Reviews of my novel Compelling Interests: A novel about abortion from the hearts of people on both sides (available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble):
“The War and Peace of the abortion battle.” Tim Reynolds, author Halflife, Ryoanji, and other books
“Jessica Shaver Renshaw has done the impossible. She’s written a highly readable, informative and entertaining book on an extremely controversial topic: abortion.She seamlessly weaves fact and fiction while accurately conveying the logic and emotions of both sides with respect and compassion. Compelling Interests is in a category by itself and should be read by anyone who has an interest in truly understanding abortion and the debate surrounding it. If you’ve never really studied much about abortion because you don’t like the heated debates it often generates, this book will be especially helpful. I highly recommend this book whether you’re pro-choice, pro-life or somewhere in between.” Roger Resler, Author, Compelling Interest (singular!)
“Very worthwhile reading.Quite frankly, in my modest opinion, a far more important book than Rick Warren’s A Purpose-Driven Life… a valuable toolin that it presents very important data, in a novel way. Pardon the pun.” Rick Troyer
Wow. I have just finished reading your book. I would like to say that I compliment you. That would be a gross understatement. I am overawed at your ability to weave such an engaging story on such a wonderfully researched factual metrics. I was impressed after a couple of dozen pages; and then it just kept getting better. Thank you. Definitely the best fiction I have read since The Shack and just as good.” Andrew Boog, Solicitor, Dubbo, Australia
Format: Kindle Edition
“‘Mom, we have to do something to help those women.’ The most powerful words were spoken by a childwho was only mentioned briefly but Mariana’ s son’s voice was caught so strongly, as a family was driving by an abortion clinic where protesters were causing a riot. The thing I liked most about this whole story was that Mariana listened to her child and instead of judging those women she did something to help them.These characters had courage the strength to take a stand on a subject that people don’t often like to discuss, the truth about abortion and the consequences. The characters were real and honest, especially the children who were affected by the decisions of the government, who decided not to give children a voice, BUT Jessica Shaver Renshaw did a great job of giving these children voices and gave justice for a lot of young lives. What do I know? All I know is this story gave me hope there are still people who care enough to do something to help others like Mariana who did something brave by taking in pregnant mothers with nowhere else to turn… Simply Compelling….” Mary Schmidt
Format: Paperback
“This novel follows the history of the pro-abortion/pro-life conflict from long before Roe Vs Wade to a time in the near future. Ms Shaver Renshaw has woven the facts into a novel that will make you angry, make you cry and clarify your understanding for both sides of this polarized issue. This is absolutely the best book detailing the real history of abortion.She candidly tells how and why it all happened, and those who are involved and know the history, will recognize those major, real life players. I read this book when on a trip, and finished it while in flight from Los Angles to the Mid West. My frustration was that I was not able to stand up and shout, ‘Hallelujah, someone finally told the truth!!’ I challenge all to read this book regardless of your stance. I guarantee when you finish the last page and close the cover, your world will have shifted. When people ask me questions about the history of the legalization of abortion I refer them to this book for a comprehensive look of both sides of the issue. It’s well written, informative and interesting.”Lisa Stiefken Wholley, Director of San Bernardino (CA) Pregnancy and Family Resource Center
(I will provide free paperback copies to any pro-life group for conferences or pro-life fund-raising events (buying them at the author’s price and allowing the organization to sell them for any price and keep the entire amount) as long as fnances permit. I will also provide single copies to individuals who will promise to then donate the copy to a woman considering abortion or a pro-life pregnancy center near them.)
ABORTION: The most divisive issue since slavery, this second Civil War is tearing our country apart. The presidential elections of 2016 and 2018 were all about “women’s reproductive rights.” The election brought to a head the war between the culture of life and the culture of death.
In 1973, Roe v. Wade led to the legalization of abortion for any reason, from conception through all nine months of pregnancy. One year before the ruling, Centers for Disease Control reported only 39 deaths due to illegal abortions. Thirty-nine. Since that day, there have been close to 60 MILLION deaths of babies in the womb. Babies with beating hearts. Babies with brainwaves.
Yet the ruling made clear that in addition to protecting a woman’s health, the State has “an important and legitimate interest”–a COMPELLING INTEREST–in protecting the “potentiality of human life.” It went on to say that if it is proven the unborn is a person, the fetus’ right to life would be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Technology and medical science have now proved conclusively that the fetus is a tiny, living human being.
