How do we find inspiration? I’m inspired by so many things:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me…For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance…in your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.  Psalm 139

I am inspired by the God who whispered my name into being, for isn’t this something we all desire, to be known so intimately? And I look around me here, on the plains, at the vastness and open beauty and I’m inspired. And also by the rugged beauty of the mountains and the sweet face of the baby calf. The comfortable love I see in our friends who’ve made their lives together for so long. The newly discovered love of the young. The green shoots of grass coming up far too soon in the season. The way the passing of time is marked here by tractors, chisels, discs, planters, combines and those same implements sheltered in sheds through the winter. The song of the coyote, dove and owl, and yes the stench of skunk. 

All of this, I hope, comes through in my writing and brings hope to my readers, joy and inspiration as they struggle with my characters through sorrow, frustration and then land  with them in triumph. These are my hopes for both Windows in the Loft and my new novel, Worthy of Love, to be released on Saturday.