Tag Archives: faith

Hello From the Shadows

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I keep finding myself another few months from my last blog post, wondering if I’m in an alternate universe where time mocks all my efforts to get back to writing.

How many of you have day jobs? You probably go through seasons where you’re understaffed, overworked and coming away with a paycheck that doesn’t reflect the energy/family time you’ve sacrificed to “fill in.”

Well, my season of overworking has been much like hitchhiking on a turtle. It keeps going and going at a painfully unproductive pace. I need a wormhole, friends.

However, the time I’ve had away from writing has blossomed with new ideas. I’m considering switching gears to enter the general market. My current genre of faith-based speculative fiction has been fulfilling, but it’s a genre so obscure that I’m not connecting with enough of a readership.

I want to write more real-world, living-this-hard-life themes while keeping the undeniable magic. I have ideas for fiction and one non-fiction.
Thank you all, for your patience and for sticking with me. In this fast-paced world where our attention spans are compared to that of goldfish, you guys are highly valued.

As a thank you—that I’m only alerting those reading my blog—I’m offering the kindle version of ILLUME for FREE, today only. So far, readers consider it my best work and the best of the series. If you’re a tactile person it’s also in paperback now, yay!

I’ll be back, taking you along on my research journey, soon! Happy Tuesday!

This Little Light

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At the gym a few days ago, I took to the last available treadmill and started my usual run. For some reason, I’ve been dragging this month—the cloudy skies, maybe? The chronic lack of a full night’s sleep? More than likely, I’m just run down from a rough year but determined to stay in shape, I was going to do my full 3ish miles.
To my left, a man about a head shorter than I increased his running speed to keep up with me. A competitor, I see. I tried not to giggle as his short legs had to take twice the amount of steps than mine to run a moderate 5.8 METS.
But he worked hard. No matter his motivation, my humor quickly turned to admiration. How many of us feel like the best we can do is to take one step forward, three steps back to keep up with our goals—that we can’t run hard enough to catch them? Can all the strugglers raise their hand?
But this guy, he kept pumping those legs, working almost twice as hard as I did to meet the same stats.
It was the perfect picture of 2018, where almost every circle I belong to are in survival mode–battle-weary from an unusual amount of trials this past year, almost like a surge of darkness is engulfing our nation. I once read about a pastor writing about a season of higher suicide rates in his hometown directly related to the increase of occult influences. It makes me think of the happenings of this year: is there a fiercer battle going on that we can’t see?
Perhaps God is on the move for something big and the darkness is trying to keep us behind it.
Sometimes I think the trials of 2018 have kept me from running hard enough, although God is merciful, even when our best effort is minuscule. He sees us trying.
But that small man next to me, this giant of a competitor ran like there was an ember right in front of him that promised to light his world if he worked hard enough to reach it—even if his struggle was more difficult than it was for others.
So let’s keep going with all we’ve got, even if we have to drag ourselves along the path. Because my friends…..

