A Look Behind the Book
Hello!
I’m sure some of you are here because you saw a post on social media, if so, let me introduce myself! My name is Amy and I’m the author and designer behind this site! Others of you are family or longtime friends, coworkers, or neighbors. Thank you all for taking interest in Waves of Grace.
You may have heard, but Waves of Grace is a collaboration of 10 authors through hope*writers. Each of us have written a hope-filled story of finding God’s grace at work, just when we needed it. It reminds me of a verse I read recently: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).1 One of my favorite commentaries pointed out that the Greek word for “in our time of need” is an ancient Greek colloquialism that matches our phrase “in the nick of time.” 2 Grace in the nick of time… just when you need it. When you call out to Jesus, your prayers don’t bounce off the ceiling or off the walls of Heaven like a ping pong ball, or spool like the “hamster wheel” you get when your computer is thinking. Jesus is immediate in His action, even if it doesn’t feel like it. He’s always working for our good and His glory. And these stories point to that fact!
My chapter in the book is about how God saved my grandpa. As a writer, there’s always more story to tell. Just ask anyone who knows me. I could talk for hours on a tangent telling a story. 😅 (Occupational hazard!) So, as promised, this is a look behind the book – the story of my most recent adventure. Buckle up… it’s quite a long and twisting ride from the beginning to where we’re standing today, but I promise we’ll get to the end!
Let me start in 2020. (No, not to mention COVID, although we were still sheltering in place at this point.) December of that year, I can still remember where I was driving when the Lord told me He was going to “plant me as a seed.” A song was playing in the background about seasons and patience and seeds in the snow buried to grow. I had no idea of the “winter” coming for me, but I trusted God’s promise.
God is so incredibly detailed. You know how Jesus would speak in parables? Well, it wasn’t because He wanted to be confusing. Parables were just metaphors used to explain spiritual concepts to people who had no idea about spiritual concepts – it’s incredibly “elementary school teacher” of Jesus! Take Matthew 13:44 for example, “The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” 3. The kingdom of heaven is hidden… you can’t see it. But it’s also valuable. So valuable in fact, that people give up their lives, everything they have, to be a part of it! The opportunity to know the Creator of the universe and have a deep, personal relationship with Him is worth everything we have!
Ok… back to the story. The “Season of the Seed,” as I’d come to call it, was full of incredible metaphors. Suddenly everywhere I looked I found encouragement with plant analogies. Nods to “winter” and feeling like you’re in the dark…dormant… buried like a seed…. pressed on all sides… Yes! That’s me!
One day, while listening to my favorite podcast I heard about Beth Moore’s book “Chasing Vines.” Immediately I rushed to buy it – and the workbook. And the things God taught me were beyond what I could have asked. In the book, she draws parallels between wine making and spiritual life. Each step in the process from the ground where grapes are planted to the trellis, pruning, and crushing of grapes to make wine have such profound connections to our spiritual growth and God as our Gardener. By the end, I was so filled up. And now, I had the handlebars and the framework needed to ride the rollercoaster I was on.
Just think of God’s kindness to warn me of what was to come – not a play by play, but a foreshadow that he was about to bury me. Not out of ill will but out of love! Not to die but to grow! On the hardest days, it really helped to know this season, tough as it was, God was using it all for my good. Foreshadow or not, though, that’s what God does all the time for all of us who love Him. I know because Romans 8:28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him…” 4 God works in all things, whether they’re from Him or not, for our good and His glory. He is so good He takes our broken pieces and makes something beautiful.
Two years into the “Season of the Seed”, God pulled a dream of mine from the shelves and gave it life. For years I had been serving at Passion City Church teaching a group of girls in Passion Kids. Each year, as the girls moved up, I moved up too. The girls and their families became like family to me. I attended their dance recitals, art shows, talent shows… stood in awe every Sunday as they soaked in spiritual things like little sponges, and then it was time for middle school.
