by Roseanna White | Jun 14, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
We set goals.
We work hard.
We sweat.
We cry.
We bleed.
We tumble down exhausted.
We stretch out our hands, willing our fingers to reach that last . . . single . . . inch.
Did we get there?
There. The end goal. The place we want to be.
There. The thing always just out of reach.
There. The place that, when we think we are there, can slip away the moment we’re not looking.
Have you been in that position? Where you think you’ve gained ground, only to lose it? Or where you feel like you’ve fallen just short of your goal?
Have you, on the other hand, been resting long and safe in this There, not stretching for another goal when maybe you should be?
I’ve been giving a lot of thought this last week to my there. My here. Where goals and realities meet and where they clash. What I count a failure and what I count a success, and what’s really within my power to change.
And I keep coming back to one simple truth.
There can be anywhere–but it’s only a success if I’m in the There where He wants me to be, fully reliant on Him. Sometimes, at least for me, success means taking things for granted. Success means slipping into pride. Success means that I begin to think I can instead of He can. In those moments, success in the world can mean failure in the soul.
Thank you, Lord, for reminding me always that while I’m called to do Your work, I’m not called to do it on my own strength, but through Yours. ONLY through Yours.
What is the There that you’re reaching for right now? Is it close? Too far? Are your in a period of straining or a period of rest?
Are you stretching far enough?
And most importantly, are we stretching our hands out only with His?
by Roseanna White | Jun 13, 2018 | Books, What We're Reading
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a question on Facebook, asking for audiobook recommendations. I thought it would be handy to compile the list I received before they get swallowed by Facebook history and impossible to find. 😉
I’ve never been a big audiobook listener. Up until now, I’ve listened to exactly two full works, and one partial. The two successful ones I listened to while knitting. The partial, I was just trying to get a handle on an accent and the accompanying spelling, so I just needed to compare the two for a few chapters. Which was all I could handle. Because I read fast, and the narrator, while very talented, read
s-l-o-w, and I couldn’t handle it for long. I am not patient with such things, LOL.
In addition to my impatience, I also am rarely alone in a quiet environment. As in, one without interruptions. It never seemed feasible to really get any good listening in, when interruptions meant having to press a button and then find my place again, rather than just looking up from a page.
But here’s the thing. I told myself I was going to exercise more regularly this summer and (hopefully) create a good habit. But I hate exercise. I mean, seriously. It always feels like a time drain, drudgery, useless. I can enjoy walking, but I don’t have many places I can walk where I live. So I decided I would have to treat it like folding laundry, one of my other dreaded tasks–give myself something to look forward to. For laundry, that meant a TV show on Netflix or Prime that I picked out, just for me. (Unprecedented in my house, LOL. Usually, if someone hands me the remote, I just turn the set off.)
It worked for laundry. I now actually look forward to folding. I’ve watched the complete series of White Collar and Gilmore Girls like this, and now I’m just having fun with Say Yes to the Dress. So I’ve been experimentally using audio books as the same sort of incentive for exercise. And thus far, for the past two weeks, it’s been working like a charm!
My first book selection was based mainly on my Library’s limited Overdrive selection of Christian fiction. They had exactly 11 that were labeled such. Seven of which were Amish fiction, which isn’t my preference. Two others of which I’ve read. That sure narrowed down the choices! So I ended up selecting one I’ve long wanted to read–have on my shelf, as a matter of fact, in paperback, but never got around to. Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar. I’ve chatted with Tessa and greatly admire her, but I’d yet to pick up one of her books! Bad, Roseanna!
And it’s been amazing. Love it, and I can definitely see why she’s such a popular Bib-fic author! But I’ll be finishing it up in the next day or two, so it’s time to select my next read, hence revisiting the list of recommendations.
Here’s what’s come in already. I’d love to hear your rec’s, if they’re not already on there, and just to share these with you in case you’re also on the hunt!
I’ve divided these into genres…though I was working quickly, so if anything is mis-filed, don’t sue me. ? I didn’t divide out YA, and these are a mix of Christian and mainstream titles. I know that listening methods vary, so the links below will take you the book’s Goodreads page.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
SPECULATIVE/SUPERNATURAL/SCI-FI/FANTASY
What is your favorite Audiobook?
by Roseanna White | Jun 11, 2018 | Word of the Week
This one is a special request from my daughter, who came across it in a book. ?
