Reluctant Runner

I hate running – it’s hard. I run to control my weight, because it makes me feel better, and because I think of things to write when I’m running – but I hate running.

Running for me means being an overcomer every time I head out the door. The broken ankle that never got medical care when I was a child is stiff and doesn’t bend. The hip that was injured in a fall off a ladder is painful and limits my stride. Shops in this part of the U.K. don’t carry my shoe size, so shoes are always either half-a-size too small or half-a-size too big. It is usually cold, windy or raining. For some reason, I am most comfortable running when I carry 2 KG hand-held weights. Running long distances at age 62 in a slightly overweight body is a hindrance itself. I run because I need to run and I run out of respect for my son’s memory. Marine Corps Major Luke Parker lived all 37 years of his life as an overcomer.

Being lazy is more natural for me than overcoming. Math was hard for me in school, so I convinced my seventh grade math teacher that pencil lead inflamed the fungal infection on my fingers and I couldn’t do my homework because I made too many mistakes with a pen. That might have seemed a brilliant ploy at the time, but I paid for it later.

When I was a senior, my high school chemistry teacher informed me that she was signing me out of chemistry so I wouldn’t flunk and miss graduating with my class. I had no idea I was failing her class.

My university economics professor watched me struggle through graphs and formulas and asked what I planned to do when I graduated. I showed him a newspaper with my front page bylines. He asked, “If this is what you want to do and you’re already doing it – why are you taking my class?” I explained that his class was required. He tore up my failed exams and gave me a “B” for the class, explaining that he had never seen anyone try so hard and fail so completely.

Seeing the negative results of math laziness does help get me out the door to run. My greatest inspiration, however, is the memory of my son’s determination to overcome. He had every possible excuse to fail in life: an absent father; a mother on poverty wages who could never afford to buy him all the things his friends’ parents bought them or take him all the places they went; severe ear infections that left him with a speech impediment; hyper-activity before it became a buzz word; a spine that was so badly twisted in two different directions that doctors wanted to install a metal rod; an apparently inherited lack of mathematical ability, and constant moving and changing schools.

Unlike me, Luke didn’t make excuses or allow laziness to determine his future. He took speech therapy, learned to channel his hyperactivity into sports, asked Jesus to heal his back (Jesus did), got tutoring in math, and began running eight miles a day to train for the Marine Corps. He was one of the only Marines in his unit to run a marathon in Iraq with temperatures topping 100-plus degrees. He hated writing but was good at it, so he wrote a newsletter for his unit.

The child who was diagnosed with learning problems learned to rock climb, play a piano, ride and train horses and scuba dive. Between deployments, Luke took flying lessons, bought an airplane, got an instructor and instrument panel rating, and flew in air shows, performing stunts and writing with smoke. He also continued running marathons.

His most important life accomplishments were walking with God and being a loving husband to his wife, Delight, and an adoring father to his daughter, Dulcinea.

So I run. I know Luke is in Heaven. I don’t know if he can look down and see me, but if he can – I want him to see a mother honoring his memory as an overcomer by becoming one herself. And running helps me write books like Bridge Beyond Betrayal (Sunpenny Publishing Group July 25^th release), which is dedicated to Luke and includes a prophetic poem he wrote a year before his fatal airplane crash.

I’m not fast, I’ll probably never run a marathon, I’ll probably always hate running. But I love my son.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

: http://goo.gl/qwvLaV

Rocks, Roses & Sea Breezes

It was hard when I first arrived in Scotland from Texas, USA. Even though it was “summer,” it was 25 degrees cooler and I went from wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts to wrapping up in three layers of clothes, a coat and a wooly hat.

Cars drove on the wrong side of the road. There were roundabouts – paved circles with no stop signs or traffic lights. Cars spin in and out of roundabouts without stopping and drivers use right turn signals – even though vehicles turn left entering a roundabout. Many roads are poorly marked or not marked at all. Signs are in both Gaelic and English, with the Gaelic on top. Since the lettering is small, it’s nearly impossible to read it.

