Author Archives: Janet Sketchley

About Janet Sketchley

Janet Sketchley is an Atlantic Canadian writer whose Redemption’s Edge Christian suspense novels have each been finalists in The Word Awards. She's also the author of the devotional collection, A Year of Tenacity. Janet blogs about faith and books. She loves Jesus and her family, and enjoys reading, worship music, and tea. Fans of Christian suspense are invited to join her writing journey through her monthly newsletter: bit.ly/JanetSketchleyNews.

Tea and Spontaneity

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My husband and I can offer visitors over 50 varieties of tea, from one of perhaps 10 pots, in any of a frighteningly large number of mugs or cups. [If that worries you, well it worries me too and I’m on a new mission to downsize our tea capacity — since I don’t want to open a tea room!]

Suffice to say, we love our tea. So this building was iconic to me when I saw it recently in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Red Rose Tea Building, Saint John, NB

Red Rose Tea Building, Saint John, NB “Only in Canada, you say?”

Here’s a link to Red Rose’s history of tea.

You can’t read much of this photo, but part of the text explains that King Cole tea originated with Barbour’s General Store.

Harbour Passage's tourist information: A Legacy of Tea

Here’s a link to Barbour’s history of King Cole tea. Writing this post, I discovered there’s actually a tea museum in the General Store. That would have been fun to explore when I was wandering around the city. (I did have a mighty fine cone of gelato, though.)

On a somewhat related note, check out what my brother and sister-in-law gave me for my birthday.

Teacup-shaped planter with pansies

So that’s the tea. Where’s the spontaneity? We were in Saint John for a Barbershop competition (my husband co-directs the newly-formed Halifax Harmonizers (who took second place) and sings in two quartets (September Sound competed and also took second place in their event). The competition was held in the gorgeous and historic Saint John High School. The school has flat, wide, marble banisters. Without those nasty impediments most schools put at the bottom to discourage sliding.

Blurred image of Janet sliding down the banister

Janet in action: moving too fast for the camera!

Seeing One Another

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So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:16-17, NLT*

When we look at our brothers and sisters in Christ, do we remember they’re new people? Or do we focus on the bits of their old nature still clinging to the edges of their newness?

When conflicts arise and difficulties spring up, do we band together, united by a common love of Jesus? Or do we pick at one another, take sides, form factions? Allow bitter roots to grow?

Despite differences of opinion, we who are born again spiritually are new people, citizens of God’s kingdom. We see Jesus differently, as believers. We need to see each other differently as well.

What if we consciously chose to look for signs of new life in one another instead of focusing on the negatives? To pray for one another instead of putting up walls? To pray with one another until we found common ground?

Not that we’d agree about everything, but could we hear and understand one another? Love and forgive, even if life moved us in different directions?

I’ve been asking God lately to help me see: His nature, His leading, beauty, opportunities, needs. I want to thank Peter Black of Raise Your Gaze for sharing today’s verses with me in an email. He didn’t know God would use them to point my eyes back to my own congregation with a prayer to see the new life and perhaps to somehow encourage it.

God our Saviour and Redeemer, You call us to reconciliation to Yourself and to one another. Forgive us when we allow the mess of living to obscure the new life You gave us. Help us each to recognize and confess, daily or even more frequently, those things that dim our light. Help us stay as close as possible to You, so we won’t poison ourselves or others. Give us Your love for one another so that those around us will recognize something that only You can do.

∞

Our song this week is Russ Taff‘s “We Will Stand.”

*New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Review: The Icarus Hunt, by Timothy Zahn

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The Icarus Hunt, by Timothy ZahnThe Icarus Hunt, by Timothy Zahn (Bantam Spectra, 1999)

This is one of those novels that I loved on a first read and appreciate just as much (if not more) on subsequent visits when I can watch the hints and clues drop into place.

If Alistair MacLean were to have written a space thriller, it might look like this. Twists, turns, people who aren’t what they seem, and a protagonist I somehow trusted from page one even though his resume testified against him. (That might have had something to do with the way he dispatched three large, hairy aliens who picked a fight with him in a seedy spaceport tavern.)

