Have you ever read a story and imagined that you could BE a particular character?

When I was a kid, I literally wore out a set of Little House on the Prairie books. I read the covers right off of them and kept going until they were in pieces.

I LOVED those books. And I wanted to be Laura. I wanted to wear a sleeping cap when I went to bed in a loft (Mom made me a cap–see the photo of me wearing it while sitting on Dad’s lap). I wanted a sunbonnet (even though Laura refused to wear hers). I wanted to ride to town in a wagon and write on a slate. Shoot, I already had the freckles!

Of course, I also wanted to be Heidi. I still have the copy of that book my mother read to me over and over and over again. I wanted to eat toasted cheese and go to the pasture with the goats to pick flowers. I wanted to sleep on a bed of sweet hay (I asked Dad if I could–we DID have a barn full of hay. He said no). I also kind of wanted the nice clothes Heidi got when she was packed off to the miserable city, but I felt like a bit of a turncoat for that.

I didn’t just read those stories when I was a child, I lived them. I opened the books and disappeared inside, traveling to the prairie or the alps as surely as if I’d had a plane ticket. Actually, those places were more than real because they lived in my heart.

As an adult, I don’t read books in the same way. I still enjoy stories, but I guess I’ve lost that feeling that what I’m reading could happen to me. The world of possibilities has narrowed as I’ve aged. I’m probably not going to head west in a covered wagon. I’m probably not going to help my best friend learn to walk.

Sarah Loudin Thomas shares about how she loved to play her favorite fictional characters. Share on X

But then again . . . when I write stories I get to flip through a world of possibilities and choose the ones that speak to me. The ones that touch my heart and stir my soul. I think that’s what I love best about being a writer. I create characters and then gift them with beauty, joy, hardship, and transformation.

And if I want one of them to sleep on a bed of sweet-smelling hay, there’s no one to tell me I can’t.

Life is hard. Every year it seems to get harder. This latest round of destruction from Hurricane Helene that ripped through my beloved Appalachian Mountains serves as witness to that. Which is why we need stories now more than ever. Stories of hope, of overcoming the odds, of carrying on in the face of whatever hardships life tosses at us.

Stories are a currency unaffected by economic downturns or difficult days. I may not be consumed by story the way I was when I was eight. But I can still travel the world, experience other lives, and—if only for a moment—remember that life is filled with promise. Reading reminds me that when the storms of life do their worst, there’s still the hope of a happy ending.

Psalm 30:5 – For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Meet Sarah

Sarah Loudin Thomas grew up on a 100-acre farm in French Creek, WV, the seventh generation to live there. Her Christian fiction is set in West Virginia and celebrates the people, the land, and the heritage of Appalachia.

Sarah is a fund-raiser for a children’s ministry who has time to write because she doesn’t have children of her own. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Coastal Carolina University and is the author of the acclaimed novels The Right Kind of Fool–winner of the 2021 Selah Book of the year–and Miracle in a Dry Season–winner of the 2015 Inspy Award. Sarah has also been a finalist for the Christy Award, ACFW Carol Award and the Christian Book of the Year Award. She and her husband live near Asheville, NC.