Fall is my favorite season of the year; it just seems to me that the world is so full of color and variety. Everywhere I look is a visual treat. Yesterday was dark, windy, and gloomy, but today is bright and sunny. Monday I took a bunch of pictures of our grape arbor. Jesse's mom is going to make some jelly, but until she picks them, they make such a picturesque scene. The pictures practically take themselves.
I love the camera that Jesse bought me; it was such a sweet gesture from him. I bought myself a new camera a couple of years ago, but then was so disappointed with the quality. It didn't have a decent zoom, and no matter what setting I used, the pictures always came out fuzzy. He just stopped on the way home from work one night and brought home a camera I never could have justified buying for myself, and honestly it intimidated me at first with all of the settings. But then when we went camping, Krissy, my sister-in-law, demonstrated the different settings so I could stop using automatic all of the time.
Since then I find myself looking at the world with through the camera lens. I'm always thinking about what may make a great shot, and while I'm not very good at it, I'm definitely getting better, and it's a new hobby that I absolutely love.
The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow by Joyce Magnin is a masterful novel about the power of unconfessed sin. Griselda has devoted her life to taking care of her obese sister, Agnes. Agnes has devoted her life to taking care of the town of Bright's Pond. Her prayers have become so famous for bringing miracles in the small town that its residents are preparing to erect a sign outside city limits advertising it as the "Home of Agnes Sparrow." But Agnes has never wanted publicity, and no matter how hard she tries, they refuse to see the answered prayers as the work of God, but instead of as the acts of Agnes. When a new man moves to town looking for a miracle from Agnes, the town will be forever changed. Magnin has created in Bright's Pond a vibrant and fascinating small town. She never reverts to stereotypes, although there is plenty of quirkiness. Griselda's character is really the heart of the novel, and the character feels frustration, betrayal, outrage, and hope right along with her due to Magnin's wonderful portrayal. The story takes a distinctly unexpected turn giving it added depth and heart. Magnin is definitely a writer I have put on my must read list.
I'm giving away two Karen Kingsbury children's books this week: The Princess and the Three Knights and We Believe in Christmas. There is still plenty of time to enter; just send me an email before 10 pm on Thursday, October 1st. I'll announce the winner here on Friday.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Jonas Beiler grew up in a strict and traditional Old Order Amish family during the 1950s. Now he is the cofounder and chairman of the Angela Foundation. He is also a licensed family counselor and founder of the Family Resource and Counseling Center in Gap, Pennsylvania.
List Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Howard Books (September 22, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 1416562982 ISBN-13: 978-1416562986
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Chapter One: Gates Wide Open
It has become numbingly familiar. A man walks into a church, a store, a dormitory, a nursing home, or a school and begins shooting. Sometimes there is panic, sometimes an eerie quietness. But always bodies fall, almost in unison with the shell casings dropping from the gun. And always there is death. Senseless, inexplicable loss of innocent life. Within seconds, we begin hearing reports on our Blackberries or iPhones. Within minutes it is “Breaking News” on CNN, and by the end of the day it has seared a name in our memories. Columbine. Virginia Tech.
Or for me, The Amish Schoolhouse Shooting.
As I write this, it has been nearly three years since our community watched as ten little girls were carried out of their one-room school and laid on the grass where first responders desperately tried to save their lives. As a professional counselor and the founder of a counseling center that serves this area, I saw firsthand the effects this traumatic event had on our citizens. And as someone who grew up in an Amish household and suffered through my own share of tragedies, I found myself strangely drawn back into a culture that I once chose to leave. I know these people who still travel by horse and buggy and light their homes with gas lanterns, yet as I moved among them through this tragedy I found myself asking questions that, surprisingly, led me to back to a hard look at my own heart. How were they able to cope so well with the loss of their children? What enables a father who lost two daughters in that schoolhouse to bear no malice toward the man who shot them? And what can I learn—what can we learn—from them to help us more gracefully carry our own life burdens?
That last question is what prompted me to attempt to share what I have learned from the families who lost so much that day. The Amish will be the first to tell you they’re not perfect. But they do a lot of things right. Forgiveness is one of them. In my counseling, I have seen how lesser tragedies destroy relationships, ruin marriages, and turn people’s hearts to stone. Life throws so much at us that seems unfair and undeserved, and certainly the shootings at the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania were both. And yet, not a word of anger or retribution from the Amish. Somehow they have learned that blame and vengeance are toxic while forgiveness and reconciliation disarm their grief. Even in the valley of the shadow of death they know how to live well, and that is really the story that I want to share—how ordinary human beings ease their own pain by forgiving those who have hurt them.
It is a story that began decades ago when I knew it was time to choose.
-----
Little has changed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania from the time I was a young boy to that fateful October day when shots pierced the stillness of our countryside. Towns like Cedar Lane and New Holland and Gap and Iva might have grown slightly, but as you drive through the hills and valleys along White Oak Road or Buck Hill Road, you’ll see the same quaint farms and patchwork fields that the Amish have worked for generations. Like most Amish boys, I learned to read in a little one-room schoolhouse and could hitch up a team of horses by the time I was twelve years old. I didn’t feel deprived because we didn’t have electricity or phones and it didn’t really bother me to wear the plain clothes that set us apart from my non-Amish friends. As far as I was concerned, being Amish was fine with me, except for one thing. I loved cars. I mean I really loved them. I couldn’t imagine never being able to drive one, but knew that’s what was at stake if I remained Amish.
In Amish culture, you may be born into an Amish family, but you must choose for yourself if you want to be Amish and that usually happens somewhere between the ages of sixteen and twenty one. You may have seen documentaries about Amish teenagers sowing their wild oats for a year or so before deciding to leave or stay within the Amish faith. While it’s true that Amish young people are given their freedom, in reality few teenagers stray very far from the Amish way of life. But all eventually must choose, and once you decide to stay and become baptized as Amish, you can never leave without serious consequences including being shunned by other Amish, even your own parents and relatives. I couldn’t imagine never being a part of my loving family, but I also felt a tug to explore life beyond my Amish roots, and I worried that it would hurt my father if I chose to leave. I remember once asking my dad why we did the things we did and he told me it was all about choice. We choose to live the way we do. It is not forced on us. So when I finally told him at age fifteen that I did not want to stay Amish, I know he was disappointed, but he was not harsh with me, nor did he try to talk me out of it. He respected my choice, which has profoundly shaped my thinking about the Amish. You can always trust them. They live up to their word. If they say they will do something, they will do it. You may have heard the expression, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Well, you would never hear that from an Amish parent. Whatever they teach their children, they back it up with their actions. My dad told me we had a choice and when I made a choice that he obviously wished I wouldn’t have made, he did not turn his back on me. He taught me an important lesson the way most Amish teach their children: by example. Many years later, in the wake of the tragic shooting, I would see Amish mothers and fathers teach their children about forgiveness the same way.
I left the Amish community, but I never left my family, nor did they abandon me. Because of that, I too would learn about forgiveness from my father’s example. Most of my brothers and sisters made the same decision to leave for their own reasons. But my parents remained Amish, and much of my world view is still seen through the metaphorical front windscreen of an Amish buggy.
-----
During those winter months after the shooting so much about our community was covered in stillness. The shortening days felt somber and subdued as we were constantly reminded of the girls that had perished. Normally the sights and sounds surrounding my home in Lancaster County filled me with a sense of nostalgia: the rhythm of horse and buggies clip-clopping their way down our back country roads or the sight of children dashing home from school through a cold afternoon had always been pleasant reminders to me of growing up as a young Amish boy. But that feeling of nostalgia had been replaced with a solemn feeling of remembrance.
Lancaster County is a unique community, the kind of which seems to rarely exist in America anymore. Many of my friends come from families that have lived in this same area for over two hundred years, some even before our country was formed—often we are still connected by friendships held long ago by our parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents. You will find roadside stands selling produce or baked goods, and it is not unusual for them to be left unattended, the prices listed on a bucket or box where you can leave payment for the goods you take. The vast majority of the county is farmland, and in the summer various shades of green spread out to the horizon: beautiful forests line the hills and drift down to waving fields of corn and tobacco and hay.
In the fall months many of the small towns sponsor fairs or festivals, some established for seventy-five years or more. They were originally conceived for local farmers to bring and sell their harvested goods, but like much of the commerce in this area, they were also social events—an opportunity to get caught up with friends you hadn’t seen in a while. I can imagine that back in the day they were joyous times, the crops having been brought in, the community coming together to prepare for a long winter. Nowadays we still go to the fair every year and sit on the same street corner with all of our friends, some of whom we haven’t seen all year but can count on seeing there at the fair. The parade goes by, filled with local high school bands and hay wagons advertising local businesses. Our grandchildren vanish into the back streets together, another generation of friendships, riding the Ferris wheel or going through the haunted house. I like to think that in thirty years they will be sitting on that corner, with their children running off to ride the rides with my friends’ great-grandchildren.
The Amish people live easily among us: good neighbors, hard workers, a peaceful people. They attend the same fairs with their children. Their separateness goes only as far as their plain clothing, or their lack of modern conveniences like telephones and electricity, or the fact that they have their own schools. I have many good friends who are Amish. While they choose to live their lives free of cell phones and computers, they still walk alongside us. They mourn with us when we lose loved ones, and we with them. We talk to them about world events. They volunteer on our local fire brigades and ambulance crews and run businesses within our community.
