Davalynn Spencer's Blog, page 58

Saving time and marshmallows

Tonight at midnight we lose an hour as we set our clocks forward to 1 a.m. Personally, I won’t be awake to spring ahead, and will have already given up those precious sixty minutes.

Airline travelers lose more than an hour when traveling across the international dateline. It is possible to lose an entire day. When I was a child, my father told me if a person kept traveling long enough in that direction, he would disappear completely. Dad’s sense of humor, I suppose.

It matched his tale that marshmallows were made from horse slobber scraped off and shaped into little flat-ended balls.

At least he never told me the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were real. I didn’t have to unbelieve such things when I grew up—other than the bit about marshmallows.

Happy daylight-saving time, everyone. I’m not sure where it’s being saved, but if you have a great story, I’d love to hear it.

Warmth, comfort, and potbelly biscuits

My dad had an old cast iron stove in his “office” – a building out back of our house that women today would call a man cave. The stove sat right in the middle of the room surrounded by desks, chairs, book shelves, and a drafting table. There was something cozy about hanging out in that one-room retreat on a rainy day, something inviting and primitively simple.

In my latest book, The Cowboy Takes a Wife, a potbelly stove becomes a focal point around which the characters gather to enjoy Annie Whitaker’s home-made, potbelly biscuits. When I started the story, I didn’t know the old coal-burner would become so important. But if I had been in the Rockies on a snowy day in 1860, that’s where I would have headed.

Today my husband and I have a wood and coal stove in the living room, and it offers the same thing those old cast iron stoves did: great heat and a cozy atmosphere. I crave the intimacy of curling up on the sofa with a novel and a cup of hot tea while the Colorado wind takes a run at our snug little home.

Warmth and comfort – two things we all look for. May the warmth and comfort of God’s love hold you close these remaining winter days.

~finding faith & fresh hope through Love~

 

From the present to the past

There is a curve in US Highway 50 west of Cañon City, Colorado, that the locals call Soda Point. For perhaps a couple of centuries a natural soda spring bubbled up there and Utes and explorers alike took the waters.

In the late 1940s someone or many someones decided that a paved highway was more important than the spring, and that natural wonder has long slept beneath the humming wheels of cars and pickups and semis.

But the curve is still referred to as Soda Point, and distance from it is still reckoned. Eight Mile Hill, Four Mile Creek—both places were originally measured from Soda Point in the mid1800s, and both locales bear the same names today.

For me, Soda Point serves as a portal from the present to the past, for when I round that bend, I step into the world of my historical fiction characters.

In my latest book, The Cowboy Takes a Wife, Caleb Hutton rides his horse Rooster up the river past Soda Point, mulling over his mistakes in life. He’s caught in a late fall snow storm and makes it back to Cañon just in time. He also rides the trail that follows a wrinkle of up-shot rock called the Hogbacks on his way to a ranch that doesn’t need him. Discouragement dogs Caleb until he finally learns what God can do with failure.

Though my characters are fictional, the land is not, and I imagine the ochre walls and red abutments overlooking the Arkansas River are much the same today as they were a hundred and fifty years ago.

I know people’s struggles are the same, and we still try to run away from our problems rather than trust the Lord to show us how to work through them.

Today a steel gate blocks the path that my character, Caleb, would have taken on his ride upriver to the mouth of the great gorge. But for those who want to see the area, there’s a hiking trail along Tunnel Drive west of town, just before the turn off to Pueblo Community College’s Fremont Campus. From that high vantage point, one can look out over the Arkansas River and up Grape Creek where Caleb heard the “laughing waters” and saw deer scaling the canyon’s walls.

Funny, how still today, a walk through God’s creation can help us focus on His voice and His answers.

I hope you enjoy reading The Cowboy Takes a Wife – the first in this historical series set in Cañon City, Colorado.  I had a great time writing it.

Davalynn

Win a signed book

The Cowboy Takes a Wife releases on Kindle today and in paperback on Feb. 4. Read on to see how you can win a signed copy.

***

Before Colorado statehood was attached to this stretch of prairie and Rocky Mountains, it was known as Kansas Territory (or Jefferson Territory to the hardliners). The Arkansas River cut out of the mountains near a Ute encampment and coursed through a little mine-supply town called Cañon City.

And that’s where I begin my story of Caleb Hutton and Annie Whitaker in The Cowboy Takes a Wife—Cañon City, 1860.

This month I’m promoting the book during a blog tour without ever saddling up.

I wonder what Caleb would think of traveling via the Internet rather than horseback.

Some of my stops will offer an opportunity to win a free signed copy of the book, plus a look at character profiles and author interviews. I hope you’ll visit one or all of the locations listed below.

