Finding Gratitude in the Dark releases November 2, my 50th birthday. Before I share the news anywhere else, I wanted to tell you, my Besties, how this book came to be.
By Dianna Hobbs // Your Daily Cup of Inspiration
Finding Gratitude in the Dark: 28 Days to See God’s Goodness More Clearly releases November 2 in paperback. The Kindle edition is available for pre-order now. (Photo illustration: AABMW)
I held the proof of my new book in my hands, staring at the cover, turning the pages, and trying to wrap my mind around what I was seeing. Seven years. That’s how long it took for Finding Gratitude in the Dark: 28 Days to See God’s Goodness More Clearly to go from a series of blog posts written by a woman struggling to recover from a traumatic brain injury to a book ready for publication. I couldn’t think of a more fitting place to share the news first than right here on Your Daily Cup of Inspiration, where the whole thing began.
In August 2019, a severe adverse reaction to an antibiotic sent me to the hospital, where I suffered multiple seizures, a ministroke, and a traumatic brain injury. I returned home struggling to read, write, pronounce certain words, and remember, while also facing significant mental health challenges brought on by the neurological damage.
That November, while I was still battling global aphasia, a language disorder caused by damage to the brain, I felt the Lord leading me to write a daily series on gratitude.
Now, who in the world struggles to put sentences together and decides to write a devotional every day for an entire month?
Apparently, me.
Some days, I cried through the writing. Other days, I fought frustration and exhaustion. Still, day after day, I wrote about gratitude, and many of you read those devotionals right here. I had no idea they would become the foundation of a book.
God knew.
The front and back covers of Finding Gratitude in the Dark: 28 Days to See God’s Goodness More Clearly, which releases November 2 in paperback. The Kindle edition is available for pre-order now. (Photo illustration: AABMW)
Over the years, I returned to my story again and again. I grieved the woman I had been, the abilities I had lost, and the future I had imagined. Eventually, I had to accept that some of the damage to my brain is permanent.
“It’s all over for you,” the enemy whispered, and some days that lie felt convincing.
God knew better.
While I was wrestling with what I had lost, He was teaching me something about gratitude I could never have learned from a comfortable place.
Some of those lessons came through our son Kaleb, whose journey I share in the book. Kaleb was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). My husband, Kenya, and I had to learn to recognize what our youngest son was experiencing, seek appropriate professional care, and support him through challenges we couldn’t simply make go away.
I share parts of that journey because I know some of you are mothers desperately trying to help a child you love. I know what it is to believe God, pray earnestly, and still need answers from doctors and therapists.
Then the lessons became even more personal in 2025, when I lost my precious father, Bishop Joseph Brinson Sr., and my beloved brother, Bishop Christopher Brinson, a little more than four months apart. Words I had written in 2019 spoke to me differently as I walked through fresh sorrow. I was grieving, and some days the ache was overwhelming. Yet there were still reasons to thank God and still evidence of His presence in the middle of it all.
That’s what this book is about.
It’s for the woman who is grieving someone she loves and still has to get up tomorrow morning. The mother worried about her child. The woman who has prayed for years and wonders why the answer hasn’t come.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT).
I have taught that verse for years. Now I understand it through experiences I would never have chosen. Gratitude can sound like triumphant praise, and it can sound like a whispered “Thank You, Lord” through tears.
God accepts both.
Each of the 28 days includes Scripture, biblical teaching, a personal story, a Gratitude Practice with guided prompts, and a closing prayer. Some of the stories are deeply emotional. Others will probably make you laugh. If you know me, you know humor finds its way into just about everything I write.
I’m also releasing a companion journal with deeper questions to give your thoughts room to flow freely on paper.
The front and back covers of Finding Gratitude in the Dark: A Companion Journal, which pairs with the 28-day devotional to give readers room to reflect, pray and write. (Photo illustration: AABMW)
If you start Day One on November 2, you’ll read Day Twenty-Five on Thanksgiving and finish the Sunday after. I would love for you to walk those 28 days with me.
The book is being published through AABMW Publishing, an initiative of the American Alliance for Black Mental Wellness, which Kenya and I co-founded in 2026 out of convictions our family’s journey has only deepened.
It releases Monday, November 2, in paperback, and the Kindle edition is available for pre-order now on Amazon. I’ll add the paperback link here as soon as it goes live.
Seven years ago, I sat at a laptop struggling to write a gratitude series. Now, as I approach my 50th birthday, I’m releasing the book that grew from those very words. I have shed so many tears over this manuscript. Holding the finished proof, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. There are still things I am healing from and people I miss terribly. There is also a God who has faithfully sustained me through it all.
If you’ve been reading since 2019, you were here when the first seeds of this book were planted. Thank you for walking with me and praying for me. And if you’re newer to this community, I’m grateful you’re here, too.
I’m entering a new decade with a testimony I could never have written on my own.
God’s goodness can still be found in the dark.
That’s the message of this book and the testimony of my life. As you turn its pages, I pray you discover how true it is in yours.
