May 20th, 2013

In many ways I am the worst kind of survivor—the kind that does nothing to save my own life, but instead is unknowingly steered away from danger and death by no act of my own.  On April 19^th, 1995, I missed being in front of the Alfred P. Murrah building by only minutes, only because of a phone call my mom placed to me as I was walking out the door, asking me to come sign dental insurance papers.  I arrived with the first fire truck to see the chaos and devastation, thankful not to be a part of it.

                Eighteen years later, I would come face-to-face with another killer, this time in the form of not a bomber but a tornado.  This is my account of what happened on May 20^th, 2013, and more importantly, the spiritual lessons God helped me draw from the most terrifying moment in my entire life.

**

                Monday was a typical day—hectic, with too many things crammed into the span of 12 hours.  I had an appointment that morning to get my hair cut.  I chatted with Steve, my hair guy, about the minor tornado that went through Edmond the night before, and the subject moved on to other things.  By the time I left, I was already behind in my day but that was how most of my days went.

                Sean, my husband, has Mondays off, so he was home as I worked in my bedroom office.  A little after two he hollered that he was leaving.  He always picks up our son, John, from school so that I can have a little extra work time before I go get our daughter, Cate, from her school, which releases an hour later.

                I was immersed in work, trying to catch up on time lost that day, when the first weather alert went off on my phone.  I glanced at it.  It said “severe thunderstorm warning.”  Outside it was sunny and bright, but we’d been warned the night before that today was a “red alert” day, meaning there was a high probability of a tornado outbreak. 

                It was nothing new in Oklahoma.  Red alerts are rare, but we’ve had them before and we know what to do.  Storms start bubbling up in the late afternoon, and you keep your TV on and watch what’s going on for the rest of the night.

                I remember thinking that at 2:20 p.m., the storms were bubbling early.  Typically it’s 4 p.m. or after before they start “firing,” as we call it.

                I was in the middle of finishing a thought for the book I was working on, so I spent the next ten minutes tying that up, then went to our living room to turn the TV on and see where, exactly, the severe storm was.  I knew it wasn’t over me.  Bright light glowed in from every window.

                I grabbed my coffee from my desk and went to the living room to turn on the TV.  It takes about fifteen to thirty seconds for our TV to power up so I just stood there waiting, sipping my coffee.  When the picture finally came on, the head meteorologist that I always watch was talking fast and showing pictures of the radar.  I wasn’t tuned into what he was saying as much as how he was saying it.  His face was tense.  His tone was serious.  I set my coffee down and tried to figure out where this storm was.  The first word that raised a red flag for me was “Newcastle.”

                When you live in Moore, there are key towns you listen for, knowing that if it’s over this or that place then you’ll probably be next.  I still wasn’t alarmed.  Newcastle just meant we’d be next if the storm was moving Northeast, which most did.  I stood there waiting for the radar to come up again when I heard him say, “This thing is passing over I-44.  Right now.  It’s passing over I-44!”

                I remember thinking, What is passing over I-44?  Then I heard him say “tornado.”

                I stood there frozen, in total shock.  There was a tornado?  I thought it was a storm.  There was a tornado?  On the ground?

                “Folks,” he said, “this is taking the exact path of May 3^rd of 1999.”

                And that’s when utter fear struck me.  I knew I was in its path.  The neighborhood that I currently lived in had been wiped off the map on May 3^rd.  My mind raced.  If I was in its path, so was our church, John’s school and Cate’s school.  Whether Sean had stopped at the church (where he worked) on his way to get John or not, he was in the path.  My entire family was in its path and none of us were together.  I tried to call Sean but his phone rolled to voicemail over and over.

                “It’s on May Avenue!  May Avenue!”  the meteorologist shouted. May was just three miles to the west of me.  I don’t exactly know when or why I called my mom, but I was on the phone with her, panic building in me by the second. 

                “Mom, I don’t know what I should do.  Should I go get Cate?  Should I get her?  I don’t think I have enough time. Do I have enough time to get her and get home?”

                Looking at the projected path of the tornado, it was headed straight for Cate’s school, which stood right in front of our neighborhood.  “What should I do?  Mom?”

