I love figure skating. It’s one of my favorite parts of the Winter Olympics, right up there with curling, because let’s face it, curling is cool.
Anyway.
Figure skating has seen its share of drama, some of which led to a complete overhaul of the scoring system a few years ago.
Now, the skater sits in the “kiss and cry” section and waits with their coaches for the score. A voice comes over the speaker and says, “The score, for fabulous skater from cool country is, 63.7.”
It really lacks the drama from the old days. You remember how it went, don’t you?
5.8 (dramatic pause) 
5.7 (dramatic pause) 
6.0 (wild cheers from the crowd) 
5.3 (hissing and boos) 
5.8 (skater bursts into tears of joy or grief)
Yeah, those were good times.
Anyway.
I have to confess that I don’t understand the new scoring system, but it has one feature I find fascinating.
Skaters can earn bonus points.
Each jump is given a certain number of points, and when they land that jump, they get those points. But if they land that same jump after the halfway mark of their program, they get a bonus.
Because it’s a lot harder to land those jumps when you’re tired.
Oh baby, don’t we know it.
We take the ice and we’re skating our hearts out, but somewhere along the way, everything gets harder. Legs tremble. Breaths spasm through our chest. Arms quiver. We try to maintain our form, our speed, because there’s more to come. More twists and spins. More fancy footwork. More jumps.
It’s exhausting.
If this makes perfect sense to us when we think about an ice skating routine, why do we forget it when it comes to this crazy free skate we call life?
We started out great. We opened our hearts to people in need. We sacrificed—our time, our money, our desires—for the sake of the Gospel. We knew He had a great plan even when it didn’t make sense. Then it got harder, and for some reason, this shocks us.
Every. Single. Time.
We’re struggling to get enough oxygen to our brain to think clearly, and we can’t figure out what happened. When all that happened is we got tired. We’ve been at this for a while, and it’s exhausting.
This idea has been spinning in my brain for the past week as I near the end of an unplanned free skate. After weeks of demolition and construction, we are in the final stretch. When the last pile of sawdust is swept away, my home will be more beautiful than it was before.
But it’s been exhausting, and even though I can tell from the music that it’s almost over, I’m faltering. I’m not sure I’ve got another jump in me.
So when a friend shot me a text this morning, reminding me that this is just a slice of time, that this will end, and that it won’t be like this forever, it came as both a gentle reproof and a much needed boost to my morale. 
And it got my mind twisting a little more. Because if you’re reading this, I know you’re in one of two places. Maybe even in both at the same time.

1. You’re exhausted. You’ve been pursuing the dream, the friendship, the child, the spouse, the number on the scale, or the boss you can’t please, and you’ve got nothing left.
If this is you today, can I remind you that Jesus is the one who said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Your fatigue doesn’t shock Him, and He’s not looking down on you in disgust, wondering how you could be so weak. He likes weak, because when we recognize our weakness, that’s when His strength can pour through us. In His strength, not our own, the jumps we land near the end of the program will be the ones that glorify Him most.
2. You know someone who is exhausted. The friend who gave up her bedroom to care for an aging parent a year ago. The co-worker who’s wondering if the cancer treatment is going to save her life or just kill her faster. The couple who’ve been waiting a decade to announce a new baby. The family who opened their home to foster or adopt. The people next door who don’t know if they’ll be able to pay the power bill. Or maybe it’s closer to home. Maybe it’s the spouse who dreads leaving for work each day, or the child who withdraws more every week as she navigates high school.
They need someone to remind them that it’s okay to be exhausted. It’s okay to be weak. It’s okay to need help.
Don’t fall into the trap of believing that since they’ve been “handling” this situation so well for so long, that they don’t need anything. Recognize that they are operating in bonus point territory. If there’s a way to provide tangible assistance, by all means, do it. Take them a meal or take their kids for an afternoon or invite them to a movie. Call them or text them with a little bit of perspective, even if it scares you to do it, because it may be exactly what they need.
No matter what, pray for them. Better? Pray WITH them.
Maybe you could pray this…
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3: 14-21 ESV, emphasis mine)

I saw it in his eyes. The flash of confusion followed hard by disappointment.