When the media converged on our community on that fateful October day, I guess I was an ideal person for the media to talk to: someone who grew up in the Amish community, now a family counselor familiar with the effects of grief and tragedy on people’s lives. So I served as a contact for the media, doing countless interviews and sitting on various panels, almost all of which were directed at the Amish response of forgiveness. It immediately became the theme for the media and the millions of people who watched in their homes or listened in their cars—this unbelievable ability to forgive the murderer of innocent children. But tragedy can change a community, and I wondered how the acts of one man would change ours.
Like many individuals, I had already experience my share of personal turmoil over things I could not control. I knew that when these overwhelming experiences of hurt and loss occur, the very core of your being is altered. In fact, having experienced these tragedies in my life, and being counseled through them, led me to pursue becoming a counselor myself. Eventually I went back to school to do just that, and I studied quite a bit on my own as well. In May of 1992, just up the road from Nickel Mines, my wife and I opened the Gap Family Information Center (later it became the Family Resource and Counseling Center), a place where people from our community can come to find healing from a variety of ailments, whether physical, emotional or spiritual.
As a trained counselor I spend a lot of time listening to people pour out the pain of their lives and can see with my own eyes how it has affected them. Nearly every time I speak with a couple whose marriage has been torn, or visit with a family who has lost a child, I am reminded that there are some hurts in life that never completely disappear.
But now, after the shooting, I understand even better how tragedies can affect individuals and communities. I think back to places like Columbine or the areas in the south affected by Hurricane Katrina and I can relate to the trauma they faced and continue to live with. Our community felt shattered after the shootings in that small schoolhouse. Sometimes, as I drove those back country roads or stopped to talk to Amish men, I could hardly bear to think about the pain those girls’ parents felt, or the innocence that our community had lost. But tragedies can also bring communities closer together, if forgiveness is allowed take hold, and if any good can come out of our loss it is this unique practice of forgiveness that characterize the Amish response to evil and injustice.
Word of the Amish communities’ decision to forgive the shooter and his family spread around the world through the media in a matter of days (ironically, from a culture with little or no access to the media). This in itself seems like a miracle to me—if you or I wanted to market a product or a concept to the entire world we could spend millions of dollars and take years and still probably could not accomplish it. Yet the Amish, who do not own phones or computers, captured the world’s attention with a simple, preposterous act. It was almost as if they were illustrating the lyrics of that chorus from the Seventies: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
While the public was fascinated with the Amish take on forgiveness, they didn’t quite know what to do with it. Some people refused to believe that anyone could offer genuine forgiveness to their children’s killer. They suspected the Amish were either lying or deluding themselves. Others believed the forgiveness was genuine but thought the stoic Amish must be robotic, lacking the normal emotions experienced by you and me, in order to offer up such a graceful sentiment.
Neither is the case. Both misunderstandings find their origins in our culture’s false perception of what forgiveness truly is, and the state of mind of someone offering such unusual forgiveness. The Amish are neither liars nor zombies. They are just like you and me and offer a sincere forgiveness with no strings attached, no dependence on any reciprocating feelings or actions. But they also hurt as deeply as the rest of us over the loss of a child, or a loved one. True forgiveness is never easy, and the Amish struggle with the same emotions of anger and retribution that we all do. But they chose to forgive in spite of those feelings.
-----
About a year after the shooting I heard a story about one of the young girls who had been in the schoolhouse when the shooter entered. She was a survivor. She, along with her family and her community, forgave the man who killed those girls. But forgiveness does not mean that all the hurt or anger or feelings associated with the event vanish. Forgiveness, in the context of life’s major disappointments and hurts, never conforms to the old Sunday-school saying: “Forgive and forget.” In reality, it’s next to impossible to forget an event like the shooting at her schoolhouse.
This young survivor was working in the local farmer’s market when she noticed a man standing quietly off to the side of her counter. As she tried to concentrate on her work she found herself growing more and more agitated over the man’s presence. He seemed to be watching all the girls behind the counter very closely, occasionally starting forward as if he were going to approach, then stopping and standing still again, always watching and fidgeting with the bag he carried with him. There was something eerie about him. Was it the way he stood, or how intently he seemed to stare at them?
All around him the farmer’s market bustled with activity. The Amish were often the center of attention for first-time visitors to the market, so the Amish girl was somewhat used to being stared at, but something about that particular guy made her want to hurry the customer she was working with and then disappear into the back of the store. The difference between a curious stare and the way that stranger looked at her seemed obvious and stirred something inside her from the past.
Meanwhile, other customers walked between the long rows of stands, eyeing up the goods, making their cash purchases. The vendors took the money from each sale and crammed it into old fashioned cash registers or old money boxes. The floor was bare cement smoothed by years of wandering customers. The exposed ceiling showed iron cross beams, pipes and electrical wires. The whole place smelled of produce, fried food, and old books.
For many people outside of Lancaster County, farmer’s markets are the only place they interact with the Amish and their conservative dress—the men wearing hats, mostly black clothing with single-colored shirts and long beards, the women with their head coverings and long hair pulled into tight buns. Amish from Pennsylvania often travel to New York City, Philadelphia or Baltimore to sell their wares: fresh fruit and vegetables, home baked pies and cookies, quilts and handmade furniture. For some of the Amish that is their main interaction with people outside of their community as well. The Amish are hardworking, provide quality products, and almost all are outgoing in that environment and give friendly customer service.
But this particular girl, only months removed from the shooting that took place in the Nickel Mines school, got more and more nervous—she found her breath coming shallow and faster, so much so that her own chest rose and fell visibly. She looked around but no one else seemed to notice the man or her reaction to his presence. Her gaze darted from here to there, first looking at him, wanting to keep an eye on him, then quickly looking away if he looked in her direction. She tried to help the customer in front of the counter but concentrating was difficult.
Then she saw him approach. He strode forward, fishing around for something in his bag, then sticking his hand down deep and drawing an object out with one fast pull.
The girl cried out and fled to the back of the stand, shaking.
The man pulled the object out of his bag and placed it on the counter. It was a Bible, a random gift to the workers at the farmer’s market stand. He disappeared among the hundreds of browsing shoppers. The gentleman had no idea the scare he had just given the girl. No one outside the stand had noticed that something intense had happened. Everything continued on as normal—the shoppers wandered and the vendors shouted out their sales to the lingering crowds.
But in the back, the traumatized girl wept.
Not too long before, her schoolhouse had been hemmed in by police cruisers and emergency vehicles while the sound of a handful of helicopters sliced through the sky. And the thunderous crack of rapid gun shots had echoed back at her from the rolling hills.
Forgiveness is never easy.
-----
During those solemn winter months following the tragedy in our community, my wife, Anne, was running errands in the countryside close to the place where the shootings had taken place. That particular area of southern Lancaster County, about sixty miles east of Philadelphia, was an alternating blanket of farms and forest. The trees stood bare. The fields in November and December and January were rock hard, and flat. Where spring and summer bring deep green and autumn blazes with color, winter often feels quiet and stark.
Anne, my wife, also grew up Amish, and we both understood the questions blazing up within that community in the wake of the killings: Should their schools have more secure steel doors with deadbolts to keep intruders out? Should they install telephones in the one room school houses in case of emergency, a serious break from their traditional decision to shun most modern conveniences? Should the gates that guard the entrance to most of their schools’ stone driveways be kept closed and locked to prevent strangers from driving on to the premises?
Anne came to a stop sign at a “T” in the road. She could only turn right or left. The roads rolled with the gently sloping landscape or curved along the small streams. A handful of scattered homes broke up the farmland that seemed to go on almost indefinitely. But as she paused at that intersection preparing to turn, she noticed something: directly in front of her was a one room Amish schoolhouse, not the one where the shooting took place, but one of the many within that ten mile radius.
Most of those schools look the same: a narrow stone or dirt lane leading from the road and up to a painted cement block building with a shingled roof and a small, covered porch; a school bell perched on the roof’s peak; separate outhouses for the girls and the boys. In some of the schools’ large yards you can see the outline of a base path where the children play softball. Some even have a backstop. The school grounds often take up an acre or so of land in the middle of a farmer’s field, usually donated by one of the student’s parents, surrounded by a three- or four-rail horse fence.
Yet there was something about this simple school that made my wife stop her car and park there for a minute. Part of it had to do with her thoughts of the children at the Nickel Mines school and all they had been through. She was also affected by visions of the parents who had lost children and their long road ahead, knowing as she does how heart-wrenching it is to lose a child. But on that particular day, in the wake of all the questions brought up within the Amish community about how they would deal with this disaster, there was one thing that immediately stood out.
The front gate was wide open.
We have all seen what happens in a community when people allow unforgiveness to rule their hearts. Lawsuits abound, separating the perpetrator and their family from those who were wronged, and in this separation the healing process is slowed dramatically. When forgiveness is withheld walls are built within a community and division occurs, leading to isolation and further misunderstanding. Anger and bitterness take hold.
The parents of those girls who were killed, along with their family members and neighbors, decided not to allow the shooting to further separate them from their neighbors. There were no lawsuits filed by the victims’ families against the shooter’s estate or the emergency services or the government, as is so often the case. They would not permit anger or fear to drive them into installing telephones, modern conveniences that their way of life had survived so long without. They would trust God to protect them, leaving the gate open to their hearts and to their communities, and move forward with forgiving hearts.
