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Guest blog by Jessica Brodie

Have you ever been living your life, blissfully going about your daily affairs, when suddenly God hit you with an idea, a nudge, a task you couldn’t possibly ignore?

That was me nine years ago. One morning, driving to work, I pulled out of my neighborhood, gazed at the sky, and heard God say into my soul: “You should write a Christian novel.”

I blinked, stunned, and inwardly asked, “OK, how so?”

Then God opened my eyes and gave me a vision about an unlikely friendship between a broken woman, who’s lost everything and doesn’t know the Lord, and a little boy in humble circumstances whose faith is so strong he can’t help but lead her to Jesus. I say “vision” because I saw the plot of the book, all its themes, flash in my mind like I was watching a movie on fast-forward, everything from what the woman looked like to what the little boy looked like to the town where they lived.

So what else was I to do? I wrote it. And this spring, that book hit stores and has been staggering me with its success. Titled The Memory Garden, it briefly reached Amazon’s top 10 in bestselling contemporary Christian fiction and Christian women’s fiction, and as I write this, I’m pinching myself in joy.

I’ve been a writer since childhood. One of my first toys was my mom’s old typewriter, and I would sit for hours pretending to write. As a kid, my nose was always in a book, and my greatest dream was to one day have a book of my own on the shelves. I majored in journalism in college, and I’ve made my career as a professional writer. I even penned two secular (unpublished) novels.

Yet my dream of having a novel published never came to fruition. I couldn’t understand why—people said they loved my writing, my unpublished books won awards, but my prayers went unanswered. Now I look back and understand: God knew the sort of stories he wanted me to produce. He had a plan for my life, and he guided and shaped that plan in his own beautiful and perfect way.

The waiting was worth it.

At the time God gave me the vision for The Memory Garden, I was in a good place spiritually. And I had made Jesus the Lord of my life after a lifetime of being a Christian in name and belief only. I worked as a religious journalist, running a monthly Christian newspaper and hearing and sharing amazing stories, and I had started reading the Bible daily. I was hungry for God’s word.

It was into all this that God laid The Memory Garden on my heart.

What else can you do when God gives you a nudge you can’t ignore? I did what he asked and wrote it! And while I was waiting for his plan to come to fruition, I wrote two more books in the same series—the second comes out this fall, and the third will release next spring.

God knew the path he intended. I just had to align my steps correctly.

I haven’t always listened to God. Sometimes I was too busy to hear his voice or even understand it was God speaking. But I have learned we hear God better when our hearts and minds are tuned in and turned toward him. We hear God better when we’ve learned to settle down the competing voices and focus on him alone, when we spend time in his Word and in prayer.

Other times, we hear God just fine, but we decide to do what we want instead. That was what Jonah did when God called him to preach repentance to the Ninevites, and we all know how that story ended—three days in the belly of a whale, and Jonah ended up doing what God wanted all along.

Not all of us are supposed to be writers. Some of us are teachers or healers, mercy-givers or encouragers. We all have different gifts.

But if you are hearing God call, you do something for him and for his kingdom. Do it. Try it. Step out in faith.

I assure you that if it is indeed from the Lord, you will experience joy in your heart and a blessing in your life that is unimaginably good.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48 NIV).

Jessica Brodie is an award-winning author and journalist with thousands of articles to her name and a huge heart for people and their inspiring redemption stories. She writes contemporary Christian fiction, and her novel The Memory Garden has also won awards. Jessica holds a master’s in English and a bachelor’s in communications, both from Florida International University. A native of Miami, Florida, she now makes her home in South Carolina with her husband Matt, four children, three misfit cats, and one giant German Shepherd. She’s a passionate advocate for mental health and, most importantly, Jesus Christ. Find her at JessicaBrodie.com.

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Yvonne M. Morgan is a Christian #author, #blogger, and #speaker. #BibleGatewayPartner

Matthew 28:19 “Therefore, GO and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

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