His five-year-old heart sank as he examined the new Lego Fire Truck complete with firemen, hoses, and a house with the roof ablaze.

He looked at me and my heart melted when he said, so low I could barely hear him, “But . . . It isn’t the one I wanted.”

He wasn’t ungrateful for what he had, but I knew he was trying to process why I would have bought him the wrong one. In that moment, it didn’t matter to him that the Lego set he held in his hands was more expensive and had more parts, more people, and more accessories, because it wasn’t what he’d been expecting. And he’d told me which fire truck he wanted. Repeatedly.

It took every ounce of parental strength I had not to promise him on the spot that we would hunt down that set he’d requested and have it on our doorstep the next day, because his disappointment hurt me in places I didn’t even know I had.

Now, as my husband was quick to point out, it’s hard for a five-year-old to mask disappointment, and I’m not sure I would have wanted him to. It gave us a great opportunity to talk about being thankful for the twenty other gifts he received over the holiday, and how if he still wants the one he didn’t receive, he can save his money and buy it himself.

What was most interesting to me was not how my son reacted, but how I reacted. I had to fight to keep my sadness at his disappointment from shadowing the day. I had to preach a lot of truth to myself about how blessed we are and about how this was a teachable moment, etc.

But watching his face, knowing how confused he was by this unexpected turn of events, it ripped me up inside because I love that child, and his unhappiness is hard for me to watch. I may know it’s necessary, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.

Of course, it didn’t take long for God to turn this into His own teachable moment, because this mama, she’s got a lot to learn. It was just a soft whisper…“Doesn’t feel good, does it?”

Ouch.

Because how often do I look at the gifts in my life and say, “But, it isn’t the one I wanted.”

God, the ultimate giver of good gifts, listens as we gripe to Him (and anyone who will listen) about the job that doesn’t pay enough, the house that isn’t nice enough, the spouse who doesn’t help enough.

He hears us complain, knowing we don’t understand His decision or grasp the extent of His plan, but knowing He’s given us what is best for us. He loves us so much that His response is not anger toward us, but more love, more grace, more opportunities to trust Him.

I’ve been mulling this idea over since Christmas Day. Had a good three weeks of this verse continually jumping into my brain—

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”

I’ve been thinking about how everything we have is a gift from God. How even the parts of my life that are less than perfect are still part of His plan for me. I’ve been hanging out with this idea for three weeks.

But let me tell you, it all flew out of my brain when I opened my door and discovered that it was raining in my kitchen.

A pipe had burst. Two, actually.
“But God, You have authority over water. You could have…”

I had been gone for two hours.
“God, You are all powerful. Couldn’t You have kept me home?”

The damage is extensive.
“God, seriously? Is this how You want to spend Your money?”

He gave me twenty-four hours before He gently reminded me of that heart-wrenching I received on Christmas morning. The one where the gift wasn’t quite what was expected and the immature child didn’t know how to hide the disappointment. He didn’t condemn my reaction, just reminded me of His truth, His Sovereignty, His never-ending, never giving up, love for me.

It’s been a week. My home is a hot mess. It’s full of fans and dehumidifiers, walls are ripped off studs, there’s sheetrock dust flying everywhere, and the insanity hasn’t even approached the full-on crazy that’s coming when we have to move our entire downstairs into a pod and take the kitchen cabinets out and . . . well, you get the idea.

Sometimes I start crying in mid-conversation. Sometimes I feel like someone is squeezing me around the chest and I can’t quite breathe. Sometimes I wander around the house, so overwhelmed by everything I need to do that I can’t do anything.

But most of the time, I hear Him whispering truth into my clouded brain, reminding me that He knows I’m prone to wander and He’s got me and He will not let go. I feel His arms holding me up. Feel Him speaking peace to my mind and heart.

It’s a very, very good gift.

James 1:17 ~ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (ESV)

There are only a handful of authors whose books shoot to the top of my to-be-read pile as soon as they become available.

