Settle back and enjoy today's guest blogger, Carolyn Miller, as she shares her heart for the Lord and her love of history.

Sometimes it’s easy to limit ourselves, to think we need to fit inside the box of other people’s expectations, or what our own experience says can be done. This is something I touched on a little in my recent historical release, Midnight’s Budding Morrow, where a marriage of convenience elevates a humble woman from a perceived servant role to ‘lady of the manor’, leaving certain people confounded at Sarah’s audacity, before coming to realize just how effective and honorable she was in her new role.

I think this can prove true as an author, too, when we’re told to write only a “certain” type of book, or write for a certain audience, or in a certain way. I’ve now got over 20 books published, a mix of historical and contemporary, and I’m so glad I didn’t just stick with what some people thought I should. It’s fantastic to see God touching hearts through my hockey books as well as my historicals, that these stories God imprints on my heart don’t need to be for me alone.

I like giving characters opportunities to push past the perceived limitations, to surprise others with the way they handle new and daring situations, just like Sarah has to in Midnight’s Budding Morrow. Her husband is another who confounds the critics, with his new faith a far cry from his rakish past. I love a good redemption story, and many readers have testified about how good it was to see realistic, authentic characters they could connect with, that it wasn’t just the easy, ‘tick-the-boxes’ kind of story.

History is full of people who deliberately chose to do things differently, to not accept the status quo, or be limited by their past. Christians are encouraged to ‘throw off everything that hinders’ in our quest to run the race of faith, as we keep our eyes on Jesus (Heb. 12: 1-2). As I get older, I’m learning more and more it’s not about what others do, think or say that I should be comparing myself to. I should be focused on what Jesus says, ‘the author and perfecter of faith.’ (Heb. 12.2).

So whatever you’re facing, can I encourage you to consider it in the light of what Jesus says about you. When we look at a gravestone, there’s only a short dash between our birth and death. That’s way too short an amount of time to spend our life worrying about what others say we should or shouldn’t be doing. The only one we should really be heeding is Jesus. What would Jesus have us do?

Perhaps that’s writing the story of your heart. Perhaps that’s putting your hand up for a different ministry, in – or outside – of church. Perhaps it’s loving your neighbor. Whatever it is, live free from the shackles of other’s opinions, so we can enter the life God offers us, that is ‘exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think’ (Ephesians 3.20).

God bless you – live free.

Carolyn Miller lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and four children. Together with her husband she has pastored a church for ten years, and worked as a public high school English teacher. A longtime lover of romance, especially that of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and LM Montgomery, Carolyn loves drawing readers into fictional worlds that show the truth of God’s grace in our lives. Her contemporary romance series includes the Original Six hockey romance series, and the Independence Islands series, and her historical series include the Regency Brides and Regency Wallflowers series.

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Midnight's Budding Morrow

"A journey of poignancy and hope . . . difficult to put down. I loved it!" --Jennie Goutet, author of the Clavering Chronicles series

Sarah Drayton is eager to spend a holiday at her best friend's crumbling Northumberland castle estate. Alas, rather than easy companionship with her dear friend, she finds herself being inveigled into a marriage of convenience with her friend's rakish brother.

When James Langley returns to his family's estate, war is raging and he wants only distraction, not serious tethers. But his roguish ways have backed him into a corner, and he has little choice but to obey his father's shocking decree: marry before returning to war...or else. Suddenly he finds himself wedded to a clever and capable woman he barely knows.

Sarah craves love and a place to belong, neither of which James offered before returning to the battlefront. Now everyone around her thinks she married above her station, and they have no intention of rewarding her for such impertinence. Only when her husband returns from war does she begins to hope they may find real happiness.

When tragedy strikes, this pair must learn to trust God and cling to the belief that even in the darkest depths of night, the morning still holds hope.