Who Is My Shelter? (49 page)

1. If you've read the previous novels in the House of Hope series, what were the questions or situations you hoped might be resolved in
Who Is My Shelter
? Did you have expectations for how things would (should) turn out with Philip? With Lee? For Lucy? For Gabby? Were you disappointed? Surprised? Pleased? In what ways?

2. Philip Fairbanks seems to be the “jerk husband we all love to hate.” At what point did you begin to have some empathy for him as a person, even with all his faults? If not, what factors stood in your way?

3. Will Nissan is a new character in this novel who befriends Philip. In what way(s) does his friendship with Philip complicate things for Gabby? In what way(s) is his friendship a gift to Philip?

4. In chapter 4, Gabby admits she resents having to deal with all the mess Philip's in—just when the fledgling House of Hope needs her time and attention to get up and running on a solid footing. Have you experienced a crunch between family needs and ministry needs that pulled you in different directions? How can we tell when Satan's just distracting us from doing the Lord's work, versus needing to reset or readjust our priorities?

5. The House of Hope residents decide a regular house meeting is important to deal with kinks that need to get worked out, relationship issues, and infractions of the rules—as well as to plan celebrations and give encouragement. Some families schedule a regular family meeting for the same reasons! If you've tried something like that in your family, what were the benefits? How might family meetings help solve some of the everyday problems in
your
family?

6. As things get more complicated with Philip—he's in debt, he's in trouble, he's in danger—Gabby struggles with what it would mean to forgive him (see chapters
4
,
16
,
17
,
18
). If you had had a chance to counsel Gabby, what cautions would you give her? Advice? Encouragement? Scriptures? What experience with forgiveness could you share with her from your own life and relationships?

7. Even though Gabby found physical shelter at Manna House when she was homeless and now has a home of her own, emotionally she “still needed a shelter, a safe place for my broken heart to be mended”—a longing for “a man's arms around me . . . making me feel he would protect me from any storm . . .” (see
chapter 18
). Many of us can identify with that natural longing, that human need. And yet, why do you think the Voice [the Holy Spirit] in her spirit said,
“Wait, Gabby. Let Me be your everything
”?

8. Gabby and Edesa use Jodi Baxter's idea of the
meaning of names
to bless the shelter women on their Fall Getaway. Do you know the meaning of your name? Check out these scriptures to learn just how important our names are to God: Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 49:1; and Isaiah 49:14–16—especially if you put both the NIV and NLT translations of verse 16 together.

9. Throughout the House of Hope series, Gabby has been learning that
God
is the One we can go to when we have no place to go.
God
is the One we can talk to when no one else seems to be listening.
God
is the One we can lean on when even well-meaning people fail us.
God
is the unmovable ROCK of our salvation, the shelter we need when the storms of life rage around us. And yet . . . God uses
people
, too, to be His hands, His feet, His ears, His presence. In chapter 20, when the Baxter family surrounded Philip and the boys with their presence and protection so Gabby could take the shelter ladies on their Fall Getaway, Gabby thought,“God's peace in skin is what it felt like.” Has someone been “God's peace in skin” for you lately? Is there someone for whom
you
could be “God's peace in skin” this week?

10. Feeling caught between the two men in her life, and not even sure
what
she really wants or needs or feels (see
chapter 31
), Gabby turns often to the verses in Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (NIV). How do these verses help Gabby navigate her relationship with Lee Boyer? With Philip? Do you think the outcome would have been different if she'd followed her “natural” inclinations? Why or why not? For better or worse?

11. What does it mean to
you
to “trust God with all your heart” instead of trusting (leaning on) your own understanding of things? What does it mean to “submit to Him” in
all
your ways? Are you facing a situation in your own life where you need to apply this scripture and claim its promise?

12. Why do you think Gabby had a hard time responding to Philip's letter, even though he admitted he had hurt her deeply, that he was wrong, and wanted her to know he was “desperately sorry” (chapter 32)? What made a difference at their family dinner before Philip left for Virginia that allowed Gabby to finally respond, to finally forgive (chapter 36)? Do you think it was a good thing for Gabby to ask Philip to forgive her as well for her failings in the marriage? Or did that stick in your craw, like comparing a chilly breeze to a raging hurricane? Explain your reaction to that conversation.

13. Why do you think Lucy disappeared
again
on Thanksgiving Day—just when it looked as if she would have a chance to be reconciled with her family and finally get off the street? If you were going to write Lucy's life story, what in her past do you think triggers her disappearing acts? (Have fun with this! No wrong answers. In fact, maybe there's a book idea here!)

14. In the last chapter, Philip asked Gabby if he could “court” her as a way of starting over. Does that seem like a promising concept to you after the ugly breakdown in their marriage? Why or why not? What pitfalls might be ahead? What would be the benefits?

Has God been nudging you, your prayer group, or your church to ask, “How can
we
make a difference for homeless men and women in our community?” If so, a great resource is a new book,
The Invisible: What the Church Can Do to Find and Serve the Least of These
, by Arloa Sutter, director of Breakthrough Ministries. (Breakthrough's shelters for homeless men and women in Chicago were the inspiration for the Yada Yada House of Hope series.) Check it out on our website:
www.daveneta.com
.

Author to Author Interview

The Thomas Nelson Fiction team invited our authors to interview any other Thomas Nelson Fiction author in an unplugged Q&A session. They could ask any questions about any topic they wanted to know more about. What we love most about these conversations is that they reveal just as much about the ones asking the questions as they do the authors who are responding. So sit back and enjoy the discussion. Maybe you'll even be intrigued enough to pick up one of Kim's novels and discover a new favorite writer in the process.

