Coffee or Tea? Which Will it Be?

As newly-weds, my husband and I lived in Bogota, Colombia for two years, a country renowned for its great coffee. I hadn’t acquired a taste for coffee yet, but oh, it smelled SO good! At one of my husband’s orchestral concerts, they served tiny cups of coffee at intermission, and I decided to try one. Did I mention how GOOD it smelled? The coffee was what the Colombians called tinto, and what I’ve since learned is a gigantic wallop of caffeine in a miniature cup. I don’t think I slept for a week!

Years later, we moved to Canada, where my husband performed with another orchestra. My Canadian friends introduced me to tea—not the kind that comes in little bags with dangling strings, but real, looseleaf tea, brewed in a pot. I’ve been swimming against the tide of coffee drinkers ever since.   

To me, the main difference between tea and coffee is a matter of speed. We use coffee to wake up and get us going in the morning, brewing it quickly in pod machines and transporting it in large, insulated to-go cups as we race to work or drive the kids to school. We speed to the drive-through at the coffee shop and speed away. We invite friends to “grab a quick cup of coffee” with us.

Tea is entirely different. A true tea drinker seldom goes to the drive-through for a morning cup because to make tea properly takes time. First, the teapot must be warmed, then the water is boiled before being poured over the leaves. It’s left to steep for a few minutes, covered with a tea-cozy to keep it warm. Then you sit and sip from a porcelain teacup and have a leisurely talk with friends. No one invites a friend for a “quick cup of tea.”

The point of coffee is to get you going, usually at a rapid pace so you can multi-task. The point of tea is to slow you down, to relax. It’s something you linger over with good friends and maybe a tiered serving dish with tiny sandwiches and scones. We’ve all heard of tea-sandwiches but I’ve never heard of coffee sandwiches. Coffee is a fast-food, tea is a slow one. It transports us to the past, to a slower, less-demanding pace of life. And yet . . .

My newest book, “All My Secrets,” which debuted this month, takes place during the Gilded Age in the Stanhope family’s 75-room mansion. Nineteen-year-old Adelaide Stanhope lives with rules and expectations for women in her social class that are very restrictive. For example, these are some of the rules of etiquette for an afternoon tea party (borrowed from “The Essential Handbook of Victorian Entertaining” by Autumn Stephens):

  • Ladies retain their hats throughout the tea, and likewise their gloves. But tea gowns may be worn without a corset.
  • Request no more than one or two spoonsful of sugar with your tea. Although you may customarily take more, it is ill-bred to do so at someone else’s table.
  • It is not proper to drink with a spoon in the cup, or to quite drain the cup.
  • Don’t allow the spoon to clink noisily against the cup as you stir your tea.
  • Do not extend your small finger upward; this bespeaks of arrogance, not refinement.
  • Do not peek over the cup at others while you are sipping. Keep your eyes lowered.
  • Do not overindulge. Black tea, when taken to excess, so acts on the nervous system as to produce sleeplessness and insomnia, and finally makes a complete wreck of its victim.

This is just a small sampling of the rules, but you get the picture. There are even more rules for social calls, luncheons, and dinner parties.

I’m glad we have more freedom than our Victorian ancestors did. Yet as I was writing this novel, I found many parallels to our lives in the Twenty-first Century. Young women like Adelaide—and even older women like me—face a lot of important decisions when it comes to living our best lives. What do we value the most? Love? Money? Family? Work? Faith? What compromises are we willing to make? And how does following Christ fit into it all? These are much more important decisions than whether to have coffee or tea!

The three women in “All My Secrets” are searching for guidance, just like we are. The best approach, I believe, is to let our lives be guided by scripture, not by etiquette books or popular opinion. As the Psalmist wrote, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding” (Psalm 111:10). The Bible is the best handbook, the only handbook, we will ever need.

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Greetings From Germany!

Greetings from beautiful Germany! I’m writing this month’s blog while Ken and I are on a book tour with my German publisher, Francke. The German translation of my newest book, Long Way Home has just been released over here. I hope you’re enjoying some of the pictures I’ve been posting on Facebook and Instagram.

