Today is happy release day for my latest novel, Poison. Honestly, it is a dream come true.
I remember getting the call from my superstar agent Greg Johnson after my original one book contract turned into a trilogy. That was a God thing for sure.
Literally, panic set in. Oh. My. Word. He expects me to be able to do this again! To write another book. Can I write another book? I mean, this one took me years and now I’ll have to do it in about nine months. People are depending on me to finish these words.
Then fear– do I JUST have one book in me? And then nightmares of having the dreaded “sophomore slump”.
I think it’s easy to let fear run our days. I am a professed worrier. I envy my husband’s ability to live a worry free life and wonder how he possibly does it.
The truth is– we never really know how our work will be received until we put it out there. Writers are a sensitive lot and you’re going to get bad feedback. I was blessed to get a one-star review on Christmas Day.
Merry Christmas to me!
But, just the other day I got a letter from a reader that brought me to tears. Her son is in the middle of waiting for a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the young age of 24. In Proof, Kadin tries to talk with Lilly about his belief in God and he brings up the story of Lazarus.
The Lazarus account in the Bible is interesting. A good friend of Jesus’s was seriously ill and friends had begged Jesus to come and heal him. Jesus didn’t come. The man died.
Now why would Jesus let that happen to good friends?
When Jesus did arrive, Lazarus had been in the grave three days.
And then Jesus raised him from the dead.
Thinking back to how that passage ended up in Proof brings chills to me. It was in a bible study and the teacher said– this was the first miracle where Jesus raised someone from the dead. The reason he waited was to show them something he had never done before.
Something that he was going to do again– for all of them.
And I knew it had to be in a book. Why does Jesus wait when we are in so much pain here on earth? Sometimes, we don’t know the reason but we do know He is always with us.
And that’s the passage this woman clung to. Not a bible passage but a passage in a fiction book.
Now, I’m not trying to exalt myself in any way.
What I want everyone reading this to hear– whether you are a writer soon to be author, an author who is fearing whether or not the next book will be a success, or someone else fearing pursuit of their dream is this…
You never know how God will use your labor for fruit in another person’s life. None of my books may be bestsellers but God used a story he planted in my heart to minister to a woman many miles away as she worried and prayed over her son.
And I’m not the only person with stories like this.
So please, pursue your dream– do it with everything in you because God has a plan for you and he needs you to touch the lives of others.
What a great thought, Jordyn. And a great story. Yes, those stories are in the Bible for a reason. I often think of the widow who kept bothering the unjust judge and just WOULD NOT be thwarted. Finally, he capitulated because she was driving him crazy. And how much better is our Father God to us? Congrats on getting book two finished and out there for your readers!
Thanks so much for your comment, Heather!