For those of you who haven’t heard the news, I just released my second book last week! When you’re an author, there’s nothing more exciting than handing the book you’ve poured your heart and soul into to the general public. It’s terrifying, too, but that thrilling kind of terror that makes you almost giddy. At least, that’s me. From Faith to Faith is a story told from the perspective of a seventeen-year-old Fundamentalist Mormon girl named Lynlee. When her older half-sister more or less kidnaps young Lynlee in an attempt to escape from an abusive leader, Lynlee is stunned by the modern, 21st-century world. Finding herself in the home of her brother, who has become a Christian, Lynlee is faced with with a war of truth and lies. I actually was inspired to write this story more than half a decade ago. Back in 2018, some of my family took a hiking trip out west to northern Arizona and the surrounding area. We were actually there to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but we took a detour through Great Sand Dunes in Colorado on the way.
We had been hiking around (and jumping down) the sand dunes most of the morning, and as the day heated up, we headed back to the van across a vast sand flat. We had just gotten back to the parking lot when I saw another van, this one full of people dressed kind of like old-order Amish, but different. I just figured it was probably a different sect or something, but my brother identified them as essentially old-order Mormons. These are the people who cling to the old beliefs, including polygamy. I remember sitting, dusting sand off my feet by the slide door of the van and gazing across the parking lot at them. One woman particularly caught my eye – I can still see her like it was yesterday – her rose pink prairie-style dress and reddish-gold half-up-half-down braided hair. I remember thinking that she couldn’t be much older than I was, and my heart ached for her, realizing that she was following a dead religion. She looked at me briefly and went her way, but my interest was piqued. A couple of weeks later, we were at a tiny little gas station in northern Arizona near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was one of the only stations around, so we’d stopped for gas and ice for the cooler before we headed on to our next destination. As we were filling up, an old, beat-up van pulled into the parking lot, and a whole host of people dressed as Fundamentalist Mormons came piling out. Once again, I watched with interest, taking in their hair and clothes. Once again, a particular woman, probably about my age, caught my eye. Part of it was because she was wearing a fascinator that could have walked out of a history textbook – but there was something about her eyes that fascinated me. She was talking to a friend, dressed similarly (but without the hat), but as we drove out of the parking lot, she lifted her eyes to me. Our gazes met for the briefest of moments, but something happened to me. Again, I saw a woman who was trapped in a dead religion - a woman who I longed to see set free into the knowledge of Christ. The following spring, I happened across a video on YouTube of an ex-Mormon (not a Fundamentalist Mormon) sharing his testimony of how he met the true Jesus. I still was not able to get the faces of those two girls out of my memory, and it sparked in me the desire to research Fundamentalist Mormonism. If I’m going to research something, I’m probably going to write about it. It’s just something I do. So I began writing From Faith to Faith, wrote maybe a third of it, and laid it aside. I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d done my research, but it wasn’t fueling me to finish the story. Two years later, I picked it back up and wrote a little bit more, researched a lot more, and suddenly found the words pouring out of me. The rest of the book came in less than six months. Of course, then came the editing process, which always takes some time. Things got rewritten, slashed, or added. But finally, it was done and ready for publication. Over the past ten years (!) since I started writing, I’ve learned a LOT about the process, and I think it makes me more appreciative of all the great books that have been published over the years. I know now how much work and creativity gets poured into each narrative. Writing – or, rather, the editing process – takes a lot of humility. I never would have guessed that when I started writing. I think I just kind of figured that people would automatically like what I had to say or something. Well, long story short, they weren’t quite as receptive as I expected. In fairness, my first book wasn’t very good (in fact, it was pretty awful, if you want to know the truth). My second book wasn’t much better, and neither was my third. Sometimes, I think back to those first few books I wrote as a young teenager and wonder what on earth possessed me to keep writing after all those disappointments. I know I have a stubborn streak; maybe I just wanted to show that I wasn’t going to listen to naysayers. Or maybe I had fallen so head over heels in love with writing that no negativity could get through to me. Either way, I’m sure it was as much the Lord as anything – He knew I’d need to keep going. Regardless, I’m so glad I did keep writing, because it means I get to hand this book to you – and I hope it encourages you, convicts you, uplifts you, and teaches you all at the same time. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Sarah-Grace-Whiting/dp/B0CTGLD14C/
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Sarah GraceHi! I'm Sarah Grace, and I'm so glad you stopped by the Wings of Heaven blog! You can find short posts for easy reading or longer, more in-depth musings! I hope you're blessed! Archives
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