I’m traveling by car all across the country with the publishing team, sometimes giving two speeches a day to groups as large as 200 people in bookstores and churches. Ken plays his trumpet and I share God’s Word through a translator, telling how to find hope in God during difficult times. Our goal isn’t only to publicize the book but to spread the good news of God’s love.

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to do this with Ken, and I sometimes have to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming. When we married 53 years ago, neither of us could have ever imagined being used by God in such an amazing way.

I wish I could describe how thrilling it is to be among hundreds of Christians, singing God’s praises in German to familiar tunes such as “Bless the Lord, O My Soul,” and “In Christ Alone I place My Trust.” It’s a little taste of heaven when we’ll be part of a great multitude from every tribe and nation, praising God together.

I’m struck by how at home I feel here.  Even with the language barrier between us, we feel like brothers and sisters. That’s because we are all children of God and citizens of His kingdom. In my devotions this morning, I read the passage in 2 Samuel 7 where God promises King David that “your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever” (v.16). That promise is fulfilled in King David’s descendant, Jesus Christ. Our true citizenship isn’t in the U.S. or Germany but in the kingdom Jesus came to establish.

It seems like so many things divide us these days. But when we’re part of Christ’s kingdom, national barriers disappear, and racial and ethnic barriers become meaningless. We’re children of God and citizens of Christ’s kingdom. We’re His ambassadors and representatives in a broken world. Whether at home or abroad, speaking to hundreds of people or just one, I pray that I can reflect His character and His love wherever I go. 

Thank you for your prayers!

Lynn

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Time For Tulips

There’s a lot of excitement in my hometown of Holland, Michigan these days. While winter and spring continue to arm-wrestle with each other, bringing seventy-degree temperatures one day and snow flurries three days later, our town is gearing up for the annual Tulip Festival. At the same time, film crews have taken over our famous tourist attraction, Windmill Island, so actress Nicole Kidman can shoot her new movie there. Everyone in town is hoping to catch a glimpse of her tiptoeing through the tulips.

I love the excitement of Tulip Time. The annual eight-day festival has been held, uninterrupted, for the past 92 years—except during Covid, of course. It draws hundreds of thousands of people to see the three parades, to watch Dutch dancers in costume, to attend the concerts and shows, to taste Dutch food, and to see the multicolored tulips. Over six million tulips, in fact, have been planted throughout Holland. It’s a grand celebration of the town and its history, founded by immigrants from the Netherlands in 1847.

I don’t have a Dutch bone in my body, but I came to Holland for the first time to study at Hope College, which is affiliated with the Reformed Church. The early Dutch settlers founded the college in 1862 with the symbol of an anchor, based on Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” As a college freshman, I was walking past the iconic anchor one day on my way to class when a couple who were obviously tourists stopped me. (You could always spot tourists back in those days by the cameras and lens cases dangling around their necks.) “Are you a Hope College student?” the husband asked. I was. “Would you mind posing for us in front of the anchor?” I agreed, and got into position (somewhat awkwardly, I’m sure) holding my books and notebooks.

Just as the husband was about to snap my picture, his wife interrupted. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Are you Dutch?” she asked me. I was not. “Never mind, then,” she said, shooing me away. “We want a Dutch girl.” I guess I missed my chance to play a starring role in someone’s scrapbook.

I was so intrigued by the town’s history that when my husband retired and we moved to Holland nine years ago, I decided to research the stories of the early settlers for a novel. Waves of Mercy was published in 2016 and is based on the memoirs of those first men and women. I was very surprised to learn why they left their homes and families in the Netherlands—a very civilized nation back in 1847—to settle in the forested wilderness of Michigan. It was because of religious persecution. As separatists from the state-sponsored church, they had faced heavy fines, harassment, and even imprisonment, simply for gathering to worship God. They braved the long ocean voyage and the hard work of taming the forest in order to seek the religious freedom that America offered.

