When I am weak; I am strong

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Renee Ryan is another of the special ladies who write for Love Inspired. I was delighted when she agreed to guest blog today. When I read her posting, it made me think of 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul speaks about how God used weakness to make Paul stronger.

But here’s what Renee has to say!

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5

When Lyn invited me to blog here today I started thinking about godly strength and what it means to be strong as Christ was strong. I started wondering (and worrying) if I’ve ever displayed the kind of strength he meant when he said, “Blessed are the meek.” I started digging deep into my past to see if I had ever been strong in a situation that could have easily turned ugly with a harsh word or inappropriate reaction.

And then I thought of my early days as a high school teacher. I had a female ninth grade student who decided on day one that she hated me. We’ll call this student, Hope. Now, when I say Hope hated me, I mean she really hated me. I had taken over for another teacher midyear, a teacher Hope had adored. In Hope’s mind, that made me the bad guy. I could do nothing right. She didn’t even like the way I buttoned my coat.

Like many teenage girls, Hope was brilliant at insulting me without actually insulting me. You know the kind. She was a master at the passive/aggressive barb. She pushed me to the very edge of my limit, yet she always stopped one step short of doing anything I could actually discipline her for. After all, if I wrote a referral for every teenage eye roll and dirty look my hand would have fallen off my first day on the job. Miss Hope was smart enough to know this.

No matter how many conversations I had with this girl, she refused to change her mind about me. The school year finally drew to a close and I thought I had seen the last of her. Then my principal handed me my roster for the next year. Guess what name I saw on the roll for my very first class of the day?

I couldn’t believe I was going to have to spend another year with Hope and her eye rolls and thinly veiled insults. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. Unfortunately, I had no choice. I was the only teacher teaching that particular subject. I was stuck!

For weeks prior to school starting, I dreamed up all sorts of way to make this kid’s life as miserable as she’d made mine the year before. But I knew I wouldn’t follow through. I was the adult, she was the child. I finally decided to try Christ’s way. At this point, I had nothing to lose.

So there I was, standing outside my classroom, greeting my new students on the first day of school. Here comes Hope strolling down the hallway, staring right at me with a smirk on her face and an ugly gleam in her eye. It was a look that said, “Lady, here I come, your worst nightmare.”

But instead of sneering in return, which I really wanted to do, I smiled at her instead. And I mean, I gave her a genuine smile. No faking was allowed. She’d see through it anyway. Then I said, “Hope, I’m really glad to see you this morning. You of all people know that I’m still really new at this teaching thing. Would you sit in the front row so I’ll have at least one familiar face to look at today?” I meant every word. I just prayed she’d live up to my new expectations of her.

I guess my speech took her off guard. She stopped dead in her tracks, cocked her head and simply stared at me for a full minute. And then, something wonderful happened. She returned my smile and said, “Absolutely. You can count on me.”

From that day forward, Hope became one of my biggest fans. She is and will probably always be one of the best students I’ve ever had.

My heroine in THE MARSHAL TAKES A BRIDE, my current release, is a school teacher as well. Although the set-up is far different from mine, Katherine also deals with people who decide they hate her on sight. I can honestly say, when writing this particular heroine, I drew on my own experiences. J So tell me, do you have a similar story you’d like to share?

Thank you, Lyn, for having me here today. I consider it an honor to share my thoughts on “strong women, brave stories.”

Renee Ryan writes for the Steeple Hill line Love Inspired Historical line. Her fabulous editor is Melissa Endlich. Her first book in the Charity House series, The Marshall Takes a Bride is a February 2009 release. Her next book in the series, Hannah’s Beau hits the shelves July 2009. For further information check out www.reneeryan.com

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Susan Page Davis’s Story of Triumph

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Susan Page Davis guests today. I met Susan for the first time last year at a RWA conference and I would never have guessed that she had gone through a real trial. I know you’re going to be cheered by Susan’s story of triumph.

Susan:

My story is about one of the scariest days of my life. It happened twelve years ago, before I started seriously writing fiction.

On January 8, 1997, I awoke early. My husband, who works past midnight, slept peacefully beside me. It was quiet, and I reached for my journal. I would write a few lines before getting breakfast and starting home school lessons with the children.

