Romance Author Weaves Job’s Story Into New Book, ‘Counting Miracles’
Movieguide® Contributor
World-renowned author Nicholas Sparks went through severe loss many times over, but just like Job, he didn’t give up on God.
After high school, Sparks thought his career would kick off with his Notre Dame track and field scholarship.
“During my freshman year, I got injured. In between my freshman and sophomore years, I went home to convalesce. And the doctor said that to get better, I couldn’t train that summer,” Sparks recalled on the “Jesus Calling” podcast.
Sparks broke records at his college and still holds a record there to this day. He wanted to be an Olympian and continue to do what he loved — running. The news that he couldn’t compete crushed him.
“I don’t think mentally or emotionally I was in any kind of a good headspace at all, moping around the house. And my mom got tired of it and she said, ‘Look, don’t just pout. Do something,” he remembered. “I’m a nineteen-year-old kid and I’m like, ‘What?’ She’s like, ‘I don’t know, go write a book.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I think I’ll do that.’”
“And over the next six weeks, I proceeded to write my very first novel. It was never published, and yet I learned a couple of things about myself. Number one, that I had it in me to finish a story once I started, and that number two, there were parts of telling a story that I really enjoyed,” he said.
When Sparks was 23, he began to experience an onslaught of grief. His mother died in a horseback riding accident. Then four years later, his dad died in a car accident. Only three years after that, his sister died of a brain tumor, and then he learned his son had severe autism.
“It was suggested to us that he might end up institutionalized for the rest of his life. I think it was eight or nine years, you know, those are big things, pretty much most of my entire family was wiped out,” he recalled. “It was a very challenging period.”
“And I’ll admit I didn’t pray a lot at that point in my life. I certainly felt a bit Job-like in that, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ There is no great answer to that in the Bible,” he said.
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“My own spin on the answer to that is God created man, and we fell from grace,” he continued. “Thus, bad things happen. It’s the nature of life for challenges to happen. And I think in the end, what is most important to God is that we choose to still believe. And we choose to love God.”
He knows that faith would be impossible if there were proof. Amidst all the tragedies, he hopes others can still find ways to love God.
“I think God wants you to have faith. That’s the simplest way to put it,” the “A Walk to Remember” author said.
“When I was twenty-seven, I decided to give writing another chance. I had some time in the evenings after work,” he said. “My wife at that time, we had a second son who wasn’t sleeping, so she would be up multiple times in the night, so she was going to bed early, 8:00/8:30, so that she could at least get a little sleep. And so it was either chase a dream and try writing again, or watch TV. I opted for the former, and six months later, I had completed The Notebook.”
Sparks occasionally weaves faith into his stories, and it’s present in his latest book, “Counting Miracles,” which came out Sept. 24 and made the NY Times Best Sellers List three weeks later.
“I do that just to create characters that I believe feel real and they become people that you almost feel as if you could know in your own life, or you do know in your own life. In my life, for instance, there are people who just have tremendous faith. And so it’s a way of reflecting the reality of the world,” Sparks said.
“Counting Miracles” is a “study of grief,” and who better to write it than Sparks, who’s gone through an incredible amount of sorrow himself?
“Counting Miracles is a story of three main characters. You’ve got Tanner, he was in the military for a while, and then after the military, he joined U.S. Aid, did security work overseas in Africa and Haiti and places like that. He’s led a very unsettled life. He’s never set down roots anywhere, and he’s kind of still in that state.”
“Before his grandmother passed away early in the novel, she gave him some information on his biological father, a guy that he’d never met, and said, ‘You might find some answers in a place called Asheboro, North Carolina.’ So Tanner rolls into town looking for info on his father,” Sparks continued.
There, he meets Kaitlyn, a doctor with two kids who’s just trying her best. Out in the woods nearby is an older man, Jasper, who’s had a troubled past. When he sees a white deer in the forest one day, he becomes set on saving it from poachers.
“The Book of Job did serve as a large inspiration for Jasper’s character. Many people remember that Job was a man of faith. And then the devil and God are talking and basically the devil says, ‘Yeah, well, of course Job is full of faith. You’ve given him everything. He’s got a great life. He’s wealthy, he’s got a family. He’s in good physical condition. What if he didn’t have those things?’ And basically God says, ‘Well, I don’t know. Let’s see…’”
“And so bad things begin to happen to Job,” Sparks explained. “He loses his crops and his flocks of animals. He loses his wife and he loses all of his children after that.”
Job is tested by the devil and suffers afflictions on his body. However, his faith doesn’t change, and he’s rewarded for it.
“And so with Jasper, a faith-filled family was just an aspect of his character, and he leads this wonderful, blessed life that he always wanted to lead and was successful in business. He’s got this wonderful family and he’s in great health. And then little by little, it all goes bad. And then by the end, of course, his faith is rewarded,” Sparks revealed.
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