Wings of Glory

On Monday, my sister had her “vintage” birthday party. She and her friends dressed in ‘40s-ish clothes (handy that those are in style again now!), danced to Big Band music, and sipped root beer floats. She reminded me of the young heroine in the Hallmark movie The Lost Valentine, with her green-flowered vintage dress, curled hair, red lipstick, and flowered barrette (crafted at the party) in her hair.

I enjoyed stepping back in time for an afternoon. And it made me realize, thinking about Memorial Day, how much more interested I’ve become this past year in World War II and the brave people who fought and persevered through it. Part of it, I think, is due to what I’ve learned about the Navajo Code Talkers. And part of it is due to Sarah Sundin’s Wings of Glory series.

Though I hadn’t even heard of her a little over a year ago, Sarah Sundin has become one of my new favorite authors. Her Wings of Glory trilogy follows a family of three brothers—B-17 pilots with the 8^th Air Force—and their sweethearts through the heartaches and triumphs, loves and losses of the Second World War. Sarah’s stories grip you from first meeting, her attention to historical detail never fails to humble me, and her characterization makes you want to have Walt and Allie, Jack and Ruth, Ray and Helen, all over for dinner. 

My sister has commented how difficult it is to make three brothers so incredibly different in voice and personality, but Sarah does it. And while, voracious reader though I may be, I rarely find a book I literally can’t put down, the last book of this series kept me sitting up in the living room late one night after the rest of my family had gone to dreamland. I simply had to find out what happened!

Wings of Glory will both delight you with engaging stories and characters and increase your appreciation for a period in history that really wasn’t so very long ago. So as we remember those who fought and died for our freedom, I’d encourage you to open these pages written by someone who seeks to keep them alive. And watch for the upcoming release of With Every Letter, the first book in Sarah’s new series, Wings of the Nightingale. (Here's a fun peek into the story behind the cover photo! I didn't realize how much work could go into a cover.)

Sisters

We watched the home video last night: a tiny, pink faced bundle cradled in loving arms...the bewildered cries of a newborn…proud grandparents arriving to see and hold…a ten-year-old Kiersti crying tears of joy for the first time in her life.

Seventeen years ago, my baby sister was my dream come true, an only-child’s years-long prayer answered by a loving God who makes everything beautiful in His time.

Today she is a young woman herself, who lights up our home with her singing and her dancing, her hilarious way with words and her compassionate heart.

She blesses so many: on stage, in caring for children, in helping our grandma, in being a faithful friend, through following Jesus closer and closer. But I, of anyone on earth, am the one blessed to know her as my sister, my laugh-till-you’re giddy friend, the one I can snuggle in bed and talk secrets with, the one with whom I share a special language like no one else, the one with whom I grow closer in age and heart each year.

Happy Birthday, sister-mine—and beloved friend.

Swept Away

I talk a lot about story on this blog—the power of stories and how they change us, how God can use them to shape our lives. But sometimes, stories can just carry you away—to another place, another time, even another world, a mini-vacation in themselves. And this too, I think, can be God’s gift.

The Colonel's Lady by Laura Frantz has been doing this for me lately—sweeping me away to the romance and heartache of frontier Kentucke in 1779. Not away from troubles, to be sure, but somehow after reading of those of Roxanna Rowan and Colonel Cassius McLinn, my own can seem easier to handle. ‘Tis a story to recommend, along with the rest of Laura Frantz’s novels.

Then twice a week, our whole family is swept up in another story, as our theater company rehearses for our June production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. It’s one of my favorite parts of putting on a show—when I see the story actually coming together, the characters and their hopes, struggles, and dreams coming to life before our eyes.

So what about you? What stories have carried you off lately? Do share!

For Sinners Such as I

In a newly formed ACFW online group I’ve joined, we’ve been talking lately about how we want to write stories “with a purpose,” with the aim to not just entertain but help transform readers lives. Stories can affect us deeply--sometimes, at least for me, even more than a sermon or nonfiction inspirational writing, though the Lord often reinforces the lesson for me through those as well. But stories seem to reach past my defenses and into the tender places of my heart especially well.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group did this for me, though I’m only beginning to unpack it all. But one lesson for me was the same one the main character, Jodi, learned—which I suppose is the mark of a well-developed character arc, that your character is so real that your reader learns and experiences just what the main character does. Only I didn’t realize at first that I needed to learn it.

I could relate to Jodi in a lot of ways. Like her, I’ve been blessed with a Christian family. Like her, I’m a rather quiet white woman with a heart for racial reconciliation but not much know-how in pursuing it. Like her, I’ve grown up as a “good girl”—at least, that’s how a lot of people seem to think of me, and how, if I’m honest, I’ve often thought of myself. Cloaked in required Christian humility, I might not say it, or even consciously think it, but it’s there.

Lately I’ve realized, when I find myself sinning or messing up or even just making a stupid mistake that has repercussions for myself or others, that I get very upset. “How could I do this? How could I be so stupid?” I get so mad at myself I want to scream or slam doors, though I usually don’t—I’m a “good girl,” after all. But in recent days I’ve been confronted by the question: Is the extent of my angst really repentance? Or is it pride?

Jodi faces this question at the end of the book—when her own broken humanness hits her square on in a way far more gut-wrenching than I hope to ever experience. She crawls into herself and can’t understand why her friends still love her, when she’s done such a terrible thing. Then one day, her friend Florida comes over and lays into her with the truth—that she, “good girl” Jodi, is every bit as much a messed up sinner saved by grace as any former drug addict or ex-con. And slowly, Jodi starts to get it.

