Devotions

This devotion was 1st published in The Secret Place in the summer of 2011 and later published as a reprint in The Vision in Feb 2013. 

How Do You Feel?

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of Him who called you out of darkness into the light of His marvelous light.” 1^st Peter 2:9 NIV

How do you feel today? Are you tired and lonely? Are you weighed down by the demands and troubles of this world? Do you feel so burdened that it almost seems like a dark cloud surrounds you and accompanies you wherever you go? 

Or did you wake up this morning feeling great? Did you think to yourself, “I feel like a king!” I feel like a priest!” That’s what the scriptures say you and I are if we are believers in Jesus Christ. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen people. We are God’s own possession. Isn’t that marvelous?! Do we ever pause to remember this? The truth of who we are in Christ transcends our earthly problems.

But did you notice the purpose clause in the verse? Why are we a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation? It is so that we can proclaim the excellence of Him who called us out of darkness. So… kiss that dark cloud goodbye! You and I have been called out of darkness and into God’s marvelous light! Walk in that light and enjoy the warmth of His love. It is better than the sunniest summer day!

How do you feel now? No matter how you answer that question, the truth of who you are in Christ remains. And that’s enough to bring you joy regardless of your circumstances.

A Colorful Christmas

Many years ago, when my now grown children were young, we had an especially lean Christmas. My husband’s start-up business struggled, it prospects for success looked dim. I worked feverishly to get my nursing license active, which required taking continuing education classes. At Christmastime I was still trying to get my license active and thus not yet employed. We carefully planned our very tight Christmas budget right down to every bite of food we would eat on Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve, we traveled back from visiting my parents some six hours away. Though we had budgeted the gas for the trip, when we arrived home, hungry, it occurred to me for the first time that I had not thought about what I would feed my family when we got home.

Before having dinner, we sat around our Christmas tree, each opening one gift as was our Christmas Eve tradition. My budding artist daughter opened oil pastels as her gift. These look a bit like crayons with papers wrapped around each one.

Then it was dinnertime. I looked around for any food I might could scrounge up for dinner. We had food but most of it was set aside for Christmas Day meals. What could I possible feed my family?

To my relief when I opened my pantry I discovered a box of spaghetti noodles and a can of sauce! We would have spaghetti for Christmas Eve dinner!

As I was boiling the noodles, my daughter came to me with her oil pastels frustrated because she could not get the outside paper off them. For some unknown reason, I thought perhaps if I held them above the steamy boiling noodles the paper would loosen a bit.

I do not know why I thought this was a good idea.

Immediately, the pastels started to melt and drip into the boiling water below. I jerked them away and saved her gift from melting altogether but there in front of me were tiny colorful bits of oil pastels floating around among the spaghetti noodles.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I looked at the pastel box to read what it said about them. There were the words I had hoped to see: non-toxic!

I rinsed the noodles, of course, but still a few flecks of color remained. I had nothing else to feed my family other than the food set aside for Christmas Day and even that had been carefully planned with no extra portions. Not even a bowl of cereal. So … knowing the precious few flecks of pastels that remained were non-toxic … I put the spaghetti noodles in a bowl and set it on the table next to the sauce.

My family teased me unmercifully about our colorful Christmas Eve dinner. To this day, not a Christmas goes by without one of my adult children asking if we are going to have our “traditional Christmas Eve dinner” –multi-colored spaghetti!

The Quotable Susn

Reality is like a fine wine; it will not appeal to children.” -Donald Miller

“Remember, the ark didn’t have a rudder; we are not in control. Our little ship floats around until God brings it to rest on the high place of His choice too!”

                            -Judy Johnson (friend)

 

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

   -Henry David Thoreau

“And that’s one of the things you notice about Jesus in the Gospels, that He is always going around saying, ‘You have heard it said such and such, but I tell you some other thing.’ If you happened to be a person who thought you knew everything about God, Jesus would have been completely annoying.”

  -Donald Miller

“Knowest thou not that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed winter? Hope thou then! Hope thou ever! God fails thee not.”

                          -Charles H. Spurgeon

I'm happily working again with partners I have worked with before.

Shirley Crowder is a lifelong friend. We grew up together in Nigeria in mission houses that sat directly across the dirt road from each other. We were constant playmates. Shirley teased once that the pickings were slim as far as playmates went, considering there were only a handful of missionary families and we children were not allowed off the two compounds (seminary compound and hospital compound.)