Jordan McKell and his partner, Ixil, smuggle drugs for an interstellar cartel. (I’m very fond of Ixil, the alien with the two symbiotic, ferret-like “outriders.”)

The thing about McKell? You can’t stop him. So despite his unsavoury life, when he’s hired to lead a mismatched band of strangers flying a bizarre-looking ship across the galaxy to Earth, you know that somehow he’ll get it done. Despite increasingly strong opposition.

The Icarus Hunt is a chase. It’s also a puzzle, as McKell and his crew try to find out what makes this ungainly ship such a hot commodity.

This is a mainstream novel containing minor profanity, but otherwise what I’d class as a clean read. There’s violence, but it’s more punching or shooting than bleeding or screaming.

Timothy Zahn is my favourite science fiction author, and The Icarus Hunt may be my favourite of his stand-alone titles. He’s written over 40 novels, including some of the best ones in the Star Wars expanded universe, as well as numerous shorter stories. Along the way he’s won a Hugo Award and become a New York Times bestselling author.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Running and Life Lessons

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Last Saturday, I participated in my first-ever 5K running event (that’s 5 kilometres for my US friends, which translates to roughly 3.11 miles). This proves that God has a sense of humour, because I have never been athletic.

The Hillside2Haiti run is sponsored by a local church that regularly sends mission teams to Haiti to teach life skills. I’d wondered for a while about attempting a challenge like this, and when I saw the promotional material at another event, I recognized that the time was right.

I’d been running in the gym with my music, and now I started running on the streets around my home. Alone and content that way.

From the early stages of the Hillside2Haiti event, I ran with my friend Kim. I kept telling her not to slow herself down for me, but we found a pace that suited us both and by running as partners, encouraged one another to reach our dream goal of running the entire distance without taking walk breaks. (Yes, I know you can go faster if you take walk breaks. If you have enough stamina to go faster.)

Crossing the finish line was as surreal as signing my first novel contract. Despite my hopes, clearly some deep part of me never thought it would happen. Along the way, I observed a few parallels between running and the Christian life:

  • The participants came in all shapes, ages, sizes, fitness levels; some walked, some run/walked, some ran: we were all heading for the same finish line.
  • We swarmed out onto the road, stopping traffic: there’s strength in numbers, and together we can overcome certain obstacles.
  • A runner put on extra speed to catch us and return Kim’s headband, which we hadn’t known had fallen: help one another out, even when it’s hard work.
  • One runner stopped to fix a shoe: it doesn’t matter if something stops us, what matters is that we start again.
  • Those who ran in bursts and walked for brief recovery times finished with a better time than those who ran all the way; different people had different goals: pace yourself, set and know your strategy.
  • Some wanted speed time, some to run the full way, some had other goals: don’t judge someone for being on a different strategy; but do alert someone who has veered off the route.
  • Stopping to walk before you’re gasping means a shorter recovery before you can restart: be realistic about your abilities, while leaving room for God to stretch you a little farther than you think is comfortable.
  • It was a twisty, unfamiliar route, with no distance markers: not seeing how far we still had to go, or what hills lay ahead, kept discouragement away.
  • Previous running experience teaches you to slow down on the hills and to know you’ll recover on the flats: remember where God has already met us, choose to trust Him to do it again.
  • After slowing for hills, speed back up when you can: pace yourself, but beware the danger of starting to coast longer than necessary.
  • I thought we’d reached the end, but it was the start of a long, hard final stint; discouragement would have stopped me there, to walk the rest of the way, but my partner was still running: in disappointment, we need help to carry on.
  • There were water stations: take your own sustenance for the journey, but expect God’s provision en route.
  • We cheered for the children crossing the finish line on their race before ours started, and cheered on other runners as they passed us or came across the line after we did: we need to be encouragers, and it does something positive in us when we are.
  • Training for a race helps us run it better: remember the Christian life is a race, be diligent with spiritual training. Also, we train better with a goal, so don’t slack off because we don’t see trouble yet.
  • Good equipment helps: what spiritual equipment do we need?
  • Keep your sense of humour because there’s no dignity in the final stages of a race: don’t worry about appearances.
  • The sense of unity: isn’t that’s what it’s all about – the body of Christ, united in relationship with Him?
  • There was a big red start/finish arch: finally seeing the end in sight gives fresh energy.
  • The celebration at the finish line: “when we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be,” and yes, it may feel a little surreal.

