Please welcome guest author, J. Carol Nemeth to my blog today
as she shares about trusting the Lord and her
Faith in the Parks book series.
As an author who began writing in my teen years, I was confident I would get published early too. After all, my love of writing was every bit as heartfelt and important as any other author’s. Right? No doubt that part was true, but my love of writing certainly didn’t guarantee publication. Far from it. It wasn’t until our second child was born that I actually finished a novel and attempted to gain publication. That journey was fraught with disappointment, rejection and self-reflection. My first novel, Yorkshire Lass, was rejected time and time again, leaving me to wonder if this truly was God’s plan for my life. Or had I stepped out of His will and pushed my plans ahead of His?
I prayed and prayed asking God to lead me, to show me His will concerning my writing. If it’s not Your will for me to continue writing and to pursue publication, then, Dear Lord, please take away this love and desire to write. Well, it never went away, but I prayed for His will to be done as I continued to submit my manuscript. I truly tried to leave it in His capable hands. More rejections followed as well as one publisher who gave me hope. They made suggestions to my manuscript with the idea they might be willing to take it on. They didn’t. Hope again faded as disappointment washed over me. I kept praying, but it seemed God was silent on this issue. Even in the midst of His silence, the fact that my desire to write and to publish my novel should have shown me He hadn’t said no. He was telling me to wait. As most of God’s children often do, I struggled with waiting for His perfect timing.
Our daughter was born in 1990, and I began my novel soon after she was born. Yorkshire Lass was finally published in March of 2016. It took nearly twenty-six years to reach publication. I may never know all the reasons my heavenly Father took me on that disappointment-fraught journey to publication, but He sure taught me some things.
His timing is always perfect, and I must trust His timing. All the details of my life are better left in His hands to work out the proper time for them to happen. Psalm 27:14 tells us, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
I also learned that God has our best interests at heart. There’s no doubt He wants what’s best for us. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” He wasn’t withholding publication from me because He was angry at me or was being mean. Perhaps He knew because I was home schooling my kids, I wouldn’t be able to juggle both. There are some amazing home school author moms out there who can do both. I might not have been one of them. Whatever His reasons, He chose to wait until 2016 to publish my first novel. Since then we’ve published eight more books. He’s blessed me in ways I never expected.
I recently read a devotional that stated how God moves the universe to accomplish His will in our lives and to answer our prayers. Think about that for a moment. What did He do in the background of your life, that you’ll never know about, to get you where you are today? When I look back over the twenty-six years it took for me to reach publication, I stand in amazement at God’s awesomeness and how He arranged everything to get me to that point. Do I know all the details? Not at all. I do, however, know the God who arranged them and the fact that He gave me the strength to endure until His perfect time came to pass. And that’s all that matters.
Author Bio
A native North Carolinian, J. Carol Nemeth has always loved reading and enjoyed making up stories ever since junior high school, most based in the places she has lived or traveled to. She worked in the National Park Service as a Park Aid and served in the US Army where she was stationed in Italy, traveling to over thirteen countries while there. She met the love of her life, Mark Nemeth, also an Army veteran, while stationed in Italy. After they married, they lived in various locations, including North Yorkshire, England. They now live in West Virginia, where, in her spare time, Carol and her husband enjoy RVing and sightseeing. Carol and Mark are active in their church and enjoy their two grown children, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. Carol has written nine books and one short story anthology. She is a member of ACFW.
Faith in the Parks Books 1-4 is a contemporary romantic suspense series set in our beautiful national parks, each book set in a different park. The stories are filled with intrigue and suspense intertwined with a thread of romance winding through each story.
Book 1 is set in the Great Smoky Mountains National park in North Carolina while Book 2 takes place in the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Book 3 is set at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina and Book 4 takes place way up at Denali National Park in Alaska. There will be a fifth book in the series so keep watching. There are also two novellas, Dedication to Love and A Beacon of Love, that are prequels to Mountain of Peril and Ocean of Fear in that order.
Purchase link for series https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Parks-4-Book/dp/B087D4DKBD
Website https://www.jcarolnemeth.com/ Readers can sign up for my newsletter at my website or my Facebook Author page. There’s a complimentary short story download when they do.
Social Media:
Amazon Author Central – https://amzn.to/2AbdKRa
https://twitter.com/nemeth_jcarol
https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard
https://www.pinterest.com/carolnemeth1/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnUhQR2avhaC3Pb-2nbozZg/videos
Scripture references are from the King James Version.
Title photo by Berenice Martinez - Unsplash