A Letter to the Generations to Come:

By now you have likely made it through all the pieces of this collection. Some of you are alive in this moment as I type these words, too young and innocent yet to appreciate these works for yourself. Others have yet to be born and will come to find themselves in this story of this family after my time has come and gone. 

But the roots of your heritage are already firmly gripping the soil that will give way to your life. Isn’t it strange to think that long before you ever took a breath someone thought of who you might become? 

The prophecies in this book started as a way of blessing the people I love—the people you are yourself today, or the perhaps the person you descended from. And I am guessing that if you’ve made it this far, you also love someone explored in this series. They are the heartbeat of this story, the inspiration and the beginning.

But families can be tricky business. We belong together, yet so often we grow apart. We start out made of the same stuff, but end up a conglomeration of genes, traditions, attributes, and personalities, most of which we have no say in inheriting. Families love and disappoint each other on the grandest of scales. In our brokenness we fail those who need us most and harden our hearts when, in our mired attempts to fix things, the damage done to each other becomes irreparable. We are all a story of brokenness, and we are all a story of healing. Both themes run deep in the lines of these pieces, in the lines that mark my own face and will one day mark yours.

Little did any of us realize we’d find ourselves in the middle of this story. And that is where the treasure lies. Before you came about, the God of our fathers had a plan for them. And He has a plan for you.

The challenge for the generation to come is not how to live up to the footsteps that have walked before you, but how to keep your own heart tender toward those around you when the darkness of a love grown cold falls heavy on your soul. 

Once upon a time, the extraordinary people described in this collection found their own heartbeats in their Creator, and just like you, they too stood under the trees of decision, wrestling with the choice we all must make to trust and abide in the life and blessing that flows from the One who formed us, or to reject Him and define goodness on our own terms. Sometimes we choose well. Sometimes we don’t.

As you ponder these portraits from the past, I hope you will come to see these prophecies as the foundation for your own story. I wrote them for you. Hidden within their thought is a theology rich in the love, plan, and design of our Maker. He is the one who gave me the words, and He is the one who will make them sing inside each of you. May you believe in the rescue, redemption, and restoration of a family God pulled together from two wayward souls, and may you find your own renewal in the life of His son.

To my heavenly Father and Giver of my earthly family,

You have been a shelter, Lord, to every generation. To every generation.

A sanctuary from the storm, to every generation.

To every generation, Lord.

May Your favor never depart from this family, whom You set apart for Your glory. Fill them with Your Spirit, clothe them with Your wisdom. A thousand generations will sing of Your name, and Your face will shine on upon us all because of Your loyal love.

                        Shalom and maranatha.