Last week in the Avid Readers of Christian Fiction Facebook group, someone asked for opinions on AI use in Christian fiction. And, as always when it comes to this subject, opinions were fierce and many.

I wrote about using AI as a tool way back when it first stormed onto the scene, and I still stick by my sentiments expressed there, generally speaking. But when I wrote that, I had honestly not experimented with AI at all beyond image generation–personally. My husband was already using it every day to help write code for websites and software and the like.

In the intervening years, I have experimented with it in some ways, so I can speak more knowledgeably. And what’s more, I’m seeing SO MANY authors put out statements…often to the effect of “I will NEVER use AI in any way, shape or form.” And I respect the lines they draw. I don’t necessarily share all their lines. But I definitely have my own, and so I wanted to talk through them. Because, as with most things in my life, they’re a bit too nuanced for a social media meme. 😉

1. Will I ever use AI to WRITE a book or other commercial project?

Absolutely not. Ever.

I could leave it at that, because this is a very cut-and-dried line for me. But I want to talk about it anyway, so I’m gonna, because this is my blog post and I can write about it if I want to. 😉

So here’s the thing–I’ve used AI to write some simple website copy. Specifically, when I was doing the “tour” of Alnwick for the Imposters page. These were two-to-three sentence descriptions of real locations, so I had ChatGPT write them, and I edited them. It saved me an hour or two of work, and this is not something that I consider “defining” of me, it’s not something I’m selling, and frankly, I could take down the page and no one would likely even care, so…I see no harm.

But beyond that? Nope. Not blog posts, not articles, not books, not…well, that’s really all I write, but if ever anything else came up that was part of my body of work, I’d say no there too.

Because writing is WHAT I DO. Writing is WHAT I LOVE. Writing is the FUN part. Why would I give that up?

I wouldn’t.

And you know the funny (and annoying) thing? I’m getting pretty darn good at picking out AI-written content, and I bet you are too. And it annoys me, because the phrases and uses that always clue me in are perfectly legitimate phrases and uses, and I’ve habitually used them too. (It was trained on us, after all!). Things like em-dashes and ellipses and “that isn’t____–that’s ____.” (That construction is in EVERY SINGLE AI ARTICLE I see on social media, and it drives me NUTS.) Which means that when I actually write something that sounds a bit AI, I grit my teeth and edit it out, even though it was 100% me. Because I don’t want it to sound like AI, even though AI is just sounding like me there.

See? Funny. And frustrating. Though for the record, em-dashes and ellipses will STAY in my writing. Because I love them. They’re mine. They don’t belong to AI. And I stand with the many other authors who say, “I was using them well before AI began to, and I’m not going to stop now. They’re part of my style and voice.”

And while we’re on the topic…

2. AI Detectors

I am dubious of AI Detectors. Why? Because they are definitionally hypocritical, for one thing. “I’m going to use AI to detect whether you are using AI.” Yeah, um…no.

Moreover, I have heard from soooooo many friends where these detectors are laughably wrong…because AI was trained on us. Lots of long-time authors are plugging in their books written well before AI existed into these detectors, and the detectors are returning that they were 30% or 50% or 80% AI…when that just isn’t possible. Again–AI sees itself in their books because AI was trained on their books. So of course there are similarities.

So–another funny story. At WhiteFire, we got a submission that sent all my own AI-detector senses tingling. It felt completely AI-generated to me. But I didn’t want to just make an accusation. So out of curiosity, I plugged a sample into an AI detector, and it came back with 99% AI-written.

This matched my gut instinct. But could I trust this detector? Well, I decided to experiment a bit more. I plugged in an equal amount of The Memory of Freedom, which I was working on at the time. And which I obviously knew was 0% AI written, because I was the one to write the thing. 😉 And it said…0% AI written.

Okay. Sweet. But is one data point enough to convince me it’s accurate? Of course not! So I opened up another of my manuscripts, and then another, and plugged those in too. They all came back 0% AI, which they were. So, you know. That made my day for some stupid reason, LOL. It’s not like I didn’t know that they’re all me, but even so, I’d been seeing so many of my author friends alarmed because when they did the same, detectors were spitting out higher numbers, even though they hadn’t used AI on them, and they were afraid they were going to get wrongfully accused by readers or publishers.

Which is a real thing, friends. People are tossing around these accusations with self-righteousness and a total disregard for how it can impact an author, and not taking into consideration that thing I keep pointing out–that sometimes AI sounds like us because it was trained to.

But I digress. Let’s move on.

3. What about using AI to brainstorm?

I admit it. I was dubious about whether AI could be a good brainstorming partner. But I actually really love using it as one. And here’s why.

For most of us creatives, part of the brainstorming process is just putting things out there. Writing it out. Getting ideas down, throwing them against a wall, and then seeing what sticks after you spin that whole wall around a few times. I have countless documents for each project that are just me writing to the screen as if I’m writing to my best friend/critique partner. They are full of “maybe I should…” and “or, no, I don’t like. Maybe I’ll…”

They’re a mess. But it’s part of the process. Sometimes I’ll send these thoughts to said BFF/CP. Or to my husband, or my editor. And they’ll respond, and I’ll think about what they say…and then I’ll totally ignore them and go off in some third (or eighteenth, LOL) direction that has nothing to do with anything we talked about but which was sparked by a single word or phrase. (David laughingly complains about this, saying, “Why do you even bother asking me when you ignore every single thing I say?” I keep telling him I don’t ignore him, he just inspires a whole new direction, but you know…LOL.)

It’s fun to use AI as this sounding board. Because it will come back with ideas that are…honestly, it doesn’t matter how they are. Sometimes they’re decent. Sometimes they’re laughably horrible. Never do I actually use anything it says in the form in which it says it, but just like with myself or Stephanie or David or Janelle or Elizabeth or whoever-else, the process itself gets the juices flowing. The back-and-forth creates the movement in me that I need.

