by Roseanna White | Dec 12, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I just read a book. Technically I was editing it, but mostly I was soaking it in. Always such a pleasant surprise when I can do that. When I can let a book engage not just my mind but my heart. And sometimes my soul.
My Mother’s Chamomile is a WhiteFire title, coming in February, so obviously we expect a little bias from me. But. But.
I need to talk about this book, and it has nothing to do with my interest as its editor when I say this is a novel that everyone–everyone–should read. Because it deals with some things we all–all–deal with.
Grief. Mourning. Death.
The main characters in the book are small-town funeral directors. The folks no one wants to talk to because seeing them is a constant reminder of bad times. Of how short life can be. They’re a family mostly avoided–until their neighbors need them. Then they’re the givers of mercy. The hands of love. The calm and peace in an ocean of uncertainty.
But who will comfort them when they’re the ones dealing with tragedy?
Let me tell you why I couldn’t stop reading this book. And why it actually had me mopping tears off me cheeks–me, who gets teary-eyed from time to time but does not cry like that over books! For one thing, the writing style is just so incredibly authentic. For another, it has a surprising amount of action. For another…well, it struck a chord.
Because I’ve stood in those funeral homes. I’ve heard the quiet voices of the directors, seeking to soothe. Trying to bring comfort where it shouldn’t rightly be. At fourteen, I attended so many viewings that I knew my way through all the rooms of both the old Victorian houses converted to funeral parlors in my home town, I knew where they kept the hot chocolate and tea, I knew which rooms were bigger and which convertible when you shut or opened those accordion doors.
I knew death well that year. In addition to several folks from my church, I lost my uncle. I lost my grandfather.
And oh, how cynical it made me about the whole process of saying farewell.
On the one hand, that’s the year my faith went deep. When I started reading my Bible just because, every morning, and not just in Sunday School. That’s the year I went from always-being-a-Christian to grasping hold of the Lord with both hands and begging Him never to let go. My faith went deep…but my cynicism got a good root too.
I hated those viewings. I hated having to walk up to the casket and see the body that was no longer the one I loved. I hated seeing the makeup on skin that never wore it. I hated seeing the careful arrangement of hands that, in life, were never still. It all felt so fake to me. So false. That was when I decided that when my time came, I didn’t want that. I wanted a party, New Orleans style. Play some jazz, talk about my life. Laugh over the memories, cry too. But don’t pat my hand and say how natural I look. Please.
The cynicism took a turn when I was 20. My best friend got married right after high school. I was in her wedding, and she was in mine a year later. It was only another year after that when David and I came home from college one weekend, and my mother-in-law handed me the phone. “It’s Christy,” she said. I took the phone with a smile.
It didn’t last long. Christy was calling to tell me that her husband had died in a car accident the night before. Widowed, at age twenty. She was calling to ask me to be with her. So I drove to her mom’s house. I held her when she cried. And when she asked me to go with her and her family to make the funeral arrangements, I went.
All my many visits to those viewing parlors, but that’s been my only trip belowstairs. I don’t remember much. Just the quiet voice of the directors. Their patience. Their assurance that they’d take care of everything they could. Make it easier on the family in any way they could.
That’s what they do. But that was the first time I really paused to wonder how, day after day, they did it.
It was a question that didn’t linger long, I gotta say. College had its other losses for me–my boss committed suicide, as did one of my professors. Not many months later, my grandfather died of a brain tumor. I was letting one of my other professors know I’d be missing a class for the funeral, and he got this sad smile on his face. He was the one who had taken over my class the spring before after Mr. Allenbrook died. And that day, Mr. Tuck said, “It’s been a bad year for you, hasn’t it? Are you okay?”
Questions like that can break a body. Break a dam. Bring the tears that usually one only shed when the shower was covering the sound, when there was no one around to see. Grief, for me, had long been so very private. So very muted. It wasn’t my way to rant and rail.
