About Christy Brunke

Welcome, friends! I’m blessed to be a mom, a pastor’s wife, and the bestselling author of the fictional book, Snow out of Season. But my greatest claim to fame comes from being a child of the King. Because of that, I’m passionate about my family, unborn children, and God-written love stories. Though I used to live in China, now I love serving in ministry here in Maryland. Praying you’ll be blessed as you read my blogs, my story, and my award-winning novel!

Seasons of Love by Andrea Boeshaar

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Christy Brunke

Love contemporary romance that draws you closer to the Lord and your husband? Check out Seasons of Love, a collection of novellas by Andrea Boeshaar!

An Apple a Day

Seasons of Love begins in the heat of summer with freshly-baked apple pies and a budding romance.

Fed up with the fast pace and impersonal nature of his job, Dr. Brian Coridan decides to take a sabbatical. He spends the summer in quiet Blossom Lake, Wisconsin to pray about the future of his medical career. What he doesn’t expect is to fall in love—for the second time.

Talia Fountain doesn’t have much use for modern medicine. After all, didn’t God design natural remedies for our ailments? But she soon finds herself facing a problem herbs can’t fix. Worse, she’s attracted to a doctor with a completely different philosophy on medicine.

Will their opposing views keep them apart? Or prove to be the solution to both of their problems?

September Sonata

Photo courtesy of phototravelpages.com

Twenty years after saying “I do,” Krissy finds herself in an empty nest with a lackluster marriage. Between housework, childrearing, and their careers, romance got put on the back-burner.

Her once hunky fireman still adores her, but he’s now overweight and out of work from a back injury. Because he spends most of his time at home, sweats are his go-to garb.

Meanwhile, at the school where Krissy teaches, the new principal is handsome and well-read. Plus, he keeps seeking out her company. Will Krissy take steps to save her marriage or give in to her ever-growing attraction to another man?

Let It Snow

Everyone in Door County, Wisconsin thought Shari Kretlow would marry Brenan Sheppard. After all, they’d dated all through high school and into college and even gotten engaged. But then Shari eloped with another guy.

Decades later, a now widowed Shari gets caught in a blizzard on Christmas Eve. Her mom advises her to stay at Mrs. Sheppard’s bed-and-breakfast, and Shari reluctantly agrees. What she doesn’t realize is that Brenan, now a medical missionary in Brazil, is also there.

Let It Snow Christian novella by Andrea Boeshaar

Photo courtesy of Pinterest.com.

Dr. Sheppard has changed a lot from the skinny, unmotivated boy Shari dated in her teens. The strong, attractive man he’s become is confident in his skills and passionate about his calling.

Unfortunately, he’s also about to propose to another woman. His Brazilian girlfriend isn’t just stunning, she’s also a nurse committed to his mission.

But Brenan has been sensing God’s call to another region of the world, a calling his girlfriend doesn’t share. What’s more, seeing Shari has renewed long-lost feelings. Will Brenan and Shari get a second chance at love?

My Thoughts

In Seasons of Love, Andrea Boeshaar uses likeable characters and absorbing plots to address real problems. (Tweet that!) These three charming stories not only entertain, but impact. You’ll close the book with a stronger marriage and a renewed passion for God and His will for your life.

Seasons of Love Christian novella collection with recipes

Photo courtesy of Pinterest.com.

As an added bonus, she includes a recipe at the end of each novella. Savor the sweetness of new love with Marlene’s Marvelous Apple Pie. Add some spice back into your marriage with Blaine’s 3-Alarm Chili. Rekindle your first love with Karan’s Italian Egg Bake.

I recommend this book to women who enjoy romance, Christian fiction, and contemporary fiction.

Want more Christian contemporary romances? Just click here!

Planned Parenthood to Pro-life Spokesperson

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Christy Brunke

When pro-life spokesperson Catherine Adair was nineteen years old, she discovered she was pregnant. She was excited about her baby. Her family, on the other hand, was not.

“Before I knew it,” Catherine said, “I was at this abortion clinic, I was lying on a table, and my baby was gone.”

She walked into the waiting room and burst into tears.

“My mom looked at me like, ‘What are you crying about? It’s over.'”

Becoming the World’s Best Feminist

To try to cope with what she was feeling, Catherine threw herself into becoming “the world’s best feminist.” She changed her major to women’s studies and marched on Washington for choice many times. Finally, she accepted a job at the largest abortion clinic in Massachusetts.

“After a while, I was trained to be a counselor,” Catherine said. “My training consisted of putting on a white lab coat with a stethoscope. You know, so I looked like I knew what I was dong.”

Though she had no medical training, she took the women’s pulse and blood pressure and went through their medical forms.

Their “options counseling” consisted of one question. “You know you could continue the pregnancy or have an adoption plan, right?”

The counselors never asked how things were at home, why they were having the abortion, or if the older men who sometimes brought them were abusing them. “We never asked anything,” Catherine said.

“I remember as I was being trained for this, it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I really thought I was going to be counseling her . . . but what I was really doing was selling her an abortion.”

