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After a harrowing drive that included roads closed ahead of us and a ground blizzard that left us with visibility of no more than ten to fifteen feet, we are back in Arizona. We are happy to be safe and where it is a little warmer and a little calmer.
We took our first big desert 4-wheeler ride yesterday on a trail we’d done last year. This time Karl didn’t roll his ride within the first 50 feet of the trail’s start, so that in itself was a win. We explored in and around several mines (the fact that they are there, open and accessible, and with no ‘Keep out! Danger!’ signs makes me shake my head – but of course we KNOW there is the possibility of danger in an abandoned mine, but does that keep us from poking our noses in? Nope.)
We crawled over rocks and stood in awe at the vistas. Amazing. God’s might is evident in volcanoes and thunderstorms, in unrelenting tides and snow squalls. It would be easy in this inhospitable and foreboding place where every plant and each rock has sharp edges and thorns to think God is absent. But when I look closely His character – His attention to detail and care for the large and the minuscule – are evident to me in the desert. Nothing here is loveable. Nothing here is, on the surface, beautiful, yet each cactus and scruffy tree, each outcropping of jagged rock has evidence of God’s creativity and His care.
This comforts me. I know that inside me there is a lot of wasteland. There are many areas in me filled with barbs and briars that make me a forbidding trek for my indwelling Savior. But just like in the desert where it is clear God is sovereign and where Jesus Himself spent most of His time, I know that God sees the beauty and worth in me. He hasn’t walked away, He is willing to walk within.
I walked into the kitchen the other day and laughed aloud. The dish drainer caught my eye, tickling me with how perfectly the elements drying on it epitomizes life with Karl. I am just as apt to spy a joint compound pan and its companion knives drying on the kitchen counter as I am a spatula, a rolling pin, or a spring-form pan. On this day, he spent the morning taping and then putting the first coat of ‘mud’ on the new wall he is building for my sewing room/laundry room in the basement. While he was waiting for the joint compound to dry, he came upstairs and made a Charlotte Royal. It’s a dessert he’d seen on The Great British Baking Show and decided to try. It turned out absolutely scrumptious, and by the way, the basement wall (now finished and painted) looks marvy, too.
Charlotte Royal
I suppose I could be annoyed at the oddities that show up in our dish drainer, but that’s just not how we roll. You know already that I love my husband dearly. I so admire his ability to persevere when things are tough, and his willingness to use all the facets of creativity that God has gifted him with. Every morning he gets up and faces his day (and me, which isn’t always an easy task!) with faith and determination to use the day God’s given him the best he can.
I love that the holiday season begins with Thanksgiving. It sets the mood for us, to begin with a grateful heart. On Thanksgiving morning, I followed my normal routine and started the day by reading several news feeds to get the headlines. What I saw was interesting, and I ended up looking at lots of newsfeeds – many of which I rarely read. Here’s what I found: Local news feeds (KGAB, Channel 5, Capitol City News) only used the word thanksgiving in reference to the weekend’s weather or not at all (Cheyenne Post). NBC didn’t have the word at all and CBS News only had the word in two headlines: one about President Biden’s weekend plans and one outing the few stores that were closed for the day. On CNN I had to scroll down three complete page lengths before the word Thanksgiving appeared in a headline, and that was on an article entitled “Celebrate this Thanksgiving with some food porn”. The BBC had a riveting article about how we should ignore the “very narrow” story of the pilgrims and thank evolution and the dinosaurs for our turkey dinners.
Huh. I have pondered these headlines (or the lack thereof) for the past few days, and I think maybe there are two facets to the media’s decision to turn a blind eye to the point of the holiday: Thankfulness.
