Shame is not the word Gloria Sycamore would have chosen to describe the emotion that lingers deep inside her. She’s lived most of her life in the shadow of others, never quite fitting in, never quite belonging. But all that should change on her return to Sycamore Hill. She isn’t looking for a hero’s welcome, but she does expect a friendly one. After all, she is a Sycamore, and she’s dating the local minister. But the community questions her commitment to her faith, the town, and their pastor—who they are not keen on sharing. So, Gloria sets out to prove them wrong, navigating the messy and sometimes hilarious muddy water of dating in the public eye, where nothing is private, and everything is up for debate.
My connection to Gloria
His Sycamore Sweetheart is a work of fiction. That’s an important clarification. Yet, I had so much fun writing this story because I feel a deep connection to Gloria. I’m not only a pastor’s wife, but I’m also familiar with feeling tolerated instead of welcomed and not measuring up. I think, in many ways, there is likely a little bit of Gloria in us all. I feel it when I fail to speak up or stand up or absorb hits, secretly believing I must deserve them. Shame shows up when I overreact to expressions of displeasure with me. I long to please people, and if I can’t, I feel rejected. This is exasperated in church ministry, and I can easily feel worthless, nothing, zero. This is shame. This is Gloria’s reality.
Gloria struggles with the tension of wanting to break free from expectations while feeling pressed to conform to who people expect the pastor’s girlfriend to be. She tries to read between the lines to discern what people want from her. She struggles to understand what it means to serve others and consider them better than herself.
Gloria will feel a magnetic pull toward her familiar feelings of inferiority and unworthiness. She knows Christ has made her clean. She knows sins against her say far more about the accuser than her. She knows that one touch from Jesus has replaced her shame with his honour. Yet, the feelings return, resisting the truth. To battle this, she remembers the gospel. Jesus lowered himself to elevate her. Jesus doesn’t just remove her shame; He gives her His honour. He replaces shame with honour, so she can walk in freedom.
Join Gloria in Sycamore Hill. She’s willing to do anything to salvage her reputation except the one thing they are demanding. That she walks away from the man she loves.
I’m often asked about YA titles, and since I don’t write them, I’m always excited to promote one. I LOVE this cover, and I’m happy to welcome author Carol Raj to the blog.
“Why would I go to church? Those Christians are all hypocrites. Just look in the front pew.”
How often have you heard words like that? And could they possibly be true? To answer that, we have to define our terms. What is a hypocrite? And what is a Christian? A hypocrite is defined as a person who pretends to be something good – generous or loving or faithful — but is actually the opposite.
One of the most despicable characters in literature is Ebenezer Scrooge. He loved money and had no respect for other people. But was he a hypocrite? No. He never pretended to be generous. He was a miser and proud of it. And how do we define a Christian? The one thing every born-again Christian claims to be is a sinner. A sinner whose only hope for salvation is being washed in the blood of Jesus.
We may dress up when we go to church. We may smile on the outside while inside we’re sad, discouraged, or even angry. That only means we can overcome our inner flaws in an effort to make others comfortable. But it does not make us hypocrites. We claim to be sinners, and we are.
In Charlotte Masterson Gets a Life, high school sophomore Charlotte discovers that appearances can be deceiving. As she uncovers her boyfriend’s motivations and her strict mother’s shady past, her world is turned upside down. In the process, she discovers what true love is. True love. Sacrificial love. Like Jesus has for us.
Carol Raj published several stories in children’s magazines before her first YA novel, Charlotte Masterson Gets a Life. Part of her inspiration came from working in a public high school library. What an eye-opener! One student asked for a copy of one of Shakespeare’s plays. In English, please. Still another said he hated all the rules in the high school so he planned to join the army. Good luck with that one!
The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
My mind and heart don’t always agree. I know what I know, but my heart feels. Sometimes my senses don’t agree with either heart or mind. I know God called me to write, but my heart is often reluctant. Where do I start?
Who am I to have anything of value to say? Oh, how I marvel at those pastors who use alliteration. They make it sound so easy, those one-word points that begin with the same letter, and the listener gives rapt attention.
Have you ever argued or pleaded with the Lord in cases of conviction? Those times He nudges and doesn’t let go because He has an assignment for you? You’re in good company.
Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’
Exodus 4:10
Writing can be like that for me. There is nothing new under the sun, so reality shouts that “it’s already been said.” So, what can I add that has any takeaway value?
