Heroine Interview from Hallowed Halls by Hannah Alexander with a Giveaway

This week I’m hosting Victoria Bylin with Until I Found You (US only) and Hannah Alexander with Hallowed Halls (US only). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (May 18th) evening.

Interview with the heroine from Hallowed Halls by Hannah Alexander:

1. Dr. Joy Gilbert, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

Several times a week I ask strangers (and some not so strange) to take their clothes off. To some people, that might not seem interesting, since I am, after all, a physician, but I’m the introverted only child of a single mother. People ask me why I chose a profession that forces me into a world where I’m surrounded by people every day. I’ll answer that question in a minute.

2. What do you do for fun?

I love to go camping and backpacking in places like Death Valley in the winter. The peace and power of silence can be the most addictive natural high on earth.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Putting patients on the scales. Why do so many woman hate weighing themselves? Some refuse to do it. Some strip down to their bare essentials—after all, they’re in the privacy of my nurse’s office. Some of my patients even put off making appointments with me because they know I’ll place them on the scales. If only these people knew I do this because I care about their health. Instead, they think I’m torturing them. I know from experience that weight loss is one of the most difficult ways to get healthy—but it’s also one of the most effective.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Losing the man I love, losing my mother, losing friends and family. I once cried for a full day when one of Mom’s twenty-seven cats died. I don’t fear death, myself. I fear losing my loved ones, my patients, to death.

5. What do you want out of life?

I want to be used by God in my chosen profession, and in my marriage, my family, my community, until I’m used up. I’d like enough money to be able to help others, especially friends who have lost their homes because of the unethical practices of mortgage companies.

As for fame…I would consider myself blessed if it never came my way.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

Growing daily in the wisdom of God, learning to love as He loves, to heal as He heals.

7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

I read those long, boring case studies in medical journals. Don’t laugh. Someone has to read those things or they wouldn’t be published. I love to make diagnoses that will save lives, and to do that I need to educate myself on the latest research.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would like to have more compassion. Oh, sure, I have compassion for patients—most of them—but why can’t I show that same compassion for the grumpy old guy who drives too slowly ahead of me every morning on my way to work? Why can’t I show more love toward the patients who make wrong choices about their health? Who take drugs, who overeat, who take too many risks? Sometimes I tend to take offense at my patients, as if they’re doing those things to make my job harder. If I knew what their lives were like, maybe I’d be more compassionate.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I share my mother’s pets, which are, at the moment, twenty-six cats, three puppies, three orphaned raccoons, a miniature horse and a goat. All of them are rescued. Do you think I need more animals in my life?

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I would go back to the day after my mother was raped—the incident that produced me—and tell her everything would be okay, that she didn’t do anything wrong, that she wasn’t a second-class citizen just because some selfish, sadistic man decided to take whatever he wanted without any consideration for a young woman’s dreams for her own future.