Editing has an up side

I completed my first edit of the manuscript for "Sowing Freedom, Reaping Joy".  Editing is hard and tedious, but I found a couple of passages while editing that I really am proud of.

Here is one of them:

Jean-Luc leaned forward.  “How do you do it? How do you keep such a deep and abiding faith

in a God that allowed you to be enslaved?  I question Him sometimes, and I am ridiculously
blessed.”

Roby reached out and took Margaret’s hand as he responded.  “God never said it would be
easy, just that He would hear us when we cry out to Him.   Jesus taught us that we would
all have a cross to bear. My cross has been slavery, and that has been a heavy cross.  
I have lived with the weight of slavery my entire life. I have woken up every morning, and
gone to sleep each night knowing that I could be sold away from my family, or my family
sold away from me.  I have never forgotten how it felt when Mr. Ronan purchased my
mother and me away from our family in Virginia. But in spite of that heavy burden,
there have been many blessings. I have a beautiful wife and children.  All of our children
are living, not a single child lost to accident or disease. Mr. Ronan was a benevolent

owner, and Cormac and Maeve O’Malley the same. Seamus and Eileen are family.
So while the Good Lord gave me a heavy cross, he gave me more blessings.  And now,
the greatest blessing of all is within sight. It is easy to stay faithful to God. He didn’t
make me a slave. He gave man free will, and some use that will in ways that turn away
from God. Just because there is evil in the world it doesn’t change the fact that God is good.”