David N. Walker's Blog, page 34

Sad Good-byes

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

Welcome to another Terrific Tuesday, where we take a look at God’s word, His kingdom or His people to see what we can learn about ourselves, Him and/or our relationships with Him.

The church, which we evangelical Christians also refer to as the body of Christ, is made up of people. Human beings. No surprise there.

As born-again believers, we have been forgiven, and we’re in the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus, but we all still have that sin nature we were born with. Nothing is going to change that in this life. Hopefully we’re better than we were at the time of our salvation—hopefully we’ve grown since then—but we still have that sin nature.

Personally, I’ve never been involved with a church yet that didn’t have some level of division within its ranks. These people think the pastor should wear a formal robe, while those people over there think he should wear jean and a t-shirt. These people think the only music worthy of being sung is the old hymns found in hymnbooks and that we should all stand rock-still while we sing. Those people over there think we should toss out the hymnals and sing only the latest in praise music.

Our church has a young pastor. While he consistently expresses respect for us senior citizens, he naturally draws a younger crowd when it comes to new members. He dresses very informally, even in the pulpit, and we sing the latest praise songs with the words displayed on large screens. No hymnals.

This has been a point of contention among my classmates, who are basically in their seventies and eighties. They don’t like the music, and they don’t like the way he dresses. Personally, I like the less formal atmosphere, but most of my peers don’t.

Because of the feelings about the informality at our church, we’ve lost a number of people from my Sunday School class in the 15 years or so I’ve been there. Of course, they have the right to move to another church if they think they’d fit in better there, but it hurts to see them go.

More recently, we’ve had a change in the lead teacher our class. Everyone in the class, myself included, loved the teacher who’s no longer there, and some have had trouble adjusting to the teaching style of the new one. I hated to see our old one go, but after inviting several guest teachers over a period of time, as class leader I asked the new teacher if he would consider taking over.

His teaching style differs greatly from that of our old teacher, but that doesn’t make me like either one more or less than the other. Unfortunately, some of my class members don’t feel the same. One of our long-time members whom everyone in the class likes told me Sunday he and his wife would not be coming back to our class.

It saddens me every time we lose a member. Unlike younger classes, we don’t attract a lot of new members, and our class size has dwindled through the years. I hate seeing this happen to our class. Each member we lose is like a part of me is gone, and seeing fewer and fewer people sitting there on Sunday morning hurts. These are people my wife and I have come to love, and each loss leaves a bit of a vacuum.

Organizations are dynamic, whether they are churches or Rotary clubs or any other kind of group. They’re either growing or diminishing. I understand that, and I can accept it rationally, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when it involves losing fellowship with old friends.

Do you have a New Testament passage or concept you’d like to see discussed here? Maybe something you’ve never quite understood. I’d love to hear from you about that, too. I’ll try my best to explain it.

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: Archives Tagged: Christian, David N. Walker author, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, inspiration

My Mother

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

On Freestyle Fridays, we talk about whatever happens to pop into my head—or any suggestion you may have made for a topic. I’ve missed you guys while we paused to celebrate Christmas and New Years. Good to be back with you.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything about my 96 year-old mother, but since I just got back from visiting her, she’s sorta on my mind. Please bear with me while I talk about her.

Mother and me on her 95th birthday a year and a half ago

Mother lives in a small assisted living home—one of five residents. She gets good care there from the caregivers kept on-site 24/7, so I don’t have any real concern about her well-being. I do, however, have a real concern about her quality of life.

Mother was always a very active person. She was always the one who jumped up to get whatever anyone needed. She always loved people and wanted to be with someone, or several someones, she could converse with.

She also always read the newspaper, worked crossword puzzles, and watched a fair amount of television. These were things she could “connect” with when there were no people around.

Somehow, in the last decade she has lost the use of her knees. She can’t stand, which means she can’t walk. So she can’t get up and down and move around like she always has.

A series of TIAs or some other villain has robbed her of her memory. She still recognizes me, but I frequently have to remind her of my name and our relationship—sometimes every five minutes. This severely limits her ability to visit with the other residents of the home or the caregivers.

Macular degeneration has almost completely taken her vision. Sadly, she can no longer see a newspaper, book, television or crossword puzzle.

Mother has worn partial plates for years as various teeth had to be pulled. This past summer we had to have the remainder of her upper teeth removed, forcing us to have a full upper plate made. She hated it and would not leave it in her mouth. Then she managed to lose the lower partial, so now she has a total of four teeth remaining, all lowers. Since she won’t keep the plates in her mouth, she goes without them all the time, which makes her look even older than her 96 years.

I love my mother and am glad to have her still here. I feel like no amount of care on my part could make up for all the things she has done for me through the years. But I’m conflicted.

