Into the Fire

Passionate thoughts about the world of writing and the Power of God

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Passionate: right or wrong. Writes love stories with a passion. Raw Romantic Redemptive

  • Only . . .The Soul Saver

     

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    The CFBA Tour presents Dineen Miller's first novel The Soul Saver published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., and a fiction partner to Dineen's co-authored (with Lynn Donovan) non-fiction book Winning Him Without Words: 10 Keys to Thriving in Your Spiritually Mismatched Marriage. Dineen Miller is just about the sweetest, most committed Christian I've never had the pleasure of meeting in person. Well-versed in spiritual warfare with up close and personal experience in the topic lines of both of these books, Dineen has written a story for women whose husbands are unbelievers.

    Lexie (Alexis) Baltimore, inspired clay sculptor, is wife to Hugh, a physicist assistant professor at Stanford working toward a tenured position, and mother to 8 year old Jeremy. When Hugh and Lexie lost their little girl, the excruciating pain and sorrow turned Lexie to God and Hugh away from Him. When Lexie submitted her grief to the Lord, He began to use her sculpting skills to form faces of people He'd set up for Lexi to help. Being awakened in the middle of the night after descriptive dreams, she goes to the studio in her home to allow the Lord to fill out the formless heads of clay. Following the finished product, He directs her to the individual and shows her how she's to help. She can share none of this with her faithless husband who thinks the faces represent "practice".

    One incident produces the attractive face of a man. When Lexie finds him, she learns he's a widowed pastor and father of a girl around Jeremy's age who survived the accident which took his wife's life but left little Samantha with a new heart. An immediate attraction forms between them which Lexie tries hard to ignore. Nate, the pastor, quietly pursues Lexie but not for the reason either of them fully understands. The tormented Nate fights against his unbelief and deception, believing he must carry out his mission with Lexie in order to save his daughter's life.

    Meanwhile, Hugh experiences his own brands of deception and betrayal, realizing too slowly how he's jeopardizing everything of genuine importance in his life because he's too stubborn to consider a spiritual reality after his pushed down grief.

    This novel is in no way a rant against either partner in a marriage, demonstrating the weaknesses of individuals on both sides of faith. Because Dineen is a Christian, of course her worldview comes from the desire for the Truth to be recognized and lived by her character's husband, but she aptly includes the multiple ways all of us can be deceived and manipulated by the enemy of our souls when we either don't acknowledge his skills and intents or when we fail to come against his schemes in the power of the Holy Spirit.

    A comforting and hopeful novel, this will inspire wives with unbelieving husbands to keep fighting for them in the power of the Most High while reminding them to trust God with all of their faith and emotions and to never give up praying for the one they love.

    Efficiently written with several cliches most readers won't even notice and ended satisfactorily, as the dedication indicates, the novel was written "For all the 'Lexies' out there. Remember God is faithful."

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1616265825

     

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    Father, you know Dineen's heart and her love and devotion to you above all, to her husband and family, and her willingness to obey at all costs. She's been through her share of trials and suffering, but you've supplied many blessings along the way. I pray your abundance to flood her spirit and her life situation. May she reap what she has sown in prayer for those she loves so much. Bless her, Lord. Please. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.        

  • Sunday’s Offerings

     

    I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

    I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

    Romans 1:14-17 (NIV)

  • ****Political Update****

     

    From Newsmax:

     

    SEALs: Obama Taking Credit for bin Laden 'Cheap Shot'

    by Martin Gould

    Current and former US Navy SEALs have joined the attacks on President Barack Obama for attempting to take credit for killing Osama bin Laden and using them and Special Forces members as 'ammunition' for his campaign.

    Author and former SEAL Brandon Webb told Newsmax that Obama's White House predecessor, George W. Bush, deserves much of the praise for taking out the world's most wanted man.

    And other SEALs bashed the president to Britain's MailOnline after Obama released a campaign ad called "One Chance," to coincide with this week’s first anniversary of the raid that killed the al-Qaida figurehead.

    The ad features former President Bill Clinton praising Obama's decision to order bin Laden killed, and suggests that his Republican rival Mitt Romney might not have made the same call. It has already been criticized by all sides, with even Arianna Huffington, founder of the liberal Huffington Post, calling it “despicable.”

    Webb, author of the book "The Red Circle" about his work training snipers, told Newsmax in an exclusive interview that Obama "inherited a pretty robust system," from Bush.

    "This whole process to get (bin Laden) started when George W. was standing on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero saying to the American people, 'the people who knocked these buildings down are going to hear from us.

    "Fortunately, Obama was in a position to finish what George W. started," added Webb.

    And Chris Kyle, the former SEAL credited with a record 160 confirmed killings, called the Obama ad “a cheap shot.”

