Word of the Week – Stable

Word of the Week – Stable

by | Feb 3, 2020 | Word of the Week

This one was a question my son asked the other day. Why do we use the same word for the two different meanings of stable–the adjective and then the noun? Are they from the same root?
(Why yes, my children do ask questions like this regularly, LOL.)
The short answer is yes, they’re from the same Latin word. The longer answer is that both adjective and noun came to English through Old French, the adjective–meaning, at the time, “trustworthy, reliable”–predating the noun by a few decades, though both were in the English language from the 12th or 13th centuries. The meanings really haven’t changed that much over the years, either. The noun has always been a building or stall where domestic animals are kept. The adjective shifted ever so slightly from “trustworthy” to “steadfast, constant, secure.” (And was applied to isotopes in 1902!)
The Latin root from which both meanings come is sta– (with different suffixes applied for noun and adjective), meaning, not surprisingly, “to stand.” Hence why it applies both to a building and to an upstanding character.
So there we have it, O son of mine. 😉
Thoughtful About . . . The Power of Words

Thoughtful About . . . The Power of Words

by | Jan 30, 2020 | Thoughtful Thursdays

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Familiar words, right? We’ve all read those verses a million times. I was pretty sure I’d examined them from every possible perspective. But last time I read them, a new little seed of inspiration was planted that I’ve been keeping an eye on. 😉

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I’m a writer (which you obviously know). I love words. I love philosophizing about them. I love making art with them. I love harnessing them to express Truth and Light. And I LOVE when God talks about them–and about their power. Power which John 1:3 states in a way that sheds new light on the nature of those words I so love.


In Genesis, God SPOKE the world into existence. “And God said, ‘Let there be…'” Here in John, Jesus IS that Word through which all things were made. Have those two pieces clicked in your mind before? I can’t believe it took this long for them to click for me, LOL. That our Savior is the thing by which and through which creation happens. And THAT is why John calls him the Word. (To which my husband said, “Well yeah…” proving that I’m definitely late to this epiphany, LOL. But I’m going to keep talking about it anyway.)

So what does that say about the true power of words?

Words are the creative force. It is through words that things happen. 

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

I need to think about that for a minute. I use words for a living–I create a lot with them. Whole worlds, one might argue…but imaginary ones. When it comes to actual building, I guess I always thought that the ACTIONS were the more important thing. The other day my husband and son were building a desk together from some scrap wood (a.k.a. an old bookshelf that had collapsed, LOL), and if you ask me what effected the creation, I’d say “screws, wood, and a screwdriver.”


But do you know what else I noticed while they were building? The words exchanged. This is the first real building project they’ve done together, and I loved hearing the instructions float out to me in the kitchen. “Now this is how you do this…” my husband would say. And, “How do you want this part?”

Then would come my son’s answer. “Yeah, that looks good. Let’s put this piece here…”

Photo by Vance Osterhout on Unsplash

A simple exchange between a very earthly father and son who were repurposing something already made. The desk could have been built without those, right?


Maybe…because they are a very earthly, physical, corporeal father and son. The Father and Son, on the other hand, at the brink of our creation…they’re something different. They are, the Bible tells us, Spirit. That’s why it was such a miracle that Jesus wrapped himself in flesh and became one of us.

Pure Spirit doesn’t have hands like we do, or like we’d recognize. Pure Spirit certainly doesn’t have (or need) an electric screwdriver or cheap particle board. Pure Spirit does not interact with this physical world as we physical beings do. How does it?

Through words.

Let that sink in–I know I am. How did God create? With words. How did God interact with man from the dawn of time through each of the prophets? With words. What did God-Made-Man do when he began his ministry? Teaching and preaching–WORDS. Yes, he healed too. I know he did. And how did he often choose to heal? With words. Sometimes he touched, yes. But did he have to? I’m reminded of what that faithful centurion said in Luke 7:7. “But say the word, and my servant will be healed.“

Photo by Ravi Pinisetti on Unsplash

The fact that God shared these with us–gifted them to us and then exchanged them with us…that’s pretty amazing. More, it’s not only a gift, it’s a responsibility.


He gave us the very tools of creation. And what are we doing with them? How often do we use them to tear each other down instead of build each other up? To complain instead of praise? How often are our words careless, thoughtless, unbridled?

What might change in our lives if we could see what each of our words did, like we can see what God’s words do? We’d see the harm that thoughtless verbal jab really did to our coworker or spouse or child. We’d see what worlds were built in them instead when we instruct or praise or encourage. And I have a feeling what we chose to say would be very different.

Well, my friends, our physical eyes may not be able to see it–but it’s no less real for that. So perhaps our new prayer ought to be, “Lord, open our spiritual eyes, so that we might see the true power of our words…and use them for You.”


