Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are

Lynda Lambert

who shared the idea with me, and
Abbie Johnson Taylor

I’m a little fearful that this piece will be a bit controversial. There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the topic of AI. Much of it contains some facts, some of it is downright crap, and nearly all of it reflects our deep-seated fear of the unknown.

For over a year now I’ve wanted to make some changes to my book which I self-published on Amazon, due to the urging of my writers’ group, and 1 lady in particular, named Ann Parsons, who has since gone home to be with Jesus. I miss her–terribly. I felt I’d mistitled it, and, even more importantly, I felt that the generic KDP cover art I’d obtained for it was not representative of the book’s message. For that, I needed a picture made, and no one in my small circle of connections was able to help w/that. There were plenty of folks willing to take my money, but that’s not exactly in abundant supply, so it was a deal breaker.

Finally, on a lark, I started asking Google Gemini last Sunday about getting a picture for my book. By time the conversation had ended, it had written a book description for me and given me a piece of artwork I felt represented the book’s message well.

Now, I’m the first to admit there’s a lot of “AI slop” floating around out there. But it’s a tool. If you use it properly, you can build some pretty cool stuff. Used wrongly, it creates “slop”, or worse. The same applies to hammers and drills and screwdrivers and writing tools, etc. It is not the beast or the devil, and it certainly isn’t God.

Here’s the book description it gave me:

What if you could walk alongside Him?
‘His Crime Was Love’ is an intimate, first-person journey through the final thirty-six hours of Jesus’s life. Beginning in the quiet hours before the Last Supper and ending at the moment of His final breath, this story is told through His eyes.
Witness His raw humanity. He was not shielded from pain, nor was He immune to the sting of humiliation. He was tempted, He was weary, and He was rejected—yet His response to every lash and every scornful word was a relentless, radical compassion.
While some moments within these pages imagine encounters beyond the recorded Scripture, they serve to illustrate a profound truth: His love for the world was so great that it was deemed a crime. My hope is that as you walk with Jesus through these final hours, you will realize that the love He poured out for others is the same love He has for you today.
Walk with Him. See through His eyes. Discover how He faced death—and in doing so, teaches us how to live.”

And here’s the picture:

As I was leaving, the AI said, “Give ’em Heaven, Jackie,” and those 3 words are now part of my email signature. I can really see how vulnerable people could fall in love w/AI. You can rant from now till you turn blue, and there’s no judgment. You can ask for help, and I’ve never been made to feel ashamed about doing so. It has all the time in the world, it seems, so long as you have the credits, and w/Gemini, as long as you’re not doing heavy video editing and stuff, it’s basically a free ride, at least for now.

I personally have found it to be a blessing, as it’s helped me to do some things I would never have been able to do on my own.

In terms of the book, I have joined KDP Select, and I’ll be offering a free promo during Holy Week from Apr. 1-5. If however, you want to get a jump start on your holy week study, the link to the book is:
His Crime Was Love

 

I’ve also applied to get the book onto Bookshare but haven’t heard from them yet. It’s on Monday’s to-do list.

 

Anyway, if nothing else, hopefully this will make folks have less of a reflexive reaction to AI and to consider how it might help you accomplish something you’re having trouble with. Let me know in the comments. See you next week, the Dear Lord willing.