Meals are called “tea,” so when you are invited over for tea, you don’t know if you’re joining friends for a cup of hot tea (which I don’t drink anyway), or a meal. Cookies are called biscuits and biscuits are scones. Toilet paper is “loo roll” and dish soap is “washing up liquid.” Sidewalks are called pavement. While waiting for a bus, the driver shouted at me, “Get on the pavement.” I was confused because I was standing on the pavement.

Favorite is spelled favourite, color is colour, program is programme, and long lines are called queues. Oh – and dog owners don’t like to have their dogs called “pups” unless they are actually puppies.

Church services are strictly timed to finish within an hour. Songs are usually accompanied by slow, ponderous organ music. Following human traditions is more important than following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

There are virtually no convenience stores and long trips are miserable because of the lack of public restrooms. Once, out of sheer desperation, I hunkered down in the back of a store that hadn’t opened yet, squatting between wire racks. Existing restrooms usually have thick-walled stalls from the floor to the ceiling with such painted-over metal hardware that I never lock the door because when I do – I either cut my fingers or am afraid I won’t be able to unlock it again.

When you order Italian food like lasagna in the U.S., you get hot bread, a salad, the main course, and refills of iced tea or soft drinks. In Scotland…you get lasagna. No refills on drinks.

Words like schedule, proven, resume and laboratory are pronounced differently. Words like garage and aluminum are pronounced so differently that I didn’t know what they were at first.

God brought me to Scotland. He’s helped me bloom. I still say “y’all,” and haven’t said “aye” yet, but I actually invited someone to have “tea” with us – meaning a meal! The hardness and trials have translated into blessings. We live where everything that is green blooms, and everything is green because of the surplus of rain. In any direction one looks, there is no blight, no ugliness. The people are warm, friendly, generous and independent. They remind me of Texas folks.

And my second Miz Mike mystery-romance-suspense is about to be released by Sunpenny Publishing Group, here in the UK. God has transformed hardness and confusion into rose petals and sea breezes.

It is possible to bloom amid rocks and hardness. Trust God to turn the hard circumstances in your life into garden spots.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Dare to be a…Dandelion?

William Wordsworth wrote:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils…

Why daffodils? Why not dandelions? They are both yellow. They are both cheerful. They both start with the letter D. So what’s wrong with dandelions…except, of course, that in this case – it wouldn’t rhyme.

Even though dandelions have medicinal uses and are harvested for food, they are listed as a noxious weed in many jurisdictions. My neighbors hate them and cast disparaging looks at our yard when the cheerful yellow blooms pop up and wave at them in a friendly manner.

Multiple internet sites offer advice on how to kill or get rid of dandelions. They are considered a nuisance in residential and recreational lawns and in agriculture. They get blamed for economic damage because they infest crops worldwide.

Pilgrims brought dandelions to New England from Europe in the 1600s, and planted them for health benefits which included curing scurvy, a condition caused by a lack of vitamin C. Because dandelions are hardy, they survived. Because they are aggressive, spread easily, grow anywhere, and are highly visible – the once revered flowers are now hated.

Children love dandelions. What magical fun to blow on a dandelion and watch white fluff somersault through the air on wind currents – tiny circus performers catching a moment of freedom and life in celebration. I still love blowing on dandelions. (I don’t do it when the neighbors are watching!)

Fortrose, Scotland, threw off winter gloom and followed a bright parade of golden daffodils this spring. Except the ones captured by cameras and memories, they are gone now. Now, the land has rolled out folds of green and gold tartan as dandelions march staunchly into the battle for continued survival.

Christians need to be like dandelions – not daffodils. We should be aggressive on the side of right. We should spread the Good News about Jesus’ love and eternal life everywhere we go. We should bloom where God plants us. We should be hardy, even when we are met by ridicule. We should catch the breath of the Holy Spirit and celebrate Jesus as freely and joyfully as dandelion fluff in a whirlwind.

Instead of daring to be a Daniel, like the children’s Bible song, we should dare to be a dandelion.

