Ash Wednesday was this week, and I was reminded that last Ash Wednesday I was in Nashville at a book conference handing out ARCs of These Nameless Things and wondering what all the talk was about this new virus. More has changed in the world during the last year than at any other year in my lifetime. It certainly has a way of sitting you down and making you think, about life, about love, about family.
I remember attending our local Episcopal church with the kids a few Ash Wednesdays ago. I remember walking to the front with the kids and seeing the priest place the ashes on their foreheads while saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This year has, more than any other, served to remind me of this.
And yet life goes on, in the midst of our awareness of death. The snow falls today, the tiny, astounding flakes accumulating. Yesterday, when I took Winnie out for her morning constitutional, I rounded the bend and found, with great surprise, that the sun was rising. It was only 6:15 in the morning, but the sun was rising. I felt like I was in Narnia, when the White Witch’s reign begins to falter and signs of spring peek through the snow.
And then, this verse: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9
There is beauty to be found in the perseverance, in that taking of the next step, even in the waiting. The harvest will come, if we do not give up.
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If you’re interested in signing up for our novel-writing course, time is running out! You can find out more about The Nine Month Novel and sign up HERE. It is going to be an amazing process – join nearly 20 other writers as we come together, encourage one another, learn more about writing, and get these novels written.
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Our podcast, The Stories Between Us, continues! If you’re new to it, I want to take a moment and point you back to some of our most-listened-to episodes:
Janelle Stoltzfus and Walking the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Tsh Oxenreider and Creativity as Therapy
Ira Wagler: Writing Down the Broken Roads
The Story of How We Met (and How Our Writing Brings Us Home Again)
Some More Thoughts on Hope
Happy listening.