Hello all! I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy and safe! I want to take this opportunity to invite you all into something God has been doing in my life. With hope this will encourage you during this bleak time in our world, our Savior is still moving pieces and hearts in the midst of the chaos!
Did you know that I love to write? For a long time I knew writing came naturally to me, it wasn’t until this required blog for the World Race came about that I learned I was pretty good at it. Many of you would give me feedback that you enjoyed my story telling and can I just say thank you!! After three years it settled as truth into my brain, praise the Lord! I could actually make something out of this, I finally realized.
There was just one little problem though, a little thing that feels like a GINORMOUS hurdle to me. It is that pesky fear of putting myself out there, of taking a risk. That deafening fear that whispers “if you show yourself to the world you might receive rejection in return, you might fail in front of an audience.” Yikes.
However, as the lies rolled in, so did the Lord’s powerful and prevailing TRUTH snuffing out those voices altogether. These anxieties of approval have lost their grip over me, and I am no longer laying dormant to the fears that have controlled me for far too long. The time has finally come for me to stand up and celebrate with you what God WILL DO through me.
Ok, let’s stop with the vague language and go for it. For over a decade I’ve thought and I’ve dreamed and I’ve said very casually “I would like to write a book someday.”
While on the race the Lord was slowly growing my confidence, my abilities and my experience, and the book notion would come and go throughout the years. There was a tiny hiccup I was waiting on, an idea! What to write about? I couldn’t land on anything solid enough to write an entire book on. That problem dissolved last year in March while sitting in a tent in Hong Kong, stuck in a rainstorm, praying the pigs would go away (He speaks to us in the strangest of places right?).
Suddenly the Lord brought together in my mind several things; my testimony, my experiences with the supernatural world, and my vivid and creative language and imagination. It all came together fluidly and joined as one cohesive IDEA.
I have been given an extraordinary story to write about, something very dear to my heart.
It is my story.
Painted within a fictional world and with fictional characters, it tells the story of a young girl discovering (1) who she is, (2) who fights beside her, and (3) what it means to live in victory in Christ. She will move between the physical and spiritual worlds and learn how they connect and intermingle with one another. She will change from victim to victor and develop into the Warrior she was always meant to be.
I’m telling you all of this now, because you are my beloved supporters, accountability partners and prayer warriors. God wants me to be very public about this process, the ups and the downs, the dead ends and the victories. Why? Well, I’ve been writing off and on for about six months now and have about four chapters. Rather than making it a priority, it has been on the back burner. If this were truly a book of my own making, it would never be completed. I know that I struggle with passivity, perfectionism and self-motivation, not a great recipe when trying to publish your own book!
BUT WHEN GOD.
When God takes a hold of my hand, the letters flow effortlessly, the words dance off the page and absorb me into my own fiction.
When God gives me the next image to write, I feel excitement and wonder. I don’t dread trying to come up with the next thing, rather I don’t want to leave my computer and all the fun I am having!
When I come to a halt and can’t think of anything to write, God reminds me “come, spend time with me. I am writing this story not you! You are running on empty because you have stopped receiving from me.”
This book will be completed by the power of the Holy Spirit and for the glory of God. I want others to know how hard this project is for my human hands and mind, how unequipped I am to author my own book, so that they can clearly see God working and moving in the making of this novel.
I’m dreaming big and I’m letting you all into this. It isn’t just my dream, I believe this is something the Lord is going to use and I believe the world is coming into a season where they are more open to hearing His truth.
Please keep me in your prayers as I dedicate more time to working on this assignment from God (rough draft to be completed by Dec 31, 2020)! And get excited with me!! This is going to be fun!
Now, without further adieu,
I introduce to you the Chronicles of Emunah, a Christian fiction trilogy. This is my own story told through the eyes of Hazel B. Jones.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:1-5
God bless you friends, I would not be embarking on this next adventure without your support and encouragement all of these years.
With love,
Emily (author in the making)
