So, here’s a public admission, if you will. I’m working on a book. It’s been a long time coming, in part due to health challenges and the general busy-ness of life. And I confess – it’s sometimes difficult to give time to projects (like this blog, for example) that don’t offer financial help to my overworked husband and my three college kids. Yet, I believe the Lord has told me to write the book, so write I will. I’m starting to get some traction, but most of my writing time is devoted to the book at present.

But, I don’t want to leave y’all totally alone! The truth is, I’ve written two books before – truly bad ones. I’ve learned much since those first efforts, so maybe this time will be different. It’s in the Lord’s hands – my lot is to obey. Nevertheless, even from a bad book, there are good elements. Below is an excerpt from my first ever book; a scene I still like for the way it illustrates the seriousness of sin.

I’ll set up the scene by saying the character, Liam, is a successful star of sorts who meets the love of his life, a young lady named Stace who is a believer. Though she loves him, she keeps him at a distance because she doesn’t want to yoke herself with a man who isn’t committed to seeking the Kingdom of God first – even though from a worldly perspective, he would be a “dream guy.” Toward the end of the book, a freak accident results in her death. As she’s dying, she prays for Liam to see what she sees, and he has a supernatural experience with the Risen Christ. And now, on with the show:

For a moment, the Man held this posture, His hand poised over Liam’s blood-stained one, then He raised his head and looked Liam directly in the eyes. And Liam’s reality splintered.

In a flash, Liam found himself in a garden. In some inexplicable way, he knew it was not just any garden; it was the Garden – Eden. Amazed, he looked around, inhaling deeply of heady aromas. Everywhere he looked, there was beauty; well-tended and lovingly nurtured. Many of the plants were either in flower or heavy with a wondrous variety of fruits. The temperature was pleasantly warm. Birds twittered and darted among the trees and insects buzzed in and around the flowering plants…

As he moved forward with a steadily increasing sense of awe, he saw a woman who could only be the first woman, Eve. Just as he was about to call out a greeting, Liam noticed that she was not alone. Apparently, she was deeply immersed in a conversation with a creature unlike anything Liam had ever seen, for neither of them glanced his way as he approached.

Taking advantage of their inattention, Liam stopped beside the low hanging branches of a tree and observed the creature closely. Although he could not understand the words, something in the silken tones of the creature’s voice was appealing, even soothing. As it spoke, it paced slowly before the woman, displaying its beautiful, scintillating scales to great advantage. However, to Liam’s eye, something in the sinuous way it moved as it spoke was suggestive of a snake. This must be the serpent.

Apprehensively, Liam took a step closer stopping only when he noticed that the woman and the beast were not alone. Nearby, a man sat leaning back against a tree, half-listening or perhaps pretending not to listen as he idly wound then unwound the tendrils of a vine around his finger.

As understanding struck him, Liam’s heart sank; he knew this story. It was one of the first he learned from the Bible.
Wait – could he stop this from happening? If he stopped this first great tragedy, would it save Stace? Maybe that’s why he’d been brought here!

Running to the woman, he tried to distract her, to warn her, but she seemed not to hear.  He whirled around to grab the man’s shoulders and haul him to his feet if necessary, but Liam’s hands passed through empty space. For the first time, he realized he wasn’t actually in the Garden. Rather, he was seeing a memory, painted in vivid color and for all the world like some sort of three-dimensional movie. Although he experienced the scene as if he were a part of it, he could neither interact nor interfere.

Sickened, he watched the woman listen attentively to the deceiver; watched her eyes growing thoughtful. Though her husband was still close enough to hear, hands now resting limply at his sides, he made no attempt to engage in the dialog.

Liam looked again at the woman. A subtle change was coming over her face. The childlike guilelessness he first saw began to harden, touched by a tinge of disdain. The serpent continued its ceaseless spiel, and her eyes began to drift toward a tree.

Suddenly, a Voice broke into the scene, “The tree she looks upon is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life is not far away. Watch, and learn.”

