing what remains from writing the book that seemingly took more than I believed it was supposed to.
And if you could learn one thing from me, it’s to stop convincing yousrelf you don’t want the dream just being it’s being fulfilled in the middle of what feels like a nightmare. Sit down, count the cost and offer the kind of yes that leads to a good and very good you don’t have to concern youself with because it’s better than you could ever imagine.
My debut book, Courageously Soft is finally available for pre-order. If you’ve been apart of my community for the past few years than you know that staying soft has become a “household saying” around here.
As excited as I am to launch this book, I fully understand that we are in a “everybody and they mama is an author” era. And I understand how that can cause fatigue or create a sense of numbness when yet another author promotes their book.
But hear me out!
This is a book for our times. If you struggle with cyncism, this is for you. If you struggle with despair and are tired of the “spiritual optimism” Christians push as hope, this is for you. If you believe your trauma has robbed you of a soft heart, this is for you. If you resonate with the older brother in the Parable of the Lost Son, this is for you.
And…as a Black author, your pre-order matter. As someone who has shared online for four years, your pre-order validates the possibility of my work living outside of a consumer centered platform.
And more than anything, your pre-order matter to me!
If you are still on the fence, click here to read the intro and first chapter and for free!
If you pre-order the book, you’ll receive the following gifts:
a free audiobook, read by me when it comes available!
an exclusive podcast where I dive deeper into the book
a collection of exclusive prints
a playlist of music that got me through the writing process
3 Zoom calls after the launch to discuss the book together
I don’t take it lightly that you all have believed in my words enough to let me visit your inbox (when I don’t have writers block and actually complete a newsletter). Writing this book has been the greatest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s true of every author. It’s true of every brave soul willing to bear their hearts onto a page.
So thank you for support my work in all of its various forms. Before I let you go, I’ll leave you with the EP that single-handedly got me through the writing phase. Until next time friends!
Congratulations, Charaia. If people really understood how much changes in the years between when we agree to write a book and when the book releases to the world, I think there would be a lot more charity in it all. The book looks beautiful and I know you did a faithful work with it.
i’m so glad you are willing to use your giftings to bless us all 🤍 i preordered a month ago and am eagerly looking forward to receiving my copy in a few weeks!