Astounded by the Power of a Romance

I love story. Not surprising, given I’m a writer, but even before I started writing seriously, I loved it. I was one of those kids who read their way through the fiction shelves of the school and public libraries, borrowing the books out over and over until I could pretty much quote them. I read non-fiction too, biographies especially, but it was fiction I loved. 

Not much has changed (although I don’t read too many Saddle Club or Sweet Valley High books anymore!). I still read far more fiction than non-fiction. I’ll read around 75 books a year these days, and at least seventy of them will be fiction, most of those with some element of romance. Because they’re easier to read, because they capture my heart but also because I find myself changed by them. 

I learn from non-fiction – amazing biographies, the insights of Max Lucado, John Ortberg, Christine Caine and so many others – but it’s fiction which changes me at a heart level. There's something in me that gets defensive when someone tells me I have to change and how I should do it. But fiction, it doesn't set out to change you. It simply tells a story. The characters aren’t real, I know that (although, funny story, I have twice (at least) claimed to have a friend who does something only to realize later it was a fictional character…oops…) but as I read their stories, I find myself relating to them, laughing and aching with them, going on their journeys, and being changed. 

I was astounded, again, by how powerful fiction can be last weekend as I read two books in particular. P.S. Goodbye, a novella by Tari Faris, and I’ll Be Yours, by Jenny B Jones. Both of them were romances, both of them ended with the boy getting the girl, and yet both times, upon finishing them, I found myself changed. Yes, by a simple romance. Because they were so much more than just a romance. Amidst the love story, there was pain – an ex-soldier dealing with PTSD and feelings of failure, a woman who’d been hurt by the past and was clinging with every plan and post-it note she could to her dreams for the future, a high-school senior being both brother and father to his two little sisters while trying to hold everything together, a sixteen-year-old girl who’s known far too much rejection and doesn’t know how to trust. But, alongside the pain, there was hope. Friends who wouldn’t let them walk alone, moments of clarity and healing, love in unexpected places, God breaking through. 

Fiction changes me because I get to walk alongside these characters and get inside not just their heads but their hearts, growing my own heart in the process. Grant, Caroline, Ridley and Harper might be fictional characters but their struggles are real. There are people in this world and maybe even in my life who struggle with the same things they do. Who come from the same places they do. Alongside the author’s heart, I get a glimpse into God’s. His heart for these people. I find myself praying for people around the world in those situations right now, knowing that, even though I don’t know them by name, God does. 

It’s funny, knowing this, how embarrassed I am sometimes to admit that I write romances, especially Christian ones. People are all impressed when you say you’ve written a book only to have that respect take nice plunge into ‘oh, one of those’ territory when you say it’s a romance. Yep, one of those. Predictable storylines where the guy gets the girl and they all live happily ever after. Airy fairy froth filling women’s heads with unattainable heroes. 

And yes, many of them are. But not all of them. There are so many that are so much more. I wish I could tell those people who look down on them how many have changed my life. Stories by Becky Wade, Melissa Tagg, Robin Jones Gunn, Kristi Ann Hunter, Rachel Hauck, Kara Isaac, Susan May Warren, Roseanna M White, Karen Witemeyer, Liz Johnson and so many others. They don’t set out to get a message across, they simply tell a story. And through that, change lives. 

I hope one day, people say the same thing about my books. My humble Young Adult Inspirational Romances. I hope they remind people that there is hope, that God can use anyone, how amazing grace truly is, that it’s never too late for a second chance (or third, or fourth) and, above all, that God loves them. The first and greatest romance ever to be written. 

3 Things I've Learnt about God-Given Dreams

I never set out to be a writer. When I was asked as a child and all through my teens what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always the same – a missionary. I can’t remember exactly when God first planted that dream in my heart but I remember, vividly, as a ten-year-old deciding it was high time I started preparing. I figured it was something practical I could do until I was ‘old enough’ to actually go somewhere. I borrowed books out of my primary school library on different countries and religions, raided the church library for mission biographies, made friends with missionaries from my church, went to mission conferences and even stuffed envelopes with newsletters for a missionary friend, thinking it was good practise.

I went on my first short term trip just a month after I turned 16 and loved it. The next was at 18 and I couldn’t wait to go again. I waited a whole two weeks upon returning home to sign up for another one. 