N
ETA
J
ACKSON
:
Kim, I'm so excited to meet a new, promising author on the Thomas Nelson fiction team! And it was so fun to meet you in person at the ICRS convention in St. Louis. Tell my readers a little bit about yourself. (You could pass for a college kid. Are you really only 19???)

K
IM
C
ASH
T
ATE
:
Oh, you flatter me, Neta! You know I turned 22 this year! Okay, my teenager's giving me the eye, so I'd better 'fess up. I've been married to my husband, Bill, for 18 years, and we have a teenage son and soon-to-be teenage daughter—in other words, we're in the no-drama super fun season! *grin* I'm originally from Maryland, but we've lived in St. Louis for almost a decade. Oh, and I had a little stint as a practicing attorney—well, 8 years—but somewhere in there I gave my life to Christ and He kind of let me know that practicing law was
my
plan, not His. Who knew He had a plan for my life? That still blows me away.

NJ:
Okay, okay, so you're a full-fledged, card-carrying, happily married adult—with kids! In your recent novel,
Faithful
, you tackle a touchy subject: infidelity. You really peel away the layers of lies and self-deception that usually mask the true nature of unfaithfulness. What prompted you to write this novel?

KCT:
I had friends who'd been married for decades, strong Christians I looked up to as role models in marriage, and their marriage ended because of an affair. I was so rocked by it. I remember asking God, “If
their
marriage could end like that, whose is safe? What hope do we have?”

Over time, that situation and others began to bubble into a story. I wanted to explore real life trials and real life responses to those trials—the questioning, the doubt, the fear, the weariness—as we try to hang on and trust God. The back of the book asks, “Will they trust God's faithfulness . . . and find the strength to be faithful to Him?” That's really what it's about—that two-sided dynamic. God is always faithful, but will we trust that, and will we be faithful to Him? In a very real sense, whether we're married or single, He's the One to whom we pledge to be true.

NJ:
Let's get real. Someone reading
Faithful
might feel your characters could maybe-kinda-sorta be excused for “fudging” a bit on the faithfulness scorecard. I mean . . . A wife finding her husband with another woman in
her
bed? A believing wife “unequally yoked” to an unbelieving husband—and then she meets a wonderful Christian man who shares her faith? (Is this the man she should have married?) And their friend who's forty and still single? (That clock is ticking!) What would you say to someone who thinks you haven't allowed any “wiggle room” for certain “understandable” circumstances?

KCT:
Ahh, yes, the perfect storm for each of them! It would've been too easy otherwise. (smile) These are Christian women who would tell you in a heartbeat that they love God and want to honor Him in every area of life. But when those storms blow in, they're challenged to step back and assess whether they'll
really
trust Him. A wife finding her husband in bed with another woman is the deepest of betrayals. Without divulging the outcome, I wanted to show that even through the unthinkable, God is with us. He's our strength, our peace, and our guide. Of all the characters, she's the one who could respond in a number of ways, and we wouldn't blame her. But staying faithful to God in the storm is our saving grace.

Phyllis is the believing wife with the unbelieving husband. She actually became a believer during the marriage, and rather than join her, her husband has grown more and more hostile toward her new faith. In her wildest dreams, she'd never think she could be unfaithful. But she finds herself drawn to another man
because
he's a strong Christian, the very thing she wants her husband to be. Understandable wiggle room? She'd like to think so!

And Cyd, the friend who's single and turning forty—and forced to ring in her fortieth as maid of honor at her younger sister's wedding. I love Cyd. She knows exactly the kind of Christian man she's waiting for, and she will not compromise her principles . . . until she meets the playboy best man who just happens to sweep her off her feet. Oh yes, that clock is ticking . . . but she knows she's about to borrow a whole lot of trouble if she doesn't “wiggle” out of this one fast!

NJ:
Faithful
is your first novel with Thomas Nelson—but not your first novel. Tell us about your previous books—one of which is a very personal memoir, I understand.

KCT:
The memoir was my first book, published in 1999. Had no plans to write a book. I was on maternity leave with my firstborn and felt God tugging on my heart to leave the firm. Got my own new plan and started researching home-based businesses. But one day at church, I heard clearly in my heart that He wanted me to write about my spiritual journey. Even had the title—
More Christian than African-American
—before I left the service. Seems a little crazy that God would move me to write about my spiritual journey so early in my spiritual walk. But a huge part of my identity—okay, basically
all
of my identity—was in who I was as a black person. I like to say I lived, moved, and had my being in blackness. But God let me know I had been bought with a price—I needed to live, move, and have my being in Him. That was a jarring adjustment! The book tells the before and after of my spiritual journey, touching on many other ways in which Jesus turned my life upside down.

Fiction hadn't been on my radar screen either. After the memoir, I thought I'd write more nonfiction—then, with two toddlers, I thought I'd never write again! But years later, a story began forming in my mind, which became my first novel,
Heavenly Places
. It's about a woman whose mother had always treated her in an inferior manner. She has little self-worth, and her attempt to find it in a career was successful—until that career was gone. The reader goes on a journey with her as her sister coaxes her into a small group Bible study, where they decide to study Ephesians. Slowly, and with lots of bumps along the way, she begins to learn who she is in Christ. Her views of herself, her husband and children—and even her mother—are transformed. The greatest blessing has been hearing from women who've read the novel alongside the book of Ephesians, some reading Ephesians for the first time. Hearing that they've been inspired to see themselves and their circumstances through God's eyes—and even to start their own Bible studies!—has been pretty amazing too.