Grab yourself a cup of coffee, friend.
This one is going to be a little more personal than usual.
If you’ve been waiting for the next Paranormal Penny Mystery, you may have wondered something I’ve wondered myself more times than I can count:
Why is it taking me so long to finish this series?
After all, I know how it ends.
I know where Penny’s story is going.
I’ve had the final books rolling around in my head for years.
And yet…
I couldn’t seem to finish them.
For a long time, I wasn’t sure how to explain why.
Now I think I finally understand.
The ending requires something I haven’t had much of lately.
Hope.
Real, stubborn, ridiculous, God-sized hope.
And the last couple of years have been hard.
Really hard.
There have been seasons when life felt like one thing after another. Some things were difficult in ways I could talk about. Others were harder to put into words.
And somewhere along the way, I became tired.
Not just physically tired.
Hope tired.
You know what I mean?
When you can still believe God is good…
but you’re having a hard time feeling it.
When you can still say, “God’s got this,”…
but secretly wonder how much longer you’re supposed to hold on.
When encouraging someone else comes much more easily than encouraging yourself.
That has been me.
And then there’s Penny.
Oh, Penny.
If you’ve read the Paranormal Penny Mysteries, you know that Penny isn’t your typical heroine.
She’s quirky.
She’s stubborn.
She’s a little bit chaotic.
She has a tendency to find trouble when she would probably be much better off drinking coffee and minding her own business.
Which, frankly, is something I can relate to.
But Penny is also brave.
Not the fearless kind of brave.
The real kind.
The kind where you’re scared and you keep going anyway.
That’s always been one of the things I loved most about her.
And underneath all the paranormal mayhem and mystery-solving, Penny’s story has always been about something much bigger.
Hope.
Hope that people can change.
Hope that broken things can be restored.
Hope that the truth can come into the light.
Hope that even when you can’t see what God is doing, He is still working.
And the final stretch of Penny’s story?
It’s about hope in a really big way.
Which became a bit of a problem when my own hope tank was sitting somewhere around empty.
How do you write an ending about hope when you’re struggling to find your own?
For a while, I tried to push through.
Because writers write, right?
Deadlines.
Word counts.
Marketing.
The next book.
The next launch.
The next thing.
But every time I tried to force myself back into Penny’s world, something inside me whispered,
Not yet.
So I stopped.
Not because I stopped loving Penny.
Not because I stopped caring about the series.
And definitely not because I’ve forgotten how it ends.
I stopped because I needed to remember why I started.
So I’m going back to the beginning.
I’m rereading the Paranormal Penny Mysteries.
All of them.
And it’s been a little strange.
I know these stories.
I wrote these stories.
But reading them again has been like opening an old box of photographs.
I’m remembering the woman I was when I wrote them.
I’m remembering what made me laugh.
What made me cry.
What made me stay up too late because I absolutely had to get one more chapter down.
I’m remembering Penny.
Not as a character I need to finish writing…
but as the girl I once created because I had something I desperately wanted to say.
I’m remembering what makes her special.
And somewhere along the way, I’m remembering what makes me special, too.
Not because I’m a bestselling author.
Not because I’ve published a certain number of books.
Not because people read my stories.
But because I’m God’s creation.
And so are you.
And I’m not finding my way back alone.
God has been incredibly gracious to me.
Not with some giant lightning-bolt moment that instantly fixes everything.
More often, His grace has arrived quietly.
Through Scripture.
Through prayer.
Through little reminders that show up at exactly the right time.
And through friends.
Oh, the friends.
Sometimes God sends people into our lives who simply sit beside us while we’re struggling.
They don’t fix it.
They don’t give us a ten-step plan.
They just remind us that we’re not alone.
They pray.
They listen.
They encourage.
They make us laugh when we desperately need to laugh.
They remind us who we are when we’ve temporarily forgotten.
That’s grace, too.
And I’ve needed every bit of it.
Maybe this break isn’t wasted time.
That’s what I’m beginning to believe.
Maybe I haven’t been failing to finish Penny.
Maybe I’ve been preparing to finish her well.
Because I don’t want to slap an ending onto this series just because I’m behind schedule.
I want to give Penny the ending she deserves.
And more importantly, I want to give readers an ending that carries the hope I intended when I started this journey.
But before I can write about hope again…
I need to let God rebuild mine.
Little by little.
Day by day.
Chapter by chapter.
And perhaps that’s fitting.
Because isn’t that what Penny’s story has always been about?
Taking one more step when you don’t know what comes next.
Choosing courage when fear would be easier.
Believing there is something better waiting beyond the darkness.
And trusting that the story isn’t over simply because the current chapter hurts.
So, Penny, I’m coming back.
I’m not promising a perfectly organized writing schedule.
I’m not promising that I’ll suddenly crank out thousands of words every day.
I’m not even promising that I won’t get distracted by another cozy mystery idea along the way.
You know me better than that.
But I am coming back.
I’m rereading.
I’m remembering.
I’m praying.
I’m listening.
And I’m letting God refill a cup that I’ve spent far too long trying to pour from while it was empty.
Because the truth is…
I still love Penny.
I still love her world.
I still believe in the story.
And I still believe in the ending.
I just needed to find my way back to hope before I could write it.
So if you’ve been waiting patiently for the rest of Penny’s story, thank you.
Seriously.
Thank you for giving me grace.
Thank you for sticking around.
And thank you for believing in a little paranormal mystery series that started with one quirky girl and somehow became a much bigger part of my life than I ever expected.
I’m finding my way back.
And I have a feeling Penny is going to help me remember something I’ve almost forgotten:
The darkest part of the story isn’t necessarily the end.
Sometimes it’s just the place where we finally learn how much we need the Light.
And thank goodness…
God’s grace is bigger than my empty cup.
Until next time, friend,
Keep a little hope tucked away somewhere.
Even if it’s only enough for today.
And if today is all you have?
That’s okay.
God can work with that.
He has an entire eternity of grace to refill you.
Wanna meet Penny? You can find book one for free at the links below. Tell her “HI” from me.