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

For all of our Furiosas

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How are you handling your world in the middle of the turkey and pine tree?
Thanksgiving brought news to me that a good friend had passed away. Her name was Louise, aka Furiosa in the writing community.
I met her in Bible study where we discovered we had a mutual love for writing. It only seemed reasonable that she would join my writers group a town away where we traveled every second Saturday for some critique, encouragement and lunch. Often, a third friend joined us.
Really, it was the 45 minute car rides that were the best. We took off our Mom badges and discussed things like, ok–parenting, stories, ghosts, God and how God and ghosts can be used in the same sentence.
It’s also where she told me about her heart failing some years ago. She passed through to the heavenly realm, woke up in a dark room glowing, and started walking toward God when she was resuscitated.
Yes, God. To be clear, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Father of Jesus.
She then recounted her battle with breast cancer and chemo—how she broke down in an airport when she was asked to remove her hat, and from the corner of the bathroom where she ran, a housekeeper pulled her aside and told her she “has to be like Peter on the water, keeping your eyes on Jesus.”
As our friendship grew, we, along with another friend, planned a trip to a writers conference where we were expected to bring a costume for the rewards banquet. But shortly before we were to leave for Philly, my friend learned that her cancer had not only returned, but it had spread throughout her whole body. Bones, spine, and all.
Her response was to keep her eyes on Jesus. She endured her first round of chemo and set off for the second hand store where she threw a costume together with a handful of random items. Having  paid for the conference months ahead of time, she decided she wasn’t going to waste a moment. And she had this story inside her that she needed help getting onto the page.
She walked into the awards banquet as bald and bold as Furiosa the warrior. By now, everyone knew of her battle. When they saw her, jaws dropped, cameras were pulled out to record what a true warrior looked like.
Louise came home and endured the kind of pain no one wants to, and several more rounds of chemo. Armed with the kind of faith only those who’ve had a glimpse of heaven have, she conquered that cancer, regained her strength and poured herself into life. God, family, writing, hiking. Breathing.
After her heart failed a second time, the Lord took her home Thanksgiving week. From what I understand, it was in the midst of joyous family time.
It’s hard to interpret the conclusion to such unexpected loss after such marvelous victory. She never got to finish that book she was working so hard on. But as I look over her life as I knew her, the words spoken about her and the picture I have in my memories of her, I realize that she did indeed tell the world her most powerful story.
We should closely consider the lives of those who have had early visits to the afterlife, and what Louise did was to pursue the will of God, and lived—really, fully lived—every moment, even in the painful center of difficulty, knowing the reward  waiting for her when her time came.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

Monster Hunting

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Who is this monster everyone keeps talking about? I mean, it shoots up our schools, it ravages our kids with staggeringly high rates of depression and anxiety, and it has families running for cover.
I found myself ridiculed the other day when discussing the monster. My crime? I send my kids straight into battle aka public (charter) school. Before you read on or move on, this is not a public school vs. home school blog. It’s about our mission field.


Not everyone is called to the same mission field. As far as schooling goes, sometimes we have the liberty to orchestrate our kid’s education, sometimes we have little choice, but right now as parents argue on social media about the “right” way to protect our kids and to give them the best education, there are young feet walking within the mouths of the monsters’ jaws.
My two are there. Yes, they’ve dealt with bullies, they’ve had classmates whose families couldn’t afford to feed them all three meals, they’ve dealt with the privileged (interpret that as you will), played with kids who go home to single parents, etc. Many of these kids are pretty great, and their teachers are as well– teachers who care—and they receive a very well-rounded education, better than I could give them which is one reason why they attend school away from home.
A few years ago, a former student almost shot up their school. Thankfully, some brave people were proactive in stopping it before it happened. Is this terrifying? Of course.
They also get exposed to all those things the rest of us did: bad language, topics way to mature for their ages, poor examples. Yes, I send them into this, but they don’t go in alone.
Recently, my daughter told a friend about Jesus. Yes, right inside the monster’s playground, she said the J word. When she learns of a classmate’s hardship or family troubles, she prays for them (the power of prayer, friends). Where would this help be without kids of faith to know who/what to specifically pray for?
My son reminds others that Jesus still heals. And he’s shown forgiveness—maybe more than some kids would see if all parents of faith decided to do a mass extraction of their children.
When my kids make their own mistakes, they see the effects, and get the opportunity to learn from them firsthand. Christians screw up plenty, I know, that’s why we love the Great Forgiver.
Just to be clear, this is not a billboard against homeschooling—because there are certainly good reasons for choosing that direction—this is just a message for those who deny support to those called in the other direction.
So yes, some will criticize this viewpoint, regardless. But who would rather they got on their knees and prayed for our youth? Parents send their kids into this battleground every day. Thank goodness. Public school is not a thing to hide from—it’s a mission field. Parents—our kids can’t easily band together when they see us constantly fighting over our differences of opinions. Distraction is dangerous.
Bless those praying from home, and those still walking the halls.

Here’s a little tidbit from the generation who constantly receives criticism.

