2016: The Year I Was Canceled

Growth often shuffles the guest list.

You’ve undoubtedly seen the 2016/2026 posts going around, right? Showing the version of you one decade ago versus today? First of all, how was 2016 ten years ago?? What in the whole actual world. It feels like both yesterday and a hundred years ago. My god, we have aged psychologically since 2016.

2016 was the apex of my career in evangelicalism. For the Love had come out the year before, which remains my highest selling book. Of Mess and Moxie was in editing and releasing the following year. I was speaking on the biggest stages in the genre. I was traveling the world with justice organizations raising millions of dollars. My social accounts were growing 1,000 women a day.

I had dozens of friends in the collaborative work of ministry across the United States. Like, friends I traveled with and built huge movements with; they were on the short list of emergency contacts. I was a member of a cherished supper club that functioned more like family. We were surrounded by friends committed to the messy business of our little church; “we” being my husband and I, because I was married then, of course—we celebrated 23 years that December.

2016 was a before-and-after in my career, as some of you will recall…