Moments for the Heart

Hey, Weekend Writing Warriors. Had a great week. Carolyn and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. We had a great meal out and relaxed a bit before coming back home to the craziness of our life.

No job yet for Carolyn. Continued prayer is requested. Not sure what lays ahead. Also I will be headed to Nevada in February for my middle son’s surgery. He has a tumor on one of his optic nerves. It has made him currently left-eyed blind, prayerfully it will restore his sight.

The Five Barred Gate is available on Amazon! Pick up your copy today to get caught up before the second installment hits shelves in late February.

SYNOPSIS:

With NaNoWriMo, I am taking you on the journey with me and giving you snippets from the book I’m writing. Keep in mind that these will be raw and unedited. So, excuse errors and grammar.

My piece for NaNoWriMo will be The Five Barred Gate III. Considering that The Five Barred Gate II will be released on January 5th, it would be my next logical piece to pen. Enjoy.

The Five Barred Gate is a dystopian world where the government has enacted laws against freedom of speech. This has hurt the religious community the most.

SNIPPET:

Summary:
The Five Barred Gate III picks where The Five Barred Gate II leaves off. Derrick Andrews is talking with his wife, Rachel, and feels he needs to go with is dad, Jacob, to Austin to talk with the authorities. They’ve been demanding Jacob to release his sermons for scrutiny before they are delivered from the pulpit. He has refused. Facing arrest, he now wants to make his appeal.

Here is a bit from last week.

“You are not lying, Jacob. Remember Rahab and the spies. She hid them in her home, and she told their pursuers she did not know them and had sent them away. She told a bald-faced lie for the furtherance of Joshua and the men he was with, ultimately God and his will.”

Jacob had all but forgotten about the story of Rahab. She indeed hid the spies and lied to the authorities to further God’s kingdom. Was his story any different? Would misdirecting the authorities so he could hide God’s chosen message be truly a sin? Or would that be doing what is needed in the face of the challenges of the world being a different place?

We are moving into Chapter Four. Jacob has agreed to move forward with the DAs suggestion and she has agreed to protect him as much as she can. This begins with appearing on his behalf before a judge stating his case. Jacob and Michael are now on their way home. —

The drive home wasn’t as long as the drive up, mostly because Michael did all the driving as Jacob prepared his next sermon. Their experience and story of perseverance led to the sermon writing itself. God was in unexpected places and when you have your Rahab, or Megan in their case, God can deliver you and give you the victory.

With only one stop for fuel and the perfunctory stop to see the beaver in New Braunfels, they had entered San Antonio in record time. The lights of the city broke Jacob’s focus on his laptop.

“Almost home,” Jacob said after passing the Tower of Americas.

“I still remember you and Mom taking me on Riverboat rides as a kid during Christmas. The lights of each restaurant and on the trees, such memories,” Michael said.

“Have you ever taken Rachel and the kids?”

Michael hung his head. “No.”


::There is your ten, or so, but let’s continue a bit with the scene..::

“Why not?”

“They had been too young before. Afraid they’d fall over, I suppose. And now that they’re older, we just haven’t gotten around to it.”

“You have the time now? You should go,” Jacob said. “We all should go. It would be fun.”

Jacob’s final words hung for a while. He knew their estrangement was part of the reason. It had been a family affair, and with no family, there was no affair. Truth was he hadn’t been either. For him though it had been the busyness of the church. But if he did have the opportunity, the thought of going alone and only bringing memories of the broken family would be something that would cause second thoughts.

“Did you talk to Mom when we stopped?” Michael asked.

“Yes. She is waiting up. I told her about eleven. She said she’d have porch light on,” Jacob chuckled. “Probably something to eat as well.”

“Finish your sermon?”

“Just about. Now I need to write the abbreviated version I’m supposed to submit. That should be interesting.”

“Remember, think Rahab,” Michael said.

“Oh, I will have no issue there. This sermon is all about Rahab, was my inspiration,” Jacob said. “I just will find it interesting to write an abbreviated version of it without sounding preachy.”

“Who knows, Dad, maybe you will win some souls through this after all? Those who screen these read them looking for a reason to reject them. So, you know they will be thorough. Just toe the line without jumping over it.”

Jacob scrolled his tablet. “No, they are not here. They were, but they left, and I don’t know which way they went,” Jacob mocked as Rahab had done.

“Didn’t Rahab also tell them that if they left now and hurried, they could catch up with them,” Michael chuckled.

“In fact, she did. And they left quickly and went in the direction she told them to,” Jacob said. After a moment of silence, he added, “You know, I have been so bent on following the rules—”

“Have you, Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. Do you operate a church?”

“Yes. Well, no. No in the perfect sense of the word.”

“Right. Your gym is the front of your church. So, in a way, you’re already a Rahab pointing those that look at Christianity as against the law in the other direction.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jacob said.

“I’m not saying you’ve been wrong. I’m just pointing out that you’ve been doing this the whole time without realizing it.”

Michael made sense. And how many times had his son told him that? It was one of the reasons for their estrangement. Michael felt that he was pretending to be someone else. But at that time, it was because he was hiding. Running from those who would do him harm. Now it was different. He would be using the laws that bound him to his advantage and proclaiming the gospel in the face of danger head-on.

“It will be different now,” Jacob said.

Great news for the men as they drive back home. It seems they have some reprieve. We shall see how long that lasts…

Start your journey with the Five Barred Gate. Check out the featured link below.

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Featured Title

The Five Barred Gate
(2019)

Additional Titles by Jeff S. Bray

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Monday is Memory Monday
We remember an important event that occurred on that Monday or sometime that week.

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In His Exciting Service,

Jeff S. Bray

Check out amazing established and emerging writers at Weekend Writing Warriors. Each week we post n ew snippets from either published works or works in progress for each other to comment on. Gain insight into how the mind of a writer works and a behind-the-scenes look at works before they hit bookstands everywhere.

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