Some books should never be judged by their covers. Never. Ever.
I know this firsthand. Every book I’ve written has experienced less-than-desirable early iterations of the cover. Some of them it’s hard not to break out in Mystery Science 3000 Commentary on.
Consider some early covers for Wonderstruck: Awaken to the Nearness of God:
That poor guy was hit by a hot air balloon.
He’s just a ghost of a person now.
Or consider this one:
Does she need to see an ophthalmologist?
I bet when this model signed up for the shoot she didn’t think it would end like this.
To see the final cover of Wonderstruck: Awaken to the Nearness of God, click here.
I recently stumbled on a book cover that gave me pause.
Perhaps it was the callback to my eye-cover.
Yet my friend, Chris Ferebee, kept encouraging me to read Steve Wiens’ writing. Once again, I was reminded to never judge a book by its cover.
Beginnings is a story about Genesis—not just the lush seven of creation—but the revitalization that takes place in our lives as we pursue God through thick and thin, darkness and light, tragedy and triumph.
Steve writes:
“On that night, on that deck, in those suburbs, the continual forward movement seemed to have stopped. The tracks had run out. I used to be in motion, rattling forward toward a destination that kept morphing. But on that stationary deck, I had become solid and stable, and stuck.
There would be no new beginnings.
My life should have felt full and rich, but instead it felt empty and dark. There was only the slow work of playing out the reality of the decisions that had already come and gone.
I was a pastor. I was a father. I was a husband. I didn’t regret any of those things. I loved my kids and my wife and my job. But the finality of it all was a relentless crashing—wave after wave, under those stars, in those suburbs, on that night. It felt vacant, like staring into nothingness.
It was empty and full at the same time. Empty of beginnings, full of endings.
As I sat there motionless with the emptiness closing in around me, there was something else hovering above me in the darkness, but I couldn’t see it.
If I could have seen it, it would have looked like a beginning.”
Perhaps that’s what you’re facing today. An ending of…
A job
A relationship
A marriage
A clean bill of health
A lifestyle
A title
A position
But what if your ending is the portal through which God is nudging you toward a new beginning?
What if the conclusion is the launching pad to a fresh start?
We are in a season of new beginnings. Giving up the security of a regular paycheck and moving out into more freedom but also more uncertainty. An opportunity to trust completely in Him. We have been in training for this for quite some time and yet I am finding it harder than it should be.
Theresa – wow! Good for you in following your heart and trusting in God – I’ve always found those seasons to be rich and difficult at the same time!
Wow … sounds like a great book!
Wow, Margaret, based on the passage you quoted, this sounds like a powerful read. I’d love a copy!
I think every day is a new beginning. “Rejoice and be glad in it.”
Wow. I’ve been praying for clarity on what I feel is a Sacred Echo. This book seems like it could give good prayer points. Thanks!
Hi Kimberly, I love your phrase a sacred echo! If you choose to pick up a copy of Beginnings, I hope and pray it helps you to hear God and move towards where you need to go!
Just finished reading Genesis…and my family has recently transitioned into new town, new home, new job, new season, all while reluctantly hanging onto what we left behind. Trusting God as we walk according to His call.
My clean bill of health recently came to an end. I know God is with me and directing my footsteps!
Sounds like a very inspiring book!! Would love a copy! Gonna order your
book also with its fabulous cover!!
The simultaneous, complicated, beautiful nature of beginnings and endings is remarkable…God’s artistry and yet they are always a challenge for my spirit. How eloquently and vividly this piece captures all of that on one page!
Thanks so much, Amy – beautiful, challenging, hopeful, dangerous – it’s all there. Hope you enjoy the book!
It’s happened to me – where I felt like God pulling the rug out from underneath me to get me to my knees. Losing a relationship, a job, then late another job, then my best friend to the dreaded C & on it goes. It’s not a once in a lifetime here thing but a continuous plan of His grace to assist me in dying to myself so that I fully embrace the riches that He offers.
A year ago, this would have been the perfect book for me. I was facing an end that looked hopeless, but was really a new beginning. However, I have a friend who is facing his own end and could use some serious encouragement.
