God works in mysterious ways

About a year and a half ago, I attended a week-long conference in North Carolina. I went alone. There must have been about 400 other people at the conference. I didn’t know a single one of them. It was a little overwhelming, but the mountains were beautiful and the conference schedule kept me busy from daybreak to sunset.

Towards the end of the week, I made my way through the serving line of the conference center cafeteria for lunch, then carried my tray out into the dining room. Still not completely comfortable but pressing on, I looked around for an empty chair and some smiling faces among the strangers.

I sat down at a table with four or five women I’d never met.  We all were wearing conference name tags but still introduced ourselves. We chatted about conference speakers and the delicious desserts. Then we went a little further with the personal identifications asking questions like, “So, where are you from?” and “What do you do?”

In the midst of those get-to-know-you pleasantries, Lindsey Brackett, a young woman from Georgia, said she was writing a novel. The conversation went on around the table. When I answered the “where are you from” question, I probably responded with something like “a small town near Charleston.” In a crowd of strangers somewhere other than South Carolina, I’m inclined to broaden my geographical whereabouts in hopes of finding some general recognition for this part of the state. Lindsey piped up and asked, “What small town?”

Just as soon as the word ‘Walterboro’ came out of my mouth, Lindsey’s face lit up. It turns out, the setting for the novel she was working on was none other than Colleton County. We spent the rest of that lunch hour chirping about familiar people and places in Walterboro and Edisto.

Of the 400 strangers who came from all over the country for the conference, how did I end up at an 8-seat table with someone writing a novel set in Colleton County? I don’t think it was just a coincidence. 

The novel Lindsey was working on was inspired by her own family vacations to Edisto Beach. Lindsey’s mother once lived in Walterboro, as did her maternal grandparents. As a child, Lindsey made trips to Walterboro and Edisto for family visits. She drew from her own personal experience as she created this beautiful work of fiction.

Lindsey’s novel, Still Waters, was published and released on September 8 this year. Chapter 1 of the book begins with repercussions from Hurricane Katrina thwarting life plans of one of the main characters, Cora Anne. The storm threw her life off course and she ended up at Edisto with her grandmother for the summer.

The crushing memory of a tragic childhood event kept Cora Anne from being at peace with her family and at Edisto. The memory of that event also included a white capped ocean and dark skies. That storm, too, altered the direction of Cora Anne’s life long before the winds and waves of Hurricane Katrina ever stirred.

So, how does a book that seems to have somewhat of a storm theme end up with a title like Still Waters? The book cover hints at it with a depiction of the sentinel tree at Botany Bay. Weathering storms often takes its toll, but what’s left standing in the aftermath is the calm, still water that brings the peace of being able to claim survival.

The day that Still Waters released, Lindsey was busy doing all the promotional things authors do on release day. That same day, Colleton County began preparing for Hurricane Irma. Irma’s path changed several times before Edisto Beach took on the high tidal surge a couple of days later. Edisto weathered the storm, but the Botany Bay sentinel tree became a casualty claimed by Irma. The landscape there was changed forever.

Was it a coincidence that a fictional book about facing the storms in life was released within days of an actual storm hitting the very setting of the novel? I don’t think so, and here’s why:  “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16-17.

These things that some people might attribute to coincidence, I tend to see as confirmation that the Creator of human life holds us close. He knows every detail. He puts people in my path that have a story I need to hear. He allows storms in my life so that the clutter and dead wood will be washed away. He never lets go even when there’s nothing else left.

Lindsey said it so eloquently, “And this is why I write. Because no matter how the storms change us, when I tell a story, I can remember how things were and they can live again. It's in the looking back we find the lessons for moving forward.”

The God who was, and is, and is to come, holds us together through it all. 

The was originally posted by The Press and Standard October 22, 2017

Still Waters - An Edisto Story

It was in the 1940s when young Alice Rayle made a wrong turn and ended up lost on the back roads of Colleton County. She eventually saw a stranger and stopped to ask for directions back to Walterboro. That stranger who knew the way home was Travis Malcolm Beeson. The intersection of those two lives put them on the same path, headed in the same direction, for the rest of their lives.

They married and raised three children; Lynne, Gayle, and Travis Jr. Alice was a Colleton County Extension Agent and eventually a teacher. Travis Malcolm, known by his friends and family as Tom, was a World War II and Korean War veteran and a forester with the South Carolina Forestry Commission. Together they worked hard on their tobacco farm. Every August when the tobacco harvest was complete, the family would head to Edisto Beach to rest and revel in the undulation of the seasons and the tides.

Alice’s wrong turn and the wave of lives that flowed from it are the inspiration for Still Waters, a contemporary southern novel written by her granddaughter, Lindsey P. Brackett. Still Waters released September 8, 2017 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas.

Still Waters is Lindsey’s debut novel. She first started to cultivate the storyline over ten years ago. She began to jot down ideas and make mental notes. Even as marriage, children, work, and life required more of her time and attention, she still held to the hope that the book would one day become a published reality. Her motivation came from unexpected places like reading Twilight books with seventh students. She also had a beloved family member who frequently asked her, “Have you written that book yet?”  That family member died before the book was finished and became an impetus for Lindsey to see it through to completion.

Alice Rayle Beeson died unexpectedly when Lindsey was just ten years old. Lindsey explains, “Much of the story of Still Waters was motivated by the ‘what if she’d lived’ scenario. What would she have been like for me to experience as an adult?”

That what-if idea became the fictional grandmother character, Nan, in Still Waters. The story centers on Nan’s granddaughter, Cora Anne, a recent college graduate wrestling with having her own life plans waylaid and facing the seemingly undesirable, albeit temporary, path her family persuades her to follow. Cora Anne resists because of a tragic memory and years of subsequent guilt. Tennessee Watson, Cora Anne’s childhood friend, and Nan both want to help Cora Anne move beyond it, letting go of the guilt and preserving the love that has always been there.

The most significant character in Still Waters is not a person, but a place— Edisto Beach.

Lindsey, who has cherished childhood memories of summer days on Edisto Beach with her grandmother, says, “Edisto for me is such a place of restoration. I always feel kind of revived in my soul after I’ve been there because I truly make a conscious decision to set everything else aside. What keeps Edisto this way is the people who love it.”

From the very first thought of writing a novel, Lindsey knew it would be set at Edisto. That sense of restoration from Edisto is what helped develop the characters and the story. Lindsey said, “I knew I wanted Edisto to be what heals Cora Anne, not because she fell in love.”

Lindsey is an award-winning writer and is currently a general editor with Firefly Southern Fiction, an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She has published articles and short stories in several print and online publications including Thriving Family, Country Extra, HomeLife, Northeast Georgia Living, Splickety Magazine, Spark Magazine, and Southern Writers Magazine. She also writes a column for several North Georgia newspapers, where she and her family live. She blogs at lindseybrackett.com.  Still Waters has been endorsed by Hope C. Clark, author of The Edisto Island Mysteries.

Lindsey will be in Walterboro Thursday, October 19, 6 – 8 PM, at the Colleton County Memorial Library. She will be available to sign books and talk about her Colleton County family history. The event is free and open to the public.  She will have copies of Still Waters available for a $15 purchase.

Lindsey is also scheduled for book signing at the Edisto Island Bookstore Saturday, October 21, 3 – 5 PM. This is also a free event and open to the public.

A portion of the proceeds from Still Waters book sales in the month of October will be donated to relief for recent hurricane victims.

This was originally posted on The Press and Standard website Oct. 14, 2017