Wednesday, September 24, 2008


This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Faking Grace

Multnomah Books (August 19, 2008)

by

Tamara Leigh



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

After Tamara Leigh earned a Master’s Degree in Speech and Language Pathology, she and her husband decided to start a family, with plans for Tamara to continue in her career once she became a mother.

When the blessing of children proved elusive, Tamara became convicted to find a way to work out of her home in order to raise the children she and her husband longed to have. She turned to writing, at which she had only ever dreamed of being successful, and began attending church. Shortly thereafter, her agent called with news of Bantam Books’ offer of a four-book contract. That same day, Tamara’s pregnancy was confirmed. Within the next year, she gave up her speech pathology career, committed her life to Christ, her first child was born, and her first historical romance novel was released.

As Tamara continued to write for the secular market, publishing three more novels with HarperCollins and Dorchester, she infused her growing Christian beliefs into her writing. But it was not enough, and though her novels earned awards and were national bestsellers, she knew her stories were lacking. After struggling with the certainty that her writing was not honoring God as it should, she made the decision to write books that not only reveal Christianity to non-believers, but serve as an inspiration for those who have accepted Christ as their Savior. Her inspirational romances are peopled with characters in varying stages of Christian faith, from mature believers to new believers to non-believers on the threshold of awakening.

Tamara Leigh enjoys time with her family, volunteer work, faux painting, and reading. She lives near Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, David, and two sons, Skyler and Maxen.

Two of her latest books are Splitting Harriet and Perfecting Kate.


ABOUT THE BOOK

All she wants is a job. All she needs is religion. How hard can it be?

Maizy Grace Stewart dreams of a career as an investigative journalist, but her last job ended in disaster when her compassion cost her employer a juicy headline. A part-time gig at a Nashville newspaper might be her big break.

A second job at Steeple Side Christian Resources could help pay the bills, but Steeple Side only hires committed Christians. Maizy is sure she can fake it with her Five-Step Program to Authentic Christian Faith–a plan of action that includes changing her first name to Grace, buying Jesus-themed accessories, and learning “Christian Speak.” If only Jack Prentiss, Steeple Side’s managing editor and two-day-stubbled, blue-jean-wearing British hottie wasn’t determined to prove her a fraud.

When Maizy’s boss at the newspaper decides that she should investigate–and expose–any skeletons in Steeple Side’s closet, she must decide whether to deliver the dirt and secure her career or lean on her newfound faith, change the direction of her life, and pray that her Steeple Side colleagues–and Jack–will show her grace.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Faking Grace, go HERE

“Tamara Leigh takes her experienced romance hand and delights readers with Chick-Lit that sparkles and characters who come alive.” - Kristin Billerbeck, author of The Trophy Wives Club

“A delightful, charming book! Faking Grace has romance, truth, and a dollop of insanity, making Tamara Leigh a permanent addition to my list of favorite authors. Enjoy!”
- Ginger Garrett, author of In the Shadow of Lions and Beauty Secrets of the Bible

“Tamara Leigh does a fabulous job looking at the faults, the love, the hypocrisy, and the grace of Christians in a way that’s entertaining and fun. Maizy Grace is a crazy character I couldn’t help but like. I loved this book and highly recommend it!”
- Camy Tang, author of Sushi for One? and Only Uni


Book Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590529294

Sunday, September 21, 2008



It's the 21st, time for the Teen FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 21st, we will feature an author and his/her latest Teen fiction book's FIRST chapter!





and her books:


It's All About Us: A Novel

FaithWords (May 12, 2008)


and


The Fruit of My Lipstick (All About Us Series, Book 2)

FaithWords (August 11, 2008)


Plus a Tiffany's Bracelet Giveaway! Go to Camy Tang's Blog and leave a comment on the Teen FIRST All About Us Tour and you will be placed into a drawing for a bracelet that looks similar to the picture below. But the winning FaithWords Tiffany's bracelet will be a double heart charm.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Shelley Adina is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She knows the value of a relationship with a gracious God and loving Christian friends, and she's inviting today's teenage girls to join her in these refreshingly honest books about real life as a Christian teen--with a little extra glitz thrown in for fun! In between books, Adina loves traveling, listening to and making music, and watching all kinds of movies.

It's All About Us is Book One in the All About Us Series. Book Two, The Fruit of my Lipstick came out in August 2008, and Book Three, Be Strong & Curvaceous, comes out in January 2009.

Visit the author's website.

It's All About Us: A Novel



Product Details:

List Price: $9.99
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (May 12, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446177989
ISBN-13: 978-0446177986

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter One

SOME THINGS YOU just know without being told. Like, you passed the math final (or you didn't). Your boyfriend isn't into you anymore and wants to break up. Vanessa Talbot has decided that since you're the New Girl, you have a big bull's-eye on your forehead and your junior year is going to be just as miserable as she can make it.

Carly once told me she used to wish she were me. Ha! That first week at Spencer Academy, I wouldn't have wished my life on anyone.

My name is Lissa Evelyn Mansfield, and since everything seemed to happen to me this quarter, we decided I'd be the one to write it all down. Maybe you'll think I'm some kind of drama queen, but I swear this is the truth. Don't listen to Gillian and Carly—they weren't there for some of it, so probably when they read this, it'll be news to them, too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. When it all started, I didn't even know them. All I knew was that I was starting my junior year at the Spencer Academy of San Francisco, this private boarding school for trust fund kids and the offspring of the hopelessly rich, and I totally did not want to be there.

I mean, picture it: You go from having fun and being popular in tenth grade at Pacific High in Santa Barbara, where you can hang out on State Street or join a drumming circle or surf whenever you feel like it with all your friends, to being absolutely nobody in this massive old mansion where rich kids go because their parents don't have time to take care of them.

Not that my parents are like that. My dad's a movie director, and he's home whenever his shooting schedule allows it. When he's not, sometimes he flies us out to cool places like Barbados or Hungary for a week so we can be on location together. You've probably heard of my dad. He directed that big pirate movie that Warner Brothers did a couple of years ago. That's how he got on the radar of some of the big A-list directors, so when George (hey, he asked me to call him that, so it's not like I'm dropping names) rang him up from Marin and suggested they do a movie together, of course he said yes. I can't imagine anybody saying no to George, but anyway, that's why we're in San Francisco for the next two years. Since Dad's going to be out at the Ranch or on location so much, and my sister, Jolie, is at UCLA (film school, what else—she's a daddy's girl and she admits it), and my mom's dividing her time among all of us, I had the choice of going to boarding school or having a live-in. Boarding school sounded fun in a Harry Potter kind of way, so I picked that.

Sigh. That was before I realized how lonely it is being the New Girl. Before the full effect of my breakup really hit. Before I knew about Vanessa Talbot, who I swear would make the perfect girlfriend for a warlock.

And speaking of witch . . .

"Melissa!"

Note: my name is not Melissa. But on the first day of classes, I'd made the mistake of correcting Vanessa, which meant that every time she saw me after that, she made a point of saying it wrong. The annoying part is that now people really think that's my name.

Vanessa, Emily Overton, and Dani Lavigne ("Yes, that Lavigne. Did I tell you she's my cousin?") are like this triad of terror at Spencer. Their parents are all fabulously wealthy—richer than my mom's family, even—and they never let you forget it. Vanessa and Dani have the genes to go with all that money, which means they look good in everything from designer dresses to street chic.

Vanessa's dark brown hair is cut so perfectly, it always falls into place when she moves. She has the kind of skin and dark eyes that might be from some Italian beauty somewhere in her family tree. Which, of course, means the camera loves her. It didn't take me long to figure out that there was likely to be a photographer or two somewhere on the grounds pretty much all the time, and nine times out of ten, Vanessa was the one they bagged. Her mom is minor royalty and the ex-wife of some U.N. Secretary or other, which means every time he gives a speech, a photographer shows up here. Believe me, seeing Vanessa in the halls at school and never knowing when she's going to pop out at me from the pages of Teen People or some society news Web site is just annoying. Can you say overexposed?

Anyway. Where was I? Dani has butterscotch-colored hair that she has highlighted at Biondi once a month, and big blue eyes that make her look way more innocent than she is. Emily is shorter and chunkier and could maybe be nice if you got her on her own, but she's not the kind that functions well outside of a clique.

Some people are born independent and some aren't. You should see Emily these days. All that money doesn't help her one bit out at the farm, where—

Okay, Gillian just told me I have to stop doing that. She says it's messing her up, like I'm telling her the ending when I'm supposed to be telling the beginning.

Not that it's all about her, okay? It's about us: me, Gillian, Carly, Shani, Mac . . . and God. But just to make Gillian happy, I'll skip to the part where I met her, and she (and you) can see what I really thought of her. Ha. Maybe that'll make her stop reading over my shoulder.

So as I was saying, there they were—Vanessa, Emily, and Dani—standing between me and the dining room doors. "What's up?" I said, walking up to them when I should have turned and settled for something out of the snack machine at the other end of the hall.

"She doesn't know." Emily poked Dani. "Maybe we shouldn't tell her."

I did a fast mental check. Plaid skirt—okay. Oxfords—no embarrassing toilet paper. White blouse—buttoned, no stains. Slate blue cardigan—clean. Hair—freshly brushed.

They couldn't be talking about me personally, in which case I didn't need to hear it. "Whatever." I pushed past them and took two steps down the hall.

"Don't you want to hear about your new roommate?" Vanessa asked.

Roommate? At that point I'd survived for five days, and the only good things about them were the crème brulée in the dining room and the blessed privacy of my own room. What fresh disaster was this?

Oops. I'd stopped in my tracks and tipped them off that (a) I didn't know, and (b) I wanted to know. And when Vanessa knows you want something, she'll do everything she can not to let you have it.

"I think we should tell her," Emily said. "It would be kinder to get it over with." "I'm sure I'll find out eventually." There, that sounded bored enough. "Byeee." "I hope you like Chinese!" Dani whooped at her own cleverness, and the three of them floated off down the hall.

So I thought, Great, maybe they're having dim sum today for lunch, though what that had to do with my new roommate I had no idea. At that point it hadn't really sunk in that conversation with those three is a dangerous thing.