Word of the Week – Plant

Word of the Week – Plant

by | Jan 27, 2020 | Word of the Week

Originally published 5/12/12

I thought it would be fun to revisit this old Word of the Week when I saw the pretty photo I put in here of a strip of our flowers at our old house. Ah, spring, how I long for thee. 😉 So here you go–a(nother) glimpse at the word plant:

Every time we go to my mom’s we see the power plant across the river–and every time, my kids ask, “Why’s it called a ‘plant’?” And every time, I go, “Uh . . . ” At one point I made up an answer–and what do you know, I was right! LOL

  
Plant is from the Latin planta, meaning “sprout, shoot, cutting” which may be from plantare, “to drive in with the feet, push into the ground with the feet.” Which is in turn from planta, “sole of the foot.” By 1550 it moved from its first English meaning of “shrub or newly-planted herb” to any vegetation. The verb “to plant” has been around since Old English, just like the noun.
Now, the building–it is fact from the same idea, meaning a building planted in a particular area for industrial purposes. That usage came into meaning in 1789. And interestingly, the meaning of “a spy” is from 1812. =)
Thoughtful About . . . Blizzard Faith

Thoughtful About . . . Blizzard Faith

by | Jan 23, 2020 | Thoughtful Thursdays

‘Tis the season for snow here in America (or at least the more northern parts of it), and so I thought it would be a great time to share a devotional that one of my characters wrote. 😉 These are the words of LuAnn Sherrill from the Secrets of Wayfarers Inn #20, There’s No Place Like Holmes. Which just released, so I thought it would be a great time to share.

In the story, there had just been a big snow storm, which had LuAnn waxing philosophical. In reality, I wrote this on my writing retreat last April. 😉 It isn’t all that long, but hopefully it’s something that will speak to you in these bleak, cold days of winter…especially when the white stuff is falling.

***

This morning, not surprisingly, I was thinking about snow. I was
thinking about how the blood of the Lamb makes us as white and pure as those
drifts outside. But as I studied our world, I realized it was a lot more than
that. Think about the world you see when you look out the window after a fresh snow.
It isn’t just white. Snow covers things. It hides them, just as we are
hidden in the wings of our Lord. Snow rounds the edges, just as our God will round
ours, if we let Him. Snow has this remarkable ability to become all we see, just
as our Savior fills our vision.
Snow can be a powerful, driving force. But one flake… One flake is nothing, in one sense. It has no power on its own. But it
has infinite beauty. When we look at a snowflake, we see the laws that the
Creator put into effect, we see the patterns He set in motion. 
And we, my
friends, are the same. We are the possessors of infinite beauty. We are made,
each one of us, in His image…yet each one, like a crystal of snow, is different.
Because He is infinite, while we are finite. He is the atmosphere to our single
flake.
But one of the most amazing things He did for us was to set us with
other snowflakes. We see what effect a snowstorm, a blizzard, can have. And the
same is true of His children. Alone, we may be so small that sometimes we think
we go unseen. But we’re part of something. Part of a driving force. And
together, we can work miracles. We can turn a plain into a mountain.
And we can turn a mountain into a cloud. We have only to play out our
role in His story. 
Dear Lord, thank You for filling us. Thank You for filling our hearts every day that we let You in.
Thank You for giving us the fellowship of friends. Of family. Bless each one reading this, Father, and draw us all closer to You. Soothe hurting hearts and speak
truth to our spirits. Fill our conversations through with Your Truth. Amen. 

Word of the Week Revisit – Kidnap

Word of the Week Revisit – Kidnap

by | Jan 20, 2020 | Word of the Week

Okay, I just did this one not-quite-three-years ago…but it was when I was brainstorming On Wings of Devotion, so it seemed like a fun revisit!

~*~

This might seem like an odd word of the week until you consider I’m a writer, LOL. One who, as it happens, is indeed brainstorming a plot that involves a kidnapping. [Modern insert: that would, of course, be Camden kidnapping Arabelle.]

And yet, I actually read about this word from pure happenstance. 😉 Go figure!
Anyway. It’s kinda of interesting, so let’s take a look.
First of all, though sometimes moderns think kid, as applied to a child, is terrible slang that was never used in historical days, that’s simply not true. The word for “a young goat” since 1200, it was extended to children in the 1500s–first written record is the 1590s, but no doubt it was used it speech before that. It was slang at first, yes, but had lost that “slang” stigma by the 1840s (though it was still considered an informal word).
So then kidnap comes to us by the 1680s–part of thieves’ language. It was originally used for when they stole children to ship them to the American colonies as servants or laborers! Who knew? The kid part is therefore obvious. Nap is a variant of nab. But interesting is that kidnapper was in use at least a decade before kidnap, leading experts to believe the verb is a back-formation of the noun.
Now off I go plot out a story in which my hero kidnaps my heroine and gets way more than he bargained for, LOL.
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