OFF MY RAMPAGE

I'm through making my statement. I feel better after writing about how I felt about God and our country. Sometimes it helps to let off steam.

I'm editing chapter 29 of 35 chapters of Susannah. I love that girl. I never thought I could love a character as much as I loved Callie in the previous book, but Susannah and Val have taken my heart. I wanted to make a big change in her life and it happened like I wanted it to. She is no longer the arrogant girl in Callie's Mountain. She is a beautiful caring woman.

My plans are to finish my edit by the end of this week. My critique partner will begin looking at my chapters again. She had a huge re-write on her last book. I don't agree with what the editor wanted, but I guess she is more informed in the selling of books.

I am so anxious to get this book on the market. Okay, let me tell you up front, it is about a mixed marriage. Let me justify it by this, it happened at that place at that time. That is history. Were people prejudiced? Yes, very much so. That doesn't mean we can hide our faces in the sand and think it didn't exist.

Recently, I thought a lot about mixed marriages and how the Bible looked on them. God commanded the Israelite people to be pure. You can read about their food, their cleanliness, and how they were not to marry foreign people. We've been studying that in Deuteronomy and there Moses tells the children what they can and can't do. Exodus does the same thing, but he brought it home to them again before he died.

In Acts 10 when Peter was sent to Cornelius, the barrier was broken. Peter, being a devout Jew, would not have been able to enter Cornelius' house. It was forbidden by the Jewish religion. Cornelius was a Gentile, a person with little respect from the Jews. By God breaking that barrier, we can now enjoy other people of other nations.

Today there are very few genteel races. America is a melting pot of races. We have intermingled and intermarried for centuries.