But you know, when I went into one of those same funeral homes again for yet another grandfather, I gave myself permission not to go up to the casket. I stuck to the flower-drenched tables, to the rows of chairs, to the family I hadn’t seen in a decade.
I haven’t gone right up to the casket since. Not because of any fear or disgust. But because I didn’t want to let that cynicism rear its head. I didn’t want it to taint the grief of those who needed it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last seventeen years, it’s that everyone mourns differently. But everyone mourns. And if they don’t, well then, that’s even harder. I’ve learned that some get angry and some get bitter, some get quiet and some get loud. Some turn to God, some want answers. Some just need a hand to cling to.
But we all break. Because we’re human, because we love, because losing someone we love is meant to hurt. We break. We’re broken. We have those cracks and chips and holes inside us, the ones no one but the Lord can ever fill.
In My Mother’s Chamomile, the Lord uses the hands of His servants to touch hearts all over that small Michigan town. And then He uses the town to touch the hearts of the comforters. It’s a book that reminded me so clearly of all those times I’d lost. All those times I’d trekked into that familiar funeral home. All those times when I realized how fragile life is. How tragic it can be. How death makes no difference between rich and poor, young and old. It’s always there. I’ve known for so long that it’s always there. And maybe it sounds strange that I so loved a book that drove that home.
But here’s the thing. We all have those broken places. We all have those times when sorrow takes us over. When death invades our world. We all deal with it in different ways. And we all wonder if we’re doing it right.
This was a book that said, “Right is however you can. Right is whatever it takes. And love–love is what will get you through it. Love of those still with you, yes. But more, the love of God. And if you can’t feel that love right now, that’s okay. He understands. But you’ll see it in us. You’ll feel it in our embrace when there’s no one else beside you to hold onto. You’ll hear it in the quiet when we back out of the room so you can cry. You’ll sense it in the flowers that we place with such care around you.”
Grief is so very real. Mourning is so very hard. And sometimes–sometimes we just can’t wrap our minds and hearts around the whys. They overwhelm us. They make those cracks go wider. And never in my life have I read a book that soothed those old, scabbed-over, broken places like My Mother’s Chamomile did. That made me cry because of the beauty that can take root in that moment of greatest sorrow. The pure love that can soak through all the brittle spots.
Something changed in me as I read that book. Something that made me gather my babies close and smile over them. Something that made me pray harder for those I love who are struggling right now. Something that made me wonder how I can better be the hands and feet of the Lord.
Something that made me wake up in the morning and think, Yes. This is life. And it’s so, so very precious.
Something that made me determine not to squander that.
by Roseanna White | Dec 5, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
In reading through the Old Testament again, I keep noticing something I noted first several years ago. So often, God reveals His power to the world, and not just to the Israelites. He demonstrates his majesty to people great and small from all the nations.
I love reading about those cases. I love reading how people who were raised with the pantheon of gods and idols go wide-eyed in the face of the all-powerful Yahweh. I love reading about how they fall to their knees before the prophets.
But so often their words are the same. “I know that your God is supreme,” they’ll say.
Your God.
They recognize His omnipotence…but rarely do they claim Him as theirs. When they do, it’s striking. When Ruth proclaims, “Your God shall be my God,” that’s huge. When a man returns to his own land determined to worship the Lord, that’s really worth getting excited about. Because for a believer in many gods to grant that one is the most powerful…meh. It almost rates as a “so what?” But to serve Him–to count themselves as one of His children–that requires a complete shift in their thinking. God does not want to be served along with others. He wants to reign alone in our hearts. So when He is our God, my God, that means none other can claim the same.
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| David Presents the Head of Goliath to King Saulby Rembrandt, circa 1627 |
These pronouns really struck me when reading about King Saul and David. Never once does Saul call the Lord his God or his Lord. He refers to Him instead as David’s God, or as the God of their fathers. Yet in the same passages, we see David crying out to Yahweh with those personal pronouns.
There are many nuances to David’s story that I probably don’t understand. But when I noticed this, it made a light go on in my head. That, right there, is a perfect illustration of where Saul failed and David succeeded. Whatever other successes or failures each had, the real issues of their reigns came down to serving the Lord.