This book is unashamedly pro-life. But pro-life and pro-choice people are not talking to each other. This book attempts to accurately and sympathetically portray the hearts of people on both sides. Women scared, even desperate, because of unwanted pregnancies, women physically or emotionally scarred by illegal abortions, as well as women scarred by legal abortions. Couples who have lost babies. Infertile couples. Adoptive families.
Once each side is heard, let’s admit that human life exists in the womb and that “EVERY life matters.” Let’s harness our passion to protect and nurture life all along its spectrum, for the little ones in the wombs as well as the sometimes resistant women whose wombs they are in.
(CORRECTED DATE) FREE ON AMAZON KINDLE NOW: Compelling Interests: a novel about abortion from the hearts of people on both sides (Kindle e-book FREE NOW through Jan. 21, 2019)
(I will provide free paperback copies to any pro-life group for conferences or pro-life fund-raising events (buying them at the author’s price and allowing the organization to sell them for any price and keep the entire amount) as long as fnances permit. I will also provide single copies to individuals who will promise to then donate the copy to a woman considering abortion or a pro-life pregnancy center near them.)
ABORTION: The most divisive issue since slavery, this second Civil War is tearing our country apart. The presidential elections of 2016 and 2018 were all about “women’s reproductive rights.” The election brought to a head the war between the culture of life and the culture of death.
In 1973, Roe v. Wade led to the legalization of abortion for any reason, from conception through all nine months of pregnancy. One year before the ruling, Centers for Disease Control reported only 39 deaths due to illegal abortions. Thirty-nine. Since that day, there have been close to 60 MILLION deaths of babies in the womb. Babies with beating hearts. Babies with brainwaves.
Yet the ruling made clear that in addition to protecting a woman’s health, the State has “an important and legitimate interest”–a COMPELLING INTEREST–in protecting the “potentiality of human life.” It went on to say that if it is proven the unborn is a person, the fetus’ right to life would be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Technology and medical science have now proved conclusively that the fetus is a tiny, living human being.
This book is unashamedly pro-life. But pro-life and pro-choice people are not talking to each other. This book attempts to accurately and sympathetically portray the hearts of people on both sides. Women scared, even desperate, because of unwanted pregnancies, women physically or emotionally scarred by illegal abortions, as well as women scarred by legal abortions. Couples who have lost babies. Infertile couples. Adoptive families.
Once each side is heard, let’s admit that human life exists in the womb and that “EVERY life matters.” Let’s harness our passion to protect and nurture life all along its spectrum, for the little ones in the wombs as well as the sometimes resistant women whose wombs they are in.
“Dude, how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?”
It was November of 2002. I had just released my first novel, The Last Jihad. I was doing a telephone interview on a hard rock radio station in Rochester, New York, the city closest to where I grew up in Upstate New York. And the radio host, a guy who called himself “Brother Weese,” asked me this very question.
Here’s my answer.
The story of my spiritual journey — how I was raised by a Jewish father and Gentile mother and came to believe that Jesus is, in fact, the Jewish Messiah — was just released online by a ministry called, “One For Israel.”
Meanwhile, imprisoned a third time, Yun hit bottom spiritually and emotionally. He had escaped once and refused to promise not to try again so guards mercilessly beat his lower legs with batons, breaking and crushing the bones. “I lay on the ground screaming like a wounded animal. Excruciating pain surged through my body and mind. All I could do was try to focus my thoughts on the Lord Jesus and his suffering on the cross. I thought I was going to die but the Lord sustained me.”
.He was so crippled his legs were “black and unusable. I couldn’t even stand up, let alone walk.” He had to be carried to the toilet–and to the room where he was tortured every day. Crushed in spirit as well as in body, he cried out to God, “I can’t take it any more!” And the Lord answered, “Do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded” and “Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose.”
Then, on the morning of May 5, 1997, the Lord told Yun, “This is the hour of your salvation. Go now! The God of Peter is your God!” The vision God had given Yun of iron gates opening, one after another, became a reality. The man who could not walk, could hardly crawl, stood up and walked, as if in a dream, out of the Zhengzhou Number One Maximum Security Prison, climbed into a taxi and asked to be driven to the home of Christian friends. Just like Peter, he stood at the door while a young girl, seeing who was there, left him standing while she ran inside to tell others that their brother was free!
.One eye-witness wrote, “I couldn’t believe it when I saw Yun walking out! There were probably thirty prison guards in the yard at the time, but no one noticed Yun escape! He even walked right past several of them,” and another wrote, “The prison authorities had mocked the Lord and Yun when they smashed his legs. They said, ‘We’d like to see you escape now!’ The Lord is always up to a challenge!”
