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Afraid of the Light with Cynthia Ruchti

I’m so excited to be chatting with my friend Cynthia Ruchti on this week’s episode of Walk it Out!

“Hoarding.” That word stirs images of piles of discarded trash, rotting food tucked inside broken refrigerators, and disheveled people so fixated on keeping every broken thing that they can’t see the big picture of the castaway chaos their lives have become. When one of my sons was in high school, he was hired to help clean up a hoarder’s house. He said the amount of garbage and broken stuff was had to explain, but the length of time the family had been living that way became clear when they started cleaning off teen clothes from the couch and ended up finding baby things at the bottom of the pile—all items from their one son nearly grown.

It’s easy to point at hoarders and say, “They have a problem,” but harder is paying attention to the cluttered chaos within our own hearts. And that is why fiction is so powerful. Through another’s story we get glimpses of the human existence … and ourselves.

In this week’s Walk It Out podcast, my guest is Cynthia Ruchti. We’re discussing her novel, Afraid of the Light, and sharing about how fiction is entertaining and inspiring, and also oh-so revealing, as we slip into the pages of a story. I know you’ll enjoy it!

Who is Cynthia Ruchti?

Cynthia Ruchti tells stories hemmed-in-hope through novels, nonfiction, devotionals, and speaking events. She serves as the professional relations liaison for American Christian Fiction Writers and is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences across the country. She married her grade-school sweetheart, and the two live in the heart of Wisconsin not far from their three children and five grandchildren.

You can order Afraid of the Light HERE.

About the Book:

“Cynthia Ruchti delivers it all in this masterful, compassionate tale of redemption.” —Rhonda Rhea, award-winning humor columnist, TV personality, and author

Clinical psychologist Camille Brooks isn’t put off by the lifestyle of her hoarder clients and the distress of their families. She lost her mother to the crippling anxiety disorder—so she’ll go a long way to help others avoid the same pain.

Despite Camille’s expertise, her growing audience for her Let In the Light podcast, and the recognition she’s gaining for her creative coaching methods, she’s not prepared for the pushback. A client who looks uncannily like her mom catches her off guard and raises long-dormant issues. And the revelation that Camille has her own hoarding problem sends her spinning.

With the help of a cadre of unexpected friends, an enigma of a man who refuses to be discouraged, and the God who created and loves her, can she face her fears, pull back the curtains, and let the light into her own life?

Walk It Out Scripture

For [the Lord] will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. 1 Corinthians 4:5

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Special thanks to this week’s sponsor

For years, my office was one of two main offices of The Heartbeat of the Home radio ministry. Little by little I’m weeding through the ten lateral file drawers full of information plus an upright four-drawer file cabinet. The ministry retired at the end of 2012, so my writing business is slowly overtaking those cabinets. Many of the ideas gathered during those 33 years of ministry are working their way into fiction and nonfiction projects, so thinning the files is progressing at about the same pace as thinning my thighs.

My desk looks out onto the front screen porch—white wicker furniture and all— with a view of the woods and the dawn. On the wall above the side of my desk are reminders of current or past projects—a small wooden canoe that inspired me while writing They Almost Always Come Home; a framed photo of Door County cherries hanging from a tree branch, draped in an icy glaze for A Door County Christmas; a photo of the woolen mill on Cedar Creek in Cedarburg, WI, for Cedar Creek Seasons; a calendar page of bright blue morning glories to remind me to pray for When the Morning Glory Blooms, Scrabble letters lined up to spell RAGGED HOPE, the title of my nonfiction July 2013 release—Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People’s Choices. (A copy of When the Morning Glory Blooms or a copy of Ragged Hope will go to two of Tricia’s blog followers who comment on this post!)

My faux leather office chair has seen better days and needs a pillow prop here and there. But other than the enormous photocopier/printer that dominates a quarter of the room, it’s a cozy spot to write, when I’m not in one of my other favorite office spaces.

For a change of pace and more light, I write in the family room, perched in a leather rocking chair a friend donated to the cause, with a wheeled slant-top TV tray-sized table for my laptop. There, I look out onto more woods and the path the deer usually take when they’re looking for food.

In the warm weather, which in northern Wisconsin is gruesomely short, I haul my supplies and laptop and a nice long electrical cord out to the screen house on the deck just off the kitchen. It’s such a peaceful place to write. Don’t the birds and flowers and wildlife and breezes and wind chimes distract me? Why, n-no. N-no. Not at all.

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Cynthia Ruchti has more than three decades of radio broadcast experience with “Heartbeat of the Home” radio and currently serves as Professional Relations Liaison for American Christian Fiction Writers. Find Cynthia on the web at www.cynthiaruchti.com or on Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking of Cynthia’s new book, Ragged Hope is currently on a blog tour! Check out the reviews HERE. Cynthia is hosting a $200 Visa cash card giveaway and author chat party to celebrate the release, and you’re invited to participate! Enter the giveaway HERE and RSVP to the author chat party tomorrow night HERE.

Cynthia is also giving away a copy of When the Morning Glory Blooms or Ragged Hope to TWO readers who comment on this post! The winners will be announced a week from today.

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Walk it Out #127: Afraid of the Light with Cynthia Ruchti