In general, the Western world—and many in the church—do not know what to do when confronted with fearsome circumstances or unexpected suffering. We need only to observe the world as it navigates out of a global catastrophe that has torn through churches and communities to see that God’s people haven’t always suffered well amidst the fearsome unknown. Yet our responses have the power to either draw others to the Lord or drive them away. How we represent Christ while we face our fear matters.
This is part of the reason I love writing fiction. It’s therapeutic to craft characters who love the Lord and then put them into situations where God stretches and tests their faith. It helps me work through impossible choice scenarios, consider how to rebound after failure, and how to seek the Lord humbly.
Meet Meg Gilmore
Meg Gilmore seeks more than an absence of anxiety, fear, or stress. If that’s all that inner peace required, her twisted insides would have smoothed out when she escaped her abusive ex and resettled in the small town of Sycamore Hill. But the peace she sought didn’t come through removing the source of tension.
Meg wants the Lord to remove the root of her fear (like her ex trying to extort her). She wants God to save the ancient tree that’s become her safe space. But neither would guarantee her the kind of peace that remains when the storms rage. She needs a peace that is different from the world’s peace (John 14:27). A peace that doesn’t come through the removal of trials but from enduring the trials with a trust that what the enemy meant for destruction will be the very vehicle God uses to strengthen her soul.
Meet Eli Martin
Eli’s need to control his environment feeds feelings of anxiousness and challenges his theology. Which is true? His chaotic feelings or God’s promise of peace?
His flesh whispers that failure is guaranteed, but the Spirit says he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him (Phil 4:13). His flesh pushes people (and God) away, but wisdom says humbly seek the Lord, and God will meet every need (Phil 4:19). His flesh screams there is not enough time, but the Spirit reminds him that there has always been enough time when he keeps the Lord first (Matt 6:33). Yesterday, fear overwhelmed him. Today, he starts again with the Lord and trusts Him for another day. God’s mercies are new every morning. He is faithful (Lam 3:22-23). Eli knows this. Now, he has to live like he believes this.
Meg and Eli fight for biblical thinking one day (one hour!) at a time, and they learn to live and focus on each day as it comes, not worrying about tomorrow (Matt 6:34). Peace follows this battle for their minds. It is exhausting but freeing. It feels dangerous yet is safe. It provides no answers, but it causes them to depend on the One who holds the answers, and that is why it brings peace within circumstances that haven’t changed. Meg’s fearsome past still exists. Eli can’t control the present. Yet peace anchors them—to God and each other.
Perfect Peace in the Face of Fear
Managing our circumstances will never bring lasting peace—the darkness and pervasiveness of sin roots far too deep than that. Instead, peace comes with an understanding that God uses suffering to accomplish far more extraordinary things than He would by removing suffering.
Like Eli and Meg, I’ve found God in the blessings and provisions of life, but the spectacular sights and rewards that come from the harder work of seeking God in difficulty are even more precious. God has strengthened me to endure and revealed that nothing I fear can limit His hand.
Escaping an abusive boyfriend, Meg Gilmore finds refuge in Sycamore Hill. She’s particularly drawn to a 250-year-old tree she names Alfred. Like her, Alfred is a survivor, and the shade beneath its protective branches is her go-to place for solace. When a construction firm slates the majestic tree for destruction, Meg resolves to save Alfred. But Meg underestimates an adversary who refuses to yield to her requests to work around the tree.
Eli Martin’s family money is as old as the tree Meg is desperate to save. Attracted to Meg from day one, he sees Meg’s campaign to save Alfred as his chance to seal her affections. The best way to fight big business is to attack them in the pocketbook, and he devises a plan that Meg’s adversary won’t be able to afford to fight.
When Meg’s ex arrives, Eli once again rises to her aid. However, Meg insists he can’t simply throw money at problems to make them go away.
Together they face what truly terrifies Meg, finding freedom and love in the most unlikely places.
Book Excerpt:
Something wasn’t right. Meg Gilmore stopped abruptly on the sidewalk in front of her cedar-sided historical home. As she squinted at the tiny one-bedroom bungalow, the hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and an unseasonal shiver rippled down her spine. Her backpack slipped off her shoulder and landed on the ground with a thud.
The Canadian flag mounted to the right of the front door rippled in the warm, late-afternoon breeze. The vintage mailbox remained closed. Tulips and daffodils waved a happy greeting from their sunny spot in the front garden. Nothing was trampled. Nothing appeared out of place. Everything looked just as she’d left it this morning.
Yet it all felt wrong. The double-check-your-locks, peek-in-the-closet, and look-behind-the-shower-curtain kind of wrong. Meg’s legs quivered, and she settled a hand over her midsection. She couldn’t explain why. There was no reason for the chill filling her core.
