A new thing and A New Thing

I have excitingnews—last week I signeda contract for another book in my small-town romance series. It’s titled, ANew Thing. I don’t have a release date yet, but I’ll keep you posted whenthe publisher lets me know.

The book is about single mom, Sophia,who dreads facing an empty nest. Then a new handsome neighbor moves in and throwsseveral challenges her way, an eccentric aunt shows up for a length of undeterminedlength, and something mysterious is going on in her small town of Worthville. Ilove these characters and hope my readers do, too. 

The bookreferences a verse in Isaiah 43:19, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springsup; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams inthe wasteland.” 

We may look at thecircumstances around us and cling to the way things are or the way they used tobe just like my character finds herself doing. When presented with another choice,we’ll resist. To press on even in difficulty that seems a wilderness and wastelandbut may seem preferable to God disturbing our comfort zone. However, God is allabout the new thing he wants to do. He wants to bring those refreshing springs. 

And that means we mustchange. I have a dear mentor and friend who has said many times, “God neverchanges, but we had better change.” 

I have a love/haterelationship with change—even though I maylook forward to it on the one hand, I’ll struggle to adapt on the other. When Ipaint a room, I go through what’s called “color shock” even if it’s just aminor tweak. 

But God wants todo something new in us and through us. And when he does, it may feel shockingat first. We grab at what we just let go, but God is advancing us forward tothe thing we may not fully understand, but to which we move toward in faith. 

Folks ask if mybooks come from my life, and it is true writers often lift from their ownexperiences and transfer them to their fiction. And in this case, theresistance to change seems eerily familiar although I did not intend it. When Iwrite, I pray and try to hear from the Lord, and so many times, the Lord willuse my writing to speak to my own heart. I’m sometimes surprised at how mycharacters behave in my writing for this reason. Someone once criticized JerryJenkins for killing off a character. Jenkins said, “I didn’t kill him. I foundhim dead.” Ditto. Sometimes, we find things in our writing we didn’t expect tohappen, especially when we pray. 

Fun fact aboutthis book. I started it before I received a contract for my last book, InSearch of the Painted Bunting, but stopped to work on the edits for it. Iwent back to A New Thing afterward. The book has a thread about flyingin a small plane and in the meantime, our grandson, Walker, decided to get hispilot’s license so I was able to interview him for the book, which thrilled myheart. 

You’ll be hearingmore about A New Thing going forward, but in the interim, watch out forthose new things God wants to do. 

Her blog, One Ringing Bell, has over a 1,000 postsin its archives. Her work has been featured on World Radio, in the Upper Room Magazine, a dozenanthologies, as well as other periodicals, and online sites. One of herscreenplays was a finalist for the prestigious Kairos Prize in screenwriting.  More at link in bio.

var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24260977-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();Beverly Varnado's most recent book is In Search of the Painted Bunting, a middle grade historical from Elk Lake Publishing, #1 in new releases in its category. She is also the author of several small town romances from Anaiah Press including her latest, A Season for Everything. All are available at Amazon. To explore the web version of One Ringing Bell, please visit bev-oneringingbell.blogspot.comTo sign up for her newsletter, go to http://eepurl.com/dHNdsX Beverly Varnado copyright 2023