Faithchick

Christmas In July

I wasn't thinking about Christmas really. But Lifetime is having "Christmas In July" this month, showing all sorts of Christmas-themed movies and well, now I'm thinking about Christmas.

I'm not sure it's possible, but I'd like a Nikon Digital SLR for Christmas. Are ya listening, Santa? Friend and author Angie Hunt had a new Nikon at a recent retreat and it was nice! She was having fun taking pictures.

I used to love photography. Still do I suppose, but my lovely Nikon was stolen on a trip back from Australia, then my second one was a lemon and never really worked right.

I found myself in the instant digital camera world and it's not my favorite. I'd rather be able to work with the shot, you know, be an arteest. ;)

Taking pictures is so relaxing. Maybe one day I'll get back to it. For now, I dream. Like Christmas in July.

Rachel Hauck lives in central Florida with her husband. She is a graduate of the Ohio State Univerisity and traveled internationally as a software trainer. But, writing is her love, and she hopes to spread the fragrance of Jesus with her words. Her current release is Love Starts With Elle from Thomas Nelson, her second lowcountry story.

Check out all of her books and musings on her web site at www.rachelhauck.com

My own Cheering Section

I grew up in a home that, because of my father’s alcoholism and all the baggage that comes with it, I became what I called a self-contained unit. I had very little expectation of support, encouragement or advice free of judgment; I learned to accomplish things and make decisions in isolation. It never occurred to me how much more I could accomplish if I had a cheering section in my life.

Today, I am preparing to teach a writing workshop at an ACFW conference that will be held September 18-21. Along with my husband, ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) has been the “cheering section” for my writing. If it hadn’t been for ACFW, I may not have continued to try to get my first book, Romance Rustlers, published. At one point, my first book almost sold; all the lights were green and it looked like the publisher would pick it up. Then after much waiting, they decided not to. I was devastated and I wanted to quit.

I went through all the usual stuff we Christians go through when faced with failure. Wondering if I was in God’s plan. Had I heard his voice clearly? I questioned why he would give me a talent and then not open doors for me to use it?

I am not one that shares failure and pain easily. I posted what had happened to the ACFW email loop thinking it was mostly an exercise in me taking a risk and learning to share my feelings and my failure. The response I got was overwhelming. I had people pray for me and offer encouragement.  The thing that helped the most was that other writers who were now published shared their stories of the first books that almost sold. What is that old saying, that Satan’s greatest weapon is to make us feel like we are alone in our pain?

It might not be a writer’s group for you. It might be a support group for addiction or a weight loss group or a quilting group that is about way more than quilting, but all of us need places where we can take our masks off and share our deepest pain. And all of us need a “cheering section” in the stands. I encourage you to seek that out in your life.

I’m excited about teaching a workshop at the conference in

Minneapolis

because it is my chance to give back. If you think writing might be your thing, there is more info about the conference at www.acfw.com. Even if you can’t attend the conference, there is info about joining ACFW.

Sharon

Dunn’s fifth mystery Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear was released in January 2008. It is book two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries. You can read more about

Sharon

and her humorous who-dun-its at www.sharondunnbooks.com.  

Trust and Truth

Truthfully, I shouldn't be taking these few minutes to blog, because I have a book due ... in four days by my calculation, or three, if you don't count the actual due date, according to my 10-year-old daughter. I think I'll count the due date.

This is my fifth try at sitting still enough to hear the message God wants me to share, so that He can work through me to reach the readers who eventually will pick up the book at just the time they need it most.

You'd think it gets easier, but I find that each novel really is like a new baby. You have to get familiar with it and learn to love it, flaws and alls, before you can dwell with it long enough to see it through to the end. What does that mean? Writing is hard!

I explained that to my daughter recently, when I reminded her that she and my son had to gear up for two weeks of "Team Mommy" (i.e. fewer homecooked meals, trips to the library and weekend outings with me until the book is finished). She asked me what I loved and hated most about my job.

Well, I love the writing part, I told her, because I love to write.

However, she was surprised to hear me say that's also the part I struggle with the most.

I explained that writers don't have the luxury of sitting down and simply having the right word surface at just the right time - not always.  If we're serious, we study the craft,  bathe our ideas in prayer, and then write, rewrite and write some more, until the book is good enough for us to tentatively hit Send and forward the manuscript to our editor.