That was true actually, and consequently the few of us who lived near each other were and remain the closest of friends.

A few years ago, Shirley and I decided to collaborate on the devotional book, "Glimpses of the Savior" and we soon learned that our writing styles compliment each other. She is great at all that technical stuff that I am not, and I help her wordsmith.

She is a Biblical counselor and leads many Bible studies. As soon as she read my recent book, "Prayer: It's Not About You" she suggested we collaborate again on a study guide. I thought it was a great idea and asked my publisher about it. She loved the idea too.

Giving credit where it's due, Shirley is doing the lion's share of the work but it is based on and uses many quotes from my book.

This past weekend we both attended the annual reunion of the Baptist Missionaries in Nigeria--always a highlight of my year! While there we both signed the contract with Pix-N-Pens Publishing and I am happy to announce that this study guide is set to release in early 2017.

Life as I Knew It

High School Football and the Age of Innocence: Part II

Play-offs, Here We Come!

The semi-final game pitted my high school, fourth-ranked Bluefield, ainst first-ranked and unbeaten Buchannan–Upshur. The Buck–Ups had a player named Tinker Jackson, reputed to be the top running back in the sate. Our lead scorer’s name was Donnie Jackson. Someone in our fan club had made a huge sign that read, “Our Jackson is better then your Jackson.” The game ended with Bluefield routing Buchannan–Upshur 42-0! Donnie scored three touchdowns in that game. I guess our sign was right.

November 22, 1975 was the coldest ball game I have ever participated in. It would have been bad enough had I been sitting in the stands under a blanket, warming my hands around a cup of hot cocoa; but I was on the field in a cheerleader skirt that barely covered my bloomer clad butt. The layers of shirts under my thick white sweater and the gloves I wore did nothing for my exposed legs that had only a pair of sheer panty hose between them and the frigid air! I think that’s the coldest I have ever been in my life. But it was worth it. We came from behind at the half to claim the title with a 20-7 victory.

That was many years ago and much has happened since. But hidden away in my heart will always be the treasured experience of cheering for the 1975 West Virginia AAA High School Football Champions. Every fall when the leaves look festive, the air feels crisp, and harvest moons hang in the sky like giant pumpkins; America turns attention to its favorite pastime and my mind remembers days gone by, dear friends I have lost, and the glories of high school football in the age of innocence.

Life as I Knew it

With high school football season gearing up, I am reposting something I wrote for another blog last fall. It will run in two parts.

"High School Football in the Age of Innocence" Part One:

On a late August night, the temperature still sweltering and people still sweating even as the sun went down, I stood on the field with my fellow cheerleaders. A harvest moon rose over our heads and our hearts filled with hope as we eagerly awaited the opening game of what should be a great season. We had most of our starting players returning. I was the co-captain of the cheerleaders. The outlook for this season, my senior year, was promising.

It was the fall of 1975–many years ago. Much has happened since that warm August night. Karen, the captain of the cheerleaders, and my close friend, died just three years later in a double murder which is still unsolved. Her death shattered the innocence of the sleepy little mountain town in southern West Virginia where I lived. Other members of that team have passed away as well but we have a few success stories. Donnie, the offensive captain, played football at Wake Forest University. He is now the CFO of an Atlanta-based business. Wayne, a junior that year, also played football at Wake Forest, setting some Atlantic Coast Conference receiving records while there. Joey, the quarterback, is a tenured professor now. I married, moved to Louisville, raised four children and eventually became a writer. Those of my classmates who remain see each other once in a while at class reunions.

Reunion weekend always starts with tickets to the Beaver-Graham game. It is tradition for my high school, the Bluefield Beavers, to start their season playing cross-town rivals, the Graham G-Men. This annual match up in the same stadium we used in 1975 has much the same feel as it did back then. There is still the cracking of helmets, enthusiastic cheerleaders on the sidelines, excited fans, and the hot August night skies still boasts a harvest moon.

Young Again

As I sat in the stands on such an August evening a few years ago, my mind could not help but wander to bygone days and I was once again on the field next to my friend Karen cheering our team on. We lost only one game that year. But our hopes faded as our team dropped into fifth place in the statewide poll. Back then, only the top four teams in the state earned the privilege of moving on to post season play-offs.

