I spent much of the day today researching pregnancy symptoms during each of the trimesters and matching up those dates on a calendar from 1891 so that I could better know how Megan will be feeling and what will be happening to her body as this pregnancy progresses.

You know, given all the aches, pains, bloating, leaks, dizziness, fatigue, sleeping problems, clumsiness, heart burn, wacky emotions, congestion, nose bleeds, irritability, drool, enlarged veins, itchy skin, nausea, and vomiting, it is a wonder that women repeat the experience!

I need to read more about what was going on around her so that I can better intertwine the outside world with her own circumstances.


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Someone criticized Megan, recently, for being too angry all the time, but at the point in the book that this person has been reading, it has only been six and a half weeks since she was brutally attacked and her husband brutally murdered. She is grieving the loss of her spouse and what she perceives to be a betrayal by her Savior. She is also facing the added turmoil of finding herself pregnant.

Something I set out to do was to show grief in a more realistic manner. So often, in Christian Historical Fiction novels, someone dies, and the loved one remaining sheds some tears and moves on quite easily. But this is not often how people grieve.

In a moment of spontaneity, Megan opens up her shuttered heart and flings some rather desperate questions at her neighbor. Not being a Christian, he asks her if she should really be directing her questions to her pastor or at least another Christian. Megan replies that they would just tell her to trust God. Her final question was to ask what is she to do if she doesn't know how to trust God?

How do you trust a God who allows you to be raped? How do you trust a God who allows that rapist to murder your husband? How do you trust a God who allows you to become pregnant from that rape? While the child is actually her husband's, she does not know that. She only knows her pain, her grief, and her fear.

For all she is hurting and angry at God for what He has allowed to happen to her and her husband, I find it an act of faith on her part that she still talks with God. While it is oft via questions flung out from her heart without expecting any answer or comfort, it is still a sign that run as she might, she cannot escape the faith deep within her. As a child of Christ, she gave her life to Him, and Jesus does not let go of His sheep. She might avoid reading the bible and loath going to church, but she does secretly savor each of the scraps of paper the woman who has come to stay with her leaves for her to find. On each is written a verse or passage of Scripture that oft troubles her soul even as it serves as a balm to her wound. Sometimes she clings to them as if they were a lifeboat in the turbulent seas surrounding her. Sometimes she crumples them up and tosses them aside...only to retrieve them later.

She is hurting. She is confused. She sees no hope for her future. Yet, even as she claims to have no need of a God who would choose this for her life, she cannot escape her relationship with His Son.

The ultimate answer to the question of how someone trusts God when he/she does know how to do so is deceptively simple: you just do. One day at a time. One choice at a time. Minute by minute, hour by hour, or day by day, you choose truth even when you do not believe it yourself and you walk in obedience even when you see no reason to do so.

We really do walk in blindness at times in this journey of the Christian life. Although we feel lonely, we are never alone. Although we feel hopeless, God is at work in our lives for His glory and our spiritual wellbeing.

Megan is stumbling along her path. She has yet to understand how this shaping of the clay of her life will have perfect form and substance in His perfect will. She doesn't see how brave and courageous she is in merely getting up each day and taking another step along her journey.


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You know, hers is such a harsh story that I doubt any editor will ever give it a second look, but it is the story that I have to tell. I happen to believe that it is a beautiful story. And I do know that there are a whole lot of women out there who would find comfort in seeing themselves in Megan, in recognizing her struggles and seeing that there can be glory even in the path that Megan is walking.