MIA for the Holidays

Lately, life has been full.

Full with creating forts and watching Christmas movies. Full with hanging old school, seventies style, Christmas lights on my tree, and then staring at them for extended periods of time. Full with the usual, work, kids, stealing time to write, full.

Recently, my husband celebrated a monumental birthday, and I wrangled the help of my friend's teenage son to put together a birthday video. Friends from all over the country sent in birthday wishes and video snippets of favorite memories. As I watched people reflect on the good times, one idea became apparent: We can't create great memories if every minute of life is too full.

As the wise Ferris Bueler once said, "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." 

That Ferris. He is so wise.

Here, life is moving fast, and I'm trying to look around and notice. This means less online time and more creating forts in my living room. It means less working on the next thing and more working on now.

Noticing life means delving into the Bible more. Hello, why haven't I ever noticed the verse in Genesis about the cherubim and the flaming sword at the east side of Eden? Oh, and don't even get me started on the unicorns.

Thanks for showing up here and reading.

My online presence will be spotty over the next few weeks.

Image credit. 
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Three Life Lessons We Can Learn From Eowyn and Raising Girls

My friend Jill wrote a book. It's about the character qualities J.R.R. Tolkien's famous characters bring to life and what teens (and adult readers!) can learn from these characters. Today Jill happens to be discussing what Tolkien's character, Eowyn, teaches us about one of my favorite topics, raising girls.

Smashingly original idea, right?

Here's Jill.

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In three months, I will have officially raised three daughters into adulthood. Scary, I know. One thing that means is I have throw a lot of princess parties in twenty-three years. A LOT. We have the pink, glitter, magic wand thing down I tell you.

But there's a princess we introduced them to at around nine and eleven that was rather unusual. Not the typical Disney strain. And over the years since then, our girls have learned a lot from Princess Eowyn about standing your ground and learning to fight—like a girl.

Eowyn, from the last two books of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, is one of my favorite fictional heroines. Can't help it—I'm a sucker for a complicated, courageous female character.

Truth—although I adore Disney princesses and am right with my daughters in the pretty dress and glittery nail polish extravaganzas, I know the complicated, messy world they're entering needs more Eowyns than Cinderellas. So while it's fun to be entertained by one princess, I'd rather they take some life lessons from the other. Here are a few we parents can work with to model courage for our daughters:

Encourage Right Motives. Eowyn started her story wanting glory and recognition. Those are kind of lousy motivations. She finally figured out that love, loyalty and future hope were the real go-to options. I did say she was complicated, right? God says to seek justice and love mercy—those are the things worth putting up a fight for.

Let's be honest--most of the things we get annoyed and offended over aren't. Teaching our girls to stand up courageously means first teaching them what they can let go, forgive, and learn from. It means doing it ourselves. That's tough, especially when momma bear wants to attack some mean coach or teasing kid. (Yeah, I'm looking in the mirror, here.) But if we don't? We teach our kid to save it for what matters and choose love when it doesn't.

Encourage defiance. Well, that's something you weren't expecting in a Christian blog, isn't it? But you know what? Every real difference someone has made in the world has happened in the face of opposition.

Eowyn wanted to go to war—and she had never heard of Mulan, so no Disney girl had gone before her to pave the way. She was on her own, battling the culture that said ladies didn't get their dresses dirty. And because she clearly had no problem with defying culture, she actually turned the tide of the war.

If a girl wants to change the status quo, the sq's going to fight back. Allowing her to challenge your status quo at home, respectfully, when she thinks it's important, is to show her she can change things. Yes, it's inconvenient. But it will be so awesome when she challenges hunger, or human trafficking. 

Encourage passion. In the end, Eowyn won her battle because she was passionate about defending what she loved. When a person finds her passion, she doesn't have to be taught to fight for it. It happens. Girls care so deeply and have their hearts touched so tenderly. Let them be touched. Even hurt. Through that hurt they'll find what really matters to them and stand up for it.

When our youngest falls off the balance beam, we can't stop the pain in her twisted ankle. But she can muster the determination to work through it for a sport she loves.

When we took our daughters to China, we couldn't shield them from the pain of abandoned children. We didn't want to. From seeing that they grew a passion for the unwanted and unloved.

Letting our daughters feel deeply and know truly that they are called to a broken world rather than keeping it from them helps them develop the passion that carries them through the fight. No bibbidi-bobbidi will get rid of real ugly in the world. But they can.

So, right next to the no-longer-played-with Barbies and princess tiaras in our house sits a genuine miniature replica of Eowyn's battle helmet, a gift from me to our girls. An incongruous fit? I don't think so. Real princesses, daughters of the King, know how to wield a sword as well as wear good shoes.