Uselessly, Liam continued to watch as the woman moved toward the forbidden tree, watched her examine the fruit closely, weighing it in her palm as if the weight of consequence could be measured by the heaviness of the fruit. The subtle change he had begun to see in her face moments ago steeled into something so entirely modern that he reeled with the shock of it. He recognized it as the very look that had haunted him from his own mirror on so many occasions. It was a face filled with Pride; ruthless, stubborn, and petulant pride.

With the painfully familiar expression came another: doubt. Almost, Liam fancied, he could hear her inner dialog. Perhaps all the serpent had implied just might be true. Perhaps God was being stingy, withholding something that was good for them because He wanted no rival. Perhaps there would be no death. Such thoughts swam in her eyes as plainly as if printed there.

The woman took a bite of the fruit. Then, quickly as if she feared taking this step alone, she handed some of the fruit to the man who was with her, and he ate as well.

In that one, seemingly insignificant and ordinary act, the first man and woman turned their back on the One who had given them everything, even life itself.

A weight of horror settled on Liam, and he could only observe in futility as the shock of comprehension, then shame, distorted their faces. No longer did their expressions radiate an almost uncanny, beauteous innocence; no longer did their eyes dance with joy untainted with sorrow. 

The knowledge they’d craved did not bring the power they hoped. It never did. It never did. Oh, if only they had listened! He felt the ache of it so deep, he could hardly stand.

As the couple turned and fled deeper into the garden, Liam saw the discarded remnants of the fruit lying on the ground and he knew: Death had entered here.

Having rejected the Tree of Life for the one Tree forbidden them, they now knew they had chosen poorly and now their innocence had been ripped away leaving behind a ragged wound. The days of walking with their Creator in simple love and trust had ended. The horror and shame of what they had done drove them to try to hide from the God Who Sees.
Liam ached for them.

But quickly, other scenes flashed past with brutal intensity; the far-reaching consequences of one simple act of distrust until the mind-bending network of billions of sins and their consequences culminated in the ultimate price. Death, it is true, but a death like no other.

The Man – the same Man who had knelt by Stace – now raised in a gruesome display before a mob. This time, he wasn’t He clothed in intense white but caked in blood and dust, bearing on His head the very symbol of the curse of sin – branches of thorns twisted into a sick parody of a king’s circlet and shoved down over His brow, Blood from numerous scratches ran into His eyes.

God’s own Son, battered and torn, crowned with the unfathomable weight of countless sins, covered in shame and wretchedness that belonged to mankind – yet He wore it willingly. For the two rebels in the Garden. For all humanity. Even for the very ones who jeered from the crowd, He suffered humiliation and agony and Death.

For the first time, Liam understood the wonderful, terrible reality of the God who came to rescue those who rejected Him by paying the price of their insurrection with Himself.

And yet, still many did not believe. So many, oh so many, chose to believe themselves wiser, stronger, more progressive or modern or advanced than to believe in something so foolish as a God, never knowing that what they rejected was the glorious exhilaration of true Life. And such a Life—Life lived in harmony with the power, wonder, and endless love of the very Creator of life!

The scene shifted, and Liam saw himself ad a very young man; saw his mockery of his parents and his rejection of the two hard-working, plain people who loved him as best as they could. But he turned his back on them to become something more than a small-town hick. And Death entered that relationship.

He saw himself after his first big break, flattered by the attentions of many young ladies and reveling in his own sexual prowess, never once thinking of anything but his own pleasure. And Death stalked into many relationships.
He saw himself grow in fame and begin to wield some control over what roles he would accept, sometimes withdrawing like a sulky child when his whims were not met. And Death prowled among his business relationships, too.

Again and again, Liam watched countless moments of his own life; moments where he had chosen to feed his pride or flaunt his aptitude, often to another’s detriment and always to achieve a sense of personal victory. And side-by-side with each distinction and achievement as his self-importance swelled, Death walked through wide-open doors into many places in his life.

Finally, he saw himself waking alone in bed the morning before he had first met Stace, and he knew—the Thing that had stalked him when success and wealth failed to fill a deep void within; the Thing that clawed with hateful fingers at his throat and stifled his breathing – was Death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23, ESV).