by Donna Poole
“Why couldn’t I have sent them to my family?” I worried to John after his mom called me.
“Donna, the birth announcements you sent us and our family and friends?”
“Yes?”
I waited, expecting John’s mom to praise the patriotic announcements John had chosen, red, white, and blue, with the words, “Our First Lady.” Praise wasn’t her response.
“You forgot to fill them out. They are empty. No name, no birth weight, Nothing.”
I apologized profusely. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t know I was that tired. Back then I didn’t even have the excuse of brain surgery to offer! In my exhaustion, I thought I’d completed all the announcements, but I’d only filled out half of them. My family got the half with the information; John’s family got the blank ones.
Two boys and another girl followed “Our First Lady”, and I double checked to be sure the announcements had the pertinent information before we took them to the post office!
There’s nothing like having a new baby, unless it’s having a book baby!
Having a baby and writing a book have a few things in common.
Babies and books both arrive with pain. Both keep you awake at night. Both capture your hopes and dreams. Both have minds of their own; there’s no pouring them into your mold. You send both off into the world with prayers they will help and bless others.
If the Creek Don’t Rise is my newest book baby. It’s a stand-alone read, but it’s also book two in the Corners Church series.
The characters in If the Creek Don’t Rise are fiction, but they seem real to me. They captured my heart with their brokenness because I too have been broken, body, soul, and spirit. The glorious, redeeming truth is that God delights to use broken people.
The Pharisee who pounded his chest with pride and thanked God that he was not like “this publican” doesn’t capture my heart. I cry with the broken publican who heard him and wept, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son is a bit too perfect to be one of my people. I love the younger son who comes trudging up the dusty road, weary in body and spirit, only able to frame the words, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
I love the broken people in the Bible because I am broken people. Aren’t we all? How wonderful for us, how beautiful, that we have a loving Father who runs to welcome us when we repent and turn toward home!
So, here is the birth announcement for my new book baby, a story of broken people:
If the Creek Don’t Rise
Publication date: December 27, 2020
Print length: 254 pages
Readers: wanted
Available: on Amazon; paperback, and Kindle
Congratulations on the arrival of your latest book-baby! I know it will be a source of great blessing to all who read it. God bless you, dear Donna.
Thank you, Deborah. God bless you!
Deborah, thank you for your encouragement. I hope you are writing too. God bless you!
I am almost finished with it and it came on Monday! Love it and how real it is…..God loves us, despite all of our human flaws! You have such a gift and I am so blessed to be a reader as you share that gift!😊❤
Michelle, I hope you enjoyed the rest of it! God bless.
Michelle, thank for buying and reading my book! God bless you!
Have just begun reading it, and just like children your “second born” book has its own distinctive personality that makes it stand apart and say “I am NOT my older sibling!” And just like our own children I have thus far appreciated and fully enjoyed BOTH of your book babies; despite, and perhaps a bit because of those differences. 🥰
Barb, thank you! I’m glad you like both my book kids! God bless you and yours!
This book is a winner for sure!
Valerie, thank you for your encouragement. I’m looking forward to your new book!