Book Giveaway & Guest Jo Huddleston

It's Wednesday! Welcome to my blog. I'm giving away another book and I have a guest - Jo Huddleston. It's wonderful to have you here, Jo.

Jo Huddleston is a multi-published author of books, articles, and short stories. Her novels in the West Virginia Mountains Series and the Caney Creek Series are sweet Southern historical romances. She is a member of ACFW, the Literary Hall of Fame at Lincoln Memorial University (TN), and holds a M.Ed. degree from Mississippi State University.

Visit Jo at:

http://www.johuddleston.com where you can sign up for her mailing list and read her blogs.

Christian authors’ books blog: http://johuddleston.com
Inspirational blog: http://lifelinesnow.blogspot.com
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/joshuddleston
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/fournovels
Amazon author page: amazon.com/author/johuddleston
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1615694.Jo_Huddleston
The Book Club Network: http://www.bookfun.org/profile/JoHuddleston

Cure for Loneliness

One late September day, my parents and I loaded the majority of my possessions into the car and prepared for the trip. On previous occasions, I had visited the college campus with my parents, taking along another friend or two.

Those earlier trips had been round trips. Today would be a one-way trip for me, with no return home. This was the long-anticipated day when I would get to sprout my wings and finally be on my own, away from home and parents.

My elementary school years had begun during World War Two at a time when my daddy moved from location to location, wherever the better defense jobs were—aluminum companies that made materials for wartime airplanes. Thus, from kindergarten through high school, I changed to a new school eight times.

In the primary grades I remember the changes as being nothing more than an exciting venture. But in junior high and high school, the changes proved much more traumatic. I’ll never forget changing schools in mid-tenth grade. Mother drove me to the school and spent time with me in the principal’s office getting me
enrolled. Then she went home. The school secretary gave me directions to my first class.

To get to that classroom, I had to walk the length of a mile-long (to me) hallway lined with lockers. It seemed the entire student body gathered at those lockers preparing for the upcoming class period.

That walk took an eternity. Even though I looked straight ahead, I sensed in my peripheral vision every head turning and following me as I walked by. I heard their loud whispers, “Look. There’s the new girl.” Even though I’d been the new girl many times before, each time didn’t get any easier.

The unmerited attention at each new school contributed to my withdrawing farther into my shell of protection—I became quiet and withdrawn. It’s a wonder I made any friends in high school. With such an introverted attitude many might have mistakenly called me conceited or stuck up.

But, instead, the senior class voted me as the Most Sophisticated Girl. This resulted from a combination of my reserved quietness and mature behavior. I was a mess. Going to college where nobody knew me or my past, I determined I would “reinvent” myself.

Once on the college campus that September day, my bravado vanished and reality settled in when my parents’ car drove out of sight. I was finally “in college,” but words couldn’t describe how lonely I felt in the first moments after my parents’ farewell. My assigned roommate hadn’t arrived. I had met no one. I was alone.

My parents had raised me as their only child. I had spent much of my growing-up time in the company of adults. People have said that’s why I behaved in such a mature way—adults had been my role models with hardly any input from anyone my age except during school days.

But this day at college sixty miles from home, loneliness draped heavily across my shoulders. I felt isolated despite the bustle of other people moving around me. A painful longing choked off my ability to move. I wanted to run after the departing car and wrap myself in the comfort of the two people inside.

In spite of these consuming feelings, I wanted to burst victoriously onto this new scene and belong. To combat being lonely, it’s easy to depend on others and surroundings for help. Peer acceptance seems to fill most voids at any age. But gaining that acceptance sometimes requires that we step knee-deep into peer-pressure quagmire. That decision can suck us into a position where we’re never alone, yet still lonely.

Society presents attractive cures for loneliness. We only have to watch television commercials. They show us beautiful people flooded with pleasure, seemingly with no responsibility. The not-so-subtle messages lure us into the false belief that life could really be that much fun, that attractive, all the time, for everybody.

When loneliness doesn’t wait for an invitation and sometimes overstays its welcome, God’s support provides comfort. We don’t have to depend on exaggerated beauty of worldly pleasures and acceptance.

God gives his Holy Spirit to help and comfort us in our weaknesses—even in loneliness (Rom. 8:26). We don’t have to feel weak and alone. God sent the Holy Spirit as one we can turn to. God lives within us by the Spirit. Even when we don’t know what to pray for, he intercedes with the Father on our behalf (Rom.8:26-27).

The Holy Spirit did his job for me that crisp, fall day I started college. He gave my legs the will to move, protected me, and supplied me with the right words to say. Today we can ask God to give us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and strengthen us (Luke 11:13).


Jo, thank you for sharing your story. How good to know no matter what we face, God stands with us.

Jo has a new book! 

Trust Me

West Virginia, 1960

A mine owner. An elegant lady.

Seductive voices that scoff at trust.

Loreen Fletcher has suffered heartbreak. She resolves never to trust a man again.She has earned a respected position with no help from anyone, especially not from a man. At thirty-six, Loreen knows loving brings inevitable misery, and she won't pick at that scab again.

Claude Capshaw's life has taken another detour. Things that drove him no longer motivate him. Nothing fulfillls him anymore - except that elegant lady at West Virginia University. Why won't she trust him when he tells her he'l never betray her?


Purchase Links
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Historical-Romance-Virginia-
Mountains-ebook/dp/B013EX0P0Y/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438875978&sr=1-
5&keywords=Jo+Huddleston

This looks like another good read. 

