Hello everyone! I am glad to tell you that I am on target with my Bible reading program. I had fallen behind last week, but I spent some time on Sunday catching up. It was hard to catch up once I had fallen behind, however it made for a great way to spend my Sunday.


It has been a long time since I have read large chunks of the Bible together like this. I had forgotten how wonderful and eye opening it really is. When you read through the Bible this fast, you really get the bigger picture. You see prophesies being made and fulfilled in what feels like a short time however, if you look a little closer, you see that they are really hundreds of years apart. Maybe this is a little glimpse of how God sees history.

As for where I am in the Bible right now; today, I finish Exodus and began Leviticus. Maybe reading through this book fast will give me some clue as to why I need to read it (or not). Okay, so now you know that I am not real big into reading lists of rules and names that are hard to pronounce.

As I am sure all of you are aware of, I write for a devotional blog called Meditations of His Love along with some other girls. Right now, we are conducting a survey. If you have a few free moments, please go here and answer the ten questions. We are trying to get 100 people to do the survey. So, if you have the time, it would be a great help to us.

At MOHL (Meditations of His Love), we have a guest writer week every once in a while. One of the things that a lot of people who have done the survey have said is that they would really like to see more guest writers. This guest week will be the first time that we have had a full one. So, if you are ever interested in writing for us; you can email me your submissions anytime on any subject.

There is one other bit of news on MOHL that I would like to share with you. We are about to start looking for a new author. If you might be interested in that; keep your eyes on our blog for more information.

Do you like adventure stories with happy endings? Do like stories of knights in shining armor and damsels in distress? Do you like allegories and stories that have great morals? Well then, I have the book series for you.

Welcome to the world of Arrethtrae the fictional country that is the stage for this amazing Bible allegory The story opens with a young man named Leinad, and his father living peacefully on a farm in the land of Arrethtrae. Little does Leinad know that his world is about to be changed forever because of a war that started long ago because of his father’s wrong doings. When his father dies and Leinad is forced to leave his home, he begins an adventure that will last a lifetime.

There are 6 books in this series, and every one of them is amazing. A friend of my brother lent them to him, and somehow I ended up reading them through first within a few weeks. Each book is only about a hundred pages long, and they are easy to read. The allegory is very easy to see, and there are discussion questions in the back of each book for each chapter.

The only thing I would caution anyone about is that there are a lot of sword fights, and it is a very mild fantasy. When I say mild I mean it is milder than The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. There is no magic but there are a few made up/mythical creatures in some of the books to represent certain things. So, younger children may find some things a little disturbing.

Check out these books today

Sometimes some of you want write tearjerkers (I don’t know why you would but okay : ), ones that are so sad they make us cry. Sometimes we want to write feel good books, ones when that leave us laughing or just feeling like the world is as is it should be. However, most of the time, at least for me, I want to achieve a balance between the two.

I want my books to leave you feeling good, but for you and my characters to go through hard stuff to get to that happy ending. I want you to feel sad, angry and scared along with my characters but I also what you to be able to feel relief, happiness and joy with them as well. I want there to be intense moments and a lot of tension, but I want to leave my readers feeling satisfied.

So how do we do it? How do we achieve that balance? The answer is; I am still learning. Here are a few things that I have learned, feel free to correct and add to this list.

1. Never kill off any of the good guys or girls in the last three chapters. From a readers perspective, if I am to get that good feeling at the ending, you can’t kill a good guy too close to the end.

2. Temper your intense and very sad scene with humor where it is appropriate. Where humor is unacceptable, it might be good to use and ah-ha moment. You know, a moment when your character reaches a goal, figures out the clue, or grasps a very hard to understand concept.

3. Sometimes there are scenes that just have to be sad, hard and/or intense though and through. To keep those in balance, I like to follow them up with a humors or joyous scene.

4. Book cannot (for the most part) be happy all the way though if they are to be any good. One of the things that I have learned in life and in writing is that sometimes you have to go through the bad or see the evil to appreciate the good.

What about you? How do think we can achieve that balance between happy and sad? I would love to hear your ideas/thoughts even if you aren’t a writer.

...to brighten your day.

Have I ever told you about Genteel Blooms? It is a girls group that my sister Rose and I do once a month for about six months out of the year. Once a month, girls between the ages eight and twelve come to our house for a lesson in sewing and a Bible study.

You see, it all started when I was fifteen and my sister Rose was fourteen. We were sitting around talking about how we wanted to start mentoring younger girls. We knew several that wanted to learn how to sew and some that just wanted to spend some time with us. That is how Genteel Blooms was born. We created the group so that we could teach and mentor younger girls.

This year will be our fifth consecutive year of doing Genteel Blooms. We have had the privilege of mentoring about twenty different girls, some of whom are now in high school.  I can honestly say that there are few things that I have done that I feel have been this important.

