Thank you to Miriam Parker and Angie Brillhart!
Showing posts with label FaithWords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FaithWords. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Blogoversary Giveaway #3
Giveaway #3 is for US and Canada only, a copy of A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions by Katharine Hayhoe and Andrew Farley, thanks to FaithWords. A Winner will be announced October 18th.
Global warming: it's one of the hottest scientific and political issues of today. And yet we've all found ourselves asking . . .
- It's freezing outside--where's global warming now?
- Climate is always changing--how do we know this isn't just a cycle?
- Why should Christians care about global warming when we know the world won't end that way?
For all the talk about climate change, there's still a great deal of debate about what it all means, especially among Christians. A CLIMATE FOR CHANGE offers straightforward answers to these questions, without the spin. This book untangles the complex science and tackles many long-held misconceptions about global warming. Authored by a climate scientist and a pastor, A CLIMATE FOR CHANGE boldly explores the role our Christian faith can play in guiding our opinions on this important global issue.
What is one thing you do for our environment?
Good luck all! And for the fun of it, after your MANDATORY entry above, any of the following will get you additional entries...
- Add my blog to your technorati favs (left sidebar)
- Follow my blog through Google Friend Connect (right sidebar)
- Follow my blog through Networked Blogs (right sidebar)
- Subscribe to my blog via Feedburner (right sidebar)
- Follow me on Twitter (right sidebar)
- Tweet this giveaway (come back and leave your status link - find this by clicking on your time of tweet)
- Join my Facebook Fan page
- Comment on other non-giveaway posts
- Blog about this giveaway
- Grab my button and link to my blog (left sidebar)
- Grab my giveaway button and link to my blog (right sidebar)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Blogoversary Giveaway #2
As a second giveaway for US and Canada only, I offer to you Can God Be Trusted?: Faith in Troubled Times by Thomas D. Williams, thanks to FaithWords. A Winner will be announced October 18th.
Father Williams explores the most common obstacles that prevent people from trusting God, including personal betrayals, unfulfilled expectations, and seemingly unanswered prayers. He then explains what is reasonable to expect from God and offers practical tips for ways to grow in trust.
Williams is becoming a revered voice in the Christian community for his insightful writings on issues that really matter to Christians. In this new book, Father Williams will help readers understand, not only how to trust God in spite of doubts and confusion, but to truly know God can be trusted.
Tell me about a time where you did not want to, but trusted God, and things worked out better than you imagined?
Good luck all! And for the fun of it, after your MANDATORY entry above, any of the following will get you additional entries...
- Add my blog to your technorati favs (left sidebar)
- Follow my blog through Google Friend Connect (right sidebar)
- Follow my blog through Networked Blogs (right sidebar)
- Subscribe to my blog via Feedburner (right sidebar)
- Follow me on Twitter (right sidebar)
- Tweet this giveaway (come back and leave your status link - find this by clicking on your time of tweet)
- Join my Facebook Fan page
- Comment on other non-giveaway posts
- Blog about this giveaway
- Grab my button and link to my blog (left sidebar)
- Grab my giveaway button and link to my blog (right sidebar)
Monday, June 8, 2009
CFBA: Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
It was during third grade after a teacher encouraged him in his writing and as he read through The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis that Travis decided he wanted to be a writer. The dream never left him, and allowed him to fulfill that dream of writing fulltime in 2007.Travis Thrasher is the author of numerous works of fiction, including his most personal and perhaps his deepest work, Sky Blue, that was published in summer of 2007. This year he has to novels published, Out of the Devil’s Mouth, and a supernatural thriller, Isolation.
Travis is married to Sharon and they are the proud parents of Kylie, born in November, 2006, and Hailey, a Shih-Tzu that looks like an Ewok. They live in suburban Chicago.
Stop by and visit Travis at his Blog where you can sign up to follow him on Facebook and Twitter!
Also check out the radio interview with Travis on Monday June 8th at BlogTalkRadio/FaithWords
ABOUT THE BOOK
For years Dennis Shore has thrilled readers with his spooky bestselling novels. Now a widower, Dennis is finally alone in his house, his daughter attending college out of state. When he's stricken by a paralyzing case of writer's block and a looming deadline, Dennis becomes desperate. Against better judgment, he claims someone else's writing as his own, accepting undeserved accolades for the stolen work. He thinks he's gotten away with it . . . until he's greeted by a young man named Cillian Reed--the true author of the stolen manuscript.What begins as a minor case of harassment quickly spirals out of control. As Cillian's threats escalate, Dennis finds himself on the brink of losing his career, his sanity, and even his life. The horror he's spent years writing about has arrived on his doorstep, and Dennis has nowhere to run.
If you would like to read the first chapter of Ghostwriter, go HERE
I started to read this (and love Travis' books), but right now it's a little too intense for my pregnant emotional reactions... later, sorry.
Friday, May 29, 2009
FIRST: Who Made You A Princess? by Shelley Adina
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Who Made You A Princess? (All About Us Series, Book 4)
FaithWords (May 13, 2009)
Plus a Tiffany's Bracelet Giveaway! Go to Camy Tang's Blog and leave a comment on her FIRST Wild Card Tour for Be Strong and Curvaceous, and you will be placed into a drawing for a bracelet that looks similar to the picture below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Award-winning author Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was 13. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages. Shelley is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She writes books about fun and faith—with a side of glamour. Between books, Shelley loves traveling, playing the piano and Celtic harp, watching movies, and making period costumes.Visit her book site and her website.
It's All About Us is Book One in the All About Us Series. Book Two, The Fruit of my Lipstick came out in August 2008. Book Three, Be Strong & Curvaceous, came out January 2, 2009. And Book Four, Who Made You a Princess?, came out May 13, 2009.
Product Details:
List Price: $9.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (May 13, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446179620
ISBN-13: 978-0446179621
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
NOTHING SAYS “ALONE” like a wide, sandy beach on the western edge of the continent, with the sun going down in a smear of red and orange. Girlfriends, I am the go-to girl for alone. Or at least, that’s what I used to think. Not anymore, though, because nothing says “alive” like a fire snapping and hissing at your feet, and half a dozen of your BFFs laughing and talking around you.
Like the T-shirt says, life is good.
My name’s Shani Amira Marjorie Hanna, and up until I started going to Spencer Academy in my freshman year, all I wanted to do was get in, scoop as many A’s as I could, and get out. College, yeah. Adulthood. Being the boss of me. Social life? Who cared? I’d treat it the way I’d done in middle school, making my own way and watching people brush by me, all disappearing into good-bye like they were flowing down a river.
Then when I was a junior, I met the girls, and things started to change whether I wanted them to or not. Or maybe it was just me. Doing the changing, I mean.
Now we were all seniors and I was beginning to see that all this “I am an island” stuff was just a bunch of smoke. ’Cuz I was not like the Channel Islands, sitting out there on the hazy horizon. I was so done with all that.
Lissa Mansfield sat on the other side of the fire from me while this adorable Jared Padalecki look-alike named Kaz Griffin sat next to her trying to act like the best friend she thought he was. Lissa needs a smack upside the head, you want my opinion. Either that or someone needs to make a serious play for Kaz to wake her up. But it’s not going to be me. I’ve got cuter fish to fry. Heh. More about that later.
“I can’t believe this is the last weekend of summer vacation,” Carly Aragon moaned for about the fifth time since Kaz lit the fire and we all got comfortable in the sand around it. “It’s gone so fast.”
“That’s because you’ve only been here a week.” I handed her the bag of tortilla chips. “What about me? I’ve been here for a month and I still can’t believe we have to go up to San Francisco on Tuesday.”
“I’m so jealous.” Carly bumped me with her shoulder. “A whole month at Casa Mansfield with your own private beach and everything.” She dipped a handful of chips in a big plastic container of salsa she’d made that morning with fresh tomatoes and cilantro and little bits of—get this—cantaloupe. She made one the other day with carrots in it. I don't know how she comes up with this stuff, but it’s all good. We had a cooler full of food to munch on. No burnt weenies for this crowd. Uh-uh. What we can’t order delivered, Carly can make.
“And to think I could have gone back to Chicago and spent the whole summer throwing parties and trashing the McMansion.” I sighed with regret. “Instead, I had to put up with a month in the Hamptons with the Changs, and then a month out here fighting Lissa for her bathroom.”
“Hey, you could have used one of the other ones,” Lissa protested, trying to keep Kaz from snagging the rest of her turkey-avocado-and-alfalfa-sprouts sandwich.
I grinned at her. Who wanted to walk down the hot sandstone patio to one of the other bathrooms when she, Carly, and I had this beautiful Spanish terrazzo-looking wing of the house to ourselves? Carly and I were in Lissa’s sister’s old room, which looked out on this garden with a fountain and big ferns and grasses and flowering trees. And beyond that was the ocean. It was the kind of place you didn’t want to leave, even to go to the bathroom.
I contrasted it with the freezing wind off Lake Michigan in the winter and the long empty hallways of the seven-million-dollar McMansion on Lake Road, where I always felt like a guest. You know—like you’re welcome but the hosts don’t really know what to do with you. I mean, my mom has told me point-blank, with a kind of embarrassed little laugh, that she can’t imagine what happened. The Pill and her careful preventive measures couldn’t all have failed on the same night.
Organic waste happens. Whatever. The point is, I arrived seventeen years ago and they had to adjust.
I think they love me. My dad always reads my report cards, and he used to take me to blues clubs to listen to the musicians doing sound checks before the doors opened. That was before my mom found out. Then I had to wait until I was twelve, and we went to the early shows, which were never as good as the late ones I snuck into whenever my parents went on one of their trips.
They travel a lot. Dad owns this massive petroleum exploration company, and when she’s not chairing charity boards and organizing fund-raisers, Mom goes with him everywhere, from Alaska to New Zealand. I saw a lot of great shows with whichever member of the staff I could bribe to take me and swear I was sixteen. Keb’ Mo, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Roomful of Blues—I saw them all.
A G-minor chord rippled out over the crackle of the fire, and I smiled a slow smile. My second favorite sound in the world (right after the sound of M&Ms pouring into a dish). On my left, Danyel had pulled out his guitar and tuned it while I was lost in la-la land, listening to the waves come in.
Lissa says there are some things you just know. And somehow, I just knew that I was going to be more to Danyel Johnstone than merely a friend of his friend Kaz’s friend Lissa, if you hear what I’m saying. I was done with being alone, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stand out from the crowd.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like this crowd. Carly especially—she’s like the sister I would have designed my own self. And Lissa, too, though sometimes I wonder if she can be real. I mean, how can you be blond and tall and rich and wear clothes the way she does, and still be so nice? There has to be a flaw in there somewhere, but if she’s got any, she keeps them under wraps.
Gillian, who we’d see in a couple of days, has really grown on me. I couldn’t stand her at first—she’s one of those people you can’t help but notice. I only hung around her because Carly liked her. But somewhere between her going out with this loser brain trust and then her hooking up with Jeremy Clay, who’s a friend of mine, I got to know her. And staying with her family last Christmas, which could have been massively awkward, was actually fun. The last month in the Hamptons with them was a total blast. The only good thing about leaving was knowing I was going to see the rest of the crew here in Santa Barbara.
The one person I still wasn’t sure about was Mac, aka Lady Lindsay MacPhail, who did an exchange term at school in the spring. Getting to know her is like besieging a castle—which is totally appropriate considering she lives in one. She and Carly are tight, and we all e-mailed and IM-ed like fiends all summer, but I’m still not sure. I mean, she has a lot to deal with right now, with her family and everything. And the likelihood of us seeing each other again is kind of low, so maybe I don’t have to make up my mind about her. Maybe I’ll just let her go the way I let the kids in middle school go.
Danyel began to get serious about bending his notes instead of fingerpicking, and I knew he was about to sing. Oh, man, could the night get any more perfect? Even though we’d probably burn the handmade marshmallows from Williams-Sonoma, tonight capped a summer that had been the best time I’d ever had.
The only thing that would make it perfect would be finding some way to be alone with that man. I hadn’t been here more than a day when Danyel and Kaz had come loping down the beach. I’d taken one look at those eyes and those cheekbones and, okay, a very cut set of abs, and decided here was someone I wanted to know a whole lot better. And I did, now, after a couple of weeks. But soon we’d go off to S. F., and he and Kaz would go back to Pacific High. When we pulled out in Gabe Mansfield’s SUV, I wanted there to be something more between us than an air kiss and a handshake, you know what I mean?
I wanted something to be settled. Neither of us had talked about it, but both of us knew it was there. Unspoken longing is all very well in poetry, but I’m the outspoken type. I like things out there where I can touch them.
