Today I am celebrating the five-year anniversary of my first book being published!

Writing has been my most important source of finding spiritual applications, so I thought I’d share just a few that I’ve learned throughout my five years since I’ve been published and the eleven years I’ve been writing.

In no particular order…

• People that bought my book and read it often asked if I was going to write a sequel. I tried. I started a new story about Sean and Esmerelda, the characters in New Creation, a few years later, but it quickly stalled. I created Sean and Esmerelda for a very specific purpose and message. In the same way, God creates us for a specific purpose and the message that He wants to spread to the world. Except where I could not continue with their story, God doesn’t just drop us and move on to other people.

• The plot of the book is in the hands of the author. Several of my characters have had parents die, lost spouses, given birth to children with disabilities. One of my favorite characters survived a rape. And while I do not like making them go through such horrible tragedies, I believe in justice and working everything out for good. Their stories would not be the same without those tragedies. They would not be the same. I believe that God does allow the consequences of the evil world we live in and it hurts Him to know we go through these trials, but I know that He will work it out for good and justice will come.

• I have created some characters that I wish were real because I think they would be great friends. With me, of course. Does that make me weird? Probably. That wasn’t really under any debate though. To think that God created us and made us to be in a relationship with Him and when we turn our back on Him – whether because we don’t believe or because we let other things get in the way of spending time with Him – I wonder how bereft that makes Him feel? It’s not like He needs us, but He allowed His son to go to the cross so we could have the ability to know Him.

• I have almost 20 stories that I’m currently working on and when people find that out, they wonder how I can keep them all separate in my mind. The secret: I work on the one that matches my mood. Sometimes, though, I have had to think for a moment when I’m writing a story to remember the person’s name. Jesus never does that! He remembers us all; He works on writing all our stories in His grand plan without forgetting a name.

These are just some of the things that I’ve learned, and I’m sure that there will be many more as I continue to write and as I continue to learn more about the great God who is the Center of His-story.