ICYMI Val Marie Paper is closing

The prayer girl gets her answer + a recap from the live

In case you missed it, yesterday I shared a live video that Val Marie Paper will be closing by the end of the year. My tear ducts and puffy face still haven’t recovered from it, but I’ll attempt to recap the hour-long video here if you didn’t get to watch it.

WHY ARE WE CLOSING?

Health. Physically, my energy is low. Maybe it’s the endometriosis and iron issues. I also struggle with high blood pressure and have found it directly tied to my work. Physically, I cannot sustain the pace I’m going at right now.

A changing industry. The landscape today is vastly different from when I started 11 years ago. We had no competition for years, and as the market has become saturated and my own health has dropped, what is required to grow today is more than I can do without it costing my family dearly.

Confidence in the next generation. I have been so encouraged by those younger than me leading the charge. They are full of life and energy and I personally am excited to see what comes of it.

A release of pride. Years ago, I would have thought, “What would these people do without Val Marie Paper?” I carried God’s mission of prayer for our generation on my shoulders. Now I see how God has invited me into this work. I am grateful to get to do it, but I no longer have such pride that tells me if I close, our generation won’t survive.

For my family. Vivi and I had a conversation, and she was able to articulate really well that I’ve been a distracted mom. She was 100% right, and I feel like they’ve already sacrificed so much for VMP. It’s time for me to sacrifice for them.

Because God said so. He didn’t audibly speak it to me, but He made me comfortable releasing the very thing I’ve gripped for years so fearfully. He took this woman who loves her job maybe a little too much and helped her decide to prioritize her family instead. If you saw inside my heart, you’d know this could only come from God because I’m selfish and love what I do. I’ve had confirmation from wise counsel and cool God stories (I shared Betsy’s story in the live!).

To live out what I’ve spent 11 years talking about. We don’t pray for a second opinion. We don’t pray a wish list to a genie. We pray to know God better and follow Him. Obedience is a huge part of prayer, so I pray this decision speaks more to how important it is to pray than anything I’ve shared in the last 11 year.

HOW AM I FEELING?

Overwhelming gratitude. It would be greedy to demand this last forever, though I think I would have loved it! I feel so lucky to have done this for 11 years.

Sadness. This has been such a big part of my identity, and I have fears about what life will be like without it. The future isn’t clearly defined, so leaving something you love for something unknown is hard to rationalize. I will miss providing this resource because I’ve heard your stories of how life-changing the journals have been. I pray that our format can still serve you in different forms (digital or on Amazon, but more on that below).

Peace. When you wait so long for God to give you direction, and then it comes so clearly, there’s relief and peace to be where you know God has you, like you didn’t mishear or disobey. There’s peace in knowing you’re in God’s hands.

Excitement. I’m looking forward to rest and healing. I’m looking forward to investing more in my family, especially in these pivotal years for my girls and Tyler in his new role as pastor. I’m excited to be creative again and spend the time I do work on ideas I can share with y’all. With a larger business like I have now, there are so many things that feel like busy work that keep me from writing and creating.

WILL THE JOURNALS BE AVAILABLE AFTER WE CLOSE?

• WON’T BE RESTOCKED - The spiral linen journals, Springboard Prayers, and current softbound will not be available. The stock we have right now of our Rhythms, Signature, and Springboard Prayers will not be restocked.

• WILL BE RESTOCKED TILL Dec. 24 - Our Compose, Pregnancy, and other softcover journals WILL be restocked until we close. We will also be introducing some old favorite colors for covers soon.

• LOW QUANTITIES - Springboard Prayers, Rhythms in Mink, Signature in Apricot, Orchid, Wisteria, Jade Vine and Mulberry.

After December:

• WILL BE AVAILABLE ON AMAZON - Adagio (our nighttime journal), Compose, Pray Confidently and Consistently, The Finishing School, Led Not Driven, Grumpy Mom Takes a Holiday, and Fresh Start for Moms will all remain available on Amazon.