Halfway through a sentence, my pen fell from my hand. I was perturbed and reached for it, but my hand would not obey my brain, and my right arm thudded to the mattress.

Jim opened one eye. “What’s the matter?”

I tried to tell him, “It’s nothing, I just dropped my pen,” but somehow the words would not form on my lips.

Instantly he was wide awake, yelling for our oldest daughter.

Soon he was holding two aspirin and a glass of water in front of me. “Swallow this.” I struggled to sit up, but I couldn’t, and he poked the two tablets into my mouth, followed by a small slosh of water.

Our daughter appeared in the doorway, still fuzzy from sleep. “What’s wrong?”

I was able to move then, and began to struggle.

“Don’t let your mother up,” Jim ordered. “Sit on her if you have to.”

He grabbed the phone from the night stand and dialed 911.

I was outraged when two EMT’s appeared in my bedroom minutes later. I was fine, I insisted, and no way were they going to carry me out of there.

“You need to go to the hospital,” Jim insisted.

To prove he was wrong, I pushed our daughter aside and dressed myself, then walked slowly down the stairs.

“Get in the ambulance.” Jim’s tone brooked no arguments.

Against my will, I climbed into the unit and lay down on the gurney. I was furious. One of the EMT’s sat next to me the fifteen miles to the hospital, asking me inane questions over and over. “Who is the President? What year is it?”

It wasn’t fair. I knew the answers, I really knew them, but this unreasonable man wouldn’t give me a chance to pull them out.

It was hours before I realized how ill I was. When my father and my sister stepped into the examining room, I knew it was serious. But when the aide handed me a brochure on patient rights, it really hit home. I stared at the paper. The runes were incomprehensible. I thrust it into my husband’s hand. “You read it. It doesn’t make sense.”

He was very quiet.

After hours of tests, the neurologist told me I’d had a major stroke. A blood clot had formed on my left temple. He could see its damage on the MRI, but the clot was gone. The aspirin Jim had forced on me in the first minutes of crisis had probably begun to dissolve it. The doctor cautioned that Jim’s action would have made the bleeding worse if I’d had an aneurysm, but in my case, it was the ideal treatment.

I was admitted, and the dietitian brought the menu for the next day’s meals.

Again, I stared at the meaningless print.

“What does this say?” I asked cautiously.

My sister leaned closer. “Pot roast, corn, mashed potatoes.”

I sighed and handed her the menu. The bleak prospect of never being able to read again was devastating.

Not only was reading one of my favorite hobbies, but I worked as a news writer, and I still had two children at home who were too young to read. Jim and I were the parents of six, and home-schooled them all. Our oldest son was in college, and we had three daughters, ages 16, 14, and 11. The two little ones, a girl and a boy, were only 2 and 3 years old. Their education was barely begun. How could I teach them to read? Many, many people prayed for me that night.

Within twenty-four hours my mobility, which had come and gone at first, seemed to have permanently returned. Still I couldn’t read. But through the grace of God, all my symptoms were gone by the second day, and I was able to read and write.

The doctor kept me in the hospital nine days. Because I was only 42, he was determined to discover the cause of my stroke, but found none.

It was with a sense of awe that I returned home to live a “normal” life again, but it would never be the same. I cherish each day with my husband and children. The two youngest are in high school now, both good readers and writers. The four older “children” are all college graduates. Three of them are married, and two have children of their own.

Two years later, I found that I had a story to tell. Not the news stories I’d written for years, but a fiction story that had formed in my mind. I said to Jim, “I have this story in my head, and I think it’s a book.”

He gave me the summer of 1999 in which to put that story on paper. Since then the Lord has blessed me with a career in fiction. When I look back to that bleak day in January when I couldn’t read simple words, I can scarcely believe how my life has changed. I thank God for every day He has given me on this earth. I know He left me here, not only to bring entertainment to others through my stories, but to teach my children and see them become strong readers and writers. More important, they all trust God for their salvation, which is the biggest blessing I have been allowed to witness.

My February book is On a Killer’s Trail, from Love Inspired Suspense. It’s about another Maine journalist, Kate, who wants to help solve a murder. I hope you enjoy it. Visit me on my Web site at: www.susanpagedavis.com.

