Life

Tea Time

It’s getting down to the wire. Christmas is coming and so is my book deadline. Right about now I get tend to discouraged, wondering if this book I’m racing to finish is any good, and if so, what the ending should be. I’m putting in long hours in my office, while at the same time, I’m conscious of Christ’s advent and unwilling to let the celebration pass me by. My friend Jacki had the perfect solution to both dilemmas. “Let’s have a tea party and invite some of your readers. And so last Thursday, we did.

Seeing Jacki and Paul’s house beautifully decorated for the season helped me relax and move into the season with thanksgiving for the gift of God’s Son. And the new friends I met gave me the encouragement I needed in my sprint to the finish line. “Wear something fun,” Jacki told the ladies she invited. Or bring a teacup or other item with memories. Three young sisters, Emma, Lauren and Sophie wore vintage dresses that young Emma had sewn all by herself. What talent! We decided that Emma’s outfit and darling hat made her look like the model on the cover of my book, “Wonderland Creek.” Sophie (and her doll) looked as though they had just stepped off the cover of “All Things New.” And Lauren, with her cute dress and vintage shoes, could have posed for “A Woman’s Place.”

Jacki and Deb wore their mothers’ fur wraps that were all the rage in the 1940s. Several ladies brought their favorite teacups, including one from a British antique shop that commemorated Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.

We asked the ladies to share some of their memories and stories with me (I never know when I might need a good story for a future novel), and I ended up hearing several very touching ones, including the Hallmark-worthy tale of how Maria met her husband, and how Norma’s father paid a surprise visit home during wartime. I would tell you the details but I just might steal them for my next novel, and I would hate to spoil it for you.

We all had a wonderful time, and I came home singing Christmas Carols and ready to add heart and love and wonder to the final chapters of my novel. So, thanks for sharing a cup of tea with me, ladies. And for reminding me what Christmas—and my novels—are all about.

Open to the Sky

Last month, we celebrated the Feast of Sukkot with our Jewish friends and family members. One of my favorite things about the holiday is building and decorating a Sukkah or booth on our back deck. First, we constructed a frame out of two-by-fours then enclosed three of the sides using tarps. Next comes the fun part—decorating it with natural materials such as cornstalks, cat-tails, and pine boughs. We had cuttings of mint and Russian sage from our garden this year, which made the inside smell wonderful! Last came the homey touches—adding a tablecloth and napkins, candles, hanging lanterns, even pictures. This year the weather cooperated and we were able to eat all our meals in this outdoor booth without getting rained on or bundling up in countless sweaters.

The Jewish people live in booths to remember how God watched over them and protected them and provided all their needs while they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. And so one of the “rules” for creating an authentic sukkah is that the roof cannot be totally enclosed. You’re supposed to be able to see the sky and the stars overhead when you look up, and remember that God is watching over you. He’s got you covered.

The Feast of Sukkot (sometimes called the Feast of Tabernacles) is one of the three yearly feasts that the Jewish people were commanded by God to celebrate. It comes at the end of the agricultural year and, like our Thanksgiving Day, celebrates the harvest. We know from the Gospel of John chapter 7 that Jesus obeyed the commandment and went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast with His disciples.

I find it interesting that God made celebrating Sukkot a commandment. That’s how important He thought it was that His people take time to stop and remember everything He has done for us. To remember how He has provided everything we need—including a bountiful harvest. In the description of the feast in Leviticus God says several times to cease working! This is a day of rest! You shall do no work! It’s an act of trust. We can stop working—He has us covered.

As the Feast of Sukkot approached this year, I was already behind on writing my latest novel. I couldn’t afford to stop working for the holiday. Besides, I’m no longer bound by the Old Testament Law, am I? Yet I really wanted to spend time with my family and friends! In my daily devotions, I happened to be reading the book Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World by Shelly Miller. She teaches that one of the reasons we stop work and rest as God commanded is as an act of trust. We need to remind ourselves that the world won’t stop spinning if we take a day of rest from our work. God has everything under control. In other words, instead of looking frantically around at all the things we need to do, we need to look up! There is no limit on His ability to supply all of our needs if we simply trust and obey—the way the Israelites did when they lived in tents in the wilderness. I can rest and trust. So I turned off my computer for five days while our family was here, and I celebrated this feast of joy. And guess what? When I added up my page count at the end of the month, I had completed even more pages than the quota I had assigned myself.

I wonder what would happen if I lived each day of the year this way? If, instead of trying to keep all of my many plates spinning like a circus juggler, I remembered that God commands me to rest for my own good. He offers rest as a precious gift. I can almost imagine Jesus sitting in a sukkah with His disciples, looking up at the open sky and saying, “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!”

Independence Day

When I was a girl, we always celebrated the Fourth of July at my grandmother and grandfather’s home in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. They had a beautiful piece of property on the edge of the woods with shade trees, a small pond, and a spring-fed stream that meandered through it. The brook was stocked with fat, brown trout and was cold enough to keep our soft-drinks chilled on the hottest summer day. My grandparents had a gift for hospitality. All their friends and relatives arrived with pot-luck dishes to share and looked forward to this grand summer picnic all year. So did my two sisters and I.

