By Dani Tietz
For Ruthie Counter, there’s more to connection than what meets the eye.
Of course, there’s the physical world: the one where she goes to work, where she’s raised her two kids, where she goes to church. Perhaps, for some time, the physical world was linear, with a subscribed path leading the 57-year-old to a promotion in 2023: Director of Marketing at Parkland College.
Then, there is the spiritual world: the one where Counter understands that there is a higher power, the Holy Spirit, who has a plan for her time here on Earth, if she’s willing to stretch herself a little bit here and there.
And she is.
There’s a lot that wasn’t on Counter’s radar when she joined the world on the internet in 2015.
“I was just at Parkland College, minding my own business,” she said.
A writer and storyteller by trade, Counter was pursuing a Master’s Degree in Marketing when she had to personally use the tools and skills she was known for in her professional life.
Like many routes in Counter’s life, getting a Master’s Degree came out of necessity in order to teach at Parkland, a position the staff wanted her to fill, but she needed the degree. And while getting a degree may be a box to check on an application, Counter said the clues leading up to the decision were divine.
“I looked for the clues,” she said. “One of them was that she handed me a piece of paper to a master’s degree program at Franklin University. I had been looking at that same program for months and months and months and just saying, ‘No, I don’t have the money. But it would be so nice to do something like that; I would love to have that degree.’”
When the application form was given to her, Counter said, “’Okay, I’m not going to ignore this one.’
“Being open is recognizing that some things aren’t coincidences. We say, ‘That’s just a coincidence.’ No, no, no, no, that was the exact same program I had been looking at for the last month. I don’t think so. It was meant for me to pursue that program.”
While raising two teenagers alongside her husband and working full-time, Counter learned more about the branding process, including the need to promote herself.
The self-branding journey included a Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram account with a webpage where she could highlight all of her talents: voice work, public speaking, design, and writing. Soon, “God started using” Counter in ways she never expected, speaking to women’s groups and narrating commercials.
She started a blog, Reflections, focused on scripture. But there was something more in store as 2020 came to be.
Nearly everyone thinks about the COVID-19 pandemic and civil issues that rocked the world when we came into the third decade of the 21st century, but Counter felt a little flicker in her heart, telling her that there is a bigger story to tell. She was to write a book.
“When I first came up with the concept, I had been sitting on my bed using an iPod (you read that right, an iPod),” she said. “It was like riding a wave.
“I was going to study one chapter of the Bible every day for three years. That’s how I figured out how long it would take. I only got as far as Genesis chapter one, verse two, where it says, ‘The spirit was hovering, moving over the face of the waters.’
“He hovers over your life. He hovers over your mom’s life… it just started flowing. The first chapter of the book really started flowing. And then the title of the book came. And then the women who were going to be talked about in the book came.”
Counter thought, “What a nice retirement project.”
Perhaps, as many good things start, Counter kept the details of the idea close to her chest, not telling her husband or closest friends. That is, until one day when she received a call from a friend in Colorado, asking if it’d been laid on her heart to write a book.
At that moment, when the world was in disarray, and many establishments were still navigating what living in a pandemic looked like, Counter knew she was to start writing.
The creative juices were flowing, sometimes at 4 a.m., when her mind and body knew they had something big to offer the world.
“I recognized it wasn’t something for me,” she said. “So I wanted to invite the Holy Spirit and ask God to give me both the will and the skill to carry out what (He) want(ed) me to do.
“‘I have no idea what you want me to do here. But I want it to bless. This is going to be an opportunity to grow and bless others.’”
Self-publishing in 2023 is an option, but it’s certainly not an easy road.
Counter, who has been held up by strong women walking beside her, was connected with Christian Author Cindi McMenamin, who acted as a mentor through the process, and Cynthia McEntire, who edited the book.
Counter also knew her journey and the journey of women in the Bible were not the only stories that needed to be told in Upon the Face of the Waters: Sensing the Spirit’s Presence in Troubling Times. She reached out to family, friends, and colleagues with compelling stories of adversity and the healing power of the Holy Spirit to contribute to the piece.
After prayer, some storytellers turned Counter down. But Parkland President Dr. Pam Lau, Parkland Communications Professor Kendra McClure, Dr. Plashan McCune, Grace Darling (Counter’s sister), and Champaign school district social worker Yolanda O’Connor shared personal experiences of finding solace in the Holy Spirit during times of neglect, abuse, cancer, poverty, and unexpected trials.
“I’m wanting people to come away thinking that in the role that I’m in: if I’m a daughter, if I’m dealing with my life as a mother right now, if I’m being a sister to whatever — I’m wanting them in their role, to be able to recognize that the Spirit is helping them in that role. He’s helping you in your role as a sister, he’s helping you in your role as a mother. You’re not alone. He recognizes you have roles, and he wants to bless you in the hard times in those roles, hard and good times.
“The Spirit teaches you and shows you that you have a lot to rejoice about. So yeah, it was a lot to unpack. It was a process. It was a great process.”
Counter’s book became available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle form in mid-June. She couples modern-day stories with the Biblical stories she draws from as she walks through her day-to-day life. Ester, Leah, Sarah, Martha and Abigail, among other well-known female figures, are discussed in the chapters that weave the Holy Spirit through the experiences many women face.
A review left on Amazon reads, in part,: “Ruthie Counter used her story and the stories of many other women who have experienced troubling times to show us how God’s Spirit “hovers” over us — loving us, guiding us, directing us toward His purposes. She also draws upon biblical teaching and spiritual insights to really help one understand how the Holy Spirit works in our lives.”
It may seem like Upon the Face of the Waters is geared toward women, and it is. Still, Counter said that she’s had men ask about how they, too, can get a copy.
And Counter has something else in store for followers.
Even in the midst of writing and publishing her first book, Counter once again felt that flicker from the Holy Spirit in her heart, telling her there was another project already in the works.
Counter’s website, The Spirit Hovers, has announced the production of Flawed Yet Favored: Imitating Six Men of Faith.
“I’m going to rely fully on the Spirit’s lead in the writing of that book, too. There won’t be anything written unless it involves the Spirit’s guidance.
“I’m looking at the next step God wants me to take. I’m looking for that. And I’m open to it. I’m just like your vessel. Use me in whatever way you want me to be used.”
