Perhaps the presidential election put me over the edge, but it was building before last November, this realization that the Internet might not be good for us.

This reminds me of fourteen years ago when we gave up television because it felt like it was hurting our family. In a nutshell, our five-year-old son told another kindergartner at his school that his babysitter had kissed him and bit his lip. This other kindergartner went home and told her mother who told the police.

Months of a child abuse investigation loomed over our family. Our son didn’t have a babysitter, so when questioned he named the neighbors’ sweet sixteen-year-old babysitter. In the end, our son admitted he’d seen this kiss with the biting of the lip thing on our family’s favorite television show: Friends. That was the death of TV for us. And what a good death it was.

Once free of the tyranny of nightly entertainment, I became a better wife, a better mom, and a better writer. I had so much more time to give to others instead of wasting my time in front of the boob tube watching Friends and all my favorite cooking shows. Without TV, Scott and I talked more, played more with our kids (we put a foosball table in our living room), and had more sex.

So now you know why we have seven kids.

Life was wonderful without television. I bought some cookbooks, learning to cook the old-fashioned way, but then came the age of the Internet. I blame my literary agent for opening Pandora’s box for me. He said I had to get email. And I must blog. What on earth is a blog anyway? I wondered. And Facebook. And Twitter. “What’s a twitter?” I mustered up the nerve to ask my agent. “Well, one of my clients has over 50 thousand twitter followers, she’s getting her book out there before it’s even published, so you need to get on twitter.” I hung up the phone still not knowing what a blog or twitter was.

But following my agent’s advice, I drank the Kool-Aid as they say, got my own email, signed up for Facebook, and learned how to blog. But I resisted joining twitter. Fifty thousand followers sounded terrifying to me. Jesus had twelve followers and he was God. The last thing I needed were followers. What if they followed me into the bathroom like our toddlers did. “Mommy, are you in there? I know you’re in there! Let me in!” Banging on the door. Sure, our toddlers didn’t talk in complete sentences this way, but that’s pretty much what my boys yelled like baby cavemen from the other side of the bathroom door. I didn’t need any more followers, five boys was plenty.

It’s so strange to no longer have a toddler sticking his fingers under my bathroom door. And has it only been eight years since I’ve been on the Internet? It feels like a lifetime. And sometimes a really awful dream. Especially in the morning when I make the mistake of picking up my iPhone before I pick up my Bible. All of a sudden I have three texts, several Facebook messages, and twenty-five emails, along with perhaps a bad review on Amazon that says one of my books offended someone’s clean Christian sensibilities, and my day unravels even before it begins.

If you get nothing else out of this blog post today, please get this one thing: do not pick up your phone first thing in the morning. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Grab your Bible. Grab your baby. Grab a cup of coffee, but do not grab your iPhone or computer to start your day. Trust me on this.

Even though it sometimes ruins my day, I enjoy getting on the Internet. At least I used to enjoy the Internet before Trump arrived in Washington and people on the Internet lost their minds. First the Republicans. Then the Democrats. And then the media. Probably not in that order.

Oh the media… the news has gone mad. Twitter is all aflutter. Facebook is driving me crazy. And Trump winning the presidency surprised me, but didn’t really surprise me. I told Scott before Trump won the Republican nomination, “You watch, Trump will win the presidency because he’s already won over a generation on television.” I didn’t quite believe myself at the time, but perhaps now I do.

I know this is generalizing things tremendously, but there’s a seed of truth here, and a little seed can grow into a very big tree when the soil is right and rain and sun are abundantly provided. Television has great power. And now so does the Internet. It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain pulling people’s strings. And so many of us are becoming lions without courage, scarecrows without brains, and tin men without hearts on the Internet.

The reality is we are a plugged in society, a long ways from Kansas these days, and I’m ready to unplug to get myself home from the land of Internet Oz. I don’t know what this will mean for my toddling little writing career. I’m supposed to be all over social media right now making friends and selling my books. I spent January thinking about it. Praying about it. Twitter has never been my drug of choice, but Facebook has gotten into my blood from time to time. And to keep up with our older kids, I joined Instagram this past year. Mostly, I’m a big Internet newsy. But all the fake news is messing with my mind. I don’t know where the truth ends and the lies begin anymore with the media concerning our country and our new president.

Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do about the Internet. I’m cutting back. That is certain.

How are you doing with the Internet? Do you need to cut back or cut it out completely for a while for the sake of your own sanity? For the sake of your family? I know women whose marriages have come apart because of Facebook. Yes, this is a generalization as well, like saying guns kill people. Facebook alone can’t destroy a marriage, but social media can do terrible damage to the very real relationships in our lives.

Scott and I now remind each other to turn off our screens when we’re home together. “Let’s talk. Let’s look into each other’s eyes. Let’s kiss,” we say. This is so basic. I know, but so needed in the age of the Internet. Just like we tell our boys all the time, “Get off your screens and go play outside. Go grab your scooters. Go grab some sky. Be real boys, for goodness sake!”

Be a real human being, I’ve been reminding myself lately. Have courage. Have a brain. Have a heart. Get off the Internet and go grab some sky.

I thought about it for a hot second, and then told my dad, who was designing our new home, “We want a fireplace. We’re going with wood.”

Of course wood. I’d grown up with a wood-burning stove. Our family cut wood my whole life.

When we built our house over a decade ago, we wanted a fireplace, not a stove. This was a problem in California where the air you breathe is regulated. We ended up with a stove inside of a fireplace, completely enclosed to save our lives, since fireplaces can kill you in California. That’s what the California law makers say, wood smoke harms people, but marijuana smoke is okay now. Go figure.

So every winter we cut wood. Up in the hills above the fog where oaks and pines grow side by side. God’s country. I sigh in pleasure when we arrive here. All meadows and trees and cattle on a thousand hills. We are the only people here. With our chainsaws.

