I worry that my family and friends will get tired of seeing this same orange book cover showing up repeatedly in their newsfeeds on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
But I might be a "one and done" writer. I just don't know right now. I put my whole heart into this one message and I am very proud of the book that carries such a huge and powerful piece of good news.
The news that God loves me is still a big deal to me. It is a simple message. It is also a very complicated truth.
When I hear that God loves me, (tell me if you do this) my mind immediately goes to my most negative traits and habits and the argument begins.
How could the Creator of the Universe even KNOW me, much less LOVE me? And if He really KNOWS all my stuff, then why in the world would He love me?
Is He in denial? Does He have a blind spot? Maybe He is a "glass half full" kind of being and only sees what He wants to see in me.
But that would not be an honest view, would it? That would mean that God is pretending to know me and therefore pretending to love me.
I don't want pretend love. And He is not a pretender. I believe that God knows all the little hidden bits about me and He loves me still. He is not loving the potential me, the possible me, the future got-it-all-together me.
God loves the today me.
The good news that God loves me and God loves you is complicated, isn't it? It is also very simple.
He loves you. Period. Full stop.
It took a long time for me to believe this good news. God went out of His way to convince me that this was the truth. He set me up over and over again in situations and relationships that would highlight this truth.
My book, Walking Butterfly is a collection of these moments, when God caught my attention long enough to say, "Hey, I love you Susie."
As I wrote that last sentence I could not help but remember a favorite scene in one of my favorite movies, "The Three Amigos". Lucky Day is trying desperately but secretly to get the attention of Dusty Bottoms and Ned Nederlander.
Lucky begins with simple and subtle bird calls, but his friends do not notice him calling. He changes the bird calls to a weird "LookUpHere, LookUpHere!" sound and finally he just yells, "HEY, YOU GUYS!"
God was sending me love notes all the time, but He finally had to just yell, "Daughter! Look up here, I love you!"
God is constantly sending us messages of His love. But some are too subtle for us to hear. Our world is a noisy, clamoring place. It is difficult to hear Him sometimes. Often the quiet, subtle love notes from Him are unrecognized because we have a false view of how God speaks.
He's GOD! Doesn't that mean His voice is loud and bold and GODLY? A crack of lightning-clouds parting kind of voice makes sense, right?
Only in the movies, apparently. In real life I have found God's voice frustratingly similar to mine. "Was that me? Am I just imagining this?"
I have the choice in a fraction of a second to ignore and disregard the thought (voice) in my head. It comes as a thought, a question, sometimes a declaration. I have been known to actually stop and ask God if that thought was from Him or not.
Then I picture Him going, "Duh, been doing bird calls at you for at least an hour now!"
All of this to say that my book is now available in another format for your convenience. Yay! Many have asked me to get my book into digital access so they can have it with them all the time and I am excited to finally get Walking Butterfly on Kindle now!
I hope this enables the good news of God's love to reach beyond what a little paperback can do. This simple and complicated message needs to be spread far and wide in today's world. Don't you agree?
Blessings, Susie
