Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller

Book 2 of my Heart of God series is releasing soon and I’ve been posting some content online about the newest book in this series I started writing several years ago. A post came up recently of when I started working on Heart of God, and it was crazy to look back and remember that the inspiration for this new series came in the midst of finishing my faith-centered fairytale series, The Solstice Chronicles, and I started writing book 1 of this new series while editing book 3 in my fairytale series AND starting to write book 4 in that series (Yes, my imagination gets out of control at time 😀 ). I had planned on book 2 of my Heart of God series releasing a year ago. I had started posting and sharing about the new book and fully expected I would be celebrating the 1 year bookisversary of The Alabaster Jar by this point, but God and life had other plans. A lot of life happened last year— I mean an absurd amount of life– that kept me from even touching my newest book for a majority of the year. I had finished writing the first draft of The Alabaster Jar at the end of 2024 and was getting ready to start the editing process when life decided that wasn’t going to be in the cards for 2025. I honestly had not even read through my first draft or started anything on the editing process and being a self-published author means I pay someone to publish my books–which I completely would do 100 times over for every book as they take care of formatting and distribution and printing and taxes and royalties, etc, so I don’t have to worry about figuring all that out for my books, thank goodness– and it usually takes a bit to pay for my newest projects to be published, but there were many times this last year that even if I had the money to start the publishing process, my manuscript was so far from unedited and ready to be submitted, I wouldn’t have been able to start the publishing process yet. Luckily, life slowed down enough late Fall for me to be able to sit down and start the arduous task of reading through my book, making notes for what needed to be worked on or looked at more in depth, editing big chunks, reading through again, more notes, more editing–you get the idea. I was able to start the publishing process in December, and got my final Manuscript submitted to the publisher in February, so I can genuinely say now that The Alabaster Jar IS releasing soon!

As happens with much of my writing, certain stories from the Bible or concepts stick in my mind and heart for a while before they come to fruition, and this story was no exception. The idea for this storyline came pretty quick after starting to work on the first book in the series and what has been different in this series versus my other fairytale series is I’ve had certain stories from the Bible come to mind that would intertwine with the characters lives in our modern day world and show how the stories of people’s lives lived centuries ago are still relevant today. I had the concept of a rare artifact linked to King David and kind of centered book 1 around David’s life and experiences and was able to kind of create a link between history and today by having the main character, Selah Cross, experience similar things to David’s story in her own life that allowed her to see the reality of this person described in the Bible brought to life in her own life, giving a unique spin on typical Biblical/Christian fiction. She even comes to a point towards the end of book 1 where she literally steps into the same cave that David hid from Saul in and quotes the passage from 1 Samuel when David spared Saul’s life in that cave despite the unfair circumstances of David being in that cave and on the run from Saul. Being able to write these stories has been immensely impacting in my own personal life and brings the accounts of real people in history to life in such an amazing way for me and I was extremely excited to start researching the story of the woman with the alabaster jar for this second book in the Heart of God series.

If you haven’t read book 1 yet, which I highly recommend you do before book 2 releases (you won’t be able to put it down 😉 ), it follows Selah Cross and Dylan Kinkaide as they try to clear her name and recover a stolen artifact. When you read it, you’ll discover that Selah Cross was raised in a Christian home and had strong foundations of faith in God instilled in her from a very young age and though her faith is greatly tested in book 1, she stands strong and draws from everything she has learned throughout her life to keep her faith in God despite everything she’s gone through. Dylan Kinkaide, on the other hand, was dragged to church by his mom for most of his childhood, but due to certain traumatic experiences at home, he never felt the God he heard about at church came through for him or his mom, so he’s pretty much written off God and staunchly decided to never have anything to do with God or the Bible. He’s been able to fulfill this promise to himself for most of his life — until he meets Selah. As he watches Selah still stand strong in her faith and be so genuine about her relationship with God, Dylan begins to question his own unbelief and starts a journey to discovering this God for himself.

I love the story of the woman with the alabaster jar who poured an expensive jar of perfume out at Jesus’ feet during His ministry on the earth and I knew I wanted to use that story as a way to align with what Dylan would be going through in his own faith journey in book 2 and it was so fun and impacting to be able to dive deeper into this beautiful story and see how it all came together. As with any fiction story, there are obviously parts I added to flesh out the story more, but my hope is to never take away from the original story told in the Bible and that my readers have the understanding that the words spoken in God’s Word are infallible and completely true and these books are just my way of bringing the stories to life in a relatable way without taking away from the essence of the original. Join me as I share about this newest story in my Heart of God series!