And sometimes, its vast knowledge is indeed helpful, especially as I’m in that stretching stage of an initial brainstorm, where I just don’t have facts enough yet. I can ask it questions like, “Does it make sense to have this setup in 1943 France, or would that not be plausible?” and it will give me an answer.

Now, one place I really LOVED what AI gave me was when I was developing the “mythology” of my fantasy world. I wanted it grounded in real mythology, but with my own unique twist…and you know what those databases have all of? Mythology. Again, I didn’t use most of what it suggested, but its input gave me just enough to get excited and take off on my own, using as a base some of the real mythology of our ancient societies.

But then, that really gets more into…

4. AI for research?

Yes. I love AI for research. Is it imperfect? Absolutely. Do I need to fact-check it? You bet. But here’s why I like it even more than a Google search, which I also adore:

I can ask it questions without knowing the right keywords to yield the results I need.

And as someone writing a lot of books set in France right now, I can also ask it for information that isn’t available in English. This is so helpful. One of the first things I used it for like this was actually the name of the building the Gestapo was housed in in Berlin. I could NOT find this in English for some reason. I spent a ridiculous amount of time searching the internet, got frustrated, asked ChatGPT, it spat out the answer in 3 seconds, I then put what it gave me into my search engine to verify, and boom. There it was.

Similarly, I can ask it things like, “Can you give me a list of 20 French female names popular in this specific region of France in 1920?” SO HELPFUL. Otherwise I’m cross-checking “popularity” lists with “location” lists, and it takes so much longer.

5. AI for “fill in the blanks”

Okay, this is my own need right now. But it’s been…huge.

As you likely know if you’ve been hanging around here any length of time, I had chemo in 2024. And I’m having chemo again now–all year. During both that initial, intense schedule of infusions and certainly this year with what we could call “chemo-light,” I’m still writing. I have books due. Contracts, deadlines. No time off for things like cancer in my life!

And chemo brain? It’s real, friends. I’ve been so, so blessed not to experience it to the extent that so many people do…but it’s still there.

It hits in the strangest ways. One I’ve noticed lately is this “out of time” feeling. I’ll be doing something random, like walking through the living room, and I’ll have this strange feeling of “What season is it?” It’ll take me a second to process what month we’re in and what that means seasonally. Which I mention solely because it’s weird, LOL, and indicative. But here’s where the brain condition is relevant to this conversation:

I forget words sometimes. I mean, we all do that, it’s nothing new. But it’s definitely happening more than it used to. Not enough to be alarming–but definitely enough to be frustrating.

Because I’ll be writing, going along at a great clip, in a groove, and then BAM. I hit a wall where I cannot for the life of me think of the word that I KNOW, and which is on the tip of my tongue, but which I canNOT pull forward.

You know how that feels–again, we all have those moments.

Well, when I have them in conversation, it remains annoying. But when I have them in writing…I don’t have to get frustrated anymore. I can simply copy and paste that sentence into ChatGPT with ____ in place of the missing word and say “I can’t think of the word I need. How should I fill in this blank?”

And it gives me options. Inevitably–every single time–the one I’m looking for is its first or second recommendation.

Guys, this is HUGE. As a writer, words are my lifeblood. And to feel like sometimes they’re evading me? That’s rough. Before it occurred to me to use AI for this purpose, it was not only frustrating but disheartening to keep running into these ridiculous problems. I would sit there for minutes on end trying to find the word. And the longer I searched for it, the more frustrated I got. Which of course just made it worse.

Now, seconds. No emotional spiral. I can find the word and move on.

6. Isn’t it stealing?

Another concern I saw in that post last week was about whether AI is using stolen work.

This has been examined by the courts already, and what they decided was that training AI on our existing works is within the legal scope of fair use–because teaching has always been a fair use of existing works. What was not okay was the fact that Anthropic used pirated copies of the books it trained on. Which is why they now owe lots of money to all of us whose pirated books were used.

What does this mean? That according to the courts of the United States, training is okay, as long as the works being used to train are either free or paid for.

This perfectly aligns with my own understanding of copyright law, so I wasn’t surprised to see this verdict come down, and it also answers the objections to my mind. Because AI does not regurgitate the books it was fed. It might write something “in the style of” a very popular author that will have a lot in common with existing books by that author if you prompt it correctly, but it will not deliver you the text of that book.

It will quote parts of public domain works for you (edited to add a friend pointed out it will also quote passages of copyrighted works; so far as I know, this is only brief quotations, not full chapters or the whole book. Traditionally, brief quotations have fallen under “fair use,” though it’s certainly something to keep an eye on); and it will also (currently) yield search results that can include images, which are linked and cited, much like any search engine does. And as with any search engine results, you the user must use this legally.

This is no more questionable than any internet search; which, let it be noted, will also yield plenty of pirated versions of things. (Traditional internet searches will also yield quotations from copyrighted books; I have many times been researching a topic and end up with a search result from a passage of a book that’s in Google Books. They show me a few paragraphs–not the whole book.)

Much responsibility ultimately lies with the end-user, as always. Which is another reason why I have the lines I do–I always use other people’s work for research and inspiration. I never use their words and claim them as my own.

7. AI for images

I love AI for images–I’ve not been shy about that. I love generating character images, scene images, you name it. As someone who has Photoshopped thousands of images over the years, being able to generate what I want is so much fun and so much quicker than painstakingly combining a dozen images to get the one I want.

Now, it’s often (always? LOL) imperfect. I’m still going in and making adjustments.

And if a client of mine (keeping in mind I’m a cover designer) is anti-AI, that’s totally cool. I know how to work without it. No biggie.

As with stock imagery, an AI image all by itself is not MY (or the author’s) property. But when I add my own work to it, it becomes my own work–that’s where the law came down. And this is always what I do. Much like with stock imagery, I combine a bunch of different elements to make a cover unique–that’s why people hire me.

I’ve heard of cover designers losing work because of AI…but honestly, I haven’t. My schedule is still booked out as far as it’s ever been. Because a good designer does more than slap words on a picture.