In a manner of speaking.
Danyel sat between Kaz and me, cross-legged and bare-chested, looking as comfortable in his surf jams as if he lived in them. Come to think of it, he did live in them. His, Kaz’s, and Lissa’s boards were stuck in the sand behind us. They’d spent most of the afternoon out there on the waves. I tried to keep my eyes on the fire. Not that I didn’t appreciate the view next to me, because trust me, it was fine, but I know a man wants to be appreciated for his talents and his mind.
Danyel’s melody sounded familiar—something Gillian played while we waited for our prayer circles at school to start. Which reminded me . . . I nudged Carly. “You guys going to church tomorrow?”
She nodded and lifted her chin at Lissa to get her attention. “Girl wants to know if we’re going to church.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lissa said. “Kaz and his family, too. Last chance of the summer to all go together.”
And where Kaz went, Danyel went. Happy thought.
“You’re not going to bail, are you?” Carly’s brows rose a little.
It’s not like I’m anti-religion or anything. I’m just in the beginning stages of learning about it. Without my friends to tell me stuff, I’d be bumbling around on my own, trying to figure it out. My parents don’t go to church, so I didn’t catch the habit from them. But when she was alive and I was a little girl, my grandma used to take me to the one in her neighborhood across town. I thought it was an adventure, riding the bus instead of being driven in the BMW. And the gospel choir was like nothing I’d ever seen, all waving their arms in the air and singing to raise the roof. I always thought they were trying to deafen God, if they could just get up enough volume.
So I like the music part. Always have. And I’m beginning to see the light on the God part, after what happened last spring. But seeing a glimmer and knowing what to do about it are two different things.
“Of course not.” I gave Carly a look. “We all go together. And we walk, in case no one told you, so plan your shoes carefully.”
“Oh, I will.” She sat back on her hands, an “I so see right through you” smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “And it’s all about the worship, I know.” That smile told me she knew exactly what my motivation was. Part of it, at least. Hey, can you blame me?
The music changed and Danyel’s voice lifted into a lonely blues melody, pouring over Carly’s words like cream. I just melted right there on the spot. Man, could that boy sing.
Blue water, blue sky
Blue day, girl, do you think that I
Don’t see you, yeah I do.
Long sunset, long road,
Long life, girl, but I think you know
What I need, yeah, you do.
I do a little singing my own self, so I know talent when I hear it. And I’d have bet you that month’s allowance that Danyel had composed that one. He segued into the chorus and then the bridge, its rhythms straight out of Mississippi but the tune something new, something that fit the sadness and the hope of the words.
Wait a minute.
Blue day? Long sunset? Long road? As in, a long road to San Francisco?
Whoa. Could Danyel be trying to tell someone something? “You think that I don’t see you”? Well, if that didn’t describe me, I didn’t know what would. Ohmigosh.
Could he be trying to tell me his feelings with a song? Musicians were like that. They couldn’t tell a person something to her face, or they were too shy, or it was just too hard to get out, so they poured it into their music. For them, maybe it was easier to perform something than to get personal with it.
Be cool, girl. Let him finish. Then find a way to tell him you understand—and you want it, too.
The last of the notes blew away on the breeze, and a big comber smashed itself on the sand, making a sound like a kettledrum to finish off the song. I clapped, and the others joined in.
“Did you write that yourself?” Lissa removed a marshmallow from her stick and passed it to him. “It was great.”
Danyel shrugged one shoulder. “Tune’s been bugging me for a while and the words just came to me. You know, like an IM or something.”
Carly laughed, and Kaz’s forehead wrinkled for a second in a frown before he did, too.
I love modesty in a man. With that kind of talent, you couldn’t blame Danyel for thinking he was all that.
Should I say something? The breath backed up in my chest. Say it. You’ll lose the moment. “So who’s it about?” I blurted, then felt myself blush.
“Can’t tell.” His head was bent as he picked a handful of notes and turned them into a little melody. “Some girl, probably.”
“Some girl who’s leaving?” I said, trying for a teasing tone. “Is that a good-bye?”
“Could be.”
I wished I had the guts to come out and ask if he’d written the song for me—for us—but I just couldn’t. Not with everyone sitting there. With one look at Carly, whose eyes held a distinct “What’s up with you?” expression, I lost my nerve and shut up. Which, as any of the girls could tell you, doesn’t happen very often.
Danyel launched into another song—some praise thing that everyone knew but me. And then another, and then a cheesy old John Denver number that at least I knew the words to, and then a bunch of goofy songs half of us had learned at camp when we were kids. And then it was nearly midnight, and Kaz got up and stretched.
He’s a tall guy. He stretches a long way. “I’m running the mixer for the early service tomorrow, so I’ve got to go.”
Danyel got up, and I just stopped my silly self from saying, “No, not yet.” Instead, I watched him sling the guitar over one shoulder and yank his board out of the sand. “Are you going to early service, too?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “I’m in the band, remember?”
Argh! As if I didn’t know. As if I hadn’t sat there three Sundays in a row, watching his hands move on the frets and the light make shadows under his cheekbones.
“I just meant—I see you at the late one when we go. I didn’t know you went to both.” Stutter, bumble. Oh, just stop talking, girl. You’ve been perfectly comfortable talking to him so far. What’s the matter?
“I don’t, usually. But tomorrow they’re doing full band at early service, too. Last one before all the turistas go home. Next week we’ll be back to normal.” He smiled at me. “See you then.”
Was he looking forward to seeing me, or was he just being nice? “I hope so,” I managed.
“Kaz, you coming?”
Kaz bent to the fire and ran a stick through the coals, separating them. “Just let me put this out. Lissa, where’s the bucket?”
“Here.” While I’d been obsessing over Danyel, Lissa had run down to the waterline and filled a gallon pail. You could tell they’d done this about a million times. She poured the water on the fire and it blew a cloud of steam into the air. The orange coals gave it up with a hiss.
I looked up to say something to Danyel about it and saw that he was already fifty feet away, board under his arm like it weighed nothing, heading down the beach to the public lot where he usually parked his Jeep.
I stared down into the coals, wet and dying.
I couldn’t let the night go out like this.
“Danyel, wait!” The sand polished the soles of my bare feet better than the pumice bar at the salon as I ran to catch up with him. A fast glance behind me told me Lissa had stepped up and begun talking to Kaz, giving me a few seconds alone.
I owed her, big time.
“What’s up, ma?” He planted the board and set the guitar case down. “Forget something?”
“Yes,” I blurted. “I forgot to tell you that I think you’re amazing.”
He blinked. “Whoa.” The barest hint of a smile tickled the corners of his lips.
I might not get another chance as good as this one. I rushed on, the words crowding my mouth in their hurry to get out. “I know there’s something going on here and we’re all leaving on Tuesday and I need to know if you—if you feel the same way.”
“About . . . ?”
“About me. As I feel about you.”
He put both hands on his hips and gazed down at the sand. “Oh.”
Cold engulfed me, as if I’d just plunged face-first into the dark waves twenty feet away. “Oh,” I echoed. “Never mind. I guess I got it wrong.” I stepped back. “Forget about it. No harm done.”
“No, Shani, wait—”
But I didn’t want to hear the “we can still be friends” speech. I didn’t want to hear anything except the wind in my ears as I ran back to the safety of my friends.
Like the T-shirt says, life is good.
My name’s Shani Amira Marjorie Hanna, and up until I started going to Spencer Academy in my freshman year, all I wanted to do was get in, scoop as many A’s as I could, and get out. College, yeah. Adulthood. Being the boss of me. Social life? Who cared? I’d treat it the way I’d done in middle school, making my own way and watching people brush by me, all disappearing into good-bye like they were flowing down a river.
Then when I was a junior, I met the girls, and things started to change whether I wanted them to or not. Or maybe it was just me. Doing the changing, I mean.
Now we were all seniors and I was beginning to see that all this “I am an island” stuff was just a bunch of smoke. ’Cuz I was not like the Channel Islands, sitting out there on the hazy horizon. I was so done with all that.
Lissa Mansfield sat on the other side of the fire from me while this adorable Jared Padalecki look-alike named Kaz Griffin sat next to her trying to act like the best friend she thought he was. Lissa needs a smack upside the head, you want my opinion. Either that or someone needs to make a serious play for Kaz to wake her up. But it’s not going to be me. I’ve got cuter fish to fry. Heh. More about that later.
“I can’t believe this is the last weekend of summer vacation,” Carly Aragon moaned for about the fifth time since Kaz lit the fire and we all got comfortable in the sand around it. “It’s gone so fast.”
“That’s because you’ve only been here a week.” I handed her the bag of tortilla chips. “What about me? I’ve been here for a month and I still can’t believe we have to go up to San Francisco on Tuesday.”
“I’m so jealous.” Carly bumped me with her shoulder. “A whole month at Casa Mansfield with your own private beach and everything.” She dipped a handful of chips in a big plastic container of salsa she’d made that morning with fresh tomatoes and cilantro and little bits of—get this—cantaloupe. She made one the other day with carrots in it. I don't know how she comes up with this stuff, but it’s all good. We had a cooler full of food to munch on. No burnt weenies for this crowd. Uh-uh. What we can’t order delivered, Carly can make.
“And to think I could have gone back to Chicago and spent the whole summer throwing parties and trashing the McMansion.” I sighed with regret. “Instead, I had to put up with a month in the Hamptons with the Changs, and then a month out here fighting Lissa for her bathroom.”
“Hey, you could have used one of the other ones,” Lissa protested, trying to keep Kaz from snagging the rest of her turkey-avocado-and-alfalfa-sprouts sandwich.
I grinned at her. Who wanted to walk down the hot sandstone patio to one of the other bathrooms when she, Carly, and I had this beautiful Spanish terrazzo-looking wing of the house to ourselves? Carly and I were in Lissa’s sister’s old room, which looked out on this garden with a fountain and big ferns and grasses and flowering trees. And beyond that was the ocean. It was the kind of place you didn’t want to leave, even to go to the bathroom.
I contrasted it with the freezing wind off Lake Michigan in the winter and the long empty hallways of the seven-million-dollar McMansion on Lake Road, where I always felt like a guest. You know—like you’re welcome but the hosts don’t really know what to do with you. I mean, my mom has told me point-blank, with a kind of embarrassed little laugh, that she can’t imagine what happened. The Pill and her careful preventive measures couldn’t all have failed on the same night.
Organic waste happens. Whatever. The point is, I arrived seventeen years ago and they had to adjust.
I think they love me. My dad always reads my report cards, and he used to take me to blues clubs to listen to the musicians doing sound checks before the doors opened. That was before my mom found out. Then I had to wait until I was twelve, and we went to the early shows, which were never as good as the late ones I snuck into whenever my parents went on one of their trips.
They travel a lot. Dad owns this massive petroleum exploration company, and when she’s not chairing charity boards and organizing fund-raisers, Mom goes with him everywhere, from Alaska to New Zealand. I saw a lot of great shows with whichever member of the staff I could bribe to take me and swear I was sixteen. Keb’ Mo, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Roomful of Blues—I saw them all.
A G-minor chord rippled out over the crackle of the fire, and I smiled a slow smile. My second favorite sound in the world (right after the sound of M&Ms pouring into a dish). On my left, Danyel had pulled out his guitar and tuned it while I was lost in la-la land, listening to the waves come in.
Lissa says there are some things you just know. And somehow, I just knew that I was going to be more to Danyel Johnstone than merely a friend of his friend Kaz’s friend Lissa, if you hear what I’m saying. I was done with being alone, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stand out from the crowd.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like this crowd. Carly especially—she’s like the sister I would have designed my own self. And Lissa, too, though sometimes I wonder if she can be real. I mean, how can you be blond and tall and rich and wear clothes the way she does, and still be so nice? There has to be a flaw in there somewhere, but if she’s got any, she keeps them under wraps.
Gillian, who we’d see in a couple of days, has really grown on me. I couldn’t stand her at first—she’s one of those people you can’t help but notice. I only hung around her because Carly liked her. But somewhere between her going out with this loser brain trust and then her hooking up with Jeremy Clay, who’s a friend of mine, I got to know her. And staying with her family last Christmas, which could have been massively awkward, was actually fun. The last month in the Hamptons with them was a total blast. The only good thing about leaving was knowing I was going to see the rest of the crew here in Santa Barbara.
