Brad, p.29
Brad, page 29
I would love to know your thoughts.
I really would.
Writing is often a solitary profession, but it doesn’t have to be. I personally read every single book review, positive or otherwise. I’m not exaggerating. It would mean the world to me if you shared your thoughts with me. Hearing from my readers helps me prayerfully craft the next story. An honest review also helps other readers make informed decisions when they seek an exciting, romantic Christian book for themselves.
Please use the link, or even your smartphone and the QR code on this page, to leave a review and tell me what you liked or didn’t like about the story. I would so love to hear from you.
www.halleebridgeman.com/ReviewValerie
Yours in Christ;
Suggested discussion group questions for Brad by Hallee Bridgeman.
When asking ourselves how important the truth is to our Creator, we can look to the reason Jesus said he was born. In the book of John 18:37, Jesus explains that for this reason He was born and for this reason He came into the world. The reason? To testify to the truth.
In bringing those He ministered to into an understanding of the truth, Our Lord used fiction in the form of parables to illustrate very real truths. In the same way, we can minister to one another by the use of fictional characters and situations to help us to reach logical, valid, cogent, and very sound conclusions about our real lives here on earth.
While the characters and situations in The Dixon Brothers Series are fictional, I pray that these extended parables can help readers come to a better understanding of truth. Please prayerfully consider the questions that follow, consult scripture, and pray upon your conclusions. May the Lord of the universe richly bless you.
Uncle Buddy intentionally moved his niece Valerie away from the Dixon home so she could have “more diversity” in her life. In reality, he moved her away from the only family she ever knew and deposited her into a completely unknown environment.
1. Do you think Buddy’s actions were fair for Valerie and for the Dixon brothers?
2. Do you think that disruption spurred Valerie to escape Atlanta after high school?
Acts 17:26 says: “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth….”
3. Because all have common ancestors in first Adam then in Noah, is it right to make decisions based on skin pigmentation or socio-economic status?
4. Phillip worried Buddy might have some personal issues with Brad and Valerie’s relationship. Do you think those issues are founded?
5. Women in the bathroom distinguished Valerie by her skin color in a derogatory manner. People often flippantly gossip like that. Have you ever been compelled to correct them? What kind of outcome has resulted from taking a stance?
Valerie suffers from a severe form of Post-Traumatic Stress. It brings about an obsessive-compulsiveness with her environment and causes her to experience irrational fear.
6. Do you think the anger against her attacker she held onto compounded the symptoms?
7. Do you think allowing God back into her life would ease those symptoms?
8. What kind of tools would a relationship with God give her to combat those symptoms?
Brad knows his brother, Jon, is hurting, but he doesn’t know how to help him.
9. Do you think it is more helpful to push Jon for answers, or is loving him and ignoring the indicators of his pain (i.e., anger, heavy drinking, etc.) the better method to help him?
10. As the President of Dixon Brothers, Brad has taken on the mantle of leadership even among his brothers. Jon resents that, which becomes a barrier between the two. What steps can Brad take to further remove that barrier?
Tyrone indicates that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior and has become a new creature in Christ.
11. Do you believe someone can really drastically change from such an evil abuser into a loving brother in Christ?
12. In the letter, Tyrone says that he is praying that one day Valerie will forgive him. As an act of faith, he is offering to remain in prison so that she will feel safer. Valerie has a very adverse reaction to this. Do you think she ought to forgive him?
13. Valerie is angry because Brad agrees that forgiveness should come. Despite his own initial anger toward Tyrone, Brad cites Biblical examples to help explain why he feels Tyrone is worthy of forgiveness. Do you think he has a valid point?
14. In confiding her personal story with Valerie, Madison reveals that she actually married the man who once abused her. Do you think her husband truly changed inside?
Suggested luncheon menu to enjoy when hosting a group discussion for Brad.
Those who followed my Hallee the Homemaker website know that one thing I am passionate about in life is selecting, cooking, and savoring good whole real food. A special luncheon just goes hand in hand with hospitality and ministry.
In case you’re planning a discussion group surrounding this book, I offer some humble suggestions to help your special luncheon talk come off as a success. Quick as you like, you can whip up an appetizer, entree, side, and dessert that is sure to please and certain to enhance your discussion and time of friendship and fellowship.
Slow Roasted Beef Brisket
Valerie and Buddy share a fantastic BBQ Beef Brisket lunch together. If you’d like to make your own, here is a delicious, melt-in-your-mouth recipe.
4 pounds/lbs. beef brisket
1 1/2 cups beef stock
2 TBS salt (Kosher or sea salt is best)
1 TBS garlic powder
1 TBS onion powder
1 TBS fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp dry mustard
1 bay leaf, crushed
Preheat the oven to 350° degrees F (about 176° degrees C).
Trim the fat from the brisket.
Mix the spices. Rub them all over the beef. Place in roasting pan and roast for 1 hour uncovered.
