Ready, Set, Launch
I am so very excited to share with you my very first book launch! I have been writing for over 20 years and this is my biggest step of faith in writing a literary manuscript that I have ever taken. It has been a long journey with a learning curve as steep as a mountain cliff in some areas of this self-publishing adventure. The time investment, alone, was roughly a year and a half to bring this to fruition and it has been well worth it! I have learned a great deal about how to design a book for print, how to edit and proofread, how to recruit beta-readers, and much more that I could share about how I started with one page and ended with a fully published book in my hand!
Making it to the end
I am grateful for those who helped me along the path to completion and cannot begin to thank them from the bottom of my heart! Without the kindness and encouragement from so many friends and family members, it would have been quite the daunting task. Through much prayer and endurance that was only successful by the precious grace of God, I was able to finish and I am so stoked to share my new book with you!
A lot learned
In the writing process, there were many times I didn’t know how I was going to overcome the empathy coursing through my veins for the main character. I used up a couple of months in a state of avoidance on some of the more difficult subjects. Yet, I knew I had to write this book! There was a constant conviction the Holy Spirit was placing on my heart – a heaviness not simply explained, but that just…IS. So….with much anxiety to battle through and cast out of my environment like the annoying pest it was, and a stabbing fear nagging at the back of my neck that I would retraumatize myself through memories of old – I forced myself to write. Then, the next day, I wrote some more. And then, gradually through that choice to stomach it at whatever the cost, I was able to get through those chapters. What I learned is this: Sometimes, God calls us to areas we thought we had already passed because He has EVEN GREATER freedom on the other side of it! Yes, sometimes we think we have healed completely from some past hurt or pain or trauma, when really – we don’t know that about our hearts, not really. But God sure does! He knows everything about our hearts, even the unseen parts we don’t know about! All it takes is a bit of trust in Him to learn what He knows that we don’t.
This book is me sharing my heart
God has created in me a new heart from the day I met Him! He has been working on me and working stuff out of me every new day He gives me. There is a pursuit going on and this book I have written talks about BOTH sides of that pursuit. Through one main character sharing her thoughts, her prayers, her desires, and her conversations with God, the Holy Spirit, & Jesus, you find out what that pursuit really looks like, in action! God’s pursuit of our hearts and our pursuit of Him and His great love for us is undeniable. It echoes and resounds beyond the bounds of time! Why is this pursuit important? Well, it is in the pursuit that we each find who we are called to be… I know I sure have and I am sharing my heart all about it through my new book! I invite you along for a journey you won’t easily forget. A journey shared through one heart that is pursuing God with all she’s got in all the different circumstances that life throws her direction.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/2-Timothy/1/type/nasb