At least that's my process. I wonder sometimes whether there's an easier way. If so, I'd be willing to try it.

Ultimately, though, I'm learning to find joy in even the challenging aspects of my work - when the words won't come or the idea is flat or I just don't feel like sitting at the computer. It is during those times that I'm reminded I have to come to the end of me. I have to surrender my human effort and remember that this is God's work.

When I let go and trust, the ride He takes me (and my well-worn laptop) on is always more exhilirating than what I had mapped out for myself or my characters.

With the clock ticking and a thoughtful editor waiting, I'm off to buckle up and see where this current story is headed.

Stacy Hawkins Adams is the author of The Someday List (coming Jan. 2009), Watercolored Pearls, Nothing But the Right Thing and Speak To My Heart. She lives in Richmond, Va. with her husband and two children.   

Service Doesn't Have to be Big to be Powerful

Spiritual disciplines—prayer, Bible study, service and meditation.  That’s what I have been focusing on this week with a group of women from my church.  I confess that sometimes discipline is my downfall—particularly in the area of service.  I get tripped up thinking my service has to be a grand gesture—going on a mission trip, for example, or volunteering to lead something.  Today, however, I was introduced to the author Richard Foster who wrote Celebration of Discipline, a book I plan to read.  He talks about “the service of small things.”  Some of those small things I’ve thought about before—hospitality, listening and bearing each other’s burdens.  Others I hadn’t defined specifically as Christian service, but they most certainly are—the service of common courtesy, of affirmation, of guarding the reputation of others (what a gentle way to say “no gossiping!) and the service of not robbing people of the joy of giving. 

We as women often are comfortable in the roll of giving but it is harder for us to receive gifts others want to give us.  At the end of our gathering, the leader of the group announced she wanted to give something to us.  She wanted to wash our feet just as Jesus had done for His disciples.  It’s often difficult for woman to accept an act of service meant just for them.  A remarkable number of women wept, deeply moved by her willingness to humble herself for their benefit.

I’m going to look at common courtesy and affirming others in a new way.  It is as unto the Lord.  Gentleness, thoughtfulness, kindness and graciously accepting what others give us allows Christ to shine in us.  Opportunities for service are all around us if only we don’t overlook them!

Judy Baer

Oh, Baby!  (Steeple Hill, June 2008)

The Million Dollar Dilemma (Steeple Hill re-release, June 2008)

Joy

This last weekend was spent with some of my favorite people on earth...my fellow fiction writers.  I always tell my husband, "Well, I'm going to go be with the normal people now," because only novelists are normal and everyone else is weird!  (He totally gets this because he's a musician and he thinks only musicians are normal.)

Of course, I know that we writers are probably the strange ones!  But those few days I get to spend with my writing buddies are sheer bliss. 

Last weekend I was reminded of joy.  In fact, our guess speaker said something that caused me to sit straight up in my seat.  He said, "For a Christian, the devil will give up trying to steal your faith.  He will move on to trying to steal your joy."

Wow.  Yeah.  I think the devil has been winning lately.  Where has my joy gone?  It has been swallowed up by fear, by worry, by annoyance, by frustration.  I get to a place like a writers retreat and I forget about all my problems and I have a good time.  But LIFE, not just retreats, is meant to be lived to its fullest, through God's love and grace.  As the bumper sticker I saw today said, "THE PRESENT IS A GIFT."

So I'm not going to let my joy be stolen anymore.  Even when I have to return to real life, where people I know don't talk to characters or plot story lines or spend hours writing out dialogue, I am going to live in joy!

Thanks, Lord, for a great weekend with my writing buddies.  Thanks for a great life that is blessed by and filled with You.

A weekend with writers

I spend the weekend with seventy or so of my closest writing friends. :) It's always good to hang with other authors, hear what they are doing, how they are surviving the publishing jungle.

Oddly enough, I found myself hanging out several times with author and speaker Randy Alcorn. While I'd met Randy before, this was the first time I was able to fellowship with him. It was fun and interesting. I like to talk about a lot of different Bible and social issues.

Most of the world goes to work every day in a store or office, perhaps a truck or train, or airplane, but their are always colleagues or associates around.

For writers, we go to our desk. All we have are the silent lives of our characters to keep us company. At the end of the day, no one says "good job." Nor do you often leave your work and think, "Man, I'm stoked to have solved that problem."