Thanks, Susan, for that uplifting story.


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A Survival Story

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Here’s another story of a strong competent woman in a day that saw them as frail creatures who could not make it on their own. Tosca Lee is new to writing and her books are amazingly different from most. Tosca is going to share a family story and then an excerpt of her second book, Havah.

Tosca begins: Lyn, the following is the story of my great, great, great grandmother on my mother’s side.

“In 1883, the newly-widowed Azuba Moncrief packed up her possessions. Prompted by the urging of a cousin and further intrigued by an issue of the Ottawa Republican advertising homes in Nebraska on lands of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Azuba planned to take her four children west to start a new life. But when she returned home from securing a team to haul her family’s things to the train depot, she soon discovered that her oldest son had fallen ill with measles. She would have to delay their departure until the illness had runs its course—through all four of her children. During those weeks, Azuba nursed her children toward health and contemplated the future. Little in Azuba’s life had ever gone as planned.

Born in1841, in Hebron, New York, Azuba was raised under the religious guidance of her self-educated preacher father, who believed wholeheartedly in the benefits of education. In 1865, she followed her two older sisters and entered Oberlin College in Ohio as a sophomore. Oberlin had already pioneered the “joint education of the sexes” in 1833, educating men and women alongside one another, and had just graduated its first African American woman in 1862.

College life, however, was not good to her; her second year she came down with typhoid. She was not the only one to become ill; Azuba’s sisters had both contracted tuberculosis while in college. That year, Azuba’s oldest sister died. The following year her second sister died, by which time Azuba’s father had dramatically changed his opinion of college education. After a drawn-out struggle with his daughter, who wanted to remain in school, he brought Azuba home, “fully satisfied not to invade these dangerous institutions any more.”

Home from college and bereft of both her sisters, Azuba married a childhood friend named William from nearby Rupert, Vermont. Almost four years her junior, William was a handsome Civil War veteran with a seemingly promising future—and 40 acres of land. William, however, was not cut out for farming life. He suffered from piles and a lame back, making hard manual labor impossible. Disappointed, Azuba went home to live on a farm in Rupert, Vermont that her father bought for her. William, in the meantime, went steadily bankrupt.

Giving up on farming life, William decided in 1875 to move to Ottawa, Illinois where he had found work as a lock tender on the thriving Illinois and Michigan Canal. Fortunately, he was a better lock tender than farmer. Azuba came out to join him and the couple, along with their growing family, lived near lock 11, west of town. Eight years later, William—only 38 years old—was found dead in the canal near his home. Despite a strong suspicion of murder, a local jury brought in a verdict of death by lightning. Azuba buried her husband in a quiet cemetery near the Illinois river where two of her babies were already at rest.

Having to provide for herself and her four living children, Azuba petitioned the U.S. Government for a widow’s pension based on William’s Civil War service. The government granted her a small pension of eight dollars a month—but it wasn’t enough. Her solution came by way of the same newspaper that had run her husband’s obituary just two weeks prior: an advertisement offering homesteads and timber claims in Gosper County, Nebraska.

Azuba had a cousin in Waterloo, Nebraska who encouraged her to make the trip. She could stay with his family while she found her land. Excited at the prospect of returning to farming on her own terms, Azuba could wait no longer. Three of her four children had recovered from the measles—leaving only Charlie, who had been the first to contract the sickness. She wrapped Charlie in a blanket and made him a place to lay down in the train. Her neighbors criticized her, saying Charlie—who had been sickly all his life and was still too weak to sit up—would die. But by the next morning, he was sitting up to look out the car window and quickly improved after that.

Azuba stayed on with her cousin for about three months in Waterloo, Nebraska while making preparations to stake a claim 230 miles west. At last, she took a train to Lexington. Once she arrived, she faced the question of how to get another 17 miles west to Gosper County to find her land. The local liveryman’s price was an exorbitant seven dollars—to which Azuba replied there was no easier way she could earn seven dollars than by going the 35 miles on foot. She found her homestead, walked back to Lexington, returned on the train to Omaha… and then walked back to her cousin’s house in Waterloo—another 35 miles.