We have chosen wood and it’s a life choice. A thing we do year after year. I have watched my mom’s hair turn gray in these hills. My daddy has mellowed with age as we cut wood.

Our first set of children have grown up. Our second set are halfway there. “Why do they call this place Sugarloaf?” One of the boys ask when we arrive in the hills where we cut wood. “Cause it’s so sweet,” I say.

“Opa calls it Sugarloaf because that mountain over there looks like a loaf,” fourteen-year-old John says in his man voice. I’m still not used to this man voice and I turn my head quick trying to catch it coming out of his mouth. Is that really our little ginger boy speaking like a grownup?

I savor this time with Oma and Opa and our children. Three generations gathering our wood. I know time is passing. Lacy’s boyfriend brings his own chainsaw. His own truck. Lacy’s hair is in braids. She still looks twelve years old. But I am not fooled. Jake has a stove and a house. Lacy loves him and happily carries wood to his truck and ours. A new generation is rising.

All those years ago when we chose wood to heat our house, we chose family wood cutting days. Teaching our children how to work is important to us. We wanted to raise our kids a certain way. How to heat our house didn’t seem like a significant choice twelve years ago, but it was.

So many of our choices hold more significance than we know. May we all choose wisely.

My dad came out to help us and got his truck stuck too. The ground was like quick sand in the buttes. Getting the trucks out felt like a losing battle. We spent hours shoveling mud and moving the trucks one inch at a time. But we were all together as a family so it was kind of fun. Our boys made bets on how many times Opa would drop the F-bomb. Believe me, it was a lot. I love my daddy to pieces, but he can out cuss Madonna. On top of all this, our family has had the respiratory flu. Poor Opa was so sick, coughing like crazy in between spewing the F-word in frustration.

With both trucks now buried in the mud, Opa finally walked to the house, and came back with his old tractor. Actually my grandpa’s tractor, and I stood there praying we could get both trucks unstuck before the sun went down. By sunset, Opa’s truck was headed for the house, but ours remained buried in the mud.

This whole fiasco made me realize how much I love my family. My crazy, dysfunctional, work your butt off, get it done family. Three generations out there helping each other, along with a neighboring farmer who has been a part of my life so long he feels like family too. Sunday night we went ahead and celebrated G2’s ninth birthday, and then borrowed one of my parents’ vehicles to make it home.

It took us three days to get the truck out of the mud. By the second day, I was pretty discouraged. It looked like the truck was going to stay stuck in my parents’ pasture until spring when the ground dried out. I prayed so hard and couldn’t understand why we were still stuck. Surely, God would let us get the truck out on the second day. As I walked back up to the house on day two as the sun went down, the Lord whispered, “trust me.”

On the third day, my dad remained home from work in the morning because he’d ordered a big tractor to come in to try to pull the truck out. We are so grateful Opa was home that day because Oma, who has been really sick with the flu, ended up having a medical emergency and Opa was there to call 911 for her. An ambulance came and took Oma to the ER, and the big tractor was able to pull the truck out of the mud after that.

Oma is doing much better now and is home from the hospital. Doctors think the flu virus caused her stroke-like attack. “It’s a good thing your truck was stuck out there in the mud,” my brother Patrick said as we talked about what happened. “If Dad hadn’t been home to call an ambulance something really bad might have happened to Mom.”

This was a new way of looking at the whole thing for me. All I could see was the hassle and cost of getting the truck out of the mud. My brother recognized the good that came out of it. Our mom was taken care of because Daddy was there because our truck was stuck out there.

I’ve been listening to the story of Joseph on the Daily Audio Bible this week. Trials and tribulations assailed Joseph for years, but out of these trials and tribulations, God brought good, not just for Joseph, but for his whole family. God was taking care of Joseph’s entire family through Joseph’s hardships. Wow!

If you’re going through a hard time right now, hold onto God’s truth. Keep reading your Bible and saying your prayers. You might not be able to see any good yet, but ultimately, God promises to work everything together for the good of those who love him. Romans 8:28.

I’ve done some soul searching lately. Should I keep writing books? Am I really good enough to be an author?

It’s been on my mind. A lot. This battle in my heart. A heaviness in my soul these past several weeks. Since I was eight years old, I’ve wanted to be an author, but now I’m just not sure I have what it takes to really cut the mustard at it. It all started when I read my Goodreads reviews on my first book. I confess I don’t know much about Goodreads, and didn’t even know I had reviews there until recently. Honestly, I’ve been afraid to read my reviews. I kind of watch them on Amazon with one eye closed. I don’t like to see reviews, though as a reader, I find them helpful and understand their purpose.

So I finally really looked at all my reviews and I’m a four star writer. Some of you know what this means, but perhaps many of you don’t. On Amazon, on Goodreads, books are ranked by stars. Five stars is tops. Four stars is well… four stars. Okay, so I have like four and a half stars on Amazon, which is important, right? Even I know half a star shouldn’t be important. War in Syria is important. The state of our divided country is important. A meteor hitting our planet and wiping out the human race is important. But I’m confessing to you my angst over reviews because I’m learning something about myself. And about God here.

Why do I write? Really, why do I do it, and is good really good enough?

When I embarked on this author road last year, I contacted an older writer I deeply admire. I told him I was about to publish a book on Amazon. Could he offer me any advice? He said, “Well, if you can write a four star book, you’ll be good to go.”

A four star book? Why not five stars? I wondered.

But I didn’t ask him why not five stars because talking to this writer is like talking to Francine Rivers or John Grisham or Anne Lamott. You don’t question the greats this way. I know Anne Lamott thinks differently than I do about George W. Bush and other political stuff, but she’s still one of my favorite writers. She’s honest and funny and can make a sentence sing a beautiful song.

