Twitter, Connection, and Karen Kingsbury

"I do not want to just read books; I want to climb inside them and live there."I love, love, love this quote (although I can't figure out who it said it). Mainly because I believe the greatest books are the ones that allow you to live inside of them. The ones who make you care about the characters the way you care about your family. The ones that leave you with the feeling of being in another time or place when you finish them. The ones that have something valuable to teach you, but do so without you realizing you're learning because you're so focused on the story.About two years ago, I picked up the Above the Line series by Karen Kingsbury. Simply put, I loved every single one of them! As I was reading them, I realized that Karen had written three series prior to those books about one of the families that appears often in the Above the Line series.Naturally, my thought was that I need to buy them and read them all. So I scoured amazon.com to find all thirteen books she had already written about the Baxters. Over the course of the last year, I read almost all of them.All Karen Kingsbury's books, including Sunset, fulfill my requirements to be considered a "great book." As I was reading Sunset Wednesday night, I decided to take a break from all the emotions and wisdom of the book to send a tweet out to Karen Kingsbury about how much her books make me cry! That tweet brought in a few responses from friends of mine who have read her books and agreed with me.However, the best part was that on Thursday night, Karen Kingsbury herself responded to my tweet in three different replies!!! I just about died of excitement. No joke, my hands were literally shaking because I was so excited about it.Sometimes I wonder why so many people love Twitter. Tonight, I realized why. It allows us to connect with people. Not a deep, meaningful connection that comes from face to face conversations with friends, but it allows simple conversations about shared interests that have the power to inspire us even though it's just a casual interaction. On occasion, it also allows an simple person like myself to connect with someone she respects and admires, even if only for a second. Twitter allows people of influence to connect with and encourage people, on an individual basis, who they could never reach through other forms of communication.I'm not saying Twitter is perfect or should replace normal human connection, I'm just saying it does have it's perks!