by Roseanna White | Nov 23, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
We all the know the story of the Mayflower and the very first Thanksgiving.
And if you have all my blog posts memorized going back years (ahem), you’ll realize that much of what is to come is reposted from two years ago. đ
In the Old Testament there were commands for giving thanks to God, as well as New Testament guidelines. That we take time to give thanks is of vital importance–it not only gives the praise where it’s due, it helps us refocus. To get our priorities straight. To really enjoy what we have been given rather than thinking only of what we yet need.
I really love that our country has a history of setting aside a day for this–that some of the first settlers were here to seek free worship of God, and that they honored him for his faithfulness, in spite of the hardships.
I find it even more inspiring that there were people like Sarah Hale who cared enough about this tradition to fight for it. She first succeeded in getting each state to recognize the day, then, eventually, convinced President Lincoln to have the nation honor it as one. At a time when the country was torn by war, this was a monumental moment, one that helped us heal.
In some ways, Thanksgiving is viewed as a “second-rate” holiday to modern people–it doesn’t require presents, and in fact is often lost in the anticipation for Black Friday–and for Christmas. It only rates as a chance to host an elaborate meal.
But I remember my own childhood, when I sat back in my room one Thanksgiving smelling that wonderful turkey, knowing that soon my family would be coming. I remember spending some time writing a story about a girl named Felicia, which I knew meant something like “happy.” I remember cutting out some construction paper turkeys for all my family members. And I remember thinking, “This is one of the happiest days in the year. Where everyone just comes over to be together.”
I still love the holiday for that very reason. It’s a chance to come together with those I love and just be. Be there. Be together. Be thankful for all the Lord has given me.
Thank you, Father, for putting me in a country with such a history of recognizing You.
by Roseanna White | Nov 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
In this lovely world I’m in, filled with deadlines (praise the Lord!) and very little free time, it has become necessary to streamline operations. đ So, since I haven’t been reading enough to share a review every week anyway, and since my Friday features have been fizzling (oh, how I love alliteration! LOL), Tuesday and Friday posts are going to become as-needed. I will still be blogging regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but Tuesdays and Fridays will be used only when I have a special announcement about my books, a review I want to feature, or some other bit to share that doesn’t fit on M-W-Th.
And in keeping with that, check it out! Amazon is reporting Love Finds You in Annapolis as in stock and 1-2 days of processing away from shipping! Woot!
by Roseanna White | Nov 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
1 Corinthians 6
1 When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers[a]! 2 Donât you realize that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, canât you decide even these little things among yourselves? 3 Donât you realize that we will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life. 4 If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? 5 I am saying this to shame you. Isnât there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues? 6 But instead, one believer[b] sues anotherâright in front of unbelievers! 7 Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers.[c]
9 Donât you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Donât fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat peopleânone of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
12 You say, âI am allowed to do anythingââbut not everything is good for you. And even though âI am allowed to do anything,â I must not become a slave to anything. 13 You say, âFood was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.â (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you canât say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14 And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead. 15 Donât you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 And donât you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, âThe two are united into one.â[d] 17 But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Donât you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
~*~
I really like the perspective this chapter gives on why things are wrong. That our bodies are not our own, but rather belong to God, to Jesus. The verse about joining Jesus to a prostitute–wow. Do we really stop and think, as we’re going through our day, that wherever we go, we’re taking Him along with us?
We know Jesus didn’t shy away from the dark or the ugly. He would go places we deem questionable–but you better bet he would stay above sin while there. And because we are joined with him, because we are His and He is ours, we can do the same.
And yes, I’ve heard that argument about sex–it’s natural! Just like food. But I think Paul answers it perfectly. I think he does a great job drawing out that it’s natural when done right, according to God’s command.
by Roseanna White | Nov 17, 2011 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I’m sitting here with a little boy climbing all over me. Sitting on the arm of my chair. Hanging from my neck. Inching his finger closer and closer to my keyboard. When I send him one of those Mommy looks, he flashes those cute little dimples of his and giggles in that way only little kids can giggle–then lunges across my lap and proceeds to dangle off the chair while kicking me in the face.
Oh, yes. There’s nothing like a little kid, and especially a little boy. =)
Over the weekend my church had an open house Thanksgiving dinner and music service to celebrate our new building. After the meal, when we went up to the sanctuary for the music, my daughter and her cousins decided they wanted to sit in the pew in front of us, but Rowyn climbed into his spot on my lap and wouldn’t be budged.
As any mother can attest to, there are moments aplenty when you just want two minutes of peace. Two minutes of quiet. Two minutes without hearing, “I want Mommmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” echoing through your house.
But as any mother can attest to, when you have a sweet little one snuggled in your lap grinning up at you, frustration can’t long keep a hold on you. As I sat there in church enjoying the cuddles of my baby, I had one of those moments where I realized that this little boy would soon be a big boy, then a teenager. He will soon grow out of sitting on laps and being perfectly content in my arms. He’s my youngest, so it hit me a little harder than it did with his sister.
It’s as it should be, yes. Kids have to grow up. Parents’ roles shift and change. There are new expectations, new things to delight us. For instance, with my 6-year-old daughter, you can’t (or can, LOL) imagine the feeling it gives me when she helps someone younger or brings a smile to an elderly woman’s eyes. When she draws a truly impressive picture or astounds me with a bit of insight or logic.
