Author Connie Stevens Shares About the Scars We All Bear

Today's special post is from author Connie Stevens.

Have you ever wanted to hide? I’m not talking about playing hide and seek as a child or crouching behind furniture and jumping out to yell “Surprise!” to someone. I’m not even referring to ducking behind a display in a store because you just spotted your nosey neighbor and didn’t want to be engaged in an hour-long gossip session. There are some people who have found themselves in a dangerous situation and attempted to hide for protection, and of course we see news reports all the time about those who commit crimes and hide from the police.

In my latest book, SCARS OF MERCY, the main character, Everett, wants to hide. He’s not in trouble or danger. He doesn’t want to surprise anyone. His desire is to be alone. In fact, he wishes he could hide from himself. As this story unfolds, Everett loathes his own reflection. He survived the boardinghouse fire, but lives daily with the marks left by the flames. While he is grateful for his new-found faith, he doesn’t understand why God would allow the disfiguring scars, and he assumes he is destined to live a solitary existence.

We all live with scars—some are physical and visible. Others are emotional and known only to us. Regardless of whether other people can see our scars, human instinct drives us to hide those scars from the world. There is a deep, indwelling longing within us to be perfect, and when we aren’t, misplaced shame and humiliation compels us to seek a refuge. But where do we go to hide? Do we build a wall around ourselves? Do we withdraw from people? Sometimes painful experiences can motivate us to do that. It’s a defensive mechanism many of us have used at one time or other. Whatever our purpose, such actions always result in the same thing—loneliness.

In SCARS OF MERCY, Everett’s refuge was self-imposed solitude. Despite his loneliness, he might have been content to shut himself off from the world except for one thing—Tillie O’Dell. This feisty young woman sees Everett’s scars as noble and heroic, and she wishes she could make him see himself the way she does—the way God does. In trying to do so, she finds herself falling in love with Everett, changed from the hurtful, arrogant man he was to one redeemed and restored. This is much the way God sees us when we give ourselves over to Him.

I am reminded of the story in Jeremiah, chapter eighteen, in which the prophet went down to the potter’s house and watched the potter working on a vessel. But the vessel was marred—flawed—in the hands of the potter. So he started over again and remade the vessel into one of beauty and usefulness. This is a story of hope and second chances. The potter didn’t destroy or discard the clay. He reworked it. The flaw didn’t matter because the potter knew how to work around it. There was no need to hide the flawed vessel because the potter made it beautiful.

SCARS OF MERCY is a love story, but not just between Everett and Tillie. This story is an invitation to see God’s mighty, unwavering love for us, and how He wants us to hide ourselves in Him. Scars--whether visible or invisible, real or imagined, physical or emotional or spiritual--don’t have to be debilitating, because we have a God who hides us in the hollow of His hand.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You
are there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” even the night shall be light
about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You.
But the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.
Psalm 139: 7-12 (NKJV)

SCARS OF MERCY releases this month with Heartsong Presents, and is the third book in the Willow Creek series.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connie Stevens lives in north Georgia with her husband of thirty-eight years, John, and one cantankerous kitty. She and John are active in a variety of capacities in their home church. When she’s not writing, she enjoys gardening, sewing, reading, browsing antique stores, and collecting teddy bears. An avid Atlanta Braves fan, don’t call her while there is a game on. Visit Connie’s website at www.conniestevenswrites.com


ABOUT THE BOOK
Everett Behr turns away from people to hide his disfiguring scars. A budding friendship with Tillie O’Dell eases his loneliness, but asking her to endure the humiliation of being with someone like him is out of the question. Tillie sees past Everett’s scars to his heart. His courage and compassion make him a man of character, but how can she convince Everett his scars are beautiful to her?


WIN THE BOOK
If you’d like to be entered to win a copy of Scars of Mercy, just leave a comment on this blog. I’ll pick a winner at random on Monday, August 29th. Please leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner. (To prevent spammers from trolling for your email, please use this format with the brackets--you [at] yourmail [dot] com--or something similar.) Good luck!

Interview & Book Giveaway with Author Connie Stevens

A big HELLO to today's guest, Heartsong Presents author Connie Stevens!