Of course I followed them! And at their first winter retreat weekend they expressed that they wanted to read the Bible for themselves but felt like it was over their head. I offered to look for a Bible study to do over the summer and quickly realized that there are not a lot of middle school age resources for deep Bible study… That’s when God reminded me of a dream I had in 2019, one I had put far back in my mind: you wanted to write Bible studies but weren’t sure of your audience! Well, here’s your audience!
And so… God and I went to work building this very website. I say “God and I” because literally everything you see on this site took sweat, tears, YouTube, and a prayer. Lots of prayer. In my “weakness” of inexperience, God was strong and He gets all the credit for Flourishing Faith.
God blew wind into my sails for 6 months to get the site up and write content for the first series, Cloud of Witnesses. I took a little time off and in 2023 we celebrated Flourishing Faith’s first “birthday.” As the date approached, I was filled with another rush of inspiration, this time for stickers and Yeti tumblers with the logo… a whole birthday package! So many families from church were kind enough to purchase one and that was the moment I realized I could be an entrepreneur. With Flourishing Faith, God wove together two of my lifelong passions: writing and design – and this could be something I did for a living!
A few months after Flourishing Faith’s 1st Birthday I started a new series on the Fruit of the Spirit. Every morning before work I’d dive into research for the project, loving every second of it. But when I went to write the first few posts, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. After a few weeks of trying to no avail, I prayed, Lord, this is your project. I want this to glorify You and I want to write what you want me to write. Why does this project feel like it’s going nowhere? I thought You wanted me to write this, but if I’m wrong, help me see what to do instead. And I got this sense of “I’ve already given you something big to carry. I don’t want you to move on from it. I want you to nurture it!” Got it! Loud and clear.
And so, I looked into publishing. After exploring different options, I decided to reach out to hope*writers to ask if they published Bible study workbooks. My email inquiry led to a scheduled phone call and soon I was speaking with Savannah. She began by sharing the various resources offered to budding authors like me. “I think the next best thing for you would be to join one of our author cohorts with writers of your same skill level. Do you have a hope story you could share? Maybe one about your girls?” I sat there thinking, but nothing came to mind. And then it hit me: the greatest hope story I’ll possibly ever witness in my lifetime.
I shared a few details with Savannah about my grandfather’s story and came to the end only to find we had possibly been disconnected. “Hello? Did I lose you?” I asked. “No,” Savannah said, quickly regrouping herself, “I’m sorry. That just really touched me.” Seems like this phone call was more than what either of us had been expecting that day. “Did you even apply to this program?” Savannah asked. “No! I had no idea about the program. I just called to see if you publish Bible studies!” “Well, congratulations,” she exclaimed, “because this program is very limited and I’m offering you a spot because that story has to be told!”
Around the same time, the “Season of the Seed” was coming to a close and so was my career as a commercial interior designer. I woke up one morning around the time of my resignation with a vision of a seed sprouting to a plant. And it hit me: what you plant in the ground is not what blooms. The seed transforms under the ground into something different. God planted an interior designer to grow an author! Every lesson. Every hardship. Every experience was to drive me in this new direction and I’m so excited to see where God leads.
Fast forward to last month, we received comments from the editor for Waves of Grace, which sent me searching through decades of text messages back to 2014. I needed more memories and found one I didn’t expect. In a text message to a family friend, I shared Papa’s story as it was occurring. “I have giant goosebumps!!” she said, “Every Christian needs to hear this story!!!” And my response? “I was just saying how it needs to go in a book!” “Funny! I was thinking that too!” 11 years later, this story is in a book and I couldn’t be more stunned or honored to be the author! And the absolute cherry on top is that July 15th, launch day for Waves of Grace, is also the 11th anniversary of Papa’s passing. Just incredible. God is so thoughtful and kind.
I hope you’ll grab a copy of Waves of Grace on July 15th and soak in the incredible lessons we’ve gleaned from God’s faithfulness and care in the toughest of storms. May it encourage you in your own walk with the Lord.
