Real Life is Better Than Fiction

By Shelley Hitz About the Book: A Life of Gratitude: How to Overcome Self-Pity and Negativity During a season of transition in my life, I found myself overwhelmed with negative emotions like self-pity and a complaining spirit. It was as if a dark cloud had descended over me. I prayed and asked God for wisdom on how to overcome these negative emotions. As I did, I sensed Him leading me to do a 21 day gratitude challenge. Over the course of the 21 days, God began to change me as I spent intentional time being grateful for all I had been given. I did this through writing in my journal each day and also sending a hand-written thank you note to someone different each day. This also led me to writing out 21 prayers of gratitude and compiling 21 stories of gratitude. I want to share what I learned with you in the pages of this book which includes: 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge 21 Prayers of Gratitude 21 Stories of Gratitude What to Expect On Each Day: Read my personal st...

“Only two more days till Christmas!” Hope danced around the kitchen chanting while getting underfoot. She was good at getting underfoot, but she was not always a whole lot of help. “Yes, we know!” Hope’s twin sister Faith said, while frosting some of the cookies she had baked earlier in the day with their mom. Hope picked up the cookie as soon as Faith put it aside to let the frosting set. “You didn’t burn these did you?” “I haven’t burned anything in a long time!” Faith said. “Yeah, it’s been at least a week!” Hope said sarcastically, taking a bite out of the cookie. “We’d get more done if you helped a little more besides eating everything,” the girls’ mom, Karin, said to Hope without looking up from what she was doing. “I’m taste-testing,” Hope said with her mouth full. “And taking pictures.” She held up her other hand, which contained a camera. It was an older camera that used film, but she found taking pictures enjoyable and she was good at it. She used her tal...

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Jerry Eicher and the book: Katie Opens Her Heart Harvest House Publishers (February 1, 2013) ***Special thanks to Ginger Chen for sending me a review copy.*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jerry Eicher’s bestselling Amish fiction (more than 210,000 in combined sales) includes The Adams County Trilogy, the Hannah’s Heart books, and the Little Valley Series. After a traditional Amish childhood, Jerry taught for two ...

Prologue It’s said that the way we are raised forms who we are as adults. It’s all the experiences we have had in life that make us who we are. Mom was no different. Her experiences definitely shaped who she was. I learned at an early age that it was my mom’s goal in life to feed everyone. She believed that food connected people and made them happy. Many of my own most vivid memories come from when we were sitting at the table eating with friends and family. Besides just inviting friends over for dinner, Mom would have someone over to eat in payment for a good deed. Mom would always make a meal for someone who was sick or in need. If she knew that someone was depressed, they would be the recipients of a plate of cupcakes. It was her signature touch of love that made all her food special. Mom never failed to include a card along with the food with a few words of encouragement. If dessert was given, it was always presented on a pretty plate intended for the receiver to keep. Mo...

Ever since I was a child I have always loved writing. My mother also enjoyed writing and she would help me tremendously by taking me to writer’s conferences and introducing me to people who could teach me things. Over the years I have tried my hand at many different genres of writing and I enjoy many of them.    One thing I always wanted to do was write a novel. I have started many, but finished few. I think the problem was my method of writing. Writing blindly doesn’t work for me. Structure and organization are my style in life so it would seem obvious that it would be the same in my writing. I found a new way to write by organizing everything first. While the kids were out of school one summer I was bound and determined to have something to show for my efforts. Almost every day I would take the kids and friends to the pool. While they played I wrote. By the end of that summer I had a completed the first draft of my novel. Yes, it still needed a lot of work, but the b...

People often ask me where I get ideas for writing. Quite frankly, it’s real life. Often times I run into characters, I mean people, who make me smile or cringe. Those are the kinds of characters I like to include in my stories. I got the idea for Come Eat at My Table when talking to a friend of mine. She had some dreadful things happen to her as a child. Then she made a comment that set my imagination in motion. Many of the little scenes throughout Come Eat at My Table really took place. I’ll give you one example, Karin tells of a time when she got a sliver in her shin. Yup, that really happened to me. It was about 4 inches long and it got infected. My mom and my brother had to hold me down while my dad dug it out. (We didn’t go to the doctor’s for every little thing when I was a kid.) I incorporated that into my story with a few additions and subtractions.    Don’t forget about looking to the kids for ideas. One of mine, who will remain nameless, once put a ...

I remember when my very first book came out. It was a devotional I had written with two of my friends. We worked for months writing devotions and then sharing them with each other. We labored long and hard over that first book and I still see many things I would go back and change. I guess that’s the way it is with many authors – the book is never good enough. Anyway, we were patting each other on the back for our accomplishment and dreaming of all the books we would sell and the speaking engagements we would get. I nonchalantly said, “I’ll just sit at the book table while you guys do your thing.” You see, they had both had several invitations to speak before we actually wrote the book. I figured their chances were way better than mine at getting an invite.   Me and my big mouth! It wasn’t a week later that my telephone rang and someone asked, “Have you ever done any speaking before?” This terrified me a little bit. I wasn’t at all sure it was something I wanted to do....