Now–I get that we want to continue supporting human artists. And I do. I still have my Shutterstock account, and I still download a gazillion images by real human people, even when I’m using generated images too.

I have one client who wrote “No” on the question of whether they were okay with AI, so I ended up using something like 14 different images on her cover. But the lighting on some of those images was wrong, and all my fiddling with it wasn’t yielding the results I wanted. So I took the image I had created with about 12 of those 14 images and asked ChatGPT to even out the lighting. Voila! It did. I then showed it to the author and asked her if she was okay with that particular use, assuring her that I paid 14 different human artists already, LOL. And she was totally fine with it. Because the AI didn’t create the image, it edited the image. Which is, frankly, something my software has been doing for decades already, AI just did it a little differently (and in this particular case, better than I was managing it).

When it comes to images for myself though, I love it because it gives me a chance to have images that I otherwise just wouldn’t have. Especially in the fantasy world, but in historicals too. Because they just don’t exist in photography, and to create them like I do book covers would take hours I can’t justify spending on such trivialities. But having those visuals is so cool.

8. What about environmental impact?

This came up frequently in that Avid Readers post, and I absolutely agree that the environmental impact is real and needs addressed.

And honestly, I think it will be. Why do I think so?

History.

Look at the impact of the industrial revolution. Electricity. Automobiles. All of these advances came with what turned out to be environmental impacts. And because they were popular and in demand, those issues were worked out.

I imagine plenty of people said, “No factories! They’re hurting the environment! No cars–the fumes! No electricity–look what damming the rivers for the power plants does!” And they’re not wrong…but most of us today are still using all our factory-made goods, driving our cars, and running our houses on power. Because the issues caused by these technologies have been dealt with (some better than others, obviously, I’m not claiming there aren’t plenty of issues still) or compensated for or otherwise deemed “worth it.”

Yes, AI is absolutely consuming a ridiculous amount of energy and resources. This needs to be addressed. But I don’t think the answer is “cut it off and don’t use it.” I think because people are using it, the answers will be forthcoming and in short order. When there is demand, there is innovation and resolution.

9. In conclusion

These are obviously all just my opinions. Why I like what I like and why I don’t like what I don’t like.

I absolutely respect different opinions. All those authors who will never use it all for anything? I have total respect for that. Just like I respect those who hand-write as part of their process, or those who use dictation, or those who write out-of-order, or any other process different from mine.

But I don’t think it’s a moral thing, as long as we’re using AI ethically. For me, that means it does NOT ever write for me, but it’s okay to use it as a tool along the way, much like I use plenty of other tools. The real “magic” of a story always still happens in my own brain, not in its algorithm. And the “magic” of crafting the words is a joy I will never give up, thank you very much. But as a shortcut for research, or acting as the wall against which I throw my “spaghetti”? I personally see no problem with that.

I can promise you that everything you ever read by me is written by me, created by me, developed by me. That has always involved outside sources–books, articles, websites, magazines, blog posts, videos, podcasts, documentaries, you name it.  But my stories aren’t created by those sources. They’re just input. Data. It all goes in, gets filtered through the wacky mind that is Roseanna, and then gets turned into something else.

A story, through the eyes of characters who come to life for me.

The sources of the data always change. From book to book, year to year, mood to mood, frankly. Sometimes, now, some of that reading is of AI results. But it’s no different, to me, than one more article. Just data to put into the Roseanna Brain. One more source. At least, that’s how I view it.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

It’s been a while since I’ve done an update on the blog, though I’ve sent out notes in my newsletter, so I thought I should take a moment to do that, now that I’m through the first six infusions.

I’ll admit it–they’ve been worse than I was hoping and praying. Not nearly as bad as full chemo, don’t get me wrong–but not great. I know I shared how my heart sank at my first infusion, when they, first of all, called it “chemo,” while in my head I’d been thinking of it as a blocker treatment more than an aggressive one, and then when they gave me all the anti-nausea pre-meds and refilled my Zofran. Well, as it turns out, I’m particularly prone to nausea with this cocktail. =/

Up until the fifth infusion, I was experiencing about 10-11 days of nausea, five of which also saw me fairly exhausted. Not ideal–given that my treatments are 21-days apart, that meant that half of my time was spent feeling fairly lousy. I had to write my Guideposts book, Secrets by Sea, during one of those stretches of icky, which wasn’t fun. Zero stars, do not recommend. 😉 I pushed through, though, and got it done…and was all relief when my editors came back and called it “nearly perfect.” Phew! But you can be sure I planned the writing of my next book, the one due to Tyndale around Easter (currently entitled The Memory of Freedom, though that could yet change), to NOT fall during a post-infusion week! (I just had my editorial meeting on this manuscript too, and am ALL RELIEF and praising God that they had only very minor notes as well. Yay!!)

In early March, I went in for my three-month scans, and I am ecstatic to report that those were CLEAR. No cancer cells spotted anywhere in my body, including my brain. Which is, of course, a HUGE praise!!

After those results, my oncologist dialed back the “nasty” parts of the chemo cocktail (this is called Enhertu, specifically targeting the HER2+ cancer cells, and the only treatment with good brain/blood barrier penetration, so my only real option). We were all hoping that would mean less nausea and hair loss, but…I didn’t honestly see any change in either.

For my fifth treatment, they gave me some new meds to take at night (Zyprexa, which was first developed as a drug to treat schizophrenia, but which, in micro-doses, is also used for both insomnia and nausea) and then a steroid to take in the mornings a few days after infusion. The nausea was definitely improved, though not gone by any stretch–it only lasted 7 days, though, and wasn’t quite as intense. Though the steroids gave me some swelling in my hands and feet, which my oncologist didn’t like. He cut the steroid again on my sixth infusion.

