My Faith
As I said on the previous page, I can't take credit for my writing accomplishments, because they're gifts from God.
I believe very strongly that any writing ability that I have comes
from God and that he is also the source of my creative ideas themselves. I want what I do as an author to
bring glory to him. Writing puzzle books may not seem, in the ordinary sense, a way to express one's
Christian faith, but I believe that if we dedicate whatever talents we have to God's service that
he'll find a way to use them.
When my first book, "Clip-Clue Puzzles," was being published, I wanted to include as part of the dedication,
"to our Heavenly Father, the ultimate problem solver." I was naive at that point and thought that authors
could dedicate their books to whomever they pleased. I learned differently. My editor said that I couldn't
use that dedication. She suggested that authors usually dedicate their books to someone who's been
especially helpful to them in the writing of their book or to someone who's been an inspiration to them. I
explained that that was exactly the reason that I wanted to dedicate my book to God. It didn't matter.
She was very polite, but still said I couldn't use it. So then I asked if I could use "to God, the
ultimate problem solver?" No. How about "to the Ultimate Problem Solver?" No, I couldn't even use that.
She finally let me have "to the ultimate problem solver." At least I knew it was dedicated to
God, even if lots of readers probably thought it was just dedicated to people who really like to work
puzzles.
With my next two books I at least succeeded in getting the dedication part to God in capital letters. My last 30 books have been with MindWare and Nasco. Initially, they were afraid that
having any mention of God in my dedications would turn away potential buyers, but finally agreed to let me
do it and I'm very grateful to them. It's important to me to acknowledge God's part in the creation of my
books.
A brief statement of my faith---
I believe that God loves us and that our purpose in life is to love him and share his love with others in
the best way that we know how.
Yours in Christ,
Evelyn