Take care,
Amy
Hello!
I’m sure some of you are here because you saw a post on social media, if so, let me introduce myself! My name is Amy and I’m the author and designer behind this site! Others of you are family or longtime friends, coworkers, or neighbors. Thank you all for taking interest in Waves of Grace.
You may have heard, but Waves of Grace is a collaboration of 10 authors through hope*writers. Each of us have written a hope-filled story of finding God’s grace at work, just when we needed it. It reminds me of a verse I read recently: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).1 One of my favorite commentaries pointed out that the Greek word for “in our time of need” is an ancient Greek colloquialism that matches our phrase “in the nick of time.” 2 Grace in the nick of time… just when you need it. When you call out to Jesus, your prayers don’t bounce off the ceiling or off the walls of Heaven like a ping pong ball, or spool like the “hamster wheel” you get when your computer is thinking. Jesus is immediate in His action, even if it doesn’t feel like it. He’s always working for our good and His glory. And these stories point to that fact!
My chapter in the book is about how God saved my grandpa. As a writer, there’s always more story to tell. Just ask anyone who knows me. I could talk for hours on a tangent telling a story. 😅 (Occupational hazard!) So, as promised, this is a look behind the book – the story of my most recent adventure. Buckle up… it’s quite a long and twisting ride from the beginning to where we’re standing today, but I promise we’ll get to the end!
Let me start in 2020. (No, not to mention COVID, although we were still sheltering in place at this point.) December of that year, I can still remember where I was driving when the Lord told me He was going to “plant me as a seed.” A song was playing in the background about seasons and patience and seeds in the snow buried to grow. I had no idea of the “winter” coming for me, but I trusted God’s promise.
God is so incredibly detailed. You know how Jesus would speak in parables? Well, it wasn’t because He wanted to be confusing. Parables were just metaphors used to explain spiritual concepts to people who had no idea about spiritual concepts – it’s incredibly “elementary school teacher” of Jesus! Take Matthew 13:44 for example, “The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” 3. The kingdom of heaven is hidden… you can’t see it. But it’s also valuable. So valuable in fact, that people give up their lives, everything they have, to be a part of it! The opportunity to know the Creator of the universe and have a deep, personal relationship with Him is worth everything we have!
Ok… back to the story. The “Season of the Seed,” as I’d come to call it, was full of incredible metaphors. Suddenly everywhere I looked I found encouragement with plant analogies. Nods to “winter” and feeling like you’re in the dark…dormant… buried like a seed…. pressed on all sides… Yes! That’s me!
One day, while listening to my favorite podcast I heard about Beth Moore’s book “Chasing Vines.” Immediately I rushed to buy it – and the workbook. And the things God taught me were beyond what I could have asked. In the book, she draws parallels between wine making and spiritual life. Each step in the process from the ground where grapes are planted to the trellis, pruning, and crushing of grapes to make wine have such profound connections to our spiritual growth and God as our Gardener. By the end, I was so filled up. And now, I had the handlebars and the framework needed to ride the rollercoaster I was on.
Just think of God’s kindness to warn me of what was to come – not a play by play, but a foreshadow that he was about to bury me. Not out of ill will but out of love! Not to die but to grow! On the hardest days, it really helped to know this season, tough as it was, God was using it all for my good. Foreshadow or not, though, that’s what God does all the time for all of us who love Him. I know because Romans 8:28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him…” 4 God works in all things, whether they’re from Him or not, for our good and His glory. He is so good He takes our broken pieces and makes something beautiful.
Two years into the “Season of the Seed”, God pulled a dream of mine from the shelves and gave it life. For years I had been serving at Passion City Church teaching a group of girls in Passion Kids. Each year, as the girls moved up, I moved up too. The girls and their families became like family to me. I attended their dance recitals, art shows, talent shows… stood in awe every Sunday as they soaked in spiritual things like little sponges, and then it was time for middle school.