She bought a team of four and five year-old mares, made two trips with a wagon from Waterloo to her new homestead to get her family moved, and hired a neighbor to build her a sturdy sod house. Next, she needed a barn. Azuba enlisted her children and together they dug out the side of a canyon bank, covering it with brush, sod and dirt. Azuba and her children settled in to homestead life just in time for winter and proved up on the claim in 1886.

Three years later, she went 150 miles west and got preemption of 160 acres and an additional timber claim of 160 acres. She built houses on both claims as well.

In 1894, the tuberculosis that had taken both her sisters and her youngest brother struck Azuba. By the time she died in March of 1895, she had left a farming legacy to all of her children. Her original homestead went to Charlie, the preemption claim in a neighboring county to her younger son, and the timber claim to her daughter, Lizzie. To her youngest daughter, Edna, Azuba left $1,000 which Edna used to purchase 160 acres of her own. She also left a farm in Gage County.

Of her mother’s productivity and success, Lizzie writes: “I do not believe there was ever another woman who performed such a task. She plowed, planted, and harvested, milked cows, made cheese, took in washing, and nursed sick neighbors—always on the go from daylight ‘till near midnight. This was a job for a woman alone with four children between three and 14 years.”

{Source: Moncrief: From the Scottish Highlands to the Nebraska Prairie, Laura Moncrief Lee, 1980}

What a fantastic story! I think Azuba and my greatgrandmother Sadie would have been happy to be neighbors. Now more about Tosca herself and her newest book, Havah.

Havah: The Story of Eve

Tosca Lee

Myth and legend shroud her in mystery. Now hear her story.

From paradise to exile, from immortality to the death of Adam. Visit the dawn of mankind through the eyes of Eve—the woman first known as…

Havah

“A passionate and riveting story of the Bible’s first woman and her remarkable journey after being cast from paradise. Lee’s superior storytelling will have readers weeping for all that Havah forfeited by a single damning choice.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Once every few years, I come across a book of such scope, such beauty, that it defies description. Havah bridges mankind’s beginnings with the restless state of our present age. . . . Havah is a novel with boundless imagination.”
— Eric Wilson, author of Field of Blood and Fireproof

Prologue

I have seen paradise and ruin. I have known bliss and terror.

I have walked with God.

And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber. I still recall my first moment of consciousness—an awareness I’ve never seen in the eyes of any of my own children at birth: the sheer ignorance and genius of consciousness, when we know nothing and accept everything.

Of course, the memory of that waking moment is fainter now, like the smell of the soil of that garden, like the leaves of the fig tree in Eden after dawn—dew and leaf green. It fades with that sense of something once tasted on the tip of the tongue, savored now in memory, replaced by the taste of something similar but never quite the same.

His breath a lost sough, the scent of earth and leaf mold that was his sweaty skin has faded too quickly. So like an Eden dawn—dew on fig leaves.

His eyes were blue, my Adam’s.

How I celebrated that color, shrouded now in shriveled eyelids—he who was never intended to have even a wrinkle! But even as I bend to smooth his cheek, my hair has become a white waterfall upon his Eden—flesh and loins that gave life to so many.

I think for a moment that I hear the One and that he is weeping. It is the first time I have heard him in so long, and my heart cries out: He is dead! My father, my brother, my love!

I envy the earth that envelopes him. I envy the dust that comes of him and my children who sow and eat of it.

This language of Adam’s—the word that meant merely “man” before it was his name—given him by God himself, is now mine. And this is my love song. I will craft these words into the likeness of the man before I, too, return to the earth of Adam’s bosom.

My story has been told in only the barest of terms. It is time you heard it all. It is my testament to the strength of the heart, which has such capacity for joy, such space for sorrow, like a vessel that fills and fills without bursting.

My seasons are nearly as many as a thousand. So now listen, sons, and hear me, daughters. I, Havah, fashioned by God of Adam say this:

In the beginning, there was God . . .

But for me, there was Adam.