That had been my first mistake the previous Wednesday, when classes had officially begun. Conversation, I mean. You know, normal civilized discourse with someone you think might be a friend. Like a total dummy, I'd actually thought this about Vanessa, who'd pulled newbie duty, walking me down the hall to show me where my first class was. It turned out to not be my first class, but the teacher was nice about steering me to the right room, where I was, of course, late.

That should've been my first clue.

My second clue was when Vanessa invited me to eat with them and Dani managed to spill her Coke all over my uniform skirt, which is, as I said, plaid and made of this easy-clean fake wool that people with sensitive skin can wear. She'd jumped up, all full of apologies, and handed me napkins and stuff, but the fact remained that I had to go upstairs and change and then figure out how the laundry service worked, which meant I was late for Biology, too.

On Thursday Dani apologized again, and Vanessa loaned me some of her Bumble and bumble shampoo ("You can't use Paul Mitchell on gorgeous hair like yours—people get that stuff at the drugstore now"), and I was dumb enough to think that maybe things were looking up. Because really, the shampoo was superb. My hair is blond and I wear it long, but before you go hating me for it, it's fine and thick, and the fog we have here in San Francisco makes it go all frizzy. And it's foggy a lot. So this shampoo made it just coo with pleasure.

You're probably asking yourself why I bothered trying to be friends with these girls. The harrowing truth was, I was used to being in the A-list group. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't fit in with the popular girls at Spencer, once I figured out who they were.

Lucky me—Vanessa made that so easy. And I was so lonely and out of my depth that even she was looking good. Her dad had once backed one of my dad's films, so there was that minimal connection.

Too bad it wasn't enough.

jolie.mansfield L, don't let them bug you. Some people are
threatened by anything new. It's a compliment
really.

LMansfield You always find the bright side. Gahh. Love you,
but not helping.

jolie.mansfield What can I do?

LMansfield I'd give absolutely anything to be back in S.B.

jolie.mansfield :(

LMansfield I want to hang with the kids from my youth group.
Not worry about anything but the SPF of my sun
block.

jolie.mansfield It'll get better. Promise. Heard from Mom?
LMansfield No. She's doing some fundraiser with Angelina.
She's pretty busy.

jolie.mansfield If you say so. Love you.



Copyright © 2008 by Shelley Adina


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The Fruit of My Lipstick (All About Us Series, Book 2)



Product Details:

List Price: $9.99
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (August 11, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446177970
ISBN-13: 978-0446177979

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter One

chapter 1


Top Five Clues That He’s the One

1. He’s smart, which is why he’s dating you and not the queen of the snob mob.

2. He knows he’s hot, but he thinks you’re hotter.

3. He’d rather listen to you than to himself.

4. You’re in on his jokes—not the butt of them.

5. He always gives you the last cookie in the box.

THE NEW YEAR. . . when a young girl’s heart turns to new beginnings, weight loss, and a new term of chemistry!

Whew! Got that little squee out of my system. But you may as well know right now that science and music are what I do, and they tend to come up a lot in conversation. Sometimes my friends think this is good, like when I’m helping them cram for an exam. Sometimes they just think I’m a geek. But that’s okay. My name is Gillian Frances Jiao-Lan Chang, and since Lissa was brave enough to fall on her sword and spill what happened last fall, I guess I can’t do anything less.

I’m kidding about the sword. You know that, right?

Term was set to start on the first Wednesday in January, so I flew into SFO first class from JFK on Monday. I thought I’d packed pretty efficiently, but I still exceeded the weight limit by fifty pounds. It took some doing to get me and my bags into the limo, let me tell you. But I’d found last term that I couldn’t live without certain things, so they came with me. Like my sheet music and some more of my books. And warmer clothes.

You say California and everyone thinks L.A. The reality of San Francisco in the winter is that it’s cold, whether the sun is shining or the fog is stealing in through the Golden Gate and blanketing the bay. A perfect excuse for a trip to Barney’s to get Vera Wang’s tulip-hem black wool coat, right?

I thought so, too.

Dorm, sweet dorm. I staggered through the door of the room I share with Lissa Mansfield. It’s up to us to get our stuff into our rooms, so here’s where it pays to be on the rowing team, I guess. Biceps are good for hauling bulging Louis Vuittons up marble staircases. But I am so not the athletic type. I leave that to John, the youngest of my three older brothers. He’s been into gymnastics since he was, like, four, and he’s training hard to make the U.S. Olympic team. I haven’t seen him since I was fourteen—he trains with a coach out in Arizona.

My oldest brother, Richard, is twenty-six and works for my dad at the bank, and the second oldest, Darren—the one I’m closest to—is graduating next spring from Harvard and going straight into medical school after that.

Yeah, we’re a family of overachievers. Don’t hate me, okay?

I heard a thump in the hall outside and got the door open just in time to come face-to-face with a huge piece of striped fiberglass with three fins.

I stood aside to let Lissa into the room with her surfboard. She was practically bowed at the knees with the weight of the duffel slung over her shoulder, and another duffel with a big O’Neill logo waited outside. I grabbed it and swung it onto her bed.

“Welcome back, girlfriend!”

She stood the board against the wall, let the duffel drop to the floor with a thud that probably shook the chandelier in the room below us, and pulled me into a hug.

“I am so glad to see you!” Her perfect Nordic face lit up with happiness. “How was your Christmas—the parts you didn’t tell me about on e-mail?”

“The usual. Too many family parties. Mom and Nai-Nai made way too much food, two of my brothers fought over the remote like they were ten years old, my dad and oldest brother bailed to go back to work early, and, oh, Nai-Nai wanted to know at least twice a day why I didn’t have a boyfriend.” I considered the chaos we’d just made of our pristine room. “The typical Chang holiday. What about you? Did Scotland improve after the first couple of days?”

“It was fre-e-e-e-zing.” She slipped off her coat and tam. “And I don’t just mean rainy-freezing. I mean sleet-and-icicles freezing. The first time I wore my high-heeled Louboutin boots, I nearly broke my ankle. As it was, I landed flat on my butt in the middle of the Royal Mile. Totally embarrassing.”

“What’s a Royal Mile? Princesses by the square foot?”

“This big broad avenue that goes through the old part of Edinburgh toward the queen’s castle. Good shopping. Restaurants. Tourists. Ice.” She unzipped the duffel and began pulling things out of it. “Dad was away a lot at the locations for this movie. Sometimes I went with him, and sometimes I hung out with this really adorable guy who was supposed to be somebody’s production assistant but who wound up being my guide the whole time.”

“It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

“I made it worth his while.” She flashed me a wicked grin, but behind it I saw something else. Pain, and memory. “So.” She spread her hands. “What’s new around here?”

I shrugged. “I just walked in myself a few minutes ago. You probably passed the limo leaving. But if what you really want to know is whether the webcam incident is over and done with, I don’t know yet.”

She turned away, but not before I saw her flush pink and then blink really fast, like her contacts had just been flooded. “Let’s hope so.”

“You made it through last term.” I tried to be encouraging. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

“It made one thing stronger.” She pulled a cashmere scarf out of the duffel and stroked it as though it were a kitten. “I never prayed so hard in my life. Especially during finals week, remember? When those two idiots seriously thought they could force me into that storage closet and get away with it?”

“Before we left, I heard the short one was going to be on crutches for six weeks.” I grinned at her. Fact of the day: Surfers are pretty good athletes. Don’t mess with them. “Maybe it should be, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes your relationship with God stronger.’”

“That I’ll agree with. Do you know if Carly’s here yet?”

“Her dad was driving her up in time for supper, so she should be calling any second.”

Sure enough, within a few minutes, someone knocked. “That’s gotta be her.” I jumped for the door and swung it open.

“Hey, chicas!” Carly hugged me and then Lissa. “Did you miss me?”

“Like chips miss guacamole.” Lissa grinned at her. “Good break?”

She grimaced, her soft brown eyes a little sad. Clearly Christmas break isn’t what it’s cracked up to be in anybody’s world.

“Dad had to go straighten out some computer chip thing in Singapore, so Antony and I got shipped off to Veracruz. It was great to see my mom and the grandparents, but you know . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“What?” I asked. “Did you have a fight?” That’s what happens at our house.

“No.” She sighed, then lifted her head to look at both of us. “I think my mom has a boyfriend.”

“Ewww,” Lissa and I said together, with identical grimaces.

“I always kind of hoped my mom and dad would figure it out, you know? And get back together. But it looks like that’s not going to happen.”

I hugged her again. “I’m sorry, Carly. That stinks.”

“Yeah.” She straightened up, and my arm slid from her shoulders. “So, enough about me. What about you guys?”

With a quick recap, we put her in the picture. “So do you have something going with this Scottish guy?” Carly asked Lissa.

Lissa shook her head, a curtain of blonde hair falling to partially hide her face—a trick I’ve never quite been able to master, even though my hair hangs past my shoulders. But it’s so thick and coarse, it never does what I want on the best of days. It has to be beaten into submission by a professional.

“I think I liked his accent most of all,” she said. “I could just sit there and listen to him talk all day. In fact, I did. What he doesn’t know about murders and wars and Edinburgh Castle and Lord This and Earl That would probably fit in my lip gloss tube.”

I contrasted walking the cold streets of Edinburgh, listening to some guy drone on about history, with fighting with my brothers. Do we girls know how to have fun, or what? “Better you than me.”

“I’d have loved it,” Carly said. “Can you imagine walking through a castle with your own private tour guide? Especially if he’s cute. It doesn’t get better than that.”

“Um, okay.” Lissa gave her a sideways glance. “Miss A-plus in History.”

“Really?” I had A-pluses in AP Chem and Math, but with anything less in those subjects, I wouldn’t have been able to face my father at Christmas. As it was, he had a fit over my B in History, and the only reason I managed to achieve an A-minus in English was because of a certain person with the initials L. M.

Carly shrugged. “I like history. I like knowing what happened where, and who it happened to, and what they were wearing. Not that I’ve ever been anywhere very much, except Texas and Mexico.”

“You’d definitely have liked Alasdair, then,” Lissa said. “He knows all about what happened to whom. But the worst was having to go for tea at some freezing old stone castle that Dad was using for a set. I thought I’d lose my toes from frostbite.”

