Spotlight: Burning Hope by Lori McAfee
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Love & Romance
Date Published: December 2023
Life is full of imperfect people striving to be real and live for God in a fallen world, people no different from you or me, who long for acceptance and are ambushed by betrayal.
Burning Hope tells the love story of Gabby and Griffin, complete with all the twists and turns that threatened to take them away from each other and God. As their story shows, we all long for love. We can all feel abandoned, ashamed and full of despair. And we all can get entangled in worldly pleasures when walking between the twin flames of romance and faith.
In the end, God teaches that facing our pain is the only way out. Then, through the gentle breeze of grace, we can be guided into unexpected encounters of redemption and hope - learning that love can heal invisible scars left by the blazing flames of our past.
As the faithful romance at the heart of Burning Hope shows, it is never too late to find redemption, and to walk into the life we were created for.
Excerpt
P R O L O G U E
I remember the color blue. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can think of. My favorite dress, as a child, was blue. There was a ribbon, meant to go around the waist, to match. But I hated it there. It felt…constrictive.
I never wanted to be constricted.
I also liked to play in the mud in that dress—out by the Southern streams and along the wooded paths. I’d take that ribbon off, and I’d use it to tie my hair up. Loose and lovely hair gets in the way of being an unstoppable young girl in a world where you gotta keep up. And I would keep up.
Blue was the color of the scrubs the nurses wore when I got my tonsils out at nine years old. I was scared, as the anesthesiologist covered my tiny face with a plastic bulb that smelled like rubber and grapes because they scent the anesthetics to be soothing for kids. The last thing I saw was a smiling woman in blue. And the first thing I woke up to was that smiling woman in blue.
Blue was the color of my first car. My 16th birthday present. A metallic deep shade of night sky that was shiny and perfect until the hood buckled when I rear ended someone one night after a high school football game. Blue was the color of the flashing lights as the emergency vehicles showed up. Blue was the color of the EMT’s uniform, the smiling man who told me to stop moving my head and keep my eyes on his.
Blue was a fixture. And I’ve always felt like it means something.
I’m not overly religious, but I do believe in God. I know He’s there, and I know he cares. I believe in Jesus and the heart of Jesus, and I know we should love the way he did—radically and accepting of all types of people. I don’t know if I believe everything happens for a reason. I think sometimes, things just happen. Bad things to good people, good things to bad people. The world is just the world, and we are people living in it. Sometimes we live on the mountaintops, where the air is clean, and the sky is beautiful and nothing can touch us. Other times, we live in the gutters. Caverns that seem to hold no light and promise no way out.
Sometimes our souls are blue.
Sometimes the sky is blue.
Two different shades. Two different feelings.
Him.
His color is blue.
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About the Author
Lori McAfee is an inspirational life coach, speaker, author, and podcast host of Get Your Rear In Gear. With an unwavering faith in Jesus, Lori is devoted to making a positive difference in people’s lives with her encouraging words of wisdom and uplifting spirit.
