Read Love Amid the Ashes Online

Authors: Mesu Andrews

Tags: #Historical

Love Amid the Ashes (37 page)

BOOK: Love Amid the Ashes
9.83Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Acknowledgments

Philosophers say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I’ve often felt like a child in my efforts to write this book, and have been so thankful to the village of friends, family, and colleagues who assisted, educated, and inspired me.

To my writers’ group: Meg Wilson, for her long hours of phone edits, face-to-face encouragement, and late-night, last-minute counseling sessions. Velynn Brown, for seeing the overall picture and challenging me to feel more deeply on the page. Michele Nordquist, for her faithfulness to this project through email, though we’ve met only three times—she was at times the wind that propelled me forward. And to my sweet husband—the final detail man with his professor’s red pen.

To my daughters, Trina and Emily, for being my best friends, brilliant young women, and cherished babies forever. To my parents, Charley and Mary Cooley, for blessing me with a godly heritage and a love of God’s Word. To the parents of my heart, Pat and Sharie Johnson, for the tangible and intangible blessings your love brings into our lives. To my dear father-in-law, Bill Kidwell, who cooked many dinners for the family while I was sequestered at my computer.

To Vicki Crumpton: I had no idea an editor could be so kind and encouraging, a cheerleader from beginning to end. To Dan Thornberg for the gorgeous cover. To the rest of the Revell team, who led me like a babe through my first publishing maze. Michele Misiak, Jessica Miles, and Cheryl Van Andel: your patience resembles that of—well, Job.

To our Multnomah University family: Dr. Karl Kutz, who graciously spent lunches and many emails answering a myriad of Hebrew and cultural questions, and who has graciously accepted a fictional retelling of the precise historical data he spent years researching. To the Multnomah library crew: Suzanne Smith for her help in securing research materials, and Pam Middleton for her patience when I kept items well past the due dates.

To the incredible biblical fiction authors who have influenced my life by their expertise and well-researched novels: Francine Rivers’s Mark of the Lion series for whetting my appetite and adding depth and dimension to the biblical era; Anita Diamant’s
The Red Tent
for my first inspiration of a fascinating retelling of the patriarchal era from a Jewish perspective; and Angela Hunt’s series on Joseph, Legacies of the Ancient River, for its vivid insights into Egyptian life.

To my friends in Israel, Marian and Veronika Brenner, for their help in Hebrew translation and wording. (Isn’t God great to have arranged our dinner seating on that cruise?)

As mentioned briefly in the dedication, I have struggled for some time with chronic illness. I would be remiss if at the end of a book on suffering, I neglected to thank the professionals who helped ease my chronic pain. Many thanks to Dr. Marlene Dietrich, Dr. Richard Carroll, Dr. Donna Archer, and Ellen eAkins, LMP. Through their compassionate care, we have managed the pain and hopefully touched many hearts. In addition, I’d like to encourage those of you enduring chronic illness to visit www.restministries.com for great encouragement and resources.

No doubt I have forgotten to mention my heartfelt thanks to someone very important. To you, I ask for grace. Hopefully I’ll have better record-keeping systems in place for the next book!

And to you, the reader, thanks for spending your valuable time with me here in these pages. My prayer is that you’ve seen God’s Word fit together as an interwoven story that will, from this day forward, speak in a fresh new way.

Finally, most importantly, to my God—who speaks in whispers and rumblings when I open His Word. How can I ever express the depth of my love, my hunger, my joy, my thanks, to the Creator of all things creative?

Mesu Andrews
is an active speaker who has devoted herself to passionate and intense study of Scripture. Harnessing her deep understanding and love for God’s Word, Andrews brings the biblical world alive for her readers in this debut novel. She lives in Washington. Visit Mesu at www.mesuandrews.com or www.loveamidtheashes.com.

www.revellbooks.com/signup

Twitter:
RevellBooks

[
1
]. Erez Erlichman, “Hoopoe Israel’s New National Bird,” Ynetnews.com, May 30, 2008,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3549637,00.html
.

BOOK: Love Amid the Ashes
9.83Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Heart of Mine by Amanda Bennett
The Sister by China, Max
Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_05 by Death on the River Walk
Ruby Shadows by Evangeline Anderson
In Forbidden Territory by Shawna Delacorte
Hero of Rome by Douglas Jackson