David N. Walker's Blog, page 21

Scaremongering

Eco-freaks and other liberals have been using the phenomenon of global warming for a number of years now to try to scare us into adopting government regulations that will weaken our economy and, ultimately, the entire fabric of our nation. They never mention that a few decades ago they were warning us against global cooling—and a few decades before that, against global warming.

The earth has gone through periods of warming and cooling since time immemorial. Our atmosphere is not static. It’s always warming or cooling.

More recently, they’ve begun to warn us about earthquakes. I guess they’re tired of the same worn-out warning about global warming and have latched onto this as the next big scare to use in their attempts to destroy our economy.

They’ve decided the use of fracking and injection developed by the petroleum industry to lessen our nation’s dependence on foreign oil is the culprit behind the rise in earthquakes. They would have us quit using these tactics, eroding our chances to become self-sufficient in energy production. I guess they want us to find ourselves at the mercy of the Hugo Chavezes and the ayatollahs in Iran and others who would use their oil production as a tool to beat us into submission to their agendas.

Are we really having more earthquakes than normal in the last year or two? Maybe. I haven’t seen any definitive studies on the subject. Of course, the absence of real proof is what scaremongers always use to magnify their drumbeats.

If we are having more earthquakes, are they the result of petroleum exploration and development? This is much more iffy, although I haven’t heard of a lot of quakes in Saudi Arabia and Canada and other major petroleum exporting nations.

Is there any other explanation for the increase in frequency of these quakes—if there is, in fact, a real increase? Yes, there is definitely another explanation—one the eco-scaremongers don’t want us to see.

In the last days of His ministry here on earth, Jesus talked about future events. Like Daniel and Ezekiel hundreds of years before His incarnation, and like Paul and John a few years after His ascension, He talked about end times. Let take a look at some of His words on the subject:

In Matthew 24, verses 7 and 8, He said:

7     “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.

8    “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

Mark recorded the same words almost verbatim in Chapter 13:

8    “For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

Reporting the same teaching in Chapter 21 of his gospel, Luke said:

10     Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom,

11     and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Anyone see a pattern here? Jesus is telling us that as end times approach nature will begin exhibiting abnormal things. An increase in the frequency of earthquakes is a part of this increasing abnormality.

Let’s not let scaremongers twist natural phenomena which Jesus predicted 2,000 years ago and use them to lead us into unwisely shooting ourselves in our own feet.

In light of the extreme winter we’ve just been through, what do you think of the global warming scare? How do you react when the same people who have been screaming about global warming now tell us we need to cut back on our petroleum exploration?

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Christian, Christian Fellowship, Christianity, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Earthquakes, Faith, Fancy Series, Forgiveness, Global warming, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Jesus, Sins, Works

Sisters

Someone posted this on Facebook a few days ago:

If I knew who posted it, I’d give credit, but I don’t. However, it has sorta remained in the back of my mind ever since. You may have several sisters—or none at all—but I think just about anyone who has a sister would agree with me that they are special.

Your parents are the ones who go back the furthest in your personal history, but one day you may find yourself in my position. My father has been gone for 22 years, and my mother, though still with us, has very little awareness of anything as she approaches her 98th birthday. That means neither is a source of shared memories.

My sister Barb has been around all my life, plus a couple of years before I was born. Someone made her a cotton candy cake for her 73rd birthday:

I have friends who have known me for a few years or a decade or even more, but Barb is the only one with day-to-day memories of my childhood. In fact, she was right there behind me in many of them:

She remembers me in kindergarten and all the way through school:

I have first cousins I’m close to, and we have memories of visits and other special times when we were children, but Barb is the only one surviving whose memories of me go from the day I was born to the present. Well, she was pretty young the day I was born, but you know what I mean.

Here are some other photos of Barb. In the first, she’s with her daughter Wendy at her (Barb’s) wedding in 2004. She and I are in her back yard in Spokane in 2008, and she and my daughter Lynn surround my mother in the home where Mother lives.

  

Before you ask, that’s obviously a pillow under my shirt. I couldn’t possibly be that big.

Barb and I haven’t lived in the same state, or even the same part of the country, since she moved to Billings, Montana, in 1965. That’s nearly 50 years of geographic separation, but the familial bonds don’t drop off just because we don’t see each other often. When we do, we pick right up where we left off on the last visit, and when we’re not together, it’s somehow comforting to know that someone who has known me and cared for me all my life is still out there somewhere.

