Early April Showers

Carla Gade (Writingtodistraction.blogspot.com) wrote about Maine's five seasons in a recent post: spring, summer, fall, winter--and mud. I remember Maine's "mud" season well. March held some of the promise of spring but little of the joy.

March in Oklahoma is a delight. The dogwoods and redwoods and crabapple trees come into bloom. My lilac bush is blooming. The weather is the all-round perfect temperature, 70 degrees. It's been a gorgeous month.

Today brought April showers a few days early. We need rain, even if my bones don't like it. As I hobbled through the damp air into church, I passed a pair of geese. Our nesters have returned! What joy and anticipation they brought to us last year.

God has also brought "showers of blessings" on me this week as well. He's opened several more doors wide open for me. I'm still pinching myself that my dream of writing fulltime has come true . . . and telling myself if I continue to act totally surprised at each development, people will get tired of hearing about it. Work is always a blessing and welcome, but perhaps it's time I accept that "yes, it's really happening."

Unfortunately, today's "showers" also found me slipping on the floor of the restaurant . . . falling from head to toe on my left side. . . no broken bones, PTL! But bruised and sore muscles surrounding a severely arthritic hip. Not fun.

I'll end on a grandma note. Ate dinner with the kids on Friday night. Isaiah laughed and played with me. Jordan thumbed through my latest release (Love's Raid) from beginning to end. I suspect she was looking for pictures between the covers! Or maybe she noticed my picture at the front. And today she serenaded me with a variety of nursery rhymes. Fun times! (More showers of blessings!)

FOR STORY LOVERS AND OTHER BOOK WORMS

I recently gave a copy of Book Lover's Devotional to my church library. The gentleman who reviews library books for the church bulletin--exclusively nonfiction--raved about it to me. "I couldn't put it down. I read it in two sittings. I don't usually read fiction, but after reading this book, I might."

Book Lover's Devotional includes a devotional, basic facts, and questions for further thought about sixty works of literature, from the children's book The Little Engine That Could to classics like Don Quixote to contemporary masterpieces such as Gilead. And yes, five of the devotionals are mine (The Grapes of Wrath, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Roots, A Scandal in Bohemia, and A Tale of Two Cities) The book is a gem, and I say so even though I won't make another penny no matter how many copies sell.

I told Jim, "I believe all good literature--and movies and television--includes elements of spiritual truths. It's part of what makes them so good."

For example: I have recently started watching a Scifi series called Being Human. Definitely not my usual cup of tea; I don't go in for vampire stories in general.

Being Human is about three roommates: a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost. Their central problem: They once were human; now they are not. And oh, how they long for someone to restore them to their original state.

It doesn't take long to see the connection with the gospel.

When God created mankind, we were very good. He said so. We were perfect. And then Eve and Adam sinned and no person since then has enjoyed the perfection our first ancestors did (except Jesus, of course). And like Aidan, Josh and Sally, we hunger to return.

Only God did what this TV series only dreams of: He made the way for us to be restored--through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Of course, that is the glaring lack in this series. No salvation is possible. But it points to the need.

The next time you read a wonderful book, see a powerful movie, or sit down to watch your favorite TV series, ponder the question: what about this story reminds me of eternal truths? I'd love to hear your answers.

From one who is mourning the death of her favorite author, Dick Francis. I just learned he died a year ago, about the same time Mom did. His books echo with eternal truths time and again, although they are in no way Christian literature.

DANCING WITH GRIEF PLUS THREE YEARS

I lost Jolene three years ago tomorrow. The dance has returned to the normal ebb and flow of life, with an occasional dirge of remembrance and tears.

In some ways, Kayla couldn't be more different than Jolene. Tall, slender, and fair, where Jolene was short, stocky, and dark. Kayla lives with a serious physical illness, but in other respects appears to be a "normal" (whatever that means), well-adjusted teen. Jolene never fit in in all her almost twenty-four years. Although Jolene loved music, she had a deaf ear. Kayla has a beautiful voice.

