My New 40 Before 40 List

For me, this month is all about hitting the reset button. I reset my 2020 goals. I revamped the See Jane Write website. And I’m doing the work to reset my relationship with God.

I’ve also been resetting my 40 Before 40 list.

Back in February when I turned 39 I shared a list of 40 things I want to do before my 40th birthday.

Then COVID-19 ended the world as we knew it.

Shortly after that I learned I would need to undergo chemotherapy. (In case you’re new around here, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in January, but initially told I would only need surgery and radiation for treatment.)

COVID, cancer, and chemo obviously mean that many of my 40 Before 40 plans — like traveling and hosting in-person events — simply can’t happen. And for a while, I was going to just ditch the whole project. But that felt too much like giving up and that’s something I refuse to do.

So here’s my updated 40 Before 40 List.

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Writing My Way Back to God

I was a freshman in college when I first started keeping a prayer journal. Merging my love for writing with my love for God was exactly what I needed to take my faith to another level. My prayer journal became a collection of love letters to God. My prayers became poetry and suddenly God was everything and everywhere. God was a post-workout smoothie. God was the sun kissing my brown skin when I would lie on the quad reading. Once on New Year’s Eve, I felt God with me on the dance floor of a night club.

Prayer has not made me immune to crises of faith. These crises usually happen when so-called Christians are being racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic in Jesus’ name. I stop going to church and I start questioning everything – until I remember the God I fell in love with so many years ago.

But this time things are different.

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Author Q&A with A.S. Mackey

As a Christian, I strive to have childlike faith in God, but the book The Edge of Everywhen by A.S. Mackey reminds me that sometimes even children can struggle to believe in the goodness of God when times are tough. But this novel offers a message of hope that will prove particularly poignant for writers and readers who believe words can change lives.

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Could the Enneagram help you be a better writer?

Originally published May 31, 2020

Could the Enneagram help you be a better writer?

I started asking myself this question earlier this year as I began to delve into this ancient personality typing system that has seen a resurgence of popularity and been thrust in the mainstream in the past few years.

The Enneagram teaches that there are nine different personality styles in the world. Each type has a distinct worldview and underlying motivation that affects how that type thinks, feels, and behaves.

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