Assisting with Abortions

Planned Parenthood employee Catherine Adair became pro-life spokesperson

Photo courtesy of caffeinatedthoughts.com.

Later, Catherine started assisting with first-trimester abortions. “I would get the women prepped and ready before the abortion and then assist with the abortion . . . and afterward, I would clean up the room.”

People often say abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. “In a Planned Parenthood . . . clinic, she doesn’t see the doctor until she’s lying on a table with her feet up in stirrups,” Catherine said. “If she’s lucky, the doctor might make eye contact with her, but mostly he just talked to the nurse.”

After the abortion, “We had to identify all the parts . . . and you can see little arms and legs. And it sounds monstrous, and it sounds awful, but somehow I was able to turn off that part of my psyche that would be horrified by this. I was being told I was doing something good, that I was helping these women.”

Becoming a Pro-life Spokesperson

Photo courtesy of WebMD.com.

One day, Catherine had to clean up the second-trimester abortion room.

“As I entered the room, I glanced around trying to get my bearings. I looked at the table next to me, and I saw a glass jar. In a sickening moment, I realized that inside the jar were the arms and legs of a baby (tweet that!).”

Catherine just stared at them “for what seemed like an eternity . . . marveling in their beautiful perfection and repelled by the gruesome reality that they had been torn from the body of an unborn baby just moments before. I backed out of the room, shocked and dazed by what I had seen.”

Today, Catherine’s still not sure why this shocked her. “I had seen the parts of babies hundreds of times after first-trimester abortions, and it hadn’t affected me in this way. Maybe it was the large size. Maybe it was God removing the scales from my eyes.”

Months later, Catherine left the clinic. She earned her masters degree, got married, and had four children. Then she adopted a beautiful girl whose mother was planning to have an abortion.

Today, Catherine promotes life and shares her story through writing and speaking as a pro-life spokesperson. Book her to speak at AmbassadorSpeakers.com or read her blogs at HarvestIsAbundant.com.

Jewels Green: Dying to Be With Her Baby

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Christy Brunke

When 17-year-old Jewels Green discovered she was pregnant, she started preparing to raise a child. But everyone she loved pressured her to have an abortion. Her resolve crumbled, and she terminated the pregnancy at nine weeks.

Jewels Green attempted suicide to be with baby

Photo courtesy of JewelsGreen.com.

To dull her emotional pain, Jewels started cutting herself. Three weeks later, she attempted suicide. “If I keep going, maybe I’ll end this horrific, consuming pain once and for all. And then, well, maybe then I’ll get to meet my baby.”

Her boyfriend’s 911 call saved her life, but her mind and emotions still had a long way to go to heal. “I willingly attended psychotherapy sessions and obediently ingested psychotropic medication to try to slay the vicious guilt monster eating away at me.”

“The month I spent in the adolescent psychiatric until saved my life. My abortion still haunted me . . . but it did not monopolize my every waking thought.” She emerged from that month “with an incongruous newly-found zeal for abortion rights.”

Her “Incongruous Newly-Found Zeal for Abortion Rights”

She marched at a rally in D.C. and then worked at an abortion clinic for five years. “We all truly believed we were offering women an innocuous, much-needed, and unfairly-maligned ‘medical’ service.”

Jewels Green holding a hanger sign at Pennsylvania rally.

Nineteen-year-old Jewels Green holding a homemade hanger sign at a Pennsylvania rally.

But what she swore by during the day couldn’t protect her at night. “I started having nightmares that were no longer only about my lost baby–whom I thought about often and cried about and missed–but of all the babies killed by abortion…. My sleep was haunted by tiny limbless phantom babies.”

But Jewels “pushed down the unpleasantness.” “If all of these strong, capable women I worked with thought abortion was OK, I must be able to believe that too . . . I kept going back to work, day after day.”

Feet of 10-week-old fetus unborn baby in fingers

Feet of 10-week-old unborn baby. Photo courtesy of endtimeprophecy.net.

The woman who cleaned their clinic couldn’t do the same. “I vividly remember the cleaning lady who quit after finding a foot in the drain of one of the sinks.”

Neither can Jewels forget the time the power went out for hours. “We were all explicitly instructed NOT to open the freezer where . . . the medical waste was stored (read: dead baby parts in biohazard bags).”

But someone did open it. “I will never, ever forget the stench of decaying human flesh for as long as I live.”

The Dead Little Boy in the Fridge

At the time, Jewels laughed about those incidents with her co-workers. But there was one thing she could never joke about: the dead little boy in the lab’s fridge. “This perfect 10-week-old fetus ‘survived’ the suction abortion procedure perfectly intact.”

After one night of gruesome nightmares that terrified her, Jewels finally spoke to her boss.

“What we do here is end a life,” the clinic director said. “There is no disputing this fact. [Tweet that!] You need to be OK with this to work here.”

Convincing herself she was OK with it, Jewels continued to clean the surgical instruments and counsel the women who came into the clinic.

