Red Ink a Finalist in Golden Scrolls Fiction Book of the Year

Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA) announces the finalists for the 2011 Golden Scroll Book of the Year Awards. Finalists will be honored at the AWSA Golden Scrolls Awards Banquet, Sunday, July 10th, from 1 to 3 pm at the Omni at CNN Center in Atlanta.

The 2011 Golden Scroll book awards Novel of the Year finalists are Kathi Macias for Red Ink, Golden Keys Parson for A Prisoner of Versailles, and Jeanette Windle for Freedom's Stand.

The Nonfiction Book of the Year finalists are Nancie Carmichael for Surviving One Bad Year, Jane E. Schooler, Betsy Keefer Smalley and Timothy J. Callahan for Wounded Children: Healing Homes, and Margot Starbuck for The Girl in the Orange Dress.

Other awards to be presented at the Golden Scrolls Award Banquet are the Publisher, Editor, Fiction Editor, and AWSA Member of the Year, The Beyond Me Award as well as the prestigious 2011 Golden Scroll Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bestselling author and international speaker Patsy Clairmont will be the keynote speaker with Linda Gilden as emcee. Authors Carol Kent and Pam Farrel will present awards. Recording artist Gwen E. Smith will perform a parody written by Martha Bolton dedicated to editors and publishers. A dessert reception immediately follows the banquet.
At 4, our guests are invited to hear author and Hollywood screenwriting consultant Linda Seger who will discuss turning Christian books into movies.

The Golden Scroll Awards banquet and reception are open to the public. Tickets are $45. For more information or to register for the banquet, go to www.ScrollAwards.com.
AWSA, an outreach of Right to the Heart Ministries, consists of over 300 top ICRS women authors who both publish and speak nationally. See www.AWSA.com.

For more info please contact Linda Evans Shepherd at LSwrites@aol.com or 303-772-2035.

Serving the Least of These...in His Strength

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”

(Matthew 11:28-30).

Some days it’s easy to declare, “God is good…all the time,” and “All the time…God is good.” Occasionally, however, there are days when we need to be reminded.

Yesterday morning I had it all figured out. We were going to place Mom in a nursing/hospice care facility by day’s end, and my exhausting and seemingly never-ending struggle to provide care for her would finally be resolved…or not. As I was picking up her most recent chest X-ray from the hospital, which would complete the list of needed items for her admittance, I got a call that there was a problem with her eligibility. The State would not pick up the tab after all, leaving us to pay $6000 a month for private care—definitely not an option.

I was devastated. By the time I got home and relieved the temporary caregiver staying with her while I ran the brief errand, I was fighting tears. As I took her to the bathroom, my frustration level was mounting. Would this never end?

In as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me….

A faint whisper, but a powerful promise. I relaxed…a little.

Less than an hour later I had to help Mom into the wheelchair so she could sit up for a while and lessen the danger that her lungs would fill up from lying in bed so much. I don’t know how much longer I can take this, I thought. My strength is nearly gone!

The whispering Voice returned, personalizing the words in Philippians 4:13: You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

I felt a weight begin to lift from my shoulders.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

The weight was gone.

The problem/situation had not changed, but God had changed my heart with His gentle and faithful reminders. May He do the same for you today, dear fellow travelers!

Where else can we go?

“Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Jesus was a loving Teacher, and because of that He did not sugar-coat His teachings. Always ready to encourage and forgive, He also spent a lot of time warning prospective disciples of the difficult life they would lead if they chose to follow Him.

At one such teaching moment, when many were overwhelmed by Jesus’ teaching and turned away from following Him, Jesus asked Peter if he would leave him too. Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

AMEN! How many times have we stumbled in our walk with the Lord, finding ourselves up against places and situations so difficult and painful that we wanted to throw in the towel and say, “I just can’t do this anymore”?

The question then becomes: Where else will we go? Jesus is the ONLY way to eternal life and relationship with the Father. Our choice is to continue following Him, regardless of the trials and hardships, or turn away from God entirely.

That’s really not a viable choice, is it? Like Peter, we must continue to press forward, clinging tightly to the hand of the One who goes before us, walks beside us, serves as our rearguard, lives within us, and surrounds us with songs of deliverance. Only He can bring us safely home, where the difficulties and disappointments of this temporal life will fade to invisible in the light of His Glory.

Don’t be discouraged, beloved. God is faithful, He has extended to us the words of eternal life…and there truly is nowhere else to go.

To die for...REALLY???

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony,

and they did not love their lives to the death (Revelation 12:11, NKJV).

“That chocolate cream pie was to die for!”

