All the Things I Say to God

My first children's book!

Hello! Hello!

I can finally tell you what I have been wanting to tell you! On April 29, 2025 I’ll be releasing my very first children’s book! All the Things I Say to God: Learning to Pray Anytime, Anywhere is now available for pre-order.

All the Things I Say to God explores the profound world of prayer and shows children that heartfelt conversations with God can occur anywhere, anytime, and about anything.

Abby has been praying with her parents for as long as she can remember. They pray together before meals and before bed, on good days and tough days. Then one day Abby asks a simple question: “Mom, can I pray to God all by myself?”

Follow Abby on her journey of faith as she discovers how to express her gratitude, ask questions, pray for others, and use silence to communicate with God. Led by her own curiosity, she finds out that you can pray for anything and everything—God’s love knows no bounds.

All the Things I Say to God: Learning to Pray Anytime, Anywhere is published by Zonderkidz and illustrated by Anita Schmidt. A huge thanks to The Christopher Ferebee Agency and my literary agent (and friend!), Jonathan Merritt for helping make this dream become a reality.

Pre-order the book today!

Today happens to be National Adoption Day, a day our family holds close. I began writing this children’s book while we were walking through the adoption process. To read how the book came to be, check out the story below!

National Adoption Day //

In 2021, when the doctor diagnosed my wife and me with unexplained infertility, we knew life wouldn’t look the way we had imagined.

I didn’t know how to process the news, so I did what I knew best: I prayed and I wrote.

Throughout the day, I asked God why, what’s next, and how come. I’d breathe deeply, exhaling slowly, trying to thank Him for the gift of this life, but always wondering why life was the way it was. In the silence, I reminded myself of the truth my grief often tried to bury: God is good, and God is kind, and this is not the end.

A year or so after we received our diagnosis, my wife and I began the adoption process. Together, we believed this was the next step for our family. We filled out paperwork, completed interviews, and underwent home studies. We read books, wrote essays, and watched videos. We waited, hoped, and prayed. The way forward was uncertain, but it was unfolding.

Writing became my way of processing the grief, staying hopeful, and moving forward. I lost myself in words, finding what I needed to remember, discover, or let go of. I wrote poems, jokes, and essays, but one morning I found myself writing something I never expected: a children’s book.

As we waited to become parents, many of our friends had already started their families. I wasn’t yet a dad, but now I was "Mr. Tanner" or "Uncle Tanner." What had forever changed their lives was also changing me. Loving their kids was easy, but it also made me sad that I wasn’t yet a father. Holding both joy and grief is a hard, heavy thing to do, but this is what much of life is: complex, confusing, and yet, a gift.

When we spent time with our friends' kids, I often found myself reading to them. They’d hand me a book, crawl into my lap, and point to the pages. As I read story after story, I wondered: Could I write a children’s book?

There was only one way to find out.

When I began writing the book, I asked myself one question over and over: What do you want the children you love to know?

The answer came quickly: That you can pray to God anytime, anywhere, and about anything.

As I wrote, I found myself rediscovering something I had forgotten: God heard me when I prayed. He didn’t turn away when I asked my questions. He didn’t leave when I sat in silence. And, like any good parent, He loved to hear from me.

And that’s what I wanted my friends’ children to know.

That there is a God who loves them and listens to them. That they are never alone or forgotten. That they can speak to God anytime, anywhere, and about anything.

A few months after finishing the book, we received a call: We were going to be parents.

We named him Judah. I’ve written about him before and will write about him again.

At the time of my first children's book’s release, Judah will be 18 months old. I’ll hold him in my arms and flip through the pages of All The Things I Say to God: Learning to Pray Anytime, Anywhere. He’ll hear the story of Abby, a girl learning to pray all by herself. I’ll point to Mo, the dog who looks just like our own Pancake. I’ll share with him what I’ve learned about praying. I’ll run my finger over the butterflies and explain why they are there. And when we reach the last two pages, I’ll cry.

One day, I will tell Judah the story of how his mom and I waited and prayed, and waited and prayed, and waited and prayed. We will tell him about the day we got the call, learning that we would be his parents. We’ll tell him about the day we held him for the first time. We’ll tell him about his beautiful birth mom and his family. We’ll tell him about the grief and the joy, the prayers we prayed, and the kindness of God.

And I will tell him what I have come to know to be true: Prayer changes everything. And you can pray anytime, anywhere, and about anything. 

With hope,

Tanner

PS. Pre-order the book today!

Website | 📚 Books | On Instagram | On Facebook | ⭐️ Online store

---

For more poetry and stories follow me on Instagram and Facebook.