The one person I still wasn’t sure about was Mac, aka Lady Lindsay MacPhail, who did an exchange term at school in the spring. Getting to know her is like besieging a castle—which is totally appropriate considering she lives in one. She and Carly are tight, and we all e-mailed and IM-ed like fiends all summer, but I’m still not sure. I mean, she has a lot to deal with right now, with her family and everything. And the likelihood of us seeing each other again is kind of low, so maybe I don’t have to make up my mind about her. Maybe I’ll just let her go the way I let the kids in middle school go.
Danyel began to get serious about bending his notes instead of fingerpicking, and I knew he was about to sing. Oh, man, could the night get any more perfect? Even though we’d probably burn the handmade marshmallows from Williams-Sonoma, tonight capped a summer that had been the best time I’d ever had.
The only thing that would make it perfect would be finding some way to be alone with that man. I hadn’t been here more than a day when Danyel and Kaz had come loping down the beach. I’d taken one look at those eyes and those cheekbones and, okay, a very cut set of abs, and decided here was someone I wanted to know a whole lot better. And I did, now, after a couple of weeks. But soon we’d go off to S. F., and he and Kaz would go back to Pacific High. When we pulled out in Gabe Mansfield’s SUV, I wanted there to be something more between us than an air kiss and a handshake, you know what I mean?
I wanted something to be settled. Neither of us had talked about it, but both of us knew it was there. Unspoken longing is all very well in poetry, but I’m the outspoken type. I like things out there where I can touch them.
In a manner of speaking.
Danyel sat between Kaz and me, cross-legged and bare-chested, looking as comfortable in his surf jams as if he lived in them. Come to think of it, he did live in them. His, Kaz’s, and Lissa’s boards were stuck in the sand behind us. They’d spent most of the afternoon out there on the waves. I tried to keep my eyes on the fire. Not that I didn’t appreciate the view next to me, because trust me, it was fine, but I know a man wants to be appreciated for his talents and his mind.
Danyel’s melody sounded familiar—something Gillian played while we waited for our prayer circles at school to start. Which reminded me . . . I nudged Carly. “You guys going to church tomorrow?”
She nodded and lifted her chin at Lissa to get her attention. “Girl wants to know if we’re going to church.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lissa said. “Kaz and his family, too. Last chance of the summer to all go together.”
And where Kaz went, Danyel went. Happy thought.
“You’re not going to bail, are you?” Carly’s brows rose a little.
It’s not like I’m anti-religion or anything. I’m just in the beginning stages of learning about it. Without my friends to tell me stuff, I’d be bumbling around on my own, trying to figure it out. My parents don’t go to church, so I didn’t catch the habit from them. But when she was alive and I was a little girl, my grandma used to take me to the one in her neighborhood across town. I thought it was an adventure, riding the bus instead of being driven in the BMW. And the gospel choir was like nothing I’d ever seen, all waving their arms in the air and singing to raise the roof. I always thought they were trying to deafen God, if they could just get up enough volume.
So I like the music part. Always have. And I’m beginning to see the light on the God part, after what happened last spring. But seeing a glimmer and knowing what to do about it are two different things.
“Of course not.” I gave Carly a look. “We all go together. And we walk, in case no one told you, so plan your shoes carefully.”
“Oh, I will.” She sat back on her hands, an “I so see right through you” smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “And it’s all about the worship, I know.” That smile told me she knew exactly what my motivation was. Part of it, at least. Hey, can you blame me?
The music changed and Danyel’s voice lifted into a lonely blues melody, pouring over Carly’s words like cream. I just melted right there on the spot. Man, could that boy sing.
Blue water, blue sky
Blue day, girl, do you think that I
Don’t see you, yeah I do.
Long sunset, long road,
Long life, girl, but I think you know
What I need, yeah, you do.
I do a little singing my own self, so I know talent when I hear it. And I’d have bet you that month’s allowance that Danyel had composed that one. He segued into the chorus and then the bridge, its rhythms straight out of Mississippi but the tune something new, something that fit the sadness and the hope of the words.
Wait a minute.
Blue day? Long sunset? Long road? As in, a long road to San Francisco?
Whoa. Could Danyel be trying to tell someone something? “You think that I don’t see you”? Well, if that didn’t describe me, I didn’t know what would. Ohmigosh.
Could he be trying to tell me his feelings with a song? Musicians were like that. They couldn’t tell a person something to her face, or they were too shy, or it was just too hard to get out, so they poured it into their music. For them, maybe it was easier to perform something than to get personal with it.
Be cool, girl. Let him finish. Then find a way to tell him you understand—and you want it, too.
The last of the notes blew away on the breeze, and a big comber smashed itself on the sand, making a sound like a kettledrum to finish off the song. I clapped, and the others joined in.
“Did you write that yourself?” Lissa removed a marshmallow from her stick and passed it to him. “It was great.”
Danyel shrugged one shoulder. “Tune’s been bugging me for a while and the words just came to me. You know, like an IM or something.”
Carly laughed, and Kaz’s forehead wrinkled for a second in a frown before he did, too.
I love modesty in a man. With that kind of talent, you couldn’t blame Danyel for thinking he was all that.
Should I say something? The breath backed up in my chest. Say it. You’ll lose the moment. “So who’s it about?” I blurted, then felt myself blush.
“Can’t tell.” His head was bent as he picked a handful of notes and turned them into a little melody. “Some girl, probably.”
“Some girl who’s leaving?” I said, trying for a teasing tone. “Is that a good-bye?”
“Could be.”
I wished I had the guts to come out and ask if he’d written the song for me—for us—but I just couldn’t. Not with everyone sitting there. With one look at Carly, whose eyes held a distinct “What’s up with you?” expression, I lost my nerve and shut up. Which, as any of the girls could tell you, doesn’t happen very often.
Danyel launched into another song—some praise thing that everyone knew but me. And then another, and then a cheesy old John Denver number that at least I knew the words to, and then a bunch of goofy songs half of us had learned at camp when we were kids. And then it was nearly midnight, and Kaz got up and stretched.
He’s a tall guy. He stretches a long way. “I’m running the mixer for the early service tomorrow, so I’ve got to go.”
Danyel got up, and I just stopped my silly self from saying, “No, not yet.” Instead, I watched him sling the guitar over one shoulder and yank his board out of the sand. “Are you going to early service, too?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “I’m in the band, remember?”
Argh! As if I didn’t know. As if I hadn’t sat there three Sundays in a row, watching his hands move on the frets and the light make shadows under his cheekbones.
“I just meant—I see you at the late one when we go. I didn’t know you went to both.” Stutter, bumble. Oh, just stop talking, girl. You’ve been perfectly comfortable talking to him so far. What’s the matter?
“I don’t, usually. But tomorrow they’re doing full band at early service, too. Last one before all the turistas go home. Next week we’ll be back to normal.” He smiled at me. “See you then.”
Was he looking forward to seeing me, or was he just being nice? “I hope so,” I managed.
“Kaz, you coming?”
Kaz bent to the fire and ran a stick through the coals, separating them. “Just let me put this out. Lissa, where’s the bucket?”
“Here.” While I’d been obsessing over Danyel, Lissa had run down to the waterline and filled a gallon pail. You could tell they’d done this about a million times. She poured the water on the fire and it blew a cloud of steam into the air. The orange coals gave it up with a hiss.
I looked up to say something to Danyel about it and saw that he was already fifty feet away, board under his arm like it weighed nothing, heading down the beach to the public lot where he usually parked his Jeep.
I stared down into the coals, wet and dying.
I couldn’t let the night go out like this.
“Danyel, wait!” The sand polished the soles of my bare feet better than the pumice bar at the salon as I ran to catch up with him. A fast glance behind me told me Lissa had stepped up and begun talking to Kaz, giving me a few seconds alone.
I owed her, big time.
“What’s up, ma?” He planted the board and set the guitar case down. “Forget something?”
“Yes,” I blurted. “I forgot to tell you that I think you’re amazing.”
He blinked. “Whoa.” The barest hint of a smile tickled the corners of his lips.
I might not get another chance as good as this one. I rushed on, the words crowding my mouth in their hurry to get out. “I know there’s something going on here and we’re all leaving on Tuesday and I need to know if you—if you feel the same way.”
“About . . . ?”
“About me. As I feel about you.”
He put both hands on his hips and gazed down at the sand. “Oh.”
Cold engulfed me, as if I’d just plunged face-first into the dark waves twenty feet away. “Oh,” I echoed. “Never mind. I guess I got it wrong.” I stepped back. “Forget about it. No harm done.”
“No, Shani, wait—”
But I didn’t want to hear the “we can still be friends” speech. I didn’t want to hear anything except the wind in my ears as I ran back to the safety of my friends.
Monday, January 5, 2009
FIRST: Be Strong and Curvaceous by Shelley Adina
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Be Strong and Curvaceous (All About Us Series, Book 3)
FaithWords (January 2, 2009)
Plus a Tiffany's Bracelet Giveaway! Go to Camy Tang's Blog and leave a comment on her FIRST Wild Card Tour for Be Strong and Curvaceous, and you will be placed into a drawing for a bracelet that looks similar to the picture below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shelley Adina is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She knows the value of a relationship with a gracious God and loving Christian friends, and she's inviting today's teenage girls to join her in these refreshingly honest books about real life as a Christian teen--with a little extra glitz thrown in for fun! In between books, Adina loves traveling, listening to and making music, and watching all kinds of movies.It's All About Us is Book One in the All About Us Series. Book Two, The Fruit of my Lipstick came out in August 2008. Book Three, Be Strong & Curvaceous, came out January 2, 2009. And Book Four, Who Made You a Princess?, comes out May 13, 2009.
Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $ 9.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (January 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446177997
ISBN-13: 978-0446177993
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
BE CAREFUL WHAT you wish for.
I used to think that was the dumbest saying ever. I mean, when you wish for something, by definition it’s wonderful, right? Like a new dress for a party. Or a roommate as cool as Gillian Chang or Lissa Mansfield. Or a guy noticing you after six months of being invisible. Before last term, of course I wanted those wishes to come true.
I should have been more careful.
Let me back up a little. My name is Carolina Isabella Aragon Velasquez . . . but that doesn’t fit on school admission forms, so when I started first grade, it got shortened up to Carolina Aragon—Carly to my friends. Up until I was a sophomore, I lived with my mother and father, my older sister Alana and little brother Antony in a huge house in Monte Sereno, just south of Silicon Valley. Papa’s company invented some kind of security software for stock exchanges, and he and everyone who worked for him got rich.
Then came Black Thursday and the stock market crash, and suddenly my mom was leaving him and going to live with her parents in Veracruz, Mexico, to be an artist and find herself. Alana finished college and moved to Austin, Texas, where we have lots of relatives. Antony, Papa, and I moved to a condo about the size of our old living room, and since Papa spends so much time on the road, where I’ve found myself since September is boarding school.
The spring term started in April, and as I got out of the limo Papa sends me back to Spencer Academy in every Sunday night—even though I’m perfectly capable of taking the train—I couldn’t help but feel a little bubble of optimism deep inside. Call me corny, but the news that Vanessa Talbot and Brett Loyola had broken up just before spring break had made the last ten days the happiest I’d had since my parents split up. Even flying to Veracruz, courtesy of Papa’s frequent flyer miles, and being introduced to my mother’s boyfriend hadn’t put a dent in it.
Ugh. Okay, I lied. So not going there.
Thinking about Brett now. Dark, romantic eyes. Curly dark hair, cut short because he’s the captain of the rowing team. Broad shoulders. Fabulous clothes he wears as if he doesn’t care where he got them.
Oh, yeah. Much better.
Lost in happy plans for how I’d finally get his attention (I was signing up to be a chem tutor first thing because, let’s face it, he needs me), I pushed open the door to my room and staggered in with my duffel bags.
My hands loosened and I dropped everything with a thud.
There were Vuitton suitcases all over the room. Enough for an entire family. In fact, the trunk was so big you could put a family in it—the kids, at least.
“Close the door, why don’t you?” said a bored British voice, with a barely noticeable roll on the r. A girl stepped out from behind the wardrobe door.
Red hair in an explosion of curls.
Fishnet stockings to here and glossy Louboutin ankle boots.
Blue eyes that grabbed you and made you wonder why she was so . . . not interested in whether you took another breath.
Ever.
How come no one had told me I was getting a roommate? And who could have prepared me for this, anyway?
“Who are you?”
“Mac,” she said, returning to the depths of the wardrobe. Most people would have said, “What’s your name?” back. She didn’t.
“I’m Carly.” Did I feel lame or what?
She looked around the door. “Pleasure. Looks like we’re to be roommates.” Then she went back to hanging things up.
