January 18, 2007 @ 3:07 pm | Filed under: Books

As you know, I started Finding Faith this week. For those of you who read Saving Grace, you might remember Marshall, Grace’s childhood friend from her days at Sycamore Manor. This is the story of Marshall and Faith.

Faith Chandler, thirty-two, wakes up one morning to one of the greatest fears known to women. An illness she feels ill equipped to handle. Immediately, her mind and emotions begin a tug-of-war, one invoking rationalization, the other - sheer panic. An enthusiastic junior high school English teacher, Faith’s future - the one she thought she had forever to plan - seems suddenly overcast. Desperate to create some kind of logic out of the myriad of emotional chaos, Faith begins the journey to find answers to her past. This journey leads her to the front door of Sycamore Manor.

Thirty-six year old Marshall Morgan finds fulfillment in his work. The CEO and director of the teen pregnancy home founded by his late grandmother, he takes pride in what he’s come to view as a ministry of sorts. Still, there’s a vacancy in his heart, a place for a special woman that the Lord has yet to reveal to him. And then…there is his secret, the one he intends to share with no one, except the woman who will one day become his wife. When petite, dark-haired Faith Chandler walks through his door, searching for answers to her past, he wonders if - at last - he is meeting the woman who will make his life complete.

As always seems to happen, I become very emotionally involved in my characters’ lives. I can’t really explain how this happens. Believe me, on Monday when I started this story, I was still clueless to a lot of bits and pieces that were still missing from this story. I always begin a story with faith of my own. Faith that somehow, sometime, the story will come together and will ultimately be the book it was intended to be.

Today is the fourth day of writing and already Marshall and Faith are speaking to me. I’m feeling their issues: her fear, his lonliness, and the sparks of hope that alight whenever God places someone in our life to help illuminate the path of uncertainty.

The song, I Will Praise You in This Storm, by Casting Crowns, has been on my mind since Monday. I can’t seem to get it out of my head so, quite simply, it has become the "theme song" for Marshall and Faith’s story.

I hope it speaks to you as much as it speaks to me…