I think I just encouraged myself to go out and blow on some dandelions in front of my neighbors. I may or may not be back…

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Living for Rainbows & Glitter

Living for Rainbows & Glitter
Some people spend their lives chasing rainbows and glitter. Mundane and ordinary won’t answer.
Expensive exotic vacations; expensive designer clothes; expensive luxury cars; expensive homes and mansions – things dominate and enslave those who would waltz with rainbows and sprinkle glitter on stars. Rainbow chasers forget that rainbows appear with storm clouds and disappear with the sun.
Rainbows cannot survive in peace and sunshine, nor can glitter outshine a star. Were we to live our lives as a candle in a sun brightened room, no one would ever see our glow. If your life is mixed storm and sun, count yourself blessed. Joy is not in rainbows and glitter, but rather in the light we can shine into a sin-darkened world.
The same chapter in the Bible, Romans 8, that promises that “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord,” also promises that if “we suffer with Jesus, we will also be glorified with Him.”
Riches are fine, rainbows are fine, glitter is fine, but contrast is what gives life meaning.

Living for Rainbows & Glitter

Word Rocks

The world caught its breath in horror recently when Farzana Parveen, 25, of Pakistan, was stoned to death by family members outside a courthouse because she married the man she loved instead of the man her family had selected for her.

Truthfully, a lot of us use word rocks to murder every day.

Consider parents who tell a child, “You’re a brat!” “I’m so sick and tired of you!” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You’re stupid!” Word rocks that kill. Most incarcerated individuals, including serial killers, were battered by word rocks as children.

Consider a spouse who tells the other, “I hate you!” “I wish I had never married you!” “How did I get stuck with you?” Word rocks. Most marriages that end in divorce started tearing apart from the weight of word rocks that were never forgiven, never forgotten.

School children are guilty of murdering with word rocks at school. Most of them learned the battering techniques they use at school from being battered themselves at home. “You’re ugly!” “I don’t want to be your friend.” “You’re weird.” Word rocks that scar for life and sometimes murder victims by pushing them toward suicide, drug use, or crime.

No wonder the Bible has so many verses commanding us to use words as tools, not weapons. Proverbs 18:21 declares that “Death and Life are in the power of the tongue.” Jesus warned that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. “By your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:37. He added, “Not that what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.”

While most word rocks are cruel and unkind, not all word rocks are deadly. Jesus hates profanity. As our example, He explained, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:63). Our words should reflect Jesus’ Holy Spirit and direct listeners toward joy, abundance, and eternal life.

The Bible advises, “Put perverse lips far from you.” It reminds us that, “The mouth of the righteous is a well of life.” It proclaims, “He who restrains his lips is wise.”

Convicted by reading Moody Bible books – The Sugar Creek Gang – as a teen, I quit using profanity, even though my parents were atheists and swore profusely. I wasn’t a Christian and couldn’t even define the term, but I knew there was something different and admirable about the characters in those books. Now that I write Christian mystery-romance-suspense, I challenge myself to write believable characters in exciting settings full of adventure and romance – without using profanity or glorifying risky lifestyle choices like smoking, drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex. I don’t lob word rocks. They kill.

None of us can undo the tragic death of Farzana Parveen and her child. We can’t bring them back to life. But all of us can protect the ones we love in our life by remembering not to sling word rocks.

God intends us to use words to plant trees of life, not to kill and destroy.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Loof Lirpa & Money in the Bank

While my brothers and sisters were honor roll students, I was a mediocre student, predictably in the middle of my class. Sadly, my high school math average is – F.

However, I loved writing. Writing was the only occupation I knew where you got paid to lie. As a fourth grader, my first check as a writer was for $5 from a magazine that bought my story about the enormous snapping turtle in our pond. There was a snapping turtle. It was a whooper – just like the whooper about how much of a whooper the thing was!

Our seventh grade history teacher assigned us homework over the weekend, a two-page story on the explorer Loof Lirpa, who had discovered America before Columbus. I promptly forgot the assignment until Monday morning when I heard complaints and groans from students who hadn’t written their two-page paper because they couldn’t find information on Lirpa. No problem. I sat down at my desk and zipped out two pages feeling snug that for once – just once – I would be ahead of my class instead of behind them.

Our teacher asked how many people had completed their homework assignment. I proudly raised my hand. I felt like a champ when he invited me up to the front of the room to read my two-page report on the famous explorer.

Then he wrote Loof Lirpa on the board. Under it, he wrote “April Fool.”

