Lynn U. Watson's Blog, page 4
August 27, 2021
Sunflowers Blooming through Extremes of Heat and Drought
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As I write this, Hurricane Ida has pummeled New Orleans and makes her way north and east. High winds and heavy rain bring a stark contrast to the baking heat the past weeks. While most of my flowers have wilted, my dwarf sunflower plant flourished. It thrived in the intense temperatures and lack of real water (a reference to rain). Water from the hose just not the same.
I shot the video above two years ago in sunflower fields in our community. A windy day for sure, but those flowers reached for the sun, refusing to be overcome. I’ve written about sunflowers before, but they beckoned me again. Not just because they bloom in my yard, but because you’ll find some in the pages of Tangled Promises.
The photo on the left was July 19th, the day I planted this dwarf sunflower plant with just one bloom. The same plant five and half weeks later bounded with flowers as it has the whole time. With Sunflowers’ ability to withstand the extremes of summer heat and drought with their heads held high, reminds us of Scriptures like these:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield.
The Lord gives grace and glory;
He does not withhold the good
from those who live with integrity.
~Psalm 84:11
His brilliance is like light;
rays are flashing from His hand.
This is where His power is hidden.
~Habakkuk 3:4
For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
~2 Corinthians 4:6
Sunflower season will come to an end soon, but Jesus is always in season. There are a million reasons to reflect His glory every day, which brings me to one of my favorite verses. OK, I’ll admit the verse refers to palm trees and cedars instead of sunflowers, but you’ll get the idea.
The righteous person will flourish like the palm tree,
He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Planted in the house of the Lord,
They will flourish in the courtyards of our God.
They will still yield fruit in advanced age;
They will be full of sap and very green,
To declare that the Lord is just;
He is my rock, and there is no malice in Him.
~Psalm 92:12-15
As I inch closer to advanced age (whatever that may be), I choose to be full of sap and very green. No matter the storms or the heat that come, I’m keeping my eyes on Jesus to declare His glory like a sunflower!
My other blog post about sunflowers contained fun facts. Please check them out at this post: Like a Sunflower, Keep Your Eyes on the Son.
Sonnenblumenkernbrot is a thing.
Sunflower Seed Bread–a traditional German recipe. Typically, you make it with a rye sourdough starter. I found a recipe that found its way around that requirement. The bread was tasty, but I recommend using sunflower kernels instead of the whole sunflowers. Add other small seeds. The whole sunflower seeds were rather fibrous and challenging to eat. Another suggestion: reduce the salt by half. Here’s a picture of mine. We enjoyed them with Strawberry Rhubarb Jelly from Purple Patch Farm.
Link for Sunflower Seed Bread recipe.
©2021, Lynn U. Watson
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
All images are my own.
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August 9, 2021
Back to School with Honeycomb, Techie Tablets, and the Bible
Back to school today for students in our community–perhaps in yours, too. Every morning I share a Bible verse meme with my grandchildren to start their day. Today’s meme featured Proverbs 24:13-14.
Honey. Wisdom. Bright Future. Enduring Hope.
Good words for all of us every day, they reminded me of other Scriptures:
The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the Lord are reliable
and altogether righteous.
They are more desirable than gold—
than an abundance of pure gold;
and sweeter than honey,
which comes from the honeycomb. ~Psalm 19:9-10 (HCSB)
Pleasant words are like a honeycomb:
they drip sweet food for life and bring health to the body. ~Proverbs 16:24 (VOICE)
Many of us have a sweet tooth–not necessarily a healthy thing. Having a sweet tooth for God’s Word, on the other hand, a beautiful thing. (By the way, honey has health benefits for us, too. [Learn more about them here.]) Do you crave the sweetness of the Scriptures–God’s love letter to us, the most beautiful one we’ll ever receive, as sweet as the honeycomb? Unlike wishing for a bag of chocolate in the house to feed our sweet tooth, our techie tablets and cell phones put the Bible in easy reach for most of us all the time. As our students return to school many carry screens with them every day. They have God’s Word in their pocket or backpack to encourage them at any given moment.
Aware honeycomb formed the basis for early writing material, as a writer I dug deeper into the subject. Ancient civilization used honeycomb to create the great-great-great (times many more) grandparents to our modern techie tablets. Pliable warmed honeycomb (beeswax) poured in a wooden frame and left to set. The writer used a stylus to carve the words into the wax. Reheating allowed the surface to be “reset” and used again. This article on Scottish pollinators discusses the significance of beeswax in the development of writing tools. Interestingly, we derive the writer’s term “style” from the stylus used with the honeycomb tablet.
This blog post would be incomplete without a few fun facts about honey, too. I found these and many more here.
~According to one researcher, ancients such as Alexander the Great were sometimes buried in honey. After about a hundred years, candied corpses were supposedly dug up and eaten as medicine.
~Bees control the thickness and clarity of their honey by fanning their wings at ventilation points within the hive at varying rates to control evaporation of water.