And then everything changed. My dreams crashed in a pile when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis just before my 19^th birthday. I very quickly learnt what pain, stress, anxiety and depression were. I became accustomed to regular doctor visits, blood tests and daily medication to keep my disease under control. I went on a few more trips during that time but to say they were tough feels like a giant understatement. For so many reasons, I’m thankful I went on them but came home really sick each time and knew it wasn’t something I could do long term, not without taking my entire support network with me. As far as I could see, my dream was dead. 

In spite of that, life continued, as it does. I relished mentoring a group of teenage girls as a youth leader, stayed involved in my church, got married to an amazing man, had children of my own. And found a new dream. Two, actually. Being a mum, and writing. 

Those few hours a day while my kids slept, I wrote first one novel, then another. And I loved it. Pouring my heart for people and God out onto the pages of a book. Hoping that God might teach someone something through it like he’d taught me through so many of the books I'd read over the years. And the dream didn't stop there - I dreamed of being published. 

So, I got back to researching and sent proposals to the few publishers and agents accepting them. And got soundly rejected. 

So, I read a stack of books on writing, re-edited my manuscript and sent it out again. And got rejected again. 

Strangely though, much to my surprise, the rejections didn't faze me in the slightest but just made me more determined. All of the authors I knew had been rejected countless times so each one I received just made me feel more like a 'real' author. 

I signed up for a whole heap of writing and publishing blogs, read more books, kept writing and re-writing and editing and sent out more proposals, got rejected but encouraged by the few who replied, put one family of characters aside, fell in love with another, entered some writing competitions, won one, further encouragement that I was on the right track. 

And somewhere along the way, I realised that my dream as a ten-year-old to be a missionary wasn't dead. Even without being published, God was speaking to people through the stories I wrote and the connections I was making. I wanted to tell people about God and how incredibly much he loved them, and I was. From the platform of my couch at home, I was reminding people there was hope. 

I spent my whole life asking God for the chance to be a missionary. And here I was, being just that. My dream didn't die, just my version of it. 

Almost a decade to the day after I sat down to write my first novel, my debut book is being published by WhiteFire Publishing. To say I’m excited at the thought of holding a book with my name on the front seems a gross understatement but more exciting is looking back and realising that God did it. 

He gave me a dream and he made it happen. 

So here’s what I’ve learnt along the way about the dreams God gives:

1. God knows what He’s doing - even when we think all is lost. I thought my dream was dead. Turns out it was just different. 

2. God gives us the right circumstances to see them through. Getting arthritis slowed me down and forced me to give up some things I really loved, but it also gave me the time I needed to write and the desire to make each moment and relationship matter. It's meant fighting my way through depression, anxiety, pain and a whole heap of doubts about whether God even cared anymore, but has also given me a far greater compassion for others going through the same thing. It made me weak, which just proved over and over how strong God was, and is. He's given me the chance, day by day, hour by hour, to have a front row seat to his incredible faithfulness, something I don't think I'll ever stop thanking him for. 

3. A God-given dream will fill you with passion. I should have given up on this writing dream years ago. The more I read and learnt about the publishing industry, the more I realised how impossible it was to be traditionally published, especially for an Aussie to break into the US publishing market. And yet, despite hundreds of hours of writing and years’ worth of rejections, it never crossed my mind to give up. I knew that if God had given me the dream, he was big enough to make it happen. And he has. He is.

Rapunzel said it in Tangled, Mother Superior in The Sound of Music - find your dream. Find your God-given dream, and do whatever it takes to see it through. Believe me, it's worth it. 

(This post updated from Till You Find Your Dream, first published January 2015)

How Many People Does it Take to Fold a Double Sheet?

How many people does it take to fold a double sheet?

One, it turns out. 

Okay, so clearly I’m really slow but it took me waaaaay too long to realize a person could fold a double sheet (or even a single) on their own. I know. Slightly pathetic (and no, I’m not telling you exactly how long but you’ll be happy to know it was before I got married :p )

See, when I was little, Mum would always get one of us kids to help when she was folding sheets or blankets. We’d take one end, she’d take the other, we’d meet in the middle, take the new ‘end’, and so on until it was folded. I had no idea it could be – and usually was – a one-person job. 

It was one of those crazy moments of blow-your-mind revelation when I realized. Not so much because I could suddenly fold all these sheets on my own without having to go find my mum or a sibling as it was the fact that Mum had let us help – valuing it even – even though she didn’t need it. In fact, it probably would have been easier to do it on her own. 