“Somebody lives in the castle?” Carly looked fascinated. “Who?”

“Some earl.” Lissa looked into the distance as she flipped through the PDA in her head. Then she blinked. “The Earl and Countess of Strathcairn.”

“Cool!”

“Very. Forty degrees, tops. He said he had a daughter about our age, but I never met her. She heard we were coming and took off on her horse.”

“Mo guai nuer,” I said. “Rude much?”

Lissa shrugged. “Alasdair knew the family. He said Lady Lindsay does what she wants, and clearly she didn’t want to meet us. Not that I cared. I was too busy having hypothermia. I’ve never been so glad to see the inside of a hotel room in my life. I’d have put my feet in my mug of tea if I could have.”

“Well, cold or not, I still think it’s cool that you met an earl,” Carly said. “And I can’t wait to see your dad’s movie.”

“Filming starts in February, so Dad won’t be around much. But Mom’s big charity gig for the Babies of Somalia went off just before Christmas and was a huge success, so she’ll be around a bit more.” She paused. “Until she finds something else to get involved in.”

“Did you meet Angelina?” I asked. Lissa’s life fascinated me. To her, movie stars are her dad’s coworkers, like the brokers and venture capitalists who come to the bank are my dad’s coworkers. But Dad doesn’t work with people who look like Orlando and Angelina, that’s for sure.

“Yes, I met her. She apologized for flaking on me for the Benefactors’ Day Ball. Not that I blame her. It all turned out okay in the end.”

“Except for your career as Vanessa Talbot’s BFF.”

Lissa snorted. “Yeah. Except that.”

None of us mentioned what else had crashed and burned in flames after the infamous webcam incident—her relationship with the most popular guy in school, Callum McCloud. I had a feeling that that was a scab we just didn’t need to pick at.

“You don’t need Vanessa Talbot,” Carly said firmly. “You have us.”

We exchanged a grin. “She’s right,” I said. “This term, it’s totally all about us.”

“Thank goodness for that,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”


RStapleton I heard from a mutual friend that you take care of people at midterm time.

Source10 What friend?

RStapleton Loyola.

Source10 Been known to happen.

RStapleton How much?

Source10 1K. Math, sciences, geography only.

RStapleton I hate numbers.

Source10 IM me the day before to confirm.

RStapleton OK. Who are you?

RStapleton You there?


BY NOON THE next day, I’d hustled down to the student print shop in the basement and printed the notices I’d laid out on my Mac. I tacked them on the bulletin boards in the common rooms and classroom corridors on all four floors.


Christian prayer circle every Tuesday night 7:00 p.m., Room 216 Bring your Bible and a friend!


“Nice work,” Lissa told me when I found her and Carly in the dining room. “Love the salmon pink paper. But school hasn’t officially started yet. We probably won’t get a very good turnout if the first one’s tonight.”

“Maybe not.” I bit into a succulent California roll and savored the tart, thin seaweed wrapper around the rice, avocado, and shrimp. I had to hand it to Dining Services. Their food was amazing. “But even if it’s just the three of us, I can’t think of a better way to start off the term, can you?”

Lissa didn’t reply. The color faded from her face and she concentrated on her square ceramic plate of sushi as though it were her last meal. Carly swallowed a bite of makizushi with an audible gulp as it went down whole. Slowly, casually, I reached for the pepper shaker and glanced over my shoulder.

“If it isn’t the holy trinity,” Vanessa drawled, plastered against Brett Loyola’s arm and standing so close behind us, neither Carly nor I could move. “Going to multiply the rice and fish for us?”

“Nice to see you, too, Vanessa,” Lissa said coolly. “Been reading your Bible, I see.”

“Hi, Brett,” Carly managed, her voice about six notes higher than usual as she craned to look up at him.

He looked at her, puzzled, as if he’d seen her before somewhere but couldn’t place where, and gave her a vague smile. “Hey.”

I rolled my eyes. Like we hadn’t spent an entire term in History together. Like Carly didn’t light up like a Christmas tree every time she passed a paper to him, or maneuvered her way into a study group that had him in it. Honestly. I don’t know how that guy got past the entrance requirements.

Oh, wait. Silly me. Daddy probably made a nice big donation to the athletics department, and they waved Brett through Admissions with a grateful smile.

“Have any of you seen Callum?” Vanessa inquired sweetly. “I’m dying to see him. I hear he spent Christmas skiing at their place in Vail with his sisters and his new girlfriend. No parents.”

“He’s a day student.” I glanced at Lissa to see how she was taking this, but she’d leaned over to the table behind her to snag a bunch of napkins. “Why would he be eating here?”

“To see all his friends, of course. I guess that’s why you haven’t seen him.”

“Neither have you, if you’re asking where he is.” Poor Vanessa. I hope she’s never on a debating team. It could get humiliating.

But what she lacked in logic she made up for in venom. She ignored me and gushed, “I love your outfit, Lissa. I’m sure Callum would, too. That is, if he were still speaking to you.”

I barely restrained myself from giving Vanessa an elbow in the stomach. But Lissa had come a long way since her ugly breakup with a guy who didn’t deserve her. Vanessa had no idea who she was dealing with—Lissa with an army of angels at her back was a scary thing.

She pinned Vanessa with a stare as cold as fresh snow.

“You mean you haven’t told him yet that you made that video?” She shook her head. “Naughty Vanessa, lying to your friends like that.” A big smile and a meaningful glance at Brett. “But then, they’re probably used to it.”

Vanessa opened her mouth to say something scathing, when a tall, lanky guy elbowed past her to put his sushi dishes on the table next to mine. Six feet of sheer brilliance, with blue eyes and brown hair cropped short so he didn’t have to deal with it. A mind so sharp, he put even the overachievers here in the shade—but in spite of that, a guy who’d started coming to prayer circle last term. Who could fluster me with a look, and wipe my brain completely blank with just a smile.

Lucas Hayes.

“Hey, Vanessa, Brett.”

My jaw sagged in surprise, and I snapped it shut on my mouthful of rice, hoping he hadn’t seen. Since when was the king of the science geeks on speaking terms with the popular crowd?

To add to the astonishment, the two of them stepped back, as if to give him some space. “Yo, Einstein.” Brett grinned and they shook hands.

“Hi, Lucas.” Vanessa glanced from him to me to our dishes sitting next to each other. “I didn’t know you were friends with these people.”

He shrugged. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That could change. Why don’t you come and sit with us?” she asked. Brett looked longingly at the sushi bar and tugged on her arm. She ignored him. “We’re much more fun. We don’t sing hymns and save souls.”

“So I’ve heard. Did you make it into Trig?”

“Of course.” She tossed her gleaming sheet of hair over one shoulder. “Thanks to you.”

I couldn’t keep quiet another second. “You tutored her?” I asked him, trying not to squeak.

He picked up a piece of California roll and popped it in his mouth, nodding. “All last term.” He glanced at Vanessa. “Contrary to popular opinion, she isn’t all looks.”

Oh, gack. Way TMI. Vanessa smiled as though she’d won this and all other possible arguments now and in the future, world without end, amen. “Come on, Lucas. Hold our table for us while Brett and I get our food. I want to talk to you about something anyway.”

He shrugged and picked up his dishes while she and Brett swanned away. “See you at prayer circle,” he said to me. “I saw the signs. Same time and place, right?”

I could only nod as he headed for the table in the middle of the big window looking out on the quad. The one no one else dared to sit at, in case they risked the derision and social ostracism that would follow.

The empty seat on my right seemed even emptier. How could he do that? How could he just dump us and then say he’d see us at prayer circle? Shouldn’t he want to eat with the people he prayed with?

“It’s okay, Gillian,” Carly whispered. “At least he’s coming.”

“And Vanessa isn’t,” Lissa put in with satisfaction.

“I’m not so sure I want him to, now,” I said. I looked at my sushi and my stomach sort of lurched. Ugh. I pushed it away.

And here I’d been feeling so superior to Carly and her unrequited yen for Brett. I was just as bad, and this proved it. What else could explain this sick feeling in my middle?

Two hours later, while Lissa, Carly, and I shoved aside the canvases and whatnot that had accumulated in Room 216 over the break, making enough room for half a dozen people to sit, I’d almost talked myself into not caring whether Lucas came or not.

And then he stepped through the door and I realized my body was more honest than my brain. I sucked in a breath and my heart began to pound.

Oh, yeah. You so don’t care.

Travis, who must have arrived during dinner, trickled in behind him, and then Shani Hanna, who moved with the confidence of an Arabian queen, arrived with a couple of sophomores I didn’t know. Her hair, tinted bronze and caught up at the crown of her head, tumbled to her shoulders in corkscrew curls. I fingered my own arrow-straight mop that wouldn’t hold a curl if you threatened it with death.

Okay, stop feeling sorry for yourself, would you? Enough is enough.

“Hey, everyone, thanks for coming,” I said brightly, getting to my feet. “I’m Gillian Chang. Why don’t the newbies introduce themselves, and then we’ll get started?”

The sophomores told us their names, and I found out Travis’s last name was Fanshaw. And the dots connected. Of course he’d been assigned as Lucas’s roommate—he’s like this Chemistry genius. If it weren’t for Lucas, he’d be the king of the science geeks. Sometimes science people have a hard time reconciling scientific method with faith. If they were here at prayer circle, maybe Travis and Lucas were among the lucky few who figured science was a form of worship, of marveling at the amazement that is creation. I mean, if Lucas was one of those guys who got a kick out of arguing with the Earth Sciences prof, I wouldn’t even be able to date him.

Not that there was any possibility of that.

As our prayers went up one by one, quietly from people like Carly and brash and uncomfortably from people like Travis and the sophomores, I wished that dating was the kind of thing I could pray about.

But I don’t think God has my social life on His to-do list.


This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Shelley Adina

This article is used with the permission of Hachette Book Group and Shelley Adina. All rights reserved.