To Saul, He remained always distant. He was someone else’s Lord. To be feared but not understood. To be heard from the mouth of a prophet, but who Saul never approached himself.
Then there’s David. To David, God was an ever-present Father. He was savior and friend. David called on Him directly, every hour, throwing himself at the feet of the Almighty as a child will fall into the lap of a parent. Knowing that though chastisement will come when he does wrong, it will be tempered, always with love.
David knew God. David loved God. He was his.
There’s a passage in Jewel of Persia where Kasia notices this. Where Xerxes, king of all Persia, of all the world, it seems, recognizes the full power of her God…but still calls him hers. In that moment, she sees it as a step along the road. He at least sees Him. But when will he call the Lord his?
In today’s world, we tend not to look at things in the way they did back then. People don’t go around talking about my God versus your God very often. People don’t serve (knowingly, that is) the Baals. But oh-so-often they worship their own creations. Their idea of God, or of some creator being they force into their own image. They serve their own desires, their own wants, their own lusts. Maybe they pay lip service to that God they see in church. Maybe they toss around the words God and Jesus.
But is He theirs?
Is He ours? I pray so. I pray that we don’t look upon Him as distant, as better known and better loved and loving someone else. I pray I never look at another believer and think God loves him better…he knows God better. Because then I’ll start to think of Lord as belonging more to that other person than to me.
I may be weaker. I may be of lesser faith. I may be a lot of things that need shored up and strengthened. But may I always know this–He is mine, and I am His. Our relationship is like no one else’s.
And that’s exactly as it should be.
by Roseanna White | Nov 21, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
On Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending my great-grandmother’s 100th birthday party. Most of the family was there, including some of her great-nieces and nephews that I’ve never even met. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to come and celebrate this amazing milestone.
I admit it–I didn’t want to leave home so early that day. I was in a writing groove, and Rowyn had been under the weather the day before, and I was afraid he’d crash back into exhausted at the party. I didn’t want to prepare a dish, I didn’t want to stop writing. But of course, I did. And oh, how glad I was.
Because as I sat in a metal folding chair beside my mother and sister, my kids right in front of me playing with the gourds used as decoration, I listened to the stories everyone told of this woman I’ve known all my life. And I realized I’m a part of a legacy.
Over and again people told the same stories. The stories of how she loved–and how she loved all, without distinction, without bias, without favoritism.
(Grandma says, “Well, you’re all just swell!”)
Stories of how Grandma’s old house was always an oasis of safety, a place everyone loved so much that we didn’t mind imitating sardines on Christmas Eve to get to spend time there.
(Grandma says, “It isn’t as big as I remember, is it?”)
Stories of how she always, always welcomed each addition to the family, whether through marriage or birth or adoption, with the exact same love and embrace as she had her own children, always remembered each one, always took care that they all received the same consideration.
(Grandma says, tearfully, “Thank you all so much for all your beautiful kids. Welcome to the family.”)
And my dad, tears in his eyes, reminded us all of the passage in one of Paul’s letters where he says, “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.” To us, Dad said, “We can say ‘imitate Grandma, as she imitates Christ.’ She has always been a shining example of Jesus’s love for us.”
I don’t know what my legacy will be. I don’t know what people will remember me for. I don’t know how many would gather to celebrate a milestone with me. I certainly don’t know what milestones I’ll reach in this life.
But whatever age, whatever place in life, whatever people cross my path, I pray I can share in my grandmother’s legacy. I pray that they see even a morsel of her strength and goodness and kindness in me.
I pray, with tears in my eyes, that I can be like Grandma.
by Roseanna White | Nov 14, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
It’s always a blessing to get to know my readers, of both blog and books. If I remember correctly, Andrea and I began chatting over the summer. She was a frequent visitor during the big month of giveaways, and she’s been stopping by regularly ever since. She recently read Ring of Secrets and asked me if I would consider letting her do a guest post on some things she considered while reading. I’m always happy for an easy blogging day, LOL, so readily agreed. 😉 So now, without further ado, Andrea.
