Tag: contemporary christian fiction

“A Powerful Novel that Consumed Me”

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 2 Comments

Many thanks to Julia Catherine Wilson, at Christian Bookaholic, for this thoughtful review that hits on my novel’s main themes:

Someone They Can Trust by Colleen Scheid is a powerful Christian contemporary novel that consumed me.

There is such a lot to say about this story that it is hard to know where to begin. The story is about a church and the community including the leadership. We see that churches are made up of flawed individuals in need of a Savior. Churches are not places for the perfect (there is no such thing, only Jesus is perfect) but places where the lost, the hurt and the hopeful can find and follow Jesus. “ ‘God loves you’… ‘Why? I’m useless and selfish and a hot mess.’ “ God does His best work with broken vessels.

We see the huge theme of trust and a wider theme of innocence vs. experience. We trust those who are older, believing them to be wiser. It is wicked when those in power abuse their position. We all have a past. Sometimes we have hurts in our past that we have pushed so far down, they are hidden, even from ourselves. God sees our hurts. He wants to transform us, not just for today, but for our past hurts and our future ones too. “A sense of God cleaning up her past, transforming what had been shameful… into spiritual encounters that healed.”

Everyone needs to have good influences in their lives. “Someone who could help him towards God rather than luring him away.” We all need someone to point us to Jesus. If we do not tell people about Him, who will? Prayer is powerful. It can be as simple as “Silently prayed, Jesus, help me.” God hears our heart’s longing even when we cannot form the words. Sometimes we are so busy doing things for Jesus, that we miss Him. “I’m too task-orientated and not listening to God very well.” We need to make time to be still and to find Jesus. He is in the silence. He is in the sunrise. He is in our hearts calling to us.

There is the heart-breaking topic of Alzheimer’s as we watch a character slip away little by little. All the characters were delightfully drawn and realistic. They struggled with issues that are relevant to us today – pride, anger, envy and more. They were realistically flawed human beings striving to be a better version of themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed Someone They Can Trust. It was a powerful, relevant read. I received a free copy from the author. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

We Have to Live with Alzheimer’s

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 4 Comments

Eighth Reason I Wrote, “Someone They Can Trust”

“Someone They Can Trust”, my new novel, is available on Amazon. To receive news about what I’m writing, please subscribe to the author email at the bottom of this post.

Alzheimer’s Disease is a public health problem of staggering proportions, and a personal tragedy for a good chunk of our population. (Around six million people have it in the United States.)

Even if we weren’t dealing with mass shootings, a loneliness epidemic and a childcare crisis – the prevalence of Alzheimer’s is a loud call to band together and live more communally. Dementia can wreck a family. It’s that hard to deal with.

There’s a character in my novel, “Someone They Can Trust” who has Alzheimer’s, and the story shows how a loving community can make life livable for the victims of the disease and for their caregivers.

One of three protagonists in the book, Maya, is the main caregiver for her beloved Grandmother, who is found to have Alzheimer’s early in the story.

Another protagonist, Janice, lost her mother to the disease several years before, and is determined not to leave Maya to deal with her crisis alone.

The bond between these two women proves to be healing for both of them.

The story not only describes the grandmother’s descent from a devout and useful life; it’s a story about life going on and being full of graceful, sweet moments even in the midst of the disease. Those are what we can learn to create for each other. This is only one thread in the story arcs of three people, but I think it’s an important one. One in nine people over 65 now have this disease, so none of us is too far removed from it.

That’s why I wrote this book.

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

God Loves Beautiful Art – Written, Painted, Sung, Built, Forged

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 1 Comment

Seventh of Ten Reasons I Wrote, “Someone They Can Trust”

“Someone They Can Trust”, my new novel, is available on Amazon. To receive news about what I’m writing, please subscribe to the author email at the bottom of this post.

God is obviously a good designer, as the varied gorgeousness of Earth testifies.

BAL183671 Allegory of the Creation of the Cosmos (oil on canvas);Wijnen, Domenicus van (Ascanius) (1661-c.90) (after);oil on canvas;600 X 482;Pavlovsk Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia;Out of copyright

I’m assuming God also likes good art to be part of worship gatherings, since his instructions to the Hebrews for building their first temple were specific to the last detail and He had master artisans in mind to do the work (Exodus 35 to 40.)

In my latest manuscript, “Someone They Can Trust”, one of the main characters is an artist, and her love for God is both inspired by beauty, and returned with skillful, beautiful painting.

Another character is a worship minister who uses the arts to the best of his ability in planning powerful worship experiences. He also uses the arts as a way of reaching out to the community with invitations to a fabulous gathering, based on something I saw Charlie and Ruth Jones do in Greensboro, N.C. a few years ago.

Every month they opened their downtown home to 20 to 30 people for a wonderful meal, followed by an open stage for local artists.. I had never seen a more diverse group of people enjoying themselves together more.

My theater company, “Friends of the Groom” joined them, performed some sketches, and were delighted and renewed by the great food, spoken word and music.

