Davalynn Spencer's Blog, page 20
December 5, 2021
Christmas Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt!
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Merry Christmas!
This week I’ve joined Hallee Bridgeman and twenty-three other Christian authors in Hallee’s annual Christmas Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt. The prizes are spectacular: $250 first-place, $150 second-place or $100 third-place Amazon gift cards. I hope you’ll visit all the authors’ blogs so you can participate for a chance to win. Remember to find the answer to each author’s question by checking out the free preview for their book on Amazon.
At the end of my post is a link to the next blog, so be sure to keep reading (and answering on the Google form). You must answer every author’s question for a chance to win the Grand Prize.
In my Christmas novella collection, A High Country Christmas: Romance Collection, two novellas are found under one cover: Just in Time for Christmas and Snow Angel. Each is a historical stand-alone story about those finding love and a future in the high-country peaks and parks of Colorado. Cowboys, anyone?
In Snow Angel, Lena Carver works as her physician brother’s medical assistant, housekeeper, and cook. Each year, the Christmas holidays come with contradictions—cherished memories of a mysterious encounter and painful recollections of a great childhood loss. She lives with the belief that she is beyond love’s reach, until a dark-eyed cowboy arrives broken, bruised, and bent on changing her mind.
Now for your entry in the scavenger hunt: Go to A High-Country Christmas on Amazon at this link What precious thing is Lena about to lose now? When you have the answer, fill out this form and head on to the next blog!
Thank you so much for visiting. The next author on the tour is Karen Witemeyer, who will tell you about her book, Under the Texas Mistletoe. You can find her blog post at this link. Remember that the round-robin will end on December 12th at 11:59 PM EST.
PS – If you comment below, I’ll enter you in a random drawing for an e-copy of my ever-popular Mail-Order Misfire!
Have a blessed Merry Christmas and may all that you read be uplifting!
Christmas Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt
Click To Tweet
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.
FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance #CowboyRomance
The post Christmas Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
November 28, 2021
The Guide: Walk Where I Walk
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
The guide and I walked a rutted dirt road used by Forest Service vehicles. Pine, scrub oak, and aspen bordered the road on each side. All was quiet – blissfully absent of people, their machines, and their devices.
As we moved deeper into the forest, the guide stepped off the road and struck out through the thick of things.
“Walk where I walk,” he said. “Don’t step on logs – they can roll and throw you off balance.”
Every year he took his son hunting, and he said the boy was beginning to listen and step in his dad’s footprints when they trekked through the woods.
I did the same, for I was hunting too, but not for deer, elk, or bear. No gun for me, but rather my Nikon camera. I was hunting aspen, and we had driven to the high country to find the best shots of the yellow trees in their natural habitat.
We were successful.
A few weeks later during elk season, a preacher/hunting guide recounted what he always told his hunters.
“Step where I step. You don’t want to walk into cactus or slip on a wet rock. Walk in my footsteps.”
It sounded familiar.
These two guides were experienced in the wild. They knew what they were talking about. And listening to them gave me a new appreciation for what the Bible says about God as my guide.
If I let Him, the Lord will guide my steps. He makes that promise over and over. I can break out on my own – and often do – but with eventual regret. God knows more about this business called life than I do.
When I think of Him as my guide, I have an intimate picture of Him on the trail with me, in the forest with me. Psalm 16:8 says, “I have set the Lord always before me.”
Praise God, it’s never too late to submit to the Lord as our Guide.
Yet I am always with You.
You lead me by my right hand,
You guide me with Your counsel,
And afterward You will take me into glory.
Psalm 73:23
Walk where I walk.
Click To Tweet
Additional scriptures on the Lord as our Guide:
Available in audio! “Seth!”
At the fear in her voice, he dug his heels in and raced up the trail. She wasn’t far.
“He’s gone. Chester’s gone. We have to go back.”
The snow fell heavier now, laying down a thick blanket. “You brought the dog with you?”
“I know. It was foolish of me.”
Seth snorted. That wasn’t the only foolish thing she’d done, but pointing that out wasn’t going to help matters. “When did you notice him missing?”