    “He's trying to say that Romney wouldn't have made the same call? Anyone who is patriotic to this country would have made that exact call, Democrat or Republican,” Kyle told the Mail’s Toby Harnden. “Obama is taking more credit than he is due.”

    Kyle’s comments echoed those of Romney himself. Campaigning in New Hampshire on Monday he said, “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” adding that he “of course” would have done the same.

    Romney marked Tuesday’s anniversary by visiting a New York City firehouse with Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor on 9/11. He told CBS’ “Good Morning” he gave Obama credit for ordering the attack on Abbottabad, but added, “At the same time, I think it’s very disappointing for the president to try to make this a political item by suggesting that I wouldn’t have ordered such a raid,” Romney said.

    Montana State Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Navy commander who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, called Obama’s decision “a no-brainer” in the Mail article.

    “I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call,” said Zinke, a Republican from Whitefish. “Every president would have done the same.

    “He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice — it was a broader team effort."

    Zinke slammed Obama for exploiting bin Laden’s death. "The president and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable."

    One unidentified current SEAL told the Mail, "Obama wasn’t in the field, at risk, carrying a gun. As president, at every turn, he should be thanking the guys who put their lives on the line to do this. He does so in his official speeches because his speechwriters are smart.

    "But the more he tries to take the credit for it, the more the ground operators are saying, 'Come on, man!' It really didn’t matter who was president. At the end of the day, they were going to go."

    Former sniper Kyle said Obama shouldn't take the credit. "The operation itself was great and the nation felt immense pride. It was great that we did it,” he said.

    "But bin Laden was just a figurehead. The war on terror continues. Taking him out didn’t really change anything as far as the war on terror is concerned, and using it as a political attack is a cheap shot."

    The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday claimed that by turning the targeted killing into an election issue, Obama risked becoming the most polarizing president since Richard Nixon.

    “Voters aren't likely to believe that any Presidential candidate would fail to pursue the man who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11,” the Journal pointed out.

    “The question all of this raises is—why? Why would an incumbent President feel the need to campaign like this?”

    Fox News’ Chris Stirewalt said the decision to turn the anniversary of the terrorist’s killing into an election issue “mucked up what should have been one of the president’s best days of the campaign.”

    “The only thing required to benefit from association with the killing of the most hated man in the nation is to be magnanimous about the whole affair – smile broadly, downplay your own role with a wink and congratulate the brave men who did the job,” said Stirewalt.

    “Obama almost managed to do that, but his campaign couldn’t resist going negative.”

    The White House is marking the anniversary of bin Laden's death Tuesday with a series of briefings and interviews designed to highlight Obama's decision that day.

    © 2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

    Read more on Newsmax.com: SEALs: Obama Taking Credit for bin Laden 'Cheap Shot'

     

    Father, there is no joy in the killing of enemies, but there is great joy in the elimination of evil. Please have mercy on our nation, Lord, because in its foundation and at its core, you are honored. We desire to give you all the praise and honor for breathing life into the USA. Please forgive us for our multiple and horrid sins and restore us to the Truth. In the Name of Jesus, we ask and pray. Amen.

     

  • Another great cover . . .

     

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                 Congratulations, Mike. Terrific cover.

     

    Father, please continue to instruct Mike, to fill him with stories, and touch his heart as only you can do. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

     

  • Say hello to Normandie Fischer.

     

    Normandie Fischer, my wonderful cyber-friend, can wear many "hats", literally and figuratively, if she so chooses. She's a sailor of oceans, a sculptor, a writer, an editor and self-proclaimed Grammar Nazi, and the Executive Editor at Wayside Press (www.wayside-press.com). She's represented by Agent Terry Burns and her first novel Becalmed (working title) has recently received a contract. Visit Normandie's lovely website here: http://normandiefischer.com/. This is a recent post she wrote on a topic we writers are forced to address.

       

    Tribes: Who Needs Them?

     

     

    That fellow’s pointing at me. He’s a marketing guru (I’m sure), and he says that my next job is to make scads of social media friends. I must blog, tweet, speak, call, make myself heard somewhere, by someone. By enough someones that my book will sell. I’m supposed to have a tribe.

    As an idea, a tribe sounds welcoming. But if your school years were anything like mine, tribes and posses meant exclusion for those on the outside looking in. Too bad the lonely couldn’t form their own clique, but outsiders are usually outside because they’re either too shy or too introverted, too tall or too fat, or, as I often felt, too bored by the trivia of it all.

    Now, being on the outside isn’t always a bad thing. Isolation and loneliness often propel one to creativity. It forced me into books and art and writing and made me the person I am today.

    Who, frankly, would much rather write another story than try to sell anything.