Their nearest neighbors were a tribe of Ottawa Indians. The nearest town, Allegan, was twenty-four miles away, accessible only by foot. During their first summer here, numerous settlers died from malaria. They lived in lean-tos and one-room cabins, yet their faith was so important to them that they began building this beautiful church in 1854, a mere seven years after they arrived. The story of Holland’s first citizens is truly a story of perseverance, faith, and hope.

I was also surprised to learn that they didn’t settle in Holland in order to isolate themselves in a safe, exclusive community. Nor did they see themselves as missionaries with the goal of reaching the lost. They came as farmers and businessmen who wanted to serve Christ in their everyday work. They chose this location, perched on a small lake that feeds into Lake Michigan, because they wanted easy access to the developing nation’s waterways. This month the town celebrates their Dutch heritage, but Holland is also proud of the diverse cultures that call this town their home.

In a world that is increasingly divisive and often hostile toward Christianity, I sometimes long to hide away in my own little bubble of like-minded friends. Or else fight back by joining the chorus of angry voices on social media. What I’ve learned from Holland’s first settlers is that I am called to be a light in the darkness, a city shining on a hill. I practice my faith best when I leave the “holy huddle” to live and speak and interact with people around me in a way that brings glory to God.

From that first boatload of settlers, Holland has now grown to a town of 34,000 inhabitants. From that first church in the wilderness, the greater Holland area now has more than 170 churches. This plaque sums up what its founding father, Albertus Van Raalte had to say about the village of Holland:

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Long Way Home

This is my dad, who joined the Navy at age 18 and fought in the Pacific during WWII. That seems like such a young age to experience the horrors of war, doesn’t it? Dad never talked about his experiences but we noticed that certain situations, such as crossing a long bridge, would cause him anxiety. Like many other WWII veterans, he was probably experiencing mild symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But the field of psychiatry was still young in the 1940s, and PTSD went unrecognized until after the Vietnam war.

Many stories have been written about the brave soldiers who fought in WWII, but in my newest novel, “Long Way Home,” I decided to write about a veteran who has a difficult time readjusting to civilian life after returning home. Jimmy Barnett, a former army medic, is unable to leave behind the horrors of war and attempts suicide. When Jimmy’s parents check him into the VA hospital, his lifelong friend, Peggy Serrano, determines to help unravel what happened to send him over the edge, starting with the photo of a mysterious woman named Gisela that she finds in Jimmy’s belongings.

World War II also created trauma for millions of people who were forced to flee their homes. I wanted to tell the stories of some of these displaced refugees, so I created Gisela Wolff—the mysterious woman in the photograph. She and her family flee Germany aboard the passenger ship St. Louis, bound for Havana, Cuba.

Nazi troops watching the St. Louis depart

But the ship is denied safe harbor and is eventually sent back to Europe, setting her on a perilous journey of exile and survival. You’ll have to read the novel to find out how she and Jimmy cross paths, and what ultimately happens to both of them.  

There’s another character in “Long Way Home” who also has an important part to play—a stray dog named Buster. This is me with my sister’s dog, Franny, who was the inspiration for Buster.

Anyone who has ever had a pet knows how much comfort and love they offer us, and Buster plays his part beautifully in the story. And see the background scenery in this picture? The photo was taken on a pedestrian bridge that spans the Hudson River, which is the setting for “Long Way Home.” It’s also the area in New York State where I grew up.

I hope you enjoy “Long Way Home,” and that you’ll take a moment to thank a veteran for his or her service whenever you see one. And please consider making a contribution to help the many thousands of displaced refugees all around the world. I recommend “Samaritan’s Purse,” which not only offers humanitarian aid in Christ’s name, it also has an excellent program to help veterans and their families.

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Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks?

My two little granddaughters were here for a visit recently, and I couldn’t help noticing how very different the two of them are. Three-year-old Ayla is not afraid to try new things. When no one was looking, she dashed up to the top of my library ladder like an experienced fireman. She should have been afraid! We have cathedral ceilings in our living room and the bookshelves and ladder go to the very top. The rungs are steep and slippery, and I confess that my knees shake a bit whenever I need to retrieve a book from the top shelf. Ayla just laughed and did a little dance at the tippy-top, then let go with one hand to wave to us.

