Cotton Candy Wolves

A viewer condemned the producer of a wildlife documentary for showing a wolf catching a rabbit and tossing the squealing victim into the air before tearing it into pieces and eating it. The viewer would have been pleased if the production team had taught the wolf to eat cotton candy instead.

While I might sound like I’m condemning the clueless viewer, I understand. I refuse to watch Old Yeller ever again and I know when to close my eyes during movies and wildlife documentaries.

Just think of a cotton candy world where everything is soft, fluffy, and sweet! Unfortunately, this isn’t it.

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It’s strange even to me that I write mystery-romance-suspense books with unhealthy doses of murder included. Perhaps it’s because my experience in the world so far—starting when I was a child rape victim—has included evil. Writing or reading cotton candy stories doesn’t appeal to me. Evil is real, alive, and lives in this world. Thankfully, so does good – and God gives everyone a choice. The battle between good and evil and the triumph of good is infinitely more fascinating to me than a diet of feathery sugar. And as Evan says in Texas Miz Mike’s Bridge to Brigadoon, “Aye, murder is nicer in books. We are safely distanced from it.”

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Dixie lived next door. She eschewed God and mocked Christians for reciting “do nots” while she “had fun” hanging out in local bars. She was seldom home and her young daughters often called out-of-town grandparents to rescue them when their mother vanished with a new conquest – often a just-released felon from prison. Dixie left this world at 34 in a motorcycle crash just down the road from her favorite bar.

Author Alan McKean’s mom recently turned 100 and received a birthday card signed by Queen Elizabeth II. God holds life and death in His hands. Only He knows the secret of longevity. However, I find it noteworthy that Alan’s mom reads from the Bible, sings hymns, and prays every day.

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Cotton candy wolves will exist in the future. Isaiah, Chapter 11 promises that after Jesus returns, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD.”

A cotton candy world! Meanwhile…I’ll keep writing mystery-romance-suspense books with an unhealthy dose of murder thrown in because evil is real and present in this world and wolves don’t eat cotton candy…yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

From Texas to Scotland with Love

Imagine exchanging everything you know and love within a 24-hour period of time: going from a 100F summer to a 59F summer; exchanging Mexican food for fish and chips; switching from driving on the right side of the road to the left; leaving the safety and comfort of traffic lights and stop signs for confusing roundabouts; searching for light switches in bathrooms—because they are on the outside; getting either scalded or splashed by water because the faucets are on separate sides of the sink and the cold water is unexpectedly powerful; discovering that shower curtains are barely needed because the water only sprays within a small, weak circumference, and learning words you’ve never heard before—havering, scunnered, puddock (frog), puggled (tired out), shoogly, stushie, manky, dreich, breeks, glaekit, toerag, dauner, drookit, blether…it can happen. If you love someone enough, it can happen.

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God blessed me with a Scottish husband, Reverend Alan McKean, in 2011. That took me from sunny South USA to the cold and cloudy Scottish Highlands. It’s been quite a trip! Even after I learned that “pavement” means a pedestrian sidewalk (after getting yelled at by an irate bus driver because when he told me to get on the pavement I obediently stepped down to the asphalt in front of the bus), and even after knowing that biscuits are cookies and scones are biscuits, and words have extra letters in them (program is programme), it is still daunting at times. The cold never leaves and summer never comes. There are no dill pickles. Nestle House chocolate chips must (like dill pickles) be shipped in from the U.S. and forget ice tea; it simply doesn’t happen.

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Scotland is a lovely country with awesome scenery in every direction. The people are great. I wouldn’t want to offend them because they are convinced that no one else in the world is like a Scottish Highlander…but one reason I love them so much and feel so welcome here is that they are a bit like Texans. They don’t say “howdy,” “y’all,” “fixinto,” and ain’t, and they are too reserved to go in for hugs unless you really get to know them—but they are warm, friendly, and independent. Great folks.

