Interview with
By Carrie Fancett Pagels
Lisa Harris is the author of An Ocean Away (Summerside, 2011), Blood Ransom (Zondervan) and Blood Covenant (Zondervan). She is represented by Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary Agency (also my agent!)
Lisa, welcome to Overcoming Through Time.
Would you share either the most difficult thing in your life you have had to overcome, with God’s help, or the most tragic situation or circumstance one of your character’s has had to get past?
The most difficult thing I’ve ever faced is the loss of our first child. After many years of waiting for a child, I finally got pregnant, only to lose the baby at three months. I’ve written about this on my blog and how it ended up taking me on a spiritual journey that in turn would change my life. I had to make the decision of whether or not I truly believed that God was in control and if he was, I was going to have to give Him everything, including my desire for a child, over to him.
What is your favorite bible verse and why?
This changes as the circumstances in my life change, but right now one of my favorites is Romans 8:37-39. Through Him we are more than conquerors!
Disability friendliness:
Blood Ransom (paperback through CBD) and Blood Covenant (CBD paperback) come in large print, kindle, and an audio version.
An Ocean Away is available as an eBook and in paperback through Amazon.
What has been the most important thing you hope your readers will get from your books and why?
There are numerous examples in the Bible of men and women who God called to serve Him in an extraordinary way through His power. Gideon was victorious with only three hundred men, a handful of trumpets, jars, and torches. Esther saved her people from the threat of death, David was a shepherd boy who became king of a nation, and I could go on and on.
God calls us in the middle of our ordinary, run-of-the-mill, take-out-the-trash- and drive-the-kids-to-school routine. So stop and ask yourself this one question. How do you see God calling you to make a difference in your world? He’s the one who will give you the strength to do extraordinary things for Him.
As you researched your books, did you learn anything that particularly touched your heart?
As I started doing the research for Blood Covenant, for example, I found myself afraid that my readers would find the plot unbelievable. Surely the story of a humanitarian crisis dealing with so many issues—from cholera to measles to rebels—could only be fabricated and would never happen in today’s world. Yet as I read story after story of individual refugees I found myself weeping with them over what they experienced. And I realized that, if anything, I had sanitized my story to make it more believable, because the facts tell another story.According to the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders, there are forty-two million people in the world who have been displaced by war and violence.
Read that again: forty-two million.
So while the story behind Blood Covenant, including the setting, is fictional, the issue of those being forced to leave their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their back, often after witnessing murder, rape, violence and kidnappings, is very real. But in spite of this horror, I didn’t want to stop the story there. Drawing from my own experiences across Africa over the past twenty years I wanted to tell a story that went beyond the adversities and gave a message of hope.
This research has made me want to listen closer to God and how He wants me to reach out to those hurting around me. We’re not all called to live overseas as missionaries, but we all can see those living near us who need God’s grace, forgiveness, and love. It might be a hurting neighbor down the street, a lonely teen in your youth group, or a tired young mother in your apartment building. God can and does use ordinary people like you and me to do extraordinary things.
In this latest work, do you have any topics useful for bibliotherapy, or therapeutic influence through reading about a disorder or situation?
I’m not sure about this. J
Thank you Lisa Harris for agreeing to answer these questions. We appreciate your sharing about how God has helped you overcome the loss of your child and pray that it will encourage others who have suffered, too. May God bless you in your ministries!
Giveaway: Lisa is giving away a copy of her new book. Leave a comment with your email address to enter. Drawing will be next weekend.
