{"id":22249,"date":"2025-12-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=22249"},"modified":"2025-12-03T09:08:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:08:41","slug":"being-equally-yoked-in-gunslinger-to-the-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/being-equally-yoked-in-gunslinger-to-the-galaxy\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Equally Yoked in Gunslinger to the Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At its core, Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/em> is a space-opera story built around a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to be equally yoked when the universe is coming apart at the seams<\/strong>? Jane Kletchka isn\u2019t just trying to save Earth; she\u2019s trying to build a marriage, a family, and a vocation that all matter in an honest, eternal way. The story keeps circling back to this tension: how do you stay true to your gifts, your faith, and your partner when war, politics, and Immortal-sized crises keep demanding more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the Idea Came From<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I wrote Gunslinger to the Galaxy,<\/em> I was working part-time at a warehouse in Iowa and later grinding through a 40+ hour per week construction job in Utah. I wasn’t married yet, but it was something I definitely wanted in my life, and I poured that into my writing, forcing myself to write a few hundred words a day even when I was exhausted and everything around me felt like a dump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That experience of trying to build something meaningful in the middle of chaos is baked into Jane and Sam\u2019s story. At its heart, Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/em> is about two people trying to be a force for good while the universe keeps trying to knock them flat. I kept that theme close even through the difficult circumstances surrounding its writing\u2014and, fittingly, around the time I finished the book, I also met the woman who would become my wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Being Equally Yoked Shapes the Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEqually yoked\u201d isn\u2019t just a passing phrase in this book; it\u2019s the backbone of Jane\u2019s entire arc. From the early garden conversation with her mother\u2014where Mom worries that Jane will end up standing in Sam\u2019s shadow instead of using her own God-given talents as a xenolinguist\u2014the story keeps pressing on a single pressure point: is this marriage helping both partners become what they\u2019re meant to be, or is one being swallowed by the other\u2019s path?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the jumpgate network collapses and the Immortal civil war throws the galaxy into crisis, Jane has every excuse to curl up and let events happen to her. Instead, the story turns when she realizes she can\u2019t just be \u201cthe gunslinger\u2019s wife.\u201d Drawing on Sam\u2019s blunt insight about control and trauma, she chooses to use her training, her languages, and her brain to actually shape events\u2014digging into logs, mapping networks, and turning her grief and fear into concrete action that can save lives and maybe bring Sam home. Being equally yoked here means more than just sharing a last name; it means each partner brings their full self to the fight, and the marriage becomes a shared mission instead of a sacrifice of one person\u2019s calling to the other\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end, when Jane and Sam are sealed in the temple and begin building a family, the book circles back to that original fear: will motherhood and marriage erase Jane\u2019s larger purpose? The answer is no\u2014but not because the galaxy gets easier. Instead, the story shows her finding ways to balance remote work for the Andromedans and the Intergalactic Council with raising John Moses, weaving vocation, faith, and family into a single, hard-won whole. The adventure isn\u2019t over; it\u2019s just moved into a new phase where \u201cequally yoked\u201d means building a life that can withstand both warp drives and diapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Being Equally Yoked Says About Us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In science fiction, we often see lone-wolf heroes or solitary saviors, but Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/em> takes a different path by centering a married-couple partnership in a space-opera setting. Under all the jumpgates and Immortals, this is a story about something very human: the fear that love will cost us our calling\u2014or that our calling will cost us love.<\/strong> Most of us aren\u2019t piloting starships, but we know what it feels like to worry that marriage, family, career, or faith will pull us in different directions until something breaks. Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/em> suggests a different model: the people we love most should help us become more ourselves, not less. Being equally yoked doesn\u2019t mean never struggling or never disagreeing; it means pulling the same direction when the load gets heavy, and trusting that God can turn two flawed people into a team that does more good together than either could alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Being Equally Yoked Matters to Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I wasn’t married when I wrote Gunslinger to the Galaxy,<\/em> but it was definitely something I was looking forward to. I wrote it during a season of my life that was chaotic, exhausting, and frankly not very glamorous, but I pushed forward anyway, trusting that the kind of woman I hoped to marry someday would value that dedication. And sure enough, when I finally met her, one of the things that drew her to me was my hard work and dedication to my writing\u2014a dedication that I have also channeled into our marriage and family life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/em> is a story about faith, marriage, and the stubborn belief that ordinary people can still choose to do the right thing together, even when it hurts. If this book resonates with you, I hope it\u2019s because you see a bit of your own struggle to be \u201cequally yoked\u201d in a world that always seems on the brink\u2014and you feel a little more hope that it\u2019s worth the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where to Get the Book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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$1 off the ebook with coupon code: BUY DIRECT<\/a><\/div>
FREE ebook when you buy the paperback direct!<\/a><\/div>
FREE ebook when you buy the audiobook direct!<\/a><\/div>
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Related Posts and Pages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Explore the series index for the Gunslinger Trilogy.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Return to the book page for Gunslinger to the Galaxy.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Gunslinger to the Galaxy for you?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See all of my books in series order.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its core, Gunslinger to the Galaxy is a space-opera story built around a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to be equally yoked when the universe is coming apart at the seams? Jane Kletchka isn\u2019t just trying to save Earth; she\u2019s trying to build a marriage, a family, and a vocation that all… Continue reading Being Equally Yoked in Gunslinger to the Galaxy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1105,1080],"tags":[2024,2029,1633,99,691,2033,184,820,2015],"class_list":["post-22249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gunslinger-to-the-galaxy","category-gunslinger-trilogy","tag-family-themes","tag-found-family","tag-marriage","tag-science-fiction","tag-space-adventure","tag-space-exploration","tag-space-opera","tag-space-western","tag-theme-post","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5MR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22249"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22455,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22249\/revisions\/22455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}