Welcome Storms in 2014

When tornado-strength thunderstorm winds batter the Texas Hill Country, massive live oak trees that have stood for hundreds of years uproot and topple. Here in the Black Isle of Scotland, gale force winds sweep from coast to coast constantly – seldom uprooting or toppling trees.

Duress has provided the impetus compelling Scottish trees to grow into defiant survivors impervious to life’s storms. Scottish trees stand intransigent and victorious, feeding on the fury of the wind to send roots deeper into the soil.

That’s a good illustration for the New Year. Welcome life’s storms as challenges forcing growth and change. Storms may seem like furious, unrelenting events over which we have no power, and which will rob us of victory or success, but the power of life’s storms and our resulting defeat are both illusions.

The Bible promises that our weakness is an opportunity for God to present Himself strong and victorious in our lives. God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you: My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

The world has coined two clichés: what doesn’t make you bitter makes you better and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Storms have peppered my life over the years. As a child, I lived in a cowshed with no indoor plumbing facilities. After escaping childhood sexual abuse and two forced non-medically supervised abortions that nearly killed me, I lived under a bridge. As a single parent, I worked two and three jobs to make ends meet and slept in the back of a pickup truck on top of our belongings when moving from job to job. I spent over a year in an open-ended garden center with no indoor plumbing, bathroom or kitchen facilities, and wildlife coming in and out freely. I had my property stolen by underhanded legal proceedings. All on the same day; our sheepdog died, my mother died and I couldn’t attend her funeral because my husband was sent home in an ambulance to die, and my truck caught on fire in downtown San Antonio. Just over a month ago, I lost my only son in a plane crash. No one is immune to storms. We have two choices when storms hit us; suffer and grow bitter, or grow and become stronger.

Storms have strengthened my writing, too. From the time I was eleven, all I’ve wanted to do is write. Fifty years of rejection slips, disappointments and closed doors have strengthened my resolve into a wall that simply can’t be battered down. I’m thankful to have six published mystery-romance-suspense books, but even if I had never had one book published or one copy sold – I would keep writing. Storms have driven my writing roots so deep that they can’t be uprooted.

May your 2014 be full of calm, peace, love and joy and as few storms as possible. Should a storm find you in 2014, embrace it as an opportunity to grow stronger roots. My prayer for you: “That God would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in your inner parts.” Ephesians 3:16.

When I feel faint, I look again at this picture of a little tree determinedly growing out of the top of a fence post. If it can bloom where God has planted it, so can I!

Link to all six of Stephanie Parker McKean’s Christian mystery-romance-suspense books: http://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Magic

When I was a child, I lived in a magical world where fireflies were fairies dancing across the night sky. Not even catching lightning bugs in jars and using them as lanterns dispelled the magic. Fed by romantic fairy tales, my mind peopled toadstools with little people resting from their wanderings, drinking crystal dew drops out of the chalice of upturned flower blossoms and vanishing into the grass out of sight as morning crept into the world stealing darkness and shadows.

When I outgrew those fiction stories, I rode my bicycle up and down Georgia red clay roads at dusk looking for flying saucers. I explored spooky “haunted” houses that my friends were afraid to enter. I devoured stories about the Bermuda Triangle. One of my dreams was to travel to Scotland to look for the Loch Ness Monster.

God has a sense of humor. Here I am living in Scotland now, within fifteen miles of Loch Ness. I’ve made three trips to Loch Ness looking for Nessie. I’ve found one female mallard duck, one family of mallard ducks, and some hungry seagulls that were delighted to share lunch with me. Does that mean that I don’t believe in Nessie? Oh, no! Just because I haven’t found Nessie doesn’t mean that she doesn’t exist! I am fascinated by the sonar echoes and “swishing” sounds that exploratory vessels have picked up from the bottom of Scotland’s deepest lake.

Authors with vivid imaginations have written enduring stories that enthrall generations of readers. How blessed I will be if my grandchildren discover some of my books without being told about them: Bridge to Nowhere, Love’s Beating Heart, Heart Shadows, Until the Shadows Flee, Shadow Chase, Fear of Shadows. Or my husband’s time-travel adventures The Scent of Time and The Scent of Home. I would never equate my Christian mystery-romance-suspense books with literary classics, but I would match my imagination with the best of them!

This world is full of mystery, magic and miracles. Finding them depends on raising the line of heart vision from toadstools to Heaven. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He has touched my life with miraculous healing and provision numerous times. But even if Jesus had never performed those visible outward physical signs and wonders, my changed heart itself would be a miracle.

My journey from a bitter, spiteful, unhappy God-hating atheist to a joyful Christ-loving Christian involved supernatural travel on the wings of God’s Holy Spirit. That, my friends, is magic!

Follow the Jumper!

We are blessed to live in Fortrose, Scotland, within walking distance of Chanonry Point where the dolphins come to jump and play. Well, truthfully, to eat salmon!

One thing we’ve learned about photographing these amazing animals is to follow the jumper. The firth can be full of surfacing dolphins, but if none of them jump – the pictures are boring ones of water, fins and backs. To get an interesting photo, watch to see which dolphin is a jumper and keep the camera trained on the jumper.

Life is like that. Some folks sit watching their TVs and eating snacks and let others jump out of apathy and attempt to change the world. If you want to have an interesting life – jump! You may come down on the wrong foot and end up with a sprain. Don’t let that stop you – sprains heal. Mediocre couch-sitters will despise you and attempt to break you in pieces with words so that they can build up their self-image without getting up out of their comfort zone. Not to worry. Jesus went through the same thing. He was a Jumper.

Being an author is similar. My goal is to write “jumpers.” Books that people will remember; mystery-romance-suspense books that will inspire them to leave their comfort zone and jump for their dreams. Bridge to Nowhere, from Sunpenny Publishing, follows older Texan protagonist Miz Mike who would mind her own business except for her motto to “never let an adventure pass by unmolested.” She almost loses her faith in God when her youngest grandson is kidnapped and law enforcement lets the murderer who kidnapped him escape. Her involvement in the mystery threatens the renascent romance with her cowboy hero Marty. Then she jumps.

Love’s Beating Heart jumps all over the place. A pro-life teen and up adventure-romance with a strong supporting arm for homeschooling and the sanctity of marriage, Love’s Beating Heart is out there jumping through the waters of controversy like an entire pod of dolphins!

Heart, Shadows, Until the Shadows Flee and the soon-to-be-released Fear of Shadows all contain a strong Christian message woven into the action and believable characters – not some preachy tacked on addition. They all jump.

Writing “jumpers” matters to me. I want to offer readers books that won’t discomfort them with profanity or negative lifestyle examples. Books that entertain and delight. Books that jump! Someday I will be gone just as surely as the dolphins fade away from Chanonry Point when the salmon run is over. My desire is to leave something behind that will cause others to jump up out of their ordinary lives and do something extraordinary for God.

I want to live for the jump!