by Roseanna White | Mar 12, 2012 | Word of the Week
“Thank” seems like a pretty basic word, right? It’s obviously been around for a while. Say, as long as manners. 😉 Still, there’s been some interesting evolution of the word!
Interestingly, “thank” and “think” share a root–“thought, gratitude” is the meaning of the word from which it’s taken, which in turn is from a word that means “think, feel.” Apparently this variation came about from “thoughts” moving into “good thoughts,” which leads to gratitude.
Isn’t that just awesome?
Of course, it had developed an ironic sense–“You can thank her for that catastrophe”–by the 1550s, and by 1703 we were thanking people for nothing.
The phrase “thank you” (short for “I thank you”) is from the 1400s, and had turned into a noun (send him a thank you) by 1792.
I hope everyone has a great week!
by Roseanna White | Mar 8, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Allow me to draw your attention to Mark 4:37-41:
37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat,
so that it was already filling. 38 But
He was in the stern,
asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to
Him,
“Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea,
“Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you
have no faith?”[d] 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said
to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind
and the sea obey Him!”
Now, I’ve read those words approximately a hundred times, and I’m guessing everyone else has too. And I’ve always gotten out of it what the disciples did–wow, did you see that? The wind and waves obey Him! This Man rules the weather!!
Which is awesome. Truly, amazingly awesome.
I’ve also been struck before by His rebuke of the disciples–they’d just witnessed an amazing miracle, when He fed the 5,000. But they still didn’t quite get it . . . and Jesus calls them on that, on their lack of faith.
But as I was reading this section on Monday, something new hit me.
He didn’t have to do any of that. Ever pause to consider that? It wasn’t His time to die. He still had a whole lot to do. There was no possible way that the storm was going to hurt that little boat with its most precious cargo, and Jesus surely knew it. He had no fear, and it wasn’t just because He knew He could calm the storm–it was because He knew it wasn’t a threat.
And yet.
When his friends, his disciples wake him in a panic, what’s his first reaction? He calms the storm. He doesn’t first try to explain it to them. He doesn’t roll his eyes and go back to sleep. He calms the storm. He does that for them–not to prove He can, but because He loved them. Because He didn’t want them to fear.
And, maybe, because He knows they wouldn’t have heard him until that fear was gone.
I don’t know why I’m constantly amazed when I realize how far out of His way our Lord goes for us, but it hit me anew here. Jesus could have done any number of things in this situation, and no matter what He had chosen, we know the outcome would have been a safe arrival on the other side. He could have done any number of things that resulted in the disciples seeing His glory.
But He chose the one that calmed his friends. That soothed their fears. And then, then he reminded them to have faith.
Thank you, Lord, for knowing me so well. For knowing that when the storm’s upon me, I can’t remember the sunshine was ever there. For knowing that clutching for you is, sometimes, all I can do. Thank you, Lord, for making it all I need to do.
Because You calm the storm. And then You remind me that it was in Your hand all along.
by Roseanna White | Mar 7, 2012 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
With my latest book finished and simmering and edits underway on Ring of Secrets for my looming deadline, I’ve been dividing my time between reading/revising and developing a new idea. And oh, how much fun that is!
This new one will be set around the early-early days of the Revolution, in 1776. But as I launched into my oh-so-fun research, I discovered something in Jefferson’s account of the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration.
June 1, 1774. The Boston port was scheduled to be shut down by the British in retaliation for a certain episode of tea-dumping that you may have heard of. Politics between the colonies and England were fast deteriorating–so quickly that Lord North, the Prime Minister at the time, was happy to get sneaky. He came up with a “conciliatory plan” designed to divide us against ourselves. Said, basically, “Yo, any colony that sides with us rather than you neighbors won’t be taxed any more. Eh? Eh??”
But not everyone was paying attention to the events in New England. Not everyone could be bothered. Not everyone was convinced that independence was feasible, desirable, or right for the time. Not everyone was even considering it as a question to be discussed. Which, as you might guess, irritated those leading the movement.
So Jefferson and company decided to get their attention. How? By calling for a nation-wide day of fasting and prayer on June 1, 1774. “No example of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our
distresses in the war of ’55, since which a new generation had grown up,” Jefferson writes. He figures that this will “call up & alarm their attention.”
Now, knowing that Jefferson was a deist rather than a man of faith, a “moral liberal” if you will, I know well this was a manipulative move. He probably didn’t really fast and pray, he just knew that demanding everyone else do it would make them go, “What? Why? What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
And it worked. That’s what I really love about these days of prayer called for by our leaders. They are powerful, powerful things. I’ve heard amazing stories about the results of the one Churchill called for in England during WWII. And of others in American history. Because as we well know, when that many people take to their knees and pound the gates of heaven with their prayers, we’re in effect taking authority over the powers in our world.
