Did you see me today when I opened up my face to the world? God created me to give you the gifts of wonder and joy. He placed me in your path. So, did you see me today?
Did you see me today when I changed my garments from spring green to a deep summer hue? Did you marvel at how God created me to make that glorious transformation?
Did you see me today when I lined the blades of grass you passed sparkling with all the glory and fire of the world’s most lovely diamond?
God placed me in your life to create joy and wonder. But…did you see me?
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but t he word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8
Everyone thinks (or should think) that their own dog is the best; the prettiest, the smartest, the most talented. I know people who talk to their dogs non-stop when they walk them. Because she’s so smart, I don’t talk to Savannah on our walks. I have a reason.
Esther was my first collie. Son Luke and I were convinced that she was the smartest, most talented dog in the world. We talked to Esther. We prayed with Esther. We sang with Esther. But because she was so smart, talking to Esther backfired. When we did something that displeased her or told her something she didn’t want to hear—she talked back. Loudly.
So Savannah and I take quiet rambles. I allow her to lead and enjoy the sounds of nature. Today when I walked her, I stopped when she stopped to sniff and just stood quietly watching her. That’s when it hit me. I write mystery books. Savannah reads mystery books.
Today she discovered one scent out of all the others that captivated her. She followed it around and around, checking it out from all angles. She zoomed into the center to experience the origin. Then she followed the scent out one direction at a time as if following the threads of a spider web. Savannah loves meeting and greeting everyone—human and animal—but several people passed with their dogs while Savannah focused on the captivating scent to solve the mystery of who or what made it. She was engaged in solving a mystery.
People often ask me where I get the ideas for my books. Without reservation, hesitation, or apology—I answer, “From God.” And God gives me many of these ideas when I’m walking Savannah. Perhaps because the two of us are quiet as we explore, Savannah picks up her mysteries from input through her nose and God whispers the mysteries meant for me into my heart.
Soon-to-be released “The Beard Murders” not only sprang from one of these whispered sessions with God, whenever I found myself stuck as I wrote, I grabbed a leash and took Savannah for a walk. From the characters to the plot to the incidents that pack action into “The Beard Murders, God spoke the details into my heart.
The same with my work-in-progress and three other titles and starts, one set here in Scotland, the other two undecided at the moment. Meanwhile…Savannah sniffs and ferrets out her own mysteries while I stand back and wait for God’s inspiration.
“God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery…Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27.
Here in Scotland, one can walk in the rain without getting wet. The phenomenon is called Scottish mist, mizzle, smirr—but whatever one calls it—it is delightful. Cars need to use their wipers. The steady rainfall is visible. Yet walkers can pass through it and come out again with dry hair and clothes.
For the rest of my life, I want to walk in the Scottish mist and avoid downpours. I’ve never been at the top of anything. I grew up with two sisters and four brothers, all younger than me, all brilliant, all scholars in school—always on the honor roll, always at the top of their class. Me? My high school average for math is “F.” By some fluke—I did make it into college and even made the Dean’s List a couple of times…until I was forced to take math. I did the logical thing for someone with my prowess in the subject. I quit.
Because of my non-achievement in educational circles I am always staggered when I understand something that seems easy to me, but that other people don’t seem to comprehend.
Recently, I ran across a “news” feature on the internet that was repeated on a “news” broadcast on TV. The subject was: “How Dangerous is On-line Bullying?” The article—and the “news” broadcast went into great detail about how damaging cruel on-line “attacks” are to people, especially teens.
Say what? Talk about much ado over nothing. Unplug.
We suffered no damaging on-line attacks when I was a teen. We were outside playing baseball with friends, riding horses, riding bicycles, walking to visit neighbors, mowing our lawns, helping our parents in the garden, fishing, enjoying being young and alive. Parents didn’t take us places unless it was urgent. Our feet provided transportation. We walked in the mizzle, slipping through our teen years untouched and unscathed by internet content.
The same peace avails us now. Unplug from the internet. Plug into God.
It saddens me to watch teens stroll along the sidewalk, heads bent, looking at their phones. They miss the flowers along the way. No wonder so many people nowadays don’t believe in miracles—they pass by them without ever seeing them because their eyes are glued to their phones.
And the teens’ parents? Heads down looking at their phone screens and ignoring their children, those who walk with them, and the miracles around them.
Getting attacked? Unplug. Walk in the Scottish mist.
There will be problems, struggles, doubts, and uncertainties in this life. We live in a fallen world of vicious storms and battering circumstances, but this world is not our home. We are pilgrims, passing through this world to the next—heaven—where nothing grows old and there is no more sickness, hurting, sorrow, parting, or death. We are on a fantastic journey. Why choose to allow something like inane on-line content steal our joy? Unplug.
