We thank You for being Emmanuel, the Lord is with us this Holy day.
For sending your One and Only Son, Jesus, to become a sacrifice for our sins
For becoming the bridge between You and us.
Through Salvation in Jesus, You wipe our slate of sins clean and fill us with Your Holy Spirit, so that we can enter into a relationship with You.
We acknowledge Jesus’ birth is the Greatest Gift ever given, out of Your love for the people You created. All other gifts which are bestowed on us this Christmas season are a reflection of Your love and goodness.
As we reflect on those who are no longer with us, we acknowledge our lack of understanding. Our human minds cannot make sense of tragedy and loss.
But You, O God, are the Author of life. Our times are in Your hands.
You have promised to work in all things for the good of those who love You. (See Romans 8:28)
You are a faithful Heavenly Father. You have promised to never leave us nor forsake us. (See Hebrews 13:5)
And You have promised everlasting life to those who believe in You and call on Jesus’ name.
Now on this Blessed Christmas Day, we offer our hearts to you in worship.
Fill us with:
Love so that we might love ourselves and others;
Joy so that we might enjoy the good things in life;
Peace so that we might be sure of our Salvation and also to bring harmony between us and others;
and Hope for the Return of Jesus who will gather us all to our Eternal Home.
Now we lift our hands toward heaven in praise and also reach out toward others with kindness and goodwill.
A while back, I thought God was doing something new in my life. For months I was excited about the possibilities, until I discovered that what I wanted was not in His plan for me.
Today I cried over the loss of a dream. Then I prayed in earnest to my Heavenly Father, who brought me peace.
After that prayer, I sat down at my computer and opened a file for a story I’d begun last winter. I’d actually started two different versions of it. Today I copied and pasted it into one document. I began line by line edits as I read back through what I’d already written. It isn’t finished yet but I made great progress today.
My heroine struggled with feelings of being unloved and unwanted, and it led her to make poor choices as a teenager. Then she spent the next decade trying to bury her feelings of regret, and continued to make terrible decisions in relationships and life in general.
At the beginning of this story, she is 30 years old and facing the consequences of her actions.
A broken heart, a lost dream, a fall into depression —
While I can relate to this heroine in some ways, God protected me from making the choices this heroine made. Throughout my life, I’ve tried to stay true to my faith. God honored my choices with an amazing husband who was faithful to both myself and to God. Losing him was my life’s worst heartbreak.
But there have been a few times in the past 15 years when my heart has cracked. And each time I feel like I am falling apart, God puts the pieces back together.
I am never quite the same as I was before the heartbreak, but God always does something better when He restores my hope.
In this Season of Hope, I pray that you will find comfort in the Loving God who can fix broken hearts and broken relationships.
Over the weekend I attended a craft show that happened to be in the gym of my old elementary school. That school held some of the saddest memories of my life with very few good times. The above photo with me holding up the sign for our class photo was a special privilege that made me feel good about myself. But for most of my elementary school years I was sad.
It started in second grade, when we moved to a brand new house. The move meant I had to change schools. I was still in the same district, but I had to start second grade at a different elementary school.
That year my older sisters both were shuttled back to our previous elementary school for fourth and sixth grades. I was the new school by myself.
I don’t remember much about the first day until I was getting ready to go home. I couldn’t remember what bus to ride. I stood in the hallway, crying.
Somehow I got on the right bus that day, but I couldn’t adjust to my new school.
I struggled so much with crying and adjusting that I saw a school counselor. One day she told me to go home and write a story. We had a bunny rabbit that we were raising in the house, just a tiny thing. I wrote about the bunny.
My counselor liked my story. She had me read it to the kindergarten class.
An author was born. I was 7 years old.
Eventually, I adjusted to school. I was still sensitive, though. All anyone had to do was say curse words to me and I would cry.
In sixth grade, I spent time in the health room lying down.
But I also wrote stories about a squirrel and his woodland friends. They were plagiarized from a book I read but they were fun to write.
I had a church camp counselor who was good to me. She wrote to me, and I sent a copy of my story to her. She liked it and became my champion. She sent my story to a publisher.
The publisher sent back a nice reply. They said that I was talented but not what they were looking for. (I would hear that many more times in my life.)
I continued to write throughout middle and high school. Teachers and classmates read my stories and encouraged me to keep writing. When I went away to college, I set aside all of my stories, and a few years later I destroyed them (So glad now that I did.)
In 1994 I started writing again. (Eleven years after high school).
