Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller

Julianna sat lounging with her back against the stone wall that separated one of the gardens and the small lake that bled into the forest beyond the palace. The pages of the leatherbound book she held in her lap fluttered in the gentle spring breeze. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes as she drank in the familiar sweet scent of lilacs and hydrangea bushes mixed with a whisper of baby’s breath underneath. She smiled as that flowery smell wrapped around her and enveloped her in a spring hug of warmth and memories. Julianna’s smile faded as the fragrant scent of roses tickled her nose, causing her to think about how much she missed her brother Gabriel, yet again. 

Spring is the season of new life. Seeds that were planted before winter hardened the ground have been soaking up the water from the winter snow and are being called forth by the warmth of the sun. They push through the dirt that is starting to soften and peak through the tough earth they worked so hard to get through so they might live. Animals come out of their hibernation and begin to roam the earth again. Life is reawakened and everything is new.

For believers, spring is a time to celebrate not just the new life that comes from the nature around us, but the time we celebrate our Saviors death and resurrection on the cross. In a reflection of winter, it is through Christ’s willing death that we are no longer slaves to sin and death. And just as things spring to life in the spring, Christ rose from the dead after being buried in the ground for three days, conquering death and darkness for good, and giving us the beautiful redemption of new life.

In my second Solstice Chronicle, Beauty Redeemed, you will enter the Spring realm. Since the Spring realm is a reflection of the spring season, it is full of color and flowers and new life. Because of the new life that it brings to the realms, the Spring realm has a high standard to live up to and it is the light from the sun that brings the things that had died or gone to sleep during winter back to life. The king of the realm has been gifted sun magic to help things grow and thrive in the realm. The queen and crown prince have been gifted magic to create and connect to the plants and flowers of the realm and are very connected to nature in their magic. And, Princess Julianna has been trained to use her magic to help change the animals from winter to spring and spring to summer, but unbeknownst to her or her family, she has a deeper magic within that is greater than anything they can imagine.

As the realm of new life and having such close connections to the Great Mage (my God character) and his Son (my Christ character), they have become known as the realm of Light. The ruling kingdom, Genesia (taking from the word Genesis which means beginnings) is known as the kingdom of Light. Seeing such a beautiful kingdom and realm so closely connected to the light, you would think the kingdom would be perfect and the essence and epitome of what the other realms are meant to look up to. But, like all things in our fallen world, they are not without their brushes with darkness. Hidden pockets of darkness fill the realm and distort its perfect beauty and light. Residents and royals alike all have their own connections to darkness. Some fully live in the darkness and ignore the throws of light that surround and fill their kingdom. The royals have each had their own history with darkness and you discover that the Princess Julianna has an unusually strong tie to darkness. The Dark Lord, Luscian, desires most to see this kingdom and realm fall because it is such a reflection of the Mage’s Light and Beauty and works overtime to bring this realm to its knees and force it to succumb to his darkness.

The Spring realm was designed to be like the church and the body of believers. Where the Winter realm was designed to reflect those who had previous knowledge of God but had forgotten about Him and allowed their lives to become a barren winter land without His presence, the Spring realm is almost the complete opposite. The Spring realm is a reflection of the Church in that, the Church/believers are meant to be the ones in closest interaction with God and Christ, and yet, we all have our own ties to darkness. A lot of times, the Church and believers can come across as righteous and holy, which is what we are supposed to as people who are set apart and in relationship with Christ, but that righteousness can quickly become SELF-righteousness and our attempts at holiness can become condemning piety that looks down on anyone who is not living as righteously as we are. The Pharisees and religious leaders during Jesus’ day were guilty of this very thing. They had become so focused on following the law that they had lost sight of the real message of the law–Love. They put so many rules and restrictions on the people of Israel that they were afraid to sneeze wrong out of fear of breaking some rule and being shunned or condemned. Religious people can be the same today and I see it all the time where the Church or believers take a stance of self-piety and condemnation and we turn people away from Christ and the Church because of how we act and treat others. It is very easy for Christians to get it in their heads that they are better than others. They have certain standards to live up to and are supposed to live life according to God’s laws. We have been chosen, so clearly we are above everyone else and everyone else should live their lives according to us as believers. Unfortunately, more often than not, those people who put themselves in those places of holy piety are deeper in the throws of sin and darkness than those outside of the Christian realm.

In creating the characters and the Spring realm in Beauty Redeemed, I really wanted to show how EVERYONE is a slave to sin and darkness and it is ONLY by the redeeming love of Jesus Christ that anyone can be saved and set free from that world. No one is ever born saved. Everyone is born a sinner and our fallen sin nature is reflected in each human from the earliest ages when are first instincts are to disobey our parents and tell them no. You don’t have to teach a child how to do the wrong. In fact, it is the job of the parent to teach the child the right thing to do because the natural thing is always going to be the wrong thing. And children know when they are doing something wrong just by mere fact of how they act/react when they’re doing something they know deep down they shouldn’t be doing. Our world is fallen and twisted and infiltrated with darkness and everyone is somehow connected to the darkness. Whether our ties to darkness are in the public eye for the world to see or acted out in the privacy of closed doors, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Christ came to this earth to die on the cross BECAUSE everyone is a sinner trapped in a world of darkness and death and that is everyone’s fate–to dwell in eternal death and separation from God. Just because you dwell in the kingdom of light, does not mean that you are void of darkness or incapable of sinning. You have to have that personal relationship with Christ in order to be saved from that darkness. People in the Church can be so judging and so condemning to those around them because they’re “sinners” or “unclean”. Some go out of their way to avoid those people or show them how bad and evil they are and in essence, that tells those people, who are no more a sinner than you or I, that they are so evil, nothing could ever save them. We take away their hope at a future in a kingdom of light and destroy any ounce of choice in their minds that they too have a chance to be a part of the light. It is sad to see such destruction within the very people and places where Christ’s love and light are to be reflected the most. Jesus told those following Him and listening to His teaching to remove the wooden plank from their own eye before removing the speck of dust from someone else’s eye meaning look at your own sin and darkness before judging someone else for theirs. When He knelt and scribbled something in the sand before the woman condemned of adultery and ready to be stoned for her sins, He told her accusers that he who is without sin to cast the first stone. When no one threw a stone, He had made His point in showing that everyone has sin in their lives.

The Church is meant to be a reflection of God’s Love and Light into the world. The Spring realm is meant to do the same in Beauty Redeemed, and I hope as you read this book, you see how not everyone that lives in the kingdom of light is saved. Children and dwellers in the kingdom of light struggle with darkness. It is not something we should be condemning them for or judging them for. Only God in His pure holiness is able to judge men’s hearts. Yes, we correct those living in sin and darkness just as Jesus did, but we don’t do it in such a way that turns them away from God. We lovingly invite them into the kingdom and show them that we too were once trapped in the chains of darkness, and sometimes we still struggle with those things or are drawn back to those things, but it is only by the power of God’s redeeming love that we are able to live in a world outside of that darkness and have a chance at eternal life with God in His kingdom of eternal light.

We are the essence of Christ’s love. Are we be the sweet aroma of Christ’s love that fills the world with the rebirth of Spring? Or are we the putrid smell of death and darkness that bitterly condemns those around us to the same fate that we were so graciously saved from?