                She was watching the news with me at her house in Edmond.  “I don’t think you have time.  It’s at Penn and 134th.” Cate’s school was right in its path, one half mile away.  “You need to find shelter.”

                I ran outside briefly, but I knew…all my neighbors who had tornado shelters were at work.  The tornado sirens started blaring.  Plus, how could I go underground when everything that mattered to me in the world was right in the path of this tornado, above ground?

                “Rene,” my mom said, “it’s time.  You need to make a decision and do it.  I don’t think you have time to get to Cate.”

                “My neighbors aren’t home.”

                “Then get in your bathtub.”

                But that was one of the last things I’d heard the meteorologist say—if you’re not underground, you’re not going to make it.  “This thing is a monster,” he said.

                “OK, I’m going,” I said, and hung up with my mom.

                I first ran to my computer to send out an urgent prayer request and then ran to my son’s bedroom to get a mattress to put over me in the bathtub but I couldn’t lift it. From the living room, I could hear the meteorologist shouting, “Get underground!  You must get underground!”  Something told me to run outside, try again for a neighbor.  The sirens were screaming and to the southwest was the darkest, blackest cloud I’d ever seen. It literally swallowed up the light.

                I looked toward the DeMents two doors down and their garage door was open.  The wind was blowing and I ran, ducking because it sounded like hail had started.  Serena, the mom, waved me in.  “Hurry!”  I ran down into the cellar.  Inside were Serena’s four children, one of whom was Cate’s best friend.

                “Where’s Cate?” her daughter asked, wide-eyed.

                Grief swallowed me.  Serena had been vigilant and gone to get her girls.  She’d been watching the weather.  I’d gotten caught off guard and now Cate’s life was in danger.  My husband. My son.  They were all out there, above ground.

                The hardest thing I’ve ever done was descend into that shelter knowing the whole of my heart and life was right in the path of a tornado that they said we wouldn’t survive if we weren’t underground.

                I tried to hold it together.  It wasn’t going to help matters for me to get hysterical in front of Serena’s four children.  Her husband, Bob, was trying to track it on his computer, but we couldn’t get a signal.  Then, like that, the quiet hum of electricity was gone.  All the lights went out.  The air got very still and quiet.  Bob said it was time to close the door.

                I sat there in the dark, with one lone flashlight glowing, trying to utter silent prayers against my frantically beating heart.  I pleaded with God. “Lord, my whole life is up there!  Please keep them safe!  Please help us all!”

                There was a peace there.  I couldn’t explain it.  I just knew that I had absolutely no control now.  I was safe, yes.  But if my family died, I didn’t want to be here. Yet it was where I was and God was where they were and I knew that ultimately, they couldn’t have been in better hands.  What was I going to do to stop a tornado? I was helpless here in the cellar but just as helpless out there facing the tornado. I could do nothing but trust the God whom I knew loved me and loved my family.

                We could hear something outside now, maybe the tornado, but it was hard to know.  After a few minutes, which seemed like an hour, we emerged to absolutely no destruction.  I ran down to my house to try to call Sean, but there was no signal and there was no electricity.

                When I ran back outside, Serena was talking to a neighbor further down that I didn’t recognize.  As I approached them, there was a look on Serena’s face that I couldn’t interpret.  I looked at the man and I said, “Where did it hit?”

                “It came down 134^th,” he said.  “It hit a school.”

                I lost it.  I was distraught as I ran to my van, shaking as I peeled out of my driveway.  I drove two blocks to the path that led to the back of Cate’s school.  I ran down the path and could see the gym was standing but the gym blocked the entire school.  I couldn’t see a thing until I rounded the gym, breathing hard, my lungs on fire and my legs cramping from the run. 

There the school was, standing, totally intact.  The man, I thought, had gotten wrong information.

                I tried all the doors, hoping to get in, but they were in lockdown.  I finally found an open door and ran toward the 5^th grade hallway.  I hurried to her room.  Her teacher was standing in the hallway with the other teachers.  Their electricity was out too.

                I thanked them as Cate ran into my arms.  She didn’t seem scared but looked happy to see me.  I told her to grab her things and that we would go.  With no electricity, we had no idea if there were more storms behind this one.

