November 2005

The author you’re about to meet had her first book made into a motion picture and has since gone on to win nearly 30 awards for subsequent books. She will tell you that she is a wife and mother first, and that her desire to stay at home to raise her youngest daughter is what sparked that initial interest in a writing career. And God has rewarded her efforts.

Her name is Deborah Raney, wife of artist Ken Raney, and mother to four children, three grown. Deb has written ten novels, contributed to ten anthologies, and with her sister, wrote two books of children’s sermons. In the next few years Deb will be busy writing about seven more books, all of which promise to be more of Deb’s wonderful heart-stirring fiction.

Her newest book on shelves right now is Over the Waters, published by Steeple Hill Books. I just finished reading this story, and I would encourage you to put it on your Christmas list or hop on over to Amazon or CBD (Christian Book Distributors) and

buy this book!

And of course, it may also be available at your local Christian retailer.

Over the Waters is set in Haiti where Deb’s parents helped found Haiti Love & Faith Ministries, Inc. Ken and Deb have sponsored a young girl at the Love of Jesus Children’s Home there for the past five or six years. For more information on the home that inspired Deb’s story, write to:

Haiti Love & Faith Ministries, Inc.
P.O. Box 5
Lyons, KS 67554

I asked Deb to give us some insight into the calling behind her writing ~

Jill: When did you realize this was a calling, not just a childhood dream?

Deb: My dream to write a book has metamorphosed over the years from being a simple, far-fetched childhood fantasy, to being a way for a happy wife and mother to make enough money to remain at home with our youngest daughter, to truly feeling a spiritual giftedness and call to write for the Lord.

Jill: What means did God use to confirm in your heart that this is exactly what He has prepared for you to do for Him?

Deb: As a newly-published writer, I began being invited to speak about my journey, and as I told my story again and again, I started to realize that there were too many “coincidences” in my life for the events that brought about my first book to be anything other than God’s divine direction. From my struggles as a six-year-old with asthma being forced to stay inside with my mother reading to me—book after book. She taught me to love literature and storytelling, and the intricate beauty of words. To the man God put in my life to be my husband—someone who had an amazing gift for storytelling himself—mostly through his artistic talents. To the life experiences God allowed that enabled me to “research” the stories I would set to paper years later. It became obvious that God has had his hand on me all along.

Jill: When and how did you come to realize that writing meant more to you than a means to meet physical monetary needs or fulfill your dreams?

Deb: I think I first began to understand the ways God intended to use my gift of writing when I started receiving letters from readers who had been touched by reading my books. There was something about that connection that was so affirming and that confirmed that I was doing exactly what I was created to do. I get a little chill just thinking about that sometimes!

Jill: Deb, how would you say that God has used writing to change you – to strengthen your faith and to make you more like Christ?

Deb: It’s amazing how many times I learn right along with the characters I happen to be writing about. Many times, the process of writing is almost a Bible study, as the Lord takes me through the Word and shows me things that answer the questions my story characters are grappling with, but that also answer the questions I’ve been asking. Because my stories often deal with dilemmas, and I want my characters to grow as Christians in their decision making process, I learn right along with them. The author almost always benefits from the thought processes of the characters she’s created.

As one of Deb’s readers, I see the way God is using her work in each and every one of her books. Her award-winning Beneath a Southern Sky had a profound effect on me.

For a list of Deb’s books you can visit her website here. You can also keep up with Deb’s frequent happenings on her blog.

The Over the Waters teaser reads: Known as “Dr. Botox” to the bored, rich women of Chicago, plastic surgeon Max Jordan has it made . . . or so he thinks. Is he really experiencing life to the fullest? When he visits his son, Joshua, who’s using his medical gifts to work with Haitian orphans, Max begins to wonder. Also available from Steeple Hill here.

And to tease us even more, here is a list of Deb’s upcoming books.

June 2006 A Vow to Cherish (updated reissue from Steeple Hill)
When his precious wife of 30 years receives a devastating diagnosis, John Brighton discovers that the heart can’t be trusted where true love is concerned.

January 2007 Remember to Forget (Howard Publishers)
What if you could start all over again, walk away from past mistakes and reinvent yourself?

