Hey friends and welcome to the happy hour with Jamie Ivy podcast. I'm your host Jamie and I'm so glad you're here.

Each week on this show, I invite a friend to join me and we chat about the big things in life, the little things in life and everything in between.

Hi friends and happy almost Christmas. We are almost there. Not only almost a Christmas, almost to the end of this year and I just pray and hope that this week wherever you are celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that you are finding some peace and joy in the fact that God sent his son to put on flesh.

To be the light of the world for us to be our salvation to be our Savior. So I hope you're able to celebrate that even in the midst of a difficult season if you find yourself in one.

Today's show is a great one and I'm so excited. I got to sit down and interview Francine Rivers, which if you are Christian girl, you probably are familiar with Francine Rivers because she's written over 30 books over 30 years.

The one that you might for sure know about is a book called Redeeming Love. This book is sold over a million copies. I've read it. I most definitely think that you've probably read it.

But if you haven't, this is my 100% recommendation that you need to get your hands on this book, ASAP. In fact, if you got an Amazon gift card, go buy this book for yourself right now.

Francine and I talked about what led her to this journey of writing this book that has been so profound as a Christian fiction book.

We talked about the characters and what they meant. We also talked about marriage a little bit, which made me happy. Her and her husband, Rick, have been married over 50 years.

You guys, let's sit and listen to what she has to say. We also talked about how she writes. We talk about the fact that this book will be released into a major motion picture in 2021.

I cannot wait to see this book as well. Guys, you're going to love this show. Can I ask a favor of this week of holidays? Can I ask your favor to go rate and review the Happy Hour podcast?

If you listen to the show and you enjoy the show, a rating would mean the world to us. Think of it as your Christmas gift to me.

Rating and reviews are not just so that I can feel good about myself or we can give ourselves a big thumbs up for what we're doing, but they actually help more people find the show and trust the show.

So it's super easy. However you listen to podcasts, you can give us a review. We'd love it over on the Apple Podcast page. Just five stars. We'll take them guys. You can do it.

Here's my conversation with Francine Rivers.

Francine, welcome to the Happy Hour. Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm super excited to have you on the show today. In fact, you know, I get the unique, wonderful.

I love my job opportunity to talk to so many people and I woke up this morning and immediately texted my mom and I was like, you are not going to believe who I am chatting with today.

And so she and I are both big fans of yours. So I'm so glad to have you on today. Oh, thank you for asking me. Great to be here.

Well, introduce yourself to my listeners. Tell us about your family where you live. We know that you're an author, but give us a little tidbit into your personal life.

Well, I'm a wife of over 50 years. We have three grown children, five grandchildren. We live in Santa Rosa, California, Northern California. So the new normal out here is fires every year. It's been a very interesting year with 2020. We'll go down in the history books. That is so true. That is so true. You just said you've been married for over 50 years.

Yeah. And my husband, we actually met in fifth grade. Oh, my goodness. Very good friends. And then he was a Marine in Vietnam. I went, it was often college. My brother was serving in the Army. And he was in way fell.

They're the 10 offensive. And so Rick's mother wrote to him every day the whole time he was serving over there. And he heard about my brother being captured. And then my brother was down when the Marines came into the city.

...