Friday, September 19, 2008


This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

The Bride Bargain

Barbour Publishing, Inc (September 1, 2008)

by

Kelly Eileen Hake



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Life doesn't wait, and neither does Kelly Eileen Hake. In her short twenty-three years of life, she's achieved much. Her secret? Embracing opportunities and multitasking. Kelly received her first writing contract at the tender age of seventeen and arranged to wait three months until she was able to legally sign it. Since that first contract five years ago, she's reached several life goals. Aside from fulfilling fourteen contracts ranging from short stories to novels, she's also attained her BA in English Literature and Composition and earned her credential to teach English in secondary schools. If that weren't enough, she's taken positions as a college preparation tutor, bookstore clerk, and in-classroom learning assistant to pay for the education she values so highly. Currently, she is working toward her MA in Writing Popular Fiction. No matter what goal she pursues, Kelly knows what it means to work for it!

Kelly's dual careers as English teacher and author give her the opportunity explore and share her love of the written word. A CBA bestselling author and dedicated member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Kelly is a reader favorite of Barbour's Heartsong Presents program, where she's been privileged to earn numerous Heartsong Presents Reader's Choice Awards; including Favorite New Author 2005, Top 5 Favorite Historical Novel 2005, and Top Five Favorite Author Overall 2006 in addition to winning the Second Favorite Historical Novel 2006!

Her Prairie Promises trilogy, set in the 1850s Nebraska Territory, features her special style of witty, heartwarming historical romance.
ABOUT THE BOOK

Set down upon the wild American plains during the 1850. Clara is desperate for a home and a future for herself and her aunt. When Clara Fields and her aunt are kicked off their wagon train, a store owner in Buttonwood offers a chance at redemption. If Clara is able to wed his grandson off to any of the local girls within a month, he'll sign over his two-story house.

Desperate to provide for the woman who raised her, Clara agrees to find a bride for the man's son--a stalwart bachelor. How hard can it be to find a bride for one handsome Doctor? Apparently more difficult than she imagined when Saul Reed seems determined to remain single.

Will Clara's faith and wits help her wrangle a resolution to The Bride Bargain. Striking a bargain with a lonely trader to fool a head-strong doctor could lead Clara to an unexpected avenue of romance.

If you would like to read the first chapter of The Bride Bargain, go HERE

Book Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1602601755

Tuesday, September 16, 2008


This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Isolation

FaithWords (September 12, 2008)

by

Travis Thrasher



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

It was during third grade after a teacher encouraged him in his writing and as he read through The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis that Travis decided he wanted to be a writer. The dream never left him, and allowed him to fulfill that dream of writing fulltime in 2007.

Travis Thrasher is the author of numerous works of fiction, including his most personal and perhaps his deepest work, Sky Blue, that was published in summer of 2007. This year he has to novels published, Out of the Devil’s Mouth, and a supernatural thriller, Isolation.

Travis is married to Sharon and they are the proud parents of Kylie, born in November, 2006, and Hailey, a Shih-Tzu that looks like an Ewok. They live in suburban Chicago.


ABOUT THE BOOK

Trapped

Exhausted

Terrified

. . . Alone

When a missionary family moves into a secluded mansion in the mountains of North Carolina, they think they are escaping their nightmares. But when a snowstorm hits and they are trapped inside their new home, their worst fears become reality. As they fight to stay alive, they will be tested in ways they never imagined. Can their love for one another and their faith in God save them from the dangers lurking here?

A masterfully written story that will grip you from its mysterious beginning to its chilling end.

From Publishers Weekly:

"In this dark chiller, Thrasher (Sky Blue; The Promise Remains) demonstrates a considerable talent for the horror genre. Like Stephen King, Thrasher pits flawed but likable characters against evil forces that at first seem escapable but gradually take on a terrifying ubiquity.

The Miller family has recently returned to suburban Chicago after a harrowing experience on the mission field. Hoping to get away from the busyness of suburban living, they travel to the mountains of North Carolina for an extended stay in an enormous, remote lodge where husband and father Jim plans to write a book while trying to reconnect with his family.

When a snowstorm isolates them further and spiritual attacks make them feel they are losing their minds, both Jim and his wife, Stephanie, begin to wonder if God can rescue them and their two young children. Aside from sharing too many plot points with The Shining, this novel hits very few false notes and should appeal to fans of Christian fiction, the horror genre and all who enjoy well-crafted and suspenseful stories."

If you would like to read the first chapter of Isolation, go HERE

Book link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446505544

Monday, September 15, 2008


It's the 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book's FIRST chapter!





The feature author is:


and his/her book:



Zondervan (April 1, 2008)



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Rogers is copastor of New Life Christian Fellowship at Virginia Tech. Eight hundred students call it home.

FROM THE BACK COVER:

On April 16, 2007, the campus of Virginia Tech experienced a collective nightmare when thirty-three students were killed in the worst massacre in modern U.S. history. Following that horrendous event, Virginia Tech campus pastor Matt Rogers found himself asking and being asked, “Where is God in all of this?” The cliché-ridden, pat answers rang hollow.
In this book, Matt approaches the pain of the world with personal perspective—dealing with his hurting community as well as standing over the hospital bed of his own father—and goes beyond answers, beyond theodicy, beyond the mere intellectual. When Answers Aren’t Enough drives deeper, to the heart of our longing, in search of a God we can experience as good when life isn’t.


Product Details

List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Zondervan (April 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0310286816
ISBN-13: 978-0310286813


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


A Heavy,
Sinking Sadness


Embracing the World That Is

One


Lately I’ve been walking in the evenings. I tend to do that when stuck on a question. Maybe I’m trying to walk it off. On days when I have time, I drive out to Pandapas Pond in Jefferson National Forest to be in nature. Once there, I set off through the woods or slowly stroll along the water’s edge, deep in thought or prayer.

Most days, because of time, I have to settle for the streets around my home. I can quickly climb to the top of Lee Street, turn around, and look out over Blacksburg, the Blue Ridge backlit by the setting sun. From there, I can see much of Virginia Tech. The stately bell tower of Burruss Hall rises proudly above the rest.

On nights like tonight, when I get a late start and the sun is already down, I head for campus. At its center, separating the academic and residential sides of the school, sits the Drill Field, a wide-open grassy space named for the exercises that the Corps of Cadets practices to perfection there. After dark, old iron lampposts, painted black, blanket the ground in overlapping circles of light.

It was here on the Drill Field, the day after the shootings, that students placed thirty-two slabs of gray limestone rock — Hokie stones, as they’re called — in a semicircle in front of Burruss Hall, to commemorate the lives of loved ones lost. Thousands of mourners descended on the place, bearing with them a flood of condolences, a mix of bouquets, balloons, and poster-board sympathies. They came sniffling, clinging to tissues and to one another, and lifting their sunglasses to wipe tears from their tired, red eyes. The world came as well, vicariously through television, watching us, kneeling with us in grief.

I also came, revisiting the stones day after day, and sometimes at night, drawn to them by a need to connect with the dead whom I never knew. Always there was something new here, some trinket that had been added. At times the items seemed odd: a baseball for every victim, an American flag by every stone, though some of the dead were international students.

People took their time passing by this spot. There was no need to rush; there were no classes to attend. It would be days, dark and long, before there would be any distractions from the pain. For a time, there was no world beyond this place.

By day, soft chatter could be heard around the memorial. After sunset, no one spoke a word. During daylight, masses huddled near the stones, peering over shoulders to read the notes left there. At night, however, mourners passed by in a single-file line, waiting their turn, patient with the people in front who wished to pause at every name.

The masses have since receded. The Drill Field now is vacant (except for these stones) and silent. The semester has ended, most of the students are gone, and only the sounds of insects disturb the stillness of the summer evening air. If I close my eyes and take in the quiet, I can almost imagine nothing happened here.

Almost. Except for the stone reminders that lie at my feet. On one is written a simple, anguished note.

Jeremy,

We love you.

Mom and Dad


These stones are more than rocks. Each is all that remains of a son, a daughter, a husband who will never come home again. I picture my mom and dad, heartbroken, kneeling by a stone for me, had I been among the dead. Moreover, I imagine myself by a stone for my dad, had he not survived his fall.

This is a summer of mourning. I am grieving the world as it is. And I am asking, “If I embrace the world as it is, in all its sadness — if I refuse to bury my head in the sand, pretending all is well, but rather think and speak of the world as it actually is — can I, then, still know God as good? Can my experience of him be more consistent than my circumstances, which alternate between good and bad?”

Is this too much to expect?

Before I can know, I must face the world at its worst.

Friday, September 12, 2008



It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!





Today's Wild Card author is:


and her book:


First Place 4 Health

Regal Books (June 15, 2008)


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



Carole Lewis is the national director of First Place 4 Health, the Christ centered health and weight loss program. A warm, transparent and humorous communicator, Carole is a popular speaker at workshops, seminars and conferences around the country. She and her husband, Johnny, have three adult children (one deceased), eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Visit the author's blog.

Product Details:

List Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Regal Books (June 15, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0830745238

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter One

Get on the Bus


One of my favorite authors and speakers, Patsy Clairmont, tells the story of when her son was about six years old. Because they lived out in the country, she walked her son to the bus stop every morning. One day, early in the school year, before she got back to the house, she heard the footsteps of her son running up behind her.


“What in the world are you doing?” she said to him. “The school bus will be here any minute.”


“I’m quitting school,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.


“You can’t quit school,” she replied. “You’re only in first grade. Why do you want to quit?”


“Well, it’s too long, too hard and too boring,” he said.


“Son, that’s life,” said Patsy. “Get on the bus.”


* * *

Have you ever wanted to give up?


There’s a worthy goal ahead, but to reach the goal takes time, effort and focus. When you run into obstacles, your first inclination might be to quit. That’s when the best thing you can do is square your shoulders, set your lunch kit firmly under your arm and get on the bus—in other words, take one simple step toward your goal.


If you’re reading this book, chances are good that you have a worthy goal in mind—you want your life and health to change for the better. Maybe you haven’t fully articulated the goal, but you know that you can’t stay the same. You know that something has to change in your life because parts of your life—perhaps all parts—aren’t what they could be right now.


What’s the most obvious part of your life that needs to change—is it your weight?


