Sandra Byrd's Blog, page 7
October 14, 2020
A Devoted Life: Courageous Sheep
Scripture tells us that we, Christ-followers in this world, are at war. Not only are we at war (2 Corinthians 4:10), but we are at war with a cunning, experienced, malevolent force (1 Peter 5:8).
We, Christ-followers in this world, are sheep (Matthew 18:12-13)! Jesus is our good shepherd and takes good care of us (John 10). But in Matthew 10:16, Jesus tells us, a little frighteningly, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.”
I’m with Red Riding Hood. I want to hide from the wolves! And yet, I am called to be a disciple of Jesus. I must be like the man in Luke 9:57. “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’” Sometimes that means into battle.
As I began to try to make sense of this, knowing the protective nature of our Savior but also our vulnerability in the world, I came across a most informative quote by Alexander the Great: “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Alexander the Great, widely known in the ancient world, was “great” as his name suggests. He built and conquered a huge empire and was largely undefeated in battle. So to hear what kind of army he would fear is informative. It’s not the followers. It’s not the soldiers. It’s the commander in chief.
Jesus is unique in history. He was both fully man and fully God. He was sinless, and also the ransom for sin. He is both a lamb and a lion. “Then one of the elders said to me, . . .‘See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed’ . . . Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne.” (Revelation 5:5, 6).
We need not fear what comes our way in this life, in this constant battle, but not because we are battle hardened and protected by armor. It’s because we are cherished and protected by Christ, who has already defeated our enemy.
Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2:15
If you enjoyed this devotion, please consider purchasing the book, Experiencing God’s Love, which may be found at fine retailers everywhere through the publisher’s portal.
Purchase Experiencing God’s Love here.
Photo used with purchase permission: Clint Cearley | shutterstock.com
September 16, 2020
Coffee Crumble Cake
Each year, I share a delicious recipe to accompany our TeaPal. Usually, I’ve shared something that accompanies tea, but this year, as I am writing a book set right here at home, I thought I’d share a recipe for a traditional, American coffee cake.
I’ve linked to the King Arthur recipe, below, but here are a few things I do differently:
1. I sometimes use both cardamom and cinnamon, dividing the total by two. It makes for a slightly Scandanavian taste that my family enjoys.
2. I usually cut the flour back by about half a cup (to 1.5 cups) and up the sugar to 1.25 cups.
3. I double the topping, add 4 Tbs of butter, and put half in the middle of the cake (spread half the batter, then half the topping, half the batter, half the topping).
4. I bake it in a springform (cheesecake) pan for easy removal.
I promise this recipe will not disappoint!
Visit the King Arthur website here for the entire recipe!
Sixth Annual Teacup and Coffee Mug Exchange!
Welcome to my Sixth Annual Teacup and Coffee Mug Exchange!
Love tea? Coffee? New friends? Join us and get a beautiful treasure and a new tea-pal in the process. It’s easy to participate! You agree to send a carefully packaged teacup and saucer (or a coffee mug) to someone, and she agrees to send one to you. Please select something to give that you would like to receive as a gift, and you can include little treats or accompaniments if you like. You must use tracking and insurance, as I cannot be responsible for lost or damaged mail. If yours doesn’t reach your tea-pal, you’ll be responsible for claiming the insurance and sending a replacement.
PLEASE NOTE: To be able to continue keeping this exchange fun and fair for all involved, anyone who signs up for the exchange and does not send their partner a teacup and saucer or mug may be charged a $20 fee via Paypal to cover the cost of sending a cup or mug in their place. Once all of the names are gathered, my assistant, Renee, will match partners and send each set of new friends the email and mailing address of their tea-pal.
You and your tea-pal will correspond via email if you like, and ship your treasures to one another by Tuesday, October 6, 2020. Please send a picture of your teacup and saucer or mug to Renee, after you receive it. She will place everyone’s teacup photo in a collage to feature on my website and social media pages. If you send in your photo by Tuesday, October 27, 2020, you’ll be entered to win the lovely Taste of the Pacific Northwest prize pack pictured below!
SIGN UP HERE TO JOIN THE TEACUP & COFFEE MUG EXCHANGE!
Hugs, Sandra
Giveaway rules: Open to US and International residents, ages 18 years and up. Void where prohibited. I am not responsible for lost or misdirected prizes. In the event that the winner resides outside of the US, a $25 Amazon gift card will be awarded in lieu of the gift box due to high shipping costs and the perishable nature of the items. You must be a newsletter subscriber to participate. If you are not a subscriber and would like to participate, please sign up for my newsletter HERE.
August 4, 2020
Enter to Win These Two New Inspirational & Uplifting Books for Children!
Welcome to my summer giveaway! I have purchased a large quantity of these books, because they are amazing, and because I want kids to read all about kids who are Different Like Me, and to have Breakfast With Jesus. Forty-six books in total will be given away, so please share this with anyone you can, and enter soon! Winners will be selected at random and emailed by my assistant Renee to claim their prize. Be sure to read the complete giveaway rules on the Rafflecopter form below.