                As we walked out the front of the school, I saw the first signs of tragic news.  Firetrucks, ambulances and police cars raced by, over and over and over.  As we walked to the van I heard the sirens wailing, and they didn’t stop.  I knew that wherever it hit, whatever it hit, it was bad.

                Now the question was, where was my husband and son?  We raced home in the van and to my everlasting gratefulness, they were now home.  Sean’s phone had died and he didn’t have a clue what was happening until the sirens went off.  He went into the middle school and the secretary said, “Sir!  A tornado is coming!”  Sean ran down to John’s classroom and found him, with his classmates, huddled under their desks in lockdown.  So he huddled with him and was there when the electricity went off.

                After some discussion, we decided to leave our house.  The sirens from the emergency vehicles still sounded, as if the whole world was lost.  We still didn’t know what ultimately happened because we had no TV, phone or internet.  But whatever happened, we knew we should probably just get out.

                Easier said than done. It took us almost an hour just to get out of our neighborhood and to the highway, which was only three miles away.  It was like the apocalypse. As cars fled the scene and emergency vehicles blocked the road, doctors and nurses ran by foot toward the chaos.  Dozens and dozens of them ran toward something awful.  Photographers ran too.  And then regular people were running, trying to get, I knew, to those they loved.  Along with the surreal scene, there was an odd smell in the air.

                As we headed north, toward my parents’ house, we saw emergency vehicles from all over the state coming toward Moore.  It wasn’t until I got to my parents’ house to see the television coverage did I know the full extent of the damage.  It was unimaginable.  I couldn’t fathom what I was seeing—schools gone, entire neighborhoods gone.  And the destruction was only one half mile from my house.

                Over the next few days and weeks, I contemplated all of this.  I struggled, mostly, with an unbearable guilt, for not being on top of the situation and going to get my kids out of harms’ way.  Why hadn’t I turned on the TV sooner?  Been more vigilant?

                I also had to face something else—survivor’s guilt, I guess they call it.  At the moment that the tornado was headed straight for all that I cared for in life, I sent out that quick email to my writers’ group, asking for them to pray for our safety.  Later, when I saw the map of where the tornado had gone, it clearly showed its suddenly turn east.  If it hadn’t turned, it would’ve hit us.  But how could I celebrate and praise God when the turning of that tornado left others dead?  Of course I was thankful for my family’s safety, but I also grieved for all those lives lost, most especially the little children.

                It was a private time for me of both praising and grieving and everything in between.  I recalled a scripture I’d read and meditated on a few years ago when I was developing a story idea.  It was from I Kings 19:11-13.  The Lord said to Elijah as he was hiding in a cave, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

                It helped me understand God was not in the tornado, but He was there nevertheless, in the gentle whispers and quiet peace that couldn’t be explained.  Around this same time, I read a devotional by John Piper where he talked about death being the final act of worship we have on this earth.  How we leave is just as important as how we arrived.  There were a lot of heroic moments on May 20^th—men and women, even children, who chose to sacrifice their life to try to save someone else.  My friend Angela, a teacher at one of the schools that was destroyed, flung herself over her students and shouted the Name of Jesus over the roar of the wind.  If she was going to go out of this life, she was going to do it shouting His name.  She lived through it, but many did not.  Another friend of mine, who recently moved to Moore from out of state, said she was amazed to watch people climbing out of the rubble and praising God, though they’d lost everything. 

                I am proud to be living in Moore, among truly heroic, truly godly, truly beautiful people.  I recently heard someone say, “Oklahoma ain’t for sissys.”  That cracked me up.  Oklahoma now holds three tornado records:  highest wind speed (May 3^rd, 1999, Moore, OK), largest tornado at 2.6 miles wide (May 31^st, 2013, El Reno, OK) and most destructive tornado (May 20^th, 2013, Moore, OK).  But I think we’re better known for the kinds of people who live here.

                So maybe I am the worst kind of survivor, the “lucky” one some might say.  But the truth is that none of us survive this world.  We’re going out of it, one way or the other.  Someday we have to say goodbye.  When it is our time, it is our time.  What will you do as your final act of worship?  I hope we all choose to live our lives well, be present in every moment we’re given, and know that even in the mighty storms of life, God is there.  You can hear Him.  He is the gentle whisper.  You are loved. Will you love Him?