I never knew Lamott was a four star writer until I looked her up on Amazon today. She even has some three star books. Grisham is a four star writer across the board. Redeeming Love has earned Rivers five stars, but most of her books rate four and a half stars.

Why has four stars discouraged me? I’ve always known I’m not a great writer. Grit and determination have gotten me further than anything else as a writer. Last night I lay in bed thinking about why four stars isn’t good enough for me. This was before I knew my favorite writers don’t always write five star books. In fact, most of them don’t.

Why do I need to be a great writer anyway? I’ve never been great at anything in my life. Not once. I’m not a great mom. Not a great wife. I was never a great student. But I’ve always been good at stuff. Growing up, I got good grades, but my older brother was valedictorian in high school. Patrick was class president too. Not only smart, but voted best-looking in his senior class, and an athlete as well. Long ago, I resigned myself to just being good. My brother was the great one.

I know. I’m sorry. I sound whiny. But I really want to address something here. Is good really good enough?

You know, from a human standpoint, good goes a long way in life. Very few of us are masters at anything. Most of us are apprentices at everything. If we’re fortunate, we are growing in our careers. Growing in our marriages. Growing as parents as our kids grow up. I think I’m a better parent now than I was twenty years ago. Our older kids might argue this, however. Over Christmas vacation Luke was here for dinner and his little brother Cruz was crawling under the table while we were eating. “Are you really going to let him get away with that?” Luke asked Scott and me with a look of indignation on his 19 year old face. “You would have spanked me for that at his age!”

“Ya, well, we’re old and tired now,” Scott said with a smile.

“You know, Luke, you’re right,” I said. “Cruz, get out from under the table!”

Scott backed me up, and our five-year-old returned to his chair, and minded his manners for the rest of the meal. Later, Scott and I agreed we must hold to manners at the table. We don’t want our younger boys acting like hooligans in the kitchen. But you know it just isn’t a big deal to us anymore if your butt is anchored to your chair the whole time at dinner. Our meals are a lot more fun now with our second family because we’ve relaxed.

In day to day life, good serves me pretty well. Good goes a long ways in just about everything. But how far does good go in our walk with God?

Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good–except God alone” Luke 18:19.

Well this puts things in perspective. No person is good. Last night at Bible study, during a discussion with our group, we talked about what makes us worthy to enter the presence of God. On some days as a Christian, I skip to my lou into the presence of God. Here I am. Doing good today. Aren’t you pleased with me, God?

On other days, I crawl on my hands and knees into the presence of God. Here I am. Doing lousy today. Are you going to smite me, God?

Neither of these approaches are Biblical or even helpful for us. When we come to God, we never come to Him on our own merit or worth or goodness. We roll in on a river of blood. Not our own blood and sweat and tears, but the Savior’s blood, sweat, and tears. Jesus paid it all for us to meet with the Father. And ultimately join in the wedding feast in heaven someday. We get to go because Jesus died on that cross for us to go. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. The blood of the Lamb ushers us into the presence of God.

Last night I reminded myself why I write. It’s because God made me a writer. “Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?” Isaiah 45:9. Should I say to God, “Why did you make me good and not great?” 

No, I roll in on a river of blood and say, “Thank you for dying for me. The truth is, without Jesus, I probably wouldn’t be a good mom. A good wife. A good writer. I’ve prayed like crazy to be all of these things in my life, and when I fail, which sometimes I do, I’ve always found, “His grace is sufficient for you, for his power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9.

I few months ago, I had a go around with God over speaking. A number of churches had invited me to talk at some ladies retreats in the fall and I was feeling like an impostor. Like they would soon find out I couldn’t speak worth a hoot and would want their money back. I’m just kidding. I don’t charge for speaking, but some churches give a love offering and I run out and buy groceries for the boys like I’ve just won the lottery or something.

“I’m not good at speaking,” I told the Lord in my fit of tears and self-pity. “I’m going to look so stupid up there! It’s going to be a flop. Like that awful, embarrassing belly flop I did at the public swimming pool when I tried to dive off the diving board in front of all those kids. There I was, ten-years-old, white and freckled in my T-shirt with other girls all tan in bikinis. Landing so hard on my stomach I knocked the wind out of myself and thought I would drown in that pool. I’m not good at diving so I will never dive again. Diving boards aren’t my thing.

There it is, the cold, hard truth. If I’m not good at something, I don’t do it. Pride gets me every time. My eyes are on myself. Gazing at my own navel, which by the way, isn’t a cute little inny belly button like most girls. I have an outy, which until I was about thirty, I hid like it was a sixth toe or a tail on my backside or something. On top of everything else, I don’t have a great belly button. I don’t even have a good belly button. It did the job and fed me while connected to my mother’s womb so I was born.

I know. Are you tired of me yet? Sometimes I get so tired of myself. Have you ever felt that way? Just plain tired of yourself? Worn out by all the things you aren’t enough of? You aren’t thin enough? Tall enough? Smart enough? Pretty enough? I’ve decided it cost a fortune to hold onto pretty and I can’t afford the clothes, the face cream, the hair highlights, yada yada yada. When you’re twenty a ponytail and a pair of cute shorts does the job. When you’re forty-nine it’s a whole new hen house. Women my age are getting botox. The thought of putting poison in my face kind of scares me. I think I’ll keep my wrinkled face. I think I’ve earned this wrinkled face, thank you very much.

In my fit of tears while telling God I couldn’t be a speaker, I heard the Lord say, “You’re not a speaker. You just have to tell people about me. How hard is that?”

Not hard at all because there’s so much to say about God. I could talk all day about the goodness of God and still have more to say. I think this is my biggest problem. I forget it’s about God and think it’s about me. About my wrinkles, my outy belly button, my lack of ability to write a great book. I’m like the Godzilla bride. This is my wedding day! It’s all about me!

Ugh!