There was no point in restating the obvious. I gathered my scattered brains and tried to remember what Mama had taught me that a good hostess was supposed to do. “Did someone show you where the dining room is? Supper is between five and six-thirty, and I usually—”
“Carrie. I expected my own room,” she said, as if I hadn’t been talking. “Whom do I speak to?”
“It’s Carly. And Ms. Tobin’s the dorm mistress for this floor.”
“Fine. What were you saying about tea?”
I took a breath and remembered that one of us was what my brother calls couth. As opposed to un. “You’re welcome to come with me and my friends if you want.”
Pop! went the latches on the trunk. She threw up the lid and looked at me over the top of it, her reddish eyebrows lifting in amusement.
“Thanks so much. But I’ll pass.”
Okay, even I have my limits. I picked up my duffel, dropped it on the end of my bed, and left her to it. Maybe by the time I got back from tea—er, supper—she’d have convinced Ms. Tobin to give her a room in another dorm.
The way things looked, this chica would probably demand the headmistress’s suite.
* * *
“What a mo guai nuer,” Gillian said over her tortellini and asparagus. “I can’t believe she snubbed you like that.”
“You of all people,” Lissa agreed, “who wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings for anything.”
“I wanted to—if I could have come up with something scathing.” Lissa looked surprised, as if I’d shocked her. Well, I may not put my feelings out there for everyone to see, like Gillian does, but I’m still entitled to have them. “But you know how you freeze when you realize you’ve just been cut off at the knees?”
“What happened to your knees?” Jeremy Clay put his plate of linguine down and slid in next to Gillian. They traded a smile that made me feel sort of hollow inside—not the way I’d felt after Mac’s little setdown, but . . . like I was missing out on something. Like they had a secret and weren’t telling.
You know what? Feeling sorry for yourself is not the way to start off a term. I smiled at Jeremy. “Nothing. How was your break? Did you get up to New York the way you guys had planned?”
He glanced at Gillian. “Yeah, I did.”
Argh. Men. Never ask them a yes/no question. “And? Did you have fun? Shani said she had a blast after the initial shock.”
Gillian grinned at me. “That’s a nice way of saying that my grandmother scared the stilettos off her. At first. But then Nai-Nai realized Shani could eat anyone under the table, even my brothers, no matter what she put in front of her, so after that they were best friends.”
“My grandmother’s like that, too,” I said, nodding in sympathy. “She thinks I’m too thin, so she’s always making pots of mole and stuff. Little does she know.”
It’s a fact that I have way too much junk in my trunk. Part of the reason my focus is in history, with as many fashion design electives as I can get away with, is that when I make my own clothes, I can drape and cut to accentuate the positive and make people forget that big old negative following me around.
“You aren’t too thin or too fat.” Lissa is a perfect four. She’s also the most loyal friend in the world. “You’re just right. If I had your curves, I’d be a happy woman.”
Time to change the subject. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my body in front of a guy, even if he belonged to someone else. “So, did you guys get to see Pride and Prejudice—The Musical? Shani said you were bribing someone to get tickets.”
“Close,” Gillian said. “My mom is on the orchestra’s board, so we got seats in the first circle. You’d have loved it. Costume heaven.”
“I would have.” I sighed. “Why did I have to go to Veracruz for spring break? How come I couldn’t have gone to New York, too?”
I hoped I sounded rhetorical. The truth was, there wasn’t any money for trips to New York to see the hottest musical on Broadway with my friends. Or for the clothes to wear once I got there—unless I made them myself.
“That’s it, then.” Gillian waved a grape tomato on the end of her fork. “Next break, you and Lissa are coming to see me. Not in the summer—no one in their right mind stays in the city in July. But at Christmas.”
“Maybe we’ll go to Veracruz,” Lissa suggested. “Or you guys can come to Santa Barbara and I’ll teach you to surf.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said. Either of Lissa’s options wouldn’t cost very much. New York, on the other hand, would. “I like warm places for my winter holidays.”
“Good point,” Gillian conceded. “So do I.”
“Notice how getting through the last term of junior year isn’t even on your radar?” Jeremy asked no one in particular. “It’s all about vacations with you guys.”
“Vacations are our reward,” Gillian informed him. “You have to have something to get you through finals.”
“Right, like you have to worry,” he scoffed, bumping shoulders with her in a chummy way.
“She does,” Lissa said. “She has to get me through finals.”
While everyone laughed, I got up and walked over to the dessert bar. Crème brulée, berry parfaits, and German chocolate cake. You know you’re depressed when even Dining Services’ crème brulée—which puts a dreamy look in the eyes of just about everyone who goes here—doesn’t get you excited.
I had to snap out of it. Thinking about all the things I didn’t have and all the things I couldn’t do would get me precisely nowhere. I had to focus on the good things.
My friends.
How lucky I was to have won the scholarship that got me into Spencer.
And how much luckier I was that in two terms, no one had figured out I was a scholarship kid. Okay, so Gillian is a scholarship kid, too, but her dad is the president of a multinational bank. She thinks it’s funny that he made her practice the piano so hard all those years, and that’s what finally got her away from him. Who is my father? No one. Just a hardworking guy. He was so proud of me when that acceptance letter came that I didn’t have the heart to tell him there was more to succeeding here than filling a minority quota and getting good grades.
Stop it. Just because you can’t flit off to New York to catch a show or order up the latest designs from Fashion Week doesn’t mean your life is trash. Get ahold of your sense of proportion.
I took a berry parfait—blueberries have lots of antioxidants—and turned back to the table just as the dining room doors opened. They seemed to pause in their arc, giving my new roommate plenty of time to stroll through before they practically genuflected closed behind her. She’d changed out of the fishnets into heels and a black sweater tossed over a simple leaf-green dress that absolutely screamed Paris—Rue Cambon, to be exact. Number 31, to be even more exact. Chanel Couture.
My knees nearly buckled with envy.
“Is that Carly’s roommate?” I heard Lissa ask.
Mac seemed completely unaware that everyone in the dining room was watching her as she floated across the floor like a runway model, collected a plate of Portobello mushroom ravioli and salad, and sat at the empty table next to the big window that faced out onto the quad.
Lissa was still gazing at her, puzzled. “I know I’ve seen her before.”
I hardly heard her.
Because not only had the redhead cut into line ahead of Vanessa Talbot, Dani Lavigne, and Emily Overton, she’d also invaded their prime real estate. No one sat at that table unless they’d sacrificed a freshman at midnight, or whatever it was that people had to do to be friends with them.
When Vanessa turned with her plate, I swear I could hear the collective intake of breath as her gaze locked on the stunning interloper sitting with her back to the window, calmly cutting her ravioli with the edge of her fork.
“Uh oh,” Gillian murmured. “Let the games begin.”
© 2008 by Shelley Adina.
Used by permission of the author and Hachette Book Group USA.
I used to think that was the dumbest saying ever. I mean, when you wish for something, by definition it’s wonderful, right? Like a new dress for a party. Or a roommate as cool as Gillian Chang or Lissa Mansfield. Or a guy noticing you after six months of being invisible. Before last term, of course I wanted those wishes to come true.
I should have been more careful.
Let me back up a little. My name is Carolina Isabella Aragon Velasquez . . . but that doesn’t fit on school admission forms, so when I started first grade, it got shortened up to Carolina Aragon—Carly to my friends. Up until I was a sophomore, I lived with my mother and father, my older sister Alana and little brother Antony in a huge house in Monte Sereno, just south of Silicon Valley. Papa’s company invented some kind of security software for stock exchanges, and he and everyone who worked for him got rich.
Then came Black Thursday and the stock market crash, and suddenly my mom was leaving him and going to live with her parents in Veracruz, Mexico, to be an artist and find herself. Alana finished college and moved to Austin, Texas, where we have lots of relatives. Antony, Papa, and I moved to a condo about the size of our old living room, and since Papa spends so much time on the road, where I’ve found myself since September is boarding school.
The spring term started in April, and as I got out of the limo Papa sends me back to Spencer Academy in every Sunday night—even though I’m perfectly capable of taking the train—I couldn’t help but feel a little bubble of optimism deep inside. Call me corny, but the news that Vanessa Talbot and Brett Loyola had broken up just before spring break had made the last ten days the happiest I’d had since my parents split up. Even flying to Veracruz, courtesy of Papa’s frequent flyer miles, and being introduced to my mother’s boyfriend hadn’t put a dent in it.
Ugh. Okay, I lied. So not going there.
Thinking about Brett now. Dark, romantic eyes. Curly dark hair, cut short because he’s the captain of the rowing team. Broad shoulders. Fabulous clothes he wears as if he doesn’t care where he got them.
Oh, yeah. Much better.
Lost in happy plans for how I’d finally get his attention (I was signing up to be a chem tutor first thing because, let’s face it, he needs me), I pushed open the door to my room and staggered in with my duffel bags.
My hands loosened and I dropped everything with a thud.
There were Vuitton suitcases all over the room. Enough for an entire family. In fact, the trunk was so big you could put a family in it—the kids, at least.
“Close the door, why don’t you?” said a bored British voice, with a barely noticeable roll on the r. A girl stepped out from behind the wardrobe door.
Red hair in an explosion of curls.
Fishnet stockings to here and glossy Louboutin ankle boots.
Blue eyes that grabbed you and made you wonder why she was so . . . not interested in whether you took another breath.
Ever.
How come no one had told me I was getting a roommate? And who could have prepared me for this, anyway?
“Who are you?”
“Mac,” she said, returning to the depths of the wardrobe. Most people would have said, “What’s your name?” back. She didn’t.
“I’m Carly.” Did I feel lame or what?
She looked around the door. “Pleasure. Looks like we’re to be roommates.” Then she went back to hanging things up.
There was no point in restating the obvious. I gathered my scattered brains and tried to remember what Mama had taught me that a good hostess was supposed to do. “Did someone show you where the dining room is? Supper is between five and six-thirty, and I usually—”
“Carrie. I expected my own room,” she said, as if I hadn’t been talking. “Whom do I speak to?”
“It’s Carly. And Ms. Tobin’s the dorm mistress for this floor.”
“Fine. What were you saying about tea?”
I took a breath and remembered that one of us was what my brother calls couth. As opposed to un. “You’re welcome to come with me and my friends if you want.”
Pop! went the latches on the trunk. She threw up the lid and looked at me over the top of it, her reddish eyebrows lifting in amusement.
“Thanks so much. But I’ll pass.”
Okay, even I have my limits. I picked up my duffel, dropped it on the end of my bed, and left her to it. Maybe by the time I got back from tea—er, supper—she’d have convinced Ms. Tobin to give her a room in another dorm.
The way things looked, this chica would probably demand the headmistress’s suite.
* * *
“What a mo guai nuer,” Gillian said over her tortellini and asparagus. “I can’t believe she snubbed you like that.”
“You of all people,” Lissa agreed, “who wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings for anything.”
“I wanted to—if I could have come up with something scathing.” Lissa looked surprised, as if I’d shocked her. Well, I may not put my feelings out there for everyone to see, like Gillian does, but I’m still entitled to have them. “But you know how you freeze when you realize you’ve just been cut off at the knees?”
“What happened to your knees?” Jeremy Clay put his plate of linguine down and slid in next to Gillian. They traded a smile that made me feel sort of hollow inside—not the way I’d felt after Mac’s little setdown, but . . . like I was missing out on something. Like they had a secret and weren’t telling.
You know what? Feeling sorry for yourself is not the way to start off a term. I smiled at Jeremy. “Nothing. How was your break? Did you get up to New York the way you guys had planned?”
He glanced at Gillian. “Yeah, I did.”
Argh. Men. Never ask them a yes/no question. “And? Did you have fun? Shani said she had a blast after the initial shock.”
Gillian grinned at me. “That’s a nice way of saying that my grandmother scared the stilettos off her. At first. But then Nai-Nai realized Shani could eat anyone under the table, even my brothers, no matter what she put in front of her, so after that they were best friends.”
“My grandmother’s like that, too,” I said, nodding in sympathy. “She thinks I’m too thin, so she’s always making pots of mole and stuff. Little does she know.”
It’s a fact that I have way too much junk in my trunk. Part of the reason my focus is in history, with as many fashion design electives as I can get away with, is that when I make my own clothes, I can drape and cut to accentuate the positive and make people forget that big old negative following me around.
“You aren’t too thin or too fat.” Lissa is a perfect four. She’s also the most loyal friend in the world. “You’re just right. If I had your curves, I’d be a happy woman.”
