What is your personal favorite Quote or Words to Live by?
There are many quotes and words that I have found deeply meaningful and important over the years, but I would say my favorite is the chorus to Rich Mullins’ beautiful song “If I Stand”:
“If I stand, let me stand on the promise, that You will pull me through/And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You/And if I sing, let me sing for the joy, that has borne in me these songs/And if I weep, let it be as a man, who is longing for his Home.”
In your book, who is your favorite/most relatable character?
My favorite character in Purest Mercy is Mercy herself. She is beyond spiritual, beyond beautiful, beyond courageous, beyond heroic. There is simply no one like her. Her capacity for healing, for transforming the lives all around her is extraordinary to me. But her bravery, and love, and selflessness, to give of herself to the uttermost to save Amy, goes even further. She is simply a wonderful, amazing, heroic character. There is no one like her.
In your book, what is your favorite chapter?
There are several chapters that vie for my favorite, but I think it would have to be “The Departure”. This is the chapter in which Mercy, now certain that it is Amy who is in danger and needs her help, miraculously gets out of the Resurrection Christian Mission without being seen or stopped by anyone, even though she is easily the most popular, most beloved person in the community. It is another evidence of the very high calling she has to rescue Amy, and nothing and no one can deter her as she anxiously races out into the cold, dangerous night.
Please share your favorite excerpt from your book.
My favorite excerpt and my favorite quote in the book are both the same. They are found on Page 228: This is where Bethany Lewis and David Mullins—both still struggling to wrap their minds around the enormity of all that Mercy has just done for Amy—are talking, and Bethany shares some of her thoughts on Mercy’s unparalleled courage:
“We always knew she was brave, David, but I never could have imagined anything on this order. Who could have? The soldier going off to war: don’t you think they at least entertain hope, assurance, at least the possibility they will come back alive? Sweetheart, Mercy went into a battle she knew she had no chance of winning. And she understood—or at least had some intimation—of how devastating and painful it would be. Still she went into that battle, to save Amy. It was purest Mercy.”
Please share your favorite quote from your book.
“We always knew she was brave, David, but I never could have imagined anything on this order. Who could have? The soldier going off to war: don’t you think they at least entertain hope, assurance, at least the possibility they will come back alive? Sweetheart, Mercy went into a battle she knew she had no chance of winning. And she understood—or at least had some intimation—of how devastating and painful it would be. Still she went into that battle, to save Amy. It was purest Mercy.”
This quote, for me, encapsulates both the incalculable enormity of all that Mercy does for Amy in the story, and the incalculable, beautiful mystery of her even to her closest friends. As is mentioned elsewhere in the story, she is a constant source of Sacred Mystery. They love her, they adore her, they admire her. Yet they cannot help being in awe of her as well.
Explain your book cover design concept and how you came up with the idea?
My book cover design was actually custom-created by the self-publishing company, Outskirts Press. I honestly do not know how they came up with the concept, but I think it is beautiful. There is a brightness and a warmth to it that I think Mercy would greatly approve of.
Even though your book is Fiction is it based on a real-life experience?
There are aspects of the novel that are based on real-life experience. I have been a pastor and experienced many of the things that Bethany has experienced. I have worked with homeless people, and known teenagers like David who have been forced to grow up far too soon. I have known many of the illnesses and struggles portrayed in the novel, such as Bethany having to learn to walk again, Amy’s vomiting blood, and David’s pride and stubbornness. I have known these and many of the other experiences conveyed in the novel, both in the lives of others and within my own life.
Mercy herself, however, is an amalgamation of the saints, mystics, and martyrs throughout Christian history that I have always admired. I have, unfortunately, never known anyone like her in real life, though I cannot help believing that there must be someone out there like her. Like Amy, I look up to and am in awe of Mercy, and I wish I could be more like her, a vessel of healing and transformation for people in such great need of both.
Learn More about Purest Mercy – Purchase on Amazon https://amzn.to/3SbWhxM
Purest Mercy is a Christian fiction novel about the extraordinary ways that God can use the simplest, humblest people to achieve great miracles. In it, we meet Mercy, a homeless teenager on the run from horrific circumstances, who finds her place of belonging when she comes upon the Resurrection Christian Mission Church, and its dedicated pastor, Rev. Bethany Lewis. RCMC is a ministry specifically aimed at alleviating the difficulties and struggles experienced by homeless people, but they are strapped to the limit, and about to run out of food to serve the community…when Mercy’s prayers result in a miraculous trove of food.
But the miracles are only just beginning. As Mercy’s prayers begin to transform more and more lives with healing and hope, she falls in love with David Mullins, a homeless youth she seems to know from Another Time and Place. Mercy, David, and Bethany form a tight-knit family, drawn all the closer when a younger girl, Amy, joins them off the streets.
Then, one night, during an intense ice storm, Amy is attacked and left for dead at a nearby park…until Mercy finds her and, in a final act of selflessness, literally takes on Amy’s wounds, receiving the stigmata just as she loses consciousness. Frantically, Bethany gets the young people back to the parsonage, where Mercy dies the following morning: Good Friday, 2013.
The family, and the Resurrection community, are heartsick over the shocking loss. Until God, again through Mercy, proves to them once and for all that even death cannot separate them from the Love–and Mercy–of the Divine.
