Storm Friends

This week I had the fun of reviewing my friend Cheryl Ricker’s new book A Friend in the Storm. It’s a gift book of poetry, quotes, and Scripture written for people going through a difficult time. Some of the poems are heartfelt words from a hurting person to God, but must are God's words to a soul that is troubled or in pain. While I know that Cheryl originally wrote the poems for a friend who was dying of cancer, they ministered to me as I dealt with a very different kind of life storm. So in a way she became a friend in the storm to me.

Who have your friends in the storm been? You know, those friends that God sent to be there through heartbreaking, disappointments, illness, or grief. When has Jesus been the only friend you had? How did He use that season (which probably started out feeling extremely lonely) to draw you so close to Himself that He became all you needed?

Thank God today for the gift of those storm friends, knowing that it takes a special kind of person to shoulder our tears, daily phone calls, and heavy loads of need. Thank Him also for those times when it seemed like you had no one to share your burden with, until He surrounded you with His presence and became the best friend you could ever have.

If you are in the midst of a storm right now, or know someone who is going through a rough time, check out Cheryl Ricker’s A Friend in the Storm.

Book giveaway - SASSY CINDERELLA AND THE VALIANT VIGILANTE by Sharon Dunn

Camy here, giving away another book! (No, not mine)

The winner of
Lost in Las Vegas
by
Melody Carlson is
weaver_writer
Congratulations!

To enter to win today’s book, leave a comment on this blog post, giving your name and saying you want to enter. International readers are welcome to enter!

Please leave an email address or website where I can contact you (please use this format--you [at] yourmail.com--or something like that to prevent spammers from trolling for your email address). It is the winner’s responsibility to check to see if you won and to email me if you haven’t yet heard from me.

I always email the winner and give them a week to reply, but if I don’t receive an answer, I will pull another person to win the book. I am not responsible for a lost opportunity if you leave an email address you don’t check frequently.

Only one entry per person. The winner can expect their free book in 4-6 weeks.

You have a week to comment--I'll pick a name out of a hat on March 14th. (BTW, you can post a comment and NOT enter, too.)

Today I’m giving away:

Sassy Cinderella and the Valiant Vigilante
by
Sharon Dunn

When a professor at the local university dies, Ruby Taylor is hired to fill his shoes. Along with a frozen corpse and midnight intruders, this sassy Cinderella has to deal with lost love and family that defines the word dysfunctional. Deadly university politics turn personal as Ruby works to straighten out a mystery that has more twists than a silly straw.

Read my review of this book

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Her novel Single Sashimi is out now, and she runs the Story Sensei critique service. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every Monday and Thursday, and she ponders frivolous things. Sign up for her newsletter YahooGroup for monthly giveways!

Beauty from ... what a mess!

I have a new book coming out in July for teen girls. Thinking about it both excites me and terrifies me at the same time.

The title is: My Life, Unscripted. In it I've share more about my messed up teen years than I ever thought I would. In fact stories I SWORE to never tell a soul will soon be in print! Like the time I was on a date with my boyfriend and found myself kissing his best friend. Or the time I got in a fist fight after a football game ... did I mention I was still wearing my cheerleading uniform? Or when I was 17 and told my boyfriend in the McDonald's parking lot that I was pregnant.

It's stories like these that I wish were fiction and NOT the truth!

Yet, years ago, after I dedicated my life to Christ I prayed He would redeem those years and bring some good out of them. This book is that redemption in print!

It's a dream come true. It's my way of allowing God to take the mess and make something beautiful out of it.

So what do you dream about? Check out this quote I found:

"God never simply buries our dead and broken dreams because He'd be burying our hearts along with our dreams. One of two positive things will happen. Either the dream will become fertilizer for something even better, or the Lord will give me the gumption and oomph to bring my dream to fruition. I can't lose either way!" ~Noni Joy Tari

To put in bluntly, the MESS from my teen years became fertilizer for something better. Believe me, it took a lot of gumption and guts to bring this dream to fruition, but if it can help one teen to choose a better path for her life it's ALL worth it!

Now, what about you? What mess have you lived through that you hope one day can help someone else? Tell me about it ...

Tricia

A Valentine's Gift

It's Valentine's Day, that holiday I used to call "the darkest day of the year". I was always on the short end of the stick when it came to love and romance. I was never one of those girls that had flowers and balloons delivered to school. (If you are one of those girls, don't tell me about it.) Well, to be brutally honest, I never even had a boyfriend in high school - or college. And you have to remember that I didn't even know God in high school so I had no religious convictions whatsoever and I still couldn't get a date. For anything.

But before you feel sorry for me, you've got to know that I look back on all of that and I am...grateful. After all, what felt horrible at the time, was an effective strategy in keeping my heart for my future husband. Not having those relationships kept me from making big mistakes. So while I don't have any of those happy "dating" memories, I also don't have any sorrow or regrets. And that's a good thing. Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the here and now, and forget that God is at work behind the scenes, shaping our lives for some future time.

But since most of you are still in that waiting time, I have a special gift for ya'll. I get a lot of mail from girls who have read the Becoming Beka series and want more books. Unfortunately, the publishing world can be very, very slow. So I have spent the last six months writing a novel that I am going to give away for free! Yeah, I know, it's insane. It started out as an experimental project and turned out to be a blast to write.

Totally Unfamous is a blog-book. That means it will release on a blog platform a little at a time, but it is still a complete novel. Oh, and it's written completely in poetry. Yes, you read that right. That's how Lucy wanted it written and since it's her book, how could I argue? Lucy (Beka's younger sister from the Beka series), is now seventeen and is a senior in high school and Totally Unfamous is her story. I posted the first four pages of Lucy's story today, and each day there will be more up there to read.

Could you help me spread the word? If you like the story and think you know others would like it as well, you can use the graphic button above to link the Totally Unfamous page to your own blog or website.

You can also find me over at ShoutLife, a new Christian online community.

So Happy Valentine's Day to each and every one of you. Even if you are by yourself today, remember that you are never alone, and that God always knows more than we do. You are God's precious Valentine today, and every day.