Given what happened, could that really be possible?
****************************************************************** Think No Evil Inside the Story of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting . . . and Beyond
Jonas Beiler with Shawn Smucker
Howard Books
West Monroe, Louisiana
[Refer to P4P regarding inclusion of purpose statement.]
Our purpose at Howard Books is to:
Increase faith in the hearts of growing Christians Inspire holiness in the lives of believers Instill hope in the hearts of struggling people everywhere Because He’s coming again!
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Edited by Cindy Lambert
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[Permission information regarding Bible translations used (See "Bible Version Lines" list) TK]
Think No Evil by Jonas Beiler and Shawn Smucker is an inside look at the Nickel Mines Amish School shooting of October 2, 2006. Beiler grew up in an Amish home before deciding at the age of 15 to live on the outside, so he has a unique perspective to share on this story that captivated the nation. The world couldn't look away as the news came in about a man who walked into an Amish school, sent out the boys and women, tied up the girls, boarded over the doors and windows and then proceeded to shoot all ten of them before taking his own life. The Amish community immediately offered forgiveness to the shooter and his family, reaching out to them again and again in a way that the world couldn't seem to understand. Beiler uses his own life story and the history of the Amish to offer a foundation for the unbelievable forgiveness the Amish offer those who hurt them. He tells the story of what happened in that small classroom with equal amounts of detachment and compassion. Churches spend millions of dollars a year trying to attract media attention to the story of Jesus without much sucess, but the Amish, who shun modern life conveniences, including the media, created a world wide sensation and curiosity about a God who empowered these people to offer such loving forgiveness. Their story is one of learning for all of us. Refusing to forgive only hurts the victim by creating a lifetime of hurt and bitterness, a lesson the Amish have learned through their history of non-violent resistance and martyrdom. It was difficult at times to read the words through the tears, but unlike most true crime books that are written to titillate with prurient details, he keeps the details about the shooter's actual intentions and what happened between him and the girls to a minimum, maintaining their dignity and privacy without sacrificing the power of the story.
Molly called me around 11 this morning to tell me that all of the schools in our town are under lockdown because someone was spotted carrying a gun near the middle school. It could have been a toy gun, but until the police find the man, the kids don't have recess, aren't allowed to leave campus for any reason, and have no after-school practices today. I am grateful for the lessons learned from tragedies like Nickel Mines that will help keep my girls safe, even if it is only from a toy gun, and I'm keeping my eyes on God so that I don't panic.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Melody Carlson has published more than one hundred books for adults, children, and teens, with many on best-seller lists. Several books have been finalists for, and winners of, various writing awards, including the Gold Medallion and the RITA Award. She and her husband live in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and have two grown sons.
List Price: $14.99 Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 320 Vendor: David C. Cook (2009) ISBN: 1589191080 ISBN-13: 9781589191082
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Megan Abernathy
“Okay, then, how does the second Saturday in June look?” Anna asked her housemates.
Megan frowned down at her date book spread open on the dining room table. She and Anna had been trying to nail a date for Lelani and Gil's wedding. Megan had already been the spoiler of the first weekend of June, but she'd already promised her mom that she'd go to a family reunion in Washington. Now it seemed she was about to mess things up again. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but I promised Marcus I'd go to his sister's wedding. It's been scheduled for almost a year now, and it's the second Saturday too. But maybe I can get out of it.”
Lelani just shook her head as she quietly rocked Emma in her arms, pacing back and forth between the living room and dining room. The baby was teething and fussy and overdue for her afternoon nap. Megan wasn't sure if Lelani's frustrated expression was a result of wedding planning or her baby's mood.
“Is it possible you could do both weddings in one day?” Anna asked Megan.
“That might work.” Megan picked up her datebook and followed Lelani into the living room, where she continued to rock Emma.
“Or we could look at the third weekend in June,” Anna called from the dining room.
“Shhh.” Megan held a forefinger over her lips to signal Anna that Emma was finally about to nod off. Megan waited and watched as Emma's eyes fluttered closed and Lelani gently eased the limp baby down into the playpen set up in a corner of the living room. Lelani pushed a dark lock of hair away from Emma's forehead, tucked a fuzzy pink blanket over her, then finally stood up straight and sighed.
“Looks like she's down for the count,” Megan whispered.
Lelani nodded. “Now, where were we with dates?”
“If you still want to go with the second Saturday,” Megan spoke quietly, “Anna just suggested that it might be possible for me to attend two weddings in one day.”
“That's a lot to ask of you,” Lelani said as they returned to the dining room, where Anna and Kendall were waiting expectantly with the calendar in the middle of the table and opened to June.
Megan shrugged as she pulled out a chair. “It's your wedding, Lelani. You should have it the way you want it. I just want to help.”
Anna pointed to the second Saturday. “Okay, this is the date in question. Is it doable or not?”
Lelani sat down and sighed. “I'm willing to schedule my wedding so that it's not a conflict with the other one. I mean, if it can even be done. Mostly I just wanted to wait until I finished spring term.”
“What time is Marcus's sister's wedding?” asked Anna.
“I'm not positive, but I think he said it was in the evening.” She reached for her phone.
“And you want a sunset wedding,” Kendall reminded Lelani.
“That's true.” Anna nodded.
“But I also want Megan to be there,” Lelani pointed out.
“That would be helpful, since she's your maid of honor,” said Anna.
Megan tried not to bristle at the tone of Anna's voice. She knew that Anna had been put a little out of sorts by Lelani's choice--especially considering that Anna was the sister of the groom--but to be fair, Megan was a lot closer to Lelani than Anna was. And at least they were all going to be in the wedding.
“Let me ask Marcus about the time,” Megan said as she pressed his speed-dial number and waited. “Hey, Marcus,” she said when he finally answered. “We're having a scheduling problem here. Do you know what time Hannah's wedding is going to be?”
“In the evening, I think,” Marcus said. “Do you need the exact time?”
“No, that's good enough.” Megan gave Lelani a disappointed look. “I'll talk to you later, okay?”
“You're not thinking of bailing on me, are you?” He sounded genuinely worried.
“No, but we're trying to pin down a time and date for Lelani.”
“It's just that I really want my family to meet you, Megan. I mean all of my family. And I want you to meet them too.”
“I know, and I plan to go with you.”
“Thanks. So, I'll see you around six thirty tonight?”
“That's right.” Megan told him good-bye, then turned to Lelani with a sigh. “I'm sorry,” she told her. “That wedding's at night too. Maybe I should blow off my family reunion so that you--”
“No.” Anna pointed to the calendar. “I just realized that the first Saturday in June is also my mother's birthday.”
“So?” Kendall shrugged. “What's wrong with that?”
Megan laughed. “Think about it, Kendall, how would you like to share your wedding anniversary with your mother-in-law's birthday?”
Kendall grinned. “Oh, yeah. Maybe not.”
“How about a Sunday wedding?” suggested Megan.
“Sunday?” Lelani's brow creased slightly as she weighed this.
“Sunday might make it easier to book the location,” Kendall said. “I mean, since most weddings are usually on Saturdays, and June is a pretty busy wedding month.”
“That's true,” agreed Megan.
“And you gotta admit that this is short notice for planning a wedding,” added Kendall. “Some people say you should start planning your wedding a whole year ahead of time.”
“Marcus's sister has been planning her wedding for more than a year,” Megan admitted. “Marcus says that Hannah is going to be a candidate for the Bridezillas show if she doesn't lighten up.”
They all laughed.
“Well, there's no way Gil and I are going to spend a year planning a wedding.” Lelani shook her head. “That's fine for some people, but we're more interested in our marriage than we are in our wedding.”
“I hear you.” Kendall laughed and patted her slightly rounded belly. She was in her fifth month of the pregnancy. They all knew that she and her Maui man, Killiki, were corresponding regularly, but despite Kendall's high hopes there'd been no proposal.
“I really don't see why it should take a year to plan a wedding,” Megan admitted. “I think that's just the wedding industry's way of lining their pockets.”
“So how much planning time do you have now anyway?” Kendall asked Lelani. “Like three months?”
“Not even.” Lelani flipped the calendar pages back. “It's barely two now.”
“Which is why we need to nail this date today,” Megan said. “Even though it's a small wedding--”
“And that remains to be seen,” Anna reminded her. “My mother's list keeps growing and growing and growing.”
“I still think it might be easier to just elope,” Lelani reminded them. “I told Gil that I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.”
“Yes, that would be brilliant.” Anna firmly shook her head. “You can just imagine how absolutely thrilled Mom would be about that little idea.”
Lelani smiled. “I actually thought she'd be relieved.”
“That might've been true a few months ago. But Mom's changing.” Anna poked Lelani in the arm. “In fact, I'm starting to feel jealous. I think she likes you better than me now.”
Lelani giggled. “In your dreams, Anna. Your mother just puts up with me so she can have access to Emma.”
They all laughed about that. Everyone knew that Mrs. Mendez was crazy about her soon-to-be granddaughter. Already she'd bought Emma all kinds of clothes and toys and seemed totally intent on spoiling the child rotten.
“Speaking of Emma”--Kendall shook her finger--“Mrs. Mendez is certain that she's supposed to have her on Monday. But I thought it was my day.”
“I'm not sure,” Lelani admitted. “But I'll call and find out.”