More likely than not, you leave the work day physically, but not mentally, and think all your work is not worth the pixels used to type your crappy digital words.

But don't cry for us. We love what we do. But that's why writer's retreats and conferences are so much fun, and so rewarding. We get to hang with our colleagues for a few days.

YOU TUBE!

Check out this You Tube video of me talking with my character, Elle, from Love Starts With Elle.

Off to work...

Rachel Hauck lives in central Florida with her husband. She is a graduate of the Ohio State Univerisity and traveled internationally as a software trainer. But, writing is her love, and she hopes to spread the fragrance of Jesus with her words. Her current release is Sweet Caroline from Thomas Nelson. Look for Love Starts With Elle this summer!

Check out all of her books and musings on her web site at www.rachelhauck.com

A Needle in a Haystack

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.   See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24, NIV)

A few minutes ago, I got back from the hospital. My youngest daughter had a sewing needle removed from her foot. Though it threatened her joint with infection, she couldn't remember having stepped on it. At first, that seemed impossible to me, but then I thought about all the sharp little things that pierce me through every day, sometimes until I'm numb; things that God Himself has to remove.

We found the needle by divine accident. Baby Girl and Oldest Boy were trying to work out (long story) and he dropped a weight on her foot. ("She might die! You really need to take her to the hospital, Mom. Trust me." Right...).

After a rush to the nearest walk-in, the astonished doctor reported all toes in tact and everything fine...except for the sewing needle broken in two inside her foot!

Yowza.

Today, as I sat waiting for the surgery to be over, as I sit now watching my daughter sleep, I ask God give me a spiritual x-ray and find all the broken, buried things in me. I don't think I want to see exactly, for in some ways, I know already, feeling the hurts turn and bend each day. In truth, He knows already where everything is located, how long it has been there and just what it will take to remove it. The question is, am I willing to be still for the surgery.

Not so much. Just being honest. But I'm trying. I'm really trying. Trying and trusting in mercy, growing in grace. Hoping for healing. That's all any of us can do.

As for my daughter, her only concern (after her pre-operative cabbage patch dance induced by the anesthesia) was that the drug in question wasn't legal for everyday use. ("This stuff could really mess somebody up!" she said giggling on her way to unconsciousness).

What a day.

Father God,

Heal the things that have pierced my heart. Turn me gently to see the unseen remnants of the world, threatening beneath my skin. Help me to be still and open-hearted, waiting for You to come and do a work in me. Thank you for the gift of salvation that wiped away my sins, the transfusion of blood that makes us able to come before you.

In Jesus' name,
Amen

  

Marilynn Griffith is a wife to a deacon, mom to a tribe and the author of eight novels. Her upcoming Rhythms of Grace (Revell, August 2008) looks at race and faith through the eyes of a group of friends tied together by the beat of a drum and an old woman’s words. Visit her at www.MarilynnGriffith.com .

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Water

Camy here, talking about water, only because it’s over a hundred degrees here in California and I’ve been drinking more water than a fish.

We have no air conditioning. (Collective awwwwwww for Camy). We have only a whole house fan, which is good if the outside air is cooler than the inside air, because it draws the cool air into the house as well as blowing hot air out of the attic, reducing heat damage up there.

We also have a rather nice swamp cooler, which works well as long as it’s pointed across from an open window so the air doesn’t get too humid.

However, when temperatures hit a hundred, even the swamp cooler is panting.

It’s not hot, per se, in my office with my trusty swamp cooler. But it’s not really cool. It’s on the edge of comfortable.

And anytime I leave my office to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, it’s instant sweat, I tell you!

So I’ve been drinking at least a gallon of water a day. I’ve also been craving more salt because I’m sweating so much.

(And no, I haven’t been using it as an excuse to forget my diet and indulge in potato chips. Aren’t I being good?)

I have to admit, I sweat a lot. Almost as much as my husband, and much more than most of my female friends. When they’re just glistening, I’m dripping like a leaky faucet.

I have to both drink enough water AND intake enough salt or else I will actually stop sweating. It happened to me once when I was playing volleyball in the summer—I was only drinking water, not Gatorade, and I suddenly stopped sweating, although I didn’t notice at first because there was still sweat on my body.

But then I got extremely sick. I toweled off and realized then that I wasn’t sweating. After I drank some Gatorade, I felt better.

