Davalynn Spencer's Blog, page 43
June 5, 2017
The Mountains and Hills Will Burst Into Song
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
I’ve often been told that the settings of my stories are almost like characters impacting the humans. That makes me smile because natural landscapes and seasonal weather situations affect how people live.
Each geographic location has its unique challenges whether mountain, desert, forest, prairie, or seascape.
But regardless of where we are, God’s fingerprint can be found in His creation, and scripture reminds us to look beyond ourselves to see the evidence.
“… where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy.” (Psalm 65:8)
“The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness
… they shout for joy and sing.” (Psalm 65:12, 13)
“He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and
makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle …” (Psalm 147:8, 9)
Since most of my stories are set along the Rocky Mountain Front Range, I love painting a glimpse of what can be seen and felt here and my recent release is no exception.
Continuing north with the meadowlarks’ encouragement, she drank in the earth’s sweet perfume after the storm. Everything was fresh and clean, and she reveled in the sense of new beginnings … marveling at the cerulean sky and rolling grassland that spread unfettered between mountain ridges. She felt exactly the same—unfettered. Free yet belonging to someplace, to someone. – An Improper Proposal
May you stop this summer, drink in the joyful songs, and breathe in the beauty around you. Wherever you are, if you take a moment and look for the hidden treasure He’s left for you to discover, you’ll find it.
She wanted to lose herself in the wildflowers and grassland and drink in the meadowlarks’ songs. – from An Improper Proposal
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May 29, 2017
In Remembrance
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
If you’ve been to a rodeo, you know that the only moment of absolute silence usually follows a downed rider who fails to rise from the arena floor under his own power.
Apprehension sucks the collective breath of the crowd as they wait to see the cowboy push to his hands and knees.
When he does, the grandstands explode with applause and cheers.
When he doesn’t, the air is still as death.
At 3 p.m. today, Americans across this nation will pause for one minute of silence to remember those who have fallen on battlefields and did not rise.
This official Moment of Remembrance seems like a very small thank you for those who have died in service to our nation—“the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
In many homes those sacred moments of remembrance come every day a parent or spouse walks by a vacant room, an empty chair, or a cherished photograph. They don’t need a congressional act or national holiday. They can’t help but remember.
May we all do the same today, even if we can’t possibly remember the history of extended days and decades gone by.
Let us take at least a minute to convey the grace of gratitude as we pause and say, “I thank my God every time I remember you.” Phil. 1:3
Mae Ann dropped to her knees, ears ringing from the close gunshot. She lifted Henry’s head, and his blue eyes teared at her touch. Her first.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I … ” Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he fought for a gurgling breath. His last.
AVAILABLE for pre-order : An Improper Proposal
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May 22, 2017
i am not alone
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Ever feel like it’s you against the world? Occupationally, relationally, or physically if it’s not one thing, it’s another – right?
Just when we get our sea legs under us, a rogue wave hits, the deck rolls, and our stomachs follow. Why can’t our careers, relationships, and health be set on good ol’ terra firma?
I’ve learned the hard way that asking why is pointless. The answers to who, what, where, when, and how are much more satisfying.
WHO?
Lately, I’ve been reading about Jesus and how He dealt with people – His shouting, His quiet calm, His name-calling, His promise-giving. He was anything but static.
WHAT?
At one point, He told people He was the light of the world, and the Keepers of the Status Quo had a fit. You can read the account in John 8:12-20.
WHERE?
Right in the middle of the ruckus, Jesus revealed his personal, trinity-like support – a three-legged stool, if you will. The realization was so moving for me that I drew lines in my Bible connecting the three points Jesus made when addressing His adversaries:
I know where I came from
I know where I’m going.
I am not alone.
WHEN?
This is the kind of support we all need when the deck starts tilting.
In Him, we find origin, destiny, and companionship.
With Him, we can face any upheaval.
HOW?
May we let Him be our purpose, direction, and comfort.
(Listen to Kari Jobe sing “I Am Not Alone.”)
AVAILABLE for pre-order! … An Improper Proposal
Never had she felt so alone, so abandoned. Not even after her mother’s consumptive death at the rooming house.
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May 15, 2017
Mom’s Don’ts and Do’s
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
My mother taught me most of what I know, but four important lessons stand out in my memory—two don’ts and two do’s:
Don’t …
… push your hair behind your ears—it makes them stick out.
… put your hands in your sweater pockets—it makes them sag.
Do …
… moisturize your neck as well as your face.
… love Jesus more than anyone, even me.