Five-year-old Lyla, on the other hand, never even noticed the ladder when she was Ayla’s age, much less scaled it. She’s a quiet, thoughtful child who generally doesn’t like change or trying new things. She can be adventurous once she makes up her mind to be, but she always takes a moment to stop and consider before trying something for the first time. She asked for a turn on the ladder after seeing her sister scamper up it. And she was brave enough to climb all the way to the top. But she took her time, was careful with each step, and she hung on tightly. Then she was done, and didn’t ask to climb it again.

I don’t know about you, but because of all the changes that Covid brought last year, I often found myself challenged to try new ways of doing familiar things. I would have liked to be as brave as Ayla and leap whole-heartedly into every new challenge, yet I found, like Lyla, that I don’t really like change. I often needed to be pushed or dragged or encouraged by someone more adventurous than I am before embracing something new.

This past year, I had to learn new ways to launch a book without leaving home. I learned how to research the settings of my books without traveling to the locale in person. I missed driving down to the library and wandering through the non-fiction stacks, but a very patient research librarian taught me how to navigate the internet’s endless rabbit-trails. I learned how to Zoom—and for a technophobe like me, that was like scaling a very tall ladder. Likewise, with converting my office into a recording studio to do live and recorded presentations. I learned a lot of new things the hard way, such as remembering to turn off the telephone so it wouldn’t ring during the final five minutes of my recording and force me to start all over again. And I figured out how to adjust my writing schedule and condense my usual writing style to compose something brand new for me—a novella. And a Christmas one, at that!

The Apostle Paul once claimed, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13), and maybe that should be my motto in changing times. There will be occasions when I must learn to be as daring as Ayla, knowing that God will be right beside me, steadying the ladder. There will be times when I should be as cautious as Lyla, taking time to wait and pray and consider His leading. Above all, I know I can always trust the Holy Spirit to guide me as I’m led into new places.

I have one final “new thing” to share, and that’s the cover of my next novel, “Long Way Home,” which launches in June 2022.

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A 1951 Christmas

Good news! Only 58 days until Christmas! And if you’re looking for books to give as gifts or to get you in the holiday spirit, my first-ever Christmas novella, “The Wish Book Christmas” is now available.

If you’ve read my WWII novel, “If I Were You,” you’ll recognize the main characters, Eve Dawson and Audrey Barnett, who come to America with their young sons as British war brides. In this mini-sequel, you’ll get to read the next chapter in their lives and see what they’ve been up to since the first book ended. How are they faring in America? And did either of them ever find love again?

But I think you’ll still enjoy the Christmas novella even if you haven’t read the first book. It takes place in 1951 and starts, as the title suggests, when two kindergarten-age boys discover the Sears Christmas catalogue. They begin obsessing over this “Wish Book,” choosing dozens of toys that they want Santa to bring for Christmas. Their worried moms decide to search for ways to teach their sons the true meaning of the holiday. I know that many parents share their concern, so I hope my story will offer a few ideas to try this Christmas.

I had a lot of fun researching and writing this book. It brought back so many memories of Christmas when I was growing up. Like the boys in the novella, my two sisters and I spent many hours studying the Wish Book and choosing toys. The real catalogue from 1951 is available on the internet, and it’s still fun to peruse the pages. The cover from 1951 looks a lot like the cover of my book, don’t you think?

Here are some of the actual pages. The prices seem super-cheap:

Remember when Christmas trees looked like this, with glittery tinsel dangling down? My sisters and I would drape piles of it on the tree, but I seem to recall Mom complaining that she would still be finding tinsel months layer.

Then there were those pesky strings of colored lights where if one blew out, the entire string would go out. Dad would have to test each light, one at a time, until he found the offender. And remember bubble lights?