Walk in the Scottish mist and take time to experience the miracles God has placed along the path.
God wants to give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isaiah 61:3. He wants to take us through this world to our home without letting the smirr turn into a downpour that drowns our spirits.
It’s simple. Unplug from people and plug into God.
Don’t believe in miracles? Get a packet of dry, dead flower seeds and plant them. By the time the first bloom opens, your faith in miracles will be restored. How can a dry, crumbly seed rise up on a green stalk and then open up to flaunt its color and beauty? God placed the secret of life in the dry, dead-looking seed. It’s a miracle.
The birth of a child. A miracle.
Changing seasons. Miracles.
Sun. A miracle.
Rain. A miracle.
Every breath. A miracle.
I have witnessed astounding miracles. I have been the recipient of astounding miracles of healing and provision. But the greatest miracles in my life are the small ones. There are thousands of them.
“God worked unusual miracles…” Acts 19:11. And He still does.
Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors in mythology and the hero of the Trojan War was defeated by a weakness in his heel. The term “Achilles heel” is used even today to refer to an otherwise strong person’s weakness.
Scots can be thankful that midges have an Achilles heel. Midges are small, nearly invisible flying insects that bite and irritate people and animals. Irritate relentlessly. They fall in blinding clouds making life a misery. It is impossible to have a friendly blether (chat) with friends and neighbors on summer walks—because if one stands still—the horrible biting creatures descend. They get everywhere—even under woolly hats and up sleeves.
Thankfully, midges have am Achilles heel. They can be outdistanced if one walks quickly enough. They fly slowly. This gave me the idea of marketing midges. Just think: if midges can be caught, stored in boxes, and exported to other countries to stop political unrest—everyone wins. Open up the boxes, release the midges and the midge-miserable dissenters flee. This won’t restrict freedom of speech, but it will disperse fractious crowds. Meanwhile, capturing and shipping midges will build a new industry giving Scotland a venue for employment. It will boost the Scottish economy.
God looked down on His creation and proclaimed everything He made was good. Therefore, I think that scorpions, fire ants, and midges must have been introduced by God’s enemy. Satan must have emptied out some of the ugly, hurtful creatures from hell on earth in defiance after God threw him out of heaven for his treachery and rebellion. But whatever the devil does to make our lives miserable on a daily basis—God can take the worst and turn it around to use for our good.
Marketing midges could bring peace to protests by sending protestors fleeing from their obdurate stands to get away from the tiny tormentors.
If God’s promise from the Bible is true—and I know it is—“All things work together for good to those who love the Lord,” why shouldn’t the scourge of Scottish midges be turned into something profitable and good?
Because I used to consider myself an artist—before I realized that I was a “copyist,” not an artist—and because I’ve spent most of my adult life painting signs, I have a highly developed sense of colors.
For years I’ve been flummoxed by folks who call orange “yellow” or green “blue.” And how can anyone survey rows of lavender flowers and call them “blue,” instead of purple? Fortunately, I am learning. I am slowly realizing that I have no right to assign to others the task of seeing colors the same way I do. God created them. He created their eyes. Their cones—the part of our eyes that sees color—may be different than mine. My task is to allow them their sight.
With my husband hospitalized, my brother-in-law and I have been spending a large amount of time together. No matter what our conversation, he responds, “Oh, I see.” But clearly—he doesn’t. At least, he doesn’t see the way I see because he misses the point I was attempting to make entirely and draws a totally different conclusion. At first it irritated me because I was endeavoring to explain things so clearly and concisely, and he would respond, “Oh, I see,” and trot out an entirely different scenario.
I am gradually learning to allow him his sight. His life experiences have colored his understanding a different color than my life experiences have colored my understanding.
Some things are without question right and some things are without question wrong. These things are worth fighting for or against and upholding as a standard. God wants that. But God has no interest in which hue on the color chart becomes orange instead of yellow, or green instead of blue. He created all colors.
God created us and gave us free choice. If God allows us to experience life through the color chart that He assigns for us—why should we expect others to walk in our chart instead of the one that God destined for them?
Our task is to allow others their sight.
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7
I don’t think a single day passes that I don’t say at some point in the day, “I am blessed.”
When I share a Facebook post of someone rescuing a skunk and adding it to their family, I say to myself, “I am blessed that we had a skunk when we were kids.”
When a picture of Scotland’s Loch Ness pops up on the TV along with a report about searching for the Loch Ness Monster, I say to myself, “I am blessed that I’ve been to Loch Ness and searched for Nessie.”
When I walk Savannah and see a lovely flower, I say to myself, “I am blessed to have seen this flower today.”