As the kids grow up, they want me in different ways. And frankly, it gets frustrating when they regress and want me to do what they hadn’t for months. But thinking about it makes me ponder how the analogy works in faith.
God must really love a new Christian. Love the way they cling to Him with that innocence, with that fear that if they let go, the world may just come and get them. I bet He loves snuggling new believers in His arms and saying “Abba’s here. Shhhh. Abba’s here.”
And maybe there’s the heavenly equivalent of a bittersweet pang when He realizes that stage won’t last forever. But then, the whole point is to teach us to go out. To grow up. To learn and develop and step out–not on our own, never on our own, but with that degree of independence.
If I’m a good mama, I’m going to equip my kiddos with what they need to move beyond my lap. But it’s my prayer they never leave, not in a way that prohibits coming back, coming home, getting a hug.
It’s good to be wanted. Certainly in our walk of faith, it’s good to rely on God. But He wants us to grow from milk to meat, from uncertainty to trust in the way He’s equipped us. Just like I want the cuddles to be punctuated with them doing for themselves, He wants us to rely on Him but also rely on His teachings to go do–do what’s He’s commissioned us to do.
The adorable little monkey is hanging on my arm again, alternately making me laugh and plead, “Please, Rowyn, two minutes. Just give me two minutes to finish up.” Here’s praying that today as God looks down on me, He’s saying, “I love it when you work right there beside me, Daughter. Know I’m here, always right here . . . but don’t be afraid to go do what I’ve taught you to do.”
by Roseanna White | Nov 16, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
One of the most intriguing parts of my current work-in-progress is without a doubt the slave culture in that part of Georgia at the time. I’ve already blogged on my experience discovering the rich Gullah-Geechee a few weeks ago here: https://www.roseannamwhite.com/2011/10/remember-when-cultures-collided-in-old.html
But I’ve discovered whole new facets since then. =)
See, one thing I’ve decided to do is show this rich African-American (and I use that term not in the modern sense but rather as a way of showing how the two cultures combined into something new, the Gullah-Geechee culture) by contrasts within the black characters. It’s turning out to be a lot of fun.
First I have Chloe, a young slave who’s a mulatto and the daughter of the master–which the mistress knows but the legitimate children don’t. Chloe spent the first ten or so years of her life on a rice plantation with her mother and her mother’s family.
Now, rice plantations were harsh places, where life expectancy was 5 years in the fields and the infant mortality rate among the slaves was in the nineties. This certainly played a part in the spiritual lives of the slaves and what we today would call their superstitions. In a world where death lurked right around the corner, the underworld was never far away, right?
So Chloe was raised believing spirits came up out the waterways and ghosts haunted the world. Her aunt is a conjurer. It’s what she knew. But when she was moved to the city, Christianity became more real to her, and in a way that forced her to separate out some of the “superstitious” beliefs–though it was rare for them all to be abandoned. Still, compared to the other slaves she’s around, she’d got a way of thinking more like what we know . . . but with a very strong connection to and respect for that other world that whites couldn’t understand.
But then we have Luther, who is a free black born and raised in England. And this is where the fun comes in. =) In England, he was raised with something close to equality, given the chance to be educated and is in fact a minister. He’s lived all his life in a fine (if modest) house, with fine (if modest) clothes. But he ends up in Cuba to try to purchase his wife’s aging grandmother for her and gets trapped in a whole different world. One where everyone’s sneering at him, black and white alike. Blacks because they see him as someone who has forgotten his roots, and whites because he “puts on airs.”
A fun contrast to be sure. Chloe and Luther are my two secondary POV characters, one with her Geechee speech pattern, the other with his British accent, and I’m having a blast incorporating them into the story! Can’t wait to see how they force my plot to shift and change to adapt to them . . . and how I manage to keep them from taking over, LOL. Good thing Delia and Phin are great characters in their own right!
by Roseanna White | Nov 15, 2011 | Uncategorized
Upward. Have you seen the new tabs up the top here? If you glance up at my pages, you’ll notice a couple additions. The first is for the
Great ANNAPOLIS Giveaway. You’ll want to check this out, as it’s such a great giveaway pack that I’m tempted to keep one of them for myself. đ
Yes, I admit it–I designed the giveaway so that there’s enough stuff in it that you won’t wait to see if you won before buying
LFY Annapolis. đ You’ll instead go, “Ooo, look at that journal and quill! And Lark used some just like it? Can’t wait to find out where and how! I’m going to get
Annapolis. If I win this totally awesome giveaway, I can always give that extra copy to my mom for Christmas . . . or better still, keep the signed one, and give my original copy to the church Library!” Yes, I’m just that maniacal. Mwa ha ha ha.
And it’s one of those giveaways where you can rack up the entries with each thing you do. So definitely check out the rules, and visit each stop on
my blog tour–which is that second new tab up top.
Also, please keep scrolling down the page and see my post from yesterday about an amazing
fundraiser for Sandi Rog, who is suffering from cancer.
(For those of you who are shaking your head and saying, “When is she going to talk about books again??” I assure you I did last week, and if you didn’t see that post, it was about a truly awesome biblical you should pre-order, by Mesu Andrews:
Love’s Sacred Song. But at the moment I’m only two chapters into my next book, so . . .)
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, sheâs 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 booksâŚto offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.