I will never be good enough. And my wedding day nearly 30 years ago was a bit of a disaster. I wasn’t a Godzilla bride, but I’d set my mind to being a sober bride because I’d gone to a wedding where the bride got drunk and I thought it was so tacky so I didn’t touch alcohol the day I said I do. In hindsight, a glass of champagne would have done me some good. I didn’t tell Scott of my sober plan and he proceeded to get sloshed at our reception. I’ve seen my husband hammered maybe three times, and one of these was our wedding day. I wanted to divorce him right then. I wanted to stab him in the heart as the DJ played our first song, Stand By Me. I didn’t want to stand by Scott, I wanted to drown him in the punch bowl over there by the wedding cake.

But you know what?

I didn’t drown him.

I loved him.

I forgave my husband the next morning, gave him mercy, and just loved him. And we had a delicious honeymoon.

This is what God does for us. He forgives how we get drunk on ourselves, whether we think we’re top dog or a dead dog in life, and God helps us get our eyes back on Him. You will never be good enough, but because of Jesus you are forgiven, offered mercy, and are loved.

If it floods…
you will have a story…
hopefully a fierce, unforgettable story to share for the rest of your life.

You will tell this story till you are old and gray, and then you will tell it even more because older people love stories.

Oma and Opa nearly lost their lives after a Pineapple Express storm blew out a levee near their Yuba City homes on Christmas Eve night 1955. I’ve heard my parents’ flood stories a thousand times, and I never tire of them. Opa was lucky not to drown as the flood waters rushed through the darkness toward his house. His family barely made it out of the flood plain alive.

Stuck in a line of cars headed for high ground, Oma’s family just missed being washed away on the road where others perished in the floodwaters. Fortunately, Oma’s family made it to Sutter, and camped on a relative’s back porch for days. “We kids had the best time on that porch,” says Oma now, her eyes shining with her flood memories.

Both my parents’ childhood homes were inundated in the 1955 flood, but Oma and Opa hardly remember the devastation and the cleanup afterwards. What they recall is the adventure of it all and both still speak fondly of that disaster over sixty years ago. My parents also live on high ground in the Sutter Buttes now, so that tells you something.

In 1986, when I was 18, another Pineapple Express overwhelmed the rivers and flooded our only mall outside of Marysville in Linda. My friend working at JCPenney was airlifted off the roof and the mall never recovered. Scott and I’d been dating like a month and a half when this happened. Chased from his Yuba College apartment by the floodwaters, Scott ended up in the Sutter Buttes with us, and stayed for three weeks. School was cancelled for both of us. I was a senior in high school. We listened to Meat Loaf, The Eagles, and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in my bedroom, both of us preferring 70s music over 80s songs. We went on hikes in the buttes when it wasn’t raining. Watched a lot of movies on my parents’ VCR. And at the end of Scott’s stay, I was ready to marry him. That flood sealed our young love.

Wet and windy 1997 brought more flooding to California. Scott, an Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot with the California National Guard, searched the floodwaters for survivors while I huddled in my parents’ house on their hill in the Sutter Buttes with 55 evacuated Yuba City friends and family members and some thirty disoriented dogs that would not stop barking.

During the disaster, I discovered I was pregnant with our third child. When I told Scott over the phone we were expecting, he replied, “I saw a cow on a roof today.” That was the end of our pregnancy talk. People and animals were swimming in the valley. I didn’t see Scott for a month until the floodwaters receded, and then we met in a Sacramento parking lot, kissed for a few minutes, and he went back to his helicopter while I waited for him to come to our hotel room that night. Then Scott kept flying around our flooded state for about another month and I went home to grow our baby.

I know the raging rivers around us are scary right now. Flooded roads are dangerous, and coming out of a drought, Californians aren’t used to all this rain. But do your best to hold onto your sense of humor and keep saying your prayers for God to keep you safe.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

Isaiah 43:2. Whisper this promise to yourself. God will never let you down. The wind and waves still know his name, Jesus!

As an author of stories, I’m here to tell you your journey should have these epic moments. You won’t know what you’re made of in the sunshine of your life, but during a storm you’ll find out who you really are, and more importantly, who God really is to you.

I want to share with you the story of a dog rescued from a roof during the 1997 flood. The helicopter pilot Michael Kidd along with photographer Ron Middlekauff became a part of this story when they reached out to save that border collie named “Rodeo” from the rooftop of his home.

Twenty years later, the 1997 flood waters are long gone, but the story lives on in the hearts and minds of the people who watched it unfold that day. I was one of those people gathered around a box TV with fifty other people in my parents living room in the Sutter Buttes, praying someone would rescue that poor dog on that roof all day. Scott knew that pilot, Michael Kidd because he was military too. A guy who risked his life to save a doomed collie during a flood. Now that’s a story to remember.

So many things I hoped for in 2016, healing. Peace. A bountiful harvest. A run of hard years had hit us. Honestly, I was dreading another tough year and needed hope so badly. On New Year’s Day 2016, I sat in our living room with tears streaming down my face. On top of all the hardships, Scott was making me give up my writing dream. At least the way I’d imagined my writing dream would happen. “You don’t need a literary agent, and you don’t need to be a Christian writer,” Scott said as I sat there and cried. “You just need to write the stories God has given you and we’ll put them out there for people to read. If people don’t like your books, then we’ll finally know.”

If you had told me twelve months ago, I’d publish two historical romance novels in 2016, I would have laughed. If you had said people would like these books, and ask me to write more of them, I’d have laughed even harder. Somewhere along the line, I’d lost confidence not just in myself, but in the goodness of my God. Don’t get me wrong, I know God is good, but when you go through a string of bad things, really hard, gut-wrenching things, it can knock the wind out of you for awhile.