Being overweight is an obvious catalyst that invites you to open the door to positive change. It’s easy to admit to a struggle with weight when the mirrors, the scale and the clothes closets in your house don’t lie. Being overweight is noticeable—to you and to others. You can’t ignore it. It never lets you forget its presence.


• Maybe you feel the extra weight in your heart and lungs. It’s difficult to climb stairs. It’s difficult or impossible to play with your kids or grandchildren. You dread your annual physical checkup because you already know what the doctor is going to tell you.


• Perhaps buying clothes is distressing and embarrassing for you. You see the clothes you’d like to wear, but nothing fits or feels right. You dread wearing shorts. You detest wearing a swimsuit, and you might even refuse to participate in any activity that requires your wearing a swimsuit.


• Maybe you sense a subtle discrimination at work. You are passed over for a promotion and wonder if it has anything to do with your weight. Maybe your sales would be higher if you looked fit. Maybe you’d get more respect if you weren’t packing on the pounds.


• You dread social events, such as a class reunion, where you’re with people who haven’t seen you for a while. You hear people say good things to others, but no positive comments come your way. Maybe people give you pointed stares. Maybe they even joke that your spouse’s cooking must be really good.


• Weight affects your pocketbook. Your grocery bill is higher. Your life insurance premiums are elevated. You spend more on medical deductibles. Maybe you have paid a lot of money for weight-loss programs and related books.


• You fear the severe repercussions of being overweight. One of your grandmothers suffers from diabetes. An uncle died of heart disease. Another had a stroke. You’re about the same age and condition as they were when their bodies became diseased. What will be your fate?


The reasons why you are overweight are numerous. You may have struggled with weight forever. You’ve always been the “fat kid,” the one picked last in gym class, the girl without a date at prom or the tubby guy who’s always good for a joke. You blame the weight on your genes, the way you were raised or the fact that your mother always cooked with butter. But it doesn’t matter—in the end you’re overweight because you’ve always been that way.


Some people struggle with weight only after a major life change—the pounds came on after marriage, after reaching a certain age, during pregnancy. You remember what it was like to be fit, but that was definitely yesterday’s body. You see pictures of yourself taken a few years ago, before you gained weight, and wonder if you’ll ever look like that again.


Some of us wrestle with weight because, in our most honest moments, we know it acts as a cocoon. If this is your reason, perhaps you gained weight because something terrible happened years ago. Maybe your father died when you were young and you’re still grieving his loss; you were date raped as a teenager and it has taken years to overcome the tragedy; you went through an ugly divorce and are still scarred and wounded. The extra pounds feel like a protection. You believe your weight hides you from a hurtful world. Food is a refuge that always seems to make you feel better.


Some people struggle with weight because age or other health conditions hinder ease of movement. If this is your story, you long to be fit and healthy, but most mornings when you wake up you simply feel miserable. It’s hard to get off the couch, much less walk around the block.


Others struggle with weight because life moves too fast. You’ve got to work all day and pick up the kids after soccer practice and get dinner on the table and make phone calls for the committee after dinner and on and on and on—how can you possibly take time to focus on your health?


Whatever the reasons, you know one thing for sure: The pounds are there, and you wish they weren’t. You long for a better life—a vibrant, healthy life. Deep down you long to be the kind of person whose life is characterized by balance and satisfaction.


You can glimpse the better goal of being fit and well, but to reach that goal, you know it will take time, effort and focus. Obstacles will come up—they’ve come up every other time you’ve tried to lose weight, and when this happens, the temptation is always to quit. You know that you need to take one simple step at a time toward your target. But how do you do that?


The Place to Begin


There is hope for your future weight loss, and it’s found in a place you may have never imagined. The easy thing would be for me to give you another diet to follow. But statistics tell us that 95 percent of people who lose weight gain it back again.1 The simple fact is that another diet is not the solution you’re looking for.


I repeat: If all you’re looking for is a quick way to lose weight, then this book will disappoint you. That’s not what First Place 4 Health is all about. Besides, I won’t give you a quick fix that will take the pounds off only to have them come back on a short time later.


I want to give you a lasting solution that addresses not only the number you see on a scale but also your whole person—spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s the plan that helps you lead the life you were meant to live—a good life filled with hope, purpose and health.


If that kind of life is something that interests you, I want to let you in on a little secret. The hope for your future weight loss begins with this simple fact:


God is good.


That’s where the First Place 4 Health program begins. Does that statement sound so simple that you feel like dismissing it? “God is good” is one of the most far-reaching principles of the Bible, and it affects your life in ways that you may never have imagined. Let’s take that one fact and unpack it a bit.


Imagine for a moment that you lived a few thousand years ago. You’re in a community of people loved by God, but you have all made mistakes over a long period of time, and you find yourself conquered, captured and carted off to Babylon by order of King Nebuchadnezzar.


In this new land, nothing feels the same and nothing looks the same. Obstacles are all around you. You’re a stranger in a strange land. But you get a letter from one of your “pastors”—the prophet Jeremiah—and the letter lays out the very words of God.


In the letter, God says that He knows everything there is to know about you, including the events of your life that have led you to this place of exile. God knows the mistakes you have made, but He offers you His grace. The Lord declares these simple yet profound words:


I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).


That’s the simple fact: God has good plans for you, plans to give you a hope and a future. In other words—God is good.


God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Even though He wrote those words through the prophet Jeremiah, to a specific group of people at a specific place and time, His righteous character is still the same toward us today. Whenever we turn to the Lord and ask for His help, He extends His hand of grace to us.


Nahum 1:7 repeats that thought:


The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.

He cares for those who trust in Him.


That’s the real answer to your goal of losing weight and becoming healthy. Start with the fact that God is good. He cares for you. The answer you’re looking for encompasses not just taking off pounds, but also living the life of purpose and hope you were meant to live. This is the life God calls you to live. And that life is well within your grasp. This book will show you what it’s all about.


Do the Next Right Thing


To begin learning about this new, healthier lifestyle, you need to start right where you are. That means taking whatever positive step is right in front of you; or, in other words, “do the next right thing.”


I want to share with you part of a letter I received from one of our First Place 4 Health group leaders. She has chosen to show up to life every day. She takes small steps. She makes ordinary decisions for positive change. But she is walking the path of balance that leads to total health.


I have battled depression most of my life. When I became a Christian, that battle did not go away. In 1990, when I weighed 220 pounds, I prayed that God would deliver me from my addiction to food. One week later, I learned about First Place. (First Place has been a lifesaver for me. I have been a First Place leader off and on since 1991.)


When my mother came to live with us, and I became her full-time caregiver, I dropped out of First Place and my weight went up to 273 pounds. I am disabled and live with chronic pain on a daily basis. During this time there were days when I only got out of bed to take care of my mother’s most basic needs.


When she went home to be with the Lord in 2002, I chose to have gastric bypass surgery the next year instead of returning to First Place. I lost 90 pounds the first year and then stopped. I have since realized that there’s no magic cure for weight gain. Even with gastric bypass surgery, the answer is to eat less and exercise more.


I wanted so badly to start leading First Place again, but since I’d had weight-loss surgery, I felt that I couldn’t justify leading the class. I prayed and sought the Lord and called your office and was encouraged to share with the class and go forward. I have done that now for the last two years.


All of this leads up to why I am writing. I have battled depression since I was a very young girl. God has helped me so much since becoming a Christian, but it is a battle every day, and some days I lose the fight. One of my First Place assistants brought a copy of the April 2007 First Place Newsletter to class for each of our members. That newsletter has changed my life.


We all have Aha! moments in life when one word or one Scripture reaches us and the light bulb turns on. For me it was one line from that newsletter. “When there are times when all I can do is the next right thing, then I do the next right thing.” Wow! I thought. Maybe I can do that. So I typed up this saying and placed it on my bathroom mirror. The very next day I woke up in great pain, not knowing how to begin doing all the things

I needed to do, and with no energy and no desire to do anything. Then I remembered the saying—Do the next right thing. I read it out loud, and I read it again. And then, I did the next right thing. All day that day, if I got confused or overwhelmed or sad, I went back to the bathroom and read that statement and then did the next right thing.


My husband can’t believe the things I have gotten accomplished. My house is cleaner; my laundry is done (folded and put away); I go to bed earlier and get up earlier. I have started swimming at the YWCA. I have become interested in reading and doing crafts again. Previously, I just wanted to stay in bed until noon; but now I tell myself to just get up and do the next right thing.


The words “Do the next right thing” have completely changed my life. Do I still battle depression? Yes. Maybe I will for the rest of my life unless the Lord chooses to heal me. Am I still in constant pain? Oh, yes. I need surgery, and maybe now I will find the courage to go ahead with that. But I don’t have to worry about that—I just have to do the next right thing.


In the pages ahead, you will see more specifically what taking positive steps looks like. Together we will examine the model of the foursided person and explore what it means to live a balanced life mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically. You are invited to make foundational shifts toward positive habits that will help you along your new journey. Through the power of God, you can decide to live a healthier life, and you can experience lasting positive change.


When I think of a person who has succeeded in this area, I think of my friend Deborah, a woman in my First Place 4 Health group.


Deborah had a number of strikes against her. At 5'8", she weighed more than 200 pounds. She had been in an emotionally and physically abusive marriage and was in the process of getting a divorce. She had custody of her two preteen girls and was tired a lot. After suffering from chronic depression for years, Deborah was on several medications.


When Deborah came to her first meeting, all she did was sit. She sat through an entire 12-week session and didn’t lose a pound. She signed up for another 12-week session. She came and sat, and didn’t lose a pound.


So she signed up for a third 12-week session. On the day the session was to start, she sent me this email: “Carole, please take my name off the roll. I’m just dragging the group down.”


I knew that Deborah wasn’t doing her Bible study. I knew that she had not learned the food plan. I knew that she was convinced that all she was able to do was sit. And I knew that she had reached the point where the pain of not changing was forcing her to move beyond the lies and make a choice. Her choice was that she needed to make a choice.


I replied to her email message with one line: Deborah—just come today.


That day, when Deborah arrived, I hugged her, and she started crying.


That was her moment of choice. From that moment on, she started responding to the program. She began doing her Bible study and memorizing verses. She started walking around her neighborhood with her girls. She started eating according to the Live It plan.


