Pregnancy Center Conference today

Today I'll be leaving for the Rocky Mountain Conference. This is a conference especially for the staff and volunteers of pro-life pregnancy centers.

I'm hoping to talk with these staff members and volunteers about my book that was created especially for them: Deliver Me: Hope, Help, and Healing through True Stories of Unplanned Pregnancy.

Deliver Me came about because of my work on a board of directors of a small town pregnancy center. I found so many people, including my Christian friends, had no idea what we were doing in that center. They had a lot of misconceptions: that we were referring women for abortion, that we were encouraging promiscuity...

I wanted to gather true stories to showcase just what we were doing in that center. I wanted people to know the truth of what we were accomplishing. The stories of people who come to pregnancy centers are often hard stories filled with heartache, but so often through the help they receive these stories become beautiful.

That's what I wanted to share! That's what I want people to know. I wanted women and men to know that they could find caring, compassionate help. I wanted Christians to know they could confidently support their local pro-life pregnancy center. If you'll read these stories, I think you'll be convinced.

Those hard and beautiful stories fill the pages of Deliver Me. Fifty-four stories about women who want to keep their babies, men who have lost a child to abortion, women who have given a child for adoption, and more, each has a connection to a pro-life pregnancy center, a connection to compassionate help people found there. They show the picture of what pregnancy centers are really doing in and for our communities. Their story--that of the pregnancy centers--is beautiful. I hope you will check it out.

Deliver Me:

• won 2012 "Book of the Year" (Family/Relationships) from Christian Small Publishers Association
• was one of four finalists for the 2012 Golden Scroll Nonfiction Book of the Year

So I'm off to the Rocky Mountain Conference hoping to convince pregnancy center workers that Deliver Me is a valuable resource, both for their clients and their supporters.



Remember September 11, 2001

Just like that morning in 2001, September 11th occurs on a Tuesday on this 11th anniversary. As painful as it might be, it is only right that we remember September 11, 2001, and those who died, or whose lives were forever changed, on that day.

It was in the days and few weeks following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States that I wrote my first book. I, I'm sure like so many, wanted to do something. But we felt so helpless. What could we possibly do?

I can't answer that for others. But for a writer, what else could I do but write? And so I wrote Dear America: A Letter of Comfort & Hope to a Grieving Nation (Ampelos Press, 2002).

This little book is still available in print. It was published 6 months to the day after September 11, 2001 -- on March 11, 2002. This year, for its tenth anniversary, Dear America was republished on Kindle.

Still relevant today, Dear America includes:

• my story of living through grief and discovering God
• 10 Things I've Learned About Grief
• a brief telling of the over-arching story of the Bible
• Q & A about Christians and Muslims
• helps to begin reading and understanding the Bible



For anyone who wonders where God is in the hard times, find answers in this letter to a nation:

Dear America.

New Book Trailer for Grandparenting Through Obstacles

Happy National Grandparents Day! If you haven't found a gift for the grandparent(s) in your life, our new book makes a great gift for Christian grandparents.

Please follow us on Twitter: @GParentObstacle

Visit our Grandparenting Through Obstacles Facebook Page.

Check out our blog: http://GrandparentingThruObstacles.wordpress.com/

Enjoy this short book trailer about our book!