I’m excited to have novelist, Connie Almony as today’s guest blogger. She’s talking about what makes a worthy man!
Sometimes I am disappointed by romances. Why? The biggest reason being when it’s all about the physical attraction—her skin prickles when she sees him; his heart pounds when he hears her voice. No reason for the connection other than this inner knowledge that “he’s the one.”
I need a little more than that in my man, and I’d like to encourage women today to require more than that as they choose a spouse themselves. However, there is a catch. If you seek a worthy man to wed, you must also be prepared to be a worthy woman.
So as an author of romance, what are the characteristics I like to write into my heroes? My latest novel is a romantic suspense so you might guess he’s willing to risk his life for the woman he loves, but there is more. I like my hero to also have qualities the average woman might find in the average (or maybe slightly above average) man. He may not have an opportunity to risk his very life, but he must be prepared to take personal risks of the less dangerous variety.
Chris Johnson, the hero of One Among Men, is this type of man. At first he bristles at the idea of a woman taking a job running an all-male dorm, where she has to live in a building with 500, hard-partying college guys. And he tells her so! He, being male himself, is even more aware of the challenges she will face to which, by virtue of her solely female experience, she may be a little naïve. Therefore, unbeknownst to his conscious thought (and what he sometimes considers his better judgment) he continually finds himself watching out for her, and consequently, protecting her from everything including mere embarrassment, salacious rumors, and … well, I’ll let you read to find out the rest. He even helps her staff. He is not just a hero on a grand scale. He is a hero in the everyday.
That’s my kind of man.
But there is one additional quality of a worthy man that is worth more than all the rest put together. He must know and love Jesus. Chris Johnson, when we first meet him, is a little deficient in this area having never been brought up this way, but God is a big, powerful and gracious God. He puts all the right pieces in Chris’s life so he can have the opportunity to do just that. One of those pieces includes a Worthy Woman who doesn’t just tell him about Christ, she shows him Christ in the spirit of Second Peter, Chapter Three. Not because she wants to fix the man she’s become attracted to. She shows him because that’s who she is, a woman who finds Joy in the thought of her Creator, her Savior. Chris wants that Joy.
Don’t we all?
What do you think are the most important qualities of a Worthy Man?
About One Among Men
Samantha Hart is looking for godly purpose, like her missionary best friend, but is forced to take a job as the resident director of the all-male party dorm at the major state university where her prodigal past haunts her. She must avert the pitfalls of a woman in her position as well as the dangerous forces that threaten her life.
Chris Johnson, a rock guitarist, has come back to school as a music major, and finds himself in a business relationship with the ruthless supplier of an on-campus drug ring. He’s intrigued by the lady RD, while learning more about his musical gift and the God who gave it to him. Can he manage his two worlds without risking Samantha’s life?
About Connie
Connie Almony is trained as a mental health therapist and likes to mix a little fun with the serious stuff of life. She was a 2012 semi-finalist in the Genesis Contest for Women’s Fiction and was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Winter 2012 WOW Flash Fiction Contest. She is the author of One Among Men, about a woman whose job requires she live with 500, hard-partying college guys, and At the Edge of a Dark Forest, a modern-day re-telling of Beauty and the Beast about a war-vet, amputee struggling with PTSD.
You can find Connie on the web at ConnieAlmony.com, and hosting the following blogs: InfiniteCharacters.com, IndieChristianFictionSearch.Blogspot.com, and LivingtheBodyofChrist.Blogspot.com.
You can also meet her on the following social media outlets:
Preslaysa, thanks so much for having me on today!!!