Try a Bit Harder, Work a Bit Longer…

With a bit of weeding, digging and replanting, the garden looked nice…except for the dead branches and trunks of a tree along the fence. Our chainsaw will cut butter, but not much else and there are no repair or sharpening services in our area. The handsaw cuts a bit better, but the dead tree trunks were huge in circumference and grown too close together to allow the handsaw to get in between them. With our limited tools, cutting that dead, tangled mess looked impossible.

Enter determination. The same, “try a bit harder, work a bit longer,” that carried me past the agony and despair of receiving 150 rejection slips on different books over the years to eventual success. I now have five published Christian, mystery-romance-suspense books, Bridge to Nowhere (Rose & Crown/Sunpenny Publishing), Love’s Beating Heart, Heart Shadows, Until the Shadows Flee and Shadow Chase. I knew I was a writer. God had put that burning fire in my bones and I could not contain it. But every rejection slip made me quit and give up…briefly – before I remembered to try a bit harder, work a bit longer.

So, too, with the dead wood in the front yard. First the clippers to remove the smaller branches. With scratched and bleeding arms and facing those huge trunks, I started to give up. Then I looked again at the bright green garden tossed with blooming flowers and mocked by one clump of ugly dead tree. The butter-cutting chainsaw came out. The butter-cutting-plus handsaw came out. Then help arrived in the form of my gifted, talented husband (also an author, The Scent of Time & The Scent of Home). He had been out visiting folks in the parish. Still dressed in his clerical shirt and collar (he’s a Church of Scotland minister) Alan began helping. Between the two of us and the two butter and better than butter-cutting saws, the dead wood came out. Try a bit harder, work a bit longer.

Taking out the dead growth was the right thing to do. Besides looking better, the open space allows room to finish edging in front of the beds and trimming the shrubs.But it wasn’t easy. It took trying a bit harder, working a bit longer.

Having five published books was the right thing to do. Without preaching, the characters and action in the books point to God. It is my prayer that they will help readers find their way to the Cross of Jesus. Love’s Beating Heart sends two teens on a wild river adventure to save Baby. The fast-moving adventure upholds marriage, homeschooling and pro-life over abortion. If it saves the life of even one unborn child, I have fulfilled my purpose as a writer. But success wasn’t easy. It took years to achieve and a lot of trying a bit harder, working a bit longer.

When you have a dream or a task that seems impossible, don’t give up! Try a bit harder, work a bit longer.

What Tree are You?

If someone asked you what kind of tree best represents you, what would your answer be? Tall, straight and reaching to the sky like a mighty pine? Squat and thick with olive green foliage like a Texas live oak? Branched with diversity like a grafted fruit tree? Showy and spectacular like an ornamental cherry or pear tree? Or fruitful like a trustworthy apple?

Me? I’d be like most dogs. A mongrel. Past trials and testings have twisted branches and stripped them of leaves and fruit. I’ve never been able to grow straight enough for long enough to reach up an tickle the clouds. I attempt to live a Christian life as evidenced my the fruit listed in Galatians 5:22: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Yet, sometimes I grow weary. Sometimes the fruit of the Spirit falls to the ground.

The tree of my life is bent, twisted, bare-barked in spots – a unique creation shaped by God. I am so thankful for that! Every bend, broken branch and naked barked limb wrote its way into the books God has given me to author. Bridge to Nowhere, Love’s Beating Heart, Shadow Chase, Heart Shadows and Until the Shadows Flee are all knobs on that tree. The soon-to-be-released Fear of Shadows was written by a childhood memory too painful and frightening to recall.

I like my shape! God created it for His glory. A tall pine tree pinching the sky stands in its own glory. I need God to clothe me with every measure of joy and beauty He can give.

You might want to thank God for your shape; your kind of tree. It’s unique. No one else can do a good job of being you.