The Christmas Menagerie

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The last time I posted, I was telling about my mom and how animals were drawn to her.
But this is the best story yet!

When I was in college, I came home for Christmas break. And I walked into a “once in a lifetime holiday.”

My mother had taken in a stray dog and had advertised in the newspaper to find its owners. She had also taken in a litter of 5 kittens that someone had said they were going to drown. She put an ad in the paper to find homes for them too. And she had taken in a cat which was in the garage because its owner (who had also said he was going to kill the kittens) said it was feral, savage.

My little sister had a pair of pet gerbils. So that means in my parent’s small two-bedroom house, we had a stray dog, 5 kittens, 2 gerbils and a “feral” cat. The phone kept ringing with people who wanted to see if the dog was theirs. Also people called asking for the kittens for Christmas gifts for their children. And I got the job of feeding the feral cat which I thought was really not that wild.

That should have been enough, right? No, the coup de grace came when my stepdad went out in the backyard and found a stray parakeet. Yes, that’s right. A stray parakeet. He brought it in and my mom sent me down into the basement for the bird cage she always kept for such visitors.

As I watched her place the very friendly and appreciative parakeet in the cage, I said, “Mom, only you would get a stray parakeet for Christmas. On the stray animal grapevine, your house must be marked as an ‘easy touch.'”

The owners came for the dog. All the kittens went to good homes. The “wild” cat was brought into the house where he lived another friendly and peaceful 19 years–however, he did finally “get” the parakeet by the time I came home for summer.

Strength comes out in many ways. And one way is the ability to show active compassion. Animals were drawn to my mother because they sensed that she only wanted the best for them. I’m happy to report that she was as kind to people in need as she was to animals in need.

Do you have any family stories of pets and how they have been loved?

I have more, but that’s enough for today.

Hope you’re having a safe and healthy new year.
Lyn

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Gayle Roper and when our dreams die

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Today, I’m pleased to feature a longtime writing friend, Gayle Roper. Gayle is going to tell us first about the heroine she is writing about now. And then I’m going to let you know about her current release, FATAL DEDUCTIONS.


Here’s Gayle Roper:

“Dinah, my heroine in the as yet unpublished book Lost and Found, is a young woman who has waited her whole adult life for the chance to meet the right man and have a family. She has a full life in the mean time, but she reaches thirty single, only to suffer a total hysterectomy.

She’s devastated. God has taken her dream of being a mother from her. She has what she calls her Hannah moments, times of deep despair like Hannah experienced in I Samuel 1.

Hannah, deeply mourning her childless state, goes to the temple and weeps before the Lord. “I am a woman deeply troubled,” she tells Eli the priest. “I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

God honors Hannah’s heart cry, and she gives birth to Samuel, the great priest of God.

But what if God doesn’t answer your prayer? What if there is no Samuel for you? What if, like Dinah—and like me—there will never be children of your body? What if that dream is dead, beyond resurrection?

There are many other dreams that we hold dear, that we cherish and talk to God about, good things, fine things, things that would honor Him, things that would allow us to serve Him, things that never happen in spite of our pleadings and our tears. A husband’s salvation. Higher education. A specific career. Financial freedom. A child’s restoration.

As I told a young friend who yearned for children but was unable to have any, “You can either stay mad at God the rest of your life because He ‘stole’ your dream, or you can agree with Him that He has the right to call the shots and look for other ways to have a rich life.”

Question: which takes more faith?

-To be a Hannah and have the joy of God granting your dream?

-To be a Dinah and learn to trust Him in spite of lost dreams?

To be Dinah requires looking beyond one’s dreams to alternatives. In the case of my husband and me, our alternative to my surgical sterility was adoption. Our two boys are now grown men with families of their own. Looking back, we see the hand of God in the death of our dream. Where would our boys have been without growing up in a Christian home? Who might they have married? What might they have done without the guidance of the Lord?

When your dream dies, trust God through the pain. Trust God to bring good out of bad. Trust God to give you an alternative that is rich in its own way, richer really because He gave it.”


