Author Archives: Life is For Living book

My Book

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Having spent four years poring over my book, I had come to the place where I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. Recently I picked it up to browse through it for the first time in probably two years and I cringed several times. I understand this is normal for authors.

A friend asked me recently if I’d change anything in my book if I had the chance. I wouldn’t change the premise of the book, but I’d add some things, take other lines out. I’d definitely delete qualifiers and italics. I had no idea there were so many in there. It’s a peculiar feeling, reading my own book.

I wrote the book with the conviction that God didn’t intend His daughters to live in grey hues. I saw young women approach their thirties, and when there was no romance on the horizon, they became desperate or depressed. I knew that when they chose these options they were grieving God because He designed them for more than depressing jobs or marriages of desperation. I didn’t want to write a I’m-a-single-woman-hear-me-roar kind of book, but one that looks honestly at the losses that come from singleness, and finds joy and grace. Because that’s how big God is, and I love Him very much and I love how He keeps breaking out of the boxes we put Him in.

It could be that the book sounds chirpy and glib. If I rework it, I might try to fix that, put more depth in it, though now I don’t know how. The great thing about publishing your own book is that you can change things in it at the next printing. I like brainstorming about a new cover and a ‘new and improved’ edition. I’m open to suggestions.

I love hearing from my readers, hearing their stories, peeking into their worlds. I felt especially triumphant when a friend said she was reading it and it made her mad enough that she threw the book across the room. (She’s still my friend!) What’s the point of writing something that doesn’t evoke some response? I was also happy when a reader said the book inspired her to read The Chronicles of Narnia even though she had always said she wasn’t interested in backless wardrobes.

I’ve been amazed at how many mothers and pastor’s wives have told me that they were encouraged with the book’s message. I hadn’t intended the book to be something for them, so their audience is a bonus to me. When single men ask about it, I always tell them I didn’t write it for them, but if they read it they may get a good picture of the kind of woman they should be looking for.

I’m a dreadful business person, having an aversion to numbers and percents and such. I don’t like marketing my own book. (I was comforted recently to find that a favourite author feels the same way here.)

If you’re brainstorming for a gift idea for a lady, you might consider giving her a copy of Life is For Living. In the next day or so I’m going to post a promotion for the book, so stay tuned.

Just to say…

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I added a few more titles to my Life Books page. I’m not organized enough to put them into any kind of order. They’re just listed, with no rhyme or reason, but of course in my way of speaking in superlatives, I would say that everyone should read each of these books at least once. I’ve read most of them more than once.

Enjoy!

Blog Pals

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I think it’s a little dangerous to be the friend or relative of a writer, because you never know when your story or quote will be grist for their story mill. And so I try hard to respect the privacy of the people in my world, and not exploit them or our friendship.

But I think that if someone has a blog, that’s not a private thing, and I can talk about that here. And so I want to say that my friend Gideon just started a blog here and even though he says that reading blogs is a waste of time, he is happy if people have time to read his musings.

It’s something to think about: blogs and how homogenized they can be. There’s a language people can adopt, a persona they can hide behind. While I love words and want to write and am a bit of a blog junkie, I think about blogging and how it could change the way I think/read/write, and maybe I shouldn’t read as many as I do. I don’t have answers, only lots of ideas and questions. And what’s true for me isn’t strictly true for everyone else.

My goals for my blog are to use words well, and to inspire. To lift readers’ eyes from the mundane to the transcendent. I don’t use photos, though some good blogs do, because I want to learn how to convey thoughts and feelings with words. I try not not expose my friends and family so I don’t use many names (except if they have blogs or books!) and I try not to talk too much about myself because I’m 1)a little self-conscious, and 2) want to retain some mystery.

So everyone has different goals for their blogs. Matt started his blog to update his family and friends about his life in Poland when he moved here a year ago. Gideon just started now because he likes to write. If I would read only their blogs, I wouldn’t get an accurate picture of who they are, their humor and heart. They are stellar, gifted men whom I’m proud to work beside. Both of them know how to use words well, and how to hear and understand people. And they play some mean Scrabble.

Words on a page or computer screen are one-dimensional; you don’t get to know the real person, the whole of their personality, wit, tendencies, and quirks. That’s why it’s scary to write; I’m often afraid that people will be disappointed when they meet the real me because they thought they already knew me through my book or blog. It terrifies me, actually.

