Getting to Know...
Sarah Eshleman
Website
Favorite Non-Profit
Samaritan's Purse (Operation Christmas Child)
Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Favorite Author
Leif Enger, Annie Dillard, Harper Lee, E.B. White, Peggy Noonan, and so many others.
Favorite Movie
It's a Wonderful Life.
Personal Questions
Tell us about yourself - your family, marital status, your background... the basics.
I’m a South Carolina girl living in the Cincinnati area with my best friend Laura and my dachshund, Dudley. During the week I work as an editor for an apologetics magazine. On the weekends, I write, practice my hand lettering, and look for adventures in the area.
Where is your favorite vacation spot? Why?
Mackinac Island, Michigan, a spot that prohibits automobiles and is accessible only by ferry. History and horses, fudge and ferries, a grand hotel and glorious scenery—it’s the perfect place for forgetting the modern world and relaxing.
What is your #1 bucket list dream?
To take a cross-country road trip and then ride a train up the coast of California. A close second is spending Christmas in Seneca Falls, NY, the town that Frank Capra supposedly modeled Bedford Falls after in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Tell the readers one thing you would like them to know about you and/or your writing.
The most important events in a writing life aren’t the acceptance letters or the award ceremonies. The most significant moments are when you show up at your computer, even when you know you’re just typing. When you are building drafts, jotting in journals, reading, living, and patiently waiting when the words don’t come. Publication does not define your success—it is simply the reward for your persistence in living the writing life.
What would you want your 5-word epitaph to be?
“Her final awfully big adventure” (Based on the quote from Peter Pan, “To die would be an awfully big adventure.”)
Faith Questions
Briefly, tell us about your decision to become a believer - where, when, how?
When I was fourteen, I knelt with my dad and placed my trust in Christ on a winter evening in my parents’ den.
What is your favorite story from the Bible, the one that inspires, moves you?
Recently I heard a perspective that cast a different light on the Mary/Martha paradox. The essay suggested that Jesus wasn’t scolding Martha for trying to meet the needs of her guests (as I have always heard the story interpreted); rather He was inviting her to partake in the most important thing: a relationship with Him. It was love not judgment that made Him say, “Martha, Martha.” He wanted her to sit down so that He could serve her.
Do you have a life's bible verse? If so, what is it?
“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) It’s a short list, but so hard to achieve. It tells us that we need to be hard on ourselves (to do justly) and to go easy on others (love mercy). It’s such a challenge to me.
If you could have a long, leisurely dinner with a person from the Bible, who would it be and why? What would you talk about?
Jonah or Lazarus or maybe Jael. I’d love to know how terrible it was in the belly of that great fish, and I’d also like to know if Jonah ever repented of his callousness toward Nineveh. And Lazarus—how did he live after his resurrection, and how did he finally died? Jael just seems like the kind of woman I’d want to hang out with. She’s like the Black Widow of the Old Testament.
If you could pick one thing you deeply want the readers to know about God, what would it be?
I spent a lot of my life laboring over decisions: Go to college? Stay to teach at the college? Leave the college to find another job? In my fear of making a mistake, I lost peace and time. I’m slowly learning that making a choice means praying for God’s direction and then just doing something. I think God’s will is less of a train track and more of a hike through the woods. If we are pursuing good things for God’s glory and relying on him for direction, I don’t think we can take the wrong path. He works all things for our good.