Still with me? Give yourself a medal, and here are the biggest benefits I discovered about running with a partner:

  • we encouraged one another to keep going
  • we bonded through the experience and through sharing conversation
  • we distracted one another from the hardest parts
  • knowing that stopping would let the other down kept us each pushing on
  • under 38 minutes from the start, we crossed the line together
Photo of Janet and Kim, side by side, putting on extra speed because we've seen the finish line.

Janet and Kim: we have seen the finish line, and we can do this. Photo credit: Your Running Race Photos (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YourRunningRacePhotos)

https://www.facebook.com/YourRunningRacePhotos

 

Half Right is Half Wrong

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But how could he be [the Messiah]? For we know where this man comes from. When the Messiah comes, he will simply appear; no one will know where he comes from.
John 7:27, NLT*

The common people thought Jesus would just “appear” – they wouldn’t know where He came from. John 7:41-42 shows that the religious leaders knew He’d be born in Bethlehem, which is why they had so much trouble with His coming from Nazareth.

I wonder if any of them thought to ask Him where He’d been born.

Today’s verse highlights the importance of spending time in God’s Word and in prayerful study to know what it really says. (Remember the Bereans, when Paul told them about Jesus? They looked into the holy writings for themselves instead of believing or disbelieving based on his word alone. Acts 17:11.)

The religious leaders’ response later in the chapter stresses the equal importance of realizing we may still not have the full picture, no matter how much head knowledge we have. We can’t assume we know it all. (Leaders like Nicodemus went to Jesus in an honest search for understanding. John 3:1-21.)

Seekers after God’s truth need to do three things:

  1. We can’t rely on hearsay and assumptions – we need to learn for ourselves.
  2. Ask honest questions, in prayer and of those who believe.
  3. Live daily in trust and obedience, keeping close to God and growing closer.

We don’t want to have it half right and miss the Saviour.

Awesome and holy God, although Jesus came as “God with skin on,” there’s so much more to You than we can grasp. Yet You do reveal Yourself to us as we spend time with You and surrender our lives to Your care. Give us a hunger to know You better, and hearts to love and obey You. Where we have misconceptions or false assumptions, open our eyes to the truth.

∞

Our song this week is Third Day‘s “Who is This King of Glory?”

*New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Review: Writing the Heart of Your Story, by C.S. Lakin

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Writing the Heart of Your Story, by C.S. LakinWriting the Heart of your Story, by C.S. Lakin (Ubiquitous Press, 2014)

What transforms a novel from a good read to one that lingers in readers’ imaginations? C.S. Lakin suggests the key is finding—and writing—the story’s heart. Finding it, she says, requires seeing the big picture, or some level of pre-writing discovery. Once a writer has found this connection point, he/she is in a strong position to weave it through the whole story.

Sections of the book focus on the heart of the story, of the characters, and of the plot, with extra sections on scenes and settings. Each chapter ends with a “think about” assignment, which turns this already-helpful book into a personalized writing course. Most assignments send writers back to their own favourite books to observe how those authors succeeded, and then challenge us to re-evaluate our own work.

If you’re a die-hard seat-of-the-pants writer, you may not value the book as much as I do, but you’ll likely find some things to help in your revision stages. C.S. Lakin is an unapologetic advocate of pre-planning, using the analogy of a mine: if you’re digging for the heart of your story, it makes sense to stabilize the tunnel so it won’t collapse.

I’ve done a prodigious amount of highlighting in this book, and it’s one I’ll go back to again and again to deepen my understanding. My first reading taught me things I’ve been able to apply immediately, and taking time to do the homework will build on that.

C.S. Lakin is a novelist and writing coach. Writing the Heart of your Story is one of her Writers’ Toolbox books, compiling a year’s worth of teaching on her Live Write Thrive blog. It’s available in multiple ebook formats as well as in print.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Be Authentic and Real

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Photo of Steph's hubby, Dave, one of the most courageous people she knows.