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So…it had to happen. A Texas writer in Scotland? Scotland got into the books. Two of the Texas Miz Mike mystery-romance-suspense books are set in Scotland. “Bridge to Brigadoon” finds Miz Mike on a vacation on the lovely Black Isle that is neither restful nor predictable. And the newly released “Bridge Back” has Miz Mike coming back to Scotland to marry…but with the differences in language, climate, and culture—will the wedding take place? Not to mention the mystery that threatens her life.

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Funny? Gut-bustingly funny! From start to finish, “Bridge Back” is a hoot. It’s even fun for me to read…and I wrote it.

The Bible guarantees that laughter is good medicine. So if something has you down and a chuckle would lift you up, give “Bridge Back” a read.

And, thanks, y’all!

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Seeing the Wind

For some reason, people like believing impossibilities. For example, they say, “You can’t see the wind. It’s invisible. No one can see the wind.”

I can. I learned to see the wind from my seven-year-old son. We were living in the Nevada desert helping friends run a small gold mine. Luke kept insisting that he could see the wind and I kept parroting the impossibility. “Luke, you can’t see the wind. It’s invisible. No one can see the wind.”

Luke led me through the sagebrush to a vantage point that gave us a clear view over 40 miles of desert and described what he was seeing. Then I saw it too; the dips, swirls, circles and waves of wind playing tag with mountains and sky. It’s a gift from my son that I treasure.

Luke was told he couldn’t climb scrubby cedar trees in the Texas Hill Country because the branches would snap. Yet when we saved a baby possum, Luke climbed upside down in the cedar trees, going from tree to tree without touching the ground, teaching the baby to climb. Not a single limb broke.

When we moved back to the desert, Luke invented “wind surfing.” He tied ropes to the corners of a huge black tarp and let the wind skate him along the ground. One day a sudden gust picked Luke up off the ground, flew him into the window of the house next door, then whisked him into the plowed field behind.

Luke was told, “People can’t fly.” But he did, and with lasting benefits. The alcoholic next door was sitting at the table drinking when Luke flew past the window. The man gave up drinking. “I knew I had to,” he told us, “the day I saw a boy fly past my window.” Somehow…we kept a straight face and never explained about the flying boy!

Luke never believed impossibilities. He was told, “Your ears were damaged by severe ear infections. You can’t do music.” So he learned to play the trumpet and the piano.

Luke was told, “You can’t learn to fly an airplane. Your math isn’t good enough. You’ll never pass ground school.” He learned to fly a plane and flew from North Carolina to California. Then he bought his own plane.

Luke was told, “The Marine Corps will never accept you. You won’t pass the physical. You have scoliosis. You need a metal rod in your back.” Luke prayed and Jesus healed him. He was 37 and just short of retiring from the Marine Corps as a Major when his plane crashed.

My mystery-romance-suspense “Bridge Beyond Betrayal” is dedicated to Luke and includes the prophetic poem he wrote a year before his death. Not only is Texas Miz Mike’s son Ron loosely patterned after Luke (who always gave sound advice and was almost always right—even as a child), but Luke was a constant inspiration in negating impossibilities. Texas Miz Mike learned from his example!

When Miz Mike spots a dead body in the back of a pickup truck, no one believes her. She is told that people don’t tote corpses in the back of their trucks. When she identifies the dead man, no one believes her. His business partners insist he is alive. When energetic Doc is arrested for murder and the town celebrates, no one believes Mike that Doc is innocent. Mike must thrust aside her own dislike of Doc and prove that he is innocent.

Not even romance is safe from impossibilities. Mike and her cowboy hero are just about to get hitched when Doc teaches Mike to dowse for bones. Believing it is witchcraft, Marty is scandalized and breaks off their engagement.

When Mike gets locked in an office building with a nefarious night watchman, it is artist Frank—not Marty—who rescues her. That’s when Texas Miz Mike faces the greatest impossibility of all—choosing between two suitors…if she gets out of being arrested and survives the killer who is determined to make her disappear forever.

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Beyond-Betrayal-Mike-Book-ebook/dp/B00NP3RVB0/ref=sr_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411134397&sr=1-2&keywords=bridge+beyond+betrayal+stephanie+parker+mckean

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Thanksgiving

Scotland folks don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but we will be having a quiet one of our own. There is so much for which to be thankful!

