NRB 2024 - Love Connects Us All

Once again, God has provided another opportunity today on Truth Talk Live. We have Michelle Medlock-Adams and her book, Love, connects us all. Michelle, how in the world did you end up writing a book? I've been at this a while. I've got over 100 books. Most of those are for children, about two-thirds of them.

But this is my latest one with Ren and Bear Books, which is a division of in-game press. I'll tell you, I was at one of the schools, I do a lot of school presentations, talking about my Christmas book called Docks in Through the Snow. There's this little element of bullying in it. I always ask the kids, have any of you ever been bullied?

Unfortunately, almost every hand goes up these days. Afterwards, after the presentation, one of the little girls came up and she said, Ms. Michelle, I was bullied so bad. I said, oh honey, tell me what happened. She said, well, I only have a mom, I don't have a dad, and the kids make fun of me. I pulled her close and I said, but your Heavenly Father loves you so much. Even though I was in public school, I thought, well, maybe they won't kick me out.

They didn't. So I got to pray with her. But as I was loading up my books and going back to the car, I really felt like I needed to write a book for that little girl and all the little girls and boys like her, who maybe have a family that doesn't look like everybody else's. Or maybe grandparents are raising the kids, or maybe it's a foster-to-adopt situation, or maybe a child was adopted from far away.

Maybe parents are divorced, so you live with one parent or the other. All families are important to God. So that's what the message of this picture book is.

It's called Love Connects Us All, and that's one of the lines in the book. So when you say you've done how many books? Over a hundred.

A hundred and twenty-three, actually. Wow. That's prolific.

Yeah. Some of them don't take so long to write because they're children's books. But yeah, I've been at it a long time. I was a journalism graduate from Indiana University. Started off as a sportswriter, believe it or not, and ended up in children's. So you just never know what the career's going to take you, where God's going to open.

And so, for so many people, they're out there writing books, they can't find a publisher, and then they self-publish, and then they don't get much. And then that's a tough road to hoe. What do you feel like made the difference in your story? It was all God. Everything that has happened good in my career is all then Him.

I think you do everything you know how to do in the natural. I went to lots of writers' conferences and learned how to do proposals, and met some editors and publishers where you get like fifteen minutes to talk about your project. I did all of that, but then God just took it from there.

He just opened the doors. I never thought I'd be a children's book writer. I was a sportswriter, and I loved that. I did a lot of ghostwriting for people, a lot of different celebrities. I would write their books for them. Of course, you wouldn't know that because my name's not on the cover, but I did that for a while and I enjoyed it. But the children's thing, I'm so in love with this. I'm so thankful I get to do this and speak with these little kids, and let them know just important messages about love, and that God thinks that they're important, and that He makes a way for them. Most of my books are Christian-based.

Some of them are general markets, so I can get into the schools, the public schools, but most of them are Christian-based. You got this idea from the little girl, and you began to write the story. Is that something that you then had to take to your publisher and they had to prove it?

I did. I actually did a proposal for it with all my marketing, and my numbers of my social media, and all the things that you know to put in there, with the manuscript, and then I started shopping it. If you don't have an agent, you have to shop it yourself. I did have an agent at the time. We sent it to several publishing houses, and then In Game Press, which is actually run by a friend of mine, that's the one I settled on.

I had an offer from a different company, but I wanted to go with her. Then my imprint, I have a children's book imprint now with In Game Press called Ren and Bear Books. The very first book we did was called I Made the Earth by a girl named Shannon Cook, but the second one was my book, Love Connects Us All. We're here at the show. We're very excited about our children's books because they're reaching the heart of people.

I was at a children's pastors conference last month, and there was an adult reading this book. I noticed she had tears in her eyes, and I kind of just was watching. Then she said, Are you the author?

I said, I am. She said, Thank you. I feel seen.

She said, For the first time, I feel seen. She told me a whole story of growing up in foster care. I thought, If I just wrote it for the little girl at the school and this woman, it would have been enough for me. When it comes to children's books, obviously there's one aspect of writing the story, which I love. What is a family?

There we go. There's an illustration of a mom and a dad, little boys on his shoulders. How do you get an illustrator?

That is a big question I get asked a lot. Don't ever try to illustrate a book if you're not an artist. That is a big no-no.

My stick people aren't very good, so I'm glad I didn't try that. What companies do is they usually work with agencies. One of the best is called the Bright Agency. That's where this particular illustrator came from.

