Fiction is Happening

I worked on our family’s memoir for four or five years. At the very beginning of that time, I wrote a little fiction, but not in recent years.

 

The memoir is with the editor now, so I’ve been telling myself I should get busy writing fiction again.

 

Finally, last week, it happened. I started a Christmas story about strangers who decided to celebrate together.

 

Then a day or so ago, I had another idea, and I hurried to start writing down the beginning before I forgot what was in my mind. This is a story about a modern-day family trying to survive divorce.

 

Both stories are started on my computer now. I was hesitating to start, worried that I couldn’t do fiction anymore.

 

But, the beginning came easily. Now comes the hard work. I want to keep these stories moving along. I have a folder on my computer with a number of stories that never got past the beginning stages. I don’t want these to end up there.

 

I’m not sure what all will happen in these stories, or how they’ll turn out. But for sure they will help me get back in the groove of writing fiction. 

Guest Author, Becky Van Vleet

 

This is a precious story, filled with courage and perseverance, and excellent mostly unknown (to me) history from Europe and the United States. Thank you, Becky, for sharing with us.

 

When I was quite young, I'd sit cross-legged on our living room floor while Grandma Alzbeta wove tales of her journey from Poland to America. Her words came wrapped in an accent I barely noticed at the time. It wasn't until high school, in my American history class, that I connected the dots. I had a significant piece of history right in my family, sitting at our kitchen table, while our family enjoyed my grandmother’s authentic dishes from the old country. I dropped my timidity and spoke up in class about my Slavic grandmother, sharing bits and pieces of her personal story to emigrate to our country by way of Ellis Island. 

It was in this class I discovered the brutal reality faced by immigrants who had gambled everything on America’s promises. Most traveled in steerage passage on vessels across the Atlantic Ocean enduring filth, disease, and inhumane practices. I asked my grandmother about this. Yes, she confirmed the treacherous journey, adding she was pushed down the gangplank and slammed against hundreds of steerage passengers like cattle. A mandatory tag with the number 215, marking her as cargo in a human shipment, was pinned to her chest.

Like so many others, she gave up her country, customs, family, and friends for a better life in America. A life of opportunity. After all, she’d heard America had streets paved with gold.

The hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to America in the latter part of the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century played a significant role in shaping the United States into the country it is today, building a bold new America. Between 1892 and 1954, more than twelve million immigrants arrived in the United States through Ellis Island. 

 

Each immigrant had their own unique story. Some came to escape intolerable poverty and starvation with very little productive farmland or steady jobs. Others sought freedom of religion and speech from oppressive governments. Some fled to escape massacres called pogroms in Russia in which minority groups were targeted. But what they all had in common was their desire to seek a new life in a strange but promising land. Their fortitude and determination to succeed triumphed.

 

My grandmother’s stories of coming to America took up a restful residence in my mind as a young girl. More than fifty years later, they awakened, prompting me to share them with others in my novel, Her Strength Within. My grandmother Alzbeta was a trailblazer, traveling alone on the SS La Touraine ship at the age of nineteen. She had no idea she was participating in our country’s history. Her inner strength prevailed against extraordinary obstacles.

 

Today, I still prepare stuffed cabbage rolls, borscht soup, and pierogis, using my dear grandmother’s original recipes. For a moment, I can hear her laugh, followed by aye yi yi yi yi! Her spirit lives on through my family.

 

Purchase link: http://bit.ly/3IwYmW1

Becky’s website: https://www.beckyvanvleet.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorbeckyvanvleet/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-van-vleet-ms-806055181/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becky_van_vleet_author/

Travel Flashes

Our kids are migrating west, so I guess we’ll be traveling that way. Rebecca and Steve have been in Nebraska for a few years now, and Benjamin recently moved to Colorado.

 

In the past, we’ve driven to Omaha, but we decided that was too exhausting to do in one day anymore. So we flew this time.

 

I haven’t flown for more than ten years, so I was a little anxious. It went okay mostly. Except that I’m a coward when it comes to escalators. I have a hard time finding my balance on them, and I add some screeches and complaints to the experience.

 

Murray said it was great arriving there in only about six hours or so instead of closer to fourteen. On the way home, though, it took more like ten. We had to get off the plain in Chicago because of maintenance problems and wait around for a new plain. But, as Murray said, “You want them to be careful the plain is working okay.”

 

We had a lovely time visiting with Rebecca and Steve. We went to some yummy restaurants, and Rebecca and I went shopping, which is always delightful.

 

I told Steve we must seem like boring company. We just wanted to sit around mostly, falling asleep sometimes. “I’m okay with that though,” I said. “I enjoy visiting with you guys, eating out, and I especially enjoyed beating you all in spades.”