Tell us about your sister—or brother. Our readers would love to hear from you.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Self-help, Sister

God’s Calling

Saw this sign posted on Facebook the other day:

This should serve as a reminder to all of us that God is not looking for someone who is perfectly qualified for whatever job He may have for us. All He needs is a willing volunteer. He will qualify the person He calls for the job.

How often have we failed or refused to do something God was calling us to do because we didn’t feel like we were able to do it? “Oh, God, I can’t do that. Go find someone else to do it.” I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have personally used that excuse to cop out on doing something God called me to do.

When He called me to write my recent blog series “Christianity 101,” my initial reaction was that I didn’t have a seminary degree and wasn’t ordained by any church. I was sure He could find someone more qualified to write it. Then He reminded me of this principle, and I humbly accepted His call.

More recently, He called me to turn that series of blogs into the book Christianity 101. Once again, my reaction was to dodge this challenge, but I remembered what He said about the blog series and accepted His call.

Right now, I’m in the midst of the process of adapting these blog posts into the form of a book. I feel inadequate for the task, and I wonder a lot what I should say, what I should add to the blog series, etc.

If I were doing this on my own, I would probably run for cover. However, He knows my inadequacies better than I do, and if He wants me to do this, it’s up to Him to anoint me to the task or let me fall on my face. I no longer worry about embarrassing myself if I don’t get it just right. It’s His project, not mine.

There’s a story about a farmer who had just been born again when his area was hit by an invasion of locusts. The locusts ate everything in sight, destroying crops for miles around.

The man’s pastor, concerned about how this disaster might shake the new Christian’s faith, hurried out to the man’s farm to comfort him. When he got there, he found the farmer whistling as he cheerfully went about his business.

Dumbfounded at the man’s happiness, he asked him about it. “How can you be so upbeat in the face of such a total disaster?”

The farmer just grinned. “If God wants to use His crop to feed His locusts, why should I be upset about that?”

That’s the attitude I have to adopt when I write Christian nonfiction. If God wants to use my writing to bring lost people to Jesus and lead Christians into closer relationships with Him, great. If, on the other hand, He wants to let my efforts fall flat, so be it. It’s His project, not mine.

What things have you undertaken in answer to God’s call when you didn’t feel qualified for the job?

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

 

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Christian, Christian Fellowship, Christianity, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Faith, Fancy Series, Forgiveness, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Jesus, Sins, Works

Bestsellers

My friend Ellie Ann Soderstrom has now been on both the NYT and USA Today bestseller lists for multiple weeks. I would tell you what that feels like, but I don’t know, because I’m far removed from any sort of bestseller list.

Of course, being on such lists has totally changed her life and brought her instant wealth, right? I mean, isn’t that what all authors want?

Actually, the answer to the first question is “no,” and to the second, “it shouldn’t be.” As she points out in her blog (click on her name above to see it), her personal problems haven’t changed, and her kids aren’t the least bit impressed.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere for the rest of us. A bestseller would be nice, and multiple million-sellers would be even nicer, but that shouldn’t be why we write. We should be writing because we love to do so. Any fame or financial rewards our writing might bring should just be icing on the cake.

I began writing novels to entertain myself and, possibly, some family members. I made some effort in the early nineties to get a couple of them published, but I never considered being published to be my raison d’etre. I wrote because I enjoyed writing.

It’s a good thing I had that attitude, because I never came close to getting any of them published. I hardly knew a thing about the craft of novel-writing, and it showed.

More recently, Amazon, Smashwords and other such outfits have made self-publishing not only respectable but also relatively easy to do. I now have one Christian nonfiction and seven novellas on the market.

Now and then I find myself envying those authors who sell enough books to make a living at it. I catch myself daydreaming about what I’d do if I had X amount of income from my writing. But I don’t sit around worrying about such things. As Ellie Ann pointed out in her blog, it wouldn’t really change my life if I did. I’d still have to roll out of bed every morning. I’d still put my pants on one leg at a time. I’d still be the same person I am now.