.Yun did not realize until afterward that the Lord must have healed his legs in his cell. “I marveled at God’s goodness and faithfulness to me,” he writes. “To this day I consider my escape from prison the most amazing experience of my life. That night I slept like a content newborn baby in the arms of my Lord.”
.From Chapter 22, “A Miraculous Escape,” in The Heavenly Man, with Paul Hattaway, Monarch Books, 2002.
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“If our Heavenly Father does not permit it, who can do anything to you?” Brother Yun
This third man, Brother Yun of China, shows me peace in persecution. Brother Yun did not recognize any secondary causes, however evil. He saw everyone and everything in his life as coming directly from the hand of a loving Father to build his character and bring him into greater intimacy with his Father’s heart. When I think of the promise of Jesus Christ that His followers will do even greater things than He did on earth–in this case, in the area of endurance and acceptance–I think of Brother Yun. His autobiography, The Heavenly Man, written with Paul Hattaway and published by Monarch Books, reads like a sequel to the Book of Acts of the Apostles.
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(From The spread of God’s good news throughout China has been accompanied by numerous documented examples of healings and other miracles. One of the founders of the underground church, with members now in the millions, was Yiu Zhenling, known as Brother Yun, who came to be known as “the heavenly man.” In prison (just one of many instances) “the Lord used him to heal some of [his fellow prisoners and guards] and eventually they all came to faith in Jesus Christ.”
.Brother Yun committed his life to Jesus Christ at 16 and began to memorize the Bible, one chapter per day. In his first year as a Christian he led 2,000 people to Christ. He began the underground church in Communist China and became the country’s most-wanted man. Imprisoned three times, he was interrogated, threatened, kicked, brutally beaten and tortured with electric batons almost daily. But, like the apostle Paul, Yun’s attitude was, “I am not your prisoner. I am a prisoner of the Lord!” He saw everything that happened to him as a privilege, not just allowed but caused by a loving Father who used these things to draw him into the sufferings of Christ, with the promise of the glory of Christ to follow.
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From Yun’s first day in Nanyang Prison, God led him to “fast and pray for the advance of the gospel, that thousands of souls would experience salvation, and that the house churches throughout China would be victorious. Yun did not touch food or water for 74 days.
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“In those days,” he told his biographer, “I was just like a baby sleeping in the arms of his mother, peacefully suckling at his mother’s bosom. My spirit was full of joy and thanksgiving as I magnified the Lord. Yun’s toughest time was on the 38th day when the devil hissed in his ear, “Yun, Jesus fasted 40 days. How can you as a servant do more than the Master? Will you try to outdo your master?” Yun was in such intense spiritual battle he considered suicide. But the Lord spoke Revelation 3:8 to him, “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no man can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” When he heard these words, Yun said his heart was filled with joy. “I felt like a little boy whose father has taken a stand for him against bullies.” At that moment he had a powerful vision of a series of iron gates opening, one after another.
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At the end of his fast, Yun weighed 66 pounds. His mother and wife could not recognize him. “During the long fast, my days were full of struggle, miracles, dreams, visions, and revelation from the Lord. I experienced his strength every day. My body was getting smaller and smaller, but my spirit was enlarged and strong.” After all this time he was finally brought to trial. “I was bound and taken to the court in a motor-tricycle, with armed guards on either side of me. My cell mates were praying earnestly for me. I felt great joy in my heart. The (court) said I would receive either life imprisonment or the death sentence. I was amazed when the judge announced, “Yun, we sentence you to four years’ imprisonment with hard labor!” Only four years! I couldn’t believe it! I was full of joy because God had given me hope for future ministry throughout China. The Lord had more work for me to do! As I was driven back to the prison I had a feeling of overwhelming joy and thankfulness for the Lord’s mercy.”
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Yun said those four years went fast and once free he worked tirelessly to evangelize, disciple and train others to win souls. As a result of his refusal to curtail his activities, he was arrested many times and imprisoned twice more. The second time, God commanded him to repent. He was battered, bruised, broken, in a prison cell with murderers and rapists who hated and abused him and God was telling him to repent? Why didn’t he just give Yun comfort and reassurance of his love? But Yun realized he harbored contempt for the men in his cell and he repented.
