Books Direct: "Veronica" by Lucinda Weeks

GUEST POST and GIVEAWAY

Veronica:
The woman with the issue of blood
(Women Who Met Jesus Book 2)

by Lucinda Weeks

Veronica is the second book in the Women Who Met Jesus series by Lucinda Weeks. Also available: The Adulteress (read my blog post).

Both books are currently ON SALE for only $0.99. Or order your paperback copy of either book directly from the author to get 50% off the cover price! Simply email Lucinda Weeks and mention this offer.

The author stops by today to share a guest post and an excerpt from Veronica. You can also enter our exclusive giveaway for a chance to win one of two paperback copies of Veronica.

Description

Veronica has faith that just one touch from Jesus is all she needs to bring healing to her body and restoration to her life and her soul.

As a grieving young widow, Veronica has made a terrible decision, one that has destroyed her health and ultimately rips her family apart. Her condition has ravished her body. Her issue of blood has forced her to live as an outcast, cut off and rejected by society.

She is labeled as unclean.

Desperate to get her children back, Veronica spends everything she has seeking out doctors and undergoing barbaric medical procedures, hoping to find a cure. Her medical treatments seem to do no good, but leave her worse off than before.

Just when Veronica is about to give up hope of seeing her children again, she hears about the great physician, Jesus! She has heard that Jesus has healed many; he has restored the sight to the blind and cleansed the lepers. She knows that he has the power to heal her. When Veronica encounters Jesus, she finds everything she has been looking for and more.

Excerpt

Allister went away, leaping with joy and shouting praises to God, knowing that his body had been healed and his life completely transformed. Allister was not only physically healed but was also given the opportunity to live a normal life. Allister, like other men, had always dreamed of falling in love and getting married, but his grotesque deformities were repulsive to women. Allister knew that women weren’t interested in looking at him, let alone marrying him. Now with his stunningly handsome new face, every young woman in town would soon be chasing him. I shuddered; astounded by the mighty miracle that Allister had received at the hand of Jesus. Allister was kind and gentle with the heart of pure spun gold. Despite Allister’s hardships, he was always looking out for others, helping them in any way that he could. I knew that he must have modeled his life after the life that Jesus had lived while helping the little orphaned children. Surely, if anyone deserved to receive such an incredible life-transforming miracle, it was Allister.

I was amazed how everyone who came to Jesus had been healed.

It’s my turn! I thought with much awaited anticipation.

I had suffered for so long. I began to think about what my healing would mean.

I would finally be able to immerse myself in the cleansing waters of the Mikvah and be declared clean again. I would finally have the chance to be reunited with my precious children.

I have waited so long for this moment. Twelve long hard years is longer than anyone should have to suffer.

With great strides, I began to run after Jesus. The crowd of people continued to throng Jesus, who continued to brush the foreheads of everyone he saw and healed them.

Praise for the Book

"I love this author. She has a warm, personal style that make her stories truly engaging." ~ Christi

"I just love reading books from this author. Very well written, thought provoking, pure genius!" ~ brian pfleiderer

Guest Post by the Author

An Introduction to My Women Who Met Jesus Series

I am excited to introduce the series I am writing entitled Women Who Met Jesus. This is an exciting fiction series based on New Testament women whose lives were changed forever when they met Jesus. The first two titles in the series have recently been released. These books were written as a way of sharing Christ’s love with others. It is my hope to eventually add several more titles to the series.

I believe each of these books contain many elements of great Christian fiction:

Biblically based
Well written
Action
Adventure
Romance
Culture
History
Humor
Controversial

While these books are written about women who lived over 2,000 years ago, they were written in such a way that today’s women can relate to them. Women in Bible times struggled with many of the same issues that modern day women are faced with.

Like women today, the New Testament women may have struggled with the worry that God could not possibly forgive them, that they are alone and rejected. Then the women come to meet Jesus and learn how loving and forgiving he really is.

Some of the themes that are central in the Women Who Met Jesus series are Christ’s love, mercy, forgiveness and redemption are available to everyone who believes in him.

While the books do not have to be read in the order in which they were written, the reader will find that many of their favorite characters appear in each book, and the reader is able to learn more about the lives of their favorite characters by reading all of the books.

As an example, two women that readers are sure to come to love are Adriana and Deborah who model Godly Character and who seem to embody Christ’s love. These two women, reappear in each book and the reader is able to learn more about these incredible women. Other characters, such as Salvador, tend to reappear in each book to guide the reader through the culture in which the stories were set.

One of my favorite elements of these books is that each story is interwoven with many other wonderful New Testament stories. These women lived at a very exciting time in history, when Jesus was on this Earth. Many people, both men and women, were being healed by Jesus. It may have been possible that some of these New Testament men and women may have met each other, may have been friends, or even related. They may have had the opportunity to hear Jesus preach and see people healed.

I chose to interweave many New Testament stories, especially of Christ’s healings, with the goal in mind that it may inspire those readers who have not read the Bible to begin reading it and discover that the it is filled with many exciting stories of real people.

I began writing The Adulteress several years ago. Writing had always been a lifelong hobby and I enjoyed some success writing professionally, yet I had a longing desire to write something that truly glorified Christ.

As I was contemplating what to write, I happened to read portions of the book Bad Girls of the Bible and thought how exciting it would be to write about a biblical character that had lived during the time of Jesus, who had met Jesus, heard him preach, and whose life Christ had transformed.

