It is my pleasure to welcome Natasha Woodcraft to my blog, as part of her tour with new book The Wanderer’s Legacy. This is part of a series of biblical fiction, which I am thoroughly enjoying.
I wonder if you sometimes watch the news and feel despair? Seeing so much suffering and not knowing what you can do to help. Feeling the sorrow and wondering where God is, perhaps?
Our times are not unique. There was a time when things got so bad that the Lord looked and saw ‘that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time’ (Genesis 6:5, NIV). You may know this verse; it’s just before Noah’s flood. But do you know what came before that?
I don’t believe that early humanity sank to the flood depths suddenly, but that, just like today, society progresses steadily towards a certain state, with certain ideas and actions sometimes catapulting it forwards. Catapulting this particular society forwards was an event that occurred at the end of Genesis 4, where Lamech (a descendent of Cain) first takes two wives, then kills a man and announces it, claiming that if Cain was entitled to seven times recompense for any revenge, he was entitled to 77 times.
What on earth is this little story about, written poetically, and featuring the only three women to appear in the first ten chapters of the Bible (except Eve)?
That is what The Wanderer’s Legacy seeks to address. I approached writing this book with trepidation, aware that any story dealing with polygamy, murder and a society on its way to being ‘evil all the time’, wouldn’t be a pretty one. ‘Where were you, Lord?’ I asked. ‘Where were you in those chapters between the fall and the flood, where things just kept getting worse?’
Was there any hope to be found?
The Wanderer’s Legacy begins with Adah, Lamech’s first wife, fleeing for her life. It’s not too challenging to imagine. A husband who takes another wife, and openly confesses to homicide, might not be the nicest person to live with. We then skip back 50 years to figure out how Adah got to this point, walking with her through a turbulent engagement and marriage, suffering baby loss and domestic abuse. Through Adah’s eyes, we see Lamech’s gradual decline – for everyone is complicated, no one is all bad or all good, and nothing happens in a vacuum.
Though Adah has a really rough ride (I won’t reveal any more spoilers), particular people and circumstances are placed in her path that reveal how God is still there, calling this society back to repentance and speaking to individual hearts. This is what I feel God revealed to me as I wrote – that he will never leave us struggling alone.
Seeing the glimmers
He always gives us gifts of grace – glimmers of light – and he often does this through his people. Genesis itself gives us a little clue that this was happening: ‘At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord’ (Genesis 4:26).
In my fictional version, one glimmer of light is Chanoch, the founder of the city where Adah resides. He is faithful to Yahweh (God) and becomes a kind of mentor to Adah, who knows so little about the Lord, but has a longing in her heart all the same. Through their interactions, we see how teachings inherited from Adam and Eve have been gradually corroded, but also how Yahweh still believes in humanity – still holds out an offer of hope to the remnant – even when all looks like darkness.
Not alone
There’s a place for escapism in books. There truly is. Sometimes I want nothing more than to curl up with a Regency romance and pretend all is well with the world. But the reality is, it isn’t. And it’s also important to engage with the world we live in – not too dissimilar to Adah’s world – and to ask those hard questions.
I hope that those who are suffering, perhaps going through similar things to Adah, will find a kindred spirit, a companion for their journey, in this book. In the front is penned the verse, ‘In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you, alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety’ (Psalm 4:8). My prayer is that my readers will know with certainty that whatever they’re facing, God is holding them in his mighty hands. He has a plan to make them dwell in safety. There is always hope in the darkness.
Natasha Woodcraft lives in rural Lincolnshire with her family of boys and menagerie of animals. She believes stories have power to communicate deep truth and transform lives. Her novels explore God’s redemptive purposes for ordinary, messy people living in biblical times.