Author Ann Gabhart & Blessed is Lacey (+Giveaway Today!)
My guest today is author Ann H. Gabhart. I’m delighted to have Ann visit us again at Strong Women, Brave Stories. If you missed her last visit, click here.
Today Ann is going to share about her latest heroine Lacey. ALSO Ann is graciously offering to giveaway a copy of her book to a reader who leaves a comment. So be sure to remember that! Here’s Ann:
“Sometimes a character comes along who demands to have her story told. That was Lacey Bishop in my new book, The Blessed. I originally thought up Lacey and planned for her to be a minor character in my third Shaker book, The Seeker. But while I was thinking about Lacey’s background before she came to live with the Shakers, she sprang to life in my imagination and let me know she had a story of her own to tell.
You’ve probably known dozens of Laceys in your life. Those are the women who go about their lives, doing what has to be done to take care of the people they love. You may even be a Lacey – someone who has had a few bumps in your road but you kept going. We’re not promised an easy road, but we are promised company on that road. Jesus said, “Lo, I will never forsake you.” Matthew 28:20 (KJV)
I didn’t model Lacey after any particular woman in the Bible, but the Scripture gives us plenty of examples of women who did keep putting one foot in front of the other and rose to the challenges of their time. Think of Queen Esther. When Mordecai asks her to seek the king’s ear to save her people, she says, “But if I go to him without being summoned, he can order me killed.” And yet, after prayers and fasting, she goes. “If I perish, I perish,” she says. Her courage to do what had to be done saved her people. Then think on Mary, the mother of Jesus. She knew what could happen to her if she showed up in the family way before she married. Joseph could have had her stoned. Yet she trusted the Lord and said, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.” Simple faith. Tremendous, earth-shaking faith. Faith to believe the Lord would take care of her and open a way.
That’s the kind of faith Lacey wants. That’s the kind of faith Lacey needs in order to face the challenges in her life. She wants to feel blessed. She wants to be loved. But circumstances trap her in a loveless marriage of convenience and her life becomes a tangled mess. You can see she’s feeling that from her thoughts while she’s marrying Preacher Palmer. She felt the wrongness of it down through the core of her being, all the way out to her toes. But nobody with the first lick of sense expected everything to go right all the time. At least nobody who had piled up a few years of living. Sometimes a body had to do what had to be done, right or wrong, to make something more important right.
Lacey often thinks on the Beatitudes in her quest for a faithful walk in life. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed is Lacey. That’s what she finds out in the story.”–Ann
What an intriguing character, Ann. I’m hooked. Remember to leave a comment! The last time she visited we had over 40 comments. Can we top that?–Lyn
For more about Ann, drop by http://www.annhgabhart.com
http://www.annhgabhart.blogspot.com
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