• WILL BE AVAILABLE ON SWEET BATON ROUGE - The sweatshirts, hats (more coming!) and t-shirts (coming soon!) will be available with our printer after the year ends. We plan to continue to grow The Morning Watch Club apparel line. I hope this movement continues to inspire! We will link to the shop on Substack when our shop closes.

• WILL BE AVAILABLE ON ZAZZLE - The Morning Watch Club mugs! These have been a fun little add to the shop that y’all requested. The back detail is my favorite! ;).

NEW THINGS COMING:

• COMING SOON TO AMAZON - We will be debuting a hardcover similar to Rhythms format in Adagio cover and materials. I’ll announce in our emails when that’s available. I also plan to add products, so leave a comment if there are any specific products you’d like to see. With the ease of Amazon production, I can create and release things more often, which I’m excited about.

• WILL BE AVAILABLE ON ETSY - I’m thrilled to offer the prayer journal format in a PDF form so that you can print or use it for an iPad app like Good Notes or Notability. I haven’t been able to work on these yet, but I expect them to be available before the end of the year, along with other helpful worksheets. If you are familiar with these options, I’d love your thoughts on what would be most useful!

• Any additional ways that we find to keep products available will be added to our Substack navigation.

SHOP DETAILS:

Shipping will continue till December 31 unless we sell out before then. We will announce in our emails if we are getting close to selling out early.

Will you offer discounts? Black Friday, we plan to offer 30% off whatever is remaining. in the shop. Right now, though, if you are stocking up, you can use codes 3ORMORE for 20% off and 10ORMORE for 27% off. :)

Boutiques, if you’d like to carry our journals, email Betsy at info@valmariepaper.com. If anyone has Signature or Rhythms in stock after we close, we will point others to your shop.

The course will stay available but we will move it to a private link on YouTube in the next few months.

WHY WAIT TILL AFTER THE SALE TO ANNOUNCE?

We had planned to wait to announce until October, but to be honest, it’s been hard not to share, so we bumped it up and thought my 40th birthday was a symbolically appropriate day. Knowing our big sale would end right before, we pivoted a few days before and shared with our paid Substack subscribers two days before the same ended and our free subscribers the day before. We felt it was important to honor those loyal subscribers with the first notification. We also figured this would reach the majority of our customers. BUT if you are just hearing the news, you can still use the codes for 20% off or more I shared above.

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED SELLING?

We have considered but did not pursue this for multiple reasons. We’ve been approached by a few companies in the last few days about partnerships and will consider the options and pray, but I want to retain our format because I believe it has so much more “mileage” in different avenues. I hope to reach a new demographic on Amazon with a much more affordable price. (More details in the video)

HOW CAN WE SUPPORT YOU?

First, thank you so much! Several of you asked this and it means so much.

• Clean out our stock! The sales over the next few months will give me time to grow what’s next. Selling my wedding planning business years ago didn’t make me a millionaire, but it did afford me the opportunity to grow something new without a frenzy of pressure, and I’m hoping to walk into the next season similarly.

• Sign up for our paid Substack. Since I won’t be on social media, this will be my outlet to write and interact. This includes a post each Monday where we discuss a question with the hopes of expanding our prayer life beyond the reactionary things we pray for. The topics and questions I share at the end to ask God in prayer have changed me so much over the last 5 months. I also try to offer extra value. In one post, I shared a free PDF of our Prayer Focus Map, and in another, we gave ten free Rhythms to everyone who commented. Here’s a peek at our question posts.

• Leave a review on Amazon, especially for the Compose. So many of you snatched one up after the live! I would love to hear your thoughts, hear about any changes you’d make, etc. And if you’ve used our format before in the Rhythms, Signature, or current Compose, please leave a review! This helps us rank higher so others can find us.

If you have any other questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask!

Next week, I’ll be back with our regularly scheduled Wednesday Peptalk with all your favorite midweek resources and encouragement!

Forever grateful!

Val