Different Like Me (Our Daily Bread for Kids Presents)
Hardcover
by Xochitl Dixon (Author), Bonnie Lui (Illustrator)
Take a fanciful, colorful journey with a diverse group of children as they collectively work to bring a large fish balloon toward a surprising conclusion. While encountering the differences that could divide them, they also discover what brings them together.
Different Like Me is perfect for children ages 3 to 7 and shows children with physical disabilities, communication limitations, and cultural distinctions coming together.
Order from Amazon!
My Breakfast with Jesus: Worshipping God Around the World
Hardcover
by Tina Cho (Author), Guy Wolek (Illustrator)
For more than 2,000 years, people have started their day with a delicious meal in their bellies and the love of Jesus in their hearts. From bacon and eggs in the heart of North America to fresh baked bread in Antarctica, believers from each continent gather in the morning to share good food and conversation, giving thanks to God for all the wonderful things He’s done.
Inspired by the events found in John 21 where Jesus feeds his disciples, My Breakfast with Jesus celebrates breakfast traditions from around the world. Your child will see people from all ethnicities following Jesus’s model of service: loving others by meeting their physical and spiritual needs.
This lovingly written and beautifully illustrated book will help your child make the connection between faith, food, and fellowship.
Order from Amazon!
July 14, 2020
First Annual Tiny Tomes Event!
A big thank you for everyone who wrote and illustrated a little book! This was our first Tiny Tomes event, but we’ll be holding another one next spring, so please start dreaming and planning your own tiny tome!
Winner’s names were randomly drawn, and Andi Tubbs has won the Etsy gift card to help feed her creative spirit. Clara Cimijotti won the tea package, so she’ll have plenty to sip on while planning next year’s book.
I’d love to share my 2020 Tiny Tome with you, free! Please click here and the mini-book, But Now I Sea, will download. You can save and share it, too!
June 11, 2020
Get Creative! The First Annual Tiny Tomes Event!
My friend Tammi and I put together a Tiny Tomes event, where we switch roles a bit and YOU become the writer, artist, and creator! I can’t wait to see what you come up with! We drew our inspiration from the library in Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, which is stocked with literary classics and favorites. Then I bought some tiny tomes of my own favorites – the Little House on the Prairie series. You can sketch, add stickers, paint, wallpaper, photos – whatever you like to illustrate your wonderful words. Recreate a classic or one of your own favorite books. Or – write your own Tiny Tome on whatever you like.
We’ll happily send a tiny blank book to you free of charge if you promise to use it and then share what you create on social media on July 8, 9, or July 10, 2020. Check out the fun video, below, which first inspired Tammi and me, then read on for directions on how to join us!
Little books from the Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House
To be entered to win a $50 Etsy gift card or a $25 Harney & Sons gift card, you’ll need to post a photo to Instagram and/or Facebook of the tiny tome you create on July 8th, 9th, or 10th. We will provide a blank tiny tome book to the first fifty people who would like one! 
Please only request a free book if you commit to posting a photo of your finished creation. If you’d like to join us, please fill out the FORM HERE to request your blank book. It will be mailed to you free of charge as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please email my assistant Renee (steelergirl83@gmail.com). You can write your own short story, make a picture book, a magazine, or even a tiny comic book. There are no limits, be as creative as you like with your tiny tome–just keep it G-rated! If you would like to assemble your own blank book from paper that you have available, there are quick and easy instructions HERE!
© Sandra Byrd
IMPORTANT: You MUST use the hashtags #TreasuredTinyTomes (Sandra) and #TinyTeaTimeTomes (Tammi) in your posts and be friends with Sandra on Facebook or if you’re entering only via Instagram, FOLLOW and TAG both @SandraByrdBooks (Sandra) and @MyTeaTimeThoughts (Tammi) in your post to be entered to win. If your account is set to private, you must also send us a DM so we can follow you and view your entry! Please email Renee the photo of your tiny tome and your name will go in the hat to be entered in the giveaway. All entries must be received by Friday, July 10, 2020, at 11:59 PM eastern time.
© Sandra Byrd
Void where prohibited. Open to US residents only due to shipping costs. Giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed, or in any way affiliated with Instagram or Facebook.Two winners will be selected at random from all eligible entries. Winners will be notified via direct message that they have won. Winners will have 48 hours to respond to the DM to claim the prize or prize will be forfeited and another winner will be drawn. Giveaway closes for entry on Friday, July 10, 2020, at 11:59 PM EST.
If you have any questions concerning the giveaway, please direct message me on Facebook or via Instagram @SandraByrdBooks or Tammi @MyTeaTimeThoughts. You can also email my assistant Renee at steelergirl83@gmail.com!