Every breath we take, every step we take, everything we see, hear, touch, feel, or taste is reason enough for an attitude of gratitude. Add to this family, friends, pets, shelter, food and other provisions – and we are blessed beyond measure.

This Thanksgiving we will thank God for health and provision. We will pray for others less fortunate, and do what we can to help them. We will pray for the world’s return to the love, peace, and joy that comes as a gift through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the “Reason for the Season,” and Christ is in CHRISTmas, but the gift of Jesus’ love, joy, power, and salvation is not reserved for one day a year. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life every day.

Another thing on my list of Thanksgiving praise is the publication of my fourth Texas Miz Mike mystery-romance-suspense, “Bridge to Brigadoon,” set in Scotland. I’m excited!

To thank readers, I am offering a choice of gifts to the first five folks who review “Bridge to Brigadoon” on Amazon: either signed copies of “Bridge to Nowhere” or “Bridge Beyond Betrayal,” or a Scottish mug. When the review is posted and the reader has sent me his or her physical address and indicated which gift he or she would like to receive – I will send it immediately…with a grateful and thankful heart!

In one of the wackiest Miz Mike adventures ever, successful writer Michal Allison Rice is packed off to Scotland by her son and daughter-in-law for a vacation. They believe the trip will heal her broken heart—and hope that it will teach her to mind her own business. Mike does not want to go to Scotland. It is COLD there. And once in Scotland, she doesn’t want to stay. Hotdogs come in cans, dill pickles are non-existent and driving on the wrong side of the road terrifies her. However, when elderly Ross Granger is killed, Mike feels responsible and sets out in search for the killer. Nearly killed herself, Mike is faced with a dilemma: no one believes her. She is viewed as “an American stushie-maker.” But the gravest danger of all proves to be Rev. Alan Evan Kirkland, a Scottish widower who befriends her, then demands the one thing in repayment that she is unwilling to give—her heart.

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Brigadoon-Stephanie-Parker-McKean-ebook/dp/B0186YKIGW/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447939591&sr=1-1&keywords=bridge+to+brigadoon+stephanie+parker+mckean Bridge_Brigadoon_Final_Kindle_downsized

Waltzing Across Texas with Love & Murder

I don’t usually blog about my books unless a new one has just been released. I’m making an exception this week because my first in the Texas Miz Mike series – “Bridge to Nowhere” – is reduced in price. I’d like everyone to know so they can buy it, laugh at Miz Mike’s many “pickles,” and then move on to the other books in the series if they like it.

“Bridge to Nowhere” is a Christian mystery-romance-suspense sparkling with humor. “Forty-something” Miz Mike tries to mind her own business, really she does. But how could she turn down the pleas and tears of a lovely young girl who comes to her for help in solving her sister’s murder?

Solve it Miz Mike does, along with solving a few minor mysteries along the way, and breaking up a brutal dog fighting ring. But success sports a steep price tag. The killer comes after Mike.

Besides surviving attempts on her life, Mike survives the near-death of the romance of her dreams when ex-Hollywood actor Marty Richards (Marty and Mike, M&Ms in her mind just like her favorite chocolate candy) misinterprets her kindness to rescued “misfits” at her ranch as evidence of sexual promiscuity.

Then in an event that tests her Christian faith, Mike’s young grandson is kidnapped. Catching the kidnapper and getting the child back seems impossible – even with prayer.

Enter Clint Flavors who loves to fish and whose mind possesses the ability to follow hidden, serpentine paths that no one else can follow. Some mock Clint for not being the sharpest tack in the box – but this is Three Prongs, Texas, where the misfits fit and where strange events are near about as common as bucking Brahmas on the rodeo circuit. Clint solves a mystery that baffles the experts.

Will evil win? Will good win? Will Miz Mike ever get that first kiss from cowboy hero Marty? You’ll have to read “Bridge to Nowhere” to find out – and fortunately for you – it’s on sale!

Eleven 5-Star reviews can’t be wrong!