But the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made the human mouth? Or who makes anyone unable to speak or deaf, or able to see or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’
Exodus 4:11
Ah, the Lord. it’s all about Him; it’s not about what I have to say. It’s not about what I feel as I’m trying to say it. He’s given me an assignment, and it’s my responsibility to answer that call from the heart as much as the head. Now would you look at that? I just discovered alliteration.
Speaking of Hearts
One of my summer titles is Where Hearts Meet. I can see reluctance, reality, and responsibility in Deena Shores and Simon Hart’s relationship (there’s one that just slipped through my fingertips). She strives to keep her attraction for him a secret while caring for his mother. Simon looks into Deena’s dark eyes, sees his wife, and relives (and another!) her disappearance Will his obedience to God override the chance Deena may vanish as well?
Maybe that alliteration I’ve noticed isn’t a matter of knowledge after all. Could be it comes from the heart, and who knows hearts better than the Creator?
Thank you, Stacey, for sharing your cyberspace with me. I wish all of you happy reading during the final days of summer.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Colossians 3:23
Heartfelt Work
God creates beauty
In His sight
Flawed sinner I am
Jesus died for me
I can do no less
Than work for Him
All my efforts
Should bring Him glory
He enables, He equips
My heart is willing
I set him before me
In all I write
For Him.
Nebraska country girl LoRee Peery writes fiction that hopefully appeals to adult readers who enjoy stories written from a Christian perspective, focusing on the romance. These include novels and novellas for women and men in the Contemporary, Romance, Historical, Time Travel, and Mystery/Suspense categories. She writes of redeeming grace with a sense of place. Her Frivolities Series launched her releases, and the book based on her father’s unsolved homicide, Touches of Time, was a personal relief. She is who she is by the grace of God: Christian, country girl, wife, mother, grandmother and great-, sister, friend, and author.
Seventeen years ago I grew extremely ill with weakness, dizziness and the inability to eat. Each time something hit my stomach I started shaking and got horrible indigestion. The physician told me, “We can’t diagnose what you have, so we can’t treat it.” I froze right there in his office. A nurse finally helped me collect myself and check out. I drove home in a trance, stopped at the door to the house, told my husband I didn’t have any of the diseases the doctor had tested me for and trod upstairs to the bedroom. I plopped down in a rocking chair and sat in shock.
I didn’t pray. I didn’t ask God for His help or what I should do. Looking back, I believe I was too ill and too stunned to think. But God intervened. Over and over I kept thinking I should see Dr. Lee. He was a chiropractor a friend of mine had seen ten years earlier. I wanted to swat the busyness buzzing in my brain like a mosquito. Why would I need a chiropractor? But the thought persisted. Finally, I phoned my friend, found out Dr. Lee’s first name and phone number and learned that he was now also a holistic doctor. I contacted him, and he started treating me immediately for a toxic substance, which turned out to be Chronic Lyme disease.
Why Not Me?
I’ve often wondered why me? I’ve also heard if one asks why me, one has to ask why not me? We live in an imperfect world, so why would I be any less likely to contract Chronic Lyme disease than anyone else? I’ve been a Christian who prayed and trusted God to direct me for as long as I can remember. I believed God had a purpose for my life. I didn’t understand how Chronic Lyme disease fit into it, or why there wasn’t a better way to accomplish it.
That’s where faith comes in. Sometimes when we’re in what society perceives an impossible situation, or in my case, at the end of the road, it isn’t as easy to have faith as it is to profess it. It helps me to remember how a power so much stronger than me intervened in my situation. When I didn’t even have the presence of mind to pray, God stepped in and sent me exactly where I needed to go for help. In spite of Chronic Lyme disease, I enjoy an active life. Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself. We may bump into tragic circumstances in our imperfect world, but God has the power to lift us above them.
“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
As time went by and people learned of my condition, I received emails and phone calls asking about my treatment. That led to Barely Above Water. The symptoms and therapies in the book are real. They’re the ones I had at the time, but I wanted a fun-to-read book, so I added a fictitious romance and a rag-tag kids’ summer league swim team.
Barely Above Water
An illness comes out of nowhere and strikes Suzie Morris. Her boyfriend dumps her. She has no living family, and her physician can’t diagnose the malady.
Suzie relies on her Christian faith as she faces the uncertainty of the disease, and turns to a renowned alternative doctor in Destin, Florida. She takes a job coaching a county-sponsored summer swim team. She’s determined to turn the fun, sometimes comical, rag-tag bunch into winners.
