by Roseanna White | Sep 23, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
You know one thing I love about the Bible? You can’t open it up without finding God’s promises and encouragement. You can’t read about despair without hope chasing on its heels.
As everyone returned from the ACFW conference this week, I was smacked with a few moments of jealousy. I decided not to go this year based on prayer, and I know I made the right decision. We took a family vacation instead, and a glorious week at the beach (with absolutely perfect weather) for the four of us and both sets of parents was less expensive than conference would have been for me. And it was awesome.
But still, when I heard everyone else talking about the wonderful people they got to meet, the connections they made . . . well, I had to put myself in time out. I took my Bible out to the swing and let God give me a talking to. Asked him to remind me that he knew what I needed and was working on getting me there.
I asked him to give me an appropriate Bible passage, and opened up to II Kings 3. This is just after Elisha receives the spirit of Elijah–the kings of Judah, Israel, and Edom are all going to war against Moab, but there isn’t any water for their soldiers. They call on Elisha, asking him to beseech God for water. He replies in 3:18:
“And this is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord; He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand.”
Okay–so not only will God provide what I need, what I ask for, he’ll give me complete victory. Something I know, but a reminder I needed.
This was Tuesday. On Wednesday I turned to Isaiah 27:2-4:
In that day sing to her,
“A vineyard of red wine!
I, the Lord, keep it,
I water it every moment;
Lest any hurt it,
I keep it night and day.
Fury is not in me.
Who would set briers and thorns
Against me in battle?
I would go through them.
I would burn them together. . . .”
This was awesome too. As soon as I read it, that lightbulb went on. I have my dreams, yes–but they’re not mine, they’re the Lord’s. He’s the keeper of that garden of dreams. He sends the water (water again!) that nourishes them, he watches over the tender sprouts to make sure no one tramples them. I might fear the thorns and briers–but he doesn’t. Why should he? Trouble is nothing to God.
I’m just praising the Lord today for his promises. For the way he always reminds me of them when I’m tempted to wallow in my forgetfulness. For always sending the water to nourish my soul.
by Roseanna White | Sep 16, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
So, there’s an awesome new site debuting in October, and as an official sponsor (well, the Christian Review of Books is), I feel the need to let y’all know about it. Cuz it is cool.
Clash of the Titles (www.ClashoftheTitles.com) is a place “Where authors battle and readers judge.” Here’s the setup. Two published authors submit excerpts from their books in a certain theme (best kiss, smoothest conversion scene, best nature description, etc.). The two selections are published–but the readers don’t know who the authors are. Readers vote based solely on which snippet they think best captures the theme.
Mid-week, the results are tallied and the winners are announced, along with the knowledge of who wrote what. The authors and their books are promoted, and readers get a chance to win a signed book–and meet some new authors they now know they’ll love!
I adore this idea and have already submitted something–though mum’s the word on what or when. 😉
Readers, writers–you have GOT to check this site out! It’s going to be a ton of fun. How often do you get to do a blind taste-test when it comes to books??
Hop on over to get a feel for things, and when it goes live in a month, visit weekly to vote for The Worthiest!
by Roseanna White | Sep 9, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I can think of nothing else to talk about yet, so y’all are going to get the story of my last evening.
Okay, so let’s set the stage. Xoe (she’s 4, almost 5 for those of you who don’t know), fell asleep on the couch yesterday afternoon. This inevitably means she has trouble falling asleep at bedtime, but I was hopeful–she kept saying she was tired all evening.
But as expected, she was up at 8:30 or so asking to go to the bathroom (ah, stall tactics). In the bathroom, she spotted a teensy tiny little spider. The kind so small it barely even freaked her out, and she’s the master of over-reacting to any bug. (I say that with all love, LOL.) Then I tucked her back in, thankful Rowyn (who’s 2 1/2) didn’t wake up.
Half an hour later, shrieking. “Spider! Mommy, there’s a spider on my pilloooooooooooowwwwwwww!”
