by Roseanna White | Aug 7, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I’ve come across it in several places lately. Usually from women. Women who are tired, stressed-out, spread thin, and either at or “recovered from” their breaking points. Women who give and give and give. And who have reached the point where they’re now saying, “Tend yourself first. Give yourself time. Then you’ll be happier and better able to deal with your family. Take time for you.”
Women who say their outlooks were ruined by that old
Joy teaching–Jesus, Others, You. That it messed them up. Made them miserable. That it’s too cliche, and that it instilled in them this thought that it’s wrong to take care of themselves.
I’ve seen retreats for women all about taking that time for yourself and then emerging better able to tend those around you.
And it all sounds awesome–because yeah, I need “me” time. I need refreshing. I need renewing. I need time now and then away from the constant harangue of “MOMMY!” to focus on the Lord. Still, something about all this bothered me, even as I recognized the value. And I wasn’t sure what it was. Then, as I edited WhiteFire’s next title to come out next week, No Plan B: Discovering God’s Blueprint for Your Life by Nelson Hannah, I started to put my finger on it. It combined in my mind with a sermon my dad recently preached at our church, and with the way my thoughts carried it out.
Everyone needs time of refreshing–I’m not taking issue with that, so please don’t think I am. What I’m taking issue with is the attitude that serving others first is self-destructive. That if we do it, we’ll be drained. We’ll need that time of refreshing, because it takes it out of us. Yes, it does…
…but it shouldn’t. Here’s why.
We are not our own. We are God’s. BUT–we’re not slaves. We’re not forced to do what he tells us. We’re not forced to serve others. And if we think we are…well, that’s a problem with our outlook, not with the practice.
In Biblical days, there were two kinds of “slaves.” (1) Slaves–captured or bought and not free to leave, ever. Their children are born slaves. Their children after them. Forever and ever amen. They must do what they’re told or else. (2) Bondservants–willingly indentured to someone as a means of paying a debt, but offered their freedom after seven years. Bondservants, when released, were given gifts to assure them the chance to thrive in the world. They took out all they brought in (wives, children). And if they chose to stay out of love for their master, then they were bound by their own will forever to their master’s house, giving up that will for their master’s.
We are not slaves to God. We are bondservants, through Christ. Do you see the difference in what that means? God doesn’t force us to come to him and do his will. But we, if we are Christians, choose it. We choose to forfeit–as in, give up, completely abandon, not just sign over for a certain day or decision–our will to his. We choose to give our whole lives to him. We choose his honor above our own.
We don’t do what he instructs us because he said so and that’s that–we do it because we love him. Not because we must, but because we desire to please him above all things. He is our Master…but because he loves us, he doesn’t keep us in that position of servitude forever. He names us heirs. We still serve, yes, just as the disciples did, as Jesus himself did–but we don’t serve as slaves. As bonservants, we have been given an inheritance (this happened frequently in Old Testament days especially–when no heir by blood was found, the most trusted servant would inherit).
We are not slaves. We are not slaves. We are not slaves. We do not have to serve others. But if we think we do…if we think it’s compulsory…if we think God’s standing there with a taskmaster’s whip pointed at us, saying, “Go feed the hungry–now. Go make dinner for your kids–now. Go serve on all those committees at church–now.” Well then, obviously we’re going to get worn down. Worn out. Frayed. More, we’re going to get resentful, because who likes to be treated like that? There’s a reason slaves have revolted throughout history.
And there’s a reason bondservants haven’t. Because they chose their path. And they kept to it out of love.
I love my Master, my Abba God. I want to please him. I want to listen to his voice above the whining of my own mind, above the limitations of my body. I want to put aside my fickle, foolish will and rely on his instead. I want to let go of the idea that I can do whatever I want and instead do what he tells me–he’s so much wiser than I am! And I want the assurance that it doesn’t matter if I’m weak…if I’m tired…if I’m burned out…if I don’t have enough time…if I just can’t.
I don’t have to. That’s the other brilliant epiphany of No Plan B. Even Jesus didn’t do what he did under his own power. Not his human power, and not his power as God. If he had, it would mean nothing to us. Because our human bodies are limited, and we can never be God. If Jesus had acted from that, we couldn’t be like him. But his every miracle was done through the Holy Spirit–whom he has imparted to us.