Time to change the subject. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my body in front of a guy, even if he belonged to someone else. “So, did you guys get to see Pride and Prejudice—The Musical? Shani said you were bribing someone to get tickets.”
“Close,” Gillian said. “My mom is on the orchestra’s board, so we got seats in the first circle. You’d have loved it. Costume heaven.”
“I would have.” I sighed. “Why did I have to go to Veracruz for spring break? How come I couldn’t have gone to New York, too?”
I hoped I sounded rhetorical. The truth was, there wasn’t any money for trips to New York to see the hottest musical on Broadway with my friends. Or for the clothes to wear once I got there—unless I made them myself.
“That’s it, then.” Gillian waved a grape tomato on the end of her fork. “Next break, you and Lissa are coming to see me. Not in the summer—no one in their right mind stays in the city in July. But at Christmas.”
“Maybe we’ll go to Veracruz,” Lissa suggested. “Or you guys can come to Santa Barbara and I’ll teach you to surf.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said. Either of Lissa’s options wouldn’t cost very much. New York, on the other hand, would. “I like warm places for my winter holidays.”
“Good point,” Gillian conceded. “So do I.”
“Notice how getting through the last term of junior year isn’t even on your radar?” Jeremy asked no one in particular. “It’s all about vacations with you guys.”
“Vacations are our reward,” Gillian informed him. “You have to have something to get you through finals.”
“Right, like you have to worry,” he scoffed, bumping shoulders with her in a chummy way.
“She does,” Lissa said. “She has to get me through finals.”
While everyone laughed, I got up and walked over to the dessert bar. Crème brulée, berry parfaits, and German chocolate cake. You know you’re depressed when even Dining Services’ crème brulée—which puts a dreamy look in the eyes of just about everyone who goes here—doesn’t get you excited.
I had to snap out of it. Thinking about all the things I didn’t have and all the things I couldn’t do would get me precisely nowhere. I had to focus on the good things.
My friends.
How lucky I was to have won the scholarship that got me into Spencer.
And how much luckier I was that in two terms, no one had figured out I was a scholarship kid. Okay, so Gillian is a scholarship kid, too, but her dad is the president of a multinational bank. She thinks it’s funny that he made her practice the piano so hard all those years, and that’s what finally got her away from him. Who is my father? No one. Just a hardworking guy. He was so proud of me when that acceptance letter came that I didn’t have the heart to tell him there was more to succeeding here than filling a minority quota and getting good grades.
Stop it. Just because you can’t flit off to New York to catch a show or order up the latest designs from Fashion Week doesn’t mean your life is trash. Get ahold of your sense of proportion.
I took a berry parfait—blueberries have lots of antioxidants—and turned back to the table just as the dining room doors opened. They seemed to pause in their arc, giving my new roommate plenty of time to stroll through before they practically genuflected closed behind her. She’d changed out of the fishnets into heels and a black sweater tossed over a simple leaf-green dress that absolutely screamed Paris—Rue Cambon, to be exact. Number 31, to be even more exact. Chanel Couture.
My knees nearly buckled with envy.
“Is that Carly’s roommate?” I heard Lissa ask.
Mac seemed completely unaware that everyone in the dining room was watching her as she floated across the floor like a runway model, collected a plate of Portobello mushroom ravioli and salad, and sat at the empty table next to the big window that faced out onto the quad.
Lissa was still gazing at her, puzzled. “I know I’ve seen her before.”
I hardly heard her.
Because not only had the redhead cut into line ahead of Vanessa Talbot, Dani Lavigne, and Emily Overton, she’d also invaded their prime real estate. No one sat at that table unless they’d sacrificed a freshman at midnight, or whatever it was that people had to do to be friends with them.
When Vanessa turned with her plate, I swear I could hear the collective intake of breath as her gaze locked on the stunning interloper sitting with her back to the window, calmly cutting her ravioli with the edge of her fork.
“Uh oh,” Gillian murmured. “Let the games begin.”
© 2008 by Shelley Adina.
Used by permission of the author and Hachette Book Group USA.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
CFBA: Engaging Father Christmas
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Robin grew up in Orange County, California and has lived in all kinds of interesting places, including Reno and Hawai’i.She and her husband currently live near Portland, Oregon and have been married for 30 years. They spent their first 22 years of marriage working together in youth ministry, and enjoying life with their son and daughter who are now both grown.
As a frequent speaker at local and international events, one of Robin’s favorite topics is how God is the Relentless Lover and we are His first love. She delights in telling stories of how God uses fiction to change lives.
Robin is the recipient of the Christy Award, the Mt. Hermon Pacesetter Award, the Sherwood E. Wirt Award and is a Gold Medallion Finalist. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Media Associates International and the Board of Directors for Jerry Jenkins’ Christian Writers’ Guild.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Miranda Carson can't wait to return to England for Christmas and to be with her boyfriend, Ian. She has spent a lifetime yearning for a place to call home, and she's sure Carlton Heath will be it, especially when a hinted-at engagement ring slips into the conversation.But Miranda's high hopes for a jolly Christmas with the small circle of people she has come to love are toppled when Ian's father is hospitalized and the matriarch of the Whitcombe family withholds her blessing from Miranda. Questions run rampant in Miranda's mind about whether she really belongs in this cheery corner of the world. Then, when her true identity threatens all her relationships in unanticipated ways, Miranda is certain all is lost.
And yet...maybe Father Christmas has special gifts in store for her after all.
If you would like to read the first chapter of Engaging Father Christmas, go HERE
I'm not sure if I got this one from CFBA or elsewhere. But it is worth touring multiple times. Robin's stories are awesome, this one and Finding Father Christmas are the next on my Christmas Fiction list to read. (As soon as I finish reading Quills & Promises - see previous post).
FIRST: Your Best Life Begins Each Morning
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Your Best Life Begins Each Morning
FaithWords (December 10, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joel Osteen is the pastor of the largest church in America with one of the most diverse congregations and over 30,000 members attending every week. He has quickly become a leading voice in a new generation of inspirational leaders and pastors. Under his leadership, Lakewood Church has grown in every area of ministry, more than quadrupling in size in the past five years. In the summer of 2005, the church moved into Houston’s 17,000-seat Compaq Arena and become the new Lakewood International Center. Joel and his wife Victoria live in Houston with their two children.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $ 13.99
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (December 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446545090
ISBN-13: 978-0446545099
I have not read "Your Best Life", but I did pick up this little devotional book and flipped through. I look forward to really using it with the new year. From what I have been able to read so far, these are some really uplifting devotions and you should pick up the book in a store yourself, and flip through, or read the first few here below..
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
YOUR Best Life BEGINS EACH MORNING
Devotions to Start Every New Day of the Year
JOEL OSTEEN
Introduction
The key to living your best life starts with how you approach every new morning, because today is the only day you have. You can’t do anything about the past, and you don’t know what the future holds. But when you wake up in the morning, you can make up your mind to do your best to enjoy your day. You’re not going to allow what does or doesn’t happen to steal your joy and keep you from God’s abundant life.
Don’t start your day off by feeling guilty about yesterday or recalling all the mistakes you made. Rather, when you make mistakes, simply ask God for forgiveness and then move on, confident that the moment you ask, God forgives you. You are ready for a great present and a bright future. Get up every morning and receive God’s love and mercy and the power of His Word for your life.
Start your day with God by saying, “Father, I thank You that this is going to be a great day. I thank You that I have discipline, self-control; that I make good decisions. I may not have done all that I could have yesterday, but that day’s gone. I’m going to get up and do better today.” These devotions are written to inspire ardent love and worship to God. While they are not meant to replace your personal time with God, it is my desire that the readings will be keys you can use to unlock doors leading a fuller life. I hope they will be a springboard to help you draw nearer to God and to help you overcome the obstacles that might keep you from living your best life now.
Your life can be transformed and renewed as you allow God’s Word to refresh and to reshape your thinking, speaking, and daily activities. Allow the Scriptures to speak to you. Be still and listen to what God is saying to you. No matter where you are or what challenges you face, you can start to enjoy your life right now!
J ANUARY 1
For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you
not see it? I will make a pathway
through the wilderness. I will create
rivers in the dry wasteland.
ISAIAH 43:19
Unpack Your Dreams
W HAT DO YOU WANT TO DO with your life?
If you could write your best life story this morning, what would it say? Is your first reaction to see and describe yourself in terms of past experiences or present limitations, more in terms of losing or just surviving rather than fulfilling your dreams?
If you’ve packed away your dreams, dare to unpack them today and ask God to rekindle them in your heart and mind. It’s time to enlarge your vision.
He wants to pour out His far and beyond favor on you (see Ephesians 2:7). He wants to do big things and new things in your life.
J ANUARY 2
“For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the Lord, “plans to prosper
you and not to harm you, plans to
give you hope and a future.”
JEREMIAH 29:11
We Serve a Great God
Y OU MAY HAVE EXPERIENCED adversity or trials in your past. Perhaps you’ve had more than your share of setbacks and heartaches. But today is a brand-new day. It is time to stretch your faith and pursue the excellence that God has placed in your heart. It is time to break out of the “barely get by” mentality, to become the best you can be, not merely average or ordinary, for the rest of your life.
We serve the Most High God, and His dream for your life is so much bigger and better than you can even imagine. Never settle for a small view of God. Start thinking as God thinks. Think big. Think increase. Think abundance. Think more than enough!
J ANUARY 3
What, then, shall we say in response
to this? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare his
own Son, but gave him up for us all—
how will he not also, along with him,
graciously give us all things?
ROMANS 8:31–32
With God on Your Side
GOD IS CONSTANTLY trying to plant new seeds in your heart. He’s trying to fill you with so much hope and expectancy that the seed will grow and bring forth a tremendous harvest. Never allow negative thinking to keep you from God’s best. If you will get in agreement with God, this can be the greatest time of your life.
With God on your side, you cannot possibly lose. He can make a way when it looks as though there is none. He can open doors that no one can shut. He can cause you to be at the right place, at the right time. He can supernaturally turn your dreams into reality.
J ANUARY 4
For therein is the righteousness of God
revealed from faith to faith: as it is
written, The just shall live by faith.
ROMANS 1:17
Stretch Your Faith
PERHAPS WE HAVE A GOAL to break a bad habit, to lose some weight, or to pay off our credit cards. At first, we’re so excited and we go after it! But over time, we get lazy; we get complacent. Maybe we see a little improvement, but then we get comfortable right where we are. Where we are may not be a bad place, but we know it’s not where we’re supposed to be. We’re not stretching our faith. We’re not pursuing the excellence that God has placed in our hearts.
Maybe you’ve been coasting lately, thinking that perhaps you’ve reached your limits. You’re not stretching your faith. You aren’t believing for an increase.
No, don’t stop halfway; go on up to the top of your mountain. Believe God for more.
J ANUARY 5
By faith Abraham, when called
to go to a place he would later
receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not
know where he was going.
HEBREWS 11:8
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
PEOPLE WHO SEE THEIR DREAMS come to pass are people who have some resolve, some backbone; people who refuse to settle for somewhere along the way. Abraham, one of the Old Testament heroes of faith, obeyed God and followed Him all the way to the Promised Land of abundance in Canaan. Abraham’s father, however, stopped along the way and settled in Haran (see Genesis 11:31), feeling it was good enough but missing out on God’s best.
Don’t fall into a complacency trap. It doesn’t take any more effort to stay filled with faith than it takes to develop a negative attitude. Dare to step out of your comfort zone today. God has so much more in store. Keep pursuing and keep believing.
Copyright © 2008 by Joel Osteen Publishing
Devotions to Start Every New Day of the Year
JOEL OSTEEN
Introduction
The key to living your best life starts with how you approach every new morning, because today is the only day you have. You can’t do anything about the past, and you don’t know what the future holds. But when you wake up in the morning, you can make up your mind to do your best to enjoy your day. You’re not going to allow what does or doesn’t happen to steal your joy and keep you from God’s abundant life.
Don’t start your day off by feeling guilty about yesterday or recalling all the mistakes you made. Rather, when you make mistakes, simply ask God for forgiveness and then move on, confident that the moment you ask, God forgives you. You are ready for a great present and a bright future. Get up every morning and receive God’s love and mercy and the power of His Word for your life.
Start your day with God by saying, “Father, I thank You that this is going to be a great day. I thank You that I have discipline, self-control; that I make good decisions. I may not have done all that I could have yesterday, but that day’s gone. I’m going to get up and do better today.” These devotions are written to inspire ardent love and worship to God. While they are not meant to replace your personal time with God, it is my desire that the readings will be keys you can use to unlock doors leading a fuller life. I hope they will be a springboard to help you draw nearer to God and to help you overcome the obstacles that might keep you from living your best life now.
