A Visit to the Forge

ByKelly Keller

Today’s customer story is from Sam’s perspective…

I have a back to school story for you. The other day I was in the Forge not writing. I do a lot of that. Not writing.

On this occasion, I was talking with some friends who were visiting on the way to take their daughter to college. Both of their daughters are preparing for college, and I loved hanging out with them. The mom, someone I had met on a book tour years ago, was telling me how she first encountered The Green Ember around ten years ago. She heard about it from Sarah Mackenzie, and won a copy of the first book’s audiobook. They listened and were hooked.

She told me how much they loved Joel Clarkson’s performance of the audiobook, and how much the books shaped the girls’ childhoods. “These books and Narnia. Green Ember and Narnia, those were our family’s books.” I got to show them the place where the Green Ember was born, and where it was written. I showed them where the climax of the first telling of the adventure, on a walk with my kids by the Step Tree. They enjoyed the tour, and we settle into the Forge for a bit.
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They shared favorite parts of the series, and I was moved. They had memories of moments, some of which I had forgotten, that were deeply touching and got at the heart of what I hoped for when I wrote the stories down. They were an embodiment of my ambition, an answer to my prayers. I always wanted to love and serve, and they had been served and loved, and it mattered to them for their lives.

I showed them some fan mail, and some of the Green Ember art I had been sent recently on my desk. The older daughter said she had sent me a letter and a piece of art when she was a kid. It was a little painted wooden piece that had a quotation from the Green Ember: Old Natalia trilogy: “Until all the breaking is broken.” She had made another for her mom and it sits in their kitchen. I stood up, turned to my bookshelf, and retrieved the piece. It was displayed in a nook above my shelf.

That was special. These weren’t starstruck fans, but friends who were formed by these stories.
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They recently did a book club with some friends. The book? The Green Ember. So, before they went off the college, the girls revisited a familiar, favorite tale, and I got to meet them on the brink of this new journey. What an honor. The girls and the family were lovely, and I was inspired by their ambition. “Love God more and more.”
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These are very bright, intelligent young women of great character and joy, and the center of their aim in life is to love God.

Their parents are special people, of course—rare people. They have fought for those girls on many fronts, including their imaginations. And I got to be there, by their side. Their ally. I got to help.
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What a privilege to be invited into the homes and hearts of amazing young people and their families. I will never get over that honor. And to help! To be able to serve them in this crucial area of stories. Stories shape us like nothing else.

Kelly Keller
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