~Beekeepers in France discovered blue and green honey, the result of bees foraging in the waste created in the production of M&Ms.
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Photo used in meme is from
Pixaby
Bee artwork from Pixabay
Scripture taken from The Voice
. Copyright © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked HCSB are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
August 5, 2021
Paddling through the Waves
Two weeks ago an opportunity presented itself on my road to publication in the Christian fiction world. I’m incredibly excited, but I also light-heartedly joke about my Red Sea Revisions, as I tackle the task ahead. If I cross the sea successfully, the reward awaits.
My first preparation for the trip took me to the book of Isaiah:63. Verses 11-14. Moses and the Israelites had a challenge before them, but God’s Spirit traveled with them, and God parted the sea. God did this for a reason: To bring glory to His name.
Like cattle that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So You led Your people, to make for Yourself a great and honored name.
~Isaiah 63:14 (NLT)
It felt a bit presumptuous to claim those verses, but our Father God, the gracious Creator of the whole universe and everything in it, provides the Scriptures for our instruction and encouragement. I pondered the known and unknown obstacles before me and jumped in my boat to paddle through the ripples sure to come.
A mere three days later I crashed into the first giant wave. My tears were as plentiful as the waters of the wave that swamped my boat. Ready at that moment to say, “I quit” or “I can’t”, God reminded me of those words from Isaiah. He assured me His Spirit is with me, and He directed my endeavors along a different route through the choppy water, providing needed encouragement to forge ahead to the other side. I pray my journey honors His name and brings Him glory!
We all encounter the highs and the lows as we run, row, skip, jump, or simply walk toward our dreams. We all encounter those impossible-looking obstacles just as the Israelites did at the Red Sea. Do you have specific Bible verses that uphold you when you face problems and setbacks along the way?
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Scripture quotations marked NLV are taken from the New Life Version, copyright © 1969 and 2003. Used by permission of Barbour Publishing, Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. All rights reserved.
Photo from Pixabay
July 12, 2021
Pink Roses, Flowers, and Tangled Promises
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” ~William Shakespeare
According to the Victorian language of the flowers pink roses speak of adoration, loyalty, gratitude, grace, admiration, joy, and strength. While we often select red ones for love, pink roses are a perfect token of a gentleman’s love for his lady.
Besides the fact they were my mom’s favorite flower, here are few fun facts about pink roses:
~They are one of the oldest known present-day roses.
~China’s Imperial Rose Garden featured pink roses 5,000 years ago.
~Every shade of pink roses has a different meaning.
The protagonist in Tangled Promises receives a much different bouquet of flowers from the man courting her. Do you know the language of the flowers? What is one flower you would not appreciate receiving from the one who claims to love you? If you would like to learn more about the language of the flowers, here’s a list of flowers and their meanings. You’ll have to wait until Tangled Promises is published to learn which ones Clara received.
In my devotional book, The Essence of Joy: Filling Your Heart with the Aromas of Jesus’ Nativity, I researched the Biblical era roses. The varieties I learned were closest are Rosa damascena and Rosa phoenicia. Both are pink roses. Jesus is often referred to as our Christmas Rose. A fitting description for The One whose life perfectly defined adoration, loyalty, gratitude, grace, admiration, joy, strength, and so much more. Wonder if my mom knew that?
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Photo from Pixabay
Fun Facts found at these links:
FTD by Design
Pollen Nation by Serenata Flowers
July 1, 2021
Fun Facts about the 4th of July
This weekend we celebrate Independence Day or the Fourth of July in America. Whichever name you call it, here are a few fun facts about the holiday.
In 1958 Robert G. Heft, a 16-year-old student designed the 50-star flag as an assignment in his history class. The teacher gave him a B-, but when he submitted it to the contest, President Eisenhower chose his design. It became the official flag in 1960 (The teacher raised his grade to an A.) Read more of his story here.
Ages of the signers of the Declaration of Independence ranged from 26-70. The average age was 45. One signer later recanted. Learn who here.
The Phillipines also celebrate their independence on the 4th of July. They gained theirs in 1946. More interesting facts here.
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is rung 13 times on the 4th of July for the 13 original states. It is struck with a mallet since the clapper was immobilized in 1915. More about the liberty bell here and here.
It wasn’t until after the war of 1812, that common celebrations of the holiday occurred. Lots of fun facts right here.
In typical American fashion, we make our holidays about food. In 2018 Americans ate $6.9 billion worth of food on the 4th of July. Fun facts here.
Our celebrations have everything to do with freedom. The spirit of the day is worth celebrating. An even bigger reason to celebrate–the biggest one every single day is because of our freedom in Christ.
Now the Lorda]">[a] is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~2 Corinthians 3:17 (NLT)
So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. ~John 8:36 (NLT)
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Photo from Pixabay.
June 11, 2021
What Do You Know about Pigeons?
Pigeons get the limelight in a few scenes in my novel, Tangled Promises. According to the Pigeon Control Resource Center, “Perception of the pigeon through the centuries has changed from God to devil and from hero to zero!” Pigeons and doves hail from the same bird family.