Later, when I was a brand new Christian and a single parent, our church scheduled a special offering for building repairs. I desperately wanted to give generously to the project, but I knew that I only had $25 in the bank until my next check – a week away. However, when I sat down and carefully added and subtracted everything, I found an extra $100. Elated, I wrote out a check to the church for the extra $100. A few days later, checks started bouncing. Sure, my math was bad. Sure, I failed math in school. But I had checked and rechecked…and the money should have been there.

I marched into the bank with my check book to show them the deposits. They agreed with me and stopped all the bouncing checks and put money from the bank fees back into my account. They kept my check stub so their financial wizard could solve the conundrum. By the time they found the problem, I had received my paycheck and was in the clear…because the $100 really wasn’t in the account and never had been in the account. One of their cashiers had written a $10 deposit so sloppily that – even to the bank – it had looked like $100. The church got their offering, I got a week’s interest-free loan and no bank charges…God has a sense of humor!

Perhaps the reason I’m so excited about my next Miz Mike Christian mystery-romance-suspense “Bridge Beyond Betrayal,” is that it’s funny. I love humor. Bridge Beyond Betrayal is scheduled for release by Sunpenny Publishing Group on June 30. I can’t wait! I’m going to read it all over again just to get a good laugh!

Hope a lot of folks will buy Bridge Beyond Betrayal and join me in laughter. Besides, I can’t keep adding to the Miz Mike series if the books don’t sell. Even with my limited math skills, I understand that.

Writing, I love it! What other occupation pays liars?

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Mother’s Day – Don’t Leave the Kids Behind!

The most exciting event of my life occurred on Mother’s Day when my son was four. Count Your Many Blessings, name them one by one rang out as the invitational hymn and Luke left my side, walked down the aisle, and asked Jesus to come into his heart.

That memory is more important to me than ever on this Mother’s Day as USMC Major Luke Gaines Parker celebrates another day with Jesus and I endure my first Mother’s Day without his cheerful, enthusiastic voice starting off the day with, “Good morning, Mom. I love you! Happy Mother’s Day!”

The magnitude of the decision he made 33 years ago is my peace and hope in a rest-of-my-life without him because it assures me that, just like the Jesus he served, Luke is in Heaven. This separation is painful – but temporary.

Luke gave me a Bible for Christmas in 1992, when he was sixteen. He paid for it with earnings from his first job. Two years later, I gave him a Bible when he entered the U.S. Marine Corps. He carried his Bible with him for the rest of his life, including his six deployments to war zones, and read it nearly every day. Like the Bible he bought me, nearly every page is marked, underlined, or has notes written into the margins. I cherish both Bibles and keep them visible on my desk as constant reminders of how marvelously privileged and honored I was to have a son who walked in God’s Truth.

When I look back to Luke’s childhood, I regret all the things I couldn’t buy for him because – as a single parent – I couldn’t afford them. I regret never having had enough money to take him to Disney Land or on a vacation. But what Luke and I did share is bigger and greater than all of my regrets combined: a love for Jesus Christ Who gave up His life on the cross for our sins so we can spend eternity with Him in a place where there is no death, sickness, dying, sorrow or tears. Wow! Luke’s plane crash on Nov. 17, 2013, wasn’t the end – it is the beginning.

You mothers reading this Mother’s Day blog may suffer the same insecurities that I did as a parent if your finances aren’t long enough to stretch to meet expenses. Don’t fret. More than things you can buy for them, your children need your time. More than expensive vacations and trips, your children need your love.

One of Luke’s most cherished memories was living in poverty in the Nevada Desert in a cabin with no electricity, no running water, and an outhouse for a bathroom. Luke loved it because he could have me – my time and love. Instead of running between two and three jobs to make ends meet, I was teaching him at “home” and spending every day and night with him. He mentioned that as a highlight of his life in every Mother’s Day card he sent, and in nearly every phone call.

Don’t waste time and energy agonizing over what you can’t give your children. If you spend time and love on them and teach them about Jesus, you are a successful parent. The only thing we have here on earth that can follow us to heaven is our children. Make sure they know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Don’t leave the kids behind!