There is no quality to her life. She gets up in the morning when a caregiver comes to awaken her and dress her. She eats when a caregiver wheels her to the table in her wheelchair. Other than that, she pretty much sits in a chair in the living room with nothing to do. She spends most of the day carrying on a sotto voce conversation with herself—when she’s not singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

Other than the eyes, memory and knees, her health is astounding. She has never had any cardiovascular trouble or any form of cancer. I could easily see her living another decade. To do what? Sit in her chair and stare blankly?

I have absolute faith God knows what He is doing. There must be some reason she’s still here—some purpose I can’t see. I’m not in a rush to see her go. I just wish I could see some enjoyment in her life.

Do you have a parent or grandparent who has begun losing mental or physical faculties? Are you the child or grandchild who looks after that person? How do you feel watching this deterioration?

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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: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caregiving, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

Thanks

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

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s 99 Authors for 99 Cents promotion—both the authors and the readers who bought books. The day gave Fancy’s sales a nice shot in the arm, as I’m sure it did for other authors.

It’s been a good year, and I’ll be taking the rest of it off to spend with family for Christmas and New Years. See you all Friday, January 4th.

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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: Miscellaneous Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

Big Sale Announcement

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

Big doings today. We’re celebrating Christmas a few days early with our 99 Authors for 99 Cents Sale. Click here to see the formal announcement website.

In addition to yours truly, this sale includes works by Jillian Dodd, Angela Orlowski-Peart, Angela Wallace, Colin Falconer, Elena Aitken, Fabio Bueno, Myndi Shafer, Steena Holmes, Tiffany A. White, and many others. Amazon.com is reducing the prices of one book for each of us to 99 cents for the day today (Friday, Dec 21st).

My book which is covered in this event is Fancy. For those who don’t know, this is volume one of a series following the life of a young lady who is orphaned by the Civil War at the tender age of fourteen. Try this first book for 99 cents today. If you like it, you can follow her through the rest of the series for only $2.99 per book. At the present time, volumes one, two and three are available for Kindle, Nook and in paperback. Volume four will be published next February. Future volumes will be put on sale approximately every other month.

To find Fancy in the announcement website, click on “Literary and Fiction.” Then browse through some of the other book offered in this fantastic promotion.

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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: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

Sinners or Saints?

If you see a dropdown menu offering books by someone named David Walker, it’s not authorized, and those are not my books. I’m trying to find out how to get rid of the dropdown. My apologies in the meantime.

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

Welcome to another Terrific Tuesday, where we take a look at God’s word, His kingdom or His people to see what we can learn about ourselves, Him and/or our relationships with Him.

In a recent Sunday School class, a guest teacher posed the following question: are we sinners who are saved by grace, or are we saved people who still sin? Sound like a trick question? Sound like there’s no difference?

My immediate answer without thinking was that we are both. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Maybe so, but it was the wrong answer.

If we Christians consider ourselves sinners who are saved by grace, we place a subtle emphasis on the sinner part. We identify ourselves as sinners and then qualify that by pointing out that we are saved by grace.

Truly we were sinners, and we were saved by grace—but that entails more than just fire insurance. When God looks at you and me today, fellow Christians, He sees us through the filter of the atoning work done by Jesus. He sees us as already seated with Jesus in heavenly places.

Our identity is as saints, not sinners. We are saints, saved by grace. We still sin and will continue to as long as we live on this earth, but sin is not our identity. We are saints, born again into the kingdom of God as brothers of Jesus Himself who, as the eighth chapter of Romans says, is the first-born among many. We are His brothers and sons of the most high God, and we need to think of ourselves as such. This is our identity, our heritage and our destiny.

Do you have a New Testament passage or concept you’d like to see discussed here? Maybe something you’ve never quite understood. I’d love to hear from you about that, too. I’ll try my best to explain it.

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: Terrific Tuesday Tagged: Christian, David N. Walker author, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, inspiration

Guest Post by Kevin Mark Smith

If you see a dropdown menu offering books by someone named David Walker, it’s not authorized, and those are not my books. I’m trying to find out how to get rid of the dropdown. My apologies in the meantime.

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

Today, I’m doing a blog swap with Kevin Mark Smith, a Christian writer and attorney. You can find my piece at his site: www.kevinmarksmith.com. Here’s Kevin:

Before I went to law school I sold pediatric vaccines. As a Christian, I believed that all life is sacred and I saw my job as playing a role in helping keep babies healthy and safe. I also attended a church that was very active in the pro-life movement. In the midst of this time, I let it slip in one of my doctor’s offices (a pediatrician) that I was active in these protests. A nurse in that office seemed shocked at my admission. She responded by telling me she had seen abused children who would have been better off had they been aborted. The conversation didn’t last long. I left with my sample case and cried, partly for the children, but mostly for this woman.

