The Chair (43 page)

8. Do you have a story of a time you did go to someone and restoration of the relationship was the outcome?

9. Corin told Shasta he was sorry for what he had done, but had never asked for Shasta’s forgiveness. Is there a difference in saying you’re sorry and asking for forgiveness? If so, what is the difference?

10. If we choose to live a life of openness and vulnerability in our relationships, we will be hurt again. How do you reconcile this in your mind and heart? How can we still go forward, knowing we’ll likely be wounded again at some point?

11. Jesus says we should forgive, “Seventy-seven times.” Does this ever seem excessive to you? What do you do if someone continues to wound you?

12. Proverbs tells us to “guard our hearts above all else.” How can we guard our hearts and at the same time live a life of acceptance and forgiveness toward those who wound us?

I
wrote my first novel,
Rooms
in six years; my second,
Book of Days
in two, and due to personal circumstances during spring and summer of 2010 needed to write
The Chair
in five months. When I turned in the manuscript to my editor I warned her it would be rough. Eighty-grit sandpaper rough.

After reading it she wrote back and said it was in better shape than I’d led her to believe, I’d done a fantastic job on the novel, and that her editorial letter would be my shortest yet.

I thought, “Where was I when
The Chair
was being written?”

Or put another way, what would I have done without my prayer team consistently warring for me in the heavens while
The Chair
was being written? Thank you, my friends, it definitely would have been eighty-grit without you.

Thanks also goes out to:

My wonderful team at B&H Fiction.

To the Great Ones for that white-hot brainstorming session in July of 2010 which put flesh on my skeleton idea and made it into a story.

To Darci Rubart and Susan May Warren for helping me find the soul of the story and shaping the final outline into a novel I hope will enter into the deep heart of my readers.

To my editor Julee Schwarzburg for once again being brilliant and a true pleasure to work with in every aspect.

And finally, to my wife Darci and my sons, Taylor and Micah. Being an author is my greatest dream come true, but it means nothing compared to you.