“Just now—a few seconds ago. I hadn’t paid attention until you met us on the trail. I just assumed he was following in my steps like he had been.”
“Stay here. I’ll ride back a ways, see if I can find him.”
No surprise when she gathered herself and turned her horse. “I’m going with you.”
Arguing with her was pointless and time consuming, and at the moment time was what they didn’t have.
Fresh snow nearly filled their trail that grew fainter the farther they rode. The old dog must have fallen, unable to make it in the cold. Seth felt the loss deep inside, but the dog wasn’t worth Abigale’s safety. He reined in.
“Abigale.”
She rode past him.
He heeled Coop into a lunge and the horse sprang around in front of her. “Abigale—I understand Chester is important to you. But he’s not worth your life.”
At a whimper, they both turned.
Seth swung the gun barrel forward and gave Coop his head, but the horse began to blow and quake, shied to the right.
A snowy mound on the trail uttered a weak growl. Seth raised the gun and aimed across his horse, into the brush on the left.
A blur sprang to the trail … ~Just in Time for Christmas
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance #CowboyRomance
The post The Guide: Walk Where I Walk appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
November 21, 2021
Woman at the Well
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
She stood at the water dispenser in the market filling white one-gallon jugs and loading them into her shopping cart. A lot of them. Like fifteen or so.
Wearing a worn jacket and knit cap against the day’s chilly temperature, she kept looking over her shoulder as if nervous about being in the way of shoppers hurrying past.
“Don’t worry, you’re not in the way,” I said as I neared.
How Christian of me.
She smiled as I passed and continued filling her gallon containers. Alone.
No one helped her or spoke to her, and I thought little of it until I got home and started unloading my week’s groceries.
The woman rose in my memory like Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past.
“Why am I thinking about her now, after the fact?”
I knew why, and it wasn’t pretty.
I hadn’t really seen her in the moment. I could have blessed her with a kind word, helped her fill her containers, or slipped a folded bill into her hand. I could have casually appeared with my cart at her vehicle and helped her unload. Maybe given something from my abundance and tucked it in next to her purchases.
Was I in too big of a hurry? Too self-focused?
What if she was an angel in disguise? (Don’t smirk.)
What if she was merely a lonely woman who needed someone to notice?
What if she was my woman at the well?
Oh God, I have prayed for eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand. In today’s less picturesque language, one would ask to be observant, attentive, and perceptive.
Whatever it’s called, however it’s pictured, oh Lord, I need it.
How often I miss the moment due to an inward focus.
I have so much to be thankful for.
What have you got to be thankful for?
~
In everything give thanks;
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16
What have you got to be thankful for?
Click To Tweet
With preparation for the Thanksgiving feast in just three weeks, Etta had little time to dwell on anything else. Thanks to Dottie Dalton, she had a fairly good idea what to expect—food and more food. As the little woman had said when Etta first arrived in Lockton, she’d heard others mention that the Thanksgiving feast was the biggest event of the year.
Of course, there’d be no flags and bunting draping Main Street as they had for the Fourth of July. No horseraces or market wares for sale. Horses would be harnessed to buggies and farm wagons, and jams and jellies, cakes and breads would all be free for partaking during the meal.
The school children planned to present poems and songs, and evenings found Etta helping Gracie memorize her parts.
However, one tradition had Etta in a fix, for each person present at the meal was to share their greatest blessings from the year. Gracie had been practicing for months, and Etta learned that her list was what she had been secretly writing in her room.
Etta knew exactly what she wanted to say, but feared she’d not be able to get it past her lips.
With a cup of coffee and two oatmeal cookies, she sat down at the kitchen table to plan what dishes she’d prepare for the meal. Bern’s approval of her mincemeat pie set that item at the top of her list, followed by sweet yams, three loaves of fresh bread, seasoned dressing, and pumpkin pies, thanks to the little sugar pumpkins she’d rescued from the garden before the freeze. However, she was running low on spices, a costly commodity but necessary. With what she’d saved from her earnings, she had enough to splurge on cinnamon and nutmeg with plenty left over for a … ~Mail-Order Misfire
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post Woman at the Well appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
November 14, 2021
Stoning Unforgiveness
Today, friend and fellow author, Susan G. Mathis, shares a unique perspective on forgiveness that she may have picked up from the heroine in her latest release, *Colleen’s Confession.
