When The Guy Gets The Girl At The End Of The Book - The Edited Version
So you wrote a book called Beckie's Best Kept Secret.
You wrote a book and then published said book and have never really marketed that book.
You did however, send that book down to what has now become the biggest country music star in the history of histories and he in turn sent back fan mail and an acknowledgement of his own.
I don’t have many words when it comes to how that whole thing came about.
Honestly if y’all got a chance to read the letter that I sent down with my book, thinking NO ONE would ever read it and my box would end up in a pile somewhere in a garage that he MIGHT see when he was 82 and trying to relive his career through fan mail, well, you would be as embarrassed as I am that he even got to read it.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t horrible, but who says, “My biggest dream is to go to the Sneedville, Tennessee sign and get a picture with my book!”
Yeah. That happened y’all.
Insert face palm because its so ridiculously embarrassing that I am still red in the cheeks over it, and just rolled my eyes wondering what his sister must have thought since the box that I ended up receiving was a recycled Amazon Prime box from her.
Alicia was working in the boutique the day that it arrived via UPS, and when I tell you the excitement in her voice was up 1000 notches when she FaceTimed me, that’s an understatement.
I said, “Well maybe they just mailed everything back thinking I am some kind of weirdo, I mean honestly who sends a care package to Morgan Wallen and gets one in return?”
“It isn’t heavy enough to have your book inside,” she replied.
“Well go ahead and open it,” I told her.
What happened next is no joke, and I am not even sure how many “HOLY SH*T’s!” Alicia said before showing me a camo hat with a leather patch on it before she said, “Whoa, he signed it. It’s a SIGNED hat from MORGAN FREAKING WALLEN Beck.”
As I literally relive that moment and all the feelings that came with it when it happened, I am yet again speechless even months later as I am just sitting down to write about it.
I didn’t get the card included until after Alicia and I were done FaceTiming, but when I tell you that holding it in my hands and reading what he wrote took the breath right out of me, I mean it.
Morgan’s music got me through some of the hardest moments of the previous couple of years. To be honest I didn’t even really know who he was in any capacity until my friend Travis posted about him on social media.
I knew if Travis loved him and supported him as a country singer, he must be worth listening to.
If you know, you know, and if you don’t let me help you understand by painting a picture the best way I know how.
You feel that first cord right to your soul, there is just something about it that immediately grabs hold of you and won’t let go.
Never mind the words that come after or the fact that he sings about my favorite flower in this whole world, Magnolias.
When I say I was hooked on this song, I was hooked on this song.
Then it happened, I saw the video for this song for the very first time and something changed inside of me.
If you haven’t seen the music video for this song, its about a veteran coming home from war, and as an ex-Army wife I can honestly tell you this one hit closer to home than I will ever care to admit.
You have to live through those moments to truly understand what I mean, and we all know of someone who never quite made it back from the war zone even though their boots made it back to U.S. soil.
I know more than my fair share of them, and damnit some gave all so that we could have our freedoms that most of y’all take so carelessly for granted.
There is an acknowledgement at the end of my book to Morgan Wallen. It goes a little something like this:
Morgan Wallen - For helping your girl through some really rough times. Thanks for sharing your endless talents with the world. From Brimley, MI to Sneedville, TN and every road in between, I am forever grateful that God gave us you! If you ever need a blue-eyed babe to be a lead in your video, hit your girl up!
Now, you might have noticed that I wrote it to him as if we were best friends and he would see said Acknowledgement. Y’all, I had NO idea that man would ever have a copy of my book in his hands, let alone send me mail back in return telling me that he was honored to be mentioned in said book, like WHAT?! Excuse me?!
I made a post on social media back in February about his shenanigans, and you can read that now:
Dear Morgan Wallen,
I don’t do Cancel Culture, so I’m not going to quit on you during what is clearly one of the messiest years of your entire life.
What you see here is an Acknowledgment to you in my book that’s titled Beckie’s Best Kept Secret, which oddly enough is about my fall from Grace and how I fought to find my way back.
7 days to our Pre-Order Launch date (which just so happens to also be my daughter’s birthday) you made a colossal mistake that had some pretty significant consequences.
I ALMOST pushed my publishing date out to remove your Acknowledgment and decided after a lot of prayer and consideration to leave it.
I may not be the blue-eyed woman you have been chasing in your songs, but I am the blue-eyed woman God called to stand out in the world and tell you ENOUGH is ENOUGH!
Look, I know you’re hurting, damnit your music is incredible and full of so much relatable hurt that I wouldn’t be able to quit you even if I tried!
You broke A LOT of hearts this past week, BUT I’m here to tell you that you are still VERY, VERY loved, and that no matter what YOU ARE ENOUGH.
We are all sent to help walk one another home Morgan, so this is me telling you that I’ve been in your shoes & I’m also putting it out there that you aren’t ALONE!
Being a human with free will gets us in trouble a lot more than we would like, and I kind of know a thing or two about that.
