Jan Karon is coming out with a new book in September! I am super excited about this as she is someone who has inspired my life for many years!
http://www.mitfordbooks.com/
You see she writes books about a town called Mitford and an Episcopal Preacher called Father Tim. Her books speak to a time in my life when I was a little girl, when I first fell in love with God. Even as I write this I can remember those days when I was in the fourth grade.
I was so excited about all I had learned and my heart was so full realizing that He could love me that much!
I look back at those days and the journey that has led me to where I am today.
It has been quite a ride for sure.
Exploring my religious beliefs, my spirituality, my sexuality, the way faith intertwines into the fabric of our lives.
At that time as a young girl, I thought faith was a list of do's and don'ts, I am so glad for the realization that its not really that way at all. Its much, much more. Those list of do's and don'ts held me steady while I was growing up and finding my way through the world, but now as I have walked through my thirties and forties, I find those list of do's and don't quite confining and limiting. Yet, some of them still hold themselve steady in my soul.
Jan Karon's novels have alway made me feel warm and safe, just like I did growing up in my childhood home. I curl up with them and feel like all is right with the world and it is a kind and loving place.
As I was contemplating my journey through life several years ago, unemployed and wondering where the next dollar would come from to pay the mortagage, it was she who called out to me.
It was she who delivered God's message to me. "I have a plan for you, a plan for good." She quoted this bible verse as she spoke at the Washington Cathedral.
At the time I was debating an employment offer that I knew wasn't my lifes' pathway, but I needed the money to pay the mortgage and the car payment. Not knowing what to do, I prayed for God to show me the way.
I turned on my computer as I was prayerfully quiet and there she was speaking at the Washington Cathedral about her writing journey and answering God's calling.
As it turns out, I turned down the job, knowing I was to become a writer just like Jan.
At least that is what I thought anyway and then a call came in for another opportunity and I took it.
That opportunity has turned into a seven year employment and has seen me through finishing the writing of my first novel, a house fire, a mother with breast cancer who thankfully survived, my unending search to have my novel edited and published, near bankruptcy, a mother who nearly died several times this past summer and my continued journey to write and publish.
I question God these days on what the next steps are and if becoming an author is truly the plan and lo and behold, here I write.
Jan calls to me once again, "I have a plan for you, a plan for good."
Keep writing. It will come.