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If you'd like to learn more about Jill's new book, Hobbits, You, and the Spiritual World of Middle Earth, check it out here. It's filled with familiar Tolkien favorites and relevant Bible verses to show teens God is working out something way more than an epic tale of fantasy for His believers.

Who are your favorite fictional characters (they don't have to be Tolkien!). What makes these characters appealing to you? 

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Using Your Talents to Help Others, Laura Lee Groves, and Adoption

We've been talking about using your talents for others, and as soon as I started this series, I knew I wanted to feature Laura Lee Groves.

Laura, author of I'm Outnumbered: One Mom's Lessons in the Lively Art of Raising Boys, wrote a second book entitled Pearl.

Pearl is a fictional story of adoption from a Chinese mother's perspective, and get this, proceeds from the book will help fund the upcoming adoption of Laura's future granddaughter.

I know you enjoy a good back story (translation: are a bit nosey like me), and therefore, here are more details:

The story of Pearl came about long before Laura's son and his wife decided to adopt.

When Laura saw images of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 Pearl began to develop.

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In Laura's words:

As I watched the images of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, my heart was broken for the mothers. The ground began to shake in the afternoon, as children were attending school, and the screen showed piles of rubble where those schools had been.

“What if,” I thought, “a mom lost her one child in the earthquake that day?”

“And what if she had birthed another child years earlier, but had to relinquish her to adoption because of the One Child Policy?”

I wept as I thought of those moms who lost their one child that day. And in China, a child—a son—carries so much meaning. Hope, even pride, wrapped up in your own security. For in China, a son is responsible for his parents as they age; a daughter, once married, helps her husband care for his parents. 

At church the following weekend, we sat by a friend who told us he had been in China that week. He had not been near the earthquake, but he knew of its devastating effects. He spoke of the life of those who live in small towns, and he talked about the shoddy construction so often found there—especially in the schools that housed the future. 

That night I couldn’t sleep, and all I could think of was Mei. I didn’t know her name yet, but I saw her face and felt her pain. It was double pain—pangs at the loss of a cherished son, and anguish at the memory of the little girl she called Pearl, left at an orphanage four years before. As she grieved her son, the pain over her lost daughter welled to the surface.

And Mei’s story was born. 

For months, I was compelled to write, often telling my writer friends, “You can’t believe where I left Mei! I have to get back to her and get her out of that situation.” I researched the area of the earthquake, reading heartbreaking stories. I found books on Chinese life that showcased a mindset so different from ours.

So different in many ways, yet the same in others. 

A mother’s loss, her grief for what is past, is universal.

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That brings us to now. Laura's son and daughter-in-law are raising money for the adoption of their little girl from India, and Laura is using her writerly talents to help.

God gave Laura the story, the skills, and the follow through to write Pearl, and then, God gave Laura's son and daughter-in-law the desire to adopt.

Why does it always surprise me when He makes all of the pieces fit perfectly?

As you are filling up on turkey and celebrating with family, consider spending some time cruising around Johnathan and Kristen's blog or picking up a copy of Pearl, and maybe think about your talents, the ones you may need to dust off, but the ones which are all set to be used.

Comments are closed so you can go take a peek at Pearl.

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A Behind the Scenes Peek and Serving Others by Using Your Talents

I wrote a book, and it's being released in September of 2014. I am pretty darn excited about the entire process, but I struggle to discuss my book for three reasons.

1. Holy cow, people, when you publish a book traditionally, it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to come out. In our insta-everything world, this is a lifetime. 

2. There have been a series of false starts with this book, and I still feel as if on any given day I could receive an email which states. "Amy, we really like you, but we were totally kidding about the whole publishing your book thing. We thought you knew that!"

3. I don't want to be that author who blabbers on and on about her upcoming book. Blah. 

However, last week when I created a list of blogs I follow and reasons I follow them, one of my reasons for reading this lady is she allows readers a behind the scenes peek at what's happening with her projects. 

Therefore, I thought you might enjoy a behind the scenes peek at a secret something which happened with my writing. After my proposal was accepted, I thought I needed an objective party to give my writing a once over before I sent the full manuscript to the publisher.

So, I reached out to someone I knew through the blogging world.

At this point, I started crying that cry which gets stuck in your throat and is quiet, but also sounds as if you are gagging.

As you know, editors are not cheap, and since neither my husband nor I receive paychecks all summer, paying for someone to edit a project which was already accepted wasn't really in the budget.

Even though this girl (my new hero) was insistent she would edit for free, I thought the very least I could do was bring her a little traffic to her website and shout about her generosity via social media.

And her response:

Kind of leaves you goosebumpy, right? Geesh.

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My next few posts will focus on using your talents to serve others.

Teaser: Tuesday I will share about an author who used her writing to help loved ones fund an adoption.

I hope you will join me by reading along.

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