A devotional contributor to Open Windows,
Portals of Prayer, and Guideposts, author Heather Kaufman believes each of our stories is a part of
the larger, beautiful story that God is telling, and she strives to highlight
the goodness of God through her own storytelling.
Making her Bethany House publishing debut with Up
from Dust, Kaufman reimagines the story of Martha of Bethany in the launch
of her new Women of the Way series.
In each installment, Kaufman highlights a different influential woman of the
Bible and the Savior who pinpointed their pain, met them in the middle of their
mess, and lifted them up. Perfect for fans of Angela Hunt, Jill Eileen Smith,
and the TV series The Chosen, readers of Up from Dust will
experience for themselves the life-changing power of a true encounter with
Jesus of Nazareth.
About the story: Martha of Bethany is a woman
of dust, undone and unseen in her hurt and her loss—until everything changes in
the presence of Jesus of Nazareth.
Martha of Bethany
is no stranger to adversity. After her mother’s untimely death, Martha
shoulders the responsibility of raising her siblings—quiet and studious
Lazarus, and wild and rambunctious Mary. She finds solace in friendship and the
beginnings of first love, but just as Martha begins to imagine a new future,
hardship strikes again, and her dreams crumble into dust.
Ten years later,
Martha’s friend pleads for the new teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, to come and heal
her husband. When Martha discovers that the carpenter-rabbi is connected to her
past, she’s not sure she can trust him with her future. But as he continues to
perform miracles, the invitation to believe becomes harder to resist, renewing
Martha’s hardened heart, even as she faces an unknown future.
Welcome to my blog, Heather. Up from Dust is the first novel in your new series, Women of the Way. Can you please tell us
a little bit about this book and the connecting element between the other
installments? Up from Dust presents a fictional backstory of Martha of Bethany, the sister of
Lazarus and Mary. The story traces all the “many things” that worried and
troubled Martha’s heart and the Christ who pinpointed her pain, met her in the
midst of it, and lifted her up. We watch Martha come of age as she works
through her mother’s death and the heavy responsibility of raising her
siblings. We journey with Martha as she experiences first love and learns to
shoulder the mantle of womanhood, even while coping with a father who is stuck
in his loss. When grief comes to Martha’s own heart, she is presented with a
choice. Will she cling to her hurt more than to Adonai, the way her father has
done? Or is there a better way forward?
Each book in the series focuses on a female
follower of Christ, presenting a “before” picture so that when the book touches
upon events in Scripture, we feel like we know these women and
understand their choices and reactions in a fresh way. In our familiarity with
certain Bible stories, we can gloss over names like Martha’s. I’ve begun to
linger, to let myself wonder what their lives were like and what they might
have felt when experiencing the power of Jesus Christ. These people didn’t
encounter Christ in a vacuum. They were living full, complicated, nuanced lives
. . . and then Christ came, gloriously breaking into their mundane and
compelling them to respond.
Can you share with us why the book is named Up
from Dust? What significance does this have to the story? Dust represents the bookends of life—both humanity’s humble origin
and destination. In the Bible, dust is an image of death and the grave, as well
as humanity’s own frailty. Throwing dust on the head was an image of deep
mourning, and sitting in the dust was a sign of affliction. In the book, Martha
experiences soul-crushing sorrow that brings her “down to the dust” (Ps 44:25).
She needs a Savior who understands her and who doesn’t hold her humanity
against her. She needs the mercy of God to find her and raise her up from dust
(Ps 113:7). This is the trajectory of our new life in Christ! Dust is no longer
our inevitable destination. Spiritual, physical, and emotional graves can no
longer contain the life that is transformed by Jesus. He is the firstfruits,
and He continues to come to people of dust, generously lifting them up to new
life.
Why focus solely on biblical women as your
protagonists? What role did they play in the Bible’s greater redemption story? If there was anyone who understood the worth of women, it was the Son
of God, the Word of God who fashioned her being! When Jesus walked onto the
scene, the Jewish people had been sitting beneath several centuries of teaching
from the influential Rabbi Ben Sira—teaching that greatly devalued women. In
Christ’s interactions with women, He affirmed their equal worth, value, and
dignity over and over again. He welcomed them as His disciples, included them
in His teachings, and benefited from their service. When we see Christ in His
cultural context, His tremendous heart toward women comes clearly into focus as
He lifts them up, restoring the dignity that was theirs from the very
beginning. From Eve’s faith in the seed that would crush the serpent, to
Hannah’s song that prophesized a coming King, to Mary’s Magnificat, the Bible
is full of faith-filled women—spiritual mothers whose stories are worth telling
again and again. Like man, woman is made in the image of her God, and she was
made to reflect His glory. By focusing on female followers of Christ, I hope to
highlight His extraordinary heart for women and how God has always delighted in
using both men and women to further His kingdom.
What do you hope to portray to readers
through these books? You are seen, known, and valued by God, and
you have an important part to play in His kingdom work! God put His feet on the
ground in the person of Christ and empowered ordinary people of dust to walk in
His footsteps. He did it then, and He continues to empower His people to do
extraordinary things today. Will we shrink back in fear or push forward in
trust? Will we cling to old patterns of thought and ways of being or fully
embrace the new life He offers? He is worthy of our trust and our best, and He continues
to come to His children, meeting us in all our frailty and weakness with all of
His sympathy, power, and strength.