And that’s the one I just had last week. He also dialed back those “nasties” again, in the hopes that the nausea would be cut back to just a few days. And praise God, that’s exactly what I’ve seen! My stomach was still feeling a bit “off” on Friday and Saturday following the Thursday infusion, but not bad. And by Sunday, it was almost normal (though I still took my Zofran preemptively). Monday, though still tired, I felt perfectly fine and didn’t even take the Zofran. So YAY! I think it’s safe to say that this dial-back has been effective in the nausea-department, which is so great. I can handle a few days of tired and a weekend of “meh” when it comes to my stomach. Such a huge improvement! And such a relief, because it’s been rough.

Again, this is nowhere NEAR as bad as the full chemo of summer 2024. But it has its own challenges. First is the ongoing nature of the thing–because in 2024, I knew I only had 6 infusions. We counted down. We had that end always in sight. Now, though, I don’t honestly know how long this treatment will go on. A year, most likely. But we’ll have to pause for surgery, and I don’t know if that “year” is including the pause or if, however many we “miss” during it, will be tacked on at the end. I’m a very fringe case–in the best way, treating a disease no longer in my body–so there’s not a clear procedure here to follow. We’re winging it.

I also readily admit the hair loss is getting to me. Complete hair loss is unlikely on this course, so I certainly don’t want to shave it off like I did when I lost half of it within three days in 2024. But as someone who has always had very thick hair, seeing thin patches begin to emerge hits hard. I’ve bought some lovely wide headbands that help cover it and might just take up wearing hats–by which I mean cloches and fedoras and maybe a newsboy. I’m not a ball-cap girl, LOL, but I’ve always loved those vintage styles and already have several! Who knows, maybe I’ll even break out my 1940s fascinator that I wore to the American Library Association Convention last summer with my 1940s style dress. 😉 Don’t put it past me!

The most encouraging thing with this latest infusion, though, is that David has said, “You seem more you than usual after treatment.” Often, that first week or so afterward, I’m so tired and nauseated that I guess I feel “dimmed,” let’s call it. Not my usual, ahem, sparkling self. 😉 Which my darling husband, of course, hates to see. He’s described it as “you feel so far away.” But not this last time, and I am so, so grateful for that.

Oh, and a quick funny! So with the Patrons & Peers this year, we’re doing monthly Zoom chats on my backlist titles. We’re finishing up the Culper Ring Series now, and it has been SO long since I’ve worked on these that I had to reread them. I had Circle of Spies with me at my last infusion, and my nurse came in and said, “Oh, whatcha reading?

It was a little embarrassing, honestly, to be like, “Oh, my own book.” LOL. But also SO funny how her eyes went wide and she leaned in to see my name on it and was like, “Oh wow, that IS your book! That’s your name on the cover!” So I explained it was book number 5 of mine, and I just turned in number 55, and it’s been a LONG time, so I had to reread before a book club chat… and she just got more and more excited and dashed out of the room over to the nurses’ station to look me up and was shouting to all the other nurses about it. Which was hilarious. I told David, “Gee, maybe I should always be reading my own book when I’m at an appointment.” I think next time I might bring in a goody-bag filled with a variety of my titles. I sure have plenty to choose from these days, for any taste. (I did take my oncology team copies of several over the years, but I hadn’t ever brought any into the Infusion Center, given that I rarely have the same nurses, that team is so big.) Anyway!

My next scans are scheduled for July, and again, we fully expect those to be clear. Between now and then, I have my next appointment with my surgeon in late June, at which point we’ll determine if I’ve healed enough from my emergency surgery in February to proceed to the next step for reconstruction, which will be the intense diep-flap surgery, where they take flesh and fat from my stomach to recreate the breasts.

But before THAT, David and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary on June 17, and we’ve decided to take a trip to Quebec City for the week. Our original plan was to go to Europe for this one, but my oncology team advised against any flight of more than 3 hours, given that I’m immunocompromised, so…we figured we’d better stick to North America. David looked up cities with the most European feel on our side of the pond, and Quebec City topped the list. I visited once when I was 15, for a French Club trip, and really enjoyed it. I’d originally said, “Oo, let’s stay in the Chateau Frontenac!” it being the most iconic hotel in the city. Then I looked at the prices, LOL, and realized we could get a really nice AirBnB for a quarter of the cost. So yeah. We’ll be doing that and can go tour the Chateau if we want. 😉 But mostly our goal will be to wander, sit outside of cafes and people watch, read, relax, and just take in the charm.

Thank you all, as always, for being so faithful to remember me in your prayers. I am always so, so touched when I hear how many people have me always on their prayer lists, and their church’s prayer list, and their small group list, etc. I feel your prayers, my friends. And I know God hears them. He has been so, so good to me. I know this is just a season–perhaps longer than I’d like, and man, am I looking forward to the day when I’m not just waiting for the next THING–the next infusion, the next surgery, the next scans. I’m looking forward to being able to strengthen my body again and to feel good. I believe that day will come. And in the meantime, I’ll keep on clinging to His hand and resting secure there. I’ll keep on doing my work and writing my stories and finding the joy in the everyday miracles He gives me.

And I’ll keep on praising Him and thanking YOU. Because I can’t imagine traveling this path alone.

In The Christmas Courier, my holiday novella that will come out in October 2026, my heroine thinks this about the hero:

“It wasn’t that Daniel was particularly handsome, probably. He wasn’t not either, of course. He was just…Daniel. That strong, sharp nose, the dark brown hair that was somehow always in need of a trim, even right after a trip to the barber. The mouth always so quick to smile, that she’d dreamed for so many years would kiss her.”

I loved writing this part, because it’s so true, isn’t it? Madeleine, the heroine, has known Daniel literally all her life. And she’s loved him all her life too, in one way or another. She doesn’t love him because of how he looks–but because she loves him, she loves that appearance too. And as for her? Madeleine was self-conscious when she was younger, constantly teased for not being fashionably slender. But Daniel had always told her she was beautiful.

And so, she believed him. Even though she didn’t necessarily love how she looked, she learned to see herself through his eyes, and so she became confident.

