A Warm Welcome to Tracy Wainwright
Hi Tracy, thanks for sharing your thoughts on fall, parenting and letting go as well as introducing us to your new book, Shifting Goals.
Fall
Fall is a wonderful time of year. Not because I’m a pumpkin spice junkie, I’m not. While I love summer and the family time it gives us on the water, there’s just something extra special about the smell of autumn – bonfires, cinnamon, and, yes, even pumpkin – the array of leaf colors, football games (although I can’t remember the last full game I watched, and the temperature fluctuating from 40⁰ to 80⁰. Not to mention sweaters, boots, and leggings.
The other season changes seem to occur more gradually, while fall bursts on the scene like a random firework on a random Saturday (this is a thing in our neighborhood.
Fall is the season when most of nature begins to die or hibernate. This may feel pessimistic or disheartening, but God made it beautiful. And we have extra bonuses like hayrides, corn mazes, and pumpkin patches. All of these elements make up the greatest memories of when my kids were little, and taking the time to reflect reminds me of how much they’ve grown and how much God has grown me through that time of being their mom. They are changing seasons, also. Now sixteen to twenty-two, my children are all adults or almost so.
Parenting adults is so very different than parenting children, it takes a lot of letting go bit by bit. And feels like a lot more leaning on the Lord as they make adult decisions. Which is right where He wants us to be.
Like things dying off in autumn to make way for new life in a season or two, in parenting and our walk with the Lord means letting things go. Being refined by shedding the leaves of life that we’d prefer to hang onto but are necessary to let go of so we can grow and mature and produce more fruit.
These are truths that my character, Katie, learns in spades in Shifting Goals. She has an only child turning into a young man. Life happens to take control out of her hands in many ways. She has to let go of her ideas of how things should be in order to embrace what God has for her, her husband, and her son. Only in the letting go, in the loosening of her grip on the people she loves, in the opening of her hand, does her world open up to God’s perfect plan.
So, the next time you’re driving down the road and see leaves turning or are inclined to complain about the plethora of leaves, acorns, and pinecones in your yard, ask God what He wants you to let go of so He can make way for more abundant fruit in your life.
Shifting Goals is Book 5, in Tracy's Fruit of the Spirit Women's Fiction Series
About Shifting Goals
Katie Mitchell's world turns upside down when her teenage son James suffers a devastating jet ski accident that threatens not only his baseball dreams but his very faith. As medical bills mount and recovery proves more challenging than expected, Katie finds herself questioning everything she believed about God's plan while desperately clinging to hope.
Buy from Illuminating Books from Pelican Book Group
Bio: Tracy's been writing for 20 years, She has 17 books published (self and traditional) and 8 books due to release in the next year. She loves sharing God's truths through story-telling and does so through fiction, nonfiction, and speaking. In addition to writing her own books, Tracy loves helping other authors produce works of excellence through editing, coaching, presenting at writers' conferences, and ghostwriting. She squeezes all this in the middle of being a wife, homeschool mom of 4 (3 graduated now!), volunteer at her church, and most recently running for her local Board of Supervisors.
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