The Story Of Live Today Well

“Okay God, what’s next?” It was the middle of May in North Carolina, and man, was it hot! The sun beat down upon my neck as I watched our two year old dig with a shovel in the backyard. We were preparing to leave on a whirlwind road trip to Canada in just a few weeks, but I had that old familiar itch again… the itch to create something new.

As a child, I often spent hours poring over books and writing my own scripts for plays, before drafting (usually) unwilling neighborhood kids to act in front of cardboard sets in the front lawn. The urge to create is not new to me. I often know when a new project is coming, even before I know what exactly that project is.

I had spent the previous few months feverishly writing as I collaborated with my dear friend, Mary, to create a reflection booklet for the Octave of Easter, called Behold. After we finished, we both felt exuberant, at peace with the project, but also burnt out, ready for a few quiet days spent outside with our families in the sun.

But still, that old familiar itch was there. The need to pour my heart out on paper was persistent. I grabbed the nearest notebook and pen and settled into a chair.

After a while, my notebook page was covered in chicken scratch. I called Mary and we talked for a long time. We both felt a deep peace with the idea of continuing to work together. We felt sure that God had brought us together for a reason. But for what purpose? And how would this, whatever this was, work? What would this look like?

So many questions swirled in the air as we debated and prayed over the weeks that followed. We created Google document after Google document to brainstorm ideas, discussing ideas passionately and praying even harder.

Finally, a verse struck us… “For everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.” –Ecclesiastes 3:1

That was it. That was the spark that grew into a flame.

We all experience many seasons of life. We all experience seasons of great joy, seasons of deep sorrow, seasons of change and growth, and seasons of resting in the quiet. We all have times when we wrestle with God, and other times when we find it easy to follow His plan for our lives. Sometimes these seasons are easy to embrace. But sometimes they feel challenging and overwhelming.

As time passes, our seasons evolve… and with them, our very souls and the way we interact with the world around us. How I interacted with friends and family in college is very different than how I interact with them now. My daily life looks far different than it once did. But perhaps even more profoundly, how I interact with God has changed, too.

As our seasons change, so do our prayer lives. What once worked, what once allowed me to slip effortlessly into prayer, is no longer possible in this season of my life. And so, it is time to try something new… to find a new way of communicating with the one who is loving me into existence even now, who has loved me since the beginning.

Middle school, high school, college, single and working, married with children… The patterns and stages of our lives may look different, but one thing remains true through it all: God is there. He is with us in each season of life, if only we pause long enough to see Him and truly be with Him.

The Live Today Well Collective is born from this idea and our mission is drawn from this purpose – to encourage all women to fully and purposefully reorient their hearts daily towards the Lord within the context of their current season of life.

Through our beautiful, simple, and accessible resources, we hope to provide women with tools to help them to celebrate the art of living well in every season of life. We want our products to inspire you to pause long enough to see the Lord’s presence, right here, right now, and to reflect on how He is loving you in and through this particular season of your life.

We also want this brand to be a cozy space, a welcoming place, where there is room for all at the table. Please know this – you are not alone. No matter how lonely, chaotic, or overwhelming your season of life may feel, you are not alone. Christ is with you and we are too. Though we may all be experiencing different seasons of life, we are all on this journey together. We are all called to live today well.

If there is anything that we know to be true about this humble brand, it is this: The Live Today Well Collective belongs to Him. It is all His.

Our deepest prayer is that this ministry becomes what God intends it to be. We pray that He will take these simple resources, the offering of our hearts and the work of our hands, and transform them through His grace and love. We pray that through this endeavor, we may become the tools in His hands, so that He might reach the hearts of the women He most longs to touch.

Please pray for us as we launch the Live Today Well Collective and know that you, dear sister, are in our thoughts and prayers every single day. We are so thrilled to have you here with us and feel so blessed to journey alongside you.

XOXO,

Kara