How have we managed to stay at home all these months? Yet, spring is here and the possibility of enjoying a warm, sunny day on the beach. Warm gentle breezes. The rhythmic sounds of breaking surf. Washes of orange and blue painted across a sunset sky. The spray of salty water at your feet…
Everyone loves getting away on a beach holiday, but what if you could bottle up that feeling of rest, and live in it every day? One of the UK’s most promising new Christian writers, Anna Kettle believes that you can! And in her refreshing debut release, ‘Sand Between Your Toes: Inspirations for a Slower, Simpler & More Soulful Life’ she shares some of her hard-learned ideas about how.
Published by Tyndale House, ‘Sand Between Your Toes’ is a beautifully presented collection of inspiring daily devotions, hope-filled prayers, and practical tips to help readers to slow down, simplify, and discover a more soulful way of life.
The inspiration behind ‘Sand Between Your Toes
On the inspiration behind her first book, author Anna Kettle says:
“When I first began writing Sand Between Your Toes, I was caught in a season of over-busyness. I was working full time in marketing, parenting a toddler, and juggling lots of other commitments too. I often found myself feeling stressed out, exhausted, and longing to slow down, yet struggling to make the changes that I so desperately craved in my life.”
“But what I discovered as I dug deep into God’s word is that you don’t have to completely rip up the script, quit your job or exit ‘normal life’ in order to experience a slower, simpler, more soulful way of life. You can create better margins of rest right where you are. Small, sustainable changes are often the best!
She adds, “This book is what I wish someone had put into my hands, back when I was struggling to slow down my pace of my life. It explores themes of biblical rest through daily reflections, but also includes lots of simple lifestyle tips which will help readers learn how to pause, unplug, unwind, and find God’s peace amid life’s many complications.”
On the subject of whether the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the pace of life for many of us, Anna adds this: “There’s no doubt that the pandemic has interrupted some aspects of our busy lives and forced us to slow down and strip back some of our previous commitments and plans.
“Yet very few people I speak to have been stuck at home with nothing to do over the past year. Lots of people have either been putting in long hours as critical workers, or juggling home-schooling children alongside home-working. Maybe we’ve just swapped old forms of busyness for new ones!
“But I think the real challenge for most of us is what happens when life goes ‘back to normal’. Will we just default back to filling up every spare moment of our time with activity, or will we allow some of the more positive changes we’ve discovered to stick? These questions are really worth wrestling with, because to a large extent, we get to decide! And my hope is that this book is a useful resource to help readers do just that.”
Anna’s debut book release, ‘Sand Between Your Toes’ took a slightly unconventional route to publishing – it started out as a personal challenge to blog on a different Bible verse, every day for a year.
“I’m a marketing and PR professional by background so I have always written for a living, but when I first started my daily blog challenge it was really just an exercise to help me be more intentional about reading God’s word. I never dreamt that it would turn into a published book.
“In fact, I was only pressing ‘publish’ as a way to make myself accountable for not quitting after a few days! But before long, friends and family started reading along. Eventually an extract got passed along to someone at Tyndale House, and the concept for this book just grew from there.”
Anna currently lives with her family in the beautiful waterfront city of Liverpool which also became part of the inspiration for the book title. Walking along the local coastline is one of her favourite ways to relax and connect with God.
‘Sand Between Your Toes’ is available from Amazon, Kindle, iBooks, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and many other bookstores and online retailers. It’s available in both hardback and e-book editions. You can find Anna still regularly blogging (but not quite every day!) on her website at: www.annakettle.com
Also read: The Bible is your secret weapon. Use it to reach your God-given destiny!
Guest Contributor
We are happy to publish the contributions of guest writers, including members of the Christian media, public relations etc providing different opinions that may or may not reflect our own.
