Happy Monday everyone!  Is it me, or is the time going by faster and faster the closer it gets to Christmas?  I love the holidays, and Kathy, Barbara, and I are SO excited that readers evidently do, too, since An Amish Christmas is selling fabulously well!    A big thank you to everyone for buying and reading it! 

Last week, Karla posted a comment to my post and said, "I would love to know how you decided to write about the Amish people.  Where did this love of the Amish come from?  I just wondered why they have become so special to you."

My honest answer:  I knew very little about the Amish when the opportunity to write stories featuring this endearing group of people presented itself.  As many of you know, I wrote Plain Perfect following a lengthy hospital stay for my then 15-year-old son.  He's doing great, but during those difficult times, my agent and I became friends, not just agent/client.  We talked a lot about my son, who she not only prayed for , but she asks about him still to this day in almost every email she sends me.  She told me she thought that I was in the right place in my life to write Christian fiction, not just category romance for the secular market.  I had already received a contract with a small publisher in the secular market, which I turned down, and I was very close to closing on a deal with a well-known publisher of romance.  When she asked me about writing Amish fiction, I had no clue what I was getting into.  I researched, read books (non-fiction and fiction), and became like a sponge.  Then doors began to open, friendships were formed with my friends in Lancaster County, and when I turned in the first three chapters of Plain Perfect, my agent said, "What do you want to do?  Do you want to forget about writing for the secular market and focus exclusively on Christian Fiction?"  I told her that nothing had ever felt as right for me, after TONS of manuscripts, as writing Plain Perfect did, so I pushed forward with it, continued to research, etc.  My agent sold Plain Perfect in two weeks to Thomas Nelson, based on just the first three chapters.  

During that time, I made my first trip to Lancaster County.  My friends there, Amish and non-Amish, said that they felt that the books were blessed by God, that there was no way I could know as much as I did about them in such a short period of time without divine intervention.  Therefore, they offered to help me.  Friendships were formed, and someone with an Amish background reads each book prior to print.

Why have they become so special to me?  They are my friends, my teachers, and my inspiration, along with God.  I write stories about people finding peacefulness, which can only be truly attained by having a personal relationship with God.  The Amish have that.  They don't just talk about it - they LIVE it.   And yet, I strive for that peacefulness each and every day.  My faith is strong, stronger than it's ever been, but I worry...which is a sin.  I am racked with fear sometimes, about everything.  Fear makes it harder to hear God.   I know all these things, and I'm working on them.  So, I continue to learn about the Amish ways and have earned their trust by writing stories that glorify God and by portraying them as accurately as I can.  They are human.  They argue and disagree.  Their teenagers test them.  They have many of the same problems we have.  BUT, they believe that all things are God's will, so therefore there is less worry, less fear.  I want that.  I ask God daily to eliminate my fears so that I can hear Him, work for Him, and live the way He wants me to live.  I might not be able to give up electricity or my car, but my burdens will be less if I can trust Him completely...the way the Amish do.  

Have a blessed week, my friends!