Tosca Lee is the author of the critically acclaimed Demon: A Memoir (2007), a ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Silver Award winner, American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year nominee, and Christy award finalist. Visit Tosca at her site: www.toscalee.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHavah-Story-Eve-Tosca-Lee%2Fdp%2F1600061249&tag=wwwdemonamemo-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

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My great-grandmother Sadie Scott’s Lesson

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Not long ago, I began the story of my greatgrandmother Sadie (Sarah) Scott Baker’s life.
(I tried to upload a vintage family photo but it was stubborn. I’ll try again another day.)

Anyway, alone, she raised her three sons and daughter but not without great effort and difficulty. I’m sure you can understand the struggles of a single mother around the turn of the twentieth century. Years after her children were raised, her errant husband (whom you recall was 16 years older than she) came home to her. No social security then and he was too old to work. And of course, she let him come home since they were still married and she had a kind heart.

One morning when he was suffering the aches of old age, he watched her get dressed and begin breakfast. As she did so, she was singing.

He said, “I wish I could get up singing. How do you do that?”

And her response: “You could. You just get up and start singing.”

I think that tells you a great deal of how my great-grandmother dealt with the challenges she met in her life.

I recall my own mother telling me this story. And more importantly living this story. There was always a lot of laughter in our home even in times of upheaval and sorrow.

My daughter came into my office a few months ago and told me she was having another migraine. (Unfortunately she inherited that from me.) And then she laughed. She said, “It’s good you taught me to laugh through the pain.”

So you see, Greatgrandma Sadie’s life is still influencing others for good.
A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. Psalm 17:22

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Pamela Tracy and Her Friend

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Today another Love Inspired author Pamela Tracy is going to share a story about a special friend and her story of strength. Pamela has a Love Inpsired romance out this month, Daddy for Keeps. Drop by www.craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com for more info about this title or go to Pamela’s website. Well–

here’s Pamela!

“I’ve sat in front of my computer many a time making up stories, writing letters, doing interviews, writing blogs with a theme… Ah, blogs with a theme, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing today: some kind of blog.

Only this one is special.

It’s not about me.

It’s not about my books.

Today, I’m writing about my friend Sandra Lagesse. Sandra is a white-haired lady who I first more than a decade ago. I met her because of carpooling. See, I’m blessed to live in an area that has not one but two Romance Writers of America groups. There’s one in Glendale, where I used to live, and there’s one in Tempe, which is close to where I live now. When I first met Sandra, there was a carpooling group that would travel from Glendale to Tempe.

One evening, it wound up just Sandra and me. I didn’t know much about Sandra back then. I learned fast!

At that time, I was a thirty-something who drove way too fast and talked was too much. I was an elementary school teacher who didn’t make enough to live on. It was while we were driving home from the meeting that our friendship was sealed. See, I was busy talking way too much, and she was listening. We got on the subject of politics. At the time, Rose Moffort was in office. The puppet Madam was also enjoying a lot of exposure. I mentioned that I thought the governor and the puppet looked alike.

After Sandra stopped laughing, she reached in her purse and pulled out some pictures. Yup, Sandra’s maiden name was Moffort. Yup, she was related to Rose.

After I took my foot out of my mouth, we became great friends, the kind of friends that last.

The fact that Sandy’s father was married to a governor is not what makes Sandy great. Sandy is what makes Sandy great. See, Sandy is a writer. She’ll tell you the irony is that. She’s very dyslexic. Because of her dyslexia, she struggled in school – only in reading. Here’s proof. My book that hit the shelves this month, Daddy for Keeps, has a banker hero. Guess where I got my information. Sandy. This dyslexic child grew up to be a banker. And, although she’s retired now, she’s on many a board (mostly for historic markers) and she acts as an advisor.

Another thing that makes Sandy a hero is the love she and her late husband shared. Most of her friends really don’t know her late husband’s name. See, he was known by all of us as Honey. That’s right. She called her husband ‘honey’ so much that pretty soon he became Honey. Honey was a retired fireman. He didn’t want to retire, but he had polio. When I met Sandy, he was pretty much homebound, but not quite. Sandy’s day was get him up, take him to the gym (See, he was a great man and tried not to let his sickness get the best of him), take him to the doctor, and maybe they went out to lunch. You get the idea… The last few years of his life, he was completely homebound. And so was Sandy.