Soon, she had lost 60 pounds.


Previously hidden aspects of Deborah’s personality began to shine through. She was fun! We learned that she was a talented photographer. In fact, in March 2006, she went to Israel with a tour group arranged by First Place 4 Health. She took pictures for the group and walked up and down the rocky terrain. I had never seen her like that—so vibrant and full of action. She had just been so squashed down all of her life.


“Deborah,” I said, a while ago, “tell me what finally happened for you to make a choice.”


“Carole,” she said, “you believed in me. You believed that I could do it. Nobody ever believed in me before.”


What she said is true. I believed in her. And I believe in you. I believe that you can do it. Even if no one has ever believed in you before, know that someone believes in you now. With God’s help, you can change. It’s your choice. And you have the power to do it.


As you take your next steps toward positive change, keep in mind that you must choose to change before change will begin.


First Place 4 Health is not a diet; it’s a lifestyle shift.


People often believe that if they can just get on the right diet, all their weight problems will be solved. That’s an easy mistake to make, because the latest, greatest diets are always marketed as the solution we need. Yet First Place 4 Health is much more than a diet; it’s a change in how to approach life. The good thing about the First Place 4 Health food plan is that it’s not restrictive like a diet would be. We invite you to explore all the wonderful world of food choices the Lord has provided.


• First Place 4 Health is not about rigid rules; it’s about helpful invitations. We used to stress commitments—which is a good concept. We wanted people to be dedicated to pursuing health. But we have found that people sometimes looked at commitments as laws, and if laws were broken, then guilt and rigidity set in. Instead, we are inviting you to make a number of positive changes in your life. No one does them all perfectly, all of the time. So relax. There isn’t just one way to live a healthy life. Develop the plan that works best for you, and give yourself grace to make mistakes and adjustments along the way.


• Get involved at your own pace. When it comes to living a healthy, balanced life, success will look different for different people. Some people lose 100 pounds the first year they’re involved in First Place 4 Health. Other people lose 20 pounds and keep it off for 20 years. For others, success is found in not gaining any more weight. You are welcome in First Place 4 Health regardless of where you are with your current level of health. We encourage you to do no more than what you are ready for. Yet we do encourage you to take a first positive step as soon as possible.


• Your invitation starts right now. Any change requires some sort of adjustment. Your invitation is to jump in to this new life today. Just begin. Get on the bus. Make the choice to give yourself wholeheartedly to this new season in your life—a season that will hopefully stretch into a lifetime of healthy living. Have fun exploring new ways to grow in your faith and in your understanding of health. Develop new friendships by getting involved in something good for you. Don’t be satisfied with standing on the outside—come on in! Be courageous and take the next step in living a balanced life.


What Keeps You Going?


The formula for lasting change:


A worthy goal reached through time + effort + focus


When obstacles to meeting your goal come up, your first inclination may be to quit. That’s when you take the next step toward your goal— just one simple step at a time.


It helps to have a clear idea of what a worthy goal looks like. You may not have articulated more than the words “to lose weight.” While this is a worthy goal, it usually breaks down when obstacles come up, because you need a greater understanding of the motivation behind your goal. When you remember why it is that you wanted to lose weight in the first place, that knowledge keeps you heading toward your goal.


People lose weight for all sorts of reasons. The Bible provides the foundational motivation, and it’s as simple as this: God is interested in your health. The motivations are shown in two passages of Scripture.

Check out Romans 12:1-2:


Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.


In other words, you are urged to present your body—your actual flesh and blood and bone and skin—to God as an act of worship. How you take care of your body is a reflection of what you think about God. It’s honoring to the Lord to take care of the body He has given you.


When your body is presented to God, He invites you to use your life in service to Him.


Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20).


The benefit here is yours. To live for the Lord God of All is an incredible privilege. God’s invitation is to an abundant life full of purpose and hope. A foundational motivation for weight loss and total lifestyle change is to give your body to God.


It seems strange to think about it, but if you have accepted Christ as your Savior, then you have the actual Spirit of God living inside your body. It doesn’t make you a god. It means that your body houses the spirit of God, and that He works in your life by faith.


So what are the foundational motivations for losing weight and living a life of balance?


First, God wants you to. God is interested in your health.


Second, when your life is in balance, it’s much easier to be a leader in your family and a role model for your children and spouse. It’s difficult to lead people where you have never been yourself. Many children are overweight and need encouragement from their parents. Many of the weight problems of our children would evaporate if we led by example.


I’ve experienced this truth in my own life. When I first started to exercise, my oldest granddaughter, Cara, loved to walk or jog with me. Would she have done it on her own? No way! Yet in a heartbeat, she came with me at my invitation. Children love being with their family members.


Third, weight loss can also expose the true needs in our hearts. I’m talking specifically to those of you who need emotional healing. A weight gain is often a symptom of a deeper issue. For instance, women and men who have been emotionally or sexually abused often attempt to hide their pain by eating.


But whatever motivation is speaking to your heart, just take a moment now to get on the bus.


In the space on the following pages, jot down some ideas about the reasons you want to lose weight. It can be very beneficial to see your goals on paper. When obstacles come (and they will), you can refer back to this to gain encouragement.


Sometimes it helps to record a positive goal as well as its negative extrapolation of what might happen if you don’t do anything. Sometimes it can help to imagine your life in 5, 10 or 15 years. What will happen if something changes? What will happen if nothing changes?

Take some time to think through the following declarations.


I want to lose weight because . . .


I want to lose weight so that I can . . .


and be a good example to . . .


If I lose weight, then in the future I can see myself . . .


If I don’t lose weight, then in the future I can see myself . . .


There is no correct way to word your goal. What matters is that you know your goal, remind yourself of it often and keep in mind that your goal is reachable. With God’s help, you can do it.


Congratulations! You’re on Your Way


God never promised us that life would be rosy and without difficulty. Instead, the Lord promises to carry us through any situation and trial. God already knows your goals. He knows that you desire a better life filled with purpose, health and hope. And He knows the obstacles you will encounter that tempt you to quit the journey. Don’t give up! You can make it!


Remember, you have already taken the first step by reading this chapter. And it wasn’t that hard. Now you’re on the bus! You’re on your way to a whole new you.


Checklist for Success


• Acknowledge the truth that God is good and that He offers you a hope-filled plan for your life and future. Your success begins with this simple fact.


• Run from quick fixes—they never provide you with the lasting change you need. First Place 4 Health is a lifestyle change that affects your whole person—mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. It will take time, but it’s worth it.


• Accept the invitation to give your life to God. He is interested in everything about you—including your physical health.


• Write down the specific reasons why you want to become healthy. Refer back to your declarations often for motivation. Remind yourself why not doing anything isn’t an option.


• Start today. Obstacles and excuses will come up, but quitting isn’t the answer. Do the next right thing!


Note

1. This statistic is frequently cited in weight-loss journals and health-related articles, for example: http://preventdisease.com/fitness/weightloss/articles/carbs.html (accessed January 23, 2007).

Thursday, September 11, 2008



It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!





Today's Wild Card author is:


and his/her book:


If God Disappears: 9 Faith Wreckers and What to Do about Them

SaltRiver (August 13, 2008)


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


David and Renée Sanford own Sanford Communications, Inc., which works closely with leading authors, ministries, and publishers to develop life-changing books and other resources. Their professional credentials, life experience, and passion for helping adoptive families make them well-qualified for this project. David, Renée, and their two youngest children live “on the road to Damascus” a few miles from downtown Portland, Oregon.

Visit the author's website.

Product Details:

List Price: $16.99
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: SaltRiver (August 13, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414316178

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter One

INTRODUCTION


Sometimes it takes the experience of losing someone to shake us out of complacency.


I lost someone when I was eleven. My dad and mom and brother and two sisters and I were near Snoqualmie Pass, about fifty miles east of Seattle.

Waiting in line near the top of the mountain slope was a girl about my age with a new, red snow saucer. Compared to my black, smelly inner tube, it was high tech.

I’d never seen anyone fly so fast down the mountain before. I continued to watch the girl as I made my own way down at less than breakneck speed. Most kids stopped shortly after the slope flattened out. But this girl just kept going and going. And then she disappeared.

I swung around quickly to my left, to my right. Everyone around me was getting up and trudging back up the hill. But I didn’t see the girl. She had been right in front of me. And then she was gone.

No one believed me.

I insisted I had seen her disappear. “We can’t just walk away. Come back. Help me look for her.”

Still no one believed. Except me.

The snow was wet and heavy that day. Off the beaten track, I soon found my boots sinking deeper and deeper into the snowpack. It took a full minute to cover ten yards. But I would not stop. Looking carefully, I could see the slight depression where the girl’s red saucer had flown across the surface of the snow.

Scattered alpine trees stuck out of the snow just ahead of me. I looked back and realized I was well off the beaten track. But I knew I had seen the girl go this far.

My heart stopped when I found the dark hole. There, in front of me, the saucer’s track stopped.

I lay on the snow with my head sticking out over the hole. The second I heard her crying, I started yelling. “Are you all right? Don’t worry. I’ll get help. I promise—I’ll be back right away.”

I didn’t have time to go all the way back up the slope to my parents, so I accosted the first adult I found and breathlessly told him my story. He started yelling, and other adults came running. Someone called up the slope, and within minutes someone else was running toward us with a rope.

I led everyone along the path I had taken earlier. It took a while, but eventually a very wet and cold girl was fished out of the creek fourteen feet below the snowpack. She was reunited with her father, and all was well again.

For a long time afterward I pondered what would have happened if I had been the one riding the red saucer.

I also wondered why it was so hard to get anyone to believe me.

The fact is, sometimes the bottom does fall out from under us, God seems to disappear, and it’s almost impossible to get anyone to believe us.

I believe you.






ONE

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES




EVERYONE HAS A STORY.


What’s yours? Have you ever reached a point in your life where God seemed to disappear? Have you ever felt as if things couldn’t get any worse? As if someone has turned out the lights and God just slipped away?


Martin Luther called this Anfechtung. Saint John of the Cross called it the “dark night of the soul.” Only it doesn’t usually last a night. It can last for days. Weeks. Months. Even longer.

And when God steps back into the picture, it often feels too late.