Your life can be transformed and renewed as you allow God’s Word to refresh and to reshape your thinking, speaking, and daily activities. Allow the Scriptures to speak to you. Be still and listen to what God is saying to you. No matter where you are or what challenges you face, you can start to enjoy your life right now!
J ANUARY 1
For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you
not see it? I will make a pathway
through the wilderness. I will create
rivers in the dry wasteland.
ISAIAH 43:19
Unpack Your Dreams
W HAT DO YOU WANT TO DO with your life?
If you could write your best life story this morning, what would it say? Is your first reaction to see and describe yourself in terms of past experiences or present limitations, more in terms of losing or just surviving rather than fulfilling your dreams?
If you’ve packed away your dreams, dare to unpack them today and ask God to rekindle them in your heart and mind. It’s time to enlarge your vision.
He wants to pour out His far and beyond favor on you (see Ephesians 2:7). He wants to do big things and new things in your life.
J ANUARY 2
“For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the Lord, “plans to prosper
you and not to harm you, plans to
give you hope and a future.”
JEREMIAH 29:11
We Serve a Great God
Y OU MAY HAVE EXPERIENCED adversity or trials in your past. Perhaps you’ve had more than your share of setbacks and heartaches. But today is a brand-new day. It is time to stretch your faith and pursue the excellence that God has placed in your heart. It is time to break out of the “barely get by” mentality, to become the best you can be, not merely average or ordinary, for the rest of your life.
We serve the Most High God, and His dream for your life is so much bigger and better than you can even imagine. Never settle for a small view of God. Start thinking as God thinks. Think big. Think increase. Think abundance. Think more than enough!
J ANUARY 3
What, then, shall we say in response
to this? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare his
own Son, but gave him up for us all—
how will he not also, along with him,
graciously give us all things?
ROMANS 8:31–32
With God on Your Side
GOD IS CONSTANTLY trying to plant new seeds in your heart. He’s trying to fill you with so much hope and expectancy that the seed will grow and bring forth a tremendous harvest. Never allow negative thinking to keep you from God’s best. If you will get in agreement with God, this can be the greatest time of your life.
With God on your side, you cannot possibly lose. He can make a way when it looks as though there is none. He can open doors that no one can shut. He can cause you to be at the right place, at the right time. He can supernaturally turn your dreams into reality.
J ANUARY 4
For therein is the righteousness of God
revealed from faith to faith: as it is
written, The just shall live by faith.
ROMANS 1:17
Stretch Your Faith
PERHAPS WE HAVE A GOAL to break a bad habit, to lose some weight, or to pay off our credit cards. At first, we’re so excited and we go after it! But over time, we get lazy; we get complacent. Maybe we see a little improvement, but then we get comfortable right where we are. Where we are may not be a bad place, but we know it’s not where we’re supposed to be. We’re not stretching our faith. We’re not pursuing the excellence that God has placed in our hearts.
Maybe you’ve been coasting lately, thinking that perhaps you’ve reached your limits. You’re not stretching your faith. You aren’t believing for an increase.
No, don’t stop halfway; go on up to the top of your mountain. Believe God for more.
J ANUARY 5
By faith Abraham, when called
to go to a place he would later
receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not
know where he was going.
HEBREWS 11:8
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
PEOPLE WHO SEE THEIR DREAMS come to pass are people who have some resolve, some backbone; people who refuse to settle for somewhere along the way. Abraham, one of the Old Testament heroes of faith, obeyed God and followed Him all the way to the Promised Land of abundance in Canaan. Abraham’s father, however, stopped along the way and settled in Haran (see Genesis 11:31), feeling it was good enough but missing out on God’s best.
Don’t fall into a complacency trap. It doesn’t take any more effort to stay filled with faith than it takes to develop a negative attitude. Dare to step out of your comfort zone today. God has so much more in store. Keep pursuing and keep believing.
Copyright © 2008 by Joel Osteen Publishing
Monday, December 1, 2008
CFBA: One Perfect Day
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Today, Lauraine Snelling is a member of the more than Two Million Books In Print club, but when she first began, she was a mother of three teenagers with a simple dream to write “horse books for kids.”
All told, she has over 50 books published. She thinks. She’s not sure. She’d rather write them than count them. Lauraine’s work has been translated into Norwegian, Danish and German as well as produced as books on tape.
Awards have followed her dedication to “telling a good story”: the Silver Angel Award for An Untamed Land and a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart for Song of Laughter.
Helping others reach their writing dream is the reason Lauraine teaches at writer’s conferences across the country. She mentors others through book doctoring and with her humorous and playful Writing Great Fiction tape set. Lauraine also produces material on query letters and other aspects of the writing process.
Her readers clamor for more books more often and Lauraine would like to comply, if only her ever-growing flower gardens didn’t call quite so loudly over the soothing rush of the water fountains in her back yard and if the hummingbirds weren’t quite so entertaining. Lauraine and husband Wayne have two grown sons and a cockatiel named Bidley, who loves to tease their Basset Hound named Chewy.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Two mothers end up more closely connected that they could dream...and yet they are strangers to one another.
The first has two children--twins, a boy and girl, who are seniors in high school. She wants their last Christmas as a family living in the same home to be perfect, but her husband is delayed returning from a business trip abroad. And then there's an accident--a fatal one involving a drunk driver.
Meanwhile, the other mother has a daughter who needs a new heart, and so the loss of one woman becomes the miracle the other has desperately prayed for. While one mother grieves, and pulls away from her family, the other finds that even miracles aren't always easy to receive.
If you would like to read the first chapter of One Perfect Day, go HERE
Saturday, November 22, 2008
FIRST: In Charge by Miles Monroe
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
In Charge: Finding the Leader Within You
FaithWords (November 10, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Myles Munroe is the founder of the Bahamas Faith Ministries, a network of outreaches and churches headquartered in Nassau, Bahamas. He is a gifted orator and speaks to audiences around the world as both a preacher in church and parachurch settings and as a motivational speaker at large business gatherings and for other non-church organizations. He's authored more than a half-dozen books.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (November 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446580465
ISBN-13: 978-0446580465
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Chapter 1
“I’m In Charge”: The Battery and the Wire
Who’s Got the Power?
“The value in each human is the gift they were born to deliver to humanity”
Which one of these is the most important part of a car: the battery or the terminal wire? You’ve probably never heard of the little red wire that connects the battery to the rest of the engine in the car. If you’re like most people you will say, “The battery. It has the power.”
Your car has about 60,000 parts. The battery says, “I’m in charge of all of them. Nothing starts without me. I’m the battery. I have the power. Power! Power! Power! I’m the one who starts everything. Nothing starts until I arrive. I’m the power. I’ve got the power to start the engine.”
Does that sound like some people you know?
Well, if the battery is the most important part of the car, let’s disconnect the wire. The battery costs about $150. The little red wire missing from the car costs about $10. You have 59,999 working parts and only a $10 wire missing. Without it, the car will not start. Your car may be worth $40,000, $50,000 or $100,000, but it can be immobilized by this $10 wire. You want to go somewhere. You have something to do! The car says, “I’m ready, but there’s a little $10 wire missing.”
The battery says, “I’ve got the power.”
A spark plug says, “I’ve got the fire.”
“The engine says, “I run the car!”
That little wire is very quiet. He does not have to say, “You need me. You can’t start without me.” All the other parts soon realize it, and they say, “Go find the wire.” The terminal wire was created to transmit electrical current from the battery to the generator and to the engine to ignite the spark plugs that provide the fire to turn the pistons and turn the engine over. In essence, the little terminal wire was designed to be the “leader” in the area of electrical transmission. In the domain of the terminal wire, the terminal wire is in charge. It might be just a little wire, but it could shut down the engine.
If that spot is empty, the car shuts down.
Each one of the car’s parts is a leader. A spark plug can never be a battery. A battery can never be a manifold. A manifold can never be a generator. Therefore, in the domain of the battery, the battery is in charge. It is unique because only it can be the battery — no matter how jealous the battery or the spark plug gets, no matter how much the steering wheel wishes to be a battery.
Each part is important. Every component of the car was designed to lead in a specific area and to serve a purpose or function in the context of the whole. Each one is a leader!
This concept of leadership contradicts the philosophy that leadership is reserved for a small, elite group of individuals “chosen by providence” and entitled to lead the masses of incapable subordinates in need of guidance by those of superior status. It is a direct challenge to what I was taught in the colonial experience of my childhood.
My view of leadership is this: each of us has an inherent gift and must serve that gift to the world. You are a leader. You have power. Your gift is your power. You are in charge in your area of gifting, your domain. You have a leadership spot to fill and a function to carry out. Your gift determines that spot and that function. Just as the value of the terminal wire is determined not by size or cost but by function, your value is not determined by anything but your gift. Someone needs your gift, and you must serve it to the world. You also need the gifts others bear to live.
So who’s in charge? You are! Who’s got the power? Everyone of us.
Who’s Got the Power?
“The value in each human is the gift they were born to deliver to humanity”
Which one of these is the most important part of a car: the battery or the terminal wire? You’ve probably never heard of the little red wire that connects the battery to the rest of the engine in the car. If you’re like most people you will say, “The battery. It has the power.”
Your car has about 60,000 parts. The battery says, “I’m in charge of all of them. Nothing starts without me. I’m the battery. I have the power. Power! Power! Power! I’m the one who starts everything. Nothing starts until I arrive. I’m the power. I’ve got the power to start the engine.”
Does that sound like some people you know?
Well, if the battery is the most important part of the car, let’s disconnect the wire. The battery costs about $150. The little red wire missing from the car costs about $10. You have 59,999 working parts and only a $10 wire missing. Without it, the car will not start. Your car may be worth $40,000, $50,000 or $100,000, but it can be immobilized by this $10 wire. You want to go somewhere. You have something to do! The car says, “I’m ready, but there’s a little $10 wire missing.”
The battery says, “I’ve got the power.”
A spark plug says, “I’ve got the fire.”
“The engine says, “I run the car!”
That little wire is very quiet. He does not have to say, “You need me. You can’t start without me.” All the other parts soon realize it, and they say, “Go find the wire.” The terminal wire was created to transmit electrical current from the battery to the generator and to the engine to ignite the spark plugs that provide the fire to turn the pistons and turn the engine over. In essence, the little terminal wire was designed to be the “leader” in the area of electrical transmission. In the domain of the terminal wire, the terminal wire is in charge. It might be just a little wire, but it could shut down the engine.
If that spot is empty, the car shuts down.
Each one of the car’s parts is a leader. A spark plug can never be a battery. A battery can never be a manifold. A manifold can never be a generator. Therefore, in the domain of the battery, the battery is in charge. It is unique because only it can be the battery — no matter how jealous the battery or the spark plug gets, no matter how much the steering wheel wishes to be a battery.
Each part is important. Every component of the car was designed to lead in a specific area and to serve a purpose or function in the context of the whole. Each one is a leader!
This concept of leadership contradicts the philosophy that leadership is reserved for a small, elite group of individuals “chosen by providence” and entitled to lead the masses of incapable subordinates in need of guidance by those of superior status. It is a direct challenge to what I was taught in the colonial experience of my childhood.
My view of leadership is this: each of us has an inherent gift and must serve that gift to the world. You are a leader. You have power. Your gift is your power. You are in charge in your area of gifting, your domain. You have a leadership spot to fill and a function to carry out. Your gift determines that spot and that function. Just as the value of the terminal wire is determined not by size or cost but by function, your value is not determined by anything but your gift. Someone needs your gift, and you must serve it to the world. You also need the gifts others bear to live.
So who’s in charge? You are! Who’s got the power? Everyone of us.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
FIRST: 100 Ways to Simplify Your Life by Joyce Meyer
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
100 Ways to Simplify Your Life
FaithWords (2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
JOYCE MEYER is one of the world's leading practical Bible teachers. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, she has written more than seventy inspirational books, including The Confident Woman, Look Great, Feel Great, and the entire Battlefield of the Mindfamily of books. She has also released thousands of audio teachings as well as a complete video library. Joyce's Enjoying Everyday Life® radio and television programs are broadcast around the world, and she travels extensively conducting conferences. Joyce and her husband, Dave, are the parents of four grown children and make their home in St. Louis, Missouri.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $16.99
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: FaithWords; Lrg edition (November 12, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446509396
ISBN-13: 978-0446509398
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Introduction
Everyone has them: those days where nothing seems to get done, except maybe what you’ve added to your already lengthy to-do list. Are you tired most of the time? Are you spent? Do you find yourself wish- ing for a better day—a simpler day? Too many things compete for your limited resources of attention, energy, and time. You may be suffocat- ing and not even know it. If you feel like this, you’re not alone.