I’m transitioning in life chapters…. I know the Lord is faithful to direct, and He will, but looking at the transition is a bit overwhelming– there are a lot of unknowns ahead. What a great topic for a book to cover– as humans experience so many ‘beginnings’ in a lifetime.
Wow, looking up there in the it looks like the chances of an Amy getting her hands on this book are quite good! 🙂
In a season of new beginnings myself so this sounds like a great book to dive in to!
What a thought! My ending = a new beginning. LOVE IT!
Laura, yes. My prayer for you is that you would find a new beginnings stitched into your ending. Hope you enjoy the book!
Thank you, Margaret, for being a wonderful teacher! God Bless!!
Thanks for the chance to win! Sounds like a necessary read!
The book sounds interesting. Thanks for the giveaway. I look forward to hearing you speak in Saskatoon in March.
Trying to see what the beginning is in the sudden death of my beautiful 23 year old niece.
I love reading all these wonderful post. I definitely feel a tugging on my heart that God is taking me to new beginnings, but I have issues with trusting everything will work out. I’m finally learning to put God in control , though its still work in progress I know the outcome will be awesome !
I hope and trust that this book might ask a few questions or point me in a new direction… what to do when there is no new beginning, and no ending in sight… just more and more and more of the same… ?
Leanne – what a great question! That’s where I was – and how I started writing the book. One of the things I say in it is that “you are not a noun, you are a verb. You are endlessly becoming.” We see this all over the Scriptures. Take hope!
Beginnings can only happen with an ending to something. The last 2 years have been hard and I wonder where my Lord is taking me. I ask him, my life seems odd my children grown and miss taking care of them, mom is aging and so am I. I keep saying where did the time go Lord it seems like yesterday. I know my Lord is with me but I feel lost in a desert storm (dry & parched) where you cant see what’s in front of you. Would love to win the book see “what are new beginnings” when I cant see them.
WOW! Thanks for the opportunity to win and for sharing your heart. I’m adding Steve Wiens to my must read books for 2016!
Such good timing for this! So desperately needed.
Wonderful words…”empty and full at the same time. Empty of beginnings, full of endings”. While I love that this season has so much freedom, the options are sometimes overwhelming!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Kathy! Hope you enjoy the book!
Endings often have a negative and sad connotation. Whereas beginnings are somehow more hopeful. The trouble is, you can’t have the hopeful beginning without experiencing some sort of ending! So many times I have experienced great surprise and joy when given a new beginning. I would love to read this book. Thanks for the opportunity!
What a powerful excerpt! It sounds like it’s worth reading regardless of the position you may find yourself in right now.
In the midst of an ending. Would LOVE to realize that it could be a beginning again
This looks like a very interesting book – which would be just down my alley. I have just turned 65 and it seems like everything is changing and most of those changes feel like endings. At this stage it is hard to understand that there are still exciting beginnings to be grasped and followed. I would love a boost in taking those first steps when they seem so useless.
Hello Gay, thanks so much for posting. I really do hope you get the book and see that 65 is a GREAT time for a new beginning. As a write in the book, “you are not a noun. You are a verb. You are endlessly becoming.”
New beginnings … we just sold our church building and moved into a new one after our church had been in that building more than 50 years. As an older schoolteacher, I know that a job transition is not far off. Maybe not an ending, but a beginning? I would love to read this book.
I never could imagine a day without my parents. I have cried a river for their loss (healing comes through tears?). Age makes no difference in such a loss. Mom had an SUV “park in her lap” and she died in the street in a car crash through human error. Dad’s death was equally hastened by human error/neglect. This is an ending to a huge part of my life. What terrific parents I was blessed with! I have read, “How to Forgive, When You Don’t Feel Like it, and I am praying that God will open my eyes through Margaret’s book, Fight Back With Joy, which our women’s Bible Study Fellowship is diligently studying.
Thank you for everything, I enjoy the learning you’ve exposed, Joann
Oh my gosh, this post broke through something in my spirit, thank you for sharing it, would love to read his book now.