Sandy never stopped calling him Honey.

Right now, Sandy is dating my father-in-law.

Earlier, we talked about Sandy becoming a banker. Well, Sandy is also a budding romance writer. She’s a lot like Honey. She’s not going to let something like dyslexia stop her. She’s taken no short cuts. She reads, she writes, she critiques… and Sandy a writing outlet that no one else but she could fill. Sandy writes a history column for a local paper. From her childhood – think Governor Rose Moffort, a father who was a lawman while Arizona was a young state, and from her Godmother a rancher who helped build a cabin from scratch – Sandy knows the history of Arizona. Marshall Tucker move over!

I am in awe of all Sandy knows and does.

And the best that she does is friendship.“

About Pamela Tracy:

Her website: www.pamelakayetracy.com

Pamela Tracy is a writer and teacher in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she lives with her husband and son. She was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and started writing fiction while earning a BA in Journalism at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

Her first novel, It Only Takes a Spark, was published in 1999. Since then she’s published fifteen more writings in suspense, romantic comedy, and Christian inspiration romance. Her current book Daddy for Keeps is on shelves now. Fugitive Family will be available in August. Then, it’s sequel hits the shelves in December – all from Steeple Hill Love Inspired.. Her 2007 release, Pursuit of Justice, was a RITA finalist and took second in the ACFW’s Book of the Year contest for published authors. Broken Lullaby, a 2008 release is a RT Reviewers’ Choice nominee.

Besides writing, teaching, and taking care of her family, Pam is often asked to speak at various writers’ organizations in the Phoenix area. She belongs to Romance Writers of America and the American Christian Fiction Writers. She is president of the local ACFW chapter, Christian Writers of the West.

Thanks a lot, Pamela!

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My friend Irene Brand–Her Heroine and Her Own Strength

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Today Irene Brand, one of my dear writing friends, is my guest. She has a new book and a life story to share with you.

Here’s Irene:

Kennedy Blaine, heroine of Love Find You in VALENTINE, Nebraska, is a strong woman. Life’s circumstances gave her no choice. An only child, at Kennedy twenty-six, loses both of her parents. She is alienated from her other relatives because of an age-old feud between her maternal and paternal families. Added to this, Kennedy inherits a multi-million dollar fortune.

While most might think that this inheritance would be a boon to a successful and happy future, for Kennedy that wasn’t the case. Her inheritance includes the Circle Cross, a family ranch in the Sandhills of Nebraska. In the process of settling her father’s estate, Kennedy travels to Nebraska. There she encounters situations that call into use the strength and determination she’s inherited from her forbears.

Although Kennedy didn’t suspect that she had an enemy in the world, suddenly she becomes the victim of harassment. Is it designed to scare her away from the Circle Cross or does it have another more dangerous purpose? And most distressful of all, for the first time in her life, Kennedy is tempted to give her heart away – to Derek Sterling, the manager of the Circle Cross. And Derek has no intention of marrying anyone. Only her strength sustains Kennedy when at last she finds something that money can’t buy.

Kennedy is one in a long list of my heroines, all of whom have displayed notable strength. I couldn’t write about a heroine who wasn’t strong, and I attribute this to the fact that I consider myself a strong woman. Perhaps there’s a difference in being strong and strong-willed, but in my life I’ve dared to do many things that took strength. I take no personal credit because, in my own right, I’m a very weak person. However, all of my life I’ve been sustained by the strong hand of God. In many endeavors, He’s given me the strength to take the first step and has walked with me every step of the way.

I grew up on a farm in rural West Virginia. My education started in a one-room school when I was four-years-old. Due to double-promotion, at the age of fifteen, I graduated from high school, the first of my family to do so. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. We lived sixteen miles from the nearest high school, and the closest bus route was almost three miles from our home. We didn’t have an automobile. During my four years, I walked each day to the bus route. During the winter months, I left home before daylight and didn’t get home until after dark. Still, I had a high attendance record. I didn’t graduate with high honors, but after my ninth-grade-year, I was on the Honor Roll all of the time.