A book signing is also scheduled at Words of Life book store on Cañon City’s Main Street Feb. 8 from 1-3 p.m., not too far from where my characters meet in the fictional Whitaker’s Mercantile.

Plus I’m offering my own give-away right here in a random drawing of people who comment on this blog post prior to Feb. 8. Be sure to leave your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you win the book.

May Faith and Fresh Hope be yours.

 

Jan. 30             Guest post: Personal experience with Becky Jacoby at http://www.beckyjacoby.com/davalynn-spencer-surprise-affirmations-provide-a-lift/

Feb. 3 Author interview and BOOK GIVE-AWAY with Laura Davis at http://www.interviewsandreviews.com/

Feb. 10 Guest post: Personal experience with Christine Lindsay at http://www.christinelindsay.org/

Feb. 10 Guest post for animal-lovers with All Creatures Great and Small blog at http://roxannerustand.com/

Feb. 11-12 Author interview and BOOK GIVE-AWAY with Martha Rogers at http://www.marthasbooks.blogspot.com/

Feb. 12 My marketing tips at http://www.seriouslywrite.blogspot.com/

Feb. 24 Heroine Annie Whitaker interview and BOOK GIVE-AWAY with Margaret Daley at http://www.margaretdaley.com/margarets-blog/

Feb. 26 Author interview and BOOK GIVE-AWAY with Hallee Bridgeman at http://www.bridgemanfamily.com/hallee/

When “no” becomes “yes”

Every January I switch out my desktop calendar, looking back through the previous year to transfer birth dates and other important information.

This year, instead of a simple transfer of dates, the endeavor became a time of praise and awe and thanksgiving.

For example, last January I sent a proposal for a short pioneer-Christmas story, hoping it would be selected for an anthology by a major publisher. It was not selected. However, that story became the first in a three-book series picked up by another major publisher. All three books release this year, the first one in February—all because the first publisher said “no.”

In September, my husband and I moved into our long-awaited home, and we have been surprised by all the little things here that fit our needs so perfectly. Yet as I looked back through the first half of my 2013 calendar, I saw note after note of appointments with realtors to see a house I thought at the time was the perfect one for us. It became a discouraging drudgery, and I nearly gave up hope. So many “no’s.”

“God has something for us,” my husband said one day.

And He did. Without all those other “no’s” we would not have pressed on to find the home we now enjoy.

It’s so disappointing to hear “no,” but God can turn it into a wonderful “yes.”

Are there any “no’s” in your life that have prepared you for “yes”? Are you still waiting? Or have you received the fabulous “yes”? I’d love to hear about them.

Faith and Fresh Hope on the Medicine Train

“I am preparing you for what is on the road ahead, just around the bend” (Jesus Calling, December 27).

The words of Sarah Young’s best-selling devotional sprang to life as the train wrapped around the curve ahead. From our seats in the dining car, my husband and I watched the engines of the California Zephyr disappear.

On the first day of our two-day journey from Denver to Sacramento, the train laced through snowy canyons and stretched across narrow valleys tucked deep in the Rocky Mountains. A perfect beginning to eight days off the grid.

Time jumped the track.

It slowed.

It showed me what I’d forgotten—that I could live without the virtual umbilical cord of instant communication and information from people I know and don’t know all over the world.

It taught me that I could sit on a passenger train and feed my soul on scenery seen by very few.

It reminded me that God is not imprisoned in seconds and minutes and hours and days.

“Be still and know that I am God,” I heard in my soul again.

Rest.

Family met us at the station. With no particular agenda, we dined with our daughter. I walked and talked with the special man in her life. Heard his heart.

On another day we visited with our out-of-state grandchildren, got to know them, listened to their opinions, discovered their likes and dislikes.

We worshipped at a church by the sea, rode bicycles along Cannery Row, shared conversations that drew us closer and prepared us for the—

—roaring engines of an airliner that brought us home in a crowded tube of hurried people with crying children and frazzled parents.

In my office, 381 email messages awaited the click of my mouse. Amazing how the Internet churned on without me during those eight days—and how I grew and stretched and settled and relaxed without it.

“The train was like medicine,” my husband said the day after our return. A miracle out of time that reminded us both how close God is if we will stop and listen and wait and watch.

Again Sarah Young’s words brushed against me: “I shower not only blessings but also outright miracles on your planet … things that most people hardly notice, like shifting shades of sunlight, fill[ing] you with heart-bursting Joy” (Jesus Calling, December 28).

Renewed faith and fresh hope—that’s what I found during those eight days off the grid.

