I Can Rest in the Work I've Already Done

I was minding my business as usual. Driving to grab my grocery pickup order after getting my oil changed…tires rotated. You know, regular, boring adult stuff.

Podcast playing, half listening — the way you do when you need noise but you’re also somewhere in your own head.

And then Jennie Allen said something that made me turn it up and pay attention.

She was talking about the lie we don’t know we believe, and she said something to the effect of: “I can rest in the work I’ve already done. The obedience. God gave me this message, and I put it out.”

I had to sit with that for a minute. The rest of the ride, really.

Because here’s my honest truth:

I wrote a book. I finished it.I published it.I did the thing.And then almost immediately, I started treating it like it didn’t exist.

Not because I don’t believe in it.

I believe in Fingerprints more than almost anything I’ve created. I know where it came from. I know the identity crisis it was born out of — the years of sitting with the dissonance of being deeply nurturing and deeply childfree, of being an entrepreneur who’s making it happen but barely, of being an Auntie who knows that assignment is real even when the world doesn’t always name it that way.

I wrote that book because God put it on my heart, and I ran with it. Like I said I would.

But then…I got quiet.

The lie is sneaky. I’ve talked about this before.The who’s actually going to care voice in my head that isn’t really about doubting my ability, it’s about doubting my reach. My relevance. Whether my voice gets swallowed whole in all the noise.

And here’s what I’ve realized that lie does when you let it run: it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I believe no one is paying attention → so I don’t promote the work → the work doesn’t reach people → which “proves” that no one was paying attention → and now the lie feels like a fact.

I literally create the outcome I feared by doing nothing. And call it humility. Or not being salesy. Or just... not being ready.

But what it actually is is fear wearing a church hat.

So something shifted recently.

I’ve been in a full season of rebuilding — systems, strategy, clarity — and in the middle of all of that, I came back to Fingerprints. Not to redo it. Not to feel bad about what I didn’t do. Just to look at it clearly.

And when I did, I realized: this message is still alive. It didn’t expire when the launch window closed. Legacy doesn’t have a launch window. Auntiehood doesn’t have a launch window. The Otherhood conversation is still very much being had — I see it every time I scroll.

I’m just not in it like I should be.

That’s what this season is about for me.Breathing life back into what God already gave me.Not starting over — returning.There’s a difference.

The obedience was putting it out. But I think there’s a second layer of obedience in actually letting people find it. In posting the content. In showing up to the conversation. In trusting that my fingerprints are already leaving marks, even when I can’t see it happening.

I can rest in the work I’ve already done, but that doesn’t mean I’m done. It means I don’t have to be so anxious about it. I don’t have to hold on so tight to the outcome. I just have to keep showing up.

So that’s what I’m doing.

If you’ve been here since the beginning, you might remember Issue 028 — the birth of the book — and Issue 029, where I talked about building your own proof of concept even when you’re not sure anyone is watching. I’m still in that same story. It just has more chapters than I originally planned.

More soon.

The fingerprint is still being pressed.

All Is Well,— Ashlee

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