Sunday

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

                                                                Proverbs 3:5-6

Ryan's Father Book Trailer

This is the book trailer to Ryan's Father, by June Foster. If you haven't read my review of the book, scroll down!

Ryan's Father Book Review

                                                               

June Foster is an author known for tackling complicated problems, and this book does not disappoint. In Ryan’s Father, June tells the story of a young Christian man struggling with his own feelings of homosexuality.

Raised by a single, alcoholic mother, and no father for guidance, Ryan Reid spent his childhood struggling with feelings of loneliness and abandonment. As a teen, he met a local pastor and trusted his heart to God. The newfound relationship with the Lord brought an element of love and peace to his life. But there was one issue that didn’t change. Though he never acted on his feelings, Ryan still felt an attraction to men.

When an earthquake strikes while Ryan is purchasing a cup of coffee, he ends up under a Starbuck’s table with Sandy Arrington, a beautiful young nurse that works at the local hospital. Soon Ryan and Sandy are seeing a lot of each other. And when Sandy attends church with Ryan and surrenders her life to Christ, she begins to see Ryan in a new light. The relationship that develops between the two of them forces Ryan to confront the secret he has been hiding.

After spending so many years living a lie, can Ryan find it in himself to finally give the problem to God? And when he does face reality, can he trust the truth to Sandy? Or will he lose her forever?

You will enjoy the fact that June tells this story from a strong Christian point of view. When God is in control, he can change anything in our lives. Ryan must learn that total surrender to God, in every issue of his life, is the only way to defeat sin.

I give this book 5 stars. Thank you for sharing such an excellent story with us, June!



This book was given to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.


About the author

June Foster is a retired teacher with a BA in Education and a MA in counseling. June has written four novels for Desert Breeze Publishing. The Bellewood Series, Give Us This Day – February 1, 2012, As We Forgive – September 1, 2012, and Deliver Us – April 1, 2013, and Hometown Fourth of July – July 1, 2012. June's book, Ryan's Father, is available from WhiteFire Publishing January 2014. For All Eternity, Red and the Wolf, and Misty Hollow, God willing, will be published in the near future. June loves to write stories about characters who overcome the issues in their lives by the power of God and His Word. June uses her training in counseling and her Christian beliefs in creating characters who find freedom to live godly lives.

June's web sites:

http://junefoster.blogspot.com

http://infinitecharacters.com

https://www.amazon.com/author/junefoster

https://twitter.com/vjifoster

https://www.facebook.com/authorjunefoster

http://whitefire-publishing.com/wordpress/authors/june-foster/

http://desertbreezpublishing.com

The Shepherd of the Hills

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Likes the quote "Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real… He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand… "

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“…I never understood until the past months why the Master so often withdrew alone into the wilderness. There is not only food and medicine for one’s body; there is also healing for the heart and strength for the soul in nature. One gets very close to God…in these temples of God’s own building.”
― Harold Bell Wright, The Shepherd of the Hills

 

For a great read that will take you away from this hurried and frantic pace our culture promotes these days, you might consider reading Harold Bell Wright's, The Shepherd of the Hills. It is written in an old-fashioned style that may be hard to get used to at first, but give it a chance, and enjoy the sweet, inspirational story that Mr. Wright wrote in the Arkansas Ozarks, published in 1907.

 

The Shepherd of the Hills is free on Amazon Kindle

Our Struggle With Sin

Although it is a fight we cannot win by ourselves, we are not alone.

1 John 3:2

King James Version (KJV)

² Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Think about that verse. When He returns we will be rescued from our continual war with sin and 'we shall be like him'! So what do we do in this earthly life until He comes?

Always remember that we are not alone in this struggle. The indwelling power of the Holy Spirit gives us strength to fight our battles each day.

Another thing we must do is surrender our habits to God--the ones that break His heart. The ones that steal our time from Him and prevent us from giving ourselves wholly to Him and obeying His word.

We must not become weary in our day to day battle. Though it is a daily struggle, by putting our trust in Him, we will win!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Bride In The Storm, Book 3 in the Chance Creek Bride series, is now available on Amazon! Almost twice as long as Bride By Choice and The Sweetgrass Bride, I hope my fans enjoy this story. Thank you all so much for your support.

 Good morning to all my author friends. Are you feeling a bit rushed? Overwhelmed? Some days I am certainly that way when I'm working on a deadline. This is an article from Randy Ingermanson's latest E-zine (reproduced with permission, of course). Some great ideas that might help you out on those frustrating days when nothing seems to get done. If you don't already subscribe to his E-zine, it's free and always packed with good advice for writers.