There is a season for everything under heaven. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4. I’d spent the past several years doing a lot of weeping, but in 2016, I danced. Hard dancing. The kind of dancing that makes sweat run down your back and makes you forget you’re missing a chunk of your leg. “Are you sure you’re okay,” my daughters kept asking me at Scott’s sister’s 50th birthday party in downtown San Francisco as we danced the night away. “Does your leg hurt? Do you need to sit down? Are you really okay?”

“I’m not sitting down,” I told Cami, cradling her rosy cheeks, and looking square into her worried 25 year old eyes. “My leg is fine. I’m alive. You’re alive. Let’s just keep dancing!”

After melanoma in my leg, then a breakdown in the hospital, and then worst of all, burying our beloved 14 year old Anna in a cemetery of whispering pines that sounded like the saints crying, I just wanted to dance the hurt away.

In 2015 when Anna died, I’d chosen the word Rejoice. I really thought that would be my year of rejoicing, and this was my verse: Romans 12:15: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Here are my exact words from my New Year’s blog post two years ago:

“I hope I can rejoice with you in 2015, but I also promise to weep with you if you weep. The Bible says, You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8. 

Can you imagine your bottle of tears in the hand of God? Him turning your tears into a story? To bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. You will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:3.

God himself is writing a book about your tears. Your struggle is not wasted. Your cocoon of pain creates your wings. We all have a story. Your story matters to God. And it matters to others.

Today when we walked in our ravine looking for rocks to write our words on for 2017, Scott wrote this unfamiliar term. “It means slave,” he said, using my iPhone to figure out how to spell the Greek word, “because I am a slave to Christ.”

“Why don’t you just write Slave?” I asked, “If that’s what your word means.”

“Because I like Dew-loss,” Scott said. This is how the Greek word for slave is pronounced. It’s two syllables and Scott pronounces each syllable like this: Dewwww-losssss. I wish you could hear him say it. Spoken this way, it holds so much more power and mystery than slave. Sometimes I’ll ask Scott do something he doesn’t want to do, like call his mom (sadly, she passed away in 2016). He’ll take awhile to think about it, and then say, “I am a Dewww-lossss, I’ll do it for Christ.”

I love searching for our word rocks. Watching the kids so earnestly seek their rocks to write their new word for a new year: Joy. Faith. Loyalty, they wrote this year. Five-year-old Cruz crayoned “eagle” on his rock. I know. How does one become more of an eagle? I guess you learn how to soar. That’s a good word: soar. Maybe I’ll choose soar next year for my word.

But probably not. Because I don’t really choose my words. I earnestly pray for God to show me what He wants for my year. I ask the Lord to give me my word.

Down in the ravine, on the edge of our farm, green grass is growing. California has gotten plenty of rain this year. It rained this morning, but by afternoon, when we walked to the ravine, it was a bright, sunny day. Even the dogs enjoyed their time in the sun watching their humans gather rocks.

Do you have a word yet for your year? A guide word from God? A whispered promise that helps tell your story?

I just said a prayer for you. That your word would be just what you need to help you become who God wants you to become this year. I never knew when I chose the word rejoice in 2015, that it would really mean rejoice in suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts…” Romans 5:3-5.

I wouldn’t return to 2013, 14, and 15 for anything, but I also wouldn’t trade what those tough years taught me. I have grown in perseverance and character and hope. If you’ve had some tough years too, take heart, God has overcome the world. The daily grind of your life because grinding is a good word. When you grind wheat, you get flour, and then you make a pie.

Today I made that pie. Out of cherries from our harvest this past summer. We didn’t get very many cherries because right before our cherry harvest, it rained really hard, and ruined nearly all of our cherries. We had none to sell. But I salvaged a few, climbed up into our trees and picked what I could that hadn’t hit the ground and split in half. And I pitted cherries for hours with my grandma’s old cherry pitter, and my fingers turned purple for days, and I froze the whole lot. After working hours at the farmer’s market, then picking cherries and pitting them that night, I just stuck them in the freezer for a better day, and went to bed. Sometimes you have to do that. Put your head down, work hard, and plan for a better day.

Today was that better day. The boys loved that New Year’s Eve cherry pie I started on this summer, and finished the last day of the year.

Just because you’ve had some hard rain in your life, doesn’t mean the rain will ruin you. Make a plan. Make a pie. And spit in adversary’s eye because God’s got you. He’s really got you if you’re holding onto Him.

The joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8:10. You don’t have to create joy for yourself. Joy comes when God’s ready to release his joy on you. Sometimes this can take a few years.

“Why did you choose the word joy?” I asked G2.

“I don’t know why. I just feel joy today,” G2 said with a cheeky grin.

Cruz needed help spelling his word “eagle.” Lacy is such a good big sister. She sat there with Cruz in the dirt for quite awhile helping him get his letters just right. In the end, I couldn’t read the word on his rock, but he was so proud of it and placed it on our fireplace mantle as if it was the greatest masterpiece.

The interesting thing is I watched a baby eagle hatch on Facebook today. I don’t know why, but I hoarded the eagle cam video all to myself. Normally, I’d call the boys over to my computer and say, “Watch the baby eagle hatch, it’s really neat,” but I didn’t say that today. I just sat there quietly alone watching that baby eagle struggle to break out of his shell. And mama eagle just sat there watching him too. She didn’t help her little hatchling hatch, but when he seemed to grow weary, she tucked him under her feathers for awhile, and let him rest half-hatched.

Sometimes we have to rest half-hatched.

Sometimes we have to let our kids rest half-hatched.

Lacy spent a couple of years living half-hatched. And she missed last new years rock gathering with us. On a trip to Florida, she called me crying. Really crying. Hard crying. Things weren’t going well with a boyfriend at the time, and she sounded so weary. I just wanted to tuck her under my feathers and let her rest for awhile.