Thanks, Gayle. Accepting that God has different plans than our own is one of the hardest challenge for a Christian. I will look forward to inviting you back to tell us about Dinah in Lost and Found and which fortunate publisher she ends up with. GRIN.

Now about Gayle’s latest release with Multnomah, a trade paperback Fatal Deductions.

Blurb:
Libby Keating finds herself temporarily sharing a beautiful but tiny historic home in Philadelphia with her estranged identical twin. Less than 24 hours after her arrival, Libby trips over a dead body on the front stoop. As the murder mystery unfolds—with the aid of crossword puzzles the reader is encouraged to do—so does Libby’s back story, which includes a series of traumatic events that ruined her adolescence. Good Christian friends including her new neighbor, the handsome Drew Canfield, support her as she finds a way to love her enemies while standing up to them.

Rave Reviews:

“Roper’s dialogue and character development are spot-on, which is no small feat, considering that Libby’s world is peopled with everyone from elderly patricians to two-bit gangsters…a pleasure from start to finish.” – Publishers Weekly

Drop by www.GayleRoper.com and click on Standalone Novels. You can purchase this suspense novel right there.

Gayle, thanks again for posting!
Lyn

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I Remember Mama

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Do you recognize the title of this blog post?

If you do, you’re over 30 or an old movie or early TV buff. I Remember Mama was a book first, then a movie, then a charming TV series.

It was the story of a Swedish family that immigrated to San Francisco early in the 20th century. If you haven’t seen this move, rent it. It is all about how Mama–kind, good and wise–keeps her family together and loved.

I lost my mother over a year ago. Unfortunately the end of her life was nothing like the days I most treasure, the days when she was a young and loving mother. Dementia and its unpleasant side effects separated us at the end.

But today I want to remember Mama, the way I loved her.

My mother loved animals. Our house was always filled with them–some ours; some of the neighbors. It wasn’t unusual to come home from school and find the house filled with all the pets on the block. We had turtles, ducks, fish, cats, dogs, a baby robin. (The robin’s another story for another day.)

One special memory is the cat from down the street who obviously didn’t trust her kittens with her owner. She had her kittens in her own home. But after a few hours after delivery, she carried each kitten one by one up the hill to our house. My mother “got” what the mama-cat wanted and set up a box with an old blanket in it. The cat nestled all three of her mewing kittens to that box and moved in. Once or twice a day, she would go down to her house and visit her owners but then she would come back to our house.

Our neighbor was not amused. But what could she do? When the kittens were old enough to give away, my mom found homes for them. And the mama-cat moved back to her owners.

One Christmas memory I have is of my first cat, a very large, a very loving tom who thought that we had put the Christmas tree up just for him. He climbed it every night!

And this was in the days of glass ornaments. Every night for three nights we woke up to CRASH!!!! We had to pick up the tree, sweep up the shattered glass ornaments and redecorate.

Now most moms would have banished the cat until the tree came down New Year’s Eve.

Not my mom.

She put a cup hook in the all and tied a narrow rope to the tree. Then the cat could climb the tree and not knock it over. Now most moms would not have wanted a cup hook in her living room wall. But to my mom, the cat was more important than the wall.

Now I’m going to stop rambling for today. But drop by Thursday, New Year’s Day and read about my mom’s most unbelievable animal Christmas.

Blessings,
Lyn

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Auld Lang Syne

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The year 2008 is nearly spent. It has been a trying year for me. I decided not to listen to my own good sense and suffered 2 nasty falls and one bout with a crazed cat which resulted in infected hands (hard to type with!). I hope to listen to my own good common sense this year. That may be my only resolution. GRIN

I think most of you have realized that once we turn 21 years of age, every year goes by faster. I used to think that January was a long month. Now it’s gone so quickly, I barely have time to complain.

Anyway, at the end of the year, I do look back and try to assess what I have accomplished in each year which will last. As Christians, we have a different view of this than those who don’t see eternity as we do.