One lady in my writers’ group managed to join the elite among indie authors in the last few years. I’m sure her income from writing is in the six digits. But she still has two kids and a husband to occupy large portions of her time and attention, and when her travel allows her to be available for our meetings, she’s still just one of us. No airs or snobbery or anything like that. She’s always quick to volunteer ideas or help to the rest of us.

I’m happy for all the Ellie Anns out there—people who have hit the big leagues as authors and are enjoying big sales and, maybe, big money. But I’m also glad she has her feet on the ground and keeps that success in perspective, and I thank her for the reminder to the rest of us: we write because we love writing—that’s the only legitimate reason for doing it.

For the writers among you, why do you write? How do you think your life would be better if you books became bestsellers?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Ellie Ann Soderstrom, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, New York Times Bestsellers, People, Personal development, Self-help, USA Today Bestsellers

Blessing & Judgment

Some of my friends may be offended by this message, but when God gives me clear instructions about something He wants me to do, I must follow Him. I truly hope I don’t lose friends and followers over this post, but I must do it. Regardless of your definitions of what’s right and what’s wrong, history is history. What I point out here are not my opinions. They are things that have happened and are happening. The only opinion I venture in this piece is that we’d better take God seriously.

Throughout history, when God’s people have turned away from Him, He has removed His blessing from them. Without His blessing, His people have suffered through conquest, captivity, and all sorts of ills.

God promised Abraham He would make of him a great nation. When famine came to His people, God had Joseph in place to save them through the largesse God had provided Egypt under Joseph’s influence.

During the next 430 years, Abraham’s descendants grew from one family to several million people. God rescued them from slavery in Egypt in a most miraculous way.

As soon as they were safely free from Pharaoh’s despotism, they turned away from God and began worshiping a golden calf. As punishment, God made them wander in the wilderness for forty years before allowing them into the promised land.

God delivered the promised land into their hands and they settled in Israel—a free nation owing allegiance to no one except God. But time and again the people turned away from God, and He allowed them to be ruled by bad kings and conquered by foreign nations, sometimes allowing them to be driven from their land and scattered around the world.

Under the New Covenant, Christians became His special people. He didn’t abandon Israel, even though Israel abandoned His Son. The nation of Israel is still His, and He will never allow it to be destroyed, but the people who accepted His Son as their Savior became His people.

In 1776, for the first time in history, a nation was founded by Christians to protect their right to pursue Christianity without interference from a king or other official. The Pilgrims did not come over here to provide a haven for atheists or Muslims or others who mock God or ignore His Son. They came to provide for themselves the freedom to worship God and His Son.

In return, God blessed this new nation as no nation in history has been blessed. Over the next century and a half, the United States enjoyed both freedom and prosperity unparalleled since the beginning of time.

As we enjoyed that freedom and prosperity, however, we allowed it to change us as a people. God became less important to a growing number of us than the pursuit of our own pleasures. In the 1920′s we wanted nothing more than partying and patronizing speak-easies. After a decade of that, along with other pursuits of the flesh, we suffered a slight withdrawal of God’s favor in the form of a stock market crash and depression.

Rather than turn to God, we turned to the government for our salvation. We began demanding—and receiving—all sorts of social programs run by the government and paid for partially by the taxpayers and partially by levying taxes on the children and grandchildren of those taxpayers through a growing national debt.

Despite our unfaithfulness, God delivered us from one of the most heinous tyrants ever to walk the earth in World War II. To thank Him, we turned more and more away from Him and toward the government to solve all of our problems.

Then, in 1962, we told God He was no longer welcome in the classrooms of our children. The day the Supreme Court declared school prayer unconstitutional was the day we ceased to be a Christian nation. A decade later that same Supreme Court said killing innocent, unborn babies was an acceptable form of birth control.

Despite our unfaithfulness, God gave us chance after chance. He gave us Ronald Reagan to lead us from the brink of disaster. We responded by putting a man in the White House who used the Oval Office as his own private bordello. God replaced him with another Christian, but we never really appreciated this man of faith and character.

Along the way, we have condoned one form of ungodliness after another. In addition to aproving the slaughter of babies as legitimate birth control, we have flaunted God’s plan of marriage, deciding it’s okay for unmarried couples to cohabitate. We have condoned what God clearly calls an abomination in not only saying homosexuality is okay, but that those who practice it should be considered a minority group due the same rights and protections as married heterosexual couples. Had to scratch the word married, since non-married couples now have the same rights as husbands and wives.

