My Hero

In case you haven’t figured this out yet. I love my husband. He has been my biggest supporter for as long as I’ve known him. A funny story about that guy… when wearing a veil to Mass began to trend again, I was against it. The idea that someone would tell me what to do and how to do it made me upset. He was always there for me, standing behind me, saying “I got your back. Just let them try to hand you a veil.”

But then after a while, I started thinking… maybe this veil thing matters. Maybe having humility matters. Maybe I can show God that he means more to me than my angst. My husband was super disappointed! He never got the chance to defend me. So, now I’ve been wearing a veil for over a year.

Humility is good for us. So I created a new page on my website that addresses something that happened to me recently. I’ve been offline and off-writing and feeling my way through life without updating my readers. What does this have to do with my husband? Well, he had the chance recently to be mad for me. And I love it when he does that… I love that he can listen to me and care about me and want what is best for me, all the while supporting me, too.

You might not care to visit my website, so I will post here the update now published on my webpage called “START HERE.”

Beth Writes Romance…

Maybe you’re curious about how I came to write romance. Maybe you don’t have the guts to just talk to a Catholic romance writer. Well, you can come here and read words straight from my heart.

Maybe you’ve been following me a long time and saw this coming… maybe you supported me all these years and never really thought about how my books are “romance.” Maybe you liked my books, maybe you didn’t. Someone recently came into my life and tattled on me to my priest. Now, that is a first for me! Especially since I have never hidden my career as a writer. I’ve shared my books with my family, friends, and strangers.

I am blessed to have a pastor who cares about me enough to call me and talk to me about ‘the rumors’. And I am just as grateful to be able to share my life with him and not get the feeling that he thinks less of me, or shames me. A good, holy priest who understands the heart can be hard to find. If you keep reading this long assertion, you’ll hear my thoughts on my writing career thus far. I still don’t know exactly what I will do next, but I am open to whatever God has in store for me.

I was raised in an amazing, loving Christian family. I grew up reading good books of all kinds, straight into my younger married years. I loved to read. In my 20s, I picked up a Susan Elizabeth Philips book (check her out, if you like romance; her stories are heartwarming and humorous). I adored it. Story-telling in the forms of movies, books, short stories, memoirs, and even verbally shared around the campfire are my meat and gravy. It feeds my soul.

But there was something missing from the books I picked up—Phillips, Brown, Roberts, Cussler,… so many good authors.

Faith. Catholicism. Real people. Consequences.

Most of us, women especially, love a happy ending!

I stepped into the romance writing industry with no expectations for success. Just hope that one or more of my stories would touch even one person. And after conforming my writing to the publisher a couple times, I moved into self-publishing. The stories had to me mine.

But what about the love-making?

Well, actually… Catholics are the biggest fans of love-making. We have an entire book about the roles of men and women within the family called Theology of the Body. The sacrament of marriage includes giving of oneself to your husband or wife in consummate love, for unity and procreation—no holds barred, no contraception, no holding back. (hello, 6 children here)

But Catholicism went through a shaky time during the 1900s. We almost became protestant in our thoughts, especially in regards to sex. I was raised during a time when we didn’t talk about it…not as an idea nor practically. Not even as part of the Sacrament. We ended up in a time where the act of love-making became something dirty and secret.

It wasn’t until the 1990s-2000s, with books like Theology of the Body, Holy Sex! and earlier books like, The Joy of Making Love, that young Catholics were given the opportunity to understand the importance of sex within marriage.

Do I regret writing love-scenes?

Only so far as they might have lead people astray or misrepresented my Catholic Faith. My love scenes, as far as the romance genre goes, could be considered sweeter or integral to the story (euphemisms abound). My goal was to show flawed characters, on a journey to finding truth, finding true love, which sometimes mankind takes in directions that are not godly—sex outside of marriage, selfish ideals, etc. I wanted to show real people becoming better people through mistakes, learning, and loving.

We are all human, and we are nothing without God. To be exact, we should rejoice in our lowliness as it highlights our need for God, and our need for the Church. That being said: to be better than the usual steamy romance novel is not really the goal, of course.

God asks us to be Holy.

And sometimes that means moving in a new direction. It means leaving behind my former ways.

Which is where I’ve been for a few years now. Which is probably why I laughed (after I got indignant) that I got tattle-taled on. What a funny God we have. He just knew I needed to do something, and He got tired of waiting for me. So, I’ll figure out what to do next—don’t worry.

Ad majorem Dei Gloriam