Don’t be like me! Make sure you’re drinking enough water AND intaking enough salts!

I know it’s got to be hotter in other areas of the US. What’s the temperature like where you are? How are you staying cool? And are you drinking enough water?

Camy Tang lives in San Jose, California. She previously worked in biology research, and she is a staff worker for her church youth group. She runs the Story Sensei critique service, and her latest Asian chick lit novel, Only Uni, is out now. Join her newsletter YahooGroup for monthly Christian fiction giveaways!

Motorless Dreams

I’ve told you before that I’m afraid of airplanes. I’ve had this awful phobia as long as I can remember (and before, actually, since my mom remembers me as a toddler running into the house crying when a plane would go over.) This fear extends to airports and the inside (and outside) of airplanes. But look at me here. I put this picture on Facebook and titled it: Here’s Me. In an airplane. And not the least bit scared. And it’s true.

Now for the big secret behind that peaceful happy smile. This plane has no motor. No wheels. No go-power at all. It’s really just a restaurant now. And what’s scary about a restaurant? Nothing at all scary about the Parachute Inn at the airport in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, that’s for sure, unless you have an all-you-can-eat delicious fish and seafood phobia.

But when I was glancing through my photo album tonight and saw that picture, it hit me suddenly that the same thing is true with our dreams. We can have a big dream as long as it has no motor. That’s not frightening at all. You hear people all the time who talk of backpacking across Europe, becoming the next American Idol, or writing a best-selling novel. Usually these are motor-less dreams that are safe to sit around in, with no danger of them taking off.

I used to dream of being a writer. But then something happened. I started actually working toward it. One step at a time. It almost seemed like one day I woke up and realized someone had slipped around and put a motor in that dream. Then it got downright scary. Suddenly I was responsible for finishing manuscripts, juggling deadlines, and striving to get better with each story. I remember, back in 2001 when, I sold my first novella, how my legs trembled at the thought of standing on my own as a writer. Seven years later, they’re still a little wobbly sometimes.

Do you have a dream that has been idle for a long time? Why not get it out and examine it, decide if it’s worthy of a motor, and if you have the energy and faith to give it one? People will doubt you and discourage you. And some of what they say is true. There is so much more pain and fear involved when a dream takes flight. But no matter how bumpy the liftoff is, once you’re in the air, it’s an amazing view!

Christine Lynxwiler considers herself richly blessed to be living the crazy writer life with her husband and two daughters in the beautiful Ozarks of Arkansas. She sold her first Christian fiction story to Barbour Publishing in 2001. A four time winner of the ACRW/ACFW Book of the Year Award, she now has 12 books in print, including Arkansas, Promise Me Always, Forever Christmas, Death on a Deadline and her newest release, Along Came a Cowboy. She has two more on the way and recently signed a contract for a brand new six book series. Christine loves to laugh and when asked to choose a movie, almost always picks a comedy. A romantic comedy, of course. Or as her husband calls it, a chick flick.

Love Starts With Elle (L) is out!

My fourth book from Thomas Nelson, and my tenth over all is out tomorrow! Love Starts With Elle.

I'm so excited. Elle Garvey is an artist, art gallery owner, and soon-to-be fiance of wide-receiver-turned-pastor Jeremiah Franklin.

But God offers Elle a different path.

Sometimes I think we get caught up God's way for us, His will for us, being a perfect Highway. If things got wrong then we've either missed God or He's lost us.

Elle thinks she's following God. Her prayers are being answered yet her life isn't going as planned. There are bumps on this journey, even a few pot holes.

But God is allowing her to do what He wants most from all of us - come to Him for a deeper, more real relationship.

Contrary to our American Christianity, God some times strips us bare in order for us to see our nakedness, and for Him to cloth us in His righteousness.

Elle discovers God's purpose for her in the middle of a wilderness. If you're in the middle what seems to be or is a wilderness, trust God to lead you to His Oasis.

He's for you! And He's good.

Rachel Hauck lives in central Florida with her husband. She is a graduate of the Ohio State Univerisity and traveled internationally as a software trainer. But, writing is her love, and she hopes to spread the fragrance of Jesus with her words. Her current release is Sweet Caroline from Thomas Nelson. Look for Love Starts With Elle this summer!

Check out all of her books and musings on her web site at www.rachelhauck.com