HE PAID THE PRICE

I'm honored to feature novelist Robin Lee Hatcher and her 50th release, A Carol for Christmas. A Carol for Christmas is available in stores, and on amazon.com and christianbook.com. It'll make a great Christmas gift, and buy one for yourself. The cover is so pretty, it'll look nice on your coffee table throughout the Christmas season.

Be sure and read a description about this heartwarming Christmas story at the bottom of this post.

Melanie Dickerson, you're the winner of a free copy of A Carol for Christmas! If you'll email me, I'll send it to you. Click on "Email Kristy" in my Links column, to your right. Please consider posting a favorable online review to support Christian fiction.

Drum roll, please…Robin Lee Hatcher is the winner of the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian Fiction, the RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance, and the Romance Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. Robin has achieved so much in her field of writing and has so many accolades to her name, I couldn't list them all. Click HERE to see her website.

As I read about her story of success in the field of writing (my words), I thought, She paid the price! As I read about her story of success in Christ (also my words), I thought, He paid the price! (as He did for all of us).

Today, I'll feature her story of success in Christ, On Monday, I'll feature her story of success in the field of writing. Both are touching, inspiring, grueling, amazing, thrilling…oh, I'm a writer too. I'd better stop, or I'll fill this whole post with adjectives.

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Robin says…

I was raised in a mainline Christian church, but I was in my twenties before someone shared with me that being a Christian was more than a religious practice, and church was more than a wholesome place to be on Sunday morning. I don't recall ever hearing at my church that I could know Jesus, that He wanted to be my personal Lord and Savior, that He would come and live in my heart if I only asked Him to. I don't remember anyone telling me as I was growing up that I needed to be born again. I didn't know I was lost until I was found. Thank God for the young couple who entered my life and quietly began to share the person of Jesus Christ with me. Thank God for saving my mother and then allowing her to pray me into the Kingdom.

I suppose it isn't surprising, given my love for books, that God chose the printed word to reveal Himself to me. It began when I was given a copy of the Living Bible. Over the following months, as I read the New Testament, I also read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Woman to Woman by Eugenia Price, and Prison to Praise by Merlin R. Carothers. Finally, on Valentine's Day 1976 at approximately 6 a.m., I gave my heart to Jesus.

If I could rewrite my life, I would script myself a walk of complete obedience to my Lord from start to finish. However, the truth is, I let the cares and concerns of this world creep in during the 'eighties. I allowed the enemy of my soul to strip away my effectiveness for the Kingdom. I faltered and fell on my face plenty. I was a poor witness of the Truth. I compromised when I should have stood strong. I made more mistakes than I care to recall, and those mistakes didn't just hurt me. (They never do.)

Oh, but God is good and He is faithful, even when we're faithless!

He never took His hand off of me. He never stopped wooing me and reminding me that I was His. He sent people and circumstances into my life and drew me back to the place where I belonged, into a walk of obedience and faith. And I am here to tell you that He does turn all things to good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. His promises are true!

Jesus has had much to teach me, one of his more strong-willed children, over the 30 years that I've been a believer, and there is plenty more to be learned before He takes me home. But what an incredible journey of discovery and growth it's been — and is yet to be — since I submitted to His Lordship. It's amazing what He can do with hurting, broken lives that are yielded to Him, how He can turn them into something beautiful. He did it for me. He'll do it for you.

Being a Christian isn't about religion. It's about a relationship with the One who made us. And I'm so thankful to be His.

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A description of Robin Lee Hatcher's 50th release, A Carol for Christmas…

Never underestimate the true spirit of Christmas …Carol Burke was born to sing. It was the life she had always dreamed of. There was only one thing she loved more, one person for whom she would willingly sacrifice her dreams: Jonathan Burke. Married against their parents’ wishes, both are determined to make a life together despite the hardships. Jonathan works hard at his father’s department store, leaving Carol alone in their tiny apartment. But long hours turn into late nights, thanks to Jonathan’s insatiable desire to prove himself to his father … even at the expense of the one he loves best.

Into the midst of an increasingly empty marriage comes an unexpected chance for Carol to sing again. Is this the opportunity of a lifetime, or a time for her to let go and trust her future to God? Carol knows one thing: she longs most of all to share her first Christmas with Jonathan, creating their own memories and traditions and breathing new life into their marriage.

Then a broken promise leaves her wondering. Can anything, anyone—even God—heal her crumbling hopes?

The answer comes when Carol finds herself face-to-face with the true spirit of Christmas …