How Jewels Green Became a Pro-life Activist

Abortion Hurts by pro-life activist Jewels Green

Photo courtesy of JewelsGreen.com.

Years later, a friend of a friend agreed to be a surrogate mother, but then discovered the unborn child had Down syndrome. The parents offered her payment in full to abort it, and she did. That’s when Jewels realized that “abortion kills an innocent human being . . . every time.”

Soon afterward, Jewels became a pro-life activist. “Within weeks . . . I began donating my time, talents, and treasure to the cause. I joined several national and local pro-life groups and sought out my local chapter of 40 Days for Life.”

Today, Jewels is happily married with three children. She speaks and writes to save unborn babies and their mothers. Read the rest of her eye-opening story in Abortion Hurts and We Choose Life!

Perspective through Pain: Mark’s Story

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Christy Brunke

“You must be in so much pain,” the orthopedic surgeon said to my husband, Mark, after looking at his MRI.

For eight weeks, Mark had been suffering from a herniated disc in his neck. Because the disc was pressing on a nerve connected to his right arm, it led to extreme weakness in those triceps. It was so bad that our four-year-old daughter, Michaela, could beat him in arm wrestling.

Numb fingers and trembling hands occasionally prevented Mark from writing. And the disc caused him constant, sometimes excruciating, pain.

Purpose, Perspective, and Perseverance through Pain

Despite everything, Mark continued to preach, serve, and love his family well. But he often had to lie down on a bed, a sofa, or even the floor, so he felt bad for “letting people down.”

“I’m sorry, Sweetie,” he had to tell Michaela, “but I can’t play Bucking Brunke Bronco. I can’t even play Chutes and Ladders with you right now, because Daddy needs to lay down.”

Two rounds of steroids led to partial relief from the pain and a return of feeling in his fingers. But the relief was temporary, and the strength in his right triceps never returned.

To prevent the weakness from becoming permanent, Mark needed to get surgery. They scheduled it for Friday, June 24. The week before, he sent an email to our church family requesting prayer.

“Our God is still good!” Mark wrote, encouraging us as he maintained his perspective through the pain.

Photo courtesy: flickr.com

“He promises us in places like James 1:2-4 and Romans 8:28-29 that He uses trials like these for our good and His glory to grow us, mature us, and prune us to be more like Jesus….

Trials are good if we seize the opportunity to draw closer to Him!” (Tweet that!)

When Mark saw his primary care doctor, so she could clear him for surgery, his blood pressure was 190/110. The orthopedic surgeon had told him it was probably high because of the pain.

His primary care doctor said, “You’d have to be in an incredible amount of pain for your blood pressure to be that high.”

The Surgery That Saved Him

The day of the surgery, the nurse gave Mark some pills to take, including one named Celebrex.

Pastor Mark Brunke before surgery perspective through pain

Mark right before his surgery. Always a character!

“Great!” Mark said. “Matches my party hat.”

Dr. Quigley performed an Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF). In other words, he removed the herniated disc and inserted a cadaver bone and then a metal plate to hold it in place.

Afterward, Dr. Quigley said, “Mark did great! The disc was big, but he had no complications, and he lost less than a tablespoon of blood.”

Mark was told the strength in his arm should return within three or four months. Less than two weeks later, it’s already coming back.

At his follow-up appointment this past Friday, his X-rays looked great.

Yesterday, he returned to work and started driving again. And the pain he had to persevere through for three months? struggled with for three months has disappeared.

“I was in so much pain for so long,” he said, “and now it’s gone.”

How Our Good Father Guides

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Christy Brunke

Photo courtesy of: www.faughnfamily.com

On my way to the library last month, I was praying about what song to sing for my next church solo when God surprised me with His immediate answer (Tweet that!).

I’d been scheduled to sing on Father’s Day, so I’d considered “How Deep the Father’s Love For Us.” Not only was it appropriate for the day, but I’d sung it as special music before, so it wouldn’t take long to prepare.

But, ultimately, I wanted the Lord to choose the song. I asked Him to lead me to the one of His choosing.

His Answer

After I finished praying, I turned on the radio. At first I didn’t recognize the song playing, but then Chris Tomlin started singing the chorus of “Good, Good Father.” I smiled and thanked Jesus for His instant answer.

That song had been ministering to me for weeks, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. But even when we’re blinded by the busyness of our lives, our good Father still guides.

His Confirmation

After working awhile, I took a walk and called my friend Lynn, who coordinates the special music schedule for our church.

She asked me if I’d decided on a song for Father’s Day yet. Before I even had time to answer, she blurted out, “Have you considered ‘Good, Good Father?'”

I laughed and shared my testimony from earlier that day. She then shared hers.

As she was mowing the grass, she was praying about what song I should do. Then the Lord sang the lyrics to “Good, Good Father” in her ear.

Since God was speaking in stereo that day, I started preparing the song He’d chosen for Father’s Day.

Our good Father guides us in many different ways. Has He ever answered your prayer or confirmed His will for you in an obvious or immediate way? If so, share your story below!