    Have I told you about my friend, Ray? Ray worked in another department back when I was editing in the DC area. Evenings, I’d return to my apartment and sculpt big bodies to hang on walls — big, life-sized bodies using friends as models. One night a week, I taught aspiring artists what I’d learned in school and in the doing of my art. When Ray and his family came into my life, I’d just finished a pair – John and Sue — and moved on to the next sculpture, this time a torso only. Ray showed up at my office door and asked if I’d let him submit my work to a contest to be judged by none other than the sculpture curator of the National Gallery of Art. I shrugged, secretly delighted, especially when the pair won First Place. All because of Ray, who’d invited me into his tribe and done for me what I couldn’t do for myself.

    I love people. I like to talk to people and make new friends, but I’m the one who’ll want to get to know you, not just your name or your place in the hierarchy. At the cocktail party, I don’t want to flit. I want conversation.

    Here’s the deal. I don’t have a clue how to create a tribe or to beat my chest. But I’d like to know you. And if together we end up in a club together, it won’t be an exclusive one. You hear?

     

    I’m in. How about you? Are you coming with me? I’ll help you up and you can help me?

    (Perhaps there’s even a Ray out there for my writing who wants to show me how and pave the way.)

     

    Father, you know the blessings I pray over Normandie. I also pray your divine protection over her and her family. As she delights in you, I pray the desires of her heart will be given to her in your abundance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

     

     

     

  • Needing a . . . Travelers Rest

     

    For the first week in May, 2012, the CFBA Tour presents Ann Tatlock's Travelers Rest published by Bethany House. The elegant sepia cover gives the reader an invitation to partake of the beauty and pain of this touching story.

     

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    Twenty-five year old Jane Morrow defies her fiancé's wish that she not come to see him in the VA hospital after the vibrant Seth Ballantine is hit in the neck by a sniper's bullet in Iraq making him a quadriplegic. She goes to the hospital committed to pushing through whatever they must face together. But Seth is wounded as much in spirit as he is in body, and his greeting erases the warmth of her devotion she hopes to share with him. Determined not to let him dampen her efforts to convince him they can make a life together, his rebuffs threaten to erode her plans.

    While visiting the hospital she meets retired Dr. Truman Rockaway who provides her with a solid friendship as she wades through the sadness and revelation of her fiancé's circumstance. While bolstering her courage to once again visit Seth's room, she listens to someone making beautiful music from a piano in the Atrium. Gaining the courage to see who it is, she finds an attractive man who plays while waiting to visit his sister who's a nurse at the hospital. Jon-Paul Pearcy, a blind attorney in his family's business, proves he's not only a courageous man, he's willing to offer his version of hope to Seth by finding a mutual interest.

    In Jane's hours of reflection on her childhood, she begins to seriously address the challenges that lay before her. Seth's parents ready their home for their son's release, and Jane feels set aside. She hears the urging of her friend Diane trying to make her realize she's too young to be bound to the difficulties of Seth's condition. Jane thrashes around in guilt, despair, and the confusion of the situation, wonders about what little faith she has, and gives her best effort to convince Seth she wants to complete their plans.

    Travelers Rest connects the lives of seemingly disconnected individuals into a working but complex story of small town life. With tragedy and triumph intermittent, crushing and invigorating sometimes all at once, this novel captures pain, sorrow, recovery, and rebirth in a finely tuned drama of intersecting emotions and lives. Easily read in one sit-down if a reader has the time, Travelers Rest gives respite to the upheaved souls in this story. Resolved in a peaceful and not unexpected conclusion, Travelers Rest by Ann Tatlock takes the reader through her pretty prose and realistic story to journey's end.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764208101

    Father, you've given Ann such beauty in her words. She knows how to use them to honor you. Please continue to meet her supply of stories. I'm sure you have plenty more for her to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.      

  • No shame . . .

     

                      Freewritersm3

     

    The controversy over and about Christian Fiction will undoubtedly continue beyond some of our lifetimes. Praise, complaints, commendations, and condemnations all accompany conversations concerning novels written with the Christian Fiction label. Readers who read it exclusively, readers who've never read it at all or have read very few offerings, and readers who occasionally read a few authors who write it, present opinions in multiple ways. Some hostile, some condescending, some ill-informed and some giddy, admiring, or some giving example-based words of respect for what they've read.

    The different purposes of authors who proclaim to be Christians affect how their worldview will be expressed between the covers of a novel. Some have determined God's direction for their writing addresses the general market while others are clearly geared to the Christian market where the freedom to address the gospel in more specific ways is plainly easier.

    Let me interject this right here: I'm not talking about "un-crafted" writers. I'm talking about writers who work at their craft and desire to produce quality. Granted, quality is always up for debate. And that quality can be lacking in all kinds of fiction, but to subdue even more debate on this topic, let's forego the discussion about quality writing and assume we're not talking about first drafts and pie-in-the-sky rookies.

