Faithchick

Are You a Heroine?

I’ve always been intrigued by the story of Deborah in the Old Testament book of Judges. She was described as “a mother in Israel,” yet when the leaders were too fearful to obey God and protect the nation, she rode into battle. As I created the character of Susan, in The Restorer, I drew inspiration from Deborah and explored how a similar heroic calling might play out in a modern-day woman facing an extraordinary adventure.

Susan Mitchell thought she was an ordinary soccer mom, but she was wrong. When she’s pulled through a portal into another world, she finds a nation waiting for a promised Restorer to save their people. While she struggles to adapt to a foreign culture, she tackles an enemy that is poisoning the minds of the people, uncovers a corrupt ruling Council, and learns that God can use even her floundering attempts at service in surprising ways.

God often uses ordinary people in unexpected ways. I truly believe that many women live lives of quiet heroism – whether their battleground is caring for aging parents, raising a child with a disability, fighting a long-term illness, volunteering at their church, or supporting a friend through difficulty. My hope is that Susan’s adventure in an alternate world breathes inspiration into anyone feeling that the road has been difficult in his or her world.

By the way, I'm super excited that The Restorer-Expanded Edition has just released! The book contains the complete original story, but also includes an interactive Bible-study guide for readers who want to dig into the spiritual themes of the book, bonus scenes providing glimpses of the story through a variety of characters, and fun extras including links to songs and recipes. It's also available on Kindle and Nook.

Sharon Hinck

Take Away Value

When a writer is preparing a proposal, or pitching an idea to an editor or agent, a key question often comes up: what is the take-away value? How will the reader’s life be enhanced from the time investment of reading the book?

I’ve been pondering “take-away” from another angle. For me, this has been a year of “take-aways” in a literal sense. Many elements of my life that I treasured have been taken away.

But I know that when God allows these painful experiences, He also provides “take-away” value. When we have suffered, we learn how to comfort others. When we are confronted with extreme weakness, we learn more about relying on Him instead of ourselves. When our dreams turn to dust, and the world goes spinning forward without us, we learn that God never forsakes us, and our love for Him finds new depths.

If you are feeling like precious parts of your life have been taken away – health, relationship, career – you aren’t alone. We can hang on to God’s promise. “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.” – Psalm 138:8 

Blessings!

Sharon Hinck

 

Why I Love Lent

Many of my Christian friends don't come from a tradition that follows a church-year calendar, but in my denominational background I always loved the special seasons of Advent and Lent.

Over the years, my husband and I have prompted things to give up as a family during Lent, or other times encouraged our children to each chose something individual. (The kids sometimes offered to give up broccoli or homework, but I digress).

We've given up television, pop, candy, shopping (only buying necessary groceries and nothing else), and various other things...and added disciplines of more Bible reading time, prayer, and giving. I find I'm so easily distracted by the bright shiny things of life, that I need times where I can focus more effort and attention toward my walk with God. Fasting of various kinds can really help.

This year, I decided on Ash Wednesday to give up something that I enjoyed daily - Facebook and Twitter. I had no idea that many folk around the country where doing this, too.

After I posted my note saying "Stepping back from Twitter and Facebook for Lent - see you after Easter" I received a call from Molly Millet, who was working on an article for the St. Paul Pioneer Press on this topic.

You can read it here: Pioneer Press Article

I love knowing that so many people are interested in putting God about some of the treats or distractions of life. And that's truly why I've always loved Lent. Because no matter how uncomfortable some days become (whether I'm longing for a can of pop, chocolate, or a game of Scramble on Facebook) there are so many blessings. The thing I'm missing becomes a trigger to remember all Jesus suffered on my behalf, and I learn that while I thought I was totally committed to God, He can draw closer still as I focus more time and energy on Him each day.

Anyone else giving up something during Lent? Blessings, Sharon

--- Sharon Hinck writes stories for the hero in all of us, tales of ordinary women on a faith journey with an extraordinary Savior.

My Half-baked Blog

I love to chat . . .

long rambling conversations on the phone with friends

brief exchanges in line at the store

heart-to-hearts over cups of tea

So when many authors started blogging a few years back, it felt like an easy addition to my list of "things authors do that support their readers and their books;" book launch parties, tours, signings, websites, newsletters, speaking engagements, teaching at conferences and . . . . . . blogging.