God will not be mocked. Oh, sure, we can shake our fists at Him for awhile, but in the long run, He will remove what remains of His blessing. The proof of that resides in the White House right now, while a mortgage on our economy rests in China.

Is it too late for this nation to return to God, repent, and acknowledge His Son? I don’t know. But I do know we can’t continue down this path distancing ourselves from the God who established and blessed this nation and expect Him to ignore our lawless flaunting of right and wrong.

Every week I put the following Biblical quote at the bottom of my Tuesday blog posts: If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

When we quit abiding in Him, and His truth no longer abides in us, who will then set us free?

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Abraham, Christian, Christian Fellowship, Christianity, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Faith, Fancy Series, Forgiveness, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Jesus, Joseph, Ronald Reagan, Sins, Works

Grammar, Please

My friend Patty Wiseman posted this photo on Facebook Wednesday:

This got me to thinking about grammar in general and how horribly most of us butcher it in our speech and writing. Another friend, Julie Glover, writes about grammar regularly in her Sunday blog posts. We would all do well to read her posts and remind ourselves of the points she covers—or learn them for the first time if we don’t already know them.

Raised by a strict grammarian, I find it difficult to ignore blatant errors in the use of the English language. I sometimes wish I didn’t know the difference.

Split infinitives, dangling participles and such always bother me. I frequently mark up our newspaper with a red pen correcting things of this nature, which I imagine my wife would prefer that I not do. I seem to go through stages of noticing a particular grammatical transgression over and over.

Here lately, the one I seem to notice most regularly is verb tenses. I’ve written in the past about starting a paragraph in one tense and then switching in the middle. I hear this all the time in dialog on TV shows. “He picks up a poker from the fireplace. Then he beat her on the head with it.” Really? He picks it up in present tense, but he beat her in past tense?

The one I’ve seen over and over lately, however, is compound verbs where the first one is a past participle and the second, a simple past tense. “He had gone into the bar and drank a beer.” The second verb in a sentence of this nature assumes an unstated “had,” since the first verb was a past participle. What the sentence really says is “He had gone into the bar and [had] drank a beer.”

Had drank? I don’t think so. It should either say, “He went into the bar and drank a beer,” or “He had gone into the bar and drunk a beer.”

It has become popular among writers to de-emphasize the importance of grammar. It’s the story that’s important—making it interesting enough to hold a reader’s attention. That’s true, but if we’re going to operate in the field of literature, shouldn’t we make some effort to be literate ourselves while we’re at it?

What grammatical error is your pet peeve? What do you think when you read a newspaper report or a novel or short story or whatever that’s filled with poor grammar?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, grammar, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Self-help, verb tenses

Who Was Horatio G. Spafford?

Have you ever heard of a man named Horatio G. Spafford? Not exactly a household name, but perhaps it should be prominent among the heroes of the Christian faith.

Almost a modern-day Job, Spafford was an attorney in Chicago who saw his real estate fortune devastated by the great fire in 1871. About the same time, his only son died of scarlet fever. Rather than cry and whine, he went to work helping the 100,000 people left homeless by the fire.

In November of 1873, he decided to take his wife and four daughters to Europe. He was close to Dwight L. Moody and Ira Sankey and wanted to see both of them.

As sailing time approached, he was detained by business and couldn’t go. He got his family settled on the ship, a luxurious French liner named Ville du Havre, and remained behind as they departed.

In a calm sea out in the middle of the Atlantic, the liner crashed into another ship, sinking rapidly. All four daughters perished. Mrs. Spafford was found clinging to a piece of wreckage and saved. When she arrived in Cardiff, Wales, she cabled Spafford and told him that she alone survived.

He immediately dropped what he was doing and sailed on the next ship for England. One evening, the captain called him aside and told him they were passing over the area where the Ville du Havre sank.

Agitated as he thought about his daughters, Spafford couldn’t sleep that night. He finally said, “It is well; it is the will of God.” Later, he wrote the great song, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well; it is well with my soul.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought,

My sin, not in part, but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul.

And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll.

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend.

Even so, it is well with my soul.