This is one of my favorite things about writing romance. Sometimes my characters are traditionally beautiful. Sometimes they’re not. But always, always, always they are seen as beautiful in the eyes of the one who loves them. Sometimes, much like Mr. Darcy’s view of Elizabeth, that grows and changes over time. Sometimes, they see immediately what others don’t. Sometimes, they’re immediately struck by that overt beauty and have to dig down beneath it.

Whatever the story, whatever the character demands, in the end, they all end up at that place where Madeleine in when she looks at Daniel–the place I am when I look at my husband. The place he is when he looks at me.

The place where you see all the features, and they stop adding up to pretty or handsome or ugly or beautiful or any other such label. And instead, they add up to mine. They add up to the one that I love. And once they’re that…well, beauty is a side effect.

It’s probably no coincidence that I wrote Madeleine and Daniel this way, as my body is yet again going through chemo-related changes. I can admit that it’s not easy, and there are moments when I’ve been struggling. 

When I was undergoing full chemo in 2024, I told a friend who was on the same journey, but a month or so behind me, that I found losing my hair to be worse than having lost my hair. I felt better once I’d shaved it, but those days of it coming out by the handful–those were HARD. 

Well, I’m now in a perpetual state of losing. Complete hair loss isn’t expected with my current treatment, but “thinning hair” is my reality right now. Which means that every day, I’m seeing it. Every day, if I touch my hair at all, I come away with two or three or four strands in my fingers. Every time. Day in and day out. It wears on me, yes. I don’t like it.

And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, that’s what I see. The thin patches, the receding hairline. I see the lack of what I usually am. I see the disfigurement from my last surgery. I see the evidence of two years of not enough energy to exercise like I used to.

But you know what happens then? I turn away from the mirror, and I walk out into the room where my husband is. And every time, he looks up at me with eyes of love. Every time, he smiles at me and says, “You’re so pretty.” It doesn’t matter what my hair looks like, or any other part of me. He sees me. And so, I see me too. Just as I see him. The eyes and the dimples and the grin that I love, yes–my love. 

When we think about our self-image, how we see ourselves, I think most of us have probably given some thought to seeing ourselves for who we are, not just how we appear. And I’ve certainly reflected on how we need to see ourselves as God sees us.

Lately, though, I’ve been so grateful that He gives us people who love us, to help us with that. God sees us through the eyes of love–and that’s how we see those we love best too. We don’t love them because they’re beautiful–but they are always beautiful because we love them. And so, the same is true for us.

We are beautiful because we are loved.

I’ve needed that reminder lately…maybe some of you do too. So there it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re classically gorgeous. It doesn’t matter if you’re in shape. It doesn’t matter is your hair’s falling out or if you’ve been changed by surgery or if you have acne or scars or anything else. You are created in the image of God himself, and you are beautiful. Walk in the confidence of that.

Holy Week has long been the most precious week of my year. Even in high school, this was the week that brought my focus fully onto Christ in a way nothing else ever can. This is the week that inspired my first novel, A Stray Drop of Blood. This is the week when my hubby and I started dating. This is the week, especially the end of it, when we enter into Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, when I pause normal life to focus on the enormity of what my Savior did for me.

The fact that the Triduum (Holy Thursday through Easter) is also the biggest celebration in the liturgical year is one of the things I immediately loved about the Catholic tradition. In the Baptist church we spent fifteen years in, David and I were often left feeling let down by the disinterest in this holy time, when we wanted to do something each day and…no one else did. So we created our own traditions, but they never felt quite enough. Well, I can say in all honesty that the daily services and masses definitely feel enough. They are enough. They are, in my humblest of opinions, the most beautiful services to be found. The washing of the feet on the Thursday…the focus on the cross and fasting on Friday…and the candlelit vigil on Saturday…gah! I LOVE THEM.

This year, though, will be different for me.

This year, my Holy Thursday starts in an infusion chair in the cancer center.

Tears fill my eyes as I type this. Because, friends, this is not how I want to be spending my Holy Week. I want to be focusing on Him, not the churning of my stomach. I want to be thinking about the cross, not my exhaustion. I want to be celebrating His miraculous resurrection, not trying to drag myself out of bed.

As I realized that this, my fifth infusion of Enhurtu, would be on Holy Thursday, I very nearly reached out to my oncology team to say, “Could we postpone this a week, so that I don’t have to be sick over Easter?” Because the last four…they hit me hard. Even after my clear scans (praise God!) meant dialing back the nastiest part of the drug cocktail, I was still fighting exhaustion for five days and nausea for ten. Last cycle, the week following infusion, I didn’t feel much like me. My brain was a bit foggy. I felt subdued. It was hard to joke (my standard response to pretty much anything), hard to be creative. “You feel so far away after an infusion,” my husband said. And I knew what he meant, because I feel it too. Me, my personality, my spark, is so subdued in those days. I hate it–but it’s the reality.

I didn’t make the request, for a variety of reasons. But as I settled that in my mind, it made room for more thoughts. And they are this:

Maybe this is the perfect time to not feel like me–because maybe then I can focus more on HIM. Maybe this is the perfect time to be raw, emotional, and weak–because maybe then I’ll understand a bit better how HE felt. Maybe this is the perfect time to be suffering–because oh, how HE suffered.

Maybe I need to pause and realize that these holy days are not about me making them enough. They’re about HIM making them enough. Enough to fill me. Enough to sustain me.

Enough to save me.

This isn’t the Holy Week I wanted. But I pray it’s the Holy Week I need. I pray that as I sit in that infusion chair, I can reflect His light. I pray that as we experiment with a new med regimen to try to get the nausea under control, just enough me is there to cling to Him. I pray that as I’m no doubt fighting exhaustion, I can put myself in the garden with the disciples who succumbed to it too, and I can hear my Savior’s bid to pray with Him. To be there with Him. To watch with Him, because His time had come. The hour was nigh.

And all creation held its breath.

Whether we feel it or not, these days are so precious. Because we are pausing to remember the most amazing miracle. The Word who spoke the world into being, the Word that came among us, the Word that was silenced will ring out again in victory in a few short days. And all creation will shout with Him.

