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.

Island Awry

Our plans showcased a great weekend trip that included visiting favorite friends and spending the night on a lovely, peaceful island. The host at the bed and breakfast cooks an amazing breakfast with eggs from his hens that are so fresh you can still smell the chicken.

We started out in Glasgow visiting Alan’s 96-year-old mother and his brother. Both are remarkable folks. Alan’s brother is a dedicated street preacher, working nearly every day. His mother still reads the Bible, prays, and sings praises to the LORD. In fact, she sings and hums all the time. Even in moments of quiet reflection, her face wears a cheerful smile. So the problem with our trip wasn’t how it started out, but rather how it ended. Clearly, we were meant to stay in Glasgow and it took three tries for God to message us.

We left early Saturday morning to keep our afternoon appointments. We were a couple of hours down the road when we realized we had forgotten Alan’s insulin and left it in the refrigerator. We went back for it. Thinking we were gone, Alan’s brother had gone to work. Wisely, their lovely mother has been instructed not to answer the door when she’s alone. So it was a two-hour wait to get the insulin and start out again, this time running late for the afternoon appointments – but still determined to keep them.

What stopped us that time was a taxi that didn’t. We stopped at a red light and the taxi behind us kept going. Our poor little car was severely crunched. The back window shattered, the hatchback sprang open, glass rained down on all our cases in the back…That disaster stopped us. We went back to Glasgow and spent the rest of the weekend with Alan’s family. I hadn’t seen them in two years and Alan hadn’t seen them in a year. Sunday was Mothers’ Day in the U.S., which made it even more special for me to be spending time with Alan’s mom.

Two Bible verses frame my life: “In everything give thanks,” and “All things work together for good to them that love the LORD.” We have already sorted out some of the things that are working together for good in our lives because of the accident. And our time here on this earth is short, no matter what our present age is. How precious to have spent that extra time with Alan’s family.

I came back on the bus and began answering emails about our books: Bridge to Nowhere, Love’s Beating Heart, Shadow Chase, Heart Shadows, Until the Shadows Flee and Alan’s The Scent of Time and his newly released The Scent of Home. Emails included a request for a press release for The Scent of Home. So as I labor over the keyboard in an attempt to catch up on everything, I realize that an island awry stole a weekend of writing. Instead of following The Scent of Home, I was following the scent of fresh eggs.