by Roseanna White | May 23, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
|
| Baby at Play by Thomas Eakins, 1876 |
As a mama working from home with two home schooled kids, one of whom is only kindergarten aged, I know a lot about interruptions. People frequently ask me, “How do you get anything done?” And in answer, I usually have to shrug. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I only do by popping earbuds in and turning on some instrumental music to drown out Max & Ruby or Octonauts. Sometimes I do a lot of growling about, “Please, just five minutes without squabbling. Please.”
For the most part, my kids are good at entertaining themselves. But as I was trying to hammer through the last few chapters of my manuscript the other day, I found that the interruptions were of a certain type. Rowyn was building. And when Rowyn in building, I hear a lot of this:
“Look, Mommy!”
“Mommy, see what I did here?”
“Hey, Mama, do you know where the other piece like this is?”
“Mommy, ta-da!”
Despite being pulled yet again from my story, I had to smile. It’s such a cute and intrinsic part of childhood, isn’t it? That need to be not just noticed but acknowledged. To have one’s actions and accomplishments cheered and encouraged.
I remember those days. I remember standing at the edge of the pool and saying, “Watch, Mommy. Mommy? Hey, Mommy, watch me! Look what I can do!” before jumping in. I remember rushing in from a day of school, waving the picture I’d colored or the fat red A on the top of a test. I remember my mom smiling and laughing, giving me a kiss. Even though sometimes she was probably thinking, “Yeah, look at you, jumping into the pool exactly like you did twenty seconds ago.” 😉
An adorable part of childhood, to be sure. And yet…not peculiar to our early days, is it? Maybe I don’t have to show my mother every paragraph I write anymore (I mean, as I write it–she still reads most of what I put to paper, LOL). Maybe my every move isn’t a cry of “Look! Notice me! Approve of what I’m doing! Be proud!” Not aloud–but we never really outgrow the instinct, do we?
I can’t design a book cover without showing my husband or best friend. I can’t finish a hard day without inviting someone to note all I accomplished. I can’t scrub a floor without surveying it at the end and saying to my kids, “Just look at that! Doesn’t that look nice?”
People crave approval like we crave air–it’s a necessary part of who we are. We need those pats on the head. We need the smiles. We don’t necessarily need someone to say, “Wow, that’s the best thing ever!” We just need to know they see. That they notice. That they care.
It can be tiring to be the one always having to notice, without often being noticed (says the mom with young kids who really don’t care about a clean floor, LOL). But you know, people pay attention to that too–and more, God does. I think he must smile over our every indulgent smile. I think He must pat our backs when we pat the back of another. I think He loves little more than watching His children love one another.
Sometimes I need the reminder to slow down and notice. To spare those few seconds that make another’s day. So this is me reminding myself. And it’s me reminding you. Pay attention today. Take a few seconds to let those in your life know you’re watching, you’re really seeing them, that their ever little action is a precious part of your day, of your life.
Cherish those ta-das. There’s nothing else in the world like them.
by Roseanna White | May 9, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Phew. It’s been a week, that’s for sure. A rather long one, with trips to and from Baltimore, worry over my brave little princess, and nothing remotely resembling routine.
Praise be to the Lord, elbows heal fast, so Xoe’s not in pain except for when she bumps it. But there are some obvious adjustments that come when one can’t use one’s dominant hand, and as a homeschool family, we get to make all those ourselves. A few lessons have just been suspended–like handwriting. Spelling is now out loud or on the chalk board rather than in a notebook. But others involve a scribe. Which would be me, LOL. It can be fun to find alternative ways of doing familiar lessons, but it takes a wee bit more time.
We “collected” a lot of prayers last week, and I’m just in awe of the amazing group of prayer warriors who surrounded my little girl with their petitions. I can’t thank everyone enough for that, or for the continued prayers for correct healing. We’ve been showered with cute little gifts and cards for the Xo-girl.
Tomorrow is an all-day field trip to an Army Heritage museum, so my still-reeling self will be trying to play catch-up-and-get-ahead today. I can’t quite believe it’s Thursday already! So please forgive me for cutting this short this morning. And thank you, again and again, for all the prayers for my family this past week!
by Roseanna White | Apr 25, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Tuesday night/Wednesday was, let’s say, not great. When I went to bed at 11, I’d meant to set my alarm for 5:30 but forgot. I wanted to get up early to write, but I’d been waking up early on my own, so I figured I’d be fine.
At 1 a.m., a very distressed “Mommy!” woke me up. Poor Xoe (7) was sick. And proceeded to be sick every half hour, meaning that neither of us had the chance to go back to sleep. At about 3, I had the thought that, unlike the last time we had a sick kid in the middle of the night, there was nothing going on this Wednesday that I would have to plan around. We could just rest.
Thank you, Lord.