First, there’s the maligning or ignoring of the beginnings of the holiday itself. When the pilgrims came to America’s east coast in November of 1620, they were seeking a new life with the freedom to worship as they chose. Can you even imagine the courage it took for the mothers who boarded to step onto that creaky little wooden boat, holding their children’s innocent and trusting hands, with the whole of the Atlantic Ocean stretching in front of them and no home awaiting them? Yikes. They were fortified by the strength of their convictions, and that’s a depth of courage that few of us today can even begin to comprehend. Yet, our media has vilified and maligned them and ignored them. You see, perhaps we are no longer supposed to venerate courage or principles. Perhaps we are supposed to stay meek and unwilling to stand up for our beliefs. Perhaps it now is fashionable to remain docile and simply absorb with what we are being fed instead acting on our convictions. Certainly, if you read the mainstream media’s offerings, bravery isn’t in style unless it is to smash and grab at Louis Vuitton (and really, since no one stops them or prosecutes, does that take courage?)
The second idea I had regarding the intended message of the media last Thursday is this: we should never, ever be thankful. When we say we are grateful, there’s the understanding that there is Someone who deserves our gratitude. By celebrating Thanksgiving, we are acknowledging that our blessings and gifts come from somewhere or Someone beyond ourselves. By shutting off this commitment to having a grateful heart, we shut off our acknowledgement that God is here and active and deserves our praise. It also, subtly, encourages us to believe that what we have is what we are intrinsically entitled to and therefore no thanks are necessary. Taking that attitude to the next step, we see how when we worship at the altar of entitlement, then anyone possessing anything we don’t have becomes the recipient of our resentment and bitterness. (Think Louis Vuitton and those who can actually afford his wares.)
Well, today, I reject both of these lines of thinking. I admire the pilgrims for their strength and their faith and I enter this holiday season happily knowing that I don’t deserve even one of the many blessings I have, and I offer my humble and deep gratitude to my God and Savior.
I love writing. I love sitting at the computer trying to find the exact words to make the movie I see in my head come alive on a page. Sometimes it is tedious, sometimes frustrating, but the end result, when someone reads my stories and tells me they enjoyed them, all the work and worry are absolutely worth it. Beside the moment when I type the last page of a novel, one of the most satisfying things about finishing a book is receiving a box of the final product. Yay! My first shipment of Questioning Grace arrived just a few minutes ago. Whoo hoo!!
What that means for you is that now I have copies to sign and sell. (Just in time for Christmas!) As always, all five of my books are available on Amazon in print or digital, but if you want one signed, just call, email, or message me. Questioning Grace is $16, the others are $15. If you live close by, I’d love to deliver you one in person, if you are far away, it will cost you an extra $3 for mailing. Just let me know! Oh, and by the way, I have about 40 pages in the next on already written!
With WW1, the art of war changed drastically. The US and its allies began the war with divisions of cavalry, and commanders quickly realized that trying to fight against machine guns, strafing airplanes, and bomb-dropping dirigibles from horseback would probably never again be effective. The way soldiers suffered changed as well. Medicine had progressed to enable doctors to save the lives of soldiers who in past wars would have certainly died on the battlefield, and the kinds of injuries incurred also changed. As a result of rapid-fire machine guns, trench warfare, and chemical weapons, thousands of soldiers had facial and head injuries like had never been seen before.
Because even in the midst of horror there is goodness and grace, doctors began to find ways to treat these soldiers. Horrendous suffering and grotesque, maimed faces helped birth the field of plastic surgery and facial reconstruction. Doctors, led by pioneer Harold Gillies in England, did what they could to restore the faces of soldiers that had been literally evaporated by modern weapons. But there was only so much they could do.
That’s when the artists took over. Both in England and France, studios were opened to offer relief to soldiers when the doctors had done all they could. These artists began creating masks made of extremely thin copper or silver that artfully covered the parts of a man’s face that war had taken away and gave the illusion of the man’s prior visage. Both artists, Anna Coleman Ladd, an American working in Paris, and Francis Derwent Wood, an English sculptor working at a place called the Tin Noses Shop, created masks to help these disfigured and demoralized men regain some hope of life after war.
Results of War and Grace – this is the same man.