 

We got to eat some carrots and tomatoes from their garden. Yummy. Rebecca showed me one carrot as big as a turnip. She said they’d not picked it soon enough. They cooked some of the carrots in the crockpot with honey and brown sugar and butter and spices. We left before they were done cooking, so I didn’t get to taste them, but I told Rebecca it smelled like something they could pour into a pie.

 

We found a great church with an early service on Sunday. Lovely worship, a good message, and they were straight forward about Jesus dying for our sins. We knew they were a group we’d enjoy when Murray said he saw some who were dressed in shorts and some who wore three-piece suits.

 

Rebecca and Steve are going to be looking for a house to buy soon, so I said good-bye as we left the apartment. Good-bye apartment. Good-bye stairs. We love to laugh about how they had to carry their couch up the three flights of stairs when they first moved in.

 

Next trip will probably be to Denver. But I need to rest for a while first. 

Be Like Jesus, Rerun

I originally posted this on October 27, 2023

 

Philippians 2:3-5: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 

My family often prays, “Help us be more like Jesus today.”

 

I like these verses from Philippians. I understand them. Be humble. Put others’ needs above my own.

 

But what about the part that says to have the same mindset as Jesus in my relationships?

 

That’s not possible. Look at the next verse.

 

Philippians 2:6: Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

 

Jesus is God. How can I possibly be like him?

 

In my relationships? How did Jesus relate to people?

 

In John chapter 8, he was the one who stayed with the woman caught in adultery.

 

In John chapter 9, he accepted the formerly blind man, who was thrown out of the temple.

 

And, oh, what about the demon-possessed man in Mark 5? The violent man who could no longer be bound with chains?

 

Mark 5:15: When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

 

That’s how people who Jesus has related to can be seen—dressed and in their right mind. That’s how Jesus can make me seen, after all my garbage.

 

That’s how he wants me to relate to others.

 

And no, I can’t do it in my own strength. But I don’t have to. There is a better strength I can draw from.

 

Philippians 2:13: for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Guest Author, Jack Cunningham

 

This is a great story. I am thankful to know Jack and have enjoyed many of his books. Thank you, Jack, for sharing with us.

 

From Picture to Novel

 

A picture in my fourth grade Alabama history textbook is engraved in my memory— the massacre at Fort Mims during the Creek Indian War (1813-1814). Although it’s romanticized and has several inaccuracies, I’ve wanted to write a story about it for a long time. After thirty years of writing professionally, I finally did. The title: Frontier Circuit, A Story of the Creek War. 

 
            Most folks in Alabama are familiar with this conflict. It started as a civil war between two Creek Indian nations—the Upper Creeks, who lived in south-central Alabama and the Lower Creeks, who lived in southwestern Georgia. The Upper Creeks wanted to keep their traditional ways of life, whereas the Lower Creeks preferred the settlers’ ways. The early settlers called the radical band of Upper Creeks Redsticks, for their red war clubs.

 Other factors played into this war too: a road being built through the Upper Creek Nation, the Shawnee Tecumseh’s visit to the Indian nations in Mississippi and Alabama to stir up strife, and the settlers trespassing on Creek land, to name just a few.

            In July 1813, word reached the settlers in the region that a band of Redsticks had gone to Pensacola, in Spanish West Florida, to obtain arms to fight them, so the militia ambushed them while they stopped to eat lunch on their way home. After a brief skirmish, the Redsticks routed the militiamen.

            Alarm spread throughout lower Alabama. Settlers scattered into hastily built stockades. One of these was Fort Mims, thrown up around the house of Samuel Mims, a man of wealth and influence in Alabama’s Tensaw and Tombigbee settlements. On August 30, 1813, the Redsticks attacked it, and a massacre ensued. 

            As I pondered these people’s fates, I wondered how many of them died without knowing the Lord. Then in rode my circuit rider characters, Thomas Murcher and Phineas Steward. Also, a settlement’s murderous gang which persecuted them and opposed their efforts to establish a church. When the gang leader’s girl, Annabelle Lawson, experiences a dramatic conversion she falls in love with Thomas, and my story began to take shape. If Thomas doesn’t overcome his insecurities and shyness around girls, and if he and Annabelle don’t escape the Fort Mims massacre, they’ll never discover their true destinies.

            I hope readers will take away two major lessons from this story: (1) Live for the Lord, not the world. Fort Mims serves as a metaphor for this. (2) Accept yourself and the way God created you. Thomas’s experience illustrates this.

To purchase a copy of the book, visit

Frontier Circuit: A Story of the Creek War: Cunningham, Jack: 9781732248854: Amazon.com: Books.

