When the temperature drops and the leaves turn red and gold, I think Thanksgiving—family and friends round the table, good food, recounting our blessings by a warm fire, and thanking the One from Whom all those blessings flow. What a gift there is in Thanksgiving! One of my family’s favorite recipes was also the favorite of Colonel Wakefield, a character …
Elections and Rabbit Holes
I feel this week as though we’ve fallen down a rabbit-hole, much like Alice’s, into a world—a country—turned upside down. Suddenly, in place of the family honored since the beginning of time, laws in some states—including my own—have changed the very definition of marriage and family. Gambling has been legally increased as a way to stimulate revenue, and in some …
All Saints Sunday
This first November Sunday, the Sunday nearest All Saints Day, churches across our land will hold special services to remember and honor loved ones who finished this life within the last year. In our church, the names of members are called, their photographs shown. And then the aisles fill. As hymns are sung by the congregation, all who’ve lost loved …
The Slippery Slope
I’m working on a new book. Behind the compelling WWII story, a sweep of romance, and its theme of the sacredness of life, is an exploration of what it means to step onto a slippery moral slope—how easy that is to do, and how hard it is to regain our footing. No one imagined when British, American, German and scientists …
Band of Sisters–How Can I Help?
The question I’m asked most often is, “How can I help? Human trafficking and the abolition of modern-day slavery is a huge problem–what can I possibly do to make a difference?” *First, learn all you can through reading and talking with individuals and organizations who have already joined the fight: Google “human trafficking” to learn what is happening in the …
Band of Sisters–Stepping Out
Modern-day slavery is foreign to most of us and uncomfortable to discuss. The crime usually involves pimps who buy and sell women and children, forcing them to have sex multiple times in a 24 hour period. We can’t imagine that such things happen in good families or in our neighborhoods or to people in our church or school. Sadly, that’s …
Band of Sisters–Raising Awareness
Band of Sisters is a mild story in the world of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. The realities are far more grim—at the time the story took place and certainly today. But I pray this book is a voice—one more voice—that evokes a platform for discussion. If we unite, if we all demand change, we will create a clamor that …
Band of Sisters–What Would Jesus Do?
Band of Sisters was born of a desire to end modern-day slavery and to answer the question: what can I do to help in a need so desperate? To answer that question characters look beyond themselves, and ask, “What would Jesus do?” By recounting the things Jesus taught and the life He modeled, He’s already given us answers. It is only …
Band of Sisters–Solutions?
Band of Sisters was born of a desire to end modern-day slavery and most of all to ask: What can I do to help in a need so desperate? Despite all my research, I couldn’t answer that question. Inspiration finally came by confronting the question Charles Sheldon posed in his popular novel nearly a century ago, In His Steps —“What …
Climbing Curiosity’s Trail
My best definition of research: “Climbing curiosity’s trail.” One of the greatest perks of being a writer is the absolute freedom—even endorsement—to investigate a topic to your heart’s content. To creatively indulge in life detours and to assert, with a straight face, “Oh, yes, I must do this or go there or experience that because I’m researching a new book”—well, …