Author: Author Mary Hall
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A Verse for Today – Slovenliness
“And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” – James 1:4, ESVOswald Chambers says the remnants of the earthly life are apt to make us slovenly. “Slovenliness is an insult to the Holy Ghost,” he says in My Utmost for His Highest.
“There should be nothing slovenly, whether it be in the way we eat and drink, or in the way we worship God.”
Ouch! When I study historical Christian writings while homeschooling my daughters, I come across many more warnings against idleness and slovenliness than I do in modern writings and teachings. Hmm . . . By nature, I’m a pretty lazy person. Gluttonous, too, if I’m fully honest. While I’m praying for Christians facing horrifying persecution around the globe, I can actually be distracted by anything that causes the slightest discomfort while I pray.
Can you?
Lord God, forgive my slovenly focus on comfort and worldly things. Give me a heart that’s devoted to heaven.
More later . . .
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A Verse for Today – Trials
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
– James 1:2-4
I read these verses to my five-year-old daughter Megan this morning and asked if she felt joy the last time she scraped her knee and needed a band-aid. “No,” she replied, laughing. But according to my ESV Study Bible, these verses are a call to understand suffering from the vantage point of confidence in God’s sovereignty. Trials can be considered pure joy only when we recognize they’re designed by God for a purpose—tests of faith given in order to develop perseverance, which produces mature Christian character. Do I praise God only when I receive pleasant blessings from His hand? Do I want it to be said of me, like Satan predicted of Job, that I would curse God if He took away all He’s given me?
Lord, let my worship not be based on what You give me but on Who and What You are.
More later . . .
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Blog Hop Interview
I’ve been linked in a blog hop and asked about new releases! Here’s my interview:
What is the working title of your book?
AmberlyWhere did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve had the story behind Amberly and the rest of the Crestmere Series in my mind for more than 35 years. I realized two years ago I was forgetting parts of it, so I began writing it down! Friends loved chapters I sent them and begged me for more, and the writing / learning / revising process began. The idea came from my dreams of exploring the ideas of romance and relationships in other times and places.
What genre does your book fall under?
Romantic suspense, in a setting similar to eighteenth century England.Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Oh, that’s such a great question! I know exactly what (or who) each character looks like, but don’t know whether certain actors would be the best ones to play these roles. Marsten’s face (but not his hair) looks exactly like a Perry Ellis model named Tommy Dunn. I spotted Tommy on a wall over the men’s suits at Dillards two years ago. His face is just like the one I’ve envisioned in my mind for thirty five years (which is rather funny because I doubt that Mr. Dunn’s even thirty five years old). Eleanor looks like a particular photo I saw once of Catherine Zeta Jones, but she acts more like my feisty Irish ancestors. Mayor Williamston in my mind looks like Theoden actor Bernard Hill. Margaret Williamston’s a bit trickier. I have an image in my mind of what she looks like, but don’t know who might portray her best. And as for Hrunfaldr the Norlander chieftain, I picture Thor actor Chris Hemsworth – but he’d have to be about thirty years older!What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Snatched by coldblooded enemies as a declaration of war, Eleanor Williamston finds herself caught in a deadly snare—miles from home and lost in the wilderness, where her heart is drawn to the handsome guardsman who rescues her, but then is torn when he challenges her political ideals—and then reveals something that will make her choices even more difficult.Where can your book be purchased?
Amberly is available on Amazon and all the usual places.How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I pounded out the first draft of what became the first two books over four months during late summer and early fall, 2010. I’ve spent the two years since then revising both manuscripts, while learning from writers’ conferences and working with critique groups.What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Amberly has similarities to novels by Jane Austen, Liz Curtis Higgs, MaryLu Tyndall, and even has touches that would appeal to lovers of Tolkien, epic classical literature, and poetry.Who or What inspired you to write this book?