But she didn’t. She let us help. She spent that time with us. She taught us skills we’d need to know for the future (okay, so I slightly missed the point of the lesson but I did learn that sheets needed to be folded rather than scrunched in a ball and thrown in a cupboard so that counts). 

God does that too. He lets us help even though he doesn’t need it. 

God is all powerful. He’s all-seeing, all-knowing, all-everything. He created the universe with a word. 

That person needing encouragement? God could encourage them without me. He could make a whole garden full of their favorite flower bloom overnight without even a seed being planted. He could send a rainbow, an angel, a vision. Believe me, he doesn’t need to use a bumbling human who’s just as likely to get the message wrong as right. 

That person needing church? God could do get them there without me. Easily. He’s picked up people from one place and put them in other cities before. Sent churches to people. He made that person’s brain, it would be simple for him to plant a yearning in there for church. He doesn’t need me to shakingly invite them. 

He could teach our kids about himself without us ever saying a word. He could heal the sick without us praying over them. He has multitudes of angels worshiping him day and night, he doesn’t need us to write worship songs either. 

But he wants us. He lets us help! He invites us in. Lets us make mistakes and bumble our way through his work because he cherishes that time spent with us. Because the process is teaching and growing us and he absolutely delights in that. Even though he could do a much better job himself.   

There’s this line in a Casting Crowns song that I love (which sums it up pretty well (sorry, you could have saved yourself some time and just read their lyrics!))…

How refreshing to know You don’t need me

How amazing to find You still want me…

God wants you. And yes, he knows you're not perfect. He knows you'll make mistakes, sometimes chicken out and occasionally miss the boat altogether. But he’s not asking for perfection. Just you. Your willingness to help. To spend time with him. To walk with him and be his hands and feet. To pray. To join in what he's already doing every day. 

How many people does it take to fold a double sheet?

Just one. But how much better the relationship when it’s two!

(In Me, Casting Crowns, 2005)

Were they really worth the Ransom?

You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Anyone who’s ever watched a kidnapping movie or tv show or read a suspense book knows it. I’m not entirely sure if it works that way in real life but in fiction, that’s it. No negotiation. No paying the ransom. You find another way, you send in a rescue team, you sacrifice one for the good of the whole (thankfully not too often in romances!) but you never ever give in to the bad guy’s demands. That’s just how it works. 

And everyone knows it. 

Except Jesus, apparently. He missed that memo. He paid the ransom.

Not just part of it either. He paid the whole thing. 

This struck me so profoundly one morning in church last year that I started crying. Thankfully, no one saw or I would have had a hard time explaining it, especially since I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t talk. 

We were singing Amazing Grace, the Chris Tomlin version. 

My chains are gone. I’ve been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

It was that one word which got to me. Ransom. 

Maybe I’d been reading a suspense novel, maybe not, I can’t actually remember but for some reason I couldn’t get past that word and the reality of what it meant. How much I was loved. 

Jesus didn’t negotiate with the bad guy. He never considered whether I/we were worth it or not.  He just paid the price. The whole price. He didn’t need to. Honestly? Nice a person as I think I am, I wasn’t exactly worth it. His life for mine? The all-powerful, all-knowing, all-everything God in exchange for me? Ha. Not even close to a justifiable exchange. Seriously, I’m not putting myself down here, it’s just reality. Not an even swap. Not worth the ransom. If it had been world leaders deciding, they wouldn’t have picked me. 

But Jesus did. He didn’t think twice. He looked at me and thought me worth the ransom. Every bit that was asked. Everything he had to give. 

Crazy. It makes no sense whatsoever. 

But…wow. Talk about humbling. 

Before I was born. Before I’d done anything worth anything, he thought me worth it. Worth going against every bit of logic and paying it. 

I came home, wrote it on a plate and put it up on my shelf to remind me, every time I start doubting my worth, that, though the world doesn’t pay ransoms, Jesus does. And he thought me worth it.  

He paid it for you too. He thought you worth the ransom. 

Love Like my Aunt who ate a Vinegar Cake

I’m a good baker. Cook, not so much (I mean, do people really have to eat a different meal every single night????? Come on. Couldn’t we skip dinners altogether? Have cereal for dinner? Every night?). But a good baker. At least, most of the time. Amidst the cakes I’m incredibly proud of are a few whopping disasters. And my vinegar cakes would easily top that list. 

