Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast. Today we have an amazing guest, Donna Van Lear. She's a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

with six novels turned into Made for TV movies, including the Christmas Shoes. A longtime

student of Bible prophecy, she's passionate about speaking, teaching, and revealing the hope

of scripture and what it has to say about today's headlines. Donna, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Todd. Thank you, Jeff. Great to be here with you.

We're just so honored to have you on here.

We had a chance to read your book and really love it.

And we'll definitely unpack a few things about that.

But first, won't you tell us a little bit about your story,

how you came to Christ and how you

became an author?

Well, I came to Christ as a young girl.

I grew up in Northeast Ohio, and I was very young at the time.

And, you know, my church where I grew up, we would hear that Jesus was coming back.

That was a message that was taught either by the pastor or visiting pastor, even missionaries

when they would come. They would just kind of weave it into their message. You know,

Christ is returning. Jesus is coming. So it was something that I was used to hearing.

But then as I became an adult, I realized that that message wasn't being taught anymore, but I grew up

in a church that taught it in a church that still teaches it in Ohio. So that's my background,

but I just started writing in college, really. I was always just writing something on the side, doing something freelance,

and even when I got married, just continuing to write something on the side. And then one day I

thought, hey, maybe I should actually sit down and write a book. So I started writing books.

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