 

Jesus Calling

Everything else is just tinsel

Christmas is when the child we were should touch the child we raise so he can see the Wonder of Love. Everything else is just tinsel.

Memories decorate more Christmases than all the world’s tree ornaments, paper and trimmings combined. For some people, those memories aren’t so pleasant. For others, they are the core of the season.

Today, our son displays a lighted miniature village in his home – the same village he grew up with.

Our daughter recently responded to a question about her knowledge of Mexican food: “You should have been at our house on Christmas Eve for the enchilada dinner.”

And both of them often mention with childlike delight the years we trekked into the Rocky Mountain woods to cut our own tree.

Good memories.

How about you? Do pleasant memories embellish your holidays, or do you cringe during the festivities?

Start fresh this year – even if most of your own childhood days were filled with sorrow or strife. You have the ability to create new memories. Give it a shot. That’s why we celebrate Christmas in the first place – to remember the Child who came our way so He could include us in His family.

 

The Contrast of Christmas

I just finished decorating for Christmas. Seems I put up less each year, but some things are a must:

The old plaster nativity set I had as a child, complete with one wise man’s chipped off nose and Joseph’s empty hand that held a long-lost staff.


The coiled-rope door wreathe – one of my husband’s old team-roping ropes spruced up with a red bandana and jangling sleigh bells.


My collection of rocking horses.


Candles.


A small tree full of miniature white lights, topped by a hand-made “country” angel.

This year several inches of snow outside my door add to the Christmas atmosphere. But I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much without the cozy fire in the wood stove and a cup of hot cocoa.

It’s contrast that makes the moment.

 Quiet in the rush. Warmth in the cold. Lights in the darkness. The king in a stable.

 May your Christmas be filled this year with quiet, warmth, light, and the King of kings.

For unto you

is born this day

in the city of David

a Savior,

which is Christ the Lord …

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace,

good will toward men.

Luke 2:11

Sun-scorched land, anyone?

Sun-scorched land. Not my favorite place to be, but sometimes I find myself scrabbling through loose rock and sand—just like a character in the final novel of my three-book historical series.

As a seat-of-the-pants writer, I don’t plot and plan the story up front, I simply sit down and write it, “watching” as my characters make choices, both good and bad. I like being surprised by how they deal with obstacles and challenges.

In this latest book, one protagonist (the heroine) is a widow. The antagonist (bad guy) is a fatherless son. One of them chooses to take God at his word, and the other does not.

As the Lord would have it, a devotional reading this week lead me to Psalm 68:5, 6.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing;

but the rebellious live a sun-scorched land”

(Psalm 68:5, 6 NIV).

 Both of my characters suffer traumatic loss, but each responds differently. One trusts God for new life, and the other rebels, ending up in a barren and lifeless situation.

Through the story I realized that I often rebel against the Lord’s direction. I want to do things my way. And my way usually leads to a dry and barren place.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I want to remember that the Lord is my Father and Defender, my family and my song leader, the One who fills my heart with praise.

 

Sun-scorched land—not my favorite place. (Tweet this)

The Lord— my Father, Defender, family and song leader, the One who fills my heart with praise. (Tweet this)

Unimproved Road

Unimproved road, the sign said.

Looked all right to me. My husband and I continued along the unpaved lane through grazing land and open cow country, admiring an old ranch house and barn surrounded by towering cottonwood trees. The beautiful setting inspired peaceful thoughts as we drove on toward a friend’s secluded mountain home.

A hard right turn and the road roughened a bit with a few more dips and rises. Another half mile and the path narrowed. Rocks replaced gravel as roadbed, and I felt like I was in one of those off-road, he-man truck commercials.

A long drop quickly turned into a steep climb up the other side, and we didn’t dare stop for fear of getting stuck right where we were. The term roadbed deteriorated into gouge, but we trooped on.

Unimproved proved to be the understatement of the year.

But we’d been warned.

Once we made it up to the pine-covered plateau, our friend’s home beckoned just ahead. The view of the valley floor we’d crossed and the higher mountains beyond was staggering.

A destination definitely worth the journey.

Our friends with the mountain home drove their road every day—in a Subaru just like ours. Knowing they did it encouraged us that we could do it, too.

Jesus offers that same kind of encouragement. He said we’d have trouble in this world and He was right. He gave us fair warning but He didn’t stop there.

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NIV).

He’s done this. It’s hard, but it’s worth it and we’ll make it because He is with us.

Rather than being discouraged, let’s not only take heart but take Him at His word.

Hebrews 13:5

A destination worth the journey. Tweet this.

Unimproved road, the sign said. Tweet this.