I don’t know if it’s an ending or beginning or wish for either…I understand his words. My word for this year is renew and I suspect I need some more endings for a true renewal. Praying for strength and courage to face whatever it is….
This was very encouraging to read. I just went through a very painful breakup and I am constantly being reminded that this is a new beginning. Thank you.
When I was young I would greet the new beginnings joyfully, but as I progressed through life I allowed fear to have too much say in my life. I started to pass up new starts, new jobs, frightened of the risk taking I had loved. Then an unexpected divorce forced me into a new beginning, slowly but surely, and I rediscovered that girl who met life with her head up and her eyes clear, unafraid because I’m held safely in love.
Perfect timing for this blog…..I am feeling an end coming in one aspect of my life and thinking of what it could mean is overwhelming. I would love to read this book!!
I don’t know why I am always surprised how God knits things together. I just finished readibg Genesis with She Reads Truth. My company is going through a merger and friends and colleagues are being fired left, right and center. I think He is showing me a new thing, but I don’t know what. I just need to wait a bit, so I don’t jump into something not intended for me. I need to stay the course and stay close to Him.
We often feel as though we are in the deep water barely able to keep afloat when we are in the midst of an ending. Respectively, the fear, loneliness, and lack of control can leave us blind to the fact that Our Savior is ultimately in control and that His will is greater because He knows what is best for us and where He is calling us to be. We have to step out in faith with total trust in Him (even in our discomfort) to be able to see the blessing of a season ending that is taking us into a beautiful beginning in the next season of our lives. He turns it all into His glory as His hand is upon us to lead us every step of the way. Sounds like a great book!
This morning I titled my journal entry, Packing My Bags: I’m On A Journey.
I decided to embark on a 21 day journey, not of leisure days but rigorous delving. Digging in the Word, prayer and worship. I am looking to discover fertile land to expand God’s kingdom. I will destroy idols and build an altar to the Lord.
Loved the excerpt from the book … Can’t wait to read it.
Thanks, Cindy! Let me know how you like it!
“The ending to a clean bill of health”. That sentence just gave me another eye opening glimpse into the reality of my life. Diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2015, surgeries that followed and now currently undergoing 24 weeks of chemotherapy I cannot grab a hold of the idea that this could lead to a new beginning. What does God have in store for me? At the end of 2017 I should be done with all of my treatments and the rest of my surgeries. Then what?
Rebecca, wow. Prayers for grace and peace and strength for you as you walk this road. That God will meet you with every step and in every breath, and in every drip, even. Grace and peace.
I have no words to express my thoughts.
Wow. This is right where I am. In the midst of endings and new beginnings and a whole lot of fear.
Hey Mona, I get it totally. I wrote the book in the midst of leaving a job with tons of security to start a church with zero security. LOTS of fear! But so worth it. Hope you enjoy the book!
My youngest has turned 18 and is graduating high school…
I would love to hear what he has to say. It has been special to have you read to me from the last download.
Thank you,
Karen
This sounds SO APPLICABLE to our lives right now, and yet, it is a continuation of events that began 21 years ago in our family. It has had reverberating consequences that we are still seeking God to reveal His plan and trust His mercy and grace in our lives.
With all the things that have happened in my little world in the past seven days, this book certainly seems needed right now, opening eyes, hearts, rethinking one sad thing after another. I am not trying to win a free book by telling a sad story, it just sounds like one of those Holy Spirit things, a book coming along to read right when you need it
I am searching for my next beginning as I am recently retired. This book sounds like something I would enjoy reading.
I would really love to see a new beginning.
I am getting ready to launch a new ministry with the help of some other wonderful ladies. It is all about new beginnings, forgiveness, and hope. Our goal is to connect the women of our community who have been riddled with endings to the amazing grace of God. I can’t wait to read this book!
Just here. In THAT place. Heard the call and waiting for the direction. God is near, I can feel his breath almost. He wants me to revel in that alone but my mind keeps wondering about the call. Missions and where? Saying yes to missions means saying yes to God first. Then waiting on HIm. Sounds easy when it’s the most ridiculously difficult thing I’ve ever done.