by Cathy Baker

Today,  I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Lori Roeleveld. She’s incredibly talented, downright inspiring, and a witty disturber of Hobbits. 

Lori’s NEW book, Running from a Crazy Man (and Other Adventures Traveling with Jesus) was released in December 2014. 

Frankly, it’s unlike any book I’ve read. Brief essays, if you will, that take aim at the soul, penetrating the heart on its way with truth through beautifully told stories. I’ve yet to sit down and be content to read just one. I double dare you to try! And I’m in good company. Check out what Jerry B. Jenkins had to say about Running from a Crazy Man:

You’ll find yourself saying as I did: just one more chapter. And one more. And one more. ~ Jerry B. Jenkins

I’m sharing Lori’s book not only because it’s relatively NEW on the market but because of her voice—her fresh Gospel-driven perspective. One moment you’re giggling like a girl and in the next, your soul is dropping to its knees in recognition of Who is truly speaking to you through these shared adventures.  

I highly recommend this book (as well as Lori’s blog) for all the serious travelers of Christ out there. In fact, I’d like to share a copy with you. Simply leave a comment on this blog sharing ONE thing that stood out to you in her story, Are You Stuck in the Wrong Story?, below. I’ll draw a name via Random Name Picker on February 1st and announce it that week. If you would like it signed, I can mail it to you at the end of May (I see her at the conference mid-May.)

In the meantime, enjoy this excerpt — and don’t forget to leave a comment on the blog for your chance to win a FREE autographed copy! 

Lori Roeleveld

Cinderella knew the truth. She was intended for greater things than sweeping
ashes from the hearth.

Are you sometimes haunted by the notion that you were meant for more? You
should examine that idea. It may be from God.

My daughter got me interested in a Sunday night television show called Once
Upon a Time. It’s the story of a town inhabited by storybook characters trying
to find their way back into the world in which they really belong.

But really, it’s the gospel.

That’s probably not what the writers intended, but Jesus, in an effort to reach
His people, will even inject Himself into the primetime lineup of network
television.

In the first season, Once Upon a Time was all about the characters awakening and
remembering that they were once part of a glorious land. It features one child
who still believes in their story and is willing to take drastic measures to
remind everyone else of their former glory. Because of him, they are awake.
Now, they remember they’re not just librarians or shopkeepers or waitresses,
but they have “once upon a time” bloodlines with ancient stories full of magic
and adventure.

Even though they’re awake, they are not yet back home in The Enchanted Forest.
They remain trapped in a foreign place hostile to their former way of life.
Dark forces oppose them. An enemy works against their return, trying to keep
them in bondage to their everyday, ordinary, lesser selves—to rob them of their
redemption.

It’s the gospel, don’t you see? Can you acknowledge the playfulness of our
amazing Creator as He inserts His homecoming beacon into our modern culture and
cries out for us to remember who we were designed to be?

Doesn’t your heart cry out after a long Monday, or in the face of another Tuesday,
to be part of a greater story? Isn’t there within you a longing for a home you
don’t remember ever knowing? Don’t you sometimes feel trapped in a minor role
when all your dreams and passions create a force that threatens to destroy you
if you don’t find the role you were born to play?

Jesus created everything. His story is in His Word, yes, but He roams,
unconfined, across genres. He appears in the music we write, the movies we
make, the art we create, and the stories we tell.

He is calling to us—calling to us from every medium—to remember who we are.

For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night
or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep
awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get
drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober,
having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of
salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:5-8)

Feel stuck inside a lesser role than you were intended to play? Wake up. Like
Sleeping Beauty, you need the kiss of true love. There is a High King and He
will free you if you come to Him. There is a rider on a White Horse coming. Can
you hear His hoofbeats?

Wake up, loved ones! You have a part in the greater story. Everything your
heart whispers to you in the night is true. There is more, and you were meant
to be part of it.

Once upon a time, there was a King who shed His blood to ransom His people back
from the grave. It is the greatest and truest story ever told.

And it is the place where you belong.