Throughout literature, music, and movies, we see the themes of God’s (or gods’) abandonment, the hero(ine)’s resultant agnosticism, and the immense struggles that ensue. In real life, there’s not always a happy ending.



LONG GONE

Remember Superman Returns? By the time our messiah-like superhero shows up, five years after disappearing unexpectedly, Lois Lane has won a Pulitzer for her op-ed piece, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.”

Just when Lois thinks she’s completely processed her pain and suffering, she faces a second crisis: Can she make room in her life for Superman again?

Like the shaken believer who feels that God walked away without even waving good-bye, Lois has to decide: Does she even want him back?

We all need to answer that question at some point. Do I want God back?

This is the central question to those who feel God has walked out on them. Everyone has faced—or will face—such crises of faith. For some reason beyond our human understanding, such crises are part of everyone’s spiritual journey.

Of course, Superman did return to Lois. But for Christians, sometimes it seems impossible to wait when we have no idea whether or not God is ever coming back. In the darkest times—the death of a close friend or loved one, a horrible accident, acts of terrorism and war, natural disasters, and other tragedies—he seems infinitely far away.

When I was nineteen, a close family friend, Darrell, fell victim to intense headaches. A CAT scan technician first spotted the problem: a massive tumor. Brain surgery followed. Darrell was practically my adopted brother, so I visited him every day. The first day he looked pretty roughed up, but the nurses said he was doing fine. As is customary after such surgeries, they were checking on him every thirty minutes, which was reassuring.

The second day Darrell looked about the same.

The third day his bed was empty. His mother stood in the corner of the room, weeping. Two hours earlier, the nurse on duty had been in to check on Darrell, only to discover he had stopped breathing. The hospital staff rushed to revive him, and now was desperately fighting for his life.

Darrell’s mother looked up as I entered the room. Seven years earlier, her first husband and oldest son had died in a tragic boating accident. She then married Darrell’s stepfather, but two years later, he had a fatal heart attack. Now this.

She looked down to her right. I’m not even sure she was talking to me. If she was, she certainly wasn’t expecting me to say anything in reply.

In her anger she demanded, “Doesn’t God know I’ve suffered enough?”

She was absolutely exhausted. The attending physician came into the room and said there was nothing more they could do. Still in shock, Darrell’s mother left.

“Darrell’s situation is serious,” the doctor told me. “It appears he stopped breathing for fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes. We can’t pick up any brain waves. But I don’t want to unplug him until we’ve tried everything we can. Would you sit with Darrell and talk with him? If you get him to respond in any way—a word, a motion, a blink—we’ll keep him alive.”

The doctor took me to Darrell’s room in ICU. For three days, I stayed with Darrell. I talked with him. I stroked his hand. I pleaded with him to let me know he was still there. I desperately looked for any sign of life.

Nothing.

After three days, they turned off life support.

I never realized how powerless I was until that experience. Not only was I unable to save my friend, but I also had nothing to say to his mother in her moment of deepest grief.

Where was God?

Where was anyone when Darrell’s mom and I felt overwhelmed with such intense feelings of loss and grief?

Who could blame her or me for feeling abandoned?

In the face of unspeakable suffering and pain, why would anyone still believe in God? When asked what they would like to ask God if given the opportunity, 44 percent of Americans said they want to know why there is evil or suffering in this world.1



Faith Wrecker: Experiencing evil and suffering



GIVING UP

Sarah’s hard-driving husband, Rob, wasn’t a kind man. Twenty-six long years had proved that beyond a doubt. Day after day, night after night, Sarah prayed for Rob to find God and turn his life around.

But the years had taken their toll, and most of the time Sarah found it to be almost a relief when Rob left the house to go to work. She couldn’t remember the last time he had told her goodbye, let alone offered a kiss. That morning was no different, it seemed. Until a knock at the door shortly before lunch. Rob had been headed north on I-5 just outside Sacramento when a semi jackknifed in front of him. A second semi and Rob’s hotel shuttle van hit simultaneously, rocketing him out of the vehicle. Seventy five yards away, he writhed in unimaginable pain. By the time the paramedics arrived, he was almost dead. He officially expired at 10:33, less than two miles from a local hospital.

That day, Sarah experientially lost her faith. She had prayed and prayed for her husband’s salvation. Where was God when her husband needed him most? And where was God in the midst of her piercing sorrow?

A year later, Sarah answered the phone and a woman asked if her husband had been in a terrible accident. Sarah demanded to know who was calling.

The woman said her name was Tammy. She had been driving south when she witnessed the accident. Instinctively, she pulled off the freeway as quickly as she could. In the median someone was dying. She couldn’t bear to look. Gripping her steering wheel, she argued with God.

Go to him, God told her.

I can’t, Tammy argued. My two children are in the backseat, bundled in their car seats.

Go.

No! Please, God, no.

Weeping, Tammy pulled the key out of the ignition, looked back at her sleeping children, stepped out of the car, made sure all the doors were locked, saw that traffic was at a complete stop, and started running between cars toward the median. She knelt in the grass amid the broken glass, took the man’s bloody hand, and started talking to him. Immediately, he stopped writhing.

“Look at me,” Tammy pleaded. “You’re hurt very badly. Do you know God?”

He couldn’t speak aloud, but he slowly shook his head no.

“Do you want to know God as your Savior right now?”

He nodded.

“Pray with me,” Tammy told him.

When she finished the prayer, Rob squeezed Tammy’s hand. “Did you pray with me?” He squeezed again.

Only at that point did Tammy realize a group of people were standing in a circle around her and Rob. Tammy stood up and an off-duty paramedic immediately went to work. The next day Tammy learned that Rob had died before reaching the hospital. After Tammy finished her story, Sarah scoffed. “Why didn’t you call me before now? No matter. I don’t even believe in God anymore.”

Tammy protested, but Sarah rebuffed her. “Don’t go quoting Scripture at me. It’s not true. God doesn’t work all things together for good. My life’s ruined.”

Sarah told me the same thing. After all the depression and anxiety and stress she’d experienced, her life felt shattered. To this day, she believes God might as well stay put in heaven. She’s not looking for him anymore. At least not yet. But God hasn’t given up on her. Neither have I.

It’s startling to realize the implications of God’s unconditional love, grace, and mercy. Like the Prodigal Son’s father, God isn’t disillusioned with us. He never had any illusions to begin with.

Of course, even if someone knew God wasn’t angry at her, if she knew beyond a doubt that God had no intention of heaping guilt or shame on her, there’s no guarantee she would turn back to God.

I walked away, didn’t I? I made my choice. My fate is sealed, isn’t it?



TOO LATE?

The course of your life could change today based on a single decision you’ll make—either to open the door of your heart and invite God to come back in or to consciously lock him out of your life forever.

Maybe you have been taught that it’s impossible to come back to God. You may have felt God wouldn’t take you back anyway. But it’s not too late.

Right before the start of World War I, a young French boy named Jean-Paul Sartre and his widowed mother were living with her parents. The grandfather was a Protestant, the grandmother a lifelong French Catholic. At the dinner table, the family patriarch and matriarch often poked fun at the other’s religious beliefs.

“I concluded from these exchanges that the two faiths were equally valueless,” Jean-Paul later said. “Even though my family saw it as their duty to bring me up as a Catholic, religion never had any weight with me.”

By the time the war ended, Jean-Paul had grown completely disenchanted with the church. By the time he turned twelve, he thoroughly hated to attend Mass and resolved that he would go no more.

To seal his decision, Jean-Paul stood before a mirror, stared at his reflection, and then cursed God. He felt a sense of relief. He was through with God and the church. He decided to become an atheist so he could live the rest of his days as he pleased.

Over the years, Sartre looked back at that event as a defining moment in his life. In Being and Nothingness, writing against certain Christian beliefs, he commented almost as an aside: “We should know for always whether a particular youthful experience had been fruitful or ill-starred, whether a particular crisis of puberty was a caprice or a real pre-formation of my later engagements; the curve of our life would be fixed forever.”

In other words: If I really meant it when I cursed God, I thereby set the course of my entire life and have sealed my fate.

Sartre went on to make a name for himself, of course. His political exploits are legendary, his writings definitive of mid-twentieth century atheistic existentialism. Yet, reviewing his life, Sartre seemed to swing between the extremes of heady pride and sexual liberation on the one hand, and philosophical anguish and personal despair on the other.

On numerous occasions, Sartre stated that there is “no exit” from the human dilemma of trying to live as if God did not exist. “Man is alone,” Sartre claimed, abandoned to his own destiny. “Hell is other people.” Life is hard, and then you die. Period. My friend Tim Barnhart says, “He was trying to experience life on his own terms. His ‘truth,’ though depressing and controversial, was nonetheless an exercise in believing.” I agree.

Shortly before his death, Sartre relented. The Nouvel Observateur records these words: “I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.”2

How tragic that Sartre allowed a decision in his youth to overshadow any consideration of God’s relevance for nearly six decades.

Although he’s considered one of the greatest twentieth-century philosophers, I believe Sartre committed two of this past century’s most prevalent errors of thinking.

First, Sartre confused his feelings with reality. You see this all the time. A man wakes up one morning, rolls over, sees his wife, and realizes he doesn’t have any loving feelings for her. This lack of feelings of love shocks him so much he decides it must be the truth. So he acts accordingly, forgetting that love is more than a momentary feeling. In reality, to love is a decision we make over and over again.

Second, Sartre confused an event with fate. When he cursed God, he felt he had sealed his destiny. There was no looking back, no recognition that he could choose otherwise.3

I don’t know your particular life story. Yet after talking individually with hundreds of people over the past decade, I find that many people wish, in their heart of hearts, that they could believe God hasn’t abandoned them after all.

Maybe you’ve consciously cursed God. Maybe you’ve rejected only the church. Maybe you’ve simply lacked the confidence to say, “God, if you’re real, please make yourself real to me.”



NIGHTMARE

God wants us to know that even when it’s humanly impossible to see or feel him, he is always there with us. Sometimes that’s hard to believe. But no matter how deeply we bury grief in our souls, it doesn’t go away.

Four years ago, Lisa and her family took a brief but much needed vacation at a beautiful resort outside Phoenix.