I pray that, whatever your traditions, our Lord meets you in a special way this coming weekend too. I pray that we, who are always held so tenderly in our Father’s hand, will be moved in new ways as we contemplate the suffering of our Brother, the sorrow of His death, and the joy of His resurrection. I pray we, too, rise anew with Him. On Sunday and every day. 

This weekend, I will likely suffer–just a bit. I’ll probably be tired. I’ll probably feel sick. And I’ll give it to Him, who suffered unto death. Who sweated blood. Who was beaten, lashed, had a crown of thorns pressed cruelly to His brow. Who suffered the most agonizing death ever devised by man, and who did it willingly.

For you. For me.

He stretched His arms wide to the world, by His own choice. 

And He defeated that suffering. Won the victory over death. And promises us all that even though we’ll encounter suffering of our own, there is a purpose. And it is Him.

Last year around this time, there were things that I found upsetting in modern politics. As I sat in Church in an hour of prayer, I laid it all out before God and asked, “Should I speak?” And I very clearly felt Him say no. It was not the time. I didn’t understand why, but I obeyed.

I think perhaps now I understand why He asked me to wait. I think it may be because I was at the beginning of what turned out to be a year-long (and ongoing) experiment. See, I’d never been one to read the news—it was too depressing. ? Instead, I’d rely on my news-rabid husband to keep me informed. But last January, I’d felt the need to break that old habit…but I wanted to do it right. I decided that I would read news from a deliberate variety of sources. Especially when a big event caught my attention, I would seek out both the liberal and conservative perspectives on it. My husband does this daily and also reads foreign news, so as we discussed things, he would add in the perspective of international news outlets. (He still spends a lot more time reading the news than I do!) Last year, my opinions were not very well-informed, which means they weren’t all that well formed, either. They were emotional responses—not as reasoned as I wanted to think they were, and not nuanced.

In this year of deliberate reading, I discovered something. I discovered that it was very easy for me, a lifelong Conservative, to pick out the liberal bias in a piece, and after I acknowledged and then dismissed my own knee-jerk reaction to it, I could read the actual information contained with objectivity. It was more difficult in conservative pieces, because their bias is my own. I had to work to be able to pick that out and examine the facts.

Although, I also discovered another interesting thing—that as I perceived Conservative politics (from my perspective, I know you may not feel the same way!) deviating more and more from my own long-held beliefs, that bias in Conservative news began to strike me in a new way. I was angry. I was upset. It felt like a slap in the face that made me do something very strange—it made me want to turn away from it entirely.

That was bizarre. While I have new understanding of many liberal views, there are also key issues where I still very much disagree with the usual lines…but this knee-jerk reaction was pushing me toward them. And then I realized why it was.

I felt betrayed. And when you feel betrayed, a frequent emotional reaction is to want to turn completely away from the perceived traitor. This is why couples who go through divorce can so quickly go from love to hate. Once I identified this emotion, I was able to sit back, evaluate my actual, continual core principles, and realize that the appropriate response was not abandonment…but healing.

That’s the journey I’ve been on in this last year with modern politics.

Now—I’ve long had a policy. As a Christian novelist with a growing platform, a core tenet of my interactions with the public has always been “don’t talk about politics.” It’s a guaranteed way to alienate half your readership—because there are Christians on both sides of the political aisle. But as American politics continue to spiral into snarling shouting matches, I found myself again at a place where I wanted to speak.

This time, it was different. This time, it was because of a few stupid memes. Now, another key tenet of mine is “Don’t argue with people on Facebook,” a corollary of which is “Especially don’t argue with memes.” ? But these particular memes struck me because they were cruel…and they were shared by people I know personally. Now, this is nothing new with these particular people (again, people I know in real life, in my hometown). But on this particular Friday night, it brought me to tears. (Granted, I’m super emotional right now after my second cancer diagnosis, LOL. See my post called “Given to Tears.”) Not because of the political opinion—but because of the attitude of disgust and bitterness and hatred from these people who I know love Jesus. That brought me to tears. It wasn’t worry, it wasn’t anger. It was sorrow.

And responding from sorrow…that’s very different from responding from anger.

I asked again, “Lord, is it time to speak?” And this time, the answer was very different. This time, the answer was yes. That night, I woke up at about 2:15 and, as often happens to me in the middle of the night, my brain clicked on. (This is where most of my books are plotted, LOL. In the dark of the night, when I should be sleeping. Now you know my secret.) I lay there for the next four hours working through what He would have me say—what would glorify God and also lay my heart bare. What would not invite argument, but rather dialogue. I crafted and recrafted the words in my head. I prayed. And as David eventually woke up in the morning (LOL), I told him my thoughts, and the tears came again.

Again, not from anger, not from worry. From sorrow. From grief.

So I got up and I wrote a Facebook post. It was five pages long, LOL. THAT wasn’t going to work, so I had ChatGPT recommend where to cut and tighten, and I ended up with a far more reasonable two pages. In this post, I spoke directly to my MAGA friends (though I didn’t name names). I did something I don’t do—I talked about politics. I shared my own stances and opinions, from the perspective of why I feel betrayed by my party, and more, why I feel betrayed specifically by these people—these people who helped raise me, who are the ones who taught me how to follow Jesus, who taught me what I should look for in politicians. Who, from my point of view, are now not only defending things they once taught me to despise, but who are mocking those who disagree. Am I misunderstanding them? I really hope so. (I had a lot of people who chimed in saying, “Do you consider me MAGA just because I voted for Trump? Because there are a lot of things I have problems with, I just made a decision based on these key things.” My answer to them is, “No, you’re not the ones in particular I was addressing, though I do really appreciate your perspective! I was addressing those who defend everything he does.”)