I sat in my car after that sales call and thought about her comment. A pediatric nurse, committed to caring for children, believed death before life was best. Shouldn’t the child be the one to make that choice? What about those destined for difficult lives? Would they necessarily think it’s better to die before they ever lived? Then the revelation came to me to write a story from the perspective of one of these aborted children. Aborted: A story of hope and destiny presents this unique perspective on abortion. The aborted child gets to see his life as it would have been, a difficult and challenging one. Will he choose life? Or will he choose to go straight to Heaven and live with Jesus in paradise from the get go?

Then the idea for Chronicles of Life occurred to me. What’s next after Aborted ends? Does it pick up where the protagonist in Aborted steps into Heaven, or is there more to Robert Allen Baxter’s life than just those haunting memories? Does God see more to his destiny than just showing a child what he will miss? Or is there a higher purpose? Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness answers these questions, but goes deeper. It explores the impact of the sinner’s actions on the lives of others, as well as how God can use even the most horrendous acts to accomplish a greater good.

Aborted: A story of hope and destiny is available for Kindle and is just $.99. Broken: A story of hope and forgivenessis also available for Kindle for $2.99. For updates on Kevin’s upcoming legal thriller, Flashback (Prism Book Group), see Kevin’s author blog, www.kevinmarksmith.com.

Kevin Mark Smith attended Regent University School of Law from 1996-1999, where he served on Law Review and clerked with the American Center for Law and Justice. He is an allied attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom and an evangelical criminal defense and family law attorney. When not zealously defending his clients he does pro bono legal work for religious organizations, writes novels and articles for Christian publications, and spends his spare time with his wife and three daughters.

Filed under: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

God’s Inheritance in the Saints

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

Welcome to another Terrific Tuesday, where we take a look at God’s word, His kingdom or His people to see what we can learn about ourselves, Him and/or our relationships with Him.

A guest teacher in my Sunday School class the other day taught from Ephesians 2. It was a good lesson, but my eyes kept wandering to Ephesians 1:18, in which Paul says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,”

This verse of scripture fascinates me. First of all, in his introduction, Paul says, “To the saints at Ephesus . . .” This book was not written for lost people, but for born-again Christians. He’s talking specifically to the body of Christ.

He says at the beginning of this verse that he prays “. . . that the eyes of your heart be enlightened . . .” He thinks what he is about to say is important enough that he wants all of us to be enlightened—to understand what he’s talking about. This is no minor point he’s bringing to our attention.

“. . . that you may know the hope of His calling . . .” He wants us to know and understand what His calling means to us.

“. . . what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints . . .” Wow! Read that again—His inheritance in US. God has an inheritance in us? And it’s a rich and glorious inheritance?

This brings up a seeming contradiction. God is complete within Himself. He doesn’t need anything external in order to complete Himself. And yet, He considers us to be a rich and glorious inheritance. He considers Himself better off because of us.

That’s a mind-boggling thought. The God of the universe—the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent maker and ruler of all things—considers Himself to be richer because of us, His saints.

Let’s make a slightly more specific application here. If you, a reader of this blog post, have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, then Paul is talking to YOU here. God considers Himself richer because of richer because of YOU.

Fascinating concept, isn’t it? How does this statement about God’s inheritance in you make you feel?

Do you have a New Testament passage or concept you’d like to see discussed here? Maybe something you’ve never quite understood. I’d love to hear from you about that, too. I’ll try my best to explain it.

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: Terrific Tuesday Tagged: Christian, David N. Walker author, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, inspiration

Special Price Announcement

If you see a dropdown menu offering books by someone named David Walker, it’s not authorized, and those are not my books. I’m trying to find out how to get rid of the dropdown. My apologies in the meantime.

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

On Freestyle Fridays, we talk about whatever happens to pop into my head—or any suggestion you may have made for a topic.

My friend Lara Schiffbauer recently posted a blog about pricing of e-books (click here to see her post) which has caused me to give a lot of thought to my own pricing. Hers is not the first such post I’ve read, but Lara is a good friend whose opinions I value enough to pay close attention to them.

When I first put Heaven Sent on the market, I priced it at $9.95. Holding it under $10 seemed like a good idea for a full-length book, and I knew of others who sold their books successfully at that price. Lara and some of her readers who left comments have made me re-examine that decision, and I’ve decided to reduce the price.

As of today, Heaven Sent will sell for $5.99 for both Nook and Kindle. Paperback copies will remain at $13.99, since costs are higher for that format.