Mother’s advice scored much higher than that of other wisdom merchants in my life: three out of four for accuracy isn’t bad.
Number one was probably something she heard from her mother. The women in our family all have very thick hair, but today we all know that hair isn’t what pushes ears in or out.
Number two is factual, proven by the old, comfortable sweater I wear around the house but never in public.
Number three is a bit of prophetic perception that is better followed than ignored. For as any woman over the age of thirty has discovered, there is no undoing of neglect.
And number four is the most precious of all gems Mother could have given me. It is the North Star of her guidance, the essence of what I hope I have instilled in my own children.
Over the years my mother’s words have comforted me—as have God’s. The Lord and I first met through her tender nurturing, and for that introduction, I will be forever grateful. For as she taught me to love Him more than anyone else, so I have learned that He loves me more than anyone else ever could.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
Isaiah 49:15,16
COMING SOON … An Improper Proposal
Words she’d learned at her mother’s side rippled through her like a silken thread. All things work together for good to them that love God.
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May 8, 2017
Life Wins
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Last summer, grasshoppers denuded a young aspen tree I had so lovingly planted in the spring. With plague-like precision, they took it down to nothing but trunk and stems.
The lady at the nursery where I bought the tree told me it wasn’t dead.
“Keep watering it,” she said. “It’s just defoliated.”
Watering a “stick” every evening wasn’t exactly encouraging. But by late August, new growth began to show, and I wrote about the tree’s resurrection (here).
This year the little aspen is twice as full of leaves that flutter as only aspen leaves can on a cool evening breeze.
Again, I’m amazed by the regenerative properties that flowed through it even though I thought it was done in.
That’s the power of Life. And that’s the power of the Life of Christ in us.
When we think we’re done in, if He lives within us, we live too.
Don’t give up. Life wins.
COMING SOON … An Improper Proposal
Things didn’t go as planned. Someone else’s greed cost her everything.
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May 1, 2017
Do You Ever Want to Run Away?
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Do you ever want to run away?
Today I did just that.
I ate breakfast and lunch at the dining table rather than at my desk.
(Strange, isn’t it, what we run away from.)
I ate looking out the window into the back yard instead of at my computer screen.
My internal workings slowed. In a good way. A way that I needed, reminding me that I didn’t have to work, work, work.
This image of a hollow tree calls me to crawl inside, lean my back against the smooth interior, and hide.
Hide from all the visual noise, the demands, the clatter and clutter. All the multi-tasking.
I’m good at multi-tasking – eating and writing and checking e-mail and updating Facebook and drinking coffee and making notes so I don’t forget what I want to do next.
You are my hiding place …
The words come to me as a whispered invitation, reminding me that I can run away – into His waiting, peaceful presence.
I can crawl inside His arms, lean my back against His chest, and hide.
Someone once said, “Don’t eat lunch at your desk if you can help it.”
I add to that, “Find a window, sit where you can look outside, see things that aren’t manmade.”
My eyes have never ached from looking at God’s creation. Grass, trees, quail scrabbling beneath the birdfeeder. The dog, cats. Cloud-filled sky.
They soothe.
That’s why I have a small vase of flowers on my desk. It draws my eye to the God-made, the lovely, the amazing. That which I cannot replicate, though I try to with my words.
You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
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COMING SOON … An Improper Proposal
“You know nothing about me. I could be a hornswoggler, an outlaw. A gambler.” —from An Improper Proposal
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April 24, 2017
What if?
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
“What if?”
This two-word query is one of the most important questions a novelist asks while working on a project. Various answers can propel an author’s characters into riveting plot twists or brain-throbbing conflicts.
But for someone seeking to live a faith-led life of obedience in the real world, “What if?” can be the most destructive, derailing question of all.
Unfortunately, we ask “What if?” all the time when it comes to doing what God tells us to do, because—let’s be honest—He’s asked His people to do some pretty strange things.
Like march around a walled city for seven days blowing trumpets.
Or feed a crowd of thousands with a kid’s sack lunch.
Or invite a neighbor to church.
Or trust Him.
Sometimes God asks us to be unlike everyone else because He wants to lead us on a different trail, often referred to as a path of righteousness.
But instead of stepping out in obedience, we start asking “What if?”
What if it doesn’t work?
What if my timing is off?
What if people won’t like me?
These worry-inducing, fret-focused questions can stop us in our tracks.
“What if?” racked me up last week, and it had nothing to do with the novel I was writing and everything to do with the trail I was walking.