When I’m too tired to soothe one more tear, all I have to do is let the Spirit minister through me…and let me tell you from experience, when you do that, he ministers to you as well. When I’m at my wit’s end, I don’t need to rely anymore on my own mind–all I have to do is rely on his wisdom.
I chose to give my life, my heart, my will, my path, my every day, to the Lord. I chose to sign over my body, soul, and spirit to him. That means it’s not just me inside me anymore. It’s the Holy Spirit. He fills me. And if I just let him, he’ll act through me. Speak through me. Fill me.
Fill me.
How can I say I’m worn out, if I’m operating under his strength? How can I say I feel drained, if I have the Lord of Hosts inside me? How can I say I can’t, that I’m not, when I’m the daughter of I AM?
Yes, we need those times of renewal to focus on Him. He wants that for us, he gives that to us…as a gift. But no, we shouldn’t ever “put ourselves first.” Because we willingly gave that up when we accepted the Lord as our Lord. And frankly, it’s thinking we should or can that makes us so unhappy. So when I’m feeling tired, weak, worn out, and discouraged, I’m not going to think I need… Instead, I’m going to crawl up into the lap of my Abba and let him take care of it. I don’t need to go away. I don’t need to focus on me.
I need to focus on him.
by Roseanna White | Jul 31, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
One of the lessons I heard taught in one of the first writing classes I took at my very first conference touched on bad guys–and how a writer’s job is to look inside them and find a redeeming quality to make them three-dimensional.
Good advice. Except sometimes, in a book, I get pretty sick of bad guys with redeeming qualities that come off as excuses. He was abused, he thinks this will get him love, he’s motivated by the death of his true love, yada yada yada. I guess in my head there are two different kinds of bad guys–the antagonist, who’s just working against the hero but may not be bad, and the villain. The villain has evil in his heart. The villain desires destruction. The villain has systematically squashed all the good in himself.
Personally, I like a story with both.
As I’m digging (slowly) into my second Edwardian book, I realized that I have quite the team of baddies in this one. I’ve got my ultimate villain, who’s still playing it cool and quiet, who no one will realize yet was the mastermind behind the whole series (mwa ha ha ha). I’ve got my secondary baddie who everyone will think is the ultimate one, who continues through the whole series. I’ve got my seriously-hurt-my-heroine, for-this-book-only dude, who’s violent and a liar and yet thinks he’s acting out of love (see, redeeming quality! LOL).
Then I’ve got my heroine’s father. It would be easy to make him a cookie-cutter abusive dad. He beats her. Not blinded-by-rage-and-nearly-kills-her kind of beating, but the methodical, make-sure-it-doesn’t-show kind. The won’t-you-ever-learn-this-lesson? kind. Wrong, yes. But does he hate her? Is he just cruel? Is there more to him?
I’m rather sick of excuses for sin and evil in our world. Sure, people get carried away. Sure, people are affected by earlier traumas. Sure, we all have reasons for our mistakes–but they should never be a crutch. They should remain reasons, not excuses. We can’t excuse sin. So I don’t ever want to pardon what my characters do. I don’t want to justify it. I don’t want to make it right.
But I do want to dig deep enough into their fictional psyches to make them make sense. And sometimes that’s hard.
Digging into Douglas (the abusive father) the other night, I realized that he isn’t trying to make his daughter weak, to get his own way. He’s trying to make her strong. His abuse began when her mother fell out of his favor, and the thing he came to despise about his wife was that she was weak. Not strong enough to deserve his name. Not strong enough to deserve their heritage. And Gusty is his only child, heir to his estate and title (this is Scotland of 1912, remember). The last thing he wants is to pass everything to a weakling who will lose it. So when he sees Gusty acting like her mother, he punishes her. He sees it as hardening steel in a fire.
She sees it as hatred, cruelty, a tyrant trying to break her. So of course, she reacts by trying to avoid the punishment. Trying to please him–or more, stay out of his way. She draws in instead of acting out. And so appears ever weaker to his eyes. When the book opens, though, she’s reached her breaking point–she’s about to explode, and she’s finally about to take a stand. She expects his all-out rage.
Instead, she’s going to earn his respect for the first time.
