I love autumn.
The cozy vibes begin to settle in, pumpkin spice starts flooding our kitchens, and the days slowly grow shorter.
And I love that first-day-of-school feeling!
As a former school teacher and a September baby, I’ve always felt something special about a new notebook, freshly sharpened pencils, and a new planner waiting to be filled. Something about this time of year makes me want to begin again.
And maybe that is why this feels like the perfect time to bring back one of the things that has always been at the heart of Inscribe the Word: Our monthly Scripture-writing plans.
What Inscribe the Word was.
If you are newer to this little corner of the internet, you may not know that Inscribe the Word began back in 2016 largely around a very simple practice: writing Scripture.
Each month, I would choose a theme and spend time searching through the Bible, gathering passages together and creating a path through God’s Word that we could write together, one day at a time.
People printed the plans, tucked them into journals and Bibles, shared them with friends and women’s groups, and wrote their way through Scripture alongside me.
Over the years, I heard again and again that something about the simplicity of the practice helped people return to the Bible.
They didn’t have to figure out where to start.
They could just begin.
Our plans have reached every continent, I’ve met so many amazing followers of Jesus from so many different walks of life, and I fell deeper in love with the Savior of my soul.
Then life changed.
From 2011-2017, I owned and operated a nonprofit community theater. In 2017, God called me to lay it down and get alone with Him “in the wilderness.” In 2021, He asked me to pick it up again, and so we reopened as The Seeing Place, and that required quite a bit of my time.
Then, somewhere along the way, the hard drive containing almost everything I had created for Inscribe the Word from 2016 through 2022 disappeared.
Years of plans.
Writing.
Books
Designs.
Resources.
Gone.
To this day, I have no idea where it is.
It literally vanished as the bag holding the hard drive never left my home.
And for a long time, it felt as though the chapter of Inscribe the Word had closed.
Closed Doors.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the doors God closes. Sometimes we assume a closed door means never again. We picture Him slamming it shut, locking it, throwing away the key, and telling us to move on. But sometimes I think God closes something simply because He needs to do some work in us in the secret place.
Not because the thing itself was wrong or we will never return to it, but because the person who eventually walks back through that door needs to be different. The person who eventually walks back through that door needs to look more like Jesus.
Maybe God needs to do some inner work on the deep places of our hearts before we can carry the thing again. If He reopens the door, the work may look familiar, but we are not the same people walking back into it.
Beginning Again
That is why September’s first monthly plan is called: Begin Again.
Not New Beginnings.
Not New Seasons.
Begin Again.
Because sometimes the invitation isn’t to abandon everything that came before and create something completely new. Sometimes God brings us back to an old dream, an old practice, an old calling, or an old place, but we return carrying everything He has taught us in the wilderness . . . in the secret place.
September’s Scripture-writing plan walks through passages about beginning again: restoration, renewal, returning, rebuilding, and the God who continually makes things new.
And with it, Inscribe the Word Monthly is beginning again too.
What is Inscribe the Word Monthly?
Each month, members will receive a newly curated Scripture-writing plan centered around a particular theme or book of the Bible.
Along with the plan, I will write a devotional introducing the month’s journey.
I will send you a PDF template that you can copy and use throughout the month to write your verse.
The goal is to create resources you actually use. Not just another PDF to download and forget about.
Members also have access to a private journal where I can share additional Scripture teaching and personal reflections about how God is using Scripture to write my story and yours.
There will also be an archive where previous monthly plans will live as it grows.
The goal is simple.
To give you a place to begin.
Because the Bible is big.
Sometimes overwhelming.
And many of us have Bibles, apps, journals, studies, and resources piled around us, yet still wonder: Where do I even start? Inscribe the Word has always been my answer.
Start here.
Take one passage.
Write it slowly.
Pay attention.
And come back tomorrow.
Why the monthly plans are now paid
For many years, I offered the monthly Scripture-writing plans completely free. I am deeply grateful that I was able to do that. But if Inscribe the Word is going to continue, and if I am going to create these resources consistently and well, it has to become sustainable.
The Bible is free.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is free.
I will never charge someone to hear about Jesus or to access the Word of God.
But creating a finished resource requires something different.
It takes days and sometimes weeks to search Scripture, study passages in context, curate and sequence the verses, write devotionals, design the resources, and prepare everything for you to use.
There is also a website to host, software to create with, technology to maintain, processing fees, and the ordinary costs involved in running a business. Those things are not free.
And I have learned that creating meaningful work and building something sustainable do not have to be in conflict with one another. So Inscribe the Word Monthly is now $8 a month or $80 for the year. My hope is that it remains accessible while also giving the work the time, thought, and care it deserves.
There will still be plenty of free writing here.
I will still share what I am learning in Scripture, the stories God is weaving through ordinary life, and the things that make me stop and look at Jesus a little differently in The Journal.
On Instagram, I am writing daily as I attempt to inscribe the entire Bible as a legacy gift for my son, Asher.
Every day, I share free devotional writings as I update you on my progress.
But the complete monthly Scripture-writing journeys will now live inside Inscribe the Word Monthly.
Returning Again.
And maybe that is part of what beginning again looks like for me too. Returning to something I loved, to something so many of you have told me helped you fall in love with Scripture, but returning differently.
If you have found me more recently through my writing here on Substack and have wondered what Inscribe the Word actually is, this is the heart of it.
Write His Word.
Know His Heart.
See Him in Your Story.
If you have been wanting to spend more time in God’s Word but don’t know where to begin, I would love for you to join me.
September begins with Begin Again.
Maybe this is your invitation to begin again too.
Grace & Peace,
ERIKA
So happy about this. Already signed up!!!