The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the profound personal journey of Jennifer Godwin, author of "Go Make Ripples," which encapsulates her spiritual odyssey and the significance of sharing faith through everyday actions. Jennifer elucidates the essence of her book as an honest portrayal of her experiences in discovering Jesus and emphasizes the importance of communal encouragement in overcoming self-doubt during the writing process. Throughout the discourse, we explore the transformative power of perseverance and obedience to God, as well as the ripple effects that one individual's journey can have on a broader community. The episode also highlights the accessibility of her book, inviting listeners to engage with her narrative as a means of inspiration. Ultimately, Jennifer's reflections serve as a clarion call for others to embark on their own journeys of faith and to share their stories with authenticity and courage. The discussion centers around Jennifer Godwin's book, "Go Make Ripples," which chronicles her spiritual journey and the transformative power of faith in everyday life. Godwin articulates her quest for understanding Jesus and how she learned to share this faith through simple actions and authentic conversations. The narrative unfolds her personal experiences, beginning from her childhood curiosity about the juxtaposition of traditional Christmas figures against the backdrop of spiritual teachings. She emphasizes the importance of community support and encouragement in overcoming self-doubt, particularly during the arduous process of writing her book. Godwin's reflections reveal a deeply personal journey, marked not only by moments of vulnerability but also by the profound realization of how personal stories can inspire others and create a ripple effect in their lives. She shares insights on perseverance, highlighting how faith can guide individuals through challenging times, ultimately illuminating the path for others to follow. Furthermore, the episode delves into the significance of obedience to God and how such obedience can lead to unexpected blessings and opportunities for growth, both personally and within the community.

Takeaways:

• The podcast episode features an author, Jennifer Godwin, discussing her book 'Go Make Ripples' which chronicles her spiritual journey and the significance of sharing one's faith with others.
• Jennifer emphasizes that her writing process was inspired by God, and that the act of writing was not initially a desire of hers, but rather a calling she felt compelled to answer.
• The author reflects on the challenges she faced during the writing process, including doubts about her abilities and the fear of judgment from potential readers, which she ultimately overcame with encouragement from her community.
• Listeners are encouraged to understand that sharing one's faith can be done in simple, everyday actions rather than grand speeches, making the message accessible to all.
• The importance of perseverance is a recurring theme in Jennifer's narrative, as she shares how maintaining faith in God helped her to continue writing despite numerous obstacles.
• Finally, the episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to support the author by purchasing her book and leaving reviews, thereby fostering a community of encouragement for aspiring writers.

Links referenced in this episode:

• ecocoolhvac.com
• gomakeriples.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Eco-Cool HVAC
• Amazon
• Culver's
• Go Make Ripples

Before we begin today's pitch, I want to thank Eco-Cool HVAC for sponsoring this episode. Eco-Cool is a local company that believes in doing the job right and treating customers with respect.

Whether you need routine maintenance, a repair, or a full system replacement, their team provides a reliable service that keeps your home comfortable year round.

To learn more or schedule a Visit, go to ecocoolhvac.com welcome to the author pitch, where writers from around the world deliver a powerful pitch for their book and read a short excerpt in their own voice. I'm your host, Rich Bennett, and today's guest is Jennifer Godwin, author of Go Make Ripples.

You have two minutes to convince someone searching for their next great read that this book belongs on their shelf. What do they need to know?

Okay. Well, my book is about my spiritual journey, finding Jesus, and is sharing how to and is sharing him with others.

It's how people share Jesus with me and how we can share him with others. Just an easy everyday activities, actions, and conversations. And it's written for anyone who loves an honest life journey. It's raw. It's honest.

You know, someone once told me that it's almost a book for how to find Jesus for dummies. Now, it's not quite that raw. It's not quite that dumbed down. But you've got to understand, I had to do my own search.

And my search began when I was about seven years old.

Okay.

And so my search began with trying to figure out how the Little Drummer Boy and Santa Claus went together.

So interesting.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so why it matters. It matters because this world is hard and we all need help. And. And that's what Jesus is to me. He's my help.

And it's unique because it's my journey. And nobody else has this? No. No person in this world has the same journey.

True, True. All right, so let's hear the excerpt you were actually brought for us today.

All right. Well, I started to have doubts about this book again. Satan kept tormenting me. All this work, who's going to read it?