Sandra Aichi does work for a lot of the big houses. The editor will go through and find what will be the very best artist to bring these words to life. What the author can do is have little art notes. In this scene with these words, I picture this happening. The artist doesn't always follow that, but sometimes they come up with something even better.

Sandra was amazing. It's wonderful to work with gifted people. They take things that blow your mind. When you took it on the project, obviously you felt God leading in that direction. But I've noticed when I take on projects, God comes with this big surprise.

I did not see that. He gave me a download. He gave me some understanding I didn't know I didn't have. What was that in this book for you? I think I didn't realize how many people needed this book. It seems like every time you go to a baby shower, I get invited to a lot of those in the women's ministry. There's a lot of those going on. They'll always say, bring a book, not a card.

You're always looking for that perfect book, but so many people have been choosing this because they're like, oh, you don't understand how perfect this is. This baby was just adopted. Or, we've got a blended family. There's lots of steps. We don't call each other step siblings, but there's a lot of that going on. I didn't know that there was such a great need for it. We put a little thing in the back where you can put a family picture.

It's like a little slide that you put in. I love that because it becomes in a keepsake. It says, my family. No matter how God designed your family, even if it doesn't look like everybody else's, there's a line that says, it's my favorite kind. Then the big message is, and this is what God kind of dropped in my heart after all the things that happened with that little girl at the school, was that we're all a part of His family. We're all part of God's family.

That makes it really special. I have a little prayer in there, at the very back, that kids can pray and thank God for their family. It's fascinating to me, when I looked at the title for the first time, I thought, and you may know this, that in the book of Deuteronomy, there's a prayer in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Most people refer to it as Shema. It goes like, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

Have you heard that? It's part of Shema, right? The idea of that oneness is that, in the beginning God created, and you may know that, Elohim is a plural name. So we all are very much connected, as we are all in that. What Jesus said was the number one commandment. Most people would say, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. If you look closely, Jesus says the first commandment, not the most important commandment, but the first commandment is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And He gives that for a reason, because that's the beginning of a prayer that every Jewish person is going to pray the moment they wake up and before they go to bed at night, that they've got to get the sense of, yeah, God does connect us all, but He does it with family. The way He meant it to be, of course, quite often families, we have our struggles or whatever, but He will put fathers in your life though you were fathers.

Just as you said for that little girl, He's going to put a mother in her life because she's motherless, but it's kind of Him that's behind the whole deal. I can see why God's blessed this book, because it's right at the heart of who He is. I love that.

Thank you for saying that. When you do over a hundred books, they always ask, what's your favorite book? It's usually the last one you've written, because your heart's so there, you've been on it for so long. But I have to say, this one's pretty special, and all the books just because of the way it all came about, and because I know when I watch people, like that lady who read it last month and said, thank you for making me feel seen, I know that there's lots more people out there who feel that.

I'm good, but I'm not that good. That all comes from the heart of the Father, so I appreciate and I give Him all the praise for it. It's fun to be used in that way that can touch these little kids' hearts. Actually, the parents who read it to the kids also are getting something from us. Obviously, it's a large investment in time and effort all to come to the NRB. Yes, it is. Knowing you as I have come to know you in the few more minutes I have, it seems like you're pretty led. Why do you think God had you come?

I think it was twofold. Obviously, every business is based on relationships. Even though publishing, we are doing it as ministry, we still have a bottom line.

We have to not be in the red. It's great to make all these different introductions to people who say, gosh, we have an organization where we do lots of foster care. We would love to buy these books to give out to every family. We can make that happen at a discount.

We can do that. I think connections is part of it. I think part of it is there's been all this worship time and sessions you can go to, and it's just nice to take time to just sit in His presence. I think that's the benefit for me. I'm here working and all the connections and all those things are benefits, but just to get to spend time with other believers in the presence of our Ava daddy, that's pretty cool.

I'm taking it all in. So we're probably out of time, but I want to ask this anyway. How would you have our listeners pray for you?

I've never been asked that before. If you would just have them pray for me that I would continue to have discernment in all the projects that are coming my way, God's opening lots of doors, I only want to go through the doors that He has ordained, and that I would continue to hear His voice in the midst of all the other voices His over everybody else's. So again, you're praying for Michelle Medlock-Adams, and what a wonderful thing to pray. In fact, let's pray that right now. Lord, thank you for Michelle. I thank you for the downloads you've given her, and I pray that she would hear your voice more clearly as ever, that you would continue to give her special projects as I just heard this, actually heard today, that God rewards good work with more work. So give her more work, Lord. I see this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much. Wow!

Isn't that fun? Ah! I'm going to pray. Amen.