Riiiiiiiight. I’m thinking, “Okay, so she fell asleep, dreamed about the spider, woke up freaked out.” Something I would have done. So I calm her down, hold her for a few in the living room, make a show of checking her pillow and bed, and then tuck her in–for half a second before pulling her out of bed, barely containing a shriek of my own as a HUGE, thick spider (as opposed to our usual granddaddy-long-leg) scurries over the toy box right beside her pillow. (Rather than sleeping on her top bunk bed, she’s been on a mattress on the floor since July. Which I will not go into right now.)
So I hustle Xoe back to the living room, grab a flashlight (Rowyn’s still sleeping in the bedroom, so no overhead lights) and a shoe, and go spider hunting. But the thing must have gone into the toy box. (Can you see me shudder?) I can’t find it and squish it, which means no body to show Xoe.
We move her little bed to the other side of the bedroom, but of course that doesn’t work. A few minutes and she’s freaking out again, insisting she saw one on Rowyn’s dresser now (at her head), and trying to convince me that she’ll be fine if I just let her stay up until I go to bed. Which, at this point, is only a few minutes away anyway. So I let her help me make my coffee and watch me wash my face, then go back in with the flashlight. We check everything, and I leave the light with her so she can Shine it if she thinks she sees something.
A little bit later, I go to bed. Three minutes after settling in . . . wanna take a guess? That’s right, Xoe’s flying up the stairs. Obviously she’s not going to be able to sleep on the floor in there. So first we try the top bunk. No go–she hasn’t mastered the ladder yet, so . . . Our other option is what we try next–pulling her little mattress on the floor into the schoolroom.
Thankfully, that worked. She settled down and went to sleep. At 11:00. Three hours after bedtime. Argh!
After that the night was peaceful (though I was dreaming of bugs–go figure). Unfortunately, when I snuck down at 6 in search of some quiet time before the kids woke up, the kids woke up. So Mommy’s a little grumpy, and while Rowyn (who got a solid 10 hours, miraculously) is his usual chipper self, Xoe’s also grumpy–not surprising. Seven hours of sleep is not enough for a 4-year-old. And grumpy me is thinking, “She’s going to fall asleep again this afternoon and then repeat the whole can’t-sleep-at-night-thing . . .”
Here’s hoping for a smoothing evening tonight though, eh? Sigh.
by Roseanna White | Sep 2, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Last weekend, we had dinner down at my grandparents’ farm. It’s nestled in a bend of the Potomac River, a little outcropping of West Virginia completely surrounded by Maryland. Mountains rise up all around their couple-hundred-acres of relative flatland, creating a vista I enjoyed for most of life from the nearby hill, where my parents lived.
On another relative-flat section on top of the hill, there’s a little regional airport. Right across the river there’s Cumberland’s train yard–and a four-land highway. So on this pretty little farm that you might think is isolated, you can hear and see all the signs of civilization. One of my friends once commented, “You can’t walk anywhere but to the nearest tree out here, yet I’m afraid an airplane’s going to hit me in the head.” =)
The kids were all outside playing after dinner–but it was hot, and that didn’t last long. Not for most of them. Rowyn, however, refused to come inside when the girls called it quits. Though a safe area, I didn’t want to leave him out there alone simply because the boy has no fear–who knows what he would chase to who-knows-where. So Mommy sucked up her distaste for extreme heat and went outside.
Rowyn was standing with head craned back. After greeting me, he pointed to the sky. “Airplanes up there,” he informed me.
I grinned. “Yep, there are airplanes up there.”
He kept on looking. “Rowyn go up there too.”
I chuckled. “Oh yeah?”
He nodded and turned his attention to . . . the top of the house? “Rowyn go on roof to see airplanes.”
Visions of two-year-olds scaling the siding in my head, I shook my head. “How are you going to get on the roof, Rowyn?”
Picture an exaggerated toddler shrug. “Don’t know either,” he said. (“Either” is a new word for him, and he uses it lavishly.) “Climb ladder. Where’s ladder, Mommy?”
Mommy, praising her grandparents for hiding all large tools and equipment away in the garages and sheds and barns, looked around and was happy to pronounce, “I don’t see a ladder.”
Rowyn sighed and stomped over to the side of the house. After studying it for a minute–the little wrought-iron bench, the chimney, the plants–he pointed to a high-reaching flowering bush. “Rowyn climb flowers up there.”