However, in the middle of the last game of the season, our luck changed. Over the public address system, the announcer loudly proclaimed that George Washington High School was beating Charleston in their season’s last game. A cheer rang out, first in a low rumble then building to a frenzy as the impact of the news sank in. If George Washington could pull out a win against #4 Charleston, it would change the ratings. Charleston would fall to fifth and we would move up into that much coveted fourth place position, gaining a right to post-season action.

As the second half of both games progressed, forgetting our own game which we were handily winning, we waited with bated breath for each update on the other game, several hours away. Finally, the last announcement came–Charleston lost! Our own win a few moments later was rather anticlimactic. We were flying high just the same because we knew we were headed to the state football play-offs!

The Quotable Susan

On Writing:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” -Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” -George Orwell, “Why I Write”, 1947

"Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed." -P.G. Wodehouse

“Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.” -Mel Brooks

“That’s what we story tellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” -Walt Disney character in the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks”

"... once I began writing, it became clear to me: This is not a foreign language; this is my native tongue." -Elizabeth Gilbert 

"... don't demand that your art supports your life. Instead, make a promise that your life will always support your art." -Elizabeth Gilbert 

Life as I Knew It

Driver Ants- Part 2

I shared my last blog post with fellow MK's (missionary kids, now adults). Their responses were varied and quite interesting. In today's blog I had planned to tell of other animals encounters but will save those stories for another time. Instead, today, I will share my MK friends' comments about their memories of driver ants.

CP: "I, too, used to play with driver ants! It was certainly risky business!! I would even pick them up right behind their heads, hold them up and listen for the hiss, then drop them down into the line of their ant-friends and watch the line go crazy and swarm all over the place! Then, they would calm down again and re-form their orderly line. I, too, heard the baby-eating stories. And my brother's crib stood in saucers, but I think they were filled with water."

RS: "I have heard the house story except in the version I heard the family moved out until the ants left."

JDM: "I think there should be a distinction between driver ants' 'marching' and 'driving'.  When they are moving neatly in a single, massive line, as you have described, they are "marching;" that is, they are simply getting from one place to the next. When they are 'driving' (i.e., looking for prey/food), they are not in a neat line, but are scattered over a large area by the millions, it seems. In that case, they would cover a large area of our back yard, for example, at the same time. In the story you gave about the residents of the house stepping over the ants, the ants would have been 'marching'.  If 'driving', it would not have been possible to step anywhere without being in ants and the ants would have cleaned the place out, so to speak."

PG: "I believe it was either Thomas Bowen or William Clark (both early Baptist missionaries to Nigeria) who wrote of the driver ants and said that they were actually welcomed when they swept through a house, because they would, as JDM said, clean out a house of roaches, mice, etc.
Driver ants have a distinctive smell, and if you have once learned that smell, you will instantly recognize it when you smell it again, even after an absence of many years." 

LJ: "The ant story is credible. But, the children weren't eaten, they died from all the bites/stings. My sister sat on a mound once...bad news!"

AL: "Daddy was about to preach at a little church in the bush. He was standing outside to get some fresh air before going into the stifling building. Someone yelled and pointed that he was standing in a bed of those driver ants. In an instant they had striped his clothes off and were throwing water on him to remove the ants. The same happened to my brother when he was about 3. A Nigerian friend just dunked him into a big cold pot of water. I remember my brother screaming like crazy! Both had some bad bites! "

GL: "Here's a real life story. We were staying at Frances Jones awaiting the birth of my 2nd brother in Jan 1950. Another brother & I were walking to a neighbor's house on our own.  He stepped in driver ants & started howling-and the neighbor girls came running out, sized up the situation, pulled off his clothes & de-anted him. Very clear memory! We called all black ants traveling in formation 'drivers' in my memory."

JG: "Brought back many memories. I always blamed my 'poor sleepers'on that baby story. No way was I ever going to let a baby cry itself to sleep because our version of the story included the grim surprise of the parents waking to a baby bed of bones!"

Life as I knew It

“And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind…and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25

Growing up in the tropics, I had so many animal experiences! We had pets there that we could never have in the U. S. like a monkey and a talking parrot. But in addition, I and my friends had encounters and experiences with other creatures of all sorts. In this two-part blog post, I will share some of the adventures I grew up thinking were common place.