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Nowhere-Miz-Mike-Book-ebook/dp/B00904MBS6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444824478&sr=1-1&keywords=bridge+to+nowhere+stephanie+parker+mckean

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridge-Nowhere-Miz-Mike-Book-ebook/dp/B00904MBS6/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445070595&sr=1-1&keywords=bridge+to+nowhere+stephanie+parker+mckean

Seagull Sex & Romance Writing

Living as close to the water as we do it is impossible to get through spring without realizing that seagulls like sex. The males beat wings of love over the females crying in coarse ecstasy while the females add their own chortles of joy.

God invented sex. It’s biblical. Song of Solomon is a marriage manual for sex. “A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me that lies all night between my breasts…Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of Bether…Your lips, O my spouse, drip as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue…Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits.”

Since my favorite genre as a writer is mystery-romance-suspense, I’m thankful God created sex. It’s a gift He gave humans to glue their marriages together and keep them intact through difficult circumstances. God’s perfect plan for marriage is presented in the Bible: a man and woman leave their parents, become one flesh, and stick together until death parts them. Marriage doesn’t always follow the guidelines – but God’s plan always works best. Sex helps.

God’s gifts should be revered and valued, not re-gifted or treated as cheap bubble machine ornaments to be given away, tossed or trampled. Sex matters. God intends it to be a gift that a husband and wife open after the marriage ceremony. That’s why my Christian mystery-romance-suspense books are fun, entertaining, clean, safe reads.

My sexiest and most enticing hero in the Texas Miz Mike series thus far is likely Native American Indian Chief Alan Bitterroot. Readers will discover passion, love, and amazing adventure and suspense in “Bridge to Xanadu.” They will also discover two Christian characters facing the ultimate temptation to open the sex gift – with our without marriage. Do they?

Sex is good. It’s not “dirty” or “shameful.” Christians are like seagulls. They enjoy sex. Good thing – because it keeps romance writers working!

From finding a dead body in the dumpster at the sheriff’s office to being straddled by a knife-welding rapist and serial killer, Texas Miz Mike is back in her most gripping and humorous mystery-romance-suspense ever, “Bridge to Xanadu.”

Oh – and did I mention that “Bridge to Xanadu” puts Mike on a collision course with her newest hero and tests them both to see how they will handle the temptation to open the sex gift early?

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Xanadu-Miz-Mike-Book-ebook/dp/B00WFC67V2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429593376&sr=1-1&keywords=bridge+to+xanadu+stephanie+parker+mckean

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Prophet on Fire!

Bible prophet Jeremiah faced constant ridicule, mocking, and cruel physical treatment including imprisonment and incarceration in a muddy dungeon for his faithful witness and warnings about how lifestyle choices earn God’s blessings or God’s wrath. Jeremiah became so fearful, bitter, and hurt by ill treatment that he decided to quit preaching God’s Word – but he couldn’t.

“His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones,” Jeremiah lamented. “I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (Jeremiah 20:9) So the weeping prophet kept preaching.

I feel somewhat like a prophet on fire! I’ve been holding back on introducing my newest Christian mystery-romance-suspense, Fear of Shadows, until it is actually released. But it should be released sometime this week and I simply can’t hold back. It’s like a burning fire shut up in my bones and it’s begging for release. Also, we will be gone and away from a computer for a week – so here’s a synopsis of Fear of Shadows.

I was about to loose my virginity against my will in a moldy smelling house with plaster falling off the walls, critters crawling up through holes in the floor—on a torn, stained bed with no sheets and rat droppings bouncing around me when I moved. I deserved better than this. I deserved the right of choice. I deserved the right to the joy of making love for the first time with someone I loved. I deserved to give myself to a man for the first time in a clean bed with clean sheets.

Self-sufficient Texas Eugenia Thornhill espouses many rebellions including giving a man—any man—authority over her heart, or her life. She hates the mother who named her “Texas” after her birth state instead of loving her enough to give her a real name. She hates the mother who ran off and left her young child with a cold, emotionless father.

