by Roseanna White | Aug 30, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
I read this section of Ephesians 5 over a week ago, for the umpteenth time. Before, it was those first verses I quote that always struck me. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…
Walk as children of light. What a command! I love the constant imagery in the New Testament of light versus darkness, of being the light, reflecting the light, living the light. (Y’all might remember my post on how we should shine…). It’s something I’ve thought about and talked about a lot because, well, it’s just so powerful. So deep. So thought-provoking. It’s always struck a chord.
But this last time when I read this chapter, it was verses 15 and 16 that slammed me. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Did you catch that? That bit about redeeming the time? I never had. When I pondered redemption before, it was always as something we received, that beautiful gift of Christ. He redeemed us. That means he saved us from death. Literally purchased our life with his own. According to dictionary.com, this is the technical definition of “redeem”:
1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage.
2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure.
3. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.
4. to exchange (bonds, trading stamps, etc.) for money or goods.
5. to convert (paper money) into specie.
Understanding how that applies to our souls is big. Huge. But it’s used differently here. Here we are not the redeemed…we are the redeemer.
Yikes. I don’t think I ever paused to realize before the sheer responsibility Paul is showing us here. That we are the redemption of our time, of our age. Though surrounded by evil, we are to buy our neighbors more time to learn the Good News. We’re to be those ten righteous men in Sodom that would have stayed judgment. We’re to be the David for the sake of whom the nation isn’t forsaken.
We’re to be the light that staves off the darkness.
Of course it comes back to that. 😉 That is, after all, the instruction on how to redeem the times. On what it looks like when we walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise. But I’ll no longer read that as a simple command to do–now I also see the inherent why.
Because we don’t shine into the darkness to light our own way. We shine in the darkness to draw others to Him. We shine to show the Truth to those trapped in the dim, dim cave (thank you, Plato). We shine because without us the days would be night, and there would be no reason for God to withhold His judgment from the world.
But the world isn’t ready to be destroyed. And it’s up to us to buy it a little more time. To pay with ourselves, just as Jesus did for us. To give our lives to this walk, this Way, this fight, so that just one more souls can see the path. Can be bought and forgiven. Can be redeemed.
Can then join the ranks of those redeeming. It’s a call to action, that charge. A purpose. One that changes the way I see that dark, evil world around me. Not just as something deserving destruction–but as something that needs to be saved from it.
by Roseanna White | Aug 23, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I had a nice, insightful post planned for today. Filled with brilliance (ahem) and thought and pondering a scripture that jumped out at me. I was just beginning to delve into the contemplation required for it when an adorable little face appeared beside mine. Grinning. And chanting, “School, school, school.”
Yeah, see, we decided we’d start the same day my niece did–today. But I kinda forgot to take into account that on the first day of school, I don’t have to lasso my darling girl to her chair at 9 like I do later in the year–she’s begging to begin at 6:30.
So . . . yeah. That’s what my morning has been. =) Getting Xoe back into math and handwriting, introducing her new spelling book. And going over letters and numbers with Rowyn. Pulling out her reader and trying to figure out what in the world this diamond-diagram thing is they have in the copywork section of my curriculum. Convincing Rowyn that his reading lesson can wait just a minute while I read Xoe her spelling words. Needless to say, blogging has slipped just a bit this morning, LOL.
I promise you that wonderfully insightful post on next Thursday. And tell you it has to do with redemption, but an application of it I’d never considered until I read it earlier this week. And for now, back to school I go!
by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
And I’ve had a pretty fun week. My birthday on Tuesday was a lot of fun, filled with discounted food. 😉 My mom took me out to lunch and my hubby/kids to dinner, and both times, part of the meal was discounted (or free) because of a delay. Which suited me just fine and made it more fun. For dinner, we drove down to Hagerstown, MD, about an hour away, to go to Outback and use my free birthday coffee coupon at Starbucks. (Yes, the nearest Starbucks is an hour away. Gotta love Western Maryland…)
On the drive down, we were going through rain, with the sun behind us, and it resulted in a perpetual rainbow, low-slung and sparkling, right in front of us on the road. It traveled with us about five miles, to the delight of us all. I claimed it was my personal birthday rainbow. 😉 On the way home, the clouds were starting to lift from the mountains and valleys back into the sky, resulting in these gorgeous pillars of mist . . . quite a sight. God spared no imagination painting the landscape for me that evening. =) (Thanks, Lord!)
