Welcome to the first Five Minute Friday link-up of the month of May!
If you’re new to the link-up, feel free to click here to learn more about it! So glad you’re here.
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: PROVE
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.Â
This past Tuesday evening, my phone notified me at 10:41pm that I had received an email from my publisher.
The subject line read, “Are you sitting down?”
He was at the Awards Ceremony in Nashville where the winners of the 2025 Christian Book Award were announced, and he wrote to share the news with me that my book, Letters to Grief, had won the award in the Devotion and Gift Book Category.
I knew the book was a finalist and I knew the awards ceremony was happening that evening, but I also knew the other five books I was “up against,” and surely a different one would win!
After digesting the news alone in my room, as my husband was sick and sleeping upright in a recliner in an attempt to minimize his cough, I decided to text my college-age daughter who I knew would be awake.
After sharing the news with her, I also shared a confession, which I now divulge to you:
When my memoir, A Place to Land, was published in 2018, I hoped and hoped that it would be recognized for this exact award. In my mind at the time, becoming a finalist for the Christian Book Award was a measure to me that my book must be good.
Being a published author is a vulnerable thing, right?
STOP.
(Okay, on this very rare occasion I’m gonna cheat so I can somewhat finish my story.)
Well, it did not become a finalist, and I confess that I was so disappointed. It was almost as if I had something to prove, and in my perception at the time, I had failed. My book must not be good.
Anyway, fast forward seven years, and here we are. A winner with a completely different book. (By the way, I was convinced in 2018 that A Place to Land was the best I knew how to write, and I would never in my life produce anything comparable to even have a chance at any type of award.)
I admit it does feel strange to win an award for a book about grief. I mean, isn’t it weird to be happy about something related to a book about sadness?
In many ways, as I’ve said many times before, I wish this book were not needed.
But since grief is still a reality on this side of heaven, I will continue to ask the Lord to help me use my story and the gifts He has given for His glory alone.
Thank you so much to all of you who have shared in the enthusiasm and offered such sincere support. You are all a blessing!
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2025 Christian Book Award Winner
Letters to Grief
Affiliate link
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your linkup neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
Congratulations, Kate!
I don’t have a thing to prove
to anyone, not even God,
for I am in my deadly groove
and I’m the one who is not flawed,
for I ride the wave of pain,
green room, and I’m hanging ten,
and there’s nothing to remain
of regrets, “remember when”.
Everything is in the now, and in this moment I’m the best,
and so folks might just have a cow
at this, but I have passed the test
in every sleepless night of bleed,
Ducemus, yeah, hey dude, WE LEAD.
Congratulations, Kate! Isn’t it wonderful how much God uses our pain to make beauty from ashes? First, He helped you write this book to encourage others. Now He is using it to fulfill your longing. What wonderful news.
Congratulations, Kate!!!