You Can Do It Too
| 05/17/2012 | Posted by Sarah Elisabeth under Heart Thoughts |
God gave writing back to me in August, 2010. I discovered Faithwriters.com and committed to entering the Writing Challenge every week until I reached the Master’s level. I achieved that in just under a year, but kept going for a total of sixteen months straight.
Some of my other achievements are harder to measure, it’s more of a feel. I no longer feel in the dark now, and felt at home in Elizabeth Sherrill’s Master’s Writing Workshop a few weeks ago.
None of this is to boast. It’s just to say that if I can become what God’s called me to be, you can too.
For Him,
Sarah Elisabeth
The Best Gift You Can Give
| 05/12/2012 | Posted by Sarah Elisabeth under Heart Thoughts |
I face one of the year’s hardest problems every Mother’s Day. You don’t have to know me long to know I adore my parents, that my mom is still my bestest friend I hold hands and skip along with.
I love my mama so much I have no idea what to get her for Mother’s Day. To make matters worse, her birthday is right around May’s corner, June 20. A few ideas are coming to a boil on my mind’s stove, but nothing as fantastic as she deserves.
When a birthday of a close friend or birthday comes around, you may be like me, totally clueless what to offer them. “It’s the thought that counts” helps, but what if it were the prayer that counted?
Hence forth, I’m making sure no birthday or honoring day passes under my radar where I don’t bow my head for twenty seconds and say over a prayer over that person’s life. There is power in prayer.
Aside from prayer love, what’s the best gift you’ve ever received or given?
And Happy Mother’s Day to all you great moms reading my blog, especially my own. I love you, Mama! Praying for you always.
For Him,
Sarah Elisabeth
Why Do Novels Matter?
| 05/01/2012 | Posted by Sarah Elisabeth under World of Fiction |
There’s truth in fiction. Sometimes more than we want to admit. But it’s a safe way to learn and experience truth about ourselves, our struggles, and our faith.
Nonfiction gives it to the reader straight, a great approach to subjects and themes relating to the human soul. Still, confronting a subject head-on is something we don’t like, especially if it’s unpleasant or downright horrible truths about ourselves.
Enter fiction. We step back and watch someone who’s more real than our next door neighbor and recognize bits and pieces of our own heart in action. We see ourselves from a safe distance.
Cancer, loss of job, car accidents. What good can come of the trials and troubles beating our already weary bodies back into the dirt from which we came? In the midst of crisis, a direct message or true to life story draws too real of a comparison with our own situation. The pain deepens with the continual burn of “why?”
Enter fiction. The more realistic, the better, yet it still lets us hold the pages away from our wounds while applying a salve we didn’t know it contained. We evaluate our agony from a safe distance.
In the Wayback of the Moon – Book Review of Crater by Homer H. Hickam
| 04/17/2012 | Posted by Sarah Elisabeth under Book Reviews |
A mining outpost on the moon, a protective gillie, a complaining brother-like best friend and an annoying boss’ granddaughter set things up for changes to come in the life of a mild mannered scraper kid named Crater Trueblood.
The story starts with the redundant but satisfying job of mining in the way back of the moon and escalates to an adventure across the most dangerous territory the moon has to offer. Crater is plunged into adventure and struggle for survival as he makes new friends…and new enemies, something foreign to the simple sixteen-year-old with a knack for genius.
Crater is one of those characters you can’t help but like right away. An orphan from birth, he never complains, never rubs anyone the wrong way, except in his wonderful honesty and innocence. His best friend/adopted brother, Petro, is quite the opposite, setting them up for conflict when things start to cross Crater in ways he’s never experienced.
Beckon by Tom Pawlik—Book Review
| 04/09/2012 | Posted by Sarah Elisabeth under Book Reviews |
The lives of three people collide in the town of Beckon, each drawn there for a different but life changing reason.
The story opens with Jack, a young anthropologist who wants to find what happened to his father who disappeared when Jack was just nine. Teamed with his best friend and a Native American guide, they begin a search in the caves near Beckon, Wyoming.
Elina—an ex-cop—is searching for her missing cousin, and finds much more than she bargained for. But it’s her renewed and steadfast faith in God that brings things to a head in the end.
George arrives in Beckon on the lure of a cure for his beloved wife’s Alzheimer’s. At seventy-three, he still has plenty of life left in him to handle the truth of what really goes on with the “cure.”
This book is a page turner, one of those that kept me up past my fairly set bedtime. I’m not a huge sci-fi reader, but this book felt normal enough to have me contemplating how this could actually happen.
