Beginnings are always so exciting. Beginning a new series, a new book, being one of the launch authors for a new line of books like Avon Inspire. But sometimes following through is a challenge. The new wears off pretty fast. And then the struggle begins. Especially for someone like me with a short attention span.
Even through the struggle of trying to finish this book, Defiant Heart never got old to me as I wrote from day to day. And at the time that I write this letter, it’s been several days since I turned in the book to my editor, and I’m still thinking about Fannie, Blake, Toni, Sam, and the twins, anxious to begin the second book in the Westward Hearts series so I can see how they’re all doing. I feel like I knew Fannie and desperately wanted her to find happiness—with God and with the man of her dreams. I wanted to create a heroine who had a lot to overcome, but found grace in the end. Fannie learned that redemption means someone else pays and you owe nothing. There’s an old song we used to sing:
He paid a debt He did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay
I needed someone to wash my sins away
And now I sing a brand new song “Amazing Grace”
Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.
Powerful. Powerful. Powerful. In Blake, I wanted to create a man who had a lot to lose and was willing to lose it to save the woman he loved. He was the character who personified the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. Just like it is difficult to grasp sometimes that Jesus doesn’t expect us to work off that payment, Fannie had trouble at first realizing that Blake was willing to pay for her and let her go, if that’s what she wanted. But how much better for her that she agreed to become his bride?
I pray that as you read Defiant Heart, Jesus shows you how wild He is for you.
All things new….