Stoning Unforgiveness
By Susan G Mathis
Forgiving isn’t easy, but it’s the best way to be free. Proverbs 28: 13 says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
I think that includes those terrible transgressions against us. In my latest novella, Colleen’s Confession, Colleen has many hurts that hold her back from being all God wants her to be. She knew she needed to let go of all the shame and hurts of her past. She had to forgive the physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse she’d endured. And like you and I, she wondered how she could forgive without continuing to feel the pain? Here’s how Colleen did it:
“Help me, Lord.”
She knelt, observing the small rocks and pebbles scattered along the beach. A sharp-edged stone dug into her knee, so she removed it and tossed it in the river.
The irritation gone. The pain eradicated.
Colleen stood and collected a handful of rocks and pebbles. She tossed a stone in the river, heaving it far from her. “I forgive Sister Gregory.” Then another. “I forgive Sister Bertha.”
On and on she went—Sister Anthony. Sister Patricia. Everyone she could remember. Everyone who’d hurt her.
And her heart felt lighter. Freer.
But there was more to release—the weapons of cruelty.
The paddles, hands, sticks, rulers, belts.
The closets, cellars, outhouses, laundry rooms.
The words, names, accusations, lies, and threats.
Marshall. To her right, she spotted a rock the size of her head. Could she lift it? Could she heave it—Marshall—into the river? She must. She dug down into the sand, working her fingers into nooks and crannies in the rock. Bending at the knees, she gripped as though she’d never let go. Using her arms and back, she wiggled the rock in its nest. Then she drew a deep breath, exhaled, and lifted the granite piece.
With one big splash, she let go of it all. She chose to forgive.
Perhaps we can learn from Colleen. What can you or I do to let go and forgive? Toss a stone? Write a letter? Trash a memento? Whatever it takes to help you forgive, do it today.
~
Thank you, Susan, for this thought-provoking post about a very important choice. And thank you for sharing the picture you took of the actual Comfort Island, the setting for Colleen’s Confession, the latest in your Thousand Islands Gilded Age collection.
*Comment below for a chance to win an e-book of Colleen’s Confession.
Forgiving Isn't Easy
Click To Tweet
About Colleen’s Confession:
Summer 1914
Colleen Sullivan conceals secrets when she joins her aunt on Comfort Island to work in the laundry and await her betrothed’s arrival. She loves to draw and dreams of growing in the craft. But tragedy strikes when her fiancé perishes in the sinking of the ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland on his way to meet her. With her orphan dreams of finally belonging and becoming a wife and an artist gone, what will her future hold?
Austrian immigrant, Jack Weiss, enjoys being the island’s groundskeeper and is smitten by the lovely Irish lass. But Colleen dismisses him at every turn, no matter how much he admires her art, tries to keep her safe, and waters the blossoms of love. Perhaps introducing her to the famous impressionist, Alson Skinner Clark, will brighten her opinion of him. But rumors of war in Europe means Jack must choose between joining his homeland’s army or staying safe in the Thousand Islands as he makes a life with Colleen. If she will have him.
Susan G Mathis is an international award-winning, multi-published author of stories set in the beautiful Thousand Islands, her childhood stomping ground in upstate NY. Susan has been published more than twenty times in full-length novels, novellas, and non-fiction books.
Her first two books of The Thousand Islands Gilded Age series, Devyn’s Dilemma, and Katelyn’s Choice have each won multiple awards, and book three, Peyton’s Promise, comes out May 2022. Rachel’s Reunion is coming soon. The Fabric of Hope: An Irish Family Legacy, Christmas Charity, and Sara’s Surprise, and Reagan’s Reward, are award winners, too. Susan is also a published author of two premarital books, two children’s picture books, stories in a dozen compilations, and hundreds of published articles. Susan makes her home in Colorado Springs and enjoys traveling around the world. Visit www.SusanGMathis.com/fiction for more.