My grandmother’s four sisters, who I secretly referred to as “the old aunts with the mustaches,” celebrated with us every year. They always seemed so ancient to me but were probably no older that I currently am! Last year at a family reunion at my niece’s home, I turned to my sister and said, “Hey, now we’re the old aunts with mustaches!” I wonder how ancient we must look to the younger generations.

One of my favorite Fourth of July memories was the day my Great Uncle Otto walked into my grandmother’s kitchen while she was making potato salad for the picnic. Grandma always used a shot glass for a measuring cup and that day it was filled with vinegar. Uncle Otto, who was fond of schnapps, spotted the glass of amber liquid and thought it was for him. Before anyone could stop him, he downed the contents in one gulp. I didn’t understand the torrent of German words that followed but I could guess their meaning by the coughing and sputtering that accompanied them!

We roasted hot dogs over a wood fire, ate Kuchen and homemade sauerkraut, and drank grandma’s delicious home-brewed root beer. When it grew dark, we lit sparklers and played games in the warm summer night. I took America’s independence and freedoms completely for granted back then, but my grandmother and great aunts didn’t. Their father, my great-grandfather Friedrich, immigrated to the United States in the 1880s to avoid being drafted into the German army. He was a pacifist and was about to be called into service even though he was married to my great-grandmother Louise and had a small daughter, Great Aunt Martha. I fictionalized some of his story in my novel, “Eve’s Daughters,” and told how he escaped over the Swiss border, found work in America, then sent for his family to join him. I found the record of their arrivals in the archives on Ellis Island.

My grandmother and the rest of her sisters were born here. They kept in contact with their relatives in Germany for many years and grieved over the suffering they endured during WWI and WWII. After the second war, the area where they lived in eastern Germany fell under control of Communist Russia and my family lost touch with them. Great-grandma Louise’s family was Jewish and all died in the Holocaust.

I realize now that as my family gathered on Independence Day each year, they must have been thinking of the family members they left behind—parents and great aunts and uncles who never knew the freedoms they knew, especially the freedom of religion. And they must have been very thankful to God for the life they enjoyed in America, with children and grandchildren running around in the warm, summer evening, swatting mosquitoes and lighting sparklers. They had truly been celebrating America’s independence and freedom.

This year, my sister and brother-in-law are coming to visit, and as we sit together on our beach, watching our town’s firework display, that’s what I’ll be celebrating, too.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

You can do some amazing things in your lifetime if you live to be ninety years old—and my mother, Virginia “Jinny” Davis, has. Last September we celebrated her ninetieth birthday with a gala party with her family, friends and neighbors. I wouldn’t be an author if it weren’t for my mom. Nor would I likely be a Christian. She has had a powerful influence on my love of books and on my faith in Christ.

Among my first memories are of Mom reading bedtime stories to my two sisters, Bonnie and Peggy, and me. Books always filled our home. Trips to the library—even if it meant walking a mile or more—were routine. Mom’s love of books began when she discovered the public library as a girl during the Great Depression. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say she read every novel in her town’s tiny library. The sympathetic librarian even let her borrow books from her personal collection.

Although a career as a librarian would have been her first choice, Mom never could have afforded a higher education after high school if it’s weren’t for WWII. She won a scholarship to become a registered nurse and became the first woman in her family to have a professional career. But her love of books never dwindled, and when the library in our small New York State town needed a librarian, she applied for the job. It’s also not much of an exaggeration to say that I grew up in that library, doing everything from processing books and working at the checkout desk, to shelving books and reading to the children for story hour. Within a few years, Mom transformed that library from a dark, dismal place that was open only a few hours a week, into the town’s thriving centerpiece with activities for people of all ages. The local elementary school decided to hire her as their librarian, too. I’m so proud of all that she accomplished.

Throughout my growing-up years, I also remember Mom sitting at her typewriter and writing short stories and poems and magazine articles. She wrote a regular column in a local newspaper for a time. I remember celebrating with her when one of her stories was accepted by Highlights for Children. She is still writing stories to this day. Mom showed me that if there’s something you want to do—like write a story—then why not sit down and do it? I attribute my own love of books and my talent for writing to her.

Even more important to Mom than books, though, was her faith in God. She experienced His presence during a church service as a teenager and her faith has continued to grow stronger and deeper ever since. She made sure that my sisters and I regularly attended Sunday school and church, and she modeled a life of prayer, regular Bible study, and loving God and our neighbor. She has experienced hard times and losses over the years—a stillborn baby, a life-threatening illness, my dad’s early death at age 62, my sister Bonnie’s tragic death from cancer nine years ago. But Mom’s faith in a loving God has never wavered. At age ninety she is a prayer warrior, rising early every day to pray for my sister and me and our spouses, her twelve grandchildren and their spouses, and her seventeen great-grandchildren, including three adopted ones, and those yet to be born. I feel her prayers holding me up when I travel and speak and when I sit down at my computer to write.

So Happy Mother’s Day Mom! You continue to be a role model and an inspiration to me, and to your 30 descendants, and to everyone you meet.