Probably sometime I’ll blog about some lady bloggers with whom I’ve had amazing exchanges electronically. I’m convinced that technology changes the fiber and quality of a relationship, but I have been hugely enriched with some friendships with ladies whom I’ve never met.

Meanwhile, while I put a premium on real-life, real-time relationships, blogs are nice too. They give inspiration and peeks into a bigger world out there. So now: Gideon and Matt.

Insignificant and Unpraised Deeds

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Mark Galli wrote another excellent article here that resonates with truth and convicted me because it addressed things that me and my generation don’t usually like to think much about: servanthood, hidenness, faithfulness.

My Hero washed His servants’ feet and served them breakfast on the beach. It was the shape of His life, to serve. My housemate and I have a neighbor who washes our feet by keeping our coal furnace going. (We call him our ‘fire-making wizard.’) Only two young women find out about his service, but it is still significant. I have not lost the wonder of walking into a warm house late at night.

Eowyn was a woman who was tired of being hidden, tired of the mundane, hungry for significance and making a difference. Her exchange with Aragorn moved me profoundly last week when I read it again, and I found myself wanting to agree with her, taking her side, knowing how she felt. But I can’t disagree with Aragorn’s wise, strong, solid words:

Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.

It is an insidious part of our humanity that wants praise and affirmation, grasps it as if it could sustain our life. But what if it is service that sustains us? Nurturing that nurtures us? Insignificance that gives us life? Because it mirrors the shape and character of our Life-Giver.

I know it’s true, because I know my Jesus, and I know His followers, and they teach me what I need to know.

Rain and Light

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The group assignment was to take a 20 minute walk together. Enroute, we were to find something that depicts our life at the moment, and tell the group about it afterward.

I knew right away what my symbol would be. When we walked over the little bridge, I left the group and jumped/skidded down the creek bank. With a branch, I fished out a rock half the size of my fist. It glistened a deep reddish brown in my hand.

The analogy breaks down really fast, because I don’t want to be a hard, cold stone. The point of my analogy was that water smooths the roughness and brings out the deeper colors of the stone.

Whenever we walk on the beach in Ireland, we find lovely shells and put them in our pockets. But when we get home, the shells are never as pretty as they were when we found them. The water, in the place they belong, is what makes the shells beautiful.

In a blog post last week, Ann Voskamp said

A photographer had once told me, “You’ll find you will capture some of your best photographs on a grey, wet day. Want glowing, deep colors? Wait for rain.”

Do our tears saturate, intensify the colors of our lives?

Do we begin to see all as gift, when we stare face to face with losses?

Do we only begin to see when the eyes of our hearts are washed clean with tears?

I am beginning to see that in the design of the Master, running water smooths, beautifies, enhances the creation as well as the heart. And then I got a lovely message from someone very dear to me who recently walked through huge disappointment. She also found beauty from water:As we walked we came upon a stream under a stone bridge. The leaves under the water were bright like they were made of light, and just seeing that beauty gave some healing.

I know it’s true. Water soothes, smooths, brightens, gives life and beauty. I want to learn to joy in the rain outside and in my soul, instead of trying to avoid it.

Mark Galli on Asking God

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It was an exciting week to live through, watching the development of the trapped miners’ dramatic rescue in Chile.

On the heels of my post last night, I came across this article in Christianity Today. The trapped miners were the springboard for his article. I was heartened to read Galli’s frank questions about prayer, and his conclusions:

First, we are to ask God for things that are important to us, no matter how we feel about God or prayer or the thing prayed for. In Jesus’ theology of prayer, there is no hint that prayer is the way we transcend desire, as if having desire was a sign of spiritual immaturity. Desire is apparently what humans do, something woven into the fabric of our humanity from day one, a divine gift, the first hint that we are made for something outside ourselves, a something that can only be realized by taking the first small step of asking. Prayer is not a way to overcome desire, but the first thing we do with it.

Second, once we announce our desire to God, it’s his job to deal with it. Prayer is not manipulating heaven to fulfill our desires. It’s putting what we desire into the hands of a loving, if inscrutable, God and letting him fulfill it in his time, in his way.

What He Likes

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I once asked God for something very specific. I asked Him several times, and eventually, I felt Him distinctly say that I don’t know what I’m asking for.