~*~
Previously published on My Book
Therapy’s
Weekly Spark, Andrea Renee
Cox (
http://writingtoinspire.blogspot.com)
cherishes God, family and writing with a song in heart and a story in mind.
This Texan girl enjoys road trip vacations with her family and trying different
dessert recipes, looking for “keepers.”
Sometimes another author’s book
sparks an idea for a novel of my own. Other times it hatches a plan for a blog
article. Still other times there’s a line on the pages that can be applied to
other parts of my life besides just writing.
This novel of espionage in the
late 1700s captured my interest from the get-go. What really connected with me,
though, was Bennet Lane’s thoughts from chapter three: “Explore, discover,
document.” He used these three steps to root out a spy hidden among New York
City’s elite aristocratic class.
I use them in my writing.
The first step to writing a
novel is to explore. The setting, time
period, what people were like in the time chosen for my story—all must be
uncovered in order for me to fully understand the time and place and characters
of my novel. It’s a fun process that leads from one resource to another to yet
another. From books to the internet to music and movies, the places to search
and explore are practically endless.
Next comes discovery. This one always surprises me. You never know what neat,
off-the-wall tidbits of information you’ll discover while you’re exploring.
Little treasure troves of trivia wait to be uncovered and put to good use.
These things take my stories to a deeper, more realistic level because the
tidbit was a kernel of truth placed artfully within my work of fiction. Every
fiction piece has some truth to it, and it’s little wonder when these realities
are found during discovery.
Finally, we document everything. This starts with making notes from our
resources. It moves into an outline and other brainstorming techniques.
Eventually, our documentation flows out into the full-length novel we hope will
be published to reach readers’ hands. That’s the day all aspiring authors dream
about. Once it happens, the readers sometimes document their thoughts and send
them to us via Facebook, Twitter and email.
Maybe writers aren’t the only
ones to use Bennet Lane’s “explore, discover, document” method!
What line from your favorite
book can be applied to another part of your life beyond reading? How do you use
the “explore, discover, document” method?
by Roseanna White | Oct 31, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| An approaching storm front we captured in the Outer Banks this summer |
When you get bad news…or sad news…what do you do? It’s inevitable that we run into these times–they’re part of life, much as we wish they weren’t.
We’re going to have those days when we cry.
We’re going to have those days when we yell.
We’re going to have those days when we feel like the best course is to hide from the world.
Ever since I was a middle-schooler, I’ve pondered my own reactions to these times. I remember when we got the news that my grandfather had cancer. My parents cried. My sister cried. There was much hugging. There was much talk.
I closed myself into my room with a pencil and a notebook, and I wrote poem called, “Why Do I Smile?” I happen to have it on my computer, surprisingly, LOL, so I’ll copy it:
The days melt together in a turmoil of ache.
Their only distinction is a separate pain.
I feel that my future’s not mine to make.
So why do my dreams suspend–unslain?
Each person has their own losses;
Each deals with them in their own way.
Most cry as they carry their crosses.
Why do I smile and laugh it away?
My world has diminished to shatters,
But my eyes are as dry as the breeze.
As hope lies around me in tatters,
I sing as I fall to my knees.
Why can’t I mourn as my mother,
Or weep it away as my friend?
Why must I resort to another—
Stronger?—more miserable end?
I can’t see into tomorrow
So I don’t know that I’ll make it that mile.
Even I can’t see past my own sorrow.
So tell me, why do I smile?
Thirteen-year-old me didn’t really have the answer. Thirty-one-year-old me doesn’t either, but it hasn’t changed. I still, upon getting upsetting news, am more likely to smile and assure everyone I’m okay than cry and let them assure me it will be okay. And it’s not a facade–that’s my genuine, gut reaction. The eternal optimist. The faith, perhaps, holding me up.