I got 101 acres up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and if it comes down to it, you will always have some place to play because we don’t do cancel culture here on the farm.
What we do here is love like Jesus does, and show a whole lot of Grace as we learn to forgive ourselves and grow through what we go through.
I plan to turn this farm into a refuge for the broken who feel like they have no where else to go. I want to create something that is inclusive of all those who feel unloved, broken, lost and looking for somewhere to turn their life around.
I can’t promise much going forward, but I can promise that if you hit rock bottom, which I think you have and your looking for a place to meet God in, this book that I left your name in might have a few answers on that.
The rest of us broken, mistake ridden, looked over, passed by folks will be waiting in the fields when your ready to play.
Child, if you ever needed a sign, I’m gonna guess this was it.
Jesus & I Love You! ❤️
Rebecca Dawn Fegan
Creator of After All This Time
Author of Beckie’s Best Kept Secret
Do I know if he ever saw that post, nope, sure don’t, but every damn word of it is still as true today as it was the day that I wrote it.
Even if the circumstances may have changed since I posted that in February, it doesn’t change the intention behind the post itself.
Y’all I don’t even know if he read my book, and if he did I hope like hell he doesn’t think I am some kind of weirdo for sending it to him.
Does my marketing team want me to use his words on the back of our revised edition, yeah, but I am still praying really hard on this one.
I want the purpose behind the story to remain the main focus always, and I never want God’s Grace or glory to slip through the cracks because an army of Wallenaire’s heard he said what he said, or rather that he wrote what he wrote.
Which would be the reason that I have taken MONTHS to even write about him sending mail back in the first place.
When I first posted about all of it on my social media, I had people coming out of the woodwork and those I didn’t even know inboxing me for his address and it was just exhausting that no one even asked what the book was even about. All they cared about was getting to Morgan, and I knew in my heart that wasn’t what God had intended at all.
I worked hard to get to this point, on my own, and I didn’t send it to him with the intentions of him being “HONORED” to be in the back of my book, to be honest I never thought he would even see it.
I sent it because God prompted me to, and I also want to take a moment explain this.
When all the shit hit the fan in the media back in February, I just couldn’t bring myself to send it to him right after the launch. It didn’t feel right, and honestly God kept prompting me to send it every time I would open my laptop. I did what I always do when I try to do things my way, I kept bucking back at him like a wild horse.
In July of this year I could no longer deny that it was him pushing to get it sent, I boxed up a bunch of stuff while standing in the boutique talking to God, prayed over the entire box as I packaged it all up and sent it on its way thinking that was the end of it.
It arrived in Tennessee the same day he stepped back on stage with Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean and while that may mean nothing at all to anyone else, I could feel God smiling down on both of us, and that was enough for me.
I never expected to hear anything else, but I sure prayed damn hard that whatever came out of Morgan from that point forward would not only prove that he could change the world, he could change cancel culture FOREVER, and he did.
What transpired in the months to follow is nothing short of amazing. Sold out venues, him and his best friends literally dominating the industry, collaborations that country music NEEDED to see happen, and a man humbled to his core by a fan base that the likes of country music and its associates have never seen before.
Have I been to a concert? Nope, they never play close to home and unless its within a couple hours of me or I happen to be in whatever state he is playing in, I probably won’t either.
Have I accomplished my “BIGGEST DREAM” and made it to the Sneedville, TN sign to have my picture taken with my book and the sign? No, and can we pause for a moment?
How absolutely embarrassing! I mean that literally, who says that. Good. Lord.
No, NO I have not made it to the Sneedville, TN sign and while it isn’t my BIGGEST dream, I just cannot even with myself, it is however something that I will accomplish one day in this lifetime.
I did, however, make it to The Grand Canyon on Valentine’s Day right after the launch!
Honestly my biggest dream at this point is that God continues to use Morgan and his platform to spread the glory of his story in ways that only someone with that platform can. I pray he continues to stay humble, kind, and follows through with what is in his heart always.
While it was never my intention for him to think about Beckie’s Best Kept Secret any time he sings, “More Than My Hometown,” I will certainly be humbled if he remembers from time to time that he is in the back of it.
I will meet him one day, when God is ready I guess.
Until then I will be doing the same thing that I have always done, spreading the glory of God’s grace in my own life and how picking up a pen to rewrite my own story made all the difference in the world.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am just a small town woman from the middle of somewhere with big dreams and God on my side, and if I have learned anything throughout the journey with After All This Time, you cannot stop God’s Will. I pray you will continue to follow God’s direction with Love and Light in your hearts, and don’t you ever stop dreaming or chasing those dreams.
I am living proof of what can happen if you just allow God to do the work through you.
Until next time.
Jesus & I Love You,
Rebecca
**Edit - While I never did find the Sneedville, TN sign, I did make it to the church his Dad used to preach at in Sneedville, and honestly, that meant more to me than the sign anyway. It has definitely been one hell of an adventure these past 4 years, and I wouldn't change it for anything.
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