#ThursdayThoughts: Special Guest Post by Terri Blackstock!

Good Morning Friends,

It is my great pleasure to bring you a special guest post today by award-winning author, Terri Blackstock!

Modern Day Woman at the Well

I love the story about the Woman at the Well in John 4. In the Jewish culture, it wasn’t acceptable for a man to be alone with a single woman—especially a Samaritan—yet Jesus spoke to her as though she was the most important person in her village. He had a purpose for her—to take the message of the Messiah’s arrival to her neighbors. He gently pointed out her sin—that she’d had five husbands and was living, unmarried, with a sixth. Her life was a mess. She was so ostracized by the women of her town, that she didn’t come to draw water with the rest of them. She lived a lonely life of regret, yet Jesus had big plans for her.

My character, Holly, in my new book Twisted Innocence, is a lot like that woman. Her life is a mess, and she’s made horrible choices. Those choices have cost her a lot, and now, unmarried, she’s given birth to a baby girl. She’s a Christian who long ago strayed from her faith after her preacher-father abandoned the family for another woman, but now that she’s a mother, she’s homesick for her faith and desperately wants to live a stable life for her daughter.

My hope in writing Twisted Innocence is that all those people out there who have made bad choices and messed up their lives, those people who think that God is disgusted and fed up with them, will relate to Holly’s story and see that there’s still time for redemption. The saddest thing in the world to me is for a person to believe there are no more chances left, that their actions have sealed their fate, that there’s no turning back.

But that’s not true. If Jesus could choose the Woman at the Well to be the bearer of His good news to the Samaritans, instead of some religious leader or respected member of the community, then He must have a purpose for you. If He could choose the apostle Paul, who had made it his business to murder Christians, then what could you have done that is beyond the power of his sacrifice? If God could use David, who’d had a man murdered because he got his wife pregnant, are you beyond His forgiveness?

Holly’s not the only one in need of redemption in Twisted Innocence. In this thriller, when Holly’s baby’s father, a murder suspect, comes back into the picture, Holly realizes her consequences have caught up to her. He takes her and the baby hostage, and Holly’s life changes again. But Creed has a story of his own, and he feels redemption is just out of his grasp.

There’s a strong message of God’s provision throughout the Moonlighters Series, and with this final book, I pray that Christ will convict hearts and draw hurting people to Himself.

Terri Blackstock is a New York Times best-seller, with over six million copies sold worldwide. She is the winner of three Carol Awards, a Christian Retailers Choice Award, and a Romantic Times Book Reviews Career Achievement Award, among others. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in The Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual “new kid,” her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist.

To keep up with Terri Blackstock, visit www.terriblackstock.com, become a fan on Facebook (tblackstock) or follow her on Twitter (@TerriBlackstock).

Wow, it is such a pleasure and an honor to have Terri visit today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Stay tuned for Saturday Spotlight with Jen J Danna!

Until later...take care & God Bless.

PamT