How does Martha’s story mirror our own
stories today? As hard as it was to write, I wanted to
depict Martha learning to live in the tension between God’s goodness and the
incredibly hard circumstances He allowed into her life. She doesn’t receive
concrete answers about certain things that happen to her, and this was an
intentional choice on my part. Certainly, Martha experiences personal growth
and can trace God’s goodness and faithfulness, but she really doesn’t receive
an answer to her burning question: “Why?” And I think most Christians, if
they’re honest, live in this tension too. We sing songs on Sunday affirming
God’s goodness and then we go back to lives that sometimes don’t feel so good.
There’s that one tender spot that makes no sense. And I think we can feel this
pressure to put on a happy face that looks like a trusting face. Almost like we
want to “protect” God’s image by downplaying our own pain. So, we slap Romans 8:28
on our wounds and paste on a smile.
But God is not honored by our denial. God is
honored when we come—like Martha—barreling down the hillside, overflowing with
all our pain, pouring it out at His feet. Christ doesn’t want a “good Christian
version” of us—something that looks spiritual on the outside. He wants us.
And maybe He won’t give us what we think we need. We may never know why certain
things happen. But He will give us Himself. Faith involves accepting the
tension between our sovereign God’s goodness and our deep pain. It’s choosing
to believe God despite feelings and circumstances. Until we can stand on the hillside
with Martha, surrendering our understanding, our right to know why, as we cling
to who He is.
What other themes present themselves throughout
the novel? Family dynamics figure prominently in this
book. Martha, Lazarus, and Mary both rely upon and frustrate one another, and
each has their own unique experience with their father. It can be tempting to
filter our family members’ actions through our own personal frustrations with
them rather than slowing down to truly see those closest to us.
Female friendship is another strong theme
throughout the book. Martha and Gilah’s friendship is “forged in the fires of
loss and need, fertile ground that had given [their] relationship deep roots.”
But as each woman’s story unfolds in different directions, the friendship
unravels and is only put back together as each is humbled in her own way.
The book presents varying responses to pain
and disappointment as dreams become shattered like shards of broken pottery. One
response sees love as a thief, and pain as something to cling to out of
self-preservation. The other response sees love as a gift, and pain as a
catalyst driving us closer to God. The question remains: Will we cling to our
hurt more than to Adonai?
Worry and fear are presented as bundled up
tightly in the human heart. The disruption of God’s winnowing fork is needed to
fling high all the chaff and leave behind that one necessary thing—closer
communion with Christ.
This biblical fiction story is your first
published novel in the genre. As a newcomer to the genre, how did you approach
writing this kind of story? With much
fear and trembling and prayer! I’m grateful for faithful commentaries and the
mounds of scholarship that exists on Jesus’ cultural setting. I began—quite
simply—with the Bible. I read and reread the book of John, taking the time to
consult commentaries along the way. Then I moved to a bird’s-eye view of the
cultural setting, getting a feel for what everyday life was like at the time.
With the broad strokes in place, I was able to begin writing and, as I wrote,
fill in the many gaps in my understanding. This was where the “nitty-gritty”
research came into play. I began wide and telescoped inward, all while keeping
in focus a heart of worship. Any head knowledge I ever acquire about the Bible
should compel me to worship. And then it’s from that place of personal love for
my Savior that I write. During the process, I was keenly aware that I was
touching upon sacred things. Martha is my sister in Christ, and she is alive
with Him at this very moment. Even though this book is ultimately a piece of
fiction, the seriousness and weightiness of the topic was never lost on me,
which is why I kept running back to God in prayer!
What do you hope readers will take away from
this story? My heart behind this story is for readers to
fall in love with the Word and the One the Word points to—Jesus Christ. I pray
that readers will throw down my book and pick up their Bibles with renewed
passion. The God of the Bible is the same God today, and He loves His kids with
the gut-level love of a parent. We can give ourselves over to that love
even—and perhaps especially—when we don’t understand His ways. I hope Martha’s
story encourages readers to reframe their wounds, to see their pain points as
access points for God’s strength. There are many things that can bring us “down
to the dust,” that make us keenly aware of our own need. We all have heaviness
that we carry, burdens we bear in silence, and we feel our own “dustiness” deep
in our bones. I pray this story helps us all believe that God is good not if
or when but now, right here in the heaviness of our hurt, and
that we will not be disappointed when we expect Him to be faithful.
What
can readers look forward to in Book 2 of the series? The scope of Book
2 is sweeping, and the research took me in surprising directions! I won’t give
away who the main character is, but let’s just say it’s a lady who doesn’t
receive nearly as much attention as she deserves. Book 1 took us to the
country. Book 2 whisks us into the city. Get ready for political intrigue,
family secrets, a marriage of convenience that blossoms into more, and many
grand-scale moments where the heroine must choose between safety and bold
faith.
Finally,
how can readers connect with you? My website (hmkstories.com) is the best
way to find me! Once there, readers can fill out my contact form to message me
directly and sign up for my Stories and Sundries MiniMag—a monthly-ish
newsletter full of book recs, product recs, giveaways, and more! I’m also
across socials with the handle @hmkstories. I love connecting with readers . .
. because I’m a reader myself, and I’ll gladly “talk shop” any day!
Thank
you, Heather, for sharing Up from
Dust on my blog. The idea for the story intrigued
me. I know my blog readers will want to read it.
Readers, here’s a
link to the book.
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