Driver ants were a special type of ant that surfaced a few times a year. When they did they marched single-file across large areas of land, moving with determination, as they migrated from one spot to another for days at a time before disappearing into the ground again. These were nothing to mess with. They had large pinchers and would attack in mass if you got in the way of their march. They were known to devour small animals and missionaries often put the legs of their baby’s crib in cups of kerosene to prevent the ants from climbing up and biting the babies while they slept. I and other MK’s heard horror stories of babies being eaten during the night by these ants, but as an adult, I ponder the truth of such stories.

We learned that we could stand a few feet away from the ants and stir their single-file line with a stick and watch them scramble. Invariably, the ants would find their way back and resume their single-file marching within mere seconds. It was fascinating to watch. I heard they were following a scent and could always find their way back in line.

Another story I was told, that I believe to be true, was that one of the mission houses was built over the site where the ants always marched at a time when the ants were not marching. So the builders did not realize their mistake. When the ants came out of the ground and started their march, they went right through the house. The family occupying it, tried in vain to keep them out. Giving up, in surrender, they ended up simply leaving their front and back doors open for the few days a year allowing the ants to march right through the home, stepping over them and carefully avoiding them as they went about their daily business.

It’s Here!!!!!

“Prayer moves the arm that moves the universe … Prayer is the greatest privilege man can have.”

This a quote cited in the book, “Soldiers of the Cross” by Kent D. Dollar. Dollar found this quote in a hand-written journal from a soldier in the civil war by the name of Edward Owings Guerrant. I don’t know whether this was Guerrant’s original thought or if he had heard someone else say it.

I found the book by Dollar about ten years ago in the gift shop of a civil war battle site just outside of Washington D. C. while visiting my son who lived in D. C. at the time. The book in general and this quote in specific grabbed me. I could just picture a soldier in the throes of war, sitting by himself contemplating prayer and writing about it in his journal.

I can relate. I may not have ever fought in a physical war but I have been in spiritual wars contemplating and journaling about prayer.

For four years, in fact, I did just that.

At the end of those four years I had a manuscript written on the topic of prayer. Then, it took another almost eight years working on turning that manuscript into a book. It garnered a special recognition along the way when it finaled in the 20011 Women of Faith” unpublished manuscript competition. But until now it had not made it into book form.

Today, at last, I am thrilled to announce that the book is finally out! It can be purchased in paperback and will be available in e-book form in a few more days.

Here’s the link: Prayer: It's Not About You 

A Cheery Countenance

This little story may not seem as funny to my readers as it was to me when it happened. But at the time, it was one of the funniest things that had ever happened in my entire life. December of 2003 was a difficult period for my family. We had some family issues and at the same time my husband was having a total hip replacement. My sweet parents came to spend a few weeks with us, to help me out during this difficult time. 

My mother is no animal lover but my husband is. We had three dogs. My poor mother was sweetly putting up with the dogs while also trying to keep my house cleaned, my laundry done, and meals for the family cooked so I could be at the hospital with my husband. One particular day, one of our dogs spent the day eating grass, when she let him out, and then proceeded to throw up on the family room carpet. My mother patiently cleaned it up.

By late afternoon that day, my husband came home from the hospital. As we sat around the dining room table preparing to eat the meal my mother had cooked, we all bowed our heads to ask the Lord’s blessings on the food. It is my parent’s custom to hold hands as they pray so when they visit, my family does this as well. That night, we all bowed our heads, closed our eyes, and reached our hands out for the hand of the person next to us. Then, my father led us in prayer. When the prayer was over; my mother, with hand still stretched out, looked at my youngest child and asked why his hand was wet. He explained that she was not holding his hand. She looked in the direction of her hand, let out a scream, and jumped up from her seat. 

As it turned out, when my mother reached out to hold the hand of my youngest child, one of our dogs stuck his nose in my mother’s open palm.

My son said he reached his hand out but no one took it so he put it in his pocket. My mother, on the other hand, put her hand out with her eyes closed and thought she had taken hold of her grandchild’s hand when she actually had taken hold of the dog’s nose. The dog sat very obediently and let my mother hold his nose throughout the entire blessing.

Through my Kitchen Window

A mighty spiritual weapon or a waste of time? What exactly is prayer? Is it something to be engaged in fiercely as if wielding a weapon in the midst of a spiritual battle, or is it a just a personal practice to achieve a calmer, more focused, and disciplined life? Does prayer really change anything?

Those questions and so many more are discussed inside the pages of my soon-to-be released book, “Prayer: It’s Not About You”. The book does not simply offer one writer’s perspective on the topic of prayer. Instead, it delves deep into scripture to see how prayer is presented in God’s word.

