I don’t often read a book in day. I’m a slow reader by nature, so when I do devour a book in twenty-four hours, you can guarantee that I found the story absolutely magical. These addictive books pull me in and make me forget about reality. For their pages are filled with characters I can’t let go of and worlds I continue dreaming about for days, weeks, years (cough…Harry Potter). Truest was one of these books.

In fact, I was on a weekend writing retreat when I started to read Truest. And instead of working on my own novel, which was the entire purpose of the retreat, I kept wondering about Sommers’ characters and what would happen to them. I kept reading, kept going back to Sommers’ world.

Truest tells the story of teenager Westlin Beck, a pastor’s kid, whose life is turned around when a bright and…

I can’t tell you how blessed I am to know Judy Hougen.

I had coffee on Friday night with my former writing instructor, who is so full of wisdom that she can’t help but share life-giving insight.  We were discussing my recent blog post in which I fretted over mediocrity.

“I don’t think in terms of success and failure anymore,” she told me.  “I’ve trained myself out of thinking that way.  It’s better to think in terms of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.  You are being faithful with the gifts that God has given you, and that is not a mediocre thing.”

Judy reminded me that that success/failure framework is all about us, but faithfulness/unfaithfulness frames things in our relationship to God, and those are the questions believers need to be asking.

I felt a little like a kaleidoscope that had just been given a good shake: a…