The Last Days
It is with fond memories that I write this post. In October of this year, it would have been six years since I started writing for SW. My face becoming part of that box on the home page labeled “Regular Contributors” was a fluke, of sorts, actually. I was asked by Dawn Kinzer, one of the hostesses if I would be willing to write a post for “Fortifying Fridays.” I interpreted that invitation —wrongly…or maybe it was rightly—to be a monthly gig and not just a one-time stint. I think Dawn hated to commit to me for that long (not knowing me well at all, really), but she did. I remember her stating that they had just lost a male writer, and the team wanted to continue to have a male voice amongst their stable of writers, so she took my “misunderstanding” as a prompting from God.
I always assumed in those early months I was on a month-by-month trial. I probably wasn’t, but because of how things started, I kind of felt that way, nevertheless. It was all good, though. I plugged away, eleven times a year, praying and attempting to come up with pieces that were sometimes uplifting, sometimes challenging, sometimes goofy, and sometimes strictly to make the reader laugh. Sixty-four posts later, here we are.
I never really tire of writing about writing. It seems there is always something to talk about, especially considering how this writing business changes. Yeah, some of the topics get hashed and rehashed, like coming up with different ways to take a bland potato and make it edible for a thousand different sets of taste buds, so trying to find creative ways to discuss the same things were always a mantle I liked to take up.
However, over the last year or so, I’ve been on a journey. A journey back to God and His Word in an unexpected way. I had already been on that journey in the 1990s when I pastored. Then, little by little, like a boat out at sea, I got bumped by a wave of life, and my course veered ever-so-slightly off center. Nothing dramatic. Nothing noticeable. Just the simple geometry of life’s events causing my personal path to take an incremental angle away from the path denoted in His Word. Now, all these years later, I found myself several “miles” off course, carried along by the winds of what others—some of whom I respected highly— told me were true and righteous. I listened to the music. I listened to the sermons. I read the books, and all the while, I wrestled with much of it, finally concluding that “it must be me,” because surely so many would not be misinformed, even deceived in some cases, and joyous about it to boot.
So, I went back to God’s Word, and Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount came alive. So did some other passages, like I Samuel 8, Matthew 1 & 2, Matthew 27:11-31, Mark 14:32-15:32, Luke 22:47-23:43; John 17:1-19:16. And in light of what’s happening in the world today, as it sets itself ablaze, both figuratively and literally, the Word of God has never been clearer to me. I see the church bending the knee to the wrong gods, much like Israel did in the days of Jeremiah 7.
Therefore, I feel compelled. Compelled to reevaluate some things. One of those is to step away from a writing ministry like SW so that I may follow this journey through to its completion. That’s doesn’t mean I won’t be available to take on one of those “one-time stints” now and again. It just means I feel an urgency I’ve not felt in years. I feel a fire that I never wish to have squelched or extinguished ever again. I wish to fan it and allow God to take me where He has plans. And then join Him. Who knows, maybe a book will come out of it all. I am jotting down thoughts. I am writing out things. But they are all so minuscule and worthless compared to God’s infinite greatness and His glory.
Take care, everyone, and may God show you His Way in these last days so you can be on that narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14).
Over the last year or so, I’ve been on a journey. A journey back to God and His Word in an unexpected way. seriouslywrite #encouragementforwriters via @CKevinThompson
I feel a fire that I never wish to have squelched or extinguished ever again. I wish to fan it and allow God to take me where He has plans. And then join Him. #seriouslywrite #encouragementforwriters via @CKevinThompson
The Letters
THE WORLD IS A CRAZY PLACE
WHEN THE LIVING ARE DEAD
AND THE DEAD ARE ALIVE.
Rachel Hamar—a Manhattan bank teller—lives nothing close to a Manhattan lifestyle. Residing in Washington Heights, NY, the only thing keeping her in The Big Apple is her mother—a long-time patient in a local psychiatric hospital. It’s December, 2014, and the twentieth anniversary of her high school sweetheart’s tragic death. She’s not sure how much more heartache she can endure, especially after being told earlier in the day she no longer has a job at the bank. A casualty of downsizing.
In the midst of spiraling depression, Rachel receives a mysterious letter in the mail. When she opens it, she becomes cautious and skeptical of its contents and discards it as a mistake, concluding it’s simply addressed incorrectly or a postal worker’s faux pas in the midst of a busy Christmas season. But another letter arrives the next day. And another the day after that. Before long, she is in possession of several letters. Each one more puzzling than the last.
Thinking that someone may be playing a cruel game, she contacts the police, and this propels Rachel and the two detectives into one of the most bizarre cases they’ve ever encountered. Is it a friend’s cruel joke? Is it some stalker’s perverse idea of manipulation? Or is it something more?
C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?
The second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is now available! The first four books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are now available: Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, Book 3, The Tide of Times, and Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen! Book 5, A Pulse of Time, is coming Summer 2020! And, his newest standalone novel, The Letters, is now available in both e-book and paperback!
Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Criminal Minds, BBC shows Broadchurch, Shetland, Hinterland, and Wallander, loves anything to do with Star Trek, and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic too. But you will never catch him wearing a deerstalker. Ever.
Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/Kevin’s Writer’s Blog: www.ckevinthompson.blogspot.com/ Facebook: C. Kevin Thompson – Author Fan Page Twitter: @CKevinThompson Instagram: ckevinthompson Pinterest: ckevinthompsonauthor ACFW Fiction Finder: https://www.fictionfinder.com/author/detail/595 Christian Authors Network: https://christianauthorsnetwork.com/c-kevinthompson/ Goodreads: C. Kevin Thompson BookBub: C. Kevin Thompson
Rachel Hamar—a Manhattan bank teller—lives nothing close to a Manhattan lifestyle. Residing in Washington Heights, NY, the only thing keeping her in The Big Apple is her mother—a long-time patient in a local psychiatric hospital. It’s December, 2014, and the twentieth anniversary of her high school sweetheart’s tragic death. She’s not sure how much more heartache she can endure, especially after being told earlier in the day she no longer has a job at the bank. A casualty of downsizing.
In the midst of spiraling depression, Rachel receives a mysterious letter in the mail. When she opens it, she becomes cautious and skeptical of its contents and discards it as a mistake, concluding it’s simply addressed incorrectly or a postal worker’s faux pas in the midst of a busy Christmas season. But another letter arrives the next day. And another the day after that. Before long, she is in possession of several letters. Each one more puzzling than the last.
Thinking that someone may be playing a cruel game, she contacts the police, and this propels Rachel and the two detectives into one of the most bizarre cases they’ve ever encountered. Is it a friend’s cruel joke? Is it some stalker’s perverse idea of manipulation? Or is it something more?
C. KEVIN THOMPSON is a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a kid at heart. Often referred to as “crazy” by his grandchildren, it’s only because he is. He’s a writer. Need he say more?
The second edition of his award-winning debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, is now available! The first four books of his Blake Meyer Thriller series are now available: Book 1, 30 Days Hath Revenge, Book 2, Triple Time, Book 3, The Tide of Times, and Book 4, When the Clock Strikes Fourteen! Book 5, A Pulse of Time, is coming Summer 2020! And, his newest standalone novel, The Letters, is now available in both e-book and paperback!
Kevin is a huge fan of the TV series 24, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Criminal Minds, BBC shows Broadchurch, Shetland, Hinterland, and Wallander, loves anything to do with Star Trek, and is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic too. But you will never catch him wearing a deerstalker. Ever.
Website: www.ckevinthompson.com/