I am so excited to let you know that I am finally down the homes stretch of the publication and release of the book I wrote on prayer. I turned in the galley edits to my publisher last week, so now it’s just a matter of time until I announce that it is released!

What are galley edits? That is the last step in editing a book. It’s when the publisher sends the author a digital copy of the formatted book with each line in the document assigned a number. The author re-reads her book (for the umpteenth time) and notes any additional edits she may desire by listing the line number and the suggested edit in a separate document that she sends back to the editor / publisher.

This book is my Opus. It took four years to write and longer than that to get published. As an unpublished manuscript it was named one of only 25 finalists out of over 750 entries in the 2011 “Women of Faith” manuscript national competition. And very soon it will be available for purchase on Amazon. I will keep you posted! J

 

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday.

It’s a day that always brings back childhood memories. Growing up in Africa, palms grew everywhere. Tall, stately palms dotted every horizon and smaller bush-type palms popped up seemingly in every yard, and on every hillside.

My parents spoke fluent Yoruba, the language of the people where we lived. So we attended a Yoruba speaking church. I never understood much of what was said in church because I was not fluent in the language. However, I understood enough to know when to clap along with the music or chime in with the Amens.

My mother taught the children in Sunday School along with the help of some of the Nigerian women. Many a Palm Sunday, I have helped my mom carry in armfuls of palm branches and played along with the other children in role play of that day. One child would be Jesus, pretending to ride in on a donkey, while the rest of us waved our palm branches. Even though I couldn’t speak the language, I understood fully what the role play was all about.  

There is another place in scripture that tells of a crowd waving palm branches. This scene can be found in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verses 9-10 where it says, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” (KJV)

This crowd is very different from the one in Jerusalem that my friends and I mimicked. They are true believers praising God for their salvation. They are a crowd too large to number from every nation, people, and tongue.

Some years ago I was privileged to hear Steve Saint speak. He is the son of Nate Saint, the missionary to Ecuador martyred along with several other missionaries in January 1956. Steve Saint said that this verse in Revelation was the verse that drove his father and the other brave missionaries to push ahead with their evangelistic efforts to the very tribe that ended up killing them. The tribe was unreached and had a language few understood. Steve said his father and the other missionaries kept saying if people of every nation and tongue will someday stand in front of God’s throne praising Him, then the people of that rare unknown tribal tongue needed to be reached with the gospel!

It's this same calling—to help reach the unreached people of the world—that my parents heard too, and the reason I grew up waving palms on Palm Sunday alongside of other happy, laughing children whose language, culture, nationality and even skin color differed from mine. As my parents reached these others with the gospel of salvation, they reached their own child with the gospel too.

Devotions

*This devotion was published in the Upper Room in October 2012

We’re Special to God
Read: Zechariah 14: 20-21

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

            “Special” read the large sign taped to the side of a bus which sat in a used vehicle lot in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The students on the mission trip chose to name the bus “Special” after the mission team purchased it for the church in La Paz with whom they had worked many summers.

            Last summer, I had the privilege of participating in this annual student trip as a chaperone. Having now spent time in “Special” I can assure you – she is well named! She has a cracked windshield that cannot be replaced because a piece of glass with the correct dimensions is difficult, if not impossible to find in Honduras. Sometimes “Special” develops other problems which have to be attended to. Nevertheless, she faithfully goes up and down winding, dirt, and mountainous roads every week to bring people to church that would otherwise not be able worship.

            Zechariah 14:20-21 speaks of the holiness of even the cups and cooking pots in the Temple. Indeed, God’s purpose for all things is their holiness. I suppose if cups and cooking pots can be special to the Lord – then so can an old bus with a cracked windshield.

God’s people are a bit like that, too. God’s purpose for us is our holiness and we are all special in our own ways. God created us differently for His unique purposes and he loves our specialness.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, Thank you for the uniqueness of your plan for each of our lives.  Help us to appreciate our own specialness and that of others.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thought for the day:  God makes everything beautiful in its time.

The Month of Love

The People Who Love

February is the month of love. With Valentine’s Day coming in the middle of the month, our thoughts turn to the topic of love, especially the love between a man and a woman. But there are other types of love—the love God has for His creation, and the brotherly type of love a person has for another person.

My sister told me a story once that came out of our time as a family in Nigeria when my parents were missionaries. Our dad used to sometimes travel to rural areas to hold day clinics. We lived among the Yoruba people. They speak a beautiful sing-song tonal language.

