💌 When You Feel Like You've Started Over Too Many Times

How to start over when you're tired of being the one who always starts over

💌 Welcome to Take Heart Daily, a Creatorly series for gentle encouragement as you show up for the work God gave you. I hope these quiet reminders support you in the season you're in, wherever you are today.

I’ve started over more times than I can count. Blogs, Etsy shops, Instagram accounts, businesses, side projects. Each one felt like the thing, right up until it didn’t.

For a long time, I thought that pattern meant something was wrong with me, that a person who was really serious about their calling would have gotten it right by now. Would have pushed through harder. Would not have needed to begin this many times again.

What I can see now — and it took me a long time to see it — is that something was being formed in me. That God was giving me practice for something I couldn’t see yet. That all of those starts were not evidence of inconsistency. They were preparation.

The thing about starting over repeatedly is that you start to recognize the feeling. The fresh energy of a new beginning. The way it fades. The quiet moment when you realize this isn’t the thing either, or that this version of it isn’t ready yet. And then the slow return and the decision to try again, differently, with a little more of yourself intact than the last time.

I used to be embarrassed by this pattern. I felt like I was the person always announcing something new to friends and on social media, always beginning, always pivoting. It felt performative, even when it wasn’t, like I couldn’t commit.

But I never let go. That’s the part I keep coming back to. Through every abandoned side project, every closed Etsy shop, every deleted account, I never let go of the thing God actually placed on my heart.

I kept returning to it, even when I wasn’t sure it was working, even when the shape of it kept changing. That return was not a failure. It was faithfulness showing up in the only way it knew how to, in that season.

There’s a posture I keep coming back to when I think about why some creative work lasts, and some doesn’t. It’s not ambition. It’s not a better plan or the right conditions finally arriving.

It’s a surrender.

The kind of surrender that means releasing the version of yourself you thought you needed to be before you could begin, the one with a clearer plan, a better season, more time, more confidence. That version isn’t coming first. It comes after you start.

What I know now is that the posture that actually sustains creative work isn’t willpower, urgency, or the fear of falling further behind. It’s a quiet willingness to return, to pick it back up, to write a new date in the margin and try again from wherever you actually are, not wherever you thought you’d be by now.

You don’t need to have it figured out. You don’t need a cleared calendar or a fresh start or a version of yourself who has already fixed the gap between where you are and where you thought you’d be by now. You just have to begin. And if you have to begin again, that counts too.

With joy,

✍️ This is the year to show up for the work God gave you. If you’re ready to build what you’re called to create, founding membership is open now through April 6.

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P.S. Pick one thing you have been waiting to begin. It doesn’t have to be a plan or a full commitment. Just the smallest possible next step — one sentence written, one tab opened, one decision made. Do that one thing this week.

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💌 If you’re new here —

Take Heart Daily is a weekly letter for the creator who is building something quietly, in the margins of a full life. Each Sunday, I share gentle encouragement for showing up faithfully to the work God gave you — not perfectly, not with everything figured out, just steadily over time.

It’s free. It arrives in your inbox on Sundays. And it’s written for the season you’re actually in, not the one you were hoping to be in by now.

If that sounds like what you need, I’d love to have you here.

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📖 Scripture I needed — John 21: 15-19

“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

What this means for me right now —

This conversation happens after Peter’s denials, after the cross, and after the resurrection. Peter had already failed in the most painful way a person can fail, and Jesus didn’t open with correction or a reminder of what Peter had done wrong. He opened with a question about love. And then he gave Peter something to do.

Three denials. Three times, Jesus asks. Not to shame him, but to restore him. Because the work wasn’t finished, and Peter was still the one called to do it.

What I keep coming back to is that Jesus didn’t wait for Peter to feel ready, or to have processed his failure, or to have earned his way back into the calling. He met him exactly where he was, on the shore, back at his fishing boat, where Peter’s journey with Jesus began, and said follow me.

The grace offered in that moment wasn’t just forgiveness. It was a restoration of purpose. It was Jesus saying the work is still yours, and I am still the one who will carry you through it.

That is the grace Jesus offers both you and me. Not just the grace that simply looks past our false starts and our half-finished things and our too-many-times-to-count restarts. The grace that meets us in all of it and calls us forward anyway, because the work was never about our consistency or our confidence or our perfect follow-through.

It was always about His glory. And if He is the one calling us to begin again, then He is also the one who will equip us for it, sustain us through it, and be glorified by our faithfulness to answer.

We can start over because of the grace we have been given. And we should start over, because if Jesus is calling us back to the work, it is for a purpose far greater than anything we can see from where we are standing right now.

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☕️ What I’m reading —

The Good and Beautiful Bible Study: Volume Two. I let this sit on my bookshelf for over a year before I finally picked it up and started reading through it each morning. I already want to go back and start reading from the beginning again because I feel like I have gotten so much from it. Which feels fitting, given everything I've been writing about this week.

🎧 What I’m listening to —

Have Your Way by Katy Nichole

“Lord, have Your way in my life
In my heart, in my soul, in my mind
Lord, have Your way every time
'Cause I know that Your plans are better than mine
I lift up my hands and I fall on my knees
Surrendering I'll sing it
Lord, have Your way in me”

☕ Fueling the work —

Two new smoothie recipes, both with spinach, both surprisingly good. One is spinach, lemon juice, apple, and banana. The other is tropical fruits, banana, and spinach. My kids figured out what was in them almost immediately and want nothing to do with either, but I am completely hooked. I never thought I would be a person who drinks spinach smoothies, but here we are.

🤲 What I’m practicing —

Showing up to the work even when the step feels too small to matter. Not waiting for the version of this that feels more impressive or more certain. Just returning, quietly, without needing anyone, including myself, to make a big deal of it.

🤍 What God is reminding me —

That all those starts I was embarrassed by were never evidence of failure. Something was being formed in me, even when I couldn't see it. And that the work He placed on my heart was always mine to return to, no matter how many times I walked away.

I’d love to know where you are right now. Reply and tell me! Is there something you’ve been waiting to begin, or something you keep returning to?

I read every response, and I’d love to hear what God is forming in you.

Share the small things with you in your week↓

💌 I love having the opportunity to share how others are showing up faithfully to the work God is calling them to do. Please join me in celebrating their obedience and supporting their journey.

Meet Brooke Zoller

57 years old | Located in the Midwest

✍️ Creating — Building a positive, Bible-based community that celebrates creativity in writing as well as art and the everyday homeschooler.

Read Here’s What I’d Tell You After 15 Years of Homeschooling My Children and Leaving a Healthy Family Legacy.

🤍 Called to — To encourage moms and grandparents in their walk with Jesus, to support them in motherhood and grandparent roles and to cheer parents on in the homeschooling of their children.

💭 Current challenge — Finding the time to do all the creative projects I want to do involving writing, art and helping homeschoolers! I have several children’s book drafts, a devotional I want to write, among other books, as well as a myriad of painting I enjoy doing!

☕ Fueling the work — this winter it’s been homemade hot chai tea lattes

💭 What keeps them going — God and my grandchildren! They are my sources of joy and hope. God gives me the courage to keep encouraging others.

🙏 How we can support —

• Would appreciate prayer for me and my growing family.

• Subscribe to The Pondering Scottie, consider a paid subscription as well.

• Consider my Prayer Journal for recording your prayers and answered prayers.

• Check out my artwork to make gifts, notecards, wall art or decor.

Connect — Brooke Z | Newsletter

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✍️ Explore Field Notes for behind-the-scenes on building sustainably - This week, I shared Why I Couldn’t Find My Voice When I Was Writing for Everyone

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