 **

If you would like to help the relief efforts in Moore, OK, please see this website for suggestions: 

Moore, OK tornado relief

Interview with author Jordyn Redwood

Check out my interview with novelist Jordyn Redwood!  I met Jordyn last year at ACFW. I thought you might like to meet her too!  Here's her bio:

 Jordyn Redwood has served patients and their families for nearly 20 years and currently works as a pediatric ER nurse. As a self professed medical nerd and trauma junkie, she was drawn to the controlled chaotic environments of critical care and emergency nursing. Her love of teaching developed early and she was among the youngest CPR instructors for the American Red Cross at the age of seventeen. Since then, she has continued to teach advanced resuscitation classes to participants ranging from first responders to
MD’s.

When she discovered she also had a fondness for answering medical questions for authors, this led to the creation of Redwood’s Medical Edge. This blog is devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction.

Jordyn lives in Colorado with her husband, two daughters and one crazy hound dog. In her spare time she also enjoys reading her favorite authors, quilting and cross stitching.

And here's my interview!





I'm going to resist the urge to ask you when you started writing and instead ask you, do you ever stop writing or is something always going on in your head?

Jordyn: Yes, there is always something going on in my head—generally devious plotting for novels. Isn’t that the curse of every suspense author? Everyday situations become the fodder for a future book.

I came home early from work once (early for me is 9:00pm as I usually am scheduled until 11:00pm.) I come inside and my husband and children are gone. The children should be in bed. His car is in the garage. The dog is in his pen. The front door is unlocked—which I hate. No note. No nothing. They are just nowhere to be found. After I discovered where he’d gone with my babies and stopped worrying that something sinister had happened to them, I knew that was going to be an opening for one of my novels. It reminded me of something Linwood Barclay would write.

What draws you to your genre? If that genre was banned and you had to pick only one other, what genre would you pick? Why?

Jordyn: I love putting together puzzles for the reader and threatening the lives of characters along the way. Will this person survive to the end of the book? As an ER nurse, I’m a trauma junkie by nature and love readers to experience that rush of adrenaline as well.

Let me say I hope thriller/suspense novels are never banned as I’d have to go underground to write on the black market. If forced to choose a new legal genre I would probably delve into science fiction/fantasy as you could still write with a suspense element. Is that cheating?

What is the most nerve-racking part of professional writing for you?

Jordyn: The waiting just kills me. Waiting to hear if your book proposal will get a contract. Waiting to hear if the editor likes your novel. Waiting for edits to come back. Waiting to see the final book in print. Waiting for sales data.

So. Much. Waiting.

And then a flurry of activity and needing stuff back on a short deadline.

Just for fun, what is one word you can never remember how to spell? Is there a grammar rule you dread?

Jordyn: The word definitely is a struggle for me. I think just in 2012, I finally figured it out. I am not a grammar girl at all. I dread ALL grammar rules. This is why God made editors and I am very thankful for the editors who have helped make my books shine.

I confess to looking up answers in my daughter’s third grade grammar book—that’s how horrible I am. Evidently, I had a comma usage issue and a freelance editor said to me, “Think of it this way—every time you use a comma an angel dies.” So I think I’ve killed only one angel in this sentence but it got her point across.

Did you pick fiction writing or did it pick you?

Jordyn: It picked me for sure. I’ve written stories from the time I could pen sentences. Now, considering my previous confession, they likely weren’t grammatically correct sentences but I’ve always enjoyed storytelling. I wrote a lot of short stories and “novels” in high school then put most of my writing aside to focus on my nursing career.

It was only when things weren’t working out so well for me as far as advancing in my nursing career that I turned back to writing out of frustration. I think God used that frustration to turn me to what he really wanted me to do.

What typically drives the birth of an idea for your books--the character, the plot or the theme?

Jordyn: Definitely (yes—spelled it right without auto correct!) plot drives my novels. Then theme. I struggle with characterization. That’s one of the hardest areas for me in novel writing.

If you were marooned on a beach with one of your characters, who would you want it to be and why?

What a great question and so hard to choose! I think if I could only pick one I would pick Brett Sawyer. He’s the salty, cynical other half of my detective team in Proof. We may not survive very long but he would be very entertaining and I’d rather live a short life filled with laughter than a long life of boredom.