The mothers in “The Christmas Wish Book” encourage their sons to give presents to the special people in their lives. In order to buy them, they have to earn extra money doing chores. This is something that my own parents also encouraged. We would save ten or twenty cents from our allowance each week and deposit it in a Christmas Club account at the bank. Shortly before Christmas, we would shop for presents for our parents, grandparents, and for each other using the money we’d saved.

One of the gifts that the boys in the novella want for Christmas is a dog. You’ll have to read the story to see if Santa actually brings them one. Each year, there was always one special present that I would wish for, and it would be the first thing I would search for beneath the tree. One year I wished for a doll that drank water from a bottle and then wet her diaper. I loved that doll! I kept her very well hydrated—which meant lots of wet diapers.

But my parents made sure that the story of Jesus’s birth was always the central focus of Christmas. We took part in pageants at school and Sunday school, sang favorite carols, and always went to the candlelight service at church. A manger scene took center stage beside our Christmas tree, and Mom read the Bible story aloud to us year after year. When my children were young, we held birthday parties for Jesus with a cake, candles and ice cream so they would know that Christmas was a celebration of His birth.

Do you remember the Christmas Wish Book from when you were a child? Was there a special gift that you wished for? I would love to hear some of your memories.

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Setting the Setting

Have you ever been in a place where you didn’t want to be? Or how about being in a place that you loved, and that quickly became your happy place? I’ve experienced both, and each time, the setting always seems to affect my mood and my emotions. A dreary place brings me down, while a beautiful place lifts my spirits. That’s how I’ve learned the importance of choosing the settings for my novels very carefully, and then describing them in enough detail to transport my readers there—if only in their imaginations. I’ve also learned that the best way to get a feel for each setting is to travel there.

The first few novels I wrote took place in Israel, and the story didn’t come alive for me until I went there. Viewing all of the tourist sites on my first trip gave me a taste for the country, but living there for a month as I volunteered on an archaeological dig, really helped me absorb the country into my bones.

I visited Virginia and the Carolinas when writing my 3-book Civil War series, walking through alligator and mosquito-filled lowlands, and touring lovely period mansions. I also saw the slave quarters behind some of the mansions, and it helped me imagine the lives of those slaves.

I visited Ellis Island with my sister and we could picture our great grandparents landing there, confused and frightened by the babble of languages and the stern officials, yet moving forward courageously. I was able to describe that setting and those emotions in my novel “Until We Reach Home,” which featured three sisters who immigrated to America and landed on Ellis Island.

My husband and I had quite an adventure a few years ago as we made our way through London’s city streets and viewed its landmarks for my novel “If I Were You.” Our experiences traveling The Underground helped me imagine what it must have been like to huddle in those deep, subterranean subway tunnels with Nazi bombs falling above my head.

For my most recent novel, “Chasing Shadows,” we rode bicycles as we explored parts of the Netherlands. We were moved by our visit to Corrie Ten Boom’s home, author of “The Hiding Place.” We saw the impossibly small, secret room where she and her family hid Jews from the Nazis, and I imagined their heart-pounding terror as they heard Nazis thundering up the steep, wooden stairs, searching for them. We visited Westerbork, a Nazi concentration camp in the Netherlands, but I still struggle to describe the emotions I experienced there.

Last year, in the middle of the Covid epidemic, my publisher asked if I would be interested in writing a Christmas novella. I had no place to go because of the lockdown, and more free time than usual since everything was closed, so I happily agreed. That book, “The Wish Book Christmas,” was just published two weeks ago, and it continues the stories of friends Eve Dawson and Audrey Clarkson from “If I Were You.”

It seems much too early to be promoting a Christmas story! The leaves are still green! I’m still wearing summer clothes! But that was also the case when I was writing that novella. I was unable to travel to research the setting, so I had to rely on my imagination and LOTS of pictures. I pasted vintage snow scenes around my desk, and pages of toys from the 1951 Sears’ Wish Book, the year in which the novella takes place. I immersed myself in photos of what fashions and houses and Christmas trees looked like in those post-war years. I even played Christmas carols (in July!) to help set the mood.