June 2007 Within This Circle (sequel to Vow from Steeple Hill)
John and Julia Brighton’s new marriage is sorely tested when they must take over the care of John’s three-year-old granddaughter after the girl’s mother suffers a breakdown.

June 2008 Insight (Steeple Hill)
Olivia Cline feels like she has lost everything when her husband dies. But she never imagines that his organ donation will change her future forever.

June 2009 Above All Things (Steeple Hill)
Judd and Evette Monroe’s marriage faces the ultimate test when Judd discovers that he has a seven-year-old daughter, Jolie, with no place to call home.

If you haven’t read any of Deb’s books yet, don’t wait! This author uses a gentle touch to tackle some difficult questions and impossible situations. Just when you think there is no way for the characters to resolve their problems, Deb shows us a surprising, yet plausible solution. This is heart-stirring fiction at its best!

I love the changing seasons in Michigan. But lately it seems like we go from winter to summer and back again without much spring or fall in between. Winter doesn’t officially arrive until Dec. 21 or thereabouts, but the temperatures have dipped here into the 20s with a high in the 30s today. I know it’s cold when the water on the top of the pool cover is frozen.

The hardest part about Michigan winters is the lack of sun. One of my kids suffers from SAD when the sun hides for too long. Personally, I like the clouds, but there is definitely something about sunshine that brightens a day. Today is not one of those days, as far as the sun is concerned. And I awoke with the same headache that kept me company yesterday.

But I’m not complaining. The eye doctor appointments went better than I expected and we passed our tests with flying colors. :)I always like it when the doctor says he doesn’t need to see me for two years. Maybe I’ll stretch that to three. Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m not a fan of doctor visits. But I do go and keep my regular check-up appointments – most of the time. :)

In any case, this has been a rather trying week. But God is faithful. I’m working through the book of John and am at the part where Jesus is comforting and admonishing his disciples to abide in Him, right before He went to the cross. When I was young, I used to wonder what abiding meant. Now I understand that it is an action, a keeping oneself in the Word and meditating on it, and praying without ceasing, and obeying His commands. The hardest part is admitting sin when He reveals it to me. Sometimes living with winter is easier to bear.

But sin is sin and subtle forms of pride are probably my greatest weakness. That’s when I need to abide all the more. And the better I abide, the more it feels like spring, even when the pool is frozen outside my window.

I’m still working on the spotlight interview, so please stay tuned. It should be up either later this week or early next.

In the meantime, I’ve got a whopping headache today and leave for the eye doctor in a few minutes. One of my sons and I share a strange shape to the back of our eyes that makes our opthamologist nervous, so they like to check us nearly every year. I’m convinced it’s just normal for us. Since normal is not a word that fits our household very well, it figures. What other family has a mom and three kids trying to break into various areas of the entertainment industry? If you’re a writer, you know what I mean. Only Randy is “normal” in this house, but I think we’re rubbing off on him too. :)

Anyway, I won’t be able to see after this silly eye appointment due to the dilating drops, and I’m already dreading the visual field test they want to do. Maybe I’ll just sleep this afternoon – or veg in front of old Little House on the Prairie reruns.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving next week. Yesterday gave me a lot of reasons to lose heart – from a double whammy rejection to other issues – but wrapped up in those negatives were some great positives. The comfort of the Lord shown through the love and prayers of friends most of all.

I hope if you are having “one of those days”, like I’ve had for the past two, that you will find a way to see the good in them. I asked the Lord to teach me what He wants me to learn from these situations. In the process I have found His great peace.

I wish you the same this day.

Proverbs 27:2 says: “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.”

Christian authors can struggle with this admonition because part of selling your book is promoting yourself and your work. Anyone who has had to apply for a job knows this. We have to sell ourselves to our future employer, in effect, promoting, even praising our own abilities, to show we can do the job.

I don’t think the Lord would frown on a persuasive, can-do attitude to secure gainful employment. Where the difficult part comes in for the author is when they are trying to promote their work in the eyes of the reading public. Marketing is part of this business, and sometimes that marketing can come across as unduly promoting ourselves – even if we are trying to honor the Biblical admonition to allow praise to fall from the lips of others, not our own.

