STORY BEHIND THE COVER OF SHADOWED IN SILK--By Christine Lindsay

Some might say there are disadvantages in being published by a small press. WhiteFire may be small---and I certainly am---but that means we need to lean on God all the more. Because of that, I’ve been astounded by what He’s done. But nothing could have amazed me more than the way the Lord arranged the front cover of my book.

I have to go back 32 years to when I gave birth to a little girl. Not married at the time, I felt God urge me to relinquish her to a Christian couple unable to have children. I named my baby, Sarah, in the hope that one day I would see her again.

Twenty years later Sarah and I were reunited. But though our reunion was a good one, I began to relive my original loss of relinquishing her. My husband encouraged me to work out my emotional pain by writing. A little later the Lord urged me to write out the emotional healing He had given me in fictional stories to help others.

And now my debut novel about the British Raj in India will be released May 1, 2011—a story that has nothing to do with adoption (at least not much).

WhiteFire and I were excited as we discussed the design of the cover. One day I suggested the sari material I had purchased in India on a missions trip. Roseanna and David White loved the idea but said to hold off on mailing the silk across the country as it was pretty heavy with gems and beading.

It was then I noticed that the model they suggested resembled my birthdaughter. On a whim I suggested Sarah for the model, and the publisher agreed. Sarah was shy at first, but she pitched in on this step of faith with me.

WhiteFire wanted 2 costumes—-a western one for 1919 and the sari that my character Abby wears in the novel. A friend loaned me a straw boater hat, and I was sure I had a tan linen skirt up in my closet. But when I went to look . . . it was gone. I’d forgotten that when we moved last year, I’d given the skirt to a charity. On another whim I decided to go to the local second hand store to search for something similar.

As I walked across the parking lot I prayed the Lord would help me find the perfect skirt. I was not 5 minutes in the store, walking down the aisle and I found my very own skirt which I then purchased back for $9.99.

I could go on and on about the details that just seemed to come together---the background photos taken by a friend in India...and so much more. I’d asked the Lord to put His fingerprints all over it, and He did.

It wasn’t until later that I realized—that without my ever planning or imagining it—He had not only inspired me to write because of my sadness over losing my first child to adoption, but He then placed the face of my beautiful muse on the front cover of my book.

Only our Heavenly Father can do something so intricately tender.

We have to remember that we serve a God who delights in working with little people and small things—-a shepherd boy and a few smooth stones. A child with a lunch of fish and bread for one. A babe in a womb that rocks the world.

If you’d like to read more about my journey as an unwed mother, the relinquishment of Sarah, and of our emotionally racking reunion, go to www.christinelindsay.com

And here for the fun of it is the back cover of Sarah as Abby wearing the Sari.


And thank you to George and Ashley Weis of Tekeme Designs for the awesome job of designing this cover.