I am a professional writer who’s been blessed with a good education and exciting, rewarding work opportunities. But I am also a wife, daughter, mother, and grammy—as well as sister, niece, aunt, and friend. Relationships are important to me! How we interact with each other and the love we share are, to me, more important than careers, houses, cars, or money. But my most life-changing relationship of all is with the One who made me. It took half my lifetime before I began to know him, and I sometimes feel I’ve barely started. But his love is beyond measure, and every day brings new cause for thanks—when I’m paying attention. Only God can change someone’s heart, and fiction should never preach—but I hope that as each story I write unfolds, readers will taste his goodness—and some of you will long for more.
There is much more. We flounder around, make mistakes, look for a straight path, and wish for a fairy godmother. This is especially true for young people—you’re growing up in a world more frightening than ever. I haven’t found the godmother, but have something much better—the narrow gate of following Jesus Christ. Enter here, and your problems won’t disappear. But you’ll have the guide of all guides, the Holy Spirit, to make your paths straight. I’m here to tell you, his way works.
Until early 2021 I’d spent my entire life in the Northeast, near cities regularly described in Barna polls as being among “the least Bible-minded” of the entire country. My husband just retired from his second career as an assistant pastor at the largest evangelical church in Plymouth, MA, which made me—a pastor’s wife! I’ve taught my children at home, co-owned and operated a tiny summer rental business on the Canadian border for nearly two decades, dealt with parental illness, and owned two dismayingly untrained horses. These life experiences have influenced my writing.