“And while you've got Granny on the line,” continued Kendall, “tell her that I do know how to change diapers properly. One more diaper lecture and I might just tape a Pamper over that big mouth of hers. Sheesh!”
They all laughed again. Since coming home from Maui, Kendall had been complaining about how Mrs. Mendez always seemed to find fault with Kendall's childcare abilities. In fact, Mrs. Mendez had spent the first week “teaching” Kendall the “proper” way to do almost everything.
To be fair, Megan didn't blame the older woman. Megan had been a little worried about Kendall too. But to everyone's surprise, Kendall turned out to be rather maternal. Whether it had to do with her own pregnancy or a hidden talent, Megan couldn't decide, but Kendall's skill had been a huge relief.
“Now, back to the wedding date,” said Lelani.
“Yes,” agreed Megan. “What about earlier on Saturday?”
“Oh, no,” Anna said. “I just remembered that I promised Edmond I'd go to his brother's bar mitzvah on that same day--I think it's in the morning.”
Lelani groaned.
“Edmond's brother?” Megan frowned. “I thought he was an only child. And since when is he Jewish?”
“Remember, his mom remarried,” Anna told her. “And Philip Goldstein, her new husband, is Jewish, and he has a son named Ben whose bar mitzvah is that Saturday.” She sighed. “I'm sorry, Lelani.”
“So Saturday morning is kaput,” Megan said.
“And Lelani wanted a sunset wedding anyway,” Anna repeated.
“So why can't you have a sunset wedding on Sunday?” Kendall suggested.
“That's an idea.” Megan turned back to Lelani. “What do you think?”
Lelani nodded. “I think that could work.”
“And here's another idea!” Anna exclaimed. “If the wedding was on Sunday night, you could probably have the reception in the restaurant afterward. I'm guessing it would be late by the time the wedding was over, and Sunday's not exactly a busy night.”
Lelani looked hopeful. “Do you think your parents would mind?”
“Mind? Are you kidding? That's what my mother lives for.”
“But we still don't have a place picked for the wedding,” Megan said.
“I have several outdoor locations in mind. I'll start checking on them tomorrow.”
“We'll have to pray that it doesn't rain.” Megan penned 'Lelani and Gil's Wedding' in her date book, then closed it.
“Should there be a backup plan?” asked Anna. “I'm sure my parents could have the wedding at their house.”
“Or here,” suggested Kendall. “You can use this house if you want.”
Anna frowned. “It's kind of small, don't you think?”
“I think it's sweet of Kendall to offer.” Lelani smiled at Kendall.
“I can imagine a bride coming down those stairs,” Kendall nodded toward the staircase. “I mean, if it was a small wedding.”
“I'll keep it in mind,” Lelani told her. “And your parents' house too.”
“It might be tricky getting a church reserved on a Sunday night,” Megan looked at the clock. “And speaking of that, I better get ready. Marcus is picking me up for the evening service in about fifteen minutes.” She turned back to Lelani. “Don't worry. I've got my to-do list and I'll start checking on some of this stuff tomorrow. My mom will want to help with the flowers.”
“And my aunt wants to make the cake,” Anna reminded them.
“Sounds like you're in good hands,” Kendall sad a bit wistfully. “I wonder how it would go if I was planning my wedding.”
“You'd be in good hands too,” Lelani assured her.
“Now, let's start going over that guest list,” Anna said as Megan stood up. “The sooner we get it finished, the less chance my mother will have of adding to it.” Megan was relieved that Anna had offered to handle the invitations. She could have them printed at the publishing company for a fraction of the price that a regular printer would charge, and hopefully she'd get them sent out in the next couple of weeks.
As Megan changed from her weekend sweats into something presentable, she wondered what would happen with Lelani's parents when it was time for the big event. Although her dad had promised to come and was already committed to paying Lelani's tuition to finish med school, Lelani's mom was still giving Lelani the cold shoulder. Make that the ice shoulder. For a woman who lived in the tropics, Mrs. Porter was about as chilly as they come. Still, Lelani had friends to lean on. Maybe that was better than family at times.
“Your prince is here,” Kendall called into Megan's room.
“Thanks.” Megan was looking for her other loafer and thinking it was time to organize her closet again. “Tell him I'm coming.”
When Megan came out, Marcus was in the dining room, chatting with her housemates like one of the family. He was teasing Anna for having her hair in curlers, then joking with Kendall about whether her Maui man had called her today.
“Not yet,” Kendall told him with a little frown. “But don't forget the time-zone thing. It's earlier there.”
“Speaking of time zones,” Lelani said to Marcus. “Did I hear you're actually thinking about going to Africa?”
Marcus grinned and nodded. “Yeah, Greg Mercer, this guy at our church, is trying to put together a mission trip to Zambia. I might go too.”
“Wow, that's a long ways away.” Kendall turned to Megan. “How do you feel about that?”
Megan shrugged as she pulled on her denim jacket. “I think it's cool.”
“Are you coming with us to church tonight, Kendall?” Marcus asked. “Greg is going to show a video about Zambia.”
“Sorry to miss that,” Kendall told him. “But Killiki is supposed to call.”
“Ready to roll?” Megan nodded up to the clock.
He grinned at her. “Yep.” But before they went out, he turned around. “That is, unless anyone else wants to come tonight.”
Lelani and Anna thanked him but said they had plans. Even so, Megan was glad he'd asked. It was nice when Kendall came with them occasionally. And Lelani had come once too. Really, it seemed that God was at work at 86 Bloomberg Place. Things had changed a lot since last fall.
“So are you nervous?” Marcus asked as he drove toward the city.
“Nervous?” Megan frowned. “About church?”
“No. The big interview.”
Megan slapped her forehead. “Wow, I temporarily forgot. We were so obsessed with Lelani's wedding today, trying to make lists, plan everything, and settle the date … I put the interview totally out of my mind.”
“Hopefully, it won't be out of your mind by Monday.”
“No, of course not.”
“So … are you nervous?”
Megan considered this. It would be her first interview for a teaching job. And it was a little unsettling. “The truth is, I don't think I have a chance at the job,” she admitted. “And, yes, I'm nervous. Thanks for reminding me.”
“Sorry. Why don't you think you'll get the job?”
“Because I don't have any actual teaching experience.” She wanted to add duh, but thought it sounded a little juvenile.
“Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“But starting in middle school, just a couple of months before the school year ends? Don't you think they'll want someone who knows what they're doing?”
“Unless they want someone who's enthusiastic and energetic and smart and creative and who likes kids and had lots of great new ideas and--”
“Wow, any chance you could do the interview in my place?”
“Cross-dress and pretend I'm you?”
She laughed. “Funny.”
“Just have confidence, Megan. Believe in yourself and make them believe too. You'd be great as a middle-school teacher.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I remember middle school.”
“And?”
“And most of my teachers were old and dull and boring.”
“That's sad.”
“And I would've loved having someone like you for a teacher.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. If I was thirteen, I'd probably sit right in the front row and think about how hot you were, and then I'd start fantasizing about--”
“Marcus Barrett, you're pathetic.” Just the same, she laughed.
“What can I say? I'm just a normal, warm-blooded, American kid.”
“Give me a break!” She punched him in the arm.
“Is that your phone?” he asked as he was parking outside of the church.
“Oh, yeah, a good reminder to turn it off.” She pulled it out to see it was Kendall. Megan hoped nothing was wrong. “Hey, Kendall,” she said as Marcus set the parking brake. “What's up?”
“Guess what?” shrieked Kendall.
“I have no idea what, but it sounds like good news.” She stepped out of the car.
“Killiki just called.”
“That's nice.”
“And he asked me to marry him!”
Megan raised her eyebrows and looked at Marcus as he came around to meet her. “And you said yes?”
“Of course! Do you think I'm crazy?”
“No. Not at all. Congratulations, Kendall. I mean, I guess that's what you say.”
“So now we have two weddings to plan.”
Megan blinked. She walked with Marcus toward the church entry. “Oh, yeah, I guess we do.”
“And I'm getting married in June too!”
“That's great, Kendall. I'm really, really happy for you. And Killiki seems like a great guy.”
“He is! Anyway, we just looked at the calendar again. And we finally figured that I should just get married the same day as Lelani, only I'll get married in the morning. That way we'll all be able to go to both weddings.”
“Wow, the same day?”
“Otherwise, you'll be at your reunion or Marcus's sister's wedding. Or Anna will be at the bar mitzvah. Or Lelani and Gil will be on their honeymoon.”
“Oh, that's right.”
“And I want all of you there!”
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
“It'll be busy, but fun.”
“Definitely.” Then Megan thanked Kendall for telling her, and they said good-bye. Megan closed her phone and just shook her head. “Wow.”
“Kendall's getting married?” asked Marcus as he held the church door open for her.
“Yes. Can you believe it?”
“Good for her.”
“And her wedding will be the same weekend as your sister's and the same day as Lelani's.”
Marcus held up three fingers and wore a perplexed expression. “Three weddings in one weekend? That's crazy.”
“Yep.” Megan nodded. “Three weddings and a bar mitzvah.”
“Huh?” Marcus looked confused, but they were in the sanctuary, and Megan knew she'd have to explain later.