I quickly learned from the collective wisdom of the sages that a good blog should have a theme, serve a unique felt need, be updated frequently, not focus on personal details that no one is interested in . . .

The list went on and on.

I also learned that it was important to build blog traffic, which meant lots of links, participating in blogrolls and events and blog tours, using various techniques to measure and build that traffic. Hmmm....

If I did everything the right way, my fun side-venture would become a full-time job.

So I'm making a public confession. I'm a half-baked blogger. And I'm not going to change.

Sometimes I have included book reviews and "toured" new novels of my friends - although there are so many other blogs that do that (much better than I) that I'd rather not do that very much. Sometimes I write heartfelt devotions - which I'd love to do more of (but often don't have time to do). Sometimes I forget to post an upcoming event until the night before, and folks don't get the info in time. Sometimes I go for weeks without posting. Sometimes I post three in one day. I've accepted that it's not my priority (or my calling) to build up a large blog following.

God has (for now) asked me to focus on writing novels. I get quite a few visitors at my blog. Sometimes I get a lot of comments. Often I don't - and that's okay.

I like having some things in my life that I recognize I'm not doing the right way. I'm a sloppy tennis player. My guitar playing is basic and inexpert. I'm an improvisational, forgetful, and sometimes disastrous cook.

As much as I agree with the heart-cry to create work of excellence for God, I have too often been caught in the bondage of accomplishment and perfectionism. So maybe it's good for me to strive for excellence in a few things and let the rest be a little half-baked.

What do you think? Have you been trying to "get it all right" in EVERY area of life, and feeling exhausted and inadequate? Do you joyfully celebrate a few things that you don't do well?

Oh - and the photo is from the TBN studio in Seattle, right before shooting a brief T.V. interview about The Restorer books. It was part of the Motiv8 book tour I did in October. I get a kick out of the combo of blue jeans with baldric, sword, and cloak. :-)

Now I'm off to vote (sans sword). Happy voting day, everyone!

Blessings!
 Sharon Hinck

  

Little Steps of Kindness

Years ago, I lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia (where Stepping Into Sunlight, my soon-to-release novel, is set). I was an exhausted grad student with a toddler and baby-on-the-way. One day at the local grocery store, I was hurrying to grab a few things and get home in time to trade off the car with my hubby who would head off to one of his jobs (he was also in grad school). I reached for an orange, and several fell from the display, bouncing around my feet. Embarrassed, I bent clumsily and tried to chase them down, fighting back tears because I was so exhausted, and the escaping oranges felt like the last straw.

"Ma'am, don't worry about it." A young stock-boy offered me grace with his friendly smile. "Happens all the time." He waved me along and picked up after me.

I never forgot that small act of kindness.

He didn't know how tight my lungs had been feeling, how heavy my shoulders, how jangled my nerves. But he lifted my burden on a day I desperately needed it.

I realized that day that I underestimate the value of a small kind word, a simple act, a warm smile.

In honor of Stepping Into Sunlight (about a Navy chaplain's wife who keeps a notebook of small projects of kindness to help her heal from a traumatic event), I created a new blog to celebrate ways to love others -- even strangers.

We'll be taking little steps, sharing the adventure, laughing over the attempts that fall flat, and watching to see what surprises God may have in store. How about you? Has someone ever offered you a small act of kindness that touched your place of deep need? Please tell us about it. Maybe some of us can duplicate the good deed!

You can also visit the Penny's Project blog here.

Blessings!
Sharon Hinck

Coming Soon: Stepping Into Sunlight

Lilac Day

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8

Lilac Day

Spring is always a remarkable surprise after a Minnesota winter, but my favorite day in the spring is Lilac Day. When we bought our home ten years ago, a woody, bedraggled lilac bush in the backyard gave only stingy blooms. Each year, we thinned a third of the oldest branches from the ground.

The beleaguered lilac has survived our ham-handed pruning, blizzards, hail, and ice-storms, and scorched leaves from the nearby barbecue. But now it explodes with flowers each May. This year, because we had a late spring, Lilac Day arrived the very end of May.

Every year I wait for the day that the blossoms unfold, and I gather armfuls to fill vases in every room. The scent is liquid confection, and on any other day might be too cloying. But in spring's rain-scrubbed, earthy air, it's a perfect note of sweetness.  Each year I also try every tip to make the blooms last. Yet they're fragile. Almost overnight, small lavender petals crumble and fall like a lace hanky; and the lilac's glory passes, leaving me a familiar melancholy.