Books by this author: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Loose the Excuse

Can you imagine my husband’s response if I said to him, “That picture you found of me with another man, well, he and I have a special relationship and I keep his picture with me all the time so I can look at him and be encouraged. We walk together, dance together, dine together, email each other, chat on the phone and just enjoy spending time together – but don’t worry, Sweetheart, I love you.”

I can imagine his response. Divorce. He is jealous.

Can you imagine Mighty God’s response after He led His chosen people out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea for them, and fed them in the wilderness for forty years and they said to Him, “Well, God, no offense – but we like these wooden idols the nations around us have made. We know they aren’t alive or real, but we want to worship them so we will fit in. Not to worry, Mighty God, we still love You.”

God was offended. He is jealous.

Christians today are quick to produce New Testament verses about Jesus’ love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness, all of which are true. But the life-building foundations of the Old Testament are just as valid today as they were more than 2,000 years ago. Jesus said He came to “fulfill” the Old Testament – not destroy it.

Jesus further validated the Old Testament in Luke 10:27 when he agreed with a quote from Exodus and Deuteronomy. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

God commanded in Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

We excuse our way around that commandment. “I don’t read the Bible. It’s too hard to understand.” “I don’t attend church. It’s full of hypocrites.” “Sunday’s the only day I have to spend with my family.” “I’m too busy for God now. I’ll make all the money I can for my retirement, then serve God.” “I can’t tell anyone else about God – I wouldn’t know what to say.” “How can I believe in God when bad things happen in the world?” “How can I believe in God when bad things happen to good people?”

There are some questions that not even the most brilliant Christian can answer. We live in a sin-blighted world and because of sin – bad things happen everywhere and to everyone. We need to loose the excuse, whatever it is, and center our lives on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who loved us so much that He died so that our bad could be forgiven.

Imagine Jesus failing to loose the excuse. “Father, I think I’ll put off dying on the cross today and go back to Samaria. A lot of people got saved after I talked to the woman at the well.” “Father, it’s too nice a day to die. I’ll go fishing with Peter.” “Father, people I love will mock me, spit on me, slap me around, pound thorns into my head, cut my back to shreds with whips, nail my hands and feet to a rough wooden cross like I was criminal, and hoist me into the air, naked and bleeding to die in shame. I’m not ready for that yet.”

The price for our salvation has been paid in full. Jesus can’t do more. He’s done it all. It’s time for us to loose the excuse, put God first in our lives, and quit serving the idols of this world – fame, fortune, success, sex, pleasure, entertainment – and serve the Mighty God of the universe Who can speak calmness into the storms in our lives.

http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Taking the Cure

Some of my friends are so allergic to bee stings that they carry an epinephrine autoinjector, more commonly known as an EpiPen, with them at all times. Injections of epinephrine – adrenaline – combat allergic reactions caused by everything from insect bites to food.

When I made the mistake of catching a snake at the pond to see whether it was poisonous or non-poisonous, I wound up at the hospital with my hand frozen in a tub of ice until anti-venom could be shipped in. The snake had been poisonous – a water moccasin.

Each day, people from all around the world flock to physicians, health clinics and hospitals to obtain cures for physical ailments. Searching for cures is nothing new. Mummified human remains prove that thousands of years before Christ came, physicians of their time performed operations on patients – even brain surgery. Prior to floods of settlers pushing Native Americans off their land in the U.S., Indian doctors discovered aspirin, medicinal herbs, and how to set broken bones.

When we are sick, we want to be healed.

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday is about illness and the cure. There are four major religions in the world, each revering their founders. All four founders died. Three of them stayed dead. Jesus arose from the grave victorious. Jesus is alive! He lives and moves and has His life in us, if we seek the cure – because we are all sick.

I can run up to four miles a day, take garlic and cayenne pepper capsules and never go to the doctor, but I am sick. My heart is diseased. It’s sick from sin.

Symptoms of heart sickness include anger, bitterness, hate, selfishness – rotten fruit that molds inside the hidden chambers of the body, making us physically ill as well as building unpleasant, hard to tolerate personalities.

When we invite Jesus into our hearts and let His Holy Spirit live inside us, we produce good fruit from the inside out, fruit that blesses us and others: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The choice to take the cure or leave it is ours. Easter is a good time to make it.

Books by Stephanie Parker McKean: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0