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post Stoning Unforgiveness appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
November 7, 2021
God Bless Them Every One
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
This post first appeared on Nov. 11, 2019. It appears edited today in honor of JPat Branch, *pictured above, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, who reported to his last call of duty on Oct. 29, 2021.
When I taught sixth-grade world history, I became accustomed to the grandiose dreams of adolescent boys intent on becoming warriors like the ancient kings they studied.
When I taught English composition at the community college, many of my students were young marines who bore the unseen scars of battles less glamorous than those portrayed in middle-school history books.
Honed and hardened by superior officers and surreal experiences, the veterans sat politely in their plastic chairs and let me tell them how to write cohesive paragraphs for persuasive essays.
Many of those young men had grown up faster than they wanted. They had fought to right the wrongs of others and prevent the encroachment of tyrants who would rule the world at any cost.
I’ve always been proud of those boys-turned-men who listened to me drill the rules of punctuation. They were gentlemen, every one, hiding behind their attentive eyes what they’d seen in places I’d only heard of.
Often, their dreams became nightmares that leaked from their fingers and onto the page in personal essays, giving me a glimpse of the horrors, reminding me that veterans are not only the men and women of my parents’ generation or my own.
They are my children, and will someday be my grandchildren, fighting to protect those who cannot defend themselves.
May their dreams today be restful, their battles ended, their valor rewarded by peace.
God bless them every one.
~
There is no greater love than
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13 NLT
God bless them every one.
Click To Tweet
*Thank you, JPat, for sharing the photo from your days in Vietnam. You are loved and remembered by many.
~
If any man is in Me, he is a new creation.
E-book & AudioThe words settled inside Eli, pulsating like some living thing. And the voice – he hadn’t listened to it in a while.
The promise was more than a well-delivered sermon from a Sunday pulpit. It belonged to the God he had known before Laura moved away. Before the IED blew up the Humvee. Before Pop died.
“I really do want a fresh start.” Confession clawed its way up his throat. Saying it out loud made it real. Tangible. His stomach clenched, his hands fisted around nothing. He desperately wanted to slough off the old and start over.
“But I need a hand here.”
Lightning split the darkness, and pain slashed the right side of his face. He curled in on himself, clutching his head. The left foot he no longer had shattered and throbbed with every life-spilling pump of his heart. Thunder tore through him with an agonizing cry.
And then it was over.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps, anticipating the pain. But it was gone. Instead, peace bloomed like a silent, surreal grenade.
He leaned his head back against the corral, breathing hard. The night lay still, the land quiet. Nothing stirred. Nothing but a flickering hope deep in his chest. ~The Miracle Tree
Want a free book? Sign up for my Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2019 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#ChristmasRomance #WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook
The post God Bless Them Every One appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
October 31, 2021
He Restores My Soul
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
I’m still in the twenty-third Psalm, wondering why the Shepherd has to make me lie down in green (or golden) pastures.
I think it’s because I don’t stop and rest on my own.
I’m too busy.
I have so much to do.
I don’t have time to rest, so He makes sure I do. And by doing so, He restores me.
The Hebrew word for restore has a lengthy definition including “to turn back again.” To retreat. To build, dig, do something again. Give, call, carry again. The definition gives several examples, but the word again is used 18 times.
See a pattern?
I need more than one time of restoration. I need more than one moment of stillness and calm. I need rest again and again and again.
And He fixes me again and again and again.
He loves us that much.
~
He restores my soul.
Click To Tweet
Sophie drew in the sweet breath of evening—her favorite time of day when earth and animal settled and night birds laced their lonely songs through scrub oak and cedar. A coyote called not far away, answered by another, and soon was joined by a yipping crowd, no doubt celebrating the demise of a hapless rabbit or two.
And the deeper the sun slid into the western peaks, the deeper her conviction grew that the stranger at the depot was Clay Ferguson.
She shook her head to clear his image. He should be the least of her concerns, the one that deserved the least of her attention. But he hovered above all other thoughts like an insistent hummingbird refusing to sink into the shadows where it belonged.