Lynette Eason is one of those authors.

No One To Trust is the first novel in her new Hidden Identity series. I was a little sad to say goodbye to the characters in the Deadly Reunions Series, and I wondered how she would top the twisty plotline that wound through those books.

But she did.

No One To Trust opens with a murder. It’s followed by a blood pumping chase that ends in …well…I won’t say, but by this time, I want to know who David Hackett is, and why Kyle Abernathy is being chased by a hit man.

If you think you’ll be able to catch your breath, you’re wrong, because the next scene comes straight from most women’s nightmares. Summer Abernathy wakes up to find a man pointing a gun at her. He’s not there to kill her, but what he tells her sends her world into a tailspin, and takes the reader along for the ride.

For the next 300 pages, the story unfolds, one tantalizing detail at a time. We meet siblings, clients, former military unit members, U.S. Marshalls, and let’s not forget the mob boss with a snake fetish and his seriously dysfunctional family.

Lynette does a masterful job of introducing new characters and keeping the entire cast distinct. I never struggled to follow along, even toward the end when plot lines and characters were converging and then taking off in unexpected directions.

No One To Trust also gives us a nice spin on the typical romance, because the main characters are already married. The question is, will their marriage survive? Can Summer forgive Kyle for lying to her? Can Kyle keep them alive long enough to convince Summer that the one thing he hadn’t lied about was his love for her?

Underpinning the entire novel are beautiful themes of redemption, forgiveness, and, ultimately trust, making No One To Trust both a thrilling and uplifting experience.

No One To Trust is available from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, in January 2014 from your favorite bookseller.

The super fine print: I received this book in exchange for my opinion. I was not required to provide a favorable review. All opinions are my own.

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Several years ago, my dad made a beautiful mirrored coat rack. I had the perfect wall for it and it hung in a place of prominence in my home where it received oohs and ahhs from friends, family, and guests.
Then we moved.
Our new home has an open floor plan with short walls. Most of the long walls are full of windows. There isn’t a single spot in the house that made sense for the coat rack. I guess I could have hung it in the dining room. It would’ve made a great conversation starter, but it also would’ve made it functionally useless. 
So with nowhere to put it, I placed it in a hall closet where it sat unused for six months before I realized I was being an idiot.
Because there was one other spot.
But it was so wrong.
I’m blogging today over at The Write Conversation…so click on over to read the rest of this post!

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I love this time year. LOVE.IT.

As a kid, it was all about the presents. OK. It still is, a little.

But as an adult, I’ve come to appreciate the weeks leading up to Christmas. The time that is commonly referred to as Advent.

Last year, I made Jesse Tree ornaments and placed them on a wreath (you can read about that fiasco here!) and each night in December, we talked about the story behind each ornament. We are way behind on that this year, but I still like the Jesse Tree concept because it focuses on the way the entire Old Testament leads up to the birth of Christ. How we see prophecy given and then fulfilled in Jesus. I love how it’s teaching my kids how we fit into God’s redemptive plan.

But this year, I’ve been struck by the importance of family.

Messed up. Broken. Crazy. Family.

Have you ever paid attention to the fact that in both Matthew and Luke—the two Gospels that give us the Nativity story—we get the family legacy first.

In Luke, we start with the off-beat cousin, John the Baptist. No matter how you slice it, that guy was out there. He ate bugs. ‘Nuff said.

In Matthew, we get the whole gang. From Abraham to Joseph. If you know anything about the Old Testament, the names that pop up in this genealogy are not exactly a Who’s Who of Who Got It Right. We’ve got moon-worshipers, liars, thieves, adulterers, and murderers for dads along with foreigners, adulterers, and prostitutes for mothers.

Have you ever heard the saying that “you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family?” That’s usually true, but guess what?

God could. 

He could have chosen anyone and he chose people who had screwed up—BIG TIME—to carry the promise into the world.

A messed up, broken, crazy family. He claimed them. All of them.