I began to pray about what female character I could base my story on, as there were so many different New Testament women. It was about this time that I heard a man say in an interview on Christian radio that the story of the Adulteress should not be in the Bible, because God cannot forgive sin like that. The man’s words upset me because I knew that Jesus is a God of love, that his mercy knows no end, and that he can and does forgive even what people may believe are the worst of sins. It was sad for me to think that people are being told that God cannot or will not forgive.

After hearing the man on the radio, I sat down to write The Adulteress, and what unfolded was a vivid story that has many characteristics of a great novel: suspense, action and romance, history, culture, humor.

The Bible does not provide any specific details as to who the woman actually was. She could have been anyone. Adina’s story is told in a way that I feel has never been done before.

Adina is young and in love with Yeichiel, who is a thief and a drunkard. Her father is certain that Yeichiel is not good enough for her and arranges for her to marry Eleazar, who is very rich. In those days, it was customary for a man to pay a bride price to the father for a woman’s hand in marriage. He will stop at nothing and pay any price to marry Adina.

In those days, it was not uncommon for a woman’s father to arrange for his daughter’s marriage. I wanted to raise awareness to arranged marriages, as it is a practice that still takes place in many other cultures around the world.

Adina is a character that the reader is tempted to either love or hate. She is clearly a victim of her circumstances, she finds herself living a life she never imagined for herself, and is trapped in a marriage to a man she does not love. Adina is a woman who is very confused. At times, the reader may want to sympathize with her, while at other times the reader may wonder why - when she knows that her wayward actions brings her much heartache - she continues down such a path of destruction and doesn't stop the types of things she is doing.

We may all know people like that. The answer for Adina is that, not only will it take a real and meaningful encounter with Jesus, but also she needs the loving support from women in the church who will walk with her, pray with her, and model for her what it is like to be a Godly Christian woman.

The story of The Adulteress has many twists, turns and surprises interwoven together or inspired by many other Old and New Testament stories. Some of these stories are:

Anna the prophetess
The story of Jacob
The story of Ester
The Samaritan woman
The paralytic
The pearl of great price
Trial and crucifixion of Jesus

After I finished writing The Adulteress, I wanted to continue writing. It was then that I decided to write a series. I began to pray about what character to write about next. I had always loved the story on the woman with the issue of blood who had suffered for 12 years. The woman had been rejected by society because of her bleeding. Through her faith in Jesus, she received healing and her healing brought restoration. She would be able to re-enter society.

The character was not named in the Bible. I did some research on who this woman was. Some historians believed that this woman’s name was Veronica and that she was so grateful to Jesus for all he did for her, that she lovingly walked beside Jesus all the way to the cross. As she walked with Jesus, she took her head covering off and wiped the face of Jesus, and his face was imprinted into the cloth. This beautiful moment is recaptured in the story.

Her bleeding disorder could have been caused any number of things. I had watched my own mother suffer from heavy bleeding for many years prior to menopause due to a hormonal imbalance, and it looked like I had inherited the same bleeding disorder. I suffered just four months before the Lord had healed me in a church service. I knew very quickly after I began praying, that I wanted to write the next novel on the woman with the issue of blood.

Before I began to write, I talked about my plans for the novel with a co-worker; we discussed some things that might have caused her bleeding disorder, and the idea came to mind that her bleeding may have been due to an abortion that had gone terribly wrong.

When I began writing Veronica, what unfolded was a heart-touching story filled with pro-life themes and pro-adoption themes, particularly the adoption of children with special needs.

My editor commented on Veronica and stated she had not read a story that touched her so deeply emotionally for many years.

Veronica is a young woman who loves children but she and her husband struggle to have children. They decide to adopt a baby from a local orphanage.

The orphanage is where they first meet Jesus. As a young man, Jesus volunteered his time at the orphanage caring for infants and young children who were sick and deformed. The Bible tells us that Jesus was a carpenter. In the story, Jesus used his carpentry skills to lovingly construct cribs for the infants at the orphanage.

Over time, Veronica and her husband adopt three children. Then Veronica is left widowed. She struggles to raise three difficult children alone. Her mother pressures her to find a husband and then learns she is pregnant by a very charmingly deceptive man. Veronica chooses to have an abortion that causes her bleeding issue. She hopes the abortion will make life easier for her children, but she eventually loses custody of her children.

Veronica spends everything she has on doctors hoping to find a cure for her bleeding, so she can get well and get her children back. As the Bible tells us, she suffered many things at the hands of doctors. Finally, out of money and out of hope, she learns that her old friend Jesus, whom she has already come to have faith in as the Messiah, has begun a great healing ministry. She believes in her heart that Jesus can heal her, and she sets out to find Jesus and receive her healing. Not only is Veronica healed, but she is reunited with her children, who are now grown. Veronica encounters some surprises, both good and bad, when she is reunited with her children, as none of them turned out quite like she had imagined.

The story of Veronica is interwoven with many other great New Testament stories. Some of these are:

The birth of Jesus
The slaughter of the innocents
The woman with the alabaster jar
The Syrophonician woman
Simon the Leper
Simon from Cyrene
Martha, friend of Jesus
Lazarus
Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus

The story of Veronica is an encouraging story for women who are hurting after having an abortion. The story vividly shows that Jesus still loved Veronica after her abortion. Not only does he offer Veronica healing from her physical scars left from the abortion, but he forgives her, he loves her, and restores her life. Jesus restores her family and brings them deliverance and healing as well.

From the Author

I have been writing fiction as a hobby since I was eight. I've written as a ghostwriter for national magazines and websites. I have been a Christian believer in Jesus Christ for more than thirty years and began writing Christian fiction as a way of sharing Christ's love and to share with others the talent he gave me to write. I strive to write in a way that glorifies Christ first of all and to show in my writings his divine love and mercy.