She reined the mare clear of rock outcroppings where snakes sunned themselves by day and cougars ambushed at dusk. But she also kept one eye on the old girl’s ears, for the horse would tell her if danger lurked nearby.
The country was never predictable. Gentle grasslands on one hand, a predator’s lair on the other. Everything around her seemed to sigh in expectation of rest, and she relaxed in her seat. ~An Impossible Price ***Winner of the Will Rogers Silver Medallion for Western Romance
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post He Restores My Soul appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
October 24, 2021
He Leads Me
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Would you follow someone you didn’t know down the path in this photo?
Why not?
My guess is that it’s all about trust.
Lately, I can’t shake the twenty-third Psalm. It pops up in music from the radio. It’s referenced in social media or books I’m reading. But most of all, I sense the constant rhythm of its promises in my heart. As if God is whispering to me personally.
Have you ever heard a breeze whisper through an aspen tree? That’s what it’s like – gentle, wooing, soothing.
I trust Him. He leads me.
This week, take a few minutes and write out your version of the twenty-third Psalm. Share below if you’d like, or just keep it to yourself in your wallet or purse. Tape it to your bathroom mirror but make it your own.
Because He is your own. You can trust Him.
My Shepherd leads me in the right way.
He takes me to His living water and bread of life.
He shows me where to rest and is blessed when I trust Him enough to do so.
Sometimes it’s so dark I can’t see anything, but He’s there.
I feel the brush of His arm against mine,
His breath on my hair when He leans close.
Even when I sit with those who hate me,
He feeds me His favor;
He always provides more than enough.
His mercy trails me like a faithful dog;
When I stop and look over my shoulder,
it stops and looks me in the eye.
And the Shepherd promises that I am His,
that I will be His forever.
~
He leads me.
Click To Tweet
Listen here to Casting Crown’s version of Psalm 23, “Home”
An Improper ProposalCade took his hat off and slapped it against his leg. It was time to say words over Henry.
“We’re finished.”
“Oh.” Mae Ann paled a bit and smoothed her skirt, looking everywhere but at him. “Thank you.”
“We picked a high spot with a good view of the place.” Somehow that mattered.
She followed him to the small rise behind the barn where Deacon stood mopping his face and neck. He squared himself as Mae Ann stopped next to the dark mound of fresh dirt and folded her hands. A breeze danced around her skirt and played with her hair that had worked loose.
Deacon held his hat against his chest. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He beds me down in green pastures with sweet water.”
Cade cut a look at Mae Ann, but she showed no reaction to Deacon’s loose interpretation of Scripture.
“He leads me on a good trail and stays with me in the tight places.”
She raised her eyes to Deacon, taking in his cattleman’s words that weren’t exactly what the parson would say but sure enough painted a picture of these high mountain parks.
“And the Lord’s spread will be my home forever.” Deacon jerked a nod to punctuate the end of his piece and shoved his hat on. “Amen.”
Mae Ann bowed her head. A sudden gust kicked over the rise and snagged her skirt like a flag. Cade eyed a thick gray band edging the horizon. They’d have just enough time to get home before the rain hit. ~An Improper Proposal
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post He Leads Me appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
October 10, 2021
Rivers of Living Water
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
I belong to a group of women who pray.
Collectively, I see them as a river that surges out from our midst, coursing through our community, swirling around boulders of sickness, spreading through exposed tree roots, and washing over sun-drenched sandbars in praise.
The river carries life to wherever its water is needed.
Jesus told a crowd of people one day that whoever believed in Him, out of his heart would flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).
Imagine – rivers of water flowing out of us because we believe in Jesus.
It’s true, I’ve seen it. I’ve felt the life-giving force.
The water is ever new though the river is ever the same. Much like the Arkansas River that flows not far from my home, the River of Life from Jesus always carries new, fresh water, yet it is always the same river.
One of those mysteries of God.
These are trying times in which we live. If you don’t have a river to which you can go for nourishment, refreshing, and comfort, find one. If you don’t have a group of people who pray, start one. There is more life-force than we may have realized in the power of pure and surging corporate prayer.
