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Sometimes you just need a reminder that everyone else is trying to figure things out — just like you! That’s where Circle 31 Podcast comes in. Here you’ll be both challenged and encouraged by women who are eager to make real progress alongside each other.
Join Ellen and Kendra, your book club hosts (and friends!), as they chat with authors and other experts about topics that spark curiosity and help us grow in our faith. Think of this podcast as a book club on the go — perfect for your commute or while you work at your desk. Remember, good things happen when we grow, and there’s so much good waiting for us as we read together, learn from one another, and chat about the current book club pick. Let’s get started.
Note: Please note that the text below is an uncorrected transcript of the audio captured for this podcast. We pray the Lord uses these words to bless you as you seek Him!
Kendra LeGrand: All right. Hey, everybody. My name is Kendra LeGrand. And I'm sitting with my co-host, Ellen Adkins.
Ellen Adkins: Hey, Kendra.
Kendra LeGrand: Hey. And we have the opportunity to just have some nice book talk on the Circle 31 Podcast. And something that we say is sometimes you just need to know that other people are trying to figure it out like you are.
And so we're hoping this podcast is a place where you have you find that freedom, that we don't have it all figured out. But what we do know is we love the Lord what we do know is we love books.
And what we do know is we like to have fun.
Ellen Adkins: So stinking true, Kendra. And so it's not just Ellen and I on this episode. We are actually joined by the author of our summer pick, our June pick, The Hidden Prince. Her name is Tessa Afshar.
And, Tessa, we are just absolutely delighted to hear from you, talk with you, and also glean some wisdom from you because we absolutely love the book that you wrote. And so, Tessa, thank you for being here today.
Tessa Afshar: It's such a pleasure to join you, and I and you will definitely hear from me. I don't know about the wisdom part. I can't promise.
Kendra LeGrand: Well, I have a feeling just based on what you've what you've written in the book, there's some wisdom that you have. And so before we get into maybe, you know, the smartness of who you are and how you're wired with such wisdom, let's have a little fun, girls. Okay. When you maybe go on vacation.
Ellen knows I'm a little obsessed with this question right now. Maybe you're at the beach. Maybe you're just having a day to yourself at the park. Or maybe you're all day on a plane.
Whatever that looks like. What are the top three things you have in your travel bag?
Ellen Adkins: Okay.
Kendra LeGrand: And you can't mention The Hidden Prince. Okay?
A good book cannot be something in your bag because we know that's a staple. So what are the other three items you might have?
Ellen Adkins: Okay.
Kendra LeGrand: I know it's kinda hard. Sorry, everybody.
Tessa Afshar: You just took one of my main things! I was like, oh, no.
Kendra LeGrand: Maybe a highlighter. Do the highlighter.
Ellen Adkins: Mine's gonna, okay. May I go?
Kendra LeGrand: Yep. Yes. Of course.
Ellen Adkins: Thank you. This is kind of a book. When I go to the beach, I carry, a book of crossword puzzles, and I do crossword puzzles at the beach. And it's so fun.
And then I usually have my phone with me. And then
Kendra LeGrand: A pen? Maybe. To do the crossword?
Ellen Adkins: A pencil to do the crossword puzzle.
Kendra LeGrand: Yeah.
Ellen Adkins: We're not doing those in pen. Woof. Not that smart.
Kendra LeGrand: All right. Tessa, do you know your three items you have in the travel bag?
Tessa Afshar: Ellen, I love you that you do crossword puzzles. Now I do crossword puzzles, but I'm really bad at it. So
Ellen Adkins: Oh, I'm not great.
Tessa Afshar: I’ll sit next to you.
Ellen Adkins: Like I said, I do them in pencil. Yes.
Tessa Afshar: No. I do them in pencil too, but I'm still bad at it. Well, just so I don't copy you
I guess I will, I will have to have sunscreen. Just because I'm fair skinned and without sunscreen, things get ugly quickly.
And, the other thing that I would have would probably be, let's see, tissues. Because, you know, just there's always a mess. If I'm around, there will be a mess.
Kendra LeGrand: We love a good proactive girl. Yes.
You know what you need. That's great. That is so great. Okay. For me, Chapstick, one hundred percent.
Ellen Adkins: Oh, that's a good one.
Kendra LeGrand: I do not like dried lips. Gross. They're just yeah. I just I just need something.
Chapstick, I would say a snack for either myself or my son, just because that helps, you know, keep a tantrum at bay for both of us, really. And then let me think what else is in my in my bag. I would definitely I mean, on my phone, which, of course, just a staple. Just so you know it's always on you.
Okay. So, Tessa, now, well, now we'll get into, you know, a little more about the book that we're reading The Hidden Prince. It instantly swept us away. When we started reading it, Tessa, we have a pretty vigorous is that the right word? Vigorous.
Ellen Adkins: Vigorous. Yeah.
Kendra LeGrand: Thank you. Got it. Thanks, girls.
Process in picking books for Circle 31. And so when I say that you captivated our team from the get go, from the prologue, that is not an understatement. I think we were all just very taken aback by just how wonderful the book was written, how interesting the story line was. And so where did the idea from The Hidden Prince stem from? We would love to know a little background about that.
Tessa Afshar: Oh, well, first of all, you can't see me, obviously, but I this is my heart melt face. Thank you for saying about that. But in answer to your question, something that your, readers may not be aware of and your podcast listeners, is that I was born in The Middle East, and I lived there the first thirteen years of my life.
