Laura Frantz/Mike Dellosso Book Giveaway

Posted by Cynthia Howerter on Apr 24, 2012 in Book Review and Giveaway | 21 comments

Feel like reading a really good book?  Yeah?  Well, how would you like a chance to win one?

In recognition of my readers who include both women and men, I’m putting up a choice of two books.  The winner can choose either Laura Frantz’s “The Frontiersman’s Daughter,” Christian Historical Romance, or Mike Dellosso’s “Darkness Follows,” Christian Suspense.

How good is “The Frontiersman’s Daughter?”  Does the fact that I’m currently reading it for the second time tell you?  Should I tell you that although I normally go to sleep early, I’m staying up into the wee hours reading this book?  The story, set in the Ken-tuc-ke Indian Territory, 1777, will sweep you up and carry you along to an ending that came too quickly for me the first time I read the book.  Same thing’s happening this time, too.

My own opinion is that I think Laura Frantz should write a sequel to it.  Laura and I share a mutual friend, so perhaps our friend can pass my opinion on to Laura?  Laura will need to hurry, though, because I’m almost done with my second read.

I personally know suspense author Mike Dellosso, however, and he writes books that make you wish you could skip work and keep reading.

How suspenseful can Mike’s books be?  Well, Mike once told me about a walk through a woods that he and his family were taking when they heard a dog howling in the distance.  Chills went up Mike’s spine and he yelled to his wife and kids to run to their car.  No one had time to put on their seatbelts before Mike slammed the accelerator to the floor and got out of Dodge.  You see, Mike had already written a scene like that for one of his books and he knew it was not a time to linger in the woods.

In “Darkness Follows,” be prepared to buckle your seat belt, hold on to the hand bar above your head and experience a twisty, turning, grab-you-by-the-throat ride.

(Buy me a coffee at the May writers conference, Mike, and I’ll call it even.  No sugar.  Oh, and can you autograph the cup?).

For your chance to win a free copy of one of these two wonderful books, all you have to do is:  

1) be a subscriber to SOAR WITH EAGLES,

2) leave a comment in the Comment Section below this article stating the name of your favorite SOAR WITH EAGLES article and why you liked it, and

3) tell me which book you would like to receive should you win the contest.

What if you’re not a SOAR WITH EAGLES subscriber?  Well, think of this as the game of tag.  I’ll give you 7 days to meet the qualifications.  That will give you ample time to subscribe and write a comment before the contest ends.

To subscribe to SOAR WITH EAGLES, click the Subscribe button on the upper right column and enter your name and email address.  (Your email address will be kept private and will never be given out).  Then a window will pop up and ask you to type the CAPTCHA letters (the weird wavy ones) into the provided space.  (Look, do you want to win the book or not?).

Once you enter this information, you will quickly receive an email from Feedburner Subscriptions asking you to confirm your free subscription.  To confirm, simply click on the link in the middle of the email message.

After that, every time I post an article on SOAR WITH EAGLES, you’ll receive it via your email.

How easy is that?!

I will choose one winner on May 1st, 2012, at 11:00 a.m..  The winner will be identified by first name only on SOAR WITH EAGLES on May 1st shortly after the contest ends.  At that time, the winner will need to give me their address so I can ship either ”The Frontiersman’s Daughter” OR “Darkness Follows“ to them.

So, that’s all there is to the contest -um, our game of tag.  Now-are-you-ready?

Cuz-you-are

IT!

Good luck!

 TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Cynthia Howerter © 2012

When Others Reject Us, Who Accepts Us?

Posted by Cynthia Howerter on Apr 23, 2012 in Encouragement | 1 comment

Damaris Kalakos spent four of the first ten years of his life in a Nazi concentration camp in northern Greece.  When the Nazis took over the rural village where Damaris lived, they herded all of the townspeople into a large cave.  Then they sealed the cave’s entrance with barbed wire and stationed trigger-happy guards who specialized in brutality behind it.

The cave was over-crowded and lacked sanitary conditions.  Privacy was non-existant; Damaris’ mother gave birth with the entire village watching.  People behaved like starved animals when food in insufficient amounts was tossed over the fence.  Use your imagination to envision the lessons young Damaris learned about life as he watched evil on both sides of the barbed wire.

Although Olivia Kalakos had a father, she never had a dad.  There’s a difference between the two, she told me.  Every milestone Olivia achieved in her life was observed without her father’s presence.  Oh, he was alive; he just saw no reason to celebrate special events like his daughter’s graduation or her wedding.

Damaris Kalakos told his daughter that there was no such thing as love.  “Love exists only in make-believe,” he said.  As far as Damaris was concerned, life consisted of harshness and brutality, both verbal and physical.  It was what he had observed and learned when he lived in the cave with people who became more like an animal than a human.

Because of her father’s callousness, Olivia grew up learning to expect nothing good because that way, she would never be disappointed.  It was a safe way to live.  That is, until she met a man from Nazareth who embodied nothing but love, the very thing she was taught did not exist, the very thing she craved.

The day finally came when Olivia’s father passed on, and she, her sister Sophia and their stepmother were summoned to an attorney’s office for the reading of Damaris’ will.  When the attorney read “To both of my daughters, they will receive nothing,” Sophia burst into tears and loud sobs.  Even their step-mother, who had only been married to their father for four weeks before his death, began crying at “the unfairness of the way Damaris treated his daughters.”  Only Olivia remained composed, and she asked the attorney if she could use the ladies’ room.