I had a new baby and a toddler. I would stay up late after they were in bed and write on my word processor. I would get up before they woke up and continue to write. I burned the candle at both ends.
I focused on making the novel a Christian romance. When the story was done, I sent a query letter to a publisher along with some sample chapters.
They asked to see the whole book. I sent it to them. They sent me a letter.
A rejection letter.
This editor made some personal comments in the letter. She told me the reasons why it was rejected and gave helpful feedback.
She also wrote: “Please be encouraged that I thought your manuscript had enough flair to at least recommend it to the review board. 80% don’t make it that far.”
Instead of getting discouraged, I wrote another story. This time a historical Christian novel.
I did the research. I used the same word processor. I wrote the first few chapters And mailed them to a publisher from the Writer’s Market book. They asked to see the whole story.
I typed up the rest. I burned up my word processor and had to borrow another one to finish it. I sent the book to the publisher.
It was rejected.
I set my writing aside.
Life got busy.
As the 1990’s turned into the early 2000’s, my children grew older and were active in school. I worked part time at different jobs. I was busy in the church. We changed churches a few times.
I had another baby.
In 2002, I started to write. And write. And write.
I researched everything I could get my hands on and wrote another historical novel.
I looked for a publisher for the new book. I sent it a few places. I even paid to have it on a website for publishers to look at. It was rejected every time. It went through so many rewrites that I don’t remember how the original started.
In 2007, my friend was going on a trip and she wanted something to read on the plane. She took my story with her. She loved it.
She wanted copies for family and friends.
I found a local printer who could make spiral bound copies. They looked all right. Nothing fancy.
My family and friends bought them.
The print was so small in the original that one friend had to wear two pair of reading glasses in order to read the words.
A cousin told me that she liked it so much, but she kept falling asleep while reading it because she was so tired. She would wake up and read a little more then fall asleep again.
I don’t how many times I heard people say:
“I couldn’t put it down.”
With so much encouragement, I continued writing in the series Books 2 and 3, then 4, then 5.
I continued to have them printed in spiral bound books and sold a few copies.
In 2010, tragedy struck My husband was electrocuted at work and was in a coma. When it became clear that he was not going to pull through, we knew it was time to let him go.
It was hard to go on without him. I clung to my kids and got up each morning for them. I spent a lot of money to mask the grief.
In 2011, almost a year after his death, I went to a friend’s cabin. (The friend who’d read my story and encouraged me to get it published.) It was like a mini retreat in the woods beside a creek.
I came home and wrote book 6.
Encouraged by family and friends I decided to self-publish the Courage series again, this time in a regular paperback book binding. I met with a designer and a printer. They produced a beautiful book that I could be proud of.
I continued to publish all 6 books in the Courage series.
Then I just stopped writing.
Those were the dry years. The lost years. Focusing on my kids. Helping them reach independence.
Struggling with depression and anxiety and lack of self worth.
God placed in my path a Christian counselor. Someone I could trust. I started to climb out of the miry pit of depression and work through the grief. Gradually the darkness turned into shadows.
In the spring of 2018, I read a book about joy by a woman who had overcome many obstacles. After reading her book It was like a dam burst inside of me.
I had joy again. It was like a butterfly that had come out of its cocoon into a place of beauty and light.
In October 2018, I went back to my friend’s cabin. It was a mini retreat for me. Mostly I stayed inside the cabin watching Nicholas Sparks’ movies and drinking coffee on the porch overlooking the river.
When I came home an idea came to my mind for a new contemporary series. I wrote the first story. Then I wrote a sequel to that story.
The creative streak continued as I updated another story. I sent it to a publisher but it was rejected. I kept at the writing process.
I started reading “Billionaire” romances on Kindle. It made me think of that first story that I had written in 1994. The main character in that story was very rich. I decided to rewrite the book and make him a billionaire.
I completed the rewrite.
Then I worked on a Christmas story that had been in the back of my mind for several years. As I was in the midst of writing it, I found a publisher who was looking for Christian Christmas novellas. If I sent it in, they would review it and give positive feedback.
I finished it, sent it in, and amazingly, I received a contract for publishing.
My Christmas novella was published in 2019.
I followed up that book with a sequel holiday novella. in 2021.
Then Anaiah Press published my Billionaire book. It was an answer to a lifelong dream.
When the publisher closed its doors, I was sad, for them and for myself. I decided to go back to self publishing. I had the Courage series updated with new covers, all six of them. As of this writing I have published 12 books.
