This book was never really meant to happen. I was writing a book about Jesus forgiving Peter when my editor said something I took the wrong way. “You should make this a kids’ book,” she told me. I assumed she meant it wasn’t very good. Or that my writing was missing the mark, or at least the target audience.
“No,” she told me. “You should make a children’s book version of it.” The adult vesion is Sunny Side Up: The Breakfast Conversation That Could Change Your Life. It was a joy to write. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the New Testament. But not a lot of people have read it. My book that is. It could have been called “The Breakfast Conversation Most Readers Decided to Skip.”
I’m only half-joking. I write this through the veiled tears of a disapointed author.
The children’s version of the story is The Friend Who Forgives. It came out shortly after the grown up version. It’s progress has been a bit different. The book that wasn’t supposed to happen has now sold well over 100,000 copies and is in over 30 different languages. It’s one of the great joys of my life to regularly hear from parents who have used this book to share about the forgivness of Christ with their children.
God knows how to humble us. And how to surprise us. He certainly knows how to forive us. I’m grateful for that.
He forgave Peter. He’s forgiven me . . . again, and again, and again. And he offers the same to you. He’s the friend who forgives.
Check out my new podcast Why I’m Not, a journey of verbal processing and theological reflection upon my experience in and through Christian fundamentalism.