I hope I’m beginning to get it too. I thought about it during the sermon on Sunday, as our pastor preached from Phillipians on how, as the “divine alchemist,” God turns the lead of our circumstances and our own broken lives into gold. I thought about it during communion, as I went forward to receive grace in the tangible form of bread and grape juice.

I am a sinner. I am not perfect. I am weak, and broken, and flawed. I am going to mess up. There is something oddly freeing in realizing that, in knowing that the burden of perfection is not mine to bear, but rather has been borne already, by Jesus. But He will show His perfection, His strength, through me, for as we were reminded in Jesus Calling this morning, His power is made perfect in weakness.

“Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be…”

Help me remember that, O Lord. And thank You, thank You, for your grace. Help me to extend it to others, mindful of how much I need it myself.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group

When one of my critique partners recommended The Yada Yada Prayer Group to me, I expected it would be good. But I didn’t know I’d fall in love with it by Chapter 2.

I’d never read a novel quite like it. In some ways the story reminds me of my critique group: a group of women of all ages and backgrounds, thrown together at a conference, who decide to stay in touch and gradually become prayer partners and integral parts of each other’s lives, sisters connected by bonds only Jesus can forge. Each of the Yada Yada women seemed so real, I wasn’t all that surprised to learn from Sandra, who knows the author personally, that many of the characters are based on women in “real life.” No wonder I could see Avis, Stu, Adele, Jodi, and the others so clearly in my mind.

It was that real-ness that struck me most about the story—that captured me at the beginning and kept me reading almost voraciously until the last page. I’ve never read a novel that dealt in such honest transparency with the challenges, awkwardness, and joys of pursuing friendships “across the color line” in America today, of intentionally displacing oneself and seeking healing and understanding through the only way that really lasts—relationships. 

Sandra had told me that Neta Jackson, whose name I knew from childhood due to the Trailblazer books she authored with her husband, had a heart for intentionality in racial reconciliation. And in reading about the Yada Yada sisterhood, I could tell she had lived much of what she was describing—she couldn’t write about it like that if she hadn’t. Even with my baby steps in that direction, there were many things I recognized and could relate to, “ouch” moments, laughter, and tears. The book challenged my faith as well, and reminded me how much I have to learn from sisters of other backgrounds and cultures.

I hope to find a copy of the second book in the Yada Yada Prayer Group series soon. And I’d encourage you to check them out as well. I think you’ll be glad you did!

Tiny Reminders

I took a walk this morning and was struck by the flowers. Not so much the cultivated roses and azaleas in people’s yards, but the tiny ones sprinkling the parkways, almost too small to notice unless you were looking.

I gathered a few of each kind—yellow and lavender, fuchsia and periwinkle, blossoms and stars and composites, each unique and delicately crafted, ranging from about an 1/8 to 1/2 an inch across. I tucked them into a little vase for my mom, who was sick in bed today with a cough and sore throat.

It’s been a rather rough month for my family in a number of ways. But I was comforted today, by these little flowers. If the God who flung the galaxies across the sky with His word can spend so much care on these minute blossoms, surely He also cares about the daily trials and heartaches of our lives.

He cares about yours too. Just consider the flowers.

“If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!” Luke 12:26-28

Such as These

My mom and I taught a class of wiggly two-and-three-year-olds (though not the one to the left) about the ascension this past Sunday. It’s always a fun, albeit hectic, hour or so of dropped crayons and smashed cheerios and squealing little people and occasional I-miss-mommy tears.

But as I sat in the circle of carpet squares on the floor, cuddling one curly-headed little girl on my lap while my mom brought the story alive in toddler language in the amazing way she always does, I was struck by the response of the children. Across from me on our helper’s lap sat a little boy adopted a year or so ago from Korea—a precious little fellow, but usually one of our wiggliest and not very verbal yet. But as my mom reminded the children of the “sad day and happy day” we discussed a few weeks ago on Easter, his eyes got big and he squealed, “Oohhh!” He did it again as she described how after Jesus came back to life and spent time with His friends, He went up in the sky (represented by our big sheet of butcher paper colored blue and decorated by the children) to prepare a place for us in heaven.

As I looked around at the rapt little faces, I thought—why don’t I get this excited? Yes, these small people are easily distracted and sometimes throw things and hit each other, but other times maybe they “get it” more than I do. I listened to my glib recitations to them of “Jesus is amazing” and “Jesus is making a place for us in heaven” and inwardly contrasted them to my weekday worrying and struggling. Did I really believe what I was saying? I mean, really? What makes me so different from these little ones?

They don’t worry, for one thing. They live not just day to day, but moment to moment—one minute they are in despair because Mommy has disappeared, the next happy to crayon scribble, munch goldfish crackers, or hear a story. They don’t carry the burdens of one day into the next. For me, on the other hand, Jesus’ command to not worry about anything at times seems almost impossible.

And they trust. Is there anything more endearing than little arms held up to you, trusting completely that you will pick them up and not drop them—that they will find comfort, if only you will hold them? Or trusting that when you say, “Go sit in your chair, and then you can have a snack,” you will follow through if they only obey. No wonder, despite their weakness and foibles—or perhaps because of them—Jesus calls us to become as little children.

I’d better keep my eyes open more in Sunday School in the future. The "twos and threes" might have more to teach me than I them.

“But Jesus called for them, saying, ‘Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.’” Luke 18:16-17