Now I would never, ever, ever excuse such violence. It’s not right, and it’s never going to come across as right in the book. But it’s also going to turn out to be pretty important that her father doesn’t hate her. (Don’t know that I would say he knows how to love her, but…) It’s going to be important to realize that these people misunderstood each other for a decade. It’s going to be important to see that, when it comes down to it, her father chooses the path that will protect her–more, that will enable her to protect herself.
And hopefully, it’s going to make us all stop and wonder what’s really driving that person in reality whom we just don’t get. The one who never seems to react like we think they should. The one who gets angry too quickly, who holds grudges too long, who can never see the “reasonable” (aka our) side of an argument.
It’s going to make us pause, I hope, and ask ourselves if we are that confusing person to someone else. If what we think we’re doing to help someone is actually driving them away.
In my life, I take after my dad. I lapse into silence when I’m not sure what to think, or when I fear saying something that I’ll regret. In an argument, I’m not the shouter–I’m the brooder. To my mind, that’s the wise way to be. Better to think about it and come back later with a well-thought-out response than to say something that could hurt someone I love, right? Right?
My husband is a shouter. A throw-something-er. I always say “He’s Italian. Need I say more?” He’s demonstrative, and that goes for anger as well as love. And I’m still learning that in those rare times we fight, my silence doesn’t help him. My silence makes it worse. He doesn’t really care what I say, he just wants me to say it. To engage. To his mind, when I bite my tongue I’m shutting down. Turning off. Keeping him out–and all he wants is to know what I’m thinking. Whether he agrees or not doesn’t really matter to him. What matters is that we’re communicating.
See, the thing is, there’s rarely a right way to be in life. We’re all different–and that’s good. We don’t have to all react the same way. Yes, we need to keep our reactions holy, but there are even different kinds of holy. There’s the measured and calm responses of Ezra, there are the violent and quick reactions of Nehemiah. Both were right in the eyes of God. But man, I imagine they may have had a few clashes when facing each other!
This is just one more lesson I’ve learned through story. That when I’m dealing with the “characters” who populate my life, I’d better be willing to dig deeper. To understand why they do the things they do. To accept them for that. And to never assume that I’m the protagonist in their story–it could very well be that, in that moment, I’m antagonizing instead…no matter how much “better” I think my way is.
Queen of Hearts photo credit: Express Monorail via photopin cc
by Roseanna White | Jul 24, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Well, I’ve done it. I finished my read-the-Bible-in-a-year program. A smidgeon late, I grant you–those weeks of working on the old house happened to fall during a stretch with looooong assignments that I could never finish, so I got behind. But I finished my Chronological Bible in a year and 3 weeks.
When I undertook this last year, it was because I knew my daily reading had slacked off, and I knew I wanted to spend more time with Him. As I sat in a service at my church’s association meetings and listened to the conversation on how we should set aside time for Him, the conviction settled in that this was something I could and should do. So I went home, got out my Bible, and edited the schedule in the back of it to begin in July rather than January.
I’ve read all the way through my Bible several times before, but it’s pretty amazing to realize how much of it I’d totally forgotten. Or just never registered perhaps. I’ve learned a lot. About history, about God, about faith. I can’t hope to put it all in one blog post, but I want to dwell on some of those lessons, if only a few right now.
God is Deliberate
He doesn’t direct us randomly. He doesn’t say “Yeah, do whatever. I’ll make it work.” He has a very particular plan, and when you don’t obey it, then you can’t expect His blessing. We might not always understand why says “do this” one day and “don’t do this” same thing the next day. But there’s a reason. And we need to seek Him first, not after we’ve already made our decisions.
Details Matter
That’s the thing I took most from all the descriptions of the ark (Noah’s), the ark (of the Covenant), and the temple. Each detail was given with precision. Each detail was carried out with precision. Each detail was worth recording with precision. We as readers millennia removed might find some of those details boring. But they matter. Every detail of our lives matter. And we, as living temples of the Lord in this day of the Spirit, need to remember that. If God was so particular about the articles brought into the temple and how each was to be used, don’t you think it matters what we fill our hearts and minds with?
Obedience is a Sign of Our Hearts
Sometimes we might be confused by why Cain’s offering was refused. Or why the sons of Aaron were struck dead for getting a few details wrong in the sacrifice. Why touching the Ark of the Covenant to steady it killed a guy. But it’s like this–God tells us very particularly what to do and what not to do. If we disobey knowingly, it means we think our way is better than God’s way. Talk about pride! I’ve gotten over thinking God was cruel to do what he said he’s do–I’m more amazed that it doesn’t happen more often.