Because of monetary issues, my age and a fifty-mile-distance from a college, higher education wasn’t an option. I found a job soon after I was sixteen, eventually married, and after being out of high school for several years, I started to college. This also took strength. We still lived fifty miles from a college or university, and we had only one car. I drove back and forth to college alone. But with sacrifices from both my husband and me, I graduated 4 ½ years later with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, (French and Social Studies), holding a 3.82 GPA. I started teaching and taught for 23 years at a local Junior High School. Going to school during the summer, I was awarded my Master’s Degree in History 4 years later with a 4.00 GPA.

During this time, I had never forgotten my childhood call to become a writer. After I earned my MA degree in 1970 I told myself, “You are now a writer.” I started writing, submitting manuscripts and attending writers’ conference, but my first books weren’t published until 1984. Only the strength provided by God kept my dream alive during those disappointing years.

From the time I became a Christian until now, I’ve always considered that God had priority on my life, and I’ve attempted to put His work first. I’m still active in our local Baptist church, where I became a member when I was eleven-years-old and was teaching a class of my peers by the time I was fifteen. I’ve taught in our church since that time. To list the things I’m doing/have done through the local fellowship of Believers would take the glory away from God and focus on me, so sufficient to say that I’m still actively serving in the church.

As for affinity with a strong biblical character, I’ve always considered myself a “Martha.” She was a “doer,” and so am I. She was strong enough to carry the burdens of her family, which I have done. However, there are characteristics of Martha that I don’t admire, and I often like to think that I’m a mixture of Martha and Priscilla. Although we don’t find much in the Bible about Priscilla helping to establish the early church, there is enough information to indicate that she was a strong and brave woman. This is exemplified in her many journeys throughout the Roman Empire with her husband, Aquila, as they supported the Apostle Paul.

Priscilla was a friend and encourager, which I try to be. In her book, Women of the Bible, Frances Vander Velde wrote, “Priscilla’s home was devout and peaceful, a place to which Christians gladly came and where they shared great spiritual experiences. Priscilla was no half-way or part time Christian. She was consistently energetic and loyal in the work of the Lord all her life long.”

God leading, I pray those words will someday be my epitaph.


Many thanks, Irene! To find out more about Irene’s latest book, LOVE FINDS YOU IN VALENTINE, NEBRASKA, drop by her website http://www.IreneBrand.com and view her book trailer. You can also buy the book from her site. Thanks again, Irene, for telling us so candidly of how you faced life’s challenges and achieved your dreams with God’s help.

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My great-grandmother Sadie Scott

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Today, I’m going to tell you one of the stories about my mother’s grandmother. At 16, she married a Great Lakes captain, Matthew Baker. He was twice her age and something of a playboy. Her parents disowned her for disgracing the family. (Not too much of that now-days, but a lot before “reality and tell-all talk shows.)

She bore him 4 children: 3 sons and a daughter. He piloted primarily the pleasure crafts of the rich on Lake Michigan and he kept moving his family from the WI, IL shore to the western MI shore over and over.

Finally, when my grandfather was around 4th grade, Matthew decided once again that he would move his family from Kenosha WI to Michigan again. Sadie said, “No.” But invited him to stop by whenever he was in town. (Not much divorce in those days, but people did separate.) It was in late summer that this took place. This was before child support and welfare of any kind so she and her children were on their own to prepare for the coming winter.

She began sewing for the ladies of the town and her boys scrounged around and picked berries and nuts. The walnuts they picked proved to be the staple of their diet through that first long winter. And my grandfather never went back to school. He went to work to help support the family.

This all happened over 100 years ago and it’s painful to recall how hard life could be. And still, this harshness didn’t blunt Sadie’s sense of humor or zest for life. More about that another time!

Do you have any memorable stories about women in your family? If you’d like to share them, email me on my website http://www.LynCote.net Click the Meet Lyn page for contact info.
I’d love to tell your family’s stories!

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Margaret Daley and her Mom

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Today, Margaret Daley, a multi-published inspirational author, shares the story of her very special mom:

Margaret Daley:

Catherine David

As I thought about writing this blog and talking about a woman who was brave, I immediately thought about my mother. In fact, no one else came to mind except her. She’s been dead for over eight years now and I miss her every day. But I’m comforted by the knowledge that she touched so many people’s lives.

