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When God Seems to Smile
This life is full of highs and lows, isn’t it? One day, we’re smooth sailing, and the next, we’re doctoring scraped knees and disappointed hopes. As believers, we can’t draw our joy from a perfect set of circumstances but have to find our contentment in a grounding relationship with God that stands firm through life’s sifting sands. But every once…
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Lies the Kill Zone Tells You
Learning to surf at thirty-something requires a willingness to sputter like a toddler in swimmies and a healthy dose of humiliation. It also demands mental toughness to defeat the wave’s wallopings. Now doesn’t this sound vaguely like life? I thought I was reasonably ready for my first surf lesson. Yoga has improved my balance, and I did burpies to help…
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Though She Fall: Takeaways of a First-Time Surfer
I’m Florida born and raised, so learning to surf needed to happen at some point. The well-meaning worriers assumed I would be eaten by sharks. Good news is that didn’t happen, but I did gain a new respect for the sport and the life lessons it teaches. Watch, Learn, and Surf Humbly There’s a YouTube video that explains the top…
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Fighting Fear through Fantasy
At the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, I met author Emily Golus, whose young adult fantasy, Escape to Vindor, won the Selah Award for its category. I was instantly drawn to her sincere, winsome personality and looked forward to reading her novel. Last week, I read it. Yes, the story is incredible, but beyond that, I was moved by…
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Finding Center in Life’s Turbulence
In my recent travel adventures, I noticed the flight crew now refers to “turbulence” as “rough air.” I’m not sure why. “Rough air” sounds no less pleasant. Regardless of how we spin it, turbulence remains a reality for air travel and, honestly, for life in general. Sometimes, we don’t even have to be in the air to experience it. My…
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3 Habits of Satisfied People
More than likely, our lives have or will turn out differently than we plan. Even so, we can know the satisfaction of a life well-lived. The deciding factors have less to do with mountain-top moments and more with our everyday habits. Last month, I had the opportunity to share with Alpha Omega Academy’s graduating class some habits that will help…
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The Revolutionary – A Book Review — Betty Thomason Owens
The Revolutionary Liberate The Captives Rogues, Book II, by Kristen Hogrefe After being sentenced to a labor camp in Rogues Book I, The Revisionary, Portia Abernathy’s story continues three months later, in a coal mine. [You can read my review of The Revisionary here] The Revolutionary—I was hooked by the opening paragraph. The rest of […] via The Revolutionary – A…
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God doesn’t give you more than you can handle…or does He?
“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” I’ve heard this saying all my life, always from well-meaning Christians. But there have been plenty of times when I just couldn’t “handle.” After my grandmother passed away, I couldn’t handle the grief, and depression set in for two years. Later on, my body couldn’t handle what I was eating and…
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Summer Book Challenge
Like most children, I looked forward to summer as a girl. One of the many reasons why was that I could choose any book at the library to read, earn points toward the Book-It program, and get free pizza. Free pizza for reading books? Yes, please! Today, I still adore pizza and books. Though I can’t afford to feed your…
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The Revisionary Receives Grace Award
This month, The Revisionary received the 2017 Grace Award for Speculative Fiction in faith-based fiction. The reader-driven Grace Awards first let readers select the finalists in each category before a panel of judges reviewed them to choose the winners. Here’s what the judges had to say: THE REVISIONARY by Kristen Hogrefe (Write Integrity Press) ~ This dystopian novel was engaging and well-paced,…