God Cares About our Little Things
Like the ax head, for which He rewrote the laws of physics. The missing coin of the woman at the well. The short man who just wants to see over the heads of the crowd. He cares. He meets those needs. Sometimes in simple ways–“Come down, Zachias, I will dine with you today.”–and sometimes in miraculous ones. But no matter how, He answers.
God Is Everywhere
We learn about His omnipresence as kids, right? God can be everywhere in the universe at once. Sure. But what really matters is that He’s where we are. In exile in Babylon. In the depths of our sorrow. In the bottom of a lion-filled pit. In a fiery furnace. In a depleted storeroom. In a drought-choked field. In a flooded valley. God is there, in whatever problem we’re facing. He’s there, in the shouts of victory. He’s there, waiting for us to reach out, to call, to cry for Him. He’s there, waiting to tell us when and how and where to move.
God Knows Us by Name
Maybe that sounds silly. But this read-through also reminded me of the power in names. Exactly twice in the Bible we hear that God told His true name to someone. First an angle who was given leave to slaughter the disobedient in the camps of Israel, and a few chapters later, to Moses. His name gave those two creatures power to do what no one else in history has done. The name of Jesus will make knees bow in all the universe. The names He gives to his servants signify their hearts and their purpose. And He knows us by name. Not just the name our parents chose for us, but the name that encapsulates all we are. All we can be. All we will ever do. He knows that name. He whispers it to us when we need it most. He calls us Rock when we feel pretty tempestuous. He calls us Deliverer when we feel like a coward who has run away. He calls us Wise Teacher when we feel like an outcast in a strange land.
Sometimes I wonder what my true name is…or where He’s leading me next…or if the small details of my life are pleasing to Him. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever conquer my weaknesses…or learn to fully, truly, always obey. Sometimes I wonder if I can ever be what I know I should be.
But you know, reading through those old stories…I learn anew that whatever I am, if I lay it at the feet of God, if I cling to the hand of the Savior, then it’s enough. Whatever I have, it’s enough–so long as I give it back to Him. Not just my extra, but my best. All for Him…because He is all to us.
by Roseanna White | Jul 17, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
There is absolute Right. There is absolute Wrong.
I believe this, absolutely.
There are things we should never, ever do, and things we always should. There is sin. There are consequences. There is righteousness.
Then there’s the gray. Sometimes it blurs up against the edges of Right and Wrong, but most of its existence lies spanning the fuzzy gap in between. The gray doesn’t deal with sin, just with…life. With our own decisions. Our relationships. Our countless day-to-day, minute-to-minute being.
I shouldn’t have changed my cat’s food–now she has a UTI. I shouldn’t have yelled at my kids before I realized what the problem was. I should do the dishes. I should make that phone call.
Things, good and bad, but not Right and Wrong.
Years ago, when Rowyn was nearing a year old and still waking up every couple hours through the night, I was nearing wits’ end. I was exhausted, sleep deprived, and had no energy left. I felt snappish and cranky through much of the day. There were times when the constant little hands grabbing at me made me want just five minutes without being touched. I was burned out. And in my mind, someone should have seen it and helped me. My husband should have gotten up more with the kids. He should have given me a morning now and then to sleep in. A grandmother should have seen how I struggled and volunteered to take the kids for an hour–without me asking.
My head was full of should-haves and should-not-haves. And eventually, I accused. I don’t honestly remember how the argument started, but it was linked somehow or another to my exhaustion. To my frustration with no one helping. With my total and complete conviction that I was right to want what I wanted, and the rest of the world was wrong not to give it to me.
My husband disagreed, LOL.
I don’t remember what he said, or what I said in response. I just remember seeking solitude in the night-darkened living room and deciding I would pray. Desperate for peace, I started out kneeling by the chair and ended up stretched across the floor, with my face to the rug. I cried–rare for me. And I begged God to show him, them, anyone. To show them where they were wrong.
That’s when the whisper came, in the recessed of my being. The one that said, And what about where you’re wrong?
I went still. The tears slowed. My breath eased out. And that’s when the epiphany came. That in much of life, it doesn’t matter who’s right-er or wrong-er. It doesn’t matter which side of the argument is most compelling.