The pattern continued until, oh, 5:00. I fell back into bed that time staring at the clock and wondering if, unlike every other time, either of us would manage to get back to sleep before the nausea struck again. Oh, I prayed so. I prayed so with every fiber of my being, as I had been praying for the last two hours.
|
Women Doing Laundry by Jahn Ekenaes
(Oh yes, thank you for washing machines!) |
Downstairs I heard the whir of the dryer. The chug of the washer. And it occurred to me that plenty of times over the past two years, one or the other of those machines had been not working improperly, either plain not going or not draining right. But tonight, both were behaving beautifully as they washed the sheets and towels and clothes soiled from upset bellies.
Thank you, Lord.
At 6:00 when I heard the bathroom door creak again, I realized I had actually slept for the first time since those two hours at the beginning of the night, and that Xoe had too.
Thank you, Lord.
Though my poor little dumpling understandably asked when she was going to stop and feel better, she smiled as I tucked her, yet again, into bed.
Thank you, Lord.
A mere half hour later, Rowyn woke up. Too chipper for his exhausted mama, waaaaaaaaay too bouncy. But chipper and happy and healthy.
Thank you, Lord.
By no means was this a great day. Certainly not the day I’d planned when I meant to set my alarm and wake up early to write. We weren’t out basking in the beautiful 75-degree sunshine like I would normally have wanted.
But you know, it’s just the flu. It passes quickly. We can deal with it. We have the blessing of being able to redo our schedule at the drop of a hat, thanks to homeschooling. I work from home, so I can just declare it a sick day if I have to. We can rest, we can recuperate, and we can so what needs doing. And oh, how much doable it all seems when I remember to take those moments between the yucks and exhaustion to
Thank you, Lord.
by Roseanna White | Apr 18, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Anyone who knows me knows this title is not about my house. 😉
As I stood in front of my stove cooking dinner (mark it on your calendar!) the other night, with my head still in my novel (not rare enough to be noted, LOL), I got to thinking. I’d just written an out-of-the-blue line about my hero returning a borrowed fob. No big deal. Except that until that moment I didn’t know he had borrowed the fob…though I mentioned his pocket watch and its attaching chain in chapter 2. So back I went to the beginning, did a little tweak to the line, and voila. He pulled out his borrowed fob.
See? Neat and tidy.
This is the sort of thing I take great care with in my books. I don’t like any reference to be in vain, so I always make sure everything is woven all the way throughout. But, let’s face it, these small details will probably go unnoticed more often than not. Right? The cynical side of me might say, in moments of exhaustion, that they go unappreciated. But when someone
does catch these little carried-through threads, I hope it makes them go, “Aha! Nice!” Occasionally I’ll get a note from a critique partner or editor or reader letting me know they noticed something like this, and it makes me grin.
Yes, in fiction, all loose ends must be tied. All dangling threads snapped and pulled out. All lines and scenes and plots neatly ordered.
But in life?
Maybe because I focus so much on this sort of thing in my stories, I find myself looking for it in the real world too. Looking for those “Aha!” moments. Those times when it becomes glaringly clear why that thing happened a month or year or decade ago. I daresay I’m not alone in that–we all like to find reason in the seemingly-random, right? I usually call it looking for God’s hand. Which it is.
But as I stood there stirring my ground beef and thinking about watch fobs, it occurred to me that sometimes those threads are crucial…but so very small they really will likely go unnoticed. And if that happens in my books, which are crafted by small-visioned me, how often is that the case in life, where the omniscient God is the author? How many times do things never make sense to us, never even gain our notice…yet were crafted with such perfect care by Him?
Life, to our human eyes, is messy. Often ugly. Always beyond our total comprehension. But you know, I think if we could look at it through the Author’s eyes, we’d see where every thread is pulled through. Where every loose end is tied off. Where every tear we shed, where every dream we dream matters in our life story. I think, if we could see it in the right light, life would look a lot neater.
The reality is, we’re incapable of that. And that’s okay too. Because just like most people will never pause to think, “Wow, she wove the watch fob back in two hundred pages later!”, it’s not necessary that we notice every time God makes sense of things. It’s enough to know He does. To be able to see the big ones. It’s okay to wonder about the ones we never see reemerge.
Because He’s got it all under control. And sometimes I can just hear Him whisper, “Just hold on. You’ll understand in another few chapters…”
by Roseanna White | Apr 4, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
My parents always read to me as a kid. I started writing when I was, oh, six or seven. It took another year or two for me to love reading (myself) other stories as much as I loved creating my own, but I definitely came down with that bug something fierce. And after college, I decided I should take up writing reviews. At the time there was a lack of reviews from the Christian perspective, and I wanted to fill the gap.
It wasn’t long until I was a member of ACFW and reviewing the books of a lot of other authors from the organization. And because of that, I had faces to put to the names and titles. I knew there were people behind the books, I knew the people, sometimes (a little). And I knew too that I was a writer, and that was always in the back of the my mind. I wanted my reviews to be honest, but I also wanted them to be fair and Godly. I wanted to never, ever write a review that was not one I would be hurt to receive.
When I first had books out there in the world to be reviewed, I was pretty blessed. All my first reviews were positive. And often not just positive but glowing. Left and right I had folks saying how my biblicals changed their lives, their understanding, I heard “best book” or “favorite book” a few times. Which gave me the confidence to say that I was actually looking forward to my first negative review, because it would make me more a “real” writer.