Once inside, Olivia locked the door and prayed out loud, “Father, there isn’t anything my earthly father could give me that compares to what You have given me.”  She took a deep breath and returned to the office.

Linda, the stepmother, was in a state of shock and told Olivia, Sophia and the attorney that what their father did was disrespectful.  Still, the will was a legal document that contained Damaris’ final instructions.  Some, however, would call his will ”the final slap from the grave.”

It took Olivia a long time to get her sister calmed down once they left the office.  She advised Sophia to not be mad at their stepmother, that it was their father’s wish to hurt and disinherit them, not Linda’s.  As for Olivia, she had already chosen to focus on God and not the final hurt that her father had intended for her.

Olivia told one of her co-workers about the contents of her father’s will, and every day for the next two years, the co-worker did her best to convince Olivia to sue her stepmother.  And each day, Olivia told her co-worker that she was leaving all of the consequences of her father’s will up to God.  The co-worker was certain that Olivia had a far better chance of getting something through a lawsuit than she did with God.

Olivia’s faith and focus on the One who loved her before she was even born never wavered.  She knew she could trust God to take care of her.

Two years later, Olivia received a letter from her father’s attorney.  Attached was a check that the lawyer said was Olivia’s inheritance from her father’s estate.

How could this be when Olivia’s father clearly stated in his will that Olivia and her sister were to receive nothing?  You see, when Olivia let go of her hurt and gave the situation completely to the Lord, God worked on her stepmother’s heart and Linda found that she could not abide with Damaris’ cruelty toward his daughters.  Linda put Damaris’ properties and business up for sale and cashed in his investments as they matured.  Once everything was liquidated, Linda made certain that both Olivia and Sophia received a share of their father’s estate.

God provided to Olivia and Sophia what their earthly father would not.  Because Olivia realized who had caused the hurt and advised Sophia to be kind to Linda, the three women never had words or hard feelings between each other.

I asked Olivia what scripture she thought would be appropriate to include with her story.  She knew immediately that it should be John 15:5.  “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  (NIV 1984)

Damaris Kalakos couldn’t have been more wrong; there is love in this world.  Perhaps the reason he never knew love was that he never looked beyond the cave where he spent his youth.

What is keeping you from knowing, from living in God’s love?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Cynthia Howerter © 2012 

Devotional Thursday – Your Spending Habits

Posted by Cynthia Howerter on Apr 19, 2012 in Devotional Thursday | 1 comment

What is the most important thing you spend on someone?  If you answered “money,” keep reading.

The answer is time.  Most people do not understand the value of time.  Once you spend time, you can never get it back.  Think about that.  You can spend money, but you can earn more.  Time is a gift from God.  You cannot earn it.  Once you spend it, it is gone forever.

Think of the people in your life.  Start with those who are closest to you, such as your spouse, your children, other family members or friends.  Would they prefer receiving a tangible gift from you or would they rather receive your time – your time spent focusing on them, not things?

Looking at this conversely, what happens to our relationships when we do not spend our time with those who are most important to us?  Think divorce, kids who behave badly, relationships that lose their closeness, friendships that end.

God made each of us to crave relationships with others, but a person cannot have a true relationship with someone unless they spend time with that person.  I’m not talking about sitting in the same room with another person while you watch TV.  No, that’s a relationship you are having with the TV.  Turn off the TV and talk with the people who are in that room with you!

Take an honest look at the people in your life.  Are you content with your relationship with them?  Are you spending your time with them, focusing on them, treating them the way you want to be treated?

What about your relationship with your Maker?  God made you because He wants you to have a daily, intimate relationship with Him.  Not once in awhile when you’ve got trouble.  Daily.  Throughout the day.

If you spend time every single day with God and those who are important to you, you will see distance replaced with a loving closeness.

The time you are given today will be permanently gone tomorrow.  How are you spending it?

“Your heart will be where your treasure is.”  Matthew 6:21.  (God’s Word Translation 1995).

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Cynthia Howerter © 2012 

Wisdom Wednesday

Posted by Cynthia Howerter on Apr 18, 2012 in Wisdom Wednesday | 3 comments

“Silence means you approve.  Our personal silence when we observe inappropriate circumstances in government (and elsewhere) means we approve and are willing to allow it to continue.” – Cynthia Howerter, American Citizen.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Cynthia Howerter © 2012

Where Is Your Treasure?

Posted by Cynthia Howerter on Apr 11, 2012 in Faith | 0 comments

Articles at SOAR WITH EAGLES are scarce this week.  Why, you ask?  It has to do with one particular Scripture from the Book of Luke:  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34).

The Lord impressed this verse upon me when my children were little.  The Holy Spirit helped me understand that while all of my monetary and material possessions were nice, they held no comparison to my relationships with God and the wonderful little family that He had given to my husband and me.

The Lord made it clear to me that money and possessions cannot provide relationships nor do they satisfy the longings of one’s heart.  Only love can do that.  Only Godly love fills us to the brim and overflows each day of our lives.

During the long Easter weekend, our family of four gathered together, something that, because of employment in distant locations, happens too infrequently.  I spent the time I normally would use to write with those who hold my heart.  And together, we focused on the One who taught us the real meaning of treasure.

Where is your treasure?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

 Cynthia Howerter © 2012