And then He did something truly extraordinary. He claimed the entire naughty list and said, “I want you. I love you. I died for you. Come to Me. Join my family.”

No matter what condition your earthly family is in, you have access to a family like no other. A family full of misfit toys made acceptable though Christ. A place where the broken, banged up, and forgotten become the whole, cleaned up, and beloved.

Not because of anything we have done, but because, a long time ago, a baby was born into a messed up, broken, crazy family.

His name is Jesus.

Matthew 1:21 ~ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. (ESV)

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Anyone else feel like the holiday hustle began right after Halloween this year?

It’s been CRAZY at my house. 

But, you know me. I’ve always got time to read a good book. Or two! And I want to share them with you.

I met Lisa Carter in 2010 at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, before she had an agent, or a book deal (or four!). 

I’m so excited to share her first two books with you today. You know you’ve got a someone or two on your shopping list who would love for you to introduce them to a new author. Consider your list a little bit shorter!

Aloha Rose

This is Lisa’s second book. It just came out this month and it is such a sweet story. I generally prefer my books to have a little bit more mayhem and murder, but I couldn’t put this one down!

The only thing Laney Carrigan has to tie her to her birth family is the Hawaiian quilt she was wrapped in as a baby. But that quilt holds the key to everything she’s searching for—the answers to her questions and a reason to put down roots. Of course, Kai Barnes complicates her plans from the first time they meet. He knows there’s more to the mysterious Laney Carrigan than she’s chosen to share with the family. She can’t be trusted. Not with the plantation—and certainly not with his heart.

Aloha Rose is a beautiful story that doesn’t shy away from the painful consequences of sin, the damage unforgiveness can do to our hearts, and the desperate need we all have for grace.

Carolina Reckoning

This is Lisa’s first book and it came out this summer. Lisa uses the tag line “Sweet Tea with a Slice of Murder” (isn’t that the BEST!!!) and Carolina Reckoning met every expectation a tag line like that has.

It’s so very Southern! Set in the Raleigh area of North Carolina, the conflict centers around a historic estate complete with a main house, gardens, and wealthy board members. The characters are as varied as the dishes at a church dinner. There are exotic outsiders, quirky cousins, scary strangers, and let’s not forget the downright creepy psychopaths.

The opening pages of Carolina Reckoning will twist your heart as Alison Monaghan discovers proof that her husband has been cheating on her. She’s going to confront him, but instead finds herself staring into the face of homicide detective Mike Barefoot. Her husband will never come home, but are the people responsible for his death willing to leave his family alone?
Or is Alison next on their list?

Carolina Reckoning will keep you guessing until the climax when … oh, wait a minute. I’m not going to tell you!

Buy the book. Buy both of them. Buy one for your friends. Put one in your daughter’s stocking. Send one to your grandma. Hmm…that’s actually a really good idea. My Granny loves to read…(yes, it’s hereditary). Grab it for your Kindle and read it while everyone is watching football tomorrow.

You can’t go wrong with Aloha Rose or Carolina Reckoning!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!

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We all make art in A Million Little Ways.

Yes, you do, too.

Even if you don’t think of yourself as artistic or creative, after reading Emily P. Freeman’s latest offering, you’ll view everything you do in a new light. Because “art is what happens when you dare to be who you really are.” (p. 21)

While I have no trouble saying that I’m a writer, I’ve never considered myself to be an artist. Art is painting, drawing, sculpture, design. Art it musicals, opera, plays, and concerts.

Or is it?

What if art is so much more and what if all of us make art in a million little ways?

Making beds, writing books, cooking meals, designing clothes, playing with Legos, decorating interiors, and hosting dinner parties, all can be ways you express yourself, ways you create, ways you make art.

The most beautiful thing? God uses us as “we make art with our lives” to reveal different aspects of Himself to a world that desperately needs Him.

A Million Little Ways is divided into three parts:

In Part 1, we see a beautiful picture of God as the Artist and us, as His image-bearers, placed in the world to live art.
In Part 2, we uncover the art we were born to make by looking within, back, up, around, and beneath.
In Part 3, we release the art we were made to live when we show up, wait, offer, wonder, and create.