And also making this week fun is that I’ve bitten the bullet and stopped
talking about starting a local book club and actually
done it. Yay! The Inspired Book Club will meet at my church Library the last Thursday of every month, beginning in September. AND folks were so excited when I started talking about it, that we’ll be chatting on Facebook the last week of each month too. So if you’re too far away to come snack and chat with us, feel free to
join the Facebook group. And if you’re near Cumberland, MD and want to join, just shoot me an email at roseanna [at] roseannawhite [dot] com and I’ll give you directions! Our book for September is Tamera Alexander’s
A Lasting Impression. And to make it even more fun, Tammy has agreed to call in during out meeting so we can ask her questions and get the insider scoop on the book.
And even if you can’t squeeze one more thing into your schedule, let’s just admire my fun little logo. Isn’t it cute? LOL. I made that after organizing the
Christian Review of Books‘s shelves in its new location at my church. (Yay, all those books out of my sitting room!) Oh, and the CRoB is also in desperate need of a local-to-Cumberland-area volunteer to donate an hour or two a week to helping me keep the list updated and get books mailed out to reviewers. If you’re interested, email me at the address above.
Not exactly a life-altering blog post, I know, but it’s been that kind of week more full of news and chocolate cake than epiphanies. 😉 Thanks again, all, for your wonderful birthday wishes!
by Roseanna White | Aug 9, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| A Favor by Edmund Blair Leighton |
I’ve always liked August. It holds my birthday, after all, and has traditionally had lots of other fun things going on. But on the other hand, it’s the end of summer. The start of school. For any household with kids, August signals a change in seasons, even though the heat of summer’s still upon us.
This year, when the page in the calendar flipped, it kinda got to me. I looked down at the project that had been my primary goal, and I see that it’s not all that far along. And that feeling of failure swamped me. That feeling of What have I been doing? How have I wasted my time?
Then I remember that I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs. I’ve been editing a lot, which is great and necessary. I wrote a novella that I’m excited to get to use for promotion between the first two books of the Culper Ring Series. And I got a good chunk done on another project.
A project that got stalled, perhaps even nixed for good. Which thought still brings me a pang.
I’m a writer–I know rejection well. I’ve had to put aside countless projects over the years. But for some reason, this one still gets me down now and then. Primarily, I think, because it’s intertwined with a couple other projects in my mind, which have also been stalled. Put on hold. Which they’ve been on so long that they’ve gone from “paused” to “stop.”
I’m not sure I can really explain this echoey sigh that fills me when I think about these things lately. I can see where the way things have fallen out is without doubt for the best. I can see that the Lord has His plan in it and have to nod at the wisdom.
But still there’s just this sense of loss. Lost dreams. Lost time spent on them when I could have been working on the project that’s a sure thing.
I have to trust there, though, too, don’t I? Trust that that time spent was for a purpose too. That it wasn’t wasted.
The funny thing is that I have no problem looking at the years spent on that pile of books in my computer that are unpublished and give them a thumb’s up. Because I learned from them, because they made me who I am, because I still hope that some of them will have their day. So why can’t I look at the month and a half spent on these projects the same way?
I’m really not sure, but it’s something I’ve been giving to the Lord again and again. And again, and again, I have to remind myself that I haven’t failed. That I’m doing just fine, thank you very much, on my primary project.
With mere weeks left in my “free” time this summer–or at least before the home school year starts–I can’t help but number my days and try to figure out how to catch up with where I wanted to be. But the real task here isn’t to write a chapter a day and edit two books for WhiteFire. The real task is to lay these stalled dreams on the alter and trust. Trust that lost dreams and lost time and lost motivation are all part of God’s plan for me to find something better. To find His path for me. To find Him in new ways.
It’s hard, when those echoey sighs billow through me. But then . . . trust always is.
by Roseanna White | Aug 2, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
When I came up with the idea of the Culper Ring Series, I didn’t have any great themes in mind. I just liked the premise, and soon got hooked on the characters. The plots were dictated largely by history. And I was rather surprised to release the themes ended up coming from history too.
Themes I had the pleasure of hearing echoed to a crowd of 60,000 people over the weekend. =)
Last week we drove to Texas for the Restoring Love rally, bringing the kids with us. Now, to be perfectly honest, I never listen to Glenn Beck, and I haven’t much watched him since he left Fox. Now, the reason for these “not”s is that if someone else doesn’t turn it on, I don’t bother with the TV or radio. And if someone else turns it on, they pick what we watch. So most of my watching/listening ends up being My Little Ponies or Chuck the Truck, LOL.
So yeah, I’d kinda wondered why my hubby kept saying, “You should send a press release to the Glenn Beck folks. Your new stuff is right up their alley.” I believed him, but didn’t fully grasp why. Not until I sat in the Cowboys stadium and heard that crowd roaring in response to the speakers giving voice to… to…
My themes! =) Themes that aren’t just for the pages of a book, but for my own life too. My family’s life. My church’s life. Themes about standing up, no matter what, and doing what’s right. More, doing what’s needed for others.
