In 1940, Lillie, a young woman with a deeply troubled past, turned for comfort to another man while her husband served overseas in World War II. When Lillie discovered she was pregnant, she sought an illegal abortion without informing a soul, not even the man with whom she’d had the affair.
At a doctor’s office a few weeks later, Lillie learned she’d been duped. She was still pregnant. When, a few months later, her husband returned wounded from the war, it’s difficult to say who was more caught off-guard—Lillie, at the sight of her husband’s facial disfigurement, or her husband, at the sight of his pregnant wife.
Fast-forward to 2019. A young woman named Diana is enjoying her single life in Edmonton when a mysterious DNA test result indicates something amiss in her family tree. When her 80-year-old father begins to reveal the long-kept secrets his mother, Lillie, passed on to him before her passing, Diana is swept into Lillie’s world. Meanwhile, Diana feels torn in half by the two most terrifying invitations she has ever received: to adopt a young girl’s unborn baby, and to marry a man she considers only a friend.
It requires over three hundred pages to adequately tell Lillie’s and Diana’s stories, even though they are mere figments of my imagination. This split-time tale is the novel I wrote in 2020 while the world was locked down. I titled it “From the Ashes.”
In February of 2021, my agent pitched “From the Ashes” to seven publishers. By January of 2022, we’d received our seventh rejection and my agent had run out of potential publishers. By that time, I’d completed another manuscript and we moved on to a new round of rejections. “From the Ashes” was history in more ways than one.
When the 2022 Braun Book awards opened for submissions, I decided to enter “From the Ashes” even though I knew its odds were slim. After all, I’d entered four other manuscripts in this contest over the course of thirteen years and never won. But what did I have to lose? My last pathetic shred of confidence? I sent it off and forgot about it.
On May 27, I received a phone call. The team at Word Alive Press in Winnipeg had selected “From the Ashes” as the 2022 Braun Book Award winner! They plan to publish the book before the end of the year. This will be my first novel published in Canada.
I share all this with you, my readers, as a reminder. My author’s journey has provided the perfect metaphor for life. Just when you think all hope is gone, it’s not. Just when you think you’ve got it made, you don’t. Just when you think your path is clear, God comes along with a surprise that shifts your direction. Through it all, you learn he can be trusted. He truly does know what’s best.
To prove this point even further, the week before I planned to post this story, my agent dropped me from her clientele list due to not being able to place my books. If you’ve ever been fired from a job or dumped by a boyfriend/girlfriend, you’ll know how humbling this feels. I loved being part of that agency and feel deeply disappointed and sad. Will it mean the end of my novel-writing? Possibly. Will "From the Ashes" be my final hurrah? Could be. Only one thing is certain. It’s not the end of God’s faithfulness. I didn’t know how much I’d need to read my own words this week.
As the release date for “From the Ashes” nears, I’ll keep you updated. While I hope you enjoy Lillie’s and Diana’s stories, I hope even more that you’re inspired by mine.
Don’t give up. God has a plan. He hasn’t forgotten you.
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