While I was growing up, I became fascinated with the notion of twin heirs to royalty, born in the forest so no one knew which was the firstborn, coming to trust only in one another and determined to someday reign together. I enjoyed mulling over the unique joys and challenges this might present, and soon their adventures together began in my mind. Other characters joined them, and their stories matured while I did. When I became a believer in Christ, their lives and struggles blossomed like mine with desire to please God while struggling against forces from without and within that seek to oppose Him. Now I see these stories as a means to share with others in an enjoyable way some of the crucial things I’ve learned about life and love, providing a legacy of Biblical truth for generations to come. It’s my hope and prayer that readers will come away loving God more deeply and desiring to serve Him better.What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
To me, the setting of a story is as much a character as the hero or heroine of any story. Since I’ve always viewed these stories like a movie playing in my mind, I’ve sought to convey the richness and beauty of the surroundings so the reader is swept away into the world of the characters, and can see and feel what they do. Readers and reviewers have commented enthusiastically on this, so it appears other people enjoy immersing themselves in the world of the stories they read as much as I do!Check out some other great author blogs too:
Rebecca Davis for gripping missionary biographies
Fay Lamb for romance and family
Selena Fulton – It’s All About the Journey
Susan Tuttle’s Encouraging Small Steps that Lead to Giant Leaps in Christ
and Kathryn J. Bain for clean fiction with an edge! -
Cheerful Bookmarks
If your family’s full of bookworms like mine is, cut your old Christmas and greeting cards into strips and make a pile of bookmarks! I like to make wide ones and narrow ones. We use them for all our homeschool books, storybooks, novels, etc – and I usually have about a half dozen skinny ones marking various places in my Bible and my copy of Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening. If you cut them nicely around designs – and perhaps add a pretty ribbon bow – they can make lovely personalized gifts and tags, too!
Anybody have other ideas to share?
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Advent Meditation # 2
From John Piper’s Good News of Great Joy Daily Advent Readings
For God’s Little People
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that all the world should be registered. This was the first
registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And
all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph
also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to
Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be
registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.”
—Luke 2:1–5
Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that God
ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem
(as the prophecy in Micah 5 shows); and that he so ordained
things that when the time came, the Messiah’s mother and
legal father were living in Nazareth; and that in order to fulfill
his word and bring two little people to Bethlehem that first
Christmas, God put it in the heart of Caesar Augustus that all
the Roman world should be enrolled each in his own town?
Have you ever felt, like me, little and insignificant in a
world of seven billion people, where all the news is of big political
and economic and social movements and of outstanding
people with lots of power and prestige?
If you have, don’t let that make you disheartened or unhappy.
“For it is implicit in Scripture that all the mammoth political
forces and all the giant industrial complexes, without their
even knowing it, are being guided by God, not for their own
sake but for the sake of God’s little people—the little Mary and
the little Joseph who have to be got from Nazareth to Bethlehem.”
God wields an empire to bless his children.
Do not think, because you experience adversity, that the
hand of the Lord is shortened.
“It is not our prosperity but our
holiness that he seeks with all his heart.”
And to that end, he
rules the whole world. As Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart
is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever
he will.”
He is a big God for little people, and
“we have great cause to
rejoice that, unbeknownst to them, all the kings and presidents
and premiers and chancellors of the world follow the sovereign
decrees of our Father in heaven, that we, the children, might be
conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.”
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Advent Meditation #1
From John Piper’s Good News of Great Joy (a free e-book download):
“Mary and Elizabeth are wonderful heroines in Luke’s
account. He loves the faith of these women. The thing that
impresses him most, it appears, and the thing he wants to
impress on Theophilus, his noble reader, is the lowliness and
cheerful humility of Elizabeth and Mary.
Elizabeth says,“Why is this granted to me that the mother of
my Lord would come to me?” (Luke 1:43). And Mary says, “He
has looked on the humble estate of his servant” (Luke 1:48).
The only people whose soul can truly magnify the Lord are
people like Elizabeth and Mary—people who acknowledge
their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by the condescension
of the magnificent God.”
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Romantic Remembrances! JoAnn Durgin’s Love Story
I met JoAnn Durgin at the 2011 ACFW Writers’ Conference in St. Louis and adored her warm, enthusiastic spirit! JoAnn is the author of “Meet Me Under the Mistletoe” available here.
Here’s JoAnn’s Romantic Remembrance:I met my husband, Jim, on a blind date back in the mid-1980s in Dallas, Texas. Then a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, he’d sworn off blind dates when he’d been set up with a runner-up to Miss Texas (gorgeous, tall, blonde…you get the picture) a couple of weeks before. Mutual friends had invited them both to dinner in their home after which Miss Runner-Up pushed away from the table, thanked them politely and bounced off, saying she had another date. I was dating someone else at the time (an urban cowboy whom I suspected—rightly so—of two-stepping out on me). So, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to date (and specifically told my friends not to fix me up) when we all decided to go to dinner. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that my friend Susan’s boyfriend (now husband), Marshall, went to seminary with Jim. In a sweet revelation, we found out later that both our friends prayed independently for someone to introduce each of us to, and lo and behold, came up with…well, you can guess the rest. We’ve been married 25 years this past September (on Jim’s birthday, no less—you marry a man on his birthday and he won’t forget his anniversary).
