I woke up this morning with a multitude of emotions hitting me all at once. This is the week that I start launching this new book out into the world. Along the way, I have dreamed about what it would all look like, and I think at the end of the day, there are two things that stand at the top of the list.

The first is that I represent who Jesus is well. This is extremely important to me because religion does not represent Jesus well, and I want to honor Him above all.

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The second is that I want to represent myself well—not just parts of me or who I think others want me to be, but the person who God created me to be.

As I have written and published this book, I have had to keep jumping out of the boxes because I didn’t fit in them. It has taken a lot of courage and strength for me to move next to the box instead of being in it.

This week, for those of you who are on social media you will start seeing the graphics that I made. I looked around at other authors and looked at what they did for graphics. Many of them were uninformed and tied into their book, of course, with the quotes from the book on them. I got the colors and began making mine similarly.

Partway through this process, I could not shake off that something was not right. I stared and stared at them, asking God to help me discern what I was feeling. He began to make clear that these were just not me. I looked at my blogging graphics, and He revealed to me the internal struggle.

I have been meeting with a friend who is a sign language interpreter at her church. She has been helping me learn more sign language. We talked about how when she interprets the message, especially the worship music, she creates a picture for the deaf people listening.

When I watch sign language, I look for that picture. What I realized was that when I make graphics for my blogs, I want to create a picture so that my readers know what they are going to be reading about when they click on the button. That is what was missing when I looked at the graphics I had created first.

So, my deafness is part of me, and I never knew that I was taking that into making the graphics for my blogs and now for the book. So, when you look at the graphics, you will see that they are different from other book launch graphics, but they will be the best graphics that represent me. I pray it helps you understand and appreciate the differences you see in them.

I pray that you will see Jesus reflected in the attitude and the process in which all of this is done. One of my prayers in every season and in my life is to finish well. I pray that as I end the process of writing this book and publishing, I finish well, and as I go into this next season with the book, Jesus Christ is magnified in all I say and do, and may we see the promise that His word does not return void. I, for one, am watching for it!

Thank you for being on this journey with me! May the launch begin!