I had no idea until I read Jefferson’s account that such a day happened back in 1774, a year before the first shots at Lexington and Concord, two years before the signing of the Declaration. But that really does mark the time when people all through the colonies began to realize that something loomed on the horizon.
Naturally, I had to toss in a prologue to my new book . . . and naturally, it’s on June 1, 1774. 😉 This historic day of fasting and prayer only gets a passing mention, but I thought it a perfect day to begin my story. A day when no one would wonder why my heroine went off into the woods by herself to pray. When no one would think it odd that she wanted to be alone. When no one would suspect her many secrets . . . 😉
by Roseanna White | Mar 5, 2012 | Word of the Week
What a striking figure. No, not that lady over there, the one I figured out for the math problem. Go figure, right? I know, I know–it’s just a figure of speech. 😉
Figure obviously has a lot of meanings, both as a noun and as a verb. It entered the English language waaaaay back in the 13th century with its two basic meanings: (1) the form of a person or (2) numeral. It adopted rhetorical uses only a century later, yet it took until 1824 for figure of speech to come about.
As a verb, its primary meaning of “to represent” (Beatrice figures in The Divine Comedy as an inspirational guide through Paradise . . .) is from the 14th century; three hundred years later it evolved into “to picture” or “to make an appearance.” Interestingly, combining it with the “numeral” definition from the noun side of things didn’t happen until the middle of the 19th century–so not until then did you “figure out” a math problem.
Hope everyone has a great Monday!
by Roseanna White | Mar 1, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Dear Lord,
Thank you so much for all you are. Thank you for hands big enough to craft a universe and small enough to cradle our hearts. Thank you, Father, for the comfort in your invisible touch and the assurances you’ve given us because you know we need them. You are all things holy, all things good. If there’s beauty in the world, it’s your fingerprint. I thank you so much, Lord, for giving us the eyes, both spiritual and physical, with which to see it.
Father, my heart aches today for all the need I see in those around me. For those who have lost people dear to them through accident, illness, or violence. For those who are suffering from debilitation, who are daily in pain. I pray for those who are struggling to get through another day, be it because of physical trial or mental fatigue.
Thank you so much, Father, for all you’ve done in my life this past year. I look back and have to shake my head in wonder at how far my path has come. Yet when looking, I also see the pain of those I love most. And it brings tears to my eyes. Do I understand why it happens this way, that my moments of great
Joy are shadowed by their loss? Of course not. It doesn’t seem fair that we can’t be in times of rejoicing together. Do I want their situations to change? So much, Lord, yes!
But I’m trusting. I’m trusting that this, too, is part of your plan. I’m trusting that the darkest valley is cast in the shadow of your wing, that the widest prairie is your hand stretched out. I’m trusting, Lord, and I’m yearning. Yearning upward, onward, toward you.
For them. My prayers are often for myself, because, well, I know how much I need you. I know how everyday successes rely on you. I know that those days I forget to put it all in your hands, I’m quickly throwing mine up in frustration. But today, Lord, the ache in my heart is for my friends and loved ones.
For each of them today I pray a special blessing. A soft word of encouragement, a loud shout of
Joy. I pray that in some way only you can anticipate and devise, they are lifted up today. Lord, edify them, help us to edify each other–whisper in each of our ears how we can build up those we love. And then, oh God my God, whisper confidence into their hearts. Pour your water upon them to make the seeds of comfort grow.
Frail as our eyes may be, we want to see, Lord. We want to see why we’ve been put in the places we have, why things don’t work as we should. We want to see where we’re going. Where you can, give my loved ones a glimpse–just a glimpse of your guidance through these times, of the light waiting at the edge of the shadow. Where you can’t, breathe into their spirits, Father, that comfort that comes on the sweetest of nights, when being unable to see makes us all the more aware of the sound of your voice. Call to them in that whisper, speak peace to them.
Thank you, Father, for being that water that nourishes us and makes us grow. Thank you for being the fire that cleanses us, that lights us with your spirit. Thank you for being the wind that breathes life into us. Thank you for being the earth in which we’re grounded. Thank you, Lord God, for being all, for being every, for being the One to whom we can turn.
And thank you for these amazing, beautiful people you’ve put in my life. So often they are what lights hope in me when frustration or disappointment plagues me. Let it be their turn today, God, to receive that encouraging embrace. Lift them up and help them soar…all the way to their place of peace.
In the name of your precious Son,
Amen.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.