Hope Full
HOPE. It’s a huge little word, especially this time of year. We begin a new year fueled by hope. We are eager to make new goals, have new attitudes and set out in new directions. We have hope that things will be different this year than last year. We hope that change is coming or that good things stay the same. We have hope for our families, hope for our career paths, hope for relationships and hope for a better future. Yet so often those hopes start to fade as the reality of life presses in. So often those hopes slowly turn to resignation and even bitterness as they aren’t realized. Yet sometimes not–sometimes what you hope for comes true. You work hard and press through the tough times and the low points and you meet that goal or see that change that you were hoping for. Hope is a big word, it gives energy but it also leaves room for the possibility of disappointment. I have a lot of hope too as we step into a new year. I have hope for my writing this year. My goal is to finish my full rough manuscript of my next book. It’s a goal that I’ve given myself many times before and yet let the distractions of daily life crowd it out. I’ve recommitted and then slowly lost the drive and the purpose several times over the years. I’ve wrestled with my purpose and been plagued by self-doubt. I’ve let the enemy’s lies whisper that no one cares about what I’m writing and that my voice and words are not worth sharing. I have had little hope in the area of writing and that’s sad. I love creative writing! When I focus on it and dedicated the proper time to writing, it does fill me with purpose, energy and joy. God has blessed me with purpose in this area and can use me in so many beautiful ways when I apply the gifts he’s given me. I need to remember that this year and hold on to the hope and be consistent with the work. My family and I moved to Missouri from Minnesota in 2021 with a lot of hope. We had dreams of owning acreage, building a home and having numerous animals. Some of those hopes were realized. We were able to purchase 33 acres and contracted with a builder to custom build our new house. We named our land our Hope Full Homestead. The process was anything but fun and many times we began to lose hope. Finally in July of 2022 we were able to move into our new house after numerous delays, almost losing it due to rising interest rates and issues with our builder never finishing on time. Even now as I write this the builder hasn’t followed though on his promises and there are holes in the drywall painting and staining that still remain undone and will probably have to be done by me. Communication with the builder has been so inconsistent and promises have been made and then broken over and over and over again. It could be so much worse and many people are going through things far more serious, but for us it was definitely a trial that put great strain on our family. We are so thankful that we have a house to live in now and a beautiful property with so much potential, but the process felt very hopeless at times. Life in this sin-wrecked world has a way of tarnishing and even destroying our hopes and melting...
Read MoreExciting Blessings and Beautiful Distractions
It has been an exciting January so far! My wife and I were blessed with the birth of our 4th child, Ashton Benaiah Nitz born on January 6th. What an amazing blessing! It is incredible to me how I can forget just how tiny and helpless a little baby is until I hold one in my arms again. My little two-year old looks like a giant compared to her newborn brother. With this little blessing comes such responsibility! This tiny helpless life needs constant attention, love, nourishment, and care. He needs it day and night. The little guy has made it hard for me to focus on my weekly writing goals. There are many reasons for that: added stress, exciting events, schedules turned upside down, sleepless nights and a very cute baby to distract my attention. Sad to say, I have slipped behind where I planned to be in my writing last week and this week. I know it is understandable considering the circumstances, but still I do not want to make a habit of it. Somehow I need to find the time to get my daily writing and research time in. If you have any advice or suggestions about that please comment and let me know! I am not a slave to my goals, but at the same time I realize just how important they are to keep me focused and moving forward. I have also missed a few of my daily devotions. I can tell that the entire trajectory of my day changes when I do that. Things are harder to handle and my mind is not in the right place. I need to keep in mind my own advice from my previous post 10 Things I Learned After Writing My First Book! 1 Peter 2:2 is a very appropriate reminder as well: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Just like my little Ashton constantly needs pure milk to grow, I need regular doses of Bible truth to grow and mature and face each day with the strength and perspective that only God can give. Thanks to God I am forgiven and my future is perfect. That truth changes every daily experience into an incredible blessing from a gracious God. That truth makes each moment an opportunity to serve that Savior-God with my life, whether it is caring for a baby or writing a book. As always, please keep me, my family and my writing in your...
Read MoreNew Year…New Book Project!