To be clear, I didn’t mean to make vinegar cakes that day. They were supposed to be chocolate fudge. I’d been craving a piece of chocolate fudge cake and my family has a totally foolproof recipe (ha! ummm...) which tastes amazing so I pulled it out. (Should probably mention I was about ten at the time – and had made this recipe dozens of times.)

I have no idea what my brain was doing that day but I somehow mixed up the milk and vinegar. Instead of curdling the three cups of milk with two tablespoons of vinegar, I mixed two tablespoons of milk with three cups of vinegar and poured it in. I remember thinking vaguely that that seemed weird but checked the recipe, assured myself it was right and kept going. Like I said, no idea where my brain was! 

I wouldn’t have even noticed the mistake except I got a bit of mixture on my finger while I was pouring it into the baking tins and licked it off. Ewwwwwww! Seriously. It was gross. Looked exactly right, tasted so horribly wrong. 

Needless to say, I threw the whole batch of mixture out. Well, most of it. The part curious, part impish part of me cooked six cupcakes thinking they’d make a good practical joke. And believe me, they looked good. You totally couldn’t tell from a glance that there was anything wrong with them. 

As no doubt you can tell from the heading, my aunt was the poor unsuspecting person we (yep, a brother was in on the joke by now) foisted the vinegar cupcake on. It seems so mean now but we thought it was hilarious at the time. 

We told her we'd made a special cupcake just for her. She thanked us and stood there, eating that cake like nothing was wrong even though with each bite her face got a little more scrunched up with the pain. I was trying so hard not to laugh that I had tears running down my face while my brother was quite literally rolling on the floor laughing. Honestly, I thought she’d take a bite and spit it out. (I certainly would have!) I was wrong. She ate the whole thing. Every single disgusting crumb. 

We, of course, asked how it was. She said it was nice. We gave in and told her it was vinegar (as if she didn’t know). She said she thought it tasted a bit strange. I asked why she’d eaten it then, our joke kind of falling flat by that point, especially when she answered. 

“Because I knew you’d made it and I didn’t want to upset you.”

At the time, I thought she was kind of ridiculous. I mean, did she really think I thought it tasted any good?? But now, all I can think is how much she loved me. She ate that entire vinegar cupcake. For me. Because she didn’t want me to be sad. Because she didn't want to discourage my baking skills. Because I’d asked her to and she didn’t want to disappoint me. Because that’s what love does. 

I want to love like that. The people who bring their own vinegar cakes, be they difficult attitudes, annoying timing, things that just grate against me the wrong way... Not because it’s easy, practical or even nice for me but because I love them and I want them to know. Because they matter. Because it's what Jesus does every day for me. 

I want to love like my aunt who ate an entire vinegar cake, not because it tasted any good but because she loved me. 

How about you?

PS. I realised as I was writing this that I talk a lot about my baking failures (here, and here, and a bit here...). Here are a few of my wins just to prove I can actually bake :p

I Stand Fearless

A lot of people I know spend time at the end/start of each year asking for a word or promise from God for the upcoming year, one they hold on to all year as life hits. Mostly authors I follow, although that could just be because they write about it! I’m sure there are others who do it too. 

I’ve never actually done it myself. I’ve had years where I’ve had a prayer I’ve prayed over the year which has come up time and time again throughout it but never a specific word. Until this year. 

Yep, I have a word for 2019. Which is a total shock to me since I neither asked for one nor sought one nor even wanted one! The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. And yet, as I was reading my Bible a couple of days before the end of 2018, there it was. One word, standing out of the passage as a whole like it had bright flashing lights and a whole heap of arrows pointing it out in a way that I couldn’t have missed it if I tried. 

Fearless. 

Psalm 46:2 (The Message) – “…I stand fearless…” 

Apparently, in 2019, I'm going to be fearless. That's what God has promised me. 

Thankfully, the promise/word didn't stop there. (Phew!) 

God wasn't saying I'd be fearless because I was brave or because I have it all together (Ha! Not even close). Certainly not because I have all the answers. Nope. I stand and will stand fearless because, as the rest of the psalm says, God fights for me. God is both on my side and by my side. Fighting for me and protecting me. 

“Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, 

God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.”