Yeah. Silly me, LOL.
In the years since then, I’ve gotten my fair share of bad reviews. I’ve let them bog me down sometimes, and other times I’ve shaken them off. When they’re really well thought-out negative reviews, I learn and grow from them. I thought I’d gotten pretty good at dealing with the negative, focusing on the positive. But recently, I’ve come to a decision that, for me, is pretty big.
I’m done reading reviews of my books. Finished.
Ciao, bye-bye. Other writers I love and respect have arrived at this place long before me, and I never quite got it. But with the release of
Ring of Secrets, I do. All of a sudden, reviews are depressing me, even the good ones. I can’t really explain the reason, just the result. I want readers to find and read and love my book, I want to be approachable, I welcome and love notes from them. But I’m to the point where I’m leaving that up to them. If they want me to know their thoughts, they can email or find me on Facebook–and I LOVE THAT!–but leaving a review on Amazon is for the other readers. Not for me anymore. If someone sends me their review, I’ll read it, because they want to share. If my editor forwards me one, awesome. I’ll assume it’s something she wants me to read. But I’m done with seeking them out.
For me, this is a matter of putting aside pride and refocusing. After years and years of reading my reviews, this is a new decision, one I’m still thinking through. I don’t want to be hung up, anymore, on what people are saying about me. I don’t want to be writing just for praise. I’m writing to praise. I’m writing to share the stories the Lord has put on my heart. I’m writing to minister.
I’m certainly not saying authors who read their reviews are not doing this–not at all!! Just speaking for my own tendencies. As my heart and mind continue this journey of publication, it’s easy to for me to get too competitive, too glory-hungry, too focused on me. It’s easy to take offense. And I need to guard my heart against that. I need to stay focused on God, on the readers, on the stories. Not on the praise or the criticism.
Where do you come down on reviews? As readers? As writers? What do you think their purpose is, and how do they effect you personally?
by Roseanna White | Mar 28, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I sat here for a good while this morning debating what to write about. It’s Holy Week, my favorite time of year. I love reflecting on all He’s given us, on His amazing love in giving up His life to save ours. I think I’ve had some nice insights over the years, LOL–and I’ve shared most of them already. 😉
This year, my weekend is packed to the brim with activities, from egg hunts to a seder-style dinner tonight at church. But what I’m most looking forward to is a concert linked not so much to Easter per se as to the love it represents–and which some friends of ours are living out in the most amazing way. As I sat here debating, I realized I wanted to introduce you to Todd and Erin and their kids. We belong to the same home school group, and this past year have been attending a small bible study with them and two other families with small kids, so we’ve been blessed to get to know them. I realize most of you are too far to come to the concert, but these folks could use your prayers! So here’s an article I wrote that appeared in the local paper the other day.
A local church is
teaming up with a local family to help bring a brother and sister
home to Frostburg from Ethiopia.
Frostburg residents
Todd and Erin Vogtman are a couple with a lot of love to give.
Married for thirteen years, they met in college when both were
studying to be teachers. In addition to now being a primary school
teacher, Todd is a talented singer and guitarist. Erin, a gifted
artist, spent years as a public school teacher as well and now home
schools their four biological children.
Many see this
family with four kids already and wonder at their interest in
adoption—especially international adoption. But for Todd and Erin,
it isn’t a matter of simply wanting more children, it’s a matter
of wanting to improve the lives of children who otherwise would have
nothing. “We believe that those who have much, hold much
responsibility to give. And just living in this country puts us as
some of the most privileged people in the world,” Erin says on her
blog,
One Sought Me.
“Parenting is such a fun adventure full of laughing and learning.
We know firsthand how fast time flies when watching kids grow and how
precious our time is as parents to our interesting and unique
kiddos.”
Though the Vogtmans have immense respect for those who work in the
foster care system of our country, they could not escape the
realization that even those who have the least in America are so
often richer than the majority of the people in third world
countries. And while every orphan is in need of love and protection,
those born in underprivileged nations have virtually no chance for
betterment aside from what comes in from other nations. These are
children who could very well starve and die before reaching adulthood
if no one feels the call to step in. Todd, Erin, and their kids felt
that call.
But the Vogtmans discovered as they began research into international
adoption that it’s a difficult path, especially when a family
already has four biological children. Their choices on where they
could apply soon dwindled down to a few, and they eventually settled
on Ethiopia. They have at this point been approved for adoption and
hope to have their new brother and sister with them by the end of
2013.
Adoption, however, is a costly calling, and so area businesses and
churches are teaming up with the Vogtmans on their loving mission and
sharing in the task of fund-raising. And what better way than to draw
on the talents the family already has? With that thought in mind,
Full Gospel SDB Church, located on Hazen Rd, invited Todd to perform
at their monthly Saturday Night Alive program. Admission is free, but
a freewill offering will be taken up, all proceeds to go to the
Vogtman adoption.
~*~
For those of you online and too far away to come support this amazing family, I do invite you to check out Erin’s blog,
One Sought Me. If you feel so led, there’s a donation button in the right corner. Every little bit helps!
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.