There are a number of personality traits and one that
is very familiar in my family is that of “caregiver.” Other personality lists
will describe this type of personality as a “savior” type, or supporter. Doctors
and nurses frequently have this trait in their complex personalities. It’s not
a bad thing.
In my family I am so used to the savior or
supporter personality. Some of us have it to a fault. I did.
How can one be faulted for having strong desires to
help others? What’s wrong with being a person who expends a lot of energy being
of service to others or bringing them comfort? Not much really…
Unless your kind of service, your fixing of the
situation, actually hinders God from doing what He wants to do in that person’s
life. Have you ever stopped in the middle of helping your kids or a friend out
of a jam, and thought, maybe it would be better if they took their lumps and
learned from their sad situation.
As parents, don’t we often use a “time out” or some
other type of discipline to teach our kids important life lessons? So does God
teach us through the disciplines of life.
This particular truth inspired my latest historical
romance Sofi’s Bridge.
The hero and the heroine in this book are both “savior” or “supporter”
personality types. In Sofi’s Bridge,
they both had to learn the same lesson that I had to learn in my life—that we
cannot save our loved ones. Only Christ can do that.
Sometimes that will mean letting our loved one go
through a difficult time and not manipulating the circumstances to alleviate
their discomfort.
In Sofi’s Bridge,
Sofi Andersson and Dr. Neil Galloway learn to let the Lord work through the
sufferings of the ones they loved.
Here is a brief excerpt of when Neil learns this
important spiritual lesson:
Back when Neil and Jimmy were only lads,
the two of them hanging on to their father’s hand as they walked to church on a
Sunday morn. Bells chimed all over Belfast. Inside the gray stone building,
Neil had listened to the minister preach of what Christ had done on the cross
for all mankind, taking the punishment that people like him deserved.
Now in this jail cell, Neil sat up and leaned
his elbows on his knees. His hands dangled between them like heavy weights. As
a boy he’d believed in what Jesus had done. But as an adult he’d demeaned that
sacrifice. Instead, he’d tried to be Jimmy’s savior. But how could he save
anyone, him a fallible human being?
Lord,
I’ve been a fool. He dropped his face into his hands.
It’s not easy to stand back and not fix the problem
your loved ones are going through. But you are not alone. Your loved ones are
in the best of hands when we leave them to God.
Click HERE
to read chapter one of Sofi’s Bridge.
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Seattle Debutant Sofi
Andersson will do everything in her power to protect her sister who is
suffering from shock over their father’s death. Charles, the family busy-body,
threatens to lock Trina in a sanatorium—a whitewashed term for an insane
asylum—so Sofi will rescue her little sister, even if it means running away to
the Cascade Mountains with only the new gardener Neil Macpherson to protect
them. But in a cabin high in the Cascades, Sofi begins to recognize that the
handsome immigrant from Ireland harbors secrets of his own. Can she trust this
man whose gentle manner brings such peace to her traumatized sister and such
tumult to her own emotions? And can Neil, the gardener continue to hide from
Sofi that he is really Dr. Neil Galloway, a man wanted for murder by the British
police? Only an act of faith and love will bridge the distance that separates
lies from truth and safety.
ABOUT CHRISTINE LINDSAY
Twilight of the
British Raj, Book 1 Shadowed in Silk,
Book 2 Captured by Moonlight, and the
explosive finale Veiled at Midnight.
Christine’s Irish
wit and joy in the use of setting as a character is evident in her contemporary
romance Londonderry Dreaming. Her
newest release Sofi’s Bridge features
a dashing Irish hero, and her current work in progress is set on the majestic
Irish coastline.
Aside from being a
busy writer and speaker, Christine is the happy wife of David of 35 years, mom
to four grown kids, and Nanny to five grandsons. She makes her home on the west
coast of Canada, and in Aug. 2016 she will see her long-awaited non-fiction
book released, Finding Sarah, Finding Me:
A Birth Mother’s Story.
Please drop by
Christine’s website www.ChristineLindsay.org or follow her on Amazon on Twitter. Subscribe to her quarterly newsletter, and be her friend on Pinterest , Facebook, and Goodreads
PURCHASE LINKS FOR SOFI’S
BRIDGE:
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