But it always hits a month or two later. Every single time I’ve gotten a rejection on a project I thought was sold, for instance (which has happened way too many times, LOL), I’ve experienced this. I can smile and assure my critique partners it’s no big thing. I know that God’s got something better for me. That it was no surprise to Him. I know it, and so I can smile.
Until I can’t anymore. When it hits, it hits like a waterfall, tumbling over me without relent. Those are the days when I mourn for what was lost, or for what I know will be lost soon. I grieve for what cannot be. I look at the projects or dreams or loved ones snatched from me, and I ache. I whimper. I want to cry, but by then I can’t seem to find any tears. (This is why Roseanna cries maybe twice a year. Usually over something stupid like forgetting to pay a bill, LOL.)
It’s so hard not to be discouraged in those times. And in the throes of discouragement, what you know doesn’t often help, because you’re too overwhelmed by what you feel. If only the two could line up!
As you might guess, I’m having a delayed reaction this week, LOL. Nothing as terrible as the impending loss of my grandfather, just a bunch of disappointments adding up, and the old ones that I thought settled coming to add their voices to the mix. One of those days, one of those weeks.
And so I ponder. Again. I wonder why I deal with things the way I do. Is it the right way? The wrong way? The strong way, the weak way? I don’t know. But it’s my way. It’s my way to smile until it hits, to smile again as soon as I can. It’s my way to mourn quietly.
This time, I’m sharing the feeling if not all the reasons, not in a bid for sympathy, but in a laying-bare, to see if it helps in the healing. In a question of how you manage these days, these weeks, so I can listen for the whisper of the great Healer in the voices of my friends.
So please, share. What do you do when the tempest strikes?
by Roseanna White | Oct 24, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| Psalm 136 |
My daily reading has me in the Psalms right now, and I have always loved this book of ancient songs. I know, I know–I’m not exactly unique in that, LOL.
But do you know what I love most about them? That the songs speak to everything we experience. Joy, heartache, love, disappointment, hope, longing, fear, appreciation, pain, expectation, shame, victory…you name it. If there’s an emotion out there, one of the psalmists has written about it. It’s almost impossible not to find a psalm that expresses one’s heart at a given moment. A psalm that cries out your heart to the Lord.
That itself isn’t what I love though. It’s that through every one of those emotions, underscoring it and crowning it, is praise.
Through the Joy, the authors give all the praise to Him.
Through the pain, the authors wait with praise for Him.
I’ve read through the Psalms several times, and I’ve only ever found one song that only laments and doesn’t tack on praise. One–out of 150!
Some days it’s really easy to praise. Like yesterday, when my precious little girl turned 8, and we got to celebrate the day she joined our lives and made them oh-so-much fuller.
I can’t imagine, now, what life would be like without my Xoë. She’s a ray of sunshine, sensitive and sweet and smart and sassy, and I thank the Lord daily (literally) for her and her brother.
But we all know praise isn’t always easy. Some days, the world comes crashing in. Some days, all hope seems lighter than vapor. Some days, we just want to rant, rail, and cry out. To God, to man, to the universe–to whoever will listen…or because it seems no one will.
Sometimes we know how David felt, being hunted and sheltering in caves. Sometimes we feel like our son, our pride and Joy, has turned on us. Sometimes we feel haunted by our sin. Sometimes we feel forgotten.
But my eyes are upon You, O God the Lord;
In You I take refuge;
Do not leave my soul destitute.
I can’t pray trouble will never befall us–it will. We’re going to face disappointments. Persecution. Betrayal. Sickness. Pain. We’re going to lose loved ones. We’re going to stare darkness in the face and not be quite sure where–if–the light lies beyond it.
But I can pray that we have the hearts of the psalmists through it all. That no matter the trial, we keep our eyes on the One who can bring us through it. That no matter the tribulation, we remember that He is our refuge. And that no matter how low, how bad, how tear-drenched our day might be, He will never, never leave our soul destitute.
Today, I praise You, Lord, for all the joys bubbling up in my life. And today, Lord, I praise You for seeing me through the valleys too.
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.