We wait, we pray. We endure branch-snapping storms. And as God's sun coaxes, we bloom into a fragile, short-lived wonder. Lilac day is short. Life is short. A fistful of decades that amount to the swiftly wilting lilac day.

Lord, let me bring sweetness and beauty in every bud and stem and twig of my life until that day you change my fleeting life into eternal bloom. Amen.

 

Blessings! Sharon Hinck

Sharon writes "stories for the hero in all of us" and has too much spring fever to write today. But in the past she's written:

The Secret Life of Becky Miller  (2007 ACFW Book of the Year - 2nd place, Lit category)
Renovating Becky Miller (2008 Audie Award Finalist, Inspirational Fiction category)
The Restorer (2008 Christy Award Finalist, Visionary category)
The Restorer's Son (Romantic Times 4.5 stars, Reviewer's Choice Award - Road to Romance reviewers)
New Releases:
The Restorer's Journey
Symphony of Secrets
Coming Soon: Stepping Into Sunlight

Cyberworld - Bane or Blessing?

I've been preparing a talk for the Minnesota Christian Writer's Guild. They asked me to speak about internet marketing, resources for writers, blogs, websites, etc.

I love speaking about the spiritual and emotional journey of writing, or about going deeper with God, or about ministry in the midst of motherhood, or about the impact of Christian fiction and the arts. But I wasn't sure I was the right person for this topic about the internet.

As I began praying about my conflicted feelings, I realized that's probably the best way to approach the cyberworld - with ambivalence and caution.

On the one hand, it's made my life as a writer easier. Emailing revisions to my editor, answering mail from readers without my tongue getting gooey from envelope glue, checking in on writer loops and hearing the latest industry news, or being part of a great group blog like Faithchicks. Just last night I had a ball chatting with the ACFW bookclub members in a virtual room (we imagined bean-bag chairs, mugs of tea, and some rocking chairs just to make it homey).

I have made friends around the globe because of the internet. One pal in Australia just posted an interview with me. Prior to the internet, I wouldn't have had an opportunity to do an interview Down Under.

But I've also found the lure of the computer screen to be a problem. On a very basic level, there are the distractions. Spider Solitaire or Snoods is so much more fun than working on my next scene. Emails, loops, social networks can all become time-eaters.

However, there are deeper problems. Sometimes I feel like the internet has become a new Tower of Babel. Mankind showing that we think we know it all, have infinite reach, and instant access. Frightening. And often what it actually shows is that mankind is quarrelsome, full of self-proclaimed experts, and looking for an excuse to relate virtually instead of face-to-face.

What about you? Has the cyberworld been a bane or a blessing? Post a comment and share some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  What tips have helped you use the cyberworld to support your service to God - and protected you from its pitfalls?

Blessings!
Sharon Hinck
The Secret Life of Becky Miller (ACFW Book of the Year - 2nd place Lit category)
Renovating Becky Miller (Audie Award finalist - Inspirational category)
The Restorer (2008 Christy finalist - Visionary category)
The Restorer's Son (Romantic Times 4.5 star/Road to Romance Reviewer's Choice Award)
and new releases: The Restorer's Journey, and Symphony of Secrets.

Being a Fool

The weather sent a little April Fool's joke to Minnesota. This is the view from my window. I appreciate the beauty of snow-flocked trees, but I'm SO ready for Spring!

Today I've been thinking about the beauty of foolishness.

Several years ago, my husband and I strolled hand in hand around a neighborhood lake. "Is it foolish?" I asked him. "Is it silly to spend so many hours every day for years, writing novels? The odds are something like one out of a thousand manuscripts that are published. "

"Sure," he said. "It's crazy."

Not exactly the encouragement I was looking for. But he continued.

"It's nuts to work this hard on something so uncertain. But it would be more foolish NOT to do this, when it's what God has called you to do."

What a guy. :-)

I confess I often grapple with the improbable things God has asked of me. Choices that look foolish from a purely human perspective. I kind of like doing research, getting experienced counsel, applying logic, and feeling like my choices are wise. And much of the time, God allows me to operate that way - even though it sometimes leads me to a little smugness and self-reliance. Then, just when I'm too comfortable, He nudges me to take a step of faith when all the logic, the experts, the common sense seems to scream that I'd be a fool to do it.