God has poured out blessings into my life. He began pouring out blessings into my life even before I knew Him. He put me in places and engineered experiences in my life that infuse themselves into the cozy mysteries I write.
I am blessed to have lived in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Nevada, California, Idaho, and Scotland. I have walked to the end a Scottish road to take photos of leaping dolphins. I have explored the Great Basin Desert in Nevada and watched a mountain lion melt off a rock along the trail. I have panned and prospected for gold in California and Nevada. I know how to pan for gold in rivers and how to operate a wet washer and a dry washer on land.
I am blessed to have poured concrete slabs, built rock flowerbeds, rocked the sides of a house and garden center—and been hired as a landscaper for other jobs. I am blessed that I learned to touch type. I am blessed to have worked as a staff writer for newspapers and have met extraordinary and interesting people—including the governor of Texas who later became President.
I am blessed to have caught and released snakes and horned toads and rescued wildlife. When I see news about a wild raven that has adopted a person—I remember my son Luke rescuing and raising ravens in the Nevada desert including Rap who lived in our house with us, a cat and a dog, and integrated himself into the family. I remember Rap flying along behind Luke when Luke rode his bicycle or four-wheeler, riding on our shoulders when we took a walk, and chasing away any perceived “enemy” threat approaching our house. I am blessed.
I am blessed to have watched a Gila monster, picked olives, walked through citrus fruit orchards, learned to drive in snow, been caught in a tumbleweed circus in the desert, watched porcupines and coyotes trail through my yard, explored ghost towns, ridden horses, had a fox and a raccoon as pets, smelled out possums in the Georgia woods, and to have been raised with completely awesome sisters and brothers: Leslie, Gregory, Vicky, Jerry, Jeff, and Chris.
I am blessed that my grandmother taught me to make hot chocolate and yeast rolls from scratch and how to make gravy.
I am blessed that I survived the bad, painful, and horrific events in my life: constant rape and sexual abuse as a child; a horse kick in the face; getting impregnated twice by the abuser and having two backwoods abortions—nearly bleeding to death followed by hospitalization; an African lion bite on my stomach; a venomous water moccasin bite on my hand and a trip to the hospital in a taxi from another town because Grandmother was having a feud with the local taxi company; marrying a mentally unstable alcoholic to get away from home; contemplating suicide following the unfaithfulness of said alcoholic husband; nursing terminally ill husband number two through cancer and staying at his side until he left for heaven; back surgery, knee surgery, hip surgery followed by an infection which kept me in the hospital for three months and caused diabetes from the constant antibiotic drip; being the sole caregiver of husband number three who has cancer and Parkinson’s Disease…and the most painful experience of all, losing son Luke in a plane crash when he was only 49. I am blessed to have survived, to be able to encourage others, and to be able to dip into life experiences and splash them into the 48 Christian cozy mysteries which I’ve written. (Only 46 available at the moment.)
I am blessed to have lived under a bridge in the back of a pickup truck. I am blessed to have lived in an open-ended garden center with no running water and to have been gifted hay bales to stack up in the winter to cut off the wind and block the cold. I am blessed to have watched baby birds hatch from overhead hanging baskets in the garden center and have them flutter into my lap while I sat quietly in a chair.
I am blessed. Every flower that I see, every bird that I hear, every new place I visit makes me realize how blessed I am.
The greatest sorrow of my life: losing Luke and living so far away from granddaughter Dulcinea.
The greatest blessing of my life: discovering that God is real and that He loves me.
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You.” Isaiah 26:2
One of my earliest memories is playing around a garbage heap outside our house in Kansas City, Missouri, where my sister (and brilliant author) Leslie P. Garcia was born. Since Leslie was just a baby, I must have been around two-and-a-half at the time. I discovered a delicious mystery—an old piece of furniture that hid colorful delights.
These amazing brightly colored sweet things had a brown center. I didn’t know at the time that the center was called chocolate. I couldn’t read the letter on the brightly colored shell—I wasn’t even three yet. I found these things stuck in the sofa that was sitting on the pile of trash waiting for removal. Day after day, I rushed outside to play as quickly as possible in the morning. While Mom looked after my baby sister, I explored that old couch searching for remaining mystery treats in the crevasses and eating them with relish.
Mom didn’t have a sweet tooth. To her, children ate fruit—not candy or cookies. She never bought candy. When she bought cookies they were vanilla wafers or graham crackers. Mom didn’t like chocolate, so they were never chocolate.
When the trash heap—including the sofa—was scooped up and taken away, I was inconsolable and Mom couldn’t understand why. “But why should you be upset about them taking away that old couch?” she scolded. “I told you to stay away from that rubbish heap and to quit playing on broken furniture.”