My newest novel, Questioning Grace, takes place during World War 1 and is set both in Wyoming and in hospitals in England and France. In its pages, you can meet both fictional and historical figures who are confronted by the tragedy and challenges that came with dealing with facial wounds and meeting that horror with determination and innovation. Questioning Grace is available on Amazon along with my other four novels.
World War 1 is looming. There is war in Europe and increasing tensions at home as Emmaline Monroe faces her own fears, her father’s domineering expectations, and separation from her brother, Thad. Against unending challenges, she fights first to complete her education, then to find meaning and purpose for herself as a surgical nurse in war-torn England. Through all her trials, echoes of her mother’s wisdom remind Emmaline to ask the right questions and not to spend her efforts questioning grace.
donna coulson is the author of five novels and the recipient of the Wyoming Historical Society’s 2017 Book of the Year award. Questioning Grace brings an intricate melding of fiction and well-researched insights into lesser-known, historical tragedies and triumphant courage from World War 1.
I really love the story of when Jesus heals the man with leprosy (Matthew 8:1-11, Mark 1:40-45, and Luke 5: 12-16). The story is short, but so very rich with things to think about. The first thing is the man himself. He approaches Jesus humbly and immediately goes to his knees in front of Jesus. Then, he says, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” How cool is his faith!? He doesn’t question Jesus’ ability. He doesn’t justify it – I’m a nice man, I have a family, I… — he simply gets on his knees and asks if Jesus is willing.
Jesus’ reaction to the request is so beautiful. He answers, “I am willing.” Then he reaches out and TOUCHES the man and says, “Be clean!” The result is instantaneous. Total and complete healing.
I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve approached Jesus in prayer with my own agenda, certain that my solution to a problem is the right one. Unlike the leper, I have a habit of standing tall and informing God what’s best, then I add to my prayers justifications about why it should be done my way and make the whole thing about me.
Here’s what the leper knew that I struggle with: it isn’t about me. It’s about faith that the choices God makes for me, and all of us, are the choices that best further HIS purposes. It’s about trusting His grace and trusting His will and trusting His choices over any weak, narrow-minded agenda I have. It’s about approaching God in prayer in the same way Jesus did in Matthew 17. Jesus told God He didn’t really want to face what He was facing but ended with submission and obedience, “May Your will be done.”
Life isn’t for sissies and often it’s hard. God has our back. The Creator of the universe loves us. Oh, that we become like the leper and put all our trust in Him.
Though we got our first snow and cold temps this past week, I am so grateful for the amazing, warm fall we’ve just been treated to. July through mid-September were a bit (huh, understatement!) of a trial at our house as both of us dealt with some health challenges, and the nice, sunny days did a great deal to help us trudge through. As a kind of therapy to get myself through, I embarked on a garden project so that I could do something creative while soaking sunshine and blue sky into my body and my soul.
I got the idea from a picture I saw on Pinterest. From there, I talked to our dear friend Cliff and wheedled him out of about 150 old red bricks. Next came three arduous days of sweat and hard work. I needed to remove about three inches of the earth’s crust from the front of my garden shed. Crust being the operative word. Hard, packed crust. Insisting on keeping the project to myself, I didn’t let Karl help, so the going was slow. Eventually I had the shell removed and everything level and perfect. Then came the fun part, creating a mosaic with bricks to decorate the entrance area to the garden shed. I never pictured it as solid brick (which is good because we didn’t have enough!), so after the bricks were set, Karl and I went to a garden center and bought some pretty pea gravel to fill in around the bricks. We added some landscaping timber to create the outside edge (I did need help with that, thanks, Love!).
I’m so pleased with the result, and interestingly, I realize that the project itself was a perfect allegory of our hard times.
When life deals us difficulties, it’s so easy to only see the hard and ugly crust of the situation. We have to keep the vision of what is to come and choose to keep going and choose to endure. We have to pay attention to the small victories and search for reasons to smile and be grateful. Putting one foot in front of the other sometimes is the best we can do (or one tiny shovel-full at a time!). It is only when the worst is behind us, when the pain has subsided, that we can look back and see the beautiful mosaic that God created as a result of our journey.