It strains the limits of credulity to realize this wonderful song of faith was written by a man who had seen his fortune destroyed, his son lost to illness, and then his daughters all taken by a quirky accident in a calm sea. Any one of these losses would be devastating. All of them together within the short span of less than three years is truly unimaginable.

I’m not sure whether or not I could have praised God so lavishly in the midst of all Spafford had been through. How does a story like this affect you? We’d love to hear.

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Christian, Christian Fellowship, Christianity, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Faith, Fancy Series, Forgiveness, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Jesus, Sins, Works

Scaling Back Prices

When I first published Fancy – Vol 1, my historical fiction about a young girl orphaned by the Civil War, I anguished over the price of the e-books. I wanted to make it low enough to be competitive in the marketplace, but Amazon makes that difficult for an author to do because of its pay setup.

If you’ve published any e-books, you know that Amazon cuts the author’s share of the price in half if that price is less than $2.99. Not wanting to give Amazon free gifts, I decided to price it at $2.99. As I published each of the other six volumes, I followed that same logic and priced each at $2.99.

Since all the books in the Fancy series are novellas and, as such, about one-third to one-half the length of a typical novel, I worried that my price was too close to that of many novels in the e-market. I kept wanting to reduce the price, but I just couldn’t see rewarding Amazon for forcing me into giving up part of my royalties.

Just recently, I discovered that Smashwords didn’t punish authors like Amazon does. It pays roughly the same percentage of $.99 book as it does of a $2.99 book. On discovering that, I decided to cut the prices of all my books on Smashwords.

I’m happy to announce that if you buy one of the books in my Fancy series on Smashwords, volume 1 will be $.99. Volumes 2-6 will be $1.99, and volume 7, which is longer than the others, will be $2.29. As you probably know, you can order e-books from Smashwords for your Kindle or Nook either one, as well as other formats.

They’re still priced at $2.99 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s websites—but why pay that price when you can get the same product from Smashwords cheaper? I hope other authors will join me in establishing separate prices for Smashwords. Maybe we can get Amazon’s attention and lead them to quit cutting our royalties.

Meanwhile, to order any book in the Fancy series in electronic form, click here.

What do you think about a two-tiered system rewarding Smashwords with cheaper prices since they don’t penalize authors for low prices?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Amazon, Authorship, Barnes & Noble, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Self-help, Smashwords

What’s Up With Crimea?

Saturday I had the opportunity to eat lunch with my daughter, which doesn’t happen nearly often enough. The subject of Crimea came up in the conversation, and I listened carefully to what she had to say, since she and my oldest grandson have taken two mission trips to the city of Sevastopol, the chief port in Crimea.

She has been in contact with some of her Christian friends over there and asked about the political situation. Shocked when they told her that they—and most of their Christian friends—were pro-Russian in the current conflict, she inquired as to why.

These people are not naive. They know about the history of their country as a satellite of the Soviet Union. They know that Russian rule is pretty much totalitarian. Yet they prefer Russian rule over Western influence. Sounds pretty strange, doesn’t it?

They explained to my daughter that, as Christians, they didn’t want their children raised in the liberal social atmosphere of Western society. They talked about how we’ve turned our backs on Biblical principles to accept letting men marry men and women marry women—letting women kill their babies rather than exercise sexual restraint—tolerating the abuse of drugs for sensations of pleasure.

This was coming to me second-hand, so I don’t know what all other things they talked about abhorring in Western society, but what Lynn told me both shocked and surprised me. It was completely unexpected.

It’s not my purpose in this post to preach to anyone on either side of the moral issues these Crimean Christians mentioned. Many of my friends are completely opposed to this moral liberalism and others of them are sympathetic with it.

Regardless of whether you favor honoring the moral absolutes of Christianity or the ethical relativism that has taken over our Western world, is it worth pushing third-world countries toward totalitarianism? We live in an open society in a small world with glass walls. Everyone knows what goes on. Do we want our permissiveness to allow Russian to take back the territories of the former Soviet Union?

What do you think?

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If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Christian, Christian Fellowship, Christianity, Crimea, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Faith, Fancy Series, Forgiveness, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Jesus, Russia, Sevastopol, Sins, Soviet Union, Works

The Beauty of a Woman

Today’s post is part of August McLaughlin’s Beauty of a Woman Blogfest.