Memories are strange critters. Often, an image of that old brown couch with its hidden candy stash creeps into my mind and I can even smell that garbage pile smell of rotten oranges. Without realizing it, that memory must have been partly responsible for the main character in my first book, “Bridge to Nowhere.” Texas Miz Mike plays a secret M&M game where she separates Mike and Marty M&Ms out of the bowl she keeps on her office desk, and in idle moments—she marches them down the church aisle to get married.
“Bridge to Nowhere” now has 36 ratings and an average of 4.3. One of its first reviewers enjoyed the book so much that she sent a box of chocolate—including M&Ms—to me at Christmas.
The success of Bridge to Nowhere galvanized my writing. I now have 46 published titles, one at the editor’s waiting for final approval, and another that is nearly finished. And to think that hidden mystery candy in the crevasses of an old sofa may have ignited the process.
There is another reason the memory of those stashed M&Ms tickles my memory. The sofa was on a trash heap. It was old, dirty, and smelly. Yet I dug the candy out of it and ate it because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know about germs. I didn’t know that what I was doing could hurt me. The candy was delicious, so I ate it.
Whenever I see another person doing something wrong or foolish—I remember the candy I ate because I didn’t know any better. Sometimes folks don’t want to follow after sin or foolishness—they just don’t know any better, and what they are doing is delicious. They don’t need judgment. They need grace. They need love and a good example. At some point and time in our lives we have all been untaught.
“The excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.” Ecclesiastes 7:12.
When I was a kid in school, the ultimate insult was to call someone a “bird brain.” Thankfully, I made it through school before the “F” word hit. I was in junior high school before I ever heard it. I went home and asked my mother what it meant.
Birds are admirable. When my son Luke and I lived in the Great Basin Desert in Nevada, we rescued a baby raven. Luke named it “Rap.” Rap followed Luke and our dog when Luke rode his bicycle or 4-wheeler. Rap chased strangers away from our house. We lived on an alfalfa farm. Rap flew into the barn everyday at noon and walked up and down the long table accepting offerings from farm workers who met to eat their lunches. When Luke’s stepfather worked on the truck, Rap brought him tools—but we soon learned that if he wasn’t watched—Rap would fly off with any tool he fancied. Also in the desert, Luke and I watched ravens drop rocks on marauders to protect their nests.
Striated herons in Asia catch fish by floating bait to lure them close enough to strike. The woodpecker finch from the Galapagos Island extracts insect larvae from tree crevices with a thorn. Egyptian vultures use stones to crack large eggs. Here in Dunoon, Scotland, seagulls drop shells down onto pavement to crack them open so they can extract the residents. Breakfast served.
Jesus said not even a sparrow drops to the ground without God knowing and caring. In Jesus’ day, birds were used as currency.
Old miners on the edge of the desert in Unionville, Nevada, keep magpies as pets and teach them to talk. My grandmother had a parrot who watched TV. The first thing he ever said—mimicking a commercial that was popular at the time—was, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” After that—he was unstoppable. When anything upset him, he would say “poor Popeye,” in a pathetic sounding voice. In the mornings he would call Grandmother and say, “Maybelle, coffee, toast. Popeye wants breakfast.”
All these things are indeed admirable—but none is the reason I admire birds and their intelligence so much. What I most love about birds is their understanding of and deep dependence on God’s will in their lives. Especially in nesting. At the right time each spring, birds nest. Gales can be alive with 80 mph winds, late snowfall can blanket the land, trees can remain bare-branched, flowers heads can linger under the soil—yet the birds nest. They make no excuse for hardship, inclement weather, or turbulence. God’s wisdom tells them it is time to nest…so they nest…regardless of adversity.
Sadly, some people quit nesting in the loving arms of Jesus as soon as trouble trips into their lives. They rehearse all the excuses: how can I believe in God when He let something bad happen to me? I’m living a good life. Why doesn’t God keep all these troubles away from me? I had more friends before I became a Christian. Following Jesus is too hard.
We live in a fallen world. That’s not God’s fault. He never planned for the world to be flawed. Sin entered into the world with Adam and Eve. Before sin entered, there was no death, no violence, no anger—the Garden of Eden was perfect. Animals and people were friends and God walked in the garden with His creation. But when sin slipped into the perfect world…blight replaced perfection.
Birds don’t argue politics. They don’t assume their way is the only way. They fly above contention and discord…and they keep on nesting.
Jesus said, “Do not worry…Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26.
Jesus has the credentials to declare value. He lifted up His arms and died on the cross to deliver us from our sins, and He rose again on the third day to live forever. With us if we nest with Him.
Stephanie Parker McKean 