I am of course privileged to be a writer so I hope that a few of my words may have be a continuing blessing to some. Other than that I have tried to be a good friend, a good mother, a good wife. Our son is planning to marry this coming year and I hope I have begun my job as good mother in law, at least, in training.

Life demands so much of us all. That’s what eats up the hours and days–busyness. I have no big words of wisdom that you haven’t heard before. I only hope that this year I will be a blessing not a curse to those around me.

Have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve.
Lyn

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The Strong Woman in Christ’s Life

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Today it’s my turn to post. I hope you’ve read with interest the blogs of my friends over the past week as I did. And of course, we are all immersed in the Christmas season. A truly blessed time of the year.

And in the midst of all this, the birthdays of both my children occur. And both of them were over 9 lbs. at birth. Fortunately, I’m not a petite little woman. And evidently I have a very roomy womb. I was blessed with easy deliveries.

Anyway, both of the Decembers that I was expecting, the phrase “Mary was great with child” took on new, VIVID meaning to me. Believe me, a 9+lb baby qualifies as “great with child.”

On a serious note, what always strikes me is Mary’s wonderful expression of humility. When Gabriel gives her the news of God’s plan for her life, her response is “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

How lovely, how beautiful was her acceptance of God’s plan for her life. What a weight to carry, to be the mother of the Messiah.

In my own life, I’ve found that responding to any situation with humility is a win-win for me. Pride always brings embarassment and trouble. In this hectic season, it’s wise to remember Mary’s humble attitude. Often families who have hurting members come together and the prickly emotions of past hurt and jealousy can spark disagreements.

So remember, Mary’s example of humility and call on the help of the Holy Spirit to keep this sacred holiday filled with love and joy. It’s takes two to make a fight and a soft word turneth away wrath.

Don’t let the past destroy your present joy in celebrating Christ’s birth.

Make your Christmas Merry!

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Cheryl St John and Anne Bradstreet

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Today, one of my writer friends, Cheryl St John, has chosen to write about the first American woman writer. Cheryl is a multi-published, award-winning author who is one of the founders of www.PetticoatsandPistols.com, a very lively, authoritative and fun site devoted to the American West in its glory days. If you haven’t visited, please drop by. Now for Cheryl’s post.

“My choice of a strong woman in our history–Anne Bradstreet.

Though Anne Bradstreet is known as the first woman to have had a book published in the United States, it’s most likely there were others before her, but none recognized as written by women.

English -born Anne was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, steward to the earl of Lincoln, and she grew up in the cultured surroundings of Tattershall Castle. Though theirs was a strictly religious household, her father, a Nonconformist, educated her himself, as well as having her tutored in history, several languages and literature–highly unusual for a female. More fortunate than other girls, Anne had access to the castle library. Anne married when she was sixteen. Yikes! We can hardly conceive of it, but it was common practice. Simon Bradstreet’s father had been a Puritan minister, and Simon remained in the care of the Dudleys after his father’s death.

Two years later in 1630, the entire family made the arduous journey to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. With a husband and father of status in the new colonies, Anne held a visible position of status. What with climate, lack of food and primitive conditions, life was far more difficult than in jolly old England. A second bout of smallpox left Anne with paralyzed joints, though she raised eight children and ran a household. Simon often traveled to other colonies, leaving her to read, educate her children, and write poetry.

Anne’s brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, secretly copied her work and took it to England where he had “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts” published. It was a tribute to her childhood and what she’d left behind. Her mature work was never published until after her death.

Cultural bias toward women was common in her time–a woman’s place was in the home. Period. Women were intellectual inferiors. Critics thought Anne stole her ideas from men, and her writing was criticized because of her gender. The public had a harsh reaction to her role as a female writer. When the book was released, the idea that she was a virtuous women had to be stressed. Her brother-in-law even wrote: “By a Gentle Women in Those Parts” on the title page to assure readers that Anne didn’t neglect her duties as a Puritan woman in order to write. He saw the need to clarify that she found time for her poetry by sacrificing sleep and using what little leisure time she had. I’m probably not the only wife/mother/author who can identify with that! We can see the anger that Bradstreet felt toward criticism in the following lines:

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits.
If what I do prove well, it won’t advance;
They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.

