Still Asking Questions

One of the questions recently sent to me is whether I still write novels focused on answering questions of faith, and if I’d answer old questions in a new way.  Yummy food for thought. 

A Voice in the Wind, for example, was focused on answering “How do I live out my faith in Jesus in front of family members and friends who don’t even want to hear the name of Jesus – unless they’re using it in a curse?”  Hadassah was the primary character living out the answer through the story.   Would I write the same story in a different way today? 

In a way, I already do. 

Every story I’ve written has at least one character who lives for Christ.  Redeeming Love had Michael Hosea.  All three novels in the The Mark of the Lion (which begins with A Voice in the Wind) have Hadassah.  Even when she isn’t in the story, she influences the central characters.  Atretes, the gladiator in As Sure As the Dawn, is influenced by his memory of Hadassah before she entered the arena.  He is also influenced by Theophilus, a Roman centurion who follows Christ.  The Scarlet Thread has the antecedent who wrote the Oregon Trail diary.  The Atonement Child has Joe, The Last Sin Eater, the prophet, Leota’s Garden, Annie. 

Every other question I’ve brought before the Lord has brought me back to the first basic question:  What does it mean to walk by faith?   The answers always come by examining Jesus’ life and aligning myself with Him, in life as well as in fiction.