What matters is that I cannot make another person’s decisions. God does not choose to make another person’s decisions. They are free to do what they will. They are free to be who they are. I can’t change it.
All I can change is me. My reactions. My responses. My heart.
My heart.
My heart wasn’t pretty at that point in time. It was tired and stressed and felt so alone in my exhaustion. But God showed me that night that He was there. That my family was there. That just because no one was doing what I thought they should, it didn’t mean they weren’t doing what they needed to. They had their own reasons, their own frustrations, their own exhaustions.
I could choose to be resentful–or I could choose to be thankful.
I made a conscious decision that night to choose gratitude. To choose not to be resentful when I didn’t get what I thought I should. I chose to find peace in the quiet mornings with my ever-wakeful little guy. I chose to find Joy in granting my night-owl hubby those morning hours to rest before a stressful day at work. I chose to do what I could in where I was rather than always wishing for something more, or less, or different.
I chose surrender.
There are so many days when I still think of that shadowed living room floor and the realizations that filtered in that night. So many days when I choose not to argue because I know it’s not worth it. That even if I think my opinions the better ones, that doesn’t mean I’m Right. It doesn’t mean the other party is Wrong.
I don’t have to be the victor in the argument. Most times, I don’t even have to argue. I just have to stop. Take a breath. Ignore the glaring, blaring insistence inside that says BUT I’M RIGHT! and ask, “But where am I wrong? Where am I hurting them by insisting? What will I actually lose if I put aside my pride and stop arguing?”
The answer is usually “nothing.” Maybe a bit of comfort now and them, and a sliver of that pride–but I have more than enough of that to sustain me, LOL.
But what I stand to gain…that’s something different altogether. I’m not a pushover, but I’m often silent in a conflict–because I’d rather not fight than hurt someone I love. My husband often pushes me to talk through things when I’d rather not–because he knows relationships stall in silence. God often whispers in those recesses when I’m being stubborn–because He knows that there are things that matter a whole lot more than clinging to my own determination.
I’m not perfect. I’m still tired sometimes. Still stressed, still exhausted. I still have occasional moments where I just want a bubble around me for an hour or two, with no demands on my person to feed someone or clothe someone or teach someone or even talk to someone.
But never, since that night, have I ever felt that despair again. Because I let go of a stumbling block when I said, “You’re right, God. Please, show me where I’m wrong.”
I never like the answers when I ask that question. But oh, how I cherish the results.
photo credit: gato-gato-gato via photopin
by Roseanna White | Jul 10, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays
First of all, don’t forget that there’s a giveaway going on for a copy of Circle of Spies! Hop over to Colonial Quills and enter! http://bit.ly/CQCoS
~*~
One of my grinning-est moments while cleaning out the closets and whatnot at our old house was when I stumbled across a file folder box. It was duct-taped, flimsy, and I had some vague recollection of shoving into it something I wanted to keep. So I opened it up. And I saw this.
This, my dear friends, is the cover I drew for my first novel, at age 12. Back when The Lost Heiress was Golden Sunset, Silver Tear. And back when I was Roseanna M. Higson, LOL. You know how sometimes you see a baby picture of yourself or you kids and go “Awwwwww!” Yeah. That’s what I did here.
But I’ve always been the type to turn to drawing (or now, digital design) when I don’t have the writing groove going on. So this 12-year-old’s version of my cover isn’t the only I did. over the next couple years, as I rewrote and edited and learned more about drawing, I did these too.
Not all covers, of course, but I loved trying to draw Brook. Who was, at the time Brook Moon. Now she’s Brook Eden. But she still has blond curls and green eyes. Though that bead necklace featured in all the above drawings has become one with dangling pearls…
Still. Going through that box was a trip down memory lane. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk in my old bedroom–the one with the peach carpet and the lavender walls–and doing these drawings. I remember holding them up to my mirror to see if they were proportioned right (you can see flaws in the mirror image that you can’t detect normally). I remember working so hard on them and knowing they weren’t quite it.
Some of the teens on Go Teen Writers frequently share their art on the Facebook group, and I’m usually left in utter awe at their talent. Definitely better than my teen doodling! But I always love seeing them and knowing that, yep, that’s what I did too. Not so well, LOL, but still. It gives me a visual documentation of the path the book has taken. I love that. =)
And then, of course, I turned the page and saw this–the title page I created at age 12 too.