Good art and hospitality are a powerful combination. I wanted to show how they build strong community. That’s why I wrote this book.

.

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

I Wanted More Time With My Characters!

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 2 Comments

Sixth of Ten Reasons I Wrote, Someone They Can Trust”

Sometimes you get so attached to characters that you just can’t confine them to one book. Two of the three protagonists in “Someone They Can Trust”, my latest novel, first showed up in short stories in my collection, “Christmas on Pleasant Hill”.

Matt was a funny, talented, self- deprecating music minister who pulled off a bizarre but successful Christmas concert in, “The Best Christmas Concert Ever”.

Janice was an attractive woman recovering from a wrenching divorce, the departure of her grown children, and a difficult mother needing care in “The Painting”. I just had to see what was going to happen next for these people I liked so much!

The third lead character in the novel, Maya, has not appeared in any other book, but has lived in my head for a few decades. I have no idea where she came from, but I knew I wanted her story to weave in with the other two!

That’s why I wrote this book!

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

Diverse Churches Needed

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 2 Comments

Fourth of 10 Reasons I Wrote, “Someone They Can Trust”

“Someone You Can Trust”, my new novel, releases on Amazon on May 23. For more information, subscribe to the author email at the bottom of this post.

In the novel, “Someone They Can Trust”, black people and white people go to church together, pray together and study the Bible together.

This shouldn’t be a big deal, given that the Bible presents a vision of God’s kingdom welcoming every single people group, but the U.S.A. has an abysmal record regarding racial equity, and our churches are mostly segregated.

The black church has been a place of refuge and safety for generations of African Americans, so it’s understandable if they want their churches to stay segregated.

There are many reasons why white churches are segregated – they may reflect the reality of all-white surroundings, they may not know how to go about being welcoming to people of color even if they want to, or they may contain outright racists. Or all of the above.

Despite these wrenching realities, the bigger reality is that God’s Spirit of love is always working to break down barriers of race, class, age, belief and education. This novel shows a church allowing that to happen. We need to be able to replicate churches that are safe for people of color, which are also attended by white people. That’s why I wrote this book.

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

10 Reasons I Wrote, “Someone They Can Trust”:

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 2 Comments

3. Church, We Have a Problem

“Someone You Can Trust”, my new novel, releases on Amazon on May 23. For more information, subscribe to the author email at the bottom of this post.

The novel I recently finished, “Someone They Can Trust”, takes place in a church a lot like mine, in a neighborhood a lot like mine. Because the setting will be familiar to some readers, I want to make one thing really clear – the abusive pastor in this novel is radically different from any pastor I have ever had in any church I’ve ever been to. I have only ever known pastors who are kind, decent, respectful and morally above reproach.

So if anyone reads an excerpt and recognizes my setting, please don’t think I’m talking about any of its pastors!

The fictional pastor in the book, is a compilation character who emerged from several alarming stories I heard from friends. Unfortunately these kinds of stories keep emerging in national media, and holding abusive leaders accountable doesn’t seem to be a strong suit for our churches. If we can’t discipline our leaders in a biblical way, we have a problem on our hands – that’s why I wrote this book.

“Someone They Can Trust” is available for preorder on Amazon Kindle.

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

God Heals People, Really

~ Colleen Scheid ~ 4 Comments

Second of 10 Reasons I Wrote “Someone You Can Trust”:

“Someone You Can Trust”, my new novel, releases on Amazon on May 23. For more information, subscribe to the author email at the bottom of this post.

A psychologist in my writer’s group read some passages in my latest novel and said, “This is the first book I’ve ever read that has a passage incorporating prayer for inner healing.”

There aren’t too many novels that incorporate healing prayer of any kind, at least not that I’ve found. Leif Enger’s  “Peace Like a River” is one luminous exception, and years ago I read a novel by Agnes Sanford, a well-known leader of the Anglican charismatic movement in the mid 20th century, but it was a pretty bad fiction (her non-fiction books are wonderful).

So here goes me giving it a shot in “Someone You Can Trust”, now available for Preorder.

Through prayers, I have seen God straighten out a bent spine, reverse a spina bifida diagnosis, melt away a brain tumor, and salvage someone’s fading sight. I have experienced prayer for mental and emotional issues that substantially reduced my symptoms of depression and anxiety, and gave me courage to realign myself in messed up relationships. I’m convinced that God wants to heal us.

So in the course of this novel, two of the three protagonists, Maya and Janice, experience substantial healing in sessions with a therapist who also prays (therapists who pray in sessions are rare, but there are a few out there.) Maya, who spent time with missionaries in rural China, also prays for people’s physical healing, a normative practice among the Christians she knew there. My training as a reporter makes me scrupulous about writing true scenes – even in fiction, I only write it if I’ve seen it happen or heard of it firsthand from a credible source.

Many people assume that illness is caused by God, or that God is indifferent to it. My experiences have turned such theology upside down. That’s why I wrote this book.

Newsletter signup

Please sign up for occassional author emails to learn more about my books and articles!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!