Her handsome boss renews her belief in love, but learns of her mysterious affliction and abruptly cuts romantic ties. Later he has regrets, but can he overcome his fear of losing a loved one and regain Suzie’s trust?
Award-winning author Gail Pallotta’s a wife, Mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. A 2013 Grace Awards finalist, she’s a Reader’s Favorite 2017 Book Award winner and a TopShelf 2020 Book Awards Finalist. She’s published six books, poems, short stories and several hundred articles. Some of her articles appear in anthologies while two are in museums. She enjoys connecting with readers. Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.gailpallotta.com/mainphp.html and visit her website at gailpallotta.com
Many Christians know the story of Nehemiah. He was the man who rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem. He even has his own book of the Bible. If we focus on Nehemiah’s construction skills, we miss one of his greatest attributes. Nehemiah was a man of prayer.
If prayer is talking with God, then Nehemiah had a lot to talk about.
When the book of Nehemiah begins, Nehemiah is cupbearer to King Artaxerxes in Susa, far from Nehemiah’s ancestral home of Jerusalem. Fortunately, Nehemiah receives visitors, a brother and some friends, but they relay shocking news about the state of Jerusalem. The City of David is in ruins.
What does Nehemiah do after hearing the troubling news about Jerusalem? Nehemiah 1:4 tells us that Nehemiah fasted and prayed. The only man who could relieve Nehemiah of his duties, send him to Jerusalem, and give him supplies was the king. A king who had abandoned Jerusalem previously.
Against all odds, Nehemiah doesn’t give up. After being called out by the king for looking sad, an offense punishable by death, Nehemiah relays the reason for his distress—Jerusalem is in ruins.
The faithfulness of God is on full display when the king asks Nehemiah, “What is it you want?” (2:4)
Does Nehemiah blurt out his desires? Of course not; he prays to God. Not only does Nehemiah ask to be relieved of his duties so that he can travel to his home city, he asks for letters for safe travel and timber from the king’s forest. The king also sends army officers and calvary with Nehemiah (2:9).
The rest of Nehemiah’s journey should be easy. God is on his side. Mortaring a few rocks shouldn’t be difficult after receiving the king’s blessing. Unfortunately, Nehemiah’s problems are only beginning. He will be communicating with God often.
How do I know? I wrote “Jerusalem Rising: Adah’s Journey” to show Nehemiah’s steadfast faith when friend and foe alike try to harm him and his building project. Many Christians do not know that the daughters of Shallum helped in the wall building.
You can find them mentioned in Nehemiah 3:12. We do not know how many daughters Shallum had, so I gave him two—Adah and Judith.
Spoiler Alert!
With God’s help, Nehemiah restores the wall around Jerusalem, rebuilds the gates, and welcomes the Hebrew remnant back to Jerusalem. What seems like a lot of construction talk begins with a man on his knees praying to God.
What projects or happenings in your life need to be bathed in prayer? I know how busy life can be, and sometimes I fail to pray before my feet are racing to tackle the day. May Nehemiah remind us that talking to God can bless our plans and make them better than we ever imagined.
One of my favorite verses is found in Nehemiah 8:10b. Nehemiah says these words after his hardships are past—for a while. May we remember his encouraging words. “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
When Adah bat Shallum finds the governor of Judah weeping over the crumbling wall of Jerusalem, she learns the reason for Nehemiah’s unexpected visit—God has called him to rebuild the wall around the City of David. Nehemiah challenges the men of Jerusalem to labor on the wall, and in return, the names of their fathers will be written in the annals for future generations to cherish. But Adah has one sister and no brothers. Should her father, who rules a half-district of Jerusalem, be forgotten forever? Adah bravely vows to rebuild her city’s wall, though she soon discovers that Jerusalem not only has enemies outside of the city but also within. Can Adah, her sister, and the men they love honor God’s call? Or will their mission be crushed by the same rocks they hope to raise?
Barbara M. Britton lives in Southeast, Wisconsin and loves the snow—when it accumulates under three inches. She writes Christian Fiction from Bible Times to present day. Her Tribes of Israel series brings little-known Bible characters to light. She also authored a WWI Historical set in Alaska. Barbara has a nutrition degree from Baylor University but loves to dip healthy strawberries in chocolate. You can find out more about Barb and her books on her website www.barbarambritton.com.