And now, sitting here at my desk, looking out at the sunlight dappling through the trees, and at the bicycle trail that is beckoning me to take a ride, I’m in my happy place. I’m doing the work I love in a setting that I love. I hope that you’re as contented in your current setting as I am. So, where is your happy place? And how does being there—or not being there—effect your attitude?

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First Book

Do you remember the first book you ever read? Not a book that someone else read to you—I heard hundreds of books read to me by my mom, grandparents, and my older sister, Bonnie, before I learned to read one myself. But what about the first book you actually read on your own? I think mine was this one:

I was introduced to Dick, Jane, and Sally in first grade, and their story intrigued me. I admired pretty, well-dressed Jane the same way I looked up to my older sister. Adorable little Sally reminded me of my baby sister, Peggy. Like them, our family also had a dog—theirs was named Spot, ours was Lady. I didn’t have any brothers, so I always had a bit of a crush on Dick—he was my first fictional, romantic hero. (Although, at the time, I was convinced he and his sisters were real people. I think all writers hope their characters will spring to life in readers’ minds.)

The book’s setting fascinated me. In the illustrations, the story’s background always seemed so much neater and more perfect than the setting of my life. I was a bit envious of it, to tell you the truth. (And I still love a novel that takes me to an exotic location or time period, don’t you?)  

In true 1950’s style, the children’s mother always wore a dress, their father usually wore a suit. The “plot” of the first few books were told mostly through the illustrations. Without them, the dialogue and narrative were pretty stilted, consisting mostly of simple words like “oh” and “look” and “see” repeated endlessly. (Today, I prefer reading novels with a rich, lush vocabulary and vivid descriptions.) Even so, I was hooked on that book!

I came across Dick, Jane and Sally and the memories they triggered while researching my newest novel, “The Wish Book Christmas.” I was looking up everything about life in the 1950’s—fashions, cars, toys, Christmas trees—and somehow I ran into my old friends. Instantly, I was a kid again, sitting at a splintery wooden desk, quietly flipping ahead to the next chapter in the lives of Dick, Jane, and Sally. (I had to flip ahead because the other kids in the class were reading much too slowly, and I needed to see how the story ended. That’s another great quality in a novel, isn’t it?)

It’s MUCH too soon to start blogging about Christmas, (even though I’m told “The Wish Book Christmas” can now be pre-ordered and will be out in September) but I wanted to show you the novella’s very 1950’s cover. I’m thrilled that it has such a nostalgic feel to it. (And the little boy admiring the tree could be Dick, right?)

We’ll talk more about that book and our Christmas memories as we get closer to the actual holiday season. But for now, I would love to know if you remember the first book you ever read—and how it affected you. What was it about the story that was most memorable to you—the plot? The characters? The setting? Or maybe it was the way it showed you something about yourself or your life? I would love to hear from you!

My older sister Bonnie reading to me.
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Summer Reading Program

When I was a girl, our village library offered a summer reading program. We were each given a chart with colorful stickers to keep track of all the books we read over the summer. There were prizes for the kid in each age group who read the most books—usually a book, of course. How I loved to see that chart filled with stickers! But I couldn’t cheat—my mother was the librarian, so she knew if I was really reading or just collecting stickers. Nowadays, I don’t just collect stickers, I collect books. As you can see, my shelves are pretty full!

I still think of summertime as reading time and I look forward to long afternoons to just relax and “do nothing” and read. I’ve been very busy these past months, writing and launching “Chasing Shadows” along with a Christmas novella, “Wish Book Christmas,” which will be out this holiday season. So I have fallen behind on reading books for pleasure. But now summer is here, and it’s time to remedy that. Here are some of my favorite places to curl up with a book:

The best place is on our beach on Lake Michigan. I love the warm sand and sunshine and the sound of the waves. This is the best place to read happy, romantic stories that end “happily-ever-after.”

My second favorite is our front porch. It overlooks a bike-and-walking path, so it’s fun to watch people go by with their dogs and kids while I catch up on all my favorite magazines, (which I’ve been neglecting). The porch has rocking chairs and a swing, and is a favorite place to read books to my grandchildren when they visit.

