WOO HOO!

Dan here. I am happy to say that Ali and I just sent in the finished manuscript for our second children's book, That's When I Talk To God. You wouldn't think that 1200-2000 words would be such a chore. But then when you begin to realize what you are attempting to do in only 1200-2000 words, it begins to make a little more sense.

When I came up with the idea for the first book, from the start I had it in mind that I wanted to speak just as clearly to the parents and grandparents reading the book as I was to the kids. My hope is that the children will want to hear the story again and again, and that both the children and the people reading it with them will be influenced and encouraged according to God's will. I think we hit the mark with That's Where God Is.

You will have to tell us what you think on August 1, 2010 -- in fact, feel free to head over to Amazon.com at that time and tell the world what you think. We would really appreciate it. For that matter, you can head over there right now and pre-order a copy, or nine. They will make great Christmas gifts and perfect additions to school and church libraries!

Enough of a sales pitch for ya? OK.

That's When I Talk To God is, at least for now, a little longer than the first book. We're still within our contractual bounds, but I won't be surprised if it gets trimmed down a bit. I might be a little disappointed though. The nature of this second book, which deals with prayer -- both talking to God and listening to Him -- is such that it was important to set each scene up very carefully in order to properly convey what we wanted to get across. Of course, that often meant an extra sentence or two (or five), here and there. We'll see how it all plays out. Hopefully we'll be all right though.

My point here is, while I have a tendency to make things much harder than they need to be, meaningfully sharing the omnipresence of God or faithfully describing the communicative relationship we can have with Him is not as easy as it sounds. I think we have succeeded in doing this. Again, can't wait to hear what you think.

I'll keep you posted and I'll be sure to let you know here when we go live with our children's stories website -- hopefully by the beginning of the summer.