Add the beef stock to the pan. Tightly cover with foil. Lower the temperature of the oven to 300° degrees F (about 148° degrees C), and continue cooking for 3 hours or until fork tender.
Kelly’s BBQ Sauce
Tender meat is only as good as the sauce you serve it with. Here is a recipe that my friend Kelly the Kitchen Kop shared with me.
Mix it up and serve it with your beef.
If you want, you can cover your beef with it the last 15 minutes of cooking.
1 (24 oz.) bottle of organic ketchup
Juice from 2 organic lemons
1/2 cup raisins
About 1/4 cup brown sugar or honey
2 TBS raw apple cider vinegar
3 TBS Tamari (fermented soy sauce)
2 TBS mustard
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp paprika
Dash ground cayenne pepper
Kosher or Sea salt to taste—do not use iodized salt
NOTE:
2 TBS raw apple cider vinegar for sweet sauce
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar for a more tangy sauce
OPTIONAL:
Some readers recommend adding a dash or up to TBS of your favorite hot pepper sauce to taste.
Some readers recommend adding a dash of ground cayenne pepper for added heat.
Other readers recommend adding 1 oz of Kentucky bourbon or (if you don’t cook with any alcohol) one TBS of liquid smoke to add a light smoky flavor.
>Soak the raisins in the raw apple cider vinegar in a blender.
For sweet sauce use about 2 TBS of vinegar For a tangier sauce, use about 1/2 cup vinegar.
After about 10 to 20 minutes, pulse to break them open. Don’t make a paste. Let stand another 5 to 10 minutes. You are now ready to begin making the sauce.
In a blender, soak the raisins in the raw apple cider vinegar (see PREPARATION above) until ready. Mix all ingredients except the ketchup into the vinegar-soaked raisins.
Mix about half of the ketchup last.
Blend slowly, adding the remainder of the ketchup a little at a time until the sauce is smooth. Add salt to taste.
Add any optional ingredients (see INGREDIENTS) to taste and pulse or slowly blend until well mixed and smooth.
Hot Potato Salad
Because of a horrible incident in WWII involving some bad potato salad, and several resulting deaths among my grandfather’s military unit, my family members have never been big potato salad eaters.
My mom insists that I made the recipe up as a child one night when she made barbecued chicken. In my memory, she always made this dish to go with barbecued chicken and it was her recipe. I honestly can’t remember inventing it, and I can’t remember her ever not making it. But I’ve always been very active in the kitchen, so it’s possible that as a child I came up with the recipe.
Evidently, I made this recipe up because it is made and served right away, avoiding any possible spoilage issues. It is the perfect flavor accompaniment for the tangy-sweet smokiness of the homemade sauce.
It’s called “hot potato” salad because you make it warm and serve it warm, as a hot side dish instead of a cold salad.
6 good-sized potatoes
2 eggs
1/4 cup finely diced onion
1 large dill pickle
3 TBS mayonnaise
3 TBS yellow mustard
2 tsp Kosher salt, divided
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
If you haven’t already, finely dice the onion.
Also finely dice the dill pickle.
Scrub the potatoes really good—you’re not going to peel them. Cut out the eyes and any “harvest” marks and discard.
Wash the eggs, too, because you’re going to put them in with the potatoes.
Dice the potatoes so that 2 diced cubes comfortably fit on a spoon, about 1/2 inch or a bit more than 1 cm on a side.
Put the diced potatoes in the pot. Add the eggs. Cover with cold water. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Boil until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
Return the potatoes to the pan and fish out the eggs. Cool the eggs off with cold water just until you can handle them safely.
Add the diced onions and diced pickle into the pot with the potatoes. Add the mayonnaise and mustard.
Dice the eggs to cubes about half the size of the potato cubes. Add them to the potatoes along with 1 teaspoon salt and the pepper.
Stir until thoroughly combined.
Serve hot.
Coleslaw
Fresh, homemade coleslaw is a favorite dish, especially with fresh fish, barbecued chicken, or barbecued Beef Brisket!
1/2 head of green cabbage
2 carrots
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 TBS apple cider or rice vinegar
2 TBS sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Shred the cabbage.
Grate the carrots.
Whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, and spices. Stir in cabbage and carrots. Mix well.
Excerpt from Jon, the Dixon Brothers Series book 2
Jonathan Dixon sat in his idling truck staring at the doorway of the honky-tonk settled in the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. Though the place looked a little grubby from the outside, he could drive to this bar in less than twenty minutes when starting from the extended-stay hotel his Atlanta team had secured for him. The next closest bar required nearly a forty-five-minute drive, and who had that kind of time?
Jon had arrived in Tennessee nearly half a year ago, assigned to the shopping mall construction project south of greater Nashville. Glancing around the parking lot, he assumed that several of the men on his team had already gone inside. He still didn’t know whether he planned to go inside. So, he let the engine run and stared at the building as if it could give him some indication to assist him with that decision one way or another.
He pressed his fingertips to his temple and closed his eyes. In the six months he’d lived in that hotel, he’d stayed sober. Every single day he desired the numbing effects that the over-consumption of alcohol could offer, and every day he had managed to exercise that temptation away. But tonight, after seeing the news during dinner, he didn’t feel like fighting it.
Fanatical extremists had attacked a girl’s school in a village near the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. They’d locked the little girls inside the small schoolhouse and set it on fire with them inside. They watched it burn and killed any locals who tried to help the girls. In the end, thirty-seven girls, three teachers, and nine villagers died.
When Jon was sixteen, he went on a mission trip to Egypt. While there, he and his brothers had helped build a girls’ school. Unlike the metropolitan areas near Cairo, most women in that particular region could neither read nor manage more than simple math at best. The school they helped build was the first school in that area that welcomed girls as students in more than five centuries.
Jon thought the school represented hope, that he and his team fought off prejudice and a culture that historically treated women like property, or worse. He’d felt so good about that, so right, so valorous. A year ago, he’d had the chance to go back to that country to teach and train. While there, he went to visit the school and discovered that terrorists had burned it down—just like the one last night. A group had worked to systematically invoke terror and make sure their objections to the education of girls dominated any attempt to enlighten and elevate. Centuries-old sectarian prejudice and hatred aided in the effort.
Jon closed his eyes and started to pray. “God, why? Why God? You hear me? I know I’m not perfect, but I’ve been willing to try to see and do things Your way my whole life. Why can’t you end this hate? You made me with a heart that wants to help those in need, help those who are hurting, help those who never heard the good news that Your Son saved us from all of this. You give me that heart and then you break it over and over again? Why, God?”
Maybe it wouldn’t have affected Jon so much if he hadn’t built a school; if he hadn’t stood there on that January morning and smelled the unforgettable odor that hung in the air over the still smoldering ruins. They had murdered seventeen little girls in a horrible, inhuman way—all because those girls had wanted to learn—and they had used the school he had helped build as the instrument of their deaths.
What good had it done to build the school in the first place? Did the cost of seventeen lives equal his individual sense of self-righteous accomplishment?
Now, another one, and even more children had died. As far as Jon understood it, this school made eleven girls’ schools destroyed in the last two years. Hundreds of girls killed. Dozens of other people. All in the name of hate.
To any casual observer, Jon might have looked a little strange just sitting in that truck with the engine running, shaking his head with his eyes closed. Jon didn’t care about that at the moment. “Just tell me this, God. Tell me how to make my heart stop hurting. At least tell me that. Because if you can’t even do that much, then I think I can make it stop. Just tell me what I need to make my heart stop breaking. Amen.”
He opened his eyes and instantly a happy couple walked out of the honky-tonk laughing. The light-haired man had his arm draped casually over the shoulder of the slim brunette at his side. In turn, she had her arm around his waist. They looked well acquainted with walking this way. Jon heard a few words between gales of laughter, something about something someone had said, and how someone else had reacted, and just how funny it all was. He looked at how happy these strangers appeared in their own private little world, in their private little bubble, as they casually headed to a pickup truck to leave for the evening. He almost felt angry toward them for their joy.
“So that’s what I need?” Jon sneered, thinking of his brother Brad who had just gotten married. Brad had been in love with his wife since they were teenagers in high school. Jon had never been in love and could not, in that moment, imagine anyone ever loving him enough to even make it worth his while. “Nice try.”
That settled it. Oh, he’d go in tonight. He’d go in and find a corner table and just drink. Drink away the smell of smoke in the air. Drink away hatred and ignorance on a level that brought people to commit acts of genocide in the name of their god. Drink away all the pain and poverty he’d seen in the world in his lifetime and especially drink away how it damaged his soul every single time he returned to his little world, his little bubble, his life of privilege and materialism.
He killed the engine and hopped out of the truck. He bumped the door with his hip to make it shut all the way and latch. Last week, a bulldozer had backed into it and he just hadn’t bothered to swap it out and send this one to the body shop.
He remembered how the dozer operator had stared at the truck in complete horror, absolutely certain Jon would not only fire him on the spot, but also ensure the man never had work on any other site anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. The ironic thing is that Jon probably could have done exactly that if he cared to do so.
Jon had his jobsite superintendent, Walter Gross, write the man up for a safety violation, and that was that. Construction work is dangerous business, and people, mostly men, get hurt and killed doing it. Safety mattered on the jobsite and could never be ignored or taken lightly. Having worked construction his entire life, Jon also recognized that accidents happen in all walks of life. Human beings make mistakes. Jon didn’t feel like burning the guy to the ground over a wrinkle in his paint, but at the same time, something like that could never happen again.