Emily P. Freeman writes with a transparency and honesty that always leaves me surprised to discover that someone else struggles with the same things I do. Each chapter feels like a conversation with a friend who sees beauty in you. Beauty you may be unable to see in yourself, not because of anything you can do in your own strength, but because you are an image-bearer of The Artist.

There was so much in these pages to digest, to ponder, to consider, to breathe in and live out, that I don’t feel one read-through was sufficient so I’m starting over and reading it again.

Lucky for you, when I attended Allume a few weeks ago, I got to hear Emily speak and the fine folks at Revell gave all the attendees a copy of A Million Little Ways. But I already had my review copy from Revell, so I’m going to share the art with you. Subscribe to the blog through email or leave me a comment here on the blog, on Facebook, or Twitter. I’ll put the names in the random number generator and whoever it picks will win their own copy. Contest ends Sunday, November 24th.

A Million Little Ways is available November 2013 at your local bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing.

The super fine print: I received a copy of A Million Little Ways in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

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God wants me to be a bay leaf.

Sounds exciting, right?

Yeah. I’m not so sure about it myself.

I woke up early a few weeks ago, too early to get up. The time of day when I fade in and out of awareness, praying, listening, thinking. On this particular morning, my mind flipped between the things I needed to do before the day ran off and left me and the images that had flooded it for the past few days.

Images of women—old, young, trendy, traditional—women who had gathered in one place to learn, to be renewed, to find new ways to share their message.

Some women had answered life-altering calls. They’d seen a need. They’d decided not to shove it off on someone else. Now, they and their families call new cities in foreign lands home.

They are doing BIG things for God. I want to do big things for God, too.

I was willing. I would have gone. If He’d called me, I’d have packed my bags and learned a new language, and I’d have gone anywhere. I told Him so. More than once.

I’m still willing. But here I am.

I have a great husband and three cool kids and a new minivan parked in the garage of a nice house in a safe part of the world. I’ll be honest, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing big things for God.

I know, I know. Those three cool kids are the future and the time I spend with them is a daily act of worship.

I.Know.This.Is.True.

But I feel so small. So insignificant. And as I lay there that morning, I couldn’t help but wonder why God hadn’t called me to more?

While I lay there, wondering if maybe I’d missed something along the way, He spoke.

I want you to be a bay leaf.

No, it wasn’t audible, but I heard it and I can assure you that as I have never, ever aspired to be a bay leaf, it was pretty clear to me that this was God’s voice and not my own. Seriously, God? A bay leaf?

I want you to be a bay leaf.

See, I had spent days surrounded by walking, talking oaks of faith. Singing, laughing diamonds of grace. War-torn but still smiling warriors in the fight for the kingdom.

I was trying to think of ways to be big. God asked me to be small.

Do you know what a bay leaf does? It’s that dried leaf your mom or your grandma always added to the chicken broth or the spaghetti sauce or the vegetable soup. Bay leaves help bring other flavors together, the result of which is a richness, a savoriness that is hard to define, but noticeable in its absence.

I’ve been pondering the idea of being a bay leaf for a few weeks.

Not to diminish the sacrifice of those who answer the “flashier” calls, but I think, sometimes, it’s harder to say yes to being small. To going unnoticed. To being content to add that “little something extra” to the lives of those around us without ever being the main event.

So as I continue to dwell with the idea, I’m praying for opportunities to be a bay leaf. For ways to add some richness and depth to the souls I find myself simmering through life with.

I’ve also started praying that Out of the Boat will be a bay leaf in your life. Something that deepens your faith, enriches your walk, and maybe adds a little something extra to your day.

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Most of us accept death as a part of life. But not everyone.

In Singularity, the second book in The Jevin Banks Experience, Steven James plunges us into a world where research into brain function and artificial intelligence that is intended to help quadriplegics or children with life-shortening diseases is being hijacked by psychopaths.

Psychopaths who will eliminate any and all obstacles between them and immortality.

