When I opened the burgundy binder, I sensed God was trying to get my attention.

I began writing Sunny Side Up in March of 2001. Within two years, requests started arriving. They came by email, card, word, and in person. They said basically the same thing:

“Won’t you please put your columns in a book, so we don’t have to go fishing through our drawers to find the one we’re looking for?”

So I compiled the first year of columns into one manuscript and sent out a few proposals. But traditional publishers love column compilations about as much as yesterday’s congealed oatmeal, I learned—and stopped trying.

“My family can publish them after I die,” I told my daughter. She grimaced and rolled her eyes.

One day I received a call from a lady who had the responsibility of sifting through a friend’s belongings after her death. “Kathleen, I’ve found something I think you should have.”

The “something” was the burgundy binder. Inside, I found years of yellowed Sunny Side Up columns.

God nudged me in that moment. I dug out my manuscript and began reworking it, trusting God to direct me to the right publisher.

But another book raced to publication first—West Nile Diary, the book a mosquito started, the Preacher lived, and I wrote. Not until after its promotional tours and interviews finished, did I return to the column collection—and finally I understood the requests for a Sunny Side Up book.

Since I had last read the manuscript, a mosquito had flipped our lives around. My husband’s sudden disability had sent us into exile from home and community for six months. When we returned we found the Preacher’s job no longer his job, our church no longer our church, and our home no longer our home.

We’d moved to temporary low-income housing, living on a disability income. I took a magazine editing job, but lost it when the company downsized eight months later. With a sudden spike in housing costs, we had no idea where we would live following our temporary situation.

Nevertheless, our life was bright, compared to the stories of many of my readers—the people who had written, phoned, and emailed to thank me for the inspiration they’d found in Sunny Side Up.

As I re-read those first columns from a very changed circumstance than when I’d first written them, they encouraged me too. In the words God had inspired years earlier, I found hope. Reminders of life’s truest wealth—God’s unchangeable, constant love. And I knew I must do all I could to honor my readers’ wishes and “get Sunny Side Up between covers.”

We’ll launch Practice by Practice, the Art of Everyday Faith—the little column collection that could—tomorrow—Thursday, April 22—at the Yorkton Public Library (back door) from 7 – 9 p.m. If you can’t make that, I’ll be signing books at the Yorkton Golden Rule on May 4th, from 2 – 5 p.m.

I’d love to meet you there.