March 7, 2020
A New Direction!
I’m writing a new book! I am so very excited!
Many of you have asked when my next book will be out, so I wanted to share a bit of my recent journey. Although I love every book I’ve written, I’ve spent a decade researching and writing books set in dark eras, Tudor and Gothic. While they may only take a week or two to read, as their author, I’ve been marinating in grey eras for research, writing, and editing all year – every year – for a long time. My creative spirit was being snuffed out and it was time for a change. I spent some prayerful time researching a cherished book idea that has been nesting in my creative heart for about five years.
And now – it’s time to write it!
This book is both different from anything I’ve written, and yet very much like everything I’ve written. It’s women’s fiction set right here at home in the US, on Whidbey Island, and is a dual narrative: a contemporary story and one in the 1950s. The story entwines the lives of three generations of two families from two cultures – grandmothers, mothers, and granddaughters. It’s about the people we love, the challenges we face together, and how courageous sacrifices blossom long after we’ve planted them, bringing life and joy to those we love best and those we’ll never meet. It’s about keeping secrets and promises, and then not. It’s about deep friendships. It’s about real romance in all its many facets. It’s about sorrow met head-on, and joy and laughter, and victory.
Of course, it’s about food! 
December 22, 2019
The Nativity Story
Of all the Christmas movies I enjoy as an adult, The Nativity Story is my favorite. I love the honest emotions that each of the actors conveys—they remind me these were real people thrust into supernatural situations. In that culture, Mary might have been stoned to death for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Her family was ostracized. Joseph was seen as a man who was cheated upon by his young fiancée. And yet, during the darkest times leading up to the brightest day, they persevered.
We often ask the Lord, why do you not make life easier for us? Smooth our paths, smite our enemies. As Scripture teaches and the movie brings brilliantly to life, Jesus did not even make circumstances easy for himself. He was born in poor, uncomfortable conditions, persecuted from the outset. He and his parents had to flee to safety in Egypt, the same land his ancestors had fled from hundreds of years before. I don’t know if that teaches that there is value in suffering, or simply that the world is a difficult place to live in which to live. In either case, he did not exclude himself from affliction.
Mary, likely a teenager, was presented with what was an impossible situation from a human perspective. Yet she bore up under the weight of it with admirable grace and determination. How do I bear up under the circumstances the Lord requires of me? With grace and faith?
Meditate on the fact that the angel did not appear to Joseph at the same time he did to Mary. Mary had only the Lord to rely on for a time. Perhaps that cemented her faith and centered her before Joseph became a strong ally. There were no angels sent, either, to convince the people that Jesus was the Messiah. He would do that on his own, in his own time.
Part of the significance of Mary, a virtuous woman of no worldly remark, having been chosen as the mother of Jesus is that she shows us how we, virtuous people of no worldly remark, can respond when called to step up for God in difficult times. Part of the takeaway for us, too, is to trust God to reveal his truth in his timing—even when the years it may take seem difficult for us.
Mary trusted God and never looked back.
Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant.” Luke 1:38
Purchase The One Year Experiencing God’s Love Devotional.
Purchase The One Year Home and Gardens Devotion.
Purchase The One Year Be-Tween You and God: Devotions for Girls.
December 17, 2019
The Little Drummer Boy
Of all the Christmas movies I enjoyed as a child, my favorite was The Little Drummer Boy.
The story behind the movie comes from an old Czech tale and song called “The Carol of the Drum.” In both, there is a young boy who is poor and has very little, perhaps nothing, to offer the newborn baby Jesus. In the movie, the young boy’s parents were killed, and he has not been able to let go of his unhappiness and bitterness. In fact, he cannot even smile—he must paint one on to appear happy in the times and places he is expected to be happy. Many of us can relate to that, can’t we? We’re supposed to be happy, especially at Christmas, but we’re just not. So we fake it.
And yet this little drummer boy is given the opportunity to be presented before the glory and holiness of the newborn Jesus, the King of the World, our Savior. In the presence of the wise men’s wealthy gifts, he feels he has nothing to offer. But God has made him able to create music with his simple drum, and that is what he gives, the talent and gift God has given him offered back in a song of praise. Each of us can, as Psalm 96:1 exhorts us, “Sing to the Lord a new song,” even though most of us won’t be offering a literal song. We can play our best for Jesus by offering our God-given talent back to him in a new way, a heartfelt way.
Many of us have little or none of the first three to offer, but all of us can richly give of the fourth.
We can duplicate, replicate, invest, and offer whatever talents God has given us. And we can worship. When we do, in spirit and truth (John 4:24), for a moment, an hour, a week, a month, or more, we will find we no longer need to paint on that smile!
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Psalm 29:2
Purchase The One Year Experiencing God’s Love Devotional.
Purchase The One Year Home and Gardens Devotion.
Purchase The One Year Be-Tween You and God: Devotions for Girls.