He was right, of course. But I felt that even in the foolish asking, He didn’t mind hearing what I was wanting. I like that about Him.

I’m learning that it’s ridiculous to try to figure out what to ask God for, as if He will only pay attention to the request that suits Him. He just wants to hear what I have to say, like any good father.

I love what Fledge, the Horse, said to Polly and Digory in The Magician’s Nephew:

“Well, I DO think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.

“I’m sure Aslan would have if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.

“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” asked Polly.

“I’ve no doubt he would,” the Horse said (still with his mouth full). “But I’ve a sort of idea he likes to be asked.”

I don’t know how prayer works, or how it moves God. But I love that He likes to be asked. And what’s more, His Spirit prays on my behalf when I can’t even verbalize anything. He really has thought of everything.

Faith and Hope

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We were discussing heroes of faith. Someone pointed out that Sarah actually laughed, didn’t believe God’s promise. And yet she’s listed in Hebrews 11. My friend leaned over to whisper something more to me, and was taken aback to see tears creeping out of my eyes. I wasn’t sad or grieving, just overwhelmed.

Sarah didn’t always have faith. Her idea of Hagar bearing the promised son was blatant unbelief. And yet she’s one of the faith heroes. That means I have a chance to be a hero of faith too. Amazing.

It doesn’t happen often, but now and then a new friend will say to me, “You surprise me–I thought you were one of those people who has it all together.”

So let me clarify here: I don’t have it all together. I have hangups, questions, gaping wounds. I don’t believe God when He says something. I keep arguing with Him. I stratify people and think some are less or more worthy of my love. I have issues, problems, flaws. I am a Sarah, puzzled at God’s words and laughing sarcastically when they don’t make sense.

Those issues don’t define who I am, but they shape how I look at and respond to things around me. And anyone who knows me well knows I don’t have it all together. That’s why I take such comfort in God’s love, because He knows me fully and loves me anyhow. On Sunday, Hebrews 11 let me peek at what can be possible for someone who doesn’t have it all together.

And it gave me hope.

I Love Words

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In the first meeting with each of my intermediate-and-higher classes, I ask each student to make a list of their favourite English words and bring it back at our next class. I tell them that this is probably the only homework I’ll ever give them. That makes them smile. Hopefully, it helps them like me too.

After they give me their lists, I go to Wordle and create a word cloud that suits the gist of the words and the person they come from. It’s way too fun! The collection on our classroom wall is growing, and I like to see students perusing the random, colorful words. My list is up there too, giving opportunity to enlarge their vocabulary when they ask what “fuchsia” means, and “dazzle” and “magnanimous.”

Finding myself in a new country, surrounded by a new language, I find myself emptier of words than is normal for me. Even my journal entries are tending to be bumpier, more fragmented than before. Not to mention that my blogging has nearly stopped. But this silence, this taking-in and observing, is good. It’s a kind of rest, and words are still alive to me. Even if I can’t string them together so well right now. I am empowering others by handing them basic English words and concepts, one word at time, and that’s ok for now.

I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the significance of Christ being the Word of God. There is something mysteriously powerful about a word, even if they say a picture is worth a thousand words. A person’s words reveals their heart, their character, their dreams and passions. That’s why I like to collect my student’s favourite words. It’s why I like the stories in the Gospels, and hear the words Jesus used for the people in His world.

Words are impractical and practical, beautiful and useful. I love words.

Poetry at Midnight

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In stolen minutes between studying Polish and teaching English, I read. Today I finished Calvin Miller’s Life is Mostly Edges. I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the last two-thirds. I was especially fascinated with how he came to write The Singer and that it was written mostly at midnight when the words came to him in the dark.

It reminded me of what Gene Edwards wrote in his A Tale of Three Kings (possibly the most eloquent, concise book I’ve read about authority and interpersonal relationships.) In it, he also relates how songs come in the night. He said that when David was being hunted by Saul, David spoke less and sang more.

In the book I finished today, Miller quoted a blind friend who discovered that in his blindness, he came to love God more than the things of God. Out of deep love, songs come. A review of The Song Trilogy said “Miller himself is the Troubadour singing a love song to his Lord.”

It’s making me wonder: how can God’s people hear the inner music? How can all our work be praise?

None of the great saints of the church made his or her mark by trying harder, only by loving more completely. –C. Miller