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Repentance released in him a whole new level of closeness with the Lord and realization of what God was doing in his life. As a result of his obedience, he started seeing the men in a new way, with God’s eyes. He started praying for them and sharing his meager food with them. The Lord used him to heal some of them and eventually they all came to faith in Jesus Christ. Their cell became heaven on earth. “One day I was sharing the gospel with a group of prisoners. The joy of the Lord was in my heart. Several guards commented, ‘Look, this criminal is even happier that we are, and we are free!” As a result, some of them also believed.
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After his release from prison Yun would say he missed the time with those men so much he longed to return and visit them. “My first four years had been like Joseph when he was thrown into prison, slandered, and persecuted. But my second term was like Joseph when God exalted him and placed him in a position of influence and authority.”
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Outside the prison, Yun’s steadfast example and his refusal to betray or implicate others gave Christians courage and fanned the flames of revival. His prayers while fasting were being answered exponentially. With no promise of financial support, new Christian workers went everywhere openly risking persecution by preaching the gospel. “We are not afraid of going hungry or of being beaten,” they said. “We are willing to die for the gospel! We are only afraid of going without God’s presence. Please pry he will be with us every day.” By January 2000 the house churches estimated their members numbered 58 million!
Brother Andrew taught me faith, faith in God’s character and in His willingness to answer prayer, becoming a settled confidence in claiming and seeing miracles happen as a way of life.
[From Open Doors website:} Brother Andrew of Holland started with bold beginnings by smuggling Bibles into Eastern Europe in 1955, started Open Doors to serve the persecuted church and wrote the book God’s Smuggler, one of the best-selling Christian books of all time.
MORE THAN A FOUNDER
We often describe Brother Andrew as the founder of Open Doors. But referring to him as “the founder” could lead people to picture him as a suit-wearing executive who delivers presentations in a boardroom.
That image, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. In actuality, Brother Andrew is our chief adventurer and lead risk taker. He’s best known, in fact, for courageously putting his life on the line to smuggle Bibles behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War.
AN INTRODUCTORY STORY
One of the most loved Brother Andrew stories recounts a risky incident from early in his ministry. On this occasion, Brother Andrew approached the Romanian border in his car—which was packed with illegal Bibles.
He could only hope the border guards were moving swiftly and not paying much attention, which might allow him to pass through undetected.
But just as he was hoping this, Brother Andrew saw the guards stop the car at the front of the line. He watched, in anticipation, as the vehicle’s owners were forced to take out all of the car’s contents and spread them on the ground for inspection.
Each car that followed received the same treatment, with the fourth car’s inspection lasting the longest. The guard took a full hour to sift through it, including removing hubcaps, taking the engine apart, and even removing the seats.
“Dear Lord,” Brother Andrew remembers praying, “What am I going to do?”
As he prayed, a bold idea came to Brother Andrew. “I know that no amount of cleverness on my part can get me through this border search. Dare I ask for a miracle? Let me take some of the Bibles out and leave them in the open where they will be seen.”
Putting the Bibles out in the open would truly be depending on God, rather than his own intelligence, he thought. So when the guards ushered Andrew forward, he did just this. “I handed him my papers and started to get out. But his knee was against the door, holding it closed.”
And then, the almost unbelievable happened.
The guard looked at Brother Andrew’s passport and abruptly waved him on. “Surely thirty seconds had not passed,” he remembers.
Brother Andrew started the engine and began pulling away, all the while wondering if he was supposed to pull over so the car could be taken apart and examined. “I coasted forward, my foot poised above the brake. Nothing happened. I looked out the rear mirror. The guard was waving the next car to a stop, indicating to the driver that he had to get out.”
God had cleared the way for Brother Andrew to smuggle the Bible to Christians who had no access to God’s Word.
WORLDWIDE IMPACT
Brother Andrew’s work went on to span many decades and geographic locations. And this infamous incident at the Romanian border became one of many close calls to follow. Along the way, Brother Andrew even developed a trademark prayer to say as he snuck Bibles and Christian literature across the border:
“Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to your children. When you were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.”
Stories from Brother Andrew’s dangerous global exploits earned him the nickname God’s Smuggler—a handle that would also become the title of a best-selling book about his ministry. God’s Smuggler the book, would go on to sell over 10 million copies and be translated into thirty-five languages.
BONUS FEATURES
Yacht Phoenix of Hiroshima memorabilia; creative writing and photography by Jessica Reynolds, Shaver, and Renshaw, much of it published.
HIS SCRIBE (link now fixed)
Adventures on the yacht Phoenix and throughout my life–pictures, poems, opinion pieces, all kinds of stuff
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Jessica Renshaw