~
Rivers of Living Water
Click To Tweet
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post Rivers of Living Water appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
October 3, 2021
The Truth Behind Fiction
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Several years ago in one of my digs through the past, courtesy of the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center, I found an article about Texas Creek, Colorado. It wasn’t called Texas Creek in 1881, but rather, Ford Junction, a stage stop, where the road (and later a railroad branch) to Westcliffe intersected with the Arkansas River and the Denver & Rio Grande Western. I also read a little about the history of the creek that was named by a couple of cattlemen driving a herd of Texas longhorns up to the mining camps.
That was all I needed.
Ford Junction became the setting for the novella, “The Wrangler’s Woman,” which first appeared in Barbour’s 2016 bestselling collection, The Cowboy’s Bride. My novella re-releases October 7 as a standalone e-book.
Of course I’m not going to tell you what happens in the story, but you might find yourself witness to a small herd of longhorns clacking their dusty way down the main street of Ford Junction, headed to an area ranch. All fiction, of course. But there’s a lot of truth behind fiction. Especially historical fiction.
~
The truth behind fiction.
Click To Tweet
“That was Josiah Hanacker and his two children,” Letty said of the three riders trailing the herd through town. “A rancher up Texas Creek. The canyon cuts south to the Wet Mountain Valley, and the stage road runs right through his property. He was real regular in church, even living so far out, before his wife passed two years ago, poor man.”
Letty rolled her lips and wagged her head again, a sure sign of sympathy. “He’s raising those children alone, with his crippled father’s help.” She caught Corra’s eye. “If you can call that help.”
Corra spent the remainder of the morning contriving details around Letty’s explanation. A keen-eyed widower raising two boys alone on a ranch in the mountains sounded like the perfect scenario for a hero in the novels tucked securely beneath her unmentionables. Her paper beaus, Letty called them.
Though Corra knew her sister meant no ill in the teasing, it stung. Corra’s suitors had always come under cover of book bindings and daydreams. They still did. ~The Wrangler’s Woman
Congratulations, Peggy Clayton, you won a signed copy of An Impossible Price from last week’s drawing.
Original image of Texas Creek by Jeffrey Beall, 2018, Wikimedia Commons.
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post The Truth Behind Fiction appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
September 26, 2021
Don’t Worry, I’ve Got This …
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Most of us have heard someone say right before the disaster, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this …”
How NOT to worry?
Not doing something is often a non-event. Like dieting. NOT eating the wrong food leaves a vacuum that I want to fill with all the things I shouldn’t eat.
That may be why diet companies that provide meals are so successful: they fill the vacuum and give clients something to DO.
“Instead of that, eat this.” When you fork over good money for the alternate “this,” you tend to follow directions.
So how do we NOT worry and fret?
It depends on who we’re trusting.
When God inspired Paul’s letter to the Philippians, He understood the human tendency to agonize over situations.
“Do not be anxious about anything,” Paul wrote (4:6).
But he didn’t stop there. He showed us something to DO:
“… in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.”
He even tells us HOW – with thanksgiving.
In fact, Paul sandwiched his DO NOT between two slices of DO:
“Rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4).
“present your requests to God” (4:6).
The results: We lose the excess weight of anxiety when “the peace of God … guard(s) our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (4:7).
There are a few more suggestions in the fourth chapter of Philippians on what to DO. In light of current events in our world, nation, county, town, neighborhood, home … we would do well to check them out.
In the meantime, share below in the comments one thing for which you are thankful, and I’ll enter your name in a random drawing for a signed print (US only) or e-book copy of my latest award-winner, An Impossible Price. Drawing closes Saturday, October 2, 2021.
~
Don't worry, I've got this!
Click To Tweet
If she hadn’t spent so much time at the window
watching for Clay, she would already have supper warm
and waiting. She really needed to prioritize her duties.
Worrying over a grown man who knew how to take care
of other people’s livestock as well as himself should not
be a priority.
But oh, what a grown man he was. ~An Impossible Price
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.FREE book and Newsletter!
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2021 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
#AChangeofScenery #WesternRomance #ChristianFiction #FreeBook #HistoricalRomance
The post Don’t Worry, I’ve Got This … appeared first on Davalynn Spencer.