    It's possible some writers are caught somewhere in the "in-between". Although a sampling of secular publishing houses are less stringent regarding spiritual specifics to do with the Christian faith, others are not. Some of the big guns in publishing (i.e. Simon&Schuster; Random House) have acquired Christian houses to address the market that Christian books occupy. The in-between Christian authors can find themselves in the unenviable position of presenting material "too Christian" for some publishers and "too edgy, raw, pick-a-word" for the Christian houses.

    So what? you ask. Well . . . there's this. If we're writing to impress an agency, an individual, and/or an industry, chances are there will be a considerable amount of compromise taking place. Notice I used the word "impress" because this word implies the world we live in. It involves either the seduction or the convincing of another human being(s) to believe in your work, in you. Factored into impressing someone(s) are that person's tastes, desires, inclinations, and purpose for his/her career. If you as a writer manage to gain an inroad to contribute to that career, you move forward toward a goal.

    And? And if in the pursuit of your goal you forsake your purpose by altering your work to suit those in your path, then either your goal changes or your purpose does. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can simply be a washing away of naiveté . However, if you're left with the feeling of having compromised beyond what you intended, left empty and feel like you've sold out, take inventory and ask yourself for whom you write. Some people will never be impressed with what you do. However, we serve a Lord and lover of our souls who will be pleased with our efforts to honor Him in what we write in obedience to His desires.

    Are you a Christian author who writes with no shame?

    I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Romans 1:16 (NIV)

     

    Father, keep me solid for you. You're truly all that matters in this writing venue. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.     

     

  • Lite or Not?

     

    It seems for those who feel victimized by Christian Fiction that any mention of serious God issues is too much. God-lite is more than these readers can tolerate. Recently I've read some good novels which are God-lite and sure enough the fact that God is mentioned at all is more than these supposedly unsuspecting souls can handle.

    So what do I mean by God-lite? Some characters acknowledge God, do pray without many details, and have hope that God will act in some way(s). Jesus is not mentioned. Conflict with evil is apparent and/or there is serious need for God's intervention in a circumstance. Some characters know God. Others don't believe in God. Some are searching for Him without understanding how He operates or what they need to know.

    But it doesn't matter how "lite" God's presence is in the story. It's too much for them. These are the readers who criticize the "Christian" in fiction, who whine about how they were "deceived" into reading the book, and who will give the novel one star on Amazon because it belongs to the "religious" category and somehow they didn't catch it. Strange how that works when back cover copy invariably implicates the God-factor.

    Lite or not, if God makes it into the pages of the novel, some readers will find a way to complain.

     

                                Sme0027

    Father, you call many to your salvation. Your love is bigger than humanity can imagine. Available to all. So sad when it's rejected. May you bless your people who write according to your will and instruction. In the Name of your Son Jesus Christ, Amen.    

  • Sunday’s Offerings

     

    Show the wonder of your great love,

    you who save by your right hand

    those who take refuge in you from their foes.

    Psalm 17:7 (NIV)

  • ****Political Update****

     

    Frustration with refusal of full disclosure on Fast and Furious:

     

    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/holder-contempt-fast-furious/2012/04/27/id/437354?s=al&promo_code=EC4A-1

     

    The escalation of abortion in America continues. Here is the latest news from the ACLJ's attorneys.

    Race and Sex Based Discrimination Illegal … Except for Abortion

     

    Planned Parenthood supports this most invidious form of discrimination, race- and sex-selection abortions.

    Read it at the ACLJ's Docket Blog

    The Pro-Abortion War on Women

     

    A new bill would allow non-physicians to perform abortions, endangering women.

    Read it at the ACLJ's Docket Blog

    The U.S. Department of Planned Parenthood

     

    President Obama is systematically selecting former Planned Parenthood operatives for his pro-abortion Administration.

    Read it at the ACLJ's Docket Blog

    Planned Parenthood's Prayer of "Thanks for Abortion Providers" and their "Sacred Care"

     

    Planned Parenthood worships at the altar of abortion. Now, here is their prayer guide.

    Read it at the ACLJ's Docket Blog

    Troubled Abortion Business to Close

     

    An abortion clinic that tried to shutdown pro-life advocates has now been shutdown.

    Read it at the ACLJ's Docket Blog

    Thank you for joining the ACLJ in taking a stand for life. To stay up-to-date with the latest news from the ACLJ, please connect to the ACLJ Facebook App and follow the ACLJ on Twitter.

    Thank you,
    The ACLJ Team

     

    Father, once again we ask for your mercy, justice, and restoration. We ask for your forgiveness, Lord. Please resurrect our nation. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.