Welcome to my site

What can I say? I'm so pleased that you've come here. I've spent 5 years blogging, more than that building websites and have been writing "professionally" since 2003. I'm here to help writers with their writing, encourage people through this life, and point them to Jesus. That's the most important thing. So stay tuned. Check this site regularly as "some of the features" may change. I'll need help from time to time, because I'm not perfect. If you're perfect, please go to another site. I'm pretty sure you won't fit in here.

Unbalanced Scales

I'm sure everyone in the U.S. already knows that we are in danger. The problem is that so much of the rhetoric and the old rules are just antagonizing things.

For instance, only weeks ago all the media could do was talk about going over a fiscal cliff. Now, however, that cliff seems to have disappeared and they are talking about spending ceilings. I don't know about you, but this tells me that the people in Washington (D.C) don't know what they're talking about.

Then comes the IRS looming on the horizon. It's hard enough to get around with their hands in our pockets year round, but they expect an extra-special bonus via our Income Tax. We've been gritting our teeth and baring this for years, but now it's becoming harder and harder to find the forms to fill out, even if you can understand them, so you can send them in and pay that tax. I'm of the inclination that if they want my money they should come and fill out all the forms and make it easy. I'm not one of these people who expect freebies. It's just that the founding fathers didn't get paid, and if they did it was by their district, and probably in feed or livestock. I say we go back to that. You want to get out of our $15 trillion debt, then stop paying the people who aren't listening to us when we say, "No taxes."

I know, that's idealistic, but this country was built on ideals, and hard work made it work. That is until the government decided to pay for those who didn't want to work. Take a good idea and present it to Congress or the Senate and the first thing they do is appoint a special task force to investigate the problem. Oh, and all those tax problems we face, they do not face. How'd that happen. Whatever happened to "We the People..?"

Monday, July 12, 2010

Featuring Terri Blackstock

Over the next few days I'd like to feature author and friend Terri Blackstock. I'll be posting reviews on the following books. They are her most recent and her best.













Before we get into those reviews I'd like to share with you my own opinions about Terri Blackstock, as a writer and as a person. The first novel of hers I read was Cape Refuge, the initial book of the series of the same name. I was intrigued. Prior to this I'd read Brandilyn Collins, another great Christian suspense author (and another red head). They were both great and answered emails I wrote. While Brandilyn did try to encourage me online, it was Terri who wrote me about some things that I should investigate before committing myself. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying one is better than the other as a human being, but Terri seemed to connect with me. Her books are all dedicated to "the Nazarene". Initially I found her books to be like a lot of other Christian romantic suspense. You introduce some people, one of them, usually a guy who isn't a Christian, then play matchmaker so that by the end of the book this guy has come to the Lord and the girl is now part of his life. It's kind of a "happily ever after" routine, which quite frankly I found both boring and predictable. However, I liked the way Terri created the suspense in her books and was able to make her characters realistic. I learned that she leaned heavily upon things she had gone through or thought about personally in creating both her plots and her characters. Then I read one of her letters to the reader (which I recommend ever reader read after completing her books). This particular one said something like, "If my writing is not leading you to study the Word of God, then you have no business reading it, and I have no business writing it." I was stunned to find an author who is of the highest possible scale telling people NOT to read her work if it doesn't create a greater hunger for God. I had mentioned something of the sort in a Christian post and another fairly well-read author tried to take me to task. Their point of view was that you should write to sell as many copies as possible. Now I can't think of a single writer who doesn't have that in mind, but my point was that I write for the Lord and as such for that one person who really needs to hear what He is saying in my works. Reading this statement in Terri Blackstock's book showed me that I had found a friend, someone whose heart of ministry came before her writing. That is truly awesome.

As things progressed her writing just seemed to get better. Then, while the world watched in shock at the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the event sparked something in Terri. Living in an area that was affected by this natural disaster (she was weeks without electricity) she began a "what if?" novel called Last Light, the first of her Restoration Series. This also, in my mind, marked a decided change in her writing. It probed deeper, asked harder questions, and refused to give the easy answers. She began, at that time, to take on issues that we face every day, and the doubts, fears and anger that we all share, then work us through the story so we could see how God was always in control, even when we thought at some points, He wasn't there or didn't hear us when we prayed. Instead of the simplistic, easy and often glib "churchy" answers to difficult problems she began giving us the hard facts from God's Word, the answers that can be tough to accept, but if we do we truly find out that God loves us more than we possibly could imagine. The 3 books I'm going to review are examples of that, each one better than the previous work. While I would love to have her works toured on the Christian Fiction Review Blog, (you can find that blog at http://cfrblog.blogspost.com) we have already toured one of her books this year, and since CFRB basically is dedicated to get unknowns out there I couldn't really do that to the other writers and eclipse them with her works. I could, however, post my own reviews on my own blog. So that is what I have done. Oh, and as for the "legal notice" that usually is needed for these reviews, I have NOT received any of these books from her or her publisher. So you can be sure that these reviews are done from my heart, not in payment for "services rendered". I checked out all three of these books from the library and own one of them. (I own some of her other books as well) So there is no need for a legal notice. These are books I have read because I wanted to read them and reviews written because they have moved me so much. Lastly let me say this, because I think Terri would want me to say this, give God the glory. As good a writer as Terri Blackstock is, that is just the gift that God has given her, and the one she has been faithful in using for Him. However, it is God who empowers these works, often speaking through them, making them more than just another novel. Yes, I thank God for Terri, but for these works I give God the glory. Jesus is, after all, the Author and Finisher of our faith. - David Brollier; author of The 3rd Covenant

To find out more about Terri Blackstock visit her site HERE

To get a clearer picture of this extraordinary individual you should read her TESTIMONY
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