Fearlessness isn't about whether I can control the storms (I can’t) or whether I have the strength to face them (I don’t). It’s about God. Only God. He can control the storms. He has the strength to face them. I just have to stand by his side. Fearless. Reckless almost by human standards. Taking on the storm because I know that God’s got this. 

A word like that should have totally freaked me out. Believe me, I’ve been a Christian long enough to know how things like this work. You pray for patience and you get a whole heap of situations which try it. Pray for strength and learn very quickly what it is to be weak. Pray for peace and suddenly everything goes crazy. Not because God is cruel but because he loves us and wants us to grow and realize how much we do need him every hour of every day.

God telling me to be fearless? Not just in a particular situation but for whatever gets thrown at me this year? Not exactly the kind of promise an introverted, anxiety-fighting Aussie stepping her way into the big, scary world of US publishing wants to hear. We’re three weeks into January and already I’m wondering how I’m going to make it through each day the next few hours without completely falling apart. 

And yet, it didn’t freak me out at all. Not even a little bit. All I could think was how excited I was to have such a promise. I stand fearless – because I don’t stand alone. God is fighting for me. God is protecting me. God is by my side. 

This year is going to be huge. Seriously. Way bigger than I can handle alone. It’s going to stretch me and probably come close to breaking me at times (oh wait, it already has :p) but I’m really excited to see what God is going to do in me and through me. I’m excited to put my hand in his and stand fearless looking out over cliffs and storms, reckless with the knowledge that God fights for me and protects me. 

I stand fearless. 

How about you? Do you ask God for a word each year? Have one even if you don’t? Wonder, like me, how many times I’m going to have to re-read this and remind myself of this promise when I feel like I’m drowning? :p (Feel free to remind me!) I'd love to hear if you do!

A Heart Full of Hope

Waiting is no fun. Believe me, I know. This year has been a huge year of waiting for me – these past few months in particular. Waiting for answers, waiting for slow kids, waiting for packages to arrive, waiting on email replies, waiting for the ice cream truck (oh wait, that’s just today ;)) One of those packages I mentioned? I ordered it almost three months ago now from a company in the US. Customs, Christmas season and postal strikes in the US meant I waited three weeks for it to arrive, only to have it be the wrong item. They were very helpful and immediately sent out a replacement (and said I could keep the first one). Six weeks later, the replacement finally arrived, only to be the wrong one again! Again, very helpful and apologetic, refunded the money, told me to keep the wrong one and have, again, sent out a replacement – which I’m still waiting for. 

That’s the kind of year it’s been. Waiting, on top of waiting, on top of waiting. Holding on to hope that, at the end of the waiting, there will be something worth waiting for. 

It’s made this Christmas so poignant. 

That, and the fact that I’ve been ‘big picture reading’ (8-10 chapters at a time) my Bible chronologically for the past few months. I’ve read the Bible from start to finish before (once J I’ve always been more of a pick a book and study it for a while person) but this is the first time I’ve read it chronologically. And it’s been mind-blowing.

The story of God’s incredible grace, patience and faithfulness not just through a single chapter or person but through generations. The prophesies, the psalms, the promises. God’s people failing over and over, walking away when all God wanted was to lavish love on them. Them finally being exiled, all these terrible but rightfully-deserved punishments being piled on them but still, throughout each death- and horror-filled prediction, the promise of hope. Of salvation. 

“I’ll send you away, but I’ll bring you back. Yes, you’ll be in exile, but I’ll send a Savior to bring you home. I will not forget you. When you turn back, I’ll be there, already waiting. You’ve strayed so far, but I’ll make a way back. You are my people. You’ve forgotten me but I will never forget you.”

And they were exiled. God turned away. He was silent. For seven hundred years. The people waited. And waited. And waited.

And then, just like God had promised, he made a way. 

Jesus came. 

A promise fulfilled. 

The end of the wait. 

The answer.

The Savior they’d been waiting for. 

Hope, when they’d almost given up.

That day, which probably seemed like every other day, nothing out of the ordinary, everything changed. Whether the people knew it or not, the wait was over. 

This is what Christmas is. The end of the wait. The promise fulfilled. 

I don’t like waiting but wow, to look forward in hope and know that, just like God did with Jesus, he will fulfil his promises in my life. 

This Christmas, hold on to hope. Look forward in hope. And know that God is working in the waiting. You are not forgotten. One ordinary day, you will see those promises fulfilled. And every one of them will be worth the wait.