People are going to judge you for what you say. Nobody wants to read about your personal life. These and so many more thoughts kept going through my mind all fall long. And I stopped writing again.

I didn't have a deadline, and I began to believe that what I had written was boring and nobody would want to read it. This is where telling people what you're doing comes into play. I had people praying for me to get it finished.

All of a sudden, several people Asked me how things were going and. And I had to tell them that I had stopped writing and how I was feeling about it.

When they heard that I had stopped writing, God used those people to encourage me. They said things like, you can't let this attack from Satan stop you. And that's all this is. You know, it's an attack.

Satan is afraid that you have something to say and people need to hear it. They also told me that they did want to read what I had to say. Even my son said, mom, you've done so much work, you have to finish it now.

This is why it's good to let other people know what God is doing in your life. God will use them to encourage you to keep going. I stepped away for a while to get some perspective. And then out of nowhere, I received an email.

I had never signed up for any publisher, but I must have searched about writing. Even though the letter was signed by someone other than God, I really believed God sent it to me.

It was just what I needed to give me that extra push to get done. That may be an understatement.

The letter started with my name and talked about never underestimating being obedient to God and the ripple effect it has to influence many people. It then went on to tell me how my life would be changed in the process, which I did see many changes in myself during the writing process.

I told you at the beginning of the book I would need perseverance. I truly needed it. During the editing process, I fought some of the suggestions at first, and then I chose to see them as a learning experience.

I learned better ways to communicate my opinions and to soften my approach. During the editing process, I was required to take out the original letter due to the copyright laws and paraphrased it instead.

Which you are now reading now. Then it went on to tell the effects it would have on on family members.

I have not seen many of those effects yet since my immediate family gave up reading my manuscript because of how many times it had been edited. But those that did read the unedited version, they were able to read more of my raw feelings and many more stories that have been cut.

It also talked about the impact on future generations of my family. I will save a few copies of the original manuscript for my grandchildren to read the unedited version of me and to see how much editing I required.

I also said at the beginning that I was not a writer. The manuscript might prove my point.

Then it talked about how after you accomplish your goal of writing a book, it will inspire others to achieve their goals in life too. How bravery is contagious. I found that to be one of the things that so many people would say to me during the writing process.

People would tell me how impressed they were that I'd set out to reach my goal, which I did have to correct several people as to wasn't my goal, but was an obedience to God. Even so, they were fascinated.

In the process of starting such a large project without being a dream of mine, I was able to share how God kept me persistent on this and other adventures we had been on together. How being obedient has made me stronger, more a faithful follower of him.

At the conclusion of the letter, it spoke of people whom I would minister to, those that I know, and the people around my circle of influence. One of the people that edited my book was my friend's sister from Arizona, Jill.

I chose her to read it since she had never met me, to give me a feeling of how she would relate to its style. Even before it was published, it was read in Arizona and it was also sent out of the country to my daughters in laws in Norway.

Both of these experiences made me ponder how far this book could reach, not for myself, but if even one of the ripples that I mentioned starts in another neighborhood, how far that next ripple could go. It was fun. It was a fun little daydream. Thinking of someone in Europe was sidewalk chalked writing Jesus loves you on their sidewalk.

You never know what that message could do to someone's heart. Okay, that's the long version of what the letter said. I had my husband and a friend read it. They both told me that I needed to get busy again.

I can honestly say that the words in the email were all the same reasons that I had thought about over the three years it took to write this book, but had never put into writing. I love how God can inspire you in the most random ways and give you the words that you have been searching for to inspire others.

Wow, that was good. That was good.

And I'm glad you finished that way too, because one of the first questions I was going to ask you was how long it took you to write the book.

Three years.

Three years.

But that's because I was not a writer. I never desired to write a book.

Right?

And nobody was waiting for it. So I could stop and start whenever I wanted to. You know, to pick it back up.

Tell everybody why you choose that particular excerpt.

Because I wanted it to encourage people to do hard stuff. And let me tell you, writing a book to me was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was. It was hard. It took perseverance. You had to keep going. It.

It just was hard.

What actually sparked the book for you? Why did you. Why did you decide to write this?

I didn't decide to write this. God decided. God decided I needed to write this. Twenty years ago, he gave me a dream, and he said that I would write a book.

And I thought, that's kind of weird, But I told my really educated friend, who. I mean, she just loved to keep going to college. I told her that I was. God told me I was gonna write a book.