Texas likes to brag that she’s not afraid of anything—not even spiders or snakes. Her boast proves empty when she meets childhood friend West Strom and realizes that she is deathly afraid of shadows, but clueless as to why. Time and again she shatters their nascent romance by mindlessly shrieking and running out of her childhood home, fleeing the shadows that terrify her.

Pranksters also seem intent on sabotaging the relationship. A dead raccoon is hung on the refrigerator, a rock is thrown through the window, furniture is trundled around the room in total disarray, then righted again before West arrives to investigate.

Texas is tricked into holding a séance. West, a strong Christian, is appalled that Texas is involved in witchcraft. That almost ends their friendship.

But the most destructive force entering her life proves to be the seemingly harmless fun of frequenting a Texas dancehall with Thornhill Ranch manager Jason Peace. She finds herself accused of murder and forced into hiding. When she escapes and clears her name, it only adds to the dystopia at the ranch.

Texas exhibits her paintings in a feminist art show in San Antonio and meets her mother. Her mother apologizes, but does not explain her abandonment. When they say goodbye, Texas is saying goodbye to a stranger.

West arrives to rescue her from what Texas has realized is a nefarious art exhibit revolving around hate and discord. But even though West gives Texas a kiss that stuns her with its passion, how many times can her childhood hero rescue her from her foolish choices and paralyzing fear of shadows?

When Texas finally solves the mystery of her mother’s disappearance and learns the truth about her fear of shadows, it is a truth that threatens to destroy every single person she loves.

So, hope Fear of Shadows makes it out this week and hope you’ll buy it and enjoy it! I’ll be sharing the link when we get back. Meantime, you can probably find it surfing the web. And – hey – thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Hanger Sex

I credit the late American humorist Erma Bombeck, newspaper columnist and author of 15 books, for alerting me to the fact that hangers have sex.

Actually, I didn’t believe Bombeck when I read it in one of her columns. She alluded to the well known fact that clothes dryers periodically get the munchies and eat socks, but only one of each pair of course – to heighten the entertainment value. Then she disclosed the secret that clothes hangers reproduce.

At the time Bombeck revealed the truth about hangers and closet sex, I didn’t believe her because I could never find enough hangers. When I moved to Scotland two years ago, I still had my doubts. Shirts were hanging two and three on one hanger because of the shortage. Then we had an unusually warm summer here in Scotland, meaning it got about as warm as Texas stays in the winter. And it happened. Scads of empty hangers. Sex leading to procreation, it seems pretty clear about what happens when the closet doors shut and it’s warmer than usual.

Hangers are not the only things that reproduce wildly and crowd space. Mean, cruel, wounding words and profanity steal and kill joy, feeding off the carcasses to multiply sorrows. This is why there are so many verses in the Bible warning us to guard our tongues and use them as trees of life instead of weapons.

I love reading! My choice is mystery-romance-suspense. One reason I decided to write what I love reading is to provide Christians with exciting action-packed books – without the profanity, drinking, and risky lifestyle choices in a lot of other fiction.

Bridge to Nowhere, published by Sunpenny, finds older protagonist Texan Miz Mike hunting down mysteries and romance. She can’t help it that she’s funny and gets herself into “pickles,” she just can’t let an adventure pass by unmolested.

Love’s Beating Heart is a parallel adventure story. Pregnant teen Natasha and best friend Dena find themselves plunging down a flooded river on a quest to “save Baby” from the abortion her parents have demanded. Meanwhile, Dena’s older sister Cat escapes from an abusive boyfriend and is rescued by a Christian homeschooling family. Cat thinks they’re crazy – but she would like to claim dad Skylar for herself.

My favorite of my Christian mystery-romance-suspense books is probably my first, Heart Shadows. Set in the Nevada desert and full of Native American history and desert scenery, Hear Shadows is a gripping story.

Shadow Chase and Until the Shadows Flee are set in the Texas Hill Country, as is the soon-to-be published Fear of Shadows. So…my Amazon Author’s Page will soon have six mystery-romance-suspense books listed on it. It’s expanding – sort of like the hangers!

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Sand and Storms

Where we live, the sand along the beach is wet, smooth and flat—until gale force winds blow.

