About the Book

Book: Increase Your Bloom Ability: Devotions for Unleashing Your Most Flourishing Self Author: Cheri Strange Genre: Christian Living / Devotional for Women / Prayer Books Release Date: May 7, 2025

ARE YOU READY TO BLOOM? Do you feel stuck in your spiritual growth, unsure if God can truly bring beauty and purpose to your life? You’re not alone. Cheri Strange knows the ache of feeling spiritually barren, but she’s discovered the secret to living a profoundly fruitful life—and she’s ready to share it with you. In Increase Your Bloom Ability, Cheri blends biblical truth with practical encouragement to help you:

Embrace God’s call to flourish, even in hard seasons
Stay rooted in Christ to live abundantly
Trust God’s plan to cultivate spiritual fruit in you
Take simple steps to grow your faith and accelerate your bloom

Your life was meant to thrive. Step into the vibrant, fruit life Gd created you for—starting today.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Cheri Strange is an award-winning author, speaker, and digital creator. She is passionate about helping women grow spiritually and flourish in their faith. With a Ph.D. and twenty years of ministry experience, she shares practical wisdom and biblical truth that meets women right where they are. Through her books, resources, YouVersion Bible plans, and digital art, Cheri inspires thousands to desire more of God in everyday life. She and her husband, Chad, live in Houston, Texas, with their eight children, and one bonus son.

More from Cheri

Have you ever wondered why, even as devoted followers of Jesus, your spiritual growth sometimes feels stalled? Why the abundant, fruit-filled life God promises can feel just out of reach? I’ve asked these questions of my own heart—and what I discovered in Scripture inspired me to write Increase Your Bloom Ability.

The Bible makes it clear: spiritual fruitfulness isn’t reserved for the gifted or the theologically trained—it’s for every believer (John 15:8). Yet many of us feel stuck, questioning whether we’re doing enough or if real growth is even possible. I dug into Scripture to uncover truths that can help unlock a life that truly bears fruit.

This devotional is the culmination of years of teaching, study, and personal reflection. I wanted to create something that equips you to experience more of God’s promises for your life. Inspired by Andrew Peterson’s words in Adorning the Dark, where he describes his ministry as “telling the truth as beautifully as he can,” I sought to do the same in this book.

I illustrated Increase Your Bloom Ability myself, filling it with over 200 pages of floral artwork—an offering of beauty alongside truth. My hope is that these pages will speak to your soul and draw you into a more vibrant, fruitful walk with Jesus.

My mission is simple: to help you experience a life of profound spiritual growth, one that blooms and flourishes as God intended. Through Scripture, reflection, and the visual beauty of this devotional, I pray you are encouraged, equipped, and inspired to embrace your calling and take intentional steps toward greater fruitfulness.

Interview with the Author

Why do you think this topic is needed?

The theme of the book is spiritual fruitfulness. Across 40 days, we explore how Scripture defines it, what hinders it, and how believers can grow increasingly fruitful in Christ. It’s a needed topic because, for many Christians, fruitful living feels elusive. Studies measuring broad indicators like satisfaction or joy show only slight differences between Christians and non-Christians. Clearly, something is off.

Maybe we’re uninformed, negligent, or assuming fruitfulness is reserved for the spiritually elite. But Scripture is plain—Jesus expects every believer to bear much fruit (John 15:8). Increase Your Bloom Ability helps readers understand what fruitfulness should look like biblically, while offering encouragement and practical ways to grow in it day by day.

What did you learn from writing this book?

Before this project, I worked with traditional publishers. But in recent years, I’ve developed a new skillset and audience through digital artwork on Instagram, my YouVersion plans, and the resources I create through The Stirring Faith Company. I began praying about how to bring those worlds together.

Then I read Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson. His aim “to tell the truth as beautifully as he can” landed right where I was wrestling. It clarified the direction: I would write, format, illustrate, and design this book myself.

From outline to production to marketing, I orchestrated every step. I learned a hundred ways not to publish your own work and discovered just how many details are required to make digital art print-ready. But I also experienced the joy of seeing truth presented as beautifully as I knew how. And now—I’m eager to walk through the process again with the next project.

Outside of the Bible, what is the one book or author that has had the biggest influence on you?

My favorite author is Charles H. Spurgeon, but a close second is John Piper. I’ve read hundreds of sermons by both men, but the one book that stands out because of its overall influence on my life is Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. It’s a concise but dense read, pointing the reader toward living a life that matters in terms of eternity. In the pages, Piper gives an abbreviated history of what shaped his thinking for the message and pleads with his audience to develop a single passion: to live for what is worthy of the Gospel, rather than all the triviality surrounding us.

His message fit with a work God was doing in my own life stemming from an obscure verse in the Old Testament (2 Chronicles 25:2, “Amaziah did what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight, but not wholeheartedly”)—demonstrating that it is possible for one to follow God, or to be a true believer, and still waste our lives. Lessons like the necessity for taking on a war-time mentality, seeing risk as right, throwing off what will not matter in a thousand years to pursue what will are still shaping my days and my goals.

What is one question you would like readers to ask you? What would be your answer?

I’d love for readers to ask how the idea of flourishing in your faith has shaped my own life.

The deepest change for me has centered on ambition. When I learned from Scripture that abundant, lasting fruitfulness is God’s expectation for every believer, it reframed everything. I had never imagined God could use someone like me, nor did I believe He wanted to spend time with me or cultivate anything significant through my life. My quiet ambition was to live unnoticed in the background.

But John 15 dismantled that mindset. Scripture revealed that God intends every believer—including ordinary women like me—to bear fruit wherever He places us, and to grow increasingly fruitful over time. That truth reshaped my prayers, my habits, and the dreams I allow myself to dream.

My hope is that this becomes the reality for every woman who reads Increase Your Bloom Ability will see herself the way God sees her—capable of profound fruitfulness—and rise to meet His good ambition for her life.