“Millennials crave relationship, to have someone walking beside them through the muck. We are the generation with the highest ever percentage of fatherless homes…We’re looking for mentors who are authentically invested in our lives and our future. If we don’t have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon from the couch?—Sam Eaton

 

Who lives in Arizona? Fancy a trip to Tuscon this weekend? I’ll be at the Tuscon Festival of Books on March 10th, 2:30-4:30, in the Indie Pavilion on the U of A campus. I’ll be signing copies of WAKE, WILD, and I might just be doing a giveaway of ILLUME, the third book in the City of Light Series due out this fall.

D is for Door

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I believe the ugliest battle scars are from junior high. As my daughter quickly approaches the years of doom, I reflect more and more on what I can teach her from my time doing time.
I sat in the back of the class. The very far back, for the students who weren’t members of the honor roll (okay—once—accidentally), gifted (as a professional writer, I protest their definition of gifted), or any genre of student the teachers wrote down as shining star, but the last row of kids who identified with other things beside your general pile of academics. The artist, the athlete, the HSPs (which wasn’t a known thing at the time), or the rebel at heart.
How does a free spirit like myself (and my daughter) find her rhythm behind so many normals?
Thank the Maker of the Heavens for Mrs. T. She taught 7th grade, and music, and a particle of art. Her heart was undeniably in music class, and she taught us how to shake up our world with good things like jazz. I shined up my flute nice and pretty for 16 or so bars of music, to be refreshingly unique. She didn’t have the patience to teach us traditionally. In fact, I was poor at reading music because of it. But what a blessing, because I’m a hands-on learner, and I could memorize the soul out of a piece music, leaving my energy for the art of it, which was where I found myself–outside the lines of what you would normally find in a stack of homework (Parents: please think twice before complaining about a nontraditional teacher).


I knew I was different. I didn’t know the science of it, but something inside me said to not let myself be pulled into the rows of traditionalists, because that’s wasn’t the beat my heart was tuned for. I was also a Jesus follower—despite the protestations of the kids who thought that meant perfectionism or goody-two-shoes, what it meant for me was undeniably Wild. Messy, outside the lines, grab the world by the paintbrush, Wild ( If you’re raising your brows at this, remember, the Bible is not G rated, friends. Not even close. Nor is anyone’s life).
Honestly, it was a long season of feeling lost before I realized my life didn’t revolve around the worldview of the traditional educational system.
Throughout the years, a lot of my teachers tried to shake the different out of me. Many students tried to shake the Jesus out of me. A few of my friend’s parents even tried to shake the skinny out of me by attempting to feed me copious amounts of food—so I would look more normal, I guess—but God doesn’t allow us us stand out without a reason. And He doesn’t let you walk through life without purpose, even when you feel like a Jackson Pollack in a sea of Michelangelo’s. But the last thing I want my daughter to do is to follow the crowd. The crowd strives for normal out of fear of what each other think. But, truthfully, we’re ALL different….why on earth are we all so afraid?!
The Wild DNA runs deep. How many of you have wondered at your differences and looked to history’s legacy?
The ancient church of Philadelphia, surrounded by a sea of pagan temples, was out of place, too, but the members didn’t let the world shake the purpose out of them. Even with the widespread persecution. They even had a Teacher give them a special bit of encouragement:
“I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Rev. 3:8
Alasehir (ancient Philadelphia) endured a devastating earthquake in A.D. 17…historians say the Philadelphians rebuilt their sanctuary (the church of St. John) several times due to tremors, unwilling to give up. And the open door? John wrote of “a great door for effective work, (1 Corinthians 16:9)” God opened for him. Scholars believe this was for mission work to the far eastern parts of Asia.

What do we see here? John didn’t let his opposition–whether man or earthquake–shake the art out of him. And his efforts survived the chaos of time…God rewarded the Phildelphian’s faith with a visual representation of their perseverance. Out of the few ruins of ancient Philadelphia, guess which one is the most prominent? You can view John’s church here.

Happy Tuesday, Friends. Don’t watch the crowd…look for the door.