To check out August’s blog and see links to other entries in this blogfest, go to http://augustmclaughlin.wordpress.com

Okay, I’ll admit it. Like most red-blooded men, I like the sight of long, slender legs, slim hips, flat tummies, and nice bosoms. But . . . I don’t consider that to be the real essence of beauty in a woman.

To me, the real marks of beauty in a woman are courage, character, kindness, and personality. As we age, even the most beautiful—or handsome—of us find the physical beauty fading a bit. Oh, I know, every now and then we see a photo of some actress in her eighties still looking good, but that’s not most of us. And I wonder how much they spend on beauty products and plastic surgery to look the way they do.

Courage, character, kindness, and personality, however, don’t fade with age. If anything, they deepen and improve as we go through the decades.

Let’s talk about lack of courage for a minute. Back before most of you were born, there was a movie starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly called High Noon. Grace Kelly was a truly beautiful woman, but her character in the movie, Amy Fowler Kane, was a whiny nag. On the day she and Gary Cooper’s character, Marshal Will Kane, get married, he must face an outlaw who has sworn to kill him.

Totally devoid of integrity, courage or much else, she whines and begs him to slink away and not face the man. Her lack of courage and character completely overshadow her physical beauty and make her someone very difficult to like.

We’ve got a couple of examples of great courage and character in our midst whom most of you know. Last spring, Susie Lindau was diagnosed with breast cancer. About the time she had a double mastectomy, another writer friend, Renee Shuls-Jacobson, realized she had become addicted to medications a doctor had put her on.

Both of these women had a legitimate complaint. They didn’t deserve what happened to them. Either could have lain around and whined “poor me.” But they didn’t.

Each of them had the courage to face her situation head-on and do something about it. Susie had her double mastectomy and subsequent reconstructive surgery. Renee took herself off the offending medication. Neither had an easy time, but both faced their ordeals.

It took courage for either of them to do this, but they didn’t stop with courage alone. Having exercised the courage to face their problems, they could have done so quietly, and we would never have known about it, but that’s not what they did.

Going beyond courage, they exercised character. That character told each of them to share her experience with friends in cyberspace. I’m sure they were motivated by the hope of helping others face and deal with similar situations. Both have been very open in their sharing, and I admire them for that. By the way, if you click Renee’s link, you won’t find any recent posts. She’s still fighting the after-effects of withdrawal and hasn’t been posting.

Kindness is a trait I’ve come to value more and more. My 97-year-old mother has two caregivers whose pictures could be in the dictionary beside the definition of this word. Erica runs the group home where Mother lives. She dresses, feeds, pampers and talks to anywhere from four to eight people, depending on the home’s current occupancy. In addition, she cooks, cleans house, does laundry and other such things for these ladies who can basically do nothing for themselves. And I’ve never heard her complain about her job.

Crystal is Mother’s home health aide. She comes by five days a week to help Erica dress and bathe Mother. Then she sits and visits with her, although Mother has little of any intelligence to say these days. She also stays and visits with me if I’m there. When she enters the house, her smile lights up the place.

There are others on the staffs of both the house and the healthcare agency whose kindness is exemplary, but this post is already a bit long.

Personality may be a little more difficult to define, since it’s largely subjective. I may find a personality delightful that you don’t care for so much. That’s part of the differences that define human beings. But whatever kind of personality you like, you tend to bond with someone who has it.

I’ve never met Leanne Shirtliffe or Myndi Shafer or Ellie Ann Soderstrom, but I’ve seen enough of their personalities through their blogs and Facebook posts to know I’d love to know them.

The personalities, kindness, courage and characters of these ladies are the sorts of things I consider true, lasting beauty. Oh, I’ll probably still turn my head when a woman in a short skirt with long slender legs or one with an ample bosom walks by, but only for a moment. Their beauty is fleeting. Long after their bodies begin to show the ravages of time, courage, character, kindness, and personality will carry those who have it through whatever aging processes they may face.

How do you define the beauty of a woman? We love to hear your comments.

To keep from competing with the BOAW blogfest, I will not post my regular Friday blog this week. Back on track next week.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: character, Courage, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, Heaven Sent, Kindness, Personality, Woman's Beauty