Of course I followed them! And at their first winter retreat weekend they expressed that they wanted to read the Bible for themselves but felt like it was over their head. I offered to look for a Bible study to do over the summer and quickly realized that there are not a lot of middle school age resources for deep Bible study… That’s when God reminded me of a dream I had in 2019, one I had put far back in my mind: you wanted to write Bible studies but weren’t sure of your audience! Well, here’s your audience!
And so… God and I went to work building this very website. I say “God and I” because literally everything you see on this site took sweat, tears, YouTube, and a prayer. Lots of prayer. In my “weakness” of inexperience, God was strong and He gets all the credit for Flourishing Faith.
God blew wind into my sails for 6 months to get the site up and write content for the first series, Cloud of Witnesses. I took a little time off and in 2023 we celebrated Flourishing Faith’s first “birthday.” As the date approached, I was filled with another rush of inspiration, this time for stickers and Yeti tumblers with the logo… a whole birthday package! So many families from church were kind enough to purchase one and that was the moment I realized I could be an entrepreneur. With Flourishing Faith, God wove together two of my lifelong passions: writing and design – and this could be something I did for a living!
A few months after Flourishing Faith’s 1st Birthday I started a new series on the Fruit of the Spirit. Every morning before work I’d dive into research for the project, loving every second of it. But when I went to write the first few posts, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. After a few weeks of trying to no avail, I prayed, Lord, this is your project. I want this to glorify You and I want to write what you want me to write. Why does this project feel like it’s going nowhere? I thought You wanted me to write this, but if I’m wrong, help me see what to do instead. And I got this sense of “I’ve already given you something big to carry. I don’t want you to move on from it. I want you to nurture it!” Got it! Loud and clear.
And so, I looked into publishing. After exploring different options, I decided to reach out to hope*writers to ask if they published Bible study workbooks. My email inquiry led to a scheduled phone call and soon I was speaking with Savannah. She began by sharing the various resources offered to budding authors like me. “I think the next best thing for you would be to join one of our author cohorts with writers of your same skill level. Do you have a hope story you could share? Maybe one about your girls?” I sat there thinking, but nothing came to mind. And then it hit me: the greatest hope story I’ll possibly ever witness in my lifetime.
I shared a few details with Savannah about my grandfather’s story and came to the end only to find we had possibly been disconnected. “Hello? Did I lose you?” I asked. “No,” Savannah said, quickly regrouping herself, “I’m sorry. That just really touched me.” Seems like this phone call was more than what either of us had been expecting that day. “Did you even apply to this program?” Savannah asked. “No! I had no idea about the program. I just called to see if you publish Bible studies!” “Well, congratulations,” she exclaimed, “because this program is very limited and I’m offering you a spot because that story has to be told!”
Around the same time, the “Season of the Seed” was coming to a close and so was my career as a commercial interior designer. I woke up one morning around the time of my resignation with a vision of a seed sprouting to a plant. And it hit me: what you plant in the ground is not what blooms. The seed transforms under the ground into something different. God planted an interior designer to grow an author! Every lesson. Every hardship. Every experience was to drive me in this new direction and I’m so excited to see where God leads.
Fast forward to last month, we received comments from the editor for Waves of Grace, which sent me searching through decades of text messages back to 2014. I needed more memories and found one I didn’t expect. In a text message to a family friend, I shared Papa’s story as it was occurring. “I have giant goosebumps!!” she said, “Every Christian needs to hear this story!!!” And my response? “I was just saying how it needs to go in a book!” “Funny! I was thinking that too!” 11 years later, this story is in a book and I couldn’t be more stunned or honored to be the author! And the absolute cherry on top is that July 15th, launch day for Waves of Grace, is also the 11th anniversary of Papa’s passing. Just incredible. God is so thoughtful and kind.
I hope you’ll grab a copy of Waves of Grace on July 15th and soak in the incredible lessons we’ve gleaned from God’s faithfulness and care in the toughest of storms. May it encourage you in your own walk with the Lord.
Take care,
Amy