Let me backtrack just a moment. How I even met Susan was one of those “God” things. I worked for a large, downtown Dallas law firm. Mind you, this was back in the stone ages before fax machines were in common use (and I don’t believe e-mail was yet a figment in anyone’s imagination), and we used a courier service to ferry things across town. When I’d call Wingtip Couriers, I always adored the lilting voice on the other end of the phone. “This is Susan at Wingtip Couriers. How can I help you?” I’d joined a Bible study group with a friend from my apartment complex. One Saturday morning, I was having breakfast with this friend and a pretty blonde came over to our table and we were introduced. As soon as I heard her lovely voice, I said, “You’re Susan from Wingtip Couriers, aren’t you?” Indeed it was.
My first date with Jim was the Dallas Seminary Spring Banquet, quite an auspicious event. Jim was in the men’s chorus. When he showed up on my doorstep in his midnight blue tux—all 6’2” of tall, dark and handsome—I seriously almost swooned. He was endearing when he tucked me inside his old bomb of a station wagon. I’ll never forget him telling me how he couldn’t find a replacement window for that little triangular piece of glass on the passenger side. “You can scoot closer, if you want,” he said, giving me this shy, sheepish look, “or else the fumes might get to you.” I was in love.
We became fast friends and went out together quite often, but honestly? I wasn’t exactly the type of Christian girl my husband-to-be thought he was seeking. Jim called it the “Seminary mentality,” meaning he wanted a girl like his own dear mother, raised in the faith from the time she was knee-high to a grasshopper. But Jim and I shared a mutual fascination (for lack of a better description) with one another, and continued to go out as “friends” even though there was always something simmering below the surface. We even went out together when we were both dating others. But he told me later that no other girl held the same challenge and appeal, even though they more closely matched his image of that elusive, “perfect” Christian girl.
It all came to a “head” in what I now refer to as our infamous Red Lobster date. It got to the point where Jim decided he needed to know where I stood spiritually (he’d been debating whether to take the step of faith—more like a leap—to date me). That dinner at Red Lobster was truly awful; he challenged my spiritual condition and I stormed away, feeling personally attacked and defensive. I emotionallydistanced myself from him for months. He called and left messages, stopped by the law office, even had flowers delivered, but I didn’twant to see him. Quite simply, I was hurt andembarrassed. But here’s the thing: I knew Jim was right; he saw straight through me. I was living a good, moral life, but I wasn’t living for the Savior. But he could tell I loved the Lord and wanted to learn and grow, and that encouraged him. When Jim went on a musical tour of Europe with the Seminary, he wrote novels on postcards to me (which I literally burned but, in hindsight, wish I’d kept). But the Lord was continuing to work in my heart.
There’s so much more to our story, but suffice it to say, he was soon graduating and leaving Dallas, and I had no plans to leave. So, about three weeks before he was to depart and move back home (Rhode Island) and seek a full-time ministry position, we sat in another restaurant, and decided to try and make a long-distance relationship work. It seemed impossible, but we had optimism and were full of big hopes and dreams. Perhaps more importantly, we had faith that God could work it all out.
Those last weeks were glorious, and I fell hard for my handsome, tall, faithful man. Jim felt the same, but how would this all work? Only a few days before he was to graduate and leave, he told me something I found incredibly hard to believe…but also so precious for my heart. As handsome as he was, as much as he’d dated, Jim had never kissed a girl on the lips. And this is what still stops my heart: Jim told me he always knew the first girl he kissed on the lips would be the girl he married. And so, my friends, on the night before his graduation – with the world at our feet, but with no idea how we’d be together or what would happen (but knew the gracious Lord would orchestrate it all if it was meant to be)—Jim kissed me. On the lips. And it was, as they say…the moment I knew. And so did Jim.
What happened next is yet another story, in yet another string of “God” things that were truly amazing. It’s almost as though you could “see” the hand of God working in our lives, bringing two of his own together as one. In this week of thankfulness—and three children later—I’m so grateful for the many blessings from above which have enriched my life above and beyond what I could ever have imagined.
JoAnn Durgin is the author of the popular Lewis Legacy Series, and her Christmas novella, Meet Me under the Mistletoe (where hero Jake shares Jim’s philosophy on kissing a woman for the first time), from Pelican Group Ventures/White Rose Publishing. She and Jim live in her native southern Indiana after living in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and JoAnn is an estate administration paralegal in a Louisville, Kentucky law firm. She’d love to hear from you via her website (www.joanndurgin.com) or drop her a line on Facebook.