In Singularity, illusionist Jevin Banks loses a friend in what the authorities insist was a tragic accident. He knows it wasn’t and he refuses to allow his friend’s death to go unsolved.

Lucky for him, the supporting cast from Placebo, the first book in the The Jevin Banks Experience, is back, and they are as fabulous as ever. Charlene, Jevin’s girlfriend; Xavier, Jevin’s right-hand man; Fionna, home-schooling mom and computer whiz; Fionna’s kids, four of the coolest kids on the planet.

Of course, one of our villains from Placebo is back, too. Derek Byrne, aka, Akinsanya, intends to live forever and his methods are, well, let’s go with extreme. (Gory, sick, disturbing, horrifying—those would all work as well).

As I’ve come to expect from Steven James, the first few chapters are tough. Evil men unleash their power over those who’ve tried to thwart them, and the results are devastating.

From there, Singularity takes us into a world of illusion, organized crime, conspiracy theory, top-secret military research, and prostitution. Set mostly in Las Vegas, Singularity doesn’t shy away from gritty realities. Nor does it glorify them.

If you’re looking for safe, predictable fiction that gives you an interesting enough story but doesn’t make you think or wonder about anything, then Singularity is not for you.

If, however, you’d love to read something that you haven’t figured out by page five, if you’d like a story that reflects the world we live in, that delves deep into questions about what makes us human and why God allows people to do bad things, if you’d like to get to the final page and go “What??!!!” as the whole story gets turned on its ear…

Read Singularity.

Singularity is available as of November 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

The super fine print: I received a free copy of Singularity in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

You can read my review of Placebo here. I highly recommend reading Placebo first. 

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Through the Balustrade pulled me in from the first page. Roxan is seventeen and has her own shanty. And she’s thrilled about it.

What?

Immediately, I want to know why she’s on her own at seventeen. Why does she think a dirt-floor shanty is a little slice of heaven? What kind of horror was her life before this point? Why does she believe she’s free now?

And is she? Really?

Seriously. I got all that from the first few paragraphs.

If you’re a fan of books like The Hunger Games or Divergent, Through the Balustrade is going to be right up your alley.

If you’ve ever felt different, unwanted, or weird—if you’ve ever believed (or maybe you still do) that you are nothing special, then Through the Balustrade is going to grab your heart strings and refuse to let go.

There are so many things I love about Through the Balustrade.

I love the characters—not a predictable one in the bunch. You’ll love some of them, you’ll despise others. And then there are the guys you just aren’t sure about. I spent half the book trying to figure out if this one guy wanted to help Roxan or if he was just trying to get close enough so he could kill her. (No. I’m not going to tell you. This is a spoiler free review!)

I love the language. They speak English in the Oblate, but they have their own expressions. Turns, rolls, flashes, matchments, Vitawater, merits…the words are dropped in so skillfully that even though you’ve never used them this way before, you’ll know exactly what they mean. It serves to highlight that this world is different—so very different—from our own.

Or, is it?

Speaking of the world…I love the world. Hmm…Well, not really. I love M.B. Dahl’s masterful world building, but it’s not a place I would want to live. Life inside the Protectorate is a closely monitored place where the adults do their jobs and don’t ask questions. Children are raised underground and any child who demonstrates certain gifts gets “modifed”—and yeah, it’s as bad as it sounds. And the thing about modification…it doesn’t always take.

Which brings us back to Roxan. She doesn’t know what’s “wrong” with her, but she’s smart enough to know she needs to keep it to herself.

Bless her heart, she does try, but there are evil forces at work in the Oblate and she’s the key to unlocking the door that will truly set the people free. It’s going to take every ounce of strength and bravery she’s never thought she had to do what must be done.

Because she’s the only one who can get them Through the Balustrade.

The weird one. The one who’s nothing special. She’s the key to everything.

You won’t be able to read Through the Balustrade without wondering if the very thing you dislike about yourself—that thing you so desperately wish you could change—if that’s not the thing that God wants to use to set you, and others, free.

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