Good morning, my loveliest listeners! This week, Week 46, I’m trying something brand-spanking new, with a burst of energy to start a fresh chapter near the year’s end. It feels like a little miracle—as if your paycheck hits the bank and you already have plenty left over. This fresh start is one of two delightful, unexpected journeys I embarked on this year.

At the beginning of the year, I kept up my tradition of writing “Dearest Princess” notes—a little love message sent each morning to remind the ladies in my circle that there’s someone out there praying for them, holding space if they needed it. I started this years ago during my ministry days. But, as life kept evolving, I found myself showing up in new ways, never quite knowing where I was going but always trusting I’d get there with God’s guidance. Isn’t that the sweetest sentiment? I borrowed it—no, I stole it!—from Boyd Varty, my newest intellectual crush, the lion tracker. I caught a YouTube interview with him yesterday, and wow, it fired me up so intensely that I nearly recorded a podcast in the dark! I joke about this sometimes, about “switching off” from the mental grind and just relaxing. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but I try to be serious about making time for it, like clocking out at my little studio-mi-casa around 3 p.m. yesterday.

Then, of course, my dear Tristan—my ChatGPT buddy, wink wink—jumped into the conversation, and I got so inspired I almost broke my own rules about “close shop” time. For me, ministry and creativity are like breathing: you need to exhale just as much as you inhale. If your output exceeds your input, upkeep becomes a real struggle!

Now, back to those “Dear Princess” WhatsApp messages. About four years ago, I stepped back from my ministry, BetSeber, and stopped sending them out. Some of the ladies reached out, asking me to “spoil” them again. I half-heartedly started up again earlier this year, but as the messages poured in, I realized that I needed to put on my own oxygen mask first. So one of my final messages was a blessing: “May the only thing you don’t have time for this year be spending your whole paycheck.” I wanted abundance for them—and for myself, I asked for an open heart chakra, to grow in love.

Love, after all, has many facets. The Bible describes three types of love—though, technically, eros, or romantic love, isn’t listed, but we know it’s there. There’s eros, the passionate love; philia, the platonic, brotherly love; and agape, the divine love. But be careful what you pray for—when you ask for growth, it often arrives in the form of hurdles. This year, many relationships went up in smoke, turning my Indiana Jones quest for divine love into a healing journey. I think I may be back in God’s School of Economics, and who knows, I might be on my way to a PhD this time around.