At Last, the Day I Have Awaited and Other Beauty from Ashes Moments
Exalted Ground is here, and here are some poems for you!
Dearest Reader,
As I write to you, my labor of love from the past fourteen months is nestled on the pillow beside me, and I can’t stop looking at her because I can hardly believe she is real.
Friends, my new poetry collection, Exalted Ground, is finally here, and she enters the world officially today, April 7, 2025, which is the absolute perfect month for things like this, because it is National Poetry Month and because April is a sacred month for me in my chronic illness and healing journey.
April has held the darkest and brightest times—if that is even possible.
It was April 4, 2021—and Easter of all days—when I first collapsed in our home from sepsis after a botched second surgery that nearly took my life. In April of 2022, after having survived multiple hospitalizations and a third life-saving surgery that took my disease (mostly) and saved my life (but also took my ability to have more children), the poetry finally came rushing back like an avalanche unleashed over my head while I was in my garden.
This revival eventually birthed my first book, Of Wings and Dirt, in early 2024.
In April of 2023, I lost my ability to walk again. I collapsed in my classroom and lost my job and community. I was not believed or supported. It was incredibly tragic, and I was in the dark again. I learned that I would need another surgery to restore my mobility, but that I would have to wait six months to have it because of the specialists and expertise it required.
No doubt, there was more poetry to write as I learned to walk again for the third time after surgery number four in November of 2023.
And now, in April of 2025, God is delivering more beauty from ashes—yet again—as I heal from my most recent hospitalization and lapse at the end of last year. Since the time I was in the last editing stages of my first book, God made it very clear where he was taking me next. If Of Wings and Dirt was about my personal survival story, this next collection, Exalted Ground, would be about yours. I turned from not just inward-facing verse but to a new liturgy-like outward-facing verse (like the Psalms, a prayer offered up for you)—all of which was entirely new to my journey and writing voice.
Week after week, I would bring my suffering to the Lord, and again and again, he would give me revelations in my prayer time, in my Bible reading, in my beholding, in my tears, in my sickbed, in my journaling, in my garden, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (of course), in my searching, in my lamenting, in my loving, in my ordinary days, and in the sacred moments as mother, wife, daughter, friend, sufferer, and bloodied saint…
All I needed to do in it all was stay attuned, like an empty and obedient vessel ready to receive his urging.
And the end result? I was given this exalted ground—not just as a book but as a pilgrim learning how to truly live awake and abundantly in all human experiences: the praising, the lamenting, the wondering, the searching, the loving, and the creating.
God was teaching me that there is a way to praise in the pain, find the holy in the hard, and seek the sacred in the mundane. He said, “Everything, my daughter, is exalted ground because I am there.” He said, “Stop waiting for your life to get better, for your health to improve, for your grief to pass. Even these things are beautiful and sacred. Even your suffering is a crown when you invite me into it.”
So, today, April 7, 2025, is a very big day for me—like a birthday of sorts. Obviously, because Exalted Ground is finally here (and I so badly would like you to grab a copy for yourself or a loved one), but also because of what this time represents in my life and what I pray Exalted Ground might mean for your life, too.
It’s another beauty from ashes moment—among many.
My earnest prayer is that you feel held, seen, loved, and strengthened as you realize you are not alone—you were never alone—and that your pain can be a pathway to something sacred. Your hardships are invitations to holy ground. Your losses aren’t forever; they will be redeemed one fine day because you have a Good Father who doesn’t break his promises.
So, before I go, I would like to share with you a few of my favorite poems from my collection and some faithful friends’ reviews.
From FOR THOSE WHO PRAISE
SEA OF STARS by Kimbery Phinney “A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of stars.” –Walt Whitman I rushed here to say: What if the night sky— all ebbing sapphire and shadows— was the sea? What if the flourishes of strata clouds— all stretched across the air like cotton spools unfurling— were the whitecaps of waves, raging on throughout the world? What if the errant planes were ancient ships lost to wrecks and the birds were great blue whales— moving in pods toward the vast unknown? And what if the stars— all the billions that go on multiplying while we dream— were glowing lighthouses beckoning us home? What if? What if it’s so? Would it change a thing? No matter, because I am here, looking up and looking on. A witness: landlocked, in awe, and praising as if it was.
Review graciously given by . Subscribe to her and preorder her new book.
From FOR THOSE WHO LAMENT
STAY by Kimberly Phinney “There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again." –Rumi Imagine the millions of beautiful little things you would miss if this world spun on without you in it: to hear your future children play on the promenade, to watch another summer fade as the longleaf pines catch the evening rays of sun in their palms, or to see yourself, again, in God’s book of Psalms, and to learn you haven’t yet found the thousand ways to kiss the ground and say, “Amen.” So, I hope you’ll stay a while longer now: to be held in the arms of your lover and leave the dishes in the sink to dance the night away with Miles and Coltrane— wine glasses in hand, bodies free to cling— and to stop caring about what other people think and to stop hurting over the yesterdays you have no way of changing. And then, I hope you’ll stay some more: to walk so slow in the country grass that you notice every pink thrift, or silent snail, and the clovers pressed down between your toes, and to breathe in the sweet notes of God’s love— ever-present— and to become so intoxicated that you finally see these millions of beautiful little things make it all worth it to live again— to stay.
Review graciously given by . Subscribe to him and grab his new book now.
From FOR THOSE WHO WONDER
WHAT LITTLE WE HAVE NOW by Kimberly Phinney for my husband What little we have here must be enough: a scant semblance of normalcy, a fine thread of what was, as we laugh like years ago between the midnight sheets and tears, forgetting the sutures that hold the scars that is our life, or the gentle dance for just one verse to our ancient song— so worn it is by our love (like us)— before the wick burns down and I am awash in pain as my body rebels, or the quiet mornings and those early minutes when our eyes first take to fluttering before the cold rush of what is drowns out the warmth of what was— and we remember, or a fistful of blueberries and hearty toast broken and buttered as the sun pours through the Eastern windowpanes and our stomachs are filled (like our hearts)— for just a little while, or the tender voice of a little girl we call our own who calls to us in the dark of night for a warm cup of milk because she cannot sleep and how her being in the world is enough to fill all other voids and the pang for the babies we’ll never hold. I survey these things in the quiet of this life after life. Look, see, and ponder them. It is no wonder: No, these wonders are not so little after all. They are all things. All being. All mercy. All grace. All that is and matters once all else has been lost or faded away, all that I thought I needed and loved but did not love like what little we have now that is not so little— but everything.
Review graciously given by my friend and foreword writer . Subscribe to him and grab his new book now.
I pray you enjoyed this offering and were blessed in some way. I can’t thank you enough for being here and believing in me and my writing. In the coming weeks, I will be sharing more about Exalted Ground and what’s coming next for me, as well as other very kind endorsements from my friends
, , , and more.I hope you might grab a copy or two of Exalted Ground in the coming days. It would make for a great gift for yourself if you’ve been struggling or are looking for more wonder in your everyday life. It’s the perfect companion for your nightstand or coffee table, and it would also be perfect as an Easter, Mother’s Day, or birthday gift to the writerly friend you love.
YOU CAN ORDER EXALTED GROUND HERE.
Again, God bless you and thank you for being here. Your presence is the true gift.
You belong here,
me
So beautiful. Thank you Kimberly ❤️ Happy Book Birthday on this joyful day.
Happy book birthday! I’m holding my copy and looking forward to curling up to read this evening. So blessed by you!