Have I told you all that our oldest daughter Grace has written and published her first novel?  We are all really excited about it, so I asked her to tell you a little about it.  If you want to know more you can find her at her blog, J Grace Pennington.

In my “Firmament” series, each book has a specific purpose. Showing the importance of responsibility or trust, or explaining the significance of being made in the image of God, or demonstrating the foolishness of allowing the end to justify the means. But there’s also a single, specific purpose behind the series as a whole.

Perhaps you’ve noticed something about the young-adult fiction market: it’s sadly lacking in books that are both clean and well-written.

That’s the purpose behind the series. I want to help fill the gap in young-adult fiction between the well-crafted, demonic, sensual, graphic stories, and the sloppy, boring, squeaky clean ones. Within this gap, stories exist but are so few and far between that the gap echoes when you stand inside it and cry for good books.

A few days ago, I nervously but excitedly placed the first “Firmament”novel in the gap. It’s not enough to even begin to fill the gap, nor are the seventeen other books in the series that shall henceforth follow it. It’s not perfect, but it’s clean, and if my test readers are any indication, it’s not badly written for a first novel, by the grace of God alone. And it is my prayer that it can be a very small step towards filling the gap.

I don’t just want it to be full, either. I want it to overflow, for there to be such a surplus of good, fun, clean books that you are overwhelmed by the choices. That you can’t decide whether to spend your money on my novel or on Aubrey Hansen’s or on one of the other up and coming authors who I just know you’ll be hearing about soon.

“Firmament: Radialloy” may have some mistakes, but you won’t find any witchcraft, sensuous teenage romances, graphic violence, extreme darkness, rebellious children, or foul language in its pages. And that is a rarity I wish didn’t exist in today’s literature. I want that state of things to end.

Will you stand in the gap with me?

You can order Grace’s book through the Amazon link below or get a signed copy through her blog.

by Grace

They say that you should follow dreams,
Abandon all else, them to seek,
And yet to me it always seems
That somehow this idea is weak.
What dreams to follow?  For ought we know
A dream may leave when just we start
To follow it to death, and lo,
Another dream is in our heart.

A girl may dream of horses first
When she is young, and life begins
Determination fuels her thirst
To ride, to race – compete and win.
As girlhood’s years unfold with grace,
Her equine fancies fade away.
A dream of love is in their place,
And seeking it, she spends her days.

A young boy’s dream may change each day,
Inventor, actor, cowboy, cop,
And each in turn dictates his play.
Till one dream rises to the top.
And as he grows into a man
His dreams now fill with law and courtrooms,
Soon these things form all his plans,
Ambitious lawyer he becomes.

But if the girl, with all her trying,
Finds she is not to be a wife?
And sorrowfully her dream is dying,
What now the purpose of her life?
And if the boy, with years of study,
Finds too late it’s not for him?
His dream grows tired, and faint, and muddy,
And his future dark and dim.

But what if they, during their youth,
Had sought another path for life,
Had sought it from the Source of Truth,
And followed that through joy and strife?
Instead of forging dreams their own
Had found them in the Greater Will
Which dreamed for them a greater one,
A dream from His Great Plan distilled?

The problem is, which dream to follow.
First or last?  Or something more,
A greatness that turns our dreams sallow
In light of awe that makes it soar.
The answer may not be so far,
Perhaps, when our perspective is,
The right dreams are
Not ours, but His.

P.S.  My lovely friend BushMaid wrote a beautiful poem with the same message on her blog!

by Grace

Aliens.  Most of us girls, at some time or another, knew that boys were aliens.

I mean, they’re not like us.  They’re strange and unusual creatures who are more interested in knives and hunting and explosions and Star Wars than really interesting things like tea and shopping and Jane Austen movies.  They don’t cry very much.  Then, sometimes, when we grow older, we start to like them.  That’s a bit scary.

They’re obviously extra-terrestrial.  We’d better just avoid them altogether.

Because guy/girl relationships can be so tricky, I used to feel like running and hiding when any boy came within ten yards of me.  I didn’t like making eye contact.  I hesitated to call any boy a friend.  When dealing with a guy, I kept the conversation to really engaging topics like the weather and the time of day.

I was trying to be careful.  I wanted to protect my heart, and save every part of myself, including my emotions, for my future husband.  I wanted to do right.  But I was forgetting one little thing.

Boys are people too.

When I was about sixteen my mom shared this information with me.  Yes, we must be ever so careful to guard our hearts.  Yes, men are different from us, and created by God to fill an entirely different role.  But they’re people, like us, who God loves very much.

I’m all for safeguards and boundaries when it comes to dealing with young men.  Things like not spending one-on-one time with guys or not sharing my heart with them are boundaries that I hold to strictly.

But within those boundaries, we can be friends.  Co-laborers and brothers and sisters in Christ.  We can encourage each other in the faith and help each other.  Men aren’t as strange as we think.  They have feelings and hopes and dreams and their own relationships with God, just like we do.

I find that boundaries and personal rules for interaction actually make things more relaxed and easier.  I call guys “sir” and “Mr.” much of the time.  Rather than making things awkward or formal, it makes them simpler and more comfortable.  When I need to email a young man, I always forward all the emails to my dad.  That way I don’t have to worry about things getting inappropriate or foolish.

Some people think rules like these will hinder their relationships with guys.  I’ve found that it strengthens them.  Any true friendship has to be built on respect, and if a boy does not want to respect my boundaries, he’s not the kind of friend I want.

Everyone’s policies will be different, because every person is different and has different needs and tendencies.  But as children of the King of Kings, we need to remember that He has a plan and a work and great love and abounding grace for each and every one of us.

Even boys.