She instinctively shrank back. She hadn’t felt this kind of inexplicable apprehension since . . . well, she really didn’t want to think about that. She forced her spine to straighten and picked up her bag. She wasn’t the same person she was back then. She sucked in a deep breath, marched to the front door, jabbed her key into the lock, and twisted. The lock clicked open as she would expect, and she gave the door a trepidatious shove.
Her breath shot out of her. See. Everything is fine.
Finding a house that she loved in a historical neighborhood in Sycamore Hill had been one more rung on her ladder toward independence. Sure, she didn’t own it. And yes, it was the smallest house on the street. But she’d scraped together the first and last month’s rent to secure the place while studying as a full-time student at Grander University and working part-time at The Muffin Man. And she’d done so all by herself.
Her keys clinked against the ceramic rim of the shallow, catch-all bowl she kept on the entry table. In less than a minute, she moved through the entire house, tidying a stack of books here and a throw blanket there. She snagged her journal from where she’d left it this morning on the round table in the breakfast nook. Everything was fine. Normal. Just as it should be. Just as it had always been since she arrived in Sycamore Hill. But if that were true, why did an invisible weight press on her chest, making it difficult to take in a full breath?
She hugged her journal. Journaling usually filled her soul with a cathartic calm—the kind of peace missing from her messed-up insides right now. Her counsellor-turned-friend, Kim—trustworthy from the days Meg lived in Sycamore Hill’s local shelter, Life House—would tell her to work it out on paper. But she’d graduated from their program nearly a year ago, and she didn’t want to write. She wanted to talk.
Lord, You say to pray about everything, so here it is. Something feels off. Her eyelids fell closed, and she inhaled a focused, deep breath. Help me remember that You are with me always.
A sudden vibration in her back pocket made her yelp, and then she laughed. She rubbed her palm over her galloping heart as she tried to force her uncooperative gaze to focus on the text message from Eli. Meet me at Alfred in 10?
She gave it a thumbs up, and the reply went out with a quiet whoosh. She was being ridiculous. This was ridiculous. Meg tossed her knapsack onto her bed as she passed the open bedroom door. The smooth, undisturbed quilt sagged under the weight of her textbooks. The bedroom was the only separate space in the house, if you didn’t count the restroom. Having come full circle, Meg sat down on the small bench near the front door. She had no logical reason for her rising panic.
But it happened like that sometimes. Coming out of nowhere and gut-punching the breath from her lungs.
A burning sensation scorched the back of her throat. She tugged off the ballet flats she’d worn to school and pulled on a pair of socks and sneakers. Outside the paned glass back door, the sun remained high in the sky, having only partly begun its descent into evening. Hours of daylight remained—not that she needed hours. She lived only five minutes from every amenity Sycamore Hill offered its residents. Meg shut and locked the door behind her and headed toward the center of town. With every step that put distance between her and her house, the creepy feeling of being watched receded, and her labored breathing eased.
By the time Meg rounded the corner onto Main Street, she almost felt normal again. Her boss from The Muffin Man bakery called out a cheery good afternoon as she passed. She smiled. Grabbing breakfast-to-go at the bakery that employed her had become part of Meg’s morning routine, her one treat on a tight budget.
Her steps hitched. All the articles she’d read advised women with a past like hers to avoid predictability in their schedule, but it had been so long since . . . Her chest constricted. Had she made herself too easy to find?
Her phone vibrated again. Running late.
Meg had hardly read the message before someone brushed past her, nearly sending her phone to the sidewalk. Her breath stalled in her throat as she fumbled to maintain a hold on the device.
“Sorry,” mumbled a woman, hurrying past her before turning toward the bank.
Meg sagged and sent Eli another thumbs up. Everything was fine. As she crested the gentle incline of Main Street, the magnificent sycamore she’d nicknamed Alfred came into view. The tips of its full crown waved hello, and the quivering in her belly settled. Its rich and familiar aroma soothed her erratic heartbeat. The shade beneath Alfred’s protective branches was her go-to place for solace. And today, she needed solace.
But then she spotted a chain-link fence imprisoning it. A padlock. A public notice.
As if a fist had reached into her chest and squeezed, her heart wrenched.
Meg raced toward the tree, hitting the barricade with the power of a gale-force wind. She rattled the locked gate, shaking loose a poster pronouncing: The Future is Yours. Come Home to a New Horizon Property.
She picked it up. Condos? She tore her gaze from the poster to Alfred’s patchwork bark that exposed white, green, and cream-colored inner layers. Alfred mattered more than condos. The massive sycamore fig—the singular remnant of an ancient forest from another era—stood as the sole survivor of his community. He was a fighter.
Like her.
~ *~
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Welcome to the Corral, Stacey!
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