My guest today is my dear friend, of whom I am a huge fan. Laurie Alice Eakes.
A high-pressure steam cleaner roared
through the open doorway beside me. A city full of strangers spread out beyond
the locked gate behind me. And at my feet lay seven bags of groceries—the
large, reusable bags, not the little plastic ones--and my Seeing Eye dog.
I had
no idea how I was going to get food, dog, and myself thirty feet to the
elevator, on and off the elevator, and another forty feet down the hallway to
my apartment.
I was the new girl in town. Well, hardly a
girl, and I was new in town. My husband was at work, but we couldn’t wait until
Saturday for more food, so I took a taxi to and from the store, where they were
wonderfully helpful. The taxi driver was wonderfully helpful. A store employee
helped me get my groceries. The taxi driver carried my bags up the walkway to
the gate, but he couldn’t come further.
Though he is sweet and helpful in other
ways, my dog, at this point, was more a hindrance than a help. I couldn’t carry
bags in both hands and hold onto his harness. And that in itself created a
problem. The building deserves the appellation “complex”. It’s layout was just
that. Disorientation plagued me the first few weeks I lived here, and I was
within that timeframe. Was the elevator straight ahead or to my left? I usually
took the steps. At that moment, I just wanted to cry.
Feeling helpless doesn’t come easily to me.
Because I have had so many people tell me I can’t do something, I have to prove
that I can—yes, even to the Lord.
So there I stood with literally too heavy a
burden to bear surrounding me, and the Lord heard my cry. He dried my tears of
frustration, loneliness, and humiliation before they grew beyond a prickle
behind my lids. He used this moment to bless me.
While I stood there contemplating what to
do, the steam cleaner fell silent. A man emerged from the apartment and began
to speak to me in /Spanish. I understood little of what he said, and I
understood the context and the way he tapped my arm, then picked up all seven
bags.
They probably weighed as much as he did. I
expected him to leave them in the elevator and thanked him. But no, no, he
carried them all the way to my apartment door.
As I unpacked my groceries, I reflected, as
I have so often found reason to do, the Lord uses little moments of
helplessness to show us how He cares about even the smallest drawbacks in our
lives.
“Eakes has a charming way
of making her novels come to life without being over the top,” writes Romantic
times of bestselling, award-winning
author Laurie Alice Eakes. Since she lay in bed as a child telling herself
stories, she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a published author. with the release of Choices of the Heart, The Midwives #3, she sees her
twelfth book published, in addition to two novellas with more novels and
novellas releasing over the next three years. A graduate of Asbury University
with a degree in English and French, and Seton Hill University, with a masters degree
in Writing Popular Fiction, she also teaches writing and gives inspirational
talks.
She lives in Texas with her
husband, dogs, and cats, where she enjoys long walks, rainy days, and
knitting—rather badly.
Follow
her on Twitter: @laurieaeakes
Read
excerpts from her books at: http://www.lauriealiceeakes.com
Choices
of the Heart
A
Novel by Laurie Alice Eakes
BACK COVER
She
thought she had left her old life behind . . .
Esther Cherrett comes from a proud line of
midwives and was trained by her mother to take over the family calling. But
when a terrible scandal threatens all she holds dear, Esther flees, taking a
position as a teacher in the wild western mountains of Virginia. But instead of
the refuge she was seeking, Esther finds herself in the midst of a deadly
family feud—and courted by two men on opposite sides of the conflict. All she
wants is to run away again.
But could it be that her past holds the key to
reconciliation—and love?
In this gripping story
of trust, deception, and bittersweet loss, you’ll discover the true meaning of
choices of the heart.
“The gifted Laurie
Alice Eakes has done it again with a page-turner romance. The wonderful period
detail sucked me into 1840s Appalachia, while the realistic characters and
tender romance kept me reading late into the night.”—Linda Goodnight, Carol and Rita Award–winning
author
Laurie Alice Eakes is the author of Lady in the Mist, Heart’s Safe
Passage, A Necessary Deception, A Flight of Fancy, and
several other novels. She won a National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency
in 2007 for Family Guardian. Laurie
Alice writes full-time from her home in Texas, where she lives with her husband
and sundry dogs and cats.
Where you can buy Choices of the Heart
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