Just words, right? Maybe. But I must confess that I’ve had that pie—more than once—and it was delicious. But to die for? Not so much.

As a word lover, I pay attention to what we say. “To die for” is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot these days. But if we stopped to think of its meaning before opening our mouths, would we still say it?

The above verse in Revelation gets quoted—in part—quite often. We love to proclaim the promise to overcome by the “blood of the Lamb” and “the word of [our] testimony,” but even in popular worship choruses, the last component of the equation is often omitted. We readily talk about our willingness “to die for” chocolate or a new dress or a trip to Hawaii, but martyrdom? Much more comfortable to leave that unpleasant thought back there with the first and second-century Church fathers who died in the early days of spreading the Gospel.

Yet most of us know that more Christians around the world have died for their faith in the last 100 years than in all the previous years combined since the Church’s establishment. That’s a sobering thought. And though most of us are blessed to live where—at least for now—we can freely proclaim and practice our faith, there are no guarantees that it will always be so.

Today, when we’re tempted to declare our passion for something temporal with the phrase “to die for,” can we first stop and utter a prayer for those who even now may be laying down their lives for the gospel’s sake? I guarantee that it will change our perspective on what is—and isn’t—worth dying for.

A Call to Prayer...

Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Lots of “stuff” going on in the news, isn’t there? Osama bin Laden’s death is at the top of the list, and I’ve been fielding media interviews right and left as a result. (OBL was born/raised in Saudi Arabia where my most recent release, People of the Book, is set.) For those of you who celebrate cultural holidays, this is Cinco de Mayo, and that will no doubt be a media focus today too.

And then there’s the Lakers. Phooey. Won’t even go there.

But the most important thing going on today (at least in my humble estimation) will undoubtedly get little more than a brief snippet of mention on anything but Christian or ultra-conservative news organizations—the National Day of Prayer.

Yep, that’s today, and I hope you are honoring/observing it with some much needed intercession for our country. I certainly am. But I also hope that we will recognize the need to be in prayer for our country every day. One day a year is fine for a national observance, but praying every day is necessary if we want to see the necessary results.

I mentioned this need for national intercession to a friend once, and she replied, “I just don’t know what to pray about.” SERIOUSLY? Let’s see, the Scriptures tell us to pray for those in leadership, so that’s a great starting place. We also need to pray for our military, our schools, victims of national tragedies, events in the news….

As far as I can tell, the problem is not a lack of prayer needs/focus, but rather a lack of time. We could all give up our jobs and personal pursuits, spend our entire lives in prayer, and never run out of things to pray about. Now we also know that’s not going to happen, but can we realistically commit to not only pray for our country today, but to at least remember our nation’s many prayer needs each day, even if only for a moment or two? Because the bottom line is that our military and political leaders can do only so much. Like us, they are human and therefore fallible. God, however, is not, and He holds us in His nail-scarred hands. Ultimately, if our country is to survive, we need to turn back to the One who has so blessed us these many years.

Will you join me? I hear God calling….

Gems of Wisdom: From a Treasure-filled Life

There's a great new book on the scene, and I'm not the only one who thinks so! Check out what other people are saying about Gems of Wisdom and author Angela Breidenbach:

“Angie Breidenbach’s book is thoughtful and insightful. This book offers encouragement in a
heart-touching manner that leaves the reader blessed in the hope of God's faithfulness. Thank
you, Angie for being brave enough to confront these battles head on, and for sharing your heart.”
—Tracie Peterson, best-selling author of Embers of Love, and Song of Alaska series

“Angie has amazing passion and mission for helping others achieve their goals and live healthy,
fulfilled lives. With her eye always on the Big Picture, she is an unending source of inspiration,
energy and empowerment for others.”
—Tosca Lee, Gallup Organization Senior Consultant/Performance Coach;
author of Demon: A Memoir and Havah: Story of Eve

“Angela presented a training program for my group recently. She was well prepared, inspiring
and a lot of fun. I enjoyed the session, learned from her and highly recommend her to you.”
—Marnie Swedberg, Leadership Mentor at Gifts of Encouragement, Inc.

“Any cause Angie supports is truly blessed. She has so much energy and passion.”
—Linda Bauman, owner of Market Place Media

To find out more about this amazing lady and/or to order this wonderful new book, go to www.angelabreidenbach.com

Blog Tour Winner of Complete Extreme Devotion Series!

Congratulations to Andi Zamora who won a complete four-book set of the Extreme Devotion series through leaving a comment on one of the blogs included in the Christian Speaker Services blog tour for my latest release, People of the Book!