There were other women writers during the early years in the colonies, those who wrote poems and essays that have been preserved as part of American culture, but Anne is known as the first American female poet. It’s likely that other women’s work was published anonymously or with a male pseudonym. It’s estimated that one third of all the American novels written up to 1820 were by women authors.

It’s interesting to realize that Anne wrote in a time and a culture when a woman seeking knowledge was considered against God’s will. Her writing reveals her faith, her devotion to God, and to her husband and family, but it also shows that she was a freethinker and probably one of the first feminists. Recurring themes in her poems were love for her husband and pleas with God to watch over her children and husband. Anne developed tuberculosis and died at the age of sixty.

In looking for paintings or drawings of Anne, these two recurred. One is actually labeled as a painting of Anne Bradstreet, the other, which is often used with her biography is a Rembrandt, titled, “A Woman With A Pink.” I couldn’t find information to substantiate that this was indeed a portrait of Anne Bradstreet, though both she and the famous painter were alive during this time period. It’s certainly possible. If anyone knows, I’d love to hear.

We may have come a long way, baby, but women’s writing still gets less respect than that of our male counterparts. We are the relationship storytellers who keep love and romance alive, and it’s what makes the world go ‘round. Though our genre holds the biggest piece of the publishing pie, many still turn up their nose at fiction written by women for women. Only a few years ago, women suspense writers wrote under male pseudonyms to be published. At least we’re reviewed on the merit of our work, and not because we’re women!

Hats off to Anne Bradstreet, a forward thinking woman who paved the way for women writers! If Anne were here today, what would you like to ask her?

Cheryl St.John

Romancing the West: http://petticoatsandpistols.com/

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Her Captain’s Heart

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I don’t know if any of you have noticed but Christmas is ALMOST HERE!

I always try to keep my focus on the true meaning of Christmas, God’s gift of His Son to this dark world.

But I love all the holiday fun too.

I want to let you know about another way you can have some holiday fun.

Another Love Inspired author Margaret Daley has come up with her version of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Tomorrow drop by www.craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com
and join in the fun and a chance to win $50 for taking part.

I’d also like to invite all of you to the www.eharlequin.com Holiday Open House on this Thursday the 11th. Here is the link to join in the fun all day on Thursday.

http://community.eharlequin.com/forums/cafe-social/2008-eharlequincom-open–house–author-list

If you want to participate in a Live Chat: 7pm-10pm

Drop by the eHarlequin.com Community Chat Room: http://chat.eharlequin.com/

I plan to drop into the chat right at the beginning for about a half hour. There will be many book giveaways all day and during chats.

BTW, two copies of my first Love Inspired Historical will be given away during the chat. It’s released today.

Most of you know that I’ve been a long time Love Inspired author and I am thrilled that LI now has a historical line.

My book is titled Her Captain’s Heart and is the first in my Gabriel Sisters series which will be released one each December starting this year and finishing in 2010.

These three sisters, Verity, Felicity, and Mercy, live in the turbulent period after the Civil War and do their best to try to bind up the wounds of the injured nation both North and South. If you have a heart for children, you will love the first, Verity’s story.

Now for the strong women to be featured today. This is Verity’s day and if you read her story, you’ll know she qualifies as a Strong Woman.

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Maureen Lang and Bess

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Today I have the pleasure of hosting Maureen Lang, a great Tyndale author who lives in my home county in Illinois, Lake County which on the east borders Lake Michigan. I had the opportunity to endorse Maureen’s outstanding story, Oak Leaves.
A memorable and compelling story.

Please welcome Maureen Lang as she tells her story of a Strong Woman!

When Lyn presented the idea to post an article about a strong woman, I thought it would be so easy to introduce readers to one of the heroines from my books. After all, they’re supposed to be strong. If they don’t start out that way, hopefully by the end of the story they’ve grown into someone who’s faced and conquered more than they ever thought they could endure.

