Tuesday, March 3, 2015

The timing of this blog is hard. 

To be honest, I’ve avoided this post all week because my heart has been too heavy. Burdened with what I knew was coming…my dear and sweet friend is losing her daughter as I write this. 

She’s twenty. She’s been fighting cancer for the last 3 years. She’s fought a long and hard battle, and God has worked mightily through her as she and her family have chosen to shine glory on God through this entire journey they have been on. 

For me, I walked through my own journey when I lost my first husband 11 years ago. Losing my husband was hard, but I chose, as my friends have, to look at the blessings that God had given me and my two sons during the time instead of blaming God and doubting Him. 

Faith isn’t something that should be lost or doubted during the bad times. For me that solid assurance that God is with me and in control is what gets me through everything I do. Do I get angry sometimes? Yes I do! Do I wish things could be different sometimes? Oh yes indeed I do. But God understands that and knowing this helps me to be real and honest and able to express myself with him. To help me cope, I go to the source of solace and answers -- I go to the Bible. Even more than that, I go to prayer.


This post was supposed to be about how I have overcome something personal with God’s grace. And this is how I do it -- by trusting God. I pray His will be done and I focus on the blessings in He has given me. 

Yes, when I lost my first husband, Wayne, I mourned. I mourned long and hard and I gave myself permission to do so for as long as I needed and not according to anyone else’s timetable or view on how I should mourn. Oddly enough, I received 2 letters in the mail from church friends on how I, as a Christian, should mourn … those letters went directly into the trash! I had to mourn my way and I clung to the knowledge that with God’s help, I would be okay. If you are going through a hardship, I pray you hold on to God and give yourself grace to mourn as you need to mourn, not as someone else deems you should.

John 16: 33 Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I’m a writer who likes exclamation points, and I like that there is one used in this verse. Jesus’s words convey one well, and we can believe what he is telling us…take heart! Whatever you are going through, He has gone before you and HE has overcome the world. Walk with Him, and he’ll take you through the fog you may be in right now from grief or anything else you are going through. That is what He does for me. He knows the path, and I strive to let Him lead me.

He knows yours too. Give it to Him. He can handle it! And with His help so can you!

In my new release, Betting On Hope, my hero and heroine both have issues that they are working through, and each are doing it in their own way. But I love my main character Maggie Hope … she writes her advice column using the experiences she’s had in her own background to try and help others and always with a hopeful heart. I strive in my way to do this through my books. 

My hope is that something in my books will touch someone who needs it, even if it’s just to make you smile. Knowing this is my purpose and striving for that helps me move forward too. I know God’s always going to use even the bad things in my life for good somehow down the road and I like that.



Debra Clopton is a multi-award winning novelist and has written more than 22 novels. Along with writing, Debra helps her husband teach the youth at their local Cowboy Church. Debra's goal is to shine a light toward God while she entertains readers with her words.

Learn more about Debra on her blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Purchase Betting on Hope on Amazon.


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