Tracesoffaith

The author’s first children’s book

I was this summer year’s old when I discovered the memoir writing of Sally Read. An English woman who grew up among the ruins of post-Reformation England, who is now married and raised her child in Italy, she checked a lot of boxes.

In her first memoir, Night’s Bright Darkness, she introduces herself to readers. The story weaves in and out of her childhood, her years as a young woman working as a nurse in London, a brief stent in North Dakota, and eventually, ultimately, in Italy. With lyrical prose, she expresses how anti- religion, God, and church she was. Largely through her friendship with Father Gregory, a Canadian Byzantine-rite priest, she methodically worked through her mountains of questions, a change in posture to what she was learning, ultimately discovering a Catholic worldview.

With about 20 pages remaining in this book, I ordered a copy of The Mary Pages. With early beginnings in her childhood, well before she ever knew Jesus personally, Sally had encounters with Mary. In fact, she became a collector of Mary paintings and sculptures. Woven throughout her personal narrative were stories about the pieces of art that influenced her. My favorite were the times she shared about Mary’s presence in the English countryside pre-Reformation. What beauty was lost to us in those days.

Now to the review part! Sally Read has completed her first children’s book. It’s 21 chapters of whimsical delight along the street of Rome. Illustrator Doris Shermadhi captured the book’s personality perfectly. In Bell and the Joyful Ministries, Bell is sent from Idaho to spend the summer with her grandmother in Rome. Her Italian father foresees a full immersion experience to help her know her Italian heritage. Staying with her Nonna is at first lonely and boring. Though the friends she meets, the limited Italian she learns, and the places in Rome and in her mind she explores, Bell comes to love praying the Rosary.

In particular, she is introduced to the Five Joyful Mysteries a person can focus on while praying with the Rosary beads. She learns more about how these events surrounding the incarnation of Jesus can unfold in our minds in a very real way through silence, contemplation and prayer. In the back of the book, there’s a handy guide with each prayer in the Rosary, and an explanation of what to focus on when praying the Rosary focusing on the joyful ministries.

This hardcover book would be a great introduction to praying the Rosary for an upper elementary student into high school. Ideally, it could be discussed with an adult to answer questions, talk about their own experience praying the Rosary and practice together.

The Rosary has been a welcome addition to my prayer life, especially before Mass begins on Sunday morning, and in the wee hours of the night when my mind is too full to let my body rest. I hope Sally considers writing more children’s book introducing the various aspects of Catholicism. I think she handled this topic with excellence. Keep praying, Bell.

I received a copy of Bell & The Joyful Mysteries from Word on Fire Publishing to review. The opinions here are my own, and knowing Sally Read’s writing talent, I can recommend this and the other books I mention with confidence.

What a great way to stock up on some doTERRA products you’d find yourself reaching for daily! We do, and I’m happy to share about how to use these natural solutions in your own home.

This book releases tomorrow, May 5th! Just in time for graduation gifts.

Growing up, I learned one basic way to pray. As toddlers, we were taught to fold our hands together, as if holding hands with ourselves, close our eyes and bow our heads. Then we talked to God using a form of prayer technically called spontaneous prayer.

It’s a very good way to pray. I still find the posture of bowing my head and closing my eyes meaningful. What I missed out on in my upbringing, partly because it wasn’t what we knew, and partly because it would have felt like the way other Christians did things, and we weren’t those other Christians, was the myriad of other ways a person can pray.

Learning about prayer has enhanced my prayer life in immeasurable. When I have been too grieved to find my owns words, I’ve turned to the prayers of the church (I use the term formal prayers). When my prayers feel stagnant, we can add creativity such as journaling, doodling, or putting color to paper in the form of painting, drawing, etc.

From our ancient roots, I’ve learned about praying the psalms, breath prayer, Lectio Divina, Visio Divina, the Examen, etc.

The beauty lies in the etceteras.

There are any number of ways to offer up prayers to God. In the book, Prayer In Motion: An Invitation To Be Fully Present, Connect With God, And Pray With Your Whole Self, author Jennifer Tucker guides her readers through an embodied prayer experience. This hardcover book has gorgeous illustrations, including a devotional component to the experience of learning to pray with movement.

The opening story is about an English boy named Maewyn (we know him by another name but I will not give that away), who grew up in a wealthy family, but was kidnapped and taken to Ireland at the age of 16. There he spent years as a shepherd, and he would often pray as he tended the flock. This idea of praying while you’re going about your day is a common theme among the Saints, and serves as an introduction to the concepts in this book.

What if we could let go of the limited definitions of what we thought prayer is supposed to be and instead embraces prayer as a way of life–as a living and moving and breathing communion with God?