Q:  What was your inspiration for REVEALING FIRE?
A:  The main characters in REVEALING FIRE were minor characters in my first book, LEAVE ME NEVER. Both Pearl and Hubert are in their mid-fifties—their “September years”. I so fell in love with these two people while writing the first book, I knew I had to give them their own story.

Q:How does your faith impact your writing?
A:  I’ve been asked this question before and my answer is always the same. It’s imperative that everything I write is God-honoring. Because it was God who carved out my writing path, I MUST write to please Him. If I’m not writing for God, what’s the point? From the day I learned I was getting my first contract, I began praying for my readers. That is such an awesome responsibility because at some point I know that unbelievers might pick up my book and I want them to see Jesus in the lives of the characters and understand how He works in their lives.

Q:  Do you plot out your story ahead of time, or do you think it up as you go?
A:  I do both. I plot out the major points and character arcs. I have a general idea of where the story is going and how I’m going to get to The End. But in every book I’ve written, my characters have taken me on unplanned detours. In most cases, they had better ideas than I did, so I followed along to see where we’d end up. (My husband keeps trying to tell me these people aren’t real.)

Q:  How long does it take you to complete a novel? How many drafts do you go through?
A:  My writing schedule is an ever-evolving process. It used to take me 8-9 months to write a book, but I wasn’t following a schedule. Once I had more than one contract and deadlines, (throw content edits, copy edits, and galley edits into the mix) I knew I had to be better organized. Now I can turn out a book (50K words) in approximately three and half months. Because I edit as I go, and as I get my chapters back from my crit partners, I don’t do several drafts—usually only two.

Q:  What’s your favorite part of the writing business? What’s your least favorite?
A:  My favorite part is the creating and the research. I love historical research. My least favorite is probably the content edits (No offense, Rachel J)

Q:  What’s the most important piece of advice you would give to a fledgling writer?
A:  Don’t quit. God won’t start something in your life that He doesn’t intend to finish, so hang in there.

Q:  What’s the one far out sci-fi technology you’d most like to see become a household item?
A:  This is a funny question since I write historical romance, not sci-fi. My husband is the science fiction fan in our house, and I don’t know Star Trek from Star Wars, but I wouldn’t mind having a robot—like the one on The Jetsons. What was her name? Rosie? Rosie cleaned, and did laundry, and cooked the meals. Yeah, I’d like to have a Rosie.

I'd like to have, Rosie, too. Good choice :+} Thanks for joining us today, Connie. It was a pleasure!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connie Stevens lives in her favorite place in all the world, within sight of the beautiful mountains of north Georgia. She and John, her husband of thirty-seven years, share their home with one cantankerous kitty, misnamed Sweet Pea. When Connie isn’t writing, she enjoys reading, gardening, browsing antique stores, sewing, and collecting teddy bears. She also likes making quilts to send to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Visit her website at www.conniestevenswrites.com or look for her on Facebook.

ABOUT THE BOOK - Revealing Fire
Pearl Dunnigan is in her “September years”, well beyond the age when most women fall in love. She married her childhood sweetheart years ago. Now, as a widow, she operates the only boardinghouse in Willow Creek, Iowa, and is content with life . . . until Hubert dares to convince her to dream again.

During Hubert Behr’s youth, blind ambition and careless actions destroyed his family and his marriage. Have the lessons he’s learned since then made him worthy of a second chance, or has his past made him unsuitable for love? Hubert is willing to try again, but what will Pearl say when she learns his secrets?

Hubert’s estranged son arrives in town, and his anger and scorn threaten to undo Hubert’s and Pearl’s plans. When all the truth is revealed, will their love be destroyed or refined by fire?

“Every man’s work shall be made manifest . . . because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” 

1st Corinthians 3:13

WIN THE BOOK
If you’d like to be entered to win a copy of Revealing Fire, just leave a comment on this blog. I’ll pick a winner at random on Friday, May 20th. Please leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner. (To prevent spammers from trolling for your email, please use this format with the brackets--you [at] yourmail [dot] com--or something similar.) Good luck!