By Easter, feeling so weary myself hurting for my hurting child, I asked all of you to pray for Lacy. And thank you so much because here she is free from her shell and soaring into 2017. Two of her brothers out grew her this year, she is walking back to the house with her little brother, Joey in the picture below, but she got into nursing school, and has found her man. A good man who loves her right. 2016 was a good year, not just for Lacy and Jake, but Cami and Drew are expecting their own little hatchling come July.

Scott and I are thrilled to become grandparents in 2017. And every night now Cruz prays to be a good uncle to the baby in Cami’s womb. “When you’re in the 6th grade, don’t let anyone pick on your little niece or nephew in kindergarten,” Scott coaches Cruz each night. It always makes me smile, thinking about our grandbaby, saying at school, “You better not mess with me or my uncle in the 6th grade will kick your butt!”

I know. We’re a weird family. Laugh with me.

I don’t know what your year looked like, if you laughed or if you cried, but maybe we shouldn’t look at our years one at a time like I’ve been doing these past few years. Maybe we should look at our years like chapters in our story. Good chapters. Painful chapters. Real life chapters.

God is writing your story even now. No matter where you are. No matter how you’re doing. Do you believe that? Can you trust in your Savior? I want to leave you with something I saw on Instagram the other day that I can’t get out of my mind. Here it is from John Piper…

Do you trust in the real Christ or are you following a modern remake? Do you even know who the real Christ is? Have you read the gospels? All of them over and over again so you can really know the genuine Christ, or are you settling for a modern remake? A weak and watered down Jesus who will never change your life, change your heart, save your soul. Your story depends on this truth.

I chose the word “grow” for 2017 because I want to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 Peter 3:18.

Happy New Year my friend! May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ too. The real Christ, not a modern remake.

As you can see our family is growing! We added puppies this year. Just one puppy really because the other four pups went to their new homes a few weeks ago. Getting a decent Christmas picture is always a challenge. Every year I tell myself the picture isn’t THAT important. I will not freak out over taking this picture and every year something arises that annihilates my good intentions and I end up freaking out. I won’t get into the details of what went wrong this year, but let’s just say I did my best not to freak out. In the end, we got our picture, though I made Scott photo shop Christian’s face, because in every family shot we took this year, Christian made a funny face. So we took his smiling face from one of the boy photos and placed it over his silly face in the family picture and ta-da!

“You’re not going to tell people we did that?” Scott asked me after I begged him to photoshop the family picture. “I don’t know why the picture has to be perfect, anyway.”

“It will never be perfect, but I don’t want goofy, at least in one picture! And of course I’m going to tell them we photo shopped it,” I said with a laugh. Every mom understands the war of the family Christmas picture.” What’s nice about a blog is I can also post other pictures we took too.

Here they are, Cami and Lacy all grown up. We are so proud of our sweet girls.

Cami is a speech therapist in a local school district. Cami’s husband Drew oversees our family’s walnut operations, which is never ending work, but Drew is a champ. And has completely embraced life as a country boy. Like Opa and Uncle Patrick, Drew now hunts when he’s not farming. Cami and Drew will be married five years this coming summer. Christian and Garry James can’t recall life before Drew. Awhile ago, Cami asked Christian who Drew was to her. “He’s your dad,” said Christian. “No, Drew is my husband. Your dad is my dad too.” Cami was laughing, but also concerned. “No, he’s not,” said Christian. “I’m your sister,” Cami said, no longer laughing. “No, Lacy’s my sister!” Christian argued.

Cami reminds Christian often now that she is his sister, and that Drew is his brother-in-law, not her dad!

Lacy is now a ward clerk in the emergency room of a nearby hospital. Come January, she leaves for nursing school up at Simpson University. To keep her job down here, she will work two days a month in the emergency room, and she’s hoping to work as a nurse there after she finishes school. She’s going to be a busy student, but I’m sure she’ll be home most every weekend, since she has fallen in love with a lumberjack.

Okay, he’s not a lumberjack, but he does teach wood shop at Sutter High School along with psychology. Jake has only been in our lives since the end of summer, but we’ve decided he must stay because he played college football, and has raised our family football games in the front yard to a whole new level. Plus he makes Lacy unbelievably happy. The only reason Jake’s not in the family Christmas photo is because we have a rule: you have to be married to take part in the torture of the Christmas picture. Since Jake was here with Lacy on picture day, we threw him into the fray just to see how he’d do. He laughed the whole time so he passed the test.

Scott is very proud of his man picture, as you can see. And if you compare Christian’s face in this picture and the family picture you will realize this is the face we photo shopped. Christian loves being one of the men, and his smile is the real deal here.

I kind of like our girl picture below with the puppies, except there’s a boy in the picture. Lacy is holding one of our male lab puppies. Cami and I are holding our girl puppies. We kept a girl and she is now adjusting to life with just her mom and dad, Nala and Buck, our faithful labs we love so much. Buck is camera shy. We tried to get him in the picture too, but he freaked out. Must take after me.

It took us three years, too much money, and an embarrassing procedure to get these golden pups. Buck doesn’t know how to breed. I know! So weird for a dog! So it was off to the vet each time Nala came into heat. When it was all said and done, we only ended up with five living pups, but the timing of their arrival was perfect. I petted a puppy every day to get me through the presidential election. So glad that mud-slinging mess is over!

Our boys are getting so big. Luke actually voted in his first presidential election. A freshman in college, Luke is living in Chico, and attending Butte Community college, where he enrolled at the last minute this past August. He was supposed to go to University Nevada-Reno, but in the end, it would have taken a $25,000 dollar school loan and wisely, Luke agreed with Scott that a couple years at a community college in California was the way to go.

Along with school, Luke holds down a job washing dishes for a fancy restaurant in Chico. I think he eats his one meal a day at the restaurant. Every Sunday when he comes home with his laundry, I feed him as much as I can. College life is making him skinny! We sure miss having Luke at the dinner table, and are so grateful the Lord gave us four more boys after Luke so we aren’t empty nesters yet.