During their fifth night there, Lisa was awakened by a horrific nightmare. She dreamed she was a little girl again, just four years old. Her father was tying a gag in her mouth and then binding her hands. While her mother watched, he carried her through the apartment and down the stairway to a waiting car. He put her in the trunk of the car and slammed the lid shut.

Lying in the dark in her hotel room, Lisa trembled in her bed, perspiring all over. Never had she felt such an overwhelming sense of shock, fear, and abandonment. She couldn’t stop the unfolding nightmare. She turned on the light. She wept. She cried out to God for deliverance. Finally, in desperation, she woke her husband, Mark, beating his chest as the nightmare continued to play out in her mind: The four-year-old Lisa was drenched with sweat by the time the trunk lid opened again. She was slapped, then carried into what appeared to be a warehouse. Except for the light from a small wood fire, it was dark inside. Lisa’s captors laid her next to the fire, only inches away. She tried to roll away, but they kept kicking her back. Finally, when her clothes were almost dry, they forced her to stand up and then stripped her. Then they started filming the unspeakable atrocities that happened next.

What Mark didn’t realize that night was that his own nightmare had just begun. It would be months before Lisa was finally diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, and by that time, her four-year-old self was often Lisa’s dominant personality. She no longer knew anything about God, her Christian faith, or even her husband, often emphatically declaring that she wasn’t married to him.

Months later, having no idea what had happened, I sat in Lisa and Mark’s living room, expressing my genuine concern for their welfare. Thirty-year-old Lisa looked at Mark, nodded her head, and then looked down for a minute. I sat quietly. Finally, her story—their story—started coming out. I immediately quit asking questions. When someone tells their story, I’ve learned to listen—just listen. I’m convinced that intertwined within every story you’ll find God’s redemptive presence where you least expect it.

As Lisa told her story that night, she began to see God again for the first time in a long time. She wept tears of joy as she felt his presence. She realized he was in the midst of her story, after all.

The next morning Lisa called to tell me she had slept through the night for the first time in sixteen months. By week’s end, four-year-old Lisa had begun reintegrating with thirty-year-old Lisa. She still had a long road of healing ahead of her, but the process of recovery had begun. Today, her marriage and faith have been fully restored. I say that almost matter-of-factly, but for a long time that was anything but a sure thing.

Lisa said it best: “I discovered there’s always hope.”4

Like Lisa, we all have a story. But unless we’re broken enough to take the terrible risk of telling someone our story, no matter how dark it is, we may never reconnect with God again this side of eternity.

Remarkably, as Lisa learned, if we do tell our stories to someone who knows God—without demanding answers to that blackest of all questions (“Why?”)—guess who shows up, unannounced?



Faith Builder: Telling my story to a friend who knows God



REAL LIFE

As a teenager, I must have read through the Psalms a dozen times each year after my father’s health fled and poverty pounced upon our once-proud family. I learned firsthand that God indeed cares deeply about the helpless and oppressed, the wounded and despairing.

Perhaps more than any other portion of Scripture, the Psalms tell us about real life.

Over and over again throughout the Psalms we find the psalmist crying out to God in various dire circumstances.


I have so many enemies!

Take away my distress.

Listen to my cry for help.

Go away, all you who do evil.

Save me from my persecutors—rescue me!


In seven out of every ten psalms, the writer is crying out to God for physical salvation, thanking the Lord for sparing his life, reminding himself of the differing fates of the righteous and evildoers, or renewing his allegiance to God and his Word in the face of rampant wickedness.

During my teens, as my dad lost his eyesight and the financial pressures on our family became increasingly severe, I was driven again and again to the Psalms. Over time, I memorized nearly fifty of them. They renewed my faith in the God of the afflicted and suffering.

Maybe you haven’t thought much about the Scriptures for a long time. Yet if the middle of the Bible teaches us anything, it’s how to turn to God in times of trouble and pain. I invite you to consider this brief synopsis with specific examples from various psalms.


■ Call out to the Lord . . .

O God, listen to my cry!

Hear my prayer! Psalm 61:1


. . . and ask for help!

Please, God, rescue me!

Come quickly, Lord, and help me. Psalm 70:1



■ Tell God about your troubles . . .

O God, pagan nations have conquered your land,

your special possession.

They have defiled your holy Temple

and made Jerusalem a heap of ruins. . . .

We are mocked by our neighbors,

an object of scorn and derision to those

around us. Psalm 79:1, 4


. . . and admit if you feel abandoned or forsaken.

O Lord, how long will this go on?

Will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your anger burn like fire? Psalm 89:46



■ Describe what you want God to do . . .

Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!

Replace the evil years with good.

Let us, your servants, see you work again;

let our children see your glory.

And may the Lord our God show us his approval

and make our efforts successful.

Yes, make our efforts successful! Psalm 90:15-17


. . . and explain why God should act on your behalf.

Let this be recorded for future generations,

so that a people not yet born will praise the

Lord. . . .

And so the Lord’s fame will be celebrated in Zion,

his praises in Jerusalem,

when multitudes gather together

and kingdoms come to worship the Lord. Psalm 102:18, 21-22



■ Give a candid appraisal of your enemy . . .

They surround me with hateful words

and fight against me for no reason.

I love them, but they try to destroy me with accusations

even as I am praying for them!

They repay evil for good,

and hatred for my love. Psalm 109:3-5


. . . and ask God to put that foe in his place.

Arise, O Lord, in anger!

Stand up against the fury of my enemies!

Wake up, my God, and bring justice! Psalm 7:6



■ Honestly evaluate your guilt or innocence . . .

I have chosen to be faithful;

I have determined to live by your regulations.

I cling to your laws.

Lord, don’t let me be put to shame! Psalm 119:30-31


. . . and confess any known sins.

I have wandered away like a lost sheep;

come and find me,

for I have not forgotten your commands. Psalm 119:176



■ Affirm your implicit trust in God . . .

I look up to the mountains—

does my help come from there?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth! Psalm 121:1-2


. . . and then praise God for his deliverance.

Praise the Lord,

who did not let their teeth tear us apart!

We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap.

The trap is broken, and we are free!

Our help is from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth. Psalm 124:6-8


If we learn anything from the Psalms, it’s that God isn’t afraid of our emotions, our struggles, and our questions. The one mistake we dare not make, Philip Yancey reminds us, is to confuse God (who is good) with life (which is hard).5 God feels the same way we do—and is taking the most radical steps possible (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and more to come) to redeem the present situation.

I haven’t always believed that. In fact, my father is an atheist. I was raised to not believe in God. When I became a Christian, my dad saw it as an act of rebellion. Later, I studied under a German existentialist philosopher. I dared her to prove there isn’t a God. “If you’re right,” I said, in essence, “I’ll stop being a Christian.” Instead, after studying the writings of the most renowned atheists of the past four centuries, my Christian faith was stronger than ever.

Why is it, I wondered, that these men and women can write brilliantly about any area of philosophy, but they get so angry and irrational when writing about God, the church, and the Christian faith?

After studying their biographies, I discovered the most common reason: Very bad things happened to them or their loved ones, often when they were very young. Many even went on to study in seminary, but they didn’t find the answers they were looking for. So they turned against God with a vengeance. It can happen to any of us.

A decade ago I was hit with a rapid-fire series of crises. Emergency surgery for my oldest daughter, who had just been diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful, cancer-like condition. Unexpected house repairs. Two vehicle breakdowns. Huge unpaid bills. I felt that the hand of God was crushing me—emotionally, physically, financially, and in every other way.

How could God do this to my family?

This isn’t fair!

My love for God, my joy for life, and my peace were shattered. Instead I felt angry, deceived, and desperate for a way out of my family’s nightmare.

In my despair, I doubted God’s character. Finally the day came when I couldn’t read the Bible anymore. Not a single verse. I couldn’t pray, even over a meal. For days and weeks on end.

Experientially, I had lost my faith. Why? Because I had let the circumstances of life temporarily overshadow what I knew to be true. As a result, I couldn’t fall asleep at night. I couldn’t get rid of the stabbing pain in my chest.

Finally, like Peter the apostle at the end of John 6, I realized, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” I dared take the risk of embracing faith again.

Thankfully, God renewed my faith when I started taking several simple (but nonetheless terribly hard) steps of obedience. I forced myself to open my Bible, read a verse—I don’t even remember which one—and honestly answer the question, “Do I believe it?” To my surprise, I said yes. It wasn’t a big yes. But it was enough to prompt me to read another verse, and then another.

At long last, I felt God speaking to me again. I started praying to him as well. To my surprise, he wasn’t angry at me over my crisis of faith. Just the opposite. In time, my faith was renewed in a remarkable way.

Since then, I’ve talked with many people about my experience. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s true to life. Every Christian is seriously tempted, at one time or another, to lose his or her faith.

The good news is that God never abandons us. Even in the worst of circumstances, he’s still there, urging us not to lose hope that we will see him again.

What’s your story? Can you see God at work in your life? If not, let’s talk. You can write to me at IfGodDisappears@gmail.com.






NOTES


CHAPTER 1: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

1. See http://www.americanbuddhist.net/general/thought-0?page=6 (viewed October 25, 2007).

2. This statement originally appeared in French in Nouvel Observateur. It first appeared in English in National Review, June 11, 1982, 677.

3. Luis Palau and David Sanford, God Is Relevant (New York: Doubleday, 1997), xi-xiii, tells Jean-Paul Sartre’s story in more detail.

4. If, like Lisa, you long for healing from the wounds of child sexual abuse, I highly recommend In the Wildflowers produced by Restoring the Heart Ministries, www.rthm.cc/Wildflowers.

5. See http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/yancey_3302.htm (viewed June 1, 2008).





SCRIPTURE INDEX


CHAPTER 1

Romans 8:28

Luke 15:11-32

Psalm 61:1

Psalm 70:1

Psalm 79:1, 4

Psalm 89:46

Psalm 90:15-17

Psalm 102:18, 21-22

Psalm 109:3-5

Psalm 7:6

Psalm 119:30-31

Psalm 119:176

Psalm 121:1-2

Psalm 124:6-8

John 6:68-69