My parents were nominal Muslims. And it wasn't until I came to The United States, and I'm an American citizen. It's one of the huge blessings of my life. But when I became a Christian in my mid-twenties here in America, I started reading the Bible for the first time. And I began to encounter the kings that I had studied in my childhood, the Persian kings that had been part of our history.
Here they were in the Persian period in the bible, and I was enchanted because God used these gentile kings sometimes in very important ways. And I knew at that point that someday, I would love to write about them because I wanted to help to bring this world, this part of the bible to life for readers who are not familiar with it. And this particular book is it starts, and is set during the captivity of the Southern Kingdom of Judah in Babylon. And that the end of that captivity, which God, prophesies about, the end of that captivity is really profoundly important. And I will give you a glimpse into why.
So when Jesus is born when Jesus is born, five hundred years later, he is born into Israel. And although Israel at that point is under the yoke of Rome, but it is an Israel that is established. It is a nation that has a temple where people come to worship God. People know the law. People understand why there has to be a sacrifice.
It's not a they're not Jesus is not born as a captive in Babylon where the faith has been all watered down completely and become lost with Babylonian gods and all of that. So the fact that the captives were set free and returned and the temple was rebuilt is really, really important. So this book is focusing on how even one of the prophecies of God, what it takes for even one of those prophecies to be fulfilled. And, obviously, we're looking at it from the perspective of Karen who is a fictional character, but that fictional character is helping us to see some of the true things that had to take place in order for that captivity to end.
Ellen Adkins: That's so great.
I love hearing the backstory of The Hidden Prince, and it's just so clear to me as I started reading. We're in the prologue this week, and right from the get go, so clear how incredibly well researched this book is. Sounds like some of that might be from your personal upbringing, also from research that you did, later in life. And, you know, one of the major themes that I see in this prologue is God's faithfulness to Keren.
And I'm curious, as you were writing this fictional character, how did writing about God's faithfulness towards this fictional character actually help grow your own affection for God or see his faithfulness in your own life?
Tessa Afshar: That's a great question, and I will talk about God's faithfulness, at in a later teaching, for that first week. But, I did research a lot the world of this period. I researched it by reading all the appropriate books from this period, Jeremiah, Isaiah, all of that. But I also researched the history.
And for me, I had to dig into a lot of books to understand. And as I as I did that, the faithfulness of God was one of the threads that became very, very clear for these people who had lost everything. So I should actually set this up by saying that in my personal life, at the time that I was read writing the book, we, as a family, were going through a really challenging time. We had some, health problems, and some of those health problems are very serious. There was just a huge cloud, an annoying, hanging over our heads.
And it was one of those times where you really need to cling to the faithfulness of God. So for me, as I was researching the book and recognizing all the ways that God, came, just knowing through history, the threads also in the Bible, as well as the ways that I sort of fictionally make that apparent, I was able to remember for my own life how faithful God is, that I didn't need to be putting my gaze on these storms that were threatening to swallow me. And like Peter, I have to say, you know, for a minute, I kinda took my eyes off Jesus, and I put them on the storm, and the wave swallowed me whole. And Jesus very kindly had to pull me out. But and, definitely, writing the book was part of, what helped me to enter into reenter into the faithfulness of God and experience that for myself.
Kendra LeGrand: Tessa, it makes me so excited just to read even more and just see how that thread, how we can see it through the whole book because you do carry it on to the final page. And there's some really good things in store for us as we continue to read. And so we will hear more from you on the podcast in, episode four. So just in a few weeks, you'll be back with us, which we're so excited. But in the meantime, let me kinda tell you guys what what's gonna happen.
So next week, you will hear from another guest of ours. Her name is Wendy Blight. She's our biblical content specialist. And you're gonna hear from her I'm gonna ask her a few questions that have to deal with her, what do you say, skepticism or maybe she was just, you know she was a little not sure when we offered, a biblical fiction book for her to review, theologically. But she absolutely fell in love with this book.
Ellen Adkins: She's been the number one champion of this book.
Kendra LeGrand: Champion. Yes. It's been so fun to see, just how things have changed. And, I she told Tessa earlier, she said that, Tessa, you made her fall in love with biblical fiction.
And so, if you are skeptical of, you know, opening up a biblical fiction this June, we hope this changes your mind. And that's what we like to do here at Circle 31. Not necessarily change your mind, but we like to open you up to new things. And so next week, we're gonna talk to Wendy Blight about God's favor and how we see that theme throughout. And, hey, Tessa mentioned a few key words.
She mentioned trust. She mentioned, she studied some kings, you know, how to trust God when things feel shaky. And we actually have something for you in our show notes if you'd like to download it. It's called “Choosing to Trust Overtaking Control, 10 Compassionate Devotions That Will Increase Your Faith While Decreasing Your Doubts.” And we think that is something wonderful that you can dig deeper into if that's something that you struggle with.
And so, Tessa, we can't wait to talk with you. We'll hear from you every week, but we can't wait to have you back on the podcast in a few weeks. And just thank you for giving us a little insight to The Hidden Prince.
Tessa Afshar: I am so delighted to hang out with you wonderful, women, and it's been a pleasure. And by the way, I totally get like, even the title of biblical fiction is a little, you know, suspect to me.
Like, how do you bring those two things together? So I try to call it fiction set in biblical times.
Ellen Adkins: Oh, I love that.
Tessa Afshar: It is biblical fiction known as that by many people.
Kendra LeGrand: Oh, that's great, Tessa. All right. Well, hey. We'll hear from you soon. And, everyone, have a great week.