Today, on April Fool's Day, I'm celebrating I Cor. 1:25

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

Blessings!

Sharon Hinck

Sharon writes stories for the hero in all of us. Her two latest releases are Symphony of Secrets and The Restorer's Journey.

Sharon's Books

The Paradox

Has this ever happened to you?

Saturday I had a lovely time speaking for a local meeting of the National Church Library Association. I was delighted to share with the members why they are my heroes. You see, my own church library provided me with Christian authors who mentored me through their books when I was a teen - and changed my life and spiritual journey in profound ways.

I particularly shared how we may not always get to see the results - but as we are available for God to use, we can trust that He is sharing grace, encouragement, and blessing through our lives.

Yet Sunday I was beating myself up for being a failure - because I wasn't seeing results I'd hoped for in aspects of my writing life. And I was noticing many others with more skill and more measurable success (even though trying very hard NOT to notice). The performance trap had me in its toothy jaws again. I laughed when I realized I needed to listen to the talk I'd given twenty-four hours earlier.

That happens to me a lot.

I also notice it with my books. Themes develop from my life experience and from passions that God places on my heart. But I often grapple with the concepts in new ways as I edit the book, and again as the book releases.

I BLISSFULLY ripped open an envelop from my publisher Saturday to find my author copy of Restorer's Journey. How thrilling! And how deeply I needed to remember what I learned from the character who is ready to despair when the calling is much harder and much more unfair than he imagined. I signed copies of Symphony of Secrets yesterday, and thought about my lovely neurotic flutist character - and how her art had become her god. I've been wrestling a lot with laying my writing down at His feet (and not snatching it back up again or giving it idolatrous attention). God is teaching me these themes all over again.

I guess it makes sense that I speak and write about issues that I'm still struggling with. That way God gets to do double duty. Primarily, I hope my words bring others encouragement. But at the same time, God speaks the same themes to me and challenges me to grow.

Maybe it's not a paradox after all. Maybe it's another example of God being able to use flawed, chipped vessels. Isn't He great?

---

Sharon Hinck writes stories for the hero in all of us. Just out this week - Symphony of Secrets and Restorer's Journey.

Sharon's Books

A Good Year

The other day, I realized I've made a couple of new friends this year, and that's always a good thing. Not just new acquaintances, but true, kindred-spirit friends.

I decided that any year I discover a new kindred spirit is a good year.

Which got me to thinking about other things that help define a year as good.

If, at least once during the year, you happen to be in the right place when someone needs a shoulder to cry on, and your eyes well up in instant compassion, then it was a good year.

If someone else held you - even just once - as you cried the sloppy, ugly, nose-running sort of sobs from the depths of pain, then it was a good year.

If you had one powerful encounter with a different side of nature - if you hiked a mountain when you usually live in the plains, or waded along a beach if your home is land-locked, or felt the scorching wind of a desert when you live in a temperate climate, or built your first snowman, then it was a good year.

If you tried something new and did it badly, (because how empty days would be if we only did things we are good at), then it was a good year.

If you did a few things that were uncomfortable, a few things that were luxurious, a few things that were sacrificial, a few things that were bold, then it was a good year.

If you read a little more of the Bible this year than last year, it was a good year.

If, at least once, you got lost in worship and forgot your needs, your worries, your agenda and simply experienced the beauty of God, then it was a good year.

There are some events so sacred, they can't happen every year: Giving birth. Speaking your marriage vows. Holding a loved one while they take their last breath. But if you cuddled one new baby, attended at least one wedding, visited one person in the hospital, then it was a good year.

I like the song "Seasons of Love," from the Broadway musical, Rent.

"525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 
525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. 
In  inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. 
In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?
How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love. 
Seasons of love."

I won't try to measure this year. I'm just pausing to appreciate it.
I'll rejoice that it was textured with love. Not my love (which is often cranky, limited, and needy) but Christ's love for me - and sometimes (by His grace) through me to others.

"We love because He first loved us." - I John 4:19

How about you? Was there something tender, remarkable, or unexpected that made this a good year? I pray that even if you didn't find a new kindred spirit, or hike a mountain, or give birth - that somewhere between the pages of the calendar, you saw God's love for you.

Blessings!
Sharon Hinck

Sharon is the author of The Secret Life of Becky Miller, Renovating Becky Miller, The Restorer, The Restorer's Son, and the soon-to-be-released Symphony of Secrets and The Restorer's Journey.