Three Weddings and a Bar Mitzvah by Melody Carlson is the fourth and final book in the 86 Bloomberg Place series. Lelani and Gil are trying to put their wedding together around the interference of his mother. Kendall's surprise proposal from Killiki inspires her to get married on the same day, which puts all four housemates into a whirl of excitement, especially when you throw in relationship troubles for Anna and Meghan! Carlson has really developed these four young women throughout the course of the series from selfish and immature to generous and faithful. Kendall's growth has been exceptional; in the first couple of books, I could barely read her scenes, but by this volume, I couldn't wait to read more about her. Carlson portrays real friendships and family relationships with all of their ups and downs, insecurities, loyalties, and sacrifices. I'm so glad that I spent time at 86 Bloomberg Place!
I'm running a book contest this week for two of Karen Kingsbury's terrific children's book. The Princess and the Three Knights and We Believe in Christmas are both beautifully illustrated and will become family favorites in no time! If you'd like the chance to win, just send me an email before 10 pm on Thursday, October 1st. I'll announce the winner here on Friday. Good luck!
Today marks the return of Mia & Mommy's Book Blog. She had a busy weekend watching movies with her big sister and spending the day with her Grandma & Grandpa Lockstein today. It's so good for her to get out of the house! It's good for me too! The Princess and the Three Knights by Karen Kingsbury and Gabrielle Grimard is a beautifully illustrated fairy tale that will quickly become a family favorite. First, here are Mia's feelings about the book: I like it, I like the whole thing. The artwork is wonderful and fantastic. I learned that love always protects. My favorite part in the whole book was the happily ever after, because the princess and her husband looked so happy. I definitely want to keep this book forever! It makes me feel happy, and I love the book! Now my thoughts: Grimard's illustrations are just gorgeous and perfectly capture the fairy tale feel with an extra dose of pink to thrill its feminine readers. Kingsbury writes in the voice of classic fairy tales giving the book a timeless appeal. Her message of love always protecting is an important one to emphasize to little girls, and she does it with Scripture and through example. It's a book that will please both parents and their daughters.
I'm giving away a copy of this book AND Kingsbury's We Believe in Christmas, another terrific picture book. If you'd like the chance to win, just send me an email before 10 pm on Thursday Oct. 1st. I'll announce the winner here on Friday. Good luck!
Today is one of those days where every plan I made for it has fallen apart. My schedule for today was: 8 am wake up and get dressed 8:30 take Molly to work 9 am-11:30 am run errands in town and catch up on some reading while waiting for Molly to get done with work 12 pm make a quick lunch 12:30 pm-3 pm laundry, clean living room, bedroom, and bathroom 3-4 pm make dessert for Mom's birthday and run it over to her house 4:30 blog 5 pm make delicious supper 7 pm shower and rest, maybe watch a movie with my handsome husband
Instead this was my day: 8 am wake up and get dressed, take an extra pain pill 8:30 take Molly to work 9-10 am run errands, take another pain pill 10:15 arrive home crying from the pain 10:30-now lie in bed sleeping and reading, trying to ignore the pain
I am a control freak, although I have been getting much better over the last few years. God has really used my arthritis to soften my rough edges, and that was one of the sharpest. It used to be on a day like today when I couldn't get everything done that I wanted to, I would make a list for the rest of the family to get it done and snap like a drill sergeant to get them to do it. Needless to say, it made everyone in the house miserable. The years have made me learn the value of letting go. Last night, I could feel the pain seeping into my joints (I'm sure it's because of the major change in weather), my prayer was this: strength to get done all I wanted to, and if that prayer wasn't to be, then the grace to release all of it. God did not answer the first prayer, but He most definitely answered the second one.
Jesse told me this afternoon that he can't count the number of times that he has prayed for God to relieve me of this pain, and he said, "It's the one prayer He's never answered. Not once." I know that it's an issue that Jesse continues to struggle with in his prayer life; he's angry for my sake that God doesn't take it away. But I've learned that God sees the much bigger picture, and that the pain has been necessary to shape me into the person He wants me to be. It was 5 years ago on Thursday that my battle with RA began, and I would never want to go back to the person I was 5 years ago before the pain.
So today I will settle for resting in bed and hopefully I will still get to watch a movie tonight with my handsome hubby.
The Diversity Culture by Matthew Raley is a paradigm changing book about how evangelicals need to address the world. Raley frames the book between two encounters: Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well and a anti-Christian Buddhist career woman and a Baptist look-a-like with a Chuck Colson book at a neighborhood coffee house. Raley does an excellent job of describing how today's culture has changed remarkably in the last 50 years. It's nearly impossible to stereotype people strictly by their clothing, because Americans take delight in not fitting into neat boxes. Evangelical Christians have for the most part rejected this diversity as frightening and the enemy. The bookshelves at religious stores are heavy with books about how to answer questions from non-believers and defend against verbal attacks, but Raley turns the concept upside down by carefully breaking down the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well. She came from a culture that was opposed to the Jews and had a history that made her bitter and angry at most religion. Jesus didn't reject or accept her views, but created a relationship with her that allowed him to confront her on a much deeper level. Both Christians and atheists/agnostics have become bunkered down in a fear mentality of us vs them. Raley gives essential keys to breaking through the walls that divide us without ever surrendering our faith.
Today's picture is from LOLCats. It made me smile, so I hope it makes you smile today too!
It's been a rough couple of weeks for me. I wasn't sleeping through nights so the doctor upped my pain meds. That has helped me get through the night, but I'm tired all the time now. And with the change in weather, my pain is at its peak. I am missing Molly's singing of the National Anthem tonight at the football game, plus her cheering at it. I'm not sure who is more disappointed: me or her.
So it's times like this that I count my blessings. Like Mia's love of the kittens at my mom's. She's been spending time over there as often as she can, especially with the little black one in the picture named Midnight. Last weekend, Mia was sitting outside, rocking her contentedly. She ran into the house in a full-blown panic, "Grandma, Grandma! Something's wrong with Midnight! She won't stop shaking!" Mom ran outside only to discover that the kitten was purring! How sweet is that?
Mom and I have been making good money on eBay, and it's been helping to make us a little less financially tight. I'm hoping that we can keep up our success so that I can do all of my Christmas shopping with it.
I love autumn; it is my favorite season of the year, because there's such a feeling of expectancy in the air. The leaves are just starting to change color, and I love the crispness in the wind. One of my favorite things to see in the fall since we moved here are the big hibiscus flowers. When fully opened they are the size of a dinner plate. Jesse's grandma planted them over 30 years ago, and their bright faces greeted me when we first moved in three years ago. Little things that make me call myself blessed.
If God is Good by Randy Alcorn is a stunning must read. Recent years have seen several books attacking Christianity, and much of the arguments against the existence of God are based upon the presence of evil and suffering within the world. Alcorn spent years pulling together materials to support his thesis that of course God is good, and that He has a reason for the suffering we face. Through liberal usage of Scripture as well as commentaries by lots of theologians, he offers case after case for the goodness of God. I kept a pen and pad of paper next to me while reading this book, because there is an astonishing amount of wisdom here. For Christians struggling with this issue themselves, this offers answers. For those suffering, it offers hope, and for those who question God on this basis, it will force them to question their certainty. This is a book you truly need to read for yourself because it is certain to become a pivotal book in Christian theology.
The winner of The Great Christmas Bowl is Ginny O'Harrow. Congrats Ginny! Mia and I will be running a Mia & Mommy's Book Blog on Sunday, and we'll kick off a new contest then. Have a great weekend!
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Susan May Warren is the award-winning author of seventeen novels and novellas with Tyndale, Steeple Hill and Barbour Publishing. Her first book, Happily Ever After won the American Fiction Christian Writers Book of the Year in 2003, and was a 2003 Christy Award finalist. In Sheep’s Clothing, a thriller set in Russia, was a 2006 Christy Award finalist and won the 2006 Inspirational Reader’s Choice award. A former missionary to Russia, Susan May Warren now writes Suspense/Romance and Chick Lit full time from her home in northern Minnesota.
List Price: $9.99 Paperback: 176 pages Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (August 17, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 1414326785 ISBN-13: 978-1414326788
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
I’ve always been a football fan, the kind of woman who could easily find herself parked on the sofa any given Sunday afternoon, rooting for my favorite team. I’ve never been a gambler, never played fantasy football, never followed my team during the hot summer months. I’m a fall-season-until-Super-Bowl-only fan, but die-hard nonetheless. Something about investing my emotions for three hours in the fate of eleven men dressed in purple tights soothes my busy spirit.
Having given birth to three sons, I dreamed I’d have the makings of a starring offensive lineup. My oldest son, Neil, would play quarterback; Brett would be a running back; and my youngest, Kevin, would be a wide receiver. My daughters and I would lead cheers from the stands. My husband, Mike, who had played in our hometown high school and helped bring them to state in his senior year, would help coach. We’d be a football family, training with weights and running in the off-season. We’d plan our vacations around summer practices, and I’d join the booster club, maybe sell raffle tickets, even host the end-of-the-year potluck.
If girls could have played football in our tiny town, I know that Brianna and Amy would have joined the team. They became my cohorts, huddling under stadium blankets and clapping their mittens together as we cheered our high school team to victory.
Alas, Neil joined chess club, and Brett became a lead in the school plays.
The football gene seemed to have eluded even our youngest son. A boy who would rather sit on the sofa moving his thumbs in furious online game playing as his only form of exercise, Kevin didn’t possess even a hint of interest in football. I knew he’d inherited some athleticism, as evidenced by the discarded sports equipment left in his wake over the years: hockey skates, pads, helmet, basketball shoes, a tennis racket, a baseball glove. All abandoned after one season of hopeful use.
The only sport that seemed to take had been soccer. For three years I entered into the world of soccer mom, investing in my own foldout chair and a cooler. Perhaps it was his boundless energy that allowed him to play nearly the entire game, but Kevin had a knack for getting the ball in the net. Too bad our community soccer program ended at sixth grade, because Big Lake might have had its very own star. I’d hoped his interest would transfer to football, the other fall sport, but the old pigskin seemed as interesting to Kevin as cleaning his room.
Meanwhile, Neil, Brett, Brianna, and Amy graduated and moved out of the house, bound for college—most obtaining scholarships, much to the relief of my overworked, underpaid EMT husband. By the time Kevin moved into Neil’s basement teen hangout room, Neil was married and working as a CPA in Milwaukee, Brett was doing commercials in Chicago, Brianna had started graduate school for psychology, and Amy was studying abroad in London.
I worried for Kevin as he approached his senior year, envisioning him taking on a post–high school job at the local Dairy Queen while he honed his gaming skills, waiting for his future to somehow find him in the dark recesses of our basement amid his piled dirty clothing, his unmade bed, and the debris of pizza cartons. How I longed for him to grow up.
So the day he came home from school clutching a medical release form for football in his hand, I wondered if perhaps he had a high fever and needed immediate hospitalization.
“I’ve been thinking of playing for a while,” he said, shrugging. “It’s my last chance.”
Summertime had begun its slide into fall, the northern nights cooling. In two short months, we’d have our first snowfall. As I stared at my son—his stringy blond hair, his muscles that just needed toning, the way his gaze slid away from me and onto the floor—I wondered if he expected me to say no.
I took the pen and signed the form without reading it.
Teenage sons are often difficult to encourage. Instead of erupting into a wild jig of joy in the middle of the kitchen, I took the subtle route. I purchased football cleats and set them by the door to his room. I filled his water bottle every morning, packing it with ice, then slipping it into his backpack. I started baking pot roasts and cutting him the largest piece. I bought Bengay, put it on his pillow. I set vitamins out for him at breakfast.
And sometimes, yes, I snuck up in my SUV and sat at the edge of the field, behind the goalposts, watching practice.
My son had talent. A lot of talent. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Our residence in a small town played to Kevin’s odds, and being bigger and faster than most of his teammates made up for his inability to block. Coach Grant started him at tackle, then moved him to fullback, then, after noting his ability to twist out of a hold (thanks to years of wrestling for the remote control with his brothers), landed him at tailback.
To my silent glee, my son had the moves of Walter Payton and could dance his way up the field, leaping opponents, breaking tackles, and generally restoring my faith in the Wallace family football gene. I couldn’t wait for the season to start. Finally, I had a Big Lake Trout.
I purchased a season pass. A stadium cushion. A foam finger.
I was the first one in the gates on the day of the season opener. Mike stood on the sidelines next to the requisite ambulance, something that I’d always noted but never fully appreciated until now.
He waved to me as I plopped down my cushion, pulled my red and black stadium blanket over my knees, and wrestled out my digital camera, prepared to capture every moment of my son’s magnificent run to victory. Mike had taken Kevin out for dinner the night before for what I hoped would be a pep talk/strategic-planning session. I wasn’t the only one holding tightly to silent hopes.
“You’re here early.”
I looked up from reviewing shots of Brianna’s college graduation to see Bud Finlaysen greeting me from the field. Bundled in orange hunting coveralls as an undergarment, he wore over the top the shiny black and silver costume of the Big Lake Trout team mascot. Bud had served as the Trout since what I assumed was the dawn of time, or at least the game of football, and we needed him like summer needs lemonade. He and his fish costume comprised the entirety of our cheerleading squad. Our cheerleaders had defected three years prior, and despite the efforts of our paltry pep band, we were woefully lacking in sideline team spirit.
Bud held his headpiece under one arm, the gargantuan mouth gaping open. When worn, his face showed through the open mouth, the enormous fishy eyes googling out from atop his head, a spiky dorsal fin running along his back. He’d shove his hands into two front fins that sparkled with shiny silver material. The costume split at the bottom for his black boots, and a tail dragged behind him like a medieval dragon. Once fitted together, the Big Lake Trout towered nearly eight feet tall, although with the tail, it easily measured over ten. Ten feet of aquatic terror.
“I have a son playing tailback,” I said, holding up my camera and taking a shot of Bud. “Gotta get a good seat.”
Bud laughed. I remembered him from the days when I attended Big Lake High. He worked as the school janitor. Even then he seemed ancient, although he must have been only twenty years or so older than I was. Thin, with kind blue eyes and a hunch in his back, he’d drag his yellow mop bucket around the halls singing Christmas carols, even in May.
“Maybe this will be the year they go to state,” he said, pulling on his giant head. “They’ve got some good players.” He gave me a little wink, as if to suggest Kevin might be one of them.
I smiled, but inside I longed for his words to be true.
State champions. The Super Bowl of high school sports. I could barely think the words.
Bud moved up the field, where he stood at the gate, waiting for the team to pour out onto the field. I waved to friends as the stands filled. In a town of 1,300, a Friday night football game is the hot ticket. A coolness nipped the air, spiced with the bouquet of decaying leaves and someone grilling their last steaks of the season.
The band, a motley crew that took up four rows of seats, assembled. I hummed along as they warmed up with the school fight song.
Town grocer Gil Anderson manned the booth behind me and announced the team. I leaped to my feet in a display of disbelief and joy as the Trouts surged out of the school and onto the playing field.
Each player’s hand connected with one of Bud’s fins on the way to the field.
I spotted Kevin right off, big number 33. He looked enormous with his pads. As he stretched, I noted how lean and strong he’d become over the past six weeks of training. I held my breath as he took the sidelines, wishing for a start for him. To my shock, he took the field after the kickoff, just behind the offensive line.
I’ve never been one to hold back when it comes to football. I cheered my lungs out, pretty sure the team needed my sideline coaching. And when Kevin got the ball and ran it in for a touchdown, I pounded Gretchen Gilstrap on the shoulders in front of me. “That’s my son!”
She gave me a good-natured thumbs-up.
We won the game by two touchdowns and a field goal. As Kevin pulled off his helmet and looked for me in the stands, his blond hair sweaty and plastered to his face, I heard Bud’s words again: “Maybe this will be the year they go to state.”
What is it they always say? Be careful what you wish for?
***
“Amazing run on Friday!”
“I didn’t know your son could play football!”
“Kevin has his father’s moves—I remember when Mike took them all the way to state!”
I love my church. I stood in the foyer, receiving accolades for birthing such a stupendous athlete, smiling now and again at Kevin, who was closing up shop at the sound board that he ran every Sunday. Mike had already gone to get the car—his favorite “giddyap and out of church” maneuver. I still had more compliments to gather.
After all, Kevin had been a ten-pound baby. I get some credit.
I worked my way to the fellowship hall to pick up my empty pan. With eighty members, sixty attendees on a good Sunday, we took turns hosting the midmorning coffee break. I had whipped up a batch of my grandmother’s almond coffee cake.
Pastor Backlund stood by the door, and when I finally reached him, he grinned widely. “Great game, Marianne.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell Kevin you said so.”
“Must be strange to have your youngest be a senior this year.”
I was trying not to think about that, but yes, although I was thrilled to see Kevin move off the sofa and onto the playing field, I was dreading the inevitable quiet that would invade our home next year. I smiled tightly.
“I hope that will leave you more time to get involved at church?” His eyebrow quirked up, as if I’d been somehow delinquent over the past twenty-five years. I was mentally doing the math, summing up just how many years in a row I’d taught Sunday school, when he added, “Would you consider taking on the role of hospitality chairperson?”
“Hey, Mom!” Kevin appeared beside me. “Can I head over to Coach’s for lunch? A bunch of guys are getting together to talk about the game.”
I glanced at him, back to the pastor. “Sure.”
“Perfect,” Kevin said, disappearing out the door.
“Wonderful,” Pastor Backlund said, reaching for his next parishioner.
Mike, now spotting me, leaned on his horn.
I’d have to call the pastor later and politely decline his offer to let me take command of the weekly coffee break, the quarterly potluck, and most importantly, the annual Christmas Tea. The hospitality position came staffed with women decades older than I, who could teach even Martha Stewart a few things about stretching a budget and creating centerpieces. I’d rather lead a camping trip for two hundred toddlers through a mosquito-infested jungle.
“Be back by supper!” I hollered to Kevin as he slid into his friend’s sedan. He didn’t even look back.
I climbed into our SUV next to Mike. His thoughts had already moved on, probably to the training he would attend next weekend. Or maybe just to lunch. We rode home in silence. I noticed how the brilliant greens of the poplar trees had turned brown, the maples to red, the oaks to orange. The wind had already stripped some of the trees naked.
I could admit that my leaves had started to turn. But I wasn’t ready to shed them yet.
I pressed my lips together and silently begged the winter winds to tarry.
The Great Christmas Bowl by Susan May Warren is everything that a holiday novella should be! Marianne Walker lives for Christmas when her children are all home and they fulfill the traditions they've spent a lifetime building. But this year promises to be a bit different: her youngest son, Kevin, has made the high school football team which is on its way to the state championships, her husband, Mike, volunteers her to the the church's hospitality chairman which puts her in charge of the annual Christmas Tea, and one by one, her children start to cancel on her plans for Christmas. When Kevin volunteers her to serve as the team mascot, a trout, she has two choices: go into it with anger and bitterness or embrace the role. Lucky for Big Lake, Minnesota, and the reader, she embraces it, making for plenty of hilarious pratfalls. Only a Scrooge could make it through the last couple of chapters without tearing up! Most holiday novellas, go for sentiment or a message over content, but Warren shoots right for the heart with humor and faith. She keeps it true by remembering the reason for the season, but also by creating a real character in Marianne.
I'm giving away a copy of this book tonight at 10 pm. If you'd like the chance to win, just send me an email! I'll announce the winner tomorrow.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Greg Garrett is a popular writer, teacher, speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and media guest. The critically acclaimed author of the novels Free Bird, Cycling, and Shame, the memoir Crossing Myself, numerous nonfiction books on faith, culture, and narrative, and an array of essays, articles, reviews, and lessons, Greg is also a primary writer for the Scripture project The Voice. An award-winning professor of English at Baylor University, Greg serves the church as Writer in Residence for the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest and as a lay preacher at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas.
List Price: $12.99 Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 208 Vendor: David C. Cook (2009) ISBN: 1434767965 ISBN-13: 9781434767967
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
No Idea
At the Ranch
It's sometimes a challenge to know where to start a story. My fiction-writing students are always asking me where to begin, and I usually tell them, “As late as possible. Right when things start to happen and not a moment before.”
Of course, when you're telling your own story, it can be harder to know exactly when that moment occurs. Is it in the big events of our lives, the births and deaths?
Or is it the moment that you have a realization that changes you?
It had been raining all afternoon at Ghost Ranch, sometimes just a spatter of drops, sometimes a torrent. I had been writing since mid morning and hoped to take a break and go out on my bike--why was it raining in the desert?--but the rain kept falling, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always steady. So I worked until late afternoon, when I finished a draft of the chapter I was working on. Then I put on my anorak and walked out from Casa del Sol, the isolated retreat center where I was staying on the ranch, and down to the nearby creek, mud clumping on the bottom of my Tevas, my feet gathering weight as I walked, rain tapping on the hood of my jacket. The old timber bridge down at the creek was shuddering with the violence of the water rushing beneath it. Most summers the creek was a tiny trickle of clear water over stones far below, or even just dry creek bed. Now it was a fast-flowing brown liquid, not quite as thick as chocolate pudding, but certainly thicker than chocolate milk, and it was swooshing by just a few feet below me. Down at the next bend, the current had washed out a bank and pulled a tall cedar into the water--a tree that had lasted for long years in the desert, and now was going to drown.
I felt bad for the tree. But I felt good away from the computer, out in the rain and the cool air, and I walked across hillsides and up at last onto a mesa across from the painted rock that surrounds Ghost Ranch. People have been traveling here from all across the country for at least eighty years to see this sight, and one of them, the great painter Georgia O'Keefe, had actually strong-armed the ranch into selling her the house across the valley from where I stood, a place where she painted some of her best-known landscapes.
Man, I am so lucky to get to see this, I thought as I looked out across the valley at the multicolored cliffs of sandstone, at the dark gray clouds behind and above them.
Then I saw a jagged flash of lightning, heard the thunder follow a second or less afterward, and knew that I was in real danger. There were no trees anywhere near, and I was the tallest thing for some distance; never a good thing when there's lightning around. So, bent over like Groucho Marx--if Groucho Marx were also a sprinter--I dashed across the pasture, panting with the altitude (Ghost Ranch is 5500 feet higher than Austin, Texas, where I still live), rain pattering off my head and shoulders.
I clambered down hills and climbed with some delicacy over a barbed wire fence. I followed a pickup track back to where I had diverged from the road, and by then it was raining harder.
When I got back down to the bridge, where I was surrounded by lots of things taller than me, I felt some relief. But I also paused for a second, smiling as the rain ran down my face and cold down my back. And then I started laughing.
I wished I'd been able to see myself on the mesa, ducking and running as I made a dash for safety, and I could still feel that pinprick of fear that had grown at the thought of not seeing my boys or my Martha again, of not finishing the book sitting on the table in the common room in Casa del Sol.
I laughed again, and the rain came down in sheets as I made the long walk back. I was soaked and chilled to the bone and amazed at how much I loved being alive.
I laughed, although not because I found the thought of getting struck by lightning funny--or because I enjoy courting pneumonia. But one of the things you will need to know about me if we are going to walk together is that not so long ago, if I'd been up on the mesa with lightning flashing around me, I probably would not have been induced to quicken my pace back to the ranch. During long stretches of my life, I had very little interest in preserving my life, and for some few horrible years I actively thought about ending it, and so this storm would have seemed like a godsend.
Bring it on, I would have told God. I'm ready whenever you are.
No, I laughed now because I was alive, and because I received that life as a gift and wanted to protect it--and because I know how much I have to live for, and because I know more than most how wonderful it is to feel this way, even with red-spattered legs and cold mud squishing between my toes and cold water running down the small of my back.
But then I always seem to be having these flash-epiphanies at Ghost Ranch, which shouldn't surprise anyone, since that is why it exists. Formally speaking, Ghost Ranch is a conference center in the high desert of northern New Mexico affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, and it has been since its former owners, the Packs, gave it to the Church in the 1950s. Informally speaking, Ghost Ranch is a thin place, a nexus, a site where people have come and returned, because they felt something beautiful and sacred when they were here.
The guest list over the years has been a cross section of American culture. First there were cattle rustlers, and then ranchers, and then the property became a dude ranch. The DuPont family built a summer home here in the 1930s after the Lindbergh kidnapping freaked out the rich and famous and sent them seeking safe havens. Cary Grant visited several times over several summers. The atomic big brains working on the Manhattan Project down in Los Alamos came to the ranch under assumed names for R & R while they were trying to perfect how to make things go boom.
And then there was O'Keefe, who lived here or in her home in nearby Abiquiu for something like sixty years while she painted the play of light across the cliffs and the texture of skull on desert sand and the flat-topped mountain, Pedernal, which dominates the skyline across the valley.
The first time I came to Ghost Ranch was in the summer of 2001, in the midst of that dark period when I was wondering if I might find a way to stop hurting myself and everyone who loved me, preferably a permanent solution that would leave at least a nagging doubt about whether or not I had meant to kill myself.
I had been camping in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains two hours away, hiking, thinking, and trying hard to get a handle on the life that seemed to have flown as completely out of my control as a rain-swelled stream in a desert arroyo. I could almost grasp it--I was at the point of having some conscious understanding of how my depression worked and what it was costing me--but I could not imagine how I could possibly have the strength or the energy to stagger on much further--and healing? Well, healing seemed completely out of my control, as of course it was.
My writer friend Joan Logghe had invited me to talk to a writing class she was teaching at Ghost Ranch, and that, at least, I could manage. I was, as they say, high functioning, even during my least-functional periods. In public, at least. So I expected to come to this place called Ghost Ranch, be clever and funny and maybe the tiniest bit wise for Joanie's class, and then go curl up in a dark room somewhere.
But on the drive from the Sangre de Cristos, the landscape turned from desert to textured and colored rock, and even the light seemed different, more intense, more luminous, which I know doesn't make any sense, but how else can I account for pulling up over the top of the rise and seeing the multicolored cliffs--the Piedra de Lumbre, or Valley of Shining Stones--spread out in front of me, and knowing immediately that it was one of the most holy places I had ever been?
“In the desert you can remember your name,”1 America sang, and this may be true. But what's even truer is this: In the desert, you must remember your name. There's nowhere to hide. What you see is what you are.
And once you get used to that, an amazing freedom emerges from not having to pretend--or even being able to pretend.
I pulled into the main campus, a pocket of green in the midst of the sand and colored rock and met Joan and talked to her class, and all that day I felt peaceful, as though I had entered a place where the normal rules of my life no longer applied. That night I sat under a tree on the grass with Joan and some of her friends, and they had mixed a pitcher of margaritas; one of them who had heard the sad story of “my life so far” formed an attachment to me as one might to a wounded puppy, and we stayed up talking while the stars came out, big and bright and so close to earth you could make some kind of haul with a butterfly net.
It was a magical day and a magical night, and I've been coming to the desert ever since. I connived my way into teaching a writing class at the ranch the next summer and began coming a couple times a year to write, something I still do for at least part of every book I've written since (including, obviously, this one).
And it was in the summer of 2003, on my way to finish a novel at Ghost Ranch, that I realized the depression that had bedeviled me for years was gone--that, as Jesus told the woman who touched the hem of his garment, I could go in peace: I was healed. As I got closer, the sky seemed bluer, the mesas even more colorful, and when I reached Ghost Ranch, I was ready to celebrate. For one of the first times in my adult life, I was experiencing joy, real out-of-the box joy.
So although I come to Ghost Ranch to do hard work, writing or teaching or leading people on spiritual retreats, I also come here because I continue to experience that joy and the same sense of being on holy ground.
One of the things that resulted from my survival is that I have gained a real and living faith, and have become both very spiritual--which wouldn't surprise the old me much--and very religious, which would surprise the old me and everyone else who knew the old me. In the years since I decided to live, I've gone to seminary; I've studied Christian history, theology, and tradition; and now I know that in the Jewish and Christian traditions, people have always gone to the desert or passed through the desert to get themselves sorted out, to come to the realizations that will change their lives.
Abraham crossed the desert to reach the land to which God was calling him. Moses heard the voice of God from a burning bush while he was in the desert, and he led the children of Israel back through the desert so that they would be purified by the time they reached the land God had promised them.
One of the most important stories about desert testing in the Bible is that of Jesus' temptation. It immediately follows the account of Jesus' baptism at the hands of John the Prophet in the three Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), and it seems to do what desert has always done--to serve as a place where people can look hard at themselves and at the world, and see what they need to keep and what they can dispense with:
Filled then with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan River and the Spirit led Him into the desert, where for forty days He was tested by the Devil. During that time, He did not eat, and by the end, He was starving.
Then the Devil told Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”
But Jesus answered, “Scripture tells us human beings do not live merely on bread.”
Then the Devil raised Jesus high and instantly showed Him all the nations of the world. “I will give You all this power and glory,” he told Jesus, “for it has been given into my hands, and I can give it to anyone I choose. Bow down and pay me homage, and it will all belong to You.”
But Jesus answered, “Scripture tells us, give homage only to God, and serve only Him.”
Then the Devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and raised Him to the top of the temple. “If You are the Son of God,” he said, “then throw Yourself down from here, for Scripture tells us that God has given the angels orders to guard You and keep You safe. They will lift You in their arms so that You will not even stub your toe.”
But Jesus answered, “Scripture tells us, do not test the Lord your God.”
When the Devil had exhausted every test, he left until the right moment, and Jesus, carrying the power of the Spirit in Him, returned to Galilee. (Luke 4:1-14a)2
Jesus is tempted with material things, with power, and with glory, but He passes the tests (every test, the Scriptures tell us) with flying colors. In His responses, Jesus reveals that if life isn't centered in and on God, it's not life at all, and He walks out of the wilderness and back into the world, knowing at last who He is and what He's called to do.
Now, I'm no Jesus. Not that anyone has confused us. But one thing we do have in common is an experience of the desert, both the physical one and the metaphysical one. Jesus responded much better than I did to both. But in my own life too, the desert experience has been a crucible that burned away everything that didn't matter and left just the tiny sliver of me that did matter still. It's been a preparation for what comes next. And in the lives of many people I love, it's been the place they've had to pass through before they could enter into the land of promise.
My dear friend Roger Joslin had waited for what must have seemed like half a lifetime--and it had certainly been the entire lifetime of our friendship--for ordination into the Episcopal priesthood. Of all my friends from seminary, it was Roger whose path seemed longest and most difficult, and his desert experiences had direct parallels in my life.
So I took joy in Roger's ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of Arkansas--for him certainly, although a part of me was also celebrating the possibility that someone like Roger could be-- had been--faithful to a process that bounces you around like dice in a cup before releasing you at last into the life you're meant to lead.
My son Chandler and I had driven across a big chunk of Texas, Oklahoma, and part of Arkansas to be at his ordination--just as we had been there in northwestern Arkansas when Roger was ordained as a deacon, an intermediary step on the road to becoming a priest in the Anglican tradition. Sometime after that ceremony, Roger told me about the ritual itself, which involves the laying on of hands of a bishop and as many priests as happen to be present. When there are a lot of them, as there had been when Roger was ordained, it looks a little like a rugby scrum, all these hands reaching in and down onto something--in this case, Roger himself.
“Man,” Roger told me later, “I have to tell you, there was a second there when I was scared to death. I felt all this weight pushing down on me, and I thought it was going to flatten me. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get up.”
Roger did get up, of course, and has served with passion and joy in Bentonville, Arkansas, where he has planted a countercultural Christian community in the home of the largest corporation in the history of the world, Wal-Mart. But that image of hands, of weight, has stayed with me. Even though others among my priest friends have said that their ordination experience didn't feel like Roger's, this is what I imagine it might feel like for me, because I think the call to serve God is about as serious a call as there is, and if you don't imagine the weight, then maybe you should.
When I was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in December of 2003, the bishop laid his hands on my head, and as he inducted me into the life of the Church, I felt pressure and heat, half-expecting marks on my temples when he lifted his hands away. The bishop who confirmed me is no longer in the Church, and the place where I was confirmed was not my home congregation of St. James in Austin, but nonetheless it was a strange and holy experience that left me temporarily stranded between worlds.
When I came back into this one, after a confirmation lunch with my friend Carissa and our fellow St. James parishioner Ora, I continued to think about what I was supposed to be doing in this life and how I could be faithful to a God who had saved my life and given me purpose.
Ten years ago, if you'd told me my life would be filled with people who are priests and pastors--if you'd told me that I'd even be hanging around with devout Christians--I would have laughed in your face, and it would not have been a joyful laugh like my caught-in-a-thunderstorm laugh. (If I even felt capable of laughing, that is--in those days, I rarely was.) But since I came into the Church, my life has increasingly centered around trying to discover and do what God wants me to do, and so not surprisingly, I find my pathway crowded with other people who are trying to do what God wants them to do--which naturally includes a disproportionate number of Professional Christians.
The Christian tradition tells us that we are all called to follow Jesus, and in my tradition, we are taught that the job of priests and other ministers of the church is to equip all believers for ministry to the world. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who gave his life in the struggle against Hitler, observed that most people ignore the call or act as if only Professional Christians need to pay attention to it, that a simple belief in God and God's saving grace is enough. Bonhoeffer's famous term for the belief that many Christians have about their lives in God is “cheap grace,” a belief that God's grace will cover their transgressions and wrongdoings without requiring any effort on their part.
Bonhoeffer said that we couldn't be more wrong because what God actually offered was “costly grace,” grace offered only within a life of service and faithfulness: “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”3
In the history of the church, Bonhoeffer said, monastics--that is, men or women living in contemplation and prayer--were considered to be professional religious people, and everyone else lived in the world and like the world. But Bonhoeffer argued that this setting apart of professional religious people ignores the fact that all of us are called to discipleship, and that the real lesson of Martin Luther's reforms was that for most of us, the way we are called to follow Jesus is not in convents or cloisters, but in our everyday lives.4 The Gospels often talk about “the Way,” as though Christianity is a path rather than a single limited event in our lives, and that's what I believe too, because that has been my experience.
I do believe that following Jesus--discipleship, as Bonhoeffer called it--is the task of everyone who wants to call herself or himself a Christian, and that's the path that I'm trying to walk in this life I never expected to have. But what does it mean to say I am trying to do what God wants of me?
Well, that's the question, isn't it?
I know that whether or not anyone ever lays hands on my head and makes me a priest, whether I ever feel the press of responsibility pushing me toward the ground, I am called to faithful discipleship, since we all are. But what should that faithful discipleship look like?
What am I called to do in this miraculous life?
I have no idea. But by listening and praying, by walking in companionship with others, I do know I'll have a better chance to find out.
And that practice, the practice of discernment, is what I'm doing now.
No Idea by Greg Garrett is a striking study on learning to entrust your life to God. Garrett has a moving history of depression and failed marriages, so he has been through the dark nights of the soul. When an author has suffered the way Garrett has says that his life only improved after turning it over to God, it has the kind of power that authors with less colorful lives aren't able of invoking. Through a shortened version of his life story, he gives readers solid evidence and Scripture they can count on to get them through the valleys. I loved Garrett's humorous, mildly self-deprecating voice. It gave the book a certain immediacy and relevance.
The winners of Kiss Me Again were Mary Schlorf and Theresa Hischke. I'm starting a new contest today for Susan May Warren's The Great Christmas Bowl. Warren writes fantastic books of heart-warming humor. If you'd like the chance to win, send me an email before 10 pm on Thursday, September 24th. Good luck!
I'm blessed to be the mother of three children: Doogie, Molly, and Mia and am happily married to Jesse.
I've always loved to read, and I love talking about the books that move me.
I review books here, on Amazon, Christianbook.com, Barnes & Noble, Lunch.com, Christian Book Video, Shelfari, GoodReads, MySpace, and Facebook.
Fall is my favorite season of the year; it just seems to me that the world is so full of color and variety. Everywhere I look is a visual treat. Yesterday was dark, windy, and gloomy, but today is bright and sunny. Monday I took a bunch of pictures of our grape arbor. Jesse's mom is going to make some jelly, but until she picks them, they make such a picturesque scene. The pictures practically take themselves.
camera I never could have justified buying for myself, and honestly it intimidated me at first with all of the settings. But then when we went camping, Krissy, my sister-in-law, demonstrated the different settings so I could stop using automatic all of the time.
mous for bringing miracles in the small town that its residents are preparing to erect a sign outside city limits advertising it as the "Home of Agnes Sparrow." But Agnes has never wanted publicity, and no matter how hard she tries, they refuse to see the answered prayers as the work of God, but instead of as the acts of Agnes. When a new man moves to town looking for a miracle from Agnes, the town will be forever changed. Magnin has created in Bright's Pond a vibrant and fascinating small town. She never reverts to stereotypes, although there is plenty of quirkiness. Griselda's character is really the heart of the novel, and the character feels frustration, betrayal, outrage, and hope right along with her due to Magnin's wonderful portrayal. The story takes a distinctly unexpected turn giving it added depth and heart. Magnin is definitely a
writer I have put on my must read list.