So, tootles. Being a 90s tween/teen, I grew up hearing this word as “goodbye” (or maybe it was toodles? Hard to say, as apparently it never appeared in writing, and it has no entry in any dictionary I can find…And my kids, being children of the 2000-10s, think of Toodles as a character on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so…)
But in fact, tootles is from the 1820s as “a frequentative of toot.” Now, first of all, I’ve never noticed another word described as “a frequentative of.” Spellcheck doesn’t even think “frequentative” is a word, LOL. But it just means exactly what you’d think–“when it happens frequently.” So tootle is when you toot frequently upon a horn or flute, for example.
Interestingly, and the use that grabbed my daughter’s attention, is that it later came to mean “to drive or move along in a leisurely fashion.” I can’t find a particular date on when that came into use, but she had encountered a sentence where the characters were tootling along in their car, which apparently struck her as hilarious.
So there we have it! Happy Monday!
by Roseanna White | Jun 8, 2018 | Fridays from the Archives
Today I’m not looking back very far . . . just two years, to a post I wrote after one of my dad’s sermons inspired me. In another recent sermon, he just said one sentence that brought this to mind again, and I was thinking once more about this idea. It’s a good one, one I know I need to remember, always, so I thought I’d share it again.
Because let’s face it. Those hard times, the times that press us, never go away…
Life is hard. So often we feel pressure. People are pushing us. Prodding us. Poking us. Sometimes, when circumstances are weighing heavy, we get that tight feeling in our chest, right? Or in our stomach. Stress. Overwhelm.
We get tired.
We get frustrated.
We react.
But how do we react? Or the better question, how should we?
In his sermon last weekend, my dad used this analogy, and it really struck me. Take an orange and squeeze it, press it–what do you get? Orange juice. Not apple juice. Not grape juice.
Take a sponge and squeeze it, and what do you get? Whatever liquid it has soaked up.
Take a plant and press it, and what comes out? The oils or fluids from inside the plant.
Now, take a piece of rotten fruit and squeeze it, and what comes out? Rot. Decay. Stench.
Getting the picture? When pressed, what comes out of a thing? What’s inside it.
So let’s take that back to us. What comes out of us when we’re pressed? (Yes, the comedian in me said, “Blood and gross-squishy-red-stuff.” [Bonus points if you get the Phineas and Ferb reference.] But let’s be serious, LOL.)
What comes out is what’s within. So if we’re frustrated, that frustration comes out. If we’re unhappy, we spew unhappiness. If we’re bitter, that bile is just going to come oozing out of our mouths. But is that all that’s inside us, even when we’re not at our best?
When we’re people of faith, there is always Something else inside us. Someone else. The Holy Spirit lives here. He’s inside me. Jesus is inside me. So with them, what else is inside me?
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness.
When we’re pressed, squeezed, put under pressure, when we’re poked, prodded, and pushed, that is what should come pouring out of us–that should be what’s within us.
Humbling, isn’t it? When you’re feeling the pressure of life, are you greeting it with love? With
Joy? Do we greet evil with goodness? Prodding with patience? Are we, when we’re at our lowest, when we’re been squeezed so much by life that the pain is palpable, shining with faithfulness?
If we’re not, then that says something about what’s inside us–and about what isn’t. We can’t pour out what we don’t have, and we can’t have good fruit inside us yet spill out rot and decay. If that’s what’s coming out, it’s because that’s what’s within.
And if that’s what’s within, then we need to do some serious work on ourselves. We need to turn those rotten spots over to God and let Him prune them away. We need to plead with Him to fill us with the good stuff inside.
And He will.
Until our cup runs over with His light. It’ll spill right out of us . . . and right into the world. And then, when we’re pressed, people will see Him.
I can’t think of a more beautiful way to show people who Jesus really is.
by Roseanna White | Jun 4, 2018 | Word of the Week
Sometimes it’s so interesting to look at the history of the words that are so very common to our language! God is certainly one of those.
I’d heard at some point over the years that god and good are related . . . and I imagine most of you have heard the same. But apparently this is most definitely not the case–and largely because the word for god existed in Old English before Christianity arrived, and lemme just tell you, pagan gods are not good, generally speaking. So the words had no reason to be associated in their creation.
In fact,
god has two possible sources. It could have come from the root Indo-European
ghut, which means “that which is invoked.” Or perhaps it’s from
ghu-to, “poured.” As in, the being to whom one would pour out libations.
Our English word is most likely derived most directly from the Nordic or German words of similar sound, and it’s interesting to note that in German, it was originally a neuter noun. But with the coming of Christianity, it became a masculine noun. (Goddess apparently dates from the 14th century.)
Good, quickly, is from Indo-European ghedh, “suitable.”
So there we have it. Though god and good do sound and look similar and have been tied together through Christian tradition, they, in fact, come from different words . . . and in the time when they both entered the language, they didn’t yet have any reason to be connected! ?
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.