I didn’t set out to convince anyone of anything—not my goal at all. I set out to be vulnerable. To express why I feel the way I do, to share how I’m interpreting their actions, and to ask them to weigh in and correct me where I’m wrong, explain the things I just don’t understand, and to help me see their point of view more clearly. I love them. I don’t want to judge them (but I had been…which ain’t cool. I know that.). I want to start healing this wound in my own heart, and also healing this rift that is growing within the Church.

What followed were thousands of comments, both from my MAGA friends and from a lot of people who feel the way I do but thought they were alone. People from all sides—from the left, from the right, and from this weird place in the middle of current definitions where I find myself—who had given up speaking because they were afraid of being attacked. The comment section, and my private messages, became a place where they could engage honestly and openly and without fear. It was overwhelming, I’ll be honest—I spent that entire Saturday answering comments and messages—eight long but beautiful hours. When I woke up on Sunday morning, there were about 360 comments, many of which were my own replies, and when I left for church, I had about 50 yet to go through. After church and nursing home ministry and lunch and a nap, I went back to my computer to hit “refresh,” and there were 900 comments, 600 of which I hadn’t read.

I’ll admit it–I panicked, because I hadn’t been there moderating. And yet the newest comments, from total strangers, many of them even from around the world, were to the effect of, “Wow, I didn’t think conversations like this could still happen. This gives me hope.” It gives me hope too. =) The comment section did eventually devolve, and I know of at least two cases where people were hurt and only seeing ugly, bullying comments, and they were baffled by how I was saying it was good…and I get that and regret so deeply that this happened to them! I will share one particular experience about how it resolved soon. And I will also say that I learned how tricky it is for anyone to see a full picture when algorithms are in play! I kept getting notifications like “Jane Doe + 56 others tagged you in a comment.” When I clicked on it, it would show me that first comment, but none others, and short of clicking “all comments” and scrolling for an hour to try to find one in particular, by which time more had come in…I simply couldn’t see them. I imagine it was the same for others, who were alerted when they were tagged, so if they were targeted with bullying, that would be all they saw. Which wasn’t at all what I intended.

But in general, as people checked out (understandably) it was often with comments to me thanking me for the tenor of the original post and conversation. Even with ugly sneaking in at the end, many people agreed that it was beautiful. It was healing.

And I realized that it isn’t enough. It’s the proof of a concept, but one that needs to continue. Because friends, we can’t continue like this. We can’t continue refusing to hear things we don’t like, dismissing any view not our own, and embracing those knee-jerk, emotional reactions that tell us if someone disagrees, then they’re not really a Christian. That if someone disagrees, they’re evil. If someone disagrees, then we should dismiss them entirely. More, we can’t continue growing angrier at each other, letting the wounds fester. That isn’t what God wants for us, and I know we all agree on that!

Ours is a world of nuance. How can it not be? We serve a God who is at once so simple, able to be summed up in a single sentence: God is love. And yet so infinitely complex that our human minds will never grasp His intricacies and mysteries this side of Heaven. We serve a God who is both perfect Justice and perfect Mercy. His creation is just as complex. And fallen humanity? Hoo, boy! There’s nothing simple about how to untangle the mess our sin has created in this world.

And so, in the next few posts, I’m going to keep speaking—and you can expect me to continue to do so. Not to be political—I may discuss current events, and I’m of course coming from my own perspective—but to invite dialogue, to dig down not only to the heart of issues but also into our own hearts, and to grow our mutual understandings. Because I will be the first to admit that I do not understand ANYTHING fully. I am keenly aware of how my own opinions shift as I learn more. So if my opinions change, why would I try to convince you of them? I’m just hoping you’ll want to come along on the ride of discovery and learning and deepening our own understanding, with the goal of better seeing the nuance of those complicated issues and also of each other’s hearts.

I’m going to break these into multiple posts (because this one is already long), but I’m going to publish several of them all at once. If you’d like to engage, you’re welcome to do so at any time on any of the topics. As I publish them, I’ll be adding links to each topic at the bottom of this cornerstone post.

I hope and pray that whether we’re in the same place or different ones, we can be open and vulnerable like that Facebook conversation was at the start—because I love you. You, my readers, are my whole purpose. You are the reason I get up every morning and write the stories God has put on my heart. I don’t love you because we agree—I don’t love because we’re on the same “side.” I don’t love you because I think you’ll echo back to me my own beliefs.

I love you because you are so precious in the sight of God. Most of you know Him and love Him (I know I have some readers who aren’t there yet, too). So most of us are starting from the same place…but that doesn’t mean we’ve taken the same journey or are viewing things in the same way now. And that’s not only okay, that’s beautiful. That means we have so much to learn from each other. It’s no coincidence that Jesus invited both Zealots and tax collectors into His inner circle. Two diametrically opposed positions in that world—both of whom could bring those opposite politics to the Lord’s feet and love Him.

I want us, the Church, to begin healing. And that requires conversation. Not shouting matches, not debates, not trying to win or be right. Learning. Truly learning the other points of view, truly seeking to see others’ hearts.

You’re going to find other people who are standing exactly where you are—and you’ll realize you’re not alone. You’re going to find people who disagree with you—and who can show you things you’d never considered before. You’re (again) going to find people who disagree with you—and who need to hear what you have to say. You’re going to be confronted with uncomfortable truths, no matter your opinions. And you’re going to have to wrestle with them. Because denying them doesn’t achieve anything but the hardening of our own hearts.

I hope you’ll come along on this journey with me. If you’re not up for it, that’s okay. I get it. Maybe it isn’t your time to speak yet. But if it is, and if you do, I pray you’ll join me in the spirit in which I’m opening this dialogue, and I pray you’ll be vulnerable and share your thoughts and opinions and stances. I need to hear them. I need to understand where you’re coming from. I still have so, so much to learn—I know that. And since you’re human, I bet you do too. ?

A year ago, I was angry and wanted to hold people accountable. This year, I’m grieving, and I want to heal. Are you ready for that, too? Then please, come along.