The Story Behind the Sweat

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Scales can be jerks. You can work and work, burning off everything you ate and more, only to stand on the scale and look down, a drop of sweat sliding down your nose, plopping over a big, fat number.
What? Your face gets hot…your heart starts pumping fast again. You step back and look in the mirror. Eh? You go home, shower and pull on your favorite pair of jeans. Tight. Too tight. Okay, maybe that one area is better, but…what the heck? You go to the bathroom and stand on your scale because the one at the gym, and your pants must be taunting you, right?
But, no. To the mirror again, you notice the seams pulling, the stitches near to popping and realize you won’t be able to replace them for several more paychecks.
What’s to show for all that hard work? Slow and sure, your fist comes up and you shake it at God a little.
You work so hard. So. Hard. At the gym, at your office, in the classroom—whatever this is for you, but the results look nothing like you expected.
Does the effort mean nothing after all?
What’s the point?
You eye the couch, the TV, the Netflix remote, but something calls you. A whisper flutters from above. At the mirror again, something does look different. Your jeans are tight, yes, but you look better in them. Your short-sleeve shirt is digging into your arms, but look—what was too soft is now firm.
You bend down to pick up that darn box you don’t have room for, and move it out of the way to get a better look. Wow, that was easier.
So much easier. Maybe God draws your eyes to the mirror again and says, “Yes. There’s more of you.”
“What? There’s supposed to be less. I worked for it. Isn’t that what you led me to do?”
Maybe He answers, “But you’re not supposed to believe for less. Don’t aim for less. You were made for more.”
“But my pants. The scale. This isn’t at all what I expected. What’s going to happen?”
“Better things, as long as you keep your eyes on Me, and not your scale.”
So you take a breath, and keep going.
Happy perseverance day. Every day.

Things I Learn From My Dog

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My dog can sense earthquakes in our neighboring state of California. Tail in-between legs, bark at the ready, she shifts into high alert as if every flap of wing or roar of an engine electrifies her. She’s protective, and determines to catch every single unsettling current until the threat is gone.
She runs laps. Not one or two, but intermittent laps around the yard in between dinner, TV time & bedtime stories. She’ll do this for one day, or several days, working until the earthquake passes. On nights like these, I can hear her dog door flapping throughout the night as she makes her rounds.
Finally, she’ll collapse and rest.
It reminds me of the days when my mind spins like a broken record, catching on all those ideas that jump track.
On into the night, a mish-mash of unfinished files to sort out.


So, the next morning, I don’t nap—I do like Bella does and I run. I go to the gym and hit the treadmill, then I pop on the elliptical. Finally, I take on the weight machines until I’m exhausted.
s-t-r-e-t-c-h
Now I can get to work. I pull the good ideas from my mind and sort them out on paper, or the computer screen. I work until I feel the tide shift. I don’t always see it, but I feel it. That’s the spot where faith thrives, in the unseen realm where I’m beyond my limits.
Then I can rest.
It’s not real rest until you’ve worked with everything you’ve got. Until you’ve unwrapped your God-given gifts and covered your space of the world with them. The outcome is not up to us, it’s up to God. Our job is to just do our thing.

Life on the Boat

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As I walked my dog this frigid morning, I saw a woman sweeping her fall leaves into four separate piles in the middle of the street. Although confused at her road-piles, I commented on her ability to be thorough. She gave me a quick smile and said, “Well, you know…” *turned away* mumble mumble mumble…
I figure she’s sweeping away some worries. Perhaps she’s pushing her burdens far enough away to where the wind will carry them because they’re just too heavy to hold, or maybe she just needs to keep moving.


Because, if you’re anyone who has gone through trials, you understand how sometimes you’ve got to keep moving, because, well, you know…
God knew that when Noah was stuck inside the boat while the world was dying all around him, he had to keep moving. The decks of mouths to feed, the piles of things that needed to be shoveled who-knows-where, back-breaking labor to endure—and you know it had to smell like heck, but he had to move because he was escorting humanity toward survival, and if he stayed still to think about the state of things, he would feel the weight of only what God can carry.
Sometimes, it seems like there’s too much to do—too many errands to run and rooms to clean and mouths to feed—it may be the time to put aside the busy work and rest. But there also comes a season where sweating it out is to purge what we can’t hold. Don’t forget–God’s still steering the boat.

