Finally — it’s the day I’ve been promoting and praying over for months.

He Loved Her is here — get your copy on Amazon!

I had always thought it would come at a time when things felt more redeemed in my life. Therefore, I couldn’t have imagined a death in my family and the loss of a friendship marking the weekend leading up to my book. But God’s plans and ways are always higher than ours. I think maybe too it was a reminder that the story was written from that kind of place – a place of suffering amidst the normalcy of a lived in life. Our lives are lived in – we cry, we laugh, we work, we love. A lived in life is fully ours and that means it comes with joy and tears as well.

So after the journey I’ve taken to bring this book into your hands these last few months, I wanted to write something to you, my reader. I always pray that God puts my novels and my words into the hearts of those who need it most. I was going to write a letter but then I thought, why not write something bolder and more in line with the faith that threads its way into the novel? So reader, this is my prayer for you.

Heavenly Father,
I pray over the reader whose eyes are now following along. You know every hair on their head and you know everything in their story. I’m not sure what kind of story they feel they are now a part of or what genre they feel their manila folder is marked with at this moment in their life.
Does it feel like a tragedy? A comedy? A romance? Only You know. And as I lift that up to You, I pray that You remind their heart that their story is consecrated. That their life has a purpose and it is set apart for You.
I pray that He Loved Her reminds them that amidst the love, the sin, the murder, the triangles, the drama, and the grief, they find themselves on the page and see that You still redeem. It may not always look the way they want it to look.
I pray that in their own stories, they see how You are good even in the midst of suffering and that You are close to the brokenhearted. I pray that if their story right now is one of immense grief that Your heart and Your love covers them completely and You draw them under the shadow of Your wings.
And most of all I pray for Your glory. Your name is above all names and You have a book of names for the world that tell us we are Yours. I pray that their name is in that book and that they know it. That they know how deeply You love them and that You author stories that only the greatest novelists attempt to replicate.
I pray that He Loved Her gives them a sense of hope that all our stories have chapters and threads that we try to glance at or scratch out. I pray that if they aren’t hoping right now that they turn their eyes upon Your son, Jesus. That when they look to Him and His resurrection power, they will not be put to shame.
In Jesus name,
Amen.

So reader, whoever you are – I hope that you see when I wrote this book with God’s love in mind – I also wrote it believing one day it would find you. That one day it would touch your hands and you would see that God’s love and His heart are for you even amidst grief, loss, and your own story.

It’s the thread in all our stories – that our faith is in the unseen and that God honors our faith and rewards it. That our sufferings in this life reveal to us what we need most is God – and just Him. It’s not that we don’t acknowledge our sufferings but that we see that it’s not the end.

The story is the reminder to us all – that God makes everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:3). If it’s not beautiful yet, it’s not His time.