Reverend Andy Garrett of the First Baptist Church of Cherish, Illinois, finally gets his boots dirty! The farmers in his congregation tease him about being a city boy, but they start to nod approvingly after he helps deliver a litter of pigs, relieve a constipated draft horse, and tip a cow with a displaced stomach. These things prove to be simple, however, compared to another challenge Andy had never expectedthe challenge of pastoring his father, a man who had cursed God all of his life. Thankfully, Christ faithfully draws Mac Garrett closer to Himself, and He miraculously closes the divide between father and son. Abounding with characters youve come to loveand new ones youll delight to meetCherish: Create in Me a Clean Heart (third novel in the Cherish series) inspires, as well as surprises, with tears and laughter.
Peter drives the bus, and Judas pays for the gas. We follow close behind in our cars to wherever Jesus stops. Like twelve sermon illustrations, the juxtaposition from New Testament times to our modern day puts us at the feet of Jesus. His Timeless Touch captures Jesus’s touch on twelve individual lives. Each story draws on biblical accounts with tenderness and insight. Here are examples: Wonder as Jesus texts reporters hounding a seductress and her partner. Share a blind man’s dreams come true. Commiserate with a height-challenged man who takes revenge. Get a mother-in-law’s opinion. Cry with the mother of a sex-trafficked girl whose demons are cast out. Follow a cyber thief to repentance and a promise of paradise. No character who is touched by Jesus remains unchanged. Every encounter proclaims him to be the Son of God and leads to worship—even today!
When a mysterious boy arrives at her bedside, a despairing young accident victim resents his intrusion. Twelve-year-old Cricket Dalton is convinced her life is over. What good is living if you can’t move or feel anything below your neck? And, worse yet, you’ve been relegated indefinitely to a dreary nursing home. The mysterious Josh makes Cricket talk, and he nearly force-feeds her pancakes to get her to eat. Then, one day, Josh introduces Cricket to his magic onyx stones. With one click of the stones, the two of them fly to a city on an unknown planet. There, Cricket and Josh are forced to escape from a heartless crowd. As they flee, they encounter other people in hiding—people who survive on nightly dumpster raids and a promise that one day a savior will come for them. Their plight reminds Cricket of Biblical End Times’ prophecies on Earth, but their future seems more hopeless. Cricket’s heart breaks for the little children trapped in the sunless underground labyrinth, and she and Josh devise a way to bring them food. With every visit, Cricket criticizes their God as having abandoned them. But, little by little, through the fugitives’ stories of past persecution and rescue, the underground people convince her that hope does exist. They convince Cricket that the timeline of the prophecies indicates their rescue is near--to be preceded by a massive earthquake that will either bury or deliver them. Back at the nursing home, other changes are taking place. A new black nurse becomes Cricket’s staunch defender and champion. A misguided nursing home director has taken extreme measures to uncover why, some mornings, Cricket’s gown and bed socks indicate she has been walking. “Is your paralysis a sham, Missy?” the woman challenges. How can Cricket explain about the onyx-stone adventures and how, while on them, she can, indeed, walk? Surely, no one would believe her. But the new nurse, Marlene Grace, takes a chance. And Marlene Grace’s dedication and love promise to make Cricket’s quadriplegic life full and blessed. That promise is threatened, however, when, on a startling trip back to the planet, Cricket and Josh join their underground friends in a panicked race to escape the collapse of the labyrinth. The earthquake has begun . . .
When a scientist, the revered uncle of thirteen-year-old Alexander Tennyson, mysteriously disappears, Alexander follows clues that Uncle Chad has left behind in his journal. The clues hint at treachery and abandonment—in an ancient past among two million newly freed Israelite slaves. A chance meeting with a brilliant quadriplegic girl lets Alexander reach across the millennia to attempt a rescue. But finding Uncle Chad is not the end. Instead, it leads to an unexpected second rescue that is harder and demands forgiveness. Can Alexander forgive?