They also play a lot of drums and have a certain drum they call the talking drum. This drum was used in days gone by to beat out messages and send them to neighboring villages. Since the language is tonal, the various tones of the drum could be understood as words by the people. As children we grew used to hearing the drums and could even understand some of the words and messages beat from them. 

One day, my older sister, Alisa, accompanied our dad on one of his nearby village clinics. She rode on the back of his bicycle as he peddled them to the village. As they approached she heard the usual drums but as she listened, she realized it was not the usual message she was accustomed to.

Usually the drums beat out Oyinbo, which meant peeled one. This was the Yoruba word for white people and it was the drums letting the villagers know the missionaries were visiting. But that day, the sound was different.

Alisa asked our dad, who was fluent in the Yoruba language, why the drums were different, what were they saying? He listened a minute and then told her the drums were saying “The people who love are coming.” He explained that this would be understood by the villagers as the medical people were coming. It was their way of letting the people know a clinic would be held. Health professionals were seen as people who cared about the well-being of the villagers. They were the people who loved.

Strange and Interesting Bible Facts

Interesting Tidbit: This Bible fact might not be news to you; the Old Testament was written in Hebrew; the New Testament in Greek. It’s only a rule of thumb because some Aramaic is thrown in too (Daniel, Ezra, and a few other places.) I had many years of Bible study before I knew this. But once explained it made so much sense! Given to the Jews, the Old Testament was written in their language. But just prior to Christ’s birth, Alexander the Great conquered the known world making Greek the common language. Amazingly, because of this, when the Gospels were written, they could be read by any literate person in the known world! The news also traveled fast along the complex road system the Romans had built. Isn’t God good! His timing is always perfect!

Nahum Trivia: Nahum2:2-4 says, “The warriors are dressed in scarlet, the chariots are enveloped in flashing steel … The chariots race madly in the streets, they rush wildly in the squares. Their appearance is like torches, they dash to and fro like lightening.” This prophecy was literally fulfilled when the Medes invaded Nineveh, one of Assyria’s most powerful cities. The Greek historian Xenophon records that the Medes wore bright red battle tunics … the warriors are dressed in scarlet…and one of the invading armies (either the Medes or one of its allies) had steel swords on their chariots which flashed in the sun as they raced forward … the chariots are enveloped in flashing steel … their appearance is like torches dashing to and fro like lightening …

Who wrote the book of Hebrews? Truthfully, no one really knows for sure. The most common belief is that Paul wrote it. However, there are some significant differences in this book and Paul’s other books. It doesn’t start the same way, and the Old Testament quotes are from the Septuagint where as Paul usually quoted the original Hebrew. There are other differences too. If not Paul, then who? Possible authors include: Luke, Barnabas, Priscilla (the wife of Aquila), and Clement of Rome. One real possibility is that it was one of Paul’s sermons which was transcribed by someone else. But my father always claimed with a twinkle in his eye, and his tongue in his cheek that he thought Priscilla was the author because in Hebrews 13:22, the writer says he has written in “few words”, and who but a woman can write 13 chapters and call it “few words”? (KJV)

Through My Kitchen Window

                                                                                
What do I see through my kitchen window today? Do I see snow? No. It's been unseasonably warm this year. My grass is still green and there are even some herbs in my herb pots that have not died back. I love it! This is my idea of the kind off winter I would like every year. I guess you can blame it on my birth and childhood in Africa.

I posted a picture of my backyard in the snow, anyway. It seemed more seasonal and I am sure that white stuff will be on the ground soon enough.

Happy New Year to us all! I have much to be thankful for this first day of the new year. 2015 was a year blessed of God. I and mine are well at the start of this new years, and that was not always the case in years gone by. And 2016 brings much to me in the way of my writing career.

I absolutely love writing! This is a new gift God has given me in recent years. I tell Him how much I love the gift He gave me. I take it out and play with it often. And love every minute of it. This year I am embarking on a new, fun writing experience--fiction writing! Well, I actually embarked on it in 2014 when I began a fiction manuscript based on my parents' lives That manuscript is almost complete and in the editing stages and I have discovered I love writing fiction. It feels like I am a child again playing pretend.

Yes, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up--a writer!

For more information on what 2016 holds for me in my writing endeavors, you can check out my other blog: harrietemichael.com

2016? Bring it on!