Most people today live complicated lives that leave them frustrated and confused, weary and worn out. But I have good news: your life does not have to be that way. You can choose a life of simplicity, fruitfulness, fulfillment, peace, and joy. I want to warn you, however, unless you are determined not to, you will do what everyone else does. You will get sucked up in the system and spend your life wishing things were different, never realizing you are, in fact, the only one who can change things. Unless we are resolute and remain undaunted in our quest for simplicity, we are destined for complication and frustration.
I recall a time when I was complaining to God about my schedule being absolutely insane. How could anyone be expected to do all I had in front of me? Then the realization hit me that I was the one who made my schedule and nobody could change it but me. You can spend your lives wishing things were different, but wishing won’t change anything. Smart decision making and decisive action is what changes things. If you picked up this book looking for change, are you willing to make a decision and follow it up with action?
I wasted many years hoping life would change and things would calm down until I finally realized life itself doesn’t change; in fact, it has the potential to get worse. I understood my only real option was to change my approach to life. I had to say no to another day of rushing around and feeling frustrated. I didn’t want the doctor giving me another pre- scription to mask another symptom of the real problem—stress.
In my search for simplicity, I have come to believe life can never be simple unless I learn to approach all things simply. It is my attitude toward each event in life that determines how easy or complex each situation will be. Perhaps life is complicated because people are compli- cated. Is it possible that life is not complicated, but rather, individuals complicate life in the way they approach it?
I discovered it wasn’t really life or circumstances or other people as much as it was me that needed to change. My problem wasn’t the problem—I was the problem! When you spend your life in frustration trying to change the world and everyone in it, you fail to realize it could be you just need to change your approach to life. It can be very easy for someone to live an entire lifetime and never entertain the notion that the way they do things is the real problem.
Have you ever attempted to have friends over for what you initially intended to be a simple afternoon of food, fellowship, and fun, but somehow, it turned into a complicated nightmare? I remember those days vividly. I’d be at church on Sunday and, without much forethought, invite three couples over for the following Sunday to a barbecue. My initial thought was hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, baked beans, potato chips, and iced tea. My motive was fellowship and fun, but by the time the guests arrived, I didn’t even want them there. Fun was not going to happen, at least not for me. Why? I turned my simple get- together into a nightmare of preparation, expensive food, and fourteen people instead of the original six. My complicated approach to life and my complicated thought process convinced me hot dogs and hamburg- ers weren’t nice enough so I bought steaks we could not afford. My potato chips turned into a huge bowl of homemade potato salad. The simple baked beans became four side dishes I labored over.
Insecure and wanting to impress everyone, I had to spend the week cleaning and getting everything in the house to the point where I thought it would be impressive. Of course, the lawn chairs were old, so I bought new ones. I got angry at Dave because I thought he wasn’t help- ing me enough, and by the time our friends arrived, I resented them, wished they hadn’t come, and had a miserable day of pretending to be the happy hostess when in reality I was frustrated and miserable.
I could not figure out why I wasn’t able to enjoy much of anything in life until God revealed to me I was killing my joy with complication. For years, I prayed God would change the people and circumstances around me when, in reality, He wanted to change me and my approach to life. He wanted me to simplify so, ultimately, He could be glorified.
Let me share with you 100 ways to approach living that can simplify your life and, in turn, release and increase your joy. I believe they will dramatically improve the quality of your everyday experience if you incorporate them into the way you do things. Jesus said He came so we might have and enjoy our life in abundance (see John 10:10). His prin- ciples are simple. Faith is simple! Trusting God is simple! A childlike approach to Him is simple! The plan of salvation is simple!
Jesus offers us a “new way of living,” and I believe it is a simple, yet powerful way that enables us to enjoy everyday life. Are you ready to simplify your life? Are you ready to say good-bye to the complexities you’ve allowed to take over? Let’s get started.
Do One Thing at a Time
When we do things without truly focusing our minds on them, we immediately decrease our strength to do the work before us and do it well. By putting our hands to one thing and our mind to another, we divide the muscle behind our abilities and we make the task much more difficult. It’s like removing an egg yolk from the egg white—both can be used separately but the result isn’t as effective (or tasty) as it would be if we leave the egg whole. However, by directing all of our faculties to the one thing we are doing on a particular day, at that hour, at that moment, we find it much easier to do. The ability to concentrate and stay focused can only come from discipline.
The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 to be anxious for nothing. Anxious people are always trying to live ahead of where they currently are. They spend today trying to figure out tomorrow and the result is the loss of simplicity. God expects us to trust Him with tomorrow just as He instructed the Israelites to do when they crossed the barren wil- derness, pressing toward the Promised Land.
Practice living one day at a time; give yourself—your thoughts, your conversation, your energies, every part of you—to the day at hand.
100 Ways to Simplify Your Life
1. Develop an ability to give yourself to what you are doing. You will sense an awareness enabling you to enjoy the current activity, instead of going through each day in a blur of activity and confusing thoughts which leave you drained and exhausted.
Do you fear you will not accomplish as much if you try to live this way? It’s true you may not do as much, but you will also enjoy what you do a whole lot more. One key to simplicity is realizing that quality is far superior to quantity.
Everyone has them: those days where nothing seems to get done, except maybe what you’ve added to your already lengthy to-do list. Are you tired most of the time? Are you spent? Do you find yourself wish- ing for a better day—a simpler day? Too many things compete for your limited resources of attention, energy, and time. You may be suffocat- ing and not even know it. If you feel like this, you’re not alone.
Most people today live complicated lives that leave them frustrated and confused, weary and worn out. But I have good news: your life does not have to be that way. You can choose a life of simplicity, fruitfulness, fulfillment, peace, and joy. I want to warn you, however, unless you are determined not to, you will do what everyone else does. You will get sucked up in the system and spend your life wishing things were different, never realizing you are, in fact, the only one who can change things. Unless we are resolute and remain undaunted in our quest for simplicity, we are destined for complication and frustration.
I recall a time when I was complaining to God about my schedule being absolutely insane. How could anyone be expected to do all I had in front of me? Then the realization hit me that I was the one who made my schedule and nobody could change it but me. You can spend your lives wishing things were different, but wishing won’t change anything. Smart decision making and decisive action is what changes things. If you picked up this book looking for change, are you willing to make a decision and follow it up with action?
I wasted many years hoping life would change and things would calm down until I finally realized life itself doesn’t change; in fact, it has the potential to get worse. I understood my only real option was to change my approach to life. I had to say no to another day of rushing around and feeling frustrated. I didn’t want the doctor giving me another pre- scription to mask another symptom of the real problem—stress.
In my search for simplicity, I have come to believe life can never be simple unless I learn to approach all things simply. It is my attitude toward each event in life that determines how easy or complex each situation will be. Perhaps life is complicated because people are compli- cated. Is it possible that life is not complicated, but rather, individuals complicate life in the way they approach it?
I discovered it wasn’t really life or circumstances or other people as much as it was me that needed to change. My problem wasn’t the problem—I was the problem! When you spend your life in frustration trying to change the world and everyone in it, you fail to realize it could be you just need to change your approach to life. It can be very easy for someone to live an entire lifetime and never entertain the notion that the way they do things is the real problem.
Have you ever attempted to have friends over for what you initially intended to be a simple afternoon of food, fellowship, and fun, but somehow, it turned into a complicated nightmare? I remember those days vividly. I’d be at church on Sunday and, without much forethought, invite three couples over for the following Sunday to a barbecue. My initial thought was hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, baked beans, potato chips, and iced tea. My motive was fellowship and fun, but by the time the guests arrived, I didn’t even want them there. Fun was not going to happen, at least not for me. Why? I turned my simple get- together into a nightmare of preparation, expensive food, and fourteen people instead of the original six. My complicated approach to life and my complicated thought process convinced me hot dogs and hamburg- ers weren’t nice enough so I bought steaks we could not afford. My potato chips turned into a huge bowl of homemade potato salad. The simple baked beans became four side dishes I labored over.
Insecure and wanting to impress everyone, I had to spend the week cleaning and getting everything in the house to the point where I thought it would be impressive. Of course, the lawn chairs were old, so I bought new ones. I got angry at Dave because I thought he wasn’t help- ing me enough, and by the time our friends arrived, I resented them, wished they hadn’t come, and had a miserable day of pretending to be the happy hostess when in reality I was frustrated and miserable.
I could not figure out why I wasn’t able to enjoy much of anything in life until God revealed to me I was killing my joy with complication. For years, I prayed God would change the people and circumstances around me when, in reality, He wanted to change me and my approach to life. He wanted me to simplify so, ultimately, He could be glorified.
Let me share with you 100 ways to approach living that can simplify your life and, in turn, release and increase your joy. I believe they will dramatically improve the quality of your everyday experience if you incorporate them into the way you do things. Jesus said He came so we might have and enjoy our life in abundance (see John 10:10). His prin- ciples are simple. Faith is simple! Trusting God is simple! A childlike approach to Him is simple! The plan of salvation is simple!
Jesus offers us a “new way of living,” and I believe it is a simple, yet powerful way that enables us to enjoy everyday life. Are you ready to simplify your life? Are you ready to say good-bye to the complexities you’ve allowed to take over? Let’s get started.
Do One Thing at a Time
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything elseówe are the busiest people in the world.
ÓERIC HOFFER
Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection].
—Hebrews 12:2
When we do things without truly focusing our minds on them, we immediately decrease our strength to do the work before us and do it well. By putting our hands to one thing and our mind to another, we divide the muscle behind our abilities and we make the task much more difficult. It’s like removing an egg yolk from the egg white—both can be used separately but the result isn’t as effective (or tasty) as it would be if we leave the egg whole. However, by directing all of our faculties to the one thing we are doing on a particular day, at that hour, at that moment, we find it much easier to do. The ability to concentrate and stay focused can only come from discipline.
The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6 to be anxious for nothing. Anxious people are always trying to live ahead of where they currently are. They spend today trying to figure out tomorrow and the result is the loss of simplicity. God expects us to trust Him with tomorrow just as He instructed the Israelites to do when they crossed the barren wil- derness, pressing toward the Promised Land.
Practice living one day at a time; give yourself—your thoughts, your conversation, your energies, every part of you—to the day at hand.
100 Ways to Simplify Your Life
1. Develop an ability to give yourself to what you are doing. You will sense an awareness enabling you to enjoy the current activity, instead of going through each day in a blur of activity and confusing thoughts which leave you drained and exhausted.
Do you fear you will not accomplish as much if you try to live this way? It’s true you may not do as much, but you will also enjoy what you do a whole lot more. One key to simplicity is realizing that quality is far superior to quantity.
What a neat and useful book of inspiration!!!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
FIRST: The Rosary by Gary Jansen
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
Gary Jansen
and the book:
The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved
FaithWords; 1st FaithWords Ed edition (October 28, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
GARY JANSEN is an editor at Doubleday Religion and former editor-in-chief of the Quality Paperback Book Club. His writing has appeared in USA Today, Newsday, and the Chicago Sun-Times. THE ROSARY is his first book.
Product Details:
List Price: $ 11.99
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: FaithWords; 1st FaithWords Ed edition (October 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446535842
ISBN-13: 978-0446535847
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
What Is the Rosary?
Imagine for a moment that you have just fallen in love with the person of your dreams. Picture it right now. Picture your ideal. Picture your beloved. This person is beautiful, smart, and wise. This person is caring and loves children.
This person values friendship in a way you’ve never experienced, and when you are in the presence of your beloved you feel whole: energized, perplexed, inspired, and amazed.
Now, you’ve experienced loves in the past, but this relationship is different. It’s mutual and nurturing. The more deeply you fall for your beloved, the more human you feel.
Could it be that your soul was asleep for years and that this person has awakened you, has even resurrected your spirit, your will, your desire? You feel changed, because you are changed. You feel that maybe the world around you has been covered in thin diaphanous veils and with each step you take toward your beloved, a layer is removed. Your vision becomes clearer and clearer. Colors are more colorful, sounds are crisper, you hear music in noise. For the first time since you were a child you experience wonder.
So continue imagining your beloved and continue seeing your relationship expanding, growing with each word, with each action, with each hope. Time passes; it has just been the two of you for some time. Then your beloved asks you to meet the parents.
What is your reaction now? Are you anxious? Nervous?