Photo of Steph’s hubby, Dave, one of the most courageous people she knows.

Be Authentic and Real, by Steph Beth Nickel

Genuine. Authentic. Real.

Do these words describe you? Do they describe me?

I admire those who are courageous enough to be real.

“I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” While people may only utter these words on TV courtroom dramas, there’s a lot to be learned from this statement.

I believe being truthful goes hand-in-hand with being authentic and real. When my three were young, I stressed the importance of telling the truth, informing them that lies were the devil’s language. I also said that deliberately leading someone to a false conclusion was the same as lying.

My Heart’s Cry

My heart’s cry is that we, as Christians, would learn to walk as we’re instructed to in Ephesians 4:11-16:

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (ESV).

As we see in this passage, “speaking the truth in love” is one of the evidences of spiritual maturity.

Asking for Help

Too often, for whatever reason, we are not open and honest with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t want to burden them with our problems. We don’t want to admit we’re struggling in a certain area. We figure we should be able to work it out—just between God and us. We assume the other person doesn’t really want to know what’s on our heart and mind. We don’t want them to think less of us.

I have found if we’re open and honest, others will feel more at ease opening up to us as well. I believe this goes a long way to bringing us to the unity in the faith the Bible refers to in this and other passages.

Offering a Listening Ear

And what if we must approach someone who is in the wrong—or someone we think may be in the wrong?

Most of us want to do all we can to avoid conflict and may be tempted to put off addressing issues that really shouldn’t be ignored. It’s one thing to speak the truth in love when we’re the ones dealing with issues, but what about when it’s the other person who is struggling. Are we willing to reach out to them, come alongside them, invest the time to see things from their perspective, and then, if appropriate, help them get back on the right track?

When we pray for the wisdom God promises to give if we’ll just ask, we can be genuine, authentic, real, and truthful without unduly burdening others, breaking confidences, or gossiping.

How are you seeking to mature in Christ this day? How are you seeking to be authentic, to be real?
[Leave your thoughts below!]

Photo of Steph Beth Nickel

Steph Beth Nickel
(Picture by Sarah Grace Photography)

Stephanie is a freelance writer and editor. She writes under the pen name Steph Beth Nickel. She co-authored Paralympian Deborah L. Willows’ memoir, Living Beyond My Circumstances. Among other places, it is available from Castle Quay Books and Amazon. Steph has been blogging since 2010 and is a regular guest on Kimberley Payne’s site (fitness tips) and Christian Editing Services (writing tips). She will also be writing and recording regularly for the newly-formed Hope Stream Radio. Stephanie is an active member of The Word Guild and InScribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship.

Steph invites you to pop by for a visit on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephbethnickel or https://www.facebook.com/stephbnickel?ref=hl

You can also look her up on Twitter @StephBethNickel; her blog: http://stephseclecticinterests.wordpress.com; or her website (still a work in progress): http://stephbethnickel.com

Our Point of View and God’s

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“You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.
John 7:4-5, NLT*

Jesus’ brothers were urging Him to go to Jerusalem, where more people could see His miracles. They clearly believed in His power, but didn’t “believe” in the sense of recognizing Him as the promised Messiah.

Without that crucial piece of understanding, the future they saw for Jesus wasn’t in line with the Father’s actual plan. Jesus, who always listened to the Father and did what He said, knew the path ahead of Him and chose His actions accordingly.

Jesus’ brothers’ advice was aimed at reaching a different goal. So was Peter’s, when he rebuked Jesus for saying He had to die. Jesus’ strongly-worded response included this assessment: “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Matthew 16:23b, NLT. In context: Matthew 16:21-23.)

Today, Christians know Jesus is our Saviour, who gave His life and rose again to restore us to relationship with Him. But don’t we still ask or expect things that aren’t in His plan?

In our limited perspective, we ask for what we see as right, not knowing we don’t have the full picture. We ask for what we want, what we think is best. Sometimes that’s selfish and near-sighted, but sometimes it’s clearly the best – at least from our limited, human perspective.

Those are the hard times, when God doesn’t answer as we expect because He sees and knows more. He sees the future, and the ripple effects from the need we’ve been praying about. He sees how to better use this time of struggle.