After publishing my first novel I Was There When the Giant Fell this past November I was already itching to get started on my next I Was There book which will take another barely mentioned, little known character in the Bible and imagine his life story and what it would be like to witness another epic moment in salvation history. This time I am fast-forwarding a few hundred years. Israel is divided into two kingdoms. God sends his prophet, Jonah, to go and proclaim God’s message to Israel’s hated enemy the Assyrians in the city of Nineveh warning them to repent. Jonah knows God’s grace. He knows God wants to spare them, and it is the last thing he wants to happen. Despite God’s mandate, Jonah defies God and heads in the opposite direction. He boards a ship bound for Tarshish and the stage is set for one of the most famous moments in the Bible: Jonah swallowed by the great fish. What would it be like to be one of the sailors who encounter Jonah on his fateful journey? How would it feel to be in a raging storm sent by God himself to stop you in your tracks? What if you were a citizen of Nineveh and a strange messenger arrived proclaiming doom on your city? I want to explore these questions and more as I embark on this next project I Was There When Jonah Sank. My research is already in full swing, and I am still collecting more sources. I am fascinated by the Phoenicians, their sailing advancements and trade. I am digging into what it would be like to be a sailor on the Mediterranean in that time period and what it might have been like to be a commoner or a king in the city of Nineveh when Jonah arrived. The book will deal with many issues including long-distance relationships, young love, desperate loneliness, idolatry, humanistic pride, stubbornness, addiction and despair. Above all, it will focus on the incredible persistence of God’s astounding grace for sinful people. I plan to weave in a fair share of love, adventure, storms and dangers at sea. My characters will be interesting people whose struggles and lives are not so far removed from ours today. The rough draft is already in progress and my goal is to have a finished, mostly edited draft by the end of August, 2015 and a completed and published book at or before the end of the year! Again, I ask for your prayers as I start out on this fresh new writing...
Read More10 Things I Learned After Writing My First Book
After 3 years of researching, writing, rewriting, rereading and yawning while staring at a computer screen in the early hours of the morning, my book is finally all done and published! There is no way to even describe how it feels to hold that finished book in my hands. What an amazing thing to know that people I will never meet will read it and be affected by it. It is extremely exciting and humbling! I thought I should share 10 things I have learned on this first journey into authorship, so here goes… 1. Begin work with devotion and prayer. The days that I just jumped in and started writing were the days I accomplished the least. Seriously. My typical writing time started at 4:30 AM or on days when I wasn’t at my day job it was the hour or two when my wife and kids were napping. Time was almost always limited and sometimes I would really get in the groove and my fingers were flying on the keys, and I would look at the clock and have to tear myself away from the computer because time was up. How easy it was to forget to pray before I started writing. How often I was tempted to skip my devotion time. Sometimes I did that for the sake of more time and without fail those were the days I got nothing done, the days I got most irritated, the days that became more about me and less about God and others. Asking God to bless my work was and is an essential, daily need. It helps me focus. It gives perspective. That is not just important for writing, but important for all the tasks, stresses, ups and downs of each day. When I have taken the time to focus on my God and the salvation that is mine because of him, then I am ready to meet the day. When I read and meditate on his powerful promises everything falls into the proper perspective. That does not mean that life goes on like a song as long as I do a devotion, but it does mean that I am better prepared for the twists and turns that the day holds, because I know God holds my day and my eternal future in his loving hands. 2. Get into the characters. Those imaginary people almost had to become part of my life. They were my friends. I laughed and cried with them and felt what they were feeling. Kind of odd…but it really does happen. I found that the more real those characters feel to me, the better and more well-rounded those characters will be in the story. 3. Enjoy it…even when it is tough. Writing is fun for me. Most days I would lose track of time researching, writing and creating. I thoroughly enjoy doing it–most of the time. Of course, there were days when I did not want to touch my computer, think about my characters or even write one sentence. Yes, sometimes that meant I just needed to take a day off of it. Other times I would force myself to go to work. I would intentionally tell myself that I was enjoying it, and after a little while I was! The mind is powerful and if you willfully choose to enjoy something, it can become enjoyable. Sometimes that meant skipping a section I was stuck on, realizing that I would return to it another time. Other times that meant powering through and getting something on the page, knowing that I would probably...
Read MoreAlmost there!
Well, here I am at the end of October and the book is not quite available yet. There were a few revisions that needed to be made after I recieved the proof copy and discovered a full page of italicized text that should not have been italicized. This must have happened when the interior of the book was being formatted. No big deal, but it does push my actual release date into early November. Another proof copy is on its way at this very moment and once I take a look at that I will be free to take the next step in making the book fully available. Watch for another update and a link to purchase the book in just a few days!! Thanks!...
Read MoreFirst Copy of My Book!
It is finally here!! Here it is! It feels awesome to actually hold my book in my hand for the first time! As I was paging through it I did find a couple minor things that need to be changed before I can make it available, and so those changes are now being made. It is awesome to be one big step closer. I will be sure to let you know when it is available online and where to find it!! Thank you for all the prayers and support throughout this process,...
Read MoreBuy the Book!
