As an author, what did you particularly enjoy about crafting this story?
I loved weaving the history of the location with the unusual characters I brought to it. Throughout much of my life I have felt like an outsider discovering new things, new places, even when living long in one location. I brought that sense of discovery to the book through my characters. I absolutely loved writing the children, their viewpoints, their resiliency, their playfulness. Their views are reminiscent of my own view of childhood and the imagination that thrives there.
I loved connecting Claire’s thinking with childhood books that she’d loved. I do that—have always done that. There is, perhaps, more of me in this book than any I have written. The opportunity to pour out my love for stories and children and home and family—even when family comes in forms we don’t expect—was great joy for me.
Until We Find Home presents so many intriguing and lovable characters—did the journeys of any of the characters surprise you as you wrote?
The children in my story took on lives of their own. I was surprised and pleased by the competition, the antics and the eventual friendship and heroism of young Gaston and Josef. I was moved by the tender growth of affection between young Aimee and the older Claire, who slowly, reluctantly assumed a motherly role toward the child. I was especially moved by the deepening of the late-in-life love and relationship between Miranda Langford and Dr. MacDonald. I hadn’t expected David to be quite so winsome, but I suppose that’s the way of Scottish men transplanted to the Appalachians and back to England. 🙂
Is there one character whose experience you especially identify with or one whose story grew out of lessons you learned in your own life?
I must give two here:
- Claire’s ability to view life and relate through stories she’s loved and read is one that’s long been my own. Her desire to be loved and belong, and her journey to knowing she is loved by our Lord—that only He can calm our restless spirits and give peace to our souls—is my own.
- Miranda’s journey through grief and illness, and the desire the Lord creates and leads her to—to live with His grace—is reflective of my own journey through those dark valleys.
A number of classic authors are mentioned in Until We Find Home, Beatrix Potter and C. S. Lewis particularly. How have these authors and others inspired you in your life and writing?
Beatrix Potter, her stories and illustrations, have been dearly loved since childhood. To me, it was as if she spoke the language of children and animals. It seemed to me that if she could learn their language, I could learn the language of my characters, too, and tell their stories in ways readers would understand.
I loved learning that the stories and illustrations of Beatrix Potter influenced C. S. Lewis and his brother as children and inspired them to write the story of and illustrate an entire kingdom. It felt as if they—and I—rode the current of a continuing stream, a stream that brought readers and writers together.
C. S. Lewis is a voice of reason. He came to faith not through Scripture nor through an appreciation of divine design in nature. He was not born with an innate faith. In fact, he was an atheist who struggled against faith. But he came to belief in God—to theism—through reason. Coming to belief in Jesus as Lord and Redeemer was a separate journey.
I’ve known many people who seemed to have been born without faith. It is something I observe but don’t fully understand. I wanted to highlight Lewis’s writings in the hope that those who believe will be encouraged, and in the hope that those who do not believe will be encouraged to consider his reasoning.
Lewis’s book Mere Christianity describes some of his journey through reason, and was taken from his WWII radio broadcasts that began at the time Until We Find Home takes place. I was able to include some material from his earlier book The Problem of Pain in this story, and those messages help in Claire’s journey, as they did in mine.
It’s important to me to highlight the writings of classic Christian writers for a new generation, to share with others the blessing those books have been in my own life.
Until We Find Home portrays the fear, pain, and anxiety of living in a time of war in a very personal way. Are there lessons from the struggles of those who lived through WWII that you think Christians need today?
We live in an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Fear, pain, and anxiety can all too easily become our unwelcome and constant companions. During WWII, people on Britain’s home front struggled with fear of invasion from a cruel oppressor, pain over the possibility of losing loved ones serving overseas, and anxiety over everything from bombing, rationed food, shortages of petrol, and fuel for warmth, to the fate of their nation and the world.
Remarkably, with limited outside resources (cut off by Germany’s submarine warfare), Britain’s citizens pulled together, sacrificed, shared personal resources, and made do through very difficult years. They were noted for taking in refugees from foreign countries, particularly the Kindertransport of Jewish children.
Though their faith was challenged, they worked hard to protect their shores and citizens, to grow food for themselves and their soldiers, and even to provide countless packages of clothing and supplies to starving Russians and others. I’ve been inspired by their willingness to dig in and help one another, rather than to cower in fear and hoard out of possessiveness. Of course there were those who did not step up, and some who abused the systems in place, just as there are today.
But I think those lessons of generosity, hard work, and determination to care for one another to the point of sacrifice are ones we can all take to heart and hand in these uncertain days.
Keep reading to find out what Cathy hopes readers get out of Until We Find Home, and what can be done to help children affected by war, unrest, or other instabilities today…