And she was like, but you've never been to college. You don't write. You. You know, she. She sent me. She. Yeah, real nice friend, but she was a good friend, but she was just being honest. She.

She was just basically telling me, you're not a writer.

And then she asked me what the book would be about, and I said, well, he didn't give me all that information, but I think maybe it'll be short stories. And she said, I don't think a book like that would work. And then guess what book came out after that? Chicken Noodle Soup for the Souls, I think.

Oh, wow.

Short stories seem to work for books, don't they?

Yeah, that's a big series.

Yeah, that was an explanation point on. On how wrong she was about that one.

Wow. All right, so after readers finish reading this, what do you hope that they get out of it?

I hope they're entertained, encouraged, inspired.

Because, like I said, it's my journey of faith and the mistakes that I made along the way, the ways I learned to grow, and it's just ways to have others be able to share Jesus in every everyday ways. I mean, you don't have to give a speech to somebody. You just got to show them how. How. How he inspires you in your life, in your everyday walk.

I mean, it was like sending me that letter. Everybody could say it wasn't a coincidence, but no, it. That letter was sent at that exact moment for me. He knew what I needed to hear.

And so that's what I. That's what I want people to understand. That, you know, God. God is so much more than what people think he is because he has such a sense of humor. He.

You know, he's so funny, and he can push you out of your comfort zone. You know, like I said, writing a book, never in a million years did I think I'd do that.

All right, so, Jennifer, here's a hard question for You. Since that's the only book you've written, what's next for you as an author?

Well, my book. I really wanted my book to inspire others, to share Jesus with others. You know, just an easy, everyday ways.

You know, just sharing a Christian book, sharing a Christian podcast, just easy ways. But as I started asking my readers how.

What they started doing to share Jesus with others, that all throughout the book, I'm one of those people that I like to remind people, use your note cards. Use your note cards. I. I wrote it throughout the whole entire book. Have you been using your note cards? Guess what? Nobody used the note cards.

So now I'm writing a book just about the ripples. Because everybody's like, well, I got too caught up in the stories that I didn't. I didn't use the note cards. And I'm like, okay, let's do that.

Let's do the note card version. So now I'm. I'm working on just. Just the ripple part without so many of the stories.

Now, I did have to put some stories in, but it's more about just how to make ripples.

So, like a guidebook in a way.

Yes, it is a guidebook. Yes. Yep.

I love that. Yeah, I love that idea. All right, so where can. Where can people actually purchase the book and follow you?

You can get it on Amazon, and if you're a digital reader, it's only a dollar 99. If you get it, paperbacks, 15. And let me tell you, I tell everybody, it's cheaper than a Culver's Meal. Go to Culver's.

It's cheaper than a Culver's meal. $15. It's outrageous how. How expensive food is now. And you can go on gomakerples.com and you can. You can find me there.

And also follow her on Amazon because when she releases the new book about ripples, you'll be notified right away. And the books after that, too. I have a funny feeling there's a lot more books than you.

Hey, at the beginning. At the beginning of my book, I told people, listen, I am not Max Lucado. Do not pray that I will write another book.

And that's how I started my second book. I thought somebody prayed,.

But you never know. I mean, with the guidebooks.

Well, yes, I know you have a lot.

You have a lot to offer. So there's. There's several different guidebooks that you could do.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, I know there is. Jennifer, I want to thank you so much. All of you listening. You know what I'm going to tell you after you purchase her book.

Make sure you leave a full review everywhere you can.

Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, wherever you can leave reviews and share the book with somebody else and then purchase another copy for yourself. Thanks for listening. Oh, go ahead.

Can I add one more thing?

Sure.

And put a review on Facebook. You know, hold up the put a picture on the COVID on Facebook and say, I read this book. I really like it. And this is why I like it.

If you put a review even with your friends, it helps others to find book because they're I hate to say this on an author page, but there are a lot of books that you just wouldn't recommend. And if a friend recommends a book, you're more likely to read it.

Now I was going to say, do you have a page on Facebook where they can tag you or is it just a personal profile?

It's both Ripples for God is my the page. And then yeah, you can get on. Jennifer Godwin I kind of gave up on trying to do two. Not a technical, technical kind of person.

So yeah, it's easier to just do it on my own.

Thanks for listening to the author pitch. I'm Rich Bennett, and until next time, keep turning pages and discovering new voices.