After much thought, I’ve decided to leave the Fancy novellas at $2.99. Although not full-length novels, these books are 80 to 100 pages each, and that seems a fair price for them.

If you haven’t bought any of the Fancy series, watch for a special announcement in this space on December 21st for a special deal. Jillian Dodd will be announcing the same event. I can’t tell you anything about it yet, but it will involve special deals from 99 authors. Stay tuned for more information.

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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: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

The Reason for the Season

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

Welcome to another Terrific Tuesday, where we take a look at God’s word, His kingdom or His people to see what we can learn about ourselves, Him and/or our relationships with Him.

Last week, we talked about the music of the Christmas season. I mentioned that I don’t mind an occasional “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” but that I really preferred Christmas carols and music such as The Messiah.

Today, I want to talk about what the season means to me. When I was a child, it was all about Santa Claus and seeing what gifts we got—pretty much like most other families, I suppose. Our church would put up a Nativity Scene, and there would be the usual preaching and Sunday School lessons about Jesus’s birth, but the significance of His birth was never really explained, and I was a lot more interested in the gift part.

A few years ago, I heard a sermon about lies we tell our children. The preacher singled out Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. His thesis was that we do a major disservice to our kids by telling them to believe in these unseen beings and then later on admitting to them that they don’t really exist. He asked how we could expect our kids to believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who are also unseen, when we had tricked them about these other unseen beings.

Wait. Pipe down. I know you didn’t intentionally mislead your children. I didn’t intentionally mislead my daughter, either. But what effect does it have on the mind of a child when we assure them for years that something is real and then finally admit to them that it’s not? Wouldn’t that tend to create doubt in their minds when we tell them other things or people they can’t see are real?

My daughter got over it and is a strongly committed Christian. I’m sure most of your children have gotten over it, too, but I wonder if we wouldn’t have served them better and avoided creating doubts in their minds if we’d started talking about Jesus’s birth instead of Santa Claus in the first place. About Jesus’s death and resurrection when they were toddlers rather than making up this magic rabbit.

I see nothing wrong with giving our kids gifts. I love to give gifts to our kids and grandkids. But why don’t we give the gifts as a celebration of Jesus instead of Santa Claus? Why muddy the waters by bringing him into a season that should be about Him?

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: Terrific Tuesday Tagged: Christian, Christmas, David N. Walker author, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, inspiration

A Funny Thing Happened . . .

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

A funny thing happened to me on my way to take the publishing industry by a storm. I had just finished writing a thriller based on happenings in the oilfield. It was the early 1980′s when oil production was booming and everyone was thinking about energy independence and remembering the lines at service stations in 1973.

This novel couldn’t miss. It was based on my own personal experiences, and I knew I was such a brilliant writer all the houses in New York would fight for the chance to publish my work. Black Lightning would be an instant bestseller, and I’d make enough money to forget the painful failure of not closing the oil deal I’d worked so hard to put together.

Anybody remember seeing that book 30 years ago? That may be because those fools in Manhattan didn’t have sense enough to recognize genius when they saw it. Believe it or not, they unanimously turned down the opportunity to publish this fantastic book.

How could they do that? How could they fail to recognize my genius? How could they miss seeing the great opportunity offered by this book?

Okay, if they were that short-sighted, I’d show them. I just wouldn’t write any more. That would punish them.

Ten years later, I decided to write a novel—which turned out to be six novels—just for my own pleasure. When everyone in my family agreed they were great books, I decided to give New York a second chance. This time I started submitting under the pen name Dallas Houston. Pretty cute, huh? One of the few agents who sent me a “no” instead of just ignoring me said he was glad I hadn’t chosen Fort Worth Texarkana for my name.

After years of attending writers’ groups where we all read five pages of text to one another—and none of us had a clue how these five pages fit in with the rest of the manuscript—I came to the conclusion I didn’t know how to write a novel and there was no way to learn how.

Then, after a Bob Mayer seminar, Kristen Lamb and I decided to create a new group specifically for novel writers. Starting with Bob’s teachings as a base and building from there, we began to learn about antagonists and conflict and other such things that had just been hazy concepts before.

That group no longer exists, but it did a couple of important things for me. It showed me clearly why all my earlier work had been turned down, and it gave me hope that if I started writing all over again using what I’d learned, maybe I could write something publishable.

I now belong to a small group of six writers. Doesn’t sound too impressive, does it? But four of us have fiction on the market. Among us, we’ve now published nine books. Maybe one of mine will take off and make me an overnight success after only thirty years of trying.

Has anyone else besides me experienced any rejections and delays in putting this writing career together? Tell us about it.

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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: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker author, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help