What are they going to think of me? Am I good enough? Are they going to see through to my faults?
It’s one thing to be in a relationship, you think; it’s an entirely different thing to add the parents. You’ve done a pretty good job of hiding some of these things from your beloved, but parents always know, especially mothers.
Your beloved senses your anxiety and reassures you that everything will be fine. The fateful day arrives and you walk to the parents’ home. As your beloved takes your hand, you notice that your palms are sweaty.
Your beloved knocks. The door opens. You meet Mom.
And she turns out to be the nicest person you’ve ever met.
She welcomes you into the family, and she radiates kindness and beauty. All that worrying, all those moments of self- doubt subside, and in a matter of seconds you feel excited to be in her presence. You look around and don’t see the father, but you sense that he is everywhere in this home.
Now let’s take a step back. You have never experienced a love like the one you have with your beloved, and, while you feel an openness, you admit to yourself that this person can be a mystery to you. You have questions. It’s not that you don’t feel close to your beloved, it’s just that you begin to hunger and thirst to know everything about this love that has come into your life. And to be perfectly honest, you feel intimidated, because your beloved is such a complete person, and you feel, more often than not, less than whole.
What were you like as a child? What were your parents doing before they had you? What were your friends like? Did you ever get lost? What were some of the loneliest times of your life? Why did you come into my life?
You’ve held off asking some of these questions of your beloved, but here in front of Mom, you feel strangely comfortable to let loose. It’s as if she is standing there ready to embrace you and help you understand everything. Who better than your beloved’s mother to answer all these questions swirling in your mind? Who better to provide insight than the woman who carried your beloved in her body for nine months and who experienced the pain and joy of bringing her child into the world?
You begin to ask all your questions, and this woman who you’ve just met seemingly transforms into your own mother. She smiles and takes down a scrapbook and the two of you begin looking at pictures. This is a picture of me when I first found out I was going to have a baby, she says. This is a picture of my cousin and me, we were both pregnant at the same time. Here’s one right after the birth. So many people came to visit us. Here are a few pictures of a wedding we attended, and this
is a picture of . . .
So you sit in her presence and page through the scrapbook of their lives. These pictures tell stories, and you begin to understand what was once a mystery. You feel this family’s happiness, their sorrows, their illuminations, and the glory of their lives. All of a sudden, the worries, the fears, the doubts, the brokenness, the distractions that you seem to feel on a daily basis fall away and you are transformed by love.
That is the Rosary.
Wait, you may be saying, what does all this have to do with the Rosary?
Isn’t the Rosary some long complicated prayer where you say the Hail Mary a couple hundred times while holding a set of beads?
Yes, but not exactly. The Rosary is a prayer that is longer than most in the Christian tradition, but it’s a simple prayer, and like all simple things, it is beautifully complex once you get to know it.
Yet, the Rosary is more than just a prayer, it is a journey to the beloved, an invitation to fall in love with Christ by sitting in the presence of His mother and observing through the prism of her life — and your life — the radiance of divine revelation. Anyone can say a prayer or go to church or quote the Bible, but it is only through loving Christ and entering into a relationship that we can, through patience, meditation, and contemplation, align our earthly desires and longings with the will of God.
According to Merriam- Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the word rosary is derived from the Latin word rosarium, meaning rose garden, and has been a form of prayer — traditionally said with the aid of beads, since before the time of the Reformation.
One characteristic that makes this prayer different from many others is the use of repetition. Popularized by the Order of St. Dominic in the fifteenth century, the Rosary is a cycle of repeating prayers that combines meditation with devotion. It is comprised of four sets of mysteries — or time periods — from the Gospels and are named the joyful, the sorrowful, the luminous, and the glorious. Each set of mysteries in turn is made up of five specific events from the life of Christ. A decade, which is just a fancy word for a prayer repeated ten times, traditionally the Hail Mary, is said for each event. There are prayers that begin the Rosary, prayers between each decade and prayers that end the Rosary. While the focus on the Rosary is always Jesus Christ, the guide connecting the mysteries is Mary herself who takes us by the hand and leads us through the miraculous journey of her Son’s life.
While you can pray all four sets of mysteries in one sitting, it is common for people to choose one set and focus attention on those events. The Rosary can be a difficult prayer in the beginning. Many will balk at the idea of repeating the same prayers over and over again (how boring!), but through practice and imaginative meditation, you’ll come to realize, as Romano Guardini notes in The Rosary of Our Lady, that the greatest things in life are repetitious: the cycles of life, the turning of seasons, the beating of a heart, breathing. Life is repetition.
One misconception about the Rosary that makes many non- Catholics suspicious is that it’s a prayer to Mary. This isn’t true. One does not pray to Mary when he or she says the Rosary, a person prays with Mary, the way someone would pray with another person at church or in a prayer group. Imagine this. Suppose I ran into you on the street. You’re a prayerful person, and you know I am too. You are going through hard times. Maybe your parents are ill. Maybe you have lost your job. Maybe you are dealing with a death of a loved one. We talk for a few minutes and as we part you ask me to pray for you. I assure you I will.
Praying the Rosary is no different than that exchange. It is spiritual union, an act of love for the benefit of another. As Pope John Paul II stated in his 2002 apostolic letter, On the Most Holy Rosary, the Rosary is a prayer of learning and illumination that allows, “The principal events of the life of
Jesus Christ [to] pass before the eyes of the soul . . . they put us in living communion with Jesus through — we might say — the heart of his Mother.”
Ultimately, the Rosary is your prayer and can be prayed the way you see fit. It’s a gift from God, and there is much to be learned from such a generous offering. But if the Hail Mary is the one thing that is preventing you from taking part in this divinely inspired exercise, then sit in the presence of Mary and say the Our Father instead. And if the Hail, Holy Queen, which ends the Rosary cycle, is also not to your liking, then recite the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me.”
Imagine for a moment that you have just fallen in love with the person of your dreams. Picture it right now. Picture your ideal. Picture your beloved. This person is beautiful, smart, and wise. This person is caring and loves children.
This person values friendship in a way you’ve never experienced, and when you are in the presence of your beloved you feel whole: energized, perplexed, inspired, and amazed.
Now, you’ve experienced loves in the past, but this relationship is different. It’s mutual and nurturing. The more deeply you fall for your beloved, the more human you feel.
Could it be that your soul was asleep for years and that this person has awakened you, has even resurrected your spirit, your will, your desire? You feel changed, because you are changed. You feel that maybe the world around you has been covered in thin diaphanous veils and with each step you take toward your beloved, a layer is removed. Your vision becomes clearer and clearer. Colors are more colorful, sounds are crisper, you hear music in noise. For the first time since you were a child you experience wonder.
So continue imagining your beloved and continue seeing your relationship expanding, growing with each word, with each action, with each hope. Time passes; it has just been the two of you for some time. Then your beloved asks you to meet the parents.
What is your reaction now? Are you anxious? Nervous?
What are they going to think of me? Am I good enough? Are they going to see through to my faults?
It’s one thing to be in a relationship, you think; it’s an entirely different thing to add the parents. You’ve done a pretty good job of hiding some of these things from your beloved, but parents always know, especially mothers.
Your beloved senses your anxiety and reassures you that everything will be fine. The fateful day arrives and you walk to the parents’ home. As your beloved takes your hand, you notice that your palms are sweaty.
Your beloved knocks. The door opens. You meet Mom.
And she turns out to be the nicest person you’ve ever met.
She welcomes you into the family, and she radiates kindness and beauty. All that worrying, all those moments of self- doubt subside, and in a matter of seconds you feel excited to be in her presence. You look around and don’t see the father, but you sense that he is everywhere in this home.
Now let’s take a step back. You have never experienced a love like the one you have with your beloved, and, while you feel an openness, you admit to yourself that this person can be a mystery to you. You have questions. It’s not that you don’t feel close to your beloved, it’s just that you begin to hunger and thirst to know everything about this love that has come into your life. And to be perfectly honest, you feel intimidated, because your beloved is such a complete person, and you feel, more often than not, less than whole.
What were you like as a child? What were your parents doing before they had you? What were your friends like? Did you ever get lost? What were some of the loneliest times of your life? Why did you come into my life?
You’ve held off asking some of these questions of your beloved, but here in front of Mom, you feel strangely comfortable to let loose. It’s as if she is standing there ready to embrace you and help you understand everything. Who better than your beloved’s mother to answer all these questions swirling in your mind? Who better to provide insight than the woman who carried your beloved in her body for nine months and who experienced the pain and joy of bringing her child into the world?
You begin to ask all your questions, and this woman who you’ve just met seemingly transforms into your own mother. She smiles and takes down a scrapbook and the two of you begin looking at pictures. This is a picture of me when I first found out I was going to have a baby, she says. This is a picture of my cousin and me, we were both pregnant at the same time. Here’s one right after the birth. So many people came to visit us. Here are a few pictures of a wedding we attended, and this
is a picture of . . .
So you sit in her presence and page through the scrapbook of their lives. These pictures tell stories, and you begin to understand what was once a mystery. You feel this family’s happiness, their sorrows, their illuminations, and the glory of their lives. All of a sudden, the worries, the fears, the doubts, the brokenness, the distractions that you seem to feel on a daily basis fall away and you are transformed by love.
That is the Rosary.
Wait, you may be saying, what does all this have to do with the Rosary?
Isn’t the Rosary some long complicated prayer where you say the Hail Mary a couple hundred times while holding a set of beads?
Yes, but not exactly. The Rosary is a prayer that is longer than most in the Christian tradition, but it’s a simple prayer, and like all simple things, it is beautifully complex once you get to know it.
Yet, the Rosary is more than just a prayer, it is a journey to the beloved, an invitation to fall in love with Christ by sitting in the presence of His mother and observing through the prism of her life — and your life — the radiance of divine revelation. Anyone can say a prayer or go to church or quote the Bible, but it is only through loving Christ and entering into a relationship that we can, through patience, meditation, and contemplation, align our earthly desires and longings with the will of God.
According to Merriam- Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the word rosary is derived from the Latin word rosarium, meaning rose garden, and has been a form of prayer — traditionally said with the aid of beads, since before the time of the Reformation.
One characteristic that makes this prayer different from many others is the use of repetition. Popularized by the Order of St. Dominic in the fifteenth century, the Rosary is a cycle of repeating prayers that combines meditation with devotion. It is comprised of four sets of mysteries — or time periods — from the Gospels and are named the joyful, the sorrowful, the luminous, and the glorious. Each set of mysteries in turn is made up of five specific events from the life of Christ. A decade, which is just a fancy word for a prayer repeated ten times, traditionally the Hail Mary, is said for each event. There are prayers that begin the Rosary, prayers between each decade and prayers that end the Rosary. While the focus on the Rosary is always Jesus Christ, the guide connecting the mysteries is Mary herself who takes us by the hand and leads us through the miraculous journey of her Son’s life.
While you can pray all four sets of mysteries in one sitting, it is common for people to choose one set and focus attention on those events. The Rosary can be a difficult prayer in the beginning. Many will balk at the idea of repeating the same prayers over and over again (how boring!), but through practice and imaginative meditation, you’ll come to realize, as Romano Guardini notes in The Rosary of Our Lady, that the greatest things in life are repetitious: the cycles of life, the turning of seasons, the beating of a heart, breathing. Life is repetition.
One misconception about the Rosary that makes many non- Catholics suspicious is that it’s a prayer to Mary. This isn’t true. One does not pray to Mary when he or she says the Rosary, a person prays with Mary, the way someone would pray with another person at church or in a prayer group. Imagine this. Suppose I ran into you on the street. You’re a prayerful person, and you know I am too. You are going through hard times. Maybe your parents are ill. Maybe you have lost your job. Maybe you are dealing with a death of a loved one. We talk for a few minutes and as we part you ask me to pray for you. I assure you I will.
Praying the Rosary is no different than that exchange. It is spiritual union, an act of love for the benefit of another. As Pope John Paul II stated in his 2002 apostolic letter, On the Most Holy Rosary, the Rosary is a prayer of learning and illumination that allows, “The principal events of the life of
Jesus Christ [to] pass before the eyes of the soul . . . they put us in living communion with Jesus through — we might say — the heart of his Mother.”
Ultimately, the Rosary is your prayer and can be prayed the way you see fit. It’s a gift from God, and there is much to be learned from such a generous offering. But if the Hail Mary is the one thing that is preventing you from taking part in this divinely inspired exercise, then sit in the presence of Mary and say the Our Father instead. And if the Hail, Holy Queen, which ends the Rosary cycle, is also not to your liking, then recite the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me.”
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