Last year we had snow on September 8th. I wasn’t happy. This year it’s the first week of October and we are still enjoying 70 and 80 degree days. I am definitely happy. One of rich blessings that has come with this extended, unexpected, and highly appreciated summer season is that my garden is still growing and looking (pretty) good. Yay!
For years I have tried to grow sweet peas. (Tried being the operative word!) My mom grew them along a fence in our back yard when I was growing up, and I came to love them just like she did. So, of course, I’ve planted their BB sized seeds each year with high hopes. To very little or no avail. This year I scoped out a narrow strip of bare dirt along the west side of our garage. The ground is rocky and Karl just shook his head, certain that this would be another year of failure. I bought seeds and dutifully planted them the week of Easter – which years ago my mother-in-law informed me was the right time to plant sweet peas. I can’t tell you how excited I was when the little seedlings began to poke up.
I’ve had a bumper crop of sweet peas this summer. We’ve had to tie the hearty plants up with string and install a lattice behind for them to grow up on. Every few days I’ve gone out to cut the flowers, enjoying the mellow moments associated with the task and relishing in the delicate fragrance that accompanied the bouquets into the house. I have two vases full right now (Thanks, Branda for the cut crystal one!), and I smile each time I catch a glimpse or a whiff of them.
I count all summers precious, truly a gift from God, and this one has been made even sweeter with the gift of delicately perfumed lavender, white, and pink gifts called sweet peas. I know that cold weather is coming (next week!), and my plants will die, but the joy of this summer’s flower gifts will remain even through the icy cold, and I am already looking forward to next Easter!
The story of the Prodigal Son has been on my mind this week, but it’s not prodigal himself or his brother, or even the father that’s captured by thoughts. Nope, I’ve been thinking the bout the Prodigal’s mom. Sure, I know she doesn’t actually come up in the story Jesus tells, but I’m guessing she’s there.
When Jesus tells the story in Luke 15 He says, “There was a man who had two sons.The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.” Now you and I know it wasn’t that simple. The older son probably stood in the kitchen, listening and shaking his head while the father and younger son partook in a fair amount yelling and door slamming. And Mom? Well, she’s there. At one point the young son appeals to her, looking for her approval and wanting her to side with him. The mother now has a terrible choice: my child or what’s Right. Tearfully she tells her dear offspring the truth he doesn’t want to hear and stands firm on her convictions. The younger son is so incensed he packs his bags, he takes the check for half of his inheritance, and slams the door one more time. He purposely disappears, cancelling his membership in the family. “I’ll show them,” he thinks as he blocks them from his phone and social media.
Obviously, life continued for every member of the family. We are told the Prodigal left the country to live the wild life he wanted. Dad and the remaining son absorb the loss of half the company’s capital and a third of their work force. They work hard to rebuild. And mom? I think we can assume that she, too, continues on. I’m sure that, even as she finds fulfillment and joy in her days, there is an unfilled and raw hole in her heart where her beloved child remains.
Jesus doesn’t tell us how long the Prodigal was gone. Perhaps it was just a few months, maybe just a year or two. Maybe it was much longer. We don’t know, but we do know that when he did ‘come to his senses’ and made the journey home, he didn’t have to ring the doorbell. No – in Jesus’ telling, it was the father who spotted the son when he was ‘still a long way off’. How amazing for the son, despite the burned bridges and slammed doors. His father loved and missed him so much that he was staring down the road looking for his missing son (probably a habit that began on the day the Prodigal left). Now comes the part that concerns me. Since Mom wasn’t in Jesus’ story to begin with, we have no way of knowing how the story ends for her. I hope that she is right there beside her husband, dancing joyfully at the reconciliation that brought her precious child home. That’s the ending I cling to, any other is just too sad to contemplate.