 

2) Organization: Dealing With Overwhelm

Once in a while life feels overwhelming. It feels like everything is crashing in on you at once.

 

Like you're spinning your wheels. Going nowhere.

 

I learned a neat trick a few years ago from Eben Pagan on how to deal with this. Eben teaches productivity techniques, and he's good at it.

 

Today, I desperately needed Eben's trick. When I logged onto my computer this morning, it told me that my external hard drive (the one that contains all my backups) was having problems. I ran some diagnostics and concluded that the hard drive really couldn't be saved.

 

This meant a trip to town to get a new one. Since I live quite far away from civilization, this meant taking hours out of my day. Hours I didn't have.

 

By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty depressed. I'd burnt a lot of time on an emergency and now I was way behind. And I had already been feeling stressed when I woke up, because there are a ton of things on my plate for this week.

 

I felt horribly overwhelmed.

 

So I tried Eben's trick. Here it is, and it might work for you on a day when you feel like you won't ever get caught up:

• Open a new text file and start spilling your guts. Write down EVERYTHING on your plate right now. All the things that are stressing you because they need to be done today or tomorrow or yesterday. Don't get fancy here. You don't need an outline. Just dump it all on the page in whatever order things come to you. You can also write how you feel about each thing on your plate. If you're dreading it, say why. If you're mad at somebody for pushing this task onto you, say so. Get it out.
• Stop when you run out of things that are overwhelming you. This will typically run a page or two. You might be surprised that your feelings of being overwhelmed tend to decrease with each item you write down. Mine do. It's a nice feeling to move the anxiety from your mind to the document. When you finish, your mind should be clear and you'll have a document that contains all the things that are making you crazy. Yes, it's a big horrible plate. Admire just how horrible it is for just a minute. Be astounded at what a tough life you live, you brute, you.
• Find all the tasks in your document that you can reasonably knock off the list TODAY and put each one on a new line and mark it with one asterisk. You might want to pick out all the crappy little tasks that you've been putting off that really don't take much time. Knocking off a bunch of those all in one day really feels good, especially if they're things on your Dread List or your Hate List.
• Find all the things you can reasonably get done this week and put them on their own line, marking them with two asterisks. Don't get too optimistic here. If you KNOW they have to be done this week or you're certain that you can work them in, then mark them. Otherwise, don't.
• Everything else is stuff you aren't going to do this week. Either it's not important or it's not urgent or it just can't be done this week. Put each of these items on its own line and mark it with three asterisks. Now give yourself permission to forget about all the three-asterisk tasks for this week. Don't worry about losing them. You've got them all written down. Next week, when you look at this document, a LOT of things will be crossed off. Your plate will seem a lot more manageable.
• Now collect all the one-asterisk items together into a single list and promise yourself that you'll do every single one of them today. This should be a much shorter list than the original big horrible plate that you started with.
• Do everything on the short list today. It's a short list. You constructed it to be precisely the things you can reasonably get done today. So it's doable. Go do it. When you finish the list, you're done for the day, even if you finish early. Reward yourself with something nice — a walk or some reading time or the magic beverage of your choice.
• Tomorrow, look at all the items with two asterisks and choose a few that you can reasonably get done in one day. Then do them. You know the drill here. Don't overbook yourself. Keep the list reasonable. Do it all. Reward yourself. Keep doing this every day for a week.

By next week, your dark and dreary world will look a little brighter. You'll have knocked off a lot of the riff-raff stuff. You'll be ready to tackle some of the longer-term items. You'll feel like you're finally getting some traction in your life.

 

If you're still feeling overwhelmed next week, repeat the process. But I would bet that you'll feel LESS overwhelmed next week than this. After a few weeks of this, you may actually start feeling human again. And your plate will start looking less ridiculous.

 

Remember that you aren't ever going to get it all done. Modern life is too crazy for that.

 

You may find that some tasks keep getting three asterisks week after week, forever. If they aren't really important to you, then why keep lugging them along? At some point you might want to cut their vile throats. When the time is right for this, you'll know it. Keep your knife sharp.

 

If you're wondering whether this actually works, all I can say is that it works for me. This article was one of the things that got one asterisk today.

 

Now it's done.

 

It feels good.

 

I'm going for a walk.

 

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

 

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with over 5,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.