Is there a certain beverage that fuels your creativity?

Regular Coke but I had to give up caffeine so Caffeine Free Regular Coke. I’ll never turn down a Starbucks iced chai tea latte though as a reserve.

Thank you, Jordyn!

Thanks so much for having me Rene. It’s been great to visit with you and your readers.

39 Ways I Know I'm Turning 40

It's my birthday month!  Not just any birthday, but my 40th.  So to commemorate the occasion, I thought it would be fun to ponder age.  Why not, right?  It's fascinating if it's not happening to you, but I say, why not just face the beast down?  I'm aging.  So what?  There are a few people out there taking drastic measures not to age and we all wish they wouldn't--they scare small children.  For the rest of us, it's just part of life.   So here's my list of 39 ways I know I'm turning 40.  Here's a glimpse into my reality:

1)       I’m forced to wear cushy slippers because hard floors hurt my bare feet 

2)      There is more fashion that doesn’t work on me than does

3)      The foods I hate agree with me the most

4)      I have trouble opening anything with a tab, a lid, or a cap

5)      If sticky notes were banned, I’d have to quit life

6)      When I wake up in the morning, my body feels like I’ve attempted the Ironman

7)      I have to change my wave because my underarm now swings like it wants in on the action

8)      I have to get kids to show me how to work stuff

9)      I’m completely unconsumed with the stigma of minivans

10)   My favorite feature on my Kindle is the font enlargement

11)   I’ve got a doctor for nearly every organ in my body

12)   I’m suddenly fond of spicy foods, which I suspect means my taste buds are dying off

13)   I’m willing to trade white teeth for coffee

14)   I’m getting political cartoons

15)   I have a breaking news alert on my phone for some excitement in my day

16)   I can throw my back out simply by rising from a chair

17)   I am hooked on PBS soap operas set at the turn of the century

18)   I am starting to identify with all of Meryl Streep’s characters

19)   I wear cardigans because I have to

20)   I’m using shampoo with medicine as its first ingredient 

21)   I get irritated by noise louder than a whisper

22)   One trip to Long John Silvers could literally kill me

23)   Almost every product I use has the word “brightening” in it

24)   I’m beginning to understand people in their 20s believe they have nothing in common with me

25)   I’m particular about my coffee mugs

26)   I’ve outgrown self-consciousness

27)   I’ve actually said out loud, “I need to get home before dark.”

28)   I have a pill organizer

29)   I can no longer feel food on my face

30)   I’ve come to the grim realization that tweezers aren’t just for the eyebrows anymore

31)   I’ve learned that the world won’t fall apart if I actually take a lunch break

32)   I’m beginning to get the urge to eat dinner earlier

33)   I no longer recognize the people on the cover of PEOPLE magazine

34)   Lipstick is challenging without magnification

35)   I constantly ask myself how early is too early to put my pajamas on

36)   Taylor Swift songs all sound the same to me

37)   I’m not against boy bands.  I just can’t remember all the members’ names

38)   I’m older than half my doctors

39)   I’m trading in sit-coms about friends for Rock Center with Brian Williams

Mattie Bigham

I’ve created hundreds of characters over the years. Some were heroes in every sense of the word. Some were anti-heroes (my favorite kind!), who reluctantly took on something they never thought they would. Some started on a journey for which they’d never be the same. They’ve been male, female, children, husbands, wives, editors, writers, police officers, news reporters, pilots and more. Some have been ill-tempered. Some have been misguided. Some have been sunshiny and inspiring.

But none have been like Matthew Bigham.

Mattie, as I like to call him and as he hates to be called, has been with me for awhile. It’s hard to describe the process of creating a character. Some come instantly and fit right into a story. Others take time to mold, mostly in my subconscious and mostly from strange longings and scars of my own past. Mattie had an identity long before he had a face…or a body. He was kind of a culmination of suffering, a kind soul whom life had beaten to a bloody pulp. When I first met Mattie in my mind, he wasn’t overweight or bullied. He was just lost. But then I had to find out why he was lost. And soon a mental picture of him began to form in my mind. I saw his eyes first. They were wide, staring, almost childlike in innocence and scared with every blink. Then I knew he ate too much. He ate every time he was scared or frustrated. I knew this because I did it too.