It’s the first of 388 handwritten (in pencil) pages. *Sniff, sniff.*
Now my first pages are computerized, and I didn’t bother designing a title page that would get deleted anyway. Now, my document starts like this.
Far more efficient. And I wouldn’t hand-write a book now unless I had absolutely no other choice. But it’s not quite as warm and cuddly, and I’m so, so glad I saved that very first draft of my very first book.
Ah, memories.
(And yeah, I kinda combined yesterday’s forgotten Remember When with today’s Thoughtful Thursday. Because I completely spaced it was Wednesday yesterday until mid-morning, LOL.)
by Roseanna White | Jul 3, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
A couple weeks ago, my hubby showed me a video of a truck driving along a street. From the open fields on the other side of it, I’d guess it to be in the Midwest. Truck’s just driving along, when wham! A fork of lightning comes searing down and hits the truck. Not the telephone poles, not the building that the security cam is attached to. Not the highest point in the area. The truck.
The people were fine. The truck…not so much.
As I watched that video, it hit a nerve. I used to be terrified of lightning, of storms. So sure that it was going to strike my house, catch it on fire (the real phobia), and devour me. I was known a time or two to go hide under the blankets when a thunderstorm rolled through. I knew that those blankets wouldn’t keep me safe. But they provided a barrier. Insulation. Comfort.
Even today, when the phobia has been forgotten and I enjoy a good rousing summer storm, some of the old instincts are still there. A couple times recently I’ve been driving home during a storm severe enough to send my phone chirping with tornado or flash flood warnings. A couple times, I’ve been watching the clouds for swirling motion or lightning when I pass through the forests along my road and hit the open stretch where the farm fields take over.
And each time, I can’t help the feeling of vulnerability that hits me when I’m out in the open like that, in a metal cage of a car, with the storm clouds overhead. I’d blame it on the video, but the experience actually came first, LOL. I feel exposed. In danger. I press a little firmer on the gas pedal and head for the tree line. It feels safer there.
But it isn’t. I know that. Well I remember the lessons as a child that say that in a thunderstorm, do not take shelter under a tree–trees are the things most often struck by lightning, and you could be putting yourself in danger by being under them when branches snap off from the surge of electricity. I know it–but it’s counter-intuitive.
It feels safe. It feels better.
But that feeling is a lie. And the truth is, we can’t totally predict what lightning will do, where it will strike. It’s a force of nature. Not always the highest point. Not always the metal.
It’s got a life of its own, it seems. One a lot like life. Troubles don’t strike where we expect them to either. Stress and controversy and attacks don’t always come from the likely source. But come they do. And they leave us smoking and sizzling a lot of times, wondering where that came from.
It’s human nature to seek shelter in the things that feel safe. In our friends. In our family. In a good book. A warm blanket. In food. In a crowd. In our anger.
But those are just the trees. They provide a feeling of shelter…but they’re not.
Shelter is in the shadow of His wings. But here’s the thing–it might not always feel like it. Because to go before God, we have to lay our souls bare. We have to make ourselves vulnerable. We have to go before Him on the plain, where there’s nothing else to overshadow us and distract from us…and that’s scary. We’re afraid it’ll hurt. We’re afraid of what it will cost us.
We’re afraid His lightning will strike us…or at least that His light will make us too aware of our failings.
We serve a God who sends the wind forth from His treasuries. Who makes lightning for the rain. Who makes the earth tremble and the seas to swell. We serve a God who puts His finger on the smallest amoeba. Who strokes the wing of a butterfly. Who cares about our every little worry.
His infinity stretches both to the vast and the infinitesimal. To the storm and the slightest breeze. The lightning and the lightning bug.
He is our shelter, and it isn’t deceptive like that forest I want to hurry to in a storm. He’s true. And though our feelings might make us hesitate, though that shadowy whisper might say it will be too hard, too painful, we’re called to trust in Him. Yes, He might ask something hard of us. But we can trust it will be for our good.
We can trust that He is in control. That he knows where every bolt of lightning will land. And that He can tell us when to seek the fields and when the trees. When to stop and when to go. He has it all in His hand.
And He has us there too. Whether we feel it or not.
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.