What about you? What do you do to encourage your younger sisters in Christ? It can be as simple as learning their names and saying hello to them when you see them in church. It can be as big as taking them under your wing and mentoring them through a hard time. You can start a group or send birthday cards. Whatever it is, take some time to encourage your younger sisters in Christ.

One of the things I am going to try to do more regularly is review books and movies. Today, I would like to introduce you to a TV show that some good friends of ours introduced us to. Now before you run off and delete my blog as a bad influence (for nothing on TV can be good :), let me say that it originally aired on a Christian network called PAX.

The show began with Sue Thomas, a deaf woman who can speak, read lips, as well as sign, is leaving home for her new job at the F. B. I. in Washington D. C. She is disappointed to find that out when she gets there that the job is a token position so that the F. B. I. can say that they hire people with disabilities. She decided to go to the personnel office and tell them that she can handle a real job. She walks into the wrong office and her mistake starts a train of events that even she couldn’t have seen coming.

There are a couple of things you might want to be aware of before you watch them. First, even though it never goes beyond kissing, dating is presented as the norm and the main characters do have boyfriends and girlfriends. Another thing is that some of the episodes cover some subjects that younger children might not like. My family skipped over the one or two episodes that had serial killers.

My family loves this series because it is so family friendly. There is no bad language, it is clean, and many times they talk about God in a good way. They also are full of funny moments and even the most intense episodes are broken up with humor. Another thing about it is that it is a good versus evil kind of series and the good is shown as good and the evil is shown as wrong and bad. I know that sounds a little funny, but a lot of movies these days seem to make that distinction a little hazy.

Good Morning all how is your new year going? Mine is going well, though I got off to a slow start today. I hadn’t slept well on Saturday night so I slept in till about eight this morning. I feel rested and ready to begin my day.


I don’t know about you, but I have a lot to do today. I have some things to clean, laundry to do, and, starting today, I plan to spend two hours day writing. I know that that might sound like a lot of time, but between blogs, articles and books I know the time will go fast.

I know that this has been a very short post however; I want to get started on my work. Have a blessed day!

As I began this new year, I am so excited about some of the prospects in my writing world. Today, I would like to share about some of them with you and get your ideas and thoughts.

One of the things I am most excited about is my trip into the play writing world. My sister Rose and I have just begun to write down our story for a play and I am learning a lot already. Even though I know I am not the best at giving descriptions and things like that, it is a challenge to tell a story with mainly dialog. I hadn’t realized how much of my stories are told in actions and descriptions until I was forced to use just dialog. Any and all tips on play writing and direction would be helpful and gratefully received.

One of the other things that I am excited about in may writing life is the fact that I have an article coming out in the spring edition of Homeschool Enrichment, I large homeschooling magazine. I also have an interview with the author K. M. Weiland that will appear in the next issue of His Wonders.

What about my books? The Destiny of One is well into the editing stages and I hope it will be complete by the end of 2010. I must say that sometimes I feel that there will be no end to the editing but thanks to some of my dear blogging friends, I really believe I am starting to make some progress.

I have almost completed the first draft sequel to The Destiny of One and hoping to have it completely done in a couple months. When that is complete I will begin on the third and final book in this series. I have to say though I have really enjoyed writing this story, I am looking forward to beginning work on my next project.

On the blogging front, I am really looking forward to this coming year. Over at Meditations of His Love, we have planned out a whole bunch of new topics that we are very excited about and I hope that you will be too. I am hoping that we can get more guest posts for our guest weeks. Maybe you could write one, I know that you would do a great job. As for this blog, I am looking forward to posting more regularly than I have been and getting to know y’all better.

What about you? What do you think this coming year holds for your writing?

One of the things that my family has been talking a lot about lately is where The Journey is taking us. As most of you know, God has been leading us on a journey ever since we read a book called “So you Don’t Want to go to Church Anymore?” by Wayne Jacobson . Lately, we have been talking a lot about what our next step should be in our journey.

We have learned so much in the past year and have grown in our faith in so many ways. We all have been reading our Bibles more and spending a lot more time having serious spiritual discussions as a family.

One of the things that I have most enjoyed and disliked at the same time (depends on my mood) about this journey is all the ways it challenged me. Things that my family and I have just done and thought we knew have been challenged in a good way. It has caused us to really look at our beliefs and see which ones are biblical and which ones we do because all good Christians do.

So where is our journey taking us next? That is something that we have been spending a lot of time thinking about. We have visited several churches trying to find a community of believers to plug into but we are still looking. We aren’t sure what our next step is but we know that God will show us in His perfect timing.

What about you? What has God taught you in the past year?



Note; Before you email and comment about what you think of Wayne Jacobson, please understand neither my family or I agree with everything he says.