Peering Through Life's Window

No one likes to be deceived, especially by someone he or she loves. But that’s what happened to Cammie O’Shea, the main character in my recently released romance / mystery, LOVE TURNS THE TIDE. Her fiancé not only dated other women during their engagement, but he also was apprehended for beating one of them nearly to death. Not long after Cammie learns of his crime she moves to Destin, Florida, to complete a job assignment with a new newspaper named The Sun Dial . Getting the paper off to a good start hinges largely on Cammie’s article about a new development, Pelican Point, owned by Vic Deleona. Still heartbroken over her failed romance, she intends to keep her relationship with Vic strictly business. Therefore she works hard to write a good story about his real estate venture and tries to complete it as soon as possible. But he keeps scheduling appointments with her to see a unit or to pick up pictures. Since she's spending so much time with him or at the office she meets no fr...

When Someone You Love Has Cancer Author: Cecil Murphey Harvest House Publishers ISBN: 978-0-7369-2428-3 Retail $10.99 A Word from The Man Behind the Words When Shirley walked in from the garage, she didn't have to say a word: I read the diagnosis in her eyes. I grabbed her and held her tightly for several seconds. When I released her, she didn't cry. The unshed tears glistened, but that was all. I felt emotionally paralyzed and helpless, and I couldn't understand my reaction. After all, I was a professional. As a former pastor and volunteer hospital chaplain I had been around many cancer patients. I'd seen people at their lowest and most vulnerable. As a writing instructor, I helped one woman write her cancer-survival book. Shirley and I had been caregivers for Shirley's older sister for months before she died of colon cancer. All of that happened before cancer became personal to me--before my wife learned she needed a mastectomy. To make it worse, Shirley was in th...

When a new theater opened in Cobb County, Georgia, near us, we rushed to get tickets for a show, "Lord of the Dance." Since I'd wanted to see the performance for a long time and already had in mind how good it would be, I thought I possibly had set myself up for disappointment. But the international dance troop charmed me from the instant their nimble feet tapped the stage. Following the story about the Little Spirit that travels through time to help the Lord of the Dance protect his people from Don Dorcha, the Dark Lord, I glanced quickly at my bulletin between scenes. While the Irish background music, fiddlers and black and white costumes set the mood for different dances the entertainers' body movements depicted honor, impending danger, evil and finally the triumph of good. I sensed a desire from each of them to connect with the spectators to bring their message to us loud and clear. During some of the jigs the Warriors moved their tap shoes so fast I wondered if d...

Usually when I travel, I swim early in the morning before the pool opens, so I won’t be in the way of anyone else. But, this May, when I went on a Florida vacation with my family, I awakened each day to a temperature in the fifties and a north to northeast wind, gusting at thirty to forty miles per hour. By the afternoon when the sun had warmed the day to seventy something, the pool looked like a cross between an adult pool party and a kid’s birthday celebration. I didn ’t want to join the women and men sun bathing on the blue and white chaise lounges, and I felt I’d be out of place in the crystal, clear blue water with the kids diving for their swimming pool rings, floating on rafts and jumping from the sides of the pool, not to mention that they left no room for a lap swimmer. However, after four days my yearning for water exercise grew great, so I put on my suit, cap and goggles and headed to a place far different from Cobb Aquatic Center in Marietta, Georgia, the indoor pool where ...

On Good Friday when our daughter, Laurie, called to tell us to look for shelter at a Cracker Barrel, the middle Tennessee sky looked overcast, but not threatening. Within minutes after we hung up large pellets of ice that sounded like rocks hitting a tin roof pounded our gray Avalon. But there was no Cracker Barrel in sight, so we stopped under a bridge behind several other cars and a van. My husband, Rick, got out his laptop and pulled up a map that showed massive splotches of red and yellow all around the area where we were parked. While I stared at the grass flattened by strong wind an eighteen wheeler with its trailer waving passed by; after it, an ambulance with its siren blaring. After the hail stopped I said, “Rick we have to move to a safer place.” “Where?” Staring at the computer, I noticed a tiny sliver of green, indicating rain between one of the storm markings. Almost simultaneously, the sky cleared to a drizzle and the grass returned to its normal position. “The Cracker Ba...

Today I got caught amid the big yellow buses caravanning toward the school near our house in Georgia. I usually time my journeys through the nicely landscaped homes to avoid them because they back up traffic. But today I watched them as though they were an educational parade. With equal distance between them they snaked up the road for one-half mile, turning ever so carefully into the parking lot in front of the sprawling brick building. Then it dawned on me. What a great country. All across America these giant-sized cumbersome vehicles drove children to their free educations, and not one single kid was left out. It had been that way for as long as I could remember. Watching the youngsters peer out the back window of the vehicle in front of me, I recalled my school days at the foothills of the North Carolina mountains in a two-story brick building with a pristine grassy yard, bright green shrubbery, flowers, a circular drive in front and a playground out back. In the first grade when I...

Years ago I attended a small college nestled in the towering, blue-tinted mountains of North Carolina. Every afternoon after class I joined my peers at a local hamburger joint in a modest brick building, where I forgot about such weighty matters as the American dream seen through the eyes of Clyde Griffiths in Theodore Dreiser’s AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. But at the beginning of fall semester my senior year I met a guy. I’ll call him Joe. Each day when I let go of my books and settled into sipping my Coca-Cola, Joe sat down, put his elbows on the bright yellow table and made an off-the-wall statement, such as, “I bet you can’t prove to me that God exists.” My muscles would tense, but I’d set aside my soft drink, turn away from my friends who chatted about the next fraternity party and try to say something to convince him there was a God. A member of my philosophy class, he claimed everything could be explained by science and bombarded me with reasons why there could be no God. Looking back o...