The Inspiration Behind the Books
I first wrote the books that would become the Beyond the Water’s Edge series from 2009 to 2011. I wrote them in part as a response to the wave of fiction addressing the very real desire many had to become something more than what our frail human bodies seemed to allow. Instead of becoming something nonhuman, I drew from Fountain of Youth mythology, creating an alternate world accessible from our own where the water brings not only healing but strength as well.
My hope in a world beyond this one and faith in a God who cares enough to direct my steps gives me the resilience I need to make it through this world.
The first step is faith.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
—John 3:16
While not a strict allegory, Beyond the Water’s Edge borrows themes and imagery from the Bible, including the Garden of Eden and prophecies of a future Millennial Reign.
The Millennium is a prophesied future time where the world will be made whole, and where creation will be restored back to how it was supposed to be before the fall of man.
The people eat fruit, just as it was in the garden of Eden, and as it will be again.
“The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food.“
—Isaiah 65:25
The people’s blue eyes symbolize the water from the Fountain that gives them strength and longevity.
“But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
—John 4:14
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
—Revelation 22:1-2
The people of Ruynia are diverse, just as they are on Earth and the kingdom to come.
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb. clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.”
—Revelation 7:9