Our younger boys are big enough to play soccer and football now. Sports keep us hopping when we aren’t knee-deep in our summer fruit harvest. The boys work hard and play hard and break everything in the house. Our couch is broken. Two of our fanlights are broken. Each year when I put up the Christmas tree, numerous ornaments get broken. This year I broke the ornaments myself while putting up the tree, which really upset Christian. “You need to be careful!” he told me. “Well, I was rushing because I didn’t want you breaking the ornaments.” “You broke the ornaments! It wasn’t me!” Christian said indignantly.

This is what we hear all the time around our house, “It wasn’t me!” Practically everything gets blamed on poor Christian. He used to deserve the destruction label, but in kindergarten now, he’s become a lovely boy. Kind and caring, and a good student. Of course, in a fight with his brothers, he’s like a wolverine. He may be the smallest in the woods, but all would agree, he’s the toughest.

At eight years old, Garry James is still his funny, wonderful self. His organic sense of humor surprises and delights us. He can’t wait to join Sutter Huskies Football like his big brother, Joey. Everyone loves Garry James and he’s known as a peacemaker at school. He’s thriving in the third grade, and has just discovered the joy of reading. I usually find G2 with his nose in a book if he isn’t outside playing with his brothers. He says the longest goodnight prayers on the planet. Both President Obama and future President Trump will be happy to know they are earnestly prayed for every night, along with all the missionaries, fireman, policemen, and soldiers in the world.

Joey is now known as Joseph at his junior high school. He was a lineman on his championship football team this season, and is popular with the girls. For the past two months, he’s played double sports, going from two hours of soccer practice to two hours of football a night, and he still made the honor roll. He’s a lot like his older brother, Luke, social and athletic, a good student, and always good to his momma. His favorite saying is: “What’s for dinner, Mom?” Or, “I’m hungry!” This boy is always hungry and he loves hugs and hates to cut his hair. I have always loved his golden curls, and am happy Scott is finally letting Joey keep his hair longer.

John still has his fiery red hair, tenacious personality, and creative imagination. He’s the brother we all count on to take care of all the other brothers. Strong and protective, usually with a weapon strapped on him, John is our right-hand man. The kid does it all and works harder during harvest than most men do. He’s in his 8th grade year, and hopes to play freshman football next year at Sutter High School. Since Lacy’s boyfriend, Jake, will be coaching freshman football at Sutter, John is looking forward to learning the game from another ginger man.

Scott and I are forever grateful for God’s grace in our life. After thirty-one years together, he’s still hot and I’m still cold. We dress accordingly in the car. I wear sweaters, he wears T-shirts, and we know just where to set the heater to keep us cozy. Of course the boys are always saying in the back seat of our old suburban, “We’re dying of heat back here!”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Scott always tells the boys. “We’re keeping the momma happy.”

Speaking of happy, I’ll be spending December finishing up my second historical romance novel, which I hope to have on Amazon by the first week of January. Most of you know my first novel is on Amazon and is doing fine. Embarking on a writing career after all these years of raising little ones, for the most part, has been a joyful experience.

Scott still enjoys teaching high school history during the school year and we seem to finally be figuring out the farming thing with the never-ending support of Oma and Opa and Uncle Patrick. Nearly all of our fruit goes to Raley’s and Bel Air supermarkets now. We are so thankful to the customers who ask for West Butte Orchards’ peaches and pluots and nectarines at supermarkets from Chico to Sacramento and up to Grass Valley.

Life is full and God is good all the time. Wishing you a merry and bright Christmas and a Happy New Year.

So I told myself I would not stress out about the food, my house, or the boys running around like wild Indians this year. I would love my family and just enjoy our Thanksgiving together…

Then I overslept and had a dream I forgot to cook the turkey. Stumbled out of bed, freaking out, fumbled to the kitchen, and attacked the turkey.

My first turkey ever because my mom or Aunt Marolyn always cook a turkey, but this year it’s on me. I couldn’t see the instructions on the turkey wrapping, even with my reading glasses on. Could the instructions be printed any smaller? Do ants cook turkeys? Somebody get me a magnifying glass!

I wrestled the raw turkey around the kitchen, imaging I was contaminating the whole place with toxic turkey juice. Yelled at four-year-old Cruz to get some shoes on or get out of the dang kitchen because he’s walking around in raw turkey juice. Cruz could die of E Coli or something.

Do I cook the turkey in a bag or not in an oven bag? I want to call my mom.

I will not call my mom! I’m a big girl now. I’ll go with the dang bag. Forget to flour the bag. Wrestle the big raw bird back out of the bag after reading the directions on the oven bag box. Flour the bag, put the bird back into the bag, back into the oven. Forgot to rub butter on the big raw bird. Out of the oven, butter the dang bird, yell at Cruz to get out of the kitchen because it’s covered in toxic turkey juice now. Put the buttered, floured, big raw bird back into the oven.

Nearly in tears, I finally call my mom. “If you’re starting the turkey now, you cannot use the bag. It will cook too fast,” she tells me. I hang up the phone. Do I go with the bag or not go with the bag to cook this big raw bird? I hate this big raw bird! I’ve never roasted a turkey in my life. I’m agonizing now over a stupid turkey!

Call my mom again. “Without the bag you will have to baste it every 45 minutes for hours. Hours and hours of basting as you cook it. You don’t own a baster,” Mom informs me. What the heck’s a baster? I hang up the phone feeling like a failure.

Oh my gosh!

What just happened to not stressing out and just enjoying the holidays? The turkey might taste like the Sahara Desert now. We might not be able to even eat it. I’ve sprayed Clorox bleach all over my kitchen. All over the sink and counters and floor because E-Coli could be lurking there. I’d like to Clorox Cruz too, but he’s hiding from his crazy mommy.