Also, visit the author’s website at www.theaauthorscove.com

Diamonds from Isaiah, What God Wants for Us

Chapter 1:11-15: 

“The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the Lord.

“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals;

I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?

Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being.

They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you;

even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

 

Father God, the people were so guilty before you. You could not enjoy their attempts at worship. By ourselves, we are just as dirty and ugly before you. Thank you for your son who made us clean, so that we have the right to come before you with praise.

 

Verses 16-18:

Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

    stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice.

    Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord.

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

 

Father, you are willing to talk with us. You give us directions to help those in need. Your son has cleansed us so that we are allowed these privileges before you.

 

Verses 19-20:

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land;

but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.”

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

 

Lord, thank you for giving us the choice to come to you. Thank you for the good you want to give us. 

Guest Author, Heidi Gray McGill

 

Heidi is an excellent writer, and she has become a dear friend. Thank you for joining us, Heidi

 

Turning Life’s Detours into Stories of Hope: The Discerning God’s Best Book Bundle

 

How God turned vision loss and closed doors into a ministry of storytelling.

Meta Description: How a season of vision loss and closed doors led Christian author Heidi Gray McGill to write the Discerning God’s Best series—stories of hope, redemption, and God’s perfect timing, now available in one collection.

Scripture: Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

 

The Role of Faith in My Writing

For me, writing has never been just about telling a good story. It’s been about listening—listening for God’s direction, trusting His timing, and surrendering my plans for His. That truth became especially clear when my peripheral vision narrowed because of retinitis pigmentosa, and then again when the ESL program I directed had to close during COVID-19. Both moments felt like the end of something vital. But God saw them as beginnings.

From Closed Doors to New Chapters

Losing the ministry where I taught English and shared Christ left me without my familiar platform to share Christ. In that stillness, God opened my eyes to a new way of reaching people: through story. What began as a single novel idea turned into a series of tales set in the 1800s, where characters wrestle with faith, love, loss, and God’s leading, much like we do today.

The Birth of the Discerning God’s Best Series

What began with Desire of My Heart has grown into a six-book journey—five full-length novels and one novella—each telling a unique story of faith, redemption, and God’s perfect timing. For this special Collection One bundle, I’ve gathered the first books in the series—Desire of My Heart, With All My Heart, and Stitched on My Heart (a Christmas novella)—along with the bonus short story Where Hearts Belong. Though you can read each book separately, together, they offer a rich introduction to the world of Discerning God’s Best and a shared truth: God is still writing something good even in the hardest seasons.

Why I Bundled the Stories

These four stories mark the beginning of my writing journey, and they hold a special place in my heart. They carry the lessons I was learning at the time—lessons about surrendering my plans, trusting God’s timing, and finding joy in unexpected places. By bringing them together in one collection, I wanted to give readers an immersive experience… a chance to journey through each character’s struggles and triumphs without having to leave that world behind.

It’s more than convenience; it’s about walking alongside these characters as they grow in faith, feeling their setbacks and victories echo in your own life, and perhaps closing the final page reminded that God’s best may come through the very detours you never wanted to take.

What God Taught Me Along the Way

This writing journey has reinforced what I learned in those early seasons of loss: God doesn’t waste a detour. The very circumstances I thought disqualified me from ministry became the foundation for a new one. Just as my characters must step into the unknown, I’ve learned that God’s best often comes when we trust Him with the next step before we can see the whole path.

An Invitation to Journey Together

If you’re longing for encouragement in your own season of uncertainty, I invite you to join me through the pages of the Discerning God’s Best – Collection One bundle. My prayer is that these stories will speak to your heart, reminding you that His timing is perfect, His plan is good, and His love never fails.

About the Author

 

 Heidi Gray McGill writes impactful Christian fiction, blending faith, hope, and love with humor and depth. Despite blindness from retinitis pigmentosa, she has authored numerous books, including the Discerning God’s Best series. Heidi lives near Charlotte, NC, with her husband of over 30 years, and enjoys family, cooking, and games.

Connect with Heidi Gray McGill

Heidi invites you to explore her heartfelt stories and receive a free prequel, Deep in My Heart, in eBook or audiobook format. This journey from South Carolina to the Midwest sets the stage for Desire of My Heart. Get it here: https://heidigraymcgill.com/free_book/

Facebook: AuthorHeidiGrayMcGill

YouTube – FREE audiobooks: Author Heidi Gray McGill

Twitter: @HeidiGrayMcGill

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Description:

When vision loss and a closed classroom ended the ministry Heidi loved, she thought her story was over. God had other plans. Those detours became the starting point for my Discerning God’s Best series—faith-filled historical romances that remind us His timing is perfect. Now, the first books are together in one collection, ready to encourage anyone walking an unexpected path.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FHFD3SB9