All of my stories:
The ones that are finished,
The ones that are still in outline form,
The ones I have self-published in paperback and spiral bound,
The ones that have been rejected by authors and agents
But have become well-loved by readers:
My stories are my “Beauty from Ashes.”
Isaiah 61:3 reads:
“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…”
From the time I was a little girl, sad and unable to adjust to school, to a grown woman who lost the love of her life in her mid-40’s and to the woman of 60 who stands with courage today in the face of many challenges, God’s love has never let me down. He has been faithful to bring about good in all things in my life.
I’ve posted much about the loss of my husband which is going on 15 years this August. Feels more like 8 years. But God has brought healing through the grief. I have wonderful memories of my husband but the pain of losing him is almost gone. It creeps up on me during the annivesary dates, and I struggle emotionally for a few days around that time, but it doesn’t weigh on me every day.
We started a support group for widows specifically and call it Naomi’s Daughters. The Naomi of the Bible lost her husband and sons and the Bible tells us she was bitter. The pain that accompanies such a tremendous loss is crushing and it is far too easy to let bitterness grow roots.
I’ve come through my loss without bitterness. My faith has grown and the Grace of God has sustained me through it all. I’m not an expert on grief, but today I share some thoughts on what has made a difference for me.
The path through grief is not the same for everyone but the emotions that go along with it are shared by many. I will focus on these two today:
Anger: God can handle our anger. Like an earthly father, He has broad shoulders. We can pound on his proverbial chest in our anger and grief. But we don’t stay in that emotional state. We release our anger, and we lean into him. We allow His presence and His love to wrap us up and embrace us and hold us until our tears subside. This doesn’t happen once, or even a dozen times. As often as anger fills us, we seek our solace in our Heavenly Father.
Loneliness: The loneliness is unbearable at times. We have traveled through life with our dearest companion and now they are no longer with us. No matter the ages of our children, we will spend much time alone with our thoughts and with our grief. What do I do when I feel so lonely I don’t think I can go on? I cry out to Jesus, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. I play music that lifts up my spirit. There are songs for every mood available on music apps. I have several playlists that help me through those hard times. And in those times, my heart becomes settled again. I have peace.
Again, why Naomi’s daughters?
We too have suffered the loss of our husbands, (or spouses, or children).
But we don’t have to allow that bitterness to take root.
We can unleash our anger in our Father’s presence and lean into Him for comfort. We remember that God is our Heavenly Father, that He is always with us, and that He has a plan for our lives that we cannot comprehend. He is faithful. He will bring about good in our lives. We don’t understand why we lost our loved one, and for me, I will never fully understand it this side of heaven. The grief looks like the underside of a cross stitched pillowcase my mom made for me. It’s a tangled mess of threads, snarls. But the upper side is beautiful. When I make it to heaven one day, I’ll look back on my life and I will see the beautiful picture God has woven through all the moments of my life.
We can cry out to Jesus in our loneliness. He understands our loneliness. We remember places in Scripture where Jesus sought comfort from his Father in heaven. He knew loneliness even when surrounded by people. He knew despair. He cried out to God in the garden and accepted God’s purpose for his life. He endured the lonely death on the cross because he knew the glory that awaited him in heaven. Jesus longs to walk this road through grief with us. We are never truly alone.
Warning: If seeing a cat on top of a table offends you, you should not read this post.
However, if you own a cat, you know that sometimes, despite our valiant efforts to stop them, cats will jump up on tables, counters, shelves, every available space in your house at some point.
This is Ash. Born to a feral cat in our garage a few years ago, we at first called her the Tiny Terror. You can get an idea as to why when you look at this photo of her perched on top of our dining room table. Although she is older and less active now, I absolutely love this photo.
As you can see, her paw is lifted high as if she is trying to touch the light above her.
Does that remind you of anything?
It reminds me of the words in the following Scripture verses:
Phillipians Chapter 3.
v. 10: I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…
v. 12: Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
v. 13-14: Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching toward what is ahead,I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
And this verse from Colossians Chapter 3:
v. 1: If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
Like Ash is reaching for the light above her, I reach for the light that is in Christ above. My goal is to know God more and to be more like Jesus. To love like Jesus did in this dark and troubled world.
Before I can lift up my hands to him, I have to let go of the weight that is holding me down. The chains of shame, guilt, bitterness, all of those feelings we’ve held in our heart because of things that we’ve done, or that have been done to us.
We can lay our burdens down and lift up our hands in worship and praise.
This song has come to mind often the past few days, so I’m posting the link to the YouTube lyrics video below.
Inspirational Author 