It’s 8 a.m. and I’m already a mess. How did this happen? For any of you stressing over today, here’s a prayer for all of us… Jesus, please help us. It’s just a day. It’s not about the turkey, it’s about living thankful. If the turkey turns to crap, we can still live thankful.

If Thanksgiving Day isn’t what we imagined, we can still be grateful for all we have. Please God, grant us all grateful hearts today.

Scott read this and reminded me that I forgot to add how the oven door fell open in the middle of this madness and I banged my thigh really hard. I am grateful for this big fat bruise on my leg reminding me not to freak out again today.

This happened with last year’s turkey, but Scott thinks it’s funny enough to post again. And since I didn’t have time to write a blog this week, here it is. I’m happy to say this year’s turkey went much more smoothly. Hopefully it will taste good too.

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

Now that the election is over, I’m trying to return to my favorite social media site, but something is really bothering me. In fact, it’s been bothering me for years on Facebook. I can define this problem in one word: self-help. Okay, that’s two words. Two little words that create a very big problem for Christians.

Self-help.

Let that sink in. Self. Help. I guess if you aren’t a Christian this isn’t a problem for you. By all means help yourself. After all, God helps those who help themselves. That’s even in the Bible, right?

I once believed God helped those who helped themselves and that it was actually written in the Bible. I’d been told this my whole life. But when I read the Bible for the first time, I found passage after passage about God helping the helpless. The needy. The lost. There was nothing in the Bible about God helping those who help themselves.

When God’s people were facing certain death with the Red Sea in front of them and Egypt’s mighty army coming from behind, God didn’t tell Israel to help themselves. God said, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again” Exodus 14:13. Then God parted the Red Sea and destroyed that deadly army. The people just ran. They didn’t help themselves, they escaped through the waters God parted for them.

Time and time again on Facebook I see self-help posts, many posted by Christians. This morning on Facebook there was a post for moms. “Help yourself by loving yourself,” was the point of this post.

There is a big “Love” movement happening in today’s church and on social media. The major problem is that this “love” movement is all about people. I don’t see anything about loving Jesus and repenting of your sins in this rising tide of Facebook love.

“The most common remedy for most behavioral and mental disorders today is some form of self-worth enhancement. It pervades our educational institutions, the psychotherapeutic and counseling system, the personnel and motivational industry, advertising, and even the church,” says John Piper. “I think the remedy is flawed. It is profoundly wrong to turn the cross of Christ into a warrant for self-esteem as the root of mental health.”

John Piper knows the truth. If I only followed Facebook and never read my Bible, I’d probably believe all these self-help love posts. I’d be looking for ways to make myself feel better, like petting puppies. And actually, I recommend petting a puppy. It really is good for your soul. But better for your soul is awakening to the cold, hard truth that you aren’t a good person. You don’t need to just love yourself, and love others, and this makes it all better. Really, you are a sinner in need of a savior. You can help yourself into hell, but you will never help yourself into heaven.

I know as human beings we don’t like to hear we aren’t good and that we need to repent. We’d rather tell ourselves how special we are. How worth loving we really are. How we can help ourselves all day long by loving ourselves. And loving others.

I’m sorry, but this just isn’t true. The best thing that ever happened to me was my mother-in-law moving in with us when I was a young wife and mother all those years ago. Back then, I believed all the self-help garbage in women’s magazines and even the self-help lies I heard spewed in church. But living with Big Momma taught me a cold hard truth about myself. I wasn’t a good person. Big Momma brought out the beast in me. Living with my mother-in-law showed me just how desperately I needed a savior.

So I turned to Jesus, repented of my sins, and got saved. Then I read the Bible. Talk about life-changing. By far the best thing I’ve done as a Christian is to read the Bible every day of my life. For sixteen years now, I’ve covered the whole Bible in a year. I don’t say this pridefully. I say this desperately. I am in desperate need of God’s truth. And so are you, my friend.

If I didn’t read the Bible every day those Facebook posts that sound so good about self-love would put lies in my mind and heart. Becoming a Christian didn’t make my life easier. In some ways, it’s gotten harder. But I wouldn’t trade Jesus for anything.

Petting puppies is lovely, but nothing compares to loving Jesus. If you want more love in your life, if you really want to help yourself and help others, love God. Dig into his Word. And don’t believe everything you see on Facebook.

This summer, I talked to an old high school classmate I enjoy following on Facebook. He has an amazing life, traveling all over the world, catching big fish, savoring spectacular sunsets in exotic places. I said, “Gosh, you have such a great life! You are so fun to follow on Facebook. I so love fishing, and hardly ever get to fish.”

This classmate looked me right in the eye and said, “Don’t believe it. That’s my Facebook life, not my real life. My real life is nothing like that. Most of the time, I just work.”

With my heart pounding, I asked this classmate how he was doing with Jesus. For a moment, he looked stunned, then he said, “I’m good with God. I’m a good person. If I’m not going to heaven there’s a whole lot of people not going to heaven, you know.”

“You know,” I said, “I’m sorry, but you’re not a good person. I’m not a good person, either. You and I are sinners in need of a savior.” I looked him right in the eye when I said it. That was the end of our conversation. But not the end of my prayers for this classmate. Jesus never told people to help themselves, but he often said, “Stop sinning.”

I’m sorry if this post doesn’t make you feel good today. It’s not meant to make you feel good. It’s meant to push you and me to look past ourselves and truly see God. To repent of trying to help ourselves and let God help us. Really help us.

But we do have the cutest puppies ever so here are a couple more puppy pictures to make you smile.

And Happy Thanksgiving. Being thankful does far more for your soul than helping yourself and loving yourself. So love Jesus. And be thankful.