But instead I’d like to tell you about my grandmother—a real person rather than one of the make-believe people performing scenes in my head. Do you know what makes a person strong? As the Bible says, it’s testing by fire.

My grandmother came from good American stock. When I was young she told me her family had left Ireland so many years ago one ancestor or another had fought in the Revolutionary War. She also said one of her forebears had been a mail-order bride from Scotland, another story I’d like to explore some day.

My grandmother Elizabeth (Bess as she was called) was born in 1894. The first fire Bess faced was at the young age of seven. Her mother became sick with TB, and one day Bess’s father, a country pastor, dressed in his preaching suit even though it wasn’t Sunday. He told Bess to comb her hair and put on her best dress, too, so she could say good-by properly to her mother. After doing that (combing her hair the best her seven-year old hands could do), her father pressed two silver dollars into her little palm and then took Bess to her mother. She was already gone on to Heaven. It was Bess who put the coins on her eyes, to hold down the eyelids she was told.

Bess’s sixteen year old sister helped to care for her until a few months later when she, too, became ill with TB and died, leaving Bess with her father and brother. Not long after that, two women from her father’s church came for a grim visit: they told him it wasn’t proper for a young girl to be raised in a household of only men, and they’d found a school that would take in girls. And so at seven years old Bess was sent away, to be raised by Episcopalian nuns. She was to see her father and brother only on Sundays for family day.

Bess was well educated there and grew up to marry. As a young woman she lived through the Great War and the Great Depression, bore two boys and a girl. When her daughter was six years old she woke up to another day only to become ill in a matter of hours. My frantic grandmother took her little girl to the local hospital and after waiting and waiting for help, the doctor finally saw them. But Bess was told there was nothing they could do. Her daughter died soon after the doctors examined her, a victim of what she was told to be 7-hour pneumonia. Bess continued to hold her daughter, and the staff was so busy they left her there for many hours, until she cried herself to sleep. As the family story goes, that’s when my grandmother’s dark brown hair turned the pure white she had for the rest of her life.

Bess gave birth to a third son not long after that, but when a woman brought a paternity suit against Bess’s husband demanding he support her and his child, Bess divorced him despite social condemnation. She raised three rambunctious boys on her own, all of whom became hardworking and honest, responsible members of society. Each of them entered the armed forces and she watched them march off to fight in the Second World War. By then Bess had a choice of two men who wanted to marry her, and she chose a First World War veteran who worked as a fine tool blacksmith. But before they could be married he was recruited by Uncle Sam to go to the Panama Canal Zone to work on everything from medical to ship equipment aboard warships passing through the Canal. He reported for duty immediately and Bess soon followed—after a series of nasty shots and medical precautions against malaria. They were married by an American judge in Panama City. For four years they lived there, while one of her sons, my father, was taken Prisoner of War by the Japanese in the Philippines. Bess was given only scant knowledge of what he went through after that initial death march for the three and a half years of his captivity until the end of the war.

Bess and her husband made it back to the Midwest just in time to welcome him home after the camp he’d been held at in Mukden, Manchuria was liberated.

By the time I came along my grandmother was quite settled, still happily married to her retired blacksmith, and living near her three sons. Thinking back on my childhood I have few regrets, but one of them was that I never sat still long enough to listen to more of her stories. She died at age 89, having lived a full and interesting life, tested by the fires that made her strong.

Maureen

Maureen Lang is the author of several novels, including Pieces of Silver (a Christy Finalist) and The Oak Leaves (a Holt Award of Merit recipient). Her books are both historical and contemporary and always include an element of romance with the promise of a happy ending. Her newest book is titled My Sister Dilly, the story of two sisters who survive mistakes and guilt and find redemption after one sister makes a terrible mistake that sends her to prison. Readers can see a trailer about the book at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5impgRmCNCk

Maureen Lang www.maureenlang.com
http://maureenlang.blogspot.com/
Latest release: My Sister Dilly, Tyndale
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