Jo is giving away a FREE copy of Trust Me. All you need to do is leave a comment along with your email address and you'll be included in a drawing for an e-book copy of Jo's new book.

And last week's winner of Gail Kittleson's Catching Up With Daylight is Sonnetta Jones. Congratulations!

Grace and peace to you from God,

Bonnie

Wednesday Book Giveaway -- Guest Blogger, Jo Huddleston

It's Wednesday! One of you will win a FREE book and I have a guest blogger. Welcome Jo Huddleston.

Jo Huddleston is a multi-published author of books, articles, and short stories. Her debut novel in the Caney Creek Series and her latest book, Wait for Me are sweet Southern romances.

She is a member of ACFW, the Literary Hall of Fame at Lincoln Memorial University (TN), and holds a M.Ed. degree from Mississippi State University.

Jo lives in the U.S. Southeast with her husband, near their two grown children and four grandchildren.

You can find Jo at:

Website www.johuddleston.com
Blog http://www.johuddleston.com
Blog http://lifelinesnow.blogspot.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joshuddleston
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1615694.Jo_Huddleston

You can purchase eBook for Kindle and print copies of Wait for Me at: 
http://tiny.cc/xndfwx


Jo has a special permaFREE eBook, Amen and Good Morning God: A Book of Morning Prayers

Always free and available at:
Kindle eBook copy: http://tiny.cc/xjwavx
Other eBook formats: http://tiny.cc/7qwavx












Thoughts from Jo -

Preparing for a Bumper Crop

Business at the plant nurseries is booming. Spring’s start has caused a rush to buy flowers and shrubbery. Spring has always been a time of new life bursting forth after the dead of winter’s cold. It’s new growth rising from sleeping seeds.

Recently on a clear, sunny weekend, I bought some bedding plants for transplanting. Healthy, red geraniums. I thought my task of plating the flowers would be an enjoyable one, perhaps even an easy one. 

When I set a planter box before me in which I wanted to put the geraniums, I faced something totally unexpected.

I faced not a simple task of lifting the bedding plants one by one and merely putting them into the dirt or the planter box. No, the dirt in the box was not soft and moist as it had been last spring when I’d first planted flowers in it. Something had to be done about the hard, dry soil before I could ever place new flowers there.

I had to prepare the soil for my purpose. Even if I could have dug small holes for the placement of each bedding plant, the surrounding soil would still have been caked around them. This surely would not have been a favorable condition for the new flowers’ growth.

No, I had to prepare the soil. I had to go from one end of the planter to the other, loosening every last inch of the dirt with my trowel. It wasn’t easy breaking up the hard dirt; it was almost like chipping away at a piece of marble.

Preparing the soil took longer than the actual planting of the new geraniums.While I dug and chipped and even crumbled dry earth with my hands, I had time to think. I was reminded of many situations that require lengthy and thorough preparation before an actual deed can be accomplished: the hours of studying required of a student for a good performance on a test; the long, nine months of development prior to the birth of a child; the many, many months of learning and training before an astronaut can actually engage in space flight.

But the most important reminder while I prepared the soil for planting had to do with relationships. People getting along with people.

We don’t all think alike; nor come from similar backgrounds that influence our actions; nor hold the same principles that govern our lifestyles. Differences are a distinguishing characteristic between people. Differences tend to set us apart. We hold differing opinions on many issues and get excited about different things and cling to different values and virtues.

In light of all our differences, seeing eye-to-eye with everybody becomes a difficult task. Something is needed or else we could never get along with many folks. Yes, something has to be done to the hard, dry soil of personalities before a right relationship can exist between people.

In the Bible, Jesus tells a parable of the farmer, a sower of seeds (Matthew 13:1-10). Getting along with people can be likened to those seeds the farmer planted. 

All kinds of obstacles lie along the way to good human relationships. The rocky places and thorns are the differences we have. In such cases we must prepare the soil of differences so that we can realize a bumper crop of harmony and goodwill. The highest priority of preparation would be to put aside selfish desires. And remembering the Golden Rule of doing toward others as you would want them to do toward you (Luke 6:31). Putting other people first, loving one another. It’s all a thing of the heart.

Getting all these relationship right is not easy. Just as farming is not easy. But following an unsuccessful crop, the farmer doesn’t quit. He goes out the next time, prepares the soil and plants again, striving toward that abundant, bumper crop.

Yes, the preparation indeed is often as important as the actual deed that is achieved. May we all continue preparing our hearts for a brotherhood of all people.


Good thoughts, Jo. Thank you for this important reminder.

Jo Huddleston's New Book

Can Julie, an only child raised with privilege and groomed for high society, and
Robby, a coal miner’s son, escape the binds of their socioeconomic backgrounds?

Set in a coal mining community in West Virginia in the 1950s, can their love
survive their cultural boundaries?

This is a tragically beautiful love story of a simple yet deep love between two soul
mates, Robby and Julie. The American South’s rigid caste system and her mother
demand that Julie chooses to marry an ambitious young man from a prominent and
suitable family. Julie counters her mother’s stringent social rules with deception
and secrets in order to keep Robby in her life.

Can the couple break the shackles of polite society and spend their lives together? Will Julie’s mother ever accept Robby?


This sounds good, Jo. I look forward to reading it.

Readers, you can win a FREE copy of Wait for Me. All you need to do is leave a comment and make sure to include your email address so Jo can contact you.

Last week's winner of While My Soldier Serves is Deanna Stevens. Congratulations!

Friends, are you reading a good book? Want to tell us about it? 

Grace and peace to you from God,

Bonnie