Finding Sara
Behind the Scenes
The book Finding Sara started with a what-if? What if a woman had to move to another city and start over? What would that look like? What would make a woman move to another city? She would need a good reason to uproot her life and start over somewhere else.
I think all of us have been through a "starting over" scenario, but it seems like women, especially, go through many reinventions in their lives. The addition of a spouse and kids, and the societal expectations that her life will consist mainly of nurturing those relationships, means that any changes they go through, she is also navigating. As kids go off to school, mom's world changes, a spouse's job changes, and once again, mom's world changes. For some of us, whether by death or divorce, someone we expected to be there is suddenly gone, and that doesn't just mean change, it usually also means a reassessment of who we are without the person we were counting on. It involves a hard look at life, the one we find ourselves in, and asking ourselves the hard questions - is this what I want out of life? If not, what do I want? A woman walks a line between multiple worlds most of her life, and this story explores this dynamic.
But as I wrote this story, I wasn't just grieving the loss of a marriage; I was also grieving the death of my mom. My mom and I had a complicated relationship. It was rough when I was young, okay when I was married, and then really rough after I got divorced and was trying to navigate life on my own. I was grieving her loss, the loss of the relationship I never had and wanted, grief over not being able to make things right before she died, and struggling through lots of regret. So, the grief in the story is real.
The last thing present in this story, and something that will be part of every story I write, centers around the concept we refer to as "church hurt". Nothing messes with your mind more than hearing someone say they love God and then turning around and treating you terribly. It is a hard place to navigate and is part of my personal story, so yes, I talk about it in my fictional story. The pain and distrust, how the hurt can keep us from experiencing the real God, and how some people either never get over it, or it takes years for them to get over it. It is a real issue facing the church.
Fictional characters in a fictional town wrestling with real-life stuff and trying to find God in all of it.
I hope you will join me as I tell their stories.