The Alabaster Jar is a beautiful story about the transforming moment when someone surrenders themselves wholly to God. It’s about the defining moment in a person’s life when their heart is overturned by the overwhelming depths of God’s love and grace and they give themselves willingly to God. The moment when they acknowledge their need for a Savior and die to self so they can live in Christ. A miraculous moment in time when someone is born again, becoming a new creation in Christ. This moment is a strange and wonderful moment in a person’s life that unless one experiences this transforming moment, it is hard to explain or understand. In that moment, you realize so many things. You realize that you are in fact a sinner and you can’t get to Heaven in your own merit. You realize the penalty for sin is death and eternal separation from the God and Creator of the Universe and nothing you do on your own is going to bridge that gap between you and the Almighty God. You also feel this overwhelming sense of gratefulness and humility because you suddenly realize that Christ was the only One who could bridge the gap between you and God and that He willingly left His throne in Heaven to come to earth as a human being and later died a horrible death on a cross that He did not deserve because He loved YOU too much to live the rest of eternity without you by His side in Heaven. You realize every wrongdoing, ever evil or selfish thought, every prideful or vengeful decision, every moment of choosing something other than Him, has been completely covered in the sacrifice of Christ’s blood on the cross and your heart, mind and soul have been washed completely clean. You have undeservingly been made white as snow and pure in your life and you know in that moment that your life will never be the same again. This moment is what the woman in the story of the Alabaster Jar experienced when she came before Jesus as He dined at a Pharisees home and poured out her heart, soul and mind–all her years of sin and living as a fallen and broken woman, all her years of bad mistakes and decisions– in the physical act of pouring out an expensive jar of perfume–the most treasured thing she owned– at the feet of Jesus.

This is the story I wanted to tell in my newest book, The Alabaster Jar. The story of a woman who the world viewed as too lost to be redeemed. A woman who had fallen into a sinful lifestyle, though unnamed in the Bible, became her very identity. A woman who had been shunned and rejected and looked down upon by not just the Pharisee who had asked Jesus to dine with Him and judged Jesus for not knowing who this woman was, but also the entire village and region where she lived.

In my book, Dylan Kinkaide hears a sermon about this story close to the beginning of the book and it resonates with him in a deeper way than other stories he’s heard since he started his own journey to discovering what his faith in God looks like for himself. The seeds planted in his heart and mind from this story comes full circle towards the end when he sits with a clay jar that lies broken and shattered on the floor of an old prison in the basement of a church in Rome, Italy. In his anger and frustration at some of the circumstances he’s facing, he unknowingly knocks the jar over, causing it to shatter on the ground. As he sits with these broken pieces and he sees the liquid pouring out from the broken jar, his heart and mind suddenly come into alignment and realization at the truth and depths of the story he heard of the woman with the alabaster jar in church several weeks before.

I’ll share more about Dylan’s story in another post, but I just wanted to share the power of this story told in Luke 7 in the Bible. This story is one that I discovered was actually different from the other accounts of a woman with an alabaster jar that were told in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and if you read my book, you’ll find out how and why this account in Luke is believed to be different from the other accounts, but regardless of the backstory to this account, it is still a beautiful picture of what it means to fulling pour oneself out to God. Our pastor shared a sermon this past Sunday about the account told in John that names Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and he referenced the fact that the story told in Luke is likely different from this account, but some things that stood out to me in the sermon on Sunday was how Mary performed this act of pouring out the expensive oil in her jar at Jesus’ feet partially because of her overwhelming gratefulness that Jesus had raised her brother from the dead. Another point our pastor made was that Mary had been a part of Jesus’ ministry and inner circle of close friends and disciples for quite a while. Jesus often stopped at Mary and Martha’s house and we can tell by how grieved he was at the death of Lazarus how close they were as friends. Mary would have known about the other woman who had so unashamedly poured out an expensive jar of perfume at the feet of Jesus and may have done the same thing out of her gratefulness and openness at her complete surrender to Jesus. It was a sign that she was giving everything she had to Jesus. Though she was close to Jesus for quite a bit of His ministry, it seems though she often sat in awe of His teaching and miracles He performed, perhaps she had never come to that point of full and complete surrender until that moment when she poured the jar of expensive oil at His feet. A moment like this is one prompted completely by the heart, and as our pastor shared on Sunday, actions prompted from the heart are often impulsive and irrational. Acts of love rarely make sense to the mind, but that is what makes us like the God Who created us. He gave us a heart, soul and mind like Him so that we could be walking and living pictures of the essence of God here on this earth.

Hearing or reading about a story of total surrender like this makes me think about my own life. Have I been like Mary where I’ve been living my whole life sitting under the teaching of Jesus but never fully surrendering myself to Him? Or, am I more like the woman in Luke 7 whose lifestyle and choices were so buried in sin and darkness that that life was her identity and she never saw a need to get out, or maybe even a way to get out, until one day, she heard about this man Jesus who had been healing the sick and forgiving sins and teaching wherever He went, and realized her great need for a Savior and went and surrendered herself wholly and completely to Him, finding forgiveness and freedom at His feet, never to live that life again?

What about you? Have you come to that point of total and complete surrender to God? Have you experienced that moment of freedom and forgiveness and stepped into the new life Christ has given you in His death and resurrection?