Although I’ve never been obese, I have struggled for many years with comforting myself with food. Food never failed me, at least in the short term. I knew it would eventually, and eventually it did, but when I was stressed to the max about this or that, I’d go get something to make me feel better…a Dr. Pepper, cheese nachos, dark chocolate. I had my favorites and they didn’t fail me.

As I thought more about Mattie, I knew that often what we fear and hurt about in our adult years often have roots in our childhood. So from there, I knew Mattie was bullied when he was a kid. For being fat.

As some of you know, my family has suffered through bullying. It’s about as painful as it gets. I will never forget my son looking at me with tear-filled eyes and saying, “How am I going to go through the rest of my life this unlikable?” It literally felt like a knife was stabbed through my heart. I felt actual pain as I processed what he said, how he was viewing himself, what the world had told him and what he believed.

So, too, had Mattie believed this about himself, and as the world became even less kind to him, food became his closest friend.

Except we meet Mattie long after that. We meet him after food has betrayed him. We meet him on the cusp of a murder plot.

One of the most challenging tasks a writer can have is to make likable an unlikable character. Nobody likes a murderer. But as we dig a little deeper into Mattie, as we watch him try to pull off this murder plot, we begin to see what has turned this big man’s heart black. And I think we also see the real Mattie, the man behind all the weight and anger and bitterness…a gentle man who cherishes his wife, wants a good friend, and wishes he’d made some healthier choices.

 I knew when I wrote Escapement that Mattie Bigham was going to be a controversial character. I mean an obese guy who is plotting murder? Yeah, warm and fuzzy, right? I didn’t quite calculate, however, that he’d be really misunderstood by some. And really despised by others. Escapement is my eighteenth book, so rest assured I’ve seen some really insulting reviews over the years. I mean, give someone an anonymous place to vent, and they’re going to rip you to pieces. Sure, I’ve had good, even great, reviews too. My point is that this isn’t my first rodeo.

But what’s been particularly interesting with Escapement is how insulted some people seem to be at his very existence. It’s not that they don’t like the story, or that they’re against a would-be murderer, but they’re actually against him. It’s like they’re mad that he even exists. Sure, this is fiction, but Mattie Bigham does exist, in each of our lives. I think Mattie touches a nerve because Mattie represents all that repulses us about ourselves. Mattie, by all accounts, is weak. He’s tormented. He’s unbearably loathsome. He’s snarky, ill-tempered and hardly ever accurate in his assessment of himself or others. In other words, Mattie is a lot like us. Maybe we have a weight problem, maybe we don’t. But the truth is that we all carry the weight of a fallen world, a fallen soul and a track record of failure. It’s just that sometimes it takes a fictional character for us to see it in ourselves.

One day I was standing at a street corner with my two children. We each were holding a Big Gulp filled with soda, sipping it through a straw, observing people as we waited. A couple walked by, both puffing on cigarettes. The smoke kind of gagged us as it lingered behind them. I could see both my kids’ faces twist up in disapproval. Granted, they’ve practically been brainwashed at school about tobacco (thank goodness) so they’re pretty irate about it and consider it pure evil. My son begins his rant. “I hate cigarettes. They’re so bad for you. Why would they do that, Mom? Why would they smoke when they know how bad it is for them?” “And us!” my daughter added, angrily gesturing toward the haze in front of us. But the hate quickly spread from the smoke to the smoker. My son continued. “I hate smokers,” he said as he cast an angry glare their direction. I sat there for a moment, trying to decide how to approach this ordeal. Sure, I wanted my kids to not touch a single cigarette in their lives. But I didn’t want them to hate smokers, either. “Why do you think they smoke?” I asked the kids. They gave me their theories. “To look cool” was at the top. I said, “Well, cigarettes can give you a relaxed feeling. That’s what’s appealing about them. They make you feel relaxed. They make you feel good.” “Well! They’re still bad for you!” one of them said emphatically. Ha. Trapped. “So are sodas,” I said nonchalantly. “Especially Big Gulps.” They both looked down at the drinks in their hands. “It’s not the same,” they said. “Oh? Well, high sugar consumption can lead to diabetes and heart failure,” I said. “And other problems too.” I cast a knowing look toward them. “We should probably give up sodas.” “Nooo!” they protested. “But we drink them even though we know they’re bad for us,” I said. “And it doesn’t sound like we’re going to be able to stop drinking them very easily.” They stood there silently, watching the smokers, realizing they weren’t so far from the people they’d just proclaimed they hated.