When we don’t understand, it has to come back to trusting the God who does understand. The better we know His character, the easier it is to trust Him and to surrender to His will and His way.

God our Creator, Saviour and Sustainer, help us to surrender every aspect of our lives into Your capable hands. Give us open eyes and hearts to see more of what You see, and give us the faith to trust You even when we can’t see.

∞

A song I come back to when I’m troubled or confused about the future is the Newsboys‘ “Lord (I Don’t Know).”

*New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Review: Trial by Twelve, by Heather Day Gilbert

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Trial by Twelve, by Heather Day Gilbert | A Murder in the Mountains #2Trial by Twelve, by Heather Day Gilbert (WoodHaven Press, 2015)

Despite her troubled past, Tess is thriving in the close-knit Spencer family. She’s a feisty, straight-talking (and straight-shooting) wife and mother, trying to supplement the family income. She’s not looking for trouble, but trouble finds her – this time in the form of skeletons found buried at the spa where she works. Newer deaths suggest the killer isn’t finished yet.

Tess nearly lost her life the last time she investigated a mystery, and with a young daughter, she’d rather stifle her curiosity and stay safe. Unfortunately, her boss needs her on-site, and the investigating detective asks her to be his eyes on the scene. He promises to do all he can to keep her safe – and then advises her to conceal carry a gun just in case.

This is a satisfying novel, where plot, characters and setting blend into a compelling read. Heather Day Gilbert knows how to keep readers turning pages. Tess is one of those rare-to-me characters I’d like to have as a real-life friend.

Most chapters open with a letter from a disturbing man to the child he left behind, who he’d trained in bow-hunting. If the man was the original killer, are the new deaths a second-generation event? His letters refer to Buddhism and various philosophers, but don’t let that put you off.

Set in the mountains of West Virginia, Trial by Twelve is a clean read, featuring Tess and her family as Christian characters but without the strong spiritual theme that is sometimes expected in Christian fiction. Here is Tess’ most overt thought on faith, comparing herself to her mentor, Miranda:

“I feel so inadequate in the face of her faith, but I know she’d tell me we each grow at our own speed and the point is to be growing.” [Kindle location 3072]

And an example of her sense of humour, which means no disrespect to the church prayer chain:

“Quite a few people have police scanners in these parts, to keep up with the local news. It’s a lot faster than the newspaper, but maybe not quite as lickety-split as the prayer chain.” [Kindle location 3001]

Trial by Twelve is book two in the A Murder in the Mountains series. I’m not sure if it’s stronger than book one, Miranda Warning (which I very much enjoyed) or if I feel that way because I’m getting know the characters better. Either way, bring on book three!

Heather Day Gilbert is also the author of the acclaimed Viking historical novel, God’s Daughter. A sequel, Forest Child, is in the works. For more about the author and her books, visit heatherdaygilbert.com. To read sample chapters from Trial by Twelve, click here.

[Review copy provided by the author.]

Where I’ve Been Lately

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This post’s title makes me smile. Mostly where I’ve been, writing-wise, is hunkered in my writing corner, finishing the first draft of No Safe Place.

My writing nook: a chair under a lamp

My writing nook, complete with stuffed “muse.”

However, this introvert has taken herself and her books into the wider world, and found it’s not as scary as she thought. So far this year I’ve spoken to  a readers’ group at one local church and a seniors’ group at another. Most people at the first event had read one or both of my books, and it was so much fun to be able to talk about my imaginary friends without worrying about spoilers. At the second event, I shared my writing journey so far and reconnected with people I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I’ve also set up book tables at a couple of craft fairs and a conference. I’ll be at a Spring Craft & Business Fair tomorrow at Cole Harbour Place (click the link for details). If you’re in the Halifax area, stop and say hi. [There’s a $2 entry fee, the proceeds of which go to charity.]

Sharing a table with another local author, Cynthia d'Entremont

Sharing a table with another local author, Cynthia d’Entremont

In all honesty, I never expected to enjoy the public side of book promotion, but I’m having fun with this.

I’ve also done some “visiting” online: