Rethinking “Us vs. Them”: Writing Through God's Eyes: Christie Powell's Story - Latter-Day Lights

What if the stories we create can help us better understand our own trials, and even change the way we see those who are different from us?

In this week’s episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Darla sit down with fantasy author and Praiseworthy Award winner Christie Valentine Powell, who shares how her lifelong love of storytelling became an unexpected way to process grief, prejudice, and judgment. Through writing her book series “The Centaur Choice,” Christie drew from her own experiences with loss while exploring characters on opposing sides of conflict, ultimately challenging the “us versus them” mentality she once carried.

Christie also shares her journey from childhood storyteller to author of more than 20 books, along with the lessons she’s learned through writing and self-publishing, and how studying story structure has deepened her understanding of God’s role in our lives.

Ultimately, Christie’s story is a beautiful reminder that God is the author of our lives, that our tribulations can help shape us into who He wants us to become, and that seeing others as His children can help us move beyond judgment and find greater love and understanding.

*** Please hit SUBSCRIBE to get our latest episodes, and hit the SHARE button to help us share Christie's story and light with others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/pQZdRx7XMRk

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To READ Christie’s Praiseworthy Award-Winning book series, “The Centaur Choice,” visit: https://a.co/d/04JvixPU

To LEARN MORE about Christie’s work, visit: https://www.thespectrabooks.com/

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Transcript

“Faith to Stay” by Scott Brandley

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faithtostay.com.

Intro

Scott Brandley 0:25

Now, let's get back to the show. Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:31

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:40

On today's episode, we're going to hear how one woman used a fantasy world to heal from grief, prejudice, and judgmentalism. Welcome to Latter Day Lights.

Welcoming Christie Valentine Powell to the show

Scott Brandley 0:58

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Latter Day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. I'm really excited to introduce our special guest, Christy Valentine Powell, to the show. Welcome, Christy.

Christie Powell 1:11

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Scott Brandley 1:14

Yeah, we're so glad you're here with us. So to kind of kick things off, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Christie Powell 1:22

Okay. I'm from Yuma,

Christie in a nutshell

Christie Powell 1:25

Arizona. We're really excited to be getting a temple here soon. Um I'm a mother of five as well as two angel babies. Um my husband works as a resource teacher, and I tend the kids and I write during the naptimes and evenings. And then I also get to read each chapter out loud to my kids after I'm done writing it. And it is just the most motivating thing ever when they're excited to hear it. I think in stories. I like to write stories, I like to daydream stories, and I find that it helps keep me sane in all the busyness. And I also find that restructuring or reframing challenges, if even if it's not conscious, um, really helps me to process the world, make sense of the world, because sometimes we're just too close to see our own storyline and our own plot. So true. So I've been publishing since 2015. I've been writing since you know second grade or so.

Scott Brandley 2:24

Yeah.

Christie Powell 2:25

Um, I've got about 20 books out. I write about two per year, so they add up.

Scott Brandley 2:30

That's amazing.

Christie Powell 2:32

Thank you. And they're fantasy and fantasy romance. The book that I'm gonna be talking today is the only one on a different continent from all the rest, but it's still in the same world.

Scott Brandley 2:44

Yeah, that's cool. So you kind of created your own um what it Cosmere? Is that what they call it?

Christie Powell 2:51

You want to borrow from Sanderson? Sure.

Scott Brandley 2:54

Oh, is that did he make that up? I think that's a good one. Yeah, that's his word.

Christie Powell 2:57

Yeah, you called it.

Scott Brandley 2:58

Okay. What do you call yours?

Christie Powell 3:02

Um right now it's the Spectra Universe.

Scott Brandley 3:05

Okay, all right. That's cool. We're really glad to have you on. So let's uh turn the time over to you, and you can kind of tell us where this

How Christie started writing fantasy

Scott Brandley 3:15

amazing story of you becoming an author, and then also a praiseworthy award winner for the book you're gonna talk about today. So tell us where that begins.

Christie Powell 3:24

Okay. Well, I mean, like I said, second grade, I have a little journal. I still have it. I wrote this silly little story about me and my crush taking our children to the zoo.

Scott Brandley 3:34

Okay.

Christie Powell 3:35

Um, you know, it's just how I process the world. It's something that I've always done. You know, in high school and middle school, I'd be walking around clutching a notebook to my chest, writing out all these little pages. Um, so this story kind of began just thinking about centaurs and you know, how would they act? How would they act differently? What would be the more horse-like influences in their culture and that kind of thing? And just wondering about it, daydreaming out different scenarios until I finally found one that um would make a good story written down.

Scott Brandley 4:11

So this is we're talking about the centaur choice, right? That's the name of the book that you won the award for. Okay. Yes, the centaur choice. So, did did you get ideas for that as a kid, or is that something that you came up with later as an adult?

Christie Powell 4:25

As an adult, I definitely had some thoughts and daydreams about centaurs before, but this is a new one. Okay.

Scott Brandley 4:34

So before we get to the centaur choice, kind of tell us your story from when you were young, your writing. How did that progress over time? And how did you get to where you are?

Christie Powell 4:45

I've always collected stories, always writing. Um eventually I discovered self-publishing, and I kept going through drafts, kept asking for help, learning more about editing and about the process. And 2015 I finally felt published my first book here and never stopped. What was your first book? It's called The Spectra Unearthed. It's the first of a six-book series. And so it's a exiled princess who's trying to unite six kingdoms, and so there's each a book for each kingdom. Oh, awesome. Okay.

Scott Brandley 5:26

And so how did you how did you get the idea for did you know you're gonna make a six book series? Or like how did that I I'm just fascinated at the process.

Christie Powell 5:36

I mean, the world is something that I'd been daydreaming about for years and years, just coming up with the magic system, how it works, uh, where the world's located, and then it took probably I don't know, five, ten years. On you know, there was a prequel, there was a bunch of other stuff. I thought originally it would be a trilogy until I separated them out

Christie’s imaginative process

Christie Powell 6:00

into six instead, slowly growing and evolving over time.

Scott Brandley 6:04

So how do you do that? Like, how do you create this world?

Darla Brandley 6:08

And he doesn't have much of an imagination.

Scott Brandley 6:12

Oh, I well, the thing is so so my wife loves fantasy, and we actually have read I'm excited to read it. Yeah, so we've read several fantasy books together, but I don't read fantasy. So for a long, long time while we were married, she would read them to me, just kind of like half an hour here, hour there, and then we started listening to them while we were driving places, right? But it's always just fascinating to me how the world gets created. So, does that happen before you start writing the book, or do you come up with it as you're writing it? Like what's the process?

Christie Powell 6:54

Yeah, a little bit of both. Like I said, these are all of the same world, so there's always new corners and new things to explore, but the base work has been there for quite a while. And a lot of it's just you know, constantly thinking about it, running through, trying out different ideas and seeing what works and how it would work. I actually have a science background. I studied wildlife and wildlands conservation in college. So just that mindset of playing with the world, seeing what works.

Darla Brandley 7:23

Awesome. And what's

The magic system in Christie’s books

Darla Brandley 7:25

what's unique about your your magic system in your books?

Christie Powell 7:29

It's actually based on the six colors. So each color has a different element, which then becomes a different ability. And then I enjoyed playing with the genetics. So you have the if you had the red and the yellow together, you get orange and that kind of thing. Complementary colors don't get along, one usually dominates the other, and just playing with the idea.

Darla Brandley 7:52

That's fascinating. I love that. That sounds so good. Thanks.

Scott Brandley 7:56

How did you know there was a magic system, Darla?

Darla Brandley 7:59

It's fantasy, there usually is. I get that, and it's it's a fantasy book. Of course, there's a magic system.

Scott Brandley 8:09

I didn't know there was like a magic system, like that's a like a given.

Christie Powell 8:16

There's a lot less of the system in Centaur Chase. There's a little bit of it, but you only see a couple of the colors and it's not obvious.

Scott Brandley 8:24

Okay. How do you keep how do you and I see this? We listen to a lot of Brandon Sanderson books, and he like just puts it out like crazy,

How Christie keeps track of character storylines

Scott Brandley 8:35

right? Yeah. This content. I've always wondered how you keep track of storylines. Do you write separate like storyline journals or character journals? How do you do that?

Christie Powell 8:45

Um, I'm fond of spreadsheets. So I have spreadsheets with you know different characters, different timelines, different um character traits, just all kinds of things.

Darla Brandley 8:58

Oh, I love that. That would be something that I would do too. Put everything on a spreadsheet, keep everything neat and orderly and like easy to find. That would be fascinating. Absolutely.

Scott Brandley 9:10

So, do you come up with that before you start writing about a character, or do you come up with a character in the storyline and then like develop that character over time with its traits and its what did you call it? It's magic system. I want to recall it, magic system. Yeah.

Christie Powell 9:29

Some of both. And then, of course, as I add details, things might shift a little, but the basics are there.

Scott Brandley 9:49

Okay.

Darla Brandley 9:49

Now

How Christie built her characters in The Centaur Choice

Darla Brandley 9:50

tell me how um in the centaurs choice. So with the centaurs, you said that um you took some characteristics of maybe like equine um aspects. What what did you add? What did you feel like was the balance?

Christie Powell 10:06

Um, so part of it's just how they behave. They're prey animals by nature, so they're constantly looking around, checking for danger. They would not just you know look into the camera like we're doing. And their social structure, their family structure is different, they're polygamous, usually. Um, just how families are organized, how they live together in territories, and that kind of thing. Very interesting. Very interesting. Thank you.

Scott Brandley 10:33

Why centaurs?

Christie Powell 10:35

Uh they caught my attention. Um, I've got griffins and other things in there and other books as well.

Scott Brandley 10:42

I mean, I like from the fantasy I've read, I I remember Lion Witch in the Wardrobe, they had centaurs in there. But I haven't heard a lot, I mean, just me personally, but I don't haven't listened to a lot of fantasy either.

Christie Powell 10:54

Yeah, there's centaurs is yeah, there's lots of them. We're they I find they usually they usually don't seem to take center stage, they're usually just you know, to add a little bit of world flair or character or something, yeah, like in Harry Potter or something, like you know, they're in the forest or something, yeah.

Darla Brandley 11:11

But that's so cool. That's very like filling out their kind of society and their their um you know way of life. I've I find

How Christie uses writing to heal from grief and trauma

Darla Brandley 11:20

that fascinating. Thank you.

Scott Brandley 11:22

Okay, so in the the intro, we talked about how you used this fantasy world to you know to heal from things that happened in your life, right? From like you mentioned, grief, prejudice, judgmentalism. Kind of tell us that story.

Christie Powell 11:40

Okay, well, that's I've several different stories, but yeah. But in this book, the main characters are both healing from trauma and traumatic events that happened in their life. They both lost loved ones um in the same event, actually against each other. So they're both struggling with the same trauma but on opposite sides of it. And you know, I mentioned I have two angel babies. So as I was writing this story, this kind of helped me to go through how they would react to grief, how I react to grief, how they need their community and support and look to that, and how I need to do that as well. Um, for the judgmentalism one, it made me think of when I was in high school and I had a very us versus them mentality as far as members of the church. You know, these are the good people and these are the bad people. And you know, I was conscious that everyone is the child of God and you know, God loves everyone and that kind of thing, but I didn't realize like how much this was there. And then I got this amazing opportunity to go to a camp on Catalina Island for about a week. There were about two other members there, maybe. And so for the first time, I'm in this super tight contact with these other people, and we're all learning about the same thing, things that we all love. And it was just this huge eye-opening experience to realize there is no us, there is no them. Church membership is not the only standard towards personality and towards character.

Darla Brandley 13:22

So true. You have to kind of grow up to learn that, don't you? Yeah, definitely.

Scott Brandley 13:27

Yeah, well, I think when we were younger, that I kinda because I kind of got that when I was younger too, right? It was kind of an us against them kind of teaching. But I I feel like that's changed over time, thank goodness.

Christie Powell 13:42

Yeah, definitely.

Scott Brandley 13:43

Um, because uh yeah, and I've had experiences where um, like when my kids were younger, just kind of build on what you were sharing. Um, they have something here in Ogden called the Ten Commandments Hike, and it was for the Boy Scouts at the time. But what they would do is they would go to 10 different churches, take the Boy Scouts to 10 different churches, and each church would teach about one of the Ten Commandments. Oh, neat. And at the time I I went with them, what the first time I went with with my boy, and it was amazing. Like, I just couldn't believe how much love the leaders of these congregations had for the people that they served, right? And it really opened my eyes to the love and the Christ-like, you know, just communities that are out there, and I was almost oblivious to it. I hate to say that, but when once you see it, like when you went to this, you know, had this experience at Catalina Island, right? Like it just opens your mind to oh wow, God loves everyone, and we are all on the same playing field, right? Trying to do the best we can with the information that we have.

Darla Brandley 14:59

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I think it stems a lot from earlier persecution, you know. Like my grandparents would have, you know, had more persecution than than like we do. We don't have it the same way, and so I feel like maybe that was kind of taught we've got we've got to separate ourselves because you know, people don't like us. So I don't know, you know, maybe that feeling of you know, you know, but I feel like it's much more open now. I feel it in my heart anyway. Yeah, maybe you feel the same way.

Scott Brandley 15:30

Yep.

Christie Powell 15:30

So when I was writing this book, I was keeping this in mind, and I challenged myself to have the characters have really good traits and really bad traits. You could argue that Brie, the main female character, is mostly good and her brother is mostly not, but like all of the rest of them, they're gonna have things there. They have both really good and really bad things all in one. And I challenged myself to find characters on both sides of the issue. So there are some that are doing bad things on both sides, and there are a lot of people doing good and helpful things on both sides.

Darla Brandley 16:05

Yeah, because that's the real world. Absolutely, to be honest, you know?

Scott Brandley 16:09

Yeah.

Christie’s fiction-to-nonfiction ratio in her writing

Scott Brandley 16:10

When you're writing, how much do you pull from the real world and your immediate world and experiences?

Christie Powell 16:18

I found a quote somewhere, I wish I could remember who said it, but saying that all of our situations, everything we go to goes into the compost of the imagination. So for a lot of it, I'm pulling stuff out of that compost. Now there's gonna be some times where I'm pulling from reality, either some details in the setting or a specific thing that happened to me that I wanted to use to make it more authentic, but most of it is coming from just that compost of experiences.

Scott Brandley 16:45

Okay.

Christie Powell 16:46

It makes so much sense.

Scott Brandley 16:47

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, awesome. So you said you kind of write, you know, during downtime, or when like how do you like just continue to have that drive to do that when you've got so many other things going on?

Christie Powell 17:02

Even when I'm not writing or don't have the time, I'm usually thinking about it in my head. I've got no characters talking to each other, or I've got you know an idea of a world or a plot that I want to develop. So that's kind of just how my brain works. There's always some kind of story moving along.

Darla Brandley 17:18

I love that. I wish my brain worked like that. That's awesome. Mine usually I have random thoughts, and they're not even they're not collective and creative. There's definitely some of those too.

Christie’s advice to aspiring writers

Scott Brandley 17:30

Okay, so um obviously there's listeners here who are trying to become authors or writers. Um, what are some of the things that maybe you could share to help them in their journey? Things that you've learned along the way.

Christie Powell 17:47

Um, one thing that was kind of surprising to me that I learned was to reach out to other authors. Ever since I was in second grade, it was just this weird thing that just I did. But when I finally started finding other people like me, it was the most amazing thing, especially joining groups where they're church members too. So we started with an opening prayer before talking about how we're called to write and we have you know bringing the spiritual aspects in, and that was just a oh, I'm not alone. Yes, it's so wonderful.

Scott Brandley 18:19

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I like the LDS PMA organization, right? They are predominantly LDS, so they have the same kind of ideas and standards and vision of the world, yeah, right. But I'm sure like reaching out to people that aren't members can be like that, they're amazing too, like we talked about, right? Definitely, like yeah, there's so many great people out there that are willing to help you in your journey because if you really think about it, we were all there once, right? Every author had to write their first book at some point, and they needed help from someone that knew more than they did, right? Yeah, and you get a hand up and then you help other people up in the process. So as you did that, as you reached out to people, did you find that people were willing and happy to help you?

Christie Powell 19:11

Yeah, some of them. I I find that I have this dedication. This is something I always do, and we've definitely had people who, you know, sometimes that isn't their top priority, and so they'll do it for a little while and then they'll stop. That's just part of life. That's fine, that's a great thing. If you need to do something else, then you know that's what you do.

Scott Brandley 19:31

Right. Kind of be just take have that gratitude for the advice they do offer.

Christie Powell 19:36

Yep. Then I do have also a few people. I have one amazing person that I you know we we exchange chapters every single week. We have been doing it for years and years. Okay, and so you you know, you get a mix of both.

Darla Brandley 19:50

Oh, yeah, of course. I love that though, to have that closeness and be able to share every week. I love that.

Christie Powell 19:58

We have a character question every week, and so we have our characters talk to one another and answer as if we are our characters.

Darla Brandley 20:05

That's so good. That probably like inspires and creates, you know, definitely juices going on and ideas, right? Yeah, and it's just fun. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Brandley 20:19

That's like cosplay, but for authors, something like that.

Darla Brandley 20:23

No dressing up, but you know, but you're kind of you're putting on your character's personality and answering questions and talking like them, you know. Yeah, that's fun instead of a costume, yeah.

How Christie publishes her work

Scott Brandley 20:35

Okay, so when so you finish your first book, how do you go about getting it out to the world?

Christie Powell 20:42

Um, I'm I've done mostly Amazon, I'm just barely starting to branch out now. Um so modern day independent publishing is really super easy. Usually you hire people to help you to do the formatting, the covers, and the editing. I am both poor and stubborn, so I don't hire people to do those, but you know. Okay, I can understand.

Scott Brandley 21:08

Okay. So, well, and you know what, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Christie Powell 21:13

Yeah, definitely.

Scott Brandley 21:14

No one's gonna hit a home run right out of the gate. Like it's so rare.

Christie Powell 21:18

Right.

Scott Brandley 21:18

And you've got to just build up your repertoire of books, right? Get the word out there, you know, just slowly, but it builds up over time. Yep. Right? You just keep going and then you build a reputation. One thing I love actually that is the fact that you wrote 20 books in 10 years is that you didn't quit.

Christie Powell 21:39

Yeah. I mean, part of it is just that it's not only for the world. I mean, it'd be nice if, you know, I walk down the street and everyone knows me or something, or at least knows my characters. That would be awesome. But, you know, just reading it to my kids and my close friends and getting to put it on my trophy shelf up here, you know, that's rewarding all on its own.

Scott Brandley 22:00

Yeah, what a cool legacy, right? And you know, a lot of people, me and Darla included, like time is hard to find, especially when your kids are young and so much going on. So the fact that you actually can create a world and then bring them into it and tell the stories that you create, that's like the coolest memory that your kids are gonna have, right? When they get older, and that's like so cool that they got to experience that with you as kids. What a precious gift, you know. Like, even if you never even sold a single book, but you got that memory, like that's worth more money than the yeah, definitely. You know? Yeah. So that's really cool. Thank you. So now you've got 20 books out. You've learned a lot.

Christie Powell 22:52

Hopefully, yeah.

Scott Brandley 22:53

Um, well, I guess before let's say this next question, any other uh pieces of advice that you've learned?

Balancing the big and small egos within ourselves

Christie Powell 23:00

I think writers are really interesting people in that we're both have huge egos and tiny ones at the same time. And so being able to find the balance between those two and be the oh, this is my book, it's the greatest thing ever, and at the exact same time, oh, it's terrible. I hope no one criticizes it, and you know, and so being able to find the imbalance when you have two extremes at once is something that's really important.

Scott Brandley 23:22

Yeah, yeah, all right, yeah.

Darla Brandley 23:24

That would be I would not be able to do that. I I can't show people my things that I do because I would so I get that little ego thing.

Scott Brandley 23:32

Yeah, well, it is hard, especially when you get negative criticism, right?

Christie Powell 23:36

Yeah, definitely.

Scott Brandley 23:38

It hurts, right? Like, even though it's just like a handful of people typically, right? It just cuts to the core. Like there's nothing you can do about it, and you try not to take it personally, but it's hard.

Christie Powell 23:51

Yeah, it's helpful when they give you some whys. So if that review says, here's what I didn't like, and I could go, okay, I can see where I can improve there.

Scott Brandley 23:59

Yeah, yeah.

Christie Powell 24:00

There's you know, occasionally you'll get the review that just says confusing and boring or something. Like, what does that mean? Yeah, how can I change that? How can I make it better? Yeah, yeah. But if it says something like this beginning was too explainy, that's something I can work with.

Scott Brandley 24:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, and honestly, like it is hard to get that feedback, but if you can go back and it is helpful, then it it becomes better. Like you can make it better, or you can learn from it and make the next one better, right? Right.

About “The Centaur Choice” and Christie’s future writing plans

Scott Brandley 24:30

So it is hard, but it's just part of the part of the process.

Darla Brandley 24:33

Ask about the center choice. So is that a trilogy that you're going to make? Is this the first one of the three, or is there gonna be six, or what do you and this one's actually a duology, it's complete.

Scott Brandley 24:44

Okay.

Christie Powell 24:44

So I got to the midpoint of this one and realized, you know, this is this is long enough. Let's split it in half. So it's a duology, it's fun books. Okay, they're both already out.

Darla Brandley 24:54

But it's but it's in the same world as your other ones, this the Spectra world. Okay, okay. I just want to be clarify it all.

Christie Powell 25:02

Sorry. No worries.

Scott Brandley 25:03

So what's the name of the second book?

Christie Powell 25:05

Um, second one is the centaur charge.

Scott Brandley 25:08

The charge. Okay.

Christie Powell 25:09

The first book kind of centers around her choice of whether she's going to become a centaur or not. And then no spoilers on the cover or anything, but then the second one is about dealing with the consequences of choice and getting the charge or the responsibility with a new family and with this conflict between their peoples and how to step up and fix things. Awesome.

Scott Brandley 25:34

Okay. All right. So my uh question what do you see the future holding for you and your career?

Christie Powell 25:40

I mean, two books a year. I'm not gonna quit.

Scott Brandley 25:44

Okay, so you just get okay. So that's your goal, is just to to do two books.

Christie Powell 25:48

I mean, it averages out the years with one and years with three, years with none, but one in February,

Teasers for Christie’s future work

Christie Powell 25:55

right after that. But yeah.

Darla Brandley 25:57

Do you want to give any spoilers for the next book that's ideas?

Christie Powell 26:01

Or well, right now I'm working on a series of fairy tale retellings where each one has its own different characters, different plot, um, but then they all interact with each other throughout the series. So you know, the first one, the first one is an Aladdin and Cinderella, but then the beast makes an appearance, and then the beast is in the next one, the be for the beauty and the beast retelling. And yeah, the original idea was to do it especially with tales where there's a certain number of characters, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, so that I could take each one of those seven dwarves and then make them the star of their own fairy tale. So I've got seven out now, and I have ideas for like at least 25. I will be writing this series for the rest of my life, maybe.

Darla Brandley 26:53

That's not bad. Yeah, it's fun. I know lots of authors that do that, so that's awesome.

Scott Brandley 26:58

That's so cool to give each one of the seven dwarves their own storyline. That's so cool. Because I mean, they did have a life before they became one of the seven dwarves, right? Or even after. So yeah, that's really fun.

Christie Powell 27:11

Usually they end up being siblings or cousins. So, you know, there's three or seven fairies in Sleeping Beauty. There's a lot of these fairy tales with a big list. Yeah, yeah.

Darla Brandley 27:23

So true.

Scott Brandley 27:24

That's really cool. Well, um, this has been super fun. Um, we usually ask um, as we kind of wrap things up, we ask people to share any final thoughts, especially if related to any you know, faith promoting ideas or things you've learned about your faith as you've done this that

How Christie’s writing relates to her relationship with God

Scott Brandley 27:45

could maybe help other people or inspire anyone. Any thoughts there?

Christie Powell 27:49

So as I have studied story structure, I've learned a lot about reality and about real life, and especially about God, how our trials work to build us up, how he's the author in our lives. And then just with this story, you know, I've learned that not all good people share the same beliefs with us, and really no one has exactly the same beliefs. In a way, we all have our own church, we're all just at least a little bit different from one another, and that's good, that's beautiful. And along with that, as children of God, we can always find something relatable in everyone. Um, and there's so much power in humanizing people that we disagree with, and there's just so much beautiful variety, and us in the versus them boxes will never represent the whole truth. Yeah, I loved every one of those things. Oh my goodness, they were awesome!

Scott Brandley 28:42

Yeah, well, this has been so good. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, your story, and your faith with us today. I really appreciate it.

Christie Powell 28:52

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Scott Brandley 28:54

If people

Where to find Christie’s work

Scott Brandley 28:55

want to find your book, how do they but at Amazon?

Christie Powell 28:57

You said they can. Um, they're in several other places. Um, my website is thespectrooks.com. You can find a more conclusive list there.

Scott Brandley 29:07

Okay, awesome. Yeah, we'll put that in the footnotes so anyone watching, you want to go check out Christy's books. Um, we'll we'll include the link below, and you can go check them out and go support her, right?

Darla Brandley 29:21

And I definitely will. Yeah. Thank you.

Scott Brandley 29:23

Well, Christy, this has been so

Outro

Scott Brandley 29:25

much fun. Thank you for being on the show, and thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of Latter Day Lights. Um, let's do our five-second missionary work. Go hit that share button. Let's share Christy's light, share her story out in the world so that we can share her light and get her stories out there so people can read them. So um, the once again, the link is in the footnotes below. Go check it out. And if you have a story that you would like to share, go to latterdaylights.com or email us at latterdaylights at gmail.com and let's have you on the show so you can share your story. So thanks again, Christy, for coming on.

Christie Powell 30:08

Thank you for having me.

Scott Brandley 30:13

We will talk to you next week with another episode of Latterday Lights. Till then, take care. Bye bye.