How is your week coming along? May your labor lead to the promised land.

Little champions

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So I’ve became a runner again. Sort of. I’m the part-time turtle, actually, following behind my daughter’s cross country team in case one of them should fall, get sick, or get lost. I waited a week to give all the other parents ample opportunity to offer their services, but it turns out they go into hiding when the word run is offered to them. And when I say hide, I mean they find faraway places where only God can find them. I kind of wish I had joined them.

My feet—these 41-yr-old feet—have faced a lot of abuse in my youth. Hand-me-down tennis shoes from my brother, growing up in a countryside only the tough and gangly inhabit, a school bus stop light years from our house, pregnancy, but most of all—ballet. Yes, those pretty-pink satin slippers are not for the weak. Squishing my feet into them year after year produced a lot of good things, but one big fat ugly one—one ghost of the stage that won’t leave me alone: aches and pains. They can take quite a bit of activity as long as I don’t run or tread upward too much.

I thought about bowing out, I mean, who can chase after youth-sugar-hyper-fueled athletes, with damaged feet? But then C sprained her ankle, the coach is without an assistant this year, and thoughts of her limping behind her team MILES away from any adult to protect her kept me tossing and turning until I finally gave in and did that volunteer thing.

Like I have time.

So once or twice a week, I throw on my Sketchers and run down pain alley.

And then, my day job picked up. My usual one to two days a week turned into five because one of my coworkers got stuck in Florida, I’m behind authorly deadlines and now I’m running on fumes.

Can you hear me panting?

And now my feet say they need a break, so I’m thinking about pulling out my bicycle. Hmm. What does a mother do?

She does what all those facing a hurricane do. She says, “Lord, it’s all you now. Just you.”
And then I remember there’s no better place for my daughter to be, or thoughts of family and stranded co-workers facing a mighty storm, and for these feet that just won’t run any farther: In God’s hands.

His care and creativity surpass anything a volunteer can fix. He can calm a hurricane to a tropical storm, and he can run alongside all those little ones, miles from their nests.

Maybe he lets the storms strand us for a while so we can remember His capable hands again.

The Summer Files: Day 13

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The valley days roll along as tumbleweeds and Arizona is working up to full summer boil as it does every year, but One thing has awakened us to the brilliance of seasons: Miracles haven’t stopped coming. They’re coming, friends.

During our third trip to the Healing Room, remembering God is the same God who healed all those people a few thousand years ago, Our Son kept tugging at me, trying to get my attention. After shushing him so as not to interrupt the prayer volunteers, he finally stood forward and announced that he felt this “hand” on the back of his neck. At first, he thought it was the Guy leading the prayer, but the Guy, standing a few feet in front of him thought it might have been a more celestial hand.

Over the next several days, including the few the Son endured with a long prep and a few tests at the children’s hospital, joy burst from his seams.

“I feel good, Mommy.”

I won’t go into detail on how no one would be feeling good after what he just experienced, but the joy kept rolling in like a protective halo.

Shortly after coming home, we found out his bowel disease is gone.

It was a twisty road, friends. We prayed, we doubted, and prayed again. Many people prayed for us. Thank you, to all who did. Somewhere in there, we believed. I often wonder why miracles don’t happen more often…maybe we’re too distracted by, “but will He?” thoughts. Maybe we put more faith in modern medicine than in God. He does say, “…because of your faith, you are healed.”

We are also a culture of intellectual pride. How can an educated, modern society believe in miracles? If we can’t see them, touch them, prove them, do they exist?

Modern medicine is a blessing. Thank the Lord for our Doctors and Nurses. I believe God uses them in many beautiful ways.

But that wind. It pushes in tumbleweeds with its invisible hands. It cools our sweat with its merciful breeze. We can’t see it, but we know it’s there. Why is it so much easier to count on the arrival of ugly, poky sticker bushes, than the breath of Heaven? Even fellow believers tried explaining the healing through logic and spiritual doubt (What kind of solutions come from spiritual doubt?).

But our Son just experienced an invisible hand, illogical joy and healing. Those weren’t tumbleweeds that blew our way.

They’re coming.