Strong winds change the sand, swirling it into patterns and pushing it up around rocks and pebbles. When this happens, the beach changes. Interesting patterns and textures emerge, replacing the mundane scenery with sand pictures and a kaleidoscope landscape of infinite variety.

Our lives are much the same. Left in peace and comfort, the pages of our life turn in humdrum sameness. Nothing new, nothing scary, nothing unsettled. But when the winds of adversity howl around us, the landscape of our lives suddenly change. Like seagrass along the shore, we must dig roots deeper, strengthen fiber, stand resolutely against the storm. When the wind hushes to a whisper and the sand quits blowing blindingly, we have grown. We have changed. We are stronger.

We could live out our lives in comfort and peace if storms never battered us. But we would be like weeds growing up through mulch—protected—but with shallow roots that hinder maturity.

God-sent wind and storms should not alarm, frighten or discourage us. Just as God promises in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to those who love the LORD.”

Nor should man-made storms alarm, frighten, or discourage us. God does not send every storm that comes into our lives. Sometimes storms are a result of sin—ours or others.

It was not God’s plan that I should have been sexually abused as a child and forced to flee home and live under a bridge. It was not God’s storm that forced me into two abortions that nearly killed me. Yet God took the broken reeds left behind by those human storms of sin and depravity and strengthened them into a deeply planted life. He built new structures on the tragic and hurtful experiences of the past to bless my future. God’s blessing explains the success of my two “inspirational” and “life-changing” books, mystery-romance-suspense Bridge to Nowhere, and pro-life adventure-romance Love’s Beating Heart. Neither of those books would have been inspired by calm comfort.

Welcome storms into your life. You never know what blessings they will blow into your life.

Real Men Wear Skirts

Here in Scotland, real men wear skirts for special occasions, only they’re not called skirts, they’re called kilts. It takes a real man to wear a kilt for several reasons.

Reason number one that it takes a real man to wear a kilt is that in some parts of the world, clueless individuals mock and call the kilt “a skirt.” Kilts have been traditional wear here for hundreds of years. Scots people are proud of their historic clans and the colors in the tartans denote individual clans, just like the 1950s movie Brigadoon, which I hasten to add is not popular over here.

The second reason it takes a real man to wear a kilt is that kilts are worn with nothing under them. Besides the obvious danger of strong gusts of wind or leaping about with joy, it is cold here. I think it’s very brave to expose that part of the anatomy to cold with limited protection.

The third reason real men wear kilts – refer back to reasons one and two. Suffice it to say that kilts matter here because they are a badge of honor, identification and national pride.

God doesn’t demand that Christians wear kilts. But He does demand that we put a difference between ourselves and the world. We should be so like Jesus that we become walking Bibles that can be read by our words and actions. James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

Christians are warned not to follow a multitude to do evil and not to envy evil people no matter how wealthy or socially respected. Christians are ordered to be salt and light, the salt for cleansing and light to lead others to Jesus, the Savior of the world. Jesus said “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Like real men who wear kilts, real Christians who wear the breath of Jesus are frequently mocked.

I’ve had a lot of people write to me, email me and call me to tell me that they loved my mystery-romance-suspense Bridge to Nowhere. But I’ve had people yell at me for having written my pro-life teen & up adventure-romance Love’s Beating Heart. I’ve been accused of stirring up the abortion issue to sell books, even though I wrote Love’s Beating Heart with a prayer that it will save the lives of unborn children.

Ultimately, it is not either the people who have praised me for Bridge to Nowhere, or the people who have criticized me for Love’s Beating Heart who matter. The only opinion that matters is God’s. His approval is eternal.

Real Christians wear spiritual skirts. They willingly wear the heart of God and accept mocking and derision. Then, following Jesus’ command, they step it up a notch. They forgive those who have criticized and condemned them just as Jesus did. They realize that non-Christians are clueless and need love, prayer and forgiveness.

So…kilts, skirts, or just a smile…wear whatever spiritual dress God sends to you, and wear it proudly. You don’t have to be from Scotland to wear a kilt.