If you asked the audience what Restoring Love was about, you probably would have heard things like “service” and “charity.” We took our kids with us for our “day of service,” as they called it, a day when 30,000 volunteers flooded Dallas to do everything from fix roofs to cut up downed trees. We ended up in a nursing home, supposedly to plant flowers, but they hadn’t been delivered–so we ended up playing Bingo with the residents. =)
And my day was pretty much made when Xoe looked up at me on the bus ride there, after we’d explained what “volunteering” meant, and asked, “Can we volunteer all the time?”
See, that’s the lesson we all need to learn, and that I know I need to teach my kids. That they can reach out. That they should reach out. Not necessarily to do big things, but to do whatever needs done. That’s the message I got from the event, from the speakers, and that’s the message I’ve been contemplating for a year now as I develop each of my Culper books.
Sometimes the Lord calls us to a hard place. A place where obeying means risking everything we love. So what do we do?
Sometimes the Lord calls us to a dark place. A place where obeying means being kept forever in the shadows, where no one will see us. So what do we do?
Sometimes the Lord calls us to a towering place. A place where millions can see us…but where a single misstep can send us tumbling down. So what do we do?
The answer ought to be obvious–we do what we need to do, what He asks us to do–but is it? It certainly isn’t easy to. Which is why it feels like so often these days, things are left undone. Because it’s so much easier not to do them.
But history has already shown us these themes. Shown us the stories of people who weren’t so extraordinary, until they did what they had to do. Until they fought the hard fight, until they went where no one else dared to go. Until they risked hatred and reviling and even punishment to stand up–just stand up–for a cause.
That made them extraordinary, wrote their names in our history books. Not because of anything they tried to do for themselves, for their own glory–but for the things they did for others. For freedom. For faith.
Maybe I don’t see a cause before me quite so clear-cut as fighting for independence or rallying a nation to fend off invaders. But I see one just as daunting–raising my children to have the heart, to have the courage, to serve others above themselves. It’s a task that won’t be finished any time in the near future, but you know . . . I think I’m doing okay.
by Roseanna White | Jul 26, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
My sister recently talked me into joining her zumba class, something I’ve resisted when she mentioned it months ago. Why? Because I prefer my humiliation to be private, and exercising and I have a love-hate relationship that’s heavier on hate than love, LOL. But I finally gave in and have gone with her twice now. So, yes, you’re about to get life lessons from zumba class. 😉
My exercising habit tends to look like this: for a few months, I’ll exercise five to six days a week, half an hour a day. Then I’ll get a cold/sinus infection/flu/other malady that forces me to stop for a few days. And then I’ll just never start again, because not doing it is just so much nicer, ha ha. And that’ll last until I pause to think, “Oh, man, I’m turning 30 in August, and I look like it!” Then I’ll start again.
When I’ve exercised on my own in recent years, I’ve done the dance-based programs. So going to zumba wasn’t quite as humiliating as I expected, since I knew most of the moves, they were just in new arrangements. And being in a class with a dozen other woman of varying ages and sizes and levels of expertise has really hammered home one of things I discovered while going it alone.
You only get out what you put in.
When I first started doing these DVDs, I went through the motions. I did all the steps. But not with the abandon of the instructors. And frankly, I didn’t see much by way of results. But after a while, that became not-hard enough that I could ramp it up a bit. And that is when I started seeing a difference. Looking around at my new class, I’ve noticed much the same thing. The ones working the hardest, sweating the most, with the reddest faces, are the ones in better shape.
Now, there are certainly days I’m not up for that in a workout class. But what about life? How often do we just go through the motions, doing the right steps, but are unwilling to break a proverbial sweat? If you’re like me, you have those days too. Some days, that’s all you can manage, and that’s fine. Doing what you have to do without any umph is better, now and then, than just taking a day off.
The problem is when it becomes habit. When, day after all, you bounce instead of jump. You walk instead of run. You sigh instead of sing.
I’ve been there. And you know what the problem with it is? You never see results. You never get better. You’re putting in the bare minimum, so that’s what you’re getting out. And you know the only way to break free of that? Ramp it up. Put in more. Push yourself, make yourself keep going through the side-stitches, through the sore muscles, through the breathlessness. Work harder. Give it your all.
Sometimes I’ve been so caught up in the blahs, so exhausted by life, so in need of rejuvenation that it feels like I can’t possibly do more. But you know what? I was wrong. I could, once I opened my spirit to the Spirit and let Him whisper His wind into me. Who needs their own breath, after all, when you can have His?
I’m by no means perfect at this (in either life or working out), but it’s a truth that’s hit home these past two weeks as I push myself to give more than I thought I could in zumba. Makes me wonder what more I could do in life, too, if I just pushed past the blahs…
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.