Doves in the Bible receive two significant mentions. The dove Noah sent out after the flood returning with the olive branch (Genesis 8:11) and the dove descending upon Jesus following his baptism (Matthew 3:16).
Over the years, pigeons have carried messages, served as war heroes and their droppings (16th-18th centuries) proved a highly prized commodity for fertilizer. So much so, guards were posted to protect the dovecoats from thieves.
More than one pigeon has been a war hero. One story has it, a pigeon named GI Joe received a medal for bravery when he carried a message during WWII that averted a major disaster.
Today, we mostly think of pigeons as a big nuisance, particularly in cities.
In Tangled Promises, set in the 1880s, the pigeons are much more a problem than a help. I’ll keep you guessing for now. The book is complete. The next step is seeking publication. I’m hot on that trail!
Be sure to read the article about the Pigeons: 21 Amazing Facts About Pigeons. You will be amazed at what you learn–like pigeons have a significant position on Wall Street.
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Pigeon photo from Pixabay.
May 20, 2021
When Promises and Lies Tangle
What image does the word tangled bring to mind? Tangled hair? Tangled yarn? A spider’s web? Electrical cords? Or maybe a pack of lies? This kitten is in a tangle of branches. I hope she escapes without too many scratches.
After breaking my novel into three manageable volumes, I’ve nearly completed the first one. I wrote The End, but have tweaked much. Tangled Promises weaves many lies and much deceit through promises made. Some characters work to unravel the snarl while others pull more knots into the pile. If you’ve attempted to untangle a mess of wires, or vines, or knots in a toddler’s hair, you know the challenge.
When lives are at stake, and some insist on the truth of their spoken lies, others are hurt because promises are compromised. God’s word contains many verses about lying and deceitfulness. Some of the characters in Tangled Promises find themselves caught in the consequences of their actions. Consider these verses:
He who hates, disguises it with his lips,
And lays up deceit within himself;
When he speaks kindly, do not believe him,
For there are seven abominations in his heart;
Though his hatred is covered by deceit,
His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly.
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it,
And he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.
A lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it,
And a flattering mouth works ruin. ~Proverbs 26:24-28 (NKJV)
Lies come in all sizes and shapes. I pray for a clean heart that speaks from the Love of God living within it. How are your words? Are the kind ones spoken with sincerity or do they cover the pit you rather avoid?
Many lies and motivations for them are revealed in Tangled Promises. Will those who love well be rewarded?
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.Photo from pixabay.April 29, 2021
Let’s Talk Charades
An author researches many topics along their writing journey. With my current work-in-progress set in the second half of the nineteenth century, my curiosity was stirred about children’s party games (and adult parlor games, too). Alice in Wonderland was written in 1865. An outdoor party game was croquet. You can learn about its history here.
Many games today are the offspring of early parlor games. You’ll find a list of them here. How many do you recognize, at least a version of, by a different name?
Upon further investigation of Charades as played in the 1800’s, I discovered a huge difference – one I’m going to have a little fun with for you today.
Instead of acting out the clues, the clues were actually spoken phrases or sentences with tricky wording — quite a contrast to the “no speaking” rule we follow today. Catch the last line in this quote!
Unlike modern charades, rather than cleverly acting out the word or short phrase answer, it was separated into syllables or portions which were described verbally and enigmatically. The challenge was not in assessing gestures and facial contortions, but in deciphering tricky language and comprehending vocabulary. Adding to the difficulty, the verse had to rhyme.
~ quote from Austen Authors
Read more about Charades from Austin Authors here. You’ll discover examples from Jane Eyre’s Emma. And a few others.
Trying my hand at this yesterday, I thought I had done a pretty good job before realizing my lines didn’t rhyme. So, with a bit of editing, here is my attempt.
IT’S A BOOK TITLE:
2 WORDS:
FIRST WORD:
A hideous wriggled clump created plights
of cirques and tightened bights.
SECOND WORD:
Betokened oath endows
the honor of my vows.
Does your family play word games? How about charades? Give this version a try! It was fun coming up with these lines. Share yours, too. The clues above are for my work-in-progress, which I have entitled Tangled Promises.
Copyright 2021, Lynn U. Watson
Photo from Pixabay
April 15, 2021
Tell the World What God Does!
My best laid plans and goals this week went up in smoke. They didn’t literally burn, but derailed.
I’m headed to the Scrivenings Press Authors’ Retreat for the weekend. My manuscript is so close to complete. Having my edits and polishes finished was the goal, but I drove this donkey (me) so hard for ten straight days, the proverbial saying came tru
Monday morning I was pretty worthless. I’ve surrendered my plans to His. I’m going looking for His surprises.
I prayed to glean new ideas to better write for His glory. Tell the world what He does!
This morning in my devotional time, He brought this verse to my attention. Fitting don’t you think?
Yes, Lord, this is my heart: “I’m telling the world what You do!”
Copyright 2021, Lynn U Watson
All Scripture quotations are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Photo from Pixabay