In rainy weather, I sit inside by the front window for the same view of the bike path. This is where I pray and read and have my quiet time year-round.

We are also blessed to have a screened-in back porch with a green, leafy view of trees and the fragrance of newly-mown grass. It’s above our walk-out basement, so I feel like I’m in a treehouse. A ceiling fan adds a breeze on hot, summer nights—and this is my favorite place to read when there’s a thunderstorm.

One last place is beneath the screened porch, down by the backyard. There are lots of comfy chairs and also a hammock if I want to take a little nap. Party lights make it festive after sunset, which comes late here in Michigan in the summertime.

So now I need to take a trip to the library. Do you have any great summer reading recommendations? What are your recent favorites and the places where you like to relax and read them?

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Eating Tulips

Have you ever eaten tulip bulbs? I haven’t, and I’m guessing not many of you have, either. Unless you lived in the Netherlands during World War II, that is. A Google search lists quite a few edible flowers including pansies, nasturtiums and marigolds. Tulips aren’t listed. I ate a flower at a trendy restaurant once that looked something like an orchid. It didn’t have much taste. But the Dutch didn’t eat tulips because they were trendy or tasty. The people were starving and desperate, and tulips were the only food available. Actress Audrey Hepburn, who lived in Holland during the war, has told how she survived on tulip bulbs. She said they tasted terrible.

I learned these sad but interesting facts while researching my newest novel, “Chasing Shadows.” The launch date is tomorrow, June 8, by the way, and I am super excited! (Keep reading to find out how to win a free copy!) The novel tells the stories of three women who live through the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Netherlands during WWII and have to decide how they will cope. The easiest way to survive is to befriend the enemy and collaborate with them. The middle path is to bury your head in the sand and simply try to cope by giving in to their demands, no matter how evil. The most difficult choice—and one that many, many brave Dutch people chose—is to actively resist and fight back against everything the Nazis were doing. You’ll have to read the novel to find out which of the paths my main characters chose.

The Dutch people suffered terribly during the war. During the final year, the railroad workers went on strike to hinder the Nazis’ movements, but when the trains halted, food supplies couldn’t be distributed. The winter of 1944-45 was called the Hunger Winter. It’s estimated that 22,000 civilians starved to death. One of the few things available to eat were tulip bulbs, so the Dutch Office of Food Supply published a guide with recipes, telling people how to cook them. The most common way was to grate the dried bulbs and use it like flour to make bread.

Fortunately, most of us have never faced the hardships of warfare. But we can read novels like “Chasing Shadows” and try to put ourselves in the characters’ places, and imagine how we would have reacted to such extreme circumstances. I like to think I would have faced the enemy courageously, but I’ll never really know.

And yet . . . I do have an enemy who wants to defeat me and take me captive. I face a variety of challenges, large and small, every day, and must decide how I will react. Am I going to allow the enemy to discourage and defeat me? Will I get angry, give in, give up? Or will I allow Christ’s love and grace to shine through me regardless of the circumstances? Like the women in my novel, I must decide if I will surrender to the enemy, do nothing, or show love?

It seems like it has taken a lifetime for me to fully trust in God’s provision. Like the Israelites, I sometimes grumble and complain about the manna He provides, preferring the cuisine of captivity. Jesus said that if we ask our Heavenly Father for bread, He isn’t going to give us stones. But sometimes His answers to prayer seem pretty hard to swallow. Like tulip bulbs. Will I eat them without complaining? Will I be thankful for them, as the faithful Dutch people were? Until the enemy is fully defeated, it’s a decision I must remember to make every day.

To celebrate the release of “Chasing Shadows,” (and my characters who eat tulips bulbs), I’m giving away two free copies of my book. To enter to win, simply leave a response to this blog, below. If you’d like, you can tell me about any flowers you’ve eaten. (I don’t think cauliflower counts!) Enjoy!

oninBooks, Faith, Life
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