After my father died when I was twelve, she moved us to Mississippi so she could be nearer her family. There were three of us and she always was there for my two brothers and me. She’d taught nursing in Kentucky where we had lived. When we arrived in Biloxi, she went to work as a nurse. She filled several different positions in various hospitals over the years and even taught nursing at the junior college on the coast.

One year she was a school nurse for the Biloxi School District. That was the year Camille, a hurricane with winds over two hundred miles an hour, struck the coast and destroyed a lot of my hometown. She spent hours helping people get back on their feet as a nurse and friend. When something had to be done, my mother was at the front of the line volunteering to do it.

When she would talk about one of her patients dying, you would have thought it was her best friend. That was the way she was. She felt deeply another’s pain and was there to help the person get better. She was a caregiver and a deeply religious woman whose faith in the Lord never wavered through loss, illness and destruction (more than Hurricane Camille wrecked havoc on the coast where she lived).

When my mother retired from being Director of Nursing at Biloxi Regional Medical Center, the Board of Directors said:

Catherine David has been an inspiration to the nursing profession. She was a moving force and leader in the establishment of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Coastwide. She had shown genuine concern for the welfare of the patients and has demonstrated support and concern for physicians, employees and people of the community.

That was my mother, a caring, loving, concerned Christian. I miss you every day, Mom.

Blessings,

Margaret Daley

What Sarah Saw, Love Inspired Suspense, January 2009

http://www.margaretdaley.com

http://margaretdaley.blogspot.com

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Oops! I forgot to blog on Thursday!

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What can I say? I had a busy day–did lunch with a friend and when we got to the restaurant, they had no power. And it was 10 below so off to another restaurant. Then I had to go to the library–with very overdue books–and then to the post office. And in the evening, I spoke to my local church’s “Bookies” club.

So writing about strong women slipped my mind–though I think I was doing a pretty good impression of one.

I gave myself a full length down coat with hood for Christmas. And I’m so glad I did.

Pretty soon I’m going to be sending out a notice to readers who belong to my Lyn_Cote_to_Readers egroup.

May is going to be my MEGA month on this blog.

I have lined up several of my friends and fine writers of Love Inspired romances to guest.

But since May is Mother’s Day month, I will be asking women to send me their stories of strong women in their family. And if they want me to proofread and spruce them up for posting, I’ll be happy to do that.

Also I will be offering to send a Mother’s Day postcard to someone you love if you let me know by a deadline (which I will set up).

And finally, I plan on having a SUPER-DUPER bunch of goodies and books to giveaway in a drawing of those who post a story or comment in May.

So I might have forgotten to post on Thursday, but I have been busy!

And wasn’t it wonderful that the plane landed safely in the Hudson River?

Kudos to the brave and excellent captain!

I’ll try to remember to blog next Tuesday!
Lyn

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I’m a Cheese-Head by default

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As you know from the pine needles and cone at the top of my blog, I live in the far north woods of Wisconsin. The Green Bay Packers are the state’s favorite team. And we are called cheese-heads.

I am not a fan of any sport really, not anti, just not IN to sports. But I am IN TO FEEDING THE HUNGRY. This came from a friend who belongs to my state romance writers chapter.

Stacey Joy Netzel is my strong woman for the day. Compassion to others comes from strength and is an expression of strength!

Here’s what Stacey said:

“If any of you not familiar with the Campbell’s Chunky Click For Cans campaign, here’s the deal. Go to

http://www.clickforcans.com/

and click for the Green Bay Packers every day. And you will help some WI food pantry’s get up to 18,000 cans of Campbell’s Soup. And you can click or VOTE every day, YAY!!

The Packer’s made this “soup” playoff thanks to the fans, but going by the weekly totals, we’ll have a real challenge in the Superbowl against the Buffalo Bills.

So, let us all spread the word and click every day to win this one!

Since Campbell’s started this Click For Cans, Green Bay has won every year (4 or 5 years, I think.)”

Thanks for letting me know, Stacey!

So if you’d like to help the hungry in Wisconsin, please drop by and vote. It costs nothing and they don’t ask for any identification, etc to vote. So please help the hungry.
Lyn

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