I laughed–I couldn’t help it. And I delighted in the imagination, the determination of a toddler. But more, it brought me back to that feeling of no limits. That feeling that the world is yours for the taking, if only you find that magic beanstalk leading you up to the clouds.
Yes, we have limits. We learn, we experience, and we realize that some things are impossible. We just can’t climb a flimsy flower up to the roof–and if we got up there, we still wouldn’t be close to the airplanes. But how often do we use that experience and idea of limits to not even try to reach our dreams? How often do we leave it at “Nope, can’t get up there this way” and not consider that we could take this other path, and arrive at the airport? That we could dig a ladder out, if the roof was our goal?
I think when the Lord called us to have childlike faith, this is what he was talking about. How like my little boy do we look to God? Trying to use our reason, our logic, to get to a goal, when reason and logic won’t get us anywhere close? How often does He shake his head and smile at us, knowing that even if He gave us the ladder we asked for, it wouldn’t get us where we want to go? But if we trust in Him–if we hold fast to the dreams He’s given us–maybe He’ll send a car to take us to the airport we didn’t know was there. Or show us, if we make it to the roof, that that was where we needed to get to all along.
The world has limits . . . and it has history that shows us they can be broken and overcome.
My prayer today is that we all recapture a bit of that two-year-old wonder and find a flower to climb up to our dreams.
by Roseanna White | Aug 19, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I intended to wax philosophical and thoughtful this morning–not that I knew what I was going to be all brilliant about, but I figured I was due for some profound thoughts. 😉 Then I thought maybe I’d mention my friend Kimberly who’s coming up this weekend, perhaps link y’all to her awesome toy-making blog, Lord Circus (the toy-making’s awesome–the blog just started).
But then friend Dina ruined those goals by sending me an email telling me to look up Christian Agha Photography on Facebook, as he has apparently volunteered to take the photos of the young woman who also volunteered to model for my book cover. Now I’m far too excited about the shoot happening over the next few days to be concerned with wowing you all with my deep thoughts.
Because, let’s face it, book covers are crucial. I am super-duper excited to be working with Tekeme Studios again, because George did a fabulous job with A Stray Drop of Blood. But since I can’t very well beg his wife to model for every single cover WhiteFire has him design (snicker, snicker), finding a new model was my worry this time. So special thanks to above-mentioned friend Dina for finding me not one, but THREE girls willing to volunteer their time for the sheer fun of having their face on a book cover. And for finding an awesome photographer working for a song, too! How in the world did you manage that, Dina?? 😉
Basically, Roseanna is excited. And, as always, a little nervous. My hubby said something about the weirdness of relying on volunteers for all this, but to me, it’s confirmation that we’re on the right track, that these fellow believers are taking of their time to help me out–and you can bet if there’s anything I can do for them in return, I’ll be quick to offer!
That’s what I love about the Church, which we see so often in the Christian publishing world–we help each other. We love each other, even when we don’t know each other. We’re working for a common goal, and so we don’t mind giving a little in order to get the message out to others. We promote each other, work for each other, serve each other, just like Jesus instructed us to do. So thank you, all you wonderful people helping my dream become reality. Thank you for helping me get my stories out there. And thank you, Lord, for leading me to the right people at the right time.
God rocks, doesn’t He? =)
by Roseanna White | Aug 5, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I just realized that my one-year anniversary of this blog passed at the end of July without me paying a lick of attention. The nerve! Why, I oughta break up with me for such an oversight . . . 😉
Yesterday I realized I’d crested the 300 post mark and thought, “Wow, my one year ought to . . . have just passed. Argh!” Here I thought I’d come up with some brilliant giveaway and launch it on that day. Ah well, I’ll come up with something belated. =)
Anybody have any brilliant ideas? Something you’d really dig as a giveaway? I can always do books (mine and others’), but would anybody be interested in something more unique? A black and white drawing? A critique? A Stray Drop t-shirt? Candy? Maybe I’ll check in with some of my friends and see if anyone wants to pitch in some fun!
I’ll take suggestions on this through the weekend and announce my Anniversary Shindig Giveaway on Monday. So speak up! Give me an idea of what you’re just dying to win, and you might see it . . . then might win it!
Three cheers for a year of blogging!
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.