The turning point arrived when I remembered that I’m not alone. That the same God who said, “Let there be light,” is lighting my path.
I’ve found that peace rushes in when I do what God whispers into my heart.
It’s just a two-step process, like the old song my parents used to sing, “Trust and Obey.”
It may not be easy, but it really can be that simple.
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COMING SOON … An Improper Proposal
Widowed before she says “I do,” mail order bride Mae Ann Remington asks a stranger to take her groom’s place and ends up a Colorado rancher’s wife facing snakes, scoundrels, and second chances.
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April 16, 2017
The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Writing a scene for a soon-to-release Western romance, I came face to face with my heroine’s memories of her mother’s favorite saying that “all things work together for good.”
She was having trouble believing what her mother had taught.
Bad things had happened to my character. A lot of bad things, and the scripture-turned-platitude chaffed her sense of fairness.
Her less-than-perfect situation had landed her in a stranger’s home where she was trying to do her best. At that particular moment of frustration and disappointment, she decided to bake.
Flour dust tainted the air as she sifted the proper amount into a bowl. A person could choke on flour—a tasteless death for sure.
Then she added Baker’s chocolate, a bitter ingredient.
Next came sugar—everyone’s favorite, but sickening in great quantities.
Eggs followed, not exactly tasty in their raw condition.
None of the ingredients my heroine added to her mixing bowl were appetizing on their own, but when worked together, they combined to create a chocolate cake—something very good indeed.
As she poured the batter into a baking pan, she wondered if her efforts reflected what God does in our lives. He takes the bad—the less-than-perfect things—and works them together into something good for His children.
Because He is good.
If God can make light and earth and sky from nothing, and man from dirt, imagine what He can do with our wrecked lives and surrendered hearts.
~
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
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If you enjoy Irish family fiction, try Susan G. Mathis’s newest release, The Fabric of Hope.
Two women a century apart, connected by a quilt. Will it wrap them in hope and faith or fear and faithlessness?
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April 10, 2017
On the wings of the morning …
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
If you follow posts on my Facebook profile, you may have picked up on my love affair with morning. Pre-dawn, in particular.
There is something intimate about standing outside in the dark, watching the eastern horizon begin to glow—the light grow—as the wings of the morning spread wide and take off.
It’s a private moment between the watcher and God, because that person is catching something that not everyone sees or cares to.
And every dawn is different. Like snowflakes, no two are alike.
When I taught sixth-grade, I discovered author Gary D. Schmidt and his marvelous stories for middle-schoolers that all adults should read. His rendering of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, Straw into Gold, features a blind character who can hear dawn—the very moment it “cracks.” What if, I asked myself. What if?
One of the marvels of morning is the way light displaces darkness—as if each dawn is creation all over again, an image of God’s spirit hovering over the void and transforming it.
Not everyone today gets to see the sunrise, and the reasons are countless. But if you get the opportunity, take it.
Watch light displace darkness. Form replace void.
Scripture has a lot to say about morning. Below are five of my favorite references:
You might be surprised by what you find at dawn. A woman named Mary was.
… at dawn on the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb
(Matthew 28:1 NIV).
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Davalynn SpencerMarch 27, 2017
My Soul Waits … For What?
By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
What does our soul wait for?
To be honest, wait isn’t on my list of “Fun Things to Do.” More often than not, I’ve classified wait with other (inappropriate) four-letter words.
However, the image of someone watching for the sunrise lends an air of expectancy, even awe, as their waiting is rewarded with a breathtaking, one-of-a-kind view.
Recently, I’ve been reading about Moses meeting with God. He waited for the Lord, spent time with Him, lingered in His presence. Because of that, Moses came away with a surprising fringe benefit: he glowed.
“… his face had become radiant because he had spoken to the Lord …”
The people noticed. Moses’ friends and family noticed. Not your everyday occurrence.
Moses physically demonstrated what happens to each of us emotionally and spiritually: We take on the characteristics of that with which we spend time. We are porous people, and we absorb mannerisms, speech patterns, philosophies of life.
The Psalmist wrote: “With you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light. (Psalm 36: 9)
What an impact we could have on our immediate area of the world if we spent so much time with the Lord – in prayer, reading His word, worshipping and praising Him – that His light was noticeable.
Imagine the peace of His presence that could be transmitted to those around us, rather than stress and worry and complaint.
When He is real to us—and we spend time with Him—one way or another, it will show.
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“The Wrangler’s Woman” – the story of two imperfect people who discover they are a perfect match. The Cowboy’s Bride collection, nine novellas of love in the Old West.