With that in mind, I have decided to help authors whose work I admire, by spotlighting one a month on this blog. My goal is to read one of their current books or focus on a past book that I truly enjoyed. I will make you aware of their book and where you can purchase it, then link you to their website and any other links that may have inspired the book. But I also aim to get behind the story to show you what motivates these authors to write for God.

My first spotlight will be on an author who truly writes heart-stirring fiction. It takes a lot to move me in a story, and this author has done so in one way or the other with every one of her books. She has won numerous awards and is one of the sweetest, kindest ladies I know.

Can you guess who?

I’m not telling until next time… :)

I’ve been reading through the book of John again and today I was reading the end of chapter eight and chapter nine. At the end of chapter eight, I ran across an irony that made me pause. It’s in verses 31-33, which says:

“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?”

It’s the part that I highlighted that made me shake my head in amazement. At the time the Jews said this to Jesus, they were living in an occupied country. They were not exactly slaves to Rome, but the Romans controlled the country, making laws, taxing the people. Yes, they were free to go about their business, but they had to obey Rome’s rule.

But read the verse again. “…we were never in bondage to any man…” Never?

Had they forgotten their history? They’d been slaves in Egypt for 400 years! Not to mention the captivity in Babylon and the oppression they’d endured from the Assyrians and other nations because of their disobedience to Yahweh. How could they say they’d never been in bondage to any man?

It’s interesting the lies we believe. How often do we tell ourselves things – especially things about ourselves – that aren’t true? People with anorexia will look in the mirror and believe they are fat when they are actually malnourished and toothpick thin. People with no ambition will tell those around them that they are going to be somebody important someday. People with no money believe that they will win the lottery. And the list goes on…

In the next verse, Jesus said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin…”

The Pharisees were blind to the fact that they had a history of slavery and were in bondage even as they spoke – to Rome and to sin.

But we lie to ourselves there too. I spoke to a neighbor once and asked her, “If you were to die tonight and stand before God and He were to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say?”

Her response, “He better let me in. After all I’ve done – all the praying, all the fasting, all the rule following…” He’d better?

That woman was blind to who God is and was blind to her own sin. She believed she was okay because she’d followed a few rules, not realizing how sin had enslaved her. She died a few years later in a house fire passed out on drugs.

True freedom starts with realizing that we are in bondage to sin, then turning to the only One who can free us from that sin. If we don’t start there, we will remain enslaved.

The Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Our forefathers based these human rights on a self-evident, fundamental truth – that the rights were endowed by their Creator. Endowed means “provided or supplied or equipped with”. The rights were gifts provided by God. They took it for granted that there was a Creator who could grant them those rights in the first place.

Less than two centuries later some Americans began to doubt the reality of a Creator. Charles Darwin and others of his day embraced a new religion – natural selection and theory of evolution. And today this religious theory is taught as fact to school children all across the world.

I could offer a number of resources to show why evolution makes no sense and cannot be proven by the fossil record or any other record, and perhaps in coming days I will, but for now I want to focus on one thing. Those human rights that we as a nation still cling to – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – stand on wobbly legs without the Creator who originally endowed them.

Belief in evolution has undermined our most basic human rights. If a Creator is no longer self-evident (obvious), then why should our equality or unalienable rights be obvious either? World views that embrace the evolutionary theory, if taken to their ultimate end, will strip men and women of all rights. If there is no Creator, then we have nothing on which to base the government we have maintained for over two hundred years.

The Declaration also states in the very beginning: “…and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…”

I wonder – would there have been such a declaration of independence from foreign powers to establish this great nation if the signers had not believed that their Creator – Nature’s God – had entitled them to do so?

The men who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence chose to separate from England’s rule and establish the government citizens of the United States know and love today. But I dare say that they never intended for this nation to deny the very Creator that led them to that destiny. It’s time we rethink where belief in the evolutionary theory has brought us. Rather than cling to it as a useless and disproved religion, we must let it go. We must repent of our disbelief and return to Nature’s God.

He alone made all of this possible in the first place.