In one of my next posts, you’ll find my story as I shared it on Facebook. In another, I’m going to pause to remind us all of what makes for constructive dialogue, and I’m also going to equip us with something I sure need—a logical fallacy toolkit. The purpose of that will be to give us the tools and words to help us identify why certain arguments feel “off” to us, which in turn helps us know how to respond. I’ll be using examples of them straight from my social media feed. And from there, we’re going to start talking about some of the hard topics and hot button issues we’re confronted with every day right now, from immigration to Greenland to abortion.

And I’m doing something else too. I’m opening up a place to talk about these things live. If there’s enough interest, I’ll be hosting Zoom chats with my husband, in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin’s Junto club or the Maryland founding fathers’ Wednesday Club—where we talk about things that matter from a place of vulnerability, desire to learn, and love and respect for each other. No “winning,” no “agreeing to disagree” (I hate that phrase! LOL). Just earnest, open communication between people who love God and crave that unity in the Church that’s sorely lacking right now.

I’m calling this “The Common Room.” Historically speaking, that’s the place in an inn where people would come to gather—to share a meal, to learn, to talk. We’re going to be emphasizing what we have in common (our faith, our love of God and of the home here on earth He’s given us, and also of each other), and we’re going to be learning from each other when it comes to differences. So I’ll also be sharing the “rules of engagement” for these meetings. ? I hope you’ll come. If you’re interested, please fill out this super-fast form so I (a) know there’s enough interest to warrant it and (b) can send you the Zoom link.

And so, this post will end with this message: if you are liberal, I love you for your concern for your fellow man. If you are conservative, I love you for your adherence to core principles and belief in the sacred. If you are moderate, I love you for trying so hard to strike the balance between the two. If you are confused about it all, I love you for your self-awareness and admission that there’s just too much to take in. No matter where you stand right now, your perspective matters. Your views are not only valid, they are valuable. Come be seen. Come be heard.

Come be healed.

(*A quick note–when this posts, I’ll be in Morgantown for my next chemo infusion, and my website does hold comments from first-time posters for approval, in order to weed out bots. So if you comment but don’t see it pop up immediately, that’s why. I’ll get online as soon as I’m able to approve anything that’s waiting. I just don’t want you to think any delay is intentional or aimed at whatever you might have shared!)

A Quick Guide to My “Hard Topics” Articles

I had my first infusion for what I’ve been thinking of as my “cancer blocker treatment” on January 7, so today, over two weeks later, I figured it would be a good time to update you on how I’m doing.

These infusions are NOT full chemo. They’re somewhat similar to treatments I had after surgery in 2024, going into May of 2025, and with those, I had zero side effects. So it’s been my hope and prayer that I would respond similarly with these. These, however, are not quite the same and do include a sizable list of possible side effects–most of which are things like stomach issues and thinning hair, but the serious one is a lung condition. (I DEFINITELY appreciate prayers that I don’t experience any serious ones!)

I’ll admit I got a little emotional when I went in on the 7th and my doctors were refilling my anti-nausea meds…and when the infusion had pre-meds for anti-nausea as well. Because I know that when I was on chemo, I felt nauseous every day. Every day from mid-May until the end of August. And y’all, I do not want to feel sick every day for the next year, so that hit me hard. Hopefully I won’t, but I did definitely get some of that belly-upset in the days immediately following the infusion. No vomitting or anything, so praise God for that…but about 8 days of feeling crummy, and seriously exhausted for the first 2 or 3. As in, sit down to read after dinner and fall asleep instead, which I never do.

The bright side was that I went in with a cold, but the steroids they gave me opened my nose up and helped me get over it, LOL. I’ll take my wins wherever I can!

I was also warned that I’m very likely to feel more tired than usual in general. Which isn’t great, given that I have 7-8 books to write this year, so prayers are VERY much appreciated for me on the energy front. One of my big goals for the year is to figure out how to rebalance my schedule to allow for more, better time for writing, which will likely mean taking time from my design schedule. Prayers for wisdom in how to juggle all those things greatly appreciated too!

They do also consider me to be immune-compromised while on this treatment, so I’ll be going back into “careful” mode, masking in crowds and avoiding anyone I know is sick.

But my oncologist did also make it VERY clear that his goal is to get me off this treatment as quickly as possible. It will still likely be a year of infusions (though likely with a break in there for my next reconstruction surgery), but he does NOT want me to be on this indefinitely, and that’s music to my ears.

As for that next surgery…so my initial reconstruction isn’t doing so well, and radiation is no doubt to blame. It can (and clearly did) damage the whole area, not just the skin but the muscles and everything else in there. In my case, my right side has tightened, meaning daily pain. The area itself is still always sore and sometimes outright painful, and even my neck/shoulder muscles have been effected. When I last saw my PT and told her that my hand was tingly, we quickly determined it was from the muscles in my neck and shoulder. When we finished the diagnostic exercises that verified that and she got to work on it, it earned a “Dang, girl!” LOL. So…yeah. I’ve been doing the exercises she gave me, but I still get a tingly hand every couple days and frequently either wake up or end my day with super tight neck/shoulder muscles that result in a splitting headache.

On Monday, I had an appointment with my surgeon, who agrees that our next step should be to remove the current reconstruction and do the deep-tissue method, which uses belly fat/skin to reshape the breasts. This is where I wanted to end up eventually, I was just hoping to defer it to “down the road.” Because I’ll be honest–I’m tired of surgeries, LOL. And timing this one is tricky. My oncologist will have to clear it, and when I spoke to him about the possibility on the 7th, he said that if my scans in March are clear, then he will be comfortable pausing the infusions while I undergo and recuperate from surgery.

Because it’s a big one. It’s long and complicated, and that means recovery is too, requiring a solid eight weeks, from those I’ve spoken to who have had it. My oncologist (a) wouldn’t want me dealing with side effects from infusions while also dealing with this recovery and (b) chemo can in fact slow and interfere with recovery in general. So there we go.

As of today, I feel good. But the cycle begins again next Thursday…so prayers are very much appreciated, and I thank you all so much for them!