But in other ways they are alike. Teachers described Jolene as "articulate," and she wrote breathtaking poetry. Kayle is a published novelist. Writers, both of them.

Both of them love the Lord and know His word. I use the present tense for that with Jolene, for surely in heaven, her love for the Lord is perfect and complete.

And for one hour on a Wednesday night at a recent writers' retreat, Kayla filled the gaping hole created by Jolene's death.

Kayla and her mother had led singing as we writers gathered in the living room at the retreat. After a prayer time, the writers scattered, and I took myself to the piano. Since I was a teenager, nothing calms my troubled spirit like song. Especially if I get to play. I played my way from one end of the hymnal to the other.

So I opened the hymnal and began to play and sing. Before long, Kayla reappeared and started to sing with me. She loved the hymns I introduced her to. Jolene loved hymns. Not all young people do. We alternated suggesting hymns, ending with "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

When Kayla sang with me, it felt like Jolene was at my side, smiling at me.



Thank you, Kayla, for your sweet spirit and the comfort you brought to me.

Thank you, Kayla.

SHOW AND TELL

Celebrating signing the two-book contract with Moody for Texas Trails (see the banner), a six-book collaboration with Susan Page Davis and Vickie McDonough.


TEXAS TRAILS

One Family

Four Generations

Fifty Years

The six books in the Texas Trails series cover snippets of Texas’s history from 1845 to 1896, seen through the lens of enduring love that springs up in one Texas family, the Morgans.


Lone Star Trail by Darlene Franklin (pub date: September 2011): Judson Morgan’s Texas roots are drenched in blood. His father died for Texas’s freedom during the war for independence. So when the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas (the Verein) attempts to colonize a New Germany in his country, he takes a stand against them. After her fiance marries someone else, a young fraulein determines to make a new life for herself in Texas—but can the rancher put aside his prejudice to forge a new future?

And since this is my title - isn't the Clint Eastwood look-alike a doll? I traveled through the Texas hill country last week and fell in love with the setting all over again.

Captive Trail by Susan Page Davis (pub date: September 2011). On his first run as a driver for the Butterfield Stagecoach Overland Mail Company, Ned Bright comes across a woman who is nearly dead from exposure and dehydration. He takes her in his stagecoach to a mission outpost operated by Ursuline nuns. He returns to check on the patient each time he passes through and learns she was a captive of the Comanche for the last thirteen years—since she was nine years old. With some detective work, he is able to locate her family. Ned falls in love with her. He plans to reunite her with her brother, but the Comanche have other ideas, and the two end up defending the mission station.

The Long Trail Home by Vickie McDonough (pub date: October-November 2011). When Riley Morgan returns after fighting in the War Between the States, he’s excited to see his parents and his fiancée again. But he soon learns that his parents are dead, and the woman he loved is married. He takes a job at the Wilcox School for Blind Children, just to get by. He keeps his heart closed off, but a pretty blind woman threatens to steal it. When a greedy man tries to close the school, Riley and Annie band together to fight him and then fall in love. But when Riley learns the truth—that Annie isn’t really blind, he packs up, ready to leave. Will he change his mind and find the love he craves? Or will his stubbornness deprive him from the woman he needs?

I'M A COWGIRL AND PROUD OF IT

Headed to Round Top, Texas, for a writers retreat. At the moment, my mind is full of all the problems I had getting here. I had even forgotten about the blog until I received a comment in my inbox.

I listened to a gentleman from North Carolina quiz the server at the hotel's breakfast. "Does everyone in this town (Denton) have horses?" "Are there a lot of rattlesnakes around here?"

Left me with the same sense of surprise as I had when a sportscaster interviewed Kevin Durant (NBA AllStar and OKC Thunder star). He asked "Was it hard adjusting to life in Oklahoma City when you grew up in an urban environment?"

No, OKC isn't a mega city. But it IS a city, maybe half a million strong? If that's not urban, what do you call it?