After a brief introduction to monastic prayer rhythms (they’re excellent guides), Tucker introduces readers to the idea of releasing stress, and healing the body through movement and prayer. The exercises, brief instructions, written prayers, and scripture passages make up the remainder of the book. I’ve taken a few photos to give you a taste..

If you’ve been seeking out ways to grow in your prayer life, this book will be a tremendous aid to you. Perhaps for a special mother in your life on Mother’s Day?

As I write this, we’re in May, the month of all things graduation for many young people. This would make an excellent gift as they set out on their own, teaching them to take God with them in their everyday, ordinary lives, not just when they’re at church or when they take those moments to bow their head and close their eyes.

Might I encourage you to give this book as a set? She’s also written two other beautiful books around this theme, Breath As Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, And Renew Your Soul, and Present In Prayer: A Guided invitation To Peace Through Biblical Meditation. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these books for people in all church traditions.

I hope Bryan Adams doesn’t mind if I borrow his iconic song title from the 1983 hit. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know most of the time it’s hymns that bubble up out of my subconscious, but occasionally it’s 80s and 90s hits. As my teenage daughter informed me recently, “Mom, you grew up in the best era.” You won’t hear any objections from me.

In the United States, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. Now, Adams is Canadian, so he observes Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October each year. But I’ll celebrate tomorrow with family and friends. Those who attend fluctuates from year to year. I’ve learned to adjust to that after a childhood of large gatherings with the same faces every holiday.

The photo for this post is the original banner I used for this Tracesoffaith blog in 2014. It brings a smile to my face. I don’t recall what Psalm 78:35 says, but I looked it up for us:

“They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.”

It’s a solid verse, but I don’t recall exactly why I chose it. I went with tracesoffaith because it was a play on my name, Traci. An early tagline was “Finding traces of God in everyday life.”

Speaking of life, tracesoffaith sort of took on a life of its own. It became my social media handles, and often times when people see me at conferences, they’ll say, “Are you tracesoffaith?” Those are cool moments.

Writing here has been life-altering. I’m incredibly grateful for the many friendships I’ve made. With the help of social media, it’s helped me reconnect with a number of friends and family who I might have lost touch with otherwise. It’s helped me navigate church life, even as that journey took some wild twists and turns. The blog became a place where I could share about scripture, what I was learning, how it opened up to me as I read and studied year after year, and how that changed me too.

I’m not sure if it’s because I played it safe or because I attempted to share personally from my own experience, but by and large, readers have stuck around and I haven’t received much pushback from my writing or my church wanderings. I’ve learned curiosity is a great trait to have in both a conversation and with life in general. I know now, everyone has something to teach me, and I love learning.

Engaging in this space means I’ve bought more books myself than I could ever read in a lifetime. It connected me to an agent, who found me an editor, and together, we wrote two books. Along the way, I’ve had countless opportunities I never would have been granted if I hadn’t hung up the virtual Tracesoffaith sign, open for business.

This Thanksgiving, I wanted to thank each of you for taking part in this work. The emails and messages, the interaction on social media, getting to meet in person (my favorite), I’ve loved all that. I’ve written about it before, but I find God typically gives me words for a season rather than “word of a year” as shared by others. A phrase I hear regularly these days is this: “Jesus still sticks.”

And he does. Some days, I feel as if I might have more questions than answers when it comes to faith (and parenting, but that’s an entirely different post). Let’s keep pursuing Jesus, though. He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. The Bible tells me so. Happy Thanksgiving.

One of the most formational spiritual practices I’ve had for years is to read Scripture every day. For more than a decade, I’ve led a private Facebook group that reads the Bible chronologically in a year. Adding spiritual practices like observing Advent and observing the liturgical calendar, contemplative prayer, and using essential oils to guide the emotional faith journey have only deepened my faith walk.

This advent season, I wanted to bring these pieces together in a new way. I’m inviting you to join me on an eight-day prayer experience called “Perfumery in the Life of Jesus.” In biblical times, a perfumer would use fragrances to represent beauty, worship, and divine presence.

Using a PDF guide, you can spend 5-10 minutes a day applying a variety of essential oils (including the three most closely associated with the life of Jesus of Nazareth), and praying with eight contemplative prayer exercises. I’m looking forward to this minimalist approach to the holiday season.

Sunday, November 30th, at 8pm EST, I’ll lead a live session praying Day 1, a breath prayer using Psalm 141. You can start the exercises that day, and repeat as desired, or use the Guide in a time frame of your choosing. I hope you’ll consider including this guide in your Advent season.

Use this google form to sign up and join a group of us in observing Advent together.

I’m sharing about the doTERRA specials here so you can have an easily accessible ebook walking you through the specials. Good November 17-21, or while supplies last! Whoooo loves a good deal (I’m wild about the new owl diffuser, available in our holiday collection)?