And it’s like that for us, too. Why does society in general tend to hate fat people or drunks or gamblers? Because the truth is that we know we’re just like them. Maybe we’re not fat. But we’re definitely fallen. And because we’re fallen, there’s some kind of chink in what is surely very small armor. Most of the time we won’t admit it, but we’re just one step away from that slippery slope of self-destruction. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

I brought Mattie Bigham into the world so he could find some peace in his life. Granted, it’s short lived, on this earth anyway, but I wanted to make the point that we all have holes in our hearts. And I’m not really saying that figuratively. I think we have a true, empty space there that longs to be filled. It is my belief that it can only be filled by God. Mattie has to travel an awfully long, painful, and regret-filled journey to figure this out. But I think we’re lucky enough to go on the ride with him, and maybe learn a few lessons that will save us some grief along the way.

One reviewer was so disgusted with the character that she claimed she would probably not even read the rest of the 7 Hours series. Now that’s quite a disliking, wouldn’t you say? But I’m willing to bet she’s much more like Mattie than she cares to admit. Maybe Mattie is a visual reminder for us that we’re all weighed down in this world. It’s impossible not to be. Look at the rich and famous. They’ve got everything anyone could ever want, but they’re killing themselves with booze, drugs and suicide, because at the end of the day they know that really, they have nothing but themselves, and they don’t like what they see. It’s a hard thing to stare down ourselves in a mirror and admit we’re completely messed up. Even on my best day, I’m a mess. Truly. And on my worst day? Well, you don’t even want to know.

That’s why I like Mattie. That’s why we’re friends. It’s because we’re alike. And that’s why I think, if you’ll give him a real chance, you’ll like him too. Be forewarned, Mattie is not an easy pill to swallow. He’s bitter. He’s misguided. He’s snarky. And he’s about to make the worst mistake of his life. He’s no typical hero. But then, very few are.

OTHER 7 HOURS CHARACTERS  
Travis Thrasher Mike Harden is someone who has lived through loss and tragedy and managed to move on from it. I've often written about characters stuck in the past and unable to move forward. Mike is someone deliberately running from the past and almost ignoring what happened. What happens in Teardrop ends up bringing Mike back to the past in order to deal with it. He's a former cop and a take-charge, tough guy. Yet as the story unfolds, Mike realizes you can't always take charge of everything in your life. Sometimes it's okay to admit you're broken.  

James Andrew Wilson When crafting the main character for my 7 Hours story, All of Our Dreams, I wanted to create a young man who was completely committed to his wife, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Loyalty is rare these days with divorce being about as common as coffee. Luke Harrison is a dreamer, a man with grand ideas for his life. When his wife develops a terminal disease, those dreams are torn from him. Instead of wallowing in Woe Is Me Land, or tossing his vows in the trash and leaving his wife to a lonely, terrible fate, he stays with her. He forms his entire life around her care and comfort. He's a hero, not because he carries a gun and battles nefarious villains, but because he forsakes his own desires so that he can bless his wife. Does this make Luke uncommon--too good to be true? In a day and age where we're taught that loyalty means being true to yourself--yes, perhaps he is. But he shouldn't be, and that's why I think his story is worth telling.  

Ronie Kendig Haytham “Hawk” Wilson is a die-hard soldier, so when his team is ambushed and everyone dies—except Hawk—he’s shattered. There are so many compelling true military stories that parallel Hawk’s plight, and it breaks my heart to read about them. And the media seems intent, often, on vilifying our military heroes, so I wanted to take a “what if” approach to this mission for Hawk. What if. . .what if he made the right choice. What if he should go back and kill the boy? What if. . .he shouldn’t? What if he wasn’t wrong in the first place? It’s easy as an armchair observer to “judge” those in combat and say they should’ve done X or Y, but until we’ve been in their shoes, we should reserve our judgment and extend our prayers to guide and protect these heroes.