How I unintentionally became an author of Christian fiction…I think??

I didn’t set out to write Christian fiction. And honestly, I’m still not a hundred percent sure that’s what I’ve written. I haven’t read much Christian fiction, and the few books I have read in that genre seem to follow certain conventions that I’m not sure The Spring in Trulee Holler follows. 

What I did set out to write was an entertaining story about a girl who discovers that the young hottie renting her family’s barn loft apartment once drank from a spring that made him immortal. I didn’t have an agenda, I just wanted to explore the fun of falling in love. Jess was going to be one of those restless small-town kids desperate to shake the dust off her sneakers and travel the world. Silas would be the voice of quiet wisdom who convinces her that there’s no place like home, and that it’s relationships—not experiences—that give life meaning.

But as I delved into the story, I realized the stakes weren’t high enough to carry a full-length novel. Who really cared if Jess came to appreciate her small-town life? And what would motivate her to do something as drastic as drink from the Spring of Immortality? The story needed to matter more. It needed to be bigger.

So I started brainstorming opposing goals that held more weight. Eventually, it hit me: the perfect contrast to a boy who can’t die is a girl who knows death too well. But in order to have that, Jess needed a sharper awareness of her mortality. She needed to feel like her life was running out. She needed to be afraid that she was going to die young, before she’d had a chance to really live.

She needed to have had cancer.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s when the story turned toward what some might call Christian fiction. Not because I suddenly felt called to preach, but because it felt impossible as a Christian to write about a character confronting death without also exploring spiritual truth. So as Jess’s story began to unfold, her thoughts and questions about what God sometimes allows and doesn’t allow unfolded as well. In the end, she doesn’t have all the answers, but she has something even more valuable— she has the peace that comes from believing that God can be trusted, no matter what.

Like Jess, I haven’t received the answers to all of life’s difficult questions. And believe me, I’ve asked God some tough ones over the last five years. But I do believe these three things to be true: God is always and only good. God is infinitely wise. And God is sovereign over all things, even the things He allows that I don’t understand. Those beliefs don’t necessarily shield me from suffering, but they do give me peace in the midst of suffering. And that’s invaluable. That’s worth writing about!

So now you know the story of how I unintentionally—but gladly—became an author of “Christian fiction”. At least, I think that’s what it is.