Preconceptions. We all have them. When the gentleman inquiring about horses and rattlesnakes said he came from North Carolina mountain country, I immediately thought "Appalachia" and all the preconceptions it implies.

When I lived in Colorado, I'd tell people I was from Maine. "Oh, it must be cold."
Go to Maine and say I lived in Colorado--their response? You got it. "It must be cold."

I grew up in New England, but after spending my entire adult life with the exception of maybe two years in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, I'm a westerner and love it.

What misconceptions do people have about the part of the country where you live?

Happy trails to you until we meet again. . .

Jett and Cord (I hope they survive the first leg of Amazing Race!) have more going for them than their cowboy good looks. . .

A DAY FOR LOVE

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Not a day that I celebrate, with only twelve years of marriage marring my status as a single adult.

And yet, here I am, a prolific writer of Christian romance. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor!

I didn't start out writing romance, but somewhere in the course of my second book, my first novel, I discovered I had a knack for romance. Romance insisted on inserting itself into everything I tried to write. Eight Heartsong and four novella contracts, not to mention the two books with Moody, prove that inclination.

Why? How? The answer is as simple as it is complex: In a word--God.

One of the first workshops I attended on writing a love story--presented, if I remember correctly, by Carolyn Scheidies--taught that a love triangle is essential to a Christian romance: hero, heroine--with God at the apex.

Ah. Therein lies my ability to write of love. I have experienced abounding, unstoppable, love. A love that I cannot push away by my worst actions. A love that I did not, could not earn. A love that sought me and wooed me with something far better than chocolates or flowers or diamonds.

God's love. He loved me as a child when I was abused; He stepped in and said "no more!" and ended years of abuse. (My uncle disappeared.)

He loved me as a self-righteous teenager convinced I knew the "right" way Christians should ask.

He loved me when my dreams of a career (in music) and of family (with a divorce) lay shattered in the dust.

He loved me when both children were yanked out of my home and gave me a reason to continue living.

And then He restored so much that was lost and gave me so much more.

God's love. It's real.

ANNIVERSARIES APPROACH

While I was mulling over a topic for this week's blog, a friend reminded me, "Valentine's Day is coming up."

Instant emotional connection: my mother's birthday is? was? February 12th. Next Saturday night. The same day as Abraham Lincoln, for those old enough to remember when we celebrated Abraham Lincoln and George Washington's birthdays separately instead of as "Presidents Day."

Tears sprang to my eyes. I want to cry. I still do. Because this is the first year Mom is celebrating her birthday in heaven. This is the start of the season . . . God be thanked, only a month. . .of those awful anniversaries:

• February 12th - Mom's birthday
• February 22nd - 1st anniversary of Mom's death
• March 13th - 3rd anniversary of Jolene's death
• March 16th - would have been Jolene's 27th birthday.

Life, for the most part, goes on. So much has changed. I am a grandma twice over, a full time writer, and Oklahoma begins to feel like home.

And yet . . .

I am still that person, the one started this blog in the aftermath of the worst loss of my life. I still experience times like this, where even the mention of the date makes me want to sob. I suspect I always will. When I think of what I wish I had done differently. When I miss Mom and Jolene fiercely it's a physical pain.

How little I appreciated the gift we had. . .the years the three of us spent together, our little trio of three generations, the joys of times shared. I treated those times as they would last forever. Now I want to go back and savor every moment. But of course I can't.

On the first anniversary of Jolene's death, God put me with a group of writers. Last year, the Saturday after Mom died on Monday, I spoke to my local group. This year, I will on retreat with a group of writers when the anniversary of Mom's death rolls around. I guess God knows the people I most need to hold me up in times of grief--my writing family.

So I know, although at the moment my heart is heavy, joy will return. God has given me